Laos and laolao

Laos, a country of beautiful forested mountains, lush river valleys, I would say slightly grumpy people and temperamental weather.  I crossed the Thai border to board a longboat to meander slowly  down the Mekong River river for two days.  Yep, it’s brown, like I thought it was going to be.  Yep, kids were swimming around in it naked, women washing their clothes.  It’s not hard to imagine the cause of the murky waters though.  It starts up in China along large swaths of farmland.  Just like with any place that has a lot of farming, there is going to be tons of run off.  China doesn’t have the pesticide and herbicide restrictions that the States does though so going for a dip didn’t even cross my mind.

The longboat wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be.  Sure enough, the boat was long.  But I imagined dangling my feet over the side, moving from one side of the boat to the other to see all the beautiful scenery.  Instead, they had filled it full of car seats and benches so full that leg room wasn’t an issue.  It was nonexistent.  To be honest, I kind of felt like an idiot for being among all the tourists and travelers wanting that romantic drift down the famous Mekong, to find out that these boat owners didn’t care about the experience of their live cargo.  We could have been cows for all they cared.  And if they could squeeze a couple more cows into the back corner, assuming the cows were paying money for the trip, sure enough they would squish them in.

It took me a bit to get that thought out of my head and appreciate it for what it was.  There were locals riding with us as well.  They were in the very back of the boat in the engine room.  They actually had more room to even lie down and take a nap.  Their only downfall was the thundering roar of the massive engine, in fact I don’t think they were allowed to sit up front with the white people.  I don’t think any of them were wanting to pull a Rosa Parks though, they had their families and their water bottles filled with laolao, the homemade rice whiskey of Laos and playing cards.  They were doing just fine.

I thought the coolest part about the trip for me was the boat would stop at villages along the way and the locals with load the nose of the boat full of bags of goods and then we’d stop again at the next village and drop them off.  They had developed a trading business with these boat operators to exchange produce they grow or whatever else was in those burlap sacks.  Every few hundred meters you’d see a bamboo rod with some fishing line protruding from the rocks, some were straight and others were sagging, waiting for the villagers to come collect the days catch.

I arrived in Luang Prabang on the second day (10 km from town so we were forced to hire the tuktuk drivers waiting for us to actually get us to town… bastards).  I found a nice guesthouse with a dorm room that I shared with and English woman named Rachel.  She had been there for coming up on a month.  I could see why.  Luang Prabang is a happening place.  They have night markets every night.  There are good restaurants.  Street food everywhere.  Monks walk every morning at 5:30 for Alms where villagers offer food to them to feed the monks for the day.  They have this tradition so the monks stay connected and dependent on the community which, in turn, keeps the community connected to Buddhism.

After a few days, a long bus ride took me to a small village on the Ou River called Nong Khiaw.  This is one of the most gorgeous, insanely gorgeous, places I have ever been to.  The town is divided by a long bridge over the river and there are crazy sunsets in the evening and low lying, misty clouds hiding the cliffs and mountains all around the town in the morning.

        Besides the views, three great things really sealed the deal for me.  I was reunited with my friend Josie, who I’d traveled with in Thailand for a week.  There was an Indian restaurant that I ate at 7 times in 4 days. And Josie surprised me by buying us a day trek up river to visit Muang Ngoy, a village only accessible by the river.  We walked around the village and interacted with the locals, the kids were a blast.  We hiked up to an ice cold waterfall.  I think I was one out of 4 people that just had to jump in the pool below the falls.  The rest of the twelve or so just watched, thinking we were crazy.  Worth it.  It’s worth it every time.  I remember my first time jumping into water that takes your breathe away.  It was up at the lake with the uncles.  Dick, Tom, Fred, thanks for starting this tradition of mine.  Every alpine lake I come to… It’s just got to be done.   Afterwords, Josie and I kayaked in a two man boat for a few hours back to Nong Khiaw to get some more Indian food.  Correction, I kayaked for a few hours… Josie just kind of flopped around in back making us zig zag all the way home.  Josie, if you’re reading this, I will give you shit forever about this :)

After a couple uneventful nights I am in Muang Sing.  About 10 km from China and 50 km from Burma.  The reason why I came here is because there are dozens of tribal villages up here around the town and a great way to explore them and meet the people is to rent a mountain bike and just kind of wander around, making damn well sure you don’t accidentally cross an unmanned border.  I don’t think I would enjoy a Chinese or a Burmese prison very much.  Alas, its f*#king arctic up here.  Right now I’m wearing four pairs of pants, the only two pairs of socks I’ve got, four shirts, two scarves, two headbands and my only two jackets… and I’m under the covers in bed.  It’s barely getting above 40 degrees with the windchill and non stop rain.  Now, I know that doesn’t sound terrible for people actually getting a winter but my body was possibly, slightly, just maybe adjusting to the death heat/humidity of SE Asia and now my world has been flipped upside down.

So, me being as stubborn as I am, I want to see these tribal villages that supposedly haven’t changed their way of life for the last 100 years or so.  I’m pent up in my frigid room.  I do have a tv! But I can stand listening to Laos television for about five minutes before I want to smash the thing.  So, I have a bamboo shoot of sticky rice and three oranges I bought from the morning market earlier day, half a beer I was too cold to drink last night and a water bottle full of laolao and 12 oz of water.  I figure I can make it a couple days of rationing to wait for the skies to clear and the temps to rise back up to the 60s or hopefully the 70s.  That’s how cold I am, normally the 70s are my comfort limit back in the states but I would even take 80 degrees at this point.  I swear I’m meant to live in Seattle or something.  At least if I was there I would have the boatload of North Face gear I’ve collected over the years to sit outside and drink a cappuccino during their “winters”.

In the end, I’m laughing at myself because I’ve been missing the mountain winters so much while I’m over here sweating my ass off.  And then I’m exposed to just above freezing weather and I realize that to be in those cold conditions, you gotta be prepared.  Irony,  you son of a bitch…

Malaysia and Beyond!

2015 has now come and gone.  I’ve had a chance to think back on this last year in the last week or so and I have to say, it has been a great year.  It wasn’t a year of pure joy and pleasure, I would probably say I’ve had to put more effort into the last 365 days than I can remember from years before.  There were lots of emotions, ideas, successes and plenty of failures but I’ve adapted recently to look at everyone of those situations as an opportunity to learn something.  It doesn’t have to be a big something, but at least something.  This last year is the reason that I decided that I needed to broaden my horizons and get way outside my comfort zone.  I’ve been running around with some common themes for a number of years that I’ve not be able to shake while in Boise so new perspective seemed like an appropriate decision.  And it’s definitely paid off.  I still have troubles and thoughts looming over me sometimes, just like the next guy, but I think that moving into 2016 I’ve developed a more positive way of looking at every situation.  I’m ready for a year full of things that have never been.

*****

Over the last month or month and a half I’ve been winding my way up the SE Asian peninsula.  I began in Kuala Lumpur, where I stayed over Thanksgiving and had a “BBQ” at my hostel (they were serving hotdogs).  I did a quick weekend in a coastal town down south from KL called Melaka which reminded me a lot of some kind of strange Disney World themed UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was Chinese touristville that weekend.  I tend to try not to generalize but damnit those Chinese people move so slow when you group a ton of them in tightly packed Chinatown streets.  Since then I have seen a Chinese lady power walking so I know it’s not all people from China, hopefully just the ones I shared Melaka with that weekend.

From Melaka I rode a bus 5 hours north to a city named Ipoh.  I was just there for a night so I booked a really cheap hostel called the Reggae House.  It was cheap... really cheap.  The guys working were completely stereotypical of that establishment’s name and I would be surprised if they are still listed on booking.com a year from now.  I would recommend people look elsewhere if you’d like to stay in Ipoh, unless you want bedbugs and have them lock you out of the hostel while you get dinner for two hours.  But Ipoh was the launching point for the Cameron Highlands so it will still be a warm memory.

       The Cameron Highlands, what a wonderful place.  If anyone reading this goes to Malaysia and doesn’t visit the tea leafed hills of Tanah Rata you are failing.  I spent a week in the blissful 70 degree weather with no humidity, fewer crowds and wonderfully friendly local people.  Everyone was just happy.  And I see why.  It very well could be that I’m biased from being sticky and uncomfortable for the last two months but that place is magical.  Storms roll in every afternoon and dump unreal amounts of rain in 15 minutes to an occasional couple of hours.  In the mornings I would sit outside with a cup of coffee and a jacket.  A jacket!  I knew there was a reason I’ve been hauling that thing around this whole time, squished in the bottom of my bag until that week.

       Next was Geogetown, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, although less Disneyish.  I honestly can’t recall too much of this weekend besides seeing some churches and eating at a really good food market at night.  I think it was one of those situations like when a friend tells you that the movie you’re about to see is the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen and you get let down because of your high expectations.

       I crossed into Thailand and took a minibus to an island called Koh Lanta.  I was aware that I was approaching Christmas and I had heard about the swarms of people that flock to the southern islands of Thailand so I picked one of the more laid back islands to get some beach time.  I stayed at a guesthouse run by a muslim Thai family.  Southern Thailand has an interesting history of terrible events towards the muslims, including massacres.  Nevertheless, they seemed happy enough to me (as I’ve moved north they’ve seemed to become happier as my latitude climbs).  Koh Lanta treated me well.  I got to talk to a lot of people, mostly families that were taking their holiday.  One Canadian lady resparked my interest in going to grad school in Vancouver, B.C.  She made it seem so perfect for my style and reinforced this feeling by describing all the climbing, backpacking, skiing, biking and fishing to be had… No brainer, right?

        I moved farther north to the coastal town of Krabi.  It is really just a base for island hopping the southern islands but I thought it had a really nice feel to it.  There is a large river that flows at its edge and lots of street food and a few temples that weren’t busy.  I had some time to relax and figure out my game plan.  I really wanted to go more west to the tourist islands of Koh Phi Phi and as well as Railay beach but I was repeated warned from fellow travelers that they were infested with out of control white people on their holiday and rooms were twice what they usually go for.  I wanted to go to both of those areas for some world renowned limestone climbing.  I really, really wanted to go.  But I think my traveling beginnings on the non touristed island of Java has given me a certain attitude towards the popular places.  Frankly, I’m ok with this.  I came here for a cultural experience.  Meeting rich Europeans and Australians is just a plus and not something I seek out.

       So I decided to leave for Bangkok, my climbing lust left unsatisfied.  Everything works out in one way or another it seems.  I met three energetic and friendly Spaniards on the night train to Bangkok.  We snuck some bottles of Thai whiskey on with us and had quite the night.  One of them didn’t speak any english and I speak barely any Spanish but at the end of our three days of exploring Bangkok, the two of us could communicate fairly well as both of our second languages improved.  On an unrelated note, Spaniards can party!  Those guys kept me up until 6, 7 a.m. the nights I spent with them.  Bangkok is a blast.  Khao San Road is nothing of what I imagined.  It’s least to say that the streets are packed with people until the sun comes up.  Platters of scorpions and grasshoppers walking around.  Balloons of nitrous oxide.  Tuk tuk drivers offering anything you want, anything.  If it was truly once a hippy backpacker hangout, those days are long gone to make room for huge bars, towers of beer and extremely intoxicated tourists.

       I was dropped off at the train station with hugs and smiles as they didn’t fly back to Barcelona for a few more days.  I arrived five hours early to get a night train ticket.  Damn was I naïve and I completely paid for it.  I should have bought my ticket days before.  The only thing available for the night train was a seat in the cheap car.  I was shooting for the sleeper cabin where you have a bed, there actually really fun to experience and I highly recommend it.  I sat on a 3 foot wide bench with another guy and two people on the same bench facing us with only a few feet in between the benches.  For 14 hours.  It was living in a 1.5x1.5 foot box for over half a day.  I knew I could do it, that’s why I bought the ticket but let’s just say I was a little cranky when the doors opened to Chiang Mai.

       Chiang Mai, the city where I’m writing this.  I’ve been here for almost two weeks.  I had no intentions of spending this much time here.  There’s something about this place though.  It’s got food, interesting culture, hopping nightlife and probably the most incredibly unique New Years Eve I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.  It’s the city known for the lantern festival.  I was slightly bummed because I missed the festival in November but I am completely satisfied now.  I had no idea that it was going to happen but I’m happy to say that I was witness to thousands of lantern launches over a beautiful few hours.  I don’t think I’ve seen anything as beautiful on December 31.  People were drinking but no one was out of control or even rowdy like back home.  People were so friendly and happy as they lit their lantern.  You’re supposed to let something go from the last year as you let your lantern go.  Then in the morning there are these grey ghosts that landed all over the city.  I’ve never experienced anything like it.

       So, I’m sitting here on January 2nd, I have until the 9th before my visa expires and I have to leave Thailand.  This is a country where a month is just not enough.  Now that my folks have committed to visiting me somewhere in the world before I come home I have a time limit but I plan on returning to Thailand after Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.  I have my eyes set on a 10 day silent meditation retreat.  I’ve heard so much about these retreats that I don’t think I could leave the region before experiencing one.  Some people can’t handle it and leave well before it’s over but I think that I will benefit significantly.  Or I could be completely wrong and be the guy in the back of the room having a mental breakdown.  Either way.

       That’s my plan everyone, there are a couple more countries in the works before the overseas family reunion but I’ll save that for later.  I hope ya’ll had a rockin’ New Years and are working for an even better 2016!