Week 15 – 26/11/09 Bangkok + Kathmandu

Week 15 – 26/11/09 Bangkok + Kathmandu

Upon arrival in Bangkok international airport, I must say I was impressed. Picked up bags and on a bus within the hour. The 45 minute journey into Khoa San district was nice but I noticed a yellow cloud hanging over the city, smog maybe.

Our hotel was situated in backpacker heartland. I have never seen so many backpackers in my life, but a really nice vibe about the place. Strange thing happened during check in. Our hotel did not accept credit cards even though we booked online using the credit card, hmmm? I went to draw out cash but none of my cards worked either, very strange. We paid and checked in, our room was quite nice considering the complaints that were being voiced at the front desk, that was, apart from the lingering smell of smoke in the room. It later turned out that my credit card details had been stolen and my current account had been blocked, most annoying.

We headed out shopping for medical supplies and trekking gear, leaving the a/c on full blast to remove the smell of smoke. First stop was Boots, spent about £50 on drugs then headed onto MBK and Siam shopping centres. We caught a tuk tuk to the shopping district, quickest way in Bangkok given the amount of traffic, but we were hit by a 25 tonne juggernaut. The tuk tuk driver was clearly shaken, but extremely annoyed the lorry driver didn’t stop to check the damage, so for the next 10 minutes we were party to a car chase around Bangkok. It was clear that the tuk tuk driver was in no position to pull in front of the lorry to make him stop so gave up. There was no real visible damage to the tuk tuk, so we paid and harried into the shopping centre. Managed to get some really good day packs for the trek, but decided to buy the rest of the gear in Kathmandu as Bangkok was expensive. Shopping is exhausting so we needed to re-fuel on donuts on a number of occasions. Took a tuk tuk back to the hotel, this time with no accidents, touch wood, salt over the left shoulder and so on.

Our second day in Bangkok was again further shopping. We had all legal drugs on the trekking list but could not get any Diamox. Diamox is a product used by trekking drug cheats which allows them to continue higher without acclimatising. It is not fool proof but can ease a severe headache without descending 300m.

Found a great café outside our hotel that sold mashed potatoes, so we had breakfast lunch and dinner there, for once, good English food was a blessing in disguise. I had lost a considerable amount of weight over the past 3 months, down to 81kg at the last weigh-in, so really needed to eat some good old fashioned fat before the trek.

The final morning, we took the first bus out of the city destined for Kathmandu via the airport. Our Thai Airways flight was exceptional. The plane was huge and almost brand new, the saffron veg curry was delightful and we both felt really safe.

Arriving at Kathmandu airport gave me flash backs to Mumbai airport in India, absolute chaos! Luckily, we had pre-booked a room at the legendary Kathmandu Guest House, so was greeted by a Shapiro who whisked us away from the pleas of rogue taxi drivers offering you best price, my cousin owns a hotel, and I am a trekking guide. Upon arriving at the KMGH, we were very disappointed to find no rooms available. The poor excuse was that 6 of the guests had food poisoning and that they needed to stay another day to recover, which I didn’t believe for one minute. The hotel tried to put us in another place which was awful, so finally settled for the Kathmandu Resort Hotel.

The next two days were spent rushing around buying supplies, trekking gear and booking the trip itself. We finally agreed on a mid range price trekking company whom seemed to know about safety and acute mountain sickness. We were introduced to our guide Mochindra, whom was a real Sherpa which was satisfying.

Week 14 – 21/11/09 Vang Vieng + Vientiane

Week 14 – 21/11/09 Vang Vieng + Vientiane

For those of you that have never been to Laos, which I guess is most, Vang Vieng is a place where 18-25yr olds come to get wasted. Most restaurants offer a special menu for people that like opium in their burgers or mushrooms in their shakes, not to mention the ‘tubing’ experience along the river. The tubing experience is a collection of bars that are along the river from the drop off point all the way back to Vang Vieng for approx 3km. Most people get completely wasted in the first 3 bars and don’t even bother with the tubing and take a taxi back into town. Being 38 and almost 30 (yes, I know you are in denial) we decided that trekking and kayaking down the river seemed the best option.

Our trekking, caving and kayak trip with a strange German guy was really cool. The trekking was about 3 ½ hours and we had lunch beside a waterfall. We went through a water cave below a mountain before kayaking back to town. Our guide mentioned that we should consider signing up for our national Olympic teams since he has never seen a pair get back to town in record time like us. I acknowledged his encouraging remarks but mentioned that I trained as a navy seal whilst deep under cover as a secret agent in the late 80’s.

The following day we signed up for another trek. This time we were with an Italian couple whom spoke German and a Swiss girl. Really cool trek took about 6 hours and had a fantastic barbque lunch.

We went to the elephant cave on the way back. We had now completed our Everest Base Camp training, 2 treks, a cycle ride and a bit of kayaking, no problem.

The following day we took a local bus to Vientiane which took around 4 hours. Met a really interesting American school teacher on the bus who told us a bit of history of Laos and there devoted culture to Buddhism.

Vientiane had a French twist to it, but not much was left. The city was quite low level, buildings of max 6-7 stories were typical. The Chinese seem to be investing lots of cash in Laos, so they obviously want the rape the country of it’s natural resources, it may become another Tibet, but who knows. There are various glorious buildings scattered around the city which were built by the Chinese as gifts to the government. These buildings have little purpose and the money would have been more deserving in other areas. The city itself is quite boring, we did the ‘walking tour’ for about ten minutes before Mariana was bored, so I continued in Chevy Chase style to the death. We found out that one of the cards had been scammed in Vang Vieng so made a formal complaint to the main Laos Bank. It was if this happens on a regular basis every day since the guy that took my details seem to acknowledge that this is a problem that had been going on for some while, so it made us wonder whether the bank wa raking in so much cash it didn’t want to rectify the problem?

Mariana was quite upset that we were flying to Bangkok, but I resisted the alternative of a 12 hour bus journey and we made our way to the airport at 5.30am. We arrived to see just one small café open in the departure so I asked an official about eateries through customs. He assured me that the food hall was open on the other side so we went through in true Swedish fashion 2 ½ hours before our flight. What greeted us on the other side was one closed duty free shop and a toilet…..hmmmm. For those of you that know Mariana, especially in the morning there are two important points to note to keep the mood in check. 1. Must eat, 2. Need sleep. This particular morning, Mariana was really tired and I had just convinced her to go through customs to find no food available. What’s more, as it turned out our plane was a 60 seater propeller job, with no released safety records for Laos Air. Let me just say that she was not pleased. The duty free opened at 6.30am so I was about to buy an army pack of breakfast bars for a million pounds.

The flight was ok and we landing in Bangkok at 10am in the morning……