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(Nick and Jodie are off on an epic tour of the Far East. They will be gone for nearly a year, and are sending back reports via email. You can follow their journey here).
Episode three : Christmas in Laos
Wed 6 Jan 2003
We arrived at the Chiang Mai cookery school at about 11am. We were were driven there in an opened back van right out of Chiang Mai and into the countryside. There were 15 or so students and we were going to be cooking 7 traditional Thai dishes. I was a little nervous as my culinary skills rarely stretch further than pasta or slam-in-the-oven pizza at home. It was an amazing setting to cook in, with an open style verandah surrounded with bamboo and banana trees. Each of us had our own cooking station with gas hob, wok ,chopping board, knives etc, and everything was scrupulously clean. Three tutors showed us how to cook each dish and then it was our turn. I nearly took my eyebrows off when a huge fireball erupted from my gas ring (no-one told ME you had to keep the wok over it when you light it!) The best thing about the course by far was that I got to eat everything I had cooked! It tasted fantastic (of course) and by the end of the day I was absolutely stuffed and you can all look forward to Thai curries on my return.
A few days later Jodie, Lynn, Marie and myself went on a one day adventure trek. We were driven out of Chiang Mai to the outskirts of the jungle. We walked for a while and then came to a clearing in the woodland. We were greeted by a group of Thai men and women and by about ten huge elephants, some of which were going to be our means of transport for the next hour. Riding on the elephants was an amazing experience but also a little scary as we went up steep dense jungle and at one point alongside a sheer drop down to a river below. Later on in the day we stopped off at a massive waterfall on our way to the bamboo raft river. The waterfall was picturesque and some people showered under it, but most people stood under the smaller part as our guide said that the waterfall was particularly fierce at present due to heavy rainfall. This warning didn't seem to get through to a particularly hairy Indian man who crawled into the biggest part of the downpour and then spent the next ten minutes trying to crawl his way out again. The expression on his face was absolutely hilarious and I thought the water was going to rip his patchy man fur right off of his body.(Luckily for him only his pride was hurt during these comical proceedings) The bamboo rafting was great fun with the four of us floating down river right through the heart of the jungle on a long, thin raft constructed out of only bamboo and twine. Fantastic!
A couple of days later we said our goodbyes to Lynn and co and took a bus to That Thon where we travelled on a bamboo raft house up to Chiang Rai. It was such an incredible experience, definitely one of the highlights so far. The raft house itself was about 15 feet long and about 8 feet wide and constructed once again completely out of bamboo, twine and had a thatched straw roof. Our travelling companions for this particular trip were a really friendly couple from England and Holland. The trip lasted 2 days and consisted of the four of us sitting, lying and chatting on the raft floating our way at a nice slow pace to Chiang Rai. We had two raftsmen - one at each end of the raft who steered the boats using bamboo sticks and paddles, and cooked all our meals for us on a mini bbq on the back of the raft! In the evening we docked at a sandy bank just on the edge of a hill tribe village and some of the children came running onto the raft and were fascinated when we let them play with our walkman and torches. We sat around playing cards with the raftsmen, neither of which spoke any English, and then we climbed into our sleeping bags. The next morning Jodie and I woke up just as it was getting light. We were already floating down the river and our friendly raftsmen had been doing their very best not to wake us. As we climbed out of our mosquito net our jaws dropped at the amazing scenery. We were surrounded on both sides by towering green mountains covered in a low, sweeping mist. There was an eerie fog hovering over the the water and around the raft and the only sounds you could hear were the birds singing and the lapping of water against the raft. It was a really magical moment.
We hung around in Chiang Rai for a few days waiting for our visas into Laos to arrive. There wasn't a lot to do in the town but we killed the time eating good food and socialising with various people. The day we crossed the border to Laos was a bit of a panic as our visas turned up 3 hours late. We just about got to the bus stop in time (after taking a Tuk Tuk to the wrong bus station!) and jumped onto the multi-coloured bus with time to spare. Crossing the border was a quick and effortless experience. We showed our passports to a sleepy looking guy in a booth on the edge of the Me Kong river who stamped it without even looking up. We jumped into a small engine powered boat and by the time the engine had got us to full speed we were on the other side of the river in Laos! This completely threw me and for a good few hours I just could not get my head around the fact that we were in another country! We were in a small village called Huay Xia and most of the houses were made of bamboo. We stayed the night in a bamboo guesthouse and the following morning took a 2 day cargoboat heading down the Me Kong river to Luang Prubang. The boat was timber built, open sided, with one long compartment to sit in in and a small room in the back with a huge noisy engine that looked like it had been stolen from a Boeing 747! The boat was crammed full with backpackers and I remember thinking that we all looked like refugees, squeezed together on the benches and the floor with all our belongings stuffed in bags. We travelled down the river all day with amazing mountainous scenery and small hill tribe villages passing all around us. We docked at another small bamboo village for the night and Jodie and I ate dinner in a lovely restaurant overlooking the beach. We set off again early the next morning with everyone trying to manoeuvre themselves across a plank of wood and onto the boat without losing their backpacks to the fishes. I was sitting near the engine room on the second morning (which was extremely noisy) and couldn't help but be slightly concerned about the amount of Me Kong Whiskey our driver and crew were drinking for breakfast! After a few hours the sun was up and some of us climbed onto the roof of the boat to get a better view and stretch out our legs. Being up on the roof of the boat made the trip far more enjoyable. It was so relaxing soaking up the sun, with a refreshing cool breeze blowing and interesting people to chat with. The boat and everyone on it suddenly seemed so much smaller as we cruised the river, winding its way through luscious green forest and cloud-tipped mountains! Yet another unforgettable moment to add to the list then!
All of us on the boat became very close over the two days and we were all heading to Luang Prubang for Christmas. The boat docked late afternoon in Luang Prubang and a large group of us all arranged to meet up that evening for drinks and to put a bit of a plan together for Christmas. As it turned out most of us ended up at the same guest house anyway. The following day Jodie and I hit the town and what a place! Luang Prubang is a cross between Paris, some of the small towns in the south of France and Asia! Walking down some of the backstreets munching on French baguettes we were hard- pushed to convince ourselves that we were not in France - that is until we were nearly run over by a Tuk Tuk driver and approached by a semi-naked man with no teeth. A large flock of us met up on Christmas day at the Le Elephant, a fancy (and very expensive) French restaurant which had a delicious set menu with full roast dinner and Christmas log for pudding. We had a few carafes of red wine with the meal and then hit the bars to start the drinking proper. As we went along our flock of people snowballed into a small army - some from the boat trip the rest from who knows where. At roughly 10pm about 30 of us quite literally invaded this small cocktail bar, forcing them to play our CDs. To say that we were all totally lashed by this point would be an unforgivable understatement! We all danced the night away forcing the rest of the bars clientele to move their chairs into the corners, safe from flailing arms and legs (and the odd stray flying ice cube)! We all thought we were almost certainly in a gay bar for various reasons, but I don't think it really hit home until Santa came out from behind the bar revealing his super short red hot pants and waxed legs, trying to dance erotically with some of the men in our group! It was absolutely hilarious and certainly my most surreal Christmas day ever.
The day after Boxing Day we headed for Vang Vien were we were all planning to spend new year. Most of the boat group had left the day before us and so had already booked us a room. We were met off the bus by our friends Sophia and Tom which was a really nice surprise. Vang Vien is a very small and colourful town surrounded by huge limestone cliffs and mountains. We fell into a bit of a daily routine during the run up to new year that consisted of units of time - Morning-Afternoon-Evening. The morning unit consisted of us all meeting up at 10 am...ish at the bakery cafe for breakfast opposite our guest house, discussing our plans for the day and arranging a meeting place for the evening. The afternoon unit involved strenuous activities such as emailing (very tiring on the old fingers I can tell you) or lying in hammocks reading and ordering drinks (equally exhausting as I'm sure you can all appreciate). The evening unit consisted of going for curries or pizza, eating until we could hardly move and then snuggling into piles of cushions and watching recent American and English movies (Spiderman, James Bond etc) in any of the multitude of video bars, having delicious banana milkshakes brought to us throughout each film. This may sound like the easy way out - the soft option - but let me tell you it's HARD work. In between this hustle and bustle of activity we did find time to go inner tubing and cave exploring. I will forward Jodie's email account of this (see below) to all of you which she sent to her family as it is well worth a read.
We saw the new year in at a bar on the small grassy island in the middle of the river that runs through Vang Vien. To get to it you have to cross a rickety Indiana Jones-style bamboo bridge which is hard enough when you're sober so how everyone managed it I don't know. We watched the sun disappear behind the limestone cliffs and then danced to cheesy music and drank pineapple milkshake cocktails until 4 in the morning. There is very little light pollution in Laos so the stars we were partying under were the clearest I have ever seen, which made it all the more special. The day before we left we hired push bikes. Mine was a cheeky silver little number with the old style masochistic wooden seat on springs, while Jodie chose the classic camp postman's bicycle with flowery basket on the front. We rode out of town for a couple of hours to a beautiful crystal blue plunge pool, with a rope swing and steps built around a tree so you could dive in. Not far from the pool was a cave which we visited. This involved a rather scary 15 minute climb up "steps"???? The steps were in fact planks of wood wedged in between jagged rocks on a near vertical cliff face! It was worth the climb and the grazed knees as the cave was fantastic, with a giant bronze reclining Buddha and gothic looking stalactites inside. And so the time came to head back to Thailand and after a gruelling 14 hour journey involving minivans, buses, trains, border crossings and Tuk Tuk here we are!
As always everyone who receives these newsletters please keep in touch, its
great to hear from you all! It also helps us to work out who receives them and
who doesn't as more often than not these sketchy asian computers eat half of
the letters we send out. Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2003, all our
love - Nick and Jodie.
Jodie writes :
Saba dee (Laos hello), well the time is here, 2003
almost, any new year's resolutions? Still working on
mine and trying to avoid the usual failures of get
fit, lose weight and achieve a world record! Sounds
like you are going to have a fab party, say hi to
everyone for me, lots of hugs etc...
We will be celebrating New Year with some friends on a
bar on the riverside with hammocks and big speakers.
Y ou have to cross a rickety bamboo bridge to get
there, this should be cool, however everything in Vang
Vieng seems to be shutting at 12.30, but I am sure we
will keep boogying down. The group from the boat
remains a good circle of friends and we continue to
achieve our ambition of having friends in most major
countries.
Yesterday as you know we set off to do
what is called tubing, this is in fact a large
inflatable ring, much like those on Margate beach, and
you get a Tuk Tuk up river and then all jump in the
rings and float off.. The view is amazing. Vang Vieng
is surrounded with huge dominating midnight blue jagged
cliffs and fields of jungle, and so meandering slowly
and peacefully down the river is a great way to take
all of this in, you also have floating bars along the
way which if you call out will hook you in with a long
stick and meet your refreshment needs, cool eh! At
times there are rapids and you have to raise your
bottom so as not to be speared on a rock, but otherwise
much fun.
Along the way you can also get off to see
various caves around the area, we decided to see the
water cave, thus named as it has a cavern full of
water so that you can swim. We paid the lady 5000kip
(30p) and she armed us with, alarmingly, torches
powered by a slightly smaller car battery, these come
on when you connect the wires by hand!!! "But we will
be in water" we exclaim, they are ok in water
apparently she says, so the famous four intrepid
adventurers (we have lost our dog!) walk forward with
car battery round our necks, torch on our heads and
rubber rings around our shoulders, the lady runs after
us and sweeps some leaves out of the way to draw a
sketch map on the floor... you climb in tube along level
1, climb up bamboo ladder to level two, straight ahead
down a slide and then out, simple!! Hmmm, we all
creep into the cave singing the Indiana Jones theme tune,
very apt, we get in tubes and pull ourselves thru
level 1 in tubes, amazing cave formations, then it
starts to get dark, we all spark our torches to life
and continue, climb up the bamboo ladder with rungs
missing.
It is now pitch black and we continue through other
cavelets with spiky rocks, sudden drops and holes in
the floor, much fun being had by all as we do all now
feel much like Lara Crofts and Dr Jones's. We find the
"slide" which is in fact pretty much a sheer cliff
drop down, after much screaming we all slid/fell down,
then Tom's torch goes out and will not relight... We
start to look further for this apparently easy way
out? Just a blocked hole to the right (the direction
she indicated) then Sophia's torch dies a death, Nick
wades ahead but finds only further caves as the
possible way out, Nick's torch starts strobing!!! Mild
panic sets in after seeing many horror films with such
situations as this, young good-looking people stuck in
caves/woods etc, lights fail, people die from freaky
monsters... We start to feel fish nibbling our feet and
insects crawling, very I Jones, but now we are not so
full of bravado... After much debate of options 1
heading 4ward and seeing if we find poss way out, or 2
heading back, as torches dying and being stuck in
pitch black was not an option. We decided 2 was best
plan, so we climb up the cliff made of clay, am very
grateful for Nick's monkey tendencies here as he goes
ahead and helps us lesser agile with sticks, so with 1
torch in front and then 1 behind we set off back.
After much "go left, go right etc, mind the hole and
all I can see is your bum" we got back to a cliff
near the entrance, but was wrong one as cliff was 20 ft
high with jagged rocks below. Nick heads off to find
other way. After much yelling after him, convinced the
bogey man, Blair Witch cave trolls have struck, he
comes back having found the way. Disaster, then his
torch goes out, we have 1 torch 4 people and caves and
spiky rocks to traverse, it was like Krypton Factor,
but I'm glad to say we are alive!!! Team spirit
prevailed and we worked well together and all laughed
on the outside.
Unbelievably then as we complained to
the torch woman she lost the ability to speak English,
and only managed to indicate that we had been in there
for 1 hour, ie money's worth. We explained that we were
in there 1 hour as we were stuck, near death etc and a
beer lao would not go amiss as a peace offering! She
highlighted she didn't care and that had we been stuck
longer and even near death she would charge us by the
hour for this said experience! We took our tubes and
huffed our way back to the river, which after 5mins
calmed our frazzled nerves and frayed tempers... Much
fun had by all and a story for the
grandchildren...
Well, our adventures continue tomorrow
when shock horror Jodie hires a bike (deh deh deh!!!
dramatic music needed) and cycles to a cave (one with
easy exit) and plunge pool, so sit tight for the next
installment of the amazing adventures of Jodie Croft
and Indiana French!!!
Hope you all have a wonderful new year, you will be in
our hearts when the countdown starts (actually I'll
set my alarm for your countdown). Much love and hugs
Jodie and Nick xxx
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