EASY STREET: TO THE MEKONG by David

The Mekong is only metres away. Through soft and misty morning rain, it beckons us to cross it to reach the opposite shore which is Laos. Our next country is but a short drive across “our” Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge (funded by the Australian government, some decade or so ago). The Mekong flows surprisingly fast, carries the occasional floating bush or log, and is muddy like the Yarra. It swirls and eddies in places but is broad and impressive. Hamish took a two day and overnight ferry boat trip down it last year when crossing from Thailand to Laos, but at a point further south from where we now are at Nong Khai. But I jump about so let me briefly recall recent days of our fleeting journey though parts of south east Asia.

Those who’ve been doing their homework (reading our blogs) will have got a fair idea that Malaysia wasn’t a load of laughs for us; while our experience here was coloured by our frustration at ongoing delays (see Shipping News), try to imagine streets of bland, newly built tilt slab factory type structures (with ground level roller doors papered heavily with the mobile phone details of surprising numbers of agents trying to dispose of the many remaining premises to be sold or rented) set adjacent to the new Bukit Tinggi multi-level shopping centre with surrounding acres of car parks. Between these a sweeping six lane highway, running fast with KL bound traffic, is squeezed. Putting these together, you now have our hotel location in Bandar Botanic, (near Klang), pictured to a T. Mind you, while located in an uninspiring block of mainly unoccupied properties, as described, we weren’t complaining about our hotel (the quirkily named Smart Hotel), its obliging staff or very helpful manger, Kelvin Tan, who, one day, generously drove us to a doctor for Will, in a nearby suburb.

Our time in waiting was however spent on further detailed planning (as always, looking to what comes next), on the net, reading (for me, finishing Anthony Beevoir’s sobering D-Day, reading the fast moving, 1933 genre setting novel The Big Sleep and also starting The Moonstone, a melodramatic but trend setting Victorian detective novel), watching films (aka movies) in the shopping centre (saw Salt for a second time!), or mystifying and endless American baseball games on (useless) TV, visiting KL searching for an elusive polarising filter and of course monitoring our car‘s glacial progress across the Strait of Melaka. Time eating was pleasantly spent, but by the end of our wait we just wanted out. The Malaysian toll road from KL to the Thai border was just the ticket: fast, cheap and breezy. Insurance (third party) was required to be purchased on the Thai side, and other car related documentation sorted out and set aside for handing in at the border with Laos, to complete the strict Thai requirements.

How sweet it was then to enter the broad streets of Thailand - great, wide highways, light traffic when away from Bangkok (compared with Indonesia‘s frequent mayhem), and easy living. On one driving day, with both lanes of our highway marked with arrows in our direction, and nothing else in sight, I said to Will (Lauren asleep in the back, not unusually) surely this can’t be one-way? It was - the other two opposite direction lanes were some couple of hundred meters away, fully hidden by trees. Traffic here near Krabi? - almost non-existent in places (apart from perhaps the occasional vehicle coming at us on the wrong side of the road (nothing unusual in this neck of the woods)).

Krabi (visited while unsuccessfully trying to meet up with Edward, a son of very good family friends Gary and Julie) was great. It’s set on the Andaman Coast, not far from Phuket. We met pleasant people, had good food and heard some great café music (Beatles, ‘Stones, Pink Floyd and much more), had easy internet and no hassle.

We overnighted at car free Ko Phi Phi Don, an island set between Phuket and Krabi and a 90 minute ferry ride away from Krabi. Bottled water sipping, busty and tanned young women, almost all iPod wired, many with a (mainly male) friend in tow, were our ferry companions (“where are you from?” I asked one (as it turns out, English) couple, perhaps unnecessarily - a smile and a raised eyebrow would almost have sufficed in this laid back backpacker world we move in and out of but never really join…). If you can imagine a maze of narrow lanes, lined with an excess of small, open fronted shops selling 7/11 stuff, dive courses, island tours, Thai massage, traditional long-tail boat rides, internet access, food and the services of a rock climbing guide, then you have the only village on Phi Phi, Ao Ton Sai, well pictured. Mind you, to be fair, Phi Phi, with impressive vine draped limestone rock faces, rising sheer out of the sea, offers a very visible and spectacular entrée to the rest, as you ferry in. While other places and stunning beaches on the Coast enticed, we had, as usual, to move on …

In one town on our way north I spend an hour or so carefully perusing all available Bangkok maps held by a shop, and buy the best (while we already had a Bangkok map with us from Australia, the new one was significantly more detailed where I wanted it to be). With some concern lingering about traffic and navigation, we entered Bangkok purposefully on a Sunday (if this is “quiet” Sunday traffic, I thought…) and then spent some days in the city, primarily to get visas for Mongolia (we could not get them easily or much before this due to Mongolian visas (and others) expiring three months from issue date (and Mongolia being more than three months distant from our start)). We found the Embassy at 100/3 Soi Ekkamai 22, Sukhumvit 63, Klongton Nua, Wattana. With more than 30 Soi Ekkamai’s off just one of more than 70 Sukhumvits which, in turn, spring irregularly off similarly named, Th. Sukhumvit (Sukhumvit Rd), you can start to appreciate my sudden and deep fascination with street maps of Bangkok, not to mention a need to grapple with the puzzling numbering and naming structures of individual properties, sois (lanes), streets, toll and expressways and sub-districts squeezed within the maze of roads and tiny meandering lanes which are mixed tightly together in traffic snarled Bangkok. We stayed not far away in a hotel with all bedrooms we saw surprisingly fitted with multiple angled mirrors pointing to the bed! A very good mirror salesman? Perhaps not. I didn’t ask why…

I should explain the reason for our task in Bangkok: while I had been assured that Mongolian visas were obtainable at the Chinese/Mongol border I felt quite uneasy about this prospect in light of what others had said (on the web and elsewhere) and also Jon and Jack Faine’s somewhat problematic, I thought, experience in getting their visas at the border some two years prior. Coincidentally, on the same day that Will and I were applying for Mongolian visas in Bangkok, an email was sent to us from our Central Asia travel agent Brent McCunn (located in Melbourne) advising that he had just been informed by his Mongolian contact that visas were no longer available at the Mongolian border… Sweet, as Will would say. Despite our protests, same day service (rather than three day) was not available, even after paying over double for fast tracked visas. We paid the visa fees at a Siam Commercial bank branch (“we do not accept payment here …” said the Mongol embassy representative…) and got them next day and left immediately.

While not really getting lost driving out of Bangkok, it wasn’t without some navigational difficulty and just a little stress (just before leaving, the carefully selected new Bangkok road map was lost by a not to be named member of our party while shopping at Th Khao San (Khao San Road) (noting however that it wasn’t lost by either Lauren or me…). Travelling north we were waved through one police checkpoint but stopped at another. Thai police wished us well after checking Will’s licence. At a couple of towns along the way Lauren and Will hired scooters, as one commonly does in Thailand (for many but not for me!). Further north we unexpectedly developed a slight vibration in the front end and needed to get the wheels re-balanced and wheel alignment checked and adjusted in Udon Thani - a lost inside wheel balance weight perhaps, or one too many Indon. potholes hit hard at speed (by Will, of course) - who knows? Here a surprising number of middle aged (probably including Australian) men were in bars or strolling the streets with young Thai women, clingingly in tow. I thought it a somewhat sleazy place, particularly at night. Here and elsewhere bar ladies called out for attention as we strolled past, and lady-men (I won’t explain…) were occasionally seen.

Driving through Ayuthaya (an ancient, sacked capital of Thailand) we watched tourist laden elephants slowly plodding and swaying down well trodden local streets, with cars, motor and push bikes keeping a wary distance - colourful and very Thai. A number of wats and chedi (Buddhist temples and stupas), a huge bronze cast sitting Buddha image and an ancient Khymer temple complex later, we reached Nong Khai on the Mekong river, five easy days after leaving Bangkok, and eager to enter a new and intriguing country.

Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and more beckon.

[Photos: Buddhist monks on the Thai side of the Mekong at Nong Khai; decorated prows of traditional long-tail boats on a beach at Ko Phi Phi; at Ayuthaya, tourist laden elephants mix it with cars; one of hundreds of baffling but extraordinary sculptures at Sala Kaew Ku Sculpture Park, Nong Khai]