LAOS

LAOS

Vang Viene Tubing

I arrived in Ventiene the Capital and headed for the infamous tubing at Vang Viene. I arrived quite late at night to my guest house but met up with some travellers the next day who were up for going tubing. You see, its not so much the tubing itself, the river flows quite slowly. Its the big swings and slides, the music, the bars the ambiance that makes tubing in Vang Viene an unmissable and special experience. And it also helped me once again to get over my fear of heights. The swings seemed like they were some 30m in the air. I added a couple of videos of the swing and the parties. All just some good fun Mum, don't worry! (see the videos below).

Laung Prabang

From the madness of Vang Viene i visited the Unesco World Heritage town of Laung Prabang. A small town with its temples, markets and the mighty Mekong running beside it. Personally i am not sure why its Unesco rated, i read the french put together a team and wrote a massive file to the UN to get the town registered. Ego i suspect. Whatever, it was a nice town. I stayed a couple of days visiting the temples, museums, watched a Laos ballet performance and strolled through the night market and visited the local Kang Si waterfall. Thereafter i took a river boat up north through Laos for one day, heading towards the river towns of Nong Koi and Mong Ngoi. Again a complete change of pace.

The pics below are of the sunset upon the Mekong at Laung Prabang, the national Museum and Buddha.


Nong Koi and Mong Ngoi

Nong Koi is a quiet river town with some trekking and kayaking activities. I stayed here two nights, for me it was a stop before going onto Mong Ngoi, however i did meet some very nice travellers here and we all went one hour further north to Mong Ngoi. Mong Ngoi has no roads, only forest and river access. There is one street that is the centre of life of the village. The river is the life and source of the people, so on that note any planned UN Development bank Dam projects might not be that welcome.


I did some trekking to local tribe villages and local waterfalls through rice padi fields. I went kayaking with the boys one morning and spent a couple of sunny afternoons by the river. Just relaxed and recharged really. Apart from one night when we stumbled across a local girls leaving party so of course we had to join in. Otherwise quite a chilled time amongst nature.

Lang Nam Tha

I was sorry to leave Mong Ngoi but i guess it was time to move on. I finally decided to visit Lang Nam Tha, apparently famous for its hill tribes and trekking in the national park. I met a very cool guy on the bus, Aidan and we travelled together for a week around Long Nam Tha. One day we hired motorbikes and were just exploring when we came across this local Laos birthday party. We we had a look and they invited us in. Lets just say we were lucky to enjoy such a local authentic gathering as you will see from the video below although the birthday boy was gay and fancied Aidan, asking him to kiss him on the dance floor! (sorry mate:-). We had such a laugh! Priceless.

Aidan and i also went for a another bike ride with some fellow travellers to explore what trekking opportunities there were. At one point of the day i went into China, illegally of course. We were right by the border on the bikes in Northern Laos and i just thought i would have a look. Needless to say the guards weren't impressed and when they started blowing their whistles, I decided to drive back out of China into Laos.

Anyway we did finally find a trek to do in the mountains. The trek was fine but i guess we all had other expectations, like meeting local tribal people, learning some local crafts etc. As i said we had a nice trek anyway and a good group of people.

I loved my time in Laos very much. I was sad to leave but you know, onwards and upwards. So far it has been my favourite country in South East Asia. I found the people to be genuine, open and warm and not all about getting the money. The pace of life is slow, simple and contented. Just calm and happy. Lets hope it may stay that way for a long time into the future.

CAMBODIA

Cambodia

OK, so you have to remember i was in New Zealand for three weeks and Sydney for 5 days with my parents and now i had to go back into Crazy Ville - South East Asia. Well i arrived in Bangkok and it really took me a couple of days to adjust and deal with everything. It wasn't easy and anyone who's been to Bangkok, well you know its a gigantic crazy city. Anyway stayed there two days before going onto Cambodia where i spent a week visiting two sites i wanted to see.

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap

I spent half of my week at Siem Reap to visit the incredible temples of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was built by Suryayarman II in the 12th Century as his state temple and capital city. He also built other temples in Angkor for his wife and other family members. Angkor is a significant religious centre both for Hind, dedicated to Vishnu and Buddhist. Considering how old the temple is it was in quite good condition and i was pleased to teams working on restoring different temples.

I managed to get up in time to enjoy the sunrise at Angkor Wat. A beautiful red sun just rising over the rain forest and temples.

I took a guide and went round in a tuk-tuk to visit all the temples. There are so many temples spread of several kilometers so you do need time to see it all and a guide to make sense of it for you otherwise it could be somewhat overwhelming to comprehend.

It was a beautifully warm day (scotching actually) and i really enjoyed my tour of the temples.

That night i went out with my guide, the tuk-tuk driver with another mate of theirs and we partied with the locals.

The following day i took a boat south from Siem Reap to Phnom Phen to visit the killing fields and the infamous S21 prison. My journey along the river took me some 6 hours through the centre of Cambodia. I saw how important the river was to these people as a source of food and income.

S21 Prison, Phnom Phen

Arriving in Phnom Phen i first visited the killing fields some 15-20minutes outside the city. To be honest there was not a lot of information on site, it was more left to your imagination but basically i saw fields with large holes that were clearly mass grave sites. As i said i found it hard to get a real understanding of what took place until i visited the S21 Prison where all was explained in detail.

A brief background, in the 1970's during the midst of the cold war America secretly bombed parts of Cambodia with around 6 billion dollars worth of bombs before retreating from South Vietnam into Cambodia and attacking it. The Khmer Rouge then decided to recruit people to fight the threatening force. After America left, Cambodia was left in the throes of civil war in which the Khmer Rouge prevailed.

In Phnom Phen one of the largest secondary schools under the rule of Pol Pot was turned into a torture camp and prison called S21. All members of the previous regime, lawyers, teachers, doctors, educated people and even people just for wearing spectacles were brought to this jail along with all members of their families before being executed at the killing fields. I saw mug shot pictures of the people who were detained there and i could clearly read in these peoples faces that they just didn't understand how or why they got to the place they were in that moment in time.

The cells the people were held in were so small you could not fit a single bed in them and the people were permanently tied to the floor with metal foot holds. Some cells had windows, others didn't! I saw the different methods of torture used and there was so much textual information and imagery that it left almost nothing to the imagination. There was still blood on the walls.

I spent around 4 hours here feeling distraught, astonished and deeply shocked at this treatment of humanity only 30 years ago. In the 3 and a half years that the Khmer Rouge were in power, over 17000 people left this particular prison for the Killing Fields, and only 10 actually survived.

Do we really ever learn? Rwanda....

It was heart rendering experience and i needed time alone at the end to compose myself and let sink in what i had witnessed. It was important to me to learn and understand what took place.

Finally I visited the Cambodia Land Mine museum which was set up by a former Khmer Rouge child soldier Aki Ra in 1997 from where Aki had been clearing mines throughout his country. Aki learnt about de-mining when he worked for the UN as a de-mining expert. By 2001 with help from foreign experts and funds the museum is now an NGO slowly progressing on the de-mining of all of Cambodia's country side. http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/