Southeast Asia Adventures

July 12, 2006: The Gibbon Experience

So there we were, a couple of locals and five tourists packed in the longtail drifting haplessly down the Mekong while the engine sputtered to a stop and the rain poured down.  I looked down river, measured the speed of our drift, and calculated that the boat captain had about thirty seconds to get the engine going before we collided with the large boat moored down stream and our little longtail capsized resulting in an early end to my trip to Laos.  Actually, I wasn’t even in Laos yet. Continued...

July 4, 2006: Bike Leg 2 (part 2): Mai Hong Son to Chiang Mai

Bike Day 16: Mae Hong Son to Soppong. It was time to pay the piper, and I knew it.  At some point I would have to make up for all of the elevation lost in the ride from Khun Yuam to Mae Hong Son, and today was the day. Continued...

June 25, 2006: Bike Leg 2 (part 1): Chiang Mai to Mai Hong Son

Bike Day 7: Chiang Mai layover day. At the suggestion of John and Karen I checked into the Parami Guesthouse in Chiang Mai yesterday, and once again I find that staying at the guesthouses in Thailand beats staying at hotels by a long shot. Continued...

June 16, 2006: Bike Leg 1: Phitsonaluk to Chiang Mai

Plan A was to take the train to Chiang Mai, but for various reasons I couldn’t get that far with the bike via train, so I settled for Uttaradit, which was the closest that I could get.  But upon browsing the guide book in the train station and on the way up, it looked like Phitsanoluk would be a more interesting town to stop in, and the ride to Sukhothai would be a good 56km break in ride.  So that’s where I landed at 9:40pm, in what seems to be in retrospect a scene from a self-imposed reality show... Continued...

June 9, 2006: Long Live the King!

King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the world's longest serving monarch, and today marked the beginning celebrations of the 60th anniversary of his ascension to the throne.  The royal color is yellow, and Bangkok was a sea of yellow t-shirts today.  The official version with the king’s seal is being sold for 200 baht ($5), with proceeds going to benefit the king’s charities, but literally everyone in the country wants one and unofficial copies are selling for as much as 500 baht.  Almost everywhere I went today I was the only person not wearing yellow; I felt even more out of place than normal. Continued...

June 8, 2006: Elephants and Beach Bums

After touring the temples of Angkor Wat mom and I flew over to Chiang Mai, where I had made reservations for a two day Mahout Training course at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center south of Chiang Mai. Mom's primary request for her trip to SE Asia was to ride an Elephant. I think the Mahout training course was a little more than she bargained for, but we both had fun and it was a great experience. The Mahout is the elephant guide who spends their life with the elephant training it and commanding it to perform tasks. The Mahout training course was designed to give us farang (aka gringos; westerners) some insight into the life of the Mahout and up close and personal contact with the elephants. It was a bit more than the 'hop in the cart and trundle around for two hours' ride that mom was expecting! Continued...

June 8, 2006: Angkor Wat

Our tour guide Nak knew he was in trouble the first afternoon when it took us four hours to get through the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom. He and our driver John had put together a carefully planned itinerary based on the two and a half days that mom and I had planned to visit the amazing temples of the Khmer culture outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Upon returning to the car he and John had a lengthy discussion and started crossing out temples on the list and moving others around. It had to be done; both mom and I were amazed at the intricate art and architecture of the temples and couldn't be hurried. The fact that I was always looking for the perfect picture also contributed to our lackadaisical pace. Continued...

May 30, 2006: Cambodia

To say that Cambodians are not prosperous would be an understatement of monumental proportions. Our guide Nak put it best- “In this country the government counts subsistence farming as 80% of the GDP- how can you count subsisting as part of the GDP??!!” The poverty, however, doesn’t limit the breadth of their smiles or the warmth of their hospitality. I was constantly amazed at how the Cambodians we met have been able to put a horrific past behind them and live for tomorrow while they eek out a living today. Continued...

May 20, 2006: Kuala Lumpur

I’m sitting here in the passenger seat heading north on the toll road out of KL with Gary, Selinda and Joseph, and I’m trying to think up something interesting to write about KL, but nothing is coming to me. Like the rows upon rows of coconut oil palms we are passing through, KL is beautiful, and clean, and there is some interesting history, but no really good story line is jumping out at me. As far as cities go KL is very first world, with soaring skyscrapers, five star hotels, good restaurants and fancy shopping malls. I suppose that’s what people come here for, and KL certainly excels at providing those services, in my opinion rivaling major cities around the world such as Los Angeles, London and Santiago. It takes a bit of research and wandering around, however, to get past the glitz and find the true character of KL. Continued...

May 20, 2006: Nepenthes

Mt. Kinabalu is home to an amazingly diverse and unique population of plants. Over 4,500 species of plants live in the five forest zones present on the mountain, with many endemic species. With so many plants to choose from one has to pick favorites, and my favorites were the Nepenthes, aka Pitcher Plants. Continued...

May 6, 2006: Mt. Kinabalu

“Excuse me, but I need to puke. Go ahead, I’ll catch up.” This from my guide Hasnin at 4:00am somewhere on the granite slabs above 12,000 ft on Mt. Kinabalu. I was feeling a bit queasy myself. Continued...

April 16, 2006: Holy Friday

Well I originally started this article with the objective of describing the primary religions and religious holidays celebrated in Penang, but after hours of research and digging through recent newspaper articles I concluded that it would take quite some time to put together a comprehensive report, so I narrowed the scope to just the celebrations that have occurred in the past few weeks. Continued...

April 12, 2006: Eagle Island

Langkawi is one big tourist trap. To be sure, it is a beautiful tropical island with white sand beaches, limestone karst formations jutting out of mangrove swamps, quaint fishing villages and rice paddy farms. It also has hotels, motels, bungalows, restaurants, bars, jet-ski rentals, boat rentals, car rentals, tramways, parasailing, ocean world, crocodile world, bird world, fish farm, bat cave, eagle feeding, fish feeding, tourist feeding, a spa on every corner and lots of duty free shopping. Wrap all of that up with a bunch of add-to-the-mystique legends readily promoted by government tourism officials and you have a world-class tourist trap. Continued...

March 26, 2006: Walking around...

It has become quite obvious to me in the past few weeks that the environmentally sound ethos of using ones feet as a mode of transportation to work has not yet occurred to most residents of Penang. “You what???!!!” is most often the response I get from the people I work with when I tell them that I walked in that morning. They think I’m crazy- I like to think of myself as a trendsetter. The truth of the matter is that after eating great meals at the hawker stands for 6 ringit ($1.50us) I’m too cheap to spend twice that much for a taxi ride to a location that I can see out of my hotel window. Continued...

March 12, 2006: Roaming around Penang

Lest my first missive on Penang deceive you, I am not spending all of my free time eating. Indeed there are plenty of things to do that don’t involve digesting various delectable unknown foods. Penang has an interesting history, vibrant culture and several parks and forest reserves. Continued...

March 2, 2006: Gastronomic Adventures in Penang

One of the great advantages of the multi-ethnic composition of Malaysia is that there is a wide variety of really good food. In particular Chinese, Indian, Japanese and of course Malaysian food is common, with a smattering of Thai and some styles that are “all of the above”. I have eaten everywhere from hawker stands on the streets to fancy restaurants and it’s all good. I have put more food in my mouth that I had no clue what it was in the past five days than I have in the past five years. So far (knock on wood) no problems whatsoever with nasty little bugs in anything. Continued...