Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Photos: Luang Prabang Kayaking!
MAY as well capitalize on the fast internet when you've got it right.... here's some pictures from today's kayak trip - awesome :)
Sarah at the top of the main Wat in LP - listening to the monks do their thing
View of Luang Prabang!
Kayaking! See elephants in the distance...
40 person racing boat in the Hmong village
Waterfalls! Chilly but GREAT
Laos so far!
Hello night #3 in Luang Prabang! So great here - so many activities! We pre-ordered our Vietnam visas and got them back today - our entry date to Vietnam is not until Jan 22 so we decided to stay one more night here! Longest we've stayed anywhere so far at a whopping 4 nights. Our first day (after we slept like BABIES on arrival from the slow boat), we rented some bikes, found a map, and hit up some temples and monuments. First, we visited two monuments dedication to 2 different kings / presidents - monuments are located in the middle of the city and are PRISTINE compared to surrounding areas. Afterward we moved onto two of the main (suggested sites) Wat Phone Phao (excuse my spelling guesses) aaand Wat I-Don't-Know that is at the edge of the old town on a GIANT hill - it is essentially a network of shrines and biddhas built into the rock, with an actual Wat at the top. You can see the whole town from there! We just happened to be at the top when the monks began their daily 4pm drumming/ritual. We could hear drums and percussion going on all around the city from the top of the hill - soo cool!! Speaking of monks, we are going to get up at 530am tomorrow to watch the monks as they collect their daily alms - offerings, I guess you could call them, from the people of Luang Prabang. Then probably back to bed! Haha :)
Today we did a different kind of sightseeing - more of the NATURAL wonders. We did an all-day kayak tour down the Nam Khan river that runs past Luang Prabang! We began our journey downstream at about 930 this morning, and after stopping at a traditional Hmong / Khmer / Lao village, the Tadse waterfall, and somebody's memorial (the Frenchman who discovered Angkor Wat - Henri Mouhot...at least I think his name is Henri), we pulled in to our landing spot at around 4pm! So many water activites lately. The kayaking was great - some so calm it seemed we were on a lake, and a few rapids that soaked the boat! Cloudless skies to boot.
Tomorrow the possibilites are endless.... might check out the Royal Palace, national museum, smoe more sights, or do a half day tour! We shall see!
To
River cruising - slow boat to Laos on the Mekong!
Caves right close to Luang Prabang - we are in Lord of the Rings
Delicious food always. Pho Wednesday every day
Second level of Wat Phone Phao!
Giant Buddha - Wat I-Don't-Know aahah. This is the Tuesday Buddha
The Rest of Chiang Mai / Pai!
Sorry once again for the delay.. finally found a good internet cafe!! Here are some photos from the rest of our Chiang Mai trek and from Pai!
Lunch on our trek - Pad Thai in a banana leaf!
Waterfall we hiked to
Sarah chilling on our little patio in Pai, complete with a few hammocks
View of the valley around Pai from the Chinese Village viewpoint
Rented motorbikes! Woohoo! Biggest challenge was driving on the left side of the road
Monday, January 16, 2012
Overdue Photos! SOME of Chiang Mai
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Wherever you go, there you are
Writing to you THIS time not from Thailand, but from Laos! Border crossing #1 was a success. It only took 4 hours! Well, ok maybe 2 and a half. but from one country, to 'in transit' in the other it was about 4 hours :) No matter! We had a lovely couple of days floating down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos, yesterday a little chilly but today SUNNY and warm!
Taking a step back, our last day in Pai, we got up the courage to rent some motorbikes and jet around to see some waterfalls, a bizarre Chinese village (more like a theme park) and some 'Wats". Soo fun to scoot around but a little challenging on the other side of the road! Handing back our bikes, we (reluctantly) waved goodbye to Pai and caught an evening bus to Chiang Khong, the Thai town on the Thai-Laos border. Arriving at 33am, we were taken to our 'complimentary' room for the remainder of the evening. Plans to shower were quickly dismissed as we discovered our sink full of creatures and an ant farm in the bathroom. Slept like no tomorrow, and woke up to find Sarah not there. All her things (shoes, money, sleeping stuff) was there, so I thought she might have just stepped out. 20 minutes later, still no sign, so I got my shoes on and went to look for her. Didn't have to look very far; she was sleeping on a bench with a quilt right outside the room, because it smelt too much like sewer. Not even kidding (this place was a winner but hey it was 'free').
The morning consisted of bussing to breakfast, booking our 'slow boat', bussing to leave the Thai border, taking a ferry across a river, waiting around 1 hour to get Laos VISAs (gong show), getting a tuk-tuk to a convenience store to buy snacks for the trip, then finally borading our boat! We left Huay Xai (may be wrong) at around 1230 and sailed the day away, arriving at our halfway point, Pak Beng, at around 6pm. Sarah and I jumped to the back, grabbed our bags, ran off the boat, scaled a small mud mountain, and booked it to a hostel to get a room, as we hadn't booked ahead. Luckily we got a cheap (300 baht) room... some of the slower ones were stuck with 700 baht. Noo thanks! After a dinner and early bedtime, we headed to bed.
Wake up call this morning at 7am for breakfast, take away lunch (baguette sandwiches) and we were off again! Today was so nice, sunny all day, got quite toasty! Arrived here in Luang Prabang at around 6pm, same routine as yesterday (booking it off the boat), and we wandered a bit, finding a great place! Water, coffee , tea, free wifi, BALCONY. Jackpot. Off to bed after this post - booking activities tomorrow!!! Until next time...
Thursday, January 12, 2012
I go' i' fo free
Sa wat dii ka (no idea if that's how it is spelt) from Pai!! Northern Thailand is where we are, in this little town of about 3900 people (according to lonely planet) and it is SO nice. Almost all the guest houses are little bungalows with their own sitting areas out front, there are countless shops and restaurants, and there are waterfalls and caves all around the town - endless exploration! If you ever come to Thailand you MUST come here. As a side note, about 80% of the people do have dreadlocks, Just that kinda place haha. Our hostel is about a five minute walk from the main part of town and is lovely and quiet, complete with hammocks on the porch! Definitely the nicest place we have stayed, we both have our OWN queen size beds (by accident) and we are paying roughly $8 per night. I'll update photos soon, I am in town at an internet cafe but did not bring my camera cord so it will have to be next time!
But let's UPDATE. It has been too long since my last pos and I have so much to fill you in on! Let's take a ew steps back to where we left off - Sukothai. We took a 6 hour bus to Chiang Mai on the 8 of January - bus was comfy enough but they packed it full so people were standing in the aisles (luckily we got seats). We arrived in sunny Chiang Mai at about 3pm and got a 'taxi/bus' thing that is essentially seates mounted in the back of a pickup truck. Our hostel, called Dive Guest House, was FANTASTIC. The woman who worked at the front was sooo helpful and great - we booked everything we did through her, by simply mentioning we were interested in doing something. Next thing you know, boom, here are your tickets, they are picking you up out front at this time, the BEST. Made it so easy.
Our first day happened to be a day where the town shuts off a seet for a market, called the 'walking street'. It ran till 11pm, so we put down our bags, and hit it up!! Amazing stuff, got some thai flappy pants, they are the best: nice and cool in the day, wam at night and protect against mosquitos! After 4 hours, chocolate banana belgian waffles, cheap delicious dinner, one foot massage (sarah) and a few purchases later, we headed back for an early night.
The next morning, we walked around the town and checked out he 3 main temples (recommended by the hostel lady), grabbed some fruit shakes (mandarin orange - BEST) and grabbed some lunch. At 430 we were collected from our place for a COOKING COURSE!!!! So exciting!!! We got a tour of the local market and learnt about different rice, noodles, and curries; after which we had a tour of the cooking school's little garden filled with ingredients! So many herbs and mushrooms! We chose 3 dishes to cook each - one curry, one sitr-fry, and one soup. I made khao soi curry (teh local narthern curry made of red curry, yellow curry powder and coconut milk DELICIOUS) cashew chicken (of course) amd a tom yum soup! Which was so spicy my mouh was on FIRE. Haha. Sarah made a panang curry (peanut curry - SO GOOD. favourite), pad thai - classic, and a coconut cream soup. Everything was SO good. the food here is amazing. Nothing too bizare yet, have seen some crispy bugs on sticks at the market buuut probably will stay away from those :)
The day after our cooking course was our TREKKING DAY!!! It all began at 830 am with a pick-up from our guide in a pickup truck bus - first stop was an orchid farm! So many cool flowers, took tons of photos, they definitely look different from home! Activity number 2 was ELEPHANT riding!! The elephants were so cute. I saw a baby and thought to myself 'aah that's not so big it'll be fine', then the adult one appeared and they are GIANT. As in climb up a platform to get onto their backs. They are so cute though. Felt bad for the guy the whole time, he just wanted some bananas. At the end of our elephant stint we got to chill with them for about 3 minues before they were off again. After elephants, we drove a little ways to the start of the path that would lead us up to a waterfall!! We walked about 30 minutes up beside the river to a little village where we were served lunch - delicious pad thai eaten out of banana leaves with pineapple for dessert. So much pineapple. Love it. Moving along the river again we arrived at the waterfall after abother half hour. Very cool - had bathing suits but decided to hold out till white water rafting! The raft we had was a patchwork of repaired holes... there was definitely a bubble happening under on of my feet but hey it survived. I can tell you why there were so many holes - never gone OVER so many rocks ahahah. Like hey there's a small boulder up ahead - let's hit it/get stuck on it/slide over it. Hilarious. Went over a few few pretty good rapids, got pretty soaked. After the white water area of the river, we transfered to a bamboo raft. So cool and peaceful. At our landing spot, we piled back into the pickup truck to head back to Chiang Mai. Great day!!
BUT THE BEST PART (and what the title of this post is referring to) is the FREE MASSAGE we got for booking 2 things through our hostel! We opted for the Thai massage (1 hour) and it was sooo good. The best thing. Need to get another ASAP - or foot massage. And it was FREE. We were so pumped on that!! Afterward we went for dinner, probably delicious because it always is, and headed back to the guest house, out front of which a 'cocktail car' was parked - and so our night began. We met a few people from our gues house and went over for a bit, then decided to HIT THE TOWN. Ended up going to a place called THC, perfect, which was very cool - essentailly a rooftop bar where everyone was sitting on straw mats amongst low tables and hanging out - popular spot for dreadlocks too. After we'd had enough of the rooftop, we sought out a pool table and played a few games, then called it a night.
The next day we slept in, got some photos for our Laos visa, paid our hostel dues, put some more credit on my phone, wrote some journal entries etc - had a housekeeping day. The intention was for a blog post to happen but the computer at our place wasn't working sooo that was postponed. Caught a bus at 530 up to Pai (last night) and here we are! The bus ride was preeety windy and at times definitely thought we might tip over but we made it! One girl read the entire way - kinda made me want to throw up just watching her (sorry about that) because it was SOOO windy - I could NEVER read!! Arrived in Pai around 91 and after wandering around for a while we were picked up on motorbike from the woman that runs the guest house we are now in. Veeerry nice place! Met some co-guest housers and ended up coming into town to check out some nightlife. Ended up staying pretty late and therefore slept late today. Walked around town, bought our tickets for the slow boat to Laos, got some snacks, and are gonna rent some motorbikes (NOT - scooters) tomorrow to see the sights! Time now for some dinner I think - might go for the panang :)
Kudos to you if you made it through his post in one sitting - sorry for the delay!! Will be on it next time so you don't have to read such an essay :) Miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!!! SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE (Laos)!!!
If you're up for some more rading, check out Sarah's blog too!: www.toastsandwiches.tumblr.com
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Some photos!!! Sukothai
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