The sleepy town of Luang Prabang, officially a UNESCO world heritage site, is a unique mixture of Euro-Asian architecture, food, people, and life. We weren't sure what to expect-- having heard great and terrible things from other travelers-- but to our delight we fell in love. The streets feel European, full of french colonial houses and shopfronts, but with an Asian twist of tropical fruits, faces, and art embedded within. And, although we are really cheap backpackers, we casually loitered among the high-end streets of the wealthier travelers to revel in the luxurious ambience, winding through tiny alleyways, and making up [View Full Entry]

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Í've decided to bite the bullet and backtrack to fill in some entries, because as of now I have not updated everyone as to the last few weeks of our journey... and my anxiety grows as each day I have new stories to share and little time to type them up. So here goes! Chris and I traveled the length of Vietnam with a crew of other travellers, who came to be know as "Team Fight Club". This is because we survived many ordeals and even a shipboard mutiny together. We spent a few days up north in the capital, Hanoi, [View Full Entry]

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Our whirlwind adventure departing Laos really began after Nong Kiaw, a small town built on the edges of the Pak Ou River, to which Chris and I sailed up to via longboat on Christmas day. The ride took about 8 hours from Luang Prabang, and the scenery was spectacular-- on each side of us were huge mountains covered in teak forests and limestone rock facing. As we glided against the (sometime very shallow) current, we were greeted by dozens of naked Lao children bathing and playing in the water, often accompanied by their mothers tilling the garden plots along the water's [View Full Entry]

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Although it's completely on the 'beaten path', Chris and I stopped in Vang Vieng for a few nights to relax along the river, take in some caves and kayaking, and enjoy the beautiful scenery. The town of Vang Vieng is essentially one or two long streets of western restaurants, tour offices, banks, guesthouses, and the ever-famous TV bars, which blast the voices of Friends at full volume all evening. We checked into the Riverside Bungalows-- best move ever-- and slept four nights along the river, waking for sunrise up over the enormous mountain peaks. The town is literally built out of [View Full Entry]

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Another day and night in the capitol city, though not exactly by choice... Not realizing that we arrived on a Saturday, the embassies are shut for the weekend, and we need to get our Vietnam visas here. Unfortunately you cannot just pick one up at the border, only from home, Bangkok, Vientiane, etc., so we find ourselves still here, in this monstrous city. Its been good to us though- while expensive for Laos (what?! $4 for a guesthouse??) and lacking the bountiful luxuries that Thailand spoiled us with (like abundant fruits and, well, knowledge of tourism), we passed the time nicely. [View Full Entry]

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Chris has arrived!! His plane landed at 10 in the morning, in Chiang Mai, last week. I picked him up on my motorbike (yes, learned how to drive one 12 hours beforehand!) and took him to all my spots in the city. It was so exciting! We talked for hours catching up about the long five weeks of separation-- all the things Chris did to keep busy and the many generous friends that hosted and hung out with him. And I filled him in on things Thai, like eating with spoons and not forks, and how he can say 'thank you' [View Full Entry]

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I've just returned this morning from Panya, a permaculture farm about 1.5 hours north of Chiang Mai. You can read about the farm and permaculture projects from their website if you are interested: www.panyaproject.org ; but in any case, they teach workshops about natural building and permaculture farming. Panya began approx one year ago by an American man (Christian), and has flourished into a living community full of environmental/ political/ health-minded folk. Next door to Panya is Pun-Pun, an organic seed-saving farm run by a Thai man and his American wife. They are slightly more established, with many more buildings and [View Full Entry]

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Loi Krathong (Thai ลอยกระทง) is an annual festival held on the full moon of the 12 month (of the lunar calendar, usually in November), whereby people release krathongs (banana leaves with flowers and incense) into the river to honor the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha. According to the story, Nang Nopamas, a royal consort of King Ramkhamhaeng (the founder of Sukhothai), made the first krathong as an offering to Mae Nam. She set it afloat on one of the canals of the palace so that it would drift past her lover the king. The king was delighted with the creation, [View Full Entry]

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I've just returned from a few days south of CM, to enjoy the Loi Krathong celebrations in Sukhothai, the first ancient capital of Siam. Its always hard to play 'catch up' in blogs, but I will do my best. :) First I must mention my unfortunate decision to stay the night in Lampang, about 2 hours outside the city. I took a sangteaw (song-tow) for an hour to Lamphun in order to visit a temple built for the Haripunchai Queen Thewi around 1200 AD. Not exactly grand-- in fact the best part of the temple devoted to this legendary woman are [View Full Entry]

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...was what I screamed from the backseat of our motorbike as we wizzed through the almost empty streets of Chiang Mai at 3 am. We luckily missed the elephant, unfortunately though not the suicidal stray dog that scampered in front of the bike-- I felt a deep thud as we smacked into it. Terrified and screaming I could hold on to nothing (no security-- no belts, no handles, no nothing on the bikes!), helmet-less, and fully aware that my drunken driver was swerving too close to the parked cars on the left and oncoming traffic from the right each time he [View Full Entry]

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