Well its been about a month and a half since I've last made a post on this thing. Internet throughout the south of Laos was pretty sparse so I'm finally just getting around to all of this now.
After leaving Vientiane, I traveled further south through Laos taking some time to rent a motorbike and spend a couple of days driving through the Bloven Plateau which is a large area in south-central Laos which is a huge coffee growing region. Mostly for the higher altitude, but also the climate in general, it is great there for growing coffee. It was pretty cool talking with some of the coffee farmers out there and seeing the coffee plantations. The area in general is beautiful with a number of huge waterfalls and really green valleys.
Continuing south, I ended up out in Si Phan Don which translates as "the 4000 islands". Its an area in the very south of Laos on the Mekong river where there are quite literally 4000 islands spread out throughout the middle of the river. Many of them are really small but others have people living on them, farming and living the Mekong river lifestyle. I spent about 10 days staying with a family on one of the islands and learning about their way of life. We spent the days fishing, diving for snails and river muscles, trapping parrots and catching loads of huge bugs, all for eating. In one day I can proudly say that I ate parrot soup, some kind of stir fried snails and muscles dish, and had some salsa type thing which only consisted of crickets and very hot spices.
After leaving the Si Phan Don area it was time for me to continue going south and move into Cambodia. I went straight to Phenom Phen, the capital city to see what was going on there. The city is actually really great and is just starting to awaken from its Khmer Rouge days. Business in the city is starting to flourish which is bringing a lot of new blood to an already beautiful place. Cambodia is not nearly as commercialized as Thailand...yet. Most likely it will begin to move towards being just as touristy as Thailand because it is a country that does have a lot to offer. Quite a few of the small business owners have said that with the rising middle class in China, the Chinese are starting to vacation more and Cambodia will be like Mexico is for Americans.
Phenom Phen has a lot of history behind it, sadly it is mostly about the reign of the Khmer Rouge. I went to S-21, the interrogation prison in the middle of the city that was used to house prisoners before sending them out to the killing fields. Its now turned into a pretty sobering museum which allows you to walk through the cells and interrogation/torture facilities and has pictures of all of the victims that were murdered. After this I went out to the Killing Fields site where over 2-3 million people were put to death. It was really interesting to see all of this but extremely sad at the same time.
Phenom Phen is also pretty cool because there is such a large ex-pat community. Most of them are UN/NGO workers as well as numerous people teaching English. All over the place are signs asking for help at schools and orphanages across the city and country and I decided to check one of them out. I ended up finding a school/orphanage that is just about ten minutes outside of the city and spent almost two weeks there just playing around with the kids and helping to teach some English classes during the day. There was about 40 kids that stayed at the school all the time and then about another 20-30 that got bussed in for just the school day. Its pretty hard to not get attached to the kids when you're hanging out with them all the time like that. I really could have spent much more time then that at the school but there was still a lot of Cambodia that I wanted to see before having to move on.
Shortly after the school stint in Phenom Phen I headed out to Siem Reap, about six hours northwest of Phenom Pehn. It is here that the mighty Angkor Temples are located and I spent about a week up there exploring them. These temples which were built during the first half of the 12th century can only be described as simply amazing. They are massive temples, palaces and royal houses that spread out over a very large area throughout the jungle. There are huge trees and their roots which wind they're way through the temples almost as if they are reclaiming them back to themselves. The entire time you can hear and see monkeys howling and swinging around as if its just a playground for them, and thats pretty much what it is now.
On the last night that I was out exploring the temples I decided that it would be cool to sneak into the complex after dark and try to spend the night inside on of them. So I did. Trekking through the dark jungle for an hour got me to one of the more secluded temples. That night there was a massive thunder and lightening storm which was really eerie sitting in the doorway of this abandoned temple as the lightening lit up the huge towers and walls of the temple. Really good sunrise the next day and I made it out without detection.
After the temples I went back to the capital for another two days and then went south to the ocean. Sihnoukville is located down in the southwest corner of the country, really pretty close to Thailand. Being right on the Gulf of Thailand causes it to have very mellow, very warm bright blue water. Starting tomorrow is the beginning of the Khmer (Cambodian) New Year. They celebrate for about three days straight which basically means the country is more or less shut down. You can't travel anywhere so I decided if I was going to be stuck anywhere it would be good to be stuck at the beach. So here I am, back to the bungalow lifestyle, living on the beach.
Right now I'm sitting at a computer shop, on the beach, no more then 20 feet from the water. Pretty swell and I hope that anyone that reads this feels huge twinges of jealously. The plan after the New Year is to probably head for Vietnam. I'll let you know...
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
In the Capital City
At this point in time I'm in Vientiane, the capital city of The People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Let me back up a week or so to fill you all in on whats been going on...
So after hanging out in Luang Prabang for a couple of days I decided to head out to Phonsavan for a look around. The reason I wanted to head out there is for two reasons: one, there is a really cool archaeological site out there called the Plain of Jars and two, it was the most heavily bombed part of the country during the Indochina/Vietnam Wars.
Phonsavan is actually a small sleepy town out in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful mountains with bright green rice paddies at their base surround the outside of the city. This city, along with the rest of the country, has a very sad history however and it is only now that the people are trying to regroup and pull the lives back together. Brief history lesson that you should all know about...
From 1964 to 1773 Laos was a battlefield in a war that most of the Western world didn't know about. During this time both the USA and North Vietnam (along with China) acted directly against the Geneva Accord of 1962, which recognized the neutrality of Laos and forbade the presence of all foreign military personnel. It basically didn't want other countries using Laos as a military theatre for their own benefit. To get around this agreement the USA temporarily turned air force officers into civilian pilots to fly secret flights over Laos. So secret was this part of the war even the name of the country was banished from all official communications; participants simply referred to Laos as the "Other Theatre". Since as early as 1959, the USA through the CIA, had been training the native Laos village people, the Hmong for guerrilla warfare against the North Vietnamese supported group, the Pathet Laos. During the first few years of the war the American-Hmong forces lost miserably to the stronger Pathet Lao. In order to not loose face the Americans decided to use their "civilian" pilots to bomb Laos in order to continue the war against the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao. So for nine years the United States complete ignored all of the Rules of Engagement (part of which says you cannot drop bombs within 500 meters of a hospital or temple) and dropped bombs throughout Laos and most heavily along the Hoh Chi Minh Trail. Totalling 580,944 flights over Laos by 1973, the secret air force dropped an average of ONE PLANELOAD OF BOMBS EVERY 8 MINUTES, 24 HOURS A DAY, FOR NINE YEARS! Think about it... By the war's end the bombing amounted to approximately 1.9 million metric tonnes dropped in all, or if you want to look at it from a more personal view, over a half-tonne for every man, woman and child living in Laos.
So now, over thirty years after the war, this small picturesque town has to still deal with the affects of the war every day. There are thousands of land mines and bombs which are unexploded that go off every day. Each year 60 people die from unexploded bombs 50% are children who see the small "bombies" or personal land mines that look about like a baseball and start playing with them. You might think that all foreign aid would have come now directly from the USA for the cleanup and de-mining of this region but sadly that is not the case. The meager amount of foreign aid comes from Japan and Australia, two countries that played no part in the war.
During my time in Phonsavan I had the opportunity to learn more about this sad part in the history of the Lao People and also to see a bit deeper into their history and check out the Plain of Jars. No one really knows how these huge jars got out there (some of the biggest are 3 meters tall and weigh over 2 tons) or what their purpose was. There are hundreds of them in total and in order to tour the jars I had to walk on a marked trail. The trail was said to have been checked for mines as deep as 24 inches while on either side of the trail it had only been spot checked. I stayed on the trail. All over the hillsides you can still see huge bomb craters from where they had been dropped. Its kind of surreal because some of the craters have a sign near it that says "Bomb crater made by the American Imperialists and their puppets, 1970".
After the Plain of Jars experience I headed down further south to Vang Vieng, a really small town on the Nam Song river that has turned into a bit of a backpackers ghetto. The locals have found that a good way to make money is to rent out tractor tire tubes so that people can tube down the river, which is actually really fun. I stayed in a small bamboo hut by the river which was really peaceful and relaxing except for one night while I was sitting on my porch someone decided to light off some fire crackers. Thinking someone had a gun, the military presence in the town rushed into compound I was staying in with AK-47s drawn ready for war or something. Watching all of this that night from my porch did liven things up quite a bit.
After hanging out in Vang Vieng for about 5 days I took the bus south again to Vientiane where I'm at now. The city doesn't have a lot going on in it other then the fact that it is the government seat for the country. The city sits on the Mekong river and today I rented a bike and rode down along the river and stopped at some of the small French cafes along the way. The French influence from the colonial times is very evident here as well. They even built an Arc de Triomphe like the one in Paris.
Tomorrow I'm going further south to Paxan where there is a 7km long cave that you take a boat through in order to do some exploring. Should be good. Stay in touch and I'll try to do the same...Signing off.
So after hanging out in Luang Prabang for a couple of days I decided to head out to Phonsavan for a look around. The reason I wanted to head out there is for two reasons: one, there is a really cool archaeological site out there called the Plain of Jars and two, it was the most heavily bombed part of the country during the Indochina/Vietnam Wars.
Phonsavan is actually a small sleepy town out in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful mountains with bright green rice paddies at their base surround the outside of the city. This city, along with the rest of the country, has a very sad history however and it is only now that the people are trying to regroup and pull the lives back together. Brief history lesson that you should all know about...
From 1964 to 1773 Laos was a battlefield in a war that most of the Western world didn't know about. During this time both the USA and North Vietnam (along with China) acted directly against the Geneva Accord of 1962, which recognized the neutrality of Laos and forbade the presence of all foreign military personnel. It basically didn't want other countries using Laos as a military theatre for their own benefit. To get around this agreement the USA temporarily turned air force officers into civilian pilots to fly secret flights over Laos. So secret was this part of the war even the name of the country was banished from all official communications; participants simply referred to Laos as the "Other Theatre". Since as early as 1959, the USA through the CIA, had been training the native Laos village people, the Hmong for guerrilla warfare against the North Vietnamese supported group, the Pathet Laos. During the first few years of the war the American-Hmong forces lost miserably to the stronger Pathet Lao. In order to not loose face the Americans decided to use their "civilian" pilots to bomb Laos in order to continue the war against the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao. So for nine years the United States complete ignored all of the Rules of Engagement (part of which says you cannot drop bombs within 500 meters of a hospital or temple) and dropped bombs throughout Laos and most heavily along the Hoh Chi Minh Trail. Totalling 580,944 flights over Laos by 1973, the secret air force dropped an average of ONE PLANELOAD OF BOMBS EVERY 8 MINUTES, 24 HOURS A DAY, FOR NINE YEARS! Think about it... By the war's end the bombing amounted to approximately 1.9 million metric tonnes dropped in all, or if you want to look at it from a more personal view, over a half-tonne for every man, woman and child living in Laos.
So now, over thirty years after the war, this small picturesque town has to still deal with the affects of the war every day. There are thousands of land mines and bombs which are unexploded that go off every day. Each year 60 people die from unexploded bombs 50% are children who see the small "bombies" or personal land mines that look about like a baseball and start playing with them. You might think that all foreign aid would have come now directly from the USA for the cleanup and de-mining of this region but sadly that is not the case. The meager amount of foreign aid comes from Japan and Australia, two countries that played no part in the war.
During my time in Phonsavan I had the opportunity to learn more about this sad part in the history of the Lao People and also to see a bit deeper into their history and check out the Plain of Jars. No one really knows how these huge jars got out there (some of the biggest are 3 meters tall and weigh over 2 tons) or what their purpose was. There are hundreds of them in total and in order to tour the jars I had to walk on a marked trail. The trail was said to have been checked for mines as deep as 24 inches while on either side of the trail it had only been spot checked. I stayed on the trail. All over the hillsides you can still see huge bomb craters from where they had been dropped. Its kind of surreal because some of the craters have a sign near it that says "Bomb crater made by the American Imperialists and their puppets, 1970".
After the Plain of Jars experience I headed down further south to Vang Vieng, a really small town on the Nam Song river that has turned into a bit of a backpackers ghetto. The locals have found that a good way to make money is to rent out tractor tire tubes so that people can tube down the river, which is actually really fun. I stayed in a small bamboo hut by the river which was really peaceful and relaxing except for one night while I was sitting on my porch someone decided to light off some fire crackers. Thinking someone had a gun, the military presence in the town rushed into compound I was staying in with AK-47s drawn ready for war or something. Watching all of this that night from my porch did liven things up quite a bit.
After hanging out in Vang Vieng for about 5 days I took the bus south again to Vientiane where I'm at now. The city doesn't have a lot going on in it other then the fact that it is the government seat for the country. The city sits on the Mekong river and today I rented a bike and rode down along the river and stopped at some of the small French cafes along the way. The French influence from the colonial times is very evident here as well. They even built an Arc de Triomphe like the one in Paris.
Tomorrow I'm going further south to Paxan where there is a 7km long cave that you take a boat through in order to do some exploring. Should be good. Stay in touch and I'll try to do the same...Signing off.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sailing Down the Mekong
So its been a long long long time since I've written on this thing but finding good Internet is a hard thing to do throughout some of these here parts. Anyhow here is the rundown on the past two weeks or so...
After doing the Golden Triangle area Gray and I headed back to Chiang Mai to figure out our next move. As we were sitting in the bus station a guy came up to us and said they had room in their van for us if we wanted to go to Pai with them. Pai is a small town up in the mountains about three hours out of Chiang Mai and when he told us there was a Reggae Festival up there then we decided to hop on board. When we got there we realized that there was about every person in Thailand up for the festival (or so it seemed) and there were absolutely no places to stay. Luckily for us we found a guy who had a bamboo bungalow by the river and he let us sleep under his porch for a couple of days until the festival was over. Once it ended I got my own bungalow for a little peace and quiet by the river.
Hung out in Pai for a couple of days until Gray told me that he needed to head back to Chiang Mai because he was having teeth problems (come to find out he needed a root canal, a crown put in and three fillings...you know just another average day for Gray) so we parted ways with heading south and me staying put. Stayed in Pai for another day until I met a lady who ran a Burmese orphanage outside of town. She invited me to come check the place out so I did and ended staying out there for three days playing with the kids and helping them figure out a water system for the buildings.
After all that I headed back to Chiang Mai to meet up with Gray and figure out what the situation was. He told me that he needed to stay there for another week to figure out the teeth issues and then said after that he would be heading home cause of finances. Pretty weird hearing the news that I would be alone for the rest of the travels but its all good. We had one more night out on the town before telling him goodbye and wishing him luck.
The next day I grabbed a bus (or actually the bus grabbed me because it was the most horrific bus ride I have ever endured) and headed for the Laos border to continue on my original route through SE Asia.
The bus ride was a grueling 9 hours from hell. At first it seemed alright because I had a seat in the very back row which meant more leg room but it also meant that there was apparently no rear suspension and the seat wasn't even bolted to the floor. So for nine hours I bounced to the ceiling and back as we hit every pothole between Chiang Mai and the border.
Having arrived in Chiang Khong that night with major whiplash and a sore backside, I found a guesthouse on the Mekong river for two bucks and called it a day.
At this point I was traveling with Jon, the guy from England I have mentioned in other posts. We both had the plan of buying our own boat and sailing it down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in central Laos. So the next two days we spent walking up and down the river talking to fisherman trying to get them to understand that we didn't want a fish, we didn't want a ride, we didn't want a ticket to ride, but that we wanted our own boat. Finally we found a fishing family who was in the boat mechanics business who said that would sell us a boat. For 120 bucks. Sweet deal or so it sounded. The next day we spent buying supplies like a fisherman's machete, two boxes of green tea, a tea kettle, a pound of rice, a ton of noodles, a dozen eggs and a bottle of rum (for medical reasons like cuts, amputations, etc..) to get ready for the voyage the next day.
After packing up, we thanked our new friends for the boat and headed across the river to Laos. We checked into the country, got our visas and whatnot and then got back in the boat to head down the Mekong. You got to understand at this point that just the idea of seeing two white guys in a fishing boat on the Mekong is completely hilarious. You don't see it cause no one does it. Every Lao fisherman we saw immediately broke into laughter when they saw us. So as we got back in our boat we had about fifteen fisherman just sitting there staring at us, watching us try to take off. As soon as I pulled on the rope to start the engine, (yes it was a 5.5 hp lawn mower engine that powered the thing) it snapped in half causing the entire beach to erupt into laughter. However, one the hilarity of the situation calmed down after a couple of minutes I think everyone one of those guys ran to get their tools and help us take it all apart and replace the rope. About an hour later we were ready to go again, started the engine this time and headed out. We made it a ways down the river, found a deserted island (or so we thought) and made camp for the night. Sitting around a campfire of coconut shells on the Mekong seeing a billion starts is a pretty cool experience and at that point in time I couldn't think of anything better. The moment wasn't meant to last.
At about eleven that night as we were drifting off to sleep six guys wandered up to our camp and just crowded around the fire. Obviously not speaking an Lao we told them hello, asked them to join us and gave them each an egg to roast (pretty common around here). They were pretty cool guys at first. They donated a fish to cook over the fire and they showed us how to throw their nets with us all generally having a good time. But a couple of hours later their mood seemed to change. Jon and I had decided to fall asleep but for some reason I woke up about a half hour later and saw three of the guys crowded around our boat, poking around inside it. I got suspicious and as soon as they saw me up they came back over and told me to go back to sleep. I just nodded but my mind said "Hell no, I'm not letting you guys steal my boat. I'm staying up all freaking night with my fisherman's machete if I have to". And that's what I did. Jon and I ended up taking shifts all night by the fire took keep an eye on things. I think had they wanted to take it they could have just done it since there was a 2 to 6 ratio (it does help to be about double the six of the average Asian however) but they didn't. So in all it was a pretty rough sleepless night. Oh yeah and did I mention that around midnight it started to pour...for the next 6 hours? Cause it did.
The next morning with team England/America morale being low we took off from the Island. Shortly into the journey however, Jon who was driving the boat, hit a huge rock under water and it nearly ripped off the entire propeller and rudder system. Cool. So we beached the boat, and luckily the family we bought the boat from and thrown in an extra prop for good measure so we rigged it all back together but by this point we decided that things were off to too bad of a start and decided to head back up river.
We took the boat back to the same people and after having a good laugh and telling us that we were back in Ching Khong and not Luang Prabang (we MUST have been confused) they agreed to buy the boat back. I think they had planned on it all along. They gave us lunch and sent us on our way.
Whew....Long story but it had to be told.
We ended up finding a Chinese cargo ship heading down the river, jumped on board and two days later I'm in Luang Prabang, Laos.
The city is pretty nice...it doesn't feel like Asia at all. During the French colonization days they ran the show here so it has a total French feel to it. The architecture is all European colonial style with French doors and windows and Mediterranean color schemes like white stucco and bright blue. I'll probably chill out here for a couple of days before heading south again. Hope you all enjoyed reading this one...the next one will be sooner then it took me to get this one up.
Sabadii!
After doing the Golden Triangle area Gray and I headed back to Chiang Mai to figure out our next move. As we were sitting in the bus station a guy came up to us and said they had room in their van for us if we wanted to go to Pai with them. Pai is a small town up in the mountains about three hours out of Chiang Mai and when he told us there was a Reggae Festival up there then we decided to hop on board. When we got there we realized that there was about every person in Thailand up for the festival (or so it seemed) and there were absolutely no places to stay. Luckily for us we found a guy who had a bamboo bungalow by the river and he let us sleep under his porch for a couple of days until the festival was over. Once it ended I got my own bungalow for a little peace and quiet by the river.
Hung out in Pai for a couple of days until Gray told me that he needed to head back to Chiang Mai because he was having teeth problems (come to find out he needed a root canal, a crown put in and three fillings...you know just another average day for Gray) so we parted ways with heading south and me staying put. Stayed in Pai for another day until I met a lady who ran a Burmese orphanage outside of town. She invited me to come check the place out so I did and ended staying out there for three days playing with the kids and helping them figure out a water system for the buildings.
After all that I headed back to Chiang Mai to meet up with Gray and figure out what the situation was. He told me that he needed to stay there for another week to figure out the teeth issues and then said after that he would be heading home cause of finances. Pretty weird hearing the news that I would be alone for the rest of the travels but its all good. We had one more night out on the town before telling him goodbye and wishing him luck.
The next day I grabbed a bus (or actually the bus grabbed me because it was the most horrific bus ride I have ever endured) and headed for the Laos border to continue on my original route through SE Asia.
The bus ride was a grueling 9 hours from hell. At first it seemed alright because I had a seat in the very back row which meant more leg room but it also meant that there was apparently no rear suspension and the seat wasn't even bolted to the floor. So for nine hours I bounced to the ceiling and back as we hit every pothole between Chiang Mai and the border.
Having arrived in Chiang Khong that night with major whiplash and a sore backside, I found a guesthouse on the Mekong river for two bucks and called it a day.
At this point I was traveling with Jon, the guy from England I have mentioned in other posts. We both had the plan of buying our own boat and sailing it down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in central Laos. So the next two days we spent walking up and down the river talking to fisherman trying to get them to understand that we didn't want a fish, we didn't want a ride, we didn't want a ticket to ride, but that we wanted our own boat. Finally we found a fishing family who was in the boat mechanics business who said that would sell us a boat. For 120 bucks. Sweet deal or so it sounded. The next day we spent buying supplies like a fisherman's machete, two boxes of green tea, a tea kettle, a pound of rice, a ton of noodles, a dozen eggs and a bottle of rum (for medical reasons like cuts, amputations, etc..) to get ready for the voyage the next day.
After packing up, we thanked our new friends for the boat and headed across the river to Laos. We checked into the country, got our visas and whatnot and then got back in the boat to head down the Mekong. You got to understand at this point that just the idea of seeing two white guys in a fishing boat on the Mekong is completely hilarious. You don't see it cause no one does it. Every Lao fisherman we saw immediately broke into laughter when they saw us. So as we got back in our boat we had about fifteen fisherman just sitting there staring at us, watching us try to take off. As soon as I pulled on the rope to start the engine, (yes it was a 5.5 hp lawn mower engine that powered the thing) it snapped in half causing the entire beach to erupt into laughter. However, one the hilarity of the situation calmed down after a couple of minutes I think everyone one of those guys ran to get their tools and help us take it all apart and replace the rope. About an hour later we were ready to go again, started the engine this time and headed out. We made it a ways down the river, found a deserted island (or so we thought) and made camp for the night. Sitting around a campfire of coconut shells on the Mekong seeing a billion starts is a pretty cool experience and at that point in time I couldn't think of anything better. The moment wasn't meant to last.
At about eleven that night as we were drifting off to sleep six guys wandered up to our camp and just crowded around the fire. Obviously not speaking an Lao we told them hello, asked them to join us and gave them each an egg to roast (pretty common around here). They were pretty cool guys at first. They donated a fish to cook over the fire and they showed us how to throw their nets with us all generally having a good time. But a couple of hours later their mood seemed to change. Jon and I had decided to fall asleep but for some reason I woke up about a half hour later and saw three of the guys crowded around our boat, poking around inside it. I got suspicious and as soon as they saw me up they came back over and told me to go back to sleep. I just nodded but my mind said "Hell no, I'm not letting you guys steal my boat. I'm staying up all freaking night with my fisherman's machete if I have to". And that's what I did. Jon and I ended up taking shifts all night by the fire took keep an eye on things. I think had they wanted to take it they could have just done it since there was a 2 to 6 ratio (it does help to be about double the six of the average Asian however) but they didn't. So in all it was a pretty rough sleepless night. Oh yeah and did I mention that around midnight it started to pour...for the next 6 hours? Cause it did.
The next morning with team England/America morale being low we took off from the Island. Shortly into the journey however, Jon who was driving the boat, hit a huge rock under water and it nearly ripped off the entire propeller and rudder system. Cool. So we beached the boat, and luckily the family we bought the boat from and thrown in an extra prop for good measure so we rigged it all back together but by this point we decided that things were off to too bad of a start and decided to head back up river.
We took the boat back to the same people and after having a good laugh and telling us that we were back in Ching Khong and not Luang Prabang (we MUST have been confused) they agreed to buy the boat back. I think they had planned on it all along. They gave us lunch and sent us on our way.
Whew....Long story but it had to be told.
We ended up finding a Chinese cargo ship heading down the river, jumped on board and two days later I'm in Luang Prabang, Laos.
The city is pretty nice...it doesn't feel like Asia at all. During the French colonization days they ran the show here so it has a total French feel to it. The architecture is all European colonial style with French doors and windows and Mediterranean color schemes like white stucco and bright blue. I'll probably chill out here for a couple of days before heading south again. Hope you all enjoyed reading this one...the next one will be sooner then it took me to get this one up.
Sabadii!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Rockin' the Suburbs...(in Chiang Mai)
So the last time I posted we had decided now was the time to head north to one of the larger cities in Thailand, Chiang Mai boasting a population of about 150,000. We made it up there on the night train out of Bangkok, this time getting sleeper cars. By the time we got there we were quite refreshed and ready for action. We hung out for about a day until our British and Aussie allies met back up with us.
Chiang Mai is actually a really cool city. Its much smaller than Bangkok so its quite a bit easier to get around and get a good feel for the place. It used to be quite the powerful military city in Thailand and because of that it has remenants of a wall and moat around the inner part of the city. Now the city has sprawled beyond the walls but much of the happening part of the city is still within. Chiang Mai used to be apart of the old spice and silk routes from China and it still retains some of that trade feel by having the Night Bazaar which is a night market with stalls lining street after street selling everything from knock off designer clothing to food like dried squid to silk and paper umbrellas.
In the area there are a number of umbrella factories and silk farms which I had the opportunity to visit. The silk farms were pretty interesting because they have everything from the silk worms all the way through weaving the cloth and tailoring suits. Aunt Andrea, if you're reading this, I took extra pictures of the process to show you because it reminded me of you doing almost the same thing with wool!
On our third day in Chiang Mai we found a guide to take us up into the hill country for some treking. Our guide, Khan, was invaluable for this because I don't think there would have been anyway for us to know where to go or how to get there. On our first day into the trek we had to ride elephants to make it across some of the rivers and get through some of the denser parts of the jungle (I say "had to" for grammatical reasons but in reality it was pretty kick ass). That evening, after some hiking, we made it to the first village where we were going to stay for the night.
Some quick info...
The hills throughout the entire northern provinces are filled with villages of "Hill Tribes-People". These people are mostly refugees who have been moved all over Southeast Asia. Most of the tribes people are from the Karen, Hmong, Lahu, Lisu or Akha tribes. Most have been in the country since the 18th century and have a "refugee" status among the Thai people and Thai Government. Traditionally they were the main cultivators and purveyors of the local poppie crop used for opium and therefore herion production for the rest of the world. This has been stemmed back a bit by local government effort but the crop still does exist. Most of them are from Burman-Tibetan decent so they look, act and have traditions very different from the average Thai.
Back to me...
The villages we stayed in were Karen which is the largest tribe in Northern Thailand (there is about 265,000 of them). Each night in the villages we were given a bamboo hut to stay in, wool blankets provided, and some of the best food I've had. It actually got pretty chilly at night with the temps getting down into the 40s F.
The second day was mainly us hiking but we found some really cool waterfalls along the river we were following which added some cliff jumping and some much needed "showering".
Day Three of the trek had us leaving the jungle on the river by doing some whitewater rafting followed by bamboo rafting for the final portion. So in all: 3 days, elephants, whitewater, places to stay, food and a guide all for about 29 bucks US. Priceless, as far as I'm concerned.
A pretty brief description for one of the most fun backpacking trips I've had. I'll have to give you all more details whenever I see you all next. After it all we went back to Chiang Mai where Gray and I had one more night out on the town with our new friends because we were to leave them the next day...
This brings me up to yesterday when Gray and I had to leave the group in order to get out of Thailand quickly so we didn't overstay our visas. Our first 30 days was up and so in order to stay out of trouble you have to get out of the country, but can then turn around and come right back giving yourself another 30 days (weird system, I know). So we had a plan to go south to Mae Sot, hit the Burma border, cross and get our new visas and come back over. When we got down to the bus station we found that the bus to Mae Sot was going to cost 300 Bhat (9 bucks) and being the cheapskates we are found that there was a bus going north for 129, leaving in 3 min. Within 10 seconds, with our plans drastically changed, we grabbed the cheaper tickets and were on the bus driving north five minutes after getting to the station. Good times...
We made it to Mae Sai, the border town in the heart of "The Golden Triangle". The Golden Triangle is where Burma, Laos, and Thailand all come together and was and still kind of is the center for the opium trade in the area. When we got to the town the border was closed and it was too late to cross, we had missed it by 15 minutes. So there were were in this sketchy little town having overstayed our visas in Thailand. Like most border towns, Mae Sai has a really odd feel to it. Its a weird mix of people there who all stare you down as you walk down the one main street. Any Westerner in the town is primarily there only to get a new visa and doesn't stay long. So we found a place to stay and waited it out till morning. Right before falling asleep I read in the Lonely Planet that back in 2006 during the military coup one of the rebel groups in Burma had thrown a few morters over the border into Mai Sai, to which the Thai army retaliated with some of their own. "Sweet", I thought to myself as I drifted off to sleep.
At about 4 in the morning I woke up to the sound of automatic gunfire (or so I thought). Not knowing whether to get under the bed or just sit there and freak out, I waited for what seemed like quite some time. After a few minutes it stopped. Gray looked out the window and realized that it wasn't gunfire but someone had decided to light off about a thousand M-180 firecrackers off outside of where we were sleeping. That and what I'd been reading only hours before couldn't have been a better combination.
Today we went across into Burma, got fined 500 bhat for staying too long, hung out for a couple hours and then got out of Dodge, back to Thailand. Tonight we're back in Chiang Rai and tomorrow planning a quick tour of the Golden Triangle countryside on motorcycles.
Sorry for the long post but theres always much to tell.
Thats all for now folks...
Back to me...
The villages we stayed in were Karen which is the largest tribe in Northern Thailand (there is about 265,000 of them). Each night in the villages we were given a bamboo hut to stay in, wool blankets provided, and some of the best food I've had. It actually got pretty chilly at night with the temps getting down into the 40s F.
The second day was mainly us hiking but we found some really cool waterfalls along the river we were following which added some cliff jumping and some much needed "showering".
Day Three of the trek had us leaving the jungle on the river by doing some whitewater rafting followed by bamboo rafting for the final portion. So in all: 3 days, elephants, whitewater, places to stay, food and a guide all for about 29 bucks US. Priceless, as far as I'm concerned.
A pretty brief description for one of the most fun backpacking trips I've had. I'll have to give you all more details whenever I see you all next. After it all we went back to Chiang Mai where Gray and I had one more night out on the town with our new friends because we were to leave them the next day...
This brings me up to yesterday when Gray and I had to leave the group in order to get out of Thailand quickly so we didn't overstay our visas. Our first 30 days was up and so in order to stay out of trouble you have to get out of the country, but can then turn around and come right back giving yourself another 30 days (weird system, I know). So we had a plan to go south to Mae Sot, hit the Burma border, cross and get our new visas and come back over. When we got down to the bus station we found that the bus to Mae Sot was going to cost 300 Bhat (9 bucks) and being the cheapskates we are found that there was a bus going north for 129, leaving in 3 min. Within 10 seconds, with our plans drastically changed, we grabbed the cheaper tickets and were on the bus driving north five minutes after getting to the station. Good times...
We made it to Mae Sai, the border town in the heart of "The Golden Triangle". The Golden Triangle is where Burma, Laos, and Thailand all come together and was and still kind of is the center for the opium trade in the area. When we got to the town the border was closed and it was too late to cross, we had missed it by 15 minutes. So there were were in this sketchy little town having overstayed our visas in Thailand. Like most border towns, Mae Sai has a really odd feel to it. Its a weird mix of people there who all stare you down as you walk down the one main street. Any Westerner in the town is primarily there only to get a new visa and doesn't stay long. So we found a place to stay and waited it out till morning. Right before falling asleep I read in the Lonely Planet that back in 2006 during the military coup one of the rebel groups in Burma had thrown a few morters over the border into Mai Sai, to which the Thai army retaliated with some of their own. "Sweet", I thought to myself as I drifted off to sleep.
At about 4 in the morning I woke up to the sound of automatic gunfire (or so I thought). Not knowing whether to get under the bed or just sit there and freak out, I waited for what seemed like quite some time. After a few minutes it stopped. Gray looked out the window and realized that it wasn't gunfire but someone had decided to light off about a thousand M-180 firecrackers off outside of where we were sleeping. That and what I'd been reading only hours before couldn't have been a better combination.
Today we went across into Burma, got fined 500 bhat for staying too long, hung out for a couple hours and then got out of Dodge, back to Thailand. Tonight we're back in Chiang Rai and tomorrow planning a quick tour of the Golden Triangle countryside on motorcycles.
Sorry for the long post but theres always much to tell.
Thats all for now folks...
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Settling In...
How does one know when they have been in Thailand to the point of comfort. Well here's what I think...
This morning I'm sitting on the toilet contemplating life and why cockroaches love to hang out behind the toilet, important, deep things of that nature when out of no where a rat (and I"m talking a real full sized rat) walks across the floor in front of me. He stopped, stood up on his back legs, looked at me and then continued on. The thing is, it didn't surprise me at all. In fact the only reaction I had other then raising one eyebrow was, "Huh, where do you live around here?". Not a scream. Not a holy $%@*! Nothing other then, "Huh". It occurred to me soon after that this must mean that I'm becoming fully comfortable with life over here, to the point where things like this just don't surprise me anymore.
Just thought I would share...
This morning I'm sitting on the toilet contemplating life and why cockroaches love to hang out behind the toilet, important, deep things of that nature when out of no where a rat (and I"m talking a real full sized rat) walks across the floor in front of me. He stopped, stood up on his back legs, looked at me and then continued on. The thing is, it didn't surprise me at all. In fact the only reaction I had other then raising one eyebrow was, "Huh, where do you live around here?". Not a scream. Not a holy $%@*! Nothing other then, "Huh". It occurred to me soon after that this must mean that I'm becoming fully comfortable with life over here, to the point where things like this just don't surprise me anymore.
Just thought I would share...
Friday, January 25, 2008
Back in Bangkok...
Well this is the first time that I have made a post in quite a few days. We have been traveling down south in the islands this whole time and trying to find an internet connection that is a reasonable price and cheap is a hard thing to do down there. We were on the island of Koh Phi Phi like I told about in my last post and then headed over to Tonsai which is really famous for its rock climbing. Actally to be fair Railey the beach just adjacent to Tonsai is really famous and Tonsai isn't which makes it really nice cause not as many people know about it or bother to go there. From Railey you just have to take a longtail boat for about a 30 second ride around the corner and you're there, stuck in between some of the most beautiful and amazing cliffs I've ever seen. Coming from the climbers perspective this place is paradise with fantastic limestone for multi pitch, sport climbing, and deep water soloing. There is so much rock there that most of it hasn't even been explored yet for good climbing routes. We found a really cool hut back up in the jungle for a great price and threw down there for three days. The mosquitos (or mozzies as our UK counterparts call them) were a little rough back in the jungle but our bed (yes singular for Gray and I again) had a mosquito net over it to keep them off. For some reason I didn't get bit at night but Gray got torn apart...go figure. The first day I met a couple of guys who wanted to do a little deep water solo climbing with me so we got a boat to drive us around for the day and hit up some really good cliffs. Theres nothing like climbing up above the water 30-40 feet or so and then trying to go for a hold, miss it, and fall flailing back into crystal clear warm water.
The rest of the time in Tonsai we rented kayaks and explored the little islands and inlets around the area, did some more good climbing and generally just hung out in this sweet climbing community. I really love finding this little, out of the way places but I know that the more people that hear about how great they are, the more people will try to go there which would ruin the vibe. At this paticular place there had been talk of some big resort coming in cause its such a good place but hopefuly something like that wouldn't happen. I'm crossing my fingers...
After Tonsai we all headed over to Koh Samui and Koh Phangan where we hung out for the full moon. I'm not going to elaborate on this part of the trip but for those of you who want to know details check in with me later...it was a blast. To be brief, the full moon attracts about 30,000 people from all over the globe (mostly Euros and Aussies) to Koh Phangan for celebration and merriment (and thats about all I'll say).
Yesterday our group broke up a bit cause two of people traveling with us are doing some diving on Koh Tao and then going to Sinapore, (we're planning on a reunion in Vietnam) so the group is down to six. We jumped on a boat from Koh Phangan to Chumpon, which is back on the mainland, for a horrific, four hour ride. The seas were so rough that about half the boat was loosing their lunches over the side the entire ride. At one point I nearly missed being hit in the head by a wall of half eaten Pad Thai (I'm only guessing) from the deck above. Fortuneatly Gray and I have enough sea legs in us that we weren't too bothered by it and actually caught some sleep but for others it was pretty bad. Once in Chumpon we caught a bus for the ten hour ride into Bangkok, arriving at 4:30 this morning.
The plan is to be here for the next two days and then Sunday night we're taking the train up north to Chaing Mai. At this point since our plans have already changed so much (we had planned on being north about a week and a half ago) we're really playing everything by ear. When you're staying at a guesthouse or hostel you just meet people and start discussing where everyone is going. Someone might through out an idea of going here or there and if you're up for it you just go. I tend to like it that way...Well thats all for now. Hope to hear back from some of you. If anyone wants to get a hold of me personally the best way is emailing me at ian.schlieder@gmail.com. Hope everyone is doing well and just remember its about 85 degrees over here...
The rest of the time in Tonsai we rented kayaks and explored the little islands and inlets around the area, did some more good climbing and generally just hung out in this sweet climbing community. I really love finding this little, out of the way places but I know that the more people that hear about how great they are, the more people will try to go there which would ruin the vibe. At this paticular place there had been talk of some big resort coming in cause its such a good place but hopefuly something like that wouldn't happen. I'm crossing my fingers...
After Tonsai we all headed over to Koh Samui and Koh Phangan where we hung out for the full moon. I'm not going to elaborate on this part of the trip but for those of you who want to know details check in with me later...it was a blast. To be brief, the full moon attracts about 30,000 people from all over the globe (mostly Euros and Aussies) to Koh Phangan for celebration and merriment (and thats about all I'll say).
Yesterday our group broke up a bit cause two of people traveling with us are doing some diving on Koh Tao and then going to Sinapore, (we're planning on a reunion in Vietnam) so the group is down to six. We jumped on a boat from Koh Phangan to Chumpon, which is back on the mainland, for a horrific, four hour ride. The seas were so rough that about half the boat was loosing their lunches over the side the entire ride. At one point I nearly missed being hit in the head by a wall of half eaten Pad Thai (I'm only guessing) from the deck above. Fortuneatly Gray and I have enough sea legs in us that we weren't too bothered by it and actually caught some sleep but for others it was pretty bad. Once in Chumpon we caught a bus for the ten hour ride into Bangkok, arriving at 4:30 this morning.
The plan is to be here for the next two days and then Sunday night we're taking the train up north to Chaing Mai. At this point since our plans have already changed so much (we had planned on being north about a week and a half ago) we're really playing everything by ear. When you're staying at a guesthouse or hostel you just meet people and start discussing where everyone is going. Someone might through out an idea of going here or there and if you're up for it you just go. I tend to like it that way...Well thats all for now. Hope to hear back from some of you. If anyone wants to get a hold of me personally the best way is emailing me at ian.schlieder@gmail.com. Hope everyone is doing well and just remember its about 85 degrees over here...
Monday, January 14, 2008
My home at the moment
Koh Pi Pi Lei
Koh Pi Pi Don
Wat Po in Bangkok
"The Venice of the East": A canal in Bangkok
Looking out over BangkokThese are only a few of the pictures I had time to upload. I"ve taken about 500 pictures so far so as soon as I can get to a fast enough connection then I'll dump them all on Photobucket. Things are still great. We're pushing off the Island tomorrow for Ton Sai...taking a few few of the Brits and Aussies with us. We have formed a little band and the seven of us will probably stay together for the next week or so. Should be good times. Its been crazy that we were only planning on staying here on the Island for a day but instead we are on our fourth or something. Way too good...its the beauty of traveling with the only plan being that there is none. Loving it. Cheers!
P.S. Sorry that the pics are a bit small...the quality is great though (thanks Dad again for the camera its the best thing I got at the moment) and as soon as I can upload them all you all can see the real deal.
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