Updating this blog from such wide spread moments is my own demise and i should do it more regularly in order to keep these thoughts i have current but they seem to be eluding me from hour to hour these days.
I have decided that a multi part saga does this more justice, and so with that i will throw into it...
im sitting in a Taiwanese airport currently with the time being half 1 in the morning and a small voice in the back of my head telling me to go and lie down but i fear my baggage will disappear as i drift off to dreamland and my conscious grasp upon the human race not being slaves to the dollar has all but been nullified as of recently so i grasp my luggage closely.
To be fair, I dropped in on Thailand recently with a small excursion to Cambodia, and as rough as Cambodia's infrastructure came across with pebbled streets and sandy main highways, the hospitality was wonderful. As far as Thailand goes i think a more assertive hand is needed when haggling with taxi prices, and looking like a tourist wins you no favors in location like this one.... in Phuket it got slightly better.
I will begin by saying i got off the plane and met Naiyer in Bangkok airport. Two intrepid travellers with very particular desires met and the journey began. We were shown to our first taxi and were delivered to our first address......
this is going well we thought, "hello" we greeted the hotel staff "do you have our reservation?" we enquired... with blank stares, we were responded with.... apparently they didnt know we were coming - "we cant find your reservation". After much confused deliberation and our reservation found, we were shown to our room..... with geckos crawling on the walls, out of cracks from the straining structure, the bed looked to inviting to dwell on this moment for long enough to worry about and our head hit the hay almost immediately.... nothing was waking me except for a tiny buzzing noise, like a nose clipper going off in you ear routinely, fixed with a makeshift tent under the covers!
First day there we ventured to the MBK shopping mall, things were bought and things were bargained but i dont think this was the area to be throwing your weight around when it came to haggling...
now day two was a different story with us heading to the JJ? shopping district. The heat beat down on us as we arrived before 8 and we knew it was possibly going to be a long day. Naiyer left me amongst the locals to go find food and not long after she left 8am arrived and some announcement came over the speakers - everyone stood still and upright? What the hell is going on i thought as i continued to sit amongst them all. The national anthem came over the speakers and everyone bowed there heads as it played. It was airy how the hustle and bustle of this market just halted, and you could hear nothing but the sound of a strung cat over the speakers, like a public service announcement to the members of some old German concentration camp. Naiyer return with a very puzzled look upon her face and asked "whats going on?" to which i could only reply "i have no idea" and as soon as it had begun normality returned and the locals went back to ripping each other off.
Naiyer went and did her "girl thing" and shopped (for me mostly) while i spent a good few hours watching a blind group set up a stage for a production, i later on found out that they were giving the show... i was sitting near the stage and held my breath most of the time as i have heard they have a freaky sixth sense when it comes to hearing..... i guess being blind it just makes it a fifth sense that is kinda freaky.
Anyway one of the guys setting up lost his amplifier button and i picked it up, i helped him find it and thought yay thats my good deed for the day as two other band members came fondling one another from around the corner. With the girls top half off and open i thought this was a good time to start breathing again and i drew deep breaths as i stumbled off for a meal of spicy roast duck.... in hindsight i now realise a heavy breathing slow moving character, probably wasn't the smoothest departure one could make for a slightly disheveled held girl in public..... oh well we left and Naiyer and I met again to ride a meter operated taxi home.... (far and few of these found).
Now my days get a little hazy here so im just going to point out high points i can recall - it doesn't help that it is half two in the morning either.
Right next stop a tour to the floating markets
but not before we are almost crushed by several tonnes of moving iron. We begun the day by meeting our guide named Nina who took us to a market that involved a slow moving train running along the track (which was also the walkway) that we had to scuttle (along with hundreds of others) out of the way, as it passed within centimeters of the products being sold,
as i am pulled off the tracks by one of the store owners as the train approaches i wonder who pays for this kind of a tour - fly covered food and a near death experience, im sure this is booked up for months in advance!
After the train track dance we head toward a drowning destiny (or so i thought) but instead i was quite pleasantly surprised.
You enter a boat the reminds me of something you might ride in Venice but instead of a stick on the bottom to push it along it is motorised and propelled and after we exit the chaos of bumper to bumper boats initially it was extremely peaceful riding the water at a slow pace passing the shop owners and low hanging mangroves as we ventured further and further away from the markets.
Right that over with i was rather happy with myself, i had dodged a train and not drowned at the floating markets - whats next Naiyer? "Lets ride an elephant and go swimming with it?.............. why not?"
We turned up and were greeted by "Full Moon" which apparently was one of the nicest elephants there, before boarding the huge vessel (can you call an elephant a huge vessel?), we fed her. The trunk was so huge and leathery as it fondled about our feet looking for bananas to scoop up and eat... not single bananas but bunches at a time and devouring them was like inhaling them. 7 bananas at a time gone in the blink of an eye. we hopped on the huge animal and it slowly moved down hill to the water.... ok Kane a certain death you're looking at now, if its not squished by a train or downed falling out of a boat then its going to be crushed by this elephant. We went down to the water and the big fulla(ress) took us in... we were asked if we wanted to go under and just at that point two big piles of animal dung pass us by we yelled out yes but just let them pass as the guide jabs me in the back then laughs and motions for me to look behind.
Arrrrgghhh feces river! Im going to be swimming in feces river! Just then the elephant attempts to throw us off - well Naiyer puts up a good effort but i pull her in with me.
We splash and play with this gentle beast as many tourist pass us by mostly staring and wondering the simple question of why, then we return to the hotel. Today i played with an elephant i thought, wow, today i played with an elephant - ten years ago i didnt envision that.
We decided that if crocodile wasn't on the menu then watching them perform was more in order. We went to a crocodile farm where a plucked chicken strung to a long pole greeted us and we hung it perilously over the edge while snapping teeth attempted to not only eat the chicken but pull hard enough that we might follow the same fate.
The crocodiles performed and i never thought i would see a show that would make me nervous until the bloke stuck his head between the jaws of this prehistoric bone carving machine...... take your head out, take your head out you egg, i do not want to be witness to and chewed up version of you... This is NOT the story im returning home with, ohh look over there a dog in the lion cage, what a tough doooo, whats the dog doing? The dogs having sex with a lion? Crush his head! EAT HIM CROCODILE, EAT HIM!!!!!
The next day we left for Cambodia. The taxi was an interesting way to choose to travel but the buses we found out were fully booked on arrival to Thailand. At the border 4 or 5 hours later dusk had started to set upon us and it gave the beaten path an even more eerie feeling. We crossed the border departing from our ride not knowing what we were going to. We were helped at the border crossing a young man who looked like he had starred in one of the Indian Jones films as a kid, and now had grown up. Crossing the border for lack of a better word was slightly disturbing. I thought i was prepared for most of it and that i had seen it all but i hadnt seen it all and at that time of the night all things looked much worse. Children lying on the ground covered in flies begging for money while other children surround you screaming "excuse me mister, excuse me mister, have you got a dollar" quickly sent running by our friendly fellow who would soon after ask me to check my pockets and reassure himself that im ok. About three check points later and we find ourselves on a bus with 6 other locals and a promise of transportation several hours from the border, all in broken English. The locals disappeared from the bus one by one, and Naiyer and i looked one another with a shared feeling of "wolf creek" echoing through both our minds. Unsure of our ability to secure our destination in there was a sense of panic that i have no problem admitting to. We got there eventually arriving in our rusty old Honda accord. The tuk tuks had changed form and the roads had become much worse there was a feeling in the air that had me holding my passport tightly, but everyone we had encountered had been lovely to us so far.
I love your photos, Kane! nice story :D
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