24 hours of fantasy travel

Most Saturdays I buy the Daily Mail, not to read the paper, that depresses me, but to read the Weekend magazine that comes with it so I can play arrow word and catch up on soap gossip (it's the weekend, don't judge me). In addition to soap gossip and TV reviews the magazine also has an interview with a celebrity 'The definite article' and one of the questions is 'How would you spend your fantasy 24 hours, with no travel restrictions?'. Reading the answers to this question always leaves me contemplating my own fantasy 24 hours, and so after much thought this is what I've decided on...

I'd start in the French Alps with a breakfast of freshly baked baguette, cured meat, local cheese, olives and pickled vegetables with my family, before a morning of skiing in the sun on fresh powder snow.

For lunch (and a rest) I would head to Queenstown, New Zealand for a 'Mr Big Stuff' from Ferg Burger: 1/2 lb of prime New Zealand beef topped with melted cheddar cheese, American streaky bacon & bbq sauce, lettuce, tomato, red onion and aioli. I would eat it next to the lake....

Later I'd go to Koh Tao, Thailand to meet up with friends for a Chang beer and a dive at Chumphon Pinnacle.

For dinner we'd eat the local cuisine; spring rolls, pork stuffed omelette and massaman curry... followed by a bucket (you have to!).

In the evening I would meet up with Summer Camp friends for a reunion in Seattle, USA followed by quite a few drinks at Pete's (a favorite bar) in Carnation, WA.

I would round off the evening in New York watching RENT on Broadway then drinks in Times Square before checking into a luxury NYC hotel (this is a fantasy after all).

How would your spend your fantasy 24 hours?

From C to D...

To get from Chaing Mai to the Thai/Laos border at Chaing Khong I decided to travel by tourist minibus. I usually try to avoid being shuttled around in minibuses with other westerners, preferring instead to take the cheaper and more authentic local buses, but as they can be unreliable and I had to cross the border that day to avoid overstaying my visa, I decided it would be better to travel the tourist way... and what a great decision that turned out to be!

Unbeknown to me, tourist minibuses sometimes make sight-seeing stops on route to their destination; and to my surprise our bus was stopping at the 'White Temple' in Chaing Rai.  I'd heard a lot about the 'White Temple' and was keen to visit but I hadn't had the chance to before my visa ran out, so i was thrilled that we were stopping by. Wat Rong Khun or the 'White Temple' has got to be one of the most beautiful temples in Thailand, it is the very unique and contemporary creation of Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipatas and is a living work of art. The temple is completely white to represent Buddha's purity and is decorated with a mosaic of mirrors that sparkle in the sun . To get into the temple (heaven), you have to cross a bridge over a pit of hell with protruding sculptures of outstretched hands. Inside the temple, the four walls are painted with a FANTASTIC mural (I wasn't allowed to take photos) combining traditional Buddhist motifs with modern themes. The back wall has images of 'defilements and temptations', including the devil, George Bush, and other familiar images such as Batman, the Terminator and The Twin Towers. The two middle walls show images of Thai people floating on Lotus leaves away from such temptations towards the front wall which has a fabulous mural of Buddha. I was so very impressed by the temple and could have spent hours admiring it's beauty, but we had a journey to make, and so we all piled back into the minibus and headed to the border.

After a few hours, we arrived at the border town of Chiang Khong where I was due to get off the bus, and make my own way across the border and onto my next destination of Luang Prabang. Everyone else had paid to travel all the way to Luang Prabang via boat the next morning or a night bus. I hadn't decided what I was going to do, but the solution soon presented itself when through general confusion and incompetence I got mistaken for having paid for the entire bus journey to Luang Prabang. Not wishing to correct this mistake, I let people give me the tickets I needed for a free ride all the way to Luang Prabang. Now, I realise this is dishonest... but I'm on a budget, and I thought 'why not?!'.

The crossing from Thailand to Laos was, as ever, unique. The border between the two is created by the huge Mekong river, and in order to enter Laos I got into a flimsy little boat with my huge backpack on, and was ferried across the river! It was a short but beautiful ride, and it was very cool to see Thailand on one river bank and Laos on the other.

Once I passed through border control, I was ushered into a sangthew (taxi) and then onto the bus bound for Luang Prabang.  I was lucky to get a seat on the bus -especially as I hadn't paid- because when the seats ran out, people had to sit on small plastic stools in the aisle! One guy found this arrangement so uncomfortable (it was a 12 hour journey) that he eventually gave up on the stool and slept on the floor. The poor passengers in the aisle also had to share the space with a motorbike that was being transported to Luang Prabang in the bus. This proved a ridiculous arrangement when people had to clamber over it to get on/off the bus. Stranger still, during the night the bus conductor decided that the bike would make a good bed, and so he slept stretched out on the bike with a pillow in between the handle bars!

For me, sleeping was difficult, and patchy. The roads wound their way through the mountains and I regularly got woken up as I slid into the people next to me, or because the driver kept slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting other vehicles.

But, the journey was free, and on time! We arrived into Luang Prabang at 6 AM, 22 hours after I had left Thailand; I was thoroughly exhausted and in desperate need for sleep, but I was very excited to be in beautiful Laos.

Tasty Thailand

The food in Thailand is absolutely fantastic, and I have spent the last two months feasting on as many different dishes as possible! I'm not a massive fan of spicy food, but the Thais are, so I've adapted to that and noticed that my tolerance for spice has increased during my time here. I've also become quite adventurous when ordering, choosing whichever dish sounds the most interesting, regardless of whether I know what it is or not!

The list of foods that I have enjoyed is endless, but here is a summary of my favorite Thai dishes:

Pork Stuffed Omelette: Omelette 'pouch' filled with minced pork, sometimes glass noddles, sometimes a tomato sauce, and a variety of vegetables and spices to season.

Massaman Curry: A coconut milk, roasted peanut, and chili based curry, usually with potatoes and sometimes other vegetables. Commonly it is made with beef, but I prefer chicken, as beef out here is often poor quality and can be chewy. Thai curry has a soup like consistency.

Chicken Pad Thai: Stir-fried rice noodles in a soy/ tamarind/garlic sauce, with egg, vegetables, tofu and chicken. Served with sugar, chilies and chopped peanuts to taste.

Garlic and Pepper Chicken: Chicken stir-fried in a very garlicky and peppery sauce!! Served with steamed rice.

Minced Pork with Basil and Chili: Minced pork stir-fried with holy basil, garlic and chili; often very spicy. I like to have this with steamed rice and a fried egg. (Excuse the photo, I stared eating before I remembered that I needed to take a picture!)

I'm not a massive fan of Thai dessert as it's not particularly indulgent. But I really enjoyed sticky rice with mango when we cooked it with Uni during our cooking course.

Sticky Rice with Mango: Sticky rice cooked in a sweet, creamy mix of coconut milk, condensed milk, and sugar, served with sliced mango.

...But my favorite dessert is definitely a passion fruit ice-lolly!!!

Chillin' in Chiang Mai

It was a 12 hour bus journey to get to Thailand's second biggest city, Chiang Mai, which is located in the mountainous north, but I did the journey overnight so it wasn't too painful! When I arrived it was around 6:00AM and the bus station was very quiet, I noticed a tuk-tuk driver negotiating with a group of backpackers and decided to go over and see if I could take advantage of a cheap group rate. Happily the price was fair so we all piled in the back, and the driver took us to the city centre. It was too early to check into a guesthouse - 'you're not in Bangkok anymore', quipped the driver- so we all waited in a street cafe to kill time. In the cafe I got chatting to two awesome American girls, Katie and Ashley, and we decided to share a room to cut down on costs. An hour later we made our way over to 'Julie's Guesthouse' which is famous for it's cheap rates and very luckily managed to get a triple ensuite room for the tiny sum of £1.80 each per night!

From then on my 4 days in Chiang Mai were set to be a lot of fun hanging out with Katie and Ashley. The girls were looking for a relatively easy going time and that suited me perfectly, so rather than making a mad dash around the city to see all the temples (Chiang Mai has a lot of Wats), we decided to see the city by mooching up and down the interesting little sois (lanes), popping into the quirky handicraft shops, and sipping coffee on the river. It was a brilliant way to see Chaing Mai, and we soon realised how awesome the arty little city was.

We spent the next two days being slightly more constructive by visiting Phra Thart Doi temple which is located in a national park in the hills above the city, and taking a Thai cooking course with our fabulous teacher Uni.

The cooking course started with a trip to a local market to buy the required ingredients, which turned out to be quite a unique experience as the market was very definatley local and filled to the rafters with unusual foods. After selecting our ingredients, and learning a little about the fruits and vegetables we headed back to Uni's restaurant 'Green Mango cafe' to begin the class. Uni has set up a really sweet 'classroom' in the back of her open-air restauraunt under a mango tree,  the restaurant's namesake. It was just the three of us learning, so it was a really personal experienence and we all became very fond of our little Thai teacher. We spent the morning chopping away at piles of colourful fruit and vegetables, cooking over hot woks, and nibbling when no one was watching until we had prepared a feast. We had each cooked three different dishes and so lunch was a banquet of nine different meals; it was far too much food for us to eat, but we gave it a good go! With absolutely bulging stomachs we wished Uni well, and headed back to the hostel to rest.

My final day in Chiang Mai was spent sunbathing by a hotel pool. Our two days of activity had worn us out, and we were all in agreement that a day relaxing by the pool was in order!

The evenings with Katie and Ashley were just as much fun as the days, and often spent playing the card game 'phase 10'. As Americans, I was shocked that they hadn't heard of the game, so I quickly set about to change that! We also had a few nights out exploring Chiang Mai's Reggae scene, and were joined by another American, Greg. Our final night coincided with the enormous Sunday walking street market which sells an array of lovely local handicrafts, and so we spent the evening shopping.

It was a fabulous four days in Chiang Mai and I was very sad to leave the girls, but unfortunately my visa was about to expire, and they were staying in Thailand to go to a festival in Pai. In our short few days together we had got along so well that I felt like we'd known each other for years. They are travelling a similar route to me though, and so I very much hope we bump into each other again on the South-east Asia trail.