I have had a couple of complaints about my silence lately. The easy cop-out would be to say that I went to Burma from Chaing Mai (top of
this map) and the
evil fascists who run that country don't allow Internet use there. In fact my Swedish friend Mia was waiting for me in the middle of Rangoon. I however was in bed in Chaing Mai with a terrible case of backache. It hasn't really gone away but I've had lots of vigorous Thai massages including a miost violent 2 hour one from a blind man in Phisanalouk and a 55 kilo woman called Oi! walking on my back in Phuket. Anyway, really very little to report from my last two weeks in Thailand. One week doing not much but rest in Chaing Mai, a couple of days sight-seeeing at the ancient capitals of Soukathai and
Ayuttaya (just north of Bangkok in the middle of
this map), four days on the beach in Phuket and now I'm back in Singapore on my way to Australia. Ayuttaya was the only really impressive stop. It has several interesting temple
complexes, and some slightly newer
monuments--all a 40 cent train ride north of Bangkok. It was Thailand's capital from roughly 1300 to 1750 when the Burmese moved in and sacked it. The next King moved the capital to the now sprawling mess of Bangkok, knowing that no one in their right mind would want to capture it! As
this photo shows Ayutthan Buddhists are now worshiping at the altar of east AND west.
The full set of temple photos from Phisanalouk, Soukathai and Ayuttaya
is here. My camera which has now started behaving very badly is hopefully being fixed in Singapore as I write this....more from Australia soon!
Christmas in Laos.
OK this may sound like the title to a new Disney movie starring Goldie Hawn and some computer generated chipmunks, but it's much worse. It's the true hideous story of how in
Vang Vieng, Laos,
Lish Woodgate survived an assasination attempt three times by the diabolically-intentioned
Ann Larson (OK two were by me) and then foolishly decided that due to her injuries she was unable to go on the next day's rafting trip (which resulted in
Wildside rafting keeping all her money!) Despite Ann's attempt to lure Lish into a deep dark cave and abandon her there, and then deliberately hold her under a capsized canoe, I rushed to save her (or more accurately capsized my canoe and banged hers setting it free and possibly stopped her drowning).
I did make up for it by capsizing her twice when I was driving! Well the second time we were merely resting (stuck of course) against the middle support of the bridge when Ann's accomplice in another boat attacked from the rear.
A great time was had by all (after all it was only a $7 day-out, somewhat cheaper than my
normal rafting trips in California). Lish got her revenge that night by slipping a Mickey Finn into the yogurt that Ann and I shared, resulting in a lot of giggling and great difficulty in finding our way home and/or getting out of bed the next day! All the
Vang Vieng photos are here
As I metioned we were supposed to raft back to Ventiene as Lish had to go back to Thailand to try to win a bet with her friend Jane by accosting some innocent Englishman. But instead, as her hand was a little bust up, we took a minibus, which was a little less crowded than the
public bus we took up from Vientiene To Vang Vieng but cost a little more. Luckily for me,
Gabrielle Howatson showed up from London for a quick week's fun and games. Gabrielle not exactly being your backpacker type, I moved up a class (or actually about 3 classes) of accomodation and had a week's holiday from my holiday, so-to-speak.
After a day cycling around Vientiene (again! my third, but all
the pics are here including a
bunch of stuff I'd missed before, nearly seeing the Vietnamese President who was in town, and having a drink by the Mekong in this
gorgeous sunset) we travelled by
London taxi (really!) from Gab's highly expensive hotel to fly to Phonsovan in the Plain of Jars. From the airport there, after Gabrielle managed to negotiate us a driver, minibus and hotel room for about 20 times what I would have paid and about 15 times what they were worth, we set off for a quick trip to the
Jars. The Jars are 3,000 years old. They are somewhat the Laos equivalent to
Stonehenge (which I visited this past summer) other than the
Jars are much smaller, are in several different places and were moved by elephants, proving that the ancient Lao people were either less strong or cleverer than the Ancient Brits who dragged their stones by hand! Here's
Gabrielle and me on a jar. Of course no one knows
why the jars are there other than to stand in, but my favorite theory is that they were used for brewing beer.
After spending the night in a bloody cold $35 hotel that should have cost $3, but charged an extra $32 for
the view, the next day we went to hunt down a
poppy field. The invite to the poppies were cued when I remarked to the guide that I was surprised to see yet another new 4 X 4 pickup truck swing by us when Laos is supposed to be one of the world's poorest countries. He said "But they have a good business: Heroin!" After the leaves are
pollinated by bees and fall off, the poppies are
scored at night and the milk is collected, dried and either smoked as Opium in the village or moved to a secret site for processing. Not much of the wealth from the drug trade sticks in the village, another consequence of the evils of prohibition (for more see
here). In the village near the poppy fields were we saw a few old
bombs which having been dropped in their thousands in the War are now used as
flowerpots,
house supports and
fences. I thought that this photo of the
Blonde and the Bombshells would amuse some of you. All of the
Plain of Jars photos are here
So our brief trip to Phonsovan ended with me throwing the ball to this
Hmong girl (here with our guide) as part of their ritual courtship ceremony. She dropped it--so either I'm chucked or have to marry her. The plane to Laung Prabang made it over some steep terrain for a daredevil landing. We spent 4 days including New Year's Eve hanging out in
Wats, checking out the
Namthas, looking over the town and
Royal Palace from the nearby hill,
assaulting cats, going up the river to the
Pak Ou caves that are full of discarded
Buddhas, and generally eating, drinking and living very, very well. New Years Eve dinner was $50 each, or about 10 times what I spend on a usual night out here!
Lang Prabang is a very beautiful and (for the moment) laid-back city right on the
confluence of the Mekong and another smaller river. But it is now on a tourist direct flight route going from BangKok to Soukathai to Ankor Wat. Consequently it's much more expensive than the rest of Laos or Thailand. I only hope that the same people don't find out about Hoi An in Vietnam. The full
Lang Prabhang set is here.
Gabrielle had to leave to return to a life of right-wing agitating and husband hunting (not necessarily in that order) at her new
job in London, and I downgraded from the lovely Hotel Souvaphon to the mush less delightful "Heritage" guesthouse. I actually went into a brief depressed funk after Gabrielle left--it was great having her (and Ann and Lish) around and not being a solo traveller, having to tell the same story again and again and make new friends ! So an interesting discovery is that I miss my friends!
I'm not sure how Gabrielle would have taken Northern Laos as there is no way to pay up and get better service there! I set off on a
boat up the Nam Ou river accompanied by
three Swedes and a Dutch movie-directing couple. One of the Swedes had a Laotian wife he'd met in 1990 (Several years before tourists were really allowed in!) ! She later defected to him via East Germany (about 10 minutes before it ceased to exist) and they've been married for 12 years now! He also drew the first
guide to backpacking in Laos. A couple of years later he bought a ticket to Laos from a travel agent on KhoSan Road in BangKok who tried to sell a copy of his own guide back to him!
The
river trip, with
huge cliffs and
moody misty mountains was very, very beautiful even if it was raining. We ended up in
Nhon Kiew, another tiny town where the locals (as in the rest of Asia)
all watch TV oblivious to their beautiful surroundings. Of course we managed to use the meagre electricity supply in town to good order as
Djurgarden "Pride of Stockholm" fan
Chris and
Michiel (to his wife Sonja's) chagrin set up a concert hall using only a broken boom box and chicken wire, and everyone had far too much Lao-lao.
I took a smelly truck down a
fabulously beautiful road via several more Hmong
villages, past lots of
Hmong girls playing with their balls (although the truck wouldnt slow down and all my pictures were taken hanging off the back!) The photos from the Nam Ou river and bus trip (plus the LaoLao evening)
are here.
I ended up in the
boom town of Oudamxai near the Chinese border. Although everyone had
new 4x4s (this LandCruiser retails in the US for over $50,000, average annual income in Laos is $350--you work it out!) and there were lots of
mansions (by Laos standards) being built, here wasn't much going on in Oudamxai other than thousands of
people selling lottery tickets. I ended hanging out with some French people in a disturbingly cold sauna (run by the Laos Red Cross), and then having a massage from a man who kept leaving to go off and do something else, until thankfully he was replaced by a woman who really knew what she was doing. $2.50 massages are one of the great pleasures of south east Asia, once you get used to the brutality factor and the lack of new age music! We then had a fabulous Lao barbeque, which was the best meal I had in Laos but made me the sickest I've been on the trip since India!
Next was a hair raising 4 hour bus journey, which when it wasnt broken down, went past yet more
Hmong girls looking for husbands. I survived using Immodium but during the journey I was not spared the conversation of an apalling drunk from Bristol. Thankfully he went on from my next stop, Laung Namtha. There the eco-treks into the jungle were full, and the rafting from our "friends" at Wildside wasn't going, but the mountain bike
ride around the
villages and up to a
waterfall was alot of fun--not least because I was dragged into a 65th (or was it 85th) birthday
party for
this local grandee in one village. There I was forced to eat some disgusting mix of pig entrails (look at
the bowls) and discuss the Laotian war of independence in some kind of broken French. Luckily after an hour or so I managed to escape by showing them that the sun was going down and would have to navigate home in the dark if I didn't leave immediately! So I got off with only drinking 5 shots of Lao-Lao (their disgusting and incredibly potent rice whisky). All the pictures from
Oudamxai to Laung Namtha are here.
After becoming best friends with every tourist in town, I ended up finding a Dutch/Romanian couple who wanted to take a boat to Thailand.
Carel and Magdelana proceeded to bicker their way down the Nam Tha river much to my amusement. The
scenery was beautiful but the slash and burn agriculture is decimating the forest. After a very quiet and uncomfortable night in the boatman's house (no electricity in this village!) being amusingly harrassed by his grandkids, but also being woken by Roosters at 4 am, we got back into the boat and had a sunny cruise down the
rapid-filled river until it
joined the Mekong. We plodded up to Houxai being overtaken by lots of very aptly named
"speed" boats, as apparently that's how the drivers cope with the noise. The short set of photos from the
Nam Tha is here
My journey into Thailand at the border crossing was not exactly aided by my somehow throwing my back out as I got off the ferry and I had to get various other travellers to carry my stuff up the hill into Thailand! Luckily after a
gorgeous sunset over the Mekong there was a minibus leaving for Chang Mai almost straight away and I was levered on with the assistance of Vicoden. I'm now in Chang Mai, where I spent most of the first day searching for a hotel with a soft bed so that I could sleep off the worst of the back ache. Thank god for Vicoden! Ironic that the only opitates I've had in the Golden triangle are ones in pill form that I brought with me!
So now I'm sitting around Chang Mai. I seem to be avoiding all kinds of tourist actiuvity on offer here, although I might take a cooking class soon. I probably will not take a quick jaunt into Burma, although my Swedish friend (from India) Mia is there and is going to wait by a fountain to meet me (no Internet in Burma, eh!) on a certain day at a certain time. And of course I ran into Dave Russell (from Ireland via BangKok & San Francisco) who's last known comunication said he was on his way to Egypt!
So now you're all up to date again!
Sapa to Laungh Prabahn -- Well it seems so long ago that I left Vietnam that it's difficult to write too much about it. My trip to the beautiful hill country of Sapa was mostly a dud, as the weather closed in and there was 5 days of consecutive fog. Sapa is a hill town near the Chinese border in north-west Vietnam that used to be a center of ethnic minority culture, but is fast turning into a museum piece.
This website has a nice panaroma of several Sapa views in a link located about half way down. Meanwhile, everywhere you go you are chased by young girls and old ladies selling tribal wear. (It's actually pretty funny, especially as they can't come into the resturants and
stand outside trying to catch your eye. The
little girls speak great English -- I had great fun trying to stop about 20 of them mugging me for my blanket, which the
old ladies from the Black Hmong tribe had sold me using the one word sales line "Jolie! Jolie!". The other main tribes-people you see are the
Red Tzao in their very impressive headresses. There are also lots of
little girls selling pillows when you walk out to the villages. The villages themselves must be very beautiful when you can see them, as the
rice terraces go to the tops of the mountains and in some cases are
only wide enough for one ox to plough. I hung out with
a few nice people including
Silvia the poverty-stricken photoqrapher from Manhattan who wanted to pay good money
to save this ferret which she thought a hill-tribesman was selling for food (apparently it was going to be a pet!). Here are
her photos (not of Sapa but her professional B). There was a funny twosome of Jorge, an Argentinian who'd met a motorbike he didn't like in Hanoi and hobbled around asking his new best friend Singaporean
Joon Kait (on left of Jorge here) to fetch his walking sticks for him! How Jorge survived when Joo Kait went to China I don't know. The full
Sapa set is here
I came back from Sapa on the same rather flash "Royal" overnight train as young Aussie adventurer
Amanda who I found will be at the
Mountain Cattlemen's festival that I'm going to in Tasmania in early February! We wondered around Hanoi
past the Opera House as the poopulus was waking up,
exercising and
playing badminton in the street at 5am......very bizzare! But they were also selling these nice
flowers from the back of their bikes. All my
Hanoi photos are here.
There was a litle drama at the airport when the Vietnamese Immigration people notice that I'd overstayed my visa by 5 days. But eventually they let me on the plane to Vientiene in Laos. You've already heard about my dinner with
Lisa,
Anne and Ulf but not yet about my trip to the 4,000 Islands near Pax-Se in the south of Laos. I hung out there with a food broker from San Francisco called
Lee and a German couple called Maikka and
Uli, although Uli struggled to get a word in edgewise with
Maikka and me around! From PaxSe we went south to the 4,000 islands area. There the Mekong becomes 14 Kms wide and looks essentially like a lake with lots of tropical islands in it. We took a boat down to a couple of the southern islands, went to see
a wide waterfall and
a tall(er) one (allegedly the biggest in SE Asia) before we went to see the fast dissapearing Irrawaddy Dolphins. There are only 10-15 of these freshwater Dolphins left, but we saw a few, and if you squint hard you can
see one in this photo! My art photo of southern Laos river life
is here. The rest of the
4,000 Islands shots are here
On our way back to Pak-se we stopped off at
Wat Phu Champassak, an Ankor-era temple that was carelessly left over the border in Laos by the Khmer/Cambodians. It had some impressive features, not the least of which was great spring rolls at the on-site resturant, but also
some impressive ruins , some stylish "
bas-reliefs" (carvings to you) and this rather interesting "
crocodile rock"-All together now, LA, lalalala-La, La-la, La-la, La. la-la-la-la. All the
Wat Phu Champassak photos are here.
Lee and I took a
bus trip up to the
Bolovean Plateau in order to see
the Tad Lo waterfall, where we swam in a big pool under the waterfall, narrowly avoided death fording the river, went through a strange former military-like base with concrete houses, tennis courts and barracks with air-conditioning that wasn't on the map, and then to a wooden village that was about a mile and 2,000 years away from it. After trying unsuccessfully to ingratiate my self with
these two Celtic cyclists (Peelee and Orla) who were rather more interested in each other than Lee or me (and who can blame them), I nipped back to Pax-se, delayed only by the bus stopping to put
an entire plantation of bannanas on the roof. The
Tad Lo photos are here.
After a quick massage and dinner with the two Celtic cyclists (who have their own rather strange
website/bulletin board) who had turned up by then I got on the overnight bus to Vientiene, where I attempted (with some success) to meet the germans (Uli and Maikka), Lish and Anne from San Francisco and Lisa and her friends. After a crazy evening in which I managed to meet all of them not where I was supposed to at different times, it was finally Christmas day and time for all my presents--not that I got any! So in the next chapter you'll find out how we tried to kill Lish (otherwise known as going kayaking in Vang Vieng)
