Pai

 

We spent our last week in Thailand, in Pai.  A small town in the North Western hills of Thailand.  Finally I found somewhere in Thailand where I truly enjoy staying, but as our visas were about to run out, we only managed 3 days there. 

 

Despite a recent frenzy of development - 1 traffic light (2 weeks old, totally unnecessary, and that flashes orange after 8pm) and one 7/11 (only 4 days old) - it was small, quaint, quiet (except for those damn roosters, but they are everywhere, so it doesn’t count), bohemian, lazy and carefree.  There are oodles of vegetarian restaurants, natural produce stores, comfy guesthouses and cool chill-out, lounge-around-all-day-listening-to-Café-Del-Mar-or-Bob-Marley type bars.  The surrounding countryside is interesting too, complete with waterfalls, temples, hot springs and caves - although we didn’t quite get to the caves, but the rest was within easy reach and meant I could just put my earplugs in, roll over, and get up when a damn well pleased, instead of when my friends (the roosters) dictated. 

 

That was Pai.  You can check out the pictures on http://www.kevslife.com/Thailand/pai/index.html

 

 

Pai to Luang Prabang in Northern Laos

 

We had a 3 day journey from Pai to Luang Prabang in Laos.

Day 1 involved a 9 hour minibus ride, via Chiang Mai to Chiang Kong on the Thai/Loas boarder; on one of those tiny fold-out seats, as the bus was full – not very impressed. We spent the night there and got drunk.  The next day was an early start and a tedious border crossing.  Once on the other side (the border is the Mekong river) we were herded onto a slow boat with about a hundred other backpackers – We bought the tickets in Thailand for the entire trip and there were 2 choices: Slow Boat, with 24 people over 2 days along the Mekong; or Fast Boat: extremely fast (80kph) narrow speed boat that takes up to 6 people and has a deafening gimble-mounted motor, and apparently kills several people a year when it collides with the submerged rocks and flotsam of the murky Mekong.  So, heading the advice of the Lonely Planet and other travelers, we opted for the slow boat.  And that was a mistake. 

 

The slow boat was heaving with a mass of backpacker humanity. We were jammed in the same backbreaking position for 6 hours, 2 by 2, on tiny, wooden benches, barely large enough for 2 children, for which the designers had obviously got their inspiration from “Sit up straight and keep your shoulders back!” school-bus seats.  You couldn’t walk around without standing on other passengers, as there were people standing, sitting and lying all down the isle.  By the time we arrived in Pakbeng (half way), for an overnight stop, I had nearly gone out of my mind with boredom and cramp.  I didn’t even have an interesting book to read.

 

That night we met some Spanish guys and managed to persuade one of them to share a speedboat ride with us, as the next leg on the slow boat was supposed to be 8 hours!  By this stage I thought: It’s either an unlikely quick death on a speed boat, or a leisurely, but near certain, descent into madness on the slow boat.  It didn’t take much to convince the others and so: the speed boat it was!  And it turned out to be not as bad as everyone had described – of course if we had hit something I wouldn’t be saying that – and was actually quite fun.  Most of the noise stays behind the boat; the driver seemed to know the river very well; and most important of all, it only took 3 hours.  So we arrived in high spirits and were all settled in by the time the slow boat languished into Luang Prabang.

 

There are pictures of this trip on http://kevslife.com/laos/there/index.html

 

 

Luang Prabang

 

It has been great here.  Laos was a French colony up to about 1949 and there is still a strong French influence in Luang Prabang.  The architecture has a French flavour, as does the food: with restaurants serving delicious baguettes, quiche and coffee; you can hear the strains of an accordion in the music; and there are even wheelie-bins!  It is a small town located next to the Mekong and as with Pai, has some interesting caves and waterfalls and mountains close by.  We did a day trek with an eco-friendly trekking company, that tries to limit the impact of tourism on the villages it visits and uses your fees to contribute towards health care for the village residents – so I was a lot happier with doing this than those offered in Thailand, although when we were invited into one of the houses to have lunch (baguettes of course!) I still felt like I was somehow imposing – I would prefer to be invited by the residents of a village, to eat some local food and then pay them for that.  Imagine some camera toting Japanese tourists coming into your house and eating sushi and taking pictures – a few times a week.  I think I would be put out, but if I had invited them, that would be different. 

 

It was still a lovely trek, however, with 5 hours of walking that ended with a swim at a waterfall.  Although I did hurt my knee somehow and had could not walk downhill without wincing at each step.  That went away after 2 days, but has been replaced by a cold!  We also visited the Pak Ou caves, where the Buddha statues go to die – there are about 5000 old and broken Buddha’s here – and another great waterfall where they are temporarily keeping a young tiger that was rescued from poachers.  On Saturday there was a Buddhist festival of lights, which is held on annually at the end of Oct at full moon and where boats, adorned with lights are floated down the Mekong, together with thousands of small individual light offerings.

 

We spent most nights here going out with our new found slow boat and Spanish friends, and so have had an all-round great time so far.  I have now split up with my travel companions, who have gone south through Loas to Cambodia, as I want to go to some of the villages further north for a bit and then fly to Hanoi on 15 Nov.

 

The pictures of Luang Prabang are on: http://www.kevslife.com/laos/luangprabang/index.html