Albert Goes On a Trek and Invades Laos and Cambodia

Ok, time for a super-mega catch up post. What have I been doing, you ask? (You did ask, didn't you? I'm not making that up?)

Well let me tell you.

In Chiang Mai, Thailand, I took some cooking classes. This is me with some Pad Thai I made. Yummy! Funny enough, this was the first day of my trip I had a tummy ache, and I had only eaten things I made myself. I was pretty heavy on the spice. Click for more.

Then I went on a trek through beautiful Northern Thailand with an international group of ten. Click for more.

The first night we spent in a Karen tribe village. That's Anders there, enjoying the green tea and banana leaf cigarette he's been given. Click for more.

Then we hitched a ride on some bamboo rafts back towards home. They assembled these things the morning we left. I was put in the back to steer because I'm a strong man. Click for more.

Then it was across the Mekong River to Laos! Click for more.

I took a two day boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, which was a beautiful trip. A few times kids from the villages came out to say hello. Click for more.

Near Luang Prabang is a little village that makes money brewing lao lao, a whiskey made from fermented rice. Click for more.

That's some good hooch. Click for more.

Kept moving south, to Vang Vieng, which has some beautiful scenery. Click for more.

Vang Vieng has dozens of caves to explore. I met an Irish girl named Christine and we got into a couple really good ones. This one had stretches that we had to swim through to go on. We went about an hour in before deciding we should turn around if we wanted to get home before dark. Click for more.

The next day, Christine and I went kayaking down the Nam Xong. Click for more.

Vang Vieng is notorious for its "tubing," which involves little tubing and lots of drinking. It's feels very much like MTV Spring Break. Big dangerous rope swings and a waterslide. That's me in the upper left of this picture, midmaneuver high above the water. I'm like freaking Spider-Man. Click for more.

Spent an evening drinking with some friendly Laos. That's Christine, and James from Australia who just showed up in town minutes before this photo. He's the best Australian I've ever met. Click for more.

Then I kept moving south, going part of the way in a local "bus". These things are packed, and what you see here is us making a quick stop and these veggie hawkers thrusting their wares into the car looking for buyers. Click for more.

You're encouraged not to pee on the beautiful views along the roads. (Sorry, no more like this...)

After going by Champasak, where the pretty cool temple Wat Phou is, I made it to the beautiful island of Don Det, in Si Phan Don (The 4,000 Islands). Click for more.

Rented a dirty little bungalow for about $1.25, and relaxed for days. This was my favorite stop in Southeast Asia. Click for more.

One day I swam out among the islands and wore myself out so's I didn't feel too much like swimming back. I flagged down this boat of Lao children and they were happy to give me a ride back to Don Det. Click for more.

The next day I went garbage collecting in the Mekong around Don Det. The Lao people thought this was hilarious. Click for more.

Then I was in Cambodia, the land of gas stations that fill your tank from whiskey bottles. Click for more.

I met this South Korean girl Sumi on the bus into Siam Reap and this is us getting some squid on the waterfront before we go for a swim. Click for more.

My first night in Cambodia, I went to see the sunset at Angkor Wat with a gang of lovely ladies. That's Anne from Sweden, Sumi again, and Anke (pronounced almost just like Angkor) from Germany. Click for more.

Woke up early to catch the sunrise from Phnom Bakheng, Angkor. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a HANDS FREE HEADSTAND. They said it couldn't be done. Click for more.

The temples at Angkor are ridiculously cool. Really good condition, really good design, really Indiana Jones. Moreso even than Petra, which was actually in an Indiana Jones movie. This is Bayon. Click for more.

Some monks at Bayon. I'm always hesitant to stick a camera in locals' faces, but monks are so damn photogenic so a common tactic of mine is to let them pass and then spin around real fast to get a picture of their backs. This time, it appears I was caught.

That's Sumi and me at Ta Phrom, one of the Angkor temples. I think this door was in the movie Tomb Raider. Our tuk tuk driver had this awesome wig, which I ended up wearing around all day. The Cambodians loved it. Click for more.

There are little kids everywhere trying to sell things to tourists. But they aren't annoying, they're really really fun. Super smart, savvy kids who love to joke and have a good time. Here I'm negotiating a price for a little wooden mouth instrument. I paid 2000 riel ($0.50), which I knew was too much, but I didn't realize HOW too much until I told another kid I got it for 200 riel ($0.05) and he offered me another at the same price. D'oh! Click for more.

I got a little turned around at Angkor. Hah! Click for more.Celebrated my Cambodian good times with a whiskey bucket. Click for more.

At about 6:00am after a few of these, I realized I might not have taken the days of the week into account when planning my Indian visa retrieval. Sure enough, it was Thursday, the Indian consulate in Thailand closes for the weekend at noon on Friday, and my flight to India leaves from Bangkok at 9:00am on Monday. I had 28 hours to get from Siam Reap, Cambodia, to Chiang Mai, Thailand. That's a long way, look at a map. So I got an hour's rest, rode on the back of a motorbike drunk as a skunk to catch an 8:00am bus, crossed the border, hopped on a cramped minibus with broken A/C that made my slimy whiskey sweats all the more unpleasant, got into Bangkok at 6:00pm, ran to a 7:35pm night train to Chiang Mai, had a nice sleep, got into Chiang Mai on Friday at 12:10pm...

ULP

ran outside, negotiated a fair tuk tuk price, got to the consulate at 12:20 after a couple of wrong turns, waved my visa receipt through the bars at the Indian guard ("Yes, come in, come in") and was very sweet to the grumpy Thai woman behind the counter that kept reminding me they were closed. But I got my visa, and tomorrow I'm in India!

New Year's Eve in Bangkok

The night began at Sanamluang, The Royal Field that leads to the Grand Palace in downtown Bangkok. Locals were out in force, with pop up festivities like bumper cars:

...and a raffle being decided by the whims of a rat:

5 baht (about $0.15) got you a number, and if the rat ran into the hole with that number on it you won! I didn't. I headed back to Banglamphu, where all the backpackers hang out, to countdown with my fellow whiteys:

But there was no countdown! Except for "The Final Countdown." Which, honestly, almost makes up for it. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I apparently drank more than I should have, because I wasn't feeling so hot the next day:

Happy New Year!

Ten Best Photos of My Trip So Far

So I realize I have like a gillion photos on my Flickr and only two of you love me enough to browse through them (hi, Craig Durkin and Dad), so I'm going to make this easy for you. Here are the ten best photos of my trip so far, in no particular order: Theron (another volunteer at Sedot Mikha), La Pantera Negra ("I am verry dangeroos") and I enjoy dessert in a Jerusalem bookstore/cafe.

Maya was another volunteer at Sedot Mikha. Here she is reading at sunset at Qalya Beach on the Dead Sea, unaware that she'll ruin her eyes carrying on like that.

Marc (the guy whose museum project I was working on for six weeks at Sedot Mikha) swimming at Ashkelon.

Me and La Pantera Negra posing under the statue I built with Marc. The photo is being taken by Melanie, another volunteer from Germany. You can see her in some of the pictures on my Flickr page, but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?

Ben at Ein Gedi Beach on the Dead Sea. His socks had gotten so gross after weeks of no washing that they would actually stand on end. You can not imagine the stench.

Ben took this one of me in Ein Gedi. So epic! Rarely do I look so statuesque.

In Gaudix, waiting for laundry to dry. There's a companion piece with Ben on my Flickr page, but really why start caring now?

This restaurant at the Alhambra in Granada had misting jets that would spray every minute or so. Made for some positively angelic lighting.

At the Alhambra. I forget the name of this particular structure, but I like this picture of it.

A dog in Spain! He was playing with another dog in this fountain (you can see pictures of that on my Fl... you know what, you wouldn't be interested) for quite a while. I think his silhouette here is really swell.

What I Did Today

I rode a tortoise!

I willfully ignored signs I couldn't read! "Bor... Patu'akh... Sakhanah?" *SHRUG*

I thanked a shepherd for clearing the trail of his sheep!

I lounged happily underneath homemade arches!

I pretended I was Goliath on the very spot he once stood! "I do taunt the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together!"

I was like "Would you look at that view!"

More at my Flickr page.

Albert Has a Travel Blog

Hey! I have a travel blog! You can check here periodically if you care what I´m up to. Also, if you haven´t yet emailed me your mailing address you should do that to so I can send you a postcard from somewhere.

Ben and I were flying on Buddy Passes very generously arranged by Ruth and Jack, my sister-in-law´s mother and stepfather. Since business class had some free space they sat us up there. We were very pampered--champagne before takeoff, white tablecloth dinner, seats that reclined into beds... A very unfitting beginning for a trip that will eventually find me in some pretty dingy digs. Ben and I loved it, discussed what we should tell any inquiring chicas our professions were. I think we decided we´d be space pilots. No chicas inquired.

In Madrid now, Ben is upstairs in the hostel napping after a self-lead walking tour. We´ll be here for two nights, at which point Ben´s friend Nicole is joining us and we´ll make our way down to Lagos.

The big tomato food fight is happening while we´re in Spain, we´re going to try to get to that.

Wanna make bets on how long I´m gonna keep this blogging up?