Monthly Archives: January 2016

Hello, or Sabaidee as they say in Laos (Lao).

Arrived in Vientiane, on the evening of January 19th, with a fairly easy ‘on arrival’ visa process.  Our hotel was very central to everything in this smallest of SE Asian capitals.  A very low-key city and quite refreshing in the sense that it was easy to walk around (the sidewalks were in pretty good shape for SE Asian standards), mellow people, great night market with the most small artisan stalls we’ve seen so far.  Most markets have sold mainly mass produced and knock-off stuff.  We haven’t been buying anything except for a few minor things we needed (flip flops, t-shirts), due to luggage space and having to cart it around, but we just loved the wood cuts here done by a particular local artist and so couldn’t resist; luckily they roll up very nicely and we bought a protective tube for them – easy to carry.  We would have bought more but when we returned to the market on our third night there, she wasn’t there .  It was great that we got to meet her on our second visit to the market.  She teaches at the art college in Vientiane.

On our first day in the city first off was a trip to the Myanmar (Burma) Embassy to apply for our entry visa.  An easy process; they really help you out – one of the required bits of information on the form was the address of where we will be staying when we get to Myanmar.  Hell, we didn’t even know which city we were flying into.  We didn’t want to book anything in the case of a problem getting a visa, and weren’t sure how long we would be spending in Laos.  So when we told the person this she went over to a brochure and told us to write down one of the hotels listed.  Okay!

The taxi driver that took us to the Myanmar Embassy also included in the price stopping to get some more passport photos and waiting for us at the Embassy.  And he also had a “great” idea to take us around for the morning to various sights, one of them being the Buddha Park about 26 kms outside of Vientiane.  It was a very strange sculpture park where statues look old but were put there in the last 40 years or so by an artist that wasn’t very popular with the government at the time.  At least we didn’t take a tuk tuk there this time.  Then we went to a temple (I’m almost done with temples – this reminds me of folks we know in Toronto, who went to Ireland last year and had a term they used – ABC (Another Bloody Castle).  Ours would be ABT).  Then off to a monument of sorts in the city called Patuxai Arch (resembling the Arc de Triomphe).  Our driver also had another “great” idea to take us to another city heading towards Luang Prabang where we were heading next.  But we decided that we’re almost done with private drivers as well.  We decided to take a mini-van to Luang Prabang, via the backpacker, party city of Vang Viang, which took about 3 1/2 hours plus a stop.  We stayed overnight at the nicest hotel in town which for the money wasn’t really that nice, but you couldn’t beat the view, and we just wanted a relaxing place (no temples, no drivers).

The next day we got on another mini van and headed to Luang Prabang, a UNESCO designated city.  We had read on various blogs and sites that it could take 6-8 hours to get there, and after our bad start (departing 1 1/2 hours late), we expected the 8 hours.  Fortunately, even with at least 5 stops along the way including one where the driver stopped to show his “girl” the piece of land he’d bought for them (this is all assumption since we couldn’t understand a word), we made it in 6 1/2 hours – hurrah!  But let me tell you about the journey……..the road was pot-holed to the point where even when the driver drove in the centre or opposite side of the road still couldn’t avoid the holes; when it started to rain the road became red muck (don’t forget the potholes); then we got fog (still raining); then each toilet stop we made I held it in due to the standard of the toilets – I made sure I didn’t drink any water on that trip (I have to say that I just couldn’t master the ‘squat’ toilet without mishap – I won’t go into details); I had the hard middle seat right beside the driver; and the temperature kept lowering and the driver drove with the windows open.  AND even with all these factors the scenery, when we could see it, was spectacular and we got to see lots of village life (you’ll see the photos below).

We arrived in Luang Prabang in the pouring rain.  LP was the capital of Laos until Vientiene took over the title in 1946.  It’s such a beautiful town – the nicest we’ve been in in Asia.  Unfortunately it rained and was cold at 8℃ – yes 8℃ for most of the 4 days we were there!  And there’s no central heating in any of the buildings we were in, and most of the dining is done outdoors, but we did love the improvisation in the restaurants – a little clay/cement pot with hot coals by your feet.  It certainly helped but it was still damp and cold.  Mulled wine, in Laos believe it or not, also helped.  And when we didn’t feel like walking around any more in the cold and damp we went back to our cold room and huddled under our bed covers, fully clothed, reading or watching a movie on our computer just to warm up.   I had 4 layers of clothing on.  On day 4 the rain stopped and we finally got around to see the sights in the town.  It was beautiful, and the food – ooh, so French.  The city has a great mix of local Laos and French colonial architecture.  And there’s still a lot of local life in the town.

We flew into Myanmar (Burma) on January 28 and will post our journey there in a week or two.  Until then, enjoy the photos of Laos.

 

 

Before getting to Cambodia, in a literary sense, I just wanted to go back to Thailand again.  Gary and I returned to Bangkok a second time just for a couple of days since we had a flight to catch to Phnom Penh from Bangkok.  (We marked our 4 months away in Bangkok.)  The first time in Bangkok for New Year’s, a couple of weeks prior, was spent in a resort hotel, pretty much away from the street and night life so we couldn’t walk anywhere and didn’t see much besides temples.  This time around we stayed right in the midst of “it”.  When we got out of their transit system from the airport and walked a short way to our hotel the area was busy mainly with transportation people, i.e. taxis, tuk tuks, and the best transport for a single person, motor bike taxis, but otherwise the area was quite unassuming.  We checked in and went for a late lunch just down the street.  Went back to the hotel for a rest and when we woke up it was dark outside.  When I looked out of our window from the 18th floor it looked like we were in a whole different area altogether.  The streets had completely transformed:  the transportation people were no longer there; there were twinkly lights everywhere, and loud music; and the street outside our hotel had become a “food court”.  It was pretty incredible.  I would describe Bangkok as New York city on steroids (I thought NYC was already on steroids!).

And then further, not much further, there was the prostitution industry (we like to call it the red light district), pretty much everywhere.  Gary and I spent a lot of time discussing this topic and came at it with very judgmental Western eyes.  But as we continued to discuss it (we had already started the discussion in northern Thailand) we started to have a slightly different view.  Rather than get into it in too much detail, I’ve included an article by a travel blogger who lived in Thailand at one point, and I thought that he made some excellent points:  http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/why-sex-tourism-in-thailand-is-not-as-black-and-white-as-you-think/.  Have a read if you’re interested in the topic.

So, after having to get yet another Cambodian entry visa, this time in Phnom Penh, we spent 4 days there.  Although it is Cambodia’s busy capital, it is still small in the Asian sense, at approximately 2 million people.  I’ll state here that I’d started feeling tired and weary of traveling within Southeast Asia by this point and was feeling especially this way once arriving in Phnom Penh.  But once we started doing things within in the city I felt quite differently about things.

We started out in a resort further out from the centre of town but realized we really wanted to be in the centre of it all and thus changed hotels.  Our hotel overlooked the Tongle Sap River, a temple and the busy street below.  It’s a crazy city with a very lively night life and tuk tuks everywhere.  One unfortunate thing about Cambodia is that they like trading in US$ and at the current rate of the CAN$ it’s not as cheap as it should be for us in a Southeast Asian country.  But nonetheless we can’t (and shouldn’t really) complain.

On our first full day in PP we visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.  A very moving experience.  I fought back tears for much of the 2-hour self-guided tour.  At the end there were two of the survivors, one had been an artist in the prison and the other a machinist who fixed small equipment such as typewriters.  Those that had a skill in the prison were slightly more likely to survive since they were needed (as is most often the case in a war).  Although they too would have been executed later, these were two of the lucky to escape.  It was quite amazing seeing them there, sharing their stories.  Their expressions appeared to be kind and forgiving.  Later in the day Gary and I spoke about a trip to the Killing Fields but we both agreed that we just couldn’t after what we’d already heard and seen.

The next day we crossed the street from our hotel to Wat Ounalom temple and although not the most spectacular temple it was certainly a spiritual visit for us, and also connected us to our great tuk tuk driver/guide, Khun (I will talk about this shortly).  Before we entered the temple grounds he tried to sell us a tour as most drivers will.  We told him we would think about it but wanted to visit the temple first.  He told us the temple was closed but to look around, which we did.  The temple was indeed closed but we came upon an elderly man, whom I will call the guardian of the temple and he motioned to us to follow him.  He led us to the door of one of the small temples and unlocked the door for us.  It was a very small space with a statue of Buddha.  He entered and motioned for us to do the same.  We sat and he showed us what to do, and then proceeded to give us a blessing.  In our case it involved our “guardian” whisking water on us and then scooping some water into our hands so that we could rub on our faces.  We both thought it was so very kind of him to allow us in, so to speak.  We then decided that we would do the tour with the tuk tuk driver, and this turned out to be another spiritual piece of our day as well, though in a different way.  Our driver was very articulate which is one reason we decided to go with him, since it’s difficult to get a feel for the country if you can’t ask questions and talk to the people.  He was very candid with us about the political situation in Cambodia and when he noticed our interest he shared many things with us.  Another emotional time in this city.  Here was someone who had a number of family members including his father killed during the Khmer Rouge regime (he was about 10 years old during the time).   Although he was marred by the past and frustrated with the current government, he was still so positive.  I asked him how he kept his spirits up and he smiled and said that he was hopeful of a better future for his kids and their generation.  And although there was a lot of corruption, there were also some people  doing really good things.  He spoke a lot about the corruption of the country (this is a country that you still need to be careful who you talk to about this), and the corruption is obvious – you are either very rich or very poor.  The young begging children tell it all.  And although Khun was one of the more fortunate ones – he owns his own tuk tuk and he has been asked to work for the government on numerous occasions but has chosen on principle not to – he still lives one hour from the city and works a very long day.  One of the fun things we saw outside one of the temples we visited were groups of people playing Cambodian shuttlecock.  There were a couple of people in different groups that were quite amazing – you can view one in this YouTube video (he’s 69 years old now):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Mo2kwUPog.

The next day we met Khun again and went to visit Phnom Chisor Temple, about 1 1/2 hours outside the city.  Okay, so we were the only tourists crazy enough (again!) to take a tuk tuk that far.  We went through an extensive section of road that had major road work going on and if you thought Toronto had problems with that you should have seen the layer of red dust we had covering us (if you’ve ever done dry walling, you can probably imagine).  Do you know how sticky that dust is?  I’m not sure I’ll be wearing my white t-shirt again.  Our driver stopped early on to buy masks for us and thank goodness for that.   The good thing was that on the way back we really got to see the rural way of life through the back roads.  It was all quite an adventurous experience.  And very amazing, dust and all.

We’re flying to Vientiane, Laos tomorrow (January 19th) where we will obtain our visa for travel into Myanmar (formerly Burma) after spending a bit of time in Laos.  See you in Laos.

 

Before I get started on Thailand I just want to say that from now on in the blog postings I will have all the writing first and then the pictures will follow.  WordPress is not an easy program to work with in that respect (at least not for me), and even with our friend Tim’s help and advice I am still challenged by it.  It has been taking me too long to get postings out and I’d like to try and get them out more frequently.  Here’s Thailand……….

 

Okay, so us and our friends Christine and Paul arrived in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve day at our lovely hotel on the river.  New Year’s Eve was quite spectacular especially since the hotel had it’s own amazing fireworks right on the river.  We were all awed by the light show – lots of oohs and ahhs.  I spent the time in Bangkok fighting a cold that finally caught up to me and it was quite nasty – don’t remember the last time I felt like that, so (and I know a number of you will laugh) I was not feeling much like drinking alcohol at all.

In Bangkok we visited one amazing temple and the grand palace, via the public and tourist boat system (the former being much more exciting for various reasons: 1) no English was spoken; 2) one nearly choked on the fumes every time the boat stopped at each stop; 3) standing room only with lots of sweaty bodies (ours included).  The temples in Thailand are amazing.  In Bangkok we just loved the reclining Buddha (just chillin’ out) but the crowds were absolutely crazy insane.  I can’t say I’ve ever experienced anything quite like it; okay, maybe at a rock concert in general admission when I was very young.  Apparently the first 6 days in January the Thai people take time off and it was obvious.  There were tourists and locals alike.

As mentioned in the previous blog posting, Christine and Paul left for Toronto, via Hong Kong, on January 3.  We had a great visit together!

Gary and I stayed on in Bangkok for one more day, which was great for helping recover from my cold (I was pretty much horizontal for a full day), before getting on yet another plane to fly to Chiang Mai, 700 km north of Bangkok (we had planned on taking the train but someone recommended we not do so – it takes appx. 9 hours by train and flying was around the same price and only 1 hour away).  We spent 6 days in Chiang Mai – a couple of those days put aside just for viewing the temples – it claims to have over 300 temples in the city.  And I’m sure that’s accurate.  They were really beautiful.  Lots of sparkly, shiny stuff!

We had a lovely visit from someone from my studio.  Karyn came to Thailand to meet her daughter, Adele, who had been traveling with the bike tour company she works with (she and the group she was with rode from Shanghai to Bangkok, approximately 7000 km).  We had a lovely dinner with them both in Chiang Mai and then a couple of days later spent the day with them.  We hired a driver and thought we would be creative in our itinerary (who wants to do all of the touristy stuff like visit elephants, tigers, monkeys (no monkeys for me) , zip line, bungee jump, etc.?  NOT US!)   So our poor driver was truly at a loss and had no idea where the caves that we wanted to visit were.  When we saw the road sign for them we were so excited, but not our driver.  The sign said 1.5 km, and every time we got to another cave sign it yet again said 1.5 km., but finally we saw the dirt road which apparently would get us there.  We don’t think our driver had ever driven off a paved road before, by his reaction.  Anyway, he was willing to try and went along a bit of the road but eventually we all suggested he wait for us there (we didn’t want to agitate him since he was driving us back) and we decided to walk and hope to see a sign.  Oh, we saw signs alright…………they looked to be about 30 years old.  But we kept trudging up the stairs, through the overgrown pathways.  Adele was “stoked” (her word), and finally, VOILA, a cave.  Thanks for your perseverance, Adele!  Gary walked through into it with his phone flashlight and we were all hopeful that he would come out through the other end, and so he did.  Adele and Gary decided to also take the other path further up to another cave but Karyn and I decided we’d seen enough and headed down.  On the way down we met a group of about 6 young Auzzie men.  Huh, we thought, we’ve already conquered the cave!  The Canadian flag is up.  When we finally made it to our driver I got the feeling that not only did he think we were crazy, he was also surprised to see us, without any bodily damage.

We then went further down the road to one of his tourist picks, the village of Karen tribes people (The Long Neck Tribe), but none of us could go into the village – first you had to pay $20/person, and then we felt we would just be invasive (after some research I learned that most of the money never makes its way directly to the tribe).  When we got back in the car our driver was really baffled this time.  We couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind.  For sure “these crazy, lunatic tourists.  They don’t want to go to any of the touristy things, not even a village that everyone is dying to go to, but they’ll visit a cave that no one has been to in decades” (and that he didn’t even know about).

Now, having said all that we did visit Doi Suthep Temple (The Temple on the Mountain) which is situated on one of the peaks 15 km west of Chiang Mai city centre, with great views, and lots of other crazy tourists visited here as well.

On our second day in Chiang Mai I came across a brochure for a spine/postural balance class using a stability ball, which was terrific.  It was a “beginner” class to learn the moves and then repeat it for 5 days so that your muscles could remember the movement of when your body was naturally centered (it was Yoga based but you wouldn’t really know it).  The Japanese man teaching the class was so good and sequenced the class in such a way that you could feel and understand how your spine could truly correct itself.  He had the best posture I’ve ever seen.  Karyn joined me the first day and then the second day her and Gary came as well.  For those who have done a stability ball class with me, that was baby stuff compared to what we did in Thailand.  A lot of the time was spent with our feet off the ground (or at least trying).  I couldn’t do most of the exercises very well (or at all), but it felt like I was retraining my body all over again from those teeny, tiny little stabilizer muscles that I used to talk about endlessly in my classes.  I went for 4 days and wished that I could continue.  Anyway, it got me thinking about work, sure, sure!  And I realized how much I miss teaching – REALLY!

The next day we took a bus to Chiang Rai, 3 1/2 hours from Chiang Mai.  The bus held a smattering of locals, tourists and a couple of monks – a very comfortable ride.  We had originally thought we would cross the Thai border into Laos from here and take the slow boat to Luang Prabang, Laos but we changed our minds and decided to return to Bangkok, spend a couple of days there and then fly back to Cambodia, Phnom Penh this time (we had already booked this flight before entering Thailand in order to have an exit ticket at customs).  We will fly to Laos after Cambodia.

In Chiang Rai, we used the time to relax and book a couple of flights and hotels (this is always very time consuming for us).  There are a lot of touristy things to do in Chiang Rai but the town itself is a bit lacking, except for the crazy Clock Tower.  We did visit one very touristy structure (temple) called Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple) that was designed/built by the same artist that did the Clock Tower.  The temple looked like a very elaborate gingerbread house sprayed with snow from a can.  It was really bizarre.

 

 

 

 

 

We flew into Siem Reap, Cambodia with Christine and Paul on December 28th to visit the temples of Angkor (most well known is Angkor Wat).   Our visit was only for 2 days and then we headed to Bangkok, Thailand for New Year’s Eve.  After a great trip with them for about 18 days, Christine and Paul have headed home.  Gary and I will be returning to Cambodia after spending some time in Thailand (we’ll have a Thailand post soon).

The city of Siem Reap has built up over the last few years due to the popularity of Angkor Wat.  Gary and I have visited a few UNESCO sites and wonders of the world in past travels, but I have to say that Angkor was absolutely amazing, and the most vast, so far.  It is said that it is the largest religious site in the world.  The four of us started the day with a sunrise visit to Angkor Wat.  And although it was spectacular I had no idea that there would be thousands of people there as well (and with their selfie sticks to boot).  It was a sea of people and not the spiritual moment that I had expected.  But awe-inspiring just the same.  After sunrise, we spent approximately 7 hours at various temples on the site.  An exhausting but amazing day.

The Cambodians are such lovely, lovely people.  They have the most beautiful smiles and a fabulous sense of humour (I do love that!).  Amazing considering historically what they went through with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  We enjoyed the old part of the city of Siem Reap (sorry, no photos to show).

Here are some photos of Angkor and area: