The Second bit - Laos

Hi again.

It's been a while since our last post, but we've been experiencing some technical issues. We hope these will be resolved soon. 

Anyway, on with Lao. It's impossible to travel around Lao (or Laos as it's also known), without encountering three things. Poverty, Unexploded Ordnance (aka UXOs) and Beer Lao (more about that later), but the other two, are both the direct legacy of 'The Secret War' which was a campaign of illegal bombing raids conducted by the United States between 1964-1973. And despite over 40 years having passed since the end of it the war, Lao remains paralysed by it, shackled to it, haunted with it and debilitated because of it.

If you don't know too much about it, I recommend you take a look. But, to briefly summarise, the neighbouring Vietnam war, with  which, American involvement had been gradually increasing since the 1950's, (and ended with their ignominious defeat in 1973), was intended to contain the spread of Communism in South East Asia and prevent what was known as 'the Domino Effect' where each country that falls 'to communism' then leads to the next. This was despite the fact that Communism was spreading through democratic means, by free elections, in sovereign states. However, it became so important to the American administration at that time that they unleashed a secret and systematic campaign of bombing  from 1964 - 1973 against the mainly agricultural population of Lao on a scale not seen since the dark days of Mr Hitler in WW2.

The interesting and shocking thing about this war is not that it was illegal (which it was), nor was it the sheer tonnage of bombs dropped onto Lao people per capita (.87 tonnes per person), from over 80,000,000 bombs dropped from over 500,000 sorties; nor America's (particularly Richard Nixon's symantic assertion that), "there are no combat troops in Laos", but there were plenty of CIA agents and bomber pilots; nor the total denial of any involvement there whatsoever until Bill Clinton admitted it in 1997; nor that the nuclear strike option was considered against Lao to halt the spread of Communism should it not have been possible for the CIA to equip a pro US counterforce in the country to 'stem the flow'.

Nope, despite all these facts (and that there are many more atrocities related to this 'conflict'), the shocking thing is that over 40 years since the end of the confict in 1973, it is estimated that over 30,000 men women and children have been killed or injured by some of the estimated 80 million remaining unexploded bombs from the staggering number of 280 million dropped during the 'conflict' between hi tech bomber planes and peasant rice farmers.

The legacy that remains does not only affect individuals by maiming them, but in this land of agriculture, it remains a painstakingly slow process to remove the remaining UXOs so that the land can be farmed. And, because there is less rice production as a result (which could have been sold abroad), the country has less cash. Now, that cash would've been generated and used to make roads, schools, hospitals or railways and gradually life Lao out of poverty. But hang on, there's the small matter of clearing the 80 million unstable unexploded bombs littered across almost the entire eastern side of the country, (which continue to degrade and become less stable and potentially more liable to detonate), which must be cleared prior to opening up of contaminated land for agriculture, infrastructure construction or literally any other use.

To assist in clearing the legacy of the bombing, the United States does currently provide somewhere in the region of a derisory $2.7m per year to clean up the UXOs, but this is considered as 'overseas aid' by the US and not formal compensation. Legal action seeking compensation brought by citizens of Lao remains ongoing.

Thankfully, work is ongoing to clear Lao of landmines by humanitarian organisations as the 'Mines Advisory Group' (MAG), the Mine Clearance Agency and Mine Action, whose commitment and courage is unquestionable. At current the current speed of clearance (rates from 1996-2009), it has been estimated it may take over 1,000 years (yes ONE THOUSAND YEARS), until the country is free of unexploded ordnance.

To see more check these links:

http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/
http://www.maginternational.org/
http://www.copelaos.org/ban_cluster_bombs.php

Our first stop in Lao was an overnighter in Huay Xai, on the Lao side of the Mekong river from Thailand. This was where, after pretty much a break of 15 years, I was reunited with my old flame Beer Lao. She looked just the same, but was a bit colder. Her body was full and the tart kiss on the lips was as pleasing and satisfying as I remembered. We got together for a few hours that night, with Eimear and her getting on like a house on fire.

From here, we took the two day river ferry down the Western side of the country to Luang Prabang. Interestingly enough, the secret war barely touched this side of the country at all and the absence of the conflict here suggests how the rest of the country may now be if the war had not happened.  

So, how does one describe Luang Prabang (LP)? According to the guide books it could be 'The pearl of indochina' or 'The Shangri La of Asian cuisine' or even 'The achingly stunning fusion of Asian mystique and French chic'. Which frankly is nonsense. The people who write that kinda shite need chopsticks hammered up their noses until they come out of the top of their heads somewhere.

Weirdly though, LP is actually like a large scale model of a French colonial town, with grand colonial style buildings, dotted with vintage vehicles, but almost solely comprised of boutique hotels and high end restaurants. One of the things that gives LP its toy town feel is that it's almost impossible to find a shop that sells everyday items such as fruit or vegetables. You can get dry stuff (tins, packet noodles and bottles of water) in the occasional tourist 'mini-mart', but there are no real shops, no butchers shops, no fishmonger's, no florists. It's like a large resort, so the local population don't actually live there. It's feels like as you round every corner you expect to be met by a smiling French speaking Asian waiter, wearing a tightly pressed white jacket, with a black trouser ever ready to offer you a glass of chilled sparkling water.  So, if you're gonna head to LP make sure you're looking for the type of holiday without that 'local feel' and are looking to eat paté de fois gras or a plate of snails. 

So basically, LP really is a bit pants. Yes there are sights to see, yes there are tourist markets to browse, yes you can admire the beauty of the French influenced architecture, yes you can free a pair of birds at the top of the temple as a symbol of hope (we actually did that) and yes you can drink an ice cold beer and a glass of French red overlooking the mighty Mekong river (of course we did that too). Yes you can do all of these things. But that all of that still doesn't make it any fun, or any kind of experience of Lao at all. I think that those who really enjoy this place are 30 years our senior, arrive armed with a large wad of cash and a profound sense of entitlement and are of the ilk to expect access to Char Wallah's and Oompah Lumpah's as part of their holiday package.

An interesting thing we did witness upon our departure at 6am, was seeing many of the package tourists 'get the chance' to continue to be culturally insensitive as they make 'an offering' to the Monks at a 'pre-reserved' space outside the temple for the morning alms. If you've not been to a Buddhist country before, the alms ritual is a daily one where the monks walk the streets from dawn, collecting food for sustenance donated by the local population. It was a curious to watch as wealthy western tourists paid cash to 'donate' food under the auspices of observing Buddhist rites that they don't understand, whilst the procession of posessionless monks bend over one by one to lower empty bowl after seemingly empty bowl eagerly accepting the proceeds of this apparent act of prostitution. Then Eimear told me to shut up with my drivel as the scene I've just depicted wasn't like that at all and that I'd over-thought the whole thing.

Then we headed south on the 8 hour bus trip to another tourist town of Vang Vieng. Now some would describe this place as fun, particularly if you're early twenty-something and away from bitty for the first time. We sort of did too. Mainly, there are two things to do in Vang Vieng drinking and TUBING! (pron - Tooobing!) Now drinking is largely self explanatory, but I'll go through TUBING for you. You, an inflated lorry inner tube and about a dozen other people are driven 3km up the river. You jump into the river, sit on your tube and gently paddle your way via the many riverbank bars on the way who offer free shots of booze. The journey back nominally takes 2 hours and a further day to clear the hangover.

The downside to Vang Vieng is that  like LP, most everyone is a foreigner, so all restaurants cater for us aliens by supplying burgers with chips and full fry-ups.  So as we were in Rome (to use the phrase), we did as the Egyptians and decided to test the quality of a fry-up at 'Gary's Irish Bar', which boasted 'imported Cumberland sausages' and baked beans as part of the meal. Eimear enjoyed a cheese and bean 'toastie'. Overall, it was well worth the eight or so quids.

Supplement to the downside, most of the bars, restaurants and eateries show the God awful American TV series 'Friends' all day every day. As you walk the surrounding streets, you hear the monotone drawl of that feckless twat David Schrimmer punctuated with the endless pithy whine of Jennifer Aniston (and on and on and on). It's on all day every day, without pause. Someone said it was part of a 'secret' plot by the CIA to indoctrinate the communist Lao people into the glorious ways of consumerism, greed and self interest. But what was apparent was that no-one actually knows why it's on on this endless loop (as endless as all good loops should be) and certainly no-one bloody cares.

On the upside, Eimear discovered that bottles of 'Savannah' cider were available and since it had been some time since her forced withdrawal from Strongbow, it was considered necessary that we spend the remainder of our time here consuming a number of test samples to confirm that there had been no measurable reduction in her liver function. 

Our next stop on the trail was the Lao capital city of Vientiane and 14-16 May marked 'Happy Pi Mai (New Year) in Lao. We'd bought a copy of the local newspaper 'Vientiane Times' on arrival which carried an interesting public information announcement from the Lao authorities to coincide with the New Year. The piece 'Asks motorists to drive safely, wear a helmet and follow traffic regulations at all times.' It just seemed a more mature and respectful request to the public to behave during the holidays. In the UK the authorities would never 'ask' for anything, we only get the usual threats of fines and imprisonment (or both). 

Saying that though, on the first day of the celebrations, we saw a drunk bloke who could only remain upright because of the forward motion of the motorcycle on which he was riding on the pavement. It seems you just can't 'ask' some people.

The celebrations for the festival manifest itself much in the same form as 'Songkran' in Thailand which happens at the same time, where the vast majority of the city downs tools and copious quantities of the magnificent 'Beer Lao' before engaging in a city wide drunken water fight. The difference between Lao and Thailand was that in Lao, the festivities cease abruptly around midnight and begin again the following day, unlike Thailand where it goes on 24/7 for the duration. 

The hotel in which we were staying also took the whole thing rather seriously, providing free lunch and booze to all guests checked in at the time. On the second day, the lunch provided was chicken and rice or stir fried noodles with seafood. Being a peskytarian Eimear opted for the noodles, but after a couple of bites indicated that all may not be well with the dish and so she asked a passing waiter "What seafood is in this please?" The waiter turned, smiled a genuine smile and replied "Pork". 

in addition to the free food and drink, the hotel played music and encouraging dancing, starting with their own daily line dancing style routine to get everyone in the mood. They also hooked up a hosepipe and a provided a couple of dustbins of water for the increasingly drunken water fight outside the front of the hotel. We repeated this ritual for the three days of the holiday, which by the last day started to feel like a hungover groundhog day, but as we'd enjoyed it, we appreciated the memory reinforcement.

Picture by Therese Pechstein

Picture by Therese Pechstein

We had a couple of recovery days in Vientiane, during which we visited the COPE visitor centre (as you will have seen the link above), which helps to rehabilitate victims of UXOs and others who require prosthetic limbs for one reason or another. This was where we started to discover the true extent of the damage and legacy caused by the secret war. 

http://www.copelaos.org/about.php

Following this (and due to the heat we could stand the heat of Vientiane no more), we headed to Phonsavan on the overnight sleeper bus. The sleeping berth was more akin to a box cattle crate with a blanket and all the comfort you'd associate with it. The driver being cold blooded and nocturnal, decided that once we left the bus station at 7.30 p.m. he would switch all the lights in the bus off as well as the air conditioning. The 10 hours of this journey just flew by. 

Phonsavan also has the unenviable description of being one of the most bombed towns in the world. Wherever you go in this town, you see unexploded bombs and bomb casings being used in the most everyday ways including decorations for cafes, stilts on which houses are built, window boxes and even as barbecues. Much of this metal has also been smelted and how has a new life as cutlery and cooking pots. 

Phonsavan is also home to the 'Plain of Jars', an area of hundreds of square kilometres dotted with large man-made jars varying in size to over 30 tonnes. It is thought that the jars were fashioned from solid stone and it has been estimated they date from the Southeast Asian iron age, between 500 BC and 200AD and were used for either food storage or burials.  

We visited the main sights for viewing the jars are situated at various points off of the main highway out of Phonsavan. By 'main highway' I mean the road was made up of a collection of rocky pot holes. We'd rented a motorcycle which naturally had no front suspension which caused the handlebars to vibrate like a jackhammer rendering my arms to the consistency of cream cheese by the time we'd reached the first site.

At the site, our resident photographer found the place simply so uninspiring that the camera didn't actually  make it outside of the case at any time while we were there. I took some photo's, but they weren't up to much either, but perhaps convey how boring it was.

Phonsavan is also home to one of the best curry houses we've ever been to. It's called 'Nisha's' and the food there is just amazing. Admittedly, it's a long way to go for curry (considering you have to pass India when coming from the UK), but if you're ever in Phonsavan, you should make the effort to find it as the tomato and potato curry is spectacular.  

Then we took the 8 hour bus trip onto the market town of Sam Neua where we'd decided to kill a bit of time before moving to our last stop in Lao. Everything went well as we paid £4 for 4 nights to stay in a hotel room as big as a cathedral, with a balcony and cable tv. But, our enjoyment was short lived as Sam Neua turned out to be the most boring town in the world. Sam Neua gets up when it gets light at 5am, sells whatever it can find in the market until dusk and is in bed with the lights out by 7.30 p.m. 

We went crazy on the second day and walked the 300 metres or so across the river to check out the town's central market. After about 20 minutes or so it was evident you could buy most anything in this market, providing you didn't want it to come in a packet or box or be any kind of brand. Mainly, the things in the market were all kinds of fauna, including lizards, bugs, frogs, and furry things as well as the usual pigs, chickens, fish etc. All the creatures were in various states including alive (but soon to be killed), stunned (being fairly quickly killed), barely alive (being slowly killed) and dead, oh and there were of course vegetables. One lady, was apparently fanning a large wide eyed domestic looking cat, except, that the fur was like leopardskin. To our minds, the animal was probably of a species that was on some kind of endangered list, which was true as the thing was dead and up for sale as food. The woman was fanning away the flies. She declined our request for a photo.

All this animal welfare had us right in the mood for lunch, so we popped into one of the market stall restaurants for a quick bite. It turned out that the lady running the stall could speak Thai and so I asked as best I could if they could make us vegetable noodle soups with 'no meat'. She smiled and agreed 'no meat', so we thought we were on good ground. Midway through our meal, my chopsticks happened on a small firm squidgy something. Our lunch was not veggie, it was offal and the meaty morsel was a chickens heart. Eimear turned an unusual colour for her complexion and stopped eating. We had been wondering why the locals had considered us photo worthy as during our time in the restaurant, a number of persons had got their camera's out and snapped a quick photo. Perhaps they'd been waiting for our reaction to the food.

In the  evenings, our two options of life were a mini-mart that sold everything at different prices for everyone depending on who was serving and what price they could get away with at the time; and a restaurant with an 'English' menu, run by a surly looking restauranteur who was clearly suffering from a very recent gunshot wound. 

Even our efforts to stay indoors were thwarted by our rooms 'direct to sewer' air conditioning and Asian language only TV. We were delighted when those days were up and we took the further hour bus trip to Vieng Xai.

Vieng Xai was home to the Lao Politburo (command structure) during the domestic conflict in Lao during the 'Secret War' years. The town was selected due to it's remote location, the protective nature of the Karst topography and cave structure contained thereabouts. The crowded landscape of short steep hills and rice paddies also provided excellent military observation and defense options as well as the beauty that the small farming town (population 21000) is known for.

Once again it was the local Indian restaurant that saved the day here as no other restaurants in town had a menu in English, that was even if you could identify where the restaurants were in the first place. We ate there every day for the four days.

We spent one of our afternoon taking a bicycle tour of the caves that were occupied by both the leaders and community at large during the war. It was interesting and is basically a must see, but honestly, after you've seen one cave with a bedroom, bathroom and 'emergency room' (gas proof) etc... you've seen 'em all. 

Now I'm not a fan of history at the best of times (in fact, I disdain it in general terms), but it was interesting to see how the people of Lao presented their account of the 'victory' after the war ended. Propaganda aside, the sheer determination demonstrated by the Lao people to fight for so long against the mighty mechanised malevolence of the US air force was incredible. 

There was one other cave that made me think though. It was the one where about 245 men, women and children (people who lived in the cave), were killed in one go when a 500lb bomb landed right outside the entrance. Testimony from locals at the time stated that it took 3 days for the entrance of the cave to cool down enough to allow people to enter and search for survivors.  

On this not so happy story, our time in Lao came to a welcome end. Our last walk was as we headed up to the outskirts of the town of Vieng Xai and hailed the once daily bus to cross the border to Vietnam. As the bus pulled up, we peered inside to see about 30 people inside the bus which was originally designed to seat about half that amount. This was going to be a long trip...

Bye for now.

Barry and Eimear

More photos from our trip and other things can be found here: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eimearconnolly/

Thailand

'Listen to the voice of Buddha...'.

Hey All,

We hope all is well.

Well, we've been away for a couple of months now and so we thought we'd send you a brief note to let you's know how it's been for us. Providing of course, you can afford to take a little time away from your meaningless wage slave existences to read it (certain company accepted of course). So here's 'Being Boiled' aka 'the noodle diaries'.

Our original intention was to send an update on a monthly basis, then we decided that perhaps a 'per country' note may provide a bit more variety, but now it seems apparent that we'll get it done sometime that's well after we imagined and once we were beer in hand and bloodstream. 'The less one has to do, the more difficult and time consuming it becomes to actually do it.' 

The pedants among you will notice the tenses in this blurb may not flow altogether too well. So I'd like to congratulate you now, as you're about to be so very very clever. Oh, and do award yourself an extra point for the monkey thing.

Anyhoo, onwards, and so we were on our way, as once we saw the sun rising that we knew we weren't in London any more Toto. In fact we were still on the plane, but at least we were on the way.

Bangkok was as hot, humid, perfumed and odoriferous as ever. If you've never been, it's something akin to the busy kitchen of a quality restaurant, located inside a giant urinal.
As we had made it to Thailand and as the title of our blog suggests, we couldn't wait to get down to eating oodles of noodles cooked in a myriad of delicious ways; so naturally, directly on arrival, we headed for Burger King (they sell TRIPLE WHOPPERS here!!)!

The 'Restart Thailand' protests were still in full swing, with several of the major intersections of Bangkok's main highways blocked by what is ostensibly a gigantic  picnic; people were sat on any available patch of tarmac merrily shovelling tasty delights into their mouths stopping only occasionally sigh listlessly into pea whistles in support of the current speaker. Being the passing tourists, it was difficult to see how this 'protest' could possibly develop into anything other than a colossal food coma. On reflection, it appeared in fact, that it already had.

Our hotel room was well located at the drinking end of town, but the room itself amounted to little more than a windowless cigar box with a TV for American cop shows and Thai MTV. When we asked the management for a room with a window, we were ironically (don't you think), informed that the rooms with windows were reserved for guests who were smokers.

We stuck around in BKK for a few days to get over the jet lag, trying to motivate ourselves to see a few of the many varied historical and religious sights on the way. We failed miserably. We did however, manage to finally eat some noodles in the form of the traditional 'Pad Thai' (fried noodles with bean sprouts, onions, peanuts, lime and fish sauce). This one had shrimps too.

Then we headed south to the warm and colourful southern Thai town of Trang on the overnight sleeper train. We'd booked tickets in the air conditioned carriage, which sounded nice. But, as the night went on, the carriage got colder and colder until a state of virtual cryogenic stasis was achieved. 

To defrost a little, we visited an old favourite restaurant from my 'English teaching' days where we had a steamed fish with lime and chilli, with a serving of 'Nam prik', a spicy sauce consisting of garlic, lime juice, fish sauce and chilli. This may have been one of the best and spiciest dishes we've (and we discussed it) ever eaten.

In Trang we lazily enjoyed exploring the streets and browsing the markets for a few days and where we met an old friend of mine Jiap (Jep), who owns a bar/restaurant on a local beach to Trang called Pak Meng. We stayed there for a few days after Trang, cooking scrambled eggs for Jiap's farang (foreign) clientèle until we broke away and took the short boat crossing to the beautiful paradise island of Koh Mook.

Koh Mook is a sleepy island with famous platinum sand beaches, home to the must see 'Emerald Cave' and enhanced by it's proximity to another paradise island Koh Kradan, where patrons go snorkelling in bath warm crystal blue waters and explore uninhabited beaches from dawn 'til dusk. Unfortunately, we both got a bout of the shits almost as soon as we arrived and as a result, we left the island some days later having seen little more than the inside of a rickety bamboo hut. 

FYI, we had eaten a spicy papaya 'Som Tam' salad with squid (squid, unripe papaya, carrots, tomato, bean sprouts, chili, dried shrimp, fish sauce and lime juice) all mashed up in a bucket in the 48 hours preceding our 48 hours of pooping. Now I don't really think it was the salad that was necessarily responsible for our malady, and even though it was good at the time, we've not felt the need to revisit that particular dish since.

From there it was back through Pak Meng and Trang and onto the sexy tourist party island of Koh Lanta. Here, much to our profound and ongoing disappointment, we found we'd just missed the thumping hard house, poi poi swinging, bean bag juggling, dread locked surf dancing half moon party celebrations of the day or so before. 

As part of our ongoing struggle to stay on budget (Thailand has been more expensive than expected due to our neglecting to acknowledge our arrival in peak tourist season), we took lodgings in a small concrete bungalow behind the plantation of rubber trees a little way off the main strip. It was a nice looking bungalow (once you'd clambered over the recently fallen tree;  termites I think), but daily, as the sun climbed higher, it relentlessly heated the inside of the bungalow transforming it into a sleep-in pizza oven.  But, money is money and so we stayed there for 3 nights.

Next, the mellow island of Koh Jum was a real winner, tidy little artist painted bungalows nestled in the jungle, home to a polite and sedate community; a short hike from the deserted 3 mile beach. If you have not yet eaten crab fried rice with stir fried shrimp with ginger, unlucky.

The mainland coastal town of Krabi was our next port of call and thanks to the savings made in Koh Lanta and Koh Jum,  we hit the booze. The night market in Krabi was great with Eimear enjoying gin and tonic priced at about 80 Baht (£1.50) for a generous double. I just drank (an unknown number) of the 6.4% Thai beer 'Chang' (Elephant beer). The food was great on it's way down at the market and similarly, wasn't too bad several hours later on it's way back up again. 

Here we hired a motorbike and did the tourist trip to the beach town of Ao Nang and Wat Tham Seua (Buddhist temple) ,where there is a big Buddha statue atop the hill. At the base of the hill, are a colony of monkeys who will overtly rob you of your lunch (or breakfast or dinner), or anything else that takes their fancy, if they think they want it.

Then  we climbed the arduous, precipitous and somewhat precarious 1239 steps to the Buddha statue at the top. Eimear virtually ran up the steps in about 30 minutes (but I had attached horse blinkers and a large slice of chocolate cake on a stick to her forehead). The decent took over two and a half hours.

A night in the tourist hub of Surat Thani (where the farang kids go on their way to the 'cool' islands of Koh Phan Gan and Koh Samui), but after 1 night in a memorable hotel with a steaming hot power shower, dressing gowns and slippers, we moved on to the pedestrian coastal town of Pretchup Khiri Khan. 

This place feels a bit like the kind of place where pensioners go to retire. I mean, it does have a pulse, but it seems there's always the nagging feeling that you should continually check it, in case it's stopped. 

We cooked breakfast for ourselves in Pretchup as the digs had a kitchen and fridge, this meant scrambled eggs, browned toast (Thai toast is simply warmed white bread) and tea with milk.

It was here we first met 'the noodle lady' and our lives acquired meaning. The 'Noodle Lady' as we have named it (using the Australian book of naming things), is a market stall which serves white rice noodles smothered in a spicy curry sauce and then topped with chopped various fresh veggies. This was such a taste sensation, we ate there four nights consecutively. I followed up with barbecued chicken lollies.

We hired bicycles whilst here and cycled into an air force base to see some monkeys (the collective noun for Monkeys anyone? Actually I couldn't wait to find out, so I looked it up and there are four. A barrel, a cartload, a troop and a tribe), so we went to see a cartload of monkeys. They were invisible to begin with until a bus load of school kids arrived with Swiss roll style cakes wrapped in plastic. They children had bananas too, but if you wanted to coax a monkey down from the tree, just rustle the wrapper of a bit of Swiss roll.

In a separate monkey related incident three street dogs attacked a large monkey in a car park (sounds like a jokes coming eh?), causing the hundred or so other monkeys to turn on the dogs en masse. This broke up the fight with the dogs hastily departing, swerving hastily left and right, to avoid the incoming barrage of monkey poop.

Whilst we've been away, I've been taking the occasional jog to try keep fit. Not too unusual you may think, but running in Thailand is not something that the locals (both people and animal) are used to. I mean after all, why would  you do this? It's feckin' hot at the coolest of times and as no-one is in that much of a hurry to get anywhere. Anyhow, as a result, jogging elicits the most curious of looks from local people and reactions from the animals ranging  from the ambivalent, to the damn right bite your arse aggressive. The 'attacks' occur so frequently (basically; every time), to the point where I have been forced to run with my pockets full of rocks to hurl at the packs of local wild dogs that decide to chase me as I pound down the streets. Interval training seriously has nothing on this.

The 10 am train took us on to Phetburi where on the night of our arrival, whilst having a glass of red by the river as the sun set Eimear said, "Look at that weird stick there in the river." The 'stick' turned out to be about two meters long, the circumference of my calf muscle and a King Cobra snake. Oh how we laughed. 

We've since been back through BKK (picking up our visa's for 'Nam on the way) And are in the north via the overnight train to Chang Mai. It's my first time there and I just don't get what the fuss is about. Still, we ate some very respectable Irish food on Paddy's day and got suitably oiled on Jameson's and G & T's.

We tried the Thai barbecued 'salt fish'  in Chang Mai, where a Tilapia fish is stuffed with onion, ginger, coriander, garlic and lemon and covered in a thick coating of salt. This is put over coals for 20 mins or so each side and served with 'Nam Prik'. Next time we're home and someone has a barby I'm bringing this dish to share as  describing it here simply does not suffice.

Our next stop was Pai (pronounced 'Pye' as in the record label for those old enough), where we enjoyed elephants (to look at not to eat) and precipitous motorcycling and more G&T.  We can't remember what else we did and I can't be arsed to make something up, so it's onto Mae Hong Son.

This town is 1869 bends in the road from Chang Mai. I guess someone counted that, so well done to them. I just know, that getting here has thus far taken 7.5 hours on a sweaty bus along the mountainous and winding road. Still, our determination has been rewarded by natural hot springs and Burmese potato cakes (we're about 10k from the border with Myanmar) and of course more G&T. And to prove that it's not just all fun and games here on our hols, during our last motorcycle excursion to a waterfall, we encountered an out of nowhere storm which battered us with debris from the forest and soused us in seconds with raindrops a big as golf balls.

Breakfast at the morning market was rice noodles warmed in a thick creamy lentil porridge, topped with sweet soy sauce, nuts, salt, sugar and coriander topped with chunks of deep fried tofu. Believe it or not, this is so good, I'd rate it as  the best breakfast in the world barring a full fry-up. 

From here, we returned to Chiang Mai for a night, then up to Chang Rai where we stayed in a traditional style Thai house on a 'home stay' (where you basically rent someone's spare room). It was well decorated, with oddments and knick-knacks scattered about for that 'homely' kinda feel. During the day though, the room was hotter than Hades, and the ample and inviting looking bed actually turned out to be harder than Chuck Norris. But, we stayed for four days as once again it was cheap and despite the fact we're 'travelling' we couldn't be bothered to move. We hired another motor scooter here, which took us to such sights as "The best waterfall ever" said one Eimear Connolly, as we picnicked with tuna sandwiches on a floating table. We also visited the 'White Temple' and the 'Black House' which were, as you should expect completely the opposite of each other, one evoked references to the spangly iconography of 'Narnia' and the other, a taxidermists store cupboard. Both are well worth the visit.

From there, we hit Chiang Khong to cross the border to Lao the next day. We found, along the way, the 'Hub Bar', which is owned by the Guinness world record for circumnavigation (of the earth) on a bicycle Mr Alan Bate. An interesting afternoon as his bar holds over fifty different bikes from around the globe as well as those from his professional race career  and his world record breaking machine. Don't think he's gonna be cycling any time soon now though, as he has a 'shattered foot' acquired whilst having 'a night with whiskey'. 

Hungover, we crossed the border to 'The Peoples Democratic Republic of Lao' and the town of Huay Xai. We booked the 2 day, 1 night 'slow boat' (more like a floating coach), to Luang Prabang, which is like the French Riviera, in Lao, on the bank of the Mekong.

Thankfully, they have noodles here too, so we're expecting to survive into Vietnam.

So that's kind where we're up to on our trips so far and if you're still reading this, we thank you for your perseverance. We'll drop another note after Laos, or once we've got something more that's interesting.

We hope that all remains well for all in the interim and that you enjoy the pictures.

Loves Eimear and Barry.