Village life on the Thai-Burma-Lao border (the Golden Triangle!)

To start with, thanks friends, schoolmates and family for comments on our blog - we are really missing everyone believe it or not, and looking forward to getting back to school!  Here's a pic to show Room 2 that 'yes', elephants really can paint (she's in the process of signing her name - 'Suda')! 

Also sorry Room 6, but Harry might get in trouble if he tried to smuggle a baby panda or elephant home in his backpack, but he does have another treat (?!) in store for the class!  And Miss Gray,  Sophie unfortunately hasn't done a Thai massage course so can't give you a professional foot massage on her return, but she has done a full day Thai cooking course and she and Jessie now know how to make a fantastic range of treats including spring rolls, massaman curry, and chicken with vegies and cashew nuts.  See below...

Dad cooking up a storm, and Jess carving vegies at the Thai cooking course. First we went to a market to buy the ingredients then we made about 8 delicious meals and got a cookbook at the end of the day... cool fun.



Last weekend we had 3 days in the mountainous far North of Thailand, in the region of the famous 'golden triangle' where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet at a junction of the Mekong River...

Hanging out at the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos. That is Burma on the left of the Mekong River, Laos on the right and we're standing in Thailand. They used to grow opium here.

We stayed in two different villages up near Mae Salong. One with Akha people and another with Lahu people (minority groups).  They have amazing traditional costumes which they wear for special ceremonies.  They took us on an exhausting 3 hr walk up and down hillsides of rice, corn, and beans and including 3 river crossings, and later taught us some cool crafts like how to make bracelets decorated with dried seeds:

Harry with the mum of our host family, Aba

Exploring rice fields around the village, and trying not to step on snakes (we only saw a dried up one on the road!. Dad asked our hosts if they see many snakes but they said no, they stay away because we like to eat them - they taste good, like chicken!

Jaboosee village, where we stayed for one night and had a great game of soccer with the local kids!

Here's what we enjoyed about the village stays:
- staying in houses on stilts made of bamboo... you can see through the floors, walls and roof.
- playing soccer with the local kids (who had really good skills)
- exploring the village with the little kids, who followed us everywhere
- playing with cute puppies, and seeing baby piglets and chicks running around everywhere
- the effort the families went to, to cook us a range of local food - breakfast one morning was mountain rice, roasted peanuts, omelette, eggplant cooked with chilli, and pumpkin and garlic.  A bit of a change from weetbix!
- how friendly and welcoming everyone was to us!

Dinner, laid out on banana leaves, with the Akha family

Harry playing with one of the 4 puppies...there were chicks and piglets galore running around as well!

The girls join in a Lahu traditional dance around a bonfire at night

Jessie receives a blessing from a Lahu Shaman (spiritual leader) before leaving the village

Here's some things that weren't so great about staying in the village:
- being woken at 4.30am....then 5am...then 5.30am...etc by dozens of really loud roosters (one was right underneath the bamboo floor where we were trying to sleep!)
- the toilets were ummmm... a little basic...let's just say we all had to improve our squatting technique...nothing to sit on here!
- some of the local 'delicacies' served up to us by our very generous hosts e.g. these grubs breed inside bamboo and are only available at this time of year - some people eat them raw but they cooked them for us so they were a bit crispy...only Mum and Dad were willing to try them though!

Sophie looking very skeptical about the fried grubs placed in front of her!!

Chiang Mai - temples, tuktuks and wildlife!

Sawadee from the northern city of Chiang Mai, where we'll be for the next two weeks! We've left the beaches behind (sob, sob!) but have a pool at our apartment where we practice our bombs and flips on a daily basis, so that's ok.

 

Highlights of Chiang Mai city:

• amazing temples and ancient architecture.
• the night bazaar - a collection of 100s of outdoor stalls where you can buy cheap fake versions of everything from billabong t-shirts to new release DVDs, as well as cool Thai handicrafts etc... Harry likes the cheap English Premier League soccer strips, the girls like heaps of things... the tops, the pretty flower soaps, the pretty lights.
• the Zoo and aquarium (see nosey panda below)
• zooming around the streets in tuktuks...kind of like a motorbike with a cab at the back which can fit our whole family, at a squeeze!... yep, Mum and Dad fit in there as well... somehow.

• the whole family getting a meal and a massage (just a foot massage for the kids - Harry looked like he was in heaven! - and more strenuous for the adults!) from the inmates at Chiang Mai Women's Prison, as part of their rehabilitation programme.

"What you looking at punk?"

Very relaxed after our foot massage at the women's prison!

Highlights outside of the city which we explored today on a tour:

• bamboo rafting down the river... a bit tame for Uncle Hen though.
• riding elephants
• elephants that can paint pictures, play soccer, slam dunk basketballs, and the babies are so cute!

Harry the mahout (elephant trainer) leads us into the jungle...

The girls attempt to train their elephants

The baby elephant tries to see if Harry is ticklish

And the one enduring thing that doesn't go away... the heat... whether its cloudy, sunny, raining or whatever... its always warm... often stuffy and sometimes too much... but better than the weather we left behind... although... I don't think Harry, Jessie and Sophie could always be convinced of that after walking around in the heat for an hour or two.

The island where 'The Beach' is... looks mysterious doesn't it.

Wednesday

Today we explored the town while Mum did some work at home. First we went to a Mini Golf course. This was cool, as there were models of dinosaurs, a jungle atmosphere and cool holes-there was even a cave one. Us kids reckoned that it was the best Mini Golf course we had ever been to.

Next we went to Kata town and did some shopping. We looked around and bargained some things, {Jess and Soph don't really like it when people follow you around the shops!}We then went back to the hotel and had our daily swim, {this normally takes about an hour and a half!!!} 

Thursday

Today we went to Phang Nga Bay, it took us 1 hour and a half to get there. We hired a long boat and went around the islands in it.

We went to a village called Panyee that is built on stilts over sea and is connected to an island and built totally over water although Phang Nga Bay is a fairly sheltered area and not far from the coast.

We also went to an island that they call James Bond Island where his movie The Man With The Golden Gun was filmed.  The island was where the bad guy's base was.  Here is Harry standing by a longtail boat on James Bond Island:

The scenery was really cool with these huge limestone rocks that looked like small islands coming out of the sea.

We also saw some mangrove swamp where a large lizard lives that is almost as big as the Komodo Dragon and is part of that family of lizards.

Friday

On Friday we travelled from Phuket to the Phi Phi Islands.  We went down to the Phuket Town wharf and waited for our boat.  We met Mum's research assistant, Mor there because he came with us to help Mum with some questions for the people on Phi Phi Don Island.

The main town on Phi Phi Don Island is built on at isthmus between two large islands that look like hills... see below... it was a bit of haul up to the viewpoint but the view was worth it.

The room where we are staying at Garden Home is really cool, it is in a natural setting with lots of plants and trees.  The room we're staying in is the honeymoon suite and it has a water feature in the bathroom, a screen made of shells and lots more.

"The best thing I've ever done" (Jessie)

We went on a half day trip to Phi Phi Lay Island.  We got to saw a Viking Cave where there were old drawings (actually by the Chinese and not the Vikings), went snorkelling and got to visit the bay where 'The Beach' was filmed - lots of tourists go there!...

Jessie said that going snorkelling was the best thing she has ever done because the fish that we saw were like all the ones on Finding Nemo except for the clown fish which is the Nemo fish.

'The Beach' beach was really picturesque but wasn't enclosed with a lagoon like in the movie but was an open bay... those movie people are pretty tricky.

This photo is of the sun setting at the right hand side of Ko Phi Phi Lay as we cruised back to Ko Phi Phi Don.  Today we got the boat back to Phuket ready for the next part of our adventure up north in Chiang Mai. We're looking forward to our time in the North because it is a mountainous area so should be quite different scenery.

The photo below is of a street in the main town on Ko Phi Phi Don, Ton Sae Village.  This is as wide as the streets get so there are no cars or motorbikes, the only vehicles are bicycles that act as the cars and trolleys that act as the trucks.  It is really busy here and we are so glad that we are here at low season and not at high season.  Apparently in high season they get traffic jams from the trolleys carrying tourists' luggage and food and building materials and other stuff they need to transport around. One of the stalls had these cool little soaps that the lady had carved flowers into... we got one for Nan... she'll like the nice smell.

On the day we left we got heaps of rain and the little streets next to where we were staying were like little rivers that we had to wade through.

The photo above is of the first stop on our half day cruise where we stopped at Monkey Bay to see the monkeys.  One of the little monkeys in the background came up to Sophie and grabbed her on the leg and Sophie wondered if it was Dad playing a trick on her... but it wasn't.  It was quite cool getting to Monkey Bay because Sophie and Mum got to dive off the boat and swim 150 metres into shore and got to swim through little fishies on the way in.

The last photo is of Mum and the girls swimming in 'The Beach'... step aside Leonardo... we've got some new stars emerging... the water was really warm like it has been for all of the beaches over here... you just don't want to get out of the water because you're not freezing your noonoos off like back home.