Traveling through Thailand: Part IV

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Traveling through Thailand: Part III

LAOS

I decided I needed a break from Thailand, if you can believe it. My friends from California, Lindsey and Lauren, who I met up with during Songkran had ventured over the border into Laos a few days earlier and I would make an attempted to catch up with them. With no Laos sim card its very hard to meet up with people without a phone only a string of e-mails would lead me eventually to find them. My first day in Laos was a long one ending with a 15 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang. I crossed the border by a very small long tail boat from Chang Kong through the Mekong river to a town in Laos where there was nothing. It was a spur of the moment decision to go to Laos so I had no plan and didn't really know where I was in correlation to where I wanted to be (probably not the smartest especially since I was by myself at this point). I knew I could figure it out though. After getting my Laos visa, all the exchange places were closed so I didn't have any money . I thought I'd be really screwed. I spotted two white people so I went over to talk to them and it turns out they were on there way to the same place I was, yah! I brought a bus ticket from a tour company, which I usually try to avoid due to scams and them charging more but I wasn't really in a position to be picky. They also except Thai Baht in Laos! This is also the point where I found out it was a 15 hour bus ride...oh well here we go. We waited about an hour longer since the bus didn't leave till 5 and it was the only bus running for the day, I was so happy to get a ticket. My new friends and I head to the bus station and that's when all the drama begins. The tour companies had over sold the amount of tickets. I quickly ran on the bus and staked out my seat along with my friends vowing not to move from our spots. The last and unluckiest people arrived to find no seats on the bus. You can imagine they were not happy! It wasn't the fault of the ladies running the bus but the tour companies. The bus attendant brought out child-sized plastic chairs and set them in the aisle of the bus. Everybody thought, You got to be crazy! There is no way I'm sitting in one of those for a 15 hour bus ride. With them running out of options and a lot of yelling going on, the rest of us clenching onto our seats. The 4 poor french people had to settle with laying on the top floor of the bus dashboard. THe bus finally departed around 6:30pm. The bus ride was a horrible 15 hour ride through the twisty mountains and bumpy poorly paved roads. Those were my first few hours in Laos that left me a little scared and unsure about leaving my save familiar haven of Thailand. By the end of my tour of Laos I was undoubtedly glad to had made the journey and turned out to be well worth it!

Luang Prabang

Since Laos was a former colony of France it has a very french atmosphere to it which caught me off guard being in southeast Asia. One of the most noticeable is the food. Western types of foods are easily found in Laos including the very popular French Baguette which is hard to find in Thailand. Getting into the town around 10am I was exhausted from the bus ride and decided to take a leisurely bike ride around the town to get myself acquainted visiting the famous temple and museum. A difference that I had to quickly get use to was the type of currency, Kip. About 8,500 kip is equal to $1 which turns out to be an annoying conversion and I got confused by all the zeros on the bills that look the same. This is the first time I felt like a tourist traveling. In Thailand I knew the language and mainly think in baht over dollars. Oh wellll. The next day I happened to run into 2 other worldteach volunteers, Sarah and Jay, what are the chances! Since my California friends did the waterfalls the day before Sarah, Jay and I went on a quick trip to see the famous falls. They are gorgeous, being the most vibrant color teal that a picture can hardly capture.

Vang Vieng

This town is famous for its Tubbing party scene down the river. It took a 6 hour windy bus ride to get there from Luang Prabang in a crammed pack mini-van that I can say I'm glad I will probably never have to do again. The town had a college frat boy feel to it with everybody walking around in their "Tubbing in the Vang Vieng" t-shirts, all the restaurant had friends or family guy playing outfitted with lounging couches to cure hangovers. In the pictures below you can see the river outfitted with bars that you stop off at to grab and drink then continue your way down. To help attract people to their bar they have zip-lines, jumping platforms, and slides that are all free. These were run by 10 year old boys and have absolutely no safety regulations. At least a few people die every year on this river due to drinking too much or hitting rocks on the way down. We witnessed almost 2 deaths in our 5 day stay in Vang Vieng.

The last place I went to was Vientiane the capital of Laos. It is just a small city similar to the Isan city I live near in Nakhon Phanom province. I only stayed a day there and got some souviner shopping done is there sprawling night market. After a nice 10 day stay in Laos, I hopped back over the border into Thailand and waited the next 5 days for my parents to fly into Bangkok. While I waited I stayed on the island of Koh Si Chang, a very small thai vacation spot only 2 1/2 hours away from Bangkok.

Traveling through Thailand: Part II

Kanchanburi

After escaping the flooded peninsula of Thailand I headed to a small town about 2 hours north of Bangkok in hopes of getting some sun and rest. The main attraction of the town is the Erawan Falls which is a 7 tiered waterfall that winds down a mountain about a mile long. The water is a light clear teal and contains small fish that give you a pedicure if you stick your feet in the water. It was a hot day so we stopped at each tier in the waterfall to cool off and enjoyed a rock slide at one of the pools. One of the perks of being a teacher in Thailand is for most tourist attractions upon showing our work permit we get the entrance fee of a Thai person rather than a tourist. For the Falls it cost a tourist about 200 baht to enter rather than just 40 for Thais. Too bad I forgot my permit this day!!

Songkran

Songkran might be Thailand's biggest holiday (besides the King's Birthday of course!) and many of the volunteers decided to meet up and celebrate it together in the most well known place for songkran, Chiang Mai. Songkran is the Thai new year that happens between April 13-15th (in places like chaing mai it stretches to more like 5 days) and consists of a city wide friendly water fight. This is a water fight on the scale of thousands of people. Traditionally though the throwing of water was a way to pay respect to people, by capturing the water after it had been poured over the Buddhas for cleansing and then using this "blessed" water to give good fortune to elders and family by gently pouring it on the shoulder. It also happens in Thailands hottest month, April, and can relive some of the heat. However, over the years it lost much of its or gins and has turned into a tourist party among the streets. Upon arriving we all got fully equipped with water guns for as soon as you step out of your room it would be fair game to become completely drenched in water. So for the next 4 days we walked the streets with our water guns engaging in a water fight with the young and old. Thais would drive around in their pickup trucks with garbage cans full of water drenching people and letting the foreigners on for a ride through the jam packed streets

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Chiang Rai & Mae Sai

For a night I stopped in Chiang Rai a northern city 3 hours north of Chiang Mai to see the famous white temple. The white temple is one of a kind in Thailand consisting of modern art. There are many images of modern day impurities such as alcohol and cigarettes in statues outside the temple and scary devil creatures. The temple is made all white and has shiny mirrors to represent the purity of Buddha.

After leaving Chaing Rai I took another 2 hour bus still north to Mae Sai, a small border town with Burma. After being in tourist destination for the last month traveling going to a place where few white people reach was refreshing to back in Thai/Burmese culture. I could also noticeably see more poverty in this area with many children begging for money. The majority of the people are Burmese and don't even speak Thai (which I quickly found out when I got confused faces). The town is officially the most northern part of Thailand and it was interesting to see the very secretive Burma where I learned you have to have a "guide" to follow you the entire 24 hours your allowed in the country. I decided not to go in but at least I got to see it from Thailand.

Tales of Traveling through Thailand: Part I.2

Departing the Islands we made our way first to Khao Sok National Park about a 5 hour bus ride away from where the ferry landed. However we accidently took the wrong bus and we were dropped off on the side of the highway with the semi understanding that another bus should picked us up. About 30 minutes later while we stood in the rain it did! We stayed on the edge of the national park with a very nice thai family who rented us cheap bungalows for only 100 baht (about$3!).They said usually their place is full this type of season but due to the heavy rains it was almost empty. In the jungle now we encountered various animals that made there way into our rooms including birds, bats, mouse, and giant centipedes. The following day it was still raining but we decided to rent tubes and look at the goregous vine covered cliffs and jungle as we floated down the river. After rafting we wanted to hike to the waterfalls for a little exercise after being coop up by the rain. With our ponchos on we headed out to the jungle. To make a long story short after 15 minutes into our hike we all realized we were being attacked by leeches!! I was wearing my meesh water/hiking shoes which made it easy for the leeches to crawl through and bite me. The hike turned into the ending of a scary movie with everybody running back on the trails while trying to pull leeches off of them. If we stood still we could see the leeches detect us and start inches their way towards us. I got attacked the most (no surprise there!). My foot was covered in blood dripping from the bites since leeches inject a blood thinner. Lucky the family we were staying with knew what to do and gave me a wad of tabacco to press against my bites to stop bleeding. After this episode I think we were all ready to get the heck out of the jungle.

The following day we took an elephant trek up a river, literally the elephants stomped there way through the river. With the rain still not stopping and hearing tid bits from the news that the south of Thailand was flooding with tourist already getting evacuated off some of the island we decided we should probably start heading up north. We gathered our backpacks and went to the side of the road to hopefully catch a bus to the city where they run buses to bangkok. After sitting along the road for 3 hours we came to the consenses that no bus would be coming due to the floods and were lucky that a thai man offered us a ride in a songtao the same price as the bus. About 2 minutes after being crammed in the back of a pickup truck we see the bus we'd been waiting for so long follow us, and even pass us!!

That was the least of our troubles for the day. Forty minutes into our ride we come to a halt, traffic has completely stopped and people are getting out of their cars. Our driver also gets out and reports to us "Mai di, mai di" (He can not go). The floods that we had been seeing the past few weeks where now in front of us with the road being completely washed out and under a few feet of water. Now we are in the middle of nowhere with no place to put are things or sleep. Someone jokingly spots a huge military truck and says, "Yea we just need one of those things!". Being a group of white people we are easily spotted by the police who come over inquiring what we are doing. Within the next few minutes the Thai miliary is waving us over in a hurry to jump in their Cargo vessel to go through the flood. Awesome! Inside the truck we are huddled together with other Thai people who were caught in a hard place. The military truck goes straight through the flood which looks exactly what we'd been seeing on the TVs.

We made it through and our minds quickly turn to our next problem. Are the buses running to bangkok? Are we going to be stuck in another city that has no hotels or guesthouses? In the truck with us was a Thai lady who spoke really good english and being how generous Thai people are she quickly offered all 6 of us (who she only a few minutes early met) to stay at her house if the buses weren't running. I wish I could say someone in the US would have done the same thing. We arrive at the bus station and run to the ticket office to see 1) if the buses are going to bangkok 2) if there are any tickets left due to all the tourist being evcuated off the islands. To our luck, we got tickets for a night bus departing at 8pm and arriving around 5 am. For the next few hours we camp out in the bus station with everybody else waiting to get out of the flood.

Tales from traveling through Thailand:Part I

After a solid two months of traveling around Thailand and Laos, I'm back to my village of Pla Pak! Accumulating over 150 hours of bus, ferry, and airplane time I was on the go exploring a country that I'd been living in for the previous 5 months. I'd be impossible and possibly very boring to tell you everywhere and everything that I've been up to but I'll try and give the best snip-its of what I've done to in the next few blog postings. I arrived back in my village yesterday and had my first day of teaching today so you can imagine I have a lot of catching up to do as I try to recoup from traveling but also get back into the full swing of teaching. I also have hundreds of pictures to sort through.

I can try to break my traveling adventures into a few different parts

I. The Islands

II. Northern Thailand

III. Laos

IV. Mom and Dad come to Thailand!

These are the main sections from my trip starting with our 10 hour overnight bus to Bangkok and flight to Krabi (southern province in Thailand).

When I first arrived in Bangkok after spending the last 5 months in my tucked away village my travel friends and I were eager to enjoy some of the treats of western culture that Bangkok has to offer. This included an A/C room, hot shower, a trip to the mall, western sandwich, and a mani/pedi. All set for the white sand beaches and clear blue water we jumped on a plane ready to get some time on the beach. Within the next 2 1/2 weeks we enjoyed the beaches of Ao Nang- a big tourist destination, Tonsai- Hippies and rock climbers, Koh Lanta- a quiet laid back island, and Koh Pi Pi- party island central. With a good week or so being a complete down pour of rain we still manage to have a good time and enjoy the world renown beaches of Thailand. However we were not alone with Thailand being a top tourist destination for many Europeans and Australians. We were met with huge sun-burned masses of "white people". After only seeing the other 13 volunteers sometimes in the city it was a bit of a shock to see all the tourist and hear more English than Thai. Many of the cities were completely catered to tourist and it seemed hard to believe I was even in the same country. Another adjustment was the type of clothing. In my village women rarely if ever show their shoulder or knees and now I was seeing men in speedos and topless Europeans! I wondered what the Thais thought of this, which I'm sure they are use to by now.

A funny story of before I left my village some of my female co-teachers approached me asking about my travel plans. A more outgoing teacher curiously asked " You wear one or two piece bathing suit!?" Without thought " Two-piece". This sent them into a giggle saying," ohhhhhh Miss Universe, Miss Universe". I guess they associate Bikinis with Miss Universe? I found it hilarious. Then they went on to explain how Thais are very very shy and no wear bathing suit. You will rarely see a Thai in an actually bathing suit but rather just their normal clothes!

Once we got to the beaches it felt good to be able to wear a tank top and shorts that don't go down to my knees.

Here is a long tail boat. This is the main way of transportation between smaller islands or remote beaches. The cloth rapped around the bow is to bring good luck. We took this to explore islands off of Koh PiPi and get to Tonsai beach which is only accessible by boat.

Viewpoint at Koh PiPi. It seems perfect that this photo as the looming clouds overhead. On this party island it rained the majority of the time, flooding the streets. This did not stop the huge European rave scene on the beaches every night. To get off this island we had to take a 1 1/2 hour ferry to Phuket during the storm and lead to one of my most uncomfortable traveling experiences. The ferry felt like a toy boat going over the swells rocking back and forth and then crashing down after going over the way. You can imagine this led to many upset stomach and a crowd of people hovering over the trash can! yuckk

A bay we snorkeled in at Koh PiPi. Our boat driver instructed us to "go swim". This left us treading water for 30 minutes.

It felt so nice to be next to the water again and I forget how much I love being near the ocean! The next part of my journey the rain stilled followed me and led to more serious problems for not only me but southern Thailand as we headed toward the Khao Sok national park.