Sunday, February 18, 2007
Cambodia and Vietnam Tour - Week One
Big update this one...
I spent the last two days of my time in Laos in Vientiane, the capital, basically just bar hopping and walking around the occasional temple, there's really not an awful lot to do there... then last Saturday I flew back to Bangkok with Lao Airlines... scary... propellor planes... brother says they're less high maintenance than other commerial aircraft but it just felt like it was gonna drop out of the sky at any given moment. Service and food was good though. I've stayed on the legendary Khao San Road for one night before moving about 5 minutes away to the hotel where I started my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam.
On Sunday evening I met my tour group. We've got a pretty cool bunch. I'm sharing a room with a girl called Roxy who is on a career break, then there's Rachel and Mike who are on a 6 month break from England, Gareth from Wales who works for the Times and is doing an article on a few people in the group (not me fortunately... I'm really not a good example to people planning a gap year or career break...) Amy who's on holiday from Brisbane, Nina and Mike and Claire and
John all on holiday as separate couples from Melbourne, Frankie from Canada who wants to become a professional bum having travelled the world already but all work-related, and Sarah from the US who is on a long holiday too. We went out for dinner that night just off Khao San Road, then ended up on Rambuttri at a minibar on the street where we drank cocktails for a pound each. Mike has quickly proven himself to be the "I'll try anything" person of the group... having wandered off to look for pancakes, he returned with a couple deep-fried frogs, grasshoppers, cockroaches and maggots. Ewwwwwwww! But he tried each one and lived to tell the tale... Oh, and we did find pancakes... really nice banana ones with chocolate dribbled on top. yum.
On Monday it was up early to take a minibus to the Thai-Cambodia border. This took about 4 hours and I think most of us slept a good portion of it. Once we got to the border we had to walk over with our backpacks, through a no-mans-land area full of casinos - there is no local law so they thrive there. Then it took a while to get through passport control on the Cambodia side. Next up was a 5 hour bus ride along the "Boulevard of Broken Backsides"- it's pretty much an unsealed 4WD road which allegedly one of the airlines pays to keep this way so it can get people to fly instead of go by bus... I'm not sure I'd do that road again... having seen some of the potholes that we fell into or avoided together with the number of trucks parked along the road having their tyres changed... well I'm just glad we made it in one piece without having a puncture. I think the boys at the back of the bus hit the roof with their heads a couple of times after bouuncing into a pothole.
We got into Siem Reap at about 5.30 in the evening and our hotel was much nicer than I'd thought. The trip I'm on is run by Intrepid and is one of their "basix" packages - no frills. So to have a western toilet, toilet paper and hot water was a very pleasant surprise. We all went out for dinner to a local restaurant and had our first taste of Khmer food. I had a curry which was a bit bland - apparently they think westerners really don't like spicy food so deliberately don't put it in the food they serve to us.
The next day, Tuesday, we got up at 5am as we were heading out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise.
I spent the last two days of my time in Laos in Vientiane, the capital, basically just bar hopping and walking around the occasional temple, there's really not an awful lot to do there... then last Saturday I flew back to Bangkok with Lao Airlines... scary... propellor planes... brother says they're less high maintenance than other commerial aircraft but it just felt like it was gonna drop out of the sky at any given moment. Service and food was good though. I've stayed on the legendary Khao San Road for one night before moving about 5 minutes away to the hotel where I started my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam.
On Sunday evening I met my tour group. We've got a pretty cool bunch. I'm sharing a room with a girl called Roxy who is on a career break, then there's Rachel and Mike who are on a 6 month break from England, Gareth from Wales who works for the Times and is doing an article on a few people in the group (not me fortunately... I'm really not a good example to people planning a gap year or career break...) Amy who's on holiday from Brisbane, Nina and Mike and Claire and
John all on holiday as separate couples from Melbourne, Frankie from Canada who wants to become a professional bum having travelled the world already but all work-related, and Sarah from the US who is on a long holiday too. We went out for dinner that night just off Khao San Road, then ended up on Rambuttri at a minibar on the street where we drank cocktails for a pound each. Mike has quickly proven himself to be the "I'll try anything" person of the group... having wandered off to look for pancakes, he returned with a couple deep-fried frogs, grasshoppers, cockroaches and maggots. Ewwwwwwww! But he tried each one and lived to tell the tale... Oh, and we did find pancakes... really nice banana ones with chocolate dribbled on top. yum.On Monday it was up early to take a minibus to the Thai-Cambodia border. This took about 4 hours and I think most of us slept a good portion of it. Once we got to the border we had to walk over with our backpacks, through a no-mans-land area full of casinos - there is no local law so they thrive there. Then it took a while to get through passport control on the Cambodia side. Next up was a 5 hour bus ride along the "Boulevard of Broken Backsides"- it's pretty much an unsealed 4WD road which allegedly one of the airlines pays to keep this way so it can get people to fly instead of go by bus... I'm not sure I'd do that road again... having seen some of the potholes that we fell into or avoided together with the number of trucks parked along the road having their tyres changed... well I'm just glad we made it in one piece without having a puncture. I think the boys at the back of the bus hit the roof with their heads a couple of times after bouuncing into a pothole.
We got into Siem Reap at about 5.30 in the evening and our hotel was much nicer than I'd thought. The trip I'm on is run by Intrepid and is one of their "basix" packages - no frills. So to have a western toilet, toilet paper and hot water was a very pleasant surprise. We all went out for dinner to a local restaurant and had our first taste of Khmer food. I had a curry which was a bit bland - apparently they think westerners really don't like spicy food so deliberately don't put it in the food they serve to us.
The next day, Tuesday, we got up at 5am as we were heading out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise.
We had hired a guide for the day, Yous Sa, who spoke amazing English considering he's never been there, and has the most wonderful cockney accent on top of it - we don't know how he acquired it, although I've heard a twinge of it in other people since then, but you see this Cambodian dude standing in front of you, and as soon as he opens his mouth you expect rhyming slang to come out of it. Terrific dude. Angkor Wat was amazing. The pictures of this place just don't do it justice. It's one of those places that is really peaceful 
but really imposing and you pretty much walk around with your jaw on the floor. After watching the sunrise, we walked around to the other side and then up the 37 steps to heaven. I say steps, but you could practically call it a stone ladder it was so steep, you're crawling up on all fours... thank god they put a handrail on one of the sets of steps so we could get down without breaking anything... or dying, which apparently does happen.
We came out of Angkor Wat at about 9am ready for breakfast so all went over to a restaurant for a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, and fresh baguettes. I have to say, they do a mean breakfast out here! Next up was Ta Phrom, where some of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. Yous Sa did a wicked impression of Angelina Jolie! This temple is really interesting, it hasn't been restored and there is a lot of rubble lying around it, and trees growing out of and on top of it! It's the strangest thing to see, I thought I'd wandered into a fairy tale when we went in.
After Ta Phrom, we visited Angkor Thom. This is a complex comprising many temples, including the Bayon which is the one with the faces on the columns. Again, this is a really mystical place and you can easily get lost in there.
After Angkor Thom we went for lunch. We sat at the edge of the restaurant, and local kids were constantly asking us to buy stuff. This is one of the most difficult aspects of travelling around here. You see all these little kids selling stuff, and they look so adorable, and you know they're really poor, and you really want to buy something from them but obviously you can't buy from all of them. So when you finally do buy something only for another little girl to offer you something and you say no and she says "why you no buy from me?", your heart breaks for her. Saying no is probably the equivalent of saying "I don't like you" in her mind. In practical terms, whether or not you buy something from one of these kids can mean whether or not they go to school the next day and it is really hard not to feel responsible. I guess you just have to harden yourself and know that if you do buy something you're helping someone if not everyone.
After lunch we went to a land mine museum. This was just horrible and I don't think anyone walked out without tears in their eyes. We were shown around the museum by a 19 year old whose right leg had been amputated below the knee. He had gone into the jungle as an 8 year old with his brother and sister, stepped on a mine and lost his leg, his brother and his sister. It was awful hearing him tell his story in such a matter of fact way, and none of us knew what to say to him. He showed us all the different types of mines that they are clearing and you just can't understand why anyone would invent such things. It's such a terrible legacy for the country, where 50% of the population is under the age of 18... but I haven't met a single kid who doesn't have a smile and a bright hope for the future.
That night we went out for pizza and then on to a club... where most people got rather wasted.
The next day I got up fairly early - around 8.45, as I wanted to get some laundry done and then some of us had talked about going to one of the posh hotels in Siem Reap to use their pool for a few hours. Only three of us made it to the Angkor Palace Spa Resort... everyone else was too hungover! For $18 we had the use of the pool, the gym, sauna, steam room and a three-course lunch. We only used the pool - and we only came out because we were hungry! It was a really lovely setting but I think we had the right idea - pay around $10-15 to stay where we did and then pay to use the pool rather than paying $150 a night to stay there!
When we got back to our hotel, people were just about feeling human again, and we all set off for Tonle Sap - this is a huge lake in the middle of Cambodia where there is a floating village complete with school, church, temple, football pitch and basketball court. We took a boat trip out around the village and stopped at one of the restaurants where they had a fish and crocodile farm. Any time you went near the edge of the floating restaurant all you could hear was "one dollar" - for bananas, for coke, for beer... after we left we convinced the captain to hang around to let us watch the sunset - and any time we came anywhere near anything, someone would row out to meet us as fast as they could to sell us more bananas or drinks!
We got back to the hotel later than planned, and our tour leader thought we had fallen in! We were dining with a local family that night so we felt a bit guilty for holding things up but it all worked out well. We ate loads of food, and danced with the kids.
On Thursday we took a public bus to Cambodia's 3rd largest town, Kompong Cham. We were a bit apprehensive about the bus but it was air-conditioned and quite comfy as long as you weren't 6 foot tall. We got into the town around lunchtime and after a nice burger we were off on our
excursion. We were going out over a bamboo bridge to an island in the middle of the Mekong. Most people cycled but me, Nina and Roxy hopped on a moped and rode out pillion, which was a lot of fun. The bridge gets rebuilt each December as the monsoon destroys it each year. It felt a wee bit rickety going over it...
but really imposing and you pretty much walk around with your jaw on the floor. After watching the sunrise, we walked around to the other side and then up the 37 steps to heaven. I say steps, but you could practically call it a stone ladder it was so steep, you're crawling up on all fours... thank god they put a handrail on one of the sets of steps so we could get down without breaking anything... or dying, which apparently does happen.
We came out of Angkor Wat at about 9am ready for breakfast so all went over to a restaurant for a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, and fresh baguettes. I have to say, they do a mean breakfast out here! Next up was Ta Phrom, where some of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. Yous Sa did a wicked impression of Angelina Jolie! This temple is really interesting, it hasn't been restored and there is a lot of rubble lying around it, and trees growing out of and on top of it! It's the strangest thing to see, I thought I'd wandered into a fairy tale when we went in.
After Ta Phrom, we visited Angkor Thom. This is a complex comprising many temples, including the Bayon which is the one with the faces on the columns. Again, this is a really mystical place and you can easily get lost in there.
After Angkor Thom we went for lunch. We sat at the edge of the restaurant, and local kids were constantly asking us to buy stuff. This is one of the most difficult aspects of travelling around here. You see all these little kids selling stuff, and they look so adorable, and you know they're really poor, and you really want to buy something from them but obviously you can't buy from all of them. So when you finally do buy something only for another little girl to offer you something and you say no and she says "why you no buy from me?", your heart breaks for her. Saying no is probably the equivalent of saying "I don't like you" in her mind. In practical terms, whether or not you buy something from one of these kids can mean whether or not they go to school the next day and it is really hard not to feel responsible. I guess you just have to harden yourself and know that if you do buy something you're helping someone if not everyone.After lunch we went to a land mine museum. This was just horrible and I don't think anyone walked out without tears in their eyes. We were shown around the museum by a 19 year old whose right leg had been amputated below the knee. He had gone into the jungle as an 8 year old with his brother and sister, stepped on a mine and lost his leg, his brother and his sister. It was awful hearing him tell his story in such a matter of fact way, and none of us knew what to say to him. He showed us all the different types of mines that they are clearing and you just can't understand why anyone would invent such things. It's such a terrible legacy for the country, where 50% of the population is under the age of 18... but I haven't met a single kid who doesn't have a smile and a bright hope for the future.
That night we went out for pizza and then on to a club... where most people got rather wasted.
The next day I got up fairly early - around 8.45, as I wanted to get some laundry done and then some of us had talked about going to one of the posh hotels in Siem Reap to use their pool for a few hours. Only three of us made it to the Angkor Palace Spa Resort... everyone else was too hungover! For $18 we had the use of the pool, the gym, sauna, steam room and a three-course lunch. We only used the pool - and we only came out because we were hungry! It was a really lovely setting but I think we had the right idea - pay around $10-15 to stay where we did and then pay to use the pool rather than paying $150 a night to stay there!
When we got back to our hotel, people were just about feeling human again, and we all set off for Tonle Sap - this is a huge lake in the middle of Cambodia where there is a floating village complete with school, church, temple, football pitch and basketball court. We took a boat trip out around the village and stopped at one of the restaurants where they had a fish and crocodile farm. Any time you went near the edge of the floating restaurant all you could hear was "one dollar" - for bananas, for coke, for beer... after we left we convinced the captain to hang around to let us watch the sunset - and any time we came anywhere near anything, someone would row out to meet us as fast as they could to sell us more bananas or drinks!
We got back to the hotel later than planned, and our tour leader thought we had fallen in! We were dining with a local family that night so we felt a bit guilty for holding things up but it all worked out well. We ate loads of food, and danced with the kids.
On Thursday we took a public bus to Cambodia's 3rd largest town, Kompong Cham. We were a bit apprehensive about the bus but it was air-conditioned and quite comfy as long as you weren't 6 foot tall. We got into the town around lunchtime and after a nice burger we were off on our
excursion. We were going out over a bamboo bridge to an island in the middle of the Mekong. Most people cycled but me, Nina and Roxy hopped on a moped and rode out pillion, which was a lot of fun. The bridge gets rebuilt each December as the monsoon destroys it each year. It felt a wee bit rickety going over it...On the island is a small village, and as we rode through it the children were just getting out of school and kept running up to us saying "hello""hello"and holding out their hands for a high five... they were so cute and it was great fun high fiving them all.
On Friday we took another public bus into Phnom Penh, the capital, where we had lunch at a restaurant that does a lot of great work in the community. They reach almost 2,000 kids on a daily basis, helping them with problems such as drugs, homelessness and prostitution, and get them a place to stay, get them into school, and give them skills to get jobs and support themselves. The restaurant is staffed by Teachers and Students, all of whom are in the programme. And the food is great.
After lunch we got in a minibus to take us to Takeo where we were staying with a local family for the evening. We were told that the family was very poor and to expect really basic conditions. I figured after trekking in Chiang Mai and staying with the tribes there I would be pretty well prepared. But it was much nicer than we had been led to believe, and the family certainly wasn't that poor. It was the first night of the Chinese New Year so we bought some fireworks for the children... as soon as they saw them their eyes lit up... and they practically yanked them out of our hands... with almost disastrous consequences... it's not that they were kids and didn't know what they were doing, because they did - that was the scary part - they don't have nice health and safety laws and safety guidelines on the boxes out here so the kids see no harm in getting as close as they like to the fireworks while we look on and start screaming at them to get away!
Saturday we took the minibus down to Sihanoukville on the coast where after having a yummy lunch and a couple jugs of pimms (made by a barmaid who'd never made it before so it was rather alcoholic...) we hit the beach. We all dived straight in the water to cool off and it was heavenly. We had the great idea to build a human pyramid so some of the girls tried climbing up on the guys' shoulders - but couldn't get their balance with the waves. Then some local kids swam up and we invited them to get on our shoulders and have a fight. I think we all almost drowned there and were absolutely exhausted by the time we made it back to shore.
In the evening we went to a bar that was giving away free food and vodka shots and cheap drinks... we all had a go (or five) at the vodka shots - they had themselves an ice ramp with a gulley running down the middle so they just poured the vodka in and we waited at the bottom to receive the chilled vodka. We had a boat trip planned for the next day so I just got a bit merry and left before midnight, helping John get Claire home... but most of the others stayed on for a few hours and were still drunk when we got on the boat the next day!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Laos
(There's a post below this which I drafted a couple days ago and have only just finished... unfortunately the blog goes by the date you start drafting it, not the date you publish it...)
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.
On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.
Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!
Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy!
Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point!
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy! Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point! Tomorrow I head on to Vientiane, the capital, for two nights before flying back to Bangkok so I can begin my tour through Cambodia and Vietnam on Sunday. Can't wait!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Lots to cover...
Phew, what an exhausting last few days! I've done quite a bit since I last posted so this might be a biggie.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.
Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
