what date is it?

we are switched on us two

we'd winged it through northern thailand on a pretty fast pace, got to ayathaya with a day to spare for our march 1st flight to Kuala Lumpar - so where sittin in the guest houes last night just watching a film, swigging a few beers and saying cheers to our last night in thailand ..

... when i saw the date on the clock - 27th Feb!! shoite! we where a day early

not so bad i guess as we got a chance to hire bikes and go see the elephants (we fed them - it was brilliant) but im not entirely convinced we are flying tomorrow - i'll be able to relax when they accept are tickets! i swear its cos i sent my diary home, i havent got a clue what day it is these days, but im not sure i ever did really :-)

notes on pai, and Billy Bryson

sounds like egypt the place to be then!! so many things to see on this planet, andeven in the UK - quite depressing in a way, but quite exciting in an another way!

glad you enjoyed hols kaz, bet it was good to get some decent weather - i heard someone say it was snowing in london recently?? is that right?

...and cant believe youve been to all those things ive mentioned - thats crazy! the cave lodge with the bats was where kelly stayed for 3 weeks too ! nuts

and the pool in Pai was lovely, was like a mini holiday in a holiday, a bit Ibeefa ish - we loved it

and yeah, Pai is pretty built up now, espesh when we compare to 10 year old guide books we find , eg, there is a 1 hotel and a few bars!!! its like a mini glasto now - we had as game for the first person to spot someone with a goatee, a harley , freedom trousers, and a bandana! i think it took about 2 minutes before we saw the first one - classic!!!

oh, and Jim - i read the short history book by bill bryson, 3 times in fact - i loved it (just dipping into random chapters all the time) !!! i was gonna book exchange it but just couldn;t - so i sent it home for my dad to read -

remember the spagetti ice cream too - lovely!

bettys in harrogate

just been reading bill brysons 'notes from a small island' whicvh is about a trudge through the UK, and quite funny it is too

but he keeps mentions loads of things ive been too, and im sure i saw , or went too Bettys in harrogate whilst up for Jo's 30th birthday is that right jim??

and then he goes on to liverpool, gets a train to port sunlight, but gets dropped off at the arch by bebington station! nuts that bill bryson was wandering around beb station - brilliant !

anyways, we are off to Kuala Lumpar tomorrow - no more thailand for quite a while i imagine! but this time next week we should be hanging out on a phillipino beach - cannee wait!

doi inthanon

just spent a few days in a crazy four wheel drive jeep that needs first gear to get over a speed bump, and cant overtake sleeping cat - but we made it make 20 minutes before we had too, to claim my passport back

we'd been to doi inthanon national park with our brand new orange and turquiose tent (taste or what!!) - it was great to sleep without a sleeping bag again, in the freezing cold - and both me and justine are looking forward to loads more sleepless, restless, heatless, and almost pointless, money saving endeavours in the future! camping - it really is the future!!! (actually, i still love it - bit perverse but there you go)

the place is full of lovely waterfalls you can actually drive too - which is great if you are feeling lazy - which we where

so after all this gorgeous water, and mountains we are back in chiang mai for a few hours, escaping the night market, and to be honest, even though we've gopt ayathatha morrow, and then kuala lumpar, my mind is one thing only - Manilla and the Phillipines. saying i cant wait is and understatement

see yer, (if anyone still reading this) xxx

hot springs

so claire, u know kennys email address then? mailed him but no reply!

additionally just thought id mention i went to a proper hot springs the other day - ive been to swimming pools before that are filled with 'hot springs water' etc etc, but this one was exceptional

we basically turned up where a stream was flowing, what looked like a normal stream - we suspected it may b e warm but as we walked down towards it we could feel the heat off it, and it was rampantly hot! i could only dip my toes in for a second

we headed upstream to find the outlet and found a small pool of water which was a strange metallic bue colour which was bubbling slightly in the middle - and on touch it was like putting your finger in a boiling kettle - serious, this is from an innocent looking small pool in the ground

heat basically carried up from volcano activity underground made this little sedate stream average about 70 degrees over the first hundread meters and in the first pool people where cooking eggs in it

its the most insane natural thing ive ever seen, more so than thunder and lightening! (my mum and aunty shelia may not agree with that - they've been known to hide in cupboards during thunder storms :-) !!!)

Pai

well, very nice it is here too - lots of nice bars, gorge food - and weve found a DVD movie house. So after being in Vietnam and reading heart of darkness, Justine is finally get to watch the 200 minute classic - Apocolpyse Now! im sure she's thrilled at the prospect

off to chaing mai tomorrow, gonna try and buy a cheap tent tosave some money on accomodation in the Phillipines

cannnee wait!

tragedy

When the morning cries and you don’t know why...............its tragedy!

well, not quite but had a bit of an accident the other day

we hired some bikes for the day in mae hing son and wentr off for a lovely ride to this national park, and went for a nice hike through the forest

on the way donw these lovely dogs started following us, and continued to follow us on our mountain bikes out of the park -

so we are heading over this hill brow and im trying to take a picture of juz with the dogs at her ankles, and riding along one handed - then i sensibley notice that the hill is getting much steeper, im speeding up and i obviously need to brake - which is not a good idea to do one handed, and not a good idea when the brakes are razor sharpe

i pretty much knew it was a ricky idea, but it was me or the dogs, so i braked and before i knew it im doing a graceful forward dive over the handle bars, and i was just thinking 'not the head, not the head - got no insurance' - when it was indeed, the head -

funny enough it didn't actually hurt that much, but ive got cuts on my hand and shoulders, and a gorgeous inch long slit right above my eyebrow - i think it cut from the bone inside becuase it was a clean cut, buty we managed to patch it up and hopefully it wont need stitching - the sweeling today has gone down anyway

so we are in Pai now, which is like a mini glasto, loads of reggae bars, goatee beards, freedom trousers, chopper bikes and dodgy dfreadlocks - but its cool and we are gonna hang here for a little bit - weve got a stunning bamboo bungalow on stilts with a view of the mountains and the river nearby - i can see why people just hang out here - forever it seems!

ooooh, chris and becky have moved on too which is a shame - its actually cos chris has been offered a dream job which he can do from oz, so theyve had to cancel the phillipines and move on south - its a shame but sounds to good to pass up!


ok, over and out - and off the outdoor pool !!!

brave boy!

anyway, i think its got to be said that marc was probably the bravest person in the whole place there. from someone who doesn't have vertigo- it was terrifying. i think i've developed a fear of heights too!!!

so to be able to do every zip line in the end was pretty amazing i reckon. ah, i had a tear in my eye as i saw him whizzing off from the treehouse after a 20 hr stretch without being able to move!!! i was so proud! xxx

Marc Wilkinson

oh dear-even marc is writing on my blog now...!


What do you mean no-one else was scared?! I do believe that my bro (Ex-scout that he is) had to leave for lower ground for a couple of hours just to calm down. I think it's a very sensible phobia to have and I don't wish to change mine. If you are very high, then there's a long way to fall - it's obvious! Who wants to go on a high rollercoaster anyway? I am quite happy holding everyone's bags and looking up thank you very much!And my fear of spiders and enclosed spaces is totally justified too . . . (Oh God, especially together!!!!)
posted by Claire @ 3:53 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 15, 2006

a few notes on vertigo
just to go back to the gibbon experience, i have to admit that when i was frozen by the first zip wire and rooted to the floor of the tree house whilst everyone else was whizzing through the trees i realised how fed up i am with having this bloody fear of heights - it took me years to get on roller coasters and when i did it was fine, but give it 6 months and it comes back again - it never goes away!even though i managed to dothe cables in the end, i know if i went back next year, or i tried something else similar it would just come back - its a total pain in the arsei just dont understand how other people dont have it - everyone else on the trip just clicked on the rope and went !! they where still scared but they went anywayif you ask me , they are the wierdo's :-) maybe they dont think about it and just go - crazyin fact thats it, theres so much goind on in my head at the top of the cable that i get frightened and cant do it - its a brain power thingthere you have it , vertigo is a sign of genius!that must be it :-)

cave lodge

forgot to mention just spent a lovely 3 days relaxing in a place called the cave lodge which kelly recomended to us (www.cavelodge.com) and it was superb

it was right by the river, with a massive cave nearby and surrounded by mountains - we even found time to paint a (quite awful) painting which was cool

and in the nearby cave every night there is a kind of bird show where about 300,000 swifts fly into the cave to feed on insects at sunset - it was amazing to watch , untill we saw one miss its way, fly into the cave wall and fall 20 meters into the river below - oops!! (was pretty horrible actually, but thats nature)

in de house!

glad to hear it, and about time too - how did you resist for so long??

im sure you'll master it though and put me too shame

we off in Mae hong son now, about 15k from Burma - heading off on a bike trip tomorrow to see more waterfalls - yaaaaaawn !!

just cant wait for the phillipines now though - Juz may have some voluntry work with a dolphin/whale shark research team, so im just gonna locally if i can help build beach huts, or work the bar - either would be great - think i ready for some work now

keep spinning ellie, the worlds first feline DJ!!

great news!!!

rob and matt, the DJ and Sax combo from 'the Cheek of it' summer do @ the circle bar are trying to organise another summer one this year!

i'll post it up here when i get a date from them - fingers crossed heh

over to you Rob!! nice one bravva

oops

just booked a flight to borneo for the 3rd of May - we gonna stay there for 3 weeks then fly back to manilla - on friday night!! what a result

the gibbon experience

just a quickie here cos aint got much time but just a wee note to say that we made it back from the gibbon experience in one piece and it was totally out of this world

the set up is in a few forest valleys with 4 tree houses that are connected by zip wires (ariel runways) and foot paths

so at the first one i totally froze and a guide had to take me over. It was only about 100 meters long but was too a 40 meter high tree house , it totally freaked me and so for the next 20 hours just sat in the same spot rooted to the frloor unable to move, juz even had to guide me to the loo cos the wooden floor was so scary

so the next day the others went off to treehouse 4 and a guide took me back to land. Safety at last!!!

so a few hours chilling and an impromptu english lesson for the locals i managed to pluck up the courage to go again! only just though

and the zip wired are amazing, you are just at the top of the valley and i couldnt look, but you just clip on and go! then withing seconds you are about 30 meters ABOVE the trees gliding through the sky towards another tree on the valley top. I thiknk its the scariest thing ive ever done and it was brilliant!

and to top it off we even heard the gibbon calls in the morning! they start off with a few high pitch ooooooooos and then build to a cresendo where loads of em are singing, then they stop for a minute and then start again

so apart from the shock of the first of the day it was totally amazi9ng and well worth money!

back in thailand now,enjoying the red currys again! but no more beer lao which is a shame!!

see yer

quiz!

high jump? - Yes!
fawlty towers? - Yes!!!!!!!


pete tong??? no im afraid

chips and ketchup??? yes, everyday untill im sick of it

bloody hell

well, we thought we had it sorted - we took a truck to this town called na la where we knew we could get a boat to the border - so we got dropped pff in this little shanty town with no sign of boats, gousthouses and with an audience of about 30 staring kids!!!

we'd heard of a few rip off merchants and some people wanted 150 dollars for the trip but we found a guy who would do it for 100 - well over ther odds but whjat can you do

so we confirmed the whole thing with him a few times, got up at 7am this morn - then he has us waiting around for 2 hours, and then tells us its 20 dollarsd more and we have to stay overnight in his village - what a rip off geezer!!

the reason they do this is cos most people are heading for the border with expiring visa's and have to leave whatever, so we just buggered off on the next bus out of town

nutter though, 100 dollars must be loads for these guys and he just let us walk away!

so here we are back in luang na tha - for the third time, but thats cool - so just a nice chilled day for us here before we head for the border again tomorrow

life in the slow(ish!) lane...!: Ooh I'm so full off me lovely Jacket potato with cheese and beans!: "Ooh I'm so full off me lovely Jacket potato with cheese and beans!
I know what you mean. When I was in Israel, Darren sent me a parcel that contained lots of cheese & onion and salt & vinegar square crisps, loads of bags of haribo and lots of cadbury's stuff! Yum! You would have thought i'd won the lottery! (You sure spare ribs from 'What's cooking' isn't on your list?)

At first I thought your tree house things were suspended from the wire too. But obviously, the clue is in the name - a house IN a tree! Sill sounds scary though. I have visions of you swinging through the trees from room to room.

As for the quiz (talk about too much spare time on your hands)

1. Might be Pete Tong (prob not) or Dave Lee Travis/Simon Mayo?!
9. Fawlty Towers?
10. A trampoline move?

I know the important ones, hey?

I'll post some pics of our street if you want. So you can see what you're missing!

Love you

C x
P.s Tommy K & chips hey?"

pics

yes jim and claire, it does look rubbish indeed - and it is! absolute rubbish - give me eastbourner any day? (hope you make it this year by the way - that was a great weekend)

just so you know how much we miss food back home, we actaully spent a hour yesterday working out our ultimate meal -

so, if i could have anything i would have - drum role please ....

clam chowder
crispy duck and hoi sin sauce
mums sunday roast :-)
cherry crubmble (or cheesecake, toughie that one)
cheese platter (no cheese here, very upsetting)

all washed down with a pint of port i think

anyone hungry now?? i am

oh yeah, the point of this note was to say that some of the pics failed to go up, so i'll do them again soon

see yer

pub quiz

we had a group pub quiz the other night where we all asked each other question - this is real geeky but here are my 10 questions

1, which DJ started the balearic movement in Ibiza, inspring paul oakenfold and other such DJs?
2 - which islands are north of the Shetland isles and who owns them?
3 what was rob de niro's character name in Taxi driver?
4 what was special about the contract signed by Joy division to factory records?
5 what colour do yo get if you mix red and green light?
6 what are the two furthest planets from earth in our solar system?
7 what was the old collective county name of hampsire, wiltshire, cornwall, devon and dorset - and what was the capital?
8 what cockney geezer was world motorbike champ in the late 70's?
9 - what 70's show featured connie booth and andrew saches?
10 if you doing a frosby flop - what would you be doing??

answers soon, if anyone want em :-)

(too much time on my hands here it think)

a message for you

hello marc

just forwarding this from your sister from your mum...!
wilkinsons!!!
jusx

"The ghost walk was not scary at all. In fact, the scariest bit was up the street that Disraeli (Sp?) once lived (pop fact, pop fans) and the lady was telling a ridiculously long story when someone suddenly walked out of a door and frightened the life out of us.

Just got back to The Wirral from London. Went via Liverpool city center - oops! Not cut out for this driving malarky.

Must go. It's the final of Big Brother and Pete the cross dressing Scouser has been voted out. Come on Barrymore!!!
Claire x
--------------------------------------------------------

Hi Marc,

Finally on the blog courtesy of Claire. Thanks for the trip to Dublin. Can't wait! Off to France soon and Kathleen and Aideen might be joining us. Apparently the Wilky sistas (Yo, yo, yo) are gonna be in Da 'French' House some time this year! (Ok this is Claire typing).

Dad is off to the Legion. Kerazy!

Bess says Hi. What up! She's wondering why you're not with Claire.

Love you

Mum xxx (not sure why I became a New York gangsta there!)"

food food food

is not all its cracked up to be here, its nice like but after 3 days of sticky rice you kind of crave some stodge, which we found the another night - heaven!!! carbanara, garlic bread, chicken soup, and home cooked chips - fantastic

even developed a bit of a thing for chips and ketchup

going back there tonight :-) cant wait

the gibbon experience

were currently trying to sort this thing out in Bokeo national park where basically you stay in one of 3 tree houses which are connected by super long high zip wires - it sounds terrifying but worth the fear - its about 130 dollars for 3 days but we are just gonna have to bear the cost cos it sounds to good to miss

fingers crossed we'll get a place

muang sing, China, and back to Louang Prabang

so we headed of for the 2 hour trip to muang sing to relax for a few days, which was all we could do really cos there wasn't much to see

so we hired bikes and cycled to china for the day - well, the border actually - there was much to see but it was quite daunting to know that the worlds most populous country was behind the gates - another time maybe!!

it did occur to me that we could have earned loads from sponsor deals on a cylce to china, even thouhg it was only 10K - would have kept quiet about that tiny detail :-)

forgot to mention we hired a motorbike the other day and went on a delightful (nice word i think) cruise through the national park here - and returned home safe and sound which is always a relief when you hire mopeds

not sure that pic worked,

so i'll try one more

this is the view from near by our hut in Nong Khiew

we've seen everything on mopeds

from 4 people, chickens, door frames, crates of ale, pigs, TV's - u name it, and this one was pretty good too

we've seen everything on mopeds

few pics ......

we are in Luang Nam tha at the mo after to days on the road, nothing much to report expect the wonderful pub quiz we created last night, 15 questions each - was very entertaining

also stopped in oudmaxi last night (not sure how you spell it), its just a transit town and apparently is full of loads of chinese knocking shops, cos its the last stop before the chinese border

...which it turns out is only 40k away!! crazy, didn't think id get that close to china

anyways heres some pics of the last few weeks .... see yer

lovely swingers doug!

very fetching doug - ones bigger than the other though - is that normal mate??