Chaing Rai Surprise

Another bike ride in Luang Nam Tha

So, we made it to Chiang Rai, Thailand from Luang Nam Tha in less than a day, using various modes of transport: taxi/pick-up truck to the bus, a bouncy bus over the mountains, a tuk-tuk to the river, a motor boat across the Mekong, a motorcycle taxi to the bus station, and a local bus to Chiang Rai. All in all it took about 7 hours, but we arrived unscathed and checked into a nice hotel near the bus station and night market. The night market was key, because that’s where Matthias planned to eat a nice grilled fish that night, which he did…and then some.


Matthias' beloved fish at the Chiang Rai night market

We really only stopped in Chiang Rai to break up the trip to Pai (and because Matthias liked the night market) but as we set off the next day on foot, we saw some nice temples, checked out the river, and made our way to a nearby cave with a temple in it- along a road that we decided would be great for bike riding the next day (which sealed our decision to stay an extra day.) We also stopped at a great roadside noodle/rice place where Matthias had noodle soup and I had Kao Soi – yummy noodles in spicy yellow curry with chicken. It was a long day of walking, so Matthias decided he deserved another fish at the night market. This one was steamed.


Inside the Buddha cave outside of Chiang Rai

The next day, we rented bikes and set off past the river and cave we saw the day before only to come across more caves with Buddhas in them – part of a lovely park on the river. Theride was so nice that we continued down the road where we passed a local festival with a market, food and dancing. Of course we stopped for some roast pig and beef.


Pig and cow roast!

On down the road, we came to a touristy but cute Karen (local tribe) village that operated elephant rides by (and in) the river. We stopped to admire the elephants and the handicrafts for a bit before heading back to town. It was almost a perfect day until Matthias’ chain came off, and while trying to fix it the back wheel somehow became bent, so not only could he not ride the bike, he couldn’t push it either. He actually had to lift one wheel up and walk for quite a ways before we found some friendly tuk tuk drivers who had the tools to fix it. Fortunately, we were done with our ride anyway. So, one more trip to the night market and back on the road to Pai.


Cute elephant

Our trip to Pai went smoothly (about 6 hours in all) and despite my fears of high-season (coupled with Chinese New Year) prices, we found a decent room at a great price in town. The only drawback – no wifi. But, Pai is the kind of place where one shouldn’t mind not being connected, and I can’t complain too much as I sit on our front porch in the guesthouse garden and write this. And now that I’m done, I’ll head over to a café that has wifi, order a fruit shake, post the blog entry, and see who won the Superbowl.

Links to more photos are now updated on the left of the page.

Climate Change

Balmy New Year's Day in Xi'an

Back on the road and back to the blog. We are now in Laos, on our way to Bangkok and then Germany and then the US. I finished teaching on January 22nd – one week before my students had to take their end-of-term exams. It really was an interesting experience, and perhaps I’ll write about it someday, but now that we’re traveling again, I’d rather write about that! But first I have to mention the great New Year's/birthday weekend we spent in Xi'an with Katie and Laura. Although New Year's Eve was a bit anti-climactic, the highlight of the weekend might have been the three-hour New Year's Day lunch at a Tibetan fish restaurant with Frank, Laura, and new friends Trisha and Graham. I also shared birthday cake (though we each had our own little cakes - thanks Laura!) at the hostel cafe with Katie, who is also "cursed" with the dreaded day-after-New Years birthday.



Our Tibetan Fish feast!

Sooo....the day after my last class, we took an overnight train from Baoji (about an hour and a half from our village of HuaiYa) to Chengdu. The train ride was fine, except that we had to share our compartment with a guy who snored really loudly! Still, we managed to sleep a bit and arrived in Chengdu bright and early at 5:30 AM, where we got our free ride to Sim’s Guesthouse, which was nice and cozy. After checking in, coffee and showers, we took the local bus to the center of town and visited the “Tibetan Street”, where we ate lunch (Matthias once again had his favorite pulled noodle soup dish – Muslim style.) Then we walked through the “New Ancient Street “ – a recently-built shopping and eating complex made to look like an old Chinese village. Chengdu was a bit warmer than what we were used to, so it was nice for walking around, but it was still quite cold at night. We had dinner at the Guesthouse, which wasn’t so great except that we met Pat, an American who’s teaching English in Shanghai.


Old and new together on the "new/ancient" street

The next day it was off to see the pandas – one of our main reasons for visiting Chengdu. Unfortunately, Matthias was quite ill (but made the trip anyway like a real trooper.) We booked the excursion through the guesthouse, which was convenient and the Pandas were adorable! We were back at the guesthouse by noon, so we were able to grab some soup and dumplings on the street, change some of our Chinese money into dollars, and then Matthias could go to bed while I got a haircut. That night, Matthias was too sick to go out so I went with Pat for Sichuan hotpot. It was spicy, but not any spicier than some of the food in Shaanxi.



Fabulous panda!

The next day we got the train to Kunming. It was an overnight train and then some, but we were lucky to have a compartment to ourselves, and Matthias was feeling a bit better. We arrived in Kunming the following morning and checked into a rather expensive (30 USD) and nice hotel near the train station. The weather, at last, was spring-like and lovely. Warm and sunny. We went for lunch at a restaurant we passed (up) the last time we were in Kunming. We ordered Beijing Duck (which was good, but not nearly as good as the one we had in Xi’an with Katja and Simon) some spicy noodles (delicious!) and some vegetables. After lunch we walked around, changed more money, and went back to the hotel to rest up for our bus ride to Jinghong the next day.


View from the bus to Jinghong


The next morning, we got to the ‘pseudo bus station’ in Kunming just before 8AM to catch our minibus to the actual bus we were taking to Jinghong. Apparently, they moved the long distance bus station some 15 km away from the city, so you either have to get public transport out there and buy your ticket, or get it through an agent like we did. Anyway, we got to our regular bus just fine and we were on our way as scheduled by 9am. The ride was nice – along a new highway with breathtaking views – until the highway ended and we had to take a smaller road (also with fantastic views) where we got stuck in some sort of traffic jam for well over an hour. Still, at around 5:30 PM we pulled into the Jinghong (south) bus station and got a decent (but somewhat shabby) room at the hotel there. From there, we found our way into the center of town for some delicious noodle soup!


Matthias in Jinghong

Jinghong is a nice city – it’s still China, of course, but one starts to get that laid-back Southeast Asia feeling there. We spent the next day walking around in the glorious sunshine (weather is getting really warm by now) and trying to figure out how to get to Laos. We were told (we think) at the bus stations that they couldn’t sell tickets for the next day’s bus until the night before. So, after exploring the city, drinking a couple of local beers, and eating one last delicious Chinese dinner, we went back to the South bus station and got our tickets for 10:40AM the next day to Luang Nam Tha. The bus was pretty empty, except for five other tourists, a couple of local people, and lots of boxes. It seems since they don’t have a lot of people making the trip, they use the buses to transport goods as well. Hey, at least boxes of juice and sacks of flour don’t spit or throw up! The bus made a lot of stops, but the ride was nice, the border was pretty painless (except for the visa fees), and we arrived in Luang NamTha before 5pm.


My first Beer Lao

And here we are! I’m writing this from our guesthouse in Luang NamTha, which doesn’t have internet access (I’ll post it later). We are soooo glad that we came here! We had considered taking the boat down the Mekong directly to Thailand, but besides being much more expensive, we’re glad we didn’t miss out on Laos. It’s wonderful here! It’s a pretty small town (although it’s the provincial capital) with lovely trails for biking, a good local market, and fabulous food. It’s a great time of year to be here as well – mornings and evenings are cool, while the days get pretty hot yet still nice in the shade. We’re in heaven! We’ve been here for four nights, and now it’s time for us to go to Thailand. We hope to make it to Chiang Rai in one day – we’ll see how that goes. Until then…


Scene from one of our bike rides