Bangkok to Siem Reap via Hell

Its an early morning start 6.30 and by now we have far too much baggage and we are all a bit grumpy. Nicolas has lost his shoes, we are fighting with the hotel staff and the bus is waiting. Luckily the mini bus is comfy, air conditioned and empty. Nicky gets to sleep on a seat of his own – thank god as usually I find I’m his pillow and spend most of the trip uncomfortable while he gets to have a soft cushion and a good sleep.

It seems so quick, four hours pass and before we know it we stop for lunch and think how civilized this is. This guy comes over and says he will organize the visas just fill out the forms, they will take all the passports get our visa’s while we have lunch (cooool) There are about 4 mini busses and we are all like sheep handing out our passports. So while we are eating a plate of fried rice we start calculating what we are being charged and then 2 Canadian girls say they want their money back and they will do their own visa and heated discussions erupt. We all look at each other and know how we have been scammed big time.

I have done this border thing a few times before and hence my earnest conversation with the agent in Bangkok the day before but damn if the point didn’t come when our comfy mini bus disappears with our tickets and we are standing in the hot sun with far too many bags, waiting for a switch in operators. We are in no mans land a long stretch of tarmac to the border post. We toss our bags into a prehistoric wooden donkey cart being pulled by an equally ancient man and head for our pre-border swine flu grilling.

So now we have a smiley Cambodian in a pink shirt who attaches to us like a leach, he starts working us, we queue in a crowded sweaty office to get our passports stamped and I lose the forms so we get to the front and get bumped to the back of the queue again to redo the papers– talk about a sense of humor failure!! Nicky of course has no shoes so has to walk vast stretches in this hellhole on hot tar. Welcome to Cambodia!

Heavy bags moaning children and heat all makes a great opportunity for an excellent con artist. He starts priming us about the length of the trip from the border to Siem Riep and the bus only leaves at 4pm and stops everywhere blab blab la. Its 2 pm we would have to wait 2 hours in the sun then travel another 6 hours awww noo man.

He convinces us an air-conditioned taxi is the way to go so we hand over another 400 Baht each. (we later found out the bus left at about 3 and took 3 hours) oh yes and he conveniently walks us to the atm and describes how this is the last point to draw money (probably making sure he gets paid)

We are so aware we are being conned but are feel pretty softened up. Anyway we walk on with Nicky hopping at the heat on the road (good lesson on how NB shoes are to keep) there are casino hotels everywhere in this no mans land.

We get to the temporary bus station and get whisked out the back door past some really smelly toilets and it all feeling very surreal, we get into the taxi and say goodbye to the tosser merrily waving probably thinking – good one suckers!!

Our taxi-man takes a detour down a really bumpy track and stops at this place for GAS and I do mean gas they pop the boot with all our possesions, now I’m thinking – this is sooooooooo dodgy, so Craig hops out to see what the hell they are doing and remove the bags to fill this huge gas cylinder with well Gas, not the petrol type but the real type of gas, Huh? I thought they were filling the aircon gas for which I was grateful, anyway our driver couldn’t speak a word of English so we just left it at that.

The driver is silent but non violent and the 3 hours are pretty relaxed after the border crossing and we watch Cambodia unfold. Along the way we are a bit puzzled at these bikes roaring along with pigs balanced upside down on their backs in a basket like holder. We later find out that they get the pigs stoned with Ganga (Dagga) and because they are stoned its easy to transport the poor things to get slaughtered, shame poor pigs, my only consolation here is at least they are zoned out and probably thinking wooohooo is that what things look like upside down. Asia can really make you become vegetarian.

We were assured we would be dropped at our hotel but surprise surprise we get dropped at the tuk tuk station. The tuk tuk driver “our chosen one’ tells us that the guest house we want is no good as its full of lady boys, no good for our boys, mmm heard that one before and we say that’s were we are going OK. Guess what the name is??? GOLDEN BANANA GUEST HOUSE
Well it is full of lady boys and they are efficient, the place is gorgeous and has a fab pool yipeeee. We do a deal with our homophobic tuk tuk driver to be our driver for three days and with promises of a 9 am start we head for the pool.

Last Night in Bangkok

So Nicky, Bill and Lou set of for Bangkok again with a card of a hotel in Ko San road area. We arrive at the Wild Orchid something or other and I just think nooooway anyway I go and check out the room and then the next price range up and then eventually the top range room which is on the 6th floor with NO LIFT- huh?

We decide to leave and get a cab to our trusty hotel near the river when some sweet Thai girl says we have a better hotel just round the corner called Villa Cha Cha and it has a pool. We are sold, she grabs a heavy pack – lucky Nicky and head for the mad streets with us in tow, it’s not just round the corner but a lengthy walk and when she slips into this alley I’m thinking paranoid thoughts. Then out pops Villa Cha Cha from the swirling mass of stalls and mess, we check in very excited and happy to have found a home.

The problem is Craig is on a plane from Turkey and then onto the Wild Orchid villa and we are not there, how to get a message to Craig with no phone and no computer. So I found an internet café logged onto Craig’s email gmail and sent an urgent message from Craig to Craig??? Hehehe
The boys and I hit Fuji and had sushi yippee; love Bangkok did some good shopping whilst boys got their fix of Games in the big Kids entertainment emporium.

I get the message as I arrive in Bangkok which after Turkey is starting to feel like home, easy transfer into the city taking no bullshit from the taxi drivers and find my way to the hotel. What a relief to walk into the Cha Cha and see my tanned and chilled family sipping mango lassies around the pool. Louise has chosen a particularly crazy part of Bangkok, restaurants and shops line the streets, and in front of these a second tier of restaurants and bars line the pavements.

We emerge from our alley and fall into a papaya salad, chilli fish and Tiger beer. Much later I weave of nonchalantly down the road with promises to find a trip to Cambodia. Feeling jet lagged and spaced out I catch a tuk tuk across town to the train station, find an agent, stared earnestly into his eyes for a sign of honesty, think I see it and pay over good money for 4 tickets and a hassle free ride to Siem Reap in Cambodia the next morning.

Evening’s arrived when I return, we dump the boys in air conditioned comfort watching scratchy pirated DVD’s and head back into the human tide looking for a night on the town. Dinner is Indian, lots of white wine and ends with a hubbly hubbly shisha pipe watching the second tier of restaurants through the haze on the pavement. It has been particularly hot and humid even by Bangkok standards, the heavens open up and a tropical downpour engulfs the world outside.

Total non panic as rickety awnings emerge, restaurants and bars continue unabated – wires stretched overhead, bare light bulbs, grills, fires, dogs, chickens, rabbits, gas and all. Our last night in Thailand …… just over a month from North to South and everywhere in between - we love it!

Bangkok to Istanbul and back in 5 days

Woke up at 5.30 am, pulled on shorts t-shirt and sandals grabbed my bags slipped out of air-conditioned family suite and hit the wall of humidy and predawn glow on our little beach in Ko Pangang. Crazy 40 minute taxi ride, grabbed a few weird things to eat from the vendor, lugged my bag onto the 7am ferry for the mainland and squeezed into a seat next to a Thai family, little boy staring at me pushing a little car around his make believe world.

Tried to sleep but ended up thinking of the last 48 hrs, wired shakes at the reggae bar, heading off to the half moon party with a bunch of fun people, not like our epic Cape Outdoor parties but I had fun. Arrived back early next morning slept a few hours and spent the last day taking in our piece of paradise. Had a farewell dinner with our new found island tribe at Soms kitchen, (the best Thai food around) and then onto little bar on the beach, animated discussions, tearful goodbyes and off to bed leaving far too little time for sleep.

Back to the present, disembarked the ferry 2 hours later, big thunder showers on the go and ran through warm big drop rain to bus station for the hour bus ride to the airport. Asia Air fantastic airline, arrived Bangkok Airport with a 6 hours layover, decided on a quick trip into the city and Siam centre, clothing wonderland, kitted myself out in clothes for a few days back in the business world and headed back through 6 pm traffic crush to airport to catch the midnight flight to Istanbul.

Bangkok -Istanbul, what an unlikely combination. Arrived at Attaturk Airport 12 hours and 6 time zones later, 8 degrees a chilly morning feeling slightly silly in my 42 degree Bangkok outfit of T shirt and sandals, figured out the money, haggled with the taxi driver and headed into town.
Istanbul - Constantinople a mega 22 million people city spanning 2 continents and just oozing history. Crossed the Bosphorus and arrived early in the morning at our very comfortable 4 star Midtown hotel. (Big change from Asia) Changed into something warmer headed out had a tasty kebab from a street vendor, did some people watching, these Turks sure can smoke, a national pastime, bought some sleeping tablets with instructions in Turkish, closed the curtains and dropped into Lala land for 6 hours.

I enjoy being part of IDS group - a departure from the fiercely independent small business operator I have always been, IDS group is a crazy, chaotic, slightly eccentric but smart and challenging group of individuals. We meet once and sometimes twice a year in exotic locations to talk shop and party. Prague, Marrakech, Milan, Barcelona, Den Hague. It is an intense 4 days of burning the candle at both ends. All day meetings and then nights eating at great restaurants, experiencing the best tourist attractions and nightlife on offer. The company motto – “Life is too short to drink cheap white wine”. Istanbul was no exception and 4 days went in a blur.

So here I am 11pm sitting in a darkened departure lounge waiting to fly back around the world to join my family in Bangkok. Airports are strange places and at the moment half the people are wearing masks for the swine flu, this reminds me of giant ants nests with each individual ant hurrying on their own mission, sometimes meeting briefly, moments of intimacy, connections made and lost and then off we each go heading back into our own labyrinth.

Kayaking to Vientiane and onto the Islands down South

We woke up early and got into the back of a truck with canoes stacked up to the sky and hit the windey road, a Dutch girl who had a dogey stomach and gets car sick was in with us - another barf bag, and my tissues and wet wipe later she sheepishly with many apologies started looking helpless holding the bag and not sure what to do with it. Craig who was sitting next to her and looking rather green himself told her this is not Holland toss the bag out the truck.We arrived at our canoe stop and hit the river anticipating 2, 3 and 4 grade rapids and watched our bags disappearing over the hill on the truck destined for our end point, wondering if we would ever see them again.

Lou partnered with Bill, Nick with Craig, I definitely lucked out with Bill he and I were a team and he worked hard, Nicky on the other hand played the fool the whole trip and at one point as I canoed past he was lying back and using the paddle pretending to be doing bench press, he definitely is training to be Mr. Funny guy. We stopped before the big rapids, climbed out and walked round to check them out and then got a vague go to the middle mmmm, who bloody thought of this. Anyway Janine and Lawrence, me and Bill ended up capsizing, no one injured so all ok, they made us lunch on the side of the river little kebabs, with baguettes, the last part of the journey got a bit long in the tooth and I think we all lost our sense of humor, anyway at least the car to Vientiane was air-conditioned and a mini bus.

We got dropped off and walked towards town and the river all a bit frayed at the edges and there like a mirage in the desert was a shiny new hotel, I was saying in my mind – that’s for me and then Janine god bless her soul said it, we walked in did the deal and had shiny new bathrooms and rooms, what a pleasure. Hit a local expat French restaurant and tucked into steaks and red wine for a change and languished in our aircon rooms seeing what had happened in the outside world in the last few weeks, elections SA! Viva Zuma!

The next day awoke to no electricity, no aircon, no money and temperatures soaring. Realized my mobile had been switched of and packed in the bottom of my bag for two weeks, not missing it at all!

We have been in Laos about 2 weeks now, for a communist country it has been remarkably free and easy but time to move on. Bus to border, border crossing, overnight train to Bangkok, and flight to the South and the islands. All accomplished in 24 hours, its amazing how organized travel is in this part of the world. Small operators, very entrepreneurial and cheap, SA could pick up some good tips here.

Decided on new financial plan for the boys - pocket money 250 bahts each every three days. Arrived at Bangkok airport and both boys blew their new found wealth in one go on Sushi. Took Nicky a 10 baht bet to eat a big blob of Wasabi, should have seen his face on his first Wasabi rush priceless!

Down the Mekong to Pak Beng

We have met the fabest couple from Canada and due to the political stirrings and a few flare-ups of unrest in Bangkok we have decided to hop onto their (the fab Canadians) itinery of to Laos down the Mekong, head across the border into Laos and eventually end up in Louang Phabang. A big part of traveling involves well traveling and we had a three day trip ahead of us. The first day was a grueling 4 hours back down to Chang Mai and then a long 6 hour to the Laos Border.

We arrived at 9 at night and Lawrence dashed of in the tuk-tuk got us a room thank god as it was the last. It felt like days on the bus to get there, long and boring, we ended up playing I spy and laughing at silly things a lot.

The next morning we woke up early and was sitting in the funny guest house we found on the river in the coolest open restaurant with Laos across the river, someone singing and playing flute, the occasional cock crow, after breakfast we headed for immigration caught a boat across the Mekong to Laos, got visas in the extreme heat and then landed up on a slow boat packed to the full of travelers and a few locals down the Mekong 6 hours+

We arrived in Pakbeng a small little one road town that felt like a frontier town from another era with a couple of guest houses and restaurants, a stunning market (straight out of my wish list no crap just real food market) lots of chickens, dogs, puppies, cats and the occasional pig and goat (one of which we heard squealing for its life as it was slaughtered that morning). Not very Buddhist. The locals here are different from Thais a lot softer not so hardened by years of foreigners abuse. We found a fabulous guest house for about R30 a night hot shower, electricity until 10 - en the whole village shuts down.

I had the most exceptional fish dish from this Local guy who Lawrence met on the boat yesterday, it was catfish with a Soya/oyster sauce (not sure I asked but we were'nt sure of the answer.) Must have been grilled on a flat plate with caramelized ginger sauce. Craig had Lap - a minced pork and a mint dish similar to the Thai dish I like to make. The food was brilliant, fresh and well bloody authentic. Woke up early to the sound of the village coming to life stepped out on our balcony overlooking village and glimpse life Laos Pakbeng style.

The local kids are so gorgeous, I could bring a few home with me!

Diary from Thailand

Fourteen hours on a jet plane - the one good thing is Singapore airlines has the best movies all the latest so we watched movies till touchdown in Singapore. Slumdog Millionaire - great warm up for Bangkok. A few hours wait in Singapore and boy were the boys impressed with super slick Singapore Airport - Technology for free so kids hit face book immediately. I think the boys thought Asia was gonna be like Singapore! Big surprise ahead!

So we arrived in hot, steamy, smoky Bangkok. Drifting between the ubber 5 star Oriental (where our friends are staying) and our more modest but very comfy hotel down the cluttered, chaotic tuk tuk infested road. Massage massage cheap cheap, only 300 bart, tuk tuk sir! The river is wide and busy, tug boats, water busses, tourist boats. BIG catfish and small crocodiles.

We took a walk through Patpong night market or should I say Pingpong, love you long time alley Craig got that look in his eye, >>>>>>> for shopping got some fake diesel jean pants and we got the boys baggies all started off at 3x the price we ended up paying.

Second night we left the kids with our friends kids in the oriental and they ordered room service, much to their delight. That night we had a crab that was so succulent, we were all in heaven they do that fried garlic with the skin on with sliced lemon grass and pepper all fried and nutty and delicious , the best Tom Yung Ive ever tasted - its all in the stock deep fried fish, no wine-singa beer or green tea bright lights and plastic tables so local so fabulous and to think we gonna eat like this the whole way.

Our Hotel has a massage shop next door, Nicky discovered massage and massuers discovered Nicky, heaven, just sign for it and pop it onto mom and dads account. Heaven!!!

We went on a fantastic adventure looking for a special restaurant for the last night in bangkok very local and extremely hard to find, friends taxi got lost, we got desserted by ours and two taxis later finally found each other again. boy was that a taste experience, a pork dish in a fresh tumeric tamarind sauce, fried noodle dish , a smoked auberjine dish mmmmmmm my mouth is watering, a chilli prawn dish, a green papaya salad, a fish dish with a green mango salsa banana flower salad oh god and then to end it just a sliced delicious mango.

Fell into a tourist trap, overpriced boat trip which ends up at a snake farm eeew it was bad bloody hell, we need to get the SPCA in there, a Bengal tiger in a shoe box I felt so sad and cross the poor monkies, it was hidieous and sad and made me depressed, imagine thats your lot in life. We were delighted to get back and off the bloody boat and away from the relentless touts trying to take you for a ride.

Decided to test our stomachs and ate at our first real street stall down the road from our hotel, we went where all the local lady friends take their sweaty farang dates, then you know the food is good, I had a pork stir fried with chilli and yes a green papaya salad kids are loving all the varieties of noodles and I am loving no junk food for them, we sat and ate delicious street food until the rain came down and drenched us.

Three days in Bangkok is enough, Craig on a mission to get out the city so we off to Pai,(pronounced Bye) via Chang Mai.

This is cowritten by Craig and Louise so some of the views do not respresent those of the other xxxx