Here a Wat, There a Wat, Everywhere a Wat Wat, Louang Prabang, Laos

I've been told the river trip to Louang Prabang from Muang Ngoi is Laos' best and even though the river is barely passable at this time of year I'm determined not to miss it. After doing the required waiting at the boat dock, we're off. This trip only has 8 tourists compared to the dozens on the Mekong and it's much more intimate and pleasant. On the way down we see women in conical hats panning for gold, boys fishing with their enormous dive masks and spears, and little kids always scream, yell and perform some type of jumping acrobatic maneuver as we pass. Halfway to Louang Prabang the boat pulls over, the captain orders us out, and directs us to march downstream. The boat will be waiting, he says, past a dicey shallow section. After several minutes of walking with no boat in sight, we begin to wonder out loud if they've made off with our stuff. I only brought $5 and sunscreen which won't get me too far. Finally, after 30 minutes of walking we finally meet back up with the boat. Phew. Shortly after this escapade we run aground. This time we all roll up our pants, hop out, and start to push. Lots of local boys run over to give us a hand and soon we're on our way again. We reach Louang Prabang shortly before sunset and just in time for my favorite activity: dodging the touts and searching for lodging.

Louang Prabang is a city of Wats. Wats are to Louang Prabang what golf courses are to Hilton Head. You can't travel more than 50 meters without seeing orange robed monks working or sitting near A-framed red tiled roofs with beautiful, though decaying, white stone monuments. My favorite activity here, as in every city so far, is to rent a bike and explore. Otherwise it is great to have a wide selection of restaurants and I always enjoy the $3 massage.

My next stop is Vang Vieng, a five hour bus ride south through at least one mountain pass. Vang Vieng is a miserable town set amongst beautiful karst peaks. By miserable I mean you can't eat at a restaurant without a TV blaring Friends, South Park, or some other American show. Amazingly these places are all packed with stoned backpackers. Opium dens are big here and you can tell many travellers stay a while without doing much at all. Obviously I didn't stay here long, but I did do a day of rock climbing. A whole day only cost $20 and it's clear the company doesn't need to spend any of their profits on insurance. Shortly after starting, the guide tells us he's only been climbing for 3 months. Presumably this was to impress us, because he was quite a good lead climber, but after this information I didn't spend much time looking at the anchors! The climbing was ok, mostly it was nice to get some exercise since a lot of time travelling consists of sitting on buses, boats, trains, etc.

From Vang Vieng I headed another 5 hours south to the capital, Vientiane. It hardly feels like a capital, more like a large town, and it doesn't take long to "see the sights." I stay here one day and then it's time for a flight to Siam Reap, Cambodia on Lao Airlines. All the guidebooks say to avoid this airline and apparently western embassies advise the same as the crash record is fairly substantial. No problems though, I made it to Siam Reap safe and sound.

Thoughts on Laos:
1.) The Lao people seem to be able to spend the whole day in a squatting position with their butts on their heels. I don't see how this is at all possible.

2.) The family structure is extremely important here. Throughout the day you often see large groups huddled around eating. You can see some of the positive aspects of communism as everyone joins in to help is something needs to be done.

3.) This is an extremely poor country. According to the PM the GDP is $500/year which is probably generous b/c he was bragging in the Vientiane Times about how he'd doubled it in the past five years. This is still a communist country and opposing political parties are not allowed. Likewise there is no free press and demonstrations are forbidden. Having said all that, the country doesn't feel as poorly off as I was expecting. I only saw one, maybe two, homeless people. Yes, people outside the cities live in raised thatched huts (raised for wet season flooding) but they don't seem so badly off that you feel sorry for them. For example, while there is no infrastructure for plumbing, satellite dishes and blaring music are common. I wonder if the government somehow provided the infrastructure for plumbing if people would choose that over TV, but probably not as they are very engrossed in Thai soap operas. The one place you feel the inadequacies is with health care. On a long ride in a sawngthaew we picked up a woman in labor who was clearly having some type of complication. She had to endure a 3 hour ride in this truck over bumpy roads; she looked miserable and there really wasn't anything I could do to help. The guidebooks also say if you have a medical issue you should go to Thailand immediately.


Other notes: There is one woman from Switzerland that I keep running into. I met her in a cooking class in Chiang Mai. Then she sat next to me on the bus to the Laos border. Then I ran into her twice in Louang Prabang (biking and at a Wat). In Vang Vieng she had the room next to me at the guesthouse, and in Vientiane I ran into here in the dressing room of a silk shop. Just crazy.

For photos from Louang Prabang and On click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594092579282/

Running Errands with Locals, Muang Ngoi, Laos

After a couple of days exploring my surroundings in Muang Ngoi, I asked a guide about climbing the nearest karst mountain. He says it's too steep and dangerous, but I'm welcome to join him the following day on an errand upriver to buy wood. I figure this will be a good opportunity to be on the water and see what the locals get up to. Little did I know what running errands really entails. I find Houng the next morning at the designated time, 9:30, and it appears that he and his buddies are busy polishing off 6 bottles of Beer Lao. You should know that Beer Lao is not a 16 oz Budweiser, but is the size of a 40. Naturally, I'm not surprised that we don't leave until 11. It's one hour upriver to the village, Houng says. Six of us, all Lao men who look about 18-30 and me, pile in two boats. The boats have what looks like a lawn mower engine in the back and are about 3' wide and 25' long and shallow, but they don't feel unstable.
After 15 minutes of buzzing upriver we stop to go fishing. This unannounced stop doesn't include the typical American style fishing, namely throw-a-worm-on-a-hook and lounge about until the fish nibbles the end of your pole. Fishing Lao style means putting up a net to trap the fish, thumping the water with a bamboo pole as hard as possible to scare the fish into action, and finally taking a spear/slingshot contraption and shooting the fish. The Lao are remarkably successful with this technique, though I'm sure we would go hungry if I had to do the fishing.
We travel another 20 minutes upriver to the mouth of a cave where it turns out we are going to BBQ the fish. I'm a little confused at this point because I thought we were getting wood, but it's lunchtime, so what the heck. Given the beer guzzling of the morning, I shouldn't have been surprised that before the fish was ready they were doing shots of Lao Lao. I should probably say we were doing shots. Lao Lao is a questionable-tasting homemade rice whisky that does not go down smooth. Before long we were playing a drinking game, Lao style spin-the-bottle. We placed the head of the dead fish in a sticky rice container and whoever the fish head pointed to after given it a good shake did a shot. I managed to be in charge of the fish head until they caught me cheating.
At 5:00 p.m. we finally made it to the village to buy wood. Instead, however, we went into someone's hut and the guys took out a guitar and started singing Lao songs while, of course, we needed to drink Beer Lao. Drinking in Laos does not mean that everyone grabs a beer and drinks it. One person is in charge of the beer and pours a glassful, handing it off to someone. When he/she is done, the glass is emptied of any remaining beer, it is re-poured and handed to the next person. So they sing and sing with what feels like the whole village looking on. Partially they're looking at the whole commotion that just showed up in their village and partially they're looking at me; I sense not many western tourists make it here as this place isn't even on the map. After it starts to get dark Huong signals that it's time to go. We spend 1 hour sailing back to Muang Ngoi. The Nam Ou in this area, and during this season, is very low and while I'm thankful we don't crash, I really enjoy seeing the peaks barely outlined in the darkness and I can feel the stillness and calm of the river that is only briefly interrupted as we glide past.

For photos of this adventure click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594092583401/

Punctuality is the Soul of Business, Northern Laos

"Punctuality is the soul of business" read a sign in a trekking guide shop in Muang Ngoi in the north of Laos. The proprietor of this shop spoke decent English so it's likely he saw the absurdity of the statement. In Laos no transportation, or anything else for that matter, leaves on time or comes on time. The word punctuality must not have a Lao equivalent. I decided to start my journey in this country with a trip down the Mekong from the border town Houay Xai to Pakbeng on a "slow boat." I was told the boat leaves at 9, but that it gets exceedingly crowded so get there early. At 8 a.m. the next morning I am the only falang (foreigner) at the boat dock. At 9 a girl from Montana shows up and we get on the boat. Since we were the first ones on, we got the best seats, a platform right behind the driver that allows us to stretch our legs. And then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Someone in charge wanted 100 people before we moved. At 11:45 with 60 people we finally got underway. It's hard to imagine where they were going to put 40 more people anyway, but during the high season apparently they cram them in. Rivers are the lifeblood of the Lao people; transportation, commerce, bathing, fishing, play, you name it. And the Mekong is a spectacular river, wide, brown, slow-moving, it represents the nature of the country well. However, the slow boat ride didn't allow us to mingle with any Lao people, it was basically a party boat, and we faced inwards so it was hard to really experience the river. It was a pleasant journey though, with the water lapping against the side of the boat and the drone of the engine taking us to Pakbeng.
Pakbeng is the midway point for the two-day trip to Louang Prabang and you can't walk 5 meters in this place without being harassed to buy marijuana or opium. Fortunately back at the border I met a Canadian who suggested an alternative itinerary through Laos and so I headed north from here. Immediately after leaving Pakbeng on a sawngthaew (truck bed converted into people mover) I knew I was in for a much different journey. Along the way we picked up pigs and chickens and the driver sped into villages, blaring on the horn, several times barely missing ducks and even little boys. After 2 1/2 days I arrived in Muang Ngoi, a large village reachable only by boat. It was exactly what I would be looking for, if I was looking for something on this trip. The people here are not jaded by tourists yet and all the kids smile and shout out "say bai dee" (hello) when they see you. Off the beaten path Laos is extraordinarily cheap and my average expenditures here are $9/day. The nights are cool which is such a welcome change and my bungalow overlooks the river with a hammock on the deck. The karst peaks surround the river and the village and the morning mist doesn't blow off until midday. I spend a lot of time in the hammock reading and I'm occasionally interrupted by the guesthouse girl who wants to work on her English. The locals speak remarkably good English considering we seem to be in the middle of nowhere. I could see staying here for a while.

For photos of Northern Laos click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594090075092/

Meditation and Motorbikes, Chiang Mai

Right now I'm in Louang Phabang, Laos and I just had my $3, 1 hour foot massage that includes the head, shoulders, back, and arms. This is simply divine! Rejuvenated, I'm ready to tackle my blog again. Don't worry, it's not all this good. I've already found cockroaches and other big bugs in my bed.

So it only took a couple of days in Chiang Mai, a city in Northern Thailand, to realize that it is exceedingly difficult to have anything other than a very touristy experience in Thailand. I feel like I'm on vacation (which technically I am but . . . ). One day a cooking class. One day some hilltribe trekking. One day elephant riding and bamboo rafting. Life is easy, Thai food is good, it must be time for a meditation retreat! I found out about the retreat when I went to "Monk Chat" with Maria, a Spanish woman I met at the train station, and learned a ton about Buddhism. This was an open forum, just myself, Maria and the monk. I found out why there are no fat monks here: they only eat twice a day - 7 a.m. when the locals give food to the monks for merit and at noon, and the food given isn't always great. However, I also found out that the older monks who sometimes are fat, may have lost "the way" and don't know a life other than monkhood. These monks stay in the monkhood, lounging about, watching TV and eating lots of food. Anyway, I thought the two-day meditation retreat would be a good cultural experience (majority of Thais are Buddhist), though exceedingly boring, especially for someone like me who enjoys rather active pursuits. They took us 1/2 hour out of the city to a beautiful International Meditation Training Center. Right away we started in on the meditation, walking style first. The entire goal of this concentration meditation is to find peace and calm by eliminating all thoughts from your brain and coming to the present moment. Obviously, this is impossible. We followed this with sitting meditation. I can't possibly explain how uncomfortable this was! I've tried to think of an analogy and just can't. Inevitably, since you are sitting cross-legged, the right foot falls asleep. This means you have about 10 minutes left. When we came out of the meditation Pra Non, our monk instructor, says, "Don't worry of the foot. It is nature's way." Great! The next morning we woke at 5 a.m. for another 5 hours of meditation, rotating between the sitting and walking styles. The previous evening I saw some progress in my meditation, but in the morning I could only pray for the end. It was clear that this much Thai meditation was going to require some therapeutic Thai massage! Truthfully, I did find the whole experience calming, and not the least bit boring, but certainly intense.

After a couple of days in Chiang Mai, I decided to check out the countryside and a British bloke I met, Andy, joined me on a bus ride to Pai. This bus ride was the worst I've had in my life to this point. It was 4 hours on an uncomfortable seat, over the wheel well, without A/C. Urgh. Pai is as touristy as Chiang Mai so we rented motorbikes and headed out. Riding down the "open road" on my 125 cc, semi-automatic (no clutch) motorbike was the most enjoyable and refreshing experience I've had in Thailand. Unbelievable mountain scenery where trees seem to grow straight out of cliffs, with the wind blowing in my hair (sorry dad, no helmet), I really felt wonderful. The first stop on our trip was to the Karen Longneck hilltribe. Visiting this village is a bit like going to the zoo. All the people feel like they are on "display" which is a bit weird, but everyone was very nice and of course with all the colorful clothing and neck rings it's visually very different. They asked me to sit down and gave me all the proper Longneck attire, headscarves and neckrings. Those rings are heavy!!! Indeed, if an adult woman was to take them off, her muscles have atrophied so much that her head would fall over, snapping her neck, and she would die. Certainly this borders on a type of women's rights issue. They either do it because the men think it looks beautiful or it started as a way to ward off evil spirits (they are animist). I never did find out which it is. However, since it's such a tourist attraction, the custom probably won't die out soon. Most of these hilltribes are refugees from the dictatorship in Myanmar so it also earns them a living.

From there, we headed to Mae Aw, a tiny village 1 km from Myanmar. This required a 40 km escapade up a very steep and winding road. Andy almost ran out of gas, and went back down to town, but I didn't know this. I freaked out a bit since there was only 20 minutes of light left, but fortunately I continued up to Mae Aw. It was amazing and tranquil, right on a lake, and I showed up just in time for dinner. There were only two other tourists in town and we stayed up late chatting and drinking. Sleeping here was another matter. First, I pulled back the sheets to find a cockroach, and then decided to sleep on top of the sheets. Then, the cacophony of sounds began. It started as dogs barking viciously back and forth across the lake. At about 3 a.m. the roosters took over. At 5 a.m. I gave up. The sunrise over the lake was spectacular and my bungalow was 5' from the water with my own mini-dock. I could have sat there all day. Back to Pai it was though, where I found Andy waiting for the bus - I had both of our tickets.



A few notes about Thailand:

1.) There are all sorts of old white men here with young Thai women. I'm not sure what to make of this other than it's clear that anyone can be a sugar daddy here.

2.) Trying to cross the street is like playing the old video game Frogger. Any Californian who waits for the little man to appear on the streetlight is simply never going to make it across the street. Thankfully, I've been successful so far (knock on wood). You really have to step out there and hope the cars slow down for you.

3.) This country is unbelievably touristy and so easy to travel in. You never need to go more than 20' to find someone who will get you a visa, bus ticket, do your laundry, send you trekking, etc. I think it's easier to travel here than in Europe. However, it's very difficult to get off the beaten path.

4.) Thai cooking - I had really felt intimidated by Thai cooking before for some reason. It turns out it's as simple as having a Cuisinart and a wok. The hardest part is tracking down the ingredients. Thankfully, they gave me a cookbook and hopefully I will remember something by the time I get home!

Other notes: It's very easy to meet people travelling. In fact, I've spent very little time by myself yet. Also, you start running into the same people all over the place. One woman who was in my cooking class in Chiang Mai, sat next to me on the bus to Chiang Khong and then I've run into her twice in Louang Phabang. Crazy.

For photos of Chiang Mai click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594085330105/

Bangkok

In the chaos that ensued during my final month in L.A., getting ready to shut down my life in the US, I neglected to realize that getting to Bangkok required a 14 hour flight, a 2 hour layover in Taipei, and another 4 hour flight. Thank God for Fantasy Sky, which sounds better than it is. But it does have a great selection of on-demand everything.

When I arrived in Bangkok that first step out of the airport hit me in the gut. Trying to breath here is like sucking a thick milkshake through a straw. It's so hot and humid I started sweating instantly, even at 2 in the morning. And as it turns out, showing up at 2 am without a hotel reservation wasn't the best idea. Thankfully, I had the best taxi driver in the Bangkok. Certainly, he drove the only vehicle that stopped at red lights. After shuttling around quite a bit, he found me a hotel for 2850B ($80) which is 10 times more than I should be paying if I want to travel for more than one month, but hey, it had two bathrooms.

Fortunately the next night I found a $9/night room (no A/C, no hot water) on a street the equivalent of Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade. I showed up to a Thai street performance that highlighted "bungee jumping" a 4 year old girl from the top of a 30' bamboo pole. The Bechtel safety violations were way to numerous to count.

On my walk over to the new "guesthouse" it took about 20 minutes of carrying my pack to realize I needed to eliminate half of the shit in there. So naturally when I woke up the next morning I went shopping. The Chatuchak Market in Bangkok is a colorful, chaotic, 15,000 stall shopping labyrinth. It was completely overwhelming! First, you just aren't going to hit every stall and there's no systematic way of tackling it. The scarce maps don't even have a "you are here" star. Second, bargaining is completely new to me. In the States, you simply don't walk into Nordstrom, look at a $90 pair of shoes and say, "I'll pay you $45, that's a fair price." In seeking out the friendliest, English-speaking people I could find to get the scoop I met Trish and Toni, a mother-daughter duo from Chicago/Detroit. They explained you offer half the price quoted to you, negotiate from there, and expect to pay 40% less than the quote. I thanked them profusely and wandered off to see what bargains I could find. The only time I felt I got a decent deal is when I asked "how much" for a sparkly tank top and the women said 420 bhat ($10.50). Two seconds later another Thai-looking women asked about the same shirt and was quoted 240 bhat. I probably should have bargained more, but I paid the 240 bhat and decided I like the western method better: you look at the product, look at the price, decide if you want it and either pay or leave. Simple.

On my way out I ran into Trish and Toni again in the exact same place I met them 4 hours earlier. The chances of this happening were really not good, so they invited me to dinner at their hotel. Good thing I bought a new shirt because their hotel was the 5 star Peninsula. They treated me for my b-day (I'm now 30 #@&!?) to a great buffet dinner overlooking the river and after we went across for drinks atop the Statesmen building. There was this huge domed terrace overlooking the whole city - it felt like having drinks at the top of the Empire State Building. After a great night I had to remind myself not to get used to these luxuries!

On my way back across the city to my guesthouse there was a massive traffic jam and we slowly passed what looked to me like a Lallapalooza concert. I found out later that it was a huge political demonstration with 150,000 people. I never would have thought there would be political upheaval in Thailand! But it turns out the PM Thaksin Shinawatra who owns half the country sold a big portion to a holding company of the Singapore government. Before doing so, he passed a bill so he wouldn't have to pay taxes on the gabillion dollar transaction. So last week he dissolved the House and called a snap election. Apparently he pays off the poor with low-income housing and cash so he will just win again, despite all the demonstrations and calls for his resignation. So now you are all caught up on the Thai political situation.

Sorry I've been slow to post. I've been working on figuring out the photo situation. I heard Apple told me to "git er dun" so I'm spending the day at the internet cafe in Luang Phabang getting caught up.

For photos of Bangkok, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594085170403/