In Country Drift

Trying to get some surfing pics up soon from Indonesia. Until then, here’s some more Northern Thailand pictures.

This is a hollowed out teak wood coffin, propped up and looking out of a cave entrance located about 1000m up a limestone cliff face. It’s absolutely unreal how difficult it must have been to get these giant pieces of wood up to this cave. Teak is a very hard, heavy wood.

More teak coffins

Cool formations

P.S. we’re coming back stateside April 2.

Double Cheese Pork Burger chips. Flavoring experiments abound in Thailand.

Potato Circle. Perhaps the greatest band name ever.

The little fruit that screams, “Don’t eat me!” See: super spiked leaves.

Giant Bugs of Thailand

Bangkok seems to get cooler each day.

It’s weird - first you’re thinking, man, this city kind of sucks.

Ten days later, you’re all about it.

Can’t wait to go back.

The Skytrain

Massive group aerobics sessions at dusk

California WOW

Wat

While we were in Soppong, Thailand, we had the very good fortune of meeting an awesome Danish man named Tomas. Tomas is married to a woman from a Lisu hill-tribe village that’s located in Northwest Thailand. We just happened to be in town for the Lisu New Year celebrations, which take place at the same time as Chinese New Year (early February this year). Tomas and his family invited us to join them for the celebration, and, long story short, there was a lot of dancing, a LOT of fireworks, and a lot of moonshine corn whisky. The hospitality was unmatched, to say the least.

The Lisu spend the entire night going to each home in the village to dance around the New Year Tree, where the hosts at that home hand out snacks, fruit, corn whiskey and the ever-popular Beer Chang (Thai Beer). As the night wears on, the adults fade to bed and the adolescents/unmarried’s hang out to dance and flirt, with the level of flirting increasing with the amount of alcohol consumed. Because this is the only day of the year where public affection between single Lisu people is considered acceptable, it’s a pretty big night for everybody. Especially for the guys that really liked Cari.

Oh, and the ridiculous amount of super-loud fireworks (and the occasional handgun or rifle firing) is to scare away the evil spirits in the village so everybody can start the new year off on the right foot. We have never seen so many 3-year-old children lighting fireworks anywhere, ever.

Funniest moment of the night:

Boy talking to Cari: “Are you a hippie?”

Cari: What?

Boy: Are you a hippie?

Cari: “Uh… I am if you are!”

(He was trying to ask Cari if she was “happy” at their celebration) HA!

Adults in the middle, kids on the outside.

The stringed instrument player (total camera hog)

Single ladies showing off the family bling (made from old Indian Rupee silver)

The most awesome flute instrument known to man

We spent about two weeks hiking and caving up in the northwest corner of Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province. The area’s Karst mountain ridges are filled with literally thousands of limestone caves, some discovered, but many not.

Ancient wooden coffins can be found in some of the caves, supposedly put there by a people who lived in the area around 10,000 years ago. Hundreds of ancient burial mounds also line the mountain ridges – probably containing some awesome Indiana Jones-style treasure, but apparently there’s never been a proper excavation of the mounds.

The landscape in the area is pretty amazing, with dense bamboo jungle opening into high growth pines along the ridges — river valleys below. Most of the time the scenery was stunning, although occasionally we’d find ourselves struggling to cross patches of not-yet-burned “slash and burn” agriculture fields, clambering over felled bamboo trees. Ouch!

Luckily though, the burn season hadn’t started yet — once the burning begins the valleys fill with smoke and haze for about two months. It sounds like it’s pretty hard to tell the hill tribe people to stop tearing down the forest when it’s the only way they know how to get by and clear land for farming.

Our friend gave us a hand drawn map for “navigating” the area. On the map it read in bold capital letters: “Impossible to Get Lost!”

Not true. Not at all.

Sacred Well Cave Tham Lod

Cave Tham Lod Tham Lod

Stalagtites above the River Lang (the river runs through the cave), Ancient Coffin Cave Tham Lod

Crazy formation