In Laos!

I've finally embarked on my 'Indochina Encompassed' tour with GAP Adventures. I'm having a grand time, but unfortunately, haven't had access to the internet. So, I haven't been updating the blog regularly. Right now I'm in Luang Prabang. It's a sleepy city in beautiful Laos. We arrived late this afternoon after a two day boat ride down the Mekong River. Flanking the river are lush forests and mountains that rise through the clouds. Apparently dolphins also live in the river, but I wasn't fortunate enough to see any yet!

Laos is considered by many travelers to be an unspoiled paradise. I actually decided to go on this particular GAP Adventure tour after hearing many people rave about the natural beauty of this country and its people.

Unfortunately, I have to cut this short. We're about to begin a walking tour of Luang Prabang.

Jim Thompson House (part 2)

Here are a few more pictures (since blogger only allows me to post five at a time).

The first photo is from a special exhibition documenting the English translation of a series of important Thai folktales. The costumes depict the traditional Thai dress described within the stories. The second, third and fifth pictures are of the gardens of the home.

The forth picture is particularly interesting. It is of our Thai tour guide and an interesting garden seat. The seat made of antique Chinese porcelain and has holes in the top and side. The holes serve a purpose beyond decoration though; in the winter one would put hot charcoal in the bottom and heat would rise up through the holes. Thus, heated seating! While we have heated seats in Canada, they tend to only be within vehicles or cheap electric massage cushions.

Jim Thompson House

After a late night, I had trouble dragging myself out of bed this morning. Since I was alone in the dorm room, I didn't have anyone else's rustling around to wake me up. When I finally dragged myself into the shower it was around 10am.

Because of the late start and my general sense of fatigue, I decided to tackle only one main touristy site - the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson is famous for starting up the Jim Thompson Silk Company (and for making a long-time Thai cottage industry very profitable).

Jim Thompson was a very privileged American architect who joined the US Army during the World War II. He was sent to Asia during part of his tour of duty and ended up settling in Thailand. The story goes that he sent some silk to the American editor of Vogue and soon orders for custom silks poured in. He set up a silk factory, became a wealthier entrepreneur and the rest is history.

Although Thompson mysteriously disappeared in 1967, he apparently gave Thailand permission to use his house as a museum prior to this point. The house is fascinating. The styling is still fashionable today - over 40 years after his disappearance. He amassed a large and stunning collection of antiques during his time in Thailand - including a 7th Century headless Buddha (picture below), tons of ceramics, intricate carved wood tables, and massive chandeliers. The mansion is not really one house, but six traditional Thai homes pieced together. Flanking the house on all sides are lush tropical gardens with rectangular ponds. Amidst the water lilies swim Thai alligators and koi fish. N.B. The alligators and koi fish are in two separate ponds. ;)

Walking through the house was like getting a rare glimpse into the home life of a wealthy expat. I can't even imagine how much the house and his prized antique collection cost. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the actual house, so I only have a few photos of the jungle themed gardens and one photo pulled off the web of his living room. If you're interested in learning more about the life or home of Jim Thompson you can check out the link below.

http://www.jimthompsonhouse.com/index.asp

To see images of the home just look under 'images' after typing 'Jim Thompson house' into Google search.

Accommodation in Bangkok

I'm back at my hostel early today (the reason why is below), so I thought I would write a bit about my accommodations.

While I was still touring Nepal I preemptively booked a hotel for my first night in Bangkok. I chose the 'Baan K managed by Bilson' residences based on the positive reviews posted on Trip Advisor. The apartment I received (yes, one bedroom apartment!) was luxurious. There was a small kitchen, a living area with a large plasma TV and high end speaker system, and a granite bathroom complete with a rainhead shower facet. Even the bedding was heavenly. On my first full day in Bangkok I had trouble pulling myself out of bed because I wanted to remain warm and toasty in my cloud-like coccoon. Although I loved the accommodations, I decided to downgrade from the $62 a night apartment to a $12 night dorm room. When traveling for months at a time, you've got to make sacrifices somewhere!

After leaving the Baan K I made my way to Saphaipae Hostel. I made sure to lower my expectations going in, because really, what can you expect for $12? Well, apparently a lot! This place is gorgeous! It's brand new, has a funky decor and super helpful staff. It's also in a great location - near both the pier and the sky train station.

I'm staying in a co-ed 4 person dorm (370 baht/night), but I've only had one roommate per night. The only negative (because there is always one), is that there are ants crawling all over the table housing the computers. Right now I'm unfortunately sitting near their entry point so sometimes I get ants crawling on my arms and legs. Ugh. It makes me itchy.

I'll try to write more about my day later. Right now I have go to find some anti-itch cream before I make a mess of my arms.

More Paragon Mall pictures

One thing I did enjoy about the mall was the nature-themed installation. They even have breathing walls (i.e., walls covered with plants). Oh, I also threw in a picture of Tom and I together. He used to be so attractive. Now he's looking kind of waxy.

National Museum (part 2)

Here a few more photos from the National Museum (described in an earlier blog post)

National Museum (part 1)

Here's the first of a series of blog posts taking a forbidden glimpse into some of the artifacts housed at the Thai museum. The grounds are also beautiful.

Oh, as for the elephant models - apparently Indochina armies used to fight using elephants. I can't even imagine what one of those battles would look like.

I will post the full set of pictures from my day's adventure over at Flickr.

I just couldn't resist taking a few photos.

I really hate blogger and apologize for the crappy formatting

Here are some more pictures from Paragon/Siam mall. Unfortunately blogger only lets me upload five at a time. Two of the photos are of a 'bread stand'. They sell toast. Seriously. The highlight is that you can pick your condiments for your toast (peanut butter, jelly, butter, nutella, spicy fish sauce with prawns, etc).

I was so surprised to see an aquarium in the middle of a dining table. I checked to see whether the surrounding food stands sold fish - they didn't. They served mostly chicken. At least the fish won't be tormented seeing their cousins being eaten by hungry shoppers.

Fire

Here are some of the pictures of that fire... I'm sure it did a number to my lungs as well (take a look at the sky after the fire). I hope no one was hurt.

Beautiful Bangkok

I know I said that I was going to write something about each place I've visited - and I will - but first I'll update you on my current adventures in Bangkok.

Although I am thrilled, excited and exhilarated to be traveling by myself for the first time, I have to admit that doing my own thing usually results in sore feet at the end of the day. I also get lost quite often; I find myself praying to G-d several times a day that I'm going in the right direction (I thank Him/Her profusely when I finally get to my destination). When I do finally get to the point where I have no idea where I am and the heat has worn me down - that's when I finally conceed defeat and hail a cab.

Speaking of heat, the weather is really getting to me here. It's surprising because I was fine in India, which is a good 10 degrees hotter than Bangkok. It's the humidity that does me in. After 30 minutes of walking I'm already exhausted. I push on though, which can be incredibly frustrating when I'm lost. N.B. I'm not a horrible navigator (though I can be a bit directionally challenged); all of the official Bangkok maps only have major streets labeled on them. And sometimes not even the major ones. Ugh.

Today's post is a little jumpy. Sorry. It's been a long day.

After dealing with some administrative stuff regarding my house back home, I headed off to engross myself in Thailand's history. My destination was the National Museum. Of course I got lost around the way - I attempted to ask four different people for directions and then eventually found the Pier. N.B. It's easier to travel by boat to the temple area than by car, where you can be stuck in traffic for hours.

Keeping with the theme of getting lost, I also boarded the wrong boat. It was a 'tourist' boat, complete with a Thai tour guide whose accent was so thick that I couldn't understand a word she said. Because I was on this 'river tour', I ended up paying twice the price for my boat ride. Oh well. It was still less than $1 CDN.

Luckily, I did make it to the museum without any major issues. The museum contains some amazing artifacts. Amazing isn't really a suitable word...they are breathtaking, awe inspiring, grandious, [insert some other descriptor here]. I managed to take a few 'no no' photographs, so I'll try to post them here. Unfortunately, the building itself doesn't do the museum justice.

First of all, there's no air conditioning. Imagine trying to keep your attention on ceramics or buddha heads when you're dying of heat. Meanwhile in every single room a guard sits in front of a fan, carefully tracking your movements to make sure you don't take any forbidden photographs.

I love learning about new cultures and historical events, but at the end I was skipping by the multitude of Buddhas from different periods. I think I also missed out on a chunk of history on the Thai royalty (don't ask me about the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th King. Actually don't ask me about the 6th, 7th or 8th one either). They're on their 9th. I know a bit about him.

After finishing up at the museum I was famished. It was around 2 or 3 at this point. I was so hungry that I ended up having a meal at the sketchiest place you have ever seen. It was at the pier. I'm sure there were cockroaches running around in the back, but I tried not to think about it. I ended up ordering just vegetables and fried rice. You can't get sick off of a vegetarian dish, right? LOL.

At lunch I actually met a older Thai couple who sat down at my table with their yuppie coffee drinks. We got to talking and they expressed concern that I was traveling alone. So, they gave me their number in case I run into any problems in Thailand. How sweet is that! I was very touched.

After lunch I headed back to the pier closest to my hostel. There was a huge fire directly across the river. I took a few pictures (below). I was debating whether to whip out my camera or not (because I felt horrible looking at it as another 'snap worthy' scene). What really bothered me though, more than others gawking at it, were the girls that posed happily with the fire in the background. They thought it would make a great photo! Ugh. People could have been dying in that fire! I don't think most of the people snapping pics really were thinking about the tragedy of it all...I tried to at least be mindful of this point... [I know, I may be a bit hypocritical].

My final stop of the day was Paragon Mall. This mall is the largest in SE Asia. It's like a mall on steroids. Actually, it's even beyond that. It's a mall on a type of steroid that hasn't even been invented yet. It's hard to describe...but it's definitely overwhelming. I find it funny that such a devote Buddhist country like Thailand (where one should shed materialistic values) can thrive on this hyper-consumerism. Because I couldn't afford anything in the mall, I ended up taking pictures of the art and the statements it made (intentially or otherwise).

Oh, I forgot to mention something! I got a makeover at Laura Mercer by a ladyboy (i.e. a transvestite). After a while I was wondering if I was looking at just a very ugly girl. However, I wandered by MAC and another lady boy answered one of my questions (related to makeup). It's nice to see that they are accepted as legimitate employees here. They can be themselves and dress anyway they like (as long as they're in black - dress code and all).

That's enough for now. It's only 9:15 but I'm ready for bed. I apologize if this post wasn't witty or interesting. P.S. I hate blogspot. The formatting is all wonky.

Be well.

New Delhi in the Daylight

NB: In my previous post I said that the hotel room was 'okay', which it was. You just need to realize that I dropped my standards pretty low before embarking on this adventure. I knew that I wasn't going to be staying at the Hilton, so there was no point in expecting such quality.

Upon returning to my hotel after my short stint outdoors, I passed the rest of the evening watching TV. Although my TV was plasma, it had a giant plastering of goop running diagonally down from the top left-hand corner. I tried to ignore it. I wasn't going to try to clean it off anyway. The thing that did bother me about the TV was the content.

I swear, approximately 85 percent of the ads on TV that night were about skin lightening lotions and potions. *I'll post some images later*. Everyone from the makers of Dove to Ponds market these products to Indian women. I can't imagine the poor self esteem I would have if I lived in India and had non-Caucasian looking skin. Of course all of the models in the ads are Indian women who look sort of Caucasian. It's as if they are as taunting the general population with their strange but coveted look. I guess this 'faux light' look is possible - if you have the money to waste on chemicals that will lighten your skin but harm your health. Women everywhere seem to pay a high price for beauty. To a lesser extent, even Indian men are exposed to this quest for whiteness. There's a product called 'fair and lovely' aimed at men. I laughed when I first saw the bottle. Sorry.



Okay, enough of my rant. On to the describing the adventures of the day:
After my 3 minute adventure the night before, I was determined to see some of Delhi before meeting up with my tour. After carting my bags to the tour's hotel starting point, I set off to see Connaught Place. My roommate for the trip joined me on my outing. Looking back, I should have gone alone, but oh well.

Connaught Place was created by the British and its Georgian architecture was modeled after the Royal Crescent in Bath, England. This description was pretty much what I read in my guidebook, so I decided it would be a great place to travel to first. Unfortunately, I didn't read the description on the Wikipedia website, "Unfortunately during the late 2000s, Connaught Place may have lost its old glory but the charm of the market still works on the people". Since we never got to see the market, I can't say I left holding Connaught Place in high esteem.
Picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:View_from_rotating_restaurant.jpg

Getting to Connaught Place was an adventure in itself. I wanted to take the new Delhi metro system (which is supposed to be amazing) but a taxi driver kept pestering us to take his rickshaw instead. I finally caved and said "'What the hell'. Even if he charges us more than the original price, it will be part of the experience". He ended up keeping his end of the bargain; however, he did take a long route and tried hard to convince us to stop at some bazaar since "all the stores were closed on Saturday afternoon" (which is actually bullshit). I stood firm though and we did make it our destination. We probably should have gone to the bazaar instead...

Upon arriving at the inner most circle, my roommate and I were left wondering, "this is it??". The gardens I imagined in my head were replaced by a large section of grass and a sorry scattering of bushes. The storefronts, which may have looked magnificent in the past, looked shabby and worn. Whatever, that's fine. Part of the experience. No need to judge.

What did drive me crazy was our extended search for a working ATM. My roommate needed money and we set out to find an ATM. It look over an hour (maybe more - no exaggeration) to find one. Most were either 'out of service', or didn't accept her type of card. To add to the experience, a random 20 year old guy decided to be our informal tour guide, saying he was just a student and liked meeting new people and didn't want any money. Yeah right, they all say that. Really, I'm not jaded. That is a common line. I've experienced a few of these informal tours along the way, despite repeated protests.

So, the guide led us all around the circle. Into the outer circle, back into the inner circle. We'd try to lose him but he'd continually turn up. We ended up spending the entire morning looking for a stupid ATM. It got to the point where we had to settle on McDonalds for lunch. We didn't have time to search out a tourist-friendly restaurant.

I thought I would be safe with the Veggie Burger. Wrong. It turned out to be a deep fried patty with bits of peas and random vegetables inside. My tummy wasn't too happy later.

The true highlight of Connaught Place was attempting to cross the street. There are few rules of the road whatsoever here. It is very difficult for a sane person to walk head first into a steady stream of traffic. My roommate and I held hands tightly and prayed no one would hit us. Apparently the rule is that pedestrians should walk at a slower/steadier pace instead of running. The reason is that if you run, even if you think you will get across faster, drivers will have a harder time gauging where you will go and thus, will be more likely to hit you. Even the buses don't slow down.

It was at this point that I was glad that I was meeting up with an organized tour. I couldn't imagine trying to navigate Delhi's streets alone while desperately trying to fend off scammers spotting easy prey.

As for the rest of the tour of Delhi - it was hugely sanitized. If I saw the real Delhi in the morning, I saw the scrubbed down version in the afternoon. We traveled by air conditioned luxury mini-van to all of the sites (since the rest of the girls didn't want to take public transportation). We ended up visiting the Lotus Temple (at my request), and the oldest mosque - Jama Masjid. I can't remember if we saw anything else. The experience wasn't exactly memorable, although the mosque and Baha'i temple were beautiful.
Picture: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/LotusDelhi.jpg

NB: My irritation at my travel companions continued over the course of the trip, as they (3 other women) always seemed to choose the more expensive luxury transportation option over the 'free' public transportation option. In my opinion trying the local food and local transportation are part of the experience. Then again, they all switched to pasta, pizza and Chinese food after the first week...

From the beginning...First night in New Delhi

So, I embarked on my trip on April 28th. It's now May 15th and I've hardly posted anything. I have been writing in my journal though, so I will try to paraphrase my original thoughts about each place I visited.

New Delhi

My first stop was New Delhi. Being a relatively naive traveler and starting in Delhi is like throwing a kid into a swimming pool and saying 'sink or swim'. However, one reason for taking this trip was to increase my self-confidence, particularly in nav

igating my way through unfamiliar and potentially stressful situations. So, when I had some free time in Delhi before my organized tour began, I decided that it would only make sense to explore the city alone!

On my first evening in Delhi I was proud of myself for getting from the airport to my hotel without getting ripped off. Taxi scams are notorious throughout Asia, so I was feeling pretty good that I wasn't taken. My hotel was okay, although I have to say that it did not look anything like the picture on the internet. Aside from the orange feature wall that is.

Hotel pic from Internet:

My hotel was located in the Karol Baugh area of Delhi. It's a haven for backpackers, although mine was located in a particularly sketchy area. Nevertheless, I decided that I would venture out that evening.

I lasted three minutes. There weren't any

street lights and the smell of feces and dirt was overpowering in the 35 degree weather. The lack of proper sideways and crazy Delhi drivers also scared me shitless. Add to this the fact that I had no idea where I was going since the hotel isn't even located on a mapped street. In the end I guess three minutes is pretty good then... I have never been so scared walking down the street in my entire life.

I wasn't deterred though. I decided that I would just venture outside during the daylight. That way I could at least avoid stepping in cow shit.