Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone I haven't spoken to! It's now 2007, year of the pig. To appease any worries, Lauren and I are safe and sound in Chiang Mai about to head up to the mountains for the week before she heads home. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone very very soon!

Gmail is back

I can access my gmail again!

Dogtown

In case you haven't heard, there was an earthquake in Taiwan yesterday morning that messed up the cables and disrupted the internet and phone communication all over asia. Although the internet is back up, some sites are still not accessable... i.e. GMAIL. If you are trying to contact me I CAN access my hotmail for some reason, so please email me at vickirbrown (at) hotmail.com for now. When gmail is back up, I'll let you know!

In other news, i've been bummin around Chiang Mai. Relaxing more than I have since the beach, walking a lot. I went to some Wats today for the first time, i feel so lazy. They were so beautiful though, I'm going to hire a tuk-tuk tomorrow to take me to a bunch of them. This city is just really great to walk around and explore, so many beautiful shops and street scenes...the dogs really do it though. Everyone in this town has at least one small pup and they all dress them up! I've never seen anything like it, they are so cute! The dogs either have a dog shirt on, or a human shirt put on the dog. We saw one with a button-down shirt on, and even some cats have them too! I swear, the dogs in Thailand have more clothes than the children in the rest of SE Asia. They are also all on the motorbikes. We saw a guy riding a motorbike with a yellow lab in front of him and his paws were on the handle bars! I soooo wish i had taken a picture. Ohhh i can't wait to pet my kitties...so much cuteness, lauren and I are squealing left and right. Luckily the little lopsa opsa and the poodle at our guesthouse are soooo cute and friendly, we get to play with them.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and has a good new years!

Aromatic

That's my new favorite word...especially when Thai people say it. They are so cute, i wanna take em all home! I learned how to make curry paste today...YUM! And black sticky rice in coconut milk...and 4 other dishes. As soon as that kitchen's done I'm gonna be cookin up a storm...thank god for Han Ur Rum and their fantastic selection of foreign produce, fish sauce and coconut milk.

Chiang Mai...at last

We are finally here, as we have patiently awaited the great Chiang Mai and expected greatness. After all the talk it's better than I ever could have expected. Chiang Mai is a fantastic city! A great size, maybe like Baltimore. The food here is amazing, it is clean, charming, filled with beautiful temples just decorating the city, and it is very international. There are people from all over the world living and learning here, mostly for some sort of wellness.

This city is very health focused. If you are interested in yoga, massage, meditation, cooking or anything related you must come here. I've never seen anything like it. There are tons of markets and things to do all the time, i'm having a great time exploring.

So we took the VIP bus down from Chiang Rai, which ended up being sooo sweet. Nothing like the "VIP" bus in Laos. We were in shock, we actually had leather recliners as seats! After a very enjoyable bus ride we got here to find that all the hotels were booked and had to stay in a dodgy one for one night..no biggie. Then i searched for nice one while lauren started her massage course, but they said we could only stay for 2 nights. Lauren realized after her first day that she needs to do both courses, so we'll be here for 2 weeks..which is FINE with me! I am really itching to be stagnant for a little while. Laos was a lot of moving around.

So finally this morning i found a place on the same street (we wanted to stay in this area since there are so many other backpackers and great restaurants) that will let us stay until after new years. So the plan is to hang out here until then and then do a 3 day trek just before heading back to bangkok. I have 24 days until alex comes...yea! I am really looking forward to that.

In the mean time, I'm taking a 5 day thai cooking class as the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. It's supposed to be the best one here and so far it's been really fun. We learn 6 dishes per day in this really beautiful outdoor kitchen. The setup is very proper, i feel like i'm in a cooking show. The instructors are all so cute and funny, I love it. I can't wait to cook some curry for everyone! mmmmmm.....green curry soooooo good. Good thing i have such a great asian market to come home to or i wouldn't be able to make anything i'm learning. Where else are you gonna get Kaffir Lime leaves or fresh palm sugar? Gotta have those! I had no idea that there are 4 different kinds of soy sauce either. I always wondered why they had an entire aisle for soy sauce at the asian market.

The rest of the time i'm relaxing, checking out all the good book shops, markets and sites in town. I'm really enjoying down time in a city that isn't crazy...just good. We've met all kinds of other travelers that are on all kinds of different trips. And tons of people that are in all kinds of weird living situation, makes me feel like my life is so normal. For example: a canadian guy and a thai american girl living in Belgium on a trip to thailand scoping out the next place to go. TONS of people like that...so crazy! Yesterday lauren and i saw Dejavu at the movie theater, our second movie outing on this trip. Only we forgot...in thailand there's a perk to going to the movies (alex, i forgot to mention this today). Soo funny! At the beginning, after the previews, just before the movie starts there is a tribute to the king. It's this super cheesy photo montage with bubbles of him floating around the screen on top of landscapes of thailand...and everyone stands for the entire thing. It's like standing for the national anthem at the movies...only super cheezy!!! We had to try really hard not to laugh out loud. I love thailand!

Back to Thailand!

After the longest journey yet we are finally back in Thailand. We spent 3 nights in Luang Praboung, Laos, a beautiful city (more like a small town) that is one of the most charming places we've been. It's supergreen and lush with little cafes everywhere and riverside views. We saw tons of Wats and rented bikes to cruise around town. The night market was so beautiful and quiet, it's supposed to be one of the best markets in SE Asia. We really enjoyed it, no pressure and really beautiful things. The best part was the food! There were these tables of all kinds of vegetarian food and you could fill up a plate for 5000 kip! That's 50 cents. It was some of the best food we've had on this trip. We got spoiled..just before we had to eat baguettes and processed cheese for 2 days...

So there's only 1 ATM in Laos, and I cashed my last travelers check and lauren got a cash advance to get us to thailand, but we kind of underestimated how much we needed and bought stuff our last night...stupid stupid stupid. We had a 2 day long boat ride along the mekong and spent 2 nights in tiny little random towns along the way...it was very strange. The boat ride was really beautiful, i occupied myself by reading an entire book in 2 days...although it was LONGGGGGG. Basicly, to make a long story short, we crossed over into Thailand this morning with $1 in my pocket...that's it! Luckily there was an ATM at the border town in Thailand so we could get to Chaing Rai today.

So here we are, Chaing Rai...noone we met was coming here, and now we know why. This town is U-G-L-Y. We are taking the bus the Chaing Mai first thing in the morning. Even so, it feels great to be back in Thailand. After our little SE Asia tour, Thailand feels soooo developed! The houses are sturdy and the people have clean clothes on. There are no begging children and they all have pants!

It feels like this is a major turning point in our trip. The busride today was really beautiful and relaxing, it was good reflection time. I can't believe how many places we've been and cultures we've seen. In Vietnam alone we saw about 5 different ways of life. Each region seems so different now, even northern thailand. The people here look so much more Chinese than in the south. The southern people seem to be more Khmer influenced. Anyway, here we are...and FINALLY headed to Chaing Mai, the first place we were supposed to go! Cheers to that!

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A house we visited in the village on our trek...oh boy!

This is at the market with the Flower Muong Tribe, the most colorful people in Vietnam.

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On the trek...

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The little girls in Sapa that were playing with us in the square.

More Sapa photos

Tubing...in Asia

You wake up as you please, no schedule, no reservation. A tuk-tuk packs you and 10 others into the back with the tubes on top, go a short distance down the road to drop you off. You may wonder, how can this take 6 hours if it's only 4 km away? It doesn't take long to figure out.

After you plop your tube into the clean, crisp water, perfect for tubing, you immediatly see a bar on the left. It's small, not worth stopping at. The river starts out slow, making it easy for lauren to pull over to the man selling beerlaos on the side. A few minutes later we are slowly moving, us and 10 others, baking in the sun...no better way to spend a day.

As we float along there are more and more bars, Bob Marly is a background noise that comes and goes throughout the river. Finally we see a place worth stopping, the music is loud and there are tons of people. As we approach we see someone flying through the air on a rope swing and splash into the water.

To help you get over they have a long stick of bamboo with a plactic bottle on it. You grab on and glide in, effortless. All over are people we met the night before, all friendly, and from all over the world. It feels like college, freshman year. Everyone eager to make friends and have a good time, and many of them younger than us.

We decide to partake in volleyball game, it is the first time we have seen one of the many volleyball nets we've seen along the way actually being used. I'd have to say, that was one of my favorite parts, it was almost surreal. Hanging out on the side of river in Laos, playing beach volleyball with all these people who are superfriendly. I can see how people get stuck here for weeks.

After a couple hours watching people go crazy on the rope swing and chattin it up, we head back on the river. The water feels so good and views just keep getting better. Of all the tubing I've done in the States, I've never seen views like this. The sun comes and goes behind the mountains and the trees glow in the afternoon light. We chat with all sorts of people along the river. The rapids come and go making it a little more exciting. For the last half hour of the journey we end up with 4 laoian boys hitching a ride on our tubes. So bizarre.

We are pretty tired today, yesterday was a long day...today we are resting. I couldn't stay here for as long as some of the other people we've met. It's a really fun beautiful spot but it's a little strange that there's no Laotian culture here. Some people have told us this is their favorite place in SE Asia, I think that's a little sad. Surely noone would come all the way to asia to hang out with a bunch of westerners? This is really bizarre to me.

One month from today lauren flies home, it seems crazy that time is flying so quickly. Soon, we're back in thailand...mmmm...green curry!

Lovely Laos

Whew, i can take a deep breath. Look at the stars. Listen to the crickets. Drink a Beerlao. Laos is CHILLLLLLL. It's the perfect order, chaotic Vietnam, then Laos.

Before i begin I have to thank alex for making the cutest icon ever for me! I intended to make it before i left but ran out of time...i love it soooo much. That's why my blog is "Hello Vicki" in case you were wondering. Secondly, id like to thanks those who have posted commments. I never think people are actually reading, so it's a great surprise that people are. It makes me feel more connected to home too, which is always nice.

So we had a great last day in vietnam, saw ho chi mihn's mausoleum, when to a museum, saw the water puppet theater, nice dinner, cyclo ride. It was perfect. Then we took a quick and painless 1 hour flight to Vientiene. The other option was a 23 hour bus ride...no thanks!

Immediately we could feel how chill laos is, no honking, very few people anywhere really. Had a nice lunch, saw some cool wats...then...i dropped alex's camera...had a freikout, got it fixed by this morning and headed off to Vang Vien.

Vang Vien...whatta place. Oh man. So quiet and beautiful. It's in the valley between mountains with a river. Laos still has 60 percent of it's forest so it's really lush and beautiful. This is a tiny town with a bunch of nature things to do. We just spent the last 2 hours sitting in a bamboo canopy on hammocks drinking beerlaos overlooking the river watching the sunset. There are so many travelers here and have already met a bunch of really nice people. This place is amazing. It's like all of the anxiety and stress from vietnam is washed away.

Tomorrow is going to be great. We are going tubing down the river that we've been hearing about since thailand...everyone talks about how awesome it is...and now i know why. It's between the mountains and superchill. Along the way there are cute bars and restaurants where you stop and get whatever you want and meet tons of people. There is so much to do here too, caves, kayaking, hiking. We'll have to decide. My cousin was right, it really does just keep getting better and better. I'll try and post some more of those sapa photos soon. I miss everyone and am looking forward to seeing you all!

As I Promised...

Lauren and I on a motorbike tour

Cutest little girl ever...check out the outfit! More pictures later...