[I have been pulling my journal notes together for Ogblog using a dictation app – no prizes for guessing what some of this piece looked like before I corrected the dictation]
Rose quite early – left Lisu village.
The taller of the sweet children was a bit tearful saying goodbye to us
Headed north. Long drive – stopped for coffee on Mae Kok/Myanmar border.
Then on to Akha village [see headline picture and below]
I seem to remember that Chinese lunch being especially good, with high grade barbequed meats as a centrepiece, but we obviously did not find Mae Salong (now renamed Santikhiri), or at least the part of it we went to, photogenic.
Then Chinese lunch in Mae Ta – on through the market and then to Mae Taeng elephant ride fiasco followed by bamboo rafting.
I described the elephant ride as a fiasco, because I recall really feeling uncomfortable about the elephants, especially my one, who seemed unhappy and hungry. Mine kept wandering off to the side of the track to try to grab a nibble, only to be roughly discouraged from doing so by the dude at the front of the elephant. I note that if you Google “Mae Taeng Elephant Park” 25 years later, you find a lot of bad reviews and references to cruelty. I’m not surprised based on our experience.
Unusually for me, I found the raft trip afterwards more to my taste than the elephant ride, whereas I was expecting to feel more comfortable on land!
In the Lisu Village – Kongburi negotiating while I display the body language of indifference
Then on to Lisu Village – quaint Lisu Lodge – just us [staying the night]…
…the music and the giant flying roaches.
Showered washed and walked around village – got sold to – ate – got played at – then to bed.
I really should expand the story of our stay at the Lisu Lodge. It was a lovely but fairly rudimentary place back then. It is a fancy-schmanzy eco lodge now. Good luck to the place.
The Lisu people were sweet and gentle and very welcoming. They did seem especially keen to sell us their trinkets though.
We were the only guests that night.
Janie and I particularly remember the meal. We have just the one photo of me being served the food (above).
We had been looking forward to our private dining experience. However, we were joined more or less throughout the meal by a local who serenaded us with his traditional stringed instrument, which was probably a relative of the pipa or Chinese lute. He played pretty well and at first it sounded really nice, but after a while we were craving a little more privacy and a little less noise.
Then, out of the blue, came a giant flying roach (or beetle) which noisily landed right behind us and startled us both. The musician calmly stopped playing and gently removed the beetle in his hands. Daisy and I gave the musician a round of applause for removing the giant insect, which he took to be applause for the end of his set, so he bowed and left, taking the pipa and beetle with him.
Thus we spent the rest of our meal in quiet, tranquil privacy.
All of our photos from the Thai leg of the journey can be found on Flickr through the link here and below.
Very photogenic – see headline picture, above and below. In truth quite a touristic place, even back then.
Return to town – fabulous seafood lunch on Soi 24 Sukhamvit – top rate.
Then home straight on to Oriental Hotel and shopping plazas – light supper in River City Shopping Centre – then home for early night.
I look a little under-dressed there for the Oriental Hotel, but oh my gosh I still have that holiday short-sleeved shirtDaisy looks like the sort of lass who likes her grub.
All of our photos from the Thai leg of the journey can be found on Flickr through the link here and below.
Writing up our first major independent travel holiday, 25 years later, in March 2021, is no easy task. While I did take notes on this trip, which helps, I did not keep the sort of comprehensive journal that was my habit on earlier big trips and became my habit again later.
Further, Janie and I have both mislaid our printed itinerary for this adventure, although I know I did have a copy of it as recently as 2011 when we were arranging a return visit to Vietnam; infuriating.
Still, we have a wonderful collection of annotated photos, which helps. I also still have our trusty mid 1990s copies of the Lonely Planet Guides to Thailand and Vietnam, well thumbed and helpfully folding open easily on the more oft-used pages.
So let’s go!
12 March 1996 – Left London on time! Event free flight.
I told you the notes are quite light. I’m pretty sure we flew Thai Air. Last class it would have been, but on Thai Air that wasn’t too bad.
13 March 1996 – Arrive Bangkok on time (6:20 am). Went to BelAire Princess [now BelAire Bangkok] with drunken guide Kai.
Janie’s diary (see above) confirms how we flew out from Heathrow to Istanbul on 8 November and had arranged to be met at the airport and taken to our first hotel, the Sokullu Paşa Hotel.
It also shows that we booked a flight to Izmir lunchtime 11 November, with the Avis desk awaiting us there.
Our flights back to Heathrow on 18 November were 10:00 Izmir to Istanbul, then 13:45 to Heathrow arriving London at 16:00 GMT.
We had not arranged any accommodation for the Izmir week; we were playing it by ear on a fly-drive holiday. Seems fair enough in November, frankly.
Part of our purpose was to see Ros Elliot (who lived/lives near Izmir) and her plans were a bit up in the air, so booking ourselves up ahead of time would have been a bit daft.
Bodrum‘s a beautiful coastal town and of course we made sure we had time to stroll the town in the morning before heading back in the direction of Izmir to meet up with Ros Elliott at the end of our trip.
Bodrum Castle by dayWithin the castle
On our way out of Bodrum we encountered some scallywags who showed us their school.
I cannot remember exactly where we stayed that last night but I am pretty sure that Ros lived in Kuşadası at that time, so I suspect it was on “that side” of Izmir, making it a convenient place for us to meet Ros and get to Izmir airport reasonably early the next day.
Update: Ros remembers that Janie and I stayed at the Ege University Hospital Hotel, which was brand new at the time and was happy to take guests unconnected with the University or the hospital. According to Ros, the place remains open to all comers. It was very conveniently located for our purposes…
…except that, as Ros recalls, we found it surprisingly difficult to find a suitable restaurant in that Bornova district of Izmir.
Still, Janie and I do remember having a very pleasant meal with Ros and finding it very interesting to “swap notes” with her; us as tourist visitors while she had already been living in Turkey for a few years by then.
Ros said we had seen an awful lot in just a few days and she was right. Looking back on the pace at which we took that road trip, while I can believe we used to tour like that I wouldn’t dream of arranging such an itinerary in so few days any more!
Towards the end of the meal, “Mystic Ros” read our coffee grounds in the Turkish style…and I tried to reciprocate.
We’d had a great time.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from this leg of the journey are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
We had a lovely morning stroll around Fethiye, taking in the beauty and quaintness of the place. The above photo is but one example. As is the one below.
Trendy Marmaris
Then we drove on to the trendy town of Marmaris, where we wee able to enjoy some lunch out of doors and also were able to wander around, trying to look trendy ourselves.
Daisy looks so trendyBest head towards Bodrum if we want to get there before dark!
Then on to Bodrum, where we stayed for the night. After dinner…
… we took a stroll around and just about managed to get a night shot of the castle.
We vowed to return the next day to take a daytime picture of the castle. Did we succeed? Tune in for the next and last episode.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from this leg of the journey are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
Not yet sated with antiquities, we diverted to Aphrodisias ahead of driving to Fethiye for a bit of seaside towards the end of our trip.
We popped in to the Aphrodisias Museum before touring the siteYou can just make out a tiny me in the theatre (above) and the odeum (below)The ruined temple at Aphrodisias (above) and gymnasium (below)
The highlight of Aphrodisias, for me, was the exceptionally well-preserved stadium – see picture below and headline picture.
Janie was probably a bit “antiquitied -out” by the time we got to Aphrodisias, but that was OK because we were done with antiquities for this holiday. It was seaside from then on.
We hit the road from Aphrodisias to Fethiye
We weren’t going to make the same “arrive after dark mistake again and got to Fethiye in good time.
We found a comfortable, simple place to stay and an equally comfortable, simple place to eat tasty Turkish grub.
You can probably tell from these pictures that Fethiye – indeed the whole of that Aegean coast, was not exactly busy in November.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from Aphrodisias and Fethiye are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
Writing more than 25 years later, I sense that Pamukkale has changed and become more resort/touristic than it was when we visited.
We stayed in a motel named The Palmyra Motel, I think at Ros’s recommendation.
The rooms in the Palmyra hotel had balconies onto pools of Pamukkale spa water
We enjoyed the facilities in our motel and also went into the centre of town to enjoy the sights…
…and even a swim amongst the Pamukkale ruins; something visitors were allowed to do for a small fee (paid to the Pamukkale Hotel) in those days.
This would not go down well with the health and safety brigade these days, I fearThe view from our motel into Pamukkale town
This was a memorable part of this holiday. We wished that we had allowed two nights at that motel to allow time to wallow in the views and wallow in the spa.
A rather unconvincing wooden Trojan Horse monument at Troy
We knew we were in for a long drive from Çanakkale to Pamukkale that day, but still wanted to see Troy before setting off on the longest leg of our road trip.
Having been spoilt the previous few days…
In truth, after Ephesus and Pergamon the previous couple of days, Troy was rather a disappointment.
…the ruins of Troy didn’t really hack it for us. View from the fake Trojan Horse
Troy has been built, razed and rebuilt many times, possibly not always in exactly the same place. There’s not a lot to see and it all seemed a bit confused/confusing/unconvincing. The wooden horse thing depicted above was a particular source of my de4rision on the day.
Excavated bridge into on of the old city’s was probably the highlight
Then the long drive to Pamukkale. It was billed as being over six hours and my goodness that’s what it took. We shared the driving and/but needed the odd pit stop, so we were really quite nervous towards the end of the drive as we realised that we had failed to get to our destination before dark and would be driving the last 45 minutes or so in darkness.
But get there we did. I think Ros had recommended the place we stayed and by gosh that was relaxing and fun. But that’s for the next write up.
