Rogerson's on the Road

After a hot, sweaty and franzied journey through the islands of Southern Thailand we knew it was time to "do" something. Now, we are not complaining, but 2 weeks on a beach for your summer holidays is great but spending a month on a beach can be, at times, well quite frankly, a bit boring. We still are not the type of people to be able to sit and do nothing like so many of our fellow travellers.

We caught two flights in order to get to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand via Bangkok. The flights in themsleves were only an hour each but we had 7 hour wait for our connecting flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which entailed us having to sleep in the domestic departure hall of Bangkok airport (there are photos of Neil looking much like a homeless person on the website!).

Landing in Chiang Mai was like a breath of fresh air, literally. The climate is much cooler than that of Southern Thailand and the air is crisp. Chiang Mai is an old walled city with the main tourist area being surrounded by a moat. It is cultured, cool and has a totally different feel and appeal than the South. We love it here. Bookshops replace the t-shirt stalls and lucky lucky men are replaced by fully robed Buddist Monks, Chiang Mai oozes history and culture.

The city itself is fasinating with a Wat on every corner, adorned with their golden turrets and sparkling singha dragons guarding the doorways. We managed to spend a couple of days exploring the city and pounding the streets ticking off the sights. You don't feel like you are going to collapse with heat exhaustion here as the climate is so much cooler and condusive to a good bit of sight seeing.

We hired bicycles and cycled the 9 Km out of Chiang Mai to the village of Bo Sang - the Umbrella Village. Here they handmake paper umbrellas, everything from the wooden frames to the paper is hamdmade, a really beautiful place to visit.

No trip to Chaing Mai is complete without a cookery course and a hill trek, and we have been lucky enough to do both. The cookery course was taken by a lovely Thai gent called Mr Teng who has purpose built his cookery school with an extensive garden where he growns the most amazing veges, huge patches of corriander, thai basil, holy basil, tomatoes, pinapples, dragon fruit, long beans....the list goes on. We had a great guided tour of a local market which sold everything from french beans to live frogs! The fish was so fresh, it is brought to market still alive, swimming in baby baths!

The cookery school was really interesting and I picked up some great tips, Neil however is now a master of thai cookery and really embraced the whole day. I am hoping for a break for the kitchen a few days a week when we get home - although I am worried we will just eat spring rolls! We spent the night at the cookery school in the most beautiful bamboo house, it was so quiet and peaceful.

The next day we were picked up by our trekking guide for our 2 day, 1 night hill trek. The trek would take us 1000 metres up into the Chiang Mai mountains to stay at a Karen Tribe Village but first of all we would visit an elephant camp.

Elephant riding is great but the slowest mode of transport I have ever been on. Elephants have got to be the most stubbon creatures on earth and will not move unless they are eating at the same time. Our "driver" spent most of the journey trying to move the elephant way from the tasty snacks which the elephant knew were hidden in the forest and we spent most of the journey looking down the elephants nose as it sniffed about for bananas. At the end of the 1 hour trip I was covered in elephant snot - lovely!!!! A brilliant experience and one I would recommend, but one piece of advice, buy a large bunch of bananas to bribe the elephant with!

We trekked up into the mountains of Chiang Mai to reach the Karen Village which would be base camp for the night. The Karen Hill tribes live at about 1000 metres above sea level and wear the very colourful woven fabrics (we have uploaded some photos). We stayed at a White Karen Village, so called as all the unmarried women wear white and the married women wear the coloured outfits (no confusion there then). The villages are, as you can imagine, very basic but the introduction of tourism has brought change. They now have solar energy for lighting which enables the children to study and read in their own villages at night and enables us to find out beds at night. The bed for the night was a bamboo hut, much more basic than the one at the cookery school and absolutly freezing cold! The temperature really drops away at night and at that height, it was like Manchester in the winter! It will go down as the most uncomfortable night I have ever had (and I have slept in Bangkok airport). It is the first time in my life that I was happy and rejoicing the morning! A great experience all the same and the people in the hill tribe could not have been nicer nor kinder to us during our stay.

The awful nights sleep was soon forgetten as we started out trek back down the mountain at 9.30 in the morning. The mountian mist was clearing as the vast forest, patch worked with terraced rice fields and grazing ox was revealed. I guess you have to experience discomfort to get these rewards. I spent the whole day humbled by what I had seen in the hill village.

So what comes up has to come down and we spent 3 and a half knee grinding hours decending the hill which we had climbed the day before, by lunchtime we were dusty, thirsty, hungry and I was about ready for a sleep! I looked down the valley and thought we still seemed awfully high and they it dawned on me how we were going to get to the bottom of the valley. I seemed to recall "bamboo rafting" was mentioned on the itinery.

So after lunch we were launched onto the River Weng on a raft that was constructed from 5 bamboo "logs" lashed together with bike tyres. We had a local "driver" and Neil acting as rudder. Wet? Yes wet, although Neil did a fantastic job and we were not dunked into the river once, the bamboo raft did not do that great a job of floating, it kind of fluctuated between submerged and semi-submerged for the 50 minute ride down the river but it was so much fun but by the end of the day we were ready for our hotel room, a hot shower and a cup of tea!

Next stop Laos, not sure how we are going to get there yet but we are have to be out of Thailand by 26th January when our visa runs out. So until the next time folks enjoy the photos.

Because I am so far behind I have decided to try and condense all the above places into one entry, sorry but it might seem like a bit of a race through Southern Thailand.

We took the train from Butterworth to the border town of Hat Yai in Southern Thailand and stayed over night to try and formulate a plan for our next move. Thailand is such a huge place and our original plans were to travel up the east coast by train and see some places we have not been to before, but all good plans......

Krabi

Neil and I travelled to Thailand a few years ago and stayed on Phi Phi, we promised ourselves the it would not be the last time we went and we felt even more compelled to go after the tsunami last year. So scrapped were that plans for the east coast of Thailand and on were the plans for the west coast. We took a 4 hour minivan trip with 15 other people to Krabi town (the gate way for the south west islands). People usually only stay for 1 or 2 nights in Krabi waiting to cross to the island but we managed to spend 6 days here. It is a great place to take day trips from and loads to see in the surrounding area - all of which is very easily accessed using public transport. With it being the New Year and peak season on the Islands we were unable to book any accomodation - Phi Phi would have to wait.

Krabi has a handful of great resturants and a fantastic night market which we managed to eat at every night! We took a trip to Rai ley beach (the resort on the beach will cost you 300 pounds a night), the bus trip from Krabi will cost you 30 pence and the beach is free to use. We did a snorkelling trip which took in Chicken Island (Google it you will be suprised!), visited a Shell Graveyard, and spent a day in the next town (Au Nang). We had a great time in Krabi and after 6 days we made the trip to to Phi Phi.

Phi - Phi

We arrived onto Phi Phi and could not believe how much it has changed since our last visit 2 years ago. The tsunami did untold damage here. It is a very small island which was hit from both sides, it hard to describe but we have all seen the pictures on the TV. It is also hard to feel sorry for the people here because they do not feel sorry for themselves. They are up and very much running. The resturants, resorts and small stalls all have there doors open, the children are all at their new school and building work is still going on. The memorials are all very small and I think that there is a real sence of moving on and not dwelling. "Come and spend your money here" is the message.

Our last visit to Phi Phi saw us in a swanky resort on the "posh" side of the island, right on the beach in and AC bungalow with mini bar, cable TV and room service, this time was a little different. We stayed in a hill top resort, in a really cute tree house with no AC but a mosquito net, but we did have a pool! We spent 2 great days on Phi Phi and it was great to go back. Anybody thinking about visiting and are still not sure about it, dont worry it is still very beautiful and fully operational.

Phuket

From Phi Phi we caught the 2 hour boat to Phuket with no particular plans. We stayed in Phuket town which in itself is very interesting with plenty to see but the real pull for Phuket is it's beaches. We headed to Patong beach which is the largest beach area, oh my goodness - this place is like Blackpool but hotter and tackier. The British might have conquered and discovered most of the world but in mordern times we have managed to destroy some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. There is row after row of Irish pubs, fish and chip shops, pizza parlours. You and get HP sauce, Marmite, Only Fools and Horses with every meal - very sad indeed.

There are however some very quiet, white sandy beaches further down the coast at Kata and Karon beach - much more our scene. Laid out on a sun lounger you have no need to move as a regular stream of Thai men and women sell you everything from the very usful sun cream, water and ice lolly to the more unusual wooden motorbikes and tin can tuk-tuks?!

I know it looks like we have not done a lot in the past week or so and I guess to a certain extent that it true. Neil has been nursing a really nasty bug which I am convinced was Dengue Fever. It has caused him to be off his food (no really suprise there) but off beer also! He has lost a suprising 18 pounds in weight and is now looking very svelte indeed. However, he has made a full recovery and is on a one man mission to replace the lost 18 pounds.

Speaking of which, it is lunchtime here and I am off for some curry.

Yes, yes, I know that it is mid January and I am quite far behind, but at least I am trying!

We made that over night trip from KL to Butterworth on the sleeper train. What a great expereince that was - it made a nine hour journey really quite pleasant. A nice comfortable bed in a private cabin with a small sink and reading lights - what more can you want? The only problem with the public transport in SE Asia is that, if you are lucky enough to be able to afford the 1st class ticket, they come with air conditioning as standard and drivers seem to think that you are a perishable commodity and chill the carriages to near freezing! I started to regret sending my fleece, hat and gloves home!

Once we arrived in Butterworth we crossed over the train station platform to the ferry terminal and waited for the 6am ferry over the the island on Penang.

With no hotel accomodation booked we put our faith in a nice Chinese taxi driver who drove us up the coast to the beach area of Batu Ferrenghi. After about 15 attempts in different hotels up the coast we managed to get ourselves booked into the Bayview Beach and Spa Resort (and yes it was a nice as it sounds). It was the day before Christmas Eve and we wanted somewhere nice to stay for Christmas. We quickly made ourselves comfortable poolside for a few days of sunshine.

Christmas day came and went without too much of a fuss and we really did not feel it was like Christmas at all and by mid morning we thought that we would have to do something in order to remember Christmas Day 2005. After a wander on the beach Neil came up with the perfect plan:

"why don't we got parasailing", he says.

"Cool", I said

So off we went, adorned with a life jacket, a harness (which I was convinced would not have passed any kind of safety checks in the UK - I have done a harness appreciation course, dont you know) and attached to a parachute which was in turn attached to a speed boat. I was given some instructions, in pigeon english, which I roughly translated into run fast, let go, when we shout pull this cord. Simple I thought to myself.

OK, so you might be getting the picture now, this was parasailing as only Alison Rogerson and Bridget Jones could do. Firstly, I ran fast but the speed boast did not get going as quickly as it should have done and ended up being dunked into the water and the parachate get all twisted up. In my fear I managed to untwist myself but was now at full height and very very scared, I did not think that the harness would hold and was calculating the approximate time to impact! A trip around the bay, which Neil thought lasted about 2 and half minutes but I was convinced lasted closer to 3 days came to an end and now it was time to land. So as the group of Malaysian men shouted at me on the beach to pull the cord, I pulled the cord - guess what nothing happened, they started shouting louder, I pulled harder - you can picture the scene.....The landing was not graceful nor elegent but involved a face first landing into the sand followed by me being dragged on my front through the sand - embarrassing to say the least!

Neil's experience on the other hand was a much more graceful affair, when he tried to swap stories of what he has seen from his flight, the scenery, the boats, the jelly fish I had to wonder what I had been doing wrong. At last one of us enjoyed it!

We spent 5 days in Penang and had a great time. We left Malaysia bound for Thailand. On the train heading for the Thai boarder. Until the next time.......

We arrived in Kuala Lumpar (KL) and made contact with my Aunt's friend Karen who had booked a hotel for us in the city centre. We were ushered into our windowless box. We guessed this was backpacking! And for 7 pounds a night we could not complain, it was clean with a comfortable bed, toilet and AC (even if the room was a little damp).

After the cleaniless, efficiency and familiarity of Singapore, KL was a little more difficult but we managed to do a good bit of sightseeing, a visit to the Chinatown is an unforgetable experience. Del Boy Trotter had nothing on the guys that have stalls here. There is absolutly nothing genuine to be found here, everything is hooky and the market is home to the worst fakes in the world. Imagine a Burberry print shirt with a Gucci label on it, a Rolex style watch (with the bubble on the date) with a Tag emblem on it. Chav central! It is also home to the funniest reference to Neil's height. As you can imagine the big man is getting hourly comments about his height, he is being asked how tall he is by anybody he holds eye contact with for too long, women are handing him their babies with some strange idea that he can make them tall, old women are standing next too him and giggling like school girls, all of which Neil is hamdling with his usual good humour and kind manner. However, when walking through the China Town market, between the hollers of "t-shirt for you miss", "nice watch for you sir, Rolex real real" and "Levi's imported from China for you", we hear "sir, sir, some Dockers for you, yes you sir, I have King Kong size for you!" Well, priceless is all I can say! Neil had to give him a chance. Alas Neil is still Dockerless.

We did try for a trip up the Petronas towers but we were unaware that they have a daily quota for trips to the viewing deck and you have to start queuing at 8 in the morning. However, we do have some cracking shots from the base of the tower!

We spent only 2 days in KL as Christmas is approaching and we want to get up the caost for the festive period.

We leave KL on the night train to Butterworth, heading to Penang. A first class, private sleeper carriage for the grand price of 5 pounds - bargin.

Well here I am again, hopelessly behind with the travel news. I will upadte you with what we have been doing since we left Oz.

We flew from Cairns to Singapore with our fingers crossed that the bad luck of Australia would be left behind and in true Singapore style, the small city state soothed us. Singapore is place were everything works as it should, you don't even have to take your metroticket out of your bag for the machine to read it. Entry level Asia and the perfect antidote to our difficult time in Oz. Staying once again with Alison's Aunt Doris and the monosyllabic cousins Jamie and Jeremy.

We spent nine days in the city and even though it is our 3rd time to this small island we still managed to find and explore areas that we have not been to before. The beautiful Kampong Glam area of the city is a quiet Muslim area with a flamboyant golden mosque, breezy streets and interesting shops. The mosque's dome is constructed from brown drinks bottles, as the poor people of the area wanted to contribute to the building of the mosque and were unable to give money (interesting fact Number 1!). We visited the Night Safari with our very own bi-lingual, 8 year old tour guide Fiona (Alison's cousins daughter). We managed to have 2 evenings with a pack of Tiger beer sitting on Boat Quay watching the city come to light, the Singapore skyline lights up like Las Vagas at night.

But lets face facts, Singapore is about eating, it is a 24 hour, non-stop shopping and eating fest and as we are travelling and not in the market for shopping, eating was next on the agenda. We were taken for noodles with my Grandma, a morning feast of Dim Sum with Doris and to a Hong Kong resturant with Alison's cousin John (prawns in oats - sounds awful, I know, but they are amazing) and this was all between another visit to Newton Circus food court, the Maxwell Food Centre, afternoon tea at Grandma's, chicken satay sticks on the run and black seasme deserts (the best thing in the world although Neil is not even able to look at a bowl without feeling sick!).

So after nine days, we had to tear ourselves away and continue with our travels, as heart breaking and tearful as this was. We get the train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpar.