We arrived back in Bangkok bus station without any real plans on what we were going to do for the last few nights before Pam flew back. We decided on the Patpong area because someone had recommended it and it was close to the skytrain route. Patpong is quite a touristy area famous for it’s night market, pole dancing bars and ping pong shows. Since we only had a couple of days before Pam flew home we opted for a slightly more upmarket hotel (one with hot water, AC and a slightly lower mosquito count), which compared to the accommodation we’d had during our previous few weeks was real luxury.

Pam was quite keen on seeing more tigers so we booked a one day tour up to Kanchanaburi; home to famous bridge on the River Kwai and the Tiger Temple.

We were picked up from the hotel at an eye watering 6am and driven the 3 hours north/west to Kanchanaburi where we first visited the Commonwealth Cemetery for the POW’s that were killed during the construction of the “death” railway followed by a visit to the WWII museum. The museum was a little bit poor, I don’t want to take anything away from the horribleness that went on during the war, but it surely deserves a better memorial than that, there are very crudely made models and murals and a few original cars and bombs. We were given two hours to visit the museum and bridge and we must have done it all within one hour. Next we went for lunch at a very cool floating restaurant, the food was quite simple but the view of the river was quite breathtaking. We were bundled back in the bus again and taken to waterfall that the kids were using as a waterpark. It turns out that it was national children’s day in Thailand and I guess it’s the day that all the kids get to go out and have fun. It was really interesting to see how little heath and safety there was, they just don’t have the same blame culture we have.

Finally we got to the tiger temple or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua to give it’s proper name. It started out as an animal sanctuary with a few orphaned tiger cubs. Tigers are now the mane focus of the place (although there’s lots of other animals wondering around) and certainly a huge tourist attraction. For 500 baht (£10) you get access to the temple and can have your photo taken with about 5 different tigers (only by yourself). If you feel like splashing out an extra 1,500 baht (£30) on top of the entrance fee you can have a “special photo” in which you lie down with the tiger’s paw around you, or its head on your lap and you and 4 more people in the background. It felt like a really crazy system. It was nothing like the tiger experience in Chiang Mai where you got 20 minutes in the cage with the tigers and could actually play with them. This felt like a conveyor belt of people being taken between the sleeping tigers, snap, snap, snap and you’re done. To be fair there was a little area with a few tiger cubs that you could go and stroke but overall my experience of the day was a little disappointing.

We didn’t realise it but because there was an election on the Sunday, the government suspends all alcohol sales (as if you’d get drunk and vote for the wrong person) which put a bit of a dampner on Pams last night, luckily we had a minibar in the room from which we managed a few bottles of beer and a bottle of gin.

The following morning we said our goodbyes and Pam got a taxi to the airport and I headed to a nearby hostel called LUB*D which sounded a little ominous but tuned out to be quite nice and modern.

I spent the rest of the week getting lost around Bangkok, didn’t have a lot of energy and didn’t really feel like socialising too much so I spent a lot of time chilling in the park watching the lizards trying to catch birds and managed to get to the cinema three times, the movies weren’t really up to much (Madagascar 2, Quarantine and The day the earth stood still) but I did see 2 of them in the IMAX theatre which really was breathtaking. The cinemas in the Siam shopping centre are really good, probably better than most of the one’s back home, but there is one very strange tradition that seems to catch a few non Thai’s out. Before the movie starts they play the national anthem and show a little video of people going abut there lives with pictures of the King in the background. During this you’re expected to stand, but there where always a few westerners nearer the front who sat through the whole thing – oblivious to the dirty look they were getting from the Thai’s.

Whilst I’m on the subject, there are photos of the King everywhere – every shop, home, even by the roadside there’s one of about 6 different photo’s of His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great in various poses. The Thai’s truly love him, you’re even warned in the guidebooks not the insult the royal family. I think he’s seen as a semi-divine figure, chosen by god.

My last night in the hostel was a bit of a nightmare, somehow the room had become infested with mosquitoes (or maybe it was just 2 or 3 very big ones), a few people actually left the room. I woke up the next day covered in bites. I must have at least 50 on my body and I counted 17 on my face alone.

For my last day in Bangkok I treated myself to another foot massage and insisted on getting the strongest looking girl in the shop to do it (the last one I had was a bit pathetic). I felt like I was walking on air afterwards.

I’ve joined my last Intrepid group now that will take me on the last leg of my journey down to Singapore. They seem like a good bunch but there’s a bit of a sex imbalance with 9 girls and only 3 boys. But because the other to guys are in couples it means that I get a room to myself every night, so I’m not complaining.

After a somewhat difficult night’s sleep aboard the overnight train to Chang Mai we arrived at the hotel around 7:30am. We had decided to do a Thai cookery class which involved a trip to the local market to buy all the ingredients then to the cookery school and we were shown how to cook phad thai, green curry, tam yum soup and sesame prawn toast. The class was a lot more fun than I was expecting, I might even give a few of the recipies a try when we get back home.
That evening we visited the Chang Mai Night Bizarre which is a 1km square market which sells everything imaginable although it is mostly to tourists, I didn’t see too many local Thai’s around the market stalls. I ended up getting a new pair of sun glasses and a pair of board shorts for a couple of pounds each. Pam has been quite keen on getting a tuk-tuk since she arrived in Thailand but I’d heard the ones in Bangkok where all out to rip you off, but the ones in Chang Mai seems a lot more reasonable so we ended up getting one back to the hotel.
We started our 3 day hill tribe trek early the following morning first off visiting an amazing waterfall then starting the trek properly with a good 45 minutes uphill climb in under the midday sun. It quickly dawned on Pam and me that what the guidebook described as a moderate fitness level that was required may have been a little more strenuous than we were anticipating. It took about 5 hours to get to the village we were staying the first night in, but it was well worth the effort, we had a quick tour round the village and shown a few local trades and customs. The village was a lot bigger than I was expecting and our guide Pun-Pun explained how all economy works with all the villagers sharing any money that is made like a big happy socalist family. We spent most of the evening sitting around a campfire singing Christmas songs to a very out of tune guitar (with thanks to music maestro Taryn). We stayed in little Bamboo huts that where up on stilts and were a lot more comfortable that they looked, that is until about 4am when all the animals ain the village decided to sing us a song lead by the cockerels.
Our second day of the trek involved another 4-5 hour hike through the jungle. The first couple of hours where quite good and mostly flat, it wasn’t until about 3 hours in that we were faced with another massive uphill climb and then an equally difficult decent. The last hour of our trek was made a lot easier by the cunning use of elephants. We had a lunch of 2 minute noodles and got strapped into the seats on top of the elephants. I say strapped, what I mean is a very thin piece of string. The guy sitting on top of the elephants head didn’t seem to have much control over it as our he just seemed to do whatever he wanted including getting incredibly close to the edge of a cliff just to get at some bamboo.
Our elephants dropped us off 10 minutes outside the village we were staying in that night, this one a much bigger community although by the time we got to our shared hut some of us were a too exhausted to go for another tour of the village and instead opted for a swim in the nearby river followed by a few games of cards. We spent our Christmas Eve very similarly to the previous evening with another bout of campfire karaoke this one helped along by a bottle of local Thai rum which we’ve both got a bit of a taste for.
We were given an option for the last day’s trek (Christmas Day): we could either do another 6 hour trek or pay 300 baht and take a bamboo raft the 40km downstream. All but one of us opted for the rafting which may have taken the villagers a little by surprise because they had to add 4 or 5 more bamboo poles to strengthen the raft. Even with the strengthening the raft sat about 3 inches below water level and once we got in the ‘rapids’ it could go down to about knee depth. Aside from the rapids the river ride was quite relaxing and we saw a number of animals including water buffalo, elephants and somewhat surprisingly a king cobra.
The ride back to Chang Mai in the back of a pickup truck was quite difficult with about an hour of bumping around on dirt tracks then another couple of hours on the road back to the hotel for a well earned shower and couple of hour’s kip.
That evening was the last real night we had together with that group so we headed into Chang Mai for Pizzas and maybe a few buckets, we found a restaurant and bar up on the roof that helped with all our needs and ended up in a tuk-tuk with flashing lights and happy hardcore blasting out speakers.
We had most of boxing day free before our overnight train back to Bangkok so a few of us headed over to nearby Tigerworld, which basically has a number of tiger of varying ages and for 300 baht (£6) you can go in and play with them for 15 minutes. We opted for the 7-9 month old cubs, it’s something Pam’s always wanted to do and despite one of them nearly taking my arm off, it was a pretty good experience.