zero-gravity-floating-in-space

It was a brief, but eye-opening, tour of a few islands in southern Thailand. Ko Phan Ngan was the site of the famed full moon party the night before where a couple of people apparently got a little too messed up and actually died, being swept out to sea. It was a beautiful island and beach, despite the high-impact tourist/party scene.

The next day, Ko Tao (Turtle Island) we also discovered to be beautiful, known more for its diving, which we tried for the first time in our lives. Diving was fantastic. Nothing feels more like going to another planet -- the crazy 'alien' creatures and plants as well as the 'feeling-of-zero-gravity-floating-in-space' part. Nothing is also more counter intuitive than taking your first breath underwater, but worth it. Sarah saw (and stayed away from) a trigger fish, and Andy saw his black blood (red is the first color in the spectrum to disappear at depth) after scraping his leg on some coral.

A few days later, we were back in seething Bangkok, wrapping up loose ends for our journey to the subcontinent and even saw thai boxing. We saw two real knockouts and what looked like 2 fake (thrown) ones to end the night. Took the canal boat back (the best way to travel here) and got ready for our flight to Lahore, Pakistan.

It was a fairly non-eventful flight, although we were having trouble figuring out what Sarah should wear -- a scarf around her head seemed to be ok as there were other women on the plane to the Islamic Republic wearing jeans and no head covering.

Arriving, we were suprised to be whisked in so easily and by the enormous amount of advertising/signs in English. Andy walked the streets to get some food/water the next morning and was mostly surprised at the non-response. It seemed most people went out of their way to avert a glance, not out of rudeness, but just because they had better things to do -- even though he clearly was the only white person for miles and miles. Although one person either said "Welcome to..." or "Get out of ... Pakistan." It was hard to tell. But the shopkeeper at the gas station (one of the only places to sell ready made food) was cordial, honest, and spoke English well. 

 

We visited the border closing ceremony with India. Full of passion, pomp, and posturing as soldiers from both sides try to outstrut, outstomp and intimidate each other at the formal closing of the gate each night. The Pakistani side had a much smaller crowd, but were deafening screaming "Pakistan, Zin-da-bad" (Long live Pakistan) as the older man (a 50 year vet), his son, and his grandson waved the flag. 

Perhaps most notable, however, was the swarm of people after the ceremony that wanted to take pictures with us, especially Sarah almost to the point of a mob. At a certain point, we just had to say enough, get in the car and get out of there. Sarah had always said the crowds seemed nice and well-intentioned, but at the same time something in the air, she suggested "could turn everything the other way." Like when the 'mini-mullah' tried to preach hate against us because of when visiting the mosque the next day. The crowd suddenly lost their smiles and became angry at us. It's frustrating that some people just don't know how to interpret holy scripture.

But Lahore was absolutely beautiful and raw as few tourists visit there. The next day, after a 9-hour delay, we were on our way to the commercial capital, Karachi, and for Nasha and Kunal's wedding festivities. Nasha and her father met us at the airport, our first friendly faces in months. The next week was spent celebrating, going to a host of functions hosted by Nasha's family and getting to know the Parsi community in Karachi. Nasha's mother had had prepared some amazing dishes as well and perhaps the best dal on the subcontinent.

A word of advice to extended travelers however: try to avoid attending a wedding with strongly different wardrobe requirements at the END of your year-long trip.

While we tried our best to shop in Bangkok, we don't think we exactly fit in. Luckily our hosts, Dinaz and Polad, lent Sarah a couple of saris and gave Andy a 'shalwar-kameeze' for one night, which people even generously said we looked like 'naturals' in. We also managed to get in some shopping in some fascinating parts of Karachi with the help of Vandana, Zahabia, and Omar. In between the camels, unusual-looking big goats with peaceful faces, and phalanx of armed-guards around every corner, Sarah got some beautiful fabrics and killer shoes. 

After a week of parties and (almost too) much celebration, it was time to leave Pakistan for the other part of the wedding festivities, this time across the border in India, where Kunal's family would take court. More specifically, Bombay (Mumbai). There was much celebration as well as a Parsi ceremony and a traditional Hindu ceremony, both fascinating highlights and poignant moments for Nasha and Kunal.


After a raucous New Year's eve dancing where we toasted (too) much we had to be thankful for with Nasha's sister Rashna and cousins, we started to plan the rest of our Indian trip. Since we're pretty much exhausted at this point, we even did it with trepidation! After a little bit of rest, we were back in the saddle with a rough outline of last leg of travel: what promises to be a monthlong-overland jaunt through the remote provinces of Guijart, not-so-remote Rajasthan, then the Ardh-Mela bathing expected to draw 150 million people (not a typo) to Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, then the rarely visited province of Jharkand for tiger/elephanting before returning to/from Dehli.

It has been an improbable journey, but we might still have one more adventure left in us. Stay tuned.

Thank you: to Nasha and Kunal's families and Polad and Dinaz. They and everyone went way out of their way to make us feel welcome. We hope to someday come close to returning the hospitality.

Bangkok, Oriental City

Luang Prabang is a pleasant, low-key town, but it seemed like everything is pretty packaged, so we rested for a few days, decided this was a good time to say goodbye to wonderful, wonderful Laos, and took the boat up the Mekong to the Thai border. It was a pretty trip but what was most unique was the indomitable Mekong itself, surging with great force around giant rocks, forming giant whirlpools in the wake, We were on the slow boat, but they also had speed boats taking people up and down, all wearing helmets and careening through the water at ear-blasting levels. Call it 'Scenery Light,' maybe. We had planned to cross the border on the second day of the boat trip, but by the time we pulled in town, the little ferries AND the border had closed, so we looked for hotels with a nice couple we met on the boat from Paris, Paul and Claire. 

"Halls menthe-lyptus -- with vapor action"

We hardballed it and took the local bus from the Laos capital, Vientiane, to the legendary backpacker hangout, Vang Vieng about 200km to the north. The hand-crocheted window coverings were nice, as were the fans on the ceiling if they only worked. So, the bus' movement was our only moving breeze. Vang Vieng was a pleasant, beautiful place set against the limestone mountains, but it was also packed to the brim with the most Westerners we'd seen here. It also had all these creature comforts like looped episodes of "Friends" playing on restaurant/bar TV's, with 'comfort food' meaning your choice of either horrific Italian or nuclear-blasted burgers. We did the classic tubing on the Nam Song, where you float down the river in a tractor-tire innertube passing river-side bars, trance music, and zip lines catapulting you back into the water. We also visited a couple of caves. One where we followed a few others toward the back and onto a small precipice. But they started to walk away and for the life of us, we couldn't figure out how to get down. Realizing our flashlight was fading and the prospect of no others coming that day being very real, Andy shouted a few times, louder each time, to get a light -- and a couple of kind souls obliged. We followed them out in the otherwise pitch darkness. Our flashlight was almost dead.

The next day we began somewhat of another moto bike odyssey. The trip north on Rte. 13, then turning east onto Rte. 7 and then to Phonsavan (POHN-SA-VAH) and the infamous "Plain of Jars." The problem is that the routes go through a lot of mountainous terrain and have somewhat of a troubled history with Hmong Guerrilas, an insurgent group that launched rare and sporadic attacks on locals and tourists alike up until April 2006. All the advisories at the time we checked with before going, the State Department sites for the U.S. and Australia (including conversations with locals) all indicated that everything was ok, but we still wanted to check. We also wanted to drive ourselves because we had heard there were no moto rentals in Phonsavan, and we were tired of being shackled to the typical, well-trodden tourist buses and routes.

It wasn't a good omen, when 30km into the trip we started hearing small rattling/grinding noises from the engine when accelarating on turns but at the time chalked it up to previous bad spedometers, headlights and gas gauges we had gotten on other bikes. We were stopped at our first checkpoint on the way up the first mountain pass. The Lao police at first seemed genuinely confused by our presence at first, where we were going, coming from, how we got the moto bike, where's your international drivers' license etc. (which we had accidentally left in our packs at the guesthouse.) Luckily, they seemed satisfied with our rental card and Andy's NY State driving license and sent us through after asking when we'd be back. At this point we were in a hot zone, but still saw a few Western bikers going the opposite way. One couple was on a bicycle built for two.

Then came the 130+ km jaunt through mountainous Rte. 7 and the other trouble spot for the first 50km. Everything seemed to be going ok as we climbed higher and higher, then we pass through this village and see a truckload of armed men in camouflauge sitting on the road. We buzz quietly by, not attracting too much attention and that was it. We still couldn't figure out if they were the guerrillas, or from the Lao government, but we didn't care we just kept going. Our hearts sunk a little even more as a few miles more we saw two more lone patroling gunmen walking on the highway. An hour later though we crossed into the next province, Xieng Khuang and were relieved immensely as we knew this was safer territory. The only thing we had to battle now was the cold. We hadn't really eaten that much and were kind of going on adrenaline for a while, So Sarah pulls out two Halls 'menthalyptus' lozenges, and at that moment, the sugar and soothingness of the 'vapor action' did wonders to lift our spirits. We even started to head out of the mountains and into the plains now which the landscape which, we commented, bore an uncanny resemblence to both Calgary and Memphis. The dried, brown grass and bare trees over rolling plains looked exactly like Shelby Farms.

At 3:45pm, 7 hours after leaving, we arrived in Phonsavan, got a hotel and food, thankful to be there and excited about the next day. "The Plain of Jars" is a somewhat enigmatic site as no one knows for sure the purpose of them. Local legend has it that a king friendly to the people won a battle for them and had them made, cast in a kiln, to ferment rice wine in to celebrate his victory for them. The only problem is they are completely dug out of boulders, the largest weighing six tons, too heavy to take back and forth to a kiln. Much more likely is that they were dug out of existing boulders (other boulder field finds with half-made jars have borne this theory out) and that they were perhaps used more for funerary rites and storing of ashes, bones, etc. Either way it was quite surreal to wander through all three sites, each with about 100 jars, some broken, some on their side, and some still in tact with their giant accompanying stone lids.

The next morning didn't bode well for our return trip. Thick fog was all around and the bike wouldn't start. Only because genius Andy didn't try the choke. We decided to give the sun a shot to burn off the fog, but it seemed like as we were leaving, it was only getting worse. At the same time, there was a guy with a rifle (that didn't look like it was used to hunt animals) on his back in the beginning. And this was supposed to be the safe province! After a half hour or so, though, everything started to clear up and we even got blue sky. The weather even started to be beautiful and we were thinking about "the only thing to fear is fear itself" quote. That's when our chain slipped off (thus the noise in the engine growing worse). We put it back on and kept going, now through the hot zone, but the weather was so good we were really starting to enjoy it. Then, we turned the corner. TWO trucks of armed men blocking the road with a small space in the middle, looking at something on the side. We both said, "I don't know if it's government or not, just keep going." Without so much as a blink, Andy guns it right through the middle. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah could just see muted to empty stares on their faces. Once, around the next corner, Andy buzzed it through village after village, trying to get to the junction town of Rte. 13, Muang Phu Khoun as quickly as possible, just to be on the safe side. Then the stupid chain goes out again! We stop, get off and start fixing it and hear a car coming around the corner literally twenty seconds later. Our hearts sank as it was none other than the armed guard truck rounding the bend. We hoped they wouldn't stop to 'help' us. But they actually just kept going and were actually kind of rowdy and good-natured, saying what Sarah thought was "Beer Lao" to us and laughing. Maybe they were just the government troops. But we didn't care to stick around. Just as we got the chain on, the SECOND armed guard truck comes behind us around the corner. The timing was especially eerie because at the speed we were going, they would have had to have immediately jumped into their trucks after seeing us and sped off. We decided to slow down at the next village and discreetly let them pass us, which they did. Then, giving them time to get ahead, we keep going slowly. Up the next hill, our chain goes out again. Okay, now we're starting to get mad! We fix it and the rest of the way, just nurse the gears and cruise through village after village and make it to the junction town, take a breath, have a couple of coffees and soup, and start up our last mountain pass heading south on Rte. 13. Just when we thought this portion would be as uneventful as it was coming the other way, we see a true guerrilla in camouflage with an AK-47 standing on the side of the road! We don't even look as we motor by him, but our hearts did skip a beat when, as we passed, he whistled two times to someone on the ridge. Andy pulled the clutch to avoid the chain problem and roared down the mountain, luckily a steep grade for the next 5 km. We made it to the bottom and out of the hot zone. The chain went out a couple of times more but it was okay. We almost made it to Kasi before our tire blew out (the result of a patch we had put on in Phonsavan when our tire blew there); luckily there was a repair place a couple of km away. Even more lucky that it wasn't a half hour earlier when we were on top of the mountain next to nothing!

Over the next 2 hours, though, we were rewarded with a perfect setting. Great weather, unrivaled scenery of tropical landscapes against limestone peaks and magnificent fading sunlight. Sure our chain went out again a couple of times, but we were home free. This time, we didn't even need a Halls.

The next week, we recouped in Luang Prabang, a lovely, but heavily touristed city 160km north of Vang Vieng, and are now making plans for entry into Thailand. Thanks to all who are reading, responding, or just plain enjoying. Stay tuned. Hope to add pictures soon.