Bangkok

It’s hectic they said. There’s nowhere else quite like it. It’s crazy.
We were well prepared for the chaos of Bangkok. But we didn’t need to be – these people clearly haven’t been to India. After India, Bangkok was like a peaceful little seaside town. Without the sea (and yes I did just have to double check that on the map). Comparing Delhi to Bangkok is like comparing a Rottweiler to the Andrex puppy. Therefore, in our eyes, Bangkok was most definitely not crazy, and we could totes handle it. There wasn’t really anything of interest to report from Bangkok, we did some sightseeing, had a night out and I bought some new knickers. Oh and we realised that Thailand’s street food has nothing on Indian street food (we miss samosa butties).

I liked Bangkok.

Kamphaeng Phet

A little local town with no tourists, which was the main reason we ventured there. It very pretty and in hindsight should have been very uneventful, especially as we were there for less than 24 hours…

It started with a bang on the 7 hour journey there when the bus had stopped for refreshments. I returned from the loo singing a bit of Nicky Minaj to find Lyvette stood on the pavement staring with her mouth open at the bus driving off into the horizon.

“Is that our bus?”
“Hmmm, it does look very much like our bus yes”
“That’s our bus!! Where’s it going?! It’s stealing my clothes!”
And then we chased after it wildly flapping our arms about and jumping around like lunatics. Lyvette even started wielding her knife like a mad woman. As it turns out the bus was just turning round. That was awkward.

Then Lyvette burnt her leg on a motorbike taxi’s exhaust.

Then I went for a morning run and got chased by a pack of rabid dogs. I was gently huffing and puffing along, sweating profusely, looking like a fat tomato on legs and wondering if I’d ever be able to run more than 20 minutes again when they appeared from nowhere. The entire pack of them (the pack consisting of 3). This led to me sprinting up and down the road (with my fringe out) trying to avoid them looking at my juicy calves. Eventually just as my heart rate hit 2018 a nice little Thai man came by, took pity on me and drove next to me (really slowly) to shield me from the ravenous beasts.

Then I returned to the room to find Lyvette fly-fitting her leg about because the mosquitoes were trying to mate on her burn.

Then we both got dodgy stomachs.

Then Lyvette had another ‘episode’ where she had to have an ELD (Emergency Lie Down) outside a public toilet. I knew it was bad because she had her face in a pool of ants and she wasn’t wafting her burn about. A very kind drinks-selling guy hacked up chunks of ice to bathe her forehead and a couple gave up their romantic spot on the river and carried her and her ELD to their sun lounger while the husband spent the next 10 minutes fanning her. It wasn’t dramatic at all.

Then as we both held our dodgy stomachs and Lyvette nursed her burn and tried not to collapse we popped into the pharmacy to steal some air conditioning and buy some insect repellent. Noone speaks English in Thailand, and just for the record we don’t speak Thai so I had to play a game of charades with the 4 giggling members of staff and act out flying biting insects. Finally, after I had flapped over and nibbled the girl stood nearest to me three times she clicked that we wanted insect repellent and produced a lovely smelling pot of liquid. This was great except it smelled of flowers and was about as useful as a cat flap on a submarine. It must have attracted every mosquito in South East Asia. Seriously, who produces floral insect repellent? There’s a reason DEET smells vile. Just one whiff of this spray and every midgy within a 4 mile radius came zooming towards us so we hobbled home with me trying to punch them down (I do not know why I thought that would be appropriate) and Lyvette doing a combination of fly-fitting, clapping them between her hands and trying to protect her burn whilst not collapsing again.

That day we became weary travellers.

Chiang Mai

We arrived at 3am to find the reception at our hostel was closed so after a cheeky sleep in a 24hour McDonalds we decided the only option we had left was to embark on some ‘breaking and entering’. We lobbed our bags and ourselves over the gate and I took refuge in a tent in the garden whilst Lyvette soothed herself in the swinging chair, until the staff eventually decided it was time to wake up and officially allow us into our room.

The highlight of Chiang Mai (except for witnessing Lyvette ride a bicycle) was a day trip which included trekking to a waterfall, white water and bamboo rafting and bathing and riding elephants. It was going smoothly until we went white water rafting, because what we learnt is that it’s pretty difficult to go white water rafting with no white water. Or any water for that matter. Apparently this is much better after monsoon season (for obvious reasons) but luckily we had our resident white-water-rafting-with-no-white-water expert, Wit, with us. He basically spent 40 minutes untangling a group of British girls every time we got stranded on the rocks and then found it appropriate to rectify this by rolling around the dingy and jumping up and down. We heard him declare several times “Oh my Buddha!” – which is our new favourite saying.
Post rafting we met Butty the elephant who was pretty cool. And hungry. And actually bigger than I expected. We rode him bareback (apparently this doesn’t hurt them whereas sitting in a cage does) which sounds fine but it is in fact quite hard to mount an elephant when you’re under 5”2, especially when you’re told to sit on his neck. Where there is nothing to hold on to.

“But what do I hold on to?!”
“His ears, hold his ears”
“His ears?! But I have to lie down to reach them!”
“His hair, hold his hair”
“HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY HAIR”

As it turns out, elephants don’t have much hair. I speak from experience. But to be fair Butty was pretty chilled and I doubt he felt me clinging to his two strands of hair. He was too interested in eating the bamboo hanging over the edge of the cliff. This is not ideal when you’re the one sat on his neck, clinging to his barely existent hair, whilst being thrown forward to face over a vertical drop with Lyvette being forced forward into you (so you are acting as the brake block) shouting, “Oh my Buddha!!! Butty’s gonna jump!!!!” What I didn’t appreciate was that when I glanced back I found Lyvette and Bridie (our fellow elephant rider) clinging onto each other and their really sturdy piece of rope and all I had to protect my life was a wisp of hair. That’s when I decided Butty needed a wig.

Butty didn’t jump and his hair proved sturdier than I imagined.

There wasn’t much other excitement in Chiang Mai apart from the mystery of my missing towel and the double date we didn’t even know we were on at a Thai boxing match. That was awkward.

Pai

We roamed around on scooters and nearly ran out of petrol. Twice. Lyvette drove the scooter and this time didn’t hit an Indian woman. I nearly fell off a waterfall (not in a good way). It was also time for the princess (mosquito) nets to come back out. We lay inside them chuckling at the boys from London slapping themselves and lubing themselves up before bed panicking that they were going to get malaria.

And we learnt that Thai people seem to say “Same, same. But different” a lot. What does that even mean? It just doesn’t make sense and they say it all the time:

“Where is the supermarket?”
“Left, right, left”
“Left, right, left?”
“No straight, round, right. Same, same. But different”
Brilliant. I’ll give that a go. They’re definitely similar…

“Can I have the chicken please?”
“No chicken. We got bldhfhhgg”
“What’s bldhfhhgg? Is it like chicken?”
“No ma’m. Same, same. But different”
What? If it’s not chicken and it’s something you’ve just made up I’m pretty sure it’s nothing like chicken.

“Excuse me, do you sell shoes?” I point at my (disgusting) sandals
She brings out some banana leaves and a piece of string
“Same, same. But different”
Banana leaves tied onto my feet are definitely not the same as shoes. Definitely are different.

And that was our experience of north Thailand in a nutshell. We didn’t love it, we didn’t hate it. Next we’re heading to Laos where we’re hoping not to contract malaria, get chased by rabid dogs or run around wielding a knife at an empty bus. Lyvette is also aiming to make this country the first one where she doesn’t collapse and bring too much attention to herself. And we’ve now purchased some actual insect repellent.

P.s. Our fringes have grown. Slightly.