Clare man Ciaran O’Connell has left Ireland behind to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime trip backpacking around the world. Internet access permitting, Ciaran will be corresponding with us as he enjoys his travels. This week, he spends half an hour watching ping pong balls fly, apes the behaviour of a gibbon, but first, he listens to a Frenchman with a tale to tell.
Dear Joe
Well, how’ya now? I just heard it got as low as -19C over there recently. Crazy times. I don’t want to rub it in or anything, but it’s actually a bit sweaty over here.
I am already on week eight of my travels as I leave my new friends and head to north Thailand to a town called Chang Mhai via a second trip to Bangkok then leave Thailand and head east to the country of Laos.
Having completed our courses at the end of last week, my new group of friends and I all went for a celebratory dinner and for a few goodbye drinks. As we starting telling a few stories about our various trips, Frenchie (who is the spitting image of Tommy Tiernan) starting tell us about his time in Iraq.
It turned out that he and a mate started their trip by driving across Europe and then on through the Middle East.
But when they were driving through Iraq one evening they accidentally took a wrong turn. They passed three checkpoints without any problems ,it was only at the fourth checkpoint that they were informed that they’d entered a restricted zone and were ask to step out of the car by the local army (under the supervision of the Americans).
As they did as they were told, they noticed that there were guns pointed at them. They were taken back to the local army barracks and were detained separately and questioned.
As you can only imagine, the two boys were bricking themselves and didn’t know what to do,. Fortunately one sound solider told them that if they stayed calm and if their story was true, they would be ok.
The barracks were riddled with bullet holes, courtesy of recent attacks from insurgents. They were warned that if an attack happened while they were there, to lie in the far corner so that there would be a possibility they may not die.
The smell from their pants was getting bigger and bigger by the minute.
Having being split up and searched (their phones and iPods were checked out, as was the music, pictures and documents on their laptops), they were interrogated until well after midnight – with most of the discussions about them in Arabic.
Cutting a long story short, they were finally allowed to go and were taken back to their car. They were given exact directions as to where to go and were told not to stop for anyone else, as if they did they could be shot for been suspected terrorists.
They drove as fast as they could through winding roads. Four different spotlights picked them out along the way. Each time they raised their hands to indicate that they meant no harm, but were mindful all the time that, at any minute, even a backfire from the car could send a hail of bullets down on them.
But they survived to tell the tale. I asked if they were sure that they weren’t extras on a Hollywood movie , but Frenchie swore his story was true. Now that’s man stuff.
By Catamaran to Bangkok
The next day, our bags were packed and, after the biggest down pour of rain, we headed back to the mainland and on to Bangkok via the worst the boat crossing I’ve ever experienced.
It was a four-hour crossing on a catamaran full to bursting with about 300 people on board. The rough seas meant that everyone, and I mean every one, experienced sea sickness. I’ve never seen anything like it, but we survived it and continued on to Bangkok for a second time.
After a good night’s sleep and a second fitting of the suit I told you about two weeks ago, Phillip and two Canadian girls we met diving (the one Canadian girl is a professional skydiving camerawomen and the other is a bartender at a strip club) spend the day wandering around the city, trying to find entertainment.
In the end we decided to visit one of the world-famous ping pong shows, which in the end wasn’t very entertaining at all. In fact, we had more fun bargaining the price of the show plus free drinks and a free taxi ride to back to where we were staying, than we had at the show itself (which only lasted 30 minutes).
The funniest part was when the taxi driver managed to fit 6 of us in a 4 seat car and proceeded to drive through a police stop on the main road. They just waved him on, before pulling in the car behind us for having a wonky light.
The next day I left the girls to go back to Canada and arranging to meet Phillip in Laos for tubing (I’ll fill you in on that next time). I headed alone north to the picturesque town of Chang Mhai in north Thailand, and on settling in to ‘Julie’s Place’, the trendiest hostel I’d seen in Thailand, I went along with three other lads to see some PROFESSIONAL Thai boxing (a big difference from what I’d seen in Ko Phi Phi).
We saw some proper heavy and lightweight fights. The main bout was between an English man and a local, but there were other fights including a ladies fight and a crowd favourite at half time which was a fun fight involving three fighters wearing blindfolds running around the ring and trying to box the heads off each other.
Plus we were treated to ‘the Ladyboy Miss World Cheerleaders’ – the crowd didn’t know whether to laugh or get sick when they proceeded to take their tops off. Shocking.
Ciarán the Gibbon
I spent the next day at ‘The Flight of the Gibbon Experience’ which has you high in the mountains for four hours zip lining at tree -top level from platform to platform over 33 different zip lines – the longest being 1km long.
They send you flying through the jungle like a bird (or more precisely, a gibbon) held up by a steel rope and a harness. It was great fun, but as I was grouped with a family, it was a little slow. It would have been better craic with a group of lads, but that’s the down side of travelling alone.
The day after, I toured around the town visiting the many stunning temples, old and new. Along the way I got to see the routine that kids at Thai schools go through. At 8am every morning they stand in a line for an hour, saying prayers, singing songs (including the national anthem).
Now before I go this time, and before I head off to Laos, I must tell you about a solid white temple the bus driver dropped us at as a pit stop on our trip. I tried to get the name of it but no one spoke English, not even the bus driver, so I don’t know what or where it is, but it was a pleasant surprise when all I’d been expecting was another dodgy toilet .
That’s about it for this time, but next week I hope to fill you in on a visit to Langperband and going tubing in Laos(it’s the major craze between travellers over this side of the world…).
See you after, kid.
Ciarán O’Connell
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