Kids are fun

More of the photos from the day playing with the kids in Laos, continued from the previous post.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Thailand! I'm definitely NOT having a White Christmas this year, but being from California I usually don't anyways! It's actually fairly cold here in Chiang Mai, so it doesn't feel that far off from what I'm used to. But it still doesn't feel anything like Christmas, without the overdone commercialism and stress that comes along with holidays in the US. I don't miss any of that.

It is my second Christmas away from home, and although I'm still sad that I won't be seeing my family and friends, it's a little easier the second time. I'll be spending Christmas with a handful of people that I've met along the way. Not sure what we will do yet, but I can guarentee it will involve some form of eating. Maybe we will go to one of the restaurants that makes up a special Christmas dinner, or maybe we will have Thai food from a street cart. Either way, I will be with friends, and that is what matters.

Wishing everyone whose reading this a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are.

Making mud bricks at an organic farm near Vang Vieng. After all this relaxing I was actually itching to do some manual labor.

Vang Vieng, Laos, one of my favorite places so far. I ended up staying there for 8 days.

Typical scenery of Southern Laos

One of the absolute best days I have had was in the 4000 islands in Laos. Its in the middle of the Mekong River at the very Southern tip of the country, and one of the most relaxing places I've ever been. A group of us signed up for a 1 day "trek" - the word is used very liberally here - which consisted of a half hour boat ride, half an hour of walking, swimming, and a BBQ. We went to one of the island that had recently been opened to tourists, so it was all locals and no tourists except ourselves. We were joined by 4 local kids, and it was their presence that made the day. At first they were shy, but once they got comfortable with us they totally came out of their shells. We spend the day swimming, eating and playing games, even though the only English they knew was "one, two, three, four, five." Not even hello. It was so much fun, and all of us agreed it was one of the best days we have had so far.

Ellen playing Rock Scissors Paper with one of the girls.

Sawathee ka!

The roads are all paved, there are ATMs everywhere, buses have empty seats, and the lady that runs the Internet place was definitely not born a lady.

I must be in Thailand!

I crossed from Laos about 5 days ago. As sad as I was to leave Laos, I have to say that's its really nice to be in a (relatively) modern country again. The trip out was a totally appropriate way to end it too. We had been told by a very reliable source that the road from Luang Nam Tha to the border was newly paved, smooth, perfect; only a 6 hour trip. But others had said that the road sucked. Chosing to be optimistic, I decided to go with the first opinion, although in Laos it is much more likely that the second is true. And it was. The road was NOT paved at all, in fact, they had recently cut through the jungle to make it, and were still working on it in parts. At one point, we had to wait for 30 minutes while a bulldozer cleared away the rubble so we could pass. At another point all the passengers had to get out and walk because the bus could not make it up the hill with too much weight. It ended up taking 8 hours to get to the border. 8 bumpy, dusty, hot hours. Not the most pleasant of bus rides, but not the worst I've had by any means.

Once we got there, the adventure continued. We arrived at about 5:30, and the border closed at 6. Hop in a tuk-tuk, race to the Lao immigration, pay the stupid fee for "overtime," get the stamp, blah blah blah. We actually could have stayed the night there and crossed in the morning, but neither myself or the friend I was traveling with at the time had enough money to pay for a hotel. That's the problem with Laos -- there is only one international ATM in the whole country, so you frequently find yourself running out of money. And this border town was not going to have much option for getting money in any other way, we would have just had to hope that some place would cash a travelers cheque, or else borrow money from another traveler. Either way, we really didn't want to take the risk of getting stuck.

As it turns out, we used almost the last of our money to pay the damn overtime fee, which left us just a tiny bit short for the pitance needed to take a boat across the river to Thailand. We had to actually borrow 1000 kip (about 10 cents) from other backpackers in order to make it. And then we didn't even have money to pay a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the ATM that was 2 km away - he had to wait while we took out the cash to pay him.

So after that debacle, it was great to be in Thailand. Now that I know I can take out more money whenever I want, I've been a little bit, um, more free with my spending. The shopping here is wicked (can you tell I've been hanging out with Brits and East Coasters?), and I have full intentions of replacing much of my wardrobe. After being in Korea for a year, a hopeless place for anyone above a size 5, I can totally justify it.

So as of now I am in Chiang Mai, where I'm settling in for a week or so. Then I'll either head to Pai or down south to Bangkok, then to the islands.

Ok, I think I hear a bowl of Tom Yum Gai calling my name.

More Photos from Laos

Sunset over the Mekong, Luang Prabang

Elephant Eye
Novice Monk, Luang Prabang
Caught! A student cheating during Heads Up Seven Up. This was taken during a volunteer-taught English class I helped with.
Students getting ready to play Red Light Green Light.

I'm slowly adding more pics, the uploading takes forever! Keep checking back for more.

Pictures, Finally!

The last two days have possibly been the coolest of my entire trip. I was on a two day "elephant experience" trek out of Luang Prabang, Laos. There are tons of elephant treks around here, and I wouldn't have known about this particular one if I hadn't met someone who had already done it. On most of the treks you get to just ride the elephants, sitting on a bench on their backs. But we got to know the elephants a bit better than that. What we did was called the Mahout Experience -- a Mahout is the local name for a man who owns, trains and cares for an elephant. Many of the elephants in Lao are used for working in the logging industy, and many of them are abused. More recently, they are used for tourist rides, and the particular company we went with ensures that the elephants they use are treated well by their Mahouts, in addition to giving a very fair portion of the profits back to the Mahouts themselves.

Meeting and feeding the elephants -- I had run out of bananas at this point, but the elephants did not believe me. Getting assulted by one of those trunks is a very odd experience!

It was after the elephants were done with their "tourist duties" for the day that we got to hang out with them. We started off with an hour ride back to the elephant camp, during which we had the option of sitting on the neck of the elephant the way the Mahouts do. Riding on the neck of an elephant is really wild, because you feel every movement it makes, and there is nothing holding you on except your own balance and muscle. And every time the elephant moves it's head, you move with it. It was pretty scary at first, because you are waaaaaay up off the ground and an elephant does not exactly have the smoothest walk, but it was really fun once I got used to it.

Back at the camp, the Mahouts took off the benches and pads, and we rode them (the elephants, not the Mahouts) into the jungle where they slept for the night. We didn't stay in the jungle, we got to stay is a swanky resort, sort of by accident too. We had payed the cheaper price and signed up to sleep in bamboo huts which for some reason did not actually exist. So we ended up in the nicest rooms any of us had stayed in for the entire trip, at no extra cost.

This morning we were up at 6 to go into the jungle to get the elephants. Then came the absolute best part - we rode them right into the river to have a bath. The elephants were about 3/4ths submerged, and we sat on their backs and scrubbed them clean. It was one of the funnest and most random things any of us had ever done, so we were giggling like kids the entire time.

After the bath

I have never had any particular affinity for elephants before, but now I am absolutely in love with them. They are so gentle and sweet, especially for such a large animal. Of course, all of the ones we worked with were female, apparently the males are a little less easy to control. The coolest thing was the way the Mahouts commanded them -- almost purely by voice. From what we saw, the elephants knew the words for Go, Stop, Left, Right, Backwards, Stay, Kneel, Sit, Lay Down, Pick up your trunk, Pick up your foot, and the absolute best -- they could command them to use their truck to pick stuff up and move it for them. When we were bringing them back from the jungle, one of the elephants had tangled its chain up around a bunch of trees, so the Mahout just told it to use its trunk to pull the chain until it came lose. And all of us were standing there with our mouths hanging open going "cooooool!" So now I really want an elephant. Hey, isn't Christmas coming up?

Here are some more photos, I'll put up as many as I can before I have to go catch my bus. They take a long time to upload. They are all from Laos, the other photos were already burned to disc and mailed home.

Me with some lovely local kids in Si Phan Don, in the south of Laos. The photo was taken by a little girl who was curious about my camera, so I let her snap a few shots.

Sunset at Don Det Island, Laos.

Ok, that's all I have time for now, I'll try to put up more later!

My Continuing Love Affair with Laos

This place just keeps getting better! Every new place I go is great in a totally new way, yet the qualities that make Laos great are always present. It's beautiful, it's rugged, it's fun, it's friendly, and it's the most chill place I have ever been. It hasn't bumped Italy for favorite country status, but its way up there on the list for sure. But Laos falls short in two of the most important categories, food and music -- the food is just average and a bit limited, and the music outright sucks (in fact, I'm here at the internet cafe right now because there is a party with a live band in the yard behind my guesthouse, playing music that would make a deaf person cringe.)

I read a few things in the Lonely Planet that are really telling about the people of Laos. They believe in karma; specifically, that a person's fate is already determined, so it doesn't really matter how hard you try, things will still turn out the same. They also believe that too much thinking can be bad for you, and that if something isn't fun, then it's not worth doing. Add 30 years of a communist government on top of that, and you have the slowest moving, most laid back country on earth! It's a good thing too, because the territory is unbelievably beautiful, and if it were inhabited by a more ambitious people, much of it may have been razed and developed.

This is the kind of place where you get in the habit of going to eat about an hour before you know you will get hungry, because the food usually takes about that long to come. You can walk out of a restaurant without paying and no one will say anything (did that by accident actually, and when we came back to pay they still hadn't noticed, nor did they remember what we ordered.) And the tuk-tuk drivers, who will practically chase you down the street to offer a ride in other countries, can often be found sleeping in hammocks in the back of their tuk-tuks.

The most bizzare thing I've experienced so far though is the Luang Prabang night market. It's pretty big and they sell all sorts of handicrafts and nicknacks. The vendors just set up right on the ground with little lamps, so you sit down with them and shop by by the light of a single bulb. The bizzare thing though is how quiet it is. Markets anywhere else would be buzzing with activity and noise, but this market is downright serene. There are plenty of people too, but no one really makes a lot of noise. It's wonderful too.

I have about 2 weeks until my visa runs out, and I plan to spend all of it here.