Monday January 21, Tuesday January 22 and Wednesday January 23
Heather wrote a fabulous update on the adventures of the last 24 hours we spent in Chiang Rai, and while we got a slightly later start on our way to Laos, we were still on a bus by 1pm. We had a 2 and half hour bus to the border between Thailand and Laos, then had to go through Thai Departures, take a ferry boat across to Huay Xi and then go through Laos Immigration.
Compared to other border crossings that we’ve been through (by plane and by bus), the feared Laotian immigration officials/process was relatively painless. We’d heard that it could be a nightmarish process, but the worst part was having to find a copy machine to copy our passports in lieu of a passport sized photo, and there was a significant lack of armed guards (in fact, we saw not one gun).
And to make us feel better about the robbery resulting in our belated start, as we were heading out of immigration to look into taking a boat to Luang Prabang, two couples approached us and asked if we would be interested in chartering a boat with 25 other people, for about the same price as the local boat. It was as if fate had intervened. However, fate could have done so in a way that was less stressful slash scary, btw.
Here’s the thing – there’s a public boat every day that starts the two-day, one-night trip to Luang Prabang around 11:30. During high season it always sells out the morning it leaves, and will have up to 80 people. Therefore, we were psyched that we’d been invited to charter a private boat…the same size boat, same exact trip, just with more room per person. However, we didn’t have a boat yet.
We found a guesthouse and dropped our stuff, and met up with the other 21 other boat people at a bar near the boat launch. Enter Mr. Funny and Olay, our boat owner and ‘tour guide’, respectively. And yes, Mr. Funny introduced himself that way, and Olay followed his introduction up with “Olay, like Ole, Ole, like the brazilian soccer fans”. Brian, an aussie slash the ringleader of the random hodgepodge group of chartered boaters, made sure there was actually a boat and confirmed it was ‘pimped out’ before we all put a deposit down. It ended up being a bit more expensive than the local boat, but well worth it in the end.
Tuesday morning we woke up, Heather, Sarah and I saw a Wat, and we were picked up by Mr. Funny’s private tuktuk service at noon. We arrived to find exactly what Brian had promised us; a pimped out boat. The seats were all from old buses or trains, leather for the most part, there was a DVD player which obviously had Thai Karaoke blasting within 10 minutes of launch, a stereo we hooked up to an ipod by cutting a few wires at a later point in the trip, a bar chock full of BeerLao (the only beer sold in Laos, ps), golden curtains throughout AND a sunroof. Absolutely ridiculous.
Please, also, let me introduce some of the cast of characters we found ourselves amongst for two days down the Mighty Mekong River…there was an American couple on their year-long honeymoon, a couple traveling together playing gigs, guitar + shakers, throughout the region when possible (Fantuzzi and Shoshona…ps when asked how long he had been traveling, Fantuzzi replied, “40 years”…I only hope I can say the same some day), an Aussie couple traveling after living in London for 5 years (also the brains and organizers behind the operation), an Aussie journalist living in Bangkok currently, Sandros – a young German entrepreneur who lists counting cards as one of his greatest talents, and memorable others. It was, literally, a cast of characters and we were happy to up the numbers of Americans on the boat, as we haven’t really met many along the way.
The first day was a 5 and a half hour trip to the stopping point for the night where we found a nice little guesthouse with restaurant attached. The cook thoroughly enjoyed all our questions, and tried to sell Flynn a canteen after one question of interest. We also met a little girl, related to the owners of the guesthouse, who apparently looks like an exact Laotian version of Flynn’s youngest sister, sass included. We were also offered marijuana on a number of occasions. Aforementioned restaurant, however, caused us to be late Wednesday morning getting to the boat and Heather and Flynn politely took a bow when they were given a round of applause for arriving late.
The second day, oh the Mighty Mekong was good to us. We had a 9-hour trip to Luang Prabang, and luckily people didn’t start drinking until noon. About an hour from LP, we stopped at a Buddha Cave, in which hundreds of buddhas have been placed over the years (this was great for the 4 of us because we had really wanted to see the cave, but didn’t want to have to spend half a day chartering a private boat to take us). The views we got from traveling along the Mekong River from Huay Xi to Luang Prabang were incredible, and there were constant rock formations that popped up along the river line. It was really interesting to see how much higher the water would be if we were traveling during the rainy season…slash we may or may not have wanted to travel along it during the rainy season.
We arrived in Luang Prabang about 10 minutes ahead of the public boat we chose not to get on, which was SUCH a blessing because it was like a backpacker frenzy to find cheap rooms throughout the town. We asked at one guesthouse, who were full, and luckily a random guy overheard us asking for a double room for 4 people. He introduced himself as Sai, and let us know “ahh, yes, I have a room for four. Hot showers too. Plus, I have free tea and bananas” We were sold.
The minute we began walking through the town, and you immediately see the French influence on the city. There are baguettes at every vendor, Lao coffee is on every menu and half the signs are translated into French as well as English. I immediately said that I could see myself living in Luang Prabang, it has a great small-town feel and the architecture is cute and quaint. However, it quickly became clear to us that the lasting French influence on the town was probably from the large population of rich French people that seem to vacation in LP, or even own small houses/apartments and spend their holidays in Laos.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Chiang Rai - City of Wonders (good and bad alike)
Sarah and Heather here in Laos… Although Kate’s been doing an amazing job updating y’all on our travel adventures, or more aptly put “being attached to her computer whenever it’s fully charged,” we’ve decided to put our two cents in. We apologize now for our writing since all we’ve written in the past few years has been scientific papers, but we’ll try our best.
So as we said, we’re in Laos, halfway to Luang Prabang via boat on the Mekong at a guesthouse in Pak Beng, however the road into Laos had a few extra unexpected hurdles.
Our last day in Chiang Rai was absolutely fabulous! We all decided to split up and follow our different interests: Erin got a 2hr massage, Flynn caught up on her journal, Kate blogged (surprise surprise), and the two of us rented a motorbike (standard this time!) to explore the countryside and surrounding wats. We got a bright yellow, souped up Honda as advised by the savvy Thai businessman. After he pointed us in the “right” direction to get petrol and Heather took a couple of practice runs in the parking lot, we were off with the gas light on. After asking directions a couple of times, and hoping the locals didn’t run us over, or laugh too much at Heather’s newfound standard motorbiking skills, we found a gas station and filled up.
We headed south on the 1211 toward Wat Rong Khun or “The White Temple,” which was 13k away according to our trusty lonely planet. After driving for about a half hour along the same road with no white temple in sight (a guy from NC told us it’d be totally visible), we decided to ask for directions. We stopped at a motorbike repair shop along the side of the road and the guys started laughing, yelling to the girls across the street, and finally got one of their mothers to translate for us since they didn’t speak any English. She pointed in the direction we came from, which was the obvious answer to us but detailed instructions couldn’t be expressed in gestures and nods. So we hopped on again, did some exploring and gawking at the beautiful limestone hills and rice paddies before stopping at an information station, which was closed. But a little helpful restaurant owner, with a “long live the king” bracelet on (blast our inability to find them), drew a map for us on scrap paper. It was a blank road with another road branching off to the right with the name Pasaktong written at the junction. However, all the road signs were in Thai, and neither of us read Thai script, let alone speak it. We ended up stopping one more time, at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden we had this lovely, smiley girl leading us there on her motorbike! She drove us until we could see the blazing white spires of the wat and waved us on, all smiles.
We had heard that Wat Rong Khun was contemporary, but I’m not sure we were fully prepared for the “new agey” artwork and architecture of Chalermchai Kositpipat. The whole complex was made of white concrete with plain silver mirror tiles decorating buddhas, nagas (multiple-headed snakes), and protector demons, and a lot of buildings were still under construction. In order to enter the main temple we had to cross a mirror plated bridge flanked by the uplifted hands and faces of those who have been condemned to hells. An alms bowl was on either side as well. Once we got close to the temple doors and took off our shoes, we were floored by the detailed, golden artistry of the Buddha on the wall facing us. We attempted to take photos, but the security guard stopped us, gesturing that we could take photos from the stairs. This was interesting because a lot of old wats do not have regulations on photo taking – perhaps they are protecting the art of Mr. Kositpipat? Or, as we found out later, just wanting to make money off of his prints, although an exact replica cannot be found in poster form either. We walked into the temple, paid our respects to the Buddha images and were floored again as we turned around and saw a fiery depiction of modern day samsara (also known as life, “the realm of rebirth and delusion”). This samsara mural was fully modern and was literally out of this world: rockets, laser guns, a woman bending over in a thong giving the finger, genetic modification, Neo from The Matrix, and the Twin Towers getting hit on 9/11. Unreal – not like any other wat we’ve seen yet.
A bit buzzed by the craziness of the wat, we headed back into town to see some more traditional wats. By the time we were able to orient ourselves with the maps it was sunset, and monks were having their evening prayer sessions. We watched family walk up the steps to pray as well and the mother and daughters stayed outside while the father went in. During this time the temple is sacred male space. We then headed to a hilltop wat, and got a bit lost. It was getting dark and we got caught on a highway with lots of traffic. Heather zipped around cars and trucks and motorbikes, hopping across lanes, while Sarah was a fabulous navigator.
We finally made it back safe and sound, totally pumped about our exciting afternoon and went to ‘Cabbages and Condoms’ for dinner, which dear Katie Meehan will tell you about later. We all got back, packed our things up to head into Laos (minus Ms. Finkle who packed to head back to the US), and lay down for a restful night. Boy were we wrong…
I (Heather) woke up at 3:15 and noticed that the door was wide open. I was sharing a room with Flynn, so I quietly got up to close and lock our door. As I headed back to bed I noticed that my sling bag with all my important essentials (passport, debit/credit cards, money, paper tickets, ID) was oh so missing from its spot next to my bed. I went to the bathroom to flick on the light and started searching the room, with no success. Then I turned on the main light and conceded to waking up Flynn as a result. We both searched without luck, so I went to talk with the night watchman at the desk. He told me to search the room again, which I did, and then I started searching the grounds. The night watchman aided me with a flashlight and we finally found my bag near a low fence in a gated, staff only area by the road. Luckily everything was there, except my 300 baht in cash and travelers checks. What a relief that nothing else was taken and that none of us were hurt in any way!
Flynn and I headed to the tourist police around 4am and were told to return the next morning “8:30, 9, 10, like that” to fill out a police report to give my bank. A few more hours of restless sleep later we were back in the office filling our forms and found out that I was already one of three tourists to report an in-room robbery that morning. As a result, we had to head to the official police department, and were escorted there in the back of a cop car, laughing all the way with Flynn that we can now check it off our list of life goals. Everything went very smoothly, and thanks to our translator we were able to head to Laos the very same day.
So as we said, we’re in Laos, halfway to Luang Prabang via boat on the Mekong at a guesthouse in Pak Beng, however the road into Laos had a few extra unexpected hurdles.
Our last day in Chiang Rai was absolutely fabulous! We all decided to split up and follow our different interests: Erin got a 2hr massage, Flynn caught up on her journal, Kate blogged (surprise surprise), and the two of us rented a motorbike (standard this time!) to explore the countryside and surrounding wats. We got a bright yellow, souped up Honda as advised by the savvy Thai businessman. After he pointed us in the “right” direction to get petrol and Heather took a couple of practice runs in the parking lot, we were off with the gas light on. After asking directions a couple of times, and hoping the locals didn’t run us over, or laugh too much at Heather’s newfound standard motorbiking skills, we found a gas station and filled up.
We headed south on the 1211 toward Wat Rong Khun or “The White Temple,” which was 13k away according to our trusty lonely planet. After driving for about a half hour along the same road with no white temple in sight (a guy from NC told us it’d be totally visible), we decided to ask for directions. We stopped at a motorbike repair shop along the side of the road and the guys started laughing, yelling to the girls across the street, and finally got one of their mothers to translate for us since they didn’t speak any English. She pointed in the direction we came from, which was the obvious answer to us but detailed instructions couldn’t be expressed in gestures and nods. So we hopped on again, did some exploring and gawking at the beautiful limestone hills and rice paddies before stopping at an information station, which was closed. But a little helpful restaurant owner, with a “long live the king” bracelet on (blast our inability to find them), drew a map for us on scrap paper. It was a blank road with another road branching off to the right with the name Pasaktong written at the junction. However, all the road signs were in Thai, and neither of us read Thai script, let alone speak it. We ended up stopping one more time, at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden we had this lovely, smiley girl leading us there on her motorbike! She drove us until we could see the blazing white spires of the wat and waved us on, all smiles.
We had heard that Wat Rong Khun was contemporary, but I’m not sure we were fully prepared for the “new agey” artwork and architecture of Chalermchai Kositpipat. The whole complex was made of white concrete with plain silver mirror tiles decorating buddhas, nagas (multiple-headed snakes), and protector demons, and a lot of buildings were still under construction. In order to enter the main temple we had to cross a mirror plated bridge flanked by the uplifted hands and faces of those who have been condemned to hells. An alms bowl was on either side as well. Once we got close to the temple doors and took off our shoes, we were floored by the detailed, golden artistry of the Buddha on the wall facing us. We attempted to take photos, but the security guard stopped us, gesturing that we could take photos from the stairs. This was interesting because a lot of old wats do not have regulations on photo taking – perhaps they are protecting the art of Mr. Kositpipat? Or, as we found out later, just wanting to make money off of his prints, although an exact replica cannot be found in poster form either. We walked into the temple, paid our respects to the Buddha images and were floored again as we turned around and saw a fiery depiction of modern day samsara (also known as life, “the realm of rebirth and delusion”). This samsara mural was fully modern and was literally out of this world: rockets, laser guns, a woman bending over in a thong giving the finger, genetic modification, Neo from The Matrix, and the Twin Towers getting hit on 9/11. Unreal – not like any other wat we’ve seen yet.
A bit buzzed by the craziness of the wat, we headed back into town to see some more traditional wats. By the time we were able to orient ourselves with the maps it was sunset, and monks were having their evening prayer sessions. We watched family walk up the steps to pray as well and the mother and daughters stayed outside while the father went in. During this time the temple is sacred male space. We then headed to a hilltop wat, and got a bit lost. It was getting dark and we got caught on a highway with lots of traffic. Heather zipped around cars and trucks and motorbikes, hopping across lanes, while Sarah was a fabulous navigator.
We finally made it back safe and sound, totally pumped about our exciting afternoon and went to ‘Cabbages and Condoms’ for dinner, which dear Katie Meehan will tell you about later. We all got back, packed our things up to head into Laos (minus Ms. Finkle who packed to head back to the US), and lay down for a restful night. Boy were we wrong…
I (Heather) woke up at 3:15 and noticed that the door was wide open. I was sharing a room with Flynn, so I quietly got up to close and lock our door. As I headed back to bed I noticed that my sling bag with all my important essentials (passport, debit/credit cards, money, paper tickets, ID) was oh so missing from its spot next to my bed. I went to the bathroom to flick on the light and started searching the room, with no success. Then I turned on the main light and conceded to waking up Flynn as a result. We both searched without luck, so I went to talk with the night watchman at the desk. He told me to search the room again, which I did, and then I started searching the grounds. The night watchman aided me with a flashlight and we finally found my bag near a low fence in a gated, staff only area by the road. Luckily everything was there, except my 300 baht in cash and travelers checks. What a relief that nothing else was taken and that none of us were hurt in any way!
Flynn and I headed to the tourist police around 4am and were told to return the next morning “8:30, 9, 10, like that” to fill out a police report to give my bank. A few more hours of restless sleep later we were back in the office filling our forms and found out that I was already one of three tourists to report an in-room robbery that morning. As a result, we had to head to the official police department, and were escorted there in the back of a cop car, laughing all the way with Flynn that we can now check it off our list of life goals. Everything went very smoothly, and thanks to our translator we were able to head to Laos the very same day.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
King Shirts and Bracelets: On a hunt
Upon arrival at the Chiang Rai boat dock (please look at the picture…priceless) we took a tuktuk to our guesthouse (a much nicer accommodation than we’ve been used to as a result of Erin’s mother’s generosity), took hot showers and eventually went out for dinner at the night market.
Chiang Rai’s night market is nowhere near as expansive as chiang Mai’s, but definitely had its own flare. There was live music in the square where all the food was sold, which was fabulous, and many of the local hilltribes wares were there for sale.
A little elderly woman who had been handstitching bedspreads and tablecloths at the Karen village/elephant camp we stopped at was actually at the Chiang Rai night market. Heather and I had absolutely fallen in love with some of her things and walked over saying this woman’s work looked remarkably similar…much to our surprise, the little elderly lady pointed to us and laughed, almost as if she was saying, “ha! You were looking earlier! Now you will definitely buy!”
I got an amazing bedspread for about $50USD…I was seriously debating but thanks to my lovely travel companions, I’m pretty sure it’ll be one of those ‘treasures’ I keep forever.
Additionally, and I haven’t yet really touched upon this which is surprising, we were on the hunt in Chiang Rai for two things: King shirts and bracelets. If you’ve every spoken with anyone who’s traveled through Thailand you’re probably aware of at least one thing: Thais are OBSESSED with their King. He’s the longest reigning monarch of the contemporary era who is still living (going on 60 years), and his face is plastered EVERYWHERE (see example below)
Additionally, a huge item for people to own are polos with the king’s symbol on it, AND just recently we’ve found the equivalent of livestrong
bracelets that say “long live the king” (orange color, btw) --- those are the two things that we felt we should leave Thailand with.
Apparently, the king bracelets were sold at 7-11’s throughout the country for a limited time only, so we were out of luck (ps 7-11’s are on every corner, open 24hours. Obviously), but Erin was able to pick up a King shirt. Therefore, Sarah’s the only one of the 5 of us that needs to find one before leaving Bangkok for her flight out to NZ.
(heather, flynn and i sporting our King polos)
Signing off for now – we’re heading to Laos tomorrow – blog updates will be few and far between, and probably multiple at once, while we’re in Laos and Cambodia – but please continue to leave comments and email us. We love hearing from y’all!
Chiang Rai’s night market is nowhere near as expansive as chiang Mai’s, but definitely had its own flare. There was live music in the square where all the food was sold, which was fabulous, and many of the local hilltribes wares were there for sale.
A little elderly woman who had been handstitching bedspreads and tablecloths at the Karen village/elephant camp we stopped at was actually at the Chiang Rai night market. Heather and I had absolutely fallen in love with some of her things and walked over saying this woman’s work looked remarkably similar…much to our surprise, the little elderly lady pointed to us and laughed, almost as if she was saying, “ha! You were looking earlier! Now you will definitely buy!”
I got an amazing bedspread for about $50USD…I was seriously debating but thanks to my lovely travel companions, I’m pretty sure it’ll be one of those ‘treasures’ I keep forever.
Additionally, and I haven’t yet really touched upon this which is surprising, we were on the hunt in Chiang Rai for two things: King shirts and bracelets. If you’ve every spoken with anyone who’s traveled through Thailand you’re probably aware of at least one thing: Thais are OBSESSED with their King. He’s the longest reigning monarch of the contemporary era who is still living (going on 60 years), and his face is plastered EVERYWHERE (see example below)
Additionally, a huge item for people to own are polos with the king’s symbol on it, AND just recently we’ve found the equivalent of livestrong
bracelets that say “long live the king” (orange color, btw) --- those are the two things that we felt we should leave Thailand with.
Apparently, the king bracelets were sold at 7-11’s throughout the country for a limited time only, so we were out of luck (ps 7-11’s are on every corner, open 24hours. Obviously), but Erin was able to pick up a King shirt. Therefore, Sarah’s the only one of the 5 of us that needs to find one before leaving Bangkok for her flight out to NZ.
(heather, flynn and i sporting our King polos)Signing off for now – we’re heading to Laos tomorrow – blog updates will be few and far between, and probably multiple at once, while we’re in Laos and Cambodia – but please continue to leave comments and email us. We love hearing from y’all!
Boating Beautiful
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The best move we made in our decision making process to leave Chiang Dao a night early was to charter our own boat from TaThon to Chiang Rai. By bus it would have been 92 km, a little over an hour bus ride, and much cheaper than our own boat…but we figured it was worth the extra baht to see the Mae Kok River and do something we hadn’t yet tried.
Our renaissance business woman (who, I don’t think I mentioned this, originally struck up conversation having passed us on her motorbike asking if we were looking for a hostel and immediately taking us up as her charity case…most guesthouses will give people a small commission if they bring travelers their way who end up staying a night or two...) was all ready for us Saturday morning. She had given me a map of the river and highlighted stops for us, pointed to our boat, helped our driver load our packs and wished us well…we had no idea what was in store for us. All we knew was that it was usually about a 3 hour boat trip but with stops could take up to 5 hours.
The first place we stopped was a village of the Lahu hilltribe and it was everything that we had hoped to avoid in our decision not to go ‘trekking’, as is ever popular among tourists following the route we are. It was a village, but set up to sell their wares to tourists while they gaze, stare, watch (whichever your choice of verb may be) at the local goings-on. There is something to be said about buying things from local tribes, cutting out the traditional ‘middle-men’ who would rip off the local villagers, but usually tour outfitters do receive a small cut. Additionally, while it is great that these villages can open themselves to become part of the tourism industry and increase their economic lot, it says a lot about the nature of globalism and the era of traveling which has skyrocketed to catastrophic proportions in the past few decades in comparison to the turn of the 20th century. Heather made a really great analogy, remarking that she felt uncomfortable, “like it’s the world fair all over again, this time, we’re coming to them”
Not that we were around when the world fair took place…but I mean, we’ve learned about it.
I think that our driver, Kaa (spelling?), picked up on our discomfort for having stopped at a village, and spared us stopping at the next one on the map. Or he just didn’t understand our boat outfitter’s directions. Regardless, we then stopped at a Hot Spring Park, which had little pools you could pay to bath in if you so chose. We had a nice little walk around, and got back on our boat and headed further downstream.
Our last stop on the river before Chiang Rai was an elephant camp. We pulled up and ‘docked’ (read: ran into the shore) and made our way through the numerous elephants that were hanging out near the shoreline to the local street. We found awesome khao soi for lunch (we’ll rate it about 2nd or 3rd best thus far, behind the random stand in Pai that Gaew pointed us to, and potentially after a roadside stand we went to in Chiang Dao) and walked around a bit to the local Karen streetside stalls. There were some incredible setups where women were handstitching quilts, tablecloths and tablerunners and clothing, and usually had old Singer sewing machines set up in a corner. (mom, you’d be proud, let the quilting bee know)
This river boat was an incredible trip, especially because we got to see a different aspect of Northern Thai culture – those that live on the water and make their living harvesting rocks for local cement? mills – this is complete conjecture on our part, we’re not entirely sure. The views were gorgeous, and the ride itself made us all miss boating on good ‘ole Lake George, ps.
The best part of our trip was the last leg, from the elephant camp to Chiang Rai boat dock, was the fact that we walk up looking for our boat and Kaa, our driver, and realize that all our stuff is in a different boat. No life jackets this time (although, we only used them for cushions in Kaa’s boat) and no driver. After about 5 minutes another man ran up and asked, “Chiang Rai? Chiang Rai?” We nodded, and he ushered us into his boat. All our stuff had been nicely moved from boat to boat and placed almost exactly where we’d left it. It was only about another 30 minutes more, and then we were in Chiang Rai.
The best move we made in our decision making process to leave Chiang Dao a night early was to charter our own boat from TaThon to Chiang Rai. By bus it would have been 92 km, a little over an hour bus ride, and much cheaper than our own boat…but we figured it was worth the extra baht to see the Mae Kok River and do something we hadn’t yet tried.
Our renaissance business woman (who, I don’t think I mentioned this, originally struck up conversation having passed us on her motorbike asking if we were looking for a hostel and immediately taking us up as her charity case…most guesthouses will give people a small commission if they bring travelers their way who end up staying a night or two...) was all ready for us Saturday morning. She had given me a map of the river and highlighted stops for us, pointed to our boat, helped our driver load our packs and wished us well…we had no idea what was in store for us. All we knew was that it was usually about a 3 hour boat trip but with stops could take up to 5 hours.
The first place we stopped was a village of the Lahu hilltribe and it was everything that we had hoped to avoid in our decision not to go ‘trekking’, as is ever popular among tourists following the route we are. It was a village, but set up to sell their wares to tourists while they gaze, stare, watch (whichever your choice of verb may be) at the local goings-on. There is something to be said about buying things from local tribes, cutting out the traditional ‘middle-men’ who would rip off the local villagers, but usually tour outfitters do receive a small cut. Additionally, while it is great that these villages can open themselves to become part of the tourism industry and increase their economic lot, it says a lot about the nature of globalism and the era of traveling which has skyrocketed to catastrophic proportions in the past few decades in comparison to the turn of the 20th century. Heather made a really great analogy, remarking that she felt uncomfortable, “like it’s the world fair all over again, this time, we’re coming to them”
Not that we were around when the world fair took place…but I mean, we’ve learned about it.
I think that our driver, Kaa (spelling?), picked up on our discomfort for having stopped at a village, and spared us stopping at the next one on the map. Or he just didn’t understand our boat outfitter’s directions. Regardless, we then stopped at a Hot Spring Park, which had little pools you could pay to bath in if you so chose. We had a nice little walk around, and got back on our boat and headed further downstream.
Our last stop on the river before Chiang Rai was an elephant camp. We pulled up and ‘docked’ (read: ran into the shore) and made our way through the numerous elephants that were hanging out near the shoreline to the local street. We found awesome khao soi for lunch (we’ll rate it about 2nd or 3rd best thus far, behind the random stand in Pai that Gaew pointed us to, and potentially after a roadside stand we went to in Chiang Dao) and walked around a bit to the local Karen streetside stalls. There were some incredible setups where women were handstitching quilts, tablecloths and tablerunners and clothing, and usually had old Singer sewing machines set up in a corner. (mom, you’d be proud, let the quilting bee know)
This river boat was an incredible trip, especially because we got to see a different aspect of Northern Thai culture – those that live on the water and make their living harvesting rocks for local cement? mills – this is complete conjecture on our part, we’re not entirely sure. The views were gorgeous, and the ride itself made us all miss boating on good ‘ole Lake George, ps.
The best part of our trip was the last leg, from the elephant camp to Chiang Rai boat dock, was the fact that we walk up looking for our boat and Kaa, our driver, and realize that all our stuff is in a different boat. No life jackets this time (although, we only used them for cushions in Kaa’s boat) and no driver. After about 5 minutes another man ran up and asked, “Chiang Rai? Chiang Rai?” We nodded, and he ushered us into his boat. All our stuff had been nicely moved from boat to boat and placed almost exactly where we’d left it. It was only about another 30 minutes more, and then we were in Chiang Rai.
Chiang Dao
Wednesday January 16 – Friday January 18, 2008
Thank goodness we’re flexible people. We arrived in Chiang Dao, found our hostel (which was right off a main road, which meant ridiculously loud nights. I think earplugs might be the next investment for a few people one the trip as we were all awake at random hours except sarah who slept soundly with bright little orange earplugs popping out of her head), and headed to café café, a little restaurant right next to where the bus dropped us off.
We were trying to figure out how to spend our full 2 days in the area…and had three options – elephant camp, chiang dao caves and thailand’s highest limestone mountain, dao luang. We decided to nix the elephant camp because it was in the opposite direction and we weren’t exactly thrilled to go see elephants in captivity…even though they are in their natural habitat.
We woke up early the next morning and grabbed a tuktuk to the chiang dao caves. It was an incredible complex, and our guide slash latern holder for the morning had a fabulous time pointing out rock formations that reminded tourists of certain things…such as fried eggs, lotus flowers, chickens, etc. She knew very little English, but luckily we had heather and sarah with us to explain a bit about caves in general. The photo below is from in the caves. there was a natural picture frame!
However, we thought that the caves were going to be a full day activity. They took about an hour and half to go through (very worth it though), but our tuktuk wasn’t coming back until 5pm. Miiiight have been why she looked at us like we were crazy when we asked her to come back 6-7 hours after leaving us at this little outpost. We walked to Chiang Dao Nest, a guesthouse/restaurant which has been rated in the top restaurants in all of Thailand…but they didn’t have much thai food. What we did get, mostly Western dishes, were incredible though, and it was a gorgeous area.
We then went on a hunt to find out about hiking dao luang. Considering when we asked at a streetside stall at the base of the caves about the mountain and hiking it in a day, we were laughed out…we got the feeling that this wasn’t as simple as Lonely Planet made it seem (although, in LP’s defense, they didn’t have much more than 2 sentences on how pretty the view from the summit was). A woman (the equivalent of our national park rangers, potentially?) at the Chiang Dao Wildlife Sanctuary reinforcecd our greatest fears…Dao Luang couldn’t be hiked in a day. It was a two day/one night trip at least, if a guide would agree to push you that much. We called the Chiang Dao Nest owner and found out that most guides wouldn’t allow people to hike for more than 5 hours a day. Which is probably smart – the gradient was rather steep, and it does get ridiculously hot between the hours of 10-4, especially after noon.
To get back to the entrance to the cave complex, where we were getting picked up, we took a “2km nature walk” as recommended by the ranger we spoke to. I’m beginning to think that some people interchange km and miles for us foreigners…not realizing there’s a rather big difference. Though, in the end, it probably wasn’t more than 2 miles.
And it ended up being a nature walk through the woods…for forest monks, maybe. When we hear nature walk in the US, we think nice, flat trail. This was definitely a bit of hike. Regardless, we were excited to be ‘in the forest’ for a good bit.
So, as a result of having to leave Dao Luang without hiking the summit, we decided to change our plans completely. We left the following day, ridiculously early, and caught a bus to TaThon.
“catching a bus” in this case means standing at the parking lot we’d been dropped at and waving at all the buses coming down the road, hoping they were driving the route we needed. We actually had to take the bus to Fang, the furthest stop by bus, and then take a tuktuk to TaThon.
In the end, going to TaThon was completely worth it – one of the most interesting environments we’ve seen. We didn’t see many tourists there, but there was a HUGE wat, with 9 levels, for us to explore. We had wanted to kayak, as far up the Mae Kok River as we could, potentially getting to see the Burma border, but that was nixed by the inability to paddle upriver according to the woman who helped us find our guesthouse, chartered our boat for the next day, ran a local wares/convenience store and would have rented us kayaks (she was the definition of a thai renaissance woman – had her hand in a little bit of everything).
Wat TaThon was incredible. It was actually a series of different Buddha statues, Wats and Shrines in nine different locations. Apparently, TaThon is a big place for domestic tourists, and Wats/generous donors from Bangkok have poured money into Wat TaThon to make it a local Buddhist tourist attraction. Again, we decided to walk through this fabulous wonderment, and again, got stares from all the locals whizzing by us on motorbikes. It was a good walk through great scenery, we got amazing views of TaThon and the surrounding countryside AND we got to see over the mountains to Burma.
(for those that don’t know, Heather and I are slightly obsessed with Burma, and would try to fit that into our route if not for the political unrest). I’m hoping that while I’m in Bangladesh, things will settle down and I’ll get to visit at some point. Like I said, fingers crossed…
that's us - pointing towards Burma!
Thank goodness we’re flexible people. We arrived in Chiang Dao, found our hostel (which was right off a main road, which meant ridiculously loud nights. I think earplugs might be the next investment for a few people one the trip as we were all awake at random hours except sarah who slept soundly with bright little orange earplugs popping out of her head), and headed to café café, a little restaurant right next to where the bus dropped us off.
We were trying to figure out how to spend our full 2 days in the area…and had three options – elephant camp, chiang dao caves and thailand’s highest limestone mountain, dao luang. We decided to nix the elephant camp because it was in the opposite direction and we weren’t exactly thrilled to go see elephants in captivity…even though they are in their natural habitat.
We woke up early the next morning and grabbed a tuktuk to the chiang dao caves. It was an incredible complex, and our guide slash latern holder for the morning had a fabulous time pointing out rock formations that reminded tourists of certain things…such as fried eggs, lotus flowers, chickens, etc. She knew very little English, but luckily we had heather and sarah with us to explain a bit about caves in general. The photo below is from in the caves. there was a natural picture frame!
However, we thought that the caves were going to be a full day activity. They took about an hour and half to go through (very worth it though), but our tuktuk wasn’t coming back until 5pm. Miiiight have been why she looked at us like we were crazy when we asked her to come back 6-7 hours after leaving us at this little outpost. We walked to Chiang Dao Nest, a guesthouse/restaurant which has been rated in the top restaurants in all of Thailand…but they didn’t have much thai food. What we did get, mostly Western dishes, were incredible though, and it was a gorgeous area.
We then went on a hunt to find out about hiking dao luang. Considering when we asked at a streetside stall at the base of the caves about the mountain and hiking it in a day, we were laughed out…we got the feeling that this wasn’t as simple as Lonely Planet made it seem (although, in LP’s defense, they didn’t have much more than 2 sentences on how pretty the view from the summit was). A woman (the equivalent of our national park rangers, potentially?) at the Chiang Dao Wildlife Sanctuary reinforcecd our greatest fears…Dao Luang couldn’t be hiked in a day. It was a two day/one night trip at least, if a guide would agree to push you that much. We called the Chiang Dao Nest owner and found out that most guides wouldn’t allow people to hike for more than 5 hours a day. Which is probably smart – the gradient was rather steep, and it does get ridiculously hot between the hours of 10-4, especially after noon.
To get back to the entrance to the cave complex, where we were getting picked up, we took a “2km nature walk” as recommended by the ranger we spoke to. I’m beginning to think that some people interchange km and miles for us foreigners…not realizing there’s a rather big difference. Though, in the end, it probably wasn’t more than 2 miles.
And it ended up being a nature walk through the woods…for forest monks, maybe. When we hear nature walk in the US, we think nice, flat trail. This was definitely a bit of hike. Regardless, we were excited to be ‘in the forest’ for a good bit.
So, as a result of having to leave Dao Luang without hiking the summit, we decided to change our plans completely. We left the following day, ridiculously early, and caught a bus to TaThon.
“catching a bus” in this case means standing at the parking lot we’d been dropped at and waving at all the buses coming down the road, hoping they were driving the route we needed. We actually had to take the bus to Fang, the furthest stop by bus, and then take a tuktuk to TaThon.
In the end, going to TaThon was completely worth it – one of the most interesting environments we’ve seen. We didn’t see many tourists there, but there was a HUGE wat, with 9 levels, for us to explore. We had wanted to kayak, as far up the Mae Kok River as we could, potentially getting to see the Burma border, but that was nixed by the inability to paddle upriver according to the woman who helped us find our guesthouse, chartered our boat for the next day, ran a local wares/convenience store and would have rented us kayaks (she was the definition of a thai renaissance woman – had her hand in a little bit of everything).
Wat TaThon was incredible. It was actually a series of different Buddha statues, Wats and Shrines in nine different locations. Apparently, TaThon is a big place for domestic tourists, and Wats/generous donors from Bangkok have poured money into Wat TaThon to make it a local Buddhist tourist attraction. Again, we decided to walk through this fabulous wonderment, and again, got stares from all the locals whizzing by us on motorbikes. It was a good walk through great scenery, we got amazing views of TaThon and the surrounding countryside AND we got to see over the mountains to Burma.
(for those that don’t know, Heather and I are slightly obsessed with Burma, and would try to fit that into our route if not for the political unrest). I’m hoping that while I’m in Bangladesh, things will settle down and I’ll get to visit at some point. Like I said, fingers crossed…
that's us - pointing towards Burma!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
waterfalls, cookery and motorbikes
while I would never dream of leaving y’all with just three words to sum up our 3 full days in Pai, if I had to, “waterfalls, cookery and motorbikes” would be a pretty good choice.
Sunday we started the day off with breakfast and coffee and gameplan-ing after we all finally got out of bed. We were anxious to spend a full day outside, after our bus ride the previous day, and knew there were waterfalls around pai – two of which are very popular destinations for visitors. We chose one because we figured, from reading our lonely planet, that round trip it would be about 18km. but we had all day, so we were confident that it would be a good experience.
We started down one road that according to Flynn would lead us to the waterfalls…however after about a mile or two a guy on a motorbike stopped us and asked if were heading to the falls. We responded that yes, we were going to the waterfalls. WELL, he informed us, we were heading in the entirely wrong direction. Apparently we should have taken another road out of town and there would be a sign for us to follow to the said falls…so we hung out heads and headed back into town. This hippie guy had suggested getting motorbikes, or hiring a taxi, but we were determined to get there by walking most of the way. Now, lonely planet also had said you could cut the trip by 5km by taking a bus headed to mae hong son and getting off at the turnoff for the waterfalls. Trying to explain this to the ticketing guy at the bus station was an adventure all in itself, but suffice it to say that we eventually got our point across that we only wanted to ride to the turnoff for the waterfalls.
Or we thought we did. He stopped the bus at a random side road and pointed out. This fully entertained the entire bus, locals who were intently watching our reactions. We crossed our fingers and started walking. About 2 hours later, we finally made it up to the falls, which we found out on our way back to town were 6km up the sideroad. It was all uphill after the first half-mile too. HOWEVER, we were very happy we did finally get to the waterfalls by our own volition and the way we’d wanted to explore a bit of the area. Funny story – the guy who’d told us to turn around passed us again and stopped, asking if we were the ‘5 lovely ladies’ he stopped before. And then he exclaimed, “you’re still walking!” as if we were crazy for thinking our legs could carry us all the way there.
And yesterday we did a little research and had we continued on the road we were on we would have reached the waterfalls. It probably would have just been a little longer…but at least we can read a map. We had gotten a bit nervous about that.
And at least we provided some entertainment for the locals along the way.
On the way back down the mountain, we found a restaurant that served Koa Soi, which had been recommended to Flynn by another friend who’d traveled in the region. It is AMAZING, and has quickly become one of our favorite dishes to look for on menus – more on that later though.
Suffice it to say Sunday night we passed out rather quickly, having walked more than 20km.
Monday was our cooking day. One of the things we’d wanted to do in Thailand was take a cooking class. They’re rather popular and can last 4 hours to all day. We had stopped by the Pai Cookery School on Saturday night to book for Monday, and when I’d asked Gaew how she was (the woman who runs the show, and teaches the class) she answered “hangover”. Mind you, this was at about 6pm. When we responded awkwardly her face broke into a huge smile and she said, “what? You ask me how I am. I am hangover”
touché, gaew, touché.
Needless to say, we were rather excited to see what we had in store with her for the afternoon. We showed up at 2, and she got us right to work, chopping vegetables and peeling garlic. However, the 5 of us (we were all by ourselves in class) are rather inquisitive and ask a lot of questions, and she was having none of it. She, apparently, was a bit ‘hangover’ again.
About 30 minutes into the class though, when we were starting to cook our pad thai (which is ALL over the country, ps, which I wasn’t expecting per the Q&A session prompted by my mom at our favorite local thai restaurant on what ‘authentic’ thai food really was) she all of a sudden launched into explaining everything and giving us orders while we were all at individual stations, resulting in laughs and misunderstandings.
After lunch of pad thai, we were taught how to make sticky rice with mango and we prepped stuff for dinner. When we made the reservations for class, we’d had the choice of three menus to learn, red, green and yellow (the color of the curry dish you’d learn, respectively). We’d decided that with five of us we’d try as many dishes as possible, so we were preparing all three curries.
For everyone that’s been around me the past few months, you’re aware of my aversion to very spicy foods and how I claim, and have been told, that I’m going to die in Bangladesh as a result. For the rest of y’all, well, now you know.
WELL, the girls I’m with all like a good amount of spice with their food and have decided to make it their mission to prepare my palet properly. And I think they get a kick out of making me try spicy foods and watching my reaction as I run for water. I lucked out with the green curry, which is the least spicy, but did eventually try all three.
The best part of the class, in my opinion was the trip to the market. Gaew has been running her school for 7 years, and teaches almost every day, so I’m sure the market stalls/vendors are used to her coming through, trailing white western tourists like little chickadees behind her. She had us try a lot of local dishes, so we feel way more comfortable eating street food now, knowing what more of it is. While we were at the market we ran into some of her alumni students from the previous week who were trying to recreate her class, so we got to see her set up their dinner in addition to ours, which was fabulous.
Upon our return to her open-air kitchen, we made a ridiculously large dinner of three dishes per person and attempted to eat as much as we could. Unfortunately we couldn’t eat two of flynn’s because the station she was at had salt instead of sugar in one of the containers…which did explain why gaew kept telling her to add sugar and water to make her dishes less salty and it had only succeeded in making it more so…but we had Gaew fix it and she happily added a few ingredients and about half a bottle of chili powder to get it to the right taste. A little on the spicy side for me…but I’m a bit biased.
We also talked about our adventure the day before finding the waterfalls, and walking there, and as a result learned the word for crazy in thai (as that was her response when we told her…haaa). Crazy is “bah” and a little crazy is “ting-tong”.
We were talking about our class later in the evening and while it was great to learn about the dishes, the most helpful part of the class was the actual cooking skills we picked up throughout the afternoon…such as cooking everything in a wok, just pushing things up the side when you don’t want them to be cooked, but will need them soon. It was also really cool to actually pound our chopped chilis, vegetables and spices into curry paste. Freakin’ fabulous, really.
We spent the night ‘walking the strip’ where all the restaurants and street stalls were. It was really interesting to see how much smaller the crowds were because it was a weeknight, versus when we arrived on the weekend. Someone had mentioned to us that Pai was a popular weekend destination for tourists, but it blows my mind because i very rarely know the date and time, let alone would plan trips based on week versus weekends.
And yesterday, oh yesterday. Flynn, Sarah and I left early to go rent motorbikes. We’ve decided that the equivalent vehicles in the US are probably Vespas because they’re smaller versions of motorcycles, but definitely legit vehicles that can carry up to three people (if one is small) and potentially transport street food stalls or wares to market.
To be honest, when we first arrived in Pai and saw the vast amount of motorbikes on the street, we scoffed and said we’d choose regular bikes over those any day, to get exercise while touring. By the time Tuesday came around, we could see why there was only one place to rent bicycles versus the countless places you could rent motorbikes.
And we decided to give in, especially when heather and I looked at each other one afternoon and said, “that would be really really cool to try out for a day”
We might also have been scarred by our 20km walk to the waterfalls as other tourists were buzzing by us, and usually passed us on their return ride while we were still walking up, on said motorbikes.
One thing we have taken issue with, and I insert this here just because I want to make sure to mention it because it’s a very good example of western culture differences from Thai culture (and many other countries, but at the moment I can only speak of Thailand), is that most locals won’t wear helmets. Fine, lots of bikers in the states won’t wear helmets either, although there are many more that do. However, the real surprise for us is watching parents, or families even, with at least one child on the motorbike with them, without helmets on the little ones. While we haven’t seen any accidents yet, other than our own (ha…read on…), it’s still scary how many young kids we’ve seen on bikes – none of them with helmets.
Off the soapbox. Onto our adventure.
So Flynn, sarah and I left heather and erin at the guesthouse saying we’d be back soon, and went and asked for 3 motorbikes for the day (which were 130baht per person with accident insurance…less than $5USD…love Thailand). They didn’t ask if we had licenses, but did ask if we’d ever driven motorbikes before. We responded with “no” to the chagrin of the girl we were talking with…5 minutes later, having taken our money and deposits for the helmets (optional, mind you)…our little friend motioned to three neon green bikes outside, and had the three of us hop on with three employees of AYA Travel Services. They took us to a backroad and gave us the 411 on the bikes…where the brakes, gas and kickstand were…and sent us down this road. I went off first, and my first attempt to turn the bike took me off-roading into a field; when I finally returned to the road I was about halfway down the road already. According to Flynn and sarah, the AYA employees were laughing hysterically at me, as they rightly should have been. I must have looked ridiculous.
However, Flynn and sarah followed and also had trouble turning at first, so I didn’t feel as bad.
Two runs down this road and they decided we were good enough to let us off on our own so they took us back to town, hopped off and wished us a good day.
Heather and erin were waiting for us when we finally got back, although they’d figured we’d gotten an impromptu lesson, and after a quick breakfast we headed towards the Ta Pai Hot Springs. Due to a rather expensive entrance fee, and our lack of desire to see said hot springs, we just continued driving around the backroads. We went and grabbed lunch to-go from mama falafel (there was a whole strip in Pai of Middle Eastern slash German slash greek slash thai restaurants. They even had schnitzel!) and headed towards another waterfall to picnic at it. We didn’t actually get to the waterfall by the time we needed to go back to drop heather off for an afternoon of deserved pampering (she got a body wrap of natural fruit, an oil massage and fabulous relaxation at a little family run spa-like oasis near the first waterfalls we went to…she came back feeling fabulous and looking refreshed. When I get to the state the rest of us were in by the end of the day, you’ll see how jealous we were). However, from that stop, we started out of town in search of yet another set of waterfalls. This set we found, and there was a sign from there that a few more were 5km further down the road.
One of things we’ve come across, especially in the more rural areas we’ve visited in Thailand, is that signs are more of an addition, an extra-special tip in the right direction, rather than a compulsory part of places tourists would be interested in. most seem to have been scrawled by a very nice thai person that had some exposure to English at one point. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when we’d traveled much further than 5km and still had found no entrance to another set of waterfalls. We did, however, “find Thailand”, in the sense we found the Thailand everyone is used to seeing in pictures and books and hearing about. As we were driving along dirt roads we would wind in and out of very small villages and right by rice paddies and agricultural plots that were in the process of being watered or harvested. When I mentioned this to Flynn and heather later they correctly pointed out that this isn’t the season for that and so these fields were probably being over worked which, in the long run, will hurt the land and the agricultural economy, but this is the way that people can make money to feed their families now so many people don’t feel like they have a choice.
These backroads were also where sarah, erin and I each took a spill. There was one particularly large hill, and since erin and I were riding together we’d been having a bit more trouble with large dirt hills than Flynn or sarah, that proved too daunting to make it up (and would eventually cause us to turn around to continue exploring other areas around pai). At one point erin fell while trying to get off the bike as I was trying to rev the engine to make it up a hill. A second attempt to get up left me on the ground under the bike (promise, mom, I walked away with the smallest cut on my finger and a bruise on my upper thigh). I really wish I’d been able to watch as the back of the bike took a course of its own and slid out from under me, causing the bike to slide across this dirt hill. It was just as it goes in movies. Erin ran over asking if I was ok and once she heard me laughing started laughing AT me. Punk. But it was absolutely hysterical.
Sarah fell in a similar fashion as she was heading down this dirt hill, after she and Flynn decided that it wasn’t worth trying to go further up. She, too, got back on the bike with only a few small scratches and a bruise. We will say, however, that those flippin’ bikes are way heavier than you expect when you have to pick them back up.
We headed back out to a place called “the canyon”. When we got there we realized that the key to my motorbike had fallen out at some point. We’d had trouble with it all day not fitting into the keyhole well, but I never imagined that it would be able to fall out without me noticing…hah. I stopped freaking out the minute we realized all the other keys could turn on the bike, and it could obviously run without a key in the ignition. Oh Thailand.
The canyon was a gorgeous spot, a kilometer walk from the road, that you could literally look out over all of Pai and the surrounding land. There were these ridges, much like fingers extending from a hand, that you could walk out on and get gorgeous views of the various valleys. The rest of the afternoon we just bummed around the various roads around Pai. It was totally worth it to see so much of the surrounding area, and I think all 5 of us thought at some point during the day that we wanted similar modes of transportation once we get back home.
For everyone that’s interested, as well, Sarah Robb can pull of the European, “I’ll wear my cute sunglasses and fashionable scarf and make riding this vespa look like the easiest thing ever” look very very well. She even went through the entire day while wearing a skirt!
After fighting with AYA that I shouldn’t have to pay 50baht for the lost key, considering it was their faulty key that fell out on the road somewhere and we’d paid insurance (which, they assured me, would have convered me completely if I’d come back with a key and no bike…sure), we picked up laundry we’d dropped off to be washed…contain yourselves…about $2USD per person and it had been washed, dried and folded…and headed out for dinner.
It had been such a spectacular day of seeing the area that we were all ridiculously excited to just talk about different things we’d all picked up on. And we did it all over the best khao soi in Pai. Thanks to Gaew, we knew where to get the best papaya salad, khao soi, falafels and drinks (her bar, obviously) in town, and she was right on with the khao soi. Flynn,, at this point, is now on the khao soi tour. Everyplace we go to we’ll get khao soi and compare it to everywhere else. We sampled a little bit of everything, as it was our last night in the food-lover’s, hippie-inhabited town of Pai, and by the end of the night I don’t think any of us could have squeezed anything else into our stomachs…and we’re still justifying our meals with our 20km walk the other day. Amazing.
Currently, as I write this, we’re on the bus from pai back to chiang mai, where we have to take a tuktuk to another bus station and catch an hour and a half bus to chiang dao, where we’ll be for the next three days. It’s said to be even more relaxed and off-the-beaten-path than Pai, so we’re excited to see what hikes we can find.
Sunday we started the day off with breakfast and coffee and gameplan-ing after we all finally got out of bed. We were anxious to spend a full day outside, after our bus ride the previous day, and knew there were waterfalls around pai – two of which are very popular destinations for visitors. We chose one because we figured, from reading our lonely planet, that round trip it would be about 18km. but we had all day, so we were confident that it would be a good experience.
We started down one road that according to Flynn would lead us to the waterfalls…however after about a mile or two a guy on a motorbike stopped us and asked if were heading to the falls. We responded that yes, we were going to the waterfalls. WELL, he informed us, we were heading in the entirely wrong direction. Apparently we should have taken another road out of town and there would be a sign for us to follow to the said falls…so we hung out heads and headed back into town. This hippie guy had suggested getting motorbikes, or hiring a taxi, but we were determined to get there by walking most of the way. Now, lonely planet also had said you could cut the trip by 5km by taking a bus headed to mae hong son and getting off at the turnoff for the waterfalls. Trying to explain this to the ticketing guy at the bus station was an adventure all in itself, but suffice it to say that we eventually got our point across that we only wanted to ride to the turnoff for the waterfalls.
Or we thought we did. He stopped the bus at a random side road and pointed out. This fully entertained the entire bus, locals who were intently watching our reactions. We crossed our fingers and started walking. About 2 hours later, we finally made it up to the falls, which we found out on our way back to town were 6km up the sideroad. It was all uphill after the first half-mile too. HOWEVER, we were very happy we did finally get to the waterfalls by our own volition and the way we’d wanted to explore a bit of the area. Funny story – the guy who’d told us to turn around passed us again and stopped, asking if we were the ‘5 lovely ladies’ he stopped before. And then he exclaimed, “you’re still walking!” as if we were crazy for thinking our legs could carry us all the way there.
And yesterday we did a little research and had we continued on the road we were on we would have reached the waterfalls. It probably would have just been a little longer…but at least we can read a map. We had gotten a bit nervous about that.
And at least we provided some entertainment for the locals along the way.
On the way back down the mountain, we found a restaurant that served Koa Soi, which had been recommended to Flynn by another friend who’d traveled in the region. It is AMAZING, and has quickly become one of our favorite dishes to look for on menus – more on that later though.
Suffice it to say Sunday night we passed out rather quickly, having walked more than 20km.
Monday was our cooking day. One of the things we’d wanted to do in Thailand was take a cooking class. They’re rather popular and can last 4 hours to all day. We had stopped by the Pai Cookery School on Saturday night to book for Monday, and when I’d asked Gaew how she was (the woman who runs the show, and teaches the class) she answered “hangover”. Mind you, this was at about 6pm. When we responded awkwardly her face broke into a huge smile and she said, “what? You ask me how I am. I am hangover”
touché, gaew, touché.
Needless to say, we were rather excited to see what we had in store with her for the afternoon. We showed up at 2, and she got us right to work, chopping vegetables and peeling garlic. However, the 5 of us (we were all by ourselves in class) are rather inquisitive and ask a lot of questions, and she was having none of it. She, apparently, was a bit ‘hangover’ again.
About 30 minutes into the class though, when we were starting to cook our pad thai (which is ALL over the country, ps, which I wasn’t expecting per the Q&A session prompted by my mom at our favorite local thai restaurant on what ‘authentic’ thai food really was) she all of a sudden launched into explaining everything and giving us orders while we were all at individual stations, resulting in laughs and misunderstandings.
After lunch of pad thai, we were taught how to make sticky rice with mango and we prepped stuff for dinner. When we made the reservations for class, we’d had the choice of three menus to learn, red, green and yellow (the color of the curry dish you’d learn, respectively). We’d decided that with five of us we’d try as many dishes as possible, so we were preparing all three curries.
For everyone that’s been around me the past few months, you’re aware of my aversion to very spicy foods and how I claim, and have been told, that I’m going to die in Bangladesh as a result. For the rest of y’all, well, now you know.
WELL, the girls I’m with all like a good amount of spice with their food and have decided to make it their mission to prepare my palet properly. And I think they get a kick out of making me try spicy foods and watching my reaction as I run for water. I lucked out with the green curry, which is the least spicy, but did eventually try all three.
The best part of the class, in my opinion was the trip to the market. Gaew has been running her school for 7 years, and teaches almost every day, so I’m sure the market stalls/vendors are used to her coming through, trailing white western tourists like little chickadees behind her. She had us try a lot of local dishes, so we feel way more comfortable eating street food now, knowing what more of it is. While we were at the market we ran into some of her alumni students from the previous week who were trying to recreate her class, so we got to see her set up their dinner in addition to ours, which was fabulous.
Upon our return to her open-air kitchen, we made a ridiculously large dinner of three dishes per person and attempted to eat as much as we could. Unfortunately we couldn’t eat two of flynn’s because the station she was at had salt instead of sugar in one of the containers…which did explain why gaew kept telling her to add sugar and water to make her dishes less salty and it had only succeeded in making it more so…but we had Gaew fix it and she happily added a few ingredients and about half a bottle of chili powder to get it to the right taste. A little on the spicy side for me…but I’m a bit biased.
We also talked about our adventure the day before finding the waterfalls, and walking there, and as a result learned the word for crazy in thai (as that was her response when we told her…haaa). Crazy is “bah” and a little crazy is “ting-tong”.
We were talking about our class later in the evening and while it was great to learn about the dishes, the most helpful part of the class was the actual cooking skills we picked up throughout the afternoon…such as cooking everything in a wok, just pushing things up the side when you don’t want them to be cooked, but will need them soon. It was also really cool to actually pound our chopped chilis, vegetables and spices into curry paste. Freakin’ fabulous, really.
We spent the night ‘walking the strip’ where all the restaurants and street stalls were. It was really interesting to see how much smaller the crowds were because it was a weeknight, versus when we arrived on the weekend. Someone had mentioned to us that Pai was a popular weekend destination for tourists, but it blows my mind because i very rarely know the date and time, let alone would plan trips based on week versus weekends.
And yesterday, oh yesterday. Flynn, Sarah and I left early to go rent motorbikes. We’ve decided that the equivalent vehicles in the US are probably Vespas because they’re smaller versions of motorcycles, but definitely legit vehicles that can carry up to three people (if one is small) and potentially transport street food stalls or wares to market.
To be honest, when we first arrived in Pai and saw the vast amount of motorbikes on the street, we scoffed and said we’d choose regular bikes over those any day, to get exercise while touring. By the time Tuesday came around, we could see why there was only one place to rent bicycles versus the countless places you could rent motorbikes.
And we decided to give in, especially when heather and I looked at each other one afternoon and said, “that would be really really cool to try out for a day”
We might also have been scarred by our 20km walk to the waterfalls as other tourists were buzzing by us, and usually passed us on their return ride while we were still walking up, on said motorbikes.
One thing we have taken issue with, and I insert this here just because I want to make sure to mention it because it’s a very good example of western culture differences from Thai culture (and many other countries, but at the moment I can only speak of Thailand), is that most locals won’t wear helmets. Fine, lots of bikers in the states won’t wear helmets either, although there are many more that do. However, the real surprise for us is watching parents, or families even, with at least one child on the motorbike with them, without helmets on the little ones. While we haven’t seen any accidents yet, other than our own (ha…read on…), it’s still scary how many young kids we’ve seen on bikes – none of them with helmets.
Off the soapbox. Onto our adventure.
So Flynn, sarah and I left heather and erin at the guesthouse saying we’d be back soon, and went and asked for 3 motorbikes for the day (which were 130baht per person with accident insurance…less than $5USD…love Thailand). They didn’t ask if we had licenses, but did ask if we’d ever driven motorbikes before. We responded with “no” to the chagrin of the girl we were talking with…5 minutes later, having taken our money and deposits for the helmets (optional, mind you)…our little friend motioned to three neon green bikes outside, and had the three of us hop on with three employees of AYA Travel Services. They took us to a backroad and gave us the 411 on the bikes…where the brakes, gas and kickstand were…and sent us down this road. I went off first, and my first attempt to turn the bike took me off-roading into a field; when I finally returned to the road I was about halfway down the road already. According to Flynn and sarah, the AYA employees were laughing hysterically at me, as they rightly should have been. I must have looked ridiculous.
However, Flynn and sarah followed and also had trouble turning at first, so I didn’t feel as bad.
Two runs down this road and they decided we were good enough to let us off on our own so they took us back to town, hopped off and wished us a good day.
Heather and erin were waiting for us when we finally got back, although they’d figured we’d gotten an impromptu lesson, and after a quick breakfast we headed towards the Ta Pai Hot Springs. Due to a rather expensive entrance fee, and our lack of desire to see said hot springs, we just continued driving around the backroads. We went and grabbed lunch to-go from mama falafel (there was a whole strip in Pai of Middle Eastern slash German slash greek slash thai restaurants. They even had schnitzel!) and headed towards another waterfall to picnic at it. We didn’t actually get to the waterfall by the time we needed to go back to drop heather off for an afternoon of deserved pampering (she got a body wrap of natural fruit, an oil massage and fabulous relaxation at a little family run spa-like oasis near the first waterfalls we went to…she came back feeling fabulous and looking refreshed. When I get to the state the rest of us were in by the end of the day, you’ll see how jealous we were). However, from that stop, we started out of town in search of yet another set of waterfalls. This set we found, and there was a sign from there that a few more were 5km further down the road.
One of things we’ve come across, especially in the more rural areas we’ve visited in Thailand, is that signs are more of an addition, an extra-special tip in the right direction, rather than a compulsory part of places tourists would be interested in. most seem to have been scrawled by a very nice thai person that had some exposure to English at one point. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when we’d traveled much further than 5km and still had found no entrance to another set of waterfalls. We did, however, “find Thailand”, in the sense we found the Thailand everyone is used to seeing in pictures and books and hearing about. As we were driving along dirt roads we would wind in and out of very small villages and right by rice paddies and agricultural plots that were in the process of being watered or harvested. When I mentioned this to Flynn and heather later they correctly pointed out that this isn’t the season for that and so these fields were probably being over worked which, in the long run, will hurt the land and the agricultural economy, but this is the way that people can make money to feed their families now so many people don’t feel like they have a choice.
These backroads were also where sarah, erin and I each took a spill. There was one particularly large hill, and since erin and I were riding together we’d been having a bit more trouble with large dirt hills than Flynn or sarah, that proved too daunting to make it up (and would eventually cause us to turn around to continue exploring other areas around pai). At one point erin fell while trying to get off the bike as I was trying to rev the engine to make it up a hill. A second attempt to get up left me on the ground under the bike (promise, mom, I walked away with the smallest cut on my finger and a bruise on my upper thigh). I really wish I’d been able to watch as the back of the bike took a course of its own and slid out from under me, causing the bike to slide across this dirt hill. It was just as it goes in movies. Erin ran over asking if I was ok and once she heard me laughing started laughing AT me. Punk. But it was absolutely hysterical.
Sarah fell in a similar fashion as she was heading down this dirt hill, after she and Flynn decided that it wasn’t worth trying to go further up. She, too, got back on the bike with only a few small scratches and a bruise. We will say, however, that those flippin’ bikes are way heavier than you expect when you have to pick them back up.
We headed back out to a place called “the canyon”. When we got there we realized that the key to my motorbike had fallen out at some point. We’d had trouble with it all day not fitting into the keyhole well, but I never imagined that it would be able to fall out without me noticing…hah. I stopped freaking out the minute we realized all the other keys could turn on the bike, and it could obviously run without a key in the ignition. Oh Thailand.
The canyon was a gorgeous spot, a kilometer walk from the road, that you could literally look out over all of Pai and the surrounding land. There were these ridges, much like fingers extending from a hand, that you could walk out on and get gorgeous views of the various valleys. The rest of the afternoon we just bummed around the various roads around Pai. It was totally worth it to see so much of the surrounding area, and I think all 5 of us thought at some point during the day that we wanted similar modes of transportation once we get back home.
For everyone that’s interested, as well, Sarah Robb can pull of the European, “I’ll wear my cute sunglasses and fashionable scarf and make riding this vespa look like the easiest thing ever” look very very well. She even went through the entire day while wearing a skirt!
After fighting with AYA that I shouldn’t have to pay 50baht for the lost key, considering it was their faulty key that fell out on the road somewhere and we’d paid insurance (which, they assured me, would have convered me completely if I’d come back with a key and no bike…sure), we picked up laundry we’d dropped off to be washed…contain yourselves…about $2USD per person and it had been washed, dried and folded…and headed out for dinner.
It had been such a spectacular day of seeing the area that we were all ridiculously excited to just talk about different things we’d all picked up on. And we did it all over the best khao soi in Pai. Thanks to Gaew, we knew where to get the best papaya salad, khao soi, falafels and drinks (her bar, obviously) in town, and she was right on with the khao soi. Flynn,, at this point, is now on the khao soi tour. Everyplace we go to we’ll get khao soi and compare it to everywhere else. We sampled a little bit of everything, as it was our last night in the food-lover’s, hippie-inhabited town of Pai, and by the end of the night I don’t think any of us could have squeezed anything else into our stomachs…and we’re still justifying our meals with our 20km walk the other day. Amazing.
Currently, as I write this, we’re on the bus from pai back to chiang mai, where we have to take a tuktuk to another bus station and catch an hour and a half bus to chiang dao, where we’ll be for the next three days. It’s said to be even more relaxed and off-the-beaten-path than Pai, so we’re excited to see what hikes we can find.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Welcome to PAIradise (horrible pun on a sign for local restaurant or guesthouse...)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Well, what I wrote about the bus not selling seats in the aisles or standing only was apparently wrong – well, it might have been correct about the bus station in Chiang Mai, but as we continued along on our 4-hour ride to Pai, we picked up more and more people that came onto the bus and either stood until they needed to get off, or sat in the front of the bus where it was sitting-on-the-floor room only. It made me nostalgic for the bus system in Uganda.
This bus ride, however, was one of the most gorgeous rides I’ve ever been on. About an hour into the trip we began climbing higher and higher, going up a ridiculous number of switchbacks to get us to the top of a mountainous area. It took us about another two hours to finally get to the highest point we were during the ride, and then we spent an hour climbing back down, via switchbacks, until we made it to Pai. The views from the bus were stunning. There’s no way to explain them in such a way that would do justice to the beauty we’ve found ourselves surrounded by, nor do pictures aptly capture the feeling that overtakes you, and leaves you breathless, when you come around a corner to see lush rolling valleys into the horizons with mountains on either side of you.
By the time we reached Pai, our excitement had built ten-fold to see what this town had in store for us. We found our hostel, one of the cheaper accommodations in Pai, but right on the River and right off the main strip. I was super excited to see a lawn area with multiple hammocks, and sarah and I get to share a queen sized bed with 3 blankets (note: the number of blankets provided by a hostel is a great way to gauge the local climate…Pai is definitely the coolest area we’ve been in – hot between the hours of 11-4 and FREEZING at night. We’re pretty sure it dropped into the 40’s last night. At least it felt like that. I’m sitting in our bed cuddled up in blankets with three layers on at the moment, and it’s 9:20am, if that tells you anything. I think I’m going to buy a hat today to sleep in the remaining nights we’re here)
We got settled, found some food, scheduled a cooking class for Monday and then took in the local scene. If Chiang Mai was the Disney world for backpackers, this is a combination of Pleasure Island (huuuuge bar scene) and Epcot (street vendors with food and crafts line the main strip). It’s also a huge place for Asian travelers, according to Lonely Planet, and I can only uphold that generalization. We were surprised to see as many Westerners here as we have, but apparently it is an up-and-coming tourist mecca, and we are traveling the very popular route throughout Thailand.
Sarah and I woke up this morning and went for a run, watching as the sun rose quickly over the mountains. It was BEAUTIFUL, and sarah didn’t completely kill me while running. We’re both now snuggled up under our covers hoping it’s going to warm up soon…but we know that we have to wake up the others soon and get on with our day. We’re heading on a long walk to an area of easy hiking and waterfalls, which we’re psyched about.
Well, what I wrote about the bus not selling seats in the aisles or standing only was apparently wrong – well, it might have been correct about the bus station in Chiang Mai, but as we continued along on our 4-hour ride to Pai, we picked up more and more people that came onto the bus and either stood until they needed to get off, or sat in the front of the bus where it was sitting-on-the-floor room only. It made me nostalgic for the bus system in Uganda.
This bus ride, however, was one of the most gorgeous rides I’ve ever been on. About an hour into the trip we began climbing higher and higher, going up a ridiculous number of switchbacks to get us to the top of a mountainous area. It took us about another two hours to finally get to the highest point we were during the ride, and then we spent an hour climbing back down, via switchbacks, until we made it to Pai. The views from the bus were stunning. There’s no way to explain them in such a way that would do justice to the beauty we’ve found ourselves surrounded by, nor do pictures aptly capture the feeling that overtakes you, and leaves you breathless, when you come around a corner to see lush rolling valleys into the horizons with mountains on either side of you.
By the time we reached Pai, our excitement had built ten-fold to see what this town had in store for us. We found our hostel, one of the cheaper accommodations in Pai, but right on the River and right off the main strip. I was super excited to see a lawn area with multiple hammocks, and sarah and I get to share a queen sized bed with 3 blankets (note: the number of blankets provided by a hostel is a great way to gauge the local climate…Pai is definitely the coolest area we’ve been in – hot between the hours of 11-4 and FREEZING at night. We’re pretty sure it dropped into the 40’s last night. At least it felt like that. I’m sitting in our bed cuddled up in blankets with three layers on at the moment, and it’s 9:20am, if that tells you anything. I think I’m going to buy a hat today to sleep in the remaining nights we’re here)
We got settled, found some food, scheduled a cooking class for Monday and then took in the local scene. If Chiang Mai was the Disney world for backpackers, this is a combination of Pleasure Island (huuuuge bar scene) and Epcot (street vendors with food and crafts line the main strip). It’s also a huge place for Asian travelers, according to Lonely Planet, and I can only uphold that generalization. We were surprised to see as many Westerners here as we have, but apparently it is an up-and-coming tourist mecca, and we are traveling the very popular route throughout Thailand.
Sarah and I woke up this morning and went for a run, watching as the sun rose quickly over the mountains. It was BEAUTIFUL, and sarah didn’t completely kill me while running. We’re both now snuggled up under our covers hoping it’s going to warm up soon…but we know that we have to wake up the others soon and get on with our day. We’re heading on a long walk to an area of easy hiking and waterfalls, which we’re psyched about.
Welcome to Disneyland - Thai Backpacking Style
January 12, 2008
The minute we arrived in Chiang Mai we knew we’d found the well-travelled backpacker’s haven – the train station is the “end of the road” and yet absolutely huge. It was a bit overwhelming walking off the train and having tuk-tuk drivers accost you immediately. Unfortunately our packs are like a huge, red X over our heads that screams “tourists. We need help”
After getting to our hostel, called the Smile House 1 (not done purposely, even though I did make our reservations this time around), we found a pub around the corner to sit and eat at and just watched the crowds walk by. Chiang Mai is an ex-pat’s paradise, and much bigger than we’d expected – bright lights all night long it seemed.
We woke up on Friday and took our time walking through the streets on our own “Walking Wat Tour” courtesy of Lonely Planet. We saw a Wat that was made of completely of intricately carved Teak wood panels. It was absolutely gorgeous and we all just stood staring in disbelief.
We THEN made out way to another Wat which had ruins from an ancient stupa that was stunning, and these two memorials to deceased, highly revered monks. HOWEVER, they had wax statues of these monks in their respective buildings that were the creepiest things I’ve ever seen, considering they were ridiculously lifelike and in glass cases. It seriously took me a few minutes to convince myself that they were in fact wax and not real monks that had to take turns sitting in a glass box for shifts throughout the day.
Oh, and then, aaaand then we went to our monkchat. A few temples throughout Chiang Mai had advertised times during the day where you could go and speak with monks – it helps them with their English conversation skills and enables them to answer questions about Buddhism you have. We sat down with Manit, a middle-aged man who’d apparently been ordained about 18 years ago. The conversation started out slow, but he was soon very impressed with our lovely heather and Flynn as they were asking pretty intricate, detailed and intellectual questions. At one point we had to rephrase one of the questions a few times before he understood and Manit looked at us and pointed at me saying, “she is good at explaining.” So maybe my teaching ESL for 12 weeks has helped a little…and I won’t find myself completely up a river without a paddle in March.
After our conversation came to an end, Manit insisted on taking pictures with us. Thai Monks though are prohibited from coming in direct contact with females so the pictures are priceless (and well as it having taken a bit for them to explain to me that I couldn’t directly hand my camera to the younger who was acting as our photographer).
Overall, Manit had a great sense of humor, provided Heather with the name of deity that she’s been looking for for weeks and was generally awesome to talk to. Very cool experience. AND as we were leaving he asked, “which one of you is going to Bangladesh?”…and then proceeded to tell me, “hope you learn to swim! I hear there’s lots of water!!!”
Oh manit.
However, the afternoon just got better. In our guidebook, there was a ‘quirky places’ section for Chiang Mai and one of the listed spots was the Women’s Prison Rehabilitation Services --- there was a spa (for massages and herbal therapies), a small crafts and goods shop and a bakery. Pretty much, it seems like the women inmates are rehabilitated through skills training that they can use after they leave the prison, and are usually given jobs at these locations to start over. So we decided to head over and check it out, and really wanted to get a massage and treats from the bakery if at all possible. WELL, the massage parlor was full for the rest of the afternoon, however, the woman at the front informed us that there was an affiliated parlor down the road that we could check out. She ran outside and let us know that she got a car to literally drive us two blocks. We told her we’d be fine, however, the police outside ushered us into this van while repeating, “free!free!”
Our thai massages from ex-convicts were fabulous and we all left saying that we felt great. It was probably the best thing we could have done for our bodies after a week of constant travel. We found some food (unfortunately the Women’s Prison Bakery was closed at that point) and then headed to the infamous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. There are literally thousands of stalls of people selling everything from “Chiang Mai Starbucks” shirts to small antique Buddha statues. The Bazaar spans the streets as well as inhabits several buildings within the Bazaar district. While I didn’t end up haggling with vendors for anything, it was amazing to experience. And I did get to watch the other girls fight with people as they pushed prices down --- they were very thrifty. And when it got down to the bare bones of everything, 10 baht here or there is equal to about 33 cents…and hopefully some cute little kids get a meal the next day because of it.
On the way back we got to see a bit of the night culture. A stand that we’d stopped by earlier to get Rotee from (flattened dough cooked with a large variety of options…for example – with egg, or bananas and chocolate, or bananas and honey, etc.) was rather busy when we walked back to the hostel around midnight. It was also at a pretty busy intersection with a large number of bars lining the streets nearby. There were huge numbers of ex-pats and college-aged backpackers crammed into the bars. We also saw a good number of transvestites in the general area.
Needless to say, we were happy that our hostel was set a ways away from this scene, and was a bit away from the closest main street.
We’re now waiting for our bus to Pai (pronounced “Bye” apparently). We’ve been shocked at the bus system in Thailand. It’s very orderly, runs on time for the most part, and unlike other countries we’ve all visited, only sells the number of seats that they have. In Uganda, in my experience, they would allow you to sit in the aisle or stand when all the seats are full, never wanting to give up a potential fare. Flynn said similar things of Sri Lanka and India. Apparently, though, Thailand is a bit different. We arrived at 9:30 this morning to catch the 10:30 bus, but it was full so we were put on the 12:30 bus. We’re excited to get a bit further into the country, away from the bright lights and crazed bar scene of Chiang Mai, especially with the prospect of hiking awaiting us.
The minute we arrived in Chiang Mai we knew we’d found the well-travelled backpacker’s haven – the train station is the “end of the road” and yet absolutely huge. It was a bit overwhelming walking off the train and having tuk-tuk drivers accost you immediately. Unfortunately our packs are like a huge, red X over our heads that screams “tourists. We need help”
After getting to our hostel, called the Smile House 1 (not done purposely, even though I did make our reservations this time around), we found a pub around the corner to sit and eat at and just watched the crowds walk by. Chiang Mai is an ex-pat’s paradise, and much bigger than we’d expected – bright lights all night long it seemed.
We woke up on Friday and took our time walking through the streets on our own “Walking Wat Tour” courtesy of Lonely Planet. We saw a Wat that was made of completely of intricately carved Teak wood panels. It was absolutely gorgeous and we all just stood staring in disbelief.
We THEN made out way to another Wat which had ruins from an ancient stupa that was stunning, and these two memorials to deceased, highly revered monks. HOWEVER, they had wax statues of these monks in their respective buildings that were the creepiest things I’ve ever seen, considering they were ridiculously lifelike and in glass cases. It seriously took me a few minutes to convince myself that they were in fact wax and not real monks that had to take turns sitting in a glass box for shifts throughout the day.
Oh, and then, aaaand then we went to our monkchat. A few temples throughout Chiang Mai had advertised times during the day where you could go and speak with monks – it helps them with their English conversation skills and enables them to answer questions about Buddhism you have. We sat down with Manit, a middle-aged man who’d apparently been ordained about 18 years ago. The conversation started out slow, but he was soon very impressed with our lovely heather and Flynn as they were asking pretty intricate, detailed and intellectual questions. At one point we had to rephrase one of the questions a few times before he understood and Manit looked at us and pointed at me saying, “she is good at explaining.” So maybe my teaching ESL for 12 weeks has helped a little…and I won’t find myself completely up a river without a paddle in March.
After our conversation came to an end, Manit insisted on taking pictures with us. Thai Monks though are prohibited from coming in direct contact with females so the pictures are priceless (and well as it having taken a bit for them to explain to me that I couldn’t directly hand my camera to the younger who was acting as our photographer).
Overall, Manit had a great sense of humor, provided Heather with the name of deity that she’s been looking for for weeks and was generally awesome to talk to. Very cool experience. AND as we were leaving he asked, “which one of you is going to Bangladesh?”…and then proceeded to tell me, “hope you learn to swim! I hear there’s lots of water!!!”
Oh manit.
However, the afternoon just got better. In our guidebook, there was a ‘quirky places’ section for Chiang Mai and one of the listed spots was the Women’s Prison Rehabilitation Services --- there was a spa (for massages and herbal therapies), a small crafts and goods shop and a bakery. Pretty much, it seems like the women inmates are rehabilitated through skills training that they can use after they leave the prison, and are usually given jobs at these locations to start over. So we decided to head over and check it out, and really wanted to get a massage and treats from the bakery if at all possible. WELL, the massage parlor was full for the rest of the afternoon, however, the woman at the front informed us that there was an affiliated parlor down the road that we could check out. She ran outside and let us know that she got a car to literally drive us two blocks. We told her we’d be fine, however, the police outside ushered us into this van while repeating, “free!free!”
Our thai massages from ex-convicts were fabulous and we all left saying that we felt great. It was probably the best thing we could have done for our bodies after a week of constant travel. We found some food (unfortunately the Women’s Prison Bakery was closed at that point) and then headed to the infamous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. There are literally thousands of stalls of people selling everything from “Chiang Mai Starbucks” shirts to small antique Buddha statues. The Bazaar spans the streets as well as inhabits several buildings within the Bazaar district. While I didn’t end up haggling with vendors for anything, it was amazing to experience. And I did get to watch the other girls fight with people as they pushed prices down --- they were very thrifty. And when it got down to the bare bones of everything, 10 baht here or there is equal to about 33 cents…and hopefully some cute little kids get a meal the next day because of it.
On the way back we got to see a bit of the night culture. A stand that we’d stopped by earlier to get Rotee from (flattened dough cooked with a large variety of options…for example – with egg, or bananas and chocolate, or bananas and honey, etc.) was rather busy when we walked back to the hostel around midnight. It was also at a pretty busy intersection with a large number of bars lining the streets nearby. There were huge numbers of ex-pats and college-aged backpackers crammed into the bars. We also saw a good number of transvestites in the general area.
Needless to say, we were happy that our hostel was set a ways away from this scene, and was a bit away from the closest main street.
We’re now waiting for our bus to Pai (pronounced “Bye” apparently). We’ve been shocked at the bus system in Thailand. It’s very orderly, runs on time for the most part, and unlike other countries we’ve all visited, only sells the number of seats that they have. In Uganda, in my experience, they would allow you to sit in the aisle or stand when all the seats are full, never wanting to give up a potential fare. Flynn said similar things of Sri Lanka and India. Apparently, though, Thailand is a bit different. We arrived at 9:30 this morning to catch the 10:30 bus, but it was full so we were put on the 12:30 bus. We’re excited to get a bit further into the country, away from the bright lights and crazed bar scene of Chiang Mai, especially with the prospect of hiking awaiting us.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Temple Tour 101
I think I’ve now seen more temples/shrines than my mom’s seen churches, no joke. And for those of you that know my mother (ps. love you), you know that’s a ridiculous amount. Don’t get me wrong though --- it’s been amazing. Considering it’s been a week we’ve been in Thailand, the following post is going to be quite long, but in the future I’ll write them every couple of days and probably post a few at a time, so the length is kept at a minimum (I’m trying, promise).
It’s crazy that our little group has been together only one full week. Crazy because it seems like so much longer; in a few short days we’ve done quite a bit and traveled a good ways.
We started off in Bangkok for two nights, the first of which Erin, Sarah and I arrived at the hostel at 3am. That was no problem, however, and we were happy just to get to the hostel considering that after an airport official looked at the hostel address gave us a ticket with a price on it and sent us to a taxi…the taxi driver looked at us like we had three heads when we tried to explain where we were going. I pulled out our lonely planet book and pointed out the hostel on the map and then he pulled out his cell and called a friend who spoke broken English and had me speak with him to give him the address. No worries in the end because we found the hostel on our driver’s map and made it safe and sound and were able to crash until the next morning.
On the 5th (Saturday) we explored Bangkok --- We saw Wat Pho (wat = temple) where the reclining Buddha resides. It was absolutely breathtaking how large and gorgeous this Buddha was and as Flynn said, for those of us who’d never seen a true Buddhist temple, Wat Pho was quite the first experience. We also hit up the Imperial Palace, where three of us had to ‘rent’ skirts because we had on capris, and the Temple of the Dawn, where we were able to climb up several stories and get a great view of Bangkok. I’ve attached some pictures to this post, but will add the huge masses of pictures we’ve been taking to my picasa page (photo link) eventually. I’m going to have to be in one place long enough to do that, so bear with me for a bit.
Sunday was also our first true thai food experience, from a nice little stand within a market near the Imperial Palace --- and everything you’ve ever heard about Thai food in Thailand is correct --- it’s incredibly good. I’m the only one of the five of us who opts for less spice when it’s a choice, so the others are slowly getting me used to spicy dishes (which is probably a very good thing considering I’ve heard food in Bangladesh is ridiculously spicy. Fabulous.)
Sunday we were able to leave for Ayuthaya, one of the old capitals of Thailand, because Sarah’s second bag (which Air China had lost along the way to Bangkok) was found and delivered to us at our hostel. We packed up our bags and headed to the train station. The railway system here in Thailand is amazing and even third class is a pretty nice ride. Granted, I’m of the population who usually opts for non air-conditioned cabins, and I’ll trade hard seats for large window that allows me to watch the beautiful countryside fly by. We were able to book tickets for FIFTEEN baht (50 cents) for the hour and forty-five minute train ride and it was rather painless.
One of things that has impressed all of us is the accommodating and helpful nature of all the Thais we interact with. The train ticket-collector took note of the fact that we were traveling to Ayuthaya and made sure we knew our stop was approaching when it was time for us to get off. We have only been further impressed with the locals thus far. Granted, tourism is a huge industry for this country and we are the ‘backpacker’s trail’, but it’s still rather impressive that we’ve had very few negative interactions with locals.
In Ayuthaya we stayed at this adorable little hostel that I found online, and it was right across the street from a huge ancient ruins site. Monday we rented bikes from our hostel and rode throughout the ruins, and even rode outside of town to one of the larger Wats in the area, which is right next to a monument to one of the ancient kings. Two things --- 5 girls riding silver bikes with huge baskets was going to be a site unto itself regardless, however, we also had to deal with a good deal of traffic AND the fact that in Thailand you drive on the other side of the road. By the end of the day we had gotten the hang of things, but it definitely took us some time. It was entertaining nonetheless. Secondly, and the irony was not lost on me, Erin and Heather (for those of you that were with us on the eventual trip back from Erin’s house during the summer of 2003 when we took pictures upon a huge white rooster we found alongside the road), the memorial to the ancient King was a gigantic statue of him on a horse, looking very fierce and threatening, surrounded by (and I kid you NOT) thousands of cocks. Little cocks, middle-sized cocks and gigantic, multi-colored cocks (or roosters). Whatever I’ll say won’t even do justice to the site, so please check out the pictures of it.
We’ve seen a good number of cocks throughout our travels thus far – it seems that for Thai Buddhists they symbolize protection, as well as royalty. As far as I can tell, when the memorial was built, many gigantic cock statues were placed around it, and people now bring little cocks as offerings. It was one of the craziest and most unexpected sites. In fact, Flynn and I had been riding along at a nice leisurely pace and had commented about how curious this statue looked in the middle of the scenery, considering the Wat we were heading towards was right next to it. It was absolutely priceless.
What made the ride completely worth it was the Wat we went to next --- it was absolutely breathtaking and we were able to climb up and get a great view of the surrounding areas. Additionally, and Heather was especially excited about this, there was a little room for offering to Buddha in the middle of the temple and accessible from the top level we could climb to. So Erin, Sarah, Heather and I each brought in a lotus flower and some incense and made an offering to Buddha. I am getting a first-class education on certain Buddhist practices from Heather and Flynn, and it’s been great traveling with Heather because she’s studied all these places for years but this is her first time visiting them first-hand --- don’t get me wrong, Erin, Sarah and I appreciate the Wats and can only marvel at all the ruins around us, but watching Heather get to see them for the first time is like watching a kid in a candy store. It brings a whole new level of appreciate to our ‘temple tour’.
Tuesday we left Ayuthaya and took a 6½ hour train to Phitsanulok, and spent most of the day traveling. Wednesday we got on a bus to travel to Sukhothai, another ancient capital of the area, where the ruins were amazing. We were let off our bus in front of a place to rent bikes and picked 5 hot bikes (they had ‘turbo’ and ‘charming’ written on their sides – expect for Sarah’s which apparently was simultaneously ‘turbo’ and ‘fA1ry’) to travel with all day. We didn’t even cover half of the temples that were in the complex, but what we did see was absolutely incredible. I can’t being to describe the overwhelming moment when you realize that the ruins you’re looking at were built as early as the 13th century, and they can still captivate people. It was really great to see throughout the compounds that people come to make offerings still; it definitely brought a living aspect to the ruins and temples we were seeing.
This morning we went and visited a Buddha casting foundry before heading to the train station to catch an 8hour train to Chiang Mai, where we’ll be for two nights. The casting foundry was great – we got a special little tour by a young woman who was sitting at the main desk when we arrived. It was a smaller, open courtyard but within it there were lots of people working on Buddha statues at all different stage of the process. There was a small display that showed the process of producing the casts, and we were able to watch as one woman molded a wax statue to make into a cast. Most of the courtyard was taken up by huge stoves and kilns, however, and we got to see the huge stoves in which bronze was being melted and the kilns in which the Buddha statues were being formed. Once they’re taken out of the kilns (which they have to partially rebuild for every individual statue, at least, the larger ones) they’re cooled and painted, which reveals the holes in the statue, which are then plugged by wax. They’re then covered with different materials, whether it’s liquid gold, goldleaf, bronze, or others.
We spoke with one woman who was covering a larger-sized small Buddha with goldleaf. It was such an intricate process, and she was flawless at it. She had a little sheet, which apparently costs 10 baht, and told us that she would use around 500 to cover the Buddha she was working on. When we pointed to a gigantic statue sitting outside the shed she was in, asking how many it would take to cover that, all she was “8,000”.
It was awesome to see how Buddhas are made at this point in time, but I couldn’t help to think about how much harder it must have been to make them back in the 14th century…craziness.
I’m writing this on our train to Chiang Mai, which arrived an hour and a half late, so we should arrive around 11 tonight. We’ve been floored – we did have to book more expensive tickets for this train because only express (fewer stops) trains were available – but it has also meant that we’ve already been fed twice, a meal and a snack, in the past three hours.
Please please please email me --- be patient with responses for the next month and a half --- but I will do my best to respond to every email I get as quickly as possible. And if you want postcards from SEAsia, send me your address ☺
It’s crazy that our little group has been together only one full week. Crazy because it seems like so much longer; in a few short days we’ve done quite a bit and traveled a good ways.
We started off in Bangkok for two nights, the first of which Erin, Sarah and I arrived at the hostel at 3am. That was no problem, however, and we were happy just to get to the hostel considering that after an airport official looked at the hostel address gave us a ticket with a price on it and sent us to a taxi…the taxi driver looked at us like we had three heads when we tried to explain where we were going. I pulled out our lonely planet book and pointed out the hostel on the map and then he pulled out his cell and called a friend who spoke broken English and had me speak with him to give him the address. No worries in the end because we found the hostel on our driver’s map and made it safe and sound and were able to crash until the next morning.
On the 5th (Saturday) we explored Bangkok --- We saw Wat Pho (wat = temple) where the reclining Buddha resides. It was absolutely breathtaking how large and gorgeous this Buddha was and as Flynn said, for those of us who’d never seen a true Buddhist temple, Wat Pho was quite the first experience. We also hit up the Imperial Palace, where three of us had to ‘rent’ skirts because we had on capris, and the Temple of the Dawn, where we were able to climb up several stories and get a great view of Bangkok. I’ve attached some pictures to this post, but will add the huge masses of pictures we’ve been taking to my picasa page (photo link) eventually. I’m going to have to be in one place long enough to do that, so bear with me for a bit.
Sunday was also our first true thai food experience, from a nice little stand within a market near the Imperial Palace --- and everything you’ve ever heard about Thai food in Thailand is correct --- it’s incredibly good. I’m the only one of the five of us who opts for less spice when it’s a choice, so the others are slowly getting me used to spicy dishes (which is probably a very good thing considering I’ve heard food in Bangladesh is ridiculously spicy. Fabulous.)
Sunday we were able to leave for Ayuthaya, one of the old capitals of Thailand, because Sarah’s second bag (which Air China had lost along the way to Bangkok) was found and delivered to us at our hostel. We packed up our bags and headed to the train station. The railway system here in Thailand is amazing and even third class is a pretty nice ride. Granted, I’m of the population who usually opts for non air-conditioned cabins, and I’ll trade hard seats for large window that allows me to watch the beautiful countryside fly by. We were able to book tickets for FIFTEEN baht (50 cents) for the hour and forty-five minute train ride and it was rather painless.
One of things that has impressed all of us is the accommodating and helpful nature of all the Thais we interact with. The train ticket-collector took note of the fact that we were traveling to Ayuthaya and made sure we knew our stop was approaching when it was time for us to get off. We have only been further impressed with the locals thus far. Granted, tourism is a huge industry for this country and we are the ‘backpacker’s trail’, but it’s still rather impressive that we’ve had very few negative interactions with locals.
In Ayuthaya we stayed at this adorable little hostel that I found online, and it was right across the street from a huge ancient ruins site. Monday we rented bikes from our hostel and rode throughout the ruins, and even rode outside of town to one of the larger Wats in the area, which is right next to a monument to one of the ancient kings. Two things --- 5 girls riding silver bikes with huge baskets was going to be a site unto itself regardless, however, we also had to deal with a good deal of traffic AND the fact that in Thailand you drive on the other side of the road. By the end of the day we had gotten the hang of things, but it definitely took us some time. It was entertaining nonetheless. Secondly, and the irony was not lost on me, Erin and Heather (for those of you that were with us on the eventual trip back from Erin’s house during the summer of 2003 when we took pictures upon a huge white rooster we found alongside the road), the memorial to the ancient King was a gigantic statue of him on a horse, looking very fierce and threatening, surrounded by (and I kid you NOT) thousands of cocks. Little cocks, middle-sized cocks and gigantic, multi-colored cocks (or roosters). Whatever I’ll say won’t even do justice to the site, so please check out the pictures of it.
We’ve seen a good number of cocks throughout our travels thus far – it seems that for Thai Buddhists they symbolize protection, as well as royalty. As far as I can tell, when the memorial was built, many gigantic cock statues were placed around it, and people now bring little cocks as offerings. It was one of the craziest and most unexpected sites. In fact, Flynn and I had been riding along at a nice leisurely pace and had commented about how curious this statue looked in the middle of the scenery, considering the Wat we were heading towards was right next to it. It was absolutely priceless.
What made the ride completely worth it was the Wat we went to next --- it was absolutely breathtaking and we were able to climb up and get a great view of the surrounding areas. Additionally, and Heather was especially excited about this, there was a little room for offering to Buddha in the middle of the temple and accessible from the top level we could climb to. So Erin, Sarah, Heather and I each brought in a lotus flower and some incense and made an offering to Buddha. I am getting a first-class education on certain Buddhist practices from Heather and Flynn, and it’s been great traveling with Heather because she’s studied all these places for years but this is her first time visiting them first-hand --- don’t get me wrong, Erin, Sarah and I appreciate the Wats and can only marvel at all the ruins around us, but watching Heather get to see them for the first time is like watching a kid in a candy store. It brings a whole new level of appreciate to our ‘temple tour’.
Tuesday we left Ayuthaya and took a 6½ hour train to Phitsanulok, and spent most of the day traveling. Wednesday we got on a bus to travel to Sukhothai, another ancient capital of the area, where the ruins were amazing. We were let off our bus in front of a place to rent bikes and picked 5 hot bikes (they had ‘turbo’ and ‘charming’ written on their sides – expect for Sarah’s which apparently was simultaneously ‘turbo’ and ‘fA1ry’) to travel with all day. We didn’t even cover half of the temples that were in the complex, but what we did see was absolutely incredible. I can’t being to describe the overwhelming moment when you realize that the ruins you’re looking at were built as early as the 13th century, and they can still captivate people. It was really great to see throughout the compounds that people come to make offerings still; it definitely brought a living aspect to the ruins and temples we were seeing.
This morning we went and visited a Buddha casting foundry before heading to the train station to catch an 8hour train to Chiang Mai, where we’ll be for two nights. The casting foundry was great – we got a special little tour by a young woman who was sitting at the main desk when we arrived. It was a smaller, open courtyard but within it there were lots of people working on Buddha statues at all different stage of the process. There was a small display that showed the process of producing the casts, and we were able to watch as one woman molded a wax statue to make into a cast. Most of the courtyard was taken up by huge stoves and kilns, however, and we got to see the huge stoves in which bronze was being melted and the kilns in which the Buddha statues were being formed. Once they’re taken out of the kilns (which they have to partially rebuild for every individual statue, at least, the larger ones) they’re cooled and painted, which reveals the holes in the statue, which are then plugged by wax. They’re then covered with different materials, whether it’s liquid gold, goldleaf, bronze, or others.
We spoke with one woman who was covering a larger-sized small Buddha with goldleaf. It was such an intricate process, and she was flawless at it. She had a little sheet, which apparently costs 10 baht, and told us that she would use around 500 to cover the Buddha she was working on. When we pointed to a gigantic statue sitting outside the shed she was in, asking how many it would take to cover that, all she was “8,000”.
It was awesome to see how Buddhas are made at this point in time, but I couldn’t help to think about how much harder it must have been to make them back in the 14th century…craziness.
I’m writing this on our train to Chiang Mai, which arrived an hour and a half late, so we should arrive around 11 tonight. We’ve been floored – we did have to book more expensive tickets for this train because only express (fewer stops) trains were available – but it has also meant that we’ve already been fed twice, a meal and a snack, in the past three hours.
Please please please email me --- be patient with responses for the next month and a half --- but I will do my best to respond to every email I get as quickly as possible. And if you want postcards from SEAsia, send me your address ☺
Monday, January 7, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
On my way...
As I'm sitting in the Incheon Airport in Korea, awaiting to board my flight to Bangkok, I figured now was as good of a time as any to start this blog. The past three weeks have been a whirlwind of saying goodbyes, packing (especially at the last minute), and trying to pin down details of the upcoming three months.
For those of you that have no idea what i'm doing with my life, here's the quick update. From march 2008 through august 2009 I will be teaching English at the Asian University for Women's Access Academy. It's the first year of the program, so I don't know much about what my life will be for those 18 months. However, whatever it is, I would LOVE visitors, in case you are feeling adventurous. So far, the people we're working for have been extremely flexible and encouraging, and the other volunteers seem great. I am really looking forward to arriving in march and getting started with orientation and teaching.
Until then, however, i am leading the life of a wanderer. literally. I am currently on my way to thailand, and will be traveling through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia with a few friends --- Heather Hassett, one of her friends from high school, Sarah Robb and Erin Finkle. I'll try and update this as much as possible, as well as the picture page (link to the right). More (hopefully interesting) to come soon.
For those of you that have no idea what i'm doing with my life, here's the quick update. From march 2008 through august 2009 I will be teaching English at the Asian University for Women's Access Academy. It's the first year of the program, so I don't know much about what my life will be for those 18 months. However, whatever it is, I would LOVE visitors, in case you are feeling adventurous. So far, the people we're working for have been extremely flexible and encouraging, and the other volunteers seem great. I am really looking forward to arriving in march and getting started with orientation and teaching.
Until then, however, i am leading the life of a wanderer. literally. I am currently on my way to thailand, and will be traveling through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia with a few friends --- Heather Hassett, one of her friends from high school, Sarah Robb and Erin Finkle. I'll try and update this as much as possible, as well as the picture page (link to the right). More (hopefully interesting) to come soon.
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