Phi Phi Island & more snorkelling

My last day in Phuket – after a lot of messing around with the hotel tour manager who, as nice as she was to me, couldn’t seem to get a simple date right when talking to the tour company, I was finally confirmed on the Phi Phi trip.  Finally, the weather had cleared up completely and it was a beautiful sunny day.

Snorkeling is high on the agenda for this tour, so it was another opportunity to practice with my waterproof housing.  My shots were better this time, but it’s still very hard to track a subject, and the with pressure the housing still presses buttons it shouldn’t.  I might have to work out some sort of foam buffer to sit around the button area.  I also chose the wrong snorkeling set to take it down.  Later in the day we dived a fantastic reef and I left it in the boat.  That decision did allow me to enjoy the views, and practice my equilisation techniques whilst diving as deep as I could.

Monkey beach is one of the few places in the world where monkeys enter the sea.  These guys come out to meet the incoming hordes, in the hope of food. Whilst most of the clan are not that keen on the water, and running away shreaking whenever a wave breaks near them, one little guy was showing off near me, performing duck dives and somersaults under the water.  Despite multiple warnings not to get too close, two people were scratched.  You can’t tell some people.

One of the most enjoyable things to do when in Asia is collect examples of bad English. I didn’t get a photo of the “Sham” motor workshop, but I would go so far as to say that this particular business would not be out of place in some parts of Australia. This expensive speedboat hasn’t had a comparable budget put aside for the sign-writing…

Leonardo DiCaprio’s leading role in The Beach did more for this particular bay than any other marketing exercise.  You can, in fact, book the very disgusting room in which he stayed in Bangkok.  This is The Beach, and these are some of the long-tail boats used for short trips amongst the islands and for fishing on calmer days.

Phi Phi Island was beautiful, and these huts look very tempting for a later return.

I don’t remember what island this is, but it is indicative of the hundreds, if not thousands, of nature’s dramatic punctuations in the otherwise  vast, crystal blue ocean of this region.

The boat dropped us onto an island for one last swim and a cocktail before heading home. I decided to do some rock-pool exploring, and stumbled upon a nest of three, maybe four Banded Sea Kraits.  I’m told that these are the most poisonous sea snakes in the world.  These guys were resting in tiny pools of water during low tide.

I have been rushing from one place to another so far, and haven’t had a great deal of time for R&R.  To prove that I actually did stop and take a break, here’s my first Singapore Sling for the trip.  I was supposed to drink this in Raffles in Singapore, but time didn’t allow me to get there.

On my final day in Phuket I realised that I hadn’t captured much of the daily lives of people here, so I snapped a few views out the front windscreen of our bus. Almost everyone gets around on small motorbikes, and you’ll often see families of three or even four crammed in tight onto one. This little girl looked like she was doing the steering and having a great time.

Mornings and nights will find hundreds of trucks loaded with workers, ranging from factory and farm laborers to hotel staff. This is one of the smaller ones. I’ve seen them loaded with up to 30 people.

Phuket – Island Hopping 1

I’m finding it very difficult to blog on a daily basis. Partly because I am always exhausted after a long day, usually starting at 7am, followed by a short break before night activities, and partly because it takes a while to select and edit the photos, So the regularity and quality of posts will diminish somewhat as time goes by.

The last few days I’ve been island hopping, finishing with my last one tomorrow, and I’ve seen a Muay Thai kickboxing event. This was the real deal as opposed to those shows put on for tourists.

I took a full-day speedboat tour to Krabi and a few islands to get a feel for the beautiful water and sands. Although the weather was pretty bad the water was very warm and the snorkeling fun. I will say that the quality of the reefs we saw was very average. Perhaps the tsunami made a real mess of things, perhaps I’ve been spoiled with what we have back at home – even in Port Philip Bay – or perhaps there is better to come. What made the tour great was that I shared it not only with the obligatory United Nations of Tourists, but with 6 off-duty guides. These local Thai’s were taking a rare chance to see the sights they don’t get to see when they are working, and were an absolute riot. Even with the bad weather we were all smiling, all day long. And to top it off they bought me beer for the return trip. Just me, mind you. I guess I look more thirsty than every other tourist in Phuket…

The trip out to the first island took about 90 minutes, during which their cameras didn’t seem to stop clicking. Mine was grabbed halfway through, and I was forced into this shot (Can’t you tell?). For the benefit of those who like to see me in photos (are you all nuts?) …

On the way out there were some interesting sights.  I can see how the tsunami was so devastating, as there is a very long shallow area, and the tides are quite dramatic here.  This guy is collecting “clams” (we call them pipis, whelks and cockles) whilst the tide is out. He pushes the box along, which apparently somehow “calls” the shellfish out, then grabs them and throws them into the box.

Halfway to the first island we passed a boat which seemed to be on fire. Seeing as our captain made no comment or radio call, I can only assume that someone was brewing local coffee or cooking up a storm inside.

My first attempt at snorkeling with my underwater camera housing was a mixed affair.  Whilst the camera didn’t get wet, I wasn’t able to see what I was shooting very well, and the PVC often pressed the function buttons whenever I dived deeper and the pressure increased.  It remains to be seen how successful I’ll be at shooting whilst scuba diving.

We stopped at Chicken Island.  I can’t remember why it is called that, but it’s a nice little sand atoll that has a shallow tidal crossing to another island.  On the landing area was a group of people repeatedly playing a snippet of Indian music.  I didn’t think much of it until someone explained to me they were filming for a Bollywood film.  This was a love scene, and I realised eventually that the two actors were lying on the ground kissing for each take, and that they had been filming the same take for the entire time were on the island – that would be about 45 minutes!

Around the Krabi region are small islands with caves in which people live. They set themselves up to collect birds nests for a period of time after which they set sail back to the mainland to sell their harvest.  Looks pretty peaceful, but I don’t suppose there’d be any wireless internet.

The trip home was very much a different experience to that going out. A storm hit us, and we all got extremely drenched.  Whilst this didn’t bother me at all the locals are not used to anything below about 28 degrees, and they were clearly suffering, even under their ponchos.  They still managed a painful smile, though.

Canoe trip

Still in Phuket, Thailand, I left at a more respectable hour for a canoe tour of what I think is referred to as James Bond Island. This is because of one of the JB films based there. This tour was highly recommended by other Aussies I spoke to, and whilst it wasn’t a thrill a minute, it was pretty enjoyable.

Not too much to share photo-wise on this one, as I don’t want to throw up endless images of blue skys, green water, and impressive tall mountainous islands. You can Google “Phuket” for those shots.

The fabled light at the end of the tunnel. I should send this to those left working for Coles.

Inside this cave were a stack of fruit bats hanging from the ceiling. (What’s the correct term for a group of bats? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I reckon it’s an Ozzy of Bats.) They stunk, and you can imagine how little air there was in there as the tide rose.

One of the cutest things in the ocean is the mud-skipper. This one looks like she needs to reapply her lipstick though.

Each of the boats had a guide to tell us about what we were seeing, as well as do the actual paddling. One of them was nick-named King Kong, for very obvious reasons. He was a huge for a young guy, and a riot. He fell out of the canoe at one stage, showing off for the two girls in his boat by trying to balance standing up. My guide told me in an earnest voice that all the other guides encouraged him to exercise regularly, and they assisted by doing so with him every day during their breaks.

This was their exercise – hackysack. Everytime you miss the sack, or kick it badly, you have to do a lap of the group. He was terrible at it, and they kept kicking it to him. That’s him messing another one up right now.

Phuket – Muay Thai

One of the more interesting experiences I have had in Phuket has been the Muay Thai kickboxing. Tucked away in a dark part of Northern Phuket, this ring obviously caters for tourists, but not in a dramatically obvious way. The locals are extremely passionate about the bouts, resulting in a couple of nervous moments when opposite sides threatened to explode at each other, betting is frenetic, and the fights willing. The home made chicken pieces put KFC down for the count too. The skin tastes almost like pork crackling.

There were a surprising number of bouts featuring kids – I mean under 12 kids. However, they took it very seriously, and it was amusing to watcht the mums urge their boy on to hurt the other, whilst complaining that the other boy used some illegal tactic to harm their own son. This was another one of those times when I wish I had my fast lens and DSLR camera.

Rock City Patong – it truly rocks

In the middle of Thailand I never expected to run into a rock club that puts anything like this back in Melbourne to shame. Rock City Patong (www.rockcity.cc) was built after the tsunami, and now has two venues in Phuket. I plan to spend every night whilst here rocking out at this club.

The stage is huge, there is a snarling King Kong complete with fists in broken chains above it, the sound is perfect, the drum kit is huge and has a gong, and there’s a huge Ace Frehley neon Gibson out the front. The place is perfect except for the price of the beer.

To top it all off, the musicians are awesome. What seems to happen is that locals are recruited to form the basis of most of the bands, with a bit of a rotating thing happening. Every now and then a genuine tribute band plays there, but otherwise it’s the “house” band playing hard rock and metal covers, or pop/dance songs in a hard rock style. Every singer has been incredibly good, and there are two girls in particular who are just amazingly good. One is tiny (see the pics) and is not unlike Janis Joplin and Vanessa Amorosi’s love child, with an awesome level of power for such a tiny frame.  Postscript: You can check out Zea’s profile at http://www.myspace.com/Zealasa. I think she may have moved on from Rock City since I was there.
The other I thought was a guy wanting to be a girl, but it turns out she is definitely female and a lesbian. Her voice is stunning! I’m hoping to film some over the next few nights.

Forgive the less than ideal shots. This camera is no good for live stage work.

Singing “Daddy Cool”

Apparently this guy is “direct from America!”

I was so close to jumping up and joining in once I saw those keyboards. I’m looking for a band that plays Mr Crowley or Jump so I can guest. Hey, even SOS or Mumma Mia will do if I get the chance.

For a minute I thought this guy might have been the bass player from Hush. Maybe he was? I should ask him tonight.

The club is owned and run by a mysterious European ex-rock star. Apparently he’s played with a few very successful bands, but he wouldn’t tell me who. I’ll work on it this week.

If only the rest of the War Pigs boys were motivated enough to play here. Wouldn’t be any money in it, but it would be an amazing experience.
OK – I’ve got 30 minutes to get some food and get back to the club for a KISS tribute band plus more.  Got to go…

Postscript: I’ve now made the entire Rock City set available online.  I hope to be going back in June 09 with my pro photography gear to capture it all as it should be.

Phuket – Being a tourist, alone.

It’s sometimes awful to be alone, but often it’s great. Today was one of those days. I’m in Phuket now, in a very nice room (with a jacuzzi) of an excellent hotel. I’m shamelessly going soft – recharging before I hit Malaysia.

I’ve booked a bunch of tours so I can see as much of the islands as possible. First thing I thought of when flying in to Phuket International Airport was the amazing view of the islands! Of course, my camera was in my overhead luggage instead of my hands, so no pictures. I’ll have to do it on the way out.

Next thing that hit me as I exited the airport is that this is definitely the most humid place I’ve been to so far. Thai paper money doesn’t really suit this place. No paper does.

Driving into Patong Beach (totally destroyed by the tsunami) I felt a little more like I was in Fiji again. Poor local village housing combined with tourist-related shops, agencies and hotels, and to my total surprise a place called Rock City. More of that amazing place in the next post.

As soon as I reached my hotel the heavens opened. Tropical rain has been constant since I’ve been here. We’re possibly feeling the effects of the Philippine typhoon. I hope it clears up before my tours of Phi Phi, Krabi and something else start (June 26).

Today I decided to be a real tourist and chose to do the Phuket adventure tour.

Heavy storms stopped half of the activities from being available (many snakes are out and roads are blocked by fallen trees and flooded rivers), but instead of being unhappy about it (no refunds) I was perfectly OK because the remainder of my tour group had canceled thinking it wouldn’t go ahead, leaving me in the unique position of being able to stay at locations for as long as I wanted and ask any questions I wanted. The tour guide was rapt (and surprised?) to find out I was easy going, and opened up to me about everything. So in the end I got a personal tour guide which, after Bangkok, I’m learning is what I really need to be comfortable. Whilst the entire 5-hour tour was entertaining and informative, a few locations really stood out, and I was able to photograph most of the day as I had put my camera into it’s waterproof housing beforehand.

The ATV ride was supposed to be about getting the guest to a spot on the mountain where the view was spectacular. Today it was more about riding on an open four-wheeler, through driving rain, on wet main roads followed by very dodgy dirt tracks that looked more like rivers with canyons running through them. My guide hated it (they think 25 degrees on a wet day is cold) and was shivering terribly, but I loved it! Got a bit hairy at one point on the way down the mountain, as my brakes became fairly useless in the slippery mud. I’m only showing you a photo of these things in case you don’t know what an ATV is, because I can shoot in the rain, and so you can see the conditions.

During the day’s activities we checked out rubber tapping, which was freaky. Rubber being poured straight out of a tree? I know that’s where it comes from, but actually feeling it turn to rubber in my hands was weird. Another local industry is cashews. Did you know they grew at the top of an apple? I didn’t! The apple juice is really nice, too. We also dropped into a massive jewelry designer showroom. I bought Mishka and Mushroom a small cat statue made from fish bone or resin (depends which lady you asked) each.

The elephant ride & monkey show was a lot of fun, especially when you could interact with the animals so intimately. My ride (below) was very happy to raise her trunk onto the platform and watch me as I stroked her tough skin and thanked her for the gentle ride. Watching her eyes move around to match my movements, I could instantly see that within that massive frame is a very gentle creature that trusts humans and enjoys their company.

This baby elephant is brought out to “massage” guests. She’s three and makes the most adorable squeals. I was allowed to hang around with her for a while after the massage. I think she liked me too, as she kissed me for quite some time! Her kisses threatened to suck my entire ear off at one stage.

It seems that Thailand is full of attractive women just wanting to spend time with you. After the baby elephant came Samlee, who is apparently the reigning Miss World. She loved to hold my hand, have her belly rubbed, or if she was feeling shy, cover her face with my hand. For a creature that spends it’s entire time running around rough ground and climbing trees on all fours, she sure had soft hands!

I’m not a temple fan, but it is interesting to watch how the many Buddhist tourists interact when they visit these temples. This is Phuket’s most important temple – Wat Chalong. You may not have seen inside one before, but they allow photography here.

Finally, the snake show was excellent. Once again, improved out of sight because of the fact that I had everyone’s undivided attention. Holding a large python was really quite nice, and I wouldn’t mind one. Patting a King Cobra was thrilling – apparently the chances of seeing one around town are quite good right now. Hearing the story about the guide’s friend who lost a baby to a python last week wasn’t so good.

Gold-ringed cat snake

I was photographing this King Cobra (not realizing I’d be a lot closer to one later) when it saw me and raised it’s head in a defensive pose. It was quite unnerving. It turns out he could see himself in his reflection on my camera housing.

I think this is the mouth of a python.

Snake kissing. He also allowed it to latch itself onto his finger.

Kissing an Asian cobra

The fangs of an Asian Cobra

The King Cobra about to turn my direction.

A general observation – the world is a very strange place. In Melbourne we have the cleanest drinking water you can get, yet it hardly ever rains. Here in Phuket it buckets unimaginable amounts daily, yet they can’t provide a natural, clean drinking supply. Whilst on the ATV I collected about a litre a minute in the lap of my poncho, and one giant raindrop actually dislodged my right contact lens, reducing me to one eye for crevasse and flash flood negotiation. I’m writing this, so it must have been perfectly safe.

Finally, after a wet day being a tourist I headed off to Rock City. On my way out I saw this large green creature on the wall of my hotel room.

Final day in Bangkok – big changes, some good.

Bangkok has really taken it out of me. I was really getting edgy towards the end of the third day and felt like I was about to crack. After chatting to the Gecko’s tour guide I had to make a very difficult decision to cancel my tour to Chiang Mai and surrounds. My blistered feet are making it hard to walk long distances at the moment, my state of mind stemming from Bangkok communication and culture was not good, and the tour itself turned out to be with a bunch of hippie back-packers, none of whom I related to. The last thing I needed was 10 days of village hut conditions, and all I could think of was that I would be unable to get back to civilization for 10 days, and would probably end up in a mental hospital.

Goodbye to my tour fee, and hello to more accommodation spend. However, enjoying myself is more important than money. The good news is that my last day in Bangkok was actually quite fun. I decided to check out the Computer City plaza. A huge place full of technology for sale.

First I checked into my hotel, and learned that I really should be watching out for the good looking pick-pockets. Seeing as I wasn’t pick-pocketed that day I never found out why, or even what management thought was good looking.

Walking along the tiny lane-ways, looking for pick-pockets, I passed through a very popular market.  This view is repeated in rows of three or four for the length of the street, and nobody moves to let you through. I eventually learned to be more aggressive in my movements around people.  No-one complained.

In a city of chaos there is some sensibility.  There are traffic cops who look more like military police, and then there are traffic management guys like this one. His responsibility was to stop left-turning cars from running over pedestrians, and as you can see he did so with the use of movable barriers.  We could use those in Little Bourke Street to stop the pedestrians from running over cars.  To add to Thailand confusion, I’ve noticed some streets in which cars change the side of the street they drive on!

Street vendors dominate this place, although I still haven’t eaten from one.  This lady looked more Chinese to me, but you can see from this angle how she sets up and, in a rare example, she can serve seated guests.  One of the main reasons I haven’t been eating from these vendors is that it seems most of the food is meant to be takeaway, and I would rather sit down whilst working out what things are and how to eat them. Not to mention that it gives me a table to discreetly throw up under if it comes to that.  Just kidding – all the food I’ve eaten so far has been awesome – except Burger King.

I really should have tried some of this squid.  It looks great! This stall was along a street that presented jewelery, perfume, clothes and food according to no particular plan.

I get the feeling that the local touts are too busy with passing traffic to bother poor tourists as much on Sundays, as I was hardly harrassed at all today.  I was able to dawdle along a few city blocks before eventually arriving at Computer City.   I have a reasonably wide-angle camera with me, but I wasn’t able to fit enough into this image. To fully appreciate the size of this place you need to imagine what you see times two in height (five floors), surrounding you on all four sides, with each floor occupying the depth of an entire city block.  That’s not impressive if you think of Chadstone or the Singapore malls, but it certainly is when you remember that this mall is for nothing but technology.  I purchased a translation gadget and a power adapter.  I wanted a lot more, but the prices didn’t seem to be any cheaper than what we can get at home.  The only touts here were at the DVD/VCD stores.  Dodgy types were standing on each side of the walkway quietly asking if you wanted to “buy sexy video”.  In a real turn-about in my retail experiences they took “no” for answer.  Probably something to do with the fact that their trade is rather illegal.  In the larger stores, the salespeople that actually understood English didn’t seem to want to make a sale. Those on the ground floor were actually helpful.  The lady who sold me my translator put batteries in, showed me how to use it, took $500 baht off without me saying a thing, then when I said I wanted to pay with credit card she said I would have to pay the full price (surcharge) on the card, but that she would give me the $500 baht discount in cash!

Despite being told that monks are not allowed to shop, plenty were.  I’ve since been told that these aren’t “real” monks.  I just think that monks understand the importance of technology to society more than certain unnamed Australian retail organizations might.

I was extremely close to buying this from a second-hand store for about $250.  Then I realized that I didn’t actually think I’d want it in my house!  So a photo will do nicely.

My Bangkok trip finished at Soi Cowboy (spelling?). Soi means “street”, by the way.  It’s effectively Bangkok’s red light district (although I got the impression the entire city was a red-light district!). In my opinion it seemed more like a bunch of sideshows at a carnival.  I parked myself at the bottom end in an Aussie bar, drinking Singha and watching the passing parade.  Highlights included an actual floor show on the street involving 12 “Moulin Rouge” style dancers and a cabaret singer, the tiny little kid that kept trying to sell me roses for the entire time I sat there (on my own mind you, after having said no at least 15 times). Best of all was the tiny elephant that regularly walked right through the very crowded street with her trainer   I got footage on my phone, but can’t upload from there so you’ll just have to use your imagination for now.

I got talking with a couple of Aussies, which was a breath of fresh air – to actually be able to hold a conversation again!!!  They were regulars and wanted to show me the sights. I let them do that until we entered the third bar, after which I decided enough was enough and grabbed the next available tuk tuk back to the hotel to get some peace and quiet.  I won’t bother trying to describe what goes on here.  You’ll just have to experience that for yourself.  I won’t be back to do it again, that’s for sure.

PS – I started my Malaria tablets when I hit Bangkok.  I’m not experiencing any side-effects at all, unless reduced tolerance for people is one…

Bangkok – Day 3, tigers, the floating market and more issues

It’s after midnight and I’m exhausted. So this is going to be a short post with lots of photos. The reason I’m even doing one this late is that I’m not sure I’ll have internet access for the next 10 days – I’m about to leave for a backpacker adventure through northern Thailand. Let’s hope it’s better than Bangkok.

Today has been mixed. I booked a day tour to visit the Floating Market and it turns out that you also get taken to a bunch of tourist traps, and the Tiger Temple. That was worth it, but I found out later that the Gecko’s tour takes us there too. Would have been nice to see it in the itinerary. The organiser also told me we’d be back by 4:30pm. The guide told me 6:30pm, and when I told him what the organiser said he hastily changed his answer to 5:30pm. We subsequently returned to my hotel at 7:30pm, missing both my tailor fitting and tour briefing.

To make it worse, I open the door of my room to find someone else’s gear inside! Apparently they thought my room became twin share once the tour started. Needless to say I was pretty upset with the hotel and kicked him out. On the positive side, none of my things were missing or had been touched.
On to the photos.

The Floating Market is about 90 minutes north of Bangkok and consists of both water and land-based stalls, selling everything from fresh and cooked food, fruit, hats, knick-knacks and useless things that appeal to tourists. Here has been the only place I’ve seen Coke advertised. Pepsi dominates this city.

I couldn’t see why this lady was there as she wasn’t shopping, had no produce and her eyes were closed most of the time, so I suppose she could just have been enjoying the sun.

Dining on the water takes on a new meaning here.

As it got closer to midday the waterway became clogged. Somehow the boaters managed to find paths through, and the vendors got to their customers (something Thais seem to be very good at even when their customers don’t actually know they want to buy anything).

I went to a tiger sanctuary. There are real tigers there. Tigers are cute when they’re not eating you. Tigers are cuter when you can pat them. I was able to pat them. ‘Nuff said…

This guy was impossible to leave alone, and we had total access to him.

Look at those beautiful spots on his ears! It’s only when I see this photo that I realise I only ever look at a tiger from in front. I had no clue they had spots on their ears.

I think this monk only hangs around so that they are allowed to call this place a Tiger Temple. I didn’t see any temples other than those on each side of my forehead as I washed my face that morning. Oh hang on, I think they said one of the tigers was named Shirley. (”Shirley you can’t be serious!” I exclaimed when told).

Feeding time for the pigs (or are they peccaries), horses (I don’t know, they were too small to be real horses), chickens, peacocks, deer and water buffalo. This peacock was clearly in charge and kept attacking any other animal that raised an eyebrow at “his” root vegetable of choice. And they all ran when he went at them…

By the looks of this lethal karate chop, the peacock was about ready to add pork to his menu.

I’m off to re-pack my luggage and get some sleep. See you next time I get online.

Bangkok – Day 2, blisters and a twisted ankle

Aaargh!!!

It didn’t take long. I’ve ended today’s adventures with a twisted left ankle (which I initially thought was a lot worse) and, at last count, five blisters on my left foot and one on my right. News about that later.

Seasoned travelers will probably be disappointed, but I have to say I do NOT like Bangkok. I am quite disappointed that I booked another couple of nights after I get back from Chiang Mai. Don’t get me wrong, there are endless things to see and do, however I am incredibly uncomfortable here. I struggle with the money, the lack of English (I can’t grasp Thai at all), the streets, the weather, the pollution and even the people. I can’t wait to get out of this city, and tonight I have come home early and am staying in my hotel with Burger King. Yep, I haven’t even had a go at the street food, and I don’t think I will until I am with a guide who understands what things are.

Some images of Bangkok street-life follow. Below is a very typical lane or alley. Crowded, smelly and old. Every building is dirty, run-down or derelict. I don’t know what is in the water on the ground, but it is everywhere and I’ve already dropped credit cards and put my backpack down into a puddle of the disgusting stuff.

So many people work on the street. This happy lady with most of her teeth missing didn’t seem to have a corresponding business. I couldn’t see how you engaged her, but perhaps she was just doing her own mending? Nice machine. I think my grandma had one just like it.

Construction workers building the new Skytrain work right on the edge of their massive concrete structures, with no safety railing, ropes or other form of protection. This air conditioner mechanic (who will never be out of work given the number of air conditioning units I saw in one tiny block) also lives on the edge. It kind of looks like fun, though…

I booked a four-hour tour to see some temples and take a ride on a riverboat. Instead I ended up in a taxi on my own with a driver who spoke no English. As a result I decided to just see Wat Arun (once Thailand’s seat of power and probably the best known temple in Thailand) and call it a day. It actually took a couple of hours to get there anyway as the traffic was appalling. On the way we drove through the protest to throw out the current Thai president. I couldn’t get a shot as the taxi driver didn’t understand I wanted him to stop. I couldn’t be bothered trying to make him understand – I thought pointing a camera at a rather large protest about something this important would be self-explanatory.

I think this monk was rostered on to ensure farangs (foreigners) don’t fall. I’m not sure if achieving enlightment introduces the ability to levitate large Americans. Fortunately there were none around. This guy was very patient, silently acceding to the demands of Japanese men wanting photos of their wives draped all over him. I chose to shoot quietly from half a kilometre away.

Carefully edging my way down from the top of the tallest tower I made it to the very last step when CRACK! Down I went as I had only momentarily looked up to watch a group of Japanese tourists. I do this a lot, but this one hurt more than I can remember and I had also damaged a spot halfway up my foot. In a tribute to genuine Thai helpfulness (a trait I have previously attributed to the possibility of making money), a group of four teenage girls immediately came to my aid. When I waved them off with a smile, they continued to look concerned for me, but continued on their way ahead of me. I rounded a corner only to run into their leader, who had come back to me with a glass jar of something green to rub on it. I don’t know what it was but I assured her I was OK and gave her a nodded “khawp khun” (thank you) and another smile. The group wisely chose not to follow me home, and reluctantly moved on. Reckon that would happen in Melbourne?

Hopefully this next image shows just how intensely “gold” this gold finish on the roof of one of the temples is. On a pretty dull day, where most colours were muted, this stood out dramatically.

Everyone’s a model. These two were at it for a good 10 minutes with their little point and shoot, and “Fashion TV” moves. I hope they took a timeout for long enough to understand what the actual structure stood for.

I also got the feeling they hardly ever left their air-conditioned coach, and that is probably a good thing given what I’ve experienced in such a short time so far. A blind and rabid dog staggering along the street only inches away from a river of traffic, beggars with signs asking for a specific donation, people living inside demolished apartment blocks, shanty towns where the dogs seem to outnumber the people (tough in Bangkok, I tell you!).

OK – on to tomorrow. Getting up at 6am to be picked up for an organised tour of the floating market and some tiger thingy. Back at 6pm for a Chiang Mai tour group meeting followed by a suit fitting. I’m yet to decide if I got a good or bad deal, but I know I got a LOT of clothes.

Bangkok – first impressions

I don’t even know where to begin. No photos yet to share with you as I didn’t feel comfortable taking my camera out tonight.

Smells (think sewerage in many places), noise, pollution, people, lights, street stalls, dogs, aggressive taxi drivers (all of them insist on taking you somewhere you don’t want to go, and none of them take no for an answer), incredibly fake politeness. It’s overwhelming and I don’t know how I’m going to get through tomorrow on my own.

Tonight I needed a massage to remove the pain from my feet (walking) and shoulders (pack). The shop-fronts offering massage are everywhere, so I asked a taxi driver to help me find a good one. I ended up at some ridiculously opulent building which immediately felt wrong. Inside were about 200 bikini clad Thai girls behind glass, all trying to get my attention. It felt like a zoo and terribly exploitative. Don’t the girls feel less than human in that situation? Trying to get out of there without upsetting the bloke in charge was a delicate task.

Once I got out I made my way to Sukhumvit 24 where in wait lay a diamond in the dirt. I can’t remember the name of it, but the seafood on offer was “special” as Brucey would passionately declare if he was there. However, he wasn’t there. In fact no-one else was there – only me. I was treated to a floor show of traditional Thai dance, and no less than six very attentive waiters. I went to visit my meal for the night, whilst it was still alive, and got to know all 4 river prawns and a very nervous crayfish quite well.

The meal was incredible, the wine I chose was some Italian Zinfandel which blew my mind, and the service exemplorary. It was only spoiled a tiny bit when my throng of waiters had their attention diverted by a pair of latecomers – a 60+ UK divorcee (so he said to ‘her’) with his evening’s “girlfriend experience”. The only downer for me was that I was alone at my table, and my main waiter wouldn’t join me for a taste of that fabulous Zinfandel. It was probably because he couldn’t understand a word of Englsh and thought I was propositioning him.

So, my first night in Bangkok wasn’t all bad, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. I’m nervous…

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