I love it when a plan comes together

I could have showed you a picture of the hot springs but this sign that confused me is great. I could explain why it says "Eggs and Drink". I could.

Last picture in Thailand (Changland), just under the gate to Indo-China

The slow-boat from North Laos. Not all that slow actually. The seats were so uncomfortable that the floor was the better option.

A snippet of the scenery that surrounded us along the way

Luang Prabang, a French/Buddhist town

Check out rule number 3. From our hotel in Chang Mai.

Permpoon, the man that taught us to cook the dishes we will all wow you with.

I'm a "flaming" good cook. Hahaha. No? Well, I tried.

Faces of joy upon receiving our certificates.

Immature but oh so funny. The day I don't stop to to take a picture of a sticker announcing the existence of 'Radio Tits' is a long way off.

Another week, another country - now we are in Laos which so far has proved to be a pretty beautiful place. I suppose when you are the second most sparsely populated country in Asia you can afford to have the occasional bit of jaw-dropping scenery.

The last blog left us in Pak Chong I think. Well from there we found our way up to Chang Mai, courtesy of a 3 hour train ride. Followed by a 13 hour, overnight train ride. It just doesn't seem like you're going anywhere these days unless it takes at least 8 hours... (Actually I've just re-read my last blog and I did already mention that. Well in case you weren't concentrating the first time there it is again).

So, Chang Mai. It was meant to be the chilled out antidote to a few days of cheeky Chang consumption in Bangkok. Who knew that the hotel we checked into was going to be selling large bottles of Chang for 40 Baht? It wasn't our fault, the Chang made us do it! The prime example of this excuse is that Nick decided to get in the ring with a Muay Thai boxer. (Kind of like Kickboxing, or as the Thai's say, "same same but different"). The result wasn't pretty. Very, very funny but not pretty. 

To be fair the Thai boxer did let Nick charge at him around the ring for two rounds until he decided enough was enough. (or in Swiss "a monkey is a monkey" - I don't know why either). When that fateful time came, Nick went to get in close in response to the drunken cries of "GO FOR THE UPPERCUT!", and the Thai guy swiftly lifted his knee squarely and accurately into Nick's ribcage. To his credit, Nick did get up after the first tonking but was swiftly sent back down with another, this time more decisive knee. 

That was game, set and match. Very strong painkillers, perhaps some kind of mysteriously strong Thai horse tranquilizers have since been relieving the possibly cracked ribs of aforementioned Chang fiend. Moral of the story: Thailand is a silly place that makes you do silly things on an alarmingly regular basis and we are better off for the sake of our physical and mental well being, in Laos.

But Chang Mai did provide us with plenty of entertainment that didn't involve watching Nick get kicked in the head too. We learnt Thai cookery, we can now all honestly say that we can whip up a mean Pad Thai Noodles. Or perhaps you would like to try our green curry or we could even crack out some spring rolls? Then, on another day I realised that Team Canada, as we are sometimes collectively known had become the A-team. This realisation came when I had rented a scooter for the day and rode about 40km out of Chang Mai to see the Hot Springs. There I met some Hawaiians who were there on holiday with there mother, who was Thai, and by coincidence had a brother-in-law born in Southampton. 

Anyway, I digress, "why the A-team?" I hear you cry. Well, I'm there on my own and have explained why I have a Canada patch sewn on my bag, and they ask where the rest of Team Canada is today. So I tell them, one is jungle trekking for a couple of days (Laura) one is rock climbing (Tom) and the other is having an easy day because he is too doped up on painkillers after Chang made him get hurt in a Muay Thai ring. As the words were coming out of my mouth I realised this must make us sound like the most action-packed set of backpackers ever. I liked this.

Now we are in Laos and it is a calming place, the anti-Thailand if you like. Not that we didn't have a great few weeks in Changland but sometimes you just need to be taken away from temptation. The day after crossing the border into Laos we took a 2-day boat ride down the Mekong river from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, where we currently preside. There was a stop off along the way in a town called Pak Beng so it wasn't 2 days solidly on a boat but still, travel in Laos is not the fastest known to man. Not that it mattered because for 2 days we were surrounded by some of the greatest landscapes I have seen anywhere. You could be looking at it all, maybe read your book for two minutes, then look up again and there would be a whole new postcard-perfect view to gawp at. At the end of two days, many arses were utterly numb, but it was definitely worth it. And besides, the other option to get to Luang Prabang offered was a speed boat trip which was not exactly recommended by our guide book: "Fatalities are not uncommon". Hmmm.

With all the photos and all that I've just written, I imagine a good many of you have skipped to this penultimate paragraph by now. I would have. But if you managed to hack your way through, I applaud you. Few people would show such dedication to such a worthless cause.

Until the next installment of our adventures, I have been Hannibal, Murdoch was played by Laura, the part of B.A. Barracus was aptly acted by Tom and Face was brought to life by Nick. Paul was one of the poor landowners that the A-team used to help fight against some mafia lowlife or drug dealing pimp.

Step away from the Chang

Downtown Bangkok

Having a hookah in an amazing bar in Bangkok called Gazebo. Strawberry shisha - tasted so good it must almost have been healthy


Khao Yai National Park

Look closely at the biggest, scariest looking bastard of a spider I have ever seen. This is the female, the male was also on the web near it and he was about 1/20th of the size, the poor guy.

A big millipede. Kind of tickles when you let it crawl up your arm

If we didn't have a guide we would probably have been utterly lost

The waterfall from the film The Beach. Not a bad place to go for a swim

Just your everyday roadside elephant

A video of the first wild elephant I've ever seen. (Normally, I upload videos through youtube but in Thailand that isn't possible as youtube is banned for showing derogatory images of the King. They like their King a lot. I haven't met him personally but he looks friendly enough...)

We're now in Chang Mai, Northern Thailand having spent a collective 16 hours on trains yesterday and this morning. A 3 hour train out of Pak Chong followed by a 13 hour journey North to Chang Mai. I really needed a shower by the time we got here. Ripe.

Bangkok was fun, almost too much fun, we could have stayed there longer and become full-time alcoholics if we'd wanted to. Luckily we recognised our weakness for a cheeky Chang or four and hotfooted it out of there in time. We are now all the proud owners of Thai Fisherman pants. They are amazing, like really baggy trousers that you could really only get away with wearing over here, kind of like the khaftan I bought at Glastonbury and only ever wear at Glastonbury because it looks like something Jesus might have found de rigeur.

We also went to see the lucky Buddha and a giant Buddha, all part of a cunning ploy by our tuk tuk drivers to take us to a tailors afterwards where, they hope, we will all buy suits (because I obviously need one for backpacking) and they will get a nice commission for taking us naive travellers there. Well I don't own a suit and the owner of the shop was less than amused as we played along, walked round the shop once and staunchly refused to buy anything. We also saw the Grand Palace although I don't have any photos of it because my camera battery decided that was the day it was going to die. Always happens at the most convenient time.

As hinted at earlier we may have had one or two nights out while in Bangkok. "Highlights" in a nutshell were Nick and Laura nearly getting arrested as part of a scam by a large bar to con more money out of backpackers/tourists. Having a beer on a rocking horse outside our hotel would be up there too, as was finding the bar called Gazebo, having a strawberry hookah whilst watching a live band for a couple of hours.

The day we left for Pak Chong I awoke a touch the worse for wear. Luckily the journey to Pak Chong wasn't too taxing and once we were there we were politely kidnapped by a guesthouse that could also offer us a guided tour of Khao Yai National Park the next day. When I say politely kidnapped, we didn't really know what was going on other than we had been shown a leaflet of a nice looking hotel, said that we would like to go there and so a 4WD taxi is called and turns up. 

Only when we get there the guesthouse looks suspiciously different to the one we were shown. But, as far as kidnappings tend to go, this one worked out fine and our tourguide, Jeep was excellent. We saw monkeys, gibbons, spiders, birds, an elephant, lots of weird bugs and exotic flowers and plants. We even met the now grey-haired man who had killed two tigers that had each killed a couple of people 20ish years ago. He waved a revolver at us that would have made Dirty Harry proud. Did he ask the tiger if it could remember if he had fired five bullets or six? I hope so.

Paint me green and call me Humphrey

How could we not have a good night with all that neon green paint? We also had it all over our backs. It was partly meant to help us find each other easier when drunk, but cheap Thai whisky is a powerful enemy.

Having never ridden anything like a motorbike or scooter in my life, a random island with many a sketchy road seemed like a great place to rent a bike. If 3 children can bomb along on one, then surely a backpacker can...

Sometimes we're just a blur of frenzied activity

Tributes to the lucky Buddha in Bangkok.

Ko Sahn road (probably spelt wrong), near where we're staying

Before I start I would like to make an apology for some of the past few blogs. It has been noticed that there was an increasing air of smugness, the kind of which could get a man lynched on his return home. So I'll tone it down a smidge in the hope that I don't drive away readers by making them all want to come out here too, thereby negating any reason to read my blog. If no-one was reading this, would it present the same problem as the question 'if a tree falls and no-one is around to hear it, does it really make a sound?'

Obscure ramblings aside, we've made it to Bangkok! Needless to say, we went out on our first night for a few cheeky Changs (Thai beer, which amazingly can be anywhere between 3 and 12% because of the way it is made. So the 6% on the bottle is just a rough guess. Brilliant!) which may be why a few of us are feeling a little fuzzy today. We're back on the mainland after a good couple of weeks on beachy islands, namely the Perenthians in Malaysia and Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Tao off the coast of Thailand. We all kind of felt the urge to be somewhere where you can't just pass most of the day sitting in a hammock reading/sleeping (as expertly demonstrated by Nick above) and get a bit more pro-active again.

Some of the time on Ko Pha Ngan was enforced lazing to be fair, having been to the Full Moon Party required at least a day recovery time for all involved. My personal experience of said party finishes in my memory a few hours before it actually did; I have a bit of blank patch that starts somewhere around 1am I reckon. Being woken up on the beach was the first thing I knew about having fallen asleep, still clothed, luckily not robbed. When I was woken several things confused me. 1) It was daylight, the last thing I remembered it had been dark. 2) I didn't remember falling asleep so waking up seemed a bit odd 3) I was still very drunk 4) There was a guy in the Borat body thong (you'll know what it looks like if you know what it looks like: hideous) wandering about. 5) The blank in my memory.

I'm sure that wasn't all that confused me but you get the idea. When we all got together the next day, everyone had their own little story to tell, but I'll leave them up to the individuals in question to regail you as it would take forever to tell them all here. Also, we played A LOT of scrabble the day after. Maybe because it was the only board game the guesthouse had but it was still somehow soothing when coupled with lying around on small Thai sofa thingies in gradual recovery.

So at the moment we are riding tuk-tuks round Bangkok. Yesterday we managed to get all 6 of us in one. There are currently 6 of us as we've picked up another couple of English guys, Paul and Chris, I should know where they're from by now but I've forgotten. Either way, it's good to be back in a city briefly before we head up towards Chang Mai and then on towards the Laos border. I'm also starting to get an idea together of when I might be back. 

Money allowing, when we all split at the end of July/ start of August, I'm probably going to have a go at getting to Dehli overland through China, Tibet and Nepal. How much of that will be overland I'm not sure but it should mean me reaching Dehli sometime in September and possibly flying back from there. But who knows, I may end up joining a traveling group of ladyboys in the next couple of days and seeing the world that way...

Scones, Cream Tea and Monkeys

"Tea and scones old chap? Splendid idea old fruit. All rather civilised what what?"

"My God Cecil, there seems to be a lot of monkeys in those trees, I'll fetch my rifle"

Perenthian Islands, Malaysia. Pulau Kecil.

Sweets with a comical name. Always a classic.

Sunset on Ko Pha Ngan

Why does cross dressing come so naturally to us these days? Lesser men would be worried.

Feeling self satisfied about having not been ill so far is always a dangerous game to play. You're just tempting fate, almost willing it to try and make a dent on your health. Well, that is the foolish game I played and have been rightly repayed with an infection of the intestines, how's that for a good smiting? A bit over the top if you ask me but then maybe it's my dose of the Australian curse we received in Uluru as well.

Anyway, as you see from the top photo we've been living the high life, like all good Englishmen (and Canadian ladies) should. Ridiculously over-priced tea and scones at the top of a hill over looking Penang, just like the "good" old days when the colonial rulers would sit high above all the peasants below and wonder which plot of land to buy next. Splendid.

The reason we donned ladies clothes (again) was that we are now on Ko Pha Ngan in Thailand and while we were at the beach yesterday were told of a cross-dressing pool party. Possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity, and a good excuse to make tits of ourselves, how could we say no? Although, when we got there, there was in fact hardly anyone at the party or it was closed or something. Either way we carried on to Haad Rin, the party beach and turned up as a group of about 12 male and female crossdressers, greeted by the stares of lots of those stern traditionalists who choose to dress in clothes of their own gender.

Right, that's your lot for now, I need to finish on t'internet, I've been leaking money the last couple of days like a rusty bucket. With lots of holes in. Which leaves me no time to shed light on some of the disgraceful stories of events that have occurred over the past week, but hey maybe one day you can buy me a pint and I'll keep you entertained with stories of other people's alcohol induced misfortune...

Almost 6 months

Above is a map of the world. Click on it and take a gander at the distance we've covered so far. It's a lot. Especially when you consider that Australia is like a normal country but stretched like plasticine to about 10 times the size it needs to be. Which means it takes ages to get anywhere. 

Still, I think someone said that the getting there is the best part of travelling. Obviously they hadn't spent 12 hours on an overnight Greyhound coach from Sydney to Melbourne but there you go. I'm sure they were just trying to be profound.

Return to Asia

He made it!

Sir Thomas Stanford Bingley Raffles surveys Singapore. I wish I was called Sir Thomas Stanford Bingley Raffles

Joy Juice. Leaves itself open to all kinds of innuendo but I'm not that crude, obviously

Laura makes us sew bags together and sells them to rich tourists. Or here's us sewing Canada patches on our bags

Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil

Quite simply, a massive beetle

The Cameron Highlands

Just before we left Australia, a Didgeridoo guy plays four at once at the night market in Darwin

So, it's been a while since we began in Malaysia, almost six months ago but we are back with a vengeance. We've had a few days in Singapore, where we picked up some fresh meat, Tom and Laura. Now we're back in Malaysia on our way North to Thailand in time for the Full Moon Party in Ko Pha Ngan on June 1st. That promises to be a fun night...

So, at the moment we are in an area called the Cameron Highlands, famous for acre upon acre of tea fields. You can go to one of the tea plantations and eat tea and scones, how rather awfully lovely. Talking of eating, now we're back in Asia I can eat like a king again! The good old British pound and un-balanced world economics ensure that I can get a massive noodle soup or curry for less than a pound. Sweet.

Nick's more or less recovered from the vomiting curse now, he is still wary of what can happen if you upset them though. Let that be a lesson to all.

While in a city called Malacca a couple of days ago we went fishing at a local commercial fishing pond, which was a new experience for me. Firstly because I've never done much fishing. Secondly because at 6pm they release a load of fish into a massive pond and then it's kind of a race to catch them because there are only so many in there. I say race, although that implies speed, and this lasted about 3 hours. In which time the local guys next to us caught all our fish. I blame the bait. Or the weather conditions. Or the fish.

Also, back on food, had a meal in a restaurant called Capitol Satay, where you choose a selection of different skewered foods and then dip and cook them in a massive vat of boiling satay sauce in the middle of the table. There was such a variety of skewered stuff that I couldn't even tell you half the stuff I put in my mouth but I could tell you that it tasted good.

Next we're heading for Penang, then the Perenthian Islands off the North-East coast of Malaysia as we have decided that Tom is so pale that it scares little children. ('Do they have sun in England mummy?') The Perenthians are your standard, run of the mill tropical islands with white sandy beaches so we'll bum around there for a few days I should think, maybe do some snorkelling if such a whim takes us.

Nick finally gets herpes

Australia wouldn't have been complete without it really

Every now and then Nick got a bit delirious, he might have just thought this was another fun ride at Movieworld on the Gold Coast.

Ok, firstly this blog might not come out right because everything is in Japanese and I am going on memory as to what each button does. 

Either way, we've finished Australia with what some might call a logical conclusion after just over a month of partying our way up the East coast. From the pictures you will see Nick ended up in hospital! Unfortunately it wasn't herpes as the title may have led you to believe, that would have been much too funny. Instead, it was a rather powerful case of food poisoning that meant Nick hurling up just about everything in his body and a midnight trip to Darwin A&E. 

We have decided that it was probably some dodgy bread that we requisitioned from our trip to Ayers Rock as shortly after eating some of it and noticing that it tasted a bit odd, Nick then spotted some yellow mould on the next few slices. The wise man says: Only thing worse than finding a worm in your apple is finding half a worm. 

As we waited in the reception of our hostel with Nick slumped on the floor most people naturally assumed he'd had one too many, I put them right the first couple of times but after that it seemed easier to let them look at him disdainfully. He doesn't remember much of this anyway. So, after a course of drip treatment and all kinds of injections, Nick was discharged at about 7.30am and given a bus ticket by a helpful German doctor and is now on the road to recovery with a week's worth of antibiotics. 

So, the lesson here is not to take inappropriate pictures at Uluru or you will anger the gods. So far all that's happened to me is I lost some deodorant, which is mildly irritating but not worthy of hospitalisation. We didn't even climb the rock, who knows what would have happened if we had. (They strongly advise you not to as it is sacred to the indigenous people and so deemed disrespectful. Yet at the same time a handrail is provided to anyone who does want to climb.)