SE Asia

Every time we told someone we were heading to Koh Phayam, folks asked ‘are you going to the full moon party?’

Ko Phangam (on the east side of Thailand) is famous for its all night parties, something we had no interest in. Ko Phayam, on the west side, is the exact opposite. Very few travelers we met elsewhere had even heard of it.

Ko Phayam only has about 200 residents (about 1/2 of which are Burmese immigrants), and maybe another 100 tourists while we were there. At the peak of season there might be 300 tourists. Most of the island shuts down 6-8 months per year during the off season.

Ko Phayam currently has no cars, and no roads wide enough for cars. Instead there are nice, paved, scooter trails. For me, that was one of the main attractions to the island. Unfortunately they have plans to build the first road across the island. While this may increase tourism in the long run, it will certainly chase away folks like me.

If you think you might want to check out Ko Phayam, note that the main island web site claims that the season starts in November, but many things don’t actually start until sometime between Dec 1 and Dec 15th. Good Cell phone coverage, Wi-Fi, and electricity more that a few hours per day are all new this year. Electricity is still pretty flakey, and went out for a few minutes several times per day, and is not strong enough to run air conditioners, etc. They are building a new generator for the island, so probably there will be 24×7 electricity next year.

A surprising number of people we met on the island come back every year, and there is a great live music scene at Irie Islands Music Bar run by a cool Japanese guy. There were very few Americans here compared to other places we went in Thailand, and LOTS of Germans.

We stayed at JJ’s Beach Resort, but if I had it to do over, I might have preferred to stay next door at Bamboo Bungalows (which had kayaks, massage services, and better food) or Coconut Beach (which had really nice staff and better food).

Unfortunately there was a LOT of rain the week we were there (we came a bit too early in the season), and there were lots of mosquitos. But overall a very nice relaxing week.

The sand crabs made amazing art on the beach twice a day after every high tide (see photo below), and I discovered the snapseed photo editor app ‘grunge’ filter (also see photo below).

Selection of other photos is here.

Pai in northern Thailand is my favorite place on our trip so far. I could easily spend a month there just hanging out, hiking, and exploring the countryside by scooter.

Pai has a really great relaxed vibe. Its touristy, but not too touristy (for now).

Every night the Pai ‘walking street’, which is really 2 streets with a total 4 blocks of vendors, comes to life with the most amazing assortment of both Thai and international food, all not too overpriced. We stuck with Thai food, but the hamburgers, lasagna, and Indian food all looked really good.

The traveler scooter culture is really interesting in Pai. Seems like about 90% of the tourists end up renting a scooter, and about 90% of them have never ridden a scooter/motorbike before. Hence you see many people with a “Pai Tattoo” (AKA road rash). But no one seems to get seriously hurt, as everyone drives very slow, and there are not many cars. The police set up road blocks everywhere to make sure tourists have an international drivers license, and make you pay 500 Baht ($15 USD) on the spot if you don’t. You are more likely to get stopped if you are not wearing a helmet (also illegal, but not really enforced ). Be sure to get an international drivers license if you plan to rent a scooter in Pai or Chiang Mai. For the record, I rented a scooter for 2 days, wore a helmet in town, and did not have an international drivers license. I got lucky.

Our hostel (Suandoi Backpacker Resort) was fantastic. Really nice people ran the place, which was a 15 min walk to town. We were the only ones over 35, but had some great conversations with folks. There are quite a few 19 yr old Germans doing a ‘gap year’ in SE Asia, and are actually quite fun to talk with.

I did a 2 day ‘trek’ to stay with a hill tribe village. We walked 12km the 1st day, and 10km the second day through some really beautiful country side. The village had no electricity, but small solar panels on most houses provided a least a bit of light in the evening. The villagers were not really all that friendly, but did not seems to mind us there.

Here is a blog on Pai that I found useful, and some info (somewhat dated but still interesting) by a long time expat.

Selection of photos.

After 2 months in Vietnam and Laos, our next stop was Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the first place on this SE Asia trip that I had been to before (in 1987), so I was looking forward to seeing how it had changed. And wow has it changed.

After 2 months in Vietnam/Laos, it was a bit of a shock to be back on the world of Starbucks, 7-11, Macdonalds, Burger King, H&M, etc. The Maya Shopping Mall next to our AirBNB could have been anywhere in the world. But once I got over the initial shock of being back in the first world, I found Chiang Mai really nice! Great temples, food (the Panang Curry and Khao Soi is amazing), art, music clubs (including a really fantastic jazz club), and a cool ex-pat scene,

We learned a ton about local food on a morning market / street food tour, and Christine took a cooking class. She then made an incredible meal with the recipes from her class. I love being able to rent condo’s with a full kitchen on AirBNB!

I got quite scratched up riding through the jungle on a mountain bike tour.

I got to play a couple songs on drums at jam night at the North Gate Jazz Co-op. The level of musicians was every bit as good as you’d find at the open jams in San Francisco, and included Thai’s, expats, and travelers. I met a couple retired expat musicians that live here and do gigs 3-4 times/week. I may need to come back for a while….

Christine did a day trip to Chiang Rai to see the incredible ‘White Temple‘ and the crazy ‘Black House‘ while I recovered from a bout of food poisoning. She also visited a “long neck Karen’ village.

I was surprised to see that trekking trips are no longer a thing here. Trekking was the main reason people came to Chiang Mai in the 80’s, and trekking is currently huge in Sapa Vietnam, so I expected it to still be a thing in Chiang Mai, but no. All the treks in 1987 included a day of elephant riding (now politically incorrect) and optional opium smoking (now very illegal), so without those options I guess trekking is dying out.

It is also interesting to see the influence of Chinese tourism on the area, especially in the newer ‘Nimman Hill’ part of town. All the restaurants and hotels have signs and menus in Chinese, as well as English.

A selection of our photos from the week can be found here.

Our last stop in Vietnam was Hue. More great local food, good sites, and really great people.

Our guesthouse was fantastic! And the abandoned water park was particularly cool. Our tour with ILoveHue is highly recommended.

As always, our goal was to try all the street food specialities. The Bun Bo was particularly good. I didn’t expect to like the cubes of congealed pig blood, but it’s really good!

Selection of photos are here.

We decided to slow down the place and settle into Hoi An for 12 days: 5 days near downtown at the nicest $29/night room I’ve ever stayed in, and 7 days on ‘herb island’, not too far from the beach. The plan was to relax, hang out around the room and do nothing a lot, and have a place for Christine to practice what she learned in her cooking class. It turns out our timing was perfect, as Typhoon Damrey ensured that we’d have 4-5 days where we had no other choice other than stay inside and relax.

Before the Typhoon hit Christine did a cooking class, and I went to Marble Mountain. I also found a club with live music that let me sit in on ‘lap snare’ and cajon for 2 nights. Unfortunately the bike I rented from our hotel (for $1/day) got stolen while I was drumming, and they charged me $75. Bring a lock from home if you want to rent a bike here.

Then the typhoon rolled in, and it was raining and windy for the next 5 days. Luckily we were north of the worst of it, and there was no flooding where we were, but it made going outside pretty miserable. Downtown Hoi An was under about 4 ft of water. We had a great studio apartment from AirBNB with a full kitchen, so we didnt need to leave the house, and Christine got to try out all she learned in her cooking class!

We also did a lantern making class with Hoi An Handicraft, which we really enjoyed. We tried to do more classes with them, but they were all cancelled due to the storm.

We loved our time here, and highly recommend a visit of you can.

Trump arrived the day we left. We cant seem to escape his influence! We went by his hotel, a brand new Sheraton that apparently they worked on 24×7 to get ready in time, on our way to Da Nang.

A selection of photos from our time in Hoi An is here.

Vientiane was somewhat disappointing after Luang Prabang. Its much more run down, and does not seem to be improving as quickly. But it was still interesting, and the ‘Budha Park’ (photos in the link below) was very cool.

The other great thing about Vientiane is the food and coffee. We had a fantastic French meal for about $25 (for 2), and saw many Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai places.

We even went to a North Korean chain restaurant, which was really quite good! We hoped there would be performances, but there were none that night. But we were treated to videos of the North Korean music. Hits like ‘Great Comrade Kim Jung Un’, and songs from the Moranbong Band such as “Voice of my Heart” and ‘Let’s Support our Supreme Commander with Arms”. You really must check them out. The staff were all young and cute women.

We got to see the first day of the That Luang Festival, which was very interesting indeed.

We stayed this guesthouse, which had fantastic views of sunset on the river, but was a bit far from downtown.

Some photos of Vientiane are here.

Also, I never did a blog on our visit to the Plain of Jars. Those photos are here.

We flew from Hanoi to Luang Prabang (1.25 hr flight, $140). Luang Prabang is a small (pop 56K) ‘world heritage town’. It reminds me a lot of a hotter and more humid version of Antigua, Guatemala. Lots of tourists, a few expats, good international food, but not too overpriced and resort-like (yet). It makes me want to go back to Antigua..

The main thing that everyone does here go to Kuang Si falls, and ride some elephants. The other “must do” activity is to give alms to the monks. See the links to photos below.

We decided to settle in for 9 days and relax. Christine did some volunteer teaching and meditation. We did a couple boat and kayak trips on the Mekong River, which reminds me off growing up on the Mississippi in Davenport IA. Very muddy, polluted, and strong current.

Overall I like Laos better than Vietnam in some ways so far. Its much cleaner and and quieter. Way less trash everywhere, and people don’t drive with their horns they way they do in Vietnam. Of course there are way less people too. I love that you have to take off your shoes outside the front door of all the guest houses.

We got to ride our first electric Tuk Tuk, which I hope catches on quickly, as its much nicer than a regular Tuk Tuk in every way.

Everyone I talked to is worried about what will happen to the town after the new high-speed train from China is completed (scheduled for 2020). There are several huge Chinese hotels already under construction on the edge of town. Go now, before the train starts running.

Some locals I talked to expect China to just invade and take over someday. There are serious challenges for this town to maintain its world heritage status in the face of so much growth.

Next, off to the ‘plain of jars’, which will be completely different.

Photos:

• In town
• Around town

We stayed at the IQ Inn. We loved the location. Close to the main tourist zone, but not in it. We had the upstairs room, which was great. I would not recommend staying in any of the downstairs rooms.