I chose my birthday to serve as the transition point between Asia and Europe. Three of my four grandparents were born in Greece and I wanted to enjoy my most special of days in the fatherland. I had been to Greece once before, but it was in December and I only went to Athens for 10 days. I hit up several museums and the acropolis, so this time I wouldn’t have to do the tourist trail. Also on that trip, I met some relatives. I also met some relatives or relatives that I’m not technically related to. My “cousin” George and I really hit it off and kept in touch.
When I arrived at the airport this time, George was there to pick me up. After freshening up at his place, we were off to the Danish ambassador’s house for dinner. That’s how George rolls. The place consisted of 4 floors in a very nice highrise with an amazing view of the city and the acropolis. My first full day in Athens included a phenomenal lunch of roast chicken with lemon and potatoes, real Greek salad, and a very nice white all prepared by George’s grandmother. His family has a 3 story building and she lives on the ground floor. She does all of the laundry, cleaning, and cooking for George and his brother. They are extremely fortunate to have that kind of a living situation and I feel bad for their future wives. After lunch, we hit up a beach that played techno music. It was pretty cool and a little taste of what to expect on beaches in Greece. That night, George’s friend Maja the model took us out to the hottest bars in town. It was surreal listening to Serbian pop as we flew down the streets in her new Audi after coming from se Asia. My birthday began with shots at midnight of that evening. The bulk of my birthday was spent planning the logistics of my trip to the islands. George took me to a very cool bar on the beach to watch my birthday sunset before returning to his place for dinner. His family had prepared a great birthday meal highlighted by an unbelievable pastitsio. They even got me a birthday cake and sang happy birthday in Greek, English and Swedish (George has dual citizenship and lives there for part of the year). It was such a nice birthday and it really felt as if I was at home with family. I also learned that they produce their own wine and olive oil and their family hasn’t purchased olive oil for generations.
I took the ferry to Santorini the next day, but returned to Athens twice more (once was not unintentional). I fell asleep on the 45 minute ferry ride from Santorini to Ios and ended up back in Athens. I called George and he came to the port to pick me up. We had a good laugh and another great night. We went to the Gas District, which was full of people and lots of cool bars and clubs. At 4am, he took me to see “the doctor.” The doctor is his friend’s dad that owns one of the most popular gyros/souvlaki places in Athens. He is half Vietnamese and half Greek, but is not very in touch with his Asian side. He was a really cool guy and his gyros were the perfect medicine after a night of drinking.
A few days later, I returned to Athens from Mykonos at 10pm for a flight to Corfu early the next morning. Again, George picked me up at the port and we had a great time. Last year his parents bought a house 2 hours north of the city and moved there. The house is high on a hill near where the naval battle of Salamis occurred and has an amazing view of a national forest, harbor, and the city. The view wasn’t the only amazing thing, mom and yaya (grandma) had been busy in the kitchen again. We had stuffed tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants with Greek yogurt, honey, feta, and cucumbers. It was a perfect meal in a beautiful setting with wonderful people. We enjoyed the view for a while before heading to a bar on nearby Marathon Beach. It was full of people at 230 am on a Wednesday and was a very chill place to be after the islands.
Athens is one of the places that everyone says to spend a couple days in and leave. For me, it is one of the places I find hardest to leave. The overwhelming hospitality, generosity, warmth, and love of my quasi-family makes Athens one of my favorite places in the world.
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Mykonos is the biggest party island in Greece and is rivaled only by Ibiza, Spain as the premier party destination in Europe. Visiting such a place was a radical departure from my travels in southeast Asia. My time spent in Mykonos consisted of partying all night and sleeping on the beach during the daytime. It was a vacation from my vacation and quite an experience.
The first thing that I noticed about Mykonos is that it is EXPENSIVE; really, really expensive. The cheapest hotel room I could find was 43 euros for a shack with a bed in it and communal bathroom. I opted to sleep on the ground at Paradise Beach for 10 euros a night. It is 15 euros to sleep with a tent and you must buy the tent. A coffee is 4 euros, covers to clubs are 20-30 euros, beers are 8 euros, and a vodka red bull is 12 euros. It is 23 euros per day for a scooter rental and 34 for a quad. In Santorini the prices are 15 euros and 20 euros respectively. Food isn’t cheap either and I only had one proper meal while on island.
While the price tag for a visit to Mykonos is high, it is for good reason. If you like to party, Mykonos is the place to be in mid-August. Most of the visitors were from Italy, but there is also a strong showing from Greece, Spain, and France. There are literally thousands of very attractive girls that come to party and they compliment the natural beauty of the beaches rather nicely. Paradise Beach is the biggest party spot on island and was a great home base for my time in Mykonos.
I ventured to Mykonos town each day (by bus!) and managed to catch a sunset by the windmills, meet a fellow couchsurfer and have an excellent meal. The restaurants are quite pricey, but I stumbled upon Niko’s Taverna where I had a relatively inexpensive and delicious lunch. The daily special was octopus pasta and I washed it down with .5 L of the house rose. With the exception of a pizza, everything else I ate in Mykonos was some form of gyros.
Mykonos does not offer much outside of partying and beaches and is very expensive. If partying and the beach are what you’re after, and you can afford it, Mykonos is the place to be. I’m glad I got to experience Mykonos at its finest and recommend you do the same if you love to party.
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Santorini is the most photogenic Greek island, the one famous for its white buildings with blue roofs. The amazingness of the island is not limited to the architecture, Santorini may be the most beautiful place I have ever been. The Aegean is a magnificent blue and the coast is lined with steep cliffs, colorful beaches, and those picturesque white buildings.
I spent my first night at an overpriced hotel in Perissa before finding Ana Youth Hostel, where I would stay for the rest of my time on island. Perissa is in the southeast of the island and is more laid back than the capital city of Fira. Fira is heavily touristic and home to the only semblance of nightlife in Santorini. Since I was heading to Mykonos next, I decided to hold off on the partying until then and stick to Perissa.
Perissa is separated from the town of Kamori by a huge rock/mountain. There is a pass that allows you to go over, rather than around the rock and I took it. The way up was difficult, requiring you to walk up steep slopes in terrain that was mostly deep gravel. When I reached the top and looked down I discovered that there was a path and I did not take it… It was extremely windy on top of the rock and the way down to Kamori was very scenic and beautiful. The town has a long black sand beach with restaurants lining the adjacent road. I had grilled fresh sardines and an ice cold beer for lunch at one of them.
There are many options for getting around Santorini. You can take the bus or rent a car, scooter, or ATV. I went with the quad and it was so much fun! I checked out the red sand beach, black sand beaches, the lighthouse in Faros, the capital city of Fira, a quiet town on the east coast whose name escapes me, wine tasting at Gavala Vineyards, and watched the sunset from picturesque Oia all in one day.
I ate mostly seafood while in Santorini, having sea bass and sardines twice each. The food was good, fresh, and only moderately expensive considering it was the middle of high season. Santorini is definitely not a party island, but has a lot of natural beauty to offer visitors. Santorini was the perfect starting point for my travels in the Greek islands and I really enjoyed my time there.
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Starting and ending my Asian adventure in Bangkok was ideal in that it showed me how the last couple months changed my outlook. When I arrived, I thought the city was big, loud, dirty, and full of aggressive locals trying to squeeze every penny they can from foreigners. Twelve weeks later, I still think all of the above to be true, but I’m cool with it.
Whenever I thought of what it means to be a developing nation, I thought in terms of making gains in infrastructure, sanitation, education, etc. Of course these things are present, but there is also the human factor. A developing nation, at least in southeast Asia, is a nation, a people, and a culture experiencing a radical transition. The implementation, or imposition, of foreign technologies, innovations, practices, and values creates an impact zone. The current working age generation has lived through war, genocide, corruption, and about everything else you can imagine. They weren’t fortunate enough to have the education (that only some) of the children and young people now have. This is truly a lost generation in a time of drastic cultural transformation. Their options are to do manual labor, work in a factory for slave wages, or try to capitalize on the influx of foreigners and their cash. Working professionals in Cambodia make less than $1,000 a year. In Vietnam, if you have a 4 year degree and a few years of experience you are lucky to make $10,000 a year. Granted, the cost of living is proportionate to their income, but when you have tourist coming from places like the US where the median annual income is over $50,000, something has to give.
My advice to keep your cool (and your sanity) when visiting these places is the following. Know that you’re getting ripped off. There is no way around it, most of the time you will be paying much more than locals. It is still good to comparison shop, do research online, talk with other travelers, to make sure you aren’t getting it too bad, but you will pay more. Also, know that the difference between what you and locals pay isn’t very much in western terms. If it is something like a bus/train ticket or food, you will be paying an extra couple dollars. This is cheaper than a coffee at starbucks and means a whole lot more to someone living on a few dollars a day than it does to you or I. My last little pearl of wisdom is that it’s not their fault. For the most part, even in the touristy areas, these are not bad people; they are victims of circumstance. They did not ask to be born into a war zone and abject poverty. They did not have the things that we take for granted, most importantly an education. I don’t think their childhood ambition was to wait around all day in hopes of giving tourists a tuk tuk ride or forcing their daughters into prostitution.
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos are all amazing places. The farther you get from the impact zone, the more authentic that place becomes. The tide of development/westernization/corporate colonialism/whatever you want to call it is spreading and will eventually cover the entire region. Between the 4 countries, and within each, you can see the effects of outside influence. Whether you are in a major city like Saigon, Phnom Penh, or Bangkok, or a sleepy little place like Kong Lo, Mae Sarang, or Don Khon, people are still people and have a lot to offer. For me, the best way to observe foreign influence and the cultural/societal impact has been in the villages. Electricity, satellite dishes, cell phones, motorbikes, and tourists change places fast and the differences are astounding. Relatively untouched villagers, like the ones I came across in some treks, look confused as to why you would want to be there and are curious/shy/friendly. People in villagers with heavy tourist traffic, like in Sapa, will sprint to you, attach themselves to you, and try to sell you handicrafts the entire time you’re there.
As inevitable as the change is, it is also irreversible. The shift from subsistence agriculture to a commercial economy, especially when that economy is tourist-centric, is drastic. As visitors, the most we can do is help preserve the culture as best we can. You can vote with your wallet while traveling. I choose treks that are owned and operated by locals whenever possible. If that is not an option, I go through agencies that compensate guides and the villages they visit fairly. If animals are involved, usually elephants, I make sure they are treated humanely and not being abused. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a McDonald’s in the states and wouldn’t dream of patronizing a foreign chain while abroad either. You get better food at a better price and the money goes to a much better cause when you eat local.
There are many things I could have done differently, added, or done without over the course of the trip, but I am very happy with my time spent in southeast Asia. I had some amazing experiences and met some truly wonderful people, both locals and fellow travelers. The highlights are too many to mention and the regrets to few. The monetary cost was not that much (unless you’re Cambodian), and the experience I gained is priceless. If you can do a similar trip, I can’t recommend going for it enough. If you think you can’t to a similar trip, think again because anything is possible!
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Mae Hong Son city is the capital of the province with the same name. It is located in the far northwest of Thailand, not far from the Burmese border. The city is a very nice size, more than just one main strip, but still walkable. There is a small night market each day near the center of town. One of the vendors, Amnot, freehands the graphics on all of the t-shirts he sells and even dyes the fabric himself. The food was good, but was not among the best I had on the trip. It was nice to try Burmese cuisine. I stayed at Prince’s Guesthouse because it was 200 baht (just under $7) per night and had in room bathroom and wifi. The British ex-pat owner had zero personality and no concern for customer service, but I didn’t find any better options.
MHS is a great staging point for day trips and treks. On my first afternoon, I came across Mr. Chart. He is a trekking guide and quite a character. Him and his trek sounded like what I was looking for, but unfortunately, no one else was interested in doing a trek while I was there and it is price prohibitive to go solo. Mr. Chart did let me know where to eat and where to go on my own for day trips. Having a motorbike was essential to taking full advantage of what MHS had to offer.
I took a cruise up to the Chinese village of Mae Aw, located on the Burmese border. Mae Aw has an interesting history. It was established as a safe haven for anti-communist Chinese refugees at the time of the Chinese revolution. They specialize in growing tea and make the best Chinese (Yunnanese to be exact) food I’ve ever had. I had a dish called moo pan pee that consisted of pork over some seriously spicy greens that ranks among the best pork I’ve ever had. There is also a border crossing in Mae Aw, but it is not your typical one. There are no police, military, or officials. In fact, there are no people working the border at all. I strolled right into Burma without my passport or a visa. There is a school and a village right on the border and I walked around for a bit. When I returned to Thailand for lunch, I recognized some people that I had seen in Burma 30 minutes earlier. Outside of the Burmese people, I was the only other foreigner in Mae Aw and it made me very happy.
On the way to the village, I stopped at the Foa Sua waterfall. It was very big and nice, and I didn’t see another person there as well. After Mae Aw, I stopped at a palace, 2 towns, and a long neck Karen village on the way back to MHS. The only other visitors I saw were at the Karen village. The palace wasn’t very palatial. The buildings were very modern and not imposing at all, but the grounds were beautiful and very well maintained. The towns I visited were surrounded in pine forest and featured large lakes and traditional houses. I had debated whether or not to visit the long necks. They are being exploited by the Thai government and it’s not right. They were relocated to their current villages, where the Thais charge 250 baht ($8+), which is a lot for Thailand, to visit. Only a handful of older women had neck rings on, all of the men had western clothing, there were cell phones, motorbikes, and satellite dishes. The people didn’t seem happy either, there were a lot of -pardon the pun- long faces. I almost didn’t go on moral grounds, but I cracked because I had to see the long necks. I also took a day trip south to Nam Tok Mae Surin National Park. There was a nice, and not easy, trail that took a few hours and was very scenic. Towards the end of the loop, there are a couple nice sized waterfalls. I saw 2 other people during the four hours I was at the park.
The city of MHS was very nice overall and the surroundings make it an outstanding travel destination. There is enough tourist infrastructure where you can have wifi and other modern conveniences, but the city still has a soul. -
Thailand’s second city, Chiang Mai, is Bangkok‘s kid brother in the north; just as seedy, but not quite as overbearing. Like Bangkok, I honestly didn’t care much for Chiang Mai. The big cities I’ve visited this trip have taken the worst things from the west and used them to exploit local people. The tourist area is your stereotypical Thailand: old western guys with hot young Thai girls, prostitutes (many of whom were not born women), shady massage parlors, girly bars, grossly overpriced food, etc. Outside of the rather large whore-zone, there is a decent sized night market, a ton of great local eating establishments, and some of the best cooking classes in Thailand.
Because the cooking classes have such a great rep, I decided to take one while I was in town. I went to Siem Rice Cookery School and had a very nice time. Along with 8 other people, I did the all-day class and made 7 dishes (curry paste counted as a dish). In typical cooking class fashion, we started with a trip to the market where the driver explained Thai ingredients that no one other than he and I were familiar with. The class itself lasted 5 hours and was taught by a very funny, rather rotund woman named Nan. She was awesome and the class did not have the stuffy/formal (professional) feeling that you may find elsewhere. It seemed like we were hanging out with a family (her husband is the driver/assistant), joking around, cooking, eating, and having a good time. You are allowed to choose from several options for each course and everyone in the class doesn’t have to make the same thing. I went classic with tom yam soup, pad thai, spring rolls, holy basil chicken, massaman curry, and young coconut with sticky rice. For the saute course, where I made the holy basil chicken, we got to make a huge flame in the wok, which was very exciting. The class was great and worth the money, but I had a better overall experience with the amazing Miss Vy in Hoi An.
Chiang Mai was also the start and end point for my ten day motorbike journey of the Mae Hong Son Loop and serves as a starting point for some great trekking. Since I had the best possible trek with Mr. Chart, and was out of time, I didn’t do a trek out of Chiang Mai. I’ve long grown tired of the temple/palace thing and did not visit any while I was in town, but they are there if you desire.
I hadn’t researched a guesthouse and it took a while to find a suitable place, but I ended up finding one of the best guesthouses I came across. I did not want to stay in, or in the immediate vicinity of, the tourist area. La Maison Verde is a 5 minute walk to the start of the madness that is far enough away to have some peace and quiet. As the name suggests, the owner is French. Thierry and his amazing Thai girlfriend Jang run the place and are topnotch hosts. My experience has shown that “guesthouse” is often little more than a euphemism for “cheap hotel.” La Maison Verde is one of the few places that I genuinely felt at home in. Jang is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and Thierry is honest, polite, and truly cares about his guests. I found them by chance, walking down a side street on the night I arrived and they did not officially open for business until a week after I arrived. They have big, clean rooms, free wifi, and shared bathrooms. There are only 3 rooms in the guesthouse so the shared bathroom thing is not an issue. Jang is finishing up her menu and will be opening the kitchen very soon. If you are going to Chiang Mai, I highly recommend staying with these great people at a true guesthouse.
If you are going to northern Thailand, that means you will be going to Chiang Mai. I think it is a good start and end point to a relatively untapped part of an amazing country. I strongly suggest renting a bike from Tony’s Big Bikes and hitting up the Mae Hong Son Loop. It’s not a bad place to spend a couple days to check out the night market, take a cooking class, or see what a non-Bangkok big Thai city is like. -
I heard mixed reviews about Pai. Many people said I would love it and others said it is similar to Vang Viang or Sihanoukville, my two least favorite places in se Asia. There are certainly Vang Vieng-ish elements to Pai, but I enjoyed my time there. Pai is a city that, in the last decade, has transformed into a backpacker/new age/hippie haven. I do not consider Pai to be very Thai at all, but it certainly has redeeming qualities.
I spent my first night in Pai at the Villa de Pai Guesthouse. For just under $7, I had a private bungalow with a hammock and wifi. Life was good, until the rain came… There was a pretty substantial flood and the Villa de Pai was forced to evacuate and close. I found a suitable replacement about 1km outside of the center called Farmer Home Guesthouse. It also offered private bungalows with hammocks and wifi. I only had one meal at FH and it was a really good Thai style fried catfish.
There is a waterfall about 5km from town and I went to see it on my first afternoon in town. On the way to the waterfall I was flagged down by 5 different local families trying to sell me drugs. The waterfall itself wasn’t great and was crawling with tourists. There is a Yunnanese village similar to Mae Aw on the way back from the waterfall and I stopped for some moo pan pee. It was good and very spicy, but nowhere near the level of goodness as the moo pan pee I had in Mae Aw. As I had my dinner, I got to watch throngs of tourists snapping photos around the village. Welcome to Pai….
It dawned on me that I was in a different place than the rest of the Mae Hong Son Loop and had to take it for what it was. I went to the new ageist place I’ve ever seen, The Art of Chai, daily for the rest of my time in Pai. It is a cool little place downtown that specializes in fresh chai. The tea was great, I met some really cool people there and the owner, a Thai dude named Otto, was very cool as well.
There is a tex-mex place called The Mexican Grill that is supposed to have the best Mexican in Thailand. Rather than pay 3x the price for tourist oriented Thai food, I gave it a shot. The food was decent, which equates to Amazing considering the fact that I was having enchiladas in northwestern Thailand. It was also the most expensive meal of the trip. A 3 way combination plate was just under $8 and a margarita was $5. The Texan owner was another story… Despite never serving in the armed forces, he spent a great deal talking about war, the military, and the necessity of using nuclear weapons. His portrayal of women, especially in Thai women, led me to believe he is not a feminist. He also dropped the n-bomb… 3 times. Nothing like a little taste of Americana for you.
Outside of the ignorant, racist, misogynist, expat scumbag, the people were very friendly and welcoming. There is no doubt that Pai is a tourist town, but the people don’t try to really stick it to you as they do in so many other similar places. I’ve only gone for a few nights out this trip and had one in Pai. There is live reggae and chilled out bars that stay open until after the sun comes up. The highlight of my time in Pai was a 2 day/1 night trek I did with Mr. Chart. The trek was so amazing that it warranted it’s own blog post.
I enjoyed my time in Pai and think it’s definitely worth a stop. I met quite a few people that went for days and have been there for months or years. It reminded me of 4,000 Islands, Laos in that respect. It’s a laid back place that is tourist oriented, but not overdone. It’s important to take Pai for what it is: a place to relax, chill out, and take a break for a while. -
I wanted to do the final trek for my time in se Asia on the Mae Hong Son Loop and did my usual research online. I found Mr. Chart in Pai and he looked perfect. He offers the most rustic, primitive trekking experience I have come across and is an incredible guy. It’s hard to say that one trek was my favorite, because they all have been incredible, BUT if I had to choose one it would be my trek in Pai with Mr. Chart.
I had planned on doing a 3 day/2 night trek with him, but torrential rain made that impossible. He laughed at me when I showed up in his office in the pouring rain asking if we could still go out the next morning. In order to do a trek, you typically need a minimum of 4 people and the smaller the group you have, the more money you have to pay. No one else wanted to go on a trek and Mr. Chart did the unthinkable, he took me out alone on a private trek for the normal price ($50/day, pricy but well worth it).
Mr. Chart is no ordinary guide and this was no ordinary trek. All of his treks go to places that he uses exclusively. There are no other foreigners, no wide walking paths, and the people in the villages he goes to don’t try to sell you stuff. Because it was only a 2 day trek, we spent the night in the jungle and didn’t visit any villages. We crossed and walked up dozens of streams and went through dense jungle.. It was incredible. He brought hooks on string and we fashioned fishing rods out of bamboo and went fishing in the river, in heavy rain, as we made our way to camp. Because it was just the two of us, we used a bamboo structure covered in banana leaves that he had constructed with his last trek 5 days earlier. We gathered wood and made a fire in the rain. Food was cooked in bamboo and we ate out of bamboo. We even ate bamboo shoots. It was so cool eating bamboo that was cooked in bamboo out of bamboo plates in a bamboo building. I later found out that Mr. Chart’s youngest son is named bamboo. The food was really good. We had rice with every meal. He wrapped the rice in banana leaf pouches and cooked it inside of water filled bamboo. We also had grilled beef with every meal. We had a jungle curry that was really spicy and really good, fish stew made from the fish we caught, bamboo shoots, and a spicy chili sauce. Mr. Chart is also a skilled hunter and will take you hunting for dinner upon request. Before each meal, he left a food offering to the jungle spirits.
The jungle was very jungly and was teaming with wildlife. We saw a group of monkeys playing in the trees near camp, deer tracks, a pig sleeping area and poo, and bamboo that was munched on by monkeys. On the second day we followed the deer tracks and Mr. Chart used grass to make deer calls. On the same day, we stopped by the waterfall. There is a big waterfall a few hours hike from town and we saw several groups of tourists trying to find it when we were on the way back. The waterfall was impressive, but the “short cut” we took to get there was the best part of the trek. In addition to the normal river action, we went through extremely dense jungle. Before we headed out, he said, “we’re not babies and we’re not old” and “you can go fast like me” then left me with the warning “you should have worn pants and long sleeves.” We went at a very nice pace and he was able to navigate us around some crazy terrain and follow animal tracks at the same time. This time, there was no trail. We were so far off of the beaten path that there was no path at all! Mr. Chart pointed out numerous plants and told me their medicinal value or other practical applications. I was totally blown away by his knowledge, ability, physical conditioning, and him as a person. The trek was a perfect finale to my adventures in se Asia.
The Mr. Chart experience did not end when we got back to town. After showering and changing, I went back to Mr. Chart’s home/office for dinner. I helped him prepare a beef curry. We also had bamboo shoots with pork and oyster sauce and tripe soup. We washed the really good food down with copious amounts of homemade whiskey. While we were eating, several people came buy to eat and drink with us. Mr. Chart seems to know everyone in town and his home is a meeting place. He is an extraordinary human being that offers a once in a lifetime trekking opportunity for adventure enthusiasts. If you are serious about trekking, go to Pai and look up Mr. Chart. He is the best in the business. -
The plan had been to spend my last 2 weeks in SE Asia traveling around Northern Thailand before heading back to BKK for my flight to ATH. I had no clue what those two weeks would entail, then I heard about the Mae Hong Son Loop. The loop begins (and ends) in Chiang Mai and goes through Mae Hong Son province for about 400 km. You can do the Loop by bus, minivan, or motorbike. It is regarded as one of the premier motorbike trails in the world and motorbike is the preferred mode of transportation. The road itself has a few thousand bends in it and goes up, down, and around mountains. I had never driven a motorbike and the MHS Loop seemed like a perfect place to give it a shot.
I rented a bike through Tony’s Big Bikes in Chiang Mai. The other popular option is Mr. Mechanic. I went there first and was not impressed by the service or the price. A 10 day rental with insurance on a Honda Wave-X 125 was $40 with Tony and I went with that. I had a very difficult time starting the bike and stalled several times leaving the parking lot as well as on the main road. I quickly got the hang of it and was on my way! I decided to do the loop clockwise and headed southwest.
About one hour outside of the city I saw a giant reclining Buddha on a mountain and went to investigate. It was part of a temple and there was no one there; no monks, no visitors, nobody. It was really neat having such a place to myself. A couple hours later, I left the main road to check out a waterfall. It was about 20km down a very, very rustic road. The waterfall was actually a series of waterfalls with a tourist infrastructure set up. There was an information kiosk, restrooms, a restaurant, and well-defined paths with railings, but like the temple, not another person there. It was really bizarre, but totally awesome. You drive through a small village on the way to the falls and as I was driving back there was some traffic coming in the opposite direction. I got a little distracted looking at the village people and didn’t notice the giant pothole in front of me. We all got a good laugh when I dropped the bike and fell. Luckily, I was going extremely slow and the worst injury was a tear to my beloved Vibram Five Fingers. The giant lump I got on my left hip isn’t painful at all.
Two hours later I made it to Mae Sareang, where I spent the night. There isn’t much going on in the sleepy little village and there were plenty of guesthouses to choose from. I got a room with a view of the river at Riverside Guesthouse and had dinner next door at Sawaddee Restaurant. The food was good and they had wifi that reached my room at Riverside.
The following day I made it to Mae Hong Son in about 5 hours. The drive was more curvy and scenic, but I didn’t do any excursions to check out waterfalls or temples. The Loop was off to a great start and, despite the little accident, I was comfortable on the bike. -
There is a company in northwestern Laos that has a mission of preserving and expanding the habitat of gibbons as well as creating jobs and positive development in the community. Rather than just ask for donations, The Gibbon Experience provides an amazing opportunity to have some serious fun for a great cause.
I don’t mind paying extra money when it’s going to the right place, but at $90 per day the Experience is pricy for this part of the world. The 3 day was a little bit out of my budget for this trip, but, fortunately, they offer a 2 day/1 night trip that was less unaffordable. My previous “splurge” excursions were half the price of the gibbons, but I had to do it. I’m glad I did!
I arrived in Hoay Xai the evening before the trip began and went to the GE office to confirm my reservation. As I was checking in a group arrived back from the 3 day/2 night trip talking, looking, and acting as if they had been through a war. They told horror stories of giant leaches and 8 hour days of hiking through mud with only 2 of the 8 people seeing gibbons. The trip I was going on would be at a different location with a shorter hiking portion, fewer leaches, but less gibbon activity.
The first day of the Experience began with an 8am meeting at the office to watch safety and informative videos for 30 minutes. The only gibbons I would actually see on the trip were in the videos. After the films, the 7 of us participating in the adventure took a 1 hour truck ride to the start of the trail. The hike to the treehouse was not very muddy and took about 4 hours. The trail included 4 zip lines and it was my first experience zipping. I had my reservations considering my fear of heights, but it was not an issue. Zip lining was AMAZING! The lines were 300-700 meters long and most were over 100 meters high. The views and the feeling while zipping were indescribable.The treehouse, which would be our home for the trip, was really, really high up and only accessible by zip line. The bathroom had a porcelain squat toilet and shower with no outside walls, totally exposing you to the jungle. The floor had cracks that, when looking down, showed you just how high up you were. It was the coolest bathroom I have ever been in. The treehouse looked very new and the sleeping accommodations were adequate.
The first afternoon we had a few hours to go zipping on our own and it was like having an amusement park to ourselves. From the treehouse, there was a loop of about 5 cables that we went around several times. It was incredible. We returned to the treehouse for dinner at 6pm. None of the food on the trip was bad, but it was far from great. For dinner we had a nice fried beef dish, pretty good sauteed mushrooms, very oily veggie stir fry, and a boiled cucumber dish that I didn’t care for. The 7 of us spent the evening drinking lao lao and playing cards. Uncharacteristically, I dominated the card playing.
It was like a dream sleeping in a treehouse and hearing the jungle noises in the background. Sometime in the middle of the night that dream briefly turned into a nightmare when a very loud noise from some sort of animal woke everyone up. The official wakeup came at 6 am with our guides zipping back to the treehouse. It had rained all night and was not showing any signs of letting up. This put a damper on the plans for an hour of zipping before breakfast, but this is what happens during the rainy season. Breakfast was similar to dinner and we left the treehouse at 9.
Miraculously, the rain let up just as we left the treehouse. Due to the rain, the hiking on the second day was a lot more interesting. We went up and down some very steep slopes that were rather moist and a lot of slipping and sliding was going on. There were 4 more very long and very fun cables to zip across. We had lunch at a small hut by a river that in two weeks will become a starting point for tubing. There was only another 30 minutes or so of hiking before we reached the truck to take us back. The road was not paved and extremely rugged. We had to dismount several times for stream crossings as well as going up steep slopes. There were a couple points where we had to help push the truck up hills. The ride was nearly as fun as the zipping.
We returned to the office at 2pm a little muddy, a little tired, and very happy. The Gibbon Experience was incredible and I highly recommend it.
open mind, empty stomach 