So Little Time, So Much Done!

Hello again everyone - I hope you've enjoyed your 'breather' from not reading incredibly long blog posts from us - but you know what?! We're back and with avengance - this one is going to be HUGE and we apologise before-hand, we hope you enjoy it though!

FRIDAY 20th April

After blogging to you all, we headed out to grab some lunch, we were complete heathens and had another MacDonald's - I felt so ashamed again, but we weren't sure that any restaurants would appreciate us coming in laden with our huge rucksacks and day bags! After getting watered and fed we flagged down a taxi and got dropped off at the Aviation building so that we could grab a bus to the airport and luckily enough there was actually a bus waiting, which we were able to hop straight onto! So we got to the airport (which had no air conditioning, so was rather stuffy and hot - making us dread even more how hot and humid Thailand would be) really early, by about 4 or 5 hours, so we sat and read whilst waiting to be able to check in our luggage. Finally it was explained to us why we were on an EgyptAir flight when we were going from Beijing to Bangkok - the stop at Bangkok was a re-fuel point or something, for a longer flight going all the way to Cairo! Anyway, once through check-in we grabbed a really nice cold drink each and had a piece of cake too! Then after a bit more waiting, it was time to board the plane! Scary stuff - although I wasn't as bad as on the flight to China in the first place, I just would have preferred to have been on the ground. It took a while to take off, as we were 6th in a queue of planes, but we were soon air-borne. The flight was good, the staff were friendly and we had a nice meal, which we weren't expecting to have and all of the drinks were complimentary! Once we landed we got through immigration smoothly, had to wait over half an hour for our luggage, but were soon stepping out into the hot soup-like Bangkok night. The heat almost took our breath away - it was so intense, but we got into a nice cold taxi and got taken to the hostel, which was very nice. Although the driver didn't know where to go, so we pulled over so he could phone the hostel for directions, but I had to dial the number, as his eyesight was so bad he couldn't read it from the page - even when I'd written it down quite large for him! That was a tad un-nerving, but we arrived in one piece! Then all we had to do was turn on the not-very-good air conditioning and try not to melt as we fell asleep!

SATURDAY 21st April

We had a complimentary breakfast at the hostel and after getting ourselves sorted out from the night before, we headed back out into the furnace that is Bangkok! It was stickier and hotter than it had been in the middle of the night when we arrived! We wandered over towards the skytrain at Chitlom and popped into the World Plaza so that we could see about getting US dollars, but we couldn't do that at any of the banks, so we hopped on the ice-box like skytrain instead. We then went on the river taxi so that we could have a wander around Wat Arun. It was really nice - from a distance it gleamed and sparkled in the sun, because of the glazed tiles decorating it. It looked so intricate and beautiful. Up-close it just looks like a mish-mash of broken tiles though! After wandering around for a while we went and had some lunch at a river-side cafe/shack. We were then going to go to Chatachuk market, but Steve wasn't feeling too bright, so we headed back to the hostel instead. We did go out for dinner and had a really nice, although spicy Thai Green Curry.

SUNDAY 22nd April

We had another complimentary breakfast before checking out of the hostel today. The hostel got a taxi for us and wrote down the address of the meeting point hotel so that we could get there easily. The driver initially took us to the Grand China Princess hotel, which wasn't correct, so he had to ask for directions and we were soon pulling up outside the Grande Ville Hotel and being helped with our bags. We got checked in and shown to our room. We decided to go and investigate this area of Bangkok before having to be back for our first group meeting at 18.00. So we wandered around the markets in the little streets outside - I managed to get a hand-decorated sarong for 199 Baht. Steve was going to buy a new lens for his camera, but indecisiveness got the better of him! We got back to the hotel early than we needed to, as I wasn't feeling quite right today, so we sat quietly in our room before heading of for our meeting. There are 12 of us in the group and we introduced ourselves to each other and did a little bit of form-filling. Most of us went out together and our group leader Nok came too and took us to a nice little restaurant, which was very nice. After dinner we headed out onto the streets and stopped at a couple of bars - Steve is finding the whole not drinking with his malaria tablets quite difficult! But it was a great night, but we were all soon yawning and heading back to the hotel for some kip!

MONDAY 23rd April

Today we were up quite early and checking out of the hotel. We stored our bags in a couple of the rooms and then headed out towards the river, so that we could have a ride on a Longtail Boat along the khlong (canals - Bangkok is known as the Eastern Venice, as it has over 200 canals). It was really good fun and we even tried our first mangostein (I think that's how you spell it) fruit - very tasty, I must find some more! After the boat ride we used the river taxi and then walked a little way to Wat Pho. Nok told us about the Wat (Temple) and took us around all of the different parts of it, explaining the significance of the buildings and stances of the Buddha images etc - it was nice to have some deeper explanation, rather than just wandering and thinking, "ah isn't this pretty"?! We even saw the largest reclining Buddha - it was amazing and completely covered in gold! After Wat Pho, some of the group headed off on their own. Nok took the rest of us to the Grand Palace. Steve and I, plus another couple (Kim and Chris - Australians), decided not to go in, as it was so hot and as Steve and I know we're coming back to Bangkok, we decided we'll do it on our return. So we headed to the post office with Kim and Chris and then all 4 grabbed some lunch from a restaurant recommended by Nok. We then headed back to the hotel using the river taxi again. Once at the hotel we each had a shower and than waited until it was time to leave the hotel to go to the train station. So at 16.00 we all piled into 3 taxis and went to the train station. We grabbed some food whilst we were waiting to board the train and then took our mountains of belongings onto the train. The set up was different to that of the Chinese sleeper trains - it's just one long carriage and the beds are all folded away to start with, then an attendant comes around after people have had food etc and flips down the top bunk and converts the seats into a bed for the bottom bunk and makes the beds as well - it's impressive watching the speed at which they can do this! So it's less private than the Chinese one, but I didn't find it much noisier and if people did get up to go to the loo etc during the night - I didn't notice them at all!

TUESDAY 24th April

Early in the morning we arrived at Chiang Mai. Minibuses were waiting to take us to our first hotel. We had breakfast while waiting for our rooms to be prepared for us and Nok got us to do a lucky dip for our rooms and I managed to pick the key to a room on the 4th floor! So we traipsed up 4 flights of stairs, dumped our bags, had a quick shower to freshen up and were then downstairs ready for our outing. Today we were able to choose an activity to do, I was torn between a cooking course and doing an elephant ride and bamboo rafting. We decided we'd do the elephant ride and bamboo rafting, as there are other opportunities to do cooking courses later on. So we headed off for about an hour to get to the elephant centre. I had slight reservations - I felt bad exploiting the animals in this way, but they seemed to be well cared for etc. We bought a bunch of bananas to feed our elephant on the way round and then very tentatively climbed onto the seat perched on it's back. The seat was really uncomfortable and it was pretty scary, as at certain times it felt as though we were going to fall out! Our elephant was a bit of a banana monster and finished the bunch within about 10 minutes, but around the route the elephants followed, there were places to buy more bananas - we ended up buying 3 bunches! When ours wasn't being fed bananas because we'd run out, he was being very naughty and not doing anything he was instructed to! There were also drinking/washing points for the elephants, so we got drenched in murky water/elephant snot - lovely! But it was good fun! Afterwards we had lunch and then got taken to the bamboo rafting centre. This was really lovely and sedate - we couldn't understand why Nok told us we would get drenched, as although your bottom got wet sitting down, we couldn't figure out what could get us drenched, but we soon found out! Whenever locals were in the river, as we went past they would splash us and that's what got us drenched, but it was nice and cooling, so we didn't mind! The guy who was steering our raft kept flicking bits of bicycle tyre out of the water at me, shouting "snake! snake!" It did make me almost scream the first time, but we all laughed! Steve had to help steer our raft, as there was an extra person and apparently he didn't do much steering, as he was concentrating so much on staying upright instead! After all this we went back to the hotel, time for another cold shower to freshen up! Then we went out again to a Temple at the top of a huge hill. It was really beautiful. Nok got us incense, candles and lotus flowers, to show us how the Thai pray to Buddha. When we got inside the Temple, we lit our candles, burned our incense and then left the incense burning in a special pot and offered the lotus flowers to Buddha. Nok then took us in to see a monk and chamen (pronounced shaymen - not sure of the spelling). We were blessed by the monk and then the boys were given a cotton 'bracelet' tied onto them by the monk, but as monks can't touch women, we had to have our 'bracelets' tied on by the chamen. We then watched the monks chanting and making their offering to Buddha. Nok took us around the rest of the grounds before we headed back down the hundreds of steps we had to climb up in the first place. We got dropped off at the hotel, but we went straight out for dinner. Nok took us to the food court in the night market. After getting fed and watered, we wandered slowly back to the hotel through the night market. We got ourselves sorted for the morning, as it was another early start and we even had our 3rd shower of the day!

WEDNESDAY 25th April

We had breakfast together and then loaded up the minibuses with our bags and headed off on our journey to Chiang Khong. We stopped on the way at a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms - established to support the family planning aspect of life etc. It was really great food and afterwards we headed upstairs to have a look at an exhibition about the hilltribes. Afterwards we drove 2 more hours to arrive at Chiang Khong - the border village for Laos, from our hotel we can see Laos across the river. When we arrived we dropped our things off in our rooms and then Nok helped us to organise our forms for our Laos visas. After that and a little bit of briefing about the next couple of days, we were given some free time before meeting for dinner at 19.00. So we had a shower and then came to this little internet cafe to update you all!

I think that's about it, sorry it's a bit briefer than normal (probably a relief to you, as it means you don't have as much drivel to trawl through), but we haven't had much time! Hope you're all well, take care of yourselves! Not sure when we'll be able to post again, so it could be a few days again! Missing you all!