Doha and Home.

We headed home via Doha. It was all a bit of a blurr.

As security had been massively increased, we had to pack everything or leave it behind as nothing was allowed in the cabin.

Wish somebody had told the man with the wooden ship that security was high alert, or perhaps the Lady's with air hostess suitcases. The very same ones that took my seats and expected my 4 year old to sit on the first row by herself whilst the rest of the family was scattered through out the cabin. Like I would book my seats like that.

I am so surprised that the Doha and its residents were allowed to get special checking on there hand luggage where as I had to leave my malaria tablets in my main luggage. hummmm.....high alert only for family's returning from their summer vacations.

Rainforest crunch

The truck taxi took us deep into the rain Forest.......Not! The truck taxi took us about 5 minutes up a track to a road the equivalent to a the jungle M1. Before too much time had elapsed a "National Express"* had picked us up!

*or similar

I can´t remember how much time we spent on the bus but the end of the line was our stop. Karchriburry (check this) It wasn´t until the bus left that we realised that there was nothing there. In the guide books its described as a busy boarder crossing town. Busy it was not. Even the tumble weed had left town.

As we pondered our fate getting wetter by the second and the mud getting deeper around our already smelling throbbing feet. A strange man approached claiming to be a missionary, or at least his wife was (very Monty Python!) There was nothing as the eye could see and no means of getting anywhere soon. The chap despite living in the rain forest for 4 years had no idea about anything or anybody. His stock answer was to ask "ask my wife" who was at that time tending the sick and needy deep in the forest.

Some how we got a booking at a hotel that the crazy man had recommended. It was bliss, with a view of the longest wooden hand build bridge? that had been build across the flooded valley.

don't touch the dog...

Its my Mums best advice when I start looking around for my passport the moment any sort of deposit lands in my bank account.

She looks at me intently and says " don't touch dogs whilst you are away, esp. if they are foaming at the mouth".

If only she knew this was the least of my problems as I hung on to the back of the death trains as it picked up speed through the jungle. I had thought in my wisdom that I could have a "panama" moment and sit on the foot plate with a beer/cigarette/book etc and look well travelled/adorable/cute/ artist or down right stupid as the bastard thing picked up speed and I got smacked in the face with some over grown prickle plant.

The journey was quite uneventful if you exclude the biscuits that tasted of tarmac, the elephant that only I saw as the others were buying donuts, the many war hero's, with their beautiful young wife's, the bench seats that made your arse bleed, and me jumping off the train and running down the platform and waving at the children whilst the train was moving out of the station or any of the other shenanigans that kicked off.

We ended up in a clearing where most people when back. We however took a truck taxi to the main road and waited for a bus to Burma!

Bombardier's finest.

After a successful dry run to the Thornbury station as an in depth conversation with a local water taxi driver that you could no longer get a water taxi to the station, but had to alight one stop prior and walk the 3 minutes to the little used local train station.

The station had just one platform and a hand written timetable in chalk, which didn't really instill me with the greatest confidence. I spoke with the ticket officer who assured me that as long as I arrived in plenty of time in the morning, I would have no problem purchasing tickets. Happy with my fact finding mission and confident that we were once again pushing the frontiers of family package holidays, we headed home for an early night via our hotel restaurant. We were delighted to find the special was Korma and settled down to an enjoyable evening with a few light beers.

I have never tasted such a "ring burn" hot curry in my life. It was nasty. To make matters worse I swallowed a whole chili whilst trying to wash the taste out my mouth. I went to bed with tummy ache

Despite feeling incredibly sick we all managed to get out of bed, head across town and were safely in the water taxi heading for Thornbury train station. It was very early around 6am and Bangkok was coming to life with the freshness of a new day. I have always loved sun rise and sun set and this day was no different. Apart from the pains in my tummy, I knew this was going to be a spectacular adventure and I wanted it to start. It started to go wrong when Roland insisted that we get off at the wrong taxi stop.

I was starting to feel a little strange and didn't have the energy to make a fuss. We then tried to find a taxi, that went the wrong way and we had to jump out on a five lane carriageway and run across to get a taxi going in the right direction. The departure time was rapidly approaching and I was starting to sweat. After a lot of madness and a couple of laps around a car park I was green.

But we made it just in time. I sent everyone to get on the train whilst I sorted out the train tickets. By this time I was feeling sick, the train was steaming up to leave and I was getting ready for a Indiana Jones entry onto the train. How fast could this train go I wondered. I was looking at the Jonas clan hanging out of the holes where windows could once have been, thinking about the worst case scenario. The ticket clerk could have given Midland Mainline a run for the money on the slowest transaction award. By this time I was pouring in sweat, my stomach was cramping and there was a nasty niff coming from behind me. If I had relaxed for a split second, it would have been a natural disaster and I didn't have a change of clothes.

I lept onto the train and directly into the the toilet aka hole with hose. I was trying to slid the non sliding door but was loosing the battle of the bowels. I was heaving and tugging but the strain was too much and I had to go then and there. Toilet door half open, complete view of the platform and ticket office and no toilet paper. Just when you think things cant get worse, the train was then delayed by about 15 minutes as porters came with fire hoses to sluish the carriages. Though they only appeared to do ours.
So, we set off into the unknown with no supplies, no reservations and a seriously jippy tummy.