Over the hills and far away!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Greetings from Lao or Luang Nam Tha to be exact.
Last time you heard from us we had decided to go north, and that is what we did. We took the night bus up from Krabi to Bangkok and then jumped on a new bus up to Chiang Mai 30 minutes after arriving at BKK. 22 Hours on a bus is not fun but the payoff was good. Chiang Mai is a lovely place to just kick back and relax. We took a cooking class on our second day and learned the tricks to thai cuisine which pretty much are:
1) Lots of heat
2) Lots of Chili
3) Only fresh produce
4) Very short cooking time
5) Lots of Oyster sauce and fish sauce
6) Flavor with Lime and Coriander (to be said in a Jamie Oliver voice)
On our third day we did the flight of the gibbons which was quite a lot of fun but at a very hefty price. Basically it involves 2 kilometers of zip-lines, ab sailing and sky bridges across very old jungle (for 3 hours). Perfect! Followed by lunch and a hike up to a waterfall. Not a shabby way to spend a day and the zip-lining was fun!!! We'll have videos for you at some point but the internet is incredibly slow here! (Please send your old modems to Lao, we and they need them!!!
We also celebrated a very happy new year in Chiang Mai with a bunch of crazy Irish and Aussies in a bar that sold very good Mohitos at 1 euro each... needless to say the bus ride up to Chiang Khong (border town) the next day was not nice. The actual border crossing was fairly painless but did include a lot of elbows and some crazy Israelis. But now we are here and here is good! Tomorrow we are off on a two day trek up into the surrounding hills to meet the hill tribes and enjoy the jungle (armed to the teeth with insect repellent).
Laos is a nice break from Thailand. Here everything is really slow and really relaxed and the beer... oh the beer! Beer Lao is one heavenly golden nectar and the price... oh the price! 1 euro per bottle and thats a 640ml bottle! Hurray says I! So from here we go south to Luang Prabang but thats in a couple of days! Hopefully we'll get some pictures for you then...
Until then,
Hugs and a happy new year!
Robbe & Micki
Posted byRobbe at 12:47
Det här ser ju fint ut! Roligt att se att alla era planer ser ut att funcka. Här har vintern tagit i. Vi har ingen snö, men ca. - 10 grader kallt.
I morse förde jag Ansku till flygfältet, hon är nu på väg till BKK, via Milano och Abu Dhabi.
Ha det så bra och njut av er semester. Vi njuter här av HIFK.s "viiden ottelun voittoputki"..:o)
Pappa Jankka