18October2009
Posted by oulin under: travel.
Laos is sadly the most heavily bombed nation in the world. During the height of the Vietnam War, more than half a million US bombing missions were carried out between the years 1964 to 1973, now knows as the Secret War. It delivered more than two million tons of explosive ordnance on the country. This includes an estimate of more than 266,000,000 anti-personnel sub-munitions, known as “bombies” in Lao, released from cluster bombs and a recorded number of 500,000 missions based on the U.S. bombing records. 30% of these ordnances failed to explode including 78,000,000 bombies. These UXO contaminated 15 provinces with 25% of all villages in the country and are still causing casualty and injuries nowadays. 
The Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme (UXO Lao) was established with the support of UNDP, UNICEF and other stakeholders in 1996. The main tasks are to reduce the number of casualties caused by UXO through risk education, and increase the amount of land available for food production and other socio-economic development activities through UXO clearance activities. The UXO Lao include the following provinces in the operation: Luangprabang, Huaphanh, Xiengkhuang, Khammuane, Savannakhet, Saravane, Sekong, Champasack and Attapeu.
Although with the enormous effort of the dedicated members and continuous supports, financially and technically, from many countries, due to the difficulties of the operation and lack of human resource, UXO Lao only succeeded to remove or destroy 801,013 items (3983 big bombs, 371,869 bombies, 5,744 mines and 419,417 other UXO) from 1996 to 2007. It covers only 0.47% of the unexploded bombies. What a poor percentage. If it couldn’t receive more international attention and supports and continues in this pace, Lao people will not be able to lead a normal life without their daily nightmare in a hundred years! 
I went to visit the UXO Lao Center in Xiangkuang Province with my new friend Iona from Scotland, who, like many Europeans, had never learnt about the Secret War. We found the office was situated in a very limited equipped one story house 2km outside of Phosavan. Mr. Khing Pet gave me a brief introduction of the operation and the area they covered in this province. There are normally 15 teams sent out everyday to carry out different tasks, including clearance and roving. When I asked if there was a possibility for us to visit a bomb site they are working on, he made a quick phone call and grinned at us: “ This is your lucky day. We have a team working only 20km away getting ready for an explosion. I will take you there.” That became one of the most unforgettable experiences in my life.
A video will be loaded on Youtube after it’s edited, which link I will post here once it’s done. I was not allowed to climb higher or get closer to have a clear shot of the explosion. Therefore the explosion scene shown in the video might not seem as powerful as I witnessed. I am hoping more people will be aware of this fact and take action in helping this country out of its poverty caused by the cruelty of a war they were not supposed to be involved in.
For more photos, please go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622609684234/
18October2009
Posted by oulin under: travel.
A long-tail (a slim shaped boat that’s popular in South East Aisa mainly for transportation) took us from Chiangkhong, the Thai border, to cross the Mekong and arrive in Huayxai, the Laos border. It took literally only 3 minutes to cross the river. After a quick and simple immigration procedure, we were in Laos! Kacey and I were debating whether we should take the common 2 day slow boat or a 10 hour bus to Luang Prabang. Since time was limited for Kacey, the bus seemed to be a better option. The first encounter with the Lao people was with the aggressive tuktuk drivers at the border. They were like a gang that controlled the tuktuk business around the border. They were asking for 20,000 kip/person to the bus station. We protested. The head of the gang with a pad in his hand refused to bargain with us and stopped some hesitated drivers to take us. I raged and marched away even though I had no idea which direction to go and how to find another tuktuk. Fortunately 200 meters down the street, we stopped a passing by tuktuk and he agreed to take us there only 8000kip/person. It was the most “painful” bus ride I’d had since travelling though. We were on a dirt road full of holes and bumps most of the time, and the bus was running barely 30km per hour. The 10 hour ride turned into 14 hours. When we arrived in Luang Prabang, it was almost 4am. 
Although with the constant frustration dealing with money oriented guest house owners, tourist agents and un-flexible café staff, I adored Luang Prabang. The waterfall in light turquoise color, the monks in their red-orange robes, the beautiful temples, the cafés and restaurants in colonial style buildings concurred the exotic and romantic feeling of this country. The smile of the local people just melted my heart. We got up at 5am to attend the giving to the monks. In the blue dawn light, sincere Buddhists sat on the straw mats they laid on the side of the streets, with food and flowers next to them patiently waiting for the monks to arrive. Groups of monks showed up in line quietly from different directions around 5:30am. It’s so quiet around. All we could hear was the sound of the flapping of the monks’ bare feet on the floor and the clicking of the tourists’ cameras. I was fascinated by the beauty of this peaceful scene. People were still holding up their faith although they had been suffering from wars and poverty. 
Communication was a big headache during my stay in Laos though. People barely spoke in English. I took a pretty good practice of sign language. As days passing by, I got used to this way of communication and felt much less frustrated. I deliberately skipped Vang Vieng where people mostly go there to indulge themselves with tubing on the Mekong and get drunk while doing that. I wasn’t that intrigued by the idea of meeting drunken silly western travelers. I went east after Kacey flew down to Siem Reap. Ever since I heard about Laos’ painful history of the Secret War and watched some of the documentary, I meant to visit one of the most heavily bombed areas by the Vietnam border. In Phosanvan, I was lucky to be received by the Provincial Coordinator of the UXO Lao center there. I was shown to a bomb field they were working on and witness the explosion. It was an incredible experience and I was astounded to learn some of the facts about UXO. I put this in another context with more details.
On the way to Phosanvan, I met two fun Scottish girls, Selina and Iona. We enjoyed each other’s company very much and travelled down to Vientiane together. It’s a lovely former colonial city with many cute cafés scatter around the center. The city was wrapped in an enthusiastic festive atmosphere. The biggest festival of the year was coming. The boats were getting ready for the big races, loads of observation booths were set up along the river, carnival facilities were set next to the market, ear-splitting cheesy pop music was hovering in the air. All the guesthouses were organizing parties. We were definitely influenced by festive scene. We wandered around the market among thousands of people, enjoyed the delicious grilled fish and cockles by the river, and even had a little sophisticating cocktail moment at the Spirit House. Unfortunately, because of the miscommunication of the boat racing’s actual schedule, seemed everybody had a different answer, I bought the bus ticket to Pakse on the evening of 4th. The boat racing was on 5th. I only got the chance to join the locals to send a candle boat down the Mekong hoping it’d help realize my good wishes. Salina, Iona and I hugged and kissed each other goodbye in the busy night market. Then I boarded my sleeper bus sharing a bed with my next travel buddy Lena.
Lena and Jessica were so amusing. We traveled together from Pakse to Dondet and later into Cambodia. We laughed and made fun of the situations that frustrated us. We shared our experience and stories, starting with traveling then soon extended to family and relationships. We also made fun of each other’s funny habits. It was a lot of fun traveling with these two girls. We created a system making announcement of the day declaring the moment we felt happy or upset. But mostly we announced when we felt happy.
Laos, once was called the Elephant Kingdom, and now maybe more known as the most bombed country in the world. I expected to experience poverty and harsh reality of its struggle from the shadow of the cruel Secret War. But after a short visit of 20 days, I found I was more touched by its spectacular nature, people’s warm smile and their determination of developing the country.
For more photos, please go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622485174875/”
17October2009
Posted by oulin under: travel.
I am currently reading “The Beach”. I felt it’s probably the perfect timing for me to read this book after traveling in Thailand. Perhaps many backpackers who are roaming around South East Asia feel the same way. 
I arrived in Bangkok International Airport around 11pm. The Airport Express Bus E2 dropped me right next to the sizzling Khao San Road. I chose to stay a bit away from the Khao San scene, trying not to be in the hottest backpacker spot. A taxi sent me to the riverside guesthouse I booked online. With the first sight of half a dozen stoned hippies scattered in the back yard, I knew I was actually not that far from the Khao San circle. I went out for a bowl of not that impressive noodle soup around the corner at 1am then ducked in my room for a good night sleep. I went to explore Khao San Road the next evening. My first impression of Khao San Road was exactly what Richard had in the book : “The main function of the street was a decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter Thailand, a halfway house between East and West.”. Neon lights flashing on top of the buildings. Pop music vibrating my eardrums coming out from every café/restaurants. I passed by countless hair braiders, souvenir sellers and whooping tourists before I settled myself in Pad Thai Restaurant. Looking at those almost feverishly happy faces of the half drunk western tourists, I yawned and finished my overly charged meal quickly then went for a fruit shake at the other end of the street. The fruit shake was so good and refreshing, my mood was lifted. I started to feel amused studying the rapturous crowd around me, and thought there was actually some charm of this crazy land. But I felt bored again very soon.
Nobody passed me any map of secret beach. I planned to go to Koh Tao and took the course for my advance open water diving certificate. Abram and Nic joined me for the ride of the second class fan sleeper train to Chumpon where we caught a ferry to the island the next morning. We were welcomed by the warm hugs from Sarah who was waiting for us at the dock. The week in Koh Tao was relaxing and adventurous at the same time. I enjoyed my diving so much during the course. I learnt how to identify various fish and saw a sting ray for the first time at the night dive! I was thrilled and enthusiastic. Even though I suffered severe ear pain most of the time, and my hearing wasn’t recovered until almost a week after I left the island. Oh, damned the cold I had! There was a small “intermezzo” during my dives. It was a little dramatic when I had the mild decompression sickness on the first deep dive. I was put on pure oxygen immediately and rushed back to the island by a speed boat. 
I had to rest for almost two days before I was allowed to get back to water. So we went kayaking the next day around the island. It wasn’t as easy as I imagined paddling through the wavy sea water. The view was fantastic though. After 7 hours I was just exhausted and wanted a massage badly, plus sunburn on my back and legs.
It seemed that I was never really alone during this big trip. Soon after waving goodbye to my friends in Koh Tao, I was waiting on Khao San Road for Kacey!! When she showed up in her military patterned pants rolled up to her calves, her giant camera bag on her back, I couldn’t help whooping and ran to give her a big hug! We smiled happily to each other and started our journey to the inland Thailand the next day. We were so amazed by the maze of wats in Ayutthaya. I found my favorite Buddha in Wat Mahatta who was shining under the afternoon sun. He’s quietly smiling to me when I looked up to him. Even we’ve taken hundreds of pictures in different angles of those ancient worshiping places, we just couldn’t stop complimenting the form of the architecture and the Buddha statues. Chiangmai was equally amazing to us. We were toured around by Kacey’s friends’ family and shown to more amazing wats. Thai people’s passion about Buddhism and temples never seemed to fade, so as their love for their long live king and queen. He’s the longest king in the world, probably in history. He’s been in his thorn for almost sixty years! The pictures of the king and queen could be found in every corner of the cities, every wall of the houses, taken in different ages and occasions. 
Auntie Me was sighing that it’s hard to have another wise and compassionate king as him anymore as his only son was not a decent seed to be passed the thorn to. He had a reputation being a playboy and showed not enough talent to take over the country. Maybe the king just had to live a bit longer till his grandson was grown up? Besides the tourist stuff, we were also taken to various restaurants to food courts to try the delicious Thai food. I could never have enough Lapp or curry or Tom Yam to be honest. Other than those few meals on Khao San Road, I haven’t been disappointed a bit about the food in this country. Even the meal we had cooked by our trekking guide in Pai was just unbelievably tasty. I am drooling when writing this. We made out way to Chiang Khong at the Thai-Laos border with pleasant memories of the time we spent in the past week. Laos was just across the Mekong River in front our guesthouse! We could see the buildings and temples in the sunset light. People were practicing rowing on the river getting ready for their biggest festival in the beginning of October. I told Kacey that we’ve got to try some laolao when we got there 
For more photos, please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622588819156/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622603042894/
17October2009
Posted by oulin under: travel.
Despite the frustrations from conflicts between me and my travel partner, Yunnan was probably the most spectacular part of my journey in China. The diversity of landscapes and ethnic cultures made the other places seem shy in comparison. Out of few dozens of ethnic groups, the dominating ones are Tibetan, Bai, Yi and Miao living in different regions of the province. From The Lost Horizon, Zhongdian gained its tourism name “Shangri-La”. We had our first relax stop there staying in my boss’ brilliantly restored old Tibetan wood house with a view to the major temple and the 20m high praying wheel. Matt and Hsuan came to join us for an exciting weekend for off-road motor-biking into the tourist free tracks and wetlands. It’s the first time I saw friends from Shanghai in after almost 2 months. It felt more like a family reunion to me. Our next stop was Tiger Leaping Gorge, where I had the best hike so far in my life. We set off quite late at 4:30pm. Most of the hikers might have made their half way to the usual over night guesthouses by then. The only sounds around us were the roaring river underneath, the buzz of the insects and the occasional neck-bells of the passing by mules. Landscape, scenery and vegetation changed as we kept turning around the corners of the narrow paths created by the local villagers. Soon after the Twenty Eight Bends we found ourselves walking in the dusk. The mountains and forests around us slowly turned into gray blue. The temperature was just perfect. Slight breeze dried the sweat on us and eased the tiredness from the earlier ascend. Although we could constantly hear the river, the insects and other night animals, I felt I was walking in perfect silence. So far away from the modern civilization and the noises produced from it. By the time before we reached Halfway Guesthouse at 9:30pm, we couldn’t see anything on the road without the flash light. Other tourists at the guesthouse were amazed how we finished the first day hike in such late hour. The next day was a short but exhausting hike to the Mid-Gorge and we returned to Qiaotou Town and caught a minivan to take us to Lijiang. We went directly from Lijiang to Dali. I couldn’t waive my prejudice about Lijiang being over touristy and just wanted to avoid it although I hadn’t been there before. What I heard about it was enough to make out the image of another spoiled Chinese tourist destination. Also, MaoMian was waiting in Dali!
I made a real stop in Dali for more than two weeks, visited a couple quiet yet beautiful villages around it. Almost untouched by tourism, Shaxi and Xizhou were a refreshing surprise. The scene of the ocean of paddy-fields was so soothing. There were moments I was sitting on the rooftop gazing out at the surrounding green fields and felt perfectly content. After parted with Abram, I had a good rest in Dali enjoying the precious time with one of my oldest friends Maomian who I rarely saw in the past four years. Then I started the rest of my trip in early August. Yuanyang’s massive terrace fields and Dongchuan’s red earth were breathtaking. I am always happy to be in places where normal tourists find hard to get to. Although people in those places usually are anxious to attract tourists so that they could get out of poverty, I secretly hope the process would be as slow as it can so its true beauty could be preserved for longer. We often want to share the amazing experience in this kind of places, but at the same time, so afraid tourism would just destroy what’s amazing about it.
Guizhou seems to be a rough blunt young guy while Yunnan appears as a delicate beautiful girl without any vulgarity. I also avoided the most popular waterfall areas near the capitol city and travelled from the south west to the south east with only one night over Guiyang for transit. Most of the areas of this province are covered by epic mountains. Lacking of developed highways, places are connected by bumpy roads winding around the mountains, which often under some sort of repair work. Local buses run clumsily on them. I haven’t encountered so many car-sick people in my life before. It was incredible to see how many locals vomiting at the same time on the bus and demanding the drivers to turn off the aircon even it’s over 40 Celsius in the car. William came to join me and we had a wonderful time visiting the Miao and Dong villages in the south east Guizhou. We couldn’t help shopping though. The ethnic costumes and products were simply irresistible. The handmade fabric was died over and over until it became shiny dark blue paper-like material, then made into exotic, yet fashionable to our opinions, traditional clothes. Most of the locals wore their traditional outfits and accessories daily, and we were just envious how good they look in them. When we put them on, we looked like nothing else but silly tourists. Even though, we both bought a couple pieces which might be stuck in the bottom of our wardrobes right after this trip.
After the long exhausting bus ride from Congjiang to Guilin surrounded by more than a dozen constantly vomiting crowd, I was more than ready for a more sophisticating scene in Guangzhou. It’s time for a short period of relatively luxury lifestyle J My friends in Guangzhou welcomed me back warmly. They were quite amused how I acted like a country girl the first couple days back in modern civilization. I wowed every few minutes about the cosmopolitan sights. I complimented every dish I ate, amazed by how delicate the dim sums looked like, and was eager to kick off my flipflops and have my rough nails manicured.
I spent a few days with my father and his family in my hometown. It’s been three years I haven’t been home. I felt like back to my teenage years sleeping in my old bed, staring at the popstar’s posters I hung on the wall when I was 16. My dad didn’t change the room much although I didn’t have any belongings left there anymore. I gazed out of the window in my room and found nothing actually changed in my neighborhood over the past 16 years. I exhaled a deep sigh. Another time that I confirmed myself I didn’t belong there.
Hong Kong was a blast as usual. I quickly arranged my travel insurance and spent the rest of my time reunited with Lea. We went to movies, ate in delicate restaurants, partied in Lankwaifang with Andrew and friends, and, of course, we wandered around on Lamma Island my favorite place in Hong Kong. The brief catching up with Neil was very pleasant, too. He’s like a long lost brother to me. There was no awkwardness what so ever even we hadn’t seen each other or exchanged much updates for more than four years. We just casually chatted what’s happening in our lives and our common thoughts of changing our careers while sipping latte in a café in central.
While feeling blessed by the warmth from my friends and family, I boarded the plane to Bangkok on 7th of September starting the other route of my journey in South East Asia. Adventures ahead of me again!!
For photos, please go to:
http://www.fl1ickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157621954610932/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157621946767347/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622393833966/
