Amazing Nan

A couple of weeks ago Thorsten was on an amazing field trip to Nan Province in the North of Thailand. Together with a colleague of mine and colleagues from UNDP we visited some of their field sites in the remote area of Nan province. What we experienced there war truly magnificent. I would call the area up there as the hidden corner of Thailand, far away from all the beaten Tourist tracks. At times I felt like 25 years back. Already the city of Nan itself is of stunning beauty with some of the Wats dating back to the 5th century. But going into the countryside tops even that. In the valleys in and around Nan some 30 different tribes have found their homes. Most of the tribes originated from Laos and Yunnan province in South-West China, some 300 kilometers further North. This potpurri of tribes gives the area a very distinct beauty and atmosphere.
A highlight of our trip was our stay at the Bamboo Huts in Ban Toei. This Eco Tourism place is in the midst of a beautiful valley populated by the Lawa tribe. William the owner speakes perfect English and offers a number of fabulous treks in the surrounding area. Depending on the condition of the clients he offers 1 to 3 day treks of various difficulty. His wife and two sons are good fun and the whole area is of extreme beauty.
The downside? There isn't really any exept that it is basic and one should not expect Luxury, but everything is very clean, food is super delicious and the whole place is well managed. The price is absolutely competetive and one is inclined to top the bill up. William owns a mobile phone but reception is poor, thus most times he cannot be contacted. However, there is actually no need to book in advance as he has a number of huts and if these are full he can arrange for rooms in the village.
Ban Toei is in between Pua and Doi Puhka National Park in the midst of the mountains. The place is signposted but without own transportation difficult to reach. For people who want to escape the city to relax and be closer to real nature, that's the place to be!

A saturday night in the Bangkok Red Light district

Hi all!!
Sorry it's been so long but lots of things have been going on here hence little time to write...

However, we did manage a trip down to Patpong the other day, one of the famous red light districts in Bangkok.
As you all know (or not know) Bangkok is quite famous for it's sex industry. And contradictory to what most people think, it is mainly catering for the Asian population. Only about 10% of the clients come from the West. So we wanted to see with our own eyes what the fuss is all about.
Chris, a friend of mine from Uni, is doing his research on street based sexworkers. Not the people working in massage parlors or bars. We thought he might be the right guy to introduce us to Patpong...
As soon as you arrive in Patpong, you get bombared by people who want you to come into their club to watch 'ping pong shows' or 'banana shows'. I'll leave it up to your imagination what would be on show... Anyway, Chris led us through skillfully and we ended up in a gogo bar. Life on the inside is quite different from life on the outside! First this: more than half of the girls and women are actually transsexuals. An experienced eye (like ours!) can make them out immediatly. However, there are lots of (drunk) men who will never find out they actually slept with a woman who was a man not so long ago. The girls that used to be man, often have much more bony features in their faces (unless they had operations there too). Other than that, there's not much difference! They look as feminine as the 'real' girls and often dance better and are more beautifull.

Once you enter (this is thorough observation and investigation!) someone in a tiny bikini will guide you to the bar, or a stool where you have full view of the bar. Behind the bar, girls are pole dancing in tiny bikini's on the stage. Not for long, maybe 5-7 minutes and then the scene changes. This continues throughout the evening. While the girls are on stage they try to catch your eye (I'm talking from the point of view of a single man - they very decently leave you alone when there's a women within your company) or you try to catch theirs. Once their dance is over, she'll come over and gently starts seducing you. Some just take the empty seat next to you and start talking. After some time (depends on the rush you are in, some guys took over an hour, others were gone in 10 minutes) you'll pay the 'mamasan' the barfine (my experienced eye saw it was 500THB - 12 Euro) and the girl will go and change. You'll then take her upstairs to a room or to your hotelroom. Obviously you'll have to pay the girl for her services on top of that.
Next to the girls on stage, there are hundreds of others parading around in the club trying to chat up men while they're waiting their turn to dance.

The mamasan is the owner/manager of the club, often a woman. 'Our' mamasan seemed very nice and even though we were obviously not in for bussiness she let us stay and watch as long as we wanted. Mamasans offer the girls protection and jobsecurity in exchange for the barfine.
Officially all the girls are 18 years or older, but we did see 1 or 2 that looked younger. Mind you, all asian girls look much younger than they are so she might as well have been 18.

As there is a closure time of 1 am in Thailand, a lot of bars close between 1 and 2. A lot of them have obtained 'licences' though to stay open all night or have hidden entrances for regular customers.

So, glad we could share that with you and when you're coming to Thailand next, we'll be able to guide you in the right direction to find the gogo bars!

Rainy Season

Finally it has started to rain again. Since July we should have had regular rains but most of the last couple of weeks was pretty dry and very hot and humid. Temperatures climed up to levels known otherwise only during the hot season. Not so yesterday. It seemed the sky had opened and all the water you can imagine poured down. We were having nice Indian dinner with a couple of friends when the rain started. Not thinking much we enjoyed lovely indian naan, dal and raita and had a good chat. Once we wanted to leave we had to realize the roads around the restaurant were all flooded. We felt like on an island surrounded by 30 cm deep brackish water (ironically enough next to the tallest building in Thailand). Thanks to the dirt of the water we could not see anything and wading through would have been too dangerous - where was the sewage canal again, the whole in the street...? Somehow we managed to take some detours and reached a spot where we could waive down a Taxi without being splashed on entirely. And yes our feet were still reasonably dry!!! Floods usually mean Taxi prices skyrocket and the bargaining is more like an auction where the highest bidder gets the Taxi. But luck was with us and we found a empty Taxi willing to take us.
We managed to climb into the Taxi with dry shoes just to realise too late that the Taxi was full of water as well!!! Thus all the effort of keeping dry shoes was useless as we had wet shoes (and feet) anyway. Well, that is one of the moments one remembers that Thailand is still developing.

Thorsten & Griet

bussy bussy bussy

It's no excuse, we know, but it's true. It's amazing how, when you're not working, you've got too much time and once you're bussy, there's no time at all...
Anyway.

July already! Time's flying. I have now officially been going to University for a month and I'm still enjoying it. Yes, there are lectures which don't seem to make any sense and we've got professors who don't know how to transfer their knowledge, but I guess that's nothing new.

We had an international day a couple of weeks ago and guess what... I was nominated for Miss International Day... Everyone was (supposed to be) dressed in his/her national or traditional outfit and as I haven't got one from Belgium, I decided to go Asian.

I had a Karen shirt (Karen is a local tribe in Myanmar) and a Laotian skirt. Obviously it did attract some attention.


Last month, we had some great celebrations in Thailand. King Rama IX (or King Bumibol) as reigned for 60 years and is the longest reigning king in the world. Reason enough to celebrate the Thai people decided. And celebrating they did!
There was lots of firework, nicely lit streets (it looked like Christmas!), activities happening around the Grand Palace, but the one thing everyone was waiting for, were the Royal Barges on the Chao Phraya river.

Because it would have been impossible to get close enough to the river, we went to watch the barges on a big screen.
Which gave us a much nicer and more detailed view than if we would have been at the river we found out later...

Because the king was born on a yellow day, yellow is an auspiscious colour (and the King's colour). So everyone was wearing yellow T-shirts.

So far, Thorsten and I have been able to resist the pressure to get a yellow T-shirt. It does have a bit of a negative taste aswell because now, every civil servant is expected (doesn't have to but...) to wear their yellow T-shirts to work on Mondays and Fridays to show they love the King. If they don't do it, they often get looked at 'you don't love our king?'.

But the best thing about the celebrations of the King were the empty streets!!!

It was so nice to be able to get around easily and fast.
The junction you see here is one of the bussiest junctions in Bangkok (with the skytrain running over it) and because of all the royalties from other countries they had closed major roads in Bangkok. You have to imagine this road is usually packed, absolutely packed with cars, busses, motorbikes and tuk tuk's.
It was quite a sight!



And other than this, nothing much as happened really. Except for the World Cup obviously and this is also being celebrated immensly in Thailand. Unfortunately not always for the best reasons... Betting is very big in Thailand and the World Cup is the opportunity to win (or loose) a lot of money.

That'll be it for today. Please keep writing and keep in touch!

Griet and Thorsten

Welcome to our Blog!

Dear Family and Friends! Welcome to our Blog!
Well, we are not sure how you will like the idea that we will post our experiences and stories on a blog format now, but we both had to realize it is difficult to keep up with you all on a regular basis via phone, letter or email as often we are out, travelling or simply do not feel in the mood to sit in front of a computer again (as we do most of the week for work or study).
Actually we feel this idea with a blog is fabulous as we now can share pictures, happenings and news with you all via the blog. Please enjoy the blog and let us know what you think!

Have a good time and cheers,

Griet and Thorsten