Laos comes to an end....

After our exciting day in Phonsevah the posse headed down to Vang Vieng, which is the ultimate tourist town. (The degree of touristy was great since there was an internet cafe that could recover the 300 pictures I had erased off my camera the day prior). It was also great because we went tubing down the river. This was not your normal tie beers to the tube and take in the scenary kinda float...it was more like bars with ginormous rope swings and ziplines on the shore tubing. Somehow being with boys made me feel as though I had to participate in flinging myself into the river from heights I was terrified of...but once I tried it had to admit it was kinda of fun. And ofcourse the bars had BOCCE ball (Some poeple here think it is bols, but I still think its called Bocce) courts. Other than tubing, Rach and I spent a couple of days biking around, trying unsuccesfully to see some caves. We also spent a day climbing at the small crag outside of Vang Vieng. It is located right next to one of the bars by the river so we spent the day climbing to oldschool rap music (My personal favorite was MC Hammer)...gotta love the outdoors. We went out to a club with the climbing guides that our British friends went out with, a little bit of Kareoke (unfortunatly chrismas music was all they could offer in English) and a little bit of Laotian dancing makes for a good time always.

From there we made our way to Vientienne, the capital and realized there was not much there except a lot of contruction, so we caught a bus to Bangkok and have been here for a few days. Our British mates left us yesterday, so for the first time since we arrived in Asia, Rach and I are traveling alone.

The Secret War in Laos: During the Vietnam war the US dropped more bombs on Laos then on Germany and Japan combined during WWII, making it the most bombed country in the world. 2-3 tons of them were cluster bombs. The US denied dropping bombs at all until it became no longer deniable. Today scattered throughout Northern Laos an estimated 2-3 million bombies (small capsule bombs from cluster bombs) lye unexploded. Every year 200 people die in Laos when they stumble across an unexploded bomb. The US is not offering much aid to help the current situation (we have more important things to do, like drop more bombs on other countries) . We were told that during the Vietnam, US troops were brought to Laos and told they were in Vietnam. Some of the bombing is attributed to bad weather in Vietnam, meaning the bombs had to be dropped in Laos. Some to a US attack on the communist strong holds in the North of Laos and yet others to an attack on the Ho Chi Min trail. Whatever the reasons may be, the scars can still be seen in the area. Students learn songs in school about how not to play with bombs when they find them. Huge craters bruise the land, and one must always be careful where they step...or plant the crops they need for subsistence.

Myself, Rach, our new British friends (Des, Ben and Ali) jumped a bus from Luang Prabang to Ponsevah to check ot the Plain of Jars, a 2500 year old anthroplogical site. When we arrived in Ponsevah tons of guesthouse owners we at the bus station to greet us. We picked where we wanted to stay and much to our suprise an old school Jeep (which we later found out was an ex CIA Jeep) pulled in to pick us up and take us to our accomidation. This is when we met Mr. Kong, known by everyone in town, the only Laotion I've heard use the word "bollocks" (the Brits loved that). Back at the guesthouse we sat around the fire (a fire pit made out of a cluster bomb casing) and Mr Kong taught us a few things about the history of Laos. We decided that we wanted to spend the next day seeing the sights with Mr. Kong in the jeep. It took a bit of convincing, but in the end he agreed and we ended up with the best day one could ask for in Ponsevah. That night we watched an eye opening film about the Secret War in Laos, which made me a little uncomfortable to be an American in that area.
The next day we got up early and headed off in the Jeep to a small village that has used a lot of the bombs and other scrap metal in their buildings. They have also started making tools to sell in the capital out of the metal. They spoke a different dialect there, so the few Lao phrases we knew were worthless. It was a really beautiful place though and surely off the beaten path. After walking around a bit we were herded into a house and told to sit down and participate in a families celebration. Apparently one of the men in the family had been sick and was now better, and that calls for a celebration. So at 10 am we drank wine whisky, ate lots of grub, and were included in the good luck ceremonies. Every person recieved a plate with a piece of chicken (Rach got a foot, which she passed off to Des, who almost threw up before swallowing) , a 1,000 kip note (about 10 cents) and a white string. The $ was now lucky that you need to keep and not spend. The white string was to tie on someone's wrist to bring them good luck. So we each got lots of strings tied on our wrists, and the person tying muttered stuff in Loatian, which I am assuming/hoping was wishing us luck. Then we got to dig in, everyone eats out of the same bowl as a symbol of family. I certainly found the irony in the fact that we were eating off of spoons made out of the aluminum of shot down US fighter planes.
I think Mr Kong must have drank too much rice whiskey because he gave us the keys and trusted us behind the wheel. From the village we drove a couple kilometers and checked out some bomb craters and Mr. Kong directed our driver, Des, through a field where we got a close up view of a couple unexploed bombies...a little bit sketchy to say the least. We carried on and after a few weird sounds from the Jeep and a quick trip to the mechanic we made our way to the jars, which were cool, but not much is known about them. Mr. Kong must have been bored there, because he resorted to starting grass fires to entertain himself. Yes, that is for real, he would just periodically bend down and start a fire. Other than the pyromania and the jars I climbed a cool tree and thats about all there was to the Plain of Jars. What a fantastic day!!!!

Climbing at Crazy Horse in Chiang Mai

I love Laos....
I had the most amazing day ever yesterday! Rach and I rented bikes to ride out to a waterfall out of town. 4 months of not being on a bike is way too long for me. Based on past experiences with waterfalls in SE Asia, we were not expecting much and figured the 32K there journey would be better than the destination. We headed out of town through little villages littered with rice patties. We came across little boys who tried to kick us and then spit at us, and little girls who gave us high fives as we went by...go figure. When we arrived at the waterfalls we were charged 2,000 kip (20 cents) to park our bikes, we found that comical. We met some Laotian Americans in the parking lot and went up to the falls with them. We were pleasantly surprised by tier after tier of falls, and endless swimming holes. The water was the most incredible color blue. Our new friends told us a lot about the history of Laos, and explained how they fled to the US in the 70s when Laos was being bombed during teh Vietnam war. This was their first time back since then. It was a really intense experience, to share a hike with people being reunited with their country after 30 years.
When we got back to town we decided we deserved a treat after a 64K ride, so we went and got pumpkin pie...it was really amazing. We found a coffee shop here that has amazing baked goods and real coffee...it feels good after 4 months of a lot of rice.

Laos, never a country I thought about going to but certainly one of the better places I have been to. It is a good change from Thailand. It is way less touristy, and absolutly gorgeous. From the moment i arrived I knew I loved this place. We crossed over the border and headed down to the dock to buy a boat ticket for the next day. I was really excited to see that all the ticket office men had finished a day of work and were now playing Bocce ball. (Boce ball is huge here because Laos was colonized by the French) We sat and watched for awhile and then were challenged to a game with a beer on the line. Rach and I gave it a good effort, but ofcourse the killed us. We played bocce and hung out with them for a couple hours, it was really great. Right now I am in Luang Prabang which is on along the Mekong river. We took a two day boat trip to get here, it was pretty fun except for the really hard wooden benches for 8 hours straight. But as you can see I can sleep anywhere so even under the hard wooden benches.

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Sabiedee

So that is how you say hello is Laos, once again I am faced with a really hard tonal language, not good for a tone deaf person. I am going to backtrack a bit and tell you about my last weekend in Thailand, because it was mildly amusing. So Heather had heard about this awesome sunrise hike that is not in the guidebook, and so naturally Rach and I decided to scope it out. We took a bus to Chiang Rai and from there tried to figure out how to get to this lookout point called Puh Chi Fah. From what we could gather the only way to get to this place for sunrise is to rent a car and leave Chiang Rai at 2 in the morning, a little intimidating since they drive on the left side of the road. Plan A was to rent a car from the travel agency which had a budget rental car sign outside. Plan A was foiled when they had no more cars for us to rent. Walking down the street we saw plan B: A man with a small closet like shop renting cars off the street...bingo. Ok I will admit, it was a bit dodgy. Signing our contract was rather hilarious. So it is written in Thai with an English translation, which gets progressively worse throughout the document. We asked to see the insurance papers (like it would do any good since they would be in Thai as well) but the guy could not find them in the huge stack of other insurance papers. He assured us that we would not have to pay more than 8000 Baht in case of an accident. We pointed out that it did not say that on our contract, so he handed us a pen and told us to write it in. ( I am assuming that contract was not worth the paper it was written on) It was that easy, we had ourselves a huge 7 seat SUV. Driving was not as bad as I expected, I only drove on the wrong side once. The hardest part was shifting with the left hand. Also the turning signal and wipers are reversed so everytime I went to make turn my wipers went on. The "hike" turned out to be a 700 meter walk, but since Thai people don't walk, it is probably considered a hike. This was definitely a not a touristy place, we saw one other westerner in the masses of people. It was a really cool experience, and lots of people wanted to take pictures with us. After the sunrise we drove around a bit and checked out some of the small villages. Rach made a young child not just cry, but wail when she tried to play peekaboo with him. Scary blue eyes....
We made it back to Chiang Rai safely without having to test out the old insurance plan.

An Interesting Trip to the Wat

I had a very interesting and somewhat insightful day here in Thailand. Since our arrival in Chiang Mai everyone had been telling Rachel and I that we needed to visit Doi Sutep the Wat (temple) on the hill, one of the most sacred in Thailand. We have both been wanting to see more culture here in Thailand so we decided it would make a nice day trip. We were especially excited when we realized that the Wat is in a national park and there is hiking right in close proximity. We arrive at the place where you catch a Songtao (taxi -like truck) to this temple and of course the driver tried to rip us off even though he has a laminated copy of the fixed prices right in front of him. We argued with him and told him we knew how to do math...finally we goth the fixed price of 40 bhat up, and saw that the fixed price down was 30 (why it is cheaper to get down I do not know).

We arrived at the temple and had a very enjoyable walk around. I couldn't help but feel a little bit dis enlightened by the pure exploitation of Buddhism that seems to be taking place though. Don't get me wrong I am no expert on religion, but how they seem to have capitalized on Buddhism seems to be pretty contradictory to the whole basis of the faith. Around every corner in the Wat you can find a donation box and there is even a money tree. It all felt pretty eerie to me and I don't think it was from any spiritual power, but rather a burning feeling of hypocrisy. OK my religious rant is done, I will move on now....

So after the Wat we decided to go for a hike. So just for the record, people in Thailand don't walk....at all. Asking directions to walk somewhere here is a lost cause because they just look at you like you are nuts. Why would you walk there? "Take motor bike, very, very far". Finally we found our national park and were a little disturbed when we came across a giant pile of burning garbage, and some broken down abandoned trucks. Not quite like Glacier or Arches National Parks. The beginning of the hike felt very strange, the signing was really bad and it felt as if we were going to come across a hill tribe or something. After about 45 minutes of walking we knew all was well because we started seeing the pink confetti that they throw as a trial marker... Phew after we had walked for about 2 1/2 hours we decided we must have missed the waterfalls which were supposed to be a couple kilometers from the starting point. When walking back we realized that the one sign we had seen along the way had been ripped out of the ground pointing tourists in the wrong direction, not towards the waterfalls, but to a hill tribe. Our theory is that it was the doing of the hill tribe to get tourists to their village to buy handcrafts.

Our songtao drive home upset us, the driver ripped us off royally and there was nothing we could do about it. When he honked his horn on the top of the hill for good luck Rach and I turned to each other and shook our heads. He needs a lot more than good luck...karma is going to come and bite him in the ass....or so Buddhism tells us...

In Chiang Mai we had been staying with my friend Heather who is teaching English there. Her apartment building is a little bit dodgy...actually it is practically a brothel. So when we arrived home that night the head hancho woman Pim, who is quite scary was waiting for us in the stairwell, in her pajamas, with her pillow. She was not happy that we were trying to stay with Heather for free. We are assuming she usually gets a cut from visitors...sketchy. Anyways she grabbed a prostitute to translate and basically tried to kick us out, but we promised we would leave the next day and she cut us some slack. I went to bed that night a bit over Thailand. But the next day I went to a beautiful climbing area and had a fantastic day. I guess when you stay long enough in a place you start to see the parts you don't want to. I have a hard time with some of the hypocrisy here and find the sex trade and prostitution revolting, but every place has its pluses and minuses and I guess you have to take it all for what it's worth.

Pictures!!!!

As promised, here are some pictures of what I have been up to the last couple weeks. Our first day climbing we came across a dad and son combo (Nate and Dave) from Seattle, who we fell in love with immediately and shared a lovely Christmas curry dinner with. As you can see by the giant limestone cliffs this place is very conducive to climbing and we all decided we could easily be bums there for a year. Apart from climbing, kayaking or playing frisbee on the beach, we had a little deep water free solo adventure with Nate and Dave. We hired a boat and made the poor boatman drive us all over the place in search of good rock to climb on and then fall into the ocean. For the most part it turned out to be a lot of exploring and beer drinking and a little bit of climbing. When we finally did find a good spot it started pouring rain, such as life. So Ton Sai is really great and all, but it is kind of like being in a bubble and not really seeing the cultural parts of Thailand...so we decided to come up North to Chaing Mai for a little bit more culture. Yesterday we stumbled upon a really adorable funky cooking school, so today we went to class. Our teacher Mim was wonderful and it was just Rach, Aleta and I which mad it a lot of fun. The only downside is that I am so full right now, I can barely walk. We got to choose 5 dishes we wanted to make...so basically we ate 5 full meals within about 5 hours. Speaking of how full I am, I think I am going to go lie down and be really lazy...because that is about all I can do.

Hello from Chaing Mai!!
After more than 24 hours on a bus we have arrived safely to Chaing Mai in the Northern part of Thialand. We were greeted with the brisk cool air, which caught us off gaurd since we have been sweating like pigs for 2 months, and failed to bring more than 1 long sleeve shirt each. Tomorrow we are taking a Thai cooking class at a really mellow laid back homestay place. I will post some pictures soon from our last two weeks of bliss, climbing on the beach of Ton Sai. Rachel and I are seriously considering trying to make it back there before leaving the country. On our last day on Ton Sai we found out that the cute little restaurant that we ate at every morning is being run out by a big resort that is going up. It is so sad to see all of these little places turned into fancy resorts for tourists. We figure we should go back before it becomes to ritzy for the backpacking climber. My sister has plans to build a treehouse and never leave, so maybe I will always have a place to stay.....