Jims Travel and Life or Lifeless Blog: 2013 April 14th - April 19, Vientiane, Laos

Dateline: April 19th 2013 Bangkok, Thailand

Our Return to Thailand
Haven't forgotten you, just been busy or lazy or both

Maybe you would prefer me to have forgotten??

As we say in Ontario, "Yours to discover"

As ever, totally on spec, we arrive at the
Laotian train station for the Thai rail link

There were only 2 overnight berth tickets left
Well, that's exactly how many we need

Well, I'm starting this second blast, the last one ended a month ago (April 6th even!) . This one only takes us up to April 19th, a month ago. Yikes.

And so, pretty well rested in a real bed

(well, a railway berth bed, which is pretty close),
we arrive at Bangkok station with nowhere to go,
dieing for a crap, and a dead cell phone

Anyone who is bored by this, I'm not surprised, so let me know, and I'll take you off of the list.

So, lets begin with the story so far etc etc........

However crap you are feeling, at 8AM, the national anthem
is played, and you stand up for all of it

Lots of travel and some wonderful sights and delights.I've updated (I think its live....?) the Laos expedition, (here: Laos:

Ooops!

Google has discontinued that service, try my previous blog

hand I'll give you a little teaser for the next tranche, due 3 days after I get really bored (yes, that's the problem, that's not a common occurrence these days, especially as Kayla arrived last week, and we are under here guidance on activities from then on.

I've sorta decided, fairly late in the trip, that I'll do this by email, and pix blog.

So, after Laos, overnight train, to Bangkok.

lets see how this works out:

I've found, literally a place on the
map to
take a cab to, and we have breakfast
in a cafe
while I book a hotel

Bangkok has had no real planning
so there's disgusting foul rotting
canals
right next to 5 star hotels

The view from our hotel breakfast buffet patio

Well, we left Vang Vieng, which incidentally was a fantastic place to hang out, on April 14th. Blimey, a month ago!

We departed during Songkran, the Lloa new years water festival. Everyone gets wet

The Lao, were a really special people, if they stopped you in the street, it was always to ask about you, or maybe improve their English with no ulterior motive whatsoever. What a wonderful friendly laid back country..... We miss it.

Ilge, probably dehydrated, but definitely knackered,
is into bed. I'm off.

We took ever receding transport modes: Luxury Cruising bus (to get 120Km to Vientiane, about $4.00), Cross town mini bus (to get 10Km to another bus station about $3.00), a public bus to get 8Km to the border crossing (about $0.30), and a tuk tuk to get from the border to the Laos side train station (about 2Km, for $3.50). Luckily, there's usually someone with enough English to help you out. Such is travel on your own without a guide to screw it up for you. But, if you do it, whatever you set out to do, you have succeded, and so, with a bit of luck and my trusty GPS Nexus 4, we made it, and apparently, got the last 2 decent beds on the train.

It was a fun experience.

Found Bangkok to be pretty chaotic. It had just rained, so we assumed the Vientiane parties had done the trick.

This is Khao San Road, the centre of hipdom
It's a rainy day, but the action carries on

The city was wet,a and apparently, very attached to their king, complete with everyone standing at 8:00AM to greet the National anthem

We eventually found a hotel after looking at a map and selecting an area, Ilge, coming down with some form of dehydration, or such, decided to stay and sleep, and so I started to explore on my own.

The main street for our hotel. This one is 6 stars I think
Ours (a 4 star) was through a door inside this one

The local canal, suitably stinking is our buffet
breakfast view

Strange city, luxury hotels right next to sewers (I'll avoid that here) and street cafes and palaces. Everywhere near us, is still water party, and cameras and smart phones are just more fun. Our hotel is "central", only inasmuch as it's local to palaces etc. I feel pretty safe, even though its a huge city, with apparently, no planning department.

Ah! Those were the days
King Bhumibol was almost worshipped

Next day we try the palace via the water taxi. Its a major tourist hell hole. We demure till some other time. The missus retires, I explore Bangkok.

They do love their king there....

The heat is still all pervading, high 30's, now finally attenuated by the afternoon rains. Wandering around and it is obvious there is no such thing as planning here, and of course, the food, is just wonderful. Amazingly enough, faaaaar better than Toronto. maybe its the fresh ingredients... More on this later

I did not realise how close Bangkok was to the Japanese war sites, so next day, we do a tour, half for me, half for the missus

Mine, its the River Kwai expedition, and the "Death Railway". Woah! Scary stuff....

I've read Montgomery's (as in Field Marshall), biography, and have nothing but admiration and deeply held appreciation for these guys. The museum, whan you eventually find the relevant exhibits (thats a really poignant, depressing moment of pathos here), has the details, but the pure hell of what they and many others in other such places and worse, had to endure can only be guessed at by reading between the lines. All I really felt I could do, was to bear witness to this unbelievable inhumanity. It felt strange sharing this with a Japanese couple

Ah! Payback. Bangkok streetfood

Ilge makes it out next day.
We do some easy tourist ferry stuff

The Bangkok ferry. The best way to travel in Bangkok

Kanchanaburi, AKA Bridge on the River Kwai
Here are some of those that didn't make it

and this is the famous bridge, or should it be infamous?

Oh yes, it's real, just like the slave labour the prisoners
had to give to live, or not

There is so much evil in the world, past, present and
no doubt, future

Phei Kheo Raft. Anchored in a fast flowing river
The toilets are holes in the deck, of course
Lunch spot

On board

A trip to the Tiger Temple was also on the list

It was, as for us, after lunch

Which is just as well

As these assorted chicken eaters

Lunch is on a cafe (restaurant it was not) on Khwae River. did I tell you it was hot? No prizes for guessing how the toilets worked here..... In the PM, Ilge suffers her way through the long walk to the Tiger Temple. Yes, hokey, tourist stuff, but pix to show your grandkids. I actually got a kick out of it, mostly when I look at the pix. The heat, just for a change, was unbearable. There's a paradox for you all to chew on....

Had just been fed

I venture out into Bangkok alone that night (this heat!), and have another fantastic meal, (Green curry, my favorite) and fried rice with shrimp and veg. Add a beer and its $3.25.

And it was hot

So all the striped carnivores just wanted to kip

Get your head, and more to the point, your stomach around that....

It's a bona fide Temple run by monks, although how
they square feeding these guy with chickens, I'm not sure

See how long you can keep these up

Speaking of which......

Real Bangkok street food restaurant. Absolutely fabulous
You sit, in the gutter, at a table designed for a 4 year old

Right outside the 6 star hotel, right in the gutter
Just don't watch how they do the washing up

Next morning, I'm on a cooking course with Chez Lee
Although it's not the crack of dawn, we are at the local
market while everything is still fresh enough

Chef Leez. What a blast this cooking course was. Ilge, now in full cold mode which we both agreed, she got waiting at Bangkok station, while I scouted out the environs, was, sad to say, indisposed.

I loved it!

Chef Leez is a blast and a half. She took us to the market (wow! what an eye opener) and walked us through all the ingredients and how to get the freshest.

We get everything necessary for what we are all going to make

It was quite fun, and the final products tasted pretty close
to what I's buy as street food

I'd really bore you totally if I gave you a fry by fry account, suffice it to say, Chef Leez is the lady to go to. The food I personally cooked, tasted even BETTER!!! than the stuff I would buy on the street. There were of course "magic" ingredients, like preshreded coconut for coconut cream, real Tamarind seeds for the sour exsquisite tantalising flavours, and, the most magic, secret ingredient to all Tom Yum soups and dishes, shrimp brains (yes really!), cooked slowly as your base. I think the total for everything was about $3.00

Ilge again confined to bed, so I'm
representing the family

We did several dishes and decided which curry we would make

Rounding the day off with red, green and yellow curry, followed by mango rice. God, I'm going to try this lot at home and invite Thai food aficionados (preferably with no taste buds) over for some of these delights. Anyone know where I can get a bucket of shrimp brains from?

Thailand is the second or third most dangerous place
to drive in the world

Uber, Bangkok style

Last day in Bangkok, flight to Siem Reap, so I'm up early and
get to the royal palace before it opens

I'm in the first 20 or so, and it's not at all crowded

Stunning stuff everywhere

I have about two and a half hours before we need to leave Bangkok

Our last night in Bangkok is taken up with a cultural extravaganza so magnificent (apocryphally), that you will be given your money back if you don't enjoy it. It was indeed spectacular in a Circe de Soleil meets Dante's Inferno kind of melange. Totally spectacular in as much as you don't see elephants walking through the audience stalls (oh yes). and it was HUGE! casts of hundreds (it seemed), several elephants, not just in the audience, and a full river on stage. Sorry, you have to go, photography not allowed

Luckily, the palace has so much to see, you can avoid
the crowds for a while

I did not ask for my money back ($40)

Our final day in Bangkok before Cambodia, and I'm off to the Palace.

It was truly chaos, even at 8:30 when it opens, and it gets worse through the day.

Such beautiful stuff

It ain't Henry Moore folks

Places like this have amazing murals, incredible
details of battles, and all to myself

But the popular spots are teeming
by 10:00 AM

But! Spectacular.

You can see that this was a wildly successful and rich civilisation

I won't bore you with a detailed description, I'll load lots more into the pix version of this, due somewhen in the next 2 years, but stay out of the groups, avoid the crowds wherever possible, and you will be truly gob smacked by the shear scale of the beauty, history and pageant of the murals. I'll give you a few ticklers, but lets just say, I'm really glad I went, and no, I did not ask for my money back here either.......

And so we head off to Cambodia......

Are you bored yet? There's lots and lots left. About another month, and counting

Jim, Ilge, and now, Kayla

(Hope I selected the right pix).