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Published: April 13th 2007
James The Cooking Class Assistant
James acting as a temporary assistant in the classroom portion of the cooking class.JAMES
This entry is rather late, but not due to a lack of effort. Hopefully my poor memory will serve to edit out all the usual banal details I'm prone to including in these blogs.
We were looking forward to - for the second time - our first experience on the air-conditioned sleeper car from Lopburi to Chiang Mai. It didn't disappoint. It was comfortable. We slept. For whatever reason my gastro-intestinal eruptions subsided for the journey, which is fortunate due to the state of Thai train toilets.
Our first impression of Chiang Mai was how much easier it was going to be. Considering our past couple of days and our current beleaguered state it was a relief. There were restaurants with signs in English that surely weren't fish-on-a-stick charring Thai food stalls or Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. There was real internet! There were tuk tuks and songthaews everywhere to take you where you might need to go!
We'd been tipped off by a couple we'd met along our way about a fine little guesthouse/mini-hotel with great, big, clean rooms and good rates and a terrible name - MiniCost Hotel. MiniCost had all the amenities we
Vegetable Carving
Here we are vegetable carving at cooking school in Chiang Mai. wanted and then some and the staff was a lot of fun.
Out first night we splurged on a meal at an upscale Italian restaurant called… I don't remember what it was called. After Lindsay had made so many attempts at a spaghetti Bolognaise we thought that this might be our spot. It seemed that every restaurant in Thailand had put the words spaghetti Bolognaise on their menus just to taunt Lindsay, with no consideration whatsoever for what actually constituted spaghetti Bolognaise. The spaghetti fit the bill.
Just at the end of the block from the Italian restaurant we found a Boots pharmacy. For those of you don't know, Boots is somewhat a British version of what we call Shopper's Drug Mart. We picked-up some antibiotics for me (which, like most drugs in Thailand are simply available by asking for them by name), and swiftly put an end to my sudden urgent sprints to the nearest known available toilet.
We check-out the Sunday night market in Chiang Mai which is legendary. There were indeed many beautiful silk wares to be had, but the greatest fun was just watching the people. We met a Thai photographer who was
Cooking Station
James, in the pink apron he was so proud of, at one of the cooking stations. selling his homemade postcards. They were heads and tails better than any other postcards we'd seen along our way. He and I talked cameras for a bit and having just bought the same Nikon body as I had, played with my camera and lens for a bit to see how he liked the lens. We bought a fistful of postcards from him and called it a night.
One of our biggest plans for Chiang Mai was Thai cooking school. I had been very worried that I'd have trouble participating due to my stomach issues, but awoke feeling good as new thanks to the new drugs! Sadly, Lindsay felt like throwing up all day long. Much to her credit though she did not let that stop her from cooking everything they taught us (even though most of it was stuff she'd never eat), and having a blast (though probably not so much when she was sitting on the floor of the cooking school's toilet). Most of our fun was the direct result of our instructor…whose name I've forgotten. He spoke very good English, which by the sounds of it he'd learnt from a very vivacious and very gay British fashion
Chicken in Banana Leaves
This is chicken with spices, wrapped in Banana leaves (tied to look like chickens apparently...). Then deep fried in a wok. You don't eat the leaves. designer. We made spring rolls, green curry with chicken, a duck soup, noodles with ginger and pork, and finally mango with sweet sticky rice for dessert. It was the best Thai food I'd had since arriving in Thailand (though that may be due to the fact that I doubled the black pepper used in every recipe and added a little extra cane sugar to the green curry).
We decided to catch a flick Monday night. I went down to the computers in the lobby of our guesthouse to check the movie times and ask the staff how to get to the cinemas. The two teenage girls working tried to convince me that I had to go to 300. They were really quite excited about it.
When you buy your tickets in Thailand you actually select your seat like buying concert tickets. I got confused because I was looking at the ticket-girl's computer upside down and thought that the movie screen was at the opposite end of the theatre from where it really was. Also, I confused which seats were available with which had already been purchased. We ended up sitting in the back third of the theatre in
Snacks at the 7-11
Yummmmmm... Shedded seasoned dried cuttlefish! And I thought seafood flavoured chips was bad! the only row that was completely full of people. We went to see Sunshine, Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting) new movie. It wasn't bad, but seemed content to fulfill the story's potential for spectacle without making much effort to delve into the story's potential themes. Still, some great eye-candy and far better than most of the schlock that's out there these days.
Day three in Chiang Mai was spent lazily so Lindsay could recoup. We slept in…puttered…did some internet stuff and discovered Art Café, where we ate practically all of our meals thereafter, because it had very good food, and being Thai New Year was approaching, people were already lining the streets to soak you with cold, dank water from the local moat every time you tried to go anywhere. This has continued unabated through the remainder of our stay in Thailand. Though we got pretty good and taking small back alleys and timing our street crossings just so, the buckets of putrid water destined for your face are simply sometimes unavoidable…as are the thoughts that you try to suppress about how sick you are of the local people…and most of the tourists too. It's just fabulous when you're trying to
Songthiew
Here is the inside of a songthiew. These and Tuk Tuks (basically motobikes with bodies built on to them) are basically the only way to get around in everywhere but Bangkok. It being over-run with brightly coloured taxis. find a place that will burn your photos off of your memory card to DVD, before leaving for something quite photo worthy the next morning, and having thousands of drunken people trying to douse you and your camera bag with buckets of putrid water. It sucks. I think that I've perhaps beat this subject to death, but it's appropriate to do so, because that's how the water festival feels after about five minutes…beaten to death…and it's also how you'll feel like leaving a couple of people in your wake. If you want to enjoy Songkran make sure you have absolutely nothing else to do that week but hangout and get soaked, because if you are trying to do anything else you'll be doing it soaking wet and likely with great difficulty because 90% of the country is not operating.
On day four in Chiang Mai we went to Doi Suthep, and huge temple complex just outside of Chiang Mai at the top of a large hill and 306 steps. Ahhh…it was no great shakes, but we were very lucky to meet a Dutch tourist who'd found some new contact information on the Gibbon Experience. We were just about to
Moo the Dog
This is Moo the Dog. Its sounds kind of like the sound a cow makes but there is an accent on the second O. She was our special little (actually super fat) poodle friend in the Chiang Mai internet place we used. give up completely on the imagined highlight of our trip. I'd contacted them before leaving Canada and they told me to book a week or so in advance of arriving. Then, trying again to get them from Thailand, I suddenly found their website to be suspended, their email address nonexistent, and their phone number disconnected! Alas! Hope!
Besides its location, the Wat was no more spectacular than any other we'd seen. The one nice thing about it was that actual Thai Buddhist worshippers outnumbered to Western tourists, and watching their ceremonial rituals in progress was both refreshing and photo-friendly. Admittedly, Doi Suthep's greatest asset is said to be its view of Chiang Mai, which was almost entirely obscured by the smoke in the air from all of the forest fires and farmers burning their fields in Northern Thailand and Myanmar.
Arriving back in Chiang Mai, I immediately called The Gibbon Experience and was dismayed to learn that the soonest they had an opening for us was April 26 th, which was ten days later than we'd had it planned on our itinerary. I booked it and we sat down with our beloved schedule trying to make sense of
Art Café
A little place listed in the Lonely Planet guide. We checked it out when neither of us was feeling very adventurous about food and it became one of our favourite places. They are cheese crazy! Lindsay got a lasagna that was 90% cheese. If you are there... do the "create your own sandwich" instead. how we were going to backtrack through Laos to or come up with another plan entirely.
We had a small tour booked for our last day in Chiang Mai to go see Doi Ithanon, Thailand's highest peak, and as we were informed upon arrival, the southern most tip of the Himalayas ! We've been to the Himalayas!!!
Our minibus for the tour arrived at 8 a.m. After a few more pick-ups we had a mother and daughter from England, a young doctor and his air-rescue girlfriend from Alaska, and a middle-aged doctor and his wife from Chicago who were living in Japan. After the usual what's your name and what do you do's, the doctor from Chicago living in Japan was eager to talk to me about film. Having recently purchased a small, French, used, 16mm camera and eager to experiment with it, he had a million questions about film, processing and everything to do with filming. It was quite funny to see this fifty-year-old doctor from Chicago, but living in Japan, giddy as a schoolboy about making little short films on his fifty-year-old French camera. More than once his wife expressed her feelings that he was a
Waterfall
Thanks to the couple from Chicago, we finally got a picture together. This is the first waterfall we visited. bit nuts, but with more humor than annoyance. It was great to see someone interested in filmmaking for no other reason than a sincere interest in filmmaking for the sake of filmmaking. I'm racking my brain now to remember his name but am at a loss. This is what happens when you're unable to write your blog entries for a week after the fact due to local holidays that literally shut everything down.
We stopped at a couple of waterfalls on our way out of Chiang Mai, which though impressive, were obviously lacking due to it being the tail end of the dry season here. Then we stopped at a minority village of Karen people, which was a dusty spot of ramshackle bamboo huts and little pigs and puppies. Inside on of the huts where a couple of women at least a generation apart, if not two, weaving cotton scarves and blankets the way the Karen people had been weaving for generations; by hand and, actually, entire body.
One of the more interesting stops on our way up towards the peak was at a minority village of Hmong people. Having lived in the Northern Thailand for centuries after
Young Karen Village Girl Weaving
We are told that she is unmarried, which can be deduced by the fact that she is wearing a white dress. Here they weave some of the best scaves and blankets we have seen so far. leaving the China, the Hmong people subsisted mainly from growing opium. As a way of helping the Hmong people make a new start, the King of Thailand has set-up a huge agricultural research station in the Hmong village, which they work at. It was quite something to see these mini habitats in green houses growing all varieties of local vegetation. We only walked through a few of them but they stretched down the valley as far as our eyes could see. It was obvious that a lot of money had been poured into the project, but also that it appeared to be very well run and the local people well-to-do and happy. If this is in fact so, it is quite a feat considering that only 10 years ago nearly the entire population had been addicted to smoking opium, and that their only crop was the poppy.
After lunch at the Hmong village we continued up to the peak of the mountain where the temperature was only a chilly 17 degrees!!! God it was nice! But beyond the weather there was really nothing to see whatsoever.
On our way down the mountain we stopped and the Kind and
Older Woman From Karen Village
An older Karen Village woman working at her home. We can tell she is married by her colourful dress. Queen pagodas. The King's pagoda was built ten years ago on the occasion of the King's 70 th birthday, and the Queen's pagoda was built 5 years later for her 70 th. The pagodas near the top of the mountain were really quite a feat of construction and the vista was impressive. It was also interesting to see some modern Thai architecture. The detailing of the Queens pagoda impressed me greatly. I'll be sure to include a photo or two of it with this blog.
On our way back into town it became obvious that Songkran had been turned up yet another notch…to eleven. The streets were lined with Super-Soaker toting partiers and people dancing in giant bubble baths and all out water mayhem - and it wasn't even Friday yet!!! Thank God our songthaew had sliding plastic windows (most don't) or we'd all have been soaked.
Leaving so early on Friday morning (Friday the 13th), we hoped to avoid the splashing mob, and indeed did. We arrived at the grotty Chiang Mai train station at 6 a.m. to catch the 6:30 train to Chiang Khong on the Laos border. We were promptly informed that all three buses
Hmong Gardens 1
Here is a Hmong hilltribe's greenhouse. Each one has something different. to Chiang Khong were already full that day and that our next best option was to ride to take a 9:30 bus to Chiang Rai and to transfer from there to Chiang Khong. Now unlike most of Chiang Mai, the bus station is a little less than foreigner friendly, which isn't so bad unless you have 4 hours to spend there. It's hot, has no restaurants serving anything you recognize, one tiny store with some pop and Thai baking (the Thai's are not known for their baking), and one of the worst bathrooms witnessed by Lindsay yet on this trip. Apparently you had to step over the river of sewage flowing in a little moat in the floor and then fight for the right to get into a real shitty little bathroom stall where it was then almost unavoidable but to stand in the urine of others. Perhaps we should have packed some rubber boots for these occasions.
The bus, of course, didn't even pull into the station until 9:45 to begin loading. I'd already by this time spent nearly an hour trying to figure out where the bus was or would be arriving until finally realizing that no
Hmong Gardens 2
Here is another of the Hmong hilltribe's greenhouse. This one looks like a little jungle ecosystem. one would know the answer to this question until the bus actually arrived and pulled in somewhere. The bus itself, upon arrival, wasn't too bad…which was about to prove deceiving for the rest of our journey. Arriving in Chiang Rai, We had quite a time figuring out which bus to take to Chiang Khong. Whenever I asked people would just try to hustle us onto the bus we were happened to be standing next to. Finally I found someone behind a counter who informed me that all the red buses people had been trying to hustle us onto were indeed bound for Chiang Khong. The bad news was that the red buses were the sketchy looking buses that we were hoping to avoid. We picked a bus and Lindsay got on to hold our seats while I went out in search of a bank or cash-machine or both. We needed money before our arrival at the Laos border for visas and a guesthouse for the night as the town in Laos we were shooting to make it to that day is notorious for lacking any sort of financial institutions.
I found a 7-eleven type of store with a cash
Mountain Top
We got to the mountain top and were met with a jungle path. This was very different from what we had envisioned. We were thinking rocky vista with a view all around... this is actually what it looks like. machine outside and proceeded to start pulling out enough cash to last us a couple of days and buy us $84 US in Laos visas...in Thai Baht, that's a fistful of cash. Stuffing the cash into the top of my open camera bag and waiting for the machine to spit out my bank card, an British tourist came out of the store with a Super-Soaker and proceeded to dowse me with a "happy Thai New Year" and an insipid smile. Had I not had $500 worth of Thai Baht in my hand, and waiting for my bank card to be ejected, I might have chased him down and beat that asinine grin off of face with his Super-Soaker.
We got on our bus, uncertain of whether we'd make it to Chiang Khong in time to catch a ferry across the Mekong to Laos before Laos immigration closed. The bus was less than comfortable, and more than packed. It was really quite bad, but after our subsequent bus rides here in Laos it's hard to get too eloquent on its shortcomings - I'll save some of those more deprecating adjectives for those later journeys.
In Chiang Khong we raced
Brrrrrr....
Lindsay at the top of the mountain. It was a refreshing 17 degrees celcius up there. off the bus and into a tuk tuk to get us to the ferry pier. With all our bags, tired and fed-up, on a tuk tuk that was only marginally faster than walking, we were thrilled to find out that Thai New Year was being celebrated with the same zeal here on the outlands as it had been in the urban centers. Racing (slowly) to the pier we were dowsed yet again...repeatedly. Thank you for the backpack rain-covers - they have come in extremely handy despite the absence of any rain.
We did make it in the nick-of-time, a long wait to have our passports stamped for departing Thailand not withstanding, across the river and to another country that is one one-hundredth as developed as Thailand, and just entering a week of its own New Year's celebrations.
LINDSAY
So again we are behind in the writing. I am sitting in Luang Prabang as I write to you about Chiang Mai. We will get to Loas in the next one. Hopefully in a the next few days. All is well with us and I hope with you all as well. I hear the weather is practically summer-like
View from Pagodas
The view from the pagodas. You can kind of see the haze in this one. in Manitoba! We met a Quebecois the other day who did not even know where Winnipeg was. She asked if it was in Alberta.... Anyway, here is our journey from where we left off last time.
We caught our train from Lopburi to Chiang Mai and finally got a train that was air conditioned. It was an awesome ride and made for good sleeping. We got to Chiang Mai rested and, on the advice of another traveler James met in Ayuthaya, we went directly to Mini-Cost. It was a bad name but an awesome place. We got a double air con, private bath room for an incredibly low rate because it was new and few people were booked in. It was the nicest room yet and it had a television with ESPN broadcasting from UK and a whole channel devoted to Real Madrid. So we entertained ourselves late in the evening with old matches of Real Madrid vs. whoever. Not quite as good as a little cartoon network before bed that we got in Ayuthaya.
Anyway. Once we got ourselves booked into our place in Chiang Mai we headed out to find some internet, some food and make
Pagoda and Gardens
Here is the Queen's pagoda and surrounding gardens. some phone calls.
The food options in Chiang Mai were the best since Bangkok. The town lookd nicer, smelled nicer and had a nice feel to it. There was a lot going on to prepare for the New Year celebrations in the coming week. They were setting stages and selling out of water guns and buckets all over the place. I shouldn't say selling out. That would be impossible. There were water war tools for sale everywhere. An omen of things to come.
The next day was cooking school day. We arrived to find a flaboyant Thai man with a British accent to his English who was to be our teacher. There was us, 4 more Canadians, some Germans, a man and his daughter from Britain, some Japanese living in Singapore, some Japanese living in Thailand... It was a good mix of people from all over. Our teacher was hilarious and made the day fun even though I was feeling ill for most of the day. James thought maybe I had caught his sinus infection but I am not so sure.
The food we made there was the best Thai food we have had on the whole
King's Pagoda
This is the King's Pagoda. They seem to be fond of stairs in Thailand. It is quite the workout to see many of the sights here. trip so far. Which is sad in a way as I could not eat most of it without my stomach turning over. The first was a clear soup with vegetables and duck, some pork and ginger, spring rolls... I can hardly remember what else... but anyone who wants a recipe just ask as the whole course and all the courses they teach come in a recipe book included with the course. It is one of the best things we have done so far. A lot of run and very different.
We got ourselves a ride to the theatre that night to see a movie. This, therefore, continuing our tour of Thailand's malls. We have been to one in pretty much every stop. This one was five floors high but a lot smaller than the one in Bangkok. It was also more of a mall like at home than than MBK in Bangkok, which is more the knock off mall full of a million kiosks. We found some kids trying to break dance. They were not doing so well but it was funny to watch kids doing this in the middle of the mall. I don't think this would happen
Statue of Liberty - Queen's Pagoda
There were images carved into the stone all over this place but this kind of stood out as a little odd. at home. There was a big arcade on the same floor as the movie theatre. And... an "exotic" little place called Swensens. It is a giant ice cream restaurant from the US. The menu has every concoction of ice cream you can think of, so we gorged ourselves on sticky chocolate and orange serbert and cookies and cream and some cherry raspberry thing we could not identify. Then we headed up to the movie. For the most part there was not a lot choice in terms of movies unless we wanted to see Mr. Bean or something in Thai. But we ended up seeing "Sunshine" which was alright. Apart from standing to hear the national anthem and pay respects to the King, you could forget you were even away from home.
We went on two trips out of Chiang Mai. The first was to Doi Suthep, a wat not far out of town. It has over 300 stairs that lead up to the Wat, up the side of a mountainous hill. You really have to want to go to the Wat to actually go. It does not seem like a lot of stairs until you start to climb them.
Pagoda Wall Detail
Some wall detail from the Queen's pagoda. The stairs lead to the Wat itself, an international Buddhist center and usually, a great view of the surrounding area and Chiang Mai. The view, however, was a little less spectacular than it usually is, due to the amount of smoke in the air. This is from forest fires and field burning for agricultural purposes. Some of this is from Thailand but some is floating across the borders of Laos and Myanmar (Burma).
We were warned before entering the region that there was a smoke problem but were informed by some other travellers in Ayuthaya that it had dissipated. In fact, we had not really noticed the smoke at all until we went up to Doi Suthep. Other than making a cloudy view of the area, the smoke was not a problem at all. It was a nice little half day trip.
On our way out to the Wat, we met a Dutch traveller who happened to have some information about The Gibbon Experience, the place we were going to go where you live in tree houses for a couple days. We had been having trouble getting a hold of them and were just about sure we were
Cleaning the Stairs at the Pagodas
There were many women and men with water and brooms cleaning the steps all the way up to the pagodas when we were there. going to be deleting it from our schedule. The phone number and e-mail addresses we had were disconnected and the website gone... even though we had been in contact with them before we left. Anyway, he had contact info and we got a hold of them. Unfortunately we cannot get into there until later so we have to re-configure the whole rest of our trip... including doing a lot of backtracking through Laos. At least we get to do it. We were both quite bummed about not getting the chance.
The other trip we did from Chiang Mai was with a small tour group consisting of a couple from Chicago who were living in Japan, a couple from Alaska and a mother and daughter from England who have been travelling for almost a year. The man from Chicago (who's name, unfortunately, I have forgotten... If you are reading this, sorry about that, I am very bad with names... apparently we both are), was very interested in photography and film and he and James spent the whole day talking about phtography and film. I now know the difference between single and double perf film and the pros and cons of
New Year Concerts
Every night there was something going on for the New Year celebration. This night it was some band where the lead singer stood in the middle of the stage and these girls danced about in a very odd fashion, sometimes together, sometimes apart, sometimes just kind of wandering around looking dazed. digital and film stock....
We went to a number of places that day. The first place we went to was a waterfall called.... Well I have no idea. I'd have to look at the photos. There we go with my memory for names of places and things again. Anyway, it was a fair sized waterfall, it was refreshing in the heat. I imagine it is a very large and impressive waterfall in the rainy season, if the road would permit you to go there at that time of year. We took a walk up a million stairs into the bush above the waterfall and found ourselves standing beside some rapids.
The second place we went to was a Karen Hilltribe Village where we got to see where they live and the guide gave us some information about the tribe. In this tribe, the woman chooses the man for marriage and they marry between 16 and 18 for the most part. Each girl has a pig from birth and this pig is a necessity for marriage. She brings the pig as something of a dowry of sorts. Though I don't think they it is exactly as one usually thinks
Songkran 1 - all taken from inside of a van
Some boys awaiting their next victims.
All Songkran photos were shot from inside a van so the quality is not so good. of a dowry. This village looked like it saw a lot of tourists in a day. They were completely unfazed by our being there. We watched one girl weaving and learned about the incredible length of time it takes to weave something. The finished product was awesome. The scarves and blankets were thin and soft cotton, in a million colours to choose from.
We left there and went to a smaller, rather unimpressive waterfall, that again would have been better perhaps in a rainier season. Then it was off to the Hmong village. For the most part, we didn't see any villagers here, or there homes. Here we concentrated on their gardens and agriculture. Our guide told us a little history. The Hmong are a polygynous people. Men can have more than one wife. However, these days, due to economic constraints, most only have one wife.
The Hmong used to be major growers of Opium until the King asked them to stop. The King offered them help in learning how to grow other things instead. Where we were there was a Royal Research Station as well. They now grow a lot of crops, including rice, vegetables and many
Songkran 2
A girl being gentle with water in traffic... they are rarely this gentle with the buckets of water even if you are driving. other plants. We took a walk through some greenhouses. There were potted plants, vegetables, what looked like entire jungle ecosystems in these long plastic greenhouses. From the outside they did not look like much, but inside it was a jungle of plants.
We stopped here for lunch and then off to the top of the mountain. I guess I forgot to tell you all that we were heading up a mountain all day. The weather was getting cooler and cooler as we went up and as we reached the top and started to climb the stairs to the peak... I got my first goosebumps on this whole trip. It was refreshing. The air felt lighter and it was the best feeling. We climbed up to the top of this path and hung out in the cool for a while. Soaking it in. I even put on a long-sleeved shirt I had brought to wear in the villages and in the wats.
The final place we went were these pagodas built for the King and Queen. The King's Pagoda was built on the occasion of his 70th birthday and is 60 meters tall. The Queen's pagoda was built on
Songkran 3
Innocent young girls up to no good. the occasion of her 70th birthday and is 55 meters tall, five meters shorter than the king's because she is 5 years younger than he is. They are both up a long staircase and surrounded by gardens. The outside and inside of both the pagodas are covered in art, mainly of images of the life of the Buddha. The view was massive and again, quite hazy. Regardless of the haze you could really get a sense of the vaste untouched wilderness that still exists in Thailand. Unfortunately continually being further and further encroached upon by the Tourist industry and so forth. Sometimes when visiting the wats and villages here I feel a sense of guilt for encroaching upon the people here. Their places or worship, their natural wonders and their whole culture are changed by all the tourism and it is sometimes hard to participate in it without feeling it is partly our fault for being there was well.
I read in a book in Laos some guidelines for travelling around the world. One of the rules was "ask before you take pictures" and the article cited an article that asked people in Western countries if they would approve
Songkran 4
Some girls on stage dancing to Thai pop music. The crowd looks like they have been standing in a rain storm... but I assure you it did not rain that day. of rich foreign tourists constantly taking photos of them, unasked... the response is as you would expect a resounding no. It is a rather good way of getting the point across I think.
On our way back from the mountain, we came into town to the full war-like New Year experience in Chiang Mai. It had been going on for days already and was getting beyond irritating. Basically New Year celebrations in Thailand play out as one big waterfight in the streets. People with waterguns and buckets throw water at each other all day and evening. It does not matter what you are wearing, where you are going or what you are carrying... You are always a target. You cannot leave your guesthouse without getting wet. We tried to creep around side streets to avoid getting wet but in the end it was no use. We ended up soaking wet sitting in a photo shop to get our Laos Visa photos done... dripping on the guy's floor.
It is insane! People throw giant buckets of water at full force at people on motorbikes. We saw one guy fly right off and into the road. He was alright but
Songkran 5
Not a great photo of it but here is a Thai pop band playing while a gigantic bubble machine pumps out the bubbles. it was only by shear luck. The water can come from anywhere. Even out of the sketchy waterways that run through town. It is rather frightening. When we were on the bus to Chiang Rai (another story in a moment) we would drive through small towns and villages and the whole bus would be drenched in buckets and buckets of water. The whole front window blurred and water seeping in the windows.
We were finally on our way to Laos when the worst of it was in full force and we were very happy about it. We were in for a surprise... but that is for the next blog. One thing at a time here.
We got to the bus station early on Friday morning. Friday the 13th... and boy did it live up to it's name.
The bus station was already packed and the sun was not even up yet. We were going to catch the 6:30 bus to Chiang Khong, the border town with Laos. Unfortunately we found out that all the buses to Chiang Khong were booked for the day. So instead we had to wait until 9:00 to catch a bus to Chiang
Songkran 6
Foam Land... Some great dancing going on here in the bubbles. Rai, which was part way to Chiang Khong, to catch another bus there (hopefully) to get to Chiang Khong in time to cross the river by ferry and get through the Loatian border, which closed at 5:30 (actually 6 but at the time we thought it was 5:30).
Long story short and I hope James told it better. We got to Chiang Khong, mostly dry, despite the constant water throwing along the highway. We were tired, hungry and in a horrible rush. We grabbed the smallest tuk tuk on earth and got a ride to the ferry. The route to the ferry was basically right down the center of town and so down water central. We got soaked over and over again, with all our bags, and raced to the ferry. Got across and to the window to the border office. Here we found out that visas cost differently depending on what country you come from. Canadians have to pay the most at USD $42. Most of the prices ranged in the lower 30's. We still have no idea why... what did we ever do to them? The US bombs the crap out of them and they get in
Songkran 7
Some guys who have just come from the foam land. It's not all just about water and handfulls of flower. for $30. Anyway, at least we got there.
Songkran (Thai New Year) while fun for the Thai, and for tourists who who have the time to hang out and get wet (and do absolutely nothing else) for days on end, is not something that I have enjoyed very much. Wet clothes and mucky feet and not fun on long bus rides or while trying to get photo cd's burned and visa photos taken. Everything just shuts down. But as you will hear about next time... New Year in Thailand, while wetter, is not quite a hinderance to travel as New Year in Laos.
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Randy
non-member comment
Hi from Baja
Hi guys, Nice to hear from you again. INternet brutally slow down here so I can appeciate your frustrations. Great stories and pics once again. Doesn't look like you avoided the water fights like you had hoped. Hope all stomach ailments over soon if not already. Happy travelling, Luv Rand.