Floating Mountains: Halong Bay & Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam

Early morning rain on Halong Bay

The creative director of the move Avatar must have been inspired by Halong Bay in Vietnam as there are few other places in the world where mountains appear to float weightlessly. While the imaginary planet in Avatar has mountains that suspend mid-air, Halong Bay’s mountains soak in pools of blue. Sunsets soften the edges of the sharp cliffs, color the sky and offer reflections that make sky and sea indistinguishable.

Sunset on Halong Bay

It’s no wonder the bay is one of Vietnam’s most visited attractions, with hordes of “junks” that float its waters on packaged cruises. We tend to loathe organized tours and try with all our might to travel independently, but there are some places that cannot be seen without a guide. Halong Bay is one of them. So when we searched for a tour operator, we looked for one that cruises away from the frequently touristed areas with only a small group while treading carefully on the environment and local community. Ethnic Travel fit the bill, and one of the highlights was that its boat cruises both Halong Bay and the less touristed Bai Tu Long Bay.

One of the many limestone cliffs of Halong Bay

Sunset swim in Halong Bay

It was a beautiful, albeit hot, day sailing Halong Bay. After feasting on a meal of spring rolls, breaded tofu, grilled squid and sauteed shrimp, we relaxed on the deck of the boat and took in the scenery. In the late afternoon, we visited a “floating village, a town built entirely on a string of floating decks. There’s even a floating school! Later, we took a swim in water but the dim light of the evening did not hide the trash that would float by in clumps. It quickly shook me out of the daze that Halong had seduced me into and thrust me into the realization that Vietnam like much of Asia seeks money and advancement at a cost. Despite being a UNESCO world heritage site, I was hard pressed to see what the title has done to help protect the Bay from the impact of tourism.

A floating village in Halong Bay

Our transportation in the floating village

It rained hard that night and into the early morning. At 5am, Ben woke up, looked out the window and rushed out with his camera. The rain was falling in patches that were hit by the rising sun in such a way that it looked like it was raining gold. After so many lost sunsets and mornings when we overslept, Ben was giddy to have captured the perfect moment on film.

Sunrise on Halong Bay

We kayaked in the morning then sailed back to get on yet another minibus to go to Bai Tu Long Bay, just an hour away. Apparently the junks don’t sail fast enough to sail between the two bays.  But the bus ride was worth it; Nary a tourist at this bay’s port and few boats in the bay itself save a lone fisherman or two.  Though the rocks don’t have the scale of Halong Bay, Bai Tu Long Bay has the advantage of its serenity.  Long placid waterways flanked by jagged black rock sprinkled with greenery set a much different stage.   We spent the evening on Quan Lan Island at a “homestay”, which was really more like a non air conditioned basic B&B with hosts that barely spoke to us.  After a restless hot night, we got some pho and headed out on some rented bikes for a tour of the little island and a dip at the beach.  It was raining by the time we returned to the boat but the mist atop the water made our sail to shore even more beautiful.

Lone fisherman on Bai Tu Long Bay

The cliffs of Bai Tu Long Bay

Misty morning on Bai Tu Long Bay

Quan Lan island

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

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.