Southern Laos

Yesterday Jochem and I arrived in Kratie in northern Cambodia, so I feel that it's time to wrap up southern Laos. After a lazy start during the first 3 weeks of our world trip, we really got moving!

First, we flew from Luang Prabang to Pakse on Monday morning.


relief after having survived our flight in the teeny, tiny airplane

Then we booked a couple of day trips in the area. On Tuesday we visited the Bolaven Plateau. We and 3 fellow travelers had a great guide who spent all day with us teaching us about local life. We saw a tea plantation, a coffee plantation, 3 waterfalls, a local market, a local elementary school and a couple of villages. Although the trip was fascinating, it was also quite sad. People live in incredible poverty here. The environment is quite dirty with lots of trash and the constant rain and, hence, mud turns everything into a dirty mess. What I liked most about this trip were the few minutes that we were able to talk to some local women through our guide. They wanted to know how old we were, whether we were married, if men have to pay for the honor of marrying women, and whether we have such white skins because we have clean water to shower with. One young woman was breastfeeding her 6-month-old baby while smoking from what can only be described as a huge homemade bamboo bong.


a muddy Bolaven Plateau


a misty Bolaven Plateau

On Wednesday we took a boat to Champasak to see Laos' second UNESCO World Heritage site (after the city center of Luang Prabang): the Khmer-era ruins of Wat Phu Champasak. These ruins are situated a little outside of Champasak in a green valley. The Wat Phu itself is on a hill and from this hill you have a beautiful view over the valley and Champasak all the way to the Mekong river. The ruins are covered in green moss as if nature has reclaimed some territory. The Wat Phu is said to have been a blueprint for Angkor Wat, but what makes What Phu special is its intricate water network. It was a beautiful sight and I'm glad that we took the trouble to visit it. Another special thing about that day was the fact that we were both able to wear our jeans because it's been decidedly cooler around Pakse than it was in Luang Prabang.


rain, also, at Wat Phu Champasak


I loved this beautiful, 'organic', staircase at Wat Phu Champasak

On Thursday, then, we took a bus to Si Phan Don, also known as Four Thousand Islands. Si Phan Don is a collection of islands in the Mekong river in southern Laos. It is said to be one of the most beautiful places in Laos - red-earthed islands with green rice fields and surrounded by turquoise waters. I should've known that it was too good to be true, because this is the kind of weather that we experienced while there:



Now, a word on the rainy season. I'd like to think that I'm quite smart. I know that it's the rainy season and that the Mekong has been brown ever since I first saw it. But one always hopes that, for some inexplicable reason, just as one is arriving somewhere, the weather is suddenly beautiful. This belief is not completely fueled by naivité - we did have nothing but sunshine in Luang Prabang, after all, rainy season or not. But, alas, we had no such luck in Si Phan Don.

When we arrived on Thursday we heard from our proprietor at the River Garden Guesthouse that there had just been a flood and that we were the first tourists in days. We tried to walk downtown to find an internet café on the island that we were staying at, Don Det, but it took us hours to dredge through the mud. It was almost exactly the same situation as at the waterfalls of Tat Kuang Si, except that I wasn't in the mood. The worst part was walking back, in pitch darkness by now (no streetlights on idyllic islands), with a thunderstorm overhead. I was ready to leave the place and so we arranged to leave a day earlier than planned.

On Friday we rented a bike to explore Don Khon, another island connected to Don Det by bridge. There was no rain while we biked through green rice paddies to a deserted beach where we finally enjoyed a couple of sun-kissed moments: playing with some local children, bathing a water buffalo, and swimming in the Mekong river.


You can't tell from this picture, but I'm getting seriously burned here!


I offered one of these girls (who kept following me and staring and smiling at me) a couple of chips from our bag. She pressed her palms together at her chest, made a deep bow, and then quickly snatched the entire bag from my hands and ran away to her friends, with whom she shared the contents. It was magical!


This grateful water buffalo actually turned onto her other side, as if to say: "Now this side, please!" Naturally, I happily obliged. I can never keep myself away from animals, no matter what my mind and common sense say is best.


swimming with clothes on in the Mekong river

If I had to say anything final about Si Phan Don, it would be: Go, but go in the dry season. Going in the rainy season is like going to coastal Spain in the winter - empty, abandoned and quite depressing. The whole point of going to a place like this is to enjoy the weather and the natural surroundings - something that is very hard to do when it is almost always raining and there is nothing else to do but read at your guesthouse. All of Laos (heck! all of South East Asia!) is probably best appreciated in fine weather, but even when the weather is horrible, you can still see the potential that it has - you can still see what a beautiful country it is. Or maybe it just all depends on how many umbrellas and ponchos you're willing to drag along. All I can say is that I loved Laos and that I love South East Asia, but that it is quite hard to travel during the rainy season. I could do with some sandy beaches and blue seas by now!

And now we are in Cambodia. We arrived here yesterday by bus. Kratie is a small town on the Mekong river that offers delectable vegetarian noodles but not much else, it seems. The weather is sunny again, though (but perhaps I should mention that I think I hear a thunderstorm coming as we speak). We decided to make a stop here on our way to Siem Reap for 2 reasons: to see the endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins, also known as Mekong river dolphins, and to participate in the Mekong Discovery Trail.

We were unable to charter a boat on Don Khon in Si Phan Don to see Irrawaddy dolphins, so today we got up at 6 AM for the sixth day in a row to travel to Kampi, from where we took a beautiful boat ride over the Mekong river and saw, up close, Mekong river dolphins.


spotting Irrawaddy dolphins in Kampi

Tomorrow we want to take a ferry to the island of Koh Trong. There we want to hire bikes in order to bike 9 kilometers of the Mekong Discovery Trail. The trail actually encompasses 190 kilometers of walking and cycling trails linking Kratie with Stung Treng in northern Cambodia and with the Lao border, but such endeavors leave no room for noodle eating. 9 kilometers it is then.

And then on Tuesday we're off to our next stop: the temples of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap!

Jochem has been having some troubles uploading new pictures into our picture gallery, but keeps trying and seems determined to make it work, so keep checking out our pictures here!

Luang Prabang, Laos

[I tried to post this blog yesterday from Luang Prabang, but, like everything else in Laos, the internet was so incredibly slow that I finally gave up. Hence this blog is coming to you from Pakse instead.]

Our time in Luang Prabang has come to and end. We spent 6 days amidst the French villas and Buddhist temples of this UNESCO World Heritage town, but I must say that we didn't really 'do' a lot. We visited 1 museum. We saw 1 temple. We hiked hundreds of steps up Phu Si, a beautiful green hill in the middle of the peninsula that is Luang Prabang, to enjoy the view. We saw a waterfall and a couple of caves. Moreover, we enjoyed the amazing weather - no rain, blue skies, lots of sunshine and 30 degrees Celcius. Naturally, a lot of food and coffee was involved. Our hotel room (hot water! AC! a TV with HBO showing movies 24/7!) also made it easier to just stay in, especially considering the amazing Lao take-out place next door.


Royal Palace Museum


view over Luang Prabang from Phu Si


view over the Mekong river from Phu Si


Buddha's "stop arguing" posture (with myself, maybe?) @ Phu Si


monks' robes @ Wat Xieng Thong

While we stayed in town Tuesday through Friday, we took trips to the surrounding areas during the weekend.

On Saturday we made a trip to the waterfalls at Tat Kuang Si. Funny story: due to the rainy season we were supposed to turn left on the trail, but, never having been told this tale, we decided to head right. The result was a 2-hour long hike through ankle-deep mud. This just goes to show you how easily the monsoon can be forgotten after a couple of sunny days. I can just imagine the faces of the countless taxi drivers who drive us, dumb tourists, to these waterfalls every day, never knowing what hit them until one foot stands on a nest of ants while one hand desperately holds a tree for support only to find out that said tree is covered in another type, yet-to-be-identified, bug (that was a special moment). It is impossible to return from this trip without being completely covered in mud. Unprepared like your typical tourist, we wore flip-flops (because there are blue pools at the bottom of the waterfalls where you can swim, don't you know?!), that we quickly had to carry because we got stuck in the mud. Jochem was bitten by leeches 3 times (for some reason, I was spared from this particular feast). So there we are, covered in mud, backpack on back, flip-flops in hand, on all fours, trying not to fall face-first into the leech-infested mud. It was AWESOME!


Tat Kuang Si


Tat Kuang Si

On Sunday our taxi driver drove us to the Mekong river on a very long and bumpy road to a place where we could charter a longtail boat to bring us to the caves at Pak Ou. These caves house thousands of Buddha images and were really extraordinary, if a bit creepy. I enjoyed the views from our boat the most, though.


Pak Ou


Pak Ou

And now here we are in Pakse in southern Laos after a 2-hour flight with Lao Airlines in the world's smallest plane (not really, but small planes freak me out, no matter how many bright flowers are printed on the sides). Pakse itself is not a really nice city - it is clearly not as developed as Luang Prabang and even quite dirty, with trash all over the streets. It's cloudy and rainy here as well, which makes me miss Luang Prabang even more. We don't plan to stay here for long, but to only use it as a base for some trips to the coffee-growing region of the Bolaven Plateau and the Khmer-era ruins at Wat Phu Champasak. Hopefully we'll be able to go to Si Phan Don on Thursday then, but who knows how long we'll stay on those islands with this weather. But if it rains too much we can always leave early and head for our next stop: Cambodia!

I'm not sure when I'll be able/willing to write again, because it always takes a lot of time and effort and in Laos, especially, it can take hours. But know that I'm thinking of you here.

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

From Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang

We are in Laos! To be precise, we are in northern Laos in a city called Luang Prabang, which (as you can see) is a very nice place.

It took us 3 days to get here from Chiang Mai, but everything went according to plan. We took that bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, slept for 3 hours, and then took that longtail boat from Chiang Khong to Huay Xai. The border crossing was a little bit confusing and swarmed with foreigners who were also confused, but we received our visas easily enough. Huay Xai is one of those horribly depressing border towns and the heavy rains didn't help either. We had been hanging out with 3 American girls who wanted to take the bus to Vang Vieng (that great river town between Luang Prabang and capital city Vientiane where the main goal, I believe, is to ride a tube downstream while holding a beer in one hand and a joint in the other), and we were almost convinced to also take a bus, but eventually we stuck to our original idea and took the slow boat. This turned out to be a good idea, because it was a really nice way to travel - we were able to take it slow, enjoy our surroundings and meet lots of other travelers. The wind made it pleasantly cool on the boat and halfway we were able to stay in a REALLY nice hotel in Pak Beng where I almost cried when I saw the wooden bed frames, AC and immaculate bathroom with a toilet that can flush (not to be dramatic or anything).


traveling from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Huay Xai, Laos via longtail boat


about to board our slowboat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang


our view from the slowboat for 2 days






coming ashore for a night at Pak Beng, halfway between Huang Xai and Luang Prabang

We have only been in Luang Prabang for 1 day, but we adore it already. First of all, there hasn't been any rain - we are currently enjoying blue skies, sunshine and 30 degree Celcius weather. The Lao people are incredibly nice. Although the Tai people are also very nice, I think that they tend to be a little bit more formal, while the Lao are really easy to talk to (despite the fact that their English isn't as good). Moreover, the city is just so relaxed - there is hardly any traffic and the traffic that is here, moves slowly. Everything and everyone seems to move slowly. The city houses an interesting mixture of crumbling French mansions and shiny temples. There are a lot of orange-robed monks in the streets.

Plus: I have already found my new sanctuary in this city in the form of the Saffron Cafe. This cafe has a view over the Mekong river and has beautiful wooden furniture inside. The staff are incredibly helpful, filling my complimentary glass of water every 5 minutes, and smiling at us from the back. You can order all sorts of fresh dishes, such as the French toast with banana and mango that I had for breakfast this morning. It gets it coffee from hill tribe villagers whom the owner has personally helped to move from growing opium to growing coffee beans. In other words, it is a place with a heart. Just my kind of place.


view over the Mekong river from the Saffron Cafe


interior view of the Saffron Cafe

And because we like Laos so much, and just because we can, we decided not to hop to crazy Cambodia straight away, but to stay a little while longer. And so it came to be that during the heat of the day, we made our way to the Lao Airlines office and purchased 2 one-way tickets from Luang Prabang to Pakse, in southern Laos, so that can we spend a couple of days in Si Phan Don, also known as Four Thousand Islands.

I think that Laos and I will end up very happy together.

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Chiang Mai, Thailand

It's been a couple of busy days in Chiang Mai!


walking the daily walk to the Blue Diamond Cafe

On Thursday, Jochem and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary, and what better way to do this than with food? So, we signed up for a cooking class with the Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School. In the morning we were picked up by our driver, our teacher and 3 other couples (2 girls from the Netherlands, 1 couple from Australia and 2 boys from England). Our teacher was a young Thai woman who pretty much laughed at everything that was said and done - it was hilarious. First, they took us to a local market to teach us about traditional Thai ingredients. Then we were taken to their organic farm where we were shown how to cook jasmin and sticky rice. After that we received a tour of the farm and then it was time to start the cooking! In the morning I prepared yellow curry paste for my yellow curry, coconut milk soup and sweet and sour stir fry. Jochem chose different dishes to prepare so that we could taste each other's food. Our teacher made a papaya salad and off we went to eat it all. Afterwards I was stuffed, but I still had to make spring rolls and bananas in coconut milk. My favorites were definitely the coconut milk soup and the bananas in coconut milk - mmm... After the cooking class we spent some lovely hours at the Blue Diamond Cafe, sipping herbal tea and reading. We ate our leftovers in bed.


preparing vegetarian spring rolls


lunch with our cooking class

On Friday, we had arranged for something very special. We were again picked up at our guest house to spend a day at the Elephant Nature Park. This is an elephant sanctuary willed into existence by Sangduen 'Lek' Chailert to offer retired, injured and abused elephants a new home. Since these are domesticated elephants, they can't return to the wild, so Lek offers them a semi-wild home to be in. These elephants don't perform in shows and can't be ridden, although we did feed them and helped bathe them. It was important to me to see this place, because I admire people who stand up for animals despite huge obstacles. I always try to be a good tourist in this regard, so despite several opportunities to ride elephants, hug tigers and hold monkeys, we have withdrawn from these tourist attractions and, instead, opted to go here. If you ever decide to ride an elephant, I encourage you to think twice, because you may have no idea what that elephant has has to endure in order to ride you on its back. In Thailand this is called the 'crush,' which is a ceremony in which a young elephant is locked inside a cage too small to move in, and then deprived of water, food and sleep while being continually beaten and stabbed. This lasts for approximately 3 days, though longer with male elephants, who fight harder, with whom it can take up to 7 days. The whole idea is to crush the elephant's spirit with so much pain until it listens to human authority. So, I am definitely glad that I didn't opt for the elephant ride while I was in India last year, although I do feel bad about climbing on its back to bathe it, if only for 10 minutes. But at Lek's santuary, the elephants are living in peace and it's an amazing sight to see. Moreover, the park is situated beautifully - it's in a valley, surrounded by lush, green mountains. The buildings are all open and made with natural materials, which makes you feel like you're in nature all the time. Dogs and cats roam free everywhere. There is vegetarian food, and posters that say "Elephants Make Great Vegetarians" and yoga classes on the roof. We immediately fell in love with the place, and even seriously thought about staying for a week to do volunteer work, but eventually decided against it for various reasons. We did, however, vow to come back within 10 years to volunteer. We've only made a vow like this one once before, in 2007 when we first visited Cinque Terre in Italy, where we vowed to come back after 5 years. We ended up coming back a year later, so here's hoping, because I wrote in my journal in big, fat, capital letters: IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I HAVE SEEN IN SOUTH EAST ASIA THUS FAR!









On Saturday, we hired a scooter and drove to Doi Suthep. This is a hill just outside the city where the famous Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is located. The temple was beautiful of course, but it was especially nice to feel the wind in my hair, leave the heat of the city, and see some green up close and personal.


Wat Phra That Doi Suthep


on the steps leading up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep


enjoying the view over Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep

At night we went to the Night Bazaar where we bought a fake Calvin Klein watch for me. I never wear a watch because I hate them, but I no longer have my cell phone to tell time and I guess that Jochem got sick of me asking every 30 minutes what time it is.

Today it is Sunday and we are taking it easy. We'd like to get another massage because the first one was so good and I'm quite curious about this whole reflexology business. Other than that I just want to get myself into some AC, because it's been getting hotter and hotter here. It all started when the rain stopped. So far, so good. However, the humidity stayed. And now, on top of the humidty, we have a searing sun that hurts to the touch. My body feels like one of those extremely spicy curries that gets hotter and hotter over time. The fact that we don't have AC in our room, but just a fan, doesn't help matters much. I sure do miss the swimming pool at the Atlanta in Bangkok! My sensitive skin is protesting quite a bit, having always behaved like a newborn baby in need of constant care, but what can I do? I take showers twice a day and try not to lose it and usually this works out fine. But I sure am looking forward to spend some time on the beaches of southern Thailand. But first: LAOS!

We have booked a bus to Chiang Khong and we will be picked up at 8.30 PM tonight. We will arrive in Chiang Khong at around 2 AM, sleep in a guest house, have breakfast, and then try to make our way to Laos as soon as possible. We hope to catch a longtail boat to Huay Xai, in Laos, cross the border, and then catch a slow boat to take us to Luang Prabang over the Mekong River. After Luang Prabang we will probably just fly to Siem Reap in Cambodia, visit Angkor Wat, and make our way back to Bangkok over land. We might be stranded on a boat somewhere for several days, so please don't be alarmed - we'll get back in touch as soon as we have arrived in Luang Prabang.



If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

From Bangkok to Chiang Mai

A couple of things happened on our way to Chiang Mai.

During our last day in Bangkok, I FINALLY found a street stall that I knew for sure sold vegetarian fare (it's surprisingly difficult to identify ingredients on the street and a lot of meat and fish is usually involved). This man made beautiful savoury crepes with eggs - delicious (and no, I did not have that sausage that you see in the picture)!



In a truly EPIC moment, while waiting for our train, we had vegetarian curry on the floor besides our backpacks. I never felt more like a backpacker in my entire life!



Our train suffered a 5-hour delay. That's right - we were delayed for 5 hours. Luckily, when we finally arrived in Chiang Mai, I had time to recuperate with a cup of coffee while Jochem managed to get us a room at our #1 pick for 5 euros a night.



I already found a favorite spot in Chiang Mai. When we first arrived, we immediately liked the vibe of this city, but were quickly disappointed by the backpacker masses and all who cater to them (the fact that we ourselves are, indeed, backpackers apparently doesn't ease this pain). Since we are usually staying at the accommodation variety that has bare light bulbs and a shower over the toilet (seriously, WHY is that?!), it's important to have a sanctuary of some kind. I found it in the totally cliche, yet surprisingly charming, Blue Diamand Cafe, which has vegetarian food, a tranquil garden, and lots of hippies around. I love it.



Plus: it was here that I discovered turmeric tea. Not only is this delicious, apparently it is good for your skin. My skin needs something good happening to it, what with all the humidity here in South East Asia during monsoon season. Myself and everything I own is in a constant state of dampness and our new room doesn't have AC but a fan instead. I'm willing to try anything at this point.



Chiang Mai is scattered with temples, so we visited a few today.



We also got to our senses and bought a pair of umbrellas. We don't like to get wet, but ponchos are just so uncool, so umbrellas it is then.



After seeing this last of 4 temples, we took our tired selves to a salon for a 1-hour foot massage. Aaahhh...



And one last little note: we now have a toilet that doesn't flush. We need to use water from a bucket to splash away our business. I think Michiel and Marije may have told us about this at some point, but still, it was totally shocking.

Let's see what else Chiang Mai has to offer...

Jochem just posted some more pictures of Bangkok and of our train ride to Chiang Mai, so if you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Bangkok, Thailand

Siam Square

I'm back with another blog from Bangkok. It's now Sunday night and we've been in Bangkok since Tuesday afternoon. I suppose that this is a long time to be in one city, but I always envisioned it to be quite nice to start this world trip slowly, and it turns out that I was right. However, we have not done as much sight seeing as you might suspect. We've been far too busy enjoying the wonderul time capsule that is our hotel:


entrance


lobby


hotel cat


proof of Elizabeth Gilbert's presence (EEK!)

And relaxing by the pool:


pool


hotel dog

And eating:


having vegetarian pad thai on Khao San Road, Banglamphu

But don't be fooled - we have explored a LOT of this city: by taxi, sky train, metro, boat, tuk-tuk and on foot. I must admit that I was a little bit intimidated by Bangkok at first, but this quickly passed. Although this is a very big city that is, at times, overwhelming, it is easily navigable. The Thai are nice people who do not bother you very much and who are adoringly sweet to their pets and to animals in general. I also find the city to be surprisingly clean, but perhaps this is because I compare it to southern India. It is very hot in Bangkok, however, and very humid at that. September is the wettest month of the year so we have rains every single day. It was particularly bad on Thursday (more on that later) and there have been several floods in the country this summer. But not to worry - there is no danger where we are staying or where we are going.

We began exploring on Wednesday by taking the sky train to Siam Square where we quickly made our way to the Mahboonkrong (MBK) Food Center to visit a famous vegetarian food stall that had some very spicy curry (thank GOD for the coconut drink and dessert).

On Thursday we took a sky train, a metro and a boat to the Banglamphu neighborhood because I insisted on seeing the famous backpacker ghetto called Khao San Road. Here we scored some nice food and a couple of books for on the road, but we were done quite quickly and, I must say, I'm glad not to be staying there. Then the worst rain since we've been here started to pour down and, after waiting for a little while, we started to look for a quick boat taxi in vain until we finally found an empty tuk-tuk to take us back to the metro. After another metro and sky train ride and a little walk, we were finally home - drenched.

Because of all this drama we were completely exhausted and did nothing on Friday except hang out at the tropical garden and pool.

On Saturday we felt that it was time to do some serious sight seeing, so we made our way to Ko Ratanakosin. Here we visited Wat Phra Kaew (also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and the Grand Palace. We also made a trip to Wat Pho, which houses a 46 meters long, 15 meters high, reclining Buddha. It was absolutely breathtaking, all of it.

Today we only made one little trip to Wat Traimit to see its 3 meters tall, 5,5 tonne, solid-gold Buddha - very impressive indeed. Since we were tired and it started raining yet again, we quickly came back to the Atlanta.


Ko Ratanakosin


reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, Ko Ratanakosin

And here we are. This is our last night at the Atlanta and in Bangkok. Tomorrow we plan to visit Jim Thompson's House and the Erawan Shrine, because these sights are close to the neighborhood that we are staying in: Sukhumvit. Then we're going to take a taxi to take us to Hualamphong Train Station because at 7.35 PM our train to Chiang Mai leaves! I'm very excited to visit this supposedly great city in northern Thailand - we booked a second class sleeper train and I've ALWAYS wanted to travel on a sleeper train. I'm also scared, though, because for our arrival there we have booked... nothing. Of course I know that this is part of the fun, but still, it's scary. I plan to take Jochem' mother's advice, however, who said that one person should stay with the backpacks at a cafe while the other looks for accommodation - I fully intend to be the one staying at the cafe while Jochem plays out his strengths and finds us a room! We'll see how it all turns out. Chiang Mai, here we come!


in the rain (again!) at Wat Traimit, near Hualamphong Train Station

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip (and some clips of me NOT jumping off the teeny, tiny, little brick wall at the swimming pool), check out our picture gallery here!