Chiang Saen

We decided to spend a day riding to Chiang Saen and seeing the ruins and surrounds there. We’ve been thinking of going to Chiang Saen for probably the last year but hadn’t got around to it until now. We allowed ourselves quite a few days to chill out in Chiang Rai before heading to NZ, so although our timing wasn’t fantastic to see a new place (because of all the fires in northern Thailand at the moment there is smoke everywhere) we decided that we’d already delayed enough; now was the time to take the journey to Chiang Saen.

Our visions of quaint country back roads similar to those we drove on in southern Thailand when driving from Koh Lanta to Malaysia were quickly dashed when we realised that the road was pretty much a highway, in preparation for the expected traffic increase when the bridge to Laos goes in later this year. And, after we’d been on that big, wide road for probably 45 minutes, it turned into a really long stretch of dusty, not-yet-complete road with muddy patches as well. At one point we considered turning around, because the dust really was thick and combined with the smoke it wasn’t the most pleasant way to spend a day, but thankfully we decided ‘just 10 more minutes’ and after about 5 minutes we arrived in Chiang Saen.

The town itself was pretty much non-existent, the view of Laos across the Mekong looked like it would have been really lovely on a clear day but was quite hazy when we saw it.

The main attraction was meant to be a lake (which we didn’t find) and lots of archaeological ruins and a few temples. The main temple turned out to be really cool, up there with one of the coolest we’ve seen in Asia; partly because it was surrounded by loads of trees filled with loud cicadas and partly because it was half ruins and half open air, giving it a really unique feel.

We spent some time sitting in the grounds just soaking up the awesome atmosphere and then decided to head off to see the other ruins, which were also quite nice. We found some trees covered with huge amazing flowers that smelled really nice too!

By the time we got back to Chiang Rai we were both orangey-brown, covered in dust, and still both thought we’d had a pretty good day out. We decided that was enough energetic sight seeing for this time, so decided to spend the rest of our days chilling in Chiang Rai before heading to NZ. Our photos of are here.

A month of farewells

We have been spending about one week in every 3 or 4 in Chiang Rai and lately we have been seeing a few new things each time and really getting to know northern Thailand well. Recently we drove out of town to a newly opened restaurant that was getting good write ups in the papers for having not only good food and wine but also extensive gardens and tea plantations. It turned out to be a pretty fun day out which involved eating a lot of fresh tea leaves and wandering through the gardens.

When we got back to Luang Namtha we had to say goodbye to our friend Jacob, the guy who has been doing his PhD on the minority tribes in the area for the past year or so. We made a party for him in the shop and had a night starting at the shop and then the Chinese disco. There was a cool red moon too!

We also decided to get a bigger bike and ride a few hours through stunning views to stay on the Mekong again. The journey was really enjoyable and we stopped many times along the way to relax in ride paddy huts or just a good view points.

The couple of days that followed our friends Phil and Abigail came to visit, and we had a great time catching up and showing them some of Luang Namtha’s beauty. This included time at the river, in the rice fields and eating some more of Paet’s awesome food. We met Phil and Abigail last time they were here in Luang Namtha a few months ago, and they had a spare week before they returned home to Switzerland so came back again to hang out with us and soak up some more of Luang Namtha’s awesomeness.

Another farewell was then to be had – it was Anna’s last visit to Luang Namtha while we are still here (her final visit will be when we’re in NZ). Anna is one of the guides on the Stray bus that comes to town twice a week, and Forest Retreat always serves them cocktails and breakfast and so we get to know the guides quite well. So again we made a cocktail party and went to the disco. The Chinese disco is always an experience – normally a strange one, and not always a fun one, which is why we don’t make it there that often. This time though we had a ball and danced for hours. There was a guy there wearing his bike helmet inside, so Dre convinced another guy who was dancing that it would be cool for him to wear his helmet too, and so a hilarious scene followed with him dancing with his helmet on… only in Laos.

Less than a week later we had our own farewell, we had a bit of a party in the shop and prepared to say our temporary goodbyes to Luang Namtha and our friends here while we return home for Karen’s sister Julia’s wedding and travel a bit more. Before we leave for NZ, we’ll hang out in Thailand again for a while. Our photos of the past few weeks are here.

Dre’s mum Jillian’s visit

We went to Chiang Rai to meet Jillian at the airport and briefly show her some of Chiang Rai’s highlights. When Jillian arrived she was tired so we settled for going to the White Temple in the morning.

We spent probably an hour inside (where the real highlights are and where you can’t take photos) admiring the intricate artwork and then went to the art gallery beside the temple by the same artist.

Then it was on to Luang Namtha; we managed to have our first tuk tuk break down on the way to the bus station so had to get the driver to call the bus driver and get him to wait for us! Our arrival back in Luang Namtha co-incided with a cold snap which turned out to be the coldest two weeks of the entire year! The first day in LNT we heard there was a special occassion at the temple so went up there so we could all get blessed by the head monk and also see the celebrations; on the way Jillian also managed to have a motorbike break down! (again our first in Asia). As anticipated the celebrations were typical Lao style – very loud and basically destroying the peace and quiet that is the allure of the temple. We still got to see the views but with the raucous music it wasn’t quite the same. Both of us got blessed by the monk and after a motorbike replacement we all went back into town and then decided to visit the waterfall.

At the waterfall we saw the village has set up a water ‘pump’ of sorts where the waterfall fills the bamboo bucket and then when the water empties the rice is pounded – very clever! We went into the village to have a look around also and Jillian got some handmade bamboo paper.

We went to explore the river, and the old stupa, and the Lao Lao distillery where we got to see the fresh Lao Lao being heated and taste the fresh brew. Even more potent when it’s hot! We also stopped to join a Tai Dam party for a few minutes, Lao people really know how to party so we thought this would give Jillian a good insight into the craziness.

We then went up to Muang Sing for the night and along the way saw the usual groups animals and children. Once we got to Muang Sing we saw this cool huge katydid (above) just hanging out on the road. We moved it to the side of the road so it was less likely to get run over. We went to visit the school at a Hmong village that we visit fairly regularly. It was pretty cool because the kids were in class singing and learning and the teachers got them to sing a song for us and pose for photos. Then we wandered around a bit and were leaving on our bikes when school break started, so a group of kids ran after our bike for several minutes laughing and shouting. On our way back from Muang Sing we stopped in a Tai Dam village for Jillian to buy some handwoven silk handicrafts.

When we got back to Luang Namtha we visited Ban Sopsim, a local village that Forest Retreat Laos supports by way of donations, sending travellers to spend the night at their village, and paying them for trail maintenance etc. Jillian generously bought some excellent English teaching manuals for the school to use and she gave them to the village chief. We now also support the school by sending volunteers there to help with English also and ensure the teacher knows how to use the manuals properly.

Then it was time for Jillian to continue exploring Laos, so after a leaving dinner with Thong and Paet, the following morning she left for Nong Kiau. Our photos from Jillian’s visit are here.

Temple in Chiang Rai: found

You may or may not recall, a couple of months back we went up a temple on a hill in Chiang Rai and far in the distance we could see another cool looking temple. We mentioned on this blog that we hoped to find it at some point in the future, so this time when we were in Chiang Rai Dre accepted the challenge of picking the right road to find this temple. And succeeded!

From the hill we first viewed it on, it looked almost like an Aztec structure but when we got up close it turned out to be a fairly new, very well maintained Chinese temple. We arrived with perfect timing – we got to see the sunset behind the temple and when we walked right up to the top inside the views from every side were amazing. Inside the smell was so good – all of the Buddha’s and other statues were carved from Sandalwood so the entire temple was filled with the awesome scent of the wood.

Thong came to meet us to take everything back to Luang Namtha for the shop, and so we took him to try his first ever pizza. He went into the kitchen and convinced the staff to let him try olives, capers, and anchovies for the first time also – they thought it was hilarious for a sheltered jungle boy from Laos to come to the big city in Chiang Rai and try so many ‘firsts’.

Now we are about to board a night bus for 15 hours to get to Vientiane – it’s much quicker to go this way than to travel down Laos and unfortunately we have to return to our least-favourite part of Laos to get our new visas. Our photos from Chiang Rai are here.

Seen in one day

OK so it’s probably not that nice to make fun of non-English speaking countries’ spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and sentences that just don’t make sense at all. We are the first to admit that we can’t read or write (yet!) in Thai or Lao. And we probably make plenty of mistakes in English too. So sorry Laos and Thailand, but we saw all of these things in one day on the way from Luang Namtha to Chiang Rai, and by the end of the day we had to admit that it’s pretty funny.

We even had another group of tourists ask us ‘What is a sandwich cup?’ erm… order it and find out? Guess? And as for trying to do western food… well this pretty much sums up what we were talking about in the last post – real western food doesn’t really exist in most of Laos. Anyone who wants to eat ‘grill bread with ham, mackerel, and cheese’ or ‘ham, egg and orange sandwich’, please order here! Click on the pictures below to see the larger versions of the photos.

Collecting Tim from Thailand

We went back to Chiang Rai to meet Tim and show him around for a couple of days before heading back to Luang Namtha. We went to the white temple again and we were still amazed at how cool it is, even though we’ve seen it a few times before now. We also went into the art gallery beside the white temple – everything in there has been painted or sculpted by the same artist who designed the temple and has painted the murals inside (still only 3 walls painted, we are eagerly awaiting the 4th wall to see what he does!). That was insanely cool and we really want to get some of his paintings.

We spent a lot of time motorbiking around, visiting a waterfall, driving through mud to get to tea plantations, and seeing some other temples as well as going to the night market.

We only spent a couple of days in Chiang Rai but it was an awesome way for Tim to be introduced to the craziness of Asia before we get to the real adventure in Luang Namtha. Our photos in Chiang Rai are here.

Stranded in Chiang Rai (briefly)

We spent our first couple of days rushing around, as usual, buying stuff and riding around trying to find things that we need and cannot buy in Laos. So on our third night, we were pretty exhausted and we were preparing to leave the following morning. Dre wanted to visit the woodfired pizza place, and check out their oven as well as eat their pizza, so we went there for dinner. A few minutes after we sat down, torrential rain started and within about an hour the whole street had flooded. This isn’t too unusual for rainy season, so we didn’t think much of it and just waited til it eased a bit before we rode home.

But, the rain didn’t stop all night or all morning the next day so it meant that the streets were too flooded for us to leave Chiang Rai. We didn’t mind too much, we got some time to relax and then when it cleared up in the afternoon spent some time riding around the non-flooded streets and outskirts of town seeing some cool temples that we hadn’t seen yet.

We saw some awesome views and also found another cool temple in the distance that we want to try and find next time we’re here. Tim when you get here, we have heaps of cool things for you to ride to with us and see! Tomorrow, if the rain holds off, we’ll head back to Luang Namtha. Our photos are here.

It’s all go in Luang Namtha

On arrival back in the northern part of South East Asia we were a bit worried about whether we could handle the heat again after NZ – our few days in Chiang Mai were around 40 degrees and then our few days in Chiang Rai were all between 35-40. So after NZ, and the mountains in Indonesia, we were melting! So when we got back to Luang Namtha we were pleased it wasn’t quite so ridiculously hot. We got back to find out that our hotel booking had been given away – for the room that we had lived in for over 6 months already – because there was a large group that had come to the hotel. This turned out to be a blessing, because we found that the hotel neighbouring Forest Retreat had just opened it’s top 2 floors that week, and we ended up getting a room which is brand new, cheaper and bigger and nicer than our other room. Plus a view of the palm trees and mountains, so we are pretty pleased.

After catching up on everything that has happened while we’ve been gone (weddings, new businesses in town, etc) and had given Thong, Paet, Mona and Oudone their pressies, (Mona has played with her buzzy bee from NZ constantly this month!) we set about improving the shop more and moving closer to our vision of completion.

We have managed to get more couches and chairs for seating, sand and varnish the bar and kitchen and shelving, put up lanterns and fairy lights, get a sun/rain shelter built and have started to aquire plants. Getting plants is not as simple as it is in most western countries, because there is no garden centre and nowhere to buy potting mix, so you have to buy pots, (2 styles to choose from in the whole town), find somewhere on the side of the road to dig up dirt, fill pots with dirt, then walk around taking cuttings or branches or digging up plants that you like the look of and planting them in the pots. So pretty labour intensive! Plus we have had Dre’s sister Kate working on some really awesome signs for the building and outside. Thanks Kate!! We have managed to get Tiger Beer to sponsor us with a sign and a fridge as well. So yeah, it’s been pretty busy!!! We’ve been really overwhelmed by people’s repsonse to the bar also – we still only have a basic menu which will soon expand a lot – but after being open for one week, already we are getting people coming to town looking for us, who have met other travellers that have recommended us. So if that’s one week, we can’t wait to get more organised, get the menu sorted, get the pizza oven built and start selling food also and then see how many people are coming to town to find us! Thong and Oudone are both taking it all in their stride and are really excited by what we’ve achieved so far.

We’ve also attended a baby party, which is another sukwan string / Baci ceremony to bless the baby and the baby’s family. This was pretty cool because by now we actually know a lot of the people who were there and our Lao language skills are slowly improving all the time so we were actually able to have some conversations with the local people and have a bit more understanding of what was going on. The baby party involved us going on our first ever Asian road trip in a car – Thong borrowed his brother’s car and we drove there without a break down so it was very successful. It was Mona’s first time in a car so that came with associated excitedness and carsickness. But overall it was really fun.

We got to watch Paet’s mum and some other ladies from her village getting silk from some silk worms – amazingly they only do this for a couple of weeks a year and then have enough silk to weave for the rest of the year from this. They take the silk worms which are wrapped up in their little silk cocoons and put them in boiling water, and then sort of spin the silk off the worms. Then they eat all the boiled worms! It was really interesting to see.

Karen managed to get reasonably-well electrocuted too! Once the shelter was finished we decided to put the last string of electrical wire up to put lanterns up outside but it seems that the last wire was not lucky. She plugged it into the socket and the whole thing exploded with sparks and flames and smoke. Luckily she managed to unplug it and throw it on the ground but had tingling and spasming muscles through her body for the next couple of days…. apparently ‘made in Asia’ is not always best. But she’s fine, no lasting damage done!

In other news, Mona has just got her first puppy, and we are trying to convince her to call it Mopsy but at this point in time she’s not budging from calling it Puppy. We are teaching Mona her English alphabet and numbers, so far we are up to the letter D and number 3 but it’s a good start!

We send out a massive thank you to our new Italian friends Paul and Anna from just outside Milan. They have given us at least 10 authentic Italian pasta recipes and about 10 pizza topping recipies as well to use in the shop. Plus Paul taught us how to make real Mojitos so soon we will have proper food and drinks, courtesy of them!

Unbelievably, it’s visa-run time again already, plus we need to buy more supplies like Gin, tonic, coffee, etc so tomorrow we’ll head back to Thailand for a few days. Everything is going really well and so we can’t wait to get back and make more progress on the shop! Our photos are here.

The White Temple (again) and Buddha Cave

We were thinking of going to Myanmar for a couple of days for Karen’s birthday, but after all the work we both did in Luang Namtha neither of us could really be bothered. So we just spent a couple of days relaxing in Chiang Rai, riding around on a motorbike and visiting the White Temple again and also going to the Buddha cave, which we haven’t seen before.

Visiting the White Temple again was well worth it – last time the front section was still being completed and also the mindblowing artwork inside was less finished. There is still one entire wall inside to be completed – we can’t wait to visit again because it is the coolest artwork in the coolest building we have ever seen. We spent days across the road from the White Temple last time we were in Chiang Rai, but actually visiting again and going inside and walking around the grounds was way cooler than we thought it would be, just because it is such a unique and fabulous building.

Visiting the Buddha Cave involved lots of riding on country roads that we haven’t been on before, which was very beautiful. The cave itself was on the river’s edge, opposite Chiang Rai beach. It is a very serene location. We met a monk there who had lived at the temple for just a few months and was eager to practise his English. After talking to him for a while and seeing the cave we wandered around the grounds and then started being attacked by a swarm of mosquitos so high-tailed it back onto the roads.

Although we didn’t make it to Burma, it was a nice relaxing way to spend a couple of days and much needed after Luang Namtha and before the 3 day journey to NZ. Myanmar (Burma) will still be there when we get back :-). Our photos are here.

One year in Asia

One year ago today, 10th June 2010, we landed in Bali and began our Asian Adventure. In the past year, we have seen and experienced more than we could have imagined before we left home.

The year has been filled with contrasts – both highlights and lowlights, too many to mention, but here are a few that come to mind:

Well, obviously, the connections we’ve made with the amazing people of Luang Namtha. Thong, Paet, Mona, Kumbai, Pon, Bunmee, Alack, Udon, Un, Enic, Moneylen, Lai, Shahu, Deng, we love you all. And of course the Forest Retreat Laos project.

Bukit Lawang – seeing Orang Utans face to face was amazing.

Halong Bay – thoroughly impressed even though Vietnam did not.

Seeing some of the most disgusting toilets on earth.

Watching someone die in a motorbike accident, with no helmet, and brains on the road.

Sunrise on Phou Si mountain in Luang Prabang – amazing.

Enduring many hours on public transport – discovering amazing first class buses, and not so amazing buses.

The kids. Everywhere the kids are beautiful. Especially Laos. And Indonesia.

Emma, Eric, Tricia, Louise, Deniss, Fafa, Ying, Ben, Bo, you guys touched our hearts and we look forward to meeting again.

Food, glorious food. We love the amazing food in Asia.

Unexpectedly falling in love with a country and town…. who would’ve thought?

We have put together some photos of the year, as well as a video. The majority of the photos have never been on this site before, and the video is very ametuer but should provide some light entertainment. Enjoy!

Our photos of our first year in Asia are here.

Our video can be viewed below.

Andrej and Karen Brummer

The adventures of the Brummers

Category Archives: Travel Thailand