Oct 2009

I flew into Vietnam with very high expectations. Thailand and Laos were good warmups, and now I wanted to finish off the trip with a memorable 3 week run north to south in Vietnam. Hanoi was the starting point, and in short, I really enjoyed Hanoi. Most people I meet hedge their reviews of Hanoi - its too busy, too smelly, too dirty - you get the point, and I guess in a way it is all of those things. But Hanoi is also this very strange place that has seen countless empires rise and fall, foreign colonization rise and fall, and is home to a continuing interplay between communism and the country's modern balance with capitalsim. The underlying amalgam of hardships and political posturing is written all over Hanoi - on the walls, in the decaying old city, and especially on the faces of its residents. This gives an American like myself a lot to chew on.

I stayed in the old city which is one of the oldest preserved 'old cities' in any asian country. Its streets are narrow and the shops all moonlight as homes for the shopkeepers. During the day the sidewalks are filled with merchants, motorbikes, and food stalls - walking requires frequent detours into the street. The street. Wow, well Hanoi trumps everywhere I have ever been in terms of street chaos. Seemingly endless numbers of motorbikes twist and turn with little regard for traffic laws, which I have learned are loose to non-existent in Hanoi. But in all the chaos, I found an endearing order to the old city. Old alley ways were lined with food stalls and the locals sit on tiny chairs and eat their Pho (Vietnamese Soup). I was not harassed by too many touts, scammers, or street vendors, at least no more than what I am now accustomed to in southeast Asia. And as you move through the old city to the Hoan Kiem Lake the choas opens up into a more modern city with larger streets and a city plan that uses the lake as a central point.

From the lake I walked through variously nice and not so nice neighborhoods to view the french inspired colonial architecture, the "Hanoi Hilton" known here as Hoa Lo Prison - famous for holding American POWs and before that used by the French to hold Vietnamese socialists and communists - a scary place. I walked through a mediocre Botanical Gardens, saw the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (sadly, Ho was getting cleaned up this month so I couldnt view him). I took in the Fine Arts Museum which held a nice collection of art, even if the building reminded me of a portion of my high school, and I also saw a memorial to John McCain, the American senator who was shot down in central Hanoi when he was a fighter pilot in the war. He is actually revered in Vietnam for his eventual pro-Vietnam stance regarding the war.

Enough with the little details, the big point is that I think Hanoi is great. Its not western its not really that beautiful in a conventional sense. Nor is a hard city to learn or get around, as some people suggest to me. I found it largely walkable, and with the proper choices, transport never put me in a risky or fraud inducing situation. One night I ccoordinated to meet my friend Sophie, who was part of my group when I lived in Wanaka, New Zealand. She is traveling with her husband and we all met up for drinks and dinner. Apart from that I was solo the whole time and due to Hanoi's sensory appeal in terms of sights, sounds, and food....I thought it was a good place to travel solo.

The above description may suggest that Hanoi is bursting at the seems and difficult to

My short but sweet eight days in Laos provided two welcome changes from my trip so far. First, I crossed into Laos with a rough idea of what I could fit into a week's worth of travel but I had no information, no guide book, and no idea what I was really doing. I sort of wanted to just let things happen after using guide books as security blankets in Australia, Thailand and New Zealand. Secondly, I finally completed a rewarding and extended amount of travels with a group of random backpackers; this coming after a few mediocre travel mates and my conclusion only a few weeks ago that I was best suited to travel solo.

Laos is a unique place. Now with both Thailand and Vietnam under my belt, Laos leaves the impression of a lost or forgotten world set between two countries that have a ton of history. The small villages I spent my time in were easily the most third world places I have ever been to....I say this in a good way. Unlike dilapidated third world countries, Laos is simply not developed. Thatched roof huts, rustic toilets, wood stoves, few electronics - its just an undeveloped place that to the naked eye, is in no rush to join modernity. The locals either ignored us or tried to help us when necessary.....again this is a good thing, compared to the hassles you encounter from over-zealous sales persons and touts in Thailand and Vietnam.

Some travelers will conclude that there is very little to do or see in Laos, and in a way I have to agree. Forty percent of the country remains prone to unexploded land mines, and the rest of the country has minimal to zero modern infrastructure. The backpacker highways are commonly known trips running north/south from the border town of Huay Xai on a two day boat cruise on the Mekong to the french colonial town, Luang Prabang. From there its an 8 hour bus ride to Vang Viene for a notorious day of tubing on the Mekong from one bar to another ending the day in a drunken stupor. There are trekking opportunities in between, there is the weakly reviewed capital of Vientiene, and there are a few other activities like the Gibbon Experience (see below entry) which can keep you in the country longer.

That being said, after I opted for the Gibbon Experience I had basically a week to get myself to Hanoi without sacrificing too much of Vietnam in the process. While living in the treehouses I befriended four other travelers. There was Daniel and Hannes, a German and Austrian, who were old university friends and now were both in the corporate world and taking a three week vacation together. I actually met them on my overnight bus from Chaing Mai, and we talked briefly about the Gibbon Experience. The next morning I crossed the border on my own and ran into them in Huay Xai. We went over to the Gibbon Experience office and lobbied to get into the group that started that morning....we missed the company's charter van north by thirty minutes, but with three people offering to sign up, they got a pickup truck and loaded us in so that we could meet up with the rest of the day's group. In the jungle the three of us were placed in a five person tree house with two girls from Canada, Ally and Courtney, and from there the team of 5 was in place for the next week in Laos.

A bit of bad luck led to our first tip. Ally had her camera taken from the treehouse. Possible theories ranged from curious giant squirrels to the local village drunk, but the reward came in the form of the company owner Jeff, a forty something Frenchman who talked with us in an attempt at damage control. (NOTE: I really dont know what happened to the camera, it was a piece of garbage and we all had our wallets in the treehouse unguarded, and the guides and owner were earnestly distraught, so its loss was not really logical.) Jeff advised us to avoid the two day Mekong boat ride, which consists of sixteen hours spread over two days on a slow rather uncomfortable boat, with a layover in a dull town that everyone is forced to stay in. Instead he advised us to bus it to a small village called Nong Khiau. To get there would require a simple ten hour bus journey, or so he said. From there it was a day's boat journey down the Ou River which flows into the Mekong just north of Luang Prabang. It was off the beaten path, and it was only one day on the boat. All five of us were excited to have some insider information and an alternative to the standard route.

The actual journey provided what we wanted -- no tourists, no backpackers, isolation in a small town, and picturesque scenery. The initial 'bus' ride turned into a private minivan ride when we found out that the only option on our travel day was the local bus...an estimated 16 hour drive with live chickens, pigs, and babies on board. No thanks. Our minivan was pretty flash, we all had full recliners and a lot of room for what turned out to be an eleven hour drive. The total distance less than two hundred miles! The roads in Laos are mostly paved, but every mile brings occasional dirt road patches, pot holes, mud slides, or reductions to a single lane. You have to just give it all time because you can not get anywhere fast....unless you fly. We got to Nong Khiau in the dark, exhausted, without any idea where we would sleep. The driver took us to a guesthouse that was kind of clean and remotely comfortable, but it was all we had and despite the whining of some of our troops I put my foot down and said that there was no way I was going to look at various guesthouses at 8pm in this town, we were staying put. We caught an amazingly starlight sky, ate at a bizarrely fantastic Indian food place, and got pulled off the street by a drunk local to finish a bottle of Laos whiskey with his family. All in all, a good night.

In the morning we awoke to the enchanting location that puts Nong Khiau on the map. Its stationed on the Ou River in between various jungle green mountains. With more time it would have been a choice location to do some trekking, but we all had a tight schedule and yearned for some society in Luang Prabang. The ensuing boat trip was nice, but coming off the heels of an 11 hour van ride, 7 more hours in a boat put everyone on edge. We dodged the rain this whole time, but apparently a storm had led to a swollen section of the Ou north of the merge into the Mekong. We had to wait two hours while the boat captains examined the section and determined a navigation route. The boats in Laos are all wooden and are closer to big canoes than boats, a bad current or any type of swell could be exciting in a bad way. So that was an unfortunate delay, but we still got into L.P. before dark and were all fully satisfied that we'd chosen correctly with our travels.

Luang Prabang is a strange place. After several days living in jungles and in small backwoods villages, L.P. was a shock, as its easily the most western place I have been to in southeast asia. There is certainly a large local community and local Laos restaurants and universities are everywhere, but the old city is a UNESCO world heritage site and it is presently home to a large westernized neighborhood of french patisseries, cafes, travel agents, and nice hotels. The issue I have is how cut off the tourist and local areas seem to be in L.P. It is a very nice place and I enjoyed resting there for a few nights. Certainly, it is on all tour packages as a location not to be missed, and it attracts a very sedate western crowd of middle to older age tourists, along with the obligatory backpacker scene. Its just a hard place to feel as though you are in a country like Laos.

So much writing, I'll stop now. I had wanted to do the land crossing from Laos to Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam, but after experiencing the pace of the roads in Laos, I booked a flight into Hanoi. I skipped the drunken revelry of Vang Viene and missed out on some trekking. I could have easily put in another week in Laos, if not more, but I am thankful to have seen a good cross section of what the country has to offer. And I'll add that I got the sense that Laos remains outside the investors' eyes, it does not look like a place that will be all that different in ten years, hopefully I'll find out for myself.

I'll get right to the point on this one. The Gibbon Experience will surely be one of the highlights of my five months abroad. The story of how I ended up living in a treehouse in the Bokeo Nature Reserve in northern Laos is deserving of its own blogpost. But basically, after crossing the border into the Laos town of Huay Xai, I wandered up to the Gibbon Experience office and after a few odds and ends were ironed out, I was en route in a pickup truck for an hour's ride north to a river crossing. At the river crossing we changed vehicles to an all-terrain vehicle that navigated through the two feet of river water and proceeded for about an hour on a 'road' that was more suited for donkeys than automated cars; it was bumpy and steep. The end point is a village, which I think is called Lao Loom. It consists of a few thatched huts and a vendor or two selling drinks. This was the last I would see of civilization for 72 hours. A quick note on the village - in Thailand or in other over-visited areas villages try to exploit the fact that a western tour goes through their village, you see native garb, or children begging for food and candy, the 'long necked' women in northern Thailand come to mind.

In Laos, you do not see this. The villagers acknowledge you, but there is no rush to beg or hawk crappy items in your face. There is no attempt to guilt trip you into offering children candy or money. It is a welcome change from what you occasionally see in Thailand and, from what I hear, in Cambodia.

From the village we walked for about an hour through rice paddies and into the native jungle. The weather was humid with overcast sun. I was drenched in sweat after a few minutes on the trail, but at this point, the sheer curiosity of what awaited us was more than enough to propel our group to the base camp. At base camp you find the guides' accomodation and a kitchen where the daily meals are prepared, thats about it. We were given our harness and glider systems for use on the ziplines and proceeded to break up our group of nine into two groups of 5 and 4.

The Gibbon Experience is a very simple concept. Two Frenchman began the project about 7 years ago. The basic idea was to find away to curb the local 'slash and burning' of the jungle and the endangerment of the local species by giving the local villages an alternative way to profit from the jungles existence. The concept of forest conservation through eco-tourism is not that original, but I must say that I think this may be the best example of this strategy that I have ever witnessed. You speak to the guides and hear how they are basically the biggest earners in the entire area. Other villages want to get help build tree houses and extend the project. And even with expansion, the project does not bring in more than about 12 people per day.

Today what was once one treehouse and a few ziplines is now 7 treehouses that span 7 kilometers, interconnected by an array of jungle tracks and about two dozen ziplines. Tree House 1 was the first tree house built, and its where I stayed. It is a trilevel complex set about 175 feet up on a 300 foot high Ficus tree. The only way in and out is through ziplines. The tree house had a living room/kitchen area on the second floor, two 'bedrooms' and a bathroom with outdoor shower on the first floor and a third bedroom in the third floor. I felt completely safe and secure in the tree house as it seemed very sturdy. After dropping our bags off upon our arrival, our guide took us out for an afternoon of learning the safety precautions for the zip lines.

The whole zip line thing is absurdly easy. After a standard climbing harness, you are given a safety rope that you always attach to the line followed by your roller which is also attached to the line. One hand goes on top of the roller to push down on it if you need to break. For the other four people and myself who constituted our gang and zipping partners, I would say it took about 10 minutes for us all to be very comfortable with the system. By day two we were filming each other and going off on solo missions to find the newly built tree houses which were about a 2-3 hour zipping and trekking journey away.

The ziplines vary in length and height but figure the average length is about 200-400 meters with a height of about 100-200 meters. Crazy. You are literally soaring above the jungle as most of the lines are positioned to guide you over a ravine and connect you with two equally high points above lower jungle. The vistas are unbelievable. In the mornings, you zipline through mist and fog, disappearing into nothingness and re-emerging at the landing areas.

The entire experience is completely hands off. After the first day, you return to the tree house for dinner. The sunsets, candles are lit, cards are played and eventually the noises of the jungle at night take over. We had some visitors at night. Giant spiders, giant grasshoppers, and giant squirrels which look like lemurs, and fortunately very few mosquitoes. In the morning, our guide came at 6 am sharp to lead a gibbon spotting expedition. Gibbons are only active in the mornings and usually only for a short period after 7 am. On both mornings we heard their extremely loud cries, but only on the second did we get a fleeting glimpse of one. After this planned activity, you have the entire day to yourselves. The Gibbon Experience is not educational, scientific, or cultural. It is simply a program that allows you to pay to live in the jungle canopy, view the native species that are hopping and swinging around and hang out with fellow travelers. If you have the good fortune of lodging with interesting and motivated people, you end up zip lining as much as possible and trekking deep into the jungle.

In the other tree house one of the guys could not handle living so high up and had to spend most of his time at base camp with the guides. The remaining three guys were all under the age of 22 and two of them were whiny Americans. I can say that because I am an American. On our second day we saw a new group head past us for some of the more distant tree houses. One of the ladies was over weight and got stuck in the middle of the zipline (you do need a small amount of physical strength as sometimes you do not make it to the end and have to pull yourself a few feet to the landing platform). She was clearly traumatized and had to go back to the base camp to do nothing for two days. Her husband continued on. My point is that the experience depends on having a good group as you have the jungle at your fingertips and do not need to have fellow travelers pointing out how lumpy the pillows are. Our group consisted of myself, two Canadian girls and a German and Austrian guy. Everyone was flexible, athletic and relaxed enough to embrace the zip lines and aged similarly 27-33. It was just a great group and our card games turned into nightly competitions.

The program is not fine tuned. Its still a work in progress, there are things that can be improved and from what I read about the program from a few years ago, you can tell things are getting a bit more organized. Food was not exactly deluxe, guides were far from informative, and the lack of any organized itinerary could piss off people who expect to learn things. I personally would have liked some more maps of the zip lines and trekking trails, but on the whole I loved the experience. Rough around the edges and complete freedom to choose your own adventure. If you are in Laos and you think this sounds interesting, just go, hope for sun, good people, and gibbons!

Ive been terrible about adding pics as I just cant make the time. But this guy's pics more or less show the story

Pai is a not so secret town about 150 kilometers northwest of Chaing Mai. It sits about fifty kilometers from the Burmese border, sheltered in a valley, surrounded by green mountains and divided by several local rivers. As so often happens, the ex-pat hippies took one look at the surroundings around Pai, and before you know it, Pai was the not-so-secret secret enclave of hippie backpackers and permanent nature loving ex-pats. Between Pai and Chaing Mai are various small villages but mostly wilderness. The road winds up and down with s-turns and switchbacks galore. I decided this would be a good road to motorbike through and got myself what amounted to a zupped up scooter. It was a semi-automatic, so I had gear control, something I felt I needed for the mountains. The drive was tiring, but at the same time liberating. I also had the motorbike while in Pai, which allowed me to get out even further to the Burmese tribal villages that dot the border lands.

A quick note, Burma is in the midst of junta control. The regime has existed since the mid sixties, and the reports I have received are of religious and social oppression. The tribes I saw along the border in Thailand are emigrees who are left in a purgatory type position. They want nothing to do with Burma, but they have no real identity and certainly can not obtain Thai citizenship. The roads in the north are controlled by the Thai army, I went through many checkpoints. They do not care about me, they care about Burmese heading further into Thailand. The situation for these people is not great, but honestly, the villagers are really established towns and they have existed for generations for this has gone on for over fifty years now. Its just that they are more or less stuck in this little corner of the world with no real country to call home.

So I spent one day biking through the villages, trying to do the National Geographic photo op thing with villagers. I snuck in a kayaking trip down a swollen river, remember this is the rainy season. The great thing about this was the spontaneity. I wanted to visit this giant cave and I knew they held kayaking trips down the river which went into the cave and back out the other end. Not only was the river rapids more intense than anything I did in New Zealand, I was alone with a guide whose only word of english was 'paddle'. I doubt the 'company' had much insurance if you know what I mean, but alls well that ended well.

I also got lucky in that my weekend in Pai coincided with the end of the Buddhist three month Lent. Im not sure exactly what happens during those three months, but I know that certain monks must remain inside the temples and there are various restrictions on alcohol and food consumption. So the end is marked by a big street fair, I got to see free Muay Thai boxing, something I had regretted missing in Bangkok, and I got to see a giant beetles fight each other....dont ask, I have pictures.

Pai also brings a strange social element. It was filled with Thai nationals who vacation there, but also has a vibrant ex-pat and backpacker scene. The scene is strange in that its one of those towns where you end up developing packs and cliques. Lots of ex-pats own natural food shops or bars or herbal remedy stores and I got the sense that I was a stranger in their community. On some nights the conversation was easy and the mood was relaxed and all was well. On others, the bar scene was everyone sitting down around tables, subdued reggae playing, not exactly the best place to insert yourself into a conversation. I should add that Pai sits within an infamous opium trade around the burma border, and the effects of this location are evident within the ex-pat community.

Still, the overall impression of Pai is immensely positive. I would have stayed for many more days and will definitely be back. Its a beautiful place with a great mix of Thai culture along with the comforts of western civilization should you need them.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I am, per the norm, divided on the concept of the travel buddy when on the road alone. Obviously its nice to have a partner in crime to eat or drink with, but after these social occasions I find myself generally regretting my decision to take on a travel mate. Ｉ should add that Ｉ meet many backpackers who consider the act of finding traveler partners as an integral aspect of independent travel. To each their own, some people see the random act of pairing with a stranger as an added adventure. I normally see it as an inconvenience.

With that lead in, I took the overnight train with Blake from Bangkok to Chaing Mai. We had by now discovered that in our heads we had very similar itineraries for the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, by the time Ｉ boarded the train my immediate itinerary was finding away to 'break up' with my travel partner. He took it well, I think he could sense I was itching to get out on my own, so it was a fond farewell and we parted ways when we got off the train. He is a nice guy, an independent traveler, and its not as though he was holding me up or required a dependency that bothered me. Its just that we were looking for different experiences. Additionally, I got used to enjoying afternoons by myself reading a book at a restaurant or planning a walking tour of a new place. With Blake, an afternoon meal meant more redundant conversation where I would have preferred reading my book. I have traveled with a good friend of mine from home and it went great. I am not against traveling with people, its just that the odds of finding a backpacker on the road that gels with me is evidently hard.

But a great example of life without a travel partner occurred these past few days in Chaing Mai. Blake was heading to the first listing in Lonely Planet (sigh). I took a taxi into town. Ｉ ended up viewing several rooms before staying in Libra Guesthouse, a family run place with english speaking hosts in the old city, a neighborhood I had previously researched. As I was perusing the neighborhood that evening a guy in a local bar complimented my t-shirt, a new one Ｉ had just purchased in the Bangkok market. And just like that I met a group of Chaing Mai residents, both expat and local Thai who turned out to be my social companions for the next four days. These were not backpackers and the experience of meeting locals and/or permanent western residents is far and away different from going to the Lonely Planet touted hostel and making the usual small talk. Dinners, drinks, motorbike rides to neighborhoods I'd never have found on my own and stories about life in northern Thailand with these people are the types of experiences Ｉ enjoy because it is never sought out, it just happens.

Speaking of which, today, I awoke with the intention of getting a bus ticket to Chaing Khong, a border town and gateway to Laos. At the bus station I am told the tickets are sold out. Back to town, I am agitated. Ｉ love Chaing Mai, but with less than a month to go on this trip, a wasted day is a bitter pill to swallow. Ｉ head straight to a travel agency and book a minibus that will get me to Chaing Khong at two in the morning. More expensive and terrible time, but it gets the job done. The booking agent is a guy named Noi. I walk up to him at 1230 in the afternoon. He is passed out on a chair with no shirt on, and he has an impressive collection of tattoos. To me, the perfect guy to get me a ride out of town. We start talking and before I know it I spend the afternoon in a bar playing pool with him, he takes me on the back of his motorbike to the local thai only market for lunch, and I am given a Tibetan necklace as a memento of our day together. He is a great guy, a serious Buddhist, a former Muay Thai boxer, a father, and now, on most days, he is a hungover tourist agent.

This is what I will remember. Days of traveling with another guy from America, going to western bars and having the same conversation over and over again - where are you from?　Where are you going? How long have you been traveling? --- shoot me in the head, I dont need this conversation anymore

Mr. Blue, one of the characters I met in Chaing Mai advised me that the questions you can not ask on the road are the 'where are you going' where are you from varieties. Open ended questions, as all lawyers know, are much better if you want to get someone talking. Again, to each their own. There is no one way to travel, and no right way to travel. If my tone is condescending, I apologize, but its simply my attempt to celebrate what I enjoy on the road and should not be misconstrued as criticism of how others live out their travels.