For garlic lovers...from Gary

Je vais essayer d'écrire quelques mots en français pour les lecteurs francophones. Carine me corrigera où les erreurs rendent la texte impossible à comprendre, mais toutes les erreurs qui restent sont les miennes.

Nous sommes arrivés à Chiang Mai jeudi. Nous avons pris le train de Bangkok, qui était très confortable. Il y avait des lits, et nous avons très bien dormi.

Chiang Mai se trouve au nord de Thaïlande, avec beaucoup de collines autour de la ville. C'est donc une centre pour la randonnée, et autres activités de plein air. En plus, il fait moins chaud que Bangkok, les soirs sont vraiment agréables, bien que il fait assez beau pendant la journée.

Hier nous avons fait le 'mountain-biking', sur une colline près de la ville. Le prospectus l'avait décrit de niveau moyen, ce qui veut dire normalement que ce serait approprié pour nous. En réalité la piste était très difficile, avec beaucoup de rochers et trous en longueurs, et en plus il faisait très chaud (au moins c'est ce qu'il nous paraissait pendant l'exercice). Enfin nous avons réussi à descendre la montagne, et nous avons déjeuné avec ceux de notre groupe.

Aujourd'hui, c'était l'anniversaire de Carine (encore 21 ans!) et elle est allée à un salon de massage très chic, qui était beaucoup plus cher que les autres ici en Thaïlande, mais bon marché par rapport à ceux qu'on trouve en Europe par exemple. Ce soir nous allons profiter de la meilleure cuisine française que Chiang Mai peut offrir (des crêpes!), et prendre un verre de vin (Chiang Mai est le premier endroit dans lequel nous avons vu du vin depuis notre arrivée en Asie.)

Demain, nous partons encore aux collines, pour marcher trois jours avec les sacs à dos, et pour voir les 'tribus des collines'.

J'espère que vous m'avez compris (surtout les anglais!)

Gary

Lumphini Park

While staying in Bangkok, we went out running in Lumphini Park a couple of times - I would definitely recommend you check it out if you are in the city.

Yesterday, we were having a nice jog in the late afternoon on the main 2.5 km track which goes around the park. There were many other people around, mainly joggers. Suddenly a whistle blew and everyone stopped, quite literally, in their tracks. A song was playing out of the loudspeakers around the park, and everyone (pedestrians, runners, cyclists, people stretching on the grass or reading a book on a bench) stood still for the duration of the song. It took us a couple of seconds to realise what this was about, and to stop ourselves running: everyday at 8am and 6pm, the Thai national anthm ("Phleng Chat") is played in public places (train stations, parks, shopping centres; apparently in cinemas, it is played before the showing of any film) and people have to stand up and show respect to the nation. Can you imagine if there was such a law in Britain? I wonder how many people would solemnly pay their respects to the Queen and her family twice a day!

It was a surreal thing to witness: one minute, everyone and everything is moving around you, and the next, all is still. Gary was commenting that we could be in some sci-fi movie, where time would have stopped.

After our run, we did a few stretches on the grass, right by a bit of track where there was a giant aerobic class going on. Picture between 100 and 150 people dressed in lycra, moving to the music together (and the moves where rather complex... then again, maybe I'm just saying that cos I am personally hopeless at doing any kind of dance step...). Up to 150, together!! It looked really good. Every now and then, someone (probably one of the three instructors leading the crowds at the front) would shout something, and everyone would chant back.

I know I am supposed to go on about sunsets over the sea on the beach etc., but I have to say so far that was the best time we've had watching the sun go down! Great fun.

Our guide book says that if you go to Lumphini Park very early in the morning, you will see herds of people doing Tai'Chi and street stands set up all over the place, where they sell snake blood (reputed in Thailand for its health benefits... I'll trust their word for it). We haven't had the chance to go at that time of day (you don't get to go to sleep before 3am when you stay on the Khao San Road, nevermind getting up at 5am!) but definitely will next time I'm in Bangkok.

We are leaving tonight, taking an overnight train off to Chaing Mai. We are both looking forward to being up there: everyone has been raving on about the North of Thailand...
C x

Bangkok

We left Kho Pha Ngan on Thursday at 4pm and, after a ferry and several minivan/coach journeys, reached Surat Thani station at 10.30pm. As our overnight train to Bangkok was leaving one hour later, we had just enough time for a quick bite - we settled for a little "out on the pavement" restaurant (there was not much else open at that late hour) and, while I tasted the best banana and chocolate pancake I've had so far, Gary treated himself to a red curry in which he found... a nail! At least, the waitress looked worried about it. The "kitchen" being a stand a bit further away on the pavement, we witnessed her exchange with the Chef, and after a few minutes she came back to triumphantly show us the thongs - sorry, I mean tongs :) - which the Chef had used to put chicken in Gary's curry: the nail had fallen into the mixture from the cooking implement. She seemed satisfied enough with the explanation to let us pay the full bill at the end anyway.

The sleeper train was surprisingly good: clean matresses, crisp bedsheets and pillows, a thick blanket which prevented the air con from making us cold and navy blue curtains on the side of each bed to block off the light, which was on all night in the carriage. My head hit the pillow as soon as we got on, and I was only woken up at about 8am when an endless stream of Thai ladies started to walk up and down the carriage, selling all sorts of food and loudly chanting what the items were over and over again, like a Thai mantra.

By lunchtime yesterday, we had reached the Khao San Road, where we found a guest house to stay. The street and its surrounding area are amazing: the pavements are lined up with hundreds of stands. You can find "backpacker's clothes" (you know, the hippy/loose/cottoney/washed off type...), bags, jewellery; pirate CDs and DVDs; people who will plait you hair or make dreadlocks out of it; other people who will sell you all sorts of fake IDs (student card for the University of Bangkok, anyone?)... and the choice on the numerous food stands is vast - you can buy every type of meat known (and also quite possibly unknown) to man, grilled on skewers; fried worms and tempura grasshoppers; pad thai, vegetable fried rice; pancakes with all the fillings you can dream of; all sorts of exotic fruit beautifully carved out or served up as smoothies; buckets of beer bottles or spirit with cans of mixers (ok, that's not really food); etc., etc.! Hidden by the stands are a quantity of bars and restaurants, Internet cafes, second hand book shops, travel agents, tattoo and massage parlours...

The place is buzzing with people, mostly Westerners: the tall, blond German who wears both socks and sandals; the shirtless English Northerner (chest bright red from sunburn); the flock of beautiful Swedish girls with long hair, white teeth and slim legs; the pierced, tattooed and dreadlocked Italian couple; the (overly) friendly middle aged American guy dressed from head to toe in white linen; the tanned and muscly young Israelis wearing straw hats and t-shirts with dirty jokes on them; and of course, the twentysomething French girl who moans she can't find a decent glass of wine or piece of cheese anywhere :) Among them, locals try to do business. There is the Thai guy who asks you if you need a tuk-tuk, the one who asks you if you want a hotel, the one who asks if you'd like to buy gems, and the one who just asks you where you are going ("Over there, if that's OK with you!"). Indian guys dressed in sleek black trousers and well cut shirts, trying to get you into their shop to sell you a taylor made suit. And the tiniest Thai ladies you have ever seen, wearing a funny beaded hat, walking around clutching a wooden frog which croaks when you stroke its evenly ridged back with a wooden stick (sorry if you have no idea what I'm on about!) and selling bracelets, necklaces, lighters and bamboo cigars. It is not rare to see a young Thai guy with a ladyboy on his arm. I wonder if this is an "accepted" heterosexual" practise around here??

Add to the above loud music blaring out from every direction and the crowd of pedestrians being splits in two by cars, tuk tuks, occasional flocks of Thai "Hell's Angels" on their Harley Davidsons, and even elephants led on a rope (weird, I know! We are still to figure out why they are here) and I think you get a pretty good idea of the atmosphere around here. I just love the messiness and craziness of it all!

It's in this same Banglamphu area that we met up with Andy and Rachel yesterday evening - they spent the last few days in Bangkok and were heading down to Cambodia for their holiday this morning. It was really nice to catch up with them and to hear all about what is going on back home, and, most of all, it was nice for us both to have someone else to talk to than one another!! I am joking, Gary ;)

Today, we went to Chatuchak Weekend Market. It is a giant flea market - we walked around it for hours and the "window shopping" was very enjoyable. To get there and back was a bit of a trek as it is in a completely different area of Bangkok, but it was rather worth it as it involved taking a speed canal boat which operates as public transport (quite an experience!) followed by doing a few stops on one of the two Bangkok sky train lines.

Off for a meal and a few drinks now!

C.

Wildlife

On Friday we went from Krabi to Khao Sok National Park and stayed in the village at the entrance of the park. The next day, we set off at 8am for a trek through the rain forest. Our final destination was Ton Kloi Waterfall: going there and back took 6 hours despite it being only 15 ms, but tracks through the rain forest are not the easiest to walk on! In fact, for the last hour before we reached the waterfall, we were mostly climbing up or down slopes that were not far from vertical, clenching the huge vines and tree roots surrounding us.

It was hard work (the photo above is actually one of the easy bits!) but so beautiful, it almost felt like being Tarzan in the jungle! And to top it off we got to see some great wildlife. The best one of all was a snake - I remember walking around thinking "I wish we'd see a snake, but we were already lucky to see one in Australia so what are the chances..." and a few minutes later, there it was! Here is a sample of our finds - Fiona, check out the bokeh in the dragonfly pic ;)

On Sunday, we made our way to the island of Kho Pha Ngan. For the last two nights we stayed in Hat Khom, North of the island, and spent some time on that beach which was amazingly quiet and remote. We've now decided we want a bit of "life" around us, so this morning we moved to Hat Rin, on the South of the island. The place is a lot more developped and reputed for its "Full Moon Parties", where old and young hippies and backpackers gather up on the beach once a month to party till dawn (there can, apparently, be anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people around!). Understandably, it's impossible to find accomodation in one of the 4,000 or so rooms on the island, and prices increase majorly before the full moon. I have to say, it's not something I'd be particularly keen to experience...

C.

Kayaking around

After a week of swimming, relaxing on the beach, running, eating lots of Pad Thai washed down with watermelon juice and cramming in the occasional afternoon chocolate and banana sundae, we decided Koh Lanta was very hard work indeed so we left yesterday. We are now in Krabi, which is a two hour drive North of the island.

It's a chilled little town (loads of backpackers and holiday makers around), and this morning we were up early to go kayaking on a river which connects to the sea. It was great being on the kayak (got the arms working), everything was very still and quiet around us. The banks of the river were lined up with mangrove trees, and every now and then our guide would point to a muddy bit of bank where a fish was crawling out of the water. They were "walking fish", which reminded us a bit of the Guiness advert where you see a fish turning into a lizard, then a monkey etc. until it becomes a man. Who knows what they might look like next year?

We canooed through a couple of caves whose ceilings were covered in stalactites, and one of them opened up to a beautiful lagoon full of palm trees. Apparently monkeys live up in them, but weren't fortunate enough to see one.

Finally, our last stop on the boat was a cave which was discovered in 2497 B.E. (seeing how it's now 2552 B.E. in Thailand, that's actually only 55 years ago). They used to be inhabited by gypsies, and, quite recently, a crocodile (which the locals quickly got the Goverment to catch and send out to the zoo - as our guide pointed out "Our job here is fishing and tourists, and tourists no like crocodiles!"). The caves were also full of paintings, which they say date back to 3,000 years ago! Was I being a bit too cynical when I asked Gary "Do you think they were drawn in 1995?". After that we struggled to keep a straight face, because we were looking at the paintings pointed out by our guide but couldn't stop thinking of this drawing from Banksy:



Well, either way it was a nice thing to see and we had a lovely day. A Canadian couple from Ontario, called Cheryl and Dale, were on the tour with us. They were travelling around Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia for a couple of months - which I thought was a pretty cool thing for a retired couple to do. They reminded me of Gary's parents, jetsetting around the world :)

Tomorrow we are taking a bus out to Khao Sok National Park, where we are planning on doing some trekking.

By the way, I finally found a computer which has USB ports and a decent Internet connection, so all our pics from Malaysia and Thailand so far are now there. The link is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33726682@N03/

I hope that everyone is well, not sure who is reading this if anyone is (let me know!) but we hope that the snow storms have now calmed down and that you feel sorry for us who are so, so hot right now! :)

C.

Just chillin'

After spending two days in Kuala Lumpur and three days to Georgetown (on the island of Penang), we have finally reached Thailand and found Paradise!

It took a long bus journey (13 hours) but we arrived in Koh Lanta, an island on the South West of Thailand, on Wednesday. It is beautiful and remote (you need to take two ferries to get to it), and although it is touristy with quite a few resorts along the coast, it is not busy at all. Quite a contrast with our week in Malaysia.

We are staying in a little beach hut that costs almost nothing, and days consist of swimming in the transparent/warm sea (30 degrees C today), reading, playing ball on the beach, sleeping, drinking and eating nice Thai food. Yes I know, we've got it hard!

Today we went out diving, it was great fun. Gary did two dives and I mostly snorkelled, but also did an introductory 10 minutes dive. It was brilliant - we got to see plenty of fish and corals (I even saw a barracuda on my dive!). The only hard bit was that the sea was pretty rough and we both felt very sea sick (although the diving instructor, who says he's never been sea sick in his life, wasn't feeling too perky either. So we're not such lihtweights after all!). I had no idea this could be so knackering, though. We could harly talk when we got back, for wanting to just crash and have a siesta.

So all in all it's really great, I had always dreamt of coming to Thailand and I am not disappointed. I think we will stay here for a while!

There is no apparent USB port on the computer I am using now sostill haven't uploaded any pics from Malaysia/Thailand but will do as soon as I can.

C.