Please, try and keep hold of your passport…

My heart is racing. I have just done a 90 second pre-dawn dash around Chiang Mai is search of my passport. The one thing I never let out of my sight. Usually it’s snuggled into the pouch of my leather utility belt, which not only stops my fisherman pants from falling down but looks good too, all tightly wrapped in a neat little functional package.

I have just completed a 15 hour bus journey from Vietiane and I think my absent mindedness was down to my excitement for being back in Thailand, my relief to be off a bus full of 19 year old Gap year students who would not stop talking for the entire journey, that is until the knocked themselves out with Valium, and general lack of sleep.

By the time I got to ‘my’ house, I leapt off the bus grabbed my backpack and waved off the Gap years. I was just falling asleep again when something triggered somewhere deep in my sleep deprived brain and I realized that I had I had been separated from my passport, complete with its shiney new 60 day Thai Visa. At that point I think I vomited a little in my own mouth and legged it down the road in search of a tuk tuk. My only thought was that I knew the bus was taking the giggling, sedated Gapper’s to a hostel and that my only hope was to catch it up. My phone was out of battery, but it didn’t matter because I had no way of getting in touch with the bus company anyway. The place where I booked the ticket didn’t have a name, the bus company was inevitably printed on my ticket but I had given that to the driver, obviously, so playing a game of cat and mouse with that bus was my only hope.

Naturally, at 5am in the morning there are very few tuk tuks about. Plenty of drunks, but no actual useful means of transport unless you count the Thai guy on a motorbike who offered to (and I quote) ‘rescue’ me.

I start running down the street, but don’t actually know where the hostel is. I flag down a Sangthaw, when one finally passes, but the driver doesn’t know where the hostel is either. My mind is racing. I am wondering what the process is for a lost passport and can’t help questioning if this is the universes way of trying to tell me that I need to stay in Thailand or indeed that I shouldn’t be embarking on a 21 day meditation retreat from Friday.

Eventually a tuk tuk shows up, charges me an extortionate amount to drive 5 minutes into town and I find the hostel. The Gap year kids are sprawled out across the floor, laying on each other and their packs, because the place isn’t open yet. No one has seen my belt or my passport. Gah. This is quite a wake up call. I would have settled for a nice coffee to bring me round slowly.

I mooch back towards home, half of me resigning to the fact the passport is long gone together with my camera and iPod and the other half tries to somehow manifest the bus driver seeing my forgotten belongings, realizing where they have come from and returning them too me. Ok, so a lost Passport is not the end of the world, but I’m angry at my own absentmindedness and stupidity. Having to go through all the red tape of obtaining a new one is an inconvenience I would have preferred to do without.

As I turn the corner down Moon Muang/Soi 9, my street of residence, I hear the low hum of a car engine. Only it’s not a car engine, it’s the minibus and the driver is looking for me my passport in hand.

I literally could have kissed the guy, but I figured that wouldt be culturally appropriate, so I settle for a Wai and multiple Cap Cun Ca’s instead until he got back behind the wheel and drove off, slightly bemused.

Finding Neverland

I’m in Laos, having finally wrenched myself out of Thailand – albeit temporarily.

All it took was one bone breaking journey on a local bus that was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of suspension across the border to Huay Xia and I’d arrived in Neverland. That is the only possible parallel I can draw to try and put Laos in context for you. You would not believe your eyes.

For two days as I sailed down the great Mekong River I felt like I was taking a magic carpet ride through the lush, fertile, jungle landscape; an infinite blanket of emerald green, enveloping mountain peak after breathtaking mountain peak, each giving rise to the next one after the other for as far as the eye can see. The Mekong has a glass like quality that reflects all that surround it, trapping me between perfect, mirrored worlds.

Life breaths from every nook, crook and cranny as we coast along, racing dragon flies as we go. We pass a few ‘beachside’ hill tribes, who I assume are Hmong, albino water buffalo and dozens of tiny longtail boats that look like toothpicks, floating amidst this vast scene, manned by young men and old, sporting those little pointed bamboo hats that you see in pictures of this part of the world. I don’t know the name of them, clearly.

We stop over at a couple of small border towns, drink some (illegal) herbal rice whiskey and dance in the street when it rains. It is worth saying here that we’re in Laos during the rainy season, so when it rains it really feels like the sky is falling. On account of the surrounding hillside the storms are thunderously threatening and it serves as a stark reminder of just how vulnerable we are to the elements when they turn on us. I can’t help wondering if when you’re so dependent and at the mercy of Mother Nature how this affects your perception of the Earth, this little planet we call home. If the local people are constantly reminded of how delicate the balance of life is, wouldn’t that affect their attitude towards how they work with their environment? I mean, they don’t recycle and they need to sort their emissions out, but they do seems to have a different relationship with Nature and I’m sure this influences the prevalence of Shamanism and Phi; a religion that believes everything has a spirit. – I feel like I’m not quite communicating my point here, so let me get back to you. Perhaps I’m trying to state the bleeding obvious.

Anyway, so here we are – we being, myself and the very beautiful David and Kippy; my state side travelling companions who I met in Chiang Mai. Already I am saying things like ‘pants’ instead of trousers and ‘that’s the bomb’ or ‘that’s so dope.’ In return they seems to be fast obtaining my thirst for afternoon tea and have adopted words like lovely, brilliant or wicked into their vocabulary. They’re not sure about loo though.

In Pac Bang, our half way stop over point, we wake up to candy floss covered mountains, as wispy clouds rise off up from the riverbank in the morning mist. I keep half expecting Peterpan or see a T-Rex stomp past to pop up, but so far nothing. Instead we feel inspired to do some yoga on the terrace, which is the perfect start to the day. Especially another day sat on a bench seat on a slow boat.

We finally arrive at our destination, Luang Prabang. Dubbed, amongst other things as ‘The Jewel of Asia, The Chiang Mai of Laos and the most romantic city you’ll ever visit.’ So expectations are high, but sadly quickly shattered.

Let’s get one thing straight, regardless of what the Lonely Planet might say, Luang Prabang is not, I repeat NOT any of the things described above. It’s not that I disliked Luang Prabang, but I didn’t much like it either. It seemed closed off to me. I didn’t feel welcome in this new place. The energy was off – and we all felt it – although we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. We were hustled into a hotel we weren’t that keen on, got felt up by the reception staff, were hounded by street kids and made the discovery that despite rave reviews, the coffee was weak and watery (if you could find somewhere that didn’t serve Nescafe 3in1) and the baguettes were floury pockets of air, occasionally inhabited by maggots, that the Parisians would not even wipe their nose with.

The trouble is, I’ve been spoilt in Thailand and Laos is a different kettle of (muddy Mekong) fish altogether. First, you only have to flip back a couple of pages in the history books to appreciate the past of this place and neighbouring Cambodia hasn’t exactly been rosy. Then, consider its now low season so there are fewer tourists. Finally, it’s important to remember that in Laos tourism is a fairly recent phenomenon and people are still adjusting to having their space invaded and learning how to respond to Westerners and all the cultural differences that dance hand in hand with getting to grips with very different modes of behavior and beliefs. Greater still, they are getting used to the canyon size divide that having money and not causes. I am left with no doubt, taking all these things into account, that the people here are trying to figure out where they fit into the grand scheme of things.

They see us, fat and cash rich, and feel deprived. One little girl who was selling straw braclets, with boardroom cool and a winning smile, insisted on us buying two one day and a third the next. When we declined, she pouted ‘You have many money. Me no have money. Why you no buy?’ She was 10. Pretty and smart. Her job was to sell said bracelets to tourists, everyday. Just to deviate a moment, that’s one thing I have swiftly noticed in Laos. There are no children. There are babies and there are adults. And the babies turn into adults at around 8 years old. This country is hardcore.

I can’t help but question if we really have a right to be here. Was this town happier before we invaded and there wasn’t a mass grapple to get as much cash out of us as possible? Have we bred greed in a country like this? I think it’s still the third most deprived country in the world, so of course cash coming in can only be a good thing, but we really need to reconsider if we’re going about it in the right way sometimes.

I think you’re average backpacker is probably responsible enough to make effort to seek genuine cultural interaction and support local business, but I do confess to being rather objectional about flashbackers, holiday makers and Gap year teens riding the party train passing through. From what I saw I can’t help but feel they are not being that mindful about the impact they’re having on cross-cultural relations and forgot tha they are ambassadors for the West, paving the way for things to come.

If we keep waving our cash about, waggling our figures and yelling in some poor street sellers face (yes, I witnessed this) and throwing up in the alms bowl at sunrise, you can only imagine how the local people are going to perceive us and the subsequent attitude that will grow as a result.

I cannot claim that I am really any better, and please don’t think that I consider myself on higher moral ground than anyone else, because I seriously don’t have this figured out. I’m just recounting what I observed and my general pondering on how to be a responsible tourist in a poverty stricken country. The issue is, you want to help, but giving every street kid you see spare change only encourages them to ask every white Westerner for money, which in turn with affect the attitudes of those visiting Westerners.

I need to give this some more thought. Before I move on from my musing however, I’d like to close this badly communicated argument by saying that in the villages, where tourism is not rife, people are more cheerful. They may have it harder, but they are content with what they have and what is and here they’re always happy to greet you with a wave and a smile. What is it that has tinged people’s perceptions of us in hubs where tourist traffic is high? I leave you guys to consider this point.

I caveat this entire experience by saying that Luang Prabang did in fact have some redeeming features. It does have a certain architectural charm, if you’re into that kind of thing and I often felt like I might actually be somewhere in the Caribbean due to the colonial French influence, rather than Asia. The dusty streets, and tumble down, candy coloured houses and dinky roadsiade cafes were more reminiscent of St Lucia than anywhere I have previously travelled in this continent.

The street food was also exceptional. A huge plate of fresh stir fried vegi’s and some BBQ chicken (I am no longer vegan. Very anti-Ahimsa, but sometimes you’re body just needs meat) for less than a couple of quid and you can’t go wrong. And I just so happened to take a little trip up to the most spectacular waterfall, where I swam in infinite pools of, albeit it slightly chilly, lapaz blue water that cooled the mind and warmed the heart, under dense jungle that felt absolutely eons old; their twisted trunks, trailing vines and enormous leaves testimony to their wisdom. I half expected Tarzan to come swinging through the branches, and almost wished he would, but one thing I have learned now about expectation is – have none!

Despite a few things that have left a bitter taste me my mouth there are some rare delights to be found if you get off the beaten track, like the local bar we found down on the bank of the Namka River where we sunk a couple of chilled Beer Lao and listened to a fusion of Asian break beats and old American funk. We rose early one morning to give alms to an endless stream of golden robed monks, as they gathered what was offered to share with their temple for the day. This I expected (there I go again – it’s a tough habit to break) to be a more spiritual experience in itself, but I didn’t get time to drink it all in as we were ushered into position, kneeling on the floor and swiftly had to get busy rolling balls of sticky rice to give to all those that passed by. It was too early for my sleep fogged brain to catch up with my body and process this alien activity.

It was a great way to leave Luang Prabang behind, with good memories rather than bad.
Right now, I am crammed into the back of another bus, designed for people half my size. Having just passed through yet more stunning scenery we’re headed for the Laos capital Vietiene. We decided to skip Vang Vieng, although reputed for its beauty it’s also famed for ‘Tubing’ and quite frankly my only opinion on that is – why would you want to? Sure you probably wouldn’t want to float down the Thames, beer in hand, but still it doesn’t scream genuine cultural experience to me.
So Vietiane it is, to sort out Thai visa’s so we can re-enter the land of smiles. (Chiang Mai, how I miss you).

The original plan was to go to Cambodia, but right now I don’t want to go to another city built up around tourism, even though Angkor would be amazing. The more I travel the more I learn that the real magic happens between destinations at unexpected times in unexpected places and I anjoy staying in one place a while, so you can find the little café’s, befriend the food market vendors and really get under the skin of wherever it is you are. Right now Chiang Mai is home to me. And every time I leave I can’t wait to go back.

*Please be aware this post was written on a bus at the end of a 10 hour journey, so if it seems a little directionless and dull, its because I was feeling a little directionless and dull, and may account for more spelling mistakes and ill constructed points than usual. Forgive me.

Living the Lahu Loca….

I love this time of the evening; when the sun is beginning to set, marbling the fading sapphire sky with streaks of salmon pink and the dusk chorus launches into song by way of signally yet another day is done. As I sit her on the roof top of my house in Chiang Mai, swallows dance above my head and gecko’s slip out from under their hiding places beneath the plant pots to feast on the mosquito’s that inevitably hope to feast on me. It’s quiet.

After being in the Lahu village, the one place you might expect to find a little tranquility, Chiang Mai – even with its myriad of tuk tuks and taxi’s – by contrast is an oasis of calm.

You see whilst the village is about the size of a postage stamp and has less than 400 tribes people living in it altogether, who by the way are not Thai at all but migrated across the border from China, Tibet and Myanmar. Those people are vastly outnumbered by the following; stray (possibly rabid) dogs, chickens, cockerels, pigs, ducks, cats, rats, plus all their corresponding offspring. Throw into the mix the fact that village life concludes at sundown, when everyone returns from working the surrounding rice paddy fields, to have a rowdy and really rather raucous time of it at the local hose pipe as they wash off what they can of the dusty, dank red earth that makes pretty spectacular mud cakes and clings to just about any surface it touches, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, only to begin again with a complete din that is several decibels higher just before sunrise. And what a wake up call that is. In my disturbed slumber I could never really be sure in which order the morning ritual began, usually because all manor of the activities aforementioned below regularly continued through the night. First (I think) the blinking cockerels would start shrieking. This was swiftly proceeded by the pig and their piglets running around screaming. This would of course set all of the damn dogs, if in fact they weren’t already barking blue murder, which in turn would startle any remaining sleeping babe who would join the racket by howling. At this point half the village (that’s 200 hundred people) would be up and either a) singing or b) listening to Lahu music loudly depending on their preference of the day. Around 4am the village clock, which sounded exactly like an ice cream truck, would chime – sometimes ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’, sometimes ‘Celebrations’ which concluded the official start to the morning. The motorbikes would roar into action, as the local coffee began to brew, and everyone would be on their way. Although please note that motorbike engines were only specifically switched on to drive up the mountain side. In cases where you were only required to travel in a downwards direction the engine would not be switched on and you’d just coast.

Now there is one final thing I need to explain about the Lahu people to complete the picture. The men. For they most part were small, frail and a little feable – and this was exaggerated over time and with age. In complete contrast, the women were voluptuous, strong and actually rather ferocious. And this too became more exaggerated over time. For example, a couple of 25 years old seemed to be on fairly even footing. But, fast forward about 20 or 30 years and Mama looks like she could and would eat Papa for breakfast. The women have quite the temper on them too, so throughout the day – including at 4am in the morning – you would hear them literally screaming the same blue murder along with the dogs. Coincidently this was usually directed at the dogs.

So, let me back up a bit. I was living a tribe village – being all Bruce Parry and that other one… Palin – in order to learn Traditional Thai massage. I specifically say traditional because this is the technique based on ancient healing wisdom, which actually originated in India, opposed to the other kind of thai massage which is administered by lady-boys and comes with a happy ending. Just to be clear!

We make the two hour drive up into the hills (using the engine) from Chiang Mai, that’s 30 of us, packed like pigs going to slaughter in the back of a couple of trucks. If we didn’t know one another before we embarked on this journey, we sure did by the end of it. Imagine being on the London tube, only the tube carriage doesn’t have a roof, there are no seats and it’s about a third of the size. Ok, well we all know what the back of a truck looks like. My point is, that I used to think having my face in someones armpit was pretty intimate for the morning commute – I mean I hadn’t even had my triple shot latte yet - but there’s nothing quite like having to entangle yourself like human spaghetti with someone you just met and not being entirely sure if your foot is in their scrotum and if it’s their hand or the next guy/gal’s fingers digging into your inner thigh as you two-wheel it around a sharp bend. Everyone of course is lovely. That’s one thing you find with doing things like this, you find like minded people, all doing it for similar reasons you are, and for the most part everyone is just so God Damn nice and oh soooo open for a stiff-upper lipped Brit I constantly have to keep myself in check so not to come across aloof. And even then, I probably still do.

I’m kind of here by accident. I was feeling lost in Pai, which sounds like it should be nice, like drowning in Apple Crumble or swimming in Lemon Meringue, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t that I was without ideas, on no! it was that I lacked direction and no reason or criteria upon which to make a decision. But then totally out of the blue someone mentioned this massage course to me and on the basis it complimented yoga perfectly and would be an interesting experience I decided to apply. Afterall, I’d get to learn a new skill and hopefully be introduced to some interesting concepts and information regarding the energy channels of the body. Of course, I completely overlooked the fact that I would selflessly be allowing people to massage me for a large portion of the day.

As with all things that are meant to be, it came easily. Within a couple of days I had been accepted, travelled back to Chiang Mai, been thrown into the back of a truck along with 30 other tie-die wearing, ankle chain clad, dreadlocked ‘trainees’ (did anyone else hide the same dirty little secret they used to use hair straighteners and wear high heels at home I wondered!?) and been deposited in the middle of the Lahu village, amongst the mud and the pigs and the kids.

Accommodation and facilities would be basic, we were warned, but I confess I faltered when we initially arrived. It wasn’t that I was afraid of roughing it but this…, this was like something I had seen when I travelled in Tibet two years previously, but hardly believed to be real. At the time these novel little outposts were akin to remote movie sets borrowed from Robin Hood Prince of Theives and Gladiator, put there just for us, but shut down after we were gone. I mean, they just struck me as so old fashioned – not in the appealing way that vintage Burberry is old fashioned - old fashioned as in from an entirely different millennia. Out of this world. Somewhere with virtually no point of reference in the modern West. But here I was.

I wonder if I’ve wandered through the door to Narnia, only there’s no snow. In fact this is probably the total opposite to Naria, it’s dry, earthy, hot (and sadly no Mr Tumness) but you get what I mean. So far on my trip I had been pretty pampered, perhaps with the exception of that very random guest house in Chiang Rai with the pant wearing, carrier bag wielding, Chinese man (don’t ask, I will backdate this blog post soon, I promise). Shock and concern swiftly turned into delight however, so I need not have been anxious. Without the over stimulation of on-tap entertainment 24/7 and extremely limited options in terms of how and where to spend my time I slipped into village life pretty comfortably. There’s something about it that just feels natural and knocks on the door on memories of how we used to live. After all, it shouldn’t feel so alien. Most of the world lived in tribal set ups not dissimilar to this one, with a sense of community at its heart up until fairly recently. (Recently being considered in context to the history of the Universe and not last Wednesday).

Most people lived in bamboo huts nestled into the hillside in one concentrated clump, many of which housed families the size of a small army. There would be no furniture of course, just a fire in the middle upon which to cook and a couple of mattresses that were rolled out to sleep on. Many people had TV’s, but not everyone could get a signal. Every third house had a shop beneath it, kind of like finding a Starbucks on every block in the States, which usually didn’t sell a lot. There was one coffee shop. When I say shop I mean shack, but WOW was the coffee good. Grown locally on the surrounding hills (which replaced the Opium, when Thailand was forced to crack down on its cultivation) and roasted on site (i.e. in the backyard). The owner, Sombart, really knew how to charm his customers, hence the fact most of us were there morning, noon and night. Then there was the ceremony circle reserved for religious and Shamanic rituals, the meditation ‘garden’ on top of the hill (where I was supposed to go at 4.30am every day but didn’t), the massage practice platform where we spent the days camped out or passed out, and finally the kitchen and dining room where we ate rice three times a day, unless they changed the menu and served sticky rice just to mix things up a bit. I just want to pause here for a moment to elaborate on the term dining room, as this is lose in its description at best and frankly inaccurate. But words fail me as how else to sum it up. Attached to the ‘kitchen’ (also loose in its accuracy) was a bamboo terrace on stilts about a couple of metres wide. We’d look out at glorious views of the valleys and hills, chomping down our rice whilst one of the locals used to insist on setting up a daily stall selling the most random array of musical (again, please accept this description with a pinch of salt) instruments, that could in most cases only play one note, and a series of vicious looking knifes that unquestionably would raise an eyebrow or two from the customs officials at Heathrow.

The beauty of this terrace was because it was raised off the ground the pigs and the dogs, and the rats and cats, could all scrambled around below you whilst you ate, churning up the dust and reminding you they’re waiting for your scraps. Should you happen to drop a morsel of food down the gaps, all hell would break loose for about 30 minutes, whilst the animals had it out and someone eventually got their mits of my banana skin. I’m not sure if there are any rules about feeding banana skins to pigs/dogs/rats/ cats, etc., but I’m pretty certain that they’re indigestible for at least one of these specifies, because on occasions shortly after consumption the most fowl stench of animal fart would hang in the air as the culprit snorted, snaffled and shuffled around beneath us.

By now I hope to have in some vague way set the scene, so now on to the massage itself. Well, to be honest I basically drifted through those two weeks in the village in a haze of looking for someone’s energy lines, palming and pummeling their muscles and trying to make their joints crack. In return they did the same for me. Some sessions were blissfully, beautifully, healing. Others felt like my masseuse may have been poking me with sticks or engaging me in some secret torture ritual. Usually between massages, despite avoiding getting up at 4.30am to meditate I was so pooped I’d pass out and forgo another meal of sticky rice in favour of having a snooze. You see all this massage stuff is exhausting. For starters giving one is a full blown workout, but when you consider that receiving one can initiate some pretty radical shifts within the body that cause it to expel all its toxins and dump all of the emotional baggage and tension you’ve been very carefully stockpiling over the years quicker than you can say Hot Potato you find you constantly feel like you’ve just gone ten rounds in the Muay Thai ring.

There are days when I actually wished that no one would touch me, but by the time we work on the back – the place where we store most of your emotional rubbish – I have tears of gratitude spilling down my face in thanks for having been given the opportunity to stay here in this chaotic little corner of the world, the perfect sychronicity in which things seemed to be panning out and the staggering beauty of this place; a view of the hills stretches out in front of me, the sky hangs infinitely above it.

I had a conversation with a friend recently and I found myself giving it the usual spiel. I used to live in London, working in advertising, got tired of the bullshit, decided I wanted a change of plan and booked myself a one way ticket to Asia in the vague hope of steering my life in a different direction. After I described that I’d done so far I concluded with saying ‘We’ll see what happens.’ I always say ‘We’ll say what happens.’ He just looked at me and said one of the most profound things I’ve heard in the while. ‘Dude… its happening.’ And he’s right.

So far, I’ve taken a slightly passive view on what will in fact happen, because I think… no, I know… that I am being guided in a different direction to the one that I was on before, but all along I have continued to chirp ‘We’ll see what happens’ but that guy was right. It’s happening. I just need to embrace it and stop being so skeptical.

There are of course a multitude of other things that occurred in those two short weeks in the mountains that I could write about, but we’d be here for a month of Sundays. Instead I’ll try and fill in just a few of the gaps.

I went to a local Buddha Ceremony one night, only to find a handful of people stomping around a candle playing one of those instruments that can only play one note and the tribewomen chewing pan. I did actually get up at 4.30am once and trekked to the hill top to meditate, only to ‘wake up’ with a thousand fireflies dancing above my head. There were impromptu sing songs and a birthday party, complete with chocolate cake and balloons that made me feel like I was 7 again. We lived in a haunted house and woke every morning at 3.30pm to the sound of heavy breathing. I saw the local tribal elder slaughter a pig, in a ceremony to celebrate the local people who had been working so hard on the fields, and wasn’t grossed out. Not even when the blood squirted from its slashed throat. Not even when it screamed. OK, it wasn’t pleasant, but this was one pig being killed for purpose. Without the distribution channels and commercialism of the West it just seemed somewhat natural.

On the weekend we drove to the local waterfall and typically I stood there staring at the drop below for a good 15 minutes, watching everyone else fearlessly launch in, before I got angry and frustrated enough to give me the adrenaline boost I needed to do it for myself (lame!). Then we ate noodles and drank bamboo tea out of bamboo and the Latino arm of our contingent started up a raucous sing song right there on the river bank. I didn’t recognize any of the songs, until they realized the Brits felt left out and threw in a rendition of ‘We all Live in Yellow Submarine’ that would have made The Beetles weep and left me wondering what the hell was in the Bamboo tea.

To conclude I would simply like to say thank you to everyone on the course, to the teachers, to the special Lahu people, The Sunshine Network and Ilona who made the suggestion I do the course in the first place. That and – does anyone want a free massage when I get home? I need to practice!