Archive for October, 2002
My birthday today, 31 years young. And here I am in Chiang Mai, which, believe it or not, is exactly where I was for my birthday last year. Couldn’t have planned it this way if I tried, but it’s just the way it worked out. Actually I didn’t want to be in the same place 2 years in a row, because somehow symbolically I felt that meant I haven’t grown as a person if I’m back to the same point again, but then again Chiang Mai is a great city and it’s full of good food and lots of stuff to do so why not spend another birthday here. At least I can get a real chocolate bar here, which is exactly what I did when I arrived.
First though I had to get out of Lao this morning, crossing the Mekong River by long-tail boat and entering Thailand again. Now I’ve got 2 stamps in the passport with my birthday date, cool.
I was on the Thai side at 8:15am and had to wait 2 hours for the minibus to leave for Chiang Mai. No problem in a Thai guesthouse with good food, internet, and BBC! How exciting! That’s a birthday present in and of itself.
Finally the minibus arrived and it was a 5-hour ride to Chiang Mai, in, get this, an air-con minibus on PAVED roads!! Brilliant! That’s going a full 5-starts from the pick-ups/dirt roads of yesterday. Another gift. What a comfortable ride.
Arrived in Chiang Mai mid-afternoon after driving through Chiang Rai and then heading south into Chiang Mai. It was nice to get to a place where I already knew my way around. Found my way to the same guesthouse I stayed last year; luckily they were still there and had a room.
Dropped off my bags and the first thing I did was buy a Lindt chocolate bar. Mmmm. Immediatly after that I went for a 1.5-hour traditional Thai massage. Then, a pedicure. Hey, at $4 for the massage and $1.50 for the pedicure, I’m worth it.
Birthday dinner was falafel, hummus, salad, and a pita. Can’t get that kind of cuisine in Lao. Now I’m off to the internet to catch up on emails, which was really nice to see by the way, how many people dropped a line over the last 2 weeks I’ve been away from email. Thanks for that everyone, it means a lot. Ok then, off to cyber world…
October 29th, 2002
Whoa. Tired. 8 hours on the back of a pick-up today. I’m still in Lao, but I can see Thailand just across the Mekong River. I arrived too late to cross the border today; will be heading out first thing in the morning.
I have no idea how many kilometers we rode today but I can tell you how much dirt was on my face, up my nose, and all over my body when we arrived. A LOT. The first 2 hours of the drive out of Luang Nam Tha were mud – wet, slippery, and full of puddles. We were slip-sliding all over the place, often times at the edge of a 5000-foot drop. I’m not a smoker, never was, but during those first 2 near-fatal hours I kept thinking man, I need a cigarette. At one stage we were trying to get up a muddy incline and well, we just completely slipped back down. Then on the next attempt, everyone had to move to the very back of the pick-up and jump up and down to try to force the car up. Now that’s the type of cultural bonding experience that you just won’t get on a package tour. Ha.
In the pick-up there was a German girl, me, and 5 local Lao guys. Which was pretty roomy considering I’ve been in pick-ups with well over 30 people before. Anyway we finally got through the mud (after crossing through several streams even) in the pouring rain which I forgot to mention (covering ourselves with plastic tarp) and then the road seemed to dry out and oh joy, it became dust-eating time. Actually I’ll take dust eating to near-death cliff dives anyday.
8 hours of dirt road in the back of a pick-up builds character. Yeah. Part of the Lao experience.
I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally get to Huay Xai and get OUT of the pick-up. Thailand today? No, tomorrow, 8am. Of course. Driver gets a kick-back from the guesthouses for bringing tourists in just late enough that they’re forced to spend another night in Lao. Doesn’t really matter anyway. I found a guesthouse, rinsed off the dust tan with a hot shower, and prompty went out for a Beer Lao and vegetable fried rice (or, in Thai-Lao-English,’flied rye’).
Tomorrow is my birthday (!) so it will be kind-of cool actually to get 2 stamps in the passport with my birthday on them. I’m anticipating a much smoother first-world type of aircon bus ride to Chiang Mai from the Thai side. That’s my birthday present.
October 28th, 2002
Sounds to remember: Akha Hill Tribe man singing folk songs to his children at night next to my hut; people calling to each other while working in the rice fields; the water trickling from the stream that goes through the field below my balcony.
Scenes to remember: Man walking his buffalo to the fields with his children riding one each; men and women harvesting the rice in the fields and carrying huge bags of it into the pick-ups on the road; the sun setting behind the fields and the mountains.
It’s a beautiful place here, but at the same time it’s got a strange undertone – if you know about the opium trade here you could easily equate it to greed, addiction, and resentment towards foreigners. In the guidebook it says there are over 1500 opium addicts in Muang Sing and that’s a lot considering it’s a very small town.
Everywhere you go people are saying “Sabaidee” and then whispering under their breath, “opium, opium, opium?” It’s really weird, and a bit unsettling. I wish I had realized what this area was all about because I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it. But you don’t really understand fully it until you see it for yourself. Women with brown-stained teeth (classic sign of a heavy opium smoker) trying to sell you a bracelet (and them some drugs) are everywhere.
I did some interesting things here though. The first afternoon I walked 2 km to the Lao-Chinese border just to have a look. It was after 5 pm so no one was really working there on the Lao side to ask about border passes, but I’ve heard that they don’t allow passes into China anyway. The people who were there did let me take some photos though which was cool. It’s the 2nd time on this trip that i’ve been so close to China (first time in Sapa, Vietnam).
The following day I decided to head into Muang Sing mostly just to check out the town and see about trekking options. It’s 8 km from the place I’m staying into town. I started walking under the cooler shade of the clouds protecting me from the sun thinking I’d try to get a pick-up, but then I was enjoying the walk so much that I decided to keep going. It was interesting watching everyone working so hard in the fields to harvest their rice.
At one stage a bunch of farmers on a mini jeep/pick-up pulled over and offered me a ride, and I said what the hell and hopped on, not having any idea how far they’d take me. Turned out to be only 1 km because they then turned off the main road and let me off again, but it was a nice break from the walking and an interesting cultural experience.
Not much to see at all in the town of Muang SIng, and the trekking options turned out to be too expensive ($20 for a day trip) so in the end I had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the rice fields, rested up for a bit, and then set out back to the guesthouse.
Going back I only walked half-way and then caught a pick-up for the last 4 km. The walk to and from was definitely the most interesting part of the day.
Back at the guesthouse I played cards with my roomate, neighbors, an Australian couple, and an Israeli couple (a rather mean game of UNO). Didn’t have much to do with my roomie or his friend and the Canadian girl – they were either smoking or eating opium all day and night and were the kind of people who thought they were WAY cooler than they ever actually were, acting like they just knew EVERYTHING about Asia. Whatever. Saved me the price of a full room and that’s it. I was happy to see them go this morning.
Today I am heading back to Luang Nam Tha and then tomorrow I’ll be working my way to the Lao-Thai border.
A few steps further and Id be in China
The hills are alive, with the sounds of Muang Sing
More Muang Sing song
October 27th, 2002
Resting up the knee today was a good excuse to do nothing. Had a bit of a late night (11:30pm, which is very late for Lao) after meeting 3 Dutch people in the restaurant where I was staying. I stayed up talking with Adrie, a 30 year-old who’s out travelling for 2.5 months and had some good travel stories from a previous trip to the Philippines (most notably, waiting 7 seven days for a boat once). Good converstion.
This morning I had to get up early and pack to try to catch a pick-up heading north. I had breakfast with Dave the American and Lyn (one of the Dutch women from the trek) and then we all went over to the bus station to try to organize rides. They were heading south to Oudomxai (a 5-hour ride) and me north to Muang Sing (2-hour ride). I found my pick-up and was off at 8:30am. There were 3 other foreigners on the pick-up (a French couple and a Japanese girl) and 17 locals. Funny how you get used to being crammed and uncomfortable in the pick-ups. No one complains. It would never work that way at home.
Nice drive up here through the mountains. Arrived in town and set out to get to the guesthouse I wanted to stay which is 8 km outside of town. I found 3 other foreigners and shared the ride with them; they had spent one night in town already and were heading out to the same place.
When we arrived we had a look at the rooms and even though there were 3 available, me and the one guy Mark (from Australia) decided to share a room because it would be cheaper for us both. The four of us had lunch with an Israeli couple, sitting in the restaurant which overlooks the ricefields and mountains all around.
I spent the afternoon doing a much-needed laundry session and chilling out on the balcony. The town of Muang Sing is in the the heart of the Golden Triangle and is well-known for it’s opium growning. Tales of tourists getting busted and bribed up to $1200 USD by undercover cops are told everywhere. It’s also only 10 km from the Chinese border. There are many hill tribes living in the surrounding villages so hopefully one day here I’ll set out to see one or two of those. My visa expires in another 5 days time so most likely I’ll spend a few days here and then make my way back to Thailand.
The view from my balcony, well worth $2/night
A Golden sunset
October 25th, 2002
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