Home to Bangkok - City of King loving and satisfying shopping experiences

Back in Bangkok, bleary eyed and hungry for a good Green Curry with Fish balls. There is of course the obligatory traffic jam coming back from the Airport. I always wonder what would happen if there were an emergency. How would the emergency vehicles get through the traffic. The emergency lanes are used by the general traffic also, so there is literally nowhere for emergency services vehicles.
My sister has arrived and is at the house after being let in by Jason. The house is intact and is a welcome sight for me who has been in hotels for almost three weeks now. Jason has decided to move out to an apartment with Fohn (his girlfriend). They have been together for around a year and a bit by my count and there has been a lot of travelling and commuting between them while Fohn has been living near her Uni.
I have decided that it is time to buy a laptop. I left my original laptop in Melbourne with Kate, so I need a new one. I drag Julia off to Panthip Plaza to sift through the hundreds of shops in search of the laptop and associated gear. Panthip is six large floors of anything computer related. They sell pirate software and DVDs, computer hardware and accessories. They have things that you wouldn’t even thought to have existed. I am on a mission to find the best deal on a Sony Vaio as they currently make the smallest and lightest laptop around which is a priority in my line of work. I can choose from seven Sony shops, so I work my wasy through them to work out what the best deal is. At the first of seven shops I am greeted by a smiley young female shop assistant. I enquire what the differences are between the 69,000Baht version and the 94,000Baht version. The more expensive one has upgraded ram and a little scroll thing to help you scroll pages. The cheaper one comes with a free 17 inch plug-in plasma screen. The shop assistant informs me that if I buy this one I get a flee Prasma Scleen with my purchase. This sounds pretty hot ! I wonder what the more expensive one comes with? “A pen” my shop assistant friend informs me. “A pen?” I ask. So I buy a cheaper computer and you give me a screen worth maybe 9,000 Baht . I buy an expensive computer and you give me a pen worth maybe 500Baht. Makes no sense. Anyway, despite the free screen offer, I want to find the best deal, so I keep shopping. It becomes apparent that the price will not vary, the point of difference are the free gifts that are included such as the prasma scleen. After visiting six Sony shops I find undoubtedly the best deal. One Laptop, thlee flee bags, a flee set of ealphones, a flee mouse, a flee prasma scleen, flee wileress intelnet for six months, flee extended wallanty and flee flash dlive. The shopping experience in Bangkok seems not to be the price difference but how much crap we can actually give our customers. I am not complaining, considering the last laptop I bought in Melbourne came with nothing. To top it off, as I am leaving, they tell me that if I am leaving Thailand in the next thirty days, then I can claim the VAT refund which is like duty free. How good is that??? Another bonus! I loveshopping in Thailand!
That night, Julia and I are enjoying a pirate DVD on my flee prasma scleen when a loud siren goes past the house. I don’t think a lot of it and put it down to a petty crim being chased. When the third siren goes past, I stop the DVD and decide to have a look at what is going on. The action must be close, because my street leads into a very tight network of lanes and ally-ways known as Soi. The soi maze at the end of my bigger Soi lead to the Chao Phraya river, which therefore means that the action must be between here and the river which is only 500 metres away. When we go into the street we realize that there is a house fire. A huge column of smoke tinged with red flames rises from the soi maze. Jason, Julia and myself bolt over to look. Jason’s new apartment is roughly where the large colemn of smoke is coming from. The apartment block is surrounded by traditional Bangkok wooden houses packed in so closely together that you can usually shake your neighbours hand while you are lying in bed. We round a corner to the street of the apartment block to find that the fire is actually a wooden house next door to the apartment building. It is a fierce fire and flames are leaping as high as seven stories. The fire trucks are pitiful They are utes with some leaky hoses and some very useless looking firemen manning them. The leakiness of the hoses is of little consequence at present as they can’t actually seem to find any water to put into them. There are ahlf clothed firemen running around screaming at each other and by-standers. There are also fireman groupie girls running around yelling at the firemen. It is a complete mess. There are people running from the direction fo the fire with bags of clothes and there are taxia dn motos trying to get into the location of the fire. There are so many bystanders that the mixture of all three are blocking the whole soi.

We decide that it is a good move to get out of the way And then head over to the other side of the canal to have a look and not get in the way. As we are walking out, about another twenty utes, bikes, cars and a truck come screaming down with sirens blaring and lots of useless looking firemen dangling from them. Some of them are taking wrong turns then having to reverse. Some of them aren’t actually fire vehicles, but have sirens so seem to be getting in on the action. The problem would seem pretty clear though, they can’t find any water and there is no way of getting more vehicles to the fire. There are other Sios that reach the fire and as we walk up Samsen Rd, we realize that there are in excess of a hundred vehicles surging their way down the sois to the fire. When we get to the canal, we can see that they are getting pumps set up to pump water onto the fire, but this is about twenty minutes to half an hour after the first truck arrived and the fire is now huge!
The following morning while Jason is out for his morning run he over-hears the locals talking about the fire. Word is that one of the buildings was a guesthouse. A backpacker smoking a joint knocked a candle over which started the fire. Eight houses were destroyed which in this part of the world houses a lot of people. It is sad to hear and frustrating to hear that a foreigner caused it, because it further deteriorates the reputation and image of foreigners in the area. There are unfortunately a lot of losers that come through the area and those of us that are longer term can sometimes struggle to be separated from these people in the local’s eyes.

Easily swayed for a ride

“Cycle to Phnom Penh???? You must be nuts” I say to Ben. It’s a long way with some long days and you need to be in a good state of mind to do it. So I of course cannot resist the challenge and an opportuni ty to do some solid riding after the stop start riding of supervising the Oxfam Challenge. My housemate and fellow tour leader Ben had just finished a tour in Siem Reap also. I have seen my group off on the plane and have had a day to recover, so off we go to Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham and Phnom Penh. 365 or so KMS in three days. I have done it before on my own and swore I would never do it again.

Chalenge craziness

Despite thinking that I may need therapy, I seem to have survived the experience of leading the Oxfam challenge. Our sizeable group forged its way from Thay Ninh in Vietnam to the border with Cambodia and d then across said border to Srey Veng and Prey Veng and eventually Kampong Cham. The minute you hit the Cambodian side, it is clear that you are nowhere near Kansas and most definitely not in Vietnam any more. The standard of living between the two countries is immediately noticeable. One of the differences is that there is a lot less traffic. The motor bikes are older and the children all ride bicycles to school. There are very few cars around, but those that pass us do so at a high speed , so it is important that the group keep to the side of the road.

The group have been very patient. The local operator has a really good system where we leave one lot of bikes at the border and pick up another lot on the other side of the border. This is possibly the worst thing that you can do, because the riders have just taken two days to get used to the bike that they are using and we now need to change them over. The situation is not helped by the fact that the bikes just have not been maintained.

We hit Kampong Cham in high spirits. It is a spectacular place to ride to due to the large Japanese friendship bridge that spans across the Mekong and lands in the middle of the town. At the end of the bridge there is a modern service station that sells ice cream, so I stop everyone here before we head to the hotel. There are gaps between the riders, I think largely due to the heat. Our resident funny man Virgillio comes flying in doing a superman impression on the bike wth his arms stuck out the front t and his legs stuck out the back. It looks impressive until he clips the plastic bag full of baguettes that the baguette lady has been trying to sell for the extent of the time that we are there. The crispy delicious bread goes flying all over the concourse and Virgillio is so shocked that almost eats the asphalt. He didn’t eat it though, and a good thing too, because he has just purchased ten dirty, oil spattered baguettes and will need the space in his belly.

The following day’s ride is a highlight. It starts off on nicely sealed road and then turns to nicely graded dirt. After about twenty kilometers it turns to not so nicely graded ballast and rubble. Despite the road being a really great and interesting ride, it also brings some bad memories . I rode this section on my own in March and it was a lot rougher then. At the time, my panniers broke (good quality deuter) and left me holding one five kilo one under my arm and another strapped wit ocky straps to the back. All the same, it is a great ride with a pass through a minority Cham muslim village and a stop over at a soccer field where everyone has a chance to pit themselves against the nimble Khmer kids who can make scissor kicks over the head look easy.

We arrive in Phnom Penh exhausted but satisfied. The group are in need of some civilization after being out bush for a few days. Some are busting to get the famous foreign correspondent’s club , some are busting to check out the infamous nightlife of the capital of the country that I call the wild west of Asia. It really is a different place. There are great little open air food stalls where you can eat a meal for less than a dollar, there are markets where you can get some great fruit or rip off brand-name merchandise, there is fast internet if you need to talk to someone on Skype. There are also a large supply of evils such as drugs, prostitutes, prostitutes, prostitutes and guns. A hell of lot of guns are getting around Phnom Penh. They are unfortunately used quite often too, usually only to hold someone up and not discharged, but after a few stories it is enough for us to warn our passengers and for us to be careful ourselves. This of course goes completely over the head of Shapelle Corby who is found walking around the city at four in the morning on her own. There is such a thing as outing your head in the lion’s mouth and this girl really doesn’t need any more help with her misfortune and mishaps. Much of the group including the other leader Mr. Eric are out til all hours at the Heart Of Darkness which is well known as the last stop on the venue map for a night out in Phnom Penh. Eric can do this though, because I have volunteered to take the optional ride to the Killing Fields and S21 Genocide museum.

I wrote about the killing fields and the genocide museum in the blog from my last adventure over this way. The museum especially is a really confronting and distressing experience. It was originally a school, but the Khmer Rouge turned it into one of their main interrogation facilities. There are thousands of pictures from those that were guests there and were then sent to the killing fields after providing the information that their interrogators wanted, normally the names of their families and colleagues’. This was their strategy for identifying those that they would then systematically catch, place under interrogation and then kill. In this manner, they killed educated people and former government workers by the hundreds of thousands. It is a must for anyone who visits Cambodia as it will in my opinion go a long way to helping one understand why things are the way they are around them even today.

From Phnom Penh we transport our hung over and tired passengers to Siem Reap by bus. We now only have one cycling day left which is out to a pre-Angkorian temple Batay Srei. There is by rumor (from the boss) a road that leads further out to a place called Phnom Kulan with such wonders as a waterfall and a temple that is not crawling with thousands of Korean and Japanese tourists (both seem to be unlikely given the flat nature of the country and the number of said tourists in this part of the country). Needing to find out though, I grab Shane who is the strongest cyclist in the group and Anna who is a strong cyclist also, but has been kindly sitting at the back lending her moral support to the stragglers. Sensing that she would actually like a decent ride, I suggest that she join us. We head out on rough dirt to a gatepost marking the entrance to the National Park. After failing to negotiate a discount in the expensive admission fee, we start a decent climb up into the hills. After about fifteen Kms of climbing and dropping, we reach a waterfall with an amazing Buddha image carved into the rock under the water. The water is fantastic, fresh and strong. There are two levels to the waterfall and there are no other foreign toursists to be seen anywhere. We then visit the temple which is still under use and has a great view from the upper level that houses a large rock carved reclining Buddha.

We are enjoying our time at the temple and falls so much that we miscalculate time and end up riding back in the fading daylight. To make it worse though, the heavens open on us and dump more rain than I think I have seen for a few years. We arrive back at the hotel soaked to the bone and running late for the final night celebratory dinner.

The final night is always the wildest for a charity group. They have reached the end of their massive ride and can make a mess of themselves without having to suffer the physical consequences of getting n a bike the next day. This group are no exception (unsurprisingly). They are out until four or five in the morning and my riding buddy from the day has to be carried back by three of his fellow challengers, while spewing all the way. It looks like he hasn’t worked out that you can’t go that hard after a 130KM ride finishing in a flood. I have learnt this however and despite a ribbing from all concerned, I leave and make an early line for bed at midnight.

There are all sorts of stories floating around the next morning about who spewed , who had to be carried home and who snogged who. It seems I am actually running some sort of Contiki tour! My group have earned the name the rabbits from the hotel staff who I am sure are completely horrified by the behavior.

Dessert temptation

“You can have two flavors for the price of one!” She says. “Great, I’ll have Caramel and Apple” I say. She tells me that I can choose one of eight different waffle shells. I choose one and it adds a dollar to the price. She tells me that I can choose two toppings. After choosing my toppings it comes as only a small surprise that this has also added to the price of my expanding pile of dessert. I end up with a dessert the size of a dinner and a bill of $6 which is a lot in this part of the world. This was bound to happen if I’m waiting for an hour for a flight to Saigon. You see… this is my vice. Everyone has a vice. Especially in Thailand. The most common among western blokes are either the women, the alcohol, the drugs, the cheap cigarettes, or all of these. My vice however is ice cream. The most dangerous of all, because whilst the three most common ones are in plentiful supply just about everywhere in Asia, mine is not in some places. Scoop ice cream is rare, so I generally settle for Cornettos from the seven eleven, but there are places (believe it or not) that don’t have a seven eleven. So I am therefore a sitting duck for the enthusiastic representative of the Super Scoop Corporation.

With my stomach full of expensive dessert, I waddle over to the departure gate and board the flight to Saigon, home to eight million or so Vietnamese and the economic centre of the country. Hanoi in the north is the capital, but Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City) is the commercial hub. It’s been almost three years since I was in Vietnam with my god friends Harro, Milly and Cally. We spent ten days traveling from north to south along the beautiful coastline. I’m back here now to meet the thirty seven participants of the Oxfam Challenge. We will ride from Saigon, to Tay Ninh, then onto the Cambodian border. From there, we head to Srey Vieng, Prey Vieng, Kampong Cham and then Phnom Penh. We then catch a bus up north to cycle around the temples of the Angkor.

I have a day before the group arrive, so I meet up with the other leader for the trip and the local operator. Eric is Canadian and has been leading intrepid travel groups for a couple of years. He has now switched to running just the charity challenge trips. Vreak is the local operator. He’s a really nice Khmer fella who likes a beer and has a good assortment of Rugby tops including the Wallabies and the All Blacks. He has just scored himself one of the new leader jobs for Intrepid Indochina, so he is doing his last trip for his current employer (and our local operator) Buffallo tours. We have a team bonding session with dinner and a few beers. I pull the plug early and get lost on my way back to the hotel and add half an hour to my trip.

The next morning I rush around to buy a couple of things from the market. I’m wearing my upside down numbers t-shirt that Julia gave me. It has an upside down five on the front of it. The Vietnamese stall holder ladies think this is the funniest thing they’ve seen for a while. Some silly whitey who doesn’t know which way to stick numbers on. They cackle themselves silly and point it out to their friends. “Hey mister! You have five wrong way! I have six right way on good t-shirt! You buy from me… very good price. Help you with your number!” I’m glad to have provided the locals with some amusement.

Saigon is just a mass of motor bikes. The density is overwhelming and to cross the road is a form of sport akin to bungee jumping. The density of population provides for a fascinating picture, with street food vendors everywhere and open air barbers, you can find entertainment to last hours by watching a square hundred meters. It is hilarious to watch newly arrived tourists from Australia or other sparsely populated countries practically have a nervous breakdown just from trying to get from one end of a street to another. You can see a look of sheer terror in their eyes as they defensively try to block with their arms as they attempt their first street crossing. You see, once you get the hang of it, it’s OK. You just have to walk in slow, well-defined steps across the road, making eye contact wherever possible. The motos simply filter their way around you. This does not apply with buses though. They will just run you over.

It is now time to pick up the participants from the airport. Some bleary eyed Australians, a kiwi and an American emerge from the airport with a bewildered look as they grapple with their destination. Some have been traveling for around nineteen hours with connecting flights. We are almost ready to head for the hotel, when it becomes apparent that there is trouble in immigration. While I am picturing Shappele Corby being on my cycling trip, Eric works out that the trouble actually relates to a piece of tape that someone has attached to their passport. This is an indication. This person may have significance in the coming days. Quite often there are people who just have stuff happen to them continually on a trip. It’s as if they are absorbing all the bad luck in order to protect the rest of the group. We will refer to this individual as Shapelle Corby in order to satisfy privacy concerns. So we have a small amount of time in Saigon before we ride at the crack of dawn to start the challenge. I get my entertainment, watching from the hotel lobby as a group of the new arrivals make an attempt at a road crossing. They succeed, but one comes very close to being squished which is worrying. It’s Shapelle Corby.

We set off on a bus in the morning to the Cu Chi tunnels where we start our ride. The tunnels are from wartimes when the Vietcong used the tunnels to defeat the US. On the bus I overhear a conversation between two of the participants. One says that she has not actually been training on a bike, but more so an exercise bike. The other says that she broke her ankle when she came off a bike in her early teens and therefore has a bike-phobia. This is concerning to say the least, considering that these girls are about to ride 480KMS in humid 32 degree heat. I turn around to see that the one who trained on an exercise bike is Shapelle Corby.
My concern was well warranted. One of the to girls appears not to actually be capable of riding a bike and falls off within the first fifty meters. The other is just slow. These two are going to help me to practice my sympathy and encouragement techniques, both of which are a little lacking. To add to this, the bikes that Buffallo have provided are in a horrific state of disrepair. This means that it is even harder for the participants than it has to be. Grasshopper Adventures goes a long way to saving the day though, by delivering six bikes from Phnom Penh. The problem with the bikes is because the company that supplies them are not bike people and therefore just don’t get it. It is important for the companies that are involved in these trips to be people that ride themselves and understand the importance of getting the equipment right. All this talk of bikes reminds me of the things that I miss at home. I miss Kate a lot (of course), I miss my road bike a lot, and I MISS SCOOP ICE CREAM!!!!!