Welcome to the Jungle

After cosmopolitan Bankok, the jungle-carpeted mountains of Thailand's rustic north were a dramatic change. An overnight train journey brought us to the "northern capitol," Changmai. Despite its status as Thailand's second city, Changmai retains a wonderful overgrown-village atmosphere. We spent a few days wandering the streets, eating fantastic food at the myriad street corner stands, and exploring a multitude of beautiful (and occasionally bizarre) Buddhist temples.

Despite Changmai's charms, however, we soon succumbed to the call of the highland jungle beyond. Striking out to the west, we decided to do a loop out to the Burmese border and back. Our first stop was Mai Hong Son, a market town by a lake featuring a phenomenal night market. At the nearby temple, residents build up good karma by releasing cylindrical hot-air balloons, made of paper and heated by candles, into the night sky.

Our next stop was the aptly-named Wilderness Lodge, a guest house in the jungle north of the main east-west road. We reached it by taking a local bus to an isolated farming village, and then hiking 4km through the jungle. When we reached the lodge, we discovered it was no longer open; we were met by a hilltribe family who had taken up residence there. They agreed to lodge and feed us for the night after a flurry of grunts and hand-gestures.

We were up before dawn the next morning (monkeys make great alarm clocks!), intent on reaching the spectacular limestone caves north of Sappong before nightfall. We steeled ourselves for a long walk, but less than 5 km. into our hike we were picked up by a Thai family in a pickup, and made the village market in time for a local noodles-and-chicken-liver breakfast.

Susannah was happy to be back on her own two legs, and out of the wind!

The next couple of days were spent hiking through the hills. We passed sweeping vistas on our way to a village nearby.

The next day we explored the caves, which definitely lived up to our expectations.

A highlight was the sunset "bird show," when half a million swifts swarm into the cave for the night. Apparently, they use a form of low-frequency eco-location similar to bats, in order to hunt insects and avoid collisions in their dark rookery. Eco-location and speed, however, are not enough to protect bats and swifts against the cave's population of specially adapted racer snakes: they can slither across the ceiling, using stalactites for leverage!

Finally, we made our way (by motorcycle-taxi, pickup truck, foot and bus!) back to Changmai, en route to the Laotian border.

A Good Place to Wash Up

Susannah: Despite opinions we'd heard to the contrary, we found it easy to fall in love with Bangkok. Granted, we had a lot of help: lucky for us my sister Caroline's good friend Cayla lives there with her boyfriend JJ, and we not only got a beautiful free place to stay overlooking the city, but great company and guidance to boot. (Caroline: Sorry I forgot to take any photos!)

Bangkok is utterly modern, cosmopolitan and fairly expensive. Somehow, though, the city and its inhabitants still seem delightfully exotic. There are high-rise buildings just like a big city anywhere in the world, but often the best way to get to them is by water taxi. Expensive restaurants serving every kind of cuisine abound, but the best food to be had is from the myriad vendors. The women are dressed at the height of global fashion, but have a poise about them that is unique (even when wearing these ubiquitous pink or yellow polo shirts to celebrate the king!).

Among other adventures, we wandered through a flower market in Chinatown,

...and climbed a temple covered entirely in broken china.

Fortunately this won't be the last we see of Bangkok (or Cayla and JJ) on our trip, as we'll pass through there again on our way south to Indonesia and Malaysia.

The world is flat. REAL flat...

Susannah: The last time I was in China, in 1996, the McDonalds in Beijing was a big deal, and the lackluster shopping mall was a major destination. About half the people on the streets were wearing army green "Mao jackets." We haven't been to Beijing this time around, but wandering the streets of Xian (at 3.3 million, a small city by Chinese standards), it was obvious that China is no longer shy about capitalism. There are at least five clothes or shoe stores for every restaurant or noodle stall, and every woman on the street--all wearing high-heeled boots and tight tight jeans--is carrying a shopping bag. I spotted Gucci, Fendi, and Prada stores, and struggled to resist entering Haagendaas.



To be honest, although we were a bit dismayed at the lack of "exotic-ness" on the streets of China, we went a little nuts when confronted with such plenty. Not that we went shopping for clothes. The indulgence was more in the line of junk food.



We also could not resist stopping in Starbucks. There were four in Xian alone, and although at home we sought out the local coffee joints, the appeal of a latte was irresistible. Stepping off a Chinese street into the coffee giant's warmth was disconcerting, like passing through a worm-hole into a place we knew by heart. Even the soundtrack was the same.



We couldn't help sharing our surprise with the cashier, and when he heard we were from Seattle (Starbucks' home, of course), he proudly produced a photo of the original store in Pike's Place Market from his corporate shrine.



By the time we reached Chengdu, our next destination, we were not surprised to hear that a Wal-Mart had just come to town. I considered it our journalistic responsibility to check it out.



Wal-mart, unlike Starbucks, has taken a tack of adapting itself to local tastes rather than attempting to convert its customers. Most of the store was full of groceries, and though they had some soggy pizza, many of the products on offer were quite foreign:





We did find some time for more conventional sight-seeing, including the famous terra-cotta army and several Taoist and Cha'an (Zen) temples.





Unfortunately, China didn't like us as much as we liked their Oreos. In Chengdu I went to get our visas renewed, so we could continue our trip south through Yunnan province into northern Laos. The visa lady sat behind a marble counter twice as wide as normal, and did not look happy to see me. She informed me dispassionately that since we had group visas (the only way we could enter Tibet from Nepal), they were not renewable. At this point our visas were due to expire in two days. With painstaking politeness I asked if there was anything I could do so that we might stay in her wonderful country. "You can fly to Hong Kong and get a new visa there," she said heartlessly. "But make sure you're gone by the 7th."

Booking a last minute flight so we could come back to such a chilly welcome wasn't really appealing. Since there was no way we could make it to the border overland in two days, we sadly abandoned our resolution not to fly and shelled out for a different flight: one to sunny Bangkok.