Luang Prabang

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Luang Prabang

I'm feeling so much better today, still have a bit of a caugh and a stuffy nose, but no more fever, and I've slept like a baby the past two nights, which was a huge reliefe. Laos is incredible so far. Yesterday went to a waterfall with Smiley from the boat and his girlfriend Bea, along with four others that we split that cab tab with. One of the great things about backpacking around is that you constantly run into familiar faces, it's so fun to run into someone you thought youd likely never see again, a couple weeks later, in a different country...and so it goes. The water falls were incredible, the water was an aqua blue, with just enough silt/minerals caught up in it to give it a foggy look, hard to explain but just goreous, set in a bamboo jungle the water ran over these limestone deposite terraces and into big pools, I could just imagime tigers and the likes stopping by for a drink. The only tiger we saw was a rescued one, but what a creature that was. You could go for a swim in the larger pools, they even had a good rope swing at one. Ran into many familiare faces there, a few from Pai, another ten or so from the slow boat. I was going to leave tomarrow for the plain of jars with a group from the boat, but want to go north first and actually get around to doing a trek, so I'm going to make that happen. Today I felt like wandering around Laung Prabang and taking some photos but cloud cover was too bright and fouled up most the shots. After eating breakfast I walked outside and saw a lady and an olderguy negotiating with a tuk tuk driver over the price of a ride. I wanted to go to the other waterfall in the area, but these two were headed for a cave. I decided to join along for 5 dollars or so and am glad I did. The caves were fully of little/medium/large buddahs just sitting here there and everywhere. This two individuals I ended up going with were some real charicters. The women was a 28 year old canadian princess of sorts (and I mean that largley in terms of attitude), and the old guy was a bit of a hippie but easy going a great for conversation. It was one of the better random experiences I've had over here as far as odd-ball group dynamics creating a great time. She was in a rush to get to the caves and get back, she had a bus to catch at a certain time, the old guy didn't believe in time and showed no concern and I tended to follow suit finding her distress subtely amussing. After worrying about for a bit she finally accpeted the fact that she was going to miss her bus, and have to wait till saturday to leave.

The old hippie was telling her greater powers were at hand, and we were all enjoying each others company. We had a good visit to the caves, and all planed on meeting up for a few drinks and a dinner later on, but when we got back the bus was waiting for her... I think we were all dissapointed a bit...Hopefully tomarrow I'll do a waterfall, and hike up the Wat (temple) on the hill in the center of town for sunset and make my way north the next day...

Living Large in Laos

I think this is a big rice barge but your guess is as good as mine


My buddy from Isreal on the boat, I'll never remember his name, it's very Hebrew

This little guy was incredibly curious about my headphones so I let him at check them out for a while...

Thats a fistfull of Kip, mostly 20,000kip notes... About $2 each

Hello from Laos! Still internet Cafes everywhere..The bus ride from Pai to Chiang Kahn was rediculous. We were supposed to arive around 6:00am for some breakfast before crossing into Laos, my guess is that the bus driver had a deal with the guesthouse where we were supposed to eat breakfast because we arrived around 3:30am, so everyone needs a room for a couple hours. Besides feeling worked over a little it was no big deal to pay for the room. The bad part was the bus ride itself, there was absolutley NO WAY to sleep on that bus, so for 5 hours or so we were bouncing up and down, peeling around corners at mach 10. Our driver was driving like it was a one lane road, and he was on some sort of time trial. Nobody slept. Well the group survived, and made it into Laos. Soon after arriving in Laos some 100 people boarded the slow boat for a two day trip down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. The boat ride was great, met tones of people, even found a way to escape the crowd and crawl around to the bow where I soaked up some sun by myself for a while before being joined by Smiley, at least I think that was his name. We stopped at a little town "Pakbenge" for the night and walked into the middle of the last day of the festival I wrote about earlier, except this is rural Laos, and these people were drunk and armed with all sorts of firecrackers. It was pretty bizzare really, the boat pulls in and theres a big crowd of locals on the shore/hillside throwing these firecrackers amongst themselves, laughing, having a good time, but these firecrackers were loud, and fairly large, no one wanted to be first to get off the boat into the crossfire, but we did, and made a dash for it. Pretty exciting really. Later that night, after dinner I went for a walk with a couple of Irish girls and it became a dash, a run. I can only imagine since the locals seemed to enjoy throwing these little bombs at each other the thrill of tossing a few at some tourists must be tenfold, I had two go off right by me, one I could feel right by my foot the other was airborn a couple feet away. It sounds a bit more dangerous than it really was, but what a laugh we had running back and forth up this hill looking in every direction for incoming firecrackers.

I've been a bit sick for three days or so, but really am doing fine and trying to take it easy. The doctor said it was Tonselities+ an upper airway infection or something fun like that. I was realieved to visit a clinic and hear that my achy feverish caugh was easily treated by a five day course of antibiotics, and wasn't anything too serious. I'm about half way through with my meds. and feel so much better already. I'm going to a steam sauna tonight and I'll sweat it out a bit.

I changed out 2,700Baht earlier today (80ish US) and recieved roughly 750,000kip. It really seems like monopoly money, I'm definitly not used to it, all I know is that dinner for two last night at a fancy little indian restraunt with a couple drinks and appitisers cost 93,000kip. I'm not used to kip and thought I had seriously blown the budget, that was a shock, then I realized it was just under $10 US, strange really, well I'm out for now, Adios,

Adam

1 U.S. dollar = 31.585597 Thai baht

The dollar is slipping! I got 34 baht to the dollar when I first arrived. Dwight said he was getting 38 to 1 when he was here in the Spring. Oh welll, whatcha gunna do (buy euros?). Well my bus leaves tonight at 10:00pm to Chiang Khan where I cross the boarder/ Mekong River into Laos. I hope the internet services are as good there, but i doubt it, don't stress if I'm out of contact for a bit. I had some delicous banna pancakes for breakfast this morning, I'm uploading some pictures right now, then will burn my memory card onto a CD and start Laos fresh, I hear Laos is a traveling photographers dream come true (so long as he/she doesn't step on one of the many UXO that the US so graciously left these people to deal with). Lets just say I'll be sticking to the beaten trail...Grrr the pictures failed to go, somehow I got one of the rafting up, but can't get the others up. Some other time =]..Adios for now, Adam

Moving on to Laos...

After soaking up Pai for a couple weeks I'm going to push on (it would be easy to stay). Next stop Luang Prabang, Laos. The place is supposed to be incredible. I'll get a two week visa at the boarder crossing and plan on staying the full time. I plan to see Vientiane (the capital), Luang Prabang, do some toobing down the river in Vang Vien, who knows what else, before moving into Vietnam.
Pai has been good to me. I met a local brother/sister who are awesome and know everyone in the place, Fook and Jane. They showed me around the nightlife and know whats going on. The town pretty much closes around 1:00am with the exception of a few late night spots that really aren't that special. I've been pretty much lazy and loving it. Yesterday I got back from a two day river rafting trip that was fun, but much slower paced than the pictures in the pamphlet would have you imagine.
This is day two of a three day celebration over here, I'm still not clear what exactly is being celebrated, but it has to do with Buddha, last night there were hundreds of these lanterns floating around in the sky, pretty cool sight (they work like mini hot-air balloons), and the streets are packed full of locals, tourists and the likes milling around. There are three stages set up, live music and of course incredible food. I guess that about wraps it up, I can't get the picture uploader to work, I might try again tomorrow...love you all. Adam

Where is Pai//Pictures

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Pai

This is a great little spot, growing rapidly. Laid back, clean, set In a tropical farming valley. My favorite thing so far is getting on my rented 125cc motobike, and go cruisng out the main road, up these winding roads and soaking up the views. In the surrounding countryside, it's strage being surrounded by agriculture that probably hasn't changed much for thousands of years. You really get that feeeling except from the clothes and the moto-bikes, that is place has been opperating off the land for a very very long time in a similare fashion. Thats out-side of Pai, Pai it's self is a liberal sort of place, and at night the streets come alive. Streetside bars just start pulling chairs out and sitting people around. Live music, and lots of stray dogs. Or at least pretty wild dogs with homes, they run around in packs of five or six wagging thier tales sniffing up and down the street, looking for handouts, they're not out to cause trouble. I'm staying in this great little spot, I'll post some pictures of it. I paid for another four nights, then I'll be doing some rafting and a trek before likely moving on into Laos. Yesterday I took the bike out to this massive cave and for five bucks paid a guide and a bamboo raft man to show me around. So a river flows into the mouth of this cave, and to get in you hope on a bamboo raft and have a seat while a local polls you through to a shore inside the cave. It definitly feels out of a some pirate movie, the light source being some old gas lantern. Pretty cool spot. I guess at night some 300,000 birds come flying into the cave, replacing the population of bats that live in it during the day. I wasn't thier for the changing of the guards but can only imagine it's quite the sight. Don't have any realy plans for the day but after lunch I might investigate the pool thats supposedly around here, other than that I'm in the middle of a couple books and saoking it up..
Hope all is well, Adam.

P.S. The beg bugs stayed in Bangkok and the itchy rash they left me dissapeared a couple of days ago.

More about Pai click HERE

Pictures: Muay Thai Boxing in Chiang Mai // Having a drink on top of the state tower with Peter in BKK // A cat with a sense of humor //
Elephants chained to at thier post, waiting for a passenger, Elephant rides are a big deal around here.//A short hike off the side of the road led me into "Pai Cannyon."//A stop on the way to the canyon for a cup of coffeee//...more to come

Chiang Mai

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Just arrived in Chiang Mai this morning...12hour train ride up here was really good, the train left BKK at 7:45 last night and got in 1o:oo this morning. The "sleeper train" had really comfortable beds and I slept like a baby. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, I think I'll stay here one more day, then go to nearby Pai for some out-of-the-way but highly recomended down time. Everyone's trying to sell treks out into the hills around here, which is something I really want to do, but I want to find a good outfit, and its hard to tell what your signing up for. I'll shop around a little and hopefully run into people who had an awesome time on their trek...We'll see. I've officially been bed bugged, I'm not sure if they followed me here or not, but I'm not going to use my sleeping bag till it gets washed. The bites are itchy lil bastards but no real big deal. I'll try to get some CHiang Mai pics posted here in the next day or so, all is well, bye for now, Adam

Click HERE to learn more about Chaing Mai

BKK!

Hello from Bangkok!~
All is well over here, been having a great time. I finally feel calibrated, just a slight change from home..It's been so good to have Peter and Andrew around, I wouldn't have seen half of the sights of Bangkok without them. The markets are unreal! Never ending, everywhere, I'm not even a shopper but I'm in heaven, I walk around for a while, find somethign that catcehs my eye, try my luck at bartering (which is sort of addicting) and walk away with whatever. The place I'm staying right now is prety nice, I have my own room with bathroom and shower, walk downstairs in the morning for some coffee and breakfast. The food is delicious and cheap..the downside is I'm pretty sure MSG is the new salt. I explored Grand Palace yesterday, walked around for hours taking pictures and soaking it up.Last night Peter and I went up the state tower for a beer at the rooftop bar, 64 floors above Bangkok..Gorgeous! My plan is to hang out here till thursday before heading north to Chiang Mai, I'll keep posting... Well I'm off for now, Adios!
PS. You can Enlarge the pictures by clicking on them

Off to Asia

Thu Oct 4 2007	875	SEA-NRT	12:41	14:55	F
Fri Oct 5 2007	837	NRT-BKK	18:30	23:10	F
Sat Dec 15 2007	838	BKK-NRT	6:40	14:15	F
Sat Dec 15 2007	876	NRT-SEA	16:55	8:22	F