Arriving in Thailand

All went well with the flight to Thailand; we arrived at Mumbai airport with a taxi driver who had obviously never been there before. We had to shout at him to exit the freeway to get to the airport, despite the fact that it was well sign posted. When he had to choose between departures and arrivals, he was totally baffled. I’m not sure if it was simply a case that he didn’t know the difference or more worryingly he was a taxi driver who couldn’t read!

The airport was fine, the usual price hike for food and beverages, but not much to see or do once you went through immigration. Despite the fact that it was air-conditioned there were a few mosquitoes flying around. Mal was in fear of them, he didn’t need to add to the numerous bites that plagued him from the previous night. Of course there were no shops to buy repellent or pharmacy for antihistamines, in fact there weren’t any real shops, just a few stalls along the walls selling trinkets at 100 times the price compared to the street! We flew with Air India, not wanting to fly with the unorganized and inconsistent Jet Lite again. They were a nice airline to fly with, it was a reasonably short flight of four hours and they managed to serve drinks, snacks, a meal and wet wipes- impressive in this day and age of ‘no frills’ flying. And we actually found a decent deal through expedia.com, they were cheaper than booking directly with the airline website or with an Indian travel agent- ha no surprises there!!

We momentarily paniced on arrival when we saw long queues for the visa; they wanted something like $40 in Thai bath, along with photos and lot’s of forms! What?!! We never had to do this before and it says nothing about it in the guidebook, but everyone from our flight and lots more were crowding on top of each other to get a form and enter the queue. We eventually discovered we didn’t need this visa, although it didn’t specifically say ‘Ireland exempt’ anywhere, we figured it out.

Next were the quarantine forms, we picked one up and it asked the usual questions like have you had stomach-ache, diarrhoea, fever, tiredness, fatigue, bla bla bla in the last few weeks? We could have answered yes to half the list until they saw our passports and told us we didn't need the questionnaire as we were Irish- little did they know that we were probably carrying more germs then anybody else on the flight! We contemplated having ourselves and baggage thrown into quarantine for a few days, just for health and safety and the good of the country, but obviously we just nodded and moved swiftly ahead.

Siam Square- Bangkok

A free shuttle bus brought us to the bus stand and a bright new yellow air-conditioned bus (no. 556) deposited us to the top of Khao San road for the grand total of 35 bhat each ($1)- the taxi’s were proposing 500B- I think we scored a major bargain!

Bangkok

It was early when we carried our rucksacks down Khao San road- the busy back packer area is obviously not a morning lover with hardly a soul on the streets. We swung a left down the Suzie Walking Street alley, checked out a few guesthouses and dejectedly noted that standards were low in the budget option, on the next road we found a decent room for $10 a night with a massage spa below of the legitimate kind (this room didn't work out to well in the end- but I don;t want to taint our Bangkok blog with further tails of bed bugs!). Our first impressions of Thailand on arriving are: wow it’s so clean! It's not until you leave India that you realise how extreamly dirty it is, I wish we could say otherwise, but that’s the harsh reality. When we were in India we took it all with a pinch of salt, but now that we're out and in beautiful Thailand we see the difference.

After a snooze we tucked into a spicy Thai green curry each, chicken for Mal, tofu for me. We didn’t have to worry about finding a clean looking restaurant, or bargain for a decent price- everywhere looked fabulous and the menus are clearly displayed in English and all competitively priced. We’d been in the country for almost 12 hours now and hadn’t been screwed over once. We really had left India behind.

Even though we had been to Thailand three years before, we still walked around with our jaws wide open, but we were comparing everything to India. This is still a developing country, the prices are similar to India, slightly higher, but the standard is a thousand times better. It’s not a struggle, everything is so easy. Yes, now we remember why we loved it so much the first time coming from Korea.

Khao San is mental at night time, there are tourists everywhere, stalls crammed on the road side outside the many restaurants and bars, loud music pumping, everyone laughing- such a holiday vibe, we were thrilled. A visit to the Seven Eleven store had me almost welling up, perhaps it was tiredness but it all seemed so familiar. The Seven Eleven’s were just the same as in Korea, in fact the whole street looked like a busy night out in Hong Dae (a lively university party area in Seoul) that I had a sudden feeling of homesickness. Not home sick for Korea, but the familiarity I guess. We could relax in the madness, it was something we were used to … now if only all our family and friends were around the next corner!

We truly got sucked into Bangkok.

You know in the Korean language ‘bang ko’ means basically to stay in your room/apartment and do nothing. If at school, my co workers asked me what I did for the weekend and I hadn’t been anywhere, just stayed at home pottering about- bang ko would cover this they explained, like the word Bangkok. Well that’s kind of what we did in Bangkok. We chilled out and took life very easily. For the first few days Mal was feeling wrecked from the bites and not recovering so we went to the doctors and discovered that bed bugs in India carry bacteria and Mal must have built up quite a lot because his lymph nodes were swollen. A course of antibiotics, antihistamines and some Berocca should sort him out.

We felt compelled to have massages most days at the ridiculously low price of $5 an hour- it would be an injustice to do otherwise. Stall food was a must and the fruit juices flowed freely- we didn’t even question the added ice! We passed a whopping nine days there, mixing in a few trips to Siam square, the huge shopping area. More malls have opened since our previous visit- beautiful, expensive air-conditioned malls that allow you to move from one mega mall to the next without stepping outside or touching the ground!

The Wondergirls (a massively popular Korean girl group) were live in one mall- although we missed their performance, shame since we had the shoulder shimmy dance down for their ‘Tell Me’ song. We revisited some of the temples and just thour

oughly enjoyed Bangkok- visit everyone; you'll love it!

Goodbye to "Incredible India"

After Palolem we planned on spending a few days in Hampi, but the train there was cancelled due to lack of demand! We were gutted. We’ll just have to visit there in the future; we do need a very good reason to go back to India. Instead we remained where we were for a few more days, hanging out and also managed to arrange mum’s flights to travel with us to KL and Bali for nearly three weeks next month- can’t wait!! Everybody is welcome to travel with us for a few weeks, jump on baord!

From Palolem we took a sleeper train (AC this time and thankfully I didn’t see one cockroach) to Mumbai. We found a decent clean looking room in a centrally located guesthouse but at an over inflated price, however we checked in. We then checked out Chowpatti beach. It was pretty much like the beach in Chennai, except busier- not very nice. Mumbai was really polluted and smoggie on this visit.

We walked around a different area of the city to when we were previously in Mumbai, did some shopping (did you know that they pirate books? Whole novels and guidebooks complete with colour covers! You can buy them on the street for under $1.50 -all the latest titles! The publishing student in me was outraged, but the poor traveller who loves to read won out, we stocked up!) and watched Slumdog Millionaire in a lovely cinema. What a great film, if you think we’ve been exaggerating in our account of India so far, watch the film and you’ll see exactly

what we are talking about.

The taxi to the airport drives you past slums where 55% of the population live, a horrendous image to leave India on, confirming to us that we were very ready to leave.

Turns out the decent looking room we had the night before must have been infested with bed bugs, Malachy was covered in bites. I usually sleep with my sleeping bag zipped up to my neck, Mal likes the spread eagled approach and the bugs liked him. They were the same ones as in Pondicherry (where he was savaged before) and a google search confirmed they were bed bugs. Sick, sick, sick and this was in one of the most expensive rooms we had stayed in! They left him feeling like crap and totally drained. We were really happy to get on that plane to Bangkok!

Palolem: Silent noise and goodbyes

Once we recovered from the yoga, vomiting and diarrhoea we decided that another 5 day boot camp was not for us, this was Demelza’s holiday after all: she was crazy to even consider it. They must have momentarily brain washed us during the Om meditation sessions! That settled we finally had our little blow out with Tanya helping and we forgot that we ever considered more yoga. Of course we have grand plans to practice our moves every morning before breakfast but that plan still hasn’t reached fruitation (and it’s been a few weeks now!).

Arambol was the cheapest place for us in Goa- and for all the hippies or pseudo hippies who dressed in what looked like designer coordinated outfits. It’s also a great place for all types of courses including yoga, meditation, Ayurvedic massage, cookery, dancing, juggling, tree hugging, fire worshipping, spirituality...the list goes on and we decided it was time to go. Where Arambol is the most northerly beach in Goa, Palolem, our next destiation is one of the most southerly- two hours down the coast. We were shuffled there in a taxi van resembling a can on wheels. We firmly believe it had a tuk-tuk engine as it never passed 50 and barely made it up the hills!

We were a little disheartened with the resort. It seriously lacked decent accommodation and was full of English and Irish package tourists. Had we made a terrible mistake? It took a while, but Mal and I found a crappy room within our budget and left all the bags so we could have breakfast. We spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a nice room for Demelza. She honestly wasn’t choosy; there just weren’t any nice rooms in the resort- or else the nice places were fully booked! It was disheartening; I know Demelza was thinking about her lovely room in Arambol as we looked at the shattering beach shacks. As evening approached she had to settle for a dirt cheap room that looked every bit of it! However we did have a delicious dinner at another fabulous Italian restaurant- Magic Italy. Refuelled we decided to have one more look for a room, as no one believed that Demelza would get any sleep in the room she’d booked. Thank heavens we found a newly renovated hotel with nice rooms for a bargain $10 a night, we quickly booked two rooms and left the other place. Unfortunately three giant cockroaches appeared in Demelza’s en-suite, but otherwise the rooms worked out well!

We spent our time in Palolem wining, dining, sunbathing, swimming and shopping for Demelza’s souvenirs. One day on the beach we caught a pervy Indian man taking photos of myself and Demelza leaving the water along with all the other women on the beach. Demelza told him to stop photographing her and he said ‘I’m sorry you think that ma’am’, but never apologised, we couldn’t believe it. Later when Mal and I were going for a dip I saw him taking more photos and asked Mal to go approach him about it.

He denied everything saying he hadn’t taken any photos of us. Mal took his camera phone from him and roared ‘that’s me and my wife!’ on seeing that the last photo taken was of us!! The man looked worried, I mentioned the police, Mal was hovering dangerously close to the water, the man probable thought he was either going to throw the phone in or hit him. But neither would have been a good idea considering as we said earlier, you’ll never win in India. Mal deleted the pictures, explained to the guy why it was totally out of order and he replied ‘This is our default culture’. What?? He continued asking ‘How long have you been in India?’ following up with ‘The longer you stay here the more you will be exploited, it’s our default culture.’ Such a crock of crap.

Demelza was telling us about all the gigs and concerts she has been too recently (come to think about it, with Malachy and Demelza a lot of conversations revolved around music!) and told us about silent discos. You go to the venue and everyone wears radio headphones, you choose what music you want to listen to and dance. There are usually a few DJ with different music on each channel so the person dancing next to you may be listening to something completely different, thus dancing totally different. She has just told us about this when we saw a flier advertising… you guessed it, a silent disco! This is actually a perfect way for the clubs to get around the 10pm loud music laws! Sold, we had to go and we did on the Saturday night, albeit we made our way there slowly, stopping for Mojitos at a few beach bars along the way! It was around twelve a.m .when we arrived and it was very unusual. You could hear everyone talking or shouting to each other but no music. They gave out red bindi’s for those ‘free to flirt’, I planted one on Demelza’s forehead, but unfortunately there was a serious lack of talent and she was far from interested in meeting anybody. The lack of music (without the headphones on) actually made it really comfortable for chatting, a thing difficult to do in the usual club setting. We were on the Vodka and coke, and from the killer hangover/sickness we had the next day, I think it’s very safe to say it was some form of paint stripper they were feeding us! We met a slightly older Irish woman who was studying massage and mystified by the whole silent disco experience. Mal bought her a drink and she proceeded to buy us about three rounds back, I think she was afraid to let us go!

The next day was spent serious ill (poor Demelza, this holiday involved a lot of sickness, she returned home a size zero!) they really did poison us with the vodka, although the mixed cocktails were probably a contributing factor. Demelza managed a shot of wheatgrass at breakfast, whereas I couldn’t even look at the orange juice I ordered, although I was well able to eat my toasted gouda sandwich!

Sadly we eventually had to take Demelza to the airport as she was flying to Mumbai to spend a day and night there before going home. It was really sad saying goodbye, the three of us had become a perfect little group in the two weeks and it was disappointing to see it break up!

Come back Demelza!!!

D-day and the big D

D-day, or Demelza day arrived just after Mal finished work on his guitar; perfect timing to deliver the baby home to Ireland! We arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport to collect her and arrived just as she exited the gate, perfect timing, an auspicious start to the holidayJ. It was wonderful to see her, our first real reminder of home since the wedding last October. We had an amazing two weeks together. As we’d lived in South Korea for the previous three years and have been travelling for the past five months, it was so nice to spend two weeks uninterrupted together. We had such a relaxing fortnight, well bar the five day yoga boot camp- but more about that later.

We spent Demelza’s first night in Baga, ate at a nice restaurant and had a few cocktails. There are some clubs on a street called Titos, they are meant to be rocking on a Saturday night with lots of Russian Barbie types, but as this was Thursday we decided to head to another beach bar instead. Here Demelza ordered a Black Russian, she wanted milk instead of cream… she received a segmented floating curdled mess. They mixed it all wrong and added coke? Politely she pointed out that the drink was terrible and an argument ensued. This is typical in India; we have found the Indians very arrogant as a whole. They have no idea about the concept of customer service. In their eyes they are always right you will always be wrong. You can never win an argument with an Indian- well the ones involved in the service industry dealing with the tourists anyway. Mal decided to have a word with the manager/owner about their customer policy, telling the manager that we’d never be back and we’re going to tell everyone about how terrible the place is, and get this, the manager says ‘they know already, nobody told you?’ Startled we think we’ve heard wrong and say ‘people know this is a terrible place and you don’t care?’ ‘Yes, they leave comments here, you should see what they say about the food!’ Well what can you say to that? We just looked at each other and cracked up. Welcome to India Demelza.

The next morning we taxied it to Arambol about 40 minutes away, found accommodation (a concrete room for us, fancy room for Demelza) and presented ourselves for yoga at the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre for our 5 day intensive immersion course. Kelsi and Rustin recommended it, saying it was a fantastic grounding in Yoga, starting with learning how to stand correctly… and they were right. You can learn more about it on the web site: www.hiyogacentre.com. While taking the course you are recommended not to drink alcohol and to adapt your lifestyle to suit the values of Yoga. The course was from Friday to Tuesday, therefore the ‘big session’ was planned for Tuesday night, until then we decided to feed our souls via our stomachs and explored the culinary delights of the town. Unfortunately there weren’t too many really good restaurants and the best food we had was at a Chinese place called the Rice Bowl and a delicious Italian restaurant called Fellini’s which we later discovered had awesome Mojitos for under $1.50.

Day two of boot camp and we were all feeling a little stiff; from no exercise to three hours of intensive stretching, you can imagine that it awoke a few muscles! We had a fruit filled breakfast (the only place in India where we would trust eating fruit or salad!) and spent the morning on the beach. Demelza and Mal donned the factor 30 while I went a little lower, unfortunately India bites again. The Banana Boat factor 30 that Demelza bought for her pure as snow skin was either a fake or well past expiration because they got scorched… like deep fried crispy lobsters. Mal’s belly and Demelza’s chest and legs were luminous. They spent the night covered in Aloe Vera. I didn’t totally escape either, but it was nothing compared to the two!

This guy was one the beach the same day, imagine the scalding his ass got?! He probably wasn't able to sit down for the next few days!!

Day three went well; Dem and Mal downed a few ibuprofen to ease the pain of moving their burnt bodies and we were all getting into the course, although I’m sure if the session contained a fourth hour we would have collapsed! Unfortunately we all felt a little ‘off’ that night, Mal went home early while I hung out at Demelza’s, we put it down to too much sun, probably just a case of minor sun stroke! But the contents of my stomach started turning and I found myself battling to keep down the water I was drinking. Later that night I lost the fight…at both ends…oh yes it was vomit and the big D. Talking to Tanya, Demelza’s Ukrainian neighbour the next day we discovered she was also sick as were her friends, evidently there was a virus going around and we didn’t escape.

Day four and I made myself go to yoga but regretted it. After ten minutes I was sweating profusely and moved under a fan. I tried my hardest to keep going, but the sickness overtook me again and I had to make a quick exit to puke. One of the instructors was very nice and stayed with me, but then wouldn’t let me go home, insisting I would benefit from lying with my feat in the air against the wall, I was turning green at the thought of it. We settled on the ‘butterfly’ position, which was basically just lying down relaxing. Although I did feel like a total drama queen plonker, especially as she moved me beneath a fan and people had to position themselves around me! I did perk up by the end of the three hours, even tried eating later- another bout of sickness ensued, but after the 24 hours I felt fine, however Mal and Demelza didn’t.

Day five, last day of boot camp and Mal couldn’t even make it through breakfast without having to dive into the bathroom, by the time we were due to start yoga he couldn’t get out of bed the poor love. Demelza didn’t really realise her symptoms as she was popping the ibuprofen like tic-tacks to numb the sunburn. Despite this it was a successful session, We paced ourselves especially during the crab, or back bridge where Demelza said ‘we should save our best ones until he (the teacher) comes around’, this comment set us into a fit of laughter just as the instructor was coming our way, I darted up, Demelza hadn’t yet recovered from her wit receiving a scolding!

We ended the course delighted with ourselves, we did it! 15 hours of intensive yoga in five days, how awesome are we? Demelza was so impressed with herself that she went to the instructor after class and asked him did he think she/we would be able for the advanced course starting on Thursday (another 5 day intensive course, that would end on the day Demelza flew home). He advised her that if she really wanted to do it and tried hard it would be no problem. Mal had already said he’d like to do it, so we marched over to reception and signed up (you didn’t have to pay a deposit!). Later that evening all thoughts about the big Tuesday night blow out were far from our minds as Demelza now had the big D, Mal was drying up and a night in chatting on the balcony, drinking tea and listening to the ipod was a far more suitable option.

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Malachy on guitar making

On making my guitar in Goa:

I worked for three weeks with Chris Horton, the most laid back luthier on the planet at Jungle Guitars, check out the website: www.jungleguitars.com.

I can’t recommend this course enough for anybody into playing guitar or working with wood in general. It’s an awesome way to spend a few weeks, not only do you get a priceless guitar (seriously my guitar is hand made from solid wood, a Malachy original!!!), but a wonderful experience in a chilled out learning environment. I found the process of shaping the wood wholly consuming, clearing my mind in an almost meditative way!

The course runs for about three weeks, working from 10am to around 3pm (schedule depends on daily progress, how many tea breaks etc) Monday to Friday- not exactly intensive but allows for a wonderful balance of work and play. As you can see the workshop is out in the jungle, literally outdoors under a banana leaf roof and a few beams suspending some fans!

There are just four workbenches, keeping the course intimate, and a tool bench which mainly houses hand tools, hence I built my guitar almost exclusively by hand: a unique feature offered on this course.

On my first day I met my sheets of wood that would eventually sing to me! The days were spent moulding and shaping the wood using saws, rasps, chisels, planes and other hand tools. I had a homework assignment on my first night: to design my rosette- the pattern around the sound hole. In keeping with the theme of our travels I decided to try to incorporate a compass design onto the guitar. This is not a case of drawing it on - each letter was carved out and fitted into the soundboard. See what you think (the 'E' is on the guitar head):

Chris is a really great guy, so easy to talk to and the days just flew by. As a teacher he was relaxed, informative and encouraging. Any mistake could be corrected; he instilled in me a new love not only for guitar making, but for wood work in general. I can’t wait to get my hands on some tools when I get home (Joe are you down with that?).

After the first two weeks an American couple- Rustin and Kelsi, arrived to jointly make a guitar and co-incidentally they were also just married and on a round the world honeymoon! Needless to say the work began to slow somewhat due to longer tea breaks, they were really fun interesting people and the conversation flowed becoming boisterous at times! Chris had to occasionally intervene and remind us that he needed to get home before dark! But that didn’t stop us from bringing our chats to dinner on a number of occasions and we hope to meet up at some stage in the future.

The final stages of the making the guitar involved a lot of sanding- which Stephanie helped out with (helped/hindered??- Chris suggested that less work was completed when the spouses were present; although never discouraged anyone from actively participating). I finally lacquered my baby, put on the strings and set it up. It needed a night to settle in, I waited with baited breath for my first born to cry in tune and she didn’t let me down, sounds fantastic! The intonation is perfect and the action nice and low- just how I like it.

If you are in anyway interested in this course, go to Goa and just do it!!!