Overland Travel Stops: 4,000 Islands & Kratie

First sunset in Don Khone

The land border between Laos and Cambodia is just a dusty little town filled with dollar noodles and stalls selling batteries and flip flops.  Yet just beyond in each country are two little gems worth a day or two stop whilst traveling overland.  Southern Laos possesses the 4,000 islands, also known as Siphandon. A riverine archipelago in the Mekong, most of the islands were submerged due to heavy rains. Yet the three largest and only inhabited islands remained, all encircled by cheap waterside bungalows adorned with hammocks.  A good book and a fruit shake were the order of the day, a welcome retreat from weeks of daily activity.  Of historical interest, Siphandon was the French’s last attempt to create a trade route between Southeast Asia and China. Some signs of their efforts remain, including an abandoned railroad and bridge connecting the islands of Don Khone and Don Det, which can be viewed during a bicycle ride around the islands.  Relaxing alongside the racing Mekong was a fitting way to conclude our visit in Laos, a country so firmly connected with the mighty river that runs its length.

Second sunset in Don Khone

The bus ride to Cambodia was excessively long, thanks to a two hour stop at the border and a blown tire.  Cambodia’s landscape differs greatly from Laos and Thailand with flat rice fields extending for miles dotted by coconut and palm trees.  Most striking are the acres of burned tree-stumps, a harsh introduction to destructive logging in Cambodia.  After hours on a bus blasting Cambodian karaoke dvds, we arrived in Kratie, Cambodia (pronounced Krachay) with a pink sunset as our much deserved reward.

Kratie locals watch the sunset over the Mekong river

Boat coming in during sunset in Kratie

Tuk tuk driver enjoying the sunset

The riverside town of Kratie is famous its endangered fresh-water Irrawaddy Dolphins, of which less than 75 remain. In early morning, we ventured by boat to their feeding area, where we turned off the motors to wait and listen for the spray of their blow holes and the flash sightings of their flippers or distinct flat-nosed heads.  The game of waiting for the dolphins to appear in the quiet of the river was enchanting. We were surprised to have seen so many given their dwindling populations yet we only managed a few fleeting pictures of them below.

Searching for the Irrwady dolphins

The Irrwady dolphin. Elusive in photos

A Short Loop Around the Bolaven Plateau

The view on our ride around the Bolaven Plateau

If there’s any one place that can reflect the experience of the Lao people and their land, it’s the Bolaven Plateau — a beautiful place marked by a tragic past and facing a challenging future. The Bolaven Plateau is an elevated region in Southern Laos named after the Laven ethnic group that historically dominated the land. During the French occupation it was deemed fitting land for growing coffee, a crop they still grow today.  In 1901, the ethnic groups that populate the Plateau heavily revolted against the French occupation. But it was the Vietnam War that earned the region most of its scars. As one of the areas passed through by the Ho Chi Minh Trail, it was considered strategically vital to both the Americans and North Vietnamese and was consequently one of the most bombed regions in the war.  A staggering number of UXO still remain.  And while the sweet pungent smell of coffee plants and the sight of smiling children speaks of more peaceful days today, the tree-stumps that litter the region expose the treachery of logging and continuing development by the Chinese.

Tad Seung waterfall

We traveled to the plateau by motorbike, which is now becoming our favorite way to tour Southeast Asia. It was a slow 85km drive thanks to a confusing map and a treacherous rain storm waited out under a tree.  Perpetual wetness seems a condition of travel in Southeast Asia this time of year.  By late afternoon, we stopped at small village at the junction to check our map only to be bombarded by five young boys.  “Hello ambushes,” some expats call it. The boys persistently pointed past the huts to a gushing waterfall in the distance, so massive in scale we were immediately drawn. We followed the boys through the village on the path to the waterfall; a short but slippery and muddy scramble.  It would have been impossible to manage had it not been for the boys offering up roots as grips and bamboo as walking sticks. At times, little hands pressed my tush for momentum on particularly challenging ascents. While we struggled in our hiking boots, they scampered up the hill with ease in flip flops.  At the end of the path was a clearing, just feet from a spectacular waterfall with a rainbow that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

A rainbow over the Tad Seung waterfall

Looking out over the Tad Seung waterfall

Exhausted, wet and muddy, we continued on our motorbike to Tad Lo, where we found accommodation for the night.   At sunset, we watched the villagers migrate to the river to bathe wrapped in sarongs and carrying plastic caddies filled with shampoo soap and toothbrushes; a strange reminder of my college dorm days. We stayed that evening with a young family that had just recently opened a guesthouse of simple thatch roofed bungalows overlooking a rice paddy.  We all made dinner together and I finally discovered the secret to making spring rolls with rice paper that don’t stick: cloth towels!

Tad Lo locals bathing in the river

The following day, we woke early to the sound of roosters. After a cup of delicious strong Lao coffee made from Bolaven beans, we set off on a hike to a nearby village.  Here they speak a unique Astralasian dialect and like many tribes in Southeast Asia, are animist, which means they believe everything has a spirit, including the trees. They are obsessed with death so they carve coffins for themselves and their families, which they keep under rice sheds for when the time comes. Unfortunately it comes sooner to them than most, as the life expectancy is 40 and the infant mortality rate is 100 in 1000. Most die of malaria.

Hike to one of the many waterfalls, giant spider enroute

A villager sorts his catch

We brought along a stack of books we purchased in Luang Prabang from a non-profit called Big Brother Mouse, which writes, illustrates and publishes children’s books in Lao.  They depend on travelers to purchase and disperse the books to rural villages where literacy is low and books are in short supply. Eager to share the books, I opened one up to show a villager and his young son.  The little boy’s eyes lit up and his father kept smiling and telling me the books were “good quality”.  But the scenario quickly devolved when a hoard of village children began grabbing the books from my hands.  This is exactly what we were trying to avoid.  The books were meant to be shared amongst the whole village, not go only to the greediest few. We felt defeated.  But when walking around the village, we spotted a group of boys huddled in the spirit house leafing through one of the books, while a younger child gripped another as if it were gold.  It gave us some hope that the books would do a bit of good after all.

A village boy put to hard work

Drying tobacco and chilies on the roof

Piglets ran up to us as we walked through the village

Walking through the village was like traveling back in time. People were living like they lived hundreds of years ago.  No electricity, no running water. Food is caught in the river and prepared over wood fires. The villagers’ primary crops are tobacco and chilies, which they chop and dry in the sun.  Despite a very basic life, smiles abound, particularly among the children who ran up to us eagerly saying, “hello, what is your name?”, the first words they learn in English.

The path to the front of the waterfall, which left us drenched after passing it.

Another dramatic waterfall and rainbow (day 2)

After our hike, we jumped on our motorbike and continued our loop around the Plateau, stopping at an even more extraordinary waterfall and making it back into Pakse before dark. We were wet, muddy and tired yet dazzled.

Vientiane: Moving at the Speed of Laos

Old and new

The world is changing fast, especially in Asia. Yet Laos seems resistant to the pressures of modernization and globalization; its capitol city Vientiane as evidence. There are no high-rises or mega malls, and few if any movie theaters (that I noticed). Entertainment is mostly limited to karaoke bars and bowling lanes and the city has a curfew of 11:00pm. Lao women working or entering government buildings are required to wear a traditional sarong and most ride on the back of motorbikes side-saddle. It’s a quiet city in which you can wander into the courtyard of a nearby Wat and hear little more than the sounds of monks shuffling by. Along the Mekong overlooking Thailand, a new waterfront has been built where teens brood and smoke cigs, children play soccer, and hilarious public exercise classes are held – imagine jazzercise from the ’80s. Most park their motorbikes to look out on the glassy blue waters on their commute home from work. Our guidebook tells us the riverfront once teemed with food vendors but they’ve now set up shop across the street in a small margin of sidewalk. A billboard visualizing dam and condo projects looms as a backdrop; a sign of change to come.

Vientiane isn’t an especially pretty city but it still has it’s charms; wide Parisian-style avenues, a replica arch de triumph, a few stunning wats and most of all a very relaxed atmosphere.

Mekong sunset

Frogs being sold for dinner

While in the neighborhood we stopped by the COPE museum, which details the continuing devastation caused by unexploded ordinance (UXOs) remaining in Laos after the United States dropped over 270 million cluster bombs over the country during the Vietnam War. About 30% or 80 million did not explode on impact, and instead, continue to kill and maim Lao people today. The COPE museum was established to bring awareness to this issue and to raise money for the center that treats victims. We left the museum heavy-hearted yet overwhelmed by the resilience of the Lao people, who fill craters with fish ponds and shell casings with flowers.

Prosthetic legs at COPE

In the evening, we wandered to a couple of riverside bars overlooking the Mekong. At one, we met an American ex-pat working on an education project. He invited us to join his NGO friends for dinner, some of whom had been living in Laos for as long as seven years. Nostalgia for home ran deep, with one gal getting up to the mic to sing John Denver’s Country Roads. When open mic night at the expat bar got too grating, we left and continued down the street until other music perked our ears. It was live Lao rock streaming from a riverside bar teeming with buzzed locals drinking Beer Lao. At the front of the bar were two men with angelic voices and masterfully playing the guitar. One looked like karate kid while the other had the kindest face that begged you to hug him. It was a beautiful way to cap off a rainy evening.

Thousands of tiny Buddhas at Wat Sisaket

Dogs wandering around a temple

That Luang, the holiest Buddhist site in Laos

Buddha in Wat Sisaket

Food stalls along the river

Jewelers in the morning market

I did not go tubing in Vang Vieng

Wherever we’ve gone, we’ve seen young European travelers wearing the same t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Tubing in the Vang Vieng,” an activity travelers through Southeast Asia have deemed a right of passage.  But floating down a  river among drunk backpackers and stopping at riverside bars was not a passage I was interested in taking and so we had planned to skip Vang Vieng altogether.  I’m glad we decided not to.

“Highway” 13 in Laos, the main road connecting North to South, is extremely thin and winds through mountain passes which are prone to landslides. Consequently, buses barely go more than 40 km per hour. So the nearly 400 km journey to Vientiane can be a bit too long and tiring. We decided to break it up by taking a bus 7 hours to Vang Vieng then another 4 hours to Vientiane. The first leg was absolutely stunning. I was occupied for all 7 hours simply staring out the window of our mini-bus as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains and passed through hundreds of roadside villages. In the course of our ride, we witnessed an entire day in the life of a village. Families cooking lunch, men coming home from work in the fields with baskets over their back, and villagers soaping up and showering in the small waterfalls of water that stream down from the mountains.

The view on the journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng

We would have liked to have the opportunity to stop and take pictures but I don’t think we could have managed the drive on our own. On several occasions, I was white-knuckled with fear that our minibus driver would hit a small child running in the street or careen over the edge of the mountain due to fog that appeared suddenly and blanketed sight of the road. But he drove carefully and attentively and everyone arrived safely, albeit late, in Vang Vieng.

The view from our sweaty mountain hike

We stayed at a cheap guest house across the river from Vang Vieng town center, which we were desperately trying to avoid because of its reputation for cushion-padded bars screening re-runs of Friends and drunk shirtless dudes stumbling down the street.  Life across the river was completely quiet and untouched by backpacker raunchiness. We woke up early and started to walk down the main dirt road that passes through the human and natural wonders of Vang Vieng: flat green rice paddies nestled below jungle-carpeted limestone cliffs, blue-green lagoons and buddha-filled caves. We hiked up one of the limestone mountains, which turned out to be a slippery steep scramble in unbearable humidity created by the tightly packed greenery.  The view was stunning but we were too exhausted and bothered by giant ants to really enjoy it so we came back down and recouped with bottles of water at a nearby stand. We proceeded to spend the day walking, stopping at roadside stands to have a bottle of water, a beer lao or a bowl of noodles. And we’d just watch life around us: a 5 year old child carrying his 1 year old sibling, a dumb cow being taunted by a pack of dogs, and naked toddlers jumping in the creek.  At the end of the long road was an amazing cave with dripping stalactites and containing a bronze reclining Buddha.  We were tired and daunted by the muddy walk back so we hitched a ride by tractor — really the only feasible way to pass through the slippery road.

Limestone cliffs and rice paddies, a stunning combination

Cave at the end of our walk.

A Buddha lies in the cool of the cave.

Luang Prabang: Traveling Back in Time

Monk enters wat for prayer at dusk

Strolling through the sleepy streets of Luang Prabang, Laos is like being transported in time.  For me, I was living in the 1942 classic movie Casablanca, wandering through colonial hotels and bars replete with wooden shuttered windows and courtyards filled with lush green palm trees and exotic plants. Ben felt as if he was in old Havana, Cuba with the dated cars, dilapidated sidewalks and children riding on rusty bicycles.  With a world moving so fast, it is incredibly invigorating to be in place so firmly planted in the best of times.  Luang Prabang has naturally attracted tourists but its UNESCO world heritage status has prevented the crumminess that tourism has brought to other Asian cities. All store signs are carved in wood and the narrow streets make passage by tourist bus impossible.

There are over 60 wats in Luang Prabang

Tuk tuk drivers watch the street parket waiting for customers

On our first night in Luang Prabang we climbed the steps to Phousy Hill to watch the sunset over the city and listen to the monks bang their gongs and pray in their temples; there are over sixty in Luang Prabang.  As we climbed down the winding steps, the light changed and each sight was different from the next, from glowing motorbike dotted streets to the clay colored snaking Mekong. The night market was beginning to buzz below, packed with local vendors selling buddha heads, silk scarves, intricately woven bedspreads and wall hangings with depictions of hmong village life. I wanted to purchase everything in sight but my hunger kept me going past the market to a small alleyway lined with food vendors. We opted for fresh spring rolls and grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass so good we returned for the next night’s meal. Despite eating out every meal for the past two weeks, I haven’t felt the revulsion to prepared food that I’ve felt on other travels simply because everything tastes so home-made. When you sit at a roadside stall, you are eating the same food a village woman is feeding to her family.

Grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass and basted with what tasted like soy sauce. Chopsticks are a perfect tool for picking between the bones!

Spring rolls & Beer Lao

The next day we rented a motorbike to ride to the Kuang Si waterfalls about 20 km away from town. When we started riding, we realized both the speedometer and fuel gauge were broken, meaning that we didn’t know how much fuel we had until the motorbike sputtered to a stop in the middle of a country road. We had to drag the bike up the hills and coast on it down the hills until we found the nearest village that had a liter or two of petrol in old coke bottles. Luckily the detour was short and we continued on our way past rice paddies and villages, stopping only for a herd of water buffalo that passed the street. The waterfalls were gushing from the recent rains yet the pools of water still retained their glassy greenish-blue from the limestone mountains from which they cascaded.  Yet the ride to the falls was every bit as beautiful as the falls themselves, and I’m beginning to realize that the journey is just as good as the destination in Asia; perhaps a truism for life as well.

Terraced Rice Paddies

Jumping into the lower pools of Kuang Si waterfalls

The next morning we awoke at dawn to join our guesthouse owner in offering alms to 300 or so monks and novices (monks-in-training).  Monks are not permitted to work so they depend on their local village to feed them. Every morning, they collect balls of rice, cookies and money from the villagers who line the street as they walk quietly past. Hot food is brought to each temple following the ceremony. Monks are only permitted to eat until noon, after which they must fast until the next day. Below is a short video that documents the alms offering… in the rain, of course.

Later that day we visited the national palace where the king and queen of Laos resided during the French occupation until they were forced to flee in 1975 when the revolution began.  Their private residences remain almost untouched since they fled. We kept walking through the town stopping to visit temples and chat with the monks and novices studying in the courtyards. They were eager to practice their English and ask us about life in America. It was a perfect way to explore the many temples we had not yet seen while getting a glimpse of monastic life.  Many of the novices (19 and under) have cell phones, watch TV, and one even proclaimed his desire to leave the order once he finished high school.  We spent another day walking, eating and admiring this beautiful city until it was time for the next stop: Vang Vieng.

Buddhas at Wat Xieng Thong

Kom, a novice, wants to leave the monastery to study IT

Novices reading and studying in the quiet courtyard

 

Copies of the prayers novices must memorize stacked atop an old US missile.

 

Riverside view of the Mekong

Elephant Ride to the Hills of Chiang Dao.

So we’ve been away from internet access for a few days (it’s slooooow when we do have it in Laos), and what a wonderful surprise to come back and see that we were featured on Freshly Pressed!  A big welcome to our new audience, and we hope you’ll keep reading!

Our ride for the day.

I rode an elephant once in my life as a child at a carnival in my hometown. He was chained and led to walk in a circle. I was at the back of the line of children riding the butt, which was so wide my legs shot straight out in each direction. The experience wasn’t especially memorable and so when I heard about elephant riding in Thailand, I wasn’t as excited about it as Ben.

The Mahout.

Perhaps setting is everything then, because riding elephants through the mountainous regions of Northern Thailand was simply breathtaking. Sitting atop the elephant means your plane of sight is several feet higher than it would be just hiking through the jungle. You can see views that would be otherwise obstructed by trees and bushes. Yet the most exhilarating part is experiencing the elephant in its natural habitat and feeling the power of this mighty beast as it heaves and breaks fallen trees in it’s path. And you are witness to the ability of man to communicate with animal as your “mahout” (trainer) grunts and rubs his feet to command the elephant to action.

Crossing the stream into the village.

We traveled through the jungle and down through rice paddies and corn fields to a small tribal village where we disembarked and the elephants played and washed themselves in a nearby spring. The villagers, anticipating our arrival, had laid out their handmade goods and were making a heavy sale. It was uncomfortable at times, but you recognize that their pushiness comes from this sale being one of their only means of making a living. We purchased a wooden slingshot, a woven coin purse and shoulder bag for family members. We continued to walk through the picturesque village, filled with flowers, butterflies, and children eager to play with us. Three more villages and a bamboo raft ride later, we were loaded with woven trinkets and ready to retire for the day. Next stop: Laos.

Wrinkly trunk.

These elephants wanted to get close.

A village girl sits by the bathing elephants.

Don't get these elephants angry.

Village children, always happy.

A village woman weaves an intricate design.

One of the many butterflies floating around the village.

Playing Seepak Takraw

A village kid kicks high while playing Seepak Takraw

There’s something romantic about traveling by motorbike.  Perhaps its the open air, the winding and unknown road, or maybe the people you meet along the way.  We’d been hesitant to try it because we’ve never driven a motorbike before.  But Chiang Dao is a small area with little traffic and most residents drive slowly, conserving petrol by turning off the engine to glide down the hills. So we thought it the perfect place to practice.  We rented a shiny red automatic from the neighbor for a total of $200 baht ($7) and set out with a hand drawn map from the Nest. We rode across town up through the jungle-filled mountainside and turned at whatever road seemed most intriguing. Some were muddy and led nowhere while others led to little villages packed with beautiful happy people and bamboo huts overlooking picture book vistas. At this village, Ben joined a game of Takraw, which involves a bamboo ball bounced by foot like a hacky sack over a volley ball net. Girls were clearly unwelcome in this game, so I spent time with the women and their children watching the game by the side lines.  Below are several pictures from the game, which is popular throughout Southeast Asia.

The game involves the flexible ball like a hackey sack

 

The net was loosely rigged to wooden posts dug in the ground.

The ball once made of bamboo is now made of plastic.

 

The rigged net.

 

Little boy anticipates the ball.

Ben tries his foot at Seepak Takraw.

Chiang Dao: Fairytale Thailand

Woman selling longan, a lychee-like fruit grown in Thailand.

I’ve been dreaming of glistening rice paddies, families packed four to a motorbike, hillside villages overrun with cute children and mist covered mountain tops.  They’re the fairy tale images I had of Thailand.  And I discovered them all in Chiang Dao, a small town just an hour and half bus ride north of Chiang Mai. So beautiful this place was, we lingered an extra day.

Durian, Rambutan and Mangosteen.

We arrived in Chiang Dao around 11am, just in time to catch the tail end of the Tuesday morning market when hill tribes come to town to sell fruit and vegetables. We bought sliced durian fruit, mangosteens, rambutans, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and a hulking avocado (later to be eaten like an apple!) before catching a taxi for the fifteen minute ride to our mountainside stay, Chiang Dao Nest.

Misty mountain view from Chiang Dao Nest.

As we rode, the trees got taller and the mist thicker.  Tucked behind a curve in the road was a collection of thatched roof bungalows connected by gravel footpaths.  We were greeted with fresh lemongrass juice and invited to drop our bags at a cozy little bungalow with a private porch and a large king sized bed dressed in hand-made tribal fabrics. It was raining heavily, so we found shelter beneath a large thatch roof covered platform with tons of colorful floor cushions. There we spent the afternoon reading and listening to the percussive song of a diversity of birds.

Lemongrass juice on arrival at Nest.

Rain that lasted for three days.

When the rain slowed, we grabbed umbrellas and ventured to Chiang Dao cave, a 10 minute walk away.  The cave was filled with Buddhas and a pond with supposedly sacred fish, though that pond had become heavily flooded due to the non-stop rain.  There were few people around and in the rain and mist, the area had a certain magical quality to it.

The road to Chiang Dao cave.

Dogs hanging out near Chiang Dao cave.

Old Chedi outside the Chiang Dao cave.

We wandered back for dinner at the restaurant at Nest.  Chef Wicha has two restaurants within walking distance of one another. One serving inventive “western” food and the other offering creative Northern Thai cuisine all sourced from local organic ingredients.  We started with the western restaurant, delighting with the taste of delicate pumpkin soup, crispy duck in sesame sauce and slow-cooked tender lamb.  Click below to listen to the birds of Chiang Dao.

 

Chiang Mai: Farang City

Little girl bangs a gong at the Chiang Mai Sunday market

We spotted them in Bangkok on occasion. Tall, long-limbed and mostly white, they walk around wide-eyed in Nike sneakers and toting Lonely Planet books. One can usually find them at the places their type is told to flock — museums, monuments and temples.  Farang is what they are called in Thai. And though we like to think we blend in, we do not. We are one of them.  As the bus drew near to the old city of Chiang Mai, we spotted them in herds at burger joints, bars, motorbike rental shops and street side vendors. And so Chiang Mai, our next stop in travel and the second largest city in Thailand, we aptly dubbed Farang City.

We arrived in Farang City in early afternoon at a guesthouse we booked late the night before. It clearly catered to backpackers who sat for hours in the internet rooms and woke us up in the middle of the night in their drunken stupor. After dropping our bags, we walked past the dozens of English-style pubs and smoothie & sandwich shops to a stall looking to be frequented by locals and feasted on our now beloved 30 baht ($1) bowl of noodles in broth with sketchy-looking but edible meatballs.  After some time scouring the internet for our plan for the next day, we ventured out again to the Sunday night market, a collection of streets loaded with stalls selling hot food, art and trinkets. As we wandered, we ducked into the many temples that dot the old city of Chiang Mai. They were a quiet and beautiful respite from the bustling city.

A monk rests by a temple doorway

Monks pray in the evening

It began to rain heavily so we ducked into an open-air massage parlor set up for the day in a building next to the temple.  We sat as the rain poured and got cheap foot massages next to an American ex-pat who crudely told us his brother advised him not to touch the street food and women in Thailand, a warning he happily ignored.  He did mention a storm in Vietnam would mean rain for several days. And so far, he’s been right.

The rain persisted that evening until the street vendors were nearly knee-deep in dirty street water that overwhelmed the drainage system. Yet even while soaked, we managed to eat several courses of food throughout the street market, each at a different vendor. First, noodle wrapped spring rolls and dumplings, fried banana, a strange looking fried fish sausage, peanut and coconut wrapped balls on a stick and fried Quail eggs with soy sauce.

Fried Quail Eggs. Surprisingly tasty with soy sauce!

The next day we awoke early to be picked up by Boom, the young owner of Chiang Mai’s Basil Cooking school. Our day-long class included just four students: the two of us and another American couple now living in Singapore. We first stopped at the morning market to pick up and learn about the ingredients we would use in the dishes for the day: fried spring rolls, fresh papaya salad, drunken noodles, pad thai, chicken basil stir-fry, cashew chicken stir-fry, coconut chicken soup, sweet and sour prawn soup, green and penang curries and black sticky rice and fried bananas.  Then we spent the day cooking and eating. It was our best meal in Thailand yet.

Woman chops meat at the market

A good death

Boom shows us how to make coconut cream. Add water, and its coconut milk.

Thai ginger, holy basil and chinese chives.

Red and green chilis that became curry paste

Thai stock packets become chicken in coconut soup

Fresh salad made with shredded green papaya.

Ben mixing ingredients

In the late afternoon, we took a cab up the mountain to Doi Suthep temple, where we could view the entire city. The temple complex was beautiful.  But there was someone trying to make a sale at every corner — 20 baht to have a monk tie your wrist with a ceremonial string, 20 baht more to light a candle, or 150 baht to buy a plastic Buddha statue.  Sure there’s mass tourism at every corner of the world, from the fake crown of thorns sold in Jerusalem to the Gladiators haggling you to take a picture with them outside of the Colosseum, but for some reason this just struck me as more distasteful and upsetting. Perhaps because it seems to be done at the cost of preservation, restoration and respect for custom.  Or maybe because there is such a difference in economic class between those touring Thailand and those living there. I am still sorting my feelings about all of this.  In the meantime, enjoy these shots of the temple.

View of Chiang Mai

Doi Suthep

Consumerism at Wat Doi Suthep

 

Sukhothai by bicycle

Buddha

We’re officially on Thai time now. Our promised six hour bus ride to Sukhothai took a total of eight hours and included only one stop for the squat toilet. In all that time, the Thai children on the bus not only managed to hold their bladders but sat silently during the long journey without a toy, video game or movie to keep their attention. I remain amazed.

We arrived to the bus station late and were greeted by a friendly tuk-tuk driver who drove us through the small town to our guest house. We were starving so we dropped our bags and ate at the first most crowded food stall. We pointed to the pork, noodle and kale stir fry ordered by another patron as it looked to be the hottest and most innocuous dish offered and for a total of $2 we feasted.

Our Thai-sized bikes. My knees nearly hit the handle bars!

Despite our late arrival, we planned to tour the ruins of Sukkhothai early in order to catch the sunrise and beat the heat and crowds. We missed the sunrise due to a stubborn layer of clouds but we did manage cooler weather and an empty park. So we cruised along in our rusty rented bicycles gazing at the remains of the 13th century Thai capital, now a UNESCO world heritage site. I was surprised by their deterioration compared to much older sites like the ancient Greek city of Ephesus or the Colosseum in Rome. Yet what’s striking about the ruins of Sukkhothai are their still living quality. The roofless coronation halls, serene buddhas and chedi are surrounded by growing trees and lily-filled ponds. And they are visited daily by worshipping buddhists who light incense, leave fresh flowers, dress the buddhas and paint their fingernails gold. Full families packed on motorbikes ride through the park armed with their picnic for the day.

Me posed like Buddha

Offerings of fresh flower garlands. These are strung and sold on the streets at every corner.

A buddha's long ears mean a long life

Three chedi make a home for nearby birds

Reflections of the temples across the ponds

Elephants are an important symbol in Thai culture

A man cleans the gunk from the pond

Lilly-filled ponds surround Sukhothai Park

A skinny standing buddha

At the nearby market we wandered later