laos trip report, part i: halloween, 2007

I had the opportunity to have a rather reflective Halloween this weekend, as I planned to be stuck on a train to Ubon Ratchatani, from where I would head to Laos. My plans were quickly changed right off the bat as I went to the train station and was told that no trains were running. I was naturally suspicious and so checked in about nine different places and all sources confirmed the unfortunate news. Some said accident, some said strike, but the point was, I couldn’t go via train. So, I hoofed it to the bus station where I got an overnight bus. The bus ride was pretty excruciating, but the lady next to me was nice, and spoke a small bit of English. I asked her if she knew about Halloween; she said yes. Short conversation, but I guess I was happy that he at least knew about it.

The one highlight of the trip was a very strange occurrence in the middle of the night. I woke up at about 3 a.m. and noticed that the half-moon and stars were very bright. This was particularly striking to me because I was so used to the sickly stars of Bangkok, who struggle to penetrate the thick blanket of smog that smothers the city. The strange occurrence, however, was not just this ability to see the stars, but rather, the fact that no sooner had I looked up as far as I could from my bus window, I saw a bright shooting star! Amazed, I stared for a few more seconds then turned back to the bus, mouth slightly agape. If there were a bystander who was to write a screenplay based on my life at this moment, it would have been entirely cliché. It seemed to me that I had looked out the window far too short a period of time to be lucky enough to see a shooting star, and to a movie audience it would have seemed entirely cliché. Perhaps it would go something like this:

Scene 97:

[The scene fades from black to open in the back of a bus facing forward. Many black-haired heads gently sway slightly above their seats as the bus rocks. A solitary dirty-blonde head rises over the rest, and turns to look out the window.]

[The reflective individual slowly brings his eyes to the sky.]

[A bright shooting star streaks across the sky.]

[The shooting star is shown again, this time with the camera on the boy’s face—the reflection of the star is captured and reflected in the boy’s blue-green eyes.]

[Mouth slightly agape, and seeming a little more satisfied, he turns in wonderment back to face the seat ahead of him.]

Nobody would even believe that movie! Its crazy to think that it actually happened! Not entirely sure why I wasted so much time with this story, but I just thought it was funny. Moving on!

After crossing the border the next morning I began to see how different Laos was from Thailand. I rented a scooter and started off to the south. I was going to try to spend just a little time at Si Phan Don (4,000 Islands) before heading off to the Bolaven Plateau. I headed south from Paxse by scooter and encountered rain, which hindered my progress slightly. However, I was also welcomed by extremely warm and friendly smiles and waves from EVERYONE I encountered on the road. Many school children were walking home, and they were all ecstatic to see me. Everyone waved, some blew kisses, and all gestures were accompanied by cries of “Sabaidee!” or “Hello!” I couldn’t believe how nice everyone was. When the rain started, I pulled over to put on my poncho, and a Laos man bid me to come into his house and take shelter from the rain until it blew over. I thanked him very much for his generosity but decided to brave the rain anyway. I made it to the large island a little before sunset and decided to stay there. A nice Lao man ferried my scooter over for 20,000 kip ($2), and I quickly found a great guesthouse for 40,000 kip ($4). The river was very beautiful and reminded me of the Mississippi a little. On the island I made some friends from America; one of the girls’ job was to translate comic books from Korean to English. There was a terrible storm that night, with intermittent power shortages, but it was a really nice relaxing night for me. The storm reminded me of home, along with my musings on Halloween the night before.

I had a fantastic nights sleep in my nice but… quirky guestroom. The video will explain:

In the morning I rode around the island before heading back across the river to go up to the Plateau. Again, many kids walking to school, all nice. Lots of rice, and cows, and cow-like animals, and chickens, and ducks, and goats. I would get very used to these things before the end of my trip.

I wish I would have had more time at Si Phan Don, I saw nothing of what it has to offer. I think if I go back I would like to spend 3 days there before moving onto Bolaven. Nevertheless, I knew adventure awaited me on the Plateau… and I was entirely correct…

trip report: krabi province, part I

On the first part of this, our most ambitious trip, we engaged ourselves with an aquatic adventure. As such, I'm going to style this entry with a Team Zissou feel. Furthermore, the scope of our trip was so large that I have divided my recounting of the trip into three sections: the first deals with our aquatic adventure to Koh Phi Phi, the second deals with getting away from tourist Thailand with a giant waterfall and the nicest bar-owner in the world, and the third covers our arduous trek to see Buddha's Footprint and Tiger Cave Temple in the Krabi Province.

We stayed in bungalows, like always.

Tyler had diahrea.

This was our vessel: The Belafonte. It is equipped with a spa, snooker table, cutting room, and studio. Its powered by a diesel truck engine adapted for aquatic use with a hilariously long drive shaft attached to a propeller.

I can't remember our pilots name (I'm sure his nickname was one syllable and his given name was ten or more), but he was quite skilled with the longtail boat, occasionally steering with his feet, with his genitalia only inches away from open and spinning belts on the engine. (Again, my oft-uttered phrase of "that's Thailand's style" comes to my mind.)

To be honest, this part of the trip isn't very conducive to a good story. It lends itself far better to amazing pictures. "We hung out on a real nice beech" just doesn't sound great. But when you see that beech...

I guess it makes a little more of an impression. Needless to say, the beeches were amazing and the water really was "the most amazing shade of turquoise."

There were monkeys on the island (surprised? we weren't, there are monkeys EVERYWHERE here). However, it was a good experience because we finally got to see Brian with monkeys for the first time. This takes some explaining. I would say that, since I have been here, Brian has said the phrase "I just LOVE MONKEYS" about a thousand times. He had seen them in Thailand before we had, so we knew he was for real. However, while we were on the beech with the extremely angry and ill-tempered beech-monkeys that were constantly scaring us into the water, we asked Brian: "I thought you loved monkeys?!?" He replied "I do love monkeys, I just don't like to be AROUND them!"

I couldn't blame him! These were the meanest monkeys I have ever seen. The scary thing about monkeys is, they aren't afraid to just run after you and grab on to you. However, these monkeys got a taste of their own medicine, with hilarious results. You see, Thai people are pretty good with monkeys. Especially if they are used to saving dumb tourists from monkeys. A boatfull of such tourists came upon Monkey Bay (I wonder why they call it that?) while we were there on the beech, intermittently running into the water to get away from the furious monkeys. They ran their speedboat onto the beech, and proceeded to run to the bow to see all the monkeys on the beech. They got more than they bargained for when a large monkey ran straight up to the boat and jumped onto the bow. Its a funny thing watching a bunch of people looking down over the bow of a boat suddenly want to not be there and run to the back of the boat altogether. The driver, no doubt experienced with this sort of thing, ran to the front of the boat and proceeded to try to grab the monkey. The monkey narrowly escaped. Here's my point... most people are afraid of monkeys grabbing onto them. This guy just totally turned things around on these guys by sprinting up to a monkey and trying to grab him!!! What do you do if you get ahold of the monkey?!?!? I don't know what he would have done, but I'm pretty sure the monkey wouldn't want to find out. Also, this guy had the legs of an Olympic sprinter (I feel weird saying that, but you would have noticed too!). Anyway, the overall point is, monkeys appear, chaos ensues.

The only other really notable part of this trip was the visit to the beautiful Maya Bay (where "The Beach" was filmed). Koh Phi Phi Leh is a very nice place to see, and its just beautiful all over there. The snorkeling was very enjoyable, with extremely clear water and lots of fish (though sometimes they all seemed to be the same species!). There were those wonderful parrot fish that you can hear as they chomp coral and pointy-nosed fish and clown fish and all the great stuff that goes along with snorkeling. I put my dry-bag to use, as we had to jump off the boat, swim to a hole in the karst-wall of the island, where we trekked about 1/4 mile to Maya Bay proper.

I did have one interesting run-in with an interesting creature of the sea. In Maya Bay I spotted a sea-snake under the water. It was very interesting to watch, and had stripes. Nobody else wanted to get too close to it. It was a prudent decision on their part; this snake turned out to be the highly venomous Banded Sea Snake. The closest I got to it was about one foot. Luckily for me, they are not hostile in nature and I was not bitten. Still, this is a reminder of how dangerous the wild can be! If anyone knows a good resource for identifying hazardous animals for different of regions, please let me know!