Enduring Songkran

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Northern Thailand to Laos

Stepping from the cool climate-controlled hall on to the taxi tarmac we're hit with a waft of boiling air. It's 10pm and we've landed in Bangkok's hot dry summer, but we're both happy as we can't wait to get stuck in to the food! Thai Airways has whetted our appetite with two delicious meals on our two hour flight (which were actually better than some of the delicacies we had in China, sorry!) The next five days were spent eating our way round the copious food stalls of the capital - spicy salads, fragrant curries, banana-leaf parcels of joy, sticky rice, fruit smoothies - and all for a pittance!

We attempted re-aclimatisation (which we didn't achieve and continued to glow profusely), and re-adjusted to the sudden influx of English signage / TV / chitter chatter and squeezed in a visit to a Wat or two (between meals). The sheer volume of gold used in the temples made each place more dazzling than the last. One housed a 46 metre long reclining golden Buddha, complete with pearl-soled feet. The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew were unbelievably stunning, each turn revealed more gold, mosaic tiles and crazy-faced half-bird, half-angel creatures looking on.

We also took some time to slow down to the Thai pace of living and the gentle manor of most of the people we met. Road rules thankfully seemed to apply once more, and cars, bikes and tuk tuks would actually stop for us to cross the road. People formed queues to get on tubes and the recent Asian intensity had definitely mellowed. Goodbye China, hello Thailand and SE Asia. Well that is until we met Songkran...

Before this fateful meeting up north we sidetracked to Damnoen Saduak for an early morning long boat trip round the floating markets. Shortly after sunrise the canals at Damnoen started to fill with wooden canoes full to the brim with colourful fruit, hats and handicrafts all being slowly paddled towards potential purchasers. The pace of the floating market seemed so much more chilled than the land counterparts, we eased into it (and continued easing, or eating) by picking an assortment of food items as they paddled past!

Back in Bangkok that night we're reminded we can't speak the language and still have a very limited idea of what's going on. As the Thai New Year long weekend holiday descends so does the mad rush to leave Bangkok. We're in the middle of it hoping the stern power-crazed uniform in front of us will let us on the shuttle bus to get to the overflow bus station - well we're hoping we've understood that right! We do make it to the bus and to our relief we've sourced out the most luxury bus we could find. So in no time we are wandering the streets of Chiang Mai, the capital of Songkran, the craziest, longest, wettest festival we're ever likely to encounter. It's Thursday, it doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but that doesn't stop the hardy supersoaker generation who'll not stop grinning (or throwing water) for the next two weeks (although officially it only lasts five days - surely long enough?!)

We got up on the Friday with the plan of taking a bus to a couple of local villages nearby, but on walking round most of the city we realised (very quickly) there were no buses and that Songkran has intensified a thousand-fold. We are sopping in seconds and re-evaluate, deciding instead to spend the day parked outside an indie disco bar, buckets and assorted water weaponry at the ready, source of dirty river water and melted ice cube water stashed nearby, joining in the fun. The rest of Chiang Mai is either doing the same or has jumped on the back of one of the million pick up trucks cruising the roads, or is clinging to a moto surfing the roads on a death wish awaiting a water pummeling. With every drenching of water (and sip of Chang beer) the laughter gets stronger, it's impossible to understand how it can be so funny and how we could ever tire of the world's biggest water fight. There are no winners and no losers. Everyone is wet. We are drunk. We are not drunk, we are well and truly spanked by the Chang beer monkey. Not being content with emptying our wallets he found it necessary to leave me whimpering on our bathroom floor and take a hefty helping of memory for good measure. Disjointed clips of Matt wearing a rubber zombie mask dancing with a Thai girl in a Bin Laden mask; blowing a thong while chasing a van full of posing lady boys with a bucket of water (and coming off worse); being taught how to fit my fist into my mouth, oh, and a fair bit of water are all that's left.

We tire of it by the third day, and by the fifth day it just can't be funny any more when we're accepting the drenchings through clenched teeth. We just want to eat lunch in dry clothes!

The following day, we drag our sorry (still whimpering) selves, with only a minor dousing, to Chiang Rai. It is here Matt convinces a couple of fellow travellers into trying some bugs. I wasn't going near them and was glad when the general concensus was they tasted of dirt and the legs got stuck in your teeth! From here it was an easy bus ride to the border (quickly closing bus windows and dodging more buckets) and a pleasant putter across the Mekong into Laos, one of the most relaxed border crossings yet.

Over in Laos everything seemed kind of different. The electricity was intermittent, the internet broken, the roads dusty and the houses lining the river a little more rundown. Yet it was also the middle of the Laos New Year so the same water-centred fun was being had plus it was karaoke party time, the LaoLao whisky was flowing and everyone was invited. They certainly know how to party.

Our first Laos bus pulled up the following morning and was an absolute treat. Lucky for us a minibus was heading north to Luang Nam Tha who did the journey in half the time the local buses did, racing through the lush green forest on the newly built road, which still had a fair few missing patches! We stumbled out the van with the vague wish of finding the tour office, but after walking in circles for a long time we realised English wasn't as common here as in Thailand. Even the cheerful greetings soon ended in communication breakdown.

We eventually found the office after a few laps of the town and signed up for a three day trek. I'm not sure if the heat was getting to us, but we've been the laziest travellers yet and have avoided all walks / trekking / physical exertion, so this was a surprise move by us. I think my line of thought on the first hour up the hill went: 'Oh this is pretty, my that's a big hill, shit there's a lot of them, wow it's hot, damn it, three days of this, can I quit now?!' Whereas Matt's main concern was whether his sub-£2 canvas plimsoles from China would be up to a three day mountain and forest trek. Anyway, we survived (as did the plimsoles) and it was well worth it, we loved it, as I don't think we'll be in such an isolated place many times, if ever, again in our lives.

Throughout the beautiful green hills of northern Laos many hilltribes live their lives in relative peace, subsistence farming, with no TV, no electricity and no running water, and only animals and each other as company. From ten years old they work the fields seven days a week, leaving the little children to run round half naked with nothing more than a stick to poke the pigs with and some goats to catch a ride on. Who needs TV?!

Some of the women stayed behind singing as they worked. They helped prepare the food for us each night in the villages. Much to our unease the meat of the day was brought in kicking first! Poor piggies, chickens and duckies! Sticky rice was staple. They boiled up the river water for a tasty nutritious water supplement - rather brown and oddly bacon flavoured. Perhaps the swimming buffalos added that tang.

The walking was tough, it was mainly hills and it was hot. We must have lost weight through perspiration. The scenery was beautiful, wherever you looked hills of green met your eyes and patches of smouldering brown punctuated it where they'd recently burnt last year's crop leftovers. Slash and burn is the only farming technique they know here.

The second day a local from the village joined the party to carry our lunch and take up the rear with his rifle. Not wanting to know why we needed armed support we waited until our guide offered the information. It seems the forest we were walking in has a few not-so-friendly bears which have been known to kill the odd villager. We weren't sure one gun and a machete would be enough protection! We were mildly disappointed when he left, with the gun, after showing us a fresh paw print and post tree-climbing claw marks! We survived though with the worst animal attack of the day being by leeches who liked a good ankle munch - our blood was spared, but others in the group were not so lucky!

The villages we stayed in consisted of 20 or so stilted, thatched wooden houses, weaved amongst copious farmyard animals. Throughout our bus trips we passed so many of these villages along the sides of the roads so we could see how 30% of the population live in the hills. Laos has a tiny population (only six million) and with such a massive growth in tourism (nearly one million visitors per year) it will be a fine balance allowing people to see the country yet not impact and change the way of life too much or too quickly. The trek we took only visited the villages once a month which should help the villages keep their own identity and western influence at bay. Having said that, with a shift in world interest into Asia's emissions and its impact on global warming, as well as the Laos government's efforts to move on from being the world's least developed country, alternative farming techniques will have to replace slash and burn in the not too distant future. If not for the environment just to prevent the whole country going up in smoke, we had to drive through one out of control fire on our way out of the area. With no fire brigade who knows how they planned to stop it!

After all this wilderness we stopped off in Luang Prabang for some luxury and met up with a good friend Linda. It came as a bit of a shock to see the procession of westerners wandering the night market after the relative lack of them up north, but Laos' beauty was still obvious from the sunset over the Mekong and the city here, as viewed from the top of Phu Si. The heat, however, still wasn't relenting, so we jumped at the chance of a cooling dip in the turquoise pools of the local waterfall - luckily a more inviting colour than the Mekong or we'd have definitely stayed hot!

Vientiane was a surprising capital, with a miniscule population it's understandable why it's not the glitzy highrise capital of elsewhere in Asia. In fact the main street was being dug up so you could have mistaken it for a village not a city with all the mud! After a brief stop here we hopped on a night bus south to Pakse. We were glad to be sharing with each other as we had a double bed for the night (although more similar in size to a short, skinny single). There were a fair few giggles by the grown men as they met their bed companion for the night! It has to be noted this is absolute luxury compared to the other forms of transport in Laos, which range from overcrowded minibuses, decrepit bouncy slow buses, to the sawngthaew, a converted pick up truck with two benches down the middle and as many other people / bags / boxes / animals / motorbikes they can fit in!

From Pakse it was a short trip over to Don Khong, the largest island in Si Phan Don (four thousand islands). At the bottom of Laos the Mekong widens and is littered with thousands of little islands and even more fishing boats before it continues its journey south to Cambodia. We stayed a couple of nights to take in the peacefulness of the place. We also took a longboat down to Don Khon, an even smaller island, past the palm tree covered islands, the fishing boats, and the still more waving, laughing kids. There we hopped on the newest bike models complete with wobbly peddles and no gears to cross the island. We reached another, smaller longboat and headed out down to the Cambodian border to sit atop a rock and watch the horrifically rare Irrawaddy Dolphins popping their snoutless heads up in the distance.

And from the tranquil serene sleepy Laos it was eastwards for us and across yet another border into Vietnam where we're currently in Hue enjoying the relative luxury of everything here. Our last but one night in Laos saw us erecting a mosquito net in the middle of the night to protect us from the giant cockroaches that infested our room and seemed to want to keep snuggling up to me throughout the night! And a hot shower after using a pan and a bucket of cold water has to be taken to be believed! See, travelling isn't easy!

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Photos

Songkran Buddha
The adorned temple at the centre of Songkran in Chiang Mai

Dinner...
of bamboo worms, silk worm pupae, crickets and other bouncy beetley things

Locals in Ban Sam Yord
The first hilltribe we stayed with

Mekong Sunset
From Phu Si in Luang Prabang

Life on the Mekong
Si Phan Don