South East Asia - 2000

Here are some pictures from my trip to SE Asia in November/December 2000. I arranged ahead of time to meet with my friend Kone, who is a physician in South Africa. She flew into Bangkok about 2 hours before me, and we met at Don Muang Airport.

We ended up making a loop. First up to NW Thailand, to Chiang Mai, where we stopped for 4 days, then onto Luang Prabang, in Laos, for another 5. We spent a day in the capital Vientiane, shopping mostly. We then crossed the river to spend the last few days in Nong Khai, a very relaxing little city on the Thai side of the Mekong.

I spent an extra 6 days in Thailand, mostly relaxing and learning about silk from a friend who's a textile trader from California. I learned a lot, and also got a lot of silk.

Our first day we were very jet lagged, so we spent our time wandering around the royal palace in Bangkok. It was a good introduction to Thai art and the Thai royal family, who are probably the most revered monarchs in the world. We also took a boat ride down the Chao Phraya river, which is the only way to get around Bangkok.

We saw some really exquisite examples of statues and temples at the palace, and way more gold than we'd ever seen before. Almost everything was coated with or highlighted by gold leaf or gold paint.

Much of the Thai culture and mythology is based on Theraveda Buddhism. There are still ties to the Hindu tradition, and therefore are a lot of demon types lurking about the place. Here's my favorite from the royal palace.

The first thing we did after heading north to Chiang Mai was to take a Thai cooking course. We learned quite a lot about the ingredients because they took us to the market beforehand to show us all the things we'd need to prepare our meals. Kone's preparing the yellow curry.

The woman who taught the class was a real wiseacre. She had a great reply for every question we asked, and enjoyed using them on us. While we were in Chiang Mai, we also got Thai massages from the Thai school for the blind.

From Chiang Mai we flew to Luang Prabang, in central Laos. It's a much more relaxed place than Chiang Mai, with a lot of the remaining colonial French architecture still intact. Luang Prabang is also the traditional capital of the country, so the city has quite a worldly feel to it, even though it's only got a few thousand people.

One of the best things we did was take a boat trip up the Mekong a couple of hours. We met up with my friends Diane and Neal, who were traveling around Asia the same time Kone and I were. The four of us rented a boat from a delightful boatman to the Tam Ting caves at Ban pak ou.

On the way, we stopped at a village where they make Lao-lao, the local rice whiskey. It's very sweet, and has a bit of a smoky flavor. I had this picture taken in hopes of getting it tacked to the wall at the Lucky Labrador pub, where they've got all kinds of photos of people wearing their tee-shirt in exotic locations.

We eventually arrived at the Tam Ting caves, a series of sacred Buddhist shrines across the river from the village of Pak Ou. The caves were first made know to the west in the middle of the 19th century, but have been in use by the people in the area for perhaps millennia.

The caves are full of small shrines and Buddha statues that have been left there over the ages. Unfortunately, since western visitors have come to the area, the number of Buddhas in the caves have dwindled. It is now illegal to take images of the Buddha in any form out of the country, in an attempt to stem the tide of thievery from sacred sites.

The view looking north east from the caves is stunning. Ban Pak Ou, across the river has received an economic boost from the number of western climbers who come to test their expertise on the sheer rock faces.

Seeing the caves and the Lao-lao village are only part of the river journey. The best part is watching the other boats and the riverbanks as you go by. Every year, the heavy rains raise the river level high up the banks. Once the rains end and the dry season progresses, the people plant crops down the river bank, following the receding water. When the wet season starts again, they harvest their food just ahead of the rising water

Luang Prabang is also a good town for food. This was just a light lunch Diane had one of the days we were visiting temples. She says they were the best noodles she'd ever had. We had several excellent meals in LP, including Diane's birthday dinner, which was also Thanksgiving. No turkey to be found, but we weren't complaining.

We moved on to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, mostly for the shopping. I tried to reach the family of a friend, but we were unable to connect. One place I was sure to visit was a silk stall I have visited last year. I spent almost 3 hours in this man's stall, picking out beautiful silk scarves and shawls, and then bargaining to get a better deal. Bargaining is polite, and should always be easy-going. I have a friend who wanted to buy something from a stall outright, and was told by the proprietor that she needed to bargain first! Bargaining should never be heated, for then both sides lose face. If you don't like he price, move on.

At last, we reached my favorite chill-out location in the world; Nong Khai, Thailand. It's just down and across the Mekong from Vientiane. It's a very relaxed place, one of the few places in Thailand I've been that is not geared towards tourism. I love to stay at the Mut Mee guesthouse, right on the Mekong.

Just outside Nong Khai there is sculpture garden created by a renegade Buddhist monk who worked toward a synthesis of Hinduism and Buddhism. He used statues to demonstrate principles of the two religions. This is the Circle of Life, which a person is fated to follow until he or she breaks the cycle by attaining enlightenment.

Besides the human-scale Circle of Life, there are huge statues representing Buddha and the Hindu pantheon.

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