Radio silence

 As it's been a couple of days now since my last post and I've had a few emails from readers concerned/hopeful that this might mean Gullible's is off the air for good, I thought it best to bring you up to date.

We're still hanging around in Chiang Mai, waiting for the weather to pick up in the south.

We've moved hotels and are now the smug residents of a twin-pooled hostelry where our inner hippos have been well and truly released.  (They sleep for up to 20 hours per day and spend the rest of the time eating.)

Our busy days are filled with sleeping, reading, occasional weather watching and quite a bit of eating. 

Its a tough gig......

In other news, I'm still dealing with the (quite literal) fallout from the rashly chosen Pork and River Weed Soup that I ate in Laos.

Colonic chaos, but in no way related to the hotel move........

Chiang Mai Zoo

Today being a Sunday and with no foreseeable prospect of a roast dinner, we settled on a visit to Chiang Mai zoo.

As the remaining regular reader may remember, we visited the zoo 3 years ago when the lack of pandas was a sore point.

Nevertheless, as you'll be aware, I'm not one to bear a grudge and so we handed over our 350 Baht each and stepped inside.

Let me say at the outset that I'm not normally fan of zoos.  Indeed, I'd prepared several cakes with files in to distribute but was thwarted almost immediately by the zoo's policy of not feeding the animals

Disheartened, but not wishing to end up in a Thai prison, I discreetly disposed of the escape cakes in a bin.

As far as zoos go, Chiang Mai is less Alcatraz and more Kirkham Open Prison. ( In fact a kangaroo managed to break out a couple of months ago without my assistance).

It boasts around 400 species of animals, most of which seemed reasonably cheerful or asleep (although we did witness an otter gang war and a frankly horrifying horned tortoise love triangle)

The zoo park is beautifully landscaped, so much so,  that you can imagine yourself transported into a jungle. (Which must have been something of a surprise for the assorted sheep, goats and Shetland ponies on display)

The big draw of course, and widely advertised is the Panda Exhibit.  We were frankly astonished to find it open and scurried through the winding passageway, (complete with plastic bamboo fronds) keen to clap eyes on the monochromed beasts at last.

Once more blogmates, it was a swizz.

There was a panda enclosure, but as the last panda departed this world in 2023, they'd put cardboard cut-outs up instead......

As for our other favourites, well the orangutan went back to Sumatra earlier this year for 're-education' and, hopefully, freedom and the capybaras have moved into his old compound, where they're flourishing ( perhaps a little too freely).

Oh and of course, this lad was pleased to see us.....

Foreign Pie News

 We've got a triple bill for you today pie-fans! 

All three were bought from  the 7-11 shop opposite Wat Chedi Luang, Chiang Mai.

Chicken and salted egg pie:

Pastry: Pasty-shaped, it looked promising, with a very nice golden sheen to it. As ever though with 7-11 pies, it tended towards the flannel in terms of texture. Possibly better hot.

Filling:  Salted egg is quite a big thing in SE Asia and we were intrigued to see how it would work with chicken. Disappointingly, the shortsighted chef appeared to have reached for the sugar, not the salt. The resultant sweetish chicken with no discernible trace of egg was as unpleasant as you may be imagining.

A poor effort.

Carbonara pie:

Pastry: Displaying not quite as much flannel as the previous pie, it still lacked any basic pastry quality such as crispness, and  there was rather too much of it as well.

Filling: Conversely, there was too little filling, although as it contained what I suspect was 'chopped and processed pork byproduct' perhaps that was for the best. The smear of carbonara sauce was reasonable, but nowhere near good enough to raise the overall standard.

With a bit less pastry and a lot more filling, it could have been a contender...

Spinach pie:

Pastry: Exactly the same as the previous pie and once again, too much of it.

Filling: Definitely spinach with a hint of creaminess and dare I say it, nutmeg?

Bold. (Although, once more pastry to filling ratio seriously out of whack)

Probably the best of the trio.

 

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai. Second largest city in Thailand, and one of my favourite places.

The old city sits behind the remnants of 700 year old walls and a moat (a good place for spotting rats in  the evening)

It's also home to over 300 Buddhist temples, which made me realise that it's been quite a while since you were subjected/ treated to a Temple Day.

So blogmates, join me as we enjoy/endure an abundance of Buddhas, a wealth of Wats and indeed, a smorgasbord of stupas.

And before any of you write in to complain, think on. You only need to scroll through these. We had to visit them. It's been shoes off/shoes on all day, and at our age let me tell you it plays merry hell with your joints after a while.

Anyway then, for your viewing pleasure (or otherwise) :

 

These wax monks were frighteningly realistic. JB claimed to have seen ear wax in one of them.....

The Governor's House

Back in the relative tranquility (and lack of dust) that is Thailand, we're spending a couple of nights in Nakhon Phanom before moving on 'up North'.

Today's outing was to see the former Governor's House, built between 1912 and 1914.

In 1955 the late King and Queen paid an  overnight visit to Nakhon Phanom and stayed at the Governor's House.

  In preparation for the visit, the governor at the time gave the place a full makeover. 

Once the Royal Couple had left the building though,  it dawned on the governor that it would be completely unacceptable and very disrespectful to sleep in the place where the King ( a living god after all) had once slept and so the place was abandoned until 2008 when it was restored and is now a museum.

As regular readers will know, here at Gullible's we love a museum and particularly one with desperate exhibits.

In that respect, the Governor's House was like a dream come true. 

As the only thing of note to happen was the visit by the King and Queen in 1955 there can't have been much for the aspiring museum curator to work with.

How else to explain the following?

And perhaps most baffling of all.....

The Royal Bedroom was, quite rightly, protected by velvet ropes and the rest of the upper floor was out of bounds.

Disappointing. 

(Although to be fair, there was evidence of renovation being carried out)....

Change of plan

Our original plan was to move south from Thakhek, stopping off at a couple of likely places before ending our journey in the fabled 4000 islands.

However..........

 Following our recent derriere discomfort traversing the unmade paths around Thakhek, we were in no hurry to sign up for a 6-8 hour minivan trip.

Add to that the fact that the only way out from Laos after that is by many more  horrible hours of hammering of the haunches or by selling a kidney to  enable us to fly out from Vientiane (and we now only have 2 functioning kidneys between us), and you'll see that we had few options.

So there we are. Tomorrow we head back across the Friendship Bridge Number Three and into Thailand again.

See you there tomorrow 

Rock Climbing Day

 This morning, JB declared that today was the day he'd make good on his promise/threat to release his inner ape.

We managed once again to coerce the cheery Mr Fong and set off on another buttock battering 16km journey.

Eventually, with jarred spines, dust-laden sinuses and pulverised posteriors, we arrived at the Green Climbers Home, our venue for the day.

It's in a really nice setting. Surrounded by towering cliffs with some good jungle bits in between.

Basically, it's Butlins for climbers. There's all manner of rockfaces to scamper up/ plummet down from. Plus there are huts to rent so you can fully immerse yourself in the experience that is climbing.

Each to their own. Whatever.

When we arrived, the sign on the gate boasted proudly that the venue was closed. Then it began to rain.

Plucky JB pooh-poohed these obstacles and forged on.

From the range and calibre of expletives drifting down from the rock face, I think he enjoyed himself.

Now I know that you're probably asking the question: Did he release the Naked Ape?

Discretion (and decency laws, plus his mum reads this) doesn't permit me to comment.

However:

Don't have nightmares..........

A tale of two caves

 Finally throwing off our slothfulness we were up and about at the crack of 11am this morning.

We hired a tuk-tuk and set out to see some caves.

Our driver, the cheery Mr Fong (well, as cheery as the Politburo permits) is the proud possessor of as many as 6 teeth. I suspect the others may well have been shaken out over the years as he plied his trade along the dusty (oh so very dusty) and potholed surfaces that pass for main roads.

After an exciting journey involving much swerving to avoid both said potholes and oncoming traffic we arrived at the first cave. 

The Buddha Cave turned out to be one we'd visited before. Obviously our aging memories had let us down . As did the cave funnily enough.

Once I'd handed over 10,000 kip for the loan of  a skirt (no choice of colour, one size very definitely didn't fit all) it was on to commune with the Buddha.

What can I say? It was a cave and there was a statue of the Buddha in it, so I guess it meets the trades description act requirements. 

I'd share the scene with you but photography was forbidden.  As were shoes.

Undeterred we rejoined Mr Fong and headed for our second cave of the day, Tham Pa Sueam.

We've never been here before and following on from the Buddha Cave Letdown, it was with some trepidation that we handed over the 300,000 kip entrance fee.

Well blogmates, it was money well spent. The cave is enormous, and absolutely stuffed with stalactites and stalagmites, all very cleverly lit.   Photography was allowed, so here's a few....

Not bad eh? And it was very scenic outside too....

Now if they could just do something about the potholes........

Thakhek

Putting the gruelling journey behind  us we checked into our hotel on the riverfront.(in fact we can see our previous hotel across the waters if we squint hard enough)

Its a lovely spot with a riverside bar from which you can enjoy the sunset accompanied by the rhythmic crashing of several tons of rocks being dumped in the river to form a new causeway.

Ahhh what price serenity eh?

We've been to Thakhek before, about 10 years ago. I remember the place as being fairly devoid of cheer. And dusty. So very, very dusty.

In the intervening decade it appears that nothing has changed. (Well I suppose that the traffic lights have but then, that's their job....)

Why on earth have we returned here then? 

Older readers may recall that JB enjoys monkeying around on a rock face or two and it just so happens that about 16km up the road there's a climbing site. Once he's over his jetlag he fully intends to bring out his inner Naked Ape (Although in the interests of decency we can only hope that he keeps his socks on)

It's not all despair though. The local (quaffable) beer, BeerLao is a mere 22,000 kip per pint, or around 77p in 'worthless Sterling'

Cheers!

Efficiency of motion

 You may recall seeing the 40 watt lights of Thakhek yesterday across the waters of the Mighty Mekong.

This morning, we set out to cross the very same river for the seemingly short hop over to  Thakhek.

Our journey, which at first appeared to be simple enough, involved a motorised tricycle journey followed by a bus trip across Friendship Bridge Number Three, during which we stopped to be stamped out of Thailand and then had problems being stamped into Laos due having insufficient funds for a visa on arrival.

A swift visit to the nearest ATM confirmed my darkest fear (one of them anyway)...

The machine did not accept Visa cards and, naturally, we were only carrying Visa.

Eventually, (and much against his better judgement it must be said) the border official accepted our offer of good old English Pounds to pay the fee. Maintaining that sterling isn't real currency (and by the time you read this I suppose it might not be) he finally produced the required bit of paper.

Then it was back to the bus (avoiding eye contact with the other, presumably well-heeled passengers) and on to Thakhek bus station.

Here, having attracted the largely unwelcome attention of a local taxi driver/ would be tour operator we at last reached our hotel.

A distance of a mere 8km covered in only 4 hours.

South East Asian efficiency at its finest....

Borderlands

 Following the giddy excesses of yesterday's Beard Papa pie event, the only thing for us was to up sticks and leave Bangkok.

 As they say, after Beard Papa, nothing's ever quite the same........

And so, we boarded the next available flight, landing in Nakhon Phanom, right on the border between Thailand and Laos.

The border itself is formed by an old friend of this blog, The Mighty Mekong.

Yes, I know I said we would never mention it again, but here we are. Deal with it.

Nakhon Phanom seems quite jolly for a border town. Plenty of lights, tantalising views of Laos across The Mighty Mekong and best but perhaps most baffling of all, a dancing polar bear.

Tomorrow we attempt the crossing into Laos.

Stand by....

Foreign Pie News

 Japanese Gala Apple Pie:  Beard Papa's food outlet, Iconsiam Shopping Mall

A surprise find this one. We only went in the mall to escape the thunderstorm raging around us. (And given that we were on a river cruise at the time, you perhaps see the peril we were in)

Anyway, the pie.

Pastry:  Perfection. Crisp yet at the same time managing to be ever so slightly flaky, enhanced by innovative caramelisation plus a dusting of icing sugar. Marvellous.

Filling: A cheeky addition of custard inside the pie raised it to another level. Apple recognsible as such and very tasty.

If I have one reservation, it's that the custard (unexpected as it was) tended to splurt out uncontrollably.  JB and I wore custard beards for  a time.

Nevertheless, a pie of unsurpassed greatness in Thailand (Admittedly, the bar's not that high)

Well done,  Beard Papa!

Vampirism as a Lifestyle Choice

Despite the emergency cocoa and Werther's Originals, we continued to sleep on, waking at only tea-time the following day neither refreshed nor restored.

I'm beginning to see the appeal of the Vampire Lifestyle.  After all, we seem to have mastered the whole 'rising at dusk'  with ease.

I mean, yes, there's the sleeping in a coffin thing, but having made several journeys on the infamous Vietnamese Sleeper Buses, I imagine a coffin  would be quite roomy.

And I don't mind bats. Or wolves. In fact, growing up, we always had a dog.

Not sure about the drinking blood though. I mean, I do enjoy a blue steak. But not so keen on the actual drinking blood. And it's been many years since I bit any necks.....

As the marvellous Ron Fagin Moody once  sang: ' I think I'd better think it out again '

The penny drops......

 Day 2 of our '3 hour hibernation'.

Last night, groggy and dehydrated, we performed the Zombie Shuffle over to Khao San Road in search of sustenance. 

As ever, it was mobbed.

The street was thronging with bright (and not so bright) young things, knocking back the cut price cocktail buckets and fried scorpions.

We stared in frankly envious wonder at their  vitality and general willingness to get stuck in.

What was their secret? 

Sleeping in a flea-infested hostel?:  Unlikely.

Carrying their own bodyweight in ridiculously  oversized rucksacks  on their backs?: Doubtful. 

Neglecting the basics of personal hygiene for several weeks?: Almost certainly not.

And then, with a dreadful sound like that of a crypt door slamming shut forever, we realised.

THEY ARE YOUNGER THAN US! 

Thoroughly shamed , we shuffled back to the hotel for cocoa and a couple of Werthers Originals. *

*And slippers......🙈

Bangkok (yes ,yes, again,..)

 Welcome back to Bangkok blogmates.  (Of course, if this is your first rodeo, good luck, and may your God go with you....)

Anyway, to business. Following a bumpy but otherwise unremarkable flight from Bahrain we emerged, blinking slightly into the welcoming smog of a typical Bangkok morning. 

We hailed a taxi and set off for our hotel. Our driver, Mr Anon (I promise you that was the name on his 'license') proved to be a nifty lad right up to the point where we met a crazed moped driver head on.

Fortunately, the only casualty was  Mr Anon's wing mirror. 

Shaken, but not stirred, we checked in to our hotel to hibernate for 3 or 4 hours.....

Many people have asked me why we keep returning to Thailand.  

Well, let's see;

Could it be for the  splendid temples and palaces?

The nightlife?

The food?

The people?

Or the ridiculously cheap beer?

Answers on a postcard. 

 (Prizes not guaranteed.....)