Booking a holiday in Europe in February is always fraught with worries about the weather. At the time we booked, I had made the deal that as long as it’s sunny and dry I would not complain about/mind the cold. Luckily for us, Rome currently feels like the beginning of the English summer rather than the depths of winter – and yes, February is winter for anyone who thinks differently!

In the interest of saving money and maximising time (does the backpacker mentality ever go away?) we set off on the night bus to Victoria at 2:30am to catch a national express coach to Stansted at 3:30 am to catch a flight to Rome at 7am – Glamour!

Thanks to my busy work schedule and a general apathy to any planning in my personal life at the moment, Mr. Kumar took the lead on finding us places to stay in Rome and Florence. So we got off the flight (after a nice nap to compensate for the 2am awakening) and then wandered around the airport to assess the speed, departure times, convenience and price of the different modes of transport into the city (those who know P, will know how this goes). Either it was my lucky day, or the girl at tourist info could not be bothered to explain all the options – she gave us only 2 choices ….direct train or direct bus to town centre i.e. no changing modes of transportation for me to get to Roma.

We made it to the hotel to find it situated in an old roman palazzi type building and it was Chinese run (maybe the Chinese restaurant below should have given this away to us!). Our man at the front desk, Lorenzo, after having questioned us about possibilities of our being part Chinese, proceeded to v. helpfully mark out all the must see things, where to eat, where to shop and where not to eat or shop (v expensive, don’t shop near trevi fountain).

We hurried off into the street to find our (mine anyway) first Panini and were about to kick-off our tour of Rome except we couldn’t make-up our minds how much clothing we needed – it was so warm but being used to the English weather, we kept wanting to hold on to our layers…just in case it turned bitterly cold! There ensued a few trips back into the room to figure the layering out and we then marched-off – this time for real! (I was down to a t-shirt by the time we hit the main road).

Sundays are quiet in Rome as vehicular traffic is banned from the City for a large part of the day, instead on parade were bambinos and bambinis in fancy dress, eating gelato and throwing confetti – we could not figure out why all the kids were dressed-up though we did see one bambino chasing a bambini and trying to lift her dress- they star young here!

Our first walk gave us a glimpse of the Colosseum but having decided to visit it later in the week, we firmly turned our steps in the opposite direction, making the Vitorriano Emanuel our first tourist stop in Roma. LP describes this memorial to the unknown soldier as a “garish lapse in taste” and when you put it against the back drop of the rest of Rome it is even more so! But worry not, all garishness aside, we did hang about and photograph the heck out of the monument – the main reason for the amount of time spend at the Vittoriano could be the opportunity it gave us to sun ourselves while standing on its terraces but who cares right?!

Having kicked-off the Roma tour, we went in and out of a few churches and ruins to come to the next BIG stop – the Pantheon. It was everything I expected and more. Since it is off season, tourist numbers were low, locals were about and the square outside the monument was full of excitement and energy.

A pit stop for some drinks and my first gelato later (blackberry and it was AMAZING), we restarted our wanderings and hit a few more churches, Piazza Novona and the Qurinale (got here by mistake due to poor navigation) en route to the Trevi fountain. I must take a moment to be cheesy and gush about how the fountain was even better than what I expected it to be from photos and Hollywood cinemas! The sun had just set and it was busy, but we did the coin throwing and hung about for some photos before turning homewards after a very satisfying first day in Rome.

Southern Thailand was a bit stressful for us to travel in due to being there right in the middle of their high season! After much deliberation we settled on visiting one island in the Gulf of Thailand and one off the Andaman coast and chose Ko Tao in the Gulf as a starting point.

The journey to Ko Tao involves an over night bus from Bangkok to Chumpon and a 3 hr ferry to the island. And this is the bus where every travel guide and website mentions that thievery is rampant! While we didn’t have anything stolen, we did have the worst ferry ride over – 3 hours of pure hell! Half dead we arrived on the island to find ourselves trapped by taxi drivers asking for more than London black cabs to ferry us the 1 km to the beach village. From here started the saga of feeling trapped in a world of overcharging madness!

The beach itself was good but not spectacular – despite the talcum powder sands and turquoise waters – since it has been built on all the way and there is now but a thin sliver of sand left untouched by tikki torch wielding bars!

We eventually escaped from the island but the escape vehicle was a fishing boat with the top deck being covered over and spread out with thin mattresses to sleep upto 25 people. Luckily there were only 5 people on board (apart from the crew). Apart from us, there was a local girl and a honeymooning British couple. We lay about talking of our trip and the couple told us that they had travelled in the area 2 years ago and had loved it so much that they came back for their honeymoon but the island had changed dramatically with much more construction and all the local cheap eats having disappeared in favour of such gastronomical delights as “the Farango!” Talking to them helped mollify us a little as we had heard so much about KO Tao and it being amazing and had found it fairly lacklusture in the end (apart from P’s two dives which he says were good but no where close to the dive sites off Indonesia or Malaysia).

After the less than fabulous experience on Ko Tao we decided to stay clear of islands and based ourselves in Ao Nang. Guide books have written it off as an over developed transport hub but after the island we felt like we had much more options on what to do, where to eat, which travel agency to patronize etc – and trust me, having options is usually a good thing during travels!

We took an island hopping trip which brought us to some amazing snorkelling sites – had shoals of fish swimming around us in ankle deep water! I even managed to jump in to see the coral beds in the middle of the ocean and was awarded by some stunning colours and formations!

The other main activity was rock climbing on Railey beach. While P did a three day certification course, I was content just doing one day of climbing – and even happier to have reached the top ones and not broken any bones trying! It was hard but exhilirating and P throughly enjoyed it. The routes around Railey are stunningly situated and very busy becasue of their fame with rock climbers around the world!

Another long bus ride brought us to KL where we broke our journey long enough to eat some Dosas and watch Avatar and Sherlock Homes in a row and then take the onward bus to Singapore!

Singapore was wonderful as usual – thanks to R&M who are not only splendid hosts but foodies after my own heart – we ate SO well. And in fact I in particular ate so much that my tummy was mad at me for a day or so!

Southern Thailand was a bit stressful for us to travel in due to being there right in the middle of their high season! After much deliberation we settled on visiting one island in the Gulf of Thailand and one-off the Andaman coast and chose Ko Tao in the Gulf as a starting point.

The journey to Ko Tao involves an over night bus from Bangkok to Chumpon and a 3 hr ferry to the island. And this is the bus where every travel guide and website mentions that thievery is rampant! While we didn’t have anything stolen, we did have the worst ferry ride over – 3 hours of pure hell! Half dead we arrived on the island to find ourselves trapped by taxi drivers asking for more than London black cabs to ferry us the 1 km to the beach village. From here started the saga of feeling trapped in a world of overcharging madness!

The beach itself was good but not spectacular – despite the talcum powder sands and turquoise waters – since it has been built on all the way and there is now but a thin sliver of sand left untouched by tikki torch wielding bars!

We eventually escaped from the island but the escape vehicle was a fishing boat with the top deck being covered over and spread out with thin mattresses to sleep up to 25 people. Luckily there were only 5 people on board (apart from the crew). Apart from us, there was a local girl and a honeymooning British couple. We lay about talking of our trip and the couple told us that they had travelled in the area 2 years ago and had loved it so much that they came back for their honeymoon but the island had changed dramatically with much more construction and all the local cheap eats having disappeared in favour of such gastronomical delights as “the Farango!” Talking to them helped mollify us a little as we had heard so much about Ko Tao and it being amazing and had found it fairly lacklustre in the end (apart from P’s two dives which he says were good but no where close to the dive sites off Indonesia or Malaysia).

After the less than fabulous experience on Ko Tao we decided to stay clear of islands and based ourselves in Ao Nang. Guide books have written it off as an over developed transport hub but after the island we felt like we had much more options on what to do, where to eat, which travel agency to patronize etc – and trust me, having options is usually a good thing during travels!

We took an island hopping trip which brought us to some amazing snorkelling sites – had shoals of fish swimming around us in ankle-deep water! I even managed to jump in to see the coral beds in the middle of the ocean and was rewarded by some stunning colours and formations!

The other main activity was rock climbing on Railey beach. While P did a three day course, I was content just doing one day of climbing – and even happier to have reached the top ones and not broken any bones trying! It was hard but exhilarating and P throughly enjoyed it. The routes around Railey are stunningly situated and very busy because of their fame with rock climbers around the world!

And we spent a great new year’s eve on the beach amongst fireworks and Thai lanterns under a full moon.

Another long bus ride brought us to KL where we broke our journey long enough to eat some Dosas and watch Avatar and Sherlock Homes in a row and then take the onward bus to Singapore!

Singapore was wonderful as usual – thanks to R&M who are not only splendid hosts but foodies after my own heart – we ate SO well. And in fact I in particular ate so much that my tummy was mad at me for a day or so!

1. An example of my way or the highway: Guest house man from Sukhothai who didn’t like my attitude! (read Sukhothai blog for details)

2. An example of give me your money now or get lost: Lady at the Phra Athit pier selling tickets to the public ferry boats. We approach and she says 18 Baht per person for a fairly short ride. We were slightly surprised as the buses are usually half the price for twice the distance. She was impatient with us so we went to the side so as not to block other customers (which there were none of at the time!). We noticed what looked like a price chart with three different options but unfortunately all the info (apart from the price) was in Thai (another special Thai thing!). So we had no choice but to go back to the rude lady to ask what the difference was between the three options. As it turns out the difference was that the different types of ferries differed in their frequency and thus the waiting time which led to the price difference. But instead of saying this the lady spent twice as much time and effort being completely sarcastic and rude to us and acting as if we were idiots. Result was that we refused to give any money to her (even if it wasn’t going to her as such) and found alternative mode of transportation.

3. An example of inexplicable/unnecessary rudeness: Standing in the Wat Pho complex I am approached by a man who shouts at me saying “Go from here, either come in or go out, don’t just stand here.” Er…why the hell not? I was standing there admiring some carved statues and there were probably no less than 20 tourists standing in the vicinity and yet he only screamed at me. I was not in any one’s way and there was absolutely no indication or notices that this was not a convenient place to stand.

4. A couple of examples of lets fleece the tourists as much as we can: Cost of getting from the pier in Koh Tao to the hotel area which is less than 1km in a shared sorngtaaou should be something between 10-20 Baht or if you add extra then 30 Baht. We were quoted 200 baht by all the drivers without exception which exceeds even NYC rates. We eventually found one that took us for 50 baht per person. A Ko Tao speciality seems to be a cross-dressing cabaret. The show has free entry but you have to buy drinks – fair enough, till you see the price of the drinks that is ($6+)! A beer is one person’s accommodation for the night at a guesthouse!

5. Examples of “you give us your custom and twice the value of our service and we will still be completely rude to you” are too many to list here.

The bus station was so busy even at that time that it felt like 6pm and th most amazing thing was watching all these people making connections at this ridiculous hour, even lone women and no one seemed worried or afraid of going about their business independently. Things like this always make me think of India and how it would be so different there. To begin with young women would probably not be travelling alone, if they were, they would get a lot of harassment and everyone generally would be worried to be travelling at such an hour. This brings up a question Pranav and I have been debating over again and again – what makes a society different to another? Why are women in some countries treated well while in others cannot freely live an independent life? Yes, this is what we do when we are not trying to find housing or figure out how to get to the next destination!

Bangkok saw us breaking our budget housing rules and we took up residence at the Happy House near the infamous Khao San road in Old Bangkok. The room was probably one of the tiniest we have stayed at but was thoroughly modern with AC and a great location – being walkable from things like the Grand Palace but being far away enough from Khao San for it to not be loud and buys all the time. And talking of Khao San – we went there for a stroll about and it’s like a circus town! There are literally hundreds and hundreds of Falangs and locals catering to all their needs – be it For ridiculous amounts of beer and pizza or fake ID cards. And believe it or not, Khao San’s dodgiest agents, shopkeepers, fake ID providers are all Indians! They found Pranav and me a bit confusing as though there are MANY Indian tourists in Bangkok, there are barely any in Khao San and probably none quiet as tatily dressed as we are these days!

On to the sites of Bangkok – the first day saw us making a beeline for the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keow both of which are stunning in their detail but both being major tourist attractions were very very busy. In some ways we wished we could go later in the evening when the light is good for photography and there are fewer people but the Palace shuts at 3:30. Another fun view at the palace were all these nattily dressed folks who had to rent clothing (not stylish and certainly not their size) because they showed up wearing too little to be allowed into the Palace!

Next day was Saturday and we headed to Chatuchak Market – supposedly the largest in Bangkok and possibly one of the largest in the world. Having arrived there at 9am we managed to walk around, buy goods and sample foods for the next 9 hours before we left! And this time there were a LOT of Indian tourists everywhere in the market!

Having been good at ticking all the things the next day saw us talking a brisk walk to China Town. But during the walk I realized that my tummy was not happy and a couple of pit stops later, I was feeling sufficiently bad to turn around and head back home. Owning to my tummy situation, the next day we took the opportunity worship at the temples of modernity so very prevalent in Bangkok – yes, I talk of the Mega malls! There are SO many malls in Bangkok and in the Siam Square area it’s one mall after another. We did hit the Pratunam market which is also in this area and is one of Asia’s oldest and largest wholesale clothes market. There were literally rows after rows of clothing shops in narrow, cavernous little alleys, pretty much across the street from the glitzy, air-conditioned malls. And of course P found a mall devoted to computers and all items related!

On the same evening we went to Pra Khlong which is one of the largest wholesale flower markets. A fresh produce market by the day time, Pra Khlong turns into a riot of colours at night with so many varieties of flowers. The stand outs were of course the multihued orchids and some of the tropical lilies and birds of passion. They also had tube roses – one of my all time favourites, along with an amazing variety of green ferns and leaves! Many photos later we dragged our tired bodies on another one of Bangkok’s public buses and to bed.

Having worshipped at the temples of modernity, we devoted our last day in the city to looking at the classical temples of Bangkok. The most impressive (apart from Phra Keow) was Wat Pho with its massive reclining Buddha, beautiful chedis and large collection of Buddha images. The whole place is undergoing renovation/restoration and is amazingly well-maintained. We also found the Golden Mount and Wat Saket. You get the best views of Bangkok from the mount which is built on an artificial hill next to Wat Saket which plays an important role in royal coronation ceremonies.

A few more Wats were visited that day and then in the evening we took our bus-boat connection to Ko Tao.

We found ourselves at another guest house which had rooms and bungalows, the rooms were ditto on the flushing situation so we decided to go for the more expensive bungalows. The slight problem was the unfriendly staff which is very unusual in this region where people go out of their way to be polite. Having been taken to the last and oldest bungalow in the compound I asked whether the nicer looking ones were free and was told that they were either full or had been booked. Fair enough – considering how nice their bungalows were I figured they were busy and seeing that the inside of “our” bungalow was spacious and clean I said I would take it. As we picked up our bags the owner asked us to check-in at which I asked if we could do that after dropping our bags in the room – something we have done 100% on this trip without any problems. But this guy just went “no, check-in now.” So I sighed and rolled my eyes and turned around to ask Pranav to sign in while I took the luggage in. Before I had managed to say anything to Pranav the man goes, “you are welcome to go look at other guest houses, I have no problems” and went into his room. Completely thrown by this I said sure! But as I walked out the man came out of the room and told P that he didn’t like my “attitude” and wouldn’t let me stay at the hotel even if I came back! Pranav of course gave him a piece of his mind, took our luggage and we found housing literally next door. While the bungalow was older and not as nice, it was cheaper but more importantly had really nice and helpful owners and staff. At first we wondered whether his attitude had something to do with us being brown but since then have learnt that he is simply an ass!

In the evening We explored the small town and pretty much tried all the night stalls that line the main street after dark.

Some delicious food was had on the cheap! And the next morning saw us on the first bus… er Sorngtaaou to the old city of Sukhothai where we spent all morning cycling, along with an Austrian couple, to the different temples and ruins. While they were beautiful, as was the setting, I have to admit that Angkor has ruined us as far as temple complexes go! It is now incredibly hard for us to appreciate such construction for what it is and not compare it to the majesty of Angkor – unfair I know, but hard to avoid in our heads.

We had planned on spending another day in Sukhothai and visiting another temple complex about 50kms away from town, but after the first one we decided to change the plans slightly and leave for Bangkok that same day.

BTW Sukhothai saw us wanting to throttle the LP writers more than ones – the two guest houses mentioned above were recommended by them. They also recommended a restaurant as being very popular with the locals for lunch – after having walked their we find out it’s shut for lunch! Being super hungry and being in a small town looking for food in the daylight hours (read no street hawkers) we had no choice but to turn to the LP again for a restaurant name. It provided another name but gave the entirely wrong location so we found ourselves walking up and down a street and having to ask locals for directions. In the end we found the place – much further than the LP map suggested and not that great either! Grrrr

Having filled up on our favourite street food stall that night (sticky rice with green aubergine/eggplant paste) and some other things, we decided to get some exercise by walking to the bus station. It’s not very far – only about 800 meters but the locals still thought we were a bit crazy to walk with all our luggage. We had a nice man stop to asked if he could help us but we seemed to be doing fine and reached the station in time to catch our designated bus to Bangkok.

One other event in Sukhothai was meeting a French brother-sister duo who are travelling the world on old style mopeds! It’s crazy but they are doing it!

Thanks to Dave (our old travel companion in Laos) we found the guesthouse he was staying at and breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out to be nice and clean with a friendly and informative owner!

Everywhere I read about Chiang Mai it said that it is the capital of the north, really tourist friendly with lots and lots of activities and it was exactly all of those things. The old city is beautiful with a variety of temples and old teak houses hidden between the more contemporary architecture. On our first afternoon we decided to hit the main temples – but only after having filled our bellies with some delicious Thai curries accompanied with brown rice (real, honest to god brown rice – first time I have had it since leaving London).

We also checked out the hundreds and hundreds of flyers advertising the different activities in town and settled on cooking, Thai massage and cycling as our top priorities. After a day and half of temple visiting (including the Doi Suthep – the most sacred Northern temple) we settled on doing a cookery course for our wedding anniversary. We decided on the Thai farm school which is recommended by both LP and Rough Guide and we were pretty much ordered by our guest house owner that we should go there! Luckily it was a great place, we got the full experience of being taken to a market to buy ingredients,given a lecture on different types of rice, taken around the school’s organic vegetable and herb garden to see the ingredients and then made 6 dishes from scratch.

The instructor was good and soon realized that I am used to making and eating real curries and would give me additional ingredients – mostly additional chilies! And every time I asked him a new question (mostly when making the green curry as he gave very different, one pot sort of recipe), he would just smile and say, “yes, I also do it like that but this is for the Westerners, it’s to suit their taste buds!” The slight basicness of the course not withstanding, I did pick up some really good tips (so watch out for experimentation on yourselves when we are back in London) and Mr. Kumar got to try his hand at cooking. My favourite dish of the day was actually Pranav’s – stir fried chicken with basil – maybe one day we can get him to reproduce it! The class was for 8 people including us and we all got on very well, trying each other’s food and complaining about our overfilled bellies on the way back – even as we carried our doggy bags!

The other highlight of Chiang Mai are its weekend markets. There is a Saturday walking market and a Sunday walking market. Pretty much the same vendors work both markets and they are both huge. I have to admit that the variety of both, the goods for sale and the food to be consumed have floored me. I am yet to see Bangkok’s markets but I can safely say these street markets had a great vibe. We bought far too many things and as a result had to buy a full size suitcase and extra luggage allowance on our flight to Colombo!

In terms of food, some of the highlights included a sausage made out of rice and fish sauce and then grilled, a sausage made out of meat with tons of lemon grass, chilies and ginger, a flat green vegetable slice thing (also grilled and eaten with a spicy sauce), dumplings, bean cakes, waffles with pineapple and other things, raw mango salad, stuffed beetle leaves (a version of this is sold at 150 times the price at Mango Tree in London) amongst other things! I have to say that this is only the food we ate at the markets, not the restaurant stuff which included the curries and soups and noodle dishes. And we didn’t taste anything that we didn’t like!

Of course we had to do something to burn off all the calories that we had been consuming so we decided to go on a cycle tour to some Wats around Chiang Mai. The original plan was to go to the Wats and come back which would have been a 20 km ride – something we did in Hue – but then P realized that a wholesale handicrafts market is also in the “same” direction as the Wats and we decided to include that in our ride. In the end we cycled about 40K, the last 10 of which was on a 4 lane highway with SPEEDY traffic! The ride also involved us crossing an eight lane “super highway” with our cycles in hand!

And now for the best bit – you can get full body Thai massages in Chiang Mai for about $4 at a proper spa – the kind that would charge you £50 for 30 minutes of gentle head massaging in London! Thai massage is not a gentle beast and it in fact hurts a lot while you are getting it. You have the masseuse climb, squat and kneel over you throughout the hour but it is amazing when it’s over.

It has been so wonderful to walk out and find absolutely delicious food for about $3 at your doorstep and have a massage every time we have done something strenuous – all that shopping is hard work man – I am not sure how I am ever going to settle back into London life again!

A short Sorngtaaou ride brought us from the border to the bus station where we took our first public bus after Malaysia I think.  BTW does everyone know what a Sorngtaaou is?  They are all over Laos and Thailand and are basically pick-up trucks with two benches welded in the back lengthways.  It’s a shared form of transport where the driver picks up passengers from the curbside and stops wherever you need to be dropped.

Thailand has a well-developed road and public transport network (read 8 lane “super highways”) which makes life a bit easier for the budget travellers.  Having said that, you can blow some serious Baht on the buses as you can get many classes – Public bus, AC 2, AC 1, VIP, Executive etc etc.  We took the public bus for the short 2.5hr ride from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai.  It was exactly like those old-fashioned Indian school buses that both P and I have ridden for many years, except it had a  full on music system!

In a change from the times in Laos, the journey was actually eventless except for one little drama.  When the Sorngtaaou driver first brought us to the place in town where the buses leave from, some of the Scottish kids (who had shared the ride with us) were adamant that they wouldn’t get off there as it was not a bus station – they had already spent time in Thailand before Laos and apparently it happens a lot that the drivers drop you off at some point along the road where you have to flag the bus down, rather than the actual bus station.  So we all sat in the back of the pick-up insisting that we be taken to the bus stop while the driver kept saying this was the bus stop.  After about 5 minutes we had the brilliant idea to look at the LP map to see where the bus stop is and sure enough we were standing in the middle of it!  So we smiled, apologized and got off.  Some times I wonder what these locals make of the tourists?  With incidents like this, they must think we are total nutters!

Luckily, the bus station in Chiang Rai is right in the centre of town and we walked out to find a nice clean hotel in a great location – the holy grail of budget travelling!  The town of Chiang Rai is pretty small and the locals friendly.  If we would have done some forward planning we would have gone to a hill tribe house run by the Akhas (one of the tribes in Norther Thailand) from where we could have trekked ourselves to other hill tribe villages and some water falls.  Unfortunately, we didn’t think about it till after and then we didn’t have enough time to go there if we wanted to hit all the points in Thailand.

In our short time in Chiang Rai we saw the local wats, the night bazaar and took a day to go to Wat Rong Khun or the White Wat that has been designed by a Thai artist turned architect and Buddhism practitioner and his disciples.  The Wat is entirely white with mirror work giving it a shimmering look.  You cross a bridge over a pond of outstretched ceramic hands representing desire into the still unfinished main temple.  The one mural in the temple that is finished depicts the planes crashing in to the Twin Towers, Keanu Reeves as Neo in Matrix, Spiderman, Superman and Batman and a number of other popular icons such as star wars characters.

We went around to the exhibits of the artist’s works and one that made me laugh is a painting finished in 2009 titled “ByeBye” which depicts George W straddling a rocket/missile and headed into oblivion!

The small night bazaar in Chiang Rai was a gentle introduction to the famous markets of Thailand. It was small enough to not pose geographical chalenges and through all it’s beautiful things we only lost control a couple of places. Someone wrote that in Thailand you find yourself shopping for things you didn’t know existed – it is completely true! Case in point being these cute tooth brush holders we bought – yes we are geeks! The only other buying we did was of local food stuff in which arena Mr. Kumar decided to have a second dinner while trying sweets and seafood balls and then complained of haivng over eaten for about 2 hours after!

And one final thing – the Wats in all the countries have been beautiful but ever since we entered Thailand the gardens of the Wats have been remarkable.  They abound in flowers, especially orchids and if you visit them in the evenings you can see all the TLC the monks shower on the plants.

And like all our journeys the one from LP to Muong Ngoi was also an interesting one. Having been promised a mini-van, we were picked up by a minivan of sorts – a beat-up, non ac one with P and me sitting on those foldable extra seats at the end of the normal seats!

We were driven to what looked like a mini-van station and told to get off and get into an even more beat-up van. This was the type that looked like it was being held together by duct tape!

After a 30 minute wait we finally got going only to stop at the local bus station while the driver took care of some business. After another 5 minutes we stopped while he bought about 10 cartons of cigarettes and another 10 minutes of driving brought us to a beer Lao stop! Yup, he picked up 4 chilled cans of beer! P and I were a row behind the driver’s seat (behind some Thai tourists) and while we discussed whether the driver was going to drink beer during the trip his friend popped a can.

Okay, so for about a minute it seemed like maybe only the friend was going to drink – that was before he passed the can to the driver who took it with one hand on the steering wheel on windy mountain roads! At this moment I decided o take us to authoritatively shout that he should not drink beer Lao while driving us! Luckily ther was a Swiss American couple in the front seat with the driver and they handled the situation very well. Michael, with a smile, said to the driver that drinking and driving was a problem and he could not do it!

Luckily he listened and after only stopping another 12 times brought us to Nong Khiaw! At Nong Khiaw we waited for the slow boat to take us to the Muong Ngoi. And what a boat it was. A little boat with two wooden slats for seats lengthwise which accommodated 22 passengers and all their luggage! And then I saw the first rapids – yes we went over a series of little rapids in this tiny boat, full of too many people!

That aside, the surrounding scenery was stunning and we reached Muong Ngoi to find a small village with friendly people and lots and lots of children running around! We had enough daylight time remaining to explore the village, find some food and read a bit before the sun set. Since there is no electricity in the village, generators provide lighting between 6 and 10 but being the geeks we are, we fell asleep far before lights out.

The next day saw us walking out of the Muong Ngoi and in search of three neighbouring villages mentioned in the various guide books, along with Michael and Lilian (the Swiss American couple from our car). The walk was an easy gentle stroll and we came across some caves and managed to find two of the three villages, walking through rice paddies full of grazing cattle. The valley was beautiful and the villages interesting and after about 6 hours of walking we return to fill up on carbs and pretty much fall into bed.

The boat drip down river from Muong Ngoi to LP is said to be one of the most stunning river rides in Laos and P and I really wanted to do it – especially after the mad driver from our trip up. The only problem was the boat, we really couldn’t go for 6 hours crouched a few inches above ground on thin slats. Luckily this time the boat had little wooden chairs – and when I say little, imagine the type in pre-schools!

The journey was beautiful with huge limestone karst rising along the banks, some hairy rapids – including one where we had to get off the boat to lighten the load and walk 15 minutes downriver to meet it again – and plenty of waving locals to watch.

A common experience since our trip began is of watching tourists compete to get “the best” or “unique” shot at any given attraction. It has ranged from near fist fights between tripod wielding travellers on top of Mount Bromo at sunrise, to waiting for 15 minutes for a single shot of Angkor Wat without three other photographers’ heads in the picture. But the one that has angered me the most is watching western tourists getting in the way of Buddhist monks as they collect their morning alms in Luang Prabang.

Thanks to its many monasteries and the local population’s active participation in Buddhism on a daily basis, one of Luang Pranbang’s most wonderful experiences is watching the monks going out on their morning alms collecting round.

It mentions in several travel guides, and all the guest houses and hotels tell you to go out at 6 am to see the monks but they also tell you to not get too close to them, keep cameras out of their way and not use flash while photographing the monks. Somehow the majority of the tourists get the first half of this and go out to see the monks but choose to ignore the second half – i.e. maintian your distance! The result – people going and standing right in the path of the monks, to the point where they have to move around the tourists and their cameras, using bright flashes and being entirely disrespectful!

Ever consider how you would feel if you get 15 camera lenses stuck into your face while you make that early morning coffee run?!

There are 3 main reasons why this kind of behaviour is entirely wrong:

1. It is HIGHLY pretentious! 99.99% of those gathered to watch the monks were not about to take the photo of the millenium or be awarded the amateur photographer of the year award for their compositions this morning! So just stand back, take in the experience and take the shots from a safe distance without ruining others’ photos and getting in the monks’ way!

2. It ruins everyone elses photos and forces them to behave in this manner and make erratic movements to avoid such “keen photographers.” The result is that you get a group of tourists who all feel entirely entitled to a “good shot” and without considering their behaviour choose to get too close to the subjects.

3. Most importantly it is disrespectful to the subjects – novice monks have to collect alms every day of their lives, it’s their routine – they are not circus animals there to be viewed, examined, documented, labelled and stuck in a travel journal back home! Yes, it is an amazing experience and yes everyone wants to come out of it with some good shots but participate in it responsibly – do not get in the monks’ way, hold back and you may just get a wonderful snap across the street – a safe distance!

Sorry for the rant but discourteous camera wielding photographers have become my latest peeve!