They'll be coming round the mountains... (Ryan)

Right, ages since we last posted anything on here, so this one is going to be quite long and will probably get boring before the end. Just thought I'd warn you.

To start where Tim left off, we got up early on the morning we'd arranged to have the truck, eager to get on the road and go and see what there was to see. First hiccup, and actually no great surprise, was that the motor vehicle we had previously been promised was not available. As far as we know, the bloke who owned it had a change of heart and just didn't want to let it out that day. So that was the end of that. Instead of a nice, snazzy blue thing with plenty of room in the trailer, we got a rather snubby little jobby with enough room to just about squeeze three people in the back, though one had to permanently perch on the edge. Given my driving, that was not a good place to be. Anyway, despite this and having to pay the same price for less of a car, we took it, crammed into it, strapped Rose's rucksack to the top and headed off into the distance. Heading off, as in, me worriedly negotiating my way down a straight road, worrying at every junction that I'd jumped a red light and nearly smacking into overtaking mopeds. You could tell from the off that this would be an interesting trip.

So, the road. I thought I was doing pretty alright at the whole driving thing, that was until people in the back started smacking the roof and I nearly made the wee jeep roll over on the way round one particularly sharp bend. Needless to say, for the benefit of any parental folk reading this, I was very careful from then on. The problem is that when you're in the cab and you have an engine as noisy as ours was (it sometimes sounded like someone was chainsawing trees underneath the bonnet) then it's hard to feel how fast you're going. But anyway, we made it in one piece to a place called Fish Cave. It's meant to be quite good, and we were expecting a cave, but it's a giant rock that's supposed to look like a fish (Christ only knows how - I certainly couldn't see it) and a few ponds full of, well, yeah, fish. We bought some food, chucked it at the big scaled things in the water, made an offering and then left after a pretty wholesome experience. I sound negative, but, to be honest, I'm glad it wasn't a proper cave, as they're airless, sweaty places that I really am not all that fond of.

After the Fish Cave, Liv took over the wheel for a bit, only to be thoroughly depressed by the awful state of the car we'd ended up with. It literally started rolling down a hill, which you'd hardly call a hill, more like a gentle rise in the tarmac, whilst in second gear. In first it barely managed two miles an hour. Like the gent that I am, I volunteered to take the wheel again. It was only later that we realised we should put the thing in four wheel drive mode for all of the hill-climbing. Once we'd done that we were pretty alright and any of the others could have been driver, but as I'd stopped scaring the living daylights out of people and started doing a reasonable job of not throwing us off cliffs, they let me carry on. Unfortunately we missed a few turns on the way, because I'd gone by them by the time we realised what they were, so we ended up not really stopping the rest of the way, apart from at a roadside cafe in Soppong for lunch. Oh yeah, and the few times the jeep just decided, 'Oh, um, no, actually, I don't want to go up this hill anymore,' and came to a standstill on the hill. It might have been my gear work, but it seemed I was doing everything right. The best part was that, thrown into the bargain, the handbrake wouldn't hold us steady on a hill when the jeep stopped, so every time we did stop I had to let us roll backwards between taking my foot off the foot brake and finding the accelerator. The people in the back loved that! At one point I actually burned rubber and the whole cab smelled of it. Ooh yeah!

We realised while we were sitting at the cafe eating lunch that Rose needed to be in Pai for four o'clock to catch a bus back to Chiang Mai so she could be in Bangkok for the next day, ready for an English Camp. It was pedal to the metal time again. To cut a pretty short story into a sentence, we made it on time and Rose was aided by the fact that I parked up right in front of the bus she needed to board, meaning they had no choice but to let her on. This handy parking was, of course, accidental, but I still like to think that, somewhere, subconsciously, I did it on purpose. Anyway, found a set of bungalows containing the comfiest beds I've slept in for two months. Me and Shaun made so much noise when we both jumped on it (leave your Brokeback Mountain jokes at the door) that we could be heard in a bungalow fifty yards away. In the evening, after some rest, we took Herbie the Little Jeep That Nearly Could out again, into the town of Pai and found a place to eat (we had some Spaghetti Bolognaise - yum) and managed also to find the bar we wanted to go to, a place called Mellow Yellow. We were expecting a jazz bar but got a pub quiz. Doing it for the English, we came joint second, behind a team of regular quizzers and in front of a team of Americans (Hurrah!), tied with another bunch of Brits. Won a bottle of rum, which was drunk later on. Found a 7-11 to get some cheap alcohol at, went back to the bungalows, played cards and drank. All in all, twas a good night, enjoyed by all, but we needed to be up at five the next morning to get the car back on time, so it didn't go late into the morning.

After managing to get up on time and whatnot we discovered the only slight problem with our room. Namely that in the morning we went to go into the bathroom for showers (not at the same time, you understand - Shaun went first) and there were several hundred wasps buzzing around the netting that was bridging the gap between the end of the brickwork and the roof. You could hear them buzzing over the noise of the shower!

After the quickest showers in living memory we headed back to Mae Hong Son. On the way back the road was slightly more treacherous than on the way there. At one point we were on the outside with no guardrails or anything and the jeeps coming the other way were sliding helplessly across this massive patch of mud. Seriously scary stuff. I have no idea what I'd have done if I'd have had to go across mud. I'll leave you to ponder that one. I personally envisage a jeep at the bottom of a large hill. Oh well, away from that most morbid thought, we then encountered some incredibly thick rolling mountain fog, through which it was impossible to see more than a few metres. Thankfully I had the tail lights of the jeep in front to go by and we got out of the fog pretty quickly. By the end of the return trip I was getting a bit more confident with the driving, going a bit faster and even overtaking people. We stopped off at the viewpoint again on the way back for some more photos and got back to Mae Hong Son for ten o'clock on the dot. I don't know what state the jeep's gear box was in by the end, but they took it back, we paid and we left in a hurry to catch a bus.

The bus journey was a bus journey, bit bumpy but other than that mostly the same as other bus journeys. End of that story. We got back to Chiang Mai in the evening, went back to Ban Mae Tong Mourn and slept. The evening, unlike every other evening we've spent in Chiang Mai, was peaceful and quiet, capped off with an early night. We had sort of planned to go out, but time crept on and it was soon midnight so we basically just hit the sack. Somehow the writhing flesh and the scent of sweat and farang testosterone at Spicy, not to mention the post-dancing, drunken Pad Thai, had lost it's appeal. Next day it was decided that we'd get a bus towards Bangkok and stop at Ayutthaya, the old capital, so Charlotte and Liv could return to their project and we could go on a temple crawl. That was more a decision we made at the train station, rather than something we'd planned, but it worked out alright. Bit of temple-viewing in the daytime - some great photos to come, naturally - and at night we went to meet Liv and Charlotte in Tarua, where we stayed the night on their floor. Next morning, just before me and Tim were about to go and show off our silky basketball skills to any unfortunate Thais (we really are much better at playing it in clubs, without the ball) a woman delivered to the door a plate of mangoes and sticky rice. If you ever get the chance, try some. It's gorgeous, easily my favourite Thai dessert. Basketball was played, sweat happened, as it does when you do anything out here other than sit underneath a fan, and showers were taken. Thereafter we were ferried to the train station and boarded a train for the country's busy capital. We saw the Orient Express parked up in the train station. It was green and not all that exciting, though looked like a fairly pleasant way to travel.

Naturally, our first and only port of call was Khao San Road, where we were reunited with the volunteers staying there - Amy, Rose, Isobel, Georgia, Jenny, Emily and Adrienne. We actually saw Rose sitting on a curb as soon as we pulled up outside Burger King and were taken straight to the guesthouse, behind Burger King, where we met the most militant and most annoying hostess we've had. She basically demanded money straight away and turned up at check-out time every day with her clipboard and stony face to demand more money. We disliked her, especially so for reasons you'll read below. Yes kiddies, there is more to this post.

We were promised by the volunteers that they'd found an awesome club we could go to in the evening. We were all geared up for another crazy night's dancing, though thankfully we didn't wear our yellow outfits. Mine's already in the post to England. Sadly, rather than ending up at a club, we found that the fiendish volunteers had tricked us and we were, in fact, in Patpong. For those of you who don't know, this is the place that you are taken to if you indulge a tuk-tuk driver when he offers to take you to a ping-pong show. I'll leave the contents, of the show and of the menus they give you while you watch, to your imaginations. It grieves me to report that we had a pretty naff time. The shows were largely over by the time we arrived, the girls dancing looked generally pretty miserable, apart from one large one at the end who was giving it some, and they conned us into paying 100 Baht each for two small beers. We gave up trying to recreate the Patpong experience the girls had had on their first night and decided to find a good club. As always happens, we got split up, we didnt' really know where we were, we followed some bloke to a bar with girls that weren't dancing but where the drinks were equally expensive, we left.

Eventually we all met up, but dear Tim had to leave early due to alcohol related illness and only a few of us remained. We danced, we drank, we met a rapper called Liquid who said he knew Eminem and D-12 and was in Thailand to pay tribute to Proof, a member of D-12 who was killed recently. We went home in a car with some men, one of whom stood like a chicken, had bad shoes, and was called Ass, the other of whom spoke very little but looked like the kind of person who would be friends with the first guy.

Next day we got up too late to do anything, which was just about the story of our time in Bangkok, and ended up wasting the day and going out again in the evening. I went with Amy, Isobel and Jenny to a place where a live band was playing. All in all they weren't bad, apart from that they sung Thai songs that I didn't know. We met a guitarist from a Thai band called Bodyslam, who are, like, y'know, massively famous. He seemed like a nice kind of bloke. Went back to the club from the night before, danced, drank, repeated much of the previous night only without the man called Liquid and with the Bodyslam guitarist. There was also the odd addition of a crazy girl who kept trying to kiss Amy. Bizarre stuff. It took us ages to leave for some reason, but we did eventually, and it was only when we got back to the guesthouse that the shit really started.

It was early morning (why when else would we be coming home?) and we'd gone to bed. I was in the shower when there was a knock at the door. Opening it, I found Amy nearly in tears, telling me that someone had broken into their room and stolen everything. Once I'd realised she wasn't kidding, Tim and I got dressed and went downstairs. Basically, someone had gone into their room whilst Georgia was asleep, oblivious on the bed, and stolen all of the important items in their luggage; passports, cameras, bank cards and money. Things were strewn everywhere and all that was left was a pair of crappy high-heeled sandals. When we woke up the hostess, she was absolutely convinced that we, the girls' friends, had stolen the stuff. She kept walking around, being generally useless and frowing as though we were some kind of inconvenience to her. Sympathy was severely lacking and she wouldn't even phone the police. Amy had to tramp off down Khao San to the station and get them herself. Then when they came Miss Marple kept telling them we'd done it and, in Thai, muttering about how farang were like kids. They proceeded to search only the rooms in which me and Tim and Shaun and Rose were staying. When they found a picture of Isobel in Jenny's purse, which had been left in Shaun and Rose's room, Miss Marple went off her head and started running around like she'd solved the whole case. She soon shut up when everyone shouted at her and recommended that she stop being so stupid. I think she got the point after that and stopped meddling. As far as the culprit goes, we're sure it was a ladyboy. The night before, when Tim was ill, Georgia was in our room because she couldn't get into her own and she woke up in the night to find a ladyboy standing in our doorway. By the time she'd woken Tim up they'd gone, but we're pretty sure it was the same person that did the girls, as she also walked into another room, opposite the girls' room, and seemed about to do the same. Thankfully the girls have Project Trust behind them and they've been to the Embassy and the wheels are in motion to get them sorted out again.

Swiftly swiftly on from that most harrowing tale, it is fair to say that the next day, or should I say later that same day after some much-needed rest, passed without event. In the evening no one was overly concerned to go out and leave our rooms to the devises of the ladyboy of the night. It was another of those quiet ones, so sorry folks, little news.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, the following day was Wednesday and the release date of Mission Impossible 3. After a predictably slow start to the day - we are all really naff at getting out of bed - and a brief encounter with Miss Marple the landlady, we checked out and left our bags in a safe room before going to the Siam Paragon, which has a 14-screen cineplex on the fifth floor. You really have to go to the Paragon and see it to believe it. It's bloody enormous and has just about every shop for the upper-middle class Thai you can think of. Sadly it does show up the vast gulf between Thailand's rich and poor. As you ride into Hualamphong Train Station you see rows of shacks made of corrugated iron that probably house families with as many as four or six people, and then in the centre you see people shopping wantonly at Gucci, Prada, Fendi; you name it, the Paragon has it and the Thai people with enough money are lapping it up. Oh well, enough socialist ranting for now. The Paragon is amazing and apparently the biggest, most flash shopping centre in all Southeast Asia. After having seen it, this is no great surprise. Ate Subway - my first meatball Sub ever, and I have promised myself it won't be the last - and saw M:I-3. The film was good. In fact, I'd go so far as to recommend it, particularly if you liked the others.

We now split up so me and Tim could go and book us tickets on the sleeper train to Nong Khai (beside the Lao border). At the train station we found that there were no sleeper compartments available at all that evening, so we got a tourist bus instead. These are the worst kind of buses. Unlike Thai buses, the tourist ones have hardly any leg room, you end up sitting next to strangers and they don't bring you any food, water or anything for the whole twelve hours. Oh yeah, and the last time we took one we all got robbed. Nuff said.

The journey was alright, sat next to a tall bald man with a beard and a vest, barely slept, arrived at the border to Laos around half six, at which point we decided to pay a bit extra so the bus would take us all the way to Vientiane, saving us messing around doing it ourselves. Boring bureaucratic border faff ensued for the following three hours, meaning we got to Vientiane by half nine and were in our guesthouse by ten. Tim and Shaun slept, whilst Rose and I went on a brief explore of the very small capital city, because our room is so goddamn hot and the fan practically useless.

There you have it, the journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, all the way to Laos, in one absolutely riveting post. I'm sure you were all on the edges of your respective seats. I know I was, but that was mostly because the bald guy beside me on the bus kept leaning on me. I would go on, but I have no great desire to put you all in comas. More about Vientiane (which is actually pronounced as 'Wiang', meaning city, and 'Jian', meaning sandalwood) next time!