Well we’ve made it to Luang Prabamg, Laos. A memorable trip to say the least. We started our 24 hour adventure at 5am in Chiang Rai, taking a local bus to the Lao/Thai Boarder in Chiang Kong. It was a great ride with only a handful of locals and Sander and I enjoying the amazing Norther Thai scenerey.

We crossed the boarder, got our Lao visas (for some reason it costs more for us Canadians to get visas, 200 Baht or $6 ish, more than Americans or Europeans) In Laos we again were approached by a way to friendly foreigner, a German this time, who tried to recruit us into a mini bus to Luang Prabang. He just happend to need 2 more people for the journey. We had read about this scam in Lonely Planet ( they make up an excuse to stop in the middle of nowhere and either ask for more money or make you stay in thier guest house overnight). We declined.

Since the idea of dying on a fast boat or the shear bordem of the slow boat didn’t excite us, we decided to take the local bus, a 10 hour trip according to Lonely Planet. Wrong choice. It’s rainey season here, the roads are sharp winding climbing jostleing, scraping crazy roads. We bottomed out mrore times than I can count. The driver was hopped up on M150’s ( a more powerful version of Redbull) and was driving like a maniac hopped up on a more powerful version of redbull.

The first 12 hours was fine, this country is amazing. The jungle barely stops for the roads and rivers and steep hillsides and mountain tops surrounded us at every turn. We drove through village after village of subsistance farmers with thatched huts, waterbuffalo and naked children playing the streams. The rice paddies and corn fields covered the landscape where the Jungle had been temprarily tamed.

Hours 13-17  were awful. I wanted to sleep but everytime a laid my head anywhere I was beaten by the tag team combo that the bus and the road provided. We arrived in Luang Prabang at 5 am, managed to get to a guest house that would let us in and laid our heads on the pillows, quickly passing out.

We’re setting a plan for the next bit of our journey, no more 24 hour travel periods. Off to explore this amazing country in what is now very apparently the rainy season.

Smart or not, we braved the insanity of Chiang Mai’s streets and rented motor bikes. They were tiny 100cc Honda Dreams, 4 speed automatics. They were also the only thing we had to keep us alive as the insanity of Thai Driving unfolded around us.

After visiting Mr. Mechanic, renting the bikes and somehow navigating the streets to a near by Gas Station to fill up, we inched our bikes onto a main Chiang Mai road for our adventure. Talk about a lesson in the deep end. Luckily for us the bikes were simple to operate.  Go, stop, four speeds on your left foot all of them automatic. Keeping clear of the hurdling hunks of metal around us took all of our attention.

The Gas is your Best Friend

Driving here is a mater of getting the hell out of the way of other people and them doing the same for you. Just as I felt I was doing well a bike passed me on my left, it was a little girl dressed in her school outfit. Emboldened by her competence I fell into a groove , managing to navigate my way out of the city and up the hillside to our destination , the local mega temple Doi Southep. It was a blast ripping up the road at about 60km/ hr (the fastest the little bike could go up hill) we had huge smiles on our faces and spent only an hour at the temple before we eagerly hoped on the bikes and headed for the cities outskirts.

Driving Straight

I find navigating this city nearly impossible. It lacks the two main basis points that I’ve used for orientation most of my life, the North Shore mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Given our useless directional ability we decided to find a straight road and ride, hoping to see some of the serene farmers fields that we saw on the way in from the railway station just days ago. After passing army barracks, temples and more and more shops we decided to turn around, night was about to set in and we had little idea of how far we still had to go.

Laying Down while Driving

Maybe I was feeling a little too confident in my amateur biking career or maybe its just my way of learning, it happened never the less, I bailed. I was trying to turn into the gas station, going 5 kms an hour, hit a patch of mud sending the bike and my self sliding across the pavement.

Sander lept to the rescue, filming this video of the aftermath.

Bailing in Thailand

I silently sit enchanted,
as the warm breeze cries.
A distant flicker sparkles,
across my eyes.

Across its glass like skin,
a golden inferno burns.
Anger withing its belly,
and throughout it always churns.

An unsuspecting ripple,
like lightning through its waves,
crashing upon pale sands,
until the end of days.

A couple bobs around,
together embrace,
as the emerald waters,
bring joy to their face.

From a shifting horizon,
Its waves continuously flow.
Never much of an act,
instead an unforgettable show.

They try so hard to reach,
the edges of a loving shore,
as I sit here reminded of a goddess,
I cannot stop longing for.

Sometimes I wonder about Sander. One thing I don’t question is his amazing sense of fashion. That’s why I was curious why people (Thai and Farang) were staring, pointing, laughing and sneering on a recent walk we took.

Our new local Tailor friends (friends now that they have stopped bugging us to buy from them) commented, calling his new outfit “air conditioning”

Have a look for yourself to see what the fuss is all about…

Sander Struts His “Stuff”

It all began with what Jess and I believed to be the most amazing beach barbecue EVER, and ended in a puke/pooh fest or pookfest(SR) nightmare.

I woke up feeling kind of odd, quickly turning over to the left to see if Jess was still beside me in bed, which was and always has been the morning ritual. (since its cheaper to share a double wide bed than to have a separate room in Thailand, this is what Jess and I do) Jess, however was not in the bed but the odd feeling I was feeling instantly transformed into complete nausea, and upon overwhelming me caused me to forget any concern I had for Jess.

I quickly ran to our private bathroom which was attached to the side of our bungalow, and pushed open the door. To my surprise, there was Jess sitting with his head in his hands and on the very toilet I needed to use.  “Excuse me Jess, would you mind if I use this toilet,” I asked.  Wearily lifting his head, and with the same look of surprise on his face he said, “well certainly Sander, you may use this toilet.” I was already on the toilet before he even managed to escape the bathroom, and my bum literally exploded! ‘That whole thing’ lasted for about 15 seconds and then another equally sickening feeling rose to my mouth, however I was unable to do anything about it at this time, so instead I ended up puking up the remains of some undigested peanuts and a random orange liquid all over my bare naked knees and feet.

After washing off and feeling much better I returned to our bed and fell asleep. Little did I know that this would be happening every 45 minutes or so for the next 8-14 hours, and with much similarity to the first time in the bathroom. I became so desperate at times in attempting to make myself feel better that I would lay down on the disgusting bathroom floor, completely naked and continued puking all over myself, over and over and over and over and over again.

Eventually I felt better after a combination of antibiotics and some Gravol, but it is safe to say I will never eat peanuts or Thai beach barbecue during the low season ever again. Apparently the meat has the chance of sitting out for longer than it should during the low season…..who knew, but that’s food poisoning for you and I would not recommend this for anybody.

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Everywhere you look someone is trying to scam you. Our lightly sun kissed faces must call out to these “entrepreneurs”, most walks about the city involve one attempt or another to take our money.

One such incident was so well played that we didn’t even catch on until an hour into the ploy. Just remember the one piece of advice that all travelers will tell you, if someone is being too nice, whether a local or Farang (foreigner) don’t trust a word they say.

For future info and to record this crazy happening, I will share the multiple steps these people went through in an attempt to take our money.

Random Nice Stranger

Sander and I were off on a walk to explore the city. Randomly a man walked up to us and started talking. We’re used to telling people to piss off but this guy was smooth, his command of English impeccable and the next thing we knew he was telling us some of the great sights to see in the city.

His story surrounded the first falsehood of the scam, that the local tourist authority was offering Tuk Tuk drivers free gas to take tourists around to some attractions as part of a Tourist Promotion. For a mere 30 baht the drivers would take us to 5 Wat’s (temple) and Buddhas. He even wrote it down on a piece of paper for us. Up for an adventure we hopped in a Tuk Tuk, showed him the paper and were off on a ride.

The driver was nice, telling us to “take our time” as we visited the nearest Buddha, the amazing standing gold Buddha. After taking in the sights we hoped back in for the ride to the next stop.

Beware of Well Dressed men Doing Nothing

We were showed into a very run down Wat (temple) and directed to wait for the “monks” to come get us. While we were waiting a lone well dressed Thai Gentleman began conversation with us. He was a primary school teacher, had family in Australia and commented on how lucky we were to be visiting temples on that day since they were closed to foreigners the majority of the time.

He asked us if we were on the Thai government tourist promotion, we said yes and he asked what else we were going to see, asking further if we had it written down. We showed him the paper where he noted how nice those places were and quickly started talking about the “Export Center” that the first gentleman had written down for us. He started talking about the great deals on jewelry he got there on the special tourist week where the government waves all tax in order to promote tourism. He suggested we check it out as it closed in an hour and this was the last day. He told us to “buy what ever we could” to send back home and sell for double the price, showing us a receipt of nearly $5000 of goods he had bought, mortgaging his house, so he could send it to his sister in Australia and cash in.

Beware of other Foreigners

At this moment a French man appeared, asking why we were waiting. We told him that we were waiting for the monks. The Thai man continued to talk about his great way to earn money through buying jewelry. He even asked the French man if he had heard about it, the man said yes he had and that he had done it 2 times before and that it paid for his flight and some of his travels.

The Thai man said that we should go take advantage of this, suggesting we spend $500 - $2000 on small to medium “Princess Dianna Sets”. He said not to tell them you wanted to sell them at home and reiterated that today was the last day, also noting that the second floor on the “Export Center” had the best deals

This is where we caught on. We excitedly said ” Ok lets go!” and headed back to the Tuk Tuk. Sander started laughing as we got out of ear shot. We ranted on about those sneaky bastards and started to plan our get away.

Around and Around they Go, Where we stopped we didn’t know!

We told the driver to take us the next Buddah, testing his credibility, however knowing full well that our next stop would in fact be the jewelry shop. He then drove us in circles, through alleyways, over side walks, around and around. Eventually he pulled up to a medium sized jewelry shop. We had arrived at the “Export Center”. Sander and I had already made a plan not to go into the building, instead opting to put the 30 Baht on the seat and to walk away. The driver tried, insisted and whined to try to get us to go into the building, but we were on our way down the street laugh our heads off and keeping an eye on our backs to make sure no one was following us.

It took us a good 2 hours to find out way back to familiar ground, laughing and decompressing from the incident. The whole thing was so well planned it was amazing.

The Money

Each of the participants earns commission in the scam. The Jewlery and the “certificates” issued with them are fakes and the shops and scamers make a high profit from the worthless goods they sell. The first man on the street, the “school teacher”, the French dude and the Tuk Tuk driver all saw us a s dollar signs. We figure they insisted that we go to the second floor of the shop because it would be harder for us to get out if we caught on later. The sales pitch would be forceful I’m sure.

Crazy times in Thailand. Thanks to Sanders buddy Cam for telling him of stories such as these so we could clue in quickly. If you’re traveling here beware and have fun!

Our time on Ko Samet in South East Thailand was a great one, even with the sickness. I can say that looking back but wouldn’t really want to go through it again. Anyways, we have a bunch of videos that still need to be uploaded but I managed to get the last two island videos up so have a look.

Partying with the Thais

We were enjoying a romantic beach side BBQ when we ended up smoking a hookah and drinking way to much with some Thais at a neighboring table. I don’t know how they did it but they managed to keep our table open till long after everyone else had gone.

We got loaded and they taught us some Muay Thai. Sander got kicked in the gut, went swimming and running on the beach with his stray dog puppy friends. Check it.

Leaving Ko Samet

Just some thoughts in the back of the pick up on out way to the ferry.

Boom-boom, ping pong show, lots of ladies for you, cheap-cheap, ruthless cabbies yelling and chasing after you, and a nauseating smell comparable to nothing else, are all things I recommend you experience on your first night in Thailand.

After a rather painful, non drug induced 15 hour flight, inflicting overwhelming jet lag, the last thing you would want to do is cruise the busy market street known as Khao sahn road, however I believe this is the only way to truly prepare yourself for the possible nightmare that is Bangkok, at least in the eyes of the virgin traveler.

On Khao sahn road and its surrounding sister and brother streets you can expect to find the kindest faces to the dirtiest riff raff, swarming you instantly as you wander around checking out street side markets, filled with interesting goods and stinky chicken. The majority of these people are Tuk Tuk drivers, which are like a 3 wheel motorcycles, large enough to carry 3 Americans and or 27 Thai in the back, and the others are annoying cabbies which ask you the same thing each and every time you pass them……..ping pong show, cheap cheap ladies and sometimes they do actually offer you a ride for a fair price. This is extremely overwhelming considering there is nothing of the sorts to be found in Canada or anywhere else I have been….so basically just Canada. To complement and actually complete the first nights experience is the sickening smell. Around each street corner is a different, but equally disgusting scent that lingers up, down, and all around you at all times. This unknown aroma is impossible to get away from and your only options are is to be too drunk to smell it or accept it and gag a little every so often, and then try not to puke.

So to cap it off, as unenjoyable as this first time experience was for me, I would still highly recommend it to be your first one upon arrival in Thailand, and seriously I doubt you really have a choice in the matter anyway. It did really allow me to wake up and appreciate the many things I take for granted in my glorious life, and also prepared me for the journey up ahead, which right now I am like 6 days ahead of in my writing this post so I can honestly say it actually did so take my advice.

So as they say from where I am from……Do the Khao sahn but don’t get screwed on the Khao sahn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!