Laos and Cambodia

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  Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Hello all
Sorry for massive delay in updating our blog!!!  We have been relaxing for the last few weeks with Pete, Ali, Helene and Steve, and before that we were rushing through Laos.  We have done so much since our last update.....

Northern Thailand was great, really liked Chiang Mai, beautiful city with lots to do and see nearby.  We headed to Laos via bus and boat.  We arrived in Chiang Khong after a long-ish bus journey and stayed there for one night before heading into Laos the next morning.  After I managed to fall down a bank with my rucksack on and graze myself all down one arm and both legs ( with a monk watching on), we found a lovely family run place to crash.  The boat from Thailand into Laos is literally only a five minute ride, customs and immigration were very basic, and the duty free shop was more of a shack.

We traveled by slow boat through northern Laos over two days, stopping off at Pak Beng for a night.  The boat was a lovely way to travel if you have the time, but the engine was exceptionally loud and as we were sat next to it for both days, it was pretty annoying by the end of the day.  Pak Beng was a lovely little village, that was worth the stop off just to stay in Savanah Guest House in the comfiest beds of the trip, with proper duvets and comfy pillows  - heaven (I miss my bed)!!! 

The boat arrived in Luang Prabang which was really pretty.  The architecture feels very European and familiar, with some pretty cafe's, restaurants and boutique shops, and the city is very clean.  We spent three nights there, which is plenty, then headed to Vang Vieng for two nights, a small town which is basically made up of one main street with lots of bars, restaurants and cafes that play episodes of Friends, the Simpson's and Family Guy.  The town generally caters for people that want to go tubing, rafting, caving etc in the surrounding area.  There is a river that runs along side the town and lots of caves in the surrounding mountains and hills.  The main attraction is the 'tubing', which involves hiring an inflated inner tractor tire tube, and floating down the river for 4-12 kilometers, with bars, swings and death slides along the way.  It is bizarre but lots of fun!!  We only had a day there so decided we should try some kayaking, tubing and caving in one day...... but once again we somehow signed up to something different than we thought we were buying. 

Slight nervous about the caving we first went to the ''elephant cave" that was literally a big hole in the rock face, very open, with a Buddha inside, our guide gave us some history of the cave, and I felt confident I could handle the caving malarky.  Next we were to go tubing, this should be fun, but the tubing turned out to be in a water cave, the entrance to which was very small and narrow, and it looked black inside.  I noted to the guide that the entrance looked very small, and he assured me it would be bigger inside.  So Mike strapped his mining light to his head (only one per couple - great, and with a apparently 'water safe' battery with loosed wiring etc round his chest), and climbed into our tubes.  Firstly when the guide said the cave opened up, he was lying, it opened up by a fraction in places, but was still bloody narrow.  We ended up going about the cave a few hundred meters, which was horrible, my heart was racing and I felt like I was about to have a panic attack, I didn't realise I was so claustrophobic.  One of the girls at the back of the group freaked out and left, if I had known this at the time I would have gone with her.  The guide pointed out a spider on the wall as soon as we entered the cave, and went on about the big spiders you get down here, the leeches, rats, snakes and the bats.... Then when we were as deep as we were going he told everyone to turn there torches off and we floated in a pitch black cave while the guides made bat and whooping noises, until I asked them to turn the light on!!!  It makes me shiver even thinking about it now.  I have never been so glad to see daylight, and felt I could do anything after that.  The big spider thing and rats was a wind up, one of the guides told me afterwards - the spiders are only small and they have only ever seen one snake!!! Great!!!

After that horrible experience (although I think Mike enjoyed it - he says so anyway), we had a lovely lunch in a little village nearby.  Then headed to the river again to go Kayaking, which was absolutely brilliant.  It was a great way to travel down the river and to take in the scenery.  The guides were really sound and good fun.  We stopped at the last bar along the river for a couple of drinks and some of our group took to the HUGE rope swing into the river.  As it was the end of the day we got to see some of the tubers after a day of sun (sunburn), drinking and tubing.... we also bumped into some people we knew there, who loved it so much they were going again the next day.  It looked like great fun, and we nearly rearranged our trip around staying another day and going tubing all day, but we decided we had to head to Siem Reap and visit the temples of Angkor.  So we booked a flight and headed for Vientiane the next morning.

The flight again was pretty good, Laos Airlines, although our landing was pretty hairy, couple of bounces as we touch down, but we made it okay.  Thankfully, contrary to the note in 'The Book', there are now ATM's in Cambodia, as we only realised as we waited in Pakse that we didn't have any money for our Cambodia visa, and had no way of changing any travellers cheques. We bumped into Canadian Mike again on the plane and some one he had met on his journey Paul, and we decided to all go to Angkor together, we checked into the Popular Guest house, which was cheap and fine for us.  Our taxi driver Mr Sim took offered to take us to Angkor temples for $20 a day for the four of us which was great.  He was super helpful and we managed to dodge some of the crowds with his insider knowledge.

The temples of Angkor are amazing and truly breath taking.  They are colossal in size and the work that has gone it to the design, creation and decoration is staggering.  Angkor Wat is of course a must, as is Ta Prohm which is fantastic (the Tomb Raider temple, unfortunately for Paul, Angelina Jolie was nowhere to be seen), the trees that destroyed it are now holding it up, and are just as impressive as the building itself.  We spent one afternoon and stayed until the sunset, which we watched at Angkor Wat, and arrived early (very early - 5:30am) in the morning the next day to see the sun rise.  We went to Bayon for the sunrise, which was great, really magical and very quiet there which was nice.  You can't actually see the sun rise from there, but you get a great early morning light which was fantastic, and it was away from the hordes so it was worth it.  There are so many people there, like ants, it gets a bit tiring too, so we felt by about 2pm the next day we had done and seen enough and heading back.

We went to the night market there which was small, but nice, and pretty much hassle free which made a nice change, and went for a drink at a great little bar at the back of the market, where the bar staff were practicing some ''cocktail'' moves with the bottles.  We headed to Phnom Penh the next morning early to try and catch the afternoon bus to Sihanoukville that day, but the bus was full so we stayed the night in Phnom Penh, at Green Lake Guest House.  When you were in the guest house it was really nice, but the three back alleys you take to get there were a bit doggy to say the least.  There were lots of kids going through the rubbish tip with no shoes or t-shirts on, and I found it a bit of a shock from the places we had experienced so far.  The Guest house room was pretty basic with a dodgy and leaking toilet (again), yet on the wall was a framed text that claimed this was the very room Angelina Jolie stays when she is in Phnom Penh!!!!!  I some how doubt this was true, no matter how much she was willing to rough it!

We decided to meet Pete and Ali at the airport to surprise them, which I think we did, and we had lunch together in a great Tapas restaurant called Friends - were the profits and tips go towards supporting the street children of Phnom Penh.  And there are lots and lots of children living and begging on the street.  I found it very difficult to see, but it is a reality here, and the poverty here is very clear to see.  The children are so vulnerable and sometimes distressed, often with no shoes in the dirty streets and asking for food.  This is a country where the rich are rich and the poor are very poor.

We headed to Sihanoukville to Malibu Bungalows which was amazing, beautiful huts with great views out to sea, and fantastic food - the pepper squid was consistently divine!!!
Highly recommended!  We had a chilled Christmas day and went out for a big meal of fish platers etc for Christmas dinner.  (Thanks for the cards Ben and Lynn!!!)

Steve and Helene arrived on Boxing day night, tired after a mammoth journey.  We pretty much spent the rest of the ten days chilling on the beach, getting a tan, and eating.... great Christmas!!  New Years Eve was a good one too.  Went to an Island about 45 mins from Sihnanoukville coast, which was great.  Like a mini festival really.  Went night swimming with phosphorescant's  in the water, amazing.  Stayed up to watch the sun rise and then got a boat back mid morning with speakers, sound system etc on board which was a bit hairy to say the least.

We then headed East to Kep and Rabbit Island, which was very basic, outside shared loo, cold bucket showers, and basic bamboo huts.  But it was great, although we were all ready to go by the third day.  It was a pretty self sufficient place, if you want chicken curry, they kill the chicken, gut it and cook it up!!  The crabs are in pots just off the shore and when you order crab for dinner, they take a bowl and go and collect them live.  It doesn't get much fresher than that.  The cockerels, packs of dogs, cows, dogs chasing cows, drunken fisherman, and any other sound, or combanations of sounds kept us all up all night every night, the last night was definately the worst, and Helene had to ask the fisherman to keep it down.

From Rabbit Island we headed to Kampot for a night to visit the Bokor Hill Station, which is a deserted ghost town with an empty palace, casino, hotel, church etc.  They were built in the 20's by the french and the architecture is very art deco, especically the hotel front.  The church there is also the last place the Khumer Rouge held up before they were finally taken by the Vietnamese.  You can see how impressive it must have been in its heyday, but with some ammo shells still on the floor and the odd bullet hole in the wall, it is quite a strange and eerie place to visit.  The town is on top of Bokor Hill which rises about 1000m above sea level, and took us nearly 2 hours to drive up as the road is very bad, there was a land slide on the road while we were at the top.  The views are amazing, you can see Vietnam and Phu Quoc Island as well as miles of the jungle.  Our taxi driver drove like a loon all the way over rocks, pot holes etc in a (self made) four wheel drive car with raised suspension.  I still don't know how we made it!  Great fun for the first part but the road is so bumpy you get a bit of a headache by the end of it.

From here we headed back to Phnom Penh via a terrifing taxi ride.  We are heading to Vietnam via boat on Thursday and will be there for about 12 days before we head to India.  We are hoping to then spend 6-7 weeks in southern India before heading to another, yet unknown, destination (due to mess up with Indian visa's we have to leave the country earlier than planned so we are trying to decide where to go next - any ideas anyone???)

Sorry its been such a long blog, but we had a lot to update on!!!!

Hope all is well back home and you all had a great Christmas and New Year!!
Happy Birthday Mattie!!

Lots of love
Shelley and Mike
xxxxxx

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