The little engine that couldn't.

If you remember back so many days ago when Val and I were at Thai Boxing with the Frenchies and Alyne, as we parted ways on the street with much European cheek kissing, we realized that we were going to be on the same train back to Bangkok as Fred and Sophie. We were about to compare tickets to see where everyone was sitting when Fred said that fate had brought us together so many times that he was sure we would see each other on the train too. So when we arrived, Val and I found our seats and settled ourselves when all of a sudden the Frenchies arrived. They were in the seats right next to ours. Fate indeed!



Fred and Sophie - right next to us.

Plus, miracle of miracle, there was no one in our upper bunks so we all had double seats to lounge about in. All was going swimmingly for the first 45 minutes until the train stopped. Nothing too unusual until about an hour had passed before a buzz from the tourists started. "What is going on?" Rumour had it that the engine did not have 'enough energy' to make it up the hill. Val had acquired an admirer by this time who was hovering around. He would ask every time someone with a walkie talkie would rush by but his English skills were limited so he was having a hard time explaining to us what was what. After another hour it was declared (can one say declared when it is said through the grapevine) that the train was going back to the last station for a new engine or repairs. So back we went. I guess they fixed it because after a four hour delay we started back up and went toward Bangkok. It actually worked out well for me and Val. We had wanted to take a later train but that one didn't have sleepers so the one we took was supposed to arrive at 6am. We were going to have to kill 4 hours before we could get a room but as it happened we arrived in Bangkok at 11 which is just in time for check out at noon.



Another hazy sunrise/set from the train window.

This time we decided to go Lux and get a room in the hotel across from our last place. We had seen that they had a pool. Plus we have lots of baht left and are feeling rich after our $4 rooms in Chang Mai. So we checked into the Khoasan Palace. Air, TV, second floor, our own bathroom for $25 bucks plus the pool that we don't seem to be using. My favourite part is the blankets - they are huge towels!

Last night we were pretty exhausted but we went shopping for awhile, again, so much to buy and so many bahts left to spend - not my usual state. I bought a purse (don't say it, lea) and more pendants, a couple of t-shirts etc etc. Val found some necklaces she really liked, fisherman pants and a t-shirt, and some cheap bead necklaces. good fun. then we met the Frenchies for dinner - next trip - France!



Elephant statue in a very busy traffic circle

Today, we went to the market outside the Grand Palace, the amulet market. Appropriately named since they sell these Buddha amulets at practically every stall. it is quite a thing here. There were magazines (in Thai) that seemed to be about collecting them. There were sellers and monks etc with jewellers eyes (magnifiers) checking them out. I of course, just bought the cheap ones that appealed. I bought a few from one guy who was so happy when I asked to take his picture that he just kept handing me more, I would try to give him more money and he would put more in the bag. I think I bought four and ended up with about 10. Those ones were loose, not in one of the pendant cases (I will have to show you).



My generous amulet salesman.



Meat balls (who knows what kind of meat?) on sticks



Flowers for the household mini-temple.

Oh, I forgot, Jennifer will love this if she is reading this blog. When we crossed the street (frogger style, as always) these ladies approached us and handed us baggies of corn. We didn't really know why until one of them opened some of the bags and put them in our hands. Oh My God - the pigeons when ballistic! they were all over us, on our hands and arms, faces, in our hair. Yikes, they have sharp little claws, there must have been hundreds of them and the ladies just kept pouring more corn into our hands. I couldn't get away fast enough. And for this horror, they demanded money! No likely. They weren't happy but we made out it with our eyes still in our heads and our baht safely tucked away to be spent on non-Hitchcockian events.



Val right after the pigeon attack, trying to get rid of the last bag of corn.



The troops massing for another attack - just bring out the corn!



The one noteworthy pigeon in the bunch. A spotted dove.

It is so hot here, I can't describe it. I must be 40 degrees. I thought I was going to pass out. Fortunately, we managed to get into a 7-11 before I completely turned to a messy paste (dust and sweat). There at 7-11s everywhere here and they just blast the air conditioning (thank god). A couple of beverages and a bite of food and we headed back to the hotel to recuperate. Now we have our last baht to spend and our very stuffed bags to pack before we head to the airport tomorrow for our 8am flight.

A couple of random images from our last day in Bangkok



A dog head sticking out of a bridge.  Why? Who knows.



A typical image of the king, they like his image from 40 years ago, you rarely see a current 'old' picture of him.

We will be back on Saturday at around noon. I am going to try to stay awake until at least 7pm - either wish me luck or give me a call so keep me alert. See you all soon. Joanne

Val and Joanne go to Thai Prison and get beaten (and it was nothing like Bridget Jones II)

I couldn't come to Thailand and not get a massage. There are massage places every ten feet (not exaggerating) so it seemed a trip requirement. Val found a note in the Lonely Planet that the Women's Prison has a massage parlour where all of the proceeds go directly to the prisoner upon her release to help her get a new start. That seemed a worthy cause. So off we went to check it out. Our first visit, we showed up too late so today we went earlier. We had a good sleep in (9am) since we were so exhausted after our elephant excursion, ate breakfast at the guesthouse (Val had a smoothies and toast, I had french toast and fruit - good but too expensive, it was at least 5 dollars each). Then we sauntered back to the prison. We didn't get any photos of the inside so these will have to do.



This is the outside gate



Homey touches like flowers still don't make me want to go here for longer than an hour

We were led in to the massage area and had our feet washed. They gave us some clothes to change into in a side room. Things were already off to a bad start since neither of us could figure out how to put on the pants or the top. Eventually, one of the women came in and sorted us out. Val said she only wanted the back and neck done but I was in for the full meal deal - the one hour Thai massage. Oh My God, there is absolutely no way I will be able to convey in words the pain that tiny woman caused. She started on my leg and used thumbs made of steel to basically rupture my muscles and snap my bones. It hurt - a lot. She didn't speak much English but occasionally when I would cry out, she would ask "hurt?" to which I would answer 'YES!!" and she would reduce the pressure by an infinitesimal amount barely perceptible by my broken self. Oh, did I mention that we were on mats on the floor in a communal room. No privacy here. By now, three British women had arrived and were watching their future. I can't believe they didn't run screaming. That little masseuse could kill a man with what she could do with her thumbs, elbow, knees and feet.

As much pain as it was, it was also the funniest thing ever. I was laughing so hard I couldn't talk. I would look over at Val, who was only supposed to be having her neck done and I would see her contorted into some impossible position with her own tiny masseuse sitting on her. How could I not laugh. My lady kept asking if I was ticklish, I would just say yes since it was easier than to say the entire situation was too funny not to be hysterical. After my legs it was time to flip over for my back. She showed me a little pot and asked if I wanted on my back. I said yes. Only then does Val mention that the contents of the little pot are hot, chemical burn hot. I was happy for the distraction. Imagine me, with a person standing on my back, pulling  my legs up the wrong direction until I was a U shape. My back cracked like an egg. There was twisting and throwing, cracking and kneading. I couldn't look at Val or I was laugh even harder. Finally, she shredded my arms and it was over. I don't think I have ever done anything so painful voluntarily in my life before this. But I have to say, when we left, it was the first time my calves were pain free.

Now I am sitting in the Internet place while val has a banana milkshake. There is so much I'm not mentioning about Thailand because I can't keep ahead of our wacky activities. Some notes about Thailand
1. Sidewalks - not for walking. I think that they are primarily for motorcycle parking, then for store displays, sleeping, dogs, and trees and planter pots, then for walking.



A particulary cute example of a sidewalk blockage

2. tourists - they are everywhere. We don't like the British ones especially. There are very few Americans and a zillion Canadians. They seem jaded.
3. Food - I know I keep mentioning food but I have discovered that there are very few dishes on offer. Val has made it her mission to find the best Pad Thai. Strangely, so far the best had been in a French restaurant. We only went in there because they had padded booths. But there was a Thai chef who made me a wicked Ginger pork on rice and Val, the yummiest Pad Thai.



another lunch

4. Cats - everywhere. we have an old tom who sleeps outside of our room but he isn't interested in making friends.



5. Buddha - everywhere in every form. We can't figure out if it an Young Elvis/Old Elvis thing or an artistic difference for the different versions. We are avoiding Wats so I suppose we will never know.

6. Flowers - they grow all over the place, orchids are wild here.



They even grow in shells.

I'm sure there is more so I will add in future posts if I have time. Joanne

We're here, we're hot

hey all. To start at the beginning of our adventure.



Waiting to go...

Lovely Chris got us to the airport at the crack 'o dawn and Air Canada did not screw up our flight. They did not give us any hard candy so I think that is proof positive that they are monitoring my blog.



Our view from the Vancouver Airport

Anyway, we had a few uneventful hours in the Vancouver airport where we spent a good 30 minutes annoying the Air Japan reception lady. first our bags were too heavy for carry on, we were both about 1.5 kilos over the limit. We sweet talked her into letting us through but she was full of dire warnings of the next gate/custom official/security taking our massive bags away from us. Needless to say that didn't happen. Once we had convinced her to let the bags through, we proceeded to have a Laurel and Hardy version of who's on the aisle, what's at the window. That poor woman spent 10's of minutes trying to accommodate our odd seating requests before she just stuck us in the emergency escape seats to shut us up. Lots of leg room but (is it irony or revenge?) there was nowhere to store our (too heavy) bags under the seat in front. So all of our stuff was over our heads, directly over our seat mate Mr. Chin. He let us knock his head around while we pulled our bags out of the overhead compartment way too many times. He found us amusing, I'm sure. He tried to teach us some Japanese words which Val may remember but it is all a blur to me.

Japan Air is nice but I don't think it beats KLM to Amsterdam. The movie selection was poor and started at random times. Remember when I was just excited to have the screen in the seat in front. Now I get all picky... Anyway, I watched a couple of movies and ate all of their Asian food which was very good.

We finally arrived in Narita, Tokyo Airport and wasted a few hours there.



What better analogy for spending time at a foreign airport than international clocks!

I saw one new bird, the long billed crow so my time in Japan was well spent and bird book documented. Our flight from Japan was endless. I slept a lot (same movie offers) . The food was even better than the previous flight. It is like going to Mom and Bill's, seafood in everything. They served a little cold seafood salad that had a prawn, scallop, calamari and an octopus cake that was too good for words.

After what seemed like days on the flight, in our tiny cramped seats and with a new seatmate who was way less fun than Mr. Chin but far more infectious, we made it to Bangkok. I actually don't really remember the airport much, there was a long line, I had to go to the bathroom and then we were out and in a cab. We had been up for over 24 hours at this point so it is a bit blurry. We arrived at the hotel. The hotel... Swank does not begin to describe our hotel. We were so grubby (did I mention that they took our picture at customs, that's going to be a beauty). But the receptionist let us in and gave us a room. What a waste the room was on us. It had fluffy duvets and fresh fruit, slippers and white robes, toiletries, and a huge tub that we were too exhausted to even consider using. So we went to our comfy beds all greasy and sweaty and slept like rocks.



A flower on the pillow? tossed aside in our exhausted efforts to get to bed



Fresh fruit that we took with us (at least we left the towels)



Our barely used Spa-like bathroom

When I was reading about the hotel, the guides mentioned the excellent breakfast buffet. Oh my god, what an understatement. It was incredible, phenomenal. I don't even know how to describe the offerings so I won't. But it was delish and I ate too much by far. We owe Nikki many scarves in payment for the opportunity to make ourselves sick on poached eggs, dim sum and tiki masala all on the same plate.

We reluctantly left the hotel but since our 'deal' was only for one night and we weren't prepared to pay $500/night no matter how good the breakfast. We cabbed it to a more meager and humble abode on Khao San Rd. It is crazy here with the guest houses, bars and gift shops - heaven.



Khoasan Rd - in the daytime it isn't so overwhelming

We are booked into the Budget Guesthouse (yes, that is actually it's name, not just an accurate description) across from the Khaosan Palace which I anticipate will be a hoppin' bar at night. Believe it or not, we actually shopped around and Budget was the nicest/cleanest room. It is only $14 for an airconditioned room (yes, we are getting old and need a bit more comfort - 2 extra bucks seemed worth it for the air).



Budget's sign. This place must be good!

We couldn't find a room with a private bath. Well, actually all of the rooms we looked at were on the 4th or 5th floor (no elevators) and my bag was getting so heavy that I told Val on the staircase of Budget that I didn't care what the room looked like, this was it. Fortunately, it is fine. The beds are hard as rocks, which I am happy about, but Val may disagree in future posts. Plus, we have to take our shoes off to enter the hotel (I have bare feet even in this internet cafe - start stocking up on the anti-fungal now).

Ok, off to buy many gifts for myself and a few for you guys. And beer, well, beer first, did I mention it is hot here. 35 degrees, according to one of our many new 'friends' on the strip.



Val with her first beer, showing remarkable restraint



Joanne with her first Thai beer, showing zero restraint (it was hot!)

Ok, time is almost up. Val and Joanne