Keeping It Short

This is getting expensive. The internet that is. Down here in southern Thailand it's about 3 Baht per minute (approx. 13 minutes online for 1$ US). Therefore I've been updating sparingly.

It finally stopped raining it Ko Tao and I was able to do some serious relaxing on the private beach by my bungalow. After a few days there I moved on down to Ao Phang-Nga where I took a boat through the National Park down there and saw some beautiful limestone rock formations. The main attraction of a tour here is the island that was used as a set piece in the James Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun." The island itself was quite beautiful, but it was also overcrowded with tourists all trying to take the same photo.

The boat dropped me off at Ko Yao Noi a small island with beautiful views and few tourists. The baeches might not have been as good as the ones on some of the major islands, but it was nice to be able to "get away" from crowds for a couple of days. While I was there I went to see a Thai boxing match. The participants ranged in age from 5 to 50, with the youngest boxers going first. It's amazing how serious a five year old can look. The crowds really go nuts at these events, and are almost as much of a spectacle as the matches themselves are.

The final three matches of the night were definitely the most exciting. These were the age 18 to 20 fighters, and two out of the last three matches ended in serious knockouts. The fighters look so small, but they are powerful, and damn fast.

After leaving Ko Yao Noi, I've come down to Krabi to go to Tansai Beach. I spent my first full day there taking a rock climbing course where I got to scale up the side of several limestone cliffs. This is apparently a world class climbing spot, and the courses are dirt cheap. A full day of climbing including instruction, gear rental, food, etc. was only $35 US. It was fun to do this, but it definitely wears you out quickly. I didn't take to it quite as well as I'd hoped, but I felt like I'd accomplished something by the end of the day. I may do another half day of climbing before I leave if my muscles can stop hurting so much.

I've also done some kayaking to nearby islands, reading, sitting around, and of course swimming in the ocean.

Well, this will very well be my last blog entry before heading home. It's Thursday today, and Saturday is when I begin forging my path north back to Bangkok. I'll try to write some kind of wrap up entry once I'm home. See you all soon.

Fast Forward

So I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with this lately. I'm going to have to make this brief and skip a lot of things to catch up.

Communist Block
After leaving Luang Prabang, I went down to Vientienne. The bus ride was incredibly beautiful, and extremely dangerous. Misty mountaintops blurred past at high speeds around windey, bumpy roads. Not much infrastructure there.

Vientienne was largely uneventful. I only spent two days and one night there and felt I could have skipped it. I suppose it's interesting to see a "communist" area of SE Asia, but about the only evidence I saw of communism were the old hammer and sickle flags hanging everywhere and the drab "utilitarian" architecture.

Vientienne was followed by a trip across the border back into Thailand. I took a bus to Kong Kaen with Ruby and Rumi where they intended to meet up with a friend and I intended to decompress. They'd overbooked the bus on the way there, and I ended up having to sit in a one foot tall plastic chair at the rear of the bus while eating warm waffles out of a plastic bag. I could only have felt more foolish if I'd been wearing a propeller hat.

Wild, Wild-Life
After leaving Kong Kaen, the gang split up and I traveled with Rumi down to the Kao Yai natural park while Ruby went on to Bangkok to visit another friend. Rumi and I did a one and a half day trek/wildlife watching tour. It was really amazing. We got to see gibbon monkeys, elephants, machack(sp?) monkeys, and lots of rare birds. Our guide had a telescope that gave us great, close up views of the birds and monkeys. It was just the right size for me to hold my digital camera up to the lens so I could take pictures. I suppose there are some good things about not having brought an SLR.

On the second day of the trek we got to see wrinkle nosed bats inside a cave, hanging about four feet above us. Later we watched as they flew out of the cave at night, right above our heads. The sound was amazing, and I was so mad I didn't have Kamran's Mini-Disc recorder in my day bag. I got some great photos and shot a little video with my digital camera. Really, this was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

The next day we went hiking and camping in the national park. The trails were a little hard to follow, and it we made it out of the woods just before dark. We didn't see many animals directly, but we did hear a lot of things stalking around us in the woods. On one path we took there was evidence of an elephant having been by recently (we could tell by the dropping - they're hard to miss).

There was a very large deer at our campground that night, and a lot of local kids drinking and singing songs in Thai. (Don't these kids have school in the morning?)

1.21 Giga-Wats
The next day we got up early and took a train to Ayuthayya. Ruby had been there a few days before and recomended guesthouses and restaraunts to us. After a quick nap and lunch, we found that all of the sights to see in town were... closed.

We spent all the next looking at temples and taking about 150 pictures. I wish I'd gone here before going to the Temples of Angkor, because it pales in comparison, however it was still very impressive. I can see why folks call this city the Rome of the east, because all of the ruins are literally right in the middle of the city (like the Collesium in Rome). Seriously, 7-11... department store... ancient temple! Many of the buildings closely match the 14th and 15th century Khmer style of architecture (similar to Angkor Wat), but are not as well intact. The city has been sacked many times in the past, and the damage is obvious.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...
So I need to take a moment to interrupt this blog with an important message. I will not, be going to Vietnam on this trip. There's still too much to see in Thailand, and I don't want to rush myself. After going to Ayuthayya I went back to Bangkok and switched my ticket so I would be flying out of Bangkok instead of Ho Chi Minh City. This was a tough decision, but I really didn't want to deal with arranging a visa, arranging transportation into the country, and all the other things that come along with changing locales as drastically as I would be doing. It's time to slow down a little. I have to go back to work soon (much too soon), and anyways - there's always next year, right?

When The Rain Comes...
I've now headed down to Koh Tao, a beautiful beach island where it's currently been raining heavily since my arrival. My clothes are all soaked, and it takes forever to dry anything out due to the humidity. My bungalow is right on a hillside overlooking the water. It's so close, and yet due to the rain, so far. Everyone around here says that the weather should clear up after the full moon tomorrow night, but the CNN Weather Forecast seems to imply differently. In fact the whole south of Thailand seems to be being pelted by rain right now. And like my Unlce says, "You can't go swimming in the rain - you might get wet!"

Laos Part 2: banana Boat, 800 Monks, and Magical Realism

My first day in Luang Prabang was spent doing a whirlwind tour of the sights. Luang Prabang is a slow and lovely historical city in the north of Laos. It's also home to over 800 Buddhist monks. You can't walk down the street in any direction for more than a minute without seeing one of these devotees.

First on our list for the day was the Royal Palace, which has been converted into a museum which shows off many Laos artifacts from the last two hundred years or so. It's strange to look at the old army uniforms displayed there because they're so, well... European looking. French to be precise. This shouldn't seem too out of place since Laos was occupied by the French for so long, but it's still striking to see old portraits of Eastern Kings wearing uniforms more suited to west than east.

We also visited Wat Xieng Thong which was yet another Wat. I'm pretty done with Wats at this point in my trip, and about the only really interesting thing there was a depiction of Buddhist hell on the wall inside the main building. I didn't know Buddhists even had any kind of "hell." I suppose it's something I'll have to find out more about.

After this I walked around the historical district, which is a large area right between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers mostly made up of old French Colonial style buildings. It was very relaxing and I can certainly see why Unesco has earmarked this district for renovation. At sunset Ruby, Rumi and I met up with some Australian, Japanese and American travelers and climbed the 300+ steps to the top of Phu Si. Phu Si is a golden temple that sits atop a large hill in the center of town. The view is absolutely spectacular and we stayed at the top for quite a while.

On the way down we bumped into a young monk named Ling who was very eager to practice his English. He told us many stories about the troubles between Thailand and Laos, ghosts, Buddha, naga, and even his own death. It's easy to dismiss what someone says as quaint when they talk about the magical powers of their previous Kings, or an emerald statue, but such beliefs seem widespread and common in Laos, and really don't sound any stranger than 40 days and 40 nights of rain, or burning bushes when you think about it. We talked to Ling for a good ninety minutes of so until mother natures call became to strong and we tromped down the remaining 200 steps to the city below with dangerously full bladders.

The next day we rounded up a group to drive out to Kung Si Falls, a multi-tiered waterfall with limestone rock, and deep green pools to swim in. I really can't begin to describe how amazing it was to be there. I'll post some pictures up here when I get back because otherwise no one will believe me. You can actually swim a few yards and hang out underneath small waterfalls along the way. There was also a tree with a ladder you could dive off of the pool into. I would have jumped, but I'm not confident enough in my swimming skills to do so. Rumi and I climbed all the way to the top of the largest portion of the waterfall where you could peer off the top and look at all the majesty below. While we were up there we stumbled across a group of monks in a lower pool hanging out with their shirts off and smoking. What would Buddha do?

I finished the night off by eating a whole fish on a stick from the night market. It was easily one of the best pieces of fish I've ever had. Moist, juicy, and portable. What more could you ask for?

While, I'm out of time again and still four days behind on updates. I've got to catch a train. I'm back in Thailand and a national park awaits me.

Laos: banana Boat, 800 Monks, and Magical Realism

So, it's been a while since I've been able to post. The reason? Let's just say that internet in Laos is a might bit unpredictable. The shops all seem to close early, when they are open the connection doesn't work half the time, and even when the stars and moons align and you finally manage to get online, for some reason all the tabs at the Blogger website are suddenly in Japanese. Long story short: This will probably be a long post.

I finally left Pai on the 27th and headed east towards Chiang Khong, a small border town right across the river from Laos. My plan was to meet up with two Canadian girls I met in Pai (Ruby and Rumi) so that we could all take the two day slow boat down the Mekong together. I'd been out pretty late (or pretty early depending on how you look at it) and so the ten hour ride from Pai to the border was especially brutal. I had lunch with a couple of guys from South Africa who couldn't seem to grasp that my name wasn't Jack. I dozed off a few times, but for the most part couldn't sleep.

When I finally reached the border around 6:30 I checked my e-mail to see if Ruby and Rumi had gotten into town yet. They had, but they'd gotten in so early that they'd decided to cross the border without me. Since the border crossing had just closed I decided to get a room and sack out early.

The next morning I woke up at the crack of dawn ready to deal with the stress of the border crossing. I got there an hour early so that I could be first in line. I still hadn't booked tickets on the slow boat, and was hoping to swindle my way onto one that day.

My fears about the border crossing were completely unfounded. As it turned out the whole process (including a ten minute boat ride across the river), took about twenty minutes.

Exchanging currency in Laos is a funny thing. One 1$ US is worth about 10,400 kip. I exchanged $100 US in travelers checks and was pleasantly surprised to find myself a millionaire. The stack of bills they handed me was so large that it made me look like I'd gained a few pounds overnight. The guy in line in front of me exchanged $500 US and was brought his currency in a grocery bag. Seriously.

I grabbed breakfast and wandered around town to see if I could find my Canadian friends anywhere on the street. When I couldn't find them I went ahead and bought a boat ticket and headed down to the dock.

Thankfully when I reached the dock I was able to locate Ruby and Rumi and we were able to work it out so we'd be on the same boat. The boat was supposed to leave at 10:30 and didn't leave until about noon. It was cramped. I couldn't stand up properly, and the only stops it made were at small villages where children mobbed the boats trying to sell us banana's, Pringles, and Beer Laos at overly inflated prices. I was beginning to wonder why I left Thailand.

The first night of the boat trip they dropped us off at a "dock" at a small town where I got a no frills room for around $2 US. My Canadian friends and I went out to dinner where I had a traditional(?) Laos dinner of pumpkin, buffalo, and vegetable stir-fry. It was quite good, and the owner of the restaurant sat at our table and spoke to us for quite a while. He apparently used to be a monk from ages ten to twenty-one, but left because he was in college and felt socially restricted by his duty. He'd recently gotten married and had opened his establishment only three weeks previous to our arrival. The restaurant didn't even have electricity yet. He answered many of our questions about Buddhism and monkhood until the restaurant got quite busy at which time his other duties called.

The next day on the boat was quite a bit better. They combined both of the boats from the previous day onto one larger boat. The seats were more comfortable, you could stand up on the boat, and they served food and drinks in the back. On the boat as well were the guys I'd met from South Africa (Hello Jack!) one of whom was celebrating his birthday. They made quite a party of it, and it was a much more upbeat atmosphere than the day before. Once again the scenery was amazing with mountains, rock formations, fisherman, children playing and lots of water buffalo.

We arrived around Luang Prabang around 6 pm with just enough time to find a guesthouse and grab some street food before going to sleep.

I'm out of time. I guess this will have to be a two parter. Look tomorrow for more.