After much debate, I’d decided not to head north to Vang Vieng for the
legendary “tubing” experience. The bus there was supposedly 5 hrs but
accounts from other travelers who had arrived from VV ranged from 8-11
hours. With just two days remaining before my flight, I thought it
best to save the tubing foe when I could do it right.

I started out the day with a walk along the riverfront, which I hadn’t
appreciated but was actually one of the town’s best feature. The
mountain/river landscape was perfect SE Asia:

Next up was the main temple Wat Xiang Thong. I’d heard the monks would
do a drum performance at 4pm, but apparently that only happens on
Friday. Oops.

I meandered from the temple to the nearby National Museum, which was
just closing as I arrived (this day wasn’t exactly well planned). The
building I did get to see was pretty cool:

After touring the grounds I returned to find the gate locked. I made
friends with a group of Brits who were also locked in and we roamed
around to find a side exit.

Last up was Mount Phusi, with a temple perched on top overlooking the
town. My (and every other tourists’) idea was to climb up and wait out
the sunset up top. Despite the crowds, I still got some decent shots.

After landing at Luang Prabang International Airport, it was time for my first visa on arrival experience. A few minutes before the flight, I discovered that I needed 2 passport size photos for processing. Oops.

The mob of 75 people on our much-delayed flight quickly overwhelmed the 2-man visa on arrival processing crew. I was near the front and thrust out my hastily completed form, along with my passport. 

“Photo?” said the agent.

“No have,” I responded. (Being in SE Asia has destroyed my English)

He looked perturbed, but grunted, “$1 extra” and we were good to go.

I checked into the hostel, where’d I’d paid for 2 people in order to have a private room with bathroom. To my surprise, the owner had booked me into the “family room” with 2 Queen beds, a sitting area and bathtub/shower. Also had a view of the river, so I was pretty happy.

I dropped my stuff and headed into town, the whole of which can easily be covered on foot in around 20 minutes. After surveying a few bars/restaurants, I settled on Utopia, which had a sign out near the main road pointing into the backstreets. Five sketchy alleys later, I was in. I ended up loving the place so much that I came back each of the next 3 nights I had in Luang Prabang.

Halfway through my Panang curry with chicken, the owner asked if I could move to accommodate an 18-person group that had just arrived. Cast out, I decided to crash a nearby table and meet some fellow travelers. They turned out to be (mostly) a group of musicians waiting for open mic. The bar closed at 11:30 (!), so we headed out to the only other place that was open: the bowling alley.

In planning the trip, I basically wrote off the third day in Siem Reap as a travel day, with a late afternoon flight and a chance to relax a bit. Things got interesting, however, when I arrived at the airport at 2:15pm for my 4:00pm flight to Luang Prabang, Laos and noticed it was not among the two flights listed on the Departures screen.

Concerned, I venture dover to the Laos Airlines checkin counter. The agent informed me that the 4:00pm flight was a codeshare operated by Vietnam Airlines (note mentioned when booking on the Laos Airlines website, but ok) and that the flight had been delayed. “When is it leaving,” I asked but received only a blank stare in response.

After a bit of delay, the agent told me it was ok because I could take a different 3:00pm Laos Airlines flight to Luang Prabang with a connection in Pakse.

“But what about the 4:00pm nonstop flight that I booked? When does that leave?”

“Oh sir, that fight is delayed.”

“Until when?”

“6:00pm maybe, or 5:00”

“Could you find out when that flight is leaving? Also, why isn’t it on the Departures screen?”

The agent then took my itinerary and passport and walked off to find someone else. Around 5 minutes later, she returned with a Vietnam Airlines agent in tow. He told me that my (4:00pm) flight was scheduled for 12:20pm but had been delayed until 3:20pm due to late arriving aircraft. 

“12:20? I didn’t get a call or e-mail bout that change.”

“Oh yes sir, because you book flight through Laos Airlines you not find out about the change.”

By 2:50, I had a Vietnam Airlines boarding pass for the now 3:20 nonstop flight to Luang Prabang. The aircraft still hadn’t arrived, and most of the passengers in the gate area were skeptical that it was coming at all.

We ended up being delayed until 4:00. Maybe I was the one in the know after all and the 75 Vietnam Airlines passengers who had been waiting at the airport since 11am hadn’t heard about the change…

I decided to catch up on some much-needed sleep and hire a tuk-tuk for the “main event” of exploring Angkor Wat. We started out at Banyon temple in Angkor Thom, which was interesting but nowhere near as big or well-preserved as Angkor Wat. Cambodia is full of temples (estimates I heard from the locals ranged from 300 to 2,000), and there are only so many you can see before temple fatigue sets in.

After grabbing an awesome lunch of roast chicken and sticky rice, I headed into Angkor Wat. The first thing that struck me was how much larger it was than any of the temples I’d seen in Thailand or Cambodia. Just the man-made moat surrounding it is 600 ft. wide.

I hired a local tour guide to show me around. He did a good job explaining the temple’s Hindu and Buddhist past while explaining the significance of the statues and carvings. Critically, he also knew the best spots for pictures!

Favorite quote from the tour was “Angkor Wat temple built in 13th century; used elephants to bring in sandstone and took 37 years. French have been restoring Angkor Wat temple for 50 years and still not finished. French very slow.”

Dinner was at Khmer Kitchen in town. The BBQ squid wrapped around palm leaves ($3) and oven-baked pumpkin slices with chicken ($3.50) were great.

Afterwards, I dropped by a fish spa; they’re all over Asia and I’ve been meaning to try it for a while. Supposedly, the fish eat the dead skin cells off your feet. It sure tickled a lot and seemed to be worth the $2 I paid for 20 minutes.

I arrived in Siem Reap at 8:00am, exhausted from the 5:30am wakeup to make the flight from Bangkok. As we deboarded the plane Presidential style with no jetbridge, I looked around for a bus to take us into the terminal. In fact, the airport had only 4 gates and we simply walked in across the tarmac.

After clearing immigration and walking by an empty customs booth, I was faced with a pivotal choice at the “official” taxi stand: $2 to ride into town on the back of a motorbike, $7 to go in a car and a whopping $10 to go buy “Luxury Van”. I splurged on a car, which was driven by a friendly local with very good English. I later found out that studying English is mandatory in Cambodian schools.

On the way into town, he gave me a pitch to rent his taxi for the day, promising he would make “good itinerary for me so all your friends want to come to Cambodia.” He seemed nice enough, so I agreed that we could ride around on a motorbike for the day. I’d done something similar in Viet Nam and figured it would be a more fun and authentic experience.

The plan for Day 1 was to go outside the city and take a boat to visit a nearby floating village, then hit the Angkor National Museum in town and catch the sunset at a hilltop temple inside the Angkor Wat complex. Day 2 would be spent exploring the remaining temples.

After a 40-minute ride on half-paved roads which inflicted a fair bit of punishment on my back, we arrived at the shore of a huge lake/wetlands area. There wasn’t another tourist in sight, so I ended up having the chartered boat to myself. The journey to the village was long, but also quite serene as our boat sliced through the glass-like water.

The Angkor National Museum was good context for next day’s visit to Angkor Wat, but not a highlight by itself. It seemed that many of the most important historical records and artifacts had been destroyed during invasions or otherwise lost.

For some reason, the Angkor Wat complex starts selling tickets to visit the following day at 5:00pm. Given the elevated setting of Phnom Bakheng temple, a popular “1-day visit” includes visiting Bakheng at sunset and returning the following day for the main Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples. 

The ticket booths opened at 5:00pm, and with the official closing time at 5:30pm it was a mad scramble of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cars and tour vans to get to the temple in time.

Bakheng was quite crowded when I reached the summit around 5:15, with a long line snaking around the perimeter. I began my climb just as park officials shouted “2 minutes until close!”. Definitely a must-do in Siem Reap, and I got in just in the nick of time!

We landed at Phuket International after an uneventful Air Asia flight from
Chiang Mai. Then came the 2.5 hour shuttle ride from the airport to
the Sheraton Krabi, since there is no nonstop flight between Chiang
Mai and Krabi.
We decided to skip the sleaze of Phuket, the Cancun of Thailand, and
make the trip to Krabi for its network of easily accessible islands
and clear blue waters.

We arrived at the Sheraton late in the evening and were.   greated by
a supercar convention in the parking lot. Check in was a bit rocky and
we quickly headed into town for dinner.

The restaurant, Wang Sai Seafood, also had what seemed to be a popular
tour agency onsite. We initially planned to do a Phi Phi Islands tour
the following day, but apparently the island is run by Muslims and it
was an Islamic holiday. At that point, we met a couple from Singapore
who suggested that the four of us charter a long tail boat for a “four
island tour”. Seemed fun enough, and we didn’t have much in the way of
alternatives so we agreed.

We met the Aric and Zlane the next morning in the Sheraton lobby
before heading to Ao Nang to get the charter. Things started out well,
but once we reached Chicken Island (looks like the bird) we discovered
our boat did not have the promised scuba gear. Given the severe
language barrier between ourselves and the two Thai boatmen, the
ensuing exchange consisted primarily of pantomiming snorkelling and
exchanging cross facial expressions.

We puttered around for a while so the boatmen could talk to other
boats, but nobody had any spare gear. Eventually, we just docked on
the island, which is actually two pieces connected by a sandbar which
can be walked over in low tide.

More cross looks and pantomiming were employed to convince the boatmen
that we weren’t forgetting about the gear issue. They finally located
a shack which rented the equipment for a couple bucks and hour. The
hassle ended up being well worth it, with tons of fish in the coral
reefs just off the coast of the island.

The rest of the tour included similar, but beautiful islands as well
as a docking at Phra Nang cave. At Phra Nang, we found the “food
boats” selling cheap, tast Thai food.

Aric, Ben and I each ordered three chicken skewers and a shake. Aric
went first and came away with a quote of 60 baht ($2). I followed up
with the same order, to which the lady responded 80 baht. I
halfheartedly pointed out that we had ordered the exact same thing,
but I could tell that conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Ben was last
and somehow got charged 100 baht, an impressive 67 percent premium vs.
the price two minutes ago. Clearly the owner was reading the market
and could tell that demand was up.

The third day was definitely the highlight of our time in Chiang Mai. We booked an all-day package with Joe’s Thai Elephant Home. There are many elephant camps in the Chiang Mai area. Some camps offer 1 hour rides and have shows in which elephants do tricks or paint pictures.

We’d heard the elephants at these camps can be badly treated and opted to go with an operator who highlighted the way they cared for the animals. We started off by changing into blue elephant riding clothes (apparently the elephants like the familiarity).

Each of us got a basket of around 50 bananas to feed the elephants. I was giving them out one by one, but one of the elephants stuck his trunk in the basket while I wasn’t looking and inhaled a whole bunch! Next we learned how to mount and dismount the elephants, which wasn’t nearly as hard as it first looked. A few practice runs near the lodge and we were off into the mountains.

The elephants were amazingly well trained, the only problem was that they were always stopping to eat everything in sight. Given that they consume up to 10 percent of their body weight each day and only eat plants, eating is a near constant activity.

At one point, Ben’s elephant wrapped its trunk around a banana tree and ripped the whole thing out of the ground! (Banana tree pic) After about 45 minutes of riding (and some serious soreness in the groin area) we stopped for a pad thai lunch in the forest.

Then they gave us orange ribbons to tie around a tree and “save” it from being cut down. It wasn’t really clear to me how that was going to work, but I guess it couldn’t hurt.

The elephants polished off the pad thai that we didn’t finish and we went back down the mountainside towards a river. I quickly learned that riding an elephant downhill was much more challenging. We were sitting up near the head and placing our hands on top for stability. As we went downward, having my legs behind the giant ears was the primary safeguard against falling off the front. Still a fun experience, but felt like a full time job to stay on the elephant.

Once we arrived at the river, we took turns bathing each of the elephants. Watching them roll around and shoot water out of their trunks was awesome.

http://i.imgur.com/BMJtEl.jpg

A couple times when I was in the water, I turned around to see a 5 ton beast coming right at me. The mahouts (elephant trainers) had to clear us out of the way as the elephants lowered themselves into the water; they could easily sit on one of us and hardly notice it.

For the second day, we were having trouble deciding between a 1.5 hour drive to see caves in Chiang Dao and seeing the sights in Mae Sa Valley closer to Chiang Mai.

In the end, we hired another taxi driver for the day so we could do both at our own pace. After paying the 20 baht ($0.67) entry fee at the caves, we ventured inside. The complex is made up of five named caves spanning around three kilometers, but only one has electric lights strewn along the path. To explore the other caves, we hired a guide with a gas lantern. We spent around 30 minutes crawling through the tunnels, seeing some pretty cool stalactite formations and a flock (?) of bats.

With the caves behind us, we headed back for the drive around Mae Sa Valley. The road cutting through the valley is covered with attractions, including elephant camps, ATVs (from the day before), a monkey center and a shooting range (?).

We visited two of the nature-based attractions: Mae Sa Waterfall and Queen Sirikit Botanical Gardens. Mae Sa waterfall park was a series of 10 falls with a 3km or so path winding next to them. The falls themselves weren’t too spectacular and felt like something you could see at a few national parks in the US, but it was great to get out and hike for a bit.

Lunch at the falls was also interesting, with sticky rice and a juicy rotisserie chicken leg of dubious origins.

We made it to Queen Sirikit an hour before the 5pm closing, enough time to check out its prime attraction the greenhouse complex. The amount of plant species on display (easily hundreds spread across eight greenhouses) was quite impressive. I found the sections on carniverous plants and arid plants (incl. blue agave and aloe vera) to be the most interesting.

Chiang Mai, like much of Thailand, is littered with temples (“wats” in Thai).    Among the most famous is Wat Doi Suthep, perched on top of a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. We hired a taxi driver for the day (800 baht, $27) and set off for the mountain. Highlights of the visit included shaking a cup full of numbered sticks while kneeling in front of a buddha to receive a fortune, and having a monk tie a “holy cotton” bracelet on my wrist after saying a blessing.I’ve definitely picked up on a fascination with elephants and dragons in Thailand, and the dragons were on full display at the wat.

We finished with the wat around 1pm and had no set plans for the rest of the day. Our taxi driver had a laminated card with some attractions in the area, and we settled on riding ATVs in the jungle. My expectations were low going in, but it turned out to be a great dirt course with awesome views of the mountains. It was my first time riding ATVs and will probably go down as one of the most fun experiences on the trip.

The third day was when the decision to rent a bike really paid off.
Rather than riding on the side of the highway into Khao Lak town for
10-15 min, I pulled off onto a backroad which lead to Cape Pakarang.

The backroad ran along the beachfront, which was mostly deserted
except for a few stray dogs and the occasional local. Taking the
scooter up to its limit of 100 km/hr, I zipped along the idyllic
jungle road.

After a couple hours exploring, I made my way back to the main road
and headed into town for lunch. On the way, I got caught by the daily
afternoon downpour and was forced to pull off by a coffee shop. There,
I met a Canadian guy who had retired from teaching and now lives in
Khao Lak during the Canadian winter.

I asked for a recommendation on a restaurant in Khao Lak town, but he
said he never eats there because its too touristy. Instead, he
recommended the 99 baht ($3) buffet across from a gas station up the
road. With my non touristy ego severely bruised, I turned back and
headed to the buffet:

The buffet was not nearly as suspect as I’d imagined; it reminded me
of a Korean BBQ with the cook on the table style. The downside was
that its damn near impossible to get full eating little pieces of meat
which take 10 minutes to cook. The food was quite tasty though; the
old Canuck had come through.