I should have written this post yesterday for the headline to be true, but I only came up with it this morning and, in a George Dubbya war report type way, decided it was too brilliant not to use because of a thing like accuracy. I'm in Mui Ne on the south coast about 3 hours from Saigon, but I'm jumping on a bus in a few hours and will be there by 5pm. So I pick up the story leaving Hanoi a week ago.
It's a one hour flight down to Hue; about half way down the east coast. We catch the local bus number 17 from Hanoi to Noi Bai (the airport). Every hotelier and tour person we speak to says this will be very busy and take too long and ordinarily I'd listen, follow their advice and blow $10 on a taxi. But having had no problems with the number 17 last week when I met Amanda-Sue I adopt my traditional, arrogant position and do what I do best - ignore local advice and go with my own opinion. As it turns out they are all wrong and the bus journey is easier than any taxi journey(and you know I'll be using that little victory for weeks). The flight is an Airbus A321. Without me even asking the check-in girl puts me next to the emergency exit in an extended leg-room seat. She can only be about 5' so I must look freakishly tall. But the emergency exits in an A321 don't have windows and I'm forced to fly blind for the hour journey. I realise I'm not the one doing the flying and therefore, strictly speaking, don't require a window, but without one the plane seems even more like a coffin than normal. To add to my woes the captain is obviously a junior and a bit nervy. As the stewards and stewardesses start sorting drinks he shouts over the intercom for them to sit back down and buckle up as we are in the middle of a typhoon and everyone might die. I'm paraphrasing. But I could hear the sentiment in his voice.
Against Allah's will we land without incident. Hue is an old town that once was the capital of Vietnam. It has limited sights. The big draw is a citadel with the countries biggest flagpole. We can't get down to Hoi An until the morning so we have to go see this. It's much hotter than the North and we walk (and sweat) all the way. The inside of the citadel is very much like the outside. Roads, houses and shops continue as if an historic, ancient wall is just a hindrance to progress. There is, though, a museum with some rusty tanks and APVs in the courtyard. In front of every one is a sign telling of it's capture from the puppet soldiers in 1975. If they really were operated by puppets I think I could have captured them too.
The flagpole is reinforced concrete. I'd say it's not the most authentic or interesting thing to see in Hue, but it probably is.
A quick bus to Hoi An in the morning and it's like another world. This place is old french colonial and they have managed to preserve it's atmosphere. There isn't a great deal more to do, but just ambling around is nice enough. We organise a tour to My Son, an ancient temple complex a couple of hours away, but in my apathy at 8am I let Amanda-Sue experience that on her own. Apparently it's a lovely place, frequently referred to as the little brother of Angkor, Sukhothai and Bagan. But I've been to Bagan and Sukhothai and will be in Angkor next week so I can happily ignore their little brother.
It's then an overnight bus journey down to Nha Trang and on to Mui Ne. I've become soft with my many flights for long distances and as soon as I get on the bus I swear not to do another overnight. It's packed so we get two seats at the back. My chair is broken so doesn't recline, but the seat in front definitely isn't and reclines right into my lap (if I manage to get my legs out of the way in time - otherwise I just get brusied knees). It's a 6pm departure and so we assume there will be a stop for dinner a couple of hours into the journey. I'm not sure you could call it supper but we do pull into a petrol station where a corn seller is dispensing corn cobs that have been boiled for enough hours that all the flavour and nutrition has been leached out. It's valet service so the lady dispensing petrol puts the pump into the fuel tank and walks away. The majority of the passengers are standing around this pump smoking cheroot or cigarettes (it doesn't matter which, they can both ignite petrol). Since the petrol pump is unmanned when the pump drops out of the tank and starts spraying petrol over the side of the coach, the floor all around the coach and the people standing around nearby no one can work out how to turn it off. It is only by the grace of Vishnu that it seems to miss those smoking and only sprays those non-smokers munching their corn. It would perhaps been Vishnu's divine sense of irony had the non-smokers all gone up in flames. Although with a full tank of fuel and in a petrol station I guess if anyone had gone up we all would have suffered the consequences. Back on board I spend a sleepless night with my head millimetres away from the dandruff of the man in front. Amanda-Sue suffers with me, since I considerately check to see if she can sleep every half hour. So we roll into Nha Trang at 6.30am with a two hour break before we need to be on another coach to Mui Ne. The good spirit that has taken us this far seems to be absent along with our sleep and concious that my sarcasm and cynisicm aren't welcome I head to the beach to give Amanda-Sue some time to find it. Nha Trang is a big resort town and every step along the beach I'm relieved we aren't staying here. Big casinos, discos and high-rise hotels blot what would have been a beautiful beach. The vietnamese seem to love it though. This is the number one destination for internal tourism.
The 3 hour bus to Mui Ne turns into 6 hours. No one says why and there are no obvious delays en-route. I think it is just a 6 hour trip advertised as 3 to make foreigners more comfortable for the first 3 hours.
Mui Ne is a more desolate beach resort. It's a single road running along the coast for about 12km. The hotels and restaurants are spread out all the way along the road making it very difficult to walk around and check out where you want to stay. Not impossible though so as I settle down for a diet coke in a cafe in the middle with the bags I send Amanda-Sue off to find the best deal she can. I have been giving her haggling lessons and see this as the perfect chance for her to practice. She is under instructions to find an air-con room with en-suite, minibar, free internet and cable TV for no more than $2. We end up paying $20 but get everything bar the free internet. I'm obviously not a good teacher.
There is nothing in Mui Ne apart from a nice beach but that doesn't stop them setting up tours of local attractions. We sign up to a sunrise tour to go see the red sand-dunes, the white sand-dunes, the red canyon and the waterfall (I love waterfalls). The red and white sand-dunes are what you would expect. The red canyon is a miniature version of what you might expect if they used the word gully and the waterfall is just not even worth talking about.
So it's time to move on and get back to city life in Saigon. There is plenty there to look forward to. The war museum promises plenty of photos of American atrocities and at the CuChi tunnels I can shoot an AK-47. They have it fixed on a rotating pole though so I doubt I'll get any gooks. But $200 is a lot to these kids - I may be able to persuade one of them to take a bullet.
Friday, 20 July 2007
Saturday, 14 July 2007
Hanoi and North 'Nam
I am still in Hanoi, but contrary to what I assumed would happen I haven't actually been here for the last nine days. I managed to get out and about thanks to a combination of antibiotics and my incredibly high tolerance for pain. Amanda-Sue is still here and hasn't yet started complaining about me too much but I will start complaining about her soon - her idea of looking after me so far has involved palming me off on a hospital and buying me a banana.
It's Day 2 in Hanoi. I'm out of hospital and pumped full of antibiotics. The doctor says at this point I need a very strict diet. No meat, no dairy, no uncooked anything, no vegetables or fruit except bananas; basically I can't eat much. I assume, since my cellular make up is now 80% antibiotic I should be able to throw caution to the wind and eat anything from anywhere. Amanda-Sue doesn't let me. We book tickets to Sapa for the Saturday giving me a full two days in Hanoi to get better.
We meet Amanda's friend Zoe who is travelling the north of Vietnam and go out to a very exclusive Hanoi restaurant. The food has received rave reviews. I'm only allowed a canned drink. I sit there with a Sprite like the designated driver only in Vietnam the idea of a designated driver doesn't exist so I just get strange sympathetic looks from the waiting staff. The following day we get up early to go and say hello to Ho Chi Minh in his little mausoleum. But it closes at 9.15am a full hour before the Lonely Planet says. The more I travel the more I realise I could write a Lonely Planet. You don't actually need to visit anywhere and you don't need to get any of the actual facts right.
Our afternoon is spent in the Literary Museum which has a turtle pool (a big draw here). Turtles here, along with dragons, unicorns and pheonix, are spiritual animals and seeing one is considered lucky. That said, they also eat turtle - so it's not THAT lucky. And I've seen a few now; still ill and still miserable so I dispute their good fortune bringing abilities.
The train to Sapa is an overnight - usually 4 berth soft sleeper, but since we are both signed up members of the flashpacking club we upgrade to the only VIP cabin with just two beds. It doesn't matter though, sleep is impossible as the train tracks are so old the train struggles to stay on them most of the night. We arrive at 5am and have to wait until 10 for a bus to our "Eco-Lodge". I'm always skeptical of places with names like that. I assume Eco means cheap and we will be staying in a bamboo bivouwak. But this place is Danish and they have built proper bungalows on the top of a remote hill. The fittings are luxurious and the view up the Sapa valley is probably as good as it gets. We are only here one night - it's a chance for me to recharge and for Amanda-Sue to work on her bedside manner. The food up here is very traditional so naturally I'm not a fan, but I struggle on without complaint. It's supposed to be cold in the mountains, but it's not and we sleep with the doors and windows open letting every bug in without care as we have a mossie net. An hour later and somehow a cockroach has perched himself on the inside of the net very near my head. Cockroaches here are like the Great White in jaws. They carry vendettas and pursue their victims for miles. I recognise this one from Burma. He woke me up by crawling on my face there.
After the nightmares that ensue we trek down to the local village in the morning. It's a long way down and difficult to stay upright. Sights are the usual fayre - buffalos, rice paddies, locals in embroidered costumes. We are walking with a Danish 18 year old who is the cousin of the lodge manager and is spending five months here. He tells me how he has moved his bed to the middle of his room and sits all night with an aerosol can and lighter ready to open a can of flamethrowing whoop-ass on any insect he finds. I don't think he'll make five months. Before lunch we come across a waterfall and as is now traditional we swim in the lagoon. This waterfall is massive and the lagoon a death trap so it's not quite the magical experience I have come to expect from waterfalls. To get back up to the lodge we take mopeds for an hour on switchback paths not really designed for mopeds. Predictably my chain breaks and perhaps the turtle comes to my rescue as we don't careen into the ravine. And then it's back to the station for our VIP train journey back to Hanoi. No sleep again thanks to something (probably a wheel and probably incredibly dangerous) broken directly under our cabin.
We are due to head out to Halong bay at 8am and arrive in at 5am so we take a long walk with back packs into Hanoi. Everyone here gets up early and by 6am the whole of Hanoi is well into their early morning routine. This seems to be Tai Chi by the lake if you are an old widow or badminton by the lake if you have a partner. It's lovely to see that socialism here involves more socialising and not many 'isms.
A quick breakfast stop and we are off to Halong Bay - limestone cliffs jutting out of turquoise blue sea water north of Hanoi. It's a tour so we have to put up with other foreigners, but the group size is limited to twelve and no one stands out immediately as an undesirable. The boat is beautiful. We get an air conditioned cabin with en-suite, for once something exceeds my expectations. The food is also vast and flavoursome. It is, however, biased towards sea food. Something I should have expected on a boat, but still a dissapointment for someone who doesn't like anything with a shell. I'm still on antibiotics though so I manage to keep down what little I eat.
The boat cruises all afternoon between this stunning scenery. It's difficult to do it justice either in a photo or writing. But two hours later and one limestone cliff surrounded by turquoise blue waters looks very much like the other hundred (or officially 3000). The boat docks at a cave where we are all taken around by our guide Thwan. He points out the rock that looks like a person, the rock that looks like a turtle, the rock that looks like a dragons tail and then, predictably and in a cave with thousands of stalacmites rather too easily, points out the rock that looks like an erect penis. I'm about to say that I can see hundreds of penises all around me but I don't want that label. It's too hot for caves but perfect for a swim, so pretty quickly we take the boat to a cove and all jump in. The water is the temperature of my bath. It's a perfect place to unwind. But after two months of unwinding it's probably wasted on me. One of our fellow sea-mates is a nine year old girl called Jasmine. She is beautiful and has that enthusiasm that I haven't been able to muster in the last twenty years. As a memento she goes around the boat taking photos of everyone in the group. When she reaches me I try to smile but only manage a half grimmace that screams sex-pest. She tries to say it's a good photo but I can tell, in her head, she hears her parents' voices warning her about weird looking strangers. I keep my candy for myself and pray she doesn't show the picture to her parents before I'm off the boat.
Our night on the boat is interrupted by a rat that has detected my shortbread biscuits. Like me he sees the picture on the box - rips that to pieces - and discovers the actual biscuits inside are nothing like the picture. He discards the biscuits as I did and proceeds to rip little holes in my pants (not the ones I'm wearing). I can only agree that these are probably more tasty than the biscuits.
After a couple of days of this we head back to Hanoi. The city has grown on me as my health has improved and coming back this time I feel more like a local than a tourist. I still look more like a tourist than a local though. We need to move on but I need to extend my visa and we both need to push back the flights so we can stay here longer. A day of administrative stuff and we are now ready to fly south for the winter. So next stop is Hue and Hoi An. Lots of culture and old buildings so expect the next post to be full of moaning.
Photos of Northern Thailand: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600832512261/
Photos of Northern Vietnam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600833024197/
It's Day 2 in Hanoi. I'm out of hospital and pumped full of antibiotics. The doctor says at this point I need a very strict diet. No meat, no dairy, no uncooked anything, no vegetables or fruit except bananas; basically I can't eat much. I assume, since my cellular make up is now 80% antibiotic I should be able to throw caution to the wind and eat anything from anywhere. Amanda-Sue doesn't let me. We book tickets to Sapa for the Saturday giving me a full two days in Hanoi to get better.
We meet Amanda's friend Zoe who is travelling the north of Vietnam and go out to a very exclusive Hanoi restaurant. The food has received rave reviews. I'm only allowed a canned drink. I sit there with a Sprite like the designated driver only in Vietnam the idea of a designated driver doesn't exist so I just get strange sympathetic looks from the waiting staff. The following day we get up early to go and say hello to Ho Chi Minh in his little mausoleum. But it closes at 9.15am a full hour before the Lonely Planet says. The more I travel the more I realise I could write a Lonely Planet. You don't actually need to visit anywhere and you don't need to get any of the actual facts right.
Our afternoon is spent in the Literary Museum which has a turtle pool (a big draw here). Turtles here, along with dragons, unicorns and pheonix, are spiritual animals and seeing one is considered lucky. That said, they also eat turtle - so it's not THAT lucky. And I've seen a few now; still ill and still miserable so I dispute their good fortune bringing abilities.
The train to Sapa is an overnight - usually 4 berth soft sleeper, but since we are both signed up members of the flashpacking club we upgrade to the only VIP cabin with just two beds. It doesn't matter though, sleep is impossible as the train tracks are so old the train struggles to stay on them most of the night. We arrive at 5am and have to wait until 10 for a bus to our "Eco-Lodge". I'm always skeptical of places with names like that. I assume Eco means cheap and we will be staying in a bamboo bivouwak. But this place is Danish and they have built proper bungalows on the top of a remote hill. The fittings are luxurious and the view up the Sapa valley is probably as good as it gets. We are only here one night - it's a chance for me to recharge and for Amanda-Sue to work on her bedside manner. The food up here is very traditional so naturally I'm not a fan, but I struggle on without complaint. It's supposed to be cold in the mountains, but it's not and we sleep with the doors and windows open letting every bug in without care as we have a mossie net. An hour later and somehow a cockroach has perched himself on the inside of the net very near my head. Cockroaches here are like the Great White in jaws. They carry vendettas and pursue their victims for miles. I recognise this one from Burma. He woke me up by crawling on my face there.
After the nightmares that ensue we trek down to the local village in the morning. It's a long way down and difficult to stay upright. Sights are the usual fayre - buffalos, rice paddies, locals in embroidered costumes. We are walking with a Danish 18 year old who is the cousin of the lodge manager and is spending five months here. He tells me how he has moved his bed to the middle of his room and sits all night with an aerosol can and lighter ready to open a can of flamethrowing whoop-ass on any insect he finds. I don't think he'll make five months. Before lunch we come across a waterfall and as is now traditional we swim in the lagoon. This waterfall is massive and the lagoon a death trap so it's not quite the magical experience I have come to expect from waterfalls. To get back up to the lodge we take mopeds for an hour on switchback paths not really designed for mopeds. Predictably my chain breaks and perhaps the turtle comes to my rescue as we don't careen into the ravine. And then it's back to the station for our VIP train journey back to Hanoi. No sleep again thanks to something (probably a wheel and probably incredibly dangerous) broken directly under our cabin.
We are due to head out to Halong bay at 8am and arrive in at 5am so we take a long walk with back packs into Hanoi. Everyone here gets up early and by 6am the whole of Hanoi is well into their early morning routine. This seems to be Tai Chi by the lake if you are an old widow or badminton by the lake if you have a partner. It's lovely to see that socialism here involves more socialising and not many 'isms.
A quick breakfast stop and we are off to Halong Bay - limestone cliffs jutting out of turquoise blue sea water north of Hanoi. It's a tour so we have to put up with other foreigners, but the group size is limited to twelve and no one stands out immediately as an undesirable. The boat is beautiful. We get an air conditioned cabin with en-suite, for once something exceeds my expectations. The food is also vast and flavoursome. It is, however, biased towards sea food. Something I should have expected on a boat, but still a dissapointment for someone who doesn't like anything with a shell. I'm still on antibiotics though so I manage to keep down what little I eat.
The boat cruises all afternoon between this stunning scenery. It's difficult to do it justice either in a photo or writing. But two hours later and one limestone cliff surrounded by turquoise blue waters looks very much like the other hundred (or officially 3000). The boat docks at a cave where we are all taken around by our guide Thwan. He points out the rock that looks like a person, the rock that looks like a turtle, the rock that looks like a dragons tail and then, predictably and in a cave with thousands of stalacmites rather too easily, points out the rock that looks like an erect penis. I'm about to say that I can see hundreds of penises all around me but I don't want that label. It's too hot for caves but perfect for a swim, so pretty quickly we take the boat to a cove and all jump in. The water is the temperature of my bath. It's a perfect place to unwind. But after two months of unwinding it's probably wasted on me. One of our fellow sea-mates is a nine year old girl called Jasmine. She is beautiful and has that enthusiasm that I haven't been able to muster in the last twenty years. As a memento she goes around the boat taking photos of everyone in the group. When she reaches me I try to smile but only manage a half grimmace that screams sex-pest. She tries to say it's a good photo but I can tell, in her head, she hears her parents' voices warning her about weird looking strangers. I keep my candy for myself and pray she doesn't show the picture to her parents before I'm off the boat.
Our night on the boat is interrupted by a rat that has detected my shortbread biscuits. Like me he sees the picture on the box - rips that to pieces - and discovers the actual biscuits inside are nothing like the picture. He discards the biscuits as I did and proceeds to rip little holes in my pants (not the ones I'm wearing). I can only agree that these are probably more tasty than the biscuits.
After a couple of days of this we head back to Hanoi. The city has grown on me as my health has improved and coming back this time I feel more like a local than a tourist. I still look more like a tourist than a local though. We need to move on but I need to extend my visa and we both need to push back the flights so we can stay here longer. A day of administrative stuff and we are now ready to fly south for the winter. So next stop is Hue and Hoi An. Lots of culture and old buildings so expect the next post to be full of moaning.
Photos of Northern Thailand: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600832512261/
Photos of Northern Vietnam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600833024197/
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Waiting to die
I've been worse than usual updating you all. I say all - does 5 people count as an all? I've just been let out of hospital in Hanoi after 2 days which I consider a good enough excuse not to be writing a blog. So let the whining begin.
From Vang Vieng in Laos you can either head north to the mountains or south to the islands and rivers. In the north there is the "gibbon experience" which isn't yet in the lonely planet and therefore gets all the travellers raving about "authentic experience", "real laos" and various other clichéd terms that will appear in the lonely planet review just as soon as it is updated. I have nothing better to do and so reserve a place there and make my way up; first by bus to Luang Prabang again. Nicole is here on her way to Thailand and since I've been here before I show her all the good places to go. Luang Prabang is probably about 4 blocks in total so I imagine she could have found these on her own, but I need the company. My day in LP is spent sorting transport up to Bokeo to see the gibbons. It's a two day boat journey with an overnight in Pak Beng. Once this is sorted I get enough Laos Kip to pay for the gibbons. It's a currency that is worthless as soon as you cross the border and I now have 1.5 million of it. I then call to confirm my booking to discover that my place has been given to a couple. I would complain but since their customer service is so incredibly bad I couldn't see any point. Instead I shall just spend the next few years of my life shadowing forums and travelling haunts telling anyone who will listen that the gibbons are all dead and in their place are leeches and french people. That should sort their business out.
I take the boat anyway. It's taking me away from Hanoi but Nicole is on it on her way to Thailand and it's that or stay in LP on my own for another few days. I decide a boat trip is a nice way to spend a couple of days. But then I see the boat.
As a 'farang' I'm expected to pay twice as much as a local for exactly the same journey. They make no pretentions about this. There is a big sign up giving Local and Tourist prices. The boat is an old wooden longboat with wooden benches and 10 coach style seats. Since I have just paid twice the local rate I have no problem asking an old local woman to remove herself from my comfy chair and sit on the deck. In a pang of guilt I help her by carrying her walking stick. I give the laos too much credit and turn up without food or water expecting a restaurant on board. There isn't one. There isn't much of anything. I do meet a nice couple, Trevor and Louise, and with a little conversation we get through the 10 hours to Pak Beng. It's a village built purely for the boat stop. The hostel is $2 and not worth that. No electricity, leeches, cockroaches, that lovely musty smell in bed. Nicole, Myself, Trevor and Louise meet for supper and while away the evening drinking beer Lao to try and forget that we have to do it all again the next day.
Up early to try and get a comfy seat on the boat again. Except it's a different boat, with no comfy seats. the engine is pretty ropey too and an hour into our journey the propeller and shaft fall off. This would normally spell disaster, but here, while we float back downstream our engine man dives in, retrieves the propeller and pushes it back through the underside of the boat, reattaches it to the drive shaft with some banana leaves and away we go. The only repercussion is that every half an hour or so he deems it necessary to pour a cup of water over the banana leave to stop it burning through. It's hard to believe they make things like this work, but then again, it's hard to believe someone who knows how an engine works can stand there pouring a large can of petrol into it with a fag in his mouth. Hard to believe until you see the scars all over his arms and legs.
We make the border crossing into Thailand just after it closes. The driver seemes to power down for the last hour of the journey and I may be doing them a disservice (but you know I'm not) in saying that I suspect they get a commission from the guesthouses for forcing us to remain in Laos for one more night. Everyone is on the take in SE Asia and tourists are the little pawns in their game. HouayXay is the border town (it's also the town closest to the gibbon experience to which I'm not going). There is nothing going on here except the border which opens again at 8am. So we hunker down in a considerably nicer hostel than Pakbeng for $5 each.
Getting back into Thailand is easy - a 5 minute ferry ride over the mekong and we're in for 9am. We all stop for breakfast on this side of the border and immediately everything is easier than in Laos. ATM's abound, the food choices are vast and the quality good. I haven't had a good impression of Thailand from my last two blighted visits, but this is a welcome improvement over Laos facilities. By 11am we are all on an air-conditioned coach to Chaing Mai. It's another full days journey, but the lunch stop is at a coach park with a 7/11 and Mr Slurpees so I'm happy.
Chiang Mai is a lovely town that reminds me of a tropical Amsterdam. The hostel we go for doesn't live up to the town. But I only have one day here so for once I keep the complaining to myself. My first night and I'm throwing up again. I only mention it because its relevant to my current state. I feel fine in the morning and head off with Nicole elephant trekking, hiking to tribe villages and then bamboo rafting. The elephant trekking, contrary to my experiences in India, is nice. The elephants are well cared for. Rather than smacking big metal rods into open wounds these elephants respond to a wooden baton tapped behind either ear. They also have a taste for bananas and affectionately bring their trunks up over their head to your face so you can feed them. They can really move those trunks so if you ever go take enough bananas. After a bit of hiking we reach a waterfall lagoon and it's time for another swim. Not quite the magical holiday moment as the previous waterfall since the current is so strong you could easily get swepped to your death, but fun for sure. Then it's onto meet some villagers from Burma - I yawn and explain that I've actually been to their original village just the other week. I can see the people I'm with have put me down as a complete wanker but apart from one girl with a fantastic body I don't really like the group and don't care what they think. So I start talking in Karin Burmese with the locals and explain to the others why their traditions mean their houses are on stilts and their clothes are always blue. The guide at this point has joined the rest of my group in the "complete wanker" pool of thought. The afternoon is for bamboo rafting down river and while we wait for the raft my guide challenges me to chequers. They have a rediculous rule where your king can move an unlimited number of spaces in a single row. Even with this I beat him comprehensively and I think it may have been more sensible to lose. He decides I should drive the raft so while Nicole and Lauren (the girl with the fantastic body) get to sit down on the raft I stand at the back with a pole. Bear in mind I'm still not in peak physical condition after my various ailments. I don't really want to be standing for all to see in my swimming trunks. But as luck would have it I'm so bad at driving I spend very little time standing and a lot of time swimming after the raft trying to catch up. It's all good fun for my two passengers and I laugh along to hide the tears. But both feet are now in agony from the rocks in the water and the bamboo on the raft and I'm about ready to go home. Back in Chiang Mai and Nicole, Trevor, Louise and I go out for a final farewell meal before we all go our seperate ways.
I fly to Hanoi early. But get in late since I have to go via bangkok and Air Asia insist on taking their time checking everyone in and Hanoi immigration insist on taking their time checking everyone out. To top it off the baggage carousel breaks (I told them to go see the one in Luang Prabang) and our luggage was stuck underground for an hour.
Just have time for an evening meal in Little Hanoi before an early night as I have to be back at the airport early the next day. I decide that a taxi won't cut it this time and I need to get a local bus out there. I'm not catching a flight. I'm meeting my new travelling companion, so I figure I should rough it to set an example. But buses in Hanoi aren't that easy and I get a lift on a moped to a number 17 bus stop. The driver claims to know exactly where to go, but 15 minutes later pulls over and asks me where I want to go. I'm in a bad mood this morning as the first signs of a new illness are on the horizon so rather than letting this go I decide to ask where he has been heading for the last 15 minutes if he now needs a map. He smiles and suddenly doesn't understand a word. He doesn't understand maps either so I leave him to it, tell him he can forget his 10000 Dong and I figure I can walk to the bus stop. I can and I do. The bus is 5000 Dong all the way to the airport (compare that to $10 for a cab - although you can't without looking up the exchange rates - so let me just tell you it's a shed load cheaper). And at 10am I cease to be a lonely traveller by meeting Amanda, who is travelling with me all the way to NZ.
A lunch and dinner later and Amanda's first day in Hanoi is turning into a bit of a nightmare as I develop a severe fever, chills, aches in all my joints, severe stomach cramps and, of course, bloody diarrhea. I can tell she is relishing the chance to pamper me. After a sleepless night for both of us (mainly because the door to the bathroom isn't as soundproof as it needs to be in that situation) she takes me to the International SOS clinic. I explain the symptoms to a lovely french doctor who looks much more concerned than I am. He hasn't heard of the bacteria that they found in Bangkok but is convinced after taking my temperature (39.1) that it must be serious and after I rule out repatriation he insists I stay in and get on fluids straight away. They have no lab facilities here so there is no way to find out how to treat it - they use best guess treatments. They can at least take blood and do so straight away. To put me on a drip the nurse insists on shaving a little patch on my forearm. The doctor returns looking serious and explains that the blood work is not good. White Cell count is through the roof, granulated cell count also very high, sodium and potassium very low and CRP (I didn't ever find out what it meant), which is measured as 0-6: Stage 1, 6-12: Stage 2, 12:24: Stage 3, 24:48: Stage 4, was at 96. There is no stage five but it is well over anything he's seen. He mentions repatriation a few times but I decline and tell him he has my full confidence to treat the problem here. Since neither Ciprofloxacin, Ofloxacin or Metronidazole has worked he goes for Rocofin in an IV drip at 2g. I'm not convinced it's going to work as one of the few things I read about Aeromonas is that it is resistant to Penicillin (of which Rocofin is a type), but we have no way of even testing for Aeromonas so I just go with it. Even with the lack of any lab to do cultures the nurse insists on a stool sample - I think just for her private collection. I think it is the closest I come to going home as I squat down over a tiny transparent plastic pot which I then have to give to the nurse who looks repulsed as she notices what is in it. Her diagnosis: I have bloody diarrhea. Thanks for that.
There is no improvement at the end of the day so I get more rocofin in the morning and yet more orally for the road. My temperature is down a bit so I'm out of there before I catch something else. I check out with a bill for $1600. Never travel without travel insurance.
And now I'm still in Hanoi, still in pretty bad shape and really just waiting to die. It's fight or flight time for my white blood cells. If they don't get rid of the infection this time with the help of these antibiotics I think I will write this body off as a lemon and do the world a favour by recycling it. But since I have a stupid little bare patch on my arm with a swollen vein I doubt even the worms would touch it.
From Vang Vieng in Laos you can either head north to the mountains or south to the islands and rivers. In the north there is the "gibbon experience" which isn't yet in the lonely planet and therefore gets all the travellers raving about "authentic experience", "real laos" and various other clichéd terms that will appear in the lonely planet review just as soon as it is updated. I have nothing better to do and so reserve a place there and make my way up; first by bus to Luang Prabang again. Nicole is here on her way to Thailand and since I've been here before I show her all the good places to go. Luang Prabang is probably about 4 blocks in total so I imagine she could have found these on her own, but I need the company. My day in LP is spent sorting transport up to Bokeo to see the gibbons. It's a two day boat journey with an overnight in Pak Beng. Once this is sorted I get enough Laos Kip to pay for the gibbons. It's a currency that is worthless as soon as you cross the border and I now have 1.5 million of it. I then call to confirm my booking to discover that my place has been given to a couple. I would complain but since their customer service is so incredibly bad I couldn't see any point. Instead I shall just spend the next few years of my life shadowing forums and travelling haunts telling anyone who will listen that the gibbons are all dead and in their place are leeches and french people. That should sort their business out.
I take the boat anyway. It's taking me away from Hanoi but Nicole is on it on her way to Thailand and it's that or stay in LP on my own for another few days. I decide a boat trip is a nice way to spend a couple of days. But then I see the boat.
As a 'farang' I'm expected to pay twice as much as a local for exactly the same journey. They make no pretentions about this. There is a big sign up giving Local and Tourist prices. The boat is an old wooden longboat with wooden benches and 10 coach style seats. Since I have just paid twice the local rate I have no problem asking an old local woman to remove herself from my comfy chair and sit on the deck. In a pang of guilt I help her by carrying her walking stick. I give the laos too much credit and turn up without food or water expecting a restaurant on board. There isn't one. There isn't much of anything. I do meet a nice couple, Trevor and Louise, and with a little conversation we get through the 10 hours to Pak Beng. It's a village built purely for the boat stop. The hostel is $2 and not worth that. No electricity, leeches, cockroaches, that lovely musty smell in bed. Nicole, Myself, Trevor and Louise meet for supper and while away the evening drinking beer Lao to try and forget that we have to do it all again the next day.
Up early to try and get a comfy seat on the boat again. Except it's a different boat, with no comfy seats. the engine is pretty ropey too and an hour into our journey the propeller and shaft fall off. This would normally spell disaster, but here, while we float back downstream our engine man dives in, retrieves the propeller and pushes it back through the underside of the boat, reattaches it to the drive shaft with some banana leaves and away we go. The only repercussion is that every half an hour or so he deems it necessary to pour a cup of water over the banana leave to stop it burning through. It's hard to believe they make things like this work, but then again, it's hard to believe someone who knows how an engine works can stand there pouring a large can of petrol into it with a fag in his mouth. Hard to believe until you see the scars all over his arms and legs.
We make the border crossing into Thailand just after it closes. The driver seemes to power down for the last hour of the journey and I may be doing them a disservice (but you know I'm not) in saying that I suspect they get a commission from the guesthouses for forcing us to remain in Laos for one more night. Everyone is on the take in SE Asia and tourists are the little pawns in their game. HouayXay is the border town (it's also the town closest to the gibbon experience to which I'm not going). There is nothing going on here except the border which opens again at 8am. So we hunker down in a considerably nicer hostel than Pakbeng for $5 each.
Getting back into Thailand is easy - a 5 minute ferry ride over the mekong and we're in for 9am. We all stop for breakfast on this side of the border and immediately everything is easier than in Laos. ATM's abound, the food choices are vast and the quality good. I haven't had a good impression of Thailand from my last two blighted visits, but this is a welcome improvement over Laos facilities. By 11am we are all on an air-conditioned coach to Chaing Mai. It's another full days journey, but the lunch stop is at a coach park with a 7/11 and Mr Slurpees so I'm happy.
Chiang Mai is a lovely town that reminds me of a tropical Amsterdam. The hostel we go for doesn't live up to the town. But I only have one day here so for once I keep the complaining to myself. My first night and I'm throwing up again. I only mention it because its relevant to my current state. I feel fine in the morning and head off with Nicole elephant trekking, hiking to tribe villages and then bamboo rafting. The elephant trekking, contrary to my experiences in India, is nice. The elephants are well cared for. Rather than smacking big metal rods into open wounds these elephants respond to a wooden baton tapped behind either ear. They also have a taste for bananas and affectionately bring their trunks up over their head to your face so you can feed them. They can really move those trunks so if you ever go take enough bananas. After a bit of hiking we reach a waterfall lagoon and it's time for another swim. Not quite the magical holiday moment as the previous waterfall since the current is so strong you could easily get swepped to your death, but fun for sure. Then it's onto meet some villagers from Burma - I yawn and explain that I've actually been to their original village just the other week. I can see the people I'm with have put me down as a complete wanker but apart from one girl with a fantastic body I don't really like the group and don't care what they think. So I start talking in Karin Burmese with the locals and explain to the others why their traditions mean their houses are on stilts and their clothes are always blue. The guide at this point has joined the rest of my group in the "complete wanker" pool of thought. The afternoon is for bamboo rafting down river and while we wait for the raft my guide challenges me to chequers. They have a rediculous rule where your king can move an unlimited number of spaces in a single row. Even with this I beat him comprehensively and I think it may have been more sensible to lose. He decides I should drive the raft so while Nicole and Lauren (the girl with the fantastic body) get to sit down on the raft I stand at the back with a pole. Bear in mind I'm still not in peak physical condition after my various ailments. I don't really want to be standing for all to see in my swimming trunks. But as luck would have it I'm so bad at driving I spend very little time standing and a lot of time swimming after the raft trying to catch up. It's all good fun for my two passengers and I laugh along to hide the tears. But both feet are now in agony from the rocks in the water and the bamboo on the raft and I'm about ready to go home. Back in Chiang Mai and Nicole, Trevor, Louise and I go out for a final farewell meal before we all go our seperate ways.
I fly to Hanoi early. But get in late since I have to go via bangkok and Air Asia insist on taking their time checking everyone in and Hanoi immigration insist on taking their time checking everyone out. To top it off the baggage carousel breaks (I told them to go see the one in Luang Prabang) and our luggage was stuck underground for an hour.
Just have time for an evening meal in Little Hanoi before an early night as I have to be back at the airport early the next day. I decide that a taxi won't cut it this time and I need to get a local bus out there. I'm not catching a flight. I'm meeting my new travelling companion, so I figure I should rough it to set an example. But buses in Hanoi aren't that easy and I get a lift on a moped to a number 17 bus stop. The driver claims to know exactly where to go, but 15 minutes later pulls over and asks me where I want to go. I'm in a bad mood this morning as the first signs of a new illness are on the horizon so rather than letting this go I decide to ask where he has been heading for the last 15 minutes if he now needs a map. He smiles and suddenly doesn't understand a word. He doesn't understand maps either so I leave him to it, tell him he can forget his 10000 Dong and I figure I can walk to the bus stop. I can and I do. The bus is 5000 Dong all the way to the airport (compare that to $10 for a cab - although you can't without looking up the exchange rates - so let me just tell you it's a shed load cheaper). And at 10am I cease to be a lonely traveller by meeting Amanda, who is travelling with me all the way to NZ.
A lunch and dinner later and Amanda's first day in Hanoi is turning into a bit of a nightmare as I develop a severe fever, chills, aches in all my joints, severe stomach cramps and, of course, bloody diarrhea. I can tell she is relishing the chance to pamper me. After a sleepless night for both of us (mainly because the door to the bathroom isn't as soundproof as it needs to be in that situation) she takes me to the International SOS clinic. I explain the symptoms to a lovely french doctor who looks much more concerned than I am. He hasn't heard of the bacteria that they found in Bangkok but is convinced after taking my temperature (39.1) that it must be serious and after I rule out repatriation he insists I stay in and get on fluids straight away. They have no lab facilities here so there is no way to find out how to treat it - they use best guess treatments. They can at least take blood and do so straight away. To put me on a drip the nurse insists on shaving a little patch on my forearm. The doctor returns looking serious and explains that the blood work is not good. White Cell count is through the roof, granulated cell count also very high, sodium and potassium very low and CRP (I didn't ever find out what it meant), which is measured as 0-6: Stage 1, 6-12: Stage 2, 12:24: Stage 3, 24:48: Stage 4, was at 96. There is no stage five but it is well over anything he's seen. He mentions repatriation a few times but I decline and tell him he has my full confidence to treat the problem here. Since neither Ciprofloxacin, Ofloxacin or Metronidazole has worked he goes for Rocofin in an IV drip at 2g. I'm not convinced it's going to work as one of the few things I read about Aeromonas is that it is resistant to Penicillin (of which Rocofin is a type), but we have no way of even testing for Aeromonas so I just go with it. Even with the lack of any lab to do cultures the nurse insists on a stool sample - I think just for her private collection. I think it is the closest I come to going home as I squat down over a tiny transparent plastic pot which I then have to give to the nurse who looks repulsed as she notices what is in it. Her diagnosis: I have bloody diarrhea. Thanks for that.
There is no improvement at the end of the day so I get more rocofin in the morning and yet more orally for the road. My temperature is down a bit so I'm out of there before I catch something else. I check out with a bill for $1600. Never travel without travel insurance.
And now I'm still in Hanoi, still in pretty bad shape and really just waiting to die. It's fight or flight time for my white blood cells. If they don't get rid of the infection this time with the help of these antibiotics I think I will write this body off as a lemon and do the world a favour by recycling it. But since I have a stupid little bare patch on my arm with a swollen vein I doubt even the worms would touch it.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Vien Viang Vici
Well and truly on the backpacker rat trap is Vien Viang. If you're aged 17, extremely pasty and too young to realise that you are offending not just the locals with that rediculously small bikini but my sensibilities too then this is the place for you. It would seem obvious (by the volume of fat westerners) that at least the food here is good and for me that's a good reason to spend a few days in a place after my rapid detox diet of the last week.
My last few days in Luang Prabang are spent waiting for blood test results to arrive from Bangkok. They don't so I have to call and remind the doctor that I haven't yet died and he should send the results through. He does and I am diagnosed with Aeromonas Veronii Boviar Sobria along with a secondary Salmonella infection. The Aeromonas comes from leeches, the salmonella from Bangkok. I'm back on the antibiotics (the antibiotics that I was taking should have prevented this, but you get what you pay for and at 3 rupees a tablet I think I got chalk). The Salmonella should sort itself out while the ofloxacin goes to work on the leech killer.
It's the next day by the time I feel some improvement and I eat for the first time in quite a while. Physically I now resemble the locals and I seem to be accepted into their society as they stop laughing at me and start pitying me. Extra rice is bought out at most meals with a concerned mama-san forcing me to eat more.
I visit the only sight I now haven't seen in Luang Prabang and fortunately Lauren is there to hold my hand - a waterfall about 25km away. There are black bears and a tiger there, rescued from poachers and kept in a compound with very jump-able looking fences. The tiger looks so well fed I think the keeper decided it was easier to keep him fat than build a better fence.
And then for a truly magical holiday moment. We go swimming in a lagoon under the waterfall as the Laos heavens open. It is never wise to be in the water in a thunderstorm, but it is a special feeling. The water from the lagoon is freezing, the rain luke warm and the surroundings beautiful.
Two hours later we are back in Luang Prabang and spend the rest of the day drinking. Lauren finally admits "when I first met you I thought you were a dick". I have to explain that I have heard that so often it is almost a cliché. She didn't say so but I think I managed to endear myself to her eventually.
Then it's off on a VIP coach to Vien Viang. Six hours later we pull into an old airstrip (Lima 21 as the Americans called it during the war) and I tuk-tuk out to a hostel. It's more like a resort than a hostel. And if I had a budget it would be out of it, but I settle into my little air-conditioned riverside bungalow more than a little smug that I'm a flashpacker.
I meet some new friends Jo, Nicole and Jennifer. Jo is ex 3-para. And when he left he went into private security in Afghanistan and Iraq. He scares me. Nicole is a kiwi girl and Jennifer a Canadian. The only thing to do in Vian Vieng is hire tractor tyre inner tubes and float down the river for 4 hours. If you stop (and there are many, many bars on the river bank encouraging you to do so) it can take the entire day. At each stop there is either a zip line or swing to entertain the drunk revellers. For 25000 kip you can purchase a bucket of local whisky, red bull and lime. It's not a particularly nice drink but I don't think the palettes of most of the drinkers are that refined. After my second bucket I decide it is the nectar of the gods themselves. It is getting dark, a thunderstorm is directly above and the more sober of our group get out an hour away from Vien Viang. Jo and I carry on enjoying the thrill ride as only a couple of paralysed drunks can.
The following day is more of the same. Nicole and myself now have a bucket craving while Jo goes on a long run. The day is very similar except that one bucket in we see a kid take a swing on one of the trapeze only for it to snap causing him to smackdown on his back. I've had enough of the swings by this stage and decide to invest all my energy into the bucket drinking.
After two days of that I've exhausted all that Vian Vieng has to offer. Jo and Nicole, clearly more organised than myself, have moved on to the next thrill-seekers town. I'm now drifting around the town from bar to bar to find new bucket buddies.
ROCK ON.
Photos of Laos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600474677266/
My last few days in Luang Prabang are spent waiting for blood test results to arrive from Bangkok. They don't so I have to call and remind the doctor that I haven't yet died and he should send the results through. He does and I am diagnosed with Aeromonas Veronii Boviar Sobria along with a secondary Salmonella infection. The Aeromonas comes from leeches, the salmonella from Bangkok. I'm back on the antibiotics (the antibiotics that I was taking should have prevented this, but you get what you pay for and at 3 rupees a tablet I think I got chalk). The Salmonella should sort itself out while the ofloxacin goes to work on the leech killer.
It's the next day by the time I feel some improvement and I eat for the first time in quite a while. Physically I now resemble the locals and I seem to be accepted into their society as they stop laughing at me and start pitying me. Extra rice is bought out at most meals with a concerned mama-san forcing me to eat more.
I visit the only sight I now haven't seen in Luang Prabang and fortunately Lauren is there to hold my hand - a waterfall about 25km away. There are black bears and a tiger there, rescued from poachers and kept in a compound with very jump-able looking fences. The tiger looks so well fed I think the keeper decided it was easier to keep him fat than build a better fence.
And then for a truly magical holiday moment. We go swimming in a lagoon under the waterfall as the Laos heavens open. It is never wise to be in the water in a thunderstorm, but it is a special feeling. The water from the lagoon is freezing, the rain luke warm and the surroundings beautiful.
Two hours later we are back in Luang Prabang and spend the rest of the day drinking. Lauren finally admits "when I first met you I thought you were a dick". I have to explain that I have heard that so often it is almost a cliché. She didn't say so but I think I managed to endear myself to her eventually.
Then it's off on a VIP coach to Vien Viang. Six hours later we pull into an old airstrip (Lima 21 as the Americans called it during the war) and I tuk-tuk out to a hostel. It's more like a resort than a hostel. And if I had a budget it would be out of it, but I settle into my little air-conditioned riverside bungalow more than a little smug that I'm a flashpacker.
I meet some new friends Jo, Nicole and Jennifer. Jo is ex 3-para. And when he left he went into private security in Afghanistan and Iraq. He scares me. Nicole is a kiwi girl and Jennifer a Canadian. The only thing to do in Vian Vieng is hire tractor tyre inner tubes and float down the river for 4 hours. If you stop (and there are many, many bars on the river bank encouraging you to do so) it can take the entire day. At each stop there is either a zip line or swing to entertain the drunk revellers. For 25000 kip you can purchase a bucket of local whisky, red bull and lime. It's not a particularly nice drink but I don't think the palettes of most of the drinkers are that refined. After my second bucket I decide it is the nectar of the gods themselves. It is getting dark, a thunderstorm is directly above and the more sober of our group get out an hour away from Vien Viang. Jo and I carry on enjoying the thrill ride as only a couple of paralysed drunks can.
The following day is more of the same. Nicole and myself now have a bucket craving while Jo goes on a long run. The day is very similar except that one bucket in we see a kid take a swing on one of the trapeze only for it to snap causing him to smackdown on his back. I've had enough of the swings by this stage and decide to invest all my energy into the bucket drinking.
After two days of that I've exhausted all that Vian Vieng has to offer. Jo and Nicole, clearly more organised than myself, have moved on to the next thrill-seekers town. I'm now drifting around the town from bar to bar to find new bucket buddies.
ROCK ON.
Photos of Laos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600474677266/
Sunday, 17 June 2007
I'm a pathetic westerner, get me out of here.
I've tried to see everything in the best light and embrace the new cultures that are different at every stop, but now I've come to realise that when people don't even know how to cook an egg without nearly killing the person they are serving it to their culture needs attention. According to the Lonely Planet (and this is clearly a statistic that they just made up) 50% of travellers get food poisoning in Myanmar. Being the traveller's bible and a bunch of authors who seem to think that getting ill is all part of the experience they actually kind of embrace that as adding authenticity to a place. I consider it a legitimate reason to send the Ghurkas back in, reclaim Burma as part of the British empire and add cooking to their school syllabus.
I don't get sick in Burma. I fly out celebrating this fact only to order an egg in Bangkok and get salmonella (that's a self-diagnosis - it could be denge fever, I'll never know). I'm supposed to fly to Luang Prabang the day after I arrive in Bangkok, but I am so close to death I decide Laos might just push me over the edge. So I lie low in Bangkok for another couple of days. It's a difficult balancing act being ill when on your own. You constantly need to check you can still walk so that if you need attention you can still go and get it from a doctor. But at the same time if you can still walk you probably don't need a doctor just yet. If you pass out no one will know so you have to constantly work out how close you are to unconsciousness and all the time you have to feed yourself to try and prevent that happening. But if eating makes you sick you have to find a restaurant close enough to your room that will give you enough time to eat, return to your room and then throw up the food you have just eaten. To sum it up my three days in Bangkok are a new low point on the trip.
I'm so fed up lying in my dark little hole of a room in Khao San that I decide Luang Prabang actually can't be any worse. So even though I feel no better I decide to go for it. My taxi driver would probably argue that this decision was a poor one after I throw up in the back of his cab, but I tip well and when you get right down to it, I just don't care.
Two hours later I'm in Luang Prabang. It's the second largest town in Laos with a population of 25,000. There are only seven people on my plane; some little Lao Airways twin-prop. The other people seem to have read their guide books as they arrive with $35 and a passport photo for their visa. For once I'm completely unprepared and to the other travellers I must look like a retard as I have neither a passport photo or the $35 (or indeed any kip - the local currency). The airport has no photo booth or money changer so I'm starting to think I'll have to head back to Bangkok. Luckily the Myanmar government had stapled a picture of me into my passport and the visa guy says I can use that. I borrow the dollars from some french couple and I'm in.
The airport has a baggage carousel and I think they are quite proud of it. Our bags are in the back of the plane with us and it would have been very easy for us to take them with us but protocol obviously dictates that the carousel must be used. So quarter of an hour after landing they turn it on. Seven bags come out, making use of about 4 metres of this 50 metre carousel, at which point it is turned off again. No doubt there are a few local kids missing out on an education so that I can experience that western convenience.
I check into some random guesthouse and carry on where I left off in Bangkok by rolling around on the bed, clutching my stomach and crying to myself. I pull myself together just enough to look around the town the next day. Their 'sites' are only worth seeing if you are easily pleased and have a special interest in low quality buddhas. I paid 20,000 kip to see buddha's footprint. I have no idea why. All I've done for the last month is complain about buddhist iconography and yet I still feel obliged to check it all out. This footprint is a particularly good example of why I'm about ready to write off the entire religion. It's a plaster cast of a couple of indentations in a rock with a gold foot painted around it. You have to give the monks some credit that they actually get stupid suckers like myself to give up $2 to see it.
I'm supposed to go trekking and kayaking for the next two days in the jungle, but after another night throwing up (and remember I've not eaten for 4 days so I have no idea where this stuff is coming from) I decide that, whilst I'm not exactly close to emergency medical help here, going into the jungle and moving even further away from western drugs would be wreckless in the extreme.
So two more days of lying around waiting to die ensue. It's now Monday. I've been sick for nearly seven days. This is the first day I've actually felt like I can sit further than 10 metres from a bathroom without risk of an embarrassing situation occurring, so I assume I am starting my recovery.
Why does anyone go travelling?
I don't get sick in Burma. I fly out celebrating this fact only to order an egg in Bangkok and get salmonella (that's a self-diagnosis - it could be denge fever, I'll never know). I'm supposed to fly to Luang Prabang the day after I arrive in Bangkok, but I am so close to death I decide Laos might just push me over the edge. So I lie low in Bangkok for another couple of days. It's a difficult balancing act being ill when on your own. You constantly need to check you can still walk so that if you need attention you can still go and get it from a doctor. But at the same time if you can still walk you probably don't need a doctor just yet. If you pass out no one will know so you have to constantly work out how close you are to unconsciousness and all the time you have to feed yourself to try and prevent that happening. But if eating makes you sick you have to find a restaurant close enough to your room that will give you enough time to eat, return to your room and then throw up the food you have just eaten. To sum it up my three days in Bangkok are a new low point on the trip.
I'm so fed up lying in my dark little hole of a room in Khao San that I decide Luang Prabang actually can't be any worse. So even though I feel no better I decide to go for it. My taxi driver would probably argue that this decision was a poor one after I throw up in the back of his cab, but I tip well and when you get right down to it, I just don't care.
Two hours later I'm in Luang Prabang. It's the second largest town in Laos with a population of 25,000. There are only seven people on my plane; some little Lao Airways twin-prop. The other people seem to have read their guide books as they arrive with $35 and a passport photo for their visa. For once I'm completely unprepared and to the other travellers I must look like a retard as I have neither a passport photo or the $35 (or indeed any kip - the local currency). The airport has no photo booth or money changer so I'm starting to think I'll have to head back to Bangkok. Luckily the Myanmar government had stapled a picture of me into my passport and the visa guy says I can use that. I borrow the dollars from some french couple and I'm in.
The airport has a baggage carousel and I think they are quite proud of it. Our bags are in the back of the plane with us and it would have been very easy for us to take them with us but protocol obviously dictates that the carousel must be used. So quarter of an hour after landing they turn it on. Seven bags come out, making use of about 4 metres of this 50 metre carousel, at which point it is turned off again. No doubt there are a few local kids missing out on an education so that I can experience that western convenience.
I check into some random guesthouse and carry on where I left off in Bangkok by rolling around on the bed, clutching my stomach and crying to myself. I pull myself together just enough to look around the town the next day. Their 'sites' are only worth seeing if you are easily pleased and have a special interest in low quality buddhas. I paid 20,000 kip to see buddha's footprint. I have no idea why. All I've done for the last month is complain about buddhist iconography and yet I still feel obliged to check it all out. This footprint is a particularly good example of why I'm about ready to write off the entire religion. It's a plaster cast of a couple of indentations in a rock with a gold foot painted around it. You have to give the monks some credit that they actually get stupid suckers like myself to give up $2 to see it.
I'm supposed to go trekking and kayaking for the next two days in the jungle, but after another night throwing up (and remember I've not eaten for 4 days so I have no idea where this stuff is coming from) I decide that, whilst I'm not exactly close to emergency medical help here, going into the jungle and moving even further away from western drugs would be wreckless in the extreme.
So two more days of lying around waiting to die ensue. It's now Monday. I've been sick for nearly seven days. This is the first day I've actually felt like I can sit further than 10 metres from a bathroom without risk of an embarrassing situation occurring, so I assume I am starting my recovery.
Why does anyone go travelling?
Monday, 11 June 2007
Regime Change
Back in Bangkok after what I thought would be one of the more difficult parts of the trip, but in fact turned out to be the most amazing and enjoyable place I have visited. There were of course, lots of negatives and I shall spend my time dwelling on those.
Mandalay is like a sauna (if you put all your trash inside a sauna). But it has a lazy attitude which I appreciate and I'm acclimatising to the heat so I can amble about comfortably enough. Every traveller goes to at least one Moustache Brothers show. The lonely planet raves about the comedy/culture show featuring Li Mar Par who is mentioned in the Hugh Grant movie; About a Boy. It is two hours of my life that I will never get back and for that reason I should struggle to find something worthwhile in it... but no, it's less entertaining than American TV.
In a change to my usual routine I take a ferry to Bagan rather than fly. Sometimes the journey is the reward and sometimes you spend 14 hours on a ferry wondering if the destination could be any worse. It leaves Mandalay at 5.30am and since I'm not an early morning person the first few hours are the most difficult. When I do wake up and have a mango for breakfast I'm slightly more chirpy than my usual self. I'm travelling with an English girl; Ornella, a Canadian girl; Lauren, a German girl; Anna and a French-Canadian guy; Mathieu. Unusually they are all nice people and I don't have to pretend to enjoy the conversation - I actually do.
Bagan is one of those places that would be over-run by tourists if air-con coaches could get there from a resort in 2 hours. As it is you can explore the entire place (and it's on the scale of Angkor Wat) completely alone. It's all pagodas but Myanmar has rekindled my interest in Buddhist culture. Theravada buddhism as it was practiced in the 11th/12th centuries has a lot of depth to it. The buddhas are slightly different, the monks don't have to dedicate themselves quite so much and the pagodas are mainly just brick. Nothing fancy until you build 3000 of them in the same place. 200 photos later and we call it a day. It's my birthday so the day needs to be finished off with some drinking. Kiwi Murray is treating me to dinner and all my new friends turn up to celebrate with me. It's a late night by Myanmar standards and I struggle back to my room close to midnight.
From Bagan it's more or less straight back to Bangkok after a rest day by the pool where I manage to lightly sautee my chest.
I'm sad to say goodbye to Myanmar in some respects. Everything is cheap, getting around is much easier than I thought it would be, the people are the nicest I've met anywhere and the weather is close to ideal. People moan about the government, but if they added a couple of wi-fi hotspots near the pagoda places you would have an ideal holiday destination. So for me we should end all the trade embargos and embrace a society where yes, the odd person gets shot, but the ones left un-shot smile a genuine "I'm happy to be alive" smile.
It's on to Laos next, for more of the same I suspect.
Photos of Myanmar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600338193549/
Mandalay is like a sauna (if you put all your trash inside a sauna). But it has a lazy attitude which I appreciate and I'm acclimatising to the heat so I can amble about comfortably enough. Every traveller goes to at least one Moustache Brothers show. The lonely planet raves about the comedy/culture show featuring Li Mar Par who is mentioned in the Hugh Grant movie; About a Boy. It is two hours of my life that I will never get back and for that reason I should struggle to find something worthwhile in it... but no, it's less entertaining than American TV.
In a change to my usual routine I take a ferry to Bagan rather than fly. Sometimes the journey is the reward and sometimes you spend 14 hours on a ferry wondering if the destination could be any worse. It leaves Mandalay at 5.30am and since I'm not an early morning person the first few hours are the most difficult. When I do wake up and have a mango for breakfast I'm slightly more chirpy than my usual self. I'm travelling with an English girl; Ornella, a Canadian girl; Lauren, a German girl; Anna and a French-Canadian guy; Mathieu. Unusually they are all nice people and I don't have to pretend to enjoy the conversation - I actually do.
Bagan is one of those places that would be over-run by tourists if air-con coaches could get there from a resort in 2 hours. As it is you can explore the entire place (and it's on the scale of Angkor Wat) completely alone. It's all pagodas but Myanmar has rekindled my interest in Buddhist culture. Theravada buddhism as it was practiced in the 11th/12th centuries has a lot of depth to it. The buddhas are slightly different, the monks don't have to dedicate themselves quite so much and the pagodas are mainly just brick. Nothing fancy until you build 3000 of them in the same place. 200 photos later and we call it a day. It's my birthday so the day needs to be finished off with some drinking. Kiwi Murray is treating me to dinner and all my new friends turn up to celebrate with me. It's a late night by Myanmar standards and I struggle back to my room close to midnight.
From Bagan it's more or less straight back to Bangkok after a rest day by the pool where I manage to lightly sautee my chest.
I'm sad to say goodbye to Myanmar in some respects. Everything is cheap, getting around is much easier than I thought it would be, the people are the nicest I've met anywhere and the weather is close to ideal. People moan about the government, but if they added a couple of wi-fi hotspots near the pagoda places you would have an ideal holiday destination. So for me we should end all the trade embargos and embrace a society where yes, the odd person gets shot, but the ones left un-shot smile a genuine "I'm happy to be alive" smile.
It's on to Laos next, for more of the same I suspect.
Photos of Myanmar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600338193549/
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Road to Mandalay
Been away for a month now. Feels like I've packed enough in. I know the number of blog posts are on the skinny side, but that's not for lack of material, just lack of effort. I can never shake my general apathy, even in blogging.
No one has yet found a way to silence me. So I feel comfortable enough to tell you a little bit about Myanmar while I'm still in the country.
On my last day in Yangon I stumble across a demonstration to free Ang Suu Kyi. Apparently it is supposed to be her last day under house arrest, but it isn't so people take to the streets. All very peaceful, but lots of guys taking photos of the crowd (including me). I assume they are tourists, but someone says they are secret police. I assume everyone else has since been rounded up and shot, but as a westerner they probably have more difficulty putting a name to the face. So this is borrowed time.
Take a flight up to Heho on some dodgy old fokker 80 plane, but it makes it and I meet an 80 year old New Zealander who is also travelling on his own. I'm almost inspired but the apathy takes hold. Inle lake is a relief after the humidity, pollution and general shitness of Yangon. The accomodation seems really nice too, but my first night there and I wake up with something crawling across my face. Without power to turn any lights on I assume it's a gecko (and I quite like geckos), but I wake up to find a whole family of cockroaches have started squatting in my bed. The next few nights are more or less sleepless.
The lake itself is beautiful. Most of the sights seem to be of the pagoda/stupa/wat variety. Lots of buddhas, lots of monks - a similar theme to everywhere else in this part of the world. I stop taking photos at this point. I'm conscious that, unless you have visited the religious icon in the picture, they must lose their appeal after the third flickr set.
So after five relaxing days in Nuang Shwe (a mini-holiday) I jump on a plane to Mandalay. It's a 20 seater twin-prop and the rainy season well and truly kicks in. We bounce around for the 30 minute flight but the karma saves me and we touch down in Mandalay on the hottest runway ever. It's 40 degrees and 95% humidity. I haven't seen the hostel yet but I'm pretty sure this is hell on earth.
Hostel has air-con, so it's actually more like heaven. But the air-con only works when the government supply power and that comes in 6 hour on, 12 hour off cycles. I feel sad. I'm sure when we moved out in the 50's we left this place in a much better state than it is now. It's like giving a kid a car you've built for their 12th birthday - you know they will crash it but they have to make their own mistakes. They are such sweet kids though, you can't stay mad for long.
Mandalay has lots of things to see and I don't want to hang around so I go straight to the hill, climb it, take a photo and on to the fort and palace. Both nice (surprisingly there is a stupa there - no one tells you that until you get there). The next day is for the old towns in the vicinity - lots of pagodas around to be seen. Our guide brings his neice along who is studying English. She is supposed to be 22 and learning at university. Either a testament to how appalling their education system is or she was away the day they learnt how to count in English. She looks about 12 and for the entire day tries to persuade me that I would like her as a wife. On the whole they are a reserved, modest people, but she hasn't learnt that life lesson yet. After the fifth time I have to push her off me she accuses me of being shy. Perhaps she is right. We don't part ways on good terms. She is crying into her uncles arms and refuses to say goodbye. Just another broken heart I leave behind - you grow immune to it after this long on the road.
No one has yet found a way to silence me. So I feel comfortable enough to tell you a little bit about Myanmar while I'm still in the country.
On my last day in Yangon I stumble across a demonstration to free Ang Suu Kyi. Apparently it is supposed to be her last day under house arrest, but it isn't so people take to the streets. All very peaceful, but lots of guys taking photos of the crowd (including me). I assume they are tourists, but someone says they are secret police. I assume everyone else has since been rounded up and shot, but as a westerner they probably have more difficulty putting a name to the face. So this is borrowed time.
Take a flight up to Heho on some dodgy old fokker 80 plane, but it makes it and I meet an 80 year old New Zealander who is also travelling on his own. I'm almost inspired but the apathy takes hold. Inle lake is a relief after the humidity, pollution and general shitness of Yangon. The accomodation seems really nice too, but my first night there and I wake up with something crawling across my face. Without power to turn any lights on I assume it's a gecko (and I quite like geckos), but I wake up to find a whole family of cockroaches have started squatting in my bed. The next few nights are more or less sleepless.
The lake itself is beautiful. Most of the sights seem to be of the pagoda/stupa/wat variety. Lots of buddhas, lots of monks - a similar theme to everywhere else in this part of the world. I stop taking photos at this point. I'm conscious that, unless you have visited the religious icon in the picture, they must lose their appeal after the third flickr set.
So after five relaxing days in Nuang Shwe (a mini-holiday) I jump on a plane to Mandalay. It's a 20 seater twin-prop and the rainy season well and truly kicks in. We bounce around for the 30 minute flight but the karma saves me and we touch down in Mandalay on the hottest runway ever. It's 40 degrees and 95% humidity. I haven't seen the hostel yet but I'm pretty sure this is hell on earth.
Hostel has air-con, so it's actually more like heaven. But the air-con only works when the government supply power and that comes in 6 hour on, 12 hour off cycles. I feel sad. I'm sure when we moved out in the 50's we left this place in a much better state than it is now. It's like giving a kid a car you've built for their 12th birthday - you know they will crash it but they have to make their own mistakes. They are such sweet kids though, you can't stay mad for long.
Mandalay has lots of things to see and I don't want to hang around so I go straight to the hill, climb it, take a photo and on to the fort and palace. Both nice (surprisingly there is a stupa there - no one tells you that until you get there). The next day is for the old towns in the vicinity - lots of pagodas around to be seen. Our guide brings his neice along who is studying English. She is supposed to be 22 and learning at university. Either a testament to how appalling their education system is or she was away the day they learnt how to count in English. She looks about 12 and for the entire day tries to persuade me that I would like her as a wife. On the whole they are a reserved, modest people, but she hasn't learnt that life lesson yet. After the fifth time I have to push her off me she accuses me of being shy. Perhaps she is right. We don't part ways on good terms. She is crying into her uncles arms and refuses to say goodbye. Just another broken heart I leave behind - you grow immune to it after this long on the road.
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