Haunted Castles

Loch Lommond Arriving at the train station, we felt the heavy weight of our backpacks as we realised that we still had a 3.2km trek to the hostel! I always wondered why the hostels were so far from the train stations. The hostel was an old manor house, built like a castle and resting on 300 acres. It was over-looking Loch Lommond. They say the view is fantastic, but the area was hidden in wispy fog when I was there. The castle was built in 1866. I was pretty impressed to be staying in a youth hostel with a fountain in the driveway and a huge three way archway leading to the impressive front doors. I felt a little less like a dusty, dirty backpacker and a little more like a fancy-pants in a castle.

A hostel in a castle building – it had to have a haunted tale! It did. The ghost was a girl, hopelessly in love with a farm hand. She was locked in an upstairs room to prevent her from seeing him again – though from where I stood in her room, she had a fantastic view of his working area. She eventually threw herself out the window in utter despair, like any good Wuthering Heights heroine. I was a little suspicious of her markings on the door – they looked a little like someone had stuck some paper on the door and painted over them... but you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. One of the cleaners who took us up there had turned a fancy shade of white and couldn’t wait to get out of there... so maybe... I was happy to go along with the idea anyway.

Jumbled

Half way through posting the Laos stories, I remembered that they had to be posted in reverse order so that they could be read in the correct order. Humblest apologies for this mix up. I'm challenging myself to get it right from here on in!

Laos..

The road to Luang Prabang was very, very windy, not the wind, but the bends!! We went around and around and around and then up and up and up and can we e v e n m a k e i t to the top of the hill? Yes, and then tear downdowndown and around a corner. The erratic Asian driving sent passengers grabbing for little plastic bags that were hanging from the hand rails. Bag in hand, they would throw up. Once the bag was full, they tossed it out of the bus window. In order to avoid the bags, I sat with my head out of the window, breathing in the mountain air, feeling the moisture of the low lying clouds and watching as the gorgeous mountain scenery went by. Anything to take my mind off the craziness happening inside the bus. The hill tribe villages were fantastic. The only road north has little villages scattered along it. People were living in rickety thatch homes with piglets and huge pigs running everywhere. Water pumps provided the villagers with the water they needed. Old people were sitting in their postcard poses on their shaky front steps. Dirt-streaked, naked children were running around with roosters in their arms. People were bathing under the water pumps and kids were squatting in their own backyards because they had no toilets.

Laos.

My last morning in Luang Prabang, I woke at 5am with the roosters. The morning was still fresh and still cool. The monks walked by me on their way to the merit makers. It’s very humbling to be passed by a long line of saffron-robed men and their bowls.

I had only been in Laos for fourteen days, but it was enough to feel the relaxed atmosphere of the country. Laos was a place that I had always wanted to get to, but had never really thought I would see. I had been scared of the threat of bombing and border trouble, but my trip was as far from that as it could have been.

Laos

Laos was a country which made me slow down, watch the sunsets and appreciate the little things in life. Kids were happy here, swimming and playing. Ducks wandered everywhere and one boy tried to hand me a rooster. I'm not sure what he wanted me to do with it!

At first, I was a little wary of this bridge and whether it would hold my weight. After a few minutes of watching it, I noticed people riding their motorbikes across it. After spending a few days in Vang Vieng, I even rode a bicycle across it.

The bus trip from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was a gruelling nine-hours. The bus was so full it seemed to be bursting at the sides. The aisles were crowded with people sitting on little plastic stools. As a foreigner, my legs were folded and crammed into seemingly impossible positions. Huge bags of rice were shoved into a space on the doorstep and a chicken was tied by the legs and placed into a little bag. A boy climbed out of my window in order to place bags onto the roof. (Remember the rice at the door?) If there was a checklist for craziness on a bus in South East Asia, we had met every criteria. With a shudder and a burst of black smoke – we were off.

Steaming fish balls

I’d only been in Thailand a short time. It wasn’t yet enough time to have mastered the art of the chopsticks. The sounds of woks crashing, food sizzling and foreign words bounced off the dingy walls of the cafe. Calenders were hung on most walls, faded and dusty. While some were in Thai, others were in English and Thai and I could see that the pages had not been turned for some time. Plastic dishes of various pastel colours were scattered over the grimy fold-up tables. The smell of salty soup hung over the heads of the Thais, who were talking animatedly while eating their soup. In the centre of each table was a collection of old glass jars. Each was filled with essential Thai condiments. Forget the tomato sauce, they had chilli, sugar, soy sauce and a stinking blend of chillies and fish sauce. I was lost. A bowl of steaming noodle soup was placed in front of me. With just a little trepidation, I picked up my chopsticks and stirred them through the soup. Nothing strange floated to the surface. With a smile, I realised that there was no offal in the soup today. The soup was filled with a lot of stock, noodles, slithers of vegetables and balls of fish meat. And all I was equipped with was chopsticks?! I was just getting in to it when a lady from a nearby village spotted me. Her child was sitting on her hip. There is a strong chance that I was the first foreigner this lady had ever seen. (She probably assumes all foreigners are sweaty, red-faced people.) She pointed me out to her child and her pointed finger stayed in mid-air until I finished eating. Knowing that this lady was watching me, I tried my absolute hardest to eat gracefully. My chopsticks gripped each ball of fish meat nervously. Dropping one would mean that the soup would splash up everywhere, giving me away as the unsophisticated kid that I was. With more than a little pride in myself, I finished my lunch. I had left almost no mess around me. The village lady was satisfied and turned away, heading back to her day’s work.

Beginnings

The first blog... Oh but the expectations seem so high. First impressions mean so much... I figure that everyone deserves a biography. Everyone should have the chance to share their story, their adventures, their life. I've read so many biographies - now I will have one of my own to read. Who knows, some famous ghost writer may chance upon this, realise the potential in my stories and produce a glossy page-turner... about me. Meanwhile, I'm currently working on a speech about me. It has to take between 4 and 6 minutes. It got me to thinking. I've scribbled some numbers on paper, multiplied them and come to the conclusion that I am about 19 million minutes old. How do you successfully condense 19 million minutes into five? I'd best get started!