Pictures from entering Thailand via Malaysia, to just prior to Bangkok
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| Malaysia border to Bangkok |
I met Thierry and Corali again in Bangkok, which was great. A member of the Royal Family had died, and free food was being given out at the Royal Palace. I remember I got REALLY stressed out trying to find my way to meet them, and the car got clamped too, although it was released again when I protested I (obviously) couldn’t read the parking sign.
After BKK, headed fairly fast up to Laos, but I did stop for a night at Ranong. Imagine how fortunate I was to see and hold this dear little kitty, glugging away on its bottle. I’d been given a telling-off earlier in the evening by the hostel people, as this same dear little kitty had been trying to eat my hand and I had introduced it to the ‘kittycopter’ style of play, much to the amusement of the other backpackers. Hostel mum’s daughter had gone and told hostel mum what I was doing and I had been caught red-handed. Then as restitution I had been given the task of giving kittycopter its 2-hourly bottle of milk – it had been abandoned by its mother and adopted by hostel mum. Bliss!
Pictures of Bangkok all the way to the Laos border – the ferry that the car is on is the one across the Mekong to Laos.
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| Thailand – Bangkok to northern Laos border |
I ended up back in Bangkok after nearly 3 weeks in Laos. I’d left Laos on 1 April and the plan had been to drive the 600 kms across Thailand on that day and then stay just outside BKK, before getting to BKK and meeting the shipping people on the morning of 2 April to get the paperwork done. The drive was pretty OK and uneventful, but I have to say I was impressed with the people I met. The Thai customs people at the border had been great, liaising on the phone with Nattie from the shipping company to ensure I got the right temporary import papers. Then, Nattie had called me when I was near Udon Ratchathani, the first big town inside the border, to as me to fax some copies of the import papers. Being an untouristed town, nobody spoke English and I went to a mobile phone shop and got Nattie to speak to them on my phone to direct me to a place with a fax machine. This they did, but then as I was driving away Mr mobile phone shop owner overtook me on his motorbike, motioning me to follow him. He duly led me to the fax place and helped me send the fax, before gesturing ‘is everything OK now?’ and riding off on his bike. Normally I like to get pictures and names of people who help me like this, but with him I didn’t as I was distracted. But, Mr mobile phone shop owner, if you’re reading this then thanks very much and your kindness didn’t go unnoticed.
As if that wasn’t enough, I then stopped at a market for lunch. One stall had BBQ pork; the adjacent one had green curry and rice, so I had BBQ pork with green curry and rice. When I went to pay, I approached the BBQ pork stall first; he looked at the woman on the adjacent stall and they both laughed and said something in Thai. Aha, I thought – I’m going to be ripped off. BBQ pork stall man charged me 50 Baht and then I turned to the woman on the adjacent stall, expecting to be charged the same again. Not a bit of it – she shook her head and gestured at BBQ pork stall man to indicate the 50 Baht was for both. Respect.
This time, I had arranged the shipping of the car well in advance of my getting back to Bangkok so as to avoid the fiasco that happened in Calcutta. The car was stuffed on Thursday 3rd April as planned and off it went to Vladivostok. The whole thing went like clockwork and the shipping people have been excellent. I stayed in for the following weekend and the early part of the week and then headed for Cambodia. Originally, I wanted to see Cambodia AND Vietnam before flying to Russia, but the date of arrival of the car has been brought forward so I now have to fly out from BKK on the night of 22/4 to meet the car in Vladivostok the following day – or at least get the customs clearance thing started. I have only had 17 months to do all these countries and even though I can blame the being stuck in Calcutta for 2 weeks, to be honest even 2 extra weeks wouldn’t be enough. As it is, I have less than 3 months to do Russia, Mongolia and as many of the Stans as I can before returning to Europe in July.
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| Thailand – southern Laos border to Bangkok |
Pang and Dear are a Thai couple I met in BKK bus station whilst waiting for the bus to go to Cambodia. I thought I was hard done by for getting to the bus station at 11 and having to wait till 1.30 for a bus, but they were having to wait till 5 for their bus. They’d bought me cokes and chatted to me, so as usual I took their picture and put them here. Pang and Dear – if you’re reading this – thanks for the cokes….they were just what I needed on a hot day. Hope you had a good Songkran in Udon Rathathani – when you finally got there!
Taka and Di are a pair of Japanese brothers I met on my last (over) night in BKK. I’d met them whilst buying beer in the local 7-11 and a boring evening in Bangkok was averted because i had them to chat to instead.
Natetreeya is the person I dealt with from Seaswift Shipping. Bless her cotton socks, she even gave me a lift to the airport when I was due to catch my flight to Vladivostok.
After the car was safely stuffed away, I then whiled away a few days in Bangkok getting my Russian visas sorted out before heading off to Cambodia to use up some of the time while the car was at sea.
Saw such a bizarre happening on Khao San Road one night, while lingering in BKK. Muay Thai, or Thai boxing as people may know it, is a big thing here. I was sitting in a bar at the front opening onto the street, with my back to the inside. Suddenly I saw a man (Swedish as it turned out) propelled backwards at great speed from the inside of the bar and into the street, where he promptly fell on his back. He then got to his feet and promptly started seeking lessons in Thai boxing from the doorman who had just thrown him out. The doorman kept telling him to go, but as I watched, the Swede started simulating Thai boxing moves on the doorman. Doorman tolerated this for a short time, then made what looked like a small movement with his right arm and poor Swede flew backwards and landed on the pavement for a second time – this time unconscious, with a small cut above his eye. All this was 2 yards from where I happened to be sitting and the usual crowd of onlookers gathered around – some taking pictures and laughing, others trying to help. From what I heard, Swede had been hassling people for some time in the bar before getting thrown out – what he’d been doing/saying exactly I couldn’t work out. An ambulance took Swede away and I thought we’d seen the last of him – but no, 20 minutes later there he was again, this time with a bandage. This time he even started talking to me. Glutton for punishment or what?!
I also went to the cinema a few times in BKK for (almost) the first time in well over a year. I saw No Country For Old Men, The Kite Runner and Vantage Point. This is what you see if you get to the cinema early!
I’ve almost had a change of mind over the past few weeks. I feel somehow frozen in time, as if the increasing numbers on the calendar and the full stop in July, coupled with the diminishing numbers on the bank statement, seem so abstract and unreal. Now I find myself half-wishing I could simply keep going ….seemingly I feel institutionalised into this life. Pints of bitter, full British breakfasts, microlighting, the cats, the flat, my little job at Ealing, the cinema, art galleries…all seem so remote. To say nothing of all the places I could have reached if I had had the time to wait around and see if they would happen, as opposed to doing everything within a time limit. Heck, never mind Thierry – I could have got into Myanmar and Vietnam if I’d just had the time to set things in motion, then sit around and wait while things worked their way out.
