Heavens waiting room

    Sunday, December 27

    Tubing in Vang Vieng is something of a backbackers cult out here. As far back as Vietnam the question would regularly pop up "have you been to Laos?" "nope" "NO! well you`ve gotta go Vang Vieng, you HAVE to go tubing!" "oh ok"
    Now, after 5 days of 24 hour drinking, marker pen tattoos and hurling myself off swings into water, i can officially say i`ve been and just about come out alive, and yes, it`s as good as people say, and even despite my half body bruise, a busted knee and cuts on my leg " you`ve gotta go to Vang Vieng, you HAVE to go tubing!"



    We`d planned 3 nights here, that quickly turned to 4 and just as quickly into 5. We where staying at a hostel called SpicyLaos which not since the chinesebox in Beijing had i stayed in a place with as much of a family-esq atmosphere to it. The moment we arrived after a 2 hour flight and 6 hour bus journey, we were introduced to everyone, seated around a fire and had a take-away delivered to our laps. We spent the night chatting away and when morning came had assembled a fairly large party to tackle the river with.

    The basic premise of tubing for those unfamiliar is as follows:
    1. Rent tube and jump on tuc tuc to the top of the river and to the entrance to bar one 2. Receive a plethora of free shots (usually taken from the bottle) then top up on beers until the idea of getting on a swing 30 feet above the river seems like a good one. 3. sit in said tube as you float down stream towards the next bar, grabbing onto the bottles attached to the rope to be dragged in by. 4. Carry on drinking until the next ridiculous contraption to fire you into the water is once again, in your own mind `risk free` (to give you an idea of these things, bar 2 has a zipline with a spring at the end so when you hit it, the handles fly back and you go spinning forward, usually with the intention to do a 360 and then hit the water, while more often than not doing more of a 568 and crashing on your neck/shoulder/back. Bar 3 has a cannonball platform and another large swing, something i thought would be more fun if more of us got on it at the same time and almost resulted in the losing of something very precious to me after landing with my legs spread. Bar 4 has a mud-pit/pool, and 5 (or that might of been 6, maybe 7) has the now infamous death slide, named for a very obvious reason)

    These basic steps were repeated for 4 days straight, sometimes we played games, sometimes swapping beers for buckets, but the basic premise always remained the same. I wasn`t even in a state to take pictures, everything you see here and on flickr has basically just been pillaged from laurens camera.

    I had such an amazing time here. Granted it wasn`t exactly cultural but i`ve been out long enough now to justify a little break, my bodies ruined but thankfully we`re off to Luang prabang for some much needed rest. One more day of this and i think it could of been the last you`d hear from me.

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    Dawn of the Dead

    Wednesday, December 16

    "Siem Reap" or more importantly the base station for exploring the Angkor Wat temples started pretty badly. We`d spent 6 hours on the bus from Phnom penh and arrived at midday in the city, Lauren who had started the day feeling pretty badly had got progressively worse, so much so that by the time we got to the hotel she was ready to collapse. I`d been looking forward to angkor wat so much in the planning of this trip, that it was probably the single thing i was most looking forward to within south east Asia, so the fact that it looked like Lauren was going to be bed bound for at least a day completely sucked, we could only really afford 3 days here as we still had it planned to do Laos and get to the full moon party for new year, so not being able to do it all together was a bit of a kick to the gut.
    The morning came and Lauren was worse than the previous day, we had no real option but to carry on. We decided to skip some of the bigger ones, leaving them for when Lauren was better.
    First stop was "the Bayon" a fairly small ruin known more for the face sculptures rather than it`s size... i`d like to pretend i can remember about anything i read of this but i think it`d be pretty obvious i would be copying and pasting from wikipedia. Because of that here`s the related link for your reading pleasure.



    After a few more stops we got to the so called "tomb raider temple" which was used during the filming of the said movie. This one was outstanding, tress had completely taken over parts of the walls and you could follow roots through one wall to another and again as it went downwards into alleyways. It was like being a big kid, with the lure to scrambling over the rocks impossible to resist. We had arrived at sunset as well which gave off some amazing light as it shone through all the open cracks, really magical place.

    The next days and Lauren was still no better, she`d been bed bound since arriving now and hadn`t seen as far as outside the bedroom walls. I felt awful that we were carrying on without her especially as she`s the exact sort of person you`d want around for the this type of thing.
    This day we did the larger of the 2 loops, taking in some of the further afield sites. We also decided this time to stop by the actually `angkor wat` and take the time to explore that. By the time the day was through we`d done all the major temples and felt fairly templed out.
    Day 3 and the final day of our passes, emma had done enough of pretending to be Indiana Jones and opted for a day on facebook instead, Lauren who was still ill had to just stay in the room once again, and so it was left to me and Will, who decided the best thing to do would be to buy a bag of beers and go get a comfortable spot on one of the temples, maybe not the most respectful thing in retrospect but we just chilled and chatted and eventually watched the sunset before returning.


    Lauren was now back on her feet, not exactly what you`d call full health but she was set on seeing things the following day. She`d offered to pay for me to extend my pass by a day if i`d show her around, which to be fair i was more than happy to do. We started early-ish to try and get as much in as possible, but off the bat i could tell she wasn`t well enough to be doing it. We went through temple after temple, lauren`s mood getting slightly worse by the minute, i felt bad as i could tell she was really struggling but at the same time she was getting very irritable .
    On top of this the zombie children where out in force. Usually you can have a bit of a laugh with them, smile, hide from them, and it`s all taken in jest. Will`s amazing at it, but at this one point i got caught off guard on my own. Lauren had gone off to the toilet or something and a little 8 year girl sprung out from nowhere "you want a fridge magnet" "no thank you" "one dollar" "nah, no thanks" "one dollar" "(ignore) "fridge magnet, one dollar" What am i going to do with a fridge magnet?" "one dollar" "i don`t even own a fridge" "one dollar" "one dollar" [all this delivered in a single tone moan, hence the `zombie children` name] "one dollar" "no, sorry but i have absolutely no use for a fridge magnet and in no way in the world am i going to buy one..very sorry"........................................"one dollar" (arghhhhhhhhh)

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    Saving Private Ryan

    ARGGhhh! Sihanoukville.....this place still gives me nightmares. We arrived to the beach mid day from Kep and instantly got hounded by vultures, these girls offering bracelets, waxing, manicures... their relentless in their selling. Horrible, vile people, who despite saying "no thanks" and "sorry but i don`t want it" hundreds of times they still continue to harass, actually trying to tie things to you as you walk or sit, eventually when you do break free they hurl abuse from afar. At one point one of the girls screamed "i hope u F@#*ing fall and die, and so does all your family" *gulp* another girl tried throwing my own drink over me at one point for not wanting a ankle bracelet. I hated this beach with a passion i really did, and the idea of doing a island hoping adventure the following morning was warmly welcomed.



    This day out i loved to bits, i`d never done much snorkeling in my life and it made me all the more excited to do my scuba diving license.. it was just cool to be in perfectly clear water, checking out the coral and sea life, even if it was on quite a small level. We did 2 beach stops, had a big fish BBQ and also had the opportunity for 3 or so dive spots. It was only the dash from the boat across the beach before the bombardment of evil beach minions that managed to taint a really relaxed day.

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    Recess

    We caught up with Will, Emma and co back at the hostel in Phnom Penh and after a look through our shedules decided to do a trip south to the coast and a bit of beach time before templing it up in Siem Reap.
    We (meaning me and Lauren) had done Phnom Penh the day i`d arrived and decided an extra day relaxing and exploring in Kampot would be time better spent before joining up with everyone the day after.

    I`ve got to mention our meal together at FRIENDS that same night. It was a charity based restaurant with all the money going to the street kids and orphans who where then trained to be the chefs at the restaurants. A bit like what Jamie Oliver did in the UK, but the food was amazing and was also the last time our considerably large group would be together...anyway

    The extra day allowed us to rent bikes once again and explore the area between Kampot and Kep, i woke up on the wrong side of bed this day as things were annoying me much quicker than usual. The roads were really bad as well, it was basically off-roading on road bikes and then to top everything off i was in what is quite possibly the most pitiful biking accident of all time!
    I`d pulled into this pagoda for a quick look, there was nothing really there and i was about to exit until this monk came running over saying something to me, i thought i`d hang around and see what he had to say but as he made it to my bike he put his hand out to rest on the handle bar and ended up turning on my throttle... this as you`d imagine sent the bike forward, me sideways and left a nasty exhaust burn on my arm and a fair few cuts and bruises on my leg. Thank god there was a nice hammock and beach at Kep so i could just chill out and laugh at the fact that one of the most peaceful kinds of people in the world had just sent me skidding along the floor. oh well.

    The next day and after re-joining with the now slightly depleted group we set off to rabbit island from Kep for a two night stay on this little deserted island. This would be my first island experience of the trip and i was excited at the prospect of doing nothing and have to say despite the lack of experience i performed it like a pro.



    It also happened to be thanksgiving on one of the two days, and seeing as we now had an American in the ranks with Lauren, we held a somewhat shabby, slightly more drunken version of our own, turkey hats and roast chicken included.
    After a few water fights and a stunning sunset the actual highlight of the time spent there was getting in the water after every light had gone out and swimming with these glow in the dark plankton, it sucks that i couldn`t get a photograph as words, especially my writing, could never do it justice, but it was basically like being in a disney film. Every hand stroke sent hundreds of these tiny glowing globes off in the same direction, it was stunning and hopefully i`ll get the chance to see it some more when scuba diving in Thailand.

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    Cambrosia!

    awwww dammit, I`ve got so far behind again, i`m actualy sat on thee `angkor wat temple` with a beer at the moment trying to get back to "now".... i realize according to the blog i`ve been in Dalat for quite a while now, but the truth is we set off to Laos tommorrow with Cambodia done and dusted.


    I won`t spend any time talking about Ho Chi Minh. It`s a nice enough city for sure but it lacked any desernable feature. It was only really meant as a stop over to Cambodia anyway, i`d only just realized my visa was about to run out (again) so there was no time to hang around. The rest of the group still had a few days spare and had decided to explore the Mekong delta for a few days before arriving to Phnom Penh by slow boat. I on the other hand jumped on the next availible bus and got out of the country before breaking the law. I`d planned to meet back up with everyone anyway so it was a nice chance to have some time to myself and save a few bucks in the process.
    Lauren who i`d last left in hong kong had also just finished Thailand so it was by chance that she was arriving into Cambodia the day before i did as well, so it meant i had a friend waiting anyway, yay!
    The border crossing was slow and uneventful, everyone tells you how corrupt and drawn out it is, but in reality the sign says $40, i paid $40, and i walked out with a 30 day Cambodia visa. Maybe the next one will be troublesome, but Vietnam > Cambodia is/was incredibly easy.

    First impressions of Phnom Penh was that it`s ridiculously hot, very very busy, and to be honest very similar to Ho Chi Minh in a lot of ways, if maybe a little more deprived. I met with Lauren who`d booked us a room at a near-by hotel and after a happy catch up of the prior four weeks, found ourselves on a tuc tuc heading to the S21 prison camp, and with it about as big of a mood killer as the world could of summoned, it`s not like i expected anything else but it was a little more powerful than i first had expected it to be. The place which had seen so much death and torture was made all the more creepier given the fact it had once been a primary school, add this with some of the unmovable stains and markings and the place really gave me the creeps, and to be fair i was happy to leave the place when we did.
    Our next stop was the far more happy sounding and uplifting "killing fields" this was where they believe over 17`000 men, woman and children who had been detained at S21 had been sent to for extermination.


    Lauren who`d spent the previous night chatting to travellers who`d been through Cambodia already had heard from one couple of a place 150k away from here in Kampong Chnang, near the river, where they`d biked to and had said it was a pretty amazing experience with the chance to go somewhere not many people go and the chance to live real non touristy life for a few days, just the fact we had to bike it there sold it to me instantly. The morning after we headed off for the 3 hour drive north west to Kampong Chnang and after checking into an enormous hotel for the night, which was absolutely deserted bar the 2 of us, we headed off down to the river banks and ended up befriending the local kids. It was nice to be around local people, the kids where really fun and happy to just climb over abandoned shacks, and laugh as we showed them pictures of themselves. Even the family we bought our coconuts from ended up coming out with photo albums of their wedding and pictures of people they`d met before. We just hung out with all of them till sunset then headed back for the night.
    The day after and on our way to obtain food from somewhere we bumped into another couple who told us we should head over to the floating village a couple of K`s away from where we where staying. We had time to kill before going back seeing as the schools we`d planned to visit aren`t open on Sunday. (a slight mis-judgment, but to be fair i didn`t even know what month it was never mind the day) so we decided to head onwards and check out what it was like.



    We`d jumped on a boat with what i think was the smallest, youngest and most inexperienced of boat guides and went exploring the village. It was a bit like Venice if Venice replaced all it`s buildings with tiny wooden shacks, lost all it`s money, got a lot smaller and made its population far more welcoming and friendly. It was a really nice day, as was the day before it, we had to head back to the capital shortly after that, but it was nice to be back travelling with Lauren again, as was the travelling without a hangover (a novel idea that i think i lost somewhere in Vietnam)

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