A Northern Loop

The road to Luang Prabang was very scenic and probably more than a little dangerous at points.  It went through a small mountain range and roads twisted up one mountain along a narrow ridge and down another mountain.  One place that the bus stopped for a snack had a view that looked out over a valley and was high enough that we were looking down on clouds.  It was something of a mystical mountain setting.  We would have enjoyed the ride a bit more if we hadn't have gotten the last seats, which hand the least amount of leg room.  We sure enjoyed the stops though.

A view from the bus

Luang Prabang gave us the greeting we have come to expect in any town or city in Laos "Tuk-Tuk!".  We walked to the area where we hoped to find a hotel that Jason and Dawn had told us about.  When we arrived almost everyone there was offering us a room at their guesthouse.  We had a lot of option, but when we were offered a room that was regularly 110,000Kip for 80,000 we took it.  I think its the only place we've stayed in Laos that had air con (there are plenty of options with air con, this was the only one we could afford).  We slept well while we were in Luang Prabang.  We also ate well.  There was a restaurant by our guesthouse overlooking the Mekong, that not only had great food but also some great views at sunset.  Our first night there we were a little annoyed at overhearing the conversation of the Western business men near us ("this how you make money off these people…" or "I turned my $100 into 10,000 by…").  All the other nights were more enjoyable and just as tasty (excellent Laap).

The view from the restaurant.

Else wise Luang Prabang had little in the city itself that we went to see as it was all very expensive.  We did cross the Mekong to see some temples on the other side, but all of them were separate and all had entrance fees. Some had tripled in price since the Lonely Planet had put them in their book.  We went to one that had a great view of the area and also some cute little boys who followed us around as we explored the area.

Luang Prabang from across the Mekong

One of the afore mentioned cute little boys.

On another day we went to the grave on Henri Mouhot a French explorer who had "discovered" Ankor Wat in Cambodia and eventually succumbed to malaria near Luang Prabang. Terzani talks about going there during his time in Laos and the way he describes it matched what we saw there almost exactly.  Getting there was another matter.  It was about 8KM from Luang Prabang and there was no shade.  Almost the entire way there seemed to be construction of something or another.  There was a bridge, to cross the a big (but not as big as the Mekong) river, seemingly to get at the trees (which were already being cut down) easier.  And at least 3 guesthouses.  And it was bloody hot with no shade.  But the area was pleasant when we arrived and there were Laotian picnic tables by the river bank below the graves.  There were the graves of several French explorers and administrators surrounding Mouhot's.  All of them were relatively young (Mouhot was 36 when he died).  We would have spent more time there if there weren't so many ants.  We did wonder as we left what Mouhot would have thought of all that had happened to Luang Prabang (and Ankor Wat for that matter) since his time.

We left Luang Prabang after about 3 days and headed North.  Our first stop to the North was a place called Udomxai.  It was purportedly a boom town because of its proximity to the Chinese border.  There was a waterfall that we had thought to see there but when we asked about it the guy at the travellers info place told us that the road might be closed about 10 KM up the way due to construction.  Once we found this out, we happily left Udomxai as fast as possible.  Though we did have a nice long chat with a former monk who worked at the information centre.

We were headed to Phongsaly, for a few reasons, one was that there was supposed to be the best trekking in Laos there, if we got lucky and ran into a group also planning to go (it was expensive for 2).  Another was the height of the place and isolation of it and finally there was apparently a fabulous river boat ride back south from a town very close to it.  Getting to Phongsaly was something of a challenge though.  The road remained entirely unpaved and muddy all year long was the report and buses could get stuck behind slow moving truck for hours as they plied this single mountain road.

I was recently asked by a monk what I thought of transportation in Laos.  I immediately thought of this bus ride, though all I said was that it was kind of slow (he seemed to agree with that assessment).  Our bus immediately had problems.  Half an hour after the bus departed Udomxai it broke down.  There seemed to be some sort of liquid leaking from the engine (it wasn't brake fluid we were fairly sure). and the bus driver and his attendants fixed the problem after about 25 minutes of working on it.  It gave everyone a nice long break.  We then drove for a few hours before arriving at the first stop (the lunch stop).  Already we were thinking that the 7 hour time that had been posted for the trip was wildly optimistic.  We had gone less than a third of the way in 3 hours.  Our next problem came when we rounded the corner and saw a large truck stuck in the mud, blocking the road.  The bus stopped, people got out and milled around as the driver and his helpers went to see what they could do.  Nothing apparently.  As we waited a mini bus managed to get itself by all the obstructions and, much more alarmingly, a poorly dressed man on motorbike drove by with an AK-47 strung across his back.  After half an hour they put chains on the tires and had everyone walk past the truck (which conveniently backed itself further into the mud) to he top of the hill.  Fortunately it managed to get by and we were all able to board the bus again and continue.  A short while later there was a loud bang near the back, followed by a hissing.  One of the back tires had blown.  We stopped in the next village so that the crew could replace the tire.  We were in sight of Phongsaly when the bus stopped to unload its cargo.  We had noticed that behind us were several boxes (of cigarettes as it turned out), but were unsure when they would be moved.  Not far from Phongsaly apparently.  One of the helpers came back and began tossing them out the window to the other helper.  We decided to help, as it seemed to be going rather slow.  We formed a sort of relay to the helper and the back of the bus was cleared relatively quickly.  The bus driver shortly before we left came to the back of the bus with a big bottle of water and said thank you.  The whole bus crew seemed quite happy with us.

The truck that got stuck ahead of us.

Our bus to Phongsaly.

We arrived in Phongsaly at 8:30 in the evening.  We had left Udomxai at 8 in the morning.  We arrived at a guesthouse by 9 and were lucky to find a place still open for us to eat dinner in.  There were some foreigners there who would be leaving on a trek the next day.  They turned out to be the only foreigners in town.  We had arrived a day too late for trekking with a group and the prices we saw for two people trekking were well beyond what we could afford at the time.  We were a little disappointed but decided to stay at least one day and see if anyone showed up.

That night I found myself in great pain on the toilet.  One of the side effects (we now learned) of doxycycline was constipation.  I spent all night trying to go to the bathroom, finally being able to do so in the morning after drinking a lot of water throughout the night.  I was not really in good shape that day, but we explored the town of Phongsaly.  The tourist info building was closed so we could not actually find out any information about trekking.  We saw no other foreigners.  The town was a dusty, dingy place, the population of which was divided 75% ethnic Lao and 25% Yunnanese (from the Chinese province of Yunnan).  The Yunnan section seemed a bit friendlier than the Lao section, though I don't think there were many foreigners who wandered through any of Phongsaly.  We ate at a Chinese restaurant for lunch which had some of the strangest menu translations we had ever seen: Coca Cola was translated from the Chinese as "white matter cola" another one (I have no idea what it was): "heaven defends the four point cutlets".  We ordered Szechuan pork as it was the only thing we had a fairly good idea of what we would get.  It was not the veggie lunch we were hoping to find though.

We went to the top of the hill overlooking the town, which did offer a nice view (for some reason we took no pictures).  There was also a nice old stupa at the top and, not far behind it, a communications tower.  This and some of the nice Yunnan shophouses were the only "sights".  After climbing down we found a place to have a beer, which also had nice view and as it turned out, the proprietor was a teacher who spoke good english.  He said he was working on becoming a guide to do some trekking with the tourists.  This struck us as kind of odd.  He was a teacher and a restaurant owner, why was he looking at another career.  We were more recently told that teachers in Laos only get paid about $30 a month and every single one of them needs to have a second job in order to support themselves.  I can see why he might want to get out of teaching here.  We ended up eating there that night and it was a Lao BBQ, which was a bit different from the other Asian BBQ's that we had had.  We spent 100,000 Kip ($12 about) on 3 plates of barbequeable meat and 2 large buckets of veggies and 2 beer laos.  It was wonderful (though the pictures don't look so appetizing).  We were given cubes of fat to wipe on the grill (well I'm not sure it could really be called a grill) so as to keep our meat from sticking to it.

The BBQ.

Having seen all we could of Phongsaly we decided to (hopefully) take a boat down the Nam Ou (Ou river) to Nong Khiew eventually.  We had to take a bus to the small town of Hat Sa which is where the river is.  The bus ride along a mountain ridge was beautiful in the early morning with the mist and clouds swirling around the valleys and mountain peaks.  We descended quickly after a half hour journey and found ourselves at the river.  The boat was the same as quoted in the Lonely Planet (100,000 Kip).  There was an official there to see that things went smoothly.  We were on the boat and floating down the Nam Ou pretty quickly after that.  The voyage was pretty uneventful but the scenery was nice and the water made a much better road than the one the bus had taken.  We relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

We arrived at Muang Khua about 4 hours later had lunch and wandered around.  There was not that much to see in Muang Khua but we enjoyed the wander.  We picked up some crafts and postcards after the wander and had our dinner while writing to family and friends.  The next morning we walked down to the boat landing to ask about the boat to Muang Ngoi.  We waited around for an hour and were told that we were the only ones that were taking the boat and it would be 500,000 kip each.  We did not like that figure very much (Muang Ngoi is actually closer than Hat Sa and we were still going down river).  Down cast we set about looking at bus fares in the book; we could go back to Udomxai, a prospect that did not appeal much.  As we were ready to get up and head to the bus station, two more foreigners showed up to get ticket for 3 (the 3rd was not quite there yet).  They had just come from Vietnam and knew more about negotiation than we did (they had also been promised a figure of 120,000 Kip to get to Nong Khiew which was farther away than Muang Ngoi the previous day).  They were offered 300,000 per person if we joined and they argued it down to 150,000 a person which we all accepted.  We boarded the boat and noticed that we were actually not the only people who were going down the river, there were also several locals.  The ride was nice and we had a good chat with the other foreigners (two Dutch guys and a German guy) along the way.

On the boat.

Some of the many water buffalo along the river.

A view from the boat

We got to Muang Ngoi about 3 hours later.  The scenery was beautiful and the first guesthouse we came to had nice bungalows for 40,000.  We decided that we would stay for a while.

We stayed for 3 days, walking around this completely roadless town, that was only accessible by boat.  Or just sitting and looking out over the might Nam Ou at the karst mountains beyond it.  One thing we noticed all through our journeys in Laos was small boys wielding large knives and doing various tasks with them.  We saw where this somewhat alarming trend led to in adulthood in Muang Ngoi.  We saw a man using one such large knife to part bamboo stalks for a basket.  He did tho with such skill and ease that it seemed obvious that he had been holding one of those knives since he was a toddler.  We have never seen anyone with apparent knife wounds while in Laos, so one assumes that they get it right pretty quickly.  We did take a longer walk on one of the days we were there.  The path led to several villages and rice fields.  We never actually found the villages, but the scenery was still spectacular.  On our way back we stopped at a restaurant just outside the town.  We ordered pumpkin curry.  Shortly after ordering we saw the lady who had served us run to her garden and come back with some very obviously fresh pumpkins for our curry.  There was something so very pleasant about Muang Ngoi, its quiet, its stillness.  We had not felt so peaceful for a long time in Laos.  We were sorry to leave.

There was a lot of good food in Muang Ngoi.

Just a short walk along a path to this view.

The restaurant and bridge of the pumpkin.

What we saw from any restaurant in town.

But leave we must, we were running out of money and the nearest ATM was an hour downstream.  The ride to Nong Khiew was spectacular, but crowded and we could not see as much of the jagged mountains surrounding us as we would have liked.  We had thought we might stay in Nong Khiew, but after taking a quick look at the town we decided that it was unnecessary. It would just be a bad version of Muang Ngoi, as there was in fact a highway running through it.  We hopped on a Sangthaew (a truck with covered benches in the back) and were back in Luang Prabang in less than 3 hours.

From the boat to Nong Khiew.

The first days of Laos

Its strange to think that we have been in Laos for a month (at least when I started writing this; we're back in Vancouver now…).  It seems like we have been here no time at all.  Maybe this is because there is an appalling similarity about all of the places we have gone to.  Don't get me wrong everywhere is different, has new and interesting things on offer, but Laos (unlike Malaysia) seems to have the same mentality the whole way through it  (this is also not really true; the tourist spots all do though).  We had high hopes for our time in Laos and this was probably not fair to it.  Our first disappointment was immediate upon our entry into Vientiane (Laos' capital and largest city).  We had been expecting a quiet city with few cars or any motorized vehicles of any sort.  What we were presented with was noisy streets crammed with cars (though surely still less than Bangkok or KL).  Where were the trafficless streets of Vientiane we were informed of?  The ones that we could ride bikes down without any worries.  We did eventually find some, yet to be paved roads, that had few cars or motorbikes on them.  This is a city on the up towards being developed, to take its place beside other great cities, or at least that's what it seems to be aspiring to.  New paved roads and covered manholes are important in any new city, but one wonders why the touristy areas are the ones that were first (obviously) to be paved.  Why there are so many restaurants along the Mekong that only cater to tourists.  I do not think I saw a single Lao person eating at one of these restaurants while we were there, though I could be wrong about that.  Certainly the vast majority of the clientele were foreigners.  Well tourism is a big business here and there are locals working at all of them the tourist outlets (though from what we heard they were largely owned by foreigners).  Perhaps Vientiane will not become the Bangkok of Laos, there seem to be no sky scrapers going up and construction actually stops promptly at 6 everyday, in every village or town we have been in thus far.  It certainly must be better than it was in 1973 when Paul Theroux described it as a brothel for American soldiers fighting  in Vietnam, where opium was easier to get than a can of coca cola.  Development has its costs, but when it seems that development is largely for the sake of those visiting your country perhaps it is best to step back and take stock.  Wide spread corruption of officials does not help.  This was partly my initial view of Laos through the lens of its capital city.  It has changed somewhat in the past month.  My view of the government has not.

My other impression, first garnered at our guesthouse, was not of Laos but of the people visiting it.  This at least has improved since then, we have met many culturally sensitive and genuinely caring people since leaving Vientiane, but we met almost none in Vientiane.  Foreigners in Vientiane seemed very tightly wound, ready to snap at the smallest thing.  They seemed to complain about everything and seemed to take pains to speak as loudly as possible.  For instance, I overheard one girl complaining about the slow internet speed at our guesthouse, "slow like Laotian people."  She said to her friend while looking snidely at the people behind the counter.  In a temple, which was more or less tranquil, I recall a woman chew her gum so loudly that I could hear it from across the temple.  When I looked over to see who was making the noise I could not help but compare her to a cow chewing its cud, so vapid was the expression on her face.  There was one man who (apparently frustrated by all the offers of Tuk-tuk drivers) screeched "TUK-TUK! TUK-TUK!" back at the latest offerer, while flapping his arms like a chicken.  And making a proper ass of himself.  There were a lot of Tuk-Tuk drivers about, just like taxi drivers in Malaysia and were usually silenced by a simple "no thank you".  Some tuk-tuk drivers would lower their voices and offer marijuana or opium.  Another simple "No thank you." would do.  A large group of foreigners apparently thought that having a loud argument was a good thing to do just outside Wat Sisaket.  There were many more such events, I'm still not really sure what everyone was so keyed up about.  We met one Australian man who told us that they were worse in Vang Vieng which was our next destination.  He also said that he wished he had stayed in Myanmar, which was much better.  We seriously considered abandoning Laos and heading to Myanmar a few times.

There were some very nice things about Vientiane our two favourites were Wat (that means temple by the way; just like in Thailand and Cambodia) Sisaket, which was so calm and peaceful that we did not want to leave.  It was apparently the only temple in Vientiane that the Siamese left standing when they sacked the city about 200 years ago.  Wat Sisaket held some of the damaged buddha images from that sacking.  The main square has them all facing the main temple.  Inside the main temple there are many images from Buddhist mythology and more large and tranquil Buddha images.

The other place was COPE visitors centre.  COPE is the .  We met a young man as we walked in named Peterkim.  He asked us to read out a Skype message he had just received.  He had no hands and was blind, but he seemed quite capable of doing most things with the stumps on the end of his arms and a cane that he kept under his shoulder.  We never asked what happened to him, but the contents of the visitors centre perhaps was enough to let us guess.  Despite his impediments, Peterkim was very happy, bubbly even.  He told me I sounded like a politician or something when I read his message to him (I'm fairly sure he meant this as a compliment) and asked if Nancy had a sister (he was disappointed to find she only had brothers).  After Peterkim made his way out of the centre we explored.

Laos has the dubious record of being the most bombed country in history.  More bombs were dropped on Laos than on Germany during the second world war.  This was all done "secretly" as the USA was not at war with Laos.  But as the North Vietnamese were wandering through Laos on their way south (and they did have Lao allies; known as the Pathet Lao they eventually took over Laos in 1975), this gave the US cause to bomb the areas that the Vietnamese and their Lao allies were.  Apparently, since this was a secret bombing campaign the bombers had no protocol on what to avoid dropping their bombs on (1000 year old temples or isolated villages say) they could drop bombs anywhere they pleased.  And they did.  All over the country.  Now almost 40 years after the bombs stopped falling people in Laos are still being blown up by bombs that did not explode on impact, but needed a little extra kick from something (a farmer digging in new land; a kid running over it) to go off.  COPE provides free prosthetic limbs and such for anyone who is in need of them (mostly for those who have come across a bomb and not faired well for the experience).  Actually there were so many bombs dropped on Laos that there is now a lucrative trade in bomb scrap all over the country.  Of course some people also try to pull unexploded bombs from the ground for the scrap metal too.  Not really a good idea.  We were told that at the current rate of of clean up by MAG (the Mine Advisory Group), Laos will be free of UXOs (unexploded ordinance) in about 200 years.  We also watched a great (and surprisingly funny) movie about the bomb clean up called Bomb Harvest.  You should watch it.

A "bombie" display at COPE.

There was also a very informative and friendly woman at the front counter named Zai, who we struck up a conversation with.  She told us a lot about Laos and its people as well as about the trouble with the UXOs.  She also told us several dishes to try in Laos.  One of which she told us she would make for us if we ever returned to Vientiane, as she did not trust any restaurant to make is half as well as she could do it at home.  This was Bamboo soup and was excellent (we did return to Vientiane briefly to get our Visas extended and contacted Zai before we arrived; she had it ready for us the day after we arrived and got as many people as possible to try it as well; seriously one of the best meals we had in Laos).  

Speaking of food, my favourite Laos dish is Laap, a meat salad with lots of herbs and spices in it.  Fortunately the meat is no longer served raw, as it was traditionally.  Nancy's favourite dish (of sorts) seems to be sticky rice.  Guess what that is.  There were also a lot of nice coffee shops and bakeries in Vientiane, which probably did not help us stay fit...

We left Vientiane by local bus, which was a cheerful and cultural experience.  There were no livestock coming with us fortunately and over all it was a pretty uneventful ride, though at one stop several people boarded the bus to sell what appeared to be small birds, fried.  We did get lots of stares though; most foreigners usually take the air conditioned buses.  We found that fans and open windows are much more appealing (especially given that the air con is unlikely to be working).

Bus stations in Laos seemed to be universally located away from city centres, in what seems to simply be a way to give Tuk-tuk drivers business.  So we found ourselves 4 KM away from Vang Vieng centre with (of course) "Tuk-Tuk!" coming at us from all sides.  Irritated, we walked the 4 KM.

We stayed one night in Vang Vieng proper, saw the stoned foreigners watching Friends, Family Guy or The Simpsons in restaurants around town; saw the advertisements of "happy" (read: drug infused) pizza or shake or muffin.  Well maybe under different circumstances we may have thought to join.  As it was we were not thrilled.  Especially with the loud music that was on the entire night, seemingly everywhere.

The bridge across the river in Vang Vieng

Fortunately on the other side of the river, looking out at the beautiful scenery that Vang Vieng has to offer and in a butterfly garden, we found our sanctuary for our next 4 days.  This was the Maylyn Guesthouse and for 50000 Kip (about $6CND) we got a bungalow that looked out on the mountains and rice fields (en suite bathroom too).  The owner, a guy named Joe, was crotchety, but in a good way and good to talk to once he got started.  He said he had been here the longest of the foreigners in Vang Vieng (he was Irish but raise in London) and had seen a lot of changes to the area.  From the time that people came to Vang Vieng only for the scenery to now where it seemed to be largely for the drugs.  He had seen a lot of guys pack up and leave after a few years of running a guesthouse.  And the seeming hunting to near extinction of everything in the area that could be hunted and eaten.  He was not all together happy about these things.  We also talked some about books (travel types mostly) and he put on someone "Canadian" when he found out that all of the people in the restaurant were Canadian (Alanis Morriset).  The restaurant was also awesome.

From the Maylyn we could ride bikes to a place called the Blue Lagoon which was a large swimming hole with a cave above it.  The cave had a reclining Buddha in it and got very dark (not surprisingly) the farther you got from the entrance.  The Blue Lagoon was cold and fresh and wonderful to swim in.  We are still considering a return trip to Vang Vieng simply to swim there.  We swam a few days in the Blue Lagoon and explored some more caves and trails around Vang Vieng in the next few days.  One of the more concerning things about the area was that every Lao child we saw along the road from the Maylyn to the Blue Lagoon seemed to think that we would give them money.  They would put one hand palm up and twirl the index finger of their other hand on top of it.  We did not know what this meant at first but after a child yelled "money" along with this gesture we got the message.  This is apparently a big problem all over Laos, kids skip school and beg for money from the foreigners in tourist spots.  Its terrible and heart breaking to see but, of course, the worst thing you can do is give them money.  The only kid we gave money to was a boy who fixed Nancy's bike (and that was largely because he did not ask for it; it was also not a school day).  On one of our rides home we were stopped by four girls who ran out in front of us.  They just wanted a ride back to their homes which were in our direction as it turned out and (they were small after all and our bikes did have "passenger seats") we managed to get them all on our bikes (two each).  Much to our disappointment they did ask for money the moment they got off.  To be fair we should have asked for money from them, but we did give them some water (they looked thirsty).

Nancy entering a cave.

Some Vang Vieng's karst mountains.

The Blue Lagoon

More of Vang Vieng's impressive scenery.

And still more.

At the Maylyn another Canadian couple was also staying (well actually several Canadians were staying there but this was the only couple that we talked to for a goodly amount of time) who we talked to on several occasions.  They were Jason and Dawn Bernard from Calgary but would be heading to New Brunswick (where Jason was originally from) after they finished their vacation.  Their vacation had thus far lasted 16 months.  They had saved for a few years and then sold everything (sounded like they had owned a fair bit of stuff) before heading on vacation.  They were also travelling until they ran out of money and had been all over Oceania and Southeast Asia (most recently Vietnam, which they weren't huge fans of) and were off to Europe next by the sounds of it.  We talked a lot about travel and its ups and downs.  It was nice to share travel stories and travel feelings.  Unfortunately we never could find them on Facebook (we can never find anyone on Facebook though).

Further North was the call and we eventually had to depart from Vang Vieng to the UNESCO heritage city (and former capital) of Luang Prabang.  As the bus was supposed to leave early we got up early paid our bill and even took a Tuk-Tuk to the bus station.  We needn't of bothered as the bus left 2 hours after we had expected it to and waited for a whole horde of other foreigners to arrive before departing.  So ended our first week in Laos.

Passage through Thailand

After a month of being out of Malaysia we find ourselves missing it quite a bit.  Maybe this is just rosy-coloured hindsight, maybe not.  But we left Malaysia with a bad taste in our mouth and I wish we hadn't.  This largely had to do with our departure process.  After we found out that there was not seats left on the train we tried taking the bus into Thailand.  The only place that went was a city called Hat Yai (which was right in the area that there had recently been a bombing of a hotel).  After debating this issue, buying a ticket, then attempting to cancel the ticket (no luck there), we hopped on a bus to Alor Setar (where supposedly another train went by).  To help us off to Thailand we talked to a guy at breakfast who had just gotten out of jail in Thailand (he had been there for a few years).  He told us that he had a Canadian friend who was still in jail in Thailand.  Great.

Alor Setar had a very small train station and the ticket booth did not open until 4, we arrived at 1.  Fortunately the baggage guys were very friendly and allowed us to store our big bag with them while we went to the bank and ate lunch.  The booth opened and again there were no tickets, for the next two days in fact.  We persisted though and there were tickets to the border and maybe we could buy tickets to Surat Thani (our thought of destination) beyond that.  We decided to risk it.

As we waited for the train another train passed by heading in the other direction.  It was green and spotless and looked like a hotel on tracks as it passed us.  We saw large beds in sleeper rooms and one restaurant car with what looked like a crystal chandelier hanging in it.  From the back of the train two very well dressed people saluted us with their champagne glasses as they passed.  This was the Eastern and Orient Express and I'm sure one ticket from Bangkok to Singapore would have cost our entire travel budget…  Still it would be nice to ride it, when we're rich.

Our own train did not look anywhere as fancy, but the seats were comfortable.  The ride to the border was uneventful.

We arrived at the border and, as Nancy noted, the Malaysian side said "service with a smile" and the Thai side said no such thing.  This proved to be true.  We went through the Malay side very fast.  On the Thai side things were slower.  We had to stand in a box on the floor while the border guard, in a box scanned our passport.  Apparently we aren't wanted for anything in Thailand so we got in.  Of course we only had train seats to the border so we had to buy a couple more tickets.  There were only two seats available we were informed, one was in first class.  We reluctantly bought them and figured we would explain to whoever got into the other seat that the second class was beside that we would trade for a first class ticket.  As it turned out we had sleeper berths in second class so there was actually room for four people during the day before the sleepers came out so we did not need to explain anything as we sat not crowding anyone.  Once the sleepers came out, we actually fit quite easily in the top bunk together.  Our bunk mate (in the lower bunk, but for most of the ride, sitting across from us) was an American named Emily who had been working in Australia in some capacity.  She was going to Surat Thani as well, which was lucky because she knew where to stay and was far better at negotiating the cab fare than we were.  The cab sped us to our hotel at a terrifying speed.  Our room was straight from the 70s and only really worthwhile by the fact that there were 3 of us staying (and we still ended up paying more than we had anywhere in Malaysia).  The room was huge though.  We only saw Surat Thani by night really, it looked alright.  In the morning we were informed where to catch the bus back to the train station by the counter people (one of them even wrote it out for us in Thai in case we got lost).  I don't think many farang (as Thai's call foreigners) take the bus in Surat Thani.  I had to ride up front as my legs were too long for any of the seats.  We did get a lot of smiles though and one sale offer of a song bird (which we declined).  And 10 hours after arriving in Surat Thani we hopped on the next train to Bangkok.

In the scary taxi

Our room in Surat Thani

The ride to Bangkok was about 10 hours and pleasant.  Pleasant, that is, until we got our first sights of Bangkok, at least half an hour before the train stopped at the central station.  We found ourselves a little unnerved by all of the people, the cars, the noise and the poverty that we could see and hear as we went past.  Bangkok did not really improve by us stepping into it.  As we walked to the hostel we had pick out a man asked us if we needed help finding it (we did not have a map).  After deciding that we did, he started leading us to the place; along the way he informed us we owed him a beer for his troubles.  We probably would have found the place on our own and not short a beer.

I should mention we did have a book for Thailand, but it was not a Lonely Planet (a mistake we will not make again).  It was instead a Fodor's which does seem to be a decent travel book, but only if you have more money to spend on accommodations and transportation than we did.  Its advice for our budget was not at all feasible.

The hostel we stayed in was 250 Baht (or 25RM) a bed which was the most we had paid for a bed in a dorm room since leaving Sabah.  One of our bunk mates was an large, older French man who moved around in his sleep all night (the bunks were very squeaky).  So we did not get much in the way of sleep in Bangkok.

The main proprietor of the hostel was a very friendly and pleasant woman who was happy to help us in anyway she could.  The next day when we were on our way she told us how to get around Bangkok by boat and Skytrain/MRT.  To get to Wat Po, Wat Arun and The Royal Palace we could take the sky train to the river and take the public boat up the river to them.  The boat up the river was pretty cool and gave us a good view of the Bangkok skyline.

Bangkok from the river

Wat Arun was our first destination and it was great.  In the middle of this massive noisy city it was a place of true tranquility.  We wandered the grounds for hours listening to the chimes and the chanting and wandering to the top of the massive stupa that looked out over the river.  The rain made it even better because it chased off many of the tourists.  The main temple area was very quiet, even though there were many people milling around it.  There was even someone telling everyone who passed (in a low voice) anything they wanted to know about the temple and the images inside.  We were reluctant to leave and extend our time there by eating some food made just outside the temple grounds.  We would not be in a place this tranquil again until we visited Wat Sisaket in Laos.

Wat Arun

It's Steep.

On the other side of the river was the royal palace.  It just so happened that we came on the right day because it was free to enter (usually its something like 200 Baht to enter) due to the upcoming coronation day (or some sort of holiday involving the monarch).  The only catch was we had to be wearing pants.  There were people renting loose and light Thai pants for men and women outside entrance and I rented a pair for 50 Baht with 100 Baht deposit.  I ended up liking them so much that when we got out I had them keep the deposit and I kept the pants.  The palace was pretty and photogenic.  A lot of soaring temples and stupas and more palatial structures.  A huge mural down one whole wall was particularly interesting.  There was also the emerald buddha, which was statue made of jade entirely and was also stolen from Laos in the 1820s when Thailand (then Siam) invaded.  Though the Siamese claimed Laos stole it from them first.  Who knows really.  We took a rest out of the sun in a little pavilion and while we sat there a Japanese woman sat next to us and her friend took a few pictures (not too subtly).  After the few pictures apparently did not come out as wanted the woman beside us asked if they could take pictures with us so that we might look directly at the camera.  After a few pictures with each of their cameras of each of them with us, they thanked us enthusiastically and wandered away.  It was a kind of funny way to end our visit to the palace.

My new pants

Nancy in a fancy door

Passage to the underworld?

Nancy and a bird person.

We never found out how to enter Wat Po and perhaps it was closed that day, I'm not sure.  But as we walked the streets of the area we did encounter a side of Bangkok that we would rather have not.  We found ourselves having bags of dry corn forced into our hands and put on our wrists with people telling us to "feed the birds" and "no money".  Being approached this way was not to our liking and we tried to refuse but they were very insistent.  We tossed the corn in the air and as the birds ate we were surrounded, with demands of "money!" and "150 baht!".  We were intimidated but we said no and that this was not fair or a good way to get money.  After our constant refusal they back off and one lady started crying, which is what broke us and we gave her 50 baht (which she snatched our of my hand so fast that her hand practically blurred).  In hindsight, we should have done no such thing as it only perpetuates this kind of behaviour, and likely there will be more people who fall for this sort of trap in the future too.  Its that 1 in every 10 or so that succumbs, that keeps it going.

Not feeling so good about this encounter we returned to the river and sky train to try and find some street food and call it a day.  We had no luck on the street pod front and just ate near our hostel.  As we ate we noticed how many older farang there were with young Thai girls wandering about and we found out later that we were relatively close to a red light district.  Yes, sex tourism is alive and well in Bangkok.  

We decided that we did not need to spend another day in Bangkok and after some checking of availability of rooms in Northern Thailand sites we decided we did not need to stay in Thailand either.  We decided to get a train directly to Laos.

This proved to be a not immediate solution as we could not get train tickets until the next day and the train itself did not leave until 6:30 PM.  We awoke early in the morning raced to the train station (just in case).  We bought 3rd class tickets as they were much cheaper than the second class sleepers (our total with 3rd class was 600 baht about and with the 2nd it was 1500 baht).  As we ate breakfast in the train station there was an announcement and every Thai person around us stood up.  The national anthem came on (I think it was 8AM); some people even sang along.

Back at the hostel we stored our bags for the day and decided that we did not need to do much by way of tourism.  We had coffee and read up on our destination and read our books.  Generally relaxed.  Nancy was reading Tiziano Terzani and I had just started The Honourable Schoolboy by John LeCarre.  We arrived at the train station around 5 and had our dinner and once again witnessed the national anthem.  Then we boarded our train.

At first though we stared a bit at it.  It was definitely 3rd class and we found ourselves on hard benches, not in row but facing the Thai couple in the seats opposite us.  We were the only farangs.  It was about a 13 hour train ride.  The couple in front of us managed to sleep a little though they kept waking each other up and grumbling about it (it was  kind of cute really).  Nancy also managed some sleep.  I did not.  I did manage to get a good portion of my book read though.  Some of the more clever people slept on the floor, which was definitely a lot more comfortable than our seats.  After what seemed like far more than 13 hours on the train we arrived in Nong Khai the Thai town bordering Laos near Vientiane.  In a daze we found the bus that took us to the border paid the $44 US each for our Visas (it all went very smoothly) and hopped on a Tuk-Tuk to Vientiane.

Our room in Vientiane was about the same price as one bed was in Bangkok.  We did not spend time marvelling at this.  We found our room, the big comfy bed in it and went to sleep.  We would try exploring later.

A Colonized Island

We arrived back in KL around 2 or 3 and found ourselves right next to a Monorail that could take us right into the centre of the city.  We spent about an hour looking for a room that was not too pricey.  We found such at last at the Green Hut Lodge (60RM for a double with shared bathroom, breakfast included).  It was nice place to relax and get our bearings.  We had a decision to make.  We were now more or less at the end of our Malaysian tour, with one or two more stops before heading elsewhere.  The question was, where was elsewhere?  We had heard many varying reports of Thailand, from hideous tourist trap, to eden like paradise.  It was also starting into its rainy season.  We did not know how long we wanted to go for.  Others had told us that Indonesia should be our next destination, it was big, exotic and was not about to have a monsoon.  Though it seemed to be having some difficulties and we would have to do some serious research into what places were in fact safe.  We had heard a lot about Laos, about how it was less developed and less jaded towards all these foreign invaders, as of yet.  Also that it was going to be changing rather soon and turn into a Thai style tourist trap before long (get there while you can still enjoy it was the call).  In the end the decision was pretty easy.  Laos was to be our next big destination.  With that in mind, we needed to do some preparations.

The next day we set out to the mall (where there was a "farmasi" as  its called in Malaysia).  The purpose was to get some Doxicycline for malaria as it is prevalent in Laos.  We previously had mefloquine as a treatment for malaria, which was a weekly tablet, but after reading the potential side-effect, we decided that getting malaria was actually preferable to taking the damn things.  In any event, we were not really in danger in Malaysia, so we actually dumped the pills.  Laos was a  different story.  If you look at the WHO malaria map of Laos, the entire country, minus Vientiane, the capital, is covered in red (meaning its prevalent).  So we went in search of some Doxicycline and ended up finding some in a pharmacy in the mall under the Petronas towers.  It was expensive, but not nearly as the other stuff.  We got enough for a month which is about how long we planned to stay in Laos.  After which we decided to enjoy ourselves a bit.  In the theatre we noticed that The Avengers was play (and was not to be out in most places for another week), so we got ourselves some tickets.  It was most enjoyable, and rarely over the top.  We also spent some time in the bookstore and picked up a Lonely Planet Laos, plus Tiziano Terzani's A Fortune Teller Told Me, which, as it turns out has a fair bit to say about Laos.

When we left the mall, there was a scent of smoke in the air and when we woke up the next morning we found out that there had been a large (the largest in 10 years apparently) demonstration in Independence Square, at which the Malay authorities fired water cannons and tear gas, before it was dispersed.  They were protest some of the electoral changes that seemed to simply help the current (and continuous since the inception of Malaysia) governmental party stay in power.  I get the feeling that they will be on top for a while before being toppled.

Quick political side note on Malaysian politics: the current opposition leader has been fighting a legal battle for years against charges of sodomy (yes homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia; so btw is being an apostate from Islam).  These charges have continued to pop up every time he fights one off a new one pops.  There has never been a shred of proof and they only started when he became the opposition leader.  Yes, Malaysia still has a bit to go before being what one might call a real democracy.

We decided that there was only one more place that we needed to go in Malaysia and that was the world heritage city of Georgetown on the island of Penang.  Before leaving the Green Leaf, Nancy traded the book I had just read (Deception Point by Dan Brown; an enjoyable popcorn book) for The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison.  We went to the train station and booked a train ticket to Butterworth (the city across the water from the island and Georgetown) and spent an enjoyable few hours in the train station, reading and drinking coffee at Dunkin Doughnuts for a few hours while we waited for our train to head out.

The train took 6 hours or so and we spent some more time reading and writing.  The only problem was the person in front of us kept getting phone calls and spoke perhaps a bit too loud.  We arrived in Butterworth at about 10 and when we left the station we were immediately assaulted by "Teksi!".  This time some of the drivers came over to us and offered us "deals" to Georgetown.  One persistent guy told us he could take us to a specific guesthouse for only 50RM and that the ferry only ran every 2 hours and didn't cost much less, they also told us that all the accommodations in Butterworth were far away and expensive.  While Nancy was buying all this hook, line and sinker, I told them that we would just walk to the nearest place in Butterworth and walked away, forcing the driver to stop talking.  We wandered away and then made our way to bus terminal, where they told us we had to take the ferry.  The ferry, as it turns out, actually left every 15 minutes and only cost us 2.8 RM all together (a far cry from 50).  We happily boarded it and enjoyed a 15 minute ride across the water, looking at the light of Georgetown approaching.  There is something magical about cities by night, when their light is reflected on the water.  It felt a little magical.  The reality of Penang was something of a let down.

We were wandering down the ferry station looking at the map and wondering how it was we would get to a guesthouse, when we ran into an older man from New Zealand who came to Penang once a year.  He knew of several places owned by one guy in Chinatown that were all really good.  He showed us to the Star Lodge, which was a great deal for 45 RM, and the owner, Jimmy, was incredibly friendly.  We had not eaten and Jimmy told us about a 24 hour place that was not far away (it was 1AM).

Our ever so cosy and cheap room at the Star Lodge

Jimmy's establishment.

Food is one of Penang's selling points and so it proved at this place, and pretty much everywhere we went to eat in Penang.  Penang (well Georgetown is technically the name of the community on Penang, but most people think of them as one and the same) itself was a lively heritage city, much larger than Melaka (or so it seemed), with an unfortunate amount of cars whizzing by in every direction, though this was much calmed at night.  It fell short when compared to Melaka, but not by too much, our main complaint was the traffic.  Like Melaka though, we did not over do it with a search for museums and other forms of entertainment.  We took our time.

How do you like my vase hat?

A Chinese Temple near the guesthouse

I'm stuck!

Hard to get around on these these days, too much traffic though you can't see it here.

We went to the Penang Museum, which had some decent exhibits, but was marred a bit by the large amount of loudly talking, picture taking tour groups of Mainland Chinese.  It was an interesting experience in that respect though, kind of highlighted the different between Taiwanese and Mainlanders.  Having lived in Taiwan for a year, we are fairly certain that a group of Taiwanese tourist would have been quieter and more respectful of the rules (there were several clear signs in english, chinese and Malay saying no pictures; perhaps the fact that they were tour groups gave them different rules, but this seems doubtful).

Another place we visited was the Anglican graveyard in Penang which holds (most know to us) the grave of Thomas (?) Leowens, who was the husband of Anna Leowens of The King and I fame (or Anna and the King fame, the one with Jodi Foster and Chow Yun Fat, which is the version a lot closer to the actual events recorded in Anna Leowens' journals).  We never found his grave but did enjoy the quiet solemnity of the place.

When Paul Theroux visited Penang in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star he stayed at the Eastern & Oriental, so, as we found out later, did Terzani.  In fact, a lot of very famous people stayed there.  We saw pictures of famous authors who had such as Joseph Conrad and Herman Hesse, when we ourselves visited, but did not stay.  The guy at the door (dressed ridiculously in high knee socks, with shorts and crazy british safari hat) told us we could go in an look around.  It was quite something with its high domed ceiling, colonial airs, ocean view veranda and fancy, well everything.  We gawked for about half an hour,and vowed that should we ever become rich, we would stay here.  Its 1000RM a night, which is our weekly budget… It may be a long while before we stay at the E&O.

The E and O

Fashionable doors at the E and O

More E and O doors.

One another day, we ended up going to an Indian cultural event, where we saw many interesting dances and were given free food and drink for attending.  We were shown here by a friendly Chinese Malaysian who talked to us at a temple in Chinatown.  I forget his name, but he had been to Taiwan for some sort of cross culture thing and he and the Chinese Indonesians had shown off to the Taiwanese by speaking Bahasa to each other.  There were Malaysians of every stripe at the Indian festival, which was one of the first of its kind, blending several Indian tradition (of the various ethnic Indian groups of Penang) into one Indian new year. The governor of Penang was there (he was Chinese Malaysian) as well as several high ranking members of the Penang cabinet (most ethnically Malay) and richer business men (and women).  All of whom gave some speeches after the dancing was over.  It was kind of a wonderful sight to see, members of 3 diverse cultures showing respect to one another (I'm fairly sure it was all genuine too).  Though when the speeches got too long for us we made our leave.

Indian Festival; a dancing peacock

A large Chinese temple had been in the works for several years in Penang, with new additions constantly being added to it.  We decided to go see it though we had had our fill of Chinese temples in the past year.  The scope of the temple was immense and there was a giant statue of Guanyin (goddess of mercy) on top of the highest structure, which one could take a small train up to see (we opted not to do this).  The grounds were like a small city to themselves, though I don't think any city would be so tranquil.  On the highest area we went to, in front of an amazing tranquil black Buddha (that looked more Thai style than Chinese) we got an amazing view of Georgetown and the surrounding area.  In the lower level there was a turtle pond with tonnes of turtles, who all swam over to under where we were standing when they saw us.  We spent a good deal of time wandering around the temple and absorbing the atmosphere.  The only thing that marred it was all the shops and stalls that were congregated on the only entrance and exit that we could use.

After this we tried to go to Penang hill which was said to have a neat old train that went up it.  A Chinese lady stopped her motorbike when she saw us waiting at the bus stop and asked where we were going.  She told us how to get to Penang Hill from where we were and then told us that old train had been replaced by a sleek new one just this year.  The new one went up the hill about 4 times faster and was also 4 times the price.  We were disappointed with this and decided that Penang Hill could do without our patronage.  The Chinese lady (whose name I also don't remember) gave us a lot useful advice on where we could go and also made us a cool origami double heart with a 1 RM bill.

The temple.

Anyone want an Angry Bird?  (Bought near the temple)

Yes, those are turtles.

The view from the temple.

A certain viewer.

We spent a few agreeable days in Penang , though we did not spend too much time at actual sites (or sights), besides what I have mentioned.  We ate, we walked, we read. It was enjoyable, but we knew that we had to leave soon, we were growing a little tired of Malaysia and wanted to head on to Laos, to see something new and different.  So after about 4 days we hopped back on the boat and headed on over to Butterworth and the train station.