blogsherpa | Orn's Travel Blog

…and now the Jungle Flight

21 03 2010

Yesterday I persuaded Elínborg to join me on a trip with a company called Jungle Flight. The guys at Jungle Fight have set up a zip wire course in the canopy of the jungle in the mountains beyond Chang Mai, similar to the original Flight of the Gibbon. The course consists of 33 platforms with 26 zip wires, 2 sky-bridges, 4 abseils and one spiral stair case. The longest wire is 300 meters long and the highest is 120 meters above the ground.

In the beginning (and the whole day before) Elínborg was terrified of the thought of hanging high up in these wires and the anxiety didn’t lessen when we came on site. The staff was made up of of guys that, already at just after seven in the morning, acted like a heard of calves in the spring – cracking jokes, all laughing and making noise and didn’t seem responsible at all.

After brief instructions we went for the first zip wire and when in business the guys were very careful and responsible – although continually making jokes. Right from the beginning both of us were loving the experience and all fright was out the window. It was so much fun being up in the canopy and sliding over those wires, enjoying the view.

Gradually we learned more tricks and got more frisky and went head first – Superman style, we went together on twin wires, went backwards and without hands. The distances, height and speed varied greatly so sliding on the wire never got old. In between they also had the abseils where a rope is fastened to your back and a guy lowers you down in a Mission Impossible kind of style, down 20 to 40 meters at full speed – a fantastic adrenalin injection.

We had opted for a cheaper option, 22 platforms, but midway through we were offered to upgrade, which we gladly accepted. I don’t think anyone could pass up on that opportunity being midway through the course. We were in a group with two Taiwanese girls that were doing the big circuit and that made the decision even easier.

So we had a great day in the forest and all in all it was a great experience and a lot of fun that I hope can shines through in the photos – we would highly recommend this to anyone that has the chance!

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Tags: blogsherpa, Chang Mai, Jungle Flight, Thailand, zip wire
Categories : South East Asia

Tiger Kingdom and Jungle Flight

20 03 2010

We have just been loving life here in Chang Mai. First of all it is great to return to some sort of organization after Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. This time around we really notice how much better off the Thais are – both in terms of organization and money. Another great thing that we were really missing is the Thai food. Being back to fantastic red or green curry, tom yum soup and other fantastic dishes is just great!

The first day in Chang Mai we just wandered around the city, trying to get our bearings. On the second day we decided to take a tuktuk to the Tiger Kingdom, a park with about 30 or so tigers. We had very mixed feelings going in, you never know how the animals are treated and how things work.

The deal is that you can come and have a peak into one of the cages and then you can buy 15 minutes with one (or many) of four different age groups – newborns, “teenagers” and adults – with the newborns a bit pricier than the others ($15 vs. $10). We thought long and hard if we wanted to do this, we had seen that if you go in with the adults you are not really petting them, more approaching them from behind and tap on them and it felt very strange to us and not worth the experience – except maybe just getting the thrill of standing next to an adult tiger.

So we opted for seeing the baby tigers since we were there and just to sum up – the experience was amazing! Once we came into the enclosure where they were kept – by the way they were three 6 weeks old kittens – one of them just ran to Elínborg and right into her lap and he stayed around us the whole time. The kittens are a bit tricky because they just go where they want and we were not allowed to hold them, fetch them or anything – just be there and if they wanted to play then we could play with them. Those ten to fifteen minutes with Kankoon (Jack Fruit) were just wonderful and so much fun!

Elínborg with little Jack Fruit

After seeing the baby tigers we were allowed to walk around the part and see the other tigers (through the fence) and what amazing animals they are – so graceful and elegant.

The teenagers

After the whole visit we felt really good and had no second thoughts. All the animals were born in captivity, they seemed very healthy and well taken care of and seemed happy to us (without a degree in tiger psychology though).

Well this has been long enough, I’ll just post about the Jungle Flight experience tomorrow.

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Tags: blogsherpa, Chang Mai, Jungle Flight, Thailand, Tiger Kingdom
Categories : South East Asia

All the way from Vientiane to Chang Mai in Thailand

18 03 2010

After the fun in Vang Vieng we took the bus down to Vientiane, the Laos’ capital. Vientiane is a nice and cozy city but we had heard that there are not that many things to do and see there. We therefore decided to get a room for the night and head for Thailand in the morning.

At the guesthouse we met new friends when we were going to sleep – there were bedbugs in the bed!!! At first we saw one and thought that it was just some harmless bug but soon there were others that followed. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep that night and hurried away from the guesthouse as soon as possible – after refusing to pay the agreed rate. What got us even more angry was that they seemed to know there were bedbugs in the room and rented it to us anyway …bastards!

We had seen tickets from Vientiane to Chang Mai in Thailand for 1,100-1,500 baht ($33-$45), which felt way too much for us – the savvy travelers :) so we decided to go on our own. We had seen that everything seemed to be overpriced in Vientiane and felt sure we could do better when in Thailand. We went to the local bus station and got a ticket to the nearest big Thai town (Udon Thani) for 80 baht – a good start. Going through the border was extremely easy and straight forward …and no payment to get the Thai visa, which is nice :)

For some reason most towns around here have at least two, if not more, bus stations and it is not uncommon that you have to get your self from one station to the next if you have to change busses. On top of that the bus stations are often outside the towns and that doesn’t make things easier. Anyway we had to take a tuktuk between bus stations and got a ticket to Chang Mai three hours later for 525 baht. By showing a little initiative we saved about 50% or 600 baht on the fare, which is huge in backpacker terms, and arrived in Chang Mai 3 hours sooner than if we would have taken the Vientiane-Chang Mai bus so we saved both time and money :)

I have to admit that the 14 hour bus ride was no luxury ride, we had one stop after seven hours and that was it. Twenty minutes to pee and eat. Apparently we had a toilet on board but that wasn’t really accessible because the bus was completely full with about fifteen people standing in the middle without any seats – some of them were standing for hours.

We were very happy to reach Chang Mai where we knew of a great guesthouse in the middle of town waiting for us. Chang Mai is the main city in Northern Thailand and offers a lot of tours and activities that we are now trying to decide between so stay tuned!

ps. we have not been taking enough photos recently as you can see by the crappy photos in the last few posts but I promise that we’ll shape up here in Chang Mai ;)

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Tags: blogsherpa, bus, bus rides, Chang Mai, laos, Thailand, Udon Thani, Vientiane
Categories : South East Asia

Vang Vieng and tubing

16 03 2010

Vang Vieng surely is a town one of its kind! We arrived just when it was getting dark and the town was starting to get lively. Many of the restaurants where playing Friends or Family Guy on the TV and the guests lounged on benches, sipping beer and watching the shows – it all looked so cozy!

We were quick to find a room, get rid of our bags and head for a nice looking restaurant. We had been warned that all you could eat in Vang Vieng were Happy Pizzas, Opium Burgers, Mushroom pasta and the like so we were very curious. Our menu didn’t have any of that stuff and in fact we didn’t see any of those dishes – not that we were really searching :) It wasn’t long before we could smell the sweet odor of ganja from the next table.

On our way back to the guest house we met a few drunken kids, skanky girls in bikinis and guys only in their shorts – all too happy to tell us where the cheapest buckets of whiskey were to be had – but the oldies just went to bed ;)

The next morning we headed towards the river for the town’s main activity (besides partying) – tubing. For the uninitiated, tubing is floating down the river on an old tractor tube stopping at the various bars along the way, jumping into the river on big swings or water slides.

We bought our ticket and were driven about four kilometers up river. We kind of thought that we would just be spectators watching the young ones having all the fun but it ended up being a lot of fun for us. They have about twenty different bars that you can stop at. Many of them have free shots and cocktail specials and all serving ice cold beer to a thunderous beet of dance music.

The river was surprisingly clean and the surroundings absolutely beautiful with high cliffs towering over the river between jungle covered hills so no matter what you are looking for – it should be a lot of fun. Unfortunately we didn’t dare take the camera with us so we don’t have any photos :(

It took us about five hours and a few beers to float all the way back into town. When we came to town we saw that the town is not so cozy in the daylight – the restaurants are all kind of sweaty and the people either suffering from a hang over or drinking it away.

After shower we planted us into one of the Friends bar, ate dinner and watched a few episodes of Friends, an excellent evening after a fun day.

We kind of knew that we had done everything we wanted to do in Vang Vieng and didn’t want to stop too long and repeat any of it, always stop while you’re ahead, so we just took the bus then next morning to the capital – Vientiane – before going back to Tailand.

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Tags: blogsherpa, laos, tubing, Vang vieng
Categories : South East Asia

Laos quick facts

16 03 2010

Laos (with a silent s at the end), the land of million elephants, is the home of 6.5 million people, 70% of which are ethnic Lao and 67% exercise Theravada Buddhism. Laos is more than twice the size of Iceland or six times the size of Switzerland. The official language in Laos is Lao accompanied by Lao script.

Laos is a land-locked country between Burma, China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. With building of new roads though, you can say that Laos is slowly becoming a land-linked country – a major transport hub between the ever growing economies of China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Laos is, like Vietnam, a communist country but the communist party has since the eighties been relaxing its grip on the whole society. We weren’t aware of the communist regime at all apart from a few revolutionary flags around governmental buildings. Laos now welcomes foreign investment and the citizens enjoy more freedom than ever before. The lack of proper infrastructure is though still hindering progress in Laos even though the country has moved leaps and bounds in recent years. The country is very mountainous and land travel takes a lot of time – as we have experienced. Unfortunately water levels are getting lower and lower in the Mekong, after the building of several dams in China, making travel by boat difficult as well.

Rice production still makes up the biggest portion of Laos’ economy but they also grow coffee, tee and opium. The country is rich in minerals like gold and copper and more areas are being mined every year. The country is still pretty poor with about 30% of the population under the poverty line.

Laos has the honor of being the most bombed country on this earth. I read somewhere that during the Vietnam war, the Americans hit Laos by an average of one B-52 bomb load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. That is more explosive power than was used in the whole of WWII.

The last fact is that apparently it is not allowed to play cards in Vientiane! At least we were eating at this restaurant tonight and were playing “Kleppari” while waiting for our dinner when the manager came and told us that playing cards was not allowed in Vientiane?!?!?

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Tags: blogsherpa, facts, laos
Categories : South East Asia

Luang Prabang in Laos

14 03 2010

Luang Prabang has been a great relief after all the all the noise in Hanoi. As you might have heard the Lao people are extremely relaxed and I think that in the five days we have been in Laos only one scooter has honked its horn at us so it has been very relaxing!

The flight from Hanoi was very nice and we even had a nice dinner on board during the one hour flight. Getting a visa was no problem, we had a minor scare though as we didn’t have any dollars nor Lao kip but the visa guys accepted Thai baht so in the end we were OK.

Luang Prabang is a very cozy town of about 50 thousand people, located on the banks of the Mekong river. It is quite a beautiful town with a dominating French colonial style. The relaxed atmosphere is quite dominating and you even have to wake up some of the tuk tuk drivers if you want them to drive you places :)

For the first three days here in Luang Prabang we have just soaked up that relaxed atmosphere and done next to nothing – just wandered around looking at the many temples in town, checking out the very nice night market and chilling in one of the cafés or bakeries here. We met the Húsavík quartet again – just shows how small Asia really is – and here is a link to their Icelandic blog

Laos has been called the land of the thousand elephants so it made sense to book a mahout training course (elephant trainer/rider) for Elínborg’s birthday. We booked a two day training course with the Elephant Village, which seemed to us like the most trustworthy company in town.

The elephant village had nine elephant chicks and on the first day we got to ride the elephant on the saddle and after we got comfortable I was allowed to ride on the elephant’s neck. After the first ride we had our mahout training, learned the lingo and how to control the elephant. After lunch we were allowed to ride the elephants on our own into the jungle where they spend the afternoon eating their 200 kg. of greeneries before going to sleep (the elephant dongs are in proportion to what they eat :).

In the evening we joined a local party celebrating the opening of a new school in the village. The party felt a bit strange and after two ladies asked me to dance, we left for the peace and quite at our restaurant. We could hear the banging music from the party in our lodge well into the night …or at least until about 21:30 when we fell asleep :)

In the morning we went with the other mahouts and fetched the elephants from the jungle and took them for a bath. Bathing the elephants in the river was so much fun – they are such delicate and fantastic creatures and so much fun to be around. This was possibly the most fun activity that we have done so far!