Riding in a tuk-tuk, stuffed lemongrass, and the most unusual quickie hotel on earth

The first there pictures are the hotel/brothel. You park your car in the Wizard of Oz garage - hiding the license plate of course, then you can chose to take your prostitute to the Disney room, Tarzan room, Thai kick-boxing room, (boxing gloves included) or 20 others.
I didn't try this, but the stuffed lemongrass was delicious. It's split open, stuffed with chicken, spices, and ginger, then fried.

Biking and kayaking in Laos

We biked only 15km, but after 5 weeks of sitting on boats and in taxis, my heart was pounding in my throat. We arrived early to the elephant camp so we stopped in a nearby village to have a snack - squares of rice gel with tamarind juice, rice crackers, and chili. After seeing the elephants, half of them blind, had been rescued from a harsh existence in the logging industry. Southeast Asia is supposed to be reverent of elephants, but logging is a most irreverent task for these majestic creatures. Not shown is any of the three hours it took to kayak the 15km home, nearly 4 hours under a baking sun with no shade, not enough water in the river (we beached three times), and a headwind that actually could send you backwards.

Silk Weaving

Silk is pulled into threads from the white and yellow silkworm cocoons. It is washed and rests in skeins. Note the green pile of baby silkworms. This weaving shop uses natural dyes, lemongrass for light green, indigo for blue, and turmeric for yellow and orange, note the fabulous turmeric flower! It is spun into spools (see video 1) and then after an extremely complicated process to set up the loom, it is woven into intricate textiles (see video 2), embodying the true meaning of the word "art". After our tour, I was treated to a hefty mug of silkworm poo tea. Really, it's made from poo. Tastes like green tea.

Luang Prabang April 16 -20

We disembarked after 32 hours in transit, achy bums, sore backs, smelling like cattle or worse. So the city of Luang Prabang was like the most lovely site, full of 19th century Parisian cafes, rattan furniture with lazy cieling fans spinning high overhead, and superb coffee with the butteriest croissants on Earth. The city is in a time warp, frozen around 1920, an UNESCO World Heritage site packed with French architecture and two dozen perfectly perserved wats more stunning than those in Thailand for their earthier colors and minute details. All this gentrified prettiness comes at a price, our hotel was $35 per night, and though it must be admitted that we looked for a place with A/C and BBC, we were continually raising eyebrows at prices - for dinners, cakes, shirts, and especially craft items - that rivaled those in Europe.

Protests in Bangkok

Just to note - I have been nowhere near the civil unrest that disrupted the ASEAN conference in south Thailand nor the huge violent crowds that burned buses and wreaked havoc here in Bangkok last week. I keep getting worried messages from people, but all I saw was television coverage. All was quiet in the north during that period and all is quiet now.

Sonkran and Sailing Down the Mekong, April 14-15

The Thai New Year (Sonkran) takes place over 4 days of festivities which started this year on April 12. To ring in the year 2553, everyone took to the streets and threw water on each other, a derivation of the Buddhist practice of dribbling a bit of water on the monks and washing the hands of elders as a sign of respect and renewal. I was in Chiang Rai for all this, and as a small town in a fairly agricultural setting, everyone has pick-up trucks. So what had developed is that the streets are bumper to bumper with trucks, each of them carrying a 50 gallon barrel or two of water - many times ice water - which is thrown by the bucketful at anyone and everyone. So thousands of people are soaking wet, hooting and dancing, and unless you have a car with windows that work or wrap your cell phone and camera in plastic bags it is best to remain at home.
Stef met me in Chiang Rai for all this, and after four days of dodging trucks and people with water guns and hoses, we took a bus to Laos. We had thought that Sonkran was over, but Laos starts three days later, so we were doused once more as we crossed by ferry to this Communist country.
The people are even more fanatical about watr throwing, adding talcum powder, paint, and the oily soot from the bottom of the wood-fired cooking pots to the mix, making everyone look absolutely filthy. But they dance in the streets (the men all seemimg to impersonate women in a blurring of gender lines) til curfew sends them home to dinners of sticky rice and steamed catfish.
The boat pictured above is the public transport available from Huay Xai at teh Thai border, to Luang Prabang, a two-day trip on wooden benches and little more than a hole in the floor for a toilet. But you bond with your fellow passengers, we met a family from Switzerland who had been on teh road for 7 months, two photographers from France working on a book about life on the Mekong, and a few English and Dutch as well as a group of students just learning to play guitar and ukelale.

Palm Reading with Eggs and Villages

These were taken a few days ago with Dr. Tam's camera, so I just got them . This is the first Akha village I went to, where they read my palm after peeling the eggs in a welcoming ceremony. Another picyure shows our lunch afterwards, and the group we were working with standing in from of the "Cultural Center". Just Jess at work.