Home sweet home

Two miles high, actually. Lhasa is 3,700 metres above sea level which is, I think, there or thereabouts.

“Prohibition leads the room the tablewares”, or so the sign prominently displayed in the roof-top restaurant of our Lhasa hostel warns. At least I think it’s a warning.

Julia and I have often been amused by the standard of English displayed in some of the signs we’ve seen on our trip but China seems to be in most need of a sign consultant. This is despite the fact that the Chinese government is putting great emphasis upon its population learning the language and, since arriving here, every second native speaker (and some non-natives) we’ve met have been making their livings teaching English. And TEFL isn’t even an issue. Julia even tried her hand at it – exchanging English for Chinese lessons with Wendy, a woman we met in a park in Guangzhou.

During our recent fabulous cruise through the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, the children and I (Julia has returned home to see her sick father) met two English sisters - Rachael and Laura - who had just spent the previous six months teaching their mother tongue in Beijing. We shared table 11 for meals and had a laugh about some of the English signs that we’d each seen in China and elsewhere. They told us there was a major effort underway in Beijing to replace all the dodgy ones on display before the Olympics. That message hasn’t made it to Tibet if the communications policy of the Phuntsok Khasang International Hostel in Lhasa is anything to go by. Although marketed as an “international” hostel, the people in reception seem unaware of Beijing’s policy and, neither they nor the usual signs that are displayed about the place, have much in the way of English to inform what they’re about. At least the restaurant has provided English translations.

 

Fancy some “Harsh Potato Silk”? Or maybe some, dangerously sounding, “The Onion Explodes the Mutton”? Or how about some “Explodes Fries the Yak Meat”. Could they be some sort of Tibetan IED’s? Or what about some “Red-Roast Hairtail”, some” Burns the Chicken on Rice” or some “Burns the Pig to Set the Table on Rice”? Or maybe you’d like to try “The Onion Pig Digs Up” or “The Iron Digs up the Chicken Leg” (Tom and I have tried it. It’s delicious) or simply some “Explodes the Chicken Leg”? Or even “The Black Mustard Honey Chicken Digs Up” or some “Double Colour Bottom of the Pot”? Hungry anybody?

Despite the warning that the western breakfast included Ham Intestines, I took the chance and was relieved that it really was some half decent rashers (which have been few and far between on this trip).But they were only half decent.

China has been an eye-opener in many ways. If we’d expected dull, grey post (or even mid)-communism we got gaudy, loud neo-consumerism. Most cities, other than Lhasa which is small and low rise, have been the same, same (but different) and could have been any western metropolis. Hong Kong is – well Hong Kong - and is a pretty unique city worldwide and we really enjoyed our time there. Its love affair with capitalism has not been dented by Beijing’s take-over and we were struck by its Las Vegas style lights on the evening of our first arrival from Laung Prabang in Laos. We were also surprised at how little English the people there spoke.

Hong Kong’s highlights were the Art, the Science and Technology and the History of Hong Kong Museums, (the space Museum was a bit of a disappointment) and, of course, Disneyland. That could have been a bit of a washout itself ( we had to sploosh through an incredible downpour when there) had the crowds not been thin on the ground so that we didn’t have to queue at all and got to go on many of the rides a number of times. If you go, don’t miss the shows which were very professional although Samba’s Story outshone The Golden Mickeys by a golden mile.

The lowlight of Hong Kong was definitely our excursion to Gold Coast City, a time-share resort that we got suckered into visiting and on our last day and all. Say no more. We put the experience down to learning and another step in the healthy scepticisation of the children which has been proceeding apace during this trip

I must confess that I was concerned about spending two and a half months in China – a result of a visa miscalculation. Originally, our main motivation in coming here was to see the solar eclipse on August 1^st although, later we decided to see a few Olympic events, seeing as we’re here anyway. But we had wanted to spend more time around south East Asia and visit Cambodia and Vietnam feeling, as we did, that China would be – well - dull, grey and post communist. The reality has been so different and we have felt as at home here as we have felt anywhere given that we’re nowhere near home.

China is a place of contrasts which is really on the move and we have experienced such a mix of entertainments and spectacles here that it’s hard to know where to begin. We have also met many more Irish people here that we’ve met on the rest of our entire trip

The amazing circus in Guangzhou (see Paul’s blog on the subject) and the very imaginative light and water show in Yangshuo are two superbly memorable events which are vying for supremacy in our minds. The designer of that latter show has been commissioned to create the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics and, if Yangshuo is anything to go by, everybody should be glued to their tellies on August 8^th. The Chinese really know how to stage a show.

During that show, Julia and I had one of those same, same moments that, I think, people who have spent much time together must often have. So overawed by yet another spectacle was I that I leaned over to her to say that we should book to see a few shows while we’re in Beijing. She was just thinking the same thing. We’ve seen a few advertised and I’m really looking forward to seeing some.

 

We also saw a less spectacular but just as interesting performance in Lijiang when we went to see an amazing traditional Naxi orchestra where most of the instruments were over 100 years old and many of the forty or so members were not much younger.

There is much else about China that has fascinated us; the practicality of the people, the police presence which doesn’t seem to bother anybody or inhibit their activities (mostly concerned with making money), the building going on everywhere, their transport methods and their energy. Everyone is friendly. We meet people everywhere who say hello and who want to speak to us so they can practice their English.

The Chinese (despite their sign writers having such a long way to go) are totally into getting on in life and, to them, learning English is an essential part of that. There are things called English corners in every major city where Chinese students meet and talk to native speakers to improve their language skills. On the 15^th July three teenager students who wanted to speak English approached us in a square adjoining the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. They explained, in pretty good English, that they were students in a local English language college and, as part of their home-work, they had to come to the square and seek out some unsuspecting native speakers to talk to. I assigned one child to each of them and for almost an hour they chatted embarrassingly.

Wherever we have travelled, our children have been tourist attractions in themselves with people coming up to shake their hands, hug them or have their photographs taken with them. They always give rise to smiles and we are regularly congratulated, by gesture, upon their good looks. I also wish to add (proud father and all as I am) that any of the, mostly adults, that have gotten to know them as we have stayed in hostels have also commented on their fun loving nature, their intelligence and their good manners (Julia will tell you that the latter trait has nothing to do with me). The hostel we are in at the moment is no exception. As far as I can make out, the Chinese think that a family with three children is a happy family. I’m saying nothing.

The square where we met the girls is a really lovely place and is surrounded by market stalls where the produce is mostly very good and quite reasonable – if you bargain.

Even though our first market was the Russian one in Tallin, our first real lessons in market awareness started in Morocco where the markets (they call them souks) are places that are warrens of covered alleys so vast that you could easily get lost. And we did. They have everything under the sun for sale and a line in hassle to match it. But they do have some great stuff. Never express an interest in anything and never make an offer. That was the first lesson. But we really enjoyed it.

The market in Cairo was much the same and we’ll always joke about that little boy who ran up to us and said “Don’t waste your time. I have exactly what you’re looking for.” It was only when we got to Thailand that we began to get seriously drawn in. Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have great markets and we bought all around us. Laung Prabang in Laos was even better with some really nice artisan stuff but China has been different. The only city market we visited in China was in Kunming and it was strictly a Chinese utilitarian market; second hand tools, bits of engines, catering utensils, unfashionable garments, mobile phones, fake designer handbags. I enjoyed it and was even dragged back there by, of all people, Julia (see our Tallin blogs) who regretted not buying yet another badly needed fake designer handbag. We did see the tourist stuff in Yangshuo and Lijiang but Lhasa, to me, has the best market stalls yet in (or around, for the PC among you) China. Yes it’s TT (our code for tourist tat) but it’s pretty good TT and we’ve bought some stuff.

I was looking at a stall and was curious about an item that looked like a pipe made from a human shin bone. It was beautifully engraved and had its extremities plated in silver. It turns out that it’s a sort of horn as I learnt by, coincidentally, thumbing through a book in the hostel. Anyway I picked it up and held it up to my own shin to ask the stall holder, by gesture, whether this could possibly be a human shin bone. Oh yes, he assured me and immediately asked whether I wanted a skull. I looked to where he was pointing to realise that he had the tops of several; human skulls on sale, all also beautifully engraved and one also plated in silver. With that, Tom asked whether we could move away from that stall which we promptly did. Since then we’ve noticed loads of beautifully engraved human skulls on sale and several more shin bone horns. What’s the story?

Also worth a bit of comparison with the rest of the world are China’s taxi drivers. They are the best we’ve experienced. On the scale of cabbies that has the homicidal maniacs of Cairo with their death traps of rusting vehicles at one end through the rip-off, shop-visiting conveyors of India, the cabbies of China are very definitely at the other extreme. They are numerous, cheap, well regulated and polite.

In fairness to Cairo’s cabbies they possess incredible skill and have nerves of steel. Even driving one of their junkers requires bravery and should require an engineering degree (just like my first Mini). But bravery is not the only thing that’s required to be a taxi driver in Cairo. Their ability, not only to see where the gap is but to judge where it will be in five seconds (as 25 other cabbies also make the same calculation) and then to accelerate, chicken-playing like to that spot requires a Hawkins’s-like understanding of quantum mechanics. We had thought the cabbies of Marrakech scary but......

India was different. Some were great but we met a classic example of a rip-off artist when we had just arrived in Mumbai. We got a driver who quoted 750 Rupees to bring us to our hotel and who wouldn’t turn on his meter (saying it was broken. It was a brand new car and there was no way it was broken) which led to a standoff with J saying she’d only pay what was on the meter when we arrived, us refusing to get out of the halted taxi till he found us another one, him being told to move on by airport security and us eventually paying one third his price (including tip) for an admittedly scorching non air-con trip to our hotel.

But all that is just a fond, bad memory. Maybe they’re just afraid of the authorities here but in China the system works, the drivers are friendly and fair and the cabs prominently display signs telling you where to complain if anything’s amiss. In Kunming they even had a very imaginative way of helping you complain (or at least remembering the identity of the driver, just in case you wanted to. Again the Chinese creativity).

Besides the usual photo and number etc in English and Chinese, they each had a simple identification method. Some taxis had a picture of a panda with a number, another might be a donkey with a number and yet another, a pig. Each sign said “do you know what this (animal) is?” So if you needed to complain you only had to remember Panda 26 or Pig 17 or whatever. It was also in Kunming that we saw cages in cabs for the first time, presumably to protect the drivers from attack. I’m slightly sad about that. It was also in kunming that we had our first experience of a driver who wouldn’t accept payment (the second was today – 17^th July when the driver accidentally drove over Catherine’s foot. No damage, thankfully, but some tears).

Our Kunming hero was to take us to the train station (Julia had shown him the tickets) but we became concerned as he appeared to have passed the vicinity where I knew the station to be. Anyway another ten minutes later and I again showed him the ticket (verbal communication was not an option) and he nodded assuringly. But when he began to drive up the ramp at the airport and (panicking) I showed him the ticket again, it all sunk in and we all began to panic. He was obviously very worried on the way back until I showed him the departure time on the ticket and he relaxed a bit. He got us there on time (in a downpour but we can’t blame him for that) and we just joined the end of the queue as it moved off on to the train, all the while Julia giving us one of her speeches about always leaving plenty of time for appointments. Phew!

We travelled to Chongqing by overnight train to catch our Yangtze cruise and, for the first time in China, had to share our compartment with another soul. It was also the oldest train we’d been on in China yet but, even so, was “perfectly adequate”.

China’s trains are the best we’ve travelled on, followed by Thailand’s and then Egypt’s. India’s are definitely at the bottom of the list. If only they would just clean them. When there, I was reading about efficiencies being introduced into the system whereby the average turn-around time for a train was now five days instead of eight. Michael O’Leary (Ryanair) would be horrified. But why couldn’t they just clean them in that time. We definitely travelled on trains in India that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Thailand was different. As we left the train after our only Thai railway journey – from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - they were already washing down the its outside.

In China we have always travelled overnight and we’ve always picked hard sleeper class. As a treat, we’re descending from Tibet in a soft sleeper cabin. But hard sleeper is great. And, by the way, the beds not hard at all. They are three tier, with six to one enclosure and a corridor down one side of the carriage, not unlike but very different from three tier AC in India. The most basic difference is that the trains are really clean and each compartment is supplied with a thermos of boiling water (which can be refilled from a boiler in each carriage), a litter bin, a small table with table cloth and a litter bin, the latter two being replaced and emptied regularly. The other great thing is that, whilst the luggage storage areas are over the corridors, they are accessed from within the sleeper compartments. The corridors also have small tables with fold down seats and are carpeted while each carriage has two toilets and a two sink washing station. The Chinese are meticulous about hygiene. There are also proper dining cars, although as these are some of the few places where passengers can smoke, they are sometimes a little smoky.

The other thing the Chinese railways do is that they require all passengers to wait in a waiting room for their train until they are called. So the platforms are spotless and, unlike the craziness in India, anybody who is on a platform as you are walking to your carriage is also getting the train so there’s no confusion, no crowds trying to pass in opposite directions, no hustle and bustle and no chance of the train leaving without you. Tomorrow morning, we take what is the newest and is said to be one of the world’s most amazing train journeys as we descend, over 36 hours, from the heights of Tibet’s Lhasa to China’s ancient capital, Xi’an. The line has only been open since 2006 and we are told that this train is even more super-duper than the ones we’re used to. So whether or not the railway is an instrument of the People’s Republic’s imperialism , we’re all looking forward to the trip, if slightly guiltily.

China’s natural spectacles have been as awe-inspiring as their performances. On our way from Guilin to Yangshuo on a four hour boat journey down the Lei River we savoured some of the country’s famous Karst landscapes with these improbably steep limestone hills emerging out of the ground everywhere like giant zombies’ heads might do in some B horror movie. You may have seen these types of landscape represented on some types of Chinese crockery and thought What imagination, what artistic license. Well, they are very real as they tower in all their majestic beauty although how they formed, geologically, is still a mystery to our household – even with its beautiful geologist – so what hope have you got. We later hired bicycles and cycled through the muddy lanes of this dream-like countryside to our guide’s village where the children and I got a tour of the local farmland as Julia stood watch over the bikes.

From our base in Lijiang, we undertook a three day trek into and along the cliffs that form one side of the *(insert appropriate superlative) Tiger Leaping Gorge in the mid reaches of the Yangtze River, staying in two guesthouses - The Halfway and the Naxi Family – along the way; a brilliant and forever memorable experience. Then there was the three-night, two day cruise from Chongqing to Yichang through the Three Gorges in the lower part of the river. Alas, Julia had left us by then but the four of us had a fabulous time on a really lovely river-boat, The Cn Victoria, which we shared with about 100 Taiwanese, the two English sisters mentioned earlier and a Korean couple. The trip was * and the staff * and the gorges, although diminished by the effects of the world’s biggest dam which is being completed down river, were still spectacular. The backup for the dam is over 150Km long and the water has risen by 80 metres so far with another 10 to go. The gorges must have been spectacularly spectacular and * before the dam was built. It’s building involved moving whole river-side cities up the slopes including the removal of hundreds of millions of tons of topsoil uphill to create terraced farmland where only rocks existed before. On the last evening we descended through four Loughs at the dam which were each 120 X 32 metres in dimension and which could accommodate many ships. There is a ship-lift under construction which will be a box 120 X 18 metres into which single ships will be able to drive to be lifted or lowered in a shorter time than the three hours that the, eventual, five Lough system will take to negotiate.

But the natural spectacles of China were outdone by the awe-inspiring man-made landscape which is the paddy fields of The Dragon’s Backbone mountain of Guangxi near Yangshuo. These ancient paddy-fields, carved out of mountains by generations of farmers are so aesthetically beautiful and technically marvellous that we loved them and would love to return. It’s not only the fact that the beauty of the water-filled fields was created by levelling and building terraces on such steep slopes, it is the also how they are irrigated with little streams and ponds everywhere so that the farmers can fill one field, some of them tiny, and empty others at will all from the captured rainfall

And we saw all of this before ascending to the top of the world, Tibet. Although we have been unable to venture far outside Lhasa, we have really enjoyed our stay here. The Chinese government only announced that the “autonomous region” would open again to foreigners from the 25^th June, on the previous day. We were quick off the mark and arranged our tickets and pass within two days. We must have been among the first of the foreigners to arrive – even though that wasn’t till the 11^th July as we saw only one other European wandering around in our initial days - although we’ve been joined by more in the last week.

Lhasa is small, low-rise and friendly but the air is too thin. Here we have visited The Potala Palace, a number of Buddhist temples (one where, this morning, we sat and watched the monks chanting), a sacred lake and the Tibetan museum (giving Chinese version of its history) as well as wandering the backs streets and sharing tea and some unknown food items with locals. Everywhere we have been made to feel welcome and, although the signs of the riots earlier this year - broken plate glass doors everywhere, new steel shutters, burnt out buildings - are everywhere to be seen, we have never felt threatened or in danger. There are soldiers and police everywhere, not doing anything as such; just a presence.

All of this is China so far, and we haven’t even seen the terracotta warriors and ancient city of Xi’an, the Silk Road, the solar eclipse in Hami, or all Beijing’s sights; the Forbidden City, The Great Wall, the Olympics. All of this has yet to come before, tired and elated, possessed and depressed, we return home on august the 19^th. See you then.

We started our trek at Tina’s Guesthouse then we walked to Halfway Guesthouse.  It was a 4-hour trek to Halfway where we saw many lizards, horses and large brown bulls.  Many people were staying at the Halfway and we played with some nice Chinese who were interested in hide-and-go-seek chasing.  We had a very nice time with them.

The next day, we started our walk to Naxi Family Guesthouse.  The trek to there was 6 hours!  On the way we passed many travelers coming the other way.  We stopped for a bite near the Naxi Guesthouse, then we trekked on to the Naxi Guesthouse where we stopped for the night.  The next day, we trekked for only 1 ½ hours to the village where we got a bus to the Panba Guesthouse. The trek was nice.

Tom

We trekked in Tiger Leaping Gorge for 3 days.  The landscape was magnificent and the trek was a great experience.  Altogether we walked for 12 hours – 3 hours on the first day, 7 on the 2^nd and 2 on the 3^rd.  On the first day, we got a bus for 3 hours to a place called Tina’s Guest House – the ending place for 90% of the trekkers – and started from there.  We walked up the mountain for about 30 minutes, but nothing too hard.

I think my best memory from that day was when we came across a path cut into the stone by the ancients.  We could see a line where the mountain across from us had been cut, but I didn’t expect our mountain to be cut.  Unfortunately, we saw no more of this on our mountain. 

When we reached our guesthouse, called the Halfway House, we met 3 kids.  Their names were: Tiger, Lily and Jimmy.  We played on a small toy, where one person would sit on a small metal seat and somebody else would push them until the person who was pushing would fall over, the person on the toy would fall off, or the person pushing would fall on top of the other person.  We played until it was time for bed.

The 2^nd day:  My best memories from this day were – Getting chocolate at the bottom of the 28 bends, a long and steep partt of the mountain, which takes 1 ½ hours to walk up and 30 minutes to walk down.  My 2^nd memory was when I saw two butterflies,  one was green but kept changing colours when its wings moved and the other was black and electric blue.  My 3^rd memory was when we got to the Naxi Guesthouse where we stayed the night.

The 3^rd day was short and easy but it had rained the night before and it was slippery.  Unmistakably my best memory from that day was getting into the nice comfy mini van and driving. Those 3 days were great fun and really good for people trying to see the real China, and get away from the hustle bustle of the city.  I recommend this trek if you are only coming to China for 2 weeks or so.  It is Yunnan Province, South West China.

Paul

On the 30^th June we went trekking to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We got a mini-bus to Tina’s Guesthouse and had lunch there. We climbed uphill from Tina’s until we reached a high rocky path. We walked for three and a half hours and looked at the wildlife. The plants are a lot like the plants in Ireland. We were walking the opposite way to most trekkers so we met lots of people on the way. We reached Half-Way Guesthouse at 4.30. We went for a walk in the village and met two pigs in a pen and we fed them grass. Later we met three Chinese kids and played chasing with them. In English their names were Tiger, Jimmy and Lilly. Then we had dinner and played with them again. Then we went to bed. There were lots of trekkers staying in the Halfway Guesthouse.

In the morning we said goodbye to the Chinese kids and started walking again. This day we walked for over seven hours and had our lunch in The Tea Horse Guesthouse Then we had to walk to the 28 bends which is the most famous part of the trek. It was a steep climb up for over two hours and then we came down the 28 bends which is a very steep descent. We met loads of people on the second day coming in the opposite direction who were all going to stay in the Halfway Guesthouse..

Tiger Leaping Gorge is a huge steep valley surrounded by high mountains with the Yangtzei river flowing through it. Along the way we saw lots of terraced fields growing corn and peanuts and some villages. On the second night we stayed in the Naxi Family Guesthouse. There were only two other people staying there. We played badminton and finished a game of elevenses that we had started the day before. Paul won. We went to bed and all slept very well

The next day we trekked for two hours and were picked up by a mini-bus and driven back to the Panba Guesthouse in Lijiang. The drive took about two hours and mum gave out to the lady driver for not driving safely. We were all tired when we got back and we watched a DVD, National Treasure 2.

Catherine

The shop attached to the Museum of Art in Hong Kong is lovely.  Full of books, prints and things unusual and lovely.  As well as the more common art gallery/museum tat - fridge magnets, mugs, notebooks and diaries.  But I was disappointed.  The children were buying lovely Chinese zodiac pictures.  Lovely simple watercolour prints.  Paul a pig, Catherine a rabbit (we got this wrong – she is actually a tiger.  Much more appropriate).  Tom – who is a rat – bought a dragon (he wants to furnish his bedroom dragon style when we go home).  I looked at the beautiful prints of the cockerel with subtle swooping circular tail feathers, the simple outline of the snake, the strong ox.– but there is no escaping the reality that I am a rat.  Je suis un rat.  The picture shows those cunning eyes, that spiteful mouth, that long ‘you can’t catch me’ tail.  I don’t buy it.  I am not just ready to face my inner rat.

I’m not too sure where my fear of rats has come from.  Despite playing in fields for most of my childhood, I hardly ever saw a rat.  But I think about rats a lot of the time.  On the beach, at a picnic, walking through a field; the same little slogan sings itself in my ear  “you’re never more than 9 feet away from a rat”.  Rat avoidance has influenced my garden design and my choice of pet for the children (guinea pigs have no tails).  I notice gaps under doors…and block them.  Once in Woodtown, Anto and I watched an injured rat making slow progress across our patio  “I wish I hadn’t seen that” I said.  “So do I” arsa Anto.

There were many things wrong with the neglected, elegantly faded house that we moved into in Booterstown in 1978.  The red kitchen ceiling which bled through coats and coats of grey undercoat and white paint. The basement full of paintpots and whisky bottles, large rooms divided into dark rabbit warrens, a jungle in the back garden, a high ‘forgotten house’ hedge in the front.  The back door didn’t close.

The house looks large – it’s a wide house, but shallow – but there are three bedrooms.  A girls dormitory (for the 5 girls), a boy’s dormitory (for 4 boys – Francis got a matchbox in the basement) and our parents room.  Asleep in the girl’s room one night shortly after we moved into the house, I hear something large, HUGE, scrabbling on the floorboards.  I flee sobbing into my parents room and Dad dispatches the – don’t think about it.  Next night, in bed, same scrabbling noise.  It’s come back.  This time I’m hysterical and I rush to Mum and Dad.  Dad goes to evict the intruder.  Mum minds me.  We have to move.  I can never sleep in that room again.  I can’t stop crying – deep sobs that I can still feel.  After a few minutes Dad comes back.  He’s got his grey Crombie.  He’s holding something.  He brings it nearer to me.  I am terrified and screaming.  He opens the coat – and there’s a cute hedgehog all curled up and terrified.  The back door got fixed pretty quickly after that.

I have tried to deal with my fear of rats in a logical way.  “If you are never more than 9 feet away from a rat, you may as well be in a nice place” is my usual thought.  Psychologists call this cognitive somethingoranother.  And, to a certain extent, it works.

And so, setting off on this trip, rats were big in my mind.  Would there be rats in the campsite we were going to stay in?  And India – would I be able to cope with ALL the rats.  My brother, Danny, decamped from his hotel in India when a rat came to visit – what if the same thing happens to us?  And the rat is between us and the door?

So – to the rat tally:  Outside the beautiful, clean, campsite in Orebro, Sweden I saw a rat cross the road – from one ditch to another.  I saw one rat at our funny little unmanned convention centre campsite in Riga.  In India I watched carefully.  The train from Agra to Varanasi was 3 hours late and there were rats a plenty in Agra train station, coming up out of a drain and running across to a dark place.  I also saw one rat at the train station in Puri.  I saw something running along a deserted lane in Jommu – but it was too dark to tell, and it could have been a small somethingelse.  There were some rats retrieving food from the park in Pondicherry and bringing it into the hedge.  None of the Indians batted an eyelid.  I forced myself to walk close to the hedge (as I was beating a retreat).

In Chiang Mai our riverside hostel had rats a plenty – Anthony has written about this.

Anthony and the kids have seen much more rats than me.  But there is a conspiracy of silence. Occasionally, I catch them whispering to each other, or pointing out something when my back is turned.  So although I am on the ‘qui vive?’ for rats, in fact, I seem to filter them out.

Until Guangzhou.  Guangzhou is a 2-hour train ride from Hong Kong.  A large commercial city built on a river, with oodles of neon lights.  Our hostel, The Riverside Hostel, was in a beautiful location.  Close to the ferry.  Beautifully lit  - a lovely place to walk at night.  A wonderful park lining the river designed for people to dally.  Benches, an array of playthings and keep-fit gizmos for adults and children – tough, iron replicas of things that would only see in a gym in Europe – cross-trainers, exercise bicycles, twisting machines, leg stretching machines…  Typical Chinese practicality.

The kids loved the hostel – a big place built in a square – it took us ages to get to our rooms.  The food was lousy but there were some young English guys and girls who are staying in the hostel long term and lent our kids their Nintendos and impressed them with their easy wit and funny stories.  These guys drank a lot of beer and ordered take-aways in the evening which they ate on the picnic tables outside.  Lots of space – a big dining room, large reception area, lots of couches to curl up on.  Very easy going.  People leave things around – books, laptops, used crockery/cutlery, the clothes that were on airing racks when we arrived, were still on those airing racks when we left a week later.   There is a sign saying ‘this is a hostel, not a budget hotel.  We are happy to help those who help themselves but we are not here to clean up after you’. I see the receptionist cleaning up the picnic table after the night before… loads of beer bottles, food wrappers, cigarette butts…

I’m glad I was with Anto when I saw the rat.  We were on our way downstairs and it was on its way up.  That shape, the teeth, the tail.  It had most likely come in through the open doors at the bottom on the stairs.  There were lots of open doors in this place – at the bottom of the stairs, in the easy couch area, the reception doors were always open, open doors at the back near the laundry.  Tom had noticed a mouse that morning, going under the door to the bedroom opposite ours.  We tell the receptionist about the rat.  She hesitates then tells us “we are trying to deal with this problem”.  She assures us that there are no rats upstairs.  We tell her about Tom’s ‘mouse’.  She turns to deal with some visitors.  I’m wondering how all these open doors, dirty dishes and fast food wrappers constitute ‘dealing with the problem’.  Having dealt with the visitors (human) she turns to us with an eyebrows-raised ‘is there anything else?’ look on her face.  There isn’t really.  We have two more nights in the Riverside.  Thorough searches are made before retiring and a towel is pressed even more firmly than normal into the rat flap.

The life we experience is, of course, largely a mirror of our internal selves.  We (I?) notice that in others which bothers me about myself.  I get angry with my kids for the things that I do wrong.  And Anthony should do more with my time.  I recognise my mother’s martyr.  And I’m always most critical of the actress playing MY part.  And so I must face up to my inner rat.  Cunning, devious, a survivor – and only ever 9 feet away – I might just need to hold that mirror up a bit closer.

 

(I assume that you know this is by J.)

 

We went to a chinese circus yesterday evening (June 12th 2008) and it was amazing!  There were all sorts of animals in the circus:  white tigers monkeys, dogs, horses, a hippopotamus, swans, doves, goats, bears, pelicans and pigs. The performers were also ranged:  acrobats, clowns, 3 ballerina-like women and all the people backstage dressed likke bumblebees.  There were lots of acts and the show lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.  My 3 favourite acts were:

 

1) 4 guys in these 4 huge spinning wheels on a huge spinning frame.  They would climb on top of the wheel, under it and in it with no safety harness or net.  After a while, they produced ropes and started skipping on top of these wheels. Then one took out a rope about 1 metre long and jumped over it, the wheels still spinning.  Then out of nowhere, they produced small black bags and placed them over their heads and continued their acrobatics blindfold.  After about 5 minutes, they took off the bags and jumped off.

 

2) My 2nd favourite act was really cool, but it required no skill but lots of courage. there were about 8 people on a huge swing, all lit up, jumping off in nice shapes, when the swing got high enough.  They jumped into these huge sheets at the side of the stage and their lights went off.   Later on, they came on as acrobats.

 

3) This act came on near the start and, like the last one, it required no skill but lot of courage.  Loads of people jumped down from the ceiling with bunjee ropes on.  they had nice blue lights tied to their suits.

 

The stage was really cool, the best I've ever seen.  There wre really life like trees and a river around it.  In one of the acts they called someone up from the audience and pushed him in!  Overall, I think the performers added up to 130 people.

FEELING BETTER NOW, THANK YOU

If, as they say, a trouble shared is a trouble halved, then my recent fit of ennui (described in Blah Blah Blog) lies shattered in quarters on the floor.  But, as soon as I had written it I felt better.  10 minutes after I’d posted the blog, I picked up my email – including one from the principal of the childrens’ school (I had dreamed that she’d forgotten me).  Lots of good news coming from Dublin including my brother, Danny’s engagement to the beautiful Jacinta and a wedding planned for September 5^th. 

May 16^th.   We are in the town of Chiang Saen in the very north of Thailand.  We rented a car this morning and drove up here in a wonderful rainstorm which gave way to drier weather after a while. This is a two-street town – the main street and the street (parallel to it) which runs along the river.  Nothing to write home about.  Earlier, walking down the street, a group of men greeted us. They were sitting on the terrace outside an empty room – some kind of restaurant? - around a table full of crockery and glasses.  Mostly glasses.  (The Thais are divils for not clearing a plate or glass away until your meal is over.  You practically eat your ice-cream out of your soup bowl).

There was music playing and somebody was singing.  They beckoned us over and invited us to sit down.  A glass of weak whisky was pushed into Anthony’s hand – lots of ice, water and soda water.  I was offered – much easier for me to refuse – and a glass of water was pushed my way.  There was lots of nodding and smiling.  The singing was obviously karaoke – but where was the singer?  I scanned the empty room but no success.  Nobody on a stage, nobody standing up.  Then I noticed him sitting at the table, about 3 down from Anto.  Microophne in hand, crooning away.  And the microphone was passed up and down the table.  Sadly, they did not press us for a song as I was in the mood to give them a blast of ‘Nell Faherty’s Drake’ which the whole family can sing (but mostly doesn’t).

Our guesthouse is lovely – it’s a while since we’ve shared the same room but we have a beautiful room with wonderful views which is plenty big for five. We’re up one floor in a kind of annexe – a wonderful wide entrance hall with amazing teak elephant-shaped chairs. Their ‘saddle’ is the seat. Nice occasional furniture in the bedroom – wicker tables and chairs. A dainty dressing table.  And – like so many places in Thailand – beautiful wide teak floorboards.  Oh the wood in Thailand!   We peek into the bathroom – a good size with a bath!  This makes a welcome change from the wetrooms which we have got used to since we left our camper van behind. The wetroom is a small bathroom where the shower is close to the sink/toilet – and there’s no shower curtain.  Well designed – they are great – but badly designed, the drain running the wrong way, the toilet paper not covered...  We all mentally slide into a warm bath. Then we notice the floor of the bathroom.  It’s lined with stones. real stones. Big ones. Cobbles which crunch and slide and are difficult to walk on (even on the thoughtfully provided pair of flip flops).  It feels and sounds like Killiney Beach and suddenly the bathroom’s a whole lot less attractive.  None of us even had a shower.

Before this we spent May 13^th and 14^th trekking in the wonderful Northern Thai jungle.  What I will remember most about Thailand is how green and lush it is.  While there are exotic flowers everywhere (birds of paradise, orchids to name but a two) in a profusion of bright colours – orange, purple, crimson, mauve, pink, yellow – it is the foliage that has really taken my fancy.  Whether driving by a forest, walking along a street or trekking through the jungle, the leaves are so beautiful and so varied.  Coconut leaves - long and spiky – outlined against the sky.  Banana leaves – long, curly ribbons.  .  Other trees that I don’t know the name of … but the leaves – even the larger ones – are so elegant and delicate.. And 150 shades of green.  So the hours that we spent in the jungle, really stand out for me.

In our white, pinko-liberal, bleeding heart, middle-class, eco-friendly way, we have been agonizing over whether to visit hill tribes.  The travel and tour agencies all over Thailand scream “Bamboo rafting, Elephant rides, Jade Buddha, Gem factory, Long Neck”.  Only trouble is ‘Long Neck’ are real people – the Karen tribe where the women wear rings around their neck which push down their collar bones and appear to elongate their necks.  So… back come the questions – is it right to go and gawk?  Will an encounter with ‘Long Neck’ or any other tribal people be in any way meaningful – either for them or for us?  Who will get the money?  Does this tourist money encourage the continuation of a slightly barbaric practice (the women cannot remove the rings as their necks become weakened), or does it facilitate the continuation of a unique way of life?  Etc. Etc.   Anyway we found a tour provider which employs hill tribe guides and ensures that the money is shared in the village in a fair way (although we did hear different stories about how the money is shared.  One person told us that the money went into a ‘village bank’ from which villagers in need could draw.  Another told us that tourists were shared among different families so everybody had their turn of getting paid.  .You heard right.)

So, we were picked up at 9 am in a minibus by Kim (Karen tribe, Christian, male) and his student Big (Thai, male, religion not disclosed).  We were brought to the pier and were swept up river for about an hour in a long boat, sitting two abreast, the boat man expertly and seemingly unconsciously moving the boat from side to side of the river that he obviously knew all too well.  My first view of the Karen village was not promising.  20 chained elephants waiting for customers. 20 mahouts (elephant handlers) lying in a bamboo shelter, some smoking, some sleeping, waiting for customers.  And stalls – rows and rows of stalls. Some selling woven goods (made in the village) and some selling imported stuff.   

Anthony has described our trip and I don’t have much to add except to say that I think that the experience was good but not great. The trekking was wonderful.  The hilltribe bit – was good – but mostly because I enjoyed the company of our guides and the other tourist, which brings me to...

MEDIATED EXPERIENCE

Anyway, this brings me to something that has been on my mind for quite some time - mediated experience.  Who decides what your experience of something is?  As tourists, effectively, for one year there is an army of people who want to mediate our experience for us.  Michael Palin, in his book ‘From Pole to Pole’ in which he and a team travel from the North Pole to the South Pole along a particular line of longitude (can’t remember which but I know he went through Tallinn and Cairo)  travelling as much as possible by public transport; At one stage in the book, Palin says ‘but we (Palin and his crew) are travellers, not tourists’, meaning that there experience would be somehow different to that of the common tourist.  His underlying suggestion that his experience would be somehow more meaningful jarred with me..  My brother-in-law, Alan Kennedy lent Anthony a book called Culture Jam which is about the extent to which our experience of life is mediated (Mainly through the media, of course).   The book is good – if slightly over-written, but it struck a chord with me and probably would with anybody who has seen those ‘photo point’ signposts that appear in tourist-y places. They are designed to point out an interesting or beautiful place (well, somebody’s idea of an interesting or beautiful place), but tourists stand beside them and have their photo taken with the pole! 

And so on this trip, in Kashmir, Ahmed (aka Expensive and Glum) got the driver to stop the car where there was a gap in the trees and one could see beautiful countryside. But we couldn’t see it from the road where we were driving.  So what is that photo about?  Here is a beautiful piece of scenery that we couldn’t see until we drove over to see it.  We just drove over here to take a photo – and here is the photo.  When we went to the Karen Village, there was a huge python in a cage. The cage was topped with photos of happy people – on their own, singles, groups – with the python strung over them.  But what is their connection with the python.  “Well, this is a python whose only purpose in life is to be strung over people’s shoulders so that they can take a photo.  We strung it over our shoulders and got a photo – then the python went back into its cage.  The experience is completely mediated.  The python is only there for the photos - otherwise, he’d be python burger.

So how ‘real’ versus how mediated was our trip to the hilltribe?  We ate in the Head man’s house, and his wife was around.  A number of times I tried to make eye contact, to say good evening or smile.  She walked around us as if we weren’t there – not rudely, just quietly, and we were having a lovely meal with our guides and with Atsushi, the lovely Japanese tourist who was staying in the Head Man’s house too..  The next day, selling her handicrafts, she was all smiles and eye contact…

In fact, I think that the most real experience that we have as travellers is our own experience as a family – how we manage being together for all of these days, weeks and months – and our experience of talking to other travellers.  But to expect a ‘real’ insight into the lives of Latvians, Indians, Laos… no.  I don’t expect it.  This is not to suggest that our experience as a family is not valuable – it is hugely valuable, I just feel that it presumptious to suggest that we can get an insight into cultures and ways of life In the short time that we spend at these places.

Our trip to China beckons and we must enter the country by June 6^th.  When we applied for visas in India we had not realized that Visas are issued with a 3-month expiry date.  We asked about delaying our entry date but were told that we’d have to apply again, and pay again, for visas with a later entry date.  We completed all of the paperwork and Anthony went of the Embassy only to be told that we had to show them our entire itinerary  - every town we were visiting, hotel bookings for each night of our stay, etc.  So we’ve decided to go to China on June 6^th.   This means that we have 2 ½ months in China and we have been investigating the possibility of doing some voluntary work – maybe teaching people English or doing something more practical.  We have been looking at volunteering sites but some of them require quite a large payment.  The children are indignant that you have to pay to volunteer. Tom says that it is like paying an admission fee into a room with a donation box inside it. 

But here I’m opening another philosophical can of worms and the last time I did that (when I reflected on ‘what is the purpose of a blog?’) nobody responded and then I had a hissy fit (I’ll never blog again says 5goglobal mum).  My advice when you pass this blog?  Cast your eyes modestly downwards and pass quickly on.

BUACHAILL BAN

I’m not sure why, but I really liked the bus station in Chiag Mai.  Only visited twice – once to book our tickets and once to get on the bus – but each time we were there for a while, and I liked it.  I don’t normally like places of transit – airports, hotels, train stations, even circuses.  I feel uncomfortable in very transient surroundings  And I hate Busarus.  But there was a nice feel about this bus station.  Central seating area surrounded by ticket booths of the various travel companies.  Lots of bustle. Buses lined up outside, tuk tuks depositing people.  Even the TV that people idly watched while waiting for their bus.

The attendant on our first class bus was all elegance.  We bought first class tickets so that we would be guaranteed seats on the 4 ½ hour bus journey.  And I was impressed when I saw the attendant, beautifully dressed and made-up, moving quietly and gently through the bus, checking tickets, showing people their seats, carefully placing a small bottle of water and a wet wipe sachet at each place.  Long black hair pulled into a pony tail with a shorter fringe held in place by cute hair clips.  A touch of pink blusher, discreet lipstick, long manicured nails.  He was easily the best dressed person on the bus.  The bus started and he made a short announcement in Thai.  His work done, he stepped off the bus and walked off, clipboard in hand.

Out for a meal a couple of nights later in Chiang Rai, we had opted for a nice-ish place. Very brightly lit, but with some interesting water features, nicely dressed tables and the waiting staff – in lovely traditional skirts and tops.   We had lots of difficulty and a lot of fun ordering our meals..  Our Thai… their English... But this is nothing new.  Our waitress spoke no English.  When we asked a question, she blushed and called the manager who helped us.  The manager then explained to her in Thai. But when our waitress spoke to him... her voice. And then we looked a little closer... her hands, her upper lip...

RULES AND REGULATIONS

It is of course entirely predictable that, staying at a variety of guesthouses, hostels and hotels, as we do, that we will be met with lists of rules and regulations posted in the room.  In Jansom House, Chiang Rai, for example, the Guesthouse had thoughtfully provided a price list for all of the items in the room ranging from 450,000 bhat (air conditioning unit) down to 50 bhat (drinking glass). So we knew that if we wanted to make like rock stars and trash the room, it would cost us. Fair enoughski  Here in the Aloun Savath Guesthouse in Luang Prabang the ‘Accommodation Regulations’ are provided not by the guesthouse, but by the State.  The laminated sheet (placed on shelf inside bedside locker – discreet but not hidden) is headed ‘Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Peace Independent Democracy Prosperity).  Police Department, Luang Prabang Provincial.  (There is space for a PD number and for the date, but these have been left blank).

Frankly, if the Laos are hoping to build up their tourist market (and let’s not forget – there are no beaches in Laos), then they had better hope that not too many tourists read them.   Here they are:

 

Accommmodation Regulation

Accommodating in hotels, Guesthourses and resorts for domestic and international tourists is to make sure that safety and security procedures in place to response to emergency cases for both domestic and international tourists who have accommodated and promote the Lao tourism policy.

The Tourism police office has issued accommodation regulation for tourists and accommodation provider to implement and follow as below:

1.      Tourists have to your own accommodation at 2400 hrs (mid night)

2.      When you are check in hotels, guethouses and resorts, you have to show your passport to receptionist that you are stay.

3.      Every time when you are check in hotels, guesthouses and resorts you must register your belonging.  If there are value things you have to give to receptionist to look after for you and both party have to sign for acknowledgement.  If not in case something lost it will be your own responsible.

4.      Do not bring any illegal things come into hotels, guesthouses and resorts, it is not allow include ammunitions except the official who have the permission only.

5.      Do not any drugs, crambling or bring both women and men which is not your own husband or wife into the room for making love.

6.      Do not allow domestic and international tourist bring prostitute and others into your accommodation to make sex movies in our room, it is restriction.

7.      Please always lock your door when you are coming in and going out and bring your room key to receptionist every time when you are going out.

8.      Checking out hotels, guesthouses and resorts as 1200 hrs (mid day) and please check your belongings before you leave.

9.      Do not take the hotels, guesthouses and resort property form room, when you check out.

10.  Please meet your guests at reception area, do not bring your friends or guests into the room before you get permission from hotels, guests and resorts staff or receptionist.

11.  If you do not follow this accommodation regulation, you will be fight based on Lao PDR law.

12.  This regulation take effect with official signature and stamp.

And the clever Laos have, indeed officially signed and stamped the document even though they have neglected to number OR date it.  So it is Lao law which will pertain if, for example, we do not check out by noon or forget to leave the key with the receptionist when we go out. 

Now, my husband is a lawyer and we have combed through these regulations for loopholes.  It seems to me that a good legal team could drive a coach and horses through Regulation 5.  Would we risk running a poker school in our room and tough it out that we have never heard of ‘crambling’.  What about if we just invited ONE guy or ONE girl which is not our  own husband or wife into the room for making love and pretend that we thought the regulations only forbad bringing BOTH women and men (which is not, etc). 

We’re not so unhappy about regulation 6 as we decided not to carry a video camera on this trip (but it is OK to bring a prostitute and NOT make a film?)  Anthony has been poring over these regulations.  I think he senses a business opportunity.

LAST WORD – SHOPPING IN CHANGMAI

We enjoyed our two weeks in Chiang Mai.  I now speak fluent Thai massage “beautiful movement, double thumb press, latissimus dorsi, sen sib paths” while Anto and the kids learned to cook.  And we also shopped until we dropped. Chiang Mai is a great shopping town.  As well as ordinary street shops and shopping centres, there are many markets including the Sunday Walking Market, the Saturday Walking Market, the Night Market, the Night Bazaar, JJ Market, the early morning fruit and veg market, stalls along the side of the street...

But these markets are not just about shopping.  Our eyes were caught by a beautiful girl twirling and gently moving in a Thai dance.  She wore a hilltribe head-dress, her face was beautiful – and beautifully made up.  Red lipstick, blusher.  She looked around at the tens of people watching her and smiled.  Eyes flickering up and down, fingers bending back, twirling and dancing.  And she is extremely watchable. But she’s only about 5 years old and I’m not sure whether she should be dancing on the street and whether we should be watching her.  We move on.

It’s sometimes hard to walk through the markets.  People stop to do card tricks, crowds of friends stop and chat.  And there are the blind musicians who sit in the middle of the (pedestrianised) road, one tucked behind the other, and play music.  They have interesting instruments – drums made from buckets and tins, percussion instruments made from bamboo, a very basic guitar.  They also have some electronic support.  One of the group normally sings and the rest play – or maybe just sit this one out.  The person at the front cradles a tin into which donations can be dropped.

But my favourite market act in Chiang Mai is the puppeteers.  They sit near the restaurants and play haunting Thai country music – duets between men and women.  The young man operates the male puppet – about 3 feet high, manipulated by rods and strings, operated by hands and knees. The young woman operates the female. They can move the puppets’ heads, arms, legs and fingers.  They are clearly singing about longing and love – the puppets turn towards and away from each other delicately moving their hands and fingers.  As  they performed, I found myself looking not at the puppets, but at the puppeteers – their movements as delicate as their puppets, their gaze calm and loving..  And I wondered what they thought about as they played out these love dramas night after night.  And, yes, I wondered whether they are a couple.  I hope they are.

TTFN

As I start this blog, we are on a slow boat travelling down the Mekong River from Huan Xia – on the Laos side - to Luang Prabang, Laos’ ancient royal capital. The journey will take two days with a stop-over this evening in the electricity-less village of Pak Beng. This part of the river separates Thailand – on our right – from Laos and, with some sadness, we left Thailand two days ago by taking (one day late) a small river boat from Chiang Khung ,on the Thai side, to Huan Xia, an official  entry point to Laos for falang (foreigners)

We are passing dense jungle on both river banks and constantly see the thatched huts of the various hill tribe peoples who inhabit this part of south-east Asia. Just now, we have passed a herd of buffalo drinking on the Laos shore which caused a little stir and some camera clicking amongst the mainly English speaking fifty or so passengers on board. The children have spread out and are interviewing - as only they can do - the other passengers. Tom has just finished a book, The three Investigators Mysteries, that he received along with  one other as a swap for a book entitled Eldest from a bookseller named Peter of Oran’s bookshop in Chiang Rai (ref; The Lonely Planet).

We are told that, tomorrow, as the river continues west into the heart of Laos, the topography will change and the gentle hilly jungle covered slopes will give way to sheer gorges and dramatic cliffs, but the road (or river) ahead of us is as much of a mystery to us as at any time during our journey of exploration. We have arrived in Laos knowing little about the country (although we now know that there are about 13,500 Kip to the Euro) and less about our own intentions for it. We have decided to head south, even though our eventual destination is probably north, to see the ancient capital which, by all accounts, is well worth a visit. Many, we are told, stay much longer then planned but our Chinese visas require that we don’t tarry for much longer than a week or so.

We applied for them on the 7^th March in Delhi and I collected the passports from the, by then, un-stormed embassy.  Three days later as Anna prepared the children for travel and Julia sought out train tickets to Agra where we later visited the Taj Mahal. It was only as I sat in the back of the Tuk Tuk on my way back to our lodgings at The Smyle Inn that I opened the books to inspect the new documents in our rapidly cluttering and impressive looking passports. But there was no turning back when I realized that the 90 day visas required us to enter China before June 7^{th -} about a month ahead of our desired crossing. We got the train as planned and vowed to try and change the visas at a later date. Perhaps in Mumbai.

It was in Bangkok before I again visited a Chinese embassy by which time the pro-Tibetan disturbances had started and the regulations for granting visas had been changed dramatically. So, in the heel of the hunt, we will enter China before June 6^th and will spend the last two and a half months of our travels exploring that emerging world. We hope to see Hong Kong and Tibet and have booked five days lodgings in Xian towards the end of July which we want to see before travelling the 2000Km west to Hami - deep in the Gobi desert - to see the solar eclipse on August 1^st. We will also spend the last five days of our trip in Beijing where we have also booked accommodation and some tickets to see the women’s finals of the artistic gymnastics and the synchronised swimming events in the Olympics. Then, we fly home to Dublin, via London, on August 19^th.

That, at least, gives us some points of reference in the next part of the trip but Laos, especially after Thailand, feels like a sort of a stopgap country: something that’s there and that everyone says is a great place to visit before we enter the now awakened bear. Perhaps it will turn out to be one of the highlights of our trip - who knows? That will be the subject of another blog, but right now it seems that it will be hard to beat Thailand

By the time we left India we were ready to move on and our arrival in Bangkok was something of a triumph Somebody had remarked to us that Thailand would, after India, seem like returning to Europe. And so it was – sort of. Bangkok’s new airport is a stunning architectural edifice and the smiling oriental faces that greeted us contrasted with the dark ones of the colourfully dressed and curious Indians. We had booked an apartment in a great five star complex called Sivalai Place but only for a few nights as we were determined not to waste too much of the month long visit that the Chinese had permitted us on the capital But, as it turned out, we loved Bangkok (Julia says she’d like to spend a a year there) and stayed for eight days.

Certainly, some of the reasons we loved the place so much were the lovely people and excellent facilities in our apartment complex. But mostly it was the city itself; the river busses, the immaculately clean Metro, the safe food stalls and the impressive temples. It was certainly a change from India. We visited the Jim Thompson Museum, inspected the royal barges, saw the impressive Wat Phra Kaew (ref Bangkok Blunder) and handled some scary snakes in a snake farm attached to a hospital where they collect venom to make antidotes to snake bites. We also saw the huge weekend market as well as visiting a local food market where some of the items on display do not go easy on the delicate European eye. As Dr Nick (an interesting character that we later met in Chiang Rai) commented “When Europeans cut out the offal, they throw it away; Here they hang it up on proud display”. Apparently, offal is more expensive in Thailand than the muscle meat that we Europeans eat.

After a wonderful week in Bangkok it was time to move on and we took an overnight train to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand where we booked into the Holenda Fungi Guesthouse (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) - “where the rats are friendlier than the staff” - and stayed there for a week while Julia did a five day Thai massage course and the rest of us learnt the ancient art of Thai cooking for three. On our two free days, I took the children to see an uninspiring hill tribe museum and for a visit to an elephant “refuge” where we fed, admired and rode elephants before watching a show where they played football, darts, and mouth (well, trunk, actually)-organs and painted pictures. And they really did paint the pictures, the results of which can be seen in the “elephants and Gibbons” picture album.

Julia is now a level A Thai masseuse and the children and I can whip up a green curry with ease. Alas J has had little opportunity to practice her art which, according to her is a mixture of assisted yoga and acupressure. She did give me the all over treatment once and it seems more like a cross between wrestling and Chinese torture. I did, however, feel the energy flow and felt great the next day having discovered all the strange contortions into which my body can, with some assistance, be sculpted. I look forward to more flowing energy when the opportunity presents itself but will, alas, only be able to repay her with a mere duck in Thai green curry paste.

Although we loved Bangkok, we probably loved Chiang Mai more so but, even as we continually postponed our departure from that ancient city, we decided that we could no longer postpone our departure from Aloada Grumpy guesthouse. And, believe it or not, the deciding factor wasn’t the fact that on three of the nights when we sat on their river-side deck-restaurant we were joined by a rat – once dining from the dog’s bowl. The problem was the way in which the owner was talking to the children and the things that she was saying to them when we weren’t around.

The first question on Catherine’s lips when we arrive in any hotel is whether or not they have a cat or a dog. Most do and Hole Enda Grumpy was no exception. Catherine would, if let, play all day with whatever animal is available and so it was in this riverside abode. There were no cats but two dogs, one of which was a tiny puppy. Maybe she was too much in her playing with the pup but the owner clearly didn’t like it and when, on day five, the owner told her that the she couldn’t play with him because he didn’t like her, she was inconsolably upset even though the suggestion was clearly absurd. But it was her two unacceptable interactions with Paul that finally convinced to us move on.

The first involved her telling him that he smelled and asking him whether he had had a shower that morning (and, in case you’re wondering, I can testify that he did). When he assured her that he had showered that day and, in answer to further questioning, that he had also washed his hair, she asked that he let her smell his hair to check. When he refused his consent (fair paly to him) she said that he was lying to her It was only upon our return from checking out alternative accommodation at The Seven Suns Hotel - a much better option by far - that he told Julia and I of another incident that had happened when we were out. She refused to give him any mayonnaise (for which, incidentally, she charged 10 Bhat extra) with his BLT because, she said, he hadn’t eaten all the mayo that she’d given him on previous occasions. Amazing stuff, eh?

They were all quite unfriendly there anyway (in great contrast to the warmth that we’d experienced in Sivalai Place) and we felt no compunction in checking out with little notice and making no contribution to the tip box that was so prominently displayed on their counter. I suppose I should acknowledge that their food was excellent and reasonably priced and that, being located beside a river, it’s hard not to have rats. But even so. Maybe they should have thought about getting some cats.

The Seven Suns had four of them, three of which were kittens. It also had very welcoming staff and the children, pain and all as they can sometimes be (a bit like their parents), were always happy there. They loved playing with the cats (which was no problem) and the ice cream and the hot chocolate were delicious. We loved the clean and cleverly themed rooms (ours was the “Hello kitty” room, theirs was “Asian Hats”), the real coffee and mint tea and the reliable food. The Seven Suns is owned by an Australian woman named Kerry with some other partners and we became quite friendly with her before she left to visit her home country during our stay.

Chiang Mai, besides having more temples per square inch than Bangkok, is a shoppers’ paradise with everything from high end produce to more modest offerings on offer and, on our first evening there, we explored the famous Sunday Walking Market where many local Thai and hill tribe artisans exhibit their handy crafts. The originality and quality of the produce on display captivated us and it was not long before we were imagining ways of financing regular trips to this part of the world by buying, exporting and selling some of their creations at home. So we visited this and many other markets during our two weeks stay in Chiang Mai and, later, in Chiang Rai and have posted several large boxes of goodies home. So let our friends and relatives beware; the south-east Asian travel fund has been launched.

As days turned into weeks, we knew that it was time to move on. But move on to where was the question. We had spent longer then planned in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai and China was looming just over the hill so some executive decisions had to be made. Firstly, Vietnam had to go. They require visitors to apply in advance for visas cost €40 apiece for the privilege and would entail us spending at least four days in some country’s capital city. Dr Nick had advised us not to miss Cambodia and we’re a little undecided about that even now. Laos was next door to Thailand, would issue a visa on arrival and has a land crossing into China for falong so it won the last toss.

Then, Chiang Rai, being between Chiang Mai and Chiang Khung and a mere four hour bus journey through beautiful hilly countryside suggested itself and so it was that, on a rain sodden Sunday, we took that bumpy trip into the unknown. But not before we had “done” The Gibbon Experience. It was expensive but it was fun and its core involved us travelling from tree to vertigo-inspiring jungle tree suspended beneath wire cables for a two kilometre journey that lasted about three hours. There was also a trek up to a spectacular waterfall but none of us swam in its pool. At least not in that pool at that falls.

In Chiang Rai, we spent two nights in The White House Hotel – attracted bytheir swimming pool and free wifi - but then moved on to stay in The Jansom Hotel where the staff were much less inquisitive about our daily plans and where we did not feel pressured to book any local tours with them or to answer questions about the price we had paid for the tours that we had booked. The Jansom has very friendly staff (several of whom want to marry Paul) and they genuinely loved our children. But, alas, they had no pets. We stayed there for four nights in three different tranches punctuated by a two day tour/trek including a stay in a hill tribe village and a visit to Chaing Saen where we stayed in Gin’s Palace Guesthouse.

The Hill Tribe Museum in Chiang Rai is a much better affair than the one in Chiang Mai and its free slide show taught us (this time including Julia) infinitely more than the 50 Bhat inane film of costumed natives dancing which the children and I viewed in the Chiang Mai version. There, we bought a few souvenirs booked that two day trek into the jungle and had lunch in the associated Cabbage and Condoms Restaurant. The next morning, we were collected by the van and, having acquired that night’s dinner at the local market our guide, Kim - who was from the Karen tribe - took us to the pier on the river from where we took an hour and a half long boat trip to his own riverside village Rueonit from where, after reviewing the tourist offerings, we took an elephant ride into the woods, returning by coming back, astride our beasts, up the river itself. Then a short minibus drive to another Karen village, Pant Klart for lunch followed by a four hour trek through the jungle and the scorching heat with Bic, a Thai apprentice trek-guide while Kim brought our bags ahead by motorbike.

We arrived in Ja Uh, the Lahu village just as the rain started and sat chatting on the verandah of the head-man’s raised bamboo house, as pigs, dogs, cats and chickens scratched and scavenged for food below. The head man made catapults for the children which, due to their subsequent overuse, have now been sent home We met Atsushi, a Japanese trekker, and Tom, his Karen guide, both of whom accompanied us on our five hour trek over the hills and along (literally) the rivers of the dense surrounding jungle, the following day. Atsushi was, surprisingly, a Roman Catholic whilst Kim, in common with all of his villagers, was a protestant Christian leaving Tom as the only Buddhist among us.

After a fabulous dinner, prepared by Kim and Tom, we settled down to several cups of Thai tea and some fascinating conversation. During our travels we have used many guides and those of you who are familiar with previous blogs will know which of them has been voted the worst. But these two were undoubtedly the best so far as they proved that night and again and again during the long and, sometimes disheartening, trek through the rain, heat and insect swarms of the following day. They really knew the jungle and its ways. The next day as we walked they constantly pointed out various things to us about our surroundings and collected ingredients from the jungle’s bounty that they would later serve to us for lunch. Atsushi was also an interesting character and, as we parted the next day, he asked us to visit his country soon.

We slept that night in a raised two-room bamboo hut with hard mosquito-netted mattresses on the floor and , when we were ready, we called out to Kim to turn off, from the head man’s house, the single low energy light bulb which we shared and which was powered by one of many solar panels that the government had given this tribe as part of a package of incentives to encourage them to stop growing opium poppies and to settle in a single location and cease the practice of slash and burn agriculture. The next day was hard work and we journeyed through another Lahu  village, Bang Ko, where we took a short break before continuing on our gruelling trek to a Chinese Shan village, Nam Ron Bong, where we had another delicious lunch. Then, on to a much more spectacular waterfall where Julia and the children swam. I kept myself for the warm springs that came later and took the photographs.

Having finally returned - filthy and exhausted - to The Jansom later that evening, the next day was designated a chillin’ one and we did little except school work and visit the excellent Connect Net internet cafe where the coffee, tea and smoothies are great and the chocolate fudge cakes are something to write blogs about. We intended going to Chiang Sean, by bus, the following day to visit the world renowned Hall of Opium Museum and then down the river by boat to Chiang Khung to depart for Laos but, upon learning of the exorbitant prices being charged for the boat trip, we decided to return to Chiang Rai by bus and then to get a separate bus to Chiang Khung at a fraction of the cost. In the end, we splashed out and rented a car for our Chiang Saen trip and arrived in time to check into the Gin Palace before wandering around town and its market and sampling, among other things, fried insects.

Chiang Saen is a crossing point between Laos and Thailand for natives of either country only and remains an important trading post between both countries and China. We saw several Chinese barges being loaded and unloaded and generally savoured the subdued delights of this frontier town. The next day, after breakfast and a walk to a local Wat, we headed off to see, first, the House of Opium (an old modest museum) and, then, the Hall of Opium which is a very impressive affair built with Royal sponsorship. That evening we slept our last night in The Jansom before lessons, another visit to the post office and Connect Net followed by the two and a half hour journey by local overcrowded bus to Chiang Khung where we arrived at 5.20 on May 18^th – the day that our Thai visas expired.

We spent that night in a huge solid teak guesthouse overlooking the Mekong where they had a caged monkey as well as some cats and where the owner was lovely and the food excellent. In exploring this border town, that evening, we came upon what looked like a league of an interesting local game; a sort of a cross between football and badminton and we watched the incredible skill of the three man (they were all men) teams as they kicked and headed the coconut-sized wicker balls over the net sometimes launching themselves into the air to whack it with round house kicks that would drive any premiership crowd wild. We would have watched them for hours had the mossies and our rumbling stomachs not intervened.

On our way back to our hotel we were attracted to the blaring music emanating from a riverside Wat  (temple) and, upon investigating, we discovered a party in full swing. Whether it was a local wedding or a celebration on the eve of the Buddha’s birthday, we never discovered but we did crash the gig and the watched  locals dancing and getting a little merry as the children gorged themselves on 10 Bhat pancakes.

Later that evening in our guesthouse, we met an American man -let's just call him Dr Watson  - a US spy (or so we jokingly speculate) who lives in Chiang Khong and one French, one Swiss and two Scottish fellow-travellers. They were all interviewed in turn by the children and it was a fascinating evening in many ways. It was late the next day when we presented ourselves at the Thai immigration (and, as it turns out, emigration) booth near the crossing point of the Mekong where the sympathetic official pointed out that our visas had expired the previous day. We had known this and knew that, strictly speaking, Julia and I might have to pay a fine of 500 Bhat apiece but the Looney Planet had advised us that we shouldn’t need to if we were only one day late.

In the end we did have to pay but the children (who had no choice but to be led astray by their parents) didn’t. We signed documents wherein we were described as “the accused” noting that our cases had been settled upon our agreeing to pay 500 Bhat fines. Phew. Lets hope they won’t throw us in the slammer when we, as we are sure we will, return to see more of Thailand.

But none of what I have written can adequately describe the essence of Thailand or properly capture the alluring sights and sounds of the place; the food, the Temples or the devotion to the King and the Buddha or the different ways that they do things here. Perhaps that can only be captured with one’s own eyes and ears. And as we looked back at that kingdom from our small local boat as we first crossed the Mekong to one-party Laos, we knew that it was up there with Italy as one of our favourite places visited. So far anyway.

Anthony

 

FROM CHIANG RAI, NORTHERN THAILAND.  MAY 16^TH, 2008

 

A  FEW DAYS AGO WE WENT TREKKING FOR TWO DAYS. 

IT WAS REALLY GOOD FUN.  WE HAD REALLY NICE TOUR GUIDES.  THEY WERE CALLED BIG AND KIM.  BIG WAS A STUDENT AND IN A MONTH’S TIME HE WILL BE A REAL TOUR GUIDE.  AT 7.30 THE BUS COLLECTED US AND BROUGHT US TO A PIER WHERE THERE WERE LOTS OF LONG-TAILED BOATS LINED UP.  WE WENT ON ONE AND SPENT AN HOUR ON THE BOAT.  WE WENT REALLY FAST.  PEOPLE WERE COLLECTING GRAVEL FROM THE RIVERBED AND IT WAS SELLING FOR 60 BAHT (€1.15) FOR A CUBIC METRE BOX.  

THEN WE ARRIVED ON THE BOAT TO AN ELEPHANT CAMP.  WE BOUGHT SOME BANANAS AND THE ELEPHANTS REALLY LIKED THEM.  I GOT A WOVEN WRIST BAND FROM A KAREN WOMAN.  WHEN WE WERE RIDING THE ELEPHANTS, WE FED THEM BANANAS.  THEY LIFTED THEIR TRUNK BACK ONTO THE TOP OF THEIR HEAD AND WE GAVE THEM THE BANANA.  THEY KEPT ASKING FOR MORE.  WHEN WE WERE ABOUT HALF WAY THROUGH THE BANANAS, THE BAG DROPPED AND THE ELEPHANT ATE ALL OF THE BANANAS IN ONE GO.

I SAT ON THE ELEPHANTS HEAD FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES UNTIL WE WENT BACK TO THE ELEPHANT CAMP.  WHEN WE GOT TO THE ELEPHANT CAMP, WE SAID GOODBYE TO OUR ELEPHANTS AND CROSSED THE RIVER WHERE A JEEP WAS WAITING FOR US.  THERE WERE PLANTS THAT WERE CALLED ‘TOUCH ME NOT’ BECAUSE WHEN YOU TOUCH THEM, THE LEAVES CLOSED IN.  THEY EAT LITTLE INSECTS (TINY ANTS). 

THEY DROVE US TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND WE HAD TREK FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR TO GET TO A RESTAURANT.  IT HAD THREE YAPPY DOGS BUT THE LUNCH WAS REALLY REALLY NICE.  IT WAS RICE AND CHICKEN AND FRIED GREEN BEANS.

THEN WE WENT TREKKING FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.  KIM CUT BAMBOOS FOR WALKING STICKS FOR EACH OF US.  WE CROSSED RIVERS AND WE WALKED ON ROCKS AND CLIMBED THROUGH VINES AND THROUGH THE MUD.  I FELL INTO THE RIVER.   AND WE SAW A 500 YEAR OLD TREE.  THEN WE GOT TO THE AKHA TRIBE VILLAGE WHERE WE WERE SPENDING THE NIGHT.   THE WEATHER WAS GOOD BUT AS SOON AS WE GOT THERE, IT STARTED LASHING (THE WEATHER IS ALWAYS ON TIME).

THEN WE MET A JAPANESE GUY CALLED ATSHUSHI.  HE WAS REALLY NICE.  ATSUSHI WAS DOING A ‘NO PLAN’ TOUR WHERE IF HE WANTED TO FLY OVER THE HILLS THEY WOULD GET A HELICOPTER AND HE COULD RIDE A BUFFALO, RIDE A HORSE, GO ON ELEPHANTS – HE COULD DO WHATEVER HE WANTED BECAUSE IT WAS A NO PLAN TOUR.  HE WAS WITH A TOUR GUIDE CALLED TOM.  TOM WAS REALLY NICE AND HE WAS KIND OF LIKE A TOUR GUIDE TO US AS WELL.  AND KIM AND BIG WERE LIKE TOUR GUIDES TO ATSUSHI AS WELL.

WE HAD TEA AND HOT CHOCOLATE.  THERE WAS A CAT IN THE HOUSE AND OUTSIDE THERE WERE CATTLE, PIGS, DOGS, CHICKENS, ETC.  THEN WE HAD DINNER, IT WAS REALLY NICE.  THEN WE WENT TO BED.  THERE WAS NO BATHROOM.  IF YOU WANTED TO GO TO THE LOO, YOU HAD TO GO OUTSIDE AND WALK THROUGH VERY MUDDY MUD THAT PIGS HAVE TROTTED ON AND IT STANK OF STINK.  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT THERE WAS LOUD MUSIC AND SOMEONE WAS CHATTING VERY VERY LOUDLY.  THEN IT STOPPED FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES AND THEN A MOTORBIKE CAME AND MORE MUSIC PLAYED. 

IN THE MORNING WE HAD MORE HOT CHOCOLATE.  FOR BREAKFAST, WE HAD OMELETTE AND RICE.  THEN THE WOMEN OF TH. E VILLAGE SOLD HANDICRAFTS.  THEY WERE REALLY NICE AND WOVEN.  I BOUGHT A  MULTICOLOURED WOVEN BAG AND A BELT.  MY MUM BOUGHT TWO BAGS AND TOM BOUGHT A BAG AS WELL AND PAUL BOUGHT A WOVEN WRIST-BAND.

THEN WE SET OFF TREKKING AGAIN.  WE TREKKED FOR ABOUT 4 ½ HOURS AND DID THE SAME THING AS THE DAY BEFORE = WALK, CROSS RIVER, WALK OVER STONES AND MUD, WALK, WALK, WALK, WALK.  I FELL INTO THE RIVER TWICE AND GOT REALLY ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED AND WAS ALL GRUMPY AND PLOD, PLOD, PLOD ALONG THE WET MUDDY PATH.  (IT WAS NOT AWFUL).

THEN WE HAD LUNCH – NOODLES AND HERBS.  THEN WE WENT TO A WATERFALL.  WE SWAM IN A POOL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WATERFALL.  IT WAS REALLY REFRESHING.  THEN WE WALKED BACK DOWN THE HILL AND A TRUCK WAS WAITING FOR US.  THEN WE WENT TO A HOT SPRING.  WHERE THE SPRING CAME UP IT WAS 87°.  THERE WAS A PLACE WHERE THEY COOLED THE WATER DOWN, AND THEN THERE WAS A POOL WHERE PEOPLE SWAM.  IT WAS 47° ON THE COLD SIDE AND 50° ON THE HOT SIDE.  THEN WE WENT HOME.

 

Thai Cooking Class (Paul’s Blog)

Chiang Mai, Thailand, April 28^th 2008

Today I did a cooking course in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.  I learned how to cut tomato skin into a rose, cut a tomato into a lotus flower and cook six dishes:

·         Clear Soup with Minced Pork

·         Spring Rolls

·         Red Curry with Roast Duck

·         Chicken with Ginger

·         Chicken in Pndanus Leaves and,

·         (for dessert) Mango with Sticky Rice.

The carving was really hard and finicky. I got very frustrated and I couldn’t do the last carving  It was supposed to be a leaf, made from a slice of carrot.

 

Afterwards, we started on the dishes. First we went to a classroom and they would tell and show us how to make it.   Our first dish was Clear Soup with Minced Pork.  It was tasty and very, very salty.  Then we did spring rolls.  When we had the right ingredients, it was easy.  It was tasty, healthy, vegetarian and the highlight of our class.  Then we did red curry with roast duck.  I thought it was disgusting and not worth the work.

Next dish – Chicken with ginger.  It was really not exceptional.  Chicken with Pandanus leaves was very easy and delicious.  Last – mango with sticky rice.  I thought it was horrible and even the pinch of salt made it sweet and savoury.

 

I really enjoyed our cooking class and definitely recommend it.  I found the instructors were big showmen and got annoying after a while.  But I definitely recommend it.

 

Thanks,

Paul