Tales From The Future

Grab the ear, step on the leg and jump.

2009-01-12T02:43:45Z

“Grab the ear, step on the leg, and jump” were the instructions our guide gave us before we had to mount the elephant. One of the mahouts, elephant drivers, even demonstrated for us. It looking deceivingly simple. The first step was to kick the elephants leg and say song. Then the elephant would raise its leg so you could use it as a step. After the elephant’s leg was up, that’s when you followed the previous instructions. The steps seem simple until you’ve jumped and you’re holding onto the elephant’s ear with your right hand, and the elephant’s back with your left hand, and you’re not quite up on the back of the elephant and not standing on its leg anymore. Oh, and then it puts its leg down. At this point your only option is to fall off the elephant or scramble up onto the elephant. Thankfully I managed to scramble up on to the back of the elephant. I felt proud to have successfully mounted an elephant. This is Court on the elephant, but I made it up too.

Mounting the elephant wasn’t the first thing we did on our elephant expedition today; it was actually the third. First thing we were picked up by a tuk-tuk at our hotel and drove six kilometers out of town to the Elephant Village Sanctuary and Resort. This resort was started up by a German man to start to use elephants in tourism, instead of dangerous industries or industries were they were abused. Currently they have seven elephants at the resort. Most of them worked in the logging industry before they were forced into retirement by age or injury. The first elephant we rode fell into a pile of logs and lost sight in its right eye. Another elephant was previously given amphetamines so it could work longer and harder.

When we first arrived we all got set up with an elephant and mahout and went on an elephant ride around the area. We were able to board the elephant using the tower; this was a lot easier than the aforementioned method. We went through the forest, down the bank and into the river. For all those who are wondering, yes elephant poop does float. Anyways, along the way our mahout switched positions with me and I got to sit on the neck of the elephant and try to control it. Even though we were moving slow you could still feel the strength and power of the elephant. I took a turn driving the elephant, although I wasn’t really driving: our mahout still yelled the commands. Then Court took a turn driving and brought us back to the center. On our way back from the tour, Court had the elephant lined up for us to disembark but at the last minute the elephant decided it didn’t like that plan. It backed away from the tower and circled around so we had to get off from its left side, not its right side.

Once we disembarked it was time to reward our elephant with BANANAS! You just put the banana, peel and all, into its mouth. It would take three or four bananas into its mouth before it would stop and chew.

After feeding time we had a briefing with our guide, who was also the vet. He told us about the mission statement of the center, where some of the elephants came from, and some basic elephant riding procedures.

The commands he taught us were:
Go - bai
Stop - how
Left - sai
Right - kwaa
Put your leg up - song

Everyone in the group decided the most important command for us to remember was the command that makes the elephant stop.

Once we had some knowledge of elephant commands it was time to practice them. This is when we got the chance to practice mounting the elephants and walk around a little bit. All six of us in our group took a turn getting on to the elephant and strolling around a bit.

Next was lunch time.

After lunch was our last activity with the elephants: bath time. Everyone in our group were paired up with an elephant and mahout. We had to again get on to our elephants. Court’s elephant, Mae San, was nice enough to kneel down for her. That was a lot easier than stepping on its leg and climbing up. Once we were all up on the elephants we started off on the path for the river. We had to drive our elephants the best that we could in single file. Mind you my elephant, Mae Kham tried to pass the elephant in front of me but wisely decided not to when the path narrowed.
Just before the river there was an extremely steep but short bank. To navigate down this bank the elephants had to kneel on their hind legs and step down in to the river. It was a highly dexterous move for such a large animal. After this slick maneuvering by the elephant we were in the river. The plan was to walk out into the river deep enough so most of the elephant was wet, splash water on its head, and then scrub it. This worked with my elephant, but not Courtney’s. After a few steps, the elephant filled its trunk with water and sprayed it over its back and whatever happened to be back there, which included Courtney. Then, about ten metres into the river Court’s elephant decided it wanted to sit down, and it did. Court and her mahout got soaked but I think the elephant was happy. Eventually you heard laughter from everyone in our group as each elephant lowered itself in the water. This was the most exciting activity of the day: being able to scrub and clean an elephant in a river in Laos was unreal. What an experience.

Once they were cleaned off, and we were sufficiently wet with muddy water, we exited the river on the opposite bank and promptly stamped through some mud. They’re elephants: they can’t stay clean that long! The elephants give rides from 10:00 to about 3:00 and then have the afternoon and evenings off. The mahouts walk them further into the jungle where they let them roam until the next morning when they start their work again for their pay of one tonne of food and lots of bananas.

Once we dismounted our rides we walked back out to the river and caught our boat to Tad Sae waterfall.

I was expecting a tall single waterfall but the one we came upon was a series of small pools and small waterfalls. The water was clear, blue and frigid; everyone except Court went in for a swim. It was frigid, George Costanza frigid. However, it was refreshing cool and it was a chance to get the elephant dirt/smell off of us.

After the rejuvenating dip we hung out by the water, drying and relaxing for an hour or so. When we got in the boat to make our way back to the camp we tried to leave but we were stuck. Our boatman tried to push us away from the dock but we weren’t going anywhere. Nowhere at all. We were stuck on a rock. Me and the other guy in the back had to get out of the boat. Once we were out the boat guy managed to push the boat over the rock, almost capsizing it, then we got back in and we were off.

We arrived back at the camp and hopped a tuk-tuk back to town. We chatted with our other group members, two Aussies who were teaching at an international school in Sri Lanka and a mother and daughter from Australia, until we were dropped off at our hotel.

We relaxed for a while, watched a crappy made-for-TV movie that was on, showered and then made our way out for dinner and dessert. Now we are back getting ready to pack for our flight back to Bangkok tomorrow.

Grab the ear, step on the leg and jump. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Blue skies, batik, and barbecue

2009-01-12T02:51:53Z

Other than sleeping in, we didn’t have any plans for this morning. But, as a result of circumstances beyond our control, our plans were foiled. To start with, our room was on the second floor of our hotel, right next to the balcony that housed the restaurant; if you opened our curtains you could see what people were munching for breakfast. On top of this, across the hall from our room were the stairs. This all became a problem because, in Luang Prabang, every morning at 5:00, the monks do a circuit around the city receiving alms, donations of rice, from people lining the streets. They arrive in front of our hotel at 5:30. Naturally this is a major tourist attraction for the city and the balcony with the restaurant provides an ideal vantage point from which to view the monks when they walk in front of our hotel. I figured everyone going to see the monks decided to talk really loudly, slam their doors, and stamp down the stairs to make sure everyone else was awake. This would have been fine if we had wanted to get up, but we didn’t. Thankfully we did get back to sleep for a little bit after the ruckus. Once we did get up we asked them to move us to a new room. Hopefully our new room will be quieter than last night.

Once we got moving, we went to the La Poste and sent home a parcel with containing our purchases. We weren’t keen on carrying them in our backpacks.

Our next stop was the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center. The TAEC is a non-profit organization designed to promote understanding, appreciation and preservation of Laos’ ethnic minorities. In Laos there are seven main ethnic groups, with many more sub-groups. In the past the groups were divided based on where people lived: lowlands, foothills, or high in the mountains. Except, for various reasons, people have had to move around so the people who traditionally lived in the mountains now live in the plains. Which raised the question, did they switch ethnic groups when they moved? They obviously didn’t. Now the different ethnic groups are identified by linguistic differences. The museum had exhibits showcasing traditional dress of the different ethnic groups and displays about weaving, textiles or other things the groups are famous for.

When we were at the desk trying to buy our tickets I saw a sign on the wall with the prices for guided tours: $25 with the museum director and $15 with museum staff. Then I noticed a sign on the desk saying there were free tours with staff trainees. This sounded good to me and we got ourselves a free tour of the museum. We wouldn’t have known if he was a trainee or not; it was an outstanding tour, the guide was quite knowledgeable, and the experience made the visit a lot for informative.

After we went to the museum we were starving and had to get some lunch: pizza and a hamburger at the Scandinavian Bakery. Nice Western food.

After lunch, Courtney was on the hunt for a shawl and spent the next hour or so poking through shops for one. I instead found a coffee shop and sat with my book while she hunted. She found her shawl and we moved on the big wat again. Unlike the other day we went, today the sky was nice, clear and bright blue, which would hopefully help improve Court’s pictures. I sat myself on a bench and continued to read while she took pictures around the grounds.

We were planning to stop by Big Brother Mouse to play with some kids but we were told the wrong day and nobody was at the shop. We continued on to our next plan: Laos-style barbecue.

For those of you familiar with Japanese food, Laos-style barbecue is a combination of nabe and yaki niku. In the middle of our table was a clay pot containing hot charcoals. The waiter came and put an aluminum pan on top. The pan had a trough running around the outside and the middle rose up into a cone-shape with small vents to grill the meat (all told, it kind of had the shape of a citrus juicer). The waiter heated a soup stock in the trough then put the vegetables in the stock to cook. Then on the slopes of the cone he put some of the meat to grill. Once he got it started he left it in our hands. It was an excellent feast.

While we were eating a little black and white puppy started poking around our table. It was a cute little thing. At one point the strap on Court’s camera bag was hanging down and the puppy came and started to chew on it. It also started to chew on the tabs on the back of Court’s shoes. Then a bigger dog came along and the puppy decided to play with it. I don’t think the bigger dog was keen on playing with the puppy. The big dog pinned the puppy once or twice and tried to pick up the dog by the scruff of its neck a few times. Eventually the big dog just wandered off.

After the BBQ we made our way back to the hotel to prepare for our adventure tomorrow. Here’s a shot of some shirts in the markets.

And some coconuts.

And Wat Mai Souvannaphoum on the main drag of Luang Prabang.

Blue skies, batik, and barbecue remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Relaxing in Luang Prabang

2009-01-03T13:20:32Z

Today was a relatively laid-back/relaxing day. We woke up earlier than we really wanted to and made our way out to a meant-to-be-hot-but-was-cold buffet breakfast. I enjoyed the meal; Court did not. She wasn’t a fan of her cold, onion flavored hash browns or her extra gingery tea. She’s really excited about breakfast for tomorrow.
After we had breakfast we made our way down to Big Brother Mouse. Big Brother Mouse is an organization, created by a retired American publisher, which writes, illustrates and publishes both bilingual and Lao books for Lao people. For a lot of Lao, the only books that they have read, if they’ve read anything, are their school textbooks. If we all remember, school textbooks are NOT interesting at all. Most Lao have never seen a book that they would be remotely interested in reading for fun. Big Brother Mouse has created a lot of books, covering topics such as math, hygiene, animals, and other famous stories like “The Wizard of Oz”, to engage Lao children. They also sponsor book parties. For the book parties they travel out to a village in rural Laos, play games, talk to them about hygiene, safety and health, and, most important, leave them books. For some of these kids, these books are their first possession.

Big Brother Mouse also organizes an English speaking hour on most mornings. During this time volunteers come down and help out teenagers and other Lao people who want to practice their English. We made it down in time to help out, however there were only two students there and they were already being helped out by volunteers. One was a retired principal from Calgary who is living in Laos now. We listened to them helping out these students and decided for our own sensibilities we had to stop listening to them try to teach these students. Let’s just say the “lesson” they were getting was worth the money they paid for it, i.e. nothing. Oh well.
After we left Big Brother Mouse we went needed to have a morning refresher, which came in the form of chai latte, hot chocolate, and fruit salad. Feeling refreshed we made our way back to the main road and split up. Courtney went to a wat and I went in search of a working ATM and the hours of the post office. My expedition was not exciting. Court’s was more enlightening.

While Court was at the wat taking pictures, a group of teenage monks came up and started to talk to her. They said they’re not in school right now and they have to do lots of work around the temple. Court figured they wanted a reason to take a substantial break from doing work and practicing English is a good reason to take a break. They also agreed to let her take their picture.

(Aside: I also learned a little about a day in the life of a monk. After waking at 4am, they have morning prayers and
go around town collecting alms from the people in town (they asked if I had seen it, but we haven’t yet been awake at 5:30am, so sadly we haven’t). After alms collection, I think there are more prayers, followed by study and school for six hours. Then they have free time, which usually involves walking around the town and hanging out. They could all speak English quite well, and were very friendly. It was a really cool experience.)

We met up and decided it was time for another break, Italian soda and desserts, and made our game plan for the rest of the day. We wanted to book an elephant tour, do some more shopping, and try to find something we left at an old hotel. We actually managed to accomplish all of this; it was a tough day.

We went into Kopnoi store and met a lovely Québécoise who is living in Laos now. Her daughter and son-in-law were on a round the world trip, fell in love with Luang Prabang and settled here. She opened the first English bookstore in Laos and has started other fair trade projects in and around Luang Prabang. Her mother moved over this year to help out in one of the stores and, more, importantly see her grandchildren every day.

After shopping, it was back to the hotel for another refreshing nap. We were planning to go to the Royal Ballet Theatre at 6:00, but got up a little bit later than we should have. We had to hustle down to make the start of the show. Unfortunately, we also had to stop and get more cash on the way. Even after stopping for money we managed to get to the theatre in time. But then we ran into a problem: a disorganized family of six. They had no idea where they wanted to sit and were trying to negotiate where they could sit. Once they got the seats figured out they then had to figure out how much it was going to cost. All of us in line were getting quite frustrated with them.

We settled in to our seats only five minutes late and watched the show.

After the show it was dinner time. We went back to the same restaurant as last night, but the meal didn’t turn out as nice.

Court’s chicken soup was TOO spicy. This meant a trip to another restaurant, Dao Fa, so Court could eat some pasta. And finally, after a tough, tough, tough day, we made our way back to the hotel for the night.

Relaxing in Luang Prabang remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Traditional Dances and Puppet Shows

2009-01-02T10:31:47Z

The start of 2009. Luang Prabang was even sleepier and quieter than it’d previously been. Everyone we saw was moving a little bit slower, except for the party up the street from our hotel. This party started last night around 8:00pm. Well, at least that was the first time we saw it; it could have been going on a lot longer than that. There was loud music, people sitting outside eating and, most importantly, line dancing. I don’t know why, but we saw some. This party was still going on when we left to move hotels around 10:30 the next day.
We got checked in to our new hotel. The people at the hotel were surprised with the rate that we paid when we booked online. I think they downgraded us when they saw the rate that we paid. Plus, we are going to stay a couple extra nights and they are charging us more for this room.

We found out we had internet in our room and made the New Year’s calls, then went out for lunch.

We went to a restaurant called The Bakery on the main drag. The food was decent but Courtney ran into some service problems. We don’t know if our server didn’t understand English or was just a bit new or what; it’s up in the air. I ordered spring rolls. However, two people at a nearby table also ordered spring rolls 20 minutes after me and got their order first. The juice drink Court ordered, which was simple to make, didn’t arrive until we had almost eaten all our food. Plus Court ordered a chicken dish and, surprise, got some fish. We decided not to say anything; we were hungry and the fish dish was pretty good. Needless to say we will not be making a return visit, which is a shame, because their dessert case looked awesome. We finished and headed off to the Royal Palace Museum.

I had to take a detour back to our hotel. I was wearing shorts, which aren’t acceptable attire for the museum. I quickly ran back to the hotel, took a detour for a piece of coconut cake and made my way back to the museum. The museum was impressive. It was built in the 1904 by the French colonists for King Sisavang Vong. Some of the walls inside were covered by inlaid murals, depicting battles, worship services and other things we didn’t understand. Some of the battles were quite gruesome: people missing heads, people holding dismembered body parts. Quite over the top, but gorgeous. We spent most of the time in the museum trying to stay ahead of one giant Chinese tour group and far enough behind another Chinese tour group so we could see the exhibits. Eventually we got fed up and leapfrogged the tour group in front of us.

After the museum we walked to the end of the peninsula and stopped at a few wats, including Si Bun Heuang and Sirimungkhun Sop, on our way to the big one, Wat Xieng Thong.

Here are some shots from the first wats we stopped at.

Wat Xieng Thong, the largest temple complex in Luang Prabang, was first built 1560. We paid our 20,000 kip entry fee and went in.

We were planning on going to a performance at the Children’s Cultural Centre at 6:00, and by the time we finished going through this wat it was getting near show time. Students, aged 14-18, from the Center put on a puppet and traditional dance every Thursday and Saturday from 6:00 to 7:30. We thought we had to hurry to get tickets for the show. It turns out we didn’t. There was about 20 people there. Either way it was an excellent show. This is the seating area.

Before the show we were treated to some traditional Lao music, played by students. They also played throughout the whole show.

Mr. Disen’s son had a talent for carving puppets and they first performed for the full moon festival in December. The puppets were used in performances until the war between the French and Japanese started. They resumed in 1961, and continued until the Vietnam War, which caused yet another break in the performances. Then, in 1986, the government instituted a short-lived plan to bring back the performances. However, some of the performers became very sick and couldn’t perform. So, the performances were cancelled again. Finally, in 2000, funded partially by UNICEF, the Epok performance was resurrected at the Children’s Cultural Centre in Luang Prabang, and has been going on ever since.

The show we watched was, Nang Sangkaan, or the Legend of Pi Mao Lao. In the play, the puppets are preparing for the Lao New Year procession and village celebrations.

After the puppet show they started the traditional dances.

The first dance, the Dok Champa dance, shows admiration and respect for the national flower, the frangipani flower.

The second dance, the Thaidam dance, shows respects to God, and our forefathers and mothers. It also draws bad spirits out of the home and brings happiness to the family.

The third dance, the Hmong festival dance, embodies the spirit of the youth of the Hmong ethnic tribe.

The fourth dance, the Khamu dance, demonstrates the spirit of Khamu youth.

The fifth dance, the farmer dance, shows how Lao families do their daily work on the farm.

The last dance, the Lai Lao dance, demonstrates the strength and agility of Lao youth.

Overall this was an excellent show. The kids looked like they were having a lot of fun. We saw them on the stage sometimes laughing at each other and just having a good time. We both really enjoyed watching these performances tonight.

After the show Court bought a print that one of the kids made at the center. Then we went out for dinner and did some more shopping in the night market. After the night market we caught a tuk-tuk back to our hotel and called it a night.

Traditional Dances and Puppet Shows remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cooking in Laos with Andrew and Courtney

2009-01-01T16:06:25Z

It was the end of 2008 and we decided we should spend the day cooking and learning about Lao food. We had to check out of our hotel and get down to the Tamarind restaurant for 8:45. We arrived and milled around for fifteen minutes, then were packed into a couple tuk-tuks and taken off to the market. There were twelve people on our course: two from London, one American, a German lady, one other Canadian, another Brit and the rest were from Australia.

Our two guides took us through the market. There was one guide at the front leading the path and the other guide at the back herding people along and making sure no one got lost. The market was similar to other markets that we’ve been to. Our guide said that Laos people like to go to the markets three times a day, they want to use fresh vegetables and herbs in everything they make.

After we went through the market we were tuk-tuked off to a ‘secret’ location to do our cooking course. It was a gorgeous spot along the river. It was quiet and relaxed, there wasn’t much else happening out there. We sat down at the table for a drink before we got down to business.

The first thing we had to make was steamed rice. They’d been soaking the rice all night and all we had to do was massage the rice (to get the starch off the rice), and then put it in the steamer. We made two kinds of sticky rice, white and purple.

The second dish we made was jeow mak keua, eggplant dip. You had the option to make this or jeow mak lin , tomato salsa, which was the spicier option of the two. We went the less spicy route. We had to roast the eggplant, garlic and shallots before we pounded the dip.

We finished making the dip then got down to eating it. To eat it you had to take a little clump of sticky rice, roll it around to make sure it sticks together and then flatten it into a small disc. Then you place the disc on the tips of your fingers and, using it as a scoop, scoop up some of the dip and eat it. It was a very nice dip.

The third thing we made was mok pa, fish steamed in banana leaves. Using a mortar and pestle we had to
crush and combine garlic, shallots, chilis, chopped fresh dill and basil to make a marinade for the fish. Once we made the paste we had to place the fish in the banana leaves and spoon the marinade over the fish. Then we folded the banana leaves into a little pouch and closed it with some bamboo ties and through it on to the fire to be steamed. It took about twenty minutes for it to cook.

The fourth thing we made was orlarm, Luang Prabang stew. We made one big pot together. It was too difficult for us to make an individual bowl. Joy, our guide, said that traditionally Lao people put in dried meat of any kind: guinea pig, rats, bats, chicken, or anything they get hold of. He said that these different types of meat are difficult for people who aren’t used to eating them to eat. They decided that they’d stick with chicken.
The fifth thing we made was ua si khai, stuffed lemon grass. We had to create a paste, in the mortar and pestle, of garlic, spring onions, coriander and ground chicken. Then we had to slice the base of the lemon grass so that it can be pushed out to look like a lantern. Next was trying to stuff our paste into the lemon grass. I was not very good at this. Our guide helped me a little bit with this. We each made two of these, one to barbecue and one to deep fry. I think I preferred the deep fried one; the lemon grass flavor had permeated everything. They were both very tasty, though.

The last thing that we made was purple sticky race with coconut cream. This was a pleasant end to the day. First we had to pour hot water over fresh ground coconut to get the cream, and then bring the cream to a boil. Once it’s boiling you throw in the rice and stir until it’s absorbed the milk. Then you’re ready. Well, we added banana, mango, and tamarind sauce to the concoction. A very tasty dessert.

After the cooking course we had to check in to our new hotel. Then it was nap time. After some recovery time we set out for New Year’s.

We settled in one restaurant with the plan of doing an appetizer crawl down the main street in Luang Prabang. The plan lasted through the appetizers. They impressed us so much we decided to stay for the rest of our meal. After the meal we wandered around until we made our way to the official Luang Prabang official city New Year’s party. We watched the show until we realized that, other than it being in Lao, the show was like every other New Year’s show we’d seen. We settled in to a café across the street and chilled out until midnight. That was our plan until they politely got us to leave at 11:45.

We went outside and watched everyone preparing to launch what looked like mini-hot air balloons.

They would hold them and light the fuel cell in the bottom until the air inside heated up so the balloon would float. Then they released them and watched them go. We think people wrote wishes or something on the sides of the balloons before they released them. We watched about fifty people release these balloons. We sauntered back to our hotel for our first night in 2009.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Cooking in Laos with Andrew and Courtney remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Beware random goop in the market

2009-01-01T04:08:09Z

Today was our first full day in Luang Prabang. We rolled out of our room and had breakfast overlooking the Nam Kahn river. It was pleasant way to start our day. The first stop for our itinerary today was the local produce market. Even though the market was picked over (it starts at 5:30 am), we were able to see different foods than we’ve seen previously and enjoyed the walk through.

We went up and down the market three times. Half way through the first lap of the market I ran into problems with my foot. Every time I stepped I felt my left heel stick to my sandal. I stopped and saw some black goop on my heel that was acting like glue. I wanted to stop and pick it off, but it Buddhist countries it is EXTREMELY rude to point your feet at someone else. I was in a pickle: I couldn’t check the bottom of my feet with pointing them at someone. I had to tough it out. We made it to the end and I found a patch of grass and wiped the bottom of my foot just like I had stepped in some dog poop. I was sooo distracted by the random goop on my foot I missed all the different food. Like this:

The chickens with the feet and heads still on.

The frogs.

The bats.

The random rodent, perhaps a gopher. Perhaps something else.

By the time we finished at the market, the sun had burned off the fog and it started to get hot out. We set out for a café for some coffee and some internetting. On the way we stopped at the Royal Palace Museum. Most people say if you see one thing in Luang Prabang, see the museum.

Unfortunately for us, it was closed and we aren’t sure when it will be open again. We continued on to the café and ran into the Australian people we met at the cooking course in Chiang Mai. We chin wagged on the corner for a while. Then we went our separate ways and continued on to the café. We settled in for coffee, cheese and a baguette, which then turned into us ordering sandwiches for lunch.

After lunch we went and signed up for a Lao cooking course for tomorrow; we got the last couple of available spots. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Luang Prabang. We went into a few shops and stopped at Wat Nong Sikhounmuang.

But then it got TOO hot. This situation required a return to our hotel to siesta.

After the siesta we decided to brave the trip up Phu Si. In Luang Prabang there is a large hill with a temple on the top and a few different temples or ruins on the way down (or up, depending on your approach). To get up to the top there are approximately 318 stairs (aside: after proofreading this last sentence, I remarked that there was nothing ‘approximate’ about the number 318. Andrew insisted upon leaving it in. ~CW). We took it slow and stopped to look at everything we could but we were still tired by the time we reached the top. However, some of the other people we saw looked like they were in pain or were going to die on their way up.

From the top there is an amazing, clear view of Luang Prabang.

As well as the temple.

We rested up top for a while to recuperate before our journey back down. Suffice it to say the journey down was a lot easier than the way up. We wandered around Luang Prabang before we settled on a restaurant for dinner. While at dinner we realized we have to change hotels tomorrow, even though we had no idea where our new hotel was. We figured it would be best to find our new hotel before we have to check in. A quick Google check sent us on our way. We located it quickly and easily, now we are set for tomorrow.

Once we found our hotel we were next to the night market.

We enjoyed the laid back atmosphere from last night and decided to go through again. Even though much of the things were the same as last night we did find some new and different products. We didn’t buy much. After we got out of the market we strolled back to our hotel, we have to pack and get up early tomorrow morning. It’s cooking time, Laos style.

Beware random goop in the market remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Entertaining immigration officers the world over

2008-12-30T04:23:59Z

Today was our last day in Chiang Mai. We left for Luang Prabang this afternoon. Our flight wasn’t until 3:00 pm which meant our morning was full of errands, laundry, sending souvenirs home, and exchanging books. It wasn’t an exciting morning but a necessary one.

We got a tuk-tuk to the airport for a hundred baht (the driver wasn’t budging on his price). He dropped us off at the airport and we went through all the checks to board our Laos Airline flight to Luang Prabang. If the 777 from our first day of vacation was a ghetto plane, this plane was an abandoned ghetto plane. It was a school bus with wings. There were about fifty seats on the plane. They had to board the plane from the rear because there was no access door at the front of the plane. I figure the only door up front led to the cockpit. There was also only one flight attendant on the plane. She got help from a man in a uniform; I hope it wasn’t the pilot. After a short one hour flight we arrived safely in Laos.

The visa to enter for Canadians cost US$42 and everyone else was about US$35. Courtney said she read that Canada charges an exorbitant amount for Laotians going into Canada and this is retribution. We were waiting at the counter to get our passports back when the immigration officers broke out into laughter, and started passing a passport around for everyone to look at. For some reason, they found Courtney’s passport photo to be hilarious. Looking at crazy passport photos has to be a highlight for the border guards.

We got picked up and checked in to our hotel which overlooks the river. Our hotel owner’s family owns and operates buildings all along this street. His sister runs an English college, his uncle has another guest house. It’s a whole family affair.

We sat for a bit then wandered into Luang Prabang. It’s a small city, 26,000 people, which you can easily walk around. We wandered for a bit trying to get our bearings. It was easier than in Chiang Mai. We paused at this wat up the street; the lighting was excellent.

On our walk we were struck by hunger pangs and picked the closest restaurant. This one was overlooking the Mekong River.

I also got visited by a stray cat that crawled up and fell asleep on the chair next to me.

After dinner we strolled. Laung Prabang is a sleepy town compared to Chaing Mai. The vibe is very low-key and relaxed. The streets aren’t crowded with motorcycles and tuk-tuks and there are a lot more families and children going about their business. We sauntered through the night market and weren’t harassed or asked to buy too many things. I had to GO really bad, I mean really bad, which forced us to stop and buy some dessert. A nice caramel and banana dessert. Then it was back to our hotel.

Entertaining immigration officers the world over remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Microeconomics and Tacos

2008-12-29T04:06:50Z

For dinner tonight, we went for Mexican food again. This time we went to a more upscale restaurant, not the smoky pub like last time (the food at the smoky pub tasted better, though). We were seated outside at our table, and there two other couples were there too. Over the course of dinner we had one child come up and try to sell us a rose, one child come asking for money and another two sisters come and offer to sell us roses. The sisters were the last to arrive; we shook off the younger sister (who was maybe six years old) and she moved further into the restaurant. The older sister (about nine by our estimation) followed her little sister part way into the restaurant and stopped next to our table. I took a good look at her and thought, Wait. I teach students her age English in Japan. My students (well, their parents) pay ¥2500/hr (~CDN$25) to take a class with me and this girl of the same age is trying to sell me a rose for ten baht (~30¢). Why? Is it as simple that one was born in Japan and the other Thailand? That doesn’t seem right.

This isn’t the first time we’ve run into this in southeast Asia. When we went to Angkor Wat in Cambodia two years ago, we went to see the sunrise. It was early and dark; I could barely see three feet in front of me. But, I definitely heard the little voice in the dark that said, “Coffee, sir? One dollar.” I didn’t buy coffee then, but after the sunrise I bought a cup from one girl. While it was brewing I was swarmed and surrounded by five or six other girls selling scarves, pants, postcards, etc., all before they went to school. Why? Is it that tourists have a harder time saying no to children? That doesn’t seem right.

While I looked at the girl standing by our table clutching the bouquet of roses, I tried to figure out what she was thinking. Was she thinking, “Why aren’t these people buying roses? They have lots of money.” Or “Mom’s going to be mad that I didn’t sell a rose.” Or “I want to be like these people when I get older.” Or is she trying to take care of and help out her little sister. Or does she not know anything different and this is normal? I mean, I had a paper route when I was her age but I spent my money on hockey cards. Or I saved my money to spend it on hockey cards later. I only assume the money that they would get from selling roses would go to support their family.
This raised the question of how we, as tourists with money, deal responsibly with children selling us roses (or anything else). Do we not buy a rose in the hopes that the children, or their family, don’t become dependent on the money? Is it too late to stop the dependence anyways? If we don’t want a rose do we ignore them until they go away? Do we say “No, thank you”? Do we humour them? Or do we buy a rose hoping to create a dependency on selling roses and pray that they never get involved in the sex trade? Or as Courtney suggested, do we buy all the roses, give them a book and tell them to go home and read? What is the correct answer? More importantly, is there a correct answer to this problem?

Is poverty something that we, as individual tourists, can help to alleviate? If we buy all the roses from the children and give them a book, most times their parents will just give them another bouquet of roses to go out and sell. If we can’t attack this problem on a case-by-case basis, how can we solve this problem? Poverty is an issue that can definitely be solved. It’s just how to do we do it. I don’t know how; I hope people that are much smarter than me have some ideas.

All of these thoughts ran through my mind in about one minute. Discussions of philosophy and microeconomics over tacos and nachos.

Over the rest of the day we did do other things. We visited Wat Bupparam in the morning before proceeding to the river to try to catch a scorpion-tailed boat cruise down the river. We were too late to catch the boat we wanted, so we just walked back toward Ta Phae Gate in the blazing hot midday sun. We stopped at a couple of shops to poke at souvenirs along the way.

This afternoon we got a taxi up to Wat Doi Suthep, located approximately 1600 m up the mountain. Our red truck taxi dropped us off at the bottom of stairs.

306 stairs, specifically, and up we went. We didn’t realize there was a cable car until our way down. As we were hefting ourselves up the stairs everyone in front of us stopped and waited on the side for military members and a gathering of people to pass. Later we heard the Queen of Thailand was there today. We eventually made it to the top but it took us a while to recover from the ordeal.

This temple is one of the most visited and important temples in Chiang Mai; there were a lot of tourists, both Thai and non-Thai. One of the stories about this temple is that an elephant was carrying some relics up the mountain. When it reached the top of the mountain it trumpeted 3 times then lay down and died. Needless to say, they decided to build the temple in that exact spot. Here are some shots from around the temple complex.

There were a lot of bells surrounding the central viharas, which everyone felt the need to ring. And they rang
them all.

It got annoying the second time I heard all the bells. GAH! It would be fine if it happened once but almost everyone rang the bells. Well, here’s me ringing ONE bell.

On our way down the mountain, we sat next to a retired teacher from Montreal and his friend, also a teacher from Montreal. He retired last year and has been travelling around SE Asia for a while. We did a little more shopping and finally got our new clothes finished. Now we are relaxing and putting off packing. We are heading to Luang Prabang in Laos tomorrow afternoon.

Microeconomics and Tacos remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cooking with Andrew and Courtney

2008-12-28T05:32:35Z

Today was our Thai cooking course. Before we arrived we booked a course with the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. It was the first cooking school set up in Chiang Mai and has an outstanding reputation. By the end of the day, we agreed.

We met at the cooking school at 10 am. There were 16 people in our session. Thankfully the cooking school is set up to handle lots of students and we each had our own work station.

They divided us into two groups, and we were then shuttled off to the local market for our introduction to traditional Thai ingredient. Our teacher/guide took us around and showed us the different types of herbs, roots, and rice that are used in Thai cooking. Here are some shots of food Court took at the market.

After we got back from the market we went into the demonstration room where the teachers showed us how to make the dishes. Once she went through making the food we went back to our workstations and tried to make it ourselves then we’d sit down and eat. Then repeat the process for all 6 dishes.
The first dish we made was tom kha gai, or chicken in coconut milk soup. It tasted excellent and everyone was amazed at how easy it was make.

The second dish we made was raad nah muu , fried thick noodles with thick sauce and pork. There was a thick sauce on the noodles that tasted like a mixture of molasses and soy sauce. This was our favorite dish of the day.

The third and fourth dishes we made were ( Gaeng Phed Plaa , red curry and fish and, phad hed ruam khao pod om, fried mixed mushrooms with baby corn. We ate these two dishes together for lunch. Not that we were really hungry after the first two dishes, but they still tasted very nice.

The fifth dish we made was khanom kluay, steamed banana cake. It had to be steamed and it was dessert, so we ate it last. This was a very sweet dessert that was relatively easy to make. The consistency as similar to uncooked muffin batter, but still tasted great. It was also a good counter taste to the spice from earlier in the day.

While waiting for our banana cakes to steam, we prepared our sixth dish, som tam, or green papaya salad. For this dish you had to crush garlic and birds-eye chilies using a mortar and pestle. The more you crush the chili, the spicier your salad gets. I thought I wasn’t crushing the chili pepper too much but then when we got to eating, it turned out I crushed it too much. The salad was a lot spicier than it should have been. Oh well. Next time. It still tasted good. We also forgot to take a picture of this. Epic fail.

We finished up the cooking course around 3:15. And we all went on our way. There was an Australian family of three that are heading to Laos tomorrow, we are heading there on Monday, so we won’t be surprised if we see them there.

We had some sunlight left and a nice blue sky, it was time to go look at some more ats , temples. These wats are usually a whole temple complex not just the temple. Most of them have a main temple area, living quarters for the monks, chedis and other structures depending on the location.

There were a few in the old town area that we hadn’t seen yet and set out in that direction. We got to the first temple complex and I realized I was wearing shorts. It is extremely rude to wear shorts into a temple. I had to run back to the hotel and put on my pants then hustle back to meet up with Courtney. We went to three different wats this afternoon.

The first wat we went to was Wat Phan Tao.

The second wat we went to was Wat Chediluang Varaviharn. In this complex there was an enormous chedi that was slowly and painstakingly being rebuilt.

The last wat we went to was Wat Phra Singh. We didn’t stick around here too long. We had to go for our second fitting at the tailors and, more pressingly, find a bathroom for Courtney.

After this we made our way back to the tailor tried our clothes on again. They fit better this time. We also strolled through the night market and ate some Greek food for dinner. We were handed a flier for but decided to skip out on the Thai Ladyboy Beauty Contest tonight. Now we are back at the hotel getting ready for bed and another busy day tomorrow.

Cooking with Andrew and Courtney remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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And the answer is... "They wash your feet first."

2008-12-27T08:34:31Z

“How do the Thai women giving foot massages deal with gross travellers’ feet?”, Alex. Ping Pong. 200 dollars for me. I’ve spent the whole time in Chiang Mai wondering how the women giving foot massages all over the place deal with travellers’ feet. More specifically, I wondered what the grossest feet these women have ever seen were like. Fungus? Warts? Ingrown toenails? Horrible stench? Today I got my answer they wash your feet first, hopefully the washing gets rid of any stench and is time to screen people’s feet.

First thing this morning we went back to “Big Al’s”, actually called Art Café, for breakfast. This was the same place that had the greasy breakfast from yesterday. We went for something lighter and healthier.

This is when our weather luck wore out, it started to rain. We left “Big Al’s” and went in search of a tailor to make some pants for Courtney and shirts for me.

We had a couple places in mind before we set out. However we stopped at the second tailor we found, G.G. Armani Collection. Inside there was one man working. He started to talk to us about the materials they had and what we wanted to get made. At some point during this he called his brother, “the closer”, to come in and talk to us.
“The closer”, with his slicked back hair and his well refined sales pitch, could give any salesperson back home a run for their money. He spent an hour and a half with us, going over materials, designs and smooth talking us. We eventually settled on three pairs of pants for Court, two shirts and a suit for me. I eventually haggled him down to 10,000 baht (¥30,000 or CDN$350). We figured we could have gotten this stuff for cheaper if we went around to all the different tailors in Chiang Mai but we really didn’t want to spend the time doing that.

After the tailor, we went to confirm our cooking class for tomorrow. The rain was coming down even harder and we did the only sensible thing we could think to do; we got foot massages. This is where we learned that they wash your feet first (I’m going to avoid making the Jesus/Easter reference). They took us upstairs to a large open room with mats on the floor. We settled in, head on the provided pillows, and the ladies went to work. Court figured her feet were too tense to begin with, because the foot massage actually hurt her for the first part of it. It wasn’t until 30 minutes later when her feet actually felt relaxed. My feet still feel good now. We may have to do this again before we leave.

We left the massage parlor, got rained on again and proceeded into the restaurant next door for lunch. This was not a good idea, the restaurant left a lot to be desired. Hence no pictures of the food.
The next thing on our schedule was to go to the Museum of World Insects and Natural Wonders. It was a little out of town, which involved haggling with and retaining the services of a tuk-tuk driver. I haggled him down to a fair price and off we went.

This museum is a privately funded museum that holds a strange variety of displays, materials and paintings. The owner/operator of the museum, Manop Rattanarithikul, was there to greet us when we arrived. He welcomed us gave us a sheet with a self-guided tour of all the displays and off we went.

To give you an idea of the kind of man who runs this museum let me tell you a story. The first visitor that he had to the museum was an elephant. This elephant promptly left a present for him. Mr. Rattanarithikul took it as a sign of good luck and it is the first display you see in the museum.

Manop and his wife, Dr. Rattanarithikul, did a lot of research on mosquitoes and mosquito borne diseases, e.g. malaria, dengue fever. They actually identified about 22 new mosquito species.

Starting in the 1960s they did a lot of field research in areas that were suffering from malarial outbreaks. This research involved using themselves as bait and trapping the mosquitoes that were trying to bite them. They had a lot of signs up that were “written” by the mosquitoes of Thailand saying essentially, “We’re not trying to hurt you we just want to give you a special hug.” Needless to say they really like insects. The second floor of the museum had rows and rows of cataloged insects, beetles, and butterflies. I’m sure it would have taken years of work to catalog everything. Wow!

The museum also housed a display of rocks that he had taken from special locations all around the world: Notre Dame, London Bridge, and the Grand Canyon are just a few of the places he’s visited. Dr. Rattanarithikul completed her Ph. D at Kobe University in Japan, so Mr. Manop had lots of rocks from Sannomiya and other areas in Japan.

After the museum we meandered our way to a small shopping street. We actually missed in on our first pass and settled in at a coffee shop to warm ourselves up. We wandered through the upscale shopping area. Courtney bought a silver bracelet and then it was back to our hotel to do some laundry.

We did some laundry and watched a crappy Adam Sandler romantic comedy; it was the one about the remote control. For all you Food Network Canada lovers out there we also watched “Chef at Home” and “Sugar”. And for all you Larry King lovers out there, if there are any that read our blog, we watched Larry King with Jack Hanna and his animals. I’m sure Larry King couldn’t have been less interested in what was going on.

Then it was time for dinner: Mexican food! We made our way to the Chiang Mai Saloon and had a good meal of nachos, tacos, and burritos. Excellent food. While we were there we heard a lady who was playing pool announce to the person who asked that she was from Bathurst, New Brunswick. Of course we had to say something. We chatted with her for a while. She teaches at an international school in Bangkok and has been here for a few years. She’d also been in Japan, so we talked about eikaiwas for a while as well.

After dinner we had to meet the tailor again and get our first fitting done. Tomorrow we’ll do our second fitting. On our way back to our hotel we stopped to watch the show that was on at the big stage in the park as part of Chiang Mai’s winter festival. We watched for a little while when I noticed that the lady who is singing had much larger thighs than the other people up there dancing. Then she stopped singing and said something in her normal voice, which was close to one octave lower than her singing voice. Now we felt like we’d arrived in Thailand we’d seen a drag show. Yep, that’s a good way to end the day.

And the answer is... "They wash your feet first." remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cut yourself some slack

2008-12-26T08:30:42Z

“Cut your self some slack, in a hundred years, different people.” That’s what the sign nailed to the tree told me at the temple we went to this afternoon. Another sign also told me, “The water that makes a ship float also makes a ship shink[sic]” Shink? Shink? Is that a Buddhist term? It was a deep enough message until I came across this word. Then I realized that it was a typo. ”The water that makes a ship float also makes a ship sink” makes a whole lot more sense.
First thing this lovely snow-less Christmas morning required us to get a nice hearty, calorie-filled American style breakfast. The Big Bowl Breakfast at the Art Café. Hash browns, tomatoes, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, and scrambled eggs, all covered with cheese. Just the way to get the grease flowing through your veins. Very Smittys on a Sunday.

We were moving slower after this meal. Oh, the stuff we didn’t eat was given to us to take back to our room. We have a snack for tonight if we want.
Instead of porting a full doggie-bag around Chiang Mai we had to stop back at our hotel. Both of us felt like taking a nap but powered on. We went to the coffee shop up the street to post the blog and make the first of a couple Christmas calls home.

Then it was on the Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Centre.
The Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Centre is a museum that is done right. When this former government building was converted into the museum in 1997 they didn’t spare any expense. But they also did it right. The layout of the building is good, the English signage is 98% correct, and the displays are extremely well done. They also had audio tracks in each of the rooms which could be played in Thai, English, German, French, Chinese and Japan (one of these things is not like the other…) . We learned a lot about the history of Chiang Mai, from prehistory through to present day.
This was one of the few incorrect English signs. It was on the computer screen where you can scroll from one page to the next.

These are some pictures of the displays.

We were walking through recreations of various scenes of village life, complete with life-size human mannequins. They were disturbing, and I kept expecting one to lunge out of its display and attack me, or at least follow me around. Very “knight-in-a-haunted-castle”-esque. As we were walking into the final room of this exhibit, this cat jumped out of a basket in the display. Needless to say, we were sufficiently startled.

By this time it was lunch time and the grease had passed through our systems. We had to locate the next feeding spot. Seeing it was Christmas we settled on Jerusalem Falafel. Actually, I think Court just wanted Middle Eastern food. We did some shopping on our way to the restaurant, without getting lost on the trip. We settled down to our own little table facing the street and flipped through the book of the menu.
Courtney was blown away by the selection. Pita, falafels, Greek salad, baba ghanouj, and more: basically everything she’s been craving for months. She was stuck, unsure what she wanted the most. We eventually settled on the meze set: pita bread with six different dips. We thought we may need more food, so Court ordered an extra plate of feta cheese and two extra pitas. It turns out we didn’t need the extra pitas. I powered through my two but Court wisely stopped after one pita. We again didn’t finish all of our food and were presented with another doggie bag to fill our fridge.

This meal required us to stop at the hotel for a post feast nap. 45 minutes later I was back on my feet and ready to go. We decided to head out to Umon temple which is located about 3 clicks outside of Chiang Mai. This involved bartering with a tuk-tuk driver. The first guy we stopped, or more accurately he stopped to see if we needed a ride, wouldn’t go lower than 200 Baht round trip. We walked. Not to the temple but away from that tuk-tuk. 200 was too much to pay. We rounded the corner and found another tuk-tuk driver. I eventually haggled him down to 200 Baht and decided we didn’t want to waste any more time looking for a ride. He was happy because he spent the whole time trying to get us to go somewhere with him tomorrow. We declined any tours with him tomorrow.
We arrived at the Umon temple, located out in the woods, and started to wander.

Monks built this temple in the 14th century and was abandoned for a while until the 1940’s. The monks were holding a service when we arrived; we wandered the grounds. Unfortunately we couldn’t go into the assembly hall because of the service. We still went up to see the chedi, the spire, which is built in a clearing in the forest.

The monks converted some caves into a worshipping areas complete with little shrines. Most monks are a little shorter than me, so the tunnels were kind of on the small side of comfortable for walking upright.

Our tuk-tuk driver brought us back to our hotel just in time for Christmas dinner. Yesterday we found an Irish pub that was offering Christmas dinner. We had a full feast: ham, turkey, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, mince pie, Christmas pudding, bread, and, those perennial holiday favourites, watermelon and pineapple. .

What a feast. Not as good as a home-cooked meal, but we’ll take what we can get. We still felt the traditional tiredness post meal. Mmm turkey coma.

There were two sittings, one at 6:30 and one at 9:30, and we were there for the early one. There were approximately 40 people at our sitting and 10 people at our table. There were three recent engineering grads from Australia, who are travelling around before they start work, and another Aussie who is teaching in Bangkok and wanted to escape Bangkok for Christmas, as well as two other couples. It was a lovely meal, not as good as spending It with family but nice to spend it with pleasant people.
Now we are the café again making more Christmas calls. Here are some other shots of a temple down the street from our hotel, and other sites in Chiang Mai.

Before I forget, to everyone who is reading this, we wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas.

Cut yourself some slack remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Who's eating Swede?

2008-12-25T04:09:15Z

Our first day in a new city usually involves wandering; setting out with a destination and trying to get there. This ALWAYS entails us getting lost. Some times are more disorienting and confusing than others. Sometimes we just take a wrong turn and quickly correct ourselves. This is the case more often than not. Sometimes we have absolutely no idea where we are. No matter how lost we are we always feel a sense of relief when we recognize landmarks or places we’ve been and can navigate without a map. We eventually reached this point, but let’s start at the beginning.

This morning we slept in. It’s the first day of vacation after a long travel day. There’s no reason to get up early yet. Last night we quickly and sloppily unpacked our bags. Meaning this morning we had to fix that and straighten up before we headed out. While Court was showering I went to use the computer downstairs but one of the staff members was on it chatting with some friends. That was obviously more important than a paying customer. They were nice enough to tell me where I could find another Internet café. What they didn’t tell me was that the place wasn’t open yet. Had to go there myself to be privy to that information. Oh well.

In my travels to find an Internet café I discovered a quaint Thai restaurant which served breakfast. We chose a table in the back garden and settled in for our spring rolls, phad thai and phad see-eu. We remembered from our last vacation to always get the local breakfast.

We had some things we needed to pick up. Because we didn’t check any bags, it meant we couldn’t bring certain things with us. Like razors and any liquids exceeding 100ml in volume. That’s the downside of not checking luggage. I also needed to get a new pair of sandals. For some reason the Crocs store in Nishinomiya Gardens didn’t have them in stock. I never stopped to think that perhaps the reason for this is because it’s winter in Japan. Before breakfast I did get on the Internet to find us a store in a shopping mall that had the Crocs I wanted. Map in hand, we headed out.

This is where the ‘getting lost’ thing came into play. Not all the streets on our map are labeled. Not that it really matters, as most of the streets we were walking past weren’t labeled either. In addition, the English translation of the same street can differ from sign to sign. At certain intersections, streets also change names. ON one side of the intersection, it has one name, and across the intersection it becomes another street. I suppose this can happen in an 800 year old city. I studied the map at breakfast and saw the easiest route to get us to where we wanted to go.

Be warned that if you have the map turned around before you even go anywhere, you are in trouble, even with a map and an easy route laid out. That’s what happened to us. Instead of turning left out of the restaurant, we turned right. We walked for a good 30 minutes and started to think something was right. We tried to get ourselves out of the way and had a little map reading pow-wow (aside: Andrew wouldn’t let me see the map for a little while, even after I asked if I could see the map. I take no responsibility for the results. I have mad nav skills. ~CW). We checked our map and found some landmarks which got us re-orientated and heading back the other way. About 45 minutes later we looked at the map again and figured out where we were. But we had no idea how we got there. We thought we walked in a straight line north, but somehow ended up northwest of where we were. This was disconcerting but ok. We were headed in the right direction.

Another 30 minutes and some harrowing street crossings later we found the shopping mall we wanted. As we went in Court stopped at a pharmacy and I went to find a bathroom. Instead of locating the bathroom I stumbled upon the store selling the Crocs. I quickly found and bought my correct size before meeting up with Court again.
Next we needed a Starbucks break; we were worried we were working too hard on vacation. Then went back into the department store. This is where Courtney actually found a pair of shoes! She’s had an impossible time finding shoes in Japan. They don’t have the size she needs. But not Thailand: they’ve got what she needs. This made her day or possibly her vacation.

After the exciting shoe purchase, we did our obligatory supermarket shopping trip. The really different things we found this time were the ostrich meat.

And the mixed vegetables and Swede. We hope that swede is some sort of food product we’re unfamiliar with, and not actual Swede.

Now that we were laden with all these purchases we had to head back to the hotel to unload. Not surprisingly, we got lost on our way back. WE had plotted our route on the map; putting it into practice was a little more complex. We were distracted by something and missed the road for our hotel. Five or ten minutes after we missed our road we knew something was wrong. We were getting a little frustrated and did what you should always do in this situation. We got some food.

We went to Kafé 1985, a restaurant with free Internet access and a recommendation from our guide book. We ate a good portion of wontons, more spring rolls, and salted cashews. It was a delightful mid-afternoon snack. Feeling less frustrated we made it successfully back to our hotel to unload.

In Chiang Mai there have been a lot of wats (or temples) built over the years. One of the first was Wat Chiang Man. Construction started when the city was first being built. This seemed like a good place to start visiting the temples.

There were many structures within the confines of the wat walls. The first building we went into was the vihara. There were golden pictures stencilled on all the walls depicting the construction of the temple (we think). They were fascinating pictures to look at.

In the modern vihara there were colored paintings all over the walls. Each section was its own little mural , depicting some event. Even though I don’t know enough about Buddhism to guess at what was going on in these scenes, I enjoyed looking at them.

Like any good tourist this cat was taking a siesta in the heat.

Courtney in the meantime was putting her knew found photography knowledge to work. The modern vihara also houses two little Buddha statues, a marble one 20 cm high which came from Sri Lanka about 2000 years ago and a smaller jade one (~10 cm) which came from Laos.

The chedi at the back had a gold roof and lots of elephant sculptures on the bottom level.

After our visit to the wat we strolled to the night bazaar. Having been lost two or three times already, we actually started to recognize places and remember which direction we wanted to head in. Meaning we didn’t get lost on the way to the market. We scoped out the market and didn’t see anything that really interested us, except for Mike’s Burger Restaurant which supposedly makes the best burgers in Chiang Mai. I’d been craving a burger for a while and had to stop. Courtney opted out on the burger and stopped for a nice thin crust pizza on the way back to the hotel.

Now we’ve arrived back at the hotel and are going to see if there is a Christmas movie for us to watch on TV. Here are some other pictures from around Chiang Mai.

The closest thing we could find to a Christmas movie was a Flintstones Christmas Carol. It was festive enough.

Who's eating Swede? remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Swank plane, ghetto plane

2008-12-26T08:14:39Z

See the itinerary of this trip, and details about each destination.

Andrew and Courtney’s first rule of travel, if you have more than one leg of unequal lengths in your journey, you will be on the older, smaller , less spacious airplane for the longer leg of your journey.

We learned this early this morning. We met our cab at 6:00, caught our bus at 6:15, and got our first flight at 8:00. As we were walking on the Boeing 777-300, heading to row 11, we walked through business class, the really expensive seats with as much room as a family sized car, into first class with the same amount of space as a small car, when we stumbled onto our row. I was blown away; I actually checked with the flight attendant to make sure we were in the correct row. Our seats had a ‘bed’ button which would fully recline and lower your seat down to within about 10 inches of the floor. Completely horizonal. Then you could actually get a good sleep. I obviously had to try this button but I was actually creeped out by the results; it felt so strange to be able to totally recline on asn aircraft. But, about five hours into a transoceanic flight, it would be a godsend. The only problem with these seats was we were only privy to them for a little over an hour before we landed in Tokyo.

We figured if they put the new version of the 777 on the Osaka to Tokyo run we’d have something nice for the trip to Bangkok. We were enthralled and betting on if we’d get the same quality of seat or not. Obviously the correct answer is, not. It was the older version of the 777, with business class and coach. We were back to the normal cattlecar seats for our 8 hour flight to Bangkok. Other than the disappointment brought on by the older model it was an uneventful flight. We felt bad for the five month old in front of us who wailed himself to sleep during landing. His mom apologized to us on the way off the plane but there was nothing she could do. And we really didn’t care. But I was definitely sensing an uncomfortable, angry vibe from the other passengers.

Aside: after our last trip, we were tired of lugging our larger-than-necessary backpacks around with us. We always had to wait to get them after we arrived in a new place or we found if we had to kill a day it was a huge pain to find a way to deal with them. With this in mind we bought new, smaller backpacks. Courtney’s is a 35 L Millet pack and mine is a 40 L Millet pack. After we had our packs crammed full we brought out the measuring tape to do the carry on check. Our measurements last night had us borderline; if some agent wanted to get technical they could probably make us check the bags. I am proud to report that we didn’t have to check anything and did carryon all the way here. With our immigration cards filled out and in hand it took us about 20 minutes to de-plane and go through customs.

This is Court with our bags.

The only problem with clearing customs so quickly is, at 5:30, we are now waiting for our 7:45 flight to Chiang Mai. We went through security two hours early to get away from everyone asking if we wanted a taxi or if we needed help. We expected that the questions from everyone were coming; it is southeast Asia. For our sanity we decided to delay having to deal them as much as possible.

Courtney ordering at the restaurant in the airport.

We're back in South East Asia, we bought a fruit plate.

Hopefully we have only funny/entertaining things to report from our flight to Chiang Mai and our transfer and check in to our hotel.

Not from December 24th, it was an easy and uneventful trip to our hotel in Chiang Mai.

Swank plane, ghetto plane remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We're famous!

2008-09-17T12:21:11Z

Travellerspoint Travel Community interviews a new community member each month. Guess who it is this month? Well, it's us! Click on over to From the swivellin' chair to check us out!

Oh, and in a quick update, we bought our winter vacation tickets yesterday... we leave for Bangkok on December 23. It's going to be Thailand and Laos for Christmas and New Year! We'll keep you posted as details are nailed into place.

To everyone who has been faithfully following us since we started this crazy Asia-venture, we just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your support. We keep a Google Analytics account, and it is really interesting to see from which countries people are clicking onto our site.

Did you know you can subscribe to our blog and be automatically updated by email or XML feed whenever we post something new? You didn't know? Let me tell you how! Cast your gaze to the right....no, no, your other right.. OK. See the Navigation menu? Great. Look down.. see Main Page? Good, keep reading down.. what's that right there below Table of Contents? Subscribe! Go ahead and click on that. Let your fingers do the walking and the notification service will do the rest!

We're famous! remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our new blog

2008-08-25T01:53:37Z

On our last vacation we started to realize that we've made more travel mistakes than we really want to admit. This made us decide we should try to pass what we've learned on to other current or future travellers. Hopefully that will prevent them from having to experience the same learning opportunities as us!

If you are interested in hearing more from us check out our blog at http://smarter-travel.travellerspoint.com/. We are going to keep this blog for our trips, pictures and other exploits. The new blog will focus more on what we've learned and our travel strategies.

As always you can subscribe to this blog or to our new one by clicking the subscribe link in the navigation bar on the right side of the screen. And if you have any thoughts, comments or suggestion please feel free to make a comment.

THANKS!
Andrew and Courtney

Our new blog remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Some more Speilbergness

2008-08-23T11:15:03Z

Well, I've finally found some time to put up more videos. If you missed the last set of videos, check them out here.

Enough with the previews. On with THE SHOW!!!!!!

It's Monkey Time!

Some proboscis monkeys we saw on the Kinabatangan River.

Silver langurs spotted along the river.

We found some long-tailed macaques on the river, too.

Some more Speilbergness remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Who knew Spielberg was with us?

2008-08-20T01:41:46Z

Yesterday I was going through the footage I took on vacation and realized I should upload it here. The pictures do some of the animals and things we saw justice but sometimes they do not. The videos usually do better. I tried to keep the camera steady but some of the video was shot from a boat. That was nearly impossible. But I think I did a pretty good job eliminating camera shake.

A lot of these are short, unedited clips. I'm going to edit them into a big movie sometime soon. I just need to make some time to do it.

Anyways, enjoy.

In no particular order, some videos.

Orangutans - these clips are of an orangutan we saw on our first day in Danum Valley.

Tiger leech - these were all over the jungle. You could see them stretching off from a leaf looking for an animal. The final count was two leeches for me and one for Court. Leo kept it on his hand so we could see what it looked like.

Maroon langur - We followed this monkey for a bit. Then it decided it was time for it to leave.

Flying squirrel - This was the second flying squirrel we saw on the night drive. But it was the first one we saw fly.

Termites vs. Ants - The soldier termites, on the left, were defending the worker termites from the ants. Watch the ants go in and get jabbed by the termites. The termites win this battle, but will they win the war?

Sumatran pit viper - Very poisonous. Even without knowing much about snakes I figure when a snake opens its mouth at you, it's a bad sign.

These are all the videos I have ready right now. I'll try to put some more up later this week.

Who knew Spielberg was with us? remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Post mortem

2008-08-28T03:57:12Z

We made it home safe and sound. We've had a little bit of time to discuss and think about our vacation. With every vacation we've had, there have been things we would do again and things we would definitely not do again, and things that fall somewhere in the middle. Here are our thoughts and opinions of what we did.

Kuala Lumpur (KL)

We stayed at the Alpha Genesis Hotel. I'd stay there again. Our room was large with a comfy bed and a nice clean bathroom. The hotel is in a good location and, more importantly, has a pretty good breakfast buffet.

I would recommend the Batu Caves to anyone with time in KL. We took the train to Gombak (Terminal Putra), at the end of the Kelana Kaya line, then took a taxi the rest of the way. The taxi should cost about MYR10 from the station. It took us a morning to get out there, look around and get back.

There are still some activities and things that we didn't do in KL that we would like to. I don't think there are enough to warrant another trip back to KL. But if we ended up there for a day or two on a stopover, we'd be able to fill our time.

Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB)

We stayed at the Terrace Hotel. It was an OK place to stay, but it is definitely starting to show its age. Avoid the elevator, as it makes frightening sounds. The breakfast there was not worth the cost, but there is a good night market across the street for good, cheap eats. As far as the room, is was a decent size, but always felt a little damp. BSB is pretty small, so it was an easy ten minute walk from our hotel to the various downtown sights. For the price, I might stay there again.

We spent two days in BSB. This is the longest amount of time I'd recommend spending in BSB. There's not a whole lot happening in the city. If we spent anymore time in Brunei, we would have explored the rest of the country. Because Brunei is a relatively wealthy country, they haven't touched their rainforest. Supposedly, the rainforests are beautiful. However, I'm not sure if they are better than the some of the rainforests we saw in Sabah. I don't know.

For the activities we did, the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque was definitely worth going to. However, we only spent 30 minutes in the mosque and about 30 minutes wandering around the grounds. If you are going to enter the mosque, you are provided with a robe to wear, but it would be wise for women to have something to cover their hair with (hats are OK, but I think a scarf would be preferable).

The Royal Regalia Museum was fascinating. This is definitely worth entering. Some of the gifts the Sultan received were beautiful. I was also amazed by everything that was purchased/built/made/used for his Silver Jubilee. WOW!

We did a boat tour of the stilt village. It's not hard to find someone to give you a tour. Go down to the water and there will be tons of people waiting to take you for a ride. We paid about BND30 for the two of us to take a tour. I don't know if that is a good price or not. We didn't mind paying a little bit more, we had a boat with a little roof and we had two men in the boat: one guy to drive the boat and one guy giving narrating the tour. We didn't do the proboscis monkey extension tour because we were doing a river cruise in Sabah.

We ate a lot of meals in the food court in the Yayasan complex in downtown BSB. It had a large selection of food. We ate there about three times and had no problem finding something to eat. We also went out to “The Mall”. It was a typical mall. It looked like almost every other mall we've been in.

We took the ferry from Brunei to Pulau Labuan in Malaysia. To get to the ferry terminal from BSB there is an express bus from the bus station. It leaves from the spot next to bus 37 or 38. It doesn't have its own number. It cost about BND3/person, instead of BND30 for a taxi. It takes you directly to the ferry terminal. You'll have to go through immigration at the ferry terminal. Don't forget there's a BND1 departure fee to leave Brunei.

I would recommend taking the earliest ferry out of Brunei. The first ferry is at 7:30 and you need to catch the bus at 6:40 from the bus station. When we arrived at Pulau Labuan the ferry to Kota Kinabalu was full. We couldn't get a ticket to KK. We think if we caught the earliest ferry we would have been able to get a ticket. Instead we had to make other arrangements. Click here for that fiasco. It's not an impossible feat, but I recommend getting the earliest ferry to avoid the hassle.

Sandakan

We spent a day here last year and a night here this year. I'd recommend NOT planning to spend much time in the city. There isn't a lot going on compared to what is near by, e.g. Turtle Island National Park, the Kinabatangan River, etc. There are a couple of markets that are an interesting way to kill time, though.

We stayed at the Nak Hotel. It is in a very central location. The room looked good but the bathroom was not good. The shower was in rough shape and we found a dead cockroach on the floor. It was relatively cheap and we only needed a place to lay our heads. I don't think I would go back to this hotel.

Kinabatangan River Cruise

I would recommend a river cruise to anyone with time in Sabah. We stayed at the Nature Lodge Kinabatangan near Bilit. There are other places you can go, eg. Sukau. Bilit is further inland than Sukau. We used Down Below Marine and Wildlife Adventures to book our trip. They were very good and helpful to us. I'd recommend their services.

One other thought: if you are going on a river cruise or animal watching, invest in a good pair of binoculars. It's not a zoo. The animals may be a distance away and the animal watching is a lot better if you can get a good look at the animals. There were a lot of people who did not have binoculars and got bored quite quickly. With binoculars, we could spend a lot of time sitting and watching the animals.

Lahad Datu

I recommend spending as little time as possible in Lahad Datu. Only come here if you need to transfer to the Tabin Wildlife Resort or Danum Valley Conservation Area.

Danum Valley Conservation Area

GO! I would recommend the Danum Valley Conservation Area to any nature or animal lovers The guides were excellent and the animal watching unbelievable. Thankfully, there is only one lodge in the valley, the Borneo Rainforest Lodge. You can book packages through their website. The lodge facilities and staff are superb and the food is awesome. Seriously, if you can afford it (it's a little on the pricey side) GO!

Keep in mind that when you are in the rainforest most of the animals will be up in the canopy. This can make them harder to see. It's important to move around and look for the best sight lines. We had many conversations that went like this.
“You see that animal up in the tree?”
“Which one?”
“Do you see the branch with a few leaves on it? It's in the leaves just above that.”
“Nope, still can't see it.”
“Ok. Come stand over here.”
“Ok. Now I see it. Oh it just went behind the tree.”

Also, bring your rain coat and lots of water on hikes. Take the amount of water the guides recommend and add more. You sweat an ungodly amount in the rainforest.

Kota Kinabalu (KK)

It seemed like a nice town. We didn't spend a lot of time there. And the time we did we spent at the 1Borneo Hypermall. We've heard from other travellers that there's not a lot going on in the city and the islands off the coast are where you should spend your time. We didn't have a lot of time though. Most people come here to climb Mount Kinabalu. We didn't.

We stayed at the Tune Hotel in KK. This hotel chain was opened by the same guy who started AirAsia. Like Air Asia, Tune Hotels are great if you know what you are getting in to. You pay a basic price for the room then you have to pay extra for 'add-ons' , eg. towels, TV, air conditioning. Even with buying all of these, it's still relatively cheap. We paid about MYR90 for the two of us for one night. The room had enough space for the bed and two night tables. That's it. But the bed was really comfy and we slept well. However, the hotel was far from the airport and it cost MYR40 for two people one way from the airport.

General thoughts on getting around

We learned our lesson in KL to always ask if the cabbies have a meter. If they don't have (or won't use) their meter don't go with them. Some like to make a quick buck off the unsuspecting tourists. We paid about three or four times what we should have for one of our taxi rides.
If you take buses or mini buses in Malaysia, prepare for them to be slow and without a set schedule. They leave when they are full. If you have somewhere you must be by a certain time, plan accordingly.
We flew Air Asia from KL to BSB, and from KK to KL. I would recommend Air Asia to any traveller in southeast Asia. They are clean, comfortable, and provide good service. Remember that when you buy the ticket you get a seat. Everything else costs more. I recommend getting the express boarding. Some of the lines for regular boarding were huge and there was a lot of pushing and jostling going on.
We flew MASwings from Lahad Datu to KK. It's a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines and services only Sabah and Sarawak. The flights are quite affordable, and they provide good service. They cover some routes not covered by Air Asia.

Other random thoughts that don't fit in anywhere else

When traveling in southeast Asia, keep in mind the local economy. If you get really great service at a restaurant and want to leave a tip, keep the exchange rate in mind. MYR50 may equal $15, ₤10, or your currency's equivalent, but MYR50 is a HUGE tip in Malaysia. Then this service person may expect MYR50 tips from every tourist that comes through.
Be prepared bowel oddness. Whether they become more or less frequent, have a game plan. In both situations, make sure to drink A LOT of water. There is nothing worse than becoming dehydrated. If it's the former situation, change your activities or plan to make sure you are never far from the facilities. Don't take an all-day boat tour without facilities. If it gets worse or lingers, don't be afraid to see a doctor. They can prescribe some medicine for you.
Don't be afraid to bargain. In most southeast Asian countries, there is the local price and the traveller price. This is fine, but there is usually some room to bargain with them.
When looking for a restaurant, find the one with a lot of locals. Avoid the one with a lot of other travellers in it. The local ones will be cheaper and usually better. This especially goes for breakfasts. Get the local breakfast.
When animal watching, remember that you may not see anything. The rainforest is not a zoo. Be aware of this and be excited by anything that you see. Pick up a bird book or mammal field guide. You can get small pocket sized ones that are useful for learning what you saw. Otherwise, you end saying, “Oh look another bird. And there's a monkey.” It's much better if you know what kind of bird or monkey that you saw. Sometimes the insects you can find crawling on the ground are just as interesting, if not more interesting, than some of the bigger animals you can see.

General thoughts on Malaysia

We'd love to go back. The people are great. The food is excellent and it is relatively cheap coming from Japan. And don't forget, the wildlife is outstanding!

Post mortem remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When in Kota Kinabalu, go to the mall.

2008-08-22T05:36:42Z

We woke up around 8:30 and didn't have much planned for the day. We had some shopping to do and since we were next to the 1Borneo Hypermall we thought we'd do it all there. We finally got checked out of our room at 10:00 am, the latest we were allowed to. Even though it's 'hyper', it's still a mall. There is only a certain amount of time we want to spend in a mall.

Before we checked out of our room and set out into the mall Court noticed this arrow on the ceiling in our hotel room. We'd noticed them in other hotel rooms but this one had writing on it. The writing clued us in on what they are for. They point to Mecca. That way for Islamic people they know which way to pray towards. Brilliant!

We arranged our taxi to the airport for 15:00 and set out into the mall. We were a little bit early and nothing was open yet. This meant a short stop at Starbucks. The short stop turned into a good 1.5 hours there. This time passed by with me reading and Court editing our blog posts. It was kind of relaxing.

Outside, there was a children's drawing and colouring competition going on, with MYR20,000 in prizes up for grabs. We could hear some of the announcements being made. One of the first ones we heard was, “Parents please let the children use their own creativity for their picture.” This one didn't seem to work. Later on we heard, “Parents please leave the colouring area.” Needless to say, we were not surprised that the parents were trying to hover over and help their kids.

After Starbucks, we went to find Court some shoes and pants. This was not successful. But I did find a watch. Oh Court got one too. I was without a watch for most of the vacation. Mine died part way in. For people who know me, this was quite frustrating. We bought nice Japanese-made Casio watches, in Malaysia. There has to be some irony in there somewhere. We spent the rest of the time looking for souvenirs, shoes, and pants. The souvenir shopping was successful; pants and shoes, not so much.

We also got some pizza at Pizza Hut. We wanted some real pizza, no corn or mayo, before we came back to Japan. After lunch, we looked at our new watches, and realized we were running out of time. We had to pick up the pace and get the last few things we wanted.

We managed to do that with minimal stress and got back just in time for our taxi ride. The rest of the day was spent on airplanes or waiting in airports. Not too much exciting happened.

When we were in the KL airport we looked up at the board to make sure our flight was on time. When we noticed something interesting. You may not remember our travel troubles last year but you can read about them here and here. We saw on the board that an Air China flight to Beijing, the same flight we took last year, was canceled. Not delayed, as was the case for us, but full-on canceled. We felt kind of bad about all the people on that flight, then thought, “Thank god that's not us!” and went on our way.

We sat in our seats on the red-eye flight back to Osaka. We were in the middle row, the one with five seats. We were the two seats on one end. We were sitting patiently when a family of four, two parents, a girl (maybe four years old) and a toddler (about two years old) showed up. We gave each other a look that was, “If these kids...”. I like kids and am patient with them but I was not in the mood for screaming kids on the plane. But, they are Japanese kids and ten minutes after we took off they were out cold and we didn't hear a sound from them until we arrived. Hooray for Japanese kids! Whew!

We arrived back and had to get cash for our bus ride home. But, the bank machine that was there wouldn't accept my card until after 8:00. It was 7:40. Right, Japanese bank machines have hours they are open. They usually close at 22:00. It makes no sense to me. I finally got some cash, but not quick enough. We missed the bus we wanted to take. That was fine. We just waited for the next one. We got to the station took a cab and we were home. It did not feel like we were gone for two weeks. The conclusion for this vacation was we want to go back to Malaysia, but we really should go to other countries too!

When in Kota Kinabalu, go to the mall. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When hiking in the jungle, please give blood.

2008-08-28T03:58:50Z

This was our last day in the Danum Valley Conservation Area. We were quite sad to go. We really really enjoyed our time here. Leo, our guide, was excellent. He was a lot of fun and very informative to go hiking around with. He also told us that he was glad that he really enjoyed the last few days hiking with us. That was good to hear.

Last night, we decided we'd do one longer activity. That way we could sleep in a little bit later. We got up at 6:50 today. We're not sure if it's good that 6:50 now qualifies as “sleeping in”. But we felt more rested today. We quickly ate breakfast and met Leo at 8:00 to start hiking. He quickly answered the questions that had come up yesterday and we started off.

On our way to the restaurant for breakfast we found this snake on the ground. We had no idea what kind of snake was. We just assumed it was poisonous and stayed away from it.

We had about three hours to go hiking. We had to get back in time to pack and shower and get ready to go. Leo outlined a plan that involved about four different trails and a lot of if we have time we can do this. But we didn't have time. We found too much stuff to look at as we went along.

About 400 m into the first trail we heard something crash in the woods off to our right. We looked around from the path for a while to see if we could see it. It was too difficult to see. The next thing we know Leo was off into the woods and we were following him with the same warning to watch out for snakes. The animal turned out to be a maroon langur, but we didn't get a good look at it.

We were pretty far into the woods and I started to look around. It would be soooooo easy to get lost in there. Every direction looks similar and it's so dense that you can't see very far. Today it wasn't so bad because we could always hear the river. We figured if we got separated we'd make our way to the river. Plus, Leo knew where he was going.

We wondered if Leo had previously had a negative experience with snakes, as he seemed a little preoccupied with them and warned us about them a lot. We asked him a couple of leading questions to try to shed a little light on the subject. Leo told us a little bit about his fear of snakes afterwards. First, when Leo was a child a couple of his dogs were killed by cobras. I suppose that's a good reason to be worried about snakes. Secondly, every so often someone is killed by a python. He said the last one was in 2006. A man went out to his vacant lot and didn't make it back for supper. His family went out and found him with all of his bones crushed. The python had tried to eat him but his arm was folded parallel to his shoulder with his elbow sticking out so it couldn't swallow him. He did tell us what to do if a python does grab hold of you. Make sure your arms are free, and that you have a machete of some blade with you. Use the blade to cut through the just the scales of the snake. This way, if the snake tries to constrict you, the pressure the snake generates will start to apply outward force to its organs. The snake then has a choice: crush you, and in the process, force its organs out, or let you go and find another meal after it heals. Invariably, it'll choose the latter option. If you don't have a knife or machete there is another way. You have to make sure your arms are free. The pythons weakness is its tail. While it's crushing you it will tuck its tail under the other coils it's made. You have to grab the tail before it can tuck it under the coils. Then you can just unwind the snake. But I still didn't want to have to worry about that.

We made it back on to the path and continued on. We didn't see a whole lot in our travels. We saw lots of little insects and plants. As well, at one point we saw two Bornean gibbons swinging overhead. We tried to get some pictures of them but they swung too quickly then hid behind some leaves up in a tree. It's quite difficult to spot animals when they are at the top of the canopy and we are on the forest floor.

We made it to a junction point where we could do other trails but we all realized we didn't have enough time to do anything else. Here, I felt a little sting on my stomach and saw that a leech had crawled up under my shirt and bit me. It was just preparing to start taking some blood when I flicked it off. Needless to say I still bled a little bit. It took us a lot longer than planned to do the first walk. We settled on quickly doing the canopy walkway.

On the walkway we did see this little green insect. It was called a lantern bug, and is apparently quite rare. Leo was very excited to see it.

At this point we had to go back and pack. It was almost time to leave the Danum Valley Conservation Area. When Court was getting in the shower she noticed some blood on her sock. It turns out a leech had crawled up under her gaiter down her pants and bit her just above her sock. She was a blood donor too. We had to be checked out by 12:00. We didn't have a clock in our room. My watch broke and we lost the alarm clock we were carrying with us. But somehow we managed to get up to the main lodge by exactly 12:00. I was very impressed.

I cleaned off our boots and gaiters. We didn't clean Court's boots, because they weren't going to make the trip home. They were finished. There was a hole forming in the heel of her boot. Duct tape and a bandage on her heel were the only things standing between her and blister city. She just left them there. We had a moment of rememberance for the boots. They've carried Court through seven countries and countless miles; they will be missed.

Then it was lunch time. Another fantastic meal.

Just before we left, we met up with Leo again. He came out with a form for us to sign and a stack of books to answer some previously unanswered questions. We really appreciated this. Then it was time for the ride into town.

The ride into town started off well enough; it was bumpy and kind of hot in the van, but what can you do. Then we noticed a big line of logging trucks waiting for something. When we got to the start of the line we saw that one of the logging trucks was stuck in the mud. Its left wheel was up in the air, its right wheel in the mud and the logs embedded in the ground. This was kind of interesting until we realized we had to go through this mud as well.

There was a truck traveling with us and it went through first with no problems. Then it was our turn. We all got of our vehicle. It was a little 8 seater mini bus. Our driver figured it would be safer for us to wait on the other side. We got out and watched as the bus tried to get through. It didn't go very far at all. It got stuck about 2m in. Out came the chains. They hooked the chains up to the back of the truck and to the bus. After a few attempts, and some panicked looks from all the people with a flight to catch, we were back on the road.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was still bumpy and hot, but no more problems. We arrived at the “airport” (I use that term loosely, it was more of a bus station) in Lahad Datu. We had about an hour to spare. This airport was so small that the lady that checked us in also was the lady who took our boarding pass to go on the plane and made all the announcements.

Our flight was a little over an hour to Kota Kinabalu. But, we hit some turbulence. Man was it ever turbulent. I suppose when you are in a flying school bus, any little turbulence feels worse. Surprisingly for Court, we made it in to KK in one piece. Her sanity, however, did not. She though she was going to die.

Then we had to catch a cab to our hotel. We are staying at the Tune Hotel. These hotels are owned by the same company who owns Air Asia. There business strategy is to charge you a bare minimum for the room and then charge for the other stuff you need. MYR5 for towels, MYR7 for the TV, etc. We wanted to try to it out and see what it's like. The hotel we are staying at is located next to 1Borneo, a 'hypermall'. We strolled into the mall to find some dinner and stumbled upon “Malaysian Idol” (it wasn't Idol, but it was close enough, so that's what I call it) auditions.

We went back to the lobby of the hotel to report back we made it safely out of the jungle then back up to our room. It didn't take too long for us to fall asleep. We have half a day or so in KK then its on to KL and back to Osaka. Our vacation is almost finished.

When hiking in the jungle, please give blood. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When the elephant charges, don't run straight.

2008-08-22T08:15:30Z

It's always reassuring to be told what to do when an animal charges but the thought of actually having to do it is another thing. These words let to Court and I sharing an “What the..?” look as we were all standing silently in the rainforest as our guide was off smelling for elephant urine. Yes, that did happen. But let me tell you about the other stuff first.

Last night, the option was put to the other guy in our group; two short activities, the first one at 06:00, or one longer activity leaving after breakfast at 07:30. Court and I were both happy that he choose the latter option. We didn't want to get up for 06:00 again. We got the wake up call and made our way to breakfast. The other guy in our group was already there. He was actually warned last night that if he didn't eat breakfast he wasn't going to be allowed to go on the hike. He made sure he was there for breakfast.

We set off on another previously unexplored trail. Well, unexplored by us. About 30 minutes into the hike Court started to get worried about the other guy in our group, too. I think he wiped out on a trail at some point. The hike was good until we finished the first short trail and moved on to the next one.

As we started the next trail Leo, our guide, stopped suddenly. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Oh, at our briefing last night, one of the guides said he saw a lone elephant out here.” We weren't sure what that meant until he continued and said, “lone elephants are more aggressive because they feel safer in a herd.” That made sense then. Then he told us the infamous words, “So, when the elephant charges, don't run straight. Run in zig zags.” Um, ok sure. At this point I remember the old joke. “I don't have to outrun the elephant. I just have to outrun everyone else.” But, instead of going with that, I told Leo we'd all follow him.

After the briefing we set out on the trail, with ears peeled for elephant trumpets or a rogue elephant stampeding throughout the forest. When all of a sudden Leo stopped because he could smell the elephant urine. This is where we shared the “What the..?" look. Or, more appropriately, “What are we going to do with the other guy in our group if this elephant does, in fact, charge us?” Leo didn't seem too worried, so we kept going. We successfully made it to the end of the trail without seeing or being charged by the elephant. However, because we were so focused on the elephant, we didn't see many other animals. It was a more tense and stressful walk than expected, but still excellent.

After we finished that path, we stopped to rest and collect ourselves. Then, went on the canopy walk again. Court found some mystery bird in a tree. We could only see parts of it, a bit of the tail, the top of its head. It was kind of difficult to figure out what bird it was from the piecemeal description. But Leo, with some help of other guides, figured it out. She also spotted this bird on the walkway wire.

After the canopy, it was back to the lodge. As we were traveling on the road back to the lodge, we saw some maroon langurs up above us. We had to traipse through the forest to get a good look at them. But, we found them.

The other guy in our group was leaving soon after our return to the lodge, and he had to pack and do all that stuff. We rested in the restaurant and had a short little coffee/tea break. We were sitting at a table relaxing when we heard this loud, THUMP. We looked over on the floor and saw a gecko lying there kind of stunned. He had fallen from the ceiling, which would be a good 7m up. It eventually scuttled off after learning its lesson. We had learned a lesson as well: it was possible for geckos to fall into our plates while eating, as we had pondered in past trips.

After this rest we went back to our lodge and took another rest. It was turning out to be a tough day. Once we both woke up it was time for lunch. After lunch we took another rest. Wow, it was a really tough day. Then we met with Leo again for an afternoon hike.

We started out to do a couple of trails and end up at the canopy walkway again. This was turning out to be our favourite “trail”. Leo said it should take 1 to 1.5 hours to do the total hike. But it took us closer to 3 hours. We always find stuff to look at and he always finds random things for us to see.

On this hike we ran into some orangutan researchers who had spotted a male orangutan up in a tree. He was really difficult to see. All you could make out was his arm. He was sitting behind some ferns holding on to a branch above him.

We also saw this little insect. It's called a mobile fungus insect. The insect stays still long enough for fungus to grow on its back. This will hopefully protect it from birds and other predators.

We finished the trail and ended up back at the canopy walkway. While we were taking a rest Court saw this butterfly on the ground. She crouched down next to it and started to take some pictures. Next thing she knew the butterfly flew up and landed on her knee. What a perfect spot to photograph a butterfly. It turns out that the butterfly was hurt. There was a small hole in one of its wings.

We went back over the canopy walkway. This time we didn't see a whole lot of stuff, but we did enjoy the fantastic view.

These are some shots of and from the canopy walkway.

We stopped at one tree to check out the termites again. Today they were under attack from some ants. The ants were trying to break through the line of soldier termites and take the food that the workers were carrying. The ants are bigger, faster, and stronger than the termites but the termites vastly outnumber the ants. An ant would run up and try to test the line and about 5 termites would charge and jab it, forcing it back. The ants continued to test the termites' defensive line for weaknesses. One time an ant did get through the line but it got swarmed by a whole lot of termites. It didn't stay in there very long. Court liked that on one part where the bark was raised out a bit, like a ridge, there were tonnes of termites waiting there. She kept calling it Vimy ridge and saying the ants will never take Vimy.

We got back to the main road and started our way back to the the lodge when we heard a crashing in the bushes to our left. It turns out there was a sambar deer there. We managed to be quiet enough not to scare it away.

As we were watching the deer, we saw another group of people behind us looking at something. Leo started to gesture to the other guide to find out what they were looking at. Leo asked us if it was a red leaf monkey, if we wanted to go back. We said we were ok. But then Leo said it's a snake. We took off to make sure we saw it before it slithered away.

It was a Sumatran pit viper. Highly venomous. When we got to the snake Leo's first comment was that it was in the “ready to strike” position, and that we should stay far back. That was no problem for me. I didn't want to get bitten by it. While we were first watching it it opened its mouth to bare its fangs. That was enough of a warning for me.

We watched the snake for quite a while then went back for dinner. Dinner was outstanding again. Court was happy the coconut pudding made a comeback.

After dinner, it was time for another a night drive. All the birders went in a different truck than us. We were in with a European couple and a British family. The British family was the one with “chatty Cathy” as Court described her. She was an 8 or 9 year old girl who just kept gabbing away at meals. She seemed nice enough, but she just kept on talking and talking and talking and talking. And, of course, she was on our truck. She managed to keep quiet for a little bit of the drive. But not much. Oh well. The sound of the truck would scare animals off quicker than her voice.

For the amount of animals that we saw, the night drive was successful. Right near the start of the drive a flying lemur “flew” directly overhead of us. It was so close, our driver was worried about it landing on us. We also saw some sleeping birds, sleeping maroon langurs, a common palm civet, a lesser mouse deer and a flying squirrel.

We got back to our lodge around 10 and we were out cold by about 10:15. We have one more day left in the Danum Valley Conservation Area.

When the elephant charges, don't run straight. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When hiking in the jungle, eat breakfast.

2008-08-22T07:46:47Z

Word to the wise: if you are hiking in the jungle, eat breakfast before you go. Even if you don't need to eat breakfast at home, REMEMBER you need to eat it in the rainforest. Or you may not come back from the hike. I was kind of worried that my hiking partner (not Court) wasn't going to make it back today. But, that happened on our second hike of the day. He didn't come on the first hike. So, his first hike.

Someone came to knock on our door at 05:45. We had to meet Leo, our guide, at 06:00 for the canopy walk. All I can say is that 05:45 still comes really really early in the rainforest. We got ourselves sorted out and made it down to the lodge only about 10 minutes late. We waited until 06:15 for the other guy in our group, which was when we got word that he wasn't joining us. Court didn't look too impressed with the early start.

We set off for the canopy walk. It's a 240 m suspension bridge walkway that they've created near the tops of the trees. From the walkway it is a whole lot easier to see birds and other wildlife. You're not standing there craning your neck up for an hour or so.

Because of the rain last night there was a mist throughout the air, the sun hadn't had a chance to burn it off yet. This mist reduced the visibility dramatically and not many animals were up and moving around. However, Court did manage to spot a big, orange hairy thing moving in the tops of the trees. She picked out another orangutan just waking up and starting to hunt for food. Even luckier, it was a mother orangutan and there was a juvenile with her. Some of the pictures turned out but others didn't. Oh well.

We also noticed a lot of other little wildlife along the way. We found this gorgeous looking spiderweb and a host of termites trudging food up the tree. There were two columns of soldier termites facing outwards and all the worker termites were moving up and down the tree between them. It was quite impressive.

Then we reached the end of the canopy walkway and came back for breakfast. We were both tired and hungry! For sheer volume of animals the walk was disappointing, but the quality was great!

After breakfast we had a little time and quickly ran back to our cabin. As we were sitting outside, Court promptly fell asleep sitting upright in her chair. This pretty much determined that she would not be going on the morning hike to the viewpoint. Which was probably a good decision.

We met again at the main lodge at 09:00 to go on our hike. It was planned to be a 3 hour hike with a stop at the jacuzzi pool for a swim. But this did not work out. We were going to hike up to an ancient burial ground and the viewpoint, the highest point in Danum Valley. There's an excellent view over the whole area. It was a pretty difficult trek. To give you an idea the trail is only 1.2 km long, but the change in elevation is about 225 m. Up. Which means it is about a 25% slope.

We set off for our hike. This time it was me, Leo and one other guy. Court was asleep. I was worried about the other guy before we even started; he struggled with the little walk yesterday. Then at the lodge Leo asked if he ate breakfast. The other guy said he hadn't but filled his belly with water and tea. I thought, “Oh crap. This isn't good”. But we set off anyways.

Leo and I kept up a pretty good pace for a while. We stop every so often and I'd ask some questions about any random thing that I could see: insects, plants, animals, anything. I was interested in it, but I also hoped it would give the other guy a breather. Oh, I also forgot: he had only one 500 mL bottle of water with him. I think I had 2.5 L or something ridiculous. I am a Cameron. I sweat a WHOLE lot normally and in the rainforest it's worse.

We saw some more pill millipedes, tractor millipedes mating, some giant forest ants and lots of other neat little insects. We didn't see many other animals though.

We eventually made it to the junction for the burial ground and the viewpoint.

I wasn't sure if the other guy in our group was going to make it, but he did. He passed on the hike down to the burial ground and sat while we went. This was a burial ground for the Suppa people of Sabah. Instead of burying the body in the ground, they would climb up and place the coffins in a small cave or alcove on the mountain face.

There was a ladder built to climb and see the grave sites. On one site there are still bones that you can easily see, including their teeth. Scientists have carbon dated the bones at over 250 years old. There was also some old pottery to see.

We climbed back down the ladder and went over to see the ancient coffin. It was made of a very very very hard wood. They would have to soak the wood for months before it became soft enough to carve. Leo said that this coffin would be reserved for someone extremely important probably a tribal chief. You could also see the blowpipe that he was buried with. I assume this was meant to protect him in the afterlife.

We went back and picked up the other member of our group and started the climb to the viewpoint. This was the hardest part, but the other guy in our group was determined to get there. I wasn't sure if he'd make it. Actually, I thought he'd make it. But, I wasn't sure if he was going to make it back down the mountain.

The view was excellent. We couldn't see any animals or anything. But, the view was still great. Oh, I forgot. The other guy in our group was here in January and did the hike then. Wow!

This is the main lodge and some of the chalets.

We rested up there for a while longer. Leo asked if we wanted to go on to the fairy falls. It was only 20 minutes further along the trail. Except it was 20 minutes downhill at about a 25 degree slope. Which is fine going there. But it also means it 20 minutes back up the hill at a 25 degree slope. I think the other guy in our group thought briefly about it, but I said No, I didn't want to go.

We started back down the hill. We got back to the junction and about 5 minutes later we stopped and the other guy in our group almost passed out. He managed to steady himself on a tree, but he was in rough shape. Leo quickly sat him down, took off his shoes and asked him if he had more water. He was out. I however, still had about 1.5 L left. I gave Leo some of my water and an empty bottle. He mixed this with a rehydrating pack and made the other guy drink it. Then we waited for another 20 minutes or so.

Eventually we got up and moving again. We went pretty pretty slow. We passed the jacuzzi pool, where you can go swimming if you want. Again the other guy in our group was tempted to go, but I said I didn't want to. I was actually getting quite hungry by this point. And we made it back down to the main lodge. Phewf. I'm glad we didn't have to carry him down the mountain.

We arrived back later than expected and I stopped at our lodge to get Courtney to go eat. This involved more than I thought. First I had to wake her up. She was still asleep. When she got her act together it was lunch time. Another excellent meal.

While I was hiking Court did some exploring and picture taking. Here are some shots of our room. Remember it was built for the Sultan of Brunei.

She also found some fire ants. Leo said fire ants are very aggressive and it hurts when they bite you. I don't think Court got bit by one though.

We all met up again at 15:30 to do some more hiking. After the morning excursion the other guy in our group opted out of the afternoon activity. This was probably for the best. We went for a hike on the Danum Trail to the river.

We didn't see a whole lot of animals. That was fine. It was still a great hike through the rainforest. We did see/were found by many leeches. We got them before really dug in. We found them mostly on our pants and shirts. Most of the were on Court.

We got back with a little time to spare before dinner. After dinner we connected with Leo and the other guy in our group to do a night walk. Basically we walked around the lodge area, in and around the cabins, and, using flashlights, tried to spot stuff. I felt like we were prowlers, sneaking around someone's backyard with a flashlight. It was a lot of fun.

We found a wild boar almost right away. It was just waiting behind the restaurant. I think they feed it leftovers; apparently it's there almost every day.

We also some same sambar deer, greater mouse deer, and lesser mouse deer. I found this cricket. It was EXTREMELY loud. It was quite amazing.

Then we went to the pond near the lodge to look for frogs. Court was on fire spotting the frogs. We ended up seeing four different species of frogs:

file eared
img=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/IMG_0051__Large_.jpg thumb=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/thumb_IMG_0051__Large_.jpg
cinnamon
img=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/IMG_6021__Large_.jpg thumb=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/thumb_IMG_6021__Large_.jpg
harlequin
img=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/IMG_6022__Large_.jpg thumb=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/thumb_IMG_6022__Large_.jpg
white-lipped
img=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/IMG_6026__Large_.jpg thumb=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/59032/thumb_IMG_6026__Large_.jpg
and one toad.

The picture of the toad didn't turn out.

Leo, our guide, was really excited about this. It was kind of fun trying to spot the frogs.

Then it was back to our lodge. Court found this airplane moth sitting on the ground by the restaurant.

I had just enough energy to take my first shower of the day. Then as soon as I laid down I was out cold. We had to rest up for another day of exploring.

When hiking in the jungle, eat breakfast. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Watch your step; there might be snakes.

2008-08-22T07:33:14Z

“Watch your step; there might be snakes.” The last thing I heard before our guide veered off the path into the jungle in search of... Oh wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.

We woke up in our lovely (imagine sarcasm here) hotel in Lahad Datu excited for our trip to Danum Valley.

We had to finish the last minute packing and make sure that they actually got our laundry done in time. On the way down for breakfast we found out that the lady at the desk didn't know where our laundry was, or anything about us having dropped off laundry to have done. Uh oh. We decided to leave it with her and eat. While we were eating we saw the lady who worked the counter last night come running in with our laundry. Safe! Half an hour late, but still. Just under the wire. As we were checking out, our van to Danum Valley arrived.

We got into the van and were on our way, with a couple of stops. First, for the sake of everyone else at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge (BRL) we had to stop at a pharmacy and buy more toothpaste. Secondly, (and from the BRL's point of view, more importantly) we had to stop and pay our bill.

With that taken care of we were on our way to Danum Valley. Danum Valley is part of the Sabah Concession Area, one million hectares of protected area in the middle of Borneo. Danum Valley consists of 438 km2 in this area, which is a relatively small part of the total concession area. Other parts of the Sabah Concession Area are still being explored. Current surveys continue to turn up lots of new plant and animal species. It's quite amazing there is still that large an area not explored on the Earth. The BRL is built in the heart of Danum Valley, it is surrounded by rainforest. Here's a shot from our balcony.

It was approximately a three hour drive to Danum Valley. In total it was about 99km: 17km on paved roads and 82km on gravel. It was a fairly bumpy ride (the agent at the BRL office joked with us about the ride being a 'free massage'). At one point the driver stopped and got out. We saw the other tour guide up front get out with a tire pressure meter and thought, “Oh crap.” They explained when they got back in that there was too much air and it made the ride too bumpy. That's a better explanation than a flat tire.

We arrived and were welcomed very nicely by the staff. They took care of our bags and told us they'd take them to our room when it was ready. At this point I took off to the bathroom. When I returned, Court, and the Japanese man who was in our group were each sitting upstairs with a nice fruity drink and a refreshing cool, wet towel to wash their hands with. The staff member gave us a quick introduction to the lodge and told us our guide would be Leo(nard). More importantly, she showed us where we could eat.

Lunch was excellent. There was a red and green bean porridge that Court loved so much she eventually got the recipe from the chef! We had to wait around for a little bit more for our room to be ready. Once it was ready, we got a HUGE surprise. The lodge was pretty busy and there were a lot of people, so we got upgraded. As we were walking down the staff member said that they were putting us in the biggest chalet at the lodge. And she was right. We have a separate living room with couch and chairs. Then we have our bedroom with a massive bed, lots of floor space and nice high ceilings. And a bathroom with separate shower and tub. Finally, there is a beautiful balcony overlooking the Danum River. WOW! In total we think this chalet is bigger than our actual apartment in Japan. In fact we found out from Leo that this lodge was built in 2000 because the Sultan of Brunei was going to come visit. At the last minute he canceled, but I think he came in 2003. There are actually three rooms, the main room and the right and left wings. The right and left wings were built for the Sultan's two wives!

We unpacked and relaxed for an hour or so. Court spotted this little green guy on the tree behind our room. As it turns out, it is a flying lizard!

Then it was time to meet our guide and do the Nature Hike trail. We met at 15:00. There are only three people in our group: me and Court and another man from Nagoya. The small group is ideal for this area. We left around 15:15 and were supposed to take one hour to do the hike. It was only 600 m on a boardwalk around the lodge. Within the first 20 metres Court spotted an agamid lizard on the side of tree. We ended up seeing 4 different agamid lizards: two females, one male, and one juvenile.

We spotted one lizard on the tree and he was one color. Then about 5 seconds later he was a different color. Take a look. This is the same lizard as it was preparing to bite if need be.

This is the male. Its fin is a lot longer than the females.

At the next stop, Leo was going to tell us about some white “stuff” on a tree and asked if we knew what it was. Court quickly piped up, “It's lichen.” I think at this point Leo realized we weren't just any people he was going to guide through the jungle. We discussed it afterwards and decided it must be nice for nature guides to get people who ask lots of questions and are really interested in the environment.

Leo also told us about the different types of plants and ways they've adapted to survive in the rainforest. Take, for example, the birds nest fern. This fern grows on the trunks of trees and its leaves are angled out, like a birds nest, hence the name. This fern catches leaves as they fall from the tree and absorbs nutrients from them. It also retains its own dying leaves to absorb the nutrients from them. Amazing.

As he was explaining about these ferns I noticed some pill millipedes. Leo was excited that there were two there. That way he could show us the difference between one rolled into a defensive ball and one not.

Leo also told us about lots of lichens, mosses, mushrooms, vines and many other types of plants along the way. One time while we were stopped, the other guy in group noticed there was a leech climbing up Leo's shoulder. It was a tiger leech. We watched it as Leo explained all about the leeches.

We also found a flat-backed millipede in our travels.

When in danger, this millipede secretes a liquid that smells like vanilla but is very acidic and tastes horrible. 'Secretes' may be an understatement: you could actually see it shoot the liquid out of its back. It was cool. The female slow loris will actually lick these millipedes and then lick their offspring if they have to leave them alone. That way if anything comes to eat the offspring they will smell this smell and leave them alone.

On our way back to the lodge we spotted an orangutan in the canopy. It was kind of difficult to get a great view of through the trees, but we managed. Then the orangutan headed off away from us. Next thing we knew, Leo said to follow him and took us along a different path. At this point we connect back to the introduction. Leo ventured off the path and took off into the rainforest, shouting back, “Watch your step; there may be snakes.” He eventually led us to the tree directly below the orangutan. We were so close, I was worried that it would drop something on us. This was definitely a good way to start our visit.

We got back on the trail and started to head back when we noticed a maroon langur (or red leaf monkey). The picture's kind of dark, but it's there in the middle.

He started to jump from tree to tree and ended up in a tree just above the path we were on. This was a new type of monkey for us. One more down. Lots more to go.

Earlier on the hike, Leo had asked us what we wanted to see and I said I'd be happy with a flying squirrel and a gibbon. I'd never seen either of them. As we were walking back to the main lodge we noticed some people had a nice telescope set up on a tripod. We asked them what they were looking at and they said were looking at a sleeping gibbon. They also said they had a nicer view earlier. I asked to take a look and -bam-: a nice shot of a gibbon's arse. Well, at least I got to see a gibbon.

We had enough time to have some cake and coffee at the lodge before the slide show began. It was more of an information session than anything else. Ray, one of the guides, told us about the history of the lodge and the area. Then it was time for the “dusk” drive. It was basically dark out, but it was still called the dusk drive.

We piled into the back of the truck and headed out. Paul, our guide for the evening, sat up front with the high powered light to try to spot things. Over the course of the drive we saw four or five sambar deer (the largest deer in Borneo, but a lot smaller than white-tailed deer), a common palm civet, and four flying squirrels! Another thing off our list. We also saw two of them fly. Awesome. They started to twitch and then jumped out of the tree and glided down to a different tree (which is oddly familiar behaviour... Court twitches before every flight, too). Very cool.

And it was time to return for dinner. It was another excellent meal. The cook is great. There was a coconut pudding tonight that Court loved. Again, she's going to ask for the recipe. And finally it was time to go to sleep with the sounds of the torrential rain pounding down on our cabin roof (what's a rainforest without rain?). As long as it stops by 06:00 tomorrow, it can rain as much as it wants.

Watch your step; there might be snakes. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Oh right. Now I remember

2008-08-22T06:54:27Z

This was our last day out on the river. We struggled out of bed again around 05:30 to take the morning boat ride. Not surprisingly, the boat left at 06:15, not 06:00. Everything here seemed to run a little bit behind schedule. That was fine, because we didn't really have anywhere to go or anything to do.

This ride was not very successful for seeing animals. We saw some

Storm's storks

oriental pied hornbills

kingfishers

a Brahminy kite

a water monitor

and more proboscis monkeys.

In the last picture we think he's yelling at some kids to get off his front lawn. “Hey you kids, get off my damn lawn!”

After the cruise we had enough time to eat breakfast and pack before we had to catch our bus. We all met at the dock around 08:30 to be shuttled over to where we were going to meet the truck to take us to meet the bus. We had a few transfers on this journey. Some people were headed far south to Semporna (about 4 hours away) and some people were headed north to Kota Kinabalu (about 6 hours away). We were the only people heading south to Lahad Datu (about 1 hr away).

They split us up and took the people heading far south ahead first to connect with the bus. Then they piled the rest of us into a van and the bags in a truck and took us to a café to wait for our respective buses. We arrived at the café around 10 and decided to make a contest of who would get picked up first. We won. Our bus arrived around 10:30. Our van driver waited with us to flag down the correct bus. It wouldn't have stopped where we were sitting if someone didn't flag it down.

Our bus ride actually took about 1.5 hours. There were two little kids sitting in the seats in front of us that I quickly befriended by crossing my eyes at them. I made faces at them while they ducked behind their seats until I got tired. Then I went to sleep.

We arrived in Lahad Datu and we quickly realized that we weren't really big fans of this town. There is not much going on. As you walk along the street, almost everyone stops their car and asks you if you need a ride. Usually by yelling out, “Hello friend.” Because we stayed at the same hotel we stayed at last year we knew where to go. We just told these people we were ok and went on our way. It was still annoying.

After receiving unfriendly service at the check-in desk and them messing up a few things we found our room and rested to get rid of our foul moods. Once we kind of got over them we went down to the restaurant for lunch. Again, it was kind of lacking. Oh well. What can you do? (I suppose stay or eat somewhere else.)

We wanted to check our email and pick up a few things so we wandered into town. There is really not much going on in Lahad Datu and it smells kind of funny down by the water. We wandered around looking for the internet café that we went to last year, but we didn't find it. It turns out we were in the wrong part of town. We got directions to a different internet café, one that was in the mall. We made our way there and guess what we found next to it? A glasses shop! Hallelujah!!!! For a measly MYR5, they were able to fix my glasses. I could see again. Well, I could see before; it was just that my glasses had a big piece of tape on them holding the lens onto the frame.

Then we did the internetting stuff. While we were internetting, about four teenagers decided it would be interesting to see what I was doing. They stood behind me watching for a good five minutes. It was really creepy. Mind you I did the most boring stuff imaginable and didn't go anywhere I needed a password or anything. They eventually got bored and left.

We were fed up and went back to our hotel to watch the Olympics. But our hotel didn't ge the channel they were on. But they did get Star Movies. What an excellent channel. We were soooo tired of Lahad Datu that we watched a movie called “Lightspeed”. It was such a B movie that it was almost a C movie. It was crappily entertaining. We think they spent most of their budget on the helicopter, Mercedes-Benz SUV, and the python-man's makeup. A. MA. ZING.

We had dinner and then found The X-Files: Fight the Future on the tube. That was a step up, but still no Olympics. Court was stoked. After the movie we fell asleep dreaming of our trip out of Lahad Datu to Danum Valley. Thank god.

Oh right. Now I remember remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It doesn't always pay to pay more.

2008-08-22T06:42:20Z

What's happening?

- beep beep beep beep -.

Oh right. That's the alarm going off. It's 05:35 and we have a morning river cruise at 06:00. Awesome.

We pulled ourselves together (as much as we could for 06:00 in the morning) and sauntered out to where everyone else was waiting for the boats. Surprisingly, we were conscious enough to organize ourselves so we got the seats we wanted: at the back of the big boat, by the guide.

We launched and quickly realized that not many other animals were awake yet. We didn't see many things, but it was still nice and relaxing to be out in a boat in the morning. We did see some birds and monkeys.

We arrived back at the camp with enough time to eat breakfast and get changed for the three-hour morning hike up to one of the oxbow lakes along the Kinabatangan River. As we were going through the jungle, our guide stopped to point out edible and medicinal plants traditionally used by people who live by the river. He also showed us different types of fruit eaten by orangutans and other monkeys.

We found this little bug and Court got to practice using her new macro lens. It worked really really well.

We arrived at the lake for a little rest. Our guide explained that this lake is famous for some very large fish. He said that every year the people who live on the river have a large festival where they catch the fish and then barbecue them. We weren't there for the festival, unfortunately.

We walked back up the path to a spot where WWF is planting banana trees as a food source for the animals. Our guide said that elephants will come here to feed for a while, and then move on. We saw, but didn't step in, evidence that the elephants had, indeed, enjoyed the bananas. At this spot, another guide came and picked us up with the boat for a quick ride back to the lodge.

Then it was lunch / rest / relax time. We didn't do much in the afternoon.

The nature lodge offers the opportunity to charter boats, at MYR62 per person, to go out looking specifically for elephants. Yesterday, a German mother and son did just this, and they got lucky and managed to see some. They told the other members of our group about this, and they also decided to charter a boat to look for elephants. In our group there were 15 people, and 11 went on the optional elephant cruise. Four people decided not to go, and we were two of them. Budget restrictions, disappointingly. Y'know how it is.

We laid low until it was time for the 4:00 pm cruise. We set off and saw a lot of the same stuff as yesterday, including lots of macaques, proboscis monkeys, and birds.

Then all of a sudden our guide took off and sped down-river. One of the other boats had spotted these:

Elephants!

There were about 15 in total. We were really, really, really, really lucky to see them. There are only two herds in the area around the river: one with about a hundred elephants and one with about fifteen. We saw the latter. Our guide said that they are in one area one and day and move on the next. They take about four months to move up river and four months to come back.

They were all lined up along the river bank chowing away at the reeds. We sat and watched for a long time. But then, in a quest to get closer (we don't know if it was the guide or someone on the boat who decided to do this), one of the boatmen put their boat up on the shore almost next to the baby elephant. These elephants are not aggressive, but it still spooked the baby elephant enough that it turned and walked away. Which meant, of course, the other elephants followed suit. This whole situation was very uncool with us. We're going to write a strongly worded letter.

But, at this point we did notice a male elephant down stream. We floated our way down to see him. One of the other girls noticed that he was radio collared and he only had one tusk. We weren't sure why that was.

We went cruising down the river some more. We didn't really see that much, because we were all still really excited about the elephants. Then we noticed that the optional elephant cruise was coming back from down-river. Our guide said that the other group didn't see any elephants. We felt good that we didn't pay for the other tour and lucked into seeing them. At the same time, we felt bad for everyone else. At this point our guide made the signal for 'we saw an elephant', flapping his hand behind his ear, and sent the other boats off to find the elephants we saw. Thankfully they did see the elephants, so it worked out for all of us.

We got back to camp around 18:30. We had a little more time to rest until dinner at 19:15. After dinner it was the night hike. We didn't go last night so we decided to go tonight. We left around 20:30. It was pretty dark and were gone for an hour. We didn't see very much: a sleeping bird, a slightly poisonous frog and a stick bug. But it was still great to be out in the jungle at night.

Then it was bed time. We had another cruise the next morning at 6:00 am. It was a good animal spotting day.

It doesn't always pay to pay more. remains copyright of the author agc_cwm, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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