Perth

From Singapore, we flew Tiger Airways to Perth, Australia, to visit our friends Matt and Rob who had left Japan about one-and-a-half years earlier. The day before we left Singapore, I had a random thought that maybe we needed to get visas for Australia. Sure enough! Luckily it was an instant, online thing, and it was no problem.
Another minor crisis averted at the Singapore airport; I was online going over some of the emails that Rob and I had exchanged in the weeks coming up to our visit. In one, he asked if we were arriving on Nov 14th, and I said yes. In subsequent emails, we said things like “see you on the 14th” a few more times, until the last email, where I had sent our flight info just to confirm, in which I correctly wrote that we would be arriving on the 12th. However, he hadn’t responded to that email, so as far as they knew, we weren’t coming until 2 days later. A couple quick calls and rather frantic messages left on both their cell phones and their home phone, and they were all smiles, at the airport to meet us at 10 pm when we arrived! Because their flat was simply too small, they’d arranged for us to stay with their friend Elizabeth, in her guest room. So we headed down there and got settled in.
The first day in Perth, we didn’t stray too far from Elizabeth’s place. She had given us directions to the local shopping center, where there was a supermarket, a wine store and not much else, but enough for us! So we got some groceries, made lunch and watched daytime television until one of the boys came to pick us up. That night, they brought over their mountain bikes so we could get around town on our own, and an extra cell phone, so we could get in touch with them when we needed to, and a few maps of the area.
After traveling for almost one-and-a-half months, we were tired of moving from place to place, always finding where to get things, how to get around, and eating in restaurants. Finally, Perth was a place where we could live for a short time, instead of being tourists. We went to the grocery store, ate meals at Elizabeth’s house, packed lunch to take with us when we biked around town, and didn’t do very much that would be considered touristy. One note; the sun in "Oz" is really strong. Even in their spring, you could feel it burn when you were outside. And so, every day after taking a shower in the morning, we just automatically put on sunscreen for the day if we were planning to be outside at all.

Friday night, Rob was DJing at the local gay club, so we headed down there to chill on their roof bar. Saturday we headed off for a day at the beach in Rob’s car.

Perth is on the Swan River, about 30 minutes from the coast. All the way up the coast are stretches of beach kilometres long with huge sand dunes further in. The first beach we went to was pretty busy; it was some of the first hot weather of the summer, and people were taking advantage of being able to get out in the sun. But the water was COLD!! Kind of like jumping into Georgian Bay in June or early July. If you stay in more than a minute or so, when you get out, you can feel the cold seeping out of you.
So we didn’t do much swimming, just lying on the beach and chatting. A little later we headed to another beach a little further up the coast, which was the local nude beach.

Behind the beach and the dunes was the army firing range, so it was only accessible from either end of the long beach. Up in the dunes, there were lots of little lizards and I saw one goanna, a stumpy little lizard with almost no tail.


That night, we cooked dinner at Matt & Rob’s place, then headed out for a night on the town. We started at The Court hotel, which was a huge sprawling place where some people from every group within in the gay community came to hang out and mingle. There were the A-list 20-30something gays, the lipstick lesbians, the goth kids, the butch dykes, the bears, the drag queens, and plenty of fag hags to round out the mix. Only in cities where the gay scene isn’t big enough to allow the segregation of groups to their own bars, do you get such a cross-section of the gay crowd; groups that normally avoid each other at all costs in social settings all mixed together in one big fun party.
After the Court, we headed off to Connections, where we had gone the night before. This is a fairly big nightclub with a main dance floor and a chill-out rooftop bar, with a few little lounge areas scattered around the perimeter. Rob and Matt, being part of the A-gays, knew many of the people there, so we got to meet lots of locals. They were having a toga party that night, so there were a few people dressed up, but mostly just a Saturday night; great music, fun club and great crowd.
The next day was Matt’s mom’s birthday party, so Rob came to pick us up, and we headed to the family BBQ. Yoshi opted to skip it, since he was already tired, and he probably wouldn’t understand anything they were saying anyway. In hindsight, he was right; I barely understood much of the family banter being slung around, but it was great to see the Aussie traditional family “barby”
We left early and headed off to collect Yoshi and get to the docks for our 4:30 cast-off time for our afternoon wine cruise. A friend of Rob & Matt's had called them earlier in the week, inviting them along on a free wine tasting cruise.
How it worked; a wine sales rep provided a bit of history and tasting notes for each wine, and we scored them all. At the end, everyone signed up for how many bottles of each they wanted. As we were traveling, I bought nothing. Luckily, I had this excuse; to be honest, there was very little that I would have bought in any case. All of the wine was priced at $25 or more, and wasn’t all that impressive. Regardless, it was a nice cruise with a lot of very fun people.

Katherine, one of the women we met that day, had everyone over that evening to her fabulous townhouse to continue the party well past Matt’s 10:30 bedtime.
The next week continued in much the same way as the previous week; we slept in, had breakfast, watched TV, eventually headed out on our bikes to explore some of the city. We did some shopping; took the train to the beach; visited the university where Matt and Rob both work; biked the beautiful bike paths around the river, and pretended we lived there for a week or so.
Thursday night we had the boys over and had a BBQ with Elizabeth. We prepared WAY too much food, and had a feast; lamb chops, chicken breasts, salad, roast vegetables, chocolate raspberry cake, yakisoba (Japanese fried noodles) and we got to eat kangaroo! In Australia, you can buy it in the supermarket, in steaks, fillets, or kebabs. We marinated it all day in Elizabeth’s brother’s recipe, and then BBQd it and it was delicious!! The texture was kind of like sirloin, not too tough, a little gamey. The marinade included sesame oil and coriander, so that lent a little flavour as well. Add a couple of bottles of wonderful Australian shiraz and we had a great dinner.

Matt and Elizabeth BBQing

On Friday (our last day in Perth) Matt arranged for us to join a tour with some of the ESL students at his university. Every other week, they take a bus tour to the wildlife center for an afternoon tour. So we were able to go for free, in exchange for acting as chaperones for the tour; this essentially meant just collecting money, counting people on the way there and back, and paying the fee at the park. At the park, we got to see all the things we had been waiting for; we fed and petted the kangaroos,

we petted the wombat and koala,

and saw emus, possums, Tasmanian devils,

lizards, snakes, bats, and birds. The only thing I wanted to see but couldn’t was the duck-billed platypus.
As always, we wished we had just a few more days in Perth, to do some of the touristy stuff we ignored in favour of just chilling. But we had a fantastic time, and will definitely be back someday.

Kuala Lumpur & Singapore

From Krabi, we were able to book a boat/minibus/highway coach package all the way to KL for 1200 Bt. So we got up bright and early, caught the 6 am boat to the town, and spent a mostly comfortable day on the road, getting into KL at 10 pm.
I’d met Chris in Siam Reap, Cambodia, back at the start of the trip, and kept in touch on Facebook. And when I said we were on our way to KL, he offered to let us stay at his apartment. Unfortunately, we only had 2 days to stay in KL, because we had promised our friend Rob in Singapore that we’d be there for a Saturday night on the town. So Chris and Alistair made the most of our 2 days, taking us around to some of the local tourist hot spots, all the while threatening to kidnap us and take us out of KL to where Malaysia was truly amazing!


This is a Hindu temple inside the cave at the top of the steps in the upper photo.

In front of the temple, they had snakes that you could hold for $4.

But we got to see some of the beautiful buildings around KL; the KL Tower, the Petronas Twin Towers,



With our friend Chris at a fabulous rooftop bar.
and all the Islamic architecture.

Also in KL, we gathered up all the souvenirs we’d accumulated thus far, and the clothes we decided weren’t useful, and anything else we didn’t want to carry anymore, and shipped it all home to Canada. An 11 kg box, first sent by mule and then set adrift on the ocean, guaranteed to arrive in about 2 months, only cost $15!
And we got to go shopping! KL is famous for its Chinatown shopping, where you can buy all sorts of luxury brand name knock-offs; Rolex watches for $100, Louis Vuitton handbags, Gucci shoes, energie jeans, etc. Up until this point in our trip, we’d been backpacking, wearing shorts and tank tops, and staying at the cheapest places we could find. But from here on in, we would be back in the civilized world, where flip-flops wouldn’t cut it. So we shopped; I bought a pair of Diesel shoes for $30 and two pairs of jeans for around $50, which, had they been real, and full-price, would have been around $250 each.


If we’d just had one more day in KL, we could have filled another box of clothes and souvenirs and shipped it off as well. But Singapore was calling. So we spent our Friday night shaking our groove thang at Frangipani, one of the local gay bars (in a country where being gay is punishable by death, or spanking, or something) and had an awesome time. Great people, great music, but the drinks were EXPENSIVE!! $10 each, or so I remember. But I did indulge in the local specialty, the gin&tonic. The story goes that tonic was invented in KL as a more enjoyable way to get your dose of quinine, to prevent (or treat) malaria, back in British colonial days. Jolly good!
The next day, we grabbed the bus to Singapore, an easy (and cheap) 5 hour trip to the tip of the peninsula, and the closest I’ve ever been to the equator. We arrived, and grabbed a cab to Rob’s place, where we changed and headed out to his friend’s apartment for a little house party before hitting one of Singers’ local gay venues.
Rob is a guy we knew from Osaka when he was an English teacher there. This year, he landed a fantastic gig teaching at the Canadian International School in Singapore, where he lives in a beautiful apartment complex with a pool, a maid, and has a fabulous group of 30-something ex-pat friends. Nice work if you can get it!
We had a great time at the club that night. The next day, being Sunday, Rob was off, so we wandered around the downtown and saw some of the most famous of Singapore’s sights; the Merlion,





… , yeah, that’s about it.

During our stay in Singapore, we didn’t really do much of anything. Relaxed in Rob’s beautiful apartment, got lost in rather expensive cab rides, and one night had some of his friends over for a little home-cooked dinner. Planned to go to the zoo’s night safari, but it was raining. And then it was raining the next day, too, when we thought about taking the double-decker sightseeing bus around town. So that’s about all there is to say about Singapore. Except that I smuggled gum into the country and even chewed it in public! A real scofflaw, I know!

Some of our assorted currencies up to this point!

Southern Thailand-Phuket, Ko Phi Phi and Krabi

We had found out at the airport in Chiang Mai that we would miss the last boat of the day from Phuket to Ko Phi Phi, so we were prepared to spend a night in town before heading on our way the next day. As it turned out, this was a very good thing. Two years ago when I was in Thailand for the first time with my friend Autumn, we stopped in Phuket town and registered at a guesthouse on the recommendation of LP. If you're unfamiliar with Phuket, you should know that it is famous for its beaches and the parties at its beach towns. But LP extolled the virtues of Phuket town, the beautiful Sino-Portuguese architecture, the lively night market, and other things. However, when Autumn and I were there, we wandered around town from our guesthouse and found nothing but dusty, run-down streets and nothing of any interest. So we hopped on the back of a couple of motorcycle taxis and headed for the beach. Once there, we said, “This is where we want to be!” and promptly got a car back to town to get our bags and move house, without even staying the night in town.
Funnily enough, we ended up at the very same guesthouse this time around as the one where Autumn and I didn’t stay last time. We had met Eva, a single traveler from Belgium, at the Phuket airport, and shared a taxi into town with her. Like us, she was headed for Ko Phi Phi, so was planning to take the first boat in the morning.
On our way into town, our driver tried to sell us on a boat ticket package with minibus pickup to the pier, for the next morning, for only 1000 Bt per person. Sometimes, these offers are actually a good deal, especially for the traveler who values convenience over budget. However, the budget traveler tries to do as much as possible by themselves, especially booking and buying tickets. And our book said tickets should be around 300-400 baht each.
Many times this trip, Yoshi and I have found it handy to be able to converse in Japanese when we don’t want locals to understand us. This was one of those times. So Eva and I talked about it in French, and Yoshi and I talked it over in Japanese, and we came to the conclusion that we probably didn’t want his tickets, that we would just head to the pier ourselves and get our tickets.
As it turned out, we didn’t even need to do that. Once we were checked into our guesthouse, she offered us tickets to Ko Phi Phi, complete with minibus transfer to the pier, on the first boat of the day (basically, exactly what we wanted!) for only 450 Bt each. Perfect.
After getting settled, we headed out to explore the town. As I said, when Autumn and I were there, we found nothing of interest. Well, it turned out we just walked the wrong way down the street from our guesthouse. Turn left, and you head into no-man’s land. Turn right, and you pass Internet cafes, restaurants, beautiful Sino-Portuguese architecture

AND a fantastic night market! We ate BBQ chicken, sweet sticky rice steamed in bamboo stalks,

Chinese dumplings, Korean style pancakes, delicious little deep-fried donut-like things caked in sesame seeds, corn on the cob, chicken skewers, various unidentified fruits,

and spring rolls all washed down with large one-dollar Chang beer from the 7-11.
Since we were only staying one night, and she was so fabulous, we had decided to share a triple room with Eva. She’s a really laid-back, cool chick into tattoos and traveling (obviously!)

So we chatted a bit, slept, had a little breakfast in front of our hotel,


and caught our minibus to the ferry.
On the ferry, we met Janice, another Canadian en route (eventually) to New Zealand, who was another cool tattoo, diving, easy-going chick.
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When we arrived on Ko Phi Phi, since Yoshi was a bit sick again, we left him in charge of our big bags while the three of us went off in search of cheap lodging. Now, to be honest, there’s nothing really cheap on Phi Phi. But we did find one room for Yoshi and me for only 400 Bt. (The girls decided to stay at the dive shop that they booked their dives through). But we found out later why it was so cheap. It being low season, the whole island is frantically trying to get ready for the crowds, so there was construction going on everywhere. In particular, our guesthouse!! And even though it was low season, there were people everywhere! It felt like spring break all over again, 21-year-olds getting smashed and starting fights on the street outside our room on the way home from the bars in the middle of the night. We only stayed 4 days, and I’d had enough.
I went diving with Janice one day (three dives) where we got to dive the King Cruiser Wreck, one of the most popular dive sites near Phi Phi. The King Cruiser was the ferry between Phuket and Ko Phi Phi that hit a reef and sank about 12 years ago. Luckily, it sank in such a way that made it a perfect wreck dive. The top is in about 12 meters of water, and the bottom at around 30 meters, the limit for recreational divers. The rumour is that it was sunk on purpose; it was in its last couple of months of service, there were no cars aboard that day, and the rescue crews arrived suspiciously quickly, and no one was drowned.
Since it’s in warm, shallow, salt water, the wreck has deteriorated pretty quickly. But we got to see lots of marine life, like stonefish, which blend into the rock and sting anything that touches them; lionfish, that blend into nothing,

and also sting anything that touches them; and some big moray eels.

One eel had even made its home in one of the boat’s toilets.



The main reason we went to Phi Phi was to meet some of the people at Dive For Life, which is an annual gay and lesbian diving group that raises money for HIV/AIDS research. The package was a bit out of our price range; around $1200US for the week, not including flight there and back. But we did meet some interesting people and joined one or two of the evening events. Who knows; maybe when I’m making a doctor’s salary!

After Phi Phi, we headed on to Krabi, another two-and-a-half hour ferry ride to the mainland. Krabi is world-famous as one of the top rock climbing destinations, and that’s what I had planned. We took a long-tail boat out to Railey Beach, on the tip of the peninsula. Ahh, finally! Here was the Thailand I'd been looking for. No crowds, beautiful beaches, bungalows with hammocks on the porch, all surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs climbing more than 200 meters.


We were only there a couple of days when Yoshi started complaining about pain in his arm and hand, and a weird rash. When it got worse the next day, we headed back into town to the hospital to get it checked out. Before going, I’d googled the hospital in Krabi, and it didn’t sound promising; no international clinic, not a great reputation for diagnosis, for anything serious, had to go to Phuket, a 3-hour minibus ride away. But when we arrived, we had a pleasant surprise; only 5 months before, they’d opened a new international clinic, where our nurse spoke English quite well, and the doctor’s English wasn’t too bad either. And her diagnosis was quick, accurate, and shocking; SHINGLES!!! She let me use her computer to google pictures of shingles, and there it was; exactly the rash and symptoms Yoshi had. So they got him a plethora of painkillers, as well as an antiviral and some vitamins too, I think. And everything, including the doctor’s fee, was around $60US.

When we got back Railey, we decided to upgrade our accommodation. We’d been staying in a cute but rustic bungalow, with a mattress on the floor, a mosquito net, cold water showers, and a hammock on the porch. But it was also at the top of a wicked flight of stairs. So we looked around, and for only 100 Bt more per night, we got a big airy room at a resort with a pool, 2 big double beds, hot water, and a nice porch with chairs. So we settled in for another week, for Yoshi to recuperate and in case we needed to return to the hospital for further treatment.

Another bonus of our new digs were our neighbours. A Canadian couple from Calgary also on a grand tour (a year, I think) and who were big into rock climbing. So I rented a harness and shoes, and they took me out for my first day of climbing!
Loves it! So much fun! It’s a sport I’ve been waiting for. I’m not afraid of heights, and have always enjoyed climbing things, so it only seemed natural that I would like it. After that, I signed up for a one-day course with one of the local climb shops, where I got to try a few more climbs, including one that was 30 meters high, which is the limit for single-stage climbs, as rock-climbing ropes are only 60 meters long.

If you click on this picture, you can see the larger version. In the center, the darker area is a cave with stalactites hanging down in front of it. That cave was the end of the 30-meter climb. At the base of the cliff, you can see one of the guys holding the rope for someone climbing.

Other than climbing, and after Yoshi was feeling better, we also spent a few afternoons at the beach watching the little sand crabs build their kingdoms,


feeding the monkeys, and enjoying the spectacular sunsets from West Railey Beach.

We got to spend more time than planned at Krabi, partly because of Yoshi being sick, but also because we learned that our next destination was a no-go. We had planned on heading to Pulau Perhantian, a couple little islands in the north-east corner of Malaysia, just over the Thai border. Our guidebook said they closed during the monsoon season, which was usually from about mid-November every year. Well, maybe this year was different, cause the monsoons had already moved in. And the next plan of doing a jungle trek through the rainforest of central Malaysia didn’t sound all that great either, in the rain. So we stayed in paradise in Krabi as long as possible, before we finally had to move on.

Some of the hundreds of geckos we saw all over SE Asia

A starfish making its way across the sand in a tide pool

The Return to Thailand-The Chiangs

The bus to the Thai border at Huay Xai was luxury compared to our Laos bus experience so far. We boarded a minibus in town, thus avoiding the 10-km tuk-tuk ride back out to the new bus station. And the road was surface-treated almost the whole way, about four-and-a-half hours. I say almost; the only places it wasn’t smooth were where the road had been taken out by rockslides. In these places, we had to pick our way through the reconstruction efforts, sometimes alarmingly close to the edge where cliffs dropped away into river valleys. Interestingly, I barely even noticed these things, or rather, noticed, but felt no alarm.
We arrived in Huay Xai, grabbed some sandwiches and snacks, spending the last of our Lao kip, and boarding a Mekong river boat for the only time, took the 10-minute ride across to Chiang Khong.

In Chiang Khong, we intended to catch a bus directly to Chiang Mai, the northern capital of Thailand, about 6 hours away. However, as our guidebook said (but I had hoped was wrong) there were no direct buses; we would have to take the 3 hour bus to Chiang Rai, and change buses there.
We made it to the bus station just as the bus was pulling out; our intrepid tuk-tuk driver obviously knew the schedule, and actually pulled in front of the bus to let us off and get on our bus. It was a pretty basic bus; we sat near the rear door, which stayed open the whole 3-hour trip.

The “air conditioning” consisted of small fans bolted to the ceiling, which switched on only when the bus was stopped.
When we got to Chiang Rai, we learned that the only other bus that day going to Chiang Mai was already sold out. At this point, we were 5; Yoshi and I, the two Americans from our Laos trek and another guy we’d met on the bus from the border. And none of wanted to spend the night in Chiang Rai, only to get up in the morning to get on another bus. So we set out to find a minibus to charter the rest of the way. Luckily, the other guy was an English teacher who had been in Bangkok for about 7 years, and who spoke near-fluent Thai. We found one guy who agreed to take us for around 600 baht each, which seemed a little high, since we could have taken a minibus straight from the border to Chiang Mai for only 750 baht each. But we weren’t in much of a position to bargain, since it was that or nothing, as the guy surely knew. So we headed off to his “minibus” only to find that there was some miscommunication…he meant “tuk-tuk”…which, if you remember, is a pick-up truck with benches along the sides of the back, and a roof. To be sure, it was a pretty nice tuk-tuk, as tuk-tuks go, but there was no way any of us were going to spend 3 hours in it.
From there ensued another round of arguing, bargaining, and haggling, which ended with us walking away in search of a real minibus. Once he saw we really wouldn’t take his ride, he then told us he had a friend with a minibus who could take us instead. So he told us to wait there, and he’d go and get the minibus. Then something changed, and he told us to get into his tuk-tuk and we’d all go together to the minibus. I thought this sounded OK; however, as the Bangkok teacher later told us, it seemed more like we were about to drive around town until our driver spotted a minibus that he could convince to take us to Chiang Mai for something less than the 3000 baht he’d already agreed on with us. And that’s pretty much what happened. After about 5 minutes, he stopped behind a minibus at a traffic light and got out and did some quick dealing with the driver. Then they both pulled over and we transferred everything to our new ride, and we were on our way.
At this point, I should tell you something about minibuses in Southeast Asia; they are some of the nicest-outfitted vehicles I have ever been in. Fully air-conditioned, TV with DVD player, surround-sound speakers and luxury reclining seats. The only bad thing is that they usually have Thai pop music videos playing at an annoying volume. This guy had a couple of large binders of CDs to choose from, all of which were Thai. We were resigned to tolerating this the 3 hours to Chiang Mai, until he popped in his one English CD. It turned out to be what we dubbed, “Thailand’s Quintessential American Classics” and we sang along the whole way. Much-loved songs such as “Rhinestone Cowboy”, “Sweet Caroline”, “Hotel California” and many others. And when it finished and started again, no one complained.
At a pit stop, we asked the guy just what sort of deal had gone down back in Chiang Rai, as we were all curious. It turned out of the 3000 baht we had paid the tuk-tuk guy, our minibus driver got 2700 of it. Pretty good money for a 6-hour road trip in Thailand.
On arrival in Chiang Mai at around 8 pm, we said our goodbyes to the others in our group, found the cheapest guesthouse in the book, had some dinner, a few drinks, wandered through the market to find some sport sandals, and went to bed. Unfortunately, as we were flying to Phuket early the next afternoon, we didn’t have a chance to really see anything in Chiang Mai. Next time, I guess.

Laos-Trekking

The next day, we slept in and headed off to one of the LP-recommended restaurants for breakfast. As I said, the downtown area of Luang Nam Tha was only about 6 square blocks. It’s a very small town, becoming famous for being the jumping-off point to go eco-trekking through the Nam Ha Special Protected Area. And there’s really almost nothing else to do in the area; so we quickly booked a 3-day trek leaving the next morning with Green Discovery Tours, which is said to be one of the most responsible and well-organized companies in the area. After that, we rented a couple of mountain bikes and headed out of town in search of the waterfall, which was pretty much the only other thing suggested to do.

The waterfall itself was a little disappointing, but the route there was really interesting! We cycled along a dirt track road that wound its way through a few small villages and alongside rivers and rice paddies. Throughout the villages, there were many different types of animals, so we were able to get pictures of Yoshi with cows and calves, goats and kids, dogs and puppies, cats, chickens, and ducks. We even spotted one long, green snake crossing the road between our bikes.

OK, not so long.

On our way back into town, we saw a group of kids from around 10-16 years old, playing a form of volleyball/soccer that is popular in Thailand and Laos. They use a 20-cm woven rattan ball, and can only touch it with their feet and heads. What’s similar to volleyball, they have to serve the ball over a 5-foot high net, then the other team has to return it in 3 hits or less. Some of their moves were very impressive, especially when they made “kill” shots, spiking the ball over the net using an overhead kick. They invited us to join their game, but it looked a little too difficult for me. But we did join a second group off to the side just practicing, like a hacky-sack circle, just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t as difficult as it looked, but the ball did hurt the feet a bit, wearing sandals as we were.

Yoshi practicing with the boys.

The next day, we joined our trekking group and climbed into the tuk-tuk for the 20-minute drive to the village where we started our trip. We had a full group of 8 people. Green Discovery limits their treks to 8 people in order to minimize the effects on the environment that we hike through, and to maximize the experience for the people in the group. In our group, we had a great mix of people from all over the world, with a variety of languages. Everyone could speak English with varying degrees of fluency. Then we had a young couple from the USA; his parents were from Spain, so he could also speak fluent Spanish. Then there was a French-speaking Swiss couple; she could speak English quite well, and he spoke fluent Spanish. Then our last couple; she was from Argentina and he was from Poland. So the Swiss and American guys spoke Spanish with the Argentine girl, I spoke French sometimes with the Swiss girl, and everyone spoke English in different accents. Very international!

Not so much to say about the trek. We walked…a lot. Up and down hills, then back up, and back down, and took a break, and then kept walking. Along the way, Pet, our guide, showed up interesting things that we passed, including a rattan tree (of the furniture fame) and the tree that they get Tiger Balm from. The first day we started our trek in a local village, and two women from that village prepared our lunch, all local stir-fries and stews, with a large hunk of sticky rice for each of us. All the food was poured out onto banana leaves that were laid over whatever surface we happened to be eating from, which was often just the ground, and everyone would just dig in, sometimes with fingers, or with improvised chopsticks that our second guide made out of some sturdy reeds.

The first night we stayed sort of in the middle of nowhere in a rough wooden building on 3-foot stilts, complete with mosquito nets. Our guides and the women from the first village made an amazing dinner and then we drank shots of Lao whiskey that Pet passed around the table until we couldn’t stand the taste anymore.

Hiking through rice paddies.

The next afternoon, we passed into the territory of the Akha people, one of the many ethnic groups in the Laos countryside. A few years ago, at the request, or perhaps under pressure from the Lao government, they moved their whole village to be closer to the road access. So all that’s left of the old village was one large building, and lots of foundations of other buildings. We could hear the voices in the new building from time to time, but never saw any sign of them. The next day, we were given the option of hiking for 5 hours through the forest or 3 hours across rice paddies with little shade. We opted for the forest, but eventually made it to the same place, the location of the new village. There we were given a tour, bought some handicrafts and met the village chief. One interesting feature of the village was the love houses, where teenagers of the village could go to spend special time with the object of their affection out of reach of the prying eyes of the other villagers. They were just several small huts all in the same area of the village, and they were each about the size of, ahem, a double bed.

Once we got back to Luang Nam Tha, which now seemed like a bustling little town compared to the jungle, we immediately sent off our laundry and had hot showers. We’d been lucky enough to have river bathing each day, and sometimes at break times during the day as well. Anytime we had a chance to strip off and jump in, I took it. The rivers were beautiful, cool and clean. Reminded me of Canada…

Before dinner, we went with some of the other trekkers to a traditional Lao steam house and massage. It was just an elevated wooden building, like all the others, but this one had some sort of herbal concoction boiling underneath it that filled 2 small rooms, for men and women. I opted for the full-body massage instead, which got a bit rough at times, but felt great afterwards. A nice way to say goodbye to Laos.

Laos, the city

We have tried to do as much overland travel as possible during this trip, to keep both financial costs and environmental costs to a minimum. But there are some times when it just doesn't make sense to take the bus. Traveling between Siem Reap, Cambodia and Luang Prabang, Laos was one of them!

Laos is bordered by Vietnam along the east side, China in the north, Thailand in the west and south, and Cambodia in the southeast. Overland from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang is only XXX km. However, due to the scarcity of roads and the condition of those that are there, the easiest way to get there would be to go all the way back to Bangkok (one full day traveling) then take the bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos (10 hours by bus or even longer by train) then another bus to Luang Prabang (another 11 hours to go only 350 km). So we had the choice; three days on buses, or a 2 hour, $180 flight. Easy choice, I think.

Laos was our only communist country on this trip, and only my second one to ever visit, having been to China a few different times, for a total of about 40 hours. And for some reason, I was a little anxious. Our guide book also mentioned that, in the past, Laos has cancelled all visas-on-arrival with no advance notice. So I didn't really know what we would do if we landed and were refused entry to the country. But no worries, we were given visas and went on our way. An interesting note, Japanese citizens are given a 14-day visa free of charge, as are most South-East Asian countries. Most European countries are charged between $30-35 USD for a 30-day visa; the USA is $30. And Canada has the distinction of being the single one charged $42 USD; what did we do? Probably Japan has invested a lot of money in the country or lent money to government projects; but the US dropped literally millions of bombs on Laos during the "Secret War", many of which are still left unexploded (UXO) around the country today. I guess they've forgotten about that.

Luang Prabang was a breath of fresh air after Cambodia. We kept ourselves pretty busy visiting temples and seeing the town while in Siem Reap, so we were ready for a bit of down time. And LP was the perfect place to do it. Set on a small peninsula where the Nam Thon River joins the Mekong, the downtown can be toured in less than half a day.

There are restaurants and guesthouses lining the bank of the Mekong, offering standard Lao dishes for less than $2 and fruit shakes for about 60 cents, and standard rooms from about $8 a day.

Yoshi on the balcony of our guesthouse.

Yoshi was still fighting a cough he picked up in Siem Reap, from either a musty hostel room or dusty streets, or a bit of both, so he took the chance to rest up before it turned into something more serious, as it has tended to do in the past. I spent time just wandering the streets taking pictures of all the beautiful old buildings. LP is a UNESCO World Heritage designated city for its great architecture left over from the days of being a French colony.

Furthermore, in Laos there is a government-imposed curfew at midnight. So all bars and restaurants have to close at 11:30 pm to allow people time to get back to their registered address. And after that, it is literally like a ghost town. A few straggling tourists taking their time (the curfew is rarely enforced for tourists), but other than that, empty, silent streets. So that factor really helped in getting well-rested!

One afternoon, we joined a minibus tour up to a waterfall. It was a popular tour that took us 35 km along up-and-down roads and included a sanctuary for Asian black bears that have been rescued from poachers hunting for the Chinese market. We spent about an hour at the waterfall, jumping in from the top of the falls and from trees along the river.

A few times, we ate at the local night market. Every night, they set up stalls along a small street where you could buy things like beef noodle soup, whole roasted chickens, vegetable stirfries, and little coconut dumplings that Yoshi fell in love with. After dinner, we wandered through the streets of people selling souvenirs.

We would have bought a lot more than we did, except that we had a lot more travelling to do and couldn’t lug everything through five more countries.

Also while we were there, we enjoyed the festival which marked the end of Buddhist Lent, on the full moon in October. All the monasteries and temples were decorated and lit up at night, and everywhere, there were bamboo boats decorated with flowers, bright cloths and candles.

So we stayed a couple of days, then another day, then another day, simply because we didn't want to leave. But eventually we knew we had to make a move if we wanted to make it out on a trek before we had to leave Laos.

Yoshi with some goats.

We caught a tuk-tuk to the bus station and bought our ticket to Luang Nam Tha, the province in the north-west corner of Laos, bordering China to the north. The ticket cost about $7 (57,000 kip) we all piled onto a rickety old bus. And when the seats were full, people sat in the aisles, on the floor, anywhere...and they kept selling tickets! The bus we were on was actually continuing on to Huay Xai, on the Thai border. So due to the numbers, they decided to take all the people going to Luang Nam Tha and send a separate, smaller bus so they could fit everyone. Initially, this sounded like great news, as the first bus looked like it would be just a terribly uncomfortable trip; LNT would take around 9 hours, then another 3 or 4 hours on to Huay Xai. So we got onto our second bus, making sure our bags got off the roof and came with us. But the second bus was just as full as the first; four people sitting across the back seat designed for three; that is, me and three Laotians- who are significantly smaller than myself!

We finally left at 6 pm, and for the first 2 hours, it was terrible! We were jammed in together, with me holding onto the edge of the open window to keep from pushing into the person on my left every time the bus careened around a corner. Then we stopped to let 2 people out, and I almost cheered! Suddenly I could face the rest of the trip, being able to move my legs and even put my bag on the floor in front of me. We stopped, possibly for dinner, although none of the foreigners ate anything. The original bus was traveling with us, and so there were quite a few people at the “rest area”. But as the buffet choices were limited, and we couldn't really determine just how long we'd be staying (for the purposes of ordering from the menu), nobody ate. There were a few non-descript vegetable choices that I didn't feel up to trying. But what caught our eye were the platters of larvae, the piles of fried beetles and the whole deep-fried frogs. As one guy put it, normally he'd give it a try. But seeing as we were about to be trapped on a bus for another 7 hours or more, what would we do if it didn't agree with us? Point well made.

And the journey continued...with a full bus again. A few kilometers after our dinner break, we stopped to let on 3 more people. And I was once more back in Lao bus hell. Each minute felt like an hour, and each hour a lifetime. By the light of the full moon outside, I could just about tell that we were passing through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen- at warp speed.

By the time we arrived in LNT, it was 3 am. And unbeknownst to us, they had built a new bus terminal. One that was not a 5 minute walk from the 6-square-block downtown, but rather 10 km out. And foolishly, I had thought I could just rock up at 3 am and knock on a guest house door, and so I had not made advance reservations. So the friendly tuk-tuk driver let me use his phone to call the few guesthouses I had listed in my Lonely Planet. However, only one of them answered, and she told me, sorry, she was full.

Eventually we decided to just take the tuk-tuk downtown and try our luck knocking on doors. But when we asked the lone tuk-tuk driver if he could take us, all he said was, No, not until 5 am. What? Why? But unfortunately neither he nor any of the other 6 people dropped off with us could speak English. So after asking repeatedly, and getting the same answer, we gave up. We could either wait, or walk, or sleep at the bus station.

My face must have said more than I intended, cause soon the Lao people started discussing something at length, which concluded in everyone climbing in the back of the tuk-tuk and telling us to "Come, come". And so we headed into town at around 4 am, stopping along the way to drop one person off, then letting Yoshi and I off downtown. We still have no idea why they wanted to wait until 5 am. They weren't waiting for more people to arrive at the bus station. Perhaps they were going somewhere that didn't open until 5 am (a factory or something?) Or maybe it had something to do with the curfew.

Anyway, we knocked on a few doors, wandered a few deserted streets, and finally nabbed one hostel's last room, getting to bed at 5 am.