40km outside of Chiang Mai is Crazy Horse Buttress, a limestone cliff with several dozen climbs established and developed by an American guy who also set up Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures. Rolanda and I hopped on their morning shuttle out to the crag and enjoyed the cooler temperatures and varied climbing compared with Tonsai.
We met some other climbers and returned the next day for more of the same, with Rolanda taking most of the leads and having a particularly strong day. A bit late for the shuttle back to Chiang Mai, we hurried back down the trail and Rolls slipped, spraining her ankle badly.
Her ankle swelled to twice its size in less than a minute. We carried her to the truck and she was then forced to endure an hour’s drive on bumpy roads to the Chaing Mai Rai hospital. Although the doctor was not terribly competent, the rest of the hospital visit went smoothly and we got x-rays, crutches, tensor wraps, and medications in less than two hours. We took a tuk tuk back to the guesthouse and it was apparent that Rolls would not be walking with a backpack for quite a while. Unfortunately, our Thailand visas were up the next day and that meant a visa run was in order.
Our friendly guesthouse lady convinced us that a day tour was the best way to get to the border. This meant 13 hours sitting in a minivan punctuated by occasional stops to check out markets and temples and the like. Some of the sites were pretty neat, like the white wat; a privately constructed temple entirely white rather than the traditional gold.
Arriving at the border to Burma, we had to walk and crutch across the bridge, have our passports stamped, pay 500 baht each (about $15 CDN), and hobble back – all so that we could stay in Thailand for another 15 days. More than a bit tedious, and all the time in the van without ice made Rolanda’s ankle black and blue and painful.
I bought a Go board at the market and spent the next couple days losing games to Rolanda, who turned out to be a natural Go master. We both read lots and I went to the store to get us ice creams, but it soon became clear that the fun part of traveling was over for Rolanda. She decided to change her ticket and head home early to do physio and enjoy the snow, while I would finish the trip alone.
After a teary goodbye at the airport, I headed back to the guesthouse and booked my trip to Laos. I took a van to Chiang Khong, Thailand and then stayed overnight there, meeting a couple guys from Toronto and Colin from France. In the morning, we all took boats across the Mei Kong and waited for ages at Laos immigration to buy our visas, but Colin and I were first sent back across the river to get stamped out of Thailand before going back over to Laos and waiting again. Then we waited for a bus to take us to the slow boat ticket vendor, where we waited again. Then we got on the slow boat (I counted 170 people) and waited for a long time before we left around 1:30pm.
At sundown we arrived in Pakbang, a small town that exists only because the slowboat stops there every day. After being offered marijuana and opium by prepubescent boys as we got off the boat, I split a room with Colin. Later I had dinner with him, two Argentinian girls both named Lucia, and Drew and Erin; a couple from Oregon. I ate some water buffalo (which was not very good), and sampled the local rice-based spirit called Laolao (which was very good indeed).
The next day our boat was split into three, and the ride was much more pleasant. Laos is a beautiful country and the trip down the Mei Kong was breathtaking. We passed Eagle Wall, a massive limestone cliff face rising out of the river, and I knew there was good climbing to be had in the near future. The boat stopped at Luang Prabang which was a mix of upscale guesthouses and ancient temples on a peninsula nestled between the Mei Kong and the Nam Kong rivers. The town itself was quite nice and I rented a bicycle from my guesthouse to explore. After scoping out a few wats I went to the somewhat disappointing King’s museum. The King remodeled the palace in 1957, tearing down much of the original décor that had accumulated over the previous hundreds of years, and replaced it with 1950 furniture and textiles. Lame.
The night market in Luang Prabang was more of the same, with most of the vendors selling similar handicrafts and knitted things, but the food stalls were incredible. I sampled loads of different street delicacies, most served in a small plastic bag and accompanied by sticky rice. I have no idea what most of it was, but some of it was very tasty. The fish lap is maybe my favorite Laos dish so far.
The other thing to see outside of Luang Prabang is a big waterfall which was pretty decent, but not as good as the rope swing on the way up.
After a few days I decided to scoot on down to Vang viene, famous for its lazy afternoons of tubing down the river. My six hour minivan ride was horrendous, with no air conditioning, windy roads, a middle seat, and four boisterous Israelis. The one next to me continually applied Axe body spray while we were in the van. We saw the remains of a fatal scooter accident on our way out of the city, and later in the day the van in front of us hit and killed a dog. Then, when we arrived at the bus depot in Vang viene I made the mistake of sharing a tuk tuk with the Israelis to get into town, but they were so rude to the driver that he drove us way past the center of the city and kicked us out there, to walk back on our own.
Vang viene itself is a nightmare. It seems to be the meeting place for the most obnoxious and offensive backpackers. The worst are the Australians, but the English come in a close second. They all begin drinking shortly before breakfast and are shirtless covered in body paint by lunch. Walking around wearing only swim trunks is rude in any city, but it’s particularly frowned upon in conservative Laos. Everyone comes here to go tubing, but the river is so slow that “tubing” is actually synonymous with “paddling your tube from one bar to the next”. There are a variety of dangerous diversions to be encountered along the way, including bridges to jump off of, slides to be launched from, and rope swings to plummet from. Not to mention alcohol poisoning and drowning. A girl broke both her legs yesterday, and the day before a guy lost a bunch of teeth and needed a few dozen stitches in his face. I saw a girl wearing a seeping eye patch this morning, and three weeks ago someone actually died. While tubing down a flat river.
Anyway, I met some climbers that I had talked to before at Chiang Mai and Tonsai and we went out for the day. The climbing was great, nice and shaded all day on decent quality stone. I onsighted a couple 6b climbs, but felt pretty sick most of the day and made many trips to the toilet. When we got back I retreated to my guesthouse and took some antibiotics, charcoal pills, ibuprofen, and lots of water. Alternating between sleep and delirium, I feverishly sweated and then froze most of the night while the rest of the guesthouse yelled and fought and played loud music and slammed doors until about 5:30am. I slept for a while after that, waking up too late to meet the other climbers for breakfast. Just as well, since I was still feeling pretty rotten, so I checked into a new, quieter guesthouse and wrote a blog post.
-mick
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