Hope some of you recognise this site..neither of us has seen the film, but the venue was just amazing. This was our first view. Amazing eh?
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Site of Tomb Raider film
Hope some of you recognise this site..neither of us has seen the film, but the venue was just amazing. This was our first view. Amazing eh?
More temple photos
Here's one with us in. This was the first temple we visited and as you can see the tree, called a Spung tree, was definitely winning over the temple...
temple photos 1
We were really wowed by the temples...hard to believe some of the carvings dating back to the 9th, but mostly 12th centuries. Here's a first taste...
Cambodia update
Thursday 21st May
Today we got up early to visit the Temples of Angkor. These are temples which date back to the 9th century. They are spread out across a large area mainly to the North of Siem Reap. We met our guide shortly after 8.00am. He was a young man who was clearly knowledgeable about what we were about to see. The good thing about using the official guide is that they have been well trained in dealing with tourists. The only down side we quickly realised was his manner of speaking English in which he would emphasise every syllable and stress the last word of every sentence. He had clearly used the same school of learning as our Thai cooking teacher (see Chiang Mai section of blog )
We all three set out in our moto tuk tuk to the first temple. This was called Ta Phrom -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta_Prohm) and http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/03/ta-phrom.html for photos
Rather than being cleared and restored it had been left to the jungle. Roots and trunks mingle with the stones and seem to be part of the structure. This was also our first sight of the incredible craftsmanship and carving surrounding the doorways of all the temples. It is nothing short of mind boggling to think that this detail could have been completed over a thousand years ago. Our guide was excellent at pointing out the religious significance of it all and the stories behind some of the carvings. The temples were either Buddhist or Hindu. This one had started as a Buddhist temple but had then been converted to Hinduism. Many of the carvings of the Buddha had been defaced when it was taken over. Places of worship now contained Linga ( symbols of fertility ) rather than buddhas.
After this temple we moved onto Angor Wat see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat, which is the jewel in the crown. As you approach you are struck by the moat which surrounds it. A wide body of water which we were informed used to have crocodiles in it to deter any possible invaders. The entrance is across a wide causeway which has a snake balustrade running along each side ( Naga ) When you get through the western gate you are struck by the magnificence of the central towers which rise .up to the heavens. These are designed to look like lotus buds and are quite breathtakinglyibeautiful. Our guide took us to the central temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. This is where the famous Gallery of Bas Reliefs is found. These are carvings which cover almost the entire wall on the first level. They are 700 metres long and two metres high and they show various battle scenes and Hindu epics. Our guide Kahem was very good at explaining the stories behind them but lost us at time with some of the jilted English and the complexity of the characters.
Lin here, writing this on Sunday, a much needed rest day after 3 long, fascinating days! After Angkor Wat we went off to lunch and I enjoyed a good curry served in a coconut. We then spent the afternoon visiting Angkor Thom, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Thom which was the last Khmer city and was very interesting, with some amazing sculputres. One area that really sticks in my mind was the Bayon- many Buddhist temples have these towers with 4 faces to represent the elements, but here there were 54 of them, many of which were very clear to see. Standing amongst these hugh carved faces is awesome. There was also a fantastic terrace of elephants, one with 3 heads. Near the end of the afternoon we visited Phimeanakas, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phimeanakas
Here we climbed a very steep wooden staircase, covering the eroded temple steps. Our guide remained at the bottom, whilst we ascended to 'heaven' and at the top we were greeted by a young, knowledgeable young man. He asked us questions about England and was qute chatty and friendly. He then proceeded to follow us around the temple top, giving us information about the history and the carvings. Lo and behold when we came to descent the steps his voice changed to a whining plea, as he asked us for money to fund his studies, as he was from a poor family. We reluctantly coughed up a dollar. One of the bits of info he gave us was about the 2 bathing pools down below, one of which was larger than the other. The larger one, he said, was for the Kings wives and concubines, whilst the smaller was for the King and his men. Once we were back down Kahem did his teacher bit.. which became a regular part of the 2 days: he would ask us a why do you think question. This time it was about the pools and Brent did a mmm...let me think about that.. before coming up with the right answer, directlly from our young guide... Kahem was delighted, slapping brent ( or Breast, as he called him) on his back in delight... have to say it was worth every cent of that dollar for the crack!!
By 4.30, when we got back to the guest house, we were absolutely knackered, but too tired to sleep!! We rested up in front of the TV. Just after 6.30 I approached the reception area: we knew a show was included in our tour deal and thought it was at 7.30, but the description had been a bit sketchy, so thought I should check. Lucky I did, It turned out that we needed to leave by 6.40 as a table was booked for us to eat before the show at 7.30. A mad rush followed and we ended up arriving around 7pm at an amazingly posh restaurant. It was all a bit weird. We were ushered to a table for two at the front of the huge ballroom type area. A few other tables were occupied, but many were set, but empty. As soon as we sat down 2 waiters approached with wine menus and hassled us to choose a bottle. Meanwhile other diners headed off for the buffet bar. It all felt very rushed and i just wanted to get sorted before the show. I fancied wine for a change from the very average beer, but at $18 a bottle Brent was not keen. No tother drinks menu had been given to us, and in the end we went for the wine, but the whole thing ruined our evening and we almost left before the show began.. In the end we stayed, but the food was not very hot and very average, the wine nice but expensive. Also as we got ourselves sorted a whole load of bus tourers suddenly appeared, filling up all those empty seats....so my fear that we were delaying proceedings was totally unfounded and I felt almost exploited. The dancing itself was quite interesting. Beautiful women began with what looked like a dance to the King, the sort of thing his concubines may have performes. Slow rhythmic music with deliberate stepping, balancing on one bent leg and lots of hand contortions... followed by a couples dance, which was a different type of traditional dance, more of the people. It was all over by 8.30, by which time we were fed up and tired.
Friday 22nd May
Our second day exploring the temples. Today began with a long moto tuk tuk drive to Banteay Srei, which was a 10th century Hindu temple, dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banteay_Srei
This building, like the others we'd seen was built with lava stone faced with carveable sandstone. The difference here was that the sandstone was pink, which was quite striking, and the sculptor's carvings were much deeper and therefore clearer than in previous temples. Kahem told us that this was his favourite ( as Brucy would say!). We then returned towards Ankhor Thom, stopping for lunch in a restaurant definitely targetted at tourists, where we had a very average lunch before continuing to Banteay Samrea, followed by what was called he Grand Tour of Angkor temples. including a beautiful temple with a central tower surrounded by 4 pools. This turned out to be a Buddhist healing area. We saw the remains of doctors 'surgeries.” Each patient was sent to the relevant healing pool: one for water, one for fire, one for earth and one for wind. Each pool had a shrine with an animal statue, with water flowing through it. This was holy water and patients would drink some in order to be cured. Our final temple, Prea Khan, a temple surrounded by jungle, with trees infringing on it. It felt like we'd come full circle and we were pretty templed out. It had been very interesting to see:
changes from earlier Hindu temples through to Buddhist temples with many changing from one to the other. For example we saw lots of Buddhist temples where the buddhas had been removed..or part of them had, by the Hindus, who'd converted the same temple to Hindu. King Jayavarman V11 had chosen to incorporate Hindu elements eg lintels with carvings of Hindu mythology, into his Buddhist temples, in an attempt to unite the 2 religions. ( We'd already recognised in our SE Asia travels the inclusion of Hindu elements in all the Buddhist temples we've visited)
changes in construction techniques. Volcanic rock faced with sandstone was later faced with brick. The brick could still be seen and many of the bricks had holes in: “Why do you think this was?” our guide asked... we guessed the holes were for gemstones, as we'd seen this before, but no! They were to retain the stucco, which used to cover the bricks: apparently the sculptors would do an outline carving directly onto the brick and then build up the carving with stucco. This was nowhere near as effective as the sandstone and remaining stucco statues were badly eroded.
how the surrounding countryside added to the sense of awe about these temples: wide, paved avenues, with bridges carved with the Naga, Beautiful water filled moats, which reflected the countryside and the temple buildings: all quite magnificent and of course the effects of erosion with trees taking over buildings
the development of tourism. For the first time in SE Asia we found tourism to be incredibly well organised: the US dollar had become the principle unit of currency and prices for the tours were surprisingly similar to those at home ($40 dollars each for a 3 day pass). An entrance ticket with photo ID was supplied at a purpose built ticket office upon arrival. This was carefully checked at each temple and proved to be a very efficient system. We couldn't believe the level of English we came across, particularly from young children. At entrances to each temple we were thoroughly hassled in English by young kids trying to sell us the usual tourist stuff: postards, books, bracelets and scarves etc. Af first we found them engaging, but by the end of the 2nd day, when we were hot and tires it actually got to be too much.
At the end of today we headed for Pub Street, which is another interesting tourist spot in Siem Reap. The whole road is sort of sealed off by tourist police with motorbikes at each end of the street. We found a spot with a good view at the Temple Club, where we ate and enjoyed people watching. At times we felt like animals in a zoo: especially when a large group of chinese touriests rambled past looking at all of us in the restaurants.They wandered back and forth without stopping, clearly just enjoying the crack. We also spotted a few ladies of the night, who appeared to be unhassled by the police. As we finished our meal and paid the bill we were 'attacked' by tuk tuk drivers from all directions. Brent bartered the price down to a dollar and we headed home for another early night.
Looking forward to our visit to the floating village tomorrow!
Today we got up early to visit the Temples of Angkor. These are temples which date back to the 9th century. They are spread out across a large area mainly to the North of Siem Reap. We met our guide shortly after 8.00am. He was a young man who was clearly knowledgeable about what we were about to see. The good thing about using the official guide is that they have been well trained in dealing with tourists. The only down side we quickly realised was his manner of speaking English in which he would emphasise every syllable and stress the last word of every sentence. He had clearly used the same school of learning as our Thai cooking teacher (see Chiang Mai section of blog )
We all three set out in our moto tuk tuk to the first temple. This was called Ta Phrom -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta_Prohm) and http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/03/ta-phrom.html for photos
Rather than being cleared and restored it had been left to the jungle. Roots and trunks mingle with the stones and seem to be part of the structure. This was also our first sight of the incredible craftsmanship and carving surrounding the doorways of all the temples. It is nothing short of mind boggling to think that this detail could have been completed over a thousand years ago. Our guide was excellent at pointing out the religious significance of it all and the stories behind some of the carvings. The temples were either Buddhist or Hindu. This one had started as a Buddhist temple but had then been converted to Hinduism. Many of the carvings of the Buddha had been defaced when it was taken over. Places of worship now contained Linga ( symbols of fertility ) rather than buddhas.
After this temple we moved onto Angor Wat see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat, which is the jewel in the crown. As you approach you are struck by the moat which surrounds it. A wide body of water which we were informed used to have crocodiles in it to deter any possible invaders. The entrance is across a wide causeway which has a snake balustrade running along each side ( Naga ) When you get through the western gate you are struck by the magnificence of the central towers which rise .up to the heavens. These are designed to look like lotus buds and are quite breathtakinglyibeautiful. Our guide took us to the central temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. This is where the famous Gallery of Bas Reliefs is found. These are carvings which cover almost the entire wall on the first level. They are 700 metres long and two metres high and they show various battle scenes and Hindu epics. Our guide Kahem was very good at explaining the stories behind them but lost us at time with some of the jilted English and the complexity of the characters.
Lin here, writing this on Sunday, a much needed rest day after 3 long, fascinating days! After Angkor Wat we went off to lunch and I enjoyed a good curry served in a coconut. We then spent the afternoon visiting Angkor Thom, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Thom which was the last Khmer city and was very interesting, with some amazing sculputres. One area that really sticks in my mind was the Bayon- many Buddhist temples have these towers with 4 faces to represent the elements, but here there were 54 of them, many of which were very clear to see. Standing amongst these hugh carved faces is awesome. There was also a fantastic terrace of elephants, one with 3 heads. Near the end of the afternoon we visited Phimeanakas, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phimeanakas
Here we climbed a very steep wooden staircase, covering the eroded temple steps. Our guide remained at the bottom, whilst we ascended to 'heaven' and at the top we were greeted by a young, knowledgeable young man. He asked us questions about England and was qute chatty and friendly. He then proceeded to follow us around the temple top, giving us information about the history and the carvings. Lo and behold when we came to descent the steps his voice changed to a whining plea, as he asked us for money to fund his studies, as he was from a poor family. We reluctantly coughed up a dollar. One of the bits of info he gave us was about the 2 bathing pools down below, one of which was larger than the other. The larger one, he said, was for the Kings wives and concubines, whilst the smaller was for the King and his men. Once we were back down Kahem did his teacher bit.. which became a regular part of the 2 days: he would ask us a why do you think question. This time it was about the pools and Brent did a mmm...let me think about that.. before coming up with the right answer, directlly from our young guide... Kahem was delighted, slapping brent ( or Breast, as he called him) on his back in delight... have to say it was worth every cent of that dollar for the crack!!
By 4.30, when we got back to the guest house, we were absolutely knackered, but too tired to sleep!! We rested up in front of the TV. Just after 6.30 I approached the reception area: we knew a show was included in our tour deal and thought it was at 7.30, but the description had been a bit sketchy, so thought I should check. Lucky I did, It turned out that we needed to leave by 6.40 as a table was booked for us to eat before the show at 7.30. A mad rush followed and we ended up arriving around 7pm at an amazingly posh restaurant. It was all a bit weird. We were ushered to a table for two at the front of the huge ballroom type area. A few other tables were occupied, but many were set, but empty. As soon as we sat down 2 waiters approached with wine menus and hassled us to choose a bottle. Meanwhile other diners headed off for the buffet bar. It all felt very rushed and i just wanted to get sorted before the show. I fancied wine for a change from the very average beer, but at $18 a bottle Brent was not keen. No tother drinks menu had been given to us, and in the end we went for the wine, but the whole thing ruined our evening and we almost left before the show began.. In the end we stayed, but the food was not very hot and very average, the wine nice but expensive. Also as we got ourselves sorted a whole load of bus tourers suddenly appeared, filling up all those empty seats....so my fear that we were delaying proceedings was totally unfounded and I felt almost exploited. The dancing itself was quite interesting. Beautiful women began with what looked like a dance to the King, the sort of thing his concubines may have performes. Slow rhythmic music with deliberate stepping, balancing on one bent leg and lots of hand contortions... followed by a couples dance, which was a different type of traditional dance, more of the people. It was all over by 8.30, by which time we were fed up and tired.
Friday 22nd May
Our second day exploring the temples. Today began with a long moto tuk tuk drive to Banteay Srei, which was a 10th century Hindu temple, dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banteay_Srei
This building, like the others we'd seen was built with lava stone faced with carveable sandstone. The difference here was that the sandstone was pink, which was quite striking, and the sculptor's carvings were much deeper and therefore clearer than in previous temples. Kahem told us that this was his favourite ( as Brucy would say!). We then returned towards Ankhor Thom, stopping for lunch in a restaurant definitely targetted at tourists, where we had a very average lunch before continuing to Banteay Samrea, followed by what was called he Grand Tour of Angkor temples. including a beautiful temple with a central tower surrounded by 4 pools. This turned out to be a Buddhist healing area. We saw the remains of doctors 'surgeries.” Each patient was sent to the relevant healing pool: one for water, one for fire, one for earth and one for wind. Each pool had a shrine with an animal statue, with water flowing through it. This was holy water and patients would drink some in order to be cured. Our final temple, Prea Khan, a temple surrounded by jungle, with trees infringing on it. It felt like we'd come full circle and we were pretty templed out. It had been very interesting to see:
changes from earlier Hindu temples through to Buddhist temples with many changing from one to the other. For example we saw lots of Buddhist temples where the buddhas had been removed..or part of them had, by the Hindus, who'd converted the same temple to Hindu. King Jayavarman V11 had chosen to incorporate Hindu elements eg lintels with carvings of Hindu mythology, into his Buddhist temples, in an attempt to unite the 2 religions. ( We'd already recognised in our SE Asia travels the inclusion of Hindu elements in all the Buddhist temples we've visited)
changes in construction techniques. Volcanic rock faced with sandstone was later faced with brick. The brick could still be seen and many of the bricks had holes in: “Why do you think this was?” our guide asked... we guessed the holes were for gemstones, as we'd seen this before, but no! They were to retain the stucco, which used to cover the bricks: apparently the sculptors would do an outline carving directly onto the brick and then build up the carving with stucco. This was nowhere near as effective as the sandstone and remaining stucco statues were badly eroded.
how the surrounding countryside added to the sense of awe about these temples: wide, paved avenues, with bridges carved with the Naga, Beautiful water filled moats, which reflected the countryside and the temple buildings: all quite magnificent and of course the effects of erosion with trees taking over buildings
the development of tourism. For the first time in SE Asia we found tourism to be incredibly well organised: the US dollar had become the principle unit of currency and prices for the tours were surprisingly similar to those at home ($40 dollars each for a 3 day pass). An entrance ticket with photo ID was supplied at a purpose built ticket office upon arrival. This was carefully checked at each temple and proved to be a very efficient system. We couldn't believe the level of English we came across, particularly from young children. At entrances to each temple we were thoroughly hassled in English by young kids trying to sell us the usual tourist stuff: postards, books, bracelets and scarves etc. Af first we found them engaging, but by the end of the 2nd day, when we were hot and tires it actually got to be too much.
At the end of today we headed for Pub Street, which is another interesting tourist spot in Siem Reap. The whole road is sort of sealed off by tourist police with motorbikes at each end of the street. We found a spot with a good view at the Temple Club, where we ate and enjoyed people watching. At times we felt like animals in a zoo: especially when a large group of chinese touriests rambled past looking at all of us in the restaurants.They wandered back and forth without stopping, clearly just enjoying the crack. We also spotted a few ladies of the night, who appeared to be unhassled by the police. As we finished our meal and paid the bill we were 'attacked' by tuk tuk drivers from all directions. Brent bartered the price down to a dollar and we headed home for another early night.
Looking forward to our visit to the floating village tomorrow!
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Into Cambodia, our 19th country!
Tuesday 19th May
Today we got a taxi to the airport ( paying far too much for such a short journey!) and flew to KL, where we checked in at the Tune hotel, making sure to get a room without a view of the courtyard. We then decided to take public transport into the town centre, partly to make our next visit easier, as we shall be staying downtown. This proved a lot more difficult than we'd hoped and it was definitely a good move in terms of knowing where we're going next time,when we'll be carrying our packs. First of all we returned to the terminal to pick up a bus to KL Sentral – a transport hub on the edge of the city. The journey took an hour, much longer than we'd expected. From here we hoped to get a direct link onto the monorail. Finding this was a nightmare: it was the start of rush hour and we couldn't find the right sign. Eventually we asked and had to walk outside and around the building, crossing a busy road, in order to reach the station. The monorail was great and we got off as close to the Twin Towers of KL as possible. The walk there took us past some touristy, disco type bars, flashing lights and all. It was around 6pm and a few local were having a drink, but most were pretty empty. We were in need of sustenance having tackled Malaysian traffic again, so dropped in for a drink and were too easily persuaded to buy a pitcher of ale, which only held a couple of pints. As soon as we'd had a sip our glass would be replenisshed, and the piitcher quickly emptied... tempted though we were we didn't buy another. We knew we needed an early night as we had a 5am start the next day. The twin towers and the area around there are quite spectacular, with lovely fountains and high rise buildings. We walked through one of the towers, which is a very exclusive, massive designer label shopping centre . We both found this another surreal experience as we'd just walked along muddy, pot holed streets to get there and also had witnessed the difficulty many of the local people have in eking out a living:eg hawker at street corners, street cleaners with basic brooms and pans, taxi drivers who constantly tout for business. Needless to say we didn't stay long in the mall, but headed off to find some dinner and chose an Indian restaurant full of local peope, where we had a fairly cheap and very reasonable meal.
0n the way back to the monorail we stopped for another pint, lured in by the promise of a glass of beer for MLR1 (about 15p). Our waiter appeared and explained that the first glass of beer actually cost MLR20 -or£3- but that thereafter until 9pm any more beers would be MLR1. We couldn't resist and both bought a beer. We then were given wrist bands and could head to the bar with an empty glass for a 15p refill. By now it was 8pm, so we only had an hour and don't forget, we wanted clear heads and an early night!! We managed a total of 7 glasses for MLR45 ( £6.50) ...next time we'll get there for 5pm and be staying within walking distance...something to look forward to..tee hee! Next to us we got chatting to a young Californian couple, who'd been working in China for 4 months... and clearly found it very difficult. They'd just come from Siem Reap in Cambodia, our next destination and highly recommended a guest house there. They taught us a new card game called Speed, which was fun. Just after 9pm we headed back to the monorail and by 11.15 we were tucked up in bed, ready for our visit to our 19th country tomorrow.
Wednesday 20th May
Woke to the sound of the 5am alarm... oh my god that is early! Had quick showers ( Tune power showers are fab!) and checked out of the hotel. I was gob smacked when Brent suggested we get the MLR1 bus to the terminal instead of walking. Don't say he's losing his Northern frugality...oh no, I've remembered, he really struggles with these transit days. At 5.20 in the room he started sweating about being late, reckoning we should have got up earlier! What??? Anyway we got the bus and headed for the international departure lounge, only to be directed to the local terminal. You can imagine Brent's reaction...'we should have got up earlier!'. We got through check in and decided to head straight on rather than have breakfast: Brent struggles if he doesn't get a coffee and something to eat withing minutes of getting up! Anyway by 6.10 we'd gone through all the controls and were sitting in an espresso bar, with a sandwich and drink. I was absolutely flabbergasted when Brent looked around and thoughtfully announced how how stressed people looked. I spluttered in astonishment .. could anyone be more stressed out than he was?? In the end we both collapsed in fits of giggles!! It turned out that our plane was about 10 minutes late leaving and we were both a bit puzzled when the gate was labelled Phuket, and not Siem Reap... I was tempted to ask someone in the queue if they were going to F_ _ k It ( my pronunciation of Phuket)..but realised that I was getting hysterical and clearly needed more sleep. Once on the plane we were able to spread out and I did get quite a bit of sleep. We arrived 2 hours later, at only 8am local time and picked up a taxi to take us to the 2 Dragon guest house as recommended last night. The taxi driver had great English, but was very keen to get more business from us, to the point of being irritating: he even took us to a new hotel where he assured us he could get us a room for the same price as the guest house $15.. but we stuck to our guns. The hostel is very nice with free wifi, a TV, and air con in the en suite room. There's a lovely cafe area, where we sat and had a cuppa, whilst our room was being cleaned. We immediately got chatting with a lovely Irish couple, who'd arrived at 6am. They told us about a deal the guest house was offering and we decided to go for it: 3 days accommodation, one free breakfast and 3 days touring with an English guide to see the Angkor Wat and other temples as well as a nearby floating village and an evening show... all for $109 each...brilliant eh. After a nice lunch we got a moto tuk tuk into town. As we headed off the heavens opened and we saw more of the rainy season. We were dropped off at a good indoor market, where Brent bought a tee shirt ( same, same but different). Then we wandered the streets: it was all a bit chaotic, with potholed roads filled with muddy water and tuk tuk drivers everywhere touting for business. We were beginning to find it a bit invasive so got another tuk tuk to the Angkor National Museum. This has only been open for 2 years and is a beautiful building with excellent exhibits. All very state of the art. It was $12 each to go in, which seemed very expensive, but the young man on the reception said it was expensive but worth it! His English was great an he made us laugh by puttiing on a cockney accent and saying 'cor blimey guv ... and ...lovely jubbly! We paid up and spent a good hour an a half in there. We were in awe of some of the exhibits there, which really prepared us for the tours we'll be following in the next few days. In fact we wished we'd allowed more time and got permission to go back on the same ticket another day, which we really hope to do. At 5pm we left the museum and immediately spotted our smiley tuk tuk driver, who whisked us back to the guest house. Actually more detail of the whisk back is worth noting here: we were quite exhilarated by the short tuk tuk ride. Here in Cambodia, although drivers officially use the right hand side of the road, in fact they chop off corners and often use alternative sides. At times there were 3 motorbikes side by side on the road and our moto driver would beep his horn and overtake them with equivalent traffic on the other side of the road! Amazing and very exciting.
Today we got a taxi to the airport ( paying far too much for such a short journey!) and flew to KL, where we checked in at the Tune hotel, making sure to get a room without a view of the courtyard. We then decided to take public transport into the town centre, partly to make our next visit easier, as we shall be staying downtown. This proved a lot more difficult than we'd hoped and it was definitely a good move in terms of knowing where we're going next time,when we'll be carrying our packs. First of all we returned to the terminal to pick up a bus to KL Sentral – a transport hub on the edge of the city. The journey took an hour, much longer than we'd expected. From here we hoped to get a direct link onto the monorail. Finding this was a nightmare: it was the start of rush hour and we couldn't find the right sign. Eventually we asked and had to walk outside and around the building, crossing a busy road, in order to reach the station. The monorail was great and we got off as close to the Twin Towers of KL as possible. The walk there took us past some touristy, disco type bars, flashing lights and all. It was around 6pm and a few local were having a drink, but most were pretty empty. We were in need of sustenance having tackled Malaysian traffic again, so dropped in for a drink and were too easily persuaded to buy a pitcher of ale, which only held a couple of pints. As soon as we'd had a sip our glass would be replenisshed, and the piitcher quickly emptied... tempted though we were we didn't buy another. We knew we needed an early night as we had a 5am start the next day. The twin towers and the area around there are quite spectacular, with lovely fountains and high rise buildings. We walked through one of the towers, which is a very exclusive, massive designer label shopping centre . We both found this another surreal experience as we'd just walked along muddy, pot holed streets to get there and also had witnessed the difficulty many of the local people have in eking out a living:eg hawker at street corners, street cleaners with basic brooms and pans, taxi drivers who constantly tout for business. Needless to say we didn't stay long in the mall, but headed off to find some dinner and chose an Indian restaurant full of local peope, where we had a fairly cheap and very reasonable meal.
0n the way back to the monorail we stopped for another pint, lured in by the promise of a glass of beer for MLR1 (about 15p). Our waiter appeared and explained that the first glass of beer actually cost MLR20 -or£3- but that thereafter until 9pm any more beers would be MLR1. We couldn't resist and both bought a beer. We then were given wrist bands and could head to the bar with an empty glass for a 15p refill. By now it was 8pm, so we only had an hour and don't forget, we wanted clear heads and an early night!! We managed a total of 7 glasses for MLR45 ( £6.50) ...next time we'll get there for 5pm and be staying within walking distance...something to look forward to..tee hee! Next to us we got chatting to a young Californian couple, who'd been working in China for 4 months... and clearly found it very difficult. They'd just come from Siem Reap in Cambodia, our next destination and highly recommended a guest house there. They taught us a new card game called Speed, which was fun. Just after 9pm we headed back to the monorail and by 11.15 we were tucked up in bed, ready for our visit to our 19th country tomorrow.
Wednesday 20th May
Woke to the sound of the 5am alarm... oh my god that is early! Had quick showers ( Tune power showers are fab!) and checked out of the hotel. I was gob smacked when Brent suggested we get the MLR1 bus to the terminal instead of walking. Don't say he's losing his Northern frugality...oh no, I've remembered, he really struggles with these transit days. At 5.20 in the room he started sweating about being late, reckoning we should have got up earlier! What??? Anyway we got the bus and headed for the international departure lounge, only to be directed to the local terminal. You can imagine Brent's reaction...'we should have got up earlier!'. We got through check in and decided to head straight on rather than have breakfast: Brent struggles if he doesn't get a coffee and something to eat withing minutes of getting up! Anyway by 6.10 we'd gone through all the controls and were sitting in an espresso bar, with a sandwich and drink. I was absolutely flabbergasted when Brent looked around and thoughtfully announced how how stressed people looked. I spluttered in astonishment .. could anyone be more stressed out than he was?? In the end we both collapsed in fits of giggles!! It turned out that our plane was about 10 minutes late leaving and we were both a bit puzzled when the gate was labelled Phuket, and not Siem Reap... I was tempted to ask someone in the queue if they were going to F_ _ k It ( my pronunciation of Phuket)..but realised that I was getting hysterical and clearly needed more sleep. Once on the plane we were able to spread out and I did get quite a bit of sleep. We arrived 2 hours later, at only 8am local time and picked up a taxi to take us to the 2 Dragon guest house as recommended last night. The taxi driver had great English, but was very keen to get more business from us, to the point of being irritating: he even took us to a new hotel where he assured us he could get us a room for the same price as the guest house $15.. but we stuck to our guns. The hostel is very nice with free wifi, a TV, and air con in the en suite room. There's a lovely cafe area, where we sat and had a cuppa, whilst our room was being cleaned. We immediately got chatting with a lovely Irish couple, who'd arrived at 6am. They told us about a deal the guest house was offering and we decided to go for it: 3 days accommodation, one free breakfast and 3 days touring with an English guide to see the Angkor Wat and other temples as well as a nearby floating village and an evening show... all for $109 each...brilliant eh. After a nice lunch we got a moto tuk tuk into town. As we headed off the heavens opened and we saw more of the rainy season. We were dropped off at a good indoor market, where Brent bought a tee shirt ( same, same but different). Then we wandered the streets: it was all a bit chaotic, with potholed roads filled with muddy water and tuk tuk drivers everywhere touting for business. We were beginning to find it a bit invasive so got another tuk tuk to the Angkor National Museum. This has only been open for 2 years and is a beautiful building with excellent exhibits. All very state of the art. It was $12 each to go in, which seemed very expensive, but the young man on the reception said it was expensive but worth it! His English was great an he made us laugh by puttiing on a cockney accent and saying 'cor blimey guv ... and ...lovely jubbly! We paid up and spent a good hour an a half in there. We were in awe of some of the exhibits there, which really prepared us for the tours we'll be following in the next few days. In fact we wished we'd allowed more time and got permission to go back on the same ticket another day, which we really hope to do. At 5pm we left the museum and immediately spotted our smiley tuk tuk driver, who whisked us back to the guest house. Actually more detail of the whisk back is worth noting here: we were quite exhilarated by the short tuk tuk ride. Here in Cambodia, although drivers officially use the right hand side of the road, in fact they chop off corners and often use alternative sides. At times there were 3 motorbikes side by side on the road and our moto driver would beep his horn and overtake them with equivalent traffic on the other side of the road! Amazing and very exciting.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Vienne Viang
Wednesday 13th May
We had set the alarms for 5.00am not believing that we could wake at that time. Due to our disturbed sleeping patterns we were both awake at 4.45am. Linda jumped in the shower I gradually got myself awake and started to pack away the last things. We got out of the hostel for 5.25am in order to see the procession of monks. As we came out of the hostel we were offered alms ( chicken in banana leaves ) to give to the monks by someone selling it. This seemed like a bit commercial, but we felt that as a sign of respect for the monks we should follow the custom. We noticed a younger English guy, who was with a local and clearly wanting to support the monks. Turned out he was a Buddhist from Manchester who'd visited Laos before and was very fond of the place. His mum, who'd done various retreats in India, is going to visit the area with him next year. Brent shared with him our thoughts on Buddhism and he was in no doubt that it was a religion and that the West had adopted meditation as a way of life. We were kindly offered matting to sit on and waited for the monks to arrive. We soon spotted a few saffron robes coming towards us. The monks were mostly young and carried stainless steel drums with lids. As they approached they would lift the lids and supplicants ( those by the side of the road ) would drop in a small handful of rice or a stuffed banana leaf.
We waited for a while and it wasn't long before there was a whole procession of monks coming down the road. We were amazed at how young the monks were and how quiet the majority seemed. The ritual was quite amazing: young men from around 10 years of age get up every morning at 5am to pray / chant together before proceeding in procession around the town. We've heard that it is compulsory for young men to spend a minimum of one month as a monk and have had many interesting conversations about it: what wonderful training in meditation, but how restricting. As teachers we both noticed the small groups of less compliant young men, who were chatting as they followed the procession and wondered as to their commitment to the religion. We decided to walk down to the main street and lo and behold, bumped into Claudia, the US girl from yesterday, who was well pissed off having been the victim of a scam: she'd given a local 10000 kip ( £1) for some rice, and as more and more monks appeared had taken more and more rice to offer, only to discover that she owed 80000 kip. Have to say whilst feeling some sympathy for her we were also quite amused as she hadn't endeared herself to us. By 6.15am we were enjoying a good breakfast and we then picked up a tuk tuk to take us to the bus station: we arrived just before 7am... what an experience! Once again several touts rushed at us as we got out of the tuk tuk offering us tickets to our destination: Vang Vieng. Brent was Mr Cool again and walked through them to the ticket counter. Unfortunately several of them followed and were clearly calling out to the locals at the ticket counter: when we asked how much the bus was we were rushed into buying a ticket at 95000 kip each and both felt that some sort of back handers had taken place between the touts and the counter assistant. Oh well! The bus left at 7am prompt and we had a moment of thinking we'd done ok, saving at least 50 000 kip ( £5) a ticket. I was a bit saddened to realise that somewhere along the way I'd lost my Tongan fan, which had stood my in such good stead in the high temperatures and humidity that we have been experiencing. It had also been much commented on by both Thai and Lao local women, who seemed very impressed by the workmanship in it – It was made from dried coconut palm leaf intricatly woven and very beautiful. I just hope that whoever finds it enjoys it half as much as I did! We soon changed our minds about getting a good deal: the bus was full of locals, many carrying young children. As we began the steep climb along windy mountain roads several of the kids, including one right in front of me began to vomit...this one straight out of the window!! I was just relieved that it didn't come back in at my window!! Then several local men began to cough and spit.... we do find this custom quite disgusting and I decided the only way I'd cope was to get into a semi meditative state ie: sleep!! Thankfully this worked most of the time. The express bus continued to disappoint us: it stopped at every village, either to drop someone off, pick someone up or allow passengers to pee or pick up food and drink! One particular stop was very popular and a couple of passengers seemed delighted to buy what looked like bamboo shoots and various herbs. It was well after 10am before the first VIP bus passed us and we noticed that it was almost empty. All very bizarre. As we continued to rise the views became just splendid – lush, green hills were replaced by stark, limestone karstzs.. beside the road we saw several villages built on stilts, with some quite beautiful buildings. Around 1pm school was clearly out and large numbers of uniformed children sauntered down steep hills onto the roadside..... with coaches and trucks passing close to each other, it was a wonder none of them was knocked down. As we continued we saw several toddlers playing near the roadside on hillsides of soil.... it really made us question the over protective nature of parenthood back home..
I was suddenly awoken at around 2pm when we arrived in Vang Vieng; we shunned the tuk tuk drivers and headed for a cafe with loo. After a pepsi and a look at our rough guide we ventured into town. After a look at a grotty room we were approached by a tuk tuk driver who took us to some chalets further out of town by the river. The atmosphere here was calm and we could opt for air con for an extra 20000 kip (£2). We're now back in town organising the next 2 days over a few pints of beer.... very happy.
Thursday 14th May
Well after 6 pints of ale we managed to book ourselves on a trip today. We were picked up around 9.30 and after a Thai tourist joined us in the tuk tuk, we headed off to pick up the rest of the group. We were certainly a mixed group: there was a very interesting couple: Poky and Chidi– he was Austrian and must have been in his late 40s with a typical middle age beer belly, while she was maybe early 30s, and a beautiful Thai woman. They seemed very close and were quite overt in this...which seemed odd as we'd been very careful to do no more than hold hands in public since coming into SE Asia. I asked if he spoke Thai and he told me that they communicated in English. We struggled to understand this relationship, as both had limited English, but have to say that they seemed very together and laughed a lot! Our Thai young man spoke quite good English and explained that he wasn't actually from Thailand but worked in Bangkok as and electrician. A group of 4 Chinese tourists then joined us and proved to be very up for a good time. The oldest guy was very extrovert, singing loudly and making the others howl with laughter. A younger guy was clearly tickled pink by him, as were 2 very attractive young women, one of whom wore a headscarf tied around her lower face. We couldn't decide if she was ill, or if it was a precaution or simply a fashion accessory! The last member of the group was an Italian guy, who is a freelance graphic designer. He came from central Italy, but had worked in Madrid and currently works in Amsterdam. He was fairly quiet, but pleasant enough. Our first stop was to visit a cave: we walked through a village and came to the cave, where we were handed head lights and rubber tyres, ready for some tubing through the caves. This took some time, particularly as the loud Chinese guy had rushed straight into the caves, with no light and had persuaded the other Chinese to join him. much hooting and laughter came echoing out of the caves. Anyway the lot of them took quite lot of persuading to come out and get their headlights! Exploring the caves was quite an adventure: we basically sat / lay in the tyres and at first held on to a rope which lead under an overhang into the first cave. At the rear of the cave we had to get out of our tyres and walk, somewhat bent over into the next cave. Our guide pointed out a spider, which fortunately I couldn't see as I'd taken off my specs as quite lot of splashing was going on and I didn't want them damaged in he caves. Brent only saw 2 red eyes, but that would have been enough for me to have a heart attack! Anyway we then formed a line back in our tyres, supporting the following tyre by tucking our feed under it. We then used our arms to pull ourselves through the water. Initially we were in 2 groups, with the Chinese group together. As we moved through the caves they began to sing, so we then did the same...it almost became a contest and was a lot of fun, reminiscent of my nephew's wedding reception in France!! We were in the caves for around 50 minutes and saw some quite beautiful caves, with fantastic stalactites and rock formations. At one point the ceiling looked like the inside of a whale... amazing. We were a bit sad to climb out of the tyres, but ready for the next adventure!! This had to wait until after lunch though and lunch was quite a big affair: fried rice and veges with kebabs and bananas.
After lunch we walked back across the paddy fields to the see what was known as the elephant cave. The cave had been turned into a shrine with a huge reclining plaster buddha along one side. In the centre was a huge sitting buddha.The guide started to explain about the history of the cave. He explained that Laos had been known as the country of elephants but many had been killed in the American War, The cave used to have a huge bathing pool at the rear which was deep enough for elephants to cool off in after work. Since the demise of the elephants though the local village had thought that this wasn't safe and had decided to fill it in. They had placed the concrete buddha over the hole to the water cave. The guide then went on to explain about the practice of buddhism and the 7 positions of the buddha one for each day of the week. Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough to be able to cross examine him in detail. One thing that clearly emerged though was that we together with the Italian were the only people listening as he showed us around. It made one think about the benefits of being able to speak English. As we left the cave our guide mentioned that in Laos there were 3 levels of people – this seemed to be similar to the caste system in India. He is in the lowest level. Brent asked how the level was determined, but didn't really get a reply.
From the cave we took a short drive to the start of our kayaking trip down the river. The boats were launched from a small beach. The guides were very good and handed out life jackets. Once again we had to wait for our Chinese companion to get out of the boat before one of the guides could give us some basic instruction. Have to mention here that we have been very impressed by the safety levels on the trips we've done. The 3 guides accompanying this trip had clearly got the group sussed: they put the extrovert Chinese guy in a boat with one of the guides, rather than leave him with the other chinese! As we set off we had to manoevre some quite lively rapids, and the Italian guy, who was on his own in a boat, didn't manage them and capsized. In the course of the afternoon he had to be rescued a few times, but he hadn't kayaked before and said it was harder than he'd expected. He wasnt the only one to capsize and Brent and I were very pleased with ourselves and how we managed our boat. Half way back we came to the tubing area: we realised we were approaching it from some way off when we heard the sound of loud disco type music. Then one bar after another appeared, At the far end of the course 2 bars were heaving with backpacker type young people. There was a zip wire swing and it was fun watching some of them jumping into the water from the wire. We'd heard about this tubing experience... in fact been warned that there were regular casualties of young people who worked their way down stream, stopping off at each bar for whisky bucket!! When we actually saw it we were surprised by how few people were in the water tubing! We only saw a handful of folk. Either they were all leaving it til late evening to return or they were just visiting the bars!! Our group stopped off further downstream, where we had a zip wire, slide and bar area to ourselves. The music was great and Brent and I immediately started to dance...much to the amusement of the rest of the group. It seemed that no one was going to venture onto the zip wire/slide but after a beer or two the Austrian guy took the lead and came rushing down the slide, beer belly and all. Then the Thai lad had a go, followed by one of the Chinese girls. It was a bit scary watching her drop into the water, as she went under and had to be pulled out by several of our guides, who had been very closely following the process. I asked if she was ok and she was absolutely freezing and still in shock a few minutes after landing. As the fun continued Brent decided he wanted to have a go on the swing. Brent continuing here....
The platform you took off from was about 30 ft high and the line suspended from a crane like structure over the water. Someone placed the bar in your hand and you launched yourself into space. Having watched people do it before me I realised it was better to complete one swing back to the platform before dropping into the water. I did the old tarzan cry as I swung down and out over the water. Dropping into the water was murky and I felt as if I was sinking down and down. I eventually emerged feeling energised by the adrenalin rush.
Back to Linda here...
After Brent had had his turn the 2nd Chinese girl decided to go up..and as soon as she started to swing she started squeeling and kicking her legs up and down, a bit like a 2 year old having a tantrum. We all found this hilarious at first, but after 3 swings realised that she was actually petrified and didn't want to let go! We shouted out encouragingly and eventually she dropped into the water. She immediately sank and I was really afraid for her Our 3 guides once again rushed to the rescue as she appeared to be having a fit.. it took some time for her to recover from the ordeal but once she had I wandered over to see how she was feeling. Her friend then explained that it was hard for them both, especially as they couldn't swim!! I couldn't believe it... Were they completely mad or brave... well I can tell you I reckon they were very naive.
We soon continued our journey down the river. I have to say that Linda and I have definitely mastered the art of double kayaking and put a lot of the younger paddlers in the shade as we navigated our way through the rapids. In due course we sadly came to the end of our trek down the river – pretending to carry on as our guides called us back.
In the evening we went back to the Irish bar and had some traditional English food ( sometimes you just have to do it ) Delicious chicken and mushroom pie with chips – all very surreal in the heart of Laos.
Friday 15th May
Today was our moving on day. There are always mixed emotions going through our heads when this happens. Should we have stayed longer? What will the next destination be like? How easy will it be to find accommodation? We had enjoyed the laid back feel of Van Vieng and thought about another day. We had booked our ticket on the bus though so had committed. Herein lies another funny tale.
When finding transport there are two main considerations – cost and comfort. Our journey to VV had certainly not been comfortable (see earlier blog ) and although we went through all the right channels to make it cheaper we had definitely paid ' foreigner' prices. So this time we had decided to opt for a VIP bus. We enquired about the price in the guesthouse and whether it had air con. The price was 60000 kip but she informed us that the bus had no AC. We decided to look in the town for a better bus and cheaper price. On our second enquiry we found one at 50,000 and were shown a picture of the bus and assured it had AC. We decided to go for it. We were offered the choice of being picked up at our hotel, or meeting the bus in town. As we were so far out we decided it would be safer to get on the bus in town. As we weren't leaving untll 1pm we packed up and then went on a really nice walk from the chalet: we crossed several rickety bridges to get to the other side, where we followed a path to a laid back cafe, with a raised platform with cushions and a low table, overlooking the river. After a cold drink we headed back to the chalet, noting on route a cafe showing Friends, where we decided to spend the time before the bus arrived. Back at the chalet we picked up our bags and walked the 15 minutes to town. It was boiling hot and I was tempted to go for a tuk tuk ( please note I've now realised that I was confusing tuc tuc biscuits with the tuk tuk vehicle before...those close to me will know that biscuits have always been my downfall!!) . Anyway we chose once again to keep fit by walking downtown in the heat and were pleased to drop off the bags at the travel agency and move on to watch friends with a cold coke nearby. Shortly before 1pm a tuk tuk arrived and we joined a young guy and his guitar and ....guess what? You'll never believe it..... were taken back to our guest house, where the cranky bus, with no air con awaited us!!! You have to laugh eh? After that we had almost an hour to wait for various tuk tuks to bring other unsuspecting back packers to join us. You live and learn. We now know that nothing is as it seems in SE Asia and it's best to take everything you're told with a pinch of salt. It's clear to us now that all the travel companies work together to fill buses and the bus you get largely depends on numbers of travellers. ( we later met up with the Brit couple who'd taken the local (spitting) bus with us...they'd also booked a VIP bus from VV only to end up in a mini bus...thus confirming this theory!)
The bus journey was ok... at least there was no spitting and vomitting to cope with, but when we arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the heavens opened and it absolutely threw it down with rain. During the journey we'd earmarked a couple of places we might stay, and although we knew they weren't far away, we took a tuk tuk ( good phrase eh?) to the top of our list. This proved too expensive and our lovely driver was very patient with us and found us another place, still pretty central and a lot cheaper. He even waited while Brent struggled into our rain cape and went and looked at the room ...great tuk tuk service at under £2.
After settling into our room, which was quite big with aircon, we took a walk to the main square, where there are some very smart and pretty expensive French restaurants. We continued past them and found an indian restaurant, where we had Western food and a few Laos beers. I've decided I prefer the Laos dark beer, which comes in small bottles, which I manage to finish in time with Brent and his larger lager beer! The restaurant had a stage, which seemed set up for a band. However communication was difficult here, as the staff had very little English. It was great when a 4 piece band suddenly appeared and began to play Western songs.... the lead guitarist was an older guy, who was really talented. We reckon he may have been the dad. His 'son' had a lovely voice and a good range and we really enjoyed listening to them. They had heavily accented English and after a few beers we had trouble keeping straight faces when the 'daughter' sang the Karen Carpenter chorus: 'Every sha la la la, every who, oa, oa, oa, still shines.... ' Her version was: ' Every sha ra, ra, ra, ' you get the gist? We would have liked to hear them sing something traditional, but they stuck with old favourites, which was still great.
Saturday 16th – Monday 18th May
On Saturday we tried to book our flight out of Laos: we'd decided we needed break from the hot buses and found reasonale flights on Air Asia (ie Ryan Air). We would fly first to Kuala Lumpur(KL) in Malaysia and from there to Siem Reap in Cambodia, which is near to Angkor Watt, where all the Khmer temples are found. We shall spend a few days there before heading back to KL and on to the Perhentian islands, probably via the Cameron Highlands ( see prev. blog). Unfortunately no flight is available on Monday so we'll have another day here and leave on Tues morning. We've enjoyed Vientiane, especially the unassuming, humble and warm hearted local people....BUT... the humidity and high temperatures have rendered us almost unable to function effectively. After an hour or so of walking / sightseeing, we rush to an air conditioned cafe ( fortunately these are plentiful) to recover, or alternately back to our room, where we glaze over in front of the TV. Actually it really is difficult. Having spoken to my sisters last night, who had no pity as it's grey and rainy back home, we know we shouldn't complain, but it's hard to stay lucid when you have sweat running down your body all the time.
We have managed to see the oldest and most interesting temple here, Wat Sisaket. It has lovely cloisters and is very peaceful. Each area had both huge buddhas and tiny ones in small alcoves set into the walls. We liked it here, particularly as it was less gaudy and had a cool, contemplative ambiance. We've also seen the National Museum, which didn't have air con and, although informative about the history of Laos, was pretty boring, with too many photos and information not clearly put together. We also walked up the Vientiane equivalent of the Champs Elysees, called Lane Xang Avenue, which has it 's own incomplete Arc de Triomphe, the Patouxai. We quite liked the monument, although others had been derisory about it: it was unpainted concrete, but had lovely carvings, especially on the ceiliing. It was also the start of a lovely park area, where lots of people were hanging out as it was the weekend when we visited.
As we walked around we spotted a library and decided to have a look. This proved very interesting: there was a good children's section, with multi lingual books in French, Lao and English. It was great to see plenty of kids using it too. There were also lots of other books in English, including travel books. However there were lots of shelves with no books at all and many of the books were very out of date: eg ITC books with old fashioned programmes.
One morning we chose to eat in a nearby restaurant, which turned out to be run by a lovely Japanese hotelier, You_ skate is his email address and is the pronunciation of his name too! Over breakfast we had a long conversation with him: turns out he's the same age as us, and is divorced with 3 children. We really enjoyed his company and ended up spending all morning with him and learning about his life.
We've enjoyed eating here: one night we ate in a restaurant run by a charity called Friends....? It was partly funded by UNICEF and it's aim was to get street chilldren off the street and support them and their families by developing their skills. The food here was excellent and we were delighted to see them present the food with the same rose tomato decoration that we had been taught in Thailand! It was interesting to see how many young people were involved... we even had one girl who's job was to keep our table clean in between courses.
On our last night we ate in a pool bar, called the Red Mekong. The food was ok but the beer was good and Brent got invited to play pool, which was fun. There was an older English guy in there, who lost the game before Brent's, so I got chatting to him. Turned out he'd been in hospital management back in the UK. He was originally from the Black country and had one son in Manchester and a daughter in Surrey. He said he'd been a millionaire twice back home: once through owning race horses and the other from his antiques business. Anyway he'd lived all over SE Asia and chosen Laos, where he hopes to see out his days. He runs a pet shop here and employs several locals to manage and run it with him. He was really interesting and looking for a stress free retirement, whilst enjoying the attention of lots of young Laos women! He'd made lots of friends and when he left was off Lao dancing!!
One thing that has disappointed us here in the PDR of Laos is the number of disabled people we've seen, who seem completely marginalised here: for example last night we saw a man with amputated legs, crawling along the floor on his hands and knees...it was shocking, especially considering the attributes the Lao people have. We have also seen disabled people in converted tricycles, able to use his arms to power the vehicle. Our 'friend' Youskate was also clearly disappointed in this aspect of the culture here and told us that in Japan you wouldn't see this.
Before moving into our next country we want to note down some of the wonderful mottoes we've come across:
From Sang in Thailand:
No jokes, no fun.......no fun, no babies
From You skate in Laos:
No money, no honey! ( in relation to his chances of finding a soul mate, who wasn't after his money
We had set the alarms for 5.00am not believing that we could wake at that time. Due to our disturbed sleeping patterns we were both awake at 4.45am. Linda jumped in the shower I gradually got myself awake and started to pack away the last things. We got out of the hostel for 5.25am in order to see the procession of monks. As we came out of the hostel we were offered alms ( chicken in banana leaves ) to give to the monks by someone selling it. This seemed like a bit commercial, but we felt that as a sign of respect for the monks we should follow the custom. We noticed a younger English guy, who was with a local and clearly wanting to support the monks. Turned out he was a Buddhist from Manchester who'd visited Laos before and was very fond of the place. His mum, who'd done various retreats in India, is going to visit the area with him next year. Brent shared with him our thoughts on Buddhism and he was in no doubt that it was a religion and that the West had adopted meditation as a way of life. We were kindly offered matting to sit on and waited for the monks to arrive. We soon spotted a few saffron robes coming towards us. The monks were mostly young and carried stainless steel drums with lids. As they approached they would lift the lids and supplicants ( those by the side of the road ) would drop in a small handful of rice or a stuffed banana leaf.
We waited for a while and it wasn't long before there was a whole procession of monks coming down the road. We were amazed at how young the monks were and how quiet the majority seemed. The ritual was quite amazing: young men from around 10 years of age get up every morning at 5am to pray / chant together before proceeding in procession around the town. We've heard that it is compulsory for young men to spend a minimum of one month as a monk and have had many interesting conversations about it: what wonderful training in meditation, but how restricting. As teachers we both noticed the small groups of less compliant young men, who were chatting as they followed the procession and wondered as to their commitment to the religion. We decided to walk down to the main street and lo and behold, bumped into Claudia, the US girl from yesterday, who was well pissed off having been the victim of a scam: she'd given a local 10000 kip ( £1) for some rice, and as more and more monks appeared had taken more and more rice to offer, only to discover that she owed 80000 kip. Have to say whilst feeling some sympathy for her we were also quite amused as she hadn't endeared herself to us. By 6.15am we were enjoying a good breakfast and we then picked up a tuk tuk to take us to the bus station: we arrived just before 7am... what an experience! Once again several touts rushed at us as we got out of the tuk tuk offering us tickets to our destination: Vang Vieng. Brent was Mr Cool again and walked through them to the ticket counter. Unfortunately several of them followed and were clearly calling out to the locals at the ticket counter: when we asked how much the bus was we were rushed into buying a ticket at 95000 kip each and both felt that some sort of back handers had taken place between the touts and the counter assistant. Oh well! The bus left at 7am prompt and we had a moment of thinking we'd done ok, saving at least 50 000 kip ( £5) a ticket. I was a bit saddened to realise that somewhere along the way I'd lost my Tongan fan, which had stood my in such good stead in the high temperatures and humidity that we have been experiencing. It had also been much commented on by both Thai and Lao local women, who seemed very impressed by the workmanship in it – It was made from dried coconut palm leaf intricatly woven and very beautiful. I just hope that whoever finds it enjoys it half as much as I did! We soon changed our minds about getting a good deal: the bus was full of locals, many carrying young children. As we began the steep climb along windy mountain roads several of the kids, including one right in front of me began to vomit...this one straight out of the window!! I was just relieved that it didn't come back in at my window!! Then several local men began to cough and spit.... we do find this custom quite disgusting and I decided the only way I'd cope was to get into a semi meditative state ie: sleep!! Thankfully this worked most of the time. The express bus continued to disappoint us: it stopped at every village, either to drop someone off, pick someone up or allow passengers to pee or pick up food and drink! One particular stop was very popular and a couple of passengers seemed delighted to buy what looked like bamboo shoots and various herbs. It was well after 10am before the first VIP bus passed us and we noticed that it was almost empty. All very bizarre. As we continued to rise the views became just splendid – lush, green hills were replaced by stark, limestone karstzs.. beside the road we saw several villages built on stilts, with some quite beautiful buildings. Around 1pm school was clearly out and large numbers of uniformed children sauntered down steep hills onto the roadside..... with coaches and trucks passing close to each other, it was a wonder none of them was knocked down. As we continued we saw several toddlers playing near the roadside on hillsides of soil.... it really made us question the over protective nature of parenthood back home..
I was suddenly awoken at around 2pm when we arrived in Vang Vieng; we shunned the tuk tuk drivers and headed for a cafe with loo. After a pepsi and a look at our rough guide we ventured into town. After a look at a grotty room we were approached by a tuk tuk driver who took us to some chalets further out of town by the river. The atmosphere here was calm and we could opt for air con for an extra 20000 kip (£2). We're now back in town organising the next 2 days over a few pints of beer.... very happy.
Thursday 14th May
Well after 6 pints of ale we managed to book ourselves on a trip today. We were picked up around 9.30 and after a Thai tourist joined us in the tuk tuk, we headed off to pick up the rest of the group. We were certainly a mixed group: there was a very interesting couple: Poky and Chidi– he was Austrian and must have been in his late 40s with a typical middle age beer belly, while she was maybe early 30s, and a beautiful Thai woman. They seemed very close and were quite overt in this...which seemed odd as we'd been very careful to do no more than hold hands in public since coming into SE Asia. I asked if he spoke Thai and he told me that they communicated in English. We struggled to understand this relationship, as both had limited English, but have to say that they seemed very together and laughed a lot! Our Thai young man spoke quite good English and explained that he wasn't actually from Thailand but worked in Bangkok as and electrician. A group of 4 Chinese tourists then joined us and proved to be very up for a good time. The oldest guy was very extrovert, singing loudly and making the others howl with laughter. A younger guy was clearly tickled pink by him, as were 2 very attractive young women, one of whom wore a headscarf tied around her lower face. We couldn't decide if she was ill, or if it was a precaution or simply a fashion accessory! The last member of the group was an Italian guy, who is a freelance graphic designer. He came from central Italy, but had worked in Madrid and currently works in Amsterdam. He was fairly quiet, but pleasant enough. Our first stop was to visit a cave: we walked through a village and came to the cave, where we were handed head lights and rubber tyres, ready for some tubing through the caves. This took some time, particularly as the loud Chinese guy had rushed straight into the caves, with no light and had persuaded the other Chinese to join him. much hooting and laughter came echoing out of the caves. Anyway the lot of them took quite lot of persuading to come out and get their headlights! Exploring the caves was quite an adventure: we basically sat / lay in the tyres and at first held on to a rope which lead under an overhang into the first cave. At the rear of the cave we had to get out of our tyres and walk, somewhat bent over into the next cave. Our guide pointed out a spider, which fortunately I couldn't see as I'd taken off my specs as quite lot of splashing was going on and I didn't want them damaged in he caves. Brent only saw 2 red eyes, but that would have been enough for me to have a heart attack! Anyway we then formed a line back in our tyres, supporting the following tyre by tucking our feed under it. We then used our arms to pull ourselves through the water. Initially we were in 2 groups, with the Chinese group together. As we moved through the caves they began to sing, so we then did the same...it almost became a contest and was a lot of fun, reminiscent of my nephew's wedding reception in France!! We were in the caves for around 50 minutes and saw some quite beautiful caves, with fantastic stalactites and rock formations. At one point the ceiling looked like the inside of a whale... amazing. We were a bit sad to climb out of the tyres, but ready for the next adventure!! This had to wait until after lunch though and lunch was quite a big affair: fried rice and veges with kebabs and bananas.
After lunch we walked back across the paddy fields to the see what was known as the elephant cave. The cave had been turned into a shrine with a huge reclining plaster buddha along one side. In the centre was a huge sitting buddha.The guide started to explain about the history of the cave. He explained that Laos had been known as the country of elephants but many had been killed in the American War, The cave used to have a huge bathing pool at the rear which was deep enough for elephants to cool off in after work. Since the demise of the elephants though the local village had thought that this wasn't safe and had decided to fill it in. They had placed the concrete buddha over the hole to the water cave. The guide then went on to explain about the practice of buddhism and the 7 positions of the buddha one for each day of the week. Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough to be able to cross examine him in detail. One thing that clearly emerged though was that we together with the Italian were the only people listening as he showed us around. It made one think about the benefits of being able to speak English. As we left the cave our guide mentioned that in Laos there were 3 levels of people – this seemed to be similar to the caste system in India. He is in the lowest level. Brent asked how the level was determined, but didn't really get a reply.
From the cave we took a short drive to the start of our kayaking trip down the river. The boats were launched from a small beach. The guides were very good and handed out life jackets. Once again we had to wait for our Chinese companion to get out of the boat before one of the guides could give us some basic instruction. Have to mention here that we have been very impressed by the safety levels on the trips we've done. The 3 guides accompanying this trip had clearly got the group sussed: they put the extrovert Chinese guy in a boat with one of the guides, rather than leave him with the other chinese! As we set off we had to manoevre some quite lively rapids, and the Italian guy, who was on his own in a boat, didn't manage them and capsized. In the course of the afternoon he had to be rescued a few times, but he hadn't kayaked before and said it was harder than he'd expected. He wasnt the only one to capsize and Brent and I were very pleased with ourselves and how we managed our boat. Half way back we came to the tubing area: we realised we were approaching it from some way off when we heard the sound of loud disco type music. Then one bar after another appeared, At the far end of the course 2 bars were heaving with backpacker type young people. There was a zip wire swing and it was fun watching some of them jumping into the water from the wire. We'd heard about this tubing experience... in fact been warned that there were regular casualties of young people who worked their way down stream, stopping off at each bar for whisky bucket!! When we actually saw it we were surprised by how few people were in the water tubing! We only saw a handful of folk. Either they were all leaving it til late evening to return or they were just visiting the bars!! Our group stopped off further downstream, where we had a zip wire, slide and bar area to ourselves. The music was great and Brent and I immediately started to dance...much to the amusement of the rest of the group. It seemed that no one was going to venture onto the zip wire/slide but after a beer or two the Austrian guy took the lead and came rushing down the slide, beer belly and all. Then the Thai lad had a go, followed by one of the Chinese girls. It was a bit scary watching her drop into the water, as she went under and had to be pulled out by several of our guides, who had been very closely following the process. I asked if she was ok and she was absolutely freezing and still in shock a few minutes after landing. As the fun continued Brent decided he wanted to have a go on the swing. Brent continuing here....
The platform you took off from was about 30 ft high and the line suspended from a crane like structure over the water. Someone placed the bar in your hand and you launched yourself into space. Having watched people do it before me I realised it was better to complete one swing back to the platform before dropping into the water. I did the old tarzan cry as I swung down and out over the water. Dropping into the water was murky and I felt as if I was sinking down and down. I eventually emerged feeling energised by the adrenalin rush.
Back to Linda here...
After Brent had had his turn the 2nd Chinese girl decided to go up..and as soon as she started to swing she started squeeling and kicking her legs up and down, a bit like a 2 year old having a tantrum. We all found this hilarious at first, but after 3 swings realised that she was actually petrified and didn't want to let go! We shouted out encouragingly and eventually she dropped into the water. She immediately sank and I was really afraid for her Our 3 guides once again rushed to the rescue as she appeared to be having a fit.. it took some time for her to recover from the ordeal but once she had I wandered over to see how she was feeling. Her friend then explained that it was hard for them both, especially as they couldn't swim!! I couldn't believe it... Were they completely mad or brave... well I can tell you I reckon they were very naive.
We soon continued our journey down the river. I have to say that Linda and I have definitely mastered the art of double kayaking and put a lot of the younger paddlers in the shade as we navigated our way through the rapids. In due course we sadly came to the end of our trek down the river – pretending to carry on as our guides called us back.
In the evening we went back to the Irish bar and had some traditional English food ( sometimes you just have to do it ) Delicious chicken and mushroom pie with chips – all very surreal in the heart of Laos.
Friday 15th May
Today was our moving on day. There are always mixed emotions going through our heads when this happens. Should we have stayed longer? What will the next destination be like? How easy will it be to find accommodation? We had enjoyed the laid back feel of Van Vieng and thought about another day. We had booked our ticket on the bus though so had committed. Herein lies another funny tale.
When finding transport there are two main considerations – cost and comfort. Our journey to VV had certainly not been comfortable (see earlier blog ) and although we went through all the right channels to make it cheaper we had definitely paid ' foreigner' prices. So this time we had decided to opt for a VIP bus. We enquired about the price in the guesthouse and whether it had air con. The price was 60000 kip but she informed us that the bus had no AC. We decided to look in the town for a better bus and cheaper price. On our second enquiry we found one at 50,000 and were shown a picture of the bus and assured it had AC. We decided to go for it. We were offered the choice of being picked up at our hotel, or meeting the bus in town. As we were so far out we decided it would be safer to get on the bus in town. As we weren't leaving untll 1pm we packed up and then went on a really nice walk from the chalet: we crossed several rickety bridges to get to the other side, where we followed a path to a laid back cafe, with a raised platform with cushions and a low table, overlooking the river. After a cold drink we headed back to the chalet, noting on route a cafe showing Friends, where we decided to spend the time before the bus arrived. Back at the chalet we picked up our bags and walked the 15 minutes to town. It was boiling hot and I was tempted to go for a tuk tuk ( please note I've now realised that I was confusing tuc tuc biscuits with the tuk tuk vehicle before...those close to me will know that biscuits have always been my downfall!!) . Anyway we chose once again to keep fit by walking downtown in the heat and were pleased to drop off the bags at the travel agency and move on to watch friends with a cold coke nearby. Shortly before 1pm a tuk tuk arrived and we joined a young guy and his guitar and ....guess what? You'll never believe it..... were taken back to our guest house, where the cranky bus, with no air con awaited us!!! You have to laugh eh? After that we had almost an hour to wait for various tuk tuks to bring other unsuspecting back packers to join us. You live and learn. We now know that nothing is as it seems in SE Asia and it's best to take everything you're told with a pinch of salt. It's clear to us now that all the travel companies work together to fill buses and the bus you get largely depends on numbers of travellers. ( we later met up with the Brit couple who'd taken the local (spitting) bus with us...they'd also booked a VIP bus from VV only to end up in a mini bus...thus confirming this theory!)
The bus journey was ok... at least there was no spitting and vomitting to cope with, but when we arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the heavens opened and it absolutely threw it down with rain. During the journey we'd earmarked a couple of places we might stay, and although we knew they weren't far away, we took a tuk tuk ( good phrase eh?) to the top of our list. This proved too expensive and our lovely driver was very patient with us and found us another place, still pretty central and a lot cheaper. He even waited while Brent struggled into our rain cape and went and looked at the room ...great tuk tuk service at under £2.
After settling into our room, which was quite big with aircon, we took a walk to the main square, where there are some very smart and pretty expensive French restaurants. We continued past them and found an indian restaurant, where we had Western food and a few Laos beers. I've decided I prefer the Laos dark beer, which comes in small bottles, which I manage to finish in time with Brent and his larger lager beer! The restaurant had a stage, which seemed set up for a band. However communication was difficult here, as the staff had very little English. It was great when a 4 piece band suddenly appeared and began to play Western songs.... the lead guitarist was an older guy, who was really talented. We reckon he may have been the dad. His 'son' had a lovely voice and a good range and we really enjoyed listening to them. They had heavily accented English and after a few beers we had trouble keeping straight faces when the 'daughter' sang the Karen Carpenter chorus: 'Every sha la la la, every who, oa, oa, oa, still shines.... ' Her version was: ' Every sha ra, ra, ra, ' you get the gist? We would have liked to hear them sing something traditional, but they stuck with old favourites, which was still great.
Saturday 16th – Monday 18th May
On Saturday we tried to book our flight out of Laos: we'd decided we needed break from the hot buses and found reasonale flights on Air Asia (ie Ryan Air). We would fly first to Kuala Lumpur(KL) in Malaysia and from there to Siem Reap in Cambodia, which is near to Angkor Watt, where all the Khmer temples are found. We shall spend a few days there before heading back to KL and on to the Perhentian islands, probably via the Cameron Highlands ( see prev. blog). Unfortunately no flight is available on Monday so we'll have another day here and leave on Tues morning. We've enjoyed Vientiane, especially the unassuming, humble and warm hearted local people....BUT... the humidity and high temperatures have rendered us almost unable to function effectively. After an hour or so of walking / sightseeing, we rush to an air conditioned cafe ( fortunately these are plentiful) to recover, or alternately back to our room, where we glaze over in front of the TV. Actually it really is difficult. Having spoken to my sisters last night, who had no pity as it's grey and rainy back home, we know we shouldn't complain, but it's hard to stay lucid when you have sweat running down your body all the time.
We have managed to see the oldest and most interesting temple here, Wat Sisaket. It has lovely cloisters and is very peaceful. Each area had both huge buddhas and tiny ones in small alcoves set into the walls. We liked it here, particularly as it was less gaudy and had a cool, contemplative ambiance. We've also seen the National Museum, which didn't have air con and, although informative about the history of Laos, was pretty boring, with too many photos and information not clearly put together. We also walked up the Vientiane equivalent of the Champs Elysees, called Lane Xang Avenue, which has it 's own incomplete Arc de Triomphe, the Patouxai. We quite liked the monument, although others had been derisory about it: it was unpainted concrete, but had lovely carvings, especially on the ceiliing. It was also the start of a lovely park area, where lots of people were hanging out as it was the weekend when we visited.
As we walked around we spotted a library and decided to have a look. This proved very interesting: there was a good children's section, with multi lingual books in French, Lao and English. It was great to see plenty of kids using it too. There were also lots of other books in English, including travel books. However there were lots of shelves with no books at all and many of the books were very out of date: eg ITC books with old fashioned programmes.
One morning we chose to eat in a nearby restaurant, which turned out to be run by a lovely Japanese hotelier, You_ skate is his email address and is the pronunciation of his name too! Over breakfast we had a long conversation with him: turns out he's the same age as us, and is divorced with 3 children. We really enjoyed his company and ended up spending all morning with him and learning about his life.
We've enjoyed eating here: one night we ate in a restaurant run by a charity called Friends....? It was partly funded by UNICEF and it's aim was to get street chilldren off the street and support them and their families by developing their skills. The food here was excellent and we were delighted to see them present the food with the same rose tomato decoration that we had been taught in Thailand! It was interesting to see how many young people were involved... we even had one girl who's job was to keep our table clean in between courses.
On our last night we ate in a pool bar, called the Red Mekong. The food was ok but the beer was good and Brent got invited to play pool, which was fun. There was an older English guy in there, who lost the game before Brent's, so I got chatting to him. Turned out he'd been in hospital management back in the UK. He was originally from the Black country and had one son in Manchester and a daughter in Surrey. He said he'd been a millionaire twice back home: once through owning race horses and the other from his antiques business. Anyway he'd lived all over SE Asia and chosen Laos, where he hopes to see out his days. He runs a pet shop here and employs several locals to manage and run it with him. He was really interesting and looking for a stress free retirement, whilst enjoying the attention of lots of young Laos women! He'd made lots of friends and when he left was off Lao dancing!!
One thing that has disappointed us here in the PDR of Laos is the number of disabled people we've seen, who seem completely marginalised here: for example last night we saw a man with amputated legs, crawling along the floor on his hands and knees...it was shocking, especially considering the attributes the Lao people have. We have also seen disabled people in converted tricycles, able to use his arms to power the vehicle. Our 'friend' Youskate was also clearly disappointed in this aspect of the culture here and told us that in Japan you wouldn't see this.
Before moving into our next country we want to note down some of the wonderful mottoes we've come across:
From Sang in Thailand:
No jokes, no fun.......no fun, no babies
From You skate in Laos:
No money, no honey! ( in relation to his chances of finding a soul mate, who wasn't after his money
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
photos down the Mekong river
This was such a mystical experience...and we got a real taste of life along the river. Will try to give you a flavour...
Luang Prabang continued
Saturday May 9h continues...
Explored the main street this morning. A mixture of tourist agencies, guesthouses, restaurants and shops. It had a very sophisticated feel at times with teak and wood frontages but the same off white behind. As I had already eaten sat with a coffee at the Cafe des Arts while Linda ate hers. Much of Laos was previously French speaking so many places have the French names still.
We wandered down to the Royal Palace only to find it closed for lunch so went to have a cold drink in a nearby cafe. I had a watermelon frappe and linda a lemon soda. Tried to get online even paying but to no avail.
Afterwards we managed to visit the museum: this used to be the royal palace and had impressive mirror mosaic walls on a deep red background. We followed the signs to see the floating buddha, both expecing to see a young monk sitting on bunch of waterlilies: oh dear, we quickly realised that the poster was in fact advertising a photo exhibition, which we found pretty average. On the way in to the exhibition we met our friend Thomas and arranged to meet up at 7.30pm for a beer. As we wandered back to our room Brent began to feel odd, so we decided to head back for a rest. Unfortunately he steadily felt worse and was feeling hot and cold. We tried a short walk down the peninsular to another temple, but it was no use: Brent simply needed to lie down. In the end I left Brent to have a pleasant evening out with, as Brent put it, a man young enough to be my son – Thomas. We wandered through the night market and he made quite a few purchases. Then we sat down at the vegetarian stall for some food. There we met an interesting pair of lads, one from Cape Town. He and I had an interesting chat about South Africa and the poverty issue there. The 2 of them also talked us through their experiences in Vietnam... and I have to say made me question whether I wanted to go there. Thomas and I finally headed down the the Mekong where we enjoyed a beer in one of the riverside bars. He then walked me back and we were both surprised to see that at the bar at the end of the road a film was being shown in Lao: huge numbers of locals were watching it and I was glad of Thomas' company!
Sunday 10th May
Brent woke up feeling a bit better, but still a bit shaky, so we decided to hang out around the town today. We went looking for a silversmith to make me a ring to set my opal into but the local craftsmen were all working in large pieces of silver, making bowls and the like. We ended up walking to the other side of the peninsula to the Nam Khan river, where we spotted the bamboo bridge, which Thomas had mentioned to me and which looked pretty amazing. On the way back to the room we stopped off at a tiny cafe, run by a very friendly French speaking Lao. Brent needed to eat at this point, so ordered some friend rice and veges. As we were waiting for this meal a larger than life character appeared, armed with a large camera: he clearly knew the owner and asked him if he could take a photo of him with the Lao Lao alcohol. It turned out he was a professional photographer who lived in India, but who travelled regularly in Laos. He was photographing for stories of human interest and had found out that our host had fleed Laos during the Vietnam war, and lived in France for a few years, before coming back to the family place some years ago.
Towards dusk we walked down to the market where Linda had eaten the evening before. This was a buffet selection of food. I was tempted so had some noodles and rice. We later headed down to the river and shared a large Laos beer before retiring to the room.
Monday 11th May
Had the same difficulty in waking up early. Had wanted to go and help with a reading scheme at a local school but the heat makes it very difficult to get up in time. Rose later than hoped and went for breakfast at the same place as yesterday. One of the women living at the house was outside cutting her toenails – lovely. As we walked in she went inside and the previous mornings waitress came out to take our order. The service today was not quite as good. The parting greeting though was very cheery. We wandered up to the main street in search of a tuk tuk to take us to the waterfall. This had become a regular call from the drivers ' tuk tuk to waterfall – cheap cheap ' so we were not worried about finding one. As we bought provisions for the afternoon a young American girl was commandeering one near to us and was in discussion with the driver. She had got him down to 50,000 kip ( about £5 ) as he said he had two more people. I quickly butted in and said we would like to go if price could be lowered little realizing that we were the other two people he meant as we had shown interest earlier. So we arrived at a price and thought that was the end of it only for him to start driving round the town looking for more custom. Eventually he found two other people who had not been able to get in their friends tuk tuk. They offered 20,000 and the driver seemingly offended started to drive off at speed. Our quick thinking US friend suddenly banged on the window telling him to stop and he did. The two others upped their offer to 30,000 so ours was lowered to 30,000 a head too. All parties happy. This was a good example of the way bartering works here ( The next day we saw one driver offering waterfall for 10,000 ) Is all about bluff and double bluff.
Our new passengers were both from England and were clearly blunt speaking southerners. Kenny described himself as 'accident prone.' He'd been bitten by a snake and was covered in bed bug bites! He was quite a character. These 2 and our american girl got into big conversation about ping pong shows... which we have yet to experience. I know that Juicy Lucy has been going for years in spain, and this sounded like an even cruder experience...needless so say it isn't table tennis! We arrived at our destination and after a short walk came to the black bears compound, where we saw 3 or 4 bears close up. Then on to the first swimming area. The afternoon was in fact a big hit: turquoise pools at the base of beautiful water falls, with changing areas and lots of good swimming.....and, most important of all...it was cool!! We met up with our 'friends' again at 4,15 for the ride home and on the way through the night market I bought a local skirt and blouse. We had a lovely meal at the riverside...the noodles with vegetables and cashew nuts was to die for and nicely accompanies with the local beer.
Tuesday 12th May
After a very disturbed night this proved to be a bit of a nothing day. I'd really wanted to do the volunteer reading at 9am, but quite simply couldn't get out of bed. We finally dragged ourselves out just before noon and enjoyed a good breakfast. Then we went back to the room for a rest! It's just too hot to function,,,honest! We spent most of the afternoon reading, sleeping and trying to get on line. Around 6pm we went for another meal at the riverside, but the previous night's dish was nowhere near as good! Bizarre eh? Back at the night market Brent did a great job of bartering for some wall hangings, which we'll now have to carry around as the post in Laos is pretty erratic! We are about to pack up ready for an early start tomorrow: we have set alarms for 5am and hope to see the daily procession of monks, to whom local people offer daily alms.. then it's off to the bus station where we hope to pick up a bus to Vien Vang.
Explored the main street this morning. A mixture of tourist agencies, guesthouses, restaurants and shops. It had a very sophisticated feel at times with teak and wood frontages but the same off white behind. As I had already eaten sat with a coffee at the Cafe des Arts while Linda ate hers. Much of Laos was previously French speaking so many places have the French names still.
We wandered down to the Royal Palace only to find it closed for lunch so went to have a cold drink in a nearby cafe. I had a watermelon frappe and linda a lemon soda. Tried to get online even paying but to no avail.
Afterwards we managed to visit the museum: this used to be the royal palace and had impressive mirror mosaic walls on a deep red background. We followed the signs to see the floating buddha, both expecing to see a young monk sitting on bunch of waterlilies: oh dear, we quickly realised that the poster was in fact advertising a photo exhibition, which we found pretty average. On the way in to the exhibition we met our friend Thomas and arranged to meet up at 7.30pm for a beer. As we wandered back to our room Brent began to feel odd, so we decided to head back for a rest. Unfortunately he steadily felt worse and was feeling hot and cold. We tried a short walk down the peninsular to another temple, but it was no use: Brent simply needed to lie down. In the end I left Brent to have a pleasant evening out with, as Brent put it, a man young enough to be my son – Thomas. We wandered through the night market and he made quite a few purchases. Then we sat down at the vegetarian stall for some food. There we met an interesting pair of lads, one from Cape Town. He and I had an interesting chat about South Africa and the poverty issue there. The 2 of them also talked us through their experiences in Vietnam... and I have to say made me question whether I wanted to go there. Thomas and I finally headed down the the Mekong where we enjoyed a beer in one of the riverside bars. He then walked me back and we were both surprised to see that at the bar at the end of the road a film was being shown in Lao: huge numbers of locals were watching it and I was glad of Thomas' company!
Sunday 10th May
Brent woke up feeling a bit better, but still a bit shaky, so we decided to hang out around the town today. We went looking for a silversmith to make me a ring to set my opal into but the local craftsmen were all working in large pieces of silver, making bowls and the like. We ended up walking to the other side of the peninsula to the Nam Khan river, where we spotted the bamboo bridge, which Thomas had mentioned to me and which looked pretty amazing. On the way back to the room we stopped off at a tiny cafe, run by a very friendly French speaking Lao. Brent needed to eat at this point, so ordered some friend rice and veges. As we were waiting for this meal a larger than life character appeared, armed with a large camera: he clearly knew the owner and asked him if he could take a photo of him with the Lao Lao alcohol. It turned out he was a professional photographer who lived in India, but who travelled regularly in Laos. He was photographing for stories of human interest and had found out that our host had fleed Laos during the Vietnam war, and lived in France for a few years, before coming back to the family place some years ago.
Towards dusk we walked down to the market where Linda had eaten the evening before. This was a buffet selection of food. I was tempted so had some noodles and rice. We later headed down to the river and shared a large Laos beer before retiring to the room.
Monday 11th May
Had the same difficulty in waking up early. Had wanted to go and help with a reading scheme at a local school but the heat makes it very difficult to get up in time. Rose later than hoped and went for breakfast at the same place as yesterday. One of the women living at the house was outside cutting her toenails – lovely. As we walked in she went inside and the previous mornings waitress came out to take our order. The service today was not quite as good. The parting greeting though was very cheery. We wandered up to the main street in search of a tuk tuk to take us to the waterfall. This had become a regular call from the drivers ' tuk tuk to waterfall – cheap cheap ' so we were not worried about finding one. As we bought provisions for the afternoon a young American girl was commandeering one near to us and was in discussion with the driver. She had got him down to 50,000 kip ( about £5 ) as he said he had two more people. I quickly butted in and said we would like to go if price could be lowered little realizing that we were the other two people he meant as we had shown interest earlier. So we arrived at a price and thought that was the end of it only for him to start driving round the town looking for more custom. Eventually he found two other people who had not been able to get in their friends tuk tuk. They offered 20,000 and the driver seemingly offended started to drive off at speed. Our quick thinking US friend suddenly banged on the window telling him to stop and he did. The two others upped their offer to 30,000 so ours was lowered to 30,000 a head too. All parties happy. This was a good example of the way bartering works here ( The next day we saw one driver offering waterfall for 10,000 ) Is all about bluff and double bluff.
Our new passengers were both from England and were clearly blunt speaking southerners. Kenny described himself as 'accident prone.' He'd been bitten by a snake and was covered in bed bug bites! He was quite a character. These 2 and our american girl got into big conversation about ping pong shows... which we have yet to experience. I know that Juicy Lucy has been going for years in spain, and this sounded like an even cruder experience...needless so say it isn't table tennis! We arrived at our destination and after a short walk came to the black bears compound, where we saw 3 or 4 bears close up. Then on to the first swimming area. The afternoon was in fact a big hit: turquoise pools at the base of beautiful water falls, with changing areas and lots of good swimming.....and, most important of all...it was cool!! We met up with our 'friends' again at 4,15 for the ride home and on the way through the night market I bought a local skirt and blouse. We had a lovely meal at the riverside...the noodles with vegetables and cashew nuts was to die for and nicely accompanies with the local beer.
Tuesday 12th May
After a very disturbed night this proved to be a bit of a nothing day. I'd really wanted to do the volunteer reading at 9am, but quite simply couldn't get out of bed. We finally dragged ourselves out just before noon and enjoyed a good breakfast. Then we went back to the room for a rest! It's just too hot to function,,,honest! We spent most of the afternoon reading, sleeping and trying to get on line. Around 6pm we went for another meal at the riverside, but the previous night's dish was nowhere near as good! Bizarre eh? Back at the night market Brent did a great job of bartering for some wall hangings, which we'll now have to carry around as the post in Laos is pretty erratic! We are about to pack up ready for an early start tomorrow: we have set alarms for 5am and hope to see the daily procession of monks, to whom local people offer daily alms.. then it's off to the bus station where we hope to pick up a bus to Vien Vang.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
slow boat down the Mekong
Brent here...
The Mekong is a huge river. At some points on the jourmey you feel you are crossing lakes at others the shore closes in on you. The waters always have great power though. They swirl around with powerful eddy currents and tumble across projecting rocks. The boat we travelled in although called a slow boat once in the current picked up considerable speed and the jungle moved past us faster and faster. Swaying was a constant experience.
The journey itself was one in which you were lulled into a different time frame, Your attention would at times be caught by villages on the banks of the river at others by observing your fellow passengers. Villagers would go about their daily business. Fishing was clearly a major occupation and we saw lots of the long fast boats plying the water and many men tending nets. At other times we would see children having fun by the riverbanks splashing in the water. On occasion we would pull into a village to allow people to board and often the children would stand smiling or women would be washing clothes or preparing food, The contrast with the occupants of the boat was quite extreme. Apart from a few local people moving down river most were young ( 18- 28 ) backpackers. On casual observation you may think of them as having little money and possessions but look closer and you would see the tell tale signs of designer t-shirts, expensive sunglasses or cameras. Many had the look of privilege, an unmistakable way of knowing they are the ' beautiful people' in the way they hold themselves – their posture. A face which shows no lines of worry or toil. Knowing they are on a big adventure but never quite throwing themselves fully into it – the journey almost as important as the experience.
Lin here...just to add some specifics on the young people we saw: the Dutch or Austrian couple nearby – he was reading an English text on equality and justice, that looked very difficult! The older and larger Dutch guy, who was very friendly and the unusual American guy who clearly had Autistic tendencies: he would walk up and down the boat in a military style, raising a few smiles, which he was totally oblivious of. We noticed later in the journey that he was in deep conversation with a local lady and wondered if they were travelling together. An Austrian couple, who looked more Spanish or Italian, both very beautiful. They had been travelling like us for about 8 months and I shared experiences of Australia with them. We also bumped into them over breakfast on the ssecond morning. Then there were our card partners Thomas and Kateen, who had met up a couple of days earlier and who both had the same camera: she was in her early 30s and had recently received severance pay from one of the big banks, where she's worked as an accountant. She was hoping to travel for as long as possible and on more than one occasion mentioned never working again...maybe she seriously hoped to find a rich husband!! Thomas meanwhile is a 23 year old young Canadian with English father and Irish mother, He seems very mature and has just finished a university degree in geology and has a good job lined up in the oil business when he returns in September. We were interested to learn that Kateen's parents had adopted 3 Indian children and the whole family had travelled to India.
Back to Brent...
As the journey continued the occupants of the boat would find more comfortable positions. The seats we occupied were constructed out of simple timbers and were crude benches with upright backs so it was not possible to sit in them for long. Almost as soon as the journey started one man who was older began to walk up and down constantly to the point of irritation. He became known as the 'walking man ' Everyone else found positions on the floor of the boat – the majority discounting the seats so as to be able to stretch out. Time was occupied by reading, viewing the stunning scenery and in our case playing the odd game. The heat was only punctuated by the breeze coming off the water. As we contunued down the river a sort of meditative quiet descended on the boat and time slowed down.
Our journey reached its half way mark at a place called Pak Beng. This was to be our stop for the night. We had read in the guide book about this stopover being a bit of a free for all and were almost prepared for the onslaught. As the boat arrived at the landing stage between two other long boats it was ' boarded 'by many children from the adjacent boats. This felt very much like being taken over by pirates with children suddenly appearing amongst the leaving passengers and everyone holding tight to their belongings. This was then followed on disembarking by lots of people offering accommodation by holding up signs or pressing cards into your hand. At this point an iron will is needed to walk through and find your own bed for the night – usually at a lower price.
Pak Beng was one of those one street towns that wound its way up the hill. We climbed steadily looking for a double room and it wasn't long before we found one that had been mentioned in our guide book. On inspection it seemed clean with a ceiling fan. I went down to settle the money. Herein lies another story. Laos is a country which has experienced hyperinflation so denominations of the currency are in thousands – one pound being worth about 10,000 kip. We had not had time to visit a money machine since crossing the border so I ended up paying in the Thai currency ( Baht ). The change was given in kip – so was almost impossible for me to calculate whether i was getting a fair deal for the room and a fair deal for the currency. Laos accepts Baht, US dollars and kip interchangeably. Is one of those systems that ' does your head in ' and leaves you open to being overcharged.
Bill settled we went in search of food only to meet our friends from the boat Thomas and Kateen. They kindly invited us to share their table and we ordered food. The waiter was a young lad who was occcasionally listening to his i pod ( even in poor countries they seem to be the de rigeur necessity ) The food was basic but adequate. At about 10.30.pm the lights suddenly went out. The waiter brought over some candles. The strange thing was the cafe next door still had lights as did the one across the road.
Linda here:
We finished our food and beer and made our way back to our guesthouses. Luckily ours still had lights on, but just as I was taking out my contact lenses the lights went out... thank goodness for our headtorches!We managed to get sorted, but needless to say we had no electricity all night, so the fan was useless!
Friday 8th May
After a very average night's sleep we were up early, again taking Mrs Jib's advice about getting onto the boat early in case of an early departure. We found a lovely spot for breakfast which was incredible: we took a deal for the continental breakfast and there was so much food that we took a doggy bag away with us. We also took some freshly made sandwiches. By 8.15 we had put our stuff on the boat and grabbed some seats nearer the front of the boat. We then took a short walk to the tourist info. office, which we'd noticed near the landing stage. It turned out there were treks you could do from this village, but we had trouble imagining spending a second night there! In the end the boat didn't leave as planned at 9am but nearer to 10 and we then got back into 'the zone' relaxing into our trip. It was much hotter today and we both slept more than yesterday. Thomas and Kateen had invented a different version of Quiddler and we enjoyed trialling it. They are good company and we hope to keep in touch. One interesting stop today was when we parked up next to a very different vessel: this had comfy seats and pretty curtains and was clearly a 1st class version of the slow boat. As our team loaded on baskets of livestock, including a lot of chicken onto the roof, we watched a party of well dressed Chinese people board their boat. We noticed they carried only hand luggage and moments later local people appeared carrying suitcases some on their heads. We would have loved to find out more about this group but summised that we were witnissing a Chinese tour for wealthier people. They looked highly amused as they surveyed our boat from their luxurious seats! Around 5.30pm we began to notice more homes along the riverbanks and also spotted some caves, which later turned out to be a tourist attraction where lots of Buddha statues can be visited. Near a huge staircase we dropped off the last of the local travellers and just a few minutes later at 6pm found ourselves docking in Luang Prabang. Tuk Tuks and taxi drivers once again assailed us all as we climbed up the steep bank and once again we managed to make our way through them and to wander along one of the main streets in search of several earmarked guest houses. One more persistant young man on a bicycle, wanted us to look at 'his' guesthouse. He waited while we approached the Mekong Riiverside guesthouse, which was on our list. There we were offered a room for $64!! Another couple overheard the price and like us were gob smacked! We continued along the road with the aforementioned young man, who explained that the Mekong was owned by a wealthy French man, and not local people. 'His' place was local and much cheaper, he said. We decided to have a look. He showed us to a room quoting $35 for the night. The room was quite beautiful with polished teak floor, large bathroom, huge bed, air con, flat screen TV and furnished balcony and although the price was higher than we wanted to pay, we decided to take it for the night. Our young friend explained that there were cheaper rooms we could look at the next day. We got settled in and wandered down to the main street, where we had an average Indian meal in a local restaurant. Then we spent about half an hour exploring the night market, which looks good. We were just bartering over a wall hanging, when Kateen and Thomas appeared and we had a nice chat. Turned out the Kateen was off to Ventiane the next day, while Thomas was going to spend a bit more time in Luang Prabang. Back at the guesthouse I had a pretty disturbed night, despite the apparent luxury and next morning Brent headed off to scout some other guesthouses, while I had a bit of a lie in, enjoying the room. In the end we asked to see one of the cheaper rooms, at $12: this proved to be very comfortable...no TV but more efficient air con and shower and we decided to look no further. We'd certainly recommend the Sok Dee Residency to any of our readers!
The Mekong is a huge river. At some points on the jourmey you feel you are crossing lakes at others the shore closes in on you. The waters always have great power though. They swirl around with powerful eddy currents and tumble across projecting rocks. The boat we travelled in although called a slow boat once in the current picked up considerable speed and the jungle moved past us faster and faster. Swaying was a constant experience.
The journey itself was one in which you were lulled into a different time frame, Your attention would at times be caught by villages on the banks of the river at others by observing your fellow passengers. Villagers would go about their daily business. Fishing was clearly a major occupation and we saw lots of the long fast boats plying the water and many men tending nets. At other times we would see children having fun by the riverbanks splashing in the water. On occasion we would pull into a village to allow people to board and often the children would stand smiling or women would be washing clothes or preparing food, The contrast with the occupants of the boat was quite extreme. Apart from a few local people moving down river most were young ( 18- 28 ) backpackers. On casual observation you may think of them as having little money and possessions but look closer and you would see the tell tale signs of designer t-shirts, expensive sunglasses or cameras. Many had the look of privilege, an unmistakable way of knowing they are the ' beautiful people' in the way they hold themselves – their posture. A face which shows no lines of worry or toil. Knowing they are on a big adventure but never quite throwing themselves fully into it – the journey almost as important as the experience.
Lin here...just to add some specifics on the young people we saw: the Dutch or Austrian couple nearby – he was reading an English text on equality and justice, that looked very difficult! The older and larger Dutch guy, who was very friendly and the unusual American guy who clearly had Autistic tendencies: he would walk up and down the boat in a military style, raising a few smiles, which he was totally oblivious of. We noticed later in the journey that he was in deep conversation with a local lady and wondered if they were travelling together. An Austrian couple, who looked more Spanish or Italian, both very beautiful. They had been travelling like us for about 8 months and I shared experiences of Australia with them. We also bumped into them over breakfast on the ssecond morning. Then there were our card partners Thomas and Kateen, who had met up a couple of days earlier and who both had the same camera: she was in her early 30s and had recently received severance pay from one of the big banks, where she's worked as an accountant. She was hoping to travel for as long as possible and on more than one occasion mentioned never working again...maybe she seriously hoped to find a rich husband!! Thomas meanwhile is a 23 year old young Canadian with English father and Irish mother, He seems very mature and has just finished a university degree in geology and has a good job lined up in the oil business when he returns in September. We were interested to learn that Kateen's parents had adopted 3 Indian children and the whole family had travelled to India.
Back to Brent...
As the journey continued the occupants of the boat would find more comfortable positions. The seats we occupied were constructed out of simple timbers and were crude benches with upright backs so it was not possible to sit in them for long. Almost as soon as the journey started one man who was older began to walk up and down constantly to the point of irritation. He became known as the 'walking man ' Everyone else found positions on the floor of the boat – the majority discounting the seats so as to be able to stretch out. Time was occupied by reading, viewing the stunning scenery and in our case playing the odd game. The heat was only punctuated by the breeze coming off the water. As we contunued down the river a sort of meditative quiet descended on the boat and time slowed down.
Our journey reached its half way mark at a place called Pak Beng. This was to be our stop for the night. We had read in the guide book about this stopover being a bit of a free for all and were almost prepared for the onslaught. As the boat arrived at the landing stage between two other long boats it was ' boarded 'by many children from the adjacent boats. This felt very much like being taken over by pirates with children suddenly appearing amongst the leaving passengers and everyone holding tight to their belongings. This was then followed on disembarking by lots of people offering accommodation by holding up signs or pressing cards into your hand. At this point an iron will is needed to walk through and find your own bed for the night – usually at a lower price.
Pak Beng was one of those one street towns that wound its way up the hill. We climbed steadily looking for a double room and it wasn't long before we found one that had been mentioned in our guide book. On inspection it seemed clean with a ceiling fan. I went down to settle the money. Herein lies another story. Laos is a country which has experienced hyperinflation so denominations of the currency are in thousands – one pound being worth about 10,000 kip. We had not had time to visit a money machine since crossing the border so I ended up paying in the Thai currency ( Baht ). The change was given in kip – so was almost impossible for me to calculate whether i was getting a fair deal for the room and a fair deal for the currency. Laos accepts Baht, US dollars and kip interchangeably. Is one of those systems that ' does your head in ' and leaves you open to being overcharged.
Bill settled we went in search of food only to meet our friends from the boat Thomas and Kateen. They kindly invited us to share their table and we ordered food. The waiter was a young lad who was occcasionally listening to his i pod ( even in poor countries they seem to be the de rigeur necessity ) The food was basic but adequate. At about 10.30.pm the lights suddenly went out. The waiter brought over some candles. The strange thing was the cafe next door still had lights as did the one across the road.
Linda here:
We finished our food and beer and made our way back to our guesthouses. Luckily ours still had lights on, but just as I was taking out my contact lenses the lights went out... thank goodness for our headtorches!We managed to get sorted, but needless to say we had no electricity all night, so the fan was useless!
Friday 8th May
After a very average night's sleep we were up early, again taking Mrs Jib's advice about getting onto the boat early in case of an early departure. We found a lovely spot for breakfast which was incredible: we took a deal for the continental breakfast and there was so much food that we took a doggy bag away with us. We also took some freshly made sandwiches. By 8.15 we had put our stuff on the boat and grabbed some seats nearer the front of the boat. We then took a short walk to the tourist info. office, which we'd noticed near the landing stage. It turned out there were treks you could do from this village, but we had trouble imagining spending a second night there! In the end the boat didn't leave as planned at 9am but nearer to 10 and we then got back into 'the zone' relaxing into our trip. It was much hotter today and we both slept more than yesterday. Thomas and Kateen had invented a different version of Quiddler and we enjoyed trialling it. They are good company and we hope to keep in touch. One interesting stop today was when we parked up next to a very different vessel: this had comfy seats and pretty curtains and was clearly a 1st class version of the slow boat. As our team loaded on baskets of livestock, including a lot of chicken onto the roof, we watched a party of well dressed Chinese people board their boat. We noticed they carried only hand luggage and moments later local people appeared carrying suitcases some on their heads. We would have loved to find out more about this group but summised that we were witnissing a Chinese tour for wealthier people. They looked highly amused as they surveyed our boat from their luxurious seats! Around 5.30pm we began to notice more homes along the riverbanks and also spotted some caves, which later turned out to be a tourist attraction where lots of Buddha statues can be visited. Near a huge staircase we dropped off the last of the local travellers and just a few minutes later at 6pm found ourselves docking in Luang Prabang. Tuk Tuks and taxi drivers once again assailed us all as we climbed up the steep bank and once again we managed to make our way through them and to wander along one of the main streets in search of several earmarked guest houses. One more persistant young man on a bicycle, wanted us to look at 'his' guesthouse. He waited while we approached the Mekong Riiverside guesthouse, which was on our list. There we were offered a room for $64!! Another couple overheard the price and like us were gob smacked! We continued along the road with the aforementioned young man, who explained that the Mekong was owned by a wealthy French man, and not local people. 'His' place was local and much cheaper, he said. We decided to have a look. He showed us to a room quoting $35 for the night. The room was quite beautiful with polished teak floor, large bathroom, huge bed, air con, flat screen TV and furnished balcony and although the price was higher than we wanted to pay, we decided to take it for the night. Our young friend explained that there were cheaper rooms we could look at the next day. We got settled in and wandered down to the main street, where we had an average Indian meal in a local restaurant. Then we spent about half an hour exploring the night market, which looks good. We were just bartering over a wall hanging, when Kateen and Thomas appeared and we had a nice chat. Turned out the Kateen was off to Ventiane the next day, while Thomas was going to spend a bit more time in Luang Prabang. Back at the guesthouse I had a pretty disturbed night, despite the apparent luxury and next morning Brent headed off to scout some other guesthouses, while I had a bit of a lie in, enjoying the room. In the end we asked to see one of the cheaper rooms, at $12: this proved to be very comfortable...no TV but more efficient air con and shower and we decided to look no further. We'd certainly recommend the Sok Dee Residency to any of our readers!
Friday, 8 May 2009
Northern Thailand and into Laos
Hello again dear reader,
Forgot to mention a very interesting conversation we had as we were walking along on Thursday. Brent was asking Dat about how old people were looked after in the villages and this lead to Dat asking about what happened at home. We said how as a nation we felt we were not very good at this and talked about old people's homes etc. Dat was clearly horrified by this. He explained that your parents spend years looking after you and then, it's your turn to look after them as they get older. He just couldn't understand why this didn't happen at home. I explained about young people moving out of their parent's home when they studied or got married, but he still didn't understand. Have to say we were humbled by his approach and the young people with us were all very quiet...actually none of them commented! Food for thought eh?
Saturday May 2nd
Well we had a nice night last night to finish off our trek: we met up with everyone near to the night market and enjoyed a nice meal with everyone. We got through a fair bit of ale...especially Ben and Jenny tee hee! and were the last to leave the restaurant. Ben wanted to catch the end of a thai boxing contest and Nicola and Karen headed off with him, while the rest of us headed back for a good night's sleep. I'd been very sad to pick up the news that my aunie Marie had died and have to say I really felt a long way from home tonight. I kept thinking of her during the night and didnt sleep well: I really wanted to catch up with my sisters!
This morning we had a lay in and got some organizing done, before wandering down to explore a different part of town: the riverside. This was very pleasant and we saw some lively looking bars and a restaurant that had been recommended by Nicola. On the way back we decided we were hungry and stopped for a snack, which proved to be a full meal! We stopped at a little cafe just around the corner from Eagle house, where we are staying: we were met by a lovely local lady and ordered a soup and a stir fry meal, both of which turned out to be huge and lovely and very filling. With 2 beers the bill came to under £3...wish we'd found this earlier. After leaving the cafe we struck up a conversation with some newly arrived travellers, who turned out to be a portuguese guy and a Spanish girl and both very lovely! I was very pleased to be able to get on line at an internet cafe and to catch up with Jan and Barb. Just speaking to them made me feel better and tonight I'm able to focus on remembering all the good times we had with auntie.
Sunday 3rd May
I spoke to Shirl today, which was good and I'm also catching Gaz and Steph on facebook, so that's good. Simon also caught up with us, which is great. We decided to visit one of the famous Chiang Mai temples today and used a taxi to get up to it. We were going to be charged 40 baht for the single journey and 80 for the return. We were worried that the driver might disappear with our money, so I suggested that we pay half on arrival. Were we surprised when she just waved us off without any payment after asking how long we wanted!!
Wat Doi Suthep is at the top of a hill and there were great views of the city on the way up to it. There were also lots of locals out and about visiting the zoo, botanical gardens and other temples on our route. When we got to the temple we were pleasantly surprised to see the Spanish speaking couple from yesterday at the base of the staircase leading to the temple. We had a nice chat with them. They had enjoyed the previous evening which they'd spent at the riverside ( we had been too knackered to go back there!!). There were lots of stalls at the base of the staircase and it was very busy. The actual temple was very ornate, to the point of being gaudiesque. Queues of followers waited to pour oil into bowls to keep lighted oil burners alight, others offered flowers to the various Buddhas, others walked around the golden towers with loads of flowers to offer... all very interesting and a bit overwhelming. It was lovely to discover an open area, where first of all we saw the traditional row of bells, then some beautiful trees with great views. We sat here and had a drink before venturing back down where we decided to buy a few bits and bobs from the traders. As soon as we reached the bottom of the staircase our driver spotted us and drove us back. The Thai people really restore your faith in people. After a quick break at the guest house we wandered down to the night market, which once again we found a bit overwhelming: we did spot our Spanish speaking friends from afar, but quickly gave up the search for shorts etc and settled into an Italian restaurant, which served reasonable pizza and pasta... a nice change. We also picked up a box from the post office, ready to post off our sleeping bags, bedrolls etc. Then wandered down to the saloon bar to watch some footie on TV. Here we got chatting to a very interesting guy, who bought us a drink...I drank G&Ts tonight as a change from the beer. He had family in England, but had lived all over the place. Canada seemed to be his home but his daughter lives in Switzerland. He was no longer with his wife and actually, despite being very wealthy, didn't seem too happy. He'd made his money as a trouble shooter in the Nuclear energy business and was now retired. He enjoyed the adrenalin rush and had done all sorts of things. He was a qualified dive instructor and had run a business in Hawaii doing this. He had also been a very competent skier.
Monday May 4th
Our last day in Chiang Mai . We got up and finished our packing before heading to the bus station, where we picked up a bus to Chiang Rai. This proved to be very comfortable. We were given a drink of water and wafer biscuits by the 'bus hostess' who was lovely. The bus had air con and the 3 hour journey flew past. Suddenly the bus stopped and we realised we were there! As we were climbing off the bus we were assailed by tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting to drive us into chiang Rai. Brent was very impressive: he shook them all off and went to ask at the info desk, only to discover that for 10baht we could get a taxi /bus into the city. We did this and then walked along to find the guest house which we'd booked on line. On the way we stopped in a wonderful air conditioned cafe...recommened in the Rough Guide, called ....... We then found the Chat House. Have to say I did think it would have been easier to get a taxi...they are so cheap and it's so hot! Still when we got there we were chuffed with the room: it was a lot more comfortable that Eagle House with air con that worked and a lovely communal area, which was quite busy. After settling in we walked up to the night market. Unfortunately as we arrived I was desperate for the loo, so we decided we'd have to have a beer in the bar / restaurant opposite the night bazaar. The Ayes bar proved to be a good find, and we stayed there and ate another lovely meal, which set us up for a stroll through the night market. This was much more civilised than chaing Mai's market, with fewer people and a stage with live music. I bought a gypsy style skirt, which I'm very pleased with for £4.
Tuesday 5th April
Today we explored the nearby temple of the Emerald Buddha, which was very lovely. After we'd explored the museum there we sat outside on a bench to cool down and one of the buddhist priests came along and offered us some Lychees, picked freshly... they were gorgeous! Visiting the temples certainly made us reflect on religion and its importance to people the world over: I (Linda) had naively thought that Buddhism was more a way of life than a religion, but having seen so many people worshipping the buddhas in the temples, as well as all the ritual aspects of the religion, I have realised that it is very like all other religions I'm familiar with... and it seems that many humans need to have something to look up to.
We then continued to the tribal village museum, attached to the Cabbages and Condom restaurant ( also in the Rough Guide1). This had 2 lifesize models – Santa and Captain Condom, made totally out of condoms!! Looked like it could be a fun place to th eat in the evenings, with live music, but we were too tired to walk all that way again! We chose to eat at our guest house and very nice it was too.
Wednesday 6th May
Walked down to the bus station and were speedily directed to the Chiang Khong bus. We had a bit of time, so Brent popped out for provisions. This bus wasnt air conditioned but had lots of fans and open windows, so was fine. When we reached our destination after about 3 hours we were immediately approacched by a tuk tuk driver, who explained that the town was actually 2k away. We took him at his word and he drove us to our next guest house. We'd hoped to stay at the bamboo riverside guest house, which Toe back in France had mentioned. It turned out to have closed down, so we used the Baan Tam Mi La instead. On arrival we were shown a list of prices. The room with aircon at 600 baht, seemed a bit expensive I£12) but we went to have a look at it and it was lovely, so we stayed. There was a hammock out on the veranda, a view of the river and a large bathroom with a good shower, as well as a king size very comfy bed and Tv ( mostly in Thai). After settling in we had a wander as usual, but this time with a purpose: we wanted to find Mr Jib and his wife Doe, Toe's friends. We were chuffed when we asked our host about them as she immediately knew who we meant. It turned out that they now run a coffee shop just 2 doors away. We introduced ourselves to Doe, who was thrilled to hear about Toe. Apparently she and her husband visited Toe and his family in Vias some time ago so we were able to talk about the village.. This couple explained that they had given up the guest house at the right time, before recession hit. They said that there had been fewer travellers this year and they were cleaarly just beginning to get established in their new business. Mr Jib arrived, a hippy looking cool guy on his scooter. He made us laugh talking about the French and their baguettes! After a very good coffee, smoothie and piece of home made banana cake, we left this lovely couple. We told them we'd see them tomorrow to buy provisions for our trip down the Mekong. We then walked down to the immigration area and sussed out how the system worked ready for tomorrow's journey. We enjoyed a stroll back along the riverside, where a huge path / cycle way is looking a bit the worse for wear, but which had some lovey views of the river. Back at the guest house we had quite a nice meal befoe getting an early night.
Thursday 7th...Happy 40th birthday Steve!!!
Up and out before 8am, We had scrambled eggs at the guest house and picked up sandwiches and cake from Mrs Jib. Whille Brent, who was panicking as usual on trnasit days, went off in search of more baht, Mr Jib gave me some sound advice re. the slow boad: he said it was cheapest to make our own way to the pier in Houxxai in Laos, to pick up the slow boat. Also suggested we sit near the front of the boat, in case of rain. What a nice couple! We said our goodbyes and headed off on the next stage of our adventure!
Despite the long queues at immigration we managed to get the ferry across into Laos with plenty of time . The vendors of all inclusive tickets for tuk tuks and the boat seemed disappointed when we waved them off but we took the given advice and made our own way to the pier. We were nice and early on to the ferry and it was almost an hour later that the huge crowd joined us on the boat... we'd saved a few baht too...always a good thing! Now here we are on the Mekong... we've just had a game of quiddler with a Canadian guy and US girl sittig behind us...that was fun. There's a clear blue sky above and a pleasant breeze blowing and we can't quite believe we are here...fantastic
Forgot to mention a very interesting conversation we had as we were walking along on Thursday. Brent was asking Dat about how old people were looked after in the villages and this lead to Dat asking about what happened at home. We said how as a nation we felt we were not very good at this and talked about old people's homes etc. Dat was clearly horrified by this. He explained that your parents spend years looking after you and then, it's your turn to look after them as they get older. He just couldn't understand why this didn't happen at home. I explained about young people moving out of their parent's home when they studied or got married, but he still didn't understand. Have to say we were humbled by his approach and the young people with us were all very quiet...actually none of them commented! Food for thought eh?
Saturday May 2nd
Well we had a nice night last night to finish off our trek: we met up with everyone near to the night market and enjoyed a nice meal with everyone. We got through a fair bit of ale...especially Ben and Jenny tee hee! and were the last to leave the restaurant. Ben wanted to catch the end of a thai boxing contest and Nicola and Karen headed off with him, while the rest of us headed back for a good night's sleep. I'd been very sad to pick up the news that my aunie Marie had died and have to say I really felt a long way from home tonight. I kept thinking of her during the night and didnt sleep well: I really wanted to catch up with my sisters!
This morning we had a lay in and got some organizing done, before wandering down to explore a different part of town: the riverside. This was very pleasant and we saw some lively looking bars and a restaurant that had been recommended by Nicola. On the way back we decided we were hungry and stopped for a snack, which proved to be a full meal! We stopped at a little cafe just around the corner from Eagle house, where we are staying: we were met by a lovely local lady and ordered a soup and a stir fry meal, both of which turned out to be huge and lovely and very filling. With 2 beers the bill came to under £3...wish we'd found this earlier. After leaving the cafe we struck up a conversation with some newly arrived travellers, who turned out to be a portuguese guy and a Spanish girl and both very lovely! I was very pleased to be able to get on line at an internet cafe and to catch up with Jan and Barb. Just speaking to them made me feel better and tonight I'm able to focus on remembering all the good times we had with auntie.
Sunday 3rd May
I spoke to Shirl today, which was good and I'm also catching Gaz and Steph on facebook, so that's good. Simon also caught up with us, which is great. We decided to visit one of the famous Chiang Mai temples today and used a taxi to get up to it. We were going to be charged 40 baht for the single journey and 80 for the return. We were worried that the driver might disappear with our money, so I suggested that we pay half on arrival. Were we surprised when she just waved us off without any payment after asking how long we wanted!!
Wat Doi Suthep is at the top of a hill and there were great views of the city on the way up to it. There were also lots of locals out and about visiting the zoo, botanical gardens and other temples on our route. When we got to the temple we were pleasantly surprised to see the Spanish speaking couple from yesterday at the base of the staircase leading to the temple. We had a nice chat with them. They had enjoyed the previous evening which they'd spent at the riverside ( we had been too knackered to go back there!!). There were lots of stalls at the base of the staircase and it was very busy. The actual temple was very ornate, to the point of being gaudiesque. Queues of followers waited to pour oil into bowls to keep lighted oil burners alight, others offered flowers to the various Buddhas, others walked around the golden towers with loads of flowers to offer... all very interesting and a bit overwhelming. It was lovely to discover an open area, where first of all we saw the traditional row of bells, then some beautiful trees with great views. We sat here and had a drink before venturing back down where we decided to buy a few bits and bobs from the traders. As soon as we reached the bottom of the staircase our driver spotted us and drove us back. The Thai people really restore your faith in people. After a quick break at the guest house we wandered down to the night market, which once again we found a bit overwhelming: we did spot our Spanish speaking friends from afar, but quickly gave up the search for shorts etc and settled into an Italian restaurant, which served reasonable pizza and pasta... a nice change. We also picked up a box from the post office, ready to post off our sleeping bags, bedrolls etc. Then wandered down to the saloon bar to watch some footie on TV. Here we got chatting to a very interesting guy, who bought us a drink...I drank G&Ts tonight as a change from the beer. He had family in England, but had lived all over the place. Canada seemed to be his home but his daughter lives in Switzerland. He was no longer with his wife and actually, despite being very wealthy, didn't seem too happy. He'd made his money as a trouble shooter in the Nuclear energy business and was now retired. He enjoyed the adrenalin rush and had done all sorts of things. He was a qualified dive instructor and had run a business in Hawaii doing this. He had also been a very competent skier.
Monday May 4th
Our last day in Chiang Mai . We got up and finished our packing before heading to the bus station, where we picked up a bus to Chiang Rai. This proved to be very comfortable. We were given a drink of water and wafer biscuits by the 'bus hostess' who was lovely. The bus had air con and the 3 hour journey flew past. Suddenly the bus stopped and we realised we were there! As we were climbing off the bus we were assailed by tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting to drive us into chiang Rai. Brent was very impressive: he shook them all off and went to ask at the info desk, only to discover that for 10baht we could get a taxi /bus into the city. We did this and then walked along to find the guest house which we'd booked on line. On the way we stopped in a wonderful air conditioned cafe...recommened in the Rough Guide, called ....... We then found the Chat House. Have to say I did think it would have been easier to get a taxi...they are so cheap and it's so hot! Still when we got there we were chuffed with the room: it was a lot more comfortable that Eagle House with air con that worked and a lovely communal area, which was quite busy. After settling in we walked up to the night market. Unfortunately as we arrived I was desperate for the loo, so we decided we'd have to have a beer in the bar / restaurant opposite the night bazaar. The Ayes bar proved to be a good find, and we stayed there and ate another lovely meal, which set us up for a stroll through the night market. This was much more civilised than chaing Mai's market, with fewer people and a stage with live music. I bought a gypsy style skirt, which I'm very pleased with for £4.
Tuesday 5th April
Today we explored the nearby temple of the Emerald Buddha, which was very lovely. After we'd explored the museum there we sat outside on a bench to cool down and one of the buddhist priests came along and offered us some Lychees, picked freshly... they were gorgeous! Visiting the temples certainly made us reflect on religion and its importance to people the world over: I (Linda) had naively thought that Buddhism was more a way of life than a religion, but having seen so many people worshipping the buddhas in the temples, as well as all the ritual aspects of the religion, I have realised that it is very like all other religions I'm familiar with... and it seems that many humans need to have something to look up to.
We then continued to the tribal village museum, attached to the Cabbages and Condom restaurant ( also in the Rough Guide1). This had 2 lifesize models – Santa and Captain Condom, made totally out of condoms!! Looked like it could be a fun place to th eat in the evenings, with live music, but we were too tired to walk all that way again! We chose to eat at our guest house and very nice it was too.
Wednesday 6th May
Walked down to the bus station and were speedily directed to the Chiang Khong bus. We had a bit of time, so Brent popped out for provisions. This bus wasnt air conditioned but had lots of fans and open windows, so was fine. When we reached our destination after about 3 hours we were immediately approacched by a tuk tuk driver, who explained that the town was actually 2k away. We took him at his word and he drove us to our next guest house. We'd hoped to stay at the bamboo riverside guest house, which Toe back in France had mentioned. It turned out to have closed down, so we used the Baan Tam Mi La instead. On arrival we were shown a list of prices. The room with aircon at 600 baht, seemed a bit expensive I£12) but we went to have a look at it and it was lovely, so we stayed. There was a hammock out on the veranda, a view of the river and a large bathroom with a good shower, as well as a king size very comfy bed and Tv ( mostly in Thai). After settling in we had a wander as usual, but this time with a purpose: we wanted to find Mr Jib and his wife Doe, Toe's friends. We were chuffed when we asked our host about them as she immediately knew who we meant. It turned out that they now run a coffee shop just 2 doors away. We introduced ourselves to Doe, who was thrilled to hear about Toe. Apparently she and her husband visited Toe and his family in Vias some time ago so we were able to talk about the village.. This couple explained that they had given up the guest house at the right time, before recession hit. They said that there had been fewer travellers this year and they were cleaarly just beginning to get established in their new business. Mr Jib arrived, a hippy looking cool guy on his scooter. He made us laugh talking about the French and their baguettes! After a very good coffee, smoothie and piece of home made banana cake, we left this lovely couple. We told them we'd see them tomorrow to buy provisions for our trip down the Mekong. We then walked down to the immigration area and sussed out how the system worked ready for tomorrow's journey. We enjoyed a stroll back along the riverside, where a huge path / cycle way is looking a bit the worse for wear, but which had some lovey views of the river. Back at the guest house we had quite a nice meal befoe getting an early night.
Thursday 7th...Happy 40th birthday Steve!!!
Up and out before 8am, We had scrambled eggs at the guest house and picked up sandwiches and cake from Mrs Jib. Whille Brent, who was panicking as usual on trnasit days, went off in search of more baht, Mr Jib gave me some sound advice re. the slow boad: he said it was cheapest to make our own way to the pier in Houxxai in Laos, to pick up the slow boat. Also suggested we sit near the front of the boat, in case of rain. What a nice couple! We said our goodbyes and headed off on the next stage of our adventure!
Despite the long queues at immigration we managed to get the ferry across into Laos with plenty of time . The vendors of all inclusive tickets for tuk tuks and the boat seemed disappointed when we waved them off but we took the given advice and made our own way to the pier. We were nice and early on to the ferry and it was almost an hour later that the huge crowd joined us on the boat... we'd saved a few baht too...always a good thing! Now here we are on the Mekong... we've just had a game of quiddler with a Canadian guy and US girl sittig behind us...that was fun. There's a clear blue sky above and a pleasant breeze blowing and we can't quite believe we are here...fantastic
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
photos...
We seem to have a lot of problems uploading photos, but I'll try to put on a few now to give you a flavour of our trek, which was very special
3 Day Trek
Wednesday 29th – Friday 1st May – our 3 day trek:
Ready and waiting at 9am we were picked up by Dat, one of our guides for the 3 days: an attractive young man, who wore a blue and white striped scarf, Arabian style. We jumped onto one of the red taxis that we'd seen about and met 5 of our group. We then picked up an American girl who had just arrived at her smart hotel. Finally we picked up Sang, our second guide. The final member of the local team was a pretty Thai girl, who didn't seem to have much English and certainly didn't come across as very confident. it was a pity we weren't introduced to her as it was only after a day or so that we managed to find out her name (Loo).
As we drove along Brent and I started chatting to folk...
THE GROUP
Ben:
After finishing his A levels Ben had been volunteering in India, teaching English to poorer tribal children aged 5, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to pass the examinations to enter school. He had gained 4 x A's at A level and will be going to Newcastle in the Autumn to study medecine. His father is a surgeon and his mum a GP...enough said. A very nice, well spoken young man, who was proficient in skiing and scuba diving, amongst other things.
Tess and Georgia:
These 2 young girls have just finished A levels and will be starting at Bristol Uni in September. Tess is going to study ancient history and Georgia Italian. Tess's father is a farmer and her mum “an architect come Interior Designer.” We didn't find out what Georgia's family did for a living. The pair were school friends and had attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. They reckoned 75% of kids their age took a gap year, but we reckooned that would be 75% of the girls from their college!
Nicola and Karen:
Nicola is 27 and Karen 29.Both live in Manchester. Since uni Nicola has been working in social work with Domestic violence. She now wants a change and may try to move into forensics psychology. Karen got part way through a PGCE before deciding that teaching wasn't for her. She is now in nursing. This pair have been travelling in SE Asia for a while (about 4 months) and will be moving on to NZ. We were able to give each other tips, which was good.
Jenny:
Jenny is half Taiwanese, and has lived in Hawaii. She is now settled in LA. She has taken a 10 day holiday in Chiang Mai and the trek is part of her break. She is training in chiropractic medecine and acupuncture. Her boyfriend is also training in alternative medecine.Both are nearing the end of their Masters degrees.
Our first stop on the journey was at a local market. This was packed with stalls selling everything from chillies to fried insects and like most of the Thai markets was an assault on the senses. We had a wonder around for a while and Dat and Sang bought some supplies to cook our meals. Back into the open taxi we headed into the hills. The road wound around higher and higher swinging us around in the back – fortunately there was a central bar to hang onto. After a while we stopped at one of the Thai National Parks where we were due to visit a waterfall. Everyone changed into swimming costumes before heading along a short walk to a double fall. We were first in and followed the example of another group who were standing under the full force of the water as it dropped about 20 metres. Was very refreshing on a hot day if a little painful on the shoulders. It wan't long before everyone else joined in screaming and splashing in the cascading water. Cameras were exchanged and many photos taken. Our guides looking like camera salesmen when the group photo was taken... We headed back to the taxi and shorty after stopped for a noodle lunch at a roadside 'service station'after changing again headed off on our journey to the start of the walk. At this point we all had our own small rucksacks and followed our guides along a small track through bamboo groves. Dat explained the value of bamboo to local tribal groups explaining how it was essential for all aspects of their life. Eventually we came to a clearing in the forest where we saw our first example of the rice fields which had the characteristic banked sides. This was the dry season though so none of them were flooded and we walked along the edge of the terraces. Our journey continued on until we eventually smelt the sulphurous stench of thermal activity. This brought back memories of New Zealand and Rotorua where rotten eggs permeated the air. After a short journey off the main track we came to some hot bubbling springs. The steam rose in hot plumes and the water boiled out of the ground. A good photo stop. The surprising thing about this area is that it had been developed as quite an up market spa , with posh hotel. Our guides explained that honeymoon couples would come here and there were two private plunge pools lower down the hill where people could bath in the warm waters.
By now it was getting to late afternoon and our walk continued up steep hills getting more arduous. Silence descended on the group as we all concentrated on our feet and fell into our own thoughts. At the top of the hill Dat cheerily announced ' no more uphill now ' surprisingly he proved to be right and we wound our way down into the first tribal village and our stopping place for the night. As we entered we spotted cattle underneath the homes, which were on stilts. We were shown to our 'hotel' and were pleasantly surprised at how airy and comfy it was: the bamboo floor had roll out mattresses with pillows ready for us. Each area had a mosquito net, which was good news. We also had electricity and Dat later explained that the government had supplies 2 solar panels to the villagers at no cost. (Back at Eagle House Annette reckoned that the cost of running the electricity meant that some of the villagers needed to leave the village to find work... she clearly didn't approve and mentioned the rubbish on TV that they were watching). As soon as we arrived our 3 guides got stuck in preparing food. We decided to help and Jenny joined us. It was fun helping out and we couldn't believe how much frest food had been brought up. When we sat down to eat it was to a wonderful range of beautiful Thai food.We sat around chatting after dinner and Sang told us the first of many jokes..
a lizard, a frog and a centipede sat around drinking coke, water and whisky. After a while they ran out. The lizard went to get more coke, the frog more water and the centipede more whisky. An hour later the lizard and frog were back with no sign of the centipede. 'Mr Centipee!' shouted Mr Lizard, where are you with that whisky?' ...
'I haven't left yet,' replied Mr Centipede, 'I'm still getting my shoes on!;
Sang then proceeded to explain his joke...which he did every time he told one and which made ech joke even funnier!! He is such a lovely guy.
Much later the weather broke it and started to pour with rain. Nicola, Karen and i were bursting for the loo and luckily the rain stopped and off they went with our head torch to light the way. I followed and had a really scary experience: I dropped the torch and the rain started pelting down again, so that I was trapped in a pitch dark very basic toilet and couldn't find the lock! I groped around scared that I might find a creepy crawly...luckily I managed to find the lock and escape.But it was truly horrid. I felt bad telling Sang that the Happy Room ( as he called the loo) hadn't been a happy experience for me! Off to bed and quite a good night's sleep.
Thursday 30th
Our next day was to be our first sighting of elephants and anticipation was high. We were due to walk for the first part of the morning. The noises which greeted us at dawn built up gradually. The cockerel was the first to start and the one living directly under us was quickly echoed by others further down the valley. This was then followed by numerous insects and other domestic animals – dogs, pigs and cattle. Our hosts greeted us with breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, toast and a locally made tea. This set us up for our walk.Before setting of we were shown around the village. It is occupied by about 10 families from the Karen tribe who are very skilled with textiles. We say one woman spinning wool. Another was busy sifting rice. The children were having fun underneath some of the buildings and we were very pleased that everyone had a smile for us and basically got on with their lives, so that we didn't feel too intrusive. We were very impressed by the villagers fruit and veg gardens which stretched up the hills. Each family had its own area, it's own cattle, pigs and chickens. As for the walk, it was definitely harder than I had anticipated. The heat of the day built to a great intensity and the slopes were steep. Combined with the heat of the day it wasnt long before sweat was pouring off me ( Brent )...me too...(Linda)
Our first morning stop was at a village where we all revivied ourselves with water and a deserved rest. Had an interesting discussion with Dat who commented on the church as we headed out and up the hill. He talked about his own beliefs in Animism – which surprised me as he seemed such a modern guy. His English was good but not enough for him to go into more detail which was a pity.
The trek continued and to be honest was more of an endurance test. The rainforest flora and fauna had been somewhat disappointing. We had seen no wild animals and heard and seen very few birds. I queried Dat on this and he said it was unlikely that we would see any – they are secretive. He claimed there were monkeys, deer, anteaters and armadillo – suspected that hunting may have taken its toll too.
Just after mid day we were heading down hiil and close to the place where we would do our trek. Dat began to point out places where the elephants had trodden and we started to spot the large dollops of dung. Anticipation grew
Lin here: Jenny and I had been following close behind the front group but had stopped for an extra drink of water. jenny was telling me about her last trek in South America, where there'd only been one guide. she said that one of the party had suffered altitude sickness and this had lead to the group spltting up, which in turn lead to a group getting lost in the jungle. Scary, I thought.... 2 minutes later we came to a point where 2 paths met and had no idea which to take. We looked for prints and then shouted out to Dat and co.. but no reply! Luckily Nicola was bringing up the rear with Sang and Loo... so we sat tight and waited for them... This just proved the point that Jenny had been making about how crucial it is to have more that one guide!
We arrived at the elephant camp and had Pad Thai for lunch. We then had over an hour before the elephant ride. Several of us felt really tired so went and had a lay down in the guest hut. This really revived us. At 3pm the elephants arrived!! Great excitement.. Mounting them proved pretty easy – there was a ladder and platform and we sat in pairs, brent and I together, on wooden seats. Our elephant took the lead and It was just amazing. The huge animal had such strength and was so sure footed. We'd just got settled when it started to go down quite a steep hill into the river. Scary! But we soon realised it was very safe. We were able to turn and watch the others and really enjoyed watching the baby elephant (apparentlly 4 years old). It was kind of like watching a cheeky little kid: every time it was pulled into the river it would fall down onto its side to cool off and the leader would have to yell at it and give ithe rope a yank or 2 to get it back up..Ater a while we felt very comfortable and loved listening to our leader humming and siniging some lovely Thai tunes. We started to sing ourselves and he then struck up conversation... the power of music eh? he told us that our elephant was 46 years oldf We had a young lad of about 9 sitting in front of us, with his legs behind the elephant's ears. He was swiping off flies which kept landing and biting the poor elephant! About half way through the ride the leader asked him to change position and he sat directly on the elephant's head!!! Amazing. We were really sad when we saw the landing platform after about an hour.. what wonderful animals these are. After a short walk we arrived at our second village, also occupied by a hill tribe and this time our hut ( the guest hut, which like the other one is used for visiting friends and tourists), overlooked the river. Like the other village, all the buildings were built on stilts and this one had a kind of veranda, where we could dangle our legs and watch some kids enjoying the water. This was very brown, we guessed cos of the rain...needless to say we chose to shower rather than swim in it. Almost as soon as we arrived we were aware of singing...kids and adults alike seemed to be natural singers, which was great.
We took it in turns to shower before dinner: Jenny went first and had to ask how to do this, as the toilet simply contained a toilet and 2 barrels, unlike yesterday's which had had a basic shower too. Turned out we simply ladled out the clean, cold water from the barrel to shower. Actually it was very refreshing!
We were very tires after our busy 2 days and by the time we thought to offer to help with food our lovely guides had already got things organised. As there was no electricity here we lit candles and enjoyed another nice meal. One of the locals had a guitar and after dinner we were thrilled to listen to him singing as he strummed. He had a lovely voice and we really enjoyed the entertainment . One of the local families with twins of about 16 months and an older child of maybe 6 really enjoyed the entertainment too and made me think of Eve and Jake back home: they loved to dance and had such beautiful smiles. Later Sang taught us the elephant song, which begins Chang, Chang, Chang... lots of fun. We all had to use our arms as trunks... After a couple of rounds Sang got the men around the table up to do a 'male' version of the song...I'll leave the detail to your imagination. We then spent a lovely night singing with some of the villagers and sharing songs. The Beatles proved a big hit ... we even knew most of the words! The Chang beer certainly helped everyone's confidence and even Tess and Georgia took the lead on some songs...Great.
Friday 1st May
The dawn chorus greeted us again and I got up around 7am to sit with Jenny on our veranda and watch 2 villagers who were clearly building our rafts. This was unbelievable! They were so skilled and we couldn't believe how quickly they did it. Breakfast arrived ( omelette thistime) and we then packed up our stuff and got onto the rafts before 10am. This was another fantastic experience: we spent over 2 hours rafting down the river on 2 bamboo rafts about 4foot across by 4metres long. All our bags were tied on at the front and we had one local at the front and Dat at the back, while the other group had Sang at the front and Ben at the rear... Brent took quite a long stint at the back and we all had a go at the punting...not as easy as it looks. I found the raft pretty comfortable and took turns sitting on it and standing alternately. The views were fabulous and it was a lot of fun watching the other raft. The weather started off sunny then turned to a lovely warm rain... we saw a couple of locals on the riverbank: one guy was hunting, with his dog and rifle, while some women were gathering plants. The range of basil is particularly impressive and we are just starting to recognise the different plants now.
Back on dry land we clambered back into the truck for the drive back into town... all felt very tired but very satisfied. We arranged to meet later for dinner and rushed to our hostels / hotel ( jenny) for the best shower ever!!!
Ready and waiting at 9am we were picked up by Dat, one of our guides for the 3 days: an attractive young man, who wore a blue and white striped scarf, Arabian style. We jumped onto one of the red taxis that we'd seen about and met 5 of our group. We then picked up an American girl who had just arrived at her smart hotel. Finally we picked up Sang, our second guide. The final member of the local team was a pretty Thai girl, who didn't seem to have much English and certainly didn't come across as very confident. it was a pity we weren't introduced to her as it was only after a day or so that we managed to find out her name (Loo).
As we drove along Brent and I started chatting to folk...
THE GROUP
Ben:
After finishing his A levels Ben had been volunteering in India, teaching English to poorer tribal children aged 5, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to pass the examinations to enter school. He had gained 4 x A's at A level and will be going to Newcastle in the Autumn to study medecine. His father is a surgeon and his mum a GP...enough said. A very nice, well spoken young man, who was proficient in skiing and scuba diving, amongst other things.
Tess and Georgia:
These 2 young girls have just finished A levels and will be starting at Bristol Uni in September. Tess is going to study ancient history and Georgia Italian. Tess's father is a farmer and her mum “an architect come Interior Designer.” We didn't find out what Georgia's family did for a living. The pair were school friends and had attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. They reckoned 75% of kids their age took a gap year, but we reckooned that would be 75% of the girls from their college!
Nicola and Karen:
Nicola is 27 and Karen 29.Both live in Manchester. Since uni Nicola has been working in social work with Domestic violence. She now wants a change and may try to move into forensics psychology. Karen got part way through a PGCE before deciding that teaching wasn't for her. She is now in nursing. This pair have been travelling in SE Asia for a while (about 4 months) and will be moving on to NZ. We were able to give each other tips, which was good.
Jenny:
Jenny is half Taiwanese, and has lived in Hawaii. She is now settled in LA. She has taken a 10 day holiday in Chiang Mai and the trek is part of her break. She is training in chiropractic medecine and acupuncture. Her boyfriend is also training in alternative medecine.Both are nearing the end of their Masters degrees.
Our first stop on the journey was at a local market. This was packed with stalls selling everything from chillies to fried insects and like most of the Thai markets was an assault on the senses. We had a wonder around for a while and Dat and Sang bought some supplies to cook our meals. Back into the open taxi we headed into the hills. The road wound around higher and higher swinging us around in the back – fortunately there was a central bar to hang onto. After a while we stopped at one of the Thai National Parks where we were due to visit a waterfall. Everyone changed into swimming costumes before heading along a short walk to a double fall. We were first in and followed the example of another group who were standing under the full force of the water as it dropped about 20 metres. Was very refreshing on a hot day if a little painful on the shoulders. It wan't long before everyone else joined in screaming and splashing in the cascading water. Cameras were exchanged and many photos taken. Our guides looking like camera salesmen when the group photo was taken... We headed back to the taxi and shorty after stopped for a noodle lunch at a roadside 'service station'after changing again headed off on our journey to the start of the walk. At this point we all had our own small rucksacks and followed our guides along a small track through bamboo groves. Dat explained the value of bamboo to local tribal groups explaining how it was essential for all aspects of their life. Eventually we came to a clearing in the forest where we saw our first example of the rice fields which had the characteristic banked sides. This was the dry season though so none of them were flooded and we walked along the edge of the terraces. Our journey continued on until we eventually smelt the sulphurous stench of thermal activity. This brought back memories of New Zealand and Rotorua where rotten eggs permeated the air. After a short journey off the main track we came to some hot bubbling springs. The steam rose in hot plumes and the water boiled out of the ground. A good photo stop. The surprising thing about this area is that it had been developed as quite an up market spa , with posh hotel. Our guides explained that honeymoon couples would come here and there were two private plunge pools lower down the hill where people could bath in the warm waters.
By now it was getting to late afternoon and our walk continued up steep hills getting more arduous. Silence descended on the group as we all concentrated on our feet and fell into our own thoughts. At the top of the hill Dat cheerily announced ' no more uphill now ' surprisingly he proved to be right and we wound our way down into the first tribal village and our stopping place for the night. As we entered we spotted cattle underneath the homes, which were on stilts. We were shown to our 'hotel' and were pleasantly surprised at how airy and comfy it was: the bamboo floor had roll out mattresses with pillows ready for us. Each area had a mosquito net, which was good news. We also had electricity and Dat later explained that the government had supplies 2 solar panels to the villagers at no cost. (Back at Eagle House Annette reckoned that the cost of running the electricity meant that some of the villagers needed to leave the village to find work... she clearly didn't approve and mentioned the rubbish on TV that they were watching). As soon as we arrived our 3 guides got stuck in preparing food. We decided to help and Jenny joined us. It was fun helping out and we couldn't believe how much frest food had been brought up. When we sat down to eat it was to a wonderful range of beautiful Thai food.We sat around chatting after dinner and Sang told us the first of many jokes..
a lizard, a frog and a centipede sat around drinking coke, water and whisky. After a while they ran out. The lizard went to get more coke, the frog more water and the centipede more whisky. An hour later the lizard and frog were back with no sign of the centipede. 'Mr Centipee!' shouted Mr Lizard, where are you with that whisky?' ...
'I haven't left yet,' replied Mr Centipede, 'I'm still getting my shoes on!;
Sang then proceeded to explain his joke...which he did every time he told one and which made ech joke even funnier!! He is such a lovely guy.
Much later the weather broke it and started to pour with rain. Nicola, Karen and i were bursting for the loo and luckily the rain stopped and off they went with our head torch to light the way. I followed and had a really scary experience: I dropped the torch and the rain started pelting down again, so that I was trapped in a pitch dark very basic toilet and couldn't find the lock! I groped around scared that I might find a creepy crawly...luckily I managed to find the lock and escape.But it was truly horrid. I felt bad telling Sang that the Happy Room ( as he called the loo) hadn't been a happy experience for me! Off to bed and quite a good night's sleep.
Thursday 30th
Our next day was to be our first sighting of elephants and anticipation was high. We were due to walk for the first part of the morning. The noises which greeted us at dawn built up gradually. The cockerel was the first to start and the one living directly under us was quickly echoed by others further down the valley. This was then followed by numerous insects and other domestic animals – dogs, pigs and cattle. Our hosts greeted us with breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, toast and a locally made tea. This set us up for our walk.Before setting of we were shown around the village. It is occupied by about 10 families from the Karen tribe who are very skilled with textiles. We say one woman spinning wool. Another was busy sifting rice. The children were having fun underneath some of the buildings and we were very pleased that everyone had a smile for us and basically got on with their lives, so that we didn't feel too intrusive. We were very impressed by the villagers fruit and veg gardens which stretched up the hills. Each family had its own area, it's own cattle, pigs and chickens. As for the walk, it was definitely harder than I had anticipated. The heat of the day built to a great intensity and the slopes were steep. Combined with the heat of the day it wasnt long before sweat was pouring off me ( Brent )...me too...(Linda)
Our first morning stop was at a village where we all revivied ourselves with water and a deserved rest. Had an interesting discussion with Dat who commented on the church as we headed out and up the hill. He talked about his own beliefs in Animism – which surprised me as he seemed such a modern guy. His English was good but not enough for him to go into more detail which was a pity.
The trek continued and to be honest was more of an endurance test. The rainforest flora and fauna had been somewhat disappointing. We had seen no wild animals and heard and seen very few birds. I queried Dat on this and he said it was unlikely that we would see any – they are secretive. He claimed there were monkeys, deer, anteaters and armadillo – suspected that hunting may have taken its toll too.
Just after mid day we were heading down hiil and close to the place where we would do our trek. Dat began to point out places where the elephants had trodden and we started to spot the large dollops of dung. Anticipation grew
Lin here: Jenny and I had been following close behind the front group but had stopped for an extra drink of water. jenny was telling me about her last trek in South America, where there'd only been one guide. she said that one of the party had suffered altitude sickness and this had lead to the group spltting up, which in turn lead to a group getting lost in the jungle. Scary, I thought.... 2 minutes later we came to a point where 2 paths met and had no idea which to take. We looked for prints and then shouted out to Dat and co.. but no reply! Luckily Nicola was bringing up the rear with Sang and Loo... so we sat tight and waited for them... This just proved the point that Jenny had been making about how crucial it is to have more that one guide!
We arrived at the elephant camp and had Pad Thai for lunch. We then had over an hour before the elephant ride. Several of us felt really tired so went and had a lay down in the guest hut. This really revived us. At 3pm the elephants arrived!! Great excitement.. Mounting them proved pretty easy – there was a ladder and platform and we sat in pairs, brent and I together, on wooden seats. Our elephant took the lead and It was just amazing. The huge animal had such strength and was so sure footed. We'd just got settled when it started to go down quite a steep hill into the river. Scary! But we soon realised it was very safe. We were able to turn and watch the others and really enjoyed watching the baby elephant (apparentlly 4 years old). It was kind of like watching a cheeky little kid: every time it was pulled into the river it would fall down onto its side to cool off and the leader would have to yell at it and give ithe rope a yank or 2 to get it back up..Ater a while we felt very comfortable and loved listening to our leader humming and siniging some lovely Thai tunes. We started to sing ourselves and he then struck up conversation... the power of music eh? he told us that our elephant was 46 years oldf We had a young lad of about 9 sitting in front of us, with his legs behind the elephant's ears. He was swiping off flies which kept landing and biting the poor elephant! About half way through the ride the leader asked him to change position and he sat directly on the elephant's head!!! Amazing. We were really sad when we saw the landing platform after about an hour.. what wonderful animals these are. After a short walk we arrived at our second village, also occupied by a hill tribe and this time our hut ( the guest hut, which like the other one is used for visiting friends and tourists), overlooked the river. Like the other village, all the buildings were built on stilts and this one had a kind of veranda, where we could dangle our legs and watch some kids enjoying the water. This was very brown, we guessed cos of the rain...needless to say we chose to shower rather than swim in it. Almost as soon as we arrived we were aware of singing...kids and adults alike seemed to be natural singers, which was great.
We took it in turns to shower before dinner: Jenny went first and had to ask how to do this, as the toilet simply contained a toilet and 2 barrels, unlike yesterday's which had had a basic shower too. Turned out we simply ladled out the clean, cold water from the barrel to shower. Actually it was very refreshing!
We were very tires after our busy 2 days and by the time we thought to offer to help with food our lovely guides had already got things organised. As there was no electricity here we lit candles and enjoyed another nice meal. One of the locals had a guitar and after dinner we were thrilled to listen to him singing as he strummed. He had a lovely voice and we really enjoyed the entertainment . One of the local families with twins of about 16 months and an older child of maybe 6 really enjoyed the entertainment too and made me think of Eve and Jake back home: they loved to dance and had such beautiful smiles. Later Sang taught us the elephant song, which begins Chang, Chang, Chang... lots of fun. We all had to use our arms as trunks... After a couple of rounds Sang got the men around the table up to do a 'male' version of the song...I'll leave the detail to your imagination. We then spent a lovely night singing with some of the villagers and sharing songs. The Beatles proved a big hit ... we even knew most of the words! The Chang beer certainly helped everyone's confidence and even Tess and Georgia took the lead on some songs...Great.
Friday 1st May
The dawn chorus greeted us again and I got up around 7am to sit with Jenny on our veranda and watch 2 villagers who were clearly building our rafts. This was unbelievable! They were so skilled and we couldn't believe how quickly they did it. Breakfast arrived ( omelette thistime) and we then packed up our stuff and got onto the rafts before 10am. This was another fantastic experience: we spent over 2 hours rafting down the river on 2 bamboo rafts about 4foot across by 4metres long. All our bags were tied on at the front and we had one local at the front and Dat at the back, while the other group had Sang at the front and Ben at the rear... Brent took quite a long stint at the back and we all had a go at the punting...not as easy as it looks. I found the raft pretty comfortable and took turns sitting on it and standing alternately. The views were fabulous and it was a lot of fun watching the other raft. The weather started off sunny then turned to a lovely warm rain... we saw a couple of locals on the riverbank: one guy was hunting, with his dog and rifle, while some women were gathering plants. The range of basil is particularly impressive and we are just starting to recognise the different plants now.
Back on dry land we clambered back into the truck for the drive back into town... all felt very tired but very satisfied. We arranged to meet later for dinner and rushed to our hostels / hotel ( jenny) for the best shower ever!!!
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