Ho–Hee-Ho–Chee Minh and Foo Kwok!

See photo album here.

After recovering from my malaise in Phnom Penh, I hopped on a bus to the city that never shuts up - Ho Chi Minh City! We crossed the Vietnamese border without any major issues other than being treated a little like cattle; the best one can hope for at a border crossing in Asia I suppose. I didn’t have to worry about overcharging this time as I purchased my visa in Bangkok and they had their way with me at the Embassy instead.

While I was waiting in the line up, a Vietnamese family walked past me and rolled over my bare foot with their suitcase and no apologies. This was my first taste of the negative side of Vietnam, but more on that coming up in later blogs.

I sat beside an English army vet who I thought was around 45 but learned was actually my age. When he finally awoke from his apparent drunken siesta, he told me all about how he had been shot and wounded more than once during various duties. When he got the call to go to Iraq, he stayed awake for 3 days so he could claim he had gone crazy and wouldn’t have to serve. He now lives in Cambodia on money he receives as a veteran and drinks most of it away. We made the obligatory pit stop at a roadside restaurant and he drank 2 beers in less than 20 minutes and then purchased 2 more for the rest of the bus ride to the border. Of course the nurturing mother in me wanted to plead with him to get help (yes she IS in there somewhere) but I felt it was not my place to preach and I can’t imagine what this poor bloke has been through and is trying so hard to forget.

I met 2 girls from England – Odette and Jen – and 2 girls from Quebec – Anna and Nicole, when we arrived in HCMC. We decided to all pile into a cab to head to the ‘backpacker’s district’. The driver drove us around for about 10 minutes and when we got to our ‘destination’, he pointed to the metre - 500,000 dong, equalling $31.25 US! This is Vietnam for god sake! So we fought with him for awhile but since the meter said what it said, we eventually all paid our $6 reluctantly. A couple of days later, Odette and Jen walked around the corner from our guesthouse and saw the spot where the bus had dropped us off and the cabbie had picked us up. Yep! We were a block away from our destination and had taken a $30 cab ride to get there!

I had planned to go with the girls to Mui Ne but wanted to see the War Museum first so had stayed another day. I met a girl from Israel in my dorm room, Elisheva, who had just spent the last 10 months traveling through China and Mongolia! She was planning to go to Phu Quoc Island for some beach time, which had been part of my original loose itinerary, so I decided to tag along.

I said a temporary goodbye to my 19 year old Vietnamese/Australian ‘little brother’ who speaks barely a word of English. I met him at a place called Cafe Sozo just down the street from my guesthouse. Cafe Sozo helps underprivileged families in Vietnam find employment (http://sozocentre.com). In Hong’s case, his dad (Australian) has nothing to do with him and same goes for his mom (Vietnamese). He works 12 hours a day, every day as a waiter there for 4000 dong/hour – that is about .25 cents US. He has to support himself and wants to go places but has to work so much harder than any of us just to make ends meet. We bonded and it was nice for me to have a regular place to go edit photos, where people knew my name and I could hang with some locals!

Elisheva and I took 7 (yes, SEVEN) modes of transportation to get to Phu Quoc Island. First was a cab ride through HCMC. At one point, amongst a flurry of motorbikes, it felt like we were in the middle of a wasp’s nest - motorbikes circling us from all angles, with no way out. I couldn’t imagine being on a motorbike or on foot in that havoc.

In HCMC, the whole fam-damily piles on (up to 5, and sometimes even their dog). Traffic there is Ridiculous (note capital ‘R’). There is no rhyme or reason to any of it and no one really obeys traffic signals but instead honks there horn to warn everyone else to look out and get the hell out of the way. When everyone is honking their horns like hooligans at the same time, how are you supposed to know WHO their honking at? As a pedestrian, I seriously prayed for my life every time I crossed a street. If I hesitated - poof! - a teensy Vietnamese lady would appear to take me by the arm and lead me safely across. This was a nice gesture but a little scary if you’re not ready to let someone else take your life into their hands! At one point, I tried to see how high I could count before hearing a horn; ’one, t..BEEP!, on..BEEP!, one..BEEP, on..BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!, one, t...BEEEEEEEP!!!’.

After a one hour stop at the bus ticket office and a mini-bus to the bus station, we departed at 11 PM on another local mini-bus to Rach Gia (so much for the sleeper bus!). The driver had the a/c and Vietnamese tunage blasting throughout the entire 5 hour journey. He kept braking at warp speed right before every bridge we traveled over (and there were many) where we would then strike the approach and catch enough air to cause all of our behinds to take flight off our seats. The guy beside me bumped his head on the roof on more than one occasion and also thought my shoulder made a nice pillow.

We arrived at Rach Gia sleepless at 4 AM in the dark with not a clue where the ferry was located and wasn’t due to leave to the island for another 4 hours. So we walked to the nearest street which was just a hummin’ with people preparing for the morning market. Elisheva was extremely sick and had such a sore throat that she wasn’t able to talk which made devising plans an interesting task. After observing the market for awhile, hobnobbing with the locals and some sign language, we set out to find the ferry first by foot, but gave up after realizing no one spoke a spit of English and all seemed to point in ambiguous directions to the ferry. So we hopped on a moto (transportation vehicle #4).


When we finally boarded the ferry, the two of us fell into comas for the entire 3 hour journey before getting to Phu Quoc Island and catching a bus into town. Then came the part I always dread when arriving in a new place - negotiating transportation to a guesthouse. This is always tricky business because they will first try to overcharge you and second, take you to an expensive guesthouse where they can make a commission from the owner (hoping also that you are so tired from the journey that you will just decide to drop your backpack and pay the extra dong).

The most concise way to describe the next 45 minutes is that it was a complete ‘shit show’! After much negotiating in the heat of the midday sun, we got our way and FINALLY ended up at our guesthouse of choice. The entire journey took us 15 hours from start to finish. The moral of this story is – take the one hour flight to Phu Quoc Island from HCMC - it’s WORTH it!!

Up next – cocunuts, coffee and....high tech monks!

Cambodi-odi-odi-o! Part 2 - Phnom Penh

You do not have to be a facebook member to view photos!*


See photos here.

When Cait and I arrived in Phnom Phen, we were greeted by the usual suspects – taxi and tuk tuk drivers as well as guesthouse touts offering ‘cheap cheap’ and ‘same same, but different’ accommodations. We settled on ‘OK Guesthouse’ after consulting the Lonely. We sat in the tuk tuk facing the traffic and felt like rock stars (but not really in a good way). People stared at us like we were either monstrosities to society or high royalty – it was really QUITE uncomfortable.

After we arrived at the guesthouse, we walked to the riverside where tourists and locals blanketed the boardwalk awaiting sunset and some respite from the heat. It actually reminded me a little of English Bay in Vancouver, minus the naked children running amok, garbage strewn all over and excessive heat (have I mentioned how HOT it is here?!). We decided to take a breather and sit down near a group of children playing by the river. They were ridiculously cute so I tried to steal a photo. The first was taken of them hanging out on the riverside and I couldn’t have posed them more perfectly for the cover of a pop album for kids!

Soon they were taking photos of us with my camera. I had not had this much fun in a long time. They were so excited to see their faces on my LCD screen and even more so when they got to take the picture themselves. The warmth and happiness that we felt from these children made a special place in my heart for Cambodia.

The next day, we took a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields. Unlike most people, I had heard of the movie but not actually seen it, nor did I bother to ever find out much about it as I was never really into the whole war history thing. On this day, I found out more than my heart could take. Between 1975 - 1979, 30 percent of the Cambodia population (approximately 2 million people) were eradicated by the Khmer Rouge, lead by the Pol Pot regime. Phnom Penh was brimming with hope for the future when on April 19th the Khmer Rouge took over the city to fulfill their plan to create an agrarian society. They abolished the monetary system (all financial institutions closed), markets, schools and parts of Angkor Wat (Cambodian’s source of national pride) were destroyed. People considered intellectuals were immediately killed and those left over were forced into hard labour on collective farms, starved to death or executed. Children between the ages of 10 to 15 years old were turned into soldiers and unfeeling killing machines. The extermination camp called Choeung Ek, now dubbed The Killing Fields, is about 5 km from Phnom Penh. Several prisoners were also taken to S-21, the headquarters for the Khmer Rouge, where they were tortured into admitting crimes (such as treason) that they did not commit. They were barely fed; one prisoner who survived said that he only went to the bathroom twice in 2 months while being held there. The acts of tortures that were practiced are too graphic for me to even begin to describe.

Vietnamese troops finally captured Phnom Penh in 1979 forcing the Pol Pot regime and their followers into the jungle where they were originally established in the 1960’s. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1985 and never paid for his crimes against the Cambodian people. Cait and I bought both the Killing Fields and S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine to watch because we were so intrigued with the how’s and why’s of this atrocious era in Cambodian history. I am afraid that we still didn’t find any clear answers. How could the rest of the world let this happen? How could we not have helped them? How is it possible that the soldiers can show such little remorse even today for what they did to their people, in some cases their own family and friends?

What I have learned has made me so appreciative to have the opportunity to travel and gain so much knowledge that I wouldn’t have otherwise pursued myself. I have lived a mighty privileged life. Our last night in Phnom Penh was spent with Cas. We met him at our guesthouse and decided to go out for dinner the three of us. Cas is in Cambodia volunteering for a NGO called Bridges Across Borders. He is also working on building an orphanage. Cas is the kind of person that has and will make a difference in the world. He was inspiring to listen to and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening together.

Cait left at 6 AM the next morning and I was NOT well. I had felt nauseous before we went to bed and a couple of hours later I was throwing up. I was supposed to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City that morning but had to cancel it. I didn’t want to stay in my guesthouse that not only had a musty stank but even worse, a putrid aroma wafting in through the bathroom window. Luckily for me, Cas said he would stick around an extra day to make sure it was only something I ate that was making me ill and not something more serious.We walked to a place to exchange some money for dong (Vietnamese currency). I stood there watching the lady counting it when I started seeing little dots darting around in front of my eyeballs. The next thing I knew, I was ground level. I didn’t pass out – I just couldn’t stay standing up! From out of nowhere, a little Cambodian angel shoved a small, clear glass bottle of brown liquid into my hand and gestured to rub it on my temples. I did so and za-za-zing! My eyeballs felt like they had been dipped in icy cool water and the world seemed like a much better place. They got me sitting on a chair and Cas went and bought me some water. He suggested that maybe perhaps I was not well enough to be out and about and should think about going back to my guesthouse. I agreed reluctantly and slept away the afternoon and early evening. Cas returned to take me for tea by the river when I started to feel somewhat human....ready for the next leg of my journey.....the ever bustling, horn blowing Ho Chi Minh City!

Cambodi-odi-odi-o! Part 1 - Siem Reap/Angkor Wat

Part 1 Photos

Part 2 Photos

‘I’d like to purchase a visa please.’

‘It’s $30.’

‘But is says on the sign that it’s $20?’

‘You pay $30.’

‘I won’t pay $30.’

‘You wait then!’

And with that, the border official stood up and promptly walked out of his booth, purchased some snacks from a vendor and sat down on a bench in the waiting area looking annoyingly smug.

‘Uh, ok.’

Cait and I had arrived in Poipet after taking a local bus from Bangkok to Aranya Prathet, where we caught a tuk tuk with 2 Canadians we met there – Carolyn and Phetmany. As soon as we arrived, we were ‘greeted’ by touts ‘encouraging’ us to buy visas from them. We had been advised by good ol’ Lonely (Lonely Planet Guidebook) not to purchase ANYTHING from them, nor were we to trust that the border guards wouldn’t try to nick a few extra dollars for themselves.

So it was an American, 3 Canadians and 6 Chinese (who had preceded us in the line-up) against the Cambodians! We decided to unite and refuse to line the pockets of corruption – it wasn’t the money, it was the PRINCIPLE damn it! People want to come and spend their money in your country and this is how we are greeted, by getting screwed over at the border? So we threw on some more bug spray and sunscreen, popped a malaria pill and decided to stick it out until they gave in and let us purchase the visa for the REAL price.

Meanwhile, a tout was trying to negotiate with Phetmany (her family is from Laos so she speaks and understands some Cambodian) to purchase a visa from him in which we would only pay a few dollars more than the actual price, as opposed to $30. We knew he was in cahoots with the border officials and all of us were pretty adamant that we would not pay more than $20...but that was at hour 1. When we started to approach the end of hour 2, negotiating started to look more favourable as we still had a 4 hour journey to Siem Reap ahead of us, were filthy with dust and sweat...and even worse, hungry! Not to mention that Poipet is just not a nice place to spend an afternoon. It is stifling hot, polluted and loud. Being there feels like a scene out of a movie that you wouldn’t want to star in. These are the moments that I absorb as part of the cultural experience, but make me appreciate my home so much more.

So we reluctantly each paid $3 more than we should have and carried on through to the border crossing. But the fun wasn’t over yet! We still had to contend with the ‘taxi drivers’. At one time, the 4 of us were surrounded by 8 of them all fighting to get our attention and take their taxi. I would define these taxis as cars with no meters and no signage, looking like they have been used in one too many stunt scenes. He opened up the trunk for us to stuff our backpacks in and there was a big tank o’ ‘who knows what’. I presume it was fuel...this did not help alleviate any concerns for our safety on the road ahead.

The road to Siem Reap was unpaved the majority of the way. It was hopeful to see the construction workers putting down cement for future travellers as the state it was in was shall we say a bit haphazard. The taxi driver honked his horn continuously whilst cows, kids, cars, trucks, bikes and chickens fought for space on the road amidst the dust and potholes. At one point, the driver slammed hard on the brakes and everyone in the car braced themselves for a head on collision with a cow. Luckily, both driver and cow were both experienced in this regard and quick enough to avoid impact!

We arrived in Siem Reap at sundown where we got to see a splendiferous orange moon overhead! It looked like the harvest moons we get ‘back home’ but an even more brilliant orange. There is a ban on cars at night in the area of the city we were going to, so we transported ourselves the rest of the way via tuk tuk. Of course the tuk tuk drivers took us to their guesthouse of choice so they could collect their commission. Surprisingly, we actually liked the place and ended up negotiating a decent price. We EVEN had a TV w/ cable - what a treat this was. Cait and I stayed up late our first night watching Pet Cemetery!

We tried to see both the sunset and sunrise at Angkor Wat but it was overcast on both attempts! In the end, it actually worked in our favour as it wasn’t as stifling hot during the day! Angkor (meaning Holy City in Sanskrit) is just a few km outside of Siem Reap. It was built in the 12th century mostly under the rule of Suryavarman II. It is a culmination of 5 towers surrounding a central tower which symbolizes Mount Meru. Most of the wall space is covered with carvings of Hindu mythology but somewhere around the 14th century, Buddhism replaced Hinduism as the religion of the Angkor Kingdom will be apparent in my photos.

By noon, we were done with the heat, the insistent vendors and lack of sleep. We went back to Siem Reap for some good eats and chilling at a coffee house with Carolyn and Phetmany. The night before we left for Phnom Pehn, the four of us went to see a documentary about the Pol Pot regime and the genocide that took place between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia. This was the beginning of a heart wrenching historical journey that Cait and I embarked on in Phnom Penh (more on this in my next instalment).

I don’t want this to get too long so I will save the rest of Cambodia for next time. Our visit to the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum was extremely worthwhile and educational, albeit traumatizing but left me with many questions that perhaps I will have some answers to before I write my next instalment.

Thanks for everyone’s emails and photo comments – means mucho to me!

Pai Eating Sharks!

To view photos from Pai, click here.

I rolled into Pai from Chiang Mai on March 10th, after a 3 hour voyage by mini-bus involving hair pin turns, squealing tires and dazzling, precipitous scenery. I stayed about 3 km from town at the Sun Huts, highly recommended by my previous guesthouse in Chiang Mai. I was extremely excited that there was not only toilet paper in the bathroom but a bed with a REAL mattress even! That’s what you get when you pay the big bucks in northern Thailand (350 Baht or $11/night). A little too rich for my blood, so I later moved to Pravee’s House with Ada and Cait for a more economical 200 Baht a night. It was a safe and clean little place (this is all I ask for in Asia!) where I learned to co-habitate with several fly/mosquito hybrids living in my bathroom!

Pai is a small town of only 3000 consisting of mainly Internet cafes, sleepy restaurants and many, many choices for a Thai massage! It was nice to keep bumping into the same people over and over again. Every night the Thai ‘house band’, stationed in a bar in the nucleus of the town, played covers by The Eagles and Cat Stevens. With their straggly, long hair, faded bell bottoms and rock and roll t-shirts, they looked like they walked right out of the 70’s. Of course the image would not be complete without lit cigarettes and cocktails within easy reach.

Cait decided she wanted to take a 3 day Reiki course which left Ada and I wondering what we should do to keep ourselves busy. We decided to partake in a yoga class at a swimming pool called Fluid. The class took place in an open air beach hut, so every time I came up from a down dog, I caught a glimpse of the mountain peaks poking up at the sky or someone swimming laps in the pool nearby. It was there that we just happened to meet an instructor from Seattle, Tammy, who was free to lead us in some private yoga classes!

We coined our endeavour ‘Ada and Tracey’s Wellness Retreat’, which consisted of yoga at 10 am and 4 pm every day, one Reiki session with Cait’s Reiki teacher, Libby, Thai massage, swimming and not eating any sugar or wheat (this was not an easy feat what with the banana pancakes and coconut shakes beckoning us at every turn). The education I received from Tammy during our retreat was invaluable. She made sure that every vertebra was where it was supposed to be and not only gave us a great physical workout but challenged our minds and helped to enliven our spirits. The Reiki session I had was downright trippy. I saw beautiful, radiating colours and felt a weight literally lifting out of my right leg. Then there were the massages – oh the massages! I was stretched, cracked and tenderized in all the right places. They had me in positions I didn’t think were possible and I always left there feeling like I could fly! All for just 150 baht ($5) a session!

 

After all the yoga, wellness and goodness, we decided to move ahead with our journeys...Cait was heading towards Bangkok to deal with the red tape she needed to for teaching in Thailand and Ada and I took a minibus to Chiang Mai to catch our flights to Phuket and Bangkok respectively. I must say that Bangkok was a better experience the 2nd time around as I knew what to expect and had the company of Cait! We walked the streets searching for cheap food and drink, pissed off tuk tuk drivers, tried not to get ripped off and somewhere along the line, planned a border crossing to Cambodia!

Our last night in Bangkok, on the way to a movie in Siam Square, I was disgusted to see 2 restaurants that exclusively served shark fin soup. They had prominently displayed the dried shark fins in the windows of the restaurants to draw people in and by the looks of the interior, it was actually working.

Shark fins are obtained by a process called ‘finning’ - fishing the shark out of the sea, cutting all 4 of its fins off and throwing the rest of the shark, still alive, back into the ocean. Without its fins, the shark is unable to move, sinks to the ocean floor and either bleeds to death, suffocates from lack of oxygen (gained only by swimming) or is eventually eaten, defenceless, by other predators.

Shark fin is considered a delicacy in mostly Asian countries. With the recent trade and industry advances in China, the biggest consumer of shark fins, there is even more of a demand for this expensive, flavourless ‘delicacy’ that really only provides a gelatinous consistency for the soup. It is thought to give the consumer some sort of vital health but on the contrary, high levels of mercury have been found in shark fins, rendering them toxic to ingest.

Finning has contributed greatly to decreasing shark populations from 50% to 90% in some areas of the world over the past 50 years. It is estimated that 10-100 million sharks are slaughtered each year but a solid number cannot be obtained since so much of this fishing (long line) is done illegally in protected areas and may also be tied to organized crime.

People just don’t have the same sympathy for sharks as they do other fish that are not perceived as threatening. Steven Spielberg has not helped their case by churning out the blockbusting Jaws Quadrilogy - bloodthirsty shark with a taste for human beings. I don’t know about you, but I can’t so much as dip a toe in the ocean without thinking a fierce shark awaits close by to have a nibble. The whales definitely have a leg up, or shall I say ‘fin’, on sharks. ‘Free Jaws’ just does not have the same ring to it as ‘Free Willy’.

Canadian photojournalist, Rob Stewart, released a documentary about this very topic called Sharkwater. Check out the trailer for it here: http://www.sharkwater.com/. You can also watch Rob Stewart talking about the movie on The Hour here: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1464.

I believe this is a very important and worthy topic that we should all be educated on but I didn’t plan on this blog turning into a ‘Save the Sharks’ campaign, so I promise the next instalment will entertain with corruption, drama and intrigue, namely ‘Cambodia’!

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

- St. Francis of Assisi

From beasts we scorn as soulless, in forest, field and den, the cry goes up to witness, the soullessness of men.

- M. Frida Hartley

Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote.

- Paul Harvey

Chiang Mai

View Chiang Mai Photos Part 1 here.

View Chiang Mai Photos Part 2 here.

So I have been a little lax on the blog postings due to leaving my laptop in Bangkok while in N. Thailand. I opted for that as I didn’t want to have to worry about it at the guesthouses while out trekking around. Theoretically, this was probably a good idea but when the wheels of the plane left the Bangkok tarmac, I felt like I was leaving my first born behind! We have since been happily reunited and I now feel whole again.

It was a huge relief to leave Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I really wanted to GET ‘somewhere’ after being in Bangkok for 5 days (which were 5 too many). I had lost my bank card and had to stay to work out the details of getting it sent to me (not an easy task) and also had to sort out my Vietnam visa, prior to entering the country. 

I stayed at The Libra House on Moon Muang Road, Soi 9. This is where a large portion of the guesthouses are and the Libra House came highly recommended both by friends who had stayed there and my trusty online, SE Asia bible, www.travelfish.org.

I inquired about treks and was told that there was one leaving in the morning for 2 days that included a waterfall, hot springs, elephant riding, bamboo rafting and a 3 hour mountain hike. I was quite ready to have some kind of plan after wandering aimlessly around Bangkok the last few days, so I signed myself up!

The next morning, myself, a couple from France, a guy from Japan, 2 fellow Canadians from Saskatchewan, Levi from London, and Cait and Ada, from New York, set off on our voyage. We all piled into the back of a pick-up that had 2 benches parallel to one another (called a sawngthaew). I felt a little like a soldier en route to the battlefields! Was actually a lot of fun and great for seeing the country side.

We drove north of Chiang Mai first to a spectacular waterfall, where I stood directly underneath; a most refreshing way to start the day. Then came the hot springs - nice but would be much more satisfying in a colder climate me thinks. After lunch, we went trekking up a mountain and visited a couple of hill tribes along the way. Most areas consisted of a shack or two with colourful clothes drying on the line complete with pigs, chickens, roosters, water buffalo and oxen basking in the shade nearby. 

The last part of the trek was the most gruelling physically – an extremely vertical hike to our overnight destination atop the mountain. We arrived exhausted, dirty, sweaty and hungry! So most of us had a dip in the river before being served a traditional Thai meal by the hill tribe we were staying with – noodles, lemongrass, chicken and I even got my very own tofu dish – scrumptious!

We sat by the campfire before retiring to our sleeping quarters - a large hut with thin pieces of foam laid out beside each other. It was a chilly and uncomfortable sleep but well worth it for the experience. 

After breakfast, we went for our elephant rides. I had mixed feelings about this of course but the elephants SEEMED to be well taken care of. Ada and I rode one together and neither of us particularly liked the guide we had. He sat on top of the elephant’s head and steered him down the path with a series of menacing grunts, shifting his body weight and kicking his heels. To me, he was just exhibiting symptoms of ‘small man syndrome’. I cannot relate to people who cannot relate to or feel for animals. 

He pulled out a large tool that had a thick blade shaped like a hook at the end. This made us rather nervous and fully prepared ourselves to kick his ass if he hurt the elephant in any way. We saw him use it later to hook in behind the elephant’s ear to steer it to the ledge where we were dropped off and keep his head facing forward. It wasn’t done forcefully or maliciously but seemed like an unnecessarily frightening tool to have to utilize.

When we got off our elephant, one of the guides hit the elephant beside us on the top of the head with a bamboo stick. I yelled out, ‘Noooooooo!!’. The guide didn’t even look at me, so I made a point of petting the elephant on the head in a comforting gesture while glaring at his abuser, who continued to completely ignore me. 

The next day, I made a point of going to a restaurant called Tuskers who is owned by a guy from London who had gone on an elephant trek in Chiang Mai and didn’t like how the elephants were treated. He moved there to open Tuskers, where he donates a part of the proceeds to elephant conservation. He said the guides should never have to hit the elephants. Dow, the owner of our guesthouse said that when the elephants aren’t doing the treks, they are left to roam free in the jungle. I also asked the guide that took us on the trek and he said the same thing. That’s a really nice story and I really wanted to believe them but they also knew what I wanted to hear. Elephants are profoundly social animals with strong family bonds so I could take some comfort in the fact that there were a good bunch of them together and none of them had to go at this alone.

After elephant riding, we slowly drifted down the river on bamboo rafts past hill tribe villages, fishermen and children playing in the water. Many photo ops were to be had, but I put my camera in a water resistant bag as I have been known to fall, sometimes for no reason, and I wasn’t going to take any chances!

We arrived at yet another ‘hill tribe’. Use the term ‘hill tribe’ loosely because it is totally set up for tourism and doesn’t really have that tribal feel one would hope for when seeking culture. 

I bought some bracelets from the ladies and felt a real bond with one of them. I don’t think either of us understood much of what the other said but when I left I squeezed her hand like I would a grandmother’s and she bid farewell with a warm smile. 

 We then got into the back of another sawngthaew and headed to Chiang Mai. It was great to take pictures out the back where elephants were strolling down the side of the road and locals cruising behind us on motorbikes. 

All in all Chiang Mai was much more pleasant and laid back than Bangkok. That’s not to say that it wasn’t polluted or congested with traffic but I felt like I could breathe a little easier there. I decided the next stop would be Pai! A small town with a population of 3000 filled with travelers, hippies, musicians, artists and new age bohemians. I knew this would be my kind of place and convinced Ada and Cait that they would love it too. 

Stay tuned for more on Pai..coming soon!

Bangkok

View Bangkok Photos here!

Hi all! I am now in Bangkok! I would like to say that I am thoroughly enjoying this diabolical city but that would be me lying. It’s not awful, but it is definitely not a place I will come back to often if I can help it. I had such a dizzying, wonderful time in Hawaii that getting here was a bit of a shock to the system. Landing in Honolulu with the smell of plumeria and white ginger flowers wafting through the airport is a far cry from landing in Bangkok and being bombarded by the heat, pollution and aggressive taxi drivers.

My time in Hawaii consisted of surfing in Maui and the North Shore, swimming underneath waterfalls and floating the days away in the Pacific Ocean. Staying with my Dad was an extra special bonus before embarking on this trip alone. It was nice to have the comfort of family around knowing that soon enough I would be out on my own, far away from the nest and any familiar territory.

I arrived here early Sunday morning and had opted not to stay at the usual backpacker area on Khao San Road and decided to stay in the district of Din Daeng (which I now use as a bit of a swear word in my head – ‘Din Daeng that’s cheap! Din Daeng! What is that nasty smell?). Turns out Din Deang was dang dull. So I decided to move to the Sukhumvit area, which looks about the same as Din Daeng, just bigger buildings. The same pollution, massage parlours, hair salons, street vendors and thick traffic exists everywhere I go. The smell here is a mixture of exhaust fumes, rotting garbage, street food, hot cement, a touch of eau de sewer and I am sure the dog poo also contributes to this nasty little concoction of acridness..

There are a lot of things I have seen that have made my heart ache: little kids sitting on the sidewalk begging for change, a baby elephant being lead through the busy streets as an attraction for money, a man with no legs dragging himself along the sidewalk, cats making the most horrifying noises and dogs trying to navigate their way through heavy traffic on their roads to nowhere.

 I hate to knock a place entirely though. There are SOME good things about Bangkok. The multiculturalism here is mind boggling. I thought London and New York were melting pots, this place has it all! Walking down the street is a downright cacophony of languages competing with each other over the traffic noise. In fact, the coffee shop I sit in right now has 7 other people here and not ONE of us is the same ethnicity. This, I like. I learned the proper way to say ‘thank you’ in Thai today from my barista and he seemed quite pleased at my efforts to learn. I feel such sympathy for the people trying to make a living here. The average pay/day is about $4, so it is no wonder one gets accosted at every turn to purchase something.

I am now staying at Suk 11, a fancy dancy cozy little guesthouse with a/c and hot water even! I feel good there. Alas, I must venture on! My next stop is Chiang Mai. This is where I will meditate, do some jungle treks and perhaps a home stay with one of the hill tribes. Their is also the hippy town of Pai and Mae Hong Son where I can go zip trekking like Jane through the jungle – oh-a-oh-a-ohhhhhh!

After that, it’s Laos and Vietnam...I will keep you posted...until then, laa kawn!