Where In The World Is Becky?

Above picture was taken at a market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I took a cooking course (pics on Flickr) and we went to the market before heading out to the organic farm where it was held. I turned a corner and there it was – a smiling pig’s head. Uh, gross. I of course was thrilled at the photo op! The class was great, learned how to make a green curry paste (raw ingredients pictured below) which turned into green curry chicken, a stir-fry, a tom yam, which is a soup usually containing shrimp, but in my case it was “tom yam gai” which means chicken. Also made spring rolls and bananas with coconut milk for dessert. And the best part is that we got a cookbook at the end! Yay! The food is really amazing. I put a bunch of pics up on Flickr for you foodaholics. And who isn’t, really? Also a bunch of monks and some transportation pictures.

So I’m blogging from Luang Prabang, Laos. It’s a gorgeous city and kind of anachronistic (God, am I smart or what?) because it’s filled with this colonial French architecture, yet set between the Mekong River and another one whose name I haven’t bothered to learn. The Nam something. God, I’m lame. It’s beautiful, lush and touristy in the right way – not overrun, little restaurants next to the water with trees strung with fairy lights and few tourists cause it’s the rainy season, which I’m actually enjoying despite my remarks about constant deluges. The weather is very dramatic and the rain cuts the heat. Got here a few days ago via Chiang Khong, Thailand, and a two-day “slow boat” trip up the Mekong. It left from Muay Xai, Laos and everyone spent the night in a town called Pak Beng, then the next morning on to Luang Prabang. Didn’t get any pics of the boat – duh. May go take some of similar boats to give you alls an idea. It was a fun trip – turned into a booze cruise mid-way through each day, as it was filled with backpackers- all the Lao people were sitting in the engine room. Nice, eh? This group of drunken backpackers, BTW, was totally different than what I described in Thailand. Right. 🙂 I think maybe I just decided to loosen up and join them. The first day it rained quite a bit, but the second was bright and sunny. The river is pretty wide and very muddy – it looks like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka. The boat just kind of chugs along for about 6 hours before putting up for the night, and the same is repeated the next day.

Have met quite a few cool people in this stretch. Met a Dutch guy (sorry, faithful readers, no hanky panky) in Sukothai and we traveled together from there to Chiang Khong, but then got in an argument over a fan in the room, of all things. I wanted it on, he wanted it off. He unplugged it, I plugged it back in – and that was it, really. We were on the same boat of course, but have studiously avoided each other the whole time here in Luang Prabang. Wow, I’m getting into a lot of fights lately, eh? Maybe I should take a Thai boxing class or something to release all this pent-up aggression. Met some others on the boat though, and have been hanging with them. Went to a waterfall today, toured some more wats and stalked the monks for their pictures… and that about does it! I’ll leave in the next few days and head for a northern town called Luang Nam Tha, a base for eco-treks. I wasn’t going to do one, because basically, big, white minivans pick you up and drive you out to “remote” villages to view the natives in their natural habitat. Yuk. But this one has gotten great reviews, and most of the profits go right back into the villages. So, if I want to see Lao village life, this is what I gots to do. I’m in for a 9-hour bus ride over crap roads with no air-conditioning. Sounds like Africa! Sorry for the short entry folks, but nap time calls. Love youse!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 1:24 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.