No thank you...

We approached Cambodia with a certain amount of trepidation; most the information from fellow travellers was not the most complimentary and apart from Angkor, we weren't sure what we actually wanted to see and do. From the very start Cambodia was to prove that she is a very different country from Thailand and Laos, our first experience of how things are often done here was at the border trying to get our visa. We had been warned that the officials and completely corrupt and will try to make as much money as they can from each visa; you still don't quite expect them to blatantly ignore the sign with the real price and then close the window in your face when you try to argue with them (they did) However, it was relatively painless, they only fleeced $5 which we were prepared to pay anyway. After the officials it was then time to face the real, everyday Cambodia and it shocks you from the very start; naked babies lying in the filthy gutter, people without limbs dragging themselves around in the filth. Such sights only a few minutes in and the really sad thing was that I knew that given a little time I would become hardened to it, I would probably even become irritated by the begging.

We managed to get a taxi from Poipet to Siem Reap at a fairly reasonable price (took A LOT of arguing!) which we shared with a South Korean policeman. The road had once been lauded the title "worst road in the world" and some parts still felt like that but overall it was not too bad (I even managed to sleep for a while despite the constant bumps) On arriving in SR we were duly handed over to the tuk tuk mafia and offered a free ride into town (they want to try to get you to take them as your guide to Angkor) but they took us to a nice guesthouse with a crocodile farm out the back (had to be done really!)

We tooka little bit of time to explore Siem Reap - not that much to the town itself, constant hassle from tuk tuks who want to be your guide to Angkor. We eventually found a little man with a big pink umbrella that had good english, wasn't smarmy and gave us a good price for a sunrise start at Angkor Wat- that meant getting picked up at 4:30 am!!!!

We arrived at the temples as light was beginning to show in the sky and made our way across one of the largest moats I have ever seen to get to the familiar skyline of Angkor Wat. There were already many people there but I should imagine it was much quieter than it usually is. We were lucky and had a clear and fairly colourful sunrise, having said that it wasn't quite the spectacle I was expecting it to be, perhaps i am hard to please! Once the sun was truly up we went exploring and moved onto Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple- you all know the one I mean- the one with all the faces, very cool indeed. After that we had a spot of brekkie, we had been at it for at least 4 hours by now and had a play with the cutest puppy so far, don't worry, we've both had our rabies jabs! A bit of a wander through some of the less impressive (yet still quite impressive) temples under the umbrella (to keep the sun off though, not the rain) we beat a vendor down to a decent price for some juicy pineapple. We then headed to the temple we were most looking forward to- Ta Phrom (the one from tombraider) and whilst being really cool it was again a little disappointing. Despite all the literature saying that this temple had been left alone for people to experience the awe and wonder of seeing the trees encroaching upon man's creations(oooo get me) it has been tided up and "civilised" I suppose that is fair enough due to the large volume of people, they have to keep it safe and accessible but it did detract from it somewhat. In fact our favourite temple was one that you often don't get to see on the one day tour (our guide was nice to us or we were just very demanding!) Preah Khan is a very quiet temple which has been more or less left alone and is a great one to explore and wander about without seeing a single other person. It also has some great tree/temple mutations. We got stranded here during a fierce spot of rain but it was quite enjoyable because we were camped up with the Korean guy we got our taxi with! Once the rain eased up we visited one last temple which is the highest one and the best for sunset (we didn't last that long) I was very impressed by all the elderly Japanese men battling up the very steep steps! We made it back to town about 6:30pm and gave our exhausted guide (he'd been up working all the night before) $15 which about works out as a dollar an hour. A quiet and fairly early night followed by a lazy day to recover!

Next to Phnom Pehn, first impressions were not the most encouraging; when we got off the bus and looked at the book to see where to go for a GH we were literally swarmed by tuk tuk drivers- at one point there were 6 around us, all talking at once and trying to get our custom. We went with the first guy who hounded us (he showed he had perseverance) and found a nice room for just over $10. We spent most of this day by the river which unfortunately is undergoing loads of building work so is not the peaceful and picturesque spot I'm sure it usually is. The next day we hit the markets and tried our first sugarcane juice- absolutely incredible, am never going back now! And uber cheap at 1000 riel (25 cents to you and me). Chris managed to find a pair of Lee shorts which for once were not cheap knockoffs but proper factory made extras that have ound themselves onto these market stalls. These would usually retail in the states for $40 but he managed to wangle it down to $8 (he's much better at haggling than I am, I'm rubbish- sorry Mum!) After that we had a real treat and went for a Happy Hour cocktail at the Raffles hotel- SO GOOD! We just about managed to stop at one each, even at happy hour prices it was threatening to blow the budget! We then set off to the lakeside (the backpacker ghetto) to see sunset over the lake- unfortunately the large amount of cloud spoiled any chance of a good one. We then plumped for a really cheap Indian Thali meal, the cheapness was offset by the drunken Indian chef making a complete nuisance of himself. We were studiously ignoring him when Chris looked out the door and nearly collapsed with surprise. Who should he see but Keizo- our Japanese compadre from Laos (it is a VERY small part of the world) so that made for a very jolly dinner (even easier to block out chef's shouting and wingeing)

The next morning was our heavy day with a visit to S21, the torture and re-education centre of the Khmer Rouge, we paid a few dollars to have a guide take us fround and give us the stories behind the pictures and exhibits. It truely is a grim and depressing place, you can still see the blood stains on the floor of the cells and can tell that even working day in and out there hasn't made our guide immune; he still seemed affected by what he was telling us. We attempted to watch a video about the centre and 2 of the only 7 to survive but a couple of powercuts made that impossible; we left feeling very sombre. It brought back the realisation that this happened so recently, so many people that we pass everyday were personally affected by the regieme. They may not display the physical scars of missing limbs and the like (although so many do) but they must still bear the mental ones and I should bear that in mind eveytime I say " no"

Laos continued...

Vang Vieng

This town is an oasis of depravity in an otherwise sedate and cultured country (ok it's not actually that bad) It is however the first time I have been embarrassed to be English abroad, to be fair to my fellow Brits I was expecting to have witnessed drunken and offensive behaviour before now but had been pleasantly surprised. Not so in Vang Vieng. Almost every raucous bellow and act of idiocy was an Englishman/woman, still, at least I behaved myself! the first day consisted of finding a guesthouse- was delighted that Chris found the Tony Guesthouse (very nice and clean), getting some dinner and adjusting from the cultural splendor that is Luang Prabang to the decadence of VV. So we decided to fully embrace the experience and resolved to go tubing the following day. This is the activity that makes young folk flock from all over the area, when I first heard about it I was not taken with the concept at all: floating down the river in a tractor innertube, stopping at bars along the way to imbibe quantities of BeerLao. Hmmmm flowing water and alcohol. Didn't sound very clever to me; but the rest of the gang were up for it and if it were to be done, with a group of mates would be how to do it.

The next day dawned wet and grey and we weren't sure what to do, a few episodes of Family Guy and some shakes later and the sun began to peek through the clouds so it was on! Half an hour later we are standing by the edge of the Nam Song river and could see/hear the revelries just a few metres down the river. The water was slightly chilly but tolerable with the sunshine. The first bar is the best demonstration of the other form of entertainment on offer: rope swings! Everyone apart from me had a go on this one (it was VERY big!) Most managed to land fairly gracefully (Seraina did do a fairly good faceplant however) and safely then it was on to the next bar to be hauled in by the obliging Lao and offered free shots of Lao whiskey. It was now, with a smaller swing on offer, that I decided to give it a go. Was a real thrill, only slightly marred by the fact that the force of the impact pushed my contact lens somewhere up my eye, a few frantic blinks later and it was back in place. And so the afternoon continued and unfortunately so did the rain from this morning, which put a slight dampener on events (!!) We all made it back safely despite it turning dark along the way; all in all a really fun day; even better, over dinner, the rest of the group decided to come rock climbing with me and Chris the following day.

At 8:30 am we were all ready at the Green Discovery office, with 2 Germans there were a total of 8 people in our group, all beginners apart from me and Chris. A short tuk-tuk journey took us to near the climbing wall and then the most challenging approach to a climbing wall yet, at least it could be looked at as a warm-up, I think some of the others saw it as actual climbing! When we got there, another group had already nabbed the easiest route so Chris was sent up a long and rather exposed route to set up the rope for us, he made it with no problems but I think it had been rather a scary climb! Two more routes were then set up, all quite technical and most found it difficult to get to the top (me included!) but I manged it on two of them and gave it a jolly hard go on the others; Chris of course sailed up most of them and even manged the 6a+ twice (the show off) I think everyone had a good time, they were all completely shattered by the end of it that's for sure!

The following day was a rest day, nearly everyone's forearms were out of action given the exertions of the previous day so Chris and I hired a moped and went exploring. Around VV are several acclaimed caves so we went to check them out. A visit to Klang cave was neither here or there really, we were the only ones there so it felt quite eerie but was nothing special. We also upgraded our accommodation and moved into a much posher room for only 10000 kip more (that's about 60p to you and me)

The next day we had planned to go climbing on our own; to just hire some gear and find another climbing wall but the comfy bed had greater charms and so another lazy day followed. We said goodbye to Erik (who had suffered a nearly completely ripped off toenail and a trip to hospital the night before) who was off to China via Bangkok. We lay in hammocks by the side of the river and watched the world (and tubers) go by, Fred made friends with the local kids and we admire a small boy's catch for the day. However, no more lazy days, the next day we booked to go with Adam's Rock Climbing School, a small independent shop, for a day's climbing followed by a day caving and kayaking.

The climbing was just the two of us with our very young guide and instructor, Apo; a Chilean couple were going to the same site but climbing on their own, they told us about a fantastic sounding wall near them in Chile that needs 36 pitches to ascend- crazy!! This wall was 22 km away,another difficult approach, this time crossing a river and having to deal with leeches, luckily most of the leeches were very small and easy to get off (unlike before!) The climbing itself was quite difficult again, especially for me because I had a bit of a freakout on the first route, some hauling on the rope by Apo and a few cheats here and there and I was up. The other routes were much better for me and I was really pleased to get up a 6a, the highest grading I have managed so far.

The caving and kayaking the next day was good fun; our guide, Lee, had good english and was able to give us information about Laotian culture. We visited Elephant cave, so named because a rock formation resembles an elephant- which it did, not much to see here then we went on to Water Cave. This one was much more interesting; you start off by putting on a head torch, we had our own which I wore) but Chris used one of theirs which involves a large battery pack hanging around your neck- a little worrying when you have to submerge yourself in water to get into the cave but we were assured that it was perfectly safe! To enter the cave we had to sit in tubes and pull ourselves in along a rope, further in you beach the tubes and then crawl on hands and knees deeper and deeper into the darkness. I thought I would hate it because I can be a bit funny in enclosed spaces but I loved it (I was pleased to see daylight again however!) the final part of the day was kayaking down the river for about 10-12 km and stopping at some of the bars along the way for a drink and a swing. The kayaking, although on a fairly gentle river, was still really physical and I quickly got tired despite sharing my kayak with our guide (I was at the front and I think he was making me do all the work-that's my excuse!) We stopped at a couple of bars and I chickened out of swinging but Chris had a couple of goes.

Final thoughts on Vang Vieng is that whilst it can be seen as a disgraceful party town, at odds with the rest of Laos it is also one of those few places where there is lots to do, cheaply and it is set in amongst the most beautiful countryside. If you want culture then go to LP but I would strongly recommend VV, give yourself a day to get over the constant blaring of Friends on the tellies and the semi-naked people staggering back from tubing and you'll love it too!

Vientiane

To get to Vientiane we planned to take a local bus from where we had seen one the previous day but like most thongs in Laos, the day we wanted it there it wasn't. So we decided to the 150 km journey in the back of a songthaew (a pick up) as we got on at the start of the journey we had seats (albeit highly uncomfortable ones) but at various points there were 6 or 7 people hanging on the back pushing the total number up to about 20 or 21! We had it (just about, bums and bladders about to give out) and got a tuk-tuk into the town centre. Now it was my turn to go searching for a guesthouse but I was soon to discover that Vientiane is at odds with the rest of Laos in terms of accommodations. There was very little that was nice at all and even the most hideous places were more than we paid anywhere else; in the end we went for a nice hotel at $20 a night. Coming out of it later we bumped into Keiso (he, Fred and Seraina had moved on from VV few days before us) and it was decided that we were going to visit a discotheque and party Lao style! The best discotheque is in one of the poshest hotels and at 11pm when we went completely empty; we were reassured that it would get busy at midnight and it duly did. The music was a mix of western and Thai and ranged from quite good to seriously awful but it is all part of the experience, as was having random Lao youth coming up to you and having their picture taken with the falang- felt a bit like an exhibit in a zoo! A slight sour note was having one of my flip flops go missing, I'd kicked them off to boogie good and proper and found out a little later that one was gone. Chris was suspicious of a group of young Lao girls near us and sure enough as the lights went up at 2am one of them handed it back, bold as brass. I think they thought it would be funny and I'm sure it was for them but it was a nastiness I hadn't expected or experienced in Laos till now.

We didn't get up to very mush else, the rainy season is truly upon us now and this usually means several hours of very hard rain, making it tricky to get out and about. We did see a free show at the National Cultural Hall which featured a group of Korean breakdancers, it was a very entertaining couple of hours. After a couple of days more or less killing time we decided to head back to Thailand to hopefully visit Kao Yai national park en route to Bangkok then on to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Nong Khai

This is the Thai border town with Lao and to reach it you must cross the Friendship Bridge, we did this with a German couple who directed us to a really nice guesthouse called Mut Mee right on the banks of the Mekong. We hired a couple of bikes and made our way to the Sculpture Park, one of the craziest places in the world! The guy who set it up was a real character and it is full of massive Buddha statues and other Hindu deities, well worth a visit. We had only planned a day here but a fairly lethal attack of dodgy guts kept us here for a few more days to aid recovery. Once better, we booked on to one of the well regarded night trains to Bangkok; the seats get changed by a little man into a bed so you (in theory) can get some sleep. In fact the train is so noisy that it was quite difficult to get any sleep but at least it was more comfortable than sitting up all night.

Bangkok 11/06/08

Back in Bangkok and in the Ko San Road area (good for sightseeing) we're not too sure how long we will be here and what we are going to do, probably see some of the key sights that we missed first time round (although to be honest, neither of us are that fussed by it) I think we will use this time to have some cheap food and good shakes before heading to Cambodia.

Farewell to Laos

Vientiene - June 4th

Time is flying and it is already time to say goodbye to another country, we initially planned just 2 weeks in Laos but this has slowly but surely extended itself; in part due the country itself but more to the people we have met along the way. Before describing Laos however, a quick recap on the last few days in Thailand.

Chiang Mai is a great city, busy yet not too crazy and with the use of a moped, easily accessible. We spent a couple of pleasant days tootling round on one of Mr Beer's bike (I joke you not!) and decided upon a little adventure, this involved a 60 km drive from the city to the Doi Inthanon national park, here it is possible to climb to the highest point in Thailand. So off we went in the blazing sunshine with me on the back carrying a too heavy backpack. Once there the full power of the 125cc engine came into being (!) as we slugged up the hills in a heady 1st gear, still we made it to the park office and rented a tent to go camping for the night, perhaps not the cleverest idea during rainy season on high ground...
Another major attraction to the park is the many number of waterfalls, we attempted to find one that afternoon but after several minutes on a dodgy dirt track decided to head back and try to reach the top of Doi Inthanon. By this time the bike was making ominous noises, the top speed was about 15kmph as we negotiated the hill and we were being enveloped in a thick cloud. 500m from the top we abandoned the mission and headed back down to relative safety. After a tasty dinner we were in the tent by 8pm, the rain started lashing down at 9pm and by 10pm we were flooded, luckily Chris had brought an extra binbag so that kept us away from the ground and allowed us a few hours uncomfortable and slightly soggy sleep. Up before 6am and still in a cloud we decided to head down in the hope of leaving the rain behind (this appeared to work) one benefit to the rain was that the waterfalls were spectacular, perhaps a little dirty but amazingly powerful! Chris managed to take a few hundred picture (he'll have fun trying to pick the best one!) All in all a fun trip and the rain did manage to turn it into an adventure!

Next to Pai, a chilled out spot high in the hills; we didn't get up to much here, a little yoga and some healthy eating topped off with the BEST fruit shakes so far. Activites round here were not as appealing (read: more expensive) than originally thought so did not get up to much and so resolved to head over to Laos as we had got our go ahead to do the Gibbon Experience on the 18th, so off we went.

Huay Xai, Laos 17th May

We crossed the Mekong at Chiang Khong and were in a new country, the differences were subtle but immediate, despite there only being a 100m or so apart the people looked different (the women are even prettier!) There's not much to say about this town apart from a thoroughly enjoyable visit to the Red Cross Herbal Sauna where we also got a traditional Lao massage- WOW!!
The nexy day we checked into the Gibbon Experience and met our group for the next 3 days- Erik and Runa (Danish), Ron (Israeli), Seraina (Swiss), Jerry (Aussie), Marat (German) and us- so a fairly cosmipolitan group altogether! The first part of the journey was on smooth tarmac but that was all to end when we went through a river and off road, Chris and I had managed to blag seats inside the pickup cabin but 4 of the group were on the back and I think it was a little hairy! We arrived safely thanks to our driver's skill and met the previous group. Everyone looked absolutely exhausted and we soon found out that one of their group had broken her ankle that morning by coming in too quickly from one of the ziplines- this did not fill us with confidence, when they started talking about leeches I decided to stop listening. Next was a 3 hour trek into the jungle which consisted of crossing 4 streams of various heights and strengths (I got wet let's say) and scrambling up muddy hills. We reached the ziplines and they put Go Ape to shame (apart from the one in Scotland) it was brilliant to streak across the sky and see so much around you. We made it to our treehouse (60-80m up) with open walls where I discovered several leeches had made it down to my toes and were busy sucking blood through my socks- nice! We had some restorative lunch and headed out to the waterfall to have a dip in the pool. Sadly, not as stunning as made out but still good fun; our guide had left us to it but we knew the way back so off we went. On the second to last zipline we were all across apart from Runa and Erik when we head a frantic call for help and saw the line bobbing up and down wildly. Ron had some binoculars and we could just about see Runa hanging off the zipline but couldn't make out what was wrong. Ron got back on the wire and zipped/pulled himself over to the otherside, a couple went to find the guides and the rest of us hung around not sure what to do. After about half an hour the guides turned up and managed to get Runa off the zipline, it turned out that her gear was slightly different from everyone else and she had attached the wrong part to just her safety line, at least we knew they worked! She had no respite for to get back to the treehouse we had to negotiate a couple more lines, I think it is safe to say that we all felt quite nervous going across now but we made it back in one piece. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look on it) the treehouse did not have a store of alcohol, I think we all could have done with a stiff one! Tea had to do instead but it certainly hit the spot! We had many more pots to sustain us through the night, a praying mantis provided half an hour's entaintainment and many hands of cards made for an enjoyable evening.
The next day involved even more trekking to our new treehouse, we arrived at around 1:30 pm and our guide was all set to see us the next day despite there being several more hours of light and a whole night to spend passing time in the treehouse. We especially wanted the support of a guide given yesterday's incident, we made this very clear to him but a combination of laziness and poor communication skills meant that we were on our own again in the jungle. This venture turned out to be drama free and despite the steep uphills good fun, as a group we seemed to work well together. The night was less enjoyable mainly becaue we had run out of gas and so had no tea but at least there were fewer monstous spiders here!
The next day we had a fairly easy trek back to civilisation and BeerLao! In dicussing where next, Seraina and Erik decided to travel with us on the slow boat to Luang Prabang. We got there early (a tip from Jerry) and managed to get the last of the VIP seats (minivan seats at the front) whilst everyone else had to sit on wooden benches. We met an interesting Irish couple travelling the world for a year with their 3 children, an amazing experience for them. Eight hours on the boat poottling down the Mekong got us to the half way mark of Pak Beng, nothing here apart from the stopping point for the slow boat. The next day we decided not to rush down early to nab the good seats, which was a good idea seeing as it turned out that we were on another boat which had none! Instead we got some more space at the front to stretch out, here we met a Belgian/Phillipino called Fred and a Japanese guy called Keiso, we played cards with them and an 8 yr old Lao card shark, he really got the hang of all the games we played and had an excellent strategy! Time passed quickly and we were soon in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Luang Prabang

A charming place with plenty of french colonial presence, not a lot to do apart from chill out and eat which we did! The 6 of us did most things together (eating and drinking mainly) the night market was a picturesque wander, if we were just there for a holiday I would have spent a fortune! We went to visit the reknowned Kuang Si waterfall were you can jump off the top (it's only 3m high- i'm not crazy) into a beautiful blue pool (coloured so by the limestone) From there we all moved on to Vang Vieng, party town!

And that's another story...