Locals use the River to sustain life–food, transportation and local trade.

Boats are already docked in the gently swaying waters by the time the sun is setting. The boat workers must have left to find dinner because the banks of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang were nearly empty this time of day!

Governments dam and re-route the river in political power struggles between the nations sharing the Mekong River’s natural resources, and international political struggles have relied on the power of the Mekong to push goods out to foreign ports for profit and trade.

There’s a lot to this powerful river and it’s with good reason the the poetic and alliterative description the Mighty Mekong fits so well.

Over the past several years, I’ve seen various parts of the Mekong River–within Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to be exact, and below you’ll find a slice of that life I witnessed as locals use the river waters and mineral-rich banks to sustain their lives and livelihoods.

Just before sunset in Luang Prabang, Laos, young monks c00l off from the afternoon heat in the river waters where the Nam Khan and Mekong intersect; their giggles and shouts echoed out over the nearby river banks.

These children swam to a sandy island in the middle of the river for a lively game of kick ball. When the other team really got a good kick in, the losers had to dive into the river to retrieve their ball! Luang Prabang, Laos

A young boy was excited to see me so far from town as my niece and I walked the banks of the Mekong River near Luang Prabang, Laos. Clearly he was familiar with the camera though and hammed it up with different poses!

The iconic wooden slow boats dot the Mekong River all day long as tourists come and go, and locals transport their goods from one town to another. Locals use the small uncovered boats for fishing and quick trips across the river.

Satellite dishes adorn traditional wooden slow boats (which are also used as houses for some Laotians) in an odd display of modernity as a man extricates his boat from the docks in Houay Xai, a border town with Thailand.

Several huge semi truks wait to cross over the Mekong River from Thailand into Laos at the border crossing between Chiang Khong and Houay Xai, the border towns on each side of the Mekong.

Our captain carefully guides the slow boat down the Mekong River, watching to avoid the huge rocks and swift current in some areas as we make down river from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang, Laos.

The slow boat occasionally stopped at small smatterings of wooden and bamboo huts lining the Mekong.

Young boys board our slow boat at the tiny towns and sell snacks and cold drinks to the tourists on board. They come on for just two or three minutes and swarm the boat to make sure they hit every possible sale.

A little girl with hand-woven baskets looks at me quizzically as I slowly float by her home while she prepares dinner on the banks of the Mekong River.

Ana plays with the light from the setting sun on Mount Phousi in Luang Prabang, Laos.

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.

Monks all over Asia generally learn English as soon as they enter the monkhood, and throughout my time in SEA, I seek out monks in new cities because they are always eager and willing to share information, stories, and cultural history. At sunrise, these monks were no exception in Houay Xai, Laos--great English and eager smiles!

So much my return to Laos felt like a “welcome back, Shannon, we have been here waiting for your return.” I spent a month in Laos in early 2009 and fell in love with the slow days and easy smiles. Now though, that “welcome back” has a gleam of Westernization spritzed with a glitter stick over the well-traveled backpacker route through Laos. Towns where the thought of internet access was laughable when I visited in January 2009, are now littered with discreet signs proudly announcing: “we have WiFi,” “we speak English,” “book any of a gazillion different tours right here and we will hold your hand as we show you around town.”

It’s worth noting that I threw my toilet paper in the toilet…yes, right inside the toilet bowl instead of a trash can nearby. Okay, not everywhere. In fact, not even most places, but there are places with fully flushing toilets in Luang Prabang and that, my friends, is a gigantic flying leap different from the dank and dark squat toilets (and I considered those good toilets!) of just three years past.

The Slow Boat back in 2009, complete with rickety wooden benches!

In short, the tourism path is cleaner, neater, better organized, more comfortable, more expensive, and just more than it was three years ago. And thankfully, it’s also not less Laos than I remember–throughout these new developments, the people and sentiments felt largely the same, and the political maneuvering with the rural ethic minorities is still a sad and ongoing game.

Cushy bus seats take the place of the wooden pews of the past on the crowded boat down the Mekong River in Laos.

The UNESCO protections in place in Luang Prabang safeguarded the city from any sort of modern face-lift over the past few years, a protection not in place in Laos’ capital city,Vientiane, where tall cinder-block hotels and offices line the streets in a disjointed jumble and cavernous holes gap in the skyline in a wave of new, and often unfinished, construction.

The country has changed; and I have changed too, to be sure. Over the past few years, I often listed Laos as one of the highlights from my round the world travels. Going back this time, I realized there was more at work during that trip, and it’s this “other” that likely played a part in why I enjoyed traveling the country so much.

These two excited girls goofed off for the camera in rural Laos; their very basic English elicited shouted "hellos!"

This time, I realized I cannot reconstruct the past, there is no way to recreate a moment from my past travels no matter how much I loved it in that moment. I backpacked Laos with Laura, a good friend from the years I lived in Los Angeles, and we did the more footloose and fancy-free activities. Back then, we struggled for an internet connection strong enough to support a quick and choppy Skype chat home, I got sicker than I have ever been in my life, and we spent days upon days on slow boats and buses as we crisscrossed the country.

I returned with Ana last month, unsure of what I would find as took that same route down the Mekong River. Not too surprisingly, the road infrastructure is still in transition (meaning they rely on dirt roads outside of the tourist route) and there were still many weary, long travel days. But, I noticed that very same glitter stick struck some of the more popular guidebook towns. Wifi. Western restaurants. Packaged experiences playing to the interest in Southeast Asia’s ethnic minorities (and some not doing so very ethically, I might add).

A colorful line of bicycles for rent on the streets in Luang Prabang, Laos.

But then, I look to the positive side of tourism…and the fact that this is, after all, still Laos. There was more wealth spread throughout the large towns (hints of that are trickling down to the smaller towns). Large-scale tourism brings money, and when it’s done well (and I’m not entirely sure that’s the case in Laos), it can positively augment the way me, as a traveler, sees and experiences a place.

A woman carries home her purchases from the market in Hongsa, Laos

There are many elements of tourism done well in Laos. Luang Prabang had a range of grassroots and local projects. Ana and I took a full day weaving class from an organization supporting cultural preservation in Laos. We learned a traditional stenciling method the monks use to decorate new temples. Fair-trade shops abound. The food is delicious, plentiful, and safe to eat (more-so as Western sanitation standards make themselves known). With tourism comes more English, and that meant asking more questions from our guides and guesthouse owners so we could understand the nuances.  And, the glitter stick version of Laos had its up side, because without it, I’m not sure Ana would have enjoyed the country nearly as much. Whereas I, as an adult, love sipping an afternoon coffee watching the boats drift down the Mekong River, she needed engagement on a different level, which we found in the various towns at the local level where just the mere hint of English being spoken meant we had enough charades and gesturing to still be fun but could get our point across.

I’m still reflecting on my return to Laos (and plan some stories and photo-essays in the coming weeks), but my conclusion is: Laos has changed, but the essence of the country, and the warmth of the Laotians leave this country in a special place in my traveling heart.

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.

A quick update today, in just a few short hours Ana and I hop on a super short plane ride into Burma. Which is also called Myanmar nearly interchangeably, so you can call it either…though if you want to be all official, the country’s government refers to itself as: Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

When it’s working, I’m told the government throttles the internet, which means I’m anticipating dial-up speed internet in the handful of towns where internet is even accessible. With that in mind, I have a few posts queued up with stories and photos from Laos, but I will be unable to respond to comments until I return the second week of February. Although I won’t actively blog from Burma, I will update the A Little Adrift Facebook page occasionally to not only share snippets of our adventures, but my parents are (understandably) cautious about the three weeks Ana and I are spending in the country, so I promised to check in once a week! :)

Can I let out a confession here?

I’m glad I won’t have internet access.

Besides the ten days I spent in Vipassana mediation in 2009 (and that was not for funsies by any stretch of the imagination), I truly have never taken a digital detox and stayed off the internet. Throughout the past three and a half years of travel, I was online almost daily, and at least three times a week.

It’s exhausting.

I feel like my creativity has been slowly sapped over the past few years of constant connectedness to everything. There are blog posts to write. Work. Facebook. Photo editing. More work. Twitter-Facebook-Google-Plus…

Distractedness abounds and I haven’t done well blocking out the noise, nor with self-control (confession number two, I have to use the Stay Focused extension for Chrome to block myself from Facebook!).

So, I’m going on a forced digital-diet and I’m happy for that!

And I get to focus three weeks on hanging out with Ana, and that’s pretty neat within itself. Although we have been together nearly every minute of every day for the past three months, we spent a lot of that time doing her schoolwork, or online doing my SEO work. Not much was spent hanging out and really having the time to talk about our travel experiences as they occur, without the worry of checking Facebook (creatively crafting a FB update that fits each and every moment) or posting a blog.

That being said, I’m sure I’ll go through withdrawal pangs for the first week! Have you done a digital break, and how did it go for you?

I’ll report back in a month with stories and photos from Burma, as well as my views on how the recent political changes are affecting the country on a local level.  :)

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.

Last January, I wrote about abandoning plans and embracing whatever life threw in my direction in fact, I exactly wrote:

“I also have no attachment to a plan this time around.”

Perhaps I tempted the universe with this. I put myself out there as open and willing to see what new came my way, and truly some new paths opened before me.

The longboats and aqua waters of Railay Beach in the Thai islands

This time last year, I moved to Thailand to hang out with the ever-so-lovely Jodi for a couple of months in a pretty, low-key city. That downtime included an unexpected whirlwind trip/visa-run to Malaysia with a new friend, Paddy, then she dragged me along with her to the Thai islands for a couple of weeks of sun (which I strongly avoid on my own accord, but I admit were fun weeks once I went and enjoyed). And a year later, although Paddy now lives in the islands, she flew up to spend Christmas in Chiang Mai and was one of the first expats to bond with Ana here–that’s Paddy’s smiling face you saw last week in our 10K Christmas Marathon run!

Funny how things come around full circle in even the smallest ways. :)

Biking through the rural rice paddies outside of Yangshuo, China.

Fast forward a bit, and my close friends from back home traveled this way (and by “this way,” I mean Asia). We met up for a quick two weeks in China (not nearly enough time to really see China), but it was pretty great to have friends I’ve known since my high school days come travel with me…in fact, it was a highlight of the year because it completely changed the dynamics in such a neat way.  :)

The mountains around the Dead Sea in Jordan

By late spring, I was packing my bags again for an unexpected and wholly unplanned, but beautiful, 10 days in Jordan with the Jordan Tourism Board. The days spent eating and simply experiencing rather than handling all the planning details easily made Jordan one of my most memorable countries.

In the background though, at this point, a new plan was forming that would shape the rest of my 2011; around Easter my family and I began plotting how we could use my current travel/internet-work lifestyle to empower my niece and send her on a journey of her own. Because I am a mad puppet master (and because everything was tentative) I kept this under wraps while we figured out the logistics and I returned to Florida for my annual break spent back home–which is essentially my long-term plan for travel, some months back home, some time on the road…and a bit of life and otherness between.

An obligatory food photo, I tucked into this huge slice of tart key lime pie at Blue Heaven in Key West, Florida

Speaking of logistics though, it turns out there is a lot to figure out when you take a child who isn’t actually yours outside the country! I spent the summer in Florida visiting with friends and engaged in some furious hand-wringing as I gathered up documents, applied for my niece’s passport, found vaccines, and shoved my head full of everything I thought I might need to school Ana here in Thailand (far more freaking out and hand-wringing than was necessary now that we’re here, honestly, but there was no convincing me of that back then!).

We left, and let me assure you, that transition month last November is one of those things I never saw coming. November was the adjustment period and there were days I thought this travel homeschooling plan was an utter failure (this is where I learned to sing myself the mantra “she’s a child, she is still just a child” — a phrase many parents of preteens have used before me…). But I grew up, and Ana grew (perhaps not up, but grow she did). And we hit our groove over the past six weeks; I figured out the projects, tasks, and things I need to do to keep Ana actively interested in our traveling plans, and she’s become more enthused and excited about the people we meet and places we visit.

Ana enjoys a hands-on weaving class in Luang Prabang, Laos (more on that soon!)

It’s January once again, and although I have this niggling weariness about what’s in store (admit it, most of us are worrying about something!), I know 2012 will have its way with me (the hussy) no matter what I actually “plan.” Instead, I once again welcome the New Year with a blank slate because you know, the surprises given to me in 2011 have all worked out pretty well this far, though some threw me for a loop once or twice!

Also of note though, is the business side of things. I have several volunteer projects I hope come to fruition this year (you’ll be hearing more about that soon!). Many have been in development in the past weeks and months, but out of some internal fears I’ve kept them fairly secret. So, soon they will launch.

Though my closet type-A personality gets anxious sometimes, all this time in Buddhist countries this year is wearing off on me. I can’t possibly know what is in store for me, so the anxiety, planning, and fear does no good. Instead, I eagerly open my arms to what awaits. In the past I was a planner—I spent several years creating poster-sized vision boards with my full-year goals. Other times I wrote out epic lists of resolutions and five-year-plans. And I even spent time in morose futility once or twice.

Like last year though, I will quote Joseph Campbell, because unlike any guru’s message I’ve jived with in my various fits of fancy, I truly believe if we’re doing something right now that brings us happiness, then we’re heading in our own “right” directions.

Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

If you’ve made it this far in the post, I’d love to know what do you think of Campbell’s message, and do you find it true in your own life as you begin 2012? 

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.

Not exactly the same.

Okay fine, not even remotely the same.

Ana and I were the only two with cheery Christmas hats.

But I faced a challenge traveling on the road with my niece. How do I illustrate my views on traveling lightly, ditching rampant materialism, and valuing experiences with people over things…all without crushing the spirit of a pretty lively and typical 11-year-old girl who really at the end of the day loves her iPod and hair accessories?

Ana enjoys a delicious Turkey dinner on Christmas at the Bake and Bite restaurant in Chiang Mai

I’m not so much with the preachy-preachy about how to go about Christmas, it’s all good whatever works for each of us. And let’s be honest here, I gleefully remember tearing into Christmas presents as a child, with red Santa Claus wrapping-paper wildly flinging around the room as my brothers tackled their new cars/figurines/swords/video-games/etc.

But from a practical standpoint, it just wasn’t possible for me to buy her heaps of presents because we flat-out don’t have the room in our backpacks. And from the goal standpoint, when I mentioned the six things I hope Ana learns on this trip, gratitude and the seeing the possibilities in the world were in the list. And they’re pretty high on the list, right up there with addressing materialism and the mass consumption model in the US through real-world examples.

So with all this in mind, I worked on crafting a day of experiences and fun events as the focus of our day, and filled red Christmas hat with a few cute (small) gifts as an addition, but not the focus.

To start the holiday festivities, Ana and I joined a group of traveling friends for Christmas Eve bowling, and what a hoot that was! Lanna Bowling in Chiang Mai is the cleanest bowling alley I’ve ever seen and we spent several hours swapping stories and chatter while I bowled two games in a row that came in well under 80 (yes, how awesome are my mad skills!).

Ana watches the ball closely as she gets her first strike!

The next day, after a Christmas Day nap to recover from our run, we hefted some of our makeshift cookie supplies over to a friend’s apartment to make some wackily improvised Christmas cookies. There are no ovens in the apartments here in Thailand, so we made do with packaged cookies and wide crackers for the gingerbread houses. Shawna and Chais (of the Full Course Travel blog) provided the mulled wine and Christmas carols while we frosted in contentment, decorating with such delicacies as: coco puffs, chocolate chex, mini-M&Ms, nerds, Nutella, pirouettes, and other fun sweets.

Which brings us back to the other main event of our holiday, the Chiang Mai Christmas Marathon. Yes indeed my friends, I gave my niece a long and tiring run for her holiday present. Ana and I ousted ourselves from bed at 4:15am and met up with Paddy, a friend and fellow expat, for our 6am 10K run.

When Paddy cracked a joke of this being possibly the “worst Christmas present ever” it gave me pause, because even though she was pretty much joking, there’s a truth to it…I would have boycotted this gift if I was given it inside the cozy house I grew up in throughout childhood.

But traveling is different and being only temporarily in one place means the “norms” change– I had to find something neat/interesting/different that wasn’t trying to poorly simulate Christmas back home. And, beyond just the run, the act of training for the Christmas run over the past weeks actually gave us a purpose, and gave us both an outlet for some “joint” alone time as we pounded the pavement with our iPods securely tucked into our ears.

Then there’s the accomplishment aspect of a run.

Ana didn’t think she could do it.

In fact, she really didn’t think she could make it the entire 10K and she made me promise we could stop at 6K (which was the most we ran during our training). But she did finish; we both jogged across the finish line just one hour and 23 minutes after that burst of adrenaline first took us off into the dark, pre-dawn hours of Christmas.

And though exhaustion masked some of the sheer exuberance bubbling underneath, I could tell she was proud of herself at the end.

Paddy, Ana, and I completed the 10K run in 1 hour and 23 minutes, not too shabby for a Christmas morning run!

And heck, I’ll be honest, I type away at least six hours each day, so I hadn’t been sure we could do it either.

But we did finish. And we did it together! It wasn’t typical, and she openly proclaims she never wants to do one on Christmas again to be honest…so, maybe it will take years before she fondly remembers this odd Christmas that involved running, Christmas eve bowling with other expats, and wonky cookie decorations, but I am pleased with how we shaped and changed the more traditional holiday spirit to work into something that embraced the holiday spirit and our current traveling lifestyle!

How did you spend your Christmas? Any fun/unique/out of the ordinary Christmas traditions? Anyone else do a run, I hear Christmas marathons are actually a pretty popular tradition?! 

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.

Welcome to Tha Suang, a small and dusty town on the Mekong River in Laos.

There were so many reasons for the trip back to this small town: the friendly face of an expat guesthouse owner in Hongsa, so that Ana could see the slow pace of life in rural Laos, and to ride an Asian elephant. You see, while I have my doubts about the ethics of the elephant tourism industry in Southeast Asia, my niece was very keen on the experience. One of her dreams at the moment, is to work in animal conservation and one day reverse the gradual extinction of endangered animals. This school year, conservation has been a strong focus and we talked it over, discussed a lot of the issues about the current treatment of elephants around the world, including the elephant logging industry, and she decided she wanted an up close ride and elephant trekking experience in Laos, where they still use elephants for logging.

Ana is amazed by the elephant swift removal of the banana from her hand in Hongsa, Laos.

Three years ago, I rode an elephant in Hongsa as well—there’s a lure and a romance to riding an elephant through the green jungle and living-out some elephant meets Tarzan fantasies. The quandary part of this comes down to the where…

After reading up on my options three years ago, I picked Hongsa because I could rent a logging elephant for the day and maybe give him a break from long hard days of hauling trees, rather than risk over-working a tourist-camp elephant…and perhaps appease my guilt and indecision.

The elephant snacks on bamboo in Laos.

With that in mind, Ana and I ventured off the more well-worn backpacking route through Laos to the same rural town I last visited in early 2009 so she could learn more about the elephant logging industry in Laos, meet an elephant in person, and make her own decisions about elephant tourism.

The wooden bell around the bull elephant’s neck thudded with a cheery ring as the mahout directed him toward the loading platform—Ana gasped when the elephant’s broad shadow blocked out the sun and dwarfed her petit figure. The elephant’s dull, grey skin looked wrinkled like that of an old man celebrating his long-awaited 102^nd birthday; both Ana and I tentatively patted his coarse, hairy stomach as Ana buzzed with nervous excitement.

She is fascinated by these animals and carefully studied his small expressive eyes, his sneaky trunk (she was holding bananas in her hand, which had him probing her hands and pockets with enthusiasm), and the thick chain wrapped around his ankle.

I’ll spare a full description of her experience (I walked along beside the elephant), and instead point you to her post and thoughts about the elephants we met, but I will note it was a beautiful trek through what I consider one of the prettier regions in Laos (but who am I kidding, the entire country is photogenic). Deep brown waters flooded many of the rice paddies, enveloping the weak green stalks, and at points on the trek we heard the tinkling lilt of grainy music drifting out from the wooden houses on stilts.

The rice paddies and wide open fields of rural Laos, outside of Hongsa.

And after an hour perched behind the mahout, jilting from side to side and watching the world pass by from 10 feet above the ground, we stopped for lunch and she informed me of her theory—if she stopped riding him, maybe the mahout would stop poking him with the sharp metal hook, and instead let him eat more of the bamboo and plants lining the red mud paths. She told me that though she liked the idea of riding an elephant, she now decided watching him walk around and do his “elephant” thing was better all around for the elephant and for her.

I agreed and at this point figure the day was a success—she fulfilled her dream to ride an elephant, either way we gave a logging elephant an easier day, and Ana learned for herself (instead of me prattling at length about my own beliefs) about some tough ethical dilemmas facing the elephant tourism industry in Asia.

It’s worth pointing out that the bulk of my issues with elephant tourism stem from the way elephants we domesticate elephants, but not necessarily the domestication in general. The level of cruelty needed to force elephants into submission is not like breaking a horse; it takes beatings, days of abuse, inciting pure fear in the animal, and a whole host of other actions I did not share with Ana, but are startling in their level of pure brutality.

The chain around our elephants leg, Hongsa, Laos.

You see, that’s the issue here, because the domestication of elephants is nothing new to the world; in fact, for thousands of years (well into the BC era) humanity has revered the elegance of the elephant and wove this giant beast into stories of gods and goddesses and ultimate power. Indian mythology is ripe with elephant imagery, each story bestowing ever the more power, grace, and awe on these animals. Images of Indra, King of the Gods, draw power from the idea of this God mastering and controlling Ayravata, his elephant steed. While Ganesha, a deity know as the “Remover of Obstacles,” has an elephant head and is arguably the most popular and recognizable of the many Hindu gods.

Ganesha, a popular and prominent Hindu God

Humans have waged war with elephants for centuries, their brute strength and intimidating figures were likely the deciding factor determining the outcome of many skirmishes and battles throughout history. An issue cropping up now, though, lies within globalization, tourism, and the world’s connectivity. Our growth means massive habitat loss for the Asian elephant, more demand for their productivity in questionable trades (such as the elephant logging industry which is illegal in Thailand, but still legal in Laos), abuse and a novelty factor in tourism that has put this beautiful animal on the world’s growing list of endangered animals.

An elephant munches on trees and bushes outside of Hongsa, Laos.

These are the elements I see within the elephant tourism industry—a lot of gray areas. And there is so much more I haven’t mentioned; the animals often sustain skin injuries from the chairs needed to haul tourists—their curved spines cannot easily support the weight—and, they need a lot of time in the day to eat enough food to sustain their enormous bodies (there is often not enough time to both eat and fulfill tourism duties).

This is the first side of the coin, later this month Ana and I will visit the Elephant Nature Park outside of Chiang Mai. The Nature Park is a conservation center allowing full elephant-tourist interactions but without the riding aspect. We’ll learn more about these beautiful animals and Ana is excited to see some of the current conservationists working to preserve the Asian elephant’s place in future generations. Through other travelers I greatly respect, others told me this park is one of the best spots for ethical elephant tourism in Thailand, so Ana and I will report back with more information soon.

This travel story first appeared on the A Little Adrift round the world travel blog, thanks for following the journey.