Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang is the cultural capital of Laos. Once the ancient capital of Laos, it is still where everyone goes for cultural enrichment through the many well-kept temples, museum, and traditional hill tribe villages living within close proximity to the city.

Although it is a tourist hub as well, LP still manages to evoke the sense that one is in a small, quaint town through its many local restaurants, Hmong night market, and locally owned guesthouses. Naturally, I broke down the first night I was there and bought some gorgeous antique and vintage textiles made by the Khan tribes of Northern Laos. I bought some traditional baby carriers in bright shades of pinks and greens, reminiscent of traditional Mexican embroidery, as well as antique fragments of wedding blankets (sewn by prospective brides for their husband-to-bes) with lovingly sewn traditional representations of nagas (a sea creature which is the protector of the Lao people and the symbol of water and its life-giving properties) and the like. I spent 4 full days in this charming city strolling around observing the beautiful temples, taking a boat trip down the Mekong to visit a Buddha cave, eating yummy dishes along the river bank, and, of course, shopping. I also did a bit of volunteering for a local organization which prints and distributes English-Lao picture dictionaries free of charge to local schools and children. I spent a couple of hours helping the coordinators translate some clip-art which they had downloaded from the internet. It was quite simple really and I was happy to help.

I didn't really want to leave LP except that my Vietnamese visa is due to begin on April 30th and there are some beautiful things in Southern Laos that I would very much like to see. Namely the ruins of Wat Phou, claimed to be the most evocative Khmer ruin outside of Cambodia, and the area known as the 4,000 Islands (Si Phan Don), a collection of Mekong River islands whose inhabitants have largely been able to carry on their traditional lifestyles. This journey down south will also take me near the Vietnamese border where I will be crossing into Hue, a coastal town in central Vietnam.

At the moment, however, I am spending the day back in the capital waiting for my night bus to take me to Pakse where I will begin my journey south. I have spent a large part of my day cowardly running from the sun and nursing as many cups of iced coffees as possible. There is really not much to do in Vientiane and since I pretty much covered it all last week, I felt entitled to a few ice cold Lao coffees inside the air-conditioned bliss of the Scandinavian Bakery on Nam Phou Square.

Laos: First Impressions

Today is my 5th full day in Laos. Generally speaking, Laos is an extremely rural country, quite large considering it has a population of only 5 million. I arrived on Sunday morning to Vientiane, the capital city, via The Friendship Bridge border crossing. I stayed at a rather overpriced guesthouse ($12) considering the overall cleanliness of the place, and spent the rest of the day sightseeing. Lao New Year was still being celebrated here so I placed everything in a waterproof bag, donned a bathing suit underneath my clothes and set out. Going out during Buddhist New Year is rather like going out in a war zone (though these guns are full of water rather than bullets) because one who wishes not to get wet must peer around corners, furtively walk behind parked cars, dart across the street at the sight of buckets, and generally feel very on edge while walking around. Naturally, none of this seemed to help me as I was instantly drenched the moment I stepped out of my guesthouse as being a foreigner makes me the most sought after target. I was then repeatedly doused with colored water, luckily though, it was purple, my favorite color.
Vietiane is the smallest, least developed capital city I have ever been to. One can walk from one end of the city to the other in about 10 minutes, only about half of all the streets are paved, there is little to no nightlife to speak of, and only 2 ATMS in the whole place. I was easily able to see all of the major sights within a couple of hours walking at a slow ramble. The Lao seemed to place more emphasis on the actual "Buddhist" part of the Buddhist New Year than did the Thais, as all wats (temples) were filled to the brim with devotees ritually cleansing the Buddha with flowered water. This was a wonderful site for me to see as everything was awash in color from the saffron-clad monks, to the creamy frangipani leaves, to the marigold wreaths wrapped around the Buddhas necks. Furthermore, everything was glistening in the sunlight due to the copious amounts of water on all the statues and people. After sightseeing I ate the crispiest baguette sandwich this side of Paris. One thing that Vientiane is known for, besides the fact that it has its own mini Arc de Triomphe, is that it has deliciously crispy baguettes, something that is nearly impossible to find in Kansas City.
The following day, finding that one day was quite enough in the capital, I took an early VIP bus to Vang Vieng. Now, since VIP in Laos does not quite connote what it might in the Western world, this was simply an extremely aged, frayed bus which happened to have working A/C and not much else. It took 4 hours to get 220 kilometers (approximately 136 miles) due to the chugging of the bus and the poor, poor quality of the roads where they were barely paved at best and at worst were covered in deep potholes on every side. However, the ride was comfortable enough and went quite smoothly, all things considered. Vang Vieng is a backpacker's haven providing cheap food and Beer Lao, cheap accommodation, and lots of outdoor activities along the river such as tubing, kayaking, and caving. I managed to find a quite decent guesthouse with A/C for only $8 a night. The next day I went kayaking and caving with a local tour agency. It was a small group of 7 people (2 Japanese, 2 Poles, 2 Swiss, and lonely 'ole me) and we first went tubing along a river inside of a cave. It was very cool as I have never done anything like that before. Naturally, I promptly dropped my new prescription sunglasses into the blackness of the water and lost them for good. I am now spending my days squinting into the sunlight attempting to read street signs! We then took a leisurely 3 hour kayak trip down the Nam Ngum River. The water was quite low due to it being the dry season so we merely floated down the river and soaked up the amazingly beautiful scenery of bright green vegetation and immense limestone karsts jutting up out of the ground for miles on either side. It was just spectacular!
I am now in Luang Prabang, where the entire city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and I am sitting in an internet cafe where my neighbor is a monk (!) in a bright orange robe, barefooted, using the 'net! Only in Laos! I took another grueling VIP bus here where it only comfortably fit 9 people yet we were 12 young backpackers all smashed together for the 6 hour hair-ripping drive through the mountains with no side rails and the driver recklessly careening around every bend in the road (and there were many!). Gorgeous lush green mountain scenery though. I found a lovely, clean, wonderfully bug-free room in a traditional Lao style guesthouse with teak furniture, dark stained wooden floors and a lovely balcony overlooking the temple across the street all for $10 a night! The first thing I did upon arrival was treat myself to a $3 one hour Lao massage at the local Red Cross station. Lao massage, unlike the brutal Thai massage where they twist and bend you into any number of constricting positions, is much calmer using gentle touch with tiger balm to cool off your sore muscles. I then ate yellow curry with fish and spicy green papaya salad along the Mekong River and spoke Spanish to an Italian. After dinner I shopped the Hmong (an indigenous tribe) night market where I bought beautifully dyed and woven textiles that were originally used as baby slings. I am now starting out on my first full day of sightseeing.

I think that that is quite enough for today, so sorry for my long-windedness. Will write more about Luang Prabang soon.

The Songkran Festivites

We finally made it to Khon Kaen, the third largest city in Thailand and the city just outside Anne's childhood village. The drive from Phuket took 16 hours which we broke up over 2 days. We stopped in Hua Hin, a cute little city on the Gulf of Thailand, on the first night at a lovely boutique hotel. We then left the following morning to finish up the journey. The reason it took so long to make it up here is due to the Thai drivers who, much like in Lawrence, KS, like to drive right next to eachother at speeds of about 50 mph. Michael, much like myself, was spewing typical Weinstein curses out the window and wishing he had an Ouzie to shoot them all down. Luckily, we made it without incident to the Sofitel here in Khon Kaen. Along the way we saw a truck full of coconuts with a gibbon riding on top, an elephant in an extremely lopsided truck, trucks filled to the brim with all manners of things from colorful mattresses, people and luggage, cowboys from Isann, etc. Sightseeing from our air-conditioned car was so interesting that I barely slept the whole way.

Yesterday, April 11th, was our first full day in Khon Kaen. We headed to Anne's village where we were to be the stars on her sister's float. The theme of the float was "The Farang" so all the Thai's wore colorful wigs and Michael and I just had to dance since we were the only 'true' farangs. Basically it was a heavily decorated truck blasting Thai versions of Western music with all the Thai's drinking super strong rice whiskey and munching on crispy crickets. I abstained from both and snapped photos instead. I know I said that I would be trying everything, but I have had some tummy problems the past few days and thought that the combination of the two might be bad. I still plan on trying them soon though, especially since little Jonah (who barely eats anything on a normal basis) loves crickets and ants! Michael, intent on impressing the judges with his farang moves, spent most of his time girating on the side of the truck. I think it did the trick though, as our float came in second place! Unfortunately, due to judge corruption a float from another village took first place!

We spent the rest of the day watching the dance shows given for the pleasure of the judges. First were the transvestites dancing to a Thai version of Cher, then some older ladies performing a local dance, and then the Thai traditional dancers. I have videos of them all and will post them as soon as I can find a website like Picasa to post them on. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The Thai New Year is originally a Buddhist New Year celebration based on the Lunar calendar. It is now commonly known as the Water Festival where roaming bands of people literally douse anyone in sight with ice water from buckets, hoses, and waterguns. The water was originally used to ritually cleanse the Buddha figure in the local Wat (temple) where every Thai goes on April 13th. Now, however, many young Thais no longer go back to their childhood home nor to the local wat, but instead get extremely drunk off homemade whisky and drench any unsuspecting passerby. When I say drench I mean that in the whole sense of the word: one can not even cross the street without being soaked head to toe. Luckily, thanks to Ertan, I have a waterproof camera case so I was able to take photos of the festivities.

On Saturday April 14th, we all jumped into the back of Anne's sister's truck with 2 barrels full of water and armed to the tooth with waterguns and buckets. We, however, had the disadvantage of not having ice water like everyone else. I, the good sport that I am, spent the first 5 minutes smiling and then every consecutive minute after that cursing under my breath whenever I was doused with cold, cold water. Since I am a farang I basically had a label on my forehead declaring, "Yes, please douse me with the most water you can manage", and so was the target of every Thai with a bucket!

I am now in Laos after a pleasingly uneventful bus journey across the border for under $6! Naturally today is the first day of the Lao New Year in which basically the same thing happens here (only they use colored water! AIAIAIAI!). Everything seems to be closed until the 18th so I guess I will just be wandering around trying not to get wet until then!

Sorry for the lapse in posts, but there was no easily accessible internet in Khon Kaen. I will also be posting photos within the next couple of days.

Food and Gibbons

So.....I think that perhaps I did not gush enough about the food in Thailand because I have so much more to say on this, one of my very favorite subjects, street food. Yesterday we went to the Gibbon Reserve that I had read about in The Lonely Planet Code Green Guide (a guide that highlights eco-friendly/culture-friendly programs and initiatives worldwide for travelers to take part in), but to be perfectly honest, the climax of my day came when we went to the local food market afterwards. I will talk more about the Gibbons shortly, just please bear with me.

Anne, my Thai aunt, loves good street food just as much as I do so she took us to this little local outdoor food market where I was blessedly the only farang. I ate my heart out and I ate with gusto, even though I had already eaten lunch a mere hour before. We had fried bananas and sweet potatoes (Jonah's favorite), little pancake-like things made with coconut cream and corn. They are delicately sweetened and melt in your mouth, each perfectly sized at roughly the size of a silver dollar. We got a little tray of a dozen or so for about a quarter. We washed those down with ice cold fermented milk which was both sweet and sour at the same time, quite refreshing. We then moved on to the woman preparing lightly spicy fish curry with rice beautifully wrapped in thick banana leaves, which yet again, simply melted in the mouth. Not finished yet, we had spicy BBQ chicken legs (did I mention I recenly started to eat chicken again after an abstention of 10 years? I just really missed it!) and washed that down with super sweet fresh sugar cane juice. For dessert we had warm sweetened soy milk soup in which was mixed a variety of fruits that I could not identify; 2 bags full for 10 cents each. Honestly, if we hadn't had to leave I could have continued eating! In total we only spent about $7 for all that food, and we were 4 people.

The crowning moment in this frenzy of food tasting was the tasting of the Durian Fruit for the first time. Durian Fruit, that most mythical of all Asian fruits, loved and loathed by both foreigners and locals alike, is quite simply indescribable (but I will try my best). Often described as eating sewer-smelling vanilla custard out of a vessel quite similar to a porcupine, Durian is not high on most farangs list of "What to Eat". Perhaps for this very reason it was very high on mine and was, in fact, the first thing I tried yesterday. Durian is commonly known to possess, when opened, a frighteningly sewer-like smell, and so most hotels post signs featuring a picture of a crossed-out Durian. I, however, wouldn't categorize the stench as being on par with a sewer, not that it smelled like flowers, but I did not think it was at all off-putting enough to dissuade me from trying it. After one figures out how to open it up without doing some serious damage to your fingers (it is, after all, covered in thick, pointy spines, and many people have been known to die while waiting for the bus under a Durian tree), inside one finds 6 or so pods filled with a slimy, yellow, custard-like substance. This is where one finds the edible bits, one simply grabs a pod and eats it as best they can. The only problem is that it is rather difficult to eat sans utensils as the goo has a tendency to run all over your fingers and arms. As both my cousin and aunt were watching me for signs of disgust they both shouted with relief when I pronounced that I was now a fan of Durian and that we could all clandenstinely enjoy it together away from the hypersensitive nose of my uncle. In order to better appreciate the Durian without acutally tasting it, I do recommend looking at the latest album I have posted on Picasa as there are an array of tantalizing Durian shots.

The Gibbon Reserve (formally the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project) was well organized in terms of information about their project, why the gibbons are there, and the way in which they are rehabilitated. Currently, there are 32 Gibbons at the reserve all in some stage of rehabilitation. All Gibbons there were taken from people who had obtained them illegally. Most Gibbons where then housed in terribly small cages, used to lure tourists into bars, restaurants, or shops, and oftentimes given uppers or alcohol to keep them awake and active for the farang picture takers. Most of these Giboons had little or no contact with other Gibbons and so a big part of their rehabilitation is getting them accustomed to other Gibbons like themselves (not to mention detox from the horrible things they were given!). Perhaps unfortuantely for tourists, the site is not well equipped for Gibbon viewing as the main goal of the reserve is to re-sensitize these Gibbons to humans and to view them as warily as possible (much like they would do in the wild). Fortunately for the Gibbons this seems to be working, however the lack of exposure means a lack of donations for the site. One can adopt a Gibbon for one year and see to its eventual rehabilitation and re-establishment into the wild for a mere 1500 Baht (about $43). One can do so via the internet at: www.gibbonproject.org. All money goes directly to help the Gibbons survival. Please refer to my photos or to the website for more information on adopting gibbons.

Today was a landmark day for me. I rode a bike! I know that this may not seem extraordinary to most, but I haven't set a sneaker on a bike since I was 12 years old (well, I did go for a round in Bonn, Germany at 16 but I ran into a tree and at least one person). I decided that I will be traveling to many little towns that are perhaps too small for much public transportation, yet too big to walk everywhere, and so I just might need to rent a bike. I biked for a full 20 minutes on my uncle's mountain bike, much too big for me and with one of those terribly uncomfortable "boy" seats, with no crashing into things or falling down! I will admit I was in a residential cul-de-sac where only 1 car drove by the entire time, but to me it felt like quite an accomplishment! I don't think I am yet ready for Hanoi, but I'll try again tomorrow and hope for some improvement!

One thing that I have yet to mention is the heat. I know that everyone already knows that it is hot in Southeast Asia, but it is truly, painfully hot. The heat permeates everything, not only is it an almost constant 38 celsius here but combine that with 99% humidity and you are destined to be in a complete sweat most of the day. I, of course, have spent the majority of my days inside my uncle's blissfully cool air-conditioned house. i know that this is not helping me to become acclimated to the heat that will ultimately be thrust upon me the moment I set out on my own as I do not think that $20 a day affords much air-con, but it is just so much cooler in here. Perhaps I am just prone to sweating, but that is what I do the second I step outside. I know it is hard to imagine from the comfort of your air-con house while you are reading this but do have some pity on me if I mention this topic perhaps once or twice again! I think I may be sweating just thinking about it...

Something I forgot to mention is that I would truly appreciate any tips or ideas from anyone reading this that has traveled to any of the places that I hope to reach! Please just post them directly through this blog. Thanks. Take Care everyone and thanks for reading!

My first post

This posting is my very first ever. i am new to this blogging thing so please bear with me. I am starting this blog simply to allow my friends and family a more unique way to access my travels than by group emails or the like. However, anyone is of course welcome to read on!

I arrived in Bangkok around midnight on March 31st via Seoul on Korean Air. I left Chicago at 8 am on March 29th and arrived practically 2 full days later! The flight went very smoothly with good food, attentive service, and multiple movies to choose from. I arrived in the brand-spanking new International Airport in BKK where I found everything from customs and baggage claim to go smoothly and quickly. Within a half of an hour I found myself in line for a taxi into the city. These were not 'normal' taxis by American standards, not your boring old yellow NYC taxicabs, we were in Bangkok afterall. These taxis ranged from dayglo orange, to hot pink with purple stripes, from turquoise blue with flames, to half neon green and yellow. Luckily, I soon found myself being spirited away (quite literally at over 120 km/hr!) by a hot pink number with a "I Heart Farang" bumbersticker. "Farang" being the Thai word for 'foreigner', namely Westerners. The only thing my driver knew how to say in English was, "You like music?" and music I do like, so we were immediately jammin' out to the newest Thai disco. A taxi into the city should be no more than 400 baht (at 35 baht to the $1), but use a metered taxi as it will be cheaper. I was meeting my Uncle, who lives in Phuket, at the Rembrandt Hotel on Soi 18, off of Sukhumvit Road, a very popular road for hotels, shops, restaurants. It was very nice at 2800 BH for a large double (2 double beds) with ensuite, Satellite TV, minibar, and breakfast. They even had piped in birdsong in the hallways and elevators, giving you the constant impression you were outside.

The next day we went directly to Phuket so I could spend some time with my cousins there. I have been here since then doing basically nothing but swimming, boating, and lots and lots of eating! The food in Thailand is really quite wonderful, especially for those of us who love truly spicy food. I have been eating fresh blue crabs, steamed white Snapper with garlic and pepper, pomelo and shrimp salad, mango, avocado, and rock lobster salad, fresh oysters the size of your palm, shrimp noodle soup for a $1, curried tuna sandwiches, the requisite Pad Thai, and the mouthwatering list simply goes on and on! I do not think I will be losing much weight here if I continue to eat this way! But that is just fine by me!

I went for my first dive today; my first dive, in fact, in over 2 years! It was a nice easy, shallow dive, perfect for buffing up my lost diving skills. Even though the water was rather choppy today, we were able to see lobsters, eels, octopi (puses?), sting rays, sea snails, and a plethora of colorful fish and coral. We dove from a spot called Bungalow Bay about an hour by a very slow boat from Phuket. I went with the dive company Bubble Dive, a friend of my Uncle's where the going rate for 2 dives, breakfast, lunch, and a snack, plus transportation is 3000 BH.

I will be in Phuket until the 10th of April when we will be going to my Aunt's village of 450 people for Songkran, the Thai New Year. This should be a most interesting cultural experience as there will be no other Farang other than my Uncle and myself for 5 days. I will post a blog about that experience shortly afterwards.

I hope you enjoyed this first of many amateur blogs!