Cambodia says 4 Thai troops killed in border clash

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Thai and Cambodian soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a disputed border, killing as many as four people Friday in an escalation of tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple. Continue reading…

 

Home safe, and still smiling

Well, after nearly a full month out traveling in Southeast Asia, Lisa and I returned to our home in Portland this morning. The flights were uneventful and comfortable, especially the Hong Kong to Vancouver leg, which even at 11 hours we could have stayed longer in the comfy chairs and endless movie selections. Our itinerary had us leaving Thailand Sunday afternoon and put us into Vancouver on Monday evening, then on to Portland the following morning on Tuesday. However, since we crossed the date line, our flight that took off late Sunday night in Hong Kong actually landed 4 hours earlier Sunday night in Vancouver. Somehow this was overlooked when we booked the flights back in the fall, and if we had flown the way the tickets were issued, we would have stayed for 36 hours in Vancouver. I’m not sure if my jet-lagged mind is explaining all this well right now, but suffice it to say that we are home a day earlier than expected, happy, and rather tired (it’s 4am Thai time right now).
We’re dumping our photos onto the computer as I write, and should have some selects uploaded sometime in the next couple days. Meanwhile, thanks for following along, hope to see you all soon.

 

Leaving the land of smiles

Lisa and I are sitting in the Bangkok airport enjoying the last few minutes in Thailand. Our plane for Hong Kong boards in a bit, and then the mega 14 hour flight to Vancouver BC puts us in the North American continent.
The past few days in Chiang Mai have been enjoyable, although not marked by big noteworthy events and therefore didn’t get a dedicated post. Chiang Mai really is a fun city to visit, and Lisa took advantage of the last few days to do more shopping and visit a dog shelter. I wandered the city, visiting wats and art galleries.
This morning, we each got our last Thai Massage for the trip, and then headed to the airport with 4 times the amount of luggage than when we started.
It has been a wonderful trip, and Lisa and I have really enjoyed sharing the details (longwinded at times) with you all through our blog. We didn’t have the oppurtunity to reply to many comments, but we been suprised by the responses and truely enjoyed reading your words throughout. We took nearly 2,000 photos during the trip, and once we pare them down we will post them on the flickr page for all to enjoy.
Again, many thanks, kawp khun krawp; it’s time to fly home.

 

Saying goodbye to Sunny and hungry elephants

Ugh. Just looking at the bugs in Randy’s last post turns my stomach. I still can’t believe he ate some and that I agreed to kiss him again a mere twenty four hours later.

The day after the dancing monks we hit up the weekly market in Soppong (held every Tuesday).  Much smaller than the markets in towns like Chiang Mai, but it’s still fun to walk and shop.  Randy went on a t-shirt buying binge and we even found some black Lux soap… Randy worked on a Lux soap commercial at Bent several years ago for a South American market. Fun to find, even if it is rather grandmotherly smelling.

The rest of Tuesday was very laid back. Randy and Sunny hung out most of the afternoon while I worked on the previous Shan / Burma posting. We were even treated to a great rain storm – you could tell by the smell of the air it was the first in awhile. Tuesday night we had another awesome dinner with Sunny, our last of the trip seeing as we were leaving the next morning.

I’m really going to miss Sunny. He’s the type of person who just exudes warmth and friendliness. He talks about all the different friends he has around the world who come to visit him and Randy and I count ourselves as very lucky to be in that group of people he counts as some of his friends. Randy randomly found Sunny back in 2001 when he was looking for a trekking experience in Northern Thailand. He found a single brief posting on the Lonely Planet forums that simply said to go to Soppong and ask around for Sunny. So now for any travelers who happen upon this blog and are looking for the best trekking experience ever here’s my quick pitch for Sunny. You won’t find a better trekking guide in all of Thailand.  Make your way to Soppong and head to Sunny’s Kao Soi Shop on the main road – which he and his wife run. You can also call him at this Thailand number 087 1920591(which I believe is his wife’s cell phone). Note – his wife doesn’t speak much English, so she might just tell you when to find Sunny.  No large trekking groups here. Usually only two to four people. He won’t take people from different groups since people’s different fitness levels and hiking speeds can be irritating to others in the group.  So it’s just you, whoever you’re traveling with and Sunny. A typical trek is three days and two nights. As you’ll quickly learn Sunny has many friends in the surrounding hill tribes. So you hike during the day, maybe stopping at a farm of his friends’ for lunch (Sunny packs and carries the food). Then at night you spend the night in the homes of some people in various hill tribes (there are many in the area… Lisu, Lahu, Karen…). Getting to stay with the families is awesome – you really get to see them as they are every day.  Tip: travel with ear plugs – some hill tribes construct their houses on big stilts so that their animals sleep under the house at night (to keep them safe). Listening to pigs and roosters having in-depth conversations with themselves all night can lead to a rough night of sleep. For an amazingly personal experience like this the price is beyond reasonable. I think Sunny said he charges around 3000 Baht (about $90 USD) per person for a 3-day, 2-night trek. Considering that covers the trekking, your lodging and all your food, that could possibly be one of the best trekking deals in Thailand.

Okay, I’ll stop my glowing pitching for Sunny and continue our travels. On Wednesday morning we took the windy mountainous road back in the direction of Chiang Mai. We actually went a little south of Chiang Mai and stayed the night in Lampun. The next day we went to this old wooden temple (neat) and then onto the Elephant Conservation Center. So cool! I have to admit that Randy & I generally avoid touristy elephant attractions simply because we don’t want to support elephants being treated as side show attractions. Because this center is focused on conservation and even has an elephant hospital on premises we decided to go. The show is great fun and you get to feed the elephants bananas. They LOVE bananas. I was amazed to learn how incredibly dextrous their trunks are.  Up at the hospital we got to see a 5 month old baby elephant.

After the elephants we drove back into Chinag Mai, dropped off the rental car, and found some yummy dinner at May Kaidee vegetarian restaurant (nearly the best Kao Soi in Thiland (Sunny wins first prize)).

 

Young dancing monks

Monday morning we visited Sunny first thing since he had a lead on a ceremony happening a few valleys over and we wanted to arrive in time.  He served us a breakfast and we hopped in the car with his two sons, Nong Kong and Summer, 9 and 15 years old respectively, and headed off towards Pai, about 45 minutes up the road (and around many corners).  The ceremony we were headed towards was of special interest to Sunny, since one of his boys would soon be going through the same thing.  Most boys in Thailand in the 8-10 year old range go through a few weeks when they join the monastery and become a buddhist monk.  It is a right of passage in the Thai culture, and to celebrate the event, different areas in Thailand hold different types of ceremonies based on local traditions.  The version we were to see was seen in Northern Thailand, specifically in Shan communities.  Since Sunny is also Shan, as is most of Soppong, his youngest son Nong Kong will be part of a similar ceremony from April 7th-9th.   The Soppong version will have 57 boys, where as the one we were to see was closer to 40, but a big deal all the same.

We pulled into the town of Tong Yaw near Pai just as the parade was about to begin, and found a parking spot in a dirt lot near the Wat (temple).  The road past the wat was lined with food carts selling everything from cotten candy to pork balls and people were milling about getting into parade formation.  A sizable stage off to the side was elevated on 55 gallon steel drums was the focus of a few hundred  spectators sitting under a large sun shelter made from bamboo and large leaves.  A few drum beats stumbled from the parade, then synched up and gained momentum; it had begun.

A row of women carrying lengths of bamboo with the clothes and pillows the young monks would take with them to the wat led the procession.  Then a set of procussionists carrying a 5 foot long drum and a set of men carrying an array of cymbols, all banged by hammers simultaneously using a clever lever/mallet contraption.

The noise was wonderful, alive, and I heard chanting to the beat coming from a noisy section of the parade marked by tall umbrellas and dancing boys elevated in the air on the shoulders of their fathers.  As they approached I got a better look at their outfits and they were out of this world.

Tall hats sat above the boys’ smiling faces white with makeup and decorated with facepaint.  Elaborate jackets and pants completed the ensemble, colorful and golden.  They sat perched on their fathers shoulders, who were beaming as widly as the children, and they both danced to the rhythm of the drums.  Another family member held a tall umbrella above the boys’ heads to shade them from the already intense sun, and even taller banners hung on lengths of bamboo fluttered on the breeze all around the boys. 

The whole procession must have had a couple hundred people in it, and the audience under the sunshade cheered as they went by.  The noisy parade snaked around a corner and the drum beats began to fade.  Sunny informed me that they would be going to a temple on the other side of town and then looping back to the wat we were stationed at.

About 30 minutes later they were back, sweat dripping from the boys’ faces but they were just as lively, dancing on their fathers shoulders.  Then the parade kept going, overshooting the wat again.  Sunny informed me that they must be visiting another part of town first before finishing.  20 minutes later they were back, the procession entering the wat grounds and circling the main temple 3 or 4 times.  This was the climax of the event, and the dancing of everybody from the drummers to the mothers picked up, kicking up dust and hooting with the beat. 

The excitement was contageous, and old wisened monks off to the side smiled at their new deciples.  The drum beats petered out, and still the men held their sons high on their shoulders, sweat running off their beaming faces.  The boys must have been up there for over an hour, yet their fathers still had to walk them home to change before the next part of the ceremony could begin back at the temple.

We left the temple and walked back to our car, it was nearly midday and we were thankful to get out of the intense heat.  Sunny had one more stop to make at the town up the road, a temple with a little known but highly revered Buddha statue from Burma.  We found an old wooden building that he identified as the one, so we parked and headed inside.  At the far end of the wat, a large golden Buddha decorated with gems sat against a beautifully painted wall.  We went up to pray and light some incense and candles and I got a better look at the unique ornamentation surrounding the Buddha.  Truely beautiful.

We hopped back in the car, thankful for the air conditioning that blew on our sweaty faces, and began the return drive.  Lisa and I weren’t sure what music to play while driving, we had no concept of what the kids liked and I was pretty shure Sunny mostly liked old traditional Shan music, which we didn’t have on our ipods.  We initially played Paul Simon, Graceland on the drive their, which I think of as pretty universal.  Sunny and his boys seemed to like it, although Sunny thought it sounded like Spanish music. While at the ceremony, the boys asked Lisa to see her iphone.  They liked the interface, but most of the stock apps require a cel signal that we didn’t get in Thailand.  Lisa hasn’t really jumped on the app train and didn’t have any of the great games available, but she did put some music on their.  Each son listened with one headphone and clicked around through her acoustic singer/songwriter collection.  They tracked down a 90’s pop song, Barbie Girl by Aqua and seemed to loop that a few times.  Knowing that Sunny would not appreciate the lyrics or the music of Barbie Girl, on the drive back I went out on a limb with some the Rolling Stones, which later Sunny told me that he didn’t like too much either, a bit too rock and roll.  I think his kids liked the stones a lot though, maybe they’ll get a CD in the mail with Barbie Girl at the end.

That evening we visited Sunny for dinner and he made some excellent fried potatoes (Lisa likes potatoes).  He also fried up some cicadaes, the noisy bugs, a Northern Thai delicasy. 

The bowl was rather full, and I had agreed earlier to try just one.  Lisa was disturbed and stuck to her potatoes, and winced when I picked a cicadae up and popped it in my mouth.  They were well fried and had the taste and consistancy of burnt toast, so I ate a second.  Sunny ate them like popcorn and talked about how they were full of vitamins and really good for you.  When I picked my teeth and pulled a little bug leg out, Lisa officially swore off kissing me for 24 hours.

 

Backroads to Burma

So I can now say that I’ve been to Burma – not that you’d know it by my passport.

We started the day courtesy of some kick-ass french toast made by Sunny. Then we all piled in the car and headed towards Mae Aw. From the Lonely Planet guidebook: “On a mountain peak at the Myanmar border… Mae Aw is a Chinese KMT settlement, one of the last true KMT (Kuomintang – a Chinese political party) outposts in Thailand.”

Mae Aw is a great place to buy tea. They grow it on the hills surrounding the city and every shop in the tiny town offered tea tasting and a variety of local teas for sale. As Randy & I are both big tea drinkers we indulged in some tasting a variety of samples of the local Oolong and Jasmine teas. As we sipped and sighed, we watched a herd of water buffalo wander through the city square and past rows of red lanterns hanging from the store front.

All the samples were delicious, so we bought lots of tea (it is packed as vacuum-sealed bricks, so convenient for travelers trying to not take up too much space in their packs).

While Randy & I were sipping on tea, Sunny walked to the Thai-Burma border to check things out. There is a small settlement of Shan people just over the border and he wanted to take us there.

Sunny is Shan – one of the many ethnicities in Northern Thailand. Karen, Lisu, Lahu, Hmong are some other commonly mentioned hill tribes and each has their own distinct language and culture. The Shan State makes up a considerable portion of Burma (almost 25% of Burma).

The military junta that currently controls Burma (Myanmar) is ruthless in its treatment of the people of Burma, particularly the ethnic minorities like the Shan and Karen people. From Wikpedia: “During conflicts, the Shan are often burned out of their villages and forced to flee into neighboring Thailand… Whether or not there is an ongoing conflict, the Shan are subject to depredations by the Burmese government; in particular, young men may be conscripted into the Burmese Army indefinitely, or enslaved to do road work for a number of months–with no wages and no food.”

Sunny returned from checking out the boarder checkpoint and deemed it safe (for those wondering, we trust Sunny 100% on this, knowing he wouldn’t put us in danger). So we drove up to the checkpoint marked by a bamboo arch and a small bunker made of sandbags. We left our car on the Thai side of the boarder and walked into Burma. It’s a well worn path with some unofficial checkpoints (easy for us to pass though since we were obviously tourists and had Sunny with us to explain that we were interested in checking out the school and their water wells on the Burmese side).

 

 

 

This small settlement that we were visiting was relatively new – maybe 20 or 25 houses and less than two years old. The people moved here when the Burmese military burned their previous village down. In fact the Burmese military has a camp only 6 or 7 kilometers away from this settlement.

We were fortunate enough to be introduced to the town’s headman and the school teacher. The school teacher spoke very good English and we learned a lot. It was here, being shown maps of the Shan State that I realized how large it is.

I’m calling this town we visited a settlement and not a refugee camp because there is an actual refugee camp further up the road that we did not have time to visit. The refugee camp is much larger, about 10,000 people.

In the US, when the Burmese military does something awful enough to make it to our news, it’s usually only the Karen that we hear of – even though the Shan suffer just as much injustice and death at the hands of the Burmese military. Hearing that the plight of the Shan wasn’t well known was distressing to Sunny and to the other Shan people we met with in Burma. So Randy & I want to do our best to educate those we know about the Shan and their struggle for freedom.

The Shan do have a military – The Shan State Army. Based on my distaste for violence and not wanting to support violence, I asked a lot of questions about the army (Randy & I wanted to make a donation to help the people). I was relieved to learn that the Shan Army is really more of a peace-keeping army – in place to protect the Shan people from atrocities of the nearby Burmese army. And the Shan Army does a lot to take care of the Shan people – helping to source and distribute food to the refugees and build infrastructure like schools, medical clinics and wells for clean drinking water.

In continued discussions with Sunny we’ve learned that the Shan are incredibly well organized. There is also a congress of representatives from communities all over – Shan, Thai and a variety of hill tribe ethnicities – that meets regularly to discuss issues facing the local communities. Together these volunteer representatives also coordinate and run the Shan Social Welfare Association. Sunny even showed me a copy of the aims & objectives this group has laid out for themselves – goals that are very well stated and laudable.

Shan Social Welfare Association Aim and Objectives

• To promote Shan literature and culture.
• To educate the Shan people regarding democracy, human rights and the environment.
• To join hands with Community Base organization and local NGO’s.
• To promote friendship and mutual understanding among the families in the Mae Hon Song areas.
• They will know the Thai traditional culture and law.

So we were definitely impressed. These aren’t just people hiding in the jungle as it often seems they are portrayed that way in the US media. Meeting the people in the settlement was both uplifting and heart breaking. The immense strength and courage these people have is obvious. To have the Burmese military burn your home and possibly steal your sons forcing them into the army or into slave labor… to have that as a very real part of your life and still be able to find ways to continue working towards a better future is inspiring. We met with the school teacher who gave us a brief tour where we met children and adults in this small settlement – some desperately in need of medical attention. Two really stood out in my mind – one father missing a leg due to a land mine set by the Burmese military. And a little girl – maybe two – with a birth defect that caused one of her feet/legs to be deformed – a deformity that may prevent her from learning to walk – a deformity that could most likely be easily dealt with in the US where access to braces and physical therapy could help her learn to walk like her peers.

We left the settlement with a new respect for the people and a desire to help them. We gave Sunny a donation for the refugees – letting him
decide how it is best spent (be it for medicine, food, school supplies or to build a water well for clean drinking water – something we discussed). If you want to learn more, please let us know. And if you are interested in making a donation to help these people let Randy or I know as we are in a position to make sure the money gets directly to the people.

 

Just a chill day…

So the previous day’s lunch after the coffin caves didn’t quite set well with Randy. He had a grumbly tummy at dinner – eating only a little rice. Unfortunately the rice didn’t manage to stay down and Randy spent most of the night awake with his digestive system operating on a dual emergency evacuation mode.

I found Sunny and let him know that Randy had a very sleepless night due to some typical traveler’s food poisoning and that we’d have to postpone our plans to visit other towns for one day while Randy slept and recovered.

With no plans and my partner in crime out of commission for the day, that gave me the day to relax and read. And the Soppong River Inn is perfect for just that. Just outside of our room is a gorgeous deck with a multitude of places to sit and relax perched above a modest river. Up front near the restaurant/cafe are also some choice nooks to curl up and read in while sipping on some coffee or thai iced tea (both of which are quite tasty here).

Randy spent most of the day sleeping with a slight fever and finally emerged around dinner time, feeling better and ready to test his digestive system. A mild dinner of a broth based Thai soup went over very well and the evening was wonderfully uneventful for all. Good thing because tomorrow we head out to some local areas with Sunny.

 

Day trip to a coffin cave

Friday morning (March 20) we ate breakfast and tried to track down Sunny again. It turns out he was on a trek, but would return that evening, so we had the day to explore the area. This corner of Thailand is full of caves, many discovered by an ex-pat Aussie named John who runs some bungalows called Cave Lodge with his wife. Thom Lod, the cave closest to Soppong boasted some spectacular caverns so we decided to visit for the day.

A quick 12k drive lead us to the park entrance where we were required to hire a guide. They also offered a bamboo raft ride on the river that passed through the cave which we declined at first, but after seeing the caves we paid the extra Bhat to get the full tour. Our guide fired up her gas lantern and led us along the river into the large mouth of the cave. We went over a rise and soon left daylight behind. Her lantern illuminated some very large columns and some spectacular rock formations as we climbed up some wooden steps to cavern 1. Our new SLR camera has some impressive sensitivity in low light and I managed to click off some shots by her lantern light alone.

The air was cool as we wandered the expansive caverns, appreciating the variety of formations. There were some bamboo bridges that spanned the river and a high set of wooden stairs that wound us up to some high caverns with lower ceilings and some ancient coffins – some dating around 2000 years old. Very interesting to see (it’s just the coffins – no bones or relics).

These caves are well known for their current inhabitants as well. Bats call the caves home by day and by night swifts take refuge here while the bats are out hunting (and eating up all the mosquitos that keep nibbling on Lisa). So every dawn / dusk a huge change in residents occur with one group leaving and another returning. It was a couple hours until dusk and so we didn’t stay for the change and instead headed out to find a late lunch.

A nearby guest house offered some food options, and while lisa stayed safe with the Garlic-pepper Tofu, I was feeling adventurous and went for the “Shan Special”. A plate of rice and two bowls arrived at our table, one with a red tomato stew, the other with fresh green vegetables stir fried in a sauce, both were yummy. I cannot be sure which bowl held my undoing, but either way this food was not to stay in my digestive system for the usual length of time, of course I didn’t know that at the time and ate the whole thing.

We made our way back to the town of Soppong and after a quick rinse, we walked down to the Khao Soi shop I knew so well in the past. Sunny was sitting there in his dusty trekking clothes, sipping some tea on a large picnic bench that makes up his soup shop. I said “sawasdee kawp Sunny” (Thai hello) and he said “nice to meet you, who are you?”. The incessant prankster, I saw the mischievous look in his eye and new that although 6 years had past, he knew full well who I was and that he was as excited to see me as I was to see him.

 We gave each other a hearty handshake and joined him at the table surrounded by his two sons and wife. He served us tea and jumped right in on some stories. Sunny’s stories are always full of humor, pranks, sometimes fantastic tales of flying monks and always focus on one friend or another, since he has as many friends as Lisa has mosquito bites at this point.

Travelers from all over the world regularly go trekking with Sunny, and often return for repeat visits. I was drawn into his spell in 2001 when I randomly found his name on an online travel forum and decided to go out of my way to track him down. A small sign on one of a dozen concrete stalls along the main road in Soppong simply states “Sunny’s Khao Soi” in english (khao soi is a Northern Thai and Burmese curry soup with noodles and meat). His voice full of laughter and heavily accented english is good, his face is round and brown from a lifetime in the jungle around Burma and Northern Thailand, and his smile a bit toothless but purely honest.

In 2003 I returned and asked for his help in making a movie about hilltribes in the area, a task that he embraced completely. He took me to his many friends in the villages around Soppong, acted as interpreter while interviewing a shaman, found out about new years festivals and hired pick-up trucks to get us there. He truly has more friends than anyone I’ve ever met, and all his communication with them is one on one since he doesn’t own a telephone and certainly isn’t interested in email. Part of the time spent with Sunny is always “wait here and I will go to find my friend”. It should also be mentioned that he is an excellent cook, especially if you have been trekking in the hot sun all day.

On this evening, as the sun set behind the hills, it felt like the past 6 years had flown by. He told us about how his youngest son of 9 years old, Nong Kong, would become a monk on April 9th. When we told him we would be already back in America for a week by then he decided that we would cancel our plane tickets and stay. I have to admit it was a tempting thought, to stay here and see the celebration, but a quick glance to Lisa reaffirmed what I already knew, this was one international trip that would not be extended (I have a history of doing that).

He also showed us a very interesting video about the Shan in Burma and some of the horrible things happening there at the hands of the Burmese (or Myanmar) army. Sunny is Shan, and he has many friends still in Burma who are involved in a resistance movement that is protecting the Shan area and its people from the Burmese army. More on this subject later, since we ended up seeing first hand how the Shan are being affected by the ruthless military junta.

On the walk back to our room, I felt a bit queasy and started to worry about how “special” the “Shan Special” I had at lunch was. Since we didn’t have dinner yet, I decided to just get some rice from the restaurant at our guest house. It turns out that didn’t stay down, nor did anything in my digestive track. At the risk of revealing too much, I was up most of the night sweating, puking, or shitting.

 

More Birthday Fun in Chaing Mai

Birthdays in Thailand are great. So yesterday I found some ice cream. This kick-ass cafe, Black Canyon Coffee, near the Tha Prae gate in Chaing Mai had exactly what I was looking for. Actually Chaing Mai seems to be attempting to rival the great Pacific Northwest as far as number of coffee shops go. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a coffee shop of some type. And of course there were some Starbucks branches there. Though we never went in one, through the windows the insides even looked identical to the ones back home. Strange. One of the upsides to having so many coffee shops is that the coffee is actually quite good. Our guesthouse served coffee with breakfast – and it wasn’t just coffee, but a kick ass Americano (espresso and water). Great crema on it. It also helps that the coffee is grown locally – in the hills of Northern Thailand.



After indulging in some delicious ice cream and and americano at Black Canyon Coffee, Randy & I made our way to the tailor for the first fitting for Randy’s suits. Again the people there were wonderful and Randy looked pretty darn sexy in the suits.



Then back to the hotel to clean up and head out to dinner. Now the place we picked, Palaad Tawanron, came highly recommended from several places. It’s a little out of the way, but it was well worth it. The restaurant is located in the outskirts of Chaing Mai, partway up Suthep Mountain (near the zoo). We thought we’d take a tuk-tuk there. Knowing this was a bit out of the way we had someone at our guesthouse write down where we wanted to go in Thai – so that we could give that to the driver istead of trying to stumble through an explanation. It was a valiant effort, but ultimately the driver got totally lost and we made many u-turns and he asked a lot of people for directions. When we were finally on the right road we started to really go up hill. And this tuk-tuk was old… more like a glorified tricycle. It was hurting and struggling to get up the hill and choking out big, black, acrid clouds of smoke in protest. Eventually Randy & I told the driver to just let us out there and we hiked the rest of the way (maybe twenty minutes).

As all the write-ups mention, the view from the restaurant was spectacular. Overlooking all of Chaing Mai. The menu was also quite extensive. This was a large restaurant and you could tell it was a special occassion destination for couples and large groups alike. One of the things we both got a kick out of was the band – the Banjo Man Group consists of two roaming guitarists and one roaming floutist with all songs being sung in English, Thai and Japanese (and Spanish). Randy & I were treated to great ballads like Puff the Magic Dragon, Scarborough Faire, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Heart of Gold, Country Roads, La Bamba and as we were leaving we were treated to A Horse With No Name – a song by America that always reminds me of my Dad (he had the cassette tape in the car when I was growing up and I remember listening to it on my Dad’s walkman when I was little)… The music was a lot of fun and their ability to sing in English was really quite amazing. Though comically most words that started with and L were a bit tougher; Leaving on a Jet Plane sounded more like Weaving on a Jet Plane. Still I was amazed at how well they could sing in a foreign language.

We knew that a tuk-tuk wasn’t going to get us home so we asked the restaurant to call a metered taxi for us. Once in the car we told the taxi driver about our adventures with the tuk tuk and he got a big kick out that, laughing pretty hard as we described our attempts to get up the mountain in a tuk tuk, eventually abandoning that to just hike up.

After that we finished up the evening at the night market. Randy is a much better haggler than I am – probably because I don’t like it when I’m at a tradeshow and store owners try to haggle me on the price of our socks at tradeshows.

For anyone thinking of travling to Chiang Mai I would highly recommend our guesthouse as a place to hang your hat while staying here. The Sri-Pat Guesthouse was the best place we’ve stayed so far. 900 bhat a night (about $27). The rooms were immaculate, the beds comfy, the showers were western sized and had plenty of hot water and they had the best breakfast I’ve found so far. I usually go with the yogurt, museli and fruit (no bananas) wherever we have breakfast – so I consider myself something of a connesuier. Sri-Pat’s was by far the best I’ve had all month. The fruit was fresh, crispy and juicy (without being water as it has been some places). The yogurt was rich without being too sugary (as many flavored yogurts are) or bitter (as some unflavored yogurts are). And the museli was just tasty. They even had dragonfruit in there – which might be my new favorite fruit (the flesh is white with tiny edible black seeds all through it). And the staff at Sri-Pat was just about as nice as they come. All rooms only have twin beds, so they pushed two twins together for us (since I’d requested a queen when making the reservation). We’re staying there again when we go back to Chaing Mai – which will be our last official stop before heading home next week.

On Thursday the 19th we were still deciding where to go and how to get there. We decided on Soppong and renting a car. Big decison since the road from Chaing Mai to Pai is insanely curvy. It took 3+ hours to go about 60 or 70 miles (because it’s just that loopy). I always pride myself on never getting motion sickness. I can calmly read a book on a boat in the middle of a storm and not have the tossing and turning of the waves bother me one bit. This road finally made me experience motion sickness. It was never a terrible case (never close to loosing lunch), but still my stomach was very unsettled.

I think Randy is working on a posting that has us arriving in Soppong so I’ll end my ramblings here.

 

Journey to Soppong, the road of a thousand switchbacks

On Thursday morning, Lisa and I discussed the various options for traveling to our next destination, the town of Soppong. Tucked in a high valley in the far Northwest of Thailand, this is the town where I spent most of the time making my thesis film “In Good Spirits” about Hilltribe villagess back in 2003. For more info on that trip, visit my website here and here.

Our transportation options were pretty open, and each plan involved some combination of local bus, airplane, car rental, or songthaew (pick-up truck with benches in the back). In the end we rented a car, knowing full well that even though Soppong was not far from Chiang Mai as the crow flies, the winding mountain road would make for a slow trip. We ended up getting a little toyota coup, which gets great gas milage and can take some of the hills with a modest amount of power. The downside is that nobody in the area we are traveling to drives cars like this. Motorbikes or pickup trucks are the preferred mode of transportation due to the dirt roads and massive hauling power needed to carry 15 people and their goods to the market. So we would not blend in, but that wouldn’t be anything new.

The roads out of Chiang Mai were straight, but teeming with motorbikes and big trucks that I did my best to avoid. The Thais also drive British style, that is they stay to the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right. I’d driven this way before on other trips, but the intersections and being aware that most of the car is to my left was tricky. We hit the hills and turns about 30 minutes into the trip, and the remaining 3 hours were up up up and very sharp switchback turns. It was as though they used a teenage girl’s loopy signature to plot out the path of the road. We spun up and over several mountains, avoiding wandering livestock and being passed by pick-up trucks going insanely fast around corners swerving into oncoming traffic. It is a style of driving that must be firmly rooted in the Thai belief of reincarnation. I erred on the side of safety, and took it nice and easy.

Back in Chiang Mai, the air quality was very poor, and when we asked about the haze, we were told that “they” are burning. When asked who “they” were, we have gotten many different answers. Some say it’s the farmers preparing their fields for the next planting season, others say it’s natural forest fires burning out of control. It could also be people who are intentionally and illegally setting forest fires to clear the land so they can begin to farm it. I gather it may be a combination of all three, and the result is a thick haze that settles in the valleys and causes a haze that obscures the closest mountains. There is also chronic respiratory problems during the dry season with the people who live here, since the ash sometimes rains down from nearby fires. Since this is the dry season, all the deciduous trees are also dropping their leaves, reminding me of autumn if it weren’t for the dry air and stifling midday heat.

All this is to say that even though we were driving over some high mountain passes, we were unable to see through the smoke to the valleys and mountains beyond, even though I knew they were spectacular. We arrived in the town of Pai to take care of our full bladders and empty stomachs. Pai is a bustling place full of backpackers and ex-pats that although a tempting place to relax for a few days, we knew what Soppong had in store for us and forged ahead. The last hour of the drive dropped us into a valley and the road snaked next to a calm river until we reached Soppong. As I have learned so far, in the past 6 years some things have changed, and many things have remained the same.

Sunny is the trekking guide who took me around in 2003 to visit his friends in the Hilltribe villages and acted as a translator and friend as I worked on the film. His soup shop is the first place we went after checking in to our bungalow, but he was off somewhere else and his lovely wife wasn’t sure when he would be back.

So we relaxed back at our bungalow at the Soppong River Inn, a gorgeous place with a lush garden and delicious restaurant. I have been here before as well, and the improvements to the place are numerous and wonderful. We are staying in the River Rim Cottage complete with a hot water shower open to the sky. Lisa loves the huge mosquito net that encompasses the bed, making her safe from the bugs, and we slept soundly that night to the sounds of the river below and cicadas above.