Northern Laos in a Nutshell

It's been a long time since I updated this blog, and these pictures are a little out of date.  I'm in Austria right now, but these pictures are from a few weeks back when I was in Laos.

This is me and Dan on the slow boat that we took from Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos.  We were on this boat going down the Mekong River for 2 days.

This is the view that we had while we were going down the river.  The boat was open, so we got a lot of fresh air.  When it started to rain, though, we had to pull tarps over the "windows" so that we didn't get wet.

This is just another of the many pictures that I took of the Mekong River.  I was on this boat for two days... I had to do something, so I took pictures of water.

After the first day on the boat, we stopped in a little town for the night called Pak Beng.  This is me at "The Only Bar in Town." 

This is what it looked like at The Only Bar in Town.  Apparently, being the only bar in town isn't enough to attract customers.

This is a big group of English people I met on the boat.  Here we are at The Only Bar in Town.

This is the boat on the second day.  For the second day, they got a smaller boat, so there weren't enough seats for everyone.  That meant that we had to sit at the front of the boat where there were no seats.

Here are the Englishmen trying to entertain themselves while lying in the boat.  I actually didn't mind not having a seat on the boat - I thought it was much nicer to lie down on the floor rather than sitting in an uncomfortable car seat.  That's also something worth noting - the seats on the boat were just seats that were pulled out of old cars and set inside the boat.  The seats weren't even attached to the ground, so you could move them around if you wanted to.

Along the way, we stopped at little towns to pick up people or big bags of who-knows-what. 

This is one of the little Lao boys who was convinced that this English boy's fingers should be able to bend the wrong way...

This is where the pictures start from life after the boat ride.  When we got to Luang Prabang, we stayed at a pretty cheap and dirty hostel called Spicy Lao.  One thing that they did have to offer, though, was free snake whiskey.  This is a big jug of whiskey filled with snakes and giant centipedes.  Yummy.

This is the night market in Luang Prabang.  I didn't like Laos so much, but I can't deny that they have some good food.  It seems that Lao people really like to grill things, so we often ate grilled fish or chicken on a stick.  Laos was also a French colony at some point, so they make really good baguettes and sandwiches.  

This is me at one of the most beautiful water falls I've ever seen.  The water was this beautiful bluish-green color that doesn't really show up in the pictures.

This is me and Dan in the water at the main waterfall.

There was a tree at the main waterfall with a rope swing.  You had to climb up with a long stick and somehow get ahold of the rope before you could swing down.  It was pretty scary trying to balance on the tree and fish for the rope.

This is me swinging from the tree into the water.  It was amazing.  After this, we also went to the top of the waterfall and jumped over the waterfall into the pool.  This waterfall was the best thing I saw in Laos.

 After Luang Prabang, I took a bus over to Vang Vieng.  This is one of the typical restaurants in Vang Vieng.  They have TVs.  You sit down, eat, and watch TV.  How crazy is that?  Most restaurants are set up this way with everyone sitting in rows facing the TV. 

 Vang Vieng is also a popular place for "tubing."  Tubing is where you sit on big tubes and float down the river between bars.  It's a super dangerous idea, if you think about it.  Imagine hundreds of drunk people floating down a river and people getting in fights because someone stole their tube... It's not really something I want to do again.

At the start of the tubing, they'll take you across the river to get to the first bar (which is called "The First Bar").  In this picture, you can see the boat where they are taking our tubes across for us and the bar in the background.

 This is that English guy and a Dutch girl named Jo.  While I was in Vang Vieng, I lived with Jo and a Chilean guy named Josa.

 This is Jo jumping into the river from The First Bar.  I guess that's the idea - when you've had enough of one bar, you jump in and swim or float to the next.

 These are my roommates from Vang Vieng - me, Josa, and Jo.

 Floating down the river will not take you directly to the bar.  This is how you actually get to a bar - People throw you a rope, and you have to catch it and hold on tight while they pull you in.

 This is me and Jo getting ready to get back into the river.

 This is Josa holding onto the stairway to one of the bars.

There are many exciting things to do while you're tubing, and this is one of them.  Some of the bars have big water slides that send you flying into the river.  Woohoo!

This picture is just to remind you that there are temples everywhere - even when most of my pictures are of silly things like tubing and rivers.  If I put up pictures of every temple I went to, you'd probably die of boredom.  But never fear - While in Southeast Asia, you're never more than 50 feet from a temple.

After Vang Vieng, I went to Ventiene, which is the capital city of Laos. Ventiene was my favorite place in Laos.  It was a nice city where people were mostly occupied with their own lives rather than busying themselves with exploiting tourists.  I didn't take any pictures in Ventiene because I was already tired of being in Asia by the time I got there.  Once I got to Laos, I had a really sudden change of heart about my travels.  Before I came to Laos, I was in love with this traveling lifestyle and I was hoping that it would never end.  After I spent some time in Laos, I became tired of the constant battle between tourists and local people.  I started to really feel the separation between the Europeans and the Asians, and it depressed me and drained all of my energy.  After Laos, I simply didn't have any more energy to care about temples or cultural experiences or beautiful landscapes or any of the things that excited me before.  The time had come for me to leave Asia.  Luckily, I had a flight to Germany in less than a week.  Good timing, right?

The Most Beautiful Temple in Thailand

I've been very bad at keeping up my blog lately... So, the biggest news is that I've extended my trip in Asia for another few days.  I thought that a week wasn't enough time in Laos, so I added on another week to my trip.

Last time I wrote, I had just left Pai and was heading to Chiang Rai.  In Chiang Rai, I saw the most beautiful temple in the world.  After that, I went over to Laos.  We took a slow boat for two days down the Mekong River to get to Luang Prabang in Laos.  From Luang Prabang, I went to Vang Vieng and finally down to the capital city of Laos, Vientiane.

Here are some pictures of the most beautiful temple in the world - The White Temple in Chiang Rai (also called Wat Rong Khun).  It's a very modern (and somewhat cryptic) temple, and it's still being built.  They estimate that the temple will be finished in 80 years.

It's beautiful, right?  That's me and Dan in front of the temple.  Dan is from Manchester, and I met him on the bus from Pai to Chiang Rai.  He wasn't exactly the nicest of people... In fact, he actually couldn't say anything nice at all.  When I asked him to say something nice for once, he was silent for something like 20 minutes because he couldn't think of anything to say.  That being said, we ended up hanging out for close to 2 weeks and became pretty good friends.  Everyone has their quirks.

These are two more pictures of the hands reaching up from the ground in front of the temple.  There seems to be a pretty morbid theme here.  There are skulls everywhere, and the paintings inside the main temple (which you aren't allowed to take pictures of) are pretty amazing criticisms about materialism and our consumerist culture.  When someone first told me that there were paintings of spiderman inside, I was pretty disgusted.  However, the paintings really are beautiful.  There are gas lines and blood dripping into open mouths with the burning twin towers in the background and spiderman crouching in the corner wondering if he should come save us yet.  This temple is a really powerful place.

This man stands at the entrance to the walkway up to the temple.  He's pretty viking-like and powerful-like, don't you think?  I like how the artwork in this temple pulls figures and symbols from so many different places.

 This is me with one of the White Temple Buddhas.

This is the little knob that you use to open the gate on the fence to leave the white temple.  There were skulls everywhere.  There were even trees with screaming skulls hanging off of them.

This is the part of the temple that's not finished yet.  There are no shiny mirror things on it, and the inside is entirely empty.  I'll have to come back in 80 years to see it...

This glorious place, my friends, is the bathroom.  Most other places in Thailand just have you pee in a hole in the ground.











OK, internet here in Laos isn't very fast, so uploading these pictures is taking forever.  I'll just put up this post for now, and I'll add stories from Laos once I get back to Bangkok (which will be in only 12 hours!).  So, here I go aboard the lovely sleeper train to Bangkok... let's hope all of my things don't get stolen - I've heard some horror stories about these sleeper trains.

Would you like some coffee with your Pai?

Pai is a place where you can go to a coffee shop, sit down next to an Israeli stranger, and have the most meaningful conversation of your life.  Pai is a place where the sun is shining, but it doesn't burn you because you've been out traveling for so long.  Pai is a bustling town of 2000 people surrounded by hills and rivers that smile at you and sing "welcome to your new home."

In Pai, the most commonly used word is "love."  Signs everywhere say "Pai is in love."  Souvenirs are covered in hearts and smiley faces.  What a change from the vagina ashtrays and marijuana posters that are the top-selling items in Bangkok.  What a welcome change.

Pai is a place where a Muslim woman in a full burka sells the best blueberry muffins in town.  Pai is a place where an old man - completely white from his hair to his toes - can say "this is my home now."  Pai is a truly international town where people come for the rumors and stay for the truth.  People find trivial reasons to stay in Pai: They like the ice-cold mountain rivers splashing against their backs on hot, rainless days.  They like the rain when it finally comes and the warm Thai father figure who says "Sawatdekup.  Come sit here - it's too wet out there."  They like how the geckos change colors and how the dogs sleep in the middle of the main road.  They like Pai (and coffee and icecream and papaya salad), and they find no reason to be anywhere but here.

But really - How many times do you look at your life and smile because you're truly happy?  How many times do you lie down because you want to, and not because someone pushed you there?  How many times do you let a mosquito bite you because, well, this is their world too?  How many times have you lied down on a warm rock in the pouring monsoon and thought "actually, thunder has a very nice sound."  For me, Pai is a special place because it gives me these things.

I left Pai yesterday.  I guess I'm on a schedule now - I have to get through Laos and catch a plane from Bangkok on June 13th.  Where did the last 5 months go?  When I bought that plane ticket to leave Thailand, June 13th seemed so far away - like it would never come.  Now, I'm becoming that traveler who gets to say "I'm going home soon."

"Home?  Like, to your bungalow?"
"No, I'm leaving Asia."
"Good for you, dude.  Good for you."

I know that this traveling life isn't a sustainable thing, but it's hard to let go of something so great.  Pai is an especially hard place to let go of.  However, I guess that one of the best things I learned on this trip was how to let go of the people, places, and possessions that become very special to you.

OK, enough sentimental stuff.  Here are some pictures from Pai.  This is the Nam Tok Mo Paeng waterfall with some American boys swimming in it.  The waterfall actually continues into a bigger waterfall after this little pool.  The little waterfall that you see in this picture is a perfect natural waterslide.  You can actually even jump off the rock above the waterfall into the pool - it's pretty deep.

This is the Chinese Village right outside of Pai before you get to the waterfall.  It was a really cute place, and everyone there actually speaks Chinese. 

This is more of the Chinese Village.

The Chinese Village has a man-powered Ferris wheel.  This picture is a few of us on the Ferris wheel. It's a really difficult project to get on and off of it, but it's a blast once you're on.

This is the main temple in the Chinese Village.  It's really nice and clean, and it has a good view of the valley.

This is the view from the Chinese temple.  It looks much better in person.

This is one of the American guys (Mike) shooting things with a crossbow.  It's much harder than it looks.

This is me on my motorbike riding around the Pai countryside!  I've gotten really good at riding them, and I think I might even get one once I'm home and I've made a little bit of money.

This is a lovely Irish man named Will/Steve.  When I met Will/Steve, he had this brilliant idea that we should all just pick random names for eachother, since we're just travelers and would forget eachother's names after a few days anyway.  The German girls and I decided that he looks like a Steve, but I found out later that his real name is Will.  He and the American boys decided that I look like a Sara, so that's what I was called for my week in Pai.

This is another waterfall right outside of Pai.  I can't remember the name of it for the life of me. 

Here's me under the waterfall.  I've always wanted to stand under a waterfall.

This is me at the Pai canyon.  It wasn't too impressive of a canyon, but at least it had a nice trail that you could walk around.

Here's Will/Steve at the canyon.

This is the trail that goes around the canyon.  It was kind of fun to walk on these skinny little paths - it makes you feel pretty hardcore.



These pictures don't even show half the beauty of Pai.  I was so excited about being there that I barely took any pictures.  I guess I'm also a bit behind on writing my blog, because I've now been in Chiang Rai for 2 days, and I'm leaving to go to Luang Prabang (in Laos) tomorrow morning.  Compared to the schedule I made while I was planning my trip, I'm only 1 day behind for entering Laos.  Not bad, I'd say.  Throughout my trip in Thailand and Malaysia, however, I've been visiting many fewer places than I initially planned on and spending more time in those places.  I hope I have enough time in Laos!

Oh My, Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is the biggest northern city in Thailand with about 174,000 people.  Even though Chiang Mai is a relatively big city, it's a nice place to be and it isn't terribly busy.  Chiang Mai has a nice, relaxed feeling to it compared to Bangkok.

This picture is me at one of Chiang Mai's millions of Buddhist temples.  The temples here are mostly bright, new, and beautiful.  Most of them are plastered with gold and have these lovely dragons flanking the entrance. 

This is a pile of catfish in the little pond at one of the monasteries.  They sell fish food at the monasteries, and you can go into their pond to feed them.  The result is this squirming mess. 

 This is one of the less new temples in Chiang Mai.  This place is called Wat Chedi Luang, and one of the monks who was walking around here told me that it is the biggest stupa in Chiang Mai.  Apparently it used to be overall the tallest building in Chiang Mai a long time ago.

 These are some of the people I met at the guest house I'm staying at.  Of course, every now and then you have to take a break from temple tours to hang out in one of the nice rooftop restaurants.

This is me hanging out with some holy people at the temple.  That's what we do in Thailand.

Guess what - another Buddha!  This one is way different from the ones in Sukothai, though.  He's new and colorful (and absolutely enormous).

This is the inside of one of the temples.  Later this day, we went to another temple that looked similar to this.  I was sitting there talking to an American guy named Will about this and that, and then a monk came in to ask us for help in translating something in English.  We talked for a few hours about all sorts of things, and then he asked us to stay for the chanting that the monks do every evening.  He gave us a sheet of paper with their chants written on it, and he showed us the proper ways to bow during the chanting.  So, we stayed, chanted, and meditated.  It was fabulous.  These chanting sessions are a really great way to clear your mind and energize yourself.

This is part of one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai.  The temple is called Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, and it's a huge temple on top of the biggest mountain in the area.  I went up here with a nice Danish guy named Hendrik that I met at my guest house.  The next few pictures are all of the same temple.

This is the Chinese Buddha.  There is a lot of him around Chiang Mai's temples.  That's probably because we're so far north and closer to China.

Hendrik and I decided to take a long walk down the road away from the temple, and this is what we found.  It was a really nice Chinese-style thing with a pretty garden, and it was sitting way up the hill with a beautiful view of the valley.  In this picture, you can see that there's also a dog there.  We started following this dog around, and he took us to some pretty nice places.

 This is Ban Doi Pui - a little mist-covered town up on the mountain.  (This is another place that the dog lead us to.)  It was a really little town, and it showed me that Thailand does have nice places where people are actually living their lives - like, not everyone is stuck in the tourism industry.

This is me in a really great garden in Ban Doi Pui.  This garden was amazing.  It was right next to a waterfall, and there were flowers all over the hill next to the waterfall.

This is a fountain at that garden.  I keep seeing this statue everywhere, and I have no idea who she is or what she stands for.  I'm guessing that she's involved in Buddhism somehow?