Hurrah, I have female company again! Aoife (Eoin's sister) has been with us for the last couple of weeks and we've been having a ball. We've been for manicures, pedicures, massages, facials, hair treatments, haircuts and body scrubs. Thailand seems to be full of people offering treatments for almost no money, but with varying degrees of luxury. In Bangkok we paid our one pound fifty upfront for a massage and were taken upstairs to the massage room. It turned out to be a bit of a communal experience, there must have been about 20 mattresses squashed together on the floor and about 10 tourists already being pummelled - thai massage seems to be a clothes on thing so it's not as bad as it sounds. We lay on adjacent mattresses while our masseuses had a good natter - probably about how dirty our feet were. I think everyone in the room must have heard the loud crack when my girl twisted me into a contorted position, I heard Aoife laughing but not for long since she was in an equally awkard position.
We vastly upgraded for our next spa experience out in the countryside where the girls welcomed us by washing our feet in bowls of water full of lime segments and rose petals. If only I could get Eoin to greet me like that when i get in from work.
Patpong
One night in Bangkok we decided to head down to Patpong, the seedy "entertainment" district. It's half sickening and half funny but the most entertaining thing was how close Eoin kept to the two of us. In fact, he looked absolutely terrified when we walked down "Boy Street" and were set upon by touts trying to get us into their boy shows. Love it!
Kanchanaburi
We headed out of Bangkok after a couple of days and went to Kanchanuburi. From there we took a long and strange journey on a train, pickup truck and boat to a sweet hotel built on a raft on the River Kwai in the jungle, there was no electricity, just lanterns in the evening and lots of hammocks to swing from, very rustic.
We had a great day on a cookery course in Kanchanaburi with our ladyboy instructor Mickey. He / She (sorry, no idea what the etiquette is there) was hilarious and full of tips about putting lots of chillis into your ex-boyfriends dinner. And I'm sure I caught him / her giving Eoin the eye a couple of times. We've just done another cookery course today and can barely move because we've eaten so much. Not a good thing when we're due at the tailor's for a fitting in an hour.
Trek
We're up in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand now and been off trekking in the jungle for a couple of days. You have the option of a two or three day trek and even though we really enjoyed it, I felt pretty smug leaving the filthy, dirty, damp three dayers behind on the second day. Nobody warns you quite how dirty and muddy you're going to get - especially when they have you riding your elephant mahout style (bareback, on the neck) like they made Eoin do. Aoife and I had the relative comfort of a bamboo seat and Eoin insisted in being called Captain.
The walking itself was almost a scramble at times, we all fell over at least once, apart from our guides who were skipping along in flip flops.
We spent the night in a hill-tribe village where every effort was made to ensure a rustic experience. ie nowhere to wash and we slept all together on the floor of a bamboo hut. Not the most comfortable night and we were even serenaded by cocks crowing from about 3am onwards. The evening's entertainment consisted of two guitars handed out for anyone to play and a local guy who did tricks with a piece of string. Eoin sat in the corner and read his book by torchlight.
Anyway, we got safely back to Chiang Mai and managed to scrub off all the mud. I'm so unfit now that two days after the walk, my legs are still really stiff, I crouched down to look at something in a shop yesterday and could barely get up again. Oh dear.
So there we are. Since we got back, Aoife and I have shopped and shopped, now we just have to figure out how to get all the stuff home. Tomorrow we fly to the beach.
