Hot Monkey Love

The Gibbons Experience: We had high expectations before going on this trip for good reasons, anyone and everyone who has done it really praised it. The thought of being dissapointed ran through our heads for the entire 2 hour truck ride into the national forest where our journey was to begin. There was five of us in our group, a couple from Chicago (husband was an Aussie, wife is an American of Latin decent), and a single Singaporean woman in her late 20's.

Once we got to the village/national forest, we had 30 seconds to get out of the truck and start hiking. Amy almost got left behind since she was trying to close her $5 backpack we purchased for the trek from a "Chinese Market" since we couldn't bring along our big bags. The zipper was about to break and the buckles were falling apart (the biggest piece of shit bag in the world, a plastic Wal-Mart bag would hold up better). The guide spoke some eng-ish and once again thought I was from another planet let alone the same country he's from. He hurried us across a little stream and up into the forest. They definitely don't mess around when it comes to trekking, especially since they do it in flip flops 2 sizes too small. Their pace made us look silly and I was beginning to wonder where the fire was. We stopped about 30 min into the hike to eat lunch consisting of premade samich's from headquaters. Curry chicken samich, MMMMMM. I spoke laotion to the guides and it shocked the hell out of them. How did this laotion guy get so big they thought. Finally they got up the courage to ask how many siblings I had and if I ate my family members to get so fat. Assholes!

The rest of the hike was pretty hard, straight up hill for about an hour and my legs were burning. The other couple was kicking our asses pretty bad since they just arrived from a few months of trekking in Nepal and Tibet. Man did I feel out of shape, luckily the singaporean was slower than us ;-)





Once we reached our first zipline, our guide gave us a quick safety check and instructions on how not to die. Off he went, zzzzzsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss across and out of site. "OKAY" was shouted across the canyon and it was my turn. Shit! I dont want to die but it looked so fun. Will the harness hold up my fat ass or should I kiss Amy and tell her how much I love her and to take good care of Louie, say "Hi and Bye" to all my friends and family for me etc. What the hell, WOOOHOOOOooooooooooo and off I went. WHAT A RUSH! I cant describe it any better than the fact that our skydiving excursion a few months ago seems like kindergarten play compared to this rush. Now Amy will tell you her version about pooping and peeing herself on the first zip.

Whatever, I wasn't that scared. The harness and roller looked fairly trustworthy, and the brake made of a bicycle tire...well ok I was a little scared. But the ride was awesome, and so were the next few. It was like the most amazing video game ever, zipping way above the jungle, the shortests zips were like the longest zipline ride you could find in the states. Just the first day was worth the 160 euros each!

After a little more hiking, we took a long zip ride into a huge tree way out on its own in the middle of the jungle. It had a two story treehouse on it about 100 m up, with gravity fed sink and shower (I guess piped all the way from a spring way up in the jungle.) And, most importantly, the best squat toilet in the entire world. I mean, you might actually linger on this squat toilet, yes linger on a squat toilet, to admire the view! Fruits and dinner arrived shortly by zipline (veggies, rice, and some of the pork from the cute little piggies back at the village.) The guides came to hang out (no pun intended) with Sam. They'd never had a tourist that spoke fluent Laotian before and though they spoke enough English to communicate safety instructions ("ored - return - no go!"), they couldn't really converse with the tourists. They were eager to learn about America and all kinds of other things - like the earth going around the sun, not the sun going around the earth. I hate to think what else they learned from Sam's scientific instruction, but at least they got the basics!

The next day one of the guides woke us up early to trek out and surprise some gibbons in their sleeping tree before they woke up. Unfortunately the gibbons seem to be on to them by now and were already gone, doubtless muttering "damn those tourists they get up so early we have to get up at 5 to avoid them!" in gibbonese. We had more rice and veggies for lunch and every meal thereafter, then headed out to the waterfall. Dropping right out of that treehouse in the morning was pretty scary all over again, but zipping through the fog was pretty fun (though wet.)

The next day we trekked to the "waterfall" (a nice cold pool with about a 2 foot waterfall above it.) Somehow we managed to get collectively only one leech; the other group's leech score was much higher so we lost that contest. The zip network around the waterfall blew away the first day's lines. We went around the loop there 3 times for fun, zipping over the river, through the valley, and around again, as fast as we could go. The longest zip is supposedly 1km long and took about 10 guys almost a month to put up! The treehouse that night was not quite as amazing, but did have quite a bit more wildlife. As in, tons of very, very large noisy rats. We devised a variety of clever rat traps involving buckets of rice precariously set on ledges, but the rats were smarter than us and instead ate the food on the dirty dishes and held kung fu rat fights with each other all night, on the floor, the thatch roof, our beds....

The last day we trekked out a different way, showing a different side of the jungle, i.e. clearcut farmlands. It was very beautiful, sunny, and Hobbiton-like though. Then it was another crazy truck ride and back to Houayxai. We were sad to leave and tempted to sneak back in, but in the end decided to head acroos the Mekhong and take the local bus to Chiang Rai in Thailand.

Northern Laos by Local Bus

In Laos, there are two kinds of buses: "VIP" buses which make rest stops, have large, comfortable seats and follow a set itinerary, and local buses, which are basically, well, SF MUNI. You can flag one down anywhere, get off anywhere, bring your chickens, etc. However the local bus won't leave the starting point until there are 2-3 people on every tiny seat, and the aisles are full of people sitting on stools. Only then is it time to go start picking more people up. Or 50 kg bags of rice, concrete mix, propane tanks, etc (the top of the bus already being full of bags.) VIP buses are definitely the best way to go, but require reservations and some basic organizational/planning skills which we unfortunately lack.

We did manage to get at least the minibus (like a small VIP bus) up to Luang Prabang, but with our usual luck, we managed to get the one ancient minibus in a fleet of new Honda minivans. When the driver actually got the bus moving at a good clip downhill, he refused to stop for anything - instead using the horn to warn everyone out of his way. Somehow we managed to just barely avoid an entire family of pigs and a two year old human child, and nothing (that we know of) was killed on the trip.

We stayed for a day in Luang Prabang where we mainly relaxed around town and ate at "The Pizza Luang Prabang" over and over. This place is far and away the best pizza in Southeast Asia. The town was absolutely packed with Thai tourists; later we learned that this was due to a national holiday in Thailand. We only got a hotel due to Sam speaking Laotian. The lady at the hotel literally grabbed him and dragged him to the front of the line in front of all the other tourists!

For fun we rented bicycles and rode around town, where we saw some real working elephants being used as pack animals cruising down the street. Then we paid $2 each to climb the hill up to the stupa and see the view. To get our $2 worth, we ran up and down the 250 steps 3 times with Thai tourists egging us on all the while (in retrospect, a mistake, at least in flip flops.) We also couldn't resist buying some of the sparrows in cages from some old ladies and setting the sparrows free at the top, which is supposed to be good luck. Maybe it was bad to support this industry since we usually are all for cage-free sparrows! Oh well. For additional fun we tried to get our cell phone cracked to accept Asian SIM cards, but failed miserably. Sam also tortured the "smoke weed?" guy that popped out of the shadows at night by telling him in Laotian "you're going to get arrested!" I've never seen a guy disappear so fast!



Next we decided to go visit Sam's uncle in Nambok. The problem with visiting family is there is often no VIP bus or even local bus to get there. We caught a 2 way (i.e. the back of a pickup truck with bench seats.) The capacity is supposedly 12 people (or at least 12 Laotians.) Once we had 17 people, a baby, and four 50 kg bags of concrete mix we were finally able to leave the bus station and start the usual rounds of picking up people to hang onto the back. For people who are jealous of our travels, just try to picture this and you will feel better. Also it was about 50 degrees F outside and quite windy in the truck!

Anyway we survived the trip to Nambok. Sam's uncle and aunt and cousin were very happy to see us. It was a bit of a sobering visit, most of the family up there doesn't have much money. Sam helped them build a very barebones concrete house to replace their old thatch house, but there is not much inside - no ceiling or paint to cheer it up, and just a few mats for the floor. It was very cold - similar temperatures to Northern California in the winter, with a very cold fog that often lasted most of the day. It seemed colder because none of the houses or restaurants have any sort of insulation at all and are often half open to the air. Sam's family is so cheerful and grateful for what they have; it really made us think how lucky we are back home. Sam's cousin was in a bad motorbike wreck last year but is able to walk with crutches now and get around on her own. Soon she will be able to return to school. She was very nice and helped me practice my Laotian.



The next day we travelled with uncle and auntie via local bus to Oudomxai, where their son has a successful hot pot restaurant (why is hot pot so expensive everywhere? It's a mystery to me.) At the restaurant we met a very nice doctor from Atlanta, recently from San Francisco, working for the CDC on a program to help the health department there set up immunization programs for children. He was happy to chat with us for awhile and tell us about his recent trip to Mongolia which sounded amazing (living in yurts and all the rest!)

Now we had to say goodbye to the family and take two more bus trips to go before reaching Houayxai where we planned to do the Gibbon Experience. The road between Oudomxai and Luang Namtha was terrible due to the floods and mudslides last year - completely unpaved rather than the usual 50-80% paved. Imagine Tassajara road by bus! After Luang Namtha the roads improved, but were still quite steep. With our usual luck we got a bus with no brakes (or at least the driver did not trust the brakes.) Whenever we got to the top before a steep (10% plus) grade downhill, he would come to a complete stop, shift into first gear, and go slowly downhill using the transmission to brake. Even the big dump trucks were passing us. And you can imagine what the passengers had to say! Anyway we somehow made it to Houayxai in time to rest for a day before heading off to see the gibbons.

In the Tubing in Vang Vieng

Well we finally tore ourselves away from the comforts of Grandma's house where they wait on us hand and foot unless we yell at them not to and laundry only costs 10 cents/kilo for wash, dry, and fold. We were lucky enough to catch the bus from there rather than having to backtrack to Vientiane. We stopped for one day in Vang Vieng, which is basically a tourist town on the river between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. The highlight of Vang Vieng is inner tubing on the river, or "In the Tubing" as they call it there. Basically it works as follows:

Follow the blond Canadian girl with the knit witch cap and fingerless Michael Jackson gloves and bikini who has covered herself in permanent marker ink numbers and is chanting "LET'S GO TUBING" and has been doing so all night long and well basically for the last week straight (apparently.) We think the tubing companies may actually have hired her for this purpose, but it's hard to know for sure. Anyway you get a number inked on your hand with permanent marker, climb in a tuk tuk and head down to the river.

Before getting in the river, you need to buy alcohol at the "Eco-drinking" bar where all proceeds go to the children of Laos. You then float a few yards down to the next bar where they have a rope swing on about a 20 foot platform which is extremely scary given that up to this point the water has only appeared to be about 1 foot deep. However after watching the acrobatics of the staff and the bellyflops of the other tourists and drinking a few beers or Lao Lao whisky buckets, you take the plunge. Then, repeat for the next dozen bars. Should you accidentally pass a bar, the staff will chant "Come-on come-on beer-lao beer-lao!" at you and throw you a line to pull you in. There are variations at each bar including the "flying foxes" which are zip lines that are even better for producing bellyflops than the swings. The culmination of bellyflops is a huge waterslide at one of the last bars. Unfortunately we failed to wait for the other drunken tourists on this one and so were not able to watch them and avoid bellyflopping ourselves. We're still hurting!



So we decided to beat the crowd for the rest of the float down the river. It is lucky we did because the rest of the float takes about 2 hours and the sun leaves the river quite early, resulting in some freezing tubers later on.

For nightlife in Vang Vieng, you have two choices: Friends or Family Guy. Basically all the bars have all the seasons of a single American TV show and play it endlessly. Unfortunately the Simpsons bar closed down. Luckily there is a 3rd choice for entertainment: the tubing girl, who gets back from tubing around 9pm and is still up chanting at 3am. Piss drunk. On the balcony across from our hotel window. With a big group of friends. But to be fair, she is the quietest of the bunch!

Now we are off to Luang Prabang by minibus!

Hiding in Napho

We are currently laying low in a small village called Napho where my Grandma lives. It's a little village 1.5 hours north of Vientiane and has about 2000 people. I took the liberty of kicking my cousin out of his bungalow in the middle of the rice field so we can "camp". Since we are "falang" I am having a toilet installed so we dont have to do any digging ourselves. It'll be nice to be out in the middle of nowhere to enjoy the peace and quiet. It is a little cold and very hard to find scotch so I'll just have to get more blankets.

The maids are extremely cheap here, we have one for each duty such as a cook, laundry person, Beer Lao runner, etc. We only pay them about $1US combined for all their hard work each day. I'm working on importing them to the US for sale so let us know if you want any. I think I could fit about 5 in each suitcase.

Pretty much just hanging out and waiting for my mom and uncle to get here one way or another since the airport in Thailand is still closed. As soon as we find out whats going on with that, we'll head up to Bokeo and hang out in the trees with the Gibbons monkeys. Now Amy is going to rant about the roosters that crows at 11PM.

Yeah the roosters are American or something because they like to crow at night especially after 3 in the morning. Everyone is friendly at Grandma's house and I'm starting to catch a few phrases but mostly I just smile and nod and say Co-op Chai, which is Thank You, or Sabai Dee, which is Hi how are you/Bye/Fine, thank you, all in one.

We went into Vientiane (mainly for hot showers) and it has changed a lot. The village looks the same except everyone who used to ride a bike now owns a scooter that goes just as fast as a bike and spews black smoke as a bonus. But in Vientiane there are a lot more Western goods and stores available (for Western or at least Thai prices.) The morning market, which used to be pretty shanty (where we bought the couches if you saw the photos from the last trip) has changed a lot. It now bosts a 4 story concrete parking garage and the indoor mall part is fancier and bigger. Out by the Mekhong, the open strip with a few chairs and cafes is now covered by restaurants built on stilts. There are a lot of Euro tourists too, all looking as pale and sickly as I was - the food is still a bit of a shock to the system here. I'm feeling better though as of today.

The weather is much cooler than Thailand, cold at night actually but warm, dry, and sunny during the day. Definitely this is the best time of year to visit. For Colin Cotterill fans, we've seen almost everything in the books, including the Lao Women's Union, the black stupa, the Ministry of Education, and Mr. Geung (with Down's syndrome) who went on a bender last night and came by all the houses in the village causing an uproar. But apparently he is normally a hard worker on the farm and very popular. There is also an Auntie Dtui. And of course the bicycles with no brakes are a must! We'll try to avoid those.

We also did a nice walk around Sam's cousin farm which looks just like the shire, if hobbits grew rice. It had a cool footbridge made out of bamboo which surprisingly did not collapse when Sam crossed it. It probably waited to collapse for the next poor person to come along!



Well we are heading back for some R&R and then some camping at Grandma's house now. We'll post again when we head north.

Surviving Bangkok

Just a quick post to let you all know we made it safely out of Bangkok. We took the bus back from Koh Sahmet and decided to catch the train to Vientiane the same night, in case Bangkok hotels were busy with tourists waiting for the airport to open. The train station was not too crazy but it did have quite a few tourists there - Sam says normally there are almost none. The sleeper car train was full so we took the second class "soft seat" train. It was better than flying, I guess, given that flying would have been impossible. Anyway after 2 taxi rides, 2 bus rides, 2 immigration lines, and various chaos we got across the border and are at Grandma's house in Laos now. Mmmmmmmmmm green mangos and fresh fruits. We'll be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow at lunch while you guys are eating dinner since we don't have time to find and kill a turkey today. Happy Thanksgiving!

Koh Samed and the Say Anything Announcer

We got to Koh Samed without too much trouble, well at least I did. Sam had 60 kilo of baggage on his lap in the minibus. The ferry was oddly crowded but we survived by hiding in back with the pilot. The tourists up front got soaked. When we arrived we found the prices a little higher - about $40 US for a room with air conditioning, however the AC was worth it as it was very hot and humid.

We headed straight for the beach in front of our hotel and basically stayed there in one spot for 36 hours - at night they just change the beach chairs for tables. We only left to eat the cheaper local fare outside the resort, which was tastier. Sam's brother would have loved the insanely spicy larb salad. The swimming was great with the water pleasantly cool but not at all cold. Now I'll tell you about the "toy boy fie-mun."



And up next is "Buk hum lai" who is only 12 and def 100 percent virgin. If you want to take him for toy boy you can but watch out for dem thai police. And be careful because he too young to know yet if he ladyboy or not yet. Sometime you see on the street you don't know if they boy, girl, ladyboy, transhec, homoshec, or what. Scary. Anyway "Buk hum lai" good kid take year off to pay for school. Not like dem kids take money from parents for school and spend getting piss drunk and mushroom...."

That's basically the announcer for the firedancers who sounded exactly like the race car dude in Say Anything. The firedancers were 6 guys (one had the night off) who juggle torches and do all kinds of crazy acrobatics, even juggling actual fireworks at the end. It would be super illegal in the US especially as the ones at the top of the human pyramid were only between 12 and 15 years old. They were very impressive though the announcer was definitely the highlight.

Finally today we decided to head back to Bangkok to catch the train for Laos, after one final swim in which the mosquitos and jellyfish all came out to bid me a fond farewell. Between that and the sunburn I look like a proper Americal tourist now (i.e. lobster red.) We are hoping the train station isn't too crazy because the airport is completely shut down by protesters. If we can't get a train we'll stay at the Happy House again, don't worry it is far from the airport.

Sam's thoughts on Koh Samed:

The highlight was definitely the annoucer for the fire show. There was a lot of beautiful fat euros wearing speedoos and damn g-strings all over. The guys were wearing g-strings! Other than that, Amy pretty much covered it all minus the parts about only eating $2 US per meal for the both of us and only 2 meals a day.

Thailand: Kao San Road

Well, Thailand at last. We made it here safely and got a nice room near Kao San Road. There's more dirty hippies per capita than Humboldt county except the ones here are travelers like us. Amy says this is her one chance to let out her "inner hippy" but I think with time on the road and less showers and body maintenance, we'll get there soon without effort. We walked around Kao San and got cheap pad thai from the street vendor for $1US. Mmmmmmmm. When it got dark, we treated ourselves to some ice cold "Chang" beer at a beer garden and treated some local mosquitos to some good "Farlang" blood (Amy's). Woke up early and like a bat out of hell, we headed by bus to Koh Samed.

Now for Amy's thoughts on Kao San:

I don't have too much to add, it was quite nice there and also a relief to fit in for a bit with all the other tourists. We stayed at the Happy House which is more or less what you expect from the name: staffed by "ladyboys." The room was cheap and had a balcony so we were able to do our laundry, thanks to Forrest's handy clothesline. We also got in some shopping - skirts and mens' tee shirts are about $6 US and girls' tees only $3 - finally fair prices! I definitely liked it there apart from having a hard time telling the mosquitoes apart from the bats.

Kung Fu Fighting in Hong Kong

We made it to Hong Kong and wanted to leave as soon as we landed. That was the craziest city with more inhabitants than an insane asylum on crack. Millions of drones working and living in "skyscraper caverns" that decends on the streets after 5 PM. The scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life. Amy will now tell you about the fun stuff.

Ok so the trains were definitely impressive. I think the longest we waited at any hour was 4 minutes. Our first day we made the rookie mistake of taking the hotel shuttle so we did avoid the chaos of commute hours on the train. We then wandered around trying to locate our guest house which turned out to be somebody's apartment on the 5th floor of one of a zillion identical 40 story buildings in Causeway Bay which is like the HK mission district or something. We thought the room was quite awful until the hotel workers showed our room to some interested tourists who commented on how wonderful it was compared to "the other place." Oh well I guess it was clean and had free internet. The only problem was finding food, the lines were so long it wasn't worth most people's time to deal with "Englibabas"!

On our first full day in HK we decided to see the city, for about 30 seconds, then we hopped on the nearest ferry out of there. It turned out to go to Lantau island which was awesome. We waited the usual 60 seconds for a bus up to the Giant Buddha and Tourist Trap which was fun; we also took a short hike to admire the views. There was also a pretty cool "Wisdom Path" with 30 huge pillars with some kind of Buddhist prayer written on them in beautiful calligraphy which if we'd been able to read Chinese we would now be enlightened! But sorry, no enlightenment for us. Yet.

After waiting 2 more seconds for the next bus we headed out to Tai O, which was a nifty little fishing village with stainless steel shacks on stilts in the mud flats. Clearly the US dollar is worthless because the locals were way more interested in fishing and totally ignored all the tourists wandering around. Last we went over and found the one big town on the island (40 fifty story skyscrapers surrounded by 99% nature preserve with no people around anywhere due to it being work hours.) However in the dark shadows under the buildings we found the fanciest Pizza Hut ever, white cloth and silver and everything. Unfortunately we were too poor to eat there because we are too lazy to have jobs like proper HK residents. We discovered that we could also take the train back from this island due to the fact that the train goes absolutely everywhere, so we returned to the chaos (during commute hours, yeah) and crashed after a meal of pork buns. Mmm, pork buns. OK over to Sam for the next day on HK island.

We woke up at the usual 4AM HK time and wondered the streets when it was fairly empty. Only about 1M persons per square mile. I was able to find a small cafe in an alley that had "Americanaaa" menu. You could choose from 3 set items (egg sandwich, saimin, toast, coffee). The price for a meal was about $3.50 US but it was enough to feed a squirrel (We eat like them now since we are poor and dont want to go broke). Amy says that she doesnt care for any more food on HK island except for one pork bun a day. We then headed to South Island to a town called Shek O. This town has a vendetta against Lee, we found a sigh for his market called "Fuck Lee Market". This was one of the highlights of the trip. We also indulged on our first real meal at a "Thai Restaurant" in that town. $30US later and full tummies, we walked up to the cliff on the side of the beach and sat in the sun for a while. After Amy got her 8 minute of tanning, we headed back to downtown HK. We were both exhausted but decided that it was a great time to go and see "The Peak" which is the highest hill in HK. This is the "Beverly Hills" area of HK where only the extremely dirty and wealthy can live. To get to the top, you can walk your fat american ass or take a trolley that costs $10US to take you to the top. We felt lazy for once in our lives and paid to get sardined in a little trolley with about a thousand other angry tourists. Once we were up top, the view was magnificent! You get the best 360 views of the city from your seat inside Burger King. This definitely tops the Taco Bell in Pacifica for prime real estate owned by a shit hole eatery. We hiked down through some trails/roads and saw lamborghini's, Austin Healeys, and the likes in driveways of homes with "fish tanks" for outer walls. Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!

Once we made halfway down the hill, we finally found the infamous "Mid Levels Escalators" which is a series of escalators that runs from downtown. These escalators sucks according to Amy but my fat ass sure appreciated them. Except, we were on our way down and not up. They only run upwards in the PM and we think they run downwards in the AM for those damn rich lazy Hongkongneese. We got tired, grumpy, and headed home to our cell block to bed but not after another $1US pork bun each for dinner. Mmmmmm pork buns.

On the last day we decided to really get out of town and took about a zillion trains and one bus out to Tai Po Kau nature preserve. The 2 hour hike was tough but enjoyable (except for the large crowds hiking at 1/2km per hour which we finally pushed down the cliff in order to get around them. Sorry people whoever you were.) The Bridal Pool at the end was distinctly lacking in any of the qualities of its name (most important being water and brides) but the hike was worth it just for the exercise. Still we decided to walk back on the road. We took the train back and thought we were beating the commute but it seems the HK workers get off early on Saturday and the crowds were much thicker than usual, read, mobs that trample you until you are dead if you try to go against them. Sam and I got separated (his fault) and it was a miracle we found each other only 10 minutes later.

The best part of the day came when the crowds died down in the evening and we finally braved the food on a stick. We got yellow fish gummy, mystery meat, and tentacle all dipped in the spiciest most delicious satay. Crying tears of joy and spiciness we turned in early so we could get up today and catch our flight to Bangkok.

Final thoughts on Hong Kong
- trains and roads are excellent despite the steepness of the island (the roads put Devil's Slide in Pacifica to shame both in steepness and in constant maintenance)
- the food is not so good when you are poor and don't speak Cantonese, but it is possible to survive on pork buns and bananas
- people don't form lines for food (biggest hungriest person wins) but do for line up neatly for buses and trains
- kung fu does not exist but there's lots of Tai Chi
- stay in your hotel between 5pm and 5am weekdays, all day weekends to avoid being smushed by the local pedestrian crowds
- don't stay downtown if you go there. In fact don't go there again ever!