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!!)!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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