Indo China 1

The next part of the journey was to be a guided tour through Indo China and began with quite a punishing travel schedule, or at least the combination of the travelling and the waiting made it so.

I got up around 7.30, and left for the airport at 1, for my flight at 3.30. A 4 hour flight from Dunedin to Brisbane, was followed by a 6 ½ hour wait in the airport for my connection to Kuala Lumpar, this flight was  8 ½ hours, finally 3 ½ hours in the airport followed by another 2 ½ hour flight to Bangkok.

 I very rarely sleep on planes, and certainly don’t even try in airports, therefore I was on the go for about 35 hours by the time I got to the hotel in Bangkok, complete with 36 degrees of Thai smog. Of course by now my NZ clock was telling me it was 6.30 pm, but the local time was about midday, so I had a few hours to have quick look about, shower etc, before the inaugural meeting of my tour group at 6pm and then me and my new chums all went out for food and a night on the tiles before the tour proper started the next morning.

My one initial reservation was that, certainly amongst the chaps, there appeared a slight lack of enthusiasm for beer, which was going to prove a bit tricky, I thought, but overall, my new travelling companions were, thankfully, a really nice bunch.
Two guys about the same age as me, a German, Udo, and no I didn’t mention the ‘ you know what’ – well at least not for the first hour!!-

 

 

and a Canadian, Marvin, (who was to be my roommate),
and yes I did speak slowly

.....and 5 girlies, 2 pairs of teenagers, Rachel, Steff, Sian and Alice and  and a twenty something Londoner, Anna, in the middle of a trip not unlike my own, who had already been through China, Oz and Nz on her own and was heading on to USA

 

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After meeting the girls, I presumed, that they might have overlooked the small print, or not had things explained to them, as surely they would not have chosen a tour with three old gits, but hey ho, we would have to see how things went.

To complete the party, our leader, Da, a charming Thai lady, who had an engaging and friendly manner and some very entertaining pronunciations of some of the English language, which on the whole, she spoke very well.

Our first day started with a walk through the backstreets of Chinatown, which was completely dominated by garages. Different streets seemed to specialise in different parts of vehicles and gearboxes, axles, clutches etc  were everywhere, but so was the noise of hammers, grinders and compressed air tools, the only obvious omissions from the scene were footwear and any shred of safety equipment.

 It was immediately reminiscent of Sri Lanka, the heat, humidity, swarms of people on mopeds and motorbikes, smells of street food, exhaust fumes and drains, and the constant badgering by people trying to sell you anything and everything ........ It was most certainly a world away from Dunedin.

We walked to the river and boarded a long, narrow boat, fitted with a colossal V8 engine attached to a tiny propeller at the end of a seven foot driveshaft and set off along the main river through Bangkok for a little bit of sightseeing.

After 20 minutes we turned into a series of smaller canals that took us through some of the residential areas of the city before rejoining the main drag and being let off at a huge temple complex.

Now I knew that this was an excursion around SE Asia where Buddhism was an extremely important part of life, I also knew in advance, after Sri Lanka, that there were going to be thousands of temples, statues, tombs etc on the tourist trail, and secretly I had  hoped  that, following a little break in NZ, it would have taken me more than the first visit to a temple to become simply  'Bhudda’d '- out, but no, it probably took all of fifteen minutes, or should I say 36 Bhuddas, two stupas and a temple.

 

I am well aware that it is hugely symbolic and an amazing show of not only devotion to a belief but also, in many cases, a stunning exhibition of craftsmanship and skill, but, as a non Bhuddist, let me just say it can become a bit samey when you get several hundred in the same room and I began to wish that instead of the standing, kneeling or reclining options it might be a change to see surfing Bhudda, hang gliding Bhudda or even Elvis Bhudda........uh huh ! (Check this out ... http://thisiselvsibuddha.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post.html  )

After a couple of hours of free time, that I used checking out the local beers and feasting on my second wonderful Thai green curry, it was back to the hotel to collect our gear, as the first objective was to get out of Thailand, so it was off to the train station for a night to remember on the sleeper!

We had been warned that the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was notorious for running late, but we were not prepared for a 5 hour delay to what was already a 13 hour journey, but we were told that the service also included a ‘disco carriage’ for our relaxation. Stringfellows it was not, rather a grubby restaurant car with some fairy lights and a crackling speaker that played cheesy music that was drowned out by the train noise everytime the door was opened. But it sold beer, gave the group a bit of time to get to know each other and passed a few, of the 18 hours before we all retired to our ‘luxury’ bunk beds  into which I managed to shoehorn myself for a few hours of intermittent, and unsurprisingly not very comfortable rest.

Chiang Mai is the cultural capital of Thailand, so we went shopping in the night market! but the next day, I explored it in a tuk-tuk, with a nice old chap called Dung, whilst others of the group went off to ride elephants, which I of course had done in Sri Lanka and to my surprise found several temples and a ............ oh yes ........ a temple

The final part of our time in Thailand was another long journey, 5 hours in minibus, although we got a couple of breaks and the chance to take in a few  more temples on the way, and one was particularly interesting as it was sort of a pop-art temple with some really weird images

After which we continued through mountainous narrow roads to a small border town where we overnighted in small wooden cabins.  More great food and a late night drink around the pool and then ....  we were treated to an incredibly violent electric storm, with possibly the loudest clap of thunder and most dramatic bolt of lightning I have ever witnessed, it was incredible and would remain a talking point for the whole trip.

We were now only a few miles from Laos and the next day would see us leave Thailand until we returned to Bangkok in another three weeks or so

The group had really bonded quite well and the strange mix worked, as far as I was concerned, we all had a good feeling about the tour but I was a little concerned about what might happen if the weather deteriorated as we were about to take on the Mekong river