Pahurat, Chinatown and the Chao Phraya

The Chao Phraya runs through Bangkok like a giant ribbon of not quite set jello.  We stepped onto a yellow flagged river express to get to Chinatown and the water bubbles and burps and laps in big sloppy waves all over the place.  The determined river ferries are like those flat water bugs that sort of sit on top of the water, moving back and forth and side to side with amazing speed.  They shoot up and down the river and dart from one side to the other rapidly taking on and discharging passengers, at this time of day, just before noon, lots of white farangs taking in the sites...Wat Po, The Royal Palace, and Chinatown.  Our mission was Pahurat, on the edge of Chinatown.  It is the Indian district complete with spiffy new Sikh temple and the India Emporium which contains "everything Indian" in air-conditioned luxury.  This is the cloth section of Bangkok and the wonders of Sanphan Lane...with various spellings.

Unfortunately the Express boat didn't stop at the Memorial Bridge pier and let us off at the official pier for Chinatown, whose name escapes me right at the moment.  It is quite a hike in the heat, confusion and uncertain street names from the pier to Pahurat, so we hired a convenient tuk tuk for a paltry fee and were dropped off right across the street from the India Emporium.  Hurrah!  We headed down the block for the walkover bridge and I was silently thanking god not to have to play dodgem' cars to get to the other side.  I had a Chinese frog button in my pocket, determined to find the Frog Mecca I remembered from lo those 20+ years ago.  After showing the frog to several stores full of Thai formal wear and dance accessories, they all seemed to be mumbling something that sounded vaguely familiar...samphaeng lane?  And they pointed in the direction of a vast covered alley between two tall buildings...yes, it was familiar.  We headed in, and I mean headed in, for it is an interminable warren of haphazardly covered stalls down an alley full of Valentine's merchandise, fabric, toys, more alleys leading off in spokes of stalls and I kept showing my frog and they kept pointing me further on  and we kept walking and it was hot and every once in a while we stood in front of a fan or a store would be air-conditioned and then vendors started setting up for lunch...mee krob with red bows, cherries from the US, strawberries in little cones and finally...a store so full of "notions" that I thought my eyes would explode.  A young woman led me to a center post around which were drawers and drawers of frogs every size, shape and most colors!  And trim!  Trim!  Trim!  Woo hooooooo!!!!  We even found a bank, icily air conditioned, and cashed the last of our money.  Only two days to go and we are counting down.

Leaving Samphaeng Lane, we headed to the India Emporium where we had an unusual dim sum lunch and numerous glasses of iced weak tea, perfect for the heat...then grabbed the nearest tuk tuk back to the pier.  it was while sitting in the tuk tuk trying not to inhale the exhaust of the delivery truck in front of us and listening to Rod Stewart in concert on the blown tuk tuk speakers that I happened to glance over at the side walk, noting the shiny new kanom krok pan in front of a shop that was selling waffle irons and other industrial cookware and .... THERE IT WAS!  THE FISH PAN!  Now, it's not EXACTLY the fish pan I was looking for, but....IT WILL DO!  So, now we have to figure out a way to get this fish pan back to the US....and tomorrow is our last day here...

The Overnight Bus

The only way to get to the island of Koh Phayam is to take the overnight bus from Bangkok to Ranong, a funky little place perched at the point where Myanmar and Thailand meet.  We took the deluxe 24 passenger VIP overnight down and the deluxe 36 passenger VIP back.  These were both booked BEFORE we realized there is now a plane that flies to Ranong...why is this a surprise?  It was only a matter of time. 
Let me tell you about the VIP buses, if you don't already know.  These are massive, double decker behemoth road sailing vehicles complete with toilet, attendant and goodies when you get on board.  The seats (when they are working) recline to nearly horizontal and are equipped with footrests (when working), blankets of assorted fabrics and pillows.  It seems to be a rule in Thailand that when something breaks, it stays broken...except for motorbikes...so the glamour of the bus is somewhat of an illusion.  From the outside, the buses are quite festive in the evening.  Fuchsia and lime lights twinkle gaily, festoons of curtains line the windows, green and pink scallops with little balls bouncing from the edges, and the headliners seem to have stepped straight from the 1970s...sort of disco meets psychedelic.  The overall effect is a rolling party, or the Cash Cab on steroids.  It is rather disconcerting to be herded in a large group of farangs, mini-vanned to the Northern or Southern bus station, and then try to figure out which of these giant vehicles will be your home for the night.  The stations are massive and the buses loom over you like automated elephants, slowly lumbering back and forth in a comfortable swaying motion.  Inside the air conditioning never stops and your only hope is to close off as much of it as possible with the little adjustable vent over your head (when it works).  My first attempt at this was met with some rough German guttural swearing from the passenger in front of me and the statement "zat is too much!".  It was okay, I had my blanket, and I just did like the Thais do, I tossed it over my head and made the best of it.  As we embarked, the attendant, clad in a snappy little uniform, pointed out our seats and handed us bottles of water and juice, as well as a small brightly colored package of something very puffy...perhaps an extra pillow?  No...a treat...something spongy rolled up.  I had come supplied with my own snacks from the 7 Eleven at the bus station; chips, oreos, and rolled up coconut things that come in two flavors, coconut and a snazzy garlic chili.  7 Eleven is everywhere in Thailand now and sells appropriately Thai snacks that look like the snacks in the 7 Elevens at home. 
Once you are under way, there is at least an hour of adjustments to your seat, the air conditioning, your blanket, your neighbors, and then all the lights and the TV go out and its time to sleep.  That is, unless the old man and young woman in the back seat decide to take a couple of cell phone calls.  The woman politely covers her mouth and then speaks louder, but the old man makes no attempt to exclude you from his call and they go on and on and on...cell phones are annoying in any language.  On the bus going down, the handle that made my seat recline was broken and if I moved just right, it dug relentlessly into my thigh until I woke up and readjusted.  Fortunately on the way back it was only the cell phone capers that interrupted my sleep.  By the trip back to Bangkok I was an old hand and knew what to expect. 

There is a stop 3 hours in to the trip to change drivers, no matter which direction you go. These way stations are quite a wonder.  You have a chance to use a larger, less odoriferous bathroom with actual sinks, and stock up on more snacks.  On the way back from Ranong the stop is in Champhoun...it is a southern transportation hub...trains, planes, buses...and the bus rest stop is worth a visit all on its own.  It was sort of a cross between a rest stop and an amusement park.  There were lines of facilities, a restaurant, fried snacks of every kind in puffy bags, and long rows of colorful Muslim women at carts making roti...all kinds of roti...savory, sweet, breakfast, dinner, whatever you wanted.  Even though the price list stated 20, 25 and 30 baht, Muzzy's savory curry roti was an aggressive "40 baht!"  Oh well, I consider the buck and a half the price of admission.

Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai

In our ever changing travel plans, we tried to cancel our flight from Laos to Bangkok on the 5th and opted to take the luxury liner UP the Mekong to Houayxai and across the border back into Thailand.  The flight cancellation process was a little dodgy, language being what it is, but we did our best and were told by the Lao Air representative to take it up with the original booking agent in Chiang Mai.  He assured us we could get our money back, so on the strength of that, we booked passage on the Luang Say, a two day journey including one night in Pak Beng at the Luang Say Lodge.  It was half the cost of taking the trip the other direction so we considered ourselves lucky.  It was indeed, a lovely trip and the lodge quite magnificent, even if the hike from the river to the steps leading to the reception area was quite a hike.  You see, the river rises and falls quite dramatically throughout the year and it is useless to try to build a permanent docking area.  At certain times of the year, I'm sure you disembark right at the bottom of the steps...but not this time of year.  Now we have done the Mekong, at least that stretch of it up and down and in pieces.  Suffice it to say, this was a really luxurious treat.

We arrived in Houayxai the afternoon of the second day.  What a change from our last crossing!  There are two piers, one for large boats and one for small, no organization to speak of, boats and loads of freight and trucks and tuk tuks and cars all competing for space on the steep ramp.  We had greased the wheels with the guide on the boat, a young Hmong man who was patience and perseverance itself, and he somehow got us through all of the horrendous confusion, into a songthaew, through town to the other dock and Lao immigration, back down another ramp and into a tiny boat full of our luggage (including two giant rice bowls we decided to buy...wooden, hand-hewn...only a little heavy) and off we went across the Mekong and into Thailand...at the beginning of Chinese New Year, into the chaos of the que for passport control, up another ramp and into a car which sped us into Chiang Rai and a newish hotel with incredible water pressure...though it was decidedly lacking in charm...and there we were.  Of course there is more to this...but maybe later.

So we ended up in Chiang Rai after all.  And since we ended up with 2 days in Chiang Rai...

3 countries, 3 border crossings, 3 lengthy river passages, countless kilometers, several Lao anti-massages and a handful of Thai REAL massages, river boomtown boat landings, intestinal fortitude breakdowns, Chinese New Year celebrations with artillery-sized fire crackers rendering us deaf for half a day, we found ourselves at the doorstep to the Pie Lady's pie case on the Mae Suai river about an hour southwest of Chiang Rai...and voila! We ate pie!!! One for Shelley, one for our French American ex-pat friend Denny, one for Sun, the hired driver and one for me. Mmmmmmmm....nothin' like a piece of $6000 pie to brighten our day. We found her, photographed her, spoke with her..."No photo!" She was kind of like the Pie Nazi at first...Muzzy said, "I traveled a long way to have your pie..." "What pie you have???" "Uhhh...I had the Choco-mud, Madam had the mulberry, our driver had the mulberry and our friend had the choco-mud..."No photo for you!" "But, I read about you!" "What magazine?" "Sauveur..." "Oh?" "Please, I traveled all the way from America." "Oh, okay."  She's a toothless 88 year old spirited woman well in charge of her pie domain and keenly aware of her pie-rock-star status.  Her gray-haired son works the counter with her, she has an army of pie-cutters and servers and she oversees the whole operation with an iron fist. It is an extremely popular place filled that day with 2 tour buses full of Chinese and Thai tourists because of the long weekend, Lunar New Year (of the Rabbit)...so...mission accomplished!

We returned to Bangkok yesterday and ate at the delicious Jok Pochana, spent the night listening to revelers downstairs because we got the bad room over the deck.  It was like siting above a soccer match.  Today was our second assault on Chatuchak, and a successful one it was!  We got out of there before the temperature climbed too far above 89...the humidity had wilted us to mere replicas of our former selves...I know, poor us.  Now we sit awaiting the all-night bus to Ranong followed by the 2 hour boat out into the Andaman Sea to Koh Phayam. 

Food Glorious Food...Khao Niaw and Aw-Lam

Mr. Muzzy and I spent "one of those days" yesterday...in our room, on a forced fast...which gave us pause to think about food.

One of the things I noticed right away upon arrival in Luang Prabang was the plethora of traditional Lao food available at all the restaurants, even the ones along the notorious Sisavangvong strip that has been laden with pizza joints, American breakfasts and European fare.  It is really nice to see.  Those who claim Laos has no cuisine, I beg to differ.  It is not like Thai food.  It is simpler, sort of sampling fare and quite tasty.  Usually there are two or three main dishes, a soup (aw-lam is a soup/stew with beef, flavored with the bark of a particular tree that lends a pungent, slightly spicy, sour flavor...don't eat the chunks of wood, please), a vegetable dish (stir fried) and perhaps a salad (the ubiquitous laarb...minced meat mixed with cilantro, rau ram, mint, sometimes bean sprouts, chilis and lime juice...yummmmmm) or a shredded bamboo shoot mixture with various additions.  To this is added the jeow...pastes of various flavors and origins...our particular favorite is jeow bawng (various spellings but essentially a sweet paste, very spicy, with a dried buffalo meat base...mmmmmmm).  There is an eggplant jeow, a thin sweet spicy dip, a tomato based jeow and several more.  The jeow are set on the table with the main dishes and the typical small baskets of khao niaw...sticky rice.  You take a small ball of sticky rice, dip it in a jeow and add a bit of a main dish...the stir fry or salads, and pop it into your mouth.  The soup is served in small bowls.  It's a communal kind of meal...everyone eating from the same bowls with the rice as the conveyance.  And then there is the Mekong seaweed.  This is gathered when the rivers are low...great veils of bright green algae, similar to nori, it is sun-dried in flat sheets dusted with sesame seeds and served fried very quickly in oil as an appetizer with a jeow...usually jeow bawng.

Have we lost you yet?  We ate at Dyen Sabai the other night across the river.  It is a Lao French collaboration and they serve up nice sample platters with a little bit of everything and explanations and good beer and a decent happy hour, all while lounging on pillows in a teak sala under stands of artfully lit timber bamboo.  We have enjoyed the Lao food...especially the seaweed and laarb, but foreign water being what it is, we spent last night eating pizza...and damned good pizza too!  BREAD!  They do that well in LP...hot crusty French baguettes that are pure heaven.  And we found a place that makes delicious lemon and chocolate tarts (each, not together).  So we are back on the mend...coffee and sweet milk for me, cafe dam (black) for Muz.  Other gastronomic pleasures include freshly picked som (oranges), sweet little delights with an easy peel, tiny bananas and papaya.  Unfortunately it is not mango season and the cashews that Muzzy so dearly loves fried as an appetizer tend to come from the fridge and are a bit chewy..but...we had excellent fried peanuts with lemongrass the other night...and Beer Lao tends to make it all more jolly.

The morning market still serves up a veritable zoo of delights....dozens of tiny frogs tied together at the ankles...the larger frogs are in an enamel basin all fighting to escape...the highly colorful crab baskets...this is hard to explain, but a handwoven bamboo circle at the bottom of which are woven in 5-count 'em- 5 freshwater crabs each about the size of a French piastre (silver dollar)...a box of small furry rodents that are too adorable to think about much...pre-cooked bats ready for re-heating, small rats, the occasional civet cat, and the other day a small pig (live and unhappy) in a poke...trussed up in a loosely woven bamboo carrying basket just the size of the pig, about 50 pounds.  I didn't wait to see the man carry him off.  We like to think he was on his way to be a stud pig in some village. There are good smells of herbs and lemongrass and cilantro and mustard and wonderful long beans and dozens of types of eggplants in different shapes and sizes, piles of wondrous mushrooms, some familiar most not, and pans of eels, tiny tiny fish that you see in aquariums at home and mountains of greenish snails that go into the local version of somtam (not-delicious local papaya salad) (much better in Thailand!) and on and on. 
However...we have reached the halfway point of our wanderings and yesterday woke up chanting "NO MORE RICE!"  Thus the reference earlier to the great pizza.

We are off to photograph the oldest Wat on the peninsula...it is a beautiful place with artful mosaics recounting the journey of the Lao peoples to this magical peninsula as well as tales from Buddha's life.
Bon appetite

The Adventure Continues...

So we found one another in the middle of the Nam Ou on a bridge to the rice paddies.  Accommodation and the mood of the villagers being what it was, we chose to travel back to Luang Prabang the next morning by slow boat.  Not a big boat, mind you, but small worn cushions on small straight backed stools.  I couldn't see the pilot because the luggage of dozens of French people was piled in the front space.  Fortunately my bag was on an outside edge and I had kept my toilet paper in my purse...always a good policy when traveling in Laos.  The boat beached itself twice...once for a pee stop...bless that pilot!...and once for portage because the river was too low to allow us to stay on...we walked in a crazy line, dozens of French people and Muzzy and I wandering hopefully on a path alongside the river.  We rejoined the boat quite a hike further on and having my bag on the outside afforded me the opportunity to forage for two of the nut bars I brought just for this occasion.  Never were nut bars so welcome!!!  Side note: it has been rare to see Americans on this trip...mostly Germans and French though we did meet 2 Greek boys at dinner the other night. 

Our friends Ann and Denny continued on to Muong Ngoi.  Denny is an ex-pat living in Albi, France since the Vietnam War.  Ann Crittenden was a war correspondent for Newsweek during the Vietnam War in Hanoi and Luang Prabang.  She told us about the last days in Hanoi and her visit to Luang Prabang when the Mekong was heavily mined and it was a dusty, rural, sad village on hard times.  She is an author and playwright who lives in Washington D.C.  I promised to meet Ann on Monday at her guest house in LP and take her to the weaving village...yes...Muz and I spent 100,000 kip on a tuk tuk to the old weaving village where I am happy to say the house that was so charming and had been torn down is now restored to former glory complete with a gorgeous upstairs full of antique fabric and costumes.  I found my yardage...exactly what I was looking for...and the nice young man who speaks excellent English remembered us because we contributed greatly to the economics of the village on our last trip and did so again this time.  I got a free scarf and two glasses of water and many "wais" as I toted my 3 bags of silk back into town...this was after having it confirmed that there is now a bamboo foot bridge over the Nam Ou that feeds directly from LP to Ban Xong Kham...the weaving village...no wonder the tuk tuk driver took a contented nap while I shopped.

Anyway...LP is prospering, changing but in a nice way.  It is still charming and the people are still wonderful.  The night market is on hard times but still optimistic.  Laos is still the nicest place to be and I am grateful and lucky that we are here.  We have booked a boat trip on the very cushy Luang Say boat back up to Houayxai and into Thailand...two days on the Mekong, an indulgence, but half the price we were quoted to go the other way when we were in the States.  So we will end up with a couple of days in Chiang Rai...can the Pie Lady pursuit be far behind?  (Muz felt so bad, Cris, that he changed our entire itinerary to continue the search) We had to refund our Lao Air tickets to Bangkok on the 5th and that is another story...

Suffice it to say that we are having a good trip.  We have moved from the back rooms at the Xieng Mouane guesthouse to a front one again...I will be able to open my shutters and watch the monks in the morning. Muz was up early to catch the monks on their morning passigieata and practice his "blurry shots".  We will try to post photos when we return to Thailand. Nong Kiaw was a whole story alone...past times, not as nice as up north in previous years, and a little too late to visit now, I think.  But...the river trip was amazing and will be again.

Until next time...
Sok Dee (good luck, happy journeys)

Luang Prabang

Just returned across the bamboo bridge across the Nam Khong river from Dyen Sabai and a delicious Lao dinner on the hillside above the river set in lovely teak wood terraces (sala) amidst towering bamboo.  Sigh...Luang Prabang Laos is truly a magical place.  Arrived from Chiang Mai on Lao air (a NEW plane!!!)...whew!  Totally mellow airport, no hustle, no hassle.  Easy ride into the old quarter on the peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers.  We are staying at the Xieng Mouane, across the road from the wat Xieng Mouane.  Our room on the second floor looks out over the road and the wat so in the mornings we can easily hear the beating of the drums and call to prayer.  This drumming echoes throughout the peninsula, from wat to wat. Today was the day of atonement so there was massive drumming and crashing of cymbals and chanting at 4:00 am and 4:00 pm.  Did I say charming?  Did I say magical?  there really is no place on earth quite as lovely.

On Tuesday we decided to go up to Nong Kiaw, which we had heard was beautiful and more rustic.  It was truly beautiful...massive karst mountains jutting up vertically from the river, narrow gorges with the Nam Ou running in between, breathtaking scenery.  We took a mini-van up...packed with tourists but the driver did allow us one pee stop...thank god!  We were deposited at the mini-van stop and our two new friends, Ann and Denny and I, took off at a quick trot to find lodging.  We walked down the red dusty road...and walked...and walked...and walked.  I had left Muz at the station with our luggage thinking that it was only a short hike to the bridge across the river that would lead us to the guesthouses.  And we walked and walked and finally found the bridge and the "regular" bus stop right at the entrance to the bridge.  We walked across to the Riverview, which was supposed to be the best place (and it was) but they had no rooms, so we went to the next best place, the Sunset.  Somehow the woman who ran the place reminded me of Houayxai Hattie...those who know will remember her. The huts were precariously perched over the river with a wonderful view and an earful of the loudest maw lam music complete with karaoke because someone had a baby and there was a party across the river.  Bad karaoke is bad karaoke in any language.  At any rate, the room was too much but the only thing available and by this time I was in a slight panic thinking about Muzzy at the mini-van stop and how many kilometers I would have to walk to get him and then we would have to walk back and he must be wondering what the hell had happened.  So Nong Kiaw Kattie called her sister at the station and asked after a "falang with a hat".  Sister said he had gone...was no more...  Then I got really scared and started walking back to the bridge.  I could picture Muzzy loaded down like a Nepali Sherpa with 2 Brenthaven bags and his camera bag...lost, wondering what had happened...would we ever find one another again?  I started across the bridge and stopped a few feet in, peering towards the other end, red dust covering my shoes, in my hair, choking me with worry....there he was!  A small dot covered in baggage...and dust...at the other end of the bridge.  My relief was boundless.  I hurried toward him...he sort of scrabbled along under his massive load...we met, I relieved him of some of the luggage and we spent the night in Nong Kiaw under a mosquito net and a big thick quilt.  Its cold up here in the mountains....
More about the journey back down the Nam Ou by boat later....