The Rain

**As a precursor: there was a LOT of frustration during this week, we nearly hit bottom as we went through it, so excuse me if some of the writing has a hint of bitterness.**

The bus ride down to the coast from Phnom Penh was easy, and it was sunny pretty much the whole way there. We got to Sihanoukville, checked into our hostel and headed down to see the beach area. We were pretty much sold in the first 10 minutes we were there. All along the beach were awesome restaurants serving 1$ drinks and 3$ BBQ. The barbecue was nothing short of amazing, serving your choice of fresh squid, shrimp, barracuda, beef, chicken and pork. All along the beach were comfy chairs set out where you could sit and enjoy cheap drinks.  Women would walk along the beach carrying two baskets which were balanced on their shoulders with a long bamboo rod. On one they delicately balanced a live BBQ with skewered squids packed on top of the grill. You could get 10 for a dollar. The squid lady was followed by the deep fried lobster lady (5 little ones for a dollar), who was followed by the foot massage lady. The haggling became annoying after a while, but we thoroughly our afternoon.


The local kids there hawked the beach day and night, so we were constantly surrounded by kids asking if we wanted a bracelet or sunglasses. One of our favourites was a 15 year old lady-boy who went by 'Beyonce'. She hung around us for an hour making bracelets for free, begging to thread my legs, and singing Lady Gaga songs. She was incredibly entertaining, although the threading was terrrible, and relentless... Kev and Beyonce were pretty entertained though.

After this, we headed out to a bar along the beach that had fire dancers spinning batons on fire, and two dollar buckets of whiskey and coke, which we thoroughly enjoyed! The staff there were mostly backpackers who had found themselves spending a bit more time than planned in Sihanoukville. We hung out with them all night, and paid for it in the morning.

The next day we woke up to rain, but luckily, we were super hungover and had bought seasons 1-5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm in Phnom Penh, so Kevin got knee deep in that while I skyped in the hostel lobby and we waited out the rain. It stopped raining in the afternoon, so we headed down to the beach! We sat around, read our books, swam in the Gulf of Thailand for the first (hopefully of many) time! It was a really relaxing afternoon, and we were so happy to finally be on a beach. We started planning for some island excursions from Sihanoukville, maybe out to do some scuba diving or deep sea fishing. Unfortunately, we had gotten way ahead of ourselves, and the next few days definitely did not abide by our plans.

We woke up the next morning, on a Tuesday to POURING rain. Not just like, spitting or drizzling, straight up monsoon style downpour. And while we thought that we could outlast it, this rain literally didn't stop for the next 12 hours. We felt pretty much confined to our hostel, because there wasn't that much to see or explore around town, and it doesn't exactly make sense to hang out on a beach while it rains. There weren't museums or cultural centers, or anything else remotely interesting except for the beach, and its rain soaked beach chairs. So instead of going out to islands like we were hoping, we pretty much spent the next three days perfecting our pool game and playing hand after hand after hand of rummy 500 (which ended up being rummy 5 000 000). It definitely wasn't the magical beach adventure we were hoping for, but we tried to stay positive and enjoy ourselves while we waited out the rain. Ultimately, by Friday night we realized that the rain wasn't going to stop, and we were going absolutely stir crazy sitting in the hostel. We had to admit defeat, and move on, even though it was hard to do without getting any good sun/beach time. In the end, we were on the back end of three straight days of rain, countless hours of cards, pool, and Curb.

So Friday night we hopped on an overpriced (by Asian standards) overnight bus to Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor Wat.  Angkor Wat is seen on the Cambodian flag, on most Cambodian beers, and on evvvvvvvvvvery single postcard. It was a definite must for our trip and it was well set to drag us out of our rained out beach vacation. We were doing a great job pumping each other up and looking forward to the temples, instead of dwelling on our failed coastal excursion. The overnight bus was a bit of a nightmare. It was 11 hours, it was FREEZING, we were sitting beside the bathroom, which reeked, and it was super loud. Luckily, I had earplugs (thanks hal), so I managed to get a couple hours of sleep, but Kevin was pretty much up all night. His limbs dangled out of his seat and people walking by for the bathroom stepped on him and into him all night.  It was one of our worst transportation experiences, but we figured it was all part of our bad luck spree, and at least we were going somewhere cool.

We got to Siem Reap on Saturday early morning and asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us to a hostel we had found online. In his broken English he told us that the hostel was 'underwater' but he had a better place to take us. I figured he was just trying to take us somewhere where he got a cut of the profit, but I couldn't have been more wrong. After running out of gas in the tuk-tuk on the way there, we got to the centre of town and realized that the ENTIRE town was flooded. The tuk-tuk broke down in the water a second time and we all had to get out to push it the rest of the way. The water was up to mid-calf at the shallowest sections and chest high at the deepest. While people were still out and about, it was clear that this wasn't going to be the easy travel that we were hoping for. By the time we got to the hotel, it had started raining again. We went inside, trying not to freak out. We checked into our room and waited out the rain. Once the rain had stopped we decided to try venturing out into town to see some of the local attractions, and wait till Sunday to go to Angkor Wat.  After asking about some of the local museums and craft shops we realized that the floods hadn't just changed our sleeping arrangements, the floods had shut down most of the town!

We walked into town, and along the main road, water was nearly up to my knees, kids were floating around in basins, and people were frantically closing the doors to their shops so water wouldn't get in. It didn't take us long to figure out that all the great things we had heard about Siem Reap were NOT going to be accessible to us. Tuk-tuks were barely going anywhere because the engines would just flood if they tried to get through the streets. Once again, we found ourselves pretty much stranded in our hostel with Curb and our books. We even decided to give pool a shot in the 4 inches of water on the ground floor of our hostel (which increasingly smelled like sewage throughout the day).

We decided before bed Saturday that if we woke up to the same weather Sunday we were just going to leave. We weren't going to sit around and be upset that we didn't get to Angkor, we were just going to have to postpone it to another time of our trip. While we were there, and for the two days before, tourists had been airlifted by helicopter from the temples. While this sounded like an entertaining story, dwindling funds, and nonexistent enthusiasm turned us around. The transportation to and from the temples was sounding sketchier and sketchier, and we just didn't feel like it made sense to see the temples under those circumstances. We decided it made more sense to just wait and see them on a long weekend or tack them on to the end of our travels, whenever that is!

BEGRUDGINGLY, feelings extremely slighted by luck, we decided to book a bus back to Phnom Penh in order to get our 60 day tourist visa that we were going to need in order to take time and find jobs back in Thailand!  We had to make it out the hostel and to the bus station first without the help of a tuk-tuk. With a 6 hour bus ride ahead of us and an omnipresent driving rain between us and the bus station, we suited up for our trek. Kev had to go in a bathing suit, with dry clothes packed away and I was forced to be the blueberry sherpa, keeping all essentials and dry clothes packed away under our only useful (bright blue) poncho.

Looking back on the week of rain, its easy to laugh about it. Having that much bad luck in one week is ridiculous, and the way it all went down is pretty hilarious. But, at the time, it really wasn't very funny to us at all. It was a hard week, filled with frustrations and obstacles. We got sick of each other, sick of the weather, sick of feeling like prisoners in our hostels, and just sick of it all in general. On the bright side, we came out of the week with some real strength. We were able to get through it, pretty much unscathed. We stuck together, didn't bite each other's heads off, and even managed to have some fun along the way. Hopefully, we won't have to face that kind of week long challenge again, but if we do, I'm fairly confident that we'll get through it, just like we did this past week.

Phnom Penh

After an amazing trek we headed for Cambodia. There could have been some sort of endorphin overload from our first true physical activity in weeks, which left us leaving Laos on a great high. We flew to Bangkok from Laos (on what seemed to be a less than "5 star safety inspected" Lao Airlines plane), and then connected with our Bangkok to Phnom Penh flight. When we went to check in for our second flight to Cambodia, we found out that we hadn't actually paid for our bags to be sent through, when we had booked tickets a month before. It was going to cost Melissa 20 bucks for hers, and it was going to cost me an additional 200 DOLLARS TO BRING MY BAG (this was an 80 flight)!!!!!!!! The stupid bag that I've been lugging around SE Asia was 13 kilos overweight due to a variety of additions which completely unnecessary for backpacking: leather shoes for work interviews, 4 pairs of pants/slacks from my travels in Ireland, 2 light jackets from my trip to Ireland, a few sweaters from my trip to Ireland- none of which come in handy in 90 degree weather, and an 8 kilogram slack-line that I brought to use in parks and around hostels (not so useful in a culture where bare feet can be considered vulgar, and public parks are limited).

We decided to split our bags, and put one gigantic bag of useless extras- which turned out to be 90% of my stuff... Melissa considered her things to be far more essential- into storage at the airport. It was a better deal and would cost only a few bucks per day, instead of 200 to ship the bag.  We said goodbye to the rest of our stuff and went on with one bag of the bare necessities for an undetermined period of time. This pic is all the stuff we left behind (as a side note: i ended up carrying Melissa's bag around which has a huge Canadian flag on it. Being the guy in a bright red Canada shirt while carrying a bag with a huge Canadian flag on it, and not being Canadian can be really confusing for locals).

In total it was about 3 hours of flying, but it ended up being a hell of a long day in different airports in transit. We arrived in Phnom Penh, and shuffled through baggage and immigration to get our visas. Then we grabbed a tuk tuk and head into town to find ourselves a hostel. The Phnom Penh traffic was the worst yet. There were proper street lights and lanes, but drivers were far more creative. For example, tuk-tuk drivers and mopeds might come to an intersection at a red light, take a left into oncoming traffic, drive the wrong way for 200 meters, cut in front of a bus and pull into a side lane barely visible to a non local. It is also common to see, a family of 5 on a moped (think Vespa) in the rain with arms full of groceries, with one passenger holds an umbrella above the group.  Meliss and I were hanging on in the back with our bags strapped to our arms and our fingers crossed when we arrived at some nondescript hostel in the heart of town.  It was already 6 or 7 and, despite the fact that our room was one of the dingiest yet, we were ready to crash for the night . We also found that the TV in the room had cable and we were able to tune in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and some American Cartoon Network, so we didnt mind taking the night off. I ended up getting pretty sick that night and didn't sleep much. We woke up feeling crappy, and were unenthused about getting out about, but also didn't want to spend too much more time in our room. We switched into a better hostel after getting some recommendations and went out for the day.

Thanks to our pessimism and low expectations, Phnom Penh really blew us away.  Crossing the streets and intersections was a recurring source of entertainment, and after absentmindedly waiting for 3 minutes for a pedestrian walking signal, we started having fun "Frogger"ing our way through the traffic. Cambodians also seemed to be alot more active then the Lao or Thai that we've seen. There are nightly Jazzercize classes in any public area, where packs of older women come out in their sweatbands, wheel out giant speakers and proudly do their best Richard Simmons impressions for all to see. We also stumbled across what seemed to be a Cambodian Idol competition, where little asian kids with terrible floppy haircuts sang Justin Beiber songs with reeeeeeeeally thick accents.

We also checked out a long riverside boardwalk that runs a few kilometers down the Ton le Sap river adjacent to one of the fancier strips of real estate in town. Lots of cool cafes and restaurants and hordes of cheeky little kids selling bootleg English bestsellers and Lonely Planet books out of baskets.  They relied less on their cuteness and more on pressure and aggression to sell their crap. Melissa tried to cut a deal for one bracelet with a 4 year old kid who couldn't have been more than 2 feet high. It turned sour real quick. The kid gathered a little posse of shrimpy kids who started insulting us with impressive fluency. Here are two of the little devils... Dont be fooled by the mickey mouse shirt, they were ruthless. They followed us for 20 minutes telling us to "go fuck ourselves", "get out of our country you dirty hookers", variations of "fuck you beetch lady" and "you fuck sheet tourist", all the while wagging their tiny little middle fingers. I thought this was hilarious and pushed their buttons as much as I could. We even tried to buy a bracelet at their original price so that they would take off but they weren't interested anymore. Melissa was a little more upset and eventually got worked up enough to tell them to fuck off.  I havent seen her tell anyone off in a long time and I was dying as she flicked off and cussed out a group of little kids. It really made the day for me.

After getting to know a few of the local street children, we went to some of the local markets to check out the goods. Since a lot of clothes that you find with the bigger brands in the States and Canada are made in Cambodia, local workers will often steal boxes of high end clothes which can end up in the dark alleyways of the markets here. Stacks on stacks on stacks of clothes piled 12 feet high with a little Cambodian face popping out from the middle of the pile saying "good price" or "we have big size too". There are also amazing movie stores. We picked up a full boxed set of Curb Your Enthusiasm, seasons 1-5 for 5 bucks! We also started getting into Breaking Bad, and picked up a few other movies on the side. We could have comfortably floated around in the markets for days, constantly finding new corridors and new stalls.

We also had a really depressing (but fascinating) day in Phnom Penh. We decided to forego the visit to the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, and instead went to a prison that had been used during the Pol Pot regime by the Khmer Rouge, to house and kill many of the bourgeoisie intellectuals in Phnom Penh 30 during the Khmer Rouge. The building functioned as a school before the Khmer Rouge years, which made the whole thing much creepier. We had a very good tour guide who had lived through the misery, and we also met 2 of the 7 survivors of this particular prison. We were able to take in a ton of the history,  and it helped to shed some light on the current Cambodian psyche. The fact that everyone here over 40 has lived through such a terrible onslaught is hard to see. The people are incredibly friendly, seem optimistic, and really seem to appreciate their lives and their culture. It ended up being a tough day, but we learned a lot.  This picture is from one of the old school rooms, which had small brick cells built into it- no more than one meter wide. Notice the chalkboard still on the wall.

We went out for dinner and a few drinks later on that night, and after getting ready to head back to the hostel, Melissa spotted a few of the people that had been on our 2 day boat trip into Laos (luckily, they also happened to be the ones we liked the best).  They came and sat down and for the next couple of hours we got round after round of 2 dollar pitchers. There was a blackout around 11pm, which lasted for about 20 minutes. It was very cool to be in the heart of the city and be able to look up and see the stars, from the patio of a bar. This pic is one of the local cops who was working his way around with a lantern... nobody seemed too concerned.

One of the guys we were with had been to Phnom Penh before and he wanted to take us to a club he had been to a few years back. It was called Heart of Darkeness (which seemed like the perfect place after such out blackout).   The club was definitely overwhelming. Intense club music (with a hint of tribal music), bright neon lights, creepy older expats, and even creepier packs of hookers. Butt pinching, winking and blown kisses were flying past from every direction. This much attention back home would have have made me feel great about myself, but in this setting it ended up being pretty gross (and i couldn't stop looking for adam's apples on all of the "girls"). Melissa came to my defense pretty quickly and we had a fun late night of jagerbombs and dancing with our group of friends. We even decided to stay an extra day so we could see the crew again the following night.

The next day, we woke up a little worse for the wear and decided to head to the local mall to try and catch a movie and relax. Nothing was showing that we wanted to see but we were lucky to find an amazing arcade next door. There were so many blinking lights we knew we would either have an awesome time or quickly have a seizure and have to leave. 5 bucks went incredibly far here, which i was happy to see. We were the only foreigners in the place and people were very impressed to see how we fared in different games. They had some punch meter thing that "gauged your strength" and all the Cambodian boys seemed pretty impressed with me... if i do say so myself... i broke the record twice no big deal. We played some air hockey and they loved seeing us on the basketball thing. Later that night we met up with our friends for dinner and decided to take our good luck to the local casino. We were in over our heads and didn't end up playing much. As we were "feeling the place out", one of the guys we were with promptly lost 100 bucks and we decided it made more sense to take off. We headed back to the guesthouse and packed our bags.

We were ready for some beaching in the sun down on the coast of Cambodia, which was only a 4$ bus ride away. Sun turned out to be a lot to hope for... but you'll hear all about that in the next post. Phnom Penh did us well.

The Trek!

Once we had decided that we weren't going to try and get to Vang Viene and Vientiane, we realized we finally had a block of time to do the kind of thing we'd really been wanting to do: get out into the untouched parts of the country and meet some locals and see how they live. Because South East Asia is so well travelled, its really easy to find yourself on a path thats been laid out by other people. Its the easiest, its often the safest and you have to really branch out to see untouched areas. So up until this point we had been spending a lot of time with other travellers, and not enough time with local people.



So instead of heading through tourist towns, we decided to do a two day jungle trek through Northern Laos. There are a lot of companies that do this kind of thing from Luang Prabang, and luckily most of them pride themselves on being safe, environmentally friendly, and charitable (they donate proceeds to help villages around the country). We decided to go on a two day 'sport' trek. The first day was slotted for mountain biking, and the second day was kayaking! It was EXACTLY what we needed, considering we'd been spending quite a bit of time on our butts, eating (see pictures and stories from previous blog posts). So this way, we'd get out into the country, and get some physical activity at the same time! I decided to buy Kev the trek for his birthday, because it was the type of present I love buying- something that we can both enjoy together, and remember forever!


So we left Monday morning at 8 am. We got served a delicious breakfast, and drove out to the start of our bike. The beginning of the drive was pretty pleasant, nothing too bad.. Then we got about halfway through and found ourselves on the bumpiest most uncomfortable road. We were sitting in the back of an old pickup truck with bikes beside us and kayaks on top, and we were bouncing around non stop. When we finally reached the drop off point I couldn't have been happier to get off the bus. 


We got set up on really solid bikes, and the second we started biking we noticed that our tour guide (his name was Mee- it made for some very confusing dialogue) looked pretty shaky on the bike. He sort of sheepishly looked at us and said "I really hate biking". Not to mention he was wearing dockers and flip flops and couldnt have weighed more than 80 pounds. Didn't exactly instill confidence in us. It was a 40 km bike ride, most of which Mee was trailing behind, or walking his bike up a hill. From the beginning, Kev told me that trying to engage my brakes on a downhill actually just made things harder, so I spent half the trek speeding down hills scared for my life that I was gonna flip over my handlebars. It really got the adrenaline going though, and luckily- I lived to blog about it. The only thing that was bothering me on the bike was that my hands were getting blisters, so Kev and I came up with an ingenious remedy. I looked so hardcore.

Along the bike ride, we rode through hillside villages, where we stopped to eat lunch, and hang out with some locals and kids. We realized immediately that as much as we might want to communicate, it was going to be really tricky considering we only knew how to say 'hello' and 'thank you' (which were nice to know, but weren't really conducive to good conversation). So we ended up doing a lot of smiling and nodding. One of our favourite sights was a little boy, 3 years old who was washing a motorbike by the hose. He was half washing the bike, half washing himself, and it was so cute to watch. Its always interesting to watch the kids here, a lot of whom have so much responsibility at a young age.




The bike ride was amazing, with some awesome views and exciting downhills.

The coolest part of the trek was the night we spent at a homestay in the village. The family that put us up was actually the bride of our tour guide, and her mother. They were increidbly hospitable, making sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed. Unfortunately, neither of them spoke a single word of English, which made it difficult to communicate, but it was obvious that they were happy to have us and share a bit of their life with us. As soon as we arrived in the village we sat down to have a glass of water and we were immediately swarmed by kids. The kids were shy, and didn't speak English, so they spent a lot of the time just sitting there staring at us. We were like aliens to them! The home itself was just one room, with between 4 and 7 people sleeping in it every night. It was all mud floors, with chickens running around the kitchen and bathroom, and no furniture. When it started raining, the "living room" sort of became a mud pit. It was a real shock to see how different our lives are from theirs.

Trying to figure out the appropriate customs in the village was certainly a funny challenge. The 'shower' was just a faucet outside, and it was pretty hilarious watching Kevin and I try figure out how to do it. Kevin was about 3 feet too tall to be comfortable, and I was so uncomfortable in the sarong I was in, I was terrified it was going to fall. When Kev came out to take this picture he noticed a pack of drunk guys next door laughing their heads off watching me try to shower while staying covered. Using the ever-terrifying squat toilet was also quite an interesting experience. We'll spare you the details, but needless to say its very tricky.

After we had showered and cleaned up we were ready to go for a nice walk. Luckily, there was a young girl who took a liking to me, and she decided to show us around the village. She didn't speak English, but she communicated surprisingly well, just pointing at things and making hand motions. Its so interesting to see how willing and able young children are to help strangers that come to visit.

As I guess we should have expected, the entire village went to bed at 8:30 pm and woke up at about 5am with the roosters. I was smart enough to have earplugs, but Kev's sleep didn't go too well. We had breakfast, and headed out to meet the truck with the kayaks. The kayaking was super relaxing, with great views along the way. I started the day in a 3 man kayak with Mee (our guide) and Kev was alone. We both ended up flipping over in the rapids, but nothing we couldn't handle. Eventually we switched and Kev and I cruised down the river in the 2 man, with him doing most of the paddling :) Unfortunately no pictures since every time we saw a good one, we had to unroll the dry-bag and by the time the camera switched on, we had floated by the sight.  We rode back into town and had a nice night back in Luang Prabang, where I managed to snap my FAVOURITE picture of the trip , of this girl and her asian squat eating bag food.

Luang Prabang, LAOS!

After about 2 and a half days of transit on boats, overnight buses, creepy riverside village motels, we arrived at the port in Luang Prabang, Laos and set out to find the cleanest sounding hostel we had looked up in Lonely Planet. The only problem was that when we took a tuk-tuk (ha!) across town to the address, and roamed down an alley with our big bags, we stumbled upon a construction site instead of a cool comfy hostel. We were exhausted and pretty annoyed to do some back tracking to find another place, but we ended up on a strip with a bunch of the people who had been on our boat. The place was nice and clean with a balcony.

Luang Prabang was a very interesting place. You could really feel the French colonial history of the place, with old french signs, colonial architecture, and CREPES AND BAGUETTES from street vendors (notice how tiny alllllll of the stools are here). The weird part was seeing giant colorful Buddhist Temples in the middle of an old French promenade. We had a great time exploring, and the first night we went to the local night market to see what small variation the Lao people would put on their tourist beer t-shirts. We didn't have huge expectations for it, but the market ended up being pretty impressive. Clothes and handicrafts as well as opium pipes, old daggers and some ancient money. It was a good way to close the night out, and we were ready for our first legitimate night rest in a few days.

The next day we decided to head out to see some of the local waterfalls. We had heard that the best/cheapest way to do this was to hire a tuk tuk driver for the day. We met a couple of French girls who were also hoping to see the falls and a driver cut us a good deal since there were 4 of us. The drive was really cool, and it took us through a bunch of the local villages where we could see some farming and lots of woodworking and bamboo hut construction.  He took us to the first big set of waterfalls which were really big and impressive and we did some hiking around, but unfortunately no swimming there. Then back into the tuk tuk and off to the second falls. We didn't realize there would be so much time in the back of the tuk tuk, and we got absolutely soaked en route to the second falls which was a pain.  The driver dropped us off at a river and told us we were going to have to catch a little canoe upriver to the falls.

The boat ride was cool and I got one of my favorite pics so far from the trip, as a monk roamed out his farm on the riverside. They were a bit smaller, but they were about 100 meters wide and seemed to roll over these terraces and mangroves. Unlike any falls I had ever seen, and the best part was the swimming. There was a rope swing, and it was also in a more secluded place with a series of little bamboo bridges set up all over the falls.  We hung out there for a while and then went back into town and out for a few drinks with the French girls. A great day all in all, even though it was more driving than we had hoped for.

For dinner we went to the night food market, which was situated in a little dark alleyway, with stall upon stall of food. You could get a big pile the food on as high you wanted for 1 dollar. It ended up being pretty overwhelming since every single dish on the table was fried in one way or another. Even the bread that I picked up ended up being deep fried.

The next day we had to do some serious planning for the second leg our trip. Since we had come to Thailand with one-way flights, we had to buy another cheap flight out of Thailand within 30 days as our proof of onward travel (they do this so that you cant stay forever without appropriate visas). We decided to buy a flight from Bangkok to Phom Penh, Cambodia, back in August before our actual flight. We were kinda prepared not to take the flights if we werent back in Thailand but the date of the flight was getting closer and closer, so we had to figure out how to get back down to Bangkok from Laos to catch the flights. We had originally planned to travel south through Laos to hit a tourist hotspot called Veng Viane where you can drink alot and go tubing down a river. Then we were going to go on to the capital called Vietiane.  And then onto a train that would take us to Bangkok to catch our flights.

After asking around and talking to people who had done a similar itinerary, we decided against seeing those two cities, since the routes by bus had been severely slowed by mudslides. A trip of less than 400 km, from where we were staying, to the capital, took one lady 30 hours on a miserable uncomfortable bus. We also had heard that the capital was pretty unexciting and that the tubing was overrated. We liked Luang Prabang so much that we decided to hang out there for a few more days instead. We also opted to do a two day mountain bike/kayak trek out into the countryside instead of going tubing.  We then booked a flight from Luang Prabang to Bangkok to make our connection. It ended up being a roundabout way of getting out of Laos, but we chose to really soak in the feel of one place that we liked alot, instead of doing a few days on buses to see a couple different places that didn't appeal to us that much.

After all this deliberation, we hung out in town and rented bikes to cover some more ground. We stumbled upon a hilarious, drunk old man down by the river who sold his homemade moonshine/snake whiskey out of tent. You can get homamade whiskey anywhere in Laos. A couple places give it out for free, as some sort of sick/twisted perk at their retaurants, but this stuff was on another level... Affectionately called Laolao.  We had heard that you can occasionally find this guy selling his whiskey different places in town, so I figured I had to give it a shot, or have him give me a shot ;)  His big vat of whiskey had all different types of snakes and lizards and crickets and cockroaches in it, and the man himself didn't exactly make it any more appealing. He was snot-rocketing in the tent and drooling, and reeeeeeeally drunk for 3PM, but I couldn't turn back. He poured me out a handsome triple shot, into the grittiest little glass he could find, and you can see the rest for yourself in the vid... I tried to upload a video but it was being glitchy, so itll have to wait for now.

It was pretty gross but I couldn't leave Luang Prabang without doing it. Meliss even took a sip against her own will.  Later on we climbed up the mountain right in the middle of town, which has a temple at the top with great sunsets and a view over the whole little city. There were a couple hundred stairs and we were worried that we were going to miss the sunset so we had to jog up to the top to catch it. Bad idea on the ever present belly full of fried food.  The sunset was cool, but the hordes of tourists at the top jockeying for the best position, were not.  We made our way back down and went through the market again. At the bottom of all the stairs there were packs of little girls selling bracelets out of cardboard boxes. Cute at first, but they start to feel like little mosquitos hovering around and pulling on the seam of your shirt after a while. Meliss tends to get stuck since she's always up for a chat with little kids. Here she is fending off 4 of them.  Once we shook the girls off we went and booked our trek for the following day.  Later we met up with the crew from the boat for a bit of a last hurrah at one of the clubs (which was owned by a Quebecker!).  We had a good night out and came back and packed our stuff up for the trip out of town.

The Journey Down the Mekong

As most of you know, when Kev and I booked our trip here, we didn't plan much in the way of travelling. We knew we wanted to do it, but in true 'us' style, we figured it would just sort itself out. Laos was never really talked about as a destination, but when we got here and talked to people, it became obvious that we had to get there. So from Chiang Mai we decided to do the long, slow journey down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. We had heard some horror stories about the trip, boats sinking yada yada, but we figured it was nothing we couldn't handle.

The first leg of the trip was getting from Chiang Mai to the border between Thailand and Laos. The bus picked us up at 9pm and said it was about a 5 hour drive. We figured we could sleep on the bus.... we figured wrong. It was an AWFUL bus ride, whipping around corners, winding streets, speeding and all that jazz. We were so incredibly uncomfortable i thought it would never end. When we finally pulled up to the hostel at the border it was 2 in the morning. The hostel was a total dump- bugs and lizards everywhere. Needless to say the bus/hostel combo put us in a pretty miserable mood. We woke up in the morning to a pouring rain. We had to prepare ourselves for the worst ahead- the dreaded boat ride. By the time we crossed the border and got to the loading dock for the boats, we were pretty confused. There didn't seem to be anyone around to help us, and we hadn't picked up any sort of confirmation for the boat, even though we had paid for our ticket. We started asking and as it turned out, we were supposed to have met a guy at the border who was gonna give us tickets and take us to the loading dock. Oops. Luckily, he came there with our tickets, and we went to the boat to set up!

Much to our surprise, the boat was incredibly cool, and comfortably set up. It was basically a big wooden box with a bunch of seats that had been pulled out of old minivans, but somehow it was a really nice set up. There were a bunch of bright colours on the boats, blues and pinks and yellows, and it made for some great photo snapping. Almost immediately after sitting down my fears were eased and I got the sense that the ride was going to be a lot more fun than we had expected.

Inside the boat here were big open windows where you could watch the world go by. The sill was wide enough that you could sit on them, and Kev spent the better part of the first 7 hour day sitting reading his book on the ledge. It was a really serene boat, nothing was too loud, people were nice and calm, and Kev was in the middle of a Hemingway classic, so it was the perfect time for him to finish his book!





I wasn't in the middle of any good books, so I found myself spending a lot of time sitting by the window, just watching. Much like Coop Dog does at my house, I sat there almost all day, with my head in my hand, just thinking about the trip and what we had seen, and what we were getting out of the whole experience. The scenery was absolutely GORGEOUS. Because it is the rainy season here, the water was brown (because of the mud run off from the mountains), but the rain means that the mountains themselves were really lush, and everything was super green. Floating through the middle of it really gave a cool perspective, because it all looked so huge from the bottom.

Aside from just the beautiful scenery, there was a lot of life along the riverbanks of the Mekong. The majority of the villages in that part of Laos are situated along the river, so that they have access to fishing and water for bathing. There were constantly people to watch, whether they were families playing in the water, small fishing boats, or kids running around near the water. The boat stopped a few times to let some locals off at nondescript villages, and little barefoot kids slinging giant bottles of beer jumped onto the boat from the riverbank like monkeys and worked through the crowd of travellers selling beer, candy and fruit. We took some really cool pictures, but even they can't do justice to how beautiful everything was.

We arrived in Pak Beng around 6pm, after 7 hours on the boat the first day. Because it gets so dark, its too dangerous to just boat all the way through, so you have to spend the night at the halfway point. Pak Beng didn't really have much to see, it was mainly just a few guesthouses and their restaurants for the tourists that were stopping along the way. We did manage to meet a bunch of really cool people from our boat, a lot of whom we have seen again since! We spent the night hanging out and drinking, Kev was challenged to some arm wrestles by the kids in town, which he promptly won. It was a good night, and we woke up the next morning ready for another big day on the river! The boat the second day was a bit fancier, the seats were actually bolted into the floor, and they had tray tables. Since Kev had finished his book, we spent most of the ride chatting and playing cards, he wrote some postcards and I wrote in my journal.

All in all, the trip from Chiang Mai to Laos had its ups and downs. Much to our surprise, the slow boat down the Mekong turned out to be one of our favourite experiences. It gave us the perfect amount of time to clear our heads, and reflect a little bit. Since there was nothing to do, we didn't feel pressured to keep moving or sightseeing or going out to do something. We took the time to relax and it really payed off. By the end of the second day on the boat, we were both in a much better headspace. It was obvious that we needed the time, and we were lucky we took it. It was a long, but beautiful ride, and we enjoyed it a lot.

Pai, Thailand

After a few days in Chiang Mai, we were trying to figure out where to go next. We got tons of recommendations at the hostel from different people who had gone to a town a few hours away called Pai. We heard it was a little hippie enclave with live music, great views of Thai farmland in the heart of a valley, and a pretty big arts scene.  We figured we could go there for a night and then come back to Chiang Mai to figure out the next step.

We didn't realize until we boarded our little minivan-bus that the road between Chiang Mai and Pai is notoriously miserable. All over Pai there are signs and shirts saying "Chiang Mai- Pai: 130 Km, 762 curves".  The bus swerves around these huge banking curves, during monsoon rains, all in the mountains, at the edge of cliffs. In the bus that followed us, they had to stop 3 separate times (in the 3 hour ride) for people who had gotten carsick.  We finally made it to Pai around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and the mellow vibe was apparent right away.  The place felt like a little beach town and their were funky skinny thai guys with long fu-man-chus, bell bottoms, and john lennon glasses everywhere. There was actually a bar where this seemed to be a uniform.  We were able to find a guesthouse with a private bungalo for 6 bucks a night!

We were off to a good start, and it felt great to be in such a small, relaxed place after Bangkok and Chiang Mai.  Meliss thought she could handle a scooter there, so we rented a pair of them and took off exploring the countryside.  Cue action-packed vid:

We rode around for the afternoon, and then went back into town to hit the local market and grab a few drinks, and crash early.

The next morning we woke up, went for breakfast in town and scoured the maps for cool places not too far from Pai where we could go on our bikes. We found some cool waterfalls about 45 km away, so we paid the bill and went to get on our way. Meliss was trying to turn around in the street, lost her balance, and then turned the throttle as she tried to grab the brake. Not a good idea. Luckily, she toppled over before hitting a wall, and escaped with only a few scrapes.... and a broken left brake and rear view mirror (insurance costs about $1 here and covered everything.... suckers).

After she toughed it out, and decided to ride on, we headed out of town to a local waterfall up in the hills through a village. Because it's monsoon season, the waterlevels are really high, and the falls were much more impressive than the ones we'd seen in pictures online.  We did some climbing around and then i jumped in for a swim to cool off. The pictures don't really do it justice, but the falls were set in dense jungle and they looked out over the whole valley. While i was swimming, a heavy rain started which made the whole thing much cooler.

After the falls, we stopped off at a little place where you can hang out and go fishing for catfish and piranhas.  A few expats opened this place about 10 kms out of town, and it was a really good way to spend the afternoon, have a few beers and go fishing. It was also nice because we were able to sit out the rain before our ride back into town.  Meliss wasn't too interested in the fishing, but luckily, there was a little lab puppy and a kitten that kept her pretty busy while I fished.

After the fishing outing we went back into town. Originally, when we planned to come to Pai, we had thought we would stay for one night and come back the next day. We left our big bags at the hostel in Chiang Mai and brought an extra t-shirt and pair of underwear. Everyone we talked to told us we wouldnt want to leave, and they were right. We decided to stay for an extra night which gave us an amazing 3 days there.







We found this place called the Curry Shack which made incredible curries for next to nothing. I got a coconut curry, served in a coconut with the top machete'd off, with a big pineapple shake.  After 10 days of fish, chips and Guinness in Ireland all this fresh produce and spice is doing me well.





After a full day, we hung out at the bungalo for a while reading and then went for drinks and some music. We met a family of Canadians from Victoria, with a girl hoping to go to McGill next year. When a Canadian runs into a Canadian travelling, there is aaaaaaalways something to talk about and some common ground. This time we didn't make it to all the way to mutual friends, but it was still good to have a taste of home (or close to it)

The next morning we were reluctant to leave, and even more hesitant to get back on that terrible bus. We had decided to take the 4 hour bus back to Chiang Mai, grab our bags and a meal at the hostel, and then get on an overnight bus that would take us to the border of Laos where we would connect with our 2 day boat down the Mekong River into Northern Laos. The thought of all those uncomfortable overnights, and connections seemed pretty daunting, but it was time to move on!

Chiang Mai!

 Leaving Bangkok was a bit of a relief for me. After all the craziness, I felt like getting out of the main hub and seeing a bit more of the country would make me much happier, and I would be able to start getting a better idea of SE Asia.

We boarded our overnight train with no idealistic expectations. We figured the trip would be pretty painful- long, uncomfortable, and with very little sleep. But to our surprise, we found the train pretty enjoyable! Obviously, I only slept for a few hours (the combination of being jet lagged and in motion was not a great one for me), but we were able to read our books, watch the scenery, and talk a little. We got to Chiang Mai at about 9 am on the morning of August 30th and headed straight for our hostel to set up. The place was called Julie's Guesthouse, and we immediately loved it. It has a cool common area with pool tables, a restaurant, free wifi and overall great vibes. Seeing the crowd there and getting a sense of Chiang Mai, we knew we were going to really enjoy ourselves there.

We spent the first day in Chiang Mai just walking around, getting oriented with the city and what not. We just so happened to stumble upon a few lovely temples, and eventually ended up at a women's prison where they gave cheap cheap hour long thai massages. It was a sort of support program for women that were soon to be released as a way for them to earn money. And we were well overdue for our first massage! It was a great massage, although I found it a bit painful. Kevin's masseuse had some trouble with him, considering he is a giant here. She needed another 50 pounds to be able to do any real damage, so while I sat there squirming and squeaking, Kevin was basically asleep. But overall, we both enjoyed them, a lot, and they cost $5 each!

That night, Kevin went to his first Muay Thai fight. I decided to skip it and hang around the hostel instead. I wasn't crazy about the idea of going to see a fight, so Kevin went with a German guy Marcus who had been on the train with us and came to Julie's for his Chiang Mai stay. He had a great time at the fight. He was able to get front row seats and watch a bunch of teenagers kick the crap out of each other. Betting/gambling is illegal in Thailand everywhere except at the fights, which brought alot more energy to the crowd.  I stayed at the hostel and got a beer, planning on reading my book and hanging out. I ended up meeting some awesome people that night. I had a great night,                                                      drinking beers, playing pool, met some really cool people from all over who we ended end up spending a lot of time with in the coming days.                                                                          

The next day was one of my personal favourite days of the trip so far- our thai cooooooooking class!!! After an excellent recommendation from Newlove, we signed up for 'Sammy's Organic Cooking Class'. Our first stop was a local market, where Sammy explained what types of ingredients are used in most Thai dishes. We got some time to walk around, and Kev went on an awesome photo-spree.

 Needless to say, like all the Asian markets we've been to so far, there was a ton to see at the market- it was busy and colourful and there was some ridiculous stuff (see pig head) and some amazing fresh fruits and veggies. From the market, Sammy took us a bit farther out of the city to his farm that he lives on with his wife and young daughter. It was a gorgeous place, and it smelled amazing due to all the herbs and spices he had growing there. We chose which dishes we wanted to make: an appetizer, a soup, a curry, a stirfry, and a dessert! It was HEAVEN- all day. The spices were amazing, everything smelled good, the company was great, and Kev and I really just had such a good time. And as if that wasn't enough, our food was delicious. And I learned how to make spring rolls!!!

The next day was another day full of adventure! The first (of what I'm sure will be many) motorcycle rental! For those of you who have been here, you know that renting motorcycles is about as cheap as taking a taxi somewhere. you pay about 10 bucks (including insurance) for 24 hours of fun. Asian city traffic is like nothing else i've ever seen, its every man for himself out there, it always seems like mass chaos to me. I figured I would err on the side of caution, and I handed the reigns over to Kev on this one and decided to be a passenger and let him drive. 

This turned out for the best for a few reasons: 

1. I was terrified on the roads, I would have FOR SURE ended up in an accident

2. They drive on the left side of the road here, which wouldn't have helped my terror

3. We would definitely have gotten lost if I wasn't reading a map on Kevin's back while we drove

4. We got to chat and enjoy each other's company while we scooted around :)

We drove out to the temple on the hill. It was up a winding mountain, so Kevin definitely enjoyed zipping around corners, and I was so happy to be in the mountains enjoying the scenery that I barely covered my eyes! We enjoyed the temple on the a hill a lot, it was gorgeous, and there was some really cool history there!

The next day was spent hanging around the hostel with the people there. Kevin was fully involved in the seventh Harry Potter book, so he was barely interacting with me, let alone socializing with strangers. Once he finished the book we set up our trip for the next day to Pai, and headed for the night market where we floated around, but didn't buy anything exciting.

Overall, Chiang Mai was an amazing experience. It started us off on our adventure. It got us out of the city and into the mountains, and it gave us a chance to leave the big work questions back in Bangkok for a few weeks. We had so much fun doing what we do best- exploring and eating great food!