Much has happened in the last couple of weeks, the grand sum of which has left me weak, malnourished and in need of a short period of detox before Bali...
I'll start with the lovely little bus journey from Luang Prabang to Chiang Mai. Whilst at around 21hrs it has not been my longest journey, it has been by far the worst. I booked the 'VIP' bus, why, because i'm worth it. When I got there I was first struck by the smell, then the lack of seats, then the lack of leg room, then the reality of the next 15hrs. The only plus point was that tom and sophie, who I'd met in Hanoi,, and Ben, who I'd met elephant riding, were all on my bus. When I got to my 'seat' I was relieved to see that instead of there being a seat, there was actually just a piece of wood where the cushion used to be. Add to this that I was at the back and therefore right over the wheel base, I was feeling good about the prospect of the 15hr leg of the journey to the Thai border. Just before we set off I noticed grafitti from someone else who'd chosen the bus option over the slightly cheaper long boat option (see right). I think I perhaps got about 30 secondss sleep between two crashing thuds of wood against buttock during the 3% of the road that was actually paved. |
| Another satisfied customer |
During the journey Tom put me on to an interesting idea. Apparently you can change someone's name by deed poll for just 36 squid, and to do this, apparently all you need to present is a birth certificate, as he's previously tried changing his mates name to John Bon Jovi, but couldn't get hold of his certificate....
So after finally arriving in Chiang Mai after about another 6hrs on a much more comfortable minibus on the thai side, the four of us, and another unlucky member of the bus journey. a young lad called doug, booked into a guesthouse and resolved to get shitfaced. I don't think I have ever met someone who likes a drink as much as Tom, so our time in Chiang Mai pretty much revolved around drinking and tigers.
Whilst i've hired a lot of scooters during my time away, I have never really driven in traffic before. This changed quickly when we decided to drive to tiger kingdom on scooters, and within 10 minutes I found myself on a motorway being overtaken by huge lorries... A tad intimidating and certainly glad to make it back alive that day. The tiger kingdom was quality, got to cuddle and play with quite a few different tigers, the ones that lay down were fine, but occassionaly one of them would jump up and start strolling towards you, at which point you'd either run or poo. |
| Sober |
The photo to the right was taken that evening when we all went out with a couple of others from the hostel in tow... The bloke was a 38yr old who was cycling across laos, thailand and vietnam. He was a bit weird. We went to watch a few bouts of thai boxing, and he seemed to disappear. Someone spotted him in a nearby ladyboy bar, sat on a bar stool sucking on a ladyboys tit. Bizarre scene, very bizarre! Me and an american girl ended up going out with a couple of said ladyboys and ended up drinking with them until stupid o'clock. The next day the weird guy told us that he didn't actually sleep with the ladyboy, but he did know enough about her to tell us that his/her balls had been lopped off and that he/she had her own brand of whiskey, which we'd been drinking all night!
The following day tom's girlfriend and Ben headed off to go on a two day trek, so me Tom and Doug resolved to get more smashed than humanely possible. By 5pm we'd emptied a stash of around 4 whiskey bottles, by which point we were joined by the weirdo. For the next two hours we sat watching videos of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and I don't know if you've ever seen 4 smashed people debating the rigidity of steel framed buildings and their propensity to absorb heat in excess of 3,000 degrees, but the place seemed to empty pretty quickly when it began! The guy had also bought out half a mortar round which we were using as an ashtray! Shortly after doug used his typical grace to knock over and smash two whiskey bottles we were (to our astonishment at the time) politely asked to leave, which was sort of mission accomplished. 
After around 5 days in Chiang Mai it was time to move on, and me and Doug headed to Pai. Within two minutes of getting on the bus I got chatting to a lad, and when he asked where I was from, it turned out that his best mate in the marines (richard mason) was also from Hereford. Small world indeed. So when we arrived we all got rooms together and what was supposed to be a period of detox pretty much instantly descend into much of the same. Pai is a great place, it's a really small town up in the hills. On our first night out we got chatting to a couple of essex girls who we've been hanging out with since. On our second day we hired out peds and went up to a big waterfall, a canyon and a naturally heated spring spa. 
On the way back we popped back to the canyon to try and catch the sunset, which was pretty cool. Somehow on the drive back me and Katie got seperated from the other three, and for some reason I had completely lost my bearings. We ended up about 10 miles out of town, and by the time we got back the other three had started panicking and had sent the two lads out on a search party! Pai is a kind of a small hippy town, and almost everyone here is getting stoned and driving around on scooters, so I'm fairly sure that around 50% of the transient population are lost most of the time!
Today is the first day of my detox proper, and I am feeling so ruddy ill. I didn't drink anything during the mighty enjoyable games of football last night and had myself in bed by midnight - then spent the entire night crapping something unnatural out. My most reasonable explaination is that i had the munchies when i got back and the only thing I could afford with my remaining 5bt was a pack of chilli covered broad beans, mmmm yummy. Dan, Doug and the girls left yesterday, so I am currently rooming with an 18yr old christian girl who keeps crying everytime she skypes her boyfriend - and I'm pretty sure her bags will be packed and gone by the time I get back to the guesthouse. There's an awesome little place where you can hang during the day which has a pool, table tennis table and gym, so I'm going to spend my next few days trying to be good!
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