Sunny days, sweaty nights

We are seriously diggin' being on the beach!

We successfully met up with our friends Sean Gorman and Jordan Kalinchuk from Alberta, friends from Lake O'hara. After meeting up in Bangkok we headed straight south to the islands.

It's beautiful, and hot, and we've just been soaking it up. The only occasionally frustrating thing is that it's absolute high season, so accommodation is hard to come by and rather expensive compared to what we're accustomed to... We've had a few stressful moments trying to find places we can afford to stay, because the little humble places we can afford tend not to advertise or take any advance bookings.

Jon and I have 9 days until we need to make our way back up to Bangkok to fly home, so we're doing a little bit of island hopping. We're on Ko Lanta right now, and next maybe Ko Phi Phi, and then back to Railay for some climbing after Sean and Jordie's friend Cody comes down to meet up with us. He's going to bring a bunch of Sean's climbing gear from home so that we can save some money on rentals.

Phranang beach on Railay was probably the most amazing beach I've ever seen. It's flanked by towering limestone cliffs covered in climbers, the water is warm and crystal clear, the sand silky and white, and there's all these fun cliffs to scramble about on and jump into the water. We could have just stayed, but there's a lot of cool places to see so we're island hopping and we'll just go back.

Today on Ko Lanta we got scooters (of the slightly temperamental semi-functional variety) and scooted around the island exploring various beaches, and stopping periodically for snacks. There were some utterly magical deserted beaches, I had had my doubts that such a thing still existed in Thailand until we saw them today. Ko Lanta is the largest population of muslim Thais in Thailand, but we're finding them moderate and tolerant of the tourists. Largely accustomed to and seemingly non judgemental of bikini clad and beer drinking backpackers.

Southern Thailand is such a saturated tourist destination that we don't feel like we get as much as a sense of "real" Thailand here - there are almost as many foreigners as there are Thais. We all knew what we were getting into, and the beaches and jungle are certainly worth the time down here. It's just that our time in rural Laos, northern Thailand and urban Hanoi felt a lot more authentic than this environment.

I admit that on some levels I'm having trouble being in the moment these days. My impending return home has me preoccupied with things like jobs, places to live, finances. I am dreading saying goodbye to Carina. In some ways I look forward to getting home, but the cold dreary Vancouver winter will be hard to face. Conflicted emotions.

Eryn is scoping out jobs for me, and Maya is going to take me in as a roommate for a few months before I return for O'hara 2011, so that's falling into place. I'm trying my best to remain in the present, where I am right NOW, and enjoy the last two weeks of this adventure.

So here's a few snap shots. That's me jumping off a little cliff. I swear it looked waaay higher when I was standing on it. The water was really deep, it was so much fun.

That's a snap of Sean and Jon on the train so you can see what the inside of a second class sleeper train car looks like before they convert the seats into sleeper bunks. The train cars are old and gritty and have a lot of charm, cool staff and bedbugs, unfortunately.

Carina buying some noodles from one of the mobile beach restaurants that move from beach to beach selling food.

Sean playing his guitar while we waited for the long tail to take us from Ao Nang to Railay.

...and I couldn't resist the gratuitous shot of everyone walking out of the water. That's Carina, Emily, Sean, Jon and Jordan.

Walking on sunshine

Hi!

So we got our new Thai visas without incident in Vientiane, and we've arrived in Bangkok after a comfortable sleeper train down from Vientiane. Thai sleeper cars are very comfortable, and the 12 hour ride passed quickly and we all got a good night sleep. The sleeper cars fill up fast and we were lucky to get the booking - they have linen and a pillow, and the bunks are long enough that even Jon, at 6'2", can stretch out properly and sleep well. The 12 hour trip cost just over $20. Crossing the Laos-Thai border was also a breeze, there is the adorably named Thailand-Laos Friendship Bridge across the Mekong river (one side of the river is Laos, the opposite sideThailand) and it's such a popular tourist border crossing that they just shuffle you through in a moment's time.

We're here in Bangkok just for a day and a half, we're meeting up with our friend Sean Gorman from Lake O'hara and his buddy Jordie who are flying in from Kathmandu today. We all get on another sleeper train to Krabi, southern Thailand tomorrow.

It was chilly up north and it feels divine to be in sweaty warm Thailand again. We weren't really equipped for the cool nights, I was often wishing I had a down vest with me!

I'm walking on sunshine because Carina announced early this morning that she has decided to head south with us, and we can put off our goodbyes for a few more weeks. She has options - she's in Thailand for 4-6 weeks and then on to Malaysia, so she's doing the south with us, working her way north and then flying to Malaysia. There's certain safety in this choice - the extreme south of Thailand is somewhat rough, there can be violence and the Thai-Malay border there isn't so peaceful. It's intermittent, but it's probably wise to avoid crossing there. She's been secretly working out the pros and cons of her various route options through Thailand, and wants our company for more time too, and made her choice this morning. So at 6am this morning I was doing a happy victory dance through the Bangkok train station because I was so excited.

Had a blazing hot chicken green curry for breakfast. I loved the food in Laos, but I like it even better in Thailand.

Hope you're all well!

Laos...and some comments about Vietnam

Holy smokes, do I ever wish I knew what I was in for when planning this trip. Three weeks for Laos wasn't nearly enough, and Carina and Jon and I are already wincing about leaving.

Laos is landlocked, it's a high risk zone for malaria, we thought we'd just breeze through...I mean how good can it be? There's no beaches! How wrong we were.

This is without question my favorite country I've visited yet, possibly ever. The national psyche is unlike anything I've ever encountered - a winning combination of dignity, playfulness, humour, warmth, generosity, cheer. People are so friendly, rivaled only by India amongst the countries I have been to. For a country that remains in the top twenty poorest countries in the world, people really know how to live here. It's so social, kids are beautiful and happy, people so tender with each other, and so welcoming of all us "falang", foreigners.

It's also extremely relaxed - people joke for a reason that Lao PDR actually stands for Please Don't Rush. Even Vientiane, the cosmopolitan national capital feels like a quiet small town.

The nature of Laos is dazzling, our long tedious bus rides are soothed by staggeringly beautiful views.

Aside from our travel path I haven't commented much on Vietnam, so it's important to remember that my opinion of Laos was formed right leaving there.

There was a lot about our time in Vietnam that was challenging and frustrating, and I'm afraid I don't really recommend traveling there. While of course I can't speak in absolutes, because we did meet some lovely people, they were outnumbered by aloof and sometimes outright hostile folks who are definitely resentful towards foreigners, despite my best efforts to win them over. While it's a beautiful country, its tourism industry is being mismanaged, it's forests abused and depleted and as ecotourism is as yet barely developed there I fear that the beauty that is there will not last. I saw some beautiful things in Vietnam, but we were often distracted by money hungry swindlers, the rip off factor was high, and we had to look at a lot of garbage.

By contrast Thailand and Laos are much more aware about litter. Vietnamese don't realize what they're doing....the garbage situation is bad, although there seems to be good garbage collection infrastructure. People litter freely everywhere. Laos and Thailand were a lot tidier. It's hard to be on a hike in a beautiful place and not be bummed that you've lost count of the plastic water bottles tossed off the trail.

The high points of Vietnam were often because of the company, we met some great new friends. Locations that pleased me most were Ha Long Bay, and Hoi An.

Four Thousand Islands is an area of the Mekong river where there are....many little islands. The one we went to, Dondet, was only electrified a few years ago and it was a sleepy, idyllic farming and fishing island until it started its baby steps into tourism. I hope hope hope it doesn't get spoiled. Dotted with bungalows and relaxed riverside restaurants, there aren't that many tourists yet, mostly because it's isolated and hard to get to. Our trip from Vientiane was a combination of bus, minibus and ferry, and it took 26 hours. There are no ATMs, no hotels, and most of island is car free - one end has a few trucks and scooters and tuk tuks, but mostly it's bicycles.

We explored on bikes, dipped in the river, read a lot, met some nice people, played a lot of cards, and just soaked it up. We even got to see a pod of the critically endangered and extremely rare Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins. I've been fixated with these dolphins for a little while and it was so cool to be taken into a wide part of the river where generations of this pod has lived for over a hundred years. They're always there, and they're smart - apparently only one in ten years has been accidentally caught in a fisherman's net, and it was a juvenile. They were all around us, the closest within about 10 metres, surfacing, breathing, spitting water, circling around.

A week flew by there, and we were NOT ready to leave when it was time to go. but with only a twenty one day visa for Laos we had a lot more ground to cover.

We made our way up north on another exhausting series of buses to meet up with Jon and our friend Drew in Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is known as a backpacker party town - it's evolved to cater to this, and we didn't stay long, it's not really our scene. We did some wild caving in a gigantic limestone cave, and swam in an exquisite cold clear lagoon outside the cave, and partook in the rather legendary river innertubing extravaganza that Vang Vieng is known for. It was fun, two days was more than enough there, and we continued up to this lovely city of Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is fantastic - great markets, the most lovely waterfall I've seen this trip, some very special temples, and of course lots more of the lovable Lao people.

Today we walked to the top of Phousi hill to the temple and saw the full 360 degree view of Luang Prabang, it was great. There is a really cute custom here...there are ladies selling tiny brown finches in tiny bamboo cages for about a dollar, proceeds for temple maintenance. You take it to the top, tell it your worries and send them away when you release the bird. I couldn't resist.

Something very surreal and kind of painful happened outside the temple and has left me reflecting on it all day. As I was sending my finch to freedom I noticed a very frail, ill black cat slowly and methodically cleaning it's paws. He was bony. He had no fur around his neck, and clearly had some serious metabolic issues going on. This was a dying, possibly very old black cat. He was hard to look at. He wasn't feral at all, he was friendly.

He looked at me with interest, and strolled over awkwardly just as Carina and Jon walked up to where I was sitting. He circled Jon's big water bottle with interest, it was apparent he knew it was water, and he really really wanted some. We had nothing to put it in, so for about 15 minutes we sat there and refilled the cap to the water bottle and he drank A LOT. When he had his fill, we think about 200ml, he very slowly and kind of nonchalantly sidled up to where I was sitting next to me and decided he really needed so sit on my lap. We were all stunned, this was clearly a cat needing to be soothed. Despite my obvious intuition that you shouldn't touch sick kitties I let him. All three of us were very moved by this cat, and he slowly but confidently settled into my lap and curled up. I couldn't control tears that were streaming down my face. Eventually we had to leave. We bought some crackers and crumbled them up and he ate them, enthusiastically. We don't think he will live much longer, but it left us all feeling really odd for a few hours. It was very intense.

Luang Prabang is gorgeous, and mellow, and I think I could even live here. ...but we're here for a few more days and then we start the long process of making our way down to Bangkok to wrap our trip with a couple weeks in southern Thailand on the islands. Our return date is suddenly coming up, we come home on February 6th.

Carina has become a dear friend, in a lot of ways she reminds me of Jinny, and makes me miss her painfully. We just clicked right away, one of those friendships that hits you like a lightning bolt. We're supposed to know each other, and it will be hard to say goodbye soon after a month of traveling together. She lives in Oslo, and has three more months of traveling before she returns to Norway.

This time has flown by, and while in many ways I'm reluctant to come home, I'm also excited. It gives one great perspective on your life to be away in such a different place from where you live. I miss working, I can't wait to get cooking again. I miss Nate. I am so excited for another season of Lake O'hara. I miss my family and friends. It will be good to come home.

I can't figure out how to make that extra waterfall (that's the one from today) go away so I will leave it for the moment.