A Little Wiggle Room

So, thanks to Vichetr, my arrival in Sihanoukville was smooth.   After a pretty good night’s rest, I awoke to find I’d tipped over my makeshift contact holders during my in-the-dark fan battle.   (Should have brought two cases or back-ups.)   I put the old ones in and left the dried up lenses to soak hoping they’d regain their life.   Especially if the old pair didn’t survive the snorkelling trip!

I got my beachware  on, had breakfast, got to see my first alms-giving to a monk (I’ve tried not to be  the voyuer  that so many tourists are regarding  this tradition), and got picked up by a tuk-tuk and two French men.   We did the standard hurry up and wait as we watched storm clouds gather on the southern horizon.   It was clear to the north, though.   Which direction is Bamboo Island, anyway?” I asked our guide.   That’s when we found out the our ”English speaking guide” didn’t really speak or understand all that much English.

Sure enough, we launched off in the direction of  the storm!   Two awesome Australian women – Pip and Beck, a young Dutch couple, the Frenchmen, two older women from Denmark and a mysterious and quiet older couple.   It wasn’t long before I could see the whitecaps flashing in the water ahead.   Pretty soon the islands ahead became obscured by the gloom and the seas turned to an emerald grey.   They rolled the rain cover over the braces to make an awning for us, and we dove head long into the storm.   The rain came down in sheets soaking everything around the edges as we sat huddled in our bikini’s and towel-wrapped shoulders.   After an somewhat unnerving hour or so of wind, rain, whitecaps, rocking, rolling, and constant engine cut-outs, we sighted Bamboo Island and ran up on the shore.
We all just sat there as the rain came down in sheets.   The Frenchman donned their raincoats  and took the plunge.   Next the Denmark women were off, then the Australians went for it.   I decided that I love to swim, rain or no rain, and dived in as well.   Soon the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.   In between bouts of swimming in the clear blue water, I lounged in a hammock and read my book.
The waters off Bamboo Island
The greatest lazy day in hammocks. Makes me feel like I’m on the Amazon again!

It was great to do so much relaxing!   For lunch, it was Barracuda baked in tin foil, rolls, and fruit!     I love the tropics!   We went for a hike across the island and found another beach.   We all went for a swim and I soon learned about teeny schools of stinging fish that don’t really hurt any more than a mosquito bite.   Those with more extensive ocean experience assured me that they were normal, but I cut my swim short anyway as I tired of the little zaps.

Finally it was time to boat past some snorkeling spots on the way home.   I love snorkeling, and was the first to dive in!   I had some trouble with google fog (I don’t care how many times you spit, it doesn’t always work), but the coral was beautiful!

Fuzzy coral
My the most prominent underwater species – looks like little suction cups and sways in the water. I like it!
Squiggle coral (I’m making up these names)
And I’ve never seen such big sea urchins!   The coolest part was the electric blue rings on the surface of the urchins.   Really cool.   And the reef we were at was really close to the surface so I could see everything.   The downside – as I was treading water and defogging  my goggles, I accidentally kicked a sea urchin.   OUCH!   They’re poisonous.   Not kill-you-posionous, but definitely make-your-foot-numb-for-a-few-hours-posionous.   After that, I took one more trip around the coral, swam out to the deeper sea, and then took my turn at flopping myself back onto the boat (this was one of the funniest parts of the trip!).
My nemesis! Beautiful but dangerous.

The Australians were nurses and advised me to keep my puncture covered so I don’t pick up any of the rampant diseases (ring worm, etc.) in my open wound.   Point taken!   So, I hobbled back up to my hostel, took a shower, dressed my throbbing and numb foot, and took it upon myself to veg out as completely as possible.   I interneted, read, had a fantastic gourmet baked eggplant dinner, had a few beers, a crepe  suzette, and then watched two disks of Grey’s Anatomy (which I have never seen before).   I didn’t get some of the macro stuff, this being season 3 and all, but lots of mini dramas to entertain my brain.   It was great!   It’s been… probably two years since I’ve spent more than an hour or two doing “nothing.”   Heaven!   Thank you, Sea Urchin!

Today I slept in, had a breakfast so huge that at 8pm my normally ravenous appetited  is still abated, caught up on my blog some more, walked down to the beach (carefully) and took a moto  to the bakery where proceeds go to a local project for street children.   Then I went to Seeing Hands Massage – an employment opportunity for the blind.   I spent an hour and a half with Rotha  (rote-ah) which was the highlight of my day.   The massage  was, as usual, different than  what I’m used to at home.   Lots more pressing than rubbing.   The great part was chatting with Rotha.   He spoke great English!   He’s 23, and became blind from having the measles when he was three (as did most of his co-workers).   He hopes to be the director of a place employing blind people.   He asked me if I would mind telling him the difference between search and explore, between correct and edit, and if I could find out how much a Braille Note cost for him.   He was great!

Seeing Hands Massage in another city. Unlike other places I’ve been to in SE Asia, they have you change into scrubs and each person gets their own massage table. It was great!

I walked back home and took the wrong spoke off the traffic circle.   After a little backtracking, I made it ‘home!’   So, now I am here, researching the Braille Note (I thought maybe he was confused  about the name).   I’m sad to report back to him that this computer for the blind is about $3,000 – $6,000 new (maybe – no companies list their prices – I had to go through hearsay), and there is only one on Ebay right now that is $100.   I hope he can get one!   I wonder if I could write a company on his behalf?

Tomorrow morning I am off to Siam Reap, the base city for SE Asia’s most famous temple – Angkor Wat.   I might try to pay a visit to the Killing Fields as I pass through Phnom  Penh.   We’ll see how my foot is.   I can’t believe I’m flying home in only six more days!   Yikes!

Get Me Out of Here!

04.27.10 – Preface: this entry and indeed the entire blog is my means of communicating with my friends and family.   If you are looking for an accurate representation of what Phnom  Penh  is like or searching out wise & philosophical ponderings on the lessons of travel, please look elsewhere.

Phnom  Penh.   In a word, “‘YUCK.”   In two – ”absolutely putrid.”   You want three?   “Full-volume chaos.”   I think Phnom  Penh ranks right up there for worst trip experiences.   I think I almost would rather have been back on the slow boat.

I am not a fan of cities.   Especially cities where people have been consumed  by desperation and can no longer have the priviledge  of being “‘people.”   The reining era of the Khmer Rouge ripped Cambodia apart beginning in the late seventies and continued for twenty years.   Background for those who need it: the Khmer Rouge was an extremist communist party who sought to aggressively exterminate all the down-sides of capitalism by flipping the country completely on end.   Anyone who had moved above the very bottom ranks of society was considered  a threat to the communist ideal.   Shop owners, university students, professors, anyone who wore spectacles – essentially all of the  middle and upper class citizens – went onto  the list of seek and destroy missions.   Illiterate and uneducated peasants from the countryside were installed  to fill societal needs that education necessitates – like medicine.   People were exterminated out of pure suspicions.   Pol Pot, the major Khmer Rouge leader was fond of saying, ”It is better to kill twenty innocent men than to let one guilty man go free.”

After my interest in meeting the local people and learning lessons that travel alone offers, Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge history are what drew me to Cambodia.   If it weren’t for Tuol  Sleng   (a major prision  of the KR) and the killing fields (mass graves outside of the city), Phnnom  Penh  never would have been on my list.   Conventional wisdom has it that Cambodia ”is crippled  by a short-term outlook that encourages people to live for today rather than  thinking about tomorrow, because a short while ago there was no tomorrow.”   Which brings me back around to the misery that is Phnom  Penh.   People are not poorer in Cambodia than in surrounding SE Asian countries, so I have to wonder if the vulture mentality that has evolved here (and not elsewhere) is a product of Cambodia’s recent injustices at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

My eighteen hours in the city were barely tolerable.   I arrived and was accosted  and hunted by moto  drivers everytime  I even looked at the street.   In the morning, since the earliest sight-seeing open was the Royal Palace, I rented a bike and headed straight there, determined to make the 2:30 p.m. bus OUT of the city.   I didn’t eat breakfast.   A big, big mistake for anyone who knows me well.   Big.   Mistake.   I ended up having to eat a bag of some weird cross between a cheeto-porkskin-chip thing as a ”breakfast replacement.”

The Royal Palace was a let down, as I tend not to be  as awed by architechture and art as I am by mountains and waterfalls.
This tree and its amazing flowers (shorea  robusts  roxb) were all over the palace grounds. What do you think, dad? Have you ever seen this before?
The pavilion of  Napoleon. This house was gifted  to the King after it was used  to house a French empress during the inauguration of  the Suez Canal. It was reassembled in the palace grounds.

The grounds were beautiful, the gardens and buildings were amazing, but I was full-to-bursting with its history after only 90 minutes.   I was then faced with a dilema.   I had four hours thirty minutes remaining.   More than the killing fields, I really wanted to see the Tuol  Sleng  prison museum.   If I went to the fields first, I would have to rush through the museum or not go at all.   If I went to the museum first, I couldn’t chance leaving town for the fields afterwards and having traffic keep me from my bus (for which I had already purchased a ticket).   There was no way I was staying in Phnom  Penh, so Tuol  Sleng it was.

The museum is the site of a former school turned prision during the Khmer Rouge era and it was horrifying.   I arrived just as a movie that focused on how the KR rein affected a single couple began the first of its two daily showings.   The fear described by all the survivors in the movie of never knowing when you or your family would be swept away by the Khmer Rouge, for better or for worse, was completely tragic.
Some of the mugs shots of S21  (Security 21) Prison – Tuol  Sleng. Nearly all those pictured here were eventually executed at the Killing Fields where their skulls reside in a giant white memorial stupa.
The photos and histories of Khmer Rouge recruits were sad and spoke to the helplessness that racked Cambodia’s people.   The torture chambers were terrifying.   Paintings depicted how the torture devices were used.   The worst were the fingernail rippers, the body hangers, and the dunk tanks.   From gallows, soldiers would tie a prisoners hands behind their back.   Then, using that rope, they would hoist them into the air.   People dangled in this atrocious position until they passed out.   They were then dunked head first in putrid water sure to revive them and the whole process began anew.
The tank itself – really horrifying to stand right next to it and imagine all its victims.
A painting of one of the torture methods at S21 by a prisoner who survived.
The regulations for the prisoners and every other citizen under the Khmer Rouge regime.

The photos and mug shots of the prisoners were haunting.   The “rules” of the prision  were some of the most disgusting abuses of power I have ever seen.   The barbed wire still covering the building was awful.   The only uplifting thing in the whole  place was a display about the national effort to expose the Khmer Rouge’s wrong doings completely to Cambodia’s people.   A campaign to have all citizens visit the Killing Fields and Tuol  Sleng  is giving people pieces of their history back and helping to fill in the blanks created by Khmer Rouge.   One woman discovered her long-lost brother in a photograph of Tuol  Sleng prisoners.

The worst of the living situations at the prison. Some were ”lucky enough’ to get a cell. Others were chained at the ankle and had to lie side by side, nearly naked.

I left the Tuol  Sleng  prison in a somber mood and raced back to check out of my hostel.   My two hours remaining before the bus were just enough to be  dangerous, and so I decided against visiting the Killing Fields.   I didn’t want to forever impress my negative mood about the city on the history of my foray here, so I passed the time trying desperately not to be hounded, eating lunch, checking email, eating ice cream for comfort, and trying to visit a nearby market that was in a parking garage.   It was terribly depressing, and I immediately left to sit at the bus station and wait for the bus.

The starving and dead at Tuol  Sleng.

Finally I was seated  in an air-conditioned space and no one was hassling me to buy anything I didn’t want to buy, go anywhere I didn’t want to go, or do anything I didn’t want to do.   I was so relieved to be  leaving Phnom  Penh that I didn’t really mind too much when the three cell phones (yes three) of the young man I was assigned  next to went off constantly for nearly the whole trip.   We had a passive-aggressive space battle, as both of us are the type that insist on bringing our bags on the bus with us.   I was annoyed  with his willingness to sprawl into my area (I have a thing about areas).   But overall we managed pretty well.   We stopped half way and everyone got off the bus.   In these situations it’s always hard to tell if it’s a bus stop or a break.   After the bus was empty but for myself and three passengers, I decided on break.   In Brazil, often the bus stops at a restaurant en route.   Many times a meal at said restaurant is included in the ticket price.   After watching other passengers go in several directions – to the cheaper food vendors and to the restaurant – I decided it wasn’t included.   I wasn’t all that hungry, so I roamed about and stretched until it was time to roll on.

A child prisoner who was a victim of the regime.

When we arrived at Sihanoukville, my seat partner spoke to me for the first time announcing the name of the town and gesturing out the window.   That started a small conversation about where the bus stopped in town.   He was a supervisor for a cell phone company (which explained his three phones ringing non-stop).   I asked him the appropriate  price of a moto  taxi when we pulled into the bus station and grinned at him in amusement and disbelief at the moto-party  greeting the bus.   The drivers all come running along-side the bus as it pulls in, leaping three feet in the air and smiling and waving frantically at the arriving passengers, desperate to establish  a connection and gain a fare.   It’s nuts.   You would think we were their long lost  brothers and sisters finally coming home after twenty years.   Vichetr  (like Richard), my seat buddy, told me his staff was coming to pick him up and that I should go with him.   I was much obliged and gathered my things to follow him off the bus. He was one or two people ahead of me. By the time I had descended the stairs, I lots him in the mob who were all shouting at him.   I searched the crowd with no luck, and suddenly Vichetr  surged up the middle of all the moto drivers and whisked me off to the parking lot.   Thank you!

He had his driver take me past all the possible hospitality strips so I could decide where I wanted to stay.   Finally they dropped me near the “Monkey Republic” and I ended up at ”Mick and Craig’s” where I got a very nice room for only $6.   After the most delicious goat chesse  and bean burritos, I arranged an island, beach, and snorkelling tour for the morning and retired.   What a day.   Vichetr’s kindness was the bright spot in my otherwise dark days in Cambodia.   Thank you!

Pigs and a Death Wish

So, we were off, the Irish and I, to Cambodia.   The journey, however, was not to progress with any semblance of speed.   I had rushed to make the 8:30 departure only to linger until almost 9.   Then we had rushed from the boat to the vans, only to wait around until nearly 10.   Then we had bumped with a focus down a few miles of rolling dirt road to the main highway where we sped 20 miles to the border.   At the Lao border, it was a minimum of 30 minutes for the 15 of us, as there was a French couple adamant about not paying the $2 ‘stamp fee.’   Pure corruption, but you’ll never talk them out of it.   And it’s not like it’s $20.   To me, it seems a bit silly to argue what almost all first world-ers make in less than 15 minutes of employment.   The French did not succeed in doing anything but getting terribly angry and then parting with $2.

The approach to the Lao border.
The Lao immigration shack.

Then it was a 50 yard drive to the Cambodian border where half the group still needed to obtain  visas.   I would have been up $15 but down “peace-of-mind” if I had waited.   My guidebook threatened that a visa at the desolate border wouldn’t be possible, so I succumbed to my (American?) need for security and got it in the Lao capital.   Finally all were processed  after an hour’s time, and we were directed  to a mini-bus.   There was no rack atop for the massive bags most backpackers carry, so we were instructed  to load them onto the bus in the back seats.   A hefty project in the stifling heat – the bus being a completely windowless oven.   I, thankfully, was mostly exempt.

The Cambodian immigration shack.

We stood around the boiling pavement taking refuge in the shade of some small trees for the better part of an hour.   Finally, patience  not always being my strong suit, I sought out the guy in charge of the whole  operation.   He informed me that there would not be enough passengers for the minibus and that we would instead be taking a van.   The groans of the other 14 were humorous if you looked at it from a certain angle, as we formed an assembly line in the oven to transfer the bags.   Finally, a suspicious man (in this environment, all locals are regarded  as suspicious by most travelers) approached us enthusiastically asking if we were going to Phnom  Phen  and pointing at his car.   Having already paid $22, and not wanting to be  duped into paying more, we ignored him and stood with our crowd at the van.   Twenty minutes later, our conductor announced that the three of us making the journey to Phnom  Phen (the Irish and I) would go by car since the route varies farther along.   Good enough!   So we went, after all, with the suspicious man.

But.   Of course we couldn’t depart  right away.   First he opened the trunk.   Left to talk to some folk.   Then loaded the Irish’s bags (I loaded mine, they -in  the heat-  said exactly, “HE can do it.”).   Then left again on a conversational errand.   Then returned and encouraged us to get in the car.   Then, suddenly, had one more errand to leave.   The Irish grew comically impatient, practically yelling, “WHAT is with all this PISSING AROUND!?!?!?!”   I hadn’t set foot in the car, whereas they had been in and out.   I decided in the broiling heat, I wasn’t going to get in until the driver closed his door!   Two more errands, and we were off!

One hunderd  yards later, we were not.   Our driver pulled over and followed a path into the tall grass where we could hear him chatting with someone.   I took it upon myself to see if the A/C worked (it did!_, but he quickly shut it down when he returned a few minutes later.   Four hundred yards and stop.   Three hundred yards and stop.   Five hundred yards and stop.   Will we ever get to Phnom  Phen?

My mother and Pat will be glad to know that this man was one of the more careful I’ve seen.   He actually depresses the brake pedal on corners and when there are animals in the road.   However, as is standard, once we got going, we maintained a speed of 80-90 miles per hour on a road I wouldn’t trust with 60 in the states.   The potholes were horrifying as we slammed through them, bottoming out in our 90’s Toyata Camry again and again.   We picked up a passenger in the first town, and she rode shotgun with the foreigners in the backseat.   It took us awhile to discover why she kept throwing plastic bags out the window: the rough roads were making her terribly car-sick.   Poor thing!

The worst stretches of paved road were like this. When the potholes were numerous, we slowed to about 40mph. But if there was just one every 30 feet – back to 80 or 90! Poor car.

We bombed through villages, took detours requiring the compact car to descend deeply rutted craters four feet deep and then climb the other side.   The scraping of the under carriage on the high points of the ruts was brutal.   I wanted desperately to get out and walk, but the driver just plowed through, groaning at each rub and smack.   Yikes!

Ordering lunch at the roadside restaurant was comical.   As there was no menu, we spent about ten minutes pouring over my menu-reader in my phrasebook with the staff trying desperately to communicate that we’d eat anyting.   How was the word for “rice” not in the menu-reader?   Eventually we got “fried rice” and “pork” from a woman diner at the only other table.   We nodded enthusiastically and were served  heaping plates of delicous  fried rice, the famous Kampot pepper, and some interesting meat bits – many of which I avoided – followed by a huge plate of papaya.   We tried desperately to finish it in the name of showing our gratitude, but it was just WAY too much food.

The nicest of the sections of dirt roads. I couldn’t get a good picture of the rolling dips, crevices, ruts, etc.

Most memorable on the trip (besides the atrocious roads and our severe sympathy for the car) were the pigs and boats.   Every population center we passed had loads of people driving aroung  with pigs in crates – their forelegs and hindlegs bound in pairs.   There were bicycles with pigs (yes, plural), motorbikes with pigs, trucks with pigs, carts with pigs, pigs, pigs, pigs.   At first we thought the pigs were dead, but closer inspection saw that they were just bound and stuffed in the crates.

Slaughtered pig on a moto. A surprise sight the first time around.

The boats, were some kind of mythical  cross between medival  times and the third world.   I think they must have been fishing  boats.   A giant 60′ x 40′ raft hosted enourmous  poles that raced skyward at leaning angles shooting off like a hand in five directions.   At the tippy-top, maybe 70 feet in the air were giant nets connected to the five points.   I assume that the nets were dropped  into the water where they gathered fish and were hoisted back up.   But why so high?

Dip net fishing (as I learned it’s called) in black and white. Apparently the nets are used  to gather entire schools of fish that swarm the Mekong when it floods. It’s said that the counterarm makes it possible for a single person to lift and lower the net. Wow.
More pigs in a basket

As we neared Phnom  Phen, I realized why, when we had pulled over and were waiting for passenger-girl to finish puking  in the bushes, our driver had had  such a hard time understanding my friendly questioning, complete with map, about where he and his wife lived in Phnom  Phen.   At this point, you might do well to know that he was a customs official.   Well, I thought it was just a language barrier.   Turns out he’d been hoping the whole  time to squeeze a few more dollars out of us.   He refused (via “confusion”) to tell us where his final destination  was (lest ours be on the way), and tried to get $10 more for taking us to the door of our hotel.   When the Irish girls indignately  refused his first offer, suddenly his English was excellent so that he could tell us how bad traffic was and what a taxing chore and huge favor he’d be doing by taking us there.   They demanded him down to $6 – two a piece – and we ended up at “Capitol” – one of the most popular guesthouses in Phnom  Phen.

Piglets in a basket…on a motorbike.

The second we stepped out the door of the car, we were descended  upon by the moto  and tuk-tuk  drivers desperate to make a buck all shouting over the top of one another for our attention (money).   We tried to politely decline, but our “no thank yous” fell on deaf ears and continued shouts, much to our annoyance.   Conveniently, the hostel had no single rooms left (true or not, I’ll never know), I instead had to pay for a double (one of the few downsides to travelling alone).   When I returned to the streets twenty minutes later in hopes of internetting a bit, of course I was accosted  again by the motos  and tuk-tuks incessantly, even after I communicated repeatedly that I did not need a ride as I was only going across the street.

The nasty, crowded streets of Phnom  Phen. Imagine it by night at the end of a long, uncomfortable journey!

Island…. Paradise?

I spent all of 24 hours on the islands of Don Det and Don Khon.   However, seeing as a tip to tip bike trip only take a few hours, 24 hours is plenty!

I thought I was going to stay in Pakse  (a bigger city) after the night bus, but it had been days since I’d been to a small town, so I decided to continue on to the islands.   I had planned on going to some larger islands about 20 miles north (known as the Four Thousand Islands), but decided at the Four-Thousand Islands bus stop that the smaller, quieter, tropical river scene suited me better.

My guidebook didn’t sport an accomodation  map of the islands, and, to my surprise, there were no touts waiting at the shore to provide  commission-based assistance to the bamboo shack of their choice.   The lone traveler disembarking at my stop, after rolling up my pant legs and lashing my sandals to my pack, I hopped off and shoved the boat back into the Mekong’s current.   I was so road weary that I practically fell into the first bungalow I saw.   It was pretty shabby, and my second biggest dismay were the here-and-there ants on the bed.   My first was the damn white boys on the porch next door swinging in their hammocks blasting gangsta rap on their travel stereos reading Pot Growers magazine.

The waterfront bungalows! Great except for the potheads with their loud gangsta rap.
After an amazing cold shower (really, they should just be called “cool” showers.   In the tropics, it’s hard to find water so icy that it would be unpleasant), I headed down the path to Mr. Tho’s.   He made me up a fantastic plate of curry and I quizzed him as the prices of his bungalows.   Mine was 50,000 kip – about $6.   He said his were only 20,000 and looked much nicer!   I decided I would make my case with the proprietor when it came time to settle my bill.   Later I would learn from quizzing other travelers that the going island rate for the shacks is 15,000 kip – about $2.   I realized my mistake – even though I repeated the price back to the keeper, 15 and 50 sound a lot alike no matter what your accent.   Long story longer… I ended up only paying the 15,000 kip.

Despite being HOT and edging toward exhaustion, I decided I could sleep stateside as much as I please and promptly rented a bike with which to see the island and get some “free air-conditioning.”   I was fascinated  by all the five year old children riding adult size bikes up and down the island paths and in the dirt packed yards of their homes.   One little boy was so tiny that he literally had to stand on the middle bar with one foot, press the left pedal to the bottom, switch feet on the middle bar, press the right pedal to the bottom, and so on.

A typical island path, minus the potholes and ups and downs. The straight stretches are part of an old rail line and full of rocks that are just as bad as the dips and bumps of the messier roads.
The bridge that connects the two islands and the typical bike for rent – with basket.
I started my circuit and promptly ran into the Irish girls from our Chiang Mai trek.   Of all the people on the trek, they were the ones I least wanted to see.   Although they hadn’t been rowdy or impolite on the trek, they were terribly boring, apathetic, and like many Irish LOVE to drink, drink, drink.   Don’t get me wrong.   I love a glass of wine and have had my fare  share of cold beer here, but I’m not the type to pound rum and cokes and they are.   I think they were equally unimpressed with me, and I quickly bid them adieu.
After leaving the path flanked by bungalows and shack shops, it was off into the country-side.   I saw a girl of about eight and her two year  old sister riding and adult-size bike and was duly impressed.   The baby knew to use her feet against the bar to stay on the bike.   Wow!   After a four foot snake slithered across my path, I ran into a farmer herding his water buffalo back to the fields.   They’re hilarious-looking creatures and only delayed my progress by a few minutes.   I saw an old woman fishing, lots of people working the rice fields, lots of people bathing in the river, and a mother with her baby who couldn’t have been more than nine months old in the same kind of bike basket I was using to store my water bottle!

An aside:   it’s the strangest thing.   Helmets are not always so popular in third-world countries where motorbikes are the major form of transport.   SE Asia has been an exception, and I see about 2/3rds  of riders wearing helmets.   However, like many similar countries, entire families still cram onto the bikes, sometimes riding three adults and three children at a time.   And not on a Harley.   Just your average scooter.   The strange part is that so often I see a family of three or four, and the adults are all wearing helmets and the children are not.   Maybe they don’t make children’s helmets here?

Anyway, I finished my loop around Don Det and came to the bridge the connects it to the island on Don Kong.   My guidebook warned me of the toll – about $1 – which I am all too happy to extend to a poor island community.   As I was crossing the bridge below was the (particularly rude) European tourist who had been on my boat taxi.   She was part of the same crowd who tried to argue the price of the taxi (a whole 5,000 kip – less than $1) because her bus driver had told her it would be 15 and not 20.   Well, true it’s fifteen to my island, but it’s 20 to hers since it’s farther.   As they argued with the ticket sellers, I jumped in to point out that the price was clearly posted, and it made sense since it was a bit further and the taxi’s weren’t operating independently.   The point of all this background is that she was now fighting with the toll taker.   In her Slavic accent, she yelled, “”You want me to pay 9,000 kip just to walk under the stupid bridge?!” I almost thought to go tell her how lucky she was to have made it to this place and experience these folks’ home, and how they would never have the resources or access to do what she was doing.   Instead, I got on with my day and shared a look and a smile with my toll collector instead, which I hope will keep her from influencing too much the local opinion of first-world tourists.

After a long and bumpy bike ride over paths so rough and marked with craters that I thought it might be better going just to walk the bike, I arrived at the Tat Somphamit falls.   Hot and sweaty, I was glad for the shade from which to view the massive falls.   It wasn’t a straight drop like you might imagine,   Instead, over about 50 yards, there were several tiers of rough granite over which the water flowed.   Remember that the Mekong is a massive river running a huge distance through several countries, and you’ll understand the impressive volume of water that coursed over the drops.   WOW!

One shoot of the Somphamit falls. A photo can’t do the vast expanse justice. I tried for ten minutes to find a good view, but there was none!
Another view of the muddy rush that the falls are right now. The passive fishing was interesting to observe – lots of baskets strung across shoots collecting fish as the water tumbled through.

Afterwards, it was back to the bumpy to see if I couldn’t add on  to a boat tour to the dolphin viewing point to see the “rare” Irrawaddy dolphins.   Not another tourist was to be found at the beach where a boat is 90,000 kip no matter if you’re one person or four.   I wasn’t too disappointed.   The put in is just below the falls where the river is still rather raging around tiny islands, the boats are dangerously close to the water, and calling them “sketchy” is an understatement.

The dolphin boat, which I did not take. Doesn’t look very steady!
The rare and endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, which I have not had the pleasure of seeing. Maybe next time!

So, I biked  back home and headed for a big Beer Lao (equal to an America “Forty” basically) and tried to catch up a little on the pricey island internet.   I heard, by way of the Australian woman next to me, that there was to be  a big party on the next island over that night in honor of the boat races the next day.   I got to see some islanders practicing the equivalent of dragon boats in the U.S., and the rower in me thought about sticking around for the fiesta and to see the races.   However, a woman traveling alone can’t afford to attend a drunken carnival solo, so I ended up at a restaurant indulging in some sub-par pasta. (You can only eat so much fried rice!).   I tried a Beer Lao Dark with my dinner, which topped off my tipsy.

The bike ride home down the one track island path in the dark was a bit… interesting.   I made it home alright, tied up my bike in my room, and couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping with the ants in anything less than my head to toe clothing.   It made for a slightly uncomfortable evening (my second night sleeping in my clothes), and I woke up hot several times.   However, I had decided, after gathering some advice on the way home, that I had no choice by to leave the next morning for Phnom  Phen  in Cambodia.   My original thought was to piece together a four-point hop to include the boat races and the largest falls by volume in SE Asia just down the river.   However, I learned that the border crossing was a desolate land with only share taxis waiting to take you on the eight hour journey into Cambodia.   If I arrived alone, I was sure to either go broke taxi-ing alone, or sleep on a bench at the border waiting for the next days’ crowds.

The sturdiest boat of the whole trip. You just climbed aboard and grabbed a plank to make another seat!

A whirlwind morning complete with snoozing well into my packing time and racing to get my ticket followed, and who’s company do I find myself in?   The Irish girls!   Again!   Going to Phnom  Phen!   So… across the river we went, me with my pancake in a plastic sack, and them with their chronic hangovers…

The Other Stuff

 I’m a bit behing  on blogging, so this might seem a bit dry as I rush to catch up in this island-priced internet cafe.   I learned the value of journaling  from my grandmother at a young age, and I’m determined to keep up, whether or not I “feel like it.” (which I don’t. 🙂

So, the shock of seeing and experiencing first-hand all of the information about the current state of affairs in Laos usurped everything else that’s been going on.   That said, here it is:

peninsula view in Luang  Prabang – great!

Before I left Luang  Prabang, I had a beautiful morning walk down the “gentrified” streets of  the town  to the tip of the peninsula where the Nam Ka River flows into the Mekong.   I visited several temples along the way, smiling at the monks and pondering the artwork that predates the history of the U.S. by hundreds of years.   I’m always in awe of such places.

One of the many gorgeous and mythical wat’s of Luang  Prabang

After a treasured and pricey phone convo with Pat, I tried to get on the good side of the electric showers at our hostel before check-out time.   No luck.   One ran straight cold water, and the other was either scalding hot or freezing with a few seconds in between the transistion.   It made for a lot of waiting!

Lao mealtime. You grab a wad of sticky rice, form a ball, pinch on some of the main course, and drop it on your tongue. Delicious!

Lunch at Big Brother Mouse, besides being informative, was delicious!   All traditional, local dishes.   Some kind of spicy cabbage and chicken dish and another tasty stir fry all eaten by hand with small ball of sticky rice, each ball being formed out of the communal bowl on a per bite basis.

I’m really going to miss seeing the enthusiastic and serious monks everywhere in their bright orange robes as they do their daily errands.   On the way to the Royal Palace Museum, I crossed paths with several.

The Royal Palace in Luang  Prabang.

The Royal Palace Museum is glorious!   The entry hall is drop dead gorgeous, and my mom’s mom would have loved it.   Everything was done up in gold leaf with huge mosaic scenes in japanese glass of deep and varying colors: bright green, teal, copper, blue, silver, and more!   There were boats on rivers of gold, bright green corn stalks, beautiful teal trees, and elephants in copper, blue, and silver.   It all looked like  a Diego Rivera painting but more beautiful!   (and easier to decipher and understand as well).

A photo can’t do justice to all the gold leaf and japanese glass motif’s, but here is an example!

Other highlights of the palace were a 14th century painting series illustrating the story of one of the ancient monks.   Very similar to the Christian story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his sons.   The low point of the museum was the display area with gifts from other countries.   Australia, Japan, Cambodia, and loads of other countries all sent their best artwork in goodwill.   I like the way Nicole puts it, so to quote her, ” By far, we had the crappiest  gifts offered.   Very ugly pen holders, a small replica of what I thought was a satalite[sic], a large silver paper weight with the US treasury on it.   R. Nixon[‘s]… name was on some [plaque].”   Things like this make me embarassed  to have to announce myself as an American in some of the places I go, and help me understand the lack of respect and the outright disappointment (and unfortunately sometimes disgust) that so many of the world’s people feel about the United States.

I will miss seeing brightly robed monks everywhere!

The final  stop in Luang  Prabang  was the night market (see gorgeous photos in “Metric Revelations”) before hopping the bus the Vang  Vieng.   If you’re going chronologically, then you know Vang  Vieng  became Vientiane (farther down the road as my sense of responsibility to interact with the Lao people and their history rather than  the Lao landscape grew).   The bus ride was definitely one for the books.   First, it was freezing.   But  I have lots of bus rides at 15,000 feet + without heat, so I can deal with freezing.   We began and ended in the mountains and every inch of the road was curved.   About an hour in, I began to find the curve warning signs quite comical.   They could save an awful lot of money if they just said “We’ll warn you if the road is going to be  straight.” every 100km or so.   Never have I felt so much g-force on my body for such a long period of time.   The driver literally careened around every corner.   The highlight of the ride was the full moon.   We followed rugged ridgelines all night, twisting and turning above moonlit valleys that made me feel like I was in a Salvador Dali painting.

The golden stupa in Vientiane. Amazing.

INteresting highlights of Vientiane, besides MAG and COPE:

1) Our sangthew driver at the bus station was really funny.   He got us loaded up in the truck bed, and then proceeded to stall hoping for more passengers by driving about 15 feet and then stopping to go talk to someone for a period of 20-30 minutes.   Mind you, the perimeter of the bus station was all of 400 feet. 🙂

2) Nicole and I separated rather unceremoniously since we were road worn, sleep deprived, and in the back of a pickup.   It was like something out of a surreal French film, waving goodbye on the sidewalk as she rode off into the sunrise.

Victory Monument in Vientiane. The locals and a plaque regarding the sight call it “an ugly concrete structure.” I don’t think it’s half bad!

3) Finding a place to stay was a challenge.   The first place was so bare bones, I just couldn’t stomach it for my first night alone.   The next four places didn’t have rooms.   I asked to plunk my bag down at the nicest of the four and rented a bike to go visit MAG while I waiting.   Upon my return, when a room was available, I CRASHED hard for a few hours before getting on with my day.

4) It dawned on me, as my teeth begged to be  brushed, that I had forgotten my travel toothbrush in the pocket of the pants Nicole let me borrow.   It was quite  an adventure finding a new one.   On the way home, I stopped at an Indian restaurant for some awesome food where I was invited  to eat with Mr. John. and his “brother” Jamoo.   Mr. John and Jamoo  are from Africa.   The “I’ve always been around white people” part of me was stuck  by all the dark, dark, dark men (men only) all over the city.   Mr. John is in Lao on a coffee business trip, and Jamoo  is running a clothing business out of Bangkok.   Mr. John was very flattering, asking lots of questions telling me he wanted to “know me.”   They weren’t very interesting, and I was a bit weirded out, so I politely declined their invitation to coffee after lunch and instead headed to COPE where I spent hours.

what it’s like on the sleeper bus!

5) My hours at COPE led me to four hours of processing and internet time, before I indulged in some western food (beer and pizza) to wrap up my day.

Leaving Vientiane was easy, thanks to the sweet 60-something man who ran the travel agency outside my hostel.   As I was repacking my bag (a never-ending task for the minimalist backpacker), it dawned on my that my forward plans might include Cambodia (visa needed) and I was in the capital.   I firmed up my plans over breakfast and my new friends booked my onward ticket and rushed to get me my visa before I left the capital that night.

I biked  to the must see of Vientiane – the golden stupa – and the Victory monument.   This place is the Washington D.C. of Laos, and incredible.   Their stupa is a lot like the Washington Monument, but prettier.   Not as good as the Lincoln or Jefferson memorial, though.   The night before had been the moon festival, basically the Mardi Gras  of Laos, and the streets around the most patriotic areas (like the Stupa) looked like New Orleans  in the morning of the Mardi Gras week.   Trashed.

I spent the rest of my afternoon at COPE and then piecing together  a dinner of pineapple, fresh and fried spring rolls, and SPICY papaya salad  before boarding the sleeper bus to Pakse.   My bedmate  (a single is twice the price!) was a woman name Pok  who is an obstetrician.   She was great, and we were  quick to share jokes with one another.   The  bed was tiny, just enough room for the both of us, but meant for the height of Asians.   Pat – you are so lucky  you’re not here!    My  poor buddy Scott from  New  York asked me “how do you know which U is the top and which is  the bottom?”   Me: “Umm… U stands for upper.    Both numbers are top.   They’re  double.   You’ll be paired  by  gender.”   The poor 6’3″ man survived the  night, though!

I was happy, despite the  cramped space, to get several long stretches of sleep, interupted  only by a bleary-eyed half-way stop at a main bus station.   When we arrived in Pakse, for the first time  I  didn’t roll up my pant legs for the squat toilets.   My sleepy self noticed the lack of “splashy” feeling on my calves, but didn’t  put two and two together until I stood up and realized I had peed on myself.   Thank goodness for detachable pant legs!

Now I am in Don Det, but I’ll save the rest of the story for a cheaper internet connection.   I heard there is a huge  boat race tomorrow and a party on the next island over.   If I  find some women to go with, maybe I’ll check it out.   Can’t be partying alone!

Take care!

Love, Jema

Saddest in the Happiest Country

Laos is an incredible county.   Most people call it “Lao” (without the S) which is short for the “Lao People’s Democratic Republic.”   It’s also one of the poorest countries in the world.   The people here are friendly and always have a smile ready.   They work hard and most earn or grow just enough to stay alive.   My very short time here has been incredibly impactful.

My first crystal clear window into the enormous privilege I carry with me as a first-world citizen came yesterday morning.   I read about a project called “Big Brother Mouse” in my guide book.   It describes the venture as a place you can go and volunteer to help Lao people practicing their English.   I missed the morning practice session, but learned about the depth of what the organization does over lunch with the staff.

Most Lao children have never even seen a children’s book or sometimes even seen a book at all.    Most Lao children have never known anything beyond the few bland textbooks (sometimes only five or six for a whole village), and don’t get excited about reading.   For the most part, their schools don’t even have pencils or paper.   Education and knowledge hold the key to many doors in this world, and so one American man teamed up with a Lao man to create a publishing and distribution company for children’s books.

After the labors of developing and training a Lao staff to author or translate and adapt children’s stories, more and more children’s books are being published  by Big Brother Mouse.   (The Lao word for one who takes care of another translates as “big brother”).   Because there is no distribution system, BBM  holds book parties.   A group travels into the rural countryside, sometimes hiking for hours before they reach a village without children’s books.   They spend three hours playing games, doing puppet shows about how books can be fun, singing songs about books, and leading  a creative writing and drawing lesson – often the first a child has ever had.

Kids learn to sing a fun song about books as part of their introduction to children’s stories.
As part of the Book Party, the leaders and kids act out a story to help the children see how much fun books can be.

At the end, each child gets to choose a book – nearly always the first book they’ve ever owned and a great source of pride.   They also leave a mini library of 50 books so the children can trade in their books for new ones.   I can imagine the children who were enthusiastically shouting “hello” and high-fiving me on my bike in the hills two days ago pouring enthusiastically over books savoring an education that many first world children take for granted.   It’s only $250 to give a village a book party.   I’m saving my money already.

Children after receiving their first book ever.

At Big Brother Mouse, I picked up a tourism publication called “Stay Another Day – Laos.”   The publication promotes sustainable tourism and encourages  tourists to do more than just visit the temples, waterfalls, and markets  (the only things listed in my Lonely Planet Guide  Book).   In reading my guidebook  regarding  treks and hikes to waterfalls and other sites in Laos, there is a warning about “unexploded ordanances” (UXO  for short) littering the countryside.   I’ve never heard the term before, and assumed UXOs  were like land mines.   A scary thought for an adventurer like myself who loves to escape the crowds in search of the authethic, solitary, peaceful experience.

The “Stay Another Day – Laos” publication covers three cities in Laos – the first I’ve just come from (Luang  Prabang), the second I’ll miss this time around (but I can’t wait to come back!), and the third I’m in now.   I had planned on going to Vang  Vieng  first to do some tubing,  cave tours, and a  rock climbing splurge  with my “Flying Fifty” from a rowing friend of mine.   However, as I spent my post Big Brother Mouse hours reading about all the opportunities to really get to know the people of Lao in “Stay Another Day” (and I as reassessed my visit to a place that Lonley  Planet Guide says has a few gems left ‘despite its reputation as a sullied paradise’ and fellow serious traveler Barbara says is overrun with the worst types of tourists), I changed my mind.   The bus I was on was long distance to Vientiane (where I am now) with a stop in Vang  Vieng, so I just stayed on the bus all night.

Top on my list was a visit to this branch of Big Brother Mouse to see if I couldn’t volunteer a few hours of English practice.   Second was “MAG” – Mines Advisory Group listed as having a photo-essay slideshow, displays on the history of UXOs, and a Google Earth program that shows all the known UXO  sites in Lao.   Third on the list, taking priority over the Buddha park, was COPE – Cooperative Orthotic  and Prosethetic  Enterprise providing artificial limbs and physical therapy to those “lucky enough” to survive UXO accidents.

Unfortunately, this branch of Big Brother Mouse is still in its fledgling stages and has yet to expand beyond publishing to provide  a site for English practice (not their main goal, but a by-product of their daily functioning).   So, on to MAG!   The building is located  in a compound-like piece of land next to a brand new apartment building on an unpaved and pot-hole ridden riverfront road.   The first image panel that greets visitors is “Neua” – a farmer whose arm was blown  off by a UXO  when he accidentally struck it harvesting sweet corn.   His neighbor accidently  struck one with a machete and was killed.

“Ta” being dressed by his son. He lost his arms in a UXO explosion.

From the rest of the panels I learned that the Lao people are stuck  in a cycle of poverty and danger thanks to the UXO’s.   Lao is the most heavily bombed country in the world, per capita – mostly a U.S. campaign.   More bombs than the U.S.’s campaign on Germany and Japan during the WWII combined.   Wow.

The prosthetic one man made for himself using metal from the bomb that took his leg!

So why are UXO’s  unexploded?   About half of the bombs are cluster bombs – a big torpedo shell (about four feet in length and a foot in diameter) filled with tennis-ball-sized “bombies.”   The shell is dropped, rips in half in mid-air, and the flutes on the bombies  cause them to start spinning, activating their detonation cycle.   However, if the torpedo opens too low, the bombies  don’t spin enough to complete their cycle.   Or, they land in mud or water where the impact isn’t enough to detonate them.   Then they lie in wait to be  stepped on by an animal, struck by a farm tool, or picked up by a child who thinks it’s a toy (many bombies are bright yellow and just the right size for small children to play with).   30% of all the bombs dropped thirty years ago did not explode and are lying in wait.

UXO’s  keep Lao and its people in the “poorest country” bracket.   They can’t develop infrastructure like roads, bridges, or anything that requires digging (one man lost an arm and a leg  while digging post holes in his home).   They can’t farm new fields without the severe danger of disturbing the bombs in wait, and often the fields they’ve “cleared” still harbor unexpected surprises.   Not being able to grow more food leaves many families starving.   Horrifyingly, the next available option for a source of income is to harvest scrap metal from the unexploded bombs that litter the countryside.   If the scrap collector is lucky enough to disarm the bomb without being killed, they are paid  15 cents per pound of metal and $1.50 per pound of explosive by scrap dealers.   Collectors use poorly made metal detectors that cost $12.   If villagers don’t have enough money to get started in the collecting, the scrap dealers will let them “work to own” the detector, taking a portion of  the proceeds from what they collect until the detector is paid  off.   One of the saddest photos I saw was a village’s “savings account” – a piece of an aircraft wing they will hold onto until they need to sell it to get through a bad harvest season.

The buffalo “Ta” had to sell to get money for his treatment after his bomb accident.

Children are in the most severe danger.   They get mixed messages about UXOs.   (There are more than just bombies.)   Because the Lao people are so poor, they use every resource available to them.   As a result, homes are full of dismantled UXOs  that have been turned  into water jars, lanterns, decorations, planters, and more.   Children know they are supposed  to stay away from UXO’s, but their presence in every day  life combined with the possibility of  helping provide for their families if they can get one home without detonating it causes many young Lao to fall prey to the bombs.   An 11  year old boy lost an eye, has metal fragments permanently lodged in his body, and his penis was severed  when he accidentally triggered a UXO.   I saw a photo of a dead 17 year old  boy who had been collecting for years.   Pieces of his body hung from the trees.   They dug his grave in the side of the 15 foot crater created by the bomb that killed him.

So what did Lao do to deserve such secret carpet bombing by the U.S., in spite of the Geneva Accord we signed promising not to attack Lao?   Wrong place, wrong time.   If you take a look at my route map, you’ll see Laos is a neighbor to the infamous Vietnam.   Vietmanese  troops used land and water routes in Lao to move supplies to South Vietnam.   Also, the communist political faction of Lao (a minority party) was bunkered  down in caves in the north.   Without the knowledge of congress or US citizens, the CIA waged an execution campaign over the majority of  the country.   They dropped bombs with entire regions as targets, instead of specific military installations (about which they had no information).   Sometimes, Lao’s number just came up when primary targets in Vietnam couldn’t be reached.   Aircraft carrying “ordnance” would be directed to a secondary “target” on the way back to base in Thailand.   Since Lao separates Thailand and Vietnam, it was often carpeted by bombs meant for elsewhere to save pilots the safety check process required if they landed with un-deployed ordnance.   Many American pilots gave testimonials citing this as one of the many things that haunted them in dealing with their post-war PTSD.

At the COPE (the prosthetic and orthotic  organization) visitor center, I met “Nam.”   He’s my age, and very worldly.   He comes from a village heavily affected by UXO’s.   His cousin lost his legs to a bombie.   Nam eagerly approached me and offered to guide me through the displays.   He shared many of the Lao ways of life with me, including a frog catcher and a mice catcher (for use in soups), a crossbow, a creel for storing fish, and an inventive hanging device that utilizes water to keep ants out of the food.   Nam also opened my eyes to the following:

***1. There are 80 million UXOs remaining among Lao’s 6 million people today.

***2. 15 of the 17 provinces in Laos were carpet bombed.

***3. An exploding bombie will maim or kill everything in a 90 square foot area.

***4. Of the many types of bombie, one of the worst was a time delay.   People often picked them up (before bombies became a big no-no) so they would have something to throw back at the planes that were bombing their livelihoods away.   Usually villagers hid in caves and took the time delays with them for safe keeping, ultimately destroying their only salvation from the carpet bombs.

***5. The spider bombie  was another horror.   Instead of detonating on impact, it has eight 3ft. tiny trip wires extending in eight directions.

***6. The acid bomb was one of the worst.   The Lao still have no knowledge of how to deactivate  an acid (how many of us know?).   Nam described to me the experience of a boy who tried to wash off and rub off the acid with water, “but no matter what it just keeps burning.”

***7. Many people have heard of the bombs, but some have never seen them.   Since they often look like fruit (the yellow ones) or rocks (metal covered in mud), people pick them up to investigate or to learn more about them.   Curiosity kills people just as easily as the collector’s desperation to earn enough to survive.

***8. The red dots that show where cluster bombs were dropped  don’t indicate  a single bomb, but rather a bombing mission.   So even the lone dots outside the areas so thick in dots that the dots melt into one another represent thousands of bombies from tens of torpedo shells.

***9. Because the living floor of Lao homes is built  above head level, those surviving explosions with disabilities end up with even smaller worlds as they are stuck inside the house (really just a 10 x 10 platform with three walls) all day while others go to work in the fields.

I’ve tried really hard not to cry yesterday at Big Brother Mouse and all day long today.   The COPE visitor center has four films that you can watch in “the cave.”   I almost cried during the story of a man fishing with his sons.   He tried to get the UXO  to the pond so he could throw it in and bring back a feast for the village.   Instead his children are now fatherless.   I almost cried when an inventive old man used some of the metal from the bomb that took his leg to fashion his own crude prosthesis.   And I teared up during the “bomb education” segment about a poster contest in school.   The only poster contests I can remember from my childhood were for t-shirts.   The scene that broke me was a room full of school children singing the “bomb” song.   I sang songs about the months of the year and the muffin man as a child.   These children sing, “we must take care not to disturb bombies  so our country’s people can be great and good.”

Why are we, as Americans, so sheltered?   Why didn’t I learn about the awful carpet bombing of Lao in school?   Why didn’t I know until I was 22 that we “lost” the war in Vietnam? (not kidding.)   Why don’t we have more in-your-face information about politics instead of the newest pop star?   Why does so many Americans’ political knowledge begin and end with their stances on moral issues?   I am reeling with more questions, as I’m sure you are if you made it through this whole experience.   Thanks for reading and learning about the Lao people!

Metric Revelations & Kuang Si Falls

Most American folk, if you ask them, couldn’t tell you how many miles are in 45 kilometers (including me).   I’d estimate about half of the American population couldn’t even tell you if it was less or more (go ahead and experiment!).

I know that it’s 1.4 km to a mile (thank you CCHS  Physics).   So the answer is less.   How much less?   Well, I tend not to bother with the math and just focus on the “less” part.   So, today, when we set out on a round-trip 70 kilometer bike trip to Kuang  Si Falls, I pedaled happily along.   Nicole, however, thought I said the conversion the other way around.   Hill by hill she became more convinced that we had a death wish.   It wasn’t easy going.   When a falls restuarant  owner pulled over and practically insisted that he give us a ride the final 20+ km to the falls for “cheap price” (20,000 kip – about $2.50), we caved.

On the way to the top, we pieced together the story of how he and his wife (in the backseat area with their 40 day-old baby) met.   He told us about the water levels of the Mekong River, about how sometimes the road is flooded, about the medical problems the new baby had had, and about his two year old daughter.   When we arrived at the falls, I got to hold the baby while mom climbed out of the car and got things in order.   He was SO CUTE!

The falls were gorgeous, and I slowly became more and more grateful for the ride up as we hiked for hours and hours!   First up the right side of the falls to a veritable dead end  when we finally pulled out the guide book  and read the sentence that said, “up the LEFT side of the falls is a path that leads to a magnificent second tier.”   Magnificent it was!   No swimming at the upper levels, but we did manage a healthy walk with “S.K.” from Malaysia deep into the park where we didn’t see a single other farang (foreigner).   Lots of cattle, though!

The best view of the main fall.
Runner up!
We couldn’t believe that it was already 2 p.m. by the time we returned to our new friends’ restaurant for lunch.   I had some weird noodle soup.   Apparently noodle soup with vegetables is plain noodle soup served with a plate of various salad greens still bunched together supermarket style.   I tried adding them to the dish, but nothing really struck my palate quite right.   I took most of it back out, added some chili sauce, and dug in!

After lunch, I couldn’t bear leaving the falls without swimming despite the fact that it was pretty chilly today.   It took some encouragement from Nicole, but I splashed into and kicked around the first swimming hole and escaped without hypothermia!

Where I braced myself against the steely waters for bragging rights and the joy of swimming, no matter how cold the water!

After a change into dry clothes, we were ready for our 35+ km (25 mile) descent.     Nicole took the lead, and I was surpised  to see her blast so far ahead of me.   On our cheap “cruiser” rental bikes, I used my brakes to keep me at a sane speed in case  I needed to stop quickly.   In the flat lands I caught up with her and discovered that her front brakes had blown out at the top of the hill.   She saw the front right brake pad go flying off, which rendered the left one useless.   With only cheap back brakes, she was in a world of hurt.

We inched our way along for a few kilometers, me cruzing  ahead to deliver a safety forecast back down the line.   Finally an empty sangthew  (truck with passenger benches in the back) passed  us and pulled over to offer a ride.   I had been looking forward to the bike ride all day.   I was even conflicted about taking the ride in the morning.   So, Nicole generously let me continue alone and loaded up with the driver for the stretch back to town.

25 miles of 65% incline and 35% decline was… tough.   I am the kind of exhausted that pleasantly consumes your entire body.   The best parts of the ride were: 1) the views.   It’s harvest time here, so the rice fields are ripe and being cut, backdropped  by majestic, jungle covered peaks. 2) the kids.   School had just let out, so the road was packed  with children on their way home.   I got lots of enthusiastic hellos, both “Hello” and “sah-bai-DEE!”   3) the high-fives.   When they saw me coming, the children who were walking would turn and face me and stick out their hands for high-fives as I cruised by.   It was great! 4) the bike races.   The boys on bikes, when they saw me coming would yell to each other “farang!   farang!”   (foreigner!   foreigner!).   Then as I pulled even I would get, “sah-bai-DEE”s.   Twice I got the glimmer of a challenges and went racing down the road with a school boy.   I WON the first time, and pulled a tidy second place the next time around.   With many miles to go, I was happy to fall back. 🙂

The night market getting set up in Luang  Prabang. It’s really the late afternoon to late evening market, so I ended up getting back too late and having to bike through it!

When I returned, Nicole and I biked  (with her new bike – with brakes) to the bus station to get onward  tickets for tomorrow.   We will probably spend the day seeing different temples and the royal palace museum.   I’ll probably need a massage.   Then at 7:30 we’re southward bound – me to Vang  Vien in Laos and Nicole back to Thailand.

Now it’s on to beer and pizza (hey – after my noodle lunch, I’m ready for some western food!   I’ll be sure to have a “Beer Lao”, though!)

Mekong Inferno

My advice: do not take the slow boat.

Inferno implies that it was hot.   It wasn’t.   I didn’t want to say “hell,” because I consider myself the plucky type who always looks for the positive side when traveling.   But I would never take the slow boat again.   And if I wasn’t the type to view every experience here as a very privileged opportunity, no matter how difficult, I would have been absolutely miserable.   I have already taken it upon myself to seek out and warn other unsuspecting travelers who might be about to make the same mistake.

But, let’s begin at the beginning.   Leaving Chiang Mai.   The mini-van straight to the border was booked full, which was just as well since it was more expensive.   So, we turned up at the bus station directly after collecting our laundry in the morning where I had plenty of time to write the last (lengthy) blog, as the next border bus wasn’t for three hours.

People here are small.   I am a medium-small person in the U.S., but here I finally know how it feels to be  like Pat (six feet seven inches) every day.   The mirrors are too low.   I can never see above my neck.   When the toilets are western style, my knees are practically up to my chin.   I often have to duck and have smacked my head with the intensity of  someone expecting the way to be  clear several times.   It’s all in good fun, though.   I only point all of this out so I can tell about about the space on the bus.

When we chose our seats on the screen, I thought, “Wow… this must be  one big bus!”   Much like a prop plane, the screen displayed three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other.   When we boarded, I finally understood.   The bus wasn’t bigger.   The seats were smaller.   Much, much smaller.   I can’t be  more than 15 inches across at the hips, but that was wider than the seat!   So, we endured, snuggled in, and were fortunate to spead out as the bus emptied after the first couple of hours.

We landed in Chiang Kong, the border town, at around 8:30.   We found a map to a hostel  plastered on the wall outisde the 7-Eleven where the bus dumped us off and headed that way.   The owner was exceptionally sweet, got us set up with a room, cooked us dinner, booked our tickets for our trip into Laos, made a fantastic breakfast in the morning, AND let me borrow her bike so I could call my CASA kid before I headed into land of no phones.

The trip across the border was like being in a giant flock of sheep.   You can go it alone, OR you can pay one of the agencies to hold your hand as you go through each step of the process.   By booking our ticket at the hostel, we got the latter.   Thank goodness we don’t have enormous backpacks to deal with like everyone else!

After we had checked out of Thailand, ferried across the Mekong River to Laos, purchased our Lao visas, and checked in to Laos, we were driven  to a street of shops full of last minute  supplies.   There, we got the flavor of the trip to come.   My biggest disappointment with other tourists is when they have no curiosity for learning the local language and customs and also  have the gall to be  righteous about the smallest things that are even slightly different.   So, when the Lao man tried to communicate that they kept coming up one passport short and insisted that someone in the group hadn’t handed it over, people started getting angry.   Immediately they suspected that our passports (all 60 of them) were gone for good.   (SE Asia does not have a reputation  for a passport black market.   Reason: tourists are mostly white.   SE Asians are mostly not-“white”.)   Nicole and I raised our eyebrows as some the more fiery tourists pulled the classic talk-louder-in-English-because-they-must-be-deaf-if-they-can’t-understand-my-language.   Of course everything was fine and we boarded the boat an hour later without much fanfare.

My seventeen hour view. Not too shabby!

Begin epic journey.   So, the seats:   hard benches, straight backed, ten inches wide, no leg room.   The passengers: 99% tourists.   40% rude and self-absorbed, of which, of course, 100% were loud an obnoxious.

My other 17 hour view. Well, kind of. This is taken from the very back of the boat, but you get the idea.

Besides the incessant drinking (DRUNKing, beer spilling, etc.) and smoking, my biggest disappointment was apparently the hottest new technological advancement: a portable IPod stereo.

I will teach my children never to use one of these on public transportation. Especially one with blown out speakers.

At least three groups on the boat had these, and we were unlucky enough to be  seated exactly in the middle of two of them.   One was a multinational group of partiers, and other other  was a group of Irish (Scottish?) 20-something that make all tourists look bad.   SE Asians are known for their modesty.   Often even knee length  shorts are risque.   So, these girls and boys must have looked like complete harlots to the locals working on the boat.   I was shocked  to see them straight out of COSMO/playboy magazine, right down to the make-up, jewelry, glamour-girl glasses, and teeny-tiny clothes.   Of course they had no awareness of their spilt beer running all over everyone’s things, their cigarette ash flying in the faces of those sitting behind them, or the fact that no one else wants to listen to techno music for eight hours at a stretch.   And that was day one. 🙂

My favorite of the 17 hour views.

We stopped halfway to our destination at Pak  Beng where a wonderful young woman named “Hom” (home) guided us to her family’s hostel with the most comfortable beds we’ve had in all of SE Asia!   Yay!   We went for a walk, which was glorious under the almost full  moon… until, Nicole practically crawled on top of me.   Turns out a lizard lurking in the street had bitten her!   How absurd!   We made our way back the the  restaurant we’d promised our patronage on the way out of town, examined the bite marks, invited Barbara (a Swiss woman) to eat with us, and sent Nicole back to the hotel to retrive some first aid supplies.

Dinner was great, and our host Sheuwan  (Shoe-wahn) was really helpful.   His candle-lit restaurant was gorgeous, and he even escorted us to the pharmacy and got them to decide that they were in fact “open.”   Then it was back home for some much needed  respite from they days hard benches.   Thank goodness this town runs on generators that are shut down at 10 p.m., or we would have spent the night listening to a very loud Lao TV!

Today was much the same as yesterday with less leg room but the added benefit of knowing who NOT to sit next to.   The scenery also becomes increasingly dramatic as the river approaches our destination – Luang  Prabang.   The last two hours of the ride were completely gorgeous.   And I got a ton of reading done, both from my guidebook and from the NY Times Bestseller I am reading “Three Cups of Tea.”   It is a really incredible book.   You are probably getting it from me for Christmas.   Just kidding.   Well, kind of.   But you really should read it!   It’s about an American man who sets about building schools to help the poor help themselves in Pakistan.   I have learned so much and been so moved, page after page, chapter after chapter.   I have to put it down just so I don’t use up the book too fast!

Outside of Luang  Prabang  as seen from the boat, but this was taken in the dry season when the river isn’t so muddy. Not what we see!

Our arrival in Luang  Prabang was a smooth landing, and our room is the nicest place we’ve stayed so far (for $3 each!).   The French influence is really obvious here.   I started salivating when we passed the first of many wine bars, but had a “Beer Lao” for Laos’ sake while we ate and chatted with some fantastic Australians.   Tomorrow it’s a 70k bike ride to some waterfalls.   I hope I have enough energy still to swim when I get there.   I’m sure tomorrow night I will completely collapse, but I am looking forward to the ride through “undulating rice paddies” to the tiered waterfall which is “very private except for a million butterflies.”   Can’t wait!

Into the Wild

It was so incredible to wake up each morning in bamboo and teak houses to a jungle shrouded in mist.   Our three day, two night foray into the jungle – home to many hill tribes – was fantastic.   I’ve been on lots of organized tours, and I’m always leery.   They are so often hit and miss.   When it’s bad, it’s usually rude folk who have no respect for the local culture and expect everything to be just like home.   We had none of those types!

Our group had great diversity – Jen and Greg from Canada, Evelyn from Germany, Chris and Hannah from the UK, and Leah and Elaine from Ireland.   Our guide, Montri  (mohn-tree) was really great.   Very informative, serious, good sense of humor, concerned for our safety, a hill tribe native, and very professional  (unlike another guide we met along the way who was cracking beers at 8:30 in the morning!).   Our porter, Niwa  (nee-wah) wasn’t as outgoing, but we sure appreciated the hundred pounds of fresh food he packed in for us.

The tour started with quite  a bit of stop-and-go.   Our transport was of the local basic type – a pick-up truck with benches down the sides and a canopy over the top.   After a requisite stop-off at the tourist police and a last-chance market run (where I got my last, up-to-the minute presidential update from Pat), we headed to  the gorgeous Mork Fa  waterfall.   For the first time since I’ve been here, the weather wasn’t sweltering.   Since the pool was only about five feet deep, and since  still had lots more  seat time,  I chose to strip down for the spray, but not dive in.

Mork Fa Falls – breathtaking in more ways than one!
Then we were off to lunch at a side of the road stand.   They think farangs  (foreigners) can’t handle the heat of Thai food, so much of the food we get starts out VERY plain.   Icky plain, almost.   After some soy and sweet chili sauce, things get a bit more palatable.   As an added bonus, the farther from town you get, the more elbow room there is in the toilets – a great feature when you’re squatting!

Finally we arrived at our launching point where we were offered the opportunity to swim in some hot springs.   They were hot, almost to the point of scalding, so we opted out.   In all my hot spring experience, I’ve never felt water that hot before.   Well, a few minutes into the jungle, I got my explanation.   It was geyser run-off!   Apparently this part of Thailand is a geo-thermal hot spot.   It was really strange to see geysers in the middle of the jungle!

The trail was fairly easy-going.   Lots of uphill, and it was pretty warm (but cool for the tropics).   We were quite  a spectacle.   Because the third and final  day of the tour includes bamboo rafting, we each had a bright yellow and orange life jacket strapped on as we worked our way through the thick jungle.   Pat, at 6’7″,  would have hated it.   In Arcata, when a tree is growing at his head level, he insists on leaving the sidewalk to go around instead of ducking under it.   The ceiling height on the trail for the first hour was all my height (5’7″) or less.   I spent lots of time ducking!

It was tough working our way through the thick jungle!

After seeing lots of awesome “mushroom” flowers, we finally broke free of the thickest jungle and got quite a view out over the canopy!   Our guides were overly generous with breaks, but we appreciated it in all the heat.   The last leg was basically a slide down the red, slippery jungle clay   to a sketchy bamboo bridge over the river, and ta-da!   We’ve arrived!   After getting set up in our basic lodgings – a firm mattress, a really firm pillow, and two small blankets on a floor mat – we got showers!   Not the kind you’d imagine, but there was a tap and a bucket for me to dump (COLD!!) water over myself.   It was breathtaking, but I was happy to feel so clean!

A view from home #1 on our first night. Gorgeous! This is paradise!

In what would become his classic style, Tri (short for Montri), made us way too much food for dinner.   Sweet and sour chicken over rice, potato curry, and bean sprout stir fry.   The canadians then busted out their secret stash of chocolate cookies for dessert before we settled in a for a night of card games and guitar picking.   Finally my “skills” came in handy!   I never thought knowing five or six chords and two songs would be useful!

Where we laid our heads for the night. The hanging stuff is mosquito nets to prevent against malaria and dengue infected mosquitos.

In the morning I took a walk to enjoy the “silence” of the jungle (excepting the birds and bugs), and delighted in the mystical morning until I ran into a yak/cow on the trail.   Back to camp!   The second day was by far my favorite.   We learned lots about plants from Tri.   I had raw sesame seeds, blew bubbles from the stem of a soap plant, ate the cousin of a chestnut, and got to eat cucumbers the size and shape of a spaghetti squash.   Weird!   The best part of the day was stopping off at a rice field where a family was working.   It’s harvest season and they were threshing the rice.

One at a time, we got to remove our shoes and step onto  the tarp which catches all the rice grains.   We used what looked like giant numchucks  to gather the root end of the cut rice stalks.   After they were secured, you basically had a giant  axe in your hands with the “blade” being the grain end of the rice stalks.   A board made of four big bamboo stalks lashed together sat in the center of the tarp.   Now you thresh!   Swing and pound the rice stalks againg  the bamboo, shaking each time until all the grains have fallen onto the tarp.   Then load up again!   Wow!   What hard work!

Another downhill slide led us to an elephant camp where too much food was again served.   Then we climbed onto the elephants to ride to the next village.   The trainers were much nicer to these elephants, and one of them “Butterfly” (who had no idea that it’s a girl’s name in my culture) flirted endlessly with me as we made our way down river.   How flattering!   🙂

Our second night was at the “River Front Hotel,” as Tri called it.   It really was!   The first night we had the whole village to ourselves, but here we ran into several other trekking groups.   The locals were also around more at this village, though, so that made up for it.   We got to play with the kids and hang out with them.   We had a porch with a fire pit overlooking the river.   After (too much) dinner, we played music and chatted late into the night.   Fun!

We woke on our last day to the sound of the roosters crowing and the locals chopping away at the bamboo poles floating in the water to fashion our rafts.   The front of the raft had a bamboo tripod where all our bags were hung.   We all balanced out behind the bags as our guides “poled” us down the river – much like being in Venice, I imagine!   Going through the rapids was interesting.   I held onto  the fibers that lashed the bamboo poles together, but we got soaked.   In white water, the raft is pulled a few feet under, and you have no choice but to go down with it or float away!   It was great!

Another group bamboo rafting. I don’t know how sea worthy these things are, but it worked out well for me!

An uneventful lunch (except for being hassled, of course) and a bumpy ride home led to a few hours of rest and a night out with the group.   It was pretty boring, which was disappointing.   Evelyn (the German girl) and I agreed that things were boring, so we dragged the group to a Karaoke bar.   Karaoke here is very different.   All the songs have a suped up techno beat – including Hotel California – and lots of weird additions is Thai.   Imagine the surprise on our faces when we got up to sing “I Will Survive” and we had never even heard the first few minutes of the song.   Strange!

The resort across the river from where we ate our lunch on the last day.

Now Nicole and I are off to Laos.   We’ll cross the border tonight and get a boat hopefully tomorrow afternoon to Luang  Prabang – a beautiful French colonial town.   Can’t wait!

Feast in Five

I “graduated” from Thai cooking school today  – it was great!   Since “today” is Tuesday the 4th, I spent a lot of time thinking about the election.   I’m about to  go to bed, and most of you are still sleeping as I write.   The polls in the Pacific time zone still aren’t open for a few more hours.   I am going on a jungle trek starting tomorrow morning and won’t be  back for three days.   Part of me is bummed  to be missing the big day, but I suppose the results will be the same either way!

This morning, at 8:30, I got to pick the five Thai dishes I wanted to learn.   Two other participants in the class, Nicole and Tina (from Germany) picked Pad Thai, so I didn’t.   Instead I learned the local curry – delicious and thick, spicy glass noodle salad – YUM, spicy green papya salad – light and limey, egg rolls, and mango with sticky rice – excellent!

We headed to the market first to buy the ingredients that our instructor, Sut (rhymes with loot), didn’t already have.   Among the most interesting sights  were the dried shrimp, the many kinds of fruit, the live fish, the unripe jackfruit, and the coconut.

Fruit! In the center looking sort of  like a pineapple (or a porcupine!) is the unripe jackfruit – eaten like a vegetable in this stage. Directly under that are the enormous local grapefruits. In the right foreground and mangos and my beloved pinhas  behind them (the bumpy green ones). My favorite new fruit is the small, round, brown blobs in boxes on the floor in the foreground. They look dirty and icky on the outside, but you peel away a tangerine-like skin to reveal a yummy, clear, sweet globe of fruit. I’ll learn the name soon!

Veggies at the market – the best!

I should also take a few minutes to tell you about Sut, who has the classic chef attitude.   He is also straight out of a movie, as everything he says in English is practically chanted.   Every word in the same tone of voice, and very serious but also with a good sense of humor.   He was one of the best parts of the day!

First, we made our coconut milk and cream by hand.   At the market you go to the coconut grinder.   You tell him how much raw coconut you want ground, and he puts it through the shredding machine.   Then, when you get home, you  put it in a pot,  pour in a cup or so  of hot water, a few cups of cold water, and then knead  the coconut for about two minutes. Then you wring it out  a handful at a time.   This makes coconut cream.   You  repeat the whole  process a second time to make the coconut milk.

Mah-sah-jaaaah. Mah-sah-jaaaah. (Says Sut. “Massage. Massage” to get your coconut cream and milk!

We prepared all our ingredients in advance, so that the cooking was just a matter of standing at the wok or pot and stirring and  dumping ingredients.   We made one dish at a time, stopping in between to sample our handy work (and package up the inevitable “take away” with so much food!).   After the three main  dishes, we had an hour break before we came back to make  “snack” and  dessert.

All the  snack foods were  fried, so I chose the option I’d  be most likely to make – the egg rolls (spring rolls?).   Then it was time to prepare the sticky rice.   A little slice of heaven!   The nutritionist in me grimaced at all the oil and sugar that went into every single dish.   I’ll  serve up my education to anyone who wants a taste of authentic Thai, but I don’t think I’ll be making myself sugar and oil dinners every night!

On an ending note – I just want to remind everyone (Mom.) that I’m going to be  incommunicado for a few days (and maybe several – am also thinking about doing a multi-day river trip into Laos).   I originally wasn’t going to do a trek here, as I was worried about the un-negated negative effects on the hill people at whose villages we will we spending the nights.   However, we found an agent who put part of the trek proceeds toward village projects that are designed and decided on through the village headman.   So – don’t worry and wish me luck in my jungle mosquito  battle!