back to thailand

After my stay in muang ngoi neua, I started on my way back to Thailand. I wasn't sure where I'd end up that night, mainly because I got conflicting information on how long the different legs of the journey took. As it turns out I made it back to Chiang Rai in two days. Here's how:

Day 1:
Leave Muang Ngoi Neua on a crowded long tail boat. This time the engine isn't as loud and next to me are the people I met in the village. Going down river takes only 45 minutes (instead of over an hour upriver) and so despite leaving 30 minutes late I arrive at 10:15 or so in Nong Khiaw. Off to a good start. Cost: 20,000 kip ($2.35)

Next I head back to the bridge/bus station and buy a ticket on the 11am mini-van to Udomxai. I end up sitting next to two American girls, one of whom speaks Thai... (thai and lao are very similar) - so this would be helpful. Three and half hours later, four if you include the usual late departure, I arrive in Udomxai. Road was a bit bumpy but nothing compared to what was coming... Cost 40,000 kip ($4.70)

The mini-van driver offers to take those of us in the van who want to go onward all the way to Luang Nam Tha. He wants 65,000 kip, but we soon realize the local bus only cost 35,000 and leaves at 3PM (giving us an hour to stretch our legs). Local bus it is. After buying my ticket, I promptly lose it, get yelled at by the bus driver, but am allowed to continue. The road is just awful. Under construction, dirt road, dust, potholes, more dust, awful. Thank god for Dramamine. We arrive at nightfall in Luang Nam Tha and get on a shared ride pickup for 10,000 kip into town. For some reason bus stations in Thailand are always 8000 miles away from town centers. Anywho, we (the two american girls and I) find a hotel right where we get dropped off, clean the dust off everything and go grab some dinner. Hotel: 60,000kip, Dinner 45,000kip. Total cost 150,000 kip ($17.65)

Day 2:
I had planned on staying in Luang Nam Tha for a couple days, but the crappy roads, dust and long travel day made me reconsider. Instead I jumped on the earliest bus the next morning to Huay Xai at the Thai border. This road is a bit better for a while but quickly deteriorates as we wind through the mountains. It's also packed full, and at one point the kid sitting in the aisle next to me (and on a bag of rice) turns a shade of green that is never a good sign. I opened the window for him praying that he wouldn't lose his breakfast all over me and apparently the fresh air helped. Five minutes later a few people got out and he moved up to the seat in front of me - where he finally threw up. I had been spared. Three and half hours later (1pm) we arrive at the border. From there we catch another shared ride pickup to the border crossing across the Mekong. I swear I've crossed that river two dozen times now. Total Cost 55,000 kip ($6.50)

After going through the formalities and spending our last kip on some Chips Ahoy and a Coke (that was officially lunch i think), we hop on a long boat to cross the Mekong, arrive on a sandy beach, and go through Thai immigration. Welcome Home. Cost 10,000 kip ($1.20).

The girls are considering making the trek to Chiang Mai - another 5 hours, but I'm only headed to Chiang Rai, a paltry 2 hours away. After a 30 baht tuk tuk ride, I hop on the local bus headed to my final destination. After all this travel, I hardly flinch when I see a school bus that appears to be 40 years old. 2 hours in that thing - no problem. Total cost 95 baht ($3)

After all that, I finally arrive in Chiang Rai (which actually has a bus station near the center of town) and after walking around a bit, find a nice hotel room with everything but wifi. It's only 6PM, but feels like much later. I go grab some Pad Thai(!!!), a passion fruit smoothie, check my email at an internet cafe, and call it a night.

So there you go... 2 days, 15 hours of travel on wonderfully smooth roads and comfortable boats, and about $35 dollars later, I was back in Thailand. Till next time Laos. (sorry for the lack of pics through all this - it's best you use your imagination anyway)

muang ngoi neua

One of the reasons I wanted to get to Laos was to get away from everything - even for just a short amount of time. It seemed remote, and until very recently, I really hadn't heard a whole lot about it from friends or even other travelers. During the first ten days of the trip in Laos, I didn't feel especially disconnected from anything. I was traveling with my Kellogg friends and everywhere we went we had western food, internet cafes and well... electricity. I decided to change that this week. With all the Kellogg folks heading their seperate ways to other parts of the continent, I continued on in Laos making my way 4-5 hours north of Luang Prabang to a tiny village called Muang Ngoi Neua. I still don't think I'm pronouncing it right, but I made it here safely and without too much hassle. It started with a quick three-hour bus ride to Nong Khiaw from LP, where I was dropped off on one side of the bridge, litterally. There really wasn't a whole lot else to distinguish this as a bus stop - save perhaps a few other confused westerners and another mini-bus.

Luckily, I quickly found the one tourism company in Nong Khiaw and asked for directions to the "port." This in turn was nothing more than a little hut (where you buy tickets) and cement stairs leading down to the Nam Ou river. There I bought a ticket to Muang Ngoi Neua (which, as I mentioned, I don't know how to pronouce properly) and was informed that the boat left in two hours. This gave me ample time to find Nong Khiaw's finest dining establishment and order some fried noodles. They were good. So what if I got rice instead of noodles.

The boat ride was a bit dodgy as they say in some parts of the world. I'm not convinced that the boat was designed to carry 24 westerners and their oversized backpacks up through rapids, but who am I to say. Sitting in the back, and right next to a wonderfully noisy 4-cylinder Toyota engine, I could see the front of the long tail boat move in every direction but the one the back of the boat was moving in. Amusing really.

Muang Ngoi Neua is everything I hoped it would be. It's basically the little village that time almost forgot - but didn't. While there aren't any phone lines and the only electricity comes from generators which run for but a few hours in the evening, there are a number of guesthouses and bungalows, as well as restaurants, that cater to backpackers and a few adventurous tour groups. A relatively cold Beer Lao is never that far away - neither is the cell tower or the satelite dishes. I even found a place with a warm shower. It's really an easy way to get away from it all for a couple days.

I ended up spending two nights and only one full day there, but I met some wonderful travelers and had a great time exploring the local villages on my own. Locals and tourists alike are quick to point you in the right direction as you're wandering through the dry rice paddy fields behind town, and other than the occasional snake or water buffalo, there really isn't much else to worry about. In the end, it's exactly what I hope Laos would be and if I didn't need to get back to reality sooner, I would happily spend a couple more days here just watching the overfilled long tail boats take tourists in and out of this little village on the Nam Ou River.

luang prabang

Everything I'd heard about the old capital of Laos turned out to be true - right down to the 11pm curfew. It's an extremely picturesque little town, with old french colonial buildings lining the streets and a relaxed atmosphere which slows everyone right down. I spent almost a week there enjoying the easy-going town and a few of the local attractions. I arrived a day earlier than John, Neha, Connie, and Kimberly to meet up with the Hong Kong Kellogg crew who were doing a rapid tour of SE Asia over their Chinese New Year break. After an arduous seven hour drive through endlessly winddy mountain roads from Vang Vieng, I arrived mid afternoon and made my way to the main street to rent a scooter. "$18 for one day - you've gotta be out of your mind!" And so ended my quest to rent a scooter. That evening I met up with Amity, Ashley, Darren, and Chris for some dinner, drinks, a massage, and a stroll through the night market. These activities would be repeated a number of times throughout the week.

Though we had every intention of making it to the local waterfall the next day, the unseasonably cold weather dictated that we find something else to do. And so we did - spending the day sampling the street food on offer, and specifically the pho - or foe as they spell it here. We also made a little trip to the locals market to take in the sights and sounds and this didn't dissapoint - rats, frogs, dogs... you name the animal, it was chopped up and ready to be cooked. I'm not entirely sure what else we accomplished that day - unless you consider the aforementioned - dinner, drinks, massage and stroll through the market an accomplishment. A cold, yet relaxing, day all around.

The next day, with John, Neha, Connie and Kimberly back in the mix, we all rented a long-tail boat (and its driver) and made our way down-river to the waterfall. Now that the weather was once again cooperating, this turned out to be one of the nicer waterfalls yet - even during the dry season. The rest of the day we did what we do best - eat, drink and enjoy a massage :)

We kept up the same routine almost daily for the rest of our stay.mixing in a few other activities including treks up into the local villages and even a tiny little bit of wat-seeing. Overall I really enjoyed Luang Prabang. It's clearly in the midst of a huge tourist boom, and is clearly changing on a daily basis. I would certainly recommend it to anyone traveling through the area, especially if you want to relive a small part of colonial French Indochine.

lethargy and debauchery

Someone on wikitravel describes Vang Vieng as "lethargy by day and debauchery by night." This isn't completely true. I'm not sure how to describe this place. On one hand it's nestled in a beautiful valley along a river in what would be a very serene setting if not for the hordes of backpackers that have turned this place into a bizarre world where watching endless American sitcoms and tubing down a river with a bucket of alcohol in hand seem perfectly logical. So first the town. It's two main streets are lined with restaurant/bars where no one talks. Why don't they talk? Cause all the bars show reruns of Friends, The Family Guy, and The Simpsons all day, every day. So basically everyone picks a bar based on what season is showing from one of those three shows (and only those three shows), and just sits around and watches as much as their little hearts desire. Of course they're all drinking large Beer Lao's, but really alcohol is an afterthought here.

On the other hand, along the river, alcohol appears to be a priority. Backpackers have managed to turn this tranquil spot spot into a year round spring break party - you might as well be in Cancun in March. Besides drinking, the activity of choice is tubing. You rent a tube in town and then get dropped off upriver, and proceed to slowly float back south into town, stopping at one of the many bars that line the river. Each bar obviously has various drink specials, but they also have swings, zip-lines, slides and other dangerous ways to launch yourself back into the river. Needless to say, safety does not appear to be anyone's primary concern.

I wish I could tell you I took part in this debauchery, but alas, we were content just tubing down the river watching the 18 year olds doing belly flops and giving themselves whiplash. It was remarkably amusing and just floating didn't wear us out too much - so that we could join them afterward for half a season of friends. One day of all this was enough for me however, so I left Neha, John, Kimberly and Connie behind, and moved north to Luang Prabang. The eight-hour mini-bus ride was, well... long, but certainly worth it. Traveling up Highway 13 in Laos has got to be one of the most picturesque trips you can take. The road is lined with schools, villages and people going about their daily routines. It was surely a fascinating way to see the country. Unfortunately as I was sitting in the middle of the bus, no pictures were taken. Hopefully I'll take some as I continue to travel north. (btw picture uploads are coming... just some minor technical difficulties)

onto laos

Back to full time vacationing! This time I’m off to Laos with John, Neha and Kimberly from Kellogg as well as Connie who was also on exchange at Sasin from Cornell. Our trip started at the Bangkok train station where we caught an overnight train to the Laos border. Since the A/C units were all sold out, we settled for fan only 2nd class beds, which turned out not to be as bad as we imagined they might be. It wasn’t that hot at night, but keeping the windows open all night was loud and dusty – and so sleeping was a bit challenging. We arrived in Vientiane, the sleepy Laos capital at 11am, and after securing a hotel room for the night, we followed the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city... err town. With a population barely over 200,000, Vientiane is certainly one of the smaller capitals I’ve ever been to. We walked around rather lethargically, trying to get a quick feel for this new (to us) country. Unfortunately we were exhausted from our train trip, and so our walk, turned into a very lazy stroll through the blistering heat (it was probably 95 degrees and rather sunny). He hit some of the main sites, which were generally rather unimpressive, and so after an early meal, I passed out early for evening on my hotel bed. Somewhat unimpressed with the capital, we decided to move northward towards Vang Vieng, our next destination, four hours north of Vientiane. Overall though, it’s nice to visit a new country, with some new foods to try – including many baguette sandwiches :) There's certainly a strong French influence around town - both in terms of food and architecture. Alright onto Vang Vieng.