Road from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang

As noted in an earlier post, we forewent the VIP bus to Luang Prabang in favor of a minibus. The six hour journey was not exactly taken in comfort and style but it did pass through some lovely country. Two people, Damen and Marie, from our earlier bus incident also opted for the minibus so we had some good company as well.

Cycling Trip in Vang Vieng

Laos is an ecotourism destination due to the unspoiled wilderness (jungle) and pristine natural surroundings. We hadn't really planned 'eco-touring' but we found a company, Green Discovery, that does cycling trips, so we decided to go. To be honest, Erin suggested that we go rafting down the river, but we had heard that the river's flow is pretty tame during the summer season and you don't get to visit any villages. Admittedly, it ended up being over 100 degrees the day we went, so it may not have been the best choice. However, it was a chance to really get to experience some nature up close.
We got up early and had a big breakfast, drinking as much water as we could stand. We figured that getting ahead of dehydration would be a good idea. Our guide, Nom, had us select our bikes and gave us a general trip description before we headed out on our trip.
Our first stop was 4 miles in at a cave known locally as the "lucky crab cave". According to legend, a local farmer was digging on his property and found the entrance to the cave, so he decided to go exploring underground. While in the cave, he found a crab, so he brought it home. Apparently, he was going to try to sell the crab at the market the next day, but overnight he decided to put some money on the crab's back (don't ask - lots of asian stories have something to do with putting money somewhere weird resulting in a fortune later) and the next day the money had multiplied and he was rich. To be honest, I don't believe this legend at all, because I'm sure that any crab would have been eaten immediately (I would have eaten it anyway).
The lucky crab cave had a reclining buddha just inside the main entrance. Nom led us about 300 feet further into the cave, which was probably 100 feet deep. We had brought some flashlights along, but impressively Nom led us the entire way using a candle. He showed us some stalagmites and stalactites as well as several deep holes.
After the caving, Nom cooked lunch while we went for a short swim. The creek was very cold, but quite refreshing. After lunch, we decided to take the medium route, which is only 18 miles, instead of the 21 mile "long" route. It was so hot and we hadn't been on bikes since China, so we didn't want to over do it. Actually, we should have taken the short option, because by the end of the day we were pretty exhausted.
We did get to visit about 5 villages and met a few Hmong villagers along the way. At one spot where we had stopped to get something to drink, a crowd of children came over to get a peek at us while we rested. Nom explained that there aren't too many tourists who come to their village and we were likely some of the first white folks that they have ever seen. One little girl kept trying to look behind my sun glasses to see what color my eyes were. She was also very interested in how fair Erin's skin was.
Later, we stopped at a hut where they had a sugar cane press. The ladies working there would take sugar cane and run it through the press to squeeze out all of the juice, which they would then serve over ice. Nom ordered for us, and we had a few glasses of very refreshing, cold, sugar water. They even let me squeeze some juice using the press and I was surprised at how hard it was to turn the wheel. The ladies who worked there were much stronger than they looked.
It was a long, hot ride but around every corner there was something that made it worth the effort. Seeing the villages and the mountains was spectacular. At the conclusion of the ride, cold showers and cold beverages provided the perfect end to a great day (a hot, great day).

Trip to Vang Vieng

Oops. Next time, I will not write anything about "another adventure."

We caught the VIP bus from Vientiane to Vang Vieng. "VIP" is the nicest class of bus in Laos. VIP buses have air-conditioning (kinda) and only fill the available seats (no squeezing on extra people). Our bus did not fill us with confidence. Every attempt at shifting by the driver produced a loud grinding sound(picture 1). During our lunch stop, the driver and his assistant (all the buses we have been on in Asia and SE Asia have a driver and a second person who takes tickets and keeps the driver company) spent the twenty minute break working on the bus (picture 2). An hour or so further down the road, the clutch went out. The driver pulled up next to a house, tried to fix the bus again, and eventually told us that another bus would come for us in an hour or so.
About half of the people on the bus caught rides while the rest of us waited in the heat (picture 3). It was hot but we did get an opportunity to meet some of our fellow travellers. Damen and Marie gave us good advice on buying our next camera. We also got to meet two people from Portland, Amy and Sloan. It was lovely to talk to someone from home, or really close to home. They left in January for a similar trip. It sounds like they will make their year, while we will be coming home early. However, we can't come home until after India (Joey made me go to China, he has to go to India). Sloan did help alleviate some of Joey's anxiety about India. All in all, a decent pit stop.

But we did decide to take a mini-bus (read, minivan that carries ten passengers) on the next leg of our journey to Luang Prabang.

Wat Sisaket

We were too late to tour Wat Sisaket during our first day in Vientiane, which is lucky because it deserves its own post. The wat was constructed in the Thai style in 1818. As the only wat to escape destruction during the the last Thai invasion, it is the oldest in Vientiane.

The wall surrounding the wat is filled with niches, each of which contains a small Buddha. There are two steps containing larger buddhas. The higher step is original to the wat. The second was constructed later to hold images brought from around the countryside.

The wall also contains a storeroom filled with broken buddha images. It is a stunning site.

Pictures are not allowed inside of the temple because it is an active place of worship. Unfortunately, the once brilliant paintings that cover the interior walls are fading away from neglect and water damage. There are plans to improve the drainage in the temple and then restore the paintings but nothing has been done yet. This temple was renovated by the French in the late 1920's. Their documentation can be used to restore the paintings again.

On our walk back from the Wat, Joey saw Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe, the Pataxai, in the distance. He asked if I wanted to go check it out. I said no. Once again exhibiting signs of deafness, he said okay and started to walk towards the concrete monstrosity. It was hot and dusty. We finally made it to the Pataxai, built with concrete donated by the US for a runway, and snapped a couple of pictures. We then turned left down a road which looked like it would take us to our guesthouse. It didn't. The hour we spent wandering through back Vientiane streets during the heat of the day felt like hours of wandering through a desert. Our marriage was more at risk during that walk than when I lost my wedding ring or when Joey lost his wallet. Luckily, an icy bottle of water, a cold shower, and a well chilled bottle of Beer Lao put everything right shortly after our return to our hotel.

Vientiane, Laos' Capitol City

In our Lonely Planet guide "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring," the introduction to Laos starts: "Travellers utter a distinct 'ahhh' when they arrive in Laos, like kicking back in a hammock after a long hot day. No teeming, smoggy metropolis, no aggressive entrepreneurialism, this is SE Asia's most relaxing country to travel in." I hate to admit it, but Joey and I emitted a very similar sound when we got to Vientiane.

Vientiane is not like any capitol city I have ever seen. Some 600,000 people live in Vientiane yet it seems like a small town -- a friendly, small town -- a friendly, dusty, small town. We saw the most of the sights but enjoyed sitting in sidewalk cafes and watching the town more.

Laos was a French colony and retains some of the colonial flavor, particularly with regard to food. Our first stop in Vientiane, basically stumbling distance from the bus (those seats get hard after a fourteen hour journey!), was the Scandinavian Bakery. Not french, but it had the best chocolate croissant I have had in months. Okay, it was the only chocolate croissant I have had in months but it would have tasted good even if it had been only a day. We sampled numerous bakeries in our three days in Vientiane. Almost all had delicious bread, pastries, and coffee and are frequented by tourists, ex-pats, and locals. Good food and good people watching, there is little more that we look for in our travels.
Okay, temples. We look at lots and lots of temples. This temple, which now houses a museum, held the Emerald Buddha during its stay in Laos. Interestingly, the sign does not mention the rather shady circumstances by which it ended up in Laos nor the war through which the Thai's took it back. The temple was a lovely place, but nothing like the Emerald Buddha's digs in Bangkok.

For those passengers hoping to get to...

The trip from Bangkok to Vientienne took about 14 hours. Most of this time was spent on an overnight bus, generally sleeping, and the rest was spent sitting/standing around waiting (for our bus, for the border to open, to exit Thailand, to get our Laos visas, etc). During the past four months, we have travelled overnight by plane, train, boat, and bus. It is not our favorite way of travelling but often it is the most practical. (Joey likes to insist that he doesn't sleep a wink on these journeys but I have the evidence from our trip to Laos to prove otherwise.) Overnight travel does provide some magical moments like seeing the Mekong river for the first time at dawn (see the picture below).

Anytime we move locations, it takes a day. We end up either travelling throughout a day (or a day and a night, see the trip from Koh Phagnan to Bangkok) or arriving early but still losing most of a day to necessities. Even though we arrived in Vientienne by 9am, it still took most of a day to find a place to stay, get our bearings, take a nap, and sample the local shopping.

How we plan our routes and buy our tickets depends on the country we are in. Basically, I pick the next place we want to go, look online and in the travel books to determine a general idea of how much it should cost, and then delay buying the ticket until the day before we plan to leave. Simple procrastination tends to limit our options so that we only have to pick between the early bus or the late bus.

In China, we generally went to the train/bus stations to buy our tickets. Train travel is quite simple in China and I could generally, if rather slowly, figure out the schedules and buy our tickets. For our first transit in Thailand, we did the same thing. However, we don't read or speak Thai and the woman that we bought our tickets from didn't speak much English. This is how we ended up on the overnight slow boat to Koh Tao. Since then, we have generally purchased tickets through our guesthouses or travel agents. It adds a little bit to the price but I am willing to pay more for the convenience factor, and to avoid getting on another slow boat.

As Joey learned, it always pays to ask for all of the details: when does it leave, when does it arrive, where does it arrive, are there any stops, is there air-conditioning, etc. Even with all of our questions answered, there is usually a level of uncertainty in any transit day. This was most evident when we were waiting for the catamaran to take us to Koh Phagnan. The announcement over the loudspeaker was not directed at those passengers going to to Koh Tao/Koh Samui but rather "those passengers hoping to go to Koh Tao/Koh Samui." This was not comforting, though it did make docking in Koh Tao a pleasant surprise.

We have only bought one set of bus tickets in Laos, we leave for Vang Vieng tomorrow, so I don't know which will be the best option here. Travel in Laos is slow and pretty inexpensive. We learned from our dinnermates last night to always expect the worse. A 150k trip can take two hours or eleven hours, you never know. Tomorrow should be another adventure.

Grand Palace Complex

Before catching an overnight bus to Laos, Joey and I toured the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok. The complex includes the palace grounds and the Wat Phra Kaew, Temple of the Emerald Buddha. When on the grounds, one must be covered from the elbows to the knees. Joey was wearing shorts so he had to borrow a fetching set of pants from the attendants. They are well prepared for inappropriate dress, lending pants, skirts, and sleeved shirts to Thais and foreigners alike.



The temple that contains the Emerald Buddha is surrounded by a group of very elaborate buildings including two golden chedis, a text depository, a library, and a model of Angkor Wat. The Thai style is, in a word, shiny. Many of the buildings are covered in colored glass tiles and gold leaf. It was an incredibly hot day and the sun seemed magnified by all of the reflective surfaces. It is a stunning look, if not one that I would want to wake up to every morning.

The Emerald Buddha has a turbulent history. Its origins are unknown. It was first found in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai. It was kept by the Thai kings until taken to Laos in 1552. The Thais took the Buddha back in 1778. Since then it has remained in Thai hands. The chapel he is housed in is currently being renovated so we don't have any pictures of the interior or exterior. The picture of the Mondop below gives you the basic idea, though.

The buddha image is carved from jade, not emerald, but it still quite striking. (Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed.) He has three outfits: summer, rainy season, and winter. His summer attire is appropriatedly skimpy, basically a bunch of gold jewelry. His rainy season attire looks more like a gold suit while his winter outfit is a poncho made from a gold chain. He is one well-dressed Buddha.

The buildings on the palace grounds are not quite as ornate as those in the temple area but still interesting. The capital was moved to Bangkok, called Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnoparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatanasathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit (or Krungthep for short) in Thai, in 1782. Rama I and his successor's filled the grounds with buildings in a large variety of architectural styles. The King no longer lives on the Palace Grounds but the buildings retain their ceremonial functions.

We couldn't take pictures inside so we can't show you the ornate thrones, particularly the one covered in mother of pearl, and other interior features. Frankly, it was so hot we didn't get many pictures of the outside either. We basically walked at a slow rush from fan to fan. Walking fast enough to get to the next fan but not too fast so that you get extra sweaty is a key skill for dealing with the heat of Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, it is one we haven't yet entirely mastered but we are working on it. Our new pace will drive our Seattle friends nuts when we get home!

We're Doing Good

Thank you for all of your well wishes. Although we had a rough week in Thailand, we really are doing well. It is a well-worn cliche that travel changes you. As with most cliches, it seems to be true. We definitely got tired of having stuff go wrong, but we never melted down. (Okay, maybe there were a few tears when I fell the second time but only because I was half asleep and my behind hurt.) More than anything, we are really impressed with ourselves as a couple.

We are also impressed with all of the comments. (Though, I seem to have vague memories of a brother and sister. I guess I used my imagination to fill a lonely childhood.) If you haven't had a chance to add a comment, please do. We have loved reading every single one. It is great to have friends and family from all over reading the blog. We will treasure the record in the years to come. I am not sure I will want to see Joey, Jeff, and Bill in bike shorts in fifty years, but...

Your turn

We are headed to Laos tomorrow, so we will be out of touch for a day or so while we are in transit. As you can see, we have caught up with our posts and now we have a favor to ask. We have been checking our site traffic, and we can tell where some visitors are coming from but we don't know who all of you are (for example, we have no idea who our frequent visitor from New Jersey is).

So, we would like it very much if you could post a comment. You don't have to post much, just say hi and let us know who you are and maybe where you are from. Simply click on the "comments" link at the bottom of this post, and you are set. You don't have to register, you can just select the option to add your name (select the option that says "other").

I will post the first comment to provide an example. We look forward to hearing from you all.

Karma

Joey:
We have recently had a bit of bad luck, and we are racking our brains trying to figure out if we deserve it or if it is just coincidence. For those of you who know us well, you're probably wondering why we would have this debate. Seriously, who believes in the karmic cyle anyway. Right?

Well, we happen to be in a Buddhist country where everyone believes in karma from the king on down to... to tourists who happen to be in the country for just a few weeks. My feeling is that the belief has sunk in somehow, and thus the debate mentioned above.

Our bad luck began while we were in Koh Tao. It was a lovely day; we spent some time on the beach, did some laundry, and laid in the hammock on the front porch. All in all, it was pretty normal. Then, Erin says "have you seen my wedding ring?" I was not too surprised or concerned at first, because while traveling we have both misplaced lots of things. But after a couple of hours of turning the room inside out (quite literally), we were not able to find said ring.
The next day, before we checked out, we turned the room upside down again and still could not find it. After much crying and being upset, Erin was finally able to calm me down. Actually, we tried our best not to let it get us down. We had purposefully not brought an expensive ring, just in case of this scenario.

Erin's turn:
I was pretty devastated about the ring but still excited to get to Koh Phagnan. We stayed in a stunning cove on the northeastern side of the island. Then, I got sick. Three days of nausea, fever, and dizziness made it hard for me to enjoy our surroundings. It also meant that Joey had to arrange our travel back to Bangkok.

For a first-timer, he did okay. I'd give him a C-. Because it was in the middle of Songkran, we had to take a secondary boat and then catch a late bus. It was no overnight ferry (see earlier post), but we still didn't arrive in Bangkok until 5am the following morning, about 19 hours of travelling, instead of 8pm in the evening which we originally intended. The C- comes from having to buy the tickets twice, once in Koh Phagnan and once in Koh Tao. The ticket stub given to him in Koh Phagnan did not reflect the original purchase. Oops.

Once in Bangkok, we checked in, took a nap, and then headed out to enjoy Songkran. After a few hours of getting soaked, covered in flour, dancing in the street, laughing at the chaos, and generally enjoying ourselves, I felt someone's hand in my pocket. I pushed the man away and called to Joey to check his pockets. It was too late, his wallet was gone. We are usually so careful; I think we were just too tired when we headed out for the festival.

Because it was a holiday, we were left with only the 160 baht (about $4) in my pocket until the following morning. Luckily this was enough to contact the various credit card companies and get some street food for dinner.

Bad karma or bad luck, I don't know. It has been a tough week for us. We think Thailand is a lovely country but when Annsley asked Joey if he liked Thailand, he had to think about his answer for a minute.

This afternoon we are going to go see the Emerald Buddha to see if we can rid ourselves of this bad karma. We will let you know if it works out.

Songkran - Thai New Year

We have been very lucky to accidentally find celebrations and holidays as we have traveled. Somehow, we have now experienced three New Years in 2007. The newest one is Songkran, the Thai New Year.

Songkran is celebrated by an enormous three day water fight. It really isn't a water fight as much as it is a mutual soaking by thousands and thousands of Thai people. We are staying near Khao Sahn Road, the equivalent of the French Quarter in New Orleans, so we are pretty much right in the middle of one of the hugest water fights in the country. The other part of the celebration is to mix flour and water and spread it over each other (mostly in the face). Neither Erin nor I could figure out this part of the celebration, but you can see lots of white faces in some of the photos from how much flour has been flung.

The streets were lined with vendors selling water and sodas and beer to drink, as well as vendors selling water to fling. Lots of folks had the most technical water guns and others had simple pails and cups. (The boy below is carrying a water gun almost as big as he is.) The worst/best part of the vendors was that the ones selling cold drinks would often spray the ice cold water at those of us passing by. It was terrible for about two seconds because you would feel frozen, but then again it was about 95 degrees out so it also had a very cooling effect.

We had a wonderful time, except for one thing which will be explained in the next post.

Koh Phagnan

Koh Phagnan (pronounced koh pan yan), is just south of Koh Tao on the west coast of the mainland in the Gulf of Thailand. It is a bit less developed than Koh Tao, although slightly larger. Erin and I arrived by catamaran in the evening and had to find a taxi which would drive us nearly an hour over unpaved roads to our hotel, which honestly left a bruise on my bum. However, it was well worth it.

The beach that we stayed on had body surfing waves and more restaurants with great Thai food. The atmosphere in this part of the island was a lot more serene. There were couples and folks who were a little more our age. We didn't see "drunk girl" from SNL once. We also took advantange of the quiet and remote location by sleeping in every day and catching up on our reading.

Somehow, our luck with rain continued. It has been following us since we left Seattle, and we chuckle about how we even brought rain to Australia which was having a THREE YEAR DROUGHT. Fortunately, this coincided nicely with the Thai new year.

In Thailand, the new year (called Son Kran) is celebrated with a huge waterfight. Actually, it isn't a "fight" as much as it is a mutual soaking. Everyone soaks each other with squirt guns, and pails, and anything that holds water. I even got splashed out of a soda bottle which had obviously been re-filled a number of times.

I can't say for sure what the waterfight represents, but this is our third New Year's celebration of the year. We are having a blast experiencing the cultural differences of each celebration, and I will never view a New Year's the same way again.

Koh Tao: the Sunset Edition

As described previously, Koh Tao is a beautiful island which is home to many party bars and LOTS of dive and snorkel shops. The fun part is that it also draws in some families and some not so over the top partiers, so it isn't as much like an episode of Saturday Night Live's "drunk girl" as you might think. Although there is plenty of that too (not the girl pictured below, of course).

During the six days that we stayed there, we found a few excellent Thai food places and some simply outstanding beaches. Some of the restaurants sit right on the beach. Every evening the crew digs up some places in the sand to place citronella candles and bamboo poles for torches. Then they put out mats or tables within a meter or two of the water. High tide is about 11pm-ish, so you have to be done with dinner before the water starts to wash up under your table. Did I mention that the seafood was fresh?

We missed only one sunset while we were in Koh Tao. The move from the hammock to the beach was hard after a morning of diving but well worth it.

PADI Course

We arrived in Koh Tao at about 5:o0 am, so nothing was open and no one was awake except for a few taxi drivers (using pickup trucks) and some howling dogs. We had met a couple of other English speakers on the boat ride, so we all hung out together exploring the neighborhood while we waited for the town to awaken. On first glance, it looked a little dirty and a bit over-partied. This was not much of a surprise, because we had read about this island and there isn't much to do here except spend time on the beach and stay up late at the beach-side bars and discos.

Erin and I had different plans. We had been discussing getting our scuba diving certifications, so we spent our time that morning shopping for reputable and cheap dive shops. We were quite fortunate to find Davy Jone's Locker (http://www.techdivethailand.com/), which is a small shop in Sairee Beach. The folks there were super nice. And although it was a little more expensive than other shops, the groups were smaller than the "mega" classes which are more popular with the folks who stay up too late at the bars described above (think singles crowd with a certain urgency which only a beach town can encourage).

After 4 days worth of videos and lessons both in and out of the water, we are now officially certified as "open water" scuba divers. Basically, this is the first level of dive certification, but we are very excited to have completed the experience. During the course of our training we got to see some amazing fish and coral reefs, and I'm afraid that future vacations may require a proximity to a good dive spot because we are hooked.

I just wish that we had an underwater camera, so we could share some of our experiences. I'm planning on keeping an eye out for a disposable underwater camera that will tolerate depth, so we can post some photos. We did get invited to make a marketing video for the dive shop, and the video now plays constantly in DJL. We got a copy which we will be happy to show you when we get back.

Transit Day: Bangkok to Koh Tao

Erin and I have found that the hardest part about traveling is moving from one place to another. The act of "traveling" or "being on vacation" isn't that difficult at all. However, getting from point A to point B is another story entirely. If you've been reading for a while, you may recall the story of the train from Beijing to Shanghai and then the bus to Suzhou.

Getting from Bangkok to the island of Koh Tao appeared effortless. All along the tourist area in Bangkok, there were shops advertising tickets and package tours. In our experience, these types of places can be more convenient, but they are also way more expensive than booking the ticket yourself. We've also read that some of the shops are a little shady, and visitors have been known to be ripped off. So, we decided to go to the bus station and book the trip ourselves.
Once at the bus station, we had a difficult time telling which way to go. As you might expect, most of the signage was in Thai, and we don't read Thai at all. But, we were fortunate enough to find a ticket window with the correct name above it, so we hopped on over and bought some tickets. The bus left from the station about two hours from the time we bought them, so we had just enough time to grab some lunch and get a SIM card for our phone. Fortunately, there was a luggage counter, or we'd have had to haul our bags for a couple of miles to complete our assigned pre-trip tasks.

Once we got onto the bus, we had a 7 hour journey ahead of us to Chumpon. Fortunately, there was a restroom on the bus, because we only stopped once. Along the way, we met the only other white guy on the bus, and we swapped a few stories during the break. Mark is from Toronto, and he is on a 3 month trip across Asia before beginning his newly found job. Mark is in the picture below, taken at our dinner stop. We farangs didn't know it was a dinner stop so we just hung out while the Thai's ate.

After the bus dropped us off in Chompon at around 8 pm, we hung out in town and grabbed a bite to eat while we waited for the next leg of our trip. We then had a ferry trip which lasted another 7 (or was it 8?) hours to reach Koh Tao. The ferry was relatively small, and it had mats on the floor so that we could sleep. Erin and I slept on and off, as the boat rocked quite a bit and it was seriously hot - that's right, no AC!

Needless to say, we made it safe and sound, but as I noted above it was not the easiest day. We really just wanted to sleep or eat and then sleep, but since we arrived in Koh Tao at around 5 am nothing was open.

Bangkok, Take 1

After being in the cold and dryness of China for a month, it was a bit of a shock to get off the plane at 1 am and experience the heat and humidity of Thailand. It was a welcome feeling to start sweating again, although it didn't take long (morning time) for us to feel overwhelmed by the muggy weather. Some travel books suggest taking a day or two to acclimate, so we did our best by hanging out in some AC in our hotel and only taking short trips outside until we felt like we could handle it better.

Bangkok is amazing. The city is huge, and despite the fact that we didn't get very far from our hotel we felt like we got a taste of it. It turns out that we weren't very far from a very touristy area, Kao Sahn Road, which thankfully we only visited twice. In fact, Erin had just read an article about the tourist street right before we found it, so she had an idea of what we were seeing when we got there. If you check out the article on Slate(http://www.slate.com/id/2163104/entry/2163105/), be sure to look for the picture of the sign which we have posted below.

It seems mythical that you can get just about anything in Bangkok, but I believe the rumors to be true. As an example, there are carts along the tourist street where you can get drivers licenses and diplomas and any other number of falsified documentation. I tried to snap this photo without the guy seeing me, because I didn't want him to think that I was going to turn him in.)

(Erin's Aside: Joey keeps talking about taking a Muey Thai boxing lesson. I am not too keen on the plan -- elbows to the face are fair game -- but here is a picture of the gym he may try out.)