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Ian Rambles
The Golden Triangle tour involved a long trip by mini
bus and several stops at retail opportunities - starting
with a hot spring. This had a parking area surrounded
by permanent stalls with some hot water and steam piped
to a point near the road. We just had breakfast in the
cafe used by all the bus drivers and ignored the rest.
The "White Temple" is a work in progress
by a Bangkok artist. We went into the main temple -
with a 4m Buddah and a cross legged monk meditating
- but also the clank of scaffolding being dismantled
along the left hand side. Facing the buddah and monk
the wall of the temple is painted with a mural which,
at first glance, suggests traditional temple art. On
a closer examination however the painting includes all
manner of modern themes. A petrol pump nozzle. An american
car. A whiskey bottle. Figures from Star Wars movies.
Space craft.
The boats on the Mekong, like those at the floating
market, are driven by car engines and long prop shafts.
Their engines are converted to run on LPG instead of
gasoline though. There were a couple of hulls ashore
and upside down and it was interesting to see their
long narrow stepped form. They certainly went well.
Arthur and I had two days of Thai Cookery lessons.
These were an excellent beginners introducyion to Thai
cuisine. On our first day we were taken to the market
- a smaller affair than the one that John goes to -
and the teachers from the cook school introduced all
the ingredients. Back in the school kitchen we each
had our own workstation with wok and cutting board and,
after a demo of how to cook each dish, we collected
enough ingredients for one serving and prepared it ourselves.
We did six dishes over the course of the day - and ate
them all - so we didn't need supper when we got back
to Brick Road.
The best of the cooking was that, after each dish,
a team of assistants collected our dirty woks, cutting
boards and dishes and replaced them with clean items.
I wish my kitchen at home worked like that!!
Fiona's Journal
The Golden Triangle, August 22nd
This tour will be forever memorable to me because of
our guide, a Thai man called James, who had a surprising
vocabulary of cockney rhyming slang! He greeted us at
7.30am with “You lot look cream crackered”
and “Lets hit the frog and toad!” and other
such unlikely utterances littered his commentary throughout
the day. This could have become irritating but actually
didn't, because he was a very well-informed and fascinating
guide with a good command of conventional English which
he improved by listening to the BBC World Service every
night. From him we learnt that England was fourth in
the Olympic medal tables and Thailand was thirty sixth.
We had been entirely oblivious to the olympics until
then.
We visited The White Temple which is modern and still
a work in progress. It is pure, brilliant white with
ornate plaster detailing and set with millions of tiny
mirror tiles to reflect the sunlight or moonlight and
make it sparkle. It looks like an ice palace and is
the project of just one man. He is an eminent Thai artist
called Chalermchai Kositpipat and he has a sense of
humour. There are modern references including Star Wars
characters and mobile phones in his paintings on the
temple's inside walls and the only building which is
ornately gold, rather than white, is the toilet block
which is his way of equating worldly wealth with shit.
Next stop was the Mekong River where we piled into
a wooden boat and went and looked at Burma (now Myanmar)
but didn't go ashore and then we crossed the river to
Laos where we did land. We were allowed to stay in Laos
for 30 minutes without a visa and we used that time
to get our passports stamped, sample snake whisky and
write as many postcards as we could and post them, to
prove we had been there!
After that we drove to the Myanmar border crossing,
which for some reason is a tourist attraction and crowded
with souvenir sellers. John used to have to cross this
border every 3 months to renew his visa but he doesn't
now he is the owner of a business that employs Thai
staff.
Finally we visited the Monkey Temple where two tribes
of monkeys live wild in the cliffs behind the temple
but have learnt to come down into the temple grounds
to take peanuts from the tourists. They even have a
rota so one tribe comes down in the morning and one
in the evening! It is lovely to get so close to them,
as they take a peanut from your hand while looking you
straight in the eye, and the baby's are great to watch
as they rough and tumble like young children in a playground.
Hire Car Days (Ian drove, Fiona wimped out)
We hired a car on two of our ten days in Chiang Mai
and took John and Boon out with us, to show us some
of their favourite places.
Most rewarding from my point of view was our visit
to “Care for Dogs” which is a shelter for
Thailand's many stray dogs and for owned dogs whose
families cannot afford treatment that they need. John
used to volunteer at the shelter when he and Boon lived
nearer to it and he still keeps in touch and has a collection
box for them in the cafe. It is managed by an admirable
Australian woman called Sarah. I think she said she
used to be in hotel management and she seems to apply
similar standards to the dogs accommodation and care!
The Thai street dogs are appear to be remarkably placid
and easy-going lot generally, we thought that when watching
them in Bangkok, so they manage to keep the non-infectious
dogs in big groups in large outdoor pens with lots of
access to shade and water. There seems to be very little
aggression between dogs and those that do have “behavioural
issues” they work really hard with. No expense
is spared in veterinary care and nursing and I was really
impressed by what they can achieve with some difficult
conditions.
I was able to offer a little help while I was there
by checking a pregnant bitch, and predicting roughly
when she would whelp, and examining a couple of post-operative
cases with problems. I hope I can help more in the future
by promoting the charity at The Veterinary Centre. I
could so easily of taken any one of those dogs home
with me!
We visited a waterfall that John and Boon used to swim
beneath but the recent heavy rains had turned it into
a raging torrent of liquid chocolate, no good for bathing
but spectacular to look at.
We drove on to a lake resort, not promoted to tourists
and so used almost entirely by Thai people, where we
could swim and muck around in the inflated car inner
tubes provided, for a modest fee.
Arthur's Log:
THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE TRIP
We left for a golden triangle trip shortly after getting
up and our driver was the most supprising Thai i have
met. He spoke in nothing, and I mean nothing, but cockney
english. When he was showing us what the best food was
he would describe it as "scrumtious" and when
he said we had time to get some some sleep he said "you
can get 40 winks if you like" and it went on and
on and on, even when we stopped at a public toilet he
said. "drain your wizzle".
First stop (after were we drained our wizzles) was
a newly build temple called "The White Temple"
which is basically how it sounds but more impressive.
The fine detailing was very fine and they had marked
them out to make them show by taking lots and lots of
tiny tiny tiles of mirror and going over the main ridges
with them. But possibly the most impressive thing was
the toilet block (no I'm not joking) which was a 2 story
building 3 times the size of my house which was totally
and unfalteringly gold. Absolutly every inch and the
only thing they did apart from that was the thinnest
of black lines to bring out the frames making it feel
less 2D. The oddness kept going right down to the "no
smoking" sign wich was a 7" statue with a
plate sized no smoking symbol in the middle of a open
ball of flames with devil claws trying to escape and
sitting on a huge wave.
Another drive took us out to a fast moving river, the
Mekong, were we took a river boat past a huuuge temple
with a 20" tall gold budda on the top. We arrived
and had a look round what the locals had to offer. Snake
whisky was the main thing there wich was (at its most
impressive) a fully grown cobra coiled with its head
going up the over sized bottle neck. We bought a small
bottle of and gave it to John.
We stopped at the Myanmar ( Burma ) border and walked
to the bridge where we could see across the river. There
were homeless everywere and many many people trying
to sell kids tobaco and worse. Standing on the edge
of the river Icould see a solder down on the waters
edge - clearly there in case anyone trys to swim across.
There was a kid behind him standing holding a gun (probably
about nine) I don't know for sure if was real or not
- all I know is the solder had a empty holster and Ididn't
want to hang around to find out. The kid had no clue
how to hold the gun, he was holding it flat in his hand
and fiddeling with it with his other hand. Just as i
was about to go Harry, George and Mum gathered around
me under the border arch and struck picture poses. The
kid wandered up the stairs and disapeared into the crowd
on the bridge.
Final stop, the monkey temple, it was such a great
change from the croc farm we visited a week ago. There
are two tribes of wild monkeys, one comes down from
the mountain in the mornings and one in the afternoon.
I liked it because they were all free like the deer
in Japan, and free to do as they wish. They had lots
and lots of babys that were trying and often failing
to climb the trees. The little ones would come as close
as a metre but the adults mainly stayed up in the tree,
their catching was very good so throwing peanuts to
them was fine too.
The first day we had a car we went to "Care for
Dogs" one of almost none dog care charitys in Thailand.
We walked around and every dog has a story, from sad
to beautifull.
There was one dog in there that had both eyes amputated,
but he wasn't fazed by it, he would stand perfetly still
listening and tries to catch frogs when ever he hears
one.
There is a whole rank system. The top dogs living in
the sheds nearest the gate (where they are most likely
to be addopted). Sunny, who is the current top dog,
is soon to leave with Steve, a volunteer, so i don't
know what will happen to the system after that.
There is a section for all the puppies, young and bouncey.
Me and dad had cooking classs - which was awsome. They
took us and about ten others to the market to buy supplies
and the best thing I found was "rat shit chilli"
which is a chilli the size of a..... but it was so powerfull
and just three in a large salad had me sweating and
squinting, Took me 30 minutes, a can of beer and of
bowl of banana cream pudding to get me back to normal.
But that was all part of the chefs sense of humour.
Another of his tricks was to go through the ingredients
and missay one - like when he meant "chicken"
he would say "dog".
Our second day of cooking filled with the normal tricks
and jokes but this time, instead of the market we did
veg carving. It was awsome how we turned tomatos into
flowers but a bit hard to explain in writing.
Me and dad spent the day talking bout all the tools
they have here that we want and finnaly Dad ended it
on "what we really want is the little asian lady
who runs around and cleans everything up when you're
not looking".
I am starting to realise that I don't write much about
the people we meet, even though we meet loads. So ill
start........ Now. We met a dude at cooking who was
doing exactly what we were doing but backwards. He had
come from the trans siberian down through china where
we would be going back the same way.
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