So much to tell, so little time/energy/concentration.
Before leaving Chiang Mai last week, went to an elephant conservation/rehabilitation camp about 1 hour outside of the city and met up with a dude that I went to High School with. Josh Plotnick is three months into his research on the higher cognitive abilities of elephant and their capabilities to recognize themselves in a mirror (self - awareness). He's getting his PHD in some sort of psychology. Who knew? Another of my good friends from high school is up for an Oscar on the 25th for his short Doc "Salim Baba". Congrats Francisco.
The bus out of Chiang Mai to the border town of Chiang Khong was a gruelling 7 hour trip. One side of the bus had three seats and the other two. It's not that the busses her are bigger, it's that Thai people have smaller asses. I'm a small person and was very uncomfortable (being shoulder to shoulder with my neighbor. The road was partially paved, meaning there was pavement around all of the potholes. To ease our discomfort, the nationally run bus service felt in beneficial to blast Thai pop tunes so loud that even with my earplugs in I couldn't think. This was followed by the Zany lady-boy variety show and bizarre ninja astral plane-fantasy adventure movie-thing. Awesome.
Getting across the border/river into Laos was like passing through a lunch line in middle school. After checking through customs and passing through 3 check points (fold out tables in the middle of the street) I was able to exchange some money. I traded $200 in traveller's checks for kip; 1.8 Million Kip. That's right, I'm a fucking millionaire. I'm rich Biotch. The stack of bills they gave me was easily 2" thick, mostly in 20,000 kip denominations.
Taking a minibus up to Luang Namtha, the Laos revealed itself as truly a third world country. Every town was really more like a tribal village with stilted houses and thatched roofs. It's like travelling through "Heart of Darkness". The lonely planet guide that I've been using estimated the trip to take ~9-10 hours but since then, Laos has invested in a super-highway, connecting China to Thailand. Their definition of a super-highway is what we would classify as a back road through the mountains. Simply a 2 lane road that is actually covered in tarmac rather than clay.
I land in Luang Namtha and it's really cold; and has been since. It's probably 40F that night and I'm totally unprepared. I take a hot shower and do some pushups to warm myself up (as none of the rooms are heated). Technically Laos is a socialist country, though really just in title and corruption. The town of Luang Namtha is considered a city; the largest in the region. To me it feels like a one horse town on the edge of nowhere. The streets are empty and foggy and cold. The next day I'm off for the mountains for a three day trek that takes me through numerous Hmong Hill tribe villages. My companions are a married couple from Germany and a girl from Holland.
The first day is a steep climb (400 meters) to a summit village our guide refers to as fucky village (foggy village). Although not to fucky, it was completely consumed in cloud cover. On the way up we stop for lunch on the trail. Our guide cuts down 4 enormous banana leaves and we use them as a table cloth. We eat with our hands after cleaning them in a small waterfall and the food is delicious. Bamboo shoots, sticky rice, chicken in chilli sauce and various other local vegetables.
The village itself was surreal. You couldn't see but 15' in front of you. In every direction was the silhouette of bamboo huts and the livestock ran wild throughout the town. We adopted a mother and two pups who cozied themselves next to the fire outside of the hut we slept in. Dinner was incredible. Our tribal chef slaughtered a game cock and 45 minutes later we had dinner. I can honestly say it was one of the best meals I've ever had.
We trek for about five hours the second day and end up in a drunken tribal village about 15km where we slept the previous night. The village was in the second day of a 3-day wedding celebration and were all completely wasted on their own home brewed rice whiskey and rice wine. We were welcomed with open arms as the newest form of entertainment in the wedding procession. Some of the huts had lights that were powered off of a few hydro-powered generators functioning in the various streams around the village. That rice alcohol packs a punch and I realized that drunk talk is a universal language.
Arriving back in town late the next afternoon, I shower and try to take a quick nap before dinner but am kept up by the evening propaganda. A series of loud-speakers line the town spewing provincial "news" and announcements for the day. This goes on every morning and night for about two hours. I guess Laos hasn't shed all of it's socialist ideals.
