Guitar Bar

The final morning of our trek didn’t arrive a moment too soon…bright sunshine was just what we needed after a cold night. Anybody would think that, after 3½ months, I was finally acclimatising to Asia…but then again…probably not! More fresh fruit and eggs for breakfast – no complaints from me, although some of the fussier eaters hadn’t had the benefit of travelling through Cambodia’s gastronomic wilderness. The lack of sustenance was unlikely to be any obstacle to them on this day anyway: no more trekking – only elephant rides, rafting and sitting in trucks to endure.
We made our way to the elephant station, where as many as twenty were milling around including a couple of exceptionally cute calves. Just as my previous experience with Russ in Vietnam, the first thing to hit us was their strong, musky odour. Unlike the last time, however, we had comfortable seating with cushions.
Ultimately, the ride was a bit of an anti-climax – and even a little depressing. The elephants took us, in convoy, around a 2km circuit that was neither exciting nor aesthetically pleasing. The one moment of excitement came when our (Dave and me) mount took a liking to a juicy looking banana palm, which just happened to be 4-5 metres up a near-vertical slope. No amount of persuasion from our mahout was going to deter Nelly from her goal and, as Dave and I leant back in our seats like fighter pilots heading for the stratosphere, she swiftly reached her goal and nonchalantly tore the tree from the ground like a child picking a daisy. Other than this, the only noticeable benefits of being atop an elephant were the ability to wade through the rushing river and being 10ft or so above the steaming piles of fresh elephant dung that intermittently littered our path. The mahouts seemed particularly un-involved with their charges…and at points seemed downright cruel. I know a harsh prod with a stick doesn’t bear the same pain for these leviathans as it would for us, but the unwillingness of the elephants seemed to suggest that they were fed-up of toiling around in the heat with so little sympathy. There was one particularly steep rise where a number of the elephants openly voiced their displeasure and it occurred to me that these beautiful, intelligent creatures weren’t living much of a life, carrying the likes of us around and around on the same circuit day in, day out. When we returned to the mounting platform, we all chipped in a few Baht to buy them some big bunches of bananas to say thanks for the ride. Looking into their eyes, I felt a sense of recognition; some sense of a sentient consciousness evaluating me. I’m not sure what the verdict was but I hope they thought kindly of me.
After the elephants, the treadmill moved onto the ‘white-water rafting’ section. Dave and I joined Jez and Jo…and possibly the worst rafting guide in the world. The whole thing was certainly fun, although the water barely approached rapid or white. Despite this relatively unhurried pace, our guide still managed to beach us on virtually every rock going. If there was one rock in a weir twenty feet across, he unerringly managed to bring us to rest broadside upon it. This meant we had to work extra hard on the calm stretches to win the unofficial race between us and the other rafts. Of course, with three Englishmen aboard, there was never any doubt that our competitive spirit would win the day – even if nobody else knew there was a race on. ;-)
The final leg in our multi-event medley was bamboo rafting down the final, calmer stretches of the river. I maintain that the raft’s integrity was more to blame than my excess weight…whatever the cause, we spent the final ½ km ‘floating’ a few inches below the surface…and it caused no end of hilarity when, shortly before the end, our raft suddenly became a loose collection of bamboo poles and I disappeared up to my knees between two of them. I’d have found it just as amusing as everyone else, if the poles hadn’t then decided that they wanted to be together after all, thus holding me like some sort of mantrap. I eventually extricated myself without any serious injury and decided that wading the last few hundred metres was the safer option. After an uninspiring lunch, we piled back into the songthaew for transit back to town. Once back in Chiang Mai, we made plans to meet up for drinks in the evening and went our separate ways to clean up and get changed.
Dave and I returned to the Night Bazaar to find a meal at the food hall. The sheer array of cuisines on offer (from Sashimi to Vietnamese, northern Thai to Western junkfood) was enough to leave both of us prevaricating for ages before deciding on sate, noodles, soup and fresh coconuts. We ate until we were stuffed like Christmas turkeys and spent but $5 between us. Everything was freshly cooked and utterly delicious and we both vowed that we’d eat nothing but streetfood for the remainder of Dave’s stay.
Later we met up with the Scouse contingent and the Israelis in the Red Lion pub, before making our way to the Guitar Bar, via the Bunny Bar for a few deadly competitive frames of pool. By the end of the night, we were owning the Guitar Bar. Carl and Mark both took the stage in various guises as drummer, guitarist and singer and the whole place was singing along to and furiously applauding every song. The Singha flowed, the band played and everyone was in high spirits. Dave developed a personal mantra, which consisted of yelling ‘Brown Sugar!’ at every break between songs and eventually found peace in the form of a pair of chicken breasts (actually fake bra-fillers), which had been discovered tucked behind a plant pot in the loos. To the rest of the clientele’s dismay – or was it great relief? – we eventually staggered out and said goodbyes before heading our separate ways.
Dave, Lior, Eyal, Smadar and I ended up shooting some more pool at the bar Dave and I had found on Sunday. Later we staggered back to our lodgings after the mandatory pit-stop for the local equivalent of a kebab (chicken noodles) from a street stall.