Serendipity

Travelled through Thailand pretty quickly, it is nice country but I didn’t find it all that interesting to travel in. I was looking for something more exotic, and so for me it was too developed and not so different from where I have been in Indonesia. But I met some really nice people there. My first day out of bangkok I was adopted for a day into a Thai family, they let me stay at their house for free. They lived on a farm with only a few houses around, and it was really quiet and peaceful. I bought them some food from the market and we had dinner together, and drank beer and ate durian. the mom was really funny, while the rice was cooking she put on some boy-band VCD and started dancing around the living room. hilarious.

Im in Laos now. It’s a really beautiful country. I crossed over the mekong river from Thailand into a town called Thakek. There were very few tourists there, as it is not the season now. The town was not crowded at all, it is so laid back. I got the inspiration to get a motorcycle there. Near the hotel I stayed at there was a restaurant, and there I met a really good local guide, who went by a name sounding like “air”. he was around 24 and taught himself to speak english from a book. he never wen t0 to school but was really intelligent. anyway he helped me to buy a motorbike. the bikes in asia are realy small, but it’s really cool for me to ride one, since i always wanted a bike but never had one yet. it’s a “Kolao”, Korean made for Lao market. 110 CC’s of personal motorized goodness! it was funny, we just went to the motorcycle shop, paid the money, and drove off. no registration, no insurance, nothing! i don’t even have an intl. drivers license. The bike cost about $750 US. I should be able to sell it for a hundred less than that.

There’s a lot of beautiful scenery around Thakek; there is a special “limestone forest” area, with interesting rock formations formed by the water and limestone. Air showed me a very pretty cave that had water flowing out of it. There are also caves with buddha statues inside, placed there by people hundreds of years ago. it was a really great experience to cruise around and look at the scenery flowing by.

It took some time to learn how to ride the bike. After riding up to the next village on the road, i decided to go to this huge river cave called Konglor cave. To get there I had to go to Konglor village which was 40km by dirt road. It had just rained the day before, and i had to endure a hellish 4-hour muddy slog–from feet to knees i was soaked in mud. I met lots of nice water buffalo on the way. They looked at me with expressions of bored indifference.

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some damn fine water buffalo

Well I arrived to the village around 1pm. As I putted through the village all the people said hello or waved. Although they must get foreigners somewhat regularly, still some people stared as if I were from another planet. It was pretty awesome. I really loved the kids of the village; they seemed so natural and carefree. When I went down to the river to get on the caving boat, many kids were playing and swimming in the river. It was a really happy scene.

The cave itself was immense, it goes on and on for 7km. You go upriver to enter the cave, and to get into the cave you have to get off the boat, then the boat drivers remove the engine and push the boat up the rocks. It’s just a little river-skimmer boat, and the driver bails water out every 2 minutes or so. So on this thing you enter this, deep dark cave, with only a lamp on your head to see. For the first 5 or 10 minutes I was totally freaked out by this. I guess there was nothing really to be afraid of, but i couldn’t help but wonder what foul demon or prehistoric cave-dwelling monster might be lurking in the shadows there. On this day i did not have to do battle with any agents of darkness, and we reached or way safely back to the light.

The ride back from the village was much better; the roads had dried up a bit and i was now a much better rider. There was only 3 hrs left until dark, so I really pushed the bike and tried to go fast, finding the lines and keeping the bike in the proper gear. It was a lot easier to ride the roads aggressively and i made it back in 2 hours. I was exhausted. I had wanted to get back that night because there was a wedding in the village i was staying at, and I wanted to crash it. I was so tired i could only stay out for a couple of hours. but it was quite a fun event. It was a total Hobbit scene. Lots of food and drink and merry-making. Hobbits rule. I actually came as a guest to the wedding through an invited englishman and his Lao wife, and i was honored by having a dance with the bride. It was Lao style dancing which involves moving around and waving your hands up and down, with some wrist-turning action thrown in.

I’m in Vientiene now enjoying the city life for a couple days before heading up to Luang Prabang, it’s a village where there are a lot of monks hanging out, and it’s a main traveller destination in Laos. I’ll hang out there for a while and look for some fun stuff to do. Or maybe i’ll grab a robe and shave my head

I’ve spent the last 11 days at and around a place called the sanctuary. It’s located in a cove on the island of koh pha ngan, about 40 minutes ferry ride North of koh samui. Over time it has turned into a sort of center for yoga practitioners, spiritual seekers, and travellers looking for a different sort of vibe than the usual backpacker center. Here you can wake up in the morning, look outside your balcony to the ocean, then head up the hill for your morning yoga session. Have breakfast in the vegetarian/seafood restaurant downstairs, and listen to chill out music while you sway in a hammock, sipping your tea. Or like many, have a beer and a cigarrete and go tan in the sun. The bungalows are built up on the hillside among the trees, and there are butterfles, lizards, and a multitude of chirping,m clicking , and singing insects to serenade you at night. It’s all rather nice.
Then there are the people… “It’s not the normal cross section of society”, says Chelsey, a beautiful soul from vancouver island, who sings when she speaks. The regulars here (those who decide to take up a month or longer residenc) are often training to become yoga teachers. Seems like most have either come from some training in India, or are going to some training somewhere else soon. The first night here I met sherri, who had come from a month long Buddhist training in Nepal (now working on her yoga skills as well). She told me of a 3-day breathing mechanics workshop starting the next day. There I was introduced to ryan, who taught the workshop in the living room of his house. The room happened to be a deck looking over the ocean, with a thatched roof, attached to a small bedroom. Everybody thought it was a great place. Ryan taught us how to breathe with our diaphram. He was able, while inhaling, to push his belly so far out that he apperared to have swallowed a watermelon. Among other things we learned some diaphram stretching exercises that produced highs that I did not think were possible without consuming illegal substances.
As for the rest of my time here, I have just completed a 7-day cleansing fast. For a week I consumed nothing but psillium husk/bentonite clay shakes mixed with watermelon, coconut and other juices, herbs, and the nightly dinner of vegetable broth. Added to that activity is the twice daily water/coffee colonics, which are quite weird, eventually tolerable, but never quite comfortable. I will spare the details. After a week of detox, and producing strangely abundant volumes of some strange green mucousy substance, I feel quite well and am getting back to eating solid food again. I have lost about 10 pounds which brings me down to a lean and scrawny 135. Strangely, during the fast I felt quite energetic, although quick to fatigue. Much hammock-lying was done. I finally got to read “Life of Pi”. It was great.
The usual schedule:
7 am psillium/clay shake. yum.
8:30 herbs
9 colonic: water goes in, water + strange things go out, inspect, wash
10 shake again
11:30 herbs (sensing a pattern here?)
1 PM shake shake shake
2:30 herbs herbs herbs
2:50 lymph flush drink. good actually! carrot juice, garlic, and some other thing
4 last shake!
5:30 colonic again
7 dinner! vegetable broth with a side of lime and chilli, and salt if we’re lucky
8:30 herbs
9 probiotic pill

Repeat 7x

It sounds tough but there are lots of friendly people there to go through it with you, the days go by fast, and there is the spa, massages, yoga classes, a nice beach and beautiful surroundings. I’m feeling ready to travel on so whenever I’m back to a normal diet I’ll get going… probably to north east thailand.

cheers