That photo is of my bag, at our hotel, in Kilimanjaro. When he boarded the plane in Brisbane he had a friend, Simon's bag... but where is Simon's bag now?
One night in Bangkok (doo doo dooo dooo do do)
Everything was going so smoothly. We had both arrived at the airport in plenty of time, I had arranged (read: been offered) exit row seats for Simon and I, all final phone calls were made to parents, siblings, relatives and friends, and the Brisbane International Airport played 'Radio Gaga' by Queen just as the plane boarded to ensure an annoying song was stuck in everyone's mind for the 9 hour flight to Bangkok.
Our luggage has been checked through to Nairobi, so when landing in Bangkok we are not required to collect it, only to go and check in for the next flight. We then spend four extremely boring hours in the airport. My last experience with Bangkok airport was that it was fantastic. Turns out, it is good in small doses. Despite its size, it's actually just the same 4 shops repeating themselves over and over, seemingly for eternity. And when you think you've walked to the end of it, there is an escalator to another level of the same thing... all the while time has been standing still.
The only interesting thing to happen to us in Bangkok was Simon's pineapple juice, which came in a pineapple.
Turns out Simon's bag found Bangkok airport equally as boring. As the check in staff placed a 'Kenya Airways' sticker on our shirts (god knows why), we were blissfully unaware his bag had decided to jump in the first tuk tuk it saw and head out to Khao San Road to spend one crazy night in Bangkok, and didn't quite make it back to the airport for the flight.
Nairobi
So our bags had been checked through to Nairobi, and we are told by a helpful flight attendant to simply present ourselves to the transfer desk, and that the staff there would collect our bags and retag them to Kilimanjaro. So we spoke to the transfer staff lady, who typed a lot of things on her computer and then looked confused. Then she called her colleague who also looked confused and they pressed many more buttons. Finally they asked us to stand to the side for a few minutes while they sorted it out.
They then appeared to proceed to just keep serving customers. Then one of them drifted off, then the other did. Simon and I remained, standing, for upwards of an hour. I swear I saw them peering around the corner a few times to see if we had given up so they could go back to work.
Finally the lady came back. We were not expecting great things by this point. She greets us with "I have good news and bad news, the good news is that this bag was located, and has been checked through to Kilimanjaro, the bad news is that the other bag has disappeared."
She tells us that it is all Thai airways fault, and that we should go and find a phone and call them. We find a small shop with a phone where Simon tries the Thai airways customer service line... it is in Thai, not helpful. Then we randomly google some numbers, and call them, turns out we have called the Thai service desk in Korea, but they speak some English and are eventually helpful enough to give us the phone number for the Bangkok Thai Airways number that will speak English. Another call is made, and after a lot of talking, they decide that it is all Kenya Airways fault, and we need to report it lost to them.
So, $80 of international phone calls later (it was $4/minute...) we head back to the transfer desk. Transfer desk lady goes away for a while again, comes back, and says what we need to do is just get on our next flight to Kilimanjaro, and then make the lost bag complaint there to the Precision Air (our next airline) lost baggage desk. Apparently it is now Precision Air's fault that the bag won't get to Kilimanjaro, even though they don't know it yet. I guess from her point of view, whether we find the bag or not, at least once we're 1000km in another country she won't have to deal with the problem anymore.
So after a brief flight to Kilimanjaro which included me spilling my Sprite on Simon just to really top off his day, we discover the bag remains lost, as expected.
Simon starts to explain to the girl at the Kilimanjaro lost baggage claim, she takes one look at the ticket and says 'You need to make this complaint to Kenya Airways in Nairobi'. Eventually she fills out a form and gives Simon a number. No one can still tell us where the bag was last seen or scanned through, potentially its still back in Brisbane, or passed out in a gutter, or basically anywhere in the world except Kilimanjaro.
We proceed to the hotel.
The accommodation is quite nice here:
First scary African bug in the shower:
We speak to the tour company leader and he agrees to help us out by doing the calls to the airline, and also gives us hope by saying they have all the gear for Simon to hire if nothing turns up.
Then at dinner this evening, after being given our tour briefing, the guide phones the airline one more time. Amazingly they claim they have actually located the bag, and it will be making its journey to Kilimanjaro at 11pm tonight! For a relatively cheap $60 fee, a courier will bring it to us early in the morning.
All is well with the world again.
The challenge awaits
So, out there beyond the tranquil gardens of our hotel, he waits, lurking in the clouds, for us to dare tread the path to his icy su.... wait a minute, that picture of "Kilimanjaro" is in fact a picture of a pale sky and a cloud, and a good sign I probably need glasses...
Panning ever so slightly to the right, let's try again:
Out there beyond the tranquil gardens of our hotel, he waits, lurking in the clouds, for us to dare to tread the path to his icy summit.
2 men, 1 mountain, 7 days... but to conquer Kilimanjaro, they must first conquer the mountain in their mind... (oooh)
According to an unverified source, in the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"Plans are nothing; planning is everything"
When when Simon and I sat down to plan this trip, we said to each other: "What do we want this trip to be about?". There was a lot of discussion, until in a moment of clarity we both realised there was only one answer. Like all holidays, It HAD to be about the three 'F's. Fun, Fashion, and...
...A F#!king Big Mountain
Fun
This should basically take care of itself I think, especially in the second half of the holiday. Broadly the itinerary is:
Climb Kilimanjaro
Recover in Zanzibar
Safari on the Masai Mara in Kenya
Gorilla tracking in Uganda
Fashion
A trip that takes you from the scorching plains of Africa (+30 degrees) to the freezing sub twenty degree temperatures at the summit of Kilimanjaro presents nothing but opportunity for expressing oneself through fashion. I'll be looking stylish the whole way up the mountain in these fetching ensembles:
My sun wear -
Yes, that is a pith-helmet. Special thanks to Tim Whittaker. Approximate value of sun-wear is 5% of fashion budget (excluding pith helmet). Approximate proportion of trip in which sun wear will be utilised 91%.
My winter wear:
I am wearing what is apparently the world's most AMAZING Outdoor Research soft-shell warm when cold cool when hot winter gear (yep, the salesman saw me coming a mile off). Trousers, thermals, gloves, buff, beanie, jacket, head to toe warmth. Approximate value of winter-wear is 95% of fashion budget. Approximate proportion of trip in which winter wear will be utilised: 9%.
Isn't it just, fashion.
The F!#king Big Mountain
I am no stranger to hikes, thanks to Alice Bastable who dragged me kicking and screaming across the Inca Trail in July last year. But as time marched on, I have romanticised the hike and forgotten about how much I hated the wet, the cold, the uncomfortable bed, and the lack of modern plumbing. When I told Alice I was booking this she more or less fell off her chair, got promptly back on it, and fell off it again.
However, I am a million times more prepared for a hike than last time. When I went to South America I was completely unfit, and tipping the scales at about 108kg! A new years resolution and a lot of running later, I am now probably more fit than I have ever been in my life, and a svelte 83kg. Well done me.
Simon and I (and Louise Doherty, who came along just for fun) even found time for a preparatory mountain climb (a comparison between Mount Coot Tha & Kili is shown in the graph below):
Key Concerns
There really is only one, Simon urinating during the climb. The K2 salesman tried really hard to convince me to buy a second water bottle to urinate in at night. He must have said the word 'pee' about a hundred times in a sentence. I get it, it's cold, but I think the pee bottle is not for me.
Simon was completely convinced, and has apparently been "practising" using a pee bottle. Unless he is intending on pissing into the bottle from across the other side of the tent and is practising his aim, I'm really not sure that practise was necessary. My survey revealed that I should be more than capable of stepping outside briefly at night to relieve any calls of nature.
Trip goals
Other than the obvious (being reach the summit of Kilimanjaro), my other goals in Africa include observing, and participating in, the Masai Warrior 'Jumping Up & Down with a Stick' Dance.
And having this guy put on an apron and mix me a mojito:
Seriously, the price of getting myself to that gorilla, he better have been practising using the muddler.
Everything is set?
I thought so, but I was still feeling uneasy, like I didn't quite have everything I needed for the journey. Then it came to me:
Yep, now we're set.
So I fly out at 2pm TODAY (20 October), a mere 4 hours and 50 minutes away, and I will be back in Aus on 11 November.
Wish me luck, wish Simon luck, and wish the Gorilla luck in learning to tie the bow on his apron.
So it’s been a few days since I updated the blog, and I’ll be honest the last few days have been a bit of a blur… but I will do my best to piece together some sort of story.
Awoke on Thursday to embark on a bit of a temple walking tour around Chiang Mai. When I awoke, I realised that I had gone out the night before, and that there was no way I was leaving my air-conditioned room and entering the 30+ degree heat outside even a minute earlier than I had to. So back to sleep before journeying to the airport.
Arriving in Phuket, the scenes are similar to Bangkok and every airport in South America, where there are a million “limousine” companies (read: standard car) and taxi drivers desperate to get your business. Metered taxis are nowhere to be seen, apparently the wait will be quite long for them so I jump in an overpriced one for the convenience of leaving ASAP. My driver spends the entire trip trying to convince me to ditch my pre-booked accommodation and go to a good place he knows.
About 25 minutes into the trip he turns off the road and heads into a travel agent and tells me to get out and book tours. I refuse, and sit in the car asking for him to just take me to the hotel. Ten minutes or so later, still sitting, a lady comes out of the travel agency and asks me if I want to book tours. I say no, and she leaves. We continue to sit in the car for another ten minutes or so… I’m now wondering whether the taxi driver is going to continue on my journey, or if I will have to book a tour to get myself to Patong. Eventually he gives up, and angrily drives us off to Patong to find the hostel, and Docca. Here’s Docca:
Somehow, despite being two of the world’s most highly disorganised people, Docca and I have managedto successfully coordinate being in the same place, the same country, at the same time! This is no mean feat.
Day 1 - Thursday
Plan: So I have arrived aroud 4:30 in the afternoon, and after a long night before, and a long flight, I am ready for a quiet night in.
Revised Plan: Being at a backpackers hostel, there is no shortage of lone travellers looking for anyone to have a drink with. A few quiet beers, and some loud jager bombs later, we find ourselves inevitably on Bangla Road… the rising of the sun indicates it may be time to head back to the hostel.
Day 2 - Friday Plan: Get up early, head to the beach for a drink, maybe hire a scooter and ride around the island, before heading to the bucks party that night.
Revised Plan: Sleep. Get up in the afternoon and source greasy food. Now we did manage to briefly go to a beach this day. Here is proof:
Now what I love about this beach is that there is someone here selling everything you need. After renting a chair with an umbrella, I realise that the sun is very bright and I am squinting. Next minute, a man appears selling “authentic” Ray-Ban sunglasses, recommended retail price ~$150. He offers me a bargain basement deal of 1400 baht! He can’t speak much English so has typed this on a calculator, which makes it very easy for me to just divide the number by ten. He refuses to lower his price, tapping on the lens telling me that it’s real glass. So if he’s not negotiating, then I’m not interested and send him on his way. Fortunately this works the trick, and soon enough the price is 1000 baht, but by now I have decided I’m not really that interested at all so just keep saying no, not even offering a new price. 800 baht… 700 baht… 600 baht… 500 baht…400 baht. By now I am kind of just wishing he would leave me alone, so I decide that $13 is probably only a little overpriced so I hand over the cash. (Status update: 24 hours later, my sunglasses have only one lens… poor purchase)
Time for the bucks night. It started innocently enough at the Katathani Beach Club where the wedding is to be held, before heading to a nearby stakehouse. Turns out stake is not a good idea in Thailand. Docca can barely cut through his, another guy Rob finds the only real way of eating it is to tear it apart with your teeth like an animal. Stick with curries.
Then we make our way to Bangla road and REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT an Iguana on his shoulder and REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENT REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE THAI GOVERNMENTshit is that the sun again?
Day 3 - Saturday Plan: Day trip to Ko Phi Phi, an island just off the east coast of Phuket.
Revised plan: Sleep, eat, sleep
That night there is a pre-wedding dinner at a restaurant called the Boat House, an absolutely stunning location:
After dinner a small group of us decide to head across the road to a bar with a pool table for a night cap. Then we decide we’ll head up the road toanother bar that has a pool table. However this bar is closed, so we jump in a tuk tuk to find somewhere close. Half an hour later we seem to be back in Patong and dancing our little hearts out on Bangla Road again…
and yep, sure enough, the sun lets me know once again that it is time to head home.
Day 4 – Sunday
Plan: Day trip to James Bond island
Revised Plan: Sleep
This afternoon is the wedding, so I jump in a tuk tuk at about 4pm to head down to Kata Noi. The weather is looking a little ominous, but everything goes smoothly. Congratulations Donnah and Maiko! A great day!
Why cut a cake with a knife, when you can slice it with a massive sword. Awesome.
After a lot of epic, sweaty dancing, its time to call it a night.
OR
It’s time for this guy:
To call a party tuk tuk complete with flashing lights and music pumping, stop off at a 7-11 for some roadies:
And head back to Bangla Road!
Day 5 – Monday
It’s time to get out of here, this island is destroying me.
Don't catch busses
So we awake (or remain awake…)to catch a bus at 7:30 am. Like everything else to do with busses, this is a terrible idea. The first bus arrives, and is apparently full, so we have to wait an hour and a half for a different bus. It’s a small mini-van which would comfortably fit about 6 people for a long journey. So, being Thailand, you take the comfortable number of people, double it, and that is the appropriate number of people. So I find myself once again with my bag on my lap, knees around my chest, set for a long uncomfortable day. Fortunately this bus takes us as far a service station where we change busses to a (slightly) larger minivan, which gives me at least an extra inch or so of legroom.
A long, long, day of driving ensues. By my calculations 10 hours of driving should move you about 1000km. In Thailand, 10 hours of driving seems to have gotten us about 300km away to be dropped off on the side of the road with several hundred other people at some sort of bus changeover point.
Now, I don’t think my expectations are too high when I expect a company, responsible for getting twenty thousand people a month to the islands, to have a ticketing system. The ticket system is wonderful, simple, organised. Tried and tested by countless airline, train, and bus companies across the world, where you keep a record of who has bought a ticket, and give a copy of the ticket to the passenger. This way, you know how many tickets you have sold, and where they are going. When the person then boards the bus, you compare their ticket, to your records, and ensure that they align, and everyone will proceed in an orderly fashion to their destination.
What I don’t expect is this scene of chaos where the guy in the blue striped shirt:
Runs about frantically asking people “How many people are you”. He runs around in circles amongst all the people asking this same question. “How many people? How many people!?, One, two, three, four. No, no four, five, where is one more people. How many people? How many people? Where you going? You going Samui, no no, no Ko Phangan, You are eleven people. No Ko Phangan Ko Samui. No Ko Samui NO NO Four people Ko Phangan NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” before handing you a sticker to put on your shirt.
This continues for about 45 minutes of him running around asking people how many people they are, and frantically counting everyone. He appears moments away from having a nervous breakdown.
Turns out the sticker system, where you maintain no record for yourself is the stupidest system ON EARTH (although, I think theoretically you could still just look at how many stickers you had, and subtract how many you have left, and you would know how many people you had and where they were going…).
This boat:
Will be taking us on a journey to Ko Phangan. And despite the fact that this ticket:
Clearly says “express”, it is anything but. I am trying to decide whether this is slower than the extremely slow boat I took on Lake Tits in South America. If anyone else decides to do this trip, you should do your research, and ensure you end up on this boat:
Which about 5 minutes into our journey, is but a speck on the horizon, as we chug along at 0.000005 knots per hour. Or better still, for the love of god, book a flight which is a leisurely 55 minutes from Phuket to Ko Samui, and then half an hour boat ride to Ko Phangan (note, as Docca and I have learnt, you cannot book this flight the day before you want to fly...) It seems that air travel is about the only thing that second/third world countries have figured out. I’m not sure how many more long, chaotic, horrible, bus/boat/train journeys I will have to go through before I learn my lesson and just fly everywhere, no matter how close two places appear to be on a map or how cheap the ticket is comparatively…
Travel Tip: Always book flights
Anyway, we arrived safely at Ko Phangan. One more moment of anarchy as everyone attempts to find their bags on the back of the boat.
WE find a taxi that should seat 4, multiply by two, and squeeze eight people onto it. Docca says our destination “Hostel Ko Phangang”
… and so on, until we give up. We think they at least have the name of the beach right so it can’t be too far from where they drop us. Turns out it can be very far, and there are no street signs, and google maps hasn’t got a clue what is going on out here. So we wander, I think for about an hour, up and down streets, and even up the beach at one point, with Docca dragging his gigantic 20kg bag of everything he owns through the sand.
Travel Tip: know exactly where your accommodation is
Time for food, and some desperately needed sleep.
Travel Tip: Don’t stay in Ko Phangang if you want any sleep…
I swore I would say No to busses
Awaking early on Monday, primarily as a result of going to bed so early as there was nothing for me to do in Sukhothai I head down to the restaurant for breakfast. Clearly way too early, there doesn't appear to be a single other person in sight, so I sit down and wait for a while.
Eventually one of the staff comes running out, apologising profusely for leaving me waiting, and sets about preparing breakfast. It was a pretty hefty breakfast, bacon, ham, eggs, sausages, watermelon, juice, milk, coffee, cereal, toast. Far more food than the average human would ever require for breakfast... I consume it all.
I then head to the front desk to tell them I want to check out early and get a bus to Chiang Mai. At first, the concierge is not keen saying "You stay longer and ride more, bus tomorrow, I book bus for you tomorrow". Hmmm, message not quite getting through. I insist that I will leave today, and he is kind enough to fully refund my second night even though it was supposed to be no refund within 24 hours! Hooray! He calls a taxi which takes me to the bus station.
Now airports in Thailand are very organised, with most things written in English, making it extremely easy to know what to do. Bus stations are a little more disorganised. I buy a ticket from a bus company for Chiang Mai. I can't read a word of what is written on the ticket, so I have to presume that it says Chiang Mai on it somewhere.
There is no departures board telling me which stop my bus will be leaving from, so I stand in the centre of the station hoping to see my company's logo on a bus. A Thai lady starts asking me "You going Chiang Mai", "Yes" I reply, "This bus, this bus" she says, pointing at a pretty uncomfortable looking bus. I note that the busses logo does not match the logo on my ticket. I then start questioning whether she said "Chiang Mai" or "Chiang Rai". I walk over to the man who is collecting baggage and try to ask him, but he completely ignores my question, grabs my bag from my hand and throws it into the bus... guess that makes the question irrelevant now. Whether Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai, I will be getting on this bus!
I was correct about it being uncomfortable, here is a picture of my leg room.
Hard to see exactly, but basically my backpack has to sit on my lap because it won't fit in the overhead compartment, my knees are pushed firmly into the back of the seat in front (you can just see the my jeans on the right of the bag), and I am incapable of putting my seat back due to an equally tall person behind. I feel like I recall an equally horrible bus journey, or six, in South America, at which point I swore that any journeys greater than an hour on a bus I would be flying a plane even if it meant chartering it. Should have stuck with that promise.
I ask the passenger behind me where he is going, hoping to have it confirmed this bus is going to Chiang Mai. He's an American guy, and unfortunately he can neither confirm nor deny whether the bus is going to Chiang Mai, as he is going to Lampang. I take out my lonely planet guide, which shows that Lampang is about 3-4 hours drive away, and sits nicely at the fork where you would proceed to either Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai. Looks like I will have to wait until Lampang to see whether we turn left or right. Four very uncomfortable hours later we reach Lampang. Fortunately most people hop off the bus, so whether I end up in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai, at least I will get there comfortably, however I'm relieved when I sense that the bus is heading more to the north west than the north east, so to Chiang Mai it is!
Bargaining
Now the bus station in Chiang Mai is a few kilometres from the Old City, where my hotel is located. My lonely planet guide has prepared me well that there won't be any metered taxis, so I will have to catch a tuk tuk or sorng-taa-ou (shared taxi, which looks like a ute with a canopy and a seat in the back). I walk up to a tuk tuk driver and ask how much to my hotel. She replies "100 baht". This is a rip-off (apparently), so I then offer her 70 baht. "100 baht" she replies... hmm, it seems she has a much stronger position than me, as I am in need of a tuk tuk and she is not. At the end of the day 30 baht is about $1, so I jump onboard my first tuk tuk ride in Thailand!
The first thing I notice about Chiang Mai is that it doesn't smell great. There seems to be a fair bit of pollution from the traffic, and someone had the grand idea to build a moat around the city. The moat is stagnant and for the most part smells like arse. However Chiang Mai has retained more of its charm than Bangkok. The people are much friendlier, and the tuk tuk drivers/locals are not trying to lie to you, force you into a crappy gem store, or tell you that temples are closed. Also once you are away from the main drag, the soi (little streets) are quite peaceful, lined with thai massage parlours, laundrys, hostels, bars and restaurants.
I check in at Smile Guest House, which is to be my home for the next three nights. The room isn't quite as lavish as my previous, but it still contains a queen bed, plasma tv, air conditioning and a private bath and shower. It also appears to be pretty clean. First up to take a shower. I turn on the tap - it strikes me as odd that there is only one tap. This is what I am greeted with after turning the tap:
That's right, absolutely nothing. I leave it for a few minutes and eventually I get a trickle of cold water. Apparently this Toshiba device with a 5 year warranty is supposed to be heating the water.
I'm guessing it is approximately 6 years old.
I've been sitting on a bus too long to care, so I head out to find food and explore the city. Not satisfied with my first attempt at haggling for a taxi, I decide I will attempt haggling with some street vendors again, determined to snag myself a bargain!
Purchase 1: Small backpack
I am tiring of carrying around my backpack as its a laptop bag and far too cumbersome. I spy a small bag which would be perfect.
Me: "How much"
Vendor: "550 baht"
Me: "400 baht"
Vendor: "sold"
Ok. As soon as I hear those words, I suspect that I have been ripped off.
Suspicions are confirmed approximately 36 hours later:
Hmm.
Purchase 2: Board shorts
I have travelled to Thailand without board shorts. This will present a problem with performing any dirty or wet activities I may undertake, sure to be frequent in Phuket, and I am suspecting also for tomorrow when I intend on visiting an elephant park.
Me: "How much?"
Vendor: "400 baht"
Me: "50 baht", I go in low and hard, she didn't have a chance to see that coming!
Vendor: "350 baht"
Me: "80 baht", I hit her square with another low ball.
Vendor: (shocked at this skilled, suave, unpredictable foreigner haggling like a pro!) "200 baht"
This is getting tense ladies and gentlemen, who will crack first!
Me: "130 baht"
Vendor: "150 baht"
Me: "SOLD"
Nice. I have just scored myself a pair of billabong (read: standard board shorts with billabong illegally sewn into them) board shorts for about $5. My amazing haggling saved me 350 baht, or about $11, and she probably can't pay for electricity that week. Can't help but feel a little guilty after doing this.
I can happily report that they appear to be holding together better than the backpack.
One grey elephant balancing...
In amongst the excitement of haggling I set about booking an elephant tour for the following day. Seems like it will be pretty easy, I look for a shop with pictures of elephants and tourists, I enter, I purchase the tour. The first place I go into tells me they don't do elephant tours, they only do bookings for the Flight of the Gibbon (a zipline). Any elephants, pictures of elephants, words reading "Book elephant tours here", in the signs and marketing on the front of their shop are apparently completely accidental. In the end I just asked at my hostel and they were able to book me one with a company called "Peak Tours". Imagine my horror, when I awake and see this in the driveway outside my room:
This crappy old van is proudly displaing the logo of my tour company, and I suspect I may have to ride in this for over an hour out to the elephant park. Fortunately I did not, and another nice new van showed up soon later.
An elephant never forgets
But only what it remembers... We arrive out at the elephant sanctuary after about an hours journey. Here they are:
Apparently the elephants don't like new people, and if any mahout tries to jump and ride one, it will more than likely shake them off. To get around this, they fool the elephants by giving the tourists exactly the same clothes everyday, and getting them to feed the elephants first. So basically the elephants assume that these little blue people show up every morning around 10:30am to feed them bananas and sugar cane, and they love them for it.
Sometimes their love gets a little too physical - take a guy to dinner first!
We get trained in some basic elephant commands: "Pie" means go, "Kway" means left, or right (you then push your feet behind the ear that you want them to turn away from, "How" means stop, and "Non lon" means sit down. Up I hop:
Once we have that mastered, it's time to commence our journey, which will be about an hour long. It's pretty scary sitting on one of these things! You're over two metres off the ground, and their neck and back aren't exactly designed for comfort.
Meet Soong-Ton
Yep, that's him there. Soong Ton is a male, 27 years old, and likes eating bananas, sugar cane, long walks in the jungle and getting caught in the rain. But hands off ladies, he's taken! Here he is with his lover, apparently they have been seeing each other for three months or so and the mahouts are hoping for a pregnancy soon! (So much pressure for the young fellow)
Does my bum look big in this?
I think he's taking the piss
Classic Glenn pun
As we are riding along our trek, we arrive at a very steep decline in the path. As the elephant starts to lean forward I begin feeling very unstable. I'm riding on its back at this time, and there's just a piece of rope to hold onto. The elephant starts to slow down a bit, and the mahout behide it starts yelling "Pie, Pie" to make it go faster (there are other elephants waiting behind). I start yelling "no Pie, no Pie!". Unfortunately, the elephant doesn't actually speak English so has no idea what to do with the word "no", and is just hearing "Pie" so it picks up speed and moves forward.
Even with death or severe injury sure to follow, I manage to eke out what I would be proud to be my final words "No Pie, No Pie, I'm too young to Pie!".
The mahout stares blankly...
The hilarity of my joke is entirely lost on him as I chuckle at my comment. Fortunately my passenger on the elephant is American, and is able to give it some modest laughter (although still less than I feel it deserved).
Anyway, now that that story is out of the way, here is some video of me riding the elephant!
At the end of the day we treat our elephants to a bath. They are really playful, especially when they're in the water.
Me throwing a bucket of water at an elephant:
The elephant retaliates:
In all games against a 4 tonne 2.5 metre tall beast, beast wins.
Binge Eating
We get back around 6 in the evening from the elephant park. I am hungry, so I wander my merry way down to a local market. There are rows and rows of street food vendors, and it smells amazing. Putting all fear of food poisining to the side, I embark on what could only be described as a horriffic binge session of the street food. Noodles (so hot my eyes were watering), shishkebabs, dumplings, weird little pancakes that are still gooey in the middle. At one point one of things I was given was just put in a plastic bag and I was given no implement with which to consume it! A quick trip to the 7-11 to buy some plastic cuttlery and I am on my way again.
After a solid hour of wandering along eating new things I am well and truly stuffed. If I don't get food poisoning or diarrhoea from this, then I shall consider myself invincible. (Happy to report that 24 hours later and still in tip-top condition).
Master Chef
Today I prepared myself a fall back position for when the world ultimately falls over in GFC 2, by undertaking some advanced cullinary training.
I organised this on the same night as organising my elephant tour, but was more successful. While I was at the booking office, the guide asks me if I will require a pickup from my hostel.
"Yes please", I reply.
He asks the name of my hostel, to which I respond "Smile".
He looks puzzled "That is just around the corner correct?".
"Yes, I think so."
He still looks puzzled but writes it down and sends me on my way. What I had missed in his explanation, apparently, was that we were to meet first at the booking office, and then we would all be transported out to the kitchens (about an hour out of Chiang Mai). So this morning a van pulls up at the hostel, I get in, and we drive not more than about 30 metres and the van stops and we all get out... hmm. I feel a little sheepish. Given how horrible traffic is here, it was probably an incredible amount of effort to navigate to my hostel just to drive me within sight of my hostel.
In the kitchen, we are given instructions on what we are about to make. I keep hearing words like "careful", "finely dice", "patience" being mentioned. I had my early cullinary training in the Robyn Sheedy kitchens. Words like "Patience", "Careful", and "Fine" had no place there. When she walks around and first looks in my mortar and pestle and sees me trying to bash entire chunks of chilli and lemongrass into a pulp, she breaks into laughter. Not surprisingly, it takes me three times as long to crush my curry paste as everyone else. But I get there in the end, and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding curry.
Posing for an action shot:
Another finished product:
Don't expect me to cook anything like this when I get back. I had originally claimed I would do this, but its bloody time consuming and hard work. If I invite you over for Thai, it will be coming from Bow Thai on the corner of Wickham and Gipps St in the Fortitude Valley. If you like I will organise it on a plate for you.
Anyway, that just about covers everything. Tomorrow I fly to Phuket to embark on the next part of my journey, as shown graphically below:
I have just completed the "Culture" leg of my trip. We now move onto the more exciting and adventurous "Drinking" leg.
