A pause button for progress

Balinsasayaw is the Tagalog (Filipino or Pinoy language) word for swiftlet bird’s nest soup.  El Nido (roughly: “the nest”), where we are currently staying in the Philippines, is named in honor of these valuable little products.  At one point they were the main industry and export of this beautiful part of Palawan Island.     Now we have Bangka boats giving island hopping tours, local resorts and restaurants, you know tourism.  And a half paved road from the capitol city of Puerto Princesa (eg the Airport) is the lifeline.  The local kids play takraw (like hackey-sack on steroids) and badminton under the flickering streetlights on that very road.  Meanwhile their parents crowd around a 20” TV or radio to listen to sports or watch old “shoot-em-up” commando movies.  People seem genuinely happy and life is fairly simple at this point.  The electricity and technology is useful for what it is, but only for part of the day.  As far as I am concerned, thats the way that it should be.

Too bad there is no pause button for capitalism.  We need something to freeze progress, when the good still outweighs the bad, before the rat-race takes over.  Before the greed sets in and people start acquiring things simply for the pleasure of shopping or to outdo their neighbors.  Or just to have more stuff.  Just be thankful for what you’ve got and you will be all right.  I can hear them paving the rest of the road right now and it makes me cringe.  Here come the air-conditioned, high-speed, package tour buses.  Next they’ll build the big all-inclusive resorts.  And that’s the end.

Bangkok Beauty

All the clichés of Bangkok ring true.  “Dude looks like a lady” is jamming in the chic hotel lobby as a couple of white boys looking for a good time get on the elevator with a 6’2” D-cup Bangkok Beauty.  He’s a perfect she.  The curves, the smile, the cheek bones, all perfect.  After walking the streets to the incessant calling of “Where you go?”, “Tuk-tuk ride”, “sex show”, “looking for a good time?”, these guys had decided to willfully suspend their disbelief for at least the evening, or maybe a couple of hours.

But there is certainly two sides to the Bangkok Story.  A delicious $US15 dinner for two with perfectly balanced sweet, salt, fish, bitter and chili spice. Temples and four-story teak-houses without a single nail used to build them.  Every shop filled with more shit than the last.  Some of it is the most amazing shit you’ve ever seen.  Whether its gemstones, woodworking, Buddha relics, ceramics, embrodidery, leather or art, the Thai people will have the best variety and quality (and of course a big smile on their face).

Endless night markets, food markets, malls.  Prostitutes lined up next to T-shirt vendors.  Fake Viagra right next to the banana pancake stand.  Sex toys next to knives.  One after another for miles.  Well, you get the picture.  No questions asked.  It makes Vegas look like grade school in the suburbs.  Bangkok Beauty!

Filipino Trinity of Transportation

The jeepney, the tricycle and bangka boats. You truly have some interesting forms of transportation when you visit the Philippines.  Throw in some crazy drivers and you make memories!

The jeepney on the left is a remnant of WWII.  When the Americans packed up and headed home they left a lot behind (literally and figuratively).  The Pinoy (local word for Filipino) decided to not let all of those old things, especially jeeps, go to waste.  They retrofitted them to meet their mass-transportation needs and gave them one hell of a paint job.   The "trike" on the right is a motorcycle with a cab and space for 3 or more additional passengers.  They're ubiquitous and affordable!



A sunny day at the park for Pinoy kids serves a dual purpose.  They also receive basic training to one day grow up and run a successful taxi business.  They even have a size smaller than the one in the picture, if you can imagine that.  Something like a five year old cruising up next to an infant and saying "hey meester, need a lift, good price for you!"

The Phillipines is an island nation.  Almost 7000 of them, to be exact.  So you need boats and lots of them.  Rubber rafts and outboard motors are expensive.  A simple canoe with bamboo outriggers can be built with local resources.  An old lawn-mower engine, no matter how loud it may be, can be easily found around town.  And the bangka boat is born!  Wow, what beautiful places they have taken us so far.

Days in Each Country or Region

We have been booking a lot of flights and rooms while at the Chiang Rai Le Meridien (four free nights thanks to churning credit cards and saving points).  Made a breakdown of time we plan for each country.

TOTAL: 245 (NOVEMBER 2011 - JULY 2012)

NEW ZEALAND: 10
SAMOA: 20

ASIA: 85
VIETNAM: 18
LAO: 16
THAILAND: 14
PHILIPPINES: 15
MALAYSIA: 15
INDONESIA: 7

KENYA: 15

EUROPE: 78
TURKEY: 18
SPAIN: 14
MOROCCO: 20
SCANDINAV: 10
EASTERN EUROPE: 16

ARGENTINA: 30

Royal Flora International Horticultural Exosition - Mara posting

If you are in Chiang Mai between now and March 14, 2012 and have any interest in plants or Thai culture, make sure you give yourself a day to spend at the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek expose. It is absolutely incredible, and while it is widely advertised once you know it exists, as a tourist, you may not hear anything about it.

This flower show is located 15 minutes from the center of town. A lot of the red share cabs will take you there for 25 baht (we got one from Kad Suan Kaew shopping center). It is 200 baht per person for an entrance fee, and it is well worth it!! We spent the entire day wandering through the exhibits and saw literally millions of orchids. I don't know if there is a larger orchid show in the world, but I would be surprised if one exceeds this. Trees, walls, and roofs are dripping with orchids every size, shape, and color imaginable.  There are numerous other gardens, including a bonsai garden with at least 50 pruned trees.

 If you stay past sunset, there is an excellent display of fireworks, a 5D show about the state of the earth (which looked a lot like 3D to me), floats, and an illumination garden that rivals Vegas.  I was shocked that there were so few tourists. There is enough written in English so you know how to get to the entrance, exit, food, and toilets, but a lot of the plants and exhibits are only written in Thai.  It is like a state fair if your state is a prosperous monarchy and is the top orchid producer in the world. And of course there is a place in the center of the park to get a massage or foot rub, too!

The Road Less Travelled - Mara posting

Two paths diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled. I didn't realize that the road less travelled is actually an express lane on the freeway, only a bit bumpier and with less signs. There are fewer people compared to the main highway, but there are still a lot of people driving fast. In other words, there is a well beaten tourist trail everywhere you go.  You can travel the entire world and never leave the bar scene, cafes, sandwich and pizza shops of the western world. You can get on a bus with all white people, get off in the city center and stay with even more of them, conversing in English. 

It can be disheartening to go to the far flung reaches of the globe to places with exotic, enchanting names, only to find that a group of young backpackers just trashed it with plastic bags and beer bottles.  I personally don’t like blazing a trail, and I don’t think that I’m going to discover anything new over the course of our travels. I enjoy all of the amenities the beaten trail brings (good food, massage, hot water, and an occasional espresso), but I also like to explore. 

I’m learning that people don’t stray far from the express lane. All you need to do is duck in an alley or small street, or walk three blocks from the main tourist strip, and suddenly the foreign population drops.  There are few hidden places left in the world, but there are a lot of hidden corners.  We recently took a break from the express lane and wandered in the woods by going to a remote, new elephant sanctuary for our obligatory encounter with the pachyderms, which Greg wrote about.  I’m looking forward to wandering again!

The Route - Mara posting

I sat next to a chicken on the four hour bus ride from Luang Prabang to Sayabouri. In truth, I didn’t sit next to it; it was placed in a box at my feet, and it might have been a rooster.  It quietly clucked and warbled under the banging and rattling of bus windows and rooftop cargo.  I tried not to step on him and add to its stress.

We were the only foreigners on the bus. When we got on, all of the seats were taken, and a line of stools ran up the aisle (also full). As I cursed under my breath, the ticket inspector worked his magic, and half the bus got off. We squeezed into the last two open seats (next to the chicken) as our luggage was strapped to the roof.  The ride was beautiful – through the mountains on a dirt road; sunny, but not hot. I watched a few items fall off the roof and hoped that my bag wasn’t one of them. 

A dusty four hours later, the chicken and I said goodbye to the metal seats, and Greg and I took a tuk tuk to a boat, which led us to the elephant conservation center and one of the best experiences we have had so far.

Our departure was even more exciting (but sans chickens).  We took the overnight bus from Sayabouri to Vientiane.  There is only a local bus available.  Three hours into it, I found myself debating which I preferred: the bus ride or the night that I had appendicitis. I tried to stay positive, and here is how my thoughts went:

The bad: my seat was on the wheel well, so I couldn’t put my feet on the ground and had to contort my body to fit my knees in the seat.

The good: Unlike everyone around me, I did not have children (yes, plural) on my lap. And unlike the 40 people sitting on miniature plastic stools in the aisle, I had a back to my seat.

The bad: It was the windiest road that I’ve been on (puts Idaho logging roads to shame), and we stopped for a dinner of fish soup right before the curves started. Soon after, about half of the people started to vomit.

The good: I didn’t. And the bus company was prepared, as there were plastic bags available. Just a few full ones were stepped on.  I also had a window seat so I could get some fresh air. I am proud that I did not live out the scene in animal house.

The bad: There was no toilet.

The good: There were 4 stops, and I did not have traveler’s diarrhea.

The bad: I realized that everyone around me had dust masks (they help with the plumes of dust and double as a mask for the smell of vomit). I kicked myself. Right before leaving on our trip, my mom gave me two NIOSH dust masks, saying that maybe I would need them at some point. At the last minute, I left them at home, since I didn’t have enough room. So, there is no positive point to this one.

The bad: The ride took 18 hours instead of 15.

The good: It didn’t take longer; we didn’t break down, have a flat tire, drive off the mountain, hit an oncoming truck, etc.

The bad: This was an uncomfortable bus – not the VIP bus. I don’t speak Lao and no one spoke English.

The good: We were able to see a part of Laos that isn’t on the typical tourist trail.  In a few years, the new bridge will be completed, the road will be paved, and the area will be a new express lane.

Laotian Bus Ride

6 AM Tuk-Tuk, a motorcycle converted to a taxi, to the bus station in Luang Prabang for the 9 am bus.  Buy a ticket, use the squat toilet for 2000 kip, and battle your way onto the bus.  No open seats.  Not even close.  Try to determine where exactly seats 37 and 38 are at, if they exist at all.  It hits me at about seat 16 that there is no way there is 38 seats on this old bus.  Looks like we will be riding on the roof rack with the luggage and a couple of motorcycles for good measure.  Most Americans complain about economy class and stare into business class with envy.  We’ll be staring down from “subsistence farmer peasant class” to the people sitting in economy. Oh wait! The attendant has just bounced some riff-raff with no tickets at the very back of the bus.  Just behind the stack of chicken coops, seats 37 and 38!  A rooster crows as we take our seats, whew!  “Kop Jai Lai Lai”.  Thank you very much.  The bus departs after another round of loading and unloading the roof rack and the some 40 odd seats.  5 minutes later stop at the gas station for half an hour.  And off we go again.  I fire up my portable music player (thanks technology) to listen to a book on tape.  “City of Light” by David Benioff read by Ron Perlman (think the boss on “Sons of Anarchy”).  Thanks to Jesse Warwick!  The graphic descriptions of the Siege of Leningrad during WWII will help me get through the ride without feeling too bad for myself.  And then the logging trucks and dust begins!  Laos has a lot of trees (especially valuable teak and rosewood) and Asia wants them.  Looks like Asia wants a lot of them.  I thank the environmental groups that shut down logging in the US as I pull my shirt over my face.  I’m glad that I was raised in Idaho, with lots of logging trucks and dust and winding roads.  Otherwise I would be like the rest of the bus by now,  puking and crying.  But I hold up pretty well, at least until we hit the unfinished bridge and see the ferry sitting on the banks of the fast moving Mekong River.  As the soviet era ferry shakes and smokes to heave us across the last stretch, I think to myself “hopefully we’ll float down the next section of the Mekong".   Oh, and bye the way, the Elephant Conservation Center was worth the trip!

Elephant Conservation Center

I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but after last week I am fascinated with elephants.  Sebastian, Salika, Buon Phon and the mahouts at the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury, Laos were great.  For those of you not familiar with the term, a mahout is an elephant “handler” or “owner” or “caretaker” depending on whom you ask.  We had the opportunity to spend a couple of days with the mahouts and experience their daily life here in Lane Xang or “Valley of the Elephants” – the old name for the current Lao P.D.R. We liked the idea of going to the elephants in nature, rather than bringing them to the city as some sort of tourist money-maker and that decision sure paid off.  I felt good paying the tab at the end of the visit.

First some background on the center.  The Asian Elephant is currently threatened as the population in most of SE Asia continues to shrink.  This center and others like it are trying to change this trend by encouraging the birth of more baby elephants.  The Sayaboury Center currently has 6 adult females (one of them is 60 years old!) and 3 baby elephants, which is a real success story especially when you consider that the gestation period for an elephant is 2 years.  These are “working elephants” that are taking a break to have a baby. In Lao that means they were used in the logging industry as a sort of living, self-loading skidder and truck.  But what if you logging truck got pregnant and you couldn’t use it for two years?  How would you feed your family?  You just wouldn’t let that happen, and that was a big part of the problem here.  This is where www.Elefantasia.org steps in and compensates the mahout for the lost time of their elephant; not only with a tractor to replace it for the time the elephant is at the center, but also an opportunity to work at the center during the pregnancy.  This is a good idea that seems to work.

Each morning we had a tasty “petit dejeuner” and were off to collect the elephants that sleep in a different part of the 100 hectare reserve each night.  They require around 250 kilos of my-bong and my-pai (bamboo), as well as other forest vegetation, and have to be moved often to maintain the habitat.   The hike out in the morning was enhanced by the mahout’s lessons on finding food and surviving in the Lao mountains which they really seem to pride themselves on knowing.  After getting a chance to ride the elephants back to the lake, its bath time!  Amazing to see how much they enjoy themselves as they spray water to cool off and begin to consume some of the 50 or so liters of water that they require daily.  Then some time is spent training with the elephants, learning traditional commands and caretaking.  We also had great discussions on the history of the elephant and their role in a diversity of subjects.  The rest of the day you had the opportunity to help out at the veterinary clinic, learn how to cook tasty Lao food or just enjoy yourself around the place.

 We really enjoyed ourselves and hope to visit again!

Sky Lanterns - The firework alternative

Looking for a better way than boring, noisy old fireworks to celebrate new years?  Take a thick paper balloon and light a small, slow burning coil inside of it.  Think about all of the things from the previous year that you want to let go of, release the balloon (along with the things from last year…) and watch them float away.  Find a couple hundred friends interested in doing the same and you have something of real beauty!  They are known as “Sky Lanterns” in English and widely available.  Happy New Year!