TravelStream™ news feed for member laurmess on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/laurmess en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:18:31 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1222116060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1222116060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1222116060/tpod.html Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:18:31 -0400 Salvador, Brazil: Public Health and Community Welfare

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Salvador, Brazil

I guess I am about due for an update, it has been only two weeks since my last entry but it feels like so much has happened! So for the past two weeks I have been settling into Fazenda Garcia, my new home. I live with an amazing family: I have two sisters and a mother, one poodle, one rottweiler, two turtles and one canary (and a partridge in a pear tree). I feel so comfortable at home and in my funky little neighborhood, my roots have already grown very deep here. The first night I arrived at my family's house, I dropped my bags, had a bite to eat, and and was whisked off by my sisters to this awesome underground Samba club right around the corner. From that moment on, my assimilation into my family and the whole of Salvador has never skipped a beat.

I am lucky enough to live only half hour walk away from school, so I walk most days unless I am running late, in which case I take the 10 min bus ride. I have two hours of Portuguese class in the morning, and two hours of public health seminar/field research skills in the afternoon. I have been making a lot of Brazilian friends outside of my program, so my free time consists of hanging out with them on the beach or at night, chillin' at home with my sisters and gossiping, or working on various school projects. I have yet to enroll in Capoeira...but I will!

My favorite project thus far has been our mapping project that was due today. We had to walk around our respective barrios and draw a physical map of any area that we considered to be "our" barrio. As unsafe of a reputation Salvador has, I feel incredibly safe walking around (day or night) in F. Garcia, probably because there are always people out and about doing their do. As I was taking notes and meandering around the other day, my neighbors came up to me and were all really curious as to what exactly I was doing. I was even invited into someone's house and fed a typical Bahian dish called figado (cow liver). It was probably one of the worst things I have ever tasted, but because it's not proper to refuse food, especially from a stranger, I had to eat about half of it!! After I drew my map, I interviewed my sisters, Victoria and Marta, on their perceptions of our barrio. This spurred a whole conversation about where we live, what types of people live here, and what it means to live in a "third world" country (their terminology, not mine) like Brazil as opposed to a "first world" country like America. I learn so much here every day its absolutely incredible. The today, we all presented our findings (in Portuguese!) to the rest of the class.

Last week we went to a conference on Brazilian transvestites/trans-gender/transsexuals and HIV/AIDS prevention, and this week get to participate with Candomblé ritual. We have already started writing proposals for our independent research project (ISP) that we do for the final 4 weeks of the semester. I have decided to go into the country and research parteiras, the traditional Brazilian midwives. Brazil has the #1 highest c-section rate in the WORLD, and I am attempting to understand why traditional birth attendants are so underutilized, and perhaps to find a way to improve access to natural birthing practices. I still need to refine my hypothesis, but so far that's the rough outline.

Everyday here is such a gem, and probably the reason I haven't written in a while is that I just can't make myself sit inside, in front of a computer when there is just so much going on all around me!!

Até mais- beijos!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1220795040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1220795040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/2/1220795040/tpod.html Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:21:13 -0400 Salvador, Brazil: Public Health and Community Welfare

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Salvador, State of Bahia, Brazil

So it's been quite a while since my last entry- I guess I have some catch-up to do. After returning home from SE Asia I spent about two weeks running around like a chicken without its head tending to: four cats, one dog, Brazilian visa issues, a sick grandpa, a house full of thirsty plants, long lost friend reunions, and general upkeep of my parent's house while they were enjoying a leisurely cruise in Alaska. I didn't suffer so much from the culture shock of SE Asia and America, but the shock of going from being a no-strings-attached, no responsibility-ed backpacker to a mega responsible house-sitter. But its all good, it was nice to be stationary for more than a few days and plus I had a lot of rank laundry to do -- and do again.

So now I am in BRAZIL! Finally!!! It was a bit of a rocky start, my flight from Newark to Miami had to turn around mid flight because our cabin failed to pressurize so the air masks fell down from the ceiling (yep, just like in the safety videos). That was eventful to say the least, but even though we were less than 30 minutes away from Miami we had to turn around and go back to Newark. Uggg! Thankfully it wasn't that long of a delay and I got to Miami with enough time to catch my flight (with my new group!) to Sao Paulo, and then finally to Salvador.

We were picked up by a woman dressed in the traditional white dress, hoop skirt and beaded necklace, and whisked off to a quaint house in a little gated community to commence our orientation, week. Its actually a beautiful house with a pool and lots of bedrooms and bathrooms (we sleep about 2-4 per room). First let me say a word about our group. We are 14 amazingly diverse women from across the country; I have never been around so many people in the same room that are as passionate about public health and community welfare before- it is so refreshing! We all get along really well, and each of us has so many unique experiences and backgrounds to offer to the rest of the group.

Our orientation week consists of lots of talking: logistics, our ISP, (independent study project - the focal point of this whole semester), safety concerns, host families, etc. We had a great samba class one night and capoeira class last night. A city tour of Salvador introduced us to a lovely colonial city that seems to always have music blasting and beautiful people dressed in beautiful colors hustling all about. The city really has a vibrancy all its own. One of the most exciting parts of this week was our drop-off that we did yesterday. We were broken up into 4 groups and each given a specific location that we were meant to go to (without being given any instruction or direction as to how to get to it), sit and observe the culture there, do an informal interview with a local and then find our way back by a certain time. For the record, most of us barely speak Portuguese (myself included), and have only had about three hours in the city thus far. Needless to say, we all had a blast being turned loose in the city that will be our home for the next few months and all made it back safe and sound. My group's experience was especially funny because although we thought we had asked the cobredor to tell us when we passed O Mercado Modelo, something got lost in translation (surprise surprise) and we ended up going about 30 minutes outside the city, which meant that we had to jump off that bus- find another one, and make our way back to where we were meant to be doing our research. A really cool componant to the day was that we each were instructed to get little souvenirs (for an undisclosed purpose), and that night during our reflection time, we picked names out of a hat and gave our mystery souvenirs to one another. Sweet!

This afternoon, we meet the families that we will be spending the next 7 weeks with- and everyone is mega excited!!! Tomorrow we go to the federal police to register, and then on Tuesday proper classes start and we can really begin to get into our Brazilian flow...ate logo!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1215495720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1215495720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1215495720/tpod.html Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:27:35 -0400 South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia.

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Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Welcome to my travel blog!! I know it's already half way through my trip, but I figured better late than never! I will try to upload some photos later today...we'll see how that goes. So to catch everyone up I am currently in Laos, after spending about a month in Cambodia and Vietnam. Both of those countries were incredible in their own way, although I have already fallen desperately in love with Laos. Possibly because I have have already studied the Hmong (a hillside tribe in Laos) and feel very connected to the culture, or possibly its just because of the magic of this country! Who knows, but my travels have been crazy- ups and downs and whirlwinds of excitement. To give an example of how it never gets boring in indo-china, yesterday we had a 14 hr travel day crossing the border into Laos (during the rainy season). About half way through there was a huge landslide (actually three of them over a 1km space) and none of the traffic could pass and of course it was the only rd that goes to where we needed to go (the capital, Vientiane), so thankfully there was another group on the other side of the landslide in the same predicament, so we gather all of our stuff with the goal of swapping buses and trek across (more specifically wade through) the mudslides, the worst one was knee deep and all-consuming like quick sand- i lost both of my sandals and had to dig furiously to get them back (cause they are my really good ones) plus i was wearing a white skirt, so basically i was asking to get covered in mud from the get go!!! and it was raining the whole time to add insult to injury! but the thing was, i had the BEST time, and it was only locals besides our group traversing the 10ft high mounds of mud, earth, rocks and trees, there was such a sense of "we are in this together" it was great!
I mean anyone who knows me could guess that trekking muddy landslides in the middle of the Lao rain forest would be one of my favorite things to do- plus I got to get SOO dirty!!
Throughout the rest of our 6 hr bus ride, we saw whole villages flooded with 3-5ft of water, some of the houses on stilts were still unscathed, but others just had their roof above water- the roads also had up to 1-2 ft of water on them. A very humbling but exhilarating day!

I am in the capital now and need to visit the US Embassy to try and get fingerprinted for my FBI background check for my Brazilian Visa...so needless to say there will be more adventures to report back on....stay tuned!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217999820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217999820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217999820/tpod.html Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:34:31 -0400 South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia.

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Samosir, Sumatra, Indonesia

Another 13hr night bus (equally as un-enjoyable due to the vomiting child in front of us and the stench that followed) brought us back to Medan, and we hopped on a local bus for the 5 hr journey to Samosir Island, a volcanic island in the middle of Danau Toba. The bus was packed to double its capacity and it was far from pleasant, but it was four times less expensive than the tourist bus- and a lot more cultural. Interesting little cultural detail: even though there are 'no smoking' signs in the buses, it doesn't actually mean that you aren't allowed to smoke. Actually, chain smoking is almost as common as eating or breathing, so yeah- that was great. We get the ferry to Pulau Samosir, and find an awesome room with the best view of the crater lake. I only had 3 nights 2 whole days there, and they were as lazy as our days on Weh- eating, swimming, sleeping, playing cards and reading. Samosir used to be a big hot spot for full moon parties and raucous backpackers, but now it is all but deserted (I think Thailand stole its thunder). The town is quaint and small, and the cafes are cheap, excellent and always empty. If you ever go there- Jenny's makes the best coffee and potato omelettes ever!!

Before I knew it it was time to leave - so I waved goodbye to Chris, hopped on my ferry, then caught my bus (where I was trapped in chain smoking hell) back to Medan. I spent the night at a really nice hotel, feeling that my travel beaten body deserved at least some luxury, ordered room service and then went to sleep. That next morning I grabbed a public bus to the ferry, got to Georgetown that evening and that brings me up to date.

My next entry will be in a few weeks once I am all settled in BRAZIL!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217136540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217136540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1217136540/tpod.html Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:16:54 -0400 South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia.

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Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia

My journey commenced on a white-knuckled, alarmingly bumpy flight from Bangkok to Penang, Malaysia. I had just finished spending an amazing couple days with Tasha on Ko Samet, Thailand. We discovered Nuan Cove with tiny little bungalows perched in the woods, overlooking the beach. Our adorable little abode was mere footsteps away from gorgeous sand and crystal clear water. We only had about a day and a half in this little oasis, but it afforded us plenty of catch up time, seeing as how we hadn't seen each other since May!

That next morning, I caught the ferry to Medan, Sumatra. Let me elaborate- the ferry from HELL. It started off just fine, but the sea was unusually bumpy (similar to my flight the previous day- go figure), and EVERYONE was getting sick- all over the place. I would say about 90% of people in my cabin were sea sick. I have never expended so much energy on just maintaining my equilibrium and sanity. I iced my nose and upper lip with tiger balm, and focused all my energy on breathing exercises. But all my hard work paid off because 5 1/2 hrs later we were (finally) disembarking and I still hadn't gotten sick. My new Austrian friend Chris and I caught the bus to Medan, and then hopped on the 12 hr night bus to Banda Aceh.

We were still a bit travel dented and green from the ferry, and we probably both got less than 2 hrs sleep on that bus. First of all it was FREEZING, the A/C must have been broken because even with our bus-issued wool blankets, we couldn't stop shivering. Secondly, they were playing (as they often do on buses in SE Asia) the loudest and worst movie. It wasn't that the plot was so bad, for the life of me I can't even remember what it was, but every five or ten minutes the little girl in the movie was screaming a piercing scream- and holding it for at least a minute or two at a time. After the movie ended (although it seemed to go on forever), I actually felt battered and abused from the incessant screams. Now you would think that by the end of this bus ride we would be clamoring at the doors to get out, but as it turned out I had a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, and didn't want to leave the safe confines of my bus just to enter the swarm of aggressive taxi drivers. Finally we stumbled out, rather zombie like, had some coffee and sweets and got a bemo to the next ferry.

We got the 9:30am fast ferry (after having to wait about 2.5 hrs), and were at Pulau Weh before 11. I remember looking outside for the first time as we were docking (because as soon as we got on the ferry, we both crashed on the sofas and didn't open our eyes once) and actually not believing my eyes. Paradise doesn't quite express what I saw at that moment; the sea looked like it had millions of diamonds sparkling in every direction, the sand was gold dust and the palm trees were leafy emeralds. It was as if someone had created a scene completely out of precious jewels. We got an hr taxi to Iboih beach, found a rustic little bungalow right on the beach (and also encased in jungle), and immediately jumped in the aquamarine waters.

The next 8 days went something like this: breakfast at Mama's followed by scuba diving, then tea, biscuits and a swing in the hammock at the dive shop, lunch at Mama's, and then we would either read, swim, play on the beach, snorkel or nap the afternoons away. Then supper at Mama's, and usually asleep before 10. The diving and snorkeling was amazing! We saw all sorts of things, the coral walls were breathtaking the most memorable sightings include moray eels (albiet common, its my favorite sea creature of them all!), and a school of about 15 shiny barracudas that we got to swim with for a bit. On our second to last day, we went snorkeling and saw two white tipped reef sharks- very very cool!!!

One day, we switched it up and rented a motorbike to explore the island. We bought fruit, ate noodles (probably our first meal not at Mama's), drove around a lot and eventually found ourselves on an even more beautiful beach for the remainder of the afternoon. During our whole time at Iboih, there were probably between 8-12 other travelers in the whole town. There was a real sense of community; everyone knew each other's name and we all shared a communal mandi, equipped with a squat toilet and a basin for bucket showers. Needless to say I only washed my hair twice!

We didn't know how long we were planning on staying, but eventually we decided to uproot our lazy moss covered bodies and move on to Danau Toba...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1218431280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1218431280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1218431280/tpod.html Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:29:06 -0400 South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia.

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Georgetown, Pinang, Malaysia

Forgive me, but I am going to work backwards and be counter-chronological. I AM ABOUT TO LEAVE ASIA! I needed to write that in caps because the reality still hasn't hit me, I thought if the letters were louder and bigger reality would start to sink in, but alas...

So I am in colorful Georgetown, killing time before I need to catch the bus to the airport for my flight to Bangkok, then to Rome, then finally to NJ. I got in yesterday evening, after a rather uneventful 6 hr ferry from Sumatra. I really like Georgetown, especially because I was able to just waltz off the ferry and amble to my guest house feeling completely oriented. I spent a night here before I went to Sumatra, and even though it was less than 24 hrs, the colonial streets and tunnel-like sidewalks felt overwhelmingly nostalgic. Familiarity is way underrated in the "real world;" a familiar face or place in the sea of new, confusing, and unusual sights is completely priceless when you're on the road. And so, even though I was really sad to leave incredible Sumatra (blog entry to follow), Malaysia was my silver lining.

So I woke up early this morning, partially because its my last day in Asia, and partially because my room was hella hot and stuffy, and decided to loose myself in Little India, a famous cobblestone neighborhood in Georgetown. Granted I have yet to visit India (it's on my to-do list though), but I literally felt transported into a completely different world. Wafting out of the stores were Bollywood songs, Nag Champa incense, boisterous greetings and millions of other stimulants that I just couldn't register- let alone identify. I had coffee and toast for breakfast (I know it sounds mundane, but much to my delight the sweet old man cut my jam and butter toast into nine little squares- three rows of three- and gave me a tiny fork to eat each quadrant with), and then two hours later I had chai, tandoori chicken, roti and some sort of fried potato biscuit. YUM! I wandered in and out of all sorts of colorful shops, and collected thread for my leather pouch. I also visited some used bookstores and the Rain forest bakery and got supplies for the long journey ahead...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1216459860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1216459860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurmess/1/1216459860/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:01:50 -0400 South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia.

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

So I just got back from trekking in the northern mountains of Thailand and let me tell you- it was definitely the hardest I have ever pushed myself physically, but damn did it feel good. Angus and I got to Chiang Mai and were immediately told by numerous tour agencies that 90% of the people who come to this region want to do "tourist trekking" which entails a little walking, and a lot of gawking at tribes, riding elephants and going rafting- therefore a just walking trek would be really hard to find. And it was. But finally we found one and were promptly picked up that next morning. Although we were in a group of 13 people (we were the only native English speakers- everyone else was either French or French speaking, aside for the one Danish couple), we only saw them in the evenings because we were the only (crazy) ones who just wanted to hike, so it was just us and our insane jungle guide, Bond. The first day wasn't that grueling, it felt great to finally start exerting myself after being such a lazy backpacker for weeks. We hiked through rice paddies, coffee plantations, orchards of papayas, jack fruit and dragon fruit. The bamboo forests were the most memorable for me though, because there was absolutely no one around and hiking up the steep trails affords the most astounding views of all the geometric shapes made by bamboo that has either fallen over or is growing in the most bizarre patterns. I got dizzy just staring out into the jungle it was so intricate. We stumbled upon a neat bat cave, and found a Hmong father and his daughter gathering bat dung to use as fertilizer on their farm.

That night we slept in a bamboo hut, with simple mats on the floor and mosquito nets. Not the best night's sleep although it would prove to be better than the second night...

The second day of trekking was...wet! We hiked with the whole group to this waterfall oasis, and played in the water and jumped off the rocks for a while. A much appreciated reprieve from the sweaty and sticky condition we were all in. Then we started to head out but were caught in a huge tropical storm, the type you can only find in the bamboo jungles of northern Thailand. The crazy thing was that we could hear the rain coming before we could see it. Not thunder sounds, but the assaulting sound of ferocious water being pelted at the trees and ground.
Unfortunately, this forewarning did not allow us enough time to get our rain gear on, so all of our stuff got soaking wet. Thankfully we weren't that far from our second camp, so we all booked it- splashing in ankle deep muddy puddles to climb up to our second bamboo hut. This one was without electricity, but it did have a gorgeous bamboo porch overlooking the jungle- so what it lacked in technology it made up with in quaint beauty. The whole group spent the rest of that afternoon cuddled up like wet refugees in a puppy pile on the floor, playing cards, chatting, reading and napping. Seeing as how most of our packs were completely drenched we didn't have many options other than to just chill out and be damp. Dinner was great, we got a fire going and had yellow curry and pumpkin stir fry. There was this point in the evening when we were all out on the porch and there was English, French, Spanish, Thai and German all being thrown back and forth at one another- it was awesome!

I didn't get a wink of sleep that night though, because the door of the hut didn't close properly, and there was also a hole somewhere on the far side, and for some reason we had wild dogs wandering through our hut all night. Chat, the other guide, would try and chase them out, but that just scared us even more, because at first we thought he was a crazy jungle killer. It also didn't help that I had just taken my malaria pills, and they often make me hallucinate. So I had to keep waking Angus up to see if what I was seeing was real or in my head. Most of it was real. To add insult to injury, the floor was so makeshift that whenever someone rolled over or farted, the sound reverberated throughout the entire hut and into your head (because our rock hard pillows were on the floor). So between the dogs, noises and the fact that my leg broke through the floor and made another large hole right next to my bed- no sleep was had.

The final day of trekking was the hardest, but well worth it. We got back to base camp just in time to seek shelter from the afternoon storm. I am now in Bangkok, took the overnight train here last night (another sleepless night), and tomorrow Tasha and I are off to Ko Samat because we already have ants in our pants from being in the city for a day- its just so busy here!
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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

So, it`s been a while since I have had the chance to go on line (let alone update my blog) so this is going to be a doosie! We took a rather uneventful 6hr bus ride from crazy Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang and Angus, Fabiola and I immediately went to book a 2 day mahout course so that we could leave the next day (as we had very limited time in this beautiful colonial town). That next day we take a tuk-tuk (a SE Asian version of a motorbike taxi) to the elephant camp and are first taken to our jungle lodges. OMG, they were sooo nice, imagine a wooden cabin on very high stilts with a huge porch overlooking the Nam Khan River, Angus had a cabin all to himself and Fabi and I got to share a big king sized bed (much to our delight!). Layed out across our beds were our mahout OUTFITS! Yes, we all got to match and stand out from others who were merely riding the elephants.

So we get back to the elephant camp (we have to cross the river each timei n this little rickety speed boat) and first go for an hr ride with the elephants through the jungle, very cool. We got the special treatment and actually got to ride on their heads-necks, and not just on the little bench that regular tourists get to sit on. Then we get back to the cafe, have lunch and memorize all the different Lao commands we will need to control our elephants with: if you ever find yourself on an elephant in Laos, you`ll want to know pai (go), pai sai (go left) pai khau (go right), thoy (turn around), map long (lay down- this is very helpful when bathing and climbing up onto your elephant), how (stop), and jab ow (take this- meaning food). So we get back onto our elephants, this time riding bareback (without any benches or anything) and go for another long walk into the jungle in order to tuck them into ``bed`` and kiss them good night- they bed in a different area of the jungle than where the actual camp is (not sure why...) so they have to be taken and retrieved every day. After we put the elephants to bed, Angus and I go tubing down the river, and contrasting the wild and crazy tubing scene in Vang Vieng, we had the most tranquil silent float down the river with our guide, Pahn.

That night we had an amazing Lao supper and I took 2 outdoor showers (did I mention that our bathroom was attached to the cabin but completely outdoors, just had walls tall enough that no one could see you naked!) and upon climbing into bed, Fabi and I discovered that our quaint little cabin had loads of ants in the bed!! Thankfully we were tired and they weren`t the biting type of ants (or at least they weren`t hungry that night) so we weren`t that bothered.

That next morning, I woke up to see the sun rise (although it was kinda cloudy) and then we all went for a hike to collect our elephants for their baths! I never though I would get to bathe an elephant in a river in Laos, but it happened! We just walked the elephants right into the river and commanded them to lay down and then we were just splashing water all over them and scrubbing the dark hair on their heads (possibly the cutest part of an elephant), and one elephant got really excited and started smacking her trunk on the water and spraying all of us. Great times. Then it was time to say goodbye to our beloved elephants and part ways.

The next part of our day was spent going down the river to the Kuang Sii Waterfalls. Fabi and Angus took kayaks, but because I was still sore from all the rafting, tubing and swinging I opted for the bamboo raft. Pahn, another guide and myself went on the 3ft x 10ft bamboo raft towards the falls, although because the current was so strong (thanks to, you guessed it, the rainy season of Laos) we couldn`t dock and had to go much further down the river and eventually we were able to grab onto some foliage and dock on some bamboo trees (the irony). The problem is that we are miles away from the falls (and Fabi and Angus) so we have to trek through little water falls and water up to my thighs in order to get back where we needed to be. Pahn was insistent that we check for leaches after each bout of water trekking, and thankfully we found none! We get to the falls and they are incredible!! Three tiers of rocks and trees and you can climb all over them and eventually you get to the bottom and you can jump into a cool deep pool of water- amazing! The only other waterfall that could possibly trump Kuang Sii would be Iguazu Falls, but those you can`t play in as much. Then we trek back to our bamboo raft (and it was still there!!) and make our way back into town.

I spent the night shopping at the Hmong Night Market, had a massage and crashed at like midnight. The past two days have been pretty low key, we needed to make our way back to Chiang Mai Thailand, so we took the slow boat which entails 19hrs on the boat split up into two days. Basically lots of reading, eating, playing cards, zoning and mooching off of other peoples iPods (because I didn`t bring mine).

We just crossed the Thai border today and are in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow we are going trekking through the hill tribes for 3 days and then after that I am meeting Tasha in Bangkok for a much needed reunion, and then I am off to Sumatra! BYE!
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Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Well, I made to Vang Viene- possibly the only place you can excuse drinking before noon while tubing down the river. I digress. We got here two days ago and booked a kayaking trip for the next day. So far so good, Angus and I were in a two person kayak and the rapids were super exciting, but we only capsized once. We get to this little village and took a walk through the rice paddies and eventually get to this huge waterfall/lake. Our guide tells us that the cave we were meant to explore is completely underwater- only about 5in of the opening of the cave were actually visable from above the water- it really didn't even look like anything but rock to me. For some reason though, we decide that its a good idea to convince the guide to take us in the cave anyways (really, it didn't take that much convincing) and off we went. There was a cable attached to the rock face that you had to hold onto for DEAR LIFE because the current was so strong (from the waterfall about 20 ft away)...so there were four of us and two guides clinging on this cable, cold water rushing all around us, inching our way to the cave opening. We get to the entrance and have to swim underneath to enter the cave, and once we are in it we have between 5-10inches of "head room"and the rest was underwater. We still had to hold on to the cable though (and now we had rock all around us to hold onto as well), because the current was still really strong. It was also pitch black inside, because even though the guides had torches they were pretty weak. So we are swimming our way through this dark underwater cave (which was unbelievable) for only a few minutes and then the guides tell us that we must turn around NOW cause the water levels were begining to rise because it had started to rain (there is nothing like the rainy season in Lao!), so very quickly (and efficiently I must add) we make our way to the exit of the cave and all arrive safely on shore. I was so thrilled, I don't think you could have smacked the grin off my face!!

So then we have lunch and head back into the kayaks. Angus and I were completely mesmorized by the scenery because there are towering mountains all around us with huge trees and little waterfalls and the clouds were just kissing the tops of the mountains - it looked completely unwordly! Then we get to the "party" section of the river. FYI Vang Vieng is notorious for their tubing/river scene because all along a section of this river there are bars that will pull you in by a rope they throw out to you, and give you free shots and all that. There is music blaring and half naked (half drunk) people running all over the place. Now, this scene was rather cryptically described to me by fellow travelers- I didn't know what to expect, you really just have to see it to believe it. Plus there was the most amazing tree swing that you can swing from. The platform is like 30 ft up in the air, and you have to climb these crazy steps to get up. Its kinda like being an acrobat without any training. You hold onto this bar (imagine a triangle, and then you hold onto the bottom part) and then you launch yourself off the platform and you are literally soaring through the air (above the river), it is so exhilirating and f*cking scary but its sooooo worth it! So after you have dangled there for a while you jump off into the river. But the thing is, you have to be really alert cause the current is moving really fast and you have to catch the tube that they throw out to you, so that you can be pulled in because you cannot swim in otherwise. But alls well that ended well (don't worry mom, I promise it was safe!). We had a few more drinks then jumped back into our kayaks, paddled our way down to the bottom and then we were done! Later we met up with a bunch of the people we met at the river bars for drinks and dinner.

I am still in love with Laos, today we are doing the same thing but in tubes (no caving though) and tomorrow we are off again...
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