I've just spent the last, really fun, week in Laos and finished off my second week in Thailand as well. I'm having a wonderful time here and meeting lots of interesting people from all over the world.
I just returned from my first "trekking" experience in Luang Nam Tha, Laos, which included one day of hiking and one day of kayaking. The kayaking was a lot of fun with a great group and a few good rapids. The trek was not fun because it was straight up and straight down a very steep mountain with slippery clay the entire way. I slipped and fell (but thankfully never hurt myself) at least a dozen times. By the end, I was just praying that I would stop sliding! Note to self: trekking in muddy places during the rainy season is NOT recommended. That being said, I had a fun group of people with me: an American (rare to meet another one), a few Ozzies, a French family, a German woman living in Australia and our two Lao guides: Nick and Seveng. We spent the night in a hut in one of the villages near Luang Nam Tha and had an interesting conversation (translated by our guides) with the "mediator" of the village. Girls in the village begin to marry at 18 and people live to 70 or 80. They are mostly farmers and weave beautiful scarves and skirts. They also receive 30% of the money we paid for our trek for the use of the hut, food, trail maintenance etc. There isn't a school in the village, so kids walk 4km. each way to the next village, Monday through Friday, for school. They have few opportunities for education outside of primary school. Laos is one of the poorest nations in southeast Asia, if not the poorest.
Prior to my trekking trip, I spent five days in Muang Sing, about 12 km. from the Chinese border. Muang Sing is quite remote, with only one place to check internet in the town. I spent the first two days hiking on my own with Shane (pronounced She-an), an Irish guy from County Armagh. We both stayed at a great place 7 km. outside of the town with bungalows for about $6.50 per night and gorgeous views of rice fields and over the valley. We were trying to find some more remote villages, but the map at Adima House wasn't great and we kept running into the river. Nonetheless, we really enjoyed the hiking. We did encounter a few villages where the people all shouted "sabadee!" (hello) and the children ran up to us with big smiles. I have never seen such big smiles anywhere. The children are beyond adorable. The little children either wear split pants or just wear a shirt and go pants-less because they don't use diapers. Several times I saw girls who were quite young, perhaps as young as 6, carrying toddlers or babies. Other girls were carrying very heavy buckets of water balanced on sticks that they held across their shoulders. The boys played with slingshots or ran around. As in Vietnam, the girls and women work extremely hard.
The highlight of Muang Sing was visiting the Butterfly Children's Development Project. This project was started by my Mom's childhood friend Kenna's pediatrician, Leila Srour and her husband, Bryan Watt. Kenna had posted a link to the Butterfly project on her Facebook and my Mom saw it and suggested I contact Leila. I spent two days with the children, teaching English and playing with them. The first lesson was a bit of a challenge because I've never taught brand new English-language learners, but we got by! The children came up and held my hand and gave me big beautiful smiles to welcome me. They are very small; many of them were malnourished as babies and continue to be today. Some of the girls sell scarves, skirts and bracelets in the town that they make themselves. I wish I had more room in my bag so I could have bought a lot more!
There wasn't a school in the village, so the village people built a school out of bamboo sticks with a leaf roof. Bryan and Leila fundraised and gave a lot of their own money to build a school made of cement with big windows and lots of places to learn and play! The building is up but they are working on putting in windows, doors, and other parts now. I could tell the kids were really excited to visit the school, when I visited the school with Leila and a few of the little girls.
I know many of you have asked how you can contribute to one of the projects I'm working with and this would be a great one. Now that the building is underway, they need textbooks, pencils, etc. for teaching. A set of books is about $5. If you would like to donate to this cause, maybe consider donating money for several sets of books. You can learn more about the Butterfly Children's Project and donate at: http://www.butterflychildren.
Below is an update on my trip to Thailand, which I didn't get a chance to send out before:
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I really enjoyed Thailand. I didn't think I would because I had heard it was really touristy. I spent about 6 days in and around Chiang Mai, and then took a bus north to Chiang Dao.
I didn't realize how much I had missed nature. After growing up in Angwin, with a population of about 2,500 so, living in Da Nang was, well big. I'm not sure how else to describe it. Chiang Dao is spectacular, with beautiful trees, an amazing limestone mountain and a temple built into the mountain. It's 510 steps to the temple and they have signs throughout with little pieces of wisdom in both Thai and English. My favorite was: "There is a chance to get refreshed, once you are tired. But there's no chance to re-live your life, once you are dead" - Tham Pha Pong Monastery. This is my motto right now and very apropos for my trip. Chiang Dao has a few nice guesthouses and I spent two nights at Malee's Nature Lover's Homestay. There are thousands of butterflies and other little creatures running around, beautiful bungalows and a little pool set in the shadow of the mountain and huge trees. I would highly recommend it. I went to the Tuesday market, which was noted in several of the guidebooks as being a great place to buy things from the hill tribes, but it turned out to just be a sort of flea market with lots of random things for sale. The taxi drivers had this racket going where they would charge a certain (outrageous for Thailand) amount to take tourists to each of the guesthouses. I suppose I acclimate to the money very quickly and 150 baht seems like a huge sum, even though it's only about $7. This same trip would only cost about $2 anywhere else. Oh well.
In Chiang Dao I met some interesting people, including a girl from Spain, a heavily pierced guy from Sweden and a girl from Denmark traveling with her British significant other who is living in Thailand and teaching scuba diving. I traveled with the Danish girl and British guy for a few days, first going to Tha Ton, about an hour from Chiang Dao, and then we took a boat ride down the Mekong River to Chiang Rai, where I spent a night. The boat ride was beautiful, with rice paddy fields, limestone mountains and forests. Just outside of Chiang Rai is a temple called the White Temple, which is an incredibly garish white/silver temple. When you walk to the entrance, there are gray hands reaching up to you and ornate mirrored figures on either side of the walkway. I had to wear a white wraparound skirt that they gave me at the entrance, because my shorts were deemed too immodest for the temple. It was an interesting place.
After Chiang Rai, I went north again to Chiang Khong, where I stayed in a lovely guesthouse on the Mekong River for two nights and relaxed. They had two cats, and one sat on my lap while I watched a movie. It rained almost all day, so there wasn't much I could have done anyway. The guesthouse was owned and managed by a Thai woman, Malewan and her retired American partner, Don. Don was an engineer in Florida but retired to Thailand several years ago. Boy could he talk! It was a great place to spend a few days before heading to Laos.
From Chiang Khong, I went across the border to Laos. Tomorrow, July 28th, I'm heading to Luang Prabang, and then to Vang Vieng and Vientiane. I'll take the overnight train on August 5th to Bangkok to see my cousin Nicki.
Hope everyone is well. Photos to come soon.
