Pun Pun,

I’m finally on a farm, or something like it. Pun Pun is a sustainable living and seed saving center. I’m in the middle of a 10 day course here called get grounded where I learn their techniques of sustainable living. The workshop is very informal and laid back. The founders of Pun Pun, a Thai named Joe and his American wife Peggy, believe in making life easy and simple. Without much money they have converted a small hill that could only grow weed grasses into a small farm with lots of trees and adobe huts scattered among the beds. In our sessions we’ve covered compost making and gardening, seed saving, natural health techniques, making soap and shampoo, and several food products such as tofu, kombutcha, rice wine, jam, chlorophyll juice and yogurt. Now we are moving on to natural building techniques, focusing on adobe. We have made some bricks that are quickly drying in this dry and sunny landscape. Today we will start to build a house and then we will learn about plasters, paints and finishes. This course is truly inspiring, and it really makes me want to live in a country that doesn’t have strict building codes because it can be so easy to build your own earth or straw bale house. Joe said he built a small house for $13 using earth and salvaged materials.

Today we built! It was amazing how fast we made progress. We built up the small building about 1.5 meters in just 5 hours of work. As Peggy warned us, it was addictive. All you do is mix up mud and use it as mortar. Because you are not dealing with concrete, everything can be done by hand. If we had enough dry bricks we could easily finish the wall in another day. Tomorrow we will plaster the section of wall that we built today. This dry climate makes it very easy as we don’t have to wait long for things to dry.

Horses and Elephants

I've already been back in Chiang Mai for over a week again and just saw Clare off to the islands of Southern Thailand. We climbed 5 days together with great success.

Crazy Horse, notice the ears

Crazy Horse Buttress, as the climbing area is called, has some great, unique climbs. One highlight was climbing a detached pillar, transferring onto a stalactite and then onto the main wall again. Another was scrambling into a cave to find a route that led towards a hole in the roof of the cave.

There was also a crazy climb featuring stalactites that stick out horizontally. Clare and I were both pleased with our climbing and with the area. I will meet someone else to climb with for this week.

Today, for Clare's last day up North, we went up to the Mae Sa Elephant Camp, home to over 70 elephants. We arrived just on time to see the show, involving elephant soccer, basketball, music, and painting.

unfortunately he didn't score on this attempt

It is extremely hard not to fall in love with the elephants. I hadn't done anything like this on my trip so far and I'm really glad I finally got around to seeing some elephants. One deterrent had been my fear of it being overpriced, but when we got there the tickets didn't seem to be mandatory and we got to spend the afternoon there for free.

This young elephant was particularly cheeky

Chiang Mai take two

I'm back in Chiang Mai and it rained last night. I've spent about 3 weeks in this area and that was the first rain i've seen. In order to stay in Thailand for long enough this time, I had to go to the Thai embassy in Vientiane. I thouroughl botched the whole process. First I got to Vientiane on saturday evening, and wanted to go to the embassy the next morning before someone told me it would be closed on Sunday, of course. Then I went to the embassy on sunday, but got lost on the way there and then after waiting to hand in my documents for 2 hours I had forgotten something and time was up. So I finally managed to hand in my application on tuesday morning and picked it up on wednesday afternoon. I teamed up with a German guy for going to Chiang Mai. We got a tuk tuk then a bus, then another bus and then another bus. The first two buses were extremely slow, which bothered my German travel companion immensely, but I like taking local buses and watching people hop in and out as part of their daily lives. A young German couple was travelling with a nursing baby, which deeply impressed me. The journey back to Chiang Mai took about 14 hours and the baby was relatively quiet for the whole trip, wow.
Now I'm in Chiang Mai and Clare has arrived to hang out and do some climbing. Yesterday we got our first day in at Crazy Horse Buttress. It is a great climbing area. Lots of small sectors with well marked paths and a huge initiative to keep the area clean. We climbed 7 routes, including a 6a chimney ( i love chimneys so I found it to be the easiest climb of the day). I onsighted a 6b+ as well, which I was very happy about, it being my first day climbing in a while. Unfortunately I got a heat stroke and was feeling weak and awful in the evening. I slept forever and today I feel recovered, but we didn't climb today. We hope to get an early start tomorrow and get some multipitch climbing in. On another note I went to the market today and got a bamboo sticky rice steamer and made myself some authentic thai sticky rice.

The underworld

First there was the bus ride. I rarely have trouble sleeping in cars, as a matter of fact they often have a soporific effect on me. The bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was quite a challenge though. It was steep, extremely curvy, and at times very bumpy too. Then there is the town that is know to all as a tubing destination. I knew that tubing in Vang Vieng was a big deal, but I still couldn't grasp what the big deal was. Okay, it's an innertube, and you get really drunk, what's the big deal. I found out that the big deal is that Laos has extremely cheap whisky (lao lao) and no safety regulations. Within 50 meters of the put in, you pass 5 bars with blasting music and free shots. Not just one free shot to lure you in, but unlimited whisky shots to make sure you never leave. The rope swings and zip lines are the really special thing in my opinion. You start 6 meters over the ground (not always over the water) and swing like tarzan. Depending on which bar you're at you may have a very limited fall zone, where letting go or falling off at the wrong point would land you in very shallow water or no water at all. The lack of safety makes the rope swings especially fun.

The zip lines are just comical. Starting high above the water and accelerating very quickly towards the end that is so abrupt it usually flips the rider off. Most drunk zip liners land head first from about 4 meters up, the lucky ones are flung off so violently that they complete a full backflip and splash upright into the river. The tubing itself is boring, so most people do it once and then just go hang out at the bars on the river and dance, drink, and swing away the afternoon.

It also so happens that Vang Vieng is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded by limestone mountains riddled with caves.

notice the shack on the left for scale

The last too days I have spent my time exploring 6 caves in the area. The coolest one was Than Hoi ( I think). We followed a volunteer guide along a passage for two km of mostly easy walking. There we came across a stream of clear and refreshing water.

Me jumping into the refreshing waters of Blue Lagoon, outside one of the caves.

We waded upstream and then took off our clothes and swam for 20 m to a small and gentle waterfall. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and the water and air temperature were perfect as well.

The only downside to an amazing day of caving was that our guide wanted us to pay him $20.- when were were done. We refused, as the average tour guide working for an agency only makes $4.- a day. We gave him a very generous $6.- but he was very upset with us for not paying his price. We talked to some locals at the guesthouse and they said he didn't deserve more than a dollar.
Now you may ask who "we" are. The first two days in Vang Vieng "we" included a german woman who left this morning for Vientien. This morning I got up at 5:30 and ran 4 km out of town to an organic farm where I was to help out with the goat chores. I arrived at 6:30 and helped clean the stalls, feed the goats and give the babies some milk. I intended to help with the milking and cheese making, but during breakfast I met some americans who are longer term volunteers at the farm. They were planning an outing, so I joined them for the day. I got to experience true Lao generosity when the goat keeper let me borrow his motorbike to ride into town and get my stuff so that I could stay at the farm tonight. The intended trip fell through when the local friend of the volunteers didn't show, so we went spelunking instead. It has been an eventful day and I hope to do some more goat work before I head down to Vientien for a new Thai visa.

What boat?

After leaving Luang Namtha, I went straight to the next couchsurfer, who was a german guy named Chris from the same volunteer program as my host in Namtha. There were 4 germans in the house and I went out to dinner with them and then to a Lao club, which was really fun and cute. That was my one night in Oudom Xai. Actually, the night wasn't over. We returned to their house and to my surprise the party had beaten me home. I was feeling a little nauseous from a questionable lunch and ended up not sleeping at all, feeling too nauseous to sleep, but not quite enough to vomit. The next day in the bus was miserable, but since I'm reading The Power of Now and it tells me to just be present and not keep thinking about the past and the future I tried to sit with my discomfort. I'm not quite there yet. I found myself having very high expectations of getting off the bus. Happy to be out of the bus I headed towards downtown Nong Kiaw.

View upstream from the bridge in Nong Kiaw.

What a beautiful place, deep in a valley bellow limestone cliffs split by a tranquil brown river. I shared a room with a Russian named Taras, and then went to check out some caves with our neighbors, two German travellers. I decided to take the boat down from Nong Kiaw to Luang Prabang with the German's. We went to the pier and bought a ticket around 9:30 and waited for the boat to leave. At 11:30 we were informed that although people had signed up to take the boat, only 7 people had actually showed up and gotten a ticket. They refused to leave unless we pay double or find more people to fill up the boat. So we walked to the bus station and waited there for 2 hours for a minibus to fill up. On the 4 hour bus ride we had to get out and wait for an hour for the bus to cool down. We finally arrived in Luang Prabang, and after much searching found a cheap room. Once we got over the frustrating day, which wasn't too hard for me, since time is not really a precious commodity in my life right now, I found the town to be quite charming, just as everyone had told me.

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One of my favorite parts of being here is the lack of safety regulations

It's packed with old temples and has a great evening market. I spent 3 night in LP with the Connie, the German girl, visiting temples and roaming about.

The king's palace in Luang Prabang

The only reason I haven't taken more pictures like this is that it's so normal here.

We also visited a nearby waterfall with a rope swing downstream.

I spent an hour that evening skipping rocks and taking pictures with 3 local kids. They had very high expectations of my Lao, which I repeatedly failed to meet.

Two of the kids I hung out with at the river.

This morning I finally managed to get up early again and went to see the monk's alms procession. This involves lots of monks walking down the street with a container and lay people sitting on the sidewalk giving each monk a pinch of food(rice). The monks must have amazing immune systems, since every person who they receive food from touches it. I found the procession to be unspectacular, so I slipped away to the top of the hill in town where I sat alone and took pictures of the mist and sun rising.

Now I'm in my room in Vang Vieng, which I am sharing with an Indian I met on the bus ride down here.

trekking in Luang Namtha

I got to Luang Namtha and started looking around for a company to trek with. I was hoping to do a 3 day trek at least and at the second office a group of american's walked in right after me. We decided to book a trek together to lower the cost. It ended up being under $70.- for 3 days and 2 nights. We met early the next morning and took a tuk tuk first to the market to pick up some lunch food and then into the hills to our trailhead. We started up the trail and were quickly engulfed in the jungle. The trails was good, but there are no signs to indicate where they might lead. After a few hours of walking with frequent rests we reached the first village where we spent the night with a local family. They cooked us an extravagant dinner over little firepots and we chased it with their homemade rice alcohol. The second day involved the most and steepest hiking. We visited a waterfall and solved riddles as we walked along, making for a very enjoyable day. Finally we reached the Akha village where we spend our second night. The greeting here was much warmer than in the previous village. Shortly after arriving we were sitting around a fire playing a game that involved singing an akha song and slapping each others hands. The dinner in this village was a simple banana flower soup with food (rice). We hiked out on the third day along streams and through rice fields back to where we started. I was one of the few members of the group who was spared any misfortune. Out of six trekkers one had to leave on the morning of the second day with bad knees and two members suffered prolonged bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. Despite this everyone deeply enjoyed the trip and was also happy to be back in a guest house. I am now still in Luang Namtha. i've met a couchsurfer from Germany who is showing me some of the better restaurants in town and hooking me up with volunteers from his program who live in other parts of Laos. I plan to take the bus to Oudom Xai tomorrow and rent a scooter there to check out the far North territory of Laos.

Here are the last few days in excerpt:

Just got to Lao today. I feel both a little lost and also very at ease. I'm not sure where I'm going next. Either I'll take the slow boat down to Luang Pragang or I'll hith-hike somewhere, maybe Luang Namtha. I have to remind myself that I'm not in Thailand anymore, since I've been there for over a month and haven't ever been to any other country in Asia.

Heading North tomorrow. Spent the day with Nok(couchsurfer). Here are some things that you don't see in Europe.

A restaurant where going to the bathroom involves walking through the kitchen into the back yard. When I ordered my meal I asked if I could watch the cooking process. I was able to help by mincing the chicken with a butcher's knife. Nok agreed to cut my hair and we did it right on the sidewalk of the main street. Her friend came out from the internet café that she was working at and helped cut my hair too. That's just a small excerpt of how different things are here and I have to remind myself of it, because to me this way of life without rules makes sense and works. When I paid for my meal it was 42'000 kip and I handed a 50'000 note and she gave me a 10'000 note back and said that was close enough. People are generally very trusting. Nok gave me the keys to her brothers scooter and hopped on behind me, trusting that my scootering experience was sufficient. How wonderful. She showed me a cool little weed that shrivels up when you touch it.

Arrived in Luang Namtha. Nok gave me a ride to the edge of town and then I tried to hitch-hike. The first guy took me 3 km and then offered to take me to his town where they were celebrating mung new year (must look into this). So I went and got some food and everyone stared at me. Many people were wearing the traditional old clothing. It turns out the guy just wanted to get some money. He started offering me a wride for 100 dollars. I hiked back to the road after sitting there for almost an hour. I finally got a ride another 10 km or so. Very nice family, they offered me water when I go to their place on the side of the road. I then pulled over a bus, which took me the rest of the way. We passed through countless bamboo shack villages in steep hilly terrain. Luang Namtha is more modern again, but I would really like to find a good way to spend time in some of the small villages.