Where am I?
Happy Child will always be here. I am thinking it will remain a travel blog...
In the meantime, I now write a blog here:
http://australiana.tumblr.com/
In the meantime, I now write a blog here:
http://australiana.tumblr.com/
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thailand vs. Japan
A Japanese fan watching intently. Thais aren't rowdy at soccer, and there were far more Japanese supporters than Thai, even though we were in Bangkok. Maybe a reflection on Thai committment to soccer, maybe they foresaw the result, maybe they just knew it would take an hour and a half in the traffic to get there.
Fariya
This is my editorial assistant Fa, when we were in KL for a conference on Asia New Media. She's from Pattani in southern Thailand. My favourite quotes from her are 'I cover my head, not my brain' , and 'Oh look, Gabby's wearing a skirt, next it's going to snow in Bangkok.' Cheeky.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Laos is good for your soul
"Let's get out of this heaving sweltering smudged sky city for Thai New Year" was the feeling for me and my friend. A need to breathe, eat something that wasn't rice or noodle based ( I still love you thai food, just need a break sometimes).
An overnight bus to Vientiane, the capital which is just over the border from Thailand, came first. The start of many hours on a bus. So many hours on buses. Vientiane didn't get a good wrap from most people I spoke to, 'a hole' being one of the more generous descriptions. Now I've seen some bad places in my time (a weekend on Koh si chang, an island near bangkok, for example) and Vientiane is nowhere near deserving of a bad reputation. It's not much bigger than Canberra, but has the Mekong, French architecture and cuisine, and Vietnamese cuisine, and other cuisines. I liked it.
Having said that, we spent less than a day there and hopped straight on a plane to Luang Prabang. I was a little nervous about it. People had promised me so much in their descriptions of this UNESCO protected heritage town built on a peninsula between two great rivers and surrounded by natural beauty. I thought I would be disappointed. Luckily I was wrong.
Luang Prabang is one of those places that you go and start to think about ways you could find yourself living there. I was stalking the muslim population to see if I could convince my boss that interfaith dialogue was needed in this UNESCO protected heritage town. To no avail. It is hard to describe, hopefully my pictures will help. But it's stunning. Touristy, but stunning. It's french colonial in the tropical highlands, which is a good combination (i know there were drawbacks to colonisation too). One of the main attractions outside of the many wats around the town is the Kuang si falls nearby, huge blue cascades in the middle of a rainforest which we got to by boat and the back of a truck.
I never wanted to leave. Yet I was helped by Pi Mai (Laos new year, same as thai new year). The serene elegance of the town was for three days saturated by trucks overloaded with soaking bodies armed with water, flour, water, black paste, water, dye and instruments to make sure all of these ingredients ended up on anyone they drove past. First day is a lot of fun. It is nice that for once the normal tourist-local exchange is upset and locals get to tip buckets over tourists heads. And it's nice in the heat. And I also get the purification symbolism.
But by the third day the authorities have switched off the water so people are getting sourcing it from the river, and one is starting to develop a nervous twitch at the site of any laotian under the age of 60. That's awkward.
By the time we got to Vang Vien the new year had almost past and water-snipers had calmed down. VV is a major stop on the backpacking trail, which can be a good or bad thing. In this case, it is definitely worth seeing the town on the edge of a river and surrounded by large karsts. I was dreading the 7 hour busride between LP and VV, but it was one of the best ever - at sunset through the hills and cliffs which are green and dotted with villages.
We stayed in an organic farm which was lovely. The town itself isn't really worth a look so much, unless you want to tube down the river and drink at the bars on the banks (definitely more horrible than it sounds). The farm's main product is mulberry leaves so we ate several different mulberry products, drank starfruit wine and breathed in the clean air.
We headed back to Vientiane after such a lovely week and tried to come to terms with the thought of another bus ride to Bangkok. I'm really into trains now. Trains and Laos.
An overnight bus to Vientiane, the capital which is just over the border from Thailand, came first. The start of many hours on a bus. So many hours on buses. Vientiane didn't get a good wrap from most people I spoke to, 'a hole' being one of the more generous descriptions. Now I've seen some bad places in my time (a weekend on Koh si chang, an island near bangkok, for example) and Vientiane is nowhere near deserving of a bad reputation. It's not much bigger than Canberra, but has the Mekong, French architecture and cuisine, and Vietnamese cuisine, and other cuisines. I liked it.
Having said that, we spent less than a day there and hopped straight on a plane to Luang Prabang. I was a little nervous about it. People had promised me so much in their descriptions of this UNESCO protected heritage town built on a peninsula between two great rivers and surrounded by natural beauty. I thought I would be disappointed. Luckily I was wrong.
Luang Prabang is one of those places that you go and start to think about ways you could find yourself living there. I was stalking the muslim population to see if I could convince my boss that interfaith dialogue was needed in this UNESCO protected heritage town. To no avail. It is hard to describe, hopefully my pictures will help. But it's stunning. Touristy, but stunning. It's french colonial in the tropical highlands, which is a good combination (i know there were drawbacks to colonisation too). One of the main attractions outside of the many wats around the town is the Kuang si falls nearby, huge blue cascades in the middle of a rainforest which we got to by boat and the back of a truck.
I never wanted to leave. Yet I was helped by Pi Mai (Laos new year, same as thai new year). The serene elegance of the town was for three days saturated by trucks overloaded with soaking bodies armed with water, flour, water, black paste, water, dye and instruments to make sure all of these ingredients ended up on anyone they drove past. First day is a lot of fun. It is nice that for once the normal tourist-local exchange is upset and locals get to tip buckets over tourists heads. And it's nice in the heat. And I also get the purification symbolism.
But by the third day the authorities have switched off the water so people are getting sourcing it from the river, and one is starting to develop a nervous twitch at the site of any laotian under the age of 60. That's awkward.
By the time we got to Vang Vien the new year had almost past and water-snipers had calmed down. VV is a major stop on the backpacking trail, which can be a good or bad thing. In this case, it is definitely worth seeing the town on the edge of a river and surrounded by large karsts. I was dreading the 7 hour busride between LP and VV, but it was one of the best ever - at sunset through the hills and cliffs which are green and dotted with villages.
We stayed in an organic farm which was lovely. The town itself isn't really worth a look so much, unless you want to tube down the river and drink at the bars on the banks (definitely more horrible than it sounds). The farm's main product is mulberry leaves so we ate several different mulberry products, drank starfruit wine and breathed in the clean air.
We headed back to Vientiane after such a lovely week and tried to come to terms with the thought of another bus ride to Bangkok. I'm really into trains now. Trains and Laos.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Links
- email Gabby
- Young Folk myspace page
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- photos from old blog posts that are now broken links
- Hannah's blog
- AYAD profile
- Khao Yai Experiences
Previous Posts
- Where am I?
- Yesterday
- Atlanta Hotel
- Atlanta Hotel
- Thailand vs. Japan
- fa
- Fariya
- vientiane
- luang prabang
- ange on mekong
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