Well we're back and within the week as promised. What can we say, lost without Adam, our travelling buddy from Newquay and with night fall making surfing suicidal if not impossible, we have nothing better to do than inform you lot back home of our latest enterprises. To be honest, Bali, our current home from home, has plenty more to offer but we would rather share our love and spend time communcating with all our little darlings back in the emerald isle.
So the story continues. We left you, like all good soaps and most favorably, Neighbours, in the middle of the drama that is Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. A beautiful area with loads to offer we once again took to the skies in our trusty scooters and explored. Mountain top temples, walled ancient ruins and boiling hot springs which stink badly of eggs (possibly because some lady was cooking her dinner in it, following cooking instruction on the large sign overhead) where a few of Chiang Mai's delights but maybe the most enjoyable and certainly the most passionate was Muay Thai. Thai's love this ancient combative sport (very like kick boxing) more than their mothers and even more than their dear old King Rama IX. Like blood thirsty feinds we cheered on what must have been boys of 8 years old, women and international boxers as they literally beat eachother to the floor. We wouldn't be ashamed to lose to any of them in the ring.
From Muay Thai and Chang Mai we journeyed forthward to the town of Lampang and the largest Elephant Conservation centre in Asia, I think. Anyway a 30minute ride numbed our bottoms sufficiently for us to not realise the chaffage we were enduring. Gladly off the elephants we enjoyed much more the elephant bath and show. Actualy these 3 ton creatures would make Ryan look ungainly and just plain stupid. Well thats not saying much but really, balancing on logs, lifting and stacking them precisely, painting pictures, playing musical instruments badly and sitting and rolling over like any well trained rover, these animals should really be mans best friend and more houses should have stables rather than kennels.
The ancient ruins and still bustling city of Ayutthaya/Ayudhya/Aythaya..... it doesn't matter how you spell it (no formal translation as yet from Thai lettering to Roman script hence numerous spellings for the same place,very confusing), we still managed to get there albeit at about 4am or so. Sleeping in train stations is not easy with the hustlers, and trains, and sirens, and national anthems etc etc....but when you sleep like a sloath or better still Ryan, anywhere and everywhere is a king size bed. Rising Ryan from his slumber like the fair maiden snow white, or truthfully with his new gun, Rory got the day started and on our push bikes, we visited huge khmer style praangs, gleaming chedi, huge golden buddha in the subduing mara position, and ancient stone heads enveloped by centuries old trees. (Read up on Buddhist architecture to know what we're talking about, actually pretty interesting) With his unquenchable thirst for all things cultural and educational, Ryan marched on under the literal in every sense of the word, blistering midday sun and did the old man dad stuff of museums and the like. For anyone who is interested, he not only saw loads of really old and beautiful carvings etc but also Buddhas relics. Story has it that these relics appeared out of thin air before one of the early, very powerful rulers of the Ayutthaya empire as he stared out of his bedroom window. They are 1/3 the size of a grain of rice and look like amber beads. More inpressive is the boxes they were stored in. Like those chinese dolls that all fit inside eachother except made from stone, silver, bronze, gold and diamonds. Truly beautiful and like much of the city just breathtaking.
Anyways you're not here to learn about culture and become more and more jealous of our adventures. We know you too well. So a little mushy gossip. Well in Chiang Mai Ryan crashed his scooter. As well as sneaking his way into different temples (the locals don't have to pay and i'm just trying to fit in) he managed to super glue his bike back together and escape without any fine. Also Rory has had more than his fair share of offers from the ladies, especially when he's away off cruising late at night on his scooter. No surprise there really, hes an attractive man but each time the date would have been quite expensive and thats not including dinner!
Back to Bangkok then. A bit of a rush as we had passports to collect and this was our last chance before flying out to Bali the next day. Celebrated our return to Bangkok in style paying another visit to our good friend Mr Tesco before tramping around some of the huge shopping centres Bangkok has to offer and finish off with a good bit of culture in the local cinema. Actualy there is culture to be found here as before every movie or public showing of some kind, the audience are once again "reminded" of how great their King is and all the great things he's done. To say that they revere him would be the best way to put it, but at times it really made me question if it was Buddha or the king that they worshipped. As for the movie, in possibly the most grand and luxurious screen we've ever seen we settled down to enjoy "The Mist". Stephen King has made another great with possibly the best ending ever to a movie. Well worth watching although definitely not by pirate DVD as Rory has come to learn. More on that shortly.
Flights to Bali were.....safe and for all plane spotters reading, we saw the only 2 presently working Airbus A380s (biggest passenger aeroplanes in the world) as Mark Mulligan, ultimate knowledge in this field has informed us.
Bali greeted us with wide open party arms. Australias version of Ibiza, Bintang flows constantly, taxis are always on the prowl beeping their horns and getting a good nights sleep is pretty hard unless your the sleeping professional otherwise known as Ryan. The biggest draw to Bali though is it's world renown surf. More scooterage action and hiring of surf boards left our pockets drained of dosh but worse was yet to come. Twice over Ryan was not given his money by ATMs and then the next morning he broke his board while tackling some of the monster waves off Kuta beach. Let us add that these are the beginner waves and nearly always topping 6 ft, it's gnarly dude! Other "highlights" include the Nyepi festival that we had to endure. What's wrong with the Hindu celebrations, cock fights in the streets, amazing music aand large parades we hear you cry. The flipping day afterwards and not because of any Bintang induced headaches like most other people on this island. Nyepi is the Balinese New Year festival and they "celebrate" this by spending the whole next day locked inside doing NNNOOOTTHHIINNGG. This is so that the evil spirits visit Bali and think the place is a ghost town and leave it alone for another year. Seriously, no lights allowed on, no shops and not even any surf!!!! This give us the chance to try Rory's DVDs. Recorded by dodgy video cameras stuck behind other paying customers, this can ruin even the best of movies.
That's about all for now folks. A few more days in Bali before before we jet off to Melbourne, Australia and "revere" our hero Lewis Hamilton. If only he would drive a Ferrari..... Make sure to leave us some comments and come back next time to find out if we've kissed Lewi and made our way on to the extras list of Neighbours!!!
Hugs and Kisses
xoxo
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