OK, blog
fans! Lets rock this party like its July 2015!!
Woooo!!!!
So we came
from Siem Reap in Cambodia, into Bangkok. Then hitting up northern Thailand for
a couple weeks, before we cross into Laos. We gotta get our arses into gear now
blog fans! :/ Zoooop! Keep your shorts tight for this!
SO! We
crossed into Thailand by bus, and if you read my last blog, you would know I
was feeling pretty sh*t stains in Cambodia at that time... Cat and I weren’t
able to get a seat next to each other on the coach, so I had to sit next to some
massive guy with a ponytail. He took up his whole seat... plus half of mine...
So I had half a cheek on my chair, looking like a shrivelled little worm... On
top of that, my sinusitis was in major evacuation mode. I went through a whole
toilet roll, and coughed my guts up across the border. Two girls were sitting
next to me, looking like I had just brought MERS to town... Wasn’t in a good
mood... We got to Bangkok at night, and had a bit of chicken from a street food
stall. It was more or less the first thing I had eaten, as I was recovering
from chronic diarrhea... Well, I HOPED I was recovering blog fans! Because the
next morning, we PLANNED on going to the Grand Palace... but instead, the only
throne I got to see, was my bloody shitty hostel toilet seat! Was well
annoyed!! I really wanted to get out, but I wasn’t able to leave the toilet for
5 minutes!... Roughly 48 times I went... I don’t think I’ve had diarrhea like
that since I was in Croatia in 2011. So that was a pretty “SHITTY” way to start
our Thailand trip... After my 49th visit to the toilet, and 4 pills,
I braved the outside world. We didn’t have enough time to justify the Royal
Palaces entrance fee now. So we paid a visit to Wat Pho instead. That was a
really beautiful area. It had the famous reclining Buddha there, and was
surrounded by really nice golden shrines. As everywhere in Asia seems to be...
It actually managed to cheer me up, and i felt goood :)
After that,
Cat wanted to get a bus to the MBK shopping centre. We definitely don’t need to
buy any more stuff blog fans, but according to Cat, its “a must see part of Bangkok
anyway”. We walked through a park to a bus station and waited for our bus. Our
bus number was marked on the bus stop, so we were sure it was stopping here...
It never came... We must of waited AT LEAST an hour, and nothing... We just sat
there, watching in hope... as every other bus was running more regular than my
bowl movements... Typical. We walked to another bus stop, nothing... So then we
decided to walk back to where we were able to see the sunset by Wat Arun. Which
is also known as “The Temple of Dawn”. So it was kinda a blessing in disguise
seeing that at sunset. We FINALLY got a bus to the MBK. But Cat was kind of
stressing, as we were arriving as the shops were shutting... Didn’t bother
me... By this time I decided to brave a chicken nugget meal from Burger King,
to see if my stomach could handle it... We wondered around the closed shops
regardless. Walked through arcades, then to the cinema area to watch trailers
of movies that we had no idea were even being made... Then, the trailer for
Jurassic World came on... It looked so sick, we decided to spontaneously go to
the ticket booth to see if it was on... We were in luck :) So we watched that, and
the evening panned out pretty well in the end.
The next
morning we got up to visit the worlds biggest market... Cat finally got her
shopping fix. Ironically I saw a pretty sick shop as soon as I came out the
train station, and bought 3 t-shirts :/ Bit excessive I know... I definitely
didn’t need 3 new t-shirts, but what I DID need, was a pair of cheap jeans...
We also made plans to go to Banyan Tree hotel for drinks that night. Banyan
Tree is voted the best roof top bar in Bangkok, and one of the best in the
world. Even better than the one from Hangover 2 apparently... So I needed the
jeans to meet dress code standards... Luckily I managed to find a pair that was
decent, cheap, and fit me... So we headed off to the bar... Just to give you an
idea of the cheapness of the market, and the prices of the drinks we were
paying at this bar... My jeans were cheaper than ONE, SMALL Chang Beer :/
Psssht! But when we got there, the views were AMAZING. We were so high up, and
there was literally nothing to obscure our 360 degree view. We got there just
in time, before the last seat was taken too. We looked around, and even though
we made a decent effort, it kinda felt like we were two ragamuffins who snuck
in through the back doors of an Oscar winning after party or something. We got
speaking to a Swedish guy sitting next to us. He was with his girlfriend, who
looked super beautiful, and super high maintenance... She wasn’t too impressed
he started to speak to us... But he was pretty cool. He built home cinemas for
mega rich people, and was obviously well off. He still seemed super jealous,
and super impressed of our commitment to travel for the past couple of years as
well though. His girlfriend got up and left us at one point. He was tempted to
come to the dirty part of Bangkok to carry on drinking with us, but it was his
last night in Thailand, so I suggested he should probably spend it with his
lady lol. After we finished our small beers veerrry slowly, we wlaked around
the other parts of the roof, and took photos that didn’t do the view or
atmosphere any justice. We also walked through the restaurant area. And if we
thought the people around the bar were posh, these guys took the biscuit. Some
of the women there looked like the type that would be pissed off if their
olives weren’t picked off a vine that grew out of Hugh Grants bum hole... “Oh
Margaret! I do believe this silly waiter brought me a peanut marinated in
unicorn tears, instead of angel tears, as I clearly stated! I shall call the
police immediately!”
That was our
last action of Bangkok, part 1 blog fans... We only had 3 nights there, knowing
we would be back soon... We were heading up north to Sukhothai next. I spent the previous night researching
hostels, writing down prices, addresses, and phone numbers. Then, when we got
to the bus station in Sukhothai, there was a guy advertising his hostel that
was better than the rest. So we just went with him... Typical... We weren’t in
Sukhothai long. The main draw there was the old temples in the old town... Coz
obviously me and Cat haven’t had enough of temples yet(!) After 3 days at
Angkor Watt, last week... But we were able to cycle around these ones, go
around town, and stuff... So that was a nice change I guess...
Then we
swiftly moved on to Chiang Mai. I was excited about this place :) We got a
random message from Lena (girl from Birmingham, who beat me at beer pong and
made me puke), who also arrived in Chiang Mai the same day as us. We went for
food and a few drinks, then wondered around the night market. Had a really good
buzzing atmosphere there... We wondered around a bit more, and got offered to
come in to watch some Thai Boxing. The guy offered entry at a quarter of the
advertised price, so we went in... After barging my wall through all the ladyboys
tying to get me to their bar... We got to the ring, front row seats, and
managed to watch several mediocre fights. We even saw a blindfolded fight, that
was a bit like the one Karl Pilkington did :p So that was funny... We didn’t
get too drunk that night though, as the next day we had ELEPHANTS!! :D This was
definitely a bucket list thing to do for me... We rode elephants before in
Bali. But this was different. They advertise it as “elephant training”. You
ride the elephant bare back, and control them yourselves with only words, and
wiggling their ears. You get to feed them, and learn 10 commands. Our guide was
pretty funny. He confessed that he thought he had the day off, and got really
wasted the night before. So he was seriously hanging balls... Seemed like my
kinda guy. He loved me too for some reason. He was always shouting “Mr Rob! Mr
Rob! Watch this! Mr Rob, come look!” Guess im just a lovable guy blog fans :p
The main draw for me with the elephants, was the washing and water fighting :)
Its something Ive seen a lot from other tourist photos, and it always looked so
cool. We all went to the lakes and the elephants looked genuinely happy, and
smiling to be washed and splashed. Was a really cool moment. As all this was
going on, there was another elephant from a rival tour company watching us from
the banks. Apparently this one hated people, and had recently thrown a Chinese
tourist off his back, and fatally stamped him to death :/ Our guides had to get
the biggest elephant in our group, Magnum, to protect us lol. Was pretty
wild....
After all
that excitement, we continued the pace, by heading out to a ladyboy show with
Lena that night... I wasn’t too overly excited about this... Obviously I was a
bit sceptical... I was expecting it to be really crude, lots of penises, sex
jokes, and... gayness lol. Im not homophobic by any means, and I was happy to
go along. But I was expecting a lot of awkward moments of men in drag, touching
me up, and trying to kiss me... So we went in, sat down, and then a man in drag
touched me up, and kissed me LOL! Wasn’t expecting that was I blog fans(!)
After Cat and I got a selfie with him, and we tipped him, he left us alone a
bit more... Just stroking my chin, or jiggling my tits as he walked past...But
honestly, all that aside, the show was REALLY GOOD! Its all cabaret, miming gay
anthems, with Thai, male, Tina Turner look-a-likes, lipsinking, and doing jazz
hands. But they were all really good performers... It made everyone laugh, feel
good, and turned everyone there COMPLETELY GAY... (and by “gay” I mean happy)
:D
The night
didn’t end there though blog fans. We moved on to a rock bar, where they had a
band covering Nirvana, Guns N Roses, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC... So that was
awesome... We got a beer tower, got a bit more drunk, then moved on to “Zoe in
Yellow”. Which was a weird little area, full of bars, and drunken backpackers.
Felt like we were in Zante or something for a minute. But it was cool. We had a
few more drinks, danced, and said bye to Lena, who was moving on...
NOW... This
is where it gets controversial blog fans... The next day, we were planning on
going to TIGER KINGDOM!... DUM DUM DARRRR.... The place that so many people
have divided opinions on. Arguing that its either the greatest place in the
world, or an animal torture house, full of drugged up cubs... This is where I
stand on it blog fans... I’ve always been annoyed by the tourists taking cheesy
photos of wild animals, and exploiting them for that “one special profile pic”
shot... On the other hand, Im also a bit annoyed by the people who so
confidently blast “OH THEY’RE DEFINITLEY DRUGGED”. Like they’re animal
behaviour experts or something... I always live my life with the philosophy
that “Idiots think they know everything. Whilst smart people know, they know
nothing at all”. And as Cat LOVES tigers, and i’ll never have the chance to do
this again, we decided to go... I figured, if I think its cruel, my reviews to
my MILLIONS of blog fans, will do more damage, than my measly entrance fee
contributes... Anyway, when we arrived to Tiger Kingdom, we had several choices
of packages we could pay for. Categorizing them by “Big, Medium, Small, or
Smallest”. You also get the choice of seeing 2, or 3, or all of them. I said to
Cat, I wouldn’t mind seeing the smallest ones. Maybe they would be like little
kittens to play with. Cat really wanted to see the biggest one, as she seems to
get a boner over the sheer size of them... So we went to pay for the Big and
Smallest package... But there was a problem... They had a little theme park
style measuring wall, and Cat was TOO SMALL to see the big tigers! :D Mega lolz
blog fans haha... So we settled on seeing medium and smallest instead. As we
walked round, waiting for our number to be called out for the cage entry, we
saw lots of big tigers, playing with their trainers. On first impression, they
didn’t seem sedated, or depressed. The trainer had leaves on the end of a
stick, and he was waving it around for the tigers to pounce on... Just like a
domestic cat... Other, bigger tigers we saw were the same. There were trainers
in there, tigers playing with leaves, in water, all seemed fine to me... Then
me and Cat had our numbers called out. We went into the play pen area of the
medium sized tigers, that were still pretty bloody big! There was 3 of them,
lying in the shade, resting... Then one starting playing near us... Kinda
scary... We were told to approach them from behind, stroke firmly, don’t be
scared... We asked them a few questions... Louis Theroux style lol...
“They sleepy
now?”
“Yes. Rest
in day. Play at 6 oclock”
“They
friendly?”
“Yes... Only
boy tigers here... Females more dangerous”
Everything
they said seemed feasible and made a lot of sense... We left the medium sized tigers with a few
good photos, and heading off to see the “smallest” ones... The smallest ones
were actually a lot bigger than i imagined... I pictured kitten you could pick
up, but in reality, they were the size of a big dog... But, as I approached the
play pen for these little ones blog fans, I didn’t seem as convinced as I did
before. There was a LOT more high demand for pics from tourists here, and we
were going in and out like a chicken factory... When we went in, a keeper
introduced us to one, who was completely konked out on the floor. He told me to
stroke it, lift its paw up to feel the weight... But to be honest, I just
wanted to let the poor bastard sleep lol. He took us to a few others, said we
could lay next to them and stuff. We did it pretty discretely, then let them
be. After that I was kinda feeling a little bit bad for them... If I had to
conclude my personal opinion on the place, I would still say I don’t think they
are drugged... I think the worst thing going on here is sleep deprivation lol.
Which is pretty bad for a tiger cub, who grows so fast and needs his sleep... So
im not gonna throw fuel on the fire, and jump on the druggy bandwagon... All in
all, I don’t think this is a bad place... Ive been to the Steve Irwin zoo in
Australia, and seen a zookeeper swim and play with 2 big tigers there. No one
battered an eyelid at that. Ive also been to a zoo in Argentina that was
TERRIBLE! And I think that MAYBE people are a bit racist, and I like to assume
Asians tend to be more cruel to animals, and therefore must have really bad
zoos. Where other countries / continents don’t get that rep... I know its not
ideal. No “zoo” is ideal... Im a pretty left wing kinda guy... But, you know,
most wild animals are not exactly living an ideal life right now either. And I
think this place generally does a good job raising them, keeping them healthy
and happy... I just think maybe the little ones should get more undisturbed
sleep lol.
ANYWAY... Enough
of that... After Tiger Kingdom, we got a scooter and drove up a hill in a
national park to see more temples... We were going cold turkey... Had been at
least 3 days without a temple by then lol... We then went to a market, ate, and
looked around the stalls. There was also a free concert going on in town. Some
sort of celebration of South-East Asian culture. Theres always something going
on in the evenings, in Chiang Mai. Its so cool... Saying that though, we had
another action packed day the following morning... We got to cross off something
that been on Cats bucket list for a long time... “ATV and White Water Rafting”
:) ATV, meaning, “All Terrain Vehicle” aka... a quad bike lol... Cat loves
driving quad bikes. We shared one bike to save money. But as she doesn’t have a
licence to drive real cars, and she cant drive the scooters whenever we hire
them, I let her drive 75% of the time. They took us on an awesome route, and
had a decent amount of time on it too. After that, we had lunch, and got
straight into white water rafting. This is one of those things ive never really
thought about doing, or been bothered about. But knew I would like it once im
there. We shared a boat with a guide and 2 Irish girls, and it was SCARY! We
all had to work hard together, paddling, and listening to instructions... We
went down the first rapid or two, then Cat went OVER BOARD :0 I saw her fly off,
and under the choppy waters, and I was like “So... Cats dead”. Luckily, the
instructor, who didn’t seem too shocked or flustered pulled her back in
quickly... I was expecting a bone to be protruding from her shin, or one eye
dangling from her face... but she was actually fine! We both somehow managed to
get through it, with no major injuries... or death... and we had a good laugh
doing it. Had water fights with other boats on the calm bits, prayed for our
lives on the scary bits...
We finished
off our stay in Chiang Mai by going to the “Saturday Walking Market” with a
French girl from our hostel. Again, we didn’t really need to buy anything. But
I managed to get some 2nd hand hiking boots, as we have a few treks
coming up in Laos... Also stuffed my face with the good food there too :)
So, that was
5 action packed days in Chiang Mai! We were sad to leave... We decided to go
head to a place that had NOTHING in common, and no similarities to Chiang Mai,
AT ALL.... Chiang RAI ;) Completely different blog fans... Which is where we
are now actually :) We came here just for one night, mainly to see the “White
Temple” Wat Rong Khun... We were expecting to get here today, and go on an easy
bike ride to the temple, then come back to rest before heading off to the Laos
border tomorrow... Didnt happen that way blog fans... The hostel had no cheap
bikes left, so we went for a walk around town looking for a bargain rental, in
the SWELTERING heat... We finally found one, got ready to go, then she demanded
we gave her a drivers licence. Which i didn’t have on me... So we power walked,
in the heat, sweating our tits off, back to the hotel, to get my licence... Got
it, and headed off... The lady at our reception previously told me both of the
two main roads going south, headed to the temple... “They both meet in the
middle, just go down”. You can see where this is going blog fans... I drove,
and drove, and drove, and drove.... By this point I knew we had about an hour
til the temple shut, so I just kept bombing it down... Then it came to the
point it got ridiculous... We stopped and asked how much further it was. The
old lady couldn’t speak English, but pointed back the way we came... Cat
checked her watch, and we had 30mins left... I was so angry... I tried speeding
back up... then realised from road signs we were 30km south of Chiang Rai...
And I knew the temple was 13km south... We knew we wouldn’t make it... I was so
pissed... We could of gone straight to Laos today, but instead we got the bus
here, paid for a room, looked for a bike, and now its all gone tits up... On
top of that, the weather took a drastic change from sweltering hot, to PISSING
IT DOWN! By this point I was tempted to drive on the other side of the road,
just to crash into someone, to cause damage to myself, the bike, and someone
elses vehicle... Thats how i get when im that angry blog fans.... We pulled in
to some shelter safely though. Safe, but drenched and fuming... I just sat
silently, taking deep breaths, staring out in the distance... as Cat read the
guide book, trying not to laugh at me lol....
That was a
few hours ago now, and I feel better blog fans... We are gonna try to see the
temple early in the morning, then come back to get a bus across the border to
Laos. It doesn’t seem to be a straight forward process though... So Ill let you
know how that goes in the beginning of my next entry blog fans ;) Keep your
shorts tight for THAT!
So yeah...
Thats it for now. Laos next, then back down to Bangkok, and the south of
Thailand. Looking forward to seeing the darker side of Bangkok, and the
beautiful partying islands down south.... Might even enjoy a game of ping-pong
whilst im at it ;)
Thanks for
reading again blog fans...
Hope it aint
as much of a pain in the arse to read, as it is to write lol
Until next
time....
Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopaaa!!
