PART 2: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

26-27 July 2013. Days 10 & 11 of 15. Last G-Adventure Post (Day 11 was last day).
Bangkok THAILAND (Royal Residence perimeter, Wat Benchamabophit, Summer Palace, Vimanmek Palace, Thewet Uni District, Mae Nam Chao Phraya, Wat Traimit, Chinatown, Th Khao San, Wat Arun, Wat Rakhung, Soi Tambon Wanglang). 
Overnights in Bangkok THAILAND. 

The ABBREVIATED Thai word for the capital, Bangkok (pop 8 million or 13% of Thailand pop) is "Krung Thep". The full and official version is: "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit." I kid you not. The Guiness Book of Records has officially recorded this as the longest name of a place on the planet Earth!!! What's in a name? Heaps.

It is no co-incidence that Bangkok has a long name in Thai because it is a place of many many facets, many neighbourhoods and many things to see and do. OK, it is not the most comfortable weather on Earth or the cleanest place but if you focus on what is going on around you, it CAN make up for it and even exceed your overall experience of the place. We arrived in this bustling metropolis by overnight train at 7am on Fri 26 July. Our hotel is next to the main station so we just walked there.  We could not check in, so we dumped our stuff and whilst most of the group went out for breakie, I hit the streets solo.

I have been to the Big Bangkok a few times before so I skipped the big and beautiful sites I have already seen like Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho (giant reclining Buddha) and The Grand Palace. Instead I decided to head to places I had not seen. My focus was the Dusit District containing the actual Royal Residence, the Zoo and two older Palaces. It is some distance from our hotel (just outside Chinatown) so I took a cab for the princely sum of $2AUD. Poor bastards! They do not make a lot so I tipped - first time that I can remember in a cab! I passed

the entrance to the zoo and then proceeded to walk around the entire square palace compound which is surrounded by a moat and armed guards at each corner and midpoint - I guessed about 5-6km all the way around. The sun was out, blue sky, wispy clouds and even jet trails - perfect picture stuff but had NEVER seen this in Bangkok - it is ALWAYS cloudy. I went bananas with the pics and film - anyone who knows Bangkok will ever believe me! Next to the Royal Residence is the Wat Benchamabophit which looked spectacular against this rare wispy blue sky but I could not go inside because I was wearing a singlet and forget to bring my "temple t-shirt" - I could not hire or buy one there, as is often the case.

Next walking stop was the Palace of Rama VII who had travelled to Europe to meet German Royalty and decided to build a replica of the palace he had stayed in Germany. He did a good job! For a split second I forgot I was in Asia and thought I was outside a mini Hapsburg Palace! Close by was the largest teak palace in the world (Vimanmek Palace) belonging to Rama IV. I did not like the visit. It seemed to me that every person in Japan was visiting this place. Why? I must have been the only non-Japanese! The palace is BIG but not that ornate.

It was fully furnished and the highlight were old B&W photos of royalty on the walls with Thai, French and English captions. I had to buy a sarong and t-shirt to visit this place and it was not even a temple! The Thai's have truly discovered the magic of tourism - impose outdated rules and then charge for compliance! Brilliant! I cannot fault true entrepreneur-ism! I then walked to the adjacent Thewet District which fronts the Mae Nam Chao Phraya - the main river running through Bangkok.

 
This district is the University area and full of coffee places and students. It is very grubby. After walking a few streets I ended up at the river dock to catch the ferry back to Chinatown so I could take another 12:30pm business call. The ride on the river is crazy but good. Crazy because the boats dock and undock in 10 seconds with craft all over the river, missing each other by centimetres! Good, because there is always a BREEZE on the river to cool you down!!! I alighted at Tha Krom Chao and walked to the hotel. After my call it was back to the longest-name sauna.

Before entering Chinatown, I visited the Wat Traimit, a four storey high marble and gold temple, which at the top, housed a 3m tall, 5.5 ton SOLID GOLD Buddha. It looks it too. It is so shiny and clean. It was an amazing site. At $USD1,600 per ounce, I calculated that this Buddha is worth $USD282milllion and not a single security guard in site! The view from here is great and reminds you of just how many different styles and condition of building occupy the Bangkok skyline. From here Chinatown is next door marked by a huge arch in the middle of a very busy round-a-bout. What I noticed is that the streets in Chinatown are DEDICATED to certain goods.

 There is a street with car spare parts only, a street with ceramic tiles and bathroom accessories only, a street with paint only and so on. There is a dedicated area called Talat Mai with all the night time food stalls. Back at the hotel it was time for a full overhaul - shower, shit, shave and aircon in readiness for our last night G-Adventure dinner. The venue was obvious given that everyone except me was just of legal age!!! Yes - it was dinner at Th Khao San - the most touristy street in all of Bangkok. I hate it. I have been here before and it is overrun by a million drunk tourists, neon and hustlers of every description.

Our guide Steve could not believe what it had turned into. He first stayed here in 1989 when there was no neon and only wooden guest houses. Now there are strippers, pros, backpackers - you name it. Food was very ordinary but the beers great. The latest craze is buying these tall thin plastic towers with an ice core and surrounded by beer with a tap on the bottom - about $20AUD. After a few of these amongst our group, no one remembers how and when we got back to the hotel!

I barely heard my wrist alarm go off at 8:30am, such was the night before. I struggled out of bed and managed to dress and make my way down to the lobby to farewell our noble tour leader, Steve. He was not going to get away that easily - after a quick interview and dag dance he disappeared into the sauna and I headed back to my room to dress up for my run in Bangkok. It went very well. It was tough but I made it ans saw a lot. I actually managed to run to Klong Toeh, where I would be staying with Lucy and George in a few hours from now!

There were cars, bikes, tuk-tuks, drain covers and dead rats! The last thing I especially hated. I finally checked out at 11:30am, locked up my gear and headed back out into the sauna headed for the river port of Tha Krom Chao. I hopped on the orange express and headed upstream to Wat Arun since I cannot recall the last time I visited it. Wat Arun looks like a Cambodian spire and stands 82m high. It is covered in what looks like pieces of smashed up porcelain plates - each has a different colour and design and glistens in the sun. You really cannot see them for afar. You can climb to close to the top giving you unreal views of the river and the Bangkok skyline. It is only here that you realise the mish-mash of different buildings in the city. There are actually many business towers and residential towers.

There are also two temples next to the Arun spire which are very ornate and sites in their own rite. From here I travelled further upstream to the port of Th Wat Rakhang. This temple was being renovated but still open. There were only locals here - I could not spot any other tourists. This one is not in any book - I came here on advice from Steve who said that the area and walkway along the river to the Siriraj Hospital (where the King is currently staying) is very authentic and local - he was right.

There were restaurants along the water and every type of food and drink stall. I stopped by one for a 50 cent latte - it was done with freshly ground Arabica, fresh milk and an espresso machine and tasted great - the cheapest "real" coffee I have ever had! I then walked the rest of the way to the port of Tha Wang Lang and took a ferry across to Tha Pra Chan and then to my home port of Tha Krom Chao for the short walk back to the hotel. It was 3:30pm and I was looking forward to blogging and beering in the hotel lobby until 5:30pm when my only drama to date started. I took a cab in the pouring rain to the Mercy Centre where I am staying for the next four nights with Lucy and George (I was best man at their wedding and introduced by them to the Mercy Centre) - more on the Mercy Centre in the next and final blog (Mercy is a children's orphanage and AIDS hospice).

The only problem is that this first cabbie did not know where Mercy was. I tried to guide him using the map that Lucy had sent me but it was no good. The map was not accurate and the street names on it where microscopic and illegible - not even Steve Austin would have deciphered it. After driving around in circles I tried calling Usanee (one of the Mercy directors) and I got a wrong number - I must have written it down incorrectly. Couldn't look it up because my iPhone was dead and I had no internet to check Usanee's email.

After more circles and a three digit fare, I asked the cabbie to let me out and he wouldn't - he insisted on trying to find Mercy. I could see that he had no idea and he had no intention of letting me out so at the lights I did a RUNNER - yes - a RUNNER! I ran for my life and much to my surprise he did not come after me. So there I was on a corner with no idea where I was. Eventually I was able to flag down a second cab. Showed him the address. Started driving and driving and driving. Nothing. Two down. I asked him to let me out and he did. Third cabbie. By this time it was 7pm and I was meant to be at Mercy at 6pm. It was also dark. I got concerned. Would I ever see Lucy and George and the good people of Mercy. So when it dawned on me that the third cabbie had no idea, I decided to head back to my last hotel since it is in a well-know area and I had emailed Lucy and Usanee (one of the Mercy directors) the address. I still had my WiFi password so I would call them from the hotel. The plan worked. The cabbie knew where to go and Lucy picked up my call from the lobby. After explaining my bout of bad luck, Usanee organised a Mercy van to pick me up at the hotel. Twenty minutes later and I was on my way to the Italian restaurant that Lucy picked out for her birthday dinner that night.

I was so glad to see the Mercy emblem on the van that picked me up. I was even gladder to be hugging Lucy and George and greeting Fr Joe, Usanee, her husband Sumai and members of the Qantas Cabin Crew Team that were involved with Mercy - Ricardo (we were also celebrating his birthday), Peter, Wayne and Shelwood. It was a fabulous night of stories, catching, wine and of course birthday singing. Lucy, George and I stayed in two adjacent guest apartments at the Mercy Centre - they were air conditioned with TV and fully stocked fridge - way beyond our expectations and so kind of the Mercy staff. This blog completes the final day of the G-Adventures portion of "Part 2" of "Boo-Dah Indochina 2013". The final blog to be posted late Wed or Thu and will cover my five days and four nights at the Mercy Centre in Klong Thoey. See you then.

PART 2: ZIPLINING IN LANNA

24-25 July 2013. Days 8 & 9 of 15. 
Chiang Rai (White Temple), Chiang Mai THAILAND (Pratu Chiang Mai sothern gate, Wat Chedi Luang, What Phan Tao, Wat Phra Singh,  Chiang Mai Womens Prison, Wat Chiang Man, Eagles Trail Ziplining near Phong Hai). 
Overnights in Chiang Mai THAILAND and overnight train to Bangkok. 

Another 5:30am rise to leave 6am - what holiday! Seriously it was worth it to maximise our time in Chiang Mai. What a place - more on this in a minute. Just when you thought you'd seen all the best temples in Asia, the "Wat Rong Khun" or "White Temple" (as it is called by westerners) comes along and blows all the others out of the water! This temple is the Asian equivalent of Goudi's "La Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona. It is in its 16th year of construction and is expected to take another 44 to 74yrs to complete!

Wat Rong Khun is being designed and its construction supervised by Ajarn Chalermchai Kositpipat, the most successful and famous artist in Thailand. He was born in Chiang Rai, where his temple is located and has always focused on giving Thai art a distinct Buddhist overtone and making it known internationally. His exhibits his art worldwide and produced approx 200 works per year. Now he only produces 10 and with a team of 80 (mainly students and monks) he works constantly on this temple as his contribution to Thailand. He has also set up a trust to complete this work after his death since he is in his 60s.

The temple is actually one of a number of buildings in the complex and one is called "The Golden Building" and features toilets on the ground floor. These are the cleanest public toilets I have ever seen. There are permanent staff there that clean every time someone uses them and they supply slippers that you must wear to go in. Unbelievable. This was intentional by this artist. This temple is 1.5hrs from Chiang Khong and it was another 3.5hrs to Chiang Mai. We stopped in between to see real cashew nut trees and buy some.

The coffee in northern Thailand is unreal. Our guide tells us that it is a craze up here and people take it seriously. Unlike the rest of Indochina, there are dozens of cafes and every one of them has an espresso machine. I paid $1.50AUD for a latte that took 5min to make - the barista ground my beans fresh and cleaned the machine as they went. Delicious coffee - just like Sydney. We arrived in Chiang Mai at 11:30am and quickly took care of laundry and booked our "Zipline" tour for tomorrow - more on this later.

Then I was off solo into the old city which set up exactly like Xien in China. The old city is inside a square that was surrounded by a wall built 700 years ago - only the corners remain and there is a moat (more like a dirty canal) that is also just outside the walls. It is 7km all round because I ran this on both days we were here just like I ran the 10km wall in Xien. I entered the old city through the south gate called "Pratu Chiang Mai" which is where the food stalls are located. Chiang Mai (pop 174,000) is famous for its Wats (temples), hill tribes and many adventure style outdoor activities such as hiking, elephant riding, quad-wheel biking and the latest craze "Ziplining". Chiang Mai was also the capital of the ancient Lanna Kingdom. The wall was built to defend against Burmese invaders in the 14th century. The city is surrounded by mountains and is hot and humid.Thailand's highest mountain, Doi Inthanon, at 2,565m is only 60km away.

Aside from the beautiful temples the rest of the old city is very grubby and ugly with the signature masses of wires gracing the areas in front of buildings above what is left of the pavements. "Wat Chedi Luang" was the first temple I visited and it as my favourite. The main temple is not too ornate but the interior is stunning with several golden Buddha's and gold leaf metal strips hanging down from the ceiling. The famous Emerald Buddha (now in Bangkok's Wat Phra Kaew) was originally housed here in 1475.

The other interesting feature of this temple is the ruins of a huge stone "chedi" or stupa built in 1441 and partly destroyed by fire between the 16th and 18th centuries. It looks ornate now with several elephants attached and two gold Buddha's at the top, one facing east and one west. The next temple "What Phan Tao" is mainly made of teak! It would cost a packet to build this now but back in 18th century this wood was abundant. The outside is very plain but the polished teak interior is impressive with huge columns and beams. "Wat Phra Singh" is the most famous and nicest on the outside. Famous because it contains the Buddha after which the city was named and is its protector. It is also the best example of ancient Lanna architecture and was built in 1345. Before my next temple I passed by the infamous Chiang Mai Womens Prison.

The compound itself is old and decrepit but the front entry has a colourful mural made by the inmates with statues on either side. I am told that the inmates are allowed to make an income by offering massages to tourists which are always booked out! From here it was a short walk passed the Culture Museum and the Statues of three Kings outside on my way to "Wat Chiang Man". This temple is famous for its two "Crystal Buddhas" which are supposed to have the power to make it rain! The building outside is very nice and set in a garden that contains a Chedi and school. The inside is not stand-out. All the temples worth seeing are inside the old city and within easy walking distance of each other.

I saw all of this in 2.5hrs but was dripping in sweat due to the sun being out and the humidity. From here I took a tuk-tuk back to south gate so I could get a run in before dinner. I stocked up on wine and new sandles ($6AUD) to replace my trusty old Colorado boating shoes which shed their undersides in Luang Prabang because it reached 38C that day.

Call me ridiculous but my heart broke to leave them behind in Chiang Mai - they had travelled with me to many places in the world including my dad's last visit to Greece in 2009. I should have started a "hall of fame" for my shoes just like I have my cozzies but it is too late now - I have left too many shoes abroad since they are too bulky to bring back. My run that arvo was tough but very scenic and enjoyable - I got to circle the entire old town. I joined the others for a beer or two for dinner at a restaurant in the night markets since I wanted to try the food stalls at the south gate later. We organised to meet at the hotel at 11pm for drinks so I headed to the food stalls whilst the rest went shopping. The food stalls were as basic as it gets. I picked out various Thai dishes already cooked in large containers and served by local women into small clear plastic bags tied at the top with string. I also picked up a BBQ chicken leg from local guy. I had 5 dishes for $5AUD.

I ate back in my room and decided to lie down to watch a movie until our drinks at 11pm. What a bad mistake. I feel into a deep sleep and stirred at 2am to have a wee and turn off the TV. Apparently Guenther came around at 11pm and knocked on my door - I was dead to the world. I was up at 5:30am the next morning to make a work call at 6am. People are already knocking at my door but I am not too sure that I want to work again! I think I will become a professional traveller instead! If someone paid me to blog and film, I would do it! Lucky for me I did not go out the night before since during my call, two of our girls walked in at 6:20am and came over to sing on my call! How would I ever explain this to the people at the other end! Thank goodness they did not ask! Last night's food stalls were now making there presence felt. After two bouts on the dunnie (toilet) it was off on a morning run at 7am. The third came half-way through my run. Bugger. I held to the end but it was painful!!!

After blowing up the dunnie Guenther and I were off at 9am to our "Ziplining" adventure at 9am (with the company "Eagles Trail"). It was 30km out of town, near the village of Phang Hai, in the middle of the jungle, full of water falls and rice paddies in the distance. On the way Guenther told me all about the huge drinking evening that finished for most at 2am and for some at 6am! Lucky I did not go - there is no way I would have made my 6am work call! There were 7 of us Ziplining including Desi, an ozzie from Bundaberg. Ziplining is the art of attaching yourself to a cable via harness and sliding from platform to platform through the jungle canopy some 30 to 60 metres above the jungle floor. It is fantastic and well set up.  

Two guides constantly hook you to safety rails on the platforms and onto twin cables - one is a backup. All the gear is imported from a French mountaineering climbing company. Except for one item. The "hand break" - this is a piece of Thai bamboo, the size of a small hammer that has a hooked end that you scrape against the cable to slow yourself down as you speed into the opposite platform. Very high tech indeed - I thought they were joking at first but hey, it works! You travel at around 20km/h and you can rotate, spread out your arms and legs and fly like a bird. It is exhilarating. My only fear was actually jumping off the edge of the platforms! Once in flight it is unreal. We spent a total of 90min sliding along 9 segments across 20 platforms. We also abseiled down three verticals, the last was scary at 40m straight down. Somehow I managed to brake too hard on one of the runs and stopped 10m short of the

platform and just dangled above the forest. One of the guides had to come on the other line and pull me in - reminded me immediately of Stallone in the movie "Cliffhanger". On another run I was coming in way too fast and by pure instinct reached up and grabbed the cable. Boy what a mistake. My hand quickly heated up and I let go! The guide screamed from the platform - "no, let go, let go!" Two stuffups, noth at least with happy endings. Poor Guenther got a sore arm using his bamboo brake since he is heavier and therefore travelled faster.

There were also four "novelty" runs of walking rope bridges and across tall tree stumps - all with harness, of course! All this and a buffet lunch too for only $60AUD. A great way to spend the day and see some of the jungle that typifies the north of Thailand. We were reluctant to leave but had to get back in time for our 4pm departure to catch the 5pm overnight train to Bangkok. After a quick shower we were off in tuk-tuks for 20min to the railway station which was well set up with Thai food shop and 7-Eleven for last minute supplies for the train.

We departed on time. The train was in significantly better condition and cleaner than the Vietnam train of Part 1. The set up was also different. There are two seats on each side facing each other which the staff turn into flat beds on request. One sleeps on the bottom and the other on a fold out bed above with a width double that of Vietnam. There are also curtains to create privacy. Clean sheets and pillow-cases all round. Lots of staff making beds and constantly cleaning the toilets - Vietnam - take note!!!

The cabin is also air conditioned. Terrific. It was a great place to blog Chiang Mai, drink wine and nibble on garlic mini-toast and processed ozzie sliced cheese - the only thing I could find at 7-Eleven. The scenery outside was terrific. Wide rice paddies with distant jungle covered hills and a thick jungle with tunnels until sun-down. The feature of the train journey was my first ever bottle of Thai wine! Yes - you read right - wine! They have started making it in the north east and only in certain years if the rain and temperatures are down. I enjoyed a 2011 Shiraz from Khao Yai Winery in a little place called Nakhonratchasima. It was great. Lots of chocolate and plumb coming through. What a pleasant surprise. I did not even touch my backup bottle. Well done Thailand.

PART 2: MIGHTY MEKONG

22-23 July 2013. Days 6 & 7 of 15. 
Mekong River Cruise, Don Cheang LAOS, Huay Xai LAOS (border), Chiang Kong THAILAND (border). 
Overnights in Don Cheang LAOS & Chiang Kong THAILAND. 

Waking up from a 5hr deep sleep is a tough job. It was 1am by the time I said "good night" to Larry the night before and we had to be up at 6am in order to leave the hotel by 7am for our two day cruise and home stay along the Mekong. It was overcast and sprinkling as the large tuk-tuk ferried us down to our boat about 30min out of town. By 8am we were chugging down the river with a straight six diesel behind us, a very long and narrow open cabin with canopy in the middle and 12 backpacks plus one red Virgin sports bag at the front.

There is even a little Buddha shrine with incense and offerings over the engine which I was told is for its reliability! What a river. The views of the swirling Mekong and surrounding bush were both impressive and relaxing. Today we would be traveling approx 145km upstream to our overnight home stay at a tiny village called Don Cheang with a local family belonging to the "Khmu" ethnic group. Tomorrow we would set off again at 6:30am to travel a further 155km to Houay Xai in Laos just before the Thai border. That's 10hrs on day 1 and another 11hrs on day two.

Imagine that - 21hrs to do 300km of upstream Mekong out of a total length of 4,200km! No wonder they call it the Mighty Mekong. The boat was reasonably well equipped to ensure our survival over the lengthy stretches. Free coffee, tea and bananas, plenty of room to stretch and even mats on the floor to sleep. I found a great spot at the beverage table down the back where I happily blogged Luang Prabang to successive cups of coffee!

 
Occasionally I would look up and admire the river and the adjoining banks and snap away at scenic moments. Our skipper worked hard turning his wheel constantly to navigate the many eddies and cross-drafts in the water. The colour of the Mekong was like liquid caramel, its colour coming from the silt collected from the banks and bottom as it swirls its way to the South China Sea. He was particularly skilled at aiming the boat in exactly the right directions when it rained so that no rain entered the open sides of the boat. We had three short downpours during the journey and the rest was sunny with clouds.

It is a peaceful journey and an opportunity to rest from the constant travel and heat. I snoozed for about 2hrs, finished my blog and even read half a book before we arrived at our homestay village of Don Cheang at 6pm, approx 15km downstream of Pak Beng (which you can find on any map of Laos). The village is close to the water, perched on a hill and built on a slope to prevent flooding in the wet season. There are no roads so it is completely isolated. We all had packed our day pack, leaving the main bags on the boat and climbed up several stone steps and mud to reach the top.

The "leader" of the village, Thong Wan, was there to welcome us and he led us to the underside area of his stilt home. We passed most of the village along the way taking photos and film in the fading light of day. Most homes were concrete brick bases with wooden siding and iron roofs. They were solid and well built. What I noticed immediately was the many children - they popped out to see us, some giggling, some shy. We would say "Sabai Le" (hello) in the local Khmu and sometimes get one back. At the leader's home we were divided into groups to stay at different village houses - two for eight guys and two for six girls. We all walked to our stilt homes and dropped off our day packs. The set up was exactly like my home stay in Lac in Vietnam. A flat mattress on the wooden floor, covered by a mozzie net suspended from the ceiling and windows.

By this time it was dark and we returned to the underside of the leader's home for dinner. What a tasty dinner. Cooked by the local women who were hosting us. Plenty of steamed rice, yellow chicken curry with potatoes and carrots, spicy pork with onion, stir fried morning glory (a type of green spinach) and a stir fried veggie medley. After dinner I held my "press conference" and "cultural exchange" with the leader, Thong Wan surrounded by his family and our group. I had prepared a list of questions on the boat which I gave to Sayan (our local Lao guide) to translate and show to Thong Wan while we ate. Sayan and I sat on either side of Thong and our leader, Stephen was cameraman. We then proceeded to film a total of 10 questions with our group acting as the live studio audience. We learned a great deal about Thong Wan and the village. Thong Wan is 40yrs old with 4 boys and 1 girl. Two of the boys are married with one child each. Thong Wan has been living in the village since 1975 and has been leader for 10yrs. This is his third term as leader and the village elects the leader every five years. Thong's responsibility as leader is to ensure that all the villagers have adequate shelter and food - if this is not the case then he rallies the villagers together to help out. He is also in charge of the care of common village property such as the primary school.

Thong Wan was instrumental in securing home stay for his village with G Adventures at the start of 2013. As a result of the extra income from this, the villagers decided to build a new primary school of concrete brick to replace the old wooden one. We were shown this work and the new school will be ready in another month in time for the new school year which begins in September. Thong Wan was very pleased with the benefits of tourism and his village has hosted some 200 visitors since the start of 2013. The village itself has 185 residents including 85 children - I was right - I mentioned to Stephen that I thought the kids would outnumber the adults.

The villagers grow mainly rice plus a number of different vegetables, catch fish and have plenty of pigs, chickens and ducks. Some have a few albino water buffalo which have a pinkish hide and spend most of their time close to the water's edge. During the wet season they also pick and eat mushrooms and bamboo. Thong Wan said that the best thing about Don Cheang village was its peaceful agricultural heritage and the fact that it was close to Pak Beng (1hr by boat) for supplies or emergencies or to sell their produce. He finished by saying that the Mekong was integral to their village as it is the only reliable means of

transport. There is a road, 30min walk away but it is often closed in the wet season due to mud slides. After the interviews came the "cultural exchange" (another idea I had pre-staged with Sayan) where Thong Wan invited me to taste "rice whiskey" from a clay plot and I reciprocated by pouring a glass of red wine for Thong Wan to try. What a blast this was. The rice whiskey is in fact rice wine and this one was better than the one I had sculled in Vietnam. It was less sweet and a bit more flavoursome.

The procedure is to sip from the full vat of whiskey from a bamboo straw and replace the liquid drunk with water from a plastic cup. Once the cup is depleted you have drunk one cup of whiskey! It is strictly one cup at a time per person for good luck. The water at the bottom of the clay pot has picked up fermented rice liquid at 20% alcohol. By the time the new water at the top reaches the bottom it will also pick up fermented liquid. This can go on for 2 to 5 weeks with just one clay pot of about five litres.

Amazing - this thing literally turns water into wine! Thong Wan liked the wine. I know because he insisted I stay after the my group had retired to finish the bottle! He had never tasted wine before. I suspected this, which is why I brought the bottle and insisted on the exchange. I had done this with my home stays in the Andes and in Vietnam with excellent results. Thong Wan described the wine as "bitter fruit juice". An excellent description from a first time wine drinker. The filming finished and the whole group partook of the whiskey, especially Sedd, who was turning 18 tomorrow - he must have sculled at least 3 cups! After our group retired at around 8pm, I stayed on with Thong

Wan, his family, Sayan and his step-brother Xa who was also a Lao-English guide with another company. We had a blast drinking rice wine, red wine and talking about life and Laos. Xa and Sayan explained to me that since the village installed solar cells and a generator and connected some TVs about 10 years ago, all the village women can now understand and speak some Thai because all the soap operas are from Thailand! What a laugh. The men of the village all prefer Thai music and Syan was even playing some on his work laptop whilst the others sang along. Like Vietnam, Lao has 44 different ethnic groups with "Lao" itself being the predominant (68%). Don Cheang is a Khmu village with a slightly different language, traditional clothing and food to the Lao.

Traditional dress is still worn at weddings but music and dance has largely disappeared. Thong Wan is happy that the Lao government has opened up the country to tourism and free trade. The villagers pay only a nominal land tax each year based on size and received some funds for the construction of their school and the establishment of the home stay. I could see that Thong Wan was very pleased with our visit and the guides were so impressed with the press conference and cultural exchange that they would drive it themselves for future home stays. Lucky for me there was a full moon out and I was able to find my own way back to my stilt home at around 10:30pm for a 5am rise tomorrow to farewell Laos and greet Thailand. Waking up was easy. Getting to sleep was tough. It was warm and humid and there were multiple insect sounds and one in particular was like a car horn! Not to mention my buddy Guenther next to me. So it was time to double the dose of blu-tac in my ears!!! It worked.

When we woke to the different pitches of four digital alarm clocks in the room and the sound of rain on the iron roof, it was too dark to visit the dunny downstairs so we set off slushing and slipping our way down to the boat in the mud. At around 5:30am we farewelled the village of Don Cheang and started our epic 11hr journey further upstream towards the Lao-Thai border. Most of us resumed our sleep and woke a second time to more rain and a breakfast of fried eggs, bread and marmalade. The rain soon stopped revealing a much narrower Mekong with jungle covered granite peaks on one side and rolling thicket on the other.

It was back to blogging, reading, chatting and even an episode of Larry David. Lunch was a chilli pork fried rice. The afternoon was particularly pleasant with a coolish breeze blowing over the bow of the boat. We arrived at the border Laos border town of Huay Xai at about 4:30pm. Two tuk-tuks took us to immigration and by 5:30pm we had stamped out of Laos, crossed the Mekong in a long boat, stamped into Thailand (with instant free visa - no wonder Thailand is the powerhouse of Indochina!) and tuk-tuked again to our hotel in the Thai border town of  Chiang Kong.

As soon as we checked in, everyone except me went for a shower in their rooms after 48 continuous hours on the Mekong - I went for a run. The typical wet season rain came down and by sun-down I was back. As a result of my run and the need to post the remaining Laos adventure, I was unable to join my group for dinner and sandwiched, beered and wined my wine to midnight...