And it goes a little something like this…

I’m in Holland (officially The Netherlands) at the moment.

I was planning to be here later in the year. Unfortunately I’m here early because last week my grandma, Oma Han Kloos, passed away very suddenly from a stroke, at age 78. It is difficult for us that we couldn’t say goodbye, but we’re happy she did not have to suffer through a long illness, rehabilitation or nursing homes. May she rest in peace.

This is what I have written to read at the funeral today. Translated from Dutch so a bit wonky:

I didn’t grow up with my grandma nearby because I lived in Australia from age 5 to 14, and that was of course harder on her than it was on me, her only granddaughter, because I didn’t know any better.

Of course I do have some memories, and photos. We visited Madurodam before we left Holland. And she arrived in Australia the day before my 7th birthday and brought me a doll that I still own.

But the last few years, everything changed. I moved back to Australia after living in Holland in my teenage years and seeing Oma a little more often of course.
Now we’ve become close with help from the internet.
We emailed, spoke and saw each other via video chat on skype, and both took a lot of photos and uploaded those to flickr and left comments.

With big thanks to SeniorWeb.nl and Oma’s independence. As long as I can remember she’s had to be independent. Mobile phones, programming tv and video, travelling to Australia, etc etc.

Often there are complaints that the internet creates superficial relationships. My relationship with my grandma proves the opposite, and for people separated by distance, whether it’s 24 hours in an airplane or a few hours in the car, I believe it’s a great way to stay in contact and even to become closer.

I’ve had many messages expressing sympathy from friends in Australia, who have never met Oma, but often saw her messages on flickr and facebook, and heard my stories about her. Cyber Oma was very cool!

Change is inevitable. I think Oma is a good example of why it’s good to change with the times and learn new things, and that it’s still possible at age 78.

Unfortunately change also means we now have to come to terms with the fact that so suddenly and unexpectedly, Oma isn’t here anymore. May she rest in peace.

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This post is huge, written between February and now. Woops. Many adventures were had in my final weeks in south east asia (I only visited Singapore for 3 days before heading back to Perth after this).

Ubon Ratchitani
From Pakse in Laos we (Raf and I) crossed into Thailand by bus with Kate and Fred. While they flew back to Bangkok to catch their flight home, Raf and I stayed in Ubon Ratchitani for a few days, then took a sleeper train to Bangkok. We didn’t do much, Raf was sick again and I made use of the free wifi by doing some work. We did enjoy eating at the night markets again, the food is definitely more varied in Thailand than in Laos!

On our last day, after checking out of our cheap hotel, we took a taxi to a more expensive one towards the train station and payed a small amount (about $2) to use their swimming pool and again had free wifi, so believe it or not, but I got some work done while lying next to the pool!

Bangkok
We arrived in Bangkok the following morning at around 7am and made our way to MBK to pick up my fixed camera. Unfortunately it doesn’t open till 10am so we had to kill some time.
Then we made our way to Stefan and Poi’s place again, were we were able to stay for a few days until Raf flew home and I took a bus back to the North.
With Stefan and Poi we ate smoked reindeer and drank swedish schnapps, had massages, went out for Peking Duck (my first time ever) and went to the Chatuchuk Markets.
Raf and I visited the nearby Fashion Island Mall and did some shopping. From the outside (and mostly the inside), it looks like we were back in Australia. We did however get our hair washed(+head massage and hair blow dried) for $2. :o

Back to Chiang Mai
So on 17 January I left Raf to fly home after 7 weeks of travelling together, and I took a bus to Chiang Mai, alone again. But not for long. While in Bangkok I messages some couchsurfers I’d met last time I was in Chiang Mai (through another couchsurfer I knew from Perth), and there happened to be a chinese dumpling making party that evening at someone’s house. I could also couchsurf with one of them. So I went straight there from the bus station, on the back of a motorcycle taxi! The bus had taken 11hours, so I was a bit late, but the party was in full swing.

Kow soy, a northern thailand/burmese noodle soup:

I ended up couchsurfing in Chiang Mai for 4 days, while waiting for my friend Nic to arrive from Perth.
I hired a bike, and my host Scott and his other couchsurfing friends took me out to local restaurants and bars. A highlight was the Thai hotpot restaurant. A huge undercover area, with two huge buffets set up in the middle, and a stage with live music/comedy (in thai) at one end.

Each table gets a ‘hot pot’, a type of small bqq/steam dish. You can bbq meat etc on top, and around it in the water you throw vegetables etc to make a broth. On the buffets there were also other things to eat like sushi, fruit, salads, steamed buns and dumplings made fresh and cakes, pastries and other ingredients to make dessert! All you can eat for around $5.00!

On night at ‘Bangkok Bar’, a bar with a thai cover band playing rock music, Ross bought some crickets/grasshoppers and a couple of meely worms off a passing seller. I’d had a drink (but was definitely not drunk), and was convinced to try them. The meely worm was the easiest and tasted the best (like twisties), the cricket had eyes so was harder, and didn’t taste like anything in particular but was bigger and while still chewing I tried to wash it away with Thai whiskey, which didn’t work to well.

Oh well, try anything once! I lie, I doubt I’ll ever try a cockroach or spider, but never say never!
We also went to the North Gate Jazz Coop, a bar that’s mostly frequented by thai bands and audience. First one and later two more elephants came wandering past, led by one guy with someone else offering people sugar cane for sale to feed the elephant. A few days later while nowhere near the ‘old city’ and tourists it happened again at a bar, proving it’s definitely not just a thing for the tourists.

I really enjoyed staying longer in a place and ‘pretending’ to live there amongst the locals, learning from the expats. Though Chiang Mai is a very modern/western city in many ways, a lot is different from home. Tap water is not drinkable (as it hasn’t been for all of my trip, I’ve been buying water in bottles). I discovered that in Chiang Mai, there are drinking water ‘dispensers’ on some streets, where you can fill up a container for 1 baht for 2 litres, wayyyy cheaper than bottled water (at least 5 baht for 1 litre for the cheapest).

There are also many places with washing machines along the road.

Most people do not have a washing machine at home, many don’t even have a kitchen or kitchenette, especially in apartments.
And for something different: street drinking is not illegal, and that’s reason enough to do it!

I loved the Thai ice teas with milk – Chai (Nom) Yen. This is a regular street vendor, off the tourist trail, that I passed while biking around Chiang Mai. So proud I could order my drink in Thai and they could now understand me.

Back to Pai
Then Nic arrived, and we took a minivan to Pai, where we caught up with my friends Marissa (met in Perth, southern Thailand and Laos!) and Phoebe, who I’d met travelling in Northern Thailand a few months ago. While having a drink while watching the sunset over the river we also got talking to a israeli/russian girl who I then invited to dinner with us. It was funny, later it felt like I was ‘giving back’ after all the times I was asked to dinner when I was travelling alone. That’s how it goes on the backpacker trail.
We ended up in Releaf where a duo who I saw last time in Pai was playing, a thai girl with a beautiful voice and a farang (foreigner of european descent) guy on an acoustic guitar. I have mixed feelings about Pai, but one of the things I love is all the live music everywhere.
After a breakfast at Good Life Pai (I generally don’t like eating at the same place all the time, but this place is really good value), Nic, Marissa and I set off on scooters to Cave Lodge, near Soppong on the road to Mae Hong Son.
Good Life Pai:

Ok, the above was written only a few weeks after all that happened, but now I’m writing the rest of this at the end of March, so it’s going to be more of a summary :P

Back to Cave Lodge

It was an awesome scooter ride up and down the mountain range. So beautiful and not much traffic so just so much fun. At the top of the highest points are some markets so we stopped for a while.

Late lunch in Soppong, then the last 9km through forest to the town of Ban Tham and Cave Lodge, which is about 500m from Tham Lod, the cave. I love it, this is the second time I came here and generally I don’t go back to places. It’s a wooden lodge, set on the side of a hill looking over the river and the mountains. Big verandah/open restaurant area with a fireplace, cushions and a table tennis table. There’s dorm accommodation and separate huts. All made of natural material and all very open, but everyone gets a mosquito net.

That evening we asked where a nice place to do a small hike and see the sunset was, and were told the ‘Big Knob’. We drove our scooters through the main town, but then walked through a small group of houses to the base of the knob. We kind of made it halfway, the last bit we didn’t see a path, and it was getting dark and I was on thongs (flip flops).

The next day after a morning bath in the river (quite cold water and a bit shallow for a proper bath!) we wandered around a bit and then at 4pm did the Tham Lod cave tour, and watched the swifts flying back in at sunset. And another evening of good food, reading and table tennis.
Cow, Nic, Marissa:

Very old coffins in the cave:

Mae Hong Song, Ban Rak Thai, Burmese border roadtrip
The following day we decided to do a 2 or 3 day trip to a town further to the north east, again on the Burmese border, but this was a Chinese town, founded by ex KMT fighters in 1950. Bit of a tourist town now for thai people. We only saw 2 other western tourists. Was awesome, something different. And the ride there was beautiful, and we got chased by rain and thunderstorms! First at the top of the big mountain pass beyond Soppong we had to stop to shelter from a thunderstorm.

And then just before arriving in Ban Rak Thai we were being chased by clouds (sweeping over the road behind us!!) and it started raining soon after.
On the way we had lunch in a small town and through not being able to communicate much, we just ate pad thai. We also stopped to view a waterfall, but there wasn’t much water.
In Ban Rak Thai the power was out due to the thunderstorms. There was one restaurant open and we shared a table with some thai tourists from Chiang Mai and/or Bangkok. We didn’t order much before it was all chinese type food (so not much choice for Marissa and I, vegetarians) and very expensive compared to what we were used to paying. Confusing that a place that pretty much only caters for Thai tourists is more expensive than western tourist places.
Guesthouse with chinese decorations, and Nic and Marissa:

After a night sharing a big bed (we only got one room as accommodation was expensive too!), we scootered back south and to Mae Hong Song, the capital.

After a look around, and lunch at which a crazy US ex-army guy joined us and told us stories about the Free Burma Rangers, corrupt police and drugs, we scootered back to Cave Lodge. Long rides that day, but very nice. Right in the very north of Thailand.
Temples in Mae Hong Song City:

Pai again
Back to Pai the next day (28 January) and we visited the hot springs at night, and then went to a party at the Pittalew Art Gallery, where there was music, art, food and an awesome fire show, probably the best I’ve seen!

The annual Pai Reggae Festival ‘We Be Jammin’ was on for the next two days just outside of Pai and we went the first night and had a great time! Nic, Marissa, Eve, Phoebe and Marissa’s friends. I may have also driven a scooter with two passengers for the first time ever… No, not after drinking alcohol, but still, shhhhh.
The reason Phoebe was back in Pai/Thailand was that she’d been invited to play saxophone with a band at this festival. I played photographer for the night using her DSLR, but am proud to say that my point and shoot camera (with Nic and I using it), got some shots that were just as awesome:

And then it was farewell to Phoebe who was staying in Pai, to Marissa who was staying one more day and then back to Aus. Back to Chiang Mai for a night, said goodbye to my new friends there, and said goodbye to Nic who had another two weeks.

And now I continue writing this in the middle of June, so it’s going to be even more summarized.

Homeward bound
I spent a night in Phuket, one of the hells on earth for me (ok, slight exaggeration…). I got to the airport at around 3pm, spent about 3hrs getting to Patong, the place with the cheapest accommodation, and I had to leave there around 5am again in a shared taxi to get back to the airport to fly to Singapore. It was so much more built up that other areas of Thailand (ok, except Bangkok of course). So many hotels!

Everything was double the price of Northern Thailand, and I hadn’t seen that many Australians since Kuta in Bali (and so not my kind of travellers) and there were also heaps of american soldiers on leave, and plenty of lady boys and prostitutes. Or girls that dressed as prostitues… It was strange seeing Tsunami Hazard Zone and Evacuation Route signs everywhere in Patong.

My only luck was that my room had free wifi from a restaurant downstairs. I skyped my parents, pretending to still be in Chiang Mai. Part of my carefully planned trick of showing up on their doortstep 4 days before they even thought I was in the country again.

Phew!

Only a few days of left of my six month south east asia trip.

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Have been inspired to start blogging again regularly (plan is every day for the rest of June at least) by some friends that have recently started blogging (regularly) again and others that have just continued doing so. I want to do random posts about stuff and things ( ;) ) and catch up on my travel stories. I’ve been to Central Australia (Alice Springs, Uluru, King’s Canyon and beyond) and Melbourne recently!

So today I’m starting with a simple post (and even though I started this at around 9am, I’m now finishing it at 9pm, oooops!).

The books next to my bed:

Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
West Australian classic, I bought it at a second hand bookshop in Melbourne (yeah, I need to blog about Melbourne) recently for $10. I’ve only read Lockie Leonard by Tim Winton in the past, in high school. I’m really enjoying it so far, and going through it quite quickly considering how little I read when at home. I heard they’ve been filming the movie for this book, and I want to read the book before I see the movie, even though I often don’t get around to seeing movies either!

No Logo – Naomi Klein
A ‘classic’ ant-corporate movement book now, I’ve been meaning to read it since about 2002, when a class mate in uni recommended it. He went on to work for the socialist political party in The Netherlands. Maybe he still does. Got this from the library in Fremantle (I really don’t want to buy new books anymore, it’s silly). Only just started it. Trying to finish Cloudstreet now first.

A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
I’ve owned this around 5 years now, at the time I only got as far as one chapter. Now I’m nearly half way. Skipping bits of it though. It’s reminded me that I do really like science in general, but I struggle with physics.

The Worst-case Scenario Handbook – Piven and Borgenicht
Found this in a cafe in Pai, Northern Thailand and bought it (second hand). Amusing, though serious. How to break into a car, ram a car, how to fend off a shark, escape from killer bees, jump from a building into a dumpster, jump from a moving car, how to deliver a baby in a taxicab, etc. The first one, how to escape from quicksand, is written with Dr Karl (of his books and triplej fame in Australia).

My Natives and I – Daisy Bates
I want to learn more about indigenous Australian history, and I have many books to read, some of which are not next to my bed. This is a controversial one apparently. I haven’t started it yet. Bought at the West Australian Museum last year.

This is Not a Book – Keri Smith
A very random ‘book’ that wants you to be creative. Gives you random tasks to do, which often include drawing on , writing on or changing the pages in this book physically. A friend who works in a bookshop in Leederville gave it to me as for some reason it had to be removed from the shop. I nearly gave it to a friend, but he insisted I take it, as I’m always saying I’m not creative. I’ve done some of it. Really should continue.

Volunteer travellers guide – Lonely Planet
My friend Emily gave this book to me for my birthday before travelling last year. I still haven’t got round to doing any volunteer work anywhere. Several reasons. One is that I didn’t give myself enough time in south east asia. Most volunteering needs a commitment of at least a month. Secondly, volunteering would usually mean I’d be offline too much to be able to run EnjoyPerth.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
A classic that I’ve never read. I’ve never been in to anything sci fi, fantasy or space related. Started it 2 years ago, was ok. Came across it in Kmart and it didn’t have a price tag and wasn’t in their system, so they charged me $5!
Not sure why I feel I need to finish certain books that I don’t get in to when it just holds me up reading others. I guess there’s other books I have pushed on with and have really loved in the end. A recent example is ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’, though ‘loved’ is the wrong word. Woah!

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Life is very good for me right now. In a way, too good. Which is a first world problem. As soon as I want to say ‘life is awesome!!’ I start thinking it’s not as awesome for everyone as it is for me. Which means deep down it’s not as awesome as I think it is for me either. In the past, I stuck my head in the sand when I felt like this. As I thought ‘there’s so many issues out there though, so many things I could be doing, it’s all too hard, arggghhh’.

In recent times, I’ve changed my thinking. I *think* I won’t be properly happy until I feel I’m doing more things with more purpose. Of course the idea of what is ‘purposeful’ is a relative thing. That’s why I’m saying ‘more purposeful for me’. For me that means being more directly involved in helping other people and doing some good for society in general. I’m not going to go into what exactly, as partly I haven’t figured that out yet. Because it needs to be things I’m passionate about and obviously I will enjoy doing.
I would get stressed about it, but these days I generally remember that I can’t save the whole world, but everything I do do, is something.

This has been coming for quite some time. But this blog post has partly been inspired by the TEDxPerth event I went to last night. (link to TED and link to TEDxPerth facebook, real site coming soon).
I learnt about Transition Culture in this TED talk by Rob Hopkins. And then we had some group discussion.
Anyway, I could talk a lot about the whole night, and I might in the future, but for now this:

We discussed reasons we’ve had in the past, not to do ‘something’:
Being judged (Hippy!)
I’m just one person, I can’t change the whole world.
I already do more than most people
If they’re not doing it, why should I?!
I’ll do something once…the house is flooded. We’ve run out of oil…etc.
Ignorance – I don’t actually know enough about a lot of stuff
And there’s probably more.

Well, as said above, times for me have changed.

“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change” – yes, yes, Michael Jackson.

I have plans that I don’t want to go into publicly yet, but here are some small things I’m doing.
I am trying to be an ecotarian. At the moment that means I’m eating a LOT less meat than I ever have (not quite managing 100% vegetarian but close. Tonight I had beef for the first time in months (I think) and regretted it, my stomach hurt, ha!), and I’m trying to shop local (see this video about Woolies and Coles by ABC’s Hungry Beast), and buy less ready made stuff. But obviously I can change a lot more in my life: slowly but surely, everything helps.
And I’m looking into volunteer work and have started by joining the Big Help Mob. Oh, and for fun and exercise and a good cause I’m doing the HBF Run for a Reason, help me raise money for Lifeline!

This all makes sense to me and I’m feeling positive. I’ve started caring less about what other people think, but not completely. I would love it if you left a comment and shared your thoughts on this with me :) And remember this was written at midnight after a long day :p

In other news…Bloggers meetup tonight (Wednesday 21 April) at the Brass Monkey in Northbridge from about 7pm. Message me for details or see the facebook page.

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So I’m a bit behind with blogging…I’ve been busy! Now I’m in Singapore, the final days of my 6 month trip!!

Edit: ok, so I lied, I was already back in Perth when I wrote this, but I was keeping parents, Oma and some other people in the dark so I could surprise my parents by turning up on their doorstep 3 days early. It totally worked, it was awesome :D

So Raf and I flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang, northern Laos, in a cute little plane.
My camera was in Bangkok for repairs, so most of the photos below are from my camera phone, and some by Raf and Marissa. I did miss my camera a lot.

In Luang Prabang we spent an hour trying to find our hotel with the help of several people, after dodgy directions (and the wrong name of the place) from our friend Emily. Fun, fun :D

Emily has been living and working in Laos for a year, through the Australian Youth Ambassodor Program. She worked with remote communities in Eastern Laos (near the Vietnamese border), setting up education programs to help teach the locals about illegal logging and wildlife trade and such (or something like that…). With her, her sister and her mother, and our friend Marissa, we travel from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, via Phonsavan/Plain of Jars and Vang Vieng. They’ve organised a minivan and driver! And along the way we’re staying at quite fancy accommodation!

In Luang Prabang it’s a Laos style villa, that we have nearly all to ourselves.

It’s christmas and Emily has organised a small tree, and Raf makes some paper decorations. The girls from the hotel join in at one stage!
We have a la carte breakfast in the garden every morning, awesome! On Christmas day it’s extra special, with crackers and champagne brought from Australia.

We’re quite far north here, it’s cold at night (jumper weather!) and cool and cloudy in the mornings, then sunny and around 25 in the afternoon. My perfect weather!
Luang Prabang has a night market we enjoy, and we take a walk across the Nam Kan river to another village, and then back along the Mekong River.


On Christmas Eve we have a fancy dinner (most expensive of my trip at around $50!) at Le’Elephant. A 5 course, french type meal, very nice!

On Christmas Day we went to the main waterfall outside of Luang Prabang

It has several different levels. Above is the longest part, and below is a lower level where there is a rope swing. Scary and cold water, but fun!

Our ‘christmas lunch’ was beer and cake and fruit at a picnic table, and dinner was from a street stall at the night market back in Luang Prabang :D

On Boxing Day we got in the minivan and headed to Phonsavan, middle of Laos. Awesome landscape, green mountains, and then when we got closer it started to be dryer and looked a lot like Australia in summer! There were even eucalyptus plantations and pine trees! 6 hour drive through very windy roads wasn’t easy, but I was lucky compared to the others, as I don’t get bad car sickness, and can even read.

Laos is known as being (one of?) the most bombed country in the world, mainly ‘thanks’ to the Vietnam War. The province we were headed to, Xieng Khouang, is the worst hit. There is still a lot of UXO (unexploded ordinance) in the ground. When we stopped by the side of the road to pee, you can’t go in the bushes, because it’s too dangerous. So you’re pretty much peeing along the side of the road. Luckily there’s not a lot of traffic…!

In Phonsavan we stayed at Auberge de Plain du Jars, a nice hotel with bungalows with wood fires, run by a half Laos half French guy. The view was awesome:

The next day, after finding hair elastics at the market, our driver took us to the three main sites of the Plain of Jars.

There are random stone jar things, probably used for fermenting wine, for burials and maybe other things like storing rice throughout the year. There’s still much confusion and they’re hard to date.
We also saw bomb craters and trenches from the war. The sites have been mostly cleared, but there’s warnings everywhere to stay on the paths.
Emily and I with our friendly driver. He only spoke Lao, but thankfully so did Emily.

We stopped in Old Phonsavan for lunch and saw the two temples which managed to survive the bombings (not much did).

After a beer at a Lao place on a reservoir and dinner at the Indian place in town, we joined the hotel owner and his mates (one was the chief of police!) for a few drinks and some talk about Lao culture. A great day.

It’s Hmong (hill tribe) new year, and the teenagers play a ball game, throwing a ball back and forth, while chatting. Courtship?!

The next day we drove, through the mountains again, to Vang Vieng (just north of the capital Vientiane). At one stop it was so cold and foggy!! High altitude, cool! Annemarie and I:

In Vang Vieng we stayed at Nam Tok Guesthouse (friend of Raf’s) which was great. Again we only had one day, but we visited 3 caves, the third one being one filled with water, that we had to tube through! So much fun!

Vang Vieng is surrounded by limestone karsts, which I love. There’s good caving, rockclimbing and river activities in the area.

The next day the final leg with the minivan and so many people travelling together, and we arrive in Vientiane. On the 31st we started with a surprise champagne brunch at Sticky Fingers for Em’s birthday.

Later we moved to my friend Renae’s house. I know her from Perth, she’s a couchsurfer, so Raf, Marissa and I couchsurferd with her for a few days. We had to stay in Vientiane till after the long weekend because we needed to get visa’s from the thailand embassy.
It ended up being 6 nights and days of 2010 celebrations. It involved a lot of cocktails, watching dvds, playing with the cute toy poodle Minnie, ten pin bowling, pool, foozball, home cooking and driving around on a supercub motorbike/scooter. Good times :D Though, learning to drive the super cub (gears!) while stressed and trying to find the thai embassy, with Marissa on the back, in peak hour Vientiane traffic (with motorbikes coming at me on the wrong side of the road) was a liiiitttle crazy. But still fun when I succeeded without injuring anyone! :D

And then Marissa left to go back to Thailand, and Raf and I took a night sleeper bus down to Pakse, where we met up with our friend Kate and her dad.
We went down to Champasak and visited Wat Phu. Then we went and hung out on Don Khon in the 4000 Islands (next to Don Det) for a few days and bicycled around and visited the waterfall. Along the way we crossed the mighty Mekong River several times.



From Don Khon we took a boat out onto the river to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins at sunset. There’s only about 70 left here on the border with Cambodia. (there’s a few thousand in total around southeast asia, mostly near India).
While we were on the river we asked our boat driver to take us to Cambodia. There was a little island with a hut selling beer! We had to pay a $1 fee each to the lady there, and then pay for the beers separately, but success, we drank Angkor beer (ok, so it’s not as nice as Beerlao, but had to do it).

Made our way back to Pakse, and then crossed the border back into Thailand and stayed in Ubon Ratchitani.

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