Early morning flight

Why, why, why?

Up at the crack of dawn would be an understatement; we awoke at 3.30 for a 6am flight to Siem Reap having been told we must check in at 4am. Vientiane airport may as well be closed at 4am; but hold on, doesn't that board say check-in time: 04:00? Quick, while that security guard is still awake lets ask. With a cheeky little smile that I interpret as meaning 'another stupid tourist' he says:

"Sorry, not ready to check-in yet, you sit" he says pointing at uninviting and small black leather seats. I guess this is another example of the laid back Lao. I felt better when 'another stupid tourist', followed by another arrives five minutes later. Eventually at 04:20 the doors open and we check in.

Despite the fact that, according to Wikipedia, Laos Airlines have an atrocious safety record we arrived in Siem Reap on time and well fed, free beer was on offer but at 6.30am I really didn't fancy it.

After a quick nap, oh the years are catching up with me now: Nap! So, after my nap we went to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. The sun began to set then all the tourists were ushered out. Hmmm..? What we didn't realise, and Lonely Planet didn't inform us, was that Angkor closes at 17:30, sunset occurs approximately an hour after that, DOH!

Angkor Wat

And again at sunrise

Me being me, I wasn't too impressed with the place at first glance. It looks exactly like the photos but the photos look better, does that make sense? Of course not! I'll rephrase: It is impressive, majestic, stunning. On a scale of which I cannot compare it to anything, the moat alone is 152m wide. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO METRES! WHAT THE FUCK? Puts Warwick Castle to shame. However, with 36^oC heat beating down and relative humidity nearing 90% walking around the ruins involves so much work that it would be easier to look at the photos.

We returned today, for the 5am sunrise, on our $20 ticket, of which each and every buck goes to a petroleum magnate, sick! Isn't it! Fair enough he is a Cambodian magnet but even so, that don't stick! GDP per capita here is $320 and this c*&t keeps all the cash; guess it's all about government corruption and scratching backs; this poor prole doesn't grasp the gravity of the situation.

After 8 hours on the site today my opinion changed. The intricacy of the carvings and dedication to detail all over these enormous temples is incredible. I'd like to post some pics but left my camera at home so i'll have to do so later. Long story short: A place worth visiting but maybe not in low season when the temperatures and humidity are conspiring against you.

Laos

Fifteen days in Laos is double the time originally allotted to the country but having made a sound group of friends kept us here longer. The group has now dispersed leaving me and Paul behind in Vientiane to board our overpriced flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Wednesday evening while they all fly to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Luang Prabang was a lovely town to have visited, small; with a population of only 22,000, it was near impossible to travel up or down the main road without bumping into somebody we recognised- there was a real sense of family/community spirit here. Such a small and peaceful place was a great introduction to the country and characterises the place so well: Friendly and laid back; horizontally at most times. After only a few hours I got the feeling Laos will be the best place we visited and I stand by that, minus the capital.

Luang had several sights to behold but the sweltering heat, 37^oC plus, humidity and general lazyness of ones legs put off visits to temples located on the top of hills and museums perched atop a pile of steps. Having said that I hired a bike for two days and cycled around the 4km circuit that comprised the two main roads simply for the exercise. We also visited some waterfalls whilst here. Waterfalls doesn’t sound at all inspiring but any place where water collected in a pool deep enough to swim in was a welcome escape from the heat. Some of the falls were lovely; perfect turquoise pools surrounded by tropical vegetation looked stunning.

Mmmmm..... Waterfalls


Nightlife in Laos is somewhat tame with its two bars generally closing no later than 23:30. Because of the limited number of watering holes bumping into people was unavoidable and welcomed: Our ‘family’ unit grew and bonded until, having shed people traveling in different directions or simply too lazy to up and move, we formed a close group: The nomadic nine.

We moved on to Vang Vieng which has, according to Lonely Planet, become a right of passage for backpackers. The only real activity here is to hire a huge inner tube from a tractor tire and float down the Mekong. The floating was real boring, achingly so because my arms became paddles, but the stops on the river were something different. Bunched relatively close together were zip lines and rope swings into the river. The height of these swings increased as we moved further down the river; I was happy to swing from 20 feet, no more thanks! Not even the Dutch courage duped me to climb to the 35ft swing. Hilarity prevailed each time Paul used the swing, for some reason he couldn’t hold on to it. As his forth attempt approached the crowd grew silent in anticipation of yet another catastrophic belly flop; he didn’t let anyone down. It’s such a shame water and cameras don’t mix because the photos would have been hilarious.

Apart from this we didn’t really do much the only other highlight was the cycle to a lagoon for a swim, again to avoid the excruciatingly humid heat, and visiting its caves: Caves set into the karst topography of the area which involved a lot of climbing through narrow passages in pitch black, with only flip-flops on and one small 20watt torch between me Paul and Becky. We bottled it. To humiliate myself further I should add that our guides were ten year old children also climbing in flip flops but as we all know, children are fearless.

Expanding on my earlier point: “laid back; horizontally at most times”. No better example can be found than the resort restaurant in Vang Vieng. The standard procedure for eating in a restaurant usually involves a pattern similar, if not identical to this:

1. Take a seat and be issued with menu.
   
2. Staff take my order.
   
3. Food arrives; munch, munch, munch. Yum.
   
4. Pay bill, decide whether to leave tip (haha! tip)
   

Instead try this:

1. Take a seat and after five minutes decide you should probably collect your own menu.
   
2. Wait for staff to take order.
   
3. Oh no the staff aren’t coming. Engage legs to walking mode, place order at counter.
   
4. Not always but very often the wrong food arrives, tell them so and they look so distraught; like telling a child they can’t have sweets.
   
5. Eventually the correct food arrives and it’s good.
   
6. Pay bill and decide how long to wait around for the correct change to be issued. Usually this is because they don’t have the currency to break your notes therefore they say “tip, tip”. All together now: “Non, non”
   
   OR
   
   Pay bill and be given too much change back and correct the balance for them.
   

Okay, so that is a shit story but the point I’m trying to get at is this: Laos is a very poor country with a GDP per capita of [according to BBC News website] US $470. In order for this resort and it’s staff to earn more money surely it would help if they perhaps paid a little attention to customers and take the order for them. Getting the order correct wouldn’t be a bad idea either, it would surely avoid wastage, oh and to ask for a tip after this?! I’m not trying to sound tight or terrible here, more reflective: If they could just wake up and put a little effort into their jobs perhaps they could earn more.

We leave the capital tomorrow, Wednesday, on a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to visit the temples of Angkor Wat, they look really impressive: I just hope we can avoid the unexploded ordnance (thank you very much U.S.A) and bandits.


Relaxing after a lazy day in Vang Vieng

Photos from Laos

I've begun writing a blog entry but not completed it yet so here are some photos from Laos.

Bringing you up to date... Almost (Bangkok)

I tried to type something here yesterday and the sheer size of the task scared me away. Over two weeks without an typing will result in an economical entry but I will endeavour to mention most events transpired.

Way back to Bangkok
Bangkok itself isn't particularly memorable; we visited the Grand Palace, two of the thousands of wats; basically shrines/temples, the Tiger Temple, a floating market, the Snake museum and several bars. Bangkok was also where I saw Chelsea lift the F.A. Cup the scummers.

The Grand Palace was large, with lots of fancy architecture; mostly Wats and a gun museum. It looked nice but other than that I cannot really get that excited about it which is a shame as a lot of people there did. Because of the sheer number of Wats in Bangkok- and Thailand as a whole -they just blend into the landscape as a row of terraced houses do in Britain. A pointed fact being that British houses aren't gold plated and made from tiny mosaics of tile and mirror can be stated by Wat-lovers but I just tired of them. And now for the contradiction: Wat Po. This was good; a huge golden reclining Buddha lies chilling out as a steady stream of tourists whirl by trying to fit the entire guy into a 35mm shot.

The Grand Palace


To escape Bangkok we enrolled on a day long excursion to Kanchanaburi, 35km from Burma, to visit the floating, seemingly recession hit, market, the death railway bridge, the Tiger Temple and a Snake Museum.

Envisage a market, any market; think people shouting, low prices and an eclectic mix of both the old and the economically challenged. Next add one part Thailand, one part canal, stalls transformed into long boats, most, if not all that is sold is fruit and the cliental become a bunch of tourists there to gawp and spend either 50p on Dragon Fruit or 5 minutes arguing it's price before buggering off: You have the floating market. Okay, i'm being a bit negative on the old girl, she did provide an insight on how some Thai's probably once traded and made a living (about 50 years ago) but the exuberant foreign crowd made this little more than a exhibition. I did go four yards out of my way to purchase a mango and 'put something back' but it was quite a poor showing. Most of the purchasing power sourced either Sterling, Euros or Dollars. In fact, we managed to count, excluding the traders, maybe ten Thai's.

Floating Market


After the market we visited the snake museum at which we saw 'man hold cobra', 'cobra sharp TEETH, look AT the poison', 'watch as Mongoose fight the Cobra, LOOK AT THE MONGOOSE! Cobra can die in 5 minutes and Mongoose always winner' and of course the famous 'man who take on three snake AT THE SAME TIME'. The M.C. added to the entertainment here, he spoke good English but had a habit of littering his announcements with inappropriate over emphasisations. Watching a mongoose beat a Cobra in a fight was impressive, I never would have thought it. Later came the 'man who take on leaping snake; snake can leap 3 metres', perhaps purposefully the performer decided to slip over while spinning the snake and tossed it in our direction resulting a mass exodus of the front rows as the snake attempted to hurdle the small 3ft wall.

Stoopid Cobra Man


We took a brief detour to the death railway bridge; 258miles of railway between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma, was built by the Imperial Japanese Empire during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign. Constructed by Prisoners of War (POWs) the name comes from the staggering number of deaths during the project: 116,000. It was simple a bridge and there wasn't really much of the history available to explain the devastation of the project. I did however find this humourous artwork on the museum wall:



Artwork in the Death Railway Museum.


Next stop was the Tiger Temple, here the Tigers are serene with the bliss of morphine and other opiates, sorry, I mean, er... [sic]

Next stop was the Tiger Temple, here the Tigers have, over the years, lived in peaceful co-existance with Buddhist monks. The lifestyle at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua (yes it's another Wat) has calmed the Tigers as they too experience the benefits of the monks' tranquil teachings, restricting chains and allow tourists to gaze into their distantly glazed calm eyes. As the Tigers were being walked back to their cages, ah the cage: Standardised peaceful buddhist co-existance, one broke free and made a runner for the cages. As expected everyone shit themselves, "Stand still and tiger will not hurt you" were the calming words from a trainer. Yeah right, I thought, a huge cat is coming at me, 'I think i'll stand still'. Anyways, they caught him and chained him and humiliated him by allow us tourists to take turns walking him back.

Chiang Mai
Moving north we made Chiang Mai our next destination, here we took a day long Thai cooking course and pushed ourselves to some kind of limit with a three day jungle trek. The cooking course was great; every dish I cooked I ate so was stuffed. I can't wait to get home and try the recipes out.

Jungle trekking was also great fun. I was initially reluctant to take part: Climbing and Descending through dense jungle in 35^oC heat sounded painful; it was, but it was also extremely rewarding when we reached our destination. oh, and the beer: I've never worked harder for a ice cold beer than I did during these three days.

The first day consisted of an hour long Elephant ride during which the Elephant made damn sure we knew who was boss by spraying us with water every time we ventured close to rivers. I never really appreciated the size of these magnificent animals until, when asked to climb onboard, I had to walk on, and across, her head, then shoulder-blades before taking my seat in the cage.



Time to cool down


We were blesed with a friendly group of people to trek with and on the first evening we had several beers and generally talked a lot of shit. Day two was a solid six hours of walking with a one hour swimming break at a waterfall. Again, followed by beers. Day three saw us abandon our walking shoes (after two hours) and pad up for white-water rafting. As the 'captain' explained the instructions I was distracted by two mating Elephants in the distance. The instructions kept coming and so did the Elephant until eventually both went silent and where the Elephant disembarked we, on the contrary, boarded our vessel. The monsoon rains hadn't yet hit so the river wasn't too deep and it made for a pretty unadventurous course but it was still fun, swimming in the 3ft deep water was the best part.



White-water rafting.


Our next stop is Laos, and as mentioned in my previous post we were transported to their yesterday on the slowest, most uncomfortable boat that could have been designed. We arrived in Luang Prabang on Thursday 31st and after forty-five minutes of looking for a room, in the baking heat, carrying 20kgs, we found one. Amazingly we met up with the Irish lads from Kuala Lumpur before we set sail (tourist trails are exactly that!) and have been hanging out in rather un-Irish style the last couple of nights: Sober. OK, that brings the blog up to date. Hopefully I won't get so far behind again, though I know this to be a Fallacy.

2 days of torture

Finally arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos after two of the most torturous days on the slowest boat ever. Spending 6 hours yesterday and 8 today on what in all fairness was labelled 'Slow Boat' was horrid. As usual out here they oversell the tickets and squash far too many people in a boat to make a few extra dollars.

In fact, I've really lost the motivation for blogging.


Torture Boat

Ko Phi Phi

After two reasonably uneventful hours sailing we reached our destination: Ko Phi Phi. The only noteworthy happening was that of some freak show breaking into the toilet whilst I was wiping my arse, not of concern to me but I’m sure the impatient idiot won’t be repeating his actions again in the near future.

Upon arrival we cut our way through the swarm of hotel prospectors and began hunting down an adequately priced place to lie for three nights. We were looking for any place that wasn’t excessively overpriced which, for Ko Phi Phi, a tourist Mecca, is excruciatingly difficult. To compound our problems the heavens decided to open and the receptionist’s promise of a multitude of storms was becoming worthy of scripture. Darting into a nearby restaurant to take shelter we decided to send Paul on a reconnaissance mission to Long Beach; the location of Lonely Planet approved accommodation (gosh we’re adventurous).

Long Beach was located down the coast from the main ‘city centre’ area and was only accessible by a taxi-boat. Saving cash we decided that just one of us should check the area out and text message the results back. I passed Paul my phone and told him to SMS back with details of the area. After forty minutes I received a message:

“One rom for 3 1600 1 nite w con tmw Cost 1400 for 1 and get 2 fan 4 600. Seems ok”

We replied:

“How many bars? Is it secure? Hotel or hostel? Entertaiment? How long did the boat ride take? A lot of people around?"

To which we received:

“pls com Is nice not sure bars v wet”

Then without prompting a cryptic:

“I don’t know ring please com”


We had no idea what he was on about and replied with further questions only to receive another nonsensical reply. It was at this point I remembered Paul has no idea how to use a non Nokia phone and even more problems with predictive text, normally I wouldn’t be too fussed but each message was costing me 50p and after five messages, each requiring an enigma device to decode, he was beginning to piss me off.

Me and Pez hopped on a taxi boat and took to 10minute ride to Long Beach. Exiting the small boat with a 20kg backpack was somewhat difficult and having to climb across a further three decks to reach the precariously placed ladder to the jetty was no fun. The heavens opened again just to worsen the situation by making the boats extra slippy.

Upon reaching dry land and following a 10minute trek down the beach I found the hotel and we booked in for a night. After all this hassle the rain continued throughout the day, and, most of the night. A swim was the only sensible option because even after a ten yard walk I was drenched, if you can’t beat them, join them. Them being the droplets of H₂0 that were permeating my soul. Long Beach being so devoid of activity frustrated me, I was amazed that so many people could sit, like drones, watching ‘The Beach’ simply because it was filmed here, the film sucks people! Contemplating the continuation of this weather depressed me, I wasn’t optimistic of change as I hit the sack; three days of storms down, one to go.


Some loser and, in the background, Ko Phi Phi.


The next day was much better, we left Long Beach and head towards the city centre. It was great over there; lots of restaurants, hotels, bars, activities and, most importantly, no drones watching ‘The Beach’. We happily checked into a hotel and then hiked the vertical 600 metres to conquer Ko Phi Phi's viewpoint. In the baking sun this wasn't an easy feat but after 30 minutess and numerous 'Tsunami Evacuation Route' signs we made it. The view from up there was brilliant, definitely worth the sweaty trek.


Perhaps in poor taste? Me fleeing the incoming Tsunami.



Ko Phi Phi Beach: Spectacular.

The next day was our adventure day; we booked ourselves on a 6 hour snorkeling and kayaking adventure. The boat gently chugged out of the harbour, which, in actual fact was simply a wooden pier, at 14:30 and so began our 6 hours of fun.

First stop: Monkey Beach. Wow, monkeys. I haven’t seen those before. I guess traveling through India for 7 weeks removes the interest in our bipedal cousins. More interesting than the monkeys was that we could jump off the roof of the boat into the sea. From an elevation of no more than 7 metres and with substantial fear I was able to summon the courage to take the plunge. I really cannot remember when I became such a wuss and jumping from such a miniscule height scared me so much; to conquer my fears I repeated the feat. Me big strong man, see me jump, watch in awe.

After plunging into the water I got kitted up for snorkeling. I thought it would be easy to submerge my face and breathe through a snorkel; this wasn’t the case. I’m not sure what was scaring me but I’m sure it was simple: I shouldn’t be able to breathe underwater and being able to do so was confusing my little brain. After 30 minutes of practice I was an aqua man and able to inspect the diversity of marine life: Coral, tropical fish and rocks. I really enjoyed snorkeling and was disappointed when we were called back to the boat, as they say though: All good things…


The final stop of our day was to visit Maya Beach, the location of the film ‘The Beach’. We eventually got to shore but not after a bitch of a journey. Our party of 30 were equipped with 5 kayaks and one small boat, capacity five, to get us all to the beach. We waited until last to boat the boat; women and children first. The problem was that when it was our turn there were still six of us left. With one Kayak left me and Paul decided to be helpful and sit on that and be pulled to shore rather than wait for the boat to return again.

This journey was not simple! Each time the tow line between the boat and kayak became tense the force overturned the kayak. After ten minutes of this debacle the boat man gave up and said he would return for us. Forty five minutes after the first party landed on the beach me and Paul were left stranded in the middle of the ocean with a kayak. Amazingly I wasn't too annoyed and managed to see the funny side; this didn't last long. When we finally hit dry land the sun had beguin its descent and we were given approximately 15 minutes to appreciate the perfection of our location before being rounded up to leave. I felt rather aggreived with the situation but looking back on it I suppose the tour operators had to be back by a certain time and the schedule was more important than two British guys value for money. That evening I slept well after an extremely tiring day, I needed the sleep because the next day we left early for Phuket.


Maya Beach. A shit photo because it was so dark when we finally arrived.



A slightly better photo of Maya beach.

Krabi

After a 10 hour bus ride from Kuala Lumpur we arrived at the Thai border and faced the gruelling task of entering the land of smiles. The queue to enter the country was short, no more than 60 people, however, the immigration officer decided to take perverse pleasure in prolonging the experience and ensuring a 60 person queue took 90 minutes to clear. Normally this wouldn't really bother me, despite what you think of, but on this morning, after no sleep or food I didn't enjoying standing up for such a extensive period. When I finally arrived at the front of the queue the procedure was swift, it took no more than 30 seconds to add the 4th stamp to my passport, heaven knows what was holding the queue up.

Once through immigration we faced another 6 hours on the bus to get to Hat Yi, a small interchange town from where all of Thailand is accessible. It was here we picked up our connecting bus to Krabi. What an devilish journey this turned out to be; 5 hours squashed into a bus which could only have been designed by a dwarf taking revenge on normally sized peopleKrabi. I really wanted to sleep but each time my head drifted backwards it dropped over the back of the neck rest, a neck rest which I commend for its fine work supporting my upper back. Eventually I gave up because I was getting whiplash.


Krabi is the capital of Krabi province, usually tourists stay for a night or two before moving on to the surrounding islands to snorkell or partake in other wrorldly pleasures. Us on the otherhand decided to take five nights there, partly because we arrived far too early and secondly because we were meeting Pez who was flying out on the 8th May. The five nights were enjoyable and we met a good few characters, I especially enjoyed chatting to Bob, the ultra conservative American. He wasn't quite the gun toting Texan redneck but didn't tolerate people who strayed too far from his political alignment. His introduction was:

"I'm Bob, from the right"

I should have been adventurous and introduced myself as Mark from the Left but that would have only caused complications and added unnecessary friction to any proceding conversation. Proudly I did bring up Iraq and told him it was shit idea, the corresponding death glare I received wasn't pleasant but last time I checked the UK was still a free country; soon to be freer on June 27th.

It was in Krabi Manchester United won the EPL, as it is called here, English Premier League for those of you not in the know. We sat down to watch a boring derby match but the result was all that mattered and because it was fitting we get pissed. Similar story the next day, Chelsea could only draw with Arsenal so we were champions, fuckin' A.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the bar we were frequenting had the poorest excuse of a Ladyboy working behind the bar; I mean it's a poor excuse anyway but this was blatent. A big fat jaw and stubble surely couldn't confuse even the most desperate sex starved perverted tourists. It sure was funny watching her? walking around serving the drinks, imagine any bloke you know fitting himself into high heels and drinking 2 bottles of red wine and, upon instruction, get up and stumble comically around the room. I had a good chuckle, haha.

The next day we took a bus to Ao Nang beach, 20km from Krabi town, upon arrival it began to rain. It proceeded to rain heavier so we took shelter and got some lunch. It continued to rain and got even heavier, it was beginning to feel as though the monsoon had arrived early, if not monsoon then at least a minor hurricane. This continued all day so we decided to scarper. Upon arrival back as the hostel the receptionist promised us 4 days of rainstorms; brilliant.


Escaping the Ao Nang rainstorm, not pictured, the rain.


Pez arrived on the 8th and we went out for a few drinks. We found an awesome reggae bar, reggae bars appear frequently here, and dived in for a few games of pool. I went unbeaten for 6 matches which was an absolute miracle considering I couldn't focus when looking above my glasses; because they fell down my nose, not because I was pissed, yet. I even beat the shark of the bar, Pond, he must have been having an off night. After a few beers and White Russian cocktails we, and the other punters, nine of us in total, were treated to a few free shots from the bar owner, Wood. It was a great place to be and the vibrant, alcohol induced, atmosphere, was hard to detatch ourselves from but, come 2am we decided we had to leave. We had an early ferry to board to Ko Phi Phi, a beautiful island totally destroyed by the Tsunami of 2004. I'll write more about this in a later entry.


Pond takes defeat with a smile, beer and ciggie.


Having become so slack with my blog recently it took a lot of energy to type this, even more so when I hit the stupid power button on the keyboard and lost all my typing. Why do they put those stupid buttons on a keyboard? Somebody from work please tell me, they are frigging annoying!