Loading...
Start a new Travel Blog! Blogabond Home Maps People Photos My Stuff

Joc's Journeys

a travel blog by GoBlue


Business school set an incredibly high quality of life bar, but upcoming travels aren't so bad either. The greatness of 2007 continues!

Show Oldest First
Show Newest First

Sa Pa Trekking Adventures

Sa Pa, Vietnam


We are back from our 2-day trek into the hill tribe areas around Sa Pa, and it was great! We had very good weather until this morning (when it rained), and the scenery was gorgeous.

I think it was the same route I did years ago when I was here, but it was remarkable how much things have changed. Sa Pa itself is much busier, most notably in the motor bike and car traffic, all of which comes with almost perpetual honking and a good bit of exhaust. Given that tourism seems to be the main economic force here, I think it's extremely unfortunate that this has happened to the city because it really negatively affects the experience. I would expect it to permeate the guidebooks soon. The hill tribe sales forces are also quite aggressive, to the point of harrassment. I might actually be interested in shopping their wares, but I am afraid of what might happen if I show the slightest interest.

Our guide this time was "Pit", and she was a funny girl (19?). She was very light on the educational aspect of the trip, and didn't keep pace with us one of the days, but was relatively pleasant. We were speculating that her general apathy, however, was indicative of the increased tourism in the area. I asked her at one point if she had been the guide for our friends a week earlier (Matt, Neda, Tanuka and Jeff coincidentally used the same company), and she shrugged and said she doesn't remember names - too many people come through. Mai, my guide from 2000, was much better! Nevertheless, she didn't get us lost.

To the highlights, though: the scenery is still fantastic. I am so impressed that they have turned such rugged countryside into productive farmland! The first day was supposedly ~15km long but only took us 3ish hours; the same with the second. There were many other people on the trail the first day, but fewer the second (much more desirable).

I also had the opportunity to work in a paddy - great fun, exclusively because when my back got too tired I could stop. What hard work! I went with Pit and the mother of the household in which we were staying - about a 5 minute walk from the house to a 10-tiered steppe. I learned that the paddies are cut out of the mountain by hand. Each ends up being about 5-6 feet wide and 30-100 feet long. Somehow they flood them, and then water buffalo are used to dredge the inside of the paddy so it's relatively level and well tilled.

The first stage of the process involves spreading rice seeds by hand across the top. The rice then grows in like thick grass. Once it's relatively tall and green, but before it produces rice, it's then pulled by hand and relocated to new paddies with a good bit of space in between each stalk, apparently so it grows better and can be more easily harvested. The replant is the part of the process that I participated in.

On the way to the paddy, we passed some men working on the edge of one of the paddies, and they pulled out of the ground what looked like a 1-foot snake. I asked Pit if it was a snake, and she said no. "Are you sure?" "Yes, it's not a snake." "What is it?" "I don't know the word for it in English." "I do: snake!" We then bantered a little more about maybe it was a leech or a lizard; I maintain snake, she maintained it wasn't a problem, so I put it out of my mind.

We walked around to the far side and then descended along some pretty steep grass, left our sandals on the side, and then stepped into the paddy. The mud was extremely soft, slightly warm, and up to my upper calves/knees. She gave me a bunch of the rice and we got to work. Turns out I'm not a bad rice planter! I required some guidance (my natural instinct was to plant the rice too far apart). She also taught me how to lead with my fingers so that the rice roots are better planted and so the stalks stand up straight. I got the hang of it, though I was very slow - I was planting about 2 feet to her 4.

We did 1 paddy, and then stepped up to the next. The transitions were tricky though, because the boundaries between the paddies are about 8 inches wide and still fairly soft mud. I hopped up relatively readily, but keeping my balance wasn't easy, particularly when part of the wall collapsed. There goes the white girl, into the other paddy, already planted! Fortunately, they were laughing at me as I scrambled out and tried to fix the rice for them. Then I had an incident in which I started to tip again, but instead of stepping into the paddy, reached across the other side with both hands, successfully not falling, but then catching myself in the bridge position with no obvious next move. (I somehow tipped myself up and got out of that one). I think part of my challenge was that I outweigh most of them, plus am obviously not used to flying around on these tiny muddy tracks.

We planted two more half-paddies. Other animal highlights included a large bulbous spider (I kept my cool), and a tangerine size ball of frogs eggs (if I understand the translation correctly). It was quite an experience.

I did the first paddy without too much trouble, then when we turned to the second, decided I could hang if they could. Also managed the third, despite a cramping back. But then I finally had to admit that these tiny women were far stronger than I (I could barely stand up straight), and declined my next batch of rice.

They seemed relatively pleased with my stamina though, and I felt good about contributing a bit. (Though I also felt a good bit of pressure knowing that this was their food we were growing! (All subsitence farming)). Unfortunately there are no pictures of the event - my broken camera was too much for Pit to manage, so I just have the memories. I was given a tradiational hat to wear, though, for those of you trying to picture it!

The rest of the evening was equally eventful, mostly because of the 13 (small) shots of rice wine they "offered" us. Led to some good times, including Aaron renting a duck to chase, then buying it for $10USD, then deciding not to chase it after we learned that it would be eaten the next morning if we did (I had declared myself on the duck's side and was prepared to run active interference). The family (who was leading the drinking) also had a fun toy: a badminton-sized racquet with electric strings that would zap mosquitos when you swung it at them. All in all it was a good time, though the next morning I was feeling a bit sub-par.

(Side note: there have been far fewer mosquitos on the trip than I anticipated. Since we've started, I've gotten about 8 bites, 5 of which were on one of the climbing days in Chiang Mai. So far in Vietnam, 0!)

The next day we walked for another few hours and ended up at a waterfall. The fall itself was relatively short - 12 feet maybe? But the current was quite strong, and initially very cold. We got in, swam closer to the waterfall to get a look at how crazy the kayaking landing would have been (giant rock that you would have nosed right into), and then scouted an area for some cliff jumping. Carl displayed his usual routine of back flips, and I did my usual routine of pencil jumps. Good times. Last night was far more mellow as we all categorically refused the offers of more rice wine.

Today we woke up to clouds and the prospect of a steep climb back up the same trail we had come in on. We opted for the motorbike option instead, which then turned into quite an adventure when the clouds broke into rain. In general, we were going slowly enough that a fall would only have meant mud and a few bruises (we were all riding behind local drivers). Nevertheless, it was quite exciting. One "highlight": we stopped for no apparent reason, then asked Pit what the matter was. "They are building the road" (accompanied by a poof gesture with her hands). "They're dynamiting?!" we clarified incredulously. A minute later: BOOM! from up ahead, as limestone flew into the air in some not so small chunks. We waited for a few more blasts and then continued on our merry way. Note that the communication system between the guy stopping us and the dynamiters was a series of whistles. As I said, quite the adventure. We had originally planned to rent bikes when we returned to Sa Pa and then explore Pit's village, but given the weather we opted out of that in favor of a long internet session!

Next stop: Halong Bay. Fingers crossed for some more good weather - this is a place I have been looking forward to revisiting...

permalink written by  GoBlue on June 17, 2007 from Sa Pa, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

From Ha Noi to Hoi An

Hoi An, Vietnam


Halong Bay was as spectacular as ever, though with far more people than there were 7 years ago - almost to the point of compromising our experience, but not quite. Our tour did a good job getting farther off the beaten path on our second day, when we did some kayaking in and amongst lagoons. We were also lucky in getting a cool group of 7 people to hang out with.

Hanoi, however, didn't really welcome us back - no incidents, but we were ready to move on so we changed our flights to go down to Danang/Hoi An one day ahead of time. So far this town is much better suited towards me - a good bit less busy, fewer people, less honking, etc. We booked a functional hotel for our first night and then Carl and Viv scouted a great hotel that will host us for our remaining three days here.

The main point of Hoi An (its "brand", if you will), is tailoring. This morning we went to a shop that had been recommended by some friends and spent about an hour looking through catalogues and selecting a few tester items. Measurements were made, fabric selected, and tomorrow morning at 11am we will see whether this is going to work! It's pretty fun...

And now, off to the pool!

permalink written by  GoBlue on June 22, 2007 from Hoi An, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

And then there were three

Nha Trang, Vietnam


Fond farewells to Ms Jennie McConaghy, who left today to begin the journey home - we'll miss you!

We're wrapping up two quick days in Nha Trang, a beach down just south of the demilitarized zone. Despite its potential historical intrigue, Nha Trang has been a place of semi-relaxation for us (or at least attempted relaxation as we have continued to Battle hawkers. The honking is significantly less here though, and there are some alternative cuisines that have temporarily staved off my despair at eating bland dishes and hoping to avoid MSG).

Highlights so far first include the company: we overlapped with Brendan and Allison for a day here, and it was great to catch up and bit and swap some stories. We also hit some mud baths today that were quite an experience - my skin is silky soft now (in theory at least).

Tomorrow we grab a bus to head into the mountains of Dalat for a few days. There, gasp, we may even need fleeces at night! Dalat boasts many outdoor attractions including good trekking, mountain biking, some climbing, and semi-natural water slides. Should be a fun change of pace. And from there, it's on to Cambodia to revel in the magnificence of Angkor Wat!

permalink written by  GoBlue on June 27, 2007 from Nha Trang, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

Da What?

Da Lat, Vietnam


We are in the mountains, and boy is the temperature change a welcome break - I am wearing pants!!! There was an article in the WSJ a few years ago about this town - it was developed in the late 1800s by a protege of Louis Pasteur. Apparently it's the top honeymoon destination in Vietnam, though it's not immediately clear why - perhaps in the non-rainy season it would be more of where I would choose to honeymoon.

Yesterday, however, we did check out the golf course. For a mere $90 you can play what looks like a fairly well tended and potentially interesting course. I think we are going to try it either tomorrow or Sunday for their twighlight special (on $40). We did hit on the range though, which was a lot of fun (just knowing we were playing golf in Vietnam!).

Despite

a rough start (a shouting match in the hallway outside our door at 6am) the day has turned out to be quite a kick. We started by hiring a car to go to the top of a tall local mountain. We got to the base of it and then transferredto a jeep (Russian-made, former war jeep). The view was almost completely blocked by clouds, but it was still pretty cool. It was pretty crazy to think that nearly 40 years ago an American soldier might have been driving up that same road - what would he have thought of the idea that in another few decades a tourist from his country would be driving up the same (US Army-made) road to admire the views.

We also visited "crazy house", which was designed in Alice in Wonderland style by the 2nd daughter of the 2nd president after Ho Chi Min. Crazy indeed.


Next we went to a local waterfall that you reached via tobogan. That was pretty wild (though not as wild as it could have been - had to screech to a halt to avoid hitting the lollygagging couple in front of me - get off the brakes!!!) The water was pretty though.

Vivian and i are going through the local market soon. (carl is elevating his ankle - mysterious pretty serious strain). Tomorrow we are still hoping to go mountain biking.


permalink written by  GoBlue on June 29, 2007 from Da Lat, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

APB: Send sympathy vibes to Carl! Poor kid's had a rough stint...

Da Lat, Vietnam


Yes, strike three and he's down for the count:
1) Mysterious ankle injury set in in Ha Long Bay - could it have been from the back flips off the top of the boat?! Not helped by the fact that we never get a walking-free day, but he was managing well enough.

2) Cold. Who gets a cold when it's 100 degrees out? Acutally it's now around 70, so perhaps it was the climate change of going from the ridiculous heat of everywhere else in this country to the moderately pleasant constant drizzle of Da Lat. That was yesterday.

3) Mountain biking mishap (he's ok though - I'll state that up front). We postponed the excursion one day to give his cold a full day of rest and recuperation, but this morning on a particularly nasty steep downhill (and did I mention muddy? Very muddy) he lept acrobatically off of his bike and in an attempt to save stressing the ankle somehow tweaked the heck out of his back. We were just about at the farthest point on the trail, so he had a limpy 2-hour walk back to the sealed road, poor fella. Yes, strike three, and Carl is in traction. (I don't actually know what that term means - in reality, he's drugged up on advil watching mindless television upstairs).

The good news is he'll make it (he's a strong one). It's also nice that yesterday we decided to give ourselves a break and upgraded to the Novitel (the 2nd nicest hotel in town), so we are relaxing in relative luxury (we even ordered room service for lunch!). The bad news is he's down for the count (we're thinking of renting a DVD player). Unfortunately we have a flight to Cambodia tomorrow, so hopefully he will have a rapid recovery - go Carl!!!

Other than this minor tragedy, the ride was actually very fun - extremely wet and slippery, but (except for that one spot) not too steep in either direction. The bikes were decent, and the temperature perfect (got a little chilly when it started to rain; again, poor Carl walking home in the rain a day after spending the day in bed with a cold). We also had the fun coincidence of our two Irish friends booking the same ride as we did even though our attempts failed at passing them a note through their hotel telling them where we'd booked. So we had a fun group and a good adventure. Viv has a few "body illustrations" of a few of her escapades, but I will leave that to her telling - my contribution is this: it wasn't easy biking!

Now off to play paparazzi with some Vietnamese propaganda posters...fascinating...

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 1, 2007 from Da Lat, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

And then there were two...

Siemreab, Cambodia


Safe travels Viv! The group travel has just about come to a close. I knew it would go quickly, but holy cow! I can't believe part I of the trip is over. (In my mind, it's a 3-part journey: part I was group travel, part II: Habitat for Humanity building trip, and then part III will be the Carl/Joc closure). I am having a blast; however, I was reflecting today that if I want that "momentus life" feeling, I have to proactively remind myself of the context - the day-to-day is more of a relaxed fun, which in and of itself is also pretty cool. I compare this in part to my trip 7 years ago, which was amazing, but also a perpetual struggle in some ways - against logistics, the cultures, group travel, etc. Perhaps it's just the difference of being 30 vs 23?

At any rate...

When we planned to go to Angkorwat, I'd say Carl and Viv were driving the process and I was following along to stay with them; at the time it seemed like a lot of travel and money for some cool temples. In retrospect, it was very much worth it, except we wish we'd had another day or two.

Cambodia was not at all what I'd expected. I had heard that Angkorwat was completely tourist-ridden and nearby Siem Reap overrun with junk souvenier shops. Instead, we found it a small town with nice, courteous people (plenty of shopping "opportunities", but they didn't force themselves on you like they have in other places. And the temples were ... amazing.

I didn't know this at first, but Angkorwat is actually a collection of more than 100 temples. Many of them are small, but it was pretty incredible to imagine the area hundreds of years ago without tourists and speckled with temples everywhere. Granted, most of the thousands of people who lived there didn't worship at the temples, just built them for the king. Nonetheless is was pretty cool to think about.

We started the day at the "Tomb Raider" temple. Although the day was full of fantastic sights, this ended up my favorite place, I think because of the interaction between nature and the temples. I haven't seen Tomb Raider, but I heard Viv comment that she thought the movie had been digitally engineered to show trees in and amongst the ruins - turns out, it's real! Extraordinary. We also had the luck of getting there before the multitudes of packed tour buses arrived. (We didn't try for a sunrise visit because it's rainy season and we were likely to be clouded in; instead, we got started just after 8 and still beat many of the crowds at our first stop).

We later saw the temple of happy faces - also very cool. Each spire has four faces on it, representing the Buddhist tenets of compassion, sympathy, calmess and charity. Another stop was at the king's temple, which overlooked a 125m swimming pool in which his 4,000 concubines would bathe. Every night he would climb the (ridiculously steep) stairs - on belay! - to have sex with one of them. The burdens of ruling....

We finished the day at Angkorwat itself. Although very cool, don't get me wrong, it actually was less dramatic to me than some of the others. I should note that I was on the point of exhaustion though (due to poor laundry management I was down to just one very hot thick cotton t-shirt, and despite drinking 2 liters of water throughout the day, had to rest every few steps in order to make it through).

With the addition of two pleasant dinners, it was a great stop!

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 5, 2007 from Siemreab, Cambodia
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

New Habitats

Kuching, Malaysia


I am now in Malaysia, working hard to build "Eddie and Katie" a new house! So far the trip is great. I really like our group (I don't know how that always happens, but it really is a great group of people!) Snapshots include 2 Toronto women who work for Microsoft, 5 Bain people (2 of whom I hadn't met before, going to other offices), 3 BCG people (yikes - consultants!), 3 Irish lads, a father/son duo from Marin county, a kid who played high school water polo with my brother Theo (and that kid's girlfriend), and a girl who won a photo contest through Habitat and got a free trip out of it. One of our leaders is also from Beloit, Illinois, just south of Carl's stomping grounds.

The house itself is coming along nicely, considering 1+ days of work. The roof was already built, so we are working on preparing the foundation. I have become somewhat of an expert in rebar bending and tying, and my posture is perfect right now in order to protect a very sore back (shoveling gravel and sand). A group of local kids is perpetually hanging around, and we all get a great kick out of shouting hello back and forth to each other and giggling in between.

The couple for whom we are building the house is currently living in the house next door with 8 adult relatives. That clan cooks lunch for us, and it's fun to sit around smiling at each other. Today I tried what turned out to be homemade chewing gum (sort-of; I wouldn't have recognized it as such without being told).

Tomorrow we pour concrete and while it's drying have the afternoon off to do some shopping. I am going to try to pick up some extra t-shirts as I am tearing through my wardrobe. Although it isn't as hot as I expected it to be (discomfort-wise), I still sweat out pounds every hour (drank 4 liters of water today during our 9-5 workday!).

It's great fun though, and very rewarding - Eddie works with us and he and Katie seem like very nice people. Katie's 8 months pregnant, so I think they will get good use out of their new house!

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 10, 2007 from Kuching, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

Bain is looking pretty good...

Kuching, Malaysia


This work is hard!!!

The trip is going well. I really like the group - a great group of individuals with mix of laid back-ness and interesting-ness. We are making decent progress on the house too. The daily rhythm is something like this: leave the hotel at 8am, drive 45 minutes to the village, working by 9am. Break at 10:30 for 10-15 minutes, work until 12:30. Break for 30-60-minute lunch, work until 3ish, maybe another quick break, then finish at 4:30.

After a day or so of framing and dirt shoveling, we were ready to pour concrete. The first day of that was all manual mixing, which is very, very hard! On the way to the internet cafe tonight I passed a pile of sand beside a pile of gravel and it gave me the shivers. My back was nearly broken for the first day or so despite decent efforts to use my legs, but it seems to be recovering. We also found a great massage place nearby that's $15US per hour! Very therapeutic.

Today, thanks to a wonderful new invention (the cement mixer), our work didn't involve manual mixing - such a treat! We carted wheelbarrow-fulls of this to the site this morning and finished pouring the floor of the house. Then we formed human chains to move many bricks and started on the walls.

Aaron, one of the Irish lads and I also played soccer against the local kids at lunch today - that was a ton of fun, though in 90+ degree heat, it wiped me out for the afternoon. Hopefully we will repeat that, without the dehydration factor. Eddie, the husband in the couple we're building the house for, played on our team as did one of the young girls; the other 12 were against us, and when they come up to your hip height, it's quite a challenge not to send bodies flying!

Every night we congregate around 7 for a group dinner, then have free time (though by then most of us are eager to crawl into bed - long days!). It's a good rhythm - lots of fun! And now, off to dinner...

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 13, 2007 from Kuching, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

We built a house!

Kuching, Malaysia


So I think in retrospect I am going to reflect on this part of the trip as a blast (too). It's been really fun hanging with some new cool people.

Updates since the last blog:

On Saturday we went to the market. While in some ways a typical Asian market, this one was particularly fun because we had a local guide, Min (a man), who's great. It was mostly a food market, though it also had some other stuff (junk), and Min led us in a lot of sampling. My favorites included some fried falafal-like things that were Indian, peanut pancakes (crepe with butter and peanuts), and fresh pineapple. I also found another new fruit (langan?) that I am allergic to. Other than that we saw a ton of fresh vegetables, many of them new to me, as well as some jellyfish and interesting forms of meat. All told we spent over an hour there and I greatly enjoyed it.

While waiting to move on to dinner, I also got to hear from Min more about Habitat in general; highlights included learning that they are not exclusively Christian in the sense if the recipients are Muslim, as Eddie and Katie are, they receive a Koran (instead of a bible) with the keys to the house. Interesting, and in my opinion appropriate. Later that night we also went out as a group for the first time - tons of fun. It's interesting hanging out with people of such different ages - makes for a neat dynamic.

Sunday morning began with a 7:30am pilates session (Andrea, one of the BCG Stanford grads, is an instructor back home and several of us were interested in trying her class, so we rented out the hotel conference room for an hour). It was ridiculously hard - so much so that I really couldn't do much of it and didn't even really get a workout because I spent most of the time in a failure state. Nonetheless, it was fun, and it was a great prequel to the next event: the spa. I got a 1-hour massage and then some stim on the left side of my neck to try to adjust the chronic sleep-induced ache that has returned.

That afternoon we went to the rainforest wold music festival, which was awesome. I had low expectations going into it, and it turned out to be very cool. The afternoon started out with 2 workshops; I chose feuding fiddles and an introduction to Afghani music, which I thought I was going to hate and ended up really liking. They had a drummer that was unbelievable (and drums that were unbelieveable). One was sort of a tom tom with a little iron plate in the middle that allowed the player to make about 15 different sounds, and he had incredibly fast hands.

We took a 2-hour break to eat some good ethnic food, and then that night there was a big concert with 11 bands from all over the world - local to kick it off, then Afghanistan, Poland, UK, Vietnam, Tuva (which I deduced and have since confirmed is near Mongolia), Kuala Lumpur, Italy, South America and Madegascar. Each group played for between 15 and 60 minutes each, and it was really interesting. The Vietnamese group had some crazy instruments including clapping their hands in front of pipes (like you can do on your mouth). (The woman actually started out by playing a song on her mouth (something we all knew so we could see it was working)). They also had some ... weird ones - hard to describe, but cool. The polish band ("Shannon") is also worth looking up - almost Dave Matthews like, but different (same same but different!). The fiddler was great though - had seen him in the afternoon workshop too. We left the concert at about 12:30 and then bussed back for an hour.

Monday we got started late because we were up late the night before, but still made good progress, and today we finished up our work on the house! Eric, our foreman, said we did well - were ahead of schedule (and hopefully made a house that won't fall down). We finished all the brickwork except for a tricky spot in what will be the ceiling of the bathroom, and plastered several of the walls (turns out plastering is my favorite task). We're in the process of assembling pictures, so I will have some soon, but suffice it to say that we build a house! Pretty cool.

Tonight we have our local farewell dinner with the affiliate and then tomorrow we leave for the country to visit a long house hill tribe for 2 days. Then Friday we depart! It's gone quite quickly (I seem to say that about every location) but has been a great time (also say that about every location). Again as usual though, I am really looking forward to the next stage too!

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 17, 2007 from Kuching, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

Post-HFH...Carl, here I come!

Bangkok, Thailand


I confess this is the first of what will be several retrospective blogs. I am in Hawaii right now, with some time to do catch-up work for the final few weeks of the trip, which flew by at a crazy rate!

The long house experience was also pretty cool, though the transportation required to get us there was not so cool. "It's all about expectations!" We heard that many times in school in our MO classes, and I firmly believe it anyway. We thought the transportation was going to be a 4-5-hour bus ride; instead it was a 3 hour bus ride that was made into a 6 hour bus ride because we had a guide who decided/was instructed to stop a number of times on the way to see (what in my and most of the group's opinion were) trivial/annoying tourist sites. Then despite voicing an interest in getting to the Hilton resort more quickly, we continued with the stops and then missed the 3pm boat and had to wait for the 4pm boat to get across the lake to the resort. Mutiny. I had a brief go at some mediation between cranky co-workers and the leaders, with mild success; everyone was also better after a swim and an excellent buffet dinner.

The long house itself was pretty interesting. To some extent it replicated some of the other hill tribe tours we've done (akin to a human zoo). However, this group had a chief who seemed like the real deal. When long house tribe chiefs first become chief, they tour around to the various villages under their purview and at each point hear a different part of lore from the village elders and with that exchange receive a tattoo. By the end of the tour their entire upper body is covered, as was the current 73-year-old chief's. He seemed like a pretty extraordinary guy, though my attempts at communicating with him through our guide (who was still annoyed with us from our "pushiness" the previous day) were rebuffed. (Every time I would ask the guide to ask the chief something, the guide would answer for him, regardless of how much I clarified that I understood the precedent but was interested in hearing this chief's exact words (and watching his reactions, etc.)). I was mostly interested in hearing how he has seen his leadership responsibilities change over the course of the decades as his tribe went from head hunting (yup, like some of the Indonesian tribes, these practiced raids of their neighbors and staked the skulls of their enemies at the village entrance) to tour hosting (every day welcoming another group of farangs (foreigners, usually white people). He seemed genuinely pleased to have us there and excited to show us their ways. Most of the women seemed very angry all the time, though the guide insisted that they were happy, despite their dark faces.

The Hilton was also a nice break. We swam, lounged, played pool, played mafia and generally relaxed. I also discovered a minor travel crisis in which my flights from Kuching to KL and then to Bangkok were booked with 5 minutes of layover time. Oops. So I asked Kris and Seth whether I could jump on with the Canadians for the early shuttle to the airport. Instead, the whole group rallied to leave the resort early - I think it fit others' schedules, but no doubt it was also to make my life easier, and I greatly appreciated that. In the end, I was able to go on an earlier flight (purchased an entirely new ticket; nice, Air Asia), made my connection to Bangkok, and one hour after landing was checked into the ridiculously nice Novotel, where I spent only 10 hours (don't figure out the hourly rate), but got very clean and had an excellent night sleep.

Then, on to Krabi and my long lost boyfriend!

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 21, 2007 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
Send a Compliment

Viewing 11 - 20 of 26 Entries
first | previous | next | last

View as Map View as Satellite Imagery View as Map with Satellite Imagery Show/Hide Info Labels Zoom Out Zoom In Zoom Out Zoom In
find city:
trip feed
author feed
trip kml
author kml

   

Blogabond v2.40.58.80 © 2024 Expat Software Consulting Services about : press : rss : privacy