So glad you're doing well there and having fun! I'm just as jealous as msolga but will continue to travel with you vicariously. Love the updates (it's ALMOST like being there. Continue to have a bon voyage!
Clary, CLARRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY ...... Where are you?
Speak to us!
Prolly can't get in to a2k, eh?
Claryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeee?
But no emails, either, osso ..... Our Clary must be very, very busy. AND, I hope, having lots of fun!
i think clary means that cameras tend to disappear.
And who wants to spend time with the police, insurance companies, when you're supposed to be on holiday?
Nehme. Especially the bus police...
Yes, thanks for letting us vacation vicariously with you, Clary.
(ehBeth gets credit for starting the bunny craze...)
well, actually
Quote:"Miranda introduces Charlotte to a very special vibrator called The Rabbit, which turns Charlotte into a recluse." HBO's Sex in the City
the craze started here :wink: I just brought it to A2K.
not for the under 14's
Easter's a comin'
Here's hopin' we hear from Clary again soon.
Look, this isn't the type of holiday where I can be online every day. I haven't disapperared, yet. I am at the moment in a village called Pakbara, in case anyone has a map. Just above the Malaysian bornder on the left. We took a train overnight from Bkk to Trang - wonderful - I adore long train rides. They come and make up your bed at about 8 p m with fresh clean white sheets, pillows, oversheet; your foord orders are taken in advance and brought to your table - but as we were in the non-air-con section the 15 hour ride cost only $US10. Oh and another couple of dollars for the food. There are fans, and the window lets in warm sweet country air with occasional wafts of cowdung for good measure. And youhave a green modesty curtain to pull around your bed, like a Victorian gentlewoman.
Then we arrived at Trang. Touts met us, offering bus + boat to islands, and the young travellers herded together on those, for all the world like senior citizens on guided tours. Not my sort of travel so I paid an exorbitant amount for the hire of a jeep for 3 days; hot, no seat belts, no hand brake, no insurance but plenty of freedom to go where one likes. My fellow travellers, Simon and Amanda, being Pisces and Libra, go along wityh whatever is happening so that was good. We went down to the border, to try and renew Simon's visa, but it was the wrong place, and anyway he discovered the fine wasn't great for overstaying, so we came back up the coast just hoping a hotel or something would manifest itself before dark as I resolutely refuse to drive such a dangerous vehicle in the dark! And the other 2 don't drive. We turned off to where a sign said Pier, in English remarkably, and found a pretty curving beach with bungalows to rent - how much appreciated after the agonies and sweat of the previous hour when we thought we might have to sleep on the beach. Individual huts, trianglular like Thai temples, at $US4.30 a night - a bed, a fan, s hole-in-the-ground toilet and handheld shower. And delicious chicken and ginger and veg and rice and fresh mangoes and pineapples and fresh limejuice. I haven't had alcohol for a week and haven't really nticed it, so feel very healthy!
Tomorrow we've chartered a boat to take us to a white sand island for the day. Then on Thursday night, back to Bkk on the train, a day sorting ourselves out, Amanda goes back to UK with all Simn's computers, cds etc, and on Saturday finally we set off for Cambodia.
I'm sweating into the keyboard here, but it's nice to know it will get posted. Better do it now to make sure.
Look, this isn't the type of holiday where I can be online every day. I haven't disapperared, yet. I am at the moment in a village called Pakbara, in case anyone has a map. Just above the Malaysian bornder on the left. We took a train overnight from Bkk to Trang - wonderful - I adore long train rides. They come and make up your bed at about 8 p m with fresh clean white sheets, pillows, oversheet; your foord orders are taken in advance and brought to your table - but as we were in the non-air-con section the 15 hour ride cost only $US10. Oh and another couple of dollars for the food. There are fans, and the window lets in warm sweet country air with occasional wafts of cowdung for good measure. And youhave a green modesty curtain to pull around your bed, like a Victorian gentlewoman.
Then we arrived at Trang. Touts met us, offering bus + boat to islands, and the young travellers herded together on those, for all the world like senior citizens on guided tours. Not my sort of travel so I paid an exorbitant amount for the hire of a jeep for 3 days; hot, no seat belts, no hand brake, no insurance but plenty of freedom to go where one likes. My fellow travellers, Simon and Amanda, being Pisces and Libra, go along wityh whatever is happening so that was good. We went down to the border, to try and renew Simon's visa, but it was the wrong place, and anyway he discovered the fine wasn't great for overstaying, so we came back up the coast just hoping a hotel or something would manifest itself before dark as I resolutely refuse to drive such a dangerous vehicle in the dark! And the other 2 don't drive. We turned off to where a sign said Pier, in English remarkably, and found a pretty curving beach with bungalows to rent - how much appreciated after the agonies and sweat of the previous hour when we thought we might have to sleep on the beach. Individual huts, trianglular like Thai temples, at $US4.30 a night - a bed, a fan, s hole-in-the-ground toilet and handheld shower. And delicious chicken and ginger and veg and rice and fresh mangoes and pineapples and fresh limejuice. I haven't had alcohol for a week and haven't really nticed it, so feel very healthy!
Tomorrow we've chartered a boat to take us to a white sand island for the day. Then on Thursday night, back to Bkk on the train, a day sorting ourselves out, Amanda goes back to UK with all Simn's computers, cds etc, and on Saturday finally we set off for Cambodia.
I'm sweating into the keyboard here, but it's nice to know it will get posted. Better do it now to make sure.
I know where that night market is located. You gotta go see the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, and have a all vegetable meal there - it's delicious!
c i you have travelled too much! That night market is in Hong Kong; mine in Thailand. But similar goods to see! I watched that big Buddha in various stages of being built, amazing. But as yet, concerned only with things Thai. I'm in a Muslim area, and can hear the muezzin calleing midday prayers.
Ooops! My wife and I will be in Japan from March 25 to April 5. Close, but not close enough.
I walked around Bangkok quite a bit, but have not visited the market there. I can still mentally picture Jim Thompson's house even though my visit there was ten years ago. Oh, yes, Siam City too. Love Thai food.
Looking into Clary's scary and slightly hairy dairy.
diary.
("hairy" in GB also means dangerous)
Over and out
Clary, your diary is beautifully descriptive. I love the imagery, the smells and sounds and the feel of the air.
I had a friend who said that some people are tourists and others are travelers. You are most certainly a traveler.
Sounds wonderful, Clary!
You are giving me even itchier feet than I had before.
Right, well, back in Bangkok after the southern digression... the jeep drive was hairy and scary and actually when we got to Pakbara - just a random choice - we discovered some beautiful islands lie off the coast there, national park - so chartered a 'longtail' boat (just a basic boat with a massive outboard motor and a canvas cover, thank heavens - for a day trip there. An hour and a half of bum-numbing wave-cruising each way, and when we got there that squeaky white sand, masses of jungle in all directions, and (hurray!) a restaurant where we could get cold beer and Thai food. Have so far managed to stay unsunburnt, a miracle, but necessary as I am of Anglo-Saxon stock!
Then we drove up the coast back to the train terminal via a stunningly beautiful coast, with those 'James Bond' islands in the bay - Amanda said they looked like steamed puddings and so they did, steep-sided limestone puddings. And then there was the overnight train - a slow, stopping one this time so less wonderful, since at every station through the night there were loud whiny announcements and merry families seeing their least favourite members off to Bangkok. There also appeared to be fumes, or something, and we felt rather sick and lightheaded as we alit at 6.05 in the hot, sticky, smelly, raucous dawn. But joy follows quickly on despair in such circumstances, and the clean, welcoming hotel with big cool rooms that we could inhabit immediately sent our spirits soaring. Capped off with a 'light breakfast' of 2 fried eggs, brown toast and a cup of tea, compared with the previous days' rice and Thai veg and a can of coffee (strange Asian institution, quite a pleasant sweet drink but nothing like actual coffee).
And just now Simon and I've bought our tickets (minibus/walk/minibus) to Siem Reap (10-12 hour journey), the town in Cambodia closest to Angkor and its myriad ruins and temples. So will wheel our luggage along the searing mainroad, past the noodle and fruit stalls, at 7 tomorrow morning. Slightly trepid, but Simon has been before and is cool about it. Cool is his middle name, along with 'completely unfazed', necessary for me as I'm prone to middle-aged angst. He's discouraging me from getting travel insurance for Cambodia, and thinks Deet the mosquito repellent is bad for you... so I'm pretending I'm just as chilled out as he is (HELP!!!).
Off to look for Deet while he's busy doing something else now ... expect to sign in again in a couple of days, this travelling sure takes a deal of time.
Good on yer, Clazza,
Only Shredded Wheat and muesli on the menu here this morning, and teabag tea.
