800+ New Photos - Cambodia, Laos, Northern Thailand

While Jen & Jayme were at cooking class today, I uploaded photos and videos (scroll down) from the last 3 weeks. Enjoy!

Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/anntrak/sets. to see our new photos.

Cambodia Photo Sets - Angkor Wat, Sunrise Angkor Wat, Sunset Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm/Tombraider, Angkor Thom & Bayon, More Temples of Angkor Wat, Fun at the Temples, Kids Monkeys & More, Floating Cambodian Village, Savong School, Siem Reap

Laos Photo Sets - Monks & Wats, Lao River Adventures, Kuang Si Waterfalls, Lao Kids, Trek to Lao Hill tribe, Luang Prabang.

Northern Thailand Photo Sets - 3 day Trek & Raft, Thai Cooking Class, Chiang Mai

Videos! Bamboo Rafting, Elephant Rides, Monks and more!

If the player is not working visit: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4A31DB88A12C5A1D.

Northern Thailand

Showered and clean and ready to blog...

I returned today from a three day "trek" in Northern Thailand. They call it trekking to make the tourists feel better about ourselves. We left Friday morning at 8:30 am, with Boone our guide. There were seven of us in the group, two British girls, a girl from Finland and a boy from Japan. We drove, or sat in the back of a truck, (now now there were seats) for three hours, had lunch and then began our trek to a waterfall. That was the easy part, next we hiked three hours into the first hill tribe village where we were to spend the night. Now, the Thai don't believe in switchbacks so it was three hours of straight up the mountain, luckily though it is the dry season or it is would have been three hours slipping up the mountain in the mud. We got to the first village, and found our bamboo "hotel" picked a dusty mat and crashed. Boone made our dinner, but he lost serious points for putting pineapple in the chicken! We spent some time that evening playing with the kids down at the river. We waded into the river, while they stripped down and jumped in. Except for one little modest girl, who had no pants so she just slipped her shirt down around her waist - one must always be a lady!
The next day we had four hours of trekking in the morning to get to the rafting camp - where the fun began. We bamboo rafted down the river to our next destination.
A bamboo raft is about twelve long pieces of bamboo tied together, with a triangle in the middle for bags and another piece of bamboo running along the raft lengthwise, which is where you are to sit for three hours, while two crazy Thai men pole you along. Our back guide was the "director" of the rafting camp, which just meant that he had been up and down this river enough to know that without a few tricks we would get pretty bored. So, he used his bamboo pole like a straw to drip water on us, or just splash us. He tied a little piece of stick to the end of his pole and would drag it on your leg so you kept swatting and swinging at the "bug" that was probably eating you alive. He would yell "snake" so you'd duck quickly, when there was only a dangling root. Or yell, "elephant" when there were really water buffalo by the river. Needless to say he kept us laughing, if not at his tricks then at his toothless smile, and deep belly laugh.
We spent last night with another hill tribe, and this morning we headed home by way of the elephant camp, where we took a ride down the river. Great fun, especially when your elephant would uproot entire trees to snack on during the walk.
We arrived home "Libra Guesthouse" here in Chiang Mai this evening, where we plan to celebrate Chinese New Year in style!

Photos

Here are a few of my VietNam pictures - actually the first few are of the Colorado mountains as I left Denver!

http://missionride.shutterfly.com

Enjoy - Jayme

Rafting, or canoeing or swimming or whatever

It depends on who you are, whether you'd call what we did today white water rafting or white water swimming. If you are Jayme or Jen - it was more swimming.
We thought we were going kayaking, and when we got to the river our inflatable rafts looked a little more like canoes. But we had gone "white water tubing" the day before and the water was a little less than crazy. So we didn't have the foresight to be concerned, when our guide put Jen and I in our little canoe alone and gave us two paddles and said, "here we go!"
The first section was great fun, good scenery, good jokes, fun paddling and then we hear what has got to be rapids up ahead. Without too much warning we see some good sized waves, nothing like American rafting, but my brother's a guide, so its got to be in my genes right!
We dip down into the first rapid, sideways, which was a bad start and the boat tips one way and Jen dives overboard, rocking the boat enough to flip me out the other way. So our white water swimming begins!
After some good fighting about the proper way to steer a boat, and some silence because of course both of us are right, we make it through the next couple rapids intact. This only means we are coming up on the biggest section with a lot of false bravado! We see the rapid ahead and take some time to eddy out and get a good position before falling into the first wave. After the first bob, the back of the boat gets sucked into a sinkhole, and we are both in the water being pulled to the bottom! Some good swimming and a lot of humility later we floated out to calmer water and hauled ourselves back into our boat.
No serious damage. Jen banged me on the elbow with her paddle, because God forbid we let go of that while we drown, but except for our egos, everything else is fine!
So, lesson learned is, your brother being a rafting guide does not make you one. And if there are three people, and one of you gets to ride with the guide - be the one to go with the guide!

Luang Prabang

Our entry into Laos was quite spectacular. Our prop plane had no trouble getting here, and our visa process was flawless. A US 20 dollar bill will get you just about anything in Southeast Asia. We got our bags no problem, as only one plane lands at a time, and there were only 30 of us on it. We walked out the door to the audience of Asian people sitting in chairs waiting room style. They were all just watching the doors, it was great.
Next comes the transportation. I mentioned the tuk tuk earlier, but Laos puts its own spin on that vehicle, and ours was no exception. We paid our five dollars and walked to a truck, with bench seats in the back. There was a canopy cover and we all piled in for the ride! Great fun. It feels like authentic traveling when riding in the back of a truck is required!

So, the consensus after just two days is that Laos is fantastic!

We've toured the night market and watched some great sunsets. Found the book exchange and movie theater - Walk The Line was playing tonight.
Our favorite find has got to be the 50 cent dinner buffet. For 50 cents you get a bowl and a pair of chopsticks and one chance to go through the buffet. The first night we noticed that everyone sitting down was white, so it must be safe. So we grabbed a bowl and headed down the line. They have good vegetable and noodle dishes, but my favorite is the Asian macaroni and cheese!

Today we took the bus up to the waterfalls, which in the dry and cool season were still quite nice. There were lots of pools to swim in at the bottom, and we could appreciate how if you were here in the hot season they would be great, but too cold today. Gorgeous clear water, and we just kept asking ourselves if we were in Hawaii or Bali.

Our little town of Luang Prabang is very quaint and charming. It feels like a little European town, inhabited by Asians, who built the gold, shiny pagodas. They have great pastries and great textiles and handcrafts. We've all bought duvets, which we intend to send home with some American friends in Thailand - too heavy for backpacks.

You have boyfriend?

So, we're templed out and headed to Laos. We leave in the morning at 10 am, so this is our last post from Cambodia.
It has been a great country. Very American friendly (probably because our dollar is what is keeping their economy going), and helpful and ready to book you a room!
The temples were amazing. Caught several sunrises and sunsets from their steps.
The food is good, if not cheap. We found an excellent street restaurant, with a great waiter and enjoyed many rice and noodle dishes every night.
We met up with our British friends from SaPa, Rob and Anna and that was fun - someone else to talk to!

This afternoon we went to an English school, and taught a few lessons - mainly just told them who our families were over and over. They were more interested in the names of our parents than anything else. Although apparently in Cambodia that introductory conversation of - "What is your name? Where are you from? What is your job? How many people in your family?" now includes "Do you have a boyfriend?" A little personal if you ask me, seeing as how all my 16 year old students had boyfriends! We had fun joking around and playing with kids and after some chorus rounds of "How do you like Cambodia?" from the seven year old class we were back on the tuk tuk and headed back to town.

Speaking of boyfriends though, we have figured out the root of the problem.
The other day we were walking down the street being "offered" bracelets, books and postcards and one girl was trying to sell Jen a book. After the initial no, she tried to strike up a friendship to improve her business, and started asking Jen those questions "What is your name? Where are you from? Do you have boyfriend?" Jen said, "no boyfriend" and the girl said, "You know why? You no buy book!" So, if you are in need of a date, apparently the girl on the corner in Siem Reap can help you out with that!

Red Sox Nation

We made it to Cambodia - in great style. We arrived at the airport, and our smiley driver immediately starting offering 'cold beer? cold beer?'.
We started exploring Angkor Wat today. It is a very large area of temples and state building dating from 700 ad - 1300 ad. Twenty six kings of various religious backgrounds just kept building and building to upstage their ancestors.
We toured today on the back of a 'tuk tuk' (touk touk). Which is like a royal cart pulled by a motorbike - great invention. Our driver was always recognizable by his Boston Red Sox hat. He met us bright and early this morning so we could be there to see the sunrise over the main temple. It was exciting in that Indiana Jones way to climb up these ridiculously steep and narrow stairs in the dark, when all you can hear are birds chirping in the forest and the bats screeching somewhere above you inside the temple.
Cambodia has been an interesting country in many ways - starting with the fact that the ATMs spit our US dollar bills and the girls will sell you 'cold drink, lady you want cold drink' for $1.00 or 500 reil which equals 50 cents!
We heartily recommend Siem Reap as a great destination for its amazing history, great views, gorgeous high dollar hotels - and you'll never be far from a Red Sox fan.

Curbside Petstore

Our last day in Saigon, was one to just relax and check out the city. Some museums, but mainly just daily life in the neighborhoods. I was walking down one street, witnessing an entire Asian dragon come by in pieces on the back of six motorscooters. The head and then each part of the body had its own transportation.
I looked farther down the street and there were about ten people selling animals on the curb. From where I stood it looked like puppies in small cages and wandering around the sidewalk. I kept going and there were several good looking dogs for sale. I was admiring the motorscooter mounted dog pen, when I caught the last person in the line and her goods.
Inside her small pen were three guinea pigs, and tied to the outside with red curly ribbon were five squirrels. Just hanging out waiting for a good home. Her husband also had his animals held together by red ribbon but his were turtles. One long rope of them, all strung up through the four leg holes in their shells. Quite entertaining - maybe I need to expand my definition of the term pet.

..Like crazy American devils..

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, after the temple. It was an interesting day all around, as the first part of the tunnels tour is a video explaining their role and significance in the "war with America". They described the bomber pilots as "crazy American devils" and couldn't understand why "US bombs from Washington D.C. were coming when the states were so far away". The whole video looked like it had been shot in the '40s, and was narrated in very humorous English, with an extremely anti-American sentiment.
The tunnels were interesting and the life there seemed unbearable. We got to crawl through 30 meters of tunnel - and a crawl it was. I could stand up if completely bent over at the waist and crouching just slightly. But, you can't really walk in that position, so it was more of a squat and drag - squat and drag. To make matters more difficult, the lighting was a simple bulb placed every 10 meters or so. We had read in the book that life in the tunnels was always full of mosquitoes and scorpions, so as we squatted and crouched you could always feel a little tickle of a bug crawling up your leg or the back of your neck!
My favorite part was the demonstration on booby traps - seeing as how I have so much experience with them in my past. My sister, Jill, and our neighborhood friends would dig great booby traps to catch our arch-nemesis, the teenagers, when we played backahindefence (back behind the fence)! Jill, you will be happy to know that they used bamboo here too!
My favorite booby trap was the "Arm Klipping Trap" where as you try to climb out of a hole in the tunnel many bamboo spears would 'klip' your arm double fork style - trapping you to be found by the VietCong.
We are learning a lot about the war, even though we are getting a biased perspective.

Saigon - Cao Dai Temple

Yesterday we took a two part tour from Saigon and started at the Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai is a combination of Catholicism, Buddhism, Confuciousism, and Taoism. The temple is described by Graham Green as the Disneyland of the East. With bright colored walls decorated with brilliant flowers and lion-like dragons. The front of the temple has a carving of Confuscious, Buddha, Jesus and Moses. Victor Hugo is a follower of Cao Dai, and is supposed to be finding the third connection between God and Man. The joke just kept getting bigger - but it was an awesome sight to see all the followers, men in red, yellow and blue robes and the women in white file in to pray and bow - Muslim style.
Very interesting religious experience something akin to seeing the Magic Kingdom for the first time.