Getting the hell out of Dodge

Regular readers will be aware of my distaste for big cities and every day I spent in Bangkok after Dave’s departure really began to grate on my nerves. For one more night I had the pleasure of Charlie’s company and Carl, Mark and Rachael were there a further day until Rachael’s flight home to Liverpool. Their company was pleasurable and I spent the days constructively dealing with my online application for teacher-training and trying my damnedest to get some sort of response from the aid agencies about heading south. Charlie disappeared back to Cambodia, loaded up with presents for the beach-kids and, between us, we’d managed to persuade Mark and Carl (and a random Dutch girl, Elles) that Cambodia was the place they should be heading for next.
With everyone else leaving, I was getting impatient to get the hell out of this dirty, sprawling city and, as luck would have it, while I was drinking with Carl and Mark at our hotel’s streetside bar, Darryl (from Ko Pha Ngan) wandered past. It was extremely fortuitous as we’d managed to forget to exchange e-mails when we’d last seen each other but he also had some conclusive (if not entirely positive) news regarding the volunteer situation. It seemed all the agencies he’d contacted were insisting on full vetting and home-country interviews before taking anyone on. This tallied with the only response I’d had so far and I figured if they were unwilling to employ Darryl’s practical (house-building) skills, they’d be highly unlikely to take me on. Within 30 seconds, I had decided to return to my original plan to go to Laos for the remaining time before my flight to Nepal. Including a day to get my visa, this left me with a maximum of 18 days to make a whirlwind tour of her various delights. Without further ado, I set to planning my trip and began to look forward to escaping from Bangkok. 36 hours later, I was on board a coach heading to Chiang Rai – 1½ hours from the Mekong border crossing into Laos. It was by far the longest journey I’d undertaken whilst conscious but the aid of two good books and a cd-case full of trance made easy work of the 12 hour journey. To be honest, I didn’t spend long enough in Chiang Rai to get a sense of what she had to offer and I wasn’t really paying an awful lot of attention with my mind focused entirely on getting over the border. Thailand had produced some great memories but I feel most of these were due to the people I’d been with. For all intents and purposes, Thailand feels like a Western nation – with a far more respectful culture, strong religious influences and far warmer hospitality of course! I’d come to Asia to see the other side of life – not to see children growing fat on a diet of McDonalds and Pizza Hut. There’s enough of all that back at home and I was keen to get back to basics in Laos.