Provincial Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is an old town that looks to me like somewhere in provincial Europe somehow; some areas of Laos were settled by the French and cobbled streets and narrow alleyways litter the old section of the city. Buildings are painted white with french style green shutters. Large wooden guesthouses are scattered around; sturdy, aggressive, grand buildings. Two rivers; the Nam Khan and the Mekong run alongside the old city creating a picturesque and somewhat secluded peninsula. In the late afternoon sun, my friends and I take a walk up Phu Si; a natural mount which is topped by That Chomsi; a small temple and a small cave shrine. We wander around the ancient structures and remain high on the mount to watch the large red globe of the sun disappear behind the mountains.
We spend a morning of our stay here visiting Tham Ting; two cave shrines 25 kilometres up the river from Luang Prabang. It's a small long boat which transports us there with comically tiny wooden chairs for seats that takes two hours to chug its way upstream on the stunningly beautiful Mekong. This combined with the horror that is a mini-van ride from the north explains why everyone is taking the slow boat to Luang Prabang! We stop at a whiskey village on the way where locals are selling bottles of liquor with snakes and scorpions and all sorts inside them. Taste? No thank you. At Tham Ting we find the first cave filled with approximately 2,500 various sized Buddha statues (no i didn't count, that figure came from an info board) that are lined up like a tiny army, some perched in peculiar places, most covered in a thick layer of dust. The second cave goes back much further and houses a couple of large Buddha images in it's darkest reaches. We re-board our shrunken 'Alice in Wonderland' vessel for the one hour trip back downstream. The boat ride along the mighty Mekong is the highlight of this outing.

Luang Nam Tha; A Walk In The Jungle

From northern Thailand I travel to Laos, crossing the border at Huay Xai I make my way to Luang Nam Tha. It's a small dusty town in the north of Laos and it's main draw is the nearby national protected area of Nam Ha; a vast jungle, home to clouded leopard and tiger. Nam Ha is what I've come for and so I set out on a two day trekking and kayaking tour. We begin in a village on the outskirts of the NPA where farmers are sharpening their machetes and naked children are swimming in the river. All the villagers work on the land and there are lots of rubber tree plantations in the surrounding area just outside the safe area of Nam Ha. We trek through the dense jungle and wonder at the presence of great beasts under the very same vast canopy as us. Of course we are to close to the outskirts and too noisy to see any of the inhabiting creatures. It's a tough challenging trek, mostly uphill and steep. We hike for several hours like this, stopping periodically to drink, catch our breath and wipe the sweat from our eyes. After what seems like an eternity we finally reach the top of the mountain, yay! After a lunch spread on banana leaves we continue walking for several more hours thankfully with a bit more downhill, until we return to the village where a refreshing swim in the river delights us almost as much as the children. We spend the night in a Lantern village where pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs roam freely around and very happy and dirty children run around squealing excitably. A man butchers a dog by the river, presumably for his dinner and people in the village are feeding pigs and tending fires. We stay with the village's 'head' family in a large bamboo house where they feed us copious amounts of delicious food. The second day of the tour is for kayaking and after breakfast we leave the little village on inflatable vessels, paddling down the river. As it's well into the dry season the river is very shallow and quite difficult to navigate. Many areas are too shallow to pass and invisible rocks spatter the areas that aren't so it's a tricky but more interesting ride as three of the kayaks manage to bail one passenger at various points including my friend Julia who is thrown from her seat as she crashes into kiwi and I who are stuck on a rock and rather inconveniently blocking the path! After a few rapids and a splash of white water we finally arrive at the finish point completing a tiring but very satisfying tour glimpsing the beauty of Nam Ha national protected area.

Temples and Cooking in Chiang Mai

I get the mini van back to Chiang Mai from Pai and we wind our way back down the long road. I had reserved the best seat; in the front, next to the door, but as we pick up an old Thai lady I am obligated to offer her my seat and so end up on the hard raised platform, which is apparently a seat, in between her and the driver. So I end up with the worst seat in the van and spend the whole trip trying not to fall from my seat into the lady or the driver round all the millions of bends!! Finally in Chiang Mai I songthaew it to my guest house; Mojito Garden, where my host Ping Pong has me looking at his tour brochures before he's even checked me into my room. I know they want the commission but really!?
In the evening I meet a lovely girl from Hong Kong; Yungmie and I go with her and an American chap; Jason for dinner at a street hawker and then to some bars for drinks, reggae and a chinwag.
The following morning Jason and I along with his friend Anthony grab a Songthaew and head up the mountain to the heights of Doi Suthep where a large temple perches overlooking the valley and city of Chiang Mai below. As it happens today is one of those days when the air is filled with fog and the sky with clouds. From the viewpoint at the temple an ocean of white fluff whispers about in front of us, showing only a hazy glimpse of the valley below.
Regardless of this the temple itself is stunning. Full of gold, intricate decoration and a huge golden chedi in the centre. I get a water blessing from two monks, plus a lucky charm bracelet and my stick shaking turns up a lucky forecast. Hurrah! Super good luck for me today.
We grab another Songthaew further up the mountain to a Hmong village. It's a sweet little village and all the villagers wear traditional robes but mostly what we see is a tourist souvenir market. They only want us there to spend money. We wander into some beautiful gardens and Anthony has a shot at using a crossbow which a Hmong woman is firing with impressive accuracy. Anthony misses all three shots.
My third day in Chiang Mai I arrange to do a cookery course, which Ping Pong was more than eager to book for me! I am picked up in the morning and we are taken as a group to a local food market where our guide and teacher properly introduces herself as Embie. She is a lovely lady who makes almost inappropriate jokes, implies a lot of sexual connotations about 'big' things and 'pounding it hard' and laughs hysterically at herself. She's infectious. At the market Embie gives us a run down on lots of ingredients used in Thai cooking including showing us the proper consistency of curry paste; like cow dung and how fresh coconut milk is made. We then wander around for 10 minutes absorbing the markets curiosities; pigs heads, crickets and cockroaches, all kinds of fish, live and dead.
It's wonderful! From here we ride out into the countryside to a little farm. Embie shows us some of the herbs and vegetables in the garden that we'll use in cooking before we get started. First we make a curry paste: I choose green, and everyone laughs nervously as Embie wails 'pound it hard, harder, harder' as we pummel our paste in a pestle and mortar. It's so funny. Next comes a soup of Tom Yam which we then take a break to eat; delicious and so simple, before returning to turn our paste into curry and fry up a chicken and cashew nut dish. We then sit down to eat our lunch; our curry and stir fry with boiled and sticky rice along with a papaya salad which Embie whips up. The food is sooo good . . . and I cooked it! haha! After lunch we learn how to make Pad Thai and a desert of Mango and sticky rice. I eat desert but save lots to munch in the evening as I'm so full! It's a brilliant day which I thoroughly enjoy and Embie definitely makes it memorable.

Trekking in the Mountains of Chiang Mai

Trek Trek Trek! Ping Pong has kindly booked me on a two day, one night trek to the north of Chiang Mai. After confirming three times 9.30 is the correct collection time, a songthaew turns up just before 9 to collect me. idiot. I finish my brekky and Ping pong has to drop me at the office instead.
We drive out into the countryside stopping at a market briefly for supplies. First activity is the longneck village. The longnecks are one of the local hill tribes who wear rings around their necks to stretch them. I'm the only one of our tour group who has a package to see them so I go alone with our guide Cha. We climb some steps to the 'village' where actually people from several different tribes live. They all wear traditional garments and stand outside their homes selling handmade purses, scarves, bookmarks and souvenirs. In reality this is not a village but another tourist souvenir market where hill tribe villagers have congregated somewhere easily accessible to tour groups. I am presently the only member of any such tour group here and am therefore feeling terribly awkward, especially taking photographs and feel very pressurized into buying things from them. For the first time I wish I wasn't the only tourist somewhere!! Even though technically the price for coming here was an additional 300 baht, of course this is not what I actually paid and when the others remark later how they're glad I paid and not them I chose to neglect to mention that I actually paid hundreds less than them! work on your haggling guys. From the disappointing 'village' we go to somewhere which is supposed to be another hill tribe village and it is a village of sorts but not a hill tribe; it actually appears to be a relation or friend of Cha's home where we have our Pad Thai. It's a scenic spot nonetheless. We walk from here 10 minutes to the elephant camp where take an hour (ish) long ride on an elephant. There's two people on the seat and one can sit on the neck so we switch round and all get a turn. Our elephant is called Sawasdee (hello) and sitting on the neck is really much more difficult than it looks, especially when the mahout is sitting right in front of you on the elephant's head! As his huge legs swing back and forward his shoulder blades sway an alarming amount causing my buttocks to slip considerably from side to side and am frequently almost falling off entirely! Our poor little Sawasdee doesn't seem all that keen on marching us around and stops to make whining trumpet noises until the mahout cajoles him on with shouting and a jab of his bull hook, owww. It's an experience anyway and I love the elephants.
We take a short drive from there to begin our trek across the mountain which is supposedly 3 to 4 hours long but takes us 1 hour 50 mins and we're not running, just trying to keep up with Cha. It's a pretty strenuous walk up and down hill so we're actually relieved when it's over. The scenery is nice through the forest filled with bamboo and views across some farmland. We reach our camp around 5 pm. This is another 'village', which is one Thai guy in a wooden house and some more traditional bamboo housing for us to stay in. I have to say it's not what sprung to mind when they said homestay in a hill tribe village but it is nice; there's lots of pigs and chickens roaming around which actually makes us a little concerned about the safety of our dinner! Cha takes us to a waterfall a few minutes away where we swim in it's refreshing and freezing waters for a short time before heading back to camp for the evening. We eat green curry and then sit around the camp fire under under the stars listening to Michelle's awesome tales of Chitty the car. She's a Canadian living in NZ and traveling the world extensively. She works as a bit of a film maker and I cant wait to watch her feature of Chitty online after hearing her tale. It's a lovely evening in the Thai forest regardless of the lack of a 'village'.
The following morning we rise around 8.30 after inevitably having been disturbed by the cockerel since about 4 am and have a slow breakfast of toast, eggs and fruit. Our single host guy has magically transformed into 3 guys, almost enough to qualify for a village. After brekky we walk to an actual village where a few people actually live! hurrah! There's not much there but some pigs and chickens but I suppose that's because it's not a tourist attraction. From here we walk to cave where only a couple of us dares venture inside to seek out bats and spiders in its darkness. Then it's more trekking through beautiful farmland, across the mountain and eventually to a house where we have lunch. After filling our hungry tums we drive to a river where we do some white water rafting. The white water section isn't very long but it's bloody exciting and then we paddle gently along the calm river past majestic elephants giving rides through the water. Rafting is the last activity and so with mixed emotions about the tour we head for home, Chiang Mai. On returning I find that Ping Pong doesn't have space for me at Mojito Garden anymore, oh yeah now I've done my tours I think, but actually he does give me a ride and get me a bed at the affiliated Mojito House which turns out to be more to my liking anyway!

The Wonderful World of Pai

A very windy road leads through the mountains from Chiang Mai to Pai, and the minivan speeds rounds every one of the 762 bends. On arrival I trek out to Spicy Pai backpackers, it's just out of town and set in a rice field with a beautiful panoramic view of the mountains. The buildings themselves are constructed of bamboo, woven palm and leaves!wow it's gorgeous!
The days in Pai are slow and lazy; the hammocks at Spicy don't help! On my second afternoon I go with some guys I met at the hostel;
Liam, David and Liam to a waterfall. We ride on motorbikes through the Pai countryside to a pretty little fall with pools you can swim in but now it's in the shade of the mountain and looks freezing so I don't jump in! Pai is a small town set in a valley below rolling hills. Cute little villages perch on the hillside while their residents tend cows and crops. In the evening I wander through Pai's walking street where a nightly market full of wonderful things takes place. There's trinkets and souvenirs galore, retro indie images
of Pai splatter the stalls on badges, stickers, keyrings and allsorts. there's also food stalls with delightful treats.I get 2 delicious curries with rice; green chicken and a pumpkin and tofu! Yum! My third day in Pai calls for some more sightseeing and I hop on the back of Grant's scooter and we set off into the countryside. Our tour begins with a bridge built in world war two by forced laborers, we wander across it as a farmer is leading his cattle to the river below. From here we go to Pai 'canyon' as my '' would suggest it's not really a
canyon but there's a lovely view across the valley. After stopping at a funky place with hanging chairs the next stop on the tour is a Chinese village. I'm sure there are chinese people living here somewhere but all we see is a tourist attraction. There is an awesome manual ferris wheel thing. Some local boys push me round on it and I giggle like a little girl it's great! We head back to town for some lunch and get a tasty local noodle dish in curry sauce called khao soi. There's a three day Reggae festival in town while I'm here which I'd heard is pretty good. Turns out to be overrated; the first day is a big disappointment.
The third day isn't much better even though job 2 do is playing, there's a lack of atmosphere from the depleted crowd.