Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Tubing Spring Break Style
I thought about skipping Vang Vieng altogether, but so many people told me how much fun it was and I didn't want to miss out. It's sole tourist attraction, at least that I saw, is tubing down a river, albiet with very beautiful scenery. But it isn't like any tubing I've done before. I imagined a scene much like it was in my college town, everyone floats down the river with a six pack of beer, actually quite relaxing. Definitely not the same!
There wasn't really much tubing. More just attempting to get from one side of the very strong river to the other quickly to get to the next bar. In order to do this you had to be pulled into the next bar by a rope that had a plastic bottle attached to the end they threw to you. This seemed like a great idea until they hit you in the head with that full plastic bottle. Once in the bar they hand you a free shot of whiskey, one especially dangerous bar had a bottle of whiskey sitting on a table in the middle of a bar of which you could take as many shot of as you wished. It was like spring break multiplied. Don't get me wrong, tons of fun, but getting into a raging river on a tube after a few too many drinks doesn't sound like the safest option.
I hooked up with a group of girls and we all agreed to watch out for each other on the way down the river. All went according to plan until it got dark. We all agreed to get out of the river and get a tuk tuk back rather than risking it. It was dark and crowded, three of us found each other, but we couldn't find the last girl. After much searching with no luck we decided the girl must have gotten out further down and we would find her back in town. It took a couple hours but thankfully she did make it back. She was pretty scratched up from fighting her way up the bank of the river, but she had found another person and they were able to pull themselves in together.
I'd heard statistics from people about deaths on the river, but I didn't know what to believe. Three days after I left Vang Vieng I met a tour guide who received his statics directly from the embassies. Turned out there had been six deaths in the four days prior to me tubing down the river. In the end it turns out I'm either too old or I think too much to really enjoy the tubing in Vang Vieng. I am happy I did it so that I don't regret having not done it, but I would never do it again.
The Mini Bus From Hell
The trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is well known for its crazy bus ride and my experience was no different. The mini bus capacity is said to be 12, but this is definitely pushing it. Because of this I thought I was lucky to be sitting in the front seat, yes, between the driver and another passenger, but still the front seat. I changed my mind quickly five miles down the road when I realized I was sitting on top of a very hot engine, in a bus with no air conditioning in 100 degree heat. Not my best decision.
I received a reprieve from the oven an hour later when traffic came to a stand still. Turns out those landslides everyone had been talking about were real and even bigger than they described. They had a couple machines working, but it took a few hours before we were able to pass. And when I say pass I mean still drive over a massive pile and watch it start to slide again. The driver had to hit the gas to avoid us being covered by it.
Next I realized yet another reason I never should have sat up front. The driver decided that he needed to make up for lost time so he drove like he was playing a race car video game barely missing innumerable vehicles, animals and children along the way. At least the rest of the passengers got quite a kick out of my gasps and sighs.At one point I leaned over to check his speed as we drove through a town at what I thought was was three times reasonable. It said we were going ten kilometers per hour as it said for entire 12 hour trip.
I have no idea how, but we arrived in Vang Vieng alive.
Luang Prabang
My next two days were spent on the slow boat to Luang Prabang. It was definitely a long time on a boat, but I got plenty of reading done, met some very interesting people, and it was fantastically beautiful. My favorite part was a three hour conversation I had with an older Italian gentleman who had been a journalist. He'd written about social and political issues all over the world and had some quite amazing stories as you can imagine. He'd somehow managed to visit Laos in the early eighties before it was reopened to tourists and journalists and talked about how he hadn't seen another foreigner on his entire trip.
Once in Luang Prabang I found a cute little guesthouse on a side street that was owned by a Belgian man and his Laotian wife. One of my favorite parts of this portion of the trip was speaking to both of them about what it was like to live in Laos. The woman actually had an American father whom she never met Her mother was pregnant with her in 1975 when all of the foreigners had to leave the country. She has spent countless hours trying to find him, but with little more than a common name she hadn't had much luck.
After walking around the city I fell in love and stayed four nights, but definitely could have stayed longer. It is a quiet town with a river on each side of the city, so there are endless riverside cafes. The night market is fantastic with great street food.
I spent my first night with a group of Germans from the guesthouse. We went out to dinner then to a bar for drinks where I ran into a pair of Dutch girls who had been on the Gibbons Experience with me. The following day I met up with the Dutch girls for some sightseeing. There was a festival with boat racing on the river, so we joined the crowd for a bit then visited one of the two waterfalls It was a bumpy journey in the back of a truck but it was worth it because it was very different from any waterfall I'd seen before. It had trees all through the middle of it that had then been surrounded by limestone as the sediments settled. When we got back into town we hiked to the top of Phusi Hill for sunset where we met a group of Dutch guys that we spent the rest of the evening with. In Luang Prabang there is a curfew of 11:30 and everything closes, but there is one place to go out of town, so at 11:00 when everything is closing down there are truck drivers outside of the restaurants prepared to take you to “Bowling,” which they describe as a club. It is not a club, but an actual bowling alley in the middle of nowhere.
The next day I walked all around the city and met a sweet Australian couple at the guesthouse. I had dinner with them and enjoyed stories from the woman who was born in France, was an au piar in the US, traveled through the middle east, and took a boat to Australia that was free if she worked there for two years. They may have been some of the best people I met on my entire trip.
My last day was spent across the Mekong in a smaller village. I saw only one foreigner on my short journey, which made it feel infinitely more authentic, well if you took away the satellites dishes which were attached to every single house. The entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage sight so everything on the main side of the river is extremely well preserved, but when you cross over it is completely different. Many of the temples were falling apart and it seems you are stepping back many income levels.
Luang Prabang is definitely a place I would like to find myself again, and I think I will!
Gibbons, Tree houses, and Hiking in the Mud
(From my 2011 trip to Laos - just catching up!)
The Gibbons Experience was one of the must dos of my trip and the thing that excited me most about Laos. The program uses the money it generates to protect the surrounding jungle and the animals in it. When I say protect I actually mean bribe the government not to log the area. Participants hike into the jungle where tree houses and a network of zip-lines have been built.
When I checked in they gave me a list of things I needed to bring so I found a guesthouse and went shopping. First on the list were shoes. I knew there was going to be mud and I didn't want to ruin my running shoes, so I went in search of the plastic cleats that they recommended. I found the largest size in town, which was still too small, but it did the job. I also got some gloves for zip-lining and a heavy duty poncho.
The trip began the next morning with an hour ride in two pickup trucks. Two Dutch girls and I secured a spot inside one of the trucks, which was really nice once it started to rain. They dropped us off on the side of the highway and pointed for us to go. The first minor incident occurred when we left the highway and crossed the river on a footbridge that seemed to be older than all of us combined. We were told to cross four at a time and slowly. I think there were more boards missing then there were still on the bridge, and yes, someone did manage to put his foot though one of the boards, but he came out fine so we continued on.
As we went on it got muddier and muddier and I became happier and happier with my three dollar rubber cleat purchase. Within the first 15 minutes I was in mud up to my knees. We hiked and we hiked and we hiked. They said that this road was too bad for a car, which it was, but that there would be one to pick us up a little bit further and take us part of the way. After a couple of hours we reached the car, one car! There were 12 of us and five guides. I have no idea how we fit, but we did.
The car didn't last long. I've never seen so much mud. We got stuck, got out of the car, pushed, got back in the car, and got stuck again four or five times before something on the car broke and we had to walk again. We walked for another couple hours and came to a small village. I was the third one to walk into the village and the first girl, which must have felt safer to the kids because they all ran out when I walked through.
All of our water was gone from the five hours of hiking we had done so far and there was no water to be purchased. After much hemming and hawing we decided that we had no choice but to drink the water from the town spigot, and the guides assured us that it was safe. This village is where the real hiking began, but it was by far the most beautiful. We arrived at the first kitchen an hour later where we were fit for our harnesses. It took about an hour of hiking and five zip-lines for us to get to our tree house. The zip-lining was
different than what I have done in the past, in that you are all on your own. You attached it yourself and there isn't a guide there to double check that you did it correctly. We all checked each other's till we felt comfortable.
We zipped directly into our tree house which was some ridiculous height off the ground. The view was spectacular, nothing but jungle! The tree house had two levels, the first was where you zipped in and had the bathroom, the second housed the kitchen and living area. I make it general practice to read very little about the conditions of the places I go so that I have low expectations and I'm normally pleasantly surprised. I had no idea there was even going to be a bathroom, I figured we were going showerless for the next couple days. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.
Once we settled in we started talking about showers. I was the first one to go. While we were cleaning the mud off ourselves so we could walk up to the second floor we used the hose next to the squaty toilet. I remember saying to someone that it was more of a shower than I expected, but that it was going to be a difficult shower, they didn't say anything. Now that I look back this was absolutely ridiculous, I'd been traveling for two weeks and I'd seen them in well over half of the places I'd stayed. Somehow in my excitement that I got any type of shower it never hit me that this was not the shower, but the Southeast Asian answer to toilet paper. After I “showered” I walked upstairs and everyone asked how it was. I said it was fine, but it was kind of a pain in the ass to have to bend over to wash your hair since the hose wasn't long enough. No one thought anything of it till the second shower taker emerged, “Amsbry, you didn't have
to bend over to wash your hair. The shower was around the corner, you took a shower with the toilet hose.” Everyone laughed hysterically. I was slightly grossed out, but it was the same water and I was happy to see everyone laughing.
They brought us dinner, which was really good considering we were in the middle of the jungle and they had to hike it all in. It got dark just before seven, we all played cards for a bit, set up up the mosquito nets and floor mattresses and went to bed early.
Many, including myself, woke up with wet beds. It rained half the night and all the way to lunch, which was no match for the thatch roof. We may have been unlucky with the rain, but we were super lucky with the Gibbons. Even though it is called the Gibbons Experience very few people get to see them, but we got to see them swinging from the trees for hours.
A couple of the group members spent the afternoon hiking and zipping to other tree houses, but most of us stuck around and zipped a couple of times from our tree house. When I came back from my short excursion I was taking my shoes off I discovered a leech on my ankle. I had only ventured a couple hundred feet from the tree house and hadn't walked through any water, but I managed to get a leech. I freaked out a bit because I couldn't seem to get a good enough grip to get it off, but eventually did.
We headed back early the next day knowing that the car was still broken down so we had seven hours ahead of us. About half way we heard a car. It was driving the new people. It took them in and ended up getting us for the last 15 minutes which saved us an hour, but I kind of wished I could have finished it myself after I had put in that much time.
It was an extreme three days. Seven hours in, zipping, sleeping in tree houses, gibbons, leeches, and six hours out. I would highly recommend it, but preferably in the dry season!
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Mystery of Maria
When I have spoken to other Bolivians about the situation they think it is a little odd, but say that Maria is probably from a very poor family and the family needs the small salary she most likely brings in. I was frustrated she wasn't in school, but I understood and took that as the reason. Then one day there was another young girl over at the house talking to Maria. She was introduced as Maria's older sister. Maria is always in traditional dress with her hair in the traditional braids. I've never seen her in anything other than a skirt. Her sister had her hair down, big flashy earrings, and tight jeans and a t-shirt, clothing that would fit in perfectly in the US and was taking pictures with her cell phone. I was confused all over again. How are these two girls from the same family? Sure, one could be traditional and the other not, but they are only a year apart. Why is one working for a family all day?
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Dammit! Not again! (and pics of the food that put me there...not really!)
Monday, February 27, 2012
Carnaval in Cochabamba
Monday, February 20, 2012
Carnaval in Oruro
Incallajta – AKA the weirdest trip ever!
We decided on a two day trip to Incallajta so we would be able to see some of the surrounding villages as well. Incallajta was built around 1460 and was considered to be one of the largest cities in South America at the time. The guide at the ruins explained that it was built after the Inca left Maccu Picchu.
For transportation we hired a driver/general guide whom the school recommended. We were a bit surprised when we saw that he was bringing his wife along, but didn't really think too much of it. We should have. I in no way regret having taken the trip, but it was oddest trip any of us had ever been on. As you will see from the top ten list there were some very strange things that happened. It would take pages and pages for me to explain them all so I will just have to tell you the whole story the next time I see you.
Below is the Top 10 list Rebecca, Miranda, and I wrote about our rather strange trip to Incallajta.
Miscommunication about her panties
Being locked in the car
Sleeping in the car
The change stealer
The shitty kid and others
The scary shovel men
Dangerous cheese feeding
The half animal carcass
The never ending stories of the boob cutter and baby cooker
Inescapable freezing rain in the car
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Waterfalls, Caves, and Dinosaur Footprints!
The language school helped us organize a trip to Torotoro, a national park pretty close by, for my first weekend in Cochabamba. Our group was made up of four girls from the school and one much older Spanish man who must have felt very much out of place. Our guide, Rico, was a young man, whom we had no idea spoke English until he busted out in a perfect Californian accent revealing he´d grown up in the states, but not until we had properly embarrassed ourselves.
The 100 mile distance from Cochabamba to Torotoro took four hours which gives you some idea of how bad the roads were. But we were greeted by a much nicer hotel then I was imagining. It was more of a big house to ourselves with a personal chef.
After a good night's sleep we hiked through the canyon to a beautiful waterfall where we were able to go swimming. We were gawked at by all the Bolivians and more than one photo was requested. In the afternoon we visited the caves. It was slightly terrifying for a person with a small case of claustrophobia, as we had to wiggle our way through more than a couple of tight places. But I'm glad I did it! On the way back to the hotel the car broke down while crossing a river, but luckily very close to home and it was magically working the next day.
Sunday we did a hike where we got to see tons of fossils, but by far the coolest thing was seeing dinosaur footprints in the afternoon. One of the girls questioned the authenticity of the prints saying she thought it was a tourist trap, but I'm saying they are really real. Some of the prints could have been something else, but many were very obvious and would have been extremely difficult to fake and rather pointless for the smallest national park in Bolivia that gets relatively few visitors.
All in all it was fantastic first weekend trip from Cochabamba and I hope for many more like it!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Banking Woes and Cochabamba Pics
The school explained to me that the most common way of paying them is to take a cash advance out on a credit card. This way you aren´t charged a fee for every $200 you take out of the atm because that is the most you can take out at one time. The owners of the school took me to the bank to do this. The first bank said my card had a chip their machine couldn´t read. The second bank told me that no bank would be able to read an American Express card. Bummer, but it was only card one and I had three more. So I headed to the atm with my debit card. That´s when it
was taken by the atm. I started to get a little worried but there were no charges put on it when I checked online and I had two more backup plans.
The next day I went with two other students
So on to the next debit card. Nope, it didn´t work, I was starting to freak out. I immediately emailed that bank. They said it was activated and there shouldn´t be a problem. Oh, great! So, on to the last resort - my dad´s credit card that I carry for emergencies. Long story short, it didn´t work either, not the first time or the second time after my Dad called them.
The good news... I was able to find one atm where my second debit card will work, but the ten others I´ve tried still tell me my card isn´t valid. I guess I have to hope there is a Bisa Bank everywhere I go.
What´s the lesson here? I guess to just roll with the punches!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Mi Familia
It's been a week and I'm just barely getting to know everyone. Meals will continue to be slightly awkward until I'm able to learn a bit more of the language. It doesn't really bug me to not understand what is going on, as I never did in Korea, but I think it makes the family pretty uncomfortable. Love it- hate it- the TV seems to always be on, actually I've never seen it off, so that takes some of the pressure off for conversation. Plus laughter is an international language and the constant telenovels provide plenty of laughter even if I have no idea what is going on.
The family includes three generations and three dogs. The grandparents take care of me, but their son, daughter, her husband and two children also live in the house. Although it really isn't one house. The parents and children live in one little house and the rest of the rooms all open into a courtyard. There is also a girl, Maria, who is always at the house, but after a few days I figured out she must work for them. She's only 14. When I asked one of the teachers at the school about it she said that Maria probably comes from a very poor family and she may earn as little at 500 Bolivianos, about $70, a month for being here seven days a week and I don't know how many hours a day. She is here when I wake up and when I go to bed. Thankfully, in a lot of ways, they treat her as part of family.
The grandparents are very kind and understanding of the language barrier as is the uncle. He is always trying to ask me questions even if I can't understand. I'm pretty sure the son-in-law hates me, or at least the idea of a stranger in the house, but the rest of them seem to like me and the dogs love me. The kids can't quite figure out what to think. The girl is 12 and I'm pretty sure she wants to get to know me because I catch her staring at me all the time. The six year old boy is hysterical, but unfortunately, I can only catch about five percent of what he says because he speaks faster than anyone I've ever met.
I think I will be very happy to call this family's home my home for the next month!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
At 12,000 feet and high on some workable Spanish!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
$200 yellow fever shot and on to South America
Well, I've made it to Bolivia, but not without a couple of issues along the way. I did research about what I would need to get a visa and what requirements there were for entering and exiting the country. The rules seemed to have changed significantly from when I entered the country in 2006. Of course, they never even looked at half the stuff I had prepared for the trip, including a rather painful $200 yellow fever shot, but they did want extra things that were not stated in any of the government websites I read. I'd read in a couple blogs that some disreputable airlines would force you to buy an exit ticket before they would let you get on the plane to enter the country. So, for that reason and many others I obviously booked on what I thought was a reputable airline. That's when I ended up having to purchase a ticket to Paraguay in two months. I fought with them for almost two hours in Miami and they insisted it was required. I bought the cheapest ticket they had with the promise that it was fully exchangeable. Not really sure what I should have done instead as they wouldn't print out my boarding pass so I could go through security until I purchased it and I didn't want to miss the flight. They said I would definitely need evidence of an exit ticket when I got my visa. Surprise, surprise, I was never asked for any evidence of an exit ticket when applying for a visa. Who knows what the rules really are? And I'm here now anyway.