Filling in the gaps
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2007
1
21
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Chiang Rai,
Thailand
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I'm flying out to Bangkok at lunchtime, having packed nothing yet, exchanged money, or all the other things a responsible and organised traveller would have done by now. but these things usually work out in the end, don't they :)
so this gives me about an hour or so to bring you up to speed with what's been going on over here. i'm going to miss bits out, forget things and generally keep it short. but don't worry because when i finally get to see you, i'll be boring the pants (underwear, not trousers, for you colonials...) off you with my tales of adventure..!
in no particular order...
i have made a couple of trips to laos since xmas
School for the Deaf (Vientiane)
. the first one i told you about briefly. the second was to meet pooki's laotian side of the family. apart from one cousin, she had never met any of them. her mum, before she died 10 yrs ago, was laotian (her dad is chinese), and came from the captial city - vientiane, or as it should be called, wieng chan. her uncle still lives there, retired from the police, with his wife, children and grandchildren. the bulk of the family live in a three house terrace, with a few sub-families scattered locally. he has ten children and seventeen grandchildren, which came as a great shock to pooki.they are a fantastic family, and in keeping with the culture in se asia, made me feel very welcome - this usually manifested in forcing me to eat as much food and drink as i could take. it is a poor family, as are most of the average families in laos. but poor only financially. it is one of the richest i've met when it comes to love, understanding and openhearted goodness. we took a couple of pooki's female cousins to the local market one day, and bought presents for each grandchild, ranging from spiderman costumes and dresses, to footballs and shirts. the looks on their faces was worth every penny.
i became especially close to two of the grandchildren, nam fhun and lang.
Me and Nam Fhun
nam fhun is a little three year old girl who latched onto me from the word go. she was in tears by the time i left, and it was hard to say goodbye (i'll add a photo of her, as well as other family members). lang is eight, deaf and mute, with one brown eye and one piercing blue. we were interested in seeing his school, and the family took us out one morning to visit it. it is the only school in vientiane which teaches deaf students - out of 76 students enrolled, about half live at the school because they come from rural families. it is very under-funded, with few aids or amenities. the teachers are generally ex-students, teaching sign language which is understood by thai signreaders as well as laotian. pooki is returning in july/august to learn the language (i may try as well, although it's hard enough learning thai at the moment). i spent the ridiculously small sum of 600 baht (about 10 quid), which provided an exercise book/pencil/rubber for each student plus a couple of ink pads and spare ink for their picture stamps (used as visual aids).when i return to the uk, i may well be nudging people for help in some way, either financially or in kind. if anyone is interested in providing something, please let me know.
we spent a few days in luang prabang, but didn't enjoy it at all
Spider Ying and sidekicks
. after the generosity of pooki's relatives, the money-grabbing attitude in that city left a very sour taste in the mouth. everyone was interested in how much they could squeeze out of you, and nothing else. too expensive, too few smiles, too much demanding. i could bang on for a while about this, but it isn't worth my effort. shame because the city itself is beautiful.while away, a german tourist died in vientiane. he'd been cycling near one of the city sites, when he was overcome by the heat. unfortunately he passed out right in front of a lorry, which pretty much took his head off. we heard because another of pooki's cousins is a policeman and was part of the investigation squad. speaking of family members in the police, she also has a female cousin who works at the border with thailand at nong khai - what a godesend that was! we'd had an hour or more of chaos coming into the country (i'd decided to get a visa-on-arrival). but when we left, i gave my passport to her the night before and she sorted all the details out for me. when we (half the family came to see us off, and have an afternoon in nong khai as well) got to the border, there was a snaking line consisting of me, pooki and about ten laotian family members breezing through the checkpoints (me chuckling to myself at the bewildered and dirty looks from westerners queued up for stamps).
Me and the young bucks
one trainride later, i parted from pooki who flew back to chiang rai, and into a storm at work which ended up with her quitting. i stayed on for a few days to meet up with dabs and trev, a couple of mates from back in bury. dabs had been out earlier in the year, and trev is his sister's boyfriend. we had a couple of days of fun in bangkok before they went off to koh phnagan, and i came back up to chiang rai.
i finished at mirror yesterday, and moo has given me a letter of sponsorship which will help me get my visa for next year. i'm also going to get an international driving licence whc=en i return to the uk so that i can drive for mirror - could make the difference between me getting a wage and not. although if that's the case, i'll need to apply for a work permit, which ain't that easy.
what else...?
i fall for just about every other girl every other day still - this country is jampacked with beautiful women - both beautiful to look at, and with a genuine personality too.
got involved in a police investigation briefly, but the sting operation we were setting up failed due to circumstances beyond our control
Sisterhood
. hopefully they will catch the criminals before i return, but if not i would like to get involved again if it will help. can't say much more than that in case it tips anyone off (lots of people other than you lot read these blogs, so news can filter out). ask me when you see me and i'll fill you in.oh, not that it matters right now, but i put out a new mobile number recently, and managed to get it wrong! it's 0066 83947 6535. i should be on the same number when i get back here in june/july.
if you don't know already, i'm off travelling for a few months. start on sunday when me and annie fly to calcutta. we then go across by train to delhi, via varanasi and agra (taj mahal) - if we can get the damned tickets sorted that is! whatever happens, we fly from delhi to kathmandu (nepal) on the 9th, meeting up with tom and dawn who i met in korea. six weeks or so of trekking around nepal will hopefully get rid of most of the 10kilos i've put on since last year! after that we intend to go to tibet for a couple of weeks, traverse china by train for a month, and then return to the uk from hong kong.
i would like to meet up with as many of you as i can, so start clearing the diaries..!
right, there's bound to be tons more i should be writing here, but i'm done. so, thanks for reading about thailand, and that vegetarian's hell, korea. next stop and a new travelogue, india!
sees ya!
Comments
Hi
I finally read this entry. Really nice. Just going thru the pics now. But lovely kids so far.
Sounds like you had a great time.
Regarding the school for deaf - yes I'd like to help, both with my own money and in other ways if possible. We can think and talk more about that later. Currently I am just keeping my head above water work wise - answering each new day's emails and not getting any extra done - certainly not learning any Thai language, or progressing on other projects (accept maybe some progress with Moken diving project).
Ha ha - totally agree that can easily fall in love here every day and that there is such a huge amount of physically and personality-wise very beautiful girls. Why wasn't the world like that when I was young and single?
Hmmm, I am really disappointed with the government here (and same in Laos). So many of the people are so nice, the environment is rich (although quickly being destroyed), the culture and religion are good. It could so easily be governed to be a really prosperous but peaceful and sustainable region. But greed destroys that. I suppose I will just have to accept that and let it go at some stage - but such a shame.
Not much else. Hope you are having a great time in India. Suck it all up as much as you can and enjoy yourself. Kanchana keeps commenting that she wants to go back to Nepal. So maybe contact Narmada if you want.
We may sell house here soon, and so are closer to buying in Chiang Rai. OK, that's it. Have fun - I will have lots of work for you if you come back.