Back in Thailand!

19 February 2009

We left Laos on a high note. As we made our way to the border, we stopped in a village that happened to be celebrating the opening of their tourist information office. And this means everybody from the village at the local eatery, eating, drinking and singing merrily. Of course, as soon as they caught sight of us, we were offered quite potent shots of Laolao(but the host always had to have one first). Laolao is very strong whisky made of rice, tradition says you have 2 in a row, but they were nice to us and let us get away with only one. It was so amazing to join their party! They sang a traditional Lao song to us (Click here to see the video), and we sang “L’arbre est dans ses feuilles”, which they enjoyed. We had sodas, chatted for a while about family, work, school and children, and then headed toward Houay Xay, the border.

We didn’t want to stay in Houay Xay because we heard it was sort of unfriendly, and we wanted to avoid getting a hotel. In a village about 20 km from Houay Xay, we stopped to try and ask for directions to a good place to camp. I had a go at speaking Lao (with the help of a phrase book). The nice family we spoke to let us sleep in their driveway! We were happy they had a driveway to fit the wombat, most people only have a path for motorbikes to their home. I prepared dinner, Aloo Gobi, while Jonny chatted with the family. We joined them at the family table for dinner. They offered us rice, some seaweed dip and delicious sausage (there were onions in it!). We offered them a big plate of Aloo Gobi, which they ate! We met the whole family, Grandma, grandpa, mom, the 3 children and uncle (or dad, I didn’t really understand). The mother was about our age, and she was really friendly. Some neighbours dropped by to see what was going on. There was one entire family that stopped on their motorcycle to say hello. (No minivans or SUVs here! Dad drives the motorbike, mom is behind him holding the baby, and the toddler is squished between his parents, feet floating!). She was laughing and making jokes, and I just laughed along... The dad came to taste my aloo gobi and gave a thumbs up! They left after a few more jokes. After dinner, the grandmother showed me photos on her digital camera of a wedding they recently went to. Wow! The bride looked like a princess all in pink and gold! There were flowers everywhere and the groom even had an usher who held an umbrella over him the whole time! It was so nice to see! It’s hard to explain how small villages are in many parts of south east Asia. People live in small houses made of bamboo, grass or twigs, but they often have satellite tv, cell phones and digital cameras! It is nice to see that certain luxuries are made available to many people in the world, that’s what I think.

The next morning, we said “khorp jhai lai lai”, bowed respectfully and headed to the Thai border! We had absolutely no worries in Houay Xai. We found the port and stamped out the car only to realize we had to go back to town to stamp out our passports! We drove passed the place, so I walked back. The immigration counter was a zoo! Tons of stressed out people trying to get their Lao visas! I looked to be the only one who wanted to check out, so I went to the diplomatic counter, and it was a breeze. We had been told the boat was at 11 o’clock but once back at the port, we paid 30USD (we paid in baht, because we didn’t have enough kip left!) and were off! It turns out to be cheaper to cross to Thailand with a car! Passenger tickets are 20 USD per person, but we took a different ferry so we saved money! Yay! The boat left about 2 minutes after we drove on and arrived in Thailand 10 minutes later. In Thailand, it was a breeze. We got our passport stamped, went to the customs head office to import the car, and we were ready to enjoy ourselves!

We decided to take smaller routes around and bypass Chang Rai. We took “scenic routes” but still got to see the “Golden Triangle” where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. We drove around and camped at a waterfall near Mae Salong. Using my phrase book as a guide, I hand wrote words in Thai: “Can we camp here? Car, bed, park (verb), night, tomorrow, go”. The characters were too small in the phrase book, so I copied them bigger. It seemed to work because people understood! My Thai penmanship is not so bad afterall! We had a wonderful evening and explored the waterfall the next morning. Gorgeous flowers, banana trees and butterflies everyhwere!

Then, we kept driving and took the scenic route to Chang Mai. We camped on a little path next to the highway. It was beautiful, safe and quiet. This morning before we left, though, we realized we were in a giant natural flower garden...and there were bees everywhere! Ah! We quickly packed up and drove to Chang Mai. We’re taking it easy in Chang Mai today. The town is really really touristic (full of guest houses, internet cafes, motorbike rentals and trekking booking places). Tomorrow, we are going to visit Pai, a small village recommended by our friend Jenna.

There is a tribe of people living near the Myanmar border in Thailand. They are here as refugees and so cannot own any land. Their main source of income is tourism, and they are quite popular. The women of the tribe are famously known as the “Long neck” or “Giraffe” women, who wear hoops around their neck from a young age and as a result gradually get a longer and longer neck. Tourists pay money to go see these women, and take photos. We wonder how much of the money actually goes to the tribe though... We have read that this village has become a sort of “human zoo”, that people organizing tours from Chang Mai make a large profit off the women, and that the tribe gets very little money. We were intrigued at first, but have decided not to go. We shouldn’t support tourism that exploits people in such a way...

We plan to visit around the North for a few more days and then head south! We are planning to ship the car from Port Klang on the 5th of March, and we have booked our flights to Chennai (fka Madras) for the 8th! Woohoo!

We are happy and enjoying ourselves very much!

MC (and napping Jonny)