Nong Khiaw

We were extremely lucky to get a ride with a "trained tour guide" in an air conditioned mini-van from Luang Nam Tha all the way to Nong Khiaw. This ride which would normally take 8-9hours in 2 different buses (that may not even connect), only took us 6. We travelled with 2 French Canadians (Bruno & Alex) and Dennis from Holland. Our driver "Tot" tried very hard to sell us on his "cheap $60 trip from Nong Khiaw to Luang Prabang, which included a visit to the caves, and a village - and did I mention it was only $60 - AND includes villages & caves and a tour with private driver??!!" He must have repeated this to us at least a 1/2 dozen times - until finally we ignored him and he left!

The drive was on through really spectacular mountainous scenery with villages scattered on the ridges of hills. The roads were really bumpy and mostly dirt, so we were very happy to be seat-belted with a/c, plenty of leg room, and best of all, no live animals or kid's shitting their pants (see previous blog).

Bruno demonstrating the French Canadian safety device for bumpy van rides ;)



Nong Khaiw is a gorgeous town nestled amongst huge limestone mountains on the Nam Ou river. We (well, it was actually Bruno & Marcus) found a great guesthouse with a patio overlooking the scenery, where we spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from our long bumpy journey with a few Laos Beers.

Playing "asshole" card game and drinking in Nong Khiaw with Bruno (Montreal), Alex (Montreal), Marcus (England) and Dennis (Holland):



The view from our guesthouse in Nong Khiaw:

4 Hours in the "Bus" from Hell
i.e. Laos Public Transport

A pickup-truck,
One hilly, windy, bumpy dirt road,
17 humans plus cargo,
Kneecaps banging on the filthy head of a kid, then again on a younger baby,
Girl throwing up out the back,
Constant hacking and spitting by everyone apart from us,
Two squeeling piglets in a bag under Andrew's feet,
A 15-year old mom whacking her baby on the head every time it made a noise,
The stench of a 2 year-old who hadn't bathed in weeks and had just shat in his pants, his dirty fingers holding onto the folds of Mandy's pant-leg,
The basket of stinking fish being held by the girl beside Andrew,
The large lobster or unknown creature shoved in a sopping wet bag behind the driver,
Bags of rice on the floor (is our luggage still on the roof?),
An entire houseload of items pushed into the footspace below us,
Nowhere to put the feet, nowhere to move,
Stuck breathing in dust and the foul stench of the family beneath us, kneecaps banging into their heads every time we go over a bump:
Bang, bang, bump, bump,
Only 3 hours to go.

Off the Beaten Track

Well, we crossed the border to Lao and tried desperately to find a way to avoid the tourist trap of the slow boat to Luang Prabang: 70+ tourists packed onto a not very big rice boat for two days. So we ended up getting a "private" boat up the Nam Tha river, upriver to Luang Nam Tha. It was well worth the little extra cost, as we got to spend a day and a half on a beautiful river, and didn't see another foreigner the whole time, or anyone that spoke more than a few words of English.

Soon after departure, we found out our private boat was a taxi that picked up any local and their 2 bags of rice for a small fee, which basically meant that our inflated tourist price was financing the day's local transport upstream. It was quite tricky for the drivers to navigate upstream, as the river was running low and there were many rapids. One driver sat in back at the steering wheel, and one or two up front with bamboo poles pushing to keep us from getting stuck on rocks. At one point we had to get out while they went up a three foot high rapid/waterfall that required the guys in front to paddle hard while the outboard motor spun in mid-air.

The guys in the front navigating a rapid:



Sitting enjoying the view at the front of the boat:



The boat load of people in our "taxi":



One of the many groups of Water Buffalo we passed:



Our favourite passenger, who we communicated with in sign language & smiles:



A typical village on the Nam Tha:



Some kids who ran out to see us on our way past their village:



Some friendly kids waving as we passed their slow boat:



The best part was our overnight homestay with one of the boat-men, Maewong. We stayed in his village on the river which offerred us the most basic accomodation of our trip. On arrival, we were told to put our bags down by two straw mats laid out on the floor, and we imagined we were in for a hard and cold night's sleep. Luckily, they brought out the rest of the bedding, which included sleeping pads, heavy blankets, and a mosquito net.

Dinner was served and much to Mandy's delight, it was a coriander omelette!!! She had to sneak her omelette into Andrew's bowl when they weren't looking, and content herself with sticky rice, plus 2 self-supplied oreos after dinner. Maewong brought out his "lao lao", the local whiskey, and would have kept offerring us drinks all night long had we let him.

It was really our most primitive night's sleep since camping in Alaska: light was supplied by oil lanterns, cooking was done over a fire, the toilet was in a shack out back (which required a dangerous descent down a bamboo ladder), and there was no running water, just buckets provided. With no lights, the village was totally silent and we were asleep by 9pm, which was a good thing because the roosters, pigs, and babies start their collective squealing at about 5am. I don't know how they can be Buddhist here -- there's no way one could meditate amongst this racquet.

Luckily, they had used all their coriander on dinner, so Mandy could eat her breakfast omelette (and soup).

Andrew saying farewell to Mae Wong - our boatman:

Missionaries to Elephants

Our first stop after Chiang Mai was Tha Ton, a quiet little village on the Mae Kok river -- another place hard to pronounce with a straight face;). Anyway, we met a nice Australian couple who told us about the work they were doing at a local orphanage for Burmese Shan refugees, and we were invited to check it out. Well, the only time we had before leaving happenned to be Sunday morning, around 10am.

Bad timing for a couple of non-religious Jews to visit what we soon realized was a Southern Baptist missionary. It was an interesting service to say the least -- first came some beautiful gospel/rock sung in the Shan language; then the Australian preacher stood up and began by saying how honored he was to have Jews visiting the church, and then the rest of his sermon seemed to be pointed directly at us, informing us that we were heathens unless we accept the word of Jesus and convert. We were even offerred a Gideon bible before leaving.

On the upside, we did get to meet many of the kids who are all really amazing and resilient. The missionaries are doing good work to give these kids a full education and teach them Thai and English, so that they will have future job prospects across Thailand. One of their main goals is to assimilate the Shan kids into Thailand so that they do not have to return to the oppressive regime in Burma. Which left us wondering why can't these kids be raised Buddhist so they will blend in a little easier in this mostly Buddhist country.

The band playing at Sunday service:



We were off quickly enough to catch the river boat to our next stop, the amazing My Dream Guest House, half way between Tha Ton and Chiang Rai. We spent 3 nights in a very quiet river-front bungalow. We highly recommend this to our fellow travellers. We had at last gotten "off the beaten path" in Thailand, a very hard thing to do in this touristy country, as there were only 2 other foreigners with us.

Mandy enjoying our luxury bungalow on the side of the Mae Kok river:



Our first night there we were invited to a Lahu New Years celebration of dancing, music, and drinking "whiskey Lahu". We kept expecting a tourist bus to show up but again we were the only tourists there.

Lahu girls getting very excited about being photographed by a digital camera, they were literally pushing to get infront of the camera!:



Drinking Lahu Whiskey with Marsaline (Canadian), a Lahu guy, Gon (from our guesthouse) and David (Irish):



The next day we went on a strenuous walk uphill to two more hill tribes, one Lahu and one Akha. We also made it to a beautiful waterfall and a really nice hot-spring along the river.

Mandy dying from the exercise on the steep slopes!



Who was the marketing idiot at this company?



The next day found us relaxing from our hike and floating down the river on inner-tubes, and enjoying a special dish prepared, by Nan the owner, for just the two of us in bamboo stalks on the fire.

Nan preparing our bamboo cooked dinner:



Today we went to an elephant camp and rode on an elephant, and hand fed them bananas and sugar cane -- they are such gentle giants! Again, not many tourists around so we really enjoyed it.

An elephant with 2 trunks?? ;)



Now we are in Chiang Rai, catching up on internet and city errands, but tomorrow we head off to Laos, down the Mekong river. We'll let you know how it goes.

Job Wanted: Masseuse and Cook

We've now finished our Thai massage and cooking classes, and are looking for work. Unfortunately neither job pays much here, so we'll keep travelling for now ;)

Massage anyone?

Today was the first of 4 days in our Thai massage course, here in Chiang Mai. We're feeling good, although a little tired from the exhausting techniques.

Andre the Giant with Michiko the Minute:



Our massage class celebrating the end of the course, Michiko, Midori, Rachel, Sonya, Mandy, Andrew, Yoshi & Miki.



Now onto cooking, at the Somphet Thai Cooking School:

Monsoon Season?

Yesterday on the ferry to Ko Pha Ngan, a friendly tout was trying to convince us to stay at her hotel on the island. We kindly declined and told her that we planned to stay at Bottle Beach on the other side of the island. She explained to us that because of the monsoon, there would be no boats going to Bottle Beach for the next 3 months (ie. we should just stay at her place). We found the whole conversation most entertaining - just adding to our list of lies from touts around the world.

We arrived on the island after dark and caught a cab to the top of the island, where we intended to catch a long-tail boat to Bottle beach. However, they wanted to charge us $15 for a boat ride that should only cost $3, so we decided to walk along the beach to another quiet area (recommended by many friends). After struggling to see anything in the dark, crossing a knee deep river, and discovering the beach ahead was scrambling-over-rocks terrain - we decided to take the road. But again, after a few minutes walking in the darkness in a jungle surrounded area, we wimped out, and spent the evening at a nice bungalow chatting to some other long-term travellers until after midnight.

Today it is raining (pretty heavily) - maybe the tout was right? Monsoon season? Let's hope it improves so we can enjoy bottle beach in the sun tomorrow.

The only way to get to Bottle Beach - by long boat, here are some fisherman we passed enroute:

Ko Jum

We took the ferry from Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta and then boarded the boat to Krabi immediately. We had heard that Ko Jum was 1/2 way between Ko Lanta and Krabi, and assumed we'd be dropped at a pier, met by touts and would then chose a place to stay.

Of course one should never make assumptions. After an hour on the water in the middle of the ocean, the boat slows and all of a sudden we're surrounded by 6 long boats. A tout who had spoken to us about his place while on the boat, grabs our packs and throws them to a guy on the boat below, we climb down into the boat chasing our packs and are whisked away to our new accomodation!

We ended up staying in Ko Jum for a couple of nights, in a brand new bungalow (with flush toilet!) for only $7 per night. The Green Bungalow (next to the expensive $10-15/night Season Bunglow) was great, as were the lack of people on the island. Finally some quiet time.

No more Pee Pee

We are about to leave ko phi phi. This island is hardly paradise (not compared to goa at least). I'm sure it was a few years ago, but now it's so developed, there are just crowds of people everywhere, not fun at all. It's also way too hot! (I know, we're such complainers - but you would not believe how packed this place is!)

Yesterday we did a boat tour around the two islands (including the island where "the beach" was filmed). Every place we stopped was swarming with boats, some nearly running over people snorkelling. People standing on (and ruining) the coral in their fins - just not a good scene. However, the fish were amazing, and apart from the odd fish bite we had a good time, and met some cool chicks from california - Seema and Aparna.

We're heading out towards Ko Lanta, and plan to catch another ferry to a fairly undeveloped/unknown place called Ko Jum. Hopefully there'll be less people and we can enjoy the place by ourselves.

Mandrew at "The Beach" in Koh Phi Phi

Bangkok Photos

Here they are - finally!:


Mandy with Uncle David (who happened to be vacationing in Thailand!)



Andrew and the Reclining Buddha



Mandrew at the Grand Palace



A stand at the Chatachuk weekend market:



View from the back of a "Tuk Tuk"