Taking a timeout in Thailand
Stop the world i want to get off. Having crossed into Thailand earlier this week, and after 131 days on the road in five countries, i've decided to get my sweaty feet off the backpacking treadmill and put them up somewhere nice and comfy. Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city, will do.
Some other stats: i've crashed in about 50 beds and chowed down on approximately 130lbs of rice, some of it steamed, some sticky (in Laos)...no Condoleeza. I'm still crunching the numbers on distances travelled by buses, trains in all countries (piecharts are in the post!).
Spent the last 4 weeks in Laos, a country of 5.5 million people sandwiched between Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma. For the best part of Laos, i was travelling with an Israeli guy called Shauli. The tail-end of the visit was frantic - we went on a 3-day trek in remote hill tribe villages and burnt some rubber on a 3-day, 260km motorbike loop... mainly on unpaved roads. Good times. Ten of the last 11 days there were spent moving on and crashing in different guesthouses. Then we made for the Thai border. Right now i'm burnt out.
Laos was pretty special (unspoilt villages and towns, smiley, friendly people). It was here I learnt to play kataw, a version of volleyball using a bamboo ball, feet and head. Every village or town had a court or dusty space for the game, complete with basic net/piece of string. When the lads come back from a hard day's slog out in the paddy fields or elsewhere, they like nothing better than to perfetct their kataw skills. I thought I'd fair ok...said I played 5-a-side football for the mighty Preston Templars in Brighton. They looked at me blankly. Their keepyuppie skils and cushion headers put mine and Shauli's to shame. Needless to say, some 10-year-olds also beat us at outdoor badminton in the same village. Oh how they laughed.
Laos is a quiet country, few people per square km and has a very laidback capital, Vientiane. Everything is "Ca, ca" (slowly, slowly). None of the helter skelter city chaos of Beijing or Saigon. It's the most impoverished country in the region thanks to the fallout of the IndoChina Wars (the most bombed country in SE Asia with a legacy of landmines thanks to the "US imperialist aggressors"). But still the people are full of smiles and warmth for the "falang" (foreigner).
It was on my first day in Laos that I met Mina, a 32-year-old real-life commando who was on holiday for a few weeks. (Hobbies: collecting guns - she has 57 types - and, erm, flowers!) Mina works for the Laos government's special police force (their version of the FBI) and is involved in fighting the war against the drug barons in northern LAos and Thailand. One of her roles is to infiltrate gangs operating in the mountains and cities. She told me a couple of stories about being shot in drug busts - she has the scars to prove it - and of going undercover/dressing to impress drug barons in Thai bars. I feebly joked that I was a secret agent working for Her Majesty's Secret Service going by the name James Bond. She took to calling me Mr James! Which, as you can imagine, i liked very much!!
Commando Mina and i travelled together for a few days. There were some nagging questions that needed to be asked about where she gets her money from to be so well travelled throughout SE Asia for a Laos girl (she's been everywhere)... and the $7,000 that sits in her bank. She claimed only to get $50 a month. There was a whiff of corruption in the air. When I gently grilled her over this, she revealed matter-of-factly that the police force actually allows her to sell some of the marijuana seized in drugs busts! Astonishing. Also, Mina told me that she is sometimes given money by gang members! To keep her quiet? She is known to some of them as Madame Mina. Anyway, the upshot of all this was that i got a little paranoid...scared off by her associations. So i sacked her and scarpered north to the capital Vientiane. And that was the last I saw of the commando girl.
Thailand is a very different affair, this much was apparent on crossing the border the other day - there are paved roads, concrete or brick houses rather than shacks on stilts and guesthouses with en suite facilities. Not planning to travel extensively throughout Thailand...it's so modern and commercial compared to its Asian neighbours. Instead, I'm trying something different - hunting a job teaching English and laying down my backpack for a few weeks. Then i'll head down to Bangkok and the beaches of southern Thailand before moving on to Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some other stats: i've crashed in about 50 beds and chowed down on approximately 130lbs of rice, some of it steamed, some sticky (in Laos)...no Condoleeza. I'm still crunching the numbers on distances travelled by buses, trains in all countries (piecharts are in the post!).
Spent the last 4 weeks in Laos, a country of 5.5 million people sandwiched between Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma. For the best part of Laos, i was travelling with an Israeli guy called Shauli. The tail-end of the visit was frantic - we went on a 3-day trek in remote hill tribe villages and burnt some rubber on a 3-day, 260km motorbike loop... mainly on unpaved roads. Good times. Ten of the last 11 days there were spent moving on and crashing in different guesthouses. Then we made for the Thai border. Right now i'm burnt out.
Laos was pretty special (unspoilt villages and towns, smiley, friendly people). It was here I learnt to play kataw, a version of volleyball using a bamboo ball, feet and head. Every village or town had a court or dusty space for the game, complete with basic net/piece of string. When the lads come back from a hard day's slog out in the paddy fields or elsewhere, they like nothing better than to perfetct their kataw skills. I thought I'd fair ok...said I played 5-a-side football for the mighty Preston Templars in Brighton. They looked at me blankly. Their keepyuppie skils and cushion headers put mine and Shauli's to shame. Needless to say, some 10-year-olds also beat us at outdoor badminton in the same village. Oh how they laughed.
Laos is a quiet country, few people per square km and has a very laidback capital, Vientiane. Everything is "Ca, ca" (slowly, slowly). None of the helter skelter city chaos of Beijing or Saigon. It's the most impoverished country in the region thanks to the fallout of the IndoChina Wars (the most bombed country in SE Asia with a legacy of landmines thanks to the "US imperialist aggressors"). But still the people are full of smiles and warmth for the "falang" (foreigner).
It was on my first day in Laos that I met Mina, a 32-year-old real-life commando who was on holiday for a few weeks. (Hobbies: collecting guns - she has 57 types - and, erm, flowers!) Mina works for the Laos government's special police force (their version of the FBI) and is involved in fighting the war against the drug barons in northern LAos and Thailand. One of her roles is to infiltrate gangs operating in the mountains and cities. She told me a couple of stories about being shot in drug busts - she has the scars to prove it - and of going undercover/dressing to impress drug barons in Thai bars. I feebly joked that I was a secret agent working for Her Majesty's Secret Service going by the name James Bond. She took to calling me Mr James! Which, as you can imagine, i liked very much!!
Commando Mina and i travelled together for a few days. There were some nagging questions that needed to be asked about where she gets her money from to be so well travelled throughout SE Asia for a Laos girl (she's been everywhere)... and the $7,000 that sits in her bank. She claimed only to get $50 a month. There was a whiff of corruption in the air. When I gently grilled her over this, she revealed matter-of-factly that the police force actually allows her to sell some of the marijuana seized in drugs busts! Astonishing. Also, Mina told me that she is sometimes given money by gang members! To keep her quiet? She is known to some of them as Madame Mina. Anyway, the upshot of all this was that i got a little paranoid...scared off by her associations. So i sacked her and scarpered north to the capital Vientiane. And that was the last I saw of the commando girl.
Thailand is a very different affair, this much was apparent on crossing the border the other day - there are paved roads, concrete or brick houses rather than shacks on stilts and guesthouses with en suite facilities. Not planning to travel extensively throughout Thailand...it's so modern and commercial compared to its Asian neighbours. Instead, I'm trying something different - hunting a job teaching English and laying down my backpack for a few weeks. Then i'll head down to Bangkok and the beaches of southern Thailand before moving on to Malaysia and Indonesia.
3 Comments:
All that rice? Sounds like when we were students in sunny, sunny Bournemouth.
When are you headed to Sydney mate?
By Jules, at 8:41 AM
What? Another Mina in your life? I'm crushed. AND she has more money and a more interesting life.
Well - see you on the Most Wanted list!
By Mina, at 6:44 PM
Hey, Mark.. Ian gave me the blog address so I can follow your adventures, you lucky dog. Everyone in England drunk today from yesterday's Ashes victory. My Scottish neighbors don't seem to give a shit. Take care, Marco Polo.
By Steve Cameron, at 6:26 PM
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