Sirocco sky bar

Last night we eventually made it into the Sirocco sky bar on the 64th floor of the State Tower in the Silom district of downtown Bangkok.

6 months ago we were refused entry when the door whore took a dislike to Liz's 35 quid sandals and decided that they weren't quite flashy enough to allow entry. No such problems this time though dressed in her two pound fifty sparkly silver flip flops from Singapore!

The open air bar was fantastic and gave some stunning panoramic views of the city below, nearly as breathtaking as the price of the drinks.

We timed our visit there perfectly, just as we were leaving a light drizzle started to fall which sent the open air bars customer's running for cover. Unfortunately for us the drizzle turned into a full blown tropical downpour just as we set off across the city in a tuk-tuk. The open sided motorised tri-shaw didn't provide much protection from the downpour on the 20 minute ride back. We arrived back at our hotel feeling like we would have been drier if we had swam back up the Chao Phraya river rather than taking road going transport.

Bali birthday and back to Bangkok

We ended our stay in Bali by returning to Kuta for a few days. We had hoped to try and squeeze in a bit of surfing but I'm still suffering after I got that board in the ribs a month ago and didn't want to risk making it any worse. So what with that and Liz's mangled toe we have managed to score nil points on the surfing front. Most disappointing.

We again stayed at the Hotel Sorga which is the hotel that we stayed in when we first came to Kuta but checked out of because we thought it was a bit overpriced. We still think it is a bit pricey for the money but couldn't face checking back into any of the other grotty "budget" accommodation that we saw or used on our previous visit.

On Tuesday we celebrated Liz's birthday. Unfortunately she managed to jinx the weather by sending out an email the previous day containing the words "guaranteed sunshine". So of course it rained all day!

We didn't let it spoil the day though. We celebrated in style with a bottle of champagne that I had been lugging around for the last 4 weeks in my backpack and a lovely meal at a place called Poppies. Poppies is one of the original restaurants that opened up in Kuta in the 70's and is still going strong today.

The following day we left Bali to return one last time to Bangkok. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a day, we had breakfast in Kuta (Bali/Indonesia), lunch in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and dinner in Bangkok (Thailand) - Gastronomic globe trotting at its finest! I then made the stupid mistake of staying up until half four in the morning to watch Manchester United get humiliated by Barcelona in the champions league final. At least it will be good practice for the Man U players as they will have to get used to loosing what with the mighty Wolves being promoted to the Premier League next season (I think I may have drunk too much Chang).

We hadn't planned on coming back to Bangkok but have made a diversion here as it is the cheapest place for flights to Kenya. It's also a good place to stock up on essentials before we head off to Africa. Last week we finally booked our flights to Kenya, we'll be heading off on the 1st of June. Neither of us has been to sub-Saharan Africa before and aren't really sure what to expect. We've been trying to find some positive books about travelling in Africa but even the most positive one we have found, Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux (Louis' Dad), contains more than it's fair share of unpleasantness.

Bye bye Anne

Cooking up a storm

Last night we attended the Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School for a master class in Thai food. The class was run by the lovely Gayray from an open air kitchen at her house. We had a fantastic time on the course and Gayray was a great teacher.

We started with a tour of her garden where we learnt about all the different herbs and spices that are used in Thai cuisine before heading out for a tour of a local food market. Then it was back to Gayray's for a hands on lesson into the secrets of Thai cooking.

We learnt how to cook a whole variety of dishes including starters, stir frys, currys and deserts. We also got to make a range of curry pastes from fresh ingredients. The best bit of the course was that we got to eat everything that we made!

We can't wait to try out the recipes when we get home. Here's Liz with her rather impressive spring rolls . . .

Doi Suthep and the truck of terror

On Friday we paid a visit to Doi Suthep which is a temple on a 1676 meter high hill 16km from Chiang Mai. The site is one of the most sacred in Thailand and was, a legend has it, founded in 1383 when an elephant carrying an important relic collapsed and died at the site.

The route up the hill was via an incredibly twisty and steep mountain road. The driver of our sawngthaew was taking things at a fair old pace anyway but went into a crazy Lewis Hamilton mode when he got a minibus in his sights. The driving was atrocious as they raced each other side by side at breakneck speed up the twisting mountain road. By the time we got to the top Liz had gone a strange translucent colour and had to dash to the nearest toilet to say hello to breakfast again!

The temple at the top was a really nice oasis of calm after the wacky races ride up. Although we again seem to be visiting somewhere during the repair season!

From the top of the hill there are supposedly great views over Chiang Mai. However; we could hardly see anything as at this time of year it is really hazy due to the popularity of slash and burn agriculture that is used on the local farms.

Not sure whos Mom this is a statue of but it certainly isn't mine . . .

The drive back down to the bottom wasn't much better than the one up and left Anne seeking a bin!

In the evening we headed over to the Nimmanhaemin Road area of town which is where all the local trendies hang out (we of course fitted right in!). We ended up in a great bar/club called Warm-up where we were entertained by a local band who were belting out some impressive covers of Radiohead and Muse songs. It was really nice to go to a bar where the locals go for a night out rather than the usual tourist haunts.

Fire in the hold!

We had a rather unusual evening on Thursday after dinner at an excellent Mexican restaurant called Miguel's Cafe (chicken chimichangas and lime margaritas all round). We had nipped into a bar on the way back to our guesthouse for a quick drink only to be interrupted by the building opposite bursting into flames!

We're not really sure how the fire started but things were a little scary for a while as not only where we sat right in front of the blaze but our guesthouse was virtually directly behind the building on fire. Luckily the men from the Chiang Mai fire brigade were on hand to sort things out before the fire spread to the surrounding buildings. Thankfully no one was hurt in the blaze.

Chok Chai Tour

One of the big draws of visiting the Chiang Mai area is being able to go elephant trekking and to visit some of the local tribal people.

As we've already said on some previous blog postings, we're not fans of organised tours and usually try avoid them like the plague. However we took a trip out with Chok Chai Tour on Thursday and it turned out to be a great day out.

We started the day with a visit to an orchid farm and butterfly house. The gardens and flowers were really beautiful but the butterfly house was a bit of a let down.

Considering that Thailand is a fairly exotic tropical country we expected to see some really colourful creatures. However, the butterfly house only appeared to have some rather dull looking brown ones. Rubbish! We saw better ones walking around town.

The next stop was for a bit of bamboo rafting which was a fairly sedate but very pleasant punt along the river.

Liz and Anne even got the chance to wear a bit of rather fetching head gear.

Next up was the main event, the elephant treking. We had about an hour traipsing through the jungle on elephant back over terrain that would thwart a Land Rover. It was great fun and quite hard work to keep in the saddle when the elephants went down any steep inclines.

Then after lunch we also got to see an elephant show, which we hadn't actually paid for on our trip! It was very impressive to see the elephants put through their paces but we always feel a little uncomfortable watching performing animal shows.

Then it was onto the most pointless bit of the trip, the waterfalls. We love a good waterfall but this one was just plain rubbish. In the eyes of the owners mother nature hadn't done a good enough job so they thought that they would help out with a bit of concrete. They also thought it would be nice to have more water cascading down so the hillside was covered in bright blue plastic water pipes.

Next up was a trip to a long neck Karon hill tribe village where we saw some amazing looking women who wore traditional neck extending jewelry.

The Karon women believe that having a long neck is beautiful so wear the metal rings to make their necks as long as possible. They start to wear a few rings as young as 4 years old and then gradually increase the amount of rings until they have about 25 or 26. Not too sure about this pair though!

On the way back into town we also got to see a new temple complex that was under construction and also a factory where they turn elephant dung into paper. Here's a few pictures for you to enjoy (of the temple, not the elephant poo)

We're not quite sure what this little fella's about . . .

Ok, here's some elephant poo too. . .

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, which is the second largest city in Thailand, lies close to the boarder of Myanmar (Burma) and Laos in the far North of the country. Historically the city was the centre of the caravan trade in opium and silk from the Yunnan province of China to the port of Mawlamyaing in Myanmar. The town is still well known for its numerous markets and infamous night bazaar which sell many of the local and tribal handicrafts (as well as the usual big brand knock offs).

The city is centred on the old town which is bounded by fortified walls and a moat that were built in 1800 to provide protection from Burmese attacks.



The town has a very different atmosphere to anywhere else that we have been in Thailand. A lot more relaxed and laid back, in fact it feels more like Laos.

The other really noticeable difference is that the cost of everything is far cheaper here than the other places we have been to in Thailand. We've found the cost of living in Bangkok and the beach resorts of the South to be far higher than expected and nearly on par with back home in the UK. It hasn't been helped by the fall in value of the pound in the currency markets. However; the biggest factor by far is what appears to be the overpricing of things for tourists. The cost of everything in Chiang Mai from hotels and transport to food and drink is about half of what we have paid elsewhere in Thailand and more like the rest of Southeast Asia.

Chiang Mai is also home to many temples which we've spent a bit of time exploring.




Some of the temples were really interesting, at Wat Chedi Luang you could even have "monk chat". A lot of the temples had scarily realistic wax dummies and gold leaf covered statues of respected deceased monks which was all very strange.

One of the temples, Wat U Mong, turned out to be a bit of a disappointment though. As always seems to be the case, it's the ones that are hardest to get to that are the most disappointing. It was really raved about in a couple of the guide books and listed as a must see temple amongst the forest. In reality it was just a collection of 3 or 4 brick lined tunnels in the trees!

The bar and restaurant scene here is really lively too with plenty of variety. There's also a really big live music scene with lots of the bars and restaurants having bands. We took another tip from Jon and Linds and headed out to the Riverside Bar and Restaurant which is just outside the city walls on the banks of the Mae Nam Ping. There's a row of about 6 or 7 restaurants in a row which back onto the river. We had a great night but got our timing a bit wrong, as when we left Riverside Bar to go to check the music out at The Brasserie everyone else went in the opposite direction and we ended up in an empty bar with no atmosphere.