After three days on Koh Tao, the full moon recovery was as good as complete and the appetite for 'real travelling' was born in all of us once again. Chiang Mai was to prove the perfect place to satisfy that appetite, but it would have to wait one long day more. The Chinese Embassy, in Bangkok, was calling.
Some of you will have heard all about our first, somewhat pitiful, attempt at obtaining a Chinese visa. This time, we were determined to have one less empty page in our passports by the end of the week! The chirpy proprietor of Bangkok's most dog/child friendly internet cafe must have thought his Birthday had come early. We slaved over keyboards for an afternoon: printing bank statements, mocking up hotel reservations and flight bookings and finding new and creative ways of proving our employment statuses.
Use of the word 'proving', here, is about as loose as a wizard's sleeve. Contact the organisers of Bangkok's famous 'ping-pong shows' for a rough idea of just how loose that is...
The next morning we queued for a solid three hours, finally submitted all that paperwork and vowed to keep everything crossed until Friday - when we would learn our fate.
A freezing cold, sleepless, overnight bus journey took us north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and we arrived early, with the sun. Finding a cheap and cheerful hostel was as easy as we've had it. The news that our dorm would not be ready for five hours forced us on to the streets to see the sights of Chiang Mai.
After giving the cameras a much-needed workout at three temples and traipsing around a mediocre museum, we stumbled on a pretty unique little place. The Chiang Mai Women's Correctional Institution, (yep, prison for Thai birds), was so much more than the iron bars and pool tables you might imagine. After a delicious prison lunch prepared by the inmates, intrigue lured us into sampling one of their other talents. No, not fashioning deadly weapons from toothbrushes or drug stashes from bibles. Thai massage. After all, who in their right mind wouldn't part with a fiver in return for what was essentially a sound beating from a 5 foot tall, softly spoken, smiling, bouncy and bubbly murderer.
They might have been murderers?
An early rise the next morning wasn't too difficult, we had a lot to look forward to. The 'trek' we had booked last night proved to be more of a taxi ride around various tourist traps, in the end it didn't matter. This jam-packed day included, amongst other things, elephant rides, white water rafting and swimming in the pools below one of our less impressive waterfalls. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Having enjoyed the company of two of our trekking companions in particular, we arranged to meet them for dinner. **Aal** is from Israel, and spent three years in the army there. It was only right, then, that we gauged on humous and falafel. Only natural that we spent half the evening poring over the Gaza conflict. Touchy subject, it turns out.
Our second and, prematurely, final full day in Chiang Mai was spent well. We enrolled on a cooking course. Obviously we just wanted to exercise our already exceptional culinary skills, we had nothing to learn. Fish cakes, Chef Sri-Path will tell you, are definitely supposed to be deep-fried to within an inch of their existence and reduced to what is essentially a lump of coal. Mmmmm. All in all, though, the course was a success and a lot of fun. One lucky reader could one day be treated to a unique take on Thai Green Curry, courtesy of us idiots. Entries on a postcard please.
With an hour to spare before catching the night bus to Bangkok, those who know us and Thailand in equal measure will guess how Shaan and I opted to kill the time. Very cheap, and therefore very sketchy, massage. Yay.
I had a shocker. My masseur turned up 20 minutes late, in jeans - not promising. Expectations, low as they were, proved overly optimistic. Massage this was not. More, aimless stroking in randomly selected parts of my back and arse. The same arse that this strange woman felt the need to ram full of my favourite Calvin Kleins. It turns out, however, that I actually got lucky. Shaan was met by a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, deep-voiced, bread-basket-handed gargoyle (think slittly-eyed Hagrid) who was out to rob him of every ounce of his dignity. For a brown guy he goes remarkably pale after being inappropriately fondled by a man of questionable gender. Did I say man? It's probably best that I don't quote Shaan directly in this little anecdote...
"She kept giving them a little tickle!"
"That's not the worst of it, when she turned me over she just went right in there and gave it a squeeze"
"I always thought I was completely comfortable with my sexuality..."
He's not really been the same since.
After all that excitement, I slept like a baby on the bus back to Bangkok. The same can't be said for the guys, but spirits weren't damp for long: we have Chinese visas!
Goodnight, Thailand.
Some of you will have heard all about our first, somewhat pitiful, attempt at obtaining a Chinese visa. This time, we were determined to have one less empty page in our passports by the end of the week! The chirpy proprietor of Bangkok's most dog/child friendly internet cafe must have thought his Birthday had come early. We slaved over keyboards for an afternoon: printing bank statements, mocking up hotel reservations and flight bookings and finding new and creative ways of proving our employment statuses.
Use of the word 'proving', here, is about as loose as a wizard's sleeve. Contact the organisers of Bangkok's famous 'ping-pong shows' for a rough idea of just how loose that is...
The next morning we queued for a solid three hours, finally submitted all that paperwork and vowed to keep everything crossed until Friday - when we would learn our fate.
A freezing cold, sleepless, overnight bus journey took us north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and we arrived early, with the sun. Finding a cheap and cheerful hostel was as easy as we've had it. The news that our dorm would not be ready for five hours forced us on to the streets to see the sights of Chiang Mai.
After giving the cameras a much-needed workout at three temples and traipsing around a mediocre museum, we stumbled on a pretty unique little place. The Chiang Mai Women's Correctional Institution, (yep, prison for Thai birds), was so much more than the iron bars and pool tables you might imagine. After a delicious prison lunch prepared by the inmates, intrigue lured us into sampling one of their other talents. No, not fashioning deadly weapons from toothbrushes or drug stashes from bibles. Thai massage. After all, who in their right mind wouldn't part with a fiver in return for what was essentially a sound beating from a 5 foot tall, softly spoken, smiling, bouncy and bubbly murderer.
They might have been murderers?
An early rise the next morning wasn't too difficult, we had a lot to look forward to. The 'trek' we had booked last night proved to be more of a taxi ride around various tourist traps, in the end it didn't matter. This jam-packed day included, amongst other things, elephant rides, white water rafting and swimming in the pools below one of our less impressive waterfalls. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Having enjoyed the company of two of our trekking companions in particular, we arranged to meet them for dinner. **Aal** is from Israel, and spent three years in the army there. It was only right, then, that we gauged on humous and falafel. Only natural that we spent half the evening poring over the Gaza conflict. Touchy subject, it turns out.
Our second and, prematurely, final full day in Chiang Mai was spent well. We enrolled on a cooking course. Obviously we just wanted to exercise our already exceptional culinary skills, we had nothing to learn. Fish cakes, Chef Sri-Path will tell you, are definitely supposed to be deep-fried to within an inch of their existence and reduced to what is essentially a lump of coal. Mmmmm. All in all, though, the course was a success and a lot of fun. One lucky reader could one day be treated to a unique take on Thai Green Curry, courtesy of us idiots. Entries on a postcard please.
With an hour to spare before catching the night bus to Bangkok, those who know us and Thailand in equal measure will guess how Shaan and I opted to kill the time. Very cheap, and therefore very sketchy, massage. Yay.
I had a shocker. My masseur turned up 20 minutes late, in jeans - not promising. Expectations, low as they were, proved overly optimistic. Massage this was not. More, aimless stroking in randomly selected parts of my back and arse. The same arse that this strange woman felt the need to ram full of my favourite Calvin Kleins. It turns out, however, that I actually got lucky. Shaan was met by a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, deep-voiced, bread-basket-handed gargoyle (think slittly-eyed Hagrid) who was out to rob him of every ounce of his dignity. For a brown guy he goes remarkably pale after being inappropriately fondled by a man of questionable gender. Did I say man? It's probably best that I don't quote Shaan directly in this little anecdote...
"She kept giving them a little tickle!"
"That's not the worst of it, when she turned me over she just went right in there and gave it a squeeze"
"I always thought I was completely comfortable with my sexuality..."
He's not really been the same since.
After all that excitement, I slept like a baby on the bus back to Bangkok. The same can't be said for the guys, but spirits weren't damp for long: we have Chinese visas!
Goodnight, Thailand.
See you soon, League 1.
Will
Amazing photos, looks like the elephant loved you Will :D Fantastic news on the visa front boys, more fun ahead it would seem. xxx
ReplyDelete