A Month in SE Asia with Lily (and Emily for three weeks)

On the 18th of December at about 11 p.m., Lily touched down at Bangkok airport. Just visualize a very excited mom and daughter jumping up and down and embracing like crazy – a very un-Thai welcome, but one that we couldn’t resist after a 4 months’ separation. I was so thrilled to see her shining face again! Even though we talk regularly on the phone, nothing replaces being together in person.

Early the next morning, we flew to Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of Laos. We stayed in a simple bungalow on the outskirts of town in a very quiet country setting. At first, Lily freaked out during her withdrawal from all the noise and stimulation of the city into the quiet and lack of stimulation at this guest house. So we quickly headed into town and began exploring. Luang Prabang sits at the confluence of the Nam Khan and the Mekong River, much wider here than when I last saw it during my massage in Chiang Saen in Northern Thailand. We roamed around for a while and then began some serious shopping at the night market – lots of beautiful handicrafts, jewelry, art and clothing offered by the hill tribe people. By the time we got back to our country guest house, Lily was ready to appreciate the quiet and solitude there. We spent the next couple of days exploring this beautiful old colonial capital, shopping, and eating some very tasty Lao food. The best meal was at Tamarind, sitting outside opposite an ornate Buddhist temple listening to monks chanting their evening prayers. Notice this monk checking Lily out as she crossed the river...

We grew to love Luang Prabang and would have stayed longer if we hadn't had plans to meet Emily, Lily’s good buddy from Sarah Lawrence, in Vientiane, Laos's current capital, the next evening. Getting there was a real adventure. Lily wasn’t feeling well to begin with, but the ten-hour bus ride would have made anyone sick. I was holding on to the contents of my stomach the whole way. The first half of the trip between Laos’s two major cities passed through steep mountainous terrain dotted with small villages straddling narrow ridges along the way. The bus only broke down twice. During one of these interludes, I made Lily get out of the bus to breathe some fresh air। She felt so badly that she lay down on the street only having to jump up quickly to avoid an oncoming bus running over her long hair!
So finally we got out of the mountains, and I saw a straight road ahead thinking a smooth ride was coming up. But it was almost worse with major road construction the whole rest of the way creating a very bumpy ride. Anyway, we finally got to Vientiane, found a nice hotel, and had a happy reunion with Emily.
I’m glad we loved Luang Prabang so much, because I really didn’t like Vientiane. The city was crumbling, the people were pushy, the market was uninteresting - not very pleasant for me. The girls liked it well enough, but after a day, we were all ready to move on.
But we did catch this gorgeous sunset over the Mekong River as we were eating dinner on our last night in Vientiane. To spare you from all the travel details, I’ll mention only the highlights of our month together. Just know that in between these highlights were some very long bus rides including frequent breakdowns and/or unexpected stopovers in out of the way places. It seems that on both Lao and Cambodian buses, extra men come along for the ride just to make repairs whenever the bus breaks down.

Heading south from Vientiane, we wanted to glide through Kong Lor cave in the Phu Hin Bun National Protected Area. To quote from Lonely Planet: “Imagine a river disappearing at the edge of a monolithic limestone mountain and running 7 km through a pitch-black, winding cave … up to 100m wide in some places and almost as high.” It took over two and a half hours to go by longtail boat to the far end of the cave, out the other side and return. We all loved the experience. What I enjoyed equally as well was staying in the nearby tiny village of Ban Na Hin with cows and goats, geese and pigs all roaming the dusty streets, a sweet market filled with friendly people, and a surprisingly good restaurant where we took all our meals.

From there we continued south to Si Phan Don. This is an area of 4000 islands (again from Lonely Planet) “where the Mekong fans out forming an intricate network of channels, rocks, sandbars and islets 14km wide.” We found a couple of very basic bungalows hanging over the banks of the Mekong for 2 dollars a night. The electricity came on only from 6 – 9:30 p.m. The guest house and attached restaurant where we took all our meals was run by a welcoming couple known to all as Mama and Papa. They took care of us as loving parents would including preparing some of the best food we ate on our entire trip. We spent our days reading in hammocks, biking to a beautiful waterfall, and attempting to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. Alas they were hiding when we went looking for them. One day we went to watch a boat race and festival in the nearby village of Ban Nakasang. It was crazily packed with lots of drunken and otherwise intoxicated villagers singing, smoking and sampling the abundant food offerings everywhere in this carnival atmosphere.

Leaving Laos, we bussed to Cambodia with a brief stop just before leaving Laos to see Kon Phapheng Falls, the largest, by volume, waterfalls in SE Asia. After an overnight stop along the way, we reached Siem Reap on New Year’s Eve. Most every guest house was booked, so we settled for a crummy, but adequate and cheap room for the three of us. We were all so beat, that after a celebratory dinner in the heart of town, we went to bed early only to be awakened at midnight by all the noises of celebrating the new year. I was somewhat concerned about traveling with two twenty-year-olds, thinking that they would want to party all the time, but it turned out that we all had the same rhythm which meant early to bed and early to rise. During the whole month together we consumed a grand total of maybe 4 beers among us! Party animals we were not!

For the next 2 days we hired a guide and driver to show us the many temples and monuments of which Angkor Wat is the best known, dating from the 12th century. My favorite was Ta Prohm, the one with the roots of giant trees entangled in the monumental sculptures. Art and nature intertwined to create a breathtaking sight! We climbed up the steep staircases to the top of some temples and wove through the narrow passageways of others. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. At night we wandered through the market and tasted some good Cambodian specialties. I was the more adventurous eater. Emily and Lily stuck mostly to veggies with fried rice or noodles for the entire month.

Another highlight for me came on the boat trip from Siem Reap up the Tonle Sap and then down the Stung Sangker River to Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city. The trip which was supposed to take six hours, took almost ten because of the low level of water in the river during this dry season. (You Seattleites may not be able to relate to this, but the last time I saw rain was on November 8 in when I first arrived in Bangkok.) The boat was packed with many of us sitting in the open on the top deck. That was fine in the morning when there was cloud cover, but it got pretty intense during midday. We passed by many floating villages and saw a multitude of exotic birds as we sailed through the wetlands. Small canoe-type crafts shuttled some passengers to and from boat, often piloted by small children. It was great to see how people subsist completely surrounded by water.

By the time we got to Battambang, Lily was feeling pretty sick. Not wanting to deal with any serious illness in Cambodia, and with the advice of a Cambodian nurse we met there, we left the next day and took two taxis to get to Trat in Thailand, changing taxis at the border. Trat is on the southern border of Thailand and Cambodia. We settled in a very Thai hotel right next to the market, one of the most varied of all that I had seen in Thailand. I must say I was very happy to get back to Thailand after being in Cambodia. Seeing only Siem Reap, and a bit of Battambang, we had a pretty distorted view of what others tell me is a beautiful and fascinating country. Aside from the river trip and the amazing archeological sites, I can’t say I really liked Cambodia, and I was feeling pulled to get back to the relative ease of Thailand. Having already spent two months in Thailand, it was familiar to me, and much more comfortable. I took Lily to a private clinic the next morning where the doctor said she had some kind of infection. She was given several types of medicines which, along with the clinic visit cost us about 25 dollars US, high by Thai standards.

We decided the best place to rest and recover was at The Souk on Koh Chang, a large island in the Gulf of Thailand. The Souk was recommended to us by Liesbeth, the woman I stayed with in Ban ThaTon on the Burmese border in Thailand. As luck would have it, she had just been at the Souk for the past week and left just hours before we arrived! So sorry we missed seeing her at the other end of Thailand! We all loved staying at the Souk on Koh Chang! With all the non-stop traveling through Laos and Cambodia, we really needed the rest. Soon after we arrived, Emily got whatever Lily had, and soon after, I too succumbed. But if we had to be sick, we were in the most beautiful place to recover. Our bungalow was maybe 20 meters from the beach, with only a palm tree in between. We sat in hammocks, read, slept, and walked between our bungalow and the restaurant. The food was delicious, and the proprietors, Ed and Oh took very good care of us. By the end of the week, we finally got up enough energy to go ride some elephants. We even swam with them!

Yes, as we sat bareback on the elephant’s neck, they waded and dove into the waters of a decent sized pond. Of course we got soaked and laughed a lot. It was great fun.

By that time, Emily needed to get to Bangkok for her flight back to New York. The girls talked me into going a day early so they could do some serious shopping at the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market. Luckily for me, they had each other, so I was spared from going there again. We stayed near Siam Square, so we also got the opposite shopping experience in several glitzy new vertical malls.


The day after Emily left, Lily and I headed down to another beautiful island on the other side of the Gulf of Thailand, Koh Tao, known as one of the best places to scuba dive. To get there, we took a 2-hour ferry ride in a storm over very rough seas. I got very seasick, while Lily wasn’t even phased. Lily had gotten her first scuba certification in Mexico when she was 13, but now wanted to go to the next level. We stayed at Black Tip Dive Resort on a secluded beach on “the other side of the island.” While Lily took her two day course, I mostly hung out and took some walks up the steep hillside surrounding the cove. It was very windy – a storm that we brought with us from Koh Chang, so the diving and snorkeling weren’t as good as they could have been. And after hearing the very sad news about a dear friend dying while snorkeling in Mexico just a week before, I must admit that I was a bit spooked about snorkeling on Koh Tao.

As our time together was drawing to a close, we went back to Bangkok. Lily still hadn’t had enough shopping, so we headed back to the weekend market. This time I joyfully accompanied her. It was a bittersweet last day together, savoring each minute. The next morning, January 19, we went to the airport together, shared our last hugs, and then Lily flew off to New York, and I flew to Chennai, India.