Wow! What a couple of days! Chiang Mai is reputed to be one of those places that backpackers/travelers will find themselves staying in for longer than they expected. We were no exception at all to this rule. Chiang Mai is fantastic. Slightly bigger than we expected, but we would say Raleigh-ish in it's healthy cross between availability of everything you could ask for and lack of big-city feel.
We spent a few more days here and got ourselves in to some great adventures along the way.
First, we decided to splurge on a cooking class (liza, you would have loved it!!). It was an all day affair, and began with us being hustled in to the back of a pickup truck with 8 other sleepy looking westerners. Once everyone was gathered up from their various guesthouses we headed off to the market. Our guide gave us a full lesson on all the various ingredients we'd be using for the day (there are 4 types of basil used in cooking, did you know that?) and then set us free to explore the market on our own for a few minutes while he did the day's shopping. A bag of dried kiwi, rolls of huge sausage and one dead rat later, it was time to go.
Back at the kitchen, we started cooking like crazy and didn't stop (except to get tipsy) until late afternoon. It was incredible to learn to cook all the dishes that we've been eating on our trip. We cooked and ate (I know we'll forget something): red curry, green curry, pad thai, coconut soup, HOT and sour soup (the guide was out to get miah on this one), tiger's tear chicken salad, holy basil stir fry, spicy glass noodle salad, spring rolls, sticky rice and baby coconut dessert and coconut milk with bananas. yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
To be honest, it's pretty hard not to make friends with the folks working around you in something like this - you're working side by side all day together, laughing at each others mistakes, and lending a hand here and there. So we got to know a few of the people in our cooking class, and decided to try to meet at the big loi kratong festival that was happening in chiang mai. [enter sinister theme music]. Little did we know the grave danger we put everyone in with that innocent gesture.
Loi Kratong is sort of like a war zone. with out the 'sort of'. Think of the fourth of july with about 25 times more adolescence fueling everyone's actions and no real control as to the 'variety' of fireworks sold and combusted. The advertisements for the festival show smiling people sending their Kratong (a little boat with flowers and your hopes for the year) down river, but the reality of the situation was more like Michelle and Leslie running to the riverside, trying not to lose a shoe in the mud to drop their boat as quickly as they could. All this to avoid the four year old that was throwing lit fire-works at their feet (much to his glee). It seemed as if the entire city had congregated on the riverside and everyone was trying to send off as many fireworks as possible in any direction they could find space. Part of their amusement must be watching the Westerners covering their heads and practically running for their lives. There were thousands of meter in diameter hot-air balloons that everyone was launching in to the sky that were so beautiful and filled the evening with what looked like a new set of stars... those that weren't shot down by bottle rockets. Michelle put it best, Loi Kratong is a PTSD nightmare. To anyone in our cooking class out there that tried to find us at the bridge and lost a limb in doing so, we're deeply sorry.
Don't get us wrong, though, death-defying excitement aside, Chiang Mai was a wonderful place, and we had a blast while we were there.
Hope everyone's well,
TeamWander
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Leaving the Lonely Planet Behind
Travelling through Asia we have found that people tend to regard the Lonely Planet book as the end all and be all of travel guides. We're not sure if the dependence is stronger due to the extreme communication difficulties, but it was time for us to break away and see what happened.
Before we begin this story though, a little moment of thanks to Michelle Marlowe, our island of NC here in thailand. We met up with her in Chiang Mai (she's living there, working two jobs as a social worker - very interesting, but you'll have to convince her to start a blog for all the details). She was nice enough to be our tour guide for a couple of days and let us leave our big bags at her place (the detail that made the following adventure at all possible). Thanks michelle!
So, we left 90% of our "stuff" at madame marlowe's and hopped on a bus headed north out of chiang mai to a tiny town called chiang dao. The claim to fame of this town is that it's settled at the base of the tallest limestone mountain in Thailand (2700 or so meters) and home to an extensive network of caves that have been somewhat of a Buddhist gathering/worshipping ground for the past 300-500 years.
We were headed north on the bus, pretty much unable to tell where we were at all, and thankfully the driver took pity on us and stopped the bus to kick us off in Chiang Dao. Thus we started our search for a place to stay for the night. easier said than done. 6 km of walking out of town and back in later, we finally found a place; a cute bungalow with a couple of friendly dogs to greet us. And finally, Miah convinced Leslie that renting some powered transportation might be in order (enter the 125 cc mega-scooter!). We spent the next couple of days tooling around the Chiang Dao area (heading to the caves, bathing in a sulfuric hot spring, and feeding bananas to elephants) in pure style. It was the best 12 dollars ever spent (in miah's opinion, at least).
Hope everything's going well back home, Ryan, don't work too hard in St. Jo,
TeamWander
Before we begin this story though, a little moment of thanks to Michelle Marlowe, our island of NC here in thailand. We met up with her in Chiang Mai (she's living there, working two jobs as a social worker - very interesting, but you'll have to convince her to start a blog for all the details). She was nice enough to be our tour guide for a couple of days and let us leave our big bags at her place (the detail that made the following adventure at all possible). Thanks michelle!
So, we left 90% of our "stuff" at madame marlowe's and hopped on a bus headed north out of chiang mai to a tiny town called chiang dao. The claim to fame of this town is that it's settled at the base of the tallest limestone mountain in Thailand (2700 or so meters) and home to an extensive network of caves that have been somewhat of a Buddhist gathering/worshipping ground for the past 300-500 years.
We were headed north on the bus, pretty much unable to tell where we were at all, and thankfully the driver took pity on us and stopped the bus to kick us off in Chiang Dao. Thus we started our search for a place to stay for the night. easier said than done. 6 km of walking out of town and back in later, we finally found a place; a cute bungalow with a couple of friendly dogs to greet us. And finally, Miah convinced Leslie that renting some powered transportation might be in order (enter the 125 cc mega-scooter!). We spent the next couple of days tooling around the Chiang Dao area (heading to the caves, bathing in a sulfuric hot spring, and feeding bananas to elephants) in pure style. It was the best 12 dollars ever spent (in miah's opinion, at least).
Hope everything's going well back home, Ryan, don't work too hard in St. Jo,
TeamWander
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Yet another cross country adventure
Our last stop in Laos was Luang Prabang, a beautiful city along the Mekong River. More than anything, we used this city as a epicurian adventure. We started out upscale to celebrate our one month anniversary, including a great wine bar with big beanbag chairs and comfy couches. Every other day, we decided to eat as cheaply as possible and find foods that we'd never tried before. This included a great vegetarian buffett where for 50cents we filled a plate with pickled cabbage noodle dishes, green papaya salad, mixed veggies, fruits, and the standard fried rice. We also tried this chewy dough that was grilled on a stick that somehow managed to taste like seafood. More importantly, we ate these yummy deserts: tiny pancakes that tasted like a breaded tapioca pudding, gooey green balls that were covered in coconut (suprisingly delicious), fried bananas, carmelized sweet rice with pineapple/banana, etc. Almost everything we tried was really good, but our luck ran out when we tried escaping from an afternoon rainshower into this tiny restaurant that was attached to a motorcycle repair shop (maybe this should have been clue number one). No one spoke English so we pantomimed until the waiter understood that we would like to eat. He came out with two steaming bowls of noodle soup that on first glance looked to be delicous. Turns out, it was random meat bits including intenstine and some unidentifiable, blueish organ and fish balls in a bland broth. We ate what we could and considered ourselves lucky for all the other great dishes we have stumbled upon.
Our plan was to fly out of Luang Prabang at 4pm Friday to meet a friend in Chiang Mai, Thailand and had bought tickets a week before. However, when we arrived at the airport at 1:30pm, a very distressed employee told us the flight had taken off 30 minutes ago. Apparently we bought tickets to a flight that didn't exist, even though it was on the airline's website and the travel agent had booked it. Ooops! We were disappointed to mess up our fun weekend plans with Michelle, but headed back to town to spend another night. The next day we got to the airport at 11am so we'd be there plenty early. However, our 1pm departure time came and went with no word from the airline. Eventually they came around with a little lunchbox and told us the flight would leave at 3pm. Once again 3pm came and went. The next estimate was 5:30pm, but since the maintenance crews were still straddling the top of the plane, this didn't look hopeful either. We were going crazy in this little two-room airport, so we headed back outside and found a tiny dirt road to follow. We were first met by a group of bison, and then found a little village behind the airport. Apparently this was not a place that "falang" (foreigners) ever made it to because the first little girl we saw started pointing and screaming. We walked through and found a restaurant to drink a beer at before returning to the airport. Our plane finally left at 7:30pm and we made it to Michelle's house, only 30 hours later than expected. Still quicker than our alternative transportation, which was a 2 day boat trip up the river, but needless to say we're extremely happy to be back in Thailand.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Team Wander
Our plan was to fly out of Luang Prabang at 4pm Friday to meet a friend in Chiang Mai, Thailand and had bought tickets a week before. However, when we arrived at the airport at 1:30pm, a very distressed employee told us the flight had taken off 30 minutes ago. Apparently we bought tickets to a flight that didn't exist, even though it was on the airline's website and the travel agent had booked it. Ooops! We were disappointed to mess up our fun weekend plans with Michelle, but headed back to town to spend another night. The next day we got to the airport at 11am so we'd be there plenty early. However, our 1pm departure time came and went with no word from the airline. Eventually they came around with a little lunchbox and told us the flight would leave at 3pm. Once again 3pm came and went. The next estimate was 5:30pm, but since the maintenance crews were still straddling the top of the plane, this didn't look hopeful either. We were going crazy in this little two-room airport, so we headed back outside and found a tiny dirt road to follow. We were first met by a group of bison, and then found a little village behind the airport. Apparently this was not a place that "falang" (foreigners) ever made it to because the first little girl we saw started pointing and screaming. We walked through and found a restaurant to drink a beer at before returning to the airport. Our plane finally left at 7:30pm and we made it to Michelle's house, only 30 hours later than expected. Still quicker than our alternative transportation, which was a 2 day boat trip up the river, but needless to say we're extremely happy to be back in Thailand.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Team Wander
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A new business model
So we have a plan, we all need a find a river somewhere in the southeastern US (somewhere that it gets hot enough that tubing down the river is a good plan) and we all need to construct float-by river side bars with 40 ft tall swings, slides and zip lines in to the river water. If we add enough mud, loud music and falangs (thai/laotian for westerners) you'll have pretty much exactly what we got to experience in our latest town. Believe me, it was awesome. If we build it, they will come.
Vang Vieng is a sort of backpackers hedonist mecca that has sprung up in northern Loas (a country that brings in much more backpackers and upscale travelers than one would expect). It is something that can't really be adequately described, but is somehow simultaneously a wonderful and terrible place to be.
Imagine a small college town. Very small. With a big, easy college. Now leave all the students, and subtract all the classes, textbooks and professors leaving cheap beer in place to fill the void. Plop this town down in the middle of Laos and you have Vang Vieng. It was outrageous. We couldn't stay too long, for fear of never leaving, but the time we had there was incredible. We spent a day hiking, climbing and tubing through a handful of caves, walking through some amazing traditional villages an, of course, tubing down the river.
Though we didn't have as much time to invest in to the last activity as we would have liked (thanks to our icky tour guide) it definitely took the cake as the most memorable. We were hauled off of our tubes, and in to one of the river-side bars by a 18 year-old crossdressing laotian guy, where we met up with a throng of bathing-suit clad backpackers, all in various stages of drunkeness. Like we said above, this bar had all sorts of exciting swings and slides you could play on (between shots of lao-lao whisky, of course). It was incredible, we only wish this computer had a way to let us upload a few of the pictures (dad, thanks again for the loaner waterproof camera!).
Alas, all good things had to come to an end and our time in Vang Vieng was capped off with a 7 hour minibus (basically a full-size van) ride north to Luang Prabang. The ride was breathtaking, up and down a steep, switchback laced mountain with rural rice villages scattered the whole way through. we'll definitely have a picture to post for this one.
Hope everybody is doing great,
TeamWander
Yay Obama!
Vang Vieng is a sort of backpackers hedonist mecca that has sprung up in northern Loas (a country that brings in much more backpackers and upscale travelers than one would expect). It is something that can't really be adequately described, but is somehow simultaneously a wonderful and terrible place to be.
Imagine a small college town. Very small. With a big, easy college. Now leave all the students, and subtract all the classes, textbooks and professors leaving cheap beer in place to fill the void. Plop this town down in the middle of Laos and you have Vang Vieng. It was outrageous. We couldn't stay too long, for fear of never leaving, but the time we had there was incredible. We spent a day hiking, climbing and tubing through a handful of caves, walking through some amazing traditional villages an, of course, tubing down the river.
Though we didn't have as much time to invest in to the last activity as we would have liked (thanks to our icky tour guide) it definitely took the cake as the most memorable. We were hauled off of our tubes, and in to one of the river-side bars by a 18 year-old crossdressing laotian guy, where we met up with a throng of bathing-suit clad backpackers, all in various stages of drunkeness. Like we said above, this bar had all sorts of exciting swings and slides you could play on (between shots of lao-lao whisky, of course). It was incredible, we only wish this computer had a way to let us upload a few of the pictures (dad, thanks again for the loaner waterproof camera!).
Alas, all good things had to come to an end and our time in Vang Vieng was capped off with a 7 hour minibus (basically a full-size van) ride north to Luang Prabang. The ride was breathtaking, up and down a steep, switchback laced mountain with rural rice villages scattered the whole way through. we'll definitely have a picture to post for this one.
Hope everybody is doing great,
TeamWander
Yay Obama!
Woooooooohooooooooooooo!
First things first..... OBAMA WON!!!!!!!!! Yay! We spent our morning in a bar in Luang Prabong, Laos cheering with people from around the world as more and more states popped up as blue on the map. Super bonus points to all of you who voted. It's great to see North Carolina turning blue as well. The bar owner handed everyone free champagne as Obama was announced president. We have constantly been asked about the election over here...it's really interesting how involved the world is in our political system and is yet another wake up call for us to know more about the rest of the world.
Anyway, enough political stuff, time to catch up on what's been happening. So our last stop in Thailand was a border town called Nong Khai. We took a night train there from the jungle and arrived at six in the morning. We got a tuk-tuk to a hostel that we immediately fell in love with. If we weren't heading to Costa Rica, we would have taken them up on a job offer and stayed for a few months.
We rented bikes and toured around the town and surrounding countryside. There was an amazing sculpture garden nearby that had tremendous statues and depiction of the wheel of life that was really interesting (photos to follow since we can't upload them here). We also had our second taste at Thai massages (they are only $4 an hour here, but it feels like such a splurge based on how much we spend on a daily basis), which leave you feeling like jello for the next couple hours.
Our favorite part of Nong Khai however, was a place called the ISARA learning center. We spent one evening teaching English to people from elementary school age up to adults and it was an incredible experience. Much more difficult than expected, especially with the young kids who only repeat what you say. It is so hard to convey that you are asking a question and trying to get them to respond with a different statement. It ended with all of us singing head, shoulders, knees, and toes though, which was adorable. The organization ISARA was founded by a guy who used to work for Microsoft and moved to Thailand five years ago or so and started this group. They are funded by use of their website (www.isara.org) so all you have to do to help out is to make this your homepage. The page has a google search bar and links to gmail, hotmail, facebook, etc. right up top, so it is only one click to get to anything else you need. Such an easy (and free!) way to help and then these students get free English lessons, free computer lessons, health/safety information (i.e. helmets to wear when riding a motorcycle since that is the main form of transportation here), etc. We wish we could have helped out more at the learning center but we had to head on to Laos. You can also check out the group ISARA on Facebook to learn more information. New post for a new country.....
Yay for you if you voted,
TeamWander
Anyway, enough political stuff, time to catch up on what's been happening. So our last stop in Thailand was a border town called Nong Khai. We took a night train there from the jungle and arrived at six in the morning. We got a tuk-tuk to a hostel that we immediately fell in love with. If we weren't heading to Costa Rica, we would have taken them up on a job offer and stayed for a few months.
We rented bikes and toured around the town and surrounding countryside. There was an amazing sculpture garden nearby that had tremendous statues and depiction of the wheel of life that was really interesting (photos to follow since we can't upload them here). We also had our second taste at Thai massages (they are only $4 an hour here, but it feels like such a splurge based on how much we spend on a daily basis), which leave you feeling like jello for the next couple hours.
Our favorite part of Nong Khai however, was a place called the ISARA learning center. We spent one evening teaching English to people from elementary school age up to adults and it was an incredible experience. Much more difficult than expected, especially with the young kids who only repeat what you say. It is so hard to convey that you are asking a question and trying to get them to respond with a different statement. It ended with all of us singing head, shoulders, knees, and toes though, which was adorable. The organization ISARA was founded by a guy who used to work for Microsoft and moved to Thailand five years ago or so and started this group. They are funded by use of their website (www.isara.org) so all you have to do to help out is to make this your homepage. The page has a google search bar and links to gmail, hotmail, facebook, etc. right up top, so it is only one click to get to anything else you need. Such an easy (and free!) way to help and then these students get free English lessons, free computer lessons, health/safety information (i.e. helmets to wear when riding a motorcycle since that is the main form of transportation here), etc. We wish we could have helped out more at the learning center but we had to head on to Laos. You can also check out the group ISARA on Facebook to learn more information. New post for a new country.....
Yay for you if you voted,
TeamWander
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Snakes and Leeches and Scorpions, Oh my!
What a day! We spent 12 hours on a jungle trek in Khao Yai national forest. Reading through our guidebooks, they "strongly suggest" taking a guided tour through Khao Yai as tourists guiding themselves have a tendency of getting lost in the 800 square mile forest and needing to be rescued. After our tour, we have to agree that this is sound advice. 
The trek itself was amazing though. We saw fields of monkeys by the side of the road, a few hornbill birds (as neat as birds could be, though they were still birds), and barking deer.
The forest had its host of dangers though. During the course of the day, we had to dodge a zillion leeches (really, a zillion, no exaggeration), a white-lipped pit viper, a pissed-off burmese python (our guide ended up picking this guy up by his head and tossing him away from the trail), a giant spider, and the piece-de-resistance, an 8 inch scorpion that somehow (thanks to our clever guide) ended up on Miah's shoulder. 
We can't really do the experience justice in any way other than the photos, so we've posted a few here and there are some up on flickr as well. However, if you ever make it to central thailand, we can recommend a tour guide.Hugs!
TeamWander
Geez, 5 days...
We're sorry, Thailand is just amazing, and we haven't been as diligent about blogging duties. So we'll try to post two or three tonight to get everyone back up to speed.First things first, after we got to the end of our harrying travel adventure in to thailand, we somehow stumbled on one of the most fantastic places that we have seen so far on this trip: Ayutthaya, Thailand. It's the former capitol of thailand and super rich with cultural history (lots and lots and lots of temples). It is a manufactured island of maybe 8 sq miles that sits at the confluence of 3 rivers. Everywhere you turn there are ruins of ancient temples and fortresses as well as all of the modern day ones that have been built alongside. One of our favorite places had a tree that had grown around the head of an old Buddha statue. We were able to climb down to the crypt and up to the top of these ancient structures. One of the modern temples had a tremendous Buddha (6+ stories tall) seated inside. He filled most of the main sanctuary of the temple and it was evident that the room had been built around him.
This was our first foray in to local thai food. and it's incredible. with few exceptions, everything we have eaten has been fantastic, and cheeeeeeeeeeap. One of the food pics we actually remembered to take before devouring our meal was from our favorite restaurant so far on the trip... Liza this one's for you:A funny story about this meal is that for the most part, the portion sizes in Southeast Asia have been much smaller than everyone in the states is used to. It's kindof refreshing actually to leave a meal and not be completely stuffed. However for this meal, everything looked so good and we were so very hungry that we decided to order three dishes. Coincidentally, this is the one restaurant we've been to where the portion sizing rule didn't apply. Needless to say, we ended up with mountains of food on our table and "had" to force our way through every bit of it. Rough life.
We've posted a bunch of the pics related to this post that can't fit in the blog on our flickr site.
Hope everyone is great!
TeamWander
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