Full circle

With local girls who took my photo (and wanted to be included)

I'm in Bangkok once again. This is where my trip started and this is where it ends. After six and a half months it's my last day. Tomorrow I'm going home.

All the chaos on the sidewalk: pedestrians, vendors, motorcycles

Yes, I'm excited to be going home. I miss my family. I'm looking forward to not having to live out of my backpack. To have a clean house to come home to.

Colorful traffic

And yes, I'm feeling a little sad that my adventure is over. Today I just wandered around Bangkok, trying to cram as much as I can into my memory. I bought one last freshly squeezed mandarin orange juice from a stall on the sidewalk, munched on one last pineapple and sour mango, ordered one last pad thai and enjoyed a final mango shake for dessert.

Freshly squeezed orange juice and fresh coconuts

Who knows when I might come back to Asia again. And I will definitely be back someday.

Here are a few of today's random scenes from the streets of Bangkok.

Dancing on the streets

There's always a McDonald's nearby

Frying something

Durian

Colorful stalls

Assorted meats

What will it be?

The amazing temples and palaces of Bangkok

Three elephants statue in front of the Grand Palace

I finally got around to checking out the famous temples and palaces in Bangkok. Previously, I associated Bangkok with doing errands, making travel arrangements and shopping so that visiting tourist attractions was never a priority.

Reclining buddha

I'm really glad I went. The temples and palaces are so beautiful! First I visited Wat Pho, home of the giant reclining buddha. It's so huge I couldn't get all of it on one photograph.

Detail on Wat Pho

Inside Wat Pho

Around Wat Pho

Next to Wat Pho is the huge complex of the Grand Palace along with Wat Phra Kaew, home of the famous Emerald Buddha. The buildings are beautifully decorated and there are so many of them, it's breathtaking.

Detail on Wat Phra Kaew

No photography was allowed inside so I couldn't get a photo of the Emerald Buddha. Actually, it's very small and not very impressive compared to all the other statues and adornments all over the palace complex.

Grand palace

Grand palace complex

Detail in the Grand Palace complex

Detail in the Grand Palace complex

Worshipers attaching gold stickers on a statue

First casualty: my Kindle

My family drinking Starbucks coffee in a Bangkok mall

I've been lucky on my travels so far that nothing has been stolen and I haven't lost anything (except items of clothing that didn't come back from the laundry in Cambodia, where it's known that nice clothes often mysteriously become lost). My only real mishap so far was that my Kindle fell off the upper bunk bed in a hostel. Kindle screens are known to be very fragile and of course mine cracked.

Now that my family has returned home after their two week vacation with me, I'm traveling by myself again. When I travel alone, my Kindle is my best friend. I usually read it in restaurants while I'm waiting for my order, I often read it for a while after breakfast when I'm not in a hurry to be somewhere, I read it whenever I'm waiting for something and I read it on long rides or flights.

In addition to books I also use my Kindle to store Lonely Planet guides which are all in digital format so I don't have to lug heavy guidebooks around. And I've discovered that I can copy reservation confirmations in pdf format on the Kindle. It's very easy to just show the Kindle rather than booting up my computer when I'm checking in at a guesthouse or when I want to show an address to a taxi driver.

I can't imagine traveling without my Kindle. I was devastated when it broke.

The good news is that my Kindle broke in Bangkok and not in some godforsaken jungle or undeveloped country. I went to one of the many mega shopping malls in Bangkok and simply bought a new one. Problem solved.

Journey from hell: Luang Prabang to Bangkok in 50 hours Part II

In Bangkok at last!

It was 10:00 PM, we were tired from 27 hours that we had already endured on the road and we were stranded in front of the Lao-Thai border crossing. There was only one thing we could do: hire a tuk-tuk to take us to a guesthouse in Vientiane to spend the night.

We got up early the next morning and took another tuk-tuk to the bus station where we boarded the international bus that should take us all the way across the border to Nong Khai. We would try to exchange our pre-purchased sleeper train tickets that we weren't able to use the previous night for seats on the day train. The train tickets were non-refundable, but we thought we would at least ask if they might honor them.

The international bus took us to the border where we were now proudly able to get stamped out of Laos since we had transport for across the bridge to the Thai side. We had to descend the bus to go through Thai immigration and customs along with all our luggage that had to be inspected.

After completing the formalities we waited patiently for our bus on the Thai side of the border. Tuk-tuk drivers were annoyingly offering their services but we brushed them off since we had our bus for the short trip to Nong Khai. They insisted that there would be no bus but we are seasoned travelers and have heard such tales before so we just ignored them.

Time passed and after a while we started looking for our bus that was nowhere in sight. We didn't see any of the other passengers from our bus either. Where was everyone? Another bus pulled over and we inquired the driver for the whereabouts of our bus. He told us that our bus had already gone. What? How did we miss it?

Almost on cue the tuk-tuk drivers approached again because it was obvious that they knew that we now knew that there really would be no bus. We also noticed some local vendors gossiping and pointing at us falang and laughing which confirmed our suspicion that we were scammed and everyone except us was in on it. What probably happened was that the bus waited around the corner and all the local passengers who knew that boarded it but we didn't and the bus just pulled away without us. We were really pissed because buses typically don't leave passengers behind, not even in southeast Asia. This was obviously a deliberate scam, forcing us to hire a tuk-tuk instead of going on the bus. Yes, we fell for the scam. It happens. We were still pissed.

We lost so much time again that it was already 9:25 AM when we got on the tuk-tuk, too late to catch the morning train to Bangkok. We had to go to the bus station where we bought tickets for the 11:00 AM bus.

We hadn't had breakfast yet and there was plenty of time until the bus left so we strolled the nearby market and bought food that we were going to eat at the bus station. Matej and I returned to the bus station quickly while Marko and Martina went off to look for fruit.

As soon as Matej and I showed up at the bus station, the conductor motioned to us frantically to get on the bus because "the bus is leaving in 10 minutes" and "where are your friends"? I was confused because my watch showed 10:00 AM, an hour until departure time. I didn't think there was a one hour time difference when we crossed the border. I went to the information booth to ask what was going on and they gave me some crap about the roads being closed and the bus must leave immediately.

Matej went off to search for "our friends" while I tried telephoning them. In the meantime, other passengers on the bus were frantic as well. I saw another woman running off with a roll of toilet paper. I hoped she would make it back before the bus left. When Marko and Martina finally returned, we were all rushed onto the bus.

The conductor checked everyone's tickets but the bus still hadn't pulled away. Wasn't there some kind of emergency that we had to leave immediately? Whatever, the conductor leisurely started distributing plastic stools along the isle and local people continued boarding the bus with all their stuff and commotion until the bus was packed. It was 10:45 when we finally left the station. There was no sign of closed roads or any other reason why we had to leave in such a hurry. Ah well, at least we managed to buy our breakfast that we then ate on the bus.

Thai buses are more reliable than Lao buses and Thai roads are much better than Lao roads so we pulled into the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station, our final destination, at 21:00 PM as planned and without any breakdowns. We piled onto a tuk-tuk to take us to the Sky train station and rode the Sky train to our guesthouse.

Our journey of 50 hours was finally over. We were tired and fed up. I never would have believed all that happened if I hadn't experienced it. But why travel if not for such travel adventure stories?

***

In summary, we switched between 12 different means of transport:

1. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Luang Prabang to the bus station 
2. VIP bus from Luang Prabang to the middle of nowhere 
3. Pick-up truck from the middle of nowhere to Vang Vieng 
4. Songthaew from Vang Vieng to Vientiane 
5. Tuk-tuk from Vientiane to the Lao-Thai border 
6. Tuk-tuk back from the Lao-Thai border to Vientiane (because we weren't allowed to cross the border on foot)
7. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Vientiane to the bus station 
8. International bus from the Vientiane bus station to Nong Khai 
9. Tuk-tuk from the Thai border to the bus station in Nong Khai  (because our bus scammed us)
10. VIP bus from Nong Khai to the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station 
11. Tuk-tuk from the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station to the BTS Sky train station 
12. BTS Sky train to our guesthouse in Bangkok

Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year decoration

Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the snake begins today.

It's impossible not to be aware of Chinese New Year while traveling in Asia. It's very much like our Christmas and New Year holiday season with the decorations, holiday music and shopping. In Thailand, they play popular Christmas songs so it feels like Christmas all over again. In one of the markets there was a huge decorated Christmas tree that was probably left there since Christmas and looks like it's recycled for Chinese New Year.

Mandarin oranges as tree decorations

The traditions for Chinese New Year are similar to Christmas traditions. Families come together to share festive meals and exchange gifts. Judging by what I've seen in all the shopping malls in various cities I've visited recently my guess is that the most popular gifts are sweets and among them Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Globalization goes all ways: Asian made clothing and shoes and electronics are available in Europe while European chocolates seem popular in Asia.

We were in Laos on the actual day of the Chinese New Year where the festive season wasn't so obvious. But I spotted some decorations and we definitely heard firecrackers and saw fireworks during the celebrations.

All roads lead to Bangkok

Welcome drink in Bangkok

After four months of traveling, I'm back where I started: in Bangkok. This is where all roads lead in southeast Asia. Bangkok is the travel hub where people come to get visas, make travel arrangements, take flights or trains or buses to their next destinations, and meet their families who come to visit! Yes, my family is here! I'm so happy to see them after four months! They came here on a vacation from the snow back home and we will be traveling together for a while.

Looking at Bangkok four months later, after I have been hardening off in Asia for four months, it's not as daunting as it was the previous time around. I've learned to choose street food and all the animal parts such as intestines or chicken heads that are displayed on many food stalls don't bother me as much any more.

Compared to Phnom Penh, Bangkok's traffic is tame and so easy to navigate. And compared to Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong, Bangkok quite measures up to the futuristic look and feel with skyscrapers, public transportation in the form of the skytrain and upscale shopping malls, escalators, walkways and pedestrian overpasses. Still, it has all the street stalls and exotic flavors of Asia. Out of all the Asian cities I've visited so far, Bangkok is the one that has it all.

Unusual fruits

Fruits at the market

Although I’m not much of a fruit lover, I try to eat healthily while I travel and with the abundance of fruits at the local markets, I often end up eating fruit for lunch.

My favorite fruit remains the pineapple. I can get it almost everywhere, served nicely peeled and chopped in a bag with a wooden skewer. Occasionally I buy a mango, either the green and sour kind that they sprinkle with chili flakes, also served chopped in a bag, or the sweet orange variety, most often as a shake.

If I’m still hungry after just fruit, I supplement my lunch with a bunch of bananas. Sometimes it’s difficult to choose from the many varieties: small and yellow, large and green and everything in between.

I did make an effort to try the more unusual fruits that are found around here. There is the durian, the smelly fruit which I tried once and probably won't again. The taste is just as weird as the smell.

Durian

Sections of durian flesh

The rambutan is quite tasty as well as easy to peel and eat. It's very similar to lychee by taste but is more spiky on the outside.

Rambutan

Rambutan

The mangosteen is not one of my favorites, but the one I tried might not have been fresh as some of the inside sections were starting to turn brown.

Mangosteen

Mangosteen

The dragon fruit or pitaya looks much better that it tastes, in fact, it doesn’t have much of a taste at all. They often add it to fruit salads for its interesting pattern.

Dragon fruit

Dragon fruit

They serve coconut as a drink by drilling a hole and inserting a straw. It’s nice to try fresh coconut water once but I don't like the taste too much.

Coconut

They sell many more types of fruits, such as watermelons, mandarin oranges, grapes, apples and pears that are known to me as well as a bunch of others with which I haven't yet experimented and I still have no idea what they are.

Vegetables of southeast Asia

Vegetables at the market

While I'm not too keen on trying various creepy animals and animal parts that are served as food in southeast Asia, it's quite the opposite in the vegetable department. I'll try anything that's green and comes out of the ground, as long as it’s not poisonous.

Generally, eating fresh vegetables in Asia can be risky because they may not be washed or are washed in unsafe water. But I've taken my chances so far and haven’t had any problems. Actually, tap water in most parts of Thailand and in Phnom Penh is officially safe which means that salads are most likely safe as well.

The markets around here are overflowing with green vegetables. I can taste most of them in food that I order in restaurants. I still haven’t identified all of them so it’s a work in progress. I can’t Google a vegetable to find out what it is, how would I describe it? Someone should come up with photo matching search algorithms. Does anything like that exist already?

Asking the locals about the vegetables is no good either, they just tell me the name of the vegetable in their language and I’m no better off knowing what it is. The most helpful resource in identifying vegetables so far has been going to a supermarket where the various fruits and vegetables are labeled in English. But even there, some of them are called just “herb” or “greens”. It seems not all of them have English names.

Typical lunch in Laos, clockwise from bottom right:
green papaya salad, fried rice, weeds and cabbage, Beerlao

Here is a list of some of the more interesting vegetables that I have tasted so far and for which I was able to find out what they are:

• water convolvulus or kang kong, used in soups and stir fries
• mustard greens, used in soups
• flowering cabbage, it seems this plant group includes Chinese cabbage as we know it back home as well as pak choi, a smaller, darker green variety and everything in between, including yellow flowering stalks
• luffa or some sort of cucumber, resembles a cucumber in taste and texture, used in salads and stir fries
• pea eggplant, I got this in a stir fry once and I thought at first it was undercooked peas. I found out later they were tiny eggplants.
• Thai basil, delicious tasting large leaved basil used in copious amounts in some stir fries
• sour mango, I’m still not sure whether this is just unripened sweet mango or a different cultivar of mango. It’s dark green on the outside and light green on the inside, it tastes sour and it’s eaten as a salad.
• green papaya salad, a typical Laotian dish, made from unripened papaya, nicely sour and spiced to the death with chilies. I like.

One mystery still remains. With papaya salad, they always serve these stalks with green leaves on them. I have no idea what it is. Here is a closeup from the plate with my lunch. (The other vegetable on the plate is good old cabbage.)

Unknown green leaves

Rocking the boat to Laos

Boats for crossing the Mekong River

I chose to cross the Mekong River from Thailand to Laos at Chiang Khong, a popular crossing where the process is very streamlined. The bus dropped off all of us passengers where tuk-tuks were already waiting to take us to the river. I knew in advance that I needed US dollars to pay for my Lao visa but if I had forgotten I could have changed money at a booth serving just that purpose. I could also get a photograph if I didn't have one.

After the Thai border exit control I had to walk down to the river shore to catch a boat ride across. There is no pier so the boat sits on the sand on the shore. I had to be careful to balance my large backpack and myself and not rock the boat too much in order to get on board. The boat captain just stood there and smoked and didn’t help me (and probably rolled his eyes at another clumsy woman tourist clambering onto the boat with all her stuff).

We made it safely across. The boat stopped not quite touching the shore so that the passengers had to step ankle deep into water before we reached solid ground. Most people wear sandals or flip-flops in this hot climate anyway so it isn’t much of an issue. However, I can’t believe they just dump passengers with all their belongings at an international border crossing to wade ashore. I’m glad I didn’t drop my backpack into the water with all the commotion.

As if that wasn’t enough water for one day, it started raining. The monsoon kind of raining, where it just pours all of a sudden. While I filled out forms and waited for my passport to be stamped with a Lao visa at the border control, the rain had already stopped.

I entered Laos. I checked myself into a guesthouse. There was no WiFi. I had no mobile phone reception (there is coverage but my Slovenian provider has no roaming agreements in Laos). I was too spoiled in Thailand, that country is very modern. Now I have to adjust to being in less developed regions. Without the internet, it’s back to reading books in the evenings.

Thai jungle

Hiking across a field of marigolds

Hiking in the jungle was ... different than I had imagined. I had no idea it would be so hot and unbelievably humid. I was dripping with sweat all the way. Now I understand why all the hiking tours end with water sports: after sweating for two days and sleeping in a hill tribe village without water and electricity, there is nothing that could keep a group of tourists away from jumping into the river at first opportunity.

A makeshift Seven Eleven shop

As we hiked up the mountain towards the hill tribe village where we would spend the night, we didn’t have to bother carrying lots of water to replace all the sweat. The local people set up makeshift Seven Eleven shops with hiking necessities along the way. Beer, Coke, water, and snacks were available whenever we wanted them. I downed a cold Chang beer when we reached our destination. I so deserved it, not from the hiking itself, which wasn’t too strenuous, but from suffering in the stifling humidity.

Hill tribe village

We were told that there is no electricity in the hill tribe villages and we had to use headlamps to find our way after dark. We did notice, however, that the local people all have mobile phones and wondered how they recharge them. A short stroll through the village gave us the answer: they do have a few solar panels. Life in the village is pretty basic. Small children, chickens and cats run around freely. In the evening, the women of the village convened in a clearing where they smoked and gossiped. And laughed at us tourists, who knows what they were saying about us. Unfortunately they didn’t speak any English so we couldn’t communicate.

Crossing rivers

After our night in the village we descended a different way than where we came up. It was very steep and slippery due to frequent rains. Almost each one of us in our group slipped and fell down into the mud at least once along the way. The path ended at a waterfall where our guide invited us to take a shower. Yes! Cold water after two days in the hot jungle! We all jumped right in.

Waterfall to cool off

The vegetation in the jungle is made up of many plants that are grown as houseplants or annuals back home. I recognized bamboo, bananas, hibiscus, and for some reason that I haven’t yet figured out they seem to cultivate marigolds (tagetes) in fields. Some interesting wild animals that we encountered included termites, huge spiders, beautiful butterflies, and this fellow, about 20 centimeters long (I'm not exaggerating!):

Unknown animal

The guide told us that it may bite and it is poisonous. If anyone knows what it is, let me know.

On the tourist trail

Riding an elephant

We all have the same Lonely Planet guides. We all visit the same places, take the same tours, stay at the same hotels, and eat at the same restaurants. So it's no wonder that it's all touristy wherever I go. Even the Lonely Planet guide warns that the hill tribe villages specialize in Coca Cola and souvenirs. Still I underestimated the tourist factor when I booked my hiking tour.

I only wanted to go hiking. I can’t go alone into the jungle in a remote place so I had to book a tour. There were dozens of tour options to choose from, none of them just for hiking. When I asked the agent for a tour with “no elephants, no rafting”, she dug through the many leaflets and all she could offer was a visit to the orchid farm. While I’m not generally opposed to orchid farms, it’s not the kind of hiking I had in mind. In the end I had to choose one of the tours that included elephants and rafting in addition to hiking.

I’m not much of an animal lover so I decided just riding an elephant was enough, rather than also feeding, training, and bathing the beast as some tours included. I’m not much of a water sport fan so I wanted to avoid rafting. But all the hikes go up the mountain to a hill tribe village and descend by way of water one way or another. Rather than whitewater rafting I chose bamboo rafting which seemed calmer. It’s just a raft made of bamboo poles tied together and it floats on the final leg of the river where it’s very flat and shallow.

Long neck woman

The tour included a side trip to what they call the “long neck” village near Mae Raem. The village is populated by the Kayan people of Burmese origin, whose women wear rings on their necks. According to the Wikipedia, the village makes a living self-sufficiently on tourist revenue. I have to say they do their jobs well. The entire village reminds me of a Hollywood movie set, all prettied up and ready for filming. The people in the village, including children, are dressed in what I believe to be costumes. Whenever a tourist points a camera, they immediately snap into a smiling pose. Each house sells souvenirs such as hand woven shawls or jewelry and they also demonstrate how it is made. There is a school in the village where children sing happy songs (a performance for the tourists rather than a music lesson was my impression).

Children in the long neck village

I don’t know what to think about the situation in this village. In a way, I find it fortunate that the people take advantage of a source of income that allows them to make a living, even if it means being on display for tourists. On the other hand, is this really an authentic village, where everything is staged to look pretty and happy?

***

There was one more tourist related incident on this trip. Our group stopped for lunch in a restaurant before we started hiking. Another group of tourists came along and they were making a scene. We could tell they were English guys, totally plastered and it was only lunchtime. To ensure they wouldn’t run out of fuel, they each carried a plastic bag with extra cans of beer.

Raining again (yes, an elephant is passing by)

As luck would have it, it started raining during lunch. Both of our groups had to get going because we were on a schedule, so we bought raincoats from a vendor outside the restaurant and got going. One of the guys in the drunken party decided he didn’t want a raincoat and just stripped naked, displaying a large Arsenal tattoo on his back (he also displayed his entire front obviously, but I thought it best not to take photos of that side, I don’t want my blog to be flagged as a site with inappropriate content). 

Drunk Arsenal fan

We laughed at first, but we were hiking through a village area where local people could observe the wonderful tourist behavior which was far from funny. The guide frantically tried to get the guy to put on pants, to no avail. Someone from the village must have called the police, because eventually a policeman on a motorcycle caught up with us. Our group continued our hike while the drunken guys had to deal with the police. I don’t know how it ended, I can only say that once again I am disappointed at the impression tourists leave when they visit foreign countries.