Nico and Jo’s Excellent Adventure

We are finally in Luang Prabang, a small town in Laos. It’s quaint and
quiet — quite different from Chiang Mai and Bangkok! We’ve done
nothing much so far but sleep and just now, eat lunch. (Fried rice and
‘laap’ — Laotian food of ground chicken, chiles and lemongrass)

Below are details on our crossing. There are two sides to the
story…and no, it’s not my side and Nico’s side. We’re both in
agreement that we can tell this story two ways and that actually a
combination of the two stories is the best way to accurately portray
everything we’ve experienced!

But first thing’s first:

To the parents: We’re both in good health. We were both a bit
exhausted from the boat trip so we slept almost 15 hours last night!
(We got in about 5 pm) We have a good, safe room at a guest house [air
conditioning, locks on the doors, indoor bathroom…for $11 a night!]
We both are now taking malaria pills and luckily, no side effects so
far!

And now…Nico and Jo’s crossing to Laos:

So, like I said there are two sides to this story…The romantic side
and the realistic side. You need both sides to really understand the
adventure we’ve been on for the past two days. 🙂 Enjoy!

Crossing into Laos: The Romantic Side

We rode a beautiful covered wooden boat down the Mekong River. The
river current wasn’t as such that there were rapids or anything that
would make us quesy or sick. It was smooth and the boat glided over
everything as the breeze cooled us from the Thai sun. We slept a bit
in the sun and then read the books we bought just before departuring
Chaing Mai.

We stopped halfway on our crossing to Laos to spend the night at a
very small riverside villiage. Having limited electricity, we dined by
candlelight at the villiage’s small Indian restaurant before going
back to our guesthouse, which was run by a sweet family and their 12
year old girl. (Who spoke French and English as well as some
Japanese!!)

The next day was spent floating down the Mekong River to Luang
Prabang, Laos. The trip cruised by some of the most beautiful and lush
foliage and landscape we’ve both ever seen. There were small tribal
villages and every once in a while, the boat stopped off somewhere
seemingly primitive…only to find a small trail where we ‘docked’ to
let a lone villiager get off the boat.

If you paid attention and had good eyesight, you would see a small hut
or a gathering of small huts high on the hillside as the boat pulled
away and would know that this person wasn’t afraid of the lush jungle
ahead of him…that he was just home.

Nico and I amused ourselves by telling stories of our lives or
exchanging theories and thoughts about all we’d seen.

Would we have changed anything about this trip? Would we have flown on
an air conditioned plane instead of a wooden boat?

Never. Not in a million years.

Crossing into Laos: The Realistic Side

We were to leave Chiang Mai on Wednesday morning and go by double
decker, aircon bus to Chiang Khong. What we got was a small VW bus
(aircon though!) because, according to the guide, not enough people
signed up to justify a double decker bus with reclinable seats.

So, for five hours, we rode crammed into a small bus to Chaing Khong.
Once in Chiang Khong, we checked into one of the only guest houses
there was in this small villiage on the river.

Now, to put any romantic notions out of your head, “On the river”
isn’t as quaint as it seems. “On the river” means, at night, lots and
lots of mosquitos. We were terrified.

Also keep in mind that our guest house was small and family-run.
“Rustic” would have been nice. This was down right primitive (unless
you gave points for the family having lots of Thai beer on hand and a
cable TV in the lounge area that broadcast soccer and rugby games)

I made Nico sleep with the lights on and (allergy be damned!) I
layered on the mosquito repellent. Hours slept that night: 3

We boarded the small platform of a boat to cross the river into Laos.
By “platform,” I mean wood hammered together and an ancient boat motor
at one end. We bonded with the other 5 passengers simply by the sheer
thought that we all might be the last people we ever saw…that is,
until Nico started humming the theme from “Pirates of the Carribean”

We boarded another ship that would take us halfway down the Mekong.
Not too bad…except a few things:

The “bathroom” was a hole at the back of the boat (discreetly screened
by walls, but a hole nevertheless)

Not a cushion in site. By the end of the first day, our bums were
very, very numb.

But we survived. We did stop at a small villiage. Stayed in a guest
house where the electricity was cut off at 11. Nothing to do with
paying the bill…the entire villiage was on generators. ALL
electricity cut off between 11 and midnight. We spent the night
itching from imaginary (or otherwise) bug bites and trying to fall
asleep despite the heat.

The next day was spend reading and trying to amuse ourselves on a 50ft
wooden boat, crammed with people (both tourists and locals) and
dreaming of a shower. We reached Luang Prbang tired, hungry and giggly
from all the odd aventures we just had.

Would we have changed anything about this trip? Would we have flown on
an air conditioned plane instead of a wooden boat?

Never. Not in a million years.

We are in our final days in Chiang Mai. It’s been a very active and
full visit! On Wednesday, we are taking a bus to the Thai/Laos border
and then taking a boat down the river into Laos. The entire border
crossing will take about three days, with a night’s stay in a border
town on the way.

Mimi, Eddy and Valerie: Don’t worry. The trip is a set trip we booked
through a travel agent. The bus is a two decker air conditioned bus
and the one night stay is already booked within the package — so it’s
hardly going into the ‘vast unknown’…we’re simply riding a bus,
getting on a boat, getting off a boat, sleeping, then on the boat
again and getting off at the Laos border. 🙂

We’ve had some marvelous adventures so far. [I still can’t believe we
rode an elephant for an hour!!! The ox pulled cart I could have done
without though…I think my bum is still numb…]

We’ve also had some hilarious ‘adventures’ that can only happen when
you’re travelling in a place you’ve never been before.

Musings/random thoughts:

– Cooking School: It was hot and humid in the kitchen…but so much
fun! We cooked about 7 dishes…and ate what we cooked after each one!
After the third, Nico and I were soooooo full! But we still had so
much to cook and therefore, eat. Even the group of German students and
one from Greenland were moaning along with us! Lesson learned: No
eating before a cooking class.

– We had decided that the guest house we were staying in was too
removed from the ‘action’ of the city. Today, after spending 4 nights
there, we decided to check out. After looking the map over…we
realized we had been GOING THE OTHER WAY. The ‘action’ we had been
dying to visit? [The Night Bazar, the bars and clubs, ‘cool’
restaurants] RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER. Lesson learned: Always double
check how you read a map.

– Went to see a Thai Boxing [Muay Thai] match…actually, we saw six
last night. But at the beginning of the first match, we already wanted
to go home. Why? Not because of the heat, or the geckos hanging out
on the ceiling…we wanted to leave because we were getting eaten
alive by mosquitos! It took about a 20 minute walk and lots of miming
on Nico’s part to find a pharmacy that carried mosquito repellent. I’m
allergic to it, but allergies be damned! I wasn’t going to itch for 4
hours! Lesson learned: Always have insect repellent with you while in
Asia. No matter what. Even when you think you won’t need it, bring it.

That’s it for now. We have 4 more days in Chiang Mai and then off to
Laos. We’ll try and connect one more time before we leave and as soon
as we get to Laos.

Well, we made it out of the smog and traffic ridden area of Bangkok.
We took a sleeper train out of Bangkok last night and headed up north
to Chiang Mai, which is in the Northern part of Thailand. It’s a
slower pace here and the air is considerably much cleaner…probably
because there is a 50 percent decrease in the number of tuk tuk
[passenger motorcycles…for the filipinos, it’s the Thai version of
the tricycle we ride in Manila!], buses and taxis.

During our 5 day stay in Chiang Mai, we’re planning on doing a couple
treks into the smaller provinces including some to ride elephants,
rafting, a butterfly farm, some hillside tribal villiages and…yet
ANOTHER snake farm [and yes, that’s Nico’s happiness for the day]
PLUS, this snake farm also has scorpions. [Nico’s trying to push the
limits of my fears…I can’t wait what’s next…swimming with
sharks???]

My MiMi, Eddy and Valerie: Don’t worry, we’ll be safe. 🙂 And Valerie,
yes Nico’s still taking his vitamins
Mimi: Yes I am too!

We’re having a great time overall! Some highlight/random thoughts:

– Like me speaking French, no matter how incredibly correct you’re
saying something in Thai, THEY WILL NOT UNDERSTAND YOU.

– And yes, everyone still thinks I’m Thai or some other Southeast
Asian. And yes, Nico is still my “Sugar Daddy”….only to be
*completely* accurate and to fully assimilate with the other “White
Man/Asian Woman” coupling, Nico has to be about 65 years old and I
should be about 20. THEN, and only then will we really fit it. LOL
[PS: Yes, I gag every time I see a wrinkled man dragging along a girl
barely out of her late teens…]

– We took a late night train out of Bangkok to go to Chiang Mai. About
5 am [my sleeping patterns are still a bit screwy] I woke up and
watched the sun rise. The train tracks went up and above a valley full
of lush foliage and trees. A majority of the trees had lavender
colored flowers in them. BREATHTAKING!!!
And then…
There were shacks and shanty towns where the rural farmers live.
Children with only a tshirt on and no shoes ran around the dirt yard.
This is about as accurate of a description that would sum up
Thailand for me so far. The scenery is breathtaking, the people
hospitable and kind…and the poverty is heartbreaking.

– I am having fun introducing Nico to the foods of my youth. Things
that I grew up knowing and eating in the Philippines and are not
available in the States. I must say, he’s been pretty
brave…especially with rambutan, a red globe of a fruit with black
and red spikes…basically, it’s known as the “spiderfruit.”

– Nico’s tolerance for spicy foods has also grown, thought I thought
we’d have to call the Bangkok fire department when we had dinner on
the Mekong River. Even I couldn’t finish the “Bass fish with chili
sauce”

– Incidentally, dining on the Mekong River is actually NOT as romantic
as it sounds. We found a beautiful restaurant at the curve, across the
river from Wat Po [the biggest temple in Bangkok] and opted to dine
outside. First, the water of the river looks like liquid mud. Not just
dirty water, liquid mud. Nico and I swear we saw several questionable
items floating by us on the river including: a folding chair, a large
dead fish, a severed head [this, admittedly is probably our
imaginations and/or the Singha beer] and a couple of tires.
The river is also very busy with tourist rides, dinner cruises
[thank GOD we didn’t do that!!], and general fishing, transportation
barges. The latter ones empty and clean their um, sanitary areas,
wherever. Even in front of shocked “farang” eating dinner by the
river…ie: Nico and I. I think we stopped eating our seafood dish
sometime after spotting the dead fish float by us.

– After a week, we have discovered that I am allergic to….OUR
MOSQUITO/INSECT REPELLENT. We took a morning to go to the Mission
Hospital in Bangkok. Both Nico and I were totally impressed with the
speed and the competancy of the hospital staff and medical system in
Thailand. We were checked in and out within an hour and this includes
having already gotten my prescriptions! [In Thailand, you get your
prescriptions at the pharmacy of the hospital you received the medical
evaluation] Oh, and the cost? Nurse, doc visit AND prescription? About
$15.

OK, that’s it for now. We miss you and love you!