Leaving chop-stick-land

After about six months on the road in Asia I'm leaving this continent. It's been wonderful and the experiences many. Since this is the end of Asia, for this time, I thought I should sum up a few of the highlights so far.

Summing up six months is not easy, and the highlights has not necessarily been one specific place or monument, but more the atmosphere of a place, the people around me and the way it makes me feel.

The highlights are moments where everything seems right, where life is perfect and I feel that there is nowhere else in the world that I would rather be. So here goes!

1. Dancing on the underground in Moscow, Russia.

2. Chanting and meditating with the monks in Mongolia and Laos.

3. The magic of the Olkhon Island in Siberia, Russia.

4. Life in Beijing and everything that includes.

5. Being invited to tea by a Tibetan family in Ani Gompa, Sichuan province, China.

6. Living life at TacomePai, a wonderful farm in northern Thailand.

7. Walking among the temples of Angkor Wat.

8. Hanging out with elephants in Hongsa, Laos.

9. Taking trains. The atmosphere on long train rides in Russia and Asia is something special.

10. Celebrating christmas on the roof of a boat with wonderful people in Halong Bay, Vietnam.

11. Sleeping in a hammock under the stars in the jungle in Cambodia.

12. Lazy days by the river in Muang Ngoi, Laos

13. Enjoying the sunset over the Mekong river and then watching the stars appear on the sky, Luang Phrabang, Laos

14. Looking out over Tiger Leaping Gorge after four hours climbing straight up, Yunnan, China.

15. And of course, meeting you. You all know who you are!

Brunei

Do you know the capital of Brunei? Do you even know where Brunei is? No? Well, neither did I until I had a day stopover there for a day on my way to the Philippines.

I can tell you now that Brunei is situated on the island of Borneo, bordered by Malaysia on all sides. And the capital's name is Bandar Seri Begawan. Pretty funky name if you ask me. Brunei is a muslim sultanate and it has a lot of strange rules. For example there is no alcohol whatsoever to be bought in the country and if you throw trash on the ground you can get a fine of about 5000 Euros! So you probably understand that it is a very clean country. Or, I shouldn't say country cus all I got to see was the capital .

The capital has, as I said, a strange name and it is an equally strange place where modernity and tradition goes hand in hand. You see woman covered from head to toe in beautiful clothes whilst others are walk around with their hair hanging loose in the wind in mini skirts and high heals. There are men and women in business clothes, driving fancy cars and absolutely every one I spoke to spoke perfectly English.

In the heart of the city there is a beautiful mosque that is the pride of the sultanate. It has an escalator inside (strange) and a big golden dome that can be seen from basically anywhere in town.

Next to the mosque is the river that surrounds the town. And in the river the old village of Kampung Ayer can be found. It is a village on stilts with wooden bridges going from house to house and on the river below there are boats cruising around transporting people from the main land and out to the village. Fascinating place!

And the people are amazingly friendly , so helpful and caring. There was always people asking if I was okay, if I knew my way, if they could help, smiling and saying hello as I passed by. It was when the taxi driver told me to wait for the bus because the taxi would be too expensive that I was convinced that they were the nicest people I have ever met.

By the way, did end up taking the taxi, and yes, it was way too expensive, but since the driver was so nice it was worth it!

A short and exciting stop. Brunei was definitely worth it!

Laos

Time goes slowly in Loas. There is no hurry.

The day starts at dawn, when the sun comes up over the horizon. The monks walk through the streets to collect food for the day, the breakfast stalls pop up every here and there and the marked is already bustling long before I've finished my breakfast.

And then it starts to get warmer. The cool morning air is replaced by the heat of the mid day. All I want to do at this time of day is to go swim in the river. So I do. Because there is nothing else that really needs to be done except to lay in the hammock and read my book. But that can be done in the early morning or the late afternoon when the temperatures are cooler and the urge to jump in the river is not so strong.

By 10 o'clock in the evening the day is over in the little village in Northern Laos where I am staying. The generators are turned of and the few small shops and restaurants around closes. The village goes to sleep, and so do I.

Five days passes like this and life is good. But then reality hits in and all of a sudden it is elephants parading the streets in the morning, not monks. Elephants decorated in colorful clothes and patterns and we get to pet them, feed them and hang out with them for two days. Elephants are fascinating and beautiful creatures!

Afternoons are spent in the monasteries with the monks, chanting and meditating. And the people. Wonderful people that has come to mean a lot to me.



There is so much beauty in my life.

A trip to the Burmeese border

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? But oh-no, it turned out to be quite an adventure! I'll start from the beginning.

A group of students from Bangkok came up to the farm where I was staying in northern Thailand one day. They were going to one of the hill tribe villages in the area to give them loads of stuff that they had collected in Bangkok and everyone staying on the farm was invited to come with them for the day.

After breakfast we jump on the back of one of the many vans going and set of towards the mountains. We sit there talking, drinking beer, enjoying the beautiful scenery and I feel so lucky to be exactly where I am. Life is beautiful.


We drive for a few hours before we arrive at the small hillside village where the school is. The children come running and gather around as we unload the trucks. The kids are adorable, dressed in traditional clothes and rather shy when it comes to us foreigners. We just manages to get everything under roof before a massive rainfall comes upon us.It rains for about 20minutes before it clears up again, the sun comes out and we go back to playing with the children.

Sandot (the guy who runs the farm I'm staying at)asks if we wanna head further up in the mountains to visit the village where most of the kids are from. To us that sounded like an offer we couldn't resist, so we jump on the back of the cars again and wave goodbye to the kids.

We quickly realize that driving further is not going top be easy. The rains have made the dirt roads to mud roads, and after about five minutes driving we get stuck. A huge tree has fallen across the road, seeing that it is useless for us to try and move it, we decide to walk the three kilometers to the village.

Three kilometers doesn't sound a lot, but on the muddy mountain roads, it took us about one hour.

As we're about half way there, the sky darkens yet again and we see big clouds heavy with rain rolling towards us across the valley. Not knowing how far we have left, we don't really know what to do, but decide to continue to the village. Hopefully we reach it before the sky opens again.

I enjoy the walk, the scenery is gorgeous, the people I'm with are great and we have loads of fun getting to the village. Shoes was given up on a long time ago so we wander the muddy roads beer foot and by the time we reach the village, we are all covered in mud.

Within five minutes of reaching the village, the sky opens and it pours down like I've never seen it before. We seek refuge in a small shop where we sit with the locals watching the roads turn to rivers within minutes. The wind howls, bamboo snaps and breaks all around us as we sit there and wait for it to stop. When we didn't think it could get any worse, it starts to hagl!


We give up hope on getting back that eavening and come to terms with the fact that we most likely have to spend the night there, when Sandot turns up with his car and is ready to take us back. The only problem is that we are 15 people, and his little car cant really handle that many people. We weren 8 on the back, 5 inside and 2 were hanging from each door. The car was sliding sideways on the slippery roads and all of a sudden, the suspencion breaks. Everyonehas to get out and walk back to where the other cars are waiting. The rain is not as bad anymore, but the roadsareway worse than when we came in to the village. We struggle up the hills, taking three steps forward and sliding two steps back. Muddy, wet and exhausted we finally make it to the cars, climb in and head back to the farm in the freezing night.

A real Thailand experience as Sandot said. You can never prepare for that and it's always loads of fun!

Tacomepai

Cotton picking, reagga festival, bamboo and clever solutions, hot springs and mud baths, scooter trip in the beautiful nature, communal dinner around the fire, a sky full of stars, gitar and beautiful people.

That's Tacomepai for me.

my wonderful bamboo hut

de-husking rice for dinner

THe kitchen

Hot springs and mud bath

Around the fire at night

Angkor Whaaaat?

Banteay Samre, my favorite temple!

Preah Khan

Ta Phrom, the famouse one where the trees grows over the buildings

the temple of Banteay Srey, made out of pink limestone

the beautiful faces at Bayon temple

carving somwhere

Angkor Wat

Our South Korean tourist picture

the sunset at the Sunset Temple

In the jungle!

After a few days in the sleepy town of Kratie, where I spent my days strolling around the market, drinking ice coffee and watching the Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong river, I took an impulse trip up to Banlung in the north eastern parts of Cambodia.

Ratanakiri is a beautiful region with red dirt roads and green forestry hills and I went with some girls I had met to swim in crater lakes and shower under waterfalls, it was wonderful!

molly and me under the waterfall

The next two days we spent hiking in the jungle. We had a really col guide and a ranger that made us walking sticks and coffee cups of Bamboo. I think that is the coolest coffee cup I have ever seen!

Our man making the bamboo cups

There were hardy any paths to be seen, but the ranger knew his way around in the jungle and after about six hours of walking we arrived to where we were spending the night.

Crossing the river

Our campsite was beautifully located by a small river, and as our guides made a fire and prepared for dinner, we walked further up the river to find a place where we could swim and cool down. It was a beautiful and calm spot, and it felt great to relax after the hike.

swimming in the river

As we came back to the campsite the food is already cooking in long bamboo sticks placed on the fire and we sit down to try out our new coffee cups. The food is great and we sit by the river chatting untill the sun went down and the stars came up. When darkness came upon us, our guides asks us to borrow our flash lights cus they wanna go hunting for frogs to make us a late night snack. As we watch them disappear further up the river all we can hear is the sound of frogs and insects. I have no idea what is out there, and I really don't want to know either.

our food is in the bamboo sticks on the left

After about an hour the guides come back with a bucket full of frogs, crabs, shrimps and small fish that they cook with garlic, chili, lemon grass and some other herbs that they had found in the jungle. The frogs are delicious, and since I'm the only one who really eats any of it, I got as much frog legs as I wanted! Love it!


When there were no more jungle frogs left, we took our blankets and climbed into our hammocks and fell asleep under the starlit sky in the jungle in northern Cambodia.