Stop 17: With so much fun in the l-p-b, Its kinda hard bein’ Snoop d-o-double-g -- Luang Phra Bang, Laos

The night we arrived in Luang Phra Bang it was dark, calm and quiet. We checked into Chittana, which we now lovingly refer to as “Shitana” (thanks ben!!). When we woke the next morning we were so pleasantly surprised to find that the streets lined with bouginvailia, old French colonial homes, and cars straight out of the 1940s. We weren’t in Kansas anymore. Paper lanterns hung between palm trees as the night market brought this quaint city alive. Most of the light was candle and the romance of it all was undeniable. We had no doubt that this was one of our best stops so far.

Needing a Vietnamese visa we spent 4 days lounging in the cafés of LPB, sipping wine and coffee, and finishing Cam’s grad school apps. By the end of our final day, our visas had been approved and we reluctantly left this slice of old time paradise for our next stop on the Laotian circuit.

Stop 16: King Khong can't cross the Mekong -- Chiang Khong/Huay Xai

The following day we boarded a local bus to return to our favorite border town, Huay Suck my Xai. We spent the better part of one hour searching for a non-existent Indian restaurant and eventually gave up, ultimately settling on an overpriced, touristy, riverside karaoke hall.  The next morning we headed to the dock and boarded a massive slow boat that would haul us down the Mekong river for the next 2 days. As we were one of the last to arrive, we were stuck next to the toilet, on the floor for the seven hours to come.  Like a baby on a washing machine, Jen slept under the dripping bathroom sink and Cam read 90 books. Eventually we arrived in Pak Beng where we would spend the night eating Indian food, watching Prison Break, and preparing for another 7 hours on a boat. Determined not to mingle with obnoxious Canadians and the smells of night soil we made our way to the boat a couple of hours early, grabbed some luxurious seats (relatively speaking) and reveled in our catch. When our northern neighbor nemeses nestled into their wooden plank benches, we smiled at one another, looked out over the picturesque river and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy the second leg of our journey to Luang Phra Bang.

Stop 15: Legs Num and Rha -- Luang Nom Tha, Laos

Chiang Mai would be the last stop on our six week Thailand itinerary. We made our way to the Thai/Laos border, which was nothing more than two tiny towns on either side of the muddy Mekong. We took a small boat from Chiang Khong to Huay Xai and were officially in Laos.

This border town of Huay Xai, aside from being hell on earth, was a mere stopover on our way to Luang Nom Tha, the trekking capital of the country. We were on the market for a two day-one night trek, but could only find a seventeen year death excursion (ok, 3 days and 2 nights).

Day 1:

We met the group early: a raunchy Australian goofballs (that’s what she said), 2 swiss schnitzels, one true-blood schnitzel, a proper Brit, and 2 laotian tour guides. We tuk-tuked to a nearby hill-tribe village, picked up an additional 2 local guides and found the path of Hell that would carry us through the next 3 days. When lunchtime arrived banana leaves were unpeeled, sticky rice plopped in giant balls and we dug into a homemade Laotian feast. Our afternoon snack involved getting up close and personal with a foot long walking stick insect that crawled on the hands and head of Phon Sak, the best person alive. We quickly realized that we were lagging, the rest of the group was miles ahead and we were still dragging our feet from sheer exhaustion. It was as if we were just on auto-pilot, one foot in front of the other, keep walking, don’t stop. Cant stop. Rockafella records, we get down baby.

Miles and hours later, we arrived at our first camping destination. We spent the night learning to play the card game, “A**hole,” feasting on more home cooked Laos cuisine and falling asleep ten little trekkers in a row under mosquito nets and the sounds of the nearby stream.

Day 2:

If day 1 was a piece of cake, day 2 was a giant, seven tiered, ornately decorated $5000 wedding cake. And we had to eat it all. This involved scaling mountains, climbing up and sliding down at 45-degree angles and catching each other the 2 or 3 times we actually came peeing-in-your-pants close to falling off cliffs. There was another particularly special aspect of this day. Because we had to trudge through puddles of foot deep mud, lovely little leeches got prime opportunity to suck what was left of the living daylight out of us. They’d leech on, feed on our blood until they swelled and eventually dropped off when they were full. This would always leave a long trickle of blood trailing down our legs and feet. After the 3^rd leech attack and 17^th fall, our blood was boiling and we were IRATE.

Soon enough, we were again far, far, far behind our comrades, but this time with the added company of the greatest man we have met on this trip. Stuck holding Cam’s hand for hours on end, he led us deeper and deeper into the jungle, all the while showing us incredible displays of nature, intriguingly large insects and lemon flavored candy leaves. He brought occasional smiles to our often frustrated demeanors and made the whole experience just a tad more bearable. Again we reached our camp after an amount of time, energy and fear that cannot be conveyed in a paragraph let alone on a blog. Phon Sak decided to instruct the group in some life-saving Laos phrases which included, among others Bah and Eee Hookie, translating to Mr. and Mrs. Asshole respectively.  He had no way to predict what an incredibly powerful and influential tool this new word would become, leaving our mouths every four or five seconds.  The words Bah Hookie echoed constantly throughout the Laotian jungle. A stream near the camp and a bottle of blueberry lemon “man-soap” returned us to a half-cleaned human state and we nestled onto the porch to prepare for another long night of cards, cooking and chatter, all by candlelight.

Day 3:

When our 2 Laotian tour guides accidentally mentioned that an alternate, and much shorter, trek would take us back to our start point, the whole group laughed. It was obvious now that no encouragement, no urging from Toby and no sexual favors would ever convince us to take the longer option. WHY would we do that??! The rest of the day found us barefoot, squishing mud in between our toes, and sliding down hill after hill (Jen and Phon Sak thought the mud was a good opportunity for play, Cam thought the mud was a good opportunity for death). We eventually reached the foot of the mountain where we watched Phon Sak drink massive quantities of Beer Laos and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. They had hiked 4 or 5 more miles than we had, carried bags that were 3 times as heavy as elephants and still only arrived less than a hour after us. We were ashamed but ever so proud of our decision to take the easy way out. We are SO proud of ourselves for being quitters (no sarcasm here), because, at the end of the day, we were still alive.

By the end of Day 3 we were sure that Green Discovery’s Forest Adventure was some sick form of masochistic torture.  Now we’re sure it was an unforgettable experience that provides countless laughs and even more good memories.

Stop 14: Chiang… Mai gnarly adventures! -- Chiang Mai, Thailand

We had finally arrived in Chiang Mai—a city we had been looking forward to since the day we stepped foot in Thailand.  We had a long checklist of things to do, places to see and food to eat. It started with the most important: food. We started with the most important of food: sushi. Yes, we ate raw fish in Thailand (Hello, G-Unit). And no, we didn’t not get traveler's diarrhea. Thank Buddha. After inhaling disgusting amounts of salmon, tuna and crab, we returned to Julies Guesthouse, an alleged travelers' oasis. By the next morning we realized it was an oasis for travelers of all sorts: backpackers, schnitzles, and, yes, you guessed it, bed bugs. Again. That night found Jen and Cam sharing the twin size mattress of the bottom bunk bed sticking to each other fighting for prime fan real-estate.

The second most important thing in life after sushi is the chance to play with a handful of tiger cubs. We tuk-tuked our tushies (hah B-sun) to the tiger kingdom, a complex that fosters the mingling of humans and tigers ranging from 5 months to 12 years old. We snuggled with these beautiful beasts, rested our heads on their stomachs and watched as they playfully roared and tumbled around on the cold cement floor.

Our next adventure was called Flight of the Gibbons, an infrastructure of zip-lines that transports you from treetop to treetop in the canopy of the thick Thai jungle. Aside from being afraid of heights and scared that an oafy Israeli man would snap the line, we flew through the forest side by side. The final descent back to earth involved abseiling 40 meters, dropping a couple hundred feet in just a couple seconds all the while trusting that the tiny Thai man could hold a weight seemingly twice his size. When we touched down we looked straight up, quite impressed with the distance we had covered, the fears we had overcome and the exhilarating day we just had.

With our next endeavor it’s hard to know where to begin. By the end of the day we had both decided that we hit our peak at age 23…our day at Patara Elephant Conservatory was and will be the best of our lives.  It started with the pairing of an elephant and mahout (elephant trainer) for each of us. We learned how to check if they are happy, if they slept well, and if their dung smells right.  We fed them a basket of bananas and sugar cane in an attempt to get acquainted letting our fingers be engulfed by massive, sloppy and gooey elephant tongues. We brushed them off with giant palm leaves and learned to communicate with them using Thai commands. Pai Dee Dee! We brought them to a nearby stream, washed and scrubbed their rough, textured skin, and learned how and where to sit to ride them properly and comfortably. We spent the next couple of hours with our knees tucked behind our elephants’ ears and our hands resting lightly on the top of their fat, hairy heads. We trudged through the forest, sneaking through crevices that a human could hardly manage to squeeze into.  The experience was so surreal that we often times weren’t sure whether we were in the midst of a video game, at Disneyland, or actually in Thailand.  Jens elephant’s decision to start galloping brought us back to reality quite quickly.  Jen’s near fatal experiences on trip so far: 3 and counting. We eventually arrived at a small waterfall with a pool large enough to fit four or five elephants and a few humans.  We joined these majestic creatures as they cooled off in the water, dove under, and playfully splashed water out of their trunks. We repeatedly pinched ourselves every so often, reminding each other that yes, this was real, we were swimming in a waterfall in Thailand with elephants. After lunch we returned to the main camp where our elephants were given a break and we got to meet twin baby elephants born just a couple of months ago.  Perplexed as to how these two baby giants could have ever fit inside another animal, it was a pleasure to see just how large they were, even as children. Later in the afternoon, we rode an elephant together through endless rows of rice paddies and into a small stream with stones that massaged the bottom of the elephants’ feet.  When we arrived at our final destination, we smothered our elephants with bananas galore, received a hug from the trunk of the smallest elephant and reluctantly dragged ourselves away.  Our time at Patara was over, but we knew then that we would remember this day forever.

Knowing that Patara would be an impossible act to follow, we signed up for an activity as different and difficult as possible.  Ok, not as difficult as possible… we hoped to mountain bike a level one course but we unwillingly and unknowingly were placed on a level three.  The day was disastrous, to say the least.  We both had particularly embarrassing and bad falls off the bikes, one fall resulting in a loss of dignity (cough jen) and the other resulting in a slightly bloody chin (cough cam).  (Jen's near fatal accident: 4.) We trampled our way over rocks, streams and an entire mountain, ending dozens of miles later with a depleted water supply and a depleted morale. It was beautifully exhausting.

Our last day in Chiang Mai was reserved for temple hopping, our new favorite pastime. We visited the international Buddhist center at Doi Suthep, located at the peak of a mountain with spectacular city views, roaming monks, burning incense, and tulip offerings. Nestled in the clouds, this temple was surreal. Our next stop was an off the beaten track forest temple, complete with moss covered stone, tunnels, meditation caves, and orange monastic robes hanging to dry.  The sounds of the city were too far to hear and life was peaceful in this oasis of Buddhism.

Stop 13: Chiang, Rhy did she fall asleep? -- Chiang Rai, Thailand

Our next stop was Chiang Rai, the city with a lot of promise… and a lot of prostitutes.  Sadly it fulfilled the latter and not the former. Our most memorable experience here was in the back of a dodgy massage parlor. Scene: box room with two one inch mattresses laid side by side on the floor, a 70s style television set, 2 westerners, 2 Thai masseuses and 1 unfortunate case of narcolepsy.  Unaware of what was going on just to her right, cam drifted in and out of sleep as she received a backbreaking Thai massage.  Jen, on the other hand, was wide-awake. Her masseuse was not. The hour was spent holding back laughter as this young woman made the awkward starfish on Jen’s face during her head massage every 45 seconds.  Thank Buddha for the language barrier, which allowed Jen to laugh at whatever Cam said. The two Thai women had no idea that nothing cam said was actually funny.  Jen could release her laughter, cam got an unexplained boost of self-confidence and Mrs. Narcolepsy had zero clue that she provided some of the best entertainment of our trip.

Stop 12: Mae Sae Gee -- Mae Sai, Thailand

On account that we had twelve hours to leave the country or we would be fined in the form of our first child, we attempted to pay Burma another quick visit, hopefully a successful one this time. Like the true badasses we are, we walked from the northern most point of Thailand to the safe, harmonious and peaceful country of Burma.  After dodging some bullets (metaphorically and physically) and buying some DVDs, nbd, we stopped into a menu-less café and pointed at a bowl of noodles to indicate our choice for lunch.  Cam, the genius that she is, had a desperate craving for salt, which just happened to be place neatly on the table.  Sure that no amount of salt could improve this disaster of a dish, she poured approximately one quarter of the bottle onto the noodles and dug in. Much to her surprise, it didn’t taste salty… not even one bit.  It did, however, taste strangely similar to the stank-nasty, dirty ch-pimp (Hah, shout out to Willie) Chinese food from the famous Oint Dum Chinese Restaurant.  Lightbulb. That ain’t no salt. MSG. Cool. Dizzy. Sick. What the CUSS??! Legitimately traumatized, we thought it would be better to have our next meal in Thailand so we decided to return. We re-crossed the border, gained a 15-day extension to our visas and re-entered a country that was starting to feel more like home.

Stop 11: Pai in the Sky -- Pai, Thailand

The bus from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai was a special little piece of shit on wheels. We paid for “VIP” and spent the first ten minutes of the trip debating whether to vomit or pee on the seats to even the score. We settled on shoving slices of hot tomatoes in between the seat cushions. Thailand: 1; Jen & Cam: 7.

We spent a hot minute in Chiang Mai and then were off to Pai, a hippy paradise nestled in the mountains, hanging in fog and decorated with peace signs in all shapes and sizes. Our first full day was spent at a local café as Cam attempted slash pretended to work on graduate school applications for the second time in six weeks. In the evening we scooted around town on the back of some friends’ motorbikes in search of a live Thai cover rock band. We eventually found them, drank blue mojitos and felt zenned out in this peaceful town. Later in the night we moved onto another bar where there were more police officers making a drug bust than there were people drinking. We sat around a fire and watched what we thought was a rather funny escapade… Maybe not so funny for the consumers of the mushroom milkshakes.

In search of a little adventure, we made the unbelievably intelligent decision to try white water rafting. Nervous that it would be a little too extreme for our liking, the only actual bad part of the day was the four people we were stuck with. Being stuck on a raft with two heinous Dutch people, an incredibly dull French girl and a half decent but goofy South African is enough to drive anyone crazier than they already are.  The rafting itself was exhilarating and Jen’s new husband, Soi, helped lighten the mood by pushing her off the raft into the roaring rapids. 

Stop 10: So Thai in Sukhothai –- Sukhothai, Thailand

Our promise to ourselves was quickly broken (ok, not so quickly…we spent an entire day in isolation) as we headed to the ancient old city. Covered in 13^th century ruins, this town was made for bicycling: we hopped on and pedaled our way around old wat, crumbling chedi and massive stone statues of Buddha. The experience was calming and surreal; we had stepped back in time and didn’t want to return to 2010.

Eventually, dinner beckoned and we found ourselves eating eggplant and pumpkin, two vegetables we missed very, very much. The next day was spent watching a lightning storm from the confines of a plush air conditioned bus. The sky lit up every ten seconds, revealing its purple undertones and the bolts of lighting in the distance. We arrived at our destination, Mae Sot, many hours later and were thrilled to find another Western-style restaurant next to our guesthouse. We ordered salads, burgers and pizza. The following morning, still on a food kick from the night before, we discovered a Canadian restaurant and decided to break their record for the most food two people had ever ordered. This included: bagels, rye toast, an egg sandwich, a tuna sandwich, a chocolate cheesecake milkshake, an oreo milkshake, vegetable enchiladas, garlic cheese fries and two coke zeros (zero calories, of course, as we’re trying to watch our figures).

After lunch we headed to the border of Thailand and Burma in an attempt to renew our visas. They would expire that night and the only way to extend them was to leave Thailand and re-enter, gaining another 15 days on your passport. When we arrived at the border we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the border was closed and had been for several months. And no one thought it would be a good idea to let us know? Not to mention, our visas would still expire that night.

We visited the Thai customs house next to the border, waited an exorbitant amount of time, paid an exorbitant number of baht, and received a 7-day extension. We thought if we were “extra nice,” hint, hint, nudge, nudge, they’d give us a discount. But, to no avail. Aside from this let down and the creepy border official who snuck pictures of us with his computer’s camera, we were relieved and ready to continue on. 

Teeheehee!

Stop 9: Buri-ed Deep in the Jungle -- Kanchanaburi, Thailand

The town of Kanchanaburi lies three hours northwest of Bangkok. It’s claim to fame is a bridge over the river Kwai, also the name of a movie, built during WWII by Thais and other prisoners of war. Aside from this tourist stop, the city is also the central point for exploring the surrounding jungles and waterfalls, which was the purpose for our visit.

                                                                        

We arrived in the evening, checked into the not-so-aptly named “Jolly Frog,” and watched thunderstorms roll in from all around us. Along with being starving, we were also in serious need of some comfort food. This was our first chance, as Jolly Frog had a lovely little “Western” section on their menu. In addition to the whole fish we ordered, we also got milkshakes, a burger, French fries, banana pancakes and apple pie. We filled up, called it a night, and fell asleep to episodes of House.

In the morning we jumped on the local bus and headed towards Soiyok Yai, a national park several hours northeast of Kanchanaburi. Our desired destination got lost in translation and we were dropped off at Soiyok Noi, a small waterfall an hour south of where we were meant to be going. After patiently waiting on the side of the highway for the next red local bus to swing by, we eventually made it to the national park and the floating raft hut we would be spending the night in. Joined by two ferocious schnitzels along the way, it was a battle ‘til the end to beat them to the hotel, as they threatened to steal our room, ruin our fun and our lives. Needless to say, America conquered Germany. To get them back for their naughty behavior, we stranded them at the one “restaurant” in town and made our way back with a lovely little flashlight. They were left to fend for themselves in a much scarier version of the Blaire Witch Project and we were slightly disappointed when we heard them arrive later that night. Guess you can’t win ‘em all.

That night we fell asleep at the hands of the mellow river, the soothing smells of citronella incense, and the sounds of symphony conducted by frogs and the occasional wolf. Finding any excuse not to shower, we took our baths in the river in the morning, practicing acrobatics as we jumped off the dock and tried to dodge the shady inhabitants of the mud water.

Cam getting eaten by flesh-eating piranhas 

4th Tier of Waterfall

The following day we took another bus to Erawan Waterfall, a seven-tiered heavenly oasis filled with milky blue pools at each level and massive flesh-eating carp. The water was cool, the falls formed natural water slides and we feasted our eyes on one of the most beautiful sights of our trip.

2nd Tier of the Waterfall

                         

Our next destination was Sukhothai, which entailed spending 12 hours on a local bus. Still determined not to take the air-conditioned greyhound-type buses, we suffered through sticky plastic seats, doors and windows that don’t close, and stopping every 1 or 2 minutes to let people on and off. Legroom that only accommodated midgets was the least of our worries. When we finally arrived, we found a hotel and crashed for an entire 36 hours, vowing never to leave air conditioning again.