Lampang, Tuesday

1352 Shitloads of guest houses on this road. I am thinking the lesson to learn here might be that barring some reason for expecting mega demand (eg Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai) the smart thing to do is just to book for one night. Then you have the comfort of knowing you're not fucked on arrival while if the place sucks you can sort somewhere else out, and you can probably stay on anyway if you want. I was quite looking forward to three nights of relative stability here in Lampang, now I fucking hate the place already.

Not going to name this place on the blog so I can go ahead and give vent to my spleen and say I think they're a bunch of deceptive cunts. I'd like to double check what it says on booking.com but of course I can't.

1702 Back at hostel. Credit where it's due, as I came in they gave me a handwritten slip of paper saying I can use an electronically locked door on the side of the building after 11pm. I may check that out when I go out, however there was a dog asleep in the street there as I came in so not overly helpful. Had one fucking dog start barking at me rather unpleasantly as I tried to find my way over to Wat Phra Can't-See-Guide-Book-And-Type Don Thing, I had to double back and try another way as it felt a bit deserted. Probably OK but with nothing remotely resembling a weapon (even a heavy bag or an umbrella would be better than nothing) I feel very vulnerable in these situations when there's no one else around. I'm sure everyone else I know would happily face down a strange dog in an isolated side street.

Found Ban Sao Nok or whatever while getting lost, since that was in guide book went in there first, that was quite interesting in a way.

Didn't go crazy at Wat Phra Thing when finally got there, not sure I could have gone in various places but didn't, just wandered round. Frankly I'm a bit templed out.

Went to KFC on leaving hotel (ie before the above), was a lucky break stumbling across it, I wanted no fuss no hassle food and I also went to cash machine first and thought I'd be able to secrete cash about my person in KFC bog after eating, but they didn't seem to have one, so I just had to leave it in my pocket all afternoon. The non-diet Pepsi actually went down way better than I expected, maybe I was thirstier than I thought.

1736 What a fucking shithole. There are two showers, one in a teensy cubicle, the other in a teensy room containing possibly the only sit down bog in the place. There is nowhere to put your clothes while showering in the teensy cubicle, and if you use the other the best you can do is put them on a sort of wooden bench down the side of the bog - no hooks. Of course there is no hot water either.

I wouldn't mind any of this so much if the place was cheap. While not super pricey at 1950 for three nights it is not good value compared to what I've been getting for 500-odd a night since leaving Bangkok. I think - wifi still doesn't work for me, so can't check - there was another place advertising shared bathrooms round the corner for something like 1350 for three nights, at that sort of price it's still a bit shit but a bit more understandable. And for all I know any of the guesthouses I saw on the walk over here would have done me something decent for much less. Maybe there's some kind of premium for having places on booking.com. As I said before, I definitely need to at least think about only booking for one night in future, though for rest of my time in Thailand point is moot - for good reasons already booked multiple nights in Chiang Mai and after that will almost certainly be Bangkok where I feel it might be risky not to book up all the two or three days in advance. Anyway, since there's no fucking internet here I can't organise anything until I get to CM.

Oh, I'd been banking on doing some laundry in my private bathroom. Did a small illicit wash in the sink in shared one, naturally I forgot to take my sink plug through and although there was one in the sink it leaked, so the wash was super crappy.

1907 Left hotel about five mins ago, the dog was sleeping in the side street so I didn't go and look at the electronic entry. I don't intend to drink a lot so don't expect to want to be back after 11. Was going to go to Riverside (restaurant, not guest house) but this place on the street with no obvious name but 'Do you know what I mean?' and some English text on a red wall looks OK and there's a microphone on the stage and it will do. That is assuming anyone ever comes over to me to offer me a menu.

Feel I am being held hostage by street dogs but not much I can do about it. Another advantage of booking after first night in person is you can try to factor that in, I guess.

1911 Waitress just came over and stood over me while I studied the menu, FFS. Otherwise she was quite helpful. Getting a large bottle of Leo and if I can remember what I picked out of desperation pork fried with garlic and chilli on rice. I am not entirely sure how I feel about garlic but let's give it a go. I am not fundamentally opposed to it, I like garlic sausage for example.

Got beer and glass with ice. Not worrying about the health side of ice any more, but a bit weird. Still, nice if beer is cold. Warm today verging on hot but not massively intolerable. Quite pleasant out tonight. Can't really relax with the fucking dog situation but otherwise not bad.

Ah, place is Ruam Mitra Niyom (approx); it's written in curly hard-to-read font on wall, there is also a locked wifi network of that name. There is some kind of free to sign up wifi network in town which I nearly signed up for earlier, there is a week signal for that here so I might sign up. I will use a distinctive email address so I can filter the spam away once I leave the country.

1926 Slow torture filling the form in, submitting, getting error, going back to fix the 'problem' (eg not giving a correct 10 digit mobile number - I had to deliberately give an incorrect mobile number to pass validation, as my UK number has 11 digits even in the UK, more internationally). But finally registered successfully.

1931 It does work! Gasp! They set a little trap or two by adding 'ict' to the front of your userrname and also having a password length limit on the registration page but not on the login page (so if your password is too long the last few chars are ignored on registration but accepted on login) but I spotted these traps and failed to fall into them. I suppose it is free, but surely they *want* users? Meh, it's web design.

Food here, looks OKish if small portion. Beer tastes super watery with this ice.

1938 Food was pretty good, portion not that tiny and IIRC it was something like 60, so not bad. Also not super hungry, perhaps due to KFC earlier and I also had a bottle of I-can't-read-the-label-but-going-on-taste slightly sweetened green tea and a bottle of ultra-sweet Lipton Ice Tea earlier, so that's another source of calories.

2005 I've reached my daily limit on the free wifi. Oh well, c'est la vie. At least it allowed me to e-mail my heartbeat e-mail back to parents instead of having to pay 40p for the privilege of sending a text while roaming.

Had a quick look on booking.com, it does seem to say hostel is shared bathrooms but I could swear it wasn't at all clear during booking. I did pay attention because same place is on hostelworld and showed shared bathrooms there, IIRC. Didn't actually try to pretend booking, the wifi was dog slow and maybe I hit my daily limit during that and it won't do any good to check anyway, though given a decent connection I would be interested in having a check. (Cynicism suggests they updated the description after I got here, but that probably verges on paranoia.)

2011 Fuck me, I still have a nearly full glass of beer and was staring at my phone not up and even remotely looking like I wanted service and waitress just came over and said 'what do you want?'. There are half a dozen tables (maybe 70% of the total tables) free, I've eaten, I don't think I'm nursing this beer excessively. I've ordered another beer but I feel a bit fucking pressured.

A youngish (or at least very small) bloke is sat up front with a guitar making testish strumming noises, and they've just turned recorded music off. No idea how this will be but it's free. Most (all except me, actually) people here look Thai to me, but the bar has a certain English-language and/or touristy vibe so let's see.

I am actually not sure what language he's singing in. No, I think it's English.

The waitress is wearing a pretty short skirt which is oddly not all that attractive. Maybe it's this somewhat tall, gaunt appearance she has. Technically she ticks all the boxes to score as 'quite/very attractive', but she somehow doesn't, for me anyway.

2100 No beer turned up. Have just managed to catch waitress's eye and order a second. This will probably be it, and fingers crossed I will be back before streets get deserted. Guy with guitar OK though not paying much attention to him, writing e-mail to Rab.

2150 Was worried about dogs anyway, written to Rab about other night which has maybe made it worse and maybe better. Not looking forward to going back tonight. But there should be people on the streets, and the coffee shop at hostel should be open when I get back so the only relatively short bit of slightly quieter side street might not feel so deserted, as there should at least be the staff in there lest I need help. This is stupid, of course, but not 100% stupid.

"House (heart) of gold" being performed now.

I am "sure" (i.e. I have no knowledge at all but somehow believe) that in reality the street dogs might exhibit a lot of sound and fury but that they probably seldom actually go further. I did resist the temptation to run from that one this afternoon, having an idea that would encourage it, though I didn't much like having my back to it.

"Yesterday" now. Just looked and it's actually a different guy now.

2158 "Wonderful tonight". I wonder if I should buy a cheap umbrella and carry it round with me. Feels a bit like giving in to the fear, but maybe it's not such a shameful crutch. Anyway, will leave that idea at the back of my mind. (Mind you, while a golf umbrella would be a fairly formidable weapon, a foot long compact umbrella would be less so. Though maybe popping it up and using it as a shield would help. But as with any weapon (as if I know, but let me speculate), drawing it probably raises the stakes. Popping up an umbrella might trigger an attack when otherwise the dog would have contented itself with growling until I passed through what it considered its patch.)

I probably wouldn't have a third beer on gross-alcohol-consumption grounds anyway, though this is nice enough it would be slightly tempting even if I'd probably manage to resist. As it is, I feel I need to be making moves to finish up - it's 2203. I suppose as with all scares the effects of this one on me will gradually diminish, barring some "serious" incident to reinforce it.

Just got bill. That way I can leave when I finish this beer (I am on the last glassful now) rather than payment extending my time out. This does suck, but got to gradually get my confidence/comfort back, and as I say a third beer is probably inadvisable on other grounds so I'm only heading back maybe fifteen minutes earlier.

Bill either 110 or 110+40, not clear. Paid 180. Waitress said it was 110 seeing my 180 but I showed her the second page and she took it. I mean, I don't remember price of Leo but about 60 is cheap/usual, so that's 120 plus 40 odd for the food making 160 so 110+40 seems right and 180 with tip not insane if reasonably generous. Also a fairly cheap night anyway.

2209 Singer finished and though quite a few people still here there is an exodus feeling. Tis OK, will go in five minutes, or earlier if inability to not rush beer mandates it. Had a slash a bit ago so at least that won't be an immediately pressing concern if I am prevented from reaching hostel. I think of everything. ;-)

I guess I need to try to feel less aggrieved with ho(s)tel, even if I do feel they weren't super clear about the shared bathroom and therefore I do feel I've been ripped off (it isn't mega expensive, but for what it is feels expensive), and I'm not happy about wifi not working, since presumably this is some bizarre problem with my equipment even though neithe phone nor laptop works, as it works for other people. Maybe it will mysteriously start to work, qv Garden House wifi in reception which didn't work one day and did another.

Weather v pleasant now FWIW, slight cool breeze, temperature warm but not hot. It is night and maybe I have acclimatised, but I think being in the north of the country must be a big factor. Be interesting to see how I find temperature in Bangkok I guess.

2214 OK, here we go.

2218 Back in hostel room. Street a bit quieter than I'd like immediately outside bar but generally fine. Aroy One Baht (sp) as recommended in guide book and basically opposite hostel looked busy and interesting, might go there tomorrow night. Didn't see any dogs at all *except* there were two sleeping in the side street down side of hostel where presumably the post-11pm door is. To be fair, in my general experience, *most* street dogs are pretty laid back and unthreatening (though my possibly-biased-right-now memory also suggests that is more so in cities, in quieter districts (and this is supposed to be a big town, but the streets don't feel like it) they seem a bit more territorial, presumably due to lower levels of foot traffic at night), and quite possibly those two are loosely attached to the hostel and/or are used to people passing them at midnight. They didn't worry me overly much going in through the coffee shop at the front, but I'm not so sure about going down that side street. I guess if you knew exactly where the door was, which I don't yet, and it worked, you'd probably experience no more than some barking before you were safely inside, and as I say they'd probably just ignore you. I am obviously going on about this too much but WTF, it may help or interest me to read later (be it from the safety of my UK flat or in a hospital in Thailand with severe bites) and it's not as if anyone else is likely to be reading this anyway, or if it is tedious rather than deeply embarassing even if they were.

2225 The hostel wifi is suddenly working OK, so there you go.

2238 Having some water, not sure if the hostel-supplied bottles in fridge or free so cracking open the 1.5 litre bottle I think I bought in Sukhothai and have been lugging round without actually needing it ever since. Not really a waste - I wanted water in my bag even if I didn't drink it - but I find it slightly amazing it's lasted so long without even being opened.

2240 Was tempted to note other day that despite having with me three T-shirts, a polo shirt, a short-sleeved shirt and a long-sleeved shirt, I basically just seem to be washing and wearing the three T-shirts and not using the others. I have worn them all occasionally, and I am not sure they're totally superfluous (I am wearing the short-sleeved shirt tonight, for example, due to being a bit behind with laundry, not helped by unexpected shared bathroom; the long-sleeved shirt would be valuable eg on a trip like the songthaew to Umphang, had I done it, where it can get cold; I also haven't spent much time in places where I feel I want to try to look a bit smart, but I am sure that will happen on the trip, it did a little in Bangkok) but nonetheless I can't help thinking I could have e.g. left the polo shirt behind (it is there mainly as a smart-ish option) or substituted another simple T-shirt for it and saved a little bit of weight. But even this first two-ish month trip is far from over and I may still decide they were absolutely worth bringing.

0050 Been listening to bit of music, time for bed. A bit of serious barking and growling going on outside, though no human noises. Still, I shouldn't care to be out there while the dogs argue over turf or whatever they're doing, though it would probably be OK if you just didn't show any fear etc etcc. Room ceiling is mega high and so are the top latches on the mosquito nets on the windows I'd have to get open before I could faff with the wooden shooters, i.e. the room basically has no usable windows, so I can't look out and see if this room looks out over that side street with the late entrance or if that's where the dogs actually are.

Wifi still won't work on laptop despite working on phone, not a clue.