Thailand

so what has happened since my last blog? quite a lot! i'll update you on the elephant sanctury shortly.

for our first full day in chaing mai we checked into a new guest house, paid 30 baht to get a kilo of washing done (under a quid), had a wander and then found another guest house with a pool so we went there for a pleasant few hours swimming and sunning before heading back to the night market.

i have a go on a 15 metre high climbing wall and get to 12 metres. no matter how many times i try i just can't get over a certain point. it was great fun and i was dripping with sweat afterwards. it was scor4ching that day and we have been very lucky with the weather so far considering it is rainy season.

we go for some food and as it is a local election the following day (sunday) the markets and bars are not allowed (or supposed) to serve alcohol. they get around this by bringing us beer in a tea pot with some mugs. ideal! more delicious thai food.

we then both get an hour long thai massage. at first i thought they guy was trying to kill me but i relaxed and we both felt fantastic after it. we wander down some side streets to get back to our guest house and stumble across a lovely outside bar all lit up with fairy lights and head in. we chat emily and butrim from australia. they are over promoting australian universities to thai people - what a job! we have a beer with them (that we have to hide under the table). it's an interesting chat as butrim is from thailand originally and he is full of useful info about the history of the country, politics and lady boys! emily lives in melbourne and promises to take us to some local gigs when we get there in october or thereabouts.

we head home after midnight and sleep well.

the next day we move 20 yards along the street to the guest house with the swimming pool. it's 400 baht per night. we spend a very relaxing and cheap day by the pool in the sun reading books and planning our next week. on sunday nights there is a huge market in chaing mai (even bigger than the daily night market) so we spend a pleasant hour or so wandering around before stumbling across a funk jazz band playing outside a bar featuring vocals, guitar, bass, drums, percussion and sax. we find a seat outside and chat to a couple from england (matt) and sweden (lynnia). the band are top class and we have several large chang beers. at 6.4% and at 80 baht they are the dogs bollocks.

on to today. we were picked up outside our guest house at 8.15 to head into the hills and on to the elephant sanctury - our home for the day. on route we pick up mark from australia and a family from canada - husband, wife and 5 year old daughter.

from chaing mai you can book many treks and elephant rides. what you don't know is how the elephants are trained and looked after - not very well let me tell you.

i'll not go into the politics for now - i'll save that for when i get back.

our host for the day is another aussie - michelle. she has been living and working at the sanctury for 4 years with her husband. there are now 32 elephants living on the sanctury - being fed, looked after and allowed to roam the 55 acres of land that they have. they are not 'taught' how to do tricks and they don't have carriages on their backs. they are in as close to their natural environment as possible (while keeping them safe) and they are absolutely stunning. michelle fills us in on the history of elephants in thailand and the politics involved. up until 1989 they were working animals (logging animals) until the thai government realised they needed to keep some trees. elephants were vital to a families income, when they were not allowed to log anymore they had to look to tourism for income - hence elephants were, and still are, beaten and tortured until they lose the will to fight and do what their owners command. having watched a natural geographic documentary on this i can tell you that the treatment is appalling.

anyway, on to the good news. all the elephants in the sanctury have been rescued by an amazing women called lek, including some that were only days old. they are healthy and happy. we get to feed them bananas and watermelon before wandering down to the river to bathe them. it is a truly memorable experience.

we then wander around the park watching them play, feed and relax. i will never use the phrase 'hung like a horse' anymore. it will now be 'hung like an elephant'! i had to laugh when lynn asked michelle 'why has that elephant got 5 legs?' only kidding, she didn't, but this was impressive!

we get to bathe the elephants again at 5pm before winding down and heading back to chaing mai. we've just had some more amazing food from the night market - spring rools, mussells (again), thai red curry and cantonese noodle soup - deeeeeeelicious.

tomorrow we have a day at a thai cooking school for 800 baht each. around 12 pounds by my reckoning.

oh and i almost forgot, we are now the proud foster parents of a young elephant called tong jan! check out the website http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/index.htm to see our elephant!

after our thai cooking school we are heading further north to a town called pai before making our way to the border and crossing into laos where we intend to spend around 10 days.

after that, who knows!

i'll hopefully be able to keep updating my blog every 2/3 days as we go, although as laos is pretty uncommercial i am not sure how readily available internet cafes will be.

check out the photos section.

lots of love
murray and lynn

xxxxx

i get three hours free internet time if i include a link to the travel hub website so here it is www.travelhubchiangmai.com

ta
murray

hello blog fans

all is well in thailand. we flew from bangkok to chiang mai in the north of thailand yesterday with air asia for only 12 pounds each. the flight was little over an hour and for a few extra pounds it saved us an overnight train.

i'm glad to be out of bangkok. it's pretty nuts, polluted and full on. we are now really starting to get into travel mode.

at chiang mai airport i spot a guy in a retro scotland football top and a kilt and go over to say hello and offer my gordon strachan book that i have just finished reading. two books down already, although gazza and strachans books are pretty light reading!

anyway.........it turns out that this guy is called john robins and he played with strachan at dundee in the 80's. i have yet to find him on google but he knew all the facts. what a small world! he took the book and looked forward to reading about strachan's recollections of his dundee days.

we jump in a cab for 160 baht to our guest house by the river. it's nice but a little bit far out so we decide to only stay one night. after a wander and getting a bit lost we jump in a tuk tutk (one of mens greatest inventions) and head to the night bazzar. a huge market with rows and roaws and roads and roads of stalls selling beautiful flowers, jewellery, clothes, food and just about anything you could ever need.

we go to a fresh fish stall and have one of the best meals we have ever had sitting outside listening to some guy playing old 60's songs on an acoustic guitar, something that happens regularly in thailand. lynn has crab, i have grilled seabass and we also have a plate of huge and deeeeeeeeeeelicious oysters. yummy!

after that we wander around and sit down for a beer outside a pub with jenga. an older couple come to join us and it turns out that they are both well travelled and qualified diving instructors - graham and jackie. they give us loads of useful information and we intend to meet them for another beer or two tonight.

it is 12.30 on saturday afternoon and it is hot, hot, hot. we've just booked up a day trip for monday to the elephant nature park. check out www.elephantnaturefoundation.org

rather than book one of the usual trekking tours with elephants, where they perform tricks and do things they really shouldn't be doing, this day trip is eco-tourism at it's best. elephants are encouraged to lead as natural a life as possible - only eat, sleep and play. we get to watch, observe and learn. i can't wait. i bet lynn adopts an elephant. needless to say his name will be eric!

we're going to go a wander and get our bearings in the daylight. we've now checked into a new hostel/gust house in town called the north star guest house. it's only 350 baht a room per night with air con, 150 baht without. in this weather you need it!

we may book in for a thai cooking class tomorrow if we can find a decent deal.

i hope all is well back in the uk and around the world wherever you are reading this.

lots of love
murray and lynn
xxxx

well it's thursday and lynn and i are back at out hotel/hostel after taking a 1 hour boat trip around bangkok. we got out own traditional boat for a tenner (we could probably have got it cheaper if we tried) the breeze was very welcome! it is very humid here and the clouds are burning away. we are about to go up to our rooftop pool. it's a tough life.

yesterday started slowly as we were both suffering from a bit of jet lag. we'd gone to bed at ten, slept for a few hours andf woke up bright and breezy. we then read before goiing back to sleep around 7am - weird.

around lunchtime we hired a tuk tuk for an hour for only 60 baht (1 pound) and visited some temples, a huge gold bhudda statue before a hair raising ride to the royal palace. we then hired a tour to take us round. it was incredibly interesting. the tuk tuk ride was great fun and anyone reading this that is going to bangkok should take one.

we used the rooftop pool in the early evening, 6 floors up and with great views of the bangkok skyline. we headed out for dinner and lynn spied a street restaurant/vendor sellingpai thai. lynn opted for the chicken version and i went for the pork. both were absolutely delicious. dinner came to 320 baht, most of that was made up from sprites as street food is really cheap and incredibly tasty.

we had a few beers at a bar two floors above the main tourist strip and enjoyed people watching. we then stopped off for a cocktail on the way back to the hotel/hostel at a funky wee bar that is basically a VW camper van turned into a bar. the roof opens up and the guy has a bar there, specialising in cocktails. i go for 'sex on the beach' and lynn goes for something called 'gay pride'!

we then have another couple of beers sitting outside a bar near our hotel, just to make sure that we don't suffer from jet lag again! beers is cheap and we opt for chang beer.

our hostel/hotel is fantastic. 800 baht (around 12 pounds) per night for a double room with wet room. we are currently looking for accomodation for tomorrow night when we fly north. i think we'll drop down to 5 or 6 pounds up there. it will be interesting. you can go really cheap if you stay in dorms but we will try and book our own room and toilet whenever possible.

our flightto chiang mai tomorrow takes an hour and is only 12 pounds each. a lot of travllers opt for the train and you do probably see more of the country that way, but that takes 12-14 hours compared to an hours flight! no choice there but we will be taking more trains and buses as we travel into other countries.

i'm glad we only booked 3 nights in bangkok as we've seen practially everything (apart from the ping pong shows, although people have tried to get us to go and see them). i'm looking forward to getting up north to go trekking and bamboo rafting.

we didn't go for a thai massage last night, opting for cocktails instead, so we'll definitely get one tonight and may stay off the alcohol.

i'll be writing again once we get up north so stay tuuuuuuuuuuuned.

ta
murray

ps - i must say that it is great to be able to keep in touch by e-mail and the internet. how did travellers survive back in the 60's? they were true travellers!

so we have started our travels.

on monday 18th we flew from glasgow to london and then on to bangkok. a 10.5 hour flight. i passed the time by watching a united v chelsea game from the 00/01 season that ended 3-3 and featured a cracking paul scholes goal. i also watched a classic liverpool 4 v 2 newcastle game from 98/99, a golden episode of friends and a documentary on muhammed ali's greatest 12 rounds.

i also manged to read paul gascoignes new book while hanging about heathrow, finishing it on the plane. it is an excellent book and delves into gazzas addictive personality, his alcoholism, ocd, gambling, drugs, loneliness............buy it. it's only 6.99.

gazza was an immense player. i will always remember his free kick against arsenal while playing for spurs in the 91 cup semi and his hat trick for rangers to demolish aberdeen and win the league. my good friend dave taylor must have loved watching him play. i am sure kevin thomson will do a job for rangers next season!

bangkok airport is sensational, modern and air conditioned. as soon as we got outside we were hit with by the heat. actually i was hit by the revolving door which was so clear that i tried to walk right through it!

our hotel is lovely and has a rooftop pool. all for only 12 pounds per night. it is in the heart of the travelling district. tonight we ate outside for only 1.20. lynn had an extremely spicy thai green curry and i had a pork dish. we then had a couple of beers before going for an amazing half hour swedish oil massage - we'll try a thai one tomorrow. it was only around 3 pounds for the two of us and we both feel fantastic. we will probably get a different type of massage every day while we are here.

we are going to have an early night tonight so we can get up early and explore the city tomorrow. we have already heard amazing things about the north of thailand and we leave to go there on friday afternoon. our internal flights were only 12 pounds each and we intend to go trekking, bamboo river rafting, elephant trekking and much more when we get up north.

bangkok is huge and pretty full on. it will be nice to spend a couple of days here before moving on. there is a lot of cheap adidas gear kicking about and i am very tempted to buy some tomorrow and just send it home. if it is fake it is top notch. it probably isn't as it's all made over here anyway.

i do intend to try and update this blog regularly so stay tuned.........

take care
murray