Wats That, What...?

The last few weeks have flown by faster than Concord on cheap speed and, without knowing it, I must have had a bloggage blockage. 

We've been to six different destinations and done so on and in various different modes of transportation, none of which were safe, comfortable or fun.

To start off, we got the bus up to Bangkok. This trip was meant to take a little over eight hours. It took about 17 and the entire trip was spent sat in front of four pissed-up English lads shouting about just how pissed-up they were. Oh, and Bad Boys II was on. Super.

After getting dropped off on the middle of the Kao San Road at five in the morning, we bit the bullet and bundled into a private taxi in search of our refuge, a hostel called Suk 11. After lots of driving round and not very much getting there, we bundled out again and started trudging around with all our gear.

Eventually we found the hostel, but couldn't check-in for another three hours. 

We had a bit of a kip on the floor and got absolutely savaged by mosquitoes. But eventually we were allowed up into one of the nicest rooms we've stayed in over the last three months - and slept. For a very long time.

The next three days were much of a nothingness. 

We had a decent mooch about over Bangkok and conquered the easily conquerable Sky train. Other than that we didn't do a lot, apart from seeing The Dark Knight - again - but this time on the biggest screen in South East Asia, apparently. ('Twas pretty darn big.)

After a couple of stress-free days, apart from when we got in an argument with some Thai men of Indian descent about Indian economics.

We had a beer

We had a barny

Very strange indeed considering we'd started the conversation with 'Who's better: Bale or Keaton?'.

Anyway, where were we? Literally...

We got the train from the murkiest station in the world to Chiang Mai. This was reasonably pleasant and there weren't any armed guards or prisoners sat next to us, a la India, so we got to Chiang Mai without too much hassle at all.

Once there we had a good explore of the area, met a crazy Spurs fan who thought that a random woman on a motorbike was 'the weirdest thing' he'd 'ever seen', watched Arsenal lose to fucking Fulham again (I swear Helen's cursed) and I had a steak with ginger rice and an Oreo milkshake. Recommended.

One story of note is that we got kidnapped. Sort of. (Yes, again.)

We were having a quiet day going around looking at the different Wats ('slike temples, innit) and some of the Stupas or Thats inside the Wats.

A Wat?

After having a good look round and a good laugh at the fact a 'That' could be in a 'Wat', we trundled past the first tuk-tuk driver that had even batted an eyelid at us in Chiang Mai. He offered, for the skinny sum of 20 baht, to take us around for an hour to the all of the different wondrous Wats.

Well, he didn't. He took us to one that was, no exaggeration, fifteen feet down the road and then drove us halfway across the city to a random textiles shop, which we had already said we didn't want to go to. After we refused to get out of the tuk-tuk he shouted at us, 'Why did you not tell me before I drive here?!' to which we replied in unison: 'We fucking did.'

So, having driven us back to the main part of the town, he pulled up and announced that this was where the market was. 'So?' We wanted to go to Wats, not the market.

He then screamed at Helen and I pretty much woosed out and sat there looking like Boris Johnson at the Olympic closing ceremony (did you fucking see that? The man can't wave a flag, how in blue blazer and tie is he going to organise the Olympics?) and we both got out, and he sped off into the mid afternoon night, leaving us to work out where we were.

As I hadn't done a very good job at standing up for Helen, we then had a barny. Altogether this had not been a successful day. What lacked was the Wat.

But we soon made friends and lived happily ever after.

The next day we got a minivan to Pai, which is a funny little town inhabited by chilled out Thai people and even more chilled out old hippies from all over the shop. We rented out a moped (Mother, read 'push bike') and booted around on that for a while, getting some great pictures of the area and got up to a waterfall which we nearly slid down but didn't.

When Postman Pat lost his van he had no choice but to rent a Moped

Not me

This was the same day that my Cornetto addiction really started to kick in.

Here we met a cool French guy with an unpronounceable name that we spent the evening with, and bumped into Ed 'Bonfire Head' Wellard and Nicky from our first week in Thailand.

After a few beers I shared my (slightly ill thought out and reasonably fascist) idea that people should have to get a licence to have children. Despite making it quite clear that there were 'some minor holes' in my plan, and that I was in no way affiliated with a right wing party, Monsieur Socialisme didn't really like this idea, and later that evening when I asked if we could have his email address he gave me the classic, 'I'll call you' line. Superb.

After being promised in Chiang Mai that we would be able to go straight from Pai up to Huay Xai where we could cross into Laos rather than having to go back to Chiang Mai and up again, we boarded a minibus. 

After about four hours we got to a police checkpoint and the driver was asked where he was going to. 'Chiang Mai' he said. A chorus of 'What the fuck did he just say?'s rang throughout the bus and it turned out that we were in fact going half way back to Chiang Mai to pick up more passengers. It was already one in the morning and we were what could be labelled as 'Really rather ticked off'.

As it turns out, we were picking up quite a few more passengers. In fact, we were picking up exactly one more passenger than we had seats for in the bus. This meant that the driver who had taken us all the way there was chucked out at a 7Eleven in the middle of goodness knows where and replaced by a new driver and an irritating fat girl.

After this commotion we set back on the road and eventually reached our destination. Sort of.

We reached a guest house that we would bed down in for two and three quarter hours before getting up and getting the 'boat' over the Mekong River into Laos. We'd already been ripped off by the ferryman saying that we had to pay in US dollars at the border. We were 90 percent certain this wasn't the case, but changed some up with him at a horrific rate. Fucker.

However, like a poisoned tipped umbrella entering the thigh of an ex-spy, it was only once we'd penetrated the membrane of Laos that the real lies started...