One of those days...

Hello again,

Occasionally, just occasionally, when travelling, I have the odd day when I wonder why I am doing this. When the Gods appear hell-bent on making my life unpleasant, and when what can go wrong, will. It's never as bad as it seems at the time, but it can send my (normally pretty low on the road) stress levels back to what they were when I was working and more.

As those who were nattering with me on MSN yesterday may have gathered, yesterday was one of those days. Quick (well, quick for me) summation follows.

'Mare yesterday involved:

1) Being misled by the guy who sold me a ticket from Don Dhet (island in the middle of nowhere - well, actually the middle of the Mekhong in the 4,000 Islands but at times might as well be nowhere) to Pakxe, such that I was waiting around for an hour and a half in Nakasang (the local port town) for my ride north to Pakxe to depart.

2) Said transport being a sawngthaew (converted pickup/van, with two bench seats facing each other in the back and, in this one, another bench inbetween - suffice to say, even for a Thai, that would be cramped). I did know this, but had not fully comprehended the horror of being in said vehicle for around an hour and a half waiting (yes, I could have got out, but laboured under the misapprehension that we would be leaving at any minute), plus at least two hours on the road. Hard seats, little or no space, chickens on (initially) the back platform (before they were transferred to the roof), being offered fried-grasshopper-on-a-stick by vendors when we paused at one place, etc etc. An experience I could happily forego repeating.

3) When crossing the border from Laos to Thailand (on, admittedly, quite a nice bus) there wasn't a bank/exchange booth (unlike the crossing I made up north), meaning I had no alternative but to get scalped by the bloody bus driver for changing my last Kip (the Kip, bless its little, cotton, undervalued socks, is utterly unexchangeable anywhere outside the Lao People's Democratic Republic)

4) Arriving at Ubon Ratchathani (the terminus of the Northeastern railway line in Thailand), making another sawngthaew ride (happily a rather briefer one) down to the train station to discover that all sleeper berths that night were sold out (there had been almost a full train available when I checked a few days earlier before going into the near-internet-free-zone that is Si Phan Don, the 4,000 Islands). All second class seats that night were sold out. The only thing available on the trains that night was 3rd class seats. Deciding that my bum couldn't handle this (11 hours or so on a hard wooden bench, no air con, and the prospect of screaming Thai kids or, if my current luck held, maybe more chickens?), and that I have about a day's slack time, I enquire about trains the next day (today). No second class seats until the evening trains. Luckily, a couple of sleeping berths, one of which I get.

5) Walk away from the ticket office, and suddenly realise I could probably have got a bus in the morning. Curse inwardly.

6) Realise that I've just landed myself a day (and a night) in one of the least-touristy, so least-English-speaking, parts of Thailand. And the train station is out of the centre of town. Helpful lady at the info desk provides me with a map. I head off to try and find a guesthouse.

7) Map is not terribly useful. Almost no street names on it. Not to scale. Of people I meet, they either a) can't speak English or b) have no idea where we are on the map.

8) Realise that I am, in fact, lost, after dark, in a city where apparently nobody speaks English.

This would be pretty much the nadir of my evening, before a nice old Thai gentleman (who has to get out his glasses to find that he can't tell where I am on the map either) is able to get me going in the right direction. The reason for this, not terribly reassuringly, is that I am asking for directions to the River Moon guesthouse, and it turns out this is the ONLY guesthouse in town. Hence, by asking for the GESS-ah-touse (the joys of Thai pronunciation of English - you cannot pronounce two consonants together without an intervening vowel), I find my way there.

The lady out front speaks English. It's cheap (cheapest place I've stayed in Thailand). These are the good points. The principle bad point is the bathroom. It's shared, and the worst I've had in Asia. The cockroaches are only a minor nuisance. We are down south of the river, actually in a satellite town of Ubon whose name I can't ever write down properly, and there is nowhere I can find that is open to sell food except a 7-11. I eat a 7-11 hotdog and some kind of horrific facsimile of a "chicken" sandwich (after the lovely baguettes in Laos, Thai over-sweet bread is a horrible shock to the system) for my dinner.

Looking back today, it's already starting to look more like another dumb anecdote of the trip. At the time, it was taxing, stressful, upsetting and (the early bits) seriously bloody uncomfortable.

In any case, prior to that I had a very quiet, chilled-out, peaceful few days down in Si Phan Don, which revolved mostly around lying in a hammock, trying not to get sunburnt whilst reading trashy paperback novels (finally, a situation where a Dan Brown novel actually qualifies as being more useful than a roll of toilet paper), chowing down on Lao food and Beer Lao in the evenings (for the few hours that the power is on), meeting more new acquaintances (I would call them friends, but we never really got time to talk for long enough, such that I don't even have any e-mail addresses from there). One day I actually got all enthusiastic and energetic and hired a bike, to ride over the old French railway bridge to one of the other islands and look at some waterfalls.

As you can see, not the most event-strewn section of my trip, but really quite pleasant and relaxing (just in time for yesterday to go and undo all that good work at chilling out...). Oh, and I saw some ancient ruins called Wat Phou on the way down there, which were quite impressive, if rendered a little harder to enjoy properly by the scalding heat. Did I mention the weather's been absolutely scorching recently?

So, now I burn yet more time on the net whilst waiting for my train, trying not to be deafened by the sounds of the local kids playing online games around me (yes, it's one of THAT kind of internet cafe, rather than one that charges you a fortune for the herculean task of burning a CD and features Israelis loudly arguing with the owner about how it ought to be cheaper), and reflecting once again on how much better it would have been for me if I'd followed my resolution to learn more than the most very basic of Thai (things like "How to ask for directions", for example...).

A few more days of lunacy in and around Bangkok beckon, before I head down for a last dose of the Thai islands on (probably) Ko Chang, and then head on into Cambodia.

Hope all is well with all of you (those I haven't been bending the cyber-ear of on MSN). Take care and have fun,

Pat