Indochina 2006: Around The Riverbend

Nothing much to report. In a few hours, I will be on a bus to Chiang Rai, and from there on to the Thailand-Laos border to begin a two day journey up the Mekong river to the Laotian valley town of Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang's architecture is apparently a chaming fusion of French and native design couched into a bend of the Mekong, and I am quite looking forward to seeing it. You will not hear from me until then... it should be 3-4 days.

Yesterday, Amber and I went on a tour of the Chiang Mai countryside. It was a well-travelled tourist route, with a conspicuously touristy itinerary. For those of you who plan on doing South East Asia in the future, some advice:

1) If you want a more "local trek experience", without all the touristy bells and whistles, go up to Pai or Chiang Rai (Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai are different places... it is not a typo.)

2) Having a larger tour group on a well-travelled route minimizes your chances of getting robbed while on the trek.

Our group was seven strong: me, Amber, a prematurely-balding German from Stuttgart with the very German name of Claas Wiesel, three Indian Brits named Risha, Aisha, and Narisha who were utter carbon copies of each other, down to their 'Bend It Like Beckham" accents, braids, and flighty teenage mannerisms, and Rich, a Filipino-American from New York whose very un-New York sunny disposition was most likely due to the fact that he was gay as a basket of strawberries.

Our tour guide was a flat-nosed man named Noi who reminded me uncannily of Zhu Bajie from the Chinese epic Journey to the West. For you white people, this means he looked like a walking pig. He spoke fair English and on numerous occasions, displayed a wit that surprised me.

We did two cool things on the trek.

1) We rode elephants. Elephants are fabulous creatures. In a certain way, they are almost cute, slow, plodding, dum-dee-dum-dee-dum animals. Very Jamaican in their mannerisms- they seem to be on permanent island-time. They eat constantly and methodically, and shit with the same casual ease and regularity. Each elephant had a platform strapped across its back, which sat two people. The handler, or mahout, sat atop the elephant's head with a sharp prong that he used to indicate direction to the beast, while making incomprehensible monosyllabic grunts which presumably meant "Go!" or "Mush!"

We named our elephant Tinker Bell, and the name was strangely fitting. I'm not sure why. Elephants are strangely sure-footed, and have their own practical grace- their hind feet always tread in the spots made by their front feet. The Thais have used elephants for centuries as transports, symbols of their culture, and as instruments of war. When you sit on top of an elephant, you understand why. I mean, really. These boys can flatten trees. I'd totally go to war on one of these guys- although ideally, I wouldn't go to war at all.

2) We went bamboo rafting down rapids. This is sketchier than it sounds, and yet, not all that unsafe. Bamboo rafts are pretty self explanatory. About 10 \ stout 20-ft long poles are lashed together. Two sit in the middle, and two others, each with a long pole for propelling and guiding the craft, stand on either end. The craft goes with the current downstream, so the poles are mainly used to prevent the raft from hitting rocks and going into overly large swells. We had two rafts. Amber and I in the middle of one, with Rich poling at the back and a native at the front. The second raft had the three
Indian Brits in the middle, and Claas ze German at ze back, and ze native at ze front.

We had no life jackets. When I realized this, I sketched mildly. I know a tree-planter who drowned in Prince George when he went canoeing without a jacket. But, what the fuck ever... we ain't come this far, right?

Best decision ever. I have never had that much fun- well, that's an exaggeration, but it was a riot. The raft floated half-underwater, and the swells from the rapids simply blanketed us after a while, so we were completely drenched. On top of that, after a little bit, the sky gave up a torrential downpour. The river was lined with verdant greenery- incredibly
lush- and the water was a suitably murky-brown that got churned into frothy white around the rapids... and when we went through those... It's one thing to do so on a kayak, and another entirely to chance rapids on a sketchy-ass raft that is already half-submerged and propelled by a chuckling guide whose greatest wish is probably to "accidentally' tip the raft and make a group of deep-fried foreigners eat river water.

But the best part about the rafting was the reactions of our fellow companions. Rich was one of the pole-men, and he was inept. I mean, fucking incompetent. I did not begrudge him this at all, as I would likely have done as poorly in his place. But Rich was utterly confused, wondering aloud what he should do with his pole, and gasping every time a branch hit him. Claas was also a pole-man, and he was game; tidily efficient in a very German way- a quick study. The three Princess Jasmine clones were hilarious. They were completely unprepared for getting drenched, and were just so... inappropriately dainty. They screeched and howled in a manner that was horrified in both a genuine and exaggerated way. The two native pole-men had great fun with them, drenching them with sprays of water by slamming their poles into the water next to them.

Well, I'm off. Also, my pee has regenerative qualities. The camera works again. Why? Who understands the ways of technology? The Machine works in mysterious ways.