Backpacking

After spending almost a week in Pai, I took an overnight minibus to the border Chong Khong and crossed into Laos. While I was still in Pai, my new friend, Jea, a 20-something girl who works at an internet cafe and makes jewelry for sale part-time, ethusiastically told me about something called the 'The Gibbon Experience' in the border town, Huayxai, of Laos. So instead of following the rest of the 'falang' (foreigners) to take the slow boat to Luang Prabang. I requested about availability for myself. And sure enough, they squeezed me in the following day. Even with a slight fever and sinus, I was determined to spend the unexpected expense.

The owner of this company, Jeff from France, had dedicated the past 12 years to get the government to set up a national park in the northern part of Laos, where forests are still pristine enough, compared to the overlogging in the neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, by companies in China. After 10 years of hard work, Jeff and friends had a brillant ideas of building treehouses around the forests and linking them with ziplines so people can have a bird-eye view of the forest.

An unusual morning shower postponed our departure, but they doesn't deter our drivers' desire for speed on a very bumpy and slippery road in the jeep. We arrived in a very poor village hours later and started immediately trekking across corn fields and uphill to the main station where we were greeted by two hyperenegetic monkeys and 1-year-old asian bear.

After a brief intro, our group strapped on our zipping equipment and zipped into the first treehouse. Due to my sinus, I stayed in the first treehouse while the others kept going. There I met two New Zealand women who are cycling thru Laos and an American woman taking a break from her journalist work in Nepal. We decided to zip around freely and tried our luck on spotting the black gibbons.

An hour of walking through bamboo forests did not allow us to see much of anything. In fact, gibbons jump from tree to tree quickly and extremely difficult to spot. But we did hear their loud noise. That's probably enough for us.

While we were having delicious family-styled Lao food for dinner, a civet appeared on the brance right in front of us. Although I like to quietly observe the forest that night, busy dinner conversations had overrided my plan.

Next morning, I was waken up by the sounds in the jungle, 50m above ground in a misty fog. Breakfast and fruits were served promptly. I birdwatched and spotted some amazing beautiful birds with bright-colored beak, head or tail, joyfully searching for their own breakfast.

After a brief lunch, I zipped to another treehouse to join a small film crew preparing to document 'the Gibbon Experience'. At last, a moment of silence that I had hoped for. We stayed still and quiet for hours before playing cards and dinner. Early the following morning, the crew played a recording of gibbon calling. Surely after a few minutes, the real gibbons call back. I enjoyed my two-second 'experience' of a gibbon jumping from one tree to another at least 100m away from us.

After having a lovely western breakfast with the crew, and by this I mean toast with nutella, I zipped back to the base station and hanged out with my new monkey friends before trekking back to the village for departure. Of all the time I spend watching Animal Planet at home, this experience had worth more than I had expected.

Selling beer on overnight buses is not a smart move. Nevertheless, it was done on my eight-hour overnight bus ride from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai. The obnoxious New Zealander in front of me was so drunk that the driver had contacted the police. It was literally a nightmare.

Fortunately, Chiang Mai has its own charm in certain areas. Like many Thai city, some streets with the old city are flooded with 'farang'(westerners) and young girls trying to make a living. The scene of oversized white male and petite thai girl is all too common.

I stayed with a tall Swedish woman, another victim of the torturing bus ride. I was surprised at the kind of attention we would get. Normally, by myself, I would just be mistaken as Thai, or Japanese. It doesn't take long for us to encounter our first gem scam. A local man inside a wat, claimed to have a Australian wife (with picture proof) and children, vacationing in Chiang Mai and wanted to drive us to the gem market to see monks work on handicraft without charge. The friendliness was a little too good to be true. We refused repeatedly and walked on.

We visited the Elephant Nature Park the next day, the largest rescue centre and santuary in northern Thailand, for domesticated and over-worked and abused elephants. Lek, a local Thai woman who started this project over 10 years ago, speak great English, has a passion for elephants. The sauntuary located in a valley supported about 30 elephants, including a few babies, who love bathing in the river. She also operates a jumbo express on a river boat to bring medical supplies to elephants in the surrounding villages in northern Thailand.

Our guide explained that Thai labor law treat elephants, an animal as intelligent as human, as domestic animals such as cows and pigs with virtually no holidays or maternity leave. On top of the torturing weeks of training when they are only 4 or 5 years old, a mother elephant could be forced to work for illegal logging or tourism until the day her baby is borned. There are cases where female elephants were forced to keep dragging woods after her baby was still born on the floor in the jungle. Then months old babies, who can barely walk, were forced to follow their mothers to work everyday until blazing sun. Some abusive mahouts would starve male elephants in order to prevent them to go into musk and therefore more obedient. Putting heavy chairs on an elephant back for a long period of time would actually cause deformation. Sometime I wonder if buddism is genuine in this country who claim elephants as their sacred animal?

That night, we found a little heaven ourselves, in an antique shop and guesthouse on the east of the river called Regina. My first glass of red wine.

A 3-hr local bus ride later, we arrived in a small town west of Chiang Mai called Pai. This town is known for its bohemian feel, popular for both farang and local youths, because of the abundance of hippyish bars, restaurants and gallery and proximity to surrounding mountains. I signed up with a 2-night, 3-day trekking with a local company. We were wrapped up in layers of fleece early morning before we start and quickly strip when the weather rises.

Our porters led us thru the mountains even without any visible path or tracks. We overnight in a guesthouse in a Lahu village surrounded by livestock. After a 'romantic' candlelight dinner including the slightly sweet and chewy Lahu rice and several great dishes, the Lahu children entertain us with children songs. In return, we sang a few western toons and danced like idiots.

Most of my fellow trekkers left me and another porter on the next day. We headed on a longer route to a Karen village. My porter made chopsticks from bamboo and bowls from banana leaves for lunch utensils.
Then come nap time. No point to rush under the hot sun...

A few river crossing and herds of cows grazing later, we arrived at the Karen village. My host family was very friendly. However, because of language barrier, I was only able to communicate with the owner who was quite occupied with my whisky-loving porter. We shared dinner, talked and laughed until the cats were curling up sleeping on my legs.

I arrived at Tham Lod (Lod Cave)after 2.5 hr trekking up and down river bank next morning. Tourists came in minibuses and 4x4 in groups. I followed a local woman with an oil lamp into the caves to see nature's work.

Back to Bangkok for another sniff of the polluted air, my supposedly highly-rated hostel turned out to be less than satisfactory. I hopped onto the train and headed to the old capital city of Thailand - Ayutthaya.

This UNESCO Historic Heritage town has more than 40 magnificent wats. Some are Lao-styled, some burmnese, chinese and even Khmer-styled. Most look great from a distance away, however, need some major restoration.

My friendly tuk-tuk driver took me to a local restaurant for lunch and all the impressive wats around town. Over sunset at the elephant kraal, we watched teen elephants bathe themselves in the river after a day of carrying tourists on their back under the hot sun (a practice that can lead to deformation.)

Right when we were leaving, I noticed two baby elephants tumbling around their mothers in an enclosure. I couldn't help but to introduce myself to these two four-month-olds by gently putting my palm forward. In return, they placed their tiny and amazingly soft baby trunk on my hand. We bowed to each other. Then they tumbled back to get more milk from their mothers, seemingly knowing that I'm watching.

The next day, my tuk-tuk driver took me to Lopburi in his motorbike. In old Lopburi, there is a temple and ruins infested with hundreds of macquets, fed daily with fruits and vegetatables, for tourists. First brought into the town by a monk, these macquets quickly reproduced into a small colony. Temple keepers use sticks to scare them away from food on the altar (although there is a successful attempt at the roasted chicken.)

At the ruins opposite the monkey temple, hundred more macquet families and gangs reside. Tourists are actually encourage to go inside the ruin and look at the monkeys thru the bars, as if we are the zoo animal being watched by the residents here.

I ventured outside the safety of the temple ruin and tried to capture these creature under natural light. Just when I was focus at a shot, I heard a noise from my backpack and saw my lucky golden elephant keychain in the hand of a teenaged macquet. Within a millisecond, it was popped into his storage pouch inside his mouth. My attempt to chase after this thief and retrieve my keychain went in vain. Another lesson learned. Were we really evolved from monkeys or was it simply monkeys being monkeys?