The Unforgettable Backpack.

24th April 2013

Bangkok, Thailand. It’s one of the worlds exciting cities and has that legendary anything goes attitude that travellers have embraced over the years. Although it still has those same attractions, its not the once cheap as home brand chips place anymore. But hey, we are here to have fun.

We first came here together back in February, after our trip to Jordan. Our purpose for coming was to have our India visa processed and while waiting we would travel about some of the country for two weeks, albeit a leisurely pace.

We had been on the go for a few months since our last “rest stop” in Ireland, so we settled on a week lazing about a nice and little bit fancy Bangkok Hotel. It was in an area I cant recall the name of; fairly non descript and located under an expressway, but across from a homely restaurant we called home for a few days, thanks to its offerings of the exquisite cuisine that everyone loves, Thai Food.

The hotel had a nice pool to cool us off from the city heat, although it was more like a bathtub thanks to its miniscule size, just without the rubber duckies. It was located in the car park of the hotel, and next to a 7 eleven, which was handy as we could jump out of the pool and pop into the store to stock up on some cold beers. I chose one king brown, which I thought, was lager, and brought it back poolside. I was stoked as it was half price compared to the usual Chang bottles, but this was because it wasn’t actually beer, but rice wine. Still, it had a percentage, which has been significant to some AA admissions of late, so we necked it, and suffered the consequences.

There is always something to do in Bangkok. There are many different areas you can find yourself in and be entertained in whatever way you wish. One of these hubs is Banglampu, or Koh San Road, the famous backpacker and budget area of Thailand’s capital.

The area is filled with cheap digs, street food vendors, non-stop bars, knock off watch and clothing stalls and fake ID shops. Its illuminated by neon and its buildings are seemingly held together by thousands of power lines snaking across the streets and back alleys. Its traveller central, and its quite possible that you could meet someone from every nationality on earth here on Koh San Rd.

Patpong is another highlight of Bangkok.  It is the red light area and tittie-bar and lady boy central, but that’s not why we came here. Although the offers from touts of the opportunity to catch Ping-Pong balls fired from the local ladies in your mouth did seem very inviting. When not shrugging off the invites for happy hours, happy ending massages or unique smoke ring demonstrations, we would be meandering past the vendors selling everything from ”real” Rolexes, pirate DVD’s and “Super Penetrating Dildos”. It’s an eye, and no doubt other parts, opening area, but away from that there are the usual collections of awesome street food that no one seems to be able to do like the Thais do.

At the beginning of our second week we headed north on a slow and laborious train to Chiang Mai.

The journey takes you through some splendid countryside scenery of lush green rice paddy fields, high mountains adorned with prized temples and other pretty Buddhist temples with monkeys, the kind that steal your fruit and cameras. The train was comfortable enough; in fact lunch was even included, and arrived into Chiang Mai three hours behind schedule. We were lucky in our seat choice, as some poor girls in the opposite aisle had a family of cockroaches to entertain, as they had set up residence in the tray stow hatch in front of them. We laughed a little but then cursed the stupid poetic justice when we had those exact same seats on the return journey a week later, bugs and all.

Chiang Mai is on every travellers itinerary, although I’m not sure why. The city itself gets my vote for the most overrated on the planet. It’s all guesthouses, travel agents and happy hour bars. Why people linger in the town itself is a mystery to me. It has a few bits of the old wall remaining but hardly enough to keep interest for more than six minutes. Its traffic choked and dusty. It generally takes about ten attempts at flagging a tuk-tuk as usually the first nine have tried to rip you off with their extortionate fares. What it does have that is of interest is that it’s a gateway to further travel in the South East Asian region, and in fact the hill areas around Chiang Mai are stunning and well worth a visit.

We rented a cheap moped (often renting a moped for a day was cheaper than getting a couple of tuk-tuks and took our time in the region, popping into see some peaceful parks with cool, fresh waterfalls, and watching some elephants play some darts. After eight hours we returned to the misery of the too big for itself Chiang Mai. Refreshingly, we did have a mosquito infested guesthouse by the river which was run by the very amiable Mr Something or other who spoke perfect Thainglish but for five days we had no idea what he was talking about.

Cooking schools are popular in Thailand, and rightly so. The opportunity to learn from the best is irresistible. We took the opportunity in Chiang Mai. A full day course allowed us to escape the dreariness of the city. In a class of sixteen students, we were ready with the freshest ingredients, purchased by ourselves an hour before class from the local farmers market, with all equipment and a master chef. Each dish was as fabulous as the one before it, and we ate in culinary style on mats in the lounge. The lessons were simple and easy to understand, even for a kitchen idiot like myself who usually sticks a pie in the microwave and call success when I don’t have to reset the timer for an extra 45 seconds. For Kylie, who already cooks super Thai food at home, it was another string to her bow.

We received an email that our India visa was ready and that we should come to the madness that is the embassy (our foresight perhaps to the real thing?), so we headed south to Bangkok, and spent a few more nights in the Koh San Rd area, drinking cheap beer and eating green curry and planning a trip using our photocopied fake India Lonely Planet. This is Bangkok, after all.

We returned to Bangkok on the 14^th April right in the middle of Songkran, the Water Festival, celebrated as part of the festivities of the Thai New Year. It is arguably the best party on the planet. Thousands of Thai’s hit the streets to celebrate, with Koh San Rd the hosting the biggest gathering of them all. Revellers unite with water; bottles, pistols, buckets, hoses, you name it, if it carries and shoots or throws water, it was being used and everyone was fair game. We arrived into the furnace of festivities and the flood at peak hour, which is difficult to pinpoint exactly what stroke of the clock this was as the party goes on twenty-four seven for three days. Stupidly, we asked the cabbie to drop us off at the entry to Koh San Rd. He shook his head and smiled, and wished us luck as he watched us in the rear view mirror, entering the fray, loaded with our backpacks, all of our stuff. It took about three minutes for us to become soggy, waterlogged and saturated. We were sitting ducks to the hordes, which took every opportunity to unleash on us. We did our best to part the dense crowds, high on excitement and euphoria, jumping along to the live rock bands and techno reverberating from the streets. Eventually, the flow took us to our guesthouse, who were half expecting we would be this wet. Best in this situation just to dump our stuff, and get back onto the streets and join in the celebration, which went all night.

The following day, we were up early, grabbed a feed, some cans of beer, and hit the street for the final day of Songkran. We armed ourselves with some discarded water guns left by a temple rubbish bin, and went on the offensive. Our main targets for the day were the poor fuckers who rocked up with backpacks. And children were easy targets too. And anyone of Indian origin.

The party lasted all day, and all night. We drank and drank and passed out after a day of high energy and all our raucous exhilaration. At approximately 4am we still heard the noise. The party was still going.  Sore heads and sore bodies meant easy, empty streets the next day.

Just for kicks, we decided to turn a one-hour flight to the beach into an eleven-hour shitfuck. We managed to save about $100 by going the good old budget carrier, which although will keep your wallet in better shape for a night on the Changs, it will drive you insane. We awoke at 3am to get a 4am bus on Koh San Rd, driven at twice the safe speed limit by someone who may or may not have been on amphetamines, to the budget airport hub. Our ultimate destination was to be Koh Samui, but Air Asia don’t actually fly there, so they go to somewhere else, the name of the place I cant remember and in fact don’t think I ever knew in the first place, but it starts with an N. Or it could be a number 6. From Somewhereville, we took a three-hour bus to a pier from where we would take a two-hour ferry to Koh Samui, from where we would take a one-hour truck to our hotel. At 2pm, we said never again.

We were in Koh Samui for a very special occasion, which was my brothers wedding. He and his wife were to exchange vows in a surprise ceremony on the island. Of course we had known about this for quite a while, as I was lucky enough to be a groomsman and Kylie was my super hot date. And it coincided with the end of our trip, so were super keen to join in their five star fun. My family had also come over from Australia so it was also the opportunity of a reunion of some sort. There was also a mouse in our rubbish bin, so memories of India came back to us in a flash.

The Bucks day and night included bouncing off water at high speed after failing to stay on banana boats behind a speedboat. Actually quite difficult after many beers. As is football golf, which is what you think it is, in that you kick a round football into a giant golf hole. We managed 4 holes out of 18.  Later that night, a visit to the epic strength that is Muay Thai boxing was a highlight. The groom to be avoided a bout of his own when he commandeered the ring and the announcer’s microphone to offer a rendition of a John Farnham hit. And of course there were truckloads of beer. There was a stripper, who didn’t actually strip, so she may need to seek other career interests.

The Hens day and night involved day spas and sunset cruises and cocktails of the magnificent, pristine coast of Koh Samui.  And of course the hens pecked at the nightlife and many drinks were had at a lady boy cabaret show and the girls arranged a stripper who did get his gear off.

Recovering the next day around the pool in the humid conditions was easy.

Late the following afternoon, the ceremony was held at Mae Nam, an idyllic spot on the northern coast of the island. The kids got married amongst fireworks and friends and family and will enjoy Thailand as a honeymoon as well.

And for our travels, that is that.

Eleven months ago we left Brisbane for Guatemala and began our Spanish lessons. We drank Mexican wine on barrels in San Cristobal and confused apples with mustard in Panama. We were the first to footprint deserted islands in the Caribbean and read comic books under high altitude in Colombia. We swam with sea lions and sharks on the Galapagos and fell into the same pub to taste irresistible beer three times in one night in Ecuador. We explored the side streets of Peru’s plentiful Plaza De Armas’ and bribed our way into the staggering salt flats of Bolivia. We caught snowflakes together in Chile and drank whisky off Patagonian ice near the very south of the continent. We let tender beef melt in our mouths in Argentina with the crazy, passionate football fans, and caught a glimpse of Jesus in Brazil. We didn’t attempt Gaelic in the far reaches of Ireland and froze through the historical back lanes of Hungary. We kept warm in the 500 year old Czech pubs and rode the Red Arrow in Russia. We threw snowballs to the dogs in Slovakia and became stranded on the Polish border. We set sail down the Nile for what seemed like endless enchanting nights in Egypt and marvelled at the sights despite the flooded canyons of Jordan’s Petra.  We crossed the cultural extravaganza from Europe to Asia in Turkey and proposed our lives together in India.

We travelled by plane, car, bus, truck, rickshaw, tuk tuk, boat, ship, train, motorcycle, moped and sometimes, we even walked. The distances have often been far, but cannot stretch further than the lifetime of memories we have gathered, collected and shared on our ultimate trip.  We have met lifelong friends along the roads we travelled down, even the ones by rickety bus.

And today, we are heading home, and the backpacks, will be put away.

For now. For the unforgettable is redeemable.