4/13/2011
-Woke up, ate a crepe, standard routine...
-Hung out with Colin, Clay, and Beer at the guest house.
-walked around a bit, Pi Mai was starting up, already people were outside of their houses blasting music, drinking, and throwing wat
had some squirtgun fights with some kids, and lots of lao girls and girly boys dumped water on me.
-Grabbed dinner at the night market and ate at the guest house, half a roasted chicken and sticky rice, also home made potato chips.
-Headed out with Beer and his friends, colin and clay stayed at home, first to a freind's birthday party, where there was cake and Kareoke, we went out to Star Bar, i was the only Falong in the place, had a few beers, some dancing. the interior of the bar was all back and covvered with elaborate styrofoam carvings painted in flourescent colors and under black light.
-when we arrived there was a live band, which was pretty good, and then a DJ, Beer dragged me on stage to DJ, but i didn't know the most of the music they had, and what i did know was the worst of American pop. So we agreed that i'd come back the next night with my hard drive.
Rode back to the guest house and to bed. Had a different room this time, much cheaper, but still very nice, one of the best i've had.
4/14/2011
-the first official day of Pi Mai, Beer and his friends were doing tatoos with henna hair dye, and i did a big sharpie sleeve of paternwork on one kid, turned out good.
-then we set up on the main street to wait for the parade, Beer set up big speakers and i DJed on the street for maybe 3 hours, while there was a waterfight all around me.
-The parade was cool, lots of elephants going to the main monastary in town and drummers playing in front, recordings on Earsphere today
-Then to a sand bank in the Mekong where they had erected a small tent city the past three days. there were three stages with music surrounded by vendors selling food and beer lao, all along the banks of the sandbar the Lao people were building big mounds of sand, decorated with flowers and covered in Flour. The sand bar was full of people, on either side of the tents was a crush of people flowing both directions, everyone throwing flour and river water at everyone they passed. Beer had an old pump action water sprayer, which had some serious power, all the people sitting and eating that we passed he soaked, it was pretty funny.Also Beer had a military canteen full of lao lao and a hollow horn, he kept feeding everybody lao lao all day.
-Colin bought a case of beer lao, because there were no cups, we filled a bucket with ice and beer and passed it around. some how i wound up with a rediculous hat, and we went dancing to the Keyboard Kareoke set up, i traded my hat with people maybe three times. a lot of fun being in a big crush of people all dancing their asses off sharing a big bucket of beer. after a while dancing we went to catch a boat back, but wound up spending maybe 20 minutes dunking one another in the Mekong.
-walked around for a bit, had some more waterfights, then went to bathe in the mekong because there was no more water in the tap.
-mellowed out at the guesthouse, ate some dinner, went to bed early, drinking all day.
Weekly Log of My trip through Asia.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Luang Probang Pi Mai
4/11/2011
-slept in in my huge fancy bed and took a shower that was both hot and cold, crazy.
-Although Pi Mai (Lunar New Year) wasn't supposed to start for four more days, got sprayed with water on my way to the crepe spot for breakfast.
-chilled out with colin and clay at the guest house, and walked around for a bit.
-worked on my playlist for Utopia
-Beer (Bia) the guest house owner's son was trying to figure out a DJ program he had just installed, i helped him play with it for a bit and he gave it to me on a flash drive so i could put it on my computer.
-ate dinner riverside again, then headed to Utopia to see about DJing there
-went to bed early.
4/12/2011
-spent most of the day working on the playlist and figuring out the DJ software, after morning crepes.
-dumped some music onto Beer's hard drive
-went with clay and colin to eat some Lao Barbecue, were joined by a strange french programmer, then we all went down to Utopia, where i was supposed to DJ.
-when we arrived, Rob said he had found two acoustic guitarists who were scheduled to play, so i wouldn't be DJing.
-Beer showed up with some freinds, told him the story and he suggested we go to this other, local bar. Which was great, better then DJing, we bought a case of beer Lao, and these two ladies stood around in bright yellow skirt suits refilling our glass everytime we finished (the standard beer glass is very small, and they drink it with ice, so this was a neverending job).
-the bar was centered around eight Petanque (french Bocce ball) courts, so after a few beers we rented a court and played an intense game of petanque, it was Beer's younger brother, the french guy and me, vs. three of Beer's freinds. needless to say, we lost.
-took a tuk tuk back to the guest house. the whole time Beer and his freinds followed very close on their motorbikes, Colin successfully tossed a lighter from the back of the Tuk Tuk right into the basket on Beer's bike, they were that close.
-slept in in my huge fancy bed and took a shower that was both hot and cold, crazy.
-Although Pi Mai (Lunar New Year) wasn't supposed to start for four more days, got sprayed with water on my way to the crepe spot for breakfast.
-chilled out with colin and clay at the guest house, and walked around for a bit.
-worked on my playlist for Utopia
-Beer (Bia) the guest house owner's son was trying to figure out a DJ program he had just installed, i helped him play with it for a bit and he gave it to me on a flash drive so i could put it on my computer.
-ate dinner riverside again, then headed to Utopia to see about DJing there
-went to bed early.
4/12/2011
-spent most of the day working on the playlist and figuring out the DJ software, after morning crepes.
-dumped some music onto Beer's hard drive
-went with clay and colin to eat some Lao Barbecue, were joined by a strange french programmer, then we all went down to Utopia, where i was supposed to DJ.
-when we arrived, Rob said he had found two acoustic guitarists who were scheduled to play, so i wouldn't be DJing.
-Beer showed up with some freinds, told him the story and he suggested we go to this other, local bar. Which was great, better then DJing, we bought a case of beer Lao, and these two ladies stood around in bright yellow skirt suits refilling our glass everytime we finished (the standard beer glass is very small, and they drink it with ice, so this was a neverending job).
-the bar was centered around eight Petanque (french Bocce ball) courts, so after a few beers we rented a court and played an intense game of petanque, it was Beer's younger brother, the french guy and me, vs. three of Beer's freinds. needless to say, we lost.
-took a tuk tuk back to the guest house. the whole time Beer and his freinds followed very close on their motorbikes, Colin successfully tossed a lighter from the back of the Tuk Tuk right into the basket on Beer's bike, they were that close.
Luang Nam Tha
4/8/2011
-slept in, when i awoke went to the travel office we had booked our tour from they told me that they had already given a refund to the germans who had woken up early to meet with the manager, so they had my money. Then i ran into a strange swiss guy i had mett before with a lazy eye, and evil heart, he told me the germans did infact have my money and had rented a motorbike for the day.
-went for breakfast at this guest house where another older austrailian guy, Kieth or Kit, i had met before was dating the lao owner, hung out with him for a bit, and then went for a wander.
-took it real easy, was tired from the trek and sort of bored with Luang Nam Tha, didn't have enough time to go up to Mong Ngoi, because i had to be back in Luang Probang on the tenth.
-ate lunch at the "minority restaraurant" just because i liked the name.
-Wandered about some more until i ran into the germans who gave me my money back. spent the rest of the evening drinking and hanging out with the germans and the Aussie guys.
4/9/11
-met up with Keith again and after a prolonged conversation about economics we went to the market, he was looking for trainers, which he didn't find, and i bought a pair of chinese slippers, a water gun for the new year, a alarm clock, and a awesome hand made machete. spent less then $10 for all of this.
-after this chilled out with sean and the strange swiss dude.
-went for a wander, saw a gov't caravan with blacked out windows and police escort
-then went to the night market to eat, got half a duck, sticky rice and a beer for 27000 kp (slightly more then $3), one of the best meals i've had. sat with a beautiful, tripped out, chinese girl named mandala who was around my age, and had been travelling for months.
-met up with keith and sean at Keith's girlfreind's guest house, also met a Canadian guy who had been teaching in china for a couple months.
-talked with them for a while, then Mandala showed up sort of freaking out because she couldn't find her guest house, we all hung out until closing time, then i went with Mandala to help her find her place.
-When we finally found it, we sat outside for a while and drank beers and talked, then went to the night market and bought more beer (it was the only thing still open), and sat on some innoccous looking steps drinking and talking more, she was stressed because she had to return to china the next day, and was really an outcast there, a non-conformist in a conformist society.
-While we were sitting a pick up rolled up and two lao men got out, and came up to us, they were very shy and sweet, and communicated that they were tourist police, and we were sitting on the steps of their office, way past curfew, and very politely asked us to leave. So of course we left, sat at a table a little bit down the road. til we parted ways to go to bed because we both had buses to catch early in the morn.
4/10/2011
-saw Mandala again at the bus station, said goodbye and she boarded her bus, i still had to wait a bit for the bus to Luang Probang.
-wound up sitting way in the back of the bus with a Lao family with three kids, i was crammed into the corner, but they kept giving me good food, until they fell asleep, then the little girl had her head pressed into my ribcage almost the whole ride.
-about six hours in we stopped in a little town near Nong Khiew and the majority of people got off the bus, i immediately grabbed a spot closer to the front, even though there were plenty of seats the same lao guy came and sat next to me holding his daughter, and i still had a little head pressed into my ribcage, also the lao dude's hand kept winding up on my leg while he was sleeping. very odd.
-Arrived in Luang Probang, and shared a Tuk Tuk with the only other falong left on the bus.
-got dropped off near the guest house where i had a reservation.
-when i arrived the family was very appologetic and stressed because they had screwed up my reservation, but it wound up working out ok, i got a huge $40 room for two nights, for $15 a night, which is still more then i spent anywhere else, but it was super luxurious.
-ate some dinner on the river and played cards with Colin and Clay before bed.
-slept in, when i awoke went to the travel office we had booked our tour from they told me that they had already given a refund to the germans who had woken up early to meet with the manager, so they had my money. Then i ran into a strange swiss guy i had mett before with a lazy eye, and evil heart, he told me the germans did infact have my money and had rented a motorbike for the day.
-went for breakfast at this guest house where another older austrailian guy, Kieth or Kit, i had met before was dating the lao owner, hung out with him for a bit, and then went for a wander.
-took it real easy, was tired from the trek and sort of bored with Luang Nam Tha, didn't have enough time to go up to Mong Ngoi, because i had to be back in Luang Probang on the tenth.
-ate lunch at the "minority restaraurant" just because i liked the name.
-Wandered about some more until i ran into the germans who gave me my money back. spent the rest of the evening drinking and hanging out with the germans and the Aussie guys.
4/9/11
-met up with Keith again and after a prolonged conversation about economics we went to the market, he was looking for trainers, which he didn't find, and i bought a pair of chinese slippers, a water gun for the new year, a alarm clock, and a awesome hand made machete. spent less then $10 for all of this.
-after this chilled out with sean and the strange swiss dude.
-went for a wander, saw a gov't caravan with blacked out windows and police escort
-then went to the night market to eat, got half a duck, sticky rice and a beer for 27000 kp (slightly more then $3), one of the best meals i've had. sat with a beautiful, tripped out, chinese girl named mandala who was around my age, and had been travelling for months.
-met up with keith and sean at Keith's girlfreind's guest house, also met a Canadian guy who had been teaching in china for a couple months.
-talked with them for a while, then Mandala showed up sort of freaking out because she couldn't find her guest house, we all hung out until closing time, then i went with Mandala to help her find her place.
-When we finally found it, we sat outside for a while and drank beers and talked, then went to the night market and bought more beer (it was the only thing still open), and sat on some innoccous looking steps drinking and talking more, she was stressed because she had to return to china the next day, and was really an outcast there, a non-conformist in a conformist society.
-While we were sitting a pick up rolled up and two lao men got out, and came up to us, they were very shy and sweet, and communicated that they were tourist police, and we were sitting on the steps of their office, way past curfew, and very politely asked us to leave. So of course we left, sat at a table a little bit down the road. til we parted ways to go to bed because we both had buses to catch early in the morn.
4/10/2011
-saw Mandala again at the bus station, said goodbye and she boarded her bus, i still had to wait a bit for the bus to Luang Probang.
-wound up sitting way in the back of the bus with a Lao family with three kids, i was crammed into the corner, but they kept giving me good food, until they fell asleep, then the little girl had her head pressed into my ribcage almost the whole ride.
-about six hours in we stopped in a little town near Nong Khiew and the majority of people got off the bus, i immediately grabbed a spot closer to the front, even though there were plenty of seats the same lao guy came and sat next to me holding his daughter, and i still had a little head pressed into my ribcage, also the lao dude's hand kept winding up on my leg while he was sleeping. very odd.
-Arrived in Luang Probang, and shared a Tuk Tuk with the only other falong left on the bus.
-got dropped off near the guest house where i had a reservation.
-when i arrived the family was very appologetic and stressed because they had screwed up my reservation, but it wound up working out ok, i got a huge $40 room for two nights, for $15 a night, which is still more then i spent anywhere else, but it was super luxurious.
-ate some dinner on the river and played cards with Colin and Clay before bed.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
To Luang Nam Tha
4/4/2011
-Packed my stuff in the morning, took me a while to find the guest house owner to pay, but eventually succeeded, Paid my bill and walked to the bus station. I don't think i explained that the bus station in Nong Kheiw is really more of a minivan station, minivans from all over show up there and wait until they are absolutely full to leave.
-there were maybe 15 people crammed into a van made for 10, mostly Falongs. i was in the back seat with made for three, with four people including myself. An Italian Poet, a French primary school teacher, and a young Isreali fresh out of military and school.
-it was an uncomfortable ride, there was a seatbelt digging into my lower back and the road was full of pot holes, when i got out there was a big bruise on my back, but the conversation was good.
-also in the van was a German couple i had met on Nong Khiew, we bonded over one of the posters on the boat ticket shack that showed what appeared to be a toddler made out of condoms. we decided the point of the poster is that when you use condoms you wind up with condom babies, but it's ok because they float, which comes in handy.
-We stopped maybe an hour out of Oudomxai, and dropped off the drivers cousin, who was travelling with her child to meet her husband who served in the military in a small town.
-Somehow, we wound up with only three people in the back seat, so there was plenty of room and the rest of the ride was quite luxurious.
-when we arrived in Oudomxai, the bus to Luang Nam Tha was waiting for us, but when we tried to buy tickets we were told the bus was full. not wanting to stay in Oudomxai, the German couple, the Italian Poet and I all said we didn't mind sitting on the plastic chairs in the Aisle, so they let us on the bus. the german couple and i got lucky and actually had seats, i had a window seat near the front, which is about the best one could hope for. I think some nice Lao people gave up their seat for us.
-it was another five hours to Luang Nam Tha, with a lot of stops, because the road is under construction. The Chinese are building a nice road system up north, in exchange for stripping the virgin forests up north of timber. not really a great deal... there are chinese signs and labor camps everywhere
-Made it to Luang Nam Tha around 9 o'clock, but the bus station was about 20 Kms out of town, so it was another hour on a shared tuk tuk before we arrived in the town proper.
-The German couple had a very good guidebook, as have a lot of the germans i've travelled with, much better then lonely planet, which i have found to be virtually useless, at least in Lao. So they went to a guest house a little off the main drag recommended by the book, while the italian and i wandered around for a long time trying to find a cheap guest house. we did not succeed so wound up sharing a double room which was still pretty pricey.
-had some nice conversation with the italian until we got yelled at through the door by a chinese tourist for being too loud, although we were talking at a normal volume.
4/5/2011
-The Italian woke up early to catch a bus to Thailand, he was trying to make it to Bangkok for a flight, which seemed pretty absurd, spending like three days in transport and not seeing anything... but whatever.
-said farewell to him and slept in for a while. Met the Germans at the guest house for breakfast, we were planning to go up to Mong Ngoi in the morning, but they had decided they wanted to take a trek from Luang Nam Tha instead, to see primary forest.
-most of the treks are geared towards village tours but we decided we didn't want to be treating the villagers like animals in a zoo.
-we found a cheap two day trek that was supposed to be through primary forest, with camping in between. we booked this for the next day.
-checked into the guest house the germans were staying in, it was much cheaper and nicer then anything else in town
-spent the rest of the day drinking and talking with the Germans and their French friend, had lots of interesting conversation sitting on the porch of the bungalow overlooking two ponds full of Lotus Flowers.
-got some dinner at the night market, purple sticky rice and some extremely spicy Laap with young bamboo, then back to the guest house where the germans asked for Lao Lao, they brought out some home made shit in a water bottle which was neon green. on the fourth shot, i told everybody that if i took it i was sure to throw up, but they insisted, and sure enough, right after i took it, i yacked all over the german guy's shoes.
-the germans went to bed and i spent a while chatting with the French guy, also met a crazy dude from Tazmania, Sean, who was travelling on disablity money he got from the Aussie gov't for breaking his neck in a motorcycle crash. $750 every two weeks. the french guy went to bed, but i stayed up late hanging out with Sean.
4/6/2011
-Woke up early for the trek, before going to the entrance to the NPA we stopped at a market, where the german guy bought some live birds, we also bought tiny spring powered pellet guns so we could hunt.
-then the Tuk Tuk took us to the entrance to the NPA, we hiked through a village and saw a lady making paper out of bamboo, which was pretty cool. But we were ready to get up into the forest, so we continued on.
-within the first few hours our guides revealed to us that they had never done this trek before, and thus didn't really know where we were going.
-walked along a trail for a while, came to a small stream around noon, the guides cut down some banana leaves, and set up a very nice picnic with sticky rice, buffalo meat, pumpkin sauce, and cooked cucumbers.
-then things started to get weird, instead of following a trail we started to follow this small stream, which was ok for a while, there the stream was shallow so it was possible to walk on rocks without getting yr feet wet.
-later in the day the stream became deeper, and it was impossible to walk and stay dry.
-there were very few large trees left, it was pretty much all secondary or tertiary forest. this was not what we had asked for and no one told us we'd be walking through a stream the whole time. A leech punched a whole right through the "g" on my tattoo, arrived to camp with a sock full of blood.
-around four or five we arrived at our "camp site" which was actually some poor old farmer's house, in a beautiful valley 3 hours walk from the nearest village.
-we bathed in the stream and the guides built a nice fire, and disappeared into the old man's house to make dinner. we made various contraptions of bamboo in an attempt to hang our shoes and socks over the fire to dry, gave up on this plan when the bamboo pole for the T shaped rig i had made with the German's zipties snapped sending our socks plummeting into the fire
-we were to sleep in a small bamboo hut set on poles which was missing half of the roof. we hung out here and waited for dinner.
-dinner was really good, ate with the guides and the old man by candlelight, which was quite nice.
-played a strange and simple card game with one of the guides for a while.
-then bedded down on the floor of the hut. while we were falling asleep, or trying to, we noticed through the hole in the roof that the sky was flashing. Went outside to look, and saw that it was lightning. A storm was approaching. we moved our bags under a little bit of thatch remaining and covered them with a tarp that was laying around.
-the first gust of wind from the storm took off the tarp and another big chunk of thatch from the roof.
-started to get rained on, layed there for a while, until the guides came and insisted we move into the old man's house which had a solid roof. My new sleeping arrangement lacked a mosquito net, but at least had a roof. the Germans had their own net, which they set up. despite their net, they were plagued by "cockalakas" (cockroaches) all night, i either slept through or did not have any of these even though i was also on the floor and netless.
4/7/2011
-woke up super early to the crowing of roosters.
-while the guides prepared breakfast there was a brutal fight between two cows that threatened to take down the hut.
-the Germans only had one bottle of water left between the two of them, the guides insisted they had more, so they drank their bottle, this was not a good idea.
-the guides initially told us we had a three hour hike for the day, but before we started this turned into six hours.
-after hiking for about four hours, the Germans were starting to become seriously dehydrated and unhappy, I only had one bottle left myself, so was unwilling to share, the only other water was brackish looking boiled stream water. the germans drank some of this and immediately started to feel ill. so there was no water.
-when i asked the guide how much farther, at the three hour mark they said six hours, when pressed, admitted they had no clue. the whole time we had been climbing along the top of a ridge, with no trail and consistently up hill. Keep in mind also that this area was heavily bombed during the secret war and we were passing bomb craters, rule one of areas with a heavy concentration of UXO is that you stay on the established path. Also this forest was even more cleared of old trees then the previous day, we saw maybe one tree older then 10 years every hour.
-Also, the guides were supposed to know about the forest, but only showed us wild corriander, young bamboo, and painted out that the plants we were passing were in fact bamboo, over and over and over again.
-after maybe 5 hours we reached the summit of the ridge we had been trekking along. At this point it was another 3-4 hours to the village where a Tuk Tuk was waiting to take us back to Luang Nam Tha, no one was really sure how long.
-the germans had been with out water for maybe three hours now of serious uphill climbing. to make matters worse, it started to rain.
-At this point the german guy got really angry and insisted we head down, that they could not continue without water.
-After a while arguing with the guide they agreed to take us down. we went strait downhill off of the highest point through bamboo forest, this is where it got really dangerous because of the rain, we were on a 70 degree slope, and the only way down was basically to slide through mud grabbing onto bamboo to slow yr fall. my hands got very badly cut up, and the german girl, Mandy, was really struggling from both dehydration and the difficulty of sliding down hill at high speed. We took a break at a little bamboo hut, while the guides got their bearing and drank rain water.
-at this point i was bleeding and unhappy, the guides were saying that we had maybe a two hour hike to get to the road, and then we would have to walk down the road for another hour to get to the village where the tuk tuk was waiting. i insisted that instead they needed to get the tuk tuk to meet us on the road, or we would just hitch hike back. So one guide split off, and went to the village to get a tuk tuk, and we took a very slippery local trail down the river, the although we were all dehydrated and ready to be out the guide we were left with kept stopping to point out more bamboo plants, even though we were surrounded by them the whole time. where we caught a bamboo ferry to the waiting Tuk Tuk.
-The german guy had totally torn up the crotch area of his pants so by the time we left his underwear was hanging out which was quite funny. while we were on the tuk tuk back, he made the tuk tuk stop and jumped out, with all of his underwear hanging out and no shoes and ran into a local shop and came back with four bottles of water and two bottles of beer.
-when we got back to the tour office in town we spent the rest of the day there camping out waiting for the manager, who obviously never came, but we turned away nine other tourists who were trying to book tours.
-went to bed early worn out from the jungle adventure.
-Packed my stuff in the morning, took me a while to find the guest house owner to pay, but eventually succeeded, Paid my bill and walked to the bus station. I don't think i explained that the bus station in Nong Kheiw is really more of a minivan station, minivans from all over show up there and wait until they are absolutely full to leave.
-there were maybe 15 people crammed into a van made for 10, mostly Falongs. i was in the back seat with made for three, with four people including myself. An Italian Poet, a French primary school teacher, and a young Isreali fresh out of military and school.
-it was an uncomfortable ride, there was a seatbelt digging into my lower back and the road was full of pot holes, when i got out there was a big bruise on my back, but the conversation was good.
-also in the van was a German couple i had met on Nong Khiew, we bonded over one of the posters on the boat ticket shack that showed what appeared to be a toddler made out of condoms. we decided the point of the poster is that when you use condoms you wind up with condom babies, but it's ok because they float, which comes in handy.
-We stopped maybe an hour out of Oudomxai, and dropped off the drivers cousin, who was travelling with her child to meet her husband who served in the military in a small town.
-Somehow, we wound up with only three people in the back seat, so there was plenty of room and the rest of the ride was quite luxurious.
-when we arrived in Oudomxai, the bus to Luang Nam Tha was waiting for us, but when we tried to buy tickets we were told the bus was full. not wanting to stay in Oudomxai, the German couple, the Italian Poet and I all said we didn't mind sitting on the plastic chairs in the Aisle, so they let us on the bus. the german couple and i got lucky and actually had seats, i had a window seat near the front, which is about the best one could hope for. I think some nice Lao people gave up their seat for us.
-it was another five hours to Luang Nam Tha, with a lot of stops, because the road is under construction. The Chinese are building a nice road system up north, in exchange for stripping the virgin forests up north of timber. not really a great deal... there are chinese signs and labor camps everywhere
-Made it to Luang Nam Tha around 9 o'clock, but the bus station was about 20 Kms out of town, so it was another hour on a shared tuk tuk before we arrived in the town proper.
-The German couple had a very good guidebook, as have a lot of the germans i've travelled with, much better then lonely planet, which i have found to be virtually useless, at least in Lao. So they went to a guest house a little off the main drag recommended by the book, while the italian and i wandered around for a long time trying to find a cheap guest house. we did not succeed so wound up sharing a double room which was still pretty pricey.
-had some nice conversation with the italian until we got yelled at through the door by a chinese tourist for being too loud, although we were talking at a normal volume.
4/5/2011
-The Italian woke up early to catch a bus to Thailand, he was trying to make it to Bangkok for a flight, which seemed pretty absurd, spending like three days in transport and not seeing anything... but whatever.
-said farewell to him and slept in for a while. Met the Germans at the guest house for breakfast, we were planning to go up to Mong Ngoi in the morning, but they had decided they wanted to take a trek from Luang Nam Tha instead, to see primary forest.
-most of the treks are geared towards village tours but we decided we didn't want to be treating the villagers like animals in a zoo.
-we found a cheap two day trek that was supposed to be through primary forest, with camping in between. we booked this for the next day.
-checked into the guest house the germans were staying in, it was much cheaper and nicer then anything else in town
-spent the rest of the day drinking and talking with the Germans and their French friend, had lots of interesting conversation sitting on the porch of the bungalow overlooking two ponds full of Lotus Flowers.
-got some dinner at the night market, purple sticky rice and some extremely spicy Laap with young bamboo, then back to the guest house where the germans asked for Lao Lao, they brought out some home made shit in a water bottle which was neon green. on the fourth shot, i told everybody that if i took it i was sure to throw up, but they insisted, and sure enough, right after i took it, i yacked all over the german guy's shoes.
-the germans went to bed and i spent a while chatting with the French guy, also met a crazy dude from Tazmania, Sean, who was travelling on disablity money he got from the Aussie gov't for breaking his neck in a motorcycle crash. $750 every two weeks. the french guy went to bed, but i stayed up late hanging out with Sean.
4/6/2011
-Woke up early for the trek, before going to the entrance to the NPA we stopped at a market, where the german guy bought some live birds, we also bought tiny spring powered pellet guns so we could hunt.
-then the Tuk Tuk took us to the entrance to the NPA, we hiked through a village and saw a lady making paper out of bamboo, which was pretty cool. But we were ready to get up into the forest, so we continued on.
-within the first few hours our guides revealed to us that they had never done this trek before, and thus didn't really know where we were going.
-walked along a trail for a while, came to a small stream around noon, the guides cut down some banana leaves, and set up a very nice picnic with sticky rice, buffalo meat, pumpkin sauce, and cooked cucumbers.
-then things started to get weird, instead of following a trail we started to follow this small stream, which was ok for a while, there the stream was shallow so it was possible to walk on rocks without getting yr feet wet.
-later in the day the stream became deeper, and it was impossible to walk and stay dry.
-there were very few large trees left, it was pretty much all secondary or tertiary forest. this was not what we had asked for and no one told us we'd be walking through a stream the whole time. A leech punched a whole right through the "g" on my tattoo, arrived to camp with a sock full of blood.
-around four or five we arrived at our "camp site" which was actually some poor old farmer's house, in a beautiful valley 3 hours walk from the nearest village.
-we bathed in the stream and the guides built a nice fire, and disappeared into the old man's house to make dinner. we made various contraptions of bamboo in an attempt to hang our shoes and socks over the fire to dry, gave up on this plan when the bamboo pole for the T shaped rig i had made with the German's zipties snapped sending our socks plummeting into the fire
-we were to sleep in a small bamboo hut set on poles which was missing half of the roof. we hung out here and waited for dinner.
-dinner was really good, ate with the guides and the old man by candlelight, which was quite nice.
-played a strange and simple card game with one of the guides for a while.
-then bedded down on the floor of the hut. while we were falling asleep, or trying to, we noticed through the hole in the roof that the sky was flashing. Went outside to look, and saw that it was lightning. A storm was approaching. we moved our bags under a little bit of thatch remaining and covered them with a tarp that was laying around.
-the first gust of wind from the storm took off the tarp and another big chunk of thatch from the roof.
-started to get rained on, layed there for a while, until the guides came and insisted we move into the old man's house which had a solid roof. My new sleeping arrangement lacked a mosquito net, but at least had a roof. the Germans had their own net, which they set up. despite their net, they were plagued by "cockalakas" (cockroaches) all night, i either slept through or did not have any of these even though i was also on the floor and netless.
4/7/2011
-woke up super early to the crowing of roosters.
-while the guides prepared breakfast there was a brutal fight between two cows that threatened to take down the hut.
-the Germans only had one bottle of water left between the two of them, the guides insisted they had more, so they drank their bottle, this was not a good idea.
-the guides initially told us we had a three hour hike for the day, but before we started this turned into six hours.
-after hiking for about four hours, the Germans were starting to become seriously dehydrated and unhappy, I only had one bottle left myself, so was unwilling to share, the only other water was brackish looking boiled stream water. the germans drank some of this and immediately started to feel ill. so there was no water.
-when i asked the guide how much farther, at the three hour mark they said six hours, when pressed, admitted they had no clue. the whole time we had been climbing along the top of a ridge, with no trail and consistently up hill. Keep in mind also that this area was heavily bombed during the secret war and we were passing bomb craters, rule one of areas with a heavy concentration of UXO is that you stay on the established path. Also this forest was even more cleared of old trees then the previous day, we saw maybe one tree older then 10 years every hour.
-Also, the guides were supposed to know about the forest, but only showed us wild corriander, young bamboo, and painted out that the plants we were passing were in fact bamboo, over and over and over again.
-after maybe 5 hours we reached the summit of the ridge we had been trekking along. At this point it was another 3-4 hours to the village where a Tuk Tuk was waiting to take us back to Luang Nam Tha, no one was really sure how long.
-the germans had been with out water for maybe three hours now of serious uphill climbing. to make matters worse, it started to rain.
-At this point the german guy got really angry and insisted we head down, that they could not continue without water.
-After a while arguing with the guide they agreed to take us down. we went strait downhill off of the highest point through bamboo forest, this is where it got really dangerous because of the rain, we were on a 70 degree slope, and the only way down was basically to slide through mud grabbing onto bamboo to slow yr fall. my hands got very badly cut up, and the german girl, Mandy, was really struggling from both dehydration and the difficulty of sliding down hill at high speed. We took a break at a little bamboo hut, while the guides got their bearing and drank rain water.
-at this point i was bleeding and unhappy, the guides were saying that we had maybe a two hour hike to get to the road, and then we would have to walk down the road for another hour to get to the village where the tuk tuk was waiting. i insisted that instead they needed to get the tuk tuk to meet us on the road, or we would just hitch hike back. So one guide split off, and went to the village to get a tuk tuk, and we took a very slippery local trail down the river, the although we were all dehydrated and ready to be out the guide we were left with kept stopping to point out more bamboo plants, even though we were surrounded by them the whole time. where we caught a bamboo ferry to the waiting Tuk Tuk.
-The german guy had totally torn up the crotch area of his pants so by the time we left his underwear was hanging out which was quite funny. while we were on the tuk tuk back, he made the tuk tuk stop and jumped out, with all of his underwear hanging out and no shoes and ran into a local shop and came back with four bottles of water and two bottles of beer.
-when we got back to the tour office in town we spent the rest of the day there camping out waiting for the manager, who obviously never came, but we turned away nine other tourists who were trying to book tours.
-went to bed early worn out from the jungle adventure.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Mong Ngoi
4/1/2011
-Took a boat to Mong Ngoi, which is only accessable from the river, an hour north of Nong Khiaw the town has no electricty and appears to consist entirely of guest houses, shared a 30,000 kip bungalow with Sebastion so wound up only spending 15,000 per night.
-on the boatride, they made us stop and get off and walk for about twenty minutes while the boat went ahead with all of our stuff, because the river was too low and there were big rapids.
-not much to do, ate some food, sat around and shot the shit with various folks.
-Mong Ngoi was heavily bombed during the war, everywhere you see fences and houses made out of pieces of US bombs, its weird.
-chilled out, finished my bottle of Red Bear whiskey, and played cards before bed by candlelight.
4/2/2011
-ate some breakfast, on the way back, saw signs pointing to a cave, so we went up to check it out, wound up hiking to the top of a mountain, with great views of the river and town.
-on the way up saw a very small entrance to a cave, that appeared to be collapsed, continued hiking until we got to the top then figured the entrance we saw must be the cave. so we went in. Unfortunately i wasn't planning on going caving so didn't have a flashlight, only had really crappy headlamps they gave us at the entrance, at least we had these, because the cave was huge and pitch black, went back maybe 500 meters, we went all the way to the back, saw some big millipedes, and lots of awesome stalactites and stalagmites. very cool.
-went back to town bought some candles for when the power went out, as it inevitably did every night at 10 when the generators shut off.
-ate some indian food, watched a big party going on down the street, found out it was a funeral that had been going on for days.
-bact to the guest house for more cards by candlelight
4/3/2011
-woke up early, tried to catch a boat to Mong Kah, but i was the only one who wanted to go and they tried to make me charter at private boat for 1,000,000 kip, so wound up going back to Nong Khiew, there were so many people trying to go they wound up sending two boats, sebastian and i had to switch boats at the last minute.
-while we were on the way our boat developed a serious leak which started to fill the boat and flooded the engine they made us get off on a beach while they tried to repair the boat. after a couple false starts (the engine would not stay on) and a couple of other beach landings, they finally got it running, and went back to Nong Khiew at full tilt with one dude in back frantically bailing out the water which threatened the engine, even though the boat was just as full as the time they made us walk, they just powed through the rapids.
-arrived in Nong Khiaw a little later then expected, walked to the bus station to try and get transport to Udomxai, but by the time i arrived at the bus station the minivan headed that way was already packed to the gills. so wound up having to spend another night in Nong Khiew, found a nice private bungalow right on the river and spent the rest of the day chilling out by myself.
-Took a boat to Mong Ngoi, which is only accessable from the river, an hour north of Nong Khiaw the town has no electricty and appears to consist entirely of guest houses, shared a 30,000 kip bungalow with Sebastion so wound up only spending 15,000 per night.
-on the boatride, they made us stop and get off and walk for about twenty minutes while the boat went ahead with all of our stuff, because the river was too low and there were big rapids.
-not much to do, ate some food, sat around and shot the shit with various folks.
-Mong Ngoi was heavily bombed during the war, everywhere you see fences and houses made out of pieces of US bombs, its weird.
-chilled out, finished my bottle of Red Bear whiskey, and played cards before bed by candlelight.
4/2/2011
-ate some breakfast, on the way back, saw signs pointing to a cave, so we went up to check it out, wound up hiking to the top of a mountain, with great views of the river and town.
-went back to town bought some candles for when the power went out, as it inevitably did every night at 10 when the generators shut off.
-ate some indian food, watched a big party going on down the street, found out it was a funeral that had been going on for days.
-bact to the guest house for more cards by candlelight
4/3/2011
-woke up early, tried to catch a boat to Mong Kah, but i was the only one who wanted to go and they tried to make me charter at private boat for 1,000,000 kip, so wound up going back to Nong Khiew, there were so many people trying to go they wound up sending two boats, sebastian and i had to switch boats at the last minute.
-while we were on the way our boat developed a serious leak which started to fill the boat and flooded the engine they made us get off on a beach while they tried to repair the boat. after a couple false starts (the engine would not stay on) and a couple of other beach landings, they finally got it running, and went back to Nong Khiew at full tilt with one dude in back frantically bailing out the water which threatened the engine, even though the boat was just as full as the time they made us walk, they just powed through the rapids.
-arrived in Nong Khiaw a little later then expected, walked to the bus station to try and get transport to Udomxai, but by the time i arrived at the bus station the minivan headed that way was already packed to the gills. so wound up having to spend another night in Nong Khiew, found a nice private bungalow right on the river and spent the rest of the day chilling out by myself.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Nong Kheiw
3/30/2011
-Arrived in Nong Kheiw after 8 hours, on the boat landing was half of a US bomb.
-wandered around looking for a guesthouse, everything was really expensive, so wound up sharing a double room with Sebastion, the german kid i met on the boat, for 50,000 kp each it was actually super nice, some of the most comfortable beds i've had while travelling.
-ate some dinner and played cards til bedtime
3/31/2011
-slept in because the bed was so comfortable.
-ate some breakfast and set off walking towards the caves.
-The caves on Nong Kheiw were where the provincial gov't was stationed during the war, it was very cool to see how they lived for years, a local boy took us through one cave in particular that served as the treasury and was all switchback turns and gutsucking hallways.
-heard that there was a waterfall nearby, so we started to walk that way, walked through a nice village, were invited in by a bunch of locals drinking lao lao, but it was to early to get hamdog, which is what happens when you drink lao lao with the locals.
-found a really good restaurant for dinner, ate some grub and played cards til bedtime.
-Arrived in Nong Kheiw after 8 hours, on the boat landing was half of a US bomb.
-wandered around looking for a guesthouse, everything was really expensive, so wound up sharing a double room with Sebastion, the german kid i met on the boat, for 50,000 kp each it was actually super nice, some of the most comfortable beds i've had while travelling.
-ate some dinner and played cards til bedtime
3/31/2011
-slept in because the bed was so comfortable.
-ate some breakfast and set off walking towards the caves.
-heard that there was a waterfall nearby, so we started to walk that way, walked through a nice village, were invited in by a bunch of locals drinking lao lao, but it was to early to get hamdog, which is what happens when you drink lao lao with the locals.
-found a really good restaurant for dinner, ate some grub and played cards til bedtime.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
to nong Khiew
2/30/2011
-Got a boat ticket for 100,000 kip to go up to Nong Khiew, 7 hour ride, upriver from the Mekong to the Nam Ou River.
-Met a nice German kid and a retired Special Ed teacher from New York. Also on the boat were four Polish people who were glued to their cameras, every Lao fisherman and local unfortunate enough to be in the path of our boat was extensively photographed, it was sort of embarassing. rediculous to see four people all taking pictures of the same dude on a boat. admittedly the boat ride was beautiful, but better to see with yr eyes then through a lense. i have a few pictures though:
-Got a boat ticket for 100,000 kip to go up to Nong Khiew, 7 hour ride, upriver from the Mekong to the Nam Ou River.
-Met a nice German kid and a retired Special Ed teacher from New York. Also on the boat were four Polish people who were glued to their cameras, every Lao fisherman and local unfortunate enough to be in the path of our boat was extensively photographed, it was sort of embarassing. rediculous to see four people all taking pictures of the same dude on a boat. admittedly the boat ride was beautiful, but better to see with yr eyes then through a lense. i have a few pictures though:
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| the boat |
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| this is a power generator, a turbine placed in the river which pulls power from the current, a line runs from here to a nearby village |
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Last days in LP
2/26/2011
-spent most of the day relaxing, hanging out with Colin and Clay.
-Went to utopia, where they were having a no electricity earthday thing, which was fun, the whole place lit by candlelight, i was talking to the owner and he mentioned something about wanting to have a fire but his staff being too busy, so i volunteered, dragged half of a fifty gallon drum out onto the volleyball court, filled it with wood and gasoline, and set it ablaze, set woven mats around the fire, it was a good spot to chill. met some french folks, and we went down to the beach on the river to chill after Utopia closed.
2/27/2011
-another day chilling, trying to sort out plans for leaving, took a nice photo of one of the older Wats at sunset.
-another nice riverside dinner, then an early night a Utopia.
2/28/2011
-spent most of the day packing and getting organized to leave.
-figured out where i needed to be to buy boat tickets to Nong Khiaw
-Met colin and clay at this place we found with super cheap beer lao for afternoon snacks and drinks.
-the night at Utopia as usual.
2/29/2011
-woke up early ready to leave, but it was pouring rain, decided it was not a good idea to take a boat in the rain for 7 hours.
-spent most of the day lounging around the guest house because of the rain.
-met clay and colin at their guest house and played some 500.
-went to utopia but left early because i knew i had to wake up early again.
-spent most of the day relaxing, hanging out with Colin and Clay.
-Went to utopia, where they were having a no electricity earthday thing, which was fun, the whole place lit by candlelight, i was talking to the owner and he mentioned something about wanting to have a fire but his staff being too busy, so i volunteered, dragged half of a fifty gallon drum out onto the volleyball court, filled it with wood and gasoline, and set it ablaze, set woven mats around the fire, it was a good spot to chill. met some french folks, and we went down to the beach on the river to chill after Utopia closed.
2/27/2011
-another day chilling, trying to sort out plans for leaving, took a nice photo of one of the older Wats at sunset.
2/28/2011
-spent most of the day packing and getting organized to leave.
-figured out where i needed to be to buy boat tickets to Nong Khiaw
-Met colin and clay at this place we found with super cheap beer lao for afternoon snacks and drinks.
-the night at Utopia as usual.
2/29/2011
-woke up early ready to leave, but it was pouring rain, decided it was not a good idea to take a boat in the rain for 7 hours.
-spent most of the day lounging around the guest house because of the rain.
-met clay and colin at their guest house and played some 500.
-went to utopia but left early because i knew i had to wake up early again.
Monday, April 11, 2011
3/24-
3/24/2011
-spent the morning seeing the crew of the Hounde off on their journey (the boys from Vermont who built a boat to sail down the Mekong). they took with them 5 gallons of water, and 5 gallons of "True Manhood" whiskey, among other supplies, haven't heard any word on whether or not they made it, my guess is that they didn't make it past Vientiane, the boat is totally illegal (falongs aren't allowed to own property in Lao), also, they were having engine trouble almost immediately after setting off.
-the boys left around one, didn't do much the rest of the day, spent some time wandering around the city to new spots, and swam across the Nam Khong river, until dinner time.
-Met Clay and Colin for some Lao Barbeque, which is a really excellent thing, i wish i had a picture, but basically you have a table with a hole cut in it, and they bring out a big pot full of hot coals, put this in the center of the table, on top of this goes a tin half sphere, with holes cut in it to let the heat out. this is surrounded by a small round basin where you pour a stock out of a teapot. generous slices of pig far are used to grease the sphere bit, which you use to cook yr meat, and then the surrounding broth takes on the flavor of all of the meat and pig fat in addition to a whole medley of delicious veggies and glass noodles to make a delicious soup.
-then to Utopia...
3/25/2011
-spent the morning doing interweb stuff, and the day, chilling by and swimming in the river, another delicious riverside dinner.
-spent the morning seeing the crew of the Hounde off on their journey (the boys from Vermont who built a boat to sail down the Mekong). they took with them 5 gallons of water, and 5 gallons of "True Manhood" whiskey, among other supplies, haven't heard any word on whether or not they made it, my guess is that they didn't make it past Vientiane, the boat is totally illegal (falongs aren't allowed to own property in Lao), also, they were having engine trouble almost immediately after setting off.
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| putting the Lao flag on the boat |
-Met Clay and Colin for some Lao Barbeque, which is a really excellent thing, i wish i had a picture, but basically you have a table with a hole cut in it, and they bring out a big pot full of hot coals, put this in the center of the table, on top of this goes a tin half sphere, with holes cut in it to let the heat out. this is surrounded by a small round basin where you pour a stock out of a teapot. generous slices of pig far are used to grease the sphere bit, which you use to cook yr meat, and then the surrounding broth takes on the flavor of all of the meat and pig fat in addition to a whole medley of delicious veggies and glass noodles to make a delicious soup.
-then to Utopia...
3/25/2011
-spent the morning doing interweb stuff, and the day, chilling by and swimming in the river, another delicious riverside dinner.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
way behind...
didn't have the computer so no updates for a while, been a busy two weeks, hope i can remember most things.
2/23/2011
-woke up had a crepe, and met my friend to go to the waterfall, got a tasty pineapple shake and negotiated with the tuk tuk driver to go to the waterfall, wound up paying $5, which is a little much, but it was a long ride and the guy sat and waited for us the whole time we were at the falls.
-At the entry into the falls they have a bear rescue center, spent a while watching the bears.
-From there it was just a short walk to the waterfall, which has these beautiful blue pools underneath the main falls.
-There were a lot of people around, so the lower pools were crawling with falongs, to avoid this scene, we hiked up to the top of the falls and swam there.
-headed out to the front to buy some beer to drink before we caught the ride back, on the way back with our big beer Lao(s) we passed the british girls we shared the tuk tuk with, they were ready to go, but we were not, so they had to wait for us to be ready to get the ride back, but we drank quickly and were back before an hour had elapsed.
-sat and talked music for a while before going our separate ways.
-Ate some indian food for dinner, ran into colin briefly, but he was on a mission. spent the night hanging at Utopia until closing time as usual.
2/23/2011
-woke up had a crepe, and met my friend to go to the waterfall, got a tasty pineapple shake and negotiated with the tuk tuk driver to go to the waterfall, wound up paying $5, which is a little much, but it was a long ride and the guy sat and waited for us the whole time we were at the falls.
-At the entry into the falls they have a bear rescue center, spent a while watching the bears.
-Playful critters they are, they had all sorts of toys and bear hammocks set up. funny to see a big sun bear hanging in a hammock just like a person. they also had a strange and completely inaccurate portrayal of other bears from around the world set up. 
-From there it was just a short walk to the waterfall, which has these beautiful blue pools underneath the main falls.
-sat and talked music for a while before going our separate ways.
-Ate some indian food for dinner, ran into colin briefly, but he was on a mission. spent the night hanging at Utopia until closing time as usual.
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