Big Cats
25/8
Had a leisurely day seeing a few of the sights of Bangkok. I decided that it was about time that I stopped taking tuk-tuks everywhere and started using public transport. I decided to go to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho using the river boats - it took me longer than strictly was necessary, as I didn't realise when it was my stop, and then at the next stop someone jumped on and then we sped off before I had the chance to jump off the boat myself. The girl that I'd been chatting to on the boat, before I got up to leave, got off at the same stop as me and said "Are you still here?" in a baffled tone of voice. Got off muttering to self and had to backtrack a bit
The Grand Palace lived up to it's name, temple after amazing temple, each one unique, and all crammed together in a relatively small space (considering the number of buildings). You can wander round for hours staring and taking pictures (a couple of which I've included). Wat Pho has yet more temples and the famous gold reclining Buddha - the largest in Thailand at 150 feet in length. Pretty damned impressive.
Met Marjoljne and Christiaan for another wonderful dinner (sightseeing is hungry work), and then drank Singha beer until late
26/8I got up early to get to Chatochak market before the crowds, but then wasted about an hour trying to decifer the bus map (and yes, it was in English - can you believe I got lumbered teaching Geography?). I eventually managed to get on the correct bus and a nice Thai lady told me when to get off at Siam square, right in front of a fruit vendor. Up until now I had avoided buying peeled fresh fruit from street vendors as I had assumed the same rules applied as in India (as I didn't want to spend a substantial portion of my holiday in the bathroom), but apparently it's safe to buy pineapple chooped up on the street. Had a wonderful breakfast of absolutely divine fresh pineapple and papaya for about 30p.
I got on the skytrain at Siam square (the centre of the commercial district - shopping malls, billboards and corporate logos everywhere). It's an elevated train - it's quick, dirt cheap and is bloody marvellous for getting around quickly and avoiding traffic jams in tuk-tuks. It also gives you a wonderful view of Bangkok rolling past, with slums on the doorstep of posh, pristine highrises.
Chatuchak market is a huge covered market with about 15,000 stalls. The best that I can say is that I didn't buy things at all of them. I don't know why shopping when travelling appeals so much more than when I'm at home - it's probably the combination of ridiculously cheap prices, the fun of haggling and the abundance of pretty hippyish things. I couldn't stop myself - I spent the best part of a week's budget on stuff that I'm just going to have to send home, but it's all lovely! The only low point came when I'd finished buying pretty things for the house that I don't own yet, and I went looking for clothes (at the moment I have to do 2 washes a week because everything gets so scuzzy so quickly here and I don't have enough clothes to cope now that I'm not wearing my bikini all day long). I quickly realised that Thai people of my size are rare. In England I'm a size 12, in Thailand I'm a large, and very few places stock large. Every time I went to a stall I'd ask if they had clothes that would fit me - I'd get one of two responses: they'd either give me clothes to try on that were invariably just too tight and getting out of them again left me feeling like I was trying to battle my way out of a straitjacket, or they'd look at me frowning, trying to mentally get their clothes to fit me, then they'd give up, sigh and say no. At one point I asked where I could find clothes that would fit my tummy and tits (using a lot of mime rather than English), and the store owner directed me to a maternity stall. Some things never change, no matter what country you're in. I'm pleased to report that the maternity clothes were too big for me. After a while I despaired and found a stall to sit down and have a drink. They did iced cocoa, which I decided had to be tried - it was the most wonderfully chocolatey thing ever - I highly recommend that any discerning chocoholics who find themselves in Thailand seek the stuff out. It made me feel a hell of a lot better about my clothes shopping debacle, but I was aware that I was treating the symptom, not the cause.
At that point, I headed back to the Khao San road, where the clothes are designed slightly more with western figures in mind, and finished off my clothes shopping as well as stocking up on pirate cds. The Khao San road is growing on me.
After heading home and dumping my many purchases (I must stop shopping), I went out to dinner. I was feeling brave, so I ordered a dish that featured chilli and garlic in the name. After a couple of mouthfuls, I decided to be seriously daring and ate half a small chilli. BIG mistake. The back of my mouth started burning fiercely, as if someone had napalmed it. I started shaking and sweating uncontrollably, and couldn't talk as that would have involved closing my mouth. I got the waitresses attention by hitting the table a couple of times, and the tears streaming down my face probably made the problem fairly obvious. She brought me salt, and when I looked at her through my tears as if she had 3 heads, she assured me that it would help. 5 minutes later I was almost back to normal, so perhaps it did. Two of the waitresses kept popping by for the next 30 minutes to check that I was ok. At one point one of them said "It was only little bit of chilli" in a confused tone of voice. She seemed to understand the word wimp and giggled as she walked away.
27/8
Went to little Arabia (fairly obviously an area filled with Arabic people that live in Bangkok) as I wanted a bit of a walk round the souks and wanted to see if there was a hamam as I fancied having my skin scoured to within a nanometer of my internal organs. Sadly there wasn't a hamam, just more Thai massage places (Thai massages are lovely, but you tend to leave them feeling great, but slightly sticky and oily, not the really sparklingly clean feeling you get after a hamam), so I sat in a sheesha bar and ate very nice, but overpriced hummus. I got chatting to a friendly man called Mohammed from Dubai. It was fun up until the point when he showed me a video clip on his mobile of two muslim women stripping off their burquas and enacting (not very convincing) lesbian scenes at a party. While I'm all for female emancipation and freedom of choice when it comes to sexuality, and while it was quite funny, you've got to wonder why an arabic man that I'd just met felt the need to show me that. I made my excuses and left.
I took the bus down to the town Damnoen Saduak in the evening so that I could get up good and early to see the floating markets before the tourist buses rolled in and destroyed the atmosphere. I checked into the noknoi hotel and was pleasantly surprised by my room. For 3 quid I had a huge double room with wardrobe space, massive mirrors, TV, an enormous window and an en-suite bathroom with the most fantastic accoustics I've ever experienced. I felt like I was singing in a cathedral. When I'd finished de-scuzzing and had spread my belongings around the room in a manner that suggested that a small bomb had gone off in my bag, I went for a wander round the food stalls and got dinner. In the early evening the frogs and crickets started up in earnest. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there were literally hundreds of them making an absolute racket. I've never heard anything like it - it must have been mating season or something.
I had an evening in with the not so new Helen Fielding book (why did nobody tell me sooner about Olivia Joules???) and, when I'd tired of hearing hundreds of horny frogs, my mp3 player.
28/8
Got up at 6:30am to get to the market early. Found out that I'd have to pay about 5 quid for a boat, so I decided to walk along the canal. To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the floating market. Don't get me wrong, the stalls with fruit, nuts and noodles all looked fantastically colourful, but the big purple "Siam Commercial Bank" parasols (complete with logo) above all of the boats somewhat detracted from the feeling of untouched rural life, and my feelings of being an intrepid adventurer.I took a bunch of photos and tried all sorts of bizarre fruit - rambutan are delicious, and mangosteens look like baby aubergines on the outside and garlic on the inside, but have one of the most beautiful flavours of any fruit I've ever tasted. Dragon fruit, on the other hand are very nice, but just plain wierd, and Durian are verging on revolting.
I walked back to the hotel with a German couple when the tour buses started to arrive and any vestigial traces of intrepid explorer notions vanished. On the way we saw a huge (monitor?) lizard crawling and slithering through the long grasses beside the river, it must have been a metre long. I've no idea why big lizards don't really freak me out, but little insects (especially fucking cockroaches) really do.
Once I got back I experimented with recording myself singing Karine Polwart songs in the cathedral/bathroom on my mp3 player.
Came back to Bangkok and discovered that Christiaan and Marjoljne had gone on to Cambodia - hopefully will run into them later on in my travels.
29/8
Had a bit of a boring day sorting out practical things, like money, flights and visas. The highlights were mainly the characters that I met during the course of the day. I stopped at a street stall consisting of a woman and a sewing machine doing repairs, which was convenient as my fishermans trousers are far too long. I waited for her to finish taking in a pair of trousers for a German guy, who then saw fit to get changed into them right there on the street.
Later on I went to the Qantas office to rearrange my return flights and add a stop in Oz. I got chatting with two Mancunian lads while I was waiting - when I said that I was going to Cambodia the following day, they started raving on about how I must go to Sihanoukville as you can sit on the beach and smoke pot openly and no-one says anything. I can see the appeal of this, but to advance this as the only reason to go to a place in an amazingly beautiful, and culturally and historically rich country like Cambodia baffled me.
On the way back to my guest house I stopped in at the train station to find out about times to the Cambodian border the next day. While I was there I decided to have a bite to eat in the food court, which is highly praised in the bible. I watched as they tossed the fresh ingredients round in the wok, then added a massive amount of herbs, spices, salt and MSG - that's one of the reasons the food here is so damned addictive! I sat down to eat my meal, and after a couple of mouthfuls, I spotted a fairly large bug of some description on the spoon that I was about to put into my mouth. It's funny how your standards change while you're travelling - after watching numerous tourists eating insects and other arthropods on the Khao San road, I wasn't that concerned about the fact that one had been in my food. At least it wasn't my food. After a brief debate between my growling stomach and my slightly disgusted mind, my stomach won and I flicked the insect off and finished my meal.
Don't judge me.
I went back to my hotel and packed up my belongings for an early departure the next day. I left a bag of my many purchases and my stuff for New Zealand with the little old lady for about 7p a day. Considering how much less painful it has been to carry my bag since then, it's a real bargain.
30/8
Got up at 4:45am, got my shit together and got a tuk-tuk to the train station for the 5:50 train to Arunya Prathet, the border town. I sat near to a woman of about my age who turned out to be Irish, and goes by the name of Lorraine. We had a very sleepy conversation, interupted by an enthusiastic and slightly odd Thai guy who wanted to practice his English, so he spent half an hour telling us all about places of interest along the way. Later on a little old lady came over and gave us some of her Thai cakes to try, she was really sweet, and we got chatting to her and a Vietnamese lady nearby. Women with baskets of cold rice dishes and rock-hard mango walked by selling their wares - I decided to wait until we got to the border. I listened to my mp3 player for a bit and dozed when I became too tired and hot to talk towards midday, then decided to sit in the doorway of the train with my legs hanging out, letting the breeze cool me down. After about 6 hours we got to the end of the line and got off. A very cute long haired Thai guy kept smiling and waving at me, so I returned the greeting. We shared a tuk-tuk to the border, and then were greeted by half a dozen people all wanting to sell us visas at vastly inflated prices. I bought a kilo of rambutan for the rest of the journey, and the Vietnamese lady offered to carry them as she wasn't as laden with bags as me. The Vietnamese lady then had to join a completely different Immigration queue to us and we lost her (and the rambutan) sadly. We managed to get ourselves stamped out of Thailand, and successfully secured Cambodian visas for only slightly more than we should have paid (helping the border guard's pension fund).
When we got across the Cambodian border and I had finished jumping around doing my newly invented "I'm in Cambodia" dance, and we had made it past the children begging (I've become quite hardened to this and don't give anything - the kids don't get to keep any of the money, it just goes to some guy running a begging racket, and it just teaches the kids to be dependent), we were offered a free minibus to the bus station, which we gratefully got into. The bus went along incredibly muddy flooded roads (imagine Glastonbury in the muddiest year, and throw in a slightly less developed sewage system and you've got the rough idea) and dropped us off at a bus station where they tried to charge us 2 1/2 times the price quoted in the lonely planet. We decided that we were being ripped off, that the free minibus was probably part of the scam, and that there was bound to be a proper bus station nearby, without the rip-off prices. After Lorraine had shouted at the guy a bit (she's quite determined to not pay any more money than she feels she should at all times and gets quite annoyed about it - lovely girl, but she gets a bit too obsessed about not being taken for a ride) we decided to go for a walk through the flooded streets, with all of our bags, to find cheaper transport. The water went up to our knees. We made it about 100m asking several people along the way, most of whom didn't understand us, or pointed back the way we'd come. We eventually conceeded defeat, and went back sheepishly, with the rip-off artist laughing at us. We swallowed our pride and paid our $10 for a bus ticket. We got on a ridiculously crowded minibus, filled with backpacks and backpackers, and started to travel down the bumpiest road that I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, in the least shock absorbing vehicle I have ever had the misfortune to encounter a bumpy road in. My industrial strength sports bra was not built to deal with this.
We bounced around on severely potholed roads for 5 hours, stopping a couple of times for the toilet, food, and much needed nicotine. Apparently this road is one of the worst roads in Cambodia, but frequently used. Rumour has it that the reason it hasn't been surfaced is that Bangkok airways, who have a monopoly on the Bangkok-Siem Reap route are paying the Cambodian government large bribes to delay the surfacing of that road indefinitely. The bus driver kept telling us repeatedly that the hotel that the minibus would be stopping outside was very nice and cheap - I had a sneaky suspicion that commission might be involved. Half an hour outside Siem Reap a lightning storm started overhead, but without rain. Suddenly the bus driver stopped the bus and said that there was something wrong with the engine. He fiddled around with it and tinkered for about half an hour (while not seeming to actually do anything). Just as we were all ready to die of exhaustion, the driver miraculously got it going again. This performance was brought to us by the Siem-Reap-bus-scam players. It's a standard scam - the idea is that they take as long as is humanly possible (6 hours driving for 130km) on extremely bumpy roads with as many delays as you can feasibly create, so that when the tourists arrive, they're so exhausted and it's so late that they can't be bothered to seek out a better accomodation option than the one that the minibus stops outside and that pays the bus drivers. Also, usually their bums and backs are so sore that they go for one of the more luxurious, and therefore expensive rooms. I organised a rebellion at the back of the bus and we decided that we weren't going to let them win, after all of the delays and the excessive cost. We got there (eventually), and got off the bus into the narrow space between the minibus and the wall, where 12 passengers, 2 drivers and about 6 hotel staff were all trying to work out how many rooms were needed. I put my camera bag down in the middle of the chaos and heaved on my rucksack (with people swarming all around me), then put the camera bag back on, and I started to leave with 3 others who were as unenthusiastic as I was about the idea of bending over forwards to make it easier for them to shaft us some more. The driver came running after us, saying "You must stay, it's starting to rain" (for once, the truth), and "You can't possibly go looking for a room in the rain". I just laughed and said "I'm English, they're Irish, believe me, we'll cope" and walked off. Lorraine stayed and had a bit of a pointless go at him, then the driver shouted after us "Enjoy your fucking holiday then". John shouted back in an admirably relaxed way "Thanks, we will". We found a tuk-tuk (good thing too, the rain was slightly heavier than we were used to in England and Ireland after all), found a nice cheap hotel from the lonely planet, I got a twin with Lorraine, arranged for the tuk-tuk driver to take us round the temples the next day, then had a much needed shower. When I felt clean and human again, I checked through my belongings (oddly enough I do that quite often now) and discovered that my lovely, top of the range, all-singing, all-dancing, digital-photo-card-reading, voice recording mp3 player was missing. I searched through all of my bags (despite the fact that I remember switching it off and putting it back in it's usual place in my camera bag and zipping it up when we "broke down"), but to no avail. Bollocks.
After ranting for a while, we went out for our evening meal to the main tourist strip in town (bar street). For once it was actually a pleasant place to be, filled with lovely restaurants in tastefully decorated, beautiful old colonial buildings. We found one with Khmer food and had some bloody marvellous grub - I wasn't expecting the food here to be this good. I actually stopped thinking about my missing mp3 player for a few minutes in the masticating marathon that ensued. AND they had 2 for 1 cocktails. I stopped on the way home to treat myself to an hour long oil-Thai massage - the best I've ever had. I floated back to the hotel at midnight feeling a hell of a lot better than when I'd left.
31/8 - 3/9
Met Woti our tuk-tuk driver at 10am and went to the minibus company and the commission-paying hotel on the offchance that the mp3 player had been handed in - no such luck. We then went off to the police station (I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time in these - maybe this could be a theme of my travels - visit a police station in each country). I filled in a complaint form, going into great detail about what happened, and the only time when someone could have got close enough to my bag without my noticing (when the bus arrived and I was putting on my other rucksack, while surrounded by people). The policemen read through my report, and then started objecting to my use of the word "stolen", first of all saying it could have dropped out of the bag (I pointed out that I had closed it), and then saying over and over again that if I used the word theft, they would have to investigate the complaint and interview people before they issued a report, which takes time. They suggested that it would be better for me to use the words "lost" and "missing". I explained that I'd rather have my mp3 player back and not the money, as my entire music collection was on it, and I didn't want to have to go for the next 11 months without Joni Mitchell, Tracey Chapman, Massive Attack, KT Tunstall, Nitin Sawnhey and Schubert, and surely it wouldn't take more than 3 days, which is how long I was planning to be there. The policeman countered with a slight rephrasing - again, the investigating taking time, but this time they said that if they showed this report to the captain, he might not believe me, and he might refuse to issue a report. The issue of time that it would take to investigate came up again and again, and I began to realise that this was the crux of the matter; if I handed in my report as it stood, they might have to do some work (plus high theft rates look bad). The problem was, I wanted my mp3 player back, and failing that I didn't want a police report that wasn't accurate - I had a feeling that after 3 thefts in the first month, my insurance company might start to get suspicious and decide to investigate me, and I didn't want an untruthful police report, much less one that made it look like I'd just misplaced the mp3 player, and was a complete fuckwit. I asked them to show the report to their captain, and to start investigating, and said that I'd come back in the late afternoon to check on progress. I then left the police station and promptly burst into tears (briefly) out of frustration. Lazy bastards.
Having wasted nearly half of the first day of our expensive Ankor permit trying to get my mp3 player back, we went off to the temples. We started at Ta Prohm - the temple that they used to film tomb raider. It's a large temple that has gradually been taken over by the forest over the last few centuries. There are huge Banyan and Kapok trees with their roots coming out of the cracks in the stonework, gradually pushing the stones over with the pressure created. We arrived there at lunchtime, so the majority of the tourists were elsewhere having lunch - there were maybe a dozen other tourists wandering around, and quite often we had a courtyard or a cloister to ourselves. It was absolutely amazing to see this beautiful temple that has been reclaimed by nature, it was so dramatic and atmospheric, especially when no-one else was around. There were dragonflies and butterflies everywhere.
On the way out there was a band composed of landmine victims playing some wonderful traditional Khmer music that really added to the atmosphere of the place. We listened for a while, then gave a donation and went for lunch.
We found a nice little stall restaurant just outside the temple and ordered. A little girl of about 6 or 7 came over to sell us bracelets. We had a look in her basket, and then I was suddenly surrounded by little girls, all competing to sell us bracelets. When I bought a couple that I liked, all of the other girls started demanding that I buy theirs: "Now you buy one from me", "Why you buy from her and not from me", "Two for one dollar", "Sorry doesn't give me anything" (said with a pout that would have made Keira Knightley proud), "Eh, lady, I was here first". One of the 7 year olds had a trainee in tow - a girl who couldn't have been more than about 4, who held out her basket and repeated what the older girl said, like an echo. Thankfully then our food arrived. The restaurant owner must have had some rule about not hassling the customers when they were eating, as the girls all shut up for a while, and just asked us where we were from. When they found out that Lorraine was Irish, they actually started talking to her in Irish. She almost choked! One of the girls asked me my name and drew me a picture of a flower, writing "To Cat. My name is Rain". Suddenly all of the other girls wanted to draw us pictures of flowers and butterflies and write their names too. By the time I'd finished my meal (a Khmer soup - one of the most divine things I've ever tasted), I had 7 different pictures with names on, and it was time for them to start the hard sell again. While I didn't necessarily agree with their sales techniques, they were very cute, they were earning a living, rather than begging, and they clearly were getting a pretty good education out of it - they could speak pretty good English, as well as other languages (if they can do the basics in Irish, I'd imagine that they can probably do German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Hebrew too, at least), they could write, and their maths was pretty decent for their age - I replied to 2 for 1 dollar with 4 for 1 dollar, we went through 5 for 2 dollars and arrived at 6 for 2 dollars quite happily, and they barely missed a beat - that's comparing fractions whichever way they do it. And lets not forget the flower and butterfly artwork! I found it difficult to say no to more pretty bracelets from the manipulative little sweethearts, so I bought 6 more, and then offered the ones who I hadn't done business with shrapnel to take their photographs instead, which seemed to be an ok compromise.
Next we went to a temple called Ta Keo, one of the smaller, lesser known ones. We saw 3 other people while we were in the temple, which was like an adventure playground of vertiginously steep steps, wonderfully secluded spots at the top to view the surrounding countryside from and crumbling bas reliefs. We loved it!
The next few days became a blur of exploring temple after ruined temple in insanity inducing temperatures (cold, wet season my arse) - the problem is that because you pay so much for the 3 day ticket, and then to hire a tuk-tuk, you really want to make the most of it, but you don't want to get temple-fatigue, which I was beginning to suffer from on the last day. The best bits were the Bayon (a wonderfully wierd temple with more insane, death-defying climbs and huge faces sticking out of the stonework), and Ta Promh, which definitely warranted more than one visit. Ankor Wat was a bit of a disappointment though sadly. It just didn't live up to all of the hype and wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be (I sound like a loud American package tourist - aaaaaaaaaaargh).
After our first day of exploring temples I went back to the police station, with all of the evidence that I could find (sadly only my bus ticket giving the name of the company that brought us to Siem Reap), only to be told once again that they would only give me a report if I changed the wording. I gave in at that point, and as I was about to fill in a new complaint form, I had a brainwave - I asked if I could have my old complaint form to help me fill in the new one, and then when the policeman's back was turned, I swiftly pocketed it. Partly I did this so that if I decide to tell the insurance company the truth of what happened, I would have some evidence that the police had refused to write the true events, thus explaining the disparity between my version of events and theirs, but partly I wanted them to suffer the same level of frustration and vexation that I had that morning, the bone-idle bastards. The policeman took my new complaint form, said I should come back the following afternoon to collect the report, and didn't notice the missing form at all.
I left the station pretty quickly, went to an internet cafe, discovered an e-mail from Marjoljne and Christiaan, who were still in Siem Reap, and arranged to meet them the following evening.
The next day, after a day of sightseeing that started at the crack of dawn - not ideal after a late night sampling the local beers, I found myself back at the fucking police station to pick up my report. As soon as they'd given me my report (saying one sentence - "...her mp3 player went missing while she was travelling from Winter guest house to Orchidae hotel" - meaning I dropped it in the tuk-tuk, all my fault. I was glad that I'd stolen my complaint form at that moment in time), they started talking about a form. They weren't being very clear because of the language barrier, so I pretended not to understand at first, but then suddenly understood, put on my best wide-eyed-innocent, butter-wouldn't-melt look, and told them that yes, I'd used it to help me fill in the new form, but that I'd left it right there on the desk. They told me that it was policy to not let incorrectly filled in complaint forms leave the station (so this happens a lot then...). I watched them search around the room, going through piles of paper, and tried not to laugh. Schadenfreude and sour grapes combined. After about 15 minutes of (internally) happily watching the tourist police actually doing some work (a rare sight, I've been told), I explained as politely as I could that my friend was waiting in the tuk-tuk, and she'd spent far too much time waiting for me at this police station, would they mind if I just took my report and went? The police man then started hinting around for a bribe - I failed to stop myself from laughing, but I did manage to keep my sarcastic comments to myself. I went back to my bag, found the smallest note that I could, gave it to him, and got out of there. Between insurance excesses, police bribes and my traditional post-theft drinking binges and massages, this being robbed lark is getting quite expensive.
I'm actually oddly proud of myself - I stole from the Cambodian police, lied through my teeth about it, stuck around at the scene of the crime to enjoy the chaos that ensued, and got away with it. Normally I don't hold with such behaviour, but it was badly called for in this case! By the way, if anyone has any advice on whether or not I should just send in my insurance claim using the lies that the police wrote, and writing the same myself (since it's not a complete version of events, it could be construed as insurance fraud), or whether I should send in my version of events, plus the stolen first complaint form, as well as their report, and go into the whole issue of the incompetent police, with the insurance company, I would appreciate advice, as I'm in a bit of a quandry about what to do.
That evening Lorraine and I met up with Marjoljne and Christiaan and we caught up on the events of the last few days (Mar: "How've you been?" Me: "Good and bad." Mar: "Oh no, what have you had stolen this time?", at which point Lorraine practically fell off her chair laughing) and had a really good time. It was great to see them again, and Lorraine seemed to get on well with Christiaan, which left me free to gossip with Marjoljne.
The following day consisited of a bit of sightseeing, and unfortunately, a lot of shopping. There were so many wonderful things to buy - including very pretty and sparkly silk scarves and a wonderfully kitsch painting of an Apsara (dancing woman found on many temple bas reliefs there). On the way back from one of the temples we passed a silk shop that uses it's profits to train victims of landmines and polio in a useful and employable trade or craft. After the money I'd spent on other stalls, I felt I couldn't justify not buying something from this shop - their stock included mostly some of the nicest, prettiest handbags I've ever seen. The prices were higher than at other shops in Cambodia, but cheaper than at home, so it was a good deal, and I got to feel virtuous about buying my beautiful handbag (just guilty about everything else).
When we were all templed out, we went to the Landmine museum (sadly I forgot to take a picture of the police station that became my second home on the way - I was too busy sticking up my middle fingers and shouting obscenities). The landmine museum is run by an ex-child soldier for the Khmer Rouge who was forced to lay down landmines, and has spent the years since then getting rid of them himself, by hand, for a fraction of the cost that the UN does it for. The museum is both fascinating and horrific. It contains some really horrible yet heartwarming stories about various children that the owner has pretty-much adopted and is sending to school, who've been victims of landmines and are missing limbs. There's also a lot of information about different types of landmines - those that are designed to maim, those that are designed to kill, and those that are made from plastic, so they are light and watertight, and float into previously demined "safe" areas during the monsoon rains, sometimes villages. It also had a display on countries that have refused to sign the international treaty baning landmines, the countries that stockpile them and the countries that still produce them (the US is on all three lists unsurprisingly). After I'd reached my anger limit, I went to the museum shop and bought a vest top with their logo on it, and went outside to watch the older children from the museum playing volleyball. They were remarkably un-self-conscious about their missing limbs; when I asked if they'd mind me taking a few photos, they were quite happy for me to. I got the impression that they just really wanted to raise awareness of their stories, and the causes of them, and weren't remotely abashed or defensive about being photographed and watched. I was full of admiration, not in the least because they were far better at volleyball than I ever will be. One of the older boys was quite flirtatious with me and kept posing for the camera. He blew me a kiss when I left, and I blew one back.
In the evening we went to a Cello concert at the local hospital (free entry, donations of cash or blood gratefully received) - Bach and original compositions (sadly more original compositions than Bach - I was hoping for his cello suite in G major - which I had on my mp3 player - sob). The music was pretty good, and interspersed with talks on the many and various health problems affecting Cambodia today - the reasons behind the alarmingly high TB rate, and the problems that they face from haemorrhagic Dengue fever, which is alarmingly common amongst children. I was all ready to give blood for the first time in my life (I do my bit in many ways, but am scared of needles so have never done this before, but this time I'd even bought my sterile needle kit in case their needles weren't properly sterilised). The blood bank closed in the afternoon, and wouldn't be open again until I'd already left Siem Reap. I really was baffled - if they're so in need of blood, why don't they keep the blood bank open a few hours later once a week when they have about 200 healthy and freshly convinced westerners already in the building?
I gave up on giving blood, we said our goodbyes to Woti, our long-suffering and really sweet tuk-tuk driver and we went back to bar street for our last mouth-watering Khmer meal and soaked up the deliciously relaxed atmosphere on bar street for one last time.
Anyway, the next morning Lorraine and I caught the early bus back to the Thai border (for a reasonable price this time). We felt like we were sitting on a pneumatic drill for 6 hours, yet we miraculously arrived at Poipet with both our sanities and our skeletons intact.
After crossing the border again and getting a new 30 day visa for Thailand (my passport is looking very well-loved), we got on a government bus (cheaper than a tourist bus, and you're less likely to get your stuff nicked from the hold) as we'd missed the much more comfortable train. We spent another 6 hours getting back to Bangkok. We sustained ourselves with mangosteen (the loveliest of the fruit I've come across here) and eventually made it into Bangkok. On the way we passed a digital temperature display saying 30 degrees, that was two hours after sunset, just to give you an idea of how stiflingly hot it is here.
We checked into the Rambuttri village inn near the Khao San road - a bit of a luxury after our long day of travelling. The room was beautiful, the bathroom immaculate, and it has a lovely rooftop swimming pool surrounded by plants and sun loungers. All for under 4 quid.
4/9
Spent the morning lazing by the pool and swimming in it, then went on a mission to do useful things like find out train times, pick up my flights (they weren't there yet), sort out my visa for Vietnam and try to catch up on my e-mailing. I went out for a drink with Lorraine, and bade her farewell as she was about to head to Koh Pha Ngan for the full moon party (has it been that long?). I'm going to miss her, she was fun to travel with, and a good laugh.
In the evening I met up with a friend of my brother's; Keith, and his girlfriend Angela. They're both travelling round SE Asia for a year, and had just arrived into Bangkok to start their travels the previous evening. Sadly they're planning to do roughly the same route as me, just in reverse, so we're unlikely to cross paths again. They brought me a care package of a large tub of marmite from Steve - odd, I was having cravings for it (and it has lots of B vitamins to keep the mosquitos at bay)! I took them to Hemlock for a meal, then we went out for a couple of beers at a streetside stall with live music - a couple of guys who took it in turns to play mainly English-language guitar music. One of them was good sometimes - he did an acceptable version of Neil Young's Heart of Gold, and some Pink Floyd number that seemed to make Keith happy. His Nirvana was surprisingly good, but he absolutely murdered U2's One and the Cranberries' Zombie. We particularly liked the Bob Marley though (I shot the sheliff, but I did no shoot he defilly). We stayed up drinking until the early hours of the morning swapping travel stories and recommendations - I had a lovely night, and it was so good to see them.
5/9
The next day I took the train to Kanchanaburi - the town with the bridge over the river Kwai in it. I have a lovely room just in front of a tributary of the river Kwai (this means that I have geckos, ants, frogs, birds, lizards, and sadly, mosquitos aplenty just outside, and sometimes inside, my room), I have a fantastic view each morning when I get up, the food is, as always, spot on, and there's tons to see and do here. All for just over a quid.
By the time I'd arrived, it was late afternoon, so once I'd found a room, I just lazed in the guest house restaurant. The Thai lady (Ice) who owns the place was very chatty, she told me that she's heading back to America with her husband in a couple of days, and she invited me to her leaving do. I said I'd let her know - I was knackered, but also quite curious to find out what goes on when Thai people go out clubbing. In the meantime I got chatting to a lovely older travelling couple (Chris and Mike) who gave me loads of advice for getting around Kanchanaburi and avoiding the many tour groups.
After going out for a lovely meal at Apple Guest house (good recommendation Steve), I went back to my room and got ready to go out (I'm missing my make-up, but I'd probably just sweat it off within a minute, so it's probably for the best), and went to meet the others. We drove to the club (Glitzy) on mopeds, went in, and the girls went to the bar and got a large bottle of whisky and some coke. Felt a bit apprehensive about the state I'd end up in. The music was mostly Thai pop, which is pretty easy to dance to, and not as bad as I'd been led to believe, with a few more familiar numbers thrown in (the Spice girls, Dido and Mary J Blige). Later on there was a live band, that I couldn't really dance to, but the ladyboys on stage seemed to manage alright. At one point the main ladyboy dragged Ice's husband Justin onto stage and chatted him up. His face was a picture when it was pulled into his/her fake boobs. Marvellous. Just as I was flagging, and desperately wanting my bed, the others decided that it was time to head home too, and I slept like a (slightly drunk) baby.
The next day, I woke too late to do the daytrip that I had planned, so I went to the Thai-Burma railway museum to find out more about the history of the bridge. I knew some of it from the film, but was flabbergasted by the death rates of the POWs who were forced to work on the railway, and by the conditions that they lived in. What got me the most was the information on the medical facilities available - they had virtually nothing. The doctors used drips made from old bottles or cans, and bamboo, and had to make saline solution from water that they'd distilled themselves. If the men became seriously sick (and by that I mean amoebic dysentry, malaria, beriberi, tropical ulcers and cholera) they weren't given food rations until they got back to work.
I then went to see the bridge, but I didn't really feel anything while I was there, probably because it was swarming with tourists and there were restaurants and stalls all around. It started to pour with rain, so I went back to the hotel and chatted to Chris and Mike some more before retiring to my room and finishing off my latest read - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I'll refrain from spoiling it for anyone by dicscussing it here, but if anyone has read either that or Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, please e-mail me, as I want to discuss them both with someone else!
After a late night due to obsessively reading, I woke up later than planned and found it was really too late to go to Erawan falls, so I decided to go to the tiger temple instead. I had very mixed feelings about this - the temple monks have adopted various tigers cubs over the years, who have been recovered from or orphaned by poachers. The cubs would die in the wild without their parents, so the monks have saved their lives. The problem is that the tigers have been raised by the monks, are completely tame, and are kept in cages that are far too small for them. The foreign volunteers who work there have managed to persuade the monks that this needs to change, and they have almost finished fundraising in order to build a tiger sanctuary (a semi-wild enclosure big enough for the tigers, so that future tigers could be reintroduced back into the wild at a later date when they are fully grown and can fend for themselves). The monks are fundraising for this by allowing tourists to come and meet, stroke and have their photos taken with the tigers (this is possible because the tigers are tame, nocturnal and are fed in the early afternoon, just before they are brought out to meet the tourists, plus there are about 3 staff present for every tiger). I felt uneasy about the ethics of the whole thing, but rationalised it because my money would be going towards providing a better environment for the tigers.
It took an hour and a half in the back of a sawngthaew to get there, during which time the rains came back, and brought a few friends. It pissed it down with a fury, and the only thing separating me and my lovely camera from the heaviest rains I've ever seen was a tarpaulin (with a couple of rips).
By the time we arrived, the rains had abated, and we walked to "Tiger Canyon". We joined a queue, and at first I couldn't see the tigers, but then someone in front of me shifted, and suddenly there were 3 of them, lazing in the sun not 10m in front of me. After a few minutes of shifting from foot to foot, unsure of whether or not I was still fully in control of my mental faculties (let alone my bladder) to think that this was actually a good idea, suddenly I was at the front of the queue. One of the staff took my camera, while another got a firm grip on my arm (I was later told that this was in case anyone decided to run to the other end of the canyon - tigers don't take too kindly too people running towards, past or away from them, and instinctively tend to see anyone who tries as prey. You wouldn't make it to the other end of the canyon.), and led me towards the first tiger. I sat to the side of it, tentatively put my hand on the fur on it's rump, and that was it - I was enchanted. The fur was softer and less coarse than I was expecting, and the colours were so amazing. I looked up, and the guide was taking pictures, so I grinned like, well, like an idiot stroking a tiger, and then was taken to my next tiger. This time they sat me near the head end, and pointed towards the top of it's head (about 5 or 6 inches from the alarmingly large and sharp looking teeth). After I was assured by two different people that no, the tiger definitely wouldn't eat me, I stroked the top of it's head, and even scratched it behind the ears a little - I was really starting to enjoy this, I hadn't petted a cat or a dog for ages - I've been too worried about rabies (it's funny how a cat or a dog sinking it's teeth into me and giving me a disease - one that I've been vaccinated against already - worried me enough to avoid them, but a carnivorous, top-of-the-food-chain-predator, like a tiger sinking it's teeth into me was worrying me less and less with every passing minute as the rest of the world fell away except for me and the tiger towards whom I was now making soothing, cooing noises). I stroked several more tigers, including one who had another tiger lying next to him. The other tiger became antsy about something, and let out a loud, guttural, thundering roar that did make me jump just a little bit, but my tiger didn't seem bothered, so I carried right on stroking him. Eventually I was led back out of the enclosure, and went to the side to look at my photos and take more. I got chatting to one of the volunteers, who reassured me that the tigers weren't drugged (he seemed quite adamant that he wouldn't work there if they were, pointed out that the tigers are walked to and from their cages, and showed me the numerous gouges that the tigers have had the energy to make in his arm in the last few weeks when they have become irritable - don't worry Mum, they can tell the signs before it happens and get the tourists well away by that time!) and told me more about the plans for the enclosure. After a while, the last tour bus left, and the guy I was talking to asked if any of the remaining few wanted to go round again. I was by the entrance to the enclosure in a jiffy, and was led around again. This time the first tiger that they took me too was lying on it's back, so I got to scratch it's tummy - it stretched a bit, so I took this to mean it enjoyed it. I certainly did! I left the enclosure in a bit of a daze, grinning like I was from Cheshire and buzzing like a junkie who's just had a hit. They really are the most awesome beasts, and being that close to one, let alone stroking several was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I'm still a bit iffy on the ethical issue, but I just can't bring myself to regret the experience, because I enjoyed it more than anything else that I've done so far (don't worry Mum, I promise not to attempt to stroke any tigers in the wild).
After watching the tigers being led back into their (too small) cages, we made our way back to Kanchanaburi. The scenery on the way there had been hidden behind a curtain of thick rain, but the sky was mercifully clear on the way back, so we saw the view in all of it's glory - dramatic mountains mainly made up of layers of very oddly bumpy long ridges: the kind of rock formations that make you wish that you'd studied geology.
posted by Cat D @ 8:33 AM
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