A Proper Holiday in Laos

Welcome back boys and girls! Now to take a break from writing about heavy topics like refugees, war, etc. My goal for this blog: not to say anything depressing.

Quick note about the title of the blog: Laos was full of British tourists for some reason. They refer to 'vacation' as 'holiday.' So when British (or Australian, New Zealand, S. African, etc) people are on vacation, they all say 'on holiday.'

So here's the skinny on a beautiful little country called Laos.

Laos is the land-locked country right there on the eastern border of Thailand.

This is the country's lifeline -- The (filthy) Mekong River. (kinda like the Mississippi of SE Asia)

Laotian money -- the Kip. This is 21,000 Kip = $2.47

(not exactly the world's strongest currency... you can't ever really exchange it outside of Laos)

Laotian Som-Dtaam (papaya salad) and sticky rice.

(similar to Thai Som-Dtaam, but they use sesame in it, too)

Chicken Orlam-- kind of like a cross between curry and stew... good stuff.




Language:

Laos has their own language (Lao), but it is very similar to Thai with a few different words and conventions. They also watch Thai television and listen to Thai music, so pretty much everyone could understand my Thai.







Here's the first city I was in, Luang Prabang:

Small brick streets in the downtown part-- very quaint little city. A World Heritage site, actually. (whatever that means)

They do some kind of boat races on the river... wasn't that interested to actually go watch it, though.

My MASSIVE room in the guest house. :) No room to stand up anywhere, but the bed was comfy, it had a fan, and a shared bathroom with a hot shower, so for less than $3... not too shabby at all.

Like most of SE Asia, Laos is primarily Buddhist. There was a famous wat (temple) right behind my guesthouse. Which happened to be where they dry out their robes on bamboo poles.

Quick note about monks: From watching TV I always had the notion that monks are all old guys that sit around in mountain-top temples meditating and humming all day. This isn't quite accurate. Most of the monks you see over here (in any country) are young boys. Becoming a monk isn't like becoming a nun or priest or anything where it's a lifetime commitment. The majority of them just do it for a month or couple months when they are young boys... I think all of them are supposed to if they're a 'good Buddhist'. Some do it for the good education you can get as a monk. Even after a year and half, I still chuckle a bit when I see a young monk walking around a temple chatting on his cell phone. Just because someone's a monk doesn't mean they're a hermit or a recluse. Some of the more interesting conversations I've had with strangers have been monks I've met on a bus or something.



My favorite day-trip I took in Laos was to here:

Kouang Si Waterfall -- it was magnificent.

(and gave me a chance to play with the panoramic setting on my camera!)

This was my travel buddy for a few days: Chris, from London. I met him in the airport and we would up splittin a cab and hanging out for a few days in Luang Prabang and shared a room in then next city to save some cash-- "nice chap, that one" (with my best British accent)




We took a hike up to the top of the waterfall... in flip flops. Thankfully no ankles were broken. :)

Downstream from the huge waterfall were several little pools of clear blue water for swimming...

... and attempting backflips off the swing!

Other Luang Prabang activities: eating French food (Laos used to be a French colony, so there's good French food for cheap all around), street soccer with some local kids, bowling (that's right... bowling-the only late night place to hang out in Luang Prabang), and shopping. Nice hand-made jewelry for cheap for my ladies. ;)




After a few days it was time to move on...

This is the bus station we waited in for 3 hours after the bus was supposed to leave. Come to find out, they were just waiting on more people to come to fill up the bus... who cares about an actual schedule? So me and a few guys (Brits and an Israeli) I met there all refunded our tickets and split a mini-bus to the next city.

This little girl kept turning around and smiling at me and playing hide and seek, so I made a new friend while waiting on the bus.

The ride there was beautiful, but a bit uncomfortable for 6 hours... sleep = impossible.

Vang Vieng:

What to say about Vang Vieng...? Well... sadly it's a bit like Spring Break but less classy. The locals refer to the town as 'farang-ville'. (foreigner-ville) During the day people lounge in little restaurants on big pillows watching Friends and Family Guy. (literally... every little restaurant has TVs on just looping Friends or Family Guy.)




Then late afternoon everybody goes tubing. (or as the Brits all say 'teeewbing') I was kinda excited about this to just chill floating down a river and stopping in at the bars and stuff hanging out with the people I was travelling with, but it was so short and the river was fast, so it was more like just hanging out at the bars and having a 2 minute ride to the next one...

Some of them had these massive swings that looked like so much fun, but I couldn't go on them after hurting my shoulder a bit on the swing in Luang Prabang. :(








Mud seemed to be the theme at one place...







and TONS of tourists...

As you can imagine, after a day of all this, that scene got a bit old, so I only went once.

Then the next night I got a place out of the main area with a nice view on the river... then on to:

Vientiane:

Vientiane is the capitol of Laos right on the Thai border. There's lots of French architecture and influence here. I didn't have too much time here and didn't take many pictures... sorry. :(

Funny story about this picture, though... I rented a motorbike and it ran out of gas before I could get to a gas station. So I started walking trying to find a gas station. Then some guy was nice enough to help me, but couldn't quite understand me. So he took me to his friend's house (who spoke Thai well) and I explained to him in Thai what happened, and he then translated to Lao for the first guy. Thankfully I took this picture when I ran out of gas so I could show somebody where to take me when I finally found a place that sold gas... so he took me and bought a glass bottle of gas and back to my bike and I was on my way again. :)


Then the night before I left I went out with a girl that worked at my guesthouse, and she took me to some local places with loud, awful music... but an interesting experience nonetheless!

Then an 11-hour van ride back to Chiang Mai... yuck.

I guess that about covers it for now. Until we meet again...

Peace and love to all,

Nathan Kimmons

Chiang Mai, Thailand

25 Sept, 2009

Rough Roads and Rivers to Refugees

There are currently about 140,000 Burmese people living in ten different refugee camps in Thailand near the Thai/Myanmar border. There's another estimated 2 million Burmese living in Thailand (for a large part... illegally) integrated into the Thai economy.

So why are there Burmese refugees in Thailand in the first place?

Previously, Burma was governed mostly by a loose coalition of independent states. In the mid-1980s, the current military junta government came to power. The transition was "less than peaceful" to put it lightly. Thus, the nation of Myanmar was formed. The UN has condemned their actions with trade sanctions, etc., but that's about it. There is still an active resistance within the country of local militias (especially in the northern and eastern areas), but with the support of China, N. Korea, and Russia, the Myanmar government stays well-armed and funded to crush any resistance. When conflict breaks out, civilians often feel the brunt of the pain. Local villages are destroyed, women raped, men forced to be porters, or both sometimes used as human minesweepers.

I'm sure you get the idea.

So since the early 1990s with the help of the U.N. and various NGOs, refugee camps have been established and maintained in Thailand for about twenty years. Some refugees have been there for upwards of twenty years. Children have been born and raised there and known nothing else. Their options are limited: wait for Burma to be safe to return to, or immigrate to another country (only the lucky few are selected to do this).

So anyways... that's a little Southeastern-Asian Anthropology for ya! My foundation helps out in a small way with these camps, especially with the Church of God brethren. We visit, bring food, etc.

Here's a few shots and such from our recent trip to the Ban Mae Surin camp...

(Our plan was to visit two different camps, but due to unpassable road conditions at the first camp, we could only make one... the one we didn't go to was the one I blogged about last year.)

We were advised to not take our truck to the camp because 'we might get stuck.' (Good advice on hindsight) So we hired a a truck with the local militia to take us in. I'm firmly convinced this truck could go anywhere, so I dubbed it 'The White Goat".

The driver of the White Goat. He was quite helpful and took us to the camp for a reasonable price. Muchos gracias, amigo. (Also my student, Lanunan)

Loaded down with supplies and 3 stowaways in the back, off we go...

The pavement was short-lived...

...to say the least.

It soon became clear that sitting down was a bad idea unless you want a broken/bruised booty. So this rail and I became fast friends... for 3 hours.

In case you can't tell, the roads were a little on the wet side. It's rainy season in Thailand right now, which means it rains... a LOT. But minor streams flooding the road is no reason to not keep trekkin' on.

Please forgive the corny narration...

Then we came to this river flowing across the road.






"Surely he can't be seriously thinkin' about drivin' across THIS one..."







Oh yea... he's thinking about it.

But thankfully decided against it, so over the bamboo bridge on foot it is and walking the rest of the way.

The walk wasn't bad... about an hour or so. A little tiring and hot, but definitely doable.

Ban Mae Surin Refugee Camp. (only a couple kilos from the Burma border)

Once inside the camp, we had to cross the same river 5 times (I think) on these same type bridges to get to the right section.

This is the house of the people we came to visit. We'd never met them before, but their mother works for our foundation now. So we took in some food, clothes, etc. and tried to get as much information as possible about them. We're currently trying to get permission to take them out of the camp and come to Chiang Mai for the Feast of Tabernacles in October, so we needed names, pictures, UN #s, etc.

Lunch: spicy fermented fish and white rice. Mmmm!!! (I actually always feel kinda bad eating at the refugee camps because they cook the best of whatever they have and insist that we eat first, etc... but after the ride and hike, I was hungry!)

The little guy got into the sugar. :)







"What...?"





When we left, the kids and the father went with us back to the truck to get the rest of the supplies.

Then one of the little girls became the designated photographer with my camera for a while.

Cute, eh?

The ride back was exactly like the ride there... except backwards of course. Until we got back to the pavement and hit a sharp spot and busted a tire. Leave it to those nice smooth paved roads to screw everything up. I think these guys had changed a tire or two in their day, though. (Pit time: 9:34:23... not bad!)

Well that about covers the trip. Please pray for these people that their country can be stabilized soon where they can return safely home.

Until next time, peace and love to all...

~Nathan Kimmons

Chiang Mai, Thailand