It has been some weeks since my last blog. Saigon was quickly conquered as was the Cu Chi tunnels before moving on to Cambodia via the Mekong Delta on a 2 day boat ride...well it was advertised as 2 days, but the first day consisted of 7 hours on a bus & 90 minutes in a boat. Nonetheless the trip was enjoyable & we didn't receive the normal acts of bribery usually found along this border. It was a huge sigh of relief to leave Vietnam & the big $ sign could also be removed from my forehead. No more rude locals purely out to rip tourists off & rob us of every penny...why work for your money when others can do that for you...this should be the Vietnam national saying. Cambodia was a vast difference. The gap between the poor & the well to do was the vastest I've seen anywhere. I haven't seen so many brand new hummers or Bentleys roaming a poor nation's streets before. On one side of the Phnom Penh street was a new Bentley turbo while on the opposite side lay a limbless mine victim or veteran of the Pol Pox regime of terror. My trip to the capital was short lived, with enough time to see the infamous S21 museum where the Khmer Rouge tortured numerous of their own countrymen & also to see the killing fields where there are still 1000's of Cambodian bodies buried under the earth, slowly surfacing with the floods of the monsoon rains. Phnom Penh has a great atmosphere & is much more rough than the likes of Hanoi or Saigon, it all adds to the travelling atmosphere. Yet with all the sadness of it's recent history it is hard to stay around for more than 2 nights.
I headed off to Siem Reap & was ore struck at the sight of the splendid ancient temples. Angkor Wot is purely massive & breathtaking yet the Bayon temple (one which has numerous massive faces scattered across its stones) & Ta Prohm (the one in the Tomb Raider movie) where much more impressive. Ta Prohm felt so small & humble as so much vegetation in the form of huge ancient trees & plants have swallowed the place up. It feels as if you have just parachuted in with Lara Croft in to the thick of the Amazon jungle & stumbled across this divine place. The peace echoed through my soul as I wandered through this maze of temples. It truly is amazing what us humans have achieved in so little time on this planet. How could such an old civilization be able to produce the amount of temples seen here & to such a scale...
I moved on from Cambodia via a taxi to the Thai border & faced what are possibly the worst roads in the world. In my 4 & half months of travel I have not seen roads like this before. They are just dirt tracks with huge craters in them, many filled with mass amounts of mud & water. Not the best way to spend 3 & half hours hung over. Crossing to the Thai side of the border the difference was astronomical. The roads where better than many found in Europe.
I met up with the ex in Cambodia & spent a day wondering some less known temples while she moaned about the heat & how ill she was. We bumped in to each other at the Thai border & some how ended up sharing our hotel room in Bangkok. Probably not the wisest move I've made. It didn't take long for me to realise why I left her in China. I did feel slightly bad & took her out for her b'day. She finally caved in & gave me something in return, admittedly it was only a headache & tonsillitis but it was the thought that counts. It seems a waste to spend 3 nights in Bangkok with so much more to see but I did manage to get a new Sony camera to replace the stolen one & some new hair clippers & clothes.
From Bangkok I ventured, alone again, to Chiang Mai where I spent the next 4 days in & out of bed with fever, pains etc brought on by tonsillitis. This was a depressing time as I was unable to meet anyone & the hatred for myself by allowing a meet with the ex played on my mind. I did manage to visit this brand new Tiger Kingdom just outside Chiang Mai. They had 3 & 8 month old tigers which are not drugged like in Tiger Temple outside Bangkok. It was purely magical spending time with these creatures in their own environment, watching them play & fight & just be themselves. It brought home what simple yet inspiring creatures exist outside our own species of being. How simple life could be if we lived each day, every minute as nature intended. The tigers are so calming & relaxing for the soul. I also did a day Thai cooking course, which commenced with a visit to the local market & preparing & cooking 12 Thai dishes. A blast even if I was only one of 2 men in the class.
Pai was the next stop. A lovely little town a few hours north west of Chiang Mai in the northern part of Thailand. The town stood in the mountains & the ride to get there was pretty sickly with so many turns & bends in the mountain road. I was fortunate to meet up with some lovely people in Pai & we soon had a nice group of 8 people. We hired motorbikes for the day & explored the local area including a canyon & waterfalls. The scenery was just gorgeous...mountains are so spectacular from the seat of a bike. After my first experience on one 10 years ago when I fell off & broke my foot I actually thought "never again" but it was a great 2 days. The group split as 4 of the girls suddenly got ill so it was Janna (one of the Canadian girls) & I who ventured off in to the jungle by ourseleves...ok accompanied by a local guide. The trek was amazing. It actually was a thick jungle. For months I have been travelling through what people term jungles yet actually not experienced what I call a jungle until the Pai trek. The jungle was so thick we could not see the path for most of the way after lunch & when I felt a sharp quick stabing pain in my leg I could not even see my leg & had no idea what it was. I heard wasps in the background & realised we must have disturbed a nest. When we reached a clearing the wasps was still on my shorts, exhausted as it had given its all. I survived yet have a nice scar & lump to show for it. That night we stayed in a spartan camp in the thick of the jungle by the river. There was no power or huts only shelter. There wasn't even a kitchen only an open fire & pots for cooking. The food was impeccable for the amenities. We drank a couple of beers with 2 guys who had been trekking that day, played a few games of cards then drifted off to sleep amist the noise of the jungle. It was one of the best sleeps I'd had in weeks. The following day while we waited for our rafts to arrive down the river we trakked to a local cave for some exploration. Little did we know that we were actually doing caving the sport not the tourist caving. The 2 American guys couldn't fit through the tight spaces & had to wait in a cavern as we ventured off in just shorts with torches in our mouths. Some of the gaps were tiny with bends & twists a yoga instructor would be proud of. We washed off in a nearby waterfall before joing the rafts for a tame cruise down the river.
From Pai we (2 Canadian girls & 2 Swiss girls from the Pai possie) mini bused it up to the Laos border for a 2 day boat trip to Luang Prabang. We met 3 great guys on the boat & decided to travel together. Luang Prabang was amazing peacful & scenic. The morning activity is to wait on the street with food for the monks to comje at sunset & get their daily food from the locals & tourists. From here I went on a 2 day Mahout & trekking course & learnt how to command & control & elephant. It was a great couple of days yet the trekking was pretty bad. See it constantly rains in Laos all day everyday, so the paths are like mud pools. But it was still fun, especially playing with the kids from a local village.
Vang Vieng was the next stop in Laos & where most tourists go for the sport of tubing. Getting on an inflated tube down a raging monsoon river & stopping off at bars to drink copious amounts of alcohol & jump off swings & zip lines in to the rapid unsafe river before venturing home utterly drunk on your tube in the dark...need I say why this hasn't caught on in Europe. It was great fun & one of my friend's 21st so we had a blast but also good to get out of the place.
Vientiene was merely a stop for our connecting bus to Bangkok where Joe & I spent one night. We experienced an unforgettable night with 3 recently graduated school girls from the UK as they invited us to a ummmm how do you say....ping pong show. I was completely terrified of the place & could not wait to leave, especially when one of the ummm employees came over with a drawing of me she had done, hands free I may add.
I am currently doing my Advanced Open Water diving course in Ko Tao, a great quiet Island in southern Thailand. I did a refresher dive yesterday as it has been over 6 years since I dived & then we did a fun dive followed by a deep (30 m) dive & photography dive today. We have a night dive tonight & I can't wait. It's just like riding a bike & I haven't forgotten a thing.
My SE Asia experience has improved vastly even though my water proof camera leaked & is now filled with water & my new Sony camera broke. I am on camera number 4 but surely will attempt a refund from the broken ones.
