Return to Asia

Emily asked if I had had a crisis. 

Why exactly had I run away from Erasmus in Madrid, itself running away from Edinburgh, to Nepal? 

Well, I confess, although it was largely that I feared she was so difficult to get hold of in person that pitching up in the Indian subcontinent seemed like the best plan of action to sustaining our friendship it did have something to do with an unrequited love. So here's what 3 impromptu weeks in Nepal looks like:

Annapurna from Poon Hill

Golum's passage

Sadly these are in fact actors - they could be real monks and novices employed by a film crew but as it was we just intruded upon the filming of raiders of the lost ark part n

Anisha & Mamta supervising the children

It was an inauspicious start - my friends had suddenly gone silent at the crucial weekend for their crossing into Nepal - I had no idea where they were or where to meet them. Somehow although I nervously pinged off increasingly frequent facebooks I wasn't so racked with nerves that I refused to let my feet leave terra firma - perhaps the vestiges of an exuberant birthday weekend with Luce and Jos in Madrid were still lurking. More likely I was distracted by the water cascading down the walls in the flat after a particularly boisterous thunderstorm. In any case, at 12.25 as I was unplugging my electricals and handing over the keys to the porter to let the plumber in the worst happened:

DUNCAN:

" Iona so terribly sorry but E.G hospitalised in Delhi with particularly virulent stomach bug and we've just found an Internet cafe. To put it horribly bluntly we won't be in Nepal for another 3-4* days. Is there anyway you can get to Delhi? "

As it happened no - my flights were via Doha. Undeterred I left the dampness of Valliciergo in the hands of the plumber and a sledgehammer and tore through Madrid on the high speed cercanias in an effort to shave off precious minutes to chat to the Qatar airlines desk.

The prettily made up girl at the counter informed me in perfect castellano what my English brain already knew: No my flights are not refundable, transferable, flexible in any way and its not possible to miss the Doha-Kathmandu connection and buy a new flight to Delhi from there. Helpfully she suggested I buy an entirely new flight.

I thought that was the plan scuppered somewhat but in the sunny confines of the sole food vendor at check-in (MacDonalds - I did resist the McIberico special though) I realised I could buy a flight on from Kathmandu to Delhi. They were fairly reasonable - perfect. I happily munched down the burger and attempted to book the flight on my iPhone. Not a good plan, iPhone couldn't really cope with time sensitive data rich pages. Cue increasingly frantic calls to mum and dad to say plan change I need to book this flight please use a computer. No-one picks up. The flights sell out and I can't wait any longer to check my baggage. I imagine my last voicemail was either angry or pitiful enough that as I touched down in Doha airport (which thankfully has free wifi) I was greeted by a barrage of messages from the parentals.

They'd been busy - ambassadors had been woken and apparently someone's teenage daughter was lost in Nepal - oh that was meant to be me! In any case it was decided whilst I queued to board my connection that I ought to wait in Nepal. After-all, my friends would arrive, tail between legs, slightly green and certainly diseased in a couple of days time I could hide in the embassy if it was all too horrible before then. 

Touch down in a baking Kathmandu, the air crackling with the imminent threat of rain and my own slightly stressed out self no doubt. Visa's are fortunately very easy to obtain on arrival, less fortunately they are only payable in Nepali rupees or dollars - did I have either of these currencies? Was the ATM broken? So whilst asking where I might the able to obtain the readies in return for a hostage passport my first kindness in Nepal befell me. 

The lady in front, Sue from Godalming, turned and paid it without ceremony. As we went to collect our luggage, try to organise onward flights (some business class seats it transpired were still available to Delhi) I asked Sue what brought her to Nepal and her onward destination - Pokhara. It transpired she was volunteering as a teacher trainer in a school for underprivileged Nepalese children founded and run by a colleague of hers. These conversations I might add were punctuated by regular haggling, terminal changing, car trips around the airport etc. all of which had a promised if allusive ATM en route. They didn't and Sue's flight in the domestic terminal was boarding. I promised to pay the $25 in donation to the school in lieu of being able to pay her. A few laps of thamel the backpackers district in search of a travel agent with a better deal on delhi flights later I made peace with staying alone in nepal checked into a €5/room and then it struck me - why not volunteer for the weekend? The term hadn't started and there was apparently plenty of manual work to be done too. Hastily more data parcels leaked out from the exceptionally slow computer in the hostel. I collapsed into bed for a few hours but when i woke there was still no reply. As a final resort I traipsed up the tourist track and booked a 4day trek to end in Pokhara since my friends were due to wind their way past the Taj Mahal and Varanasi into Nepal's second city via some notoriously hideous border towns. 

http://www.shamrock-school.org/

Returning to the hostel the bar staff took pity on me and after a little conferring invited me to supper with them once their shift ended. How nice thought I. It turned out one (the hostel owners son) was a Gorkamundi - the Kathmandu mafia - so before I knew it we were being given gifts in the street and plates of food kept appearing without being ordered. This branch of the omnipresent mafioso family assured me that as they only ran the tourist racket they were perfectly harmless and in fact they were ashamed and angry when people  suggested their money was 'black money'. Anyway they were observing a mourning period so I was fed and watered whilst watching a (surprisingly good) tribute band sing the favourite songs of the deceased. He was a big power ballad fan. I was walked home soberly and I promised to look them up with my friends when we got back to Kathmandu. 

At 6am next morning checking my email before I left of course a cheery email from the school - Shamrock - greeted me. I was rather loathe to head on trekking alone save for my sherpa given the offer but the chips were down and I was bundled into the local bus beside some trainee gurkas returning to base after their first weekends leave. On the bus ride I learnt the meaning of ventilation after the windscreen developed a worrying network of cracks - which were dutifully tapped, prodded and even wiped as if this would somehow eradicated before it was decided we should just carry on regardless. Crash, the windscreen in its entirety appeared in my lap. My gurkha friends were furious it had collapsed on me but my Sherpa didn't bat an eyelid and didn't need to- after being dusted down and fed a cucumber with spicy sauce it was perfectly clear I was fine and there was no question of not continuing the journey - it wasn't raining why would we want a windscreen? 

Very dusty but glad for a bed I crashed after watching the sunset over Pokharas lake with an Israeli contingent for 10hours until the next 6am start to begin trekking, woefully unprepared since I'd been told I didn't need to rent boots/head torch etc. although I had at least borrowed my flatmates sleeping bag. 

Starting a few miles down the road from thikidungha I was initially underwhelmed - this track was accommodating the odd 4x4, my very sweet but unforthcoming Sherpa failed to mention this was just an economising measure and that the actual trek would start once we'd left the valley floor. 

Leaving picturesque village after village on the way up through ever denser green the sheer scale of Nepal's mountain ranges hits you. Summiting our first peak I felt a little foolish to have brought along food for my including meals - guesthouses galore align the route so that trekkers have an excuse to call in for tea to mask their exhaustion at yet another vertical incline interminably winding up the mountainside. It was at one of these guesthouses I told Prabesh I thought we ought to try and cram the trek into 2 or 3 days as I was anxious to get back to shamrock before term started. 

We passed through whole flanks of the mountain encased in hydrangeas - a Willy Wonka fantasy of colour ranging from 5 to 50ft tall. Yaks, neks (the female and therefore only producer of 'yak' dairy products) proliferated - Jos and dads tales of fermented yaks milk wrung in my ears - in fact Nek cheese was quite pleasant if very mild. Otherwise children and teenagers in impossibly fashion conscious styles bounded up the hillside with mobiles clamped to an ear whilst their parents and grandparents struggled on with the livestock and looming in more traditional scenes. 

I passed the staircase of Ulleri muttering grimly it seemed worse than Golum's passage to Mordor - it was certainly as steep and unending. But the view of undulating mountains carpeted in luscious greens broken only by copper ribbons glinting between them pushed the grumbling voice in my head complaining that 2000/3000ft up was just an impractical place to locate a village. 

At 2pm, fed, we'd passed Hile where we were meant to break the trek for the night. We'd walk onto Gorephani. A few hours later plastered in sweat with my legs starting to cramp I looked up and gave thanks for the eponymous guesthouse of said village  proudly standing in front of me. Exceptional luck dictated that after the sober nights preceding some friendly New Zealand based older men were happily uncorking bottles of Shiraz a poor porter of theirs had been carrying for the Annapurna base circuit. Though plenty of live chickens were in evidence I stuck to veggie dal bhat (I may also have been influenced by the price).  

A little bleary eyed we woke at 4.30 and stumbled through the dark  to what I was under the assumption was a quick jog to the summit of poon hill with a spectacular panorama of the Annapurna Himalaya range. Wrong wrong wrong. Wrapped in every item of clothing and towel to keep warm I only kept going since the light was rising relentlessly and I hadn't slogged up the mountain and got up at Spanish bedtime to miss the sunrise. All the more improved by the New Zealand boys having thermos' of chai and having rustled me up an appropriately aged Norwegian girlfriend! Sunrise came in broken rays first alighting on Daleghiri looming through the mist and then on Fishtail and Annapurna herself. It was spectacular there're enough pictures to bore you to tears of this sunrise. I managed a to match Prabesh's personal best and raced down the mountain accompanied by new friend Ida we ate a delicious meal of steamed momo's (Tibetan gyozas) and alau parantha in a picturesque town where the kids were playing in the river below. I'd made the 4 days in 2 but was very glad not to have another mountain to climb the next day. 

I arrived, as instructed at Shamrock School, after an incredibly uncomfortable night in Ida's hostel and goodbye to the New Zealanders in one of Pokhara's famous casinos where I somehow managed to walk out with $250 from the $10 minimum bet, at 8am. Feeling somewhat sheepish given my whereabouts the night before and that feeling a little unsafe getting back to the hostel with a van following until the dirt track through shanty housing had sprinted the last section and upon finding the gates locked vaulted the retaining wall onto unyielding concrete below. 

None of the staff appeared to be in. Some of the children showed me around and handed me a plate of breakfast - Nepalese milk tea, egg, large loaf of bread - I was rather embarrassed but ate it watched by all before finding class 6 chopping the veg for the thakali and teaching the boys how to slice, chop and dice without endangering their fingers which was much in evidence behind the shed where the potatoes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, chilli, apples and cauliflower were being dealt with. At 9am the English training staff arrived - having said our hellos and divvied out tasks we waited for the Nepalese staff before taking the first days 10.50am assembly (Nepalese school runs Sunday-Friday although the hours are quite short this was a boarding facility to cope with the students' need). They were between 5 and 30 minutes late whilst the children continued to clean in the increasingly hot rays. All very Spanish but new manager Michael (the Sargent Major) was turning an unfortunate shade of puce.

A classroom painted later a quite delicious thakali, dal bhat, fresh pickle and rice was doled out in enormous quantities to one and all, the wide eyed new children in class 5 (10yrs old) staring incredulously down at plates half their own size of food. We needed it as we'd also trekked out to the German run orphanage at Bakundi where many of the children had connections. I say trek but in fact we were made to jog large stretches and I looked particularly silly weighed down by an army surplus bag of sports kit; and I thought I was done with trekking! 

Andy, calling the shots for the week asked I'd had any teaching experience and could I help observing the new English teacher who herself only graduated from Shamrock the previous year (aged 17) and in return for food, board and her college fees was the matron too. I explained my minimal experience and private tutoring but he was happy to throw me in to teaching straight it turned out so when class 10's maths teacher did a no show (missing teachers became a boringly repetitive theme over the week) I took them for extra English writing in coloured chalk on the wall outside for lack of a dry freshly painted classroom. 

By day 2 I had to give example classes and join the teacher training evening sessions between renovating the dorms and trying to calm Tod, the hardest working plumber you'll ever meet who was volunteering for the week by sneaking him extra rations and the odd cool beer. He was beside himself trying to get the water sorted which has previously been collected from the lake as a punishment for bad behaviour. All the showers, loos and tanks needed fixing in shamrocks premises (a former hotel in the lakeside district of Pokhara) the problems were endless - the water came through a dribble at best and was filthy, the power and water were constantly on the blink and very rarely functioned at the same time, the pumps were too weak, the tubes not long enough, the water commissions delivery lorry (a last resort) couldn't fit through the gate..... Tod eventually finished the job at 10.30pm the night before he left with Michael and I holding an ankle each as he dangled off the roof welding the last fixings. I sewed up curtains, painted walls, taught a couple of science lessons instructed a class on the political spectrum and recent British history with a little help on the visual aids provided by the commemorative Thatcher issue of the spectator.  I also picked up a little carpentry, Nepali and plumbing knowledge. 

Feeling somewhat guilty at my own good fortune and grateful to shamrock for the experience as well as the delicious lunches produced on a shoestring by Mukti I decided to get the boys / girls something they wanted for their rooms inspired after installing the 'curtains' (read flimsy already broken cotton sheets of which there weren't enough). The boys chose football flags to decorate their dorm rooms and proudly recited votes for each of the premier league teams / La Liga classics. The girls were somewhat more practical asking for clocks and flip flops for the bathroom. The trip with the students up to the market district of Pokhara was a splendid insight into their relations and boundaries both reflective of wider cultural mores and the vacuum in which quite a few of the orphaned students had grown up. It also gave me an advantage to stock up the much depleted sports store with some quality made kit. My casino winnings at least found a good home. 

My friends were somewhat surprised once they arrived at my activities in their absence. At 10.30pm when they arrived on the Tuesday I'd just eaten momos with Mamta the new English teacher and helped the new students set up emails to send their introductory emails to the schools founder before a quick afterwork drink in the usual restaurant with one of the NZ chaps interested in donating and some OE type similarly inclined. As a result in walking my starving friends (since they'd only had Indian rupees on the bus from surani - as hellish a border town by all accounts as the guidebooks warned) a stream of 15 children emerged from a cyber cafe, converging with a group of the boys chasing their new football whilst the waiters called out my name from the restaurant opposite.... Ali said she'd been expecting a morose figure hunched over a thrice read copy of el pais with a candlelit supper for one. 

For the next couple of days I worked half days in the school sometimes aided by Emily's excellent drawing skills and half days relaxing with the team or discovering hilltop restaurants and the world peace stupa in the monsoon that came in, seemingly with the arrival of my friends. A particularly bad monsoon rains hit as we were on an excursion to yet another lake, as we'd trekked up to a particularly isolated bar overlooking the lake which served Mars bar's and chips we had a somewhat irate taxi driver to answer to when the rains eventually subsided and we made it back down.

monsoon + small boat = bad plan

On Saturday we left for chitwan national park having exhausted supplies of baba ganoush from the olive cafe. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the price we paid, our bus felt like a death trap and the two upturned lorries perched precariously on warped struts and blown out tyres did little for the faint hearted on the outside seat around the endless series of hairpin bends. There was little respite for the inside lane passenger watching the elaborately decorated Tata trucks hurtling perilously close to the minibus and selfishly far from the inside bend at breakneck speeds (well not the up hills as this was the domain for the minibus to undercut or rev around trucks struggling to gain ground uphill amidst clouds of smoke). 

When we arrived in chitwan the pick up unceremoniously dumped us at the 'Royal Chitwan Safari Hotel' which I'm sure would have been nice if they'd finished building it or if they didn't serve vegetable cutlet for an arrival lunch. Fortunately this was the only attempt at western food and it got (very marginally) better. Luckily the rooms were largely built and we indulged in the luxury of not organising anything ourselves but being whisked around jungle paths and harru Hindi/Nepali villages before the next day elephant trekking, washing and canoeing in a dugout from which we saw crocodiles, monkeys, deer, hummingbirds, storks and river snakes. 

Finally we were to have a short jungle trek to the elephant sanctuary via a hidden lake which was rather more lively than we were hoping given we'd brought our guide a beer and a little looser he was happily telling us about the man eating tiger on the loose that had killed 7 villagers the previous evening a few kilometres away. In the end we needn't have worried about the tigers but one of the rhinos from the elephant trek which was at first excitingly close and rapidly dangerously close and moving eater fast. Our guide snapped to at this point ordering shoes off and pointing out the easiest trees to climb. Option 2 is apparently to run around a tree in circles as rhinos aren't very adept and that. Frantic running to banks out of view in periods of poor sight line for the rhino ensued - we were nearly back to the crocodile colony we spotted, great. In the end we all felt a little silly after the rhino didn't charge and lumbered off but its a good story and meant we were particularly happy to arrive at the sanctuary of the elephant breeding centre where the baby elephants were playing games with the blankies - all very Bellelike. We finished the evening by being dragged on-stage for a cultural dance - the boys very upset they didn't get to join in the war dances exhibited earlier. 

From chitwan we had another hair raising journey to Kathmandu and checked into a particularly grotty and not remotely well appointed hotel comfort. It was however very cheap even if the power never worked and they insisted the large hole in the wall was 'not a problem' cheerily. From Kathmandu we explored the stonkingly beautiful world heritage sites of braktipur (the others are going back to stay in this living ankor wat where we spent much of the day trying to persuade the film crew there to let us be white extras); Patan where one of the years most important festivals was taking place although one of the ceremonial towers very nearly careered through a recently restored 12th century temple. A tragedy only prevented under the instruction of the military police and 40 odd men anchoring ropes to keep it horizontal for the 6 odd hours before the structure free stood again even if it was now nicknamed the leaning tower of Patan in the group. Finally we saw the Durbur square of Kathmandu which although differing hugely from the other two (former rival city states) lacked a romanticism and coherence to their architecture. We did however time things right to see the kumari appear after a slice of chocolate cake in Nepals' best bakery. The kumari is a living deity; an incarnation of earth goddess tulejel and is selected on 32 criteria of beauty and bravery at the age of 3 in the villages. The kumari then takes up residence in her kathmandu palace until she reaches puberty or suffers any major illness. The current kumari is eight years old and appeared silently and haughtily at her window for a minute at the side of her priest and guardians who wore very nondescript modern clothes in contrast to her full make-up and robes. It was a fittingly bizarre ending to my time in Nepal. 

I congratulate you for reading this far; I'm off to try and get an upgrade in Doha airport to make the next 10hrs somewhat more bearable! I do also have quite a lot of admin to do since enlivening. Trip in Nepal was news from the home front that the flats going up for sale in July so I need a new pad and Edinburgh have cancelled my exchange program after spiralling violence of campus ended in the riot police breaking up a violent occupation of my faculty/assaults in staff and finding stockpiles of weapons.... All quite exciting if nothing else! 

if you can't get to the tiger...

After all those disparaging gap year commentaries just look at my Edinburgh incarnation. Who said you have to sacrifice comfort for style?

Tourist Attaction

Arriving to Phenom Penh was now becoming akin to all the other arrivals - arrive get rudely awakened, tossed unceremoniously off the bus with daylight breaking into view as the rapidly descending mob of tuktuk drivers, eager motos and taxis tightly close in with a cacophony of 'Miss, you want cyclo/moto/tuktuk/taxi?' 'no thank you.' 'me/i good driver/ have good bike etc.' 'no thank you.' 'Miss, where you go now, miss... MISS?' 'NO, thank you.' Turn around organise walk/shared tuktuk etc. and choose one of the sea of drivers, all presumably vying for your custom as the rules of the Bus Game afford high stakes and big returns for those able to ferry several passengers to their hostel of choice buried deep within whichever city's you have emerged in backpacker haven.

In Phenom Penh this is by the Boeng Ek lake, or more aptly floating rubbish tip which cordons off the travelling community from the rest of civilised society. After a couple 0f hrs sleep in our floating accomodation we headed, via the 'Happy Farm' to Choung Ek. I'm glad this was the order as handling an AK47 or Colt .22 after seeing the horrors of the Killing Fields is a mildly repulsive proposition, I cannot imagine how blowing up a cow with a RPG could vaguely appeal to anyone having seen the destruction that plagues Cambodias recent history. The gravity of the Khmer Rouge acts and close phyiscal, human and time proximity to these attrocities serves to inculcate a very uncomfortable chill. At Choung Ek, to walk in rainy season between the mass graves is especially chilling since rags and bone fragments surface in the paths. I think the clothes were if anything the worst as they make it much more relatable - bones are animal and brutalised whereas clothing that we think of as transient and fragile outlives its owners to become a very human reminder of the individuals who once inhabited them.

The horrors of the past are commemorated in as tasteful a manner as you could hope for (possibly with the exception of the graphics and music on the film) but I'm not sure there's any way in which to make the visit seem less sordidly voyeuristic, the (highly recommended, sadly left languishing in a Vietnamese bus) excellent Footprint guide hardly helped the sentiment by commenting cynically on the nature of the buying of genocide, religious and war sites for tourist exploitation by various wealthy individuals.

Back in Phenom Penh I enjoyed meeting Joe of the infamous Happy Herb Pizza Joint and his collection of lost boys who were all staying free of charge upstairs in a distinctly fagin-esque setup on the condition they spent $3/day at the bar. Seeing as Joe's convivial style, wife's cooking and bewildered visiting mother-in-law lured you into at least several rounds and supper this was an incredible deal and so night no. 2 was on Joe's roof, hammock slung between buildings watching the stars over the lake - incredible despite the mosquitoes being quite so salacious!

Various places populated by monks, monkeys or more likely both

So I awoke following not a great number of hours sleep, probably partly due to the knowledge of my bedfellows relatives scratching around nearby to an unwelcome footwarmer. The screams were bloodcurdling and I fled my $1/night semi-al fresco bed for the relative comfort of the $3 barnhouse cubicle and then ran in the morning before they could work out quite who'd been in the bed (a little like goldilocks I like to imagine), but not before cooking my lunch in the kitchens (the staff were very surprised - i doubt they'd ever experienced such an intrusion before) and took a keen interest in the art of cooking risotto. 11am and the previous night's tuktuk driver had failed to show so I stumbled across Guan who was to be one of the main attractions of Siem Riep!

Guan was to firstly ferry me across to Ivy 2 where the food was AMAZING (actually i should qualify the Cambodian food was good but I think it is difficult with asian food to get beyond good to truly exceptional - recommend the amok though) and I indulged in plate after plate of mezze for $1.50 on a far too regular basis. An hour later after a shower I was off to Ankor which is exactly what I had expected and yet indescribably beautiful. The serenity of Ankor and Bayon surprised me given the weight of tourist traffic but then I realised I was viewing the circuit at reverse timings. Highlight of the day aside from watching the monkeys crawling around the smiling faces of bayon whilst I read a book in a cool corner before being whisked around a local school run by the monks where Guans' son was meant to be learning but appeared to be teaching english! After that, I resolved to pick up a load of textbooks and pens to hand out instead of buying the tat universally peddled by the kids (although a gappie i met informed me that most his class did both attend school and tout flutes/postcards/scarves etc.) which met with approving looks from the mothers who were then inclined to show me where I could eat something and make sure I got a free drink/desert or similar - Cambodians were a welcome change from the Thais who were rather less than pleased in general by young westerners.

Day 2 got off to a very early start and another rat (this one wasn't actually in the bed and so I hopped out the door and later had a word with the security guard to switch to an upstairs room). by 5am I was installed infront of the main complex with a couple of americans intringued by my ridiculous plastic faux lomo waiting (having managed to stumble over the ruins in pitch darkness) for the sun to rise which it did with majestic greatness over the ruins - picture soon I promise. From there a full 13hours of temple hopping interspersed with chats to Guan and his friends continued to the point where I think I got temple fatigue. So we decided to head off to the Roulous group where the sunset over the ruins there with evening prayer from the adjacent monastry in the company of some novices made for a unforgetable night and meant that I had a rather subdued evening since the lures of Siem Rieps 'Pub Alley' appeared less substancial given the preceedings.

Also in the 2 hours waiting sunset Guan and I had come up with a plan to get his tuktuk earning more. So the next day we headed post final ruins to the Silk Farm and I tried faltering french with the owner (who blatantly spoke english) until he understood that we were attempting to pimp out the tuktuk by upholstering it in silks and repainting the sign to proclaim him TukTuk De Luxe. In return guan now peddles their silks from his pukka backseat and offers free transport to the farm if wanted......... you can't miss him if youre in the vicinity! Dinner was served chez Guan by his lovely wife surrounded by children. Not exactly all that traditional fare considering roast chicken and caramelised apples appeared on the table but delicious and an awesome experience all the same!

Final port of call was quadbiking across the paddy fields of the nearby villages at dawn before catching my lunch at the floating villages and finally eating a selection of snake, ostrich, crocodile, frog and catfish at a khmer BBQ before cathcting the midnight bus (just; as experience dictates journeys never go smoothly...) onto Phnom Penh.

A Very Asian Travel Experience

From the beachbars of Haad Rin (although I think the boss was slightly surprised when he appeared to pay me at my palatial surroundings of Neptune Villas where we'd been staying since the incident with the giant Geckos and Lizzies phantom fever) I said my goodbyes and set off for Bangkok which I finally managed to reach after being left to loiter around various restaurants for random intervals of time (whether the motivation was nepotistic or solely commision was unclear). The frequent breaks did have one positive aspect; i realised that the normal privacy rules for anglophones are suspended in transit and so they provided the perfect opportunity to chat people up enough to have a few friendly faces to share a drink with, or in cases of exceptional luck, a room.

Dave looked like he had been bifuricated across asian markets and indeed had a veritable array of travellers diseases, largely picked up from swimming in the world's filthiest river (putting VangVien to shame); the Ganges (or as dave would have it 'the worlds holiest river'), which despite having gifted him nothing but a few chronic chest problems, eye infections and skin trouble he gleefully recounted - floating remains of cobra victims and all. However, once we'd woken up (we arrived early; 5am) we managed to bump into someone he'd met on a previous bangkok sortie and so we ended up in a taxi shouting furiously to 'follow that taxi.' The Overstay was simple but otherwise perfectly formed. It was really a sort of hippy community that had somehow found itself swallowed by Bangkok and couldn't get up the effort to leave but it was perfectly charming, despite the missing window panes, general disrepair and ratsize hole in our wall. Higher up where the digs of the long term residents who were only too happy to help us out and dispense a little expat knowledge or start throwing paint across the room at broken mannequins (not as mad as it seems; there was an entire floor dedicated to this kind of creative outlet) and seeing as communal meals where the order of the day it was rather difficult to actually build up the effort to leave and venture out into Bangkok.

Aside from nightly Ko San road trips (which only made me more glad that I'd not stayed there), I made it out to the smaller temples and then to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho (even if the main attraction here was it's role as the home of Thai massage - I promise I did attend my massage sesion via the reclining Buddha!). The great tuktuk scam still exists but, given you dont have a tight time schedule, can be worked to your advantage - a typical outing for me entailed jumping in and saying 'how many shops before 'insert destination' for free?' eventually after impressive feats of acting prowess you would emerge without an overpriced pillow case and the tuktuk driver would be grinning widely as he was in receipt of a gasoline token or two depending on the quality of feined interest, at this point if you were lucky you'd be taken to your desired destination.

Alternative transport became a pet love of ours and instead we often found ourselves in the back of BB gun vans, more comfortably a mattress home delivery service and occasionally when we were feeling energetic we would walk down the main street tripping over our phonetically learnt Thai to get to the local ferry and over to the old town.

Leaving Bangkok was all a bit of a rush and due to a rather late night and the storm the last morning, intended for a fake handbag shop, got off to a belated start before being prematurely terminated by the announcement that the last train to Arranyapraphet had been cancelled so I would have to forgo the Jimmy Choo and jump on the train waving hasty goodbyes to Danny and Dave. (Danny had also been on the bus and had proved himself a little more capable of being ontime, possibly due to a combination of his owning both a watch and a phone and his occupation as a marine).

For a princely sum of 48baht (about a dollar) I was bumping along to the border - sadly not with the expected local livestock but instead an assortment of school children who typically traveled about 2-4hours on the train, presumably daily. The local train did have a few advantages - largely because the usual abrupt service of the coach companies wasn't hassling, shouting and stealing away your (very, overused, thin, scratchy, in all likelihood diseased) blanket the second you got comfy. Once there I was treated to a very salubrious border crossing.

Swanthep travel company, if anyone has the misfortune to be offered their services, was distinctly dodge - in fact I don't believe it was a legitimate travel company at all. However, after racing tuktuks, pointing out that the visa charge was not 1200baht but 700, being ushered off to get out money (whereupon I asked if I could instead post some letters), being thrown inside a casino whilst they sped off elsewhere to get our visas (despite the visa office being closed at 7pm; most likely the extra visa charge was a bribe to the official who was stamping visas out of hours), the strangeness didn't end on the other side of the border where the gaudy surroundings of vice city Poipet only amplified the goings on. We ended up driving over a roundabout to find the 2 other western boys who'd also been through a similar rigmarole but left in the middle of a motorway before reaching Siem Riep. Once in Siem Riep it took a good while for the included driver to actually get me to my destination rather than the one with the best commission (actually i later found out the real reason nicknamed the Bus Game) which was perhaps not the best option as I was to wake up not that many hours later to a new unwanted, very rodential, bedfellow.

from raving to the ratrace

far away from the relative tranquility that can be found on koh phi phi is koh phangan on the eastern coast. Some time in the 80s a party started at full moon (when buddists are feeling at their holiest ironically) and has been gathering increasing numbers of backpackers and lost souls ever since. Having had 2 weeks of holidayesque rampaging around asia I thought I should probably get a job and so after a few hours of pestering, a 'come back at 5 tomorrow," came my way, by way of the Cactus beach bar. This actually turned out to be more troublesome than it might first appear on the surface due to a series of unfortunate events.

Lizzie and I were determined to stick to our original booking which we were assured was 'a little far out' from the party. Being on the otherside of Thongsala it transpired that 30minutes away by car was more accurate, another slight issue was the accomodation itself and with Lizzie having caught and modified my cold to rather more dramatic effect the appearance of a giant gecko in our bamboo hut was the last straw and we decided to bite the bullet and decamp back to Haad Rin and a/c. Last problem Bells had finally given in to the demands that she visit the invalid at perfectly comic timing - and she had no phone. At 4.30 I had no choice but to leave Lizzie and hitch the next lift. Hans thankfully appeared after not too long since Thais dont appear to understand the thumbs up. Hans had fashioned a sidecar from scrap metal and was on his way to Baan Thai (1/2 way) to pick up his dog - perfect; only one issue aside from the safety if the sidecar remained and that was that Hans resembled a Neo-Nazi Hells Angel only wearing a kaftan, but once we collected the dog from the vet (and the morphined up animal was firmly in place to drool away oblivously on my lap) we headed onto Haad rin since he felt sorry for me.

I got the job and was to be paid a princely 300baht a night or 1.50GBP an hour.

in search of the island

We spent the day storming around the temples of Vientianne - especially noteworthy were that luang whre we made a bird offering and wat sisaket, Patucxi (the vicotry monument and sign of laos) was impressive but unfortunately in the middle of a roundabout -before conceding defeat in the face of the pink eye and heading over to the hospital before a long lunch at new Asian favourite Joma Bakery (well on the way to getting a free coffee with the loyalty card). Hospital was not all that primitive (rather like any of the older PCT NHS ones with mixed use, age, sex wards if little hotter) but unfortunately we got separated from our shoes having had to change buildings several times which i think slightly thwarted the whole point of the excercise of hygiene.

After slight difficulties and a large phone bill we reunited with the others by the cultural museum and boarded the minibus to the station for the train to the other station; apparently this was the simplest option. Leg two of Vangvieng to Bangkok was Vientienne to nok khai and then over friendship bridge with a stunning view of the, at this junction, vast mekong to thailand and onto the sleeper to Bangkok. We thought it was wonderful - what plane has a dining cart, full beds and the world cup opening match for 16pounds? We did however, realise why the upper beds were so cheap - they never turn off the lights so sleeping is a little hindered which might turn out for the best since it was rather too easy to fall out.

Bangkok was massive; as evidenced by the hours approach to the central station through the city as the railside gradually transformed from squatter settlements to public services and finally to neatly manicured vegetation, and oppressively hot although not a riot in sight (somewhat disappointing given the worrying that certain mothers were putting in). with leg 3 of our journey booked it was time for market shopping. we rapidly accumulated far more clothing than our backpacks were prepared to accept at a fairly consistant 100baht apiece. unfortunately thai sizes meant that shorts, skirts and trousers were off the menu at chatuchak market (24ha of market space) although puppies and snakes were not if the pet section was anything to go by. a quick hello to bangkok residents and a swift viewing of the chaos of the electricals floor of an upmarket mall and we were back at the train station to board the bus south to Surat Thani, where after an hour of being bitten and complaining of the cramp from curling up on the corner of the sofa in the 'Lounge' section we changed for another to Krabi where we got a minibus to the port to get the first ferry of the day to Koh Phi Phi, which thankfully is pedestrianised.

Life on Phi Phi is, typically I fear, difficult. Wake, eat, doze, frolic, swim, eat, doze, dance, sleep. It is beautiful but haunted by the spectre of the 2005 Tsunami - although physical scars have largely disappeared (save for lesser known beaches covered in broken coral and occasionally walking on a pathway that morphs into the foundations of a destroyed former dwelling) the glistening new hospital, evacuation routes and notices in restaurants informing customers of their connection to the early warning system serve as a constant reminder. What's hideous is that the rebuild is obviously designed with next time in mind.

I have managed some activity. I've been both wreck diving and shark diving although i think the former turned out to be more dangerous and have been to cult status Maya Bay in the national marine park otherwise known as 'The Beach.' It was a little ironic that the film centered on a community attempting to avoid the excesses and multitudes of modern asian travel given the blatent exploitation of the site now. The wreck of King Edward was more interesting 40m down that it ever could have been in life. 15years ago this car ferry sank under slightly suspicious circumstances; rumours of the thai mafia abound - for one thing there are substancial questions as to why a car ferry was ever making daily trips to a pedestrainised island. But it is now home to over 300 species of coral, 4 'nemos', turtles etc. and a giant puffa fish - absolutely deadly and larger than the leopard sharks we saw on the next dive all the while fighting against quite a formidable current. favourite sight had to be the stingray getting its teeth cleaned - wuite happily bearing the gnashers for a grubber fish to have a tasty meal.