Travel to Laos from 01/09 to 01/29...same same but different...same blog as the french one but in English

- 17 Janvier : I get up at 8 am although it's about two hours I'm awake and hid myself under  the pillow  in order not to hear the fuc*ing hysteric cock under my window (the same that sang at 1 am the other night). I go down the street till the angle where I find a place where they serve black Lao coffee. They do it ceremoniously, using sweet condensed milk on which they put Lao coffee realy black, served with a full glass of Lao tea and local doughnuts with banana or sesame, really local breakfast. I meet a german guy who lives there and says me there's a french bar and restaurant not so far from my guesthouse, i note that.

     I go the Royal Palace which is the museum of the king (the three last one actually, the last till 1975). Next to it there is a beautiful temple which is in front of the stairs which go up to the  Mount Phousi. The museum is full of treasures and gifts from the heads of state and the kings of various countries (Very beautiful objects sculptured directly in tusks offered by India,  a bit of rock from the Moon returned by the mission Apollo offered by the USA) as well as all the furniture, the throne, all the inside with mosaics made with the colored, magnificent Japanese glass. All of this I haven't any photos because cameras are forbidden in the museum, I had to let it at the entrance. I then go to see the cars of the King in a little garage outside, a few limos, Buicks and a Citroën GS  : I did a photo of it even if it was forbidden here also. Going by I see this other car (just bellow) with funny messages on the windscreen about how the car needs to be washed.

     Then I go to the foreign exchange office which also serves as  post office and leave my postcards. 

     I go back along the Mekong to find a place to eat. I find one near the place of yesterday. I do a real Lao meal with Laap for starter : fresh salad with onions, lemon grass, fish meat,  peppers, cabbage, really delicious and spicy, served with sticky rice.

     For the main course I had another  traditional Lao recipe, the Mok (which is  actually a method of cooking, steamed in a banana leaf) with chicken cooked in the leaf with herbs and egg, really delicious again. I go after that to the place where I bought my ticket for the tour in the afternoon to see the waterfalls and the Hmong village. We go at 1.40 pm. We pick some guys  in others guesthouses. It's about 45 mn to the waterfalls.

      C’est vraiment très beau : plusieurs grosses piscines bleu azur s’enchaînent dont une où il y a du fond et où il y a une corde pour faire Tarzan. J’y revois certains du bateau de nouveau. Je continue plus haut jusqu’à la grande chute, elle est impressionnante. En redescendant je retrouve les allemands et le couple anglais de Jersey. Plus bas je retourne à la grande piscine pour me baigner une dizaine de minutes mais elle est fraîche. Je retourne au minibus pour le retour. On s’arrête au village Hmong où tous les enfants veulent nous vendre des bracelets et tout autres choses. J’en achète une paire aux dernières petites filles et puis on remonte dans le bus.

      Au retour je me fais déposer au bas du mont Phousi et m’attaque la montée en courant pour choper le soleil couchant tout en haut. Il y a du monde mais j’arrive à faire une dizaine de clichés sympas. J’y retrouve à nouveau mes anglais et mes allemands qui ont eu le temps de monter eux aussi.

     Je redescend par le même chemin et vais jusqu’au Lao Red Cross pour me faire le sauna aux herbes, vraiment pas cher (10000 kips soit 1$), à volonté avec thé à volonté aussi entre les séances. En fait c’est plus un hammam avec vapeur d’eau et 60°C par là. Je me fais une fois 12 min, une fois 15 et une fois 13 minutes. C’est vraiment sympa et je suis un des seuls européens. Je retourne ensuite à la gesthouse et me prend une douche rapido. Ce soir sur le conseil de l’allemand de ce matin je trouve le resto bar français dans ma rue. Je me fais quelques bières et une pizza (ça change un peu mais recette locale). Et puis je ne suis pas loin pour rentrer. Je me rentre tôt et quand même la porte est fermée mais le père de famille m’entend et vient m’ouvrir. Je me fais un film avant de me coucher.

- 16 Janvier : Long night of rest till 10 am, that's restful. I'll come to visit the city by walking. I'm gone at 11 am. I stop to a café terace above the Mekong river to have a coffee and a smoothie before to go and walk a few kilometers. They are not really in a hurry to serve me, but I'm Ok I kind of have the time, that's holidays, no? It's cool along the Mekong river this morning, and a little bit cloudy and windy.

     I begin to walk in direction of the end of the peninsula, passing in front of a load of guesthouses and restaurants along the river, with teraces. I see some of the people that where on the same boat as me from Houessay. I stop in another café with a terace along the Mekong, contemplating a tree all covered with a symbiotic plant on the trunk and branches, that's amazing.

     They sell some fresh cocos. I take one and drink the juice with a straw and finally order something for lunch. I order and taste the famous Mekong seaweed - dried and fried 1 second in the oil and covered with sesame and garlic - with a basket of sticky rice. It's pretty delicious but a little fat with the oil, then even if it doesn't weigh a lot I couldn't finish my plate. For the dessert I ask to the guy who served me to cut the coconut  and I ate the white fresh flesh.

     I continue my way towards the place where the Nam Kane river meet the Mekong river. I stop to visit one of the most beautiful temple of Luang Prabang, the Wat Xieng Thong, built in 1560. A few little temples around one big where you can see, on the back of one, the amazing tree of illumination, done with bits of shiny mosaics. In an another one you can see an immense funeral  tank , and a little bit further a big lying Bouddha.

     When I arrive to the mouth of the river Naam Kane I see the couple of old  people from Jersey I've been with from Chian Mai. They rented bikes and when I see them they are discussing with a young couple who come back from visiting the village across the river. They say it worth the visit. Then iI let them and go in that direction. I have to pay a little amount to cross the river by a bamboo bridge, and when you're on the other side in the little village you can go and visit  the crafters you can see them working the silk. Also you can see how they make the chinese lanterns using the bark of white mulberry tree, and also frames, books, trays.  I buy some other Chinese lanterns and a bedside lamp. I make a fast visit to the temple because it is worth seeing.

     I then go back to the other side of the river and go along the Nam Kane river till the area  where there are all the bars and then I visit another temple where I see  a young couple from te boat trip. I couldn't find the tourist office from the plan I had from the travel book but I saw where I can go and do traditional sauna with herbs and at will tea between the sequences, at Lao Red Cross center.  I stop later in the area and have a soup to give me some strengh and courage to do the  ascent of the Mount Phousi to see the temple (Wat Tham Phusi) and see the splendid view on the Mékong at the sunset from there.

     Stiff ascent but really great Buddhas along the way and indeed splendid view, even if it's a little cloudy tonight. I also there see the young netherlands guy I met in the guesthouse in Chiang Kong.  I go down by the other stairs which reaches directly the night Market wher I try to find an ATM et take some money because  I'm broke. I see the Germans of yesterday, the one from the minibus from Chiang Mai. I become a millionaire in Kips (about 100€)…not so long because I have to pay my room when I come back there (80000 kips).

     I put a long sleeves sweater I go to do a walk and find something to eat, like yesterday, in the little food market. Passing by a stall I buy something I hadn't taste yet with a paste with peanuts, rice and lemon grass, wrapped in a letuce leave, very fresh and delicious and cheap too. Looking for dinner I meet a couple from England I saw on the boat. We discuss a moment and say we'll see later maybe at the Hive Bar for a drink. Actually we met again in the little market and chat by the street a long moment before we decide to go and have dinner somewhere in the street at a food stall. Their names are Rachel and Joe, and like many of the Europeans I met here, travel on a 5 to 6 months duration. They already did the Thaïland during one month, stay nearly two months in Laos, then they'll do Canbodia and Vietnam and maybe Malaysia and finally if it's possible Australia.

     Finally we discuss a long moment and have some fun with a cat which loved Rachel and decided  not to let her go from the place we were eating. It's a bit late now to  go and have a drink, then Rachel and Joe go back to their accomodation and I go to the bar of yesterday and order only one beer in bottle and stay out of the bar to catch the WIFI and update my blog. I chat a moment with a guy from Savoie I met there who explains me he had a pretty good time by doing woofing in a rice farm near Pai in the north of Thaïland and really advise me to try. I hope my guesthouse won't be closed when I come back. It's OK because I come back enough early.

- 15 Janvier : Wake up at 7 am, i had a good night after all, even with this bed base just with a  blanket above, a little bit stiff but good. Pleasant warm shower. I pack my bag and give back the keys. I have breakfast at the reception of the guesthouse because they also have a grocery store and buy some stuff to eat for lunch (.i've been made a rice meal to go and a sandwitch).

      I go down the street towards the landing stage, and stop in a bakery and takes one of their famous "croissant" with a real espresso, and  go to the boat. It is already well filled and I take a place in the front part, where seats are in the other direction and where especially it is much less noisy. It is complete to the point that they are obliged to start another boat.

      It is a little bit cloudy and cool this morning but that gets sunny fast. I am better placed to take photos, and i really like this. The journey includes a little more zones with rapids but stays calm altogether . Only a few people from the middle part of the boat had been  sprayed in the contact of a wave in rapids. I finish my book in the afternoon, I am much better settled than the day before then the journey is more pleasant. The  landscape is more sharpenned and gorgeous on this part of the Mekong River. In a village where we stop, some young girls come near the boat, on the rocks, to sell slings and scarfs. We pass near caves full of buddhas, 30 km before Luang Prabang.

     We finally arrive at 5.30 pm after 8 hours. I walk along the city searching for a Guesthouse (i saw one of those on the guide book but couldn't find it) and end up in one near the river, in a house, teak style, dark varnished wood, and a good bed. I have a little rest and go through the city to find some place to eat, already thinking that i'll try the little long market with food I've already seen before when I was looking for a guesthouse.

      I take at first brochettes with the sticky rice flattened and sprayed with a marinade before being burned out, delicious. I comes down in the famous street not far from there and I find the couple of German  which were in the minibus with me since Chiang Mai. I am a little bit indecisive and do not know what to choose: there are lots of barbecues with the chicken tenderloin, the thighs, with the duck, the pieces of breast or some pork chops, and some fish.

      I finally chose a flatfish whom they cook with a shoot of citronella inside and a brochette of livers of chicken, and picked some rice in another stand. It is delicious. I sit at the same table as the German and in front of a couple of Italian of a certain age with whom I begin to talk,. That really amazes my German neighbors who ask me about how many languages I can speak.

      After that I leave to wander in the main street where there is a night market and make some purchases, before going to a bar, the Lao Lao bar in the slogan which really pleased me: " Drink like has fish for the price of water! ". They have WiFi and when I ask for a little beer they bring me down 1L in a jug, I did not understand why he asked me how many glasses? In brief, I almost drank everything in the end (I gave some to the table close to me), the time to answer my e-mails and  update my blog. The curfew is at 11:30 am then I'll have to return soon. The city is really very quiet after the curfew, you return quiet by hearing the noise of your own steps. When I arrive at the guesthouse I am obliged to bang in the door because they closed the main door. I do not wander a lot and am going to sleep at about 0:30 am.   

- January 14 : waking up at dawn, nice hot shower (it is true that the night was cool) and English breakfast. Some daylight photos of the pretty guesthouse. Minibus to the Mekong river to take the canoe across the river to Houessay.

Arriving there, "visa on arrival," it takes some time because the three men in the office are not very excited, about 40 minutes waiting. Then tuk-tuk to the pier where the slow boats are and waiting on the terrace of a small business before embarking time (11:30 instead of 10:30 finally). I make some change here (i got kips) because in Pakbeng they do not accept Baths.

First Lao beer and dried bananas for snacking. The guide led us down to the boat around 11 am saying that it is better to arrive early to board but in fact the other operators have already boarded in, so there are just a few places to choose from. It is a little tight, and it will delay for sure, we are already announcing the arrival around 20h. It's a bit of a mess boarding, it looks like they are back as many people as possible. Finally there is room for almost everyone.

Here we go, about 11:40 for a 6:30 hours ride with stops. The guide book was right, we see beautiful scenery on the Mekong, but what we see inside are Westerners who drank Laobeer, photo support.

It is good, there are plenty of places where the river is tighter and forms rapids, but the limited speed makes the ride very pleasant. I'm on the rear end of the boat so it's a bit noisy, so I put my MP3 music in the ears loud enough to cover the noise. Finally we arrive early, just before 6 pm at dusk. It is time to arrive because an Englishman, we'll call him "Beer Sponge", since he drank Beer Lao all along the way, starts fighting with his girlfriend and really goes nuts with her.

I follow the upward movement of the others through the village to find a guesthouse. I'm going to visit one, it looks pretty good for the price, rooms without charm but beautiful house made of teak. I rest a bit and plug my MP3 and my phone, and then I take a walk down the main street where I'll seek where to have a little dinner. I met two Brazilian, Felipe and Davi, with whom I walk a bit. They are in the room next to mine. I suggested we eat together at a restaurant just in front of the guesthouse that looks pretty good.

The time they take showers I take this opportunity to make a backup of my photos taken today on my netbook and when I finished I go straight to the restaurant to join them. They have already settled with two English girls and invite me to join them. I have a local dish with beef and zucchini sauce with a basket of sticky rice, and a very good Lao beer of course, the large size (the only available anyway, 640 ml).

We learn that girls are both teachers of English in China in Shanghai. One is called Thrusha, comes from South Africa and has an Indian father. She had finished her contract as a teacher and is travelling with her friend and then returns in late January at home in Johannesburg. The other girl is Irish, and is called Claire and begins her contract.

After eating, it's about the hour of curfew (23h) we go a bit more up the road in the only bar in town where you listen to loud music, and which closes to midnight. We're been proposed Ganja and Opium, but nobody cares. We discuss in English of course, trying to hear ourselves over the music. I returned shortly before midnight because I must get up at dawn if I want to move to pick good seats in the boat.

Important thing I just celebrated my one year of abstinence from cigarettes in sharing the whole evening with smokers.

- Thursday 13 : Raise the alarm a little earlier this morning because I have to leave the room at 11am and before lunch I want to  go and get an oil massage before waiting for my transport to the border at noon. A good rice dish and some internet time that the massage room opens its doors.

The room opens a bit later then I do a massage of about 40 minutes so as not to be late. I believe that unforgettable sensation of being massaged, glowing like a worm ... and naked like him.

Back then to take a shower and do my bag and leave the room. I bring a sandwich for the road. Before leaving I leave a little note to Emma (I wish him good luck and I leave my email address) and I told to Sin, the owner, to transmit it.

The minibus arrived around 12:30 and the time to fill in the various cottages guesthouses is about 13h when we leave Chiang Mai. Beginning of this quiet road in VIP minibus, good road. It stops after about 1h30 in a cashew factory with many different recipes of it, we could eat there and drink a coffee for half an hour before re-launch.

We continue to Chiang Rai. We stopped about ten miles before, to the very famous white temple "What Rong Khun" it's worth a visit. At this hour it sparkles, literally. The details of the sculptures and the work of a goldsmith to stick thousands of tiles and gleaming varnish, in order to live a dragon, or a samurai. The fresco on the inside is just as sublime and the large eyes of a dragon painted above the door looks at you alarmingly.

Only a short break again less than half an hour but it was so beautiful to see. Once we left runs the final straight, a little more bumpy than before anyway, an hour and a half while watching through the tinted windows of the vehicle, the sunset over the rice fields behind the beautiful peaks rock reminiscent of those emerging in Halong Bay in Vietnam.

We finally arrived at destination after a little less than 5 hours away, in a hotel in a quiet part of Chiang Kong very nicely maintained, with rooms in buildings in a single stage whole teak, decorated with beautiful gardens. For those who took the full package like me, we fill our papers immediately for the visa and it is the hotel who will save them in the morning to board the boat faster. We have a coupon for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow morning and tickets for the boxed lunch on the boat.

Once completed i settled in my room and change clothes so that there is nothing that can bite those pesky mosquitoes that seem to me rather greedy. I make some photos of dimly lit garden torches, and go to see where we have dinner. Many people have already eaten and went for a ride along the Mekong. I prefer a quiet place, eating and drinking Pad Thai and Singha with a pair of other young people looking a DVD in English. Bed early, 22h50, to get up at dawn so as not to lose too much time at the border and to climb onto the slow boat.

- January 12 : 1 pm finally I get up, I caught back part of my lack of sleep with a night of 11 hours long. I'm going to get breakfast - lunch at the guesthouse, with a good rice dish with buffalo, orange juice and coffee. I'm taking my time alone.

I meet Emma just coming back from a great ride all morning in the old city. 4 pm I'll go to see the day market next to the canal. Going there I do my passport photos to a photographer for my visa to Laos and make $ 5 exchange to complete the sum necessary for the visa of one month ($ 35) tomorrow at the border.

I look at a few stalls and bought the long sleeves shirt without buttons with a dragon for my brother Micka. Returning to the guesthouse I see again Emma who's walking towards the canal. Just then I find myself next to the entrance of a temple, before which there is a lounge, a courtyard, in fact, where they perform massages. A row of leather seats, where one can get to massage feet. Since I had not tried it yet I'm having one of a half-hour by a beautiful young Thai teenager.


                                                   
Her name is Tængmo, it means watermelon, it's fun. It's very pleasant, but sometimes painful for the calf and the side of the foot.

Going back further up the street I see a small stall near a temple that sells food rather sweet. There is a French couple who is trying to pick things. I approached and asked if they have already tasted the omelet cooked in a banana leaf, we discuss a moment about their trip and they invite me to come and have a drink with them at their guesthouse, which is two near from the stall. This guesthouse is very nice, teak house surrounded by gardens, small terrace in front of their bedroom.

We drank Thai whiskey and coke with him, his name is Bruno, and we discuss. I hear he has some friends in and around Ardeche, and Séverac le Château and these friends are "Les allumé du pouce" ("The burning of thumb") that we met many times in Gaillac. On this he tells me that he was at the party in Gaillac this year in May, and that we probably crossed our paths there.

He tells me a bit about his trips and those times when he came to meet some people he know at the other end of the world and I say him that I did the same a few times too. Then, he and his girlfriend must go and see a Muay Thai match tonight so I'm leaving to the guesthouse and say goodbye.

By the way back to the guesthouse I buy a banana fritter with a skewer of fried vegetables where I met them. Back in my room I change and put a sweater and some mosquito repellent. I pause a moment for a drink on the terrace of the guesthouse and enjoy the wifi to talk with people live on FB and look for the site on Laos that I had found and update my blog.

Later a small mobile stall stops, and a lady sells in the street skewers of squid and pork balls, served with fresh cilantro and cucumber. It's really delicious. After 22h I'll go take a walk down the main street nearby and stroll and a drink before I go, I think I'll just a massage again tomorrow. It seems there is a festive concert in the neighborhood right behind, maybe I'll have a look.

- January 10 : When it comes midnight after watching a movie I try to get some sleep while my neighbors - I do not know then that they took a sleeping pill - are sleeping like dormice. By times of one or two hours, I managed to sleep about 5 hours in all.

I begin to look bad with an eye all red blood that was done during my time at Roissy airport (or with the TGV air conditioning system). I finished the flight watching another film in english and trying to sleep a bit. Landing at 15:45 local time, a good 25 minute wait at immigration, foreign exchange, and presto I jump into the new express train from the airport to downtown (kind of underground air traveling at 120 km / h between stations).

I catch a subway whose terminus is Huala Lampong, train station, and once there, a bit too late to catch the 18:35 train, I get information on the following, and it is full till 22h. So I have a ticket for a journey of 14:30 hours long, sleeping on a seat in 2nd class. To give me courage I have my first Thai meal in the canteen of the station, no more Pad Thai but a equivalent with rice and chicken skewers that I took a small stores.

I rehydrated a bit too, because since the arrival at the airport I was very hot (it is 28 ° C) and I'll go sitting like all those waiting in the train station, sitting on the ground, enjoy the coolness brought by the night here. Once on the train I begin, after my longest ever flight (11h), my train ride the longest : departure 10 pm arrival the next day at 2 pm.

I have an English neighbor with whom I discuss a bit and give her some advice and the address of the Guesthouse wich I booked in Chiang Mai, if she wants to stay there.

January 11 : Of course despite the jetlag and five hours of sleep the night before, I can only sleep a couple of hours (it must be said that the lights stay on and train really slap on track and horehound a little). Then at 3 am, I begin watching a movie, I'll sleep better tomorrow ... or not. In fact I sleep a little better on the morning from 5am to 8am.

After a hearty breakfast with soup and rice and pork and fresh pineapple, I'm well and I hold myself to make micro-naps of several minutes, uncontrolled, on digestion. That's fair and then it lets me not languish too much because of the one hour delay that has the train.

Finally my neighbor Emma booked in Yourhouse Guesthouse and we took a tuk-tuk together. After setting our rooms, and the time they are finished cleaning, we will eat something in the main street. Emma was very hungry because she did not eat on the train just cookies and we devour our soups and drink at the end of this train ride (the longest since I travel (16 hours long)), a good Chang beer.

After that a well-deserved nap is needed (I needed it I think) : 3 hour nap in the afternoon, it recharges the batteries. Now that I'm clean I'll go get a massage.

9:20 p.m., I just finished an hour Thai massage, it's relaxing really, and I go an have soup now ... A Tomyama shrimp, spicy, and some spring rolls. At the same time I take this opportunity to update my blog, and I returned to the guesthouse and drags until 2am to watch movies, because I could not sleep.

Welcome to "Faf around ze world "ze blog of the traveler

On this little blog I will try to, depending on the internet connections I'll get, describe you my journey in Thailand and Laos.

 - 9 January : journey by train from Lyon Part Dieu at Charles de Gaulle in a TGV. As of course, but also because of stupid guys who played with the landing gear warning, he arrives late for almost half an hour at Roissy. I left my place, chosen in advance, to a family that had settled and that I dared not dislodge. I have traveled in reverse, in another seat. Fortunately I have a very big beating between my train and my flight to London (7am). That leaves me time to do a recognition of the airport, indeed immense but elliptical, hard to get lost.

I already been explained by the girl of British Airways when and how to register without wasting time (see the queue for operations at a time when I inquired and delay messages spewed by the speakers I I said I did well to arrive early enough). 3:20 p.m., there it is I no more have to drag my luggage and I could make my choice of seats from the check-in British Airways terminal. I now find myself a spot to recharge my netbook and I'll wait patiently for the boarding.

Delay continues because my flight took off 20 minutes late. After a MacDonalds at noon, I have a bagel in the evening. The flight from Bangkok in a 747-400, also starts with ten minutes late. I chose a spot in the window (the only one remaining), but once installed in the small space (I'm sure now that I prefer the pitch of Airbuses), a guy from the crew ask to my first neighbor, as well to me, if he will make way for a young couple, because the wife was panicking and had to be beside her husband. I then did my first of the year 2011 BA - in french "Bonne action"=good deed - (with BA, British Airways, funny coincidence) by giving them my window seat place instead of one on the other side of the aisle aircraft. So I made the flight next to a couple who was leaving for a trip of five months in Southeast Asia and Australia.