Thailand, Part 2

Phutthamonthon.

Day two, and I take to Bangkok's comprehensive, and air-conditioned, bus system, aiming for Phutthamonthon, a sprawling landscaped garden / Buddhist sanctuary a little way out of the city.  Once out of the centre the bus moves swiftly enough, a pity it drops me a mile or so from my destination though... still, while I must now navigate a mile or so along a couple of motorways, there are pavements and footbridges.  It is worth it anyway, Phutthamonthon is rather nice, I must say if a country is going to spend money on religion this is the way to go.  You don't have to be a believer to enjoy the maze of water features, and the giant standing Buddha at the centre is most impressive, as are is the Marble Pali Canon Temple, where there are what seems like hundreds of man high marble tablets, each gold inlaid with Buddhist scripture.

Back in town, I enjoy some incredibly spicy soup, and a few beers, and find some live music at Bangkok institution Checkinn99 - has been there since the Vietnam War days, which counts as historic around here.  But anyway... I'm not here to hang around in the capital, so next morning I make my way to one of the rail terminals.  This is a tricky process involving the 'skytrain' (excellent, air-conditioned), a river ferry, and a mile walk.  The station resembles something from a village rather than a major city, while Thailand has a larger rail network than many of the surrounding countries, it still isn't much.

Thonburi Station.

The train is hot, even with every window fully open, but it is a good way to see the country, which to begin with is pretty flat.  I watch exotic birds startle at our passing and take to the air, they seem to keep pace with the train, which says something about our pace.  Even at this speed though the carriage wobbles alarmingly as we rattle over the tracks, and I wonder how well maintained this line is.  Eventually, hills appear to either side and start to close in, these are the foothills of the high country that marks the border with Myanmar.  For this is the famous Death Railway, built by prisoners of the Japanese during World War Two, and I am headed for the bridge on the River Kwai.

I don't quite make it... the train reaches Kanchanaburi where my hotel is, just a few miles from the bridge, half an hour late.  It then stops... nothing happens, and after half an hour I give up and head for my hotel.  It's a hot evening, and while my hotel has aircon, the rest of town seems not to have heard of it.  I have a good meal, drink a few beers, and play some pool with a lady who, of course, wants to go back to my hotel.  It's a bit too classy for that sort of thing though...

Riding the train west.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Thailand, Part 1

OK, actual proper travels, of the kind that people do when they say they are going travelling.  Foreign parts and all, there will even be getting about by means that aren't walking... first though, a cycle, for a change.

Bang Krachao.

So, I'm in Bangkok, gateway to Thailand.  It is hot, smelly, and traffic is horrible, not the ideal place to cycle.  However, if you head to a little known pier and take a ten baht (twenty pence) ferry over the river, you reach Bang Krachao, a near island cut off from the bustle of the city, and pretty much undeveloped.  Here there is mangrove swamp, and a network of raised concrete walkways just about broad enough for a bicycle, or indeed moped which the locals use to reach the homes dotted about.  It's a charming place and I couldn't come to Bangkok without visiting it, so a hundred baht to hire a bike and I'm off.  Still hot though, so I head for a village to the south of the peninsular to look for water - and get rather more than I bargained for.

I survived Songkran!

Thai New Year, or Songkran, has just passed, and in the city proper the celebrations are over, but here it seems they're going strong - and that means a massive water fight.  Those with bikes or pickup trucks cruise along with water pistols, while at the roadsides there are gangs with hoses, buckets, and also bowls of talc to smear on peoples' faces - my bet is the idea is to make you look like a ghost.  So I buy a water pistol and join in of course, and get very wet indeed.  I suspect I get special treatment as a foreigner as I end up caked in talc, which clearly amuses the locals as I walk back to my hotel.  Time for a bath, and then a cold beer or three...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Skiing in the Vosges, Part 2

Day two in the Vosges, and we had planned to get up at 7am and head to the nearby ski area of La Bresse - Hohneck, where there is floodlit morning skiing.  But yesterday was very long, and instead it is nearly 10am when we get to the first car park, and it is full.  Things don't look good as we drive into a second car park and there is no room for a van, we have to fight through traffic to get out again and are directed down the hill... eventually we find a space, but with so many cars here I'm envisaging massive queues for lift passes and the lifts themselves.  In fact though we get up the mountain without difficulty, to find ourselves in a proper ski area with something like seven chairs, some of them proper express lifts.  Once more the skiing is very good, Dan has found his snowboard mojo and a fine time is had... it is strange that there are no Brits here, instead the pistes are packed with French weekenders, many clearly with little idea what they are doing.

La Bresse - Hohneck.

Back into Gérardmer for the evening, we have a little wander around the town, past the lake, checking out restaurants as we go - they all seem pretty full.  We manage to reserve a table for the second service at Le Bistrot de la Perle, and after a beer at the bar next door we sit down to a really excellent meal.  I get the feeling you could stay here for a week, enjoying fine food at a different restaurant every night.  For tonight, the three course set menu is enough for me... feeling a bit more awake than last night too, so we check out the local disco.  Sadly it's a bit of a disappointment, while we hang around until midnight there are only a few people in and the 80s room is roped off.  We later hear some revellers returning to the campervan park in the early hours, so maybe we just got the timing wrong.

Toboggan!

Sunday morning, and we have time to get back to Gérardmer for a morning on the slopes.  Seems a bit small after La Bresse, but still good and surprisingly quiet.  We get lunch up on the mountain, what else in Alsace-Lorraine but Quiche Lorraine all round.  And then it is time to head back to England - two hours or so each at the wheel and we're back at the chunnel, then after some more driving and a train, I am back home by 10.30pm UK time.  Well, that all worked remarkably well... a fine two and a half days of skiing, good company and excellent food, and no messing around with airports or sitting on a coach all night.  In fact, transport and accommodation came to around £120 per person, bargain!

The Lac de Gérardmer

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Skiing in the Vosges, Part 1

Has been a while since I posted here... well, I've been back to Tenerife, and done a fair bit of skiing, but nothing very original.  This weekend though we have a ski trip with a difference, most noticeably in terms of how much it is costing - which is, really not very much.

A weekend ski trip in a campervan you say?

Finishing work on Thursday, I get on the tube and attempt to head to St. Pancras station, sadly the tube has other ideas and I miss my intended train by a minute or two.  But there is another one thirteen minutes later, and this is a rare thing in the UK, a fast train!  After a little over half an hour I'm at Ashford station, and shortly after that my brother Dan and his wife Donna arrive in their camper van, and we all head for the channel tunnel, making our check in with some ten minutes to spare.  The plan then, is to drive all the way to a ski resort, in a vehicle with an effective top speed of 70mph - madness, surely.

Certainly got nice weather at least.

Well, maybe not entirely.  We are whisked through the tunnel, then after a little messing around looking for petrol we're on the autoroute for 9pm local time, and with three to share the driving it's easy enough to keep going 'til 1.30am, by which time we're at an 'aire de campingcar' in the vicinity of Nancy.  France is very well set up for campervans, the whole country is dotted with these little rest stops, complete with facilities for taking on water and disposing of waste - hard to imagine such a system getting off the ground in the UK.  We don't spend much time there though, 6am the next morning and Dan is out of bed and we're off again.  But it isn't too far now, as our destination is the resort of Gérardmer in the Vosges mountains, in the Alsace-Lorraine region.  Not a familiar name to English skiers, and to be honest our expectations aren't too high, I am anticipating slushy snow and long queues.

The Vosges Mountains - not terribly mountainous.

In fact, Gérardmer is a very pleasant surprise.  There is plenty of snow and the skiing is really quite good, and as long as you're willing to use the drag lifts rather than the two slow moving chairs, there is no need to spend much time queueing.  All abilities are catered for with runs ranging from greens through some pretty steep blues and reds, and even a decent black.  Scenery is rather different to the Alps, no rocky pinnacles here, but the gentler, wooded slopes of the Vosges are very pleasant in their own way.  Lovely weather too, and we enjoy a fine day on the slopes before taking the van down to Gérardmer the town, a charming little place by the side of a lake, where we enjoy a beer and a fine meal, before retiring exhausted to the van.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Warsaw in Autumn.

Culture!  And Science!

Just a little walk today, but it is in a new country.  As the summer drew to a close this year I realised that while I had got around Europe a fair bit, and still had some trips planned, none were to a country I hadn't been to before.  So, a quick look around at airline websites and hotels, and I decided on Poland - there not being much of Western Europe I haven't visited, and Warsaw was cheap and convenient to fly to.

Must admit, I was expecting the place to be freezing cold, and to be honest, a little grim and seedy, along the lines of Sofia.  Lots of post-Soviet concrete and all that.  But in the event it is a lovely sunny day, and Warsaw is really quite charming, a city of street cafes and palatial architecture, it rather reminds me of Copenhagen, which thinking about it is not that far distant.

I've planned a walk of some ten miles, mostly along the 'Royal Route', along which the old Kings of Poland would proceed from the palace south of the City into the centre.  I start by taking the recently built metro down to the outskirts of Warsaw, and then head out into the country, briefly passing through fields to reach the substantial construction site of the Pope John Paul II Institute - they are certainly proud of their Polish Pope around here.  A brief stroll from here and I'm at the start of the Royal Route, the Wilanow Palace complex, a baroque masterpiece unlike anything I've seen in the UK.  I could spend a lot longer than an hour here, but need to start heading north back towards the city.

At the Wilanov Palace complex.

After a few miles of suburban Warsaw, I find myself walking past some impressive residences - now the embassies of various foreign powers it seems.  Noting the presence of armed soldiers here and there I decline to take pictures.  After passing the president's residence I reach Lazienki Park, which like the Palace complex is filled with statuary, lakes, and various historic buildings.  There is also an unexpected peacock, and I even spot a couple of red squirrels!  Better yet there is a cafe where I get a ten Zloty (two Pounds) pint of local beer, before carrying on northwards.

I continue through parks, passing the surprisingly unobtrusive parliament building, and on to what seems to be Warsaw's equivalent of Regent Street.  Opportunities abound for high class shopping and eating, not really for me to be honest, though near the end of the walk I do pass the 'Browarmia' restaurant and brewpub, to which I will return later for beer and dumplings.  But first I have a mile or so left of the route, finishing up at the old city with its ramparts just as darkness falls.  Well, this was all rather fun I must say, Warsaw turns out to be very pleasant.  I also get the impression there are opportunities for some longer walks, or indeed cycling, around these parts.  One day, I shall come back...

The Chopin Memorial in Lazienki Park.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

The Highlands, Day 9

Former station.

Last day in Scotland then.  I eat a substantial breakfast and then head east, straight on to the Deeside Way once more, unsurprisingly given my route follows the river all the way to the sea at Aberdeen.  The path is pretty much arrow straight and die flat, following an old railway line that once linked Ballater to the coast.  It makes for fast, if not terribly exciting walking, but there are pleasant views across the Glen o' Dee, and at regular intervals I pass through old stations in various states of reversion to nature.  At one point there is even a working station, with a heritage steam line running alongside my route.

Aberdeen docks.

Eventually I reach Aberdeen, somewhere I've long wanted to visit - as much as anything because I like the sound of the name.  It is grey, solid, and as I expected not particularly amazing.  In any case I have only time for a beer or two before getting a bus to the airport - where again my flight is delayed.  I guess one reason the Scots might want to consider voting yes is that they'd then get the rather classier, and it seems more reliable, 'international passenger' experience at airports.

Back in England, and I can appraise how this walk went.  Pretty well I think - practically no rain for one thing, and not a single blister either.  The route was good, from the moors and lochs to the south of Inverness, through the majesty of the Cairngorms, and the tranquility of the Glen o' Dee.  I would amend it a little to avoid private land issues... and maybe do something about the twenty miler over Ben Avon, although as much as anything my misstep at the start was the problem there.  Otherwise yes, I'd do it again :)

Made it!

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

There should also be a link on the right somewhere to my Munro Map Page, with links to photos from the summits I got up on this trip, and many others besides!

The Highlands, Day 8

The Deeside Way.

OK, a genuinely easy day this one.  A mere fifteen miles, all of them pretty flat.  As it turns out the route I've planned follows a marked path, the Deeside Way, all day.  It wasn't on the map so I think it is new, and I must say I approve, I spend the morning walking beside the river, then follow logging tracks through pine forest to today's endpoint, Banchory.

Here I am grateful to be able to leave my tent in my rucksack, as tonight I am staying at the four star Tor-na-Coille hotel.  It is rather excellent, I have a comfy room, and enjoy fine dining - smoked haddock chowder with a smoked haddock scotch (quail's!) egg, then monkfish with pancetta and crushed potato, washed down with a nice chenin blanc.

The excellent Tor na Coille hotel.

Monkfish!

Given there wasn't much walking to write about today, I guess I could address the burning issue of the day up here, that is the independence referendum.  It is certainly dominating the newspapers I see - most of which seem to be in the no camp.  For me... well, I would be sorry to see the Scots go.  While it seems kind of un-British to say so, I think that Britain is a great country - and that is partly because it has Scotland in it.  I cannot help but feel that if they leave, Britain will be a smaller place, not just geographically but culturally, even spiritually.  All that said it is their decision, and reasonably for the Scots a more important question is, will Scotland be better as a sovereign country?  Well maybe it will, it is hard to say.  Certainly all the negative stuff coming from 'better together' seems so much nonsense, I am sure they would be far better appealing to a sense of tradition, and indeed patriotism.  And in the final analysis it won't make that much difference... an independent Scotland would just be one more European country which we'd be able to visit, reside in, work in, and find pretty much the same legal system, welfare provision and so forth as at home.  Well - until such time as the rump of the UK votes to leave the EU of course.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.