Rowdy Roadie

Rowdy Roadie

So there I was on Koh Tao sitting at Maya Beach Club enjoying a sunset on New Years Eve thinking what a Rowdy Roadie year it has been. It all began in Alaska getting a new passport and finalizing the house for sale before stepping back out on that elusive path into the unknown. I met a lot of traveling friends and even more acquaintances this year and I can’t count the number of pictures I took. I managed to finish a book that is now in its final stages of pre-publishing, The Women of Cho’ should be out soon.

In the process I managed to cross the globe from Alaska to Ireland, the long way round. And again, I can’t pin down the best pictures but I’m going to give it a try in this recap. Starting off in Alaska where I still have a voting card and a P.O. box I went to California to visit my hometown, Mill Valley, where I grew up and saw a few friends before flying off to South Korea.

I still had a little research verification to do for the manuscript so South Korea was an important stop over visit on my wayward path. I spent a few weeks in Seoul hopping from some of the Palaces to museums and ancestral shrines for the dead among others. I taught English in South Korea many moons ago and that is actually what got part of the first book going and certainly kept the second book in motion and will give enough momentum for the trilogy.

I had recently picked up diving as a hobby whilst at Asia Divers Resort on Koh Tao and that sent me splashing down in such places as Borneo and Sulawesi but I wasn’t close to finished so after south Korea I flew due south-west to the Philippines where I had pre-booked some time on Sangat Island Dive Resort. I was immediately introduced to wreck diving and borrowed one of the guides go-pros so I could have a memory of it and I am still looking at the footage now that I’ve bought a go-pro myself and can now edit a little bit. The resort is one of the nicest I’ve stayed at and I will return to the Philippines to dive more probably down near Cebu. Here is a still from one of the clips. The wrecks are part the WWII fleet of Japanese boats suck by the U.S. Navy. There are also a lot of boats in Luzon Harbor to the north. I spent about ten days there and spoke with others that took a chartered sail boat from Sangat Island out to the outer reef and the stories they came back with were epic so it is a ‘MUST’ see in the future.

I ended up back in Luzon and everybody I spoke with had different places for recommended must go see. I ended up blasting through Manila and headed for Baguio, an old JI r & r spot that has grown exponentially up the mountainsides between the rice fields. I met Sigurd Hogsbro there and we still make contact every now and again. He showed me the brewery and I knew we were kindred spirits.

I flew back to Incheon, South Korea for a brief visit with the KGB Bar staff and catch an early flight to Bangkok, Thailand where I needed to pick up a visa for Nepal and fly off to Vientiane, Laos to actually sit down and finish the manuscript before heading off back to Thailand for some diving on Koh Tao just to stay in practice knowing there isn’t any diving in Nepal that I know of.

This was my first time to Nepal and boy, what a doozy; new sights, smells, earthquakes, Rhinos, Elephants, Wild Boar, deer everywhere, Crocodiles, Garials, Bison, trekking in the outback of Bardia National Park where I made some most excellent friends that I will not forget.

A Scottish friend I made in Rangoon told me to go visit a Yorkshire man living and working in Thakuduwara and partnering a trekking company called Wild Trak Adventure, www.wildtrakadventure.com. After a few days in Katmandu I flew to Nepalgunj and met Sitram and Johnny. I stayed with them for a month of trekking through the Bardia Nation Park and doing some trekking on the Babe, (phonically Ba-bay) River following tiger, bear, and leopard tracks and avoiding wild elephants en mass.

Now I can’t show every photo and some of you may have seen some of the good photos before in previous blogs so I hope I surprise you.

Returning from the jungle we felt the first earthquake and I bolted for Pokhara to see the damage and see if I could help. The damage was extensive but the supplies were not reaching the needy so I joined in with Hands Helping Hands and volunteered time and money to buy supplies and run them into the mountain areas where they were needed until Unisef and Red cross began showing up. I moved on south to Chitwan National Park to see the Rhinos there before returning to Bardia for more fun in the jungle.

 Chitwan was amazing.

Returning to Bardia was amazing.

I flew to London to get my computer fixed. Somewhere along the way the screen had shattered and it drove me crazy so I hopped a tube for the Apple store in London and they were to busy to deal with it but a lovely woman at Apple recommended another fix-it place close by. Meanwhile I did research for another book in the making as of now, among many beginnings.

I love London but boy is it expensive. I moved north by train seeing friends in Liverpool and there abouts, all people I have met on the road, mostly in Thailand be it Pai, Ton Sai, or traveling across northern Lao and down the coast of Vietnam; lovely people from all walks of life.

I spent a bit of time in Edinburgh, Inverness, Isle of Sky, and returned back to Glasgow to jump a boat for Belfast where they were still building a pyramid of pallets to be burnt in the near future. I walked that road where the British flag is on one side of me, and the Irish on the other. Not a safe place but seeing as I’m a yank and dress differently I figured I’d be safe and was safe. I had people looking after me from unseen places. Thank you boys.

A friend I met in Ton Sai grew up in Cavan and off I went to visit. This was one of the best decisions I didn’t have to make. I met a family at the other end of the world and their friends that made me feel like a long lost cousin, 3 times removed. Caroline Fay is a wonderful artist and had a painting class that I joined in. Her boy friend Rob, a part time DJ in London and a great person in general, arrived and a merry time was had by almost all. There was some late night light flickering from pops upstairs and we heeded the call for beds. I had a date with a lawn mower the next day to make up for miss-spent moments of adulthood. All went well.

Dublin was a blast just wandering around the live music pubs and watching Beck play an outdoor concert. It was a really great place to have fun before heading back to Liverpool and Manchester and south to London.

I took a train into Paris, France to be part of a movie crew but that deflated rather un-climactically but I stayed my course and took a train to Pamplona, Spain for the running of the bulls. I met two characters from Oakland, California on the train to Pamplona. We met up frequently and shared a lot of laughs; Dave is a DJ and Lee is a drummer among other things. After I had seen and had my fill I wandered up to San Sebastian and enjoyed the ocean and food for a few days. It was the end of a particular lump in my craw so from here on out nothing was intended and my mind began to wander across the globe.

But while I was on this side of the globe a quick stop in Lisbon, Portugal was mandatory due to an artist friend of mine who had painted such beautiful landscapes and life there I had to go. I took the train down the coast wanting to stop a lot more than I would allow myself but I made it to Lisbon just in time to watch a Sting concert. That was great and again just by luck. The architecture and history in Lisbon is thick and the food and growing art scene were worth every minute. I saw a bridge that looked like the Golden Gate suspension Bridge there and found out later that the same builders did them both. I saw this from a castle on top of a castle on top of a castle all buried under one another. Musical notes soared through the alleys as I wandered home.

From Lisbon I was trying to get to Sicily, Italy but the flights were so expensive I changed directions and went to Venice for a few days. Again, walking through history and the heat put me in a great mood and it was time to get on my way.

I met a friend in Sulawesi who lived in Slovenia but I missed her at the airport and then miss understood some friends in Switzerland so I didn’t go to Germany nor Poland and just high tailed it back to Paris and on to London for the return trip to some place.

(San Sebastian)

I got into Paris for two nights so I’d have time to get a ticket for London.

In London I needed a few days to get a new tourist visa for Nepal where I decided I was going to help my friends Johnny and Sitram build a new dinning hall and bring a few tools with me. Hyde Park is always calling so I spent a lot of sunset hours wandering and shooting pictures. Before I left I met up with my Scottish friend, Fergus, I met in Burma at the Strand Hotel Bar and had a few laughs with him before heading out and making a round trip.

To Be Continued

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Highlights Of Vietnam (and there are many)

Leaving Viengxay, Lao we took a bus northeast in a rainstorm. The road conditions remained ominous with landslides and fallen trees crossing the one and one half lanes of road. It was always difficult when buses and trucks came from the opposite direction. Looking out the window was just as unnerving looking down cliffs of mud that oozed into the jungle 50 meters below. Many foreigners living in Lao have mentioned the treacherously winding cliff road conditions all over the country but I didn’t hear of any accidents in particular.

The Vietnamese border crossing is rather simple this far north. It’s always a good idea to have some U.S. currency on you because it seems to be the preferred exchange for most border crossings in South East Asia. We waited at a restaurant for a Vietnamese bus heading for Hanoi, still another 12 hours away, or more. The people at the restaurant were willing to exchange money so we changed a little more than we needed for the bus, a meal and a few snacks and bottled water along the way.

We arrived in the outskirts of Hanoi at a bus station and had a difficult time settling on a fair taxi price to get us into the old French quarter or to the edge of the lake. Once we got out of the taxi the madness was apparent. There was either a constant flow of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles that it appeared impossible to cross the street, any street. I watched an old woman carrying a bamboo stick with two baskets, on at each end of the stick cross the street in the middle of the flow and hardly look about. Drivers honked and swerved and she pulled up on our side of the road. Sometime during my month in Vietnam I was told, maybe tongue in cheek – maybe not, that it’s the drivers’ responsibility not to hit pedestrians, but if they were going to hit you, they’d rather kill you than pay the hospital fees because it’s cheaper. Through out South East Asia there is a large percentage of drivers that have never taken a drivers training program and don’t have a license.

As an American I was a little apprehensive about going to Vietnam due to our two countries warring past and expected there to be some residual resentment towards Americans. I was fifteen when the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Interacting with the Vietnamese, one of their first questions after they found out I was American was, ‘How old are you?’ My response was always the same; ‘I was fifteen when the war ended.’ At that they would carry on as if I was any tourist from any country.

I was so enamored with the chaos in Hanoi that I stayed for eight days not including the two nights and three days spent in Ha Long Bay on the coast. To get a glimpse of the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective was enlightening and loaded with propaganda but the international journalist photos of the war told no lies and it was disturbing. I was in dismay of how little information Americans actually received about the atrocities even after the war except by those that returned emotionally scared and not appreciated for the efforts, many were forced via the draft, to do for their country. Some of the affects of Agent Orange are still in the soil and there are many disfigured people on the streets four generations later. I met one woman who is fourth generation without vocal cords. She ran a restaurant with other Vietnamese that are deaf, blind or without vocal cords. Although tragic it also presented awareness.

From Hanoi I hooked up with some Italians and a German and we hired a car and driver to take us to Ba Be National Park inland near the Vietnam/Lao border. This was an old colonial French vacation spot far from the heat and bureaucracy of the new capital in Hanoi. Mountains sprang to the sky while tranquil streams fell off the thickly forested cliffs and fed rice paddies, fields of water buffalo and finally spilled into a massive beautiful lake complete with a few green islands. Boat tours, fishing trips and hikes abound but we stuck to the lake road for a nice long walk on a mostly paved single track. We were only there for one night but I would suggest staying longer.

I took the train to Hue, the old capital. The train ride was straightforward except for the parade of graves out the window almost the entire way. Once in Hue there is a lot to do, cruise the Perfume River and stop at the tombs of past Kings before the French moved the capital to Hanoi. 

I took a great tour north to the Vietnamese tunnels and traveled a bit on the Ho Chi Mien Trail from Hue. It’s a jump off town for where the Vietnamese tunneled and communicated with boats and dealt with the American military dumping bombs and something like 72 million gallons of deforestation on their country. Bomb craters are seen in numerous places along the coast.

Hoi An was special for me in one particular way, it has a Gemstone Art Museum. www.gam.hoian.com. I was impressed with the craftsmanship of jeweled rings, bracelets, necklaces, etc. There are also very large gemstones on display in their natural rock form. Hoi An is packed full of restaurants, sites to see and a lively nightlife for the 20’s and 30’s age group but be careful for ‘light fingers’, they are everywhere in the world but we crossed them here.

Nha Trang was once a U.S. Military ‘R & R’ spot but now the signs are in Russian as well as Vietnamese. I believe there is still a flight from Moscow to Nha Trang directly. The Vietnamese aren’t so happy about it because, rumor has it, the Russian Mafia have also arrived and could possibly be competing over the same turf as the Vietnamese underground. It has the potential to be volatile. The food and the beach are nice though.

Saigon was my last stop and again I entered the War Museum with the same result as before, guilty by association. I sat in café to watch rush hour traffic and was impressed with the fluid chaos before me. I pondered my tour down the coast and took a bus to Phenom Pen, Cambodia the next day. Dengue Fever was rearing its ugly head in the city said the English teachers I met.

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Khone Pha Pheng Waterfall

Khone Phapheng Waterfall

When I arrived on the shore of Don Khone I had never really heard of it or done any research on it. I usually do it the other way around, show up and find out, especially in this case because I hadn’t planned on coming here in the first place. I landed on this island because the island Don Khoung was one and one half hours away by boat. And that’s when you find the unexpected cool stuff.

When I pulled into Somphamit Guest House for 50,000 kip/night and a bungalow on the Mekong I thought to myself, ‘self, you are going to like it here.’ My neighbors are journalists from Viet Nam and spoke English. With brief greetings we got to chat about the area and they were headed to the Khone Pra Pheng waterfall the next day and she was bargaining a price with the kind gentleman that owns the place. The more the merrier and they invited me to join them because it also brings the cost down per person. I agreed and explained that there were some Brits that might want to come as well and that I would talk to them.

I decided to take a look around the riverside village and inroads. I took a very hot walk though what I thought to be the center of the island on a narrow road. After an hour walking in the sun through dry rice fields and water buffalo I was thoroughly drenched in sweat. On my return I crossed paths with the two Brits and told them of a loose plan for the next day if they were interested. They said yes and off I went to shower and change into something not so wet.

8 o’clock came around a little earlier than I would have liked but the game was a foot and we had our numbers up to 10 so with a little negotiating we got our cost for a boat ride back to the port and a mini van to take us to Khone Pra Pheng and back for 30,000 kip. It’s about an hour each way and an hour or two at the falls exploring.

These are the falls that stopped the colonial French in their tracks trying to find a navigational passage into western China as a trade route. The French were convinced it could be done and continued to push on ward. The French found that much of the Mekong River is transport worthy but these falls are not. The Mekong for the most part is a calm and languid river that silently pushes down to the sea but here at the falls the Mekong is constricted and roaring with turbulence and power. Khone Prapheng falls are approximately 1 kilometer across and up to around 15 meters high. I would suggest turbine power for an additional electricity source, but hey, I'm just a wanderer.

When we got back to Don Khone (Island), I joined on a bike ride to the south end to see the Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong. Apparently they hang out in a particular area but we had a problem paying 25,000 kip to pass under a bridge that the locals don’t pay for, just foreigners; that made us choose another path. I told the now five Brits of my walk the day before and we went down the road with no payment. To rent a bike it’s about 10,000 kip but two people can bargain down to 15,000 kip for two bikes as we did.

About 3 kilometers down the dirt road we came across a sign that pointed off to a restaurant, suspension bridge and a series of waterfalls and pools where fishermen did their thing and we did ours. There were 6 beers in the cold box and there were 6 of us. We sat on the balcony and played with the owners little daughter. After awhile we decided to head back to town and go for a swim in the Mekong River.

A quick change of clothes, cocktail hour, dinner, and a torrential down pour finished off our evening. The lights went out frequently as we had just ordered food and drink and the candles came out. The lightening and thunder kept us entertained until it was time to get home. The road had ankle deep water in it and the only light was from the intermittent lightening. The sound of wind and heavy rain filled our ears for the night and slept like babes with a full day under our belt.

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