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!

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...