Chapter 2 Thailand to India

Apologies to those of you who are busy as to the length of this email. We are keeping these emails as a travel journey so please skip over the information that you do not find interesting.

We left Krabi in Southern Thailand on 10th May on an apparent "VIP" bus for Bangkok. We were advised the trip would take 10 hours, it took 16. We were shipped from bus stop to bus stop in some very dodgy procedure. The bus broke down twice and the air conditioning system leaked over all the passengers.

Lonely Planet desrcibes Bangkok as a huge sprawling city with over 10 million people and full of pollution, chaos and money stealing people, but underneath you will find a charming city with wonderful people. Unfortunately and fortunately, we experienced both ends of the spectrum.
Within 3 hours of our arrival in Bangkok we became involved in a perfectly run scam beginning at one of Bangkok's major tourist attractions. It very nearly cost us close to AUD$1000 and ended up involving VISA, ANZ, a world-renowned high class fashion label and the Thai Police. The story is long and a very interesting one and we will not give the full details at this stage, but we are better off for the experience.

On our first full day in Bangkok we took a day tour. After being told towait at the "Novotel Bangkok" for our mini-van pick up, we found out we were actually supposed to be at the "Novotel Lotus Bangkok" at the other end of the city. Finally we departed for Kanchanaburi, a city 2 hours North West of Bangkok that is home to the River Kwai and much World War 2 memorabillia.

Kanchanaburi is the place where the Japanese held British, Australian, US, Dutch and Thai Prsioners of War during World War 2 and forced them to build a railway (now called the "Death Railway" due to the huge amount of deaths of the PoW's) linking Thailand to Burma. We visited the war museum and took a long tail boat up the river to the site of the infamous bridge on the
River Kwai. We travelled by train along the Death Railway and through Hellfire Pass (so called because at night the area was lit up by fires and looking down at the prisoners gave the illusion of hell). In the afternoon we went elephant trekking and bamboo rafting, and given the temperature was about 40 degrees celsius with 100% humidity our new found French friends andus stripped off (some more than others, those Europeans...) and jumped in the River Kwai much to the locals interest. We finished the day by visiting the war cemetery. We had a fantastic day. We spent our final day in Bangkok looking around the shops and had an interesting walk through Bangkok's red-light district and adjoining street market at night.

In Bangkok we stayed at an Australian run backpackers called "Big John's". It was great to be in a place that had AFL on TV in the restaurant area and Big John himself cooking a free BBQ on the streets of Bangkok.

We thought the taxi drivers and people on the street in Bangkok were bad in terms of trying to sell you things, but they were nothing compared to the taxi drivers that greeted us at Beijing airport. These guys were far more persistent and followed us the length of the airport trying to
persuade us from catching the shuttle bus with all sorts of lies. But even this didn't prepare us for when the shuttle bus dumped us somewhere in the city. As the bus slowed down, bus slowed down, 20-30 Chinese men rushed towards it. We initially thought they were rushing to get a good seat on the bus, but later found out they (bicylce taxi drivers) were waiting for a "western" person to get off the bus to try and take them somewhere. As we were the only westerners on the bus, we got mobbed. They grabbed us by the arm and tried to get our luggage. And when we tried to look at our map and hotel address (given we had no idea where we were) they jumped all over us and made it pretty hard to think. We tried walking off on them but they followed us on their bikes. Finally we hailed down a cab (taxis cost less than AUD$2 for the first 3kms in Beijing) which re-emphasised how little English is spoken in China as hedropped us off at the wrong hotel at the other end of the city and took off. We finally made it to our hotel. We visited Tiananmen Square (the world's largest public square and site ofthe 1989 massacre when the Chinese army drove over pro-democracy demonstrators in tanks killing thousands) in the morning. The ususal scammers were up to their usual tricks. Unfortunately we have become skeptical of every local that comes up to us and starts a conversation. We went thorugh the Forbidden City in the afternoon (so called because it was off-limits for 500 years and home to two dynasties of emperors). The Forbidden City was impressive, with huge walls and a moat around it and many palaces inside it typical of what you associate with China. Apparently the emperors rarely ever ventured outside the walls (on top of ruling over China, they had to deal with 2000 wives and concubines) and when you see inside them you realise why. You pay for an audio tape and walkman at the entrance gate and you listen to Roger Moore (ex 007) as he gives you a tour throughout the Forbidden City.
The following day we took a trip 70 km North-West of Beijing to see China's contribution to the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China. On the way we visited the Ming Tombs, burial place of 13 of the 16 Ming emperors that reigned over China (and lived in the Forbidden City) from the 1300-1600's. Apparently the Chinese say "you're not a man until you've climbed the Great Wall". Well we can now say we're men in China. We walked and climbed (it is very steep in some sections, with 500m drops on both sides) a section of the Great Wall to the highest watchtower. It has to be seen to be believed as it runs over mountain tops in the distance. Construction of it began over 2000 years ago but apparently it never really served its purpose as a defence line. On the way home we visited the site of the 2008 Olympics.

On our final day in Beijing, to escape the pollution I looked around one of Beijing's huge shopping plazas while Jim hired a bicycle and rode around the streets and hutongs (alleyways where a lot of locals live, some in extreme poverty). Jim just tried to stay close enough to a local in
front to make it over the chaotic intersections but not too close where he'd be hit by one of their numerous spits (everyone seems to spit in Beijing). You really do feel like a foreigner in Beijing, the city and surrounding areas has a population of 50 million people, nearly all Chinese with hardly any speaking English. You can feel that a lot of them are laughing and talking about you when you walk past, not in a bad way, more in a novelty way. I attracted a lot of attention with my blonde hair with people asking for me to be in their photos.

Our arrival in Hong Kong was a welcome one. It was a good, clean place full of high rise buildings, parks and mountains. We found and attended the Hong Kong LDS Temple. It really is a country where East meets West as they say. At night the lights of the buildings rival Las Vegas.


We arrived in Delhi, India on 21st May. We are not going to even try to attempt to describe India and our time there in words (photos do not do it justice either). It is a place that stirs up every motion, from young kids tapping on your window for money; extreme poverty and homelessness, to amazing sights and wonderful people. We did what is known as the "Golden Triangle": Delhi - Agra - Jaipur - Delhi. One minute you want to go straight home and the next you feel like you could stay forever. No other place we've visited had a feel like India. It is a fascinating place that we will never forget and we would love to go back (but not in Summer, 45 degrees was difficult to handle).


We arrived in London on 27th May and are currently in Birmingham staying with Emma Reeves and her family. We travel to Manchester tomorrow where we have found a house to live in and hope to secure jobs ASAP.