Holiday in Cambodia

Siem Reap

Well we've made it to Cambodia... and it's hot! Here in Siem Reap it's been into the mid to high 30s with high humidity as well. We flew in on Air Laos (unpublished safety record for some peculiar reason!) and not only were the seats bolted down put the plane made it here in one piece as well.

The first day we spent most of the day wandering around different parts of the city, just getting our bearings. With the exception of a filthy river, it's quite a nice looking city, with a crazy mixture of architecture. They have signs along the river saying "Clean Our Water River". It would appear that is the only measure they've taken to clean it up and it's not really working for some reason. That night we had dinner for a bit over a dollar each. This 12 year old entrepeneurial genius convinced us to come and have dinner at his family's street stall (instead of one of the other several dozen set up). Half the fun of eating there was watching this crazy little kid work his magic. He was very good with the customers (excellent English learnt from just listening to tourists) and didn't stop working the tables and the streets the whole time we were there.

Cambodia is a more like Thailand rather than Laos, sales-pitch wise. Everyone shouts "Hey Mister" or some catch phrase as you walk by. Always with a smile on their face mind you. They seem a bit cheekier than the Thais and will just laugh when you turn them down.

Day two was an amazing day, spent touring Angkor. See below.The rest of the time has been pretty relaxed, as we've seen all the major things we wanted to see here. There are a lot of markets around and plenty of very good food to try so that should keep us busy enough. After a couple more days of not much we'll be heading to Phnom Penh for a look at the other side of Cambodia. Also, new South East Asian Record: six people on one motorbike (110cc)! Bettered the old record by one, it was one adult and five tiny kids.

Angkor

One of the must do's on the trip was to go to the Temples of Angkor. Most people choose to see it by car or tuk-tuk but seeing as we are poor and like to do our own thing we decided to get a couple of bikes and spend a day out there. Most of the guide books recommend taking 3 or so days to do the temples, but with cost being an issue again we decided that with two bikes, energy to burn and the fact that my attention span is comparable to that of a blow-fly, one day would be heaps.

Jumped out of bed at 5:something in the morning and hired some mountain bikes from our guest-house (these had the added luxury of gears and brakes which are not standard over here!). Someone had told us that the sun came up over Angkor Wat at 6:30am and by the time our guest-house had dicked around pumping up tyres and finding the keys to our locks it was already after 6am. The temples are about 8-10km out of town, so the next 20 minutes became the Cambodian leg of Le Race as we tore through Siem Reap and out to the temples, even managed to overtake a couple of motorbikes in the process!

Angkor Wat is the main attraction of the temples and because it faces pretty much due West is the prime spot to watch the sunrise. We got there and piled in to find that apparently other people knew about this too as there must have been 2000 odd tourists inside! The temple is pretty amazing. First off it's surrounded by this moat which must be a few hundy metres across. Then there is this massive gate and walls, you go through these and the wat is another 1km in. The detail on the wat is amazing, the walls are covered in carvings of various buddhas and bas-reliefs and the shear size of it is mind-blowing. Once into the main part of the wat you can climb the ridiculously steep stairs and get a great view from the top. It's sorta hard to describe how cool it was in words without using a host of elaborate adjectives, but it was pretty awesome! The fact that it was built 900 years ago with some probably pretty simple tools and sheer man power is also pretty impressive. The good thing about the temples is you can pretty much go anywhere in them as there are no roped off sections, just a few warnings about climbing the stairs at your own risk!

So tracking back a bit we got to Angkor Wat with anticipation of getting some great sunrise photos, yet as time went on it got lighter and lighter but no sunrise due to the fact it was really overcast (this turned out to be a blessing as the sun didnt kill us on the bikes until after mid-day). At 7am we gave up waiting for the sunrise and went exploring in the wat. After a bit of brekkie we hit the road on the bikes and started on the 27km circuit around the various temples. I wont go into detail on each one but most of them were pretty impressive, just with the sheer size and detail invloved.


The only downside to the temples is the fact that everywhere you go someone is trying to sell you something. As soon as we pulled our bikes up anywhere we would be swamped by women and children yelling at you "Hey Mista, you buy a t-shirt" or similar, or some little kid trying to sell you the same postcards or bracelets. These people are only doing what they can to make a living but after 10 or so hours we got over it a little. The other frustratrion was the busloads of predominantly Japanese and Korean tourists, who sure have the same right to be there as us, but seemed to make a habit of stopping in large groups to block the entrance/exit to a temple or walking in front of you when you try to take a photo!

So after 10 or so temples and a fair bit of biking we got to Angkor Thom which is an old walled city with a whole lot of temples inside. Had some lunch and a much needed drink then pushed on to see Bayon which has the carved faces staring down at you. This temple was pretty cool as it is pretty run down giving it the whole "ruins" feeling but most of the faces are still in good nick. By this stage we were pretty buggered and had nearly done the whole circuit but we had a few hours til sunset and some people we had met recommended a temple called Ta Prohm that was off another circuit, so hauled ourselves back on the bikes and headed there, via another few temples - one that had the worlds most ridiculously steep steps! Ta Prohm was cool as the jungle is starting to grow back into it and there are some great areas where massive trees are growing with thier roots running right through the stonework. Apparently the Tomb Raider movie was shot here (woopdee shit!) so the place was crawling with other tourists, noteably our favourite bus tours were present.


Biked from there back to Angkor Wat (odometer count by now was probably in the region of 40kms) and waited there for the sunset. Took some shots there then jumped on the bikes to head home. The bike ride home was kinda fun, there was a ton of traffic and while the trucks and motorbikes saw the various speed bumps as a sign to slow down, the two idiots on the bikes saw them as a chance to get airborne, hence we made the trip back into town faster than most of the motorised transport on the road! Not surprisingly we were a bit tired after 14 hours riding bikes and climbing temples in the 30+ heat, so our attempt at a big night out failed around 9:45pm...

Vang Vieng and Vientiane

Vang Vieng

After a six hour bus ride South from Luang Prabang we ended up in a small town called Vang Vieng. A lot of the smaller towns round here seem to specialise in certain (normally slightly odd) things, here it's haircuts and shoe repairs. For US$3 per night we found some cool bungalow style accommodation right on the Nam Song River.



The first night we went out with a few people who were heading to one of the bars in town for a BBQ. The bar owner turned out to be a Kiwi so we ended up having a bit of a chat to him. The whole bar had been built and set up for only US$4500. This included the outdoor bar, the projector cinema, the sound system, the BBQ, everything you could want in a Laos bar. He also told us about the corrupt cops, apparently the fees aren't that high though so everyone just pays them and gets on with it.



Day two found us wandering around the incredible landscape here. There are massive limestone hills that just seem to pop straight up out of the ground and most of them have caves or lagoons that you can explore (for a small fee of course). We walked to one of the closer caves on the other side of the river and had a wander through that one. Not hugely impressive though, so we decided we'd go to one of the more famous ones tomorrow. Later that afternoon we played several games of takraw and volleyball with the incredibly friendly family that own the guest house. Good times with the locals.

Our last day in Vang Vieng was the one of the best of the trip. We got up pretty early and ran out to one of the larger caves. At one point there was a turn-off for the cave we were heading for that said we had 1km to go. About a km up the road there was another sign saying we had 1km to go. Then after about another km there was one more sign saying we still had 700m to go! Anyway, we got there in the end. After crossing over a nice lagoon, we began the climb up to see the cave. It was quite a climb in the heat that was beginning to build (there's no such thing as wheel chair access here, or safety rails for that matter). This cave was much more impressive than the first, it was huge, with several large chambers attached and even had a shrine inside. After exploring round for a bit we made our way back to the guest house and had a bit of lunch.

Then we headed down to the tubing office in town. Now this is why you come to places like Laos. There are no government departments set up to legislate for people with no commonsense. There are no laws against building things that may, possibly, one day cause someone to bruise themselves or break an arm. And there are no rules that prioritise political correctness anywhere near (let alone above) having a bit of fun. So a bit of fun we had. We were dropped off several kms outside of town with a big tube and our waterproof bag. We jumped into the river and began our float back to town. After less than 100m we were at the first stop, lured in by the promises of Beerlao, the massive flying fox (or zip line for our non-NZ readers) and the crappy Lao pop blasting out of the even crappier speaker system. One ice cold Beerlao each was ordered and the offer of a free shot of Lao Lao was accepted. What a great start to the afternoon. Who said rivers, alcohol and dodgy looking flying foxes don't mix? After a few goes on the flying fox (and hitting the water in all manner of painful ways) we swum across to the massive river swing that was on the other side and had a few goes at jumping off that.

Then we jumped back in our tubes and meandered on down to the next stop. It turned out that the swing at the first stop wasn't so massive after all, as it was dwarfed by the next two we came across. This was the main stop on the river and where we spent the next several hours. There was proper music playing here, hoards of people and plenty of cheap Beerlao. The water entertainment consisted of two unbelievable (due to size and simply the fact that they stood up) swings and a huge flying fox. Off the water there was a big beach volleyball court, a takraw court and a bunch of little open-side bamboo huts to hang out in. We ended up meeting a nice bunch of Poms on a boys trip, so we hung out with them and played a fair bit of volleyball for most of the afternoon. And of course played on the swings. The shadows started getting a bit long after a while so we jumped back on the tubes and stopped off just once more to keep our Beerlao topped up for the journey back. What a magic, magic day.

Vientiane

Great! I get to write the part about Vientiane. Vientiane gets the award for most boring city so far... There's nothing wrong with it per say, it's a bit like the Christchurch of Laos - it's nice enough with a few pretty sights, but there's just not much going on. There are not the excursions that you can take in the rest of Laos such as trekking, mountain biking, caving, tubing etc.. and the night life leaves a bit to be desired with most places closing down at 11pm. It's the first place we've been to where we've been like "What do we do now?". Thankfully we're only here for one more day then flying to Cambodia first thing in the morning.

Anyway enough moaning. We got in on Saturday arvo, went out for tea by the river (which is not as nice as it sounds, being the dry season the Mekong is reduced to a trickle on the far side). Played a game of pool with an American couple (the first Americans we've met thus far) who were pretty cool. It is really hot here I think the overnight low that night was 29 degrees, Ive never sweated so much playing a game of pool! Next day we hired some bikes and biked around the city. Went to Pha That Laing which is the Laos national monument and wat. Was pretty cool, it must look pretty good lit up at night cos it is painted entirely in gold paint. Pretty much chilled for the rest of the day, had tea, played pool and went to bed.

Well that's really all I can say about that sorry. Bring on Siem Riep!

Laos in Summary

Well apart from Vientiane being a touch boring, Laos has been fantastic, much better than Thailand! Everything is more laid back and the people much friendlier. Although it's officially a democracy there is still a lot of communist thought here. For many commodities there only appears to be one company providing them, this seems to be the case for: beer, energy drink, cell phone network, internet, tourist tshirts, motorbikes... The people here are also more conservative than Thailand yet get a few Lao Laos down them and you see the exact opposite! Laos is developing pretty fast, everywhere we go there is new building or roading happening and new businesses opening up. This is no doubt good for the Laos economy but it seems like it's turning into another Thailand fairly rapidly. If anyone is planning on coming to Laos at some point I would recommend coming sooner rather than later before it looses its identity.

The main reasons we liked Laos is because there are may things it does not have which make it unique. On our short and somewhat sheltered trip it appears that the following things do not exist here:

A Liquor License
OSH
An understanding of what the centre-line on the road is for
Crime
Aggression
Imported Beer
McDonalds or any other chain outlet
An understanding of efficiency
A perception of time
A sign in English without a spelling/grammatical mistake

A note on Travel Gear

In the past few weeks we've made a few observations of what you can wear if you are a traveller to these parts. We have broken down the various outfits into three categories (let me point out there's nothing wrong with any of these people, this is just an observation).

Category A: Too cool for school
There is a type of traveller you see that seem to think that because they are in Asia that there is some law against wearing western clothing (even though all the locals are). The standard outfit here is long flowing, usually white clothes like caftans, calico pants or those shirts that have sticks for buttons. By no means should you shave or cut your hair (in fact it should be as dirty as possible preferably in dreadlocks). The bare minimum in your accessory range should be 5 necklaces, 20 arm ornaments and 8 ankle bracelets.

Category B: The extreme traveller
To be in this category you can not leave your guest-house unless you are wearing: Gore-Tex tramping boots, three-quarter pants that zip off into shorts (just in case you have the sudden urge!), an ultra-cool shirt that has about 5 vents and is made of some fabric patented by NASA, a cap that has some kind of anti-vapour function and of course your sunnies (polarised) on a cord round your neck. Your sexy three-quarter zip offs will also have countless pockets that contain the worlds most fantastic and useless travel gadgets.

Category C: Casual
Most people fit into this category. You wear sorta what you would wear at home, t-shirt and shorts, maybe some jandals and that random hat you brought at the market here. You'll look a bit rouge but you'll make the effort to shave now and again and wash your clothes from time to time.