the gibbon experience?
April 19, 2007
now i have an interesting option for something to do before going on the marathon boat journey in lao 
gibbon experience
(company website currently down)
gibbon experience
(company website currently down)
Create a free TravBuddy account or login to leave comments, meet travelers, and share experiences with the TravBuddy travel community.
bye bye, chiang mai
April 19, 2007
just as i came back to chiang mai from pai, a tropical rainstorm hit
the town - a sign of god to get lazy me moving again. and so i did.
next stop is chiang rai on the way to the laos border which i plan to
cross in 2 days.
of course not after a 3rd appearance in bubble last night, which was very unspectacular: quite quiet, some farang & thai mixed couples (with the odd 'older thai brother' or something like that attached to them) and a group of japanese looking bling bling pimped gangstas who did a breakdance show on the otherwise empty dancefloor, funny stuff.
went home in style on a tuktuk and a few hours later the alarm clock was ringing: time to say goodbye to the excellent green tulip guesthouse staff and off i went into the songtao to the bus station.
bus went smooth as always: walked into the station, bought a ticket at the english labeled counter, chose my window seat on the monitor and 20 minutes later i was on my way, in style again. got one of the just-below-vip-class busses which meant almost fully reclining leather seats, an attendant serving complementary water & snack and business class kind of legroom. 3 hours passed with me in my deluxe chair, the northern thai scenery passing by and a cute thai girl in the seat next to me: can life get any better?
of course it can, but i'm not usually on the receiving end of those pleasures so i'm happy with what i got hehe
once in chiang rai i had to fight my way through neverending 'tuk tuk my friend?' and 'where do you stay? do you need guesthouse?' pick up lines and found my chosen guesthouse after a sweaty 10 minutes walk (i would love to take a tuktuk more often if it wasn't for the obnoxious tuktuk drivers). northern thailand is colder than the south they say? hmmm.... not in my case, it's boiling hot and i go through water like mad
so i'm sitting here in my room (which looks like one of the cheap motel rooms you see in the movies) after having explored town for a while and enjoy the garden view. the baan bua guesthouse is really nice and close to the bus station... definitely lives up to the good reviews everywhere.
the golden triangle, the border myanmar/laos/thailand is very near but i won't do a daytrip up there... i haven't heard anyone really excited about it and i can get a 3 country border in my hometown basel in switzerland, don't need to come up here for that
as for chiang rai: cute little town! a mix between business & market town it seems, but focus is definitely on the markets... the day market is huge, you get all the crap you expect to get in near-border towns and i can't wait to see the night market which must be excellent! let's see if we have a worthy challenger for the kaifeng nightmarket here
flickr set: chiang rai
of course not after a 3rd appearance in bubble last night, which was very unspectacular: quite quiet, some farang & thai mixed couples (with the odd 'older thai brother' or something like that attached to them) and a group of japanese looking bling bling pimped gangstas who did a breakdance show on the otherwise empty dancefloor, funny stuff.
went home in style on a tuktuk and a few hours later the alarm clock was ringing: time to say goodbye to the excellent green tulip guesthouse staff and off i went into the songtao to the bus station.
bus went smooth as always: walked into the station, bought a ticket at the english labeled counter, chose my window seat on the monitor and 20 minutes later i was on my way, in style again. got one of the just-below-vip-class busses which meant almost fully reclining leather seats, an attendant serving complementary water & snack and business class kind of legroom. 3 hours passed with me in my deluxe chair, the northern thai scenery passing by and a cute thai girl in the seat next to me: can life get any better?
of course it can, but i'm not usually on the receiving end of those pleasures so i'm happy with what i got hehe
once in chiang rai i had to fight my way through neverending 'tuk tuk my friend?' and 'where do you stay? do you need guesthouse?' pick up lines and found my chosen guesthouse after a sweaty 10 minutes walk (i would love to take a tuktuk more often if it wasn't for the obnoxious tuktuk drivers). northern thailand is colder than the south they say? hmmm.... not in my case, it's boiling hot and i go through water like mad
so i'm sitting here in my room (which looks like one of the cheap motel rooms you see in the movies) after having explored town for a while and enjoy the garden view. the baan bua guesthouse is really nice and close to the bus station... definitely lives up to the good reviews everywhere.
the golden triangle, the border myanmar/laos/thailand is very near but i won't do a daytrip up there... i haven't heard anyone really excited about it and i can get a 3 country border in my hometown basel in switzerland, don't need to come up here for that
as for chiang rai: cute little town! a mix between business & market town it seems, but focus is definitely on the markets... the day market is huge, you get all the crap you expect to get in near-border towns and i can't wait to see the night market which must be excellent! let's see if we have a worthy challenger for the kaifeng nightmarket here
flickr set: chiang rai
no love in chiang rai
April 19, 2007
after updating my blog i went back into my room to get ready for the
nightmarket... while in the shower i've heard the wind blowing... a few
seconds later the light flickered... another few seconds later i was in
the dark
outside hell of a thunderstorm started. not too bad as i had a nice view from my room on the palm trees amidst lightning, wind and rainfall. as said before the guesthouse has horrormovie motel flair, being in a tropical storm doesn't really help - it looked like the motel in the movie 'identity' and i was waiting for a serial killer do cut my throat hehe
some minutes later it was only raining and i went for food. tried a bookstore for a laos lonely planet / roughguide but only found every single other se asia country.. bla
tried boots for stocking up my doxy antimalarials. once again they tried to rip me off by pushing the pfizer uberexpensive one instead of the cheap boots noname doxy which was sitting right next to it on the shelf and questions concerning it being evaded... gonna use my 2 day boat trip to write a complaint letter to boots uk hehe
well but that's not all... stupid 'pharmacist' labeled girl tried to convince me that you need 2 tablets every day for 7 days and thats it... first i tried to explain to her that this is for malaria treatment instead of prevention but she wouldn't listen
i went out after that
i don't know if she really didn't know or is just following the local view on malaria: don't bother not to get it, if you get it we can think about fixing it. what do you expect in a country where nobody wears safety belt or motorbike helmets
outside hell of a thunderstorm started. not too bad as i had a nice view from my room on the palm trees amidst lightning, wind and rainfall. as said before the guesthouse has horrormovie motel flair, being in a tropical storm doesn't really help - it looked like the motel in the movie 'identity' and i was waiting for a serial killer do cut my throat hehe
some minutes later it was only raining and i went for food. tried a bookstore for a laos lonely planet / roughguide but only found every single other se asia country.. bla
tried boots for stocking up my doxy antimalarials. once again they tried to rip me off by pushing the pfizer uberexpensive one instead of the cheap boots noname doxy which was sitting right next to it on the shelf and questions concerning it being evaded... gonna use my 2 day boat trip to write a complaint letter to boots uk hehe
well but that's not all... stupid 'pharmacist' labeled girl tried to convince me that you need 2 tablets every day for 7 days and thats it... first i tried to explain to her that this is for malaria treatment instead of prevention but she wouldn't listen
i went out after that
i don't know if she really didn't know or is just following the local view on malaria: don't bother not to get it, if you get it we can think about fixing it. what do you expect in a country where nobody wears safety belt or motorbike helmets
some problems solve itself
April 19, 2007
i got my contact lenses delivered to a hostel in new zealand 2 months
ago and picked them up, happy that they arrived on time.
well, but then it began... i wanted to pay for the lenses but the web form did not accept my credit cards. weeks of discussions with their accounting team followed, they just couldn't bill my cc correctly for some reason (although everyone else in the world can, on- or offline)
so i already gave up and was ready to pay via western union (including a terrible fee of course), but then all of the sudden a mail appears in my inbox that they billed my credit card successful. without further explanations.
funny
well, but then it began... i wanted to pay for the lenses but the web form did not accept my credit cards. weeks of discussions with their accounting team followed, they just couldn't bill my cc correctly for some reason (although everyone else in the world can, on- or offline)
so i already gave up and was ready to pay via western union (including a terrible fee of course), but then all of the sudden a mail appears in my inbox that they billed my credit card successful. without further explanations.
funny
