I'm not sure who's idea it was but we ended up on a two day hike to the Hmong and Kmao villages around the Luang Prabang area. We booked with "Tiger Trails" as they were made out to be slick operation by the lying Planet.
We turned up at their office at 8AM as directed, only to find that we weren't on their list to do the trek. At 8.30 we were still waiting for someone to arrive with the key to their office.............anyhow lets just say it took a while to get started, if only the German bloke who runs the company knew of their inefficiencies!
Our guides name was Li, he is a local who studied agriculture at university and has since given that away to work in tourism as he now has a child that he needs to feed! We got started with the hiking to find that my beautiful new, white Tiger trainers weren't really up for the job! It had rained for about 8 hours straight the previous night and the jungle trail was muddy and sticky and very slippery. I fell over in the first 30 minutes and then after that I lost count, however I did get pretty good at falling, and sliding and rolling, none of which were in the Tiger Trails brochure! We had Bonnie and John (Seattle USA) as our trekking companions, I wanted to poke their eyes out in the Tuk Tuk on the way to the start of the trek for being so annoying, however we found that in the face of adversity and hardship they weren't so bad.
Seriously though the trek was nice, we started off by walking past farm land and rice paddies and got to see a lot of rice transplanting in action. The scenery was amazing, the villages and farm land are nestled in the valleys formed between massive chunks of limestone that just seem to jut out of the earth. The inclement weather shrouded them in cloud and mist and that combined with the lush greenness of the vegetation made it look like we were in Jurassic park without the dinosaurs or Sam Neil.
After slipping and sliding for two hours we stopped off in a Hmong village for lunch to avoid a bit of a down poor and munched on our sandwiches inside their dirt floor hut. It looked like about 8 people slept there on a wooden platform, it looked like their doona covers hadn't been washed ever - what would mum say? Mum would say that when the weather is hot you should change your sheets every week! As thanks for their hospitality we bought some Hmong bracelets from them.
After that it just pretty much rained and rained, and when you thought it couldn't rain any harder - well it did. We walked through another Hmong village where pig raising was the specialty, there was a corresponding smell to this as well, use your imagination. In fact in this village it looked like their were more pigs than people, but raising pigs is a good way to make money, so good on them really. The only problem was that we walked across the pig paddock which was just mud and pig poo, and to say that we walked is actually an inaccurate description, it was really more like ice skating with terrible consequences.
Once we had cleared the pig pen it was back into the jungle where Li cut down a small tree for each of us with his pocket knife and made us a walking stick. This made things a little easier. It rained so much that the path we were walking on was like a small river, pretty soon after lunch my undies were soaked though, then my socks and then I just didn't worry about balancing across planks of wood to cross creeks and just walked straight through them. At many points the path was so slippery we stopped looking at where to put our feet and just worried about where the next strong looking bush or bit of bamboo was that you could use like a piece of rope to lower yourself down on. It was absolutely ridiculous, but no one got hurt thankfully.
So then we walked and walked and walked we counted the up-downs till we made it to the Kmao village where we were to stay the night. Brock said our trekking was like walking the Kokoda trail, I reckon if that's what the Kokoda trail is like then I'm not interested in doing it even if some dude carrys my bag for me! We walked about 15km and it took us 6 hours, 4 of which it was raining.
The Kmao people travelled to Laos about 500 years ago when the King of Laos daughter married the King of Cambodia and sent out the invite to come on down (well up really), they walked all the way to Laos, I'm tipping they probably did it in the dry season otherwise they would have had the same problems as us, and after all no one likes having wet undies.
The Kmao villages were similar to the villages in Cambodia - houses on stilts, and the Kmao people still look similar to the Cambodian people of today. The village we over nighted in had a primary school, football pitch and a town meeting place. We had a bamboo hut to sleep in with a mattress, pillow, blanket and mosquito net, pretty good really. We had a bit of a mushy wash put some not so wet clothes on and Li made us dinner, which was fabulous, oh boy we love sticky rice!
We had a bit of a wander around the village and joined in with some Korean hikers for a few rounds of "Lao Lao", Laotion whisky made from fermented rice and then distilled. It was kind of like tequila, it was not as bad as I thought it would be but it still sent a shiver down my spine. Between three people they had had 3 bottles and lets just say their eyes were looking a bit bloodshot when we saw them at 6pm.
After dinner we went to bed early as we had a feeling that we would be woken early the net day. Sure enough we had roosters underneath our hut having a crow off at 5am, not to mention the generator next door. We had a lovely Lao breakfast of meat and sticky rice, oh boy we love sticky rice! We then hit the trail to the waterfall and elephant park. We only walked for an hour and a half and the path was pretty good comparatively as its the same one the daily tractor that takes people/things into town uses. We had a bit of a gander at the elephants and a very refreshing swim in the waterfall, the waterfall is like terraces as the limestone gets deposited around trees, logs etc and forms separate pools and levels, very spectacular really.
From there it was a short but hairy boat ride to the Tuk Tuk that was waiting to take us back to civilization at last!
29 June, 2008
Vietnam in a nut shell
- Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) - can be great or it can be poisonous!
- Conical hats are a fashion accessory, seriously young people wear them
- Bargaining is more of a necessity than in Kampuchea
- Overnight trains are OK as long as you don't mind someone else's hair on your pillow
- Cyclo drivers can not be trusted
- Taxi drivers in Hanoi are criminals (with the exception of Hanoi taxi)
- Uncle Ho is a dude
- I'm not sure if the Uncle Ho in the Mausoleum is the real deal - I'm prescribing to the Madame Tussuad's theory of a wax substitute!
- "Vietnam Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Ho Chi Minh" its a catchy little tune, go on sing it!
- Beach bars in Na Trang are very very nice
- Tailored board shorts are the way of the future - you should see them, very sexy Brocky!
- You can get Oreos, Choco pie and Pringles anywhere (we were swimming off a boat in Ha Long bay and a lady paddled over to us to sell them!)
- They love the sound of a beeping horn
- Communism with a free market seems to work and do wonders for the economy
- Dam Sen Water Park in HCMC should be on every ones itinerary
- Chopsticks are the only necessary kitchen utensil
Air Travel, South East Asian Style
Well we are sitting pretty in the totally excellent city of Luang Prabang in Laos at the moment after getting all adventurous like and going trekking to a hill tribe for a couple of days. Pretty interesting in itself, but not as interesting as how we ended up in Luang Prabang 3 days earlier than planned...
After having a great time in Vietnam, we'd booked a flight from Hanoi to the Laos capital of Vientiane on the 25th of June. So as planned we said a final farewell to all of our new friends from'Nam and headed off to the airport in Hanoi amidst the usual honking of horns that is background noise in all of Vietnam. Honestly no one can drive a vehicle without a bit of the ol' horn action every, say 2 or 3 seconds.
But I digress; a thing that people may not know about Hanoi is that it's a fantastic city full to the brim of lovely people, with a frothy top thieving bastards trying to grift money off you at any opportunity, lead principly by taxi drivers. In Hanoi there are as many different taxi companies as places selling noodle soup and three quarters of them have dodgy meters, so every time you get in a cab you have to check the meter and threaten the driver with unspeakable acts of violence to ensure you pay a fair rate. We got a taxi from Hang Bac road to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum (actual distance about 3kms) and the meter rang up 12.5 km's and the driver wanted us to pay 100,000 Dong (about $6). So after a big argument and various accusations in English and Vietnamese we paid 60,000 and cleared off. Other cabs tried the same thing with less success and we were wise to their tricks.
So with our hard won knowledge of Hanoi we thought it prudent to book a transfer to the airport ,which is quite a ways out of town, with a reputable individual. This we did, heading to the airport at 1pm thinking we were done with the place. After a drive at the usual breakneck speed, enough to make Shell carsick, and past things you simply don't expect to see such as 4 different Baguette vendors, all sitting smack bang in the middle of the on ramp for one of the major bridges over the Red River. Think 4 Mr Whippy's parked on the interchange between the Tulla and the Western Ring Road and you will get the idea. Wasn't 1 enough?
Again I've digressed. We got to the airport with plenty of time before our 4pm flight and sat around waiting for the check in counter to open up. And waited. And waited a little more.... Until finally at about 3pm I decided to try and find out what was going on and how come we couldn't check in. I mean, the flight was on the board, but just nothing happening. So I lined up at the ticket counter, waiting about 15 minutes for some girl to place many stamps on many pieces of paper for a non-existent passenger, and finally she said
"The check in counter will come up on the board when they open check in."
Thanks. I know that. That's how every airport in the world works.
"Check in should have opened an hour ago", I say, "the flight leaves in an hour"
"Oh. Maybe you should go and ask someone at the counter over there" and waves at 50% of the airports 70 or so check in counters that were on her right hand side.
"Thanks " I say and set off in search of someone - anyone - who looks like they know whats going on. After wandering around for a bit I found a counter that looked likely with someone sitting there and said
"I'm flying to Vientiane at 4" and then - the same second I swear - the tv screen above her head pops up saying
"Qv322 16:00 Vientiane, cancelled". Then she helpfully informed me that the flight was cancelled. So after a bit of "What?! Why?! " and the like I told her that I really wanted to go and she said,
"well there's a flight to Luang Prabang later and then there's another plane going to Vientiane after that".
"I'll go to Luang Prabang. Anywhere in Laos will be fine" I said.
"Really? Ok then that's easy" she said and I dashed off to get Michelle and the bags.
So we checked in for Luang Prabang and after another hour or two of waiting around for the flight we walked up the boarding gate for our Lao Airlines flight. Since in was the dinkiest little plane ever manufactured we had to get a bus out on to the tarmac so we boarded the bus for our final dive in Vietnam and drove out there, with a completely unnecessary but very jovial honk on the horn from the bus driver we bid adieu to Vietnam and offered our lives to the mercy of the maintenance program of a third world airline.
We survived and landed in Luang Prabang, possibly the nicest city in the Mekong area (And ended up cutting 3 days of unnecessary travel of our trip as well). What a great day! This worked quite well for us as we were flying to Vientiane in order to get a bus to a place called Vang Viene (3 hours), do some white water rafting, and then head to Luang Prabang by bus (8 hours driving). It turns out we could do all the extreme adventure activities in LP and we dodged 11 hours of Karaoke hell in a local bus. [Anyone that has been on a local bus in SE Asia will know what I mean - for everyone else they play these god awful karaoke videos on the buses . It's sort of Bollywood video clips with the words below, in Sanskrit of course, with the sort of music that reinforces the notion of Asia being the continent that rhythm forgot.]
So now it was to infinity and beyond....
After having a great time in Vietnam, we'd booked a flight from Hanoi to the Laos capital of Vientiane on the 25th of June. So as planned we said a final farewell to all of our new friends from'Nam and headed off to the airport in Hanoi amidst the usual honking of horns that is background noise in all of Vietnam. Honestly no one can drive a vehicle without a bit of the ol' horn action every, say 2 or 3 seconds.
But I digress; a thing that people may not know about Hanoi is that it's a fantastic city full to the brim of lovely people, with a frothy top thieving bastards trying to grift money off you at any opportunity, lead principly by taxi drivers. In Hanoi there are as many different taxi companies as places selling noodle soup and three quarters of them have dodgy meters, so every time you get in a cab you have to check the meter and threaten the driver with unspeakable acts of violence to ensure you pay a fair rate. We got a taxi from Hang Bac road to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum (actual distance about 3kms) and the meter rang up 12.5 km's and the driver wanted us to pay 100,000 Dong (about $6). So after a big argument and various accusations in English and Vietnamese we paid 60,000 and cleared off. Other cabs tried the same thing with less success and we were wise to their tricks.
So with our hard won knowledge of Hanoi we thought it prudent to book a transfer to the airport ,which is quite a ways out of town, with a reputable individual. This we did, heading to the airport at 1pm thinking we were done with the place. After a drive at the usual breakneck speed, enough to make Shell carsick, and past things you simply don't expect to see such as 4 different Baguette vendors, all sitting smack bang in the middle of the on ramp for one of the major bridges over the Red River. Think 4 Mr Whippy's parked on the interchange between the Tulla and the Western Ring Road and you will get the idea. Wasn't 1 enough?
Again I've digressed. We got to the airport with plenty of time before our 4pm flight and sat around waiting for the check in counter to open up. And waited. And waited a little more.... Until finally at about 3pm I decided to try and find out what was going on and how come we couldn't check in. I mean, the flight was on the board, but just nothing happening. So I lined up at the ticket counter, waiting about 15 minutes for some girl to place many stamps on many pieces of paper for a non-existent passenger, and finally she said
"The check in counter will come up on the board when they open check in."
Thanks. I know that. That's how every airport in the world works.
"Check in should have opened an hour ago", I say, "the flight leaves in an hour"
"Oh. Maybe you should go and ask someone at the counter over there" and waves at 50% of the airports 70 or so check in counters that were on her right hand side.
"Thanks " I say and set off in search of someone - anyone - who looks like they know whats going on. After wandering around for a bit I found a counter that looked likely with someone sitting there and said
"I'm flying to Vientiane at 4" and then - the same second I swear - the tv screen above her head pops up saying
"Qv322 16:00 Vientiane, cancelled". Then she helpfully informed me that the flight was cancelled. So after a bit of "What?! Why?! " and the like I told her that I really wanted to go and she said,
"well there's a flight to Luang Prabang later and then there's another plane going to Vientiane after that".
"I'll go to Luang Prabang. Anywhere in Laos will be fine" I said.
"Really? Ok then that's easy" she said and I dashed off to get Michelle and the bags.
So we checked in for Luang Prabang and after another hour or two of waiting around for the flight we walked up the boarding gate for our Lao Airlines flight. Since in was the dinkiest little plane ever manufactured we had to get a bus out on to the tarmac so we boarded the bus for our final dive in Vietnam and drove out there, with a completely unnecessary but very jovial honk on the horn from the bus driver we bid adieu to Vietnam and offered our lives to the mercy of the maintenance program of a third world airline.
We survived and landed in Luang Prabang, possibly the nicest city in the Mekong area (And ended up cutting 3 days of unnecessary travel of our trip as well). What a great day! This worked quite well for us as we were flying to Vientiane in order to get a bus to a place called Vang Viene (3 hours), do some white water rafting, and then head to Luang Prabang by bus (8 hours driving). It turns out we could do all the extreme adventure activities in LP and we dodged 11 hours of Karaoke hell in a local bus. [Anyone that has been on a local bus in SE Asia will know what I mean - for everyone else they play these god awful karaoke videos on the buses . It's sort of Bollywood video clips with the words below, in Sanskrit of course, with the sort of music that reinforces the notion of Asia being the continent that rhythm forgot.]
So now it was to infinity and beyond....
27 June, 2008
Imperial Court Dinner. Hoi An, Vietnam
I read somewhere that we could go to a fancy dress banquet dinner in Hoi An, which I thought was a stupendous idea. Thankfully all 15 of our fellow Intrepid travellers thought it was too, so along we went for an entertaining evening.
There was dress ups - my favourite. Cultural show in the form of music - Brocks favourite. And a 6 course banquet - our collective favourite.
We drew names out of a hat, Magnus got chosen to be the King, Chris the Queen and Samantha the court Eunich. The rest of the girls were conchibines and the boys were Civil Mandarins (military men - not friut!).
Anyway I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Please pay particular note to the effort they made to make our entrees look like birds!
There was dress ups - my favourite. Cultural show in the form of music - Brocks favourite. And a 6 course banquet - our collective favourite.
We drew names out of a hat, Magnus got chosen to be the King, Chris the Queen and Samantha the court Eunich. The rest of the girls were conchibines and the boys were Civil Mandarins (military men - not friut!).
Anyway I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Please pay particular note to the effort they made to make our entrees look like birds!
25 June, 2008
Motor Scooter Safari. Hue, Vietnam
| This was one of the best things that we did on our Intrepid Vietnam trip, keep reading and I shall tell you why....... It all started with 15 guys on 15 motorbikes arriving at our hotel to pick us up early in the morning. We all had our Intrepid helmets put on for us and mounted our bikes from the left hand side of course! and sat as close to our drivers as we felt comfortable but most of us found as we went along wasn't any where near close enough. Brock's driver was Tham Nguyen and he was catholic (he felt he need to tell Brock this?) and my driver was Huey, he had a really cool flannelette shirt on and was the carrier of the esky that contained ice and our refreshingingly cool face washers that we would enjoy later in the day - this made him a very popular guy, after all it is the simple pleasures in life! Once we were all in the saddle the drivers all let out a rousing "mo hai ba something" (one two three go!) and we were off. Imagine this 15 motorbikes with absolute disregard for the rest of the traffic all entering a busy road at once, interesting concept but it works trust me. Just like 15 motorbikes approaching a T-intersection have right of way, trust me this was frightening! The first stop was Thanh Tom as small village about 20 min ride out of town, we stopped off at the market place where everone wanted us to buy a drink from them, Brock tried rice wine but I passed as my tummy was not really up for it if you know what I mean! Apparently it wasn't that great but thats not really suprising. The village also had a covered bridge over the river and in the bridge was a little old lady dressed in silk pyjamas who was a fortune teller. Thats right kids a fortune teller! It is worth mentioning that was about 80 years old and had her eyebrows drawn on, and lipstick, it was odd. The other odd thing was at the other end of the bridge there was about 10 old men just lying around inside the bridge also wearing pyjamas. There must be some rule in Vietnam created by one of the Nguyen Emperors that once you hit 50 years old its ok to to wear pyjamas all the time........clearly there is no other explanation! So most people in our group had their fortunes told but I wasn't allowed to - Yes Brock is a party pooper! Most people are either going to marry twice and their first marriage would be to an alcoholic, this did not go down well with the other couple on our trip - poor Kelly! The fortune teller didn't say anything about motor bike so it was back on the bikes and off to the arena where the Emperor used to watch Elephants fight against Tigers. It was kind of like a mini colosseum with out the stadium seating. We wondered for a few moments who would win out of Tiger V's Elephant, I thought tiger and Brock elephant but Thanh our trusty tour leader quickly explained that they broke the tigers teeth and claws off so the elephants one everytime. Apparently thats lucky, I'm sure the RSPCA would not share the same definition of "luck". Next was a bit of a hairy ride to a look out over the Perfume river. Quite spectacular really watching the barges go down the river with the mountains in the background in one dierection and the Laos border and the Ho Chi Min trail in the other. The same hill had machine gun bunkers created by the French - good spot for it really we though, at least when you wern't shooting stuff you had something pretty to look at right? Next stop was a incense making shop. Brock had a go at it and lets just say he is much better at being a computer nerd, we also got to try on the Hue poem hats, they are like regular Vietnamese conical hats but they have silloutted scenes of daily lfe inside them which you can see when you hold them up to the light. Brock got to buy a cold Mars bar, I think that might be why he thought this was such a great day! Piggy. Then we headed to one of the toomb of the Nguyen Emperors, Thanh picked a toomb for us that hasn't been restored which was quite nice to see the real deal as sometimes the restorations are lets just say a little tacky! Hue is famous for the toombs of the emperors that strecth along the Perfume river. Next stop the nunnery where we had the biggest and bestest vegetarian buffet I have ever had (the only one i have ever had actually). Mother superior took it upon herself to shovel more food on our plates and feed us with chopsticks, after lunch she made us all lie down for a nap. It was all a bit like kindergarden. The last stop on our tour was to visit the monks - just to balance things out a bit. We went to pagoda where there were many mini monks in training. By far the most interesting thing was the garaged car of the monk who drove himself to Saigon and then set himself on fire (next to his car) in protest against the South Vietnamese government. His picture won the photographer who took it photograph of the year and immortalised him as the cover art of Rage Against the Machines first album. |
The trip home involed a ride over a pedestrian brige, which was just wide enough for our bikes, Huey kept tucking my legs in closer to him so they wouldn't get torn off! So then we were home for a well deserved late afternoon nap, we then had very good Italian for dinner and then played Jenga at "Brown eyes" bar till very late. What a great day!
19 June, 2008
Cambodia Country Notes
- Everything costs a dollar! Anything from a t-shirt to a drink to a tuk tuk to an entire meal to just about anything that you can hold on one hand
- They clearly do not like their own currency (The Riel). The ATM's give out US Dollars and they only give you riel for change
- The main rule for driving is don't show any fear. Also I think that anyone undergoing fighter pilot training spend 3 weeks driving a public bus in Cambodia. Truly it requires nerves of steel. Also I'm certain that the Cambodian equivalent of Vicroads sees cattle and small tractors as legitimate traffic control devices. You know how the French built that massive via duct for $400 million Euros to cut 4 hours off the trip from Paris to Barcelona: The cambodians could cut 12 hours off the trip from Bangkok to Phnom Penh by
- Paving the road;
- Building some fences to keep the Cows and Buffulo off the road; and
- Asking that people pull off the highway when they need to conduct businesss, go to the toilet, cook some food, have a sleep and stuff like that
- On the beaten track, ie Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Shianoukville, there is always someone close to hand that speaks English
- Food is generally like Thai without the super spice. I quite liked Beef Loc Lak and the Amok curries.
- Phnom Penh must be the smelliest capital city in the world
- It is clear the war and the Khmer Rouge is still recent in everyones minds. Frankly I think they are doing well for the carnage inflicted on the country
06 June, 2008
Middle Cambodia
We visited the small city of Kompong Cham which is situated in central Cambodia on the banks of the Mekong river. The river is really brown at the moment on account of the rains having started, and its very very wide. Wide like the Nile wide, not like the Yarra river wide!
Kompong Cham is also the site of the only bridge that crosses the Mekong in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh (the capital) they still use barges to get everything across the river, a little backwards but considering how much of a monstrosity the bridge in Kompong Cham is compared to the rest of the infrastructure in Cambodia you can understand why. We did a tuk tuk tour around the area for the afternoon. Our tuk tuks were propelled by very cheap but cool looking Chinese motor bikes, and lovely Khmer drivers who were more than appreciative of our custom.
First stop was one of the local weaving villages. The area around Kompong Cham is famous for its fantastically coloured and detailed Khmer scarves which we found out have a thousand and one uses: cover yourself while bathing, sun hat, turban, veil, neck scarf and to make your head flat on top so you can carry stuff around on it etc etc. The lady who demonstrated the weaving to us had the biggest goiter that I had ever seen, but she seemed happy and healthy enough!
Anyhow, it takes two days to make a scarf and they sold them to us for $2 USD. Which is not a lot of money. The village kids followed us around from the minute we got out of the tuk tuks and were so excited when the got to see their faces on our digital cameras. The village kids also taught us the game where you have to kick your shoes to knock over a pile of rubber bands, we were all really bad at it but it was pretty fun.
Next stop was a temple, Wat Henchey on the top of the "man and woman"hill. It had a beautiful garden and the most impressive library building I've ever seen. The top of the library had a massive smiling Buddha head on it, which beats the state library in my books any day! Oh yeah and there were monkeys - we hate monkeys.
Next stop was Wat Nokor (another temple) where we had a cultural dancing show put on for us by the local orphans, they were all very lovely kids and one of the little girls adopted Me - she was so so sweet. They live off the money from the donations they get from the cultural show, so we gave them a good one! After this we had a little afternoon siesta and then we headed to one of our tuk tuk drivers house's where his wife had cooked the most magnificent spread for us. The highlight of which was the fried crickets, cheap beer and the traditional Khmer coconut chicken curry which was the best one that we have had by far. It was a brilliant night, we got to eat dinner on their bamboo floor in their house on stilts. We also got to talk to them about:
Kompong Cham is also the site of the only bridge that crosses the Mekong in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh (the capital) they still use barges to get everything across the river, a little backwards but considering how much of a monstrosity the bridge in Kompong Cham is compared to the rest of the infrastructure in Cambodia you can understand why. We did a tuk tuk tour around the area for the afternoon. Our tuk tuks were propelled by very cheap but cool looking Chinese motor bikes, and lovely Khmer drivers who were more than appreciative of our custom.
First stop was one of the local weaving villages. The area around Kompong Cham is famous for its fantastically coloured and detailed Khmer scarves which we found out have a thousand and one uses: cover yourself while bathing, sun hat, turban, veil, neck scarf and to make your head flat on top so you can carry stuff around on it etc etc. The lady who demonstrated the weaving to us had the biggest goiter that I had ever seen, but she seemed happy and healthy enough!
Anyhow, it takes two days to make a scarf and they sold them to us for $2 USD. Which is not a lot of money. The village kids followed us around from the minute we got out of the tuk tuks and were so excited when the got to see their faces on our digital cameras. The village kids also taught us the game where you have to kick your shoes to knock over a pile of rubber bands, we were all really bad at it but it was pretty fun.
Next stop was a temple, Wat Henchey on the top of the "man and woman"hill. It had a beautiful garden and the most impressive library building I've ever seen. The top of the library had a massive smiling Buddha head on it, which beats the state library in my books any day! Oh yeah and there were monkeys - we hate monkeys.
Next stop was Wat Nokor (another temple) where we had a cultural dancing show put on for us by the local orphans, they were all very lovely kids and one of the little girls adopted Me - she was so so sweet. They live off the money from the donations they get from the cultural show, so we gave them a good one! After this we had a little afternoon siesta and then we headed to one of our tuk tuk drivers house's where his wife had cooked the most magnificent spread for us. The highlight of which was the fried crickets, cheap beer and the traditional Khmer coconut chicken curry which was the best one that we have had by far. It was a brilliant night, we got to eat dinner on their bamboo floor in their house on stilts. We also got to talk to them about:
- prices of houses -$12 000 USD in this case, for 1 big room,1 bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, home loans - they borrowed money from the rich peoplehow to make money - fattening up pigs is a good option when there are no tourists that want to take tuk tuks!
- weddings - they get changed about 5 times and their parents pay for everything!
Even though these people were poor and live very simply compared to us they were obviously very happy, even if a lot of their time was spent worrying about how to make enough money to feed their family. We have had a few reality checks on this trip already and this fabulous day in Kompong Cham was one of them.
As I siad, Angkor What?
Well I've finally found a bit of spare time in my extremely busy schedule of being on holiday to note down some thoughts, feelings and observations about Cambodia and the temples.
They are hell cool! (I got that phrase from a 19 year old)
We spent a flat out day ay Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom on the 31st of May. For those who don't know, Ankgor Wat is a temple complex built in the 12th century by the Khmer civillisation, on a mind boggling scale for something that predates the Sistine Chapel by 400 years. Being a religous and pretty industrious lot the ancient Khmers started with small house size temples, built out of sandstone with a nice moat and carved with lots of pictures about life in the fields and fighting the Chinese. Having got the hang of the small temple they went bannanas, constucting initially Angkor Wat and then the city temple complex of Angkor Thom which in its prime was a city of more than a million people at a time when London was a small town of 50,000. The temples are huge, as are the irrigation ditches that they dug in perfect squares around the various sites.
Ankor Wat and Angkor Thom are about 10 Km's out of Siem Reap, Cambodia's second largest city. We had a tour organised for us so we got on the bus early and set out to see the sights. Through the gate, where you get a ticket with your photo on it (apprently to prevent Koream tour companies from runnung - literally running - 3 tour groups a day through on 1 set of tickets) and firstly to Angkor Thom, through the south gate and to the temple of Bayon. This was a huge temple with 54 towers, one each for the provinces of the Khmer civillisation at the time, many ordained with a large smiling Bhudda faces. Much of the sandstone has been washed away damaging the ornte carvings, however there are still plenty of sanskrit inscriptions and murals to check out.
After walking around the Bayon we went to another temple name Baphuon that predated the Bayon by a couple of hundred years and peeked around that for a bit. It was in mid restoration by the French in the 60's when they were booted out of the country and forced to abandon the job. Whilst they left the partly deconstructed temple in a well ordered state, 30 years of civil war led to much looting of the statues, carvings and even foundation stones leaving a big mess of rubble and turning what was a difficult restoration job into a 50 foot high and 150 foot square giant, ancient jigsaw puzzle for the UNESCO restorers. Good luck team. Since it was a Saturday we couldn't go on this bit so we waled around to the oldest temple in Angkor Thom, Phimeanakas, which is a sort of Mayan Style pyramid. This we were allowed to climb so Shell and I darted up the top, interrupting the obligatory hippie meditating with some incense burning at the top. Now maybe I wasn't in touch with my inner Bhuddist enough but I reckon they look like try hards. To each thier own..
From there we avoided the heat by scamperin past the statue of the Leper King and the Terrace of the Elephants, respectively a statue of a king that is missing the ends of his nose, toes and fingers prompting the locals to suspect he had leperosy, and a wall with lots of carvings of elephants, and into the air conditioned bus.
After a nice lunch, we hit Angkor Wat which is the largest temple built by the Khmers, and let me tell you, it is big. Wheras Angkor Thom was a 3km by 3km city with temples scattered amongst it, Ankor Wat was one large temple, set on a 1.5 x 1.5 km area surrounded by a moat. We walked around it for about 2 hours as the guide explained all the intricate details of it's construction and murals. It was super excellent and if you want to know more, then visit it! Seriously this place is unreal and when dinner costs US$3 for a big plate of whatever and beers are US$1 your are mad not to. Oh and there is also some wonders of the world to wander around..
After Angkor Wat we went to the Indiana Jones Temple of Ta Phrom. Also known as the Tomb Raider temple (parts of the movie were shot here), it is a jungle temple with strangler figs all over it that have become structural. Check out the photos I posted last week to see what I mean.
After that we went out for a nice dinner at the Soup Dragon restaurant and then a few beers at the Angkor What? bar. The next day we went to the floating village on Tonle Sap which was interesting if a bit smelly. Also if you lived on a lake, why would you keep large estuarine crocodiles in a bamboo cage under your house? Seems like asking for trouble to me. The rest of the day was spent wandering around and it was early to bed because the next day we were off to Kampong Cham, where Michelle takes over the story telling....
They are hell cool! (I got that phrase from a 19 year old)
We spent a flat out day ay Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom on the 31st of May. For those who don't know, Ankgor Wat is a temple complex built in the 12th century by the Khmer civillisation, on a mind boggling scale for something that predates the Sistine Chapel by 400 years. Being a religous and pretty industrious lot the ancient Khmers started with small house size temples, built out of sandstone with a nice moat and carved with lots of pictures about life in the fields and fighting the Chinese. Having got the hang of the small temple they went bannanas, constucting initially Angkor Wat and then the city temple complex of Angkor Thom which in its prime was a city of more than a million people at a time when London was a small town of 50,000. The temples are huge, as are the irrigation ditches that they dug in perfect squares around the various sites.
Ankor Wat and Angkor Thom are about 10 Km's out of Siem Reap, Cambodia's second largest city. We had a tour organised for us so we got on the bus early and set out to see the sights. Through the gate, where you get a ticket with your photo on it (apprently to prevent Koream tour companies from runnung - literally running - 3 tour groups a day through on 1 set of tickets) and firstly to Angkor Thom, through the south gate and to the temple of Bayon. This was a huge temple with 54 towers, one each for the provinces of the Khmer civillisation at the time, many ordained with a large smiling Bhudda faces. Much of the sandstone has been washed away damaging the ornte carvings, however there are still plenty of sanskrit inscriptions and murals to check out.
After walking around the Bayon we went to another temple name Baphuon that predated the Bayon by a couple of hundred years and peeked around that for a bit. It was in mid restoration by the French in the 60's when they were booted out of the country and forced to abandon the job. Whilst they left the partly deconstructed temple in a well ordered state, 30 years of civil war led to much looting of the statues, carvings and even foundation stones leaving a big mess of rubble and turning what was a difficult restoration job into a 50 foot high and 150 foot square giant, ancient jigsaw puzzle for the UNESCO restorers. Good luck team. Since it was a Saturday we couldn't go on this bit so we waled around to the oldest temple in Angkor Thom, Phimeanakas, which is a sort of Mayan Style pyramid. This we were allowed to climb so Shell and I darted up the top, interrupting the obligatory hippie meditating with some incense burning at the top. Now maybe I wasn't in touch with my inner Bhuddist enough but I reckon they look like try hards. To each thier own..
From there we avoided the heat by scamperin past the statue of the Leper King and the Terrace of the Elephants, respectively a statue of a king that is missing the ends of his nose, toes and fingers prompting the locals to suspect he had leperosy, and a wall with lots of carvings of elephants, and into the air conditioned bus.
After a nice lunch, we hit Angkor Wat which is the largest temple built by the Khmers, and let me tell you, it is big. Wheras Angkor Thom was a 3km by 3km city with temples scattered amongst it, Ankor Wat was one large temple, set on a 1.5 x 1.5 km area surrounded by a moat. We walked around it for about 2 hours as the guide explained all the intricate details of it's construction and murals. It was super excellent and if you want to know more, then visit it! Seriously this place is unreal and when dinner costs US$3 for a big plate of whatever and beers are US$1 your are mad not to. Oh and there is also some wonders of the world to wander around..
After Angkor Wat we went to the Indiana Jones Temple of Ta Phrom. Also known as the Tomb Raider temple (parts of the movie were shot here), it is a jungle temple with strangler figs all over it that have become structural. Check out the photos I posted last week to see what I mean.
After that we went out for a nice dinner at the Soup Dragon restaurant and then a few beers at the Angkor What? bar. The next day we went to the floating village on Tonle Sap which was interesting if a bit smelly. Also if you lived on a lake, why would you keep large estuarine crocodiles in a bamboo cage under your house? Seems like asking for trouble to me. The rest of the day was spent wandering around and it was early to bed because the next day we were off to Kampong Cham, where Michelle takes over the story telling....
01 June, 2008
Angkor What?
Well we've arrived in Cambodia and now we are getting some religion! And these guys sure know how to build a temple...
We got into Bangkok at about 7:30pm local time and after a short but eventful taxi trip, during which the driver stopped twice to ask people on the street for directions, we got to the hotel and went straight to bed. We were ready to go at 7, when we got to get on the "pimp my ride" minivan for Cambodia. Since we missed the team meeting the night before, this was our first chance to meet the tour group who I might introduce later
We crossed the Thai/Cambodian border at Poipet which was seriously like a movie set. People everywhere, trucks going this way and that, chickens running around, a really massive casino between both border posts that lets Thais leave Thailand to gamble without actually entering Cambodia - neat, and overworked officials putting many and varied stamps all over important looking documents and passports. I loved it. Oh yeah - and once over the border the road turns into a truly terrible potholed road all the way to Siem Reap. Apparently the Bangkok - Siem Reap air route is enormously profitable and keeping the road crap ensures that the air route remains so. To be fair they had big piles of dirt ready to be shaped into a road but think Crooked River Road and you will know what I mean.
Anyway the next day was the first big excitement past the border crossing. We saw the temples at Angkor Wat which are really cool and get their own post at a future date......
To keep everyone interested here's some photos
We got into Bangkok at about 7:30pm local time and after a short but eventful taxi trip, during which the driver stopped twice to ask people on the street for directions, we got to the hotel and went straight to bed. We were ready to go at 7, when we got to get on the "pimp my ride" minivan for Cambodia. Since we missed the team meeting the night before, this was our first chance to meet the tour group who I might introduce later
We crossed the Thai/Cambodian border at Poipet which was seriously like a movie set. People everywhere, trucks going this way and that, chickens running around, a really massive casino between both border posts that lets Thais leave Thailand to gamble without actually entering Cambodia - neat, and overworked officials putting many and varied stamps all over important looking documents and passports. I loved it. Oh yeah - and once over the border the road turns into a truly terrible potholed road all the way to Siem Reap. Apparently the Bangkok - Siem Reap air route is enormously profitable and keeping the road crap ensures that the air route remains so. To be fair they had big piles of dirt ready to be shaped into a road but think Crooked River Road and you will know what I mean.
Anyway the next day was the first big excitement past the border crossing. We saw the temples at Angkor Wat which are really cool and get their own post at a future date......
To keep everyone interested here's some photos
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