Catching up

• Psbrouwer's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Sakon Nakhon

Trip Start Oct 18, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Sakon Nakhon, Thailand
Thursday, April 12, 2012

Since we last left our story we took a windy bus ride to the city in the mountains, Pai.  Its a relatively interesting town with plenty of expats and a serious tourist scene.  Its also home to some organic farms and alternative/sustainable lifestyle type including a couple of friends from the recent EBB workshop.  Unfortuneately they were away at the time so we were left staring into the smoky hillsides of Pai wondering what to do.  Fear not another earthbagger was within range, the one they call Gabriel (pronounce Gabrielle please).  He was working at an organic property/farm where I pitched in a few days and took a bamboo skills workshop.  Lots of fun with fellow workers swimming, hotmudding it, sharing food, and learning about permaculture.                              Leaving Pai was even more hair-raising than getting there.  The journey was in an aircon minivan; with this type of travel comes compulsary psycho driver made even worse by the ever winding and hilly roads.  The route between Pai and Chiang Rai has something like over 700 curves.  To validify the fact that our driver was ?confident?.. he would pass going up a hill on a corner, honk and nearly run over motorcycles and tailgate buses and other large vehicles as though seperated by some magic magnet.  Two youngBritish guys pleaded for him to slow down and the lone Thai passenger cchucked her guts  no fewer than four times falling only one gut wrenching puke short of 1 puke per hour on the 5 hour trip.  
Chiang Rai shortlist:  Sex tourism, white temple, lovely clock tower and fountain, and local hilltribe coffee.

 From Chiang Rai we headed to Chiang Kong where we boated across the border into Laos before taking a two-day boat ride to the UNESCO world heritage city of Luang Prabong.  Our night over was spent in a riverside town where we dogded offers of opium but were unable to avoid a man hyped up on the stuff...
 
 Luang Prabong was a gorgeous city situated on the crotch of two rivers.  Previously under french rule the city retains some colonial arcitecture and food for the steady stream of tourists.  We spent a day cycling around the area and stumbled upon a new babycelebration which is quite an ordeal in Laos, notwithout their LAOD music!  Further south we traveled on the countries main highway which is windy and in disrepair to Vang Vienne.  This town is known for drunken tube rides down the river, but also boasts stunning scenery.  We opted to cycle through the country side.  Brilliant!  We did get slightly off track and rounded up ourtour with 5km on the highway.  Our recent cycle trips were an attempt to wake up those muscles we will use on our cross Canada cycle trip from Ingersoll to Surrey. 

 

Share

Previous Entry Next Entry