In Chiang Mai we met back up with Pierce and Hannah, which entailed a lot of poker while we waited for Monday to arrive so we could go to the consulate and apply for our Indian visas.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Border Crossing: Laos to Thailand
Here were our options to get from Luang Prabang, in northern Laos, to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, just a wee distance apart on the map.
1) Fast boat + bus = a speedboat which is liable to disintegrate on contact with Mekong River debris and is so dangerous that it may soon be outlawed to foreigners (1 day) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
2) Slow boat + bus = 100 foreigners packed onto hard wooden benches for 10 hours one day, and 7 hours the next day to reach the border (2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
3) Bus + bus = 17 hours of windy, muddy, pot-holed roads in Laos to get to the border (1-2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
4) Plane = 1 hour
We like to consider ourselves intrepid travelers, but we were staring down the barrel of one month and three countries left in SE Asia... we took the plane.
1) Fast boat + bus = a speedboat which is liable to disintegrate on contact with Mekong River debris and is so dangerous that it may soon be outlawed to foreigners (1 day) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
2) Slow boat + bus = 100 foreigners packed onto hard wooden benches for 10 hours one day, and 7 hours the next day to reach the border (2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
3) Bus + bus = 17 hours of windy, muddy, pot-holed roads in Laos to get to the border (1-2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)
4) Plane = 1 hour
We like to consider ourselves intrepid travelers, but we were staring down the barrel of one month and three countries left in SE Asia... we took the plane.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Luang Prabang
First off, Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage site, mostly, as far as I can tell, because of the number of wats and monks. 
The town is filled with these wats (small monastery/temples) where monks of all ages go about there daily lives. Around 6am each morning the monks process to receive food offerings from locals and, increasingly, tourists who are sometimes bused in just for the show, and line up in droves with cameras on tripods to capture it. I had been pushing for us to get up and see the procession, but we found ourselves embarrassed to be among the other tourists, and decided to refrain from taking photos and take a quiet stroll instead.
We had great company while in Luang Prabang, including friends from southern Laos and an Irish couple who had spent 6 months in India and were on their way to China; we exchanged lots of stories and tips. One of the quirks of Luang Prabang is that the whole town closes up at 11pm except a Chinese run bowling alley on the outskirts of the area. One night, after a lovely evening of drinks by the river and all-you-can-fit-on-your-plate vegetarian food for $.60, we piled into a tuk-tuk and bowled the night away.
The 3 Americans far out-bowled the Cambodian, the Belgian, and the 2 Irish. In case you were wondering.
While we enjoyed an afternoon cycling around town, and evenings of fantastic street food, our favorite day took us out of town to the Kuang Si waterfall, hands down the best I've ever been to! On our way in, we stopped by the moon bear preserve where several rescued bears, captured when babies to harvest their bile for "medicine", were living out their lives in peace.
They're called Moon Bears for the distinctive half-moon shaped swoop of white marking their chests.
The waterfall itself was super dramatic.
Walking up to it, we passed some beautiful smaller pools,
and once at the top we were able to hike up around the side where we found a wooden staircase which went straight up through some cascades to reach the top of the mountain.
Back in town, we climbed Phu Si hill on our last evening in order to catch the sunset and the lovely views over the whole area.
The town is filled with these wats (small monastery/temples) where monks of all ages go about there daily lives. Around 6am each morning the monks process to receive food offerings from locals and, increasingly, tourists who are sometimes bused in just for the show, and line up in droves with cameras on tripods to capture it. I had been pushing for us to get up and see the procession, but we found ourselves embarrassed to be among the other tourists, and decided to refrain from taking photos and take a quiet stroll instead.We had great company while in Luang Prabang, including friends from southern Laos and an Irish couple who had spent 6 months in India and were on their way to China; we exchanged lots of stories and tips. One of the quirks of Luang Prabang is that the whole town closes up at 11pm except a Chinese run bowling alley on the outskirts of the area. One night, after a lovely evening of drinks by the river and all-you-can-fit-on-your-plate vegetarian food for $.60, we piled into a tuk-tuk and bowled the night away.
The 3 Americans far out-bowled the Cambodian, the Belgian, and the 2 Irish. In case you were wondering.While we enjoyed an afternoon cycling around town, and evenings of fantastic street food, our favorite day took us out of town to the Kuang Si waterfall, hands down the best I've ever been to! On our way in, we stopped by the moon bear preserve where several rescued bears, captured when babies to harvest their bile for "medicine", were living out their lives in peace.
They're called Moon Bears for the distinctive half-moon shaped swoop of white marking their chests.The waterfall itself was super dramatic.
Walking up to it, we passed some beautiful smaller pools,
and once at the top we were able to hike up around the side where we found a wooden staircase which went straight up through some cascades to reach the top of the mountain.
Back in town, we climbed Phu Si hill on our last evening in order to catch the sunset and the lovely views over the whole area.
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Road to Luang Prabang
At 9am a mini-van swung by our guest house and we were whisked across town to the bus station where we and about 30 other people were packed like sardines into three mini-vans, our bags slung up on the roof, and after a little rearranging, we were off!
'Off' being relative because this road was just FULL of potholes, mud pits, hairpin turns, and the like... not the worst we've ever been on, but, tucked in the back with our knees to our chins, our
mournful early thoughts were that this was going to be a LONG ride. Luckily, it was also a stunning ride as we headed up and into and around and through the mountains of northern Laos. Entire villages were tucked along the curves, with stilts holding them up over sheer drops, and each time 
we emerged from behind a mountain another gorgeous vista was spread below us.
All this beauty served to lull us despite the high speed and violent taking of turns that our driver was committed to.
About 4 hours in to what was billed as a 6 hour ride, there was a thud directly beneath me, and a scraping sound as we screeeched to a halt. Ben looked left, and saw our tire go whirling past us and over the side of the mountain.
Driver was absolutely unperturbed. Getting out of the van, he sent some local kids who were standing around to go look for the tire. We passengers were a little stunned, but pitched in by scouring the road in search of the nuts. Driver pulled out a hammer and went at the wheel well with a vengeance. Was this the end of the road for us today, you might ask? Not at all. The kids reappeared with the wheel, the driver put that wheel right back on, and we loaded back up and took off. At first the driver was definitely testing the waters carefully, taking curves slowly and carefully, pulling to a stop twice to get the hammer back out when the wheel got a little wonky again. Soon his confidence was back though, and we were tearing around curves like our wheel had never flown off at all.
Big sighs all around when we pulled into the bus station outside of Luang Prabang.
'Off' being relative because this road was just FULL of potholes, mud pits, hairpin turns, and the like... not the worst we've ever been on, but, tucked in the back with our knees to our chins, our
mournful early thoughts were that this was going to be a LONG ride. Luckily, it was also a stunning ride as we headed up and into and around and through the mountains of northern Laos. Entire villages were tucked along the curves, with stilts holding them up over sheer drops, and each time 
we emerged from behind a mountain another gorgeous vista was spread below us.All this beauty served to lull us despite the high speed and violent taking of turns that our driver was committed to.
About 4 hours in to what was billed as a 6 hour ride, there was a thud directly beneath me, and a scraping sound as we screeeched to a halt. Ben looked left, and saw our tire go whirling past us and over the side of the mountain.
Driver was absolutely unperturbed. Getting out of the van, he sent some local kids who were standing around to go look for the tire. We passengers were a little stunned, but pitched in by scouring the road in search of the nuts. Driver pulled out a hammer and went at the wheel well with a vengeance. Was this the end of the road for us today, you might ask? Not at all. The kids reappeared with the wheel, the driver put that wheel right back on, and we loaded back up and took off. At first the driver was definitely testing the waters carefully, taking curves slowly and carefully, pulling to a stop twice to get the hammer back out when the wheel got a little wonky again. Soon his confidence was back though, and we were tearing around curves like our wheel had never flown off at all.Big sighs all around when we pulled into the bus station outside of Luang Prabang.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Vang Vieng, Laos
Vang Vieng is a small town conveniently located halfway between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, in Northern Laos. It's in a beautiful location, with caves and cycling draws, but has become a fixture on the backpacker trail for its special take on tubing (mom, that's sitting on a big inner-tube and floating down a river; often beer is involved). The river there is pretty clean, and flows between mountains, villages... and bars. About a dozen bars, with bass beats throbbing, mud volleyball, crazy zip-line and trapeze style swings out over the water, and cheap whiskey buckets, line the first two kilometers of the trip. As you float by, they throw out ropes and haul you in for the party.
I was prepared to look down my nose at all, but I have to say that it was a GREAT party.
We spent two days in town, and the highlight was really where we stayed...
a gorgeous little guest house just on the outskirts of all the action. Based on a recommendation from some girls we'd met farther south, we splurged on the $10 dollar bungalows down and across the river from the guest house proper. Our place was BIG -- we felt like we should have been subletting the extra bed! -- and we had our own bathroom and hot water and hammock. A minor detraction came in the form of the dessicated tarantula corpse that we found in the bathroom. I mean, what, exactly, lives up in the rafters that was going around killing tarantulas? But it all faded into the background when it came to location. Just look at where we were:
I was prepared to look down my nose at all, but I have to say that it was a GREAT party.
We spent two days in town, and the highlight was really where we stayed...
a gorgeous little guest house just on the outskirts of all the action. Based on a recommendation from some girls we'd met farther south, we splurged on the $10 dollar bungalows down and across the river from the guest house proper. Our place was BIG -- we felt like we should have been subletting the extra bed! -- and we had our own bathroom and hot water and hammock. A minor detraction came in the form of the dessicated tarantula corpse that we found in the bathroom. I mean, what, exactly, lives up in the rafters that was going around killing tarantulas? But it all faded into the background when it came to location. Just look at where we were:
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Massage Stop & Vientiane
From Don Det we regretfully took the boat/mini-bus transfer to the lovely southern town of Pakse. Fellow travelers report that outside of Pakse are some lovely waterfalls and Khmer ruins, but with an overnight bus to catch that night, we decided to spend our afternoon there in a different way.
Ben, a great lover of massages, had convinced me, the cheapskate, that we were due a little luxury, and we were directed up the street to this hotel,
where we were told we could grab a shower and a massage. It looked wayyy too fancy to me... I figured that they'd take one look (and smell!) at us with our ratty t-shirts and shoo us right out the door. That and I imagined that any spa services that this place was offering would be just a tad outside our budget. How wrong I was. For $5 a pop we each had an almost warm shower (we'd been almost two weeks with the cold showers in this stretch) and a fabulous Lao massage. We'd both gotten stuffy noses while staying in the green paradise of Don Det, so the menthol rub-down that came with the massage not only left us tingly, but cleared our noses right out as well.
After street-sandwiches and a beer with some fellow travelers from the islands, we boarded our overnight bus for the capital. These sleeper buses were totally different than the ones we became so familiar with in Vietnam -- on each side of the bus were bunks of almost-full length "double" beds. It was a very cozy night's sleep for Ben and me, though perhaps might have been less so if either of us had been stuck spooning a stranger.
We arrived in Vientiane at 6am, and lucked out in that our shared jumbo tuk-tuk from the bus station ended up driving us all over town dropping other people off, allowing us to see lots of beautiful wats in the morning light. After finding a hotel, we set out to look for a cobbler to repair Ben's sandals (success!), and to find the Arc de Triomphe look-alike in the center of the city.
We had been promised ugly by travelers moving the otherway down through Laos, and the sign on it's wall seems to support that view... 
That afternoon heavy rains moved in, and so we ate, napped, emailed, and took it easy in a city that it is easy to relax in. While everyone had told us there wasn't much to do in this tiny capital city, it was wonderfully laid back and if we'd had more time, we would have loved to stay another day or two soaking up the great French food and architecture and the slow pace.
Ben, a great lover of massages, had convinced me, the cheapskate, that we were due a little luxury, and we were directed up the street to this hotel,
where we were told we could grab a shower and a massage. It looked wayyy too fancy to me... I figured that they'd take one look (and smell!) at us with our ratty t-shirts and shoo us right out the door. That and I imagined that any spa services that this place was offering would be just a tad outside our budget. How wrong I was. For $5 a pop we each had an almost warm shower (we'd been almost two weeks with the cold showers in this stretch) and a fabulous Lao massage. We'd both gotten stuffy noses while staying in the green paradise of Don Det, so the menthol rub-down that came with the massage not only left us tingly, but cleared our noses right out as well.After street-sandwiches and a beer with some fellow travelers from the islands, we boarded our overnight bus for the capital. These sleeper buses were totally different than the ones we became so familiar with in Vietnam -- on each side of the bus were bunks of almost-full length "double" beds. It was a very cozy night's sleep for Ben and me, though perhaps might have been less so if either of us had been stuck spooning a stranger.
We arrived in Vientiane at 6am, and lucked out in that our shared jumbo tuk-tuk from the bus station ended up driving us all over town dropping other people off, allowing us to see lots of beautiful wats in the morning light. After finding a hotel, we set out to look for a cobbler to repair Ben's sandals (success!), and to find the Arc de Triomphe look-alike in the center of the city.
We had been promised ugly by travelers moving the otherway down through Laos, and the sign on it's wall seems to support that view... That afternoon heavy rains moved in, and so we ate, napped, emailed, and took it easy in a city that it is easy to relax in. While everyone had told us there wasn't much to do in this tiny capital city, it was wonderfully laid back and if we'd had more time, we would have loved to stay another day or two soaking up the great French food and architecture and the slow pace.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Da Last Don (Det)
Ahhh, Don Det. I like Don Det. It's a place where you could easily spend a few weeks and drastically lower your blood pressure, take some time away from the impending collapse of the global financial market and ponder a multicolored sunset over the Mekong.
Located on the Cambodia/Laos border, Don Det is one small dot in an area known as 4,000 Islands where the Mekong branches off creating, well, thousands of small islands. Connected to the slightly larger Don Khon, Don Det has emerged as a special kind of backpacker hideout - very basic accommodation (shared flush-it-yourself-with-a-bucket toilets, electricity between 18:00 and 21:00 and cold showers) for less than 1 dollar a day.
As an aside, if anybody should travel here, be careful of bungalows with supports in the water. While seemingly innocuous, we saw some folks taking apart a building we learned had earlier collapsed with a couple of travelers inside! While neither were physically hurt, the woman was apparently in shock and the couple had all of their belongings take an unexpected swim. Here you can check out the frame.
With the influx of Western travelers, many of the farmers on the island have discovered a relatively lucrative business opportunity. This doesn't change the fact that our residence was a few meters away from any number of chickens, dogs, cats, cows and water buffalo. Grandma still ran the household, and although no English emerged through her crimson betel nut stained lips, she smiled and shooed us to a prime bungalow just the same.
We were lucky to stay on the 'sunset' side of the island, a more quiet area still just a couple hundred yards from the other side of the island where boats docked from the mainland. We had a great vantage point to check out long-tail fishing boats puttering up and down the river as well as monstrous thunderclouds bearing down on us (it is monsoon season after all).
Now 'keeping yourself busy' on an island such as this is not necessarily a priority. We woke early and went to sleep early and spent a lot of time eating, playing rummy and going for walks. This isn't to say that we were necessarily lazy, we did have a couple of very legit 'see-stuff' days - dolphin day and bike-ride day.
Dolphin day was, as you can imagine, a day where we went to see dolphins, namely the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Native to SE Asia, the dolphin is able to live in both fresh and salt water. Now going to spot dolphins is a risky business as we had no guarantee that they would be there when we were. Riding in a van to a launc
h point then taking another long tail across the river back to the Cambodian side we arrived to a smallish island with a few benches. As we were getting off the boat one of the other passengers let out an 'Oh! I saw one!' and sure enough we found a pod of 5-20 dolphins hanging out. Now these dolphins are not of the Flipper variety jumping out of the river to do tricks, but it was a special opportunity to see these big-brained mammals surfacing just a dozen yards away.
Less interesting, but still impressive was a waterfall that we stopped at as well on the way home. While not very tall at all, the falls do have the distinction of having the largest quantity of water flowing down in all of SE Asia.
Bike ride day was our attempt at making it around the circumference of both Don Det and Don Khon without taking a tumble into an irrigation ditch or a water buffalo along the way. We rented some bikes that looked suspect (that ended up being fine) and set off with our friend Joost (pronounced Yosht), a medical student from the Netherlands. The ride was fantastic if a bit bumpy and muddy, but we were lucky to have just a bit of rain as we stopped for a break. One of the highlights was a small 'beach' that we stumbled upon with some sort of crazy quicksand. If you dug your feet in and started moving around you would, unsurprisingly, start to sink. Even more fun was jumping around in a small circle and creating a sort of trampoline/divot depression area.
I'm not feeling particularly able to do justice to just how beautiful the ride was amd this post is already overdue, but I hope that the pics will help. I'll just say that as nice as it may appear on the monitor, it was even more beautiful in person.
Located on the Cambodia/Laos border, Don Det is one small dot in an area known as 4,000 Islands where the Mekong branches off creating, well, thousands of small islands. Connected to the slightly larger Don Khon, Don Det has emerged as a special kind of backpacker hideout - very basic accommodation (shared flush-it-yourself-with-a-bucket toilets, electricity between 18:00 and 21:00 and cold showers) for less than 1 dollar a day.
As an aside, if anybody should travel here, be careful of bungalows with supports in the water. While seemingly innocuous, we saw some folks taking apart a building we learned had earlier collapsed with a couple of travelers inside! While neither were physically hurt, the woman was apparently in shock and the couple had all of their belongings take an unexpected swim. Here you can check out the frame.With the influx of Western travelers, many of the farmers on the island have discovered a relatively lucrative business opportunity. This doesn't change the fact that our residence was a few meters away from any number of chickens, dogs, cats, cows and water buffalo. Grandma still ran the household, and although no English emerged through her crimson betel nut stained lips, she smiled and shooed us to a prime bungalow just the same.
We were lucky to stay on the 'sunset' side of the island, a more quiet area still just a couple hundred yards from the other side of the island where boats docked from the mainland. We had a great vantage point to check out long-tail fishing boats puttering up and down the river as well as monstrous thunderclouds bearing down on us (it is monsoon season after all).
Now 'keeping yourself busy' on an island such as this is not necessarily a priority. We woke early and went to sleep early and spent a lot of time eating, playing rummy and going for walks. This isn't to say that we were necessarily lazy, we did have a couple of very legit 'see-stuff' days - dolphin day and bike-ride day.
Dolphin day was, as you can imagine, a day where we went to see dolphins, namely the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Native to SE Asia, the dolphin is able to live in both fresh and salt water. Now going to spot dolphins is a risky business as we had no guarantee that they would be there when we were. Riding in a van to a launc
h point then taking another long tail across the river back to the Cambodian side we arrived to a smallish island with a few benches. As we were getting off the boat one of the other passengers let out an 'Oh! I saw one!' and sure enough we found a pod of 5-20 dolphins hanging out. Now these dolphins are not of the Flipper variety jumping out of the river to do tricks, but it was a special opportunity to see these big-brained mammals surfacing just a dozen yards away.Less interesting, but still impressive was a waterfall that we stopped at as well on the way home. While not very tall at all, the falls do have the distinction of having the largest quantity of water flowing down in all of SE Asia.
Bike ride day was our attempt at making it around the circumference of both Don Det and Don Khon without taking a tumble into an irrigation ditch or a water buffalo along the way. We rented some bikes that looked suspect (that ended up being fine) and set off with our friend Joost (pronounced Yosht), a medical student from the Netherlands. The ride was fantastic if a bit bumpy and muddy, but we were lucky to have just a bit of rain as we stopped for a break. One of the highlights was a small 'beach' that we stumbled upon with some sort of crazy quicksand. If you dug your feet in and started moving around you would, unsurprisingly, start to sink. Even more fun was jumping around in a small circle and creating a sort of trampoline/divot depression area.
I'm not feeling particularly able to do justice to just how beautiful the ride was amd this post is already overdue, but I hope that the pics will help. I'll just say that as nice as it may appear on the monitor, it was even more beautiful in person.
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