There are times in my life where being a sneaky bastard has really paid off. During our expedition through South East Asia, Prue and I were plagued by one sad misfortune; the impracticality of purchasing anything. Unfortunately due to the fact we had to carry everything in our backpacks which were becoming progressively fuller and fuller. We could not buy anything, in countries that the regular tourists come to just to shop.
But Christmas was approaching. We had agreed to curb our usual gift spending and imposed a limit on our gift budget. The idea was to come up with a great present which cost very little. The first of the presents I bought for Prue while we were in Luang Prabang. Prue had fallen for a little silver necklace charm that was locally made. After first seeing it she regretted not buying it and set out to find it our last day in Luang Prabang.
However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to get any money from the ATM machines in town, we had managed to pay our Accommodation and buy tickets for the Boat trip north, but we were left with only enough money to buy dinner. That is until I walked 500 miles to find the only ATM in town that was still working, on the way back to meet Prue I spied the silver charm and purchased it for the same price Prue had negotiated. Then I asked the merchant to do me a favour and not sell anything to my wife if she came back… Sneaky.
Returning to Prue with a small fist full of Laos Kip, she decided we needed to take one more look at the markets. When we reached the stall with the silver charm, Prue immediately tried bartering the price of the silver charm down. Meanwhile I was standing behind Prue, making faces at the merchant and waving my hands around. The merchant obviously had no intention of honouring our agreement. Fortunately Prue’s bartering skills were becoming shrewd and not getting the price she wanted, she walked away.
Prue almost returned to the store a few minutes later, but as she had just purchased something else, I decided to take an accountant’s stance and told Prue not to spend anymore money in case we couldn’t get any more cash out. Turned out that we couldn’t get any more cash and spent the next two days fretting about money. Prue was still disappointed she had missed out on the silver charm, so the surprise was enormous when I drew first blood and gave her the hand made silver necklace from Laos.
The second gift was a leather belt from Thailand, a designer clothes item with vibrantly coloured Mini Coopers around it and a cost increasing signature of a designer. Prue first spotted the belt in MBK Shopping centre in Bangkok. The shop keeper wanted 1500Baht as first price ($50) and Prue could only barter them down to 800Baht. Prue gave up on the buying the belt, but saw it several times and entered into negotiations in different shops only to fail to achieve a reasonable price.
After making a quick exit from the hostile nightclub in Pat Pong, Prue passed the belt on sale in the Pat Pong market, where she managed to barter the price down to 300Baht ($10). She giggled with consumerist excitement as we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk driven by a lead footed 17 year old and were whisked back to Kao San Rd. The excitement was short lived as two minutes later Prue realised that we had left her belt on the back seat of the Tuk-Tuk.
It was our second last day in Bangkok, and returning to Pat-Pong was not an option I was fond of, although Prue suggested it more than once. We spent hours grazing through the markets looking for the belt again, only to find that it wasn’t to be found. There weren’t even any stalls or shops selling belts in the vicinity of Khao San Rd. A placed rumoured to sell everything.
So a sneaky plan was hatched in my brain, Prue had excused herself for an hour to pamper herself with her last cheap Thai massage. I worked both sides of the street of Khao San in a last ditched effort to find the belt as I made my way to the end of the street where there would be a Tuk-Tuk to take me to Pat Pong and back before Prue realised I was gone. The trick would be getting a Tuk-Tuk to Pat-Pong without getting dragged into a sex show or a den of hurt.
But you wouldn’t believe it if you read about it on this very blog. We had searched the street several times for the belt and never saw any belts anywhere. But as if by magic, at the eleventh hour a small stall appeared out of the humidity and there was the Designer branded Mini Cooper belt. I enquired its price and the reply was “1500 Baht”. Shit… I managed to only get him down to 800 before trying the elite bartering technique of walking away. I didn’t work.
My only other option was to make a twenty minute trip to Pat Pong, find the belt, barter the price then get out of Pat Pong and back to Khao San Rd without being accosted by Mr Bang or any other seedy Ping Pong Peddling type. All this in a ever decreasing 45min window.
I ran up the street again, hoping that another magical belt store had appeared, one with more reasonable prices. It hadn’t, I bit the bullet and went back to the only magical belt shop in Khao San, I managed to get it down to 600 Baht, but the price didn’t matter when I saw Prue’s reaction on Christmas morning as she opened her presents on the bed in our little private room at the top of the evil stairs of death in the funky hostel down the steet from Hyde Park somewhere in the centre of ice-cold London, on the other side of the world. Prue was happy, and being a sneaky bastard had really paid off.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
iSkate
We didn't do much during the day on Christmas eve, maybe we did, but whatever it was has been overshadowed by the evening. I know we missioned out to the supermarket and picked up some food and beverages for the celebrations on Christmas day. I remember asking the guy in the off-licence if he was open for Christmas and being surprised at his glum "yes" reply.
Before leaving the shop we watched as the doorway was cast in shadow and a massive beast of a man waddled through the door who kinda looked like a menacing trucker version of Stephen Fry. I was half expecting some kinda crazy shit about to go down, when all of a sudden the frightful looking man opened his mouth and a soft and gentle posh English accent wafted through the room. Lol, British people.
We had collected enough supplies that we wouldn't need to venture out on Christmas day. I was certain that we didn't have enough alcohol, yet Prue forcefully assured me that we "didn't need anymore alcohol you drunk bastard". Later the next day she was, naturally, proven wrong. So I was glad I'd inquired to the man in the shop about his opening hours. But lets not get ahead.
We bummed around for the most part of the day, needing a bit of a break from the constant go-go of the past days and months. But by mid afternoon the spirit for adventure (and boredom) overtook us so we headed off to Hyde park for a Christmas Eve outing at the fair ground set up in Hyde Park corner.
The Winter Wonderland has a Bavarian theme, you can buy all sorts of Englishised Bavarian treats. There are show rides, side show stalls, music and of course food and alcohol. During the day it is mostly occupied by kids and their parents, but at night, and especially on Christmas Eve the place is packed with young adult revelers, drinking mulled wine and singing "Last Christmas" over and over and over and... Seriously it gets played more often than a Nintendo DS on a School bus.
The main draw card for us was the ice skating rink. What better way to celebrate a winter Christmas than by ice skating outdoors in the middle of London's most famous park, right in the middle of the city itself. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same romanticised idea and there were no tickets available until the last session at 9pm. It was around 6pm so we had a few hours to kill.
We went on a couple of the rides, which were about as expensive as the Melbourne Show. One of the rides was a mini roller coaster that reminded me of the one at Luna Park and which made better use of a small space than a Swiss inventor.
Then we stumbled across an old arcade games area. I'm not talking old like Virtual Cop, Daytona and Sega Rally. I don't mean nostalgic arcade games like Pacman and Space Invaders. These arcade games were made of wood and metal but had no electronic parts, apart from a few with flashing light bulbs, yes bulbs not LEDs.
We traded our show ride tickets for a handful of "old pennies" and proceeded to pump them into the slots of the machines. The arcade was a lot of fun, even though there was no hero levelling or cut-scenes, no quick time events or combo breakers. There was however a classic feeling of fun similar to the one that can be achieved by giving a kid a large empty cardboard box. We got a little hooked trying to bounce the pennies off the shelf into the collection tray and dwindled away our tickets buying more pennies in a vain attempt to win back the lost ones.
We headed to the large Bavarian drinking area. Mainly because it was heated inside and we were very cold. Thus the decision to purchase some Mulled wine was inevitable, and horribly regrettable. We both cupped our hands around the warmth of the mulled wine and took turns pulling faces best described by the word "Byerchk!" The mulled wine tasted like shit, actually it probably tasted better than shit, but was nonetheless disgusting. So we washed down our mulled wine with Steak Sandwiches.
Eventually it was time to head to the Ice Skating rink, so we lined up with the hundred or so others in our session and received our skates. My skates cut into my feet but they were tight around my ankles so we walked over to the edge of the rink as best as anyone who tries walking in skates can and found ourselves among the first people out to brave the ice.
I hadn't skated in a couple of years, last time was at Bendigo's rink where I managed to nearly break my ankle in the last five minutes of the day, and limped around for a fortnight afterward. So with some hesitance I skated out, found my balance, tried a dash of speed and weaved around the first lap to find Prue hugging the boundary ten metres out of the gate. So I grabbed her hand and we skated around hand in hand like a bunch of romantics until she found her balance again.
Then it got chaotic. They only sell a number of tickets so that there aren't too many people on the ice, the problem is there is obviously still a few too many people, a quarter of the people can skate, half of them are terrible skaters and the other quarter never take their hand from the rail as they wind around the loop of the rink for the entire hour session.
The good skaters duck and weave between the masses of terrible skaters, the terrible skaters freak out and fall over, then a good skater weaves to avoid the fallen skater and freaks out another terrible skater who jumps out of the way and into the path of another skater so they both fall over. Then they pick themselves up, wash, rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile on the sidelines the incapable skaters are moving hand over hand along the boundary rail until they reach someone leaning up against the rail taking a break. The incapables freeze and cause a butterfly effect traffic jam through the incapables behind them. The incapable looks pleadingly at the person leaning against the boundary, who then either skates forward to let them pass, or gives them an amused look and watches the incapable skater try to reach around them to get past.
Prue and I manage to skate the hour without any falls, despite being the victim (and occasional perpetrator) of a few collisions. Towards the end of the session the crowd started to leave and ice got choppier. I tried to remember how to do power slides while Prue did pirouettes like a Ballerina. Ice Skating in Hyde Park, London in Winter, a strange and unusual experience, but a hell of a lot of fun.
Before leaving the shop we watched as the doorway was cast in shadow and a massive beast of a man waddled through the door who kinda looked like a menacing trucker version of Stephen Fry. I was half expecting some kinda crazy shit about to go down, when all of a sudden the frightful looking man opened his mouth and a soft and gentle posh English accent wafted through the room. Lol, British people.
We had collected enough supplies that we wouldn't need to venture out on Christmas day. I was certain that we didn't have enough alcohol, yet Prue forcefully assured me that we "didn't need anymore alcohol you drunk bastard". Later the next day she was, naturally, proven wrong. So I was glad I'd inquired to the man in the shop about his opening hours. But lets not get ahead.
We bummed around for the most part of the day, needing a bit of a break from the constant go-go of the past days and months. But by mid afternoon the spirit for adventure (and boredom) overtook us so we headed off to Hyde park for a Christmas Eve outing at the fair ground set up in Hyde Park corner.
The Winter Wonderland has a Bavarian theme, you can buy all sorts of Englishised Bavarian treats. There are show rides, side show stalls, music and of course food and alcohol. During the day it is mostly occupied by kids and their parents, but at night, and especially on Christmas Eve the place is packed with young adult revelers, drinking mulled wine and singing "Last Christmas" over and over and over and... Seriously it gets played more often than a Nintendo DS on a School bus.
The main draw card for us was the ice skating rink. What better way to celebrate a winter Christmas than by ice skating outdoors in the middle of London's most famous park, right in the middle of the city itself. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same romanticised idea and there were no tickets available until the last session at 9pm. It was around 6pm so we had a few hours to kill.
We went on a couple of the rides, which were about as expensive as the Melbourne Show. One of the rides was a mini roller coaster that reminded me of the one at Luna Park and which made better use of a small space than a Swiss inventor.
Then we stumbled across an old arcade games area. I'm not talking old like Virtual Cop, Daytona and Sega Rally. I don't mean nostalgic arcade games like Pacman and Space Invaders. These arcade games were made of wood and metal but had no electronic parts, apart from a few with flashing light bulbs, yes bulbs not LEDs.
We traded our show ride tickets for a handful of "old pennies" and proceeded to pump them into the slots of the machines. The arcade was a lot of fun, even though there was no hero levelling or cut-scenes, no quick time events or combo breakers. There was however a classic feeling of fun similar to the one that can be achieved by giving a kid a large empty cardboard box. We got a little hooked trying to bounce the pennies off the shelf into the collection tray and dwindled away our tickets buying more pennies in a vain attempt to win back the lost ones.
We headed to the large Bavarian drinking area. Mainly because it was heated inside and we were very cold. Thus the decision to purchase some Mulled wine was inevitable, and horribly regrettable. We both cupped our hands around the warmth of the mulled wine and took turns pulling faces best described by the word "Byerchk!" The mulled wine tasted like shit, actually it probably tasted better than shit, but was nonetheless disgusting. So we washed down our mulled wine with Steak Sandwiches.
Eventually it was time to head to the Ice Skating rink, so we lined up with the hundred or so others in our session and received our skates. My skates cut into my feet but they were tight around my ankles so we walked over to the edge of the rink as best as anyone who tries walking in skates can and found ourselves among the first people out to brave the ice.
I hadn't skated in a couple of years, last time was at Bendigo's rink where I managed to nearly break my ankle in the last five minutes of the day, and limped around for a fortnight afterward. So with some hesitance I skated out, found my balance, tried a dash of speed and weaved around the first lap to find Prue hugging the boundary ten metres out of the gate. So I grabbed her hand and we skated around hand in hand like a bunch of romantics until she found her balance again.
Then it got chaotic. They only sell a number of tickets so that there aren't too many people on the ice, the problem is there is obviously still a few too many people, a quarter of the people can skate, half of them are terrible skaters and the other quarter never take their hand from the rail as they wind around the loop of the rink for the entire hour session.
The good skaters duck and weave between the masses of terrible skaters, the terrible skaters freak out and fall over, then a good skater weaves to avoid the fallen skater and freaks out another terrible skater who jumps out of the way and into the path of another skater so they both fall over. Then they pick themselves up, wash, rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile on the sidelines the incapable skaters are moving hand over hand along the boundary rail until they reach someone leaning up against the rail taking a break. The incapables freeze and cause a butterfly effect traffic jam through the incapables behind them. The incapable looks pleadingly at the person leaning against the boundary, who then either skates forward to let them pass, or gives them an amused look and watches the incapable skater try to reach around them to get past.
Prue and I manage to skate the hour without any falls, despite being the victim (and occasional perpetrator) of a few collisions. Towards the end of the session the crowd started to leave and ice got choppier. I tried to remember how to do power slides while Prue did pirouettes like a Ballerina. Ice Skating in Hyde Park, London in Winter, a strange and unusual experience, but a hell of a lot of fun.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monopoly
My god it is getting hard to remember what happened two months ago. Remembering was the point of this blog in the first place, oh well, fucked that one up...Hopefully at some point we'll catch up to where our ordinary life starts again so I can just glaze over mundane bits weeks at a time.
Our second day in London we did some stuff and looked around and yeah yeah yeah... That's about all I have at the moment. Not really, just need a starting point and things tend to flow together after that, bear with me...
Breakfast... The Hostel we were staying in was pretty fantastic, we had booked a private room for the five nights while we were staying there, this meant we didn't have to climb into bunks in the dark, we had a nice and comfy double bed, and a bit of privacy for Christmas. The draw back to this being the four flights of stairs we had to climb.
Four flights of stairs may not seem like much, especially to us as we had become accustom to the Asian guesthouse style of building narrow buildings that always have the cheaper rooms up near the top. But at our hostel, an unknown ancient evil resided in the stairwell. By the time you reached the first landing your legs felt like lead, at the second landing a miserable plant sat wilting and dying, its life obviously drained by the negative energy inhabiting the stairs. At the third landing the stairs got steeper and narrower. The hike up the last two floors should have come with rock climbing gear.
In the morning we went down to breakfast, and hoped that we wouldn't have a reason to go back to our room for something. Breakfast was basic but very handy. Bread, butter, spreads, cereal, milk, tea, coffee, cheese and ham were all laid out for the taking. They even had Coco-Pops! Some of the people were making sandwiches for lunch from the breakfast spread, we weren't that organised and/or hadn't tired of the novelty of pub meals yet. There was a large well stocked kitchen in the hostel, so we made a mental note to buy some food and at some point start cutting costs.
Watered and fed, we were ready to head out and explore, unfortunately one of us (It was Prue!) found a reason to go back to our room, so with a sigh that resembled a whimper one of us (It was me!) dragged themselves up the dreaded evil stairway of doom and destruction...Then we went out and did some stuff and looked around and yeah yeah yeah... Damn! Need visual cues.
We headed down to Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and then down to Trafalgar Square taking photos and wandering around with that stupid touristy look on our faces that screamed "fresh from boat" We had arrived on the set of a life size game of Monopoly, unfortunately we didn't have enough available cash to purchase any property, which meant we couldn't build hotels, and we struggled to find the way to pass go to collect our $200.00, or is it £110.00?
Cliches aside it was really amazing walking around the stunning architecture and landmarks. You couldn't help but feel that you had been there before, even though it is probably just from seeing it in a movie or on TV. Being in London really makes you feel like you are in the heart of the world, or at least one of the other main organs. It has a sense of importance about it, that makes you realise how much influence the place has over the rest of the world.
London is full of English people! Believe it or not they are everywhere, at first we were walking around thinking "Jeez there is a lot of English people around", then we realised, "Duh, it is England". Still the accents are hilarious. We find ourselves walking around listening to people talk and snickering about their accents. Especially the school kids, not the ruff looking ones that swear all the time, but the ones that obviously go to Private Schools and have etiquette tutors. They're very formal and civilised and you have to stop yourself repeating their conversation back in their accent, or people in white coats might chase you with nets.
We walked down past the fortress entry of Downing St, where I picked out a few easy roosts for a sniper to have a shot, then we went past Westminster Abbey, but it costs money to go inside so we decided to leave that for another day never. Then we marvelled at the iconic Big Ben, which is reasonably big, but could have been bigger in my opinion.
We half crossed the bridge to get a look at the Thames, which I learnt is pronounce "Tems", thus proving the point that English people have weird English. Worcestershire is "Woostashire", Leicester is Lester, Undies are Pants and Pants are Trousers.
On the way back we passed the Horse Guards who were doing their afternoon parade, which wasn't very parade like. The men lined up and stood very very still until one guy came strutting out, yelled at them and then looked each of them up and down before yelling at them again to march off in a neat line. Then he repeated it with the horses.
We found our way back up to Trafalgar square, where Prue discreetly excused herself to go buy me a Christmas present, so I went on one of the fair ground rides. The ride I went on was one of those spinny round upside down whirly things. But while I waited at the top for the opposite side to be loaded I had a great view of the skyline of London, which I got a photo of before being launched forward and around and around in spew inducing rhythm. Luckily the chili con carne I had at a pub earlier in the day was quite stable by this time.
Prue and I really wanted to go see a movie, especially Avatar. There are several cinemas in the Trafalgar Square area, but one incredibly shit thing about London is the price of Cinema tickets. For Prue and I to see Avatar in Trafalgar Square it would cost us £14.00 each. Twenty eight cussing dollars! Each! We weren't upset to find it was booked out anyway, and as the next show wasn't until after 7pm we decided to head back to the Hostel.
London's Double Decker buses aren't as awesome as I thought they'd be. They're better. Sure the old ones look cool with their rear entry platform and the weird nose, but they're slow and noisy. The modern ones are comfortable and umm... modern. After each stop a display shows the next station and a ladies voice announces the same thing. Strangely she sounds like a more British version of the Eve voice from Command and Conquer ("Our base is under attack!") that we have on Melbourne's modern Met Trains.
We made it back to the hostel and Prue braved the stairs, I couldn't be bothered so I asked reception about nearby cinemas. There was one closer to us that was a bit cheaper so I went into the lounge and used the internet to find out if Avatar was on. it was, and it started in 45mins. This meant I had to run up the stairs of death, grab Prue, and go. We made it to the Cinemas and bought tickets that were still quite expensive and with twenty five minutes to spare we realised we hadn't eaten dinner yet.
We legged it up to the McDonald's and had our first UK Maccas. Despite a few subtle differences it was much the same as home, the numerical value on the prices were almost the same, only here it is in pounds, which makes Maccas a cussing expensive option. At almost ten dollars for a meal each, it blew away any hopes I had of getting popcorn with the movie.
Avatar was pretty awesome, though it has nothing to do with traveling, I feel the need to mention that it was a great film, and I think we'll have to go and see it again in 3D before it finishes, it is still showing about ten times a day over here. We haven't been back to the cinemas since then. Our new local pub is haunted each night by an Asian dude who sells pirated DVDs of all the latest films. Sure it is illegal, but £14.00 cinema tickets should be illegal too!
But consider this; if we do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars, the least we ought to do is go directly to jail.
Our second day in London we did some stuff and looked around and yeah yeah yeah... That's about all I have at the moment. Not really, just need a starting point and things tend to flow together after that, bear with me...
Breakfast... The Hostel we were staying in was pretty fantastic, we had booked a private room for the five nights while we were staying there, this meant we didn't have to climb into bunks in the dark, we had a nice and comfy double bed, and a bit of privacy for Christmas. The draw back to this being the four flights of stairs we had to climb.
Four flights of stairs may not seem like much, especially to us as we had become accustom to the Asian guesthouse style of building narrow buildings that always have the cheaper rooms up near the top. But at our hostel, an unknown ancient evil resided in the stairwell. By the time you reached the first landing your legs felt like lead, at the second landing a miserable plant sat wilting and dying, its life obviously drained by the negative energy inhabiting the stairs. At the third landing the stairs got steeper and narrower. The hike up the last two floors should have come with rock climbing gear.
In the morning we went down to breakfast, and hoped that we wouldn't have a reason to go back to our room for something. Breakfast was basic but very handy. Bread, butter, spreads, cereal, milk, tea, coffee, cheese and ham were all laid out for the taking. They even had Coco-Pops! Some of the people were making sandwiches for lunch from the breakfast spread, we weren't that organised and/or hadn't tired of the novelty of pub meals yet. There was a large well stocked kitchen in the hostel, so we made a mental note to buy some food and at some point start cutting costs.
Watered and fed, we were ready to head out and explore, unfortunately one of us (It was Prue!) found a reason to go back to our room, so with a sigh that resembled a whimper one of us (It was me!) dragged themselves up the dreaded evil stairway of doom and destruction...Then we went out and did some stuff and looked around and yeah yeah yeah... Damn! Need visual cues.
We headed down to Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and then down to Trafalgar Square taking photos and wandering around with that stupid touristy look on our faces that screamed "fresh from boat" We had arrived on the set of a life size game of Monopoly, unfortunately we didn't have enough available cash to purchase any property, which meant we couldn't build hotels, and we struggled to find the way to pass go to collect our $200.00, or is it £110.00?
Cliches aside it was really amazing walking around the stunning architecture and landmarks. You couldn't help but feel that you had been there before, even though it is probably just from seeing it in a movie or on TV. Being in London really makes you feel like you are in the heart of the world, or at least one of the other main organs. It has a sense of importance about it, that makes you realise how much influence the place has over the rest of the world.
London is full of English people! Believe it or not they are everywhere, at first we were walking around thinking "Jeez there is a lot of English people around", then we realised, "Duh, it is England". Still the accents are hilarious. We find ourselves walking around listening to people talk and snickering about their accents. Especially the school kids, not the ruff looking ones that swear all the time, but the ones that obviously go to Private Schools and have etiquette tutors. They're very formal and civilised and you have to stop yourself repeating their conversation back in their accent, or people in white coats might chase you with nets.
We walked down past the fortress entry of Downing St, where I picked out a few easy roosts for a sniper to have a shot, then we went past Westminster Abbey, but it costs money to go inside so we decided to leave that for another day never. Then we marvelled at the iconic Big Ben, which is reasonably big, but could have been bigger in my opinion.
We half crossed the bridge to get a look at the Thames, which I learnt is pronounce "Tems", thus proving the point that English people have weird English. Worcestershire is "Woostashire", Leicester is Lester, Undies are Pants and Pants are Trousers.
On the way back we passed the Horse Guards who were doing their afternoon parade, which wasn't very parade like. The men lined up and stood very very still until one guy came strutting out, yelled at them and then looked each of them up and down before yelling at them again to march off in a neat line. Then he repeated it with the horses.
We found our way back up to Trafalgar square, where Prue discreetly excused herself to go buy me a Christmas present, so I went on one of the fair ground rides. The ride I went on was one of those spinny round upside down whirly things. But while I waited at the top for the opposite side to be loaded I had a great view of the skyline of London, which I got a photo of before being launched forward and around and around in spew inducing rhythm. Luckily the chili con carne I had at a pub earlier in the day was quite stable by this time.
Prue and I really wanted to go see a movie, especially Avatar. There are several cinemas in the Trafalgar Square area, but one incredibly shit thing about London is the price of Cinema tickets. For Prue and I to see Avatar in Trafalgar Square it would cost us £14.00 each. Twenty eight cussing dollars! Each! We weren't upset to find it was booked out anyway, and as the next show wasn't until after 7pm we decided to head back to the Hostel.
London's Double Decker buses aren't as awesome as I thought they'd be. They're better. Sure the old ones look cool with their rear entry platform and the weird nose, but they're slow and noisy. The modern ones are comfortable and umm... modern. After each stop a display shows the next station and a ladies voice announces the same thing. Strangely she sounds like a more British version of the Eve voice from Command and Conquer ("Our base is under attack!") that we have on Melbourne's modern Met Trains.
We made it back to the hostel and Prue braved the stairs, I couldn't be bothered so I asked reception about nearby cinemas. There was one closer to us that was a bit cheaper so I went into the lounge and used the internet to find out if Avatar was on. it was, and it started in 45mins. This meant I had to run up the stairs of death, grab Prue, and go. We made it to the Cinemas and bought tickets that were still quite expensive and with twenty five minutes to spare we realised we hadn't eaten dinner yet.
We legged it up to the McDonald's and had our first UK Maccas. Despite a few subtle differences it was much the same as home, the numerical value on the prices were almost the same, only here it is in pounds, which makes Maccas a cussing expensive option. At almost ten dollars for a meal each, it blew away any hopes I had of getting popcorn with the movie.
Avatar was pretty awesome, though it has nothing to do with traveling, I feel the need to mention that it was a great film, and I think we'll have to go and see it again in 3D before it finishes, it is still showing about ten times a day over here. We haven't been back to the cinemas since then. Our new local pub is haunted each night by an Asian dude who sells pirated DVDs of all the latest films. Sure it is illegal, but £14.00 cinema tickets should be illegal too!
But consider this; if we do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars, the least we ought to do is go directly to jail.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Long Walk
After leaving our bags at with the hostel we decided not to waste our first day in the city. We headed back through the freezing streets and went back into the train station. We had thought about it, and decided that we would go to BUNAC (the company that we organised our visa’s with) and let them know we were here.
We consulted the huge and confusing tube map and figured out where we needed to go. We climbed on the circle line train and caught it to Edgware station and then changed to another circle line train that went the rest of the way past King Cross St Pancras to Farringdon. We swiped our Oyster Cards in their cute Ikea pouches and walked out of the station. It took us about 2.5 seconds to realise that we were completely turned around.
We’d heard people say that if you want to learn London don’t catch the tube. It turns out they were completely right. Travelling underground on a train plays havoc with your internal compass. We finally figured out where we had to go and turned left and headed up the road to find Bowling Green Lane. When we finally found it we went in and introduced ourselves to the girls in the office.
BUNAC has a great room filled with computers, printers, job boards and housing ad boards and we took it all in as they showed us around. We had decided to do our introduction talk with them after we came back from our holidays in Scotland and Europe. We partook in their free internet and then asked for a nice way to get down to Oxford St. We had been told there was some great shopping and we needed a few cheap basics, like clothes designed for hostile temperatures. The girl pointed out a shop called Primark and took the directions she’d given us as well as some maps of the central area of London. We’d killed an hour or so hanging around and BUNAC and it was even sunny when we headed out.
We walked for a little while and then realised that it was almost 1pm and we still hadn’t had any lunch. We came to a pub that looked fairly local and walked in to try out our first pub meal. In the end I chose the pie with vegies and chips and loved it. Drew didn’t have quite as much luck, but we were both happy to find that drinks were cheaper here (cheaper than Australia, not SE Asia). Drew had a beer while I had a Hot Chocolate hoping it would warm me up from the inside out. The sun might have been out, but you couldn’t even feel its warmth on your face. It was a most disconcerting feeling.
We finished our lunch and continued walking, following the directions till we found New Oxford St. We turned right and headed up a street that had a few office buildings and as we walked gradually more shops. We looked in the Carphone Warehouse (which doesn’t sell carphones, they do however sell mobile phones) and ended up heading to the old faithful Vodafone. We both picked up a sim and some credit and headed off.
The further along Oxford St we got the more crazy it got. There are hundreds of thousands of people all trying to shop there (Ok, it was three days before Christmas). I like shopping, but I’d never seen a crush like it. There are so many chain stores that by the time we found our way at the other end of Oxford St proper we had seen up to 6 of each chain, seriously!
We found the shop Primark that had been recommended to us and walked in to find a whole new world of cheap mass produced clothes. On the plus side compared to Australian stores they hadn’t seemed to have sacrificed quality along with the cheaper prices. We picked up some gloves and some long sleeve tops and after waiting in a line that wound half way around the store we escaped the craziness and made it to the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park.
At this point we’d be walking for about an two hours and the sun was starting to head to the horizon, that if I’m completely honest it hadn’t gotten far from anyway. We walked across the park watching people walk their dogs, which fell into two categories; normal dogs and dogs wearing clothes that probably cost more than anything I was wearing. We smiled and marvelled at the craziness of finding ourselves walking across a snow covered Hyde Park in the middle of London when we’d been in the heat of Bangkok just 24 hours before.
On the other side of the park there was a winter wonderland that had a whole lot of rides and an ice skating rink. We decided that we’d come back and explore it more when we hadn’t be walking for two and half hours and didn’t have sore feet. We walked back towards Queens Park Gate which is the gate nearest the hostel we were staying in. By the time we made it home we were completely buggered. Our feet hurt and we didn’t want to have to move again.
We checked in and almost cried when we found out that we’d be staying on the 4th floor. The forth floor in a hostel that was in a old building in Kensington! That meant that the last flight of stairs was almost a ladder for servants only! Ah, our poor feet. We headed upstairs and practically fell onto the bed, after our bad nights sleep on the plane the night before and the extreme time zone change we were knackered.
Unfortunately it was still early, we’d promised ourselves to stay up until 9pm to adjust to the time zone. There was also the issue of dinner. We trudged back down the stairs knowing that meant we would have to go back up them later, and inquired at reception for local restaurants. The nearest pub was around the corner, a really nice old typical English pub with a slight air of snobbery given the neighbourhood. We ordered the Sunday Roast, which was dry and disappointing.
We headed back to the hostel and found a comfortable spot on the couches in the common room. Couches are pretty rare in Asia, where they tend to be made out of bamboo rather than big soft cushions. It was so relaxing to veg out in front of a TV and pretty soon we were nodding off. Once it was near enough to 9pm to make excuses to ourselves, we gathered up our spare energy and climbed the stairs to bed.
We consulted the huge and confusing tube map and figured out where we needed to go. We climbed on the circle line train and caught it to Edgware station and then changed to another circle line train that went the rest of the way past King Cross St Pancras to Farringdon. We swiped our Oyster Cards in their cute Ikea pouches and walked out of the station. It took us about 2.5 seconds to realise that we were completely turned around.
We’d heard people say that if you want to learn London don’t catch the tube. It turns out they were completely right. Travelling underground on a train plays havoc with your internal compass. We finally figured out where we had to go and turned left and headed up the road to find Bowling Green Lane. When we finally found it we went in and introduced ourselves to the girls in the office.
BUNAC has a great room filled with computers, printers, job boards and housing ad boards and we took it all in as they showed us around. We had decided to do our introduction talk with them after we came back from our holidays in Scotland and Europe. We partook in their free internet and then asked for a nice way to get down to Oxford St. We had been told there was some great shopping and we needed a few cheap basics, like clothes designed for hostile temperatures. The girl pointed out a shop called Primark and took the directions she’d given us as well as some maps of the central area of London. We’d killed an hour or so hanging around and BUNAC and it was even sunny when we headed out.
We walked for a little while and then realised that it was almost 1pm and we still hadn’t had any lunch. We came to a pub that looked fairly local and walked in to try out our first pub meal. In the end I chose the pie with vegies and chips and loved it. Drew didn’t have quite as much luck, but we were both happy to find that drinks were cheaper here (cheaper than Australia, not SE Asia). Drew had a beer while I had a Hot Chocolate hoping it would warm me up from the inside out. The sun might have been out, but you couldn’t even feel its warmth on your face. It was a most disconcerting feeling.
We finished our lunch and continued walking, following the directions till we found New Oxford St. We turned right and headed up a street that had a few office buildings and as we walked gradually more shops. We looked in the Carphone Warehouse (which doesn’t sell carphones, they do however sell mobile phones) and ended up heading to the old faithful Vodafone. We both picked up a sim and some credit and headed off.
The further along Oxford St we got the more crazy it got. There are hundreds of thousands of people all trying to shop there (Ok, it was three days before Christmas). I like shopping, but I’d never seen a crush like it. There are so many chain stores that by the time we found our way at the other end of Oxford St proper we had seen up to 6 of each chain, seriously!
We found the shop Primark that had been recommended to us and walked in to find a whole new world of cheap mass produced clothes. On the plus side compared to Australian stores they hadn’t seemed to have sacrificed quality along with the cheaper prices. We picked up some gloves and some long sleeve tops and after waiting in a line that wound half way around the store we escaped the craziness and made it to the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park.
At this point we’d be walking for about an two hours and the sun was starting to head to the horizon, that if I’m completely honest it hadn’t gotten far from anyway. We walked across the park watching people walk their dogs, which fell into two categories; normal dogs and dogs wearing clothes that probably cost more than anything I was wearing. We smiled and marvelled at the craziness of finding ourselves walking across a snow covered Hyde Park in the middle of London when we’d been in the heat of Bangkok just 24 hours before.
On the other side of the park there was a winter wonderland that had a whole lot of rides and an ice skating rink. We decided that we’d come back and explore it more when we hadn’t be walking for two and half hours and didn’t have sore feet. We walked back towards Queens Park Gate which is the gate nearest the hostel we were staying in. By the time we made it home we were completely buggered. Our feet hurt and we didn’t want to have to move again.
We checked in and almost cried when we found out that we’d be staying on the 4th floor. The forth floor in a hostel that was in a old building in Kensington! That meant that the last flight of stairs was almost a ladder for servants only! Ah, our poor feet. We headed upstairs and practically fell onto the bed, after our bad nights sleep on the plane the night before and the extreme time zone change we were knackered.
Unfortunately it was still early, we’d promised ourselves to stay up until 9pm to adjust to the time zone. There was also the issue of dinner. We trudged back down the stairs knowing that meant we would have to go back up them later, and inquired at reception for local restaurants. The nearest pub was around the corner, a really nice old typical English pub with a slight air of snobbery given the neighbourhood. We ordered the Sunday Roast, which was dry and disappointing.
We headed back to the hostel and found a comfortable spot on the couches in the common room. Couches are pretty rare in Asia, where they tend to be made out of bamboo rather than big soft cushions. It was so relaxing to veg out in front of a TV and pretty soon we were nodding off. Once it was near enough to 9pm to make excuses to ourselves, we gathered up our spare energy and climbed the stairs to bed.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Chapter 6: London Calling
After a long and not great flight we flew into London through the clouds and rain. We walked off the plane and made our way to the immigration desks. We lined up and gave our passports to the guy at the desk and he let us into the country, we wanted to stand there and talk to him just to be able to speak English without having to battle language barriers. He obviously didn’t have the same yearning and even though our visas had already been active for about a month we were waved into the country. We walked down into the bag collection, found our bags and made our way to the Customs area.
It was at this point that we knew we’d like the UK. We walked up to a door that led to Customs and were waylaid by airport worker. He asked us where we’d come from and we said “Bangkok”, just assuming he was curious, he then waved us towards the EU arrivals lane. We looked at the sign saying that EU arrivals and Drew turned and asked “is Thailand a part of the EU?” in a laughing voice. The guy topped Drew by blithely saying “oh yeah, we annexed them years ago”. Laughing we headed through the door and again found ourselves on the outside of the airport immigration doors walking straight out into the crowd and into London.
We walked about 15 steps before I asked Drew where he’s put the paperwork about the hostel. He looked and me and said “I thought you printed out the details about where we had to go?” Bugger, after some scrambling we located a help desk, who couldn‘t help, as they couldn‘t locate our Hostel on their system (they didn‘t even have google). So we headed toward the trains where we found an internet café along the way. We had to wait until they were open as it wasn’t even 7am yet, but a short while later we had our Hostel’s address, a map of the tube and updated our face book status to say we’d arrived safely.
We headed down to the tube and bought both of us an oyster card. This is like Melbourne’s new ‘Myki’ except that it really works. You fill it up with pre-paid credit and scan it whenever you get on a bus or enter and exit a station, in most cases it is cheaper than buying a ticket, and much, much easier. We jumped onto the tube and headed into Gloucester Rd tube station.
We have used the word “surreal” quite a lot on our travels, mostly for lack of a better word. But at various points we reach a moment of self awareness that seems fitting to the word surreal, of course the train wasn’t made out of bacon and the scenery wasn’t upside down, but we found ourselves realising that we were in a completely different part of the world experiencing fantastic things foreign to our senses. As the train pulled out of the long tunnel of the tube and headed overground, we were presented with rows and rows of English houses, all identical to the next, but slightly varied from street to street. Vivid memories of every British television show came to us with a single thought of “Oh my god it actually does look like that?”.
We had travelled from Bangkok, 35 degree tropical heat with humidity nearing the full 100 percent. Now the landscape was buried in a thick layer of pure white snow, it covered the rooftops, the gardens, the fences and even covered the pipes running along the walls of the train line. Icicles hung menacingly from gutters and pipes and every single tree was a mere skeleton, devoid of any foliage and dusted with a layer of icing sugar like snow. We pulled in at the first topside station, with a beep the doors opened and we were smashed in the face with an arctic fist of air. It was cold outside.
We arrived at Gloucester Road and headed out of the tube into the cold morning air. We had dressed appropriately for the weather, but our tropical tanned bodies struggled to adjust and we trudged our way to the hostel muttering things about the cold while marvelling at the grand buildings surrounding us. We had arrived in London, no, we had arrived in the expensive part of London. Thankfully our hostel didn’t carry any of the air of snobbery of it neighbours, the building was as grand as any other in the street, but the atmosphere when we stepped through the door was laid back, relaxed and greeted us in an Australian accent.
It was at this point that we knew we’d like the UK. We walked up to a door that led to Customs and were waylaid by airport worker. He asked us where we’d come from and we said “Bangkok”, just assuming he was curious, he then waved us towards the EU arrivals lane. We looked at the sign saying that EU arrivals and Drew turned and asked “is Thailand a part of the EU?” in a laughing voice. The guy topped Drew by blithely saying “oh yeah, we annexed them years ago”. Laughing we headed through the door and again found ourselves on the outside of the airport immigration doors walking straight out into the crowd and into London.
We walked about 15 steps before I asked Drew where he’s put the paperwork about the hostel. He looked and me and said “I thought you printed out the details about where we had to go?” Bugger, after some scrambling we located a help desk, who couldn‘t help, as they couldn‘t locate our Hostel on their system (they didn‘t even have google). So we headed toward the trains where we found an internet café along the way. We had to wait until they were open as it wasn’t even 7am yet, but a short while later we had our Hostel’s address, a map of the tube and updated our face book status to say we’d arrived safely.
We headed down to the tube and bought both of us an oyster card. This is like Melbourne’s new ‘Myki’ except that it really works. You fill it up with pre-paid credit and scan it whenever you get on a bus or enter and exit a station, in most cases it is cheaper than buying a ticket, and much, much easier. We jumped onto the tube and headed into Gloucester Rd tube station.
We have used the word “surreal” quite a lot on our travels, mostly for lack of a better word. But at various points we reach a moment of self awareness that seems fitting to the word surreal, of course the train wasn’t made out of bacon and the scenery wasn’t upside down, but we found ourselves realising that we were in a completely different part of the world experiencing fantastic things foreign to our senses. As the train pulled out of the long tunnel of the tube and headed overground, we were presented with rows and rows of English houses, all identical to the next, but slightly varied from street to street. Vivid memories of every British television show came to us with a single thought of “Oh my god it actually does look like that?”.
We had travelled from Bangkok, 35 degree tropical heat with humidity nearing the full 100 percent. Now the landscape was buried in a thick layer of pure white snow, it covered the rooftops, the gardens, the fences and even covered the pipes running along the walls of the train line. Icicles hung menacingly from gutters and pipes and every single tree was a mere skeleton, devoid of any foliage and dusted with a layer of icing sugar like snow. We pulled in at the first topside station, with a beep the doors opened and we were smashed in the face with an arctic fist of air. It was cold outside.
We arrived at Gloucester Road and headed out of the tube into the cold morning air. We had dressed appropriately for the weather, but our tropical tanned bodies struggled to adjust and we trudged our way to the hostel muttering things about the cold while marvelling at the grand buildings surrounding us. We had arrived in London, no, we had arrived in the expensive part of London. Thankfully our hostel didn’t carry any of the air of snobbery of it neighbours, the building was as grand as any other in the street, but the atmosphere when we stepped through the door was laid back, relaxed and greeted us in an Australian accent.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Back to the Beginning
**WARNING**
The following blog post may contain sexual references, adult themes and traces of nuts.
The following blog post may contain sexual references, adult themes and traces of nuts.
We arrived back in Bangkok on the train very early in the morning. After being woken up and changing into some fresh clothes behind our privacy curtain we made our way off the train into the train station that we’d left from 2 months earlier. We walked outside and looked for a Taxi and after not finding someone who knew the bridge we wanted to be dropped off at we decided to try a tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk’s were a welcome relief after so long away and it was nice to negotiate a price again and be able to tell our driver the way we wanted to go to get there. In the end we got a driver who took us straight there (at break-neck speeds) and was kind enough drop us off out the front of the 7/11 just near the hotel.
We walked/stumbled into Lamphu Tree Hotel and presented ourselves at the desk, it was about 7am. It was such a relief the be back and to have made it in one piece. I was so tired that I ended up dropping my bag and lying on one of the couches while Drew completed the check in. Luckily no one was in our room the night before and they let us check in early so we grabbed our bags and the one refugee bag that we had stored all our winter stuff in at the hotel while we travelled, and headed upstairs. Our room wasn’t on the top floor, but after a night on a train and an early wake up we dropped our stuff and had a sleep for a few hours. We got up at about 9am again and went downstairs to have some breakfast. After breakfast we walked back down to the boat ramp and paid our 15 baht and jumped on the overcrowded boat and headed downtown towards MBK. We had decided to do our winter shopping for Europe on the first day.
We figured we could have done it any of the 2 and a half days we had back in Bangkok, but we figured if we couldn’t find anything we had another day to try to find something. We entered MBK after catching the Sky Rail at about 11am. After walking around for about 2 hours and not really finding anything we decided to go item by item. That meant that first we looked for jeans and after about 2 hours and heaps of ‘not have your size’ we both finally found some jeans. Our budget had taken a hit though and now we had to find a jacket for me and a pair of shoes for Drew. We ended up getting me a Abercrombie and Fitch jacket at about the same price as a real one and this one was just a copy. By now it was about 5pm and we were both over bartering and trying to get good prices.
We still had to get Drew a pair of shoes seeing as the only ones he had were his semi closed in Teva’s. In the end it took us another 3 hours to find Drew’s shoes and we ended up with HiTec hiking boots because there was almost no other option. We left feeling like MBK was a horrible blight on the city of Bangkok and we were so over shopping. As soon as we got outside we felt better as the humid night air rolled over us. We caught a tuk-tuk back to the hotel and headed straight to bed. It was only about 10:30 at night but we felt as though we’d been shopping for days.
We woke up and had breakfast at a leisurely pace the next morning. Seeing as we’d bought all the winter clothes we needed we headed to explore some parts of the city that we hadn’t seen before. We jumped in a tuk-tuk and headed for China Town. The tuk-tuk dropped us off on a random corner in downtown Bangkok and we picked a direction and started walking down the street. We crossed the road and made our way into the winding mass of market stalls.
China Town sold everything from toiletries and food to clothes and household items. The smells as you walked around were a lot more potent as we walked through the now closing market. We ended up buying some cheap and dodgy gloves that would tie us over until we could get some proper ones in the UK and then headed back out of the market.
Over the course of the last two months I again and again met people who said we had to go to the sex shows at Pat Pong in Bangkok. I had been so against it when we first arrived that I couldn’t believe that by the end I was convinced that I had to at least stick my head in and see some sort of show. We jumped in a tuk-tuk and headed to Pat Pong and I was so nervous and really didn’t want to be there. Drew on the other hand couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about.
We found ourselves at a bar watching the market in the middle of the street set up. Drew had been befriended by a local guy and we knew it was some kind of scam, but Drew was happy to just chat to him. I on the other hand watched girl after girl walk past going into sleazy venues that were just beginning to set up for the night.
In the end Drew got me up and we followed ‘Mr Bang’ to an Australian bar! My god, they were everywhere! We went in and had a few boring drinks while Drew had an animated discussion with Mr Bang about his time in the Thailand Army. After about half an hour Mr Bang led us to a club and we were ushered inside and given seat and bought some drinks. We waited and sat around. In the end I ended up having to go to the toilet and sharing it with half naked women putting on layers and layers of makeup.
I made my way back to Drew and sat down asking if we could just leave. It was as we were thinking that might be a good idea as there were even more girls sitting around where we were kneeling up looking in the mirrors behind the chairs putting on makeup too. There was a matronly woman who was not performing sitting with her daughter and doing the paperwork. It felt like we’d got there way too early.
In the end the girls started performing, they all walked up on stage, their hands together bowing to each of the girls on stage and the picture of the King. They spent about 5 mins naked doing a man dance, moving back and forwards, around before the first girl started performing. All the girls were quite old by Thai standard, which means that they look about 25 instead of 15. There were girls that pulled strings out of their private areas that had sharp needles attached every inch or so and the string turned out to be about 5 metres long.
Not to be toped, girls followed with, smoking cigarettes, shooting bananas out onto the stage, bursting balloons with darts from about 4 metres distance, removing ribbon about 10 metres long and so on. In the end it was like going to the circus. Everyone was right about that, you don’t watch the girls in a stripper way, you watch them perform amazing feats and just have to clap at the end. We decided we’d watched enough and got ready to pay and leave.
This is when the girls and the matronly women descended. They tried to charge up more than we’d agreed for the drinks and then even though it shouldn’t have they tried to charge us for seeing the show and for ladies drinks which someone had brought over earlier and we’d sent back because we didn’t want them. Thankfully we’d been in Vietnam and Drew was able to cut through the scam that Mr Bang had laughingly walked us into. Drew grabbed the pen that they’d used to write the bill and cross out some of the things and change the prices on the drinks.
Thankfully Drew can be rather intimidating and in the end they let us go with what we thought we should have paid. It was the craziest thing I’d done while on holidays and I was impressed that I did it. Mr Bang gave Drew his card… Maybe just in case he wanted to be scammed again or attempted to be scammed. We headed back to Khaosan Rd and relaxed in the place that we once thought was the sleaziest place we’d ever been. It was now a haven and Drew went to have a relaxing beer and I went to grab what would be my last $5 for 1 hour proper Thai massage. We headed back to the hotel and slept our last night in Bangkok.
The last day in Bangkok we slept in and had a late breakfast and skyped our parents to say a last hello before we headed off to the UK. We wandered down Khaosan Rd and posted most of our summer clothes home and walked around and did some last minute shopping for some T-shirts and other miscellaneous items. We had some lunch and watched new backpackers wander down the street with wide eyes and it made us smile knowingly.
We headed back to the hotel for a last swim and as we had a free 4pm late check out we went back to our room, had a shower and got the last of our clothes organised, then took them downstairs and put them in the store again. We headed back down Khaosan Rd one last time and grabbed some dinner and then came back and changed into our winter clothes., sweating in the tropical heat We jumped into our Taxi and headed out the very busy road to the airport. It ended up taking ages because of the abnormally busy roads but thankfully the taxi had aircon for comfort in our winter gear.
We got into the airport which is an amazing new building of glass and steel. We walked to our checkin desk and lined up. When we got to the front we found out that we had been separated for the flight. It’s times like these that the two years of acting I studied really kicks in. I immediately started telling the guy that I was terrified of flying and I was meant to have an isle seat and my husband was meant to be sitting next to me. The guy tried to give me the usual spiel and I abruptly started to get teary eyed and guilt him into fixing it. He called his manager and in the end we got the middle aisle and the seat next to it and no one was seated next to Drew in the middle so we had three seats to spread across.
The flight was sadly not the best, the hostesses were so put out if you asked for some water that you felt you were interrupting them. The flight was really dry and as soon as we sat down they walked down the aisle spraying a spray that was meant to kill any germs as was required by the UK. We winged our way into London, the temperature dropping from a balmy 35 C plunging down to a -2C. We had made it.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Snakes on a Prue.
We walked out of our bum massage feeling like new men, which was a little awkward as Prue is actually a woman, either way, we were walking with a new zest. We headed to the Chiang Mai night market, deciding to save our zesty walking for later, we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk. Arriving at the Night Market we were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place, it is massive. The markets stretch along four blocks and are two blocks deep even going inside some of the buildings. At the same time we where overwhelmed by another sensation, hunger.
As sad as it is to admit it, but to our defence there had been a long time between drinks for us and the global food machine. There were absolutely none of them anywhere in Vietnam, and if they were in Cambodia or Laos, we never saw them or ate at them. Nearly two months since indulging at Khao Sahn Rd, we let ourselves give in to the dark side of cravings, walked straight past the market food vendors and their plethora of exotic culinary delights and pushed through the golden arch fronted double glass doors into McComfort Food.
Despite the massive size of the markets, every other stall sells the ‘same same’ crap as the one six doors down. Most of it is the generic mass produced stuff you get in all of the markets throughout Asia with the occasional stall selling local arts and crafts. Although having said that, every time we visit the markets we always find a shipping container worth of stuff we wish we could buy, we curse our backpacks which seem to grow fatter each time we repack them despite our inability to buy anything. So we promise again to return another day, possibly towing a trailer, then buy ourselves clothing and write it off as necessary equipment.
The markets closing around us we head back to Julies, exhausted after a massive day. Prue slipped off to bed to read and I curled up on a cushion in the communal area with a beer or two and channelled some blog energy from a few weeks past (We were only about two weeks behind at that point). Distracted by a Thai movie on television, I was bemused to see that Thai censorship laws involved blurring a gun when it was pointed in a man’s face and more humorously blurring the underpants of a fat teenage boy getting changed from his jeans into shorts. Julie’s has an honesty system beer fridge where you take a beer and write it in the book for your room. After the beer fridge was locked for the night, I went to bed.
In the morning we suffered another bad Julie’s breakfast, picked up our CD of off-road tour photos, dropped our bags for storage and headed out. First stop an internet café to dump the CD photos onto USB as our Netbook doesn’t have a CD drive, making the CD no more than a coaster to us. Walking out of the internet café we found a cheap Tuk-Tuk who would take us to a place called ‘Tiger Kingdom’ where we could do a bit more Tiger hugging, something I think we both thought was pretty awesome the first time.
Tiger Kingdom was a lot more upper class and fancy than the Tiger Temple we had been to earlier in our trip. Tiger Kingdom served gourmet food, had polished wood and pastel coloured furnishings and the Tiger’s roamed around in nicely manicured enclosures, the large ones in a central viewing area set a level below in the middle of the dinning areas. Given the décor it was no surprise to find that Tiger Kingdom was pricy, we were already counting pennies nearing the edge of our budget and with four days left. We considered leaving, then decided against it, stuff it we want to hug Tigers!
Incidentally the Tigers were actually quite cheap, but we had become so used to paying the local prices that while at the time it seemed expensive, in reality it was only about $15 each for us to hug some form of Tiger. Looking back now, after being in Europe for more than three weeks, I wish I still considered $15 expensive. Prue choose the hug-a-cub option, I chose to hug the big bastards. The cubs were super cute, as a non paying customer I had to stand outside and watch Prue petting and playing with the little cubs, of course when I say “little” I’m talking about something the size of a Labrador, a Labrador with razor sharp teeth and talons for claws. Cute, yes. Dangerous, definitely.
My tigers were the ones in the middle enclosure surrounded by the dining area. On the way there Prue was stalked by one of the big cats who followed her right around its enclosure watching her with creepy menace in it’s eyes. At my enclosure Prue went back to the dining area to get a photographic vantage point and I was led by a very large local man into the enclosure where I sat and patted two tigers, while one of them growled and stirred, making the large local guy move to place himself between the Tiger and me as quick as if he’d dropped a doughnut. Then I moved over near a small pool where another Tiger was jumping around chasing a giant cat-toy on a stick splashing water all over us, most of it went on the large local guy, but I guess he had a lot more surface area to wet.
Outside of the Tiger-Kingdom we thought about going up the road to the Snake-Palace or the Monkey-Castle (not their real names) but we were running out of time as our train to Bangkok was due to leave at 4pm and it was nearly 2pm. Heading to the Tuk-Tuk I spied a PR man from the Snake-Palace who had a small basket with a couple of vipers sitting on top of it. I had already tried on a pair of vipers earlier in the day while standing outside having a cigarette. Prue however, I had not seen holding a live snake, not ever.
As it so happens, there is a good reason for this, Prue is genuinely shit-scared of snakes, as was evident in the inability for the Snake man and I to convince Prue to hold a snake. Eventually the Snake Man distracted Prue with a snake in one hand and swiftly coiled the other snake around her arm. The range of facial expressions from Prue were absolutely priceless, one photo I took captures a still image of the essence of Prue’s thoughts, from “Oh my god! Get it off” to “Aaargh it is slimy” then “Hey this is kinda cool…no wait IT’S MOVING!!!”. It was the first time Prue had ever held a snake, I wonder if it was also the last. Not if I have a say in it.
We found our Tuk-Tuk man waiting patiently in the car park, and headed back to town. Back at Julie’s Guest House we paid our driver and asked him to wait awhile. When we returned half an hour later he was gone, but we conned another Tuk-Tuk driver by lowering our original quote to see if he’d honour it, he grudgingly accepted and we were whisked through the traffic to arrive at the station with about ten minutes to spare.
The overnight sleeper train was nothing like the ones we had in Vietnam. Instead of individual cabins with four bunks, we found that the sleeping pods were not yet assembled, instead large berths of spacious front and back facing chairs lined the edged of the length of the train, almost like a normal train, despite the frame work of ladders and storage shelves in the aisles. Prue and I both had top bunks so sat on either side of the train, but no one sat opposite so we were able to spread out and swap seats. Given that the bottom bunks were booked out when we bought our tickets we figured more people would climb aboard further down the line.
The train was pretty nice, we were offered a menu to choose dinner and drinks, then when the food was on its way, the stewards made tables appear out of thin air (they were actually under the seats) then after a reasonable dinner they took them away, I wanted to keep my table, but was only able to stall for as long as it took to set up the bunks of the neighbouring berths. Like an Autobot the seats slid together and a pod dropped from the ceiling to reveal two sets of bunks, which were hastily and professionally assembled and then made.
In our top bunks Prue and I played humorous games of peek-a-boo over the tops of our privacy curtains while we relaxed and read. Eventually late in the night a couple of locals boarded the train and settled in the bunks below us. I made a mental note not to kick them in the head when I went to the toilet or for a cigarette. You can smoke between the carriages or in the toilets of trains in South East Asia. In Vietnam although the third class trains were non-smoking, most people still smoked in their seats. After dragging myself away from the book I was reading, I went to sleep, and actually slept quite comfortably.
Meanwhile the train powered on towards Bangkok, each kilometre closing the loop, completing our circle.
As sad as it is to admit it, but to our defence there had been a long time between drinks for us and the global food machine. There were absolutely none of them anywhere in Vietnam, and if they were in Cambodia or Laos, we never saw them or ate at them. Nearly two months since indulging at Khao Sahn Rd, we let ourselves give in to the dark side of cravings, walked straight past the market food vendors and their plethora of exotic culinary delights and pushed through the golden arch fronted double glass doors into McComfort Food.
Despite the massive size of the markets, every other stall sells the ‘same same’ crap as the one six doors down. Most of it is the generic mass produced stuff you get in all of the markets throughout Asia with the occasional stall selling local arts and crafts. Although having said that, every time we visit the markets we always find a shipping container worth of stuff we wish we could buy, we curse our backpacks which seem to grow fatter each time we repack them despite our inability to buy anything. So we promise again to return another day, possibly towing a trailer, then buy ourselves clothing and write it off as necessary equipment.
The markets closing around us we head back to Julies, exhausted after a massive day. Prue slipped off to bed to read and I curled up on a cushion in the communal area with a beer or two and channelled some blog energy from a few weeks past (We were only about two weeks behind at that point). Distracted by a Thai movie on television, I was bemused to see that Thai censorship laws involved blurring a gun when it was pointed in a man’s face and more humorously blurring the underpants of a fat teenage boy getting changed from his jeans into shorts. Julie’s has an honesty system beer fridge where you take a beer and write it in the book for your room. After the beer fridge was locked for the night, I went to bed.
In the morning we suffered another bad Julie’s breakfast, picked up our CD of off-road tour photos, dropped our bags for storage and headed out. First stop an internet café to dump the CD photos onto USB as our Netbook doesn’t have a CD drive, making the CD no more than a coaster to us. Walking out of the internet café we found a cheap Tuk-Tuk who would take us to a place called ‘Tiger Kingdom’ where we could do a bit more Tiger hugging, something I think we both thought was pretty awesome the first time.
Tiger Kingdom was a lot more upper class and fancy than the Tiger Temple we had been to earlier in our trip. Tiger Kingdom served gourmet food, had polished wood and pastel coloured furnishings and the Tiger’s roamed around in nicely manicured enclosures, the large ones in a central viewing area set a level below in the middle of the dinning areas. Given the décor it was no surprise to find that Tiger Kingdom was pricy, we were already counting pennies nearing the edge of our budget and with four days left. We considered leaving, then decided against it, stuff it we want to hug Tigers!
Incidentally the Tigers were actually quite cheap, but we had become so used to paying the local prices that while at the time it seemed expensive, in reality it was only about $15 each for us to hug some form of Tiger. Looking back now, after being in Europe for more than three weeks, I wish I still considered $15 expensive. Prue choose the hug-a-cub option, I chose to hug the big bastards. The cubs were super cute, as a non paying customer I had to stand outside and watch Prue petting and playing with the little cubs, of course when I say “little” I’m talking about something the size of a Labrador, a Labrador with razor sharp teeth and talons for claws. Cute, yes. Dangerous, definitely.
My tigers were the ones in the middle enclosure surrounded by the dining area. On the way there Prue was stalked by one of the big cats who followed her right around its enclosure watching her with creepy menace in it’s eyes. At my enclosure Prue went back to the dining area to get a photographic vantage point and I was led by a very large local man into the enclosure where I sat and patted two tigers, while one of them growled and stirred, making the large local guy move to place himself between the Tiger and me as quick as if he’d dropped a doughnut. Then I moved over near a small pool where another Tiger was jumping around chasing a giant cat-toy on a stick splashing water all over us, most of it went on the large local guy, but I guess he had a lot more surface area to wet.
Outside of the Tiger-Kingdom we thought about going up the road to the Snake-Palace or the Monkey-Castle (not their real names) but we were running out of time as our train to Bangkok was due to leave at 4pm and it was nearly 2pm. Heading to the Tuk-Tuk I spied a PR man from the Snake-Palace who had a small basket with a couple of vipers sitting on top of it. I had already tried on a pair of vipers earlier in the day while standing outside having a cigarette. Prue however, I had not seen holding a live snake, not ever.
As it so happens, there is a good reason for this, Prue is genuinely shit-scared of snakes, as was evident in the inability for the Snake man and I to convince Prue to hold a snake. Eventually the Snake Man distracted Prue with a snake in one hand and swiftly coiled the other snake around her arm. The range of facial expressions from Prue were absolutely priceless, one photo I took captures a still image of the essence of Prue’s thoughts, from “Oh my god! Get it off” to “Aaargh it is slimy” then “Hey this is kinda cool…no wait IT’S MOVING!!!”. It was the first time Prue had ever held a snake, I wonder if it was also the last. Not if I have a say in it.
We found our Tuk-Tuk man waiting patiently in the car park, and headed back to town. Back at Julie’s Guest House we paid our driver and asked him to wait awhile. When we returned half an hour later he was gone, but we conned another Tuk-Tuk driver by lowering our original quote to see if he’d honour it, he grudgingly accepted and we were whisked through the traffic to arrive at the station with about ten minutes to spare.
The overnight sleeper train was nothing like the ones we had in Vietnam. Instead of individual cabins with four bunks, we found that the sleeping pods were not yet assembled, instead large berths of spacious front and back facing chairs lined the edged of the length of the train, almost like a normal train, despite the frame work of ladders and storage shelves in the aisles. Prue and I both had top bunks so sat on either side of the train, but no one sat opposite so we were able to spread out and swap seats. Given that the bottom bunks were booked out when we bought our tickets we figured more people would climb aboard further down the line.
The train was pretty nice, we were offered a menu to choose dinner and drinks, then when the food was on its way, the stewards made tables appear out of thin air (they were actually under the seats) then after a reasonable dinner they took them away, I wanted to keep my table, but was only able to stall for as long as it took to set up the bunks of the neighbouring berths. Like an Autobot the seats slid together and a pod dropped from the ceiling to reveal two sets of bunks, which were hastily and professionally assembled and then made.
In our top bunks Prue and I played humorous games of peek-a-boo over the tops of our privacy curtains while we relaxed and read. Eventually late in the night a couple of locals boarded the train and settled in the bunks below us. I made a mental note not to kick them in the head when I went to the toilet or for a cigarette. You can smoke between the carriages or in the toilets of trains in South East Asia. In Vietnam although the third class trains were non-smoking, most people still smoked in their seats. After dragging myself away from the book I was reading, I went to sleep, and actually slept quite comfortably.
Meanwhile the train powered on towards Bangkok, each kilometre closing the loop, completing our circle.
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