It has become apparent to me that I am not a natural traveller. The real traveller is an optimist, whereas when I am travelling, my own natural optimism is tempered by a belief that most of my fellow travellers are there solely to annoy me..a view which seems to be accurate most of the time. Thinking that through I have prepared the following notes of warning to potential travellers.
Avoid
1 .Men with unkempt beards; they without exception will be vain, dull and opinionated.
2 .Women with beards; kempt or unkempt
3. Men of my age with any of the following; a pony tail, a bum bag, vest or cut down jeans.
4. Anyone who is or who might be, French or Russian
5. Anyone under the age of 30
6 .Anyone smoking (They will almost certainly be in categories 1,2,3 and 5 anyway)
7. Anyone carrying a guitar. In fact, when sighted, ideally you should check your insurance policy to see if you are covered against such a catastrophe or whether it is deemed an Act of God.
8 .Anyone taking far too many photos of dull subjects....just imagine; one day they are going to want to show them to someone...and as the saying goes, "It could be you".
I am currently staying at a fabulous guesthouse on the banks of the Mekong. I have a tiny room but I can lie in bed and see the river and have free WIFI all for $3 a night. So far the only downside to it seems to be the non stop noise of Lao music coming over the river....clearly promoted by the Lao Government to undermine the Thai economy.(And the Lao government is expert in that; it has had so much experience undermining its own.) How far do I have to travel, I wonder to avoid Lao music? I thought that leaving the country might do the trick......
With a larger room and a Thai SAS type raid on Laos to silence the music it feels as though I could live here forever, though sadly, like in Laos I cannot receive Test Match Special. One nice touch here is that the bar and kitchen operate on an honesty basis...help yourself and write it in the book ! All the other guests are in category 5, but so far there has been no evidence of a guitar being smuggled in.
To demonstrate that Thailand is not without its peculiarities, I was told by the GH owner that finding the local laundry was not easy as they only had a sign in Thai. To put up a sign in Thai costs them a fee of 30Baht (say 60 pence ) a year but for putting one in English the fee comes out at a massive 100 baht. So the owner cheerfully forgoes much tourist business rather than take that sort of cr@p. Someone after my own heart I feel...I shall be putting as much business their way as my wardrobe permits.
I am close enough to Laos to be able to use up the last of my Lao mobile phone credit and to receive calls on my number, although a Thai SIM card is on my shopping list.
Since this blog is concerned with Thailand, and not its neighbours, I shall only briefly dwell on Lao matters. I thought though that I should share with you the fact that recently a journalist told me that the ex PM of Laos, who was booted out for being too pro Chinese, or too pro Vietnamese...I am not sure which, retired with 2 BILLION $US in his private account. I just checked the GNP of Laos; it is 14 Billion. So he managed to earn 1/7 of the whole national economy. Doing a comparison with UK, had Mr Brown secured a similar % from the UK, his 'pension fund' would stand at 200,000 Billion US$ Now people have different views about Mr B. but I doubt that anyone would claim that he was in receipt of funds of that magnitude though some might suggest that he would somehow contrive to lose most of it quite rapidly if he were.
My journey here on the Ship of Fools was without any great excitement, although most of the categories of traveller I wrote about above were present. As was the inevitable card school, which given the absence of any tables, had to be convened on the floor, to the inconvenience to most passengers but ignored by the players, as were of course, the scenery, the wildlife, the riverside villagers and eventually the sunset. The ship ran out of petrol on day 2 and we started drifting leisurely back to Luang Prabang. Eventually we managed to tie up and and wait for another boat to come alongside and fetch us some petrol. It was during this hiatus that a category 2, 5, 6 and 7 passenger emerged to 'entertain' us, with a medley of songs starting of course, with Hotel California....oddly apt in the circumstances! She had one fan; a category 1,3 6 traveller and a truly and utterly dreadful example of humankind.The other oddity was a man (category 4, 6,8) who bore an uncanny resemblance to William Hague, reminding me Tony Banks' great, but cruel remark that Hague looked like a foetus and expected that many Conservative MPs now wished they had voted for abortion. Hague also of course looks like the Mekon of Dan Dare and "The Eagle" fame, and the idea of the Mekon on the Mekong rather appealed. (Readers aged under 50 might struggle with that last reference.)
The compulsory overnight stay in Houxai (the Lao border town) (compulsory as the ships make sure they arrive after the border has closed for the evening...a rare example of the Lao entrepreneurial spirit) was also without excitment. In fact the only excitement in Houxai is watching the lorries load up onto the ferry boats cross the river. And that is only interesting for the antics of the guy who oversees this operation.He is fabulously camp with dyed auburn hair held in place by an Alice band, and a handbag. To watch him mincing between the lorries driven by macho men of several nations is pure theatre.
I have read that one of the delights of Chiang Khong, which is my current base, is a Mexican restaurant where the food is to die for. That will make a nice change from that dreadful so called tex-mex food chain that operates in UK. I shall explore it myself this evening if I can stir myself from this Garden of Eden ( and the Test Match score updates). I am told that CK's most famous resident is also a falang called Alan. He seems to be famous for cycling around the world in 140 days or so, which strikes me as an odd thing to do;I shall leave his fame unchallenged.
For the moment this blog is flying under false colours as I have no tall tales to tell. But I shall......promise !
ALAN
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