Between Swells: October 2010

The last two weeks have been busy to say the least. We are currently in Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand close to the Burmese border. Since I last wrote we have been riding elephants, singing karaoke, taking long boat rides, zip lining through the jungle, caving, hiking, rafting, etc etc. Laura and Kristen's Dad has made his way out to see us, also making sure we weren't lazing around too much because we've been on an active move ever since.

Our last days in Luang Prabang were spent killing some time waiting for Val to arrive. One day Laura and I did Mahout training - Mahout meaning an elephant trainer. We did an hour tour on these friendly giants, fed them some bananas, then learned some simple commands to get on, turn, stop, etc. It was unbelievable!!!! Telling an elephant to lift their leg so you can use it as a prop to get onto their neck for a cruise makes horses look like sissies. Everyone climbed onto their own elephant and we marched down to the river to give them a bath. What an experience to scrub an elephant in the middle of a river. From there the group got in a boat and we went to Tad Sae waterfall again and it wouldn't be our last.

That night I rounded the local Laos crew for another outing. It took some time to figure out what else the locals do for fun at night but we found it. We recruited a new Canadian member for the evening and made our way to our room at Full Moon Karaoke to have an evening of Laos, Thai, English ballads and beer. What a riot. Some of the songs were timeless crap that we all love and had no issues belting out in our 6x12 ft room. After a few coldies, I even managed to get some Thai lyrics out. Thank you to all my Luang Prabang buddies - we had blast.

Daddy (or as I call him,Val) showed up Friday the 15^th and our new era of travel began. We showed him around town, took him for Lao BBQ at Lao Lao, bicycled to Tad Sae waterfall for the last time and did a cooking class at Tamarind. The cooking class was a great day. We began in the market where we learned about Lao herbs/veggies/”meats”, ate some weird things like dried water buffalo lung, and bought a couple interesting items to cook (eel and frog). We made our way by tuktuk to a scenic cooking area by a stream just outside of the city to create 4 dishes. One of the highlights was when Val and Kristen were given the duty to kill the eel and frog. Eels look like slimy snakes and they are. Val got hold of it eventually and whacked it to death with a cleaver. Next time I looked over there's blood everywhere and the woman across from him almost lost her lunch out of disgust. Priceless, because moments later was Kristen holding a frog and the same meat cleaver. With a bit of squirming the chef comes over and POW! one to the kisser and good bye Kermit. Out of all the dishes the lemon grass baskets with ground chicken was the winner and will definitely be seen on guests plates in the future.

The next big adventure was sitting on a slow, skinny wooden boat up the Mekong for 2 days. It wasn't as painful as it sounds because my full electronic store and study material kept me busy. There was one overnight stop in Pak Bang in the middle of nowhere. The only reason this village exists with guesthouses is because of the slow boat. We did however find a pretty good Indian restaurant. We eventually arrived in Huay Xai and checked in for our three day, waterfall Gibbons Experience.

The next morning we piled into a pickup truck and drove 2 hours to the beginning of our hike and zip lining. We walked through the jungle with our guides, got into our harnesses and then walked some more until we reached our first zip. Nothing new to Laura and I but still a lot of fun. The guides took us around a circuit until our last one which we were told brought us to our overnight tree house and he wasn't kidding. You come flying out of the jungle a couple hundred feet in the air and there is our tree house up in the middle of this opening and we zipped right in. Our guides made us a cup of joe and said good bye before they told us about the loop we could do – alone. So after we relaxed for a few minutes, we went guide-less on the zip lines which adds a whole new feeling to the adrenaline rush. Especially when the line out of the tree house starts on a ledge with a step looking over a 200 ft drop.

The second day was more of the same but to the waterfall. The lines got longer but everybody was a bit more experienced and comfortable. We spent the second night in another tree house before hiking out. The creepiest thing about the trip was the leeches which were by the hundreds. The scariest was when I was leading the pack one morning without our guide and I walked straight into a spider web which still had the spider attached. It was white and triangular looking with huge antennae. I took some pictures of it and showed it to our guides. I asked the first guide who spoke little to no english “Is this good/bad” to which he responded “yes good/bad” and then laughed. I showed it to the other guide who then informed me it was fine, not poisonous. All in all, a crazy experience.

Once the trucks dropped us off back in Huay Xai, we boated across the border to Chiang Khong, Thailand and took a mini bus for 5 hours to Chiang Mai for the night. The next morning we missed our first bus but eventually got on a bus to Sappong. We arrived in the late afternoon at Cave Lodge and hung out. Since there had been some flash flooding recently our three day kayaking was cancelled (a blessing in disguise) and we had to organize some other adventures.

Our first day trip was a 15km hike through thick jungle to visit 3 caves - Fossil, Waterfall and Christmas Cave (don't tell our travel insurance). Each with its own features. One we had to crawl in water up to our necks 90% of the time to look at a waterfall. Others had cool features, formations and of course bats. Some people where out of there comfort zone and some complained but we all made it without injury or snakes.

Day two at cave lodge was spent white water kayaking down the river. I have never done this before and half way through the trip it started to show. Laura will probably never get in a boat with me again but we made it with minor scratches. We did two waterfall drops and kayaked through a cave. It was pretty amazing. After a while the rapids had some hard corners and my lack of experience put us against the rocks quite a few times which made the laughs and screams pretty consistent. I fell out once and we did a couple sections backwards but only tears of laughter and joy were shed.

We are currently in Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand by the Burma border where we were supposed to finish our three day kayak and awaiting our flight to Chiang Mai. Tomorrow is another crossroad in our journey. I depart back to Bali and leave the girls with Daddy. Next time I see Laura it will be just her and I on our way to Auckland for three months.

Mahout Training