Going up a mountain...

Well, where to start, it's been so hard to find the time that it's now April and a long time since our October break to Nepal. I'll try to keep it brief, because if I don't get this updated I'll never get round to writing about 'The Great Adventure that is to come'...or is not to come if a certain stupid volcano does not stop spurting ash into the sky.

This holiday in Nepal wasn't the first one for me, I went there about 6 years ago and have wanted to go back ever since. This trip has left me feeling the same way, you can go there for quite a long time and you leave feeling like you've only begun to scratch the surface of what the country has to offer. Not only are the people some of the most honest and open I've ever met, but the land is so diverse and the activities varied that you'll never fit it all in in one go.

The places we went this time were very similar to the route I did on my previous trip. When I came the first time all Nicole and I had planned on doing was sitting by Lake Pokhara, drinking tea, reading books and relaxing after an incredibly hard semester. The relaxing lasted for the time it took us to drink two pots of Nepali tea, then we got bored and went on a walk. We Walked for 6 days, taking little other than a book and a change of underwear. We were very unprepared, had no guide and no fixed plan. Needless to say we got very wet, very cold and very smelly, and didn't make it much higher than 2700 metres. The experience was so good it just left me wanting for more.

The return visit was a lot more planned. Partly because I'm in a relationship with a holiday planning addict, and partly because we had convinced Nick's father to come along. We had all accommodation and tours planned months before.

When flying from Asia to Kathmandu, if it's clear then you can get a view of Everest, which we did, a nice bonus for most, a temporary distraction from flying for me. I'm not sure what was more stressful however; the flight (always scary), or the following drive through the centre of Kathmandu. Bangkok is hair-raising, but at least the roads are wide and the people and animals have the good sense to stay off them. Kathmandu has small winding streets where the buildings tend to lean progressively closer over the street the taller they get. Every mobile thing on 4, 3, or two wheels, or 4 or 2 legs, tries to squeeze themselves together down the narrow streets.

The first few days were spent exploring the local area of Thamel, the tourist centre of the city, once full of hippy hideaways, now dominated by a whole heap of adventure tour  centres and mountaineering clothing shops. We also went to view the city from above at the monkey stupa, Swayanbhunath, on the hill.

We took another hair-raising flight to Pokhara where I spent the entire 25 minute flight white knuckles showing as I gripped the seat in front and kept my eyes closed. I was really grateful to arrive in Nepal's second biggest city; Pokhara. Pokhara is the complete opposite from Kathmandu. It's airy, calm, peaceful (apart from the terrible rock cover band down the road), and life is just a little slower. We only stayed here for one night before the real adventure began.
 

 

 
After meeting our team (strangely consisting of two guides and one porter...felt really sorry for him, one porter carrying three people's luggage...including random never used items such as Eric's portable chair), we drove 3 hours out of Pokhara to the start point of our walk. We set off from Birathanti. The first day was just an easy introduction, with only a 4 hour walk and a 500 metre climb. We stayed in our first teahouse in Hile at 1400m. It was freezing, damp, dark and had an outside squat toilet. Nick and I decided to start our week long diet of the local staple; dal baht (vegetable curry, lentil curry, rice and chipati). I have fond memories of this cheap set meal served at every teahouse and planned for this to be my daily staple. The one we had that night was ok, but my standards of food have improved, and runny, brown, salty liquid along with rice and a few veg is never going to be that inspiring.

 

Next day we started at 7.00. By 8.00 we'd climbed about 500 steps, by 9.00 about 700. This was basically the way the day spanned out, interspersed with the odd Nepali tea stop and crazy first sighting of mountains photo taking. We walked until about 4.00, climbing steadily all day. That night we stayed in Gorapani, a large village at 2775m. We stayed in a warm lodge with big indoor dining hall complete with fire barrel in the middle. It was around this that all the porters and guides huddled. We were able to watch the sun set over Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh highest mountain at 8167m.
 

 

We had stopped at Gorapani so we could punish ourselves with a 500 metre climb in the dark, in a queue of people, sweating and then freezing our butts off, all before breakfast. We left the guesthouse at 5.00 so we could make it up to the 3120 metre view point above Goraphani called Poon Hill for sunrise. It was cold and tiring but well worth the climb. Watching the orange glow of the sun's rays slide down the peaks across the valley was incredible, even if you are surrounded by hundreds of other camera clicking tourists. After yet another cup of tea we made our way back down for breakfast. What took us about an hour and half on the way up, took us all of 30 minutes to get back down. Like to think it was because we could travel so much quicker when it's light, but reckon it had far more to do with the fact that we weren't very fit and we are plain and simply quite slow when walking uphill.
 

 

 

After a breakfast of greasy eggs, cheese and fried onions, we set off on in the direction of Tadapani. It was supposed to be a reasonably easy day as a lot of it was down hill, perfect when we'd already been hiking for 2 hours. What the guides or books don't tell you, is that going down can be more awkward and slow than going up, especially when you're having to pick your way down through unstable mud slides in dark dank forests. I have a great fear of falling when I walk downhill, and absolutely no fear of falling when I walk uphill. Basically if you have a choice of tripping up and landing on your hands and knees when going up, or tripping down and falling over an edge or slipping down through mud on your ass, I'm always going to opt for the former. Needless to say it was a really exhausting day, probably the hardest day of the trip for me. We rolled in cold and tired, to a freezing stone room, with freezing and hard beds, and cracked windows showing mountain views. Dinner was fried pasta with eggs, cheese and fried onions, before going to bed for a night so cold it was second only to sleeping in a snow hole. Fully clothed with thermals, hood of sleeping bag wrong way round and over our heads instead of under it, down jacket over the the top of everything else. Nice.

Woke in the morning with icy breath and windows frosted on the inside, to the most incredible sunrise. Needn't have made all that extra effort and gotten out of bed the day before as the sunrise at Tadapani far beat the one from Poon Hill. Well ok, maybe it wasn't quite so spectacular, but not having to sweat and shove your way uphill in the dark for an hour an half has to give it the edge. Breakfast was greasy eggs, cheese and tomatoes, gotta mix things up, digestion was starting to protest.

 

The walk from Thadapani to Chomrong was reasonably uneventful. That is apart from from finding the dream teahouse with a flat and sunny grassy garden on a precipice overlooking Mount Fishtale (Machhapuchhure). Machhapuchhure isn't one of the tallest mountains in the world, reaching a hardly mentionable 6993 metres, but it is to me the perfect image of a mountain. Sharp, pointy and even on both sides, just like the kids draw. It is also sacred to the people of Nepal, and although a single attempt was made in 1957 by a British team, the climbers climbed to within 50m of the summit via the north ridge but didn't go any further as promised. The mountain has since remained closed to all expeditions.
 

It was a sunny and reasonably easy day. There was a slight negative tinge to it though. While we were at the dream teahouse we met a guide who had had to double back on himself as his group, who had continued on their way to Chomrong, had left a camera behind during their tea stop. They could not find the camera and left in a hurry. We found out later that they had caught up with our porter who had gone on ahead, and given him a hard time and demanded that they could search him and all our bags. Poor guy, not only was it his first trek and he was carrying three bags, he also got accused of stealing and then thought he'd be in trouble with us for letting someone go through our stuff. Stupid people found their camera at the next tea stop in a bag they said they'd checked.
 

 

Chomrong is a really beautiful mountain village that is the gateway to the base camp trek. You can reach Chomrong from a number of directions, but from there on it's just one path to the base camps. It is kind of the last truly civilized stop. A village stretching far down the hillside made of numerous teahouses and small shops. It is the last place to buy anything essential. Chomrong was the point Nicole and I turned back on my previous trip and I was really pleased to be back there. The views are great, the showers hot, the toilet western, and our room was above the kitchen so we had Nepali style central heating. We were told not to bother taking things that really weren't essential from this point...spare shoes, extra clothes, Eric's collapsible chair, even our wash bags. Apparently there were no hot water showers from that point on,. Now as much as I hate being smelly, glacial water when it's freezing outside is just not doable. Dinner was an adventurous chicken curry. Was terrible; seriously lacking grease, cheese and egg.

 

 
From Chomrong we had to descend 2195 steps to the valley bottom to cross a river. I know it's that many steps, because for the return journey when Nick was suffering heat stroke and climbing them in blazing midday sun, he thought it would be helpful to count them. Didn't matter how close to collapsing he was, he wouldn't give up on counting the steps. Sure this only made it harder. The picture of the baby water buffalo is taken halfway up the steps when we were on our way down. We all felt like this on the way back up.
 

One of the things most people fail to take into account when hiking in the mountains, is that while on the map a day's hike may look easy, with an altitude gain of only 300-400 metres, what you often don't realize is that to get this amount of gain you may have to go up and down a thousand metres a number of times. It would be a lot easier if it was all just up and then down, but sadly it's never that simple. Our walk that day took us up and down a number of times, and we also had the added worry of our guides seeming to have little confidence in the fact that we would have rooms waiting for us when we arrived in Dovan. Thankfully they it sorted and we had a dry place to put of stuff when the freezing mist came down. Dinner was fried potatoes, egg and cheese. Appetite is starting to play tricks on me. Seem to be constantly nauseous.

 The hike from Dovan to Durali the next day took us further along the spectacular valley leading up to the base camps. From here the view is limited to the walls of the valley and you only get  quick glimpses of Mt Fishtail to your right and most of the Annapurna peaks in front of you. Deep in the valley it stayed really cold until late when the sun finally made it over the mountains, then it would become roasting and the walking tougher. We were all very jaded by this point and if it wasn't for the views we'd probably all have been questioning what we were doing there. We didn't seem to be gaining the much altitude and we knew we had a really hard next few days. Dinner was a subdued plate of chips. Cheese and eggs is a no go, grease and potatoes is the only thing my stomach can handle for lunch and dinner.
 

Next day, Deurali to Machapuchare Base Camp, 3700 metres. This was a day of hard climbing.  Winding our way up narrow paths that serpentine their way up the valley by the side of the roaring Modi Khola river. You become very aware of your feet on days like these and I always seem to slip and trip more. Every so often you are passed by guides and guests literally running down the mountain in the opposite direction. Seems that once you've been up to the base camps everyone is in a hurry to get down. Unlike me, most people find going down is the easy part. As well as the climb, the day threw a few other challenges my way. There were a number of fast flowing tributaries that had to be crossed, some by jumping boulders, and others by balancing precariously on logs perched high on boulders. Now I’ve never been known for my poise or grace, and I have a tendency to shake and wobble and fall off things that others stroll across. This part of the day was more exhausting for me than the hill climbing. Our rest stop that night was in what smelt like a disused livestock shed underneath the teahouse dining room. It was the only room in the village we could get and the three of us had to stay in there, listening to the tramping of people's boot overhead.

 
At 4.30 the next morning we set of with light packs and headed up into the mist towards the amphitheatre of the Annapurna Sanctuary. There had been fresh snow the day before, and it was bitterly cold. You need to wear thick down jackets because the minute you stop you freeze, but when you are moving you get so hot in the jacket that you sweat. This means that you are going from hot to cold and back getting damper and damper and colder and colder. We were walking surrounded by the dark outline of the smaller peaks, moving slowly closer to the snow line that marked out Annapurna South. In the moonlight the snow reflected the dark blue of the sky, but as the time wore on it was caught by the rays of the sun, turning yellow then amber, the reflection small at first but then spreading and brightening the area all around us. We reached our highest point for this. Climbing up Annapurna Base Camp steps and turning to see the sun coming over the ring of peaks behind.
 

 
 The Annapurna Sanctuary trip is in no way the most challenging trek you can do, in fact it is one of the easiest. It is however, considered by many to be the most rewarding. Annapurna Base Camp sits in a glacial basin at 4137m, surrounded on all sides by mountains, most of which are over 7000 metres. It was such a buzz being up there, the feeling of achievement is great, as is the knowledge that it's all downhill from there, well kind of, in theory. We enjoyed a quick breakfast before setting off, we had a challenging 1600 metre descent that day, past our previous 3 nights stop points and further down the valley. It was a fast paced day down, I understand now why people were running, but with my balance and downhill confidence I was never going to travel that fast and struggled to keep up. We had downpours and rude French walkers to contend with, but we made it there in time for our first hot shower for days and a big plate of French fries. This was all I had managed to stomach each meal of the last 3 days.

 
What took us 7 days to get up, took us 2 and a half days to get down. It should have been longer, but we overruled our guides and went for the quick option. Nick had gotten heat stroke and didn't quite recover from his battle with 2195 steps, I was losing the will to face another French fry, and we were all ready for an en-suite bathroom with hot water. Eric, the only one of us who doubted their chances of getting to the top, had survived the trip the best out of the three of us.

Right, next plans... Annapurna Circuit, 21 days, 5500 metre passes, and a whole lot more challenging. Any takers?

Bit wet up north...

As we’ve only been up to north Thailand once since we’ve been here (once in 6 years for me), we thought that we should use this long July bank holiday to go up to Pai. Pai is in the north west of Thailand in the Mai Hon Son region and is famous for its relaxed feel and richness of culture. Due to Pai’s remote location, it was many years before this area, previously dominated by hill tribe people, was reached by the modern world of business and tourism. This makes it one of the more unusual areas in Thailand to visit. It has definitely retained some of its old world charm, even after becoming an increasingly popular backpacker hangout in the past few years.

To get up to Pai, we took our new favourite mode of transport to Chiang Mai; the Thai first class cabin sleeper train. It wasn’t so punctual this time however, and we were 2 hours late before we even left the platform in Bangkok. Meant to leave at 7.30, instead we sat on the train for 2 hours not moving. This added to the normal Thai railway delays meant that rather than arriving at 8.30 the following morning, we ended up arriving at 12.30. This is more like standard practice than freak occurrence. It’s hard to get annoyed however, when you have a bed to lie on and the views are nice. Definitely beats being delayed in an airport anyway.

Once we arrived in Chiang Mai, we were supposed to meet up with a car hire representative. Those who have been to Chiang Mai train station know it has the standard gathering of touts that miraculously appear in every 3^rd world country wherever you get tourists gathering. You have 10 people shouting 'taxi taxi!' at you, and just as many shouting ‘mini-bus', or 'tuk tuk’. After fighting your way through them with a cry of ‘Mi Owe’ (don’t want), you’re faced with the guest house touts and their ‘where you stays?’. It is really annoying, and you’re never given a chance to think. You always end up taking a deep breath, barging through, and becoming super rude. It also gives a those arriving a really bad impression of the locals in the area. Anyway, to stop ourselves getting as irrationally annoyed as usual, we thought we’d have some fun winding up the touts. Every time they came over to us shouting 'taxi' or 'tuk-tuk', we just repeated whatever they said. This got them really excited as they thought there luck was in. They all ran through the entrance following us. Sadly, after they all worked out what we were doing, and walked back annoyed, I made a spectacular fall down the front step (yes, that is in the singular form) and landed on my face in the dirt. Suppose some would call that Karma. Whatever it was, I ended up with stiff bruised knees and schoolyard scraped fingers for the rest of the trip.

We had been warned by many that the minibus journey from Chiang Mai to Pai is one of most tortuous ever, with more than 100 near hairpin bends on the way. We heard stories of domino affect vomiting and over cramped, steamy buses. For this reason we had decided to hire a car. We thought we had been really resourceful and found a great deal from a small Internet site, getting a jeep for about £10 a day. However when we arrived at the rental shop (pride still smarting from my graceful fall), we were advised that only moments before, the jeep we were supposed to hire had been involved in an accident, and our only other rental option was a pick up truck at nearly twice the price. This was told to us with the standard ‘Sorry, no have’ and Thai smile. When we refused to pay the extra price they miraculously found another jeep, covered in a tarpaulin in the backyard. They did however question it’s capabilities for getting us up the road to Pai, ‘were we sure we didn’t want the pick-up…?’

Not ones to enjoy an attempted rip off, we set off with Nick wrenching through the gears and wrestling with the unassisted steering. The car probably hadn’t moved for a long time and everything was extremely rusty and seized up. We had been advised repeatedly before departing that if we didn’t put water in the radiator every time we stopped, the engine would blow up. Fill us with confidence why don’t you.

Once Nick got hang of the car it wasn’t too bad. It did take us 3 hours instead of 2, and there were a few moments of concern when we searched for something lower than first gear to get us round some particularly steep bends. We were exhausted by the time we got to Pai, me from praying we would make it, Nick from heaving a very heavy car round over 100 bends. Not sure how the gear box survived either. When we arrived at the resort we parked the jeep, and it didn’t move again until we left. It was easier for us just to pay extra to hire a motorbike. Definitely a case of you get what you pay for.

One of the main reasons for going to Pai was to use it as training for our October treks in Nepal. There isn’t a hill to be found near Bangkok, and Pai has some great trekking. We also wanted to go tubing down the river (like a pub crawl on water apparently). We hadn’t really looked into the seasons too well, and we had no idea that we were going up for the start of the rainy season. It must have rained nearly 80% of the time we were there. Luckily we had booked into a really nice place so it didn’t matter that we ended up spending so much time chilling in the room. It had a huge day bed in the window overlooking a pond and the hills, so we got to appreciate the scenery without getting soaked. Shame I didn’t get to top up my tan by the pool though.

We did get out to do a few things. On the first night out in town we were given a flyer inviting people to come help at an organic farm planting rice. We went down the next day expecting some kind of cheesy guided tour where we would be dressed in wellies and given a few plants to stick in a muddy paddy, but we thought it’d be worth a go so we could tell the kids at school about it (they eat rice everyday and have very little concept of where it comes from). When we got there we found a self sufficient farm where tourists stayed and got cheap rooms for helping out. There weren’t many of us and we spent the morning pulling juvenile rice plants out a dry nursery area, to be planted into the paddy fields in the afternoon. We spent a few hours pulling up the plants but decided to call it a day early, as wading around in the muddy fields before site seeing didn’t seem like a good idea.

As the rain and cold put an end to the other planned activities (yes we are pathetic excuses for travelers, but I’m sorry we don’t have 6 months of bumming around to do, this was a weekend off work). We ended up just doing a lot of relaxing at the resort. On our last day there the rain cleared for long enough for us to go off exploring on the bike and see one of Pai’s many waterfalls. Even though we didn’t do much, the scenery is so nice there that it’s just cool to drive around and take in the views.

As a place to chill out and see a different kind of Thailand, Pai is well worth the arduous drive. I would however recommend checking out what season it is before you head up there. And paying for a car that is either automatic or has power steering, or even better, both.

Posh Weekends...

Since we've come back to Thailand our standard of accommodation when we travel has changed a lot. Gone are the £3 bamboo huts with slats for air conditioning, 2 hours of electricity, and a 5 minute scramble in the dark to a hole in the ground for a toilet (you gotta love Rock Garden). Now we seem to have developed a taste for a few more luxuries when we travel.

When I lived here before I was never interested in Hua Hin, it isn't blessed with nice beaches, and it gets overrun by Thai families. It never had the appeal of Koh Samet or Koh Tao. When we went down for a change we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was really cool. It's not like anywhere else I've been in Thailand, it's not all about girly bars and partying and there are lots of really cool bars and restaurants. It's a very relaxed place and everyone who lives there is friendly and chilled out, not like many of the areas where you get locals mixing with tourists.

Devan Dhara Resort

When we first went down there we stayed in the Devan Dhara Resort. This is a really pretty place out of town. It is made up of lots of private villas in a variety of styles ranging from garden villas, 1 bed pool villas and super sized exec villas. We stayed in a garden villa minus pool. Thought having a villa to ourselves was treat enough!! We did however get a bit of villa envy as we peered through the gate of some of the vacant pool villas.

AKA Resort

The next time we went down to Hua Hin, we decided we would treat ourselves with a stay in a place with a private pool. Seems extravagant, but we book everything through http://www.agoda.com/ and we get some really cheap deals. A private pool villa at AKA resort about 10 minutes outside of Hua Hin centre cost only £75 a night. A little pricey, but not too bad for weekend treat when you compare it to what you'd usually pay for a private pool, and you even get an outdoor tub.

Another great little beach retreat is Petchaburi. Slightly closer to Bangkok it's only a hour and half drive so can be more tempting for a weekend away than Hua Hin. It does however lack the nightlife options of Hua Hin, only having a small selection of restaurants. We stayed in the Fisherman's Village, a beautiful small resort right on the beach. Like Hua Hin, the beach is not so nice and definitely not inviting enough to go for a swim, because of this resorts in both places have had to make themselves extra special, offering budget 5 star spa style accommodation at a reasonable price. Neither Petchaburi or Hua Hin would be a place I'd choose to take a tropical holiday, but for weekends away where you're not after white sand and coconut palms, they are the perfect place.

Fisherman's Village Resort

Hong Kong...the city that's got it all

For the Teacher's Day long weekend in January, we decided to take one of my students mothers up on her very generous offer of a place to stay in Hong Kong. She works as a first class flight attendant for Cathy Pacific and although she lives in Thailand most of the time she also has an apartment near the airport in Hong Kong.

We got cheap flights with Air Asia to fly out on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Hong Kong when it was dark and we could seethe lights of all the enormous buildings near the airport. We had been told that the apartment we were going to was in one of these new big developments. Little could have prepared us for the scale of the condos that have sprung up on Lantau Island near Hong Kong airport. When we pulled up alongside a group of 16 high rises each about 75 stories in height, all that went through my head was to wonder how often Hong Kong experienced earthquakes or tremors. Letting ourselves in to the beautiful 2 bed apartment on the 53^rd floor, I became a little disturbed by the height. I know we've been in bars higher than this, but we didn't have to sleep there.

First on our rather extensive to do list on our 3 day visit, was to go and see the pandas in Ocean Park. I have loved pandas for quite a while and we'll often flick on the the Thai Panda Channel to check out what cute stuff the new baby panda at Chiang Mai is doing. Although I don't like looking at animals in captivity, this is one of the only opportunities I was going to get to be close to the pandas. The ones at Ocean Park are housed in a large softly lit quiet building. You are not allowed flash cameras, and if you make too much noise you'll be scolded by the ever present guards. Pandas are such quiet peaceful animals, I bet they can't understand what all the fuss is about. They sleep about 70% of the time and when they are not sleeping they're stuffing themselves with grass and trying really hard to pretend they can't see you. It's not like they are active and show off, they don't jump through hoops or balance balls on their noses. They just eat, sleep, and look cute. Apparently they are not even that friendly, even as far as bears can be friendly.

While at Ocean Park we went to the huge aquarium there. To get there you have to take a long and breathtaking cable car ride along the rocky somewhat precipitous coast. It's quite a view and a great way to see the Hong Kong coastline, you dangle over the blue green ocean with a great expanse of blue sky and the odd bird of prey circling above. At the aquarium we were quite relieved to not encounter a whale shark, or something equally ridiculously over sized in a tank. Instead, we got to walk through a really impressive hall of jellyfish, all lit up with colour changing lights.

From Ocean Park we took a taxi up to The Peak. This is the area on the hill looking down over the high rise area of central Hong Kong. It is the top of an area known as Millionaires Hill. Judging by the impressive homes spread across the hillside its name is meant in quite the literal sense. The views from this area are spectacular, not only do you get to look down on the amazing collection of high rises, but you also get nearly 360 degree ocean views from some places. We went up there both day and night so we could fully appreciate the view. I treated Nick to a tasty but rather overpriced meal for his birthday, overpriced for the size of the meal and its one accompanying beer, but not overpriced for a seat next to a window looking down on one of the most iconic views in the world.

There are a number of other things in Hong Kong that should be done both day and night, this is one of the reasons why it's so hard to fit all the activities in and you end up so exhausted from trying. Taking the cheap Star Ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, and walking down the Avenue of Stars in Kowloon being two of them. We got to see the daily sound and light show when doing the latter. A huge tourist attraction and incredibly bad for the environment, but non the less very impressive. To look out across the water and see all of those huge buildings, in so many different shapes and sizes, all with different stuff going on inside, light up in coordination with multicoloured lights and patterns, flashing in time with the music. We went back to the Avenue of stars the next day so we could get pictures of the life size bronze of Bruce Lee silhouetted against the city skyline.

While you can spend time in Hong Kong and avoid spending too much money (a day can be lost just exploring the markets and admiring the buildings), it is also quite easy to start burning through cash at an alarming rate. Unlike most other places in Asia, not only can you find market stalls selling western sized clothes, shoes and boots, but also most of the shops you get at home can be found in Hong Kong. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a H+M store. There is also a huge outlet mall selling loads of top designer brands at really tempting prices. Finally, while trawling the streets shopping or just looking around, there are lots of interesting food stalls or rest stops to try. One of my favourites was afternoon dim sums in a rather grand and very full dim sum hall.

With all the sightseeing most days we got back to the apartment a bit exhausted and with no desire to head back out to check out the nightlife. Hong Kong is however, one of those places where you just have to keep going and try and see as much as you can. As well as going up to The Peak to check out the night views, we also went down to Lan Kwai Fong. This is an area similar to Temple Bar in Dublin. It has Irish/English pubs on every corner, hip street bars, and just about every type of cuisine you could think, apart from that is, Chinese food which strangely we couldn't find. This is definitely the international area. It was just like being at home when people pile out of work and head straight for the pubs, there were suits everywhere. What I liked most about this area, was the fact that all the girls were wearing boots and warm clothes. Often you go out in Thailand and you wonder why the girls even bother with the dress if they're going to wear it that short, and on heels so high they can't walk. It was nice to see girls thinking more about comfort than ridiculous trends.

Hong Kong has to be one of the best cities in the world to live, if you can afford it. You are only ever about 30 minutes away from the coast and it has tree covered hills that drop dramatically into the ocean for hiking and diving. It has all the best things about Asia; the weather, the food, the markets, and all the best things about the UK; the infrastructure, the organization, and the fact that people not only know how to queue, but miraculously they know how to get on and off escalators.

Bolaven Plateau, Loas

For the Christmas break we wanted to go somewhere cold. A friend had recommended the Bolaven Plateau in Southern Laos. This is one of the quieter areas of Laos, and due to the elevation of the Plateau it meant that we were likely to get some woolly hat weather.

We took the overnight sleeper train to Ubon Ratchathani. As a Christmas treat we booked first class so we had a bunk bed cabin to ourselves. This is definitely the way to travel on the trains in Thailand. You can control the temperature so they don't freeze you with aircon, and you have lights you can turn off it's possible to get some sleep. Apart from the shunting which can send you across the bed, you generally wake up feeling like you've had a proper night's sleep.

Once we got to the border and dealt with the scheming border officials who find miraculous extra charges for it being the last Tuesday in the month or something equally stupid, you enter Laos and jump in a minivan to the town of Pakse. Pakse is a small dusty concrete town with a number of overpriced guesthouses, but we needed to go there for a few supplies and to rent a motorbike to take us the 40 kilometres up onto the Plateau. We were lucky enough to get a bike without a footwell, so this meant we had to tie our 3 bags onto ourselves or balance them precariously on the bike. After the first kilometre it started to get uncomfortable. After 10 it was hell. Then it started to rain. Then as we crawled our way up the hill for fear of unseating the bags, it got cold. Instead of stopping and digging out woolly hats and jumpers, we just carried on in grim determination, getting stuck behind the slow tractor like contraptions that were piled high with sensibly dressed warm smiling locals. As you can imagine, we were very glad to reach the hotel.

Tad Fane resort overlooks the tallest waterfall in Laos. The Tad Fane waterfall is a twin stream waterfall that plunges 200 metres down into a deep gorge. The resort was opened as a

way of offering locals an alternative and more sustainable income than logging and hunting. The area is becoming increasingly popular with tourists, and many people can now work in guest houses, as guides, or making traditional handicrafts. This is giving the forests and the animals chance to recover.

There are about 10 waterfalls in the area, and also some really unusual land formations on the plateau. We did a number of guided and unguided walks while we were there. On the first walk we did, our guide took his role as 'coffee plant educator' very seriously (we were still being quizzed on the croprotation and prices per kilo of the different coffees three days later). We then visited a coffee making house and were shown the process of turning beans into coffee. While there we were offered refreshments of tea or coffee. Nick decided to join the locals with a few shots of Laos whiskey, standard breakfast apparently.

For one of our unguided walks we went round the gorge to the top of Tad Fane waterfall. This was the shortest walk we did, but by far the hardest. Sliding down slippery mud tracks while clinging to slimy tree branches of questionable strength, all the while knowing that when you slip and lose your footing you're heading straight for a 200 metre drop, is a bit exhausting. Still, it's a lot easier than climbing back up! We had been told that if you cross the first head of the waterfall, thatit is possible to continue through the forest some way to the other head where you get a better view. We crossed the water by jumping boulders and then got completely bogged down in undergrowth on the other side. Thinking that it's best not to wander aimlessly around in the bushes when near the edge of a gorge, we turned around and headed back. Predictably, when crossing the water to get back, I fell in. It sounds quite dramatic falling in 10 metres up stream from a 200 hundred metre drop, but when the water is only about waste high, you're never in any great danger of getting swept over.

New Year at Tad Fane was quite quiet. Most people only stayed at the resort for a day or two, so we hadn't had chance to make many friends. The open sided resort restaurant was the only place to eat in the area, and they made it nice with a small open fire in the corner. We ended up sitting with the locals while they sang Laos songs around the fire. As New Year approached we bought them all a big bottle of Beer Laos each and they gave us some of their Laos Laos (paint stripper like hallucinogen inducing local alcohol...sip don't glug!) The staff started drinking really quickly, and more and more beers were produced. At the end of the night when we went to pay, we were charged not for 5 staff beers, but about 12. Sadly we entered the new year trying to explain to people that if you ask you'll probably get, if you try and cheat or con, it'll end up costing you. It was a bit of a bad end to the night and left us feeling a little bit disappointed with the new 'friends' we had made.

New Years day we blew out our hangovers with a walk up onto the plateau. We were taken there a few days before on a guided walk and had wanted to go back to get more pictures. It's a crater pocked volcanic area with odd rock formations all over it. The locals go up there with their cattle or to burn down (yes, 'burn down'... a questionable way of getting trees to fall down as they are not allowed to cut them down) and steal the teak trees. One of the things you can see up there is the damage done by the American bombs that got dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. The plateau is one of the places the American planes dropped the bombs so they had fuel to make it back to their base.

The only other unusual experience we had while in Laos, was the drive in a taxi back to the border. 70% of the hour and a half journey was spent on the left hand side of the road. This is somewhat scary when they actually drive on the right hand side of the road in Laos. All drivers there seem to have a rather fatalist approach to driving. It made Thai drivers look sensible, something I never thought possible.

Bangkok Christmas

For Christmas this year we decided to stay in Bangkok. Christmas is always a bit of a let down in the tropics. You're faced with 2 choices. Spend out a fortune for an overpriced meal in hotel, restaurant or pub, where there will be little atmosphere, garish decorations, bad music, no parsnips or sprouts, and they'll more than likely run out of gravy. Or, you stay home, close the curtains, turn the aircon up high, pretend you're somewhere cold and cook yourself a proper Christmas dinner.

We decided to opt for the at home version, decorated the tree, searched high and low for cranberry sauce and stuffing, spent £5 on one parsnip and £4 for eight sprouts and bought a duck for roasting.
Now the only other time I attempted a Christmas dinner was in Roatan when we all had a particularly bad island hangover and the gas ran out after half an hour of cooking. This time I was determined to be more successful.

I suppose the plan was always a bit flawed with the fact that we went out and started drinking straight after work on Christmas Eve. It became even more flawed when we stared ordering cocktail and shooter combinations and wrapping tinsel round our heads while doing the YMCA dance. I should have realized at the point where we had to stop the taxi on the way home 3 times, that Christmas day wasn't going to go as planned.
Christmas morning Nick was green when he woke up, and we had to take a sick break during the unwrapping of presents. By lunchtime all thoughts of food had been written off for Nick and Christmas day was 'postponed' until boxing day. Not one to let a hangover get me down I did a mini roast chicken dinner and ate my mince pie on my own.

For all it's delays, the dinner next day was delicious. It was however, a good job we postponed it, as it came as a surprise to me when unwrapping the duck, that while it had had all the necessary inside bits taken out, it was still sans feet and head. I wasn't strong enough to dislocate and chop through all the bits, and there was no way that green Nick would have been able to do that they day before.

Not sure what the best plan for Christmas in Bangkok is...maybe just don't stop drinking, then the hangover doesn't arrive and you don't care what you eat for Christmas dinner.

To Burma on a bike...

...or, maybe 'the least relaxing 'relaxing weekend' ever' would be more appropriate.

I may have mentioned before that Thailand has possibly the most public holidays of any country I've ever been to, apart from the obvious fact that it seems that every time I need something urgently from another country's embassy and there seems to be a holiday causing delays, Thailand is definitely up there with the best for 'any excuse for a day off'. Some months in Thailand we can have up to 4 days off for various festivals, including a 'Royal Ploughing Day'.

So, after a rather stressful few weeks back at school, where incompetent bosses, infuriating kids and a daily conundrum of finding a working computer that happens to be installed to a working printer, Nick and I were more than ready to head out of Bangkok for a break on the King's birthday long weekend. We decided to head out into the hills outside Kanchanaburi where we could escape the hordes of tourists and the horrendous noise of the karaoke disco boats that make their way up and down the river when you're trying to sleep.

Sadly these weekends never end up being quite as relaxing as planned, and more than partly to blame due a big 'girls night' the evening before, the quick and easy taxi ride was slow, hot and constant test of concentration to stop myself from throwing up in the juddering, stop starting, holiday traffic. 2 hours turned into 3 and a half, and by the time we arrived all I wanted was a bed.

Due to our great idea of staying outside town, we also had to arrange a motorbike so we could get out there. The directions seemed simple and we followed them to the letter. Directions were correct but we were told to start at the wrong junction so finding the place took a lot of irritating phone calls and wrong turns.

The place we were staying in was really nice with it's own lake and pool. We were shown to our wooden air con hut with a view of the lake. The air-con was broken so we had been given a fan. The wooden room felt and smelt like a sauna in the midday heat so we turned on our over-sized fan and collapsed on the bed. The fan must have been a jet engine in a past life and the whole hut vibrated and rattled when it got going. No catch up sleep that afternoon.

Somewhat tired and cranky, we went out to meet up with friends that evening in town. Not only was it the King's birthday, but it was also the sound and light festival at the Bridge over the River Kwai, so Kanchanaburi old town was looking more like Piccadilly Circus. Buying tickets for the sound and light show was your usual chaotic affair where you have to clamber through hundreds of people to 3 different stalls telling you completely different things before you actually walk away with a ticket in your hand.

The sound and light show was very well done, even though we'd had no other choice than buying the expensive tickets and seemed to have ended up with the worst seats in the house. The display is done with lights and fireworks along the bridge and on a shiny old steam train the goes over the bridge. It tells the story of what prisoners of war went through to make the bridge and how it got destroyed in bombings. They actually have it set up so they can blow chunks of flaming debris off the bridge into the river. Not too environmentally safe, but quite impressive non the less.

After dinner with our friends (no alcohol mind as it's bad to celebrate the King's birthday with a drink...where's that old hair of the dog when you need it...?) we climbed on our motorbike and started to make our way out of town. We quickly became aware of a problem with the bike as it was bumping along and the steering had gone. We drove straight to the rental place (open till 12.00) and found that at 11.30 it was closed with no answer from their mobile phone). We decided it was best to make it to the nearest garage where somebody might be able to help. Driving past the first garage (closed!) the tire finally popped and we admitted defeat. Now away from all signs of life, we didn't want to leave the bike in case it got nicked and we got into no end of trouble, and we had to sit on the side of the road and wait for our most understanding guest house to send a pickup truck to come and get us. It's worth taking note that not one but two policemen drove past us without stopping to ask if we were ok.

Getting back late to a cool room we climbed into bed and fell asleep, only to be woken an hour or so later when a drunken mob of uni exchange students came back from town and gained access to the music system in the restaurant and put on dodgy 80's songs at full blast. A new kind of rattle for the hut.

The next day, after a later than planned start, after the bike had been collected and the tire replaced, we took off into the hills to avoid the busy tourist areas. Beginning to enjoy ourselves as we got out of town, we get that bumpy feeling on the bike again and another flat tire. Now we hire bikes all the time so I'm pretty sure we are not wrecking tires due to bad driving or even over-wieghting, I've put on a few pounds but I'm not at the blowing tire point just yet. We had to sit and wait an hour for the rental place to come, this time with a whole new wheel, before we were on our way again. We thought that as the bike was so obviously fixed what with having a complete change of wheel, we would head of in the direction of the hills that border with Burma or Myanmar as it is now known.

The official border crossings between Thailand and Myanmar are further north so we didn't really expect to see much, but there were some remote Thai villages near the border that we thought might be interesting.

It took us about an hour and half to of driving past rice paddies, small wood hut villages and a few bemused and waving guard posts before we started moving up into the hills near the border. It was around this time that we saw a signpost saying that we were about 18 kilometres from the Thai-Myanmar border. Quite surprised that there was a border post that nobody really new about we thought we might as well check it out. The road got quieter and quieter the further up into the hills we went. Eventually we followed the road around a bend and straight into a rock face. They obviously built the road as far as they could and then just stopped. 100 metres back down the road was a hand-painted sign on a old plank of wood saying something in Thai and '400' with an arrow pointing up the bank to the left. With some difficulty Nick managed to get the bike up the steep narrow track (obviously not a border crossing for cars) which disappeared off into the bushes. We followed it for about 200 metres before I bottled it and said we should turn around. I didn't like the idea of being faced with angry border guards and trying to explain that we drove off road and through the bushes 'just for a look'. I especially didn't like the idea of potentially getting into trouble without my passport which was in the British embassy at the time getting replaced due to an unfortunate incident with a washing machine.

Anyway, after nearly making it all the way to Myanmar, we turned around and drove back to Kanchanaburi. It took us 2 tires and a rather frustrating phone call to the bike shop before we eventually got back into town. The kind mechanic who kindly replaced the inner tube half way home for 100 baht (about £2, for the inner tube and no charge for labour) told us the tire was bad and showed us how it had been put back on incorrectly. Needless to say we won't be hiring bikes from that shop again, and made them drive us back out of town to our guest house. We then enjoyed a quiet evening until being woken up in the middle of the night again by our friendly Canadian neighbours coming back from town and continuing a raucous birthday party all night. Love it! Relaxing weekend all round then!

October hol Part 3

After our time in Chiang Mai, we flew back down to Bangkok for a few days before heading off to different beach locations. Bill and Val were out here for three weeks so they went down to Railay Beach for 6 nights, my mum only had ten days so we went closer to Bangkok to Samed Island. Before going off to the beach we had one more Bangkok institution to see...Thai Elvis at Radio City on Patpong. There are a number of Thai Elvis impersonators in the city, but the one at Radio City is apparently the best, and you also get to see Tom Jones at the same time.

We went down to Patpong after a posh dinner at the Arun Residence and a walk down through the flower market. Walking down Patpong has to be one of the things that every visitor does. While most people have little interest in actually going in the famous girly 'go go' bars, they are a part of Bangkok that everyone is always curious about. Patpong is one of the best places in Bangkok to get high-quality copied bags, watches and shirts, so you can walk through the market while also getting to glance in some of the bars. It's not a place for kids, but they can be shepherded along the middle if you're worried about protecting their innocence!

The Elvis in Patpong performs 6 nights a week complete with sequins, flares and dodgy pelvic thrusts. He must be at least 60 and still manages to put on quite a show. The evening we took our family we got more than we bargained for, not from Elvis but from other members of the audience. We had been there about 45 minutes and had managed to get a good table with a view. Just as Elvis came on 6 drunken guys and their 'girlfriends' came and moved high stools in front of us. Nick politely asked them to move, then not so politely after they refused, and the guys absolutely flipped and started shouting and pushing Nick. Bill was in the toilet so it was only Nick and three of us ladies with these 6 guys getting aggro, Bill got back and backed up Nick while the pushing and shoving escalated, to the point where one of the guys started to threaten Nick with a bottle. While this was happening one elderly guy was leaning over the table and hurling abuse at our mums, not at me, but at the two most certainly respectable ladies in the bar. You will be pleased to know that the staff did absolutely nothing while all this was happening, just looked on from the door. The whole experience left me really shocked, even after peace had been made. In Thailand, to show any form of aggression or any emotion for that matter, is a complete loss of face. It is for this reason that outside of gang related issues, there are very few incidents of violence or even verbal conflict. What was stranger was the fact that these guys looked like professional business men, all middle aged or nearing retirement yet were out staring fights like young English yobs. Very, very odd experience.

I didn’t want my mum coming all the way from cold dreary England without getting some beach time, so we also managed two nights on Koh Samed while Bill and Val went down to Krabi. We stayed somewhere new on Samed; Mooban Talay Resort. Nice place, slightly more up market than I’m used to on Samed, and definitely pricier, but thankfully, not a cockroach in site. http://www.moobantalay.com/

We returned to Bangkok and took my mum to the airport. Nick and I then had one day to recover and do nothing before starting school and facing Semester 2 and the horror of the Variety Show. Bill and Val came back from Railay, and the following weekend we went up to Kanchanaburi to show Bill the museums, cemeteries, bridge and Hellfire Pass, all in 24 hours. More rushing around, eating lots and being tourists, Kanchanaburi has a lot of history to take in. If you visit Kanchanaburi check out the ‘Oriental Kwai Resort’, a bit out of town, but really nice. http://www.orientalkwai.com/rientalkwai.com/

After all this, Nick and I were just about done. Bill and Val had more in them though and took a day trip up to Ayutthaya to visit the old temples. They also did a bike ride around Bangkok on the wettest day of the year, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much water fall out of the sky. This was definitely one of those trips where you needed a holiday to recover from the holiday.