Heaven

Well, it wasnt easy,
But we got here. The Islands.
The final destination of all south east asia backpackers.

What should we say?
Yes, it is heaven.
Yes, it does look like on the photos. But much better.
Yes, we drink a lot of cocktails and fruit shakes.
Yes we are on a seafood (Crabs and shrimps) diet.

There are a lot of tourists (aprox 50% Israelis that make a lot of noice)
It is only twice cheaper than Israel.
We try to upload photos. We cannot upload them all.
We do miss you. still. really.
Dont exspect us to waste much time on the internet.
See you all in a week.

Bye from heaven.

Luang Prabang - Vang Vieng

As you may already understood from our silence, we've been neglecting the blog for some time. actually we write things down in a diary. We just dont have any time, back in the civilized area there are too much things to do in the evenings..
Anyway, we are perfectly fine. For the last week we had purely "white man tourism" experience - private drivers, organized kayaks, western food restaurants, colonial style fancy rooms, many fruit shakes and a lot of beer.
We gone from Luang prabang to Viang Vieng, and tomorrow morning we continue to the capital city of Laos - Viantiene. It supposed to be quite boring, so on the same night we contimue to Bangkok.
I'll try to upload some photos.

Luang Prabang looks and feels like a colonial town, with plenty of french architecture, good western restaurants with view on the Mekhong river. We stayed there for some 5 nights - way more then we planed. We've seen some extremely beautiful waterfalls, watched the sunset from a wat (temple) on a mountain, gone to boring caves with many budhas. One day we actually splited - me and misha gone to a hike, while Olga decided she has enaugh leeches experience and stayed hanging in town. One day we've been to a local boat racing, wich is actually a rural festival.

But the most beautiful of all, and the main reason we stayed for so long is for the budhist new year celebration. All the temples were preparing paper decorations, in the nights they where filled with paper lights. Each temple made a boat from bamboo and paper. Each village made a boat too. The top of the celebration was in the night when the procession of village boats with dancing and fireworks reached the Mekhong, where the boats were put in the water. Everyone - locals and tourists - lighted a candle on a small banana leaf boats and sent it by the Mekhong. Imagine the river filled with thousands of candles and big lighting dragon shaped boats.. We where really lucky to get to see this.

Vang vieng is a village of tourists. Tourist Heaven. Capital of shanti. You just go up the river by tuk tuk ("taxi"), and go down by tube or kayak, stopping on the way to see a cave, to jump to the river from some omega or simply to drink some beer.


Well, I better start going, so
Miss you all,
[as much as possible in our situation ;) ]
See you soon!

Phongsali Loop

Well, we are back to the civilization again!
We were in the less touristed province of Laos - Phongsali.
Days without water in the taps, electricity from 6 to 10 pm , no internet [what? toilet?] , no cellular, NO TOURISTS.
We did not do quite as much as we exspected, trekking in the jungle are much less fun than it sounds, but yet we head a great time.
Beautiful clouds at the mountains beneath us [foksi = fog sea], a river ride in a "slow boat" - simply amazing, local green rice whiskey [Phongsali Shampaign], cheerfull farmers, gorgious kids.
There is too much to tell about in half a hour.. We write some sort of a journal, so this part we will tell over a beer back home. I'll try to upload some photos now.
Anyway, we are in Luang Parabang now, the tourist center of laos. Sudenly the roads are ok, there is many transportation, everyone speaks english, the toilet has niagara.. From here is pretty much simple wayto the thailand islands.
We are glad to see civilization again, sad a bit that the really wild adventure is over, but expecting to great times.
Miss you all (really, very much!)

Luang Nam Tha - 3 days trek

Hey, we have been for 3 days in a great trek in the vilages near Luang Nam Tha - a reservation of tribes and a national park. We where in a group of 8 Israelians - 2 young married couples, us, and one more guy, we had really a great time.
The trek was organized by UNESCO reservation project "ecoTourism", so our money supossed to be going for a good cause of preserving and supporting the villages.
Our guide took us from village to village (aprox 6 hours of walking each day). we had a staff actually : the guide named Keo, a cook - "Miss sticky rice" and a local boy to show the way.
We where staying for the night in the villages. Each day the cook made us three meals : sticky rice (as you may understand, it is just a badly maden rice which is extra sticky) with some two non spicy salads.

Gan Leumi Hof haSharon.

Hello!
  I decided to make a cut-in into the thailandian story, to post one piece of my own. It included Yael and me going to Gan Leumi Hof haSharon on Saturday.
  We began from trying to find some place to do some walking and enjoying the view at in the central area, when we have no maps. After some browsing of the web, we found it and after a general googling on the subject, we decided that it is a fit place to try.
  As the sites say, we went on road N. 2, till shfaim interchange. Took there the road to the Shfaim commercial center, went by tsomet sfarim, and took the gravel road that continued from there, and turned south, the problem was when the car couldn't pass through the sand at one part of the road, and it seemed problematic, so we decided to go to the parking place that was on the way that people who went to the beach parked at, and walk to the entrance, when we parked there, we found out that there are some people that are trying to get out of the park, at the place we want to enter, and a nice person showed us a place where there's no fence, and so we entered there. As it appeared a much better choice than going to the entrance would be.
  After entering and taking a couple of steps we saw a black-route stone, which marked the beginning of our journey inside the garden. It's a nice place with a lot vegetation and trails of fauna, though I have seen none except some birds there, and most of them ravens. There are several routes inside, one that goes along the ridge which trails the coast, one on the other side of the garden, one between them, and a couple of horizontal ones(the prior 3 are north-south routes). As we entered, though, we had no clue of this, and took a random trail, and not long after that, we were on the coastal route. It was very pretty, but unfortunately at that moment we realized that we forgot to take a cam with us, thus there are no pictures. After a short lunch brake(or not so short ;) ) we met some people who entered through the real entrance and they gave us a brochure of the place (I will scan and post it later with a description of our journey in more details), which included a map. After we've seen what's going on, made a small plan of the continuation(I was taught a new word recently, so I'll use it) - an itinerary for the rest of the stay there.
  All the garden is quite versatile in its plant life, and ground structure. The part closer to the sea is a gravel ridge, after which red loam begins to be incorporated, and the plants nearer to the sea are much shorter, with several kinds of flowers and the farther from the sea, the higher the plant, and closer to the eastern edge of the park trees appear. The problem with it, is it's quite small, it's about 2 km long, and 1 wide(I think I'm exaggerating about the width) so all the trip around it is about 4-5 kilometers. Overall it was very nice, but not long.
So, after going about the garden we stepped to the beach below, where we found several crabs, and fish, different kinds of sea birds, one of which we've seen hunt, and some uncommon kinds of shells. Another thing on the local beach is the dislike the locals have for clothes. Consider it as an advantage or disadvantage based on your opinion. But, it's quite a clean beach and with wildlife on it, a thing you don't see much in the shores of tel-aviv.
  You have the knowledge now, use it wisely.

Laos - Luang Nam Tha

Well,

After the last post we have traveled from Thailand - Chiang Rai to Laos, spent one day on the border crossing - Huai Xai, and continued to Luang nam tha.

The pictures from the boat are border crossing at the Mekhong river. Behind Misha and Olya is Thailand, and behind Sergei is already Laos.

Although all we did in Laos for now is mostly waiting and riding a truck, we enjoy this country very much. The people are very nice. little children wave hands to tourists all around (we feel like presidents waving back all the time). The prices are much as they are in Thailand, but you have much more a relaxed atmosphere - almoust noone tries to agressively sell you sometghing just because you are a tourist. Oh, possibly because Laos was a french colony, we enjoy the food here much more : fresh baggets, river fish, spagetti, coockies with meat - all is much more "european" , clean and tasty.

We had a great massage in Lao Red Cross - our mopney gone to a good purpose :) The only beer here is BeerLao, it's not good, but it will do it.



The way to Luang Nam Tha took some 9 hours in a truck ( there was no bus this day) - 9 people in a back of toyota minitruck (no, there was no place for the legs). I'm glad we didnt take a Jeep tour in Thailand - we had much more of a "jeep" experience today.. The "mainroad" is the worst road I've ever seen. But it was quite fun actually. the views are amazing, and we enjoyed the jeep much more than we would in a bus.

To imagine the way we where sitting, here is an example (in the bottom of the picture there are Misha's smile)

Tomorrow we will do a two day trek in the vilages. Our first fully guided treck - 40$ each. with jeep and food and everything. [Yes that means we won't be available for some 3 days].

love and miss you all,
:)

Chiang May day 2 - Doi Suthep

We didnt like it in Ben there was only one window, the fan was noisy and we where some 5 minutes walk from the center, so we wanted to move to another guesthouse.
We woke up early, arranged the bags for a day trip, paid for the room, left a big bag for keeping at Ben (it's OK to do that in guesthouses), took our dirty clothes to a laundry and where on our way to the Doi Suthep national park.
But first things first - we went to see the travel agent (we only had her office telephone, not a mobile). So she wasnt there at 8. or at 9. actually she came to work only in 10. Meanwhile, we where spending time in the local market. Now we got really amazed about the atmosphere, the variety of goods, the prices. It is the most quiet market in the world. Imagine to yourself a normal Israeli market, but without the shouts, Nobody was attacking us to sell something, everyone where very nice. I even ordered a pair of spare glasses in an optic shop. We had a great european breakfast (the exotic Thai food is really getting on our nerve..)

When we finally got to the travel agent, she told us she managed to do us visas without the photos - she copied the ones in our passports, so finally we gone to the national park. We gone there by a taxi called Sang-theo. First we saw a beautiful wat with a great view of chiang May, and then we gone to he national park itself, where we were told that the park is closed, and we cannot go anywhere. Now the national park is a huge thing, so we didnt intend to start a many days trek, but only to spend some hours in the beautifull nature (finally!). We did our first (for me and Olga) hike in Thailand, for about 2 or three hours in the forest, and it was really beautiful, although (and maybe because of) it was raining like hell and we where in the funny rain coats in the jungle.
After that we came back to the wat, tried to get a taxi out for a hour or so (the bastards are much more willing to take you out of town rather than back in). In the next day we wanted to go to a more distant national park, so we gone directly to the laundry before it closes, and from there - to a bus station, the buses where supposed to leave from.

Chiang Rai

So here we are in the bus to Chiang Rai. The bus is first class. they serve drinks and waffels and there's an inside movie (we watched Van-Dam's "Mazor" in Thai). We were hopingto catch at least a few hours sleep after a long night but appearantly thai people didn't hear of "bolmei zaazuim" we left the bus with such nausia we felt sick for most of the day.
we found a nice little guesthouse for 200 Baht for the night (about 20 nis for 3 people) and went to do trekks in the villages. the plan was to go from village to village by foot (about 4 villages, each about 2-4 km from each other). We cought a songtheow to the first village - ban ruammit. As we arrived there we were attacked by merchants who tried to sell us souveneers, we politely refused and started to look for a place to sleep.
we started to ask around and the first house offered smelled like elephant dung and worse. we asked to look at another place and were led to a bamboo house - quite authentic if you think of the holes in the roof as a good thing.
Misha naively asked if there's a shower in the place. The nice lady kindely took a hose from the ground, stuck it in a hole in the wall and explained that this shower is "Karen village original".
After showering (olya refused to touch the water) we all went to eat at a local restaurant. The food was quite good (rice, what else?) and cheep. we sat on the poarch and talked till the little hours of the night (about 22:00) and fell asleep.
We planned on waking up quite late but as we found out in 4am the relative of the dinner we ate last night likes to call at the sun non stop, so "kookarekoo" is all we heard in the next couple of hours as we pondered of our next meal and revenge.
We started the day with some refreshing coffee (not as good as in doi inthanon but we're not choosy).
and again, breakfasted in the local restaurant and headed for the way to the next village (Yafoo - a Lahu
tribe village) . We were told to follow the elephant tours road that lead to the next village and so we did.
after about an hour of walking in the beautiful jungle we ended up on a muddy road where Olya sank in about knee high. we got sick of that road and decded to try another trail that went about the same direction.
After walking in that trail for about an hour we started to worry that we don't see any signs of vllages yet.
We decided to go up the next hill and see if there are any signs of life from the top.
As we reached the top we some a few bungaloes in the distance in the middle of the rice fields, we decided to continue some more, after all, if there are fields there are people.
Exhausted and with little water we were this close to turning back and maximum head back to the first village. Misha went to explore what is in the next kilometer as me and serii stayed to rest in a bungalo for 15 mins.
As soon as we put our heads down, I heared a distant sound of a bell ringing.
Serj went to explore and it turned out we were about 15 mins walk from the village. Tired and hungry we climbed the last mountain and found ourself in the yafoo village. what a dump.
the place is ~150 people living in about 1km^2 pigs and chicken are running all around and people actually tried to sell us a bottle of water for 20 Baht when it costs 5Baht in "seven-eleven"!

Chiang Mai - day 4: after the flood