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Published: September 16th 2007
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Mekong River
We had lots of time to enjoy the beautiful scenery on our two day slow boat from Luang Prabang to Houy Xai on the Thai border. Sept 1 - Slow Boat to Pakbeng
Sept 2 - Slow Boat to Houy Xai
Sept 3 - Into Thailand and a bus to Chiang Rai
Sept 4 - Jeep tour of Chiang Rai, Hill tribes, the Golden Triangle and up to the border town of Mae Sai
Sept 5 - tour of Tachilek, Myanmar and journey down to Chiang Mai
From Luang Prabang, we got on the 2 day slow boat up the Mekong to the Thai border. Of course, you could make it all the way to the border in 7 hours on a fast boat, if you wanted - but they say that on the speed boats, 'fatal accidents occur with alarming frequency.' That is, there are fatal accidents - WEEKLY! That's just crazy - and Lao Airlines was sort of out of the question... Anyway, the first day on the boat we got as far as the little village of Pakbeng. We found a lovely $2 a night room with fan and hot water, but they failed to tell us that the electricity is shut off at 10pm, so no fan, no hot water... oh well, what part of $2 a night don't you understand ;-)
The next day we continued on to the border town of Houy Xai. The thai border closes at 6pm, and the boat conveniently shows up just slightly too late for anyone to cross the border that evening. I'm sure the boats get a kickback from the guesthouses. As there's absolutely nothing going on in Houy Xai, this would be the only way they get any customers. Fortunately we met some really fun people on the boat - We met this nice couple from Vienna, Theo and Kati and this other guy from Vorarlberg, Austria, Thomas. There was also this nice girl, Michelle, from Brazil and her friend Stuart from England. With hours and hours on the boat, there's lots of time for chatting and reading and enjoying a couple BeerLaos. We also met a few more people in Houy Xai - Don from San Fran and Furqan from Scotland, who we ended up hanging out with later in Chiang Mai.
The next morning we headed to Chiang Rai - a sleepy northern Thai town without much going on. We met this really nice older man from BC, Canada. It was sort of a sad tale that he told me.
Me and a lady from the Akha hilltribe
I look like a giant standing next to this old Akha lady. The Akha are the largest minority group in this part of thailand. He had sold his house in Canada and quit his job to move to Thailand and retire. He had fallen in love with a Thai woman and even learned Thai. Call me cynical, but I always question the motives when so many older foreign men come to south east asia and get together with local women, who often are mainly interested in their money. I'm not saying that every single one is a prostitute, nor is every single foreign man a sleeze, but it's a real problem here. Often times, the families of these girls push them into prostitution to provide for their families. And sex tourism is a real problem here. But this story wasn't really like that. He was with her for about 10 months, 'invested' 1 million baht (about US$30,000) in her brother's business, and then one day she told him that she had an incurable disease which is all too common in this part of the world. He wanted to stay with her anyway, but she told him it would be too stressful. He left her with some large sum of money for her treatment and stayed in Chiang Rai. I don't know, maybe it was
View of Tachilek, Myanmar
from the Scorpion temple in Mae Sai, Thailand true, but the cynical part of me says that this woman invested 10 months of her time to charm this poor man to gain a lot of money. Obviously, I didn't tell him this. He was so sweet and says that he'll love this woman til the day he dies. It's just so awful. Who knows, maybe I completely got it wrong...
The next day in Chiang Rai, we organized a jeep tour to some hill tribes around the area. We visited a Yao village, and then went to see the famous long neck Karen (who come from Myanmar/Burma). Unfortunately, the custom of wearing the gold or brass rings to extend the neck continues largely because of tourism. And you can't help but feel that somehow it is like a human zoo as the long neck villages usually require you to pay an entrance fee. As we learned, the rings don't actually extend the neck, but rather push the shoulders down to make their necks appear longer. And the rings are extremely heavy, but their necks are so weak they cannot remove them. The girls born during the lucky full moon start wearing a few rings at age 6,
Mekong River
People loading more cargo onto our boat when we stopped just before Pakbeng. then more are added each year. I was curious, but obviously I have some mixed feelings about this tradition. It is unhealthy for these women to wear these rings and there are serious medical problems associated with this, yet they do thrive on tourism, without which they wouldn't really be able to get by.
We went on later to see Akha people (the majority of the minority peoples living in this area) and some Lisu people. We later drove over to Chiang Sean to the beautiful wat there and then up to the Golden Triangle, which is where the countries of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar come together. This region was well known for its opium production. Thailand was probably the most successful at stopping its production here, but it still goes on, more so in Laos and Myanmar. We visited the opium museum here, which was quite interesting, but there were no fields of poppies to see. The pictures of these fields looked just beautiful, like a sea of red and white in the beautiful mountains.
We ended our tour up in Mae Sai, the town on the Burmese border and northern most point in Thailand. The rains
were coming down heavily and a lot of the town was flooded. The next day we made a little day trip to the Burmese side in the little town of Tachilek. Unfortunately, there wasn't really more time to go further into Burma, but we did do a little sight seeing and shopping, while getting completely drenched. I would really love to go further into Myanmar someday and see Mandalay and Inle lake, but it's impossible to get to from here - (unfortunately we didn't find that out until our friend Michelle came back to Chiang Mai and had tried to go into Myanmar this way). We decided to head to Chiang Mai right away that day as Mae Sai was pretty boring.
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Michelle Lima
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SAUDADES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Somente agora que estou podendo ler o seu blog. Estou adorando. Viajando... Muitas recordacoes... Este primeiro texto me fez lembrar os dois dias no barco em Laos, e a viagem na minivan ate Chiang Mai. Me deu muitas saudades!!!!!!!!!!!! Sai de Myanmar no dia 26, pela manha, justamente no dia que os fatos pioraram. A caminho do aeroporto, as 6h30, vi muitos policias pelas ruas de Yagon, e deu para sentir que o clima iria mudar. Cheguei ontem, dia 27, na Malaysia, e ao ler as noticias no jornal sobre Myanmar fiquei muito triste. Adorei lhe conhecer, e vamos mantendo contato!! Forte abraco, Michelle