Wow! Laos is amazing

We arrived to Luang Prabang quite suitably unprepared. Katy did book a bed and breakfast for us for every night between our flights, but otherwise we no plans whatsoever. Friends of ours from Boston had visited Laos on their honeymoon and upon hearing that Luang Prabang had more wilderness and was more untouched than anywhere else they had visited in South East Asia, we were happy to book our flights and see what adventures awaited us.

The Chompet trail came up on my first day of googling, so we had a completely non-licensed driver ferry us across the river. Sure, there was a recommended and professional service we could have used, but we were on an adventure! Upon climbing a few flights of steps built into the riverbank, we found ourselves in Ban Xieng Mane Village which was one of the poorest places I have ever been. Chickens, cats, and dogs without collars ran about freely; ducks, however, were penned up and covered, seemingly more valuable commodities. That being said, there were piles of construction materials, a partially covered sewer on the side of the road, and brick construction houses either newly built or in the process of being completed.

 

We visited three temples along the towns on main street, paying 10,000 KIP (about $1.25) to visit each. All of the temples we visited in Laos had laypeople collecting the entrance fee, and handed us nicely printed paper tickets that no one ever checked. Monks, dressed in orange robes, occasionally nodded to us, but often ignored us, going about the hot afternoon slowly. There were many beautiful flowers and trees adorning the various courtyards, and our arriving just after Laos New Year meant there were still many plumeria, a.k.a. dok champa a.k.a. frangipani (national flower of Laos) strewn about.

The second temple we visited had a nearby cave, and a very young girl of four or five years escorted us from the temple to the caves, lending us flashlights. The cave had more Buddha statues and descended almost one hundred feet. It was by all means a cool cave (and a nice respite from the heat) but without any cultural context or past study of geology, it was very much lacking in meaning for me. The occasional placards we have seen in English have been austere and lacking in significance for me. Occasionally there are dates, but knowing so little about Laos, its history, people, and culture, I feel like I was constantly watching a foreign film without subtitles. Maybe I showed up expecting too much, or maybe Laos, one of the least densely populated countries in the world, is better understood taken at face value. 

Continuing on our hike, past a large construction site, we followed unmarked trails and roads on our phone maps, got lost for a little, and eventually found our intended destination: the art trail. This part of the hike was marked by stone pine cone shaped statues (seen above). We made it to the top of a hill where various statues of Buddha decorated the forested top of the hill. There was even a different path down, similarly marked, that seemed the easier path in both directions. 

Covered in bugs, dehydrated, and wet from sweat, we meandered back along the town road until Katy asked one of the ladies selling tickets for a "boat? Luang Prabang?" After A few shouts from her, a local man took our money then instructed a  shoe-less/shirt-less teenager to ferry us across the Mekong. Our second ferry trip was less novel, but we were happy not to have to walk the extra mile to the official ferry spot.

Day 2 in Luang Prabang we decided to visit the highest rated attraction on TripAdvisor: the Kuang Si Falls. It is the dry season here, but this set of waterfalls flows all year long. Beautiful blue-green pools cascaded into more pools, and even more pools for a half mile stretch. The entryway to the park surrounding the falls is a bear sanctuary where an Australian NGO "Save The Bears" has teamed up with locals to rescue bears that are farmed for their bile. Bear bile is a part of Chinese and other Asian medicine, but has led to the diminishing of the bear population in Laos. The Lao government has just recently banned the hunting or farming of bears for their bile, but have hardly eradicated the practice. Sun Bears and Moon Bears are smaller than American black bears, but seemed to have an engaging living space in this sanctuary.

Continuing into the falls past the bears, we passed the main bathing area for the falls and found a trail up the mountain. It was rather remote, but we eventually passed some women carrying piping, and soon after found a clearing with a construction site. They seemed to be building a concrete swimming pool, a water-slide, and large flat area including a lookout into a valley below - possibly a parking lot. There was a bulldozer, a few men mixing cement, and a lazy foreman who pointed further uphill and said "waterfall." We had been close to giving up, seeing no other tourists, but followed a dammed stream around the mountaintop and suddenly found ourselves at a bamboo bridge. It was nice to see multiple trail signs, even if none of which were pointing the way we had come. 

The hike was nice - we got to experience unexpected Lao nature in solitude for the second day in a row - but we were also happy to find ourselves back in the designated tourist area. We encountered some tourists swimming, others taking pictures, and a local offering a boat ride to the source of the spring. Being nearly on top of the mountain, I was intrigued, plus he was selling (semi) cold beer. We set off in his bamboo raft, sitting with our feet in the water. He poled us along for a few minutes until we reached the mostly dry source, where told us the legend of the falls. They are named after a deer that took refuge in the rock under the falls. The highlight was definitely getting to "drive" back.

From there, we had climbed about 80 flights of stairs according to Katy's Fitbit in less than 3 miles, so we hiked down and Katy had a series of swims through the pools under the falls while I photographed her.

Eventually, it was getting late in the day and we still had about an hour back to the town. We had rented a motorbike for the day, and having never driven a real motorcycle before I was feeling ready to call it a day. Katy quite enjoyed riding on the back of our two wheeler and I enjoyed her hugging me for an hour each way. I've always considered scooters/motorcycles a little reckless, so driving one for the first time in Southeast Asia was definitely intimidating. I will admit eventually my nerves calmed and I had fun. It is by far the best way to get around this part of the world.

Motorbikes are very popular in Shanghai, but mostly as delivery vehicles driven by men. In Japan they were not as popular and we saw a few women driving but not many. Here, however, it seems everyone drives them: men, women, schoolgirls (albeit illegally), and even a monk or two. Gender equality/gender norms seem much more fluid both in Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang than in Shanghai or Tokyo. Maybe this difference can be attributed more to rural/urban living, but it has been interesting to note the differences. 

We picked a newly opened bed and breakfast in Luang Prabang, down towards the end of the peninsula in the main stretch. We stayed less than a fifteen minute walk from dozens of restaurants and two markets (one day and one night.) The town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, which means the colonial, two story French style buildings will never lose their outward charm. We suspected many residences are being replaced with hotels, restaurants, spas, travel agencies, and boutique clothing stores, as more tourists continue to visit. It is a little strange being in a place that focuses most of its resources on people who pay to visit here, but I have to remind myself that I am one of those tourists, even if I prefer to think of myself as an adventurer seeking experiences. Laos doesn't export rice, their staple food crop, and many Laotians still subsist on a diet including forest foraged foods.

The tourism industry seems more immature in Luang Prabang than it did in Thailand, lacking many of the subtleties of service. Our innkeepers could not have been nicer, but often didn't answer questions we asked. Sometimes we know they didn't understand, but often times we suspected they did but preferred not to answer. Perhaps Katy and I are being disrespectful inquiring so much into their way of life, the people did seem more reserved than across the border in Chiang Mai. I also imagine a certain level of disdain for us may be felt on their part, but mostly I expect the Laotians we have met and interacted with have never left this part of the world. I recognize that I am being somewhat of a snob or speaking from a privileged point of view; I had the opportunity to spend a semester of college studying in Europe, and Katy got to study in South America. We often found ourselves conjecturing about what will be different about Luang Prabang if and when we return in 20 years. Another generation will have grown up catering to tourists, much of the construction we see will be long past completed, and we expect prices will have risen drastically. Will that lead to a higher standard of living for the locals? Will roads have improved? Will it be so crowded with tourists that it will lose its quaint charm? Not long ago, most tourists spoke French, now most speak English. Soon will most be speaking Chinese? Laos has tremendous swaths of untouched forest, which are currently being well protected by the government. If this continues as a global trend towards conservation, I suspect Laos might be the place where hippies have to go to hug trees (myself included), or maybe the cost of lumber will climb to a level too high to pass up and Laos will be clear cut and its citizens cashed out. I have so many questions and so few answers on how Laos and Luang Prabang will exist in 2, 20, or 200 years that it makes me want to encourage everyone reading this to visit, and share your experiences with me.

One last note. I couldn't help myself and purchased a bottle of snake whiskey from the night market. The bottle claims to cure rheumatism and contains an entire cobra coiled in the bottle. The taste is a little reptilian, with an unaged whiskey bite in the finish. I'm not sure I'm ailing my achy joints but I am definitely being a tourist and contributing to the matrix of stigmas the Laotians have for tourists.

A Day with the Elephants in Thailand

Planning a trip for Simon and I can sometimes be a challenge. I'm a planner and he is a spur of the momenter, so we usually meet somewhere in the middle. However once we decided we were going to Thailand and Laos, I was determined to see the elephants, and he agreed that was something worth scheduling in advance.

After a bunch of research (did I mention I'm a planner?), I decided that we should have our elephant experience at the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) in Chiang Mai, where they pioneered a "no riding, no hook, no chains" approach to elephant training and tourism. Their tours are more expensive than other options we had but seemed worth it to know the elephants weren't being physically or emotionally mistreated for our enjoyment.

Sunday morning we set an alarm and the ENP host picked us up at our hotel. We picked up 8 other tourists and then drove outside of town an hour. We then switched from a comfortable van to the back of two pickup trucks to go the last ten minutes to the elephants' home. At the switching point, we also had a chore to do. There were many bags if cucumbers that we needed to rinse off and break in half to feed the elephants. Our guide said the elephants can tell which ones have been washed and only eat the unwashed ones once everything else is gone. Chore done and loaded into the trucks, we headed off the main road onto a dirt road and our excitement kept climbing.

Before I knew it, we were there. I've only ever seen elephants at the zoo, or from a jeep in the Serengeti on safari. They have always been physically separate from me and in the safari in particular it was drilled into us that we could never get out of the car. So climbing down from the truck and standing 20 feet from a small herd of four elephants felt like we must be doing something wrong because how could we possibly be having this experience right now. I think everyone was a little stunned that we were going to be able to get this close and lingered near the truck because they didn't know what to do. I was watching the mahouts (elephant trainers) carry the baskets of fruit to the feeding area and when one of them indicated to follow him, he didn't have to think twice.

Feeding them was crazy. Their trunks are powerful and hairy and way longer than I realized. They use their trunks to reach out and take your food, and they suck in on their trunks like a vacuum to get the food to stick. They also curl up their trunks in a spiral to hold the food as it goes from the outstretched trunk into their mouths. They were so fast you could barely get the next cucumber ready before they were reaching for it. Our group was a perfect size - 10 people for 4 elephants. It meant every elephant was getting constant attention but there was very little feeling of "I'm not getting enough time" amongst the humans in the arrangement. 

(Editors note: publishing blogs from southeasr asia without a computer is technologically challengine. If these videos dont work, we posted links directly to youtube at the bottom.)

We also got to observe a little about the elephants' personalities. All were female, as the male elephants generally live by themselves in the wild and don't live well with young elephants that aren't theirs. Two were older (35 and 40) and two were younger (8 and 12.) The 8 year old was definitely protected by the older ones when something scared them, like when a truck from a neighboring farm drove by too fast and close for them. The baby also had a different way of eating that didn't seem to work as well. She collected many pieces of squash in her trunk and trying to shove all of them into her mouth at once (and usually dropping half on the ground) instead of going from trunk to mouth with each piece. The 12 year old acted like a troublemaking teenager, reaching across the fence line to eat tasty banana leaves, climbing over the barrier in the feeding area to get closer, and climbing way up a hill even though the others didn't go there. Each elephant had a mahout, who we came to think of more as a babysitter than a trainer. The mahouts at ENP use their voices to tell the elephants what to do and it works well, although sometimes you can see the elephants actively delaying their response to an instruction, to me showing that they have much more freedom than if they were being poked with a hook or nail to follow. 

After feeding the elephants, we walked with them through a scrubby field towards the lunch spot. Elephants eat 16-17 hours a day so they were constantly eating. They are also keystone species ecologically because they use their bodies, trunks, and voracious appetites to knock down trees and make way for grasses. I was hoping to see them knock down a big tree but had to settle for smaller branches. When we got to the lunch spot, we parted ways with the elephants for a little bit and enjoyed an all-vegetarian (but lots of fish sauce) meal. We also had a short nap waiting for the activities to begin.  Before we could go see the elephants again, we had to prepare their vitamins for later which were balls of banana and squash plus paddy rice (detoxing) and iodized salt (key for the hot weather.) Simon helped dehusk the paddy rice using an ancient grinding technique.

Then it was time for the elephants to have a mud bath. We got changed into clothes we could get dirty in then wandered over to a mud pit. Again there was a sense of shyness in our group about what exactly we were supposed to do, but our guide told us we could walk into the mud pit.  There was a big sense of anticipation waiting to see the elephants come towards us and when they finally did I had the same feelings I had had that morning of wonder, joy, and excitement. The elephants didn't jump right into the mud like i thought they might. They kind of hung out on the edges and tentatively slid into the mid, one at a time. We had buckets with us and were encouraged to help them bathe by throwing mud at them.  Honestly this part felt a little too strange to me because after all the talk of elephants being their own beings, it seemed to me maybe they didn't love us "helping" them bathe. But it was cool to see how they interacted with each other and with the mud during this time, and they did definitely get in the mud and get extra dirty before the river bath part. 

The last part of our time was spent in the river downstream from the mud bath, where we helped them clean off from the mud. This part they seemed to LOVE! They would lay down in the river (about 2 feet deep) and stick their whole heads underwater, with their trunks coming up like a snorkel to breathe. I had recently read an article about how wooly mammoths (elephant cousins) crossed between islands using their trunks as snorkels, so it was amazing to see that that might be true. Here it was easier and felt ,ore natural to throw water on them to help them bathe, and especially after the Songkran water fights everyone was pretty good at it. At some point during the bath, i started getting splashed myself and i realized it was the elephants squirting water at me with their trunks! The mahouts were helping them aim and then feeding them sunflower seeds after each squirt, and it was hard to see them coming! It felt just like Songkran all over again, except this time across species.

Once the mud bath was over, we walked to another feeding area and fed them one more time. We also fed them the supplements we had mixed for them earlier. As a group, we tried to make sure each elephant got some, but one of the older elephants didn't seem to want it and the youngest one was so insistent with her trunk that she got ,ore than her fair share. It almost seemed like the older one wanted then younger one to get more, but maybe I'm anthropomorphizing too much there.  Tis last part was also a chance to see how gentle and in control the elephants were of their big bodies. At one point, the teenager wanted to come into the feeding area across a gap in the fence. The trainer lay down across the gap, preventing the elephant from coming. But then the elephant got up really close and gingerly stepped over the trainer, one foot at a time, and came right on in to where the food was.

It was so hard to say goodbye to the elephants when it was finally time to go. It was amazing seeing them in a more natural state, although these elephants are relatively domesticated and have never lived completely wild by themselves like those I saw on the Serengeti. The tradeoff seemed worth it to me though because i actually got to interact with these elephants and see their personalities up close, rather than watching a herd from afar. 

Elephant tourism in Thailand has morphed dramatically from elephant shows (playing soccer, painting) to elephant trekking to now "elephant care", where tourists interact with elephants without them having to perform specific unnatural tricks over and over again. The Elephant Nature Park founded this type of tourism, and has since spread it to many other camps throughout Thailand and Myanmar. It was cool to see how that transition to a kinder tourism has happened and I was really glad to get to spend a day feeding, walking with, and bathing elephants on their own terms. Its an experience I never knew was possible, and an experience I will never forget.

Links in case videos didn't work.
https://youtu.be/-lHX6naTyCM

https://youtu.be/a4ZmNsC0k4c

https://youtu.be/AzP4adTXLOE

Happy New Year! Celebrating Songkran in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We landed in Thailand on the third day of a three day celebration of the Thai new year Songkran. Chiang Mai celebrates with a water fight citywide for three straight days. Katy and I were just planning on strolling around visiting Buddhist temples and other city landmarks, which we did do. But the highlights were mostly walking in between the landmarks. The streets were filled with people, everyone was on holiday and most stores were closed. Walking the streets, we got squirted with water guns, had buckets of water tossed at us, and Katy wahs even chased by a person carrying a plastic bottle of drinking water.  Katy screeched a bunch but I just took it and enjoyed it, occasionally bowing in gratitude at the water sharers.

It is hot here - in the 90s - but the real enjoyment of the water splashing is everyone's collective enjoyment of the holiday and not the obvious cooling effect. It's amazing what a difference it is from China or Japan: smiles all around and no judgment at all on faces. This place is beautiful and while we only have another day here, I could not be more thankful that we were wandering the streets during Songkran.

Tomorrow the festivities will be over and we will be off to Laos, but today we spent 11 hours with elephants on nature preserve surrounded by farmland. Not a bad way to spend a day either (more on that later...). Songkran is a fullblown citywide celebration and for us was a full-blown cultural experience.

We bought a mango smoothie in the middle of the afternoon just to post up at an outdoor bar and watch the water fighting. Some people had backpacks of water attached to guns, others had huge supersoakers, and others were simply using plastic pails refilled from streetside drums of water. The firefighters were out resupplying pick up truck beds laden with mobile celebrators. Even the police officers were gettting drenched. Thais and foreigners alike donned plastic pouches around their necks to keep their cell phones dry. Epic.

We did see about a dozen temples in under 4 hours, got soaked, laughed, and even shopped a little. We are staying in the Old Town, where most of the activity is likely happening, but what an awesome surprise its been. I did zero research but it has only made the experience that much better.

There was a sweet cover band playing American rock and pop where we watched from the smoothie bar. I recoreded a few songs, but we also had a traditional Thai dance held right in front of us. There was some traditional music being played, but it was drowned out by the band and shouts of ecstatic joy coming from soakers and soakees alike.

Then we got sandwiches at a spot that could have been back in Portland. I had a chicken club and Katy had an egg and cheese sandwich on a croissant. It was a fancy place for Chiang Mai, but ten dollars for two of us to eat and drink large beers. I could totally see why and how expats get lost in Thailand, it seems like a total adult playground and the Thai people have an amazing warmth to them. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that it's their spring/new years celebration, but so far it's been great. Id come back next month for a few days, by myself, with Katy, or even in a large group. The street food we ate on our first night was delicious and ridiculously cheap. We like Thai food back home but everything we have eaten here has been even better. Our hotel is fairly expensive at $70/night but we cohld definitely have found perfectly fine accomodations for half the price if we weren't pressed for time and staying in the old town.

I almost don't want to leave but am very much looking forward to visiting Luang Prabang in Laos for the next week.

A Marathon of Cherry Blossom

Tokyo has always been atop my list of places in Asia that intrigued me. Maybe its the fashion, or the food, or just the fact that it constantly gets mentioned in the same breath as London, Paris and New York. I might be proud to be an up and coming Oregonian, but I will always be a New Yorker at heart. We originally planned on visiting Tokyo last weekend, but lucky for us we just got back a few days ago and got to experience the height of the Cherry Blossom bloom.

We found (relatively) cheap flights that left late Friday night from Shanghai. We had been warned that taxis in Tokyo were expensive but upon landing the taxi cost us about $100 US to go about 6 miles to our hotel. We got to the hotel around two in the morning but I was starving. I stepped outside and suddenly felt a little bit at home, because I pulled out my iPhone and used Google Maps. Google Maps doesn't work in China, and even with a VPN there isn't the same quality of data as there is in the United States or Japan. I had bought a data-only SimCard  that was only 3G but worked significantly better than anything I have used in China - plus Google! I felt like I had suddenly stepped from the 20th to 21st century. Anyway I walked less than a mile to an Irish-style bar, conversed with the owner via broken English and my Baidu-translator app, had a few beers and got given a free taste of Japanese whiskey, which is always delicious if you haven't tried it.

Saturday morning we set off from our tiny hotel room to start checking out a string of parks that were adjacent to a central neighborhood. First we picked up burritos - making me feel even more at home - and started out walking tour of Cherry Blossoms Central. We started at Edo Castle, walked through the Eastern Gardens, around the huge walls and moat of Akasaka-Mitsuke Gate, Around the fortified walls of the Asasuka Palace (which unfortunately was closed to the public this weekend), through the Meiji Jingu Gaien located in a large public park, through the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden which was exceptionally gorgeous, crowded and totally worth that $2 entrance fee; and finally through Yoyogi Park, ending around sunset walking through the quiet peaceful forest that surrounds the tomb of Emperor Meiji. It had only been 5 hours and over ten miles, but we were tired and famished.

Somehow - and I do mean somehow-  we kept walking and started our eating and drinking phase of Tokyo exploration. Before I continue, I must thank Amanda Lurie tremendously for her awesome recommendations of dining out in Tokyo. We ended up taking a half dozen of her recommendation and every single one was a little treasure I doubt we would have stumbled upon ourselves. I guess we could have Yelped our way through Tokyo, but it was great to have personalized recommendations.

We ended up walking a bit more, through Shibuya, then through what appeared to be the busiest intersection in the world (I remembered it from Lost in Translation), found a quiet but hip vegan restaurant for Katy, ate some falafel paired with more traditional Japanese cusine. We then proceeded to hike some more, stopped for a quick cocktail at a not so large bar with about 12 stools and some standing room, then made it to another restaurant where we were unfortunately told we could not sit inside because we had not made a reservation. As we were dejectedly putting our shoes back on to leave, the friendly waiter told us we could sit at one of the window seats if we liked. Of course! That looked something like this, with me sitting on beer crates on the street, and Katy sitting at the window ledge that doubled as extra table space. The meal was the best I have had on this adventure so far, including beef neck, bacon wrapped noodles, lots of cabbage and perhaps the most delicious pork belly I have ever tasted - and I have tasted my fair share of pork belly.

The next morning we were a little tired from our sixteen miles of walking but ready for more adventures. Unfortunately it was raining, so we decided to skew our adventure to eating and drinking our way through the city. Starting at the Tsukiji fish market, we grabbed snacks and suds to start our day after stumbling into a gorgeous Buddhist temple. While it was pouring rain, the fish market was still crowded with local and tourists alike, but didn't smell like fish. The entire time in Tokyo I was impressed with the city's cleanliness, but a fish market not smelling fishy was all the evidence I needed. Cherry blossom icons kept popping up on our Google Maps, so despite the rain, we kept exploring.

We pushed on through the rain to Ueno park for more cherry blossoms, a beautiful pond and traditional Japanese style gardens. Then sufficiently wet, we headed over to Ebisu neighborhood and another recommendation from Amanda for a noodle spot. This international micro-chain was exceptional, and even though we didn't order any noodles, we dried off, used their super-fancy toilet, had a beer, dumplings and did some research. It turns out that Ebisu the neighborhood is named for the Yebisu Brewery that was started in the 19th century. The Ebisu train station was originally used just for freight (mostly to transport beer) and the Yebisu Brewery Museum was only ten minutes away. Interesting history and artifacts in the museum, Yebisu was part of the first Japanese brewing conglomerate (with Sapporo). The beer and food was German in style, but as a brewery connoisseur, I can say that the atmosphere was truly unique for any brewery I have ever been in.

No longer thirsty, but hungry again, we set off to see what micro-bars in Tokyo might be like. We landed at Albatross, a tiny bar which was featured in an Anthony Bourdian episode. With a maximum capacity of 12, the bar sported 6 stools and 2 tiny tables with bench seating against the wall. I sat under the stairs and was one of the few in the bar who had the luxury of separating my knees. There was a cover charge - an act of patronage I will never be crazy about - but we had a pretty good authentic Japanese bar experience. A little tipsy we wandered a bit more before heading to the airport.

We had walked over 26 miles in under 36 hours, donning backpacks for most of our travel. It was a marathon and a sprint, and by the time we got to the International Terminal we could not be happier to overpay for a few pizzas and glasses of wine in an Italian place (did I mention Tokyo is expensive?). There are no great take-aways, but my small take-aways were: 1. were Japan is cool, 2. Tokyo is huge, 3. Japanese fashion is crazy and awesome, 4. everywhere we went in Tokyo was expensive and also tiny, 5. it's the cleanest and most polite city I have ever been to, 6. I hope I get to go back again sometime soon.