The one on same same but different – the last days in Bangkok

“Life is gooooood… Life is so good!” Many times during the last few months I had that feeling.

Last days of my Southeast Asian trip I spent in Bangkok. Certainly the city didn’t change but my perception and the way I experienced it were so much different this time. Lucy who I met while traveling to Cambodia invited me to stay in her place. I was happy to accept her offer.I didn’t realize how generous she was until I arrived there. She lives in an amazing apartment on the 15th floor… The view was spectacular! I was at the point where a hot shower was enough to make me happy so I couldn’t believe that I was staying in a place like that. It was so good to see her again.

My last days were pretty relaxed – I hang out with Lucy, chilled out on a roof pool, got a manicure & pedicure, had  Thai massage which included boobs massage… Lucy recommended me that place. I double checked it. Apparently that’s normal.  Never before have my boobs been so relaxed! I also went to that famous sky bar on 59th floor. Very nice place and they play jazz music there. And of course I did some shopping… It was a very nice end to my trip! 🙂

I will write one last post on my blog. Coming soon…

The one on paradise – Koh Tao

Sorry for neglecting you… What I’ve done recently… Well… I got to Koh Tao and started an diving course. As soon as I got my open water license I started an advance course. So cool! Tonight is my last dive… 😦

When not diving I’m watching the sunsets with Holly (we met on a ferry from Chumpon) and Mandy (my diving buddy), eat out, go out to Lotus to watch the fire performances and dance madly at the beach and… Hmmm that’s pretty much it. I love this island. So you see… No time for blogging 😉

When I will have some time I will write about my diving adventures. For now big kiss for everybody who is reading!!! You see – I’m embarrassingly happy here… 🙂

The one on doing nothing in Pai

Apart from the craziness of the national holidays Pai is very relaxed town. Very cool and hippie in the same time. I haven’t done much around here. There were few waterfalls I couldn’t be bothered to visit, Long Necks hilltribe which I refused to see (putting brass rings around young girls necks which destroy their bones so they could have a giraffe look was a bit too much for me…) etc. Instead I did disover what “changover” is (chang is a beer brand which apparently consist a lot of chemical substances) and just hang around the river or a downtown. The only thing that really bothered me here is how cold it got during the night. And I slept in the bungalow… And the shower was not that hot… The one thing I didn’t liked was the reason to come here for Thai people. “Thai people don’t touch cold weather so they like it here”, “They can put on a lot of clothes…” I was told 🙂 It was fun to watch the catwalk on the main street. Especially what I would call “the hats parade”. The more ridiculous hat the better. It was the first time for me to see locals on holidays. Cool experience! To sum up Pai was very nice.

I left yesterday. Took 12 hours sleeping train to Bangkok and then 8 hour one to Chumpon. Yes. I get a bit extreme sometimes. As to expect I’m tired and I’m going to bed early. Tomorrow at 5.15 I’m catching a boat to Koh Tao. I’m so looking forward…

The one on Gibbon Experience and King’s Birthday

Wow!!! The Gibbon Experience was one of the best things I’ve ever done!!! We were deep into the jungle (amazing surrounding!!! great experience!!! maybe apart from the leeches…), slept in tree houses sometimes 54 meters above the ground… and zip lines… of course there were the zip lines…You have to see it! 🙂

*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvjLLsbsbAQ

But seriously… Apart from being so much fun it is amazing project. I’m really impressed!!! I love the idea behind it – to help locals “make a non-destructive living from their unique environment”. It did question my view on a charity I must admit… I will put some information directly from their site.

“Poaching, logging and slash-and-burn farming are destroying primary forest and its inhabitants in South East Asia. The team at Animo have long been looking for innovative methods to solve this problem.

A concept emerged; with the local people we build tree houses and a network of zip lines through the canopy of Bokeo Nature Reserve. We provide accommodation in the treetops and local guides ‘fly’ you over the forest to meet the wildlife. The funds received are reinvested to protect the forest.

At present, Lao National Parks have no forest guards for day-to-day protection.  Only the forest guards in the Bokeo Nature Reserve receive a salary; fully funded by The Gibbon Experience. They work 24 hrs a day and presently monitor 25% of the 123,000 hectare reserve.

Once The Gibbon Experience’s infrastructure is fully developed, full ownership of the project will be handed over to the Lao people.”

Once again… such an amazing idea!!! But enough of Gibbons… As soon as I came back from the jungle I took a ferry and cross the border to Thailand. Very easy… I just had to pay the border guys about 1 dollar for working on Saturday. Overtime fee they called it. Fine by me.

Anyway I wanted to go to Chang Mai in the North of Thailand. There was no direct buses at that time so I decided… kind of had to because I was so tired… to stop for one night in Chang Rai. I found a guest house, had a dinner and went for 2 hours Thai masage. So good after trekking… I should have pay more attention to my surrounding… At some point I saw a group of people singing “Happy Birthday King” near the Kings Portrait (King is so important here!!!) but I  ignored it. Next day I got a bus and went to Chang Mai. On a station there I  decided to go to Pai straight away (it’s a little hippie town in the mountains). I wasn’t aware that on the 5th of December  there is a national holiday here – King’s Birthday and thousands of Thai people go to Pai at that time… Apparently 5 years ago there was a movie which made a town so popular. Finding accommodation was so almost impossible. I ended up in a semi-finished bungalow near the river with two German girls. Next day to escape the crowd I went to for a trekking tour and spend a night in a tribe village. I’m still in Pai now. Kind of stuck here. It is a very relaxing place. Will write so more in the next post.

The long one trying to cover a week

Urged upon by mom I get myself to writing. What did I do? So many things can happen in one week that I don’t know where to start…

I’m in Huay Xai right now… It’s a sleepy little border town. I can actually see Thailand on the other side of the Mekong river. That reminds me that the Laotian part of my trip is coming to the end. Just one more thing to do here left… But I was supposed to write about what I did not what I will do…

I will start with the cave. On my last day in Vang Vieng I discovered why this town became a legend in the first place. Tired of tubing and the town itself I decided to explore a bit the surrounding area. I wanted to drive a motorbike myself but after trying it out I didn’t feel all that comfortable about the idea anymore. My skills (lack of them most probably) or state of the motorbike (less ego thretening version) made it much more easy to decide to rent one motorbike and let Andy drive (a friend I met in the hostel). We got lost a few times on the way but in the end we made it to the Blue Lagoon and Phu Kham Cave. We decided not to hire a guided (which was recomennded) and explore the place on our own. To reach the cave you need to climb up the mountain first. What we saw when we got there was simply amazing! Beautiful cave with a little temple in it. The light was falling directly on the reclining Buddha statue and there was nobady but us inside. We walked around a bit and sat down to watch the temple. Then we saw a sign “to the cave” on one of the stones. Puzzeled we followed the arrow. What we discovered? The real cave! All that time we were in the corridor while the salon was waiting! We came in. The cave was huge and pitch black! It was like being in an underground 2 store building! It was amazing and scary in the same time. We were going deeper and deeper not knowing what we would find… At some point we got to the place that when I turn off my flash light there was a complete darkness. I felt like in an acient Indian buryng site… Don’t laugh your imagination plays tricks on you in place like that plus some stones really looked like bones!  Absolutely amazing  experience! I left Vang Vieng happy.

After the city of madness I went to “her majesty Luang Probang” Unesco-protected World Heritage city. Hmmm…. I wrote so much about the cave that now I need to make it short. What did I do? Highlights:

– I met some friends I thought I would never see again and sang/whisper happy birthday in front of the temple at midnight when all the city was asleep

– Saw some temples and visited 3 of the surroding waterfalls. So beautifull…

– Went to the Lao school and helped with English classes. Interesting experience…

– Did the 2 days mahout (elephant keeper/ driver) training course.

I guess I should write more on that one… Some facts. Laos used to be known as Lane Xang which means Land of Million Elephants because… there was literally a million elephants walking freely in the jungles of the North and the South. Now there are maybe 1600 animals. Just as little as 10 years ago Lao Government put elephants under protection.

About it 1/3 of the remaining population is working really hard in the forest industry. It is very abusive environment. Near Luang Probang there are elephants camps which try to rescue elaphants from that kind of work. I went to one of them.

That’s what I learnt. Riding an elephant is not that easy. Sitting on it’s head is not that comfortable (bum and legs hurt..). Elephants eat and shit a lot. A lot! Unfortunately my mahout didn’t speak any English (the only words he knew were “Beer Lao” which he shouted every time the elephant was pissing).  So you can imagine that passing knowledge was rather difficult. But I got to ride a lot on the elephant and bath them. Although I leart basic commands I suspect that my elephant was doing what she wanted to do anyway. I could shout “Pai!!! Pai!!!” (Go!!! Go!!!) but she would move when she felt like 🙂

– I saw a Khmu village (Hoify Village).

– I spend 2 days on a slow boat on a Mekong river. Very relaxing journey although I was constantly torn between observing the amazing views and reading “Midnight’s children”.

– Probably I saw a former king of Laos… That one I have to investigate more before writing about it.

That would be it for the last week. Of course a lot of other things happend as well but that’s another story. Tomoroww I will be deep in the jungle of the Bokeo Nature Reserve hanging sometimes as high as 150 meters above the ground. Yes… I booked myself the famous Gibbon Experience 🙂 Will write about it soon!