Doi Suthep-Pui National Park

Our last day in Chiang Mai could not have been better. Up at 6:30, we packed our bags, ate a good breakfast and hopped on the scooter to head out into the mountains just North of the city. First we stopped at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, probably the most famous wat in Northern Thailand. It was a packed with tourist, but, like the royal flower festival, it was an overwhelmingly Thai crowd. The temple lies near the summit of Doi Pui, about 9 km outside the city. A large staircase leads up to the temple and takes about 300 steps to reach the top - we were both breathing pretty heavily by the time we finished. Unlike the other wats we have visited, Doi Suthep was imacculately maintained and even the small details were meticulously attended. At the center of the inner square lies a giant golden stupa surrouded by several Buddha shrines. The inside of the wall is mural depicting the story of Buddha and statues line the perimeter. It was overwhelming compared to the relative simplicity, peace, and tranquility found in the other temples.

From the wat, we drove further up the mountain to Bhubing Palace, the royal winter residence. When the royal family isn't staying there, tourist - again, mostly Thai - are allowed to walk through the palace. As with Doi Suthep, the grounds are incredibly well maintained and actually looked for like what we thought the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek would look: flower gardens everywhere! The flowers were incredible and the palace seemed like it would be a great vacation house.

We took a short break for lunch and then continued further up the same road towards Doi Suthep National Park campground. The road twisted up another four kilometers from the palace and eventually turned to a steep gravel path just before the campgrounds. We were both immediately impressed with the facilities - they offered all kind of equipment for camping, mountain biking, and hiking. There was also a fairly extensive presentation of information on the park - wildlife, plant life, and composition of the earth. It was very much like park headquarters at a US national park with one exception: we were the only people there. We picked up a map from the office and started off on a track to the summit of Dui Poi. Although some of our friends may have made it to the top of bigger mountains, we were pretty excited about our 1,685m ascent. Rough. The trail was in pretty good condition, but I still managed to fall a few times and find some mud to splash around in. Good times.

We still had an hour or so before we had to turn the motorbike in so we went to the Chiang Mai Zoo. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the Pandas - they were hinding - but we did get to see hippos, a lion, girrafes, and a lot of other animals considering we were only there for a little more than an hour. Neither of us are big zoo fans, but it was okay and a nice way to finish up an already full day.

From the zoo we turned in the bike, ate one last meal at the hostel and then caught our night bus to Bangkok. We're about to catch our flight to Taipei and will be in Taiwan by this evening.

Royal Flora Ratchaphruek 2549

Yesterday (Monday, the 29th) was a full day at the flower festival just outside Chiang Mai. Dedicated to His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand, the experience was a bit like going to Disneyland without the rides. The number in the title next to the festival is the year - according to the Thai Calendar. The festival started last December and continues until Wednesday. We didn't know about the event until just a day or two ago and were really glad that we got to go.

We also picked the perfect day after deciding not to go yesterday because it was cloudy. Today the skies were perfectly clear blue - almost too hot, a little bit draining to walk around all day, but really brought out the colors. The park was huge and we had to skip some segments of the walking track to finish in one day. The park is regularly visited by 3,000 people each day and recently reached its 2,000,000 visitor. Unlike most of the tourist locations we've been, we were clear the minority in the crowd - probably one of only a handful of farang. Most of the tourists were Thai and most were wearing their finest yellow shirts in celebration of the royal family. All of the exhibits involved the king - either in discussing how his majesty ingeniously invented this or magnificently implemented that, etc. According to one of the posters, the king invented biodiesel in 2001. Maybe something was lost in translation....

Joking aside, King Bhumibol has implemented some great programs, and has clearly focused on supporting the rural people of Thailand. Chris, perhaps you could provide a more critically accurate explanation of his involvement in the comments. The country clearly devotes a lot of time in honoring and celebrating his existence, so I only assume some of his accomplishments have been effective. From what we read, even despite the claim of inventing biodiesel, Thailands emphasis on alternative energy and developing resources beyond petroleum is impressive. The festival had an entire plot dedicated as the Biodiesel Garden - displaying various plants that are feasible, and also those that aren't, for vegetable oil production in Thailand.

Other than the flowers, we also saw a two presentations: one of a tribal dance, and the other a Spanish Flamenco. I don't know what the connection between Thailand and Spain is, but the week is National Spanish Week. At the Spanish international garden we picked up a flyer advertising Eva Yerbabuena's Flameco Company - they supposedly have a show tonight in Chiang Mai and were hoping to see the show tonight.

One of the funnier exhibits we saw was Rubber Land. Not that rubber trees are funny, but because of the two people dressed as cartoons characters outside the display. As you can see in the picture, the tree has a giant gash cut into its chest and a bucket nailed to its side to collect the sap. I don't have any issue with harvesting rubber from trees, but it becomes creepy when you put eyeballs, arms, legs, and a giant smile on the tree. That and watching kids snuggle up to be big gash wound with streaks of sap, that looked like blood, running down the front of its torso. By the time I took the picture, the people in the suits were taking a break - the head lying on the ground makes it look like the worker was decapitated while cutting open the tree. Judging by the smiles, though, everything is great and the kids loved it!

Monk Chat

Today we visited two more temples. Chiang Mai has over 300 temples, or wats, within the city so we could theorhetically spend months doing this. We, however, are limiting ourselves to the major three or four. One of the temples was famous for being constructed of teak while the other for being one of the oldest wat in Chiang Mai. Most of the temples have been renovated relatively recently, but the excessive use of concrete and stucco along with an emphasis among the artisans to exactly mimic each other makes some of the temples a bit uninspiring. Wat Chedi Luang, however, actually looked like a six hundred year old brick building. Wat Chiang Man, the other we saw, is the oldest temple in the Chiang Mai, built in 1296 at the time of the city's founding. The temple served as the residence of Chiang Mai's founder, King Mengrai, for a time. The buildings are finely decorated in red lacquer, gold leaf and mosaics of tinted mirror, wonderful examples of Lanna style architecture.

We also went to Monk Chat at Wat Chedi Luang, a program for enabling tourists to interact with monks and allowing the monks to practise english. We spoke with a man who had been a monk for 12 years and taught english at a university. He spoke english fairly and we were able to ask him several questions and answer some of his. While monks lead a very regimented life - usually awake by four and eat only two meals that must be consumed before noon - they are not as sheltered as one might expect. They have access to email and television and most only practise for a year or less. Only a small minority stay in for their entire life. According to the monk we spoke with said that 80% of all Thai men are monks at some point in their life.

We also looked into The Royal Flora Ratchaphruek flower expo and plan on walking through the gardens tommorrow - over 7.2 km of trail through 8o hectres of land. Other than that it was a fairly laid back day. Watched the Austrailian Open men's final and are about to seek out some dinner.

Chaing Mai

We've been in Chiang Mai since Wednesday and will probably be in the city or surrounding area until the first. Chiang Mai is the second biggest city in Thailand and located in the beautiful setting of Northern Thailand so there is plenty to keep us busy. So far we have spent most of our time getting acquainted with the area and some of the local history. On Thursday we visited a Tribal Museum - very organized and informational.

The native tribe is Lanna ("land of a million rice fields"), but several tribes have immigrated from nearby Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and China. It was interesting to learn not only about the tribes and their cultures, but also the way the Thai government managed to peacefully encourage progress, honor and respect their native cultures, incorporate them into Thai society, and recover native forests. Not sure how much is propaganda, but it was certainly a progressive approach to working with native inhabitants.

We have also invested a great deal of time in search of food that, as Nicole says,"hits the spot." It has been a difficult task, but we finally found an Israeli resturaunt,
Jerusalem Falafel, today that was amazing and it definitely "hit the spot."

Last night we watched Blood Diamond in the theatre - good movie despite the painful subject. Speaking of the king, before the movie we were asked to pay respects to the king by standing during a two minute video presentation of various pictures of the king. It was kind of like standing for a pre-game national athem - everybody in the theatre was standing and the soundtrack was very inspiring.

We've also been cautiously scootering around the town - actually, we usually just walk it on the sidewalk and I'm not sure why we rented it.

Luang Nam Tha and back to Thailand

This post features pictures that Beth took during our three day trek. Another big thank you to Craig and Beth. Craig is finally pictured below, simultaneously sucking down some home brewed rice whiskey with Andrew. Tasty! Actually, it was pretty smooth. At the bottom of the shot you can see the mug used to refill the whisky with water. We were told to suck until the guy had to refill two cups of water which, when being pulled through long bamboo straws takes a lot of sucking. See Andrew suck. Makes it look easy.

Other than a beautiful shot of the river and surrounding scenery I'd also like to point out that you can see the back of the kayak partially submerged while Nicole rides a good foot above the water line. It's, uh, supposed to be like that and in no way motivates me to start shaving off some elbees.

The lady below cooked our meals and hauled water up from the river for cooking. Small fire pits are used by the villagers for cooking. Corn is hanging from the ceiling to dry and, eventually, to be used to feed their pigs. While we were there the woman had a huge vat of simmering corn slop bubbling away over some coals.
On Saturday(the 21rst) morning we left Laung Prabang on a bus for Luang Nam Tha, further north in Lao. Having a previous bad experience with the "VIP" bus, we agreed to take the local buses whenever possible (that way if we had a bad experience, at least we wouldn't have paid extra). The bus was just fine, although all buses here are maddeningly slow because of poorly constructed mountain roads. Unlike the states, driving through the mountains isn't just a matter crossing a pass. Instead, the roads repeatedly climb up and then descend through the karst landscape. In this case, eight hours worth of up, down, and side to side. Not to mention that much of the road is unpaved - providing the additional joy of bouncing and shaking. Just as with riding the school bus, the back seats get more bounce for the buck - kind of fun for us, but I think the vomiting villagers disagree. The problem with motion sickness is apparently not isolated to a few Lao villagers. It is routine for the bus conductors to hand out much-needed plastic bags.

We had planned on trekking in Luang Nam Tha, but ended up deciding against upon recommendation from Jasper and Roline, a Dutch couple we met during the bus ride. They mentioned that they were heading for The Gibbon Experience and suggested that instead. We couldn't get reservations, but are seriously considering heading back to Lao to check it out. Jasper and Roline were staying in the area for a couple days and we went "scooting" along with Jasper around the surrounding countryside in full body, chain mail reinforced leather jump suites (air bag capable), enormous helmets, and never exceeded 5 km/hr . It was incredibly beautiful there - several rice fields were being planted despite being the dry season. For the first time we saw a sea of green rice fields, all with huts for sheltering the tenders, and all being planted by hand. It is quite a thing to see. On an unfortunate note, I am not used to riding on the back of a motor bike. . . and was not aware of the danger of the hot tailpipe. So along with photos, I might have a nice scar to remember my trip by.

Getting back to Thailand was a relief to both of us for reasons we could not quite put our fingers on. Lao makes Thailand seem like a picture of order, modernity, and development. For example, the bus station we were at this morning used a computerized ticketing system, assigned seats, and tagged our luggage! Amazing.

In any case, we are in Chiang Mai now, and (due to the nicer Thai roads) no one was sick on our bus, so Andrew's fears were assuaged for the time being. We purchased another camera today, so we will be back to publishing recent and relevant pictures. Wish us luck - we're hoping this one survives longer than the last!

Spew Story

***WARNING***

You may find this disgusting and/or offensive. As the title suggests, the story involves vomit. Nicole had nothing to do with this and, unfortunately, was not present to screen the contents. I shamelessly post this because I think it's funny. You have been warned.

***WARNING***

They are coming for me.

Each ride brings them closer.

The first culprits were faceless - ralphing noises and smells but unseen except for plastic bags of vomit rolling down the aisle or the unbelievably patient mother's shoulder covered in baby's breakfast. That time we laughed.

The next retch was two rows in front, but still well beyond range of the average barf. Only a freak shift of the winds could have possibly involved me. The unfortunate Dutch woman, whom we thought was German, was not so lucky. She sat adjacent to the burper and suffered their wrath. More than once. I am not a parent so I'm not sure why the mother aimed her child's spray into the lap of the German, who was, actually, Dutch, but she did. Twice. Using international sign language for "Please point your child's puke away from me," the Dutch woman was able to limit the bombardment to chance ricochet. Potent, still. That time we didn't laugh, but we knew it would be a good story later and we did laugh later with the Dutch couple whom we thought were German.

The third ride was neither funny then, nor later, because it was scary. The pattern became clear and I realized then that it was only a matter of time before I became a target. The initial passengers seemed safe - only one puker in the row in front. Her confident chucking of the full plastic bag across the bus, past a sleeping passenger, and out the window made me realize, though, that the threat did not have to be obvious. But then it really happened. The bus stopped to pick up three new villagers - one of which sat down in the aisle next to me and immediately hurled into a plastic bag just because she was nervous. Bags continued to be filled and then flung out the window throughout the six hour bus ride and we survived unscathed. That time I cried and the nightmares started.

My nightmares are reminiscent of a scene from the movie Stand By Me. Hundreds of Lao bus riders gather around our seat and simultaneously spew solid streams of rice, curry, and pork squarely into my face. After several minutes they stop, but only after a complete drenching. Then the bus starts and I marinate in my stew for the entire six hour bus ride while thinking about how I knew they were coming for me.

Recovery Days

We're still hanging out in Luang Prabang to make sure Nicole's fully recovered before we attempt another bus ride. Finally developed a roll of pictures and scanned them onto our memory card. The camera doesn't capture colors as well as our digital camera did and I think some quality is lost in the scanning process, but I think we still took some decent shots. Nicole is feeling better each day and I think we'll start heading north towards Luang Namtha tommorrow.

We have spent the last couple days reading, watching movies, typing away on the internet. It's been nice to take a short break, but we're both looking forward to moving on. It feels like we've been here too long, but we don't want to take any chances with recorruing sickness. It's a luxury to have the time to rest like this while traveling, so we're making sure to take advantage of it while we can. Nicole arranged a trip to visit Audrey in Taipei, so we've officially added Taiwan to the itenerary. We fly out of Bangkok on the 2nd and will spend the weekend with Audrey and her husband, Terrance. With a flight to Hong Kong the weekend after, it looks like we'll be back into a more intense travel pace in February.

Luang Prabang and The Tiger Trail

I have to start off this entry with a HUGE thank you to Craig and Beth, a couple from Reno that we traveled with during our three day trip. I only have pictures from Craig's camera for now, but hopefully we'll get some from Beth as well. Beth and our guide, Tom, are pictured with us above. We were really lucky to have them along on the trip - not just for the pictures but also their excellent company. Some of our guided trips have been negatively impacted by those that we were grouped with and it made a huge difference to have two people who were fun to travel with. The pictures on this blog are brought to you courtesy of them. In case you're reading this, guys, thanks again!

We just finished a three day trip biking, hiking, elephant riding, and kayaking in the country surrounding Luang Prabang. Like most of the places we've been in Lao, there are several different companies that offer tours and activities similar to the one we chose, but Tiger Trail (there aren't any Tigers around, so I'm not sure why Tiger Trail) has been around the longest and offered a trip that we liked.

The first day was supposed to be a 'moderate' mountain bike ride from the city office to The Elephant Park Project resort - home of four Asian elephants retired from the logging industry. We started on paved roads in heavy traffic, but were soon on a dirt road in an very rural area. The most advanced buildings were concrete with tin roofs, but most of them were thatched. The bikes we were given relatively nice and actually fit both of us, so we were initially excited.
Unfortunately, Nicole's bike chain broke after only about half an hour. Our guide, Tom, didn't have a single tool or any way of calling for help. He actually asked us if we had a cell phone! I thought we were going to end up walking the rest of the route, but somehow he was able to put the chain back together with a knife he borrowed from a local who just happened to be
walking by.
As we all expected, the chain only lasted until the next big hill before breaking again. Still determined to repair the bike, Tom somehow managed to fix the chain again. This time using a rock. Having fixed several chains myself (only with the help of specific tools), I couldn't believe what he was able to do. Still, he was only able to pedal for another five minutes before the entire rear derailleur was somehow tangled in the rear spokes. Fortunately, a couple guys on mopeds drove by and had a pair of pliers that he used to fix the bike for the third time.
After the derailleur incident, Tom decided it was time to give up on the ride and cross the river to a nearby village so he could call the office. The trail down to the river was the only single track biking we did that day, so it ended up being more fun than the dirt road. Finding a place to cross, however, was difficult and it took probably half an hour to find a guy with a boat to take us across. With everyone in and all the bike, the boat had about half an inch of clearance above the water line. We were all sure we were going to end up in the water. Well, I should say all of us were sure, because the three local guys in the boat were all standing up as if it were everyday routine.
Of course, once we made it to the village and he called the office there was nobody there! The Elephant park was only a few miles away, though, so Tom (who had taken the broken bike) pedalled on the flat stretches and walked up the hills. We still made it to the park in time for lunch, so it ended up just fine except that we were a little skeptical about the trip.

We left the resort on about a two hour hike to the Khmut village we were to stay at the first night. The path took us through some beautiful countryside, though there were obvious scars from years of slash and burn cultivation. The Lao government is currently developing new regulations to both enable the villages to continue and restrict slash and burn techniques. The villages are a popular draw for tourists, so there is incentive to enable them to continue farming. On the flip side, the smog generated makes the city unbearable - even for the locals.
The hike fairly easy and we arrived early enough to have a few hours before sunset to walk around and settle into the home stay room. About 250 people live in the village and most work as rice farmers, tending to fields nearby. None of the house have indoor plumbing and electricity is provided by a generator for one hour at sunset. The night we stayed, they ran the generator a bit longer in order for a large group to watch a movie in the building across from ours. The lack of facilities wasn't much of a damper on the mood as evidenced by the laughing children playing in the streets (some half clothed, and two who had to hold there pants up with one hand at all times). The villagers are currently building a new school building our of concrete - a big improvement from their smaller, wooden schoolhouse.

The second day was a full day of hiking in the country through two Hmong villages to our destination village near the Khan River. Most of the villages have spirit based religion, but there was one Christian village. I only mention that because it was Sunday and we could hear hymns being sung while we stopped for a break. It was an odd contrast after seeing so much Buddhist imagery and tradition to hear Christian hymns and a strumming guitar.

We stopped for lunch at a local Hmong villagers house and our guide prepared a noodle soup - basically a ramen style noodle with vegetables. As is usual for the area, chickens freely scurried in and out of the house along with a dog, cat, and a young girl. The woman who owned the house looked like she could be 100 years old, but hauled 2 gallons of water from a stream up a hill to the house (about 1/4 mile away) for our lunch.

After lunch we hiked another few hours before arriving at the final destination. The house we stayed at was celebrating the birth of a baby. It felt a bit like we interrupted until they asked us to join them at the table and started handing us shots of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). Nothing like ending seven hours of hiking in hot weather like pounding whiskey! I thought they were just giving us a shot to try, but they kept handing more and more shots to us. The four of us each had three or four before they then joined in with us - taking a shot, refilling, and then passing to the next person in the circle.
The father of the baby also brought a clay jar full of homemade rice whiskey and two bamboo shoots sticking out of the top. After they demonstrated how to suck the whiskey through the straw, we were then invited to drink with them! Craig tried to slow down the pace by ordering a couple bottles of Beer Lao, but they just added that to the drinks being passed around. This continued for about a half an hour before most of the people had to head home or, I assume, party somewhere else.
While Tom was preparing dinner we walked down to the river to shower. We've seen people showering in rivers ever since arriving in Lao, but that was our first time joining in the fun. There were probably a hundred people - men and women - bathing along the banks, while music played over loud speaker in the distance. Men wore underwear, women a long skirt tied just below there armpits, and children were either naked or in their underwear. Judging by the giggling, they had a good time watching us falangs (in Lao it's falang vice farang) splash around in the river. I thought the water felt great, but everyone else said it was too cold.
Sticky rice, beef, and vegetables for dinner and then off to bed for another night of listening to a wedding party (more people karaoke/screaming into microphones and speakers turned up to 11), snoring, babies crying, dogs yelping, roosters crowing (for some reason they only get to cock-a-doodle as if the final 'doo' is stuck in their throat), sleep talking, people going to the bath room, and nose snorting. There were about eight people in the room we slept in, but the walls were so thin that the whole village might as well have been there as well. I was totally congested as well - contributing my own nasal symphony to the mix.
Breakfast was a French bread loaf, marmalade, eggs, and tea like the first morning. After breakfast we hopped into a boat and road down to the Elephant Park Project. The park is home for four elephants and is funded by tourists. Asian elephants are slightly smaller than the more commonly recognized African elephant. They also have smaller ears and one less rib (in case you were curious). Even so, they are impressive animals both in size and strength. Historically they were used for logging and battle, but are now generally neglected. We rode an elephant for about an hour with a Mahout (elephant trainer). I'm pretty sure he was hung over - apparently Sunday is a big party night - because he put Nicole on the elephants neck to drive and promptly fell asleep. The ride was fun, but we both wished we could have interacted with the elephants rather than just ride
them.

After the elephant ride, we took another boat to the Tad Se Waterfall for a couple hours of relaxing and lunch before jumping into kayaks for a four and half hour paddle down the Khan River. The waterfalls were a beautiful - created by an array of overflowing pools within naturally formed shelves.
Tom gave us the option to drive us further down the river, but we opted to paddle the full distance. Nicole and I both thought it wouldn't be that bad since we were going downstream the whole time, but the low river and slow current made for a tough workout. Pain aside, it was a beautiful paddle with some small rapids. We were also greeted, from time to time, by children playing on sandbars and locals working along the shore.

It was a long day, but a good finish to a great trip. We were both really happy with the whole experience and, though this entry is long, can only barely begin to describe the things we saw.
Unfortunately, we think some river water got into Nicole's water bottle because she's was sick within a few hours of finishing the paddle. She's been sleeping most of the day, eating what she can, and has slowly been feeling better. Fortunately we don't have to go anywhere for a few days and there is a hospital just down the street if she continues to feel bad. We're both hopeful that it is just a 24 hour bug, but will probably test for anything lasting.

Vang Vien to Luang Prabang

Vang Vien, Vang Vien. . .what to say about Vang Vien? It is a small town between Vientiane and Luang Prabang which has in the last five years has blown up as a tourist "chill out" spot. I went online to look for some photos (because, as will be explained later, our camera is officially dead). The article I found from 2002 described Vang Vien as "off the beaten path" and said a lot about it's authenticity. In 2007, the town center has many more "falangs" than Laos, and there is a crazy number of restaurants (all serving the same pseudo-western food), countless TV bars(apparently a few years ago one restaurant started showing the TV show Friends and now there are about 5 in the one block main stretch doing the same), and any number of activities and locations for designed consumption of Beer Lao. That said, it is beautiful here, the people seem to be incredibly friendly, and once you get outside of the few main tourist blocks it is a lot more like the villages we saw with Chris in Thailand.As for it being a "chill out spot", it certainly was that for us. We stayed for five days, and have been taking everything at a VERY slow pace. Our activities have been hiking, biking, reading, cross word puzzles (thanks for the book Chris), caving, tubing, and swimming. Good times.
The first day we floated about 3 km down the river in inflated tractor tire inter tubes. It was very beautiful, but unfortunately the "dry bag" that we rented was not actually water tight. Our camera ended up completely drenched and dead, which is a great pity considering the beautiful places we have seen in the last few days (not to mention the fact that we will have to buy a new one).
Yesterday we took a "VIP" bus to Luang Prabang. I'm not sure can fully describe the experience. First of all, the distance is only 230 km (about 145 miles) but the trip took about 8 hours. This was in large part due to the very windy, narrow roads going over the mountains along the way. It was also in part due to the frequent, unscheduled stops along the way to pick up or drop off numerous Lao villagers who were crammed into the aisles (as all the seats were full with tourists). This is pretty much standard for regular buses here, but we had payed an extra 8 dollars between the two of us to get the "direct, A/C, VIP bus" (which ended up being true only in the sense that it WAS actually a bus). For most of the ride I was sharing my seat; the man on the floor next to me was using my arm rest, and the woman next to me was using my leg room for a sack of oranges and hanging on the the hand hold on the seat in front of me. To really top things off, apparently having not ridden in cars for most of their lives, Lao villagers are more prone to motion sickness; at least 3 of the 20 or so people crammed into the aisle way were vomiting throughout the trip. It was awesome.

But, we finally made it to Luang Prabang, which seems like a really interesting city. Just walking around last night we saw an incredibly vibrant night market, beautiful French architecture and Lao wats (temples). We also had a delicious dinner and a few glasses of wine to shake off our trip before heading back to the guest house for an early night.

No sooner had we laid down than an incredibly loud Karaoke party started up in the street behind us. This was followed by unknown animal scratching through the thin bamboo thatched roof (okay, it didn't actually make it through, but that is what it sounded like). This was followed by roosters crowing (at 2AM-- aren't they supposed to wait until morning?). So, we finally drifted off to sleep around 2AM. . . only to be awakened at 4AM by what sounded like a couple of kids playing on a base drum and some symbols. I waited in bed thinking that some Thai person would get fed up and go outside to yell at them. Eventually Andrew got up to see what was going on- it was monks in the temple right across the street (ironically one of the things that made us think it might be quiet) using the gongs. This pretty much ruled out the option of anyone yelling at them. And they kept going . . for about twenty minutes. . . at 4AM. . . and I think the gonging woke up the roosters. . . . Also, Andrew had an allergic reaction to something in the room and woke up congested and very irritated eyes.
It was quite a day! I guess our first "zany" travel adventure day. I actually feel pretty lucky (knock on wood) that we've made it this far without more similar days.
And it was all pretty funny. . . in retrospect.

Vientiane

We've spent the last four days in Vientiane, capital of Lao People's Democratic Republic. Most of our activities have centered around eating and we have essentially spent the days finding different ways to kill time before the next meal. Today, for example, our only accomplishment between breakfast and lunch was preparing lunch in a cooking class. More on that later.

The new year officially marks the fourth month since we left our home in Bremerton, WA. From everything we've read, most travelers experience a slump at this point and we are no exception. A combination of the post holiday blahs, sad farewell to Chris, and almost three weeks of sickness for Andrew has taken it's toll. But we press on, focusing on the good life we have and, most importantly, food and sleep!

Yesterday, the 2nd, we followed a Lonely Planet recommended walking tour of Vientiane. The tour, along with getting lost a couple times, made for a long and exhausting day. We did, however, manage to eat a lot of good food. We also made a game of trying to spot as many Lonely Planet guidebooks as possible and found eight by the end of the day. The picture above is of the Mekong River at sunset. We ended our trek with a nice dinner at a French restaurant and had our fill of bread, wine, salad, cheese, lactaid(for Nicole), and steak.During the walking tour we stopped at a guesthouse offering a cooking class and signed up for the next morning (today). The class included a trip to the local market to pick out fresh vegetables and our choice of three dishes to learn how to make. We chose to make chicken curry, spring rolls, and papaya salad. Papaya salad is probably the only dish you haven't had and is a Lao favorite. Chris includes it in his daily diet and most people we have met say it's their favorite food. It's tasty and we wanted to learn so we could someday make it for Chris in the states. We were also hoping to make some sticky rice, but it wasn't an option.

We were the only people in the class and had(also needed) the full attention of our instructor. The dishes were pretty easy to make and we're both excited to have some new options in our repertoire. And if you didn't think it was possible to look seductive in an apron, see below! Nothing like a mid-blink photo to turn up the heat. The giant mortar and pestle looking thing is actually specifically for making papaya salad....but I have proven it to work for crushing spices.

We finished the day at the Lao National History Museum. Being unfamiliar with the history of this region and it's involvement with the Vietnam War (American War as it's called here), we were fascinated with the information and perspective. The US, for example, was consistently referred to as 'the imperialistic US and its puppets.'

Pictures of 'imperialistic US atrocities' and artifact weapons 'brought by the imperialistic US to kill innocent citizens' were prevalent in the museum. We learned about the 'official' Lao perspective of Frances failure to colonize the region followed by the US failure to fight the communist rebellion. Meanwhile, communist soldiers were depicted as smiling farmers with a gun strapped to their back or women happily firing artillery cannons. Nicole recognized similarities from pictures she had seen in Nicaragua depicting the Sandinista during their revolution.

Considering Saddam's recent hanging, it was provoking to read of thousands of Laos being killed by chemical weapons deployed by US bombs. Lao, we have also learned, is the most bombed country per capita in history. According to our Lonely Planet guide, 1.5 times as many sorties were flown over Lao than Vietnam if you include the 'secret war' leading up to the Vietnam War. History will always be subject to perception, but it was eye opening to see Lao's government approved side. Needless to say, we're now communist. Okay, maybe not, but it did make us want to learn more.

But this is all too serious - it's time for dinner!