Home Sweet Home

We arrived home safely on Friday and have been catching up on our sleep since then, trying to readjust our body clocks to the 11 hour time zone difference. It also looks like we brought home some of the heat from SE Asia........the forecast for the next two days is 25C so that transition won't be too hard to make.
It was another great trip for us, full of wonderful memories to carry forward. We found the people to be very friendly in all 7 of the countries we visited. They were happy, helpful and always smiling, making us feel very safe and relaxed during our travels. The air quality in the big cities wasn't that good, with many of the locals wearing breathing masks when they were on the streets, but the time we spent there was less than 10%, so it was manageable (other than the slight case of bronchitis that Rhonda developed along the way). The many temples we saw gave us a glimpse into the past of some mighty ancient civilizations. Unlike South America, where our Spanish became passable, we didn't get very far beyond 'hello' and 'thank you' in the 7 different languages we encountered. Fortunately the locals had a better handle on English than we did of their languages which used an unfamiliar alphabet making even signs difficult to read.
Vietnam turned out to be our favourite country on this adventure. While the average income is less than $100 a month, the people are hard-working and happy in their beautiful country, and their economy is growing as fast as China's, so even better times await them. Our trips to Dalat and Sapa in the highlands, our cruise of Halong Bay and the time we spent in Hoi An were all highlights. Koh Samui in Southern Thailand was our favourite island stop and the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia will also be remembered fondly.
Our challenge now will be to re-insert ourselves back into the western world's lifestyle following 4 months of laid-back, one day at a time planning. Hopefully, we can do this slowly and our friends and golf club will forgive us if our scheduled appointments are treated as approximate times like they do in SE Asia. And perhaps our neighbours won't mind if they see us washing our clothes and bathing in the Sheep River. And retail vendors will just have to get used to us pulling out a calculator and displaying the price we think is fair.....the starting point to negotiating a reasonable price.
Our ultimate goal though is to maintain the happy life exhibited in the land of the smiles.

Homeward Bound

Our past 2 days in Bangkok have been uneventful. Since we were in the city two months ago and spent time touring the sights, this time we were focused on shopping for some last minute items and planning our packing strategy.
We are currently in the Bangkok airport, ready to start our long journey home. Our overnight flight gets into Tokyo in the morning where we will spend 6-7 hours before catching a final flight directly to Calgary. Because of the international date line crossing we actually depart Tokyo at 4pm on Friday and land in Calgary at 10:40 am on the same day.
After almost 4 months on the road it will be good to get back home with our family and friends. I will post some final thoughts on our SE Asia adventure after we are settled in.

Songkran in Sukhothai

Good thing I didn't buy a gun......I think they just sell those to the tourists and young children. The local seasoned veterans (from 5 to 60 years of age) use pails which are more effective, or if close to a water source (river or lake) then they use a water pump and a large hose for non-stop heavy spraying. It got really crazy yesterday for the official start of their 3 day New Year's celebration (Songkran). The roadside warriers have now been joined by roving pick-up trucks containing large barrels of water and revellers in the back with pails. In several high density areas, traffic slows to a crawl and everyone gets drenched, all in good fun. Even in the more rural areas, parents have supplied their kids with easy access to water.....there are no safe havens and we have been 'baptized' many, many times.

Yesterday we took a tuk tuk out to the Old City and then rented bicycles for the day (a slow moving target) to tour the ruins. There were 21 historical sites within the double-moated ancient kingdom and another 70 within a 5 km radius. The temperature was 40C under a scorching sun so the heat gradually sapped our energy before getting to very many of the additional Wats outside of the Old City. As part of the Songkran celebrations there was a sand-building contest underway and we watched 20 different adult teams create their own temples with intricate designs. Rhonda was interviewed by a roving announcer but forgot to mention on the microphone that none of the designs really looked like castles.......not sure they would have understood anyway.

After returning our bikes and looking for a tuk tuk driver to provide transportation on the 15 km return trip to our guest house we quickly realized we had a problem. Just outside the gate of the Old City, a massive water fight was underway along the main road back to New Sukhothai. Traffic was at a standstill and everyone we could see for several hundred metres in the direction we were headed was spraying water, drenched and laughing. We stealthily (for 60 year olds) snuck behind the street vendors, who seemed to be off limits and gave us a chance to snap some photos. We still got squirted by some snipers who were on to our tactics. One hundred metres into the frenzy, and with no clear end in sight, we felt it was only a matter of time before we were hit by a tsunami so we engaged a tuk tuk driver snoozing down a laneway and convinced him to take us on a round-about safe (dry) return trip to our room which worked out reasonably well (the water propellants are everywhere).

Today I was much better prepared. We took some bicycles from our guest house to tour around the new city....not really that 'new' but they consider anything post-15th century to be new. I wore my bathing suit, an old t-shirt and my sandals for the 1-2 km trip into town. Within two minutes of our departure both of us were totally soaked so my choice of attire was appropriate. Much of the day market was abandoned by vendors due to the holiday and a couple of electronics stores we wanted to visit were also closed so it was a short excursion but we laughed a lot as we were doused along the way (I think Rhonda was laughing?.....she was following behind me so she could scamper by before they reloaded.....but she was still very wet by the end). After a while it actually felt pretty good to get 'hit' in the 40C heat.

Tomorrow we are on a 7 hour bus ride to Ayutthaya, just north of Bangkok. We will watch the water fights on our way with our windows closed in our air-conditioned bus......at least it was advertised that way but you never know if the a/c is actually working on a bus until you are underway. Hopefully it will be or else it will be an even longer journey.

Should I Buy a Gun?

We are in Chiang Mai and things are starting to get a little crazy as Songkran, Thailand's New Year festival is only a few days away. We have been warned by the locals to be very careful. Alcohol is forbidden for Thai people during the April 13-15 period as the authorities attempt to calm things down since the celebrations have been getting out of hand in the last few years. We have been advised to purchase a gun for our own protection since most everyone else will be packing, and they seem readily available for purchase on the street. Having never owned a gun before it is a tough decision......will the presence of a gun deter others from attacking us or will it encourage more violence? The recommended weapon of choice is apparently the Super Soaker XL because of the abundant ammunition (OK....water) it can carry. Today I was wounded twice (OK....water-gunned) while walking down the street and the festival is still days away. I will hold off my decision until we get to our next destination, Sukhothai, later tomorrow in the hope that life will be a little calmer there, but we are keeping our rain ponchos handy just in case.

We have been having a lot of fun in Chiang Mai. We are staying in the Old City, a former walled city surrounded by a moat. It is easy to walk around and there are Wats (temples) everywhere. We have been to two different Night Markets (week-end and regular), and both were extremely busy and entertaining, inviting a few more purchases. Yesterday, Rhonda went to an all-day cooking class (soup, curry pastes, pad thai, jasmine & sticky rice) bringing home some leftover food for her dear husband. I went off on a Doi Suthep mountain hike (3 hours uphill) followed by a 15 km mountain-bike ride down to the base of the mountain. I got drenched during a brief thunderstorm but fortunately it was near the end of the hike and not on the treacherous part of the trail.

Today we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us 15 km's south of the city to the Baan Tawai village where we helped support their local economy by purchasing some special trip momentos for our house. Apparently, according to the Head of Purchasing, we are close enough to the end of our trip that the extra load won't be much of a bother. Up until now we have been walking up to a kilometre from our guest houses to and from bus stations with our backpacks........those days are now over.

Chiang Rai - Worth a Visit

I wasn't planning on writing another blog entry so quickly but we have had such a wonderful time in Chiang Rai that it couldn't wait. After walking around yesterday, we ventured outside the city today, hiring a guide to take us to some nearby villages that we had wanted to check out. We were first delivered to the Mae Kok River where we took a one hour longtail boat ride up the river to Raummit where the locals run an elephant camp. Once there, our guide gave us an orientation on how the camp was run and then we rode on one of them out of the camp, down the river and around the small village. With a platform saddle on the elephant's back and a driver sitting bareback on his neck controlling him, it was a reasonably smooth ride other than the riverbank ascent and decent. We hand-fed our 5,000 kilogram elephant bananas at the end of the trip, only a small portion of his 200 kg daily diet. They are extremely large yet docile creatures......we gave him no reason to be angry with us just in case.

From there our guide drove us to the White Temple 20 km's south of town. A successful local artist wanted to give something back to his community so he funded the cost of the temple which has replaced the former dilapadated one. Being an artist, and in total control of the restoration since he was paying for it, he chose 'white' to depict paradise and with the use of mirror fragments it is a stunning sight. Some of the locals were skeptical at first but they have now all embraced his efforts which will continue for another 5-10 years adding on additional buildings. There remains no entrance fee, many jobs have been created for the locals and with the growing popularity of the site their property values, although meagre, are rising. It is a lovely story and a happy place to visit.

Our final stop was driving north of the city to Karen Village where several different hill tribes live in a small countryside area and speak different dialects. The most interesting tribe were the Long Neck Karen where the women, including young girls, wear brass rings around their necks and legs, adding additional neck rings over time. While it appears that the older ladies have very long necks it is really the weight of the brass rings gradually lowering their shoulder blades over time to give that impression. Another tribe was renowned for their giant earrings which rather than hang from the ear lobe are actually imbedded in them, giving the ear a nice look when inserted but a rather nasty appearance when they are removed (as one old lady demonstrated for us).

When we returned to Chiang Rai around dinnertime several locals recommended that we visit the Saturday Night Market where they close down a main street. It was lively with all kinds of items for sale but that was only a portion of the entertainment. Several stages were set up with live enertainment including a large set-up in an adjacent park where hundreds of adults were dancing continuously to folk songs while another thousand locals ate and drank and enjoyed the scene. At another park the younger crowd were hanging out and having fun skateboarding, doing backflips on the grass and dancing to only music they could hear. It was quite a sight and a great finish to our last evening in Chaing Rai.

Tomorrow, following Easter Sunday mass at the main (and perhaps only) Catholic Church in town, which should be interesting, we are catching a bus for the 3 hour ride south to Chiang Mai where we will spend several days.

Slow Boat to Thailand

We finally made it to northern Thailand travelling up the Mekong River on the slow boat (their description of the 2 day trip). Our boat actually moved at a decent clip, with reasonable comfortable chairs, and we enjoyed it much more than the long bus ride would have provided. It was a smooth cruise on the river and the scenery was wonderful........mountains in the background, hillside villages along the way, locals using the river for washing clothes, bathing, fishing, young children playing in the water, an event that looked like a garage sale, and water buffalo cooling themselves off in the 100 metre wide river. Since most tourists chose to travel the opposite way that we did, there was plenty of room to stretch out on our boat while most of the boats we saw heading down the Mekong were more crowded.

On our first day our boat experienced some mechanical problems in the afternoon. The captain lost his steering ability, called to the crew for help and we drifted over to the shore where we got off the boat while it was inspected. It turned out that a chain had snapped connecting the steering wheel to the rudder. The crew fixed the problem within an hour and we were on our way again. About an hour later there was another problem with the fuel system causing another delay which they were also able to repair without having to call CAA. It reminded us of our bus adventures in South America where breakdowns were not uncommon but always resolved so that the trip could continue. As a result we didn't arrive at our mid-way stopover point in Pakbeng until nearly 8 pm. It wasn't a major issue for us since there really isn't much to see in the small town so we found a place to stay, had dinner and retired to our room. It wasn't one of Rhonda's favourite places to stay but at $6 a night I suppose you get what you pay for. All the 'hotels' that we saw had rooms at similar prices so this wasn't a case of saving money........if it was then I would have picked another place we walked by that advertised "Clean Rooms - $6, Cheaper Rooms - $5"....who knows what we would have found.

The next morning we purchased our tickets for the second leg of the Mekong trip and boarded a different boat which was nicer than the previous day. Most of the same backpackers from day one were on the same boat making it easy to continue conversations started the previous day. No mechanical problems on this segment so we enjoyed the vistas, read our books, played cards, drank our French wine (in a box) and compared travel notes with others. Our arrival in Huay Xai was after 5 pm (as advertised) and the Thai border was closed for the day so everyone disembarked and found rooms for the night (similar choices to Pakbeng).

In the morning we took a tuk tuk to the Passenger Terminal, a couple of km's down the road, received our exit stamp from Laos, and then took a longtail boat ride across the Mekong to the Thailand side where the border officials accepted us back into Thailand (but only for another 15 days!). From there we caught a tuk tuk to the bus station just in time to catch the departing bus for Chiang Rai (2 hours) which is where we are right now.

We will spend two days here, primarily to visit some villages in the surrounding areas. More on that later.

Loving Laos

Our pace has slowed down in Laos. Part of it is the culture. Laos people are very laid-back and do not pursue the tourists nearly as much as the other SE Asian countries. The other factor is that Rhonda is nursing a cold/virus that we want to eradicate as soon as possible.

Luang Prabang is a small city (50K people) on a narrow peninsula with rivers on both sides (Nam Khan and Mekong). It has many ancient temples and is easy to walk around especially near the riversides where you can also eat and drink at many places. We had lunch at Utopia, aptly named, a very relaxing spot high up on the riverbank with cushioned deck loungers to enjoy the view and serenity. While there we had an interesting conversation with a former London, Ontario (and U. of Calgary grad) man in his 30's who had come to Laos for a break from corporate life several years ago and has decided to live here full-time. He has leased the property and is running a wonderful establishment with great staff and good environmentally-friendly ideas to further grow his business which is already very popular. We wish him well.

Today we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day and went out to the Kuang Si Waterfalls, 30 km south of Luang Prabang. Along the way we saw a couple of large elephants walking along the road, something we don't normally see at home. Kuang Si was beautiful, a series of cascading waterfalls with natural basins at the bottom of most of them that you could swim in, which we did. Being in the mountains the menthol green water was refreshing(Canadian term) but a quick way to cool off from the 30+C temperature. The pools also had tiny fish that would nibble at your feet, something we had previously experienced in South America so we weren't alarmed. The park also had a nice bear sanctuary where they are housing Sun bears (smaller than our grizzlies) rescued from poachers who extract their bile for medicine, primarily to support the Chinese market. The bears were quite entertaining in their animal-friendly enclosure, climbing in and out of bamboo hammocks, rolling around in small ponds and playing with one another. It was difficult to know when to stop taking pictures. On our trip back home we were doused by a smiling young woman who seemed to be waiting for our vehicle to pass her village hut so that she could empty her water bucket on the road but she surprised us and drenched us in the back of the tuk tuk. Fortunately, it was clean water and what we now know is the beginning of the Laos New Year season where water skirmishes are traditional....we will be better prepared next time!

We have enjoyed our 4 days in Luang Prabang (and Laos in general), and would probably stay longer if we still didn't have so much to see with just over 2 weeks left in our SE Asia adventure. Tonight we will go back to the lively Night Market where the street food has been remarkable and perhaps a few more souvenirs that Rhonda will want me to add to my backpack. In the morning we will walk to the pier and get on a slow boat travelling up the Mekong towards northern Thailand where we will arrive two days later.

Floating Down the Bow River - Almost

On our way to Luang Prabang in Laos we had a two day stopover in Vang Vieng, a backpacker party town. Tubing down the Nom Song River is a very popular attraction for the younger crowd. For only $7 a tuk tuk takes you 4 km up the river and provides you with an inner tube (life jacket optional) which you then use to drift back to town.......well not quite. From the starting point, the riverside is filled with bars, playing very loud raggae, hip hop, classic rock and other popular music (but no Frank Sinatra). Beyond cheap drinks on the decks of the bars there are water slides and rope swings, along with regular swings and teeter totters in the river and mud volleyball on the beach. There are Happy Menu's and I'm sure many more things that we didn't see. With no river police and 'travellers' allowed on the tubes, it was party central.

Knowing ahead of time what to expect, and hearing that 22 partiers drowned in the river last year, we chose the more 'boring' full-day Cave and Kayak tour which ended up being a private tour when no one else signed up that day. Our guide led us through a Hmong minority village and then 4 km's to 3 incredible caves. The first cave had many twists and turns with some narrow passageways leading into large caverns. Our half hour inside only covered a portion of the several km's that could be explored. The second cave seemed more like the tunnel they are attempting to build for the Trans-Canada near Golden, B.C. It went straight into the mountain and for the half kilometre we walked it was 5-10 metres wide and 10-20 metres high with a plethora of stalagmites and stalactites. Rhonda is not fond of caves but she did very well underground getting as far as we did (we could have gone much further if we had wanted). A good set of headlamps and having the caves to ourselves was helpful. The third cave was quite different, being a water cave. We floated into (and back out of) the cave on tubes and were able to go several hundred metres into the cave. Following a BBQ lunch we were provided with a kayak to cover the 8 km's back to town, following our guide through small sets of rapids. When we encountered the bar scene half way back our guide gave us the option to stop for drinks but it looked like they were having a very good time without us so we just enjoyed the music and watched some acrobatic river jumping while slowly paddling past the entertainment.

Prior to arriving in Vang Vieng we spent our last day in Vientiane cycling to their Victory Monument (Arc de Triomph replica) and to the large, golden Pha That Luang temple about 5 km's from the city. We also stopped into the COPE Centre where they are doing tremendous work with land-mine victims fitting them with new legs and arms. It is a non-profit organization and we were happy to make a donation after touring the facility. It had an upbeat mood (patients and staff) since they are really giving life back to young people who would otherwise not be able to afford treatment. The sad part is the realization that there are many millions of UneXploded Ordnances (UXO) still buried in their country; and many people (mostly children) are being injured every month by a discovery.

Yesterday we took a bus ride from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang where we are right now. It was a long (7 hours) but rewarding drive through the mountains. The road had lots of switchbacks, and was rough at times, but the views were magnificent. We passed through several small villages perched on the ridge of a mountain where there only seemed to be enough room for the road. If there was a minor tremor I'm sure that most of the stilted homes / huts we saw would end up at the bottom of the deep valley. Fortunately, I had some leftover French chardonnay to sip and enjoy the journey while Rhonda was immersed in her Kindle trying not to notice the deep canyons below.