Where we are going there are no roads!

The first photo is form the boat as we pulled into Muong Ngoi...

This town has one road and no cars!  I don't even think I saw a motorbike...so the air was super!  We stayed at a guest house in the center of town mainly because of a talkative lady who ran the place and it had comfy hammocks!  One of the first things to do was to construct a new Channukiah, (blogger is telling me I am not spelling Channukiah right but it is offering no better suggestions.... a wise man once said to me, only bring up a problem when you have a solution, so f*ck off blogger and lets build Chanookyahs!) 

 

This is possibly the first even Chanoukiha built by a Lao man.  He is hammering bottlecaps into a piece of wood for us! We lit the candles in a restaurant and attracted some curiosity from the locals....

 

From the town you can hike half an hour to a cave...there is a man charging 10000kip, around 7 dollars to go to the cave and to the villages up the road.  The cave was neat and the village was alrtight...The scenery was great!  Here is a harvested rice field...with a low cloud cover... It was cloudy every day until noon when in 3 minutes the sun would come out and kick your ass for the next 5 hours...

 

Another field deepr in...  It was expensive ot hire a guide to go up a mountain and I figured I could just do it on my own...I was very wrong...  There are the beginnings of many trails, and afer a few minutes i was crouching so low I could smell my feet.  Then the trails would end, and with a few more thorns in my skin then when I started I would head down and try another... After a few of these I decided to walk in the fields and that a guide would be necessary to get to the top of one of these mountains...

 

I don't think it was Santa Clause, but someone was dropping presents over this part of Laos...  Here are a few relics, they are all over, turned into planters, benches and anything else you can think of...  The USA has left many of these gifts all over the country... I think they were trying to boost the economy as the metal can be sold...The only catch is that bombs are prone to exploding.

 

Here is the view form a restaurant at sunset... This is why I have been wanting to climb one of these mountains!

 

The next day I had my chance... We were a group of four and our guide...  It was Isreal time for the day and my companions were very kind to keep the conversing to English...  It is incredible that most people I meet speak as good English if not better than I do French.  I grew up with French around me and they only learn English in school...  Shouldn't all Montrealers be completely fluent?  French is forced on us so hard and every action has an opposite reaction, I think most of us push it away.  This type of learning doesnt allow for any enjoyment.  There is little or no push to explain how incredible it is to know another language...To be able to communicate with more people..and French leads to Spanish and Italian and romance!

Back to the trek

We went the cheap route on a guide and looked and through our hostel got one that spoke no English  (or Hebrew)... But he had a machete and the shoes every other guide weras...They look like dress shoes but they are on peice of rubber...

We started by being canoed across the river and then hiking in a field...We followed a stream for a while and then headed up.... For short bursts we were on something resembling a trail then climbing a dry streambed...and clombing is the right term, over rocks and boulders and trees...  The whole time I had my head bent low as while our guide was constantly using his machete he is much shorter than all of us...  That is my greatest complaint of Thai and Lao guides...  Part way up our guide stopped for a swig of Lao Lao... Home made rice whiskey... we had water...  The climb was tough and fun...at one poitn our guide told us to wait and he took off to find out whre to go...a few minutes later he was back and up we went.  As we were nearing the top he left us again and we were just tlaking for what seemd like a while when we wondered if he was cming back at all...  We were somewhere up in the jungly mountains, with no discernable trail near us...  After what felt like 15 minutes but was probably closer to 10 we heard him...  And he led us through throns and over rocks to a great lookout!

 

Here is the town we were staying in and the valley with the rice fields form the other pics...

 

Somehow our guide stumbled onto the trail on the way down and we got to the bottom skidding and skiing and sliding and grabbing...It was fun...  Once down we had to walk in a river to get out... we didnt know this was coming and it was fun and scary being barefoot in a stream where the bottom is not always visible...  When we got back to the boat to cross the river there was no boat!  Yonathan (husband to Efrat seen above) and I had been tlaking about swimming back and this was the last bit of motivation we needed ... Our guide found a boat to use and we used our arms... It was refreshing after a full days exercise....

Laos 2,Luang Namtha and Nong Kiaw

Laung Namtha is a good stopover on the way to Nong Kiaw, a great town on a river.... Here is anold temple seen during a day bike ride... There are someiterestig details in the fading paint, and many gruesome scenes of torture like in Nan...

There were many school kids heading home

This bridge was too scary for me to bike across but she had no problem ona motorcycle... A small window into how we can adapt to any situation...

From Luang Namtha I was on a local bus to Nong Kiaw and we stopped onthe side of the road for a pee and some food.  It is interesting to see what was for lunch!  When I went to take the picture this guy moved! He was still alive.... and so plump and yummy!

The bus station was on one side of this bridge and the guesthouses on the other... Right away I felt great being here!

Here is the view from the bridge...

Walking in the town the childrenwere all camera happy!

Here is a school just out for lunch

Looking at the river all I wanted to do was to canoe!  And so it came to pass...  Another guy had the same idea and we hired 3 boats between the 7 of us and tried outluck on the river...  A canoe made out of strips of 2 by 8s and other radom and not so random peices of wood does not handle like the boats I am used to...  Also going upstream on an unfamiliar river is not easy.  but it is lots of fun!  I started in the back and unbeknownst to me my friend in the front was getting quite upset with our constant spinning around and inability to go in a straight line!  I felt like I was doing a pretty good job.  Of course once we switched places it became obvious that even the inventor of the canoe, sir John A.Paddle McUpriver would have been hardpressed to go in a straight line.

After several 200 meter jauntsof walking theboat upthe faster partso the current, and several quite lovely paddles on slower water we stopped at anideal beach for lunch and rest.

That night was the second nigth of Channukahand we made a Channukiah and some Latkes (thanks to Yonatan) and had a little celebration

 There is a town up river called Muang Ngoi, it is only accessible by boat and the ideal spot to continue to...  The town Iwas leavig had no phone ATM or internet (although there were signs for wireless buti never saw it in use) and theplace we headed to didnt even have motorize vehicles!  Here is the boat!

And the view!

Arriving in Laos

Crossing into Houei Xai Laos...

From the boat you walk up a ramp and wait in a jumble of people to get a visa...After a while a man came up to me, he had been handing out forms and asked me for my passport...I handed it to him and he disappeared...  15 minutes ater people further up the ine near a window started calling out for a Canadian...I waked up and my passport had a visa in it...I just had to pay... Take a look at the pricing for Visas...then look at Canada!

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What have we done to have to pay more than any other country in the world to visit Laos?

Once across and at the bus staion itwas time for sticky rice to enjy as we headed on the crazy bumpy road to  Vieng Poukah...

They are all for breastfeeding in Vieng Poukah!  Good show!

We were ony there for a night and went on a hike with 2 guys form Switzerland and a guy from France...so the french was flowing on this trip...

Here is lunch on the first day of the hike... Our lead guide and one of the Swiss guys... There is dried fried fish, rice, veggies, a pork dish, and fried bananas in dough for dessert!

This is our home for the night, a cabin in a village.we kept the roosters out at night but there cockadoodledoing came in anyways...

Here is out other guide getting dinner ready...It is neat to see how much work goes into making a chicken when it does not come wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic.

Here is what came of the chicken...They added a bowl of greens after...

Outside we had some pigheaded guards...

They were cute and ate anything...

Here is I think the headman in the village enjoying smoking a cigarette out of a bamboo bong.

On the second day we came to another village, here is a spirit sign on the entrance, If these are new you are not supposed to enter the village as they are doing a ceremony...

Pai Again

From the cave lodge we headed back to Pai for the rice festival at an organic farm. I stayed next door to my original cabana space, but went back there to grab my hat that I had forgot.

We were at the festival for the final day and rented motorbikes to ride the 5 kms out of town to get there. That night representatives of local hilltribes perfomed music and dance and there was food and fun. They lit giant torches and we saw a grand full moon.

The next day we headed back to Chiang Mai to catch a bus towards the border. In Chiang Mai we found a veggie buffet and ate until it hurt and then had some more...there was a yummy bamboo dish and some other great stuff...
We stayed at a hostel run by a frnech coupe and all the signs said veggie restaurant too...that is what attracted me.... It turned out the restaurant had converted to the dark side and they hadnt changed the signs...
For breakfast we went to where I had done the cooking class....and then went to the bus station for the several hour trip to the border town, Chiang Kong.
We arrived around dark and left in the morning.... the highlight is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was playing and as we all felt like him after being in the caves and jungles and I had been singing the music almost every day it was great to hear it played out loud...

In the morning the lady at the hostel loaded us into the back of her pickup and drove us to the border. I was on my last day of my Thai visa and got out just in time. We took a boat across the Mekong and ined up to get into Laos...

Cave Lodge

After running into a Quebec friend at just the right time we left Pai towards Soppong, or Pang Mappa if you prefer. We were riding on the local bus doors open and peope possessions rolling out down the mountain... I enjoyed the view, oreos and some Tom Robbins.
From the bus stop it is an 8km trip to Ban Tam, the village where the lodge is. We went by motorbike/taxi, but this time I was prepared. I put some of my heavier objects in my day pack and handed it to the driver to store between his legs.... Then big pack on my back I hopped on and off we went.

The cave lodge is a beautfu pace to stay, it has a large covered deck on a steep slope with bungalows on the slope leading down to a river. There is also a dorm and my friend and I opted for this. We were there for roughlyt a week and had the area to ourselves the whole time. Basically it was a private room for half the price.

That very night was an interesting one. A group of Japanese tourists were due to arrive. It turned out that they were form a hilltribe in Japan coming for a cultural exchange with the local hiltribe. After arriving they put on their traditional dress and prepared for the ceremonies to come. From what I gathered from the animals on their headdresses and my limited knowledge of local hilltribes they both could have been practicing some form of Animism and this may be what catalysed the exchange.

In good stereotype the Japanese (keep in mind they are from a somewhat remote hilltribe) took constant photos, wanting pics of us as well, and pics with us and pics without us, it was lots of fun.

Once eveyone was together there was a parade to the center of town and then some music and dancing. 2 localmen put on a costume similar to a chinese new year dragon ony the head was a skull similat to an antlered deer. (real skull) The frontman was the head and the man in back was bent over the whole time mabe holding the waist of the front man. They put on a fantastic show and in the fading ight could easiy have been mistook for a real creature. The movements weere perfectly co-ordinated and they danced in a very jerky but smooth way. Hows that for a descirption? Every noe and then a local would put some money into the circle wherew the dance was going on and they would pause, dance up to the money and then the head would look around and then scoop it up. Everyone seemd to enjoy.
The japanese demonstration was a little quieter with some songs we were abe to repeat and then we retreated to the lodge for supper.

While the dorm was cheap, eating was not but the food was great. (especiay the garic bread which had huge shuncks of garic and was so strong I did not once get attacked by a vampire the entire time)
http://cavelodge.com/ for info
The lodge is the only place I have been that gives you a map of the area so you can go hiking on your own. We did this, along with a gemran coupe and walked a ridgeline which had beautiful views and found a couple small caves that were fun to explore. We were huinting for a cave on the map that we couldnt find. While the map was not drawn to scale it did suffice and on it was the statement" You can't get ost" which proved to be true.
Another day we took a trip with a guide to 3 caves. This was a super day. The caves were all what they called adventure caves and included some climbing, crawling and scrambling.
The most exciting was the cave that has a 30 meter waterfall inside... We got to the mouth which had a very small river running into it and went in. After a few meters we put down our bags and turned on our headlights. We had to duck down to get under a part, but that part never really lifted again. We were on our hands and knees crawling in a foot of water with our backs scraping on the ceiling.

It was very difficut but just doable to keep the camera pocket out of the water (mostly). This cave was not for the claustrophobic, nor the hydrophobic. Nor the arachnaphobic as there were some waterspiders jumping around in there too fighting the current.
It turned out tha we came to the top of the waterfall and got to lookdown at it.It is supposedy 30 meters but it is hard to see that from the top...but it was quite an adventure... One of the other caves contained great stalagtites and mites, while the other had some seashell type fossils...

Our guide was Mr. Wat and he was super. Lots of the time were were hiking through grass taller than us and thicker than any afro and he would part it with his bamboo staff, a thai moses dividing the green see. We came across rice and been farms, ans saw how beens are first taken out of the pods....beating them witha stick over and over...and then sorted more finely by women shaking them in large bamboo baskets with very low sides, kind of like a giant frying pan...they had some perfect technique that ejected the fluff but kept the beans.

We also came across peanuts growing and ate them right out of the ground. They are very different when not dry!

Another day I took a day long kayak trip down the river which was fun and we got to explore a few more caves. Part of the trip was 2 minutes kayaking through a giant cave called Nam Lod. We returned to the mouth of this cave atngiht to witness the swifts returning to nest. There were hundreds if not thousands passing every second....It was fantastic to watch.... They fy quite beautifully... As an avid nature video fan I knew what to look for...the predator birds that hang around the mouthes of such caves. I saw a couple flying high, and a few minutes later I saw what I was waiting for...
At first I didnt realize it fr what it was, I saw a swift spiraling down, ike one of the helicopter seeds falling fomr a tree in Quebec. Then the predator swept down and snatched it in its claws and took off. It mus have grabbed it and snapped its neck or wing, dropped it and then grabbed it again.
Each night there was a fire at the lodge.... the lodge is pretty much outdoors, not what the name suggests and it was slightly cool but in a pleasnat way inthe evenings.
Julie (my hiking partner) had heard of a rice festival in Pai so we headed there on our way to the Lao border.....
I will add more pics when I have some time...

Pai

Pai is pronounced like paille, French for straw, and I cant think of a good pun or joke to go along with that so if you do feel free to add it in the comments. I changed a setting so you don't need gmail to leave a comment, anyone can, so please do! Yes I mean you... I can see you sitting in front of a screen with a keyboard at arms length....don't be shy!

This is as good a time as any to say Happy Channukah to anyone who enjoys lighting up a bunch of candles in a row.... I am actually time traveling to a moment before Channukah to catch up, but today is the 8th day or so.

Back to Pai.

Pai is a town on the river filled with hostels, restaurants and bungalows. It is also famous with Thai tourists since a movie was filmed there a few years ago. Getting there can be a trap as many tourist offices around Thailand offer buses there at 3 times the price of the normal bus and each day you meet people who learned a little lesson. I settled into a quiet bungalow across a the river and had my very own half comfortable hammock at the place known as Chai Niz. There are some great waterfalls around Pai and the best one I went to was a great adventure.

To reach it you need to head out of town early (the first time we had to turn back and the second time I went alone) as it is a 3 hour hike each way.

The last place on the road/trail before you get into the river is a coffee shop'/farm/soon to be commune. It is land owned by a Thai guy with neat dreadlocks and a super grin. His answer to just about everything is why not. But not just why not. If you say it out loud (please do, why not?) you sound nothing like him. 'Why not' comes out of his mouth like a question mark discovering itself. It is the beginning and end to a deep philosophy. It is a jovial slap in your face that wakes you up and makes you ask if you really meant what you just said and if you are honest with yourself when you speak. It makes you feel like the world is at your fingertips. As you are no doubt at a computer right now the world is at your fingertips, but it is a shadow of the world. Why not throw it out the door and follow it for a walk....(once you finish reading of course)

After being counseled on the first day at noon not to head out for the waterfall for fear of getting lost in the dark I came back the following morning ready to go.

The trail criss crosses a river constantly and is a fun challenge. Sometimes it is on the right, sometimes on the left and sometimes you are just walking up the river. After 2 hours there is a challenging part where you have to do some rock climbing and from then on you are struggling up the center balancing on rocks and tricky stuff for a while. The end is a trail again and then you get to a nice fall with a shallow pool for swimming.

I climbed up passed the waterfall where I found some huts probably used by cattle herders to rest in. When I came down there were a few other adventurers and we headed back together. On the way back the trail headed up away from the river and back down again after just enough time to make us doubt it would. It turns out there was a path going up and over the tricky part of the hike that we all missed on the way in. Its always fun to have and adventure and even better to avoid it on the way back when you are tired and ready for an easier hike...

In Pai there is a restaurant called the curry shack that serves up yummy grub and can give you a coconut curry in a coconut...

Next step is the cave lodge...

Chiang Mai

One thing I wanted to do in Chiang Mai, one of the main things to do is to take a cooking class. I went to May Kaidee's, a veggie restaurant to get some info. As I was devouring a great meal someone kept piing dishes on the table behind me until it was full. Two girls were doing the class and this was all their creations. They came down to eat just as I finished and it turned out they both had upset stomachs from the day before and could barely eat. In the interest of not wasting food I was invited to join them and I feasted as they nibbled. So I had two Australian friends to hang out with and then we met up to explore some markets and believe it or not have dinner. There was a musical quartet playing at the restaurant, each instrument was new to me and it was quite pleasant.
The following day I had my own cooking class, and another feast.


We were a group of 4 and made 10 dishes each. We didn't learn to make the curry pastes which I think is the most important part as most of the rest of it is just frying food and adding coconut milk... We made some tasty treats which should be repeatable in Canada and got so full we looked like Buddhas. The Chinese kind that is as Thai and Lao Buddhas don't have the big belly. They are stretch Buddhas... If the Chinese Buddha is shaped roughly like John Goodman, the Thai and Lao ones are more like Golden Gumbys.

I also wet for a haircut....
I hadto repeatmany times I wanted my head completely shaved, and my face too... she shaved me with an electric, then a small electric, then an even smaller one like lint remover, and then finally an ordinary bic blade...

If you have ever crawled into a very small enclosed space with no ventilation and fired up an old Diesel generator while smoking a dozen cheap cigars and burning some rubber for good measure then you may have a good idea what it is ike to go for a stroll in Chiang Mai. You would just need to add a bunch of Watts to your sealed box and surround it with a moat.

If there was ever a car/motorbike free day in Chiang Mai it would be a great city to visit, but until that happens gas masks should be common issue. To escape the fumes I hopped a bus to Pai...

Nan to Chiang Mai

Nan Province has its capital Nan city. From Pua (the town near the national park) I headed there. The bus is a pickup truck with benches and just smooth enough to read on.
In Nan I stayed a simple hostel with a large room and comfy bed. The town was alright, some interesting temples,

one with a room of mannequins containing scenes from hell. They were burning, being torchered, having liquid poured down their throats and one monk flying like an angel on top. It was right next to a Wat with a 4 giant Buddhas, once facing each direction. This is all in the same compound.



One day I rented a bike and roamed the countryside, stopped for a curry and returned, all this while my laundry was laundered... it was about time after a week of hiking... Here is a river I went along


The highlight of Nan was a Buddhist restaurant. It is open to serve Buddhists and is a local vegan restaurant. I had heard of these but they are mainly for locals and don't advertise. You get a large bowl of brown rice and then there is a buffet to add as much as you want on top. There were veggie dishes and some imitation meats. It was the cheapest meal I had had, 50 cents, and it was one of the tastiest.

From Nan I headed to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in the country. Bangkok and area has around 11 million people and Chiang Mai 200 000. Still a large city and it was great. I arrived on Sunday evening in time for a night market. It was very different than Bangkok as no one actively sought you out to buy things. The attitude was warm and friendly, and there were musicians in the street. To be continued....

Hiking in and around Doi Phukha National Park

One day I rented a scooter and headed to the hills. It was hard to remember to stay on the left side of the road, but gradually I stayed out of scary situations.

The mountains reflected the shining sun and every now and again I would stop to look out at the view. My destination was another national park and a waterfall. I found a great lookout,

a path by a river

and I scooted around the park to the waterfall where I had a dip and met a couple Thai guys.

 After a few days in the park I started to know the staff. I met one assistant director Mam, and she spoke English and helped me change my menu. I had the same thing breakfast and supper for a few days as I don't have the vocabulary to ask for anything else.

Mam had invited me along to go with a group of staff to a waterfall the next morning. When I showed up another friend (the other assistant director) implied that everyone was ready and waiting for me... I said I had to eat and gobbled down my food. After I finished, he sat down to start eating and said we still have some time. Language barriers are a fun thing!

The next thing i learned is the outing was changed and I was going on a park patrol. I got into the back of a pick up with 10 guys in camouflage and carrying semi automatic weapons. I was joining them on a trek to see who if anyone was cutting the forest in a park. We stopped half way to pick up another truck with soldiers and headed into the mountains. After a long ride on a trail I would have had trouble walking on, bordered by cliffs and beautiful scenery, the truck came to a stop and we continued on foot. A line of Thai officers and yours truly.

We came to a couple areas that were burned, one already had a rice field in it and the other was very fresh.

The people doing the burning are a hill tribe called the Hmong. The problem is that they have no other place to grow food and live off an average weekly Canadian salary for an entire year. You can't fine them, if you put them in jail their family can starve and it is their land in a sense. It is an interesting conundrum as maybe some endemic plant species will go extinct, but the people need to eat. The park passes the info to the police and I wasn't able to understand what happens next.  The guys also gave me many forest foods to try, here are some nuts I had to crack open, some had bugs inside and others were yummy..

It was a fun day with lots of sticky rice!

The next trip was supposed to be a hike for a couple hours. This time it was many of the staff of the park and a couple guides who also work there. The trail went up to the highest peak in the area and it was unused since the year before. The frontman was constantly swinging his machete to clear the trail, and stopped a couple times to blow into a bamboo flute and summon flocks of birds. They were small quick birds and about 40 would show up, and they danced around the canopy.  There were aso cool insects...

Then it turned out we were hiking all the way back to the park along a ridge, which happened to be an ancient trail used for hundreds of years (but still full of vines and prickly things)

We came across a giant stick insect, about 35cm long,

a couple patches of flowers on the ground that looked like sunny side up eggs,

and many many many leaches. They stick up in the air as if imitating a rocket ready for takeoff, except they blast off up your boot and seal up to your skin tighter than a space station airlock. You have to pull pretty hard to get them off.

The views were amazing, only we didn't see them as we were in a cloud all day. After five days and nights of clear skies we had 2 days of fog. It was a mystical hike.

Here is Mam and OK (I hope that I have the name right) enjoying dinner, Mem is incharge of the park staff and OK is in charge of the park patrols....  They helped me have this super experience...

One of the best parts at the park was the sunrises and sunsets. it was easy to see both in a quiet atmosphere....
As I was getting ready to leave I saw this insect on a urinal...I later saw a giant one in Chiang kong...you can barely tell its an insect the way the wings fold!