I’m a bit late writing about my trip post Singapore and into Cambodia, I guess it went quicker than I had thought and it involved a lot of bus journeys so even though I’ve had no trouble accessing internet I’ve also spent a lot of hours combined sitting in buses, not very comfortable buses. When I went through South America last year I thought I’d be suffering on bus journeys and actually those buses were more comfortable than in Europe (let’s precise that I didn’t go through Bolivia and Peru and I’m not about the quality there). So I wasn’t really thinking it’s be so bad in South East Asia… it’s not so horrible, I can’t complain too much, but I’ve already had a 14hour journey with the back of my seat that kept going down and one shorter journey of 3 hours with no air conditioning, and this was quite hard on my system. Anyway, enough talked about buses.
My stay in Cambodia was quite interesting, at first I visited the not so happy places, i.e. the killing fields near Phnom Penh (capital city of Cambodia). It’s very tough to visit but I think it’s good to learn about the history of the country you are visiting when this history is so heavy. In short, the Khmer Rouge governed Cambodia for 20 or 30 years and installed a dictatorship communist regime in which they moved all population into the countryside to produce rice. They also wanted to get rid of educated people (criterias were very wide, just wearing glasses meant to them you were educated) and so they killed their compatriots in mass. All over the country you can find sites that were used for mass killings. They destroyed all buildings previously destined for education (schools, libraries…) and for religion (temples), that’s why in a lot of temples, Buddha statues have no heads. The compelling thing about Cambodia’s history is that it is fairly recent. The Khmer Rouge governed until 1997. They were even involved with the UN in talks for help during the last years. Considering all this history made it easier for me to try to understand a bit more about the country, the state it is in at the moment (viewed from my western eyes) and people’s behaviours and way of life, as little as I have been able to witness. The first thing is that the gap between rich and poor is huge, there is a middle class and all of this was noticeable through the capital city, according to different districts it would be very different. In smaller cities it was a lot less noticeable. Still considering the history, the country seems to have quickly ‘recovered’, not that the situation is ideal but when I thought that less than 20 years ago all was concentrated on rural work with no factories (if I understand well) and look at it now, it must have been a huge difference.
After the heavy historical side, I moved on to Siem Reap in North West Cambodia to visit the beautiful, mighty historical temples of Angkor. It’s a huge site, you can spend probably a whole week visiting temples there. However after 1 full day (from sunrise) too many temples starts to become too many and we had no guide so we were lacking explanations.
In Siem Reap, I met someone who became my travel buddy! She’s called Julie, she’s from Australia and we shared a tuk-tuk (moto taxi in Asia) to visit Angkor and stayed at the same hostel. We realised while chatting that our travel plans were more or less matching… so we have been travelling together on and off for about 3 weeks now. We took a slow boat to go to Battambang and on the way see the floating villages. We visited around the next day and then made our way back South. Julie stopped in Phnom Penh as she was meeting a friend and visited the city and I went straight on to the South and the beach in Sihanoukville. It was nice to relax and the beach was really beautiful. Julie joined me again there, we went together on a tour by boat to the surrounding islands and the sea was quite rough so we had our share of ‘emotions’ on that day!
After this we had to back to Phnom Penh (no way to avoid it, and my 3rd time there!) in order to prepare going to Laos: getting bus tickets, changing money, going to the post office to send stuff home and make our bags slightly lighter… the bus ride to Laos was long 14hours, during the day, with a stretch of road that was very poor so our butts have been challenged for 3hours of the ride. Most of the ride was through Cambodia so we were also getting impatient to cross the border and finally feel that we were in Laos. We left at 7am and arrived just after 9pm. We were so happy that we had booked a nice hotel for 2 nights. It was actually so nice that we decided to stay longer when we also realised that there were a few things to visit around the city of Pakse.
Then we were joined in Pakse by two friends Julie met during her trip in Vietnam and who also came to Laos. All together we went back further South in Laos to stay two nights in Don Det (4000 Island). These 4000 Islands are near the border with Cambodia which is delimited by the Mekong River. We had a fun day cycling around two of the islands which are linked together by a bridge. The next day they all went kayaking but I stayed at our room as I wasn’t feeling so well. We stayed only two nights there but we didn’t sleep very much because of the heat. The island apparently only recently acquired 24hour electricity and we were lucky because we had fans but it was still too hot. I’ve never suffered too much from the heat before, but in South East Asia, now it is the end of the dry season going into monsoon if I’m not mistaken and it’s very humid.
Now I’m back in Pakse and moving tonight for yet another buses journey (my second: ‘hotel-bus’: there are no seats but instead beds, or a big board with a very tiny mattress). I will go to Vientiane the capital city of Laos and meet my friend Michiko who I met during my stay in Griffith, Australia. I’m very excited about it. So far I really like Laos, it’s a very relaxed place. In Cambodia tourists, or foreigners are really considered for their money, so exchange with locals are less genuine or limited to ‘business’ which is a shame, and people come to speak to you directly in English. In Laos I learned very quickly how to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ because locals use these words with foreigners as well. Somehow I really this because it feels like I’m learning a little bit, and feels more authentic. And people are very nice in general. The country is very green and with mountains so it might help with the ‘relaxed’ feeling as well.
Anyway, that a long post but it was long time I had not written. After Laos I had planned to go to Thailand, but right now Thailand is under the control of its army. So I don’t know how the situation is going to evolve and when I might go to Thailand. I really want to visit the country but I also want to travel safely. So it’ll be keeping a close eye on the news. I’ll have to make it there at some point because my flight back is from Bangkok in July and my visa in Laos expires mid-June…
