supple-mental!

Last night has the most unbeleiveable rainstorm i think I've ever seen.  lightening and thunder RIGHT overhead, I've never heard thunder so loud .....water gouting from awnings and overflowing from gutterings leaving my street  4" deep in water that looked like it was boiling.  (apparently the kho san road was knee deep!)  I wish these pics could show what it was really like!
Poor Yosh had to leave for Kanchanaburi at 4am, and i think it was still raining then!

Anyway  it's clearly dislodged something in my brain, as i decided i couldn't hack another journey with a broken ipod that keeps freezing, and a shit book, and after walking miles around the various shopping centres in Bangkok with apple stores it became apparent that no one can fix my old outdated model, so i went crazy, went down town to the big shopping centre,  and bought myself a brand new fabulous gorgeous big fat ipod that has more memory than my computer!!!!  Wooot wooot!

I am almost beside myself with excitement and desperately trying get it loaded and charged for the trip! I can fit ALL my music and all the "make it so" Podcasts on it too !! hurrah!! .

Excuse me, I must go back to stroking it lovingly.  Here's a last look at mad Bangkok before i go....

Stuff and bla...

Booked my ticket to Ko Phan Ngan today and caught up on the old blog.  Bangkok is hot, humid and overcast and has been all day despite the fact that it rained loudly all night and until about 9 this morning so the streets were slippery and full of grumpy Thais!

I leave on an overnight bus tomorrow to connect with a boat to the island the next morning.  Now, i just have to find somewhere to stay when I get there!

I also now have a Thai phone, for emergencies really, so, I'll rarely have it on, but I think you can text me... number's on my facebook page if you want it.

Heading out of PP and back to Bangkok

Had another delightful lunch with Henning, and made him go for his first massage, and now he know's what he's been missing,  before collecting my bags and heading off for the airport.  It was rather lovely as I had had three people waving me off, from outside the guest-house, and many hugs and slaps on the back goodbye.  I have really realised that i do rather love it here.

And as luck would have it, I met some men last night that are a part of an NGO setting up schools and infrastructure in the north of Cambodia who need teachers and fund-raisers and who might actually want to employ me, so i am quite interested in finding out more about that!

The flight to Bangkok was utterly uneventful, no delays and no problems.  Met some boys who told me about the cheap bus to Koah San road from the airport so whilst i was waiting for it I bumped in to the rather attractive Yosh... who didn't have a hotel, so I reccommended mine (I have managed to find a really really good well priced guest house, close to Koah San road, called At Home guest house that is scrupulously clean, with comfortable beds, nice sized en suite bathrooms and only 350bt fr a fan room or 450 for air con. which is really good for Bangkok, especially to find one so well cared for)

So Yosh and we went out for dinner and some drinks.... lovely!

Survived the cycling!

Yes, I cycled round all day, and managed not to kill myself!

Saw some of the kids - who all remembered me, which was wonderful and caught up with all the staff there too. 

Had a lovely lunch with Henning, a german chap I met here last time which was superb!

Just had time for a quick shower before I headed off to watch the sunset from the FCC, as it's my last night here and I am technically a Foreign Correspondant and can set foot in their club !

Beautiful sunset which will never look as good as it really was in this picture.

PP

Had a jolly good walk around and treated myself to a massage..... lovely.  Also, went to Mama's restaurant that does the best coconut shakes in the world.



Great to be back here again, where it's all familiar and I know where I am with things. 

Decided to borrow a bike tomorrow and go up and see the children I was teaching when I was here last, to say hello and take them some sweetie treats.  ( To counteract the damage I have collected the free toothbrushes from every hotel I have stayed in that had them over the last couple of months and realised I have well over a dozen which should come in handy for them!)

It doesn't seem as hot here as before, though frankly it's not as un-sweaty as I'd like- still,  maybe I have truly acclimatised to the temperature. We shall see though, as I fly back to sweaty old Bangkok on Saturday, and begin my trip down to the islands, to get properly tanned before I'm on to Oz. (I just seem to have a brown head and arms at the moment).

Right, I'm off to flake out in front of HBO :)

Back in Good old PP!

I never thought i'd say this but its nice to be back!! I feel in familiar territory, and it's good to see familiar faces again at the guest house where I stayed.  The journey here wasn't too bad, the coach was nice and had a toilet that was clean and that you could actually stand up in!!

and it's not too ridiculously hot, so i'm off for a walk around and maybe a drinkie. :)

**Skankle update***

Well, I think they look Loads better. They are no longer scabby and itchy, just red from where they were; However an old man I had never met before on a moped slowed down along side me whilst I was cycling along yesterday to demand "What wrong with you legs?" so maybe they still have a way to go.....

Hopefully a couple of weeks on the beach swimming in the sea should sort them out... I get the bus to Phnom Penh tomorrow before flying back to Bangkok on Saturday.

Had a lovely rest-of-the-afternoon swimming lengths in the pool, sunbathing and reading my book, followed by a good few beers with Tom tonight, which was just lovely.

Also was delighted to have bumped in to the American couple who were on the BUS OF EVIL from Bangkok, but who decided to give in to our scammer kidnappers and get one of the bad men's tuk-tuk back to town....

They told me that to their surprise, THAT was a scam too!!

(Knock me down with a feather! etc... )

Apparently the tuk-tuk driver told them that the road that their hotel was on was closed, whereupon he tried to take them to another hotel that they didn't want to go to and charged them far more than he'd originally agreed!

Just goes to show that sometimes, rather than the every-man-for-himself approach, solidarity with your fellow man might actually pay off in some situations!

I also now feel like less of an idiot for standing up to them now, as I was eventually able to get straight to my hotel for not much money in the end, despite the danger, without giving in and paying bad people money they did not deserve.

These scammers are only performing one function, to discourage tourists, which is terrible for Cambodia, a country that desperately needs tourism to get back on its feet. Regardless of the money they get as a result they are doing so many of their fellow, honest countrymen the opportunity to earn and honest living; in a country with such endemic poverty this is disgusting and unforgivable.

Wondering what happened to all the rest of the people who went in the Tuk tuks as well...

Small world!

Well what are the odds on that?

I borrowed a bike today and went out primarily to explore the town, and change some travellers cheques, sat at a cafe for a cold drink, and the German couple that basically saved my life the other night came in, so i was able to buy them a drink to thank them in some small way fro their support.We chatted and swapped useful information, and email addresses etc.

Then i went to explore the market, and turned a corner in the busy huge market and there in front of me were Tom and Pippa, two people I travelled with in Vietnam!! Nearly fell over in surprise... what are the odds on meeting in a big indoor market in another country??.

Meeting for drinks tonight ! hurrah!

These are little shacks on the banks of the river that some of the city residents live in 

Back on the horse...

Decided to come out of my hidey hole where i have been licking my mental wounds and go cycling around the town!

Journey from hell - the actual story

Journey from hell

So, at 2pm I got a minibus from Pai to Chiang Mai, then a 40 min wait in the bus station from where, instead of getting on a bus to Bangkok, I was collected by săwngthăew (sort of a pickup truck) which then drove around Chiang Mai for an hour, picking up more people, to get on a grotty coach, nothing like the one promised, (which also turned out to be infested with things that bit my hands feet an ankles. This bus was supposed to arrive at a specific place at abut 6am and I would need to walk just around the corner to get the connection.

However, despite waking us all up to eat at about midnight, we arrived at 4am leaving me 3 hours to wait til the next bus. In some ways this was lucky as the map we were given with the bus stop and pick up point was clearly done by someone who had never been there, or at least not for some time and was doing it from memory, so a 5 min walk became a 40 minute walk in the pouring rain until I found the pick up point, a pretty revolting guest house. I was told I could wait on a stool in the corner til the bus came, however I elected to try to sleep on a bench for a while in the lobby, which did not please the man on duty but there was little he could do, as the place was empty and I couldn't sit on a small wooden stool for 3 hours. I couldn’t sleep anyway as it all seemed .... not right and I was anxious.

Finally a man arrived to pick me up (make walk 50m for me to stand at the end of the road) with another few people who had turned up. A minibus eventually came, not a VIP coach as booked, which then drove around Bangkok collecting the other people who were to share this ever more delightful journey we then drove slowly to the border.... all the time I was getting more and more uneasy that this was not what it should be.

We finally stopped at the border and were overcharged for a visa to get in... They refused to take us the next 2 miles t the border unless we paid $35 rather than the $20 I knew it was. I said I only had the $20 and I was basically forced to go by motorbike to a cash point to get the rest.

When we got through they then made us wait 3 hours for another bus.... massive alarm bells! Was trying to explain to my fellow passengers that this was a scam, they would take us v slowly until it was dark then try and take us to hotels of their choice or something. No one listened and it was I discovered the last bus of the day. I had to get it.

It was exactly as I had predicted, we got to Siem Reap, and the driver refused to stop in town as promised, even when I was shouting “STOP THE BUS” he just pretended not to understand and drove straight out about 3 miles out of town to a place where lots of tuk tuk drivers were waiting in a small clearing down a dirt road in the dark. He refused to take us back and there were no pay phones or even buildings around. Though my fellow passengers at first had agreed with me that this was not good, and we should not all be ripped off AGAIN, they all caved in as the situation got more threatening and got into the overpriced tuk tuks to go back into town.

However, then the tuk tuk drivers refused to take me because the bus driver told them that I had caused trouble on the bus and they began trying to separate me from the rest of the group.

I was getting increasingly scared because I knew that they were going do something to me if I was left to walk it on my own, (as they were saying things like “careful something happen t you in the dark” and “you girl on your own” and other things, and frankly, with no sleep, no phone, and a 24 kilo pack on my back I know I‘d have no chance against them if they did try anything, especially out there with no witnesses, but luckily a German couple stuck with me, realising I was in trouble, and refused to pay the tuk tuks either and we started to walk back down this pitch black dirt track to the main road, whilst being continually buzzed too close by the gang on Tuk Tuks and motorbikes, which was even more scary.

Finally we were able to flag down a tuk tuk driver who wasn’t of part of the gang (who as we left, initially chased us and threatened us) and they came with me to my hotel before going to the one they had booked. I have never been so grateful to anyone, or so pleased to see hotel!

Finally arrived there at 8.45, nearly 31 hours after I had begun my journey feeling rather traumatised.

Spent all day by the pool today trying to feel better about it all, as I knew that I should have been quicker off the mark, spotted the signs earlier, handled the situation better, and was very nearly in real trouble. Feel like a total twat.

Journey from hell (to be continued)

Just finished the journey from Pai to Siem Reap... 30 hours travelling with little food and snatched sleep.... basically have been up for almost 2 days.

Have been virtually stranded miles from anywhere, experienced 6 different modes of transport, ripped off, threatened with violence and many things too utterly horrible to blog up now... will have to fill you in when i have finished getting quite deservedly pissed.

Bye Pai

Well what a lovely last day!

Cycled out to the hot springs on my own and met David, a charming Israeli man who has been there for the last few times that I have been out there, who is a great conversationalist and interesting to talk to.

He told me that, contrary to my belief that the hot-springs were only 4km away, so I’d only been cycling 8km + a day, they were in fact 7km from the edge of town so I had been cycling 14km every day plus all the rest of it, and not even known it! Hurrah! I am rather pleased with myself!

I tell you, I’m actually going to miss that bike J

Arranged to meet David for a goodbye drink later and got caught in a heavy rainstorm on the way back which had me cycling into town absolutely soaked and actually it was a little on the chilly side (the locals were all wearing jumpers and coats, and waving and tutting sympathetically at me). I just thought "mmmm cool at last!"

SO showered, went for dinner, met David for a couple of drinks, before he headed off, and then met a nice chap called Guy who came from Hertfordshire, (yes, I know) and decided to head off on his motorbike for a few drinks out of town, and well... had great send off and very little sleep! I shall surely sleep well on the bus, which is just as well as I have a 28 hour journey ahead of me.

It was cold enough to sleep under the duvet last night! Joy!

Next time I blog I'll hopefully be in Cambodia again. Very sad to be leaving Pai, I really have rather fallen in love with the place.

FFS!!!

The house has fallen through AGAIN! Words fail me on this one.

Again, swings and roundabouts I suppose, my lovely day yesterday balanced by kharma pissing on my chips today.

Marion has gone trekking for 2 days so I spent today planning my next trip leg. Basically, I have visa hassle, as apparently since December last year, you don’t get 6 months anymore, you only get one, and I have just realised that mine runs out 29th August. (Genius travel agent failed to mention this, saying you got 6 months of course!) To renew my visa for a month I have to fly back into the country which means loads of hassle (going by bus only renews it for 15 days, so this is no good if I want to have uninterrupted island time, and if you over stay it’s 500bht a day (£10)!!

SO, on Saturday I get a 2pm bus 3hr bus ride from Pai to Chiang mai, a 10 hour bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, a 10 hour bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, arriving at 6pm where i shall stay the night. The next day or day after, I get a 6 hour bus to Phnom Penh, where I can see a few friends, and the kids of course, and then fly back to Bangkok, to get 30 more days on my visa. (I have however, received a voucher from Air Asia this morning apologising for delaying us for 4 hours from Hanoi to Bangkok, so that will half the price of the ticket) ...So ...swings and roundabouts.

Had an incredibly pleasant afternoon; rode out of town a bit to a resort that has a pool and did some swimming. It's low season so the pool was deserted so I had the wonderful experience of slipping into completely still water and making the first ripples fan out across the surface as I swam across to the other side, and looking back and thinking "they are my waves; my path, my imprint on the world". Like being the first to tread in fresh snow and looking back to see the imprint of your feet have made where you walked. I always find it vaguely surprising, as they never quite look how I imagined they would.

Floating in the cool silent water, I could almost imagine being the only person in the world as I watched the clouds forming and drifting apart in the sky overhead.

Then I lay around in the sun drinking very cold beer and reading. I found an old copy of "the stand" by Stephen King... his best book and one of my very favourites, which was just the icing on the cake. Reading an old, well loved book is a bit like visiting great friends or family; throwing yourself down on their comfy sofa, snuggling up and letting the warmth happiness and familiarity of old faces and experience and affection sweep over you. I lay there until long after the sun had gone behind the mountain.

Well, blow me down! I’m really enjoying this cycling business!

After a healthy leisurely breakfast Marion and I ended up doing almost the same trip again, but with more stopping as it was really sunny and hot.

We were so sweaty and out of breath we stopped in a little bamboo shack for a rest, and also found out some more about elephant trekking and normal trekking. (We found out it was expensive.)

But I just love this little town... it’s so quiet, traffic wise, and so pretty.

It’s small enough that you often bump into people you’ve met before, to the extent that all day we I’m able to wave hello to loads of people I've met here, couples and also people that we’ve met in other areas of Thailand. Everyone has advice on where to go to next, or who you can ask about where we want to go. Got chased by a beautiful rain storm all the way home.. Was a spectacular view as it approached us over the valley, and wonderfully fun cycling madly through wonderfully sunlit sparkling rain when it caught us.

So after we got back having had a jolly good soak in the skankle improving mineral springs, and then again in the rain we went home to clean up etc, (gave Lester a call for his birthday) Marion and I had a nice dinner and then rode out of town to a bar everyone said they were going to , called the Bebop bar... but sadly they were having an open mike night where a possibly horribly misinformed, and unfortunately, mistakenly encouraged, undeniably negatively talented (or should I say talentiallychallenged) girl kept getting on stage to unleash upon the audience, her terrible hummed “harmonies” or backing vocals to all other performer’s otherwise passable efforts.

It was like hearing someone singing along to their ipod when you have no idea what the tune their singing to is, but a song with a song that you do recognise being played to you at the same time.

At first it was tolerable, then uncomfortably funny in an “office” or “borat” kind of way before rapidly becoming so unutterably dreadful we were forced to leave. These aforementioned stages all happened within the time it takes to drink one beer you understand.

In all fairness, she did have a go on the bongos for a while which was also jaw droppingly hilarious in it’s awfulness, as she clearly had no clue that there is supposed to be some kind of rhythm there, and her efforts were simply some randomly added "bop" sounds throughout the songs, but performed with the same kind of earnest, brow creasing, eyes closed "I'm really performing soulfully" expression that she used whilst singing, did add to hugely to the comedy value. However the explosive laughter this caused was very short lived, as it became abundantly and devastatingly clear that she was getting on stage for every song regardless whether she knew it or not.

But dammit maybe I misunderstood. Maybe it was an open mike comedy night and this was actually a sophisticated piece of comedy genius, and I simply left just before the punchline was delivered... should I actually be kicking myself??

I need to go and renew my visa as I've just realised it runs out on 29th August, and I'm not leaving until 20th September, which I can only think that you do by leaving the country and coming back in, so I will pop over the border to Siem reap again maybe see some more temples or perhaps just chill by the pool.

Then I shall come back to Bangkok and head off down to the islands.

Oh! I have been listening to a cracking podcast called “Make it So” which is basically 3 geeks discussing aspects of a star trek; (who are the best baddies/ the most useless characters/ worst continuity mistake of all the series... etc etc) Very funny. I am addicted! (Check it out all ST geeks!). Who needs TV?!??

Just don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow!

Back for more “make it so”!

Engage.

Pai-Cycling!

I think there may be something wrong with me.

This morning I met Marion for breakfast. I have been longing for bacon and eggs for a couple of weeks now, but when the crunch came I found myself ordering muesli, fruit and yoghurt!!!

Then, (now we are really delving in to the realms of totally bizarrity) we decided to hire bikes! Real pedal ones. And cycle a few km out of town to visit some hot springs!

I know!!

Here I am in my sensible bike riding gear.... and Marion looking entirely more glamourous..

The country side around here is so lovely though, and we had all day, and made Marion promise that we had to cycle really slowly as it's very hilly and up and downy everywhere.

So off we went and got our bikes... not proper mountain bikes, but they had gears, and we could bungy our rucksacks to the rack on the back. And began our trip.

And it wasn’t as bad as I had thought -it was a little overcast when we set off at midday, so it wasn’t too horrifically hot and the bikes were much easier to cycle than my old one back home, and though occasionally had to get off and push on the really steep hills it was great fun!

We went past a beautiful elephant, found the hot springs, and sat in them for about 2 ½ hours

until the sun came out, we had completely pruned, my face had burnt from reflection off the water, despite me sitting in the shade, but on a happier note, the soaking appear to have helped the skankles. Yes...my skankles were no longer scabby, they just looked a bit raw. Hurrah!!!

We sat and had a lovely drink by the river, just watching it go by and marvelling at the silence...

There were no traffic noises, just the river, birds and insects. It's always so shocking when you realise you rarely hear that kind of quiet.

and then we cycled the long way back in glorious evening sunshine taking in the gorgeous views! Absolutely stunning.

Looking a little bit sweaty here!

Ok, now more weird stuff.

1) I had a dinner which I couldn’t finish! I ate until I was full didn’t eat any more. This never happens.

2) Then I was offered a spliff which I turned down!

Who am I? What is going on? Has someone taken over half my brain?

Was suddenly absolutely exhausted and went home to bed and blogging at 8... And am meeting Marion tomorrow for more cycling!

A Slice of Pai

And so to Sleepy Pai. Actually it's pronounced "Bye"

and it's just lovely.

Took a bus journey here over the mountains on lots of hairpin bend roads, but the jungle is lush all around and the misty blue mountains so captivating you that you can't see any perilous drops to speak of so it's not quite so bad as I'd been expecting. Buffalo and cows stand around in the road, calmy being narrowly missed... they are clearly used to this, but i wonder if I ever will be.

Stupid STUPID ipod froze again though. Just crashes, For no reason. And since the middle button has ceased to function in any way the only way to reset it is to let the battery run flat which takes bloody AGES. When it crashes like that my laptop can't even accesss it either - it refuses to be recognised. BASTARD.

So whether or not the house sells, am still going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new one... I can't keep having these long journeys with no music or podcasts, and I'd downloaded the Now show, and whole load of other comedy specially for the journey. (which took literally hours over the weak connection at the last place i stayed, patiently clicking and clicking and resuming download every 2 mins when the connection became too weak to download, or stopped

altogether) I feel so cheated dammit.

I suppose Bangkok is going to be the best place to buy one though, so in some ways i'm lucky to be in vaguely the right area to get the best deal. What do you think though? Should I invest in the classic - the full 120gb daddy of them all, (actually has more memory than my laptop) or a 16 gb nano which is still 4 x bigger than what i have now? OR buy an i phone, as my contract with t-mobile is just about up. Can i keep my number if i move to the network that i phones work on? Your comments, suggestions and general feedback on this would be most welcome.

Anyway! I digress! Pai!

It's gorgeous.

It's tiny and sleepy and quiet and beautiful and really laid back and in the middle of nowhere. I have only been here a few hours and i love it.

People are so friendly and things are so calm that dogs sleep in the middle of the road, whilst people drink beer outside and chat in the afternoon heat.

I've met a few people on my brief little wander round... one guy getting rather a groovy tattoo... (don't worry M&D, I shall still not be getting 'inked' myself)

I am however, off to the local place to "hang out", and maybe have my first beer for over a week!!

*skankle update* supple-mental

Ok, I've seen all the temples and museums, it's raining torrentially outside, I'm facebooked out, I've mostly packed to leave, I've finished my book, I've washed all my clothes and there's nothing on telly, and if I read another page of lonely planet I'll might just kill myself and anyone I see with one, which seems to be most of the population of the town.

I have nothing to do but rotate my clothes in front of the fan and do some very idle blogging.

So therefore it is clearly time for a Skankle update.

2 days ago:

now:

Slightly better.... right? Not quite as lumpy.

Still totally gross though.

I am off to Pai tomorrow, to enjoy some chilled mountain action, before I head back down to Bangkok and on to the islands, because more than anything, I need some sun on my skankles and some beach and sea to look at.

Saturday Part Four : Extrusion and Exploitation

The last leg of the journey was a trip to see the Hill Tribes - there are lots of different ones including long neck, long ears, black teeth, as well as some less recognisable ones also, including the ones with the women with silver studded hats that try and sell you jewellery and wooden frogs on the Koah San Road.

When we arrived I realised that this place was little more than a refugee camp which contained captive little groups from several different tribes who had fled across the border from China, and Burma.

We walked through their little collection of bamboo huts on stilts, where we were herded towards sad little stalls selling tourist tat.

Then on to the next section where another tribal group gave us a display of village tribal dancing for donations. They were refugees from Burma.

We met another group originally from China; all of the women wore red fluffy neck pieces; moved on to the Black Teeth Tribe who chew addictive betel nuts until their teeth turn black which is supposed to make them more attractive to the men of the village

Finally we were nearly at the end of this uncomfortable experience when I and a couple of others were told that I had not paid to go any further and that to see the "long necks" I would need to pay another 300b.

Now, having already had to shell out that amount for the "optional" boat trip (the other option being to sit in a shack for an hour and a half in the middle of no where whilst everyone else went on the boat trip) I, amongst others, was rather aggrieved.

I asked my guide exactly how much of that money would be going to the tribe themselves for us to go and gawp at them in their pitiful surroundings.... she declined to answer. Oh. none of it then? So i then asked her how she was going prevent me from seeing them, as I had just as much right as anyone else to go to the village as we were not paying the tribes people for entrance. She also couldn't answer, so, with my 300b I stomped over the bridge to the long-neck settlement and put my money straight in their donation box, and went to meet the tribe.

The girls start to wear the rings on their necks and calves

from a very early age, 5 or so, and at 11 they can decide whether to keep them. The neck rings lengthen the neck, but the calf rings don't do the same to the legs. (Shame, my thighs could definitely use some thinning and lengthening!)

I read somewhere that if they chose not to they were cast out of the village, however my grumpy guide said that this is not the case here, but anyway "all the girls chose to follow".

By the time they reach adulthood they can wear as much as 5kg of brass rings around their necks (which they have to keep clean by rubbing them with rice stalks). They even sleep in them, though it is possible for them to remove them.

Apparently the original reason why they wear them is for protection, so that Tigers cannot bite their necks or legs whilst they are out foraging in the jungle. It does not explain the extrusion of the neck though...... (I suppose no one has told these people that tigers have nearly been hunted to extinction because these people's way of life is not many years from extinction itself.)

I bought some lovely little carved bamboo cups that smell gorgeous, and still came away feeling dirty from being a part of exploitation of this minority group. I'd joked about it before, but being part of it was not funny at all.

Three hour drive back to Chiang Mai.

Saturday Part Three: The Golden Triangle

On and on through acres of paddy fields; here in the mountains they got a lot of rain , so that some times they often get 3 crops of rice per year, rather than the usual 2 elsewhere, so this means that Chiang Rai is one massive producer of rice. You have probably eaten rice grown in

Chiang Rai.

(Bit of history... Chiang Rai was founded by the same King as Chiang Mai, but earlier, 'Mai' meaning new. Chiang Rai is 738 years old, Chang Mai is 711)

Then we were at the Golden Triangle, the point on the Mekong River where three countries meet, Laos, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Thailand and was famously one of the most extensive opium producing areas of the world.

Here you can see the jungles of Burma on the left, and the cloud covered Mountains of Laos on the right. (In real life it looked rather stunning)

The Mekong itself travels through 5 countries, Tibet, China, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand before it reaches it's delta in Vietnam. So the Golden Triangle was a great place to trade illictly.

Nowadays, as there is no opium trade to speak of as such, as there are no casinos allowed in Thailand this is where to the Thais cross the border to Burma, sorry Myanmar, to gamble at the Win Win casino at the Paradise Hotel - they are in the process of building a massive one on the riverside in Laos too.

After a disappointing boat ride where we saw where the Luak river joins the Mekong which was quite cool, you could see two different coloured streams of water .....( well, 2 different shades of brown) rushing along together, two rivers side by side, with nothing in between.... but though it was quite distinct to the naked eye, it was non existent on camera.

We then we visited Laos ....for about 1/2 an hour.

Didn't have passport with me so could not get it stamped, but bought a nice necklace and opted out of a cobra whisky tasting offer... it looked most unhygenic.

We then travelled to the Burma border here you could climb the 200 odd stairs

to the top of an impressive dragon sided stair case,

past a big gold buddha,

to see a rather excellent view of Chiang Rai,

a rather meh temple,

and a rather strange sculpture of a scorpion.

Drove past the highest mountain in Thailand (apparently...... as it was hard to tell what with bit still beng wrapped in a giant duvet of thick cloud, and on the other side of the bus) before the last leg of the journey to se the hill tribes.

Saturday Part Two: Palace of the Snow Queen

Fat clouds continued to slouch sullenly on tops of the mountains like groups of hoodies on benches in parks.... smoking, spitting, vaguely threatening and generally ruining the view of the place. But all was forgiven once we reached Wat Rong Khun, The White Temple.

For some reason the white clouds accentuated its beauty in the way that a blue sky couldn't - it was truly just how I imagined the Snow Queens Palace from the story by Hans Christian Andersen; white on white on white.

It has been built by a famous Thai Artist Chalermchai Kositipipat, who is a successful and renowned painter of Buddhist art here and all over the world, who used his own money to build this temple back in his home town. He does not ask for donations, or receive subsides, and has

even forbidden people to leave donations refusing to take any over a certain amount even when offered.

He planned for the building over several years, in the beginning training just 5 or 6 local villagers with an interest in art to begin the work. Now 12 years later still more parts of the temple are being created and there are over 60 'disciples' working on it.

It's really quite amazing to look at. pure white, to represent the purity of the Buddha, and studded with mirror, so that it gleams, and this is supposed to symbolise the Buddha's Dhamma that teaches man to observe his own mind and reflect loving kindness toward humankind.

The Bot itself where the Buddha relics are stored, is exquisitely painted inside, but with amazing modern looking murals rather than the usual one depicting ancent battle or stories one is used to seeing in temples (you are not allowed to photograph them but I was sneakily able to take a picture of a fraction of one just to give you an idea. Almost Dali-esque don't you think?)

Very surreal and fabulous stuff. I like the fact he's got a rolex, a mushroom cloud and the international space station in this one...

The Bot is

approached by the Bridge of the Cycle of rebirth,

which represents human sorrow and

happiness

...you have to pass through cravings and hell......

.....before you can pass through the gates of heaven, which are guarded by Mara and Death.

Little white fish flit through the still waters underneath the bridge like little ghosts.

The toilet block next door however is, is all gold!....Some people have told the artist that this is how he should have made the temple. He calls these people "bloody idiots" and has done this deliberately as a statement to prove that beauty is not about looks but abut the purity of the soul.

Here's the side view of the place

Anyway - pretty bloody spectacular.