All Hands Project Nepal

24.08.2015, Kathmandu

Where to begin… It has been two weeks already. Two weeks that have gone by so quickly that it feels like we have been here forever but arrived only yesterday. We have settled into the routine of work-eat-sleep and made so many new friends in the All Hands family, that I can barely even remember the awkward intro-phase of this new life in Kathmandu – those first few hours, when everything is exciting, kind of scary and you find yourself asking yourself “What am I doing here?” every now and then. Our first day was like that (and then never again). As we moved into the top bunks our six-bed-dorm, realized we were sharing a handful of bathrooms between 60-odd people and familiarized ourselves with the many rules and regulations of life on base, we did ask ourselves what we have gotten ourselves into. Not in the omg-get-me-out-of-here way, but in the this-is-going-to-be-interesting way. Our first volunteering experience. A regulated life after months of free spirited travel and pure pleasure. But the overall first impression of our new home for the next five weeks was actually better than expected – we have real mattresses, we have WiFi and stores selling pretty much everything in the comfort food department are a short walk away. It was starting out well enough. 

Between 4:30-5pm the base started filling up with people – the work day was over. Through conversations over dinner (served at 5pm) and the daily meeting (5:45pm) and a bit of terrace-dwelling, we made our first acquaintances and got a bit more insight into the actual work being done by the volunteers, life on base and other important facts and figures – such as: 20Rupees (20cents) will buy you a little cup of chai and a delicious deep fried donut at the shop in front of the building – important! 

The base of All Hands is a new four story hostel called Famous House Hostel, just a few minutes walk away from Thamel. The rooftop common area has a kitchen and two large terraces with a grand view over the city and the mountains surrounding the valley of Kathmandu – a prime location, if you ask me. From here we watch sunsets, rainstorms, kites and crows and marvel at the new type of cityscape rolling on endlessly into the horizon. 

The sites we work on are around 30mins to an hour away from base, scattered around the hillside villages. All Hands has a second base, a good 4-5h drive away from Kathmandu in Sindipalchuk, a very rural area that was badly affected by the second earthquake. The work there is pure demolition and clearing rubble. Here in Kathmandu, there are multiple different projects running at the same time.
But before I get to those, I’ll try and give you some insight into our day, play by play.

5:45-6:00am
Wake up call. After the first alarm rang that first morning of work, I thought – no way am I getting up this early every morning! Ever since, I have been waking up a few minutes before my alarm. I reach over the space between our beds and poke Mo till he shows signs of life. We slip into our All Hands t-shirts and head upstairs for breakfast.

6:00-6:55am
Breakfast. I know, an hour seems like a long time just to have breakfast, but consider this – everyone on base wants to have breakfast at the same time. There are two tables that all of us crowd around, trying to fix a small bowl of oatmeal, toast our two toasts in the one single toaster, get some peanut butter on there, make a cup of tea/coffee and possibly even get an egg boiled/fried on one of the two burners in the kitchen. It can take a while. And though I am not usually a breakfast person, it is essential to have a good feed before heading out to work here. We usually supplement our oats with a few nuts, raisins and granola for extra fuel and taste.

7:00am
Boots on. Tools gathered. Off to the van. If there is time to spare, we spend it on some sweet chai and a donut. Others use it to play with a group of puppies (that usually also get fed a donut or two). And some with finishing their breakfast or waking up, for that matter. Teams laden with wheelbarrows, shovels, picks, rock bars, first aid kits, water jugs etc. then make their way down a little alley to an empty lot where our vans are parked. With help of the Nepali drivers that everyone gets to know and love, the trusty vehicles are loaded and make their way to Pilgrims, a restaurant and hotel in Thamel that acts as base for Day Volunteers – travelers and locals who want to help out for a day or two or three (and so on).

7:45am
Leave Pilgrims and head out to site. Depending on where we work, the ride takes between half an hour to an hour. All lead through the narrow streets and busy main roads of Kathmandu, where motorbikes and taxis honk to get their way and the public transport busses are so overcrowded that one can get a claustrophobic attack just by looking at them. It is utter chaos and overwhelming at first glance, but somehow there seems to be system in it and everything just flows in a topsy turvy way.The roads are in pretty bad condition – the worst of our travels so far. It doesn’t matter if you are in the city, suburbs or rural areas, potholes are a given. So drinking water or reading or napping are close to impossible (unless you sleep so deeply that you don’t feel your head lolling around from side to side). We pass temples and stupas, surrounded by colorful flags and, more often than not, monkeys sitting on the surrounding walls. On dry days, dust mixes in with the pollution and the air becomes thick. Cows wander about carelessly, not really minding the traffic. Most sites are outside the city center in the hillside villages and the drive on those steep mountain roads are often accompanied by stunning views into the valley. As you slowly, very slowly, ascend and your surroundings turn greener and cleaner, the air becomes fresher and the Nepali music playing in the background becomes the soundtrack to the movie you feel you must be in right now.

9:00ish am
Arrival on site. Work. And here’s what All Hands does…

Rubble

The site of a three story house. Overgrown, three months after the earthquake.

Clearing sites of collapsed houses is definitely the easiest, when it comes to the skill set you have to have. We bring shovels, picks and wheelbarrows and basically move the mud and bricks and wood etc from the site to a dump site, usually only a few meters away. Some beneficiaries ask us to separate whole bricks, brick pieces, stones and wood so they might be able to reuse them in the future. This happens mainly at sites where they use real fired red bricks. Many houses in the countryside are build entirely out of mudbricks that fall apart as you grab them. Every once in a while we pull out pieces of clothing, kitchen utensils, notebooks, telephones… A reminder of the fact that we are clearing the site of where a house once stood. Someone’s home.
The work itself is backbreaking, dirty and tough. But the progress is palpable and the feeling of being part in having enabled a family to rebuild their home is worth every sore muscle and every drop of sweat. And boy, do we sweat! Depending on the weather conditions, I go through 3-5l of water (with the occasional electrolyte or oral rehydration salt package added) in one rubble work day. 

 
Sometimes the beneficiaries help, sometimes they watch. Some may ask themselves, why, 3 months after the earthquake, so many haven’t even begun the work on their land. I did too. I also asked myself why many watched us work and didn’t grab a shovel themselves. There are many reasons. Some are logical – clearing a site just before monsoon season is not necessarily the smartest thing to do, many families lack the physical strength, the man power and the tools to attempt such a task. Some are emotional – the feeling of hopelessness can be quite laming. Imagine standing in front of a giant heap of mud and bricks that used to be your home – reduced to nothing in a few minutes. Your material possessions and fond memories buried. Would you be able to start shoveling it into a pit? 

The way they help is in supplying us with sweet tea, sometimes a little snack and preparing delicious lunch for the team (more on food later).
I have seen some beautiful patches of land while on rubble sites. Rice and corn fields, mountains, stunning serene places to live. And it turns into a bittersweet experience – I am grateful for standing amidst such beautiful nature and then remember the reason why. This is not tourism as we’ve known it. This is experiencing on a whole other level.

At the end of a day of rubble-ing (I don’t think that word actually exists), we are dirty – and I mean top to toe dirty, our limbs are heavy (and the tools seems a lot heavier too ;) and the only thing on our minds is a shower, food and sleep (and beer – for most). And that smile on the beneficiary’s face as we drove away, the site where they home once stood that much closer to being a new chapter.

All Hands has cleared well over 100 rubble sites to date.

50Homes

This project helps beneficiaries by building temporary housing that is earthquake-proof and resilient. Due to regulations set by the Nepali government, we are not allowed to build permanent housing. Instead, All Hands and partnering organizations have come up with a design that beneficiaries themselves can finish and turn into a more permanent solution depending on which materials they use. Different teams have different tasks.

The Super Structure team digs the foundation and puts up the metal structure.

The Walls team cuts panels from GI (galvanized metal sheets) and attaches them to the upper half of the structure.

The Wire teams creates a wire mesh around the bottom half of the structure. This is left open and beneficiaries can then cover it with whatever material they have available. The idea behind the design is, that if they lay bricks to create their wall, if another earthquake occurs, these bricks will not collapse into the house. Also, the structure itself is more flexible in general.

And finally, the Roofs team covers the structure with panels of CGI (corrugated galvanized metal sheets) and attaches them securely with J-hooks.

Working on this project is also very rewarding, because you are not only helping put a roof over a family’s head, but you know that this roof will probably be safer than many of the traditional building methods.
The work itself is not quite as physically strenuous as rubble and it requires you to learn a certain set of skills. I, for example, have learned how to make wire mesh and have also enjoyed drilling holes into CGI while standing on a ladder (and conquering my unease on ladders). Mo has worked on putting up the structure and crushing rocks around the poles so they stay nice and steady.

The view from the parking lot of our vans for this site is insane! Kathmandu stretches on forever, dense and colorful. My chin still drops every time we arrive.

All Hands has already confirmed that they will be building an additional 15 homes in the area.

IDP
IDP stands for Internally Displaced Person and it is an acronym used to describe the many people who are now homeless due to the earthquake. Some have lost their home entirely, some have cannot go home because it is no longer safe, some come from Kathmandu, some have traveled very far from rural villages (,some left their home due to greedy landlords raising the rent up to double after the earthquake – or so I heard). They live in camps, in makeshift shelters made of bamboo poles and tarps. One of the largest ones in Kathmandu has over 7000 people living on one field – a dense tent city within a city and one of many. Living conditions in these camps are tough. The shelters don’t stay dry, there is no comfort, no feeling of home. People get bored, frustrated and depressed, not knowing what is to become of them.
All Hands volunteers help by doing things that may improve the living conditions in these camps. When the rains started, they dug trenches so the tens wouldn’t flood. They build fences and toilets. I helped build one of those fences. Smashing rocks around bamboo poles and tying split bamboo to them with zip ties. Throughout the day, we were being watched closely by those living in the camp and passers-by. While you are quite secluded and private when working on rubble or 50Homes sites, we were in the middle of the city here. Exposed to questions, comments and scrutiny of the locals. Often joined by some who wanted to help. At one point we had a few children and a young mother with a baby tied to her back helping us find rocks to fill the holes for the fence posts with. Towards the end of the day we had a big group of children helping us zip-tie – though very fun and hilarious to watch, we did run out of zip ties in no time. 

 
Mo has gone to the site a few more times, helping to build a community center. It is rainy season and the people living in the camp have nowhere to go aside from their own small tents (they are usually about as high as the tip of my nose). So All Hands built a bamboo structure with CGI roofing, bamboo walls and some benches and tables for people to gather under.

All Hands Volunteers also organize fun activities every Friday morning, offering English lessons, Yoga classes, jewelry making, volleyball etc. to the children and youth who are interested.

TLC/TCT

This project started off as Temporary Learning Centers and they did just that – build structures for schools whose buildings were unsafe or damages, so children could get back into a classroom environment as soon as possible. As of last month, 16 of these were built. I joined this team for their last day in a Buddhist boarding school and helped finish up two classrooms. We basically secured the bamboo structure and pulled a giant tarp roof onto it. The atmosphere was so beautiful – we were on a big field  by their school, surrounded by finished TLCs in which the kids were having their regular classes. They started the day with chanting, chanted before eating and throughout the day one could hear chanting coming from various tents. Being in the middle of it all and seeing exactly where your efforts were going was a wonderful feeling.

Now, the project is called Tactical Construction Team and they are starting to put up other important temporary structures. Such as secure storage spaces for historical and cultural artifacts to ensure that parts of damaged heritage homes can be stored an reused during rebuilding. A new project starting this weekend is a hospital in a rural area outside Kathmandu. A rehabilitation center for people that sustained injuries during the earthquake, where they can recover closer to home and in company of their family. We’re supporting IOM (International Organization for Migration, a UN organization) with able bodies. Mo and I signed up for next week. One week of camping (glamping) and working in rural Nepal. Should be interesting!

So that should give a general overview of our work here with All Hands. It never gets boring and there is always enough to do for everyone. The aftermath of these earthquakes will still be dealt with for many years to come.

12:00noon
Lunch.

We gather wherever we have space – in front of or inside houses or temporary shelters (We’ve even eaten inside a temple that a beneficiary was living in) – and are given large metal plates with a mountain of rice on which we pour some dahl (lentils) and are then usually given some curried potatoes or other vegetables, maybe chicken, some pickled or fresh vegetables (usually fat slices of cucumber) and some tomato chutney, usually nice and spicy. This is called Dahl Baht and is the traditional Nepali food that people here eat everyday. And so do we. Every household cooks it differently – some more spicy, some with more varied curries, some add crunchy roasted soy beans or other goodies. But the basics are rice, lentils and potatoes – and loooads of it! Cultural etiquette requires you to finish food that is given to you. If you accept it (which usually you do), you finish it. This goes for tea, snacks and meals. Food here is blessed and prayed for, so not finishing is offensive. Most of us have found ourselves in the situation of being really really full, not finding anyone hungry enough to take some food off you and having to force down the rest of the food till we feel we could burst.
Lunch break is one hour and every minute left after eating is usually spent finding a spot to get horizontal and taking a power nap.  

1:00pm
Back to work. We continue doing what we were doing, maybe a bit slower, as our bodies are trying to digest the large quantities of rice and lentils. Sometimes we get more tea or a snack or sugary sodas during the second part of the day. The beneficiaries’ way of making sure we are fueled up. We blast music to keep us going. Have conversations with people we haven’t really met yet. Ask many “Would you rather…?” and other random senseless questions to pass the time.

4:00pm
Pack up. Head back to the van. Drive home.

5:00pm
Dinner. Showers. After getting back to base, the race for the showers begins. Taking a shower as fast as possible can definitely pay off. Though dinner is served at 5pm, I’ve come to the conclusion that I would rather eat cold-ish food than possibly not being able to shower. Water is limited and has to be processed before it comes out of our taps. We are already reduced to flush only when ABSOLUTELY necessary (if ya know what I mean) and taking navy showers (water on, get wet, water off, get soapy, water on, rinse). Still, every once in a while, water runs out and it either takes a while till there is more or you end up going to bed without one.

Dinner is cooked on base and the food is actually pretty good. No rice (since we get enough of that for lunch). Instead we get pasta or potatoes or bread, a protein (veg and non-veg) and some salad. A sample plate sitting in a vitrine by the buffet shows us how much of everything we are allowed. If everyone has eaten and there is food left, seconds are allowed.

5:45pm
Meeting. We sit around in the common area, on chairs, benches and the floor and listen to staff conduct the daily meeting. New people introductions. What did each team accomplish today? How was the day? Important meeting notes (such as, do your dishes, new rules, upcoming events etc.). What work will be done tomorrow? Who wants to do the dishes (perk: you get to chose the site you want to work at the next day)? Who is leaving? Work sign up – groups based on the letter your first name starts with get rotated for first pick. There’s a lot of laughing and clapping involved in these meetings. A lot of “great job”s and “awesome”s.

6:00ish pm and onwards
Free time. Chill time. Bed time. Seconds are eaten. Beers are opened. Smokers gather on the terrace. It’s down time. Time to put your feet up or get your drink on. On some evenings we have Nepali class (for those who want) and Happy, a local day volunteer and institution at All Hands, comes to base and teaches us some phrases. On some evenings we have Night School, where someone talks about a relevant subject within humanitarian work. On some evenings staff/volunteers come up with other fun activities. Just the other day we had a trivia night. And on all the other evenings we socialize or hide in our beds and get some quiet time. I mix it up, I enjoy both. But I do end up in bed around 9:00pm. I don’t think I’ve managed to be awake at 10:00pm on a work night. After a day of work, sleep is just so much more enjoyable.

One day a week we do a deep clean of the base... 

This is what a "sexy cleaning pose" looks like

I remember being a bit nervous about eating, sleeping, living, breathing, working with so many people 24/7. And I remember telling my little sister about dreading the whole zero privacy thing. And I remember her telling me “Don’t worry, it’ll be just like camp”. And it is. We are people from many different countries, from all walks of life, various ages, with different thoughts and opinions. But we are united by the fact that we are here to help. Not every day is perfect – some days are better than others, others you wish would never end. On some days you feel like superwoman/man, on others you manage to whack yourself on the shin with a shovel, walk into objects or just want to crawl back in bed. Some people are instant friends for life, with some it takes a few days to break the ice and others just aren’t up your alley. But it doesn’t matter. What matter is that we are here. We are all doing something for others, something for ourselves and something that matters.

PS: Naan is awesome!

Thailand Transit and Travel, Next Stop: Myannn…Nepal!

01.-08.08.15

Emerging from the jungle after zipping with the Gibbons, we found ourselves under a bit of time pressure. Our visa was expiring that very day. Thank heavens for the shower facilities in the offices of the Gibbon Experience. Necessary would be the understatement of the century when describing our need for one.
A quick re-pack and triple sealing of our wet and odorous clothes and we were off, on a Tuk Tuk heading over the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge (apparently the 4th so far – must be a shaky friendship), where a bus to Chiang Mai would be waiting for us. But not before taking a quick look what the online world had to tell us after three whole days of WIFI-less-living. An Email caught my attention, between stuffing socks that could be considered biohazardous or WMD into multiple plastic bags… “Hi Rosanna, You’ll be pleased to hear that we have reserved you…” Sender: project nepal.

Woah. What. Is. Happening. Right. Now.

We had been accepted. The last thing we had heard from them, was that we were on number 1000something on the waiting list. We had written it off as probably not happening. We were wrong. We had been accepted.

Sitting on that Tuk Tuk to the border of Laos, I couldn’t wipe a big fat grin off my face. I didn’t even try. Crossing the border just happened in the background. I didn’t care about paying a “late fee” of 10.000Kip, due to it being a weekend. I didn’t care about the few dollars I lost on exchanging our last Kip into Baht. I didn’t care about having to get onto a big bus to get to the Thai border. I didn’t care about waiting in line to get into Thailand. It just happened.
My head was spinning. Decisions, decisions. Were we going to Nepal?

Our bus to Chiang Mai was a big and comfortable van. We had a crazy driver going 110km/h at night. After the 40km/h bus rides in Laos, I was not used to seeing the outside world flying by AND being on the wrong side of the road – I gripped the handle in the bus as hard as my rope on the zip line. We got overwhelmed by the choice in the store at the gas station – they had everything and the prices were reasonable! I don’t think we had quite grasped the fact that we were now in Thailand (hours after zipping through the jungle in Laos). Somewhere along the way, the decision was made – we were going to Nepal. We just started talking about it like it was obvious we were going. And that was it.

Chiang Mai

We arrived at the bus station at around 9:30pm and it took forever to find some Wifi to get directions to a hostel a friend had suggested. But eventually we made it and checked into the Mapping Hostel, where we fell onto our mattress in our tiny room and fell asleep instantly.

It was a night of broken sleep for me. I just couldn’t stay asleep. My head was too full. I kept sitting up and adding items to our shopping and to-do list. And then woke up early, eager to start the day.
It was like a switch just flipped and we went off “travel-mode” to “we-are-going-to-volunteer-in-Nepal-mode” and suddenly sightseeing and orientation and all that touristy jazz didn’t matter anymore. We were in Chiang Mai, one of the most visited cities in Thailand, offering so many things to do, sights to see and experiences to be made. But we were blind to trekking, elephants and cooking classes. We had stuff to get done.

The morning/early afternoon was spent doing laundry and handwashing our rain jackets, backpacks and shoes. Soaking and scrubbing them with toothbrushes till they looked almost new again.
The rest of the day spent with online stuff, paper work etc.
The next morning we headed to the mall – a real mall! We did let ourselves get distracted by the abundance of food, which we did end up making use of. But all the while, we were focused on working on our list. Electrolytes, medicines, gloves, work clothes and so on. We managed quite a bit as well.

Our room at the Mapping Hostel - a mattress and just about enough space for our bags.

When it's raining and all the lines are full... Drying your underwear and socks, backpacker style.

That evening we walk to night market – in the end, all streets where tourists might walk along are a market. We temporarily became travelers again, browsing the stalls, eating street food and shopping a bit here and there. Bargaining was more difficult, because there are enough tourists in this city that someone ignorant will pay the higher price at some point.
We ended our very long day of walking with a foot massage, which was pure bliss.

Our last day in Chiang Mai was used to send stuff to the Philippines – lighten the load of my bag and make space for more important stuff. And then shopping in a second hand store to get some work pants.
We had lunch with James and then spent an hour or two in the hostel. I sewed my shoes while Mo bought us train tickets. We were going to Bangkok and we were going to do it in style.

Midnight Train To Bangkok

Our first train ride in Asia and it was going to be a long one – around 12h. We boarded the purple express train filled with foreigners and were shown our seats, which were, at some point of the ride, going to be converted into beds. We spent the first few hours watching series, as the pitch black landscape rolled by.  We stopped a few times along the way to pick up more passengers.

Chiang Mai train station.

During one of our stops along the way : Happy Toilet - Best Public Toilet of the Year. 

Around 10pm, most had already retreated into their beds, someone came by and made ours. With nimble hands and movements that suggested he had done it a million times before, the seats were stretched out and something resembling a very large overhead compartment was let down to create a bunk bed. We both had top bunks and, after squeezing into one to finish our last episode, we closed the curtains, put on an eye mask and caught a few hours of sleep.

I kept listening and checking for signs that our bed was going to collapse.

We slept somewhat well in our little baby blue cubby holes, till our conductor woke us in several different languages, as we slowly crept into Bangkok City.

One Night In Bangkok

We opted for the cheapest way to get around and took a public bus ride through town. We traversed China town, drove by temples and the amulet market, watched the streets slowly coe to life as shops opened, stalls were set up and people set off to work. We had decided on staying around the infamous Kao San road – backpacker haven, often condemned as being “not Asia” and unauthentic. But we figured, with only one night in Bangkok – we might as well.

We chose one of the many interchangeable hotels and then set off to walk about and get our bearings and some breakfast. The Kao San road was shorter than expected and in the morning hours, just another tourist melting pot. Stalls selling clothes, restaurants and bars, massage parlors and cheap tailors.

But we needed more than this road could offer, so we took on a 6km walk to the MBK Center, a huge old mall with market like stalls and cheap everythings. It was hot and sticky and I could feel the pollution clog up my lungs, that had been spoiled by months of mostly clean air. It was a nice walk though, sipping delicious red Thai iced tea and watching our surrounding change from small stores and alleys to high-rises and multi-lane-roads.
The MBK Center was fun enough – good food, great shopping and very overwhelming! Afterwards, we visited Central World as well, the largest shopping mall in Thailand and one of the largest in the world, but by then, we couldn’t really enjoy it anymore. We were tired and had to admit to ourselves, that we had probably overdone it a bit in the end.

Nothing some food, some resting our feet and a whole lot of water couldn’t fix. The scarily fast Tuk Tuk ride home also brought us back to life.  We even had enough energy to take a stroll along the Kao San by night – many more stalls had popped up, every second one selling cheap Pad Thai noodles. More exotic dishes included coconut ice cream serves in half a young coconut, lots of different barbeques and insects – scorpion on a stick, tarantulas, crickets etc. Ladies selling little wooden frogs that made croaking sounds when dragging a little wooden stick across their backs and the blasting music of every single bar and restaurant provided the background noise, along with the calls of “cheap suit for you” and the haggling discussions between tourist and vendor. Once up and down this road was enough for us. All we wanted was our bed in our dark dungeon of a room and some real sleep.

We spent as long as we could in the hotel room and then walked about for the lastest last minute errands. To pass the time – and just because we wanted to – we had a 1h Thai massage and came out stretched, relaxed and ready for the trip that lay ahead.

We tasted our way through the many different kinds of street food, including (but not limited to): grilled sticky rice in banana leaf with taro, broiled pork knuckle with rice, roasted chicken, Tako (coconut pudding with sago), crispy fried sticky rice with sugar and sesame (a crunchy oily delicious mess) and the obligatory thai iced tea.

Travel, Travel, Travel

Our "We're-Going-To-Nepal!"-Selfie

And then our journey began. Not wanting to take an expensive taxi, we found out where the bus to the Airport Link left and walked there, fully laden with our very heavy bags that were now filled with electrolytes, work clothes and comfort food. We hopped on the air-conditioned bus number 79 and then sat in traffic. It was like being back in Manila, only worse. We crept along and the bus filled and emptied along the way. The ticket guy kicked us off at some point and pointed down the main road. We followed his finger, ended up at the Skytrain station and, after much confusion, found the platform from where the Airport Link left.

We did get to experience a phenomenon that we had only heard about but not yet witnessed. At exactly 6pm the national anthem is played everywhere where they can – including the train station. Everyone freezes in their tracks. The world around you stands still. It’s eerie and funny at the same time.

On the train – which looked like any subway train in many parts of the world – Mo was rapidly approached by a chubby cheeked young Thai in a red track suit (probably a school uniform), who started asking very many questions in broken English. Where were we from? What were we doing in Thailand? Did we like it here? Where are we going next? Where have we been? How long did we spend there? Do we like Thai food (followed by many questions of exactly which Thai food we ate)? Are we married? Are we planning on coming back to Thailand? In between, he typed things into Google translator with shaky hands. It was cute and strange and hilarious at the same time. He explained that he rides the Airport Link everyday and speaks to at least one foreigner. He even took pictures of us “for memory”.

U-Bahn Fahren

Sunset from the Airport Link

We got to the airport with just enough time to drop off our luggage, get through immigration and security and make our way to the gate. We had left our hotel at 5pm, gotten to the airport at 7pm and boarded at 8pm. So much for getting there early and hanging out at the airport – something we were actually looking forward to.

We flew to Mumbai with Jet Airways, an Indian airline affiliated with Etihad. It was an uneventful 4h, aside from the fact that there were very many young children sitting in our vicinity and they seemed to have made a pact: when one stops crying the next must start. And the Korean guy next to me had no sense of personal space and spread out his legs to get comfortable, not really caring that his leg was basically there where mine should have been – on my side.

Mumbai airport is the worst airport I’ve transited in so far. We waited forever (must have been around an hour) in a line (of three to four people next to each other) that was not roped off and constantly being cut, to get to one of two counters to have a lady look at our boarding passes, mark them and give us baggage tags. Then waited forever to go through security to be checked in a glass box, cause I’m a woman, and then thoroughly have the contents of my bag checked by multiple security guards multiple times because of a lighter (which fell out and was later found on the floor next to me when I tipped out my bag in anger – I was then grinned at like an idiot).

We found a nice little corner and pushed some comfortable couch-like benches against the wall. We had an 11h layover ahead of us and it was the middle of the night. We had Pizza Hut midnight munchies and then tried to sleep. Earplugs and eye mask – absolute necessity to drown out the electronic music they were playing and the blinding white fluorescent lighting. It worked well enough.

We woke up in time to stroll around the duty free – freshen up with some perfume and ultra hydrating skin cream, and the boarded a flight that was definitely not full. We had booked seats in the emergency exit row and enjoyed our leg room (not that I needed it). The flight got delayed and we waited in the plane for quite a while, but the inflight entertainment was on and so it didn’t really matter. Movies and a full meal on a 2,5h flight seemed like a pretty good deal, as well.

Touchdown Kathmandu

After the shiny marble floors, fancy stores and bright lights of Mumbai airport, landing in the brick terminal of Kathmandu was a stark contrast. Low ceilings and sparse lighting, hallways smelling of stale mountain air and very few people. We knew from the time we set foot off the plane that we had entered a different world. Southeast Asia suddenly seemed very far away. But this was not such a bad thing. We grinned at each other every few steps and uttered sentences such as “We made it.” And “We’re in Nepal.” And “This is awesome.” Over and over again.

Getting a visa for Nepal was the easiest so far. We filled out forms at an electronic booth, pulled out a stub, went to a counter, paid 100$ for three months and went through immigration.

We were greeted by pouring rain, fresh air and many people trying to help us with cabs and directions to the ATM. One very persistent man followed us to the ATM and offered us a cab ride to his hotel and if we ended up staying with him, we wouldn’t have to pay. If we didn’t like it, he charged us a fair price. We agreed and found ourselves sitting in the back of a leaking hybrid van/car that was at least as old as me.
The windows fogged up, but what we could see between the rain was new. Small roads, many cars, hills, slim buildings tightly squeezed together. A mountain city. We couldn’t really see any direct destruction by the earthquake (we were going too fast and zig-zaggy), aside from many construction sites and some heaps of rubble.

Not knowing what to expect of a place is a great basis for surprises. Thamel, the main tourist area of Kathmandu, surprised us. Roads were slim, allowing one car to pass at a time, though only with some honking to clear the road of pedestrians, that have to walk there since there are no pavements. Stores filled with outdoor and trekking gear from all known international brands and travel agents offering trekking, climbing and rafting. Colorful textiles, fluffy woolen sweaters (on which I have definitely laid an eye for the upcoming winter), bronze statues, wooden beads, jewelry and books – so many new sights, so many new shopping possibilities! The air was cool and tasted different, new spicy smells oozed out of restaurants and even the incense had a foreign aroma. Unlike in many main tourist areas we visited before, Thamel was alive with locals. Less white folk spending their few days bargaining and trying to find the best burger in town, more of a “spot the traveler” amongst people going on with their daily routine. Some streets, of course, were filled with bars, most of them on the second floor or rooftop. In the evening, live music was heard from many of them. So much life. So much energy. So different.

We ended up staying in the hotel of our cabbie and our room was spacious and had a TV with English channels. Just right for some rest and relaxation. As I write this, we’re watching nonsense in the background, just having come home from a good meal. Legs up and mind at ease. The last week(s) have been hectic – treks, long bus rides, hot and busy days running errands, a night on a train, endless shopping and to do lists, trying every form of public transport in Bangkok, 18h travel to Kathmandu – and we are tired. It feels like we have been on the go non-stop and of course, traveling SEA for over two months adds on to that. Constantly packing, checking in and checking out, getting on and off busses, haggling and hunting for bargains. Getting here was like exhaling, loosening the straps of our backpacks and arriving somewhere. Knowing we will be here for at least five weeks, we are excited to settle down and really BE somewhere.

We walked a few streets in Thamel up and down, have eaten in a few places, found our supermarket, found a bakery that discounts delicious cake after 7pm, watched a lady draw a beautiful mandala on the sidewalk in front of our window, were asked my every third young male on the streets if we were looking for hash, marveled at the beautiful fabrics… breathed in the life on the streets and exhaled in happiness of being here. Here, in the center of town, it is hard to believe that only a few months ago this country was struck by disastrous earthquakes. There are closed shops, construction sites and small piles of rubble in between the busy hustle and bustle. We ate brunch in a place between two empty lots that men were still clearing bricks from. We walked a bit further, just a block or so, looking for a restaurant we had read rave reviews on. We turned into an alley and it opened up to a gaping pit. Water pouring out of pipes on both sides, algae growing along at the edges, rubble cascading down the sides, broken furniture, a bag with clothes peeking out. Two girls were climbing around and playing there. Across from it was a collapsed building and men demolishing what was left of it. We walked on and block later, after a few confused steps back and forth, looking for the restaurant, we realized that it had been on a lot that was also closed off, collapsed. It was a strange situation and I felt it deep down in my gut – the realization that we are in a region where catastrophic events have affected the lives of so many people. And we were walking in the middle of it all, looking for a restaurant.

Tomorrow we check into the base of All Hands and start a new chapter of our travels. We look forward to this experience with excitement and anticipation. I am not a Buddhist (though I have been reading into it and enjoying every word), but I like the idea of karma. We have been so fortunate, so lucky in the last year and four months since we left Berlin. The comfort of a home in the Philippines, the generosity of family and friends there, finding good jobs in Australia, traveling Southeast Asia without any troubles, meeting genuine people, creating unforgettable memories… And now it’s our turn to give back. To express gratitude for our good fortune by helping those who have been unfortunate. By lending our hands to All Hands.

One of my first pictures in Nepal: Momo eating Mo Mos (Nepalese dumplings - yummy!)

Lovin' Luang Prabang and THE Gibbon Experience - The Last of Laos

22.-27.07.15

Luang Prabang – Love At First Sight

Together with a very red haired Brit and a more mature, very well traveled man from Kuwait who gave us some great travel tips that I don’t remember because I was too distracted by his lose dentures that kept popping in and out, we boarded a medium sized bus. By the time we had gotten there, the bus had been pretty full, but somehow our guesthouse owner procured the back row for us, so we wouldn’t have to sit in the jump seats in the aisle for 8h. Thank you!! But it was promising to be a long ride either way – not enough space to put my backpack on the floor, I had it on my lap and my feet rested on a giant bag of fish feed.

The road was yet another winding serpentine leading up, down and around mountain ranges. At the highest point, we were towering above them and had a spectacular panorama view on both sides of the bus. The air was cool and fresh and very in our face – the girl in front of me had opened the window quite widely, probably to avoid getting too sick, and Mo and I had to layer up and wear our rain jackets back to front to create some kind of shield against the constant wind. But better too much air than too little. Especially because the road definitely pushing the limits what tolerance to motion sickness was concerned. This was definitely an appropriate first time to pop a travel pill.

We stopped often and overfilled the bus, two people squeezing onto one jump seat and one even standing by the door. Every stop had the majority of the bus rush out and wretch at the side of the road. A funny site, so many people unitedly heaving on the side of the road. But I was impressed by how they could hold it back for so long while on the bus. You hardly noticed when someone got sick on the bus – you’d just see a little plastic bag fly discreetly out the window.

The ride was long and we were happy to arrive. Bus stations are always so conveniently far outside of town. Too far to want to walk with luggage. We haggled with yet another Tuk Tuk driver to get a decent price and finally got to Phatomphone guesthosue by the Nam Khan river in the Old Town. A little balcony overlooked the river, the ceilings were high and the ceiling fan strong.

Luang Prabang was named a UNESCO World Heritage site and is said to be the region in which the majority of the population are native Lao. The Old Town is situated on a little stretch of land 300m by 1km, nestled in between the Mekong in the North and the Nam Khan in the South. The banks are green and the streets easy to navigate. We stretched our legs with a little walk to get our bearings and ended this travel day with a good dinner and a good nights sleep.

Temples and Tourists

Exploration day. After a pricey breakfast – a given along the main road – we criss-crossed around the main streets with their historic architecture and many many temples. Though no traditional shops are left and every single store caters to tourists now – restaurants, bars, souvenir stores and a myriad of travel and tour agencies, the historic part of town has kept its charm and relaxed atmosphere. We visited the store of the Ock Pop Tok weaving that use traditional weaving skills and natural dyes to create beautiful fabrics made into modern clothes, bags, scarves and home deco. We walked by many fancy restaurants and luxurious guesthouses along the main roads and peered into hidden alleys that housed noodle shops, a storytelling theatre and Brother Mouse, a literacy and book NGO for children.

We walked around a few smaller temples and a photo exhibit on mediation with beautiful black and white pictures of monks, before getting to Wat Xieng Thong – Supposedly the most historic and enchanting Buddhist monastery in the entire country. The complex was relatively small, compared to the temples in Cambodia, but very well restored. Its main temple was built in 1560 and had lovely mosaics on the façade and on the inside. Everything was very very golden, though some lotus statues or larger mosaics were made with colorful shiny tiles – disco lotus!

Disco Elephant!

Disco Lotus!

We exited the complex by the river and walked the quiet street for a while before turning back into the hubbub of town center. Everything was so compact and close, we could have walked the historic town in its entirety multiple times that day. Instead, we decided to ignore the drizzle that was starting to come down and climb Mt.Phousi – more of a hill than a mountain, but said to be the spiritual center of Luang Prabang – it’s golden stupa on the tip is visible when driving into the city. Before braving the steps, we peeked into Wat Pa Houak – a small temple with a weathered old façade, not very inviting from the outside. But inside, there is a 19th century mural depicting Luang Prabang as a celestial city which is very nice to spend a few minutes in front of.

The many steps lead us to the golden stupa and a little temple on the top, with beautiful view of the Mekong on one side and the Nam Khan on the other. The arched roofs of the historic town were also a pretty sight to behold. It didn’t feel very spiritual though, a few local girls were sitting on a rock playing loud music from a cell phone, a guy sat smoking at the entrance of the temple and peering inside there was a lady taking a nap. 

Deeply meditating on the functions of his smart phone.

I'd look a bit erked too if I had a gecko sitting on my forehead.

We walked back down a different way and encountered a nest of many golden Buddha statues – sitting, standing, lying and surrounded by golden statues of worshippers. Nagas (giant mythical snakes) lined some stairs leading to a cave containing Buddha’s footstep. And at some point we exited via Wat Pa Phoutthabat, a temple containing a school – deserted and kind of eerie. Following a small path we ended up crawling out an invisible alley and suddenly being back in the middle of the main road. 

After some R&R back in the guesthouse, we headed out again for the night market. Around 5/6pm the vendors start setting up stalls along the main road starting at the Royal Palace and leading all the way to a large crossing. Once you dive in, there is no way out but straight ahead. It is colorful and fun, but after 20m you notice that everyone is selling the same things – floppy pants that one can buy in any Southeast Asian country and some traditional Lao weaving made into pillow cases, baby shoes and bags. Some stalls have art, some Lao Lao whiskey, some items crafted from bomb scraps found in fields. But it gets quite repetitive after a while. And Mo couldn’t even walk upright because the frames of the tents were too low.

On the other side it gets more interesting – food! In a little dingy alley, food vendors sell fried mushrooms, dried pork, barbecue and a dizzying array of local food. We had heard about the buffets, so we decided to try them out. You get one bowl for 15.000Kip (just under 2USD) and can fill it with as much food as you like – different noodles, rice, deep fried veggies, steamed veggies, stir fried veggies, fried eggs, spring rolls etc. And if you want meat, you buy a stick of barbecue to go with it. A fun concept up until the point where you eat the cold, greasy mound of mess in front of you. Some things were quite good, but most were just kinda blah. 

Back in fresh air and out of the alley, we had cute little coconut rice pancakes, served in a little banana leaf bowl – these little buggers were so good, it became our ritual desert every single evening in Luang Prabang.

The night ended with a walk through the town’s night life and me going to bed, while Mo met up with the group of people we had parted ways with in Vang Vien and experienced a night out that traditionally ends in bowling here in Luang Prabang. At 11:30, all bars close due to the curfew. There is one single after hours place – a bowling alley (owned by the mayor’s son).

Full House

The next day we moved. Not because we didn’t like our place, but because our friends were staying in a cheaper place that sounded better. And so our group of six ended up under one roof, which made for fun sitting around talking about this that and nothing. The whole moving and regrouping procedure took all morning and so the planned trip to the must-see waterfall was postponed due to errrrr “racist issues” (as we jokingly called the fact that we didn’t want to go after noon, when we knew there would be busloads of Chinese tour groups there).

Instead, we lazed, got some stuff done that needed doing and developed a plan for the final days of our visa in Laos. We wanted to extend it for a few days to be able to travel a bit more relaxed – apparently it is really easy and only costs 2$ a day. Turned out though, that I, who have an ASEAN passport and therefore no visa, cannot extend that non-existent visa. Oh well.

That night, we had a great Laos barbeque meal on a table grill – basically a large stone container filled with glowing hot coals with a rounded metal grill on top. Soup, noodles, egg and veggies go into the moat around the grill, while the top is lovingly stroked with a chunk of pork fat before throwing a mix of meats on it – chicken, pork and water buffalo. The soup gets tastier the longer it sits and the meat grills to perfection in a very short time. The barbecue sauce was delicious and we finished every morsel of the meal with gusto. It was a hot ordeal, but so worth the sweating.

The evening ended with a hang-out session on the terrace of our guesthouse with good music and a good mix of silly banter and interesting conversation filled to the brim with puns that our group seemed to have excelled in.

Kung Si, Kung Sa

The next morning we had breakfast at the sandwich stand we had discovered one afternoon – this too had become a ritual. A whole long row offered sandwiches and fruit shakes and we went to the same lady every morning. A big baguette with mayo, salads, chicken and bacon (for me, add avocado for Mo) and a shake (passion fruit, pineapple coconut, lemon yogurt honey were some of my favorites). After the first morning, we started buying a whole peeled and cut pineapple from a lady by our street corner to complete the meal.

We had given ourselves an ETD for the waterfalls and managed to somewhat stick to it – if it weren’t for the hour of haggling we had to go through to finally find a Tuk Tuk driver that would take us for the price we knew was right.

The Kung Si Waterfalls are about 30km away and it took us a good hour to get there. We walked the last bit, because our Tuk Tuk “broke down”. It was a weekend and the place was swarming with people. We walked through the forest, passed the bear sanctuary – they save bears from captivity and bear bile traders – and along the multilevel falls. They were beautiful! The pools were light turquoise – aparently caused by the limestone sediment – and very inviting. The highest fall was quite a sight. We started climbing to get to the top, but the French girl Aline that had joined our group and I decided halfway to head back down and swim instead. Mo and Ivan headed up and Steve and Vianney took an unknown adventurous path.

Aline and I found an empty pool and carefully made our way into the cool water. After a while, the fish started getting very interested in our legs and nipped here and there – free fish spa! Though they weren’t large and it didn’t hurt, it was a bit unnerving.

I jumped in and regretted it a split second later. A split second too late though and my one and only pair of sunglasses were gone – the pool way too deep to even touch the bottom. Bye bye beloved 8$ polarized lenses!

Our Tuk Tuk driver had said to be back out at 3pm, which was just about the time t started raining. However, we should have known better than to let him have us walk there because his vehicle “broke down” and promising to have his friend come get us – after already having paid over half of the fare. Con artists! Of course, him or his friend were nowhere to be found and we ended up having to pay another Tuk Tuk to take us home.

Tiger Trail Trekking (W/o Tigers) or Mud, Muddy, Muddiest

Bright and early, after breakfast at our favorite sandwich stand, we walked to the Tiger Trail bike shop to meet out guide. Lucky us got a private tour – thank rainy season! After a short drive, we stopped at the Tiger Trail Camp, fixed Mo’s shoes, which were close to sole-less and then crossed the river in a long flat boat. Some elephants and their riders passed us – many of Luang Prabang’s elephant camps are in that area.

Before.

The first few steps were quite muddy, but we had been warned by the lady in the tour shop that rainy season dampened the rail and we should be prepared to get a bit dirty. The next few steps went through a stream and so – after about 10mins – we had soaking wet shoes. And the stops following that – more mud. It took some used to the slipping and sliding and trying to keep an eye out for where exactly the guide stepped. This wasn’t always easy, since he was – despite being a head shorter than ME – very nimble on his feet. 

Phase 1

After the initial care disappeared and enough mud had seeped into our shoes, it became a bit easier. We were going to get dirtier than expected anyways. Though I have to admit that we did ask ourselves – aloud – a few times in that first half an hour, what the hell we had gotten ourselves into. Especially after asking the guide if the path was going to be in that condition the entire trek and he just said “yes”.

We were flanked by rice paddies, sometimes on one, sometimes on both sides. Other farmlands followed and then, slowly but surely, the landscape changed to less developed nature. We reached the first village after an hour, a Khmu village with 20something families and a population of around 300. Though remote, they did have a road leading straight to town from there and the people definitely knew all about the foreign tourists trekking through their narrow streets and wooden houses. We were even explained that the mayor makes sure it is clean and free of animals roaming the streets.

From there we followed a street for a short while and then straight into the jungle and up a incline. For this part of the trek there was no mud – yay! Instead, slippery rocks formed steep steps that seemed to lead into the crevice between two large limestone cliffs/mountains. Daylight seemed to be swallowed up, the green was darker and everything was shimmering wet. It started drizzling and even raining a bit harder for a while, but we welcomed the cooling down. It eased the heat of fighting the incline and hid the profuse sweating going on.

Phase 2

We emerged onto a field of very high growing grass. It looked like sugar cane and towered above our heads – yes, Mo’s too, not only mine. We were told that it’s grown to feed cattle during the dry season. There’s just something about walking through dense monotonous growth.

Soon after the field, we arrived at a Hmong “village”, if you can call the sudden appearance of a few houses in the middle of nowhere that. Five families lived in that very remote valley, between limestone formations and jungle. They had pigs, chickens and dogs running around. Kids were playing in the swampy water of a small lake. Not a single grown up was around. The eldest girl was around 8 or 9 years old, watching over her siblings while everyone older tended the fields. 

Phase 3

Here we had lunch. Our guide produced two neatly wrapped packages of banana leaf, containing delicious fried noodles. We ate with piglets running between our feet and the sounds of the kids laughter echoing off the stone walls.

Lunch was followed by another steep and muddy incline. By then, we both had walking sticks (after only a short while we realized it was the only way we would survive the trek) – they saved us from many a slip and spill. As mentioned, most of the track was mud. Much of it was also quite overgrown with plants that either stroked your ankles and legs, prodded your waist or even slapped you in the face. Our guide, with a big fat machete on his belt, didn’t seem to care. Especially not for the one high up – poor Mo not only got most of the spider webs in his face, but also had to deal with many more branches in the way. And of course, the mosquitos were vicious! Every once in a while, I just wanted to stop and take in my surroundings. Look ahead and to the sides – see something other than the meter in front of my feet. Listen to the exotic sounds of the jungle – and not only the squelching of the mud beneath my feet (and in between my toes). But stopping was fatal. The second I stopped, the little swarm that followed me constantly would instantly latch on. Even while walking I sometimes felt a bit like a cow, swatting my ponytail with jerky head movements to keep the buzzing out of my ears.

After a while, the path seemed to brighten and we walked out of the jungle. The view that opened up to us was, on one hand absolutely amazing – vast stretches of green hills, treetops and limestone mountains lined the horizon. On the other hand, the only reason we were able to see this beautiful view was the fact that the hills to our feet had been completely slashed. Not a single tree remained, only their stumps, some still showing their charred scarring. The area had been cleared to plant mountain rice. Also a pretty sight to see – hills covered in the soft green. But it came of more as a shock at first. Slash and burn methods are killing rainforests worldwide and it’s scary to see up close and personal. I have to commend the hard work of the families living in the remote mountain villages, that trek the paths that we huffed and puffed along barefoot, with tools and baskets on their backs every day just to tend to their field. Farming on such steep hills, relying on the rain to ensure their crop grows and traveling far to the towns to sell their products. We saw some families at work and were greeted with warm toothless smiles.

Still alive. Still smiling. Barely.

Open Sesame.

Though looking ahead was a strange mix of awe and worry – standing amongst so many tree stumps and marveling at the great green ocean behind it – looking behind filled me with delight. Not only was the view onto the jungle we had just stepped out of very beautiful, but we had also just came out of it… We had trekked through that big lush mess and between those king kong mountains.

It was along this bright and, for once, dry path that we noticed some stowaway passengers on and in our shoes – leeches. I noticed Mo had stopped and turned back to see why. He said he had this weird worm on his shoe and then started getting a bit panicky when that strange worm turned out to be very difficult to remove – from his ankle. Turns out it was his very first encounter with a leech – congrats, Mo! I had a look and found some small ones on my shoes as well, luckily only one had attached itself and it mustn’t have been too long ago, because I pulled it off without it leaving a trace. They were pesky little buggers though and very hard to get rid of. If you managed to pull it off the shoe, it would latch onto your finger. So I would pull and then wildly flail my hand around with brute force. Our guide patiently waited for us and THEN told us that leeches don’t like deet, so a spritz of insect repellant would have probably done the job.

As the afternoon progresses, we started feeling the trek. Feeling it in our backs, legs and feet. Tiredness was setting in and every coat of mud felt like another kilo of weight added to our shoes. We kept a steady pace, but a slower one. Finding balance, despite the walking stick, was getting more difficult. But we had made it around 5h before uttering the first “I think I’m about ready for this trek to be over”. But it wasn’t.

We stopped at one more village and then trekked the last hour back to the river. An hour that felt (and probably was) much longer. An hour that it poured down on us. We could hear the rain coming – like when you approach a waterfall and you slowly hear it louder and louder as you get closer. Only it was like we were being chased by waterfalls, from behind and from the left. And we had just enough time to pull on our raincoats before the floodgates opened. Mud turned into ankle high sludge and our path into a little stream. No, the last hour was not very fun, but it made arriving at the river and realizing you just finished an 8h trek all the more rewarding. Washing the mud off shoes and legs felt like a ritual – we made it!

We stumbled back into our guesthouse and finally took off our wet shoes, revealing amphibian-like soggy feet. The shower was heavenly. And I will probably never again appreciate the comfort of being warm and dry as much as I did that evening.

We had dinner with “the family” in a nice garden restaurant – buffalo burgers and buy 1 take 1 Lao Lao cocktails. Burgers, because Mo and I dictated that we deserved a burger. Cocktails, because the rest of the gang dictated alcohol.
We had barely just finished our meal, when we heard our bed and most willingly headed to its call. Needless to say, we slept like babies.

27.-29.07.2015

Travel and Rest Day

Also needless to say, we did not jump out of bed the next morning. We stayed horizontal for as long as possible, We had cut a deal with the owner of the guesthouse – half a day in the room for half the price – and booked our bus tickets for that evening through him.

That day, most of us left Luang Prabang – by plane, by bus and by boat. We were the only ones taking those last few days of our visa to go to the border town of Houey Xai (probably the town with the most different spellings). It was going to be at least 12h and we were traveling by night. The afternoon was speckled with goodbyes and see-you-in-…s and it felt a bit like a chapter closing. Good times though, definitely good times.

The night bus turned out to be a slightly claustrophobic sleeping bus, on which all foreigners were coincidentally given bottom bunk. Up top you could look out the window, sit upright and generally had more space. The bottom had about 5cm of window, colorful brothel-like lighting and no space. Of course, I got the one and only broken chair, which was completely reclined and could not be propped up. The driver used a plastic bottle – that would have to do. I also had a missing air-con vent, meaning the cold air just flowed out uncontrollably and within no time I was hiding under my blanket. This was going to be a long and interesting night.

We got a little bottle of water, a plastic bag for our shoes (no shoes on in the bus!) and a comfy blanket. The music stayed off – thank god.

Mood lighting.

The broken chair was kind of a blessing in the end, because it made for a pretty comfortable sleeping position. It did also put my nose closer to the old man with very bad breath behind me, but as long as he stayed asleep with his mouth closed it was alright.

We stopped many times. Sometimes in towns, sometimes randomly next to the road. At one of those stops I got off to pee. It was pitch black, aside from the bus’s headlights. The men all veered off to the front of the bus and did their business. The women gathered more around the back. I took a few steps into the green in front of me, but the ground and growth beneath my feet felt a bit too foreign, so I didn’t dare venture further. I wasn’t wearing a practical skirt, as many women traditionally do. So I popped a squat and probably mooned the half of the bus that cared to look out the window.

I slept surprisingly well. I had also taken a Benadryl because the jungle trek had given me unbearably itchy arms. The only thing that robbed me of a precious hour or two was an infant – couldn’t have been older than a few weeks – that did what infants do. Except that it kept more than just its parents awake.

We must have stopped more often than I realized, because we arrived a few hours later than expected. It was an almost 15h journey and we stumbled off that bus in a daze.

Houy Sai was sleepy and kind of boring. And so were we. Or more like, we were sleepy and in the mood for being boring. Our legs were still heavy, our heads still wrapping around the fact that we’d be heading back into the jungle shortly.
So after finding a guesthouse, we stayed there. We went out for food and watched the BBC (the only English channel). Not really knowing what is going on in the world, a lot of the news was kind of hanging loosely in mid air, with no real context. But it was still great to be watching the BBC. So great in fact, that we did the same thing the next day, since The Gibbon Experience was booked out. We did also watch some series and the Minions movie. Being horizontal never felt so good.

30.07.-01.08.2015

THE Gibbon Experience – Flying High

After months of saying this was going to be THE thing we were going to do in Laos, we were finally going to do it – The Gibbon Experience. Known as an experience not to be missed when in this corner of the world. Some go for the zip lines, some to spend a night in a tree house high above the canopy of the jungle. Everyone goes for a unique adventure.

We departed the office in the morning in converted pick ups – we got a seat inside and it was a treat to be sitting in the inside of a real car. We were a group of eight people – an Aussie, an American, a Spaniard and a Brit that grew up in France, a British couple and us. 

Are we ready for this?

We drove for a bit over an hour. Civilization thinning out and green taking over. And then we were there, driving into the Bokor National Park. We stopped at a store and walked along rice paddies to a second vehicle – a converted 4x4. Up until then, we had no idea or plan and just followed the short instructive sentences the locals in our transportation told us. Our guides hat not yet outed themselves and nobody had told us the rundown.

All we knew was that we were driving even further into the national park via some pretty crazy dirt roads – steep and muddy. We had been warned about doing the tour during rainy season. There would be a possibility that, if rain had damaged the road too badly, we would have to walk the entire stretch to the jumping off point – around 8h. Luckily, we only walked a very short stretch so our car could maneuver its way out of a ditch. It was a fun ride, but bumpy – lift-you-off-your-seat bumpy!

We started the trek from a village, after a sandwich break, waded through a stream and into the jungle. Here, we re-embraced our old friend mud and went with the slippery flow of things immediately – no use in trying to tread carefully to try and keep your shoes dry. No use at all.

At the first basecamp we were given our harnesses and were finally introduced to our guides who explained our route for the next three days. The harnesses were surprisingly heavy and bore cut pieces of tire as hand-breaks. We were to wear them pretty much all day every day from then on. Backpacks on our backs, gloves on hands, harnesses hugging our waist and legs – we were ready to go!

The jungle was more beautiful here than outside Luang Prabang. Louder, more primal, with beautiful stretches of bamboo that criss crossed the path and sometimes made you feel like in a bamboo jail or a midget hiding between giant bamboo Mikado sticks.

Arriving at the first zip line, I hadn’t made up my mind on how to feel about dangling from a cable over the canopy, held in the air merely by a strange contraption, a carabiner and a bunch of ropes that called themselves a harness. I am not afraid afraid of hights, but I do have rational respect of them – meaning my stomach churns, my knees shake and I have the sudden urge to grab onto something very tightly ;)

But then… It was grand! It was exhilarating! It was the most amazing perspective one could have of the jungle – an endless stretch of trees, rolling, stretching as far as I could see. A horizon of green! And even looking down wasn’t as bad as I expected. The zip lines were high enough, unrealistically high even (apparently up to 150m above ground), that it was like a dream – and your never afraid when flying in dreams. The platforms we had to step off of to start zipping, however, were another story. My stomach summersaulted and my knees turned more jello-like standing on those dodgy looking wooden constructions, trying to make myself stand on my tiptoes to be able to hook my harness onto the cable.

Zip...

...zip...

...zip!

And that was or day, trekking – mainly upwards – and zipping our way through the rainforest, a mix of burning thighs, muddy shoes, wind in our hair and seeing how far we would make it to the other side. More often than not, we had to lean back, straighten our legs and “backwards plank” (as I called it) to make sure we made it to the end of the line. Otherwise, you’d end up having to pull yourself backwards, feet dangling over staggering heights and gravity threatening to tug you towards the center of the cable. I think most of us had to deal with the realization that our upper body strength could use some work.

We arrived at the treehouse via zip line – the only way in or out of this wooden construction. The view was amazing and the feeling very Tarzan and Jane. While the others explored the few zip lines that were around the house, in and out and back and forth, I stretched it out with a little yoga session on the top floor. When else will I get to do yoga in a tree?!

Living on the edge.

Home sweet home.

Also, who knew that going to the bathroom or showering could be so much fun. With a view like that, it becomes a whole nother experience!

Taking a go to new heights.

Dinner was zip lined to us and after talking till it was dark, we set up our mattresses and mosquito nets and fell asleep to the eyes of dozens of gigantic spiders glinting in many corners of the thatched roof.

Day two was pretty much same same. I had hardly slept, though I’m not quite sure why. Partially because of bug bites, maybe because of the noise. Probably because I’m not used to sleeping in a tree house in the middle of a jungle. I think I wasn’t the only one. We had a bit of a slow start, but eventually zipped out one by one and started the trek. I was the only one who hadn't done the zip out of the house - and this one required an extra dose of overcoming. Imagine waking up, having breakfast ad a cup of tea, brushing your teeth and then having to step over a ledge around 50m over the tree tops. Good morning, indeed!

And again, it was trek, zip, trek, zip, trek… From one platform, where four very long zip lines meet and we spent some time going back and forth after lunch, we spotted some of the elusive gibbons. Despite the name, it is rare to see them while on the tour, so it was an exciting moment. We watched a little group of them, some black, some golden jump from tree to tree.

And then we moved into a different tree house, closer to base. This one was really big and had three floors. Through binoculars, we spotted some large black squirrels and a watched a family of hornbills fly from tree to tree. That evening, we even saw a few more gibbons, just below (and a bit further out) our ideal viewing point. That is, when spotting these rare monkeys, you see more moving trees and branches and hear cracking bamboo than actually watching the furry creatures themselves. But it’s quite special nonetheless. We spent a long time in complete silence, staring at the jungle below, until it was too dark to see and our eyelids to heavy to hold open. I believe we went to bed around 8:30pm that night.

Falling to sleep to this...

...and waking up to this - Pure beauty.

On the last day we slowly made our way back, stopping for a few extra zips on our favorite ones, before heading back to base cam, back to the village and back on that crazy converted 4x4. The new groups heading into the jungle looked so fresh and clean. No muddy shoes, no angry red bug bites everywhere, no sweaty foreheads or stained clothes. We could smell ourselves (starting the first evening actually) and barely remember the color of our shoe laces or shoes for that matter. But it didn’t matter, we didn’t care. What are some smelly clothes and itchy spots (on my entire body!) when you consider that we slept in the highest tree houses in the world, zip lined with the most spectacular view and spotted some wild gibbons along the way?!

At lunch our guides said goodbye and by mid afternoon we were back in the office. Air conditioning and chart music instead of a light drizzle and the sound of frogs and crickets. But it didn’t matter, the memories we had created and the experiences we made still lingered. And will continue to do so for many years to come.

Last but definitely not least... This AWESOME video of Mo zipping and our guide hanging on his back filming it :)