Yesterday, 1st October 2009, exactly a month since we left, was HECTIC.
Allow me to set the scene before I give you a blow-by-blow… I arrived back in Bangkok, Thailand, from a really busy (and fascinating) 4 days in Vienna. 10 hour flight, 14 hours in transit, 5 hour time difference. My second dose of jetlag in a week. The idea was to spend 2 days recovering, catching our breath and resting before the trek to Cambodia. Except my flight landed late, we had to wait an extra hour for the bus, and the traffic in Bangkok was crazy. So we only arrived at about 5.30pm, and then found out that the only bus that would get us to Cambodia in one day (and thereby avoid sleeping in a dodgy border town) left at 5.55am. So let’s change that two days into one. The day after that one day…
* 2am: Woke up sweating, heart pounding, head floating, and craving sugar. A night-time low, my absolute worst (and as far as I can tell, without direct cause – I’ve taken notes trying to find the source of a night-time low. Anyone have the answer for me?) After a super-sweet juice and a couple of miniature bananas, my heart rate slowed enough for me to go back to bed and try to fall asleep again (now 2.20am)
* 4.30am: Alarm went off to wake us for the day. Dragged myself out of bed, showered, drank tea. Had stupidly decided in my exhaustion the night before that I could quickly pack in the morning. Baaaad idea. We both scrambled to get everything packed in time to catch a taxi at 5.20am, to get to the train station in time for our 5.55am train.
* 5.30am. Still in the hotel room. Torrential rain outside. Pitch dark.
* 5.35am. Run through the rain with a backpack and suitcase each, desperately trying to protect our electronic valuables with an umbrella. There is water everywhere – huge puddles every footstep. We’re too late to care.
* 5.40am. In the taxi, at last. Our train leaves in 15 minutes. The hotel recommended we allow 20 minutes to travel. Thai trains are notoriously punctual. I chant a prayer the whole way to the train station – we’ve already bought our tickets and transfer tickets and they’re non-refundable.
* 5.51am. Arrive at the train station, throw money at the taxi driver, and run to the train. Find a seat just as it departs.
* 5.55am to 11.40am. Train ride. 3rd class seats only, so they’re a little hard (and dirty), and all the windows are open. None of the cushioned air-conditioned luxury we’ve been treated to on Thai trains before, but the tickets were ridiculously cheap, the scenery is fascinating, and we’re too tired to care.
* 10.21am. High blood sugar, for no reason. Makes me feel emotional (let’s make that extra-emotional, given the exhaustion, the jetlag, the low this morning, and the inability to sleep on the train).
* 11.42am. Met at the train station by a very nice man from the company we booked our transfer with. He takes us to a songthaew (a kind of open-backed, covered truck) where another very nice man drives us to what is supposedly the border between Thailand and Cambodia, but is actually a ‘consulate’s office’, one of the famous border scams. Two men dressed in official-looking costumes sit behind a desk with Thai and Cambodian flags, hand you official-looking forms, and ask you for 1200 baht each for a visa ($36 US dollars). When you say that you’d rather just get a $20 visa at the border, they tell you it’s impossible, and that it will take 3 days. We’d read all about the scam, so we insisted.
* Noon to 1pm. Made our way through the maze of scams and false stories out of Thailand, across the stretch of mud to the Cambodian border, where we went through a ‘quarantine’ (had our temperatures checked) and got a $20 visa no problem. Then we waited at the ‘bus station’ (a couple of benches just around the corner from the border, next to a stretch of mud) for our bus, which we had paid for in Bangkok, and was supposed to leave at 2pm.
* 2.35pm. An hour and a half later, still no bus. Eventually arrives and takes us to the bus station, where we catch another bus, which will supposedly take us to Siem Reap Bus Station or Market, depending who you ask. Either way, no problem to catch a tuk tuk to our guest house, they assure us.
* 3pm. We are now officially on the road, and officially in one of the tourist scam buses we had read about. I’m not quite sure how, because we’d booked from the State Railways of Thailand information desk, so you’d think it was all above-board. You’d think wrong. Our trip will take us 4 hours, so we’ll arrive at 7pm, after dark and, we’ve now been told, at a guest house that offers a ‘special deal’ for tourists (the special deal being that any tourist who checks in earns a $7 commission for the bus driver).
* 5.15pm. Mark keeps saying that the landscape around us looks flooded (there was a typhoon in this general area a couple of days ago, but we’d heard that it was concentrated elsewhere). I keep telling him maybe that’s just what Cambodia looks like.
* 6.53pm. We finally pull into Siem Reap, and it is F.L.O.O.D.E.D. People walking down the street with water up to their knees. Our bus making waves that wash over motorbikes. No distinction between the river and the street. Water water everywhere.
* 6.58pm. The bus driver tries to convinces us that the area we’ve booked a guest house in is severely flooded, but we don’t trust him (the dirty scammer) so we get a tuk tuk to take us there anyway.
* 7.09pm. He wasn’t kidding. The water is so high that it washes up over our feet while the tuk tuk is driving. Eventually it gets so bad that we get out and walk (the water is up to our lower thighs) while the tuk tuk valiantly carries our suitcases to the door.
* 7.15pm. We arrive! At last. Our guest house is clean and comfortable, and above ground (i.e. no flood water, thank goodness!) We have made it through over 13 hours on the road, without sleep, with jetlag and, oh did I forget to mention? Our first two days on anti-malarial tablets, which tend to make you tired and a bit under-the-weather.
So all in all, I’m going to go ahead and say that was our most hectic day yet.
So I’ve spent the weekend (in Vienna, Austria, of all places!) talking about diabetes.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken about diabetes so much in my life!
Together with 49 other journalists from all over the world (as far afield as Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Scandinavia and Turkey), we discussed all kinds of things relating to diabetes – what the best way is to get the word out about the condition, how to communicate with patients so that they realise the necessity of compliance, the differences between first and third world countries in their approach to diabetes and, interestingly for me, the stigma attached to being diabetic. I have to say, I’ve never felt at all discriminated against because I have diabetes. A couple of people were saying that it’s a big deal for the diabetics they know to inject in public – that they avoid it at all costs. I not only inject in restaurants and cafes, but, lately, as we’ve travelled around Thailand, in train stations, on buses, on the side of the street and in busy street markets. It’s not really a choice, you know – when I eat, I need to inject. And I think there are ways of doing it surreptitiously…
There was also a fascinating panel of diabetics (Type 1 and 2) talking about their daily lives – the challenges and practicalities of living with diabetes. Fascinating stuff, especially for me, because it gave me such a new perspective on the condition, on how other people live with it and how it has changed their lives.
We were all here for the workshop (run by Novo Nordisk, an insulin company who’s doing really impressive work with diabetes), but also for the announcement of the international winner of the Novo Nordisk Media Prize. I was holding fingers and thumbs that I would win (the money attached to the prize would have made the next 8 months a LOT easier!) but, alas, they chose a more traditional journalistic story – a newspaper article from Italy with a lot of practical, scientific information.
Although I was disappointed not to win the prize, the weekend has been so great for making contacts with people who know a lot about diabetes, and work in the field of diabetes outreach. I’ve met some incredibly passionate people, and a couple who are really excited about our journey, and want to help us make contact with diabetic associations in all the various countries we’re visiting. Very exciting stuff!
Physically, though, it’s been quite a tough weekend for me. I arrived at 5am (local time) on Friday morning, after having caught a 10 hour overnight flight from Bangkok, with a 5 hour time difference. The hotel room wasn’t ready for me by the time I arrived at about 6.15am, so I set off to wander the streets of Vienna as soon as the sun rose… It was beautiful, actually, wandering around getting lost and found again, looking at the incredible architecture and having a little breakfast picnic by a fountain in a park. The food has been AMAZING! I didn’t realise how much I’d missed bread until I bit into a roll on the plane and tears came into my eyes…
I’ve been eating a lot of bread.
So I wandered around till about half ten, and then I thought I was going to collapse from exhaustion – jet lag kicked in big time. I managed to check in and slept for a couple of hours, and then went to see a stunning Klimt exhibition (including the original of The Kiss – wow) in a restored palace amongst manicured lawns. A million miles from Bangkok, as you can imagine!
On Saturday I also spent the day walking around (pretty much all day), following some of the path of one of my favourite movies of all time – Before Sunrise. Jet lag has been a killer, though. A 5 hour difference doesn’t seem that bad, but I suppose combined with the amount of traveling I’ve been doing lately, and the late nights and poor sleep on the plane it’s all added up… I’ve been feeling really tired and quite headachey and fuzzy, and I’m sure it’s not doing my blood sugar any favours – I’ve had a couple of surprising readings. But not all surprising, so I can’t blame it on my insulin! It’s not hot enough for anything to have happened to my insulin, anyway, the weather has been lovely and cool.
This morning, for instance, I’ve been taking it realllly easy. I went downstairs for a big breakfast (of largely healthy stuff – cereal, bread, fruit and yoghurt) and then spent the rest of the morning lying down reading, gathering my strength for my late-night flight tonight… I just tested my blood sugar now, and although I took what I thought was enough insulin at breakfast, it’s sky high! Very irritating. So now I have to try and figure out what the problem is… Is it hormonal? Should I switch insulin pens just in case? Can I afford to do that seeing as I have a large but limited amount of insulin? Is it because I’ve been so active and now I spent a morning lying down? (I think that’s probably it). But that sucks, cause it means that I’ve somehow managed to turn into one of those fit people who need to be on the move for their blood sugar to stay down. No good! I liked the lazier version of me
Maybe it’s a combination of all of these, and some other unknown factors. That’s the problem with diabetes – you never really know. I’ll keep a close eye on it and if I stay strangely high I’ll take a new insulin pen out before I fly this evening.
For now, though, Vienna awaits! My last taste of the first world for a few months… See you back in Thailand.
So we’ve been by the sea for nearly a week, and I have to say I love it. Absolutely love it! Forget cities, forget towns, I love love love being by the sea. I always knew this, of course, but now I’m 100% sure.
We arrived in the sleepy seaside town of Ban Krut last week – exhausted, sweaty, a little strung out. Sick of being on the move. 5 nights later we emerged (like butterflies out of a cocoon!) rested, relaxed, happy and calm. We’ve spent the last six days getting enough sleep, swimming in the sea, waking up early to watch the sunrise, eating delicious food, reading a lot and spending real quality time with each other. Most days we had a vague itinerary when we woke up (rent a motorbike and explore the surrounds, walk the length of the beach, do some photographic or writing work), but nothing too strenuous. We left plenty of time for afternoon naps and long picnic lunches and spontaneous swims…
It was a delight! Which was why I was so surprised to wake up on Monday feeling down. Nothing specific, nothing related to traveling or being away from home (I went through the checklist and none of the possible problems rang true). Just a bit… off. Now, my initial impulse was to say, “How could you possibly be feeling down? Look around you! You’re in a beach paradise!” but I decided not to fight against it (what’s the point when you’re already not feeling great?) and spend the morning lying in our little air-conditioned bungalow, watching movies on TV. I gave in to feeling down.
And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of hours later I got up for lunch and felt much better. I think maybe I just needed some nothing-time. Weirdly enough, I remember having a conversation about this exact thing with a friend who asked how we’d avoid burn-out. I said, “If we need to take a day out watching TV we will – no problem!” When it came down to it, though, I actually felt a little guilty… Isn’t that silly?
Of course, not having to move around so much has also made it a lot easier to keep an eye on my diabetes, and get back into tighter control. When you’re hopping between trains and buses and walking unknown distances it’s not a good idea to be too tightly in control, but when you’re in one place it’s easier to make sure my blood glucose readings are closer to what they should be. This also means, though, that I’ve had more lows this week than at any other time during the trip. I hate lows! I’m sure all diabetics do…
So we had a blissful (for the most part) six days in Ban Krut, and then got an opportunity at the last minute to spend a night on Koh Talu Island, less than an hour away – a private island with a low-key resort and a truly inspiring coral regeneration project. I’ll be writing about it soon, I’ll keep you posted. We had such a wonderful time there – snorkeling, swimming, and finding out all about the project (see Mark in snorkeling mode here!)
And now we’re about to catch our train back to Bangkok (no running to catch it this time, thank you very much – we’re going to be very early!) Tomorrow night I head off to Vienna for the Novo Nordisk International Diabetes Media Prize Conference (keep your fingers crossed for me!) and on Friday morning Mark will fulfil a long-held dream and go to Singapore to watch the F1 Grand Prix live (the ticket is a little early-birthday-gift from me).
So it’s an exciting couple of days ahead! I’ll keep you updated when I can…
Our Week Two Video Diary, with snippets of all we’ve seen and done, and an honest account of what it’s actually been like (from Mark and my perspective).
Give it a watch when you have a moment, and let us know what you think…
I think the trick, while traveling around the world for the next nine months, is going to be creating temporary homes wherever we go.
For the first couple of days we were constantly on the move – two nights here, two nights there – and it was exhausting. We didn’t feel like we could find our place anywhere.
This week, though, we’ve been in one place – beautiful Chiang Dao, for five nights and six days, and really made a little home of it. It’s been so wonderful to get to know the area, and the people, and to have a sense of familiarity about our surroundings.
I’m really quite sad to leave.
Even more than the familiarity, though, this week has been full to bursting with incredible experiences. We’ve explored the monastery down the road (it was amazing), hiked through the forest (it was very muddy and steep!), discovered the inner workings of the Chiang Dao caves, cooked our own Thai red coconut curries and, this morning, rode an elephant through the Thai forest, followed by a bamboo ride down the river.
WOW.
I feel, especially today, but all week, really, like the luckiest girl in the world. The sun has been shining every day (despite it being the rainy season), we’ve eaten such good food, met some lovely people, and really got a sense of what Thailand is really like. Chiang Dao is such a special part of the country, it’s away from the hustle and bustle, and away from people trying to sell you things and crowds of tourists everywhere you look. When we’ve walked through the forest, we’ve been the only ones there. Riding the elephant this morning, we didn’t see a foreigner for hours. It’s been simply wonderful.
Being in one place has also made it easier for me to assess my blood sugar control, and I’m pleased to say it’s doing well. Slightly high when I over-compensate for the amount of exercise I’m doing, but I’d rather it was slightly high than risk going low when I’m out in the wilderness, or experiencing something amazing and then have to feel that horrible disorientated feeling. The one thing I’ve really noticed that’s different about how we’re travelling now and how we’d be travelling if I weren’t diabetic, is that we have to plan meals ahead a lot of the time. Before I would have been quite happy to set out for the day not knowing where we’ll be at mealtimes, but now I have to be quite specific about when I’ll be able to get food, and if it’s the right kind of food.
Still, if that’s the worst of my worries, I’m not complaining at all!!
(If you’d like to see what I mean when I say we’ve been having some incredible experiences, please check out our 30 to 40 second videos of The Best Moment of the Day, here: http://bit.ly/FIlv9 )
Koi Pond at entrance leading up to Chang Dao caves
Hua Lamphong Railway station
Absolutely in heaven!
We left the craziness of Bangkok behind, and took the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which was totally fun. We were in a second-class sleeper, which meant that after an hour or two on the train, an attendant came around and turned our chairs into beds (bunk beds – Mark was on top because I was afraid I’d fall out!) complete with fresh sheets, blankets and pillows. And curtains that you could pull across the front of your bed so that you had your own private compartment. So cool! We woke to the most incredible views of forest and fields of rice with small villages along the way, and we knew… We’d hit the North.
Row of convenient Tuk Tuk taxis
The North of Thailand, it must be said, is incredibly beautiful. Only, most tourists get off the train in Chiang Mai and miss out on the real wilderness. Not us! We’d been told a secret (by the wonderful Vanoodle – check out her blog here) about a little place called Chiang Dao Nest, a short taxi ride and an hour and a half bus ride from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city.
What an amazing place! The bus ride hinted that it was going to be beautiful, with sweeping views out over the mountains and forests, but when we actually arrived here at Chiang Dao Nest (our home for the next 5 nights) we were blown away. The bungalows are set in the midst of a lush tropical garden, and they’re made entirely from bamboo (with wooden floors) and home to an enormous bed. Stunning. There’s a great pool with views of the mountain all around, and a gourmet restaurant on the premises (ooh la la!)
Buddha sculptures inside Chang Dao Caves
This morning we walked about 15 minutes down the road to the famous Chiang Dao Caves, which totally blew us away. We had no idea what to expect… We had just heard that the caves were pretty cool. They were incredible! A series of interlinked caves high off the ground, in the middle of the mountain I suppose, with amazing stalactites and stalagmites, and a walking path lit up to a reclining Buddha statue. For a small fee we could hire a guide who took us through the back route, with some hair-raising climbing through small tunnels and even smaller holes, to these enormous caverns… Mind-blowing, I’m telling you! There were loads of rocks that looked like other things, too – an elephant, a papaya, a lion, and it was so dark (the guide’s oil lamp was the only light) that it felt as if we were virgin explorers seeing the caves for the first time. Wow.
Tomorrow we’re going to the temple 10 minutes down the road (the other way), which sounds pretty amazing too.
So all in all, we’re feeling a lot more settled and more traveler-savvy. We even have the rest of our time in Thailand sorted out, which is rather exciting!
That said, food has been a bit tricky, I must say. We don’t quite have the budget to eat at the gourmet restaurant three times a day, so we’ve been stocking up on food to eat for breakfast and lunch. Only, most of the supermarkets (obviously) only sell Thai food, and they’re not much for snacking-without-cooking. So most of the portable snacks we could find (for the train and for lunches these days) are either highly processed white breadstuffs, or biscuits. Not ideal!
Still, there is loads of fruit for sale (I bought a kilogram of Thai lychees for about R2.50 today!) and for our one cooked meal a day we’re eating lots of veggies. I seem to be striking it lucky with the insulin to exercise ratio – we’re still walking around a lot but I think I’ve figured out how much less insulin to take to balance out the exercise.
And so far – one week in – I haven’t had a bad health day, or a bad diabetes day! Hooray!
Real Bangkok is exhausting, let me tell you! Mark and I made the mistake of being tourists today, and ended up hot, exhausted and with raging headaches… No fun! We realised a few things today – that it’s way too hot to be out and about during the hottest time of the day, that traveling between places often takes longer than the actual activity you’re traveling towards and, most importantly, that there is a vast difference between tourists and travelers, and that we can’t be tourists or we’ll wear ourselves out…
I was sitting, this evening, on the verandah of the place we’re staying at, which is right in the heart of traveler city – the Khao San district in Bangkok. I must have sat there for over an hour, closer to two, while Mark was working on the computer, and as I sat I watched all the hundreds of different types of people walking past. There were locals selling things, locals buying things, locals driving tuk tuks and scooters and taxis, foreigners from every country you could imagine, hippies, hobos, smartly dressed Westerners and everything in between. I also saw a couple of dogs and a few kids playing… It was fascinating. Because as I sat there I could differentiate immediately between those who were tourists and those who were travelers. The tourists walked really quickly, looking around in a dazed kind of way, and were usually dressed in the clothing and jewellery for sale on the side of the road. They have a frenzied air about them, as if there’s not enough time to fit in everything (usually, I suppose, because there isn’t enough time to take everything in!)
The travelers, on the other hand, walked slowly and seemed to absorb what was happening around them. They were a lot more chilled and seemed centered in their own space, and were mostly wearing old, comfortable clothes. Mark and I aren’t quite there yet (well, apart from the old clothes!) but we’re getting there…
So much of this first stage of the journey is about learning how to travel. It feels like we’re still traveler rookies (because we are!) and we’re definitely being charged higher prices for taxis and food than we should be, but I can sense that we’ll get it. We’ll learn the language. We have to – we’re on the road for such a long time… And if we try to be tourists the whole time, we’ll end up exhausted and frazzled, which is no fun.
So today we realised that we have to take it easy and absorb as much as we can, rather than rush to try and fit everything in. A valuable lesson, I think!
We also realised that although this is technically autumn (and the rainy season) it is HOT here in Bangkok. Crazy hot. And there isn’t a freezer in the hotel we’re staying, so I’ve entrusted my cooler bag and insulin to a fridge (I hope it’s cold enough). I tried using ice and it melted in a few hours. Did I mention that it was rather hot??
That said, Bangkok is a crazy cool place to visit. Highlights so far include:
Taking the water taxi on the river, which is ridiculously cheap and ferries you between major spots while letting you soak up some of the riverside sights
Eating delicious freshly-cooked Thai food from the street, especially the pad thai (fried noodles and egg) and fried rice with vegetables.
Getting lost in the streets and reveling in the non-stop energy that surrounds the city, no matter what time of day…
In fact, it was really rather fun. We left Cape Town on Tuesday evening, heading for Doha in Qatar, and from there to Bangkok. I wasn’t so sure about Qatar Airways, I didn’t really have any references for what they’d be like, and I actually had no idea where Doha was a few days ago! Now I can say I’ve been there, if only for a few minutes…
Our Cape Town flight left a little late, but Mark and I were so excited to be on our way (at last!) that it didn’t really matter… In fact, I was so excited that I started dancing around the airport to music on my iPod! You must understand, we’ve been planning and planning and planning for months on end, so to finally be in motion is a pretty spectacular thing!
The flight to Doha was pleasant and uneventful. It was almost full, so there wasn’t any space to stretch out (alas), but there were loads of movies to choose from, and they fed us well and often. We landed in Doha with something crazy like ten minutes to get to our next flight, and would you believe we made it? With only the slightest of rushing. Doha looked really cool, and kind of insane. A vast yellow desert stretching right from the sea, with tall buildings popping up out of the sand. I would have liked to explore it more, actually…
Then on to Bangkok! On a flight that was deliciously empty so we could stretch out over many seats and sleep. Ah, bliss! The food got better and better as the flight continued, till we were actually saying things like, “Ooh, this is yummy!” (an aeroplane first!) I must admit, I was very impressed with Qatar Airways overall. We arrived on time, disembarked with the greatest of ease, and as soon as we got through Thai Passport Control (which was super easy), our bags were waiting! All in all, a very pleasant experience. I’d definitely fly them again.
Then to navigate Bangkok, with its notorious traffic jams and numerous forms of unusual transport (including tuc tucs, songtheuws, buses, taxis and scooters!) We went for the simple choice – an airport express bus, which for the measly sum of 150 baht (about R40) took us a few blocks from our hotel. The smells and sounds that assault you while walking on Bangkok streets are an experience in themselves – pungent aromas from street stalls selling food, exhaust fumes, garbage, fresh mango, other people… It’s an attack on the senses!
But a much-appreciated one.
We’ve been in the beautiful Metropolitan Hotel since last night, so we haven’t done too much exploring (except for lunch, which was quite an adventure – more on food in later posts, I promise), we’ve just been soaking up the comfort and beauty… And recovering from jetlag. We’ll be posting a review of the Metropolitan, along with any other hotels we review for Just the Planet, under their Hidden Gems section – check it out for reviews of the South African gems we stayed at before we left.
Tomorrow we head off into the wild unknown, I’ll let you know alll about it! Also watch out for our Best Moments of the Day, we’ve started posting them and they’re really rather fun (even if I do say so myself!)
PS – Diabetically: so far, so good. My blood sugar has been behaving itself wonderfully, and the food hasn’t been too strange (yet!)
