Chiang Rai!

So, when I last wrote, I was in Luang Prabang, where it might be argued I was not making the best of my time--mostly reading, taking walks, and eating baguettes.Now, I'm in Chiang Rai. I have no tourist map, guide, and little idea of what there is to do or see here. I'll figure it out--no worries!!

Here are a list of things I've done since then the last time I posted:

1. I went to Nong Kwiah (sp?), a tiny, charmless, village about three hours out of Luang Prabang. It rained. I chilled out on the hammock in front of my $7 bungalow, watched Muay Thai, and spent an evening drinking with some other travelers. Also, I looked at chickens. Lao chickens are very fast.

Here's the view from my hammock. It was very foggy and rainy.

2. I took a two-day "luxury cruise" from Luang Prabang to Houay Xai (sp?) on the Lao border. Good the boat was covered because it rained! With the exception of a young European couple who didn't talk to anyone, and couldn't keep their hands off each other (poor taste anywhere, but especially poor taste in SE Asia) and left after one day, everyone was substantially older than me. There was a pack of surprisingly unhealthy-appearing pack of Australians doing a 2-week food tour of Lao and Thailand (5k!!) and their charming guide. There were two not-affiliated-with-the-food-tour, charming, Australian women with confusingly similar names. There was an English IT professional who actually used the word "chap" with no trace of self-consciousness. The boat was pleasant, food meh but fancy, the lodge where we stayed overnight somewhat over-the-top, in a fancy eco-lodge sort of way. I took pictures for my mom, but am not going to post them. We made several stops along the way, at some poor villages, one Lao and Khmu, the other Hmong. The contrast was extreme. (I was going to upload more pics, but computer very slow.) As our guide droned on about animistic and educational practices of the Hmong villagers (most of my fellow passengers ignored him and took photos of the children who had surrounded us), tree boys came over, holding small birds. The guide took one, explained that the children were going to eat the birds, and casually broke it's neck before handing it back to the child (who immediately began plucking it). Very dramatic!! We all looked suspiciously at the other boys and their birds, hoping they wouldn't slaughter them in front of us. One of the Australians demanded that they let the birds go, but she was ignored.

3. I rode from Chiang Kong (Thai border) to Chiang Rai over two days, with a night in the completely untouristy Meng Rai. Two days of fortunately overcast skies, reasonable distances (70 km and 50 km) and LOTS of rice paddies.   Meng Rai was the first place I believe, that I was actually charged local prices for food at the market. Dumplings for 10 baht, fried pork for 10 baht, watermelon and mystery food in banana leaf for 10 baht. Then, a handful of longans off the tree, from the lovely proprietess of my guesthouse. 

Regarding the mystery food steamed in banana leaf, I opened it and thought it looked like zucchini (which I thought odd, but whatever). You can imagine my shock when it turned out to be fish (bone-in, natch).

I'm done with the biking part of the ride, other than day trips. I'll get up to some deviltry, but have not yet determined what kind. Actually, I have, but I'M NOT TELLING YET.

Two more weeks!!

XOXOX

Moving on now...

So, I fell out of love with my bicycle when making an unsuccessful attempt at leaving Vientiane--flat tire and busted cable within 15 minute time span. Apparently, in some respects, I am not particularly resilient. I need to work on this.

So, yesterday's plan was to rekindle the romance with the bike by taking a tour. Easy ride, 30 km roundtrip to Tad Sae Falls.

Well...

Before I begin writing about the tour, I'm going to make a sweeping generalization about Lao people. There are cultures where its considered uncouth to disagree with someone, or tell them they're wrong. When I signed up for the tour, I informed the guide that I had my own bike, not a mountain bike, but a touring bike, and I wanted to use my bike instead of paying to rent one. He didn't tell me that this was an idiotic idea, although he would have been TOTALLY justified in doing so. 

We were to meet at Delilah Restaurant at 8:30 AM. There were three of us on the tour: Fabrizio, an Italian whose hairline, beard, and eyebrows grew together in a disturbing way (if ever there was a man who needed a Dominican barber, it's Fabrizio), his giggly Asian flip-flop wearing girlfriend and myself. Fabrizio and I talked about the ride a bit--he thought it would be paved and easy, I thought it would be pretty muddy. He insisted, "Oh, no! They told me the road was paved!"

Six kilometers into the trip, we hit the mud. And, seven kilometers into the trip, we hit the road construction. Good times!  We rode through mud, across rocks, walked our bikes through deep puddles, looked at the ugly orange mud gashes in the "country-side." I slid, sweated, fell over, and cursed the guide who didn't tell me I was an idiot for not renting a mountain bike.  

We all got filthy (I, at least, had fenders, which needed to be cleaned out every ten minutes or so).

At one point, I looked over, and noticed Fabrizio taking pictures of me. I approached him.
"You taking pictures or me?"
"Uh, yes."
"Did you ask me before you took them?"
"No."
"It's generally considered rude to take pictures of someone without asking their permission. Delete them."
"(Gulp) All of them?"
"Yes. ALL of them."

I have no idea if he actually did. I'm pretty sure he didn't take any more pictures of me, though. About thirty seconds after he "deleted" the pictures, I asked our guide to take one of me. Here I am, tres sportif and tres sale.

Rocks, rocks, rocks, mud, mud, mud, hills, hills, hills. We finally made it to the Nam Khan River, where we were to put our bikes on a boat and head up to Tad Sae Falls. I dumped my bike in the river to clean some of the mud off, and sort of wanted to leave it there.

Six people, five bikes, heading up the river on a tiny speedboat. Kind of scary. Tad Sae Falls were meh. The Italians ziplined and fed elephants. I read the New York Times.

I forgot to mention! It was raining!! The whole day!!!  Better than hot and sunny, I guess.

Yay!!! The ride back was almost entirely paved!! Boo!! There was a five km incline that almost killed me! I wanted to cry and vomit, but kept it to a pathetic whimper.

My big takeaway: I do not like riding in Laos, and may not actually like bike touring. Live and learn, as my brother would say. I'll do some riding in Thailand--through the rice paddies between Chiang Khong and Chiang Rai. But in Laos, no. Because really, when I think about it, I don't really want to ride 90 km of rolling hills in 80% humidity, to spend the night in a $4 guesthouse with a squat toilet, a cold bucket shower, and a mosquito infestation.

I'm getting soft in my old age. Maybe I'll try another bike tour next summer, but in Europe.

Heading out of Luang Prabang tomorrow--up to Nong Khiaw (sp?) for two days, then coming back down here, and taking a two-day luxury slowboat (cheap price: normally $465, doing for $190) down the Mekong, to the border.

In non-bike related news: Today for lunch, I went to one of the nicer restaurants in LP. I'd seen so many frogs for sale at the markets, I thought I should eat some. So, I ordered the "bone-in stir-fried frog with chilis and onions." It was almost all chili and onion, and very little, very bony, frog. Here's a picture of  little frog feet sticking out of my lunch. They're towards the center, resting on a bit of onion.

And, just to end with a picture of something cool, because it's not all mud, rocks, and insufficient portions of frog: Yesteday I visited, via slow boat, the Pak Ou Caves, a Buddhist shrine about 25 km out of Luang Prabang. Basically, thousands of Buddha figures in a cave. Very atmospheric.

Luang Prabang (incl pics)

There comes a time in every trip where I have a little meltdown. "This sucks! What am I doing? Why aren't I in Brooklyn, having pancakes at Cafe Luluc?" This summer, my meltdown was exacerbated by my utter failure as a bicycle tourist. Being in Luang Prabang makes it a little worse, as I meet ACTUAL bike tourists, who aren't just putting their bikes on buses and using them for dinky little 30-40 km rides. They're always very impressed by my setup, which makes the shame a little deeper. The self-pity spiral might still be going if I didn't have a little conversation in my head with my meanest friend, The Rugby Player, who I could hear mocking me, "Oh, poor Frances, she's in the most beautiful part of touristed Laos, eating baguettes in cafes overlooking the Mekong, and taking lovely walks. POOR FRANCES!  Your life SUCKS." Having succeeded in making myself feel like a whinging jerk, I pulled myself out of it.

While I've failed as a bicycle tourist, I'm succeeding at being a chatty solo tourist who, on three different occasions, made dinner plans with strangers (excuse me, with friends I hadn't met yet). I'm also succeeding in not shopping--the bike is a fantastic deterrent.

I have some plans involving the bike, but I won't bother sharing them until they've been implemented.

Luang Prabang is a city of extremes--French colonial architecture in the city, tin shacks and rocky (scared for my tires!) dirt roads three kilometers out. The shops sell silk scarves and silver bowls; at the morning market I saw a woman selling two small heaps of tamarind and three frogs.

Here are some wats, monks, grilled frogs, and a lovely water view.  I've included them because, otherwise, this was a boring blog post.

o hai! here are some pictures!!1!

Bolaven Plateau.

Villager, working at some weird tourist village where people from nine or ten different (picturesque, bright clothes-wearing) villages do stuff and ignore the tourists. Felt like human zoo. Did not like the place although I do like this picture, and perhaps one day the shame of taking it will pass.

Cutest kid in Laos (bolaven Plateau), working it for the camera.

Cutest child in Laos, using his zoom function.

Sunset over the Mekong in Kratie, Cambodia

Ooooh, pretty!!! Heading towards Chhlong, Cambodia.

Chili roasted crickets at the bus station market in Skoun, Cambodia.

Peeled frogs for sale at the Central Market. I feel like I should have something clever to say, but I don't. Sorry.

The chicken head and chicken foot stand at the Central Market in Phnom Penh. 

Gaudy temple at the top of a hill in Phnom Penh. I dumped the Cambodia guidebook, and am too lazy to look online to see which one it is. 

Angkor Wat? Possibly. Definitely one of the Angkor temples. I should know which one it is. Meh.

Slow boat from Battambang to Siem Reap.

Slow boat from Battambang to Siem Reap.

Vientiane!

Greetings from Vientiane!!

Vientiane is a lovely city, full of French colonial architecture, good coffee and CYCLISTS. Just spent some time chatting with a few. I met a Japanese guy who is taking three months to ride from Shanghai to Singapore; he was taking his bike apart and cleaning it, and generally looking highly competent.  The others, a Chinese guy with some kind of pale chubby north European woman. They had backpacks, no gear, regular clothing, bikes that I associate with Central American food delivery guys (don't know how else to describe them--they bought them in Luang Prabang for $200 each, which they thought quite expensive). No proper bags, puffy saddles, Tevas--they had just ridden down from Luang Prabang and planned to go to Cambodia. At them moment, I'm full of "If she can do it, I can do it!" but we'll see if I want to.

It's also the hottest time of the day, which is why I'm kickin it in an AC internet cafe. Soon, I will go visit the Lao National Museum (history of the revolution, I believe), and a wat or two. Also, lunch.

I like it here.

But how did I get to Vientiane?

Yesterday I discovered a new, awful, way of travel: the Lao VIP sleeper bus.  Normally, I can sleep on buses, even fairly uncomfortable ones with sagging, hard seats. But the Lao VIP sleeper bus is different. There are two rows of twin beds on either side of the bus. There is about two feet of clearance between the bed and the ceiling (or the bed and the bed above). Sitting up is not an option (10-hour ride). This would not be so bad, except for X  things: 1. you have to SHARE the bed (in my case, with a thankfully tiny Lao woman who had very sharp knees), 2. the road is very, very bumpy, 3. they turn out the lights at 8:15PM, so one can't read, and 4. the toilet situation is bleak.

Although, as my grandmother would have said, I "took care of myself" before getting on the bus, I had to pee about 45 minutes into the trip. For some reason, maybe the claustrophobia or the dark or the bumpy road or the length of the journey or whatever, it didn't occur to me that there was a toilet on the bus. So, while everyone else seemed to go into hibernation, I went into Monkey Mind. "Ohmygod, I think I have to pee! Do I have to pee?! How can I have to pee? Are we there yet? Can I make it without peeing? Will they stop the bus for me? Do I really have to pee, or am I just nervous because I might have to pee later and that's making me think I have to pee?  Maybe I don't have to pee, and it's a tumor! No, I really have to pee! Crap! Eight more hours! Where am I gonna pee? Does anyone else have to pee?"  etc.....  I kept trying to fall asleep, but I really don't like touching people while I'm sleeping, and I was squashed into the window with the Lao woman's bony little knee in my thigh. Plus, brain freaking out about having to pee. Listening to music (Bon Iver and Jay-Z) didn't help, but did make me homesick. At 1:30 in the morning (yes, this went on for FIVE HOURS), I saw a man get out of his bed (which he was NOT sharing) and go to the back of the bus. "Oh!" I realized, "There's a toilet on the bus! I'm a dumbass!!" My brain and bladder immediately calmed down. Eventually, I went to the toilet (filthy, squat, glad I brought toilet paper, had a moment of wishing I had some Purell), found a temporarily empty bed (bus employee) and slept for about two hours. He eventually kicked me out of his bed, and I returned to my original bed, and my disappointed companion.
We arrived in Vientiane at 6:30 AM, and I eventually made my way to the guest housey part of town, where I decided that I deserved a $35 room for a night. And a nap.


For the record, I have had lots of time sightseeing, hanging out with other travelers, eating tasty food, taking pleasant bicycle rides, but those don't make for good stories, so I'm not going to share them.

I will add this, primarily for the edification of Lou Garcia: on a tour of the Bolaven Plateau, the guide squashed some fire ants between his fingers and ate them.

I'll post some pics before I leave Vientiane, but I don't have cable on me, so will wait until tomorrow.

XOXOXO

Laos!!

The plan, such as it was, was to take the minivan from Kratie to Stung Treng, do a ride along the Mekong, travel up to the 4000 Islands region of Laos, and somehow hopscotch over to Vientiane and then up to Luang Prabang.

I arrived in Stung Treng (not to be confused with the Stung Trang of my last post) and found the town to be a dusty, sunny, shithole. Looked at a map, and saw the ride I planned required a mountain bike, and I've had enough time in the Mekong mud. Rode around for a bit, checking out guesthouses, before settling on the one noted to be "popular with travelers." There were a couple of backpackers in the cafe, so I took a (crappy, overpriced at US12) room and began chatting with the two women (haven't spoken to anyone for a few days, so was time). Turned out that neither was staying there; they were waiting for the 3PM bus to Laos--one was heading to 4000 Islands, and the other to Pakse.

I thought about the Mekong, and how brown it is during rainy season, Then, I thought about lying in a hammock, in a driving rainstorm, looking at the brown water. And I thought, "4000 Islands, maybe not this year."

And so, I'm in Pakse. I got here around 7:45 tonight. In my usual dumbass way (Mom, you can stop reading here!) I decided to ride my bike into town even though a. it was dark, b. I have no freaking idea where "town" is, and c. I don't speak Lao and can't ask for directions. Oh, and d. I was sort of disoriented by the layout of the "bus station." On the bright side of things, I did put my eyeglasses on, so would have been able to read street signs, if there were any (there aren't). I somehow managed to ask directions (and corroborated them) and get to "town." Go, me!! Yayyyy!

After some mishaps (got slightly snippy with one desk clerk because I thought he told me that his grotty room (in a hallway that stank of durian fruit) was $30. Turned out we had an accent issue, and he actually said $13. Which is still too much for a hallway that stinks of durian fruit.

Have a nice clean $13.75 room with shampoo and a towel. Ate some food. Feel pretty good about the whole thing. Will be based here for a five or six days--some nice long (60-90 km) trips I can do from here  (overnight trip to Champasak--I'll leave the extra tires here, and 90% of the toiletries). Then, 10 hour overnight bus to Vientiane.

Mud (long)

First of all, I brought my camera cable so i could upload pictures, but I didn't bring the cable for the camera I brought. So, no pics. Sorry. This story would have benefited from them. Imagine lots of mud. (Edit: I figured out the cable)

Yesterday was the first day of my ride. On paper, it didn't seem that challenging. 30 kms down the west side of the Mekong (rough dirt road), ferry over to the east side, 30 kms of rough dirt road, 20 kms of hard packed dirt road, and then 20 kms of pavement into Chhlong.

Well....

Mistake #1: I didn't eat before leaving Kampong Cham. I figured, "Eh, there'll be food along the way."Right. Because there always IS food along the way--in Brooklyn, Tampa, Delhi, Chiang Mai. In RURAL CAMBODIA, there is not necessarily food along the way. Apparently, rural Cambodians eat breakfast at home. Heathens. I became hungry and irrational, and didn't stop at a the first couple of restaurants. Öh, there's no empty tables."Öh, all the tables are empty, it must not be good."Ït's on the wrong side of the road." Ït's muddy."etc... I'm a dumbass sometimes.

I ate, I rode, I got sort of muddy. I yelled "hello!" to every single child I saw. And then, I arrived in Stung Trang, where I was to get the ferry across the Mekong.

Mistake #2: I didn't eat in Stung Trang, although the guide I was following suggested I do so. I sat in the ferry waiting area and drank some water, while the shopkeeper yelled at me (I think) because there was mud on my legs. (This happened every place I went. Eventually, I made sure i had enough water to clean the mud off my legs before I bought water).

Off the ferry, up the hill to the road, which was described as being "rough, lined with small Muslim villages."

At first, there was a single track through the mud, which made me nervous. Öh my," I thought. Ï have 60 kms to go, and that's going to take a long time if I'm riding on a single track through the mud." As my grandmother might have said (although she never did, to my knowledge) "Man plans, and God laughs." That single track through the sticky, deep mud disappeared. I got off my bike, and began to walk, the bike and I both sinking into the mud. This SUCKED. NO way to go but forward, though, so I crept along at 1.3 kms an hour (thanks, bike computer!) I stopped several times to pull mud out from under the fender. Throughout this, every single person I went past hollered, "hello!!" requiring me to holler "hello!!"back at them in a cheery voice.  After a kilometer or so, it began to dry out and I began to ride again.

I only made it ten kms or so when I got pulled over by two women who ran adjoining snack stands. They were EXTREMELY  upset with how dirty the bike and I were (through sign language and gestures--they had a lot to say to me, but I have no idea what they were saying, which is probably good). One handed me a bucked and made me go down to the Mekong and clean myself up (if I get giardia, we'll know why!)

I took the bags off my bike and began to rinse the bike off. This brought another round of screaming and gesturing, miming hosing. Next thing I knew, a boy got on my bike and rode off. The woman mimed that the bike was being hosed off. I sat down and had a Coke. Kids gradually began to wander over to stare at me. (The thumb sucker is buck naked--his friends kept shoving him out from behind the cooler and tried to get me to take pictures of him.)

After 45 minutes or so, I got a little nervous about the bike. I made the international gesture for "bicycle." Another woman pointed at my muddy shoes and yelled at me. She then gestured for me to get on the back of her scooter, and off we rode, three buildings down, where my bike was getting hosed off. Bags back, off I rode.

The rest of the ride was less eventful. There was no catastrophic mud. There was dirt and sun and a hundred thousand "hello!s", which became fairly annoying. Every time I stopped for a drink, a crowd of children gathered, and the women gestured at the mud and sweat and (presumably) talked about how disgusting I was. I stopped at a market for bananas, and developed an entourage. I believe one older woman was yelling at me because I don't dye my hair (she used the word "noir."

I was shattered by the time I made it to Chhlong (90 kms). I had hoped to find a really nice guesthouse, but I found a $5 windowless cell with a fan, a cold shower, and a fly-infested outdoor restaurant. I made a point of eating breakfast on my way out of town this morning.

This is definitely harder than I expected. First, I'm not physically in shape. Second, it's impossible to melt into the background in rural areas. People studied (and apparently commented on) every single thing I did, and that's pretty exhausting. This morning, I rode a dirt road along the Mekong, and a baby (18 months or so?) began crying when he saw me and turned his head away. I'm a monster, apparently. 

Staying in my expensive ($40!) Kratie room for two nights, then up to Stung Treng. Going to do  more tours on the bike, and maybe less travel. I don't think I'm going to be able to handle crazy hills and mountains with the weight I'm carrying. And anyway, that doesn't sound FUN.

OK, here's a picture of something pleasant, just so you don't think it's all mud and child-stalkers. 

Phom Penh

So, I'm sitting in an internet cafe across the street from the Tonle Sap river. Not that I can see it through the sheeting rain. Fucking monsoon grumble grumble mumble BAH! We'll see how much riding I get in--right now it seems like I'm going to be mostly taking my bike on bus rides through Cambodia and Laos! Sucks!!

Here are the things I screwed up! I brought my nice Kryptonite lock, but the key, apparently, is still sitting on my desk in Brooklyn. So it goes. Also, that nice air pump I bought? Doesn't work with my valves. It probably wouldn't have killed me to bring three pairs of underwear (I have two). 

I  now have a $2.00 Cambodian lock and chain. Not that there's anything that I could chain my bike to. I guess I was picturing street signs and parking meters, even though I've never seen them outside the US.

 Here are some things I've experienced:
the Angkor Temples (in the rain)
the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap (in the rain)
the bat caves of Battambang  (in the rain)

Are you sensing a theme?
Also, after meaning to do so for about five years, I finally got around to getting a pedicure.

I went to the Angkor temples yesterday. Took a zillion pictures of Angkor Wat (experienced diminished by busloads of Korean tourists, no disrespect to Koreans), and ran out of battery by the time I got to the cool Lara Croft: Tomb Raider temple (Ta Prohm). Some nice Japanese tourists took pics of me (wearing cycling jersey, sweating like pig, with fanny pack [it's my handbar bag ok???!]) and said they'd send.  

Some other thoughts on the bicycle: my bike mentors thought it wise for me to bring multiple tubes, as well as a set of foldable tires. That seemed sound. However, being here makes me realize that no matter what happened to my tires, or my tubes, they could be patched up (and I'd feel like an asshole throwing away essentially new tires and tubes). So, tubes and tires getting a tour of Indochina!!

For years, I thought the worst thing I'd ever tasted was a vastedda (spleen) sandwich from Ferdinand's of Red Hook. Then, yesterday, I had some amok near one of the Angkor temples. Amok is the national dish of Cambodia. It can be lovely. This is what wikipedia has to say,  Amok trey (អាម៉ុកត្រី) - This is probably Cambodia's most well-known dish amongst visitors; there are similar dishes found in neighboring countries. Freshwater fish fillet (commonly snakehead fish, or Mekong catfish) is covered with an aromatic kroeung (pounded shallots, lemongrass, garlic, kaffir lime), roasted crushed peanuts, coconut milk, and egg and then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed until it achieves a mousse-like texture.

Sounds good, right? The amok I had yesterday was foul--it tasted only of fish sauce, and had bits of corn in it. If you've read Chuck Palanhiuk's story, "Guts,"you might remember the scene where he describes the intestines floating in the pool. That's what it looked like. I wanted to cry.

And with that, I bid you adieu. Next post will include pictures.