Bangkok

Soo... back in the day, I was in Bangkok. That's where I left off, and now I'll try to sum up the day I spent there.

I arrived at 6am, found a hotel by 8am for about $20 Canadian (a huge splurge after many $2-$5 nights) and went out on the town. The first thing I did was find a tailor who would make a suit for me. The first few wouldn't meet my price, but I ended up finding one who agreed to make one for the equivalent of $110 Canadian, with the vest. The cheapest I got before that was $140 with no vest even.

I left the tailor and went shopping in the street stalls lining the roads all around the Khaosan Rd area and started buying clothes. Knowing my need for teeshirts, I ended up with about 8 or 9 new ones at $3 each by the end of the day at 11pm. I also had my pinstriped suit after 3 fittings (noon, 4pm, and 9pm), a belt, a pair of designer Diesel jeans, a few gifts for family that shall not be revealed online, and other great things I forget (it was 3 weeks ago afterall, my memory is sketchy).

The next day I caught a taxi to the airport and flew to Singapore. I landed in the afternoon and caught the subway to my friend's apartment, where I had stored my luggage for a month. I spent the night at his place, and the following night, after repacking my backpack's contents into my suitcases, I flew out of Singapore at 9pm.

The following day I landed in Auckland, New Zealand and found myself a hostel. More on that later.

New Zealand

I have still not managed to connect my laptop to the internet here in Dunedin, New Zealand, as the connection in my room is not yet active. Once it is, I will update on the end of my trip and my arrival here in New Zealand.

I also have a bunch of new photos to put up when I get the chance, soon I hope.

Chris

Tubing in Vang Vieng

So after a 6 hour minibus, we arrived in Vang Vieng. I had a nice driver's burn on my right arm from having it out the window the entire 6 hours. After finding a nice guesthouse for $5 a night (split two ways = $2.50 a night per person), we had a look around town.

Vang Vieng is a really nice little town, though at first glance you might think you're in the ghetto somewhere. Rubble from semi-demolished buildings and children playing soccer in the street give the town some extra character as groups of young backpackers walk down the main streets with giant inner tubes over their shoulders.

The following day we went to an inner tube rental location and arranged to go tubing, for $3.75. We climbed into a tuk-tuk with four other people and eight tubes stacked on top and off we went. A few minutes later we got off and began walking to the river with our tubes. During the ride, Ian and Ron had begun talking with two Australian girls, Heather and Anna, with whom we ended up hanging out most of the time we were tubing.

Off down the river we went, sitting/lying down in our tubes, at about 1km/hour. Literally. It's a 3-4 km trip and it took us about 4-5 hours including several rest stops. It was super chill and peaceful floating slowly down the river, occasionally getting grounded on a rock, and stopping at shaded areas on the shore for a cool drink. Some stops had rope swings or diving ladders for people to jump off, and when we approached any stop there would be someone there wading out in the water with a long bamboo pole to pull us to shore. It really was loads of fun.

That evening we hung out down by the water with some travellers we met and went to sleep quite late.

Next day Jos, Ron, and I rented bicycles and biked to Phoukam Cave, 7km on bumpy, pothole filled dirt roads. The problem was that the bikes we got were again of the curved handle, single speed banana seat variety that really aren't even suited to city biking. In fact, after literally 2 minutes, Josephine's chain snapped. It completely broke. I've never seen that happen before, and couldn't imagine it on a city bike on a road. The rental place didn't even ask a question when she went back to switch it for another one. Damn things could barely make it up a slight incline (I really mean slight - back in Vancouver it would be faster to walk than bike with these things, seeing as how it's hard enough on our slightly steeper hills on my lightweight 24 speed mountain bike).

We reached the cave successfully, climbed up the mountain to get into the entryway, and realized as usual that we were highly unprepared for such an adventure. We didn't even have a flashlight, aside from Ron's tiny single LED. Ron wore sandals and Jos wore flipflops. I even own a headlamp and had it back at our room, but stupidly didn't bring it.

In we went anyways, joined by an Englishman with a mullet who also had no flashlight. We used our digital camera displays to see about 2 feet in front of us and slowly walked and clambered through the caves. When we decided to return to the entrance, we realized we didn't know which way it was, despite our attempts to keep track of where we had come from. Some Germans with full lights were not very helpful even though they spoke English - perhaps they thought it was funny that we didn't know how to get out.

Once we got out it was raining lightly and people going into the cave as we left told us there had been a big storm with huge hail stones while we were inside. At the bottom of the hill, Jos and Ron decided to go for a quick swim at the water there while I bought myself a drink. Soon, though, the rain came pouring down again and we all sought shelter under the drink shack.

The rain poured and poured and poured and got heavier and heavier, as lightning flashed in the distance. Then the hail started, slow at first but soon building into a resounding drum beat on the mud, wooden picnic tables, and tin roof. The hailstones were up to an inch in diameter, and this was in 25 C weather! They melted almost immediately on the ground. After about half an hour of this the rain and hail let up and the three of us booked it to our bikes, and started off on the ride home through huge puddles.

We bumped into our friends Adam and Remy who we had met in Luang Prabang again, and spent some time talking with them before we continued on our way back to town. They were walking and had found a barn roof to shelter from the second storm. They were at the drink shack for the first one earlier.

That evening we slept soundly and the next morning we left to Vientiane on a minibus. For the 3 hour morning ride I kept my left arm out the East facing window and got a burn that evened out my two arms. Now they're both nice and brown.

Vientiane was nothing special while I was there. We walked around a bit, had some food, and at 5pm I got on a bus alone to Bangkok. 12 hours later I was in Bangkok on the famed Khaosan Rd.

More on that later.

Luang Prabang

Firstly: 2 new galleries are up. Chiang Mai and Pai are waiting for you to have a look, just click on the pics in the lefthand sidebar.


On our first day in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR (People's Democratic Republic - it's a Communist state), we rented bicycles for 10,000 kip each (US $1). We rode those old school curved handle bar banana seat bikes all around town. First we went to the Mekong river which Ron walked/trudged/swam across, and where a group of Bhuddist novices crossed to our side in their boat to say hi on their lunch break from studies.

We then continued biking parallel to the river's curve, and arrived at the temple compound at the base of Mount Phousi, the highest point in Luang Prabang. The buildings were not interesting and we couldn't understand why several people told us to visit this lame place, and decided to head off. Luckily, a novice told Ian where to go and we began walking up a long steep set of old stairs. At the top of this stairwell was a small sheltered area with what is supposedly one of Bhudda's giant footprints. There were several novices there and we spoke with them for a few minutes before continuing up more steps.

We climbed some more, then walked partways around the mountain on a less steep path/road, then finally came to the ticket booth (foreigners have to pay 15,000 kip to go up to the top). Another couple hundred steps later and we had reached the very top. The little temple there and the old stupa were nothing special (to us) but the view was great. We also met a Brit named Adam and a Swiss guy named Remy who have been travelling together since meeting each other in Thailand while diving. We saw them again later that day in town and again the next day as we ate supper at a local restaurant. Real nice guys, and very well travelled.

We finally got down to the bottom of the hill again, found our bikes, and started off thinking of food in the near future. After biking around the outskirts of town for some time, we saw a sign pointing to the waterfalls and Ian asked a policeman how far the waterfalls were from there. "5 minutes," he said. So we decided that 5 minutes each way and some time at the waterfalls was short enough that we could put off eating that much without worry.

It turns out that people in SE Asia not only have no understanding of left and right, but no understanding of English words for time. Despite this, they always answer if you ask them and they all seem to know the word 'minute.'

45 minutes of hills and potholes on our crappy not-even-quite-city-worthy bikes, and Ian asked some Brits going the opposite way on mountain bikes how much further we had to go. They advised us not to even try it, as they on their mountain bikes had spent hours getting there and back. We took their advice and turned around immediately. That night we checked out a local pub but it was not a particularly cool place. We had fun nonetheless, meeting two cool Norwegian girls (Sigrid and Rikke) and a local named Song who ferried us on his motorbike to a late night restaurant to eat.

The next day we wasted lounging around until we caught a tuk-tuk at about 4pm to the waterfalls. It was a 50 minute ride at crazy speeds on a dirt road that was so full of potholes I almost thought I was back in Uganda. Our driver was good: we passed every other tuk-tuk and minibus that we came across, and rolled over a chicken that was stupid enough to run TOWARD the moving vehicle instead of away from it.

We spent an hour at the waterfalls, mostly taking funny photos, then caught the tuk-tuk back home in the dark. We saw where we turned around on our bikes the previous day and it was not even a fifth of the distance. We would never have made it if we had kept going that day.

That evening Ian got food poisoning and we took him to the China-Lao Friendship Hospital by tuk-tuk, at about 11pm. They gave him an injection and some powdered medicine to mix with water and after about an hour there, he felt well enough to get back in the tuk-tuk for the ride back to our guesthouse.

The hospital was really sketchy; the emergency room beds were covered in stains from different bodily fluids, the pillows were brown with grime (we put two shirts on the pillow for Ian to keep his head clean, and he kept his clothes on so his skin didn't touch the dirty bedsheets). They assured us without us asking, that they only use needles once and then throw them away. The next morning we were supposed to take a minibus to Vang Vieng but we postponed it a day until Ian felt better.

We didn't do much that day as we were all pretty tired, and that evening I had 4 samosas and a huge piece of garlic naan bread for dinner. When the others finally wanted to eat, we went to a restaurant and I had four fruit milkshakes: Apple, Coconut, Pineapple, and Papaya. All at once. Each one was a pint (half a litre) and I managed to finish three and a half of them before my stomach couldn't take it anymore. Ron finished the remaining bit for me.

Next day we caught our 6 hour minibus to Vang Vieng, further south in the Mekong river delta. More about that later...

Trekking outside of Pai

From Chiang Mai we took a three hour minibus to Pai, a peaceful little mountain town in northern Thailand. We spent the night of the 25th there at Golden Huts guesthouse, an awesome set of bungalows with a good kitchen staff that cook good cheap food. I think I had 5 chicken sandwiches by the time we left.

The next day, January 26th, we left at 930am on a three day trek with Corn (pronounced 'Gone') and Too, our guides. After an hour and a half drive in the back of a pickup through very windy and hilly but generally well-paved mountain roads, we arrived at our starting point. We walked for several hours each day, up and down fairly steep forest hills. At times we hiked in the glaring sun, no shade in sight, sweat pouring like a water faucet off our brows. Most of the time we were in the spotted shade of the bamboo forests, sweat still pouring down our faces from the physical effort required to keep up with the uber fit guides.

The group was a good one. It consisted of myself, Jos, Ian, Ron, and one other traveller: Dave, from Vermont. Dave is 51 and smokes as much as our guides, which is a lot. He isn't unfit though, and not a complainer at all which was great. He's been travelling for the last 7 years, slowly getting rid of his property and belongings. As he says, he is now just "an email address and a PO Box." Breaking out into song at random times and generally quite energetic, he was an interesting guy to have along with the four of us young friends.

Corn is 36 but looks 26 and Too is 32 but could be confused with a 20 year old pretty easily. While Corn spoke fairly fluent English throughout the trip, Too's English was limited but usually sufficient to get by. Facial expressions, strange hand gestures, and a lot of laughter got many of our questions through to him. While Corn is single and living the young life still, Too is married as most Thais 20+ years old are, and has a 4 year old daughter. Too lives in Pai with Corn, sleeping in the back of the trekking office there, during the trekking high season. During the low season he returns to his village where his wife and daughter live and runs his farm, which explains his incredible strength and endurance. He can't weigh more than 120lbs at most (I easily lifted him over my head and most people can wrap their hand, pinky to thumb, around my biceps) but he sure packs a lot of muscle into that tiny frame. He's also very flexible, showing us some "stick tricks" with a bamboo staff that we all envied.

We spent the first night sleeping in the forest by a stream about 6 feet wide. Three extra people joined us for that first night, men from the local hilltribe where we had stopped for lunch. The five men, constantly rolling and smoking low grade tobacco in cornleaf wrappers, built us a shelter out of bamboo and banana leaves. We got them to teach us somewhat how to do it, and helped out a bit. If we had tried to do it ourselves we would have done a pretty bad job I think, as their machete skills are amazing. They also made our cups, bowls, kettle, pots, spoons and roasting grill out of bamboo and taught us how to catch frogs, which taste like chicken when you roast them on the fire.

We had a great meal of rice, pork, vegetables, and potato soup with lemon grass and chili paste by the fire, while the five men drank homebrew with tree bark for extra flavouring. I wasn't in the mood to try but it smelled like strong rum. Ian had two or three shots over the course of the night, sipping them slowly. Ron tried but didn't finish his. Dave doesn't drink anymore, ever.

In the morning the three hilltribe men left back to their village and we continued on our trek. We walked for a few hours to another village where we had lunch, then walked some more to another village, mostly abandoned three years ago for one with better road access, and slept there. We had a fire outside and once we got tired we went inside and slept on the bamboo floor about 8 feet off the ground, as they build their homes raised. The floor is a set of bamboo rods spaced about 8 inches apart, covered with a 'carpet' of bamboo reeds, about a foot wide each, so that there are small slits in the floor. Spill a drink? No problem, it goes right through the floor. In some places around support beams there were even holes in the floor, one of which I used to spit out my toothpaste after brushing.

A better sleep than the previous night (warmer and a more comfortable floor) but I did get a shock when all of a sudden, about two feet from me and 6 inches from Ian's head, two mice started fighting really loudly. They were on the outside of the wall at that point, but Ian woke up shortly thereafter and when I got back from the outdoor loo a couple minutes later he said they were inside. They ran around for a while and eventually I got back to sleep. Not before the roosters took their turn though. Just as Corn had told us, they began crowing at exactly 3am. There were three of them and they took turns crowing for some time, waking all of us for a bit. I don't think any of us was really bothered by it though, and we enjoyed sleeping there quite a bit.

The next day was our last and was quite hard walking, for me at least. It was perhaps partly because we had already spent two days walking, but it was also very hot and steep. Several times I had to stop for water when I got a bit dizzy. That wasn't a problem, as the people in front of me could keep walking and if I couldn't find my way Corn and Dave were always at the rear a few minutes behind.

The last section of this day was perhaps the most entertaining walking, as we had to cross about ten small streams. It was actually a small river/stream that snakes through the area. We were walking on a dirt road at this point, and it cuts right through the stream constantly. Every time we arrived at a new stream, Too would nimbly skip across the stones or log to the other side, while I was always the first behind him. Sometimes they were big solid rocks and easy to cross, but most were smaller rocks, sometimes wet, and not always steady. Everyone managed to make it across all of them with dry feet, with the exception of Ron who missed one part of a crossing and got his foot wet.

A 40 minute drive by pickup (this time much faster and a bit dizzying really) and we were back in Pai. We returned to Golden Huts and after cleaning ourselves up (I wore the same socks, underwear, and teeshirt for three days) we went out on the town.

It isn't a big town by any means, but there are many backpackers there and we found a couple of nice places to go, the first being Bebop (what a corny name) where there was great live music and a packed house. We met our Swiss friends Urs and Rene once again there, which was awesome. We also met three girls who are teaching English as a foreign language in different places in Thailand. There was Alex from LA, Zoe from Dublin, and Jenny from London. We met a bunch of other people as well, but that was a number of days ago and I can't recall them all off the top of my head right now.

At the second place, Bamboo, which was open much later than Bebop, we ate and talked in a quieter atmosphere, on bamboo reed floors above ground. It was a nice place, but this one guy there was really annoying. His name was Johnny, he was a dirty hippie (as opposed to a nice hippie, the kind I like) and he was from Seattle. He grew up there his whole life, yet speaks with a faux Irish accent and is annoying. Not only this, but he decided to come up to our table of friends with his bucket of Sangsom (Thai rum), Coke, and Redbull and speak to Ian.

"I don't like you" he said. Just like that. Ian hadn't even talked to the guy before. He kept at it for a while as we asked him to leave and stop bothering us, and eventually we decided to just talk to each other and pretend he wasn't there. That worked, and he soon left. We decided he had smoked too much pot and become paranoid, especially with the alcohol/red bull combination. If it had been a club or bar in the States or even Vancouver, he would have had his faced punched in by someone I'm sure, though it wouldn't have been us.

We spent the next day lounging around and preparing for our departure. The morning after that, we left on a minibus to Chiang Mai from where we flew to Luang Prabang, Lao People's Democratic Republic, where we now find ourselves. I will write about our adventures here at a later date, as my fingers are getting blisters from typing too much, and your eyes are likely burning from reading this much on a computer monitor, if you made it this far.