Rand Wacker

Often when I meet people who have been travelling through Southeast Asia I get some very similiar responses about different places:

“How was Thailand?”

“Oh, it was nice. The beaches and islands were fun.”

“Did you like Cambodia?”

“Yeah, of course, Angkor Wat was amazing, but that drive really sucked.”

Pretty much the same stories from everyone…quiet enthusiasm for places that are a bit the same. But then you ask, “Did you go to Laos?” and you see a very different reaction. People get this calm look on their face, their eyes focus off on serenity in the distance, and this little grin breaks out, “Lao, yeah Lao amazing.” (To people who’ve been, the “s” stands for silent)

After just a couple of days here I can completely understand how they feel. Laos seems to be at a very special time in it’s development where it’s still relatively quiet and undisturbed, but there is just enough infrastructure to make it easily accessible to people (much more accessible than even the latest guidebooks make it out to be). The country itself is beautiful, the people are extremeley friendly, and it’s a very calm and laid back place.

We are currently in Vang Vieng, which is a stopover on the long from from Vientiane (the modern capital) to Luang Prabong (the ancient capital). This waypoint has become a bit of an adventure destination in it’s own right, with a cottage industry for kayaking/tubing/rafting down the river, climbing the massive limestone crags, and spelunking through some enormous underground caverns. The down itself is no more than a couple of main streets surrounded by some outling farms; it reminds me quite a bit of my home town actually… Around this, a handful of guesthouses, restaraunts, and of course, internet cafes have sprung up to cater to the Farang travellers in search of a little adrenaline.

We’re probably going to stay here for a couple of days (at $2-$8/night for a nice room, how can you go wrong), then we will either make the long journey north to LP or we might try to stop off at a smaller town up north which supposedly has larger/less explored caves. But first we have to try to usual traveller information source, chatting with people around town.

After a full day in Bangkok (well, OK, we did chill out for a couple of hours and watch a movie in the most luxirous theater ever…think business class seats, pillows, blankets, socks, and table service…) we were pretty knackered and passed out on the train almost as soon as it got rolling. The trip was 624km (about the distance from SF to LA via I5), but it took twelve hours because we stopped numerous places and never got going all that fast. No worries though, we slept pretty well through almost all of it.

When we arrived at the end of the line in Thailand, Nong Khai, we teamed up with a couple of other travellers and negotiated a tuk-tuk to take us the last kilometer to the border. On the Thai side you have to check out with emmigration, and then you board a 10 baht bus to take you across the 1,200 meter bridge over the Mekong river. On the other side we applied to Laotian visas-on-arrival (one passport photo and $30US…our change bills looked like suspiciously good copies of the newest twenties we have in the states), proceded through immigration, and then found a taxi on the other side to take us the last few kms in to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. No fuss, no muss (but I always do like to cross borders on foot for some reason).

Finally we arrived about 11am and started the arduous journey of finding a place to stay. After wandering by the US Embassy we looked up a Rough Guide recommended hotel off the downtown streets. Again, the Rough came through and we found a great place full of charm and character and quite clean/good value. We’re just hoping they find space so that we can stay on through tomorrow night (right now there’s only room for one night).

I really like this town, it’s completely mellow, and for a national capital you can walk from one end to the other in about thirty minutes (if you’re willing to brave the sun and extreme heat). There are legacies of French architecture all around and even the taxi/tuk-tuk drivers aren’t pushy at all. Supposedly Vientaine has some of “the best and best-value international cuisine in all of south-east asia,” so we’re going to be trying something different today probably. Tomorrow morning we expect to find fresh baguettes and imported cheese and even better, real brewed coffee (the Thai’s idea of coffee is nothing more than a couple teaspoons of Nescafe stirred in to some tepid water). Now we’re off to wander around a little more then find a pleasant spot to watch the sunset over the Mekong river. We’re spending tonight and tomorrow night here and heading north on Saturday.

“Leavin’, on a night train…” Sorry, had to change the song lyrics.

We’re taking an overnight train from Bangkok to Nong Khai in the northeast of Thailand tonight. Tomorrow morning we will take the Thai-Laos “Friendship Bridge” over to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We don’t expect to do much more there than check in with the US Embassy (I always like visiting US soil when I’m abroad), book onward travel, and then wander around what is probably the smallest national capital we’ll ever go too. The whole downtown is something like 6 blocks square, and nothing rises more than a couple of stories.

From Vientiane we’re heading north to Vang Viang, which is a bit of an adventure destination, with rock climbing, kayaking, and caving. Finally we’ll take the bus north another half day through the “Laotian Alps” to Louang Phabang, capital of an ancient mountain kingdom and full of “asian royal mystique” (at least that’s what the guide book says).

This whole path is preferred to the overland route from the far north of Thailand (Chang Mai), which involves a cramped two day slow boat ride down the Mekong (literally, you can’t even get up to walk around apparently).

Finally, if we have time, we’re going to make our way overland back to Bangkok through the north-eastern part of Thailand (where apparently very few tourists go) and head towards the border of Cambodia to visit some of the most ancient (and best preserved/restored) Khmer temples in Thailand. It should be a nice book-end to our trip since we’re not going to make it to Cambodia this time (although we did get to see Angkor Wat over there last time).

Flying home on the 31st!

As promised, when I was able to get some photos of our dive trip online I’d put a few of them here to share. This is a tiny subset of the 200+ images that we took in four days, so I have some serious iPhoto time coming when I get home.

The trip was on a live-aboard called the Queen Scuba and we did a 4-day/4-night cruise out to the Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, and the Surin Islands. 14 scheduled dives in all, one at night, two in the sunset, 4 the first three days and two the last. The boat was great, a fantastic value for the money nicely nestled between the cheap-ass bunk style trips and the very high-end pleasure crusies costing more than twice as much. For our journey we got our own cabin, with en-suite bathroom (hot showers!), meals, soft drinks, etc, and were only two of 15 people total on the boat (definitly not crowded at all).

We set out on the night of the first day from a pier just south of Khao Lak, atiny village on the western side of the Thai peninsula; just north of Phuket, if you’re familiar. This place has experienced explosive growth in the past three years, almost completely due to diving-related actvities. There are a slew of very nice new resorts and even more under construction. The market is definitly upscale and quite heavily travelled by German/Swiss/Swedish tourists. It’s a pretty coast, reminiscent of New Zealand to me, but the beach was somewhat dirty and the people working in the restaraunts and what not seemed a little distant, as if the more mid-market European crowd was less interested in the local culture so the local people were less interested in talking. (Compare this to Koh Tao where a number of farangs have been living for a number of years and become quite involved in the local community…everyone is really friendly there). I’m not saying Khao Lak is bad, it’s just quiet.

But that was only our port of call. After a day of wandering, and me experimenting with a cheap Thai haircut (should have just done it myself if I could have found clippers) we hopped on the dive shop’s truck to pick up a few more passengers and then on to the pier. It was like a party that night, with no fewer than five other dive boats heading off into the darkness. We could tell that we’d definitly picked the right boat for our tastes. There were three or four junks alongside and then one high-end boat with candlelit dinner tables and a nautilus gym downstairs…that was a little too much. Boat briefing and gear checkout and then in to bed by 9pm for the 6:30am wake-up and the first dive.

When we woke up in the morning we were greeted by a view of a completely deserted beach in a perfect little bay. Two sailboats had tied up just in front of us and you could see all the way to the bottom of probably 60 feet of perfectly clear water. Schools of fish were already examing our boat’s bilge discharge, we could tell this was going to be a great trip.

First dive was a check-out to get familiar with our equipment (and each other). Alexis just finished up her Openwater certification last week in Koh Tao and she decided to push herself and complete her Advanced Openwater class while on the boat in the Similans (deeper dives, night dives, and a few more adventursome skills). I wasn’t taking any classes but it was the first time I was diving with my digital camera and the new underwater housing that I got for last Christmas, so I had plenty to occupy my attention underwater (other than of course worrying about Alexis…heh).

We did three full dives the first day, saw a wide range of marine life, got some good pictures, and generally had a lot of fun. I noticed that I seemed to be sucking wind though and would burn through most of my air when James (our divemaster) and Alexis would both have 100 bar or more left. A couple of times this meant that I had to head up with some other folks while they continued their dive. On the third dive of the day I ended up missing a leopard shark cruising right by Alexis, which sounded really cool. Made up for it later though.

The next day we went diving at the northern islands and then Koh Ban. (Koh means island, if you hadn’t guessed that by now =). Koh Ban is a pretty dive, but is really known for one thing at this time of year…Manta Rays. We got in the water in great anticipation, only to immediately get sucked into the worst current we’ve ever felt underwater. If you remember in Star Wars when ships were flying through hyperspace and the stars were just zipping by all around, well that’s what it looked like. We flew past the west side of the island and were just able to grab on to some underwater outcroppings to “catch our breath” (something you don’t want to have to worry about 25 meters under water). Seriously, it was difficult to even hold on to those rocks with both hands. By the time we got up the strength to sneak left into the lee of the island to avoid the current I was getting pretty worried about Alexis. I signalled to the dive master that we should probably cut the dive short, but since we were so deep and things had calmed down quite a bit we decided to make a slow ascent up the wall. Just as we were completing our safety stop we saw some fluttering wings in the distance…Manta! Turns out Alexis and I were completely knackered though and cut the chase short to get back on the boat (apparently there were two mantas flying by). After that stress we decided to skip the final dive of the evening and we both passed out in our cabin for about fifteen hours straight.

The next day more than made up for missing the dives though as we ended up doing three trips around Richeliu Rock. This place is amazing; at low tide you can barely see some coral on the surface, at high tide it’s completely obscured. Get underwater though and you’ll find a 100 foot pinnacle covered with the most complex bio-system for miles around (the ocean floor is literally all sand as far as the eye can see out from the bottom). Apparently Jaques Cuesteau found this place many years ago, and he must have been thrilled. Besides the normal masses of hard and soft coral, schools of fish all shapes, sizes, and colors, we saw sea monkeys (”sea monkey has my money”), octopuses, and some amazingly colorful little creatures called harlequin shrimp and ghost pipe fish (I hope my photos can be made to look OK, otherwise I’m gonna have to find something online).

We had a final sunset dive in the Surin Islands (even further north, right next to Burma), and then anchored for the night. Our next morning started with a ritual Manta dance (everyone trekked around the boat in the bed sheets letting them flutter in teh wind). A final dive at Koh Tachai and Koh Bon were scheduled for the day and we were pretty tired but excited for what was to come. Clear seas, clear skies, and no current were all looking really inviting. The water was awesome and the fish were great, but really, all I can talk about were the Mantas. We saw one on each dive, and they kept coming back to check us out. Four meter wide creatures, gracefully flying through the ocean, it was amazing. I think the best I can do is just to show the video clip I was able to capture as one cruised by.

A great trip, all around, I’m very very glad we got a chance to see this now, as who knows what will happen to the site in the future.

We’re back in Bangkok after a rather adventuresome overnight bus ride (more on that later). The diving was amazing, we saw sharks, octopuses, whales, dolphins (last two out of the ware) and some extremely rare tiny little creatures called Harlequin Shrimp and Ghost Pipe Fish; and best of all, Manta Rays… Unfortunately I can’t seem to upload photos from this computer right now or I would put some great shots online (we filled up an entire CF card with over 200 still images and little movies). There was a videographer along on the trip and edited together a movie that I swear looked just like something you’d see on the Discovery Channel.

So we’re taking the day to rest up, wash up, pack up, and then move on to Laos tomorrow some time. We still have to decide if we want to fly or take the overnight train. Either way, we know it’s going to be hot up there, so I need to buy some more cheap light cotton shirts that you can get here on the street for like a buck fifty or so.

As is often the case when travelling, the best days are the ones you don’t plan. Yesterday we took an extremely choppy catamaran ride from Koh Tao to Koh Samui and then ran to catch a slightly more stable express boat over to the mainland port of Surat Thani, where we arrived after the last bus to Kaoh Lak had already departed. The rough guide calls Surat “uninspiring”, and in the accomodation section recommends “you’d probably be better of on a night boat to Ko Samui or Ko Pha Ngan.” We figured out departure schedules for the next day, found a nice little hotel called the “Ban Don” (recommended in the Rough Guide), and then struck out to look for some dinner.

After doing a circuit around the waterfront area, we decided the best-smelling restaraunt was right underneath our hotel, but as we walked back in to get some BBQ pork over rice, the man was just closing up and said, “Food Faire, 10 minute walk, that way.” OK, so we wandered down the street.

(I’ll post pictures later, this connection is too slow)

Sweet, a local food festival. It was great, literally more than 100 small stalls each selling something completely different, each authentic and tasty, and each only 20 baht (about fifty cents). We had great satay, BBQ pork/duck over rice (a local specialty, I think), noodle soup, the sweetest watermelon, and some fantastic mango with sticky rice. All in the cool evening breeze right along the Tapi river that runs through town. A fantastic evening.

To make it even better, on the way back we noticed a massage tent where a local school was doing hour-long thai or foot massages for 100 baht. They were still just learning but an hour-long foot massage is worth it for anyone whose been hiking on their feet for a couple of weeks!

This morning we took a bus across the peninsula (amazing scenery through the limestone mountains and rain forest), and tonight we’re boarding the boat for a 4 day/4 night scuba adventure. We’ll be back on dry land the 15th and then probably heading straight up to Bangkok that night, unless we decide to change our plans completely (which is entirely possible).

We’ve booked a trip aboard the Queen Scuba for a four day/four night live-aboard dive trip to the Similan Islands in the Adaman Sea off the West Coast of Thailand. Today we’re making our way from Koh Tao to Koh Samui and then over to the mainland and across. 15 dives in 4 days, Lex is gonna take her Advanced Class, and lots of time to sneak off on to the deserted islands in this pristine area right between Thailand and Burma…yay!

I spent a week on the tiny scuba-diving mecca of Koh Tao about three years ago and it was one of the most enjoyable places I’ve ever been. When Lex said she wanted to head down here in order to get her Scuba cert I was thrilled. After a looooooooong, bUmPy, and sleepless ride down the Thai “highway”, then a reasonably quiet boat ride over, we pulled in to Ban Mae Had (the main port).

Koh Tao has changed quite a bit in these past three years. The main town is about twice the size as it was, and the number of people zipping by on scooters has become excessive, if not dangerous. I don’t know if it’s because I was staying down on the south side of the island or if just the whole place has changed, but our little cottage (above) is only a hundred yards to the beach but only twenty yards from a walking path that has scooters zipping up and down all the time. Rather dissapointing and go-go-go, but there are still good things to be had, like great dinners while the sun dips into the ocean, amazing Thai massages, and some of the best Scuba spots in the Gulf of Thailand.

So that’s what we’ve been doing since we arrived, diving. Lex had half a day of rest then went straight in to the academic and water-based excercises for her basic Openwater course. I started the first day we arrived with a CPR/EFR class and then three intense days of Rescue Diver certification. This course was one of the most challenging things I’ve done in a long time. Involved study, special skills, and some real taxing excercises in the water. We start with some basic activities like helping a tired/panicing diver on the surface, then move on to more involved procedures such as rescuing an unconcious diver on the surface (performing resuscitation in the water, towing them back to the boat, and getting them up a ladder without help). The final skills involve searching for a missing diver, dragging them up (slowly) from the bottom, and repeating the whole excercise. Add to this a masochistic group of instructors who I’m convinced have gone nuts from a little too much sun and nitrogen narcosis, and they come up with some pretty insane scenarios for you to deal with.

All in all, a fantastic course though. The best class I’ve had in a long time and a hell of a lot of great information (I hope I never have to use). I think I’m on the PADI band-wagon now, and will probably continue to take a few specialty courses towards a Master Scuba Diver rating. But first, I have to convince some friends back home to take their Rescue Cert so that we can practice together to keep our skills sharp.

Alexis’s class should be on their last dive of the day right about now. From here we’re going to rest for a little bit and then make our way back over to the mainland, across the peninsula, and try to hop aboard a live-aboard dive boat for 4 days/4 nights of stupendous Scuba in the Similan islands. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to take my new camera housing under water!

Phew, this is the first time in a week I’ve had a moment to sit down and actually try to summarize what we’ve been up to (more on the crazy business later). We flew in to Bangkok exactly one week ago last Tuesday, and instead of going full-speed ahead straight onto an overnight bus/boat for Koh Tao, we decided to hang around and try to decompress for a day. Bangkok isn’t necessarily the most relaxing city in the world, and it’s probably one of the most interesting smelling, but it is an incredible city none-the-less and a site to behold.

I’ve passed through Bangkok many times, and always have different experiences. This time we took a day and ended up revisiting many places we’ve been before, but found the experience to be fresh and interesting.

Buying wedding bands on Koah Sahn road - “You can get anything you need on Koah Sahn Road.” This once block stretch of a small Bangkok district is the throbbing heart of the Thai (and most of SE Asia) backpacker circuit. Almost all journeys either start or end here, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. People will arrive in mini-buses at 1am after a 24 hour flight and not know if it’s day or night. They will look for either a place to sleep or just drink until dawn. You can arrange all your ongoing travel (either domestic or international), lose yourself in email for about sixty cents an hour (with beer service!), and buy any kind of gear you need for your upcoming travel, clothes, bags, CDs, electronics…all knock-offs of course.

Alexis and I left our wedding bands at home in a safe-deposit box, so we wanted to get some “travelling rings.” There are actually a ridiculous number of jewelry shops around the tourist areas of Bangkok, where you can buy anything from rubys to gold to bulk silver jewelry. We ended up wandering down the road and just found some rings we liked from a local street vendor. Total cost, about $7US total.

We then proceded to get a couple of large duffle bags and sweep through some of the side markets and buy some cute little items such as sarongs, shirts for our friends, and some interesting local made lamps of wood and rice-paper. All of this crap we just packed up and left in the luggage room at our hotel (we leave a lot of stuff with that hotel).

Koh Tao Tickets - The only thing we knew for sure we wanted to do on this trip was to head down to Koh Tao for some beach time and some scuba diving. The general route involves taking an overnight bus or train from Bangkok and then a morning boat out to the island. As we started to sniff around for a good deal we found out that we were going to be travelling down just before a local Buddhist holiday, as well as just before the Full Moon Party that takes place on Koh Phan Ngan every month. So the first could places we tried were booked solid (and a bit expensive). We wandered in to a nice little shop with a great lady who quoted us a price less than half of what the other people were charging. We bought our tickets and she told us to come back the next night at 8pm. Great, done.

Scuba Lessons - Wandering down the far side of Koah Sahn we saw an office of Planet Scuba, who had been recommended as a quality dive center. We could tell straight off that they were very professional because they are the only diving operation I’ve ever worked with that required me to fill out a medical release for my chest surgery, or even to check my damn C-card! So we booked an Openwater course for Alexis and I signed up for the Rescue Diver course and the required EFR (Emergency First Response/CPR) series. These each would take about four days so we thought this would dove-tail nicely.

So that’s what a Thai Hospital looks like - Well, being the sticklers that they are, Planet Scuba wanted me to get a doctor’s release for my chest surgery…something I haven’t even thought about needing in the past ten years. Since I hadn’t had the foresight to find a doctor at Kaiser back home to check me out, Nuch (P-S’s office manager in Bangkok) pointed me to the Chao Praya Hospital just over the river towards the South Bus Terminal. We hopped in a Taxi and went for a little adventure.

The local hospital was clean and well-organized. I was able to check in and they asked us to sit and wait. After just a few minutes a nurse came over to take me for a pre-exam where they took my vitals and what not. I think they also were laughing a bit at me since by this time I smelled pretty damn bad, but oh well. Five minutes later another nurse led me in to an office where a nice doctor who spoke passable English was ready to check me out. The examination was quick and straighforward, and when it was over she wrote me a short note on hospital letterhead (which I’m keeping with my dive card at all times now). We paid and checked out and headed back to our hotel. Total of about thirty minutes and $6US (I’m only quoting prices for comparison to other places). Very well run operation.

As luck would have it, one of Bangkok’s infamous traffic jams started while we were in the hospital, so it took about two hours to make the three miles or so back to our hotel. So long in fact that we jumped out before the last turn because we knew the driver was going to have to circle around on our place. Well, all tasks done for the day.

After one of the longest flights of my life, Lex and I landed in Bangkok at about midnight last night and got a cab out to our favorite hotel and finally got a good nights sleep. Today we are getting ready to set out for Koh Tao and who knows where else! I might leave more updates, or I might not (heh). But I wanted to put something up before I disabled the damn comments again so people wouldn’t think I didn’t want to hear from them (you all know how to get ahold of me anyways…)