Back on the Road – 1

Well here we are again off on another adventure. I write this sitting on my balcony overlooking the Bridge over the River Kwai, but more of that later.

I started my travels with a visit to my mum in France and my brother, who has recently returned from his own adventure of a year ‘campervanning’ around Europe and Turkey in a camper he built himself!

Next up was a much anticipated trip to Ireland to catch up with my eldest daughter, whom I haven’t seen in far too long. A great time was had by all and I picked up a new international driving permit as well. Before I have always been given the 1949 convention valid for only one year, but I was delighted to get the 1968 version this time, valid for 3 years! Particularly useful as I understand that from next year the service will be yet another one to be removed from the post office by our ‘wonderful’ civil service.

Much to my surprise on the way to Dublin airport we were stopped a few miles over the North/South border for what was apparently a customs check. Fair enough you might say post Brexit and I wouldn’t disagree. I was more than happy to open my bags and prove that no British sausages were on their way to contaminate the EU, a small price to pay in my opinion.

However there was no attempt at any customs inspection, they simply wanted to examine our passports. This is where you see firsthand the type of ridiculous spitefulness of the EU at work against Britain. As far as I am aware the UK and Ireland have a Common Travel Area, an accord that not only has nothing to do with the EU, but is an agreement that also predates our former membership of said institution. In short I should have told them to shove it, but as the bus was already running late I complied with only the merest rolling of the eyes.

Last year I flew Air Saudia and they were excellent, despite the drinks trolley being drier than the Gobi desert. Qatar airways were equally good, if not better, with the drinks trolley being rather more ocean than desert. We left a bit late, but I wasn’t too worried as the connecting flight was 2 hours after arrival in Doha and it appeared from conversations going on around me that a sizeable number of passengers were also headed for Bangkok. Surely they would hardly leave without a large chunk of their passengers, especially when it was the same airline and would have caused them no end of problems.

I did get a bit of a shock when landing to find it was last call for the onward flight as all of us ran through the terminal, towards the gate. As it transpired there wasn’t a problem, but we did board straight away and as I had managed to wangle a modest upgrade to an extra legroom seat on the upper deck, I headed for the stairs once on the plane. It’s great on the upper deck, there were only about 40 of us, so compared to the hundreds below it was a much more relaxed and calm experience. I did worry in the rush if my rucksack made it onto the connecting flight, but it did, complete with a big red tag on it saying rapid transfer required.

Passport control was busy, but efficient and I soon had a 60 day stamp in the passport following my request for a visa as opposed to the usual 30 days on arrival. Sasipa was waiting for me, at the other end of the airport again! Soon we were back in the hubbub and heat of the Banglamphu district of Bangkok.

I’d reserved a nice apartment overlooking a Canal about 800m from Khao San road, which is about as near as you’d want to stay these days, due to the thumping music at night as the bars try to outdo each other.

My first plan after reacquainting myself with the delicious Thai food, was to hop over to the tourist hotspot and shopping centres of Siam to try and open a Thai bank account. Banks are a bit more like the UK of old, where individual branch managers still make the decisions. So where one branch might refuse you, another may say yes.

I almost hit gold at my first attempt, the Siam branch of the Bangkok bank. The manageress took all my documents and spent a good ten minutes thinking about it, while hovering between saying yes and no before finally, to my disappointment, coming down on the no side. It was, in fact, to be my finest hour as every other branch and bank I tried rejected me out of hand.

It appears that the rules have changed in the last year and now it is practically impossible to obtain a bank account on a tourist visa. I found this out for certain as I eventually rang Siam Legal, who offer a ‘get you a bank account’ service for 5000 Baht. Unfortunately they no longer have the service following the rule change as it’s now pretty much impossible.

To add insult to injury, I stopped nearby for some chicken noodle soup and it was full of completely inedible bits of chicken, including feet, bones with no meat, gristle etc, etc. The only good news was some nice replacement sunglasses and a great deal on a new iPhone SE 3^rd generation at around half the UK price.

I wanted to head back to an amazing Pad Thai place I chanced upon in February earlier this year, but although I walked the length and breadth of the road I swear it was on, I could not find it. I was told by several people when I was there last time that it is one of the best in Bangkok, but now I just can’t find it!

I had no problem finding my favourite reggae bar though and the live music and atmosphere was fabulous as usual. Throw in a couple of massages and some excellent food and the woes were soon forgotten.

It’s the tail end of the monsoon season, so from time to time there are heavy rains and I mean heavy. Within a few minutes the streets are knee deep in water and you either take shelter or start wading, but within less than an hour the water has all drained away again.

In need of some new shoes, we hopped on the smoke belching, number 3 bus to Chatuchak weekend market and got stuck into some retail therapy. The market is vast with over 10,000 stalls selling just about anything. We saw only a fairly small part, but that was still enough to set me up with two pairs of shoes, a hat in my favourite colour and a bum bag for when I get tired of lugging around my day pack.  The food selection was great too.

The car is parked at a friend’s house near Samrong, which is where Sasipa used to live in Bangkok. It’s quite a few BTS Skytrain stops though and as the bags are heavy we took a Tuk Tuk for the first part of the journey.  I love a ride on a Tuk Tuk, whizzing through the streets of Bangkok with the wind ruffling your hair and the drivers sometimes manic weaving through the traffic, while you relax and enjoy the sights and sounds. It’s a great experience, but sometimes spoilt by the rip off prices they charge tourists. Luckily I have an ace up my sleeve or should a say a Thai, so I don’t get ripped off too much if at all.

I have really struggled to decide where to go next and even more how to get there. It was going to be Koh Samui, either by sleeper train and catamaran or car and car ferry, but it’s a 12 hour drive and I really can’t be bothered. The other option was Krabi, which is slightly further, but involves no ferry. Either way it’s three quarters of the way to Malaysia and a lot of driving. Then I remembered I wanted to see Kanchanaburi in the west, which is only about 3 hours drive from Bangkok. So here I am overlooking the Bridge over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi.

Two interesting facts, one is that the author of the book never visited the area and secondly it’s pronounced Kwai as in square not as in why. Either way its history is both very interesting and horrific. Trains still run across it and one actually did while we were on the bridge. You have to squeeze yourself onto one of the parts jutting out over the river, while the train chugs by a mere foot or two from your face. You can imagine how that would fly in the health and safety obsessed west, but it was exhilarating to see and I’m very grateful that you can still make your own choices in much of Asia.

There are a couple of immaculately kept cemeteries with many thousands of young men buried there. Mostly English and commonwealth plus some Dutch soldiers are interred in the centre of town cemetery. In total over 100,000 died while building the 415km railway. Malay and Burmese forced labour counted for many casualties, followed by the British.

We also went to a temple buried in a cave system, Wat Tham Khao Pun. It’s over 150 years old and you have to duck and walk bent double to pass through some of the passageways. We were the only people there so it was quite spooky.

Not sure where we’re headed tomorrow, I’ll let you know…