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Michelle O'Riordan takes a year from rowing and travels the world. Part VIII - 27th May 2003.

Michelle's Grand Tour (part VIII)

Michelle O'Riordan
2006-03-12 13:04:56

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Hello everyone! Here's what I have been up to since I left the nice hotel.... We found Koh San road (backpacker's place) after catching a very crowded bus ...we paid the ridiculous sum of 14 baht which is about 12p. With some lucky guess work and hand signalling with the conductor we managed to get off at the right stop. Imagine over 40 c heat with an over-packed rucksack...not pretty! Koh San road is jam-packed with hostels,street-sellers and bars all playing movies. Street food sellers are EVERYWHERE in Bangkok...does anybody cook in this city? On every stretch of pavement there is someone cooking noodles/kebabs/rice/soup etc... People had warned me about the smell in Bangkok but to tell you the truth I hadn't noticed it until the 2nd day. The smell of those chargrilled fish was too much and I succumbed to good old western food - pizza! We didn't do a lot of sightseeing in Bangkok as it was way too hot...we did take a tuk tuk however and saw a couple of temples but as with most tuk tuk drivers, we ended up being taken to the temples via a jem shop so the tuk tuk driver could get free gasoline from the shop - bloody nuisance! We then headed up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand which I have to say I much prefer to Bangkok. Chiang Mai used to be the capital of Thailand many years ago - it is much more of a backwater city and I would say not as poor as Bangkok. The best thing is people don't hassle you at every turn. We booked a three day trek and had an amazing time...we did elephant trekking, bamboo rafting and swam in some lovely waterfall pools. We stayed in a tribal village (the Karen tribe) in a hut on stilts and slept on the floor -fine until we spotted cockroaches...aaaah! Also met up with some great people at last as we hadn't really met anyone in Bangkok. Two of the girls on the trek were from Woking! We arrived back in Bangkok this morning and are off to Cambodia tomorrow. The bus leaves at 7am which is good because it means we will be travelling in daylight hours - the foreign office warns against travelling at night in Cambodia as there are no proper roads only very pot-holed dirt tracks. It is going to take us 6 hours from the Thai border to reach Siem Reap where we will be staying even though it is only about 150km! I hope you are all well and I am following your regatta results via the website - good luck for the next regatta! Love Michelle