Thursday, January 29, 2009

Tubing in the Vang Viang





WHEW. That was NOT what i expected. Got into Vang Viang from Louang Pabang after a horrific bus ride, nothing too serious just a LOT of waiting and ass numbing, and blaring lao pop music which would even annoy the deaf I think. Wandered to find a guest house, found it, and plopped onto the strawberry shortcake rose frilly bed spread and crashed. This place even had pink toilet paper.

The next day Juli wasn't feeling so well but i was eager to explore so I left her in the couch watching the friends marathon at the restaurant in front of our guest house to go tubing. Rented a tube, hopped in a songathew with a few others and got dropped off outside of town and conveniently by Mojito Bar, where you are encouraged to drink for the children! As all profits go to the school round back where they grow the mint. Drink for the children? All righty! It was a little weird at first being alone but I figured at worst I would drink a mojito and lazily drift down this nice quiet river in Laos and maybe I'd meet some people, but if not oh well. And as I'm drinking the mojito(at about noon) I hear some music, and in the distance I see a type of dock and a huge tower with a zip line and tons of people partying and dancing and drinking and people flying off the zip line almost landing on people floating by in tubes. And theres another dock bar across the bay, and another one further down, ohhh, this is why tubing is so infamous.

So I downed the mojito, plopped in the tube and floated on. Hadn't gotten far before a bamboo stick was thrown out and reeled me in to Whisky Bar, where there are free Whisky Shots given out by some fierce old Lao lady who doesn't say anything she just hands you a shot and then walks away. I ran into a couple of people who were on the Slow Boat a couple of Aussies and an Austrian guy. Who we'll now refer to as my nemesis because after a BeerLao, and some whiskey he dared me to do the zip line. THIS is why they give you free whiskey.

The tower is the worst part. And the waiting. You're just standing there, rethinking your not so bright decision to swing off a zip line super fast into the water. I did meet a cool couple from England while waiting, Kate aka Kylie Minogue, and Luke who was a total Laura's boyfriend Jake doppelganger. And I also met the Australian doppelganger for Adrienne too btw. Anyways, Austrian is on one side and I'm on the other of the handle and we're pushed off and I'm screaming bloody murder but it's soo fun and I totally bail and crash into the water. MAN IT WAS SO FUN! And of course I felt like a total badass afterwards and maybe had more whiskey.

We floated onwards to another bar and another and they all kinda blend together. Drunkity drunk drunk aussies (It also happened to be Australia Day) and people trippin from their happy shakes and kinda bad injuries. I saw one Oz guy with a massive cut in his leg because he had a shotglass in his pocket and forgot and sat down? or something... his leg was red with all the blood. Kinda like in the movie Sabrina? But I saw him 2 days later and he was fine, limping, but he had his dry bag on so no doubt he was going back for round two. Oh those Australians.

I met another couple from Ireland, Eve and John and we went with Kate and Luke to another bar. Pulled our tubes in and hiked up to find an enormous MUD PIT. And people mud wrestling. Everyone is covered in stinking chocolaty mud. Eve grabbed my arm and pulled me in, (John had already done the same to her) and I was slipping and sliding all around in this horrible, yet totally awesome mud. Which was fun for a bit and then we gollumed out of there. They have a nice hose and fire in case you want to wash off and warm up. Which I totally did until some drunk guy totally shoved me right in the mud again. Asshole. But I saw him the next day and he looked SOOO hungover and thrashed and maybe tripping so I guess he got his comeuppance.

Luckily you have to get the tubes back by 6pm to get your deposit. It's like a last call. After a glorious shower in my swimsuit(trying to clean the mud off, to no avail) I met up with my new amigos for some more BeerLao and dinner. And proceeded to get a second wind via a whiskey coke bucket and dance music. And we all had a nice little night finished off with street food banana chocolate pancake.
WHEW.

Needless to say I'm so out of shape(drinking wise) That I had to spend the entire next day laying on the couch at the restaurant in front of our guest house, eating various meals and watching about eh, nine hours of Friends.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Slow Boat-in Down the Mekong




"MAYBBBEEE YOU'RE GONNA BE THE ONE THAT SAAAAVEEEES MEEE, CAUSE AFTER ALLLLL, YOU'RE MY WONDERWAAAAAL"
This song will now forever be known as the drunk slow boat song. Because all the drunk young aussie and british boys would sing this every day on the boat, at MAX volume.

Laos, let's see. First we had to go there and back because we forgot to check out of Thailand. They don't make this hard for you, there's one hidden dark window with departures written above it and one guy working there who could care less what you do or don't do at the border of Thailand. Luckily its a one minute long boat to Laos, you just hope you don't fall face first into the mud with your heavy ass backpack as you get on and off these boats. For 35$ American, or $1,500 Baht and one photo you can get a Laos visa, and a whole page of passport stamps! what what!

Then another thousand baht will buy you a two day longboat ride down the Mekong River from Houyxai, Laos to Pakbeng, where you will disembark in the near darkness on a muddy slope and watch millions of skinny Laos boys force their way onto the boat and try to grab your bag and carry it up this massive hill for some moolah.

First you have to listen to some hustlah try to get you to take the minibus and 'upgrade' so you can have a.c. and watch a movie and blah. And they demanded all everyone's(about 60 or so peeps)passports and they were just sitting on this table in an enormous table screaming identity theft! because they said they had to check the passports with the police to get the real tickets and we would all get them back in 15 minutes. 'Because you are my guest' the hustlah said, when i argued this ridiculousness, 'And every ones passports are here, not to worry. I know your passport is your life' Um, yeah right. If you knew that then you wouldn't ask me to blindly allow my life to be piled up on the table of some stranger. Just cause everyone has handed over their shit doesn't make this trustworthy. So i argued and argued and finally asked where they were going with them for the tickets and could i just accompany(holding my own passport) these guys where they were going, show the 'police' my passport and get my ticket. Huffily he threw his arms up and agreed and my mind was finally at ease, but WHEW! It was a workout! Thank god I've been practicing arguing my whole life. But all's good now and I won't always wonder if my passport was copied or scanned or whatevered in that mysterious fifteen minutes.

But during the ass numbing ride(even with a 2$ butt cushion!) you will float along lazily and eat weird Lao crackers and watch gray volcanic looking rock formations emerge from the water and dense jungle and water buffalo grazing about the beaches. At one stop a dozen skinny little Lao girls hop on the boat with laundry baskets filled with BeerLao and Cola and Pringles and Oreos for sale. And yes, I have to admit, the first thing I'm not proud of doing in Laos, I bought beer from a child. But it was a delicious beer and if I'm buying it, then it's one less for her to drink? No way around it guilty as charged.

Pakbeng is a hilly little village and with such intense Lao whiskey it'll put the memory of the long ride far from your mind. And the power in the whole town goes out at around midnight so if you aren't ready for bed by then, you just do it anyways cause it's dark. Early rise for day two of the boat ride. And we watched the Australian kids drink from about 10 am to about 5 pm. Vodka sprite. EUGGGHH. Thus the singing. But for some reason could just block it out and roll with. I must be building up a drunk obnoxious tolerance or something. Oh and if you have to use the toilet on the boat, don't worry cause by midday it's only filled about 3 inches high with mystery liquid, and the squat stance on a rocking longboat is a bit tricky to master... Some drunk chick announced that she toppled over into all the piss water at the end of day two. Well, could be worse? Actually, could it?

Louang Pabeng couldn't come any sooner and looking for the guidebook guesthouse that no longer exists proved frivolous. So we just went with the next cheap one. About 9$ a night for a double w/hot water and hbo? alrighty. Loud as hell and no natural light, but all i needed was a mattress anywho.
Now after a midday in Louang Pabeng I am quite enjoying Laos, finally. It's riverside french colonial feel is welcoming, the food is mad delicious( we splurged and went to a french bistro last night) and i had the best FLAN since Argentina. And crispy warm french baguettes. And the temples are magnificent. I traipsed sweatily up this massive hill for a panorama of the city today not to be disappointed, and the Buddhas for every day of the week lounged glowing gold among the foliage as I walked down.
We might move on tomorrow cause time is of the essence and I might have to hang out in Vientiane for a bit waiting for my Vietnam visa to go through.
Whew! pix aren't posting so I'll try that later. Love to all!

Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai






"I will teach you to be a good Thai wife!" The enthusiastic little Thai cooking spitfire told us as we pounded out the green curry paste with a pestle and mortar. And i don't know about that, but I will be cooking some badass Thai food for myself as soon as I have a kitchen at my fingertips again. I learned to and created the following, phad thai, spring rolls, tom kha soup, green curry paste and green curry w/tofu, and mango w/sticky rice! All delicious, they totally did everything for you to make success inevitable but whatevah i had a great time. Also in Chaing Mai we traipsed around the Sunday night market and I ate some weird wafer tacos filled with what tasted like marshmallow paste, had a badass and not too painful Thai Massage, and then we were off to Chaing Rai.

Chaing Rai was another quirky mountain side town with an equally short visit. We got in after a pretty good bus ride on Green Bus, where we watched 'The Rocker' dubbed in Thai, luckily i had watched it on the plane in English so i just translated important info to Jules. We wandered around the town and visited this massive golden clock tower looming over the center of town, got some pineapple at the local market, and played with the cute ass puppies at our guesthouse.
Rooster mania made sleep not soo awesome and the next day we got up early and toured around and saw the Karen Hilltribe sub sect called Paduang who are recent refugees from Burma and as a part of their culture for some reason all the women have massive brass rings around their necks elongating them, some to 30cm. And that brass is HEAVY. So we bought some beautiful vibrant scarves made by the ladies and went to the Monkey caves, and huffed and puffed to this creepy cave and saw some monkeys eating ice cream. Then onto the Golden Triangle, formerly famous for its Opium trafficking, but now a massive tourist spot. A beach forms a triangle at the intersection of Thailand, Burma, and Laos. And there is also an enormous Dragon boat housing an even bigger golden Buddha statue flanked by large elephant protectors that was really cool. After this crazy day we had just enough time to watch Obama and everyone in D.C. freeze their asses of at the inauguration, pack our bags and crash before getting up hella early to catch 2 buses, one tuk tuk, and three longboats to get into Laos and rock the slowboat!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Ayutthaya, Thailand






Ayutthaya is a town filled with ruins from when it was the capital of Thailand. Much of it was sacked by the Burmese and the ruins are what's left. You can rent a bike and explore, which is exactly what we did. Enormous palaces and Wats and fallen temples and broken Buddhas, brick and dirt and remnants of a glory long gone are everywhere. I almost got attacked by a stray dog too in one deserted part of a ruin. So cuidado those dogs eh?
Elephant rides and markets and monks are everywhere in Ayutthaya. I even got chatted up by a Cambodian Monk whose Australian sister was visiting. Small world eh? And i got interviewed by about seven different groups of Thai teenage girls, filling out questionnaires about where I'm from and what I think of Thailand and what is my favorite Thai dessert? Do Thai people smile a lot? What do I think about Thai singing? etc.
So I'll let the pictures do the talking, my favorite was definitely the Buddha which had been trapped in a trees roots and they grew out around him. The former palace as well was massive and filled with gardenia trees that smelled sweetly. IT was unreal to be in a place with so much ancient history and to imagine what it might have looked like all bedazzled in it's height of glory. Filled with royalty and monks and beautiful golden statues everywhere.

Kanchanaburi, Thailand





Onwards! Out of Bangkok, thank god, the pollution was getting me convinced that I'd get lung cancer from tuk tuk-ing it another week. A two hour rickety bus ride to Kanchanaburi and then a bicycle taxi to the guest house. And let me just say this, he approached us. He saw the two hefty American girls and their even heftier rucksacks, but nonetheless he offered to take us to the Guest house, he threw our enormous and heavy packs on the back and we squeezed into this tiny seat, and calf master Thai Man biked our heavy asses all the way to our spot. It was horrifying, I never felt so bad in my whole life, but he was pretty ripped,and I dunno, when in Rome?
The guest house was nice, a quiet garden w/hammocks overlooking the river and the sunset, a nice little restaurant w/hella good pad see ew, and nearby bike rental, Internet, and massage spots.
So the next day we rented some bikes and rode all over the little town on these rickety bicycles, over to some famous bridge and down some random town roads, it was glorious! Oh how I love a bicycle ride!After our long day biking and busing and all we decided to get some more cheap massages.
A note to my girls at the Tude: OMG would you all flip if you knew the shit that was goin down in Thailand. After all the training I've heard and gone through about making spa guests feel comfortable and at home, and always discussing every little detail of every treatment, and glorious calming music and smells. HA. The sounds you hear can range from traffic and dog/cat cries to babies running down the halls, cows drinking out of troffs, massage therapists answering their cell phones, endless chatting(probably about you)in Thai, and on and on. You never know what's going on, massages are sometimes quite painful, you never know what is happening next. I had a facial and had some tattoo machine sounding metal object ran all over my face like a racecar, AND some vacuum as well(to suck up blemishes?), and bad smelling weird stuff, but this massage in Kanchanaburi takes the cake: Boobie massage. That's right, not just a feel up either, a full on boobie massage.UH. There are no more words.
But I have to say, none of this bothers me, it's a bit awkward at first, but it's so cheap i could care less!it's all quite hilarious when you get down to it, and at least Juli got a boobie massage too right?
Day Two in Kanchanaburi we ventured to the Erawan National Park waterfalls. But first we walked to the bus station and waited in the bus for it to leave for about an hour and a million it seemed like. And only had 3 or so hours till the park closed so we booked it a little bit. The park has seven tiers of waterfalls and we hiked and traipsed all around through there. Very Yelapa Berger :)... The water is this pure aquamarine and full of food apparently for the hundreds of fish in each pool. The trees roots delve into the waterfalls and the water gushes over tempting you to jump in, which we totally did. Coolish but refreshing after a bit of hiking. And after Juli got too close to one of the monkeys(not heeding the Caution:Fierce Monkey! signs) and they almost attacked her! They at least screeched and charged, and she kinda scuttled away and then they kept coming and she side hopped rapidly! It was pretty pretty funny! So we swam and hiked and biked and Kanchanaburi was a nice change from Bangkok, fo sho!

Bangkok, Thailand







Bangkok, Thailand. Crazy, loud, food smelling, polluted, friendly, hustlin', intense Bangkok. Corinna put it best, 'you'll learn to love and hate Bangkok'. Indeed I have. Juli and I arrived late in the evening and took a shuttle to KO Sahn Road and wandered through the chaotic touristy restaurant/guest house lined streets and stumbled into our guest house. By then it was about 5am Australia time, but neither of us could sleep well. Excited and nervous and hungry and jet lagged in reverse, it was god awful.
But the next morning we got some brekkie and some delicious fresh squeezed orange juice and wandered. We got picked up by a tuk tuk driver who took us on a bit of a ride, literally. Whizzing out of control and around motorbikes and bicycles and trucks and buses we flew. We went and saw an enormous golden Buddha and another Buddha, then he took us to a factory to try to get us to by hand made clothes. This might surprise many but I don't really have much need for a business suit, now or in my future, so I wouldn't be had. Juli however did desire one and had herself measured for a hand tailored business suit.(For Business Time I presume)
Then tuk tuk charlie threw us into yet another unknown sitch, a tourist agency where some guy for hours tried to book our entire se asia trip for us. We did enjoy his help in planning it out, although we wouldn't do it. Too expensive and not really my style to have every minute pre planned. We did get some free tea and water from the hustle though. Finally catching on we had him take us back to Koh Sahn Road, a little jaded but not thoroughly, mostly just hungry and tired.
We ate some absolutely delicious fried rice w/veggies and I drank two thai iced teas.(they are sooo good!) And then we went to get some Thai Massages for about 6$ each. We got our asses kicked! But it was much needed as my muscles from running and walking and carrying a massive pack were in much need of a pummeling. A nice first day in Thailand.
The next day we went to the MASSIVE weekend market on the outskirts of town and i bought tons of insanely cute stuff and spent hella baht. Waay over my budget, but I always go over the first week or so. I spent a total of, brace yourselves, $1,600 Baht that day at the market. Which is about $45 USD. I bought a swimsuit, two shirts, a dress, eight or so pairs of earrings, a scarf, bracelets, thai iced tea, spring rolls, and used a public thai toilet. Quite a crazy, hectic, but totally worth it day at the Market. Some of the coolest stuff there was all the layouts of food and pickled something or other and meat on a stick, and piles of strawberries and cups of tiny fried eggs, and stacks of condensed milk for thai iced teas, and piles of knockoff shoes and bags and beads galore!More delicious food and yet another massage finished off day two in Bangkok.
We also went and saw the Royal Palace while in the city, which is an amazing sight not to be missed. Massive golden Wats and temples and ancient art that wraps around the surrounding walls and lily ponds and gold, gold, gold! I don't know what they use, but they bedazzled the crap out of everything in sight and it was like multicolored disco ball gold everywhere you look, even on the ceiling!
Bangkok is a great, vibrant and polluted city, but i had a blast and was ready to move onward!
Love/Hate relationship w/Bangkok? Absolutely!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

This is the New Year









Well, it's all over Sydney. We had a good run though. Brought in 2009 with style under the Harbour Bridge, saw some Shakespeare at the Opera House, took some ferries, rode some trains and ate some brekkie. Saw some cool dinosaur fossils and wildlife photographs, had a picnic in the Botanical Gardens, wandered the Red Light District, saw some movies, stayed in a total shit hostel(cockroaches, cold water, dirty pee smelling carpet, and really crappy beds).
Walked around a lot, jogged around a lot, ate Spanish, Chinese, Thai, Australian, Mexican, and Japanese food.
Saw echidnas and albino peacocks and albino roos, went to the Blue Mountains and rode a crazy uphill train, went through the Sydney Olympic Park, ate some more brekkie, hung out at Manly Beach, ate some chips(fries) and some pistachio ice cream, and pondered my life.
Made the decision to save my sanity, health and friendship w/Juli by splitting up once we get to Thailand for the first month or so, and finally felt happy and free.
Overall there are some things I'll always love and remember about Australia.
"How you going?" and "No Worries"
The scare tactic anti drinking ads( they've got a serious issue w/that here)
Hilarious Aussie sarcasm and wit from bus drivers and tour guides
Scuba Diving in the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeling around Magnetic Island
Hiking in the heat with my family on Maggie
Bundaberg and Cola
The best WWOOFing ever at Cloudscape Vineyards(and the best food ever for that matter)
Riding the Overland Train from Adelaide to Melbourne
The Homeless World Cup
Opalized Dinosaur Fossils
Brekkie!and flat white's
Walking over the Harbour Bridge
Seeing a play at the Opera House
Really really good public transport
Markets, Markets, Markets
The Hilarious movie jack and I watched on the greyhound from Rockhampton to Townsville--- what is it called??
Are you guys from the looney bin?" "No,,, Noo, but how'd you like to try this(straight jacket) on?"
Christmas in the Tropics
Capricorn Caves at Solstice
Seeing Kangaroos in the wild running across the deep ochre Australian road
Petting Hella soft Koalas
New Year's Eve in Sydney
Swimming with all my clothes on and swimming in hella hot ocean water
Having my family visit me!

Well that's all folks, tonight I embark on a plane ride to Bangkok, Thailand and will traipse all over SE Asia for the next 2 months-- Alone! Wish me luck and if anyone wants to visit me... hit me up!