All Pai Myself

Ever since booking our trip, Karl had been toying with the idea of spending a few extra weeks in Thailand to learn Muay Thai kickboxing. It's not something he'd done before, but it seemed like it'd be an amazing thing to learn whilst in the country. When he was handed a leaflet in Chiang Mai for a local kickboxing school, with a two day trial period available, it seemed silly not to give it a try. He loved it (as we kind of knew he would!) and decided he wanted to stay in the city for a few weeks to train. It's very intense, with two training sessions a day, seven days a week. But a week's training costs just 2200baht (45 pounds), which is fantastic considering a kickboxing lesson in London can cost around 10 pounds per session. All in all, it seemed like an opportunity way too good to pass up.

This was all well and good for Karl, but it did leave me in a bit of a pickle for a couple of days. What the hell was I going to do for three weeks?? I didn't fancy just hanging around waiting for Karl to get home from training every day. After uhming and ahhing over my various options (volunteering, solo travel, a course etc) I packed my bag and set off on my own to spend a week in a town called Pai – it's in the north of Thailand, three hours drive from Chiang Mai.

Naturally, I was very nervous about the idea of travelling alone. I needn't have worried, because I actually ended up having one of the best weeks of the trip so far.

Pai is an amazing place. It's nestled in the hills (as all the best places seem to be!) so the weather is cooler than in the city and the views around town are stunning. It's a small town, with just four main roads, a bunch of little lanes, two traffic lights, and a river running alongside. It's very peaceful and chilled out, and the people (locals, tourists and expats) are incredibly friendly. So while Karl punched and kicked his way through the week, I kicked back and relaxed.

I really lucked out when it came to the guesthouse I stayed at. I chose a place called Happy House, which is run by Fritz, a Dutch Australian who retired here a year ago. He runs the place with his partner, a really lovely katoy (ladyboy) called Arnon. Fritz is a great guy, who really looks out for everyone staying at the House. He worries if anyone has been out all day and not returned by sunset, is always happy to give guests a lift into town or to local sights, and he always makes a point of introducing everyone to each other.

I met a truly great bunch of people at Happy House. There was Kali and Linda from the UK, who were staying in the big bungalow. A Swedish couple Erik and Sandra were in the little bungalow. Later that week, we were joined by another couple from the UK, Tom and Kate.

Happy House has an open-air living room upstairs with dining table and chairs, sofas, free tea and coffee, a stove if you want to cook your own meals, and great views of the hills. It's very homely and I spent a lot of time just lounging around with a book or my journal. It was a bit like being back at uni, where all your friends live close by, and there's always someone hanging around to have a chat and a cup of tea with. And before you know it, three hours have passed and the rest of the gang returns home in dribs and drabs from wherever they've been that day.

Living room with a view

In the evenings, we'd all gather at the bar, where Moo the resident guitarist would play for a couple of hours and we'd join in for a bit of a sing song if we knew the words. Then we'd all go out for dinner together, before ending up either on Kali and Linda's balcony with a bottle or two of Sangsom (Thai rum, always a welcome guest at any Pai party!) or at a bar listening to some of the town's great live music.

Towards the end of the week we hired a few motorbikes and went for a long drive through the hills. I know I keep saying this, but seriously, the landscape in Pai is just incredible. Look!

Our motorcycle convoy!

Our drive ended with a trip to the waterfalls. You'd think I'd be sick of waterfalls by now, but this one was super cool. It'd been quite a sunny day, and the water was cool and refreshing.

After a bit of a swim we sat on the rocks with a couple of beers, and later on our way back to the bikes we met a guy who recommended a mini hike up to another part of the waterfall. The walk up there was like an adventure playground. We made our way over rickety bamboo bridges, hopped from rock to rock over little streams and gripped bamboo railings as we inched across sloping walls of rocks with little nooks for footholds.

Rickety bridges and dodgy railings - at least there wasn't far to fall!

Eventually we came to a magical little cave with a little opening at the top through which the waterfall cascaded down, bathed in sunlight. My camera couldn't quite cope with the light, but Linda got a great shot:

The swim and the walk had made for quite an energetic day (especially for Pai, where an entire day can pass by without you actually having done anything at all), and we were starving by the time we returned home. A feast was definitely in order. We popped out to the market and bought some salad, and a whole roast chicken flavoured with garlic and herbs. Some mayonnaise, drinks and baguettes from the shop completed our spread and we had the biggest and best chicken sandwiches I've had in a loooong time.

Earlier that morning we'd decided to book ourselves in for a Thai massage. I've always thought of massage as being something relaxing, but Thai massage is something else entirely. I asked the woman if I should take off my dress and lie on my front. She looked at me strangely before double checking that it was a massage I wanted. It turns out that clients stay fully clothed for Thai massage.

It's basically a bit like having someone bend and twist you into different yoga positions, while occasionally doing some sort of acupuncture with their thumbs. Once I'd gotten over the fact that there are no scented oils or gentle hands, it was actually brilliant. She pulled and stretched my arms and legs every which way, and kneaded my muscles with her elbows, knees and feet. By the end of it I felt limbered up and good as new. Although there was one scary bit when she stood on the back of my thighs and pushed all her weight on my lower back. If I'd been able to breathe I might've told her that I was worried about throwing up my sandwich.

I'd looked into massage courses amongst other things (Tai Chi, Thai language etc) before I'd left Chiang Mai, but at that point hadn't really known what traditional Thai massage was all about. Now that I'd had one, I decided that it would be a great thing to learn. After some research, I picked an accredited place called Sunshine Massage School in Chiang Mai. My ten-day beginners course would begin the following Monday!

The next day was Fritz's one year anniversary of being in Pai, so after a day at the swimming pool we set about organising a bit of a celebration. Another feast was in order! Fritz whipped up some homemade crisps to eat with our beers while we prepared a huge batch of fried rice flavoured with pineapple and bacon (sounds weird, tastes great), a plateful of sausages (they'd run out of chicken) and an enormous salad.

Tom fries the bacon (top), while Fritz makes homemade crisps and
Erik cooks up a batch of sausages (bottom).

We also had a bash at making balloon animals to decorate the place. Animals proved a bit difficult and while Sandra managed a three-legged, multicoloured giraffe, the rest of us settled for abstract shapes.

Sandra and her fabulous 'creation'!

Eventually at around 10pm we all sat down to our meal. Fritz opened his presents – a novelty hat, and a glass decorated by us with gold stickers. We had a great evening that started off with food and drinks in the bar, while Moo entertained us with his guitar playing. Fritz very kindly opened up a free bar for the evening, but we also bought a our own bottles of Sangsom from the shop to prevent drinking him dry!

Fritz with his gifts

Later on the party moved up to Kali and Linda's balcony. Some of the others had purchased harmonicas earlier that day, and it was only a matter of time before these were brought out for a bit of a singsong, which eventually turned into an impromptu 'jamming' session. We acquired a tambourine from behind the bar, Kali had a little rattle and another girl who had joined us for the evening brought along her flute. I was on 'percussion' with the rattle – I have no musical ability so I couldn't really be trusted with anything else – and we played and chatted until daylight slowly began to creep over the hills.

I hope you like jammin' too...

The next day was a Saturday, and time to head back to Chiang Mai. Pai is one of the only places that I've actually felt sad about leaving, it's one of those places that really gets into you and makes you want to stay forever. It's beautiful and peaceful and safe. For such a small town it has an wealth of interesting and talented people – musicians, jewellery makers, Reiki experts, artists, writers, everything. As I left I decided that I would definitely return again some day for a longer stay. But for now, it was time to head back to the city for my first day at school.


Note: Some photos courtesy of the lovely Linda

Tale of Two Cities

We've been in Thailand for a month now, and I haven't told you a single thing about it – sorry! So much has happened that I just haven't had time to blog, which I guess is a good thing. There's a lot to tell, so I've split it up into a couple of posts.

The reason we returned to Bangkok at the beginning of June was to meet up with my lovely friend Tara, who I've known since high school. Back home, we get together every couple of weeks for a good natter, too much sushi and waaaayyy too much wine. The thought of not being able to do this again for a whole year was just too much to bear, and before I left London she made plans to come out to Thailand with two of her sisters, so that we could do pretty much the same thing on the other side of the world. Sushi was replaced by green curries and pizza, and in place of wine we had some amazing whiskey shakes (think whiskey blended with fruit and ice – amazing), and a fab time was had by all.

During the day we left Karl to his own devices while we escaped Bangkok's heat in some air conditioned malls for a spot of lunch and some window shopping. All of this might not sound too exciting to everyone back home, but it's been SO long since I spent time with my friends – it's not till I spent a few days with Tara that I realised just how much I've been missing it!

Along the way, we saw some of the effects of the recent protests, which had taken place predominately in the Siam Square part of town, where most of the big malls are located. We tried to enter one of the shopping centres but were informed that it was closed. One look at the next mall along, Zen World, told us why. It has been completely burnt out in a fire – and I mean totally wrecked. There's just the skeleton of the building left.

My photo only shows a very small section, but the mall is actually an entire block long and the extent of the damage is the same across the whole thing. It was quite shocking because the buildings and street surrounding this mall look pretty much untouched. And on the surface at least, the rest of Bangkok seems to be business as usual – you'd never guess any rioting had taken place. Anyway, I just though it would be an interesting update compared to my last photos of the protesting (a couple of months earlier), when people were camped out on the streets, happily enjoying picnics and foot massages.

Tara and I also decided to see a couple of temples while we were out and about. There was Wat Pho with the huge reclining Buddha, which was pretty cool:
But the highlight was probably this:


I don't think I've ever seen one of these outside of a theme park or beach!

Meanwhile, Karl had his own adventures, making friends with a Thai guy called Daeng, and spending the entire day eating and drinking, returning home only to collect the bottle of whiskey he'd bought from duty free the day before. He stumbled in at 5am after finishing the whiskey with his newfound friends and going to a local nightclub! The next day was spent nursing a horrendous hangover, but it sounds like the spontaneous adventure was definitely worth it. Oh, and he got a haircut from a gay hairdresser who tried to cop a feel. Fun times!

After a few fun-filled days, Tara flew back to England, and Karl and I headed up Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. It's Thailand's second largest city, and it's a lot more chilled out than Bangkok, with plenty to do.

What with our love of both cooking and Thai food, it only made sense to do a cookery course. Thai food is one of those things that never tastes quite right when I try to make it at home, so I was very eager to learn how it's really supposed to be done. We chose a company called Cooking at Home, run by some friendly ladies who have a really nice open-air kitchen just outside the city. We made pretty much all of our favourite dishes – Thai green curry, hot and sour Tom Yum soup, green papaya salad, spring rolls, and mango with sticky coconut rice. These are our delicious creations:

To be honest, after over three months of eating out, it was strange to be back in the kitchen and it took a while to remember how the whole cooking thing works. For example, just after this photo was taken, Karl managed to fling a chunk of spice paste into his eye.

It took a little while to recover, but once we got going it was a lot of fun, and the food was fantastic (if I do say so myself).


We were given recipe books too, which is handy because there's no way we'll be able to remember everything when we get back next Feb!

The next day we hired a bike and rode up the nearby hills to Doi Suthep temple. Well, the bike wasn't very good, so we kind of chugged up really. And once we reached the temple, there was an enormous flight of stairs to climb – they're stunning, but a killer to climb.

At the top, once we'd caught our breath, it turned out we weren't correctly attired to enter the temple, so we hired some extra clothing to cover up. I got a nice long wraparound skirt made from beautiful blue Thai fabric. Karl got baggy pants.

The temple was beautiful, and there were stunning views of Chiang Mai too.

Plus we found some bells to play with. And in.


We'd read that not much further up the hill from the temple is a little village with an awesome coffee shop. We hopped back on the bike and chugged up a little further. We followed some signs and made our way up a very windy, very potholed, uphill lane. Very slowly, and very bumpily. According to the Lonely Planet guide, it was only supposed to be a few hundred metres up the lane, so after driving for a few kilometres we were beginning to doubt whether we were on the right track. We chugged back down, asked for directions. No, we were on the wrong road, we had to go further back down the hill.

We drove down, found a temple and asked an English-speaking monk for directions. No, we'd been on the right lane in the first place, we should go back up to the lane and drive for 10 kilometres to the campsite, and it was just past there. Should we bother, we thought? Half an hour and a lot of fuel later, we were at the campsite. We checked at reception and were told it was just a few kilometres further down an even more potholed road. Another 15 minutes later, we came across a teeny village with just a handful of wooden buildings. Finally! It was an awesome coffee shop – an open-air wooden building, overlooking a lush green coffee plantation, with the hills in the distance.

All it served was strong black coffee and Thai pot noodles. We had both, and sat for a while to enjoy the view until we noticed some rain clouds in the distance and decided it would be wise to head for home. Unfortunately, we weren't quite fast enough. Only 10 minutes later we got caught in a torrential downpour. The roads got slippery so we stopped off to shelter at the campsite for an hour until the rain had eased up, and then set off again through some lighter rain in a bid to get home before sunset.

It was pretty grim at first – the temperature is cooler in the hills, so we were damp and shivering until we'd got far enough down the hill to feel the blanket of warmth that surrounds the city. But all in all, it was a fun little adventure, and must surely be the biggest journey we've ever made for a cup of coffee!

Our Best Eats - Vietnam

I was introduced to Vietnamese food a few months before setting out on this trip by one of my best friends, who took me to a great restaurant called Song Que on Kingsland Road in east London. I had no idea what to expect, but the food was amazing – lots of really fresh flavours, and DIY dishes where you put together elements of your meal based on how sweet/savoury/spicy/tangy/herby you prefer. I dragged Karl there a few weeks later and, as you can imagine, we soon became very excited about the prospect of eating our way through Vietnam on our trip.

Well, we've now had a chance to sample a month's worth of food in Vietnam, so without further ado here's a round up of our favourite dishes:


Noodle soup – there's a huge variety of noodle soups in Vietnam, and all the ones we tried were fantastic. One of our favourites was in Dalat. I have no idea what it was called, but it had thin slices of pork, little crunchy pieces of pork crackling, pork wonton dumplings, vegetables and noodles. Mmm pork pork pork. Hey, who you calling porky?

Pho – possibly one of Vietnam's most well known dishes, Pho is another noodle soup, this time made with a meaty broth, thin slices of pork, beef or chicken and rice noodles. It often comes with a plate of bean sprouts, chillis, lime and herbs (coriander, Vietnamese basil etc) which can all be added to taste, along with fish sauce if you fancy it.

Pho!

DIY BBQ – Basically, you choose from a selection of meat and seafood, which comes marinated in spices along with a miniature barbeque on which you cook your own dinner! Whatever you choose comes with a portion of lightly salted and spiced okra, which is really good when slightly barbequed. Some people might not be in favour of cooking your own dinner when you're supposed to be eating out, but it was fun and tasty so I have no complaints!

Me looking rather shiny faced with our DIY BBQ

Bahn Xeo – they say it's a pancake but essentially it's a really thin omelette filled with pork, seafood and beansprouts. It's delicious eaten on its own with the small accompanying salad of fresh herbs and a sweet & spicy dipping sauce, but it sometimes also comes with little rice pancakes so that you construct your own wraps which is equally nice.

Baguettes – we had a lot of baguettes in Vietnam. No matter where you are, you're probably not far from a baguette vendor. They can be made with anything from pork meat or omelette to Laughing Cow cheese, and they usually come with cucumber, herbs and chilli sauce. They make a good, cheap breakfast or lunch, but by far the best baguette we had was on the way home after a night out in Can Tho. It had pate, pork meat, chillies, herbs, cucumber, soy sauce and chilli sauce and it was mmmm mmmmm tasty.

Baguette ingredients

Vietnamese iced coffee – unfortunately we didn't discover this treat until the last week of our stay, but I think Vietnam does one of the best iced coffees we've ever had, and like no other iced coffee I've ever had. It's a really strong shot of Vietnamese coffee, mixed well with about an inch of condensed milk and loads of crushed ice. The condensed milk makes it taste almost chocolatey, while the ice makes it quite refreshing to drink - it's actually very moreish. Karl loved them and managed two or three a day, so as an early birthday present I got him a little Vietnamese drip coffee device. I think we'll definitely be having a go at recreating these once we're back home!

Vietnamese coffee - it's even darker than me!

Pork and rice – this is a pretty simple dish that we had in various different forms, whether the pork was grilled, barbequed or braised. I don't know what flavourings or spices they use, but the pork is always absolutely delicious. The dish often comes with some kind of fish sauce to pour over the rice, some fresh cucumber and a little bowl of clear chicken broth. The best versions we had were usually at food stops on long bus journeys.

Pork and rice at a market in Saigon

Grilled chicken and rice – this is a meal we had at a food stop on a bus journey from Hoi An to Nha Trang. It was 10pm, I hadn't eaten anything since lunch and I'd spent the past hour of the journey too hungry to sleep, day dreaming about my favourite foods. The chicken had been marinated in chilli, tumeric and garlic before being grilled, and it was served with some stir fried greens and a little bowl of soup. It was like the best thing I'd ever eaten.

Strawberry shake – Fruit shakes are pretty common throughout south east Asia, especially in tourist hotspots. Dalat is well known for growing strawberries so it only made sense to try out a strawberry shake when we visited the market. It was essentially fresh strawberries blended up with crushed ice, but it was easily the best shake we've had on this trip so far.

Strawberry wine – another one from Dalat. It tastes more like some sort of liqueur than wine. If you've ever had plum wine, it's similar in taste but, well, strawberry flavoured. I like.

Artichoke tea – the last in my list of Dalat drinks! Dalat's also a big producer of artichokes, and this apparently is a popular drink in the area. It's blended with sweet herbs (I don't know what exactly) so it has a slight caramel aftertaste. We had it after a cable car ride through the hills, and it's pretty good.

Drinking artichoke tea in the hills. Yes yes, I'm short, he's tall, get over it...

Mangosteen and Rambutan – two fruits we've tasted for the first time. Mangosteen has a deep purple, soft outer shell that you break open to reveal segments of white fruit inside, which have a sweet and slightly citrus taste. It's delicious and unlike any other fruit I've ever eaten. Rambutan is a red fruit with soft green spikes and looks potentially poisonous, or like some kind of alien plant life. This again is a soft shell. The fruit inside looks and tastes quite similar to lychees.

Mangosteen (left) and Rambutan (right)

I'm sure there's loads of other food that we didn't get to try, but there's always next time! Meanwhile, I'd definitely recommend seeking out a Vietnamese restaurant wherever you are. As I mentioned at the start of the post, Kingsland Road is a good place to start. I've only been to Song Que, which has good reviews on Time Out etc, but I've heard from London-based Vietnamese friends that a lot of the others in the area are worth checking out, even if they don't seem quite as busy or well publicised.

Goodbye Vietnam!

We would happily have spent a couple more days in Dalat, but with only a week and a half left in Vietnam before our visas ran out, it was time to move on to Hoi An. Our vehicle of choice for this overnight journey was a sleeper bus, which in theory sounds fantastic - it's basically a bus with beds, blankets and pillows. In reality, with 14 hours of potholed, twisty roads to navigate, sleeping on this bus was like lying in a narrow cot on the floor of a boat during rough seas. Never again. Within three hours of leaving, I missed Dalat already and hoped Hoi An would be worth the journey.

Thankfully it turned out to be a really nice little town to spend a few days, despite the heat and an overwhelming number of tourists. The Old Town area, which runs along the riverside, is full of little lanes with pretty French style villas painted yellow and draped with climbing plants. In the evenings, all the restaurants are lit up with colourful lanterns, which created the perfect setting for dinner and a few beers by the riverside.


Every other shop in Hoi An is a tailor, so I took the opportunity to have a colourful summer dress made. Then, because I liked it so much, I bought two more. In total, the three specially made dresses came to about 20pounds. Even though it's not really within our budget, I've decided I want to try and be more colourful (in terms of clothing) when I return home, and this seemed like the perfect way to start.


You'd think we'd be bored of beaches by now, but we found out that there were a couple nearby and it seemed silly not to check at least one of them out. An Bang beach turned out to be gorgeous – kind of what I'd hoped to find in Mui Ne. White sand, cool sea, mountains in the distance and loads of these cool round fishing boats. You're probably all getting tired of the usual beach pictures by now, so instead here's one of me posing with the fishing boats in my new sunhat:


As nice as it looked, the sand turned out to be almost too hot to walk on so after dumping our stuff on a sun lounger we literally hot footed it over to the sea, which was so cold that it made Karl's nipples hurt!

We also arranged to meet a friend in Bangkok in a couple of weeks time, and the easiest way to get there seemed to be a flight from Saigon, so after a relaxing two days we headed down south to Nha Trang. Unfortunately, my vow to never board a sleeper bus again was broken as there didn't seem to be any other feasible way to get there. This time, however, I was prepared! A couple of travel sickness pills from my trusty medical kit did the trick, and we actually managed to get some sleep and arrive in Nha Trang feeling fairly well rested. To everyone who laughed at me for packing my bag over a month before our trip, it pays to be organised!

Now, Nha Trang is known as being a bit of a party town for travellers, with plenty of bars offering happy hours for practically half the day. I fully expected it to be fun but very touristy, and was really pleased to find that (as well as being both of these things) it also has a very local scene. The backpackers generally seem to stick to a few streets lined with bars, restaurants, coffee shops and budget guesthouses, and surprisingly few tourists can actually be found on the beach during the day compared to the numbers that emerge after dark. This was quite nice as it meant that the beach was generally peaceful in the daytime.

However, at around 4pm everyday, Nha Trang's inhabitants start to flock to the beach in droves on foot, motorbike or bicycle. By 5pm it's absolutely packed with families picnicking on the sand, playing in the sea and flying kites. I sat for two hours by the beach and didn't see a single white person in the sea! The atmosphere is fun and friendly, and one evening I happily sat on the beach for two hours just people-watching – kids making up silly games in the sand, teenage boys competing to do the best somersaults in the sea, men doing laps between buoys and the shore, women doing a leisurely breaststroke just like at home!


Meanwhile, the sky had darkened (another daily occurrence at the moment) and it had begun to lightly drizzle. It didn't last long, and just as the skies were beginning to clear, a haze of rainbow started to appear. Before long it was a full arch, with a second bow forming just beside it. Everything combined – the happy atmosphere, the clearing sky, the rainbow, islands in the distance – was actually quite breathtaking in a way that I hadn't really expected.

I tried taking a few photos but my camera couldn't really capture it all the way I'd hoped. I don't mind too much though, because even though nothing really happened, I think that was one of my most vivid and memorable experiences so far.


The whole time I'd been wishing Karl was there to see it with me – I'd left him in a cafe with the laptop for a couple of hours. It turned out he hadn't stayed there long and had gone for a walk along the beach instead, so he'd seen it all too. Plus, he'd bought me an awesome belated birthday present – a kite! It was dark by the time we met each other, but we had a go with the kite on the beach anyway:


It wasn't too successful, so we tried again the following afternoon and jeez that thing went high! It pretty much unwound most of the string from the reel and flew itself, I had to grip on quite tightly so as not to lose it!

Unfortunately the kite was too big to fit into either of our backpacks, so we gave it away to a family with a young daughter at breakfast the next morning.

The good thing about Nha Trang being so touristy is that it makes it a great place for meeting other travellers and, well, getting drunk. So this is exactly what we did with a couple we met – Catherine and Kym - at a great bar called Crazy Kim's, where we played Jenga, Connect 4 and pool, while downing too many shots (including tequila, unwisely) in celebration of Catherine's birthday. Needless to say, the following day was spent feeling hungover.

A couple of days later we boarded a flight from Saigon to Bangkok. I was a bit sad to leave Vietnam - we had a great time and there's so much we didn't get a chance to see, like the whole north of the country! We're back in Bangkok now and I'm quite looking forward to getting to know a new country.

Watch this space for one more post on Vietnam though – the food!!