Clic-Clac

I just took my 10,000^th picture since I bought my DSLR two years ago!!! This gives a mean shooting rate of 14 pics/day...

That's amazing how digital cameras made photography easier. If you take a look at web galleries, you can notice the growing number of skilled amateurs who really reach nearly professional quality. We are now flooded daily with tons of images via the Web, the TV, the magazines, etc... The level of demand for professionals to differentiate is higher than ever. At the same time, there is a trend to give more credit to those "amateur" pictures and videos in the news. Readers are educated and know the wide range of tools available for the "pros" to manipulate their shoots and change the reality. An "amateur" looking pictures seems more credible I guess.

Anyway, I'm not pretending to be a reporter or an artist, I just enjoy watching pictures I took in places I liked, that's all! And out of 10,000 pictures, how many are worth keeping? Only one out of five since my galleries host nearly 2,000 picts. Indeed, the 10,000^th picture itself was not satisfying so it was not a keeper, but the 10,006^th was. It's the same frame as the 10,000^th, just with better DOF and exposure.

Sir, yes Sir!

Imagine you're lying on a deserted beach somewhere in Asia, let's say in Malaysia. Everything is so quiet, and you fully enjoy yourself. Aside from a tidal wave, what is the worth thing that could happen to you and spoil this very special moment?

--> an organized tour tidal wave...

Since I've spent quite some time on various Islands and touristic spots in Asia, I've noticed many of those groups of tourists traveling on an organized tour. And by "organized", I mean that each and every second of the day is organized.

You can't miss those groups if you go to the Perhentians Islands, they love this sea paradise. They are easy to spot: first they are numerous. Most of those tours gather at least 10 people. That kind of tourists likes to be surrounded by his fellows, he feels protected against all the dangers threatening him when he is so far away from home sweet home. Especially on the Perhentian Islands, this is really dangerous place. And they will always stay close to each other. It's like a school of sardines: strength lies in unity.

You can usually recognize them with their T-shirt: since they are very proud of belonging to the same tour, they make their travel a real event: they give themselves a name, they find a motto and they created a dedicated T-shirt for their group. It's mandatory for them that they wear it all the time. It's actually very clever: in the unlikely event that one of them get separated from the rest of the group, if you find him totally freaked out and lost, thanks to the name on the T-shirt, you can bring him back to his owner. You might get a reward for it.

Finally, since this is an "organized tour", well... it has to be organized, right? This is serious business. The captain of the group usually carries a loudspeaker to regularly give instructions to the group. Thanks to the captain, the tourists don't need to worry to much about what to do and where to go. The schedule is very detailed an a laminated hard copy is given to all the participants. They are told when to go to the bathroom. The captain is the master and his authority is respected: the only case when it's hard for him to keep control over the group is when it comes to food, especially when it's a buffet. In order to guarantee the ROI (Return On Investment), the participants will rush to the buffet and get as much as their plastic plate can carry. Who cares if they can't eat it all, as long as they consumed as much as possible. It's usually a real mess, and there might not be enough food for the weakers of them who couldn't reach the buffet on time. The captain is also in charge of telling jokes in the bus and of ordering them to watch through the window when the bus is passing a landmark. Gosh, a travel must be so boring without a good captain!

But the most funny part is that they don't swim without a bright orange life jacket and two large buoys around their arms. Yes, in the Perhentians. You know, this paradise tropical Island where the water is like 28°C , shallow, quiet, protected by coral reefs... I'm not kidding, that's for real!!!

As you can see, I'm not a big fan of those tours and I'm getting a bit mean. Echoing Nicolas' post (fr), I think that this type of tourism is more or less responsible for spoiling natural wonders...

Well, that said, believe it or not I was myself part of such kind event last weekend!!! Yep, I got enrolled in the Perhentian Island challenge 2007... I teamed up with sport addicted Louis and we both went through a great sport challenge in spite of the "organized tour" background.

The race consist in a mix of kayaking, running through the wild jungle, swimming (yes, with the bright orange life jacket geared up ;-), climbing steep hills. Four and a half hours of constant physical effort around noon, when the sun is the brightest and when the temperature reaches 35°C. It was really tiring but we were determined and we found the guts to finish the race and our rank is 10th out of 83 teams. We won a great medal and a money prize! There will be a one hour coverage on TV Tiga (Malaysian national TV channel 3) in October, I'll try to blog it if I can find it.

Thanks Louis!

Louis was too tall to fit in the kayak...













They didn't play La Marseillaise...

No need to push mah, just call lah!

After more than one year spent in KL I noticed that there are phone numbers painted on almost all the sign-posts, streetlights and stop lights in KL, but until yesterday I never had the curiosity to call and figure out whose number it was.

Yesterday, Marie's bike had a flat tire. I came to help and we were getting ready to push the bike over few blocks to reach a nearby garage. It was about noon, temperature was 35°C, that would have been hell! So I asked a guy passing by if he knew a bike shop closer than the one I was thinking about.

He answered: "no need to push mah, just call lah!", and he finger pointed a streetlight... He explained that repairmen write their phone number on all the streetlights within the area they cover!! One can call and get service 24/7 within 10 to 15 min ;-) But you need to speak Malay to give your location since bike repairmen usually don't speak a word of English...

Half an hour and twenty ringgits later, we were on the road again!

Way to go!...

Kiddy Kiddy!

No big story here, but just the cutest picture I ever took! (not that I'm a big fan of the "kiddy kiddy" type of picture, but I really like this one, though)!



I took those pictures a few weeks ago as Marie and I took a ride to Kuala Selangor.


















Those Silverleaf monkeys are freely roaming in the hills around the town. They are famous for the bright orange fur of their infants, before they turn to regular adults' dark hair with silver shining.










But don't give me wrong, this one is definitely my favorite kind: it can even ride a bike!!

Keep in touch!

I suck really bad at keeping in touch with people who are not around. In my case it's all the more worth since in the past 10 years I lived in 6 different locations within 3 countries...

There are so many people I still wanna be in touch with! Therefore in order to catch up with those people that count for me, I'm giving a try with the Facebook thing. I actually registered few years back when it became big in the US and everyone got excited about, but I never really got to use it since at this time I thought it was useless and I preferred IRL interaction.

But yesterday I got a message from a good old friend of mine (Sweta ;-) and it made me really happy to read about her! Of course I'd much better raise my glass with her, but it's still much better than nothing.

I'll update my contact info and update some pics soon.

So, see you around on Facebook...

Borneo

I'm not even gonna try to apologize for the looooong time I didn't upload this blog. What can I say? I have really gone through a rough time at work...

Anyway, I still found time during the last two month to do something I kept postponing for too long:

After traveling here and there, I can now claim that I know peninsular Malaysia pretty well. However I never stepped on East Malaysia (Borneo Island) before. In order to catch up, I flew to Sarawak state (Southern Borneo) two weeks ago to attend the Rainforest World Music Festival. This festival is especially famous because of its location: it takes place at the Sarawak Cultural Village, just in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by hills. Definitely a great location, but I wasn't that enthusiastic about the music itself. Also I was expecting some roots/trash/hippie experience with w33d smell floating all around but it was actually more a "friendly event". The day workshops were fun though! And guess what? I had a chance to listen to the unique Breton bombarde noise! So far away from Brittany, that was quite unexpected!


Bottom line: the festival was nice, but I definitely had a crush on Bako Park where Marie and I went for 3 days trek just before the festival. Bako is located on the south-west coast of Borneo Island. It's a wild park, we met only very few other trekkers. What is great about Bako is that after a really tiring walk into steep hills and moist jungle comes a great reward: the sea. Bako is surrounded by beaches and with a moderate luck you can expect to reach a desert beach just for you before sunset! It feels so good to spend a few nights in the simple wilderness. As opposed to Taman Negara, Bako discloses much more variety in the landscapes alternating rainforest with beach ecosystem or dryer meadows. I definitely hold it as the best place I've been in Asia for trekking so far. Big up for Marie who found the strength to carry my bag and find a remote river to get some water while I was literally paralyzed by recurring cramps.

We spent one day in Kuching, the main city in Sarawak before reaching back to KL: it's a very charming city. The riverbank is amazing, very calm and beautiful. Strong contrast with the average large Asian city, usually much more bustling...

Overall, a short trip (only 5 days), but as usual, very well filled!

Java, one Island, two worlds

I had the chance to flight to Java twice over the last weeks, once for personal travel, once for business trip, but I definitely feel like I've been traveling to two different countries: the urban sprawl of Jakarta is a the exact opposite of the quiet and gorgeous remote countryside of the rest of Java.

The first time I went there for a one week tour on Central and East Java with Pilou, Marie and a bunch of expat friends. Pilou is a good old school pal of mine. We had plenty of great times few years ago in our campus in Brittany, and we hang out a bit every now and then whenever I crash in Paris for few days. Pilou was kind enough to come visit me all the way to M'sia for a few weeks. It was also the opportunity for me to get to know his lovely special one: Aurelie.



In order to immerse Pilou straight away in a true Asian experience, we left KL almost upon his arrival, after only a very short night. There we go, en route to a one week intense experience in remote Java. On the menu: discovering the legendary Hindu and Buddhist temples of Prambanan and Borobudur ; climbing the grand volcano of Bromo (noticed the new banner on this blog?) ; visiting Surakarta and Jogyakarta ; discovering Madura Island before the Indonesian government succeeds in his attempt to transform this farmer's Island into a place for tourists. Knowing me, needless to mention that we traveled on a budget (local buses, dirty guesthouses, fried rice at the stalls, etc...) That's the only way to get an authentic taste of Java

All along our journey, I was constantly amazed by the kindness and the openness of the Javanese people. Everyone was curious to know where we came from, what we where doing in such places so far from the tourists roads. Everyone was willing to give us directions, and most of the time without ulterior motive. At some point in Surakarta bus station a crowd of Javaneses gathered around us in the blink of an eye, and everyone was shouting to advise us on the best way to reach the next hop. Don't give me wrong, I'm not naive and I know that our wallet was also very attractive, but most of the time I didn't feel that I was pushed to purchase anything. I really believe that people where flattered that we come from so far to visit their villages, and that we were able to speak (a little bit) their language. They wanted us to have the best experience of their country. This simplicity in the human contact is really appreciable. Quite a change for a European! However this is only true for the remote countryside villages. In the tourist spots (the temples for instance), it's a whole different story, and you are not a traveler anymore: you become a prey.

Bottom line: a great experience, a lot of contacts with the Javaneses, UNESCO-like sites (BTW, Prambanan and Borobudur are listed).

Only a week after this trip, I was requested to travel to Jakarta for business. IMHO Jakarta is definitely another world, made of pollution, traffic jam, violence, prostitutes, greediness. The landscape is spoiled and Jakarta is a huge soulless urban sprawl. The taxi is the only was of transportation since it's not possible to walk around.

What a contrast! I'm not Marxist at all but I can't help thinking that human beings are not made to live in big cities and that government should kick everyone back to the countryside...

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Colmar Tropical

A few year ago the prime minister's wife traveled to France over her summer vacation and had a chance to discover the charming town of Colmar, famous for its typical Alsace architecture. She actually loved it so much that she wanted to get the same back home in Malaysia.

The prime minister's wife desires are a serious issue in Malaysia, therefore it didn't take long to built a replica of Colmar's main street in the mountain area of Bukit Tinggi, 80km North of KL.

Not that I was that homesick, but I'm always open to any day trip outside of KL outskirt, especially when the bike ride is supposed to be nice, along a small path climbing up the mountains! And it was the occasion for Vincent to take his bike out of KL for the first time.

It's really astonishing to walk along this replica's streets: it's like France, but surrounded by jungle and in a 35 C moist atmosphere... It feels fake, though. It's a bit like Eurodisney's castles!

Of course there are French restaurants, and yes, it is possible to order a choucroute! Now the real challenge is: can you decently enjoy a choucroute by 35 degrees???

Health First!

Last weekend I couldn't postpone it anymore, I had to do the boring chore of grocery shopping. While in the supermarket I saw a nice and cheap made in China juice extractor. As I don't have very healthy eating habits those days, I thought I could compensate with a daily freshly squeezed fruit juice. I also brought about 10 kg of fresh fruits (mangoes, pineapple, papaya, banana, kiwi, lime, manggis, oranges, coconut milk, you name it)





To celebrate this new purchase I had some friends coming over. One of them brought plenty of cheap Philippines' Rhum... It all begun with fresh home-made Piña Colada. It ended up with exotic experiments... I'm not sure about the target completion regarding the healthy thing, but at least we had fun ;-)

Bubble Share for dummies

Following remarks I had from several Internet-illiterate readers, I think I need to publish a short manual to support my readers for a better blog experience ;-)

When you see the Bubble Share applet, feel free to click on the "play" button, it will then display the pictures embedded in the page.

If you want to browse the pictures with higher resolution, please click anywhere on the picture itself, it will redirect you towards the album hosted on Bubble Share website where you will be able to browse them full size as well as to download an archive of it.



(The one above is just a picture for the illustration purpose, it's not an actual clickable Bubble Share applet. But you can practice on the previous post just below)!!

Trekking Taman Melawati

It will soon be one year that I live in Malaysia and I now have some routines. One of them is a trek on a cliff (actually the technical term is ridge) called Taman Melawati.

One particularity of KL is that it is enclosed in a valley (Klang Valley) surrounded by cliffs. You can really tell when looking from tall buildings. And that's great because it offers plenty of nice opportunities of day treks. The Taman Melawati (officially called Klang Gates Ridge) is one of them. It actually is a WWF classified spot and the officials claim it is the biggest pure quartz ridge in the world... The Taman Melawati is located North East of KL, about 30 min bike ride from downtown. Well, that's when you know the way to the trail head. It's actually hidden at the end of a small dirt path leaving from the village called Melawati. It took me long time to discover it.

The journey to get there is quite an adventure by itself. We've been caught there by the tropical rain once. In Malaysia it can rain 10 cm in a 10 min time frame, and when this sudden huge amount of water is collected by the ridge and concentrated on the dirt path, it gets swamped in the blink of an eye. I had to ride my bike out before getting really flooded and I found myself riding in 30 cm (1 ft) of water, no kidding!! The whole exhaust pipe was sunk underwater so I had to make sure never to release the throttle to continuously exhaust gas and therefore prevent water from entering into the engine via the exhaust pipe, while praying not to fall into the ravine (couldn't see the ground because of dirty water flowing over)! Stressful time! So bad I didn't shoot pictures of it 'cause it was really impressive.

Anyway, most of the time the weather is nice and this is a really pleasant walk. I've been there about 5 times, bringing different friends each time. They all loved it. It is so unexpected to feel so remote from the city after just a 30 min ride. That's a good thing with KL: nature is never that far away. Kuala Lumpur is definitely a rather small capital. Once up there, the view is breathtaking. We actually stand at the edge of the KL area. And as we are on a ridge, we have a perfect 360 view. On one side we can see the whole Klang valley: KL and its suburbs; and one the other side the wild rainforest, the mountains, etc... Strong contrast! I like to be there, I feel like I'm at the edge of the civilized world...

Most of the time the path becomes pretty wild, but we can't get lost since it follows the top of the ridge. Sometimes it becomes more about climbing than walking! It can even be dangerous: a friend of mine survived a 2 meters fall with just minor scratches! Apart from this the real difficulty comes from the heat: there is no shadow at all and the quartz acts as a reflector concentrating the heat... That's why we usually (try to) get there by sunrise.

I heard about other nearby spots like this one, I'll keep you posted about it.






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(thanks to Guilhem for some of those pics)


A friend of mine tracked our itinerary with his GPS. Here is a Google Earth screening of it. You can download the whole kml trace here.

Impossible Mission

- we need to catch a plane to Penang leaving at 21:30 tonight
- therefore we need to be at the airport (KUL - LCCT) at 21:10, no latter
- she leaves office at 20:00 at Jalan Tun Razzak and Jalan Ampang
- Kuala Lumpur is highly jammed at this time, no way to make it by cab

Your mission if you choose to accept it: pick her up with your bike when she leaves the office. Make it to the airport in less than one hour and ten minutes. (as a reminder: 85 km to be covered on jammed highways with crazy Malaysian drivers rushing home for the weekend).

If you don't get any news before Monday, it will mean that we mad it :-)

If you don't get any news at all, it means that we crashed onto a car :-(

(just kiddin' Mom lah, safety first: I can make it any time to Penang anyway, if not this weekend)

Edit: did it, was nice to discover Penang, especially the old Georgetown and the West coast.

Livin' with the Orang Asli

Long time no post, again! What can I say, I've been crawling under big workload and also I'm a bit lazy... But for those who where wondering about me, good news is I survived the Taman Negara.

Taman Negara is the main national park of peninsular Malaysia. This 4,500 sq. km wild area has been established about a century ago in order to preserve the untouched rain forest of Malaysia: this forest is 130 million years old and hosts some endangered species like the Indochinese Tiger, the Sumatran Rhinoceros, the Malayan Gaur (seladang), the Asian Elephant and the mahseer fish. On top of that, Taman Negara is a perfect place to watch a crowd of colorful birds like the horn bill (my favorite one, it woke us up every morning with its unique fireman siren noise)... Really a nice place, and two thumbs up for Malaysian authorities for the effort they put in preserving the rain forest (unfortunately, that is really not the case in many other places where tourism incomes take over nature preservation).

This trek was among the most memorable treks I ever did. After a looooonnng drive (traffic jam because of Chinese New Year), we finally made it to the Taman Negara. I give credit to Minh, Sandrine, Audrey and Sam (yes, you counted 4 heads) for being cramped on the rear seat of the car during 5 hours with almost no complaining! (yes, traveling on a budget...)

The first view of the park was a bit surprising: having traveled across USA and having enjoyed most of the gorgeous American national parks, I was expecting a huge parking lot with rows of RVs, big park headquarter with plenty of information booth, camping gear stores, hotels, etc... Well actually when we arrive we saw some guest houses, some food stalls installed on floating barges and that's pretty much it!! Cool :-)

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking for a good guide and working with him on the best itinerary. We made it clear that we wanted to go as deep as possible in the rain forest, as far as possible from the so touristy "canopy walk". Well, our guide clearly understood that we wanted adventure, lack of comfort, loneliness, etc...

The next morning we left early and boarded in a very thin dugout for a 3 hours trip upstream the river. I still wonder how come we didn't end up in the river, eaten by piranhas... Congrats to the dugout driver! We had a chance to see some Orang Asli (native people of Malaysia, still leaving in the jungle).

We made it to Kuala Keniam on the far North of the park. As soon as the dugout driver dropped us, we knew that the only way out of the jungle was to walk three days along the elephants path to reach kuala Tahan. This was the non-return point! The walk was very intense. Imagine a thick jungle, a constant moist heat, a swamped path, occasional heavy rain, bugs, hungry leeches (those are the worst of all). But don't give me wrong, in spite of all that I really enjoyed it, we had fun!

And the first night by itself was worth all the pain: we slept in a cave. A really impressively big cave. The kind of cave in which you totally imagine a tribe of prehistoric people living there decades ago. It felt really weird to be in such a place, so surrealistic in the middle of a wild jungle. We made a fire, made some drawings on the walls (just kiddin' for the latter). It would be perfect place except for the bats: I didn't realize at first because the ceiling is like 50m high, but it is packed with bats. And at night time, bats shit... Just on you when you feel asleep after a long long hike day... Not only the idea of bats dropping on you is disturbing, but also when this dried feces hits you after a 50m fall, it really hurts!!!

The second night was a bit less fun: we fought with rats all night long. And by rats I mean monster rats. The kind of rats that look more like a dog. There where looking after our food, and even hanging the backpacks didn't solve the issue because those clever things found a way to climb along the rope. We basically spent the night round robining to chase them with our flash lights.

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Selamat tahun baru cina!!

Happy Chinese new year!!!

Taking advantage of the extended week-end, we go trekking for 4 days in the inner jungle at Taman Negara! 4 days in a moist heat, fighting with mosquito's, giant ants, leeches, snakes (among 100 species, only 36 are dangerous for human being :-), tigers...

We are a group of 6, target is to come back with 4 at least.

Back in a few days (hopefully) with great pictures!

You are not alone!

Hey Mathieu, don't worry you're not alone: we do pretty much the same job in the same company, just in different locations... And I'm at my desk on Sunday at 9am, starting a long work day!
Cheers man!

Pangkor Island: double shot

I've been to Pangkor Island two week-ends in a row! This Island lays on the West coast, about 200 km North of KL. Unlike the paradise white-sand Islands on the East coast, Pangkor is more developed and the sea is less appealing. However Pangkor offers a nice opportunity to discover the very traditional life of the fishermen, to see women working at drying the fish brought by the men, etc...

The inner jungle offers some nice trekking opportunity, but watch the leeches! I found a bunch of them sucking my blood after a short walk in the rubber trees forest, and I really had a hard time getting them off my feet, and that's really not a nice feeling! (Thanks again Marie, you saved my life, I owe you big time!!)

The atmosphere on Pangkor is very laid back, people are more eager to have a small talk than in KL. There are not many landmarks aside from a typical Taoist temple, but it's still a perfect place close to KL to spend the week-end on the beach :-)








Thnaks Marie for those nice picts!

Biker's Heaven

Today I found the true biker's Paradize! It's called Fraser's Hill. Fraser's Hill is a mountain resort named after a british fortune hunter who started a tin mine over there about two centuries ago. It's a small cozy and so british styled town lost in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, about 100 km North of KL.






Marie and I wanted to escape KL's heavy heat and chill out for one day in this resort. We took my bike to get there. And this ride happened to be the perfect ride! Especially the second half of the trip. Imagine a small road (actually more a slope), cutting through a quiet and dense jungle, climbing across a steep mountain. Imagine a desert one way road, just for you, laid in a perfect environment and which discloses a breathtaking lansdscape after each curve... Imagine a road in very good condition and plenty of curves! I really had a good time riding up there!

For those KL-based readers who ever plan on going over there, here is a good trick: about half-way to Fraser's Hill, a few kilometers after Kuala Kubu Baharu on road 55, on the left handside and after a bridge there is a freshwater river and cascade with a lake at the bottom. There are big rocks and tiny sand beaches around it. It's surrounded by jungle. Many locals were having a barbecue and swimming in the lake. This is a perfect secret place for a break, and sandwitch and a short swim on the way to Fraser's hill. It can even be the destination by itself! Always good to leave noisy KL for a week-end and end up in such perfect location for nature-lovers. Plus it's just about one hour away from KL.

David vs. Goliath

Yesterday 30th of January, Micro$oft released its last version of Windows OS: Vista. With a development budget as high as 20 billion USD, and a marketing campaign worth 900 million USD (including fireworks in Paris and many other cities in the world!), Vista is a great symbol of monopolistic capitalism. An expert study has been conducted and according to them Microsoft will force Vista into 80% of the PC on Earth within 3 years...

Well, I'll be part of the 20% rebels because I freshly installed Linux (Mandriva) just yesterday on my laptop :-) In your face, Bill!! What? You don't give a shit about me??

Livin' with the Karens

During our trip through Thailand, Marie and I had the chance to spend some days with our friend Jim. We met Jim two years ago in Indian, USA where he teaches anthropology. Lucky us, Jim was traveling across South East Asia just when Marie and I took some days of! He offered us to join him for his field trip in a tribal village near Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. That’s how we got to meet the Karen people and share their lives for some days! Thanks again Jim, for this unforgettable experience and unique opportunity.

Let’s start with a short background reminder: who are the Karen people?

The Karens are one of the 20 ethnics groups composing the Thai Hill Tribes. With a population of about 400,000 the Karens are by far the largest tribe in Thailand. Those ethnic groups migrated from Tibet, China and Laos in the 19^th century and settled in the mountains at the Myanmar/Thailand border. Most of them are Buddhists. They are self-sufficient and live a very simple life, mainly unchanged since decades (well, until recently at least...) The Thai government recognizes them and tries to respect their culture, while prevented them from some traditions like growing opium poppy for instance.

We meet Jim at Chiang Mai airport. To reach the tribal village, it takes a 3 hours ride on the back of an old pick-up through a desert and bumpy dirt path climbing across steep mountains. At this point of the trip, I realized that I had definitively left the beaten tracks!...

But the first view of the village confirmed that it was worth the journey and that the coming days would be unforgettable! The little village is composed of about 20 to 30 small bamboo houses built on stilts. The ground floor below the house is used as a storage area and for poultry and pigs farming. The alleys between the houses are made of beaten red-clay, which combined with the setting sun light made a perfect landscape! The most surprising thing was the silence! With the next TV being probably 50 miles away the village was surprisingly calm. We slept in one of the bamboo houses. The inside structure is very simple: only one main room, with the kitchen in a corner and with the fire pit. Yes, they make fire inside the houses… Cough, cough!!

We woke up before the sunrise and climbed the pick above the village and the view in the morning mighty mist was just perfect! On the way back we had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the morning routine of the villagers: the elders start the fire to warm the house up and cook the breakfast. The kids go pick up the traps they left overnight and are very proud to show us how big their catch is… Hmm, makes me hungry! I actually tasted this rat, and not surprisingly I didn’t like it!! The taste is really strong, almost disgusting. The closest I can think of, taste wise, is wild boar.

The mothers get their child ready to go to school. The daily life is very laborious, whether it’s in the rice paddy, at cloth making or to prepare rice seeds… Almost everything they need (food – shelter – cloth, etc…) is provided by the nature.

The Karens traditionally practice slash-and-burn agriculture, which turned out to be very bad for the environment. Therefore the royal government took action to prevent such practice. But in order to preserve Karen’s fragile culture a committee was created to interact with the Karens in a non-destructive manner. Purpose was to teach them how to evolve their habits while maintaining their culture and their self-sufficiency. Lot of pedagogy was used and it took time, but the outcome is pretty satisfying as most of the hill tribes accepted to change their way of cultivation. Well, that’s the official story. Some Human Right association mentioned that those tribes traded their nomad way of life against a sedentary one… That was the condition imposed by the Thai government to grant full citizenship to the tribe’s people. It’s true that some traditions are lost, but on the other side, thanks to educational programs, chance is given to the Karens to adapt to modern life and to continue to exist… What’s right, what’s wrong? Dunno!...

Another outcome of the official tribe development policies is the school system. The government sponsors parents who send their children to school. We visited a nearby school. A particularity is that the students bring food for their teacher. Kids are the same all over the world when it comes to school playground.

The next day we took a walk on the mountains. This is just a perfect area for trekking! Nature is good and there is almost no threat (except for some snakes). Villagers are shy but very welcoming. It’s extremely quiet and the landscapes are just breathtaking, especially in the morning mist!!! I’ll be back some day, that’s for sure!

This trip in a tribal village was really a memorable experience. It’s good to remember that life can be (and should be?) much simpler than it is in big cities, working for big worldwide companies…

Next hop for Marie and me: short layover in Chiang Mai for some days and then en route to Cambodia!

[to be continued...]



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Back on track!

Sorry, I’ve been lazy on the posting those days, but a combination of heavy workload and plenty of parties/week-ends out made things hectic since I’m back from Cambodia three weeks ago. But it was worth waiting! Soon to be posted: perfect pictures and stories from our adventures in Thailand and Cambodia. On the menu: New cuisine style... Have you ever wondered how does rat taste? Don’t look further than my blog to figure out. But also: some days spent within a tribal village in northern Thailand ; a day on a Cambodian floating village ; a glimpse of a paradise Island off Shianoukville ; Crazy Christmas’ Eve celebrated in a crappy overnight train through remote Thailand with drunken Belgium guys... and even more coming soon… Stay tuned!