Vientiane

I spent a good 5 days or so in the Laos capital and I was quite impressed. I found the town to be very attractive with several buildings that date back to french colonialism. The town is deffinatly busier and more active than all the other towns I've been to in Laos, but it's kept a village feel to it.

But the best thing about Vientiane was the amazing restaurants. I had sushi here, and really good french cuisine (among other things of course!). Oh I also managed to buy a bottle of Perrier for 32,000kip here (about 3.2$USD).

I was joined by Chris as planned, and he thought me how to ride a motorcyle for the first time, so for one day we drove out to the country side until we were stopped by police officers who fined us for not having registration papers or something. Which is bullocks since I don't think anybody around here has them either. So as it works around here, you pay them off and off we went.

I was planning to upload some pictures, but ran out of time before we headed south.

The Secret War

As promised, here is some info on "The secret War" that was waged by The U.S. and the North Vietnamese in Laos.

In the 1960s, during the Vietnam war (or also called the 2nd Indochina war), the North Vietnamese were in the process of invading Laos along with some communist bretherens. Both had the support of China and the Soviet Union. The U.S. bought the support of a local minority called the Hmong to fight the guerilla war for them, but they were badly outnumbered.

The U.S. then decided to halt the communist progress by fighting in Laos. The problem was that the U.S. hadn't told anybody that they were fighting in Laos. Neither the american people, nor the House of Congress were aware. The secret war was in the hands of the CIA. The CIA had fighter pilots and army pilots fight in Laos without dogtags, and would deny their existence if they were captured. This was a blatant violation of the geneva accord which was signed in 1962. Now, it's true that the North Vietnamese were also violating the protocol, but one would think that U.S. could have been above them on that.

During the war, there were more bombs dropped than were dropped on both Nazi germany and Japan combined (or so my sources say). Even worse; if bombers or fighter planes that would take off in Thailand to attack targets in North Vietnamese territory find themselves unable to reach their primary objectives would on many occasions drop their ordinance on random targets in Laos. This was to make sure they wouldn't get back to base with any ordinance left.

It is quite a shock to learn of this story (and to see it's destructive impact in person). The United States has done a lot of stupid things in it's history, but the Secret War waged may be it's worse offence. And very, very people are aware of it.

Phonsavan & Vientiane

I've finally arrived in Vientiane last night after a 11hr bus ride from Phonsavan (was supposed to be 8!!).
So far, it looks very promising as there's lots of great restaurants around here.

I spent 3 days in Phonsavan before coming here and really liked my time there.
I splurged a little in spending 40$ for a guided tour to the famous plain of jars. I really don't regret it. I got to see the 3 main sites, 2 of which would have practically impossible to reach via public transport. I had a private driver and a private guide for almost 6 hours. 40$ is a lot of money here, but for what I got, I think it was well worth it.

My time in Phonsavan really educated me a whole deal on the troubles that Laos has had to go through in the last few years as it was a central point of the "Secret war" being waged in Laos during the 1960s. I will talk about the Secret war in a separate post.

As far as what's coming up is concerned. Chris will be meeting me in Vientiane on Tuesday or Wednesday. Then we need to head south, I have less than 2 weeks left on my visa and about 1 month total for my vacation (time just goes way too fast!).

Don't worry, pictures will be uploaded very soon!

Shooting scenery

Laos is truly blessed with having absolutely stunning scenery.
The country is practically covered from head to toe in mountains, valleys and rivers.
Unfortunatly, the most interesting scenery I've been witnessed to is when I'm in transit on local buses. And that makes shooting photographs very difficult.

First, they cram as many people inside these buses as possible.
Second, I rarely get a window seat!
Third, when I do get a window seat, the road is often so rough, and combined with the practical inexistance of any suspension on the bus, makes it very difficult to compose my shots properly.

When I come back to Laos (and I will), I will look to do it with my own transport, either by car or motorcycle, as that would make travelling around here so much more flexible.

Btw, pictures will coming in a couple days when I reach Vientiane (the Laos capital)!
I will update on my time in Phonsavan from there as well.

Sam Neua

Unfortunatly, another side effect of the voyage to Sam Neua was that I managed to catch a cold. Combined with the long travel and the lack of sleep the night before meant that my first day in Sam Neua was unproductive to say the least. I woundered around, and managed to stay awake till 3pm. I was hoping that the next day would be better.

First, I had a problem, I was running out of clean clothes, and couldn't find anybody to clean them for me. So the next morning I had to wash a portion of them myself which (not being used to it I guess) took pretty much all morning.

In the afternoon, I was going to head to Vieng Xai for a few hours which is even further east and even closer to the Vietnamese border. This was the town that the Pathet Lao's revolutionary force used as a base. They had built very impressive caves inside the limestone-walled valleys as shelter from American bombardment.

I had time to visit one cave, before it started to rain, combined with a huge lack of energy (probably due the flu and the recent travels) meant I didn't have the heart to thrudge further. So I headed back to the bus station and waited to go back to Sam Neua. The very next morning I would be heading to Phonsavan via a 8hr bus ride.

The voyage from hell

Sorry for the lack of updates. The reasons are twofold, first the internet access I've had access to in the last few days was very limited. Secondly, frankly, I didn't feel like looking for the internet cafes.

On my leaving Luang Prabang, I was supposed to leave with Chris, but he felt sick the day we were supposed to go, so I went on on my own.

I headed north to Nong Khia by means of a very basic 4-hour bus ride. The village was very basic, but it was very picturesque in it's location. (I'll post some pictures of it soon) I spent the night there before heading east, my goal was to try and make it to Sam Neua before the end of the day. The only buse out of Nong Khia however, stopped at Vieng Kham. I was hoping to catch a connecting bus that would take me further east. On this bus ride, I was joined by 2 australian girls who were heading in the same direction with the same itenerary in mind. We were however severely dissapointed by not finding any buses at the bus terminal (if you can call it that).

Vieng Kham was just a tiny village, there was one very basic guesthouse, practically no restaurant. The town also had NO BEERLAO, I know, people have trouble believing me, but it's true. It was a couple days after new years, and they had completely run out. We wondered around and the information we found that the only way to Sam Neua from here was to try to catch the Vientiane - Sam Neua bus which normally passes by this village between 1am and 3am. (We had arrived in the village at noon, so the prospect sucked) They couldn't even gurantee that the bus would even pass that night! Anyway we ended up playing cards at mostly candlelight (the village only has electricity for 2 hours between about 7 and 9pm) and drinking laolao whiskey. Oh, we played the one universal game everyone seems to know the rules, Asshole!

Anyway, the night was getting on, soon after 11pm, it was pitch black outside, everytime we'd hear a vehicle, we'd (well the host and I, the girls were resting in a seperate room) panick and run outside with the flashlight hoping it was the bus. At about midnight, we did again, this time, it was the bus and we managed to stop the bus! We ran and got our belongins and got on the bus for the loooooong 8 hour ride to Sam Neua.

Sam Neua is a town at the extreme north-east (more east than north) of the country. To get there, we need to take a 90km road up the mountains which seems to take forever because it constantly twists and turns. Oh and there was just one lane too! Soon after the twisting and turning began, I started feeling queasy. The crap whiskey was the culprit, but thankfully, it never got worse than that.

At 8-9am wednesday morning, we arrived in Sam Neua.

Moving on

It's Sunday afternoon, The New Year's festivities are coming to a close and I will be moving on tomorrow morning. I've been spending most of the last 8 days in Luang Prabang with Chris, the american I mentioned before. I will be travelling further with him, at least for the next week or so. So far the plan is to head north to Udomxai or Nong Khiaw, we will then head to the extreme north east of the country to Sam Neua and Vieng Xai. There's some very interesting political reasons to head there as this was the history headquarter of Pathet Lao who was largely responsible for the communist revolution here in the mid 70s. We will then loop down to Phonsavan where the famous plain of jars are located and will finally make our way to Vientiane. We will need to be pretty quick in general as Chris needs to get his visa extended on the 23rd of April in Vientiane.

I had another fascinating experience on Friday night, we had decided along with a very nice french couple to head to a Laos discoteque. The club was so full that we had nowhere to sit, we were then "adopted" by some cool Laos guys and girls who just kept shoving Whiskey down our throats. By midnight or so, my companions had left, I stayed on until 2am (the club closed at 11:30pm, but the manager was part of the group!). They then gave me a lift to my guesthouse where we were all pissed drunk (including the driver!). Quite an experience! :)

There's a good chance I won't have internet access for several days, possibly until I reach Vientiane, which won't be for about a week or so. So don't expect updates for a while.

New Pictures!

IMG_1798, originally uploaded by Benji99.

Finally uploaded more pictures!
Quite a few pictures of the the amazing river trip on the Mekong, Luang Prabang, and the various festivities around New Year. And yes mom, I've also uploaded a few with me in the picture!

You can once again view them by clicking on the link to my flickr site on the right hand site of this page

The two quiet americans

I've been meaning to mention here that I've so far read two very interesting books on the regions.

Another quiet american:
This book deals with a mid-20s american who goes to work in Vientiane (Laos Capital) for 2 years about 5 years ago. His potrayal of life in the capital is really fascinating. He touches a multitude of subjects and is a very easy/quick read. It's deffinatly highly recommended as it illuminates a subject/region none of us are familiar with.

A quiet american:
This is somewhat of a classic, it was written in the 40s or 50s. It deals with the end of french colonialism in Vietnam. Love is also a major subject as well as the american intrusion in the region (the third force). This book was made into a movie a couple years back with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser.

Oh, I've also been trying to read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens on my palm, but for some reason, the battery life has been just atrocious since I've been over here. (I think it's the universal USB charger I brought)

That's it for now, I promise to upload at least a few pictures before I leave Luang Prabang, which won't be for a few days anyway.

Luang Prabang

I've been in Luang Prabang for a few days now, it's a very charming town.
The buildings are an odd mix of lao, thai and faded french colonial styles.
It has some spacticular wats, but I haven't seen most of them yet.
Luang Prabang used to be the royal seat of the local Laos monarchy until a couple hundred years ago (I don't have the documentation with me right now).
In 1995, it was designated, a World heritage site by UNESCO for it's amazing preservation of classic South-East Asian look. This in contrast to most other major citites in the region who have evolved, industrialized, urbanized. Part of the reason is that this region was forgotten for a long time during the revolution, only to be re-discovered when the country re-opened up to tourism in the early 1990s.

So far, I've wondered around the non-touristic part of town trying to rent a scooter, but it seems to not be possible here for some reason.
We've also travelled by boat to some pretty nice villages and a very old cave containing a lot of old buddha statues.

The highlight so far has been however the exploration of the other side of the Mekong river, where some really quaint abandonned wats can be found,
A couple of which are over 100 years old. The cool part in the exploration is the evergrown vegatation surrounding them and their remoteness.
That occasion also signalled my first forray into the forest over here. One really cool aspect is the amazingly loud insect wildlife surrounding you. It's very intense and constant, almost overbearing.

I will certainly stick around here for a few more days as it will sound be the Water festival which signals the Laos New Year. For the occasion, locals will try to drench you in water with buckets and hoses. And no, foreigners are not exempt! I gotta watch out for the camera!

After this, I'm not sure where I will go, my tendency will be to head north to more remote and less-touristy areas of Laos. But who knows...

The Majestic Mekong

A few days ago, I finally crossed into Laos.
My first experience was in a tiny border town called Huay Xai, I spent the night there, and immediatly took the long slow boat toward Luang Prabang the next morning.
The boat ride itself was an arduous 2 day trip(6 hours first day and 8 hours second day), with a stop at a small village called Pak bang.
The trip was long, the hours difficult, but oh man was it worth it.

First, the scenery was amazing, the terrain was very mountainous with lots of rolling hills, valleys and rocky cliffs.

Second, we were able to view many fishing villages as well as fisherman doing their daily work.

I've taken a LOT of pictures, but probably won't upload many of them untill I get back.
I'll try to post a few while I stay in Luang Prabang.

I've also met a californian named Chris on the boat who has been travelling around the world for over 13 months. Very interesting fellow, and I've been spending the last couple days in Luang Prabang with him.

In any way, I don't know if I'd do the 2-day trip again, but it's deffinatly worth doing at least once.

New pictures!

Well, finally gotten around to posting new pictures of Bangkok, and Chiang Mai to my Flickr page.

Once again, here's the link for them: Link.

I'm leaving for Laos in a few minutes, will probably not have internet access until I reach Luang Prabang, which should Sunday night.

Travelling alone

I must say that I'm starting to see why lots of people love travelling alone so much.
I'll explain why here.
Because you're alone, and have nobody to talk to or stay together with, you are pretty much forced to start conversations with others around you. Of course, it's a lot easier to communicate with tourists, but the same applies with locals.

So far:

- Spent 3-4 hours eating and talking to an Italian who had just finished Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam solo for 2 monts. This was on my arrival in Bangkok.
- In Bangkok, when I was testing the local bus system (quite an experience!), I chatted and was helped by a retired swede who made Bangkok his home over the last 16 years.
- Spent 14 hours on the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai talking to a friendly dutch guy. Then ended up spending the next 2 days with him. He also invited me to come check out Amsterdam in the future (I'll deffinatly take him up on his offer someday!).
- On the bus on the way to Chiang Rai from Chiang Mai, spent practically the entire trip talking to an older Australian fellow about everything from prostitution to Global economics, passing by the best airlines.

I truly believe, that if I was travelling with someone else, I wouldn't have nearly as much opportunity because it is the human tendancy to stick to what you're confortable with (your travelling partner) rather than to talk and communicate with (often strange) strangers.

Chiang Rai?

Ok, plans changed again...
Decided to make a stop in Chiang Rai. Will probably only stay one night before finally heading to Laos.
Chiang Rai is a small town further north than Chiang Mai, and about 130kms from the Thai-Laos border.

I found an Internet cafe with decent speeds so I *should* upload some pictures before I leave for Laos.

NOTE: Great to see the Habs playing so well lately. Hey, who said I would stop thinking about hockey? :)

Chiang Mai and beyond.

Chiang Mai has been a revelation for me. After my experience in Bangkok, I had very little interest to explor the rest of the country.

First the city is much smaller and less polluted. It still has a very thai charm.
The landscape on the way was very forresty with beautifull rolling hills. The scenery reminded me very much of the vietnam war movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. Very cool.

The people here are much less pushy and friendlier. I also see much fewer tourists around.

I've decided to stay an extra night here in Chiang Mai so I will be departing for Laos on Thursday morning. On that morning, I will take a 4hr bus to the border town (forgot the name right now) between Laos-Thailand. I will need to spend the night there so that the next morning I will be able to cross into Laos, and take the Slow boat to Luang Prabang. The slow boat will take 2 days with a stop in a town called Paksan.

I will try to upload some pictures, but the connection here seems very slow.
Furthermor, As soon as I enter Laos, my internet access will be a lot more sporadic.

The 13.5hr train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

I remember the girl at the travel agency where I was staying to be very surprised that I decided to take a 12hr+ overnight train in 2nd class to Chiang Mai instead of flying in just over 2 hours. Flying would have costed 4x more, but considering the train ticket cost me about 15$, it still wasn't much.

I have to say that the train ride was 100% worth it! The train was noisy, lots of locals on board, it was extremely slow with lots of stops, and it was difficult sleeping. But what an experience!

First, I arrived 1.5hrs early at the train station. I was practically the only non-thai there. I then sat down beside a cute, young Thai girl (maybe 16-17 years old) who seemed fascinated in me. After a couple minutes, she put her arm beside mine to check the difference in skin color. I then offered her a piece of gum, she gladly accepted and made a big bow to me. First time I've seen someone do that to me. She literally spoke no english, but we understood each other that I was in a sleeper and that she probably wasn't (sleeper was quite a bit more expensive). Anyway, the train came and we parted ways, but this little moment was really wonderfull and really put the trip into positive perspective.

After a deplorable experience in Bangkok, I finally left with a very positive one.

On the train, I was bunking with dutch guy named Jan. We immediatly hit it off and practically spoke the entire train ride. He's spending 3 weeks in Thailand and wanted to see the north before heading off back south to the islands.

When we arrived at Chiang Mai, it wasn't with anticipation as the ride just flew by without noticing anything..

Leaving Bangkok

Yesterday, I finally left Bangkok. I was very glad for a few reasons.
First of all, I've been having trouble keeping to a day schedule, doing far too much sleeping during the day that I would like. Since I'm alone here, I have nobody to push me in the ass in the afternoon to go somewhere or do something. So it's easy to pass out and wake up at some weird hour. The fact that the bars/restaurants nearby are open very late doesn't help. I'm hoping that as I enter Laos, since the night life is MUCH LESS active, I'll find it easier to sleep at night. In any case, perhaps I shouldnt expect working at night for the past few years to not have any impact whatsoever either...

Second, Bangkok has been really depressing me. I really don't like the city. It's deplorably polluted, walking for more than 2 hours brings trouble breathing and sore eyes. Then you have practically everybody that tries to rip you off or offer you services. It gets really annoying. Finally, because I stayed in the tourist hub of Bankok, there was just too many tourists and the locals were too familiar in how to deal with them. To be fair, there are other parts of Bangkok which may be better, but I don't think the pollution will be significantly less.

For these reasons, I've been very unproductive in my stay in Bangkok and as such, taken very few pictures.

Travel plans

I've now got a good idea of how and when I will be moving on from Bangkok.
My plan is to enter Laos from the north as soon as possible.

I've arranged to get my Laos Tourist visa monday night, and I've booked an overnight train ticket to Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). I also had the option to fly into Chiang Rai (Further north and closer to Laos-Thai border), but it was more expensive and since I knew I would have little chance of taking the train again in my travels (except for small parts of Cambodia); I wanted to experience it.

As it stands now, I'm leaving Bangkok Monday night, arriving in Chiang Mai tuesday at noon (12 hr train ride). I'm then probably going to spend the night in Chiang Mai so that on wednesday I should be able to cross the Thai-Laos border.

Once I've left Thailand, my internet access will be a lot more sporadic, and as such, so will my updates...

Bangkok update

Well I've been in Bangkok for a few days now and have a few things to say about that.
First of all, Bangkok is deffinatly not a pretty city as a whole, it's urban sprawl at it's worst, and most buildings look decripit and uninteresting. The quality of the air is indeed quite poor as the polution level is high.

I've been staying near Khao San Road at a guesthouse called New Siam II. The guesthouse itself is very nice, no problems whatsoever.

Khao San Road however is not what I was wanting to see in coming to Asia. I kid you not that at least 50% of the people you see walking around or eating at restaurants are westerners. It is however well situated to see some nice touristic attractions.

Because of my general dislike for Bangkok, I've done very little visiting and taken very few pictures. Since I will be leaving in a couple days, I will rectify that as I will be visiting the grand palace and a few important temples today.

Oh yeah, beer is really cheap here! 2$ gets you a large 1 litre bottle of Heineken (and that's the most expensive brand!).

Pictures

Forgot to mention here, For those not checking my Flickr site, I uploaded quite a few pictures of Hong Kong a couple days ago. You can view them here:

Flickr site