So after spending a couple of days in Chaing Mai we moved on to the so called Western loop, which goes into the NW mountains up to the border with Burma (Myanmar). After a six-hour bus ride on winding but almost perfectly asphalted roads we arrived in Mae Hong Son, a small sleepy town in which, in the words of an old British guy living there, the only excitement is the changing of the traffic lights :). Well, we don't really agree with this, there was a beautiful lake with a shining Wat reflecting its golden tips in its waters, even more beautiful monastries with laced rooftops, Burmese style, a quite interesting night market, where you could buy beautiful hand woven tapestry from Burma, all kinds of hand made designs from local tribes, opium pipes and ivory (well the old woman was convinced its real ivory and you have no problems buying it...) and for Peter's joy there was an excellent pizzeria which will go down in history as the only place which served actual olive oil in the whole of Thailand (there were rumors about this also on one of the islands but they remain unconfirmed). Mae Hong Son was also an excellent starting point for a beautiful trip around the area, going up to the Burmese border (and actually going into Myanmar;) see photo below) visiting a village established by the Kuomintang (the remnants of Chiang Kai Shek's army - the Republican army which fought against Mao's communist army and later fled Chain). This village was also situated around a beautiful lake and we had a special tea-tasting treat of the varieties produced in the hills around. The winding road took us among green rice and cabbage valleys, quiet peasant life and into one of the villages where hill tribe people lived. The little black dogs that surprisingly did not bark at us when we entered the village turned out to be piggies (hence no barking ;). The little girl who came to talk to us in very sweet English explained that there were five different tribes living in that village of about 100 families, she drove on here motorbike to school in Mae Hong Son every day (45km!), wanted to travel like we did and see our countries and then come back and work in her father's grocery store. What impressed me most was that although the village was pretty bare, the streets off the main road were unpaved, the houses looked like they could do with some enhancements, the people seemed content and happy with their life and were determined to make the best of it where they were.
We also visited a very nice park which had beautiful wild orchids growing from the trees (they do grow on the trees!) with a magic cave in which the fish went in but not all of them came out-oooooh... some spirits plying games again :)
OK, I know its getting long again but I have to tell you this part as well, after we decide to leave Mae Hong Son and since we did not want to sit again for six hours back we decided to stop half way in Pai. We disregarded Pai in the first place as it is one of those hippie outposts in Thailand where farangs (thats how they call the foreigners here) come and seem to stay forever charmed by the local beauty and mostly by the local grass. There is very little of Thailand in Pai, except the scenery but the best thing we did was go on an elephant ride! We drove into the mountain where the Elephants live, boarded them (through the truck) and rode off towards the river. Well its rather slow, uncomfy and the skin is very hard but its so much fun and when we got to the river they went in and started spraying water on us and then managed to get you off the saddle and into the water. There is even a movie with this so if you are nice and make a lot of comments on the blog we can show it when we are back:). It was sooo much fun :)) we are thinking of opening an Elephant park somewhere in Europe one day ;) and the best thing is they totally enjoy dong this, they love to play in the water and do it most of the time when they are free as well.
Well after all this we ended up in Chiang Khong at the border with Laos. The Great Mekong is the only thing which divides us for now, tomorrow we will be in Laos!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Chaing Mai - the pearl of the North
This is our fifth day in Chiang Mai and we are totally enjoying it so I will tell you more about this beautiful city, surrounded by and ancient wall and a moat (if someone knows what a moat is, please let me know!). Here everything is much calmer, during the day we drive around the most beautiful and serene temples we have seen so far, one after the other more impressive and more stunning. With golden chedis (that's how the stupas are called around here) that blind you in the sunlight. The monasteries are made of wood in the 13, 14, 15 century and look like someone knitted an intricate lace pattern which still shines in the sun, their edges hosting an endless line of little bells that sing with the wind and take your thoughts away. And the gardens are full of all kinds of exotic flowers, whose smell is sweet and alluring.
In the evening, the city wakes up from the daily heat, the fountains start singing and the night market starts bubbling. And again the ancient chedis illuminated by the lights continue shining their beauty on this city.
The city is surrounded by a great number of national parks with beautiful waterfalls and quiet forests. These mountains also provide shelter for the hill tribes. Peoples that came from China, Laos, Burma throughout the centuries some as old-time refugees fleeing conflict and destitute, some as later- day economic migrants looking for new land to grow their crops and raise their children. They speak different languages, have different customs, live different lives and try to reconcile their identity with a changing world.
In the evening, the city wakes up from the daily heat, the fountains start singing and the night market starts bubbling. And again the ancient chedis illuminated by the lights continue shining their beauty on this city.
The city is surrounded by a great number of national parks with beautiful waterfalls and quiet forests. These mountains also provide shelter for the hill tribes. Peoples that came from China, Laos, Burma throughout the centuries some as old-time refugees fleeing conflict and destitute, some as later- day economic migrants looking for new land to grow their crops and raise their children. They speak different languages, have different customs, live different lives and try to reconcile their identity with a changing world.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Thailandski again - Chiang Mai
Actually we do not have any pictures of Chiang Mai which we want to share with you - but we did a great moped trip to Lamphun and Lamphang we are sure you are familiar with these places *lol*
"Thats the way it goes" indeed
Dumbos - conservation center - tried to leave Yva there...
One or two liters??? 91 or 95 (yellow or red)PS we do not publish any pictures of Peter on purpose right now because his hairstyle is a bit out of the norm :). Who ever leaves a comment with the best description of how this may look will get a picture.
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Go shopping to London or New York - no way the Petronas Towers are the place to be!
Batu Caves - Hindu Temple
272 Steps and dodging many touts and monkeys later..
... but it was worth it!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
How is it really?
As our tour continues, the pictures get more beautiful and we get more tanned a silent question is creeping, but is it really as nice as it looks on the pictures? Are they really enjoying themselves? Doesn't this 24/7 being together cause tension and fights? And all kinds of other doubts related to food, accommodation, people...
Well here is the naked truth!
It is NOT always as beautiful as it seems on the pictures, the streets are almost always dirty, there is garbage laying around and open sewage canals and some beaches are often littered with everything from lonely hiking boots and flip-flops to coke cans and diapers.
On the islands its ok, even when its hot, you remember that blue water, well THAT is always blue and cool, but the cities are a killer, traffic and noise add to the melting heat and you have nowhere to hide, expect in some smelly roadside cafe.
Hostels (my pain!) usually make me wonder "Why the hell did I leave my beautiful home?!". The shabbiness is of varying degree but it usually involves badly painted walls, holes in the mosquito nets (I will have a special section on mosquitoes below), bed sheets so thin you can barely make out Kermit and Miss Piggy, if the budget allows it we get an AC room, but those machines are usually so loud that you can barely sleep (and both Peter and I are famous for sound sleeping!), if the budget does not allow it, we go to a room "only fan" and sweat the night away. Electricity on the islands is usually provided by a generator which switches off on a regular basis so it actually makes no difference AC or not... Furniture, if you have been privileged enough to get something more than a bed in your room, it would be something well worth to be called vintage, however, no designer came even closer to the factories where these things are produced. And no, none of them has a story to tell! I forgot to add the special effects for extra homy-feeling, dampness and neon lights.
The toilet/bathroom drama! I will spare you that for my own sake, I am working on a technique to erase my mind before and after going into one of them to keep me from getting on the next flight to hygiene stronghold Europe.
Mosquitoes, bugs, dogs, monkeys and other species of varying cuteness and varying annoyance. The mosquitoes lead in the annoyance section, that's because we have not yet travelled to real Malaria places, then it gets dangerous... As I mentioned the wholes in the mosquito nets which miraculously appear during night time make it itchy and sleepless. Bugs, what would life be without them, "Variety is the spice of life" my English teacher once said and I hate her for it! Geckos, everybody keeps telling me they are my friends, and they look kind of cute with their big popped-out eyes, but I tell you one thing, I don't trust those creatures. Dogs are very friendly and they usually sleep in front of your door (sometimes up to five of them) guarding us. Monkeys are our new friends in Malaysia, and that friendship is most valuable when there is a street between us and the camera zoom is the only thing that brings us closer ( I still want to pet them thought, but Peter says they have rabies and Peter knows!).
Food, remember all those lovely plates of fresh seafood, vegetables and rice you see on all the advertisements, well me too! And I can tell you those pictures were NOT taken at any night market that we have been to so far in Asia. After almost two months we can more or less tell whether the dish is a soup or not. You can usually chose between chicken, beef, prawn, squid (some varieties appear due to the language transcription ;) and then comes the brief excitement before the waiter comes "What will I get this time!" Peter is leading in this discipline with the fish intestines specialty he ate in Nakon Si, although we suspect these elements secretly sneak into most other dishes. In other instances, if there are no fancy Polaroid pictures in the menu you get to chose between foods of different consistency with the main difference between them the colour of the washing basin they are kept in. And it is confirmed we did see some blue/purple rice meals!
Its usually hot and the locals seem genuinely not interested in showing you the right way, and the stupid Lonely Planet, alias Lonely Lairs you can forget about. Thank God Peter has his GPS with him, we always know where we are and how far we need to go, also pretty frustrating when it tells you you need to cross three major highway rings to get on the other side...
Meeting all kinds of interesting people - You do meet a lot of people but most of them you ask where they come from and where are they going, how much they paid for the bus and where are they staying (of course how much are they paying for that) in a bright moment you can bitch together about particular aspects of the local culture, but that's about it.
Learning about the local culture - With the local wildlife on the other hand, although most are genuinely friendly communication is limited to bargaining about the price, desperately trying to get directions, and enjoying their confusion when I tell them I come from Bulgaria :)
The relationship thing - it is clear that you spend approximately 23 hours together (the one hour is usually free toilet time for the day ;). You have to agree on basically everything from which is the next island/city/country you are going to where you shop?, very painfully for What you shop?, which temple you go to?, do you take a taxi or the local bus after walking for 20 min? (Please lets take a taxi!) do you eat Asian or Western?, which restaurant you go to?, at which table do you sit?, do you order a salad together? and in that case, which salad? I tell you when everything is new, everything has to be renegotiated, old habits really don't help here. And the worst thing, I cannot go to Jenny and Cecilia in the morning and tell them what Peter did or did not do the day before...
But although so far we did not get any revelation about the meaning of life, the universe and everything else, we actually figured out how unimportant some things are, like job and management and that there are a thousand other ways to spend the day (the concept of weekend has almost totally vanished) than sitting in front of the computer. We realised that traveling is a lot about yourself, discovering again what you want, like, dislike, since everything you see and experience is inevitably broken through the prism of your own cultural background. And it is a lot about judgments that we are somehow always too quick to pass on people, cultures, habits that seem strange to us. It provokes the senses on many levels and leaves you standing in the middle of the road looking for the zebra crossing (which usually appears in the form of a shopping mall, sweeping you back to what you know and call civilisation, although you were always ready to criticise the mall-culture at home).
The scenery IS often breath taking and the litter just reminds you how small and fragile the Earth is. The fish you get from the fishermen is what they caught today and not what came with the plane from lake Victoria. Whatever you get you are usually served extremely quickly and with a smile. The accommodation is something you just have to get used to and there are usually more expensive options around. You do meet interesting people that you would have probably never met before and have all the time you want for long conversations. Locals can be very sweet and charming, even if they don't speak English, especially a bus load of school kids! Kids are everywhere, in restaurants, in shops, on the streets, all around you fully integrated into the social life, not some weird creatures shouting "I want ice cream" but cute little dark eyed and dark skinned faces looking curiously at you or entertaining everyone around with their games, ready to take what is theirs one day very soon when they grow up. And the best thing of all is you are doing this with the person you love!
p.s. I always had a thing for Hollywood endings
Well here is the naked truth!
It is NOT always as beautiful as it seems on the pictures, the streets are almost always dirty, there is garbage laying around and open sewage canals and some beaches are often littered with everything from lonely hiking boots and flip-flops to coke cans and diapers.
On the islands its ok, even when its hot, you remember that blue water, well THAT is always blue and cool, but the cities are a killer, traffic and noise add to the melting heat and you have nowhere to hide, expect in some smelly roadside cafe.
Hostels (my pain!) usually make me wonder "Why the hell did I leave my beautiful home?!". The shabbiness is of varying degree but it usually involves badly painted walls, holes in the mosquito nets (I will have a special section on mosquitoes below), bed sheets so thin you can barely make out Kermit and Miss Piggy, if the budget allows it we get an AC room, but those machines are usually so loud that you can barely sleep (and both Peter and I are famous for sound sleeping!), if the budget does not allow it, we go to a room "only fan" and sweat the night away. Electricity on the islands is usually provided by a generator which switches off on a regular basis so it actually makes no difference AC or not... Furniture, if you have been privileged enough to get something more than a bed in your room, it would be something well worth to be called vintage, however, no designer came even closer to the factories where these things are produced. And no, none of them has a story to tell! I forgot to add the special effects for extra homy-feeling, dampness and neon lights.
The toilet/bathroom drama! I will spare you that for my own sake, I am working on a technique to erase my mind before and after going into one of them to keep me from getting on the next flight to hygiene stronghold Europe.
Mosquitoes, bugs, dogs, monkeys and other species of varying cuteness and varying annoyance. The mosquitoes lead in the annoyance section, that's because we have not yet travelled to real Malaria places, then it gets dangerous... As I mentioned the wholes in the mosquito nets which miraculously appear during night time make it itchy and sleepless. Bugs, what would life be without them, "Variety is the spice of life" my English teacher once said and I hate her for it! Geckos, everybody keeps telling me they are my friends, and they look kind of cute with their big popped-out eyes, but I tell you one thing, I don't trust those creatures. Dogs are very friendly and they usually sleep in front of your door (sometimes up to five of them) guarding us. Monkeys are our new friends in Malaysia, and that friendship is most valuable when there is a street between us and the camera zoom is the only thing that brings us closer ( I still want to pet them thought, but Peter says they have rabies and Peter knows!).
Food, remember all those lovely plates of fresh seafood, vegetables and rice you see on all the advertisements, well me too! And I can tell you those pictures were NOT taken at any night market that we have been to so far in Asia. After almost two months we can more or less tell whether the dish is a soup or not. You can usually chose between chicken, beef, prawn, squid (some varieties appear due to the language transcription ;) and then comes the brief excitement before the waiter comes "What will I get this time!" Peter is leading in this discipline with the fish intestines specialty he ate in Nakon Si, although we suspect these elements secretly sneak into most other dishes. In other instances, if there are no fancy Polaroid pictures in the menu you get to chose between foods of different consistency with the main difference between them the colour of the washing basin they are kept in. And it is confirmed we did see some blue/purple rice meals!
Its usually hot and the locals seem genuinely not interested in showing you the right way, and the stupid Lonely Planet, alias Lonely Lairs you can forget about. Thank God Peter has his GPS with him, we always know where we are and how far we need to go, also pretty frustrating when it tells you you need to cross three major highway rings to get on the other side...
Meeting all kinds of interesting people - You do meet a lot of people but most of them you ask where they come from and where are they going, how much they paid for the bus and where are they staying (of course how much are they paying for that) in a bright moment you can bitch together about particular aspects of the local culture, but that's about it.
Learning about the local culture - With the local wildlife on the other hand, although most are genuinely friendly communication is limited to bargaining about the price, desperately trying to get directions, and enjoying their confusion when I tell them I come from Bulgaria :)
The relationship thing - it is clear that you spend approximately 23 hours together (the one hour is usually free toilet time for the day ;). You have to agree on basically everything from which is the next island/city/country you are going to where you shop?, very painfully for What you shop?, which temple you go to?, do you take a taxi or the local bus after walking for 20 min? (Please lets take a taxi!) do you eat Asian or Western?, which restaurant you go to?, at which table do you sit?, do you order a salad together? and in that case, which salad? I tell you when everything is new, everything has to be renegotiated, old habits really don't help here. And the worst thing, I cannot go to Jenny and Cecilia in the morning and tell them what Peter did or did not do the day before...
But although so far we did not get any revelation about the meaning of life, the universe and everything else, we actually figured out how unimportant some things are, like job and management and that there are a thousand other ways to spend the day (the concept of weekend has almost totally vanished) than sitting in front of the computer. We realised that traveling is a lot about yourself, discovering again what you want, like, dislike, since everything you see and experience is inevitably broken through the prism of your own cultural background. And it is a lot about judgments that we are somehow always too quick to pass on people, cultures, habits that seem strange to us. It provokes the senses on many levels and leaves you standing in the middle of the road looking for the zebra crossing (which usually appears in the form of a shopping mall, sweeping you back to what you know and call civilisation, although you were always ready to criticise the mall-culture at home).
The scenery IS often breath taking and the litter just reminds you how small and fragile the Earth is. The fish you get from the fishermen is what they caught today and not what came with the plane from lake Victoria. Whatever you get you are usually served extremely quickly and with a smile. The accommodation is something you just have to get used to and there are usually more expensive options around. You do meet interesting people that you would have probably never met before and have all the time you want for long conversations. Locals can be very sweet and charming, even if they don't speak English, especially a bus load of school kids! Kids are everywhere, in restaurants, in shops, on the streets, all around you fully integrated into the social life, not some weird creatures shouting "I want ice cream" but cute little dark eyed and dark skinned faces looking curiously at you or entertaining everyone around with their games, ready to take what is theirs one day very soon when they grow up. And the best thing of all is you are doing this with the person you love!
p.s. I always had a thing for Hollywood endings
Monday, February 26, 2007
CSI Malaysia
the crime scene : Perhentian Islands
the victim...
the suspect...
the evidence...
like nothing happened :)
Fact is that there are many of these beasts dragging around the island. The biggest one I (Peter) saw was about 2,5 meters long. They are said to be harmless - and yes all encounters ended with them running away.
still it is giving you a creepy feeling in the night, knowing that 100 meters away (or less) there are animals which you would rather expect to be in Jurassic Park then on a little Island in Malaysia.
There are obviously more attractions on the little island - beautiful beaches, nice food, great snorkeling (we saw Turtles, Shark, and much more) close up.
Best thing was that we shared the experience with Sara and David who we met on the way there. Hope you have a good trip guys.
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