NW Thailand

Somehow I ended up in Northern Thailand this week. Didn't want to go into the Laos jungles without malaria pills, so at the last minute i split ways with my friends and popped down to northern Thailand b/c the meds were supposedly available. I procured some.

One guy i met in Thailand said your more likely to get hit by a bus than get malaria. More dangerous really that anything else is that anyone can rent a motor bike for $5 a day, and most people ride one cause its not easy to get around otherwise. I've had two minor crashes already. The pic above not only shows off my loose fitting hippie pants, but if you look carefully you can see one gash on my left foot and two on the right.

Originally I didn't know about the motor bikes, or really anything else for that matter. Not like China, where I've pretty much got things worked out. Thailand is really east to get around with just English and transport back and forth is easy arranged even in little towns, but I was definitely disoriented as to what to do with myself when i first arrived.

I've spent most of my time in a little town called Pai, about 4 hrs from Chiang Mai, which is the big city in NW Thailand that I flew into. Pai is one of those places that Lonely Planets highlights on the map as a place to relax with a bunch of other foreigners. Lots of dreadlocks, and a waterfall, and tons of guest houses where you can order fruit juice, burgers, Thai food, nachos, etc, all from a hammock.

It's pretty close to Burma. Some of the villagers outside the town are Burmese immigrants. Some have tattoos on their faces. Apparently many are also drug dealers. In previous years the government has been lax on drugs, which is partly why Pai has become so popular amongst the traveling crowd. But now the government is cracking down hard. One guy told me that the army has even forced impromptu piss tests for the villagers and shot dead anyone that failed. Foreigners are getting full body searches. Such violence is in total contrast to the rest of the vibe in Thailand. There is a gentleness here that you rarely see in China.

Taking a 16 hr bus to Bangkok in a few hours to sort out my China visa and visit with friends for the weekend. Then up to Laos to meet back up with the folks i parted with in China.

NW Yunnan

I have been in NW Yunnan for the last two weeks. Highlights include Tiger Leaping Gorge (pictured), traveling with Carmen (she's now back in HK job hunting), snowboarding near Tibet, and donating books and computers to two needy schools. Consequently, I am totally exhausted.

Carmen and I left for Lijiang, Yunnan on March 9. Everyone else from my company came on March 15. In the meantime I made sure our plans for the company charity trip were in order. This was the second to last work related thing I had left to do.

Hehe, Carmen was a good sport to help go along with my investigations for the company trip. The company would have one full day to make donations and one full day to play, so i wanted to make sure the play day was a success.
My buddy recommended Tiger Leaping Gorge, and it ended up being awesome for everyone, but only because Carmen and I discovered the wrong way to hike 2 hours down into the Gorge during our investigatory trip. After getting all the way down a ridiculously scary path thinking it was the only way down, I got suspicious when an old local women told me that the spot down the river with a bunch of people wasn't worth checking out. That was right after she charged me a few bucks to cross a bridge that apparently her family members had made. We decided to check it out anyway, and ended up finding a much easier and actually more beautiful way up that everyone would be able to do.

With that and a bunch of other logistical stuff nailed down, Carmen and went south to a town called Dali about 4 hours away from Lijiang to relax. We did a cool horseback up the mountain (Carmen's first ever), had the best massages ever (and we are experienced), and chilled a lot in the western cafes that randomly pepper the town.

On the way back to meet all my co-workers we almost got stuck because all the bus drivers in Dali suddenly went on strike, something you hardly ever see happen in China. Despite having to spend loads of cash to convince someone to drive us back, the driver ended up being really amiable so it was worth it. He told us all about his recent 45 day road trip all around China with his wife and another couple, and also took us to a small town to see these old houses that are built around springs. We ate seaweed soup, with seaweed plucked right in front of our eyes from the the little spring pond.

The company trip was a big success. No one got hurt on the hike (for some reason nearly everyone opted to take the hard way back despite my warnings) and our donation at the two schools went really well. We drove along a ridiculously bumpy path to get the schools and our bus drivers were pissed, but in the end it was great to see all the happy kids.

Everyone left on Sunday, March 18, except for a few of us. We headed north to near the Tibetan border to do one last project for work. Our company does some economic development work, and we were asked by an international NGO to help convince the local government to develop in a more environmentally friendly way. The meeting went well, despite the fact that we stayed up late the night before to get prepared. And then the government officials decided to spoil us by taking us to their unfinished ski resort (the first in western China). Since the lifts weren't ready, we got taken up on jet skis. There was only 1 run, but there are plans to have 13 chair lifts and 22 runs in the future. The construction manager at the ski resort was probably to coolest looking Chinese guy i'd ever seen: young, with perfect black hair, a deep voice, and great looking sunglasses. We convinced him he should start to learn how to snowboard.

Latter I heard another side of the story from a friend who does environmental protection work in Yunnan who had been at the ski resort weeks earlier. Apparently a ton of villagers are getting moved off the land to make space for it. It's a tough thing. It's definitely better than mining, and its the government's own project so presumably it should help them raise money for local spending, but then again this development is aggravating the area's already significant deforestation problem and loads of tourists brought in by this development could further the gentrification that's already happening. I for one will be back next winter to snowboard so....

Currently I am hanging with my college buddy Ben and his girlfriend, at a friend's house in central Yunnan. We have decided to head to southern Yunnan in a few days, and then go into Laos. I'm in the process of sorting out malaria medication. Getting excited about the jungle.

Asia Trek Overview

I left Shanghai at the end of February. I'll settle down again in August, in Hong Kong with Carmen, where I'll be working the same job and finally start learning Cantonese.

In the meantime, I've got quite a trip planned. In March, I'll be in Yunnan, which is in SW China, right next to Tibet and South East Asia. It supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. First off I'll be in the NW with all my co-workers from both the Shanghai and Thailand office (30+ people) for a company trip and we're also gonna make some donations to local schools. Then I'll be meeting up with my college buddy, Ben Morse, and his girlfriend to travel for a few weeks.

April is a bit fuzzy. I might be back in Shanghai for the tea harvest. The Ian Hanks Charity foundation might also be making its first donation then. More on that later.

Mid April I'll be with my dad in Hong Kong, Hanoi and Anker Wat and then near the end of the month I'll be up in Beijing China meeting up with high school friends Tracey and Lauren.

The first week of May is a week long holiday in China so a bunch of my friends will be traveling. I might stay in Beijing for a huge, outside, 3 day rock concert.

The rest of May I plan to be with my cousin Mark trekking along the silk road from Xian (China's Ancient Capital) to Kashgar, in the very NW corner of China. Then back to Hong Kong (you'll notice I'm doing some ridiculous zigzagging...) by mid June where I'll be meeting up with my good college buddy, Ethan.

I'm gonna propose to him that we loosely follow China's ancient tea route from Yunnan to Tibet, with a few stops along the way, some of which I'll have been too by that point, and to some new unexplored spots.

Then back to the US for most of July with a plan to settle in HK around Aug 1.

Gonna be so rad. Get ready for some sweet photos.