We have
been running a bit behind with our updates.
Over the past month, we have left the beach in Cambodia, passed through Siem Reap to check out
the temples of Angkor, done a quick stopover in Bangkok
and travelled through Laos.
We are now
back in Thailand again, in Chiang Mai (Northern part of the country), where we
will spend a few days with Olof (our friend from Hong Kong) and Rogge (Roger),
one of Olof’s friends, whom we also know from London.
Well,
before you hear about that in our next post, let’s recap what has happened
since our last report.
Cambodian temples…
Angkor Wat
was pretty, well, huge. The sight
comprises not only Angkor Wat itself, but a number of temples over a big land
area. We choose to take in the sites by
bike and got a lot of exercise.
Unfortunately, we also lost a few pounds from the old Delhi belly which showed its ugly face
again. I guess that is what you get when
you feast on Italian gelato in the heat in Cambodia. You can’t quite trust the hygiene yet.
From Siem
Reap we caught the bus to Bangkok.
Classic mistake. Never, ever, take a bus which has a connecting bus on the
other side of the border. First bus was acceptable, in the next one (which we
had to wait for at some random restaurant with kick-back arrangement with the
bus company) there was not even enough seats for everyone. Luckily enough we are used to fighting for
seats on the London
tube so we got to sit down for the 4 hour journey from the border, but we were
still upset that others had to sit on the floor of the bus. Some of them
actually paying full price for the ticket as well…
…Bangkok movie theatres…
In Bangkok, we spent a couple
of lazy days just roaming around, sightseeing and going to the movies. We watched Avatar 3D in a giant movie
theatre, which was probably the best Multiplex I have been to - sorry Odeon,
not enough development Capex… We also had dinner at an upscale Thai restaurant
called Blue Elephant and managed to catch a glimpse of the Royal Palace,
although unfortunately it was closing when we got there so a return visit would
probably be appropriate at some point in time.
…and Lao elephants
From Bangkok we caught an overnight train to Vientiane (the capital of Laos). It is a laid back river town with plenty of French
influences still remaining (Laos is a former French protectorate) - among other
things, a nice French restaurant by the river, where we had ourselves some
fantastic fillets of beef at a fraction of what they would cost in a restaurant
in Europe. Travelling here is great! Watching the sunset over the river and
chatting with monks in the various temples were also definitive highlights.
After a few
relaxing days, we made our way to Vang Vieng.
This is more of a party town and famous for its tubing. Whoever came up with this idea was a freaking
genius. Basically, tubing means that you
go down the river in an old tractor tire and stop at different makeshift bars
along the way. In all honesty, I think
that Louise and I were probably a little too
old for it. We had also brought too
little money to get overly intoxicated – which
probably was a good thing. However, we
did do our best! All in all, it was a
lot of fun and a good day out.
Apart
from the tubing experience we visited some nice caves in Vang Vieng. The landscape around here is similar to that
of Yangshuo in China,
with a lot of karst cliffs. If you stick
outside the center of town it is really beautiful and there area a lot of
outdoor activities to indulge in (caving, climbing, rafting etc.). Unfortunately, the town centre has been taken
over by backpackers in their late teens/early twenties just looking to party hard. All options exist for that with cheap booze
served in buckets (something like four normal cocktails), happy shakes (i.e.
Marijuana topped milkshakes) and mushroom shakes (same as previous but
different “happy”) readily available. That
whole circus is a little tiring and we believe, gives Western travellers a bad
rep in Laos
(as well as the rest of SOA for that matter).
Basically it looks a little bit like the seedier places in Spain.
Having at
least, and hypocritically so considering my last statement, tried our luck in
the river we left for some culture at the Plain of Jars in Phonsavane. Phonsavane is a small town between Luang
Prabang and Vang Vieng. Outside of town
are some fields filled with old stone Jars that are several hundred years old –
we don’t know exactly. No one really
seem to know either how they got there or what they were used for. On the bus we met up with Andy, a cheerful 51
year old American from upstate New
York. We
enjoyed his company so much that we brought him along for dinner and then shared
buses with him to Luang Prabang where we again had dinner together. Very nice fellow.
In Luang
Prabang Louise and I had the swim of our lives.
Sorry dad. Did love the times we
played together at Kullen, but this was something else. Louise and I signed up for one day of
elephant riding. In the morning this
entailed a tour in the jungle with the elephants, sitting in one of these
little baskets on the elephants back.
This was alright, but felt like a real tourist thing. We neither really built any rapport with the
elephants nor with their minders.
However, after having had lunch, we went with the locals to bathe the
elephants. This time we left the baskets
at home and rode on the elephants backs.
It was pretty cool but a bit scary since the animals are so big (pretty
sure you can break something if you fall off and there is not a lot to hold on
too – best practice is to lean forward on the elephants head, see pictures). The best thing was bathing with them
though. We went down into the river and
started splashing around with the locals.
Sitting on the elephants heads, backs or wherever. The elephants seemed to love it as well and
dove on our commands as well as hosed us down with water from their
trunks. This is something I would really
love to do again. You really felt very
close to these huge animals and we also really felt that we connected with the
locals, who were splashing water on us and making sure that the elephant dove
so that we would fall into the water etc.
In sum, a fantastic day out!
I think
this is all for this time folks. As I
said, the next post will be about Thailand. Both about some time spent in the North with
friends and about some of the beaches of the Southern part that we plan to
visit before we hit Singapore.
All the
best,
Lars
