Well, so far we can say we've had a very bitter sweet experience in the North of Vietnam. Some people have been just great, and other experiences have been pretty bad. Let's start with the good though...
Sapa
Perfume (the lady at our guesthouse) booked us on a great Sapa tour and pretty decent Halong Bay tour, and gave us a good price on each. For the Sapa tour, we took an overnight sleeper train. (So nice! not used to having beds with pillows and blankets to sleep on! Had two other Vietnamese guys sharing our berth, who were nice although slurped chicken feet for about an hour when they first got on - gross!) Then took a mini bus from Lao Cai to Sapa, passing beautiful scenery on the way. Huge mountains and rice fields. In Sapa we were dropped off at a really nice hotel where we ate an amazing buffet breakfast before heading out on our trek. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by little ladies from the local tribes who were dressed in traditional clothing, and they ended up following us on our trek too. They walk with you the whole way and help you on the slippery parts in hopes that you will buy something from them after. They were actually quite funny and it wasn't as annoying as we expected it would be. They all asked the same three questions - "Where you from? What your name? How old are you?" The lady who chose to focus on me was named Za, and she was pretty cool. 50 years old but looked whithered enough to be 70 or 80. She made me a few little gifts out of grass and flowers along the way, and helped me from bailing into a rice pool at one point (the trails we walked on were VERY slippery and muddy as it rained a lot up there, and sometimes you had to walk on little rock ledges between rice paddy terraces/pools). So we didn't feel too bad buying a souvenir from her at the bottom. She deserved it. All of the ladies sell about the same 7 souvenirs. Same colour, everything. I think she liked us, as she gave us free bracelets afterwards. Either that or she was marking us as suckers. :)
We hiked to our guide and Za's village for lunch (Lo Chai? Lai Chao?) and fortunately no other village ladies followed us after that. Then we hiked to the Te Van village to our homestay where we would spend the night. It was really more like an inn for travelers, which was kind of weird, but we still get a cool experience of watching the people in the village pass by with all their animals, and there were chickens and all sorts of animals running around our homestay, including a pack of about 8 puppies!!! They were soooo cute. I spent most of the night playing with them. There was also an old pool table and some games to entertain us.
Our guide, Chi, was AWESOME. She was sooo funny. Spoke very good English and would say just the funniest English phrases, like "bloody hell". She was a cute little 25 year old with a gold tooth who again looked older, and would yell at us to "slow down! My legs are too short! Your legs are long!" She called Mike a cheeky monkey at one point. Mike and I joked around with her all the time, and she loved us. She really made the trip for us.
The second day we hiked to another village and a waterfall (not that impressive), then back to the hotel to spend the night there. It was a very deluxe room, with a jet shower! I have never even seen one of those before! For the last day, we hiked in the POURING rain to Cat Cat village and another waterfall. This time we stopped in one of the village houses (very dark, no windows, and smoky since they cook over the fire, a lot had TVs), and got to see the old fashioned machines they use to remove the shell of rice and corn off the cob.
All in all we really enjoyed the tour. We had one sour moment though upon return to Hanoi, when our hotel forgot to pick us up from the train station at 5:30 am in the morning. And of course I had lost the little hotel business card and we had left the map at the hotel, and turns out none of the taxi or motorcycle drivers know where F Hotel is! (Although they try to get you to hop in anyway, which is ridiculous.) So we had to walk there blindly, and it ended up taking us an hour and a half since we got lost a few times and didn't know exactly where it was. It was brutal. When we arrived at the hotel, Perfume's brother was there (sleeping) and realized he had forgotten to come get us, and was very sorry. Clearly not as competent as Perfume. He took $5 off our Halong Bay trip, which we fortunately were still able to book for an hour and a half later.
Halong Bay
Our Halong Bay tour was also quite good, although you always feel like you are being hearded from vehicle to boat to vehicle/etc, so it's not very relaxing and there's a fair bit of waiting around. It's amazing how many different people and companies these tours coordinate in order to transport you around and do the various activities. First we took a bus to Halong City, where we then caught a gorgeous "junk" boat out to Halong Bay. It was so nice, our bedroom was big (for a boat), air conditioned and had its own bathroom, the top deck had lawn chairs, etc. We were served fresh sea food for all of our meals, including large prawns, fish and shellfish. Oh, and delicious crab cakes cooked in half the shell too.
Halong Bay was gorgeous, although very un-environmentally friendly. There were locals who lived in little floaty houses on the water, and they just threw their garbage into the water! There were lots of plastic bags and water bottles floating around all over the place, it was really a shame. Especially for a world heritage sight. People seem to have very little regard for the environment here, which really bothers me. There were TONS of boats in Halong bay so it felt very touristy, but it was still beautiful, with tons of little limestone karst islands. The first day we went to a cave that was also very touristy, all sorts of coloured lights shining on the various structures. Still a very amazing cave though. Then we stopped on an island with a lookout point you could hike up to and a beach where we swam. The water didn't seem too bad there. That night we slept on the boat.
The next day, we went to Cat Ba island (the only populated island in Halong Bay). A very slow boat took us through the karsts near Cat Ba, which turned out to be even more beautiful and much less touristed (we only saw maybe one other tour boat) than those in the rest of Halong Bay...however, there were far more locals living there who had fish farms, and so the water was even dirtier than before! We stopped at "Monkey Island", where Mike and I hiked up this path to a lookout. There was a very old monkey sitting right in the middle of the path about halfway up, and he wouldn't move! We just had to walk past him! It was so funny! Fortunately he didn't attack us or try to steal anything from us. We saw a few other monkeys later on by the beach.
After that we went biking on Cat Ba to a little village, and from there hiked through the jungle to a cave. Then we went and had dinner/stayed in a very nice hotel on Cat Ba. It was normally $65 a night, which is really expensive here! Our whole tour only cost us $85! It was also a very good tour, but by the end we got really tired of the same food for every meal (which was pretty much the same in Sapa - rice, greens, stir fry, prawns and spring rolls). We vowed not to eat rice again for the next few days we are so sick of it, and went for a good old Western pizza when we returned to Hanoi. It was delicious. Hanoi was a bit nicer when we returned, now that we were getting used to the pace and crossing crazy traffic streets. We walked along the lake and it had all sorts of pretty, coloured lanterns hanging from the trees. We had delicious icecream too. However, we were still very ready to move on further South.
Ninh Binh/Tam Coc
Perfume tried for a long time to convince us to book an open bus tour with her, and I think she was pretty choked when we wouldn't. We looked up the company she was selling us, Camel, and read in hundreds of blogs about the horrible experiences people had with their open bus tours. She seemed to genuinely think it was ok, but we just had to go with the advice from other travelers. I think she was annoyed with us because the bus she booked us on for Ninh Binh was overpriced and turned out to be a tour! Mike and I had to stop with them at these temples at Hoa Lu (the ancient capital of Vietnam) for 45 minutes, and even though we weren't that interested we didn't want to wait around, and so we had to pay extra money to go with them. Then they dropped us off on the edge of Ninh Binh city and we had to walk for at least 15-20 minutes just to find someone who could speak English! We were feeling a little bit fed up with Northern Vietnam and all the scams, so we decided we would just spend the day at Tam Coc and then take an overnight bus south to Hue. Apparently people in the south are more relaxed, nicer and don't try to scam you as much.
Fortunately we found a nice guy at a hotel who booked us on an overnight sleeper bus (only 50% more expensive than what should have been a 2 hour bus we took from Hanoi to Ninh Binh!) rented us bicycles to bike to Tam Coc, let us store our bags for the day and let us shower afterwards! Even better, another very nice guy at the hotel offered to bike with us and show us the way through the local village streets and alleys, for free! This is SO rare in Vietnam! We thought for sure there would be some catch, but he just biked with us the whole time, and even waited for us when we stopped for each activity! He even refused to let us pay for parking our bikes at the pagoda (he paid) and refused to let us buy him a beer/drink after! It was really nice, and we totally appreciated it, especially after our horrible experience on the river boat....
Tam Coc is basically Halong Bay inland, on a river. The best way to explore it is to have a little lady row you in a row boat 4 km down the river and through the caves on route. So that's what we did. And it was absolutely gorgeous, with rice fields on either side and large, towering limestone karsts. I may have even liked it better than Halong Bay. However, we were wondering why all the tourists heading back in the other direction (the ones on the day tours from Hanoi) had sour looks on their faces. We soon found out. When we reached the turn around point, we were the only boat in the river besides boats selling drinks and things. First, some lady came up to us and pressured us to buy a drink for our rower. We thought, why not, even though it was overpriced, we'll be nice. It was a long way to row. Then about 2 minutes later our rower lady stopped and started hounding us to buy something from her. Everything she was offering was WAY overpriced, up to $20!! We didn't want any of it. We tried to just tip her a smaller amount, but she would not accept nor relent with her sales pitches. Worse, all the ladies around started pressuring us too. We only had 200000 D on us for the rest of the day, still had to buy dinner and water, and the ATMs don't work on sundays! We showed her what we had, yet still she kept saying 300000 D and 250000 D! She refused to row until we finally bought something from her for 60000. We barely had enough to pay for dinner, and we have nothing left over for arriving in Hue tomorrow. It was really a horrible experience, and we felt totally cornered, because the only way back to solid ground was down a 4km river. At the end she wanted a tip too, but we refused. Had we not had such a fantastic bicycle guide, it really would have soured us to Vietnam (still did a bit).
After the river trip we went to a pagoda nestled against the limestone karsts, and it was so beautiful! The whole place was really magical. It would have been nice to have more time to explore the area, but we are just really done with Northern Vietnam and had already booked our bus trip south. The hotel has been great to us since (free internet), and we will definitely recommend them to other travelers. But on to Hue! Hope our sleeper bus is what we were told it is!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Hanoi, Vietnam and end of Laos
Fortunately we ended up feeling better for the Gibbon Experience, and it was awesome!! Everything we hoped it would be. Mike and I had a treehouse to ourselves with running drinking water, a shower, hammock, snacks...it was awesome. Oh, and no climbing up to it, you had to zipline in and out! Meals, although a bit bland, were served to our treehouse. They pretty much gave us a harness and let us roam free on the ziplines all day, except when the guides took us hiking. Our guide showed us all the plants in the jungle they eat/use for medicine too. We got up really early one morning after a crazy thunder storm and saw gibbons! There were at least 3 of them, two black males and one light brown female. All of the people we met on the gibbon exp were really awesome too, and we ended up hanging out with some of them after in Luang Prabang too.
Back in Luang Prabang, this time able to explore, we went to a nearby waterfall that was AMAZING. It was a multi-tiered waterfall with various swimming holes throughout and turquoise water. Mike was convinced it was fake, it was so beautiful. We also went to the night market and out with our Kiwi friends at night. Oh, at an internet cafe my camera was stolen, so that is very sad :(. I accidentally left it for 20 min there after uploading pics, and when I came back only my camera cord was left behind :(. Fortunately I had just finished backing all of my pics on my USB, so no pics lost. Thank god.
After Luang Prabang we took a slow boat up the Nam Ou river to Nohn Khiaw, a gorgeous little town nestled between huge limestone mountains, with the river running through the middle. It was so cool seeing the locals fishing, the kids swimming and the buffalo sitting in the water. The kids seemed to be having SO much fun, it was a really happy place to be. The town itself was very small, only had one paved road (the rest dirt) and a couple of guesthouses/restaurants. Mike and I stayed in a bungalow with a balcony with hammocks that overlooked the river. It was like paradise, very peaceful. And the people were SO nice, they always smiled and said hello when we passed.
On our second day there we were walking up to some nearby caves when we saw a girl fall off a bicycle while doubling with another girl. She was unconscious on the ground, so Mike and I ran over to help. Mike carried her and we lay her down at a house and checked for breathing/etc. They really didn't know much about first aid there. After about 5-10 minutes she stirred awake, but then passed out again. The people gave her some drink which woke her up again, and when Mike asked what it was, we were told via charades that it was PEE. Gross! Did the trick of waking her up though :S. After her dad came and picked her up and we went with them to the "hospital" (not much there), where she was given medicine and looked at by a doctor. The dad and family were very thankful towards us.
Came back via local bus (very packed, shared with several sacks of rice and veggies and some animal...a guinea pig?) and then a tuk tuk which ran out of gas 2 minutes after we started driving...quite the travel experience. Oh, and Mike got puked on by some lady in the bus who was sitting in the front seat. And the bus wasn't actually a bus, it was a covered truck bed with seating on either side. Not very comfortable, but very cheap! I thought it was a cool experience, although Mike (for very good reasons!) did not enjoy it. We may not be taking one of those again for a while.
Same day caught a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam via Lao Airlines, which is supposed to be unsafe at times but it was no problem for us.
Now Hanoi....what a crazy crazy place. This is definitely an Asian city. Very fast paced, horns are used every 3 seconds by each and every car and motorbike on the road. Sidewalks are a place for people to spread their wares to sell or are used as a parking lot for motorbikes. There pretty much is no road line system, just a massive free for all. It is absolute madness. Cool experience though, very different from slow paced Lao. Mike and I have already been scammed twice, once by a taxi meter that miraculously jumped by 40000 dong when we weren't looking, and another time when we were eating hot pot at the night market. They told us the whole hot pot was 150000dong, and then served us plates of mushrooms/etc to put in it and charged us extra. Fortunately some nice English-speaking Vietnamese guy heard us arguing with the people and he helped us reason with them, and in the end we didn't have to pay for the extra plates. Thank god for that guy, the price was about double it was supposed to be! Oh, the night market was pretty cool. Mike and I bought sun glasses.
We are staying in a hotel with a SUPER nice, cute lady who owns it. She serves us fresh lemonade when we're thirsty, and breakfast! She was so good to us we booked a 3 day Sapa trek through her, and we leave tonight via overnight train. Hope it goes well!
Oh, and today in Hanoi we went to The Temple of Literature, which is some cool old bit of architecture where Confucious students (used to?) study. We also went to the Museum of Ethnology and learned about Vietnamese and all the hill tribes' culture. We saw some crazy water puppet show there, which is basically a puppet show in the middle of a lake with swimming puppets, created in Vietnam I think. We couldn't understand what they were saying, but still amusing.
PS!!! For those of you who read this, facebook is banned in Vietnam so you'll have to contact us via email (or the blog)! Mine is smeyers@ualberta.ca and Mike's is stick_man000@hotmail.com.
Back in Luang Prabang, this time able to explore, we went to a nearby waterfall that was AMAZING. It was a multi-tiered waterfall with various swimming holes throughout and turquoise water. Mike was convinced it was fake, it was so beautiful. We also went to the night market and out with our Kiwi friends at night. Oh, at an internet cafe my camera was stolen, so that is very sad :(. I accidentally left it for 20 min there after uploading pics, and when I came back only my camera cord was left behind :(. Fortunately I had just finished backing all of my pics on my USB, so no pics lost. Thank god.
After Luang Prabang we took a slow boat up the Nam Ou river to Nohn Khiaw, a gorgeous little town nestled between huge limestone mountains, with the river running through the middle. It was so cool seeing the locals fishing, the kids swimming and the buffalo sitting in the water. The kids seemed to be having SO much fun, it was a really happy place to be. The town itself was very small, only had one paved road (the rest dirt) and a couple of guesthouses/restaurants. Mike and I stayed in a bungalow with a balcony with hammocks that overlooked the river. It was like paradise, very peaceful. And the people were SO nice, they always smiled and said hello when we passed.
On our second day there we were walking up to some nearby caves when we saw a girl fall off a bicycle while doubling with another girl. She was unconscious on the ground, so Mike and I ran over to help. Mike carried her and we lay her down at a house and checked for breathing/etc. They really didn't know much about first aid there. After about 5-10 minutes she stirred awake, but then passed out again. The people gave her some drink which woke her up again, and when Mike asked what it was, we were told via charades that it was PEE. Gross! Did the trick of waking her up though :S. After her dad came and picked her up and we went with them to the "hospital" (not much there), where she was given medicine and looked at by a doctor. The dad and family were very thankful towards us.
Came back via local bus (very packed, shared with several sacks of rice and veggies and some animal...a guinea pig?) and then a tuk tuk which ran out of gas 2 minutes after we started driving...quite the travel experience. Oh, and Mike got puked on by some lady in the bus who was sitting in the front seat. And the bus wasn't actually a bus, it was a covered truck bed with seating on either side. Not very comfortable, but very cheap! I thought it was a cool experience, although Mike (for very good reasons!) did not enjoy it. We may not be taking one of those again for a while.
Same day caught a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam via Lao Airlines, which is supposed to be unsafe at times but it was no problem for us.
Now Hanoi....what a crazy crazy place. This is definitely an Asian city. Very fast paced, horns are used every 3 seconds by each and every car and motorbike on the road. Sidewalks are a place for people to spread their wares to sell or are used as a parking lot for motorbikes. There pretty much is no road line system, just a massive free for all. It is absolute madness. Cool experience though, very different from slow paced Lao. Mike and I have already been scammed twice, once by a taxi meter that miraculously jumped by 40000 dong when we weren't looking, and another time when we were eating hot pot at the night market. They told us the whole hot pot was 150000dong, and then served us plates of mushrooms/etc to put in it and charged us extra. Fortunately some nice English-speaking Vietnamese guy heard us arguing with the people and he helped us reason with them, and in the end we didn't have to pay for the extra plates. Thank god for that guy, the price was about double it was supposed to be! Oh, the night market was pretty cool. Mike and I bought sun glasses.
We are staying in a hotel with a SUPER nice, cute lady who owns it. She serves us fresh lemonade when we're thirsty, and breakfast! She was so good to us we booked a 3 day Sapa trek through her, and we leave tonight via overnight train. Hope it goes well!
Oh, and today in Hanoi we went to The Temple of Literature, which is some cool old bit of architecture where Confucious students (used to?) study. We also went to the Museum of Ethnology and learned about Vietnamese and all the hill tribes' culture. We saw some crazy water puppet show there, which is basically a puppet show in the middle of a lake with swimming puppets, created in Vietnam I think. We couldn't understand what they were saying, but still amusing.
PS!!! For those of you who read this, facebook is banned in Vietnam so you'll have to contact us via email (or the blog)! Mine is smeyers@ualberta.ca and Mike's is stick_man000@hotmail.com.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Laos + journey there
Well, haven't had time to get to a computer for a while but here it is.
Journey to Vientiane in Laos was pretty terrible. The road from Pai to Chiang Mai has something like 270 curves in it and our van driver refused to go under about 80 km/h the whole way, i.e. what should have been 20 km/h blind, hair-pin corners, passing in the oncoming lane, going 80. The driver even hit a post on the shoulder at one point. There was this hilarious loud Spanish girl who at one point shouted out "I don't wanna die!!!". Several people puked in cups, and fortunately I couldn't smell it otherwise I would have too. Mike was verrrry car sick the whole way. After Chiang Mai we took an overnight bus which turned out to be a cramped van that was impossible to sleep in. We arrived in Nong Khai at about 5:30 am and had to wait to take a tuk tuk to the border, from there took a bus across and got our visas, and then shared a taxi thing on the other side to town with a couple other girls we met along the way. We were somewhat insulted to find out that Canadians have to pay the most for a Lao visa - about $10-15 more than all other countries! Not sure what they have against us!
When we arrived in Vientiane, we found a guesthouse and immediately went to sleep for 2+hours. But we had to get our Vietnam visas, so we hunted down the embassy on bicycles and got one made for the next day. Vientiane wasn't that exciting...it was really dusty and at one point it got so windy we got whipped with dust in our eyes. There was a thunder storm that night, and that was pretty cool. We went to one temple that was alright. That was about all we did there.
Next day we caught a last minute bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a crazy tourist town surrounded by gorgeous, towering limestone mountains that is famous for its tube ride down the river. You rent tubes and float down the river, and all along the way there are bars blasting music, and huge rope swings and slides to go off of. It was definitely an experience, very surreal at first. Pretty fun though. I wouldn't do it for more than one day though. Sort of a backpacker right of passage though, so we had to do it. Next day caught a bus for Luang Prabang...and unfortunately now we are both sick (some food/drink in Vang Vieng? Maybe accidentally swallowed some river water? no idea). We haven't been able to go out/eat much since we've been in Luang Prabang, which is really a shame because it is beautiful. Today we had to check out of our guesthouse since we are catching an overnight bus to Huay Xai tonight to get to the Gibbon Experience, and they wouldn't let us stay in our room until then. Luckily we found this riverside restaurant with cool bamboo huts and comfy floor mats/pillows to lie on, so we just lay around there, attempting to eat/enjoying the amazing view for a few hours haha. The view of the river was absolutely gorgeous. The river is surrounded by very lush, green vegetation, palm trees and orange blossum trees. Would have been nice to explore it more, but we will be back in Luang Prabang after the Gibbon Experience so hopefully we'll get another chance.
Really enjoying Laos besides being sick. It is more lush and green and gorgeous than any other country I've been too, and the people are very laid back, polite and friendly. We've stayed in some amazing guest houses too for about $7 total, with cable TV, towels and fully functioning toilets with TP! Hopefully the sickness won't last long because our long awaited Gibbon experience starts on the 16th!
Journey to Vientiane in Laos was pretty terrible. The road from Pai to Chiang Mai has something like 270 curves in it and our van driver refused to go under about 80 km/h the whole way, i.e. what should have been 20 km/h blind, hair-pin corners, passing in the oncoming lane, going 80. The driver even hit a post on the shoulder at one point. There was this hilarious loud Spanish girl who at one point shouted out "I don't wanna die!!!". Several people puked in cups, and fortunately I couldn't smell it otherwise I would have too. Mike was verrrry car sick the whole way. After Chiang Mai we took an overnight bus which turned out to be a cramped van that was impossible to sleep in. We arrived in Nong Khai at about 5:30 am and had to wait to take a tuk tuk to the border, from there took a bus across and got our visas, and then shared a taxi thing on the other side to town with a couple other girls we met along the way. We were somewhat insulted to find out that Canadians have to pay the most for a Lao visa - about $10-15 more than all other countries! Not sure what they have against us!
When we arrived in Vientiane, we found a guesthouse and immediately went to sleep for 2+hours. But we had to get our Vietnam visas, so we hunted down the embassy on bicycles and got one made for the next day. Vientiane wasn't that exciting...it was really dusty and at one point it got so windy we got whipped with dust in our eyes. There was a thunder storm that night, and that was pretty cool. We went to one temple that was alright. That was about all we did there.
Next day we caught a last minute bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a crazy tourist town surrounded by gorgeous, towering limestone mountains that is famous for its tube ride down the river. You rent tubes and float down the river, and all along the way there are bars blasting music, and huge rope swings and slides to go off of. It was definitely an experience, very surreal at first. Pretty fun though. I wouldn't do it for more than one day though. Sort of a backpacker right of passage though, so we had to do it. Next day caught a bus for Luang Prabang...and unfortunately now we are both sick (some food/drink in Vang Vieng? Maybe accidentally swallowed some river water? no idea). We haven't been able to go out/eat much since we've been in Luang Prabang, which is really a shame because it is beautiful. Today we had to check out of our guesthouse since we are catching an overnight bus to Huay Xai tonight to get to the Gibbon Experience, and they wouldn't let us stay in our room until then. Luckily we found this riverside restaurant with cool bamboo huts and comfy floor mats/pillows to lie on, so we just lay around there, attempting to eat/enjoying the amazing view for a few hours haha. The view of the river was absolutely gorgeous. The river is surrounded by very lush, green vegetation, palm trees and orange blossum trees. Would have been nice to explore it more, but we will be back in Luang Prabang after the Gibbon Experience so hopefully we'll get another chance.
Really enjoying Laos besides being sick. It is more lush and green and gorgeous than any other country I've been too, and the people are very laid back, polite and friendly. We've stayed in some amazing guest houses too for about $7 total, with cable TV, towels and fully functioning toilets with TP! Hopefully the sickness won't last long because our long awaited Gibbon experience starts on the 16th!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Pai
Been in Pai for...2 and 1/2 days and it's been awesome! It is a little hippie town in the mountains. We met a British guy and two Austrians in the bus we took here, and ended up staying in the same guest house and have been hanging out, so it's fun! We found this amazing guest house on the river (we had to cross a very rickety bamboo bridge to get there!),
with gorgeous bamboo cottages for 200 B/night ($7!!). We have a king sized bed with a canopy/mosquito net, there's loung chairs in the covered patio outside that we've been relaxing in, and there's even a separate shower area and a TV! We're pretty certain this is the best deal we'll ever encounter.
Fortunately it's low season here, so we can get great deals and don't have to worry about not being able to find a place to stay! (Pai is very popular with travelers.)
Pai is very cute, lots of little restaurants and hippie bars and little shops. We rented a scooter and have been exploring around Pai with it and wow is it fun to drive! Remind me when we get back and I'll tell you a funny story about Mike driving the scooter... Yesterday Mike, Nick (British friend) and I drove up to a waterfall, which was like a big water slide
you could slide down! It was so cool! It actually didn't scrape your bumb up like those normally do. It was very refreshing in the 40 degree weather. Just as we were leaving it started to POUR rain and got very windy. This was the hardest pouring rain I have ever seen. It hurt. We biked in it for a while and then took refuge in a cafe. Fortunately it was finished by the time we left.
Today we drove up North to Lod Caves. The drive up wound through the mountains, passing some hill tribe houses and farmer's fields. It was beautiful! We weren't sure if our little scooter was going to make it up some of the steeper parts though haha! We hired a guide with a lantern and got to explore 3 massive caves. The formations in them were incredible...all sorts of stalactites and stalagmites
and columbs. The cave at times must have been 80 m high, and some of the stalactites were several metres long. For the third cave we got to take a bamboo boat down a river into a chamber full of bats. There was bat poo everywhere, including Mike's shoulder :). There were also little newborn bat bodies scattered around on the ground (most dead). That was kind of sad. The water in the rivers was FULL of fish.
There must have been over 50 decent sized fish surrounding our boat, waiting to be fed. And when you threw food at them they would nearly jump out of the water! The third cave had remnants of old tombs and paintings on the wall, so that was cool to see.
Afterwards we went for lunch at a little cafe in the little town nearby called Pang Ma Pha, and wow was that cheap/sketchy (under $1!). There were all sorts of weird parts of cow/chicken floating in our curry, and we only ended up eating about half of it. So far our stomachs are holding up ok, but we'll see how long that lasts!
In this pic I was on a swing out in front of our guest house, and a cow nearby walked right up to me and stared at me. At first she let me pet her, but I think she started to get territorial after a while.
with gorgeous bamboo cottages for 200 B/night ($7!!). We have a king sized bed with a canopy/mosquito net, there's loung chairs in the covered patio outside that we've been relaxing in, and there's even a separate shower area and a TV! We're pretty certain this is the best deal we'll ever encounter.
Fortunately it's low season here, so we can get great deals and don't have to worry about not being able to find a place to stay! (Pai is very popular with travelers.)
Pai is very cute, lots of little restaurants and hippie bars and little shops. We rented a scooter and have been exploring around Pai with it and wow is it fun to drive! Remind me when we get back and I'll tell you a funny story about Mike driving the scooter... Yesterday Mike, Nick (British friend) and I drove up to a waterfall, which was like a big water slide
you could slide down! It was so cool! It actually didn't scrape your bumb up like those normally do. It was very refreshing in the 40 degree weather. Just as we were leaving it started to POUR rain and got very windy. This was the hardest pouring rain I have ever seen. It hurt. We biked in it for a while and then took refuge in a cafe. Fortunately it was finished by the time we left.
Today we drove up North to Lod Caves. The drive up wound through the mountains, passing some hill tribe houses and farmer's fields. It was beautiful! We weren't sure if our little scooter was going to make it up some of the steeper parts though haha! We hired a guide with a lantern and got to explore 3 massive caves. The formations in them were incredible...all sorts of stalactites and stalagmites
and columbs. The cave at times must have been 80 m high, and some of the stalactites were several metres long. For the third cave we got to take a bamboo boat down a river into a chamber full of bats. There was bat poo everywhere, including Mike's shoulder :). There were also little newborn bat bodies scattered around on the ground (most dead). That was kind of sad. The water in the rivers was FULL of fish.
There must have been over 50 decent sized fish surrounding our boat, waiting to be fed. And when you threw food at them they would nearly jump out of the water! The third cave had remnants of old tombs and paintings on the wall, so that was cool to see.
Afterwards we went for lunch at a little cafe in the little town nearby called Pang Ma Pha, and wow was that cheap/sketchy (under $1!). There were all sorts of weird parts of cow/chicken floating in our curry, and we only ended up eating about half of it. So far our stomachs are holding up ok, but we'll see how long that lasts!
In this pic I was on a swing out in front of our guest house, and a cow nearby walked right up to me and stared at me. At first she let me pet her, but I think she started to get territorial after a while.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
THAILAND!!! So far...
Well, we have taken the step into a completely different traveling experience and are loving it. We flew into Bangkok on the 1st, despite the travel warnings. Fortunately we barely witnessed any evidence of the protests, besides the army very carefully guarding the airport (thank god for that). However, we limited our stay in Bangkok to one night just in case. When we arrived we headed to Th Khao San, which had a ton of guest houses, travel agencies, vendors and restaurants. We got in at about 8 pm on a Friday night, and there was a music festival at the time with bands playing on a stage, so it was packed! Too bad it was 3am NZ time so we were too tired to really go out and enjoy it.
We found a cheap guest house down a little alley, which seemed pretty trustworthy and clean. And for the most part it was,...although shortly after lying on our beds, Mike came across a bug. I haven't seen bed bugs before, but I had an idea what they looked like and that was it. We tried sleeping anyway, but I soon felt a bug crawl on my hand. I turned on the lights and sure enough it was, and Mike found several crawling on his bed - gross!!!! I ran downstairs and asked for another room. The girls who worked there seemed very surprised and apologetic, and gave us another room which turned out to be perfectly fine. Thank god. Guess you get what you pay for!
Bangkok was a huge, sprawling city. Th (Th=thanon=street) Khao San was pretty cool, although it smelled pretty bad. We didn't like getting constantly harassed by tuk tuk drivers and suit taylors, but other than that it wasn't bad. Lots of cool little stores and things. Still tons of tourists there, despite the Bangkok situation. We caught a flight the next afternoon to Chiang Mai, up in Northern Thailand. So far we are loving Chaing Mai. Have been here for 3 days, and planning on staying a couple more. Chiang Mai is pretty much the cultural capital of Thailand, and even Thai people come here to pay their respects to the temples. We went on a tuk-tuk tour of some of the temples yesterday.
They were so gorgeous, with red carpet, painted murals and huge gold buddha statues. Most were built 700 years ago when the city was built. The monks in/around the temples wear orange robes and have shaved heads. The land around the temples was gorgeous too, with lots of trees, gardens and grassy areas. Would be a nice place to live!
Chiang Mai is a very pretty city, much smaller and cleaner than Bangkok. The city centre was built in a symmetrical square shape, with a square canal surrounding it.
We are staying just inside the canal in a very cheap guest house - 200B = $6-7 for the two of us in a double room with private bathroom! It was such a good deal compared to the 500 B air conditioned rooms in other places, we decided to rough it and go for the fan, hoping to acclimatize to the ridiculously hot weather here. It actually really isn't that bad at night, although the days are roasting - about 40 degrees! Yes, we are already in the mindset of the currency here, and have turned down $12 AC'd rooms haha.
First night we arrived there was a very cool market with people from all over Northern Thailand selling their crafts. I admit I already bought a few souvenirs... We also went to the "Night Market" last night, which had hundreds of vendors all selling the same sorts of fake brand name stuff...not really our cup of tea, although I bought some COMFY "burkenstock" sandals for $6 which were amazing after all the blisters I had acquired that day from my cheap flip flops! It's actually a bit sad though, a lot of the vendors at the night market seemed extremely desperate to sell stuff, since Thailand has been taking such a hit in the tourist industry due to the protests :(. The taxi driver who picked us up in Bangkok said he had to wait 4 hours before getting a fair. So sad. It makes me feel pretty bad bargaining them down to lower prices, although they always start ridiculously high. Mike wanted to buy a really ugly, cheap digital watch and the guy tried to start at about $20! I guess they have to though.
Today we did a full day Thai cooking class. It was so fun! First they took us to the local market and showed us where to buy all the ingredients they use for cooking and some of the local fruits.
Then we went back to their kitchen and got to make 7 delicious meals/meal components...finishing the day with VERY full, satisfied stomachs! We made a curry paste and then used that to make a curry dish, a noodle dish (I made pad thai), spring rolls, a DELICIOUS prawn/coconut milk soup, a stir fry (Mike-chicken cashew/me-chicken with basil), and mango with coconut milk dessert. We got to try some very tasty fruits too, including rambutan and longan, which I believe are in the lychee family. Even I liked them. Mike didn't finish the day off so well though...got another allergic reaction and completely broke out in hives! This time it hit his face first, which swelled to about 3 times the size and turned red :(. Poor guy. Fortunately I had allergy meds with me in case something like this happened, so I gave it to him right away. We really think it was the prawns, because that is what he ate right before. Don't worry, he's ok now! Just took a few hours for the hives to go away. No more prawns for him.
Other things about Thailand...the people are very friendly and the girls are gorgeous. We see "sex tourists" all over the place, i.e. gross old men with Thai hookers :S. They're always in the pubs. The showers usually consist of a hand held nozzle that just hangs somewhere near the toilet. It's like on sail boats, sink space=toilet space=shower space. ie there's no designated shower space. Fortunately we've only encountered flush toilets so far, but you can't flush TP down the toilet here, you have to put it in a garbage by the toilet. But that's probably just an option there for Westerners...I think the Thais normally rinse off with the water from the nozzle.
Today we went on a day "trek" to the jungle about an hour outside of the city. First we got to ride on an elephant, which was pretty cool, although the elephants did not seem to like having people riding on them. They kept stopping and occasionally sprayed us with...spit? I hope they aren't unhappy/treated poorly... Since our little seat on our elephant was leaning precariously to one side, eventually the driver guy got off and let me take his place. I got to ride right on the elephant's head/neck area!!! Then we went on a "hike" up to a local Hmong hill tribe, along a dirt road that turns out tons of other tour buses drove up/down. So it wasn't that great, as there were tons of other tour groups and so we weren't really seeing the authentic tribe lifestyle. They lived in little bamboo huts. The tribe originated in China I think.
Then we continued to hike to a waterfall swimming hole, which was very refreshing and quite nice. Our favourite part was when we got to go on a one hour bamboo raft down the river. It turns out our "captain" was a ten year old boy...and he turned out to be a pro! There were lots of other rafts because it was a Thai holiday celebrating the king, and apparently it's a pretty popular pastime (Thai equivalent to canoe/air mattress trips with coolers full of beer). Other boats were getting stuck in the rapids all over the place but our little captain steered us right through!
We visited one more hill tribe called the Karen. They live in stilt houses so that in rainy season their livestock can take cover underneath. The roofs were made of leaves found in the jungle, and I think the rest was bamboo. When we were there we saw a pig with little piglets, and lots of chickens with little chicks - so cute! Oh, also saw a baby elephant that was adorable. That wasn't at the tribe though.
Have really enjoyed Chang Mai, but tomorrow we are moving on to Pai!
We found a cheap guest house down a little alley, which seemed pretty trustworthy and clean. And for the most part it was,...although shortly after lying on our beds, Mike came across a bug. I haven't seen bed bugs before, but I had an idea what they looked like and that was it. We tried sleeping anyway, but I soon felt a bug crawl on my hand. I turned on the lights and sure enough it was, and Mike found several crawling on his bed - gross!!!! I ran downstairs and asked for another room. The girls who worked there seemed very surprised and apologetic, and gave us another room which turned out to be perfectly fine. Thank god. Guess you get what you pay for!
Bangkok was a huge, sprawling city. Th (Th=thanon=street) Khao San was pretty cool, although it smelled pretty bad. We didn't like getting constantly harassed by tuk tuk drivers and suit taylors, but other than that it wasn't bad. Lots of cool little stores and things. Still tons of tourists there, despite the Bangkok situation. We caught a flight the next afternoon to Chiang Mai, up in Northern Thailand. So far we are loving Chaing Mai. Have been here for 3 days, and planning on staying a couple more. Chiang Mai is pretty much the cultural capital of Thailand, and even Thai people come here to pay their respects to the temples. We went on a tuk-tuk tour of some of the temples yesterday.
They were so gorgeous, with red carpet, painted murals and huge gold buddha statues. Most were built 700 years ago when the city was built. The monks in/around the temples wear orange robes and have shaved heads. The land around the temples was gorgeous too, with lots of trees, gardens and grassy areas. Would be a nice place to live!
Chiang Mai is a very pretty city, much smaller and cleaner than Bangkok. The city centre was built in a symmetrical square shape, with a square canal surrounding it.
We are staying just inside the canal in a very cheap guest house - 200B = $6-7 for the two of us in a double room with private bathroom! It was such a good deal compared to the 500 B air conditioned rooms in other places, we decided to rough it and go for the fan, hoping to acclimatize to the ridiculously hot weather here. It actually really isn't that bad at night, although the days are roasting - about 40 degrees! Yes, we are already in the mindset of the currency here, and have turned down $12 AC'd rooms haha.
First night we arrived there was a very cool market with people from all over Northern Thailand selling their crafts. I admit I already bought a few souvenirs... We also went to the "Night Market" last night, which had hundreds of vendors all selling the same sorts of fake brand name stuff...not really our cup of tea, although I bought some COMFY "burkenstock" sandals for $6 which were amazing after all the blisters I had acquired that day from my cheap flip flops! It's actually a bit sad though, a lot of the vendors at the night market seemed extremely desperate to sell stuff, since Thailand has been taking such a hit in the tourist industry due to the protests :(. The taxi driver who picked us up in Bangkok said he had to wait 4 hours before getting a fair. So sad. It makes me feel pretty bad bargaining them down to lower prices, although they always start ridiculously high. Mike wanted to buy a really ugly, cheap digital watch and the guy tried to start at about $20! I guess they have to though.
Today we did a full day Thai cooking class. It was so fun! First they took us to the local market and showed us where to buy all the ingredients they use for cooking and some of the local fruits.
Then we went back to their kitchen and got to make 7 delicious meals/meal components...finishing the day with VERY full, satisfied stomachs! We made a curry paste and then used that to make a curry dish, a noodle dish (I made pad thai), spring rolls, a DELICIOUS prawn/coconut milk soup, a stir fry (Mike-chicken cashew/me-chicken with basil), and mango with coconut milk dessert. We got to try some very tasty fruits too, including rambutan and longan, which I believe are in the lychee family. Even I liked them. Mike didn't finish the day off so well though...got another allergic reaction and completely broke out in hives! This time it hit his face first, which swelled to about 3 times the size and turned red :(. Poor guy. Fortunately I had allergy meds with me in case something like this happened, so I gave it to him right away. We really think it was the prawns, because that is what he ate right before. Don't worry, he's ok now! Just took a few hours for the hives to go away. No more prawns for him.
Other things about Thailand...the people are very friendly and the girls are gorgeous. We see "sex tourists" all over the place, i.e. gross old men with Thai hookers :S. They're always in the pubs. The showers usually consist of a hand held nozzle that just hangs somewhere near the toilet. It's like on sail boats, sink space=toilet space=shower space. ie there's no designated shower space. Fortunately we've only encountered flush toilets so far, but you can't flush TP down the toilet here, you have to put it in a garbage by the toilet. But that's probably just an option there for Westerners...I think the Thais normally rinse off with the water from the nozzle.
Today we went on a day "trek" to the jungle about an hour outside of the city. First we got to ride on an elephant, which was pretty cool, although the elephants did not seem to like having people riding on them. They kept stopping and occasionally sprayed us with...spit? I hope they aren't unhappy/treated poorly... Since our little seat on our elephant was leaning precariously to one side, eventually the driver guy got off and let me take his place. I got to ride right on the elephant's head/neck area!!! Then we went on a "hike" up to a local Hmong hill tribe, along a dirt road that turns out tons of other tour buses drove up/down. So it wasn't that great, as there were tons of other tour groups and so we weren't really seeing the authentic tribe lifestyle. They lived in little bamboo huts. The tribe originated in China I think.
Then we continued to hike to a waterfall swimming hole, which was very refreshing and quite nice. Our favourite part was when we got to go on a one hour bamboo raft down the river. It turns out our "captain" was a ten year old boy...and he turned out to be a pro! There were lots of other rafts because it was a Thai holiday celebrating the king, and apparently it's a pretty popular pastime (Thai equivalent to canoe/air mattress trips with coolers full of beer). Other boats were getting stuck in the rapids all over the place but our little captain steered us right through!
We visited one more hill tribe called the Karen. They live in stilt houses so that in rainy season their livestock can take cover underneath. The roofs were made of leaves found in the jungle, and I think the rest was bamboo. When we were there we saw a pig with little piglets, and lots of chickens with little chicks - so cute! Oh, also saw a baby elephant that was adorable. That wasn't at the tribe though.
Have really enjoyed Chang Mai, but tomorrow we are moving on to Pai!
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