Christmas on Koh Tao

From about half way down the mainland of the Thai peninsula we took a 'fast cat' ferry for the 75km ride to the tropical island of Koh Tao (21 sq km in size). The 90 minute ride turned into 3 hrs thanks to some wave action that sent not a few passengers over the side with plastic bags. Luckily Lori and I, the old salty dogs that we are managed to avoid that most embarrassing fate!

So this was Christmas eve and it truly is a weird experience to see some resorts trying to do their best of Christmas celebrations and lights in such a tropical environment. In the end you need to be with a community of family and friends to really get into the Christmas spirit and so the day passed rather uneventfully for us. We even avoided the Christmas dinner...turkey and stuffing just seem too out of place here, so we opted for BBQ fish served at tables on the beach at low tide. I think I could get into this kind of dining more often!

So on first landing, we stayed in a simple room in the resort laden stretch of the main beach. The resorts are shoulder to shoulder and it is crowded. At high tide, the water laps up to the edge of the resort front restaurants as shown below. It is very relaxing to eat lounging at a table with this as your view!



By the way, I should mention that I brought along a little pocket PC and it has a few games loaded on it. This has saved my butt a few times by distracting Lori when she is getting a little cranky from long bus rides or from just putting up with this husband of hers 24x7!.

But kidding aside...one of the games on it is chess and she is becoming quite the little chess player. She has now beaten me once and in the current game has me on the ropes again. You can see her below crouched over the little machine scheming her next move!.


The next day we rented a scooter to check out other parts of this very hilly island and came up with a new place to stay. The "OK Bungalows". Very simple cabins built on a rocky shore at the edge of a quiet bay, with the waves washing around rocks below and snorkelling steps from our front door. Here's the view from the veranda of our simple little cabin.



And the view from another angle through the window as taken from bed...

OK, that's all the photos of Koh Tao for now...in fact we have had mostly overcast and some rain in the 3 days we've been here so it hasn't appeared the most photogenic.

Today is relax, read, internet day and we have to decide whether we want to enroll in a 3.5 day diving course. This is what this island is famous for...apparently the 2nd most diving certifications of any place in the world are done here. But after a couple of snorkelling sessions off the beach I 'd say the water visibility doesn't seem that great...i think because they are on the tail end of the windy, rainy season and the water is still kind of stirred up. Also if its not going to get sunny anytime soon, then perhaps we should wait to do any diving until both these 2 conditions improve.

Well, we are pretty lucky when these are the only things we have to worry about.

Hope that winter isn't treating any of you too harshly back up there in the northern hemisphere. That's all for now.

John and Lori

Return to Thailand

Well, let's just say the bus trip to the Thai-Cambodia border became a Toyota Camry taxi barreling down mostly dirt highway in record time - incredible!



Upon arrival in Bangkok, we returned to our old stomping grounds at Kao San road. Things had a different feel from one month prior and the taxi drivers did not seem to be in the mood for bargaining even though they were starting much higher than we had paid one month ago. Things were still hopping though and the low prices for food and guest houses were still great!

Well, after our one-nighter in Bangkok, we hit the bus station to head south for the ocean, sandy beaches, islands, and fresh seafood. Let's just say, it was a pretty easy mark :) Upon arrival at our first stop down the peninsula, we booked 2 nights at a very modern, comfortable guest house.

We walked through the night market our first night and there weren't really any other white people to be seen - one Thai couple noticed we were examining locals sweets but that we had no idea what they were. The woman let us sample hers - it is made from fig that has been mashed into a pulp, along with other additives such as coconut as well as a fruit - they make several varieties. Its the best childrens treat because its sweet, made with fruit, is stretchy like taffy but without the sticky mess....yummy! So we purchased 2 types - we have only managed to finish

off one so far.

The following day, we rented a motorbike to set out on a great day of sightseeing and sampling local fare....which included fish, of course. It was very tasty. I am learning to eat fish in a way I never thought I would simply by watching and learning from John ;)

So after 2 days, we hop the bus yet again and head further south to Chumphon to catch a ferry to Koh Tao island......

Angkor Wat

This is an almost magical world of dozens of old abandoned temples spread out over miles and miles. It almost seems like a magic wonderland it's so other worldly. Ever succeeding rulers between 900 and 1300 AD seemed to need to make his own and make it bigger. Angkor Wat is the largest and the tag line says it's the largest religious building in the world. Now I believe!

It turns out that over the last decades a lot of restoration work has occurred both in putting tumbled down walls and moats back together as well as clearing away 800 years of jungle growth. One particular temple they left in its original found state with the most enormous trees growing out of the walls etc. It was a great idea to do that as that place in particular has a most out of this world atmosphere. I won't say too much else as it is a place mostly for pictures.

As for the town of Siem Riep a few km away...well, I don't think a boomtown in a gold rush would have compared to this. Hotels and guesthouses going up everywhere, new concrete buildings nestled among old shacks in many places, and the center of town such a tourist mecca that you wonder if you aren't in some kind of disneyland. You certainly don't know that you are in Cambodia!. Western everything at western prices. Come here for the temples but not for the town! You are left with a feeling again like someone is making a lot of money somewhere, meanwhile a lot of other people are making slave wages and one has a little bit of an uneasy feeling about being a participant in the whole process.

We have another day or two here to get ourselves all 'templed out' and then the plan is to get ourselves back into Thailand and head for some ocean. All we have to do now is figure out how to do that!

Phnom Penh

So Phnom Penh turns out to be an interesting place...perhaps it's because I really like 'the larger' cities. At 1M people, this is the largest city we've seen since Bangkok. As a result of the size, you blend more into the city as opposed to many of the others where it seems the tourists overwhelm the locals. It also helped that we liked the hotel, a large older building with some character in the french colonial style with old plank wooden floors and furniture and a balcony with a great view overlooking the Mekong river (about 1000kms downstream from when we last saw it in Laos).

Having said all that, it is a city of grave contrasts, where there is more extreme expressions of wealth and poverty. For instance when it comes to vehicles on the road, there is a huge number of spanking new Lexus and Toyota SUVs, and Landcruisers. Sometimes it seemed like they were 20% of the vehicles on the road. Of course there is the usual dizzying array of 125cc motos which seem to come at you from all directions. On the poverty side, at least anywhere near the tourist attractions or hotel ghetto, there is all manner and sorts of children and people begging and/or trying to sell you things you don't want. It is quite a bit more expensive a country than Laos or Thailand and US$ are common currency (that's what the bank machines dispense). You get the feeling that more than in other places, there are those with and making big money and the rest who are not. There is large construction projects going on all over. It is also an astonishingly young country with 50% of the population under 15 ...and you notice that on the streets.

So among the usual circuit of things to see are the Killing Fields where they have unearthed a number of mass graves and put 8000 skulls into a glass tower of 3 levels and looking out to the 4 directions of the compass. It is a sad place - words do not convey the overwhelming remorse one feels here. There is also the S-21 prison (pre-Khmer Rouge, a school - post Khmer Rouge, a museum) where political prisoners were kept and tortured and eventually sent to the Killing Fields. This turned out to be an interesting but heart-wrenching place with a mix of historical background to the Pol Pot regime, and perspectives from different players in the 1975-1978 drama. First came the backgrounds of the ringleaders (many had scholarships in Paris in the 1950's where they became enamoured with communism), then statements from some of the people who had joined the Khmer Rouge and eventually participated in the ugly, brutal, inhumane ways of the regime, and then statements of people who had suffered and lost family. There was also an interesting display of photos taken by a swedish group invited to tour the country in 1976 to see the 'wonders of the revolution'. They had believed what they saw and now were reflecting back on why they ended up being 'taken in'.

There is a process in place to try and bring some justice on people who led the revolution, but on closer inspection it is very complex. Where do you draw the line on who participated enough in the Khmer Rouge to warrant prosecution? and what constitutes sufficient evidence with direct linkage to a 'crime'. That's complicated further by the fact that so many of those people are regular participants in the country's life again now.

It's a complicated country and it has been rewarding to learn more about what happened here...Yet another failed attempt to impose a utopian view of what society is supposed to be like.

From the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge Genocide and civil war, Cambodia has a recent, turbulent past from which to heal while trying to find its way toward a brighter future. Let's pray that the growth it is experiencing now (largely due to tourism) does not inhibit these people from being the authors of their's and their country's restoration.

On a lighter note, there is also the tour of the royal palace and garden which contain many beautiful views and buildings in the traditional buddhist wat style.

Lori, feeling the need to be more than a tourist for a day, googled up a local orphanage and called them to arrange a visit for the day. On the way there in our tuktuk we picked up 20kg of fruit and let me tell you they disappeared pretty fast among the 91 kids as soon as we arrived. It is quite an experience to be welcomed by dozens of kids asking your name and holding on to you. It is amazing how much they seem to crave touch and want to come up and be close to you. So we basically hung out and played volleyball and skipping with them and watched them in a performance of traditional Khmer dancing later in the afternoon. The orphanage seemed very much like a hand-to-mouth operation with a lot of support coming from tourists dropping by (and from some of those who continue to provide support in an ongoing way). They are sleeping in small dorms, 3 to a bed, go to school half the day and get some english, french, and japanese training on the side. Many of them spoke quite good english. In a moment of reflection, especially gazing at the younger ones I felt a heartbreak to know that they didn't have some adult to whom they belonged and who was their source of love and security.... Leaving was tough...tougher on us than them. I think because they have just come to expect that this is what happens with all their visitors at the end of the day. One guy in particular, who had had a brain haemorage that left one arm paralyzed had really attached himself to me...driving off with him in the distance was hard...

The manager of the hotel upon learning of our activities that day invited us to contribute some money for water filters and school books for the village from where he hails (100km south of the city). He mentioned how much poorer it was there than even a place like the orphanage. I believe him. Being disconnected from an urban area with roads, electricity, water and access to employment opportunities makes it extremely difficult to improve one's life. You realize that many young people have made their way to the city to earn cash and use a lot of that money to help out with life in the villages they've come from.

Well, that is a simple summary of 3 days in Phnom Penh....the next morning it was time for the 5 hr road journey to Angkor Wat (the nearest town=Siem Riep). As the city of Phnom Penh receded behind us the houses along the road became quite primitive huts before long and one is quickly put back in touch with the reality that Cambodia is still a very poor and undeveloped country.

Vientiane, Laos

Our stay in the wonderfully atmospheric and scenic town of Luang Prubang was extended a few days due to ahem...John's first round in the ring with the nether gods of the belly. Who knows what I ate wrong this time, but it was nice to have Lori to keep me company as I convalesced during my 36 hrs of misery!. Luckily, I seemed to recover pretty quickly and so we went on our way again....a 10 hr bus ride south through Laos to the capital city Ventiane.

This was an amazingly winding journey up and down 1500m mountains crawling along hairpin turns ... not for the faint of heart in a full-size bus. The road was recently temporarily repaired in many places from washouts from landslides which must have occurred in the previous rainy season.

As we began to move down out of the mountains, the road in fact got worse and we in fact only covered 360km in the 10.5 hrs we were moving on the bus. Hard to say if the poor condition was from recent washouts or just the general state of disrepair. We went through innumerable villages along the side of the road, very basic, bamboo walled huts, single common water source, no apparent sanitation. Although there was electicity (thanks to power lines running along the road). Many of the villages had wells with World Vision written on the cement wall.

Lots of fun watching the activities of the villages as we were travelling through...lots of kids playing, people washing around the well, mothers cutting children's hair, occasionally villages with schools and lots of kids going to/from school along the road, and of course everywhere, chili's out drying in the sun. All in all, it looked as if it could be an image of Africa in that it looked pretty basic and undeveloped.

Of course once we were within a couple of hours of Vientiane (pop 500,000), things started looking more developed, lots of cars and motos, bamboo style homes giving way to teak wood on top of concrete pillars, then giving way to full concrete homes nicely painted, then to the scene below which is one of the main streets in Ventiane. Easy to find the french influences here with baguette everywhere and wine available as well.

What you see below is the highest profile monument in the city/country....a gold painted (brick and cement construction) chedi... It is ringed by several large buddhist Wats with a few new even larger ones under construction.

So we rented a pair of bikes and biked around town for the day. It's a nice way to see the city and the level of traffic here is not too bad...being 50% 125cc motorcycles (which aren't too intimidating to a cyclist) and the other 50% a mix of cars/pickups...mostly Toyotas and mostly very new looking. The traffic also moves at a more relaxed pace. In fact the whole place feels quite relaxed, even though there is lots of construction going on all over. It does give one pause to think that a slightly more communist style restrained form of free enterprise might actually lead to an overall nicer quality of life....but who knows...we have no idea what the real picture is here.

Well the day ended with a relaxing Lao beer reclining in a cafe on the bank of Mekong river, watching some locals gathering their fishing nets.

...and watching....and watching some more...as the sun slowly slid down to the horizon to visit all the rest of you sleepers back in Europe / North America. We're very sorry to hear about Ottawa's 'situation' of 20cm of new snow coupled with a transit strike. The forecast here for tomorrow is for 29 C. I can't remember the last time we had a cloudy day and regarding rain, I've forgotten what that looks like.

We'll spend another day here and then take a flight on Vietnam Air to Phonm Phenh. We're expecting quite a different experience there as we're told the begging on the streets etc (which is non-existent here) will be a constant aggravation.

Jolo

Luang Prabang, Laos

Well, even though I would recommend the slow boat along the Mekong, arriving at our destination was welcoming. Yet another small town with people ready to offer transportation or accommodation. While it is difficult to say 'no' to such polite people who are trying to make a living, we opted for walking through the town and viewing a few guest houses before deciding where too stay. It is hard to decide where to hang your backpack before getting a fell for the town in which you are staying.

On our first day in Luang Prabang, we made our way to the hilltop in the center of town (Phu Si). The less than 400 steps to the top are easily worth the stunning 360 degree view at the summit.
















While we have posted some photos taken, they do not come close to the breathtaking panorama viewed with the naked eye! It is just beautiful. To help draw a picture - you have 2 converging rivers (Mekong and Nam Khan), the immediate surrounding hillside, the town encircling Phu Si, the numerous lush, green mountains embracing the town and a clear, blue sky above. No, it still doesn't paint the experience.

As with all places we have visited, we took time to walk around and attempt to see what life is like here. We definitely walked streets where the only faces we greeted were those of the locals - just the way we like it! Definitely not the touristy side of town. So many children getting out of school, playing games on the street-side and giggling hellos to us.

We visited the night market and availed of freshly bbq'ed fish (with its eyes and scales intact) and chicken with stir fried veggies. You can guess who ate the fish :) As in Thailand, there are many things you can purchase here however, the majority seem more local in style (less western influence). Very beautiful!

Below are additional photos taken around the town to give you an idea of where we are now.... stay tuned as there is more to follow from lovely Luang Prabang!

Here now are photos of Wat Xieng Thong. It's surrounding buildings have beautiful, colored glass mosaics - I zoomed in on a couple to show the detail. There is also a gold painted royal funeral chapel which houses the chariot used during the ceremony.

Here, the alms giving cermony occurs every morning at 6:00. John and I arose one morning to go and watch (from a respectable distance). Every morning the monks from all the wats walk through the city and receive food donations (sticky rice) from the people. It is not something in which foreigners should participate without fully understanding and believing in the faith and its practice.

We met a French lawyer during breakfast at our guest house - Pascal. Every day, we'd have detailed conversations about politics, Southeast Asia and yes, life. Super guy who cemented my decision to visit Cambodia. I had just finished reading Lucky Child - true story about the affect the Khmer Rouge had on the author's family. It is important to visit a country where its people have been through so much.

I must say that our guest house (Alounsavath) was great. It is co-owned by 2 sisters - one sister I assume did not speak English but Phon was very fluent. She was exceptionally hospitable without being intrusive. She enjoyed having conversations with us, giving us advise and assistance. One day, with breakfast, she embellished our dishes with a few Lao treats...very yummy. I asked how they are made - let's just say sweet rice, coconut and banana rolled into tiny balls and lightly fried are very tasty indeed! She asked her sister to pick up more the following morning as she felt it would be nice for us to have them for our 8 hour (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) bus ride to Vientiane. Sure enough, she presented them to us and would not accept money for them - a gift from her. She is a gem - and was very aware that certain westerners like to hug people as part of their departure ritual :D I fully endorse staying here for anyone travelling to this lovely city.

Laos and the Mekong River

We left Chiang Mai on a 6 hr bus ride to the north and east to reach Chiang Khong, a town of 10K people and one of the 4 or so border crossings into Laos. But first we spent an extra day on the Thai side in a small guest house overlooking the Mekong river and spent an afternoon on a rented motorcyle driving along the Thai side of the river with some great views of the river and mountains on the Laos side.







The next morning it was time for the border crossing...the usual mayhem of backpackers, complicated by the process of having to ride a 'ferry' across the river to the Lao side, the 42$ US 'tax' for a Lao visa, etc.



After lots of waiting for no apparent reason, and having our passports checked for the 5th time (this time by the Laos police) we finally boarded the 'slow boat' for the 2 day trip to Luang Prabang. Call it the slow boat 'away from China' as the Chinese border in fact is not very far away from here at all.








...the border crossing to Laos on the right --->



First impressions of Laos, you find yourself asking what is it that makes it a communist country? I don't see any evidence of police or military anywhere, tho' probably it's all around in forms that I don't recognize.



Laos is a very rural and rugged (hence beautiful) country with only 6 million or so people and those are all spread out over vast amounts of small towns and villages. Hence life here seems slower, quieter, and the people are yet another level of polite and gentle than even the thais!





So the Mekong here is a dirty brown muddy colour and it is moving really fast with lots of rocks all over and boiling water that is almost rapids but not quite so. The shores are lined by large hills, some very jungle-like and others find of bare...evidence I think of strip logging of the past. Every 5-10 kms will be a small village of bamboo huts (no roads along either side of the river here) with people apparently making their living fishing from dugout canoes and small agricultural plots along the shores of the river.



The 'slow boats' are very long, holding 80 or so people (95% touristas like us of course!...we're not exactly off the beaten path). After an 8 hr day we stopover in a small town called Pakbeng that seems to exist for no other purpose other than accomodate boat travellers overnight, with guesthouses ranging from the primitive to very nice and expensive!

Here is a picture of Lori, having our b'fast overlooking the Mekong after our overnighter in Pakbeng.

The next day sees more of the same with another 8 hrs on the boat, making perhaps 6 stops along the way to drop off or pickup a few locals at villages that we pass by.

Finally towards sunset we approach the well known town of Luang Prabang, well known as a UNESCO heritage site because of it's beautiful location at the junction of 2 rivers, with hills all around, and beautiful quiet streets and myriads of guesthouses beautifully constructed in and out with tropical wood.

Once again...in the 'touristy' part of town it seems like the westerners outnumber and the locals and their are new guesthouses under construction/restoration everywhere some of which are very high end. Looks like this is becoming another one of those asian destinations that is being totally transformed by tourism....with good reason...the beauty and relaxing atmosphere make you just want to hang out and take it easy.

Thai Food

No post from Thailand could be complete without a chapter on the food!. It's lots of fun to walk along the streets looking at all the different treats in the food stalls, and of course we had to take a thai cooking class as well. Hoping that we can remember the 6 different delicious dishes that we learned to make by the time we ever see a kitchen again!. The photos above and beside show us perfecting our new culinary skills, and no I am not burning the food but searing it just right in the wok!. Our cooking teacher was hilarious with lots of great one liners that made the whole experience quite entertaining.

So far we are not tired yet of eating Thai food and have yet to succumb to the temptations of a burger or pasta (ok we did give in on the breafkast front and resorted to the 'american breakfast'...rice soup is a bit much in the AM when you're also eating rice for lunch, supper, and dessert!).

It;s easy to get spoiled, eating out all 3 meals a day with accompanying beers for not much more than 10$ each total. That coupled with not much in the way of cardio spells trouble for the waist line (thankfully there seems to be no such thing as weigh scales anywhere along these parts!).

To the right is a dessert favourite...thai style crepe with banana and chocalate, made to order on the side of the street.

Hope you all are getting along well back there with burgers, fries, and pizzas.

Ciau for now.