1. The Kanchanburi day tour.
You basically pay to sit on a bus. You then go to sites where you have 20 mins to stroll around a random historical area, absorb as much as you can without quite understanding why you were specifically taken there, and then rush back to the minibus otherwise it would leave you stranded in god-knows-where. Worst of all, however, is the Tiger Temple. To see such magestic creatures reduced to sedated lumps of meat is truly distressing. Regardless of what they tell you, there is no way that the tigers are not artifically pacified (aka drugged). To see a ten year old boy with a tiger head in his lap, eyes rolling back in the head, tongue lolling out and feet cuffed and chained was not a nice sight. Not only that, but to see cubs similarly sedate topped it off. So please don’t spend the money on perpetuating this cause. Go on a registered eco trek and try and see them in the wild, if anything. At least the money goes to supporting the forests and communities which will enable these animals to continue to flourish in the wild.
2. Cross the Thai/Laos border at Chiang Khong with no money…
Yes. I am stupid and you can all berate me. I could have sworn I read there would be an ATM!
After appearing at the exchange window at the ferry terminal on Huay Xuay (Laos) with a visa debit card to be rejected by the teller saying “no electronic”, I wasn’t feeling great.
“Any ATM?” I asked.
“Luang Prabang.” he said.
I wasn’t any where near Luang Prabang which is 100 km down the Mekong, I wasn’t going to Luang Prabang, and all I had was 1000 baht to exchange – not enough to get to Luang Prabang.
“Speak to immigration – go back to Thailand.” It looked like Laos might not happen.
I spoke to immigration “Go to bank – out of town. Take tuk tuk.”
I took a tuk tuk out of town. We pulled up at the bank – it looked very shut. A man across the street came to help, “Closed becuase it’s too hot.”
Welcome to Laos.
We finally managed to speak to the bank teller who was still hanging around. “Come back tomorrow, eight o’clock.”
I noticed the guy from the exchange outside the bank, wondering what sort of advice I was getting. I checked with the guy I was talking to that my card would work. “Yes. Tomorrow.”
Well, it’s not tomorrow yet. I guess this is to be continued…
Continued….
All is well. The bank had money and could use my card. A person I was travelling with was not so lucky, however. Her card was a fandangled Euro-smart-chipped card and it refused to work. So the moral of the story is – be prepared! (Dib dib.) Bigger centres like Luang Prabang have better banking services. I guess it is pot luck!
3. Eat meat when there is no refrigeration.
Sounds obvious doesn’t it? And believe me, it’s pretty damn clear to me now. I just wish it rang alarm bells on the night before I was meant to go trekking. There wasn’t a great variety of restaurants to choose from in Vieng Poukha – just the one. At lunch we asked for a few dishes before we discovered they only served the one – noodle soup (foe in Laos, but I think they didn’t understand my accent when I was trying to talk to them). My companion ordered vegetarian – I stupidly ordered pork. Not only that, but we went back there in the evening for dinner as we weren’t spoilt for choice and only later realised that we could have asked our guesthouse to cook for us. So I had a double dose.
Needless to say, a place without electricity would have no refrigeration, and cannot store meat hygienically. The bugs in that soup were nasty. The poor person I was sharing my bed with had me clambering over her countless times in the night to reach the toilet. She thought I had a bladder problem until she heard me in the morning finally releasing the contents of my stomach in a projectile upward direction into the squat toilet across the hall. I wasn’t just a tap at both ends, I was a fire hydrant.
I didn’t make it on the trek in the morning. Which, in another demonstration of how wonderful the people are in Vieng Poukha, wasn’t a problem for the tourist office. They could have easily charged extra or decided to take our money and refuse to do the trek, but they were extremely sympathetic and it was decided that we would do the trek the next day if I could sufficiently recover. In the end it was a fortunate event. Initially it would have just been two of us on the trek, which whilst intimate would have been trying for a whole three days with the one guide. It was also quite an expensive exercise. However, that day two other couples arrived. One Spanish/Swedish couple, and another from Australia, and both turned out to be wonderful travelling companions.
I managed to recover for the trek the next day, so not only did we get the trek cheaper but had great company along the way. I didn’t eat much for three days, however. Food still didn’t know the password for my guardian gag reflex. There were some trying times, especially on some of the larger uphill climbs, but I made it through. And so glad I did! Moral of the story – be aware of what you eat and think twice!
