One Thousand Ninety-Five Curves

The second last stop on my trip, Chiang Mai ended up being one of the best. On the third day I decided to spend some time with elephants at the Save the Elephants conservatory, where elephants make the transition from their former jobs as loggers to their new more humane one - performing tricks with hoola-hoops for tourists. The ride to the conservatory was a hazardous one. As we drove further from the city and into the mountains and forest the roads became more treacherous. As we approached a steep hill with an unpaved path full of deep gouges, I unbuckled expecting to hike the rest of the way. Instead my guide kicked the truck into 4x4 and began the uphill ascent and I proceeded to get violently tossed around the cabin. You know those commercials you see when a truck is being driven over ridiculously harsh terrain to show how capable it is? You scoff because most trucks never leave the pavement right. Not in Southeast Asia.

I was less excited to ride an elephant as I had been to ride a camel. Mine was named Olla and she did whatever she wanted despite my commands. Elephants work primarily on verbal commands with reward (bananas) and punishment (getting whacked) as incentive. Olla cared for nothing but eating and would stop every 8 seconds or so to eat grass or demand a banana. Unlike their African cousins, Asian elephants have a pronounced back bone which makes staying atop them difficult and uncomfortable; I fell off once nearly into a river. We rode through beautiful forest, across rivers, up steep hills - elephants can handle anything. They're extremely playful as well and let you touch and mess around with them however you like. Our trek led us to a waterfall where we all bathed Olla. She proceeded to spray mud all over herself immediately after (keeps the bugs off). My guides ended up being really cool which was a relief because I was only tourist on the trip. Pics to come.

The next couple days I spent hanging out with a Londoner I met named Kate. A painter and a poet, Kate was interesting to me because of her unshakeable philosophy on life which embodied many ideals I personally aspire to (sometimes). Over discussion of relationships (intimate and non), love, fidelity, and social xenophobia, among other things, I discerned her raison d'etre to be the safeguarding of her independence. She would tolerate no shackles around her legs. In a relationship she expected absolute trust and had no tolerance for jealousy, which would be a shackle and restrict how she behaved. Kate had zero sympathy for such petty human qualities and would stroke no man's ego if it meant compromising her integrity and actions. It was a mature, lofty outlook for a twenty-two year old and I admired how she held to it. I wondered whether I could ever fully overcome the vices of jealousy and ego the way she seemed to.

On my final night in Chiang Mai I took in some Muay Thai boxing. I'll only say that the highlight was a bout where they brought six amateur fighters into the ring, blindfolded them, and let them wail on each other, every man for himself. It sounds stupid, and it was, but I dare anybody to not smile when the referee continually gets pummeled because the fighters have no idea who they're hitting.

Today I hit the road for Mae Hong Son, my last stop. There is one road leading here and it takes you through the mountains for six-hours - a neverending journey of bends and hairpin turns. The Thai girl with braces sitting next to me informed me that their are 1095 curves between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son. I came very close to throwing up at one point but the van made a stop just in time and my stomach recovered. Another girl was not as lucky. I may just fly to Bangkok...

Golden T and C Mai

A generous bowl of Pad Thai with shrimp

Me at the Golden Triangle. The sign makes it true.
(foreground is Thailand, the left is Burma, the right Laos)

A display of headrests used by opium smokers at the Hall of Opium museum. The display caption informs us that porcelain pieces like this would have seemed uncomfortable to the smoker at first, but after a few puffs would feel like your head were on a cloud.

Golden buddha in the clouds

They really celebrate their role in opium's history here and turned it into a tourist attraction. This display was in a second opium museum, even more fantastic then the first. Here we see an everyday opium user in the prime smoking position.  

Now in Chiang Mai, enjoying the best fruit salad ever. Apple, kiwi, raisin, mango, watermelon, dragonfruit, banana, papaya muesli and banana again but soaked in honey (made it chewy)

The best thing to do in the Sunday Market in Chiang Mai is to sample as many foods as possible. This was fried squid (excellent)

This was what the sign says (delicious)

A street artist. He was incredible and had a crowd gathered around him admiring his work

Shot of the sunday market at its peak. Gets so crowded all you can do is slowly, slowly shuffle by the vendors like docile cattle.

The Golden Triangle

I've come to the conclusion that I am addicted and I want to use this blog to reach out for help. I've already done it twice today and all I can think about is my next score. I tell myself that its good for me and I'll satisfy my craving soon, but it never stops. Once my lips touched Pad Thai I didn't look back. For those who don't know, its a mound of rice noodles cooked in fish sauce with eggs, bean sprouts, tofu, green onion, chicken/shrimp/pork and I don't even know what else. As well I like to garnish it with red chili pepper spice and crushed peanuts (standard Thai condiments). I'm not doing it justice here but I'll get a pic uploaded to make up for it.

I decided to change my itinerary somewhat and use the rest of my time to really soak in one region of Thailand - the north. The incredible beaches and snorkling in the south will have to wait for another trip. Solo once again (Claudia and I parted ways at the border) I switched my first destination from Chiang Rai to Chiang Saen. On the first day I was regretting my choice. Chiang Saen has little to offer. There are few restaurants and the ones I do find have no english in their menu; instead I must point to the picture which looks most appetizing. The sights are nothing to write home about either, so I won't. The shopping also is a let down. To make it worse, disaster struck. I accidentally deleted about 200 pictures from my camera, stretching back to Vietnam. I was dumbstruck. A real bummer, but let's move on.

Today was much better. I rented a bike and took off to cruise the countryside and see the Golden Triangle - a geographic region where the borders of Laos, Burma and Thailand all meet. This region is famous for, and gets its name from, being the world's largest supplier of opium for much of the 20th century, before being stamped out by the three respective governments. For a time it supplied 50% of the world's heroin in the 60's and 70's. Those who have seen American Gangster with Denzel might be familiar with some of this.

The town of Sop Ruak is the self-proclaimed home of the Golden Triangle. It features a fantastic view of the triangular meeting point of the three national borders, as well as two awesome museums: The Hall of Opium and The Opium House. I came particularly for these museums and they did not disappoint. The Hall of Opium is a spectacular government sponsored museum (you can really tell they put a ton of money into it) chronicling the history of opium, its medicinal uses, and its side effects. The other museum was privately owned and more humble, but just as interesting with its displays of opium-smoking paraphanalia, methods on growing, harvesting, processing and how to properly smoke it (lying down on your side, feet pulled up to your rear is supposed to be the best position). It's interesting to see how the Thai government has embraced this darker side of its history and used it as an anti-drug awareness program and way to show its effective leadership.

After some Pad Thai I carried on down the highway to Mae Son, which has a great view into Burma. Here I haven't done much besides eat, shop, drink espressos, smoke cigars rolled in banana leaves and soak in Thai city life. Tomorrow I head to mighty Chiang Mai where I hope to take a Thai cooking course and spend a day with an elephant. After that I head to Mae Hong Son to hike and hang with beatniks. Now for a dark bike ride home with McClusky playing on my Ipod.   

Kuang Xi Waterfall and my Lao Homestay



He just wants a hug



First time for me seeing water like this



I couldn't resist and climbed up to this rock



It looks like I slipped and fell but I really did jump

Yeah Tom yeahhhh!

In the first village Martin and I partook in this game which is essentially volleyball played with your feet. These kids were incredible and could swing their feet up high enough to spike the ball down.

Our journey by boat begins! These boats are extremely narrow and very wobbly.

This young Lao girl plants peanuts under the hot sun. Was funny to see these little hands emerge and disappear from under her hat.

Me getting laughed at



We visited the village school.



Claudia was agog at the children. She pretty much exemplifies the standard Italian mother.

Crickets and wild mushrooms. I didn't try the crickets, partially because I didn't want to offend if I spat them up. The mushrooms were chewy and tasted exotic. The water (which they get from the mountains) tasted like earth to me



This was about half the crowd which eventually stuck around. The young Lao girl in front of me was super sweet and very shy, but Claudia had no reservations about pulling her into this photo. 



Martin receiving his good luck.



Communal bowls. The sticky rice is cropped out here. You'd roll it into a ball and use it to scoop out the laap - the black stuff which we agreed contained spinach and fish mainly.  





The Real Laos

The 4th and 5th were perhaps the best days of this trip yet. I've been rolling with two fellow travellers for about six days now: an English gentleman (Tom) in his 50's and I emphasize gentleman because he's the real proper cautious type, an aristocrat even; and an Italian bird (Claudia) in her thirties who only just started learning English on this trip. We've made an odd triumvarite so far but its made for some great times and shared laughs.

One of those times was the Kuang Xi waterfall on the 4th - the second best waterfall I've been to (Niagara gets top spot). The short trek begins with a conservation of Asiatic black bears and sun bears (another Asian type) which are kept safe from poachers. These bears look similar to our black bears but have the hilarious ability to stand upright as well as humans. It's very strange to see how well balanced and straight they stand, you'd swear it was a man in a furry bear suit. Pics to come.

  Following the river for the waterfall you pass pools of water that are a perfect pastel blue. If the urge to swim wasn't strong enough in me already one pool featured a rope swing and mini-cliffs for diving, but that was for later we decided. The falls are amazing. Beginning at the top are smaller water falls that cascade down, left and right, finally merging into one great 25 metre or so fall. Gave it great depth that I'm not sure if my camera caught. We decided to climb up to the summit - a treacherous journey that required all four limbs at times. Tom was typically cautious about it all would have turned back had I not egged him on continually. It was worth it in the end and we saw some great views from the top.

Next we joined the many other sight-seers for a swim. The rope swing was precarious to climb up to but a blast every time. Tom saw it all as a young person's thing and initially was not going to swim. Then he changed his mind and, amazingly, even did the rope swing. The bugger cussed the whole way but pulled off a quality swing. Claudia and I were overjoyed and proud - it was the cherry on top.

Next up Claudia and I left Tom to go on a "homestay" - living with a local Lao family. Signing up for it we were both nervous about how authentic it would be. We travelled by van (another fellow joined us - Martin, an englishman who lives in Switzerland) and stopped in two villages along the way for a quick sight-see. The first was a Hmong village (Chinese who emigrated to Northern Indochina in the 19th century) and as I feared it felt hoakey. These Hmong had been displaced from their original village in the Lao highlands because of the construction of a dam. The Lao government offered to help build a new village here and be apart of a state-sponsored program to let tourists glimpse Hmong village life. Thus it felt somewhat like a Disney-land mock-up. Worse it was full of vendors hawking the same goods as back in the city, but now sold by children as young as 6. The creepy thing was that the children were taught to sing this song, in english, to entice visiters: "You can buy something baaa-by, you can buy something fooor me". Usually two kids singing in unison - just weird.

Fortunately the village where we were staying for two days was the real deal. No roads led into it so that we had to take a boat along the Mekong to reach it. Before entering the village Claudia, Martin and learned how to farm peanuts (a simple task that I was able to make difficult) and to roto-till the land. I had a try on the roto-tiller (a beast of a machine) and the locals all laughed at my struggles. My back was sore for an hour.

We were greeted in the village by children who would peer at us from a distance and laugh and giggle. We were told that this village started getting electricity only three months ago and that we were the first to do a homestay here. Probably these children had never seen a falang (Lao for foreigner - you hear yourself called this all the time in Laos) before in their short lives. The children's laughter was music to our ears. Most of the men were out working in the fields or fishing at the time. After a lunch of sticky rice, and broth with bok choi and spinach, we headed out to try fishing ourselves. This involved stringing a net across a nook in the river, then taking the boat around and slapping the water with a long bamboo pool in the hope of driving the fish into the net. On two attempts we caught a grand total of zero fish - too late in the day we were told.

That night things got especially festive. After dinner curious locals began to trickle in and join us. Only our guide spoke English and he translated what he could. The locals expressed that they wished they could speak to us but they knew no english. Nevertheless they were very friendly and instead of words we traded warm smiles. The three of us ordered some BeerLao and shared it with our company, who gratiously accepted. Things began to loosen up and we developed some body language and simple words to get our thoughts across. Soon someone pulled out a pop bottle full of homemade moonshine - the Laos staple of rice whiskey. After a few drinks we somehow came upon the agreement that for every Western song we sang they would sing a Lao one. Everyone clapped along to our Yellow Submarine and Jingle Bells and we clapped to theirs. We couldn't have asked for a better welcome.

The next morning we were invited to a ceremonial breakfast. Because we were new to the village (and leaving for good) the locals would perform a ritual which would rid of us of our evil spirits and provide us good luck on the rest of our journeys. From my understanding its a fusion of Buddhist and Animist beliefs. We sit in a circle around a platter of offerings to the spirits. The offerings include sticky rice, cookies, a beer, a whole chicken and so on. We all place a hand on the table and in unison they go through a chant. Next they light candles and incense. Finally each and every one of the locals ties a white string around each of our wrists and gives us a sort of blessing. By wearing these we are supposed to have good fortune for the next few days. The twenty or so of us then shared breakfast, which mind you is a communal affair i.e. a basket of rice, a bowl of fish soup etc are each shared by 3 or 4 people. This was my favourite part of village life. Eating out of the same dish made you feel like you were a family and it seemed silly to think of back home where our obsession with germs keeps everyone at arms length from eachother.

I've only skimmed over it here, but the ceremony was a very moving experience, and i'm not even a very spiritual person myself. The homestay was a fantastic experience that we were incredibly glad we decided to go on. 80% of the Lao population live in villages so we felt good to have seen the real side of Laos even if only for a couple days.

Excellent pics to come.      

A Few Vang Pics

"Lawrence of Malaysia", as he introduced himself to me. Took me awhile to get it. I don't remember what we were doing in this picture exactly.

Chad from Brampton (left) and Gabriel from Germany. We took in some live Lao acoustic music that night.

Coconut banana chocolate pancake. No the picture's not blurry, that's your eyes drooling.

Island hopping around Vang Vieng.

The march across a farmer's field en route to a cave.

Cave entrance

Saw this freakin spider in the cave, I thought it was cave art at first. Biggest spider I've ever seen by far, as big as my outstretched hand, and had serious meat and muscle!

A local Lao I befriended hijacked my deck of cards. He specialized in telling your seven day fortune by  you picking cards and he laying them out in this fashion. Wheel of fortune? (slaps knee)

Partier's Paradise

I've arrived in the blissful comfort of Luang Prabang, but first a little about Vang Vieng.

VV was fast and furious and more than anywhere else is now a blur in my memory. The small town feels like a college campus filled to capacity with fratboys and their female equivalent. Evidence of Vang's blatant appeal to the tourist dollar can be seen everywhere from restaurant after restaurant playing episodes of Friends and Family Guy on loop, stall after stall selling banana nutella pancakes (which are amazing mind you), to the menus which, in clear print, offer marijuana, mushrooms and opium, in your choice of size from joint, bag, or mixed into a shake or pizza. It's wild.

Caving is a big draw here and on my second day I spontaneously decided to wander into some. One finds the cave by walking across open fields toward the mountain, following a series of poles with a white bag tied to the top. The trek takes you through farmer's property, over their fences - a little odd. Inside the cave I was equally unsure of where I was going. You are provided with a flashlight (thankfully) but there are no signs giving direction or warnings. I soon discovered I have a fear of caving alone! Each cave was a labrynth of possible paths, the ground sometimes slippery, sometimes muddy, and always a muggy heat. My mind began to machinate ideas of becoming lost forever in this nightmare! In one cave, a shoddy ladder led 15 feet straightdown into a cool pool of water below. I undressed and carefully climbed down. I found a secure spot to rest my flashlight and illuminate my surroundings. Looking down into the water revealed nothing. I nervously slipped in, but found I could not touch bottom. I sank a little deeper, but still nothing! As I tread water I reached for the walls for support, but their smooth limestone surface provided no help. I now glanced over at my flashlight, realizing that if it were to fall, I would be left in utter darkness. Panic took over and I swam back to the light, ever careful not to cause too violent of ripples that might dislodge it from its perch. I'd had my fun and had conquered my fear to even go into the water. I left the cave feeling fairly proud.    

The quintessential experience of Vang Vieng, some would say, is to go tubing down the Nam Kon River. I was told repeatedly by fellow travellers however not to bother renting a tube; sure enough there was not much tubing going on at all. The novelty here are the bars situated on the riverbanks all down the river. Locals armed with a line of rope with a bottle attached to the end to give it a weight will toss the line out, with impressive accuracy, to those floating by and pull them into their respective bar.

The first three bars are within shouting distance, strattling either side of the river. Mixed drinks are sold by the bucket (like a child's sandbucket) and drank through an obnoxious amount of straws. A couple regulars pour cheap Lao whiskey into thirsty and willing mouths, free of charge. Drinking games are played like musical tubes, beer pong, and a frisbee game where an empty beer can must be knocked off a pole. Other bars have swings into the water and platforms for high diving. And of course Western music is blasting at all times. I was told most don't make it pass the third bar, and indeed I only made it to the second before I forgot all about tubing.

Three days in Vang Vieng was enough for me, and I left for Luang Prabang in a stupor. The journey by bus did not help. Laos is like one long series of forest covered mountains, and the roads stubbornly force their way up, down, around and every which other way in order to get by them. The views are gorgeous yes but the swaying back and forth never stopped for six hours and made me miserable. Luang Prabang so far is an absolute gem which I will update tomorrow, hopefully with pictures!