I've reached Trang in southern Thailand. Unlike most of the places I've been, the internet access here is CHEAP (50 cents an hour) AND FAST. Astonishing. Due to my good fortune, I've been able to catch up with my web albums.
Photos for Cambodia and Southern Thailand have now been posted for your viewing pleasure. Get ready to see lots of temples and beaches.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Szumlakowski
Trang, Thailand
Friday, May 9, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Big Piles of Rocks and Return to Thailand
April 24, 2008
In the morning today we took a bus to Siem Reap. Located 300 km northwest of Phnom Penh, it took us about five hours to get there. We wanted to go to the cafe from yesterday to repeat that amazing breakfast, but we couldn't since our ride to the bus station picked us up at 6:30 AM. Bastards.
Cambodians are BY FAR the most crazy and aggressive drivers I have ever seen. There are very few rules of the road. Generally you drive on the right and pass on the left. However, if the left side of the road is free and its more convenient for you to be there, then help yourself. The horn is used very liberally. If you want to pass someone, then honk at them and go ahead. The bigger the vehicle, the more priority you have to pass people. Bicycle riders and pedestrians have to be as far right as possible in order to survive. Slow motorcycle drivers and tuk-tuks can stay in the right lane, but have to push as far right as possible is someone behind them wants past. Bus drivers go WHEREVER they want as long as they keep honking. For three hours, our bus driver honked and honked. He mostly drove in the left lane, but dodged and weaved as required. There were moments of sheer terror as oncoming trucks approached us and we dodged at the last second. Our five hour adrenalin rush cost us only US$5.
Alex and I were the only foreigners on the bus. As such, when we got to the bus station in Siem Reap we were immediately targeted by about FIFTY (at least) touts. It was low tourist season, and these guys were desperate for any business. They immediately spotted me and Alex on the bus (curse my white skin). They held up signs advertising guesthouses, tours, and rides up against the window and banged on it to get my attention. Alex and I were the last people off the bus and people tried to grab us by our arms or shirt sleeves to earn our business. There was only two of us and like fifty of them, so they felt the need to be aggresive to win our business.
Tout: "Ride. One Dollar. Anywhere."
Another Tout: "Where you go?"
Even Another Tout: "Stay my hotel."
Fifty other touts: more of the same.
Me: "Don't touch me."
Tout: "Let me get your bag."
Me: "Don't touch my bag."
I basically crawl into the cargo hold of the bus by myself in order to make sure that Alex and I are the only ones to hold our bags. I don't really trust these guys.
I spot one tout way at the back who holds up a sign with the name of the guest house that Alex and I picked out of the Lonely Planet. He wasn't being aggresive at all and looked like he was about to give up. I liked his attitude. I gave the guy the nod and tried to wade my way through the mob of touts to get to him. We got into his tuk-tuk. Some of the touts followed us and still tried to get our attention. Even though we were already IN a tuk-tuk, they were still offering us rides to places. Man, they were desperate.
The driver I picked out was named Mr Tu. He said he'd drive us to any guesthouse we wanted for free but he wanted to be our driver to the ruins the next day. How did he know we were going to the ruins? Easy... that's what EVERYONE does in Siem Reap. It's THE thing to do in Siem Reap. Heck... it's the only reason most people even go to Cambodia at all. The rate he offered us to take us to the ruins seemed reasonable, so we struck a deal.
The guesthouse that Alex and I picked out seemed pretty decent. Double room, air conditioner, TV, bathroom with sit down toilet (I still have not mastered the art of doing number two on a squat toilet) all for US$15. Split in half, that's not a bad deal! It must have been at least 35 degrees in Siem Reap during the afternoons, so we spent a lot of our time hiding from the heat in our air conditioned room.
We spent most of the rest of the day at the Blue Pumpkin cafe enjoying excellent real coffee and eating cakes. The waiter at the Blue Pumpking was extremely smiley with me. Most wait staff are supposed to be friendly, but this guy was looking at me, a lot. He told me that "my dimples made me not the same as anyone else." I think he was flirting with me, seriously. This was the second Cambodia dude who wanted me. What can I say... I'm a very sexy man. Sorry dudes, I don't swing that way, though.
We went to bed early because we had an extremely early start the next morning.
April 25, 2008
The alarm on my cell phone woke us up at 4:45 AM. Seriously. We had a lot of ruins to see today.
Mr. Tu picked us up at 5 AM and drove us to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. Was it worth it? I'll let the photos tell the story.
I think they're pretty good.
Alex and I spent about 8 hours looking at ruins. Most were temples, but there were also some palaces, gates, and fancy walls. Most of the ruins were 1200 to 800 years old. Some were restored and super pretty. Others were in different states of disrepair. I won't bore you with the details of all the temples, since I don't even know all of them myself. Mr. Tu was not a tour guide -- just a driver. He tooked us from ruin to ruin and took a nap in his tuk-tuk while he waited for us to finish. He was the most laid back dude ever. I liked him.
Here's a few more nice pics, too.
I thought that trees like to eat water, nutrients and carbon dioxide. These tree likes to eat TEMPLES!
I took many many more photos. When I find myself at an internet cafe that has Picasa installed and isn't super expensive, I'll put them on my Web Albums for you.
By about 1 PM, we were tired and it was so hot that we called it a day. We told Mr. Tu to pick us up at 8 AM the next day and we went back to the hotel to rest and recuperate. Of course, we stopped off at the Blue Pumpkin cafe again for more coffees and cakes. They were so good the day before, that we had to go back!
April 26, 2008
Mr. Tu picked us up at 8 AM and took us to more temples. On the way, he got a flat tire on his motorbike. Ack. He managed to get it fixed pretty quickly, though.
I'll let the pictures to the talking for the temples. Again, we saw a lot of them. It's not really worth your time (or mine) to describe them all for you.
One thing that's astonishing about Cambodia (and Southeast Asia in general) is how much STUFF people load onto motorbikes. They will literally put a whole family on one bike (like dad, mom, and two kids). Sometimes you'll see them completely filled with dead birds on sticks, huge piles of hay. Here's a photo of one motorbike overflowing with sacks of something-or-other.
That night, Alex and I decided to go to a German/Swiss restaurant in Siem Reap. Why would we have German food in Cambodia? Because it was there. Also, they had Erdinger wheat beer, which is my favourite wheat beer in the world and I had to have it. Alex and I split an Oktoberfest Pot. It was filled with four kinds of sausages, more meat, scallopped potatoes, potato dumplings, beans, carrots, gravy, and sauerkraut. It was amazingly fantastically delicious.
This feast cost US$16 (split in two). The Erdinger beers were super expensive at US$5 each, but I deserved both of mine, dammit.
April 27, 2008
Mr. Tu picked us up at 8 AM again. This time, we decided to mix it up a bit and head to the lake south of Siem Reap. The lake, Tonle Sap, is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. During the dry season, there's a whole population of people living on the lake in various floating vessels. There's schools, libraries, homes, a basketball court in the river channel leading up to the lake. On the lake itself, there's an entire village of Vietnamese people living on the lake and catching fish.
Many of the floating homes were in states of various quality. This home has definitely seen better days.
After the lake, Alex was officially "templed-out" and headed back to the hotel. I wasn't done yet. Mr. Tu unhooked the tuk-tuk trailer from his motorbike and we headed out to see a few more temples.
On the way, he got another flat tire! This time, it was on the highway, almost in the middle of nowhere. He dropped me off at a roadside stand and said something like "he'll be back real soon."
So, he was gone like forty minutes, but it was all good. There was a Cambodian family running the roadside stall. They didn't speak a word of English, but I still had lunch and a drink there. It was the cheapest meal I had in all of Cambodia. My food (something called "Panchayo" -- fried egg with minced sweet fish and bean sprouts topped with salad, more sprouts, spicy sauce, and peanuts) was only 25 cents. My can of juice was 50 cents. It was so tasty, I should have taken a picture. Sorry guys!
That last day of ruin exploration, I visited three more temples. The sign in front of this one says "Climbing at your risk." Yes... tourists were allowed to climb many of the temples around Siem Reap. It was great fun to climb around these big piles of rocks.
April 28, 2008
There would be no sight seeing today. It was a sad day. Not only was it our last full day in Siem Reap, but it was the last day that Alex and I would be traveling together. The next day, I had to return west to Thailand. Alex was going to stay a little while longer in Cambodia then head east to Vietnam. We had been traveling together for like six weeks. We became really good friends and made plans to meet up again in the future to travel again.
In honour of our new friendship, we declared today to be a "Day of Sloth." The Day of Sloth started with one last trip to the Blue Pumpkin Cafe for coffees and fresh bread. The breads at that bakery were amazing. We had a loaf each for breakfast, and bought more to take back for lunch.
Along with the bread from the Blue Pumpkin cafe, we got some bottles of wine, some Camembert cheese, a jar of Jack Fruit and Ginger Jam, and chocolate and had a feast in our own hotel room for lunch.
No Rob, you can't pour the delicious Jack Fruit and Ginger jam on the whole piece of Camembert on the whole loaf of bread. Sure the food was tasty, but it would have been wiser to eat it in small bits at once. Dumbass.
Jack Fruit is my favourite "new fruit" I've discovered in South East Asia. I've never had it before coming here, but it tastes so fantastic. I'm on a heavy fruit diet here, anyways. I'm getting lots of fresh mango, pineapple, and bananas here, too. The bananas in Southeast Asia are far tastier than the ones you find in supermarkets at home. They're smaller, but more flavourful. Go Asia!
It rained much of the afternoon, so it was a good thing we had our own feast in the hotel room. It was still sort of raining in the evening, but we managed to find our way into town to have one last meal of Cambodian food for dinner. We brought another bottle of wine with us. The food was really good and our waiter was super friendly (not in the same way as the waiter from the Blue Pumpkin, if you know what I mean). We talked with him for a few hours after dinner, enjoying desert, and some aperatifs. It was a fitting end to the "Day of Sloth."
April 29, 2008
Alex had to leave at 7 AM the next morning. She boarded a bus to Sisophon to meet up with Chris Goepfert. Yes! The very same Chris that traveled with us for three weeks in Laos was in Cambodia. I was sorry to miss meeting her again, but getting to Thailand again was too pressing for me.
Today was the start of the biggest single travel push I think I've ever attempted.
Step 1: a share taxi (US$15) from Siem Reap to the Thai border at Poi Pet. What's a share taxi? It's just a car and a driver. You buy one seat, like a regular taxi, but there can be other passengers and you go a greater distance. The share taxi (with an experienced driver), seems like the single best way to get from Siem Reap to the Thai border. Why is this? It's because the road is the single worst excuse for a road I have ever seen in my whole entire life. It was far worse than anything I had seen in Laos. It's 150 km long, but maybe only 50 km of it is paved (at most). The rest is dirt, bumps and potholes. Because of the rain the day before, the share taxi had to negotiate like 100 km of sticky, sloppy, gooey mud to take us to the border. The driver was a pro though. We saw countless trucks, buses, and motos stuck on the road. The driver drove his beat up Toyota Camry around the lot of them and only got stuck once. We didn't have to get out and push though. He managed to get out on his own. After one particularly gruesome section where we had to wait for like half an hour for the traffic and get past stuck vehicles, he took off the bumpy road with a cheer. I said, "You win!!" He laughed, said something in Cambodia and repeated back, "You win, you win!". The two Cambodia people in the back of the taxi enjoyed breaking free of the pain, too.
Why is this important route in such bad shape? Rumour has it that Bangkok Airways (which holds a 10 year monopoly on flights from Bangkok to Siem Reap) gives heaps of money to the Cambodian government to keep the road that way. With the road in such terrible shape, more people would be inclined to fly from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Evil bastards.
It took us 4 and a half hours to negotiate the 150 km from Siem Reap to the Thai Border at poi Pet.
Step 2: VIP Bus from the Thai border to Bangkok. When I crossed the border, I wandered around looking for a bus and this one guy asked me where I was going. I told him "Bangkok" and he helped me buy a seat on a VIP bus directly from the border to the train station in Bangkok. Usually, you need to take a tuk-tuk from the border to the Thai city of Aranya Prathet, 6 km away. The regular government buses leave from there. This guy sold me a direct ticket for 300 baht (US$10). Seemed like a good deal. The bus took about three hours to get the 275 km to Bangkok. I arrived at Hualamphong Train station in Bangkok at around 5 PM.
Step 3: Overnight train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. I decided that I would not stay the night in Bangkok but take an overnight train to my next destination, Surat Thani. While waiting for my train, the Thai National Anthem played in the train station at 6 PM. Everyone in the station (including all the foreigners) had to stand up while the song played. Kinda wierd.
Unfortunately they were sold out of second class sleeper seats, so I had to get a third class seat instead. There are no sleeper bunks in third class, just crowded, Thai-sized, seats. It was crowded. At least it was cheap: 357 baht (about US$12) for third class with air conditioning. I could have saved 100 baht (US$3) by going without air conditioning, but that wasn't happening. No way.
I did not sleep. It was 700 km from Bangkok to the train station near Surat Thani. We arrived at 7 AM the next day.
April 30, 2008
Step 4: As I groggily disembarked from the train, some guy asked me where I was going. I didn't have a ticket for my next destination, Ko Pha Ngan, yet, so he helped me out. One trick in Asia is that you have to sort out the good touts from the bad touts. There are almost ways some guys waiting for you when you leave a boat, bus, or train. Many of them are helpful. Many of them are scammers. I think I have a good feeling for telling them apart now... I don't think I've been scammed (too badly) yet by these guys.
Anyways, the guy sold me a combination bus and boat ticket to take me the rest of the way to my destination: the island of Ko Pha Ngan. The bus would take me to the boat pier at Don Sak. The boat would take me to Ko Pha Ngan (by way of Ko Samui). My ticket cost 320 baht (about US$11).
We arrived on the pier at Thongsala on Ko Pha Ngan about noon.
Step 5: Yeah, this is the last step. I needed to take a motorcycle from the pier to the beach town of Haadrin. It took only like 20 minutes and cost me 100 baht (about US$3).
All told, my travel push covered about 1100 km and it took me 28 hours with very little sleep. I was exhausted. When I got to Haadrin, I roamed around until I found a guest house and passed out.
Was it worth it? Probably. This was the view from the balcony of my bungalow.
Pretty good, eh?
In the morning today we took a bus to Siem Reap. Located 300 km northwest of Phnom Penh, it took us about five hours to get there. We wanted to go to the cafe from yesterday to repeat that amazing breakfast, but we couldn't since our ride to the bus station picked us up at 6:30 AM. Bastards.
Cambodians are BY FAR the most crazy and aggressive drivers I have ever seen. There are very few rules of the road. Generally you drive on the right and pass on the left. However, if the left side of the road is free and its more convenient for you to be there, then help yourself. The horn is used very liberally. If you want to pass someone, then honk at them and go ahead. The bigger the vehicle, the more priority you have to pass people. Bicycle riders and pedestrians have to be as far right as possible in order to survive. Slow motorcycle drivers and tuk-tuks can stay in the right lane, but have to push as far right as possible is someone behind them wants past. Bus drivers go WHEREVER they want as long as they keep honking. For three hours, our bus driver honked and honked. He mostly drove in the left lane, but dodged and weaved as required. There were moments of sheer terror as oncoming trucks approached us and we dodged at the last second. Our five hour adrenalin rush cost us only US$5.
Alex and I were the only foreigners on the bus. As such, when we got to the bus station in Siem Reap we were immediately targeted by about FIFTY (at least) touts. It was low tourist season, and these guys were desperate for any business. They immediately spotted me and Alex on the bus (curse my white skin). They held up signs advertising guesthouses, tours, and rides up against the window and banged on it to get my attention. Alex and I were the last people off the bus and people tried to grab us by our arms or shirt sleeves to earn our business. There was only two of us and like fifty of them, so they felt the need to be aggresive to win our business.
Tout: "Ride. One Dollar. Anywhere."
Another Tout: "Where you go?"
Even Another Tout: "Stay my hotel."
Fifty other touts: more of the same.
Me: "Don't touch me."
Tout: "Let me get your bag."
Me: "Don't touch my bag."
I basically crawl into the cargo hold of the bus by myself in order to make sure that Alex and I are the only ones to hold our bags. I don't really trust these guys.
I spot one tout way at the back who holds up a sign with the name of the guest house that Alex and I picked out of the Lonely Planet. He wasn't being aggresive at all and looked like he was about to give up. I liked his attitude. I gave the guy the nod and tried to wade my way through the mob of touts to get to him. We got into his tuk-tuk. Some of the touts followed us and still tried to get our attention. Even though we were already IN a tuk-tuk, they were still offering us rides to places. Man, they were desperate.
The driver I picked out was named Mr Tu. He said he'd drive us to any guesthouse we wanted for free but he wanted to be our driver to the ruins the next day. How did he know we were going to the ruins? Easy... that's what EVERYONE does in Siem Reap. It's THE thing to do in Siem Reap. Heck... it's the only reason most people even go to Cambodia at all. The rate he offered us to take us to the ruins seemed reasonable, so we struck a deal.
The guesthouse that Alex and I picked out seemed pretty decent. Double room, air conditioner, TV, bathroom with sit down toilet (I still have not mastered the art of doing number two on a squat toilet) all for US$15. Split in half, that's not a bad deal! It must have been at least 35 degrees in Siem Reap during the afternoons, so we spent a lot of our time hiding from the heat in our air conditioned room.
We spent most of the rest of the day at the Blue Pumpkin cafe enjoying excellent real coffee and eating cakes. The waiter at the Blue Pumpking was extremely smiley with me. Most wait staff are supposed to be friendly, but this guy was looking at me, a lot. He told me that "my dimples made me not the same as anyone else." I think he was flirting with me, seriously. This was the second Cambodia dude who wanted me. What can I say... I'm a very sexy man. Sorry dudes, I don't swing that way, though.
We went to bed early because we had an extremely early start the next morning.
April 25, 2008
The alarm on my cell phone woke us up at 4:45 AM. Seriously. We had a lot of ruins to see today.
Mr. Tu picked us up at 5 AM and drove us to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. Was it worth it? I'll let the photos tell the story.
I think they're pretty good.
Alex and I spent about 8 hours looking at ruins. Most were temples, but there were also some palaces, gates, and fancy walls. Most of the ruins were 1200 to 800 years old. Some were restored and super pretty. Others were in different states of disrepair. I won't bore you with the details of all the temples, since I don't even know all of them myself. Mr. Tu was not a tour guide -- just a driver. He tooked us from ruin to ruin and took a nap in his tuk-tuk while he waited for us to finish. He was the most laid back dude ever. I liked him.
Here's a few more nice pics, too.
I thought that trees like to eat water, nutrients and carbon dioxide. These tree likes to eat TEMPLES!
I took many many more photos. When I find myself at an internet cafe that has Picasa installed and isn't super expensive, I'll put them on my Web Albums for you.
By about 1 PM, we were tired and it was so hot that we called it a day. We told Mr. Tu to pick us up at 8 AM the next day and we went back to the hotel to rest and recuperate. Of course, we stopped off at the Blue Pumpkin cafe again for more coffees and cakes. They were so good the day before, that we had to go back!
April 26, 2008
Mr. Tu picked us up at 8 AM and took us to more temples. On the way, he got a flat tire on his motorbike. Ack. He managed to get it fixed pretty quickly, though.
I'll let the pictures to the talking for the temples. Again, we saw a lot of them. It's not really worth your time (or mine) to describe them all for you.
One thing that's astonishing about Cambodia (and Southeast Asia in general) is how much STUFF people load onto motorbikes. They will literally put a whole family on one bike (like dad, mom, and two kids). Sometimes you'll see them completely filled with dead birds on sticks, huge piles of hay. Here's a photo of one motorbike overflowing with sacks of something-or-other.
That night, Alex and I decided to go to a German/Swiss restaurant in Siem Reap. Why would we have German food in Cambodia? Because it was there. Also, they had Erdinger wheat beer, which is my favourite wheat beer in the world and I had to have it. Alex and I split an Oktoberfest Pot. It was filled with four kinds of sausages, more meat, scallopped potatoes, potato dumplings, beans, carrots, gravy, and sauerkraut. It was amazingly fantastically delicious.
This feast cost US$16 (split in two). The Erdinger beers were super expensive at US$5 each, but I deserved both of mine, dammit.
April 27, 2008
Mr. Tu picked us up at 8 AM again. This time, we decided to mix it up a bit and head to the lake south of Siem Reap. The lake, Tonle Sap, is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. During the dry season, there's a whole population of people living on the lake in various floating vessels. There's schools, libraries, homes, a basketball court in the river channel leading up to the lake. On the lake itself, there's an entire village of Vietnamese people living on the lake and catching fish.
Many of the floating homes were in states of various quality. This home has definitely seen better days.
After the lake, Alex was officially "templed-out" and headed back to the hotel. I wasn't done yet. Mr. Tu unhooked the tuk-tuk trailer from his motorbike and we headed out to see a few more temples.
On the way, he got another flat tire! This time, it was on the highway, almost in the middle of nowhere. He dropped me off at a roadside stand and said something like "he'll be back real soon."
So, he was gone like forty minutes, but it was all good. There was a Cambodian family running the roadside stall. They didn't speak a word of English, but I still had lunch and a drink there. It was the cheapest meal I had in all of Cambodia. My food (something called "Panchayo" -- fried egg with minced sweet fish and bean sprouts topped with salad, more sprouts, spicy sauce, and peanuts) was only 25 cents. My can of juice was 50 cents. It was so tasty, I should have taken a picture. Sorry guys!
That last day of ruin exploration, I visited three more temples. The sign in front of this one says "Climbing at your risk." Yes... tourists were allowed to climb many of the temples around Siem Reap. It was great fun to climb around these big piles of rocks.
April 28, 2008
There would be no sight seeing today. It was a sad day. Not only was it our last full day in Siem Reap, but it was the last day that Alex and I would be traveling together. The next day, I had to return west to Thailand. Alex was going to stay a little while longer in Cambodia then head east to Vietnam. We had been traveling together for like six weeks. We became really good friends and made plans to meet up again in the future to travel again.
In honour of our new friendship, we declared today to be a "Day of Sloth." The Day of Sloth started with one last trip to the Blue Pumpkin Cafe for coffees and fresh bread. The breads at that bakery were amazing. We had a loaf each for breakfast, and bought more to take back for lunch.
Along with the bread from the Blue Pumpkin cafe, we got some bottles of wine, some Camembert cheese, a jar of Jack Fruit and Ginger Jam, and chocolate and had a feast in our own hotel room for lunch.
No Rob, you can't pour the delicious Jack Fruit and Ginger jam on the whole piece of Camembert on the whole loaf of bread. Sure the food was tasty, but it would have been wiser to eat it in small bits at once. Dumbass.
Jack Fruit is my favourite "new fruit" I've discovered in South East Asia. I've never had it before coming here, but it tastes so fantastic. I'm on a heavy fruit diet here, anyways. I'm getting lots of fresh mango, pineapple, and bananas here, too. The bananas in Southeast Asia are far tastier than the ones you find in supermarkets at home. They're smaller, but more flavourful. Go Asia!
It rained much of the afternoon, so it was a good thing we had our own feast in the hotel room. It was still sort of raining in the evening, but we managed to find our way into town to have one last meal of Cambodian food for dinner. We brought another bottle of wine with us. The food was really good and our waiter was super friendly (not in the same way as the waiter from the Blue Pumpkin, if you know what I mean). We talked with him for a few hours after dinner, enjoying desert, and some aperatifs. It was a fitting end to the "Day of Sloth."
April 29, 2008
Alex had to leave at 7 AM the next morning. She boarded a bus to Sisophon to meet up with Chris Goepfert. Yes! The very same Chris that traveled with us for three weeks in Laos was in Cambodia. I was sorry to miss meeting her again, but getting to Thailand again was too pressing for me.
Today was the start of the biggest single travel push I think I've ever attempted.
Step 1: a share taxi (US$15) from Siem Reap to the Thai border at Poi Pet. What's a share taxi? It's just a car and a driver. You buy one seat, like a regular taxi, but there can be other passengers and you go a greater distance. The share taxi (with an experienced driver), seems like the single best way to get from Siem Reap to the Thai border. Why is this? It's because the road is the single worst excuse for a road I have ever seen in my whole entire life. It was far worse than anything I had seen in Laos. It's 150 km long, but maybe only 50 km of it is paved (at most). The rest is dirt, bumps and potholes. Because of the rain the day before, the share taxi had to negotiate like 100 km of sticky, sloppy, gooey mud to take us to the border. The driver was a pro though. We saw countless trucks, buses, and motos stuck on the road. The driver drove his beat up Toyota Camry around the lot of them and only got stuck once. We didn't have to get out and push though. He managed to get out on his own. After one particularly gruesome section where we had to wait for like half an hour for the traffic and get past stuck vehicles, he took off the bumpy road with a cheer. I said, "You win!!" He laughed, said something in Cambodia and repeated back, "You win, you win!". The two Cambodia people in the back of the taxi enjoyed breaking free of the pain, too.
Why is this important route in such bad shape? Rumour has it that Bangkok Airways (which holds a 10 year monopoly on flights from Bangkok to Siem Reap) gives heaps of money to the Cambodian government to keep the road that way. With the road in such terrible shape, more people would be inclined to fly from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Evil bastards.
It took us 4 and a half hours to negotiate the 150 km from Siem Reap to the Thai Border at poi Pet.
Step 2: VIP Bus from the Thai border to Bangkok. When I crossed the border, I wandered around looking for a bus and this one guy asked me where I was going. I told him "Bangkok" and he helped me buy a seat on a VIP bus directly from the border to the train station in Bangkok. Usually, you need to take a tuk-tuk from the border to the Thai city of Aranya Prathet, 6 km away. The regular government buses leave from there. This guy sold me a direct ticket for 300 baht (US$10). Seemed like a good deal. The bus took about three hours to get the 275 km to Bangkok. I arrived at Hualamphong Train station in Bangkok at around 5 PM.
Step 3: Overnight train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. I decided that I would not stay the night in Bangkok but take an overnight train to my next destination, Surat Thani. While waiting for my train, the Thai National Anthem played in the train station at 6 PM. Everyone in the station (including all the foreigners) had to stand up while the song played. Kinda wierd.
Unfortunately they were sold out of second class sleeper seats, so I had to get a third class seat instead. There are no sleeper bunks in third class, just crowded, Thai-sized, seats. It was crowded. At least it was cheap: 357 baht (about US$12) for third class with air conditioning. I could have saved 100 baht (US$3) by going without air conditioning, but that wasn't happening. No way.
I did not sleep. It was 700 km from Bangkok to the train station near Surat Thani. We arrived at 7 AM the next day.
April 30, 2008
Step 4: As I groggily disembarked from the train, some guy asked me where I was going. I didn't have a ticket for my next destination, Ko Pha Ngan, yet, so he helped me out. One trick in Asia is that you have to sort out the good touts from the bad touts. There are almost ways some guys waiting for you when you leave a boat, bus, or train. Many of them are helpful. Many of them are scammers. I think I have a good feeling for telling them apart now... I don't think I've been scammed (too badly) yet by these guys.
Anyways, the guy sold me a combination bus and boat ticket to take me the rest of the way to my destination: the island of Ko Pha Ngan. The bus would take me to the boat pier at Don Sak. The boat would take me to Ko Pha Ngan (by way of Ko Samui). My ticket cost 320 baht (about US$11).
We arrived on the pier at Thongsala on Ko Pha Ngan about noon.
Step 5: Yeah, this is the last step. I needed to take a motorcycle from the pier to the beach town of Haadrin. It took only like 20 minutes and cost me 100 baht (about US$3).
All told, my travel push covered about 1100 km and it took me 28 hours with very little sleep. I was exhausted. When I got to Haadrin, I roamed around until I found a guest house and passed out.
Was it worth it? Probably. This was the view from the balcony of my bungalow.
Pretty good, eh?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Cambodian Luxury
April 20, 2008
Our nice in the fancy Phnom Penh hotel was just what we needed. The free breakfast at the hotel was really nice... really nice coffee, fresh fruit juice, fantastic yogurt and muesli... oh so good. We decided that we needed a second night there. The hotel was kinda jerky about it and said we needed to move to another room that cost US$5 more (for a grand total of US$50). Yes, that's expensive. Oh well. It was only one more night... ad it WAS really nice.
I spent a big chunk of the day trying to use the internet cafe and catch up on my blog and photo journal. I got caught up on my photos, but the internet cafe was so crap that my blog posting got messed up and I lost most of it. Bastards. Oh well.
In order to find a good internet cafe, I actually walked around and ended up trying about four different places. At the last one, I had a interesting experience. I was looking for a cafe that I could make a phone call home using Skype. At the last place, the dude said there was a laptop in the back that I could make my call on. He showed me the laptop. While I was logging onto Skype the dude sort of hung around and kept talking to me. The conversation went sort of like this:
Dude: "How long have you been in Cambodia?" -- a pretty common question from Cambodians.
Me: "I only got here last night."
Dude: "What do you think of Cambodian people?"
Me: "I've been here for less than a day, but they seem very friendly. They smile a lot. I like that!"
Dude: "Do you have any friends in Cambodia?"
Me: "No, just the people I'm traveling with. I've only been here for a day, after all."
Dude: "Do you like dancing?"
Me: Now I was thinking, okay, this is getting wierd... I just wanted to make a phone call, then this guy won't stop being chatty! I respond, "Yeah, I enjoy dancing once in a while."
Dude: "There is a dance party tonight. Lots of music. Do you want to go with me?"
Me: Okay, this is getting wierder! "Aww man, no thanks... we had a rough day yesterday, I need to catch up on sleep. Now, I'm going to make my phone call..." That's when I started to ignore him and hope he left.... which he did...
The phone call wasn't successful... the internet was just too crap. I ended up using the computer for only about 5 minute after he left, even though he talked to me for about 15 minutes before. So, I went out to pay...
Dude: "Fifteen to thirty minutes, 1000 riel." -- note that the rate is 2000 riel per hour -- rounded up to the next 15 minutes (500 riel)
Me: "I don't think so. I only talked for about five minutes."
Dude: "Yes. 1000 riel."
Me: "I know I was trying to use the computer for about twenty minutes, but for the first fifteen, you were talking to me the whole time."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So then I was really only using it for 5 minutes on my own."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So you agree that I should only pay 500 riel."
Dude: "Yes."
Me, handing over a 500 riel note (that's about 12 cents -- yes I argued over 12 cents): "Okay, I'm going to go now."
Dude: "Good bye... I wish I could go with you..."
Okay, so this Cambodian dude was totally flirting with me. He wanted me. I am absolutely serious. He really said that he wished he could go with me and he really invited me to go dancing and make "friends."
Alex and I were excited to find a REAL SUPERMARKET close to our hotel in Phnom Penh. Apparently our hotel is located in an posher area of the city... banks, electronics stores, supermarkets, cafes, handicrafts stores, embassies, hotels, lots of businesses. It was busy and the roads were filled with honking cars, motorcycles, and the ever-ubiquitious tuk-tuks. We were DEFINITELY not in Laos anymore. Cambodia is hip and happening and moving places. Laos is a sleepy backwater place that is treading water and trying to keep up. Anyways, at this supermarket, Alex and I bought cheese, bread, wine, chocolate, peanut butter, beer, juice for lunch and snacking along with other essential sundries like shampoo and deodorant.
For dinner, we went to a pizza place near our hotel and grabbed some takeaway Hawaiian pizza which we enjoyed at the hotel while watching a movie on the TELEVISION (yes, we had a TV!) along with the rest of our cheese, bread, peanut butter, and wine from lunch.
It was an exhausting day!
April 21, 2008
I think we did even less today than the day before. We moved from our expensive fancy pants hotel to a cheaper guesthouse one block away. It was only US$20/night instead of US$50/night, but still had air conditioning, a TV, a refrigerator and a private bathroom with heated shower -- these are the necessary luxuries you normally have to pay out for.
Alex found out that our friends Andrew and Jenny from Spicythai Backpackers were also in Phnom Penh! We made plans to meet with them that night.
In the morning, Alex and I took a moto ride to the Russian Market to do some shopping. The Russian Market is apparently the place to go in Phnom Penh to buy souveniers, and bargain bootleg clothing products. I was surprised to see a large number local handicraft shops that were set up to promote local industry and provide all profits back to the community. There was a lot of charity work afoot all over Cambodia. Many of the products in these handicraft shops were made of recycled materials -- bracelets made from recycled cigarette wrappers, bags made from old sacks of rice, figurines made from pieces of scrap metal or bullets. Alex bought a heap load of souveniers and presents from shops like these. I was still offically "traveling light" so I only bought a bag made from an old sack of rice, an "Adidas" shirt and a pair of fake Birkenstocks. The fake sandals were so painful that I ended up throwing them out a couple days later.
That night, we went to a restaurant that I had read about in Lonely Planet and had been lusting over for at least a week. There was a Russian Restaurant in Phnom Penh and it was supposed to be really good. It totally surpassed my expectations. I had borscht, cabbage rolls, fresh bread, and a lot of vodka (probably like five shots). Alex had some beef stroganoff and only drank some gin and tonics. She said it was wierd that anyone could drink so much vodka straight at one meal. Vodka is easy for me... no problems :)
After the amazing Russian meal, we motoed up to the backpacker ghetto and met Andrew and Jenny for drinks. We stayed up late and drank a lot. We made plans for the next day.
April 22, 2008
Our plans today were more impressive than any before. We met up with Andrew and Jenny at the very fancy Hotel Phnom Penh and hung out at the pool all day long. I also spent a good amount of time in the steam room, sauna, and jacuzzi. Phnom Penh was already freakin' hot... why would I want to spend time sitting in a steam room? Who knows, maybe the heat was making me crazy. We stayed at the hotel for like six hours in the afternoon and only had to pay the day rate of US$5 each. Sweet deal!
The four of us reconvened that night for a meal at our first Cambodia restaurant. Indeed, I was in Cambodia for three full days and I hadn't had any actual Cambodian food at all. I was still reeling in the huge selection of Western stuff available in Phnom Penh and was living it up as much as I could. I had some amok with tofu for dinner -- its a baked stew like dish with lots of coconut milk and some spiciness. Pretty tasty.
April 23, 2008
So it was my fourth and final day in Phnom Penh. I guess it was time to do some sightseeing, after all. My stay in Phnom Penh was so far consumed with consumption and relaxing. I needed it, but I should do something touristy, I suppose, I guess.
Before sightseeing, Alex and I went for breakfast at a cafe near our guesthouse. I think it was called the "Garden Cafe 2". Anyways, it was the freakin' best breakfast I've had in all of Asia. Seriously. I got a breakfast for US$6.50. Yeah, kinda spendy, but it was totally worth it. I got:
* Freshly ground coffee -- oh so good.
* A glass of fresh fruit juice -- I chose the orange
* A large bowl of fresh sour yogurt
* A huge plate of fresh fruit -- two oranges, two bananas, a mango, and an APPLE! (Apples aren't that common in SE Asia since they need to be imported, usually from the U.S.A.)
* Real butter from France -- European butter is far tastier than any butter in North America
* A big jar of black currant jam from England -- more on this below
* Two eggs very fluffly scrambled
* A piece of sausage
* Three pieces of bacon
* A grilled tomato
* Two toasted slices of home cooked brown bread
Okay, that's more food than I would ever order for breakfast. I couldn't eat all the fruit and I took it most of it away for later. I cut up the mango and one of the bananas into pieces and mixed them into the yogurt with big spoonfuls of black currant jam. They gave me honey that I could have used, but I wanted the black currant jam -- totally my favourite flavour of jam. That cafe sure made a mistake putting the whole jar of jam on the table. I totally have the backpacker mentality now that free food should not be wasted. That jar started about half full, but
it ended close to empty. Woo hoo!
After that fantastic (and filling) breakfast, Alex and I met up with Jenny and Andrew at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. After indulging myself in the luxuries that Cambodia provides to its tourists who want to pay for it, I needed to explore the dark side of Cambodia history. The museum was dark indeed. It used to be a high school in the 1960s, but during the regime of Pol Pot in the 1970s it was used as the most infamous prison in the whole country. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 13,000 and 20,000 men and women were held at the prison over the four years it was active. Only 7 people survived. The prisoners were subjected to the harshest tortures and awful living conditions. The museum itself is a grim testament to its history... lots of photographs and empty cells remain. Some rooms just contain a metal bed with shackles attached to it. These rooms would have a single photograph on the wall showing an emaciated man shackled to it. There were hundreds of photographs of the prisoners themselves, taken on arrival. There were paintings showing the methods used to torture people. I was very shaken to be there. I felt goosebumps and shivers and had to grip my crucifix necklace to give me the strength to continue. That museum is one of the scariest places I've even been.
After lunch, the four of us continued our exploration of the dark Cambodian past and took a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields -- a wooded field about 20 km outside of Phnom Penh. Prisoners from various sites in Cambodia were brought the the Killing Fields of Cheong Ek (and other similar sites around the country) to be killed in brutal, but simple, ways. Since bullets in 1970s Cambodia were rather expensive, prisoners were killed by hoes, shovels, sharp edges of palm leaves, beating against trees, and any other blunt objects that were on hand. There was a huge monument to the Cambodian Genocide there. The monument was full of skulls. Out tour guide showed us skulls with huge holes in them from the blows of hoes and shovels. The fields themselves consist of a huge number of mass graves. Some of these graves have been opened and are now open pits. These graves usually held 100 to 200 people. As we walked around the fields, we saw pieces of human bones sticking out of the dirt. There were 20,000 people killed and buried haphazardly in pits all over the killing fields there.
That night was Alex's and my last night in Phnom Penh, so we went out for dinner and drinks with Jenny and Andrew. We went to riverfront for a bit of a pub crawl. We started at the very swanky (and expensive) Foreign Correspondent's Club. We sat on the rooftop patio and drank half-price cocktails! Happy Hour is something that I didn't really appreciate before this trip. The opportunity to get cheap booze in the afternoon is definitely appreciated now :)
After Happy Hour ended, we walked up the river front for Mexican food. We ended up going to two more bars after dinner. We played pool att one. Alex and I beat Andrew and Jenny two to one while a really lame live band played Lounge music in English. I toasted our stay in Phnom Penh with a round of Jagermeister shots for everyone.
We parted ways with Andrew and Jenny there on the riverfront in Phnom Penh. However, we planned to meet up again at Burning Man in Nevada, USA at the end of August.
To be continued...
Our nice in the fancy Phnom Penh hotel was just what we needed. The free breakfast at the hotel was really nice... really nice coffee, fresh fruit juice, fantastic yogurt and muesli... oh so good. We decided that we needed a second night there. The hotel was kinda jerky about it and said we needed to move to another room that cost US$5 more (for a grand total of US$50). Yes, that's expensive. Oh well. It was only one more night... ad it WAS really nice.
I spent a big chunk of the day trying to use the internet cafe and catch up on my blog and photo journal. I got caught up on my photos, but the internet cafe was so crap that my blog posting got messed up and I lost most of it. Bastards. Oh well.
In order to find a good internet cafe, I actually walked around and ended up trying about four different places. At the last one, I had a interesting experience. I was looking for a cafe that I could make a phone call home using Skype. At the last place, the dude said there was a laptop in the back that I could make my call on. He showed me the laptop. While I was logging onto Skype the dude sort of hung around and kept talking to me. The conversation went sort of like this:
Dude: "How long have you been in Cambodia?" -- a pretty common question from Cambodians.
Me: "I only got here last night."
Dude: "What do you think of Cambodian people?"
Me: "I've been here for less than a day, but they seem very friendly. They smile a lot. I like that!"
Dude: "Do you have any friends in Cambodia?"
Me: "No, just the people I'm traveling with. I've only been here for a day, after all."
Dude: "Do you like dancing?"
Me: Now I was thinking, okay, this is getting wierd... I just wanted to make a phone call, then this guy won't stop being chatty! I respond, "Yeah, I enjoy dancing once in a while."
Dude: "There is a dance party tonight. Lots of music. Do you want to go with me?"
Me: Okay, this is getting wierder! "Aww man, no thanks... we had a rough day yesterday, I need to catch up on sleep. Now, I'm going to make my phone call..." That's when I started to ignore him and hope he left.... which he did...
The phone call wasn't successful... the internet was just too crap. I ended up using the computer for only about 5 minute after he left, even though he talked to me for about 15 minutes before. So, I went out to pay...
Dude: "Fifteen to thirty minutes, 1000 riel." -- note that the rate is 2000 riel per hour -- rounded up to the next 15 minutes (500 riel)
Me: "I don't think so. I only talked for about five minutes."
Dude: "Yes. 1000 riel."
Me: "I know I was trying to use the computer for about twenty minutes, but for the first fifteen, you were talking to me the whole time."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So then I was really only using it for 5 minutes on my own."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So you agree that I should only pay 500 riel."
Dude: "Yes."
Me, handing over a 500 riel note (that's about 12 cents -- yes I argued over 12 cents): "Okay, I'm going to go now."
Dude: "Good bye... I wish I could go with you..."
Okay, so this Cambodian dude was totally flirting with me. He wanted me. I am absolutely serious. He really said that he wished he could go with me and he really invited me to go dancing and make "friends."
Alex and I were excited to find a REAL SUPERMARKET close to our hotel in Phnom Penh. Apparently our hotel is located in an posher area of the city... banks, electronics stores, supermarkets, cafes, handicrafts stores, embassies, hotels, lots of businesses. It was busy and the roads were filled with honking cars, motorcycles, and the ever-ubiquitious tuk-tuks. We were DEFINITELY not in Laos anymore. Cambodia is hip and happening and moving places. Laos is a sleepy backwater place that is treading water and trying to keep up. Anyways, at this supermarket, Alex and I bought cheese, bread, wine, chocolate, peanut butter, beer, juice for lunch and snacking along with other essential sundries like shampoo and deodorant.
For dinner, we went to a pizza place near our hotel and grabbed some takeaway Hawaiian pizza which we enjoyed at the hotel while watching a movie on the TELEVISION (yes, we had a TV!) along with the rest of our cheese, bread, peanut butter, and wine from lunch.
It was an exhausting day!
April 21, 2008
I think we did even less today than the day before. We moved from our expensive fancy pants hotel to a cheaper guesthouse one block away. It was only US$20/night instead of US$50/night, but still had air conditioning, a TV, a refrigerator and a private bathroom with heated shower -- these are the necessary luxuries you normally have to pay out for.
Alex found out that our friends Andrew and Jenny from Spicythai Backpackers were also in Phnom Penh! We made plans to meet with them that night.
In the morning, Alex and I took a moto ride to the Russian Market to do some shopping. The Russian Market is apparently the place to go in Phnom Penh to buy souveniers, and bargain bootleg clothing products. I was surprised to see a large number local handicraft shops that were set up to promote local industry and provide all profits back to the community. There was a lot of charity work afoot all over Cambodia. Many of the products in these handicraft shops were made of recycled materials -- bracelets made from recycled cigarette wrappers, bags made from old sacks of rice, figurines made from pieces of scrap metal or bullets. Alex bought a heap load of souveniers and presents from shops like these. I was still offically "traveling light" so I only bought a bag made from an old sack of rice, an "Adidas" shirt and a pair of fake Birkenstocks. The fake sandals were so painful that I ended up throwing them out a couple days later.
That night, we went to a restaurant that I had read about in Lonely Planet and had been lusting over for at least a week. There was a Russian Restaurant in Phnom Penh and it was supposed to be really good. It totally surpassed my expectations. I had borscht, cabbage rolls, fresh bread, and a lot of vodka (probably like five shots). Alex had some beef stroganoff and only drank some gin and tonics. She said it was wierd that anyone could drink so much vodka straight at one meal. Vodka is easy for me... no problems :)
After the amazing Russian meal, we motoed up to the backpacker ghetto and met Andrew and Jenny for drinks. We stayed up late and drank a lot. We made plans for the next day.
April 22, 2008
Our plans today were more impressive than any before. We met up with Andrew and Jenny at the very fancy Hotel Phnom Penh and hung out at the pool all day long. I also spent a good amount of time in the steam room, sauna, and jacuzzi. Phnom Penh was already freakin' hot... why would I want to spend time sitting in a steam room? Who knows, maybe the heat was making me crazy. We stayed at the hotel for like six hours in the afternoon and only had to pay the day rate of US$5 each. Sweet deal!
The four of us reconvened that night for a meal at our first Cambodia restaurant. Indeed, I was in Cambodia for three full days and I hadn't had any actual Cambodian food at all. I was still reeling in the huge selection of Western stuff available in Phnom Penh and was living it up as much as I could. I had some amok with tofu for dinner -- its a baked stew like dish with lots of coconut milk and some spiciness. Pretty tasty.
April 23, 2008
So it was my fourth and final day in Phnom Penh. I guess it was time to do some sightseeing, after all. My stay in Phnom Penh was so far consumed with consumption and relaxing. I needed it, but I should do something touristy, I suppose, I guess.
Before sightseeing, Alex and I went for breakfast at a cafe near our guesthouse. I think it was called the "Garden Cafe 2". Anyways, it was the freakin' best breakfast I've had in all of Asia. Seriously. I got a breakfast for US$6.50. Yeah, kinda spendy, but it was totally worth it. I got:
* Freshly ground coffee -- oh so good.
* A glass of fresh fruit juice -- I chose the orange
* A large bowl of fresh sour yogurt
* A huge plate of fresh fruit -- two oranges, two bananas, a mango, and an APPLE! (Apples aren't that common in SE Asia since they need to be imported, usually from the U.S.A.)
* Real butter from France -- European butter is far tastier than any butter in North America
* A big jar of black currant jam from England -- more on this below
* Two eggs very fluffly scrambled
* A piece of sausage
* Three pieces of bacon
* A grilled tomato
* Two toasted slices of home cooked brown bread
Okay, that's more food than I would ever order for breakfast. I couldn't eat all the fruit and I took it most of it away for later. I cut up the mango and one of the bananas into pieces and mixed them into the yogurt with big spoonfuls of black currant jam. They gave me honey that I could have used, but I wanted the black currant jam -- totally my favourite flavour of jam. That cafe sure made a mistake putting the whole jar of jam on the table. I totally have the backpacker mentality now that free food should not be wasted. That jar started about half full, but
it ended close to empty. Woo hoo!
After that fantastic (and filling) breakfast, Alex and I met up with Jenny and Andrew at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. After indulging myself in the luxuries that Cambodia provides to its tourists who want to pay for it, I needed to explore the dark side of Cambodia history. The museum was dark indeed. It used to be a high school in the 1960s, but during the regime of Pol Pot in the 1970s it was used as the most infamous prison in the whole country. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 13,000 and 20,000 men and women were held at the prison over the four years it was active. Only 7 people survived. The prisoners were subjected to the harshest tortures and awful living conditions. The museum itself is a grim testament to its history... lots of photographs and empty cells remain. Some rooms just contain a metal bed with shackles attached to it. These rooms would have a single photograph on the wall showing an emaciated man shackled to it. There were hundreds of photographs of the prisoners themselves, taken on arrival. There were paintings showing the methods used to torture people. I was very shaken to be there. I felt goosebumps and shivers and had to grip my crucifix necklace to give me the strength to continue. That museum is one of the scariest places I've even been.
After lunch, the four of us continued our exploration of the dark Cambodian past and took a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields -- a wooded field about 20 km outside of Phnom Penh. Prisoners from various sites in Cambodia were brought the the Killing Fields of Cheong Ek (and other similar sites around the country) to be killed in brutal, but simple, ways. Since bullets in 1970s Cambodia were rather expensive, prisoners were killed by hoes, shovels, sharp edges of palm leaves, beating against trees, and any other blunt objects that were on hand. There was a huge monument to the Cambodian Genocide there. The monument was full of skulls. Out tour guide showed us skulls with huge holes in them from the blows of hoes and shovels. The fields themselves consist of a huge number of mass graves. Some of these graves have been opened and are now open pits. These graves usually held 100 to 200 people. As we walked around the fields, we saw pieces of human bones sticking out of the dirt. There were 20,000 people killed and buried haphazardly in pits all over the killing fields there.
That night was Alex's and my last night in Phnom Penh, so we went out for dinner and drinks with Jenny and Andrew. We went to riverfront for a bit of a pub crawl. We started at the very swanky (and expensive) Foreign Correspondent's Club. We sat on the rooftop patio and drank half-price cocktails! Happy Hour is something that I didn't really appreciate before this trip. The opportunity to get cheap booze in the afternoon is definitely appreciated now :)
After Happy Hour ended, we walked up the river front for Mexican food. We ended up going to two more bars after dinner. We played pool att one. Alex and I beat Andrew and Jenny two to one while a really lame live band played Lounge music in English. I toasted our stay in Phnom Penh with a round of Jagermeister shots for everyone.
We parted ways with Andrew and Jenny there on the riverfront in Phnom Penh. However, we planned to meet up again at Burning Man in Nevada, USA at the end of August.
To be continued...
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The Four Thousand Islands and Pi Mai Lao Part 2
April 14 and 15, 2008
In the morning, we checked out of the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos. While checking out, the staff dude looked at my last name and commented about it. I said, "Yeah, it's a Polish name." The staff dude said that the owner of the guesthouse, Mr. Vong, spoke Polish. I thought to myself, "No way... I've already heard him speak in excellent English and French... but Polish? No one in Southeast Asia speaks Polish." So I struck up Mr. Vong in conversation. His Polish was even better than mine. Apparantly he studied mechanical engineering in Warsaw for ten years. That makes for THREE really interesting guesthouse/hostel owners whose names end with -ong: Pong (Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Mr. Kong (Kong Keo Guesthouse in Phonsavan, Laos), and Mr. Vong (Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos). Just odd...
Alex, Damaris, and I boarded a minibus to take us two hours south. From there, it was a short boat ride to Don Khone.
We had heard about Don Khone in Pakse. The staff of Sabaidy 2 said it was a really nice and quiet island to visit. Not really very rustic, but very comfortable. It was exactly what we were looking for. When we got to Don Khone, we realized our error. We were really supposed to go to Don Khong, not Don Khone. Their names are so similar, we got mixed up! Oh well, Don Khone was still a pretty island and we would stay there instead.
Don Khone was very pretty, but not quiet at all. Pi Mai Lao was still in full swing here and the villagers were PARTYING constantly. Our guesthouse (Mr. Pan's) had a restaurant and the staff of the restaurant were VERY aggressive about soaking people with water when they came by. We saw a pair of girls on a scooter totally wipe out while trying to dodge the water from their hose. Eep. Not only did they like to soak you, but they liked to spread lipstick on your face (as Alex found out, and I ran away from). They liked to put talcum powder in your hair and on your face, too. Oi!
Additionally, the villagers played a LOT of loud Lao music during the afternoon and evening. First the restaurant on one side of our guesthouse would play. Then the restaurant across the street. Then the house beside that. Then the house on the other side of our guesthouse. They were taking turns playing their music as loudly as possible. Sometimes they would play at the same same ("same same" -- that's a common saying on T-Shirts here -- I don't know why) time and try and drown each other out. I know that it's their biggest holiday of the year, but combined with my recent travel fatigue, it was really getting old for me fast.
Also, there were lots of roosters crowing. I just couldn't escape these guys. Would I never know peace again?
Don Khone is very rustic, too. They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening. The afternoons there are very very hot. Short of jumping into the Mekong River, there's no way to cool off in the afternoons. You can't even get an icy fruit shake to cool off with since there's no electricity to run the blenders.
Don Khone was VERY PRETTY, and had really nice food and cheap liquor, but it really was way too rustic for us to handle. We decided to bear with it for two days and then would take the boat to nearby Don Khong.
We spent the afternoons trying to lie in hammocks and barely surviving. I tried to drink a lot of water (probably like three hours per day) and take three or four showers per day to keep cool. I occasionally let the restaurant staff hose me down, too. Damaris didn't drink nearly enough water and started to feel ill. Doh. Drinking water is important, you know!
In the evenings we visited a pretty nice restaurant beside the river. One night, before sunset, we watched a bunch of locals on motorbikes set up a toll booth on the bridge beside the restaurant. It was not your normal kind of toll booth though. They made anyone who passed on their motorbikes stop and have some shots of Lao Lao before continuing. They were forcing people to drink and drive! That's something you'd never see in Canada!
The "Lao Lao Toll Booth"
We prefered to drink and sit. The restaurant had the cheapest liquor I had yet seen in Lao. They charged only 10,000 kip (about CA$1.20) for a generous shot of Pastis and a bottle of water. The water usually costs 2,000 kip (about CA$0.20). Getting a drink of imported liquor for only CA$1 was very cheap in Laos -- usually it cost closer to CA$3. We drank a lot of Pastis and Gin and Tonics there! They also had a fantastic Thai red curry with pumpkin there. Mmm!
Sunset on Don Khone
April 16 to 18, 2008
On the morning of April 16 we chartered a long tail boat to take us a hour and half back up river to Don Khong -- the real island we wanted. It turned out to be everything we wanted. They had twenty-four electricity, guesthouses with AIR CONDITIONING (since our stay in Don Khong, every guesthouse or hotel we've stayed in has had air conditioning). There were very few tourists there. Strangely enough, there weren't any crowing roosters as well. I saw chickens and chicks, so the roosters must have been somewhere... I just couldn't see or hear them. Maybe they kept them muzzled in some shack out back somewhere. Hallelujah! It was a very pretty island, too. Don Khong was like a holiday away from our holiday. I needed it!
We didn't see (or hear) any Pi Mai Lao celebrations on Don Khong. We knew they were still going somewhere, though. Our guesthouse kitchen was closed every night. When we asked why, they said it was because of Pi Mai Lao. We assumed that the cook was out drunk or passed out somewhere. Hehe.
We did very very little on Don Khong. We'd wake up in the morning and enjoy the free breakfast at our guesthouse -- Auberge sa la Done Khong. The guesthouse was less like your typical cheapo-guesthouse and more like an old French colonial hotel that was starting to show its rough edges. My bathroom was completely overrun with mosquitos and I was afraid to go in there. Otherwise, it was really quite pleasant. It cost me US$10/day. Not that bad, really.
Oh yeah! Back to the breakfast! They served really nice coffee (which I usually got two or three cups of), fried eggs, fruit salad, and very fluffy pancakes. They didn't have maple syrup (not that I would expect them, too), so we either spread sweetened condensed milk on our pancakes (much better than pouring puddles of it into coffee), or sprinkled sugar and lime juice. Most pancakes we had in Laos were too think and greasy. These were really good.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in our air conditioned rooms listening to music, reading, chatting, playing guessing games. I also spent time playing my Nintendo DS Lite. I finished up my book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (it's really good -- highly recommended -- thanks Aleks (my cousin) for the suggestion!) and started The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (which Alex (my traveling buddy) traded to me). I also spent lots of time sitting on the deck chairs on the guesthouse patio. Life was hard. It was still excessively hot out, so you can't blame us for taking it easy.
Occasionally we ventured out to find food. My Lonely Planet guidebook told me that there was another guesthouse (the Mekong Guesthouse) in town that made the audacious claim that they served Canadian-style pancakes and Tim Horton's-style coffee. This was ludicrous. We had to investigate.
The pancakes were indeed very light and fluffy -- as I would expect proper pancakes from Canada. Sadly, they lacked maple syrup -- but honey made a very nice substitute. Alex admitted to being a Tim Horton's addict (she is from Hamilton, Ontario, after all). She confirmed that the coffee really did taste like Timmy's coffee! I don't know how they did it, but they did. Since they managed to meet our expectations, we went to that guesthouse twice. There were really only like four places to eat in town, so quite a few places managed to score our repeat business.
One night, we were eating at this guesthouse patio overlooking the river. There weren't many other tourists in town, but there were some. There were a couple of families from France. That night, while the French parents chatted with each other (and smoked like chimnies), the kids were happily playing with each other. I guess one of the kids (I think he was only three years old) got bored and decided to play with us for a while. He spent like an hour sitting on Damaris' lap demanding that we draw pictures of cars, trucks, dolphins, bananas and other things. Once it was announced that it was I that was the artiste, the kid switched over to my lap and made me draw for him. It was mostly Damaris and Alex that spoke to the kid, though. Damaris speaks flawless French (as she should, since she is from Switzerland). Alex's French is better than mine, too, since she went to university in Montreal and took French immersion.
The kid was a liar, though. When we asked him where he was from, he said he was from Marseilles. His parents' corrected him and said that they were really from Nantes! Punk!
The riverfront view on Don Khong.
Alex tries to "roll up the rim" on her Tim Horton's coffee on Don Khong
April 19, 2008
Today was the last day on Alex's and my visas for Laos. We had to exit the country that day. We said our goodbyes to Damaris (I promised I would visit her if I ended up backpacking in Europe next year). She was going to go north through Laos to return to Chiang Mai, while we were headed south into Cambodia.
It was a long day of travel. We spent a long time at the border. There was a lot of border bureaucracy (e.g.: crap) to deal with. First we had to pay our US$2 "exit fee" to get leave Laos. Then we had to pay US$21 to get our visa for Cambodia. Finally, we had to pay a US$1 "entrance fee" to enter Cambodia. Really, most of these fees were really enforced bribes to the border guards. The only cost we were really supposed to pay was US$20 for the Cambodia visa. Damn border guards. There really wasn't much we could do.
Much of the journey was spent in a couple of different minibuses. The bus had seating for thirteen people, but there was usually about fifteen people in it. The air conditioning was weak so we had to travel with the windows open. One section of the road was completely made out of dust and sand, so we ate a lot of dirt. Bleck. The ride was so long that the guys in the back of the bus kept lighting up cigarettes. Some of them had the decency to try and keep close to the windows to keep the smoke out, but not all of them did. Double triple vomity bleck.
I was excited to reach Cambodia, though. Laos really sucked for beer and liquor. Beer Lao is not good. Many people say that it's one of the better beers available in Southeast Asia. I think they are wrong. W R O N G. Lao Lao is really harsh stuff, too. The problem is, though, that Laos claims to be a communist country (they're not really communist though -- see rant below) and they are landlocked -- so the selection of imported products is pretty limited. Cambodia claims to be a democratic country (they've got some issues with that, too, though), and is not landlocked. Hence, the selection of imported products is much better. The most popular Cambodia beer, Angkor, is pretty decent, too.
We finally pulled into Phnom Penh at like 10:30 PM. Alex and I had pre-decided that would stay in a REAL HOTEL when we got to Phnom Penh. We had lived on the cheap in Laos for a full thirty days, and we needed a taste of luxury to relieve our travel fatigue. The auberge on Don Khong was nice, but we needed more! Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and the biggest city we've been in since Bangkok in Thailand, so it was a good candidate for a recharge.
We had a couple choice locations picked out in our guidebooks, so we grabbed a tuk-tuk from the backpacker ghetto that the minibus from Laos dropped us off in and puttered over to the swankier section of town. Alas, the first two hotels we looked for were closed or moved. We walked around for like an hour in after-dark Phnom Penh (which many people say you shouldn't do), before finding the Anise Hotel. We got a really swanky (by our standards) room for US$45. Yes, that's really expensive, but we deserved it. It was 11:30 PM and we were tired of looking. We got a couple of draught Angkor beers from the hotel bar, cracked open the minibar and looted it for chocolate, cleaned the dust and dirt from ourselves with the shower and passed out.
To be continued...
Rant about Communism in Laos!
Oh yeah! I wanted to rant about the communist government in Laos. I didn't really feel comfortable ranting about this while I was actually in Laos, but now that I'm in Cambodia, here goes.
Laos is trying out the same messed up form of communism that China and Vietnam are doing. I don't like the regular socialist form of Communism either, but the capitalist form of Communism popular in Asia these days is just messed up. The people of Laos have to pay to send their kids to school or get health care from hospitals. That's not real communism -- not even close. That's just an example of greedy government leadership. They're just saying they're "communist" to maintain their grip on power while they continue to exploit their population. That's greedy and just plain evil.
In the morning, we checked out of the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos. While checking out, the staff dude looked at my last name and commented about it. I said, "Yeah, it's a Polish name." The staff dude said that the owner of the guesthouse, Mr. Vong, spoke Polish. I thought to myself, "No way... I've already heard him speak in excellent English and French... but Polish? No one in Southeast Asia speaks Polish." So I struck up Mr. Vong in conversation. His Polish was even better than mine. Apparantly he studied mechanical engineering in Warsaw for ten years. That makes for THREE really interesting guesthouse/hostel owners whose names end with -ong: Pong (Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Mr. Kong (Kong Keo Guesthouse in Phonsavan, Laos), and Mr. Vong (Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos). Just odd...
Alex, Damaris, and I boarded a minibus to take us two hours south. From there, it was a short boat ride to Don Khone.
We had heard about Don Khone in Pakse. The staff of Sabaidy 2 said it was a really nice and quiet island to visit. Not really very rustic, but very comfortable. It was exactly what we were looking for. When we got to Don Khone, we realized our error. We were really supposed to go to Don Khong, not Don Khone. Their names are so similar, we got mixed up! Oh well, Don Khone was still a pretty island and we would stay there instead.
Don Khone was very pretty, but not quiet at all. Pi Mai Lao was still in full swing here and the villagers were PARTYING constantly. Our guesthouse (Mr. Pan's) had a restaurant and the staff of the restaurant were VERY aggressive about soaking people with water when they came by. We saw a pair of girls on a scooter totally wipe out while trying to dodge the water from their hose. Eep. Not only did they like to soak you, but they liked to spread lipstick on your face (as Alex found out, and I ran away from). They liked to put talcum powder in your hair and on your face, too. Oi!
Additionally, the villagers played a LOT of loud Lao music during the afternoon and evening. First the restaurant on one side of our guesthouse would play. Then the restaurant across the street. Then the house beside that. Then the house on the other side of our guesthouse. They were taking turns playing their music as loudly as possible. Sometimes they would play at the same same ("same same" -- that's a common saying on T-Shirts here -- I don't know why) time and try and drown each other out. I know that it's their biggest holiday of the year, but combined with my recent travel fatigue, it was really getting old for me fast.
Also, there were lots of roosters crowing. I just couldn't escape these guys. Would I never know peace again?
Don Khone is very rustic, too. They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening. The afternoons there are very very hot. Short of jumping into the Mekong River, there's no way to cool off in the afternoons. You can't even get an icy fruit shake to cool off with since there's no electricity to run the blenders.
Don Khone was VERY PRETTY, and had really nice food and cheap liquor, but it really was way too rustic for us to handle. We decided to bear with it for two days and then would take the boat to nearby Don Khong.
We spent the afternoons trying to lie in hammocks and barely surviving. I tried to drink a lot of water (probably like three hours per day) and take three or four showers per day to keep cool. I occasionally let the restaurant staff hose me down, too. Damaris didn't drink nearly enough water and started to feel ill. Doh. Drinking water is important, you know!
In the evenings we visited a pretty nice restaurant beside the river. One night, before sunset, we watched a bunch of locals on motorbikes set up a toll booth on the bridge beside the restaurant. It was not your normal kind of toll booth though. They made anyone who passed on their motorbikes stop and have some shots of Lao Lao before continuing. They were forcing people to drink and drive! That's something you'd never see in Canada!
The "Lao Lao Toll Booth"
We prefered to drink and sit. The restaurant had the cheapest liquor I had yet seen in Lao. They charged only 10,000 kip (about CA$1.20) for a generous shot of Pastis and a bottle of water. The water usually costs 2,000 kip (about CA$0.20). Getting a drink of imported liquor for only CA$1 was very cheap in Laos -- usually it cost closer to CA$3. We drank a lot of Pastis and Gin and Tonics there! They also had a fantastic Thai red curry with pumpkin there. Mmm!
Sunset on Don Khone
April 16 to 18, 2008
On the morning of April 16 we chartered a long tail boat to take us a hour and half back up river to Don Khong -- the real island we wanted. It turned out to be everything we wanted. They had twenty-four electricity, guesthouses with AIR CONDITIONING (since our stay in Don Khong, every guesthouse or hotel we've stayed in has had air conditioning). There were very few tourists there. Strangely enough, there weren't any crowing roosters as well. I saw chickens and chicks, so the roosters must have been somewhere... I just couldn't see or hear them. Maybe they kept them muzzled in some shack out back somewhere. Hallelujah! It was a very pretty island, too. Don Khong was like a holiday away from our holiday. I needed it!
We didn't see (or hear) any Pi Mai Lao celebrations on Don Khong. We knew they were still going somewhere, though. Our guesthouse kitchen was closed every night. When we asked why, they said it was because of Pi Mai Lao. We assumed that the cook was out drunk or passed out somewhere. Hehe.
We did very very little on Don Khong. We'd wake up in the morning and enjoy the free breakfast at our guesthouse -- Auberge sa la Done Khong. The guesthouse was less like your typical cheapo-guesthouse and more like an old French colonial hotel that was starting to show its rough edges. My bathroom was completely overrun with mosquitos and I was afraid to go in there. Otherwise, it was really quite pleasant. It cost me US$10/day. Not that bad, really.
Oh yeah! Back to the breakfast! They served really nice coffee (which I usually got two or three cups of), fried eggs, fruit salad, and very fluffy pancakes. They didn't have maple syrup (not that I would expect them, too), so we either spread sweetened condensed milk on our pancakes (much better than pouring puddles of it into coffee), or sprinkled sugar and lime juice. Most pancakes we had in Laos were too think and greasy. These were really good.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in our air conditioned rooms listening to music, reading, chatting, playing guessing games. I also spent time playing my Nintendo DS Lite. I finished up my book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (it's really good -- highly recommended -- thanks Aleks (my cousin) for the suggestion!) and started The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (which Alex (my traveling buddy) traded to me). I also spent lots of time sitting on the deck chairs on the guesthouse patio. Life was hard. It was still excessively hot out, so you can't blame us for taking it easy.
Occasionally we ventured out to find food. My Lonely Planet guidebook told me that there was another guesthouse (the Mekong Guesthouse) in town that made the audacious claim that they served Canadian-style pancakes and Tim Horton's-style coffee. This was ludicrous. We had to investigate.
The pancakes were indeed very light and fluffy -- as I would expect proper pancakes from Canada. Sadly, they lacked maple syrup -- but honey made a very nice substitute. Alex admitted to being a Tim Horton's addict (she is from Hamilton, Ontario, after all). She confirmed that the coffee really did taste like Timmy's coffee! I don't know how they did it, but they did. Since they managed to meet our expectations, we went to that guesthouse twice. There were really only like four places to eat in town, so quite a few places managed to score our repeat business.
One night, we were eating at this guesthouse patio overlooking the river. There weren't many other tourists in town, but there were some. There were a couple of families from France. That night, while the French parents chatted with each other (and smoked like chimnies), the kids were happily playing with each other. I guess one of the kids (I think he was only three years old) got bored and decided to play with us for a while. He spent like an hour sitting on Damaris' lap demanding that we draw pictures of cars, trucks, dolphins, bananas and other things. Once it was announced that it was I that was the artiste, the kid switched over to my lap and made me draw for him. It was mostly Damaris and Alex that spoke to the kid, though. Damaris speaks flawless French (as she should, since she is from Switzerland). Alex's French is better than mine, too, since she went to university in Montreal and took French immersion.
The kid was a liar, though. When we asked him where he was from, he said he was from Marseilles. His parents' corrected him and said that they were really from Nantes! Punk!
The riverfront view on Don Khong.
Alex tries to "roll up the rim" on her Tim Horton's coffee on Don Khong
April 19, 2008
Today was the last day on Alex's and my visas for Laos. We had to exit the country that day. We said our goodbyes to Damaris (I promised I would visit her if I ended up backpacking in Europe next year). She was going to go north through Laos to return to Chiang Mai, while we were headed south into Cambodia.
It was a long day of travel. We spent a long time at the border. There was a lot of border bureaucracy (e.g.: crap) to deal with. First we had to pay our US$2 "exit fee" to get leave Laos. Then we had to pay US$21 to get our visa for Cambodia. Finally, we had to pay a US$1 "entrance fee" to enter Cambodia. Really, most of these fees were really enforced bribes to the border guards. The only cost we were really supposed to pay was US$20 for the Cambodia visa. Damn border guards. There really wasn't much we could do.
Much of the journey was spent in a couple of different minibuses. The bus had seating for thirteen people, but there was usually about fifteen people in it. The air conditioning was weak so we had to travel with the windows open. One section of the road was completely made out of dust and sand, so we ate a lot of dirt. Bleck. The ride was so long that the guys in the back of the bus kept lighting up cigarettes. Some of them had the decency to try and keep close to the windows to keep the smoke out, but not all of them did. Double triple vomity bleck.
I was excited to reach Cambodia, though. Laos really sucked for beer and liquor. Beer Lao is not good. Many people say that it's one of the better beers available in Southeast Asia. I think they are wrong. W R O N G. Lao Lao is really harsh stuff, too. The problem is, though, that Laos claims to be a communist country (they're not really communist though -- see rant below) and they are landlocked -- so the selection of imported products is pretty limited. Cambodia claims to be a democratic country (they've got some issues with that, too, though), and is not landlocked. Hence, the selection of imported products is much better. The most popular Cambodia beer, Angkor, is pretty decent, too.
We finally pulled into Phnom Penh at like 10:30 PM. Alex and I had pre-decided that would stay in a REAL HOTEL when we got to Phnom Penh. We had lived on the cheap in Laos for a full thirty days, and we needed a taste of luxury to relieve our travel fatigue. The auberge on Don Khong was nice, but we needed more! Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and the biggest city we've been in since Bangkok in Thailand, so it was a good candidate for a recharge.
We had a couple choice locations picked out in our guidebooks, so we grabbed a tuk-tuk from the backpacker ghetto that the minibus from Laos dropped us off in and puttered over to the swankier section of town. Alas, the first two hotels we looked for were closed or moved. We walked around for like an hour in after-dark Phnom Penh (which many people say you shouldn't do), before finding the Anise Hotel. We got a really swanky (by our standards) room for US$45. Yes, that's really expensive, but we deserved it. It was 11:30 PM and we were tired of looking. We got a couple of draught Angkor beers from the hotel bar, cracked open the minibar and looted it for chocolate, cleaned the dust and dirt from ourselves with the shower and passed out.
To be continued...
Rant about Communism in Laos!
Oh yeah! I wanted to rant about the communist government in Laos. I didn't really feel comfortable ranting about this while I was actually in Laos, but now that I'm in Cambodia, here goes.
Laos is trying out the same messed up form of communism that China and Vietnam are doing. I don't like the regular socialist form of Communism either, but the capitalist form of Communism popular in Asia these days is just messed up. The people of Laos have to pay to send their kids to school or get health care from hospitals. That's not real communism -- not even close. That's just an example of greedy government leadership. They're just saying they're "communist" to maintain their grip on power while they continue to exploit their population. That's greedy and just plain evil.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
New Photos Posted: Si Phan Don
Hiiiiiiiii....
I've uploaded another album of photos to my Picasa Web Albums. Now you can enjoy the beauty of Si Phan Don (The"Four Thousand Islands") of Laos without leaving your chair! See, I'm out here seeing these things so that you don't have to. Just leave the hard work to me.
This photo album will be the LAST one from Laos. The next one should be for Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, which I'm in right now.
You'd also see a blog post today with my story leading up to this point (Vientiane to here). However, the internet and computers here are so CRAP that after I wrote it and thought I had posted it, I discovered that about 90% of it was missing. @(&#$%^^@#%. Sorry, I don't have the heart to rewrite it today.
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I've uploaded another album of photos to my Picasa Web Albums. Now you can enjoy the beauty of Si Phan Don (The"Four Thousand Islands") of Laos without leaving your chair! See, I'm out here seeing these things so that you don't have to. Just leave the hard work to me.
This photo album will be the LAST one from Laos. The next one should be for Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, which I'm in right now.
You'd also see a blog post today with my story leading up to this point (Vientiane to here). However, the internet and computers here are so CRAP that after I wrote it and thought I had posted it, I discovered that about 90% of it was missing. @(&#$%^^@#%. Sorry, I don't have the heart to rewrite it today.
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
New Photos Posted: Pakse
Howdy Hi.
I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It's stifingly hot outside, but they've got lots of fans in here to try and keep us from sliding off of our seats in slicks of slippery sweat. I've also got myself a cold Asahi Super Dry beer from the Lucky Supermarket to keep myself cool. I am SO RELIEVED that there is an actual selection of beers here in Cambodia. Yay democracy! Yippee capitalism! There's an Indian restaurant next door, and it smells like curry in here. Dee-licious!
Anyways, the internet is VERY slow here, but, just for you, I've uploaded a new album of photos on my Picasa Web Albums. It's only a few pictures, but you should be able to see what the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Years) festival looked like in Pakse, including some of my escapades on my crazy jeep ride.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It's stifingly hot outside, but they've got lots of fans in here to try and keep us from sliding off of our seats in slicks of slippery sweat. I've also got myself a cold Asahi Super Dry beer from the Lucky Supermarket to keep myself cool. I am SO RELIEVED that there is an actual selection of beers here in Cambodia. Yay democracy! Yippee capitalism! There's an Indian restaurant next door, and it smells like curry in here. Dee-licious!
Anyways, the internet is VERY slow here, but, just for you, I've uploaded a new album of photos on my Picasa Web Albums. It's only a few pictures, but you should be able to see what the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Years) festival looked like in Pakse, including some of my escapades on my crazy jeep ride.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Forging Further South: Vientiane to Pakse (Pi Mai Lao part 1)
Sorry for the lack-of-updates lately. I've recently passed through a pretty rural area with sketchy and expensive internet access. Now I'm in Siem Reap, Cambodia -- an actual real city -- so updates can continue.
April 10, 2008 (continued)
Anyways, I last wrote about getting to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
We only stayed in Vientiane for one night. We booked ourselves onto an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. We still got to spend the day enjoying the cafes, restaurants, and internet joints of Vientiane. We spent about three hours in the morning sitting in the JoMa cafe in Vientiane. Yes, even though we visited it six times in Luang Prabang, we were positively itching to hit up its branch in the capital. I was well rewarded with excellent coffee, quiche, and pain au chocolat (a chocolate croissant!).
The sleeper bus was a painful experience, to say the least.
Aside: AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I just realized that the internet connection at the shit internet cafe I was just at has caused me to lose about one hour's worth of writing on this post. I'm going to have to rewrite it from scratch. ARGH!GH!G#H@!$G!H$G#!H$G#%*^@%$@#^$% Sorry folks, it probably won't be as good the second time around.
That night, Alex and I boarded an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. While waiting for the bus, we ran into Lisa (from England) whom we met at the internet cafe earlier that day. The overnight sleeper bus was quite an experience. We knew that we were supposed to be sleeping on bunks, but we didn't really expect that bunks to be extremely-Asian sized (though I guess we should have expected it). We had to sleep two people per bunk. I was going to share a bunk with Alex, but Lisa was traveling alone and was assigned to share a bunk with some random Lao guy (RLG). Both her and RLG felt uncomfortable sharing a bunk together so Alex and RLG switched. I ended up sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with RLG. Fortunately, I took a Gravol pill and passed out for most of the eight hour bus ride.
April 11, 2008
We arrived in Pakse at 6 AM and checked into the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in town. Since Alex and I were supposed to meet Damaris (the Swiss girl we met in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Alex and I picked up the triple room. However, since Damaris wasn't supposed to show up for two more days, Lisa joined us in the room that night.
All of us had a rough night and we really took it easy that day. It was extremely hot and our guesthouse didn't have air conditioning, so it was all we could do just to stay ALIVE.
April 12,2008
Alex and Lisa went on a bus tour of the Bolaven Plateau outside of Pakse. I really wasn't feeling well, so I decided to stay in town. Why wasn't I feeling well? It was probably a combination of the extreme heat, the bad sleep the day before, travel fatigue, relative lack of decent places to eat in the small city of Pakse, the crappiness of Lao beers, and I was suffering from diarrhea! To top it off, Pakse was basically the ugliest town I'd seen in my travels. Lots of run down concrete buildings with no character or charm. Ugh.
I spent the day being asocial and spent most of it reading House of Leaves and playing Nintendo DS Lite in my room. I made good progress on Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales and Cooking Mama 2.
I also made the decision that I would try and avoid taking out any more money when I was in Laos. I only had about eight days left in the country and I had about 600,000 kip. I figured, that if I lived as cheaply as possible, I could squeeze through.
April 13, 2008
I still wasn't feeling that great in the morning. When you travel for a long time, you definitely feel your ups and downs. I was definitely at a "down" point in the cycle.
Thankfully, I got out of it today. I realized that my decision to spend the last week of my time in Laos living as cheaply as possible would NOT work. Being as cheap as possible never really makes me happy, to be honest. Spending money on good food and drink almost always makes me happy, so I decided that I had to spend my way out of my depression (do any politicians read this blog? hello!).
I know that one reason for my depression is the difficulty in finding good coffee in Laos. Almost all the time, the Laotians serve their coffee with puddles of sickeningly sweet condensed milk pooling in the bottom of the glass. They use WAY TOO MUCH of the stuff -- and I don't even like it. The coffee is often instant coffee, too. Y U C K. I wasn't a real coffeeholic when I left home, but when most days I do rarely more than visit the cafe or some restaurant, getting a nice coffee is important to me. I'm definitely a "foodie", so getting good stuff is key! Instant coffee with too much condensed milk is NOT GOOD STUFF.
Anyways, this rant does eventually go somewhere. That morning in Pakse, Alex and I went to Sinouk Cafe and ordered cappucinos. The cafe serves coffee grown on its own private plantation on the Bolaven Plateau. It was a very good cappucino and instantly made me feel better when I drank it. Seriously. I felt depressed before drinking it, and much better after. I'm not the kind of person who is unable to function before having a coffee in the morning, but that day, I definitely needed a good brew!
We met up with Damaris early that afternoon. She had arrived right in time for the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) celebrations in Pakse. These celebrations are held right during the HOTTEST (lucky us!) time of the year. It's the time of year that the Buddha statues are washed with holy water in all of the temples in the country. Because it's so freakin' hot, almost every person is also washed (let's say, more like splashed, deluged, soaked and showered) with water, too. There's a lot of water flying around. Since the colour of my skin gave me away as a visible minority in Laos, and the Lao people love to have a good time, I was a HUGE TARGET and got way wet all the time.
Anyways! Damaris, Alex, and I bought some Cornettos (remember that I was spending my way out of my depression) and headed down to the temple in Pakse to watch the New Year's festivities. There was a neato parade that wound its way down the main street in town then circled around the temple grounds.
After the parade, the three of us went to Nazim Indian Restaurant in town (since it was the ONLY place that was open -- also, it was the fourth time I went there to eat because the town had so few restaurants, and most were closed for Pi Mai Lao). The scene in front of the restaurant was one of carnage... pure carnage. Water guns, buckets, and hoses were all being liberally used by the staff of the restaurant and its patrons. The targets were the patrons and staff of the restaurant, and ANYONE else who happened to pass by the restaurant, regardless if they were walking or in any sort of vehicle. Lots of Lao people piled into pick-up trucks or tuk-tuks and drove up and down the main street of town to participate in the wide spread water fights. The fighting was thick and furious.
As I watched (and happily participated) in the water fight fury, I watched the people in trucks with awe. I thought to myself, "It sure would be fun to ride in one of those trucks!" Not too long late, a jeep full of Lao dudes pulled up beside the restaurant to get vigourously hosed down. I saw my chance! I jumped into the back of the jeep! The Lao dudes were happy for me to join them! They briefly implied that they might return to the restaurant later, and that was good enough for me! I waved "bye bye" to Alex and Damaris at the restaurant. Alex said something back like "Where are you going? Ack!", but I couldn't really hear her -- we were off and revving!
We drove up the main street real slow-like. There was lots of singing, chanting and shouting (in addition to throwing water balloons made from condoms). Since the jeep was filled only with guys, whenever a truck or scooter filled with girls went by, there was lots of cat-calling and whistling. We drove up 11 km (it took like an hour) to a temple and stopped. Surprise, surprise, the dudes had a full case of Beer Lao in the front of the jeep. We drank a bunch and headed back to town. I know that I resolved not to drink more Beer Lao (since it sucks), but I couldn't refuse my guys.
On the way back, the Lao dudes let me sit in the front passenger seat of the jeep. It was more fun than standing in the back and nearly falling out of the jeep with every bump, but it made me a MUCH MORE VISIBLE target. I think having white skin was basically like wearing a big bullseye on the face (since that's where a few water balloons exploded on me).
It was all good fun!
Despite the fun of the first day of Pi Mai Lao in Pakse, Alex, Damaris and I decided to skip town and head farther south to Si Phan Don (the "Four Thousand Islands") at the extreme south end of Laos. We booked our tickets and were going to head out in the morning!
To be continued..
April 10, 2008 (continued)
Anyways, I last wrote about getting to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
We only stayed in Vientiane for one night. We booked ourselves onto an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. We still got to spend the day enjoying the cafes, restaurants, and internet joints of Vientiane. We spent about three hours in the morning sitting in the JoMa cafe in Vientiane. Yes, even though we visited it six times in Luang Prabang, we were positively itching to hit up its branch in the capital. I was well rewarded with excellent coffee, quiche, and pain au chocolat (a chocolate croissant!).
The sleeper bus was a painful experience, to say the least.
Aside: AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I just realized that the internet connection at the shit internet cafe I was just at has caused me to lose about one hour's worth of writing on this post. I'm going to have to rewrite it from scratch. ARGH!GH!G#H@!$G!H$G#!H$G#%*^@%$@#^$% Sorry folks, it probably won't be as good the second time around.
That night, Alex and I boarded an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. While waiting for the bus, we ran into Lisa (from England) whom we met at the internet cafe earlier that day. The overnight sleeper bus was quite an experience. We knew that we were supposed to be sleeping on bunks, but we didn't really expect that bunks to be extremely-Asian sized (though I guess we should have expected it). We had to sleep two people per bunk. I was going to share a bunk with Alex, but Lisa was traveling alone and was assigned to share a bunk with some random Lao guy (RLG). Both her and RLG felt uncomfortable sharing a bunk together so Alex and RLG switched. I ended up sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with RLG. Fortunately, I took a Gravol pill and passed out for most of the eight hour bus ride.
April 11, 2008
We arrived in Pakse at 6 AM and checked into the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in town. Since Alex and I were supposed to meet Damaris (the Swiss girl we met in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Alex and I picked up the triple room. However, since Damaris wasn't supposed to show up for two more days, Lisa joined us in the room that night.
All of us had a rough night and we really took it easy that day. It was extremely hot and our guesthouse didn't have air conditioning, so it was all we could do just to stay ALIVE.
April 12,2008
Alex and Lisa went on a bus tour of the Bolaven Plateau outside of Pakse. I really wasn't feeling well, so I decided to stay in town. Why wasn't I feeling well? It was probably a combination of the extreme heat, the bad sleep the day before, travel fatigue, relative lack of decent places to eat in the small city of Pakse, the crappiness of Lao beers, and I was suffering from diarrhea! To top it off, Pakse was basically the ugliest town I'd seen in my travels. Lots of run down concrete buildings with no character or charm. Ugh.
I spent the day being asocial and spent most of it reading House of Leaves and playing Nintendo DS Lite in my room. I made good progress on Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales and Cooking Mama 2.
I also made the decision that I would try and avoid taking out any more money when I was in Laos. I only had about eight days left in the country and I had about 600,000 kip. I figured, that if I lived as cheaply as possible, I could squeeze through.
April 13, 2008
I still wasn't feeling that great in the morning. When you travel for a long time, you definitely feel your ups and downs. I was definitely at a "down" point in the cycle.
Thankfully, I got out of it today. I realized that my decision to spend the last week of my time in Laos living as cheaply as possible would NOT work. Being as cheap as possible never really makes me happy, to be honest. Spending money on good food and drink almost always makes me happy, so I decided that I had to spend my way out of my depression (do any politicians read this blog? hello!).
I know that one reason for my depression is the difficulty in finding good coffee in Laos. Almost all the time, the Laotians serve their coffee with puddles of sickeningly sweet condensed milk pooling in the bottom of the glass. They use WAY TOO MUCH of the stuff -- and I don't even like it. The coffee is often instant coffee, too. Y U C K. I wasn't a real coffeeholic when I left home, but when most days I do rarely more than visit the cafe or some restaurant, getting a nice coffee is important to me. I'm definitely a "foodie", so getting good stuff is key! Instant coffee with too much condensed milk is NOT GOOD STUFF.
Anyways, this rant does eventually go somewhere. That morning in Pakse, Alex and I went to Sinouk Cafe and ordered cappucinos. The cafe serves coffee grown on its own private plantation on the Bolaven Plateau. It was a very good cappucino and instantly made me feel better when I drank it. Seriously. I felt depressed before drinking it, and much better after. I'm not the kind of person who is unable to function before having a coffee in the morning, but that day, I definitely needed a good brew!
We met up with Damaris early that afternoon. She had arrived right in time for the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) celebrations in Pakse. These celebrations are held right during the HOTTEST (lucky us!) time of the year. It's the time of year that the Buddha statues are washed with holy water in all of the temples in the country. Because it's so freakin' hot, almost every person is also washed (let's say, more like splashed, deluged, soaked and showered) with water, too. There's a lot of water flying around. Since the colour of my skin gave me away as a visible minority in Laos, and the Lao people love to have a good time, I was a HUGE TARGET and got way wet all the time.
Anyways! Damaris, Alex, and I bought some Cornettos (remember that I was spending my way out of my depression) and headed down to the temple in Pakse to watch the New Year's festivities. There was a neato parade that wound its way down the main street in town then circled around the temple grounds.
After the parade, the three of us went to Nazim Indian Restaurant in town (since it was the ONLY place that was open -- also, it was the fourth time I went there to eat because the town had so few restaurants, and most were closed for Pi Mai Lao). The scene in front of the restaurant was one of carnage... pure carnage. Water guns, buckets, and hoses were all being liberally used by the staff of the restaurant and its patrons. The targets were the patrons and staff of the restaurant, and ANYONE else who happened to pass by the restaurant, regardless if they were walking or in any sort of vehicle. Lots of Lao people piled into pick-up trucks or tuk-tuks and drove up and down the main street of town to participate in the wide spread water fights. The fighting was thick and furious.
As I watched (and happily participated) in the water fight fury, I watched the people in trucks with awe. I thought to myself, "It sure would be fun to ride in one of those trucks!" Not too long late, a jeep full of Lao dudes pulled up beside the restaurant to get vigourously hosed down. I saw my chance! I jumped into the back of the jeep! The Lao dudes were happy for me to join them! They briefly implied that they might return to the restaurant later, and that was good enough for me! I waved "bye bye" to Alex and Damaris at the restaurant. Alex said something back like "Where are you going? Ack!", but I couldn't really hear her -- we were off and revving!
We drove up the main street real slow-like. There was lots of singing, chanting and shouting (in addition to throwing water balloons made from condoms). Since the jeep was filled only with guys, whenever a truck or scooter filled with girls went by, there was lots of cat-calling and whistling. We drove up 11 km (it took like an hour) to a temple and stopped. Surprise, surprise, the dudes had a full case of Beer Lao in the front of the jeep. We drank a bunch and headed back to town. I know that I resolved not to drink more Beer Lao (since it sucks), but I couldn't refuse my guys.
On the way back, the Lao dudes let me sit in the front passenger seat of the jeep. It was more fun than standing in the back and nearly falling out of the jeep with every bump, but it made me a MUCH MORE VISIBLE target. I think having white skin was basically like wearing a big bullseye on the face (since that's where a few water balloons exploded on me).
It was all good fun!
Despite the fun of the first day of Pi Mai Lao in Pakse, Alex, Damaris and I decided to skip town and head farther south to Si Phan Don (the "Four Thousand Islands") at the extreme south end of Laos. We booked our tickets and were going to head out in the morning!
To be continued..
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