Chiang Mai 1/31

After breakfast we set out to find the women’s prison. It has shut down but next to it there is a place where the inmates are taught a trade, which is massage therapy. We both signed for a full hour massage. It was great ($6 each). Bo confessed that when she took her bra off the attendant shockingly exclaimed “Wow, beautiful ….” (As most Asian women’s, her own breasts were quite small) After the walk back we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool. At 6 pm we embarked to find an eclectic market across from the university that we read about in the guidebook. It took a long tuk tuk ride, but we found it and it was quite different from the night market. All young people. Many eateries but most Korean and Japanese. We were hungry so we sat down in one of the places. Menu was only in Thai and the waiter didn’t speak English so we went to another one – a Japanese Thai fusion where the waitress spoke some rudimentary English. After we finished our meal and were paying the bill, the waitress patted Bo on the side and said: “Nice body, no fat.” Two complements in one day, it doesn’t get much better than that. We took a red truck back to the night market where Bo bought half a dozen of things.

Chiang Mai 1/30

After breakfast we embarked on an adventure to visit the furniture manufacturing/marketing region. It is in and near the village of Hang Dong, 9 miles outside of the city. Chiang Mai has a system of public transportation consisting of converted pickup trucks. The rear bed is covered and there are benches along each side. There are red ones for intra city and they seem to be everywhere. The yellow ones are for inter city. We got on a yellow one and 30 minutes later we were in Hang Dong ($1.20 for two). We walked around, but didn’t see any furniture places. Finally, an English speaking man told us we had to take a tuk tuk to a crafts market 4 km away in the village of Ban Tawai. The tuk tuk was a converted motorcycle and the driver looked 90 years old, We had our doubts, but we got in. After we turned the corner, still in Hang Dong, we started seeing all kinds of furniture and design places. They continued until Ban Tawai. 2 miles down the road and ($3) we arrived there. We saw lots of stuff but nothing that appealed to us. Big and gaudy. We walked the 2 miles back to Hang Dong stopping at most of the places we saw from the tuk tuk. We saw some interesting antique stores, but no appealing furniture. In HD we jumped into a yellow truck back to Chiang Mai. On our walk back to the hotel we stopped at Gekko Garden restaurant for lunch. It is owned by a Californian who left the Bay area 12 years ago and settled in Thailand. The food was great – a California/Thai fusion with some unusual spices.

Chiang Mai 1/29

We hired a car and driver to take us to several places. The first was the royal family palace (Bhubing Palace)atop a mountain overlooking the city. It was 10 miles from the city at 3500 feet. It was extremely misty and the palace was not open for visit. But the grounds were spectacular. A short drive away we visited another temple – Wat Doi Suthep. It is described as a must visit in guide books and our driver told us that every Thai person who comes to Chang Mai visits this temple to pay respect to Buddha’s relics. There is a 300 step climb to get to it but fortunately there is a cable car alternative. It is a big beautiful temple. We were going to visit a Hmong village a few miles away at a higher altitude, but the driver was afraid to go there because of thick fog and the road being curvy and narrow. Instead, he offered to take us to a silk village. We agreed, but asked him to take a short detour to another temple – Wat Jed Yod, which we were told is dedicated to the snake. Since both of us were born in the year of the snake, we had to go there. It turned out to be one of the oldest and most beautiful wats in Chiang Mai. All around its base, people put small statues of snakes in different colors. Then on to the silk village. A definite tourist trap. When we got back, we took a short rest and then set out to find lunch. We walked down a main street where they were setting up for the night market. The night market is immense. It seems to go on forever. We went back for a rest before going out in the evening. Around 7 pm we left only to find out it was raining. The hotel staff gave us a large umbrella and we embarked on our evening adventure.

Chiang Mai 1/28

After travelling 28 hours, Al arrived at the hotel last night around 11pm. After a nice breakfast we set out to explore the city. We walked to the old historical part. It was a walled city and parts of the wall and four gates are still there. There is also a moat all around it. We went into at least 6 or 8 temples before we agreed “that’s enough temples”. We started our trek home and came upon a woman on the side of the road with a charcoal grill and chicken and sausage cooking. She talked us into eating (which wasn’t too hard) and cooked pad thai from scratch (about 10 ingredients) to accompany the barbequed spicy sausage. It was delicious. After a two hour rest we took a tuk tuk to a very large shopping mall – probably the only one here in search of a sporting goods store for Al. We checked out other stores and determined that prices were about the same as in the US. After we returned, we went to the night market. It is quite large and begins close to our hotel. You can find almost everything there so we spend a couple of hours walking around and shopping. In contrast to the mall, prices at the market are way lower. There are also a lot of restaurants and food stalls there so of course we had to eat. We had a typical Chiang Mai dish called khao soi, a mix of crispy and boiled noodles in chicken curry with pickled cabbage and lime juice. We also had a spicy grilled pork salad. Both were delicious. All this + a large beer was less than 10 dollars, and our roadside lunch was less than $2.50. Food here is a real bargain and fantastically tasty.

Luang Prabang - Chiang Mai 1/27

I said goodbye to LP by taking the last walk through town and Project Space gallery, and having breakfast on the Mekong. I do want to come back, maybe for the opening of the botanical garden in three years if all goes well. Took a tuk tuk to the airport, then a one-hour flight to Chiang Mai. I had an interesting travel companion so I didn’t even notice when we were landing. The hotel is stunning, but as Al would say – it’s form over function. Some of the design choices don’t make any practical sense. After a long-awaited good shower (my shower in LP was very basic), I ventured into the Sunday market. It’s a CM must see. It starts around 5 pm and takes place in the old city. Streets are closed to traffic and it becomes one huge market. It has everything, but the best part is the food – hundreds of stalls with all kinds of foods cooked right there. I must have tried five different dishes, I don’t even know what some of them were, but they were all very tasty. The most expensive one was sticky rice with mango – 40 baht (one dollar 30 cents). As it got dark, the crowds grew bigger and bigger and it was hard to get through. That’s when I decided to get back to the hotel.

Luang Prabang 1/26

I had no plans for this morning so I decided to take a walk to the paper village. It turned out to be quite a bit more than a walk. When I got to the end of the peninsula, I had to go down steep dirt steps to the river to cross a bamboo bridge. By the bridge was a small hut with two women who demanded 5000 kip (about 70 cents) for the right to cross the bridge back and forth. I tried to find out from them how far the paper village was from the bridge, but they didn’t speak a word of English and just kept pointing at the 5000 kip sign. I paid and crossed the rickety bridge. On the other side, I also had to climb steep dirt steps and cross a mostly dirt field to get to the road. No wonder I was the only one doing it. I followed the road to the village, which was rather disappointing. Almost every house had a shop set up with paper and textiles, but the merchandise was pretty much the same as in the night market and prices were similar, too. I did manage to buy a nice hemp weaving for a wall hanging. In another store/gallery I found hangers for textiles so I bought three, one very big. It won’t fit in my suitcase so I’ll have to carry it. On the way back, after I crossed the bridge, the woman examined the long package sticking out of my backpack as if she was a security guard, but she decided it was OK because she smiled and let me go. I met Laurie and Florence for lunch in the Coconut Garden. We had a minced pork and banana leaf salad, stuffed lemongrass stalks and sticky rice. Fabulous food. Then we walked to TAEC. We saw the exhibits about the ethnic groups of Laos and also about courtship and wedding traditions of various groups. And then we stepped into the museum shop and bought a few more textiles. I hope I’ll be able to close my suitcase tomorrow. In the afternoon I went to a café on the Mekong to watch the sunset, and in the evening the three of us went to the Roots and Leaves restaurant for dinner and a performance of traditional Lao dancing and music. As a bonus, there was also a performance by a contemporary dance group from Vientiane, which was very good. The setting in the restaurant is very attractive with tables by a pond with lotus flowers and the stage in the middle of the pond. Can't upload pictures tonight -- connection too slow.

Luang Prabang 1/25

In the morning I decided to visit the Ock Pop Tok weaving cooperative. They have a tuk tuk that takes you from their store in town to the village. There were three of us going – Trudi, a retired teacher from Lucerne, a young lawyer from New Zealand and me. It was interesting to see all the weaving and dyeing techniques and the setting of the place is quite beautiful – right on the Mekong. They also have a beautiful café and store and a small gallery. In the afternoon, Laurie, Florence and I went to see Rik’s botanical garden in progress. We first took a long tuk tuk ride to some village on the Mekong and then a boat ride to the other side of the river. There we met Rik, who gave us a tour of the garden. It has a lovely location on slope of a mountain overlooking the river. The garden has already been mapped out and some of the individual gardens started. There will be separate areas for an arboretum, a palm garden, a bamboo garden, gardens for medicinal plants, tintorial plants, herbs and spices, plants for elephants, etc. There will also be a children’s garden and demonstration gardens for farmers. It’s all in progress, but he needs more money for the next phase – putting in the irrigation system. What he has done so far and his vision for this place is really impressive. After the garden, a quick but highly successful trip to the night market where I bought a Hmong batik wall hanging, and a couple of silk pieces. And from there to dinner with Leslie from Pencils of Promise. It was not only delicious, but also very, very informative.

Luang Prabang 1/24

Slept under a mosquito net for the first time in my life. It was actually nice, like in a cocoon. In the morning I went to JoMa, a very popular expat café for coffee and good internet, from there to find Laurie and Florence’s hotel – Residence Luang Prabang. They found it via Trip Advisor and it’s a good one. While they went to climb Mount Phoussy, I went to my meeting at TAEC – with Tara, Khoun and Alicia. It was great to finally meet them face to face after years of emails and skyping. We had luch in TAEC café – lots of small ethnic dishes. After that back to my room for a little rest and to check out the roof terrace. I met Jean Luc, the Swiss architect who is running the gallery with Rik. And then out again – walked to the end of the peninsula to War Xieng Tong and back along the Nam Khan river. It was a pretty long walk, but full of beautiful views. I am happy to say that LP has retained its charm. In the evening, Florence, Lurie and I had wine on the roof terrace and watched the sunset and then we walked through the night market to the Coconut restaurant for dinner. Met a couple of Polish kids in the market and a polish woman with her English husband in Coconut. Of course, we had to walk back through the night market after dinner, too. It’s just impossible not to buy something …

Siem Reap - Luang Prabang 1/23

In the morning we drove to Marie and Harley’s orphanage/cultural center outside the city. It was such a pleasant surprise to see how lovely and how well run it is. The building is nice and well maintained, the grounds are clean and pretty. The main director, Amrin, arrived with his aunt and uncle shortly after we got there. They are Cambodians who emigrated to France, and now live in Montreal. Amrin is an orphan himself who was adopted by a French family as a child. The family then gave him the land and money to build the orphanage. He does an amazing job. It feels like home. It’s the second generation of kids there. There are 16 kids living there now and 4 are in college and only come to visit. He gave us a tour, hosted us for breakfast/lunch. Two boys played traditional Khmer music, which they teach at the center. Overall, it was a great visit. Before driving me to the airport, Pierre wanted to show me one of his favorite places in Siem Reap, Conservation d’Angkor. It’s officially not open to the public, but we just walked in and nobody stopped us. It’s a very atmospheric place --- behind a red wall, in an overgrown, unmaintained tropical garden you have several buildings from the 70s in various stages of decay. They house archaeologist teams from Italy, France, Germany and India working on conservation of pieces from Angkor Wat. There are also big warehouses with hundreds of sculptures. Sculptures are also scattered throughout the garden and intertwined with trees and plants. A very special place that may soon be gone. At the airport I reunited with Laurie and Florence. The flight to LP was easy – 2 hours. I was first at the visa line and quickly grabbed a taxi to get to Project Space, my home for the next 4 days. The building is an art gallery, and my guestroom above it is really nice. Nicer than expected. I even have a mosquito net! Rik, director of the botanical garden, who also runs the gallery showed me around and then we went to a local Indian place for a quick dinner.

Phnom Kulen 1/22

We left in the morning for Phnom Kulen, a holy mountain/national park about 30 km from Siem Reap. The first part of the drive was great – we drove through what they call the Angkor park, where all the temples are. The road was great, the views, too. We were stopped once before entering the park and had to show our tickets for Kulen. Once we turned off the main road, here it was again – a bumpy, dusty red dirt road for miles and miles to the top of the mountain. When we got there, I was surprised that so many cars actually made it. There are at least three separate sights in Kulen. First we went to the river to see the submerged Hindu temple, which according to some guide I overheard, was built in year 802. As we walked along the river, we saw a number of reliefs, and what they call “linga”, representations of Shiva. Then we walked to a spring hidden below a circle of white sand. From there we went to the next site – Preah Ang Thom temple with an 8 meter statue of reclining Buddha carved into a huge stone boulder. We had to climb a lot of steps to get there. The third site is the waterfall – 22 meters high, lovely and refreshing. As we were climbing down to see it, I heard somebody speak Polish. It was a group of 8 people from Torun travelling through SE Asia. We had a nice chat. Above the waterfall is a little tourist village with a couple of restaurants and picnic huts overlooking the river. We had lunch in one of the restaurants and since Pierre knows the owner, he came to join us for a while. And then back to Siem Reap. I really have to say that I don’t like SR at all. The center is a haphazard collection of old and new houses, mostly new hotels, paved and unpaved streets and lots of shops, stalls and mostly cheap and unattractive restaurants that chiefly cater to the backpacker tourists. It’s crowded, dirty and ugly. The good hotels are at a safe distance from the center, closer to Angkor park. My hotel is a little villa close to the center. The best part is that it has a garden with lots of fruit trees so we get a basket of fresh fruit in the room every day – mangosteens, lychees, mangos and small, fat bananas. I have to admit that the Buddha statue in the garden gets the first pick, and we get what's left. No complaints, though.

Siem Reap-Sen Sok 1/21

Pierre emailed me in the morning that he will pick me up at 12:30 to go to the villages in the Sen Sok commune. So after a healthy (fruit and yogurt) breakfast, I decided to explore Siem Reap for a couple of hours. I stumbled upon a big temple called Wat Preah and I walked in. I was talking to a young Cambodian man when another tourist approached and joined the conversation. He turned out to be Czech, a young man from a small town near Hradec Kralove. He got interested in Buddhism and now spends 6 months out of the year in Thailand studying Buddhism and meditating and comes to Cambodia to study, too. In the summer he goes back to the Czech Republic. He knew a lot about the temple and its history. Behind the main Buddha statue was another statue of laying Buddha – 500 years old. He told me to touch it and feel its energy. I did and I swear I felt a transfer of energy from the statue. Amazing. At 12:30 Pierre came with the CFI driver and coordinator and all 4 of us drove to the villages about 25-30 km away. I was really impressed with the roads—brand new and in very good condition. We saw a lot of nice, new homes along the way. Big improvement since 5 years ago. The last part of the drive, however, was on dirt and very bumpy and dusty roads. And the villages were very poor – mostly traditional wooden houses on stilts with thatched roofs, no electricity or running water. Pierre showed me the changes that CFI made --- community wells; renewable energy (biodigesters that use cow manure to produce methane gas that is then used for lighting and cooking); cisterns to collect rain water; drip irrigation system; community center, garden and fish pond; sewing center; and also first toilets ever in these villages. After visiting the villages we stopped in a country wat, which had nothing of the beauty and opulence of the city wats. In fact, the prayer room was made of corrugated metal and very simple inside. Pierre took us behind the buildings, into the field where he showed us remnants of stone structures and statues probably dating from the same time as Angkor Wat. We also saw several small wooden structures with stone statues inside, possibly also from that time. Nobody guards these treasures and if we wanted to, we could have easily taken a few with us. On the way back, we stopped at the CFI office, a three story building in a new part of Siem Riep.

Phnom Penh-Siem Reap 1/20

Before going to the airport, I met with Arun, a fiend of Marie and Harley’s, my friends from New York who sponsor an orphanage in Siem Riep. It was a great meeting. Laurie and Florence joined us and we found out so much about the right process for renovation a village school. Arun is Cambodian. His whole family was killed by Khmer Rouge . He started his first NGO in 1991 – working with street kids to clean up the city. He then got a scholarship to Columbia University’s international development program. Since then, he built a school for 600 kids in his village; he runs an orphanage for 69 children ages 5-12 and he brings 200 US dentists to Cambodia each year to help provide dental care in rural areas. He offered to help with our school, too. An amazing guy. At 11 am, I went to the airport and took the 45 minute flight to Siem Reap. Very easy. A tuk tuk from Le Tigre hotel picked me up and took me there. It was a nice ride, but I was amazed at the changes in SR. Five years ago it was a small town. Now, it’s a bustling metropolis. Lots of new hotels, wide roads, good cars, many new impressive villas, traffic jams, and hordes of tourists. My hotel is quirky, but not nearly as nice as the White Mansion. It’s a large villa of sorts, run by a young Frenchman who came here 3 years ago, married a Cambodian girl and together they are running this place. I think I am the only non-French speaking guest. All other people I have seen are French. The best part is a cool outdoor restaurant and bar. The food smells great and the selection of drinks seems extensive. I didn’t stay in the hotel long, and headed right to the center of the action – Pub Street and the market. The market was just as I remembered it – amazing. The best deals ever. I couldn’t help it and bought a bunch of silk scarves, a few traditional Cambodian cotton scarves and some amazingly soft and thin cotton t-shirts. I could have kept shopping, but I got thirsty so I decided to stop and get a beer. It was happy hour so my Angkor beer was 50 cents! Pierre, the director of CFI picked me up at the hotel in the evening and we went to a French restaurant Barrio for dinner. The place was a bit off the tourist track; it was modern and stylish and it felt like Santa Monica. The price was definitely Cambodian, though. A nice dinner for two + a pretty large carafe of red wine for just $35.

Phnom Da 1/19

Today was a very eventful day. Chenna and his wife Sophal picked us up in the morning to drive to the village. After three hours of a very bumpy and dusty drive, the last 20 minutes of which was on a terribly uneven dirt path which is only drivable during the dry season, we arrived at a little settlement of a few houses and two totally dilapidated small (one classroom) school buildings. One was wooden and the other was a brick building with a plaque announcing that it was a gift from the government of Japan built in 2000. We had a conversation with two teachers who told us that they have no curriculum, no materials and they both teach two groups of students at the same time. What bothered me was that the classrooms were dirty, ugly and disorganized. In my book, it doesn’t take money to keep a place clean and organized and beautified with students’ work. Luckily it turned out that these were not the schools we were going to renovate. After this visit, we unloaded school supplies, bread, water and other gifts from our car to a boat, which took us a couple of miles down the river to another small community. When we got out of the boat, we saw a gathering in front of a big and even more dilapidated school building. Obviously the village prepared for our arrival. School children were sitting in rows and there was a long table for us to sit at, and behind our chairs there were about 10 local dignitaries, including the village chief. There was even a microphone there hooked up to a car battery (the village has no electricity) and a huge megaphone. Chenna introduced us to the village chief and then speeches began. First to speak was the village chief, who talked about the community, people who live in it and the school situation. Then Laurie spoke and Chenna translated. When she finished, the village chief came up to the microphone to thank her and he was wiping off tears. Then we started distributing bread, water and the gifts for kids. The kids were great – very polite, respectful, well behaved and sooo cute. Then the chief, the teacher and school director gave us the “tour” of the unusable school building. Three temporary classrooms have been set up in front of it by putting up a canvas “roof” and dividing “walls” with a blackboard on each “wall”. It probably works OK in a dry and cool season, but not in the hot and wet season. After the tour, we took the boat again, this time to the house of the village chief who invited us to have lunch in his place. We brought food with us (Chenna got up at 4 am to cook it) so we set it up on a table under a tree in front of the chief’s house. His wife brought some additional dishes and we started the feast. We had 5 or 6 different dishes, including two kinds of fried fish, veggies with salty fish, pork with veggies, duck with some unusual spices and our absolute favorite – sticky rice with mango. Chief’s 5 dogs accompanied us. One of them just had 3 tiny puppies, and under a tree nearby was a water buffalo cow with a day old baby. Unfortunately, all the animals looked rather malnourished. Fortified with food, we took the boat back to the place where our car was parked and drove to Phnom Da. We stopped there for just 15 minutes so I could walk up to the top of the hill where the oldest temple in Cambodia is located. It’s older than Angkor Wat, but not many people visit it. Then back to Phnom Penh on the same bumpy and dusty road.

Phnom Penh 1/18

We got up early in the morning and had breakfast at 7 am so we can meet Chenna and his wife at 8 am to go shopping for school supplies for kids in Phnom Da. There are 30 school-age children there so we decided to make 30 packets with pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, rulers, notebooks and some toiletries. They suggested we shop in the Orussey market for best prices. Chenna’s wife turned out to be a pro-shopper. She negotiated great prices and we got everything done pretty efficiently. Then back to the hotel to assemble the packages. Once everything was ready, we said goodbye to them and decided to walk to the Mekong riverbank, have lunch at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club and then shop in the area. It was a really nice afternoon. Great lunch overlooking the Mekong, and then browsing through many beautiful shops/galleries with local handicrafts. I think that when we were here 5 years ago, there were very few stores with high quality crafts, but now there are lots of them and they have very nice stuff in well-designed interiors. Prices went up considerably too, but they are still a bargain. We bought quite a few things and happily took a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Another thing I really like about Phnom Penh is the greenery and the flowers. It must be lotus flower season now because there are lotus flowers everywhere – in the hotel in bowls and vases, in restaurants, in temples, in the streets – bunches sold by street vendors. They are beautiful, mostly white or pink….

Phnom Penh 1/17/13

After more than 24 hours of travel, we finally arrived in Phnom Penh around midnight. Laurie’s friend Chenna picked us up at the airport with his wife and two kids. The hotel (White Mansion) turned out to be great. It’s a beautiful colonial mansion turned into a hotel last year. The room is huge and so is the bathroom. After breakfast in the hotel café, we went for a short walk. It took just a few steps into the city to be reminded how I love SE Asia. Love the smells, the smiling people, even the heat and the traffic. At noon we met with Chenna and his wife and had lunch with them in a lovely restaurant called Khmer Surin. After lunch they drove us to the National Gallery and then to Wat Phnom. Afterwards we sat down and discussed visiting the village of Phnom Da, which is planned for Saturday. In the evening we went to another great restaurant --Ramdeng, which is run by an NGO that trains street kids for restaurant work. We had some unusual dishes -- chicken and jack fruit salad,eggplant with pork and coriander and big prawns in curry sauce. All delicious. All this + 3 beers was $25. Then we walked the 10 or so blocks back to our hotel and crashed.

Getting ready...

The plan for this 18-day trip is: 4 days in Phnom Penh with Laurie and Florence from the South East Asia Schools Project -- to investigate a possibility of building a school in the village of Phnom Da in the Takeo province about 100 km south of Phnom Penh; 4 days in Siem Riep -- visiting Sen Sok villages north of the city with people from Community First Initiatives ; 4 days in Luang Prabang visiting with Pha Tad Ke Botanical Garden and the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, and connecting with the local branch of the Pencils of Promise in Laos and from there... to Chiang Mai for 7 days to meet up with Al, relax, enjoy and shop!