-
Day 13: Kanchanburi-Bangkok-Hanoi
Today was a long day. As Mick Thomas wrote, “There’s no point writing postcards on your bad days”, so I’ll try to keep it short. L and I got almost no sleep last night. The combination of hard bed and threat of sleeping through alarms and missing the 7.20am train kept us restless. We made it to the train with plenty of time, thanks to a moped taxi with bolted on side seating, but when we boarded we ended up in the car with all the locals. Not a problem in the company, but this car just has two long bench seats with absolutely no padding, as in even less…
-
Day 12: Chilling in Kanchanaburi
After 2 days in the jungle (well, not far from the main road, to be fair, but the accommodation was pretty basic) it was time for a relaxed, pampering day. We didn’t manage the sleep in, while our guest house has great, firm pillows, the firm bed is a bit too, well, firm, but we did manage to put off entering the outside world for a while. Then it was breakfast on the corner, steamed rice, crispy fried pork, and a fried egg, so kind of bacon and egg, local style (with a nice bowl of chili fish sauce). Our mission was to check out the various places on the…
-
Day 11: Soi Yak/Kanchanburi, Mali and me
Elephants are amazing animals. A-maz-ing. Even to a cynical buffoon like me, elephants are something special. I’ve just had two of the most amazing days of my life, where from metaphorically dawn to dusk L and I were among 9 unchained, uncaged, free range elephants. Strictly speaking, we weren’t actually with them all of that time, it would be cruel and unusual to force almost any animal to spend that much time with me (the exception would be for cats, as I’m easily trained and put out a decent amount of body heat). L and I took the overnight option at the Thailand Elephant Sanctuary in Soi Yak, 40km from…
-
Day 10: Sok Yai Elephant Haven
Elephants! We’ve spent the day hanging out with 9 elephants. Our first cooking class of the day was banana sticky rice balls for our large four-legged friends, and chopping watermelon. Elephants are huge fans of most vegetarian options (except spicy food), and hand feeding elephants is a truly incredible experience, feeling the strength, flexibility, and dexterity of their trunks. Elephants are awesome. They are also the stealth bomber of the jungle, at least twice today we had one sneak up on our group, appearing out of nowhere. They could follow you and you wouldn’t hear a sound. They are also cute. Very cute. Hanging with elephants is mostly about food,…
-
Day 9: The slow and loud train to Kanchanaburi
We started the day in Bangkok, quite slowly as we’re both feeling a bit of the effects of unfamiliar beds, including pillows far too soft. Regardless of all the head and neck massages, these pillows provide all the support of your average conservative politician. I fought off the headache with paracetamol, caffeine, and some ordinary bacon and eggs from the hotel cafe breakfast, before feeling up to facing the day. Packing and checking out done, we were in a taxi and off to Thonburi station. For those not familiar with this place (including our driver, who had to use his GPS), this is the station where the third-class trains to…
-
Day 8: And so this is a Bangkok xmas
Happy 25th December, however you choose to celebrate it! We chose to celebrate it with a quiet dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River, thinking it would be a simple, relaxed option, given that Thailand is a Buddhist country and all that. Of course, you’ve probably worked out by now that Thailand loves a party, and any excuse will do. So, L and I, and thousands of complete strangers, took a river cruise, along with a DJ, a singer, two traditional Thai dancers, three cabaret performers, and a full complement of kitchen and waitstaff to manage about a ton of buffet. To clarify the exaggeration, I doubt it was actually…
-
Day 7: Bangkok, market city
Today was all about the markets. In a possibly related note, it’s only 8pm and I am exhausted from wading through seas of thousands of people, avoiding trolleys and tuk-tuks and bigger vehicles, looking over millions of weird and wonderful items, all in 32+ degrees and a regular amount of humidity. I’m not sure there is a city in the world that is blessed with sensible market crowds. Maybe, once you pack a number of market stalls tightly together, leaving only narrow pathways to traverse the maze, and then dump enough people within, some switch gets flipped in the human psyche. For some, it manifests in the desire to stop…
-
Day 6: One day in Bangkok
I believe I may have mentioned that Bangkok is quite busy. If not, Bangkok is quite busy. Especially at night. Saturday night. We may have got a budding Robert De Niro as our taxi driver this evening, he certainly seemed about ready to go postal after 30 minutes of taking us around the block and then dumping us a couple of streets away from where we started. No where near Chinatown, where L and I thought we were headed. The day started by experimenting with the hotel breakfast, at the Coffee Club which is kind of part of the hotel, but also its own thing. There’s some crazy thing with…
-
Day 5: LPQ to BKK
Wrapped up our time in Laos this morning, with L choosing the chicken soup for breakfast and discovering why I’ve been sweating so early in the day (the chilli fish sauce packs quite a kick). Wrapped up with a stroll around the block and along the river, and finally bravely took the plunge and had a Laos coffee. FYI, Laos is one of the largest coffee producers. However, when left to their own devices, they, like many SE Asian countries that got refrigeration long after they got coffee, found their own path to making this beverage palatable to the populace. In Laos, this involves lots of sugar, sweetened condensed milk,…
-
Day 4: Laos and water
Today’s rather accidental theme was water. After another good bowl of chicken noodle soup and too many chillies for breakfast, we headed into the jungle, aiming for the Tat Kuang Si bear rescue centre. This is home to a couple of dozen moon bears, beautiful creatures that wander around like big dogs until the stand up, and then you realise that’s no dog. The younger ones can be playful, and the older ones seem happy — especially when you consider the alternative is being caged and tortured for a miserable short life for some limp dick chinese or vietnamese to take their bile to make them “stronger”. If you think…
-
Day 3: Laos and chillies
It’s okay, while today was about food, especially chillies, there’ll be no episodes or descriptions involving Laos plumbing (which is, so far, as good as anywhere). Laotians like it spicy. Some menus have a grading of 1-4 or 5, with 2 being “European spicy”, 3 being Laotian regular, and 4/5 roughly translates to “it goes to 11”. So far I’ve been okay with 2, it’s comfortable without raising a big sweat behind the eyeballs. I’m yet to go to 4, though it is a little tempting. Today we did a cooking class with Mr Sit from the Tamarind Restaurant. About a dozen of us, from Germany, the US, Hong Kong,…
-
Day 2: Laos and how to live it
Day started too early and too painful. Not sure if it was the Laos whisky, the soft pillows, the hard bed, the dehydration of flying, the change of routine, but I was awake before 5am with a headache that has buzzed me all day. Hotel breakfast was surprisingly pretty good: fruit, chicken noodle soup, good bread, and strong coffee from an italian stove press. From there we took a wander over to the big Wat (Wat Xiengthong) which was pretty, full of shiny things and spiky trees. Then it was a stroll along the Mekong, which is certainly a big arse powerful river that puts any Australian creeks to shame.…
-
Day 1: Transit to the heart of darkness
The day started way too damn early, up before dawn. It finished with a good meal, fine company, some booze, and with an extra hour thanks to these time zone things. The first leg, PER > SNG, was generally uneventful. L did the booking, so it was business class, but an older airplane so not super shiny and swish. Still, I could recline the seat, and got some okay food, but for business class I’ve certainly had more attentive staff. At Changi we had to get passport pics for our Laos visas on arrival, and tried to score some Changi $$$ but due to the Byzantine bureaucracy the computer said…
-
Indochina1718. Day 0. It begins.
All up at 0324. Immunities injected in preceding weeks. Essentials (laptop, books, underwear) packed. Loved ones kissed goodbye. The heart of darkness beckons. I really shouldn’t blog before I’ve had coffee, or whatever local equivalent L and I are heading for. The long awaited trip is here: 3 weeks, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, with a bounce each way at Changi. Adventures await: elephants, temples, and all the awesome and mysterious food we can eat (durian included). It’s early. Too early. All i can smell is a clean uber; all i hear is David Bowie, all i feel is the linen shirt on my back. It begins.
-
Been halong time…
Yup. Due to Life, the universe, and everything, I haven’t used my passport in over 2 years. I’ve lost my gold frequent flyer status, and have 6 months to rescue my silver. Some days it feels the furthest I’ve been lately is Mandurah, and regardless of what my ipod plays it doesn’t look like the cover of Born Sandy Devotional anymore. But this is about to change. In just over a month, this blog will be alive with images of Indochina; posts about pachyderms, musings on nuoc mam cham, ramblings about rambutans, dribbling about durian, scribblings on sticky rice, warblings about wats, and ponderings on pho. Stay tuned.
