We are in Vang Vieng, Laos, our 5th day in our second country. We hitched a two day ride on the slow boat from Chiang Khong Thailand and landed in Luang Prabang 32 hours later. What a spectacular and relaxing was to travel down the river that has been the heart and soul of commerce and livelihood of the people within this region for all of time. We were expecting a more ruckus journey, but the people on the boat were all reasonably well behaved and quiet. Somehow 120 people on a boat w/ seats for 44 really didnt even seem that crammed. During the second day we ammused ourselved by sittin on the edge of the rail and dangling our feet in the water.
Luang Prabang was a nice change of pace compared to Thailand. It was a French outpost years ago so the cobblestone streets, baggette vendors and cutsey streets were all notable holdovers. The city is extrememly clean and well organized with the nicest night market and most accommadations people we've met thus far. However, we found that the city (and moving forward what we've seen of Laos thus far) was geared toward tourist and bringing in the money of the foreigners. All of the Tuk Tuk drivers, or at least 90percent of them catered to tourists, promoting trips to the Kangsi Waterfall and the amazing buddist caves lining the Mekong.
Nevertheless, there were tourist destinations for good reason and if I were charged w/ promotions tourism, I'd make sure to milk these destinations for all they are worth. Basically, the most spectacular waterfall we've seen.
Our day journey to the waterfall added a fellow traveler to the bunch: George from the country of Georgia. When asked how he was doing, he replied, "tired." One could tell, as he's been travelling the world as a vagrant for 16 months. Whoa.
As we posted up in Luang Prabang, Val started to get some pretty nasty bug bits surfacing. The count thus far is 6, and 2-3 times daily we have to relieve them of copious amounts of puss fluid akine to wood glue. I have one and it hurts. I can only imagine 6. We've been trying different remedies on the different bites and thus far, the one that has responded best has been the one w/ garlic applied under a bandaid. Val's idea. Success!
More about our bodies. We are both in the waning stages of some sort of minor sickness. We vomited vehemently last night within 5 minutes of each other. Our friend Lior from Isreal remarked: How Romantic.
Coupling that less than accomodationg stomachs and we're really fit to be tied right now. Hence, why we are relaxing write emails instead of drinking our faces off riding innertubes down the rivver from bar to bar w/ the bro tourists from Australia and the meathead tribal tattoo fratters from Southern CA.
But, I digress. Some final thoughts on Luang Prabang. It was such a juxtaposition for us. One of the most beautiful and relaxing cities we've ever visited, but with such a major identity crisis. From what we gathered, there is no remaining Laotion culture w/in the city. The city has succumbed to the wrathe of the tourist dollar, euro, Kroner, etc. The notes on menus and the tuk tuk drivers talk about the Laotion culture of sharing and community and togetherness and respect for time to reflect and relax, but the are throngs of bars and cafes that have totally compromised this whole ideology. There is even a bowling alley promotions buckets of Booze to 500AM in the morning for the Falangs (westerners) In the end, as our friend King from Korea says, "whatever....fuck!" With a little perspective and within letting all of the commerce get to us, we were really able to have a good crack in the city, relax, go running, biking and drank some amazing coffee 4 times a day.
Last note, its as if Oreo's just landed in Laos. Every stall is promotions everytime of Fruit shake imaginable AND Oreo shakes. Everyone here is drinking Oreo shakes and walking around town w/ Oreos in their grubby hands. The funny thing is that have of the vendors continue to spell on their signs Oreo with an "I", as in ORIO, even though they can clearly spell check by looking ast the package in front of them.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Vacation Travel Begins
So we've left the volunteer group and are feeling pretty good about the last 2+ weeks thus far. We are thankful to have began our trip w/ the hill tribe and believe that this not only kicks us off to a gratifying and alturistic start, but gave us a great perspective on culture over here.
We were a group of 16 and have halved down to 8, as it turns out that others were planning to boat to Laos as well. We feel pretty good about still having some friends around, but at the same time are realizing that we are really to have our own experiences and make decisions for ourselves.
We had out first half day on our own since our first day and Bangkok and were appreciative of not having to answer to a schedule or other peoples musings and pontifications. Its amazing how you can really respect and admire and appreciate people, but at the same time the things that you care for in these people can grown thin after two week. We were really yearning for time to just spend together with each other, sit around and feel like we are on vacation. For the first time, today felt like a real vacation.
Sidebar: We are at a guest house (why do they call them guest houses, they are hostels, not houses) anyway, we are at this guesthouse and there is a movie collection. There are 50 movies and it's been 3weeks w/out a movie and I offer up the choice Burn After Reading. There were seven people that saw the movie, 2 loved it (Jeff and our work friend Lior) and the other 5 HATED the movie and generally thought it sucked. What it is w/ this movie?!?! Literally, there is no middle ground here. People either love it or think its trash. Wasn't this movie brillliant, I sure thought it was one of the funniest flicks I'd seen all year. I really feel like the smart people our there got it and the wingdings and nimrods just missed it. Oh well, I guess that humors not for everyone.
We'll write from Laos.
We were a group of 16 and have halved down to 8, as it turns out that others were planning to boat to Laos as well. We feel pretty good about still having some friends around, but at the same time are realizing that we are really to have our own experiences and make decisions for ourselves.
We had out first half day on our own since our first day and Bangkok and were appreciative of not having to answer to a schedule or other peoples musings and pontifications. Its amazing how you can really respect and admire and appreciate people, but at the same time the things that you care for in these people can grown thin after two week. We were really yearning for time to just spend together with each other, sit around and feel like we are on vacation. For the first time, today felt like a real vacation.
Sidebar: We are at a guest house (why do they call them guest houses, they are hostels, not houses) anyway, we are at this guesthouse and there is a movie collection. There are 50 movies and it's been 3weeks w/out a movie and I offer up the choice Burn After Reading. There were seven people that saw the movie, 2 loved it (Jeff and our work friend Lior) and the other 5 HATED the movie and generally thought it sucked. What it is w/ this movie?!?! Literally, there is no middle ground here. People either love it or think its trash. Wasn't this movie brillliant, I sure thought it was one of the funniest flicks I'd seen all year. I really feel like the smart people our there got it and the wingdings and nimrods just missed it. Oh well, I guess that humors not for everyone.
We'll write from Laos.
Final Akha Hill Tribe Volunteer Days
Lets see where do we start....
So we are officially done with the first part of volunteer work. We visited one last hill tribe two days ago where we were driven 2 hours into the hills, of course all piled up in the back of a truck for one last big excursion in the mountains. As it turns out it was a holiday in Thailand where no one is supposed to work. Our leader consulted with the trees to make sure that if we did any work that the spirits would not harm us...turns out they were ok with us working. So we knocked down the remains of a house, cleaned up piles of leaves and debris and set them on fire, and lit really big fires for when we slept in our bamboo hut with no walls, that bugs and animals would stay far away from us (akha tradition...which worked b.t.w) We had dinner and breakfast on the floor of the main elder of the tribes house and had impecable views of the sunset in the jungle on the side of the mountains! We were taught about many different herbs and plants they grow to use as medicine and export (one of them being a red root they use to dye eggs for a traditional red egg ceremony/new years celebration)
The last day consisted of gardening at an orphanage. Going to a hill tribe who gives elephant rides (we opted to wave at the elephant riders, rather then ride) and hike to a waterfall. Today and last night was the big farewell. We had a ceremony and had a big pot luck with everyone. There were people from Germany,Scottland, Canada, Israel, Korea, Japan, France, and of course US, we all made a course from where we were from which was really special. They had a good luck ceremony after which consisted of taking a chunk of chicken, a chunk of egg, a chunk of rice and eating it while taking a shot of Akha water (cheap whiskey) and some tea. They then tied a string around our wrist (right on boys left on girls) three times and a beaded necklace. The necklace represented good luck for our travels
After the ceremony we watched a teary slideshow on a laptop of all the photos they took of us with the background of romantic music dubbed over by thai singers (think phil collins).
So we are officially done with the first part of volunteer work. We visited one last hill tribe two days ago where we were driven 2 hours into the hills, of course all piled up in the back of a truck for one last big excursion in the mountains. As it turns out it was a holiday in Thailand where no one is supposed to work. Our leader consulted with the trees to make sure that if we did any work that the spirits would not harm us...turns out they were ok with us working. So we knocked down the remains of a house, cleaned up piles of leaves and debris and set them on fire, and lit really big fires for when we slept in our bamboo hut with no walls, that bugs and animals would stay far away from us (akha tradition...which worked b.t.w) We had dinner and breakfast on the floor of the main elder of the tribes house and had impecable views of the sunset in the jungle on the side of the mountains! We were taught about many different herbs and plants they grow to use as medicine and export (one of them being a red root they use to dye eggs for a traditional red egg ceremony/new years celebration)
The last day consisted of gardening at an orphanage. Going to a hill tribe who gives elephant rides (we opted to wave at the elephant riders, rather then ride) and hike to a waterfall. Today and last night was the big farewell. We had a ceremony and had a big pot luck with everyone. There were people from Germany,Scottland, Canada, Israel, Korea, Japan, France, and of course US, we all made a course from where we were from which was really special. They had a good luck ceremony after which consisted of taking a chunk of chicken, a chunk of egg, a chunk of rice and eating it while taking a shot of Akha water (cheap whiskey) and some tea. They then tied a string around our wrist (right on boys left on girls) three times and a beaded necklace. The necklace represented good luck for our travels
After the ceremony we watched a teary slideshow on a laptop of all the photos they took of us with the background of romantic music dubbed over by thai singers (think phil collins).
Monday, April 13, 2009
Buddist New Year
This past week we have stayed with 2 different Akha hill tribes after spending a week at a children's Akha hostle. The first hill tribe was way up in the mountains. It was a 2 hour drive in the back of the truck switching between road and off road. (our backs and butts have permanent bruises) Arriving in the first tribe we were greeted with the many many children claubering us wanting us to chase them and play with them on their bicycles (no chains and no handle bars) we offered them toothbrushes, paste, coloring crayons, paper and all had a drawing session. Amazinly the kids had really really good drawing skills and made us pics of elephants, butterflys and other jungle animals. Jeff then played about 2 good hours of marbles with the kids who also had really mad skills and had all these really good moves!!
Dinner consisted of different plants gathered from the jungle (fiddle head ferns, wild golden raspberries), small birds which were caught with handmade bamboo traps and rice, of course.
We woke up and helped to take down a bamboo hut and rebuild the roof of one...we brought the old remains to different piles to be burned. (very polluting, but makes for great amazing sunsets)
Later that day we headed to another hill tribe in San Chai where we drove way into the hills and planted over 200 trees on a super sloped hill...digging the holes and planting the baby trees. We had lunch then went to help build a pool. Mixing concrete and laying down the layers to build the pool for the locals. A random monk on a horse stopped by to say hi to us after his treck from Chiang Mai to Chaing Rai.
After that long day we attended a reception of a 16 year old couple who had gotten married earlier that day! They served us dinner and traditional food and Akha water aka cheap whiskey as we all proceeded to drink and do kareoke to Eifel 65 (Im blue) and Lou Vega (Mambo #5) and of course....Country Road.....
After taking over the wedding we went back to our bungalo and had a dance party from one of the volunteers ipod turned on full blast.
Next day....
wake up
make cups out of bamboo with machettes, shooting Akha guns, while we wait for our Traditional Akha herbal Sauna to heat up (herbs from the jungle with ginger infused the air) mean while doing yoga on logs....
Yesterday commenced the beginning of the Buddist New Year. The festivities run from roughly April 12th - 18th, or whenever seems appropriate to begin or stop. It is seemingly random. Basically, the event has become one huge water fight. As I am sitting inside this internet cafe looking outside, I am seeing trucks loaded to the brim with Thai teens in the truck beds. They have garbage cans filled w/ water and buckets to throw said water on passerbys and other fellow trucks. Everyone gets wet. We are both totally soaked right now. There is no mercy. Val threw a bucket of water on an elderly lady yesterday. She smiled and waved Happy New Year, waving w/ the hand that was not holding her cane.
You can haul about 10 people in the back of a pickup and have enough space, as long as 3 people are standing up and 4 are sitting off of the sides of the truck. Safe, right? Now, add in the fact that the sober (thankfully) drivers are passing beers and Thai wiskey back to the passengers. That was our situation yesterday on our day off of Volunteering. We went on a field trip to the boader of Burma and passed through 5 police checkpoints. At each spot we waved at the police with a beer in hand, in the back of the truck, and they waved back. Evidently, this behavior is ok in Thailand. Further, the only thing that the police checked at the checkpoint, was to see if we had enough water in our water cooler. Seriously, they even filled it up for us a couple of times. These are the priorities of the Thai armed forces neverminding the empty bottles of booze floating around in our makeshift swimming pool that we constructed threw the usage of silly putting in the cracks of the truck tailgate.
ok, we are out of time!!!!!
much more to come!
So much mucho loves!!
V & J
Dinner consisted of different plants gathered from the jungle (fiddle head ferns, wild golden raspberries), small birds which were caught with handmade bamboo traps and rice, of course.
We woke up and helped to take down a bamboo hut and rebuild the roof of one...we brought the old remains to different piles to be burned. (very polluting, but makes for great amazing sunsets)
Later that day we headed to another hill tribe in San Chai where we drove way into the hills and planted over 200 trees on a super sloped hill...digging the holes and planting the baby trees. We had lunch then went to help build a pool. Mixing concrete and laying down the layers to build the pool for the locals. A random monk on a horse stopped by to say hi to us after his treck from Chiang Mai to Chaing Rai.
After that long day we attended a reception of a 16 year old couple who had gotten married earlier that day! They served us dinner and traditional food and Akha water aka cheap whiskey as we all proceeded to drink and do kareoke to Eifel 65 (Im blue) and Lou Vega (Mambo #5) and of course....Country Road.....
After taking over the wedding we went back to our bungalo and had a dance party from one of the volunteers ipod turned on full blast.
Next day....
wake up
make cups out of bamboo with machettes, shooting Akha guns, while we wait for our Traditional Akha herbal Sauna to heat up (herbs from the jungle with ginger infused the air) mean while doing yoga on logs....
Yesterday commenced the beginning of the Buddist New Year. The festivities run from roughly April 12th - 18th, or whenever seems appropriate to begin or stop. It is seemingly random. Basically, the event has become one huge water fight. As I am sitting inside this internet cafe looking outside, I am seeing trucks loaded to the brim with Thai teens in the truck beds. They have garbage cans filled w/ water and buckets to throw said water on passerbys and other fellow trucks. Everyone gets wet. We are both totally soaked right now. There is no mercy. Val threw a bucket of water on an elderly lady yesterday. She smiled and waved Happy New Year, waving w/ the hand that was not holding her cane.
You can haul about 10 people in the back of a pickup and have enough space, as long as 3 people are standing up and 4 are sitting off of the sides of the truck. Safe, right? Now, add in the fact that the sober (thankfully) drivers are passing beers and Thai wiskey back to the passengers. That was our situation yesterday on our day off of Volunteering. We went on a field trip to the boader of Burma and passed through 5 police checkpoints. At each spot we waved at the police with a beer in hand, in the back of the truck, and they waved back. Evidently, this behavior is ok in Thailand. Further, the only thing that the police checked at the checkpoint, was to see if we had enough water in our water cooler. Seriously, they even filled it up for us a couple of times. These are the priorities of the Thai armed forces neverminding the empty bottles of booze floating around in our makeshift swimming pool that we constructed threw the usage of silly putting in the cracks of the truck tailgate.
ok, we are out of time!!!!!
much more to come!
So much mucho loves!!
V & J
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Chili Pepper are Still Hot
Yesterday Val And I ate dog, while two dogs were next to us. So, I asked the program leader, how do you decide which dogs to eat and which to domesticate. Then he told us a fable that seems to clear things up, but is much to long to reiterate. Suffice to say, they dont eat the dogs around the house, but buy it prepared off the streeet vendors. Dog tasted really good. Probably the best thing I've eaten all trip, and the irony petting an animal while eating its kinfolk...
Mind you, Val hardly eats meat, let alone pets.
We've been working w/ a group of 16 volunteers from around the globe. We are the oldest, which we figured would be the case going into this. A little apprehensive the first day w/ the general lack of organization by the program leaders turned out to be just general change of demeanor from working w/ American organizations and Thai groups. The people in the group are good and kind hearted and It ends up that we forgot how fun it can be to try and communicate in english to non-english speakers. However, even after 3 days we have begun to speak to each other as if one of us is Slovic and the other from Budapest. For example:
Jeff: Val, you know the time of dinner.
Val: I no know, we go talk to Taki, find out
Wondering how we'll digress/progress over the course of the next 2 weeks.
Other general, random musing of the day is that we are now completely immuse to ants. I believe I have 10-15 on my body right now, and whatever. We're boarderline okay with Spiders and cockroaches scurringly amoung our room and making a home in our bags. This is a far cry from one week ago when a handful of ants would've brought out a bottle or two of Raid.
We've have a very positive mix of working with the tribe as well as after work seeing how the Akha people live and some National Parks in which they visit. The Wats are abundant and the one that really caught our attention and held it more than the others was the "White Temple", in which we were really able to relate to on a more personal level because the art, design and ideology of the imagery and integrity of the building and wall frescos embodies a modern day commentary and persona. There was a dark undertone of half of the building and complex representing the general moderism and commercialism of Western Culture juxtaposed w/ the serenity and divinity of the buddist way of life.
We also went to a 200m high waterfall in a National Park where we stood at the bottom and received a Thai Nature Massage. Today we went to a Natural Hot Springs and submerged ourselves in 130 degree water while all the locals looked on with apprehension musing to themselves about our lack of braincells for wanting to get into water in which they were boiling eggs. Literally.
OK, we've got to run, well, get in the back of a pickup w/ 10 other people and drive willy-nilly around the country back to our abode for the evening.
Much more later and more updates on our actual volunteer experience, the tribe, the kids and our thoughts on Thai culture and their possitives and opportunities in about a week.
Much Love.
Jeff and Val
PS. Jeff lost his voice from eating too many chili peppers but refused to stop eating them because they are sooo good and make him feel alive.
Mind you, Val hardly eats meat, let alone pets.
We've been working w/ a group of 16 volunteers from around the globe. We are the oldest, which we figured would be the case going into this. A little apprehensive the first day w/ the general lack of organization by the program leaders turned out to be just general change of demeanor from working w/ American organizations and Thai groups. The people in the group are good and kind hearted and It ends up that we forgot how fun it can be to try and communicate in english to non-english speakers. However, even after 3 days we have begun to speak to each other as if one of us is Slovic and the other from Budapest. For example:
Jeff: Val, you know the time of dinner.
Val: I no know, we go talk to Taki, find out
Wondering how we'll digress/progress over the course of the next 2 weeks.
Other general, random musing of the day is that we are now completely immuse to ants. I believe I have 10-15 on my body right now, and whatever. We're boarderline okay with Spiders and cockroaches scurringly amoung our room and making a home in our bags. This is a far cry from one week ago when a handful of ants would've brought out a bottle or two of Raid.
We've have a very positive mix of working with the tribe as well as after work seeing how the Akha people live and some National Parks in which they visit. The Wats are abundant and the one that really caught our attention and held it more than the others was the "White Temple", in which we were really able to relate to on a more personal level because the art, design and ideology of the imagery and integrity of the building and wall frescos embodies a modern day commentary and persona. There was a dark undertone of half of the building and complex representing the general moderism and commercialism of Western Culture juxtaposed w/ the serenity and divinity of the buddist way of life.
We also went to a 200m high waterfall in a National Park where we stood at the bottom and received a Thai Nature Massage. Today we went to a Natural Hot Springs and submerged ourselves in 130 degree water while all the locals looked on with apprehension musing to themselves about our lack of braincells for wanting to get into water in which they were boiling eggs. Literally.
OK, we've got to run, well, get in the back of a pickup w/ 10 other people and drive willy-nilly around the country back to our abode for the evening.
Much more later and more updates on our actual volunteer experience, the tribe, the kids and our thoughts on Thai culture and their possitives and opportunities in about a week.
Much Love.
Jeff and Val
PS. Jeff lost his voice from eating too many chili peppers but refused to stop eating them because they are sooo good and make him feel alive.
Friday, April 3, 2009
waiting
So we are now out of Bangkok! And in Chiang Rai..eagerly waiting to meet up with our volunteer group before we a whisked away to the jungle to stay with the Hill Tribe. So far Chiang Rai is much more relaxed...we stayed in a bungalow much like a tree house with lots of vines and nature all around, very nice! People here are sooo much more relaxed and not trying to crawl down your throat if you make any kind of eyecontact. You actually get smiles and nods and really genuine warm welcomes. We visited the day and night markets which are jammed with little vendors selling vegetables, meats, dried stuff, hawaiian shirts (?) knick knacks, doo daads and whatchamacollits......so far the best cheapest food around! The weather is a bit cooler here and so are the locals! So far all is well!
What we have learned today: Grapes.
What we have learned today: Grapes.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Bangkok
So, we made it here to Bangkok safe and sound and swiftly took a 14 hour snooze. So far things have been kooky and good. Every 2 minutes we get hassled and people have been trying to sell us horses all day. We don't need cashmere suits and we really really don't need any jewelry. And the fact that you never know if a Tuk Tuk will take you to where you really want to end up has been quite the adventure. Its like if you tell your Taxi Driver in SF that you want to go to 16th and Valencia and he takes you to Nike Town first and tries to guilt you into staying in the store for 15 minutes because if you do, he gets free gas. What?!!?!?
However, we having a good time making puns w/ the words Thai, Baht, Wat, etc.
Our travel takeaway today is that the best things we're finding are coming in unexpected places.
Much Love, Jeff and Val
However, we having a good time making puns w/ the words Thai, Baht, Wat, etc.
Our travel takeaway today is that the best things we're finding are coming in unexpected places.
Much Love, Jeff and Val
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