Great Indochina: Cambodia, Vietnam & Laos

My trip started in Bangkok on Khaosan Rd, the same Sawadee hotel I went to in 1996! The following morning I spent at the Embassy of the Netherlands, getting there and back. Unfortunately not as straight forward as it sounds. Luckily I had checked my trip itinerary the night before, because my group meeting was that evening and I had to check into this hotel the same day (in my mind it was days before the start of the trip). I met Nicol first, she was my roommate that first night and all throughout Cambodia & Vietnam. My trip was a combined one, three different parts, three different guides and groupmembers coming and going.

To make things easier to read I'm splitting my story in 3 parts, naming groupmembers, short itinerary and some "interesting" details. I will also use my facebook status updates as before.

Cambodia:

Guide: Hang. He was an overenthusiastic energetic & silly boy, with lack of interest in our trip by the end of the two weeks. He wasn't a planner, not a great organizer and we constantly had to ask him everything (what are the optional acivities, costs, departure times etc).

Group: Patricia (64) AUS, Nicol (32) ENG, Jenny (18) & Amelia (18) & Alice (18) ENG, Maria (38) NZ, Alysha (23) & Tom (23) AUS, Caroline (22) & Hannah (22) NZ, Chris (32) USA *, Kathrina (20?) ENG *. (*=2 week trip only)

Itinerary:

D1 (22/3) : Bangkok
D2-4: Siem Reap/Angkor Wat
D5: Kompong Cham
D6: Phnom Penh
D7: Chambok homestay
D8-10: Sihanoukville
D12 (2/4): Ho Chi Minh City

22 March: Now I'm on Khao San Rd and had forgotten how hectic Bangkok can be.... My trip starts tomorrow and will meet the group later..... Fingers crossed!!!

D3: We went to Ankor Wat for sunrise, but my favorite was the temple Bayon, with the famous "faces" and uncle Tom's bridge.

24 March: Knackered after a brilliant day at Ankor Wat and it's "sisters",but waiting for the mosquitos in our room to drop dead due to suffocation. Thanks Raid!

D4: On the way to the floating village, we stopped to see a field with Lotus flowers. It was such a beautiful sight! The floating village was an experience ruined years ago by an overkill of tourists. Locals would come up to our boat in canoes begging for money ,,One dollar, one dollar". They turned everything into something commercial. Mothers giving their children a living Python to carry around, hoping that tourists would find it photo worthy (1 photo = 1$). To my horror there was a baby using it's newteeth to nibble the snakes tail... Yes, that is me with a snake around my neck, but it was at the crocodile farm... Nicol and I went for a massage in the evening. It was an Institution and the sign stated: Massage by blind. It was... very...uhm, different.

27 March: Going to the killing field in a minute and might go and see (if i can keep my hands away from my eyes) traditional Khmer Kickboxing after!

D6: The former Security Prison 21 (S21) is now a museum. The stories and photo's made a big impact. History sounded more like a nightmare. We went to the killing fields after. Everyone was quiet in the bus afterwards. A few of us went to a Khmer kickboxing arena. It was broadcasted on tv too. It was such a buzz: tasting the atmosphere and watching those matches. I was standing next to Chris, when this older local asked Chris if he could have me. Luckily Chris said I wasn't for sale. It's not Egypt, so he couldn't exchange me for camels, I wonder how much I was worth;) Also interesting to see someone to report and comment on the match into 9 mobile phones simultaneously! The local handyman had strapped them all together with elastics.

D7: The homestay was a good experience and hanging out with the locals, especially playing volleyball, was great fun! On the downside: squat toilet in shed + 100m from house + pitch black at night + upset stomach = nightmare

D8: Hiked up to this beautiful unspoiled waterfall. In the afternoon we went to the beach, where we tried to relax while under "attack" by women and kids selling stuff. In the evening I was bitten by a million (probably not even over exaggerated) sandflies. It was itchy for weeks and looked ugly all that time too!

29 March: Bruised, swolen and sore under arms & thumbs after yesterday's volleybal match with some locals in Chambok.... obviously a lack of technique.

D9: Boat trip to Bamboo island, where I just slept on the beach. My least favorite daytrip.

D10: Went to Sokah beach by tuctuc with Maria, Patricia & Nicol. We hired a cheap beach chair, relaxed, went to the exclusive restaurant where we treated ourselfs to a heavenly lunch, went back to our chairs and relaxed some more. A wonderfull, hassle free day at the (private) beach!

31 March: 3 Of us robbed! The 2 boys in my group were stupid enough to go swimmingand thereby invite others to rob them, another girl had her bag brutaly yanked off her shoulder by one on a motorbike! All in Sihanoukville.

1 April: Had great fun in a VIP karaoke lounge tonight with people off my trip:)

D12: Went for a 2$ haircut in Phnom Penh.

Vietnam:

Guide: Phuong: He was a born leader! Such a loving, caring & giving person. Great organizer and he knew what we wanted to know and what we needed! He was simply made for the job!

Group: 10 of the Cambodia clan (2 left) + Helen (36) ENG & Art (41) CAN, Susan (28 ) & Helen (62?)  AUS, Doug (18 ) ENG.

Itinerary:

D13 (3/4): Chi Minh City
D14-15: Mekong Delta
D16-17: Nha Trang
D18-20: Hoi An
D21-23: Hue
D24: Hanoi
D25:Halong Bay                                                                                                                                 D26 (16/4) Hanoi

2 April: Won't be able to up-date Facebook in the next 2 weeks, because the government of Vietnam has blocked the website... So no Facebook acces at all in Vietnam

D13 (V1*): Fascinated and shocked by the information and photo's at the war reminiscense museum (Saigon). Never knew how much impact "agent orange" (toxines) had and still has! (*= day 1 of the Vietnam trip). 

D14: Relaxing day: Taken a boat on the Mekong, had hours of nothing at the homestay and went for a nice countryside bike ride (a few could count their bicycle experience on one hand).

D15: Very interesting afternoon at the tunnels of Cu Chi. The Vietnamese were so inventive and creative, when it came to defending themselves and in ways to kill the enemies (Americans). We took an overnight train in the evening.

D16: Optional boat trip was great! We visited a fishing village, saw the underwaterworld when snorkeling and had a relaxing few hours in the sun on Rocky Beach.

D17: We all went to the mud baths that afternoon. We had a lot of fun as you can imagine!

7 April: Loving Vietnam!!! The downside... (Cambodia + Vietnam) 5 people had things stolen and today someone tried to steal my flipflops... She just wore them as if they were hers!!! (at the mud baths)

19 April: Can't believe you thought that I was letting her get away with it. Her life as the proud owner of a pair of Havaianas was short lived;)

D18: This day was the start of 3 days of crazy shopping... We were in Hoi An, THE place for custom tailored clothes:)

D19: Saw the countryside by bike. Beautiful surroundings! Patricia, Art and I made some extra kilometers... Art decided get off his bike to take a photo and we waited for him. Unfortunately we were the only ones waiting and it was after half an hour of frantic bike riding that Phoung found us. In the afternoon/evening I did some running around town for some first fittings.

D20: I left at 7am for my motorbike trip to My Son Ruins. Sat for 1,5h on the back of the motorbike to get there, but loved every minute of it. The ruins were untouched, a natural beauty! So many different butterflies too! UnfortunatelyI felt sick that afternoon, so I spent it in bed to safe energy for the finishing fittings and the collecting of the pieces of clothes.

D21-23: Feeling sicker and sicker. Went straight to bed, when we arrived in Hue (had a short stop at China Beach) and didn't leave the bed until I had to exchange it for the overnight train to Hanoi. The doctor came on the second day and ascertained that I had a Vietnamese viral infection. It was giving me a headache, caused a severe "heat" rash all over my body, sore limbs and a high fever to top it all off!

D24: Started off with another morning in bed, but went with the group to the theatre to see a puppet show in the afternoon.

D25: Spent the whole day on a Halong Bay boat trip to Cat Ba.

D26 (16/4): Kayaking as if our lifes were depending on it, because Nicol and I didn't seem to go anywhere. That evening we had our last supper with the Vietnam group.

Just finished writing about Laos.... lost it all (f*cking computer). It took me 2,5 hours to write!!! Anyway, don't have another 2,5 hours... so I'll try to update AGAIN soon.

Laos:

Guide: Moh: Some would call her laidback, but I think she was simply lazy and couldn't care less. If you had forgotten something, left it behind somewhere, consider it gone. She never tried to get us good deals, because she didn't care how much we had to pay. No comparison to Phuong!

Group: 7 Of us who started in Bangkok continued: the 3 young girls, Patricia, Maria, Nicole and I, + Gus (19) ENG, an english couple, Tory ENG, Helen ENG, Bec's AUS.

Itinerary:

D27 (17/4) (D1 Laos trip): Hanoi
D28: Vinh
D29-30: Vientiane
D31-33: Vang Vieng
D34-36: Luang Prabang
D37-38: Mekong River (Pakbeng)
D39-40: Chiang Mai

D27: Patricia, Nicol and I decided it was time for some serious pampering. I used my upcoming birthday as an extra excuse and went for the longest treatment: 2,5 heavenly hours of relaxation. That evening we met up with our new group members.

D28: Long day of travelling to get to our stopover in Vinh.

D29: We crossed the border into Laos. Instantly exchanging the flat country side for the green lush mountains of Annamite.

D30: My Birthday!!! It was a bit of a sad start, since everybody left the bar a few minutes before midnight... no toast or birthday wishes, it wasn't even mentioned :( Luckily Maria did, when I entered our room (yes, not sharing a room with Nicol anymore, were circulating now). That morning we had an orientation walk to see Wat Si Saket and Patuxay (Victory gate). We then went to Cope, an organisation which provides protheses for people who lost limbs due to bombies or other accidents. We saw a movie about this Australian guy, a bomb expert, who is trying to help clear Laos from the bomb remains of the war. Travelling through Laos you wouldn't have a clue, that there are so many bombs that are still able to go off by the slightest touch or movement of the earth. B52's with detonators still in tact and kids willing to risk their lives, because a bom = scrapmetal and scrapmetal means money. They even had mixed feelings when dangerous bombs were succesfully removed from their village. A real eye opener. We had an amazing lunch at the Joma Bakery and I bought a slice of Mango Crumble Pie, a real treat for later. A highlight of the day was having my parents sing me 'Happy Birthday', it was a tear jerker;) We had a great dinner and the B52 shots (alcohol) were just as good. Moh had arranged a birthday cake for dessert. We were suppose to go to karaoke that evening, but Moh was able to manipulate the situation to her wishes, so we ended up going to this bar, where there was a live band. They might have played live, but definately weren't lively. It felt like we had entered the sinking Titanic. Maria accompanied me for another drink elsewhere, before we gave up and called it a day. So you will all understand it, when I say that we'll have to do my 30th over... when I'm back!!!

D31: We travelled to Vang Vieng and I organized the day trip for the next day (since our guide was too lazy to try to get us the best option). Better value, for less money, so everybody was happy.

D32: We kayaked down the Nam Song river and stopped near the starting point of the tubing. We had a long rest at one of the bars, which we realized we needed for the tubing, because it was bloody hard work! The water level was low and the current weak, so there was a lot of arm work involved.... for several hours. Still fun though!

D33: HIGHTLIGHT of my trip! Patricia and I were picked up early in the morning. We had to drop off most people at the rockclimbing, but two German boys stayed behind. They were fully geared up with hiking boots and day backpacks and full of energy. They asked us what we were going to do and I told him how we had gone to the travel agency looking for a suitable hiking trip, since Patricia had said she was old and I had added to be slow. So I explained that we were going to do this Secret Eden trekking, a hike around the mountain and through valley's. They said that they were going to climb the highest mountain. Clearly they were going to do a different track. We laughed, since we were the old & slow duo. Our laughter was short lived, when the guide interrupted us and said that it was the four of us doing the climb to Secret Eden. Patricia and I must've had a confused look on our faces. This couldn't be right (?!?!!), we definately didn't sign up to climb the highest mountain. The boys had a chat to the guide too, probably afraid that we were going to hold them back. One guide was coming with us, the other went with the boys. Good, we thought. Little did we know that we were going to do exactly the same trekking. When we arrived at the bottom of the mountain, we realized that there wasn't a track to go around it. ,,Well, we'll give it a shot", we said to each other.

It was not a hill.... NO a STEEP mountain. Half way there I asked him how high the mountain was... turned out that we had to climb 1500m! We were joking a lot on the way. I said that I really hoped that when we would be back the girls will not be saying ,,Yeah, we hired a tuc-tuc and saw Secret Eden too". Can you imagine us nearly dying, while we could've taken an easy form of transportation. (Luckily?) There was no other way but up,up and up. After climbing 2/3 of the mountain, it started raining and didn't stop until after lunch. The rain made the track even harder. I've never sweated so much in my life! It looked as if I had been walking in the rain, so when it did rain... I didn't mind at all. We both slipped several times. I was the frontrunner, but every step I took had to be taken with caution. There were parts where you couldn't even see the 'path'. The valley was nice with clouds covering half of the mountains. High grass to Swishhh, swooshhh through. After the valley we had to go down to the river. It was so steep and slippery that I used every part of my body to get down. We nearly pissed ourselves laughing, when we tried to scramble and slide down. Haven't laughed this much in ages! We had a nice lunch in cave at Secret Eden, where we met up with the other boys. The boys were ready to leave and climb the next mountain. Patricia and I were thinking: Clearly they must know that it is too difficult to climb another mountain under these circumstances. Our guide had let us know that it hadn't been this slippery before (this year). After lunch we had to scramble up some rocks to get out of the cave, sometimes with huge gaping gaps between them, other times just a very narrow spot to place your feet. Some parts of the trekking were definately dangerous. We had wooden ladders + a diagonal flat rock where we had to crawl over, while we were holding on for our lives with our fingers in any nook and cranny that we could find + a sandy ridge that wasn't much wider then our feet were long + nearly horizontal muddy descends, where we could only slide down and hold on to anything that was on the way + shuffled across beams, while leaning on a rock a meter to our right + etc etc etc. When I asked the guide if he ever had people this slow before, he said that he had them slower and sometimes they would cry. Well, we understood why! I asked him if other people had used the bum sliding technique, he laughed and said that I was the first one, he had never seen it before. At the last part of our track down, the 2nd and last mountain, we both ended up using my technique quite a bit. I had given our guide a new name too: mountain goat! He loved his new title. It was 5.30 when we got back at our guesthouse, where we then had to hose ourselves down outside to get most of the mud off. My cap was beyond cleanable and I had to chuck it out. A brilliant day!

23 April: Knackered after tubing/kajaking yesterday and mountain trekking today. It started raining so we were climbing parts of the track on hands, knees & feet. On we way down there was quite a bit bum sliding involved! It was a track suitable for mountain goats (only)!!!

D34: Today was a long sickening journey on a windy road to Luang Prabang, during which Patricia and I were reminded of our previous adventure every minute of the day (extreem muscle PAINS).

D35: Again a day in pain... especially going to the toilet was pure agony. I just couldn't bring myself down low enough, so I simply dropped onto the toilet seat. We had an orientation walk in the morning which brought us to Wat Xiang Than, the amazing Royal Palace Museum, a silversmith, along the river where you could try snake wine, and a local market where they were selling the ordinary house sparrow. You buy them and set them free for good luck. Apparently they're trained to fly back to the owner (saleswoman). After lunch it was time to relax and to keep reapplying after sun... That evening Patricia bought me a birthday scarf:) at the night market.

D36: I'll try to keep it short... We went elephant riding and it was Amazing!!! After half an hour we had the opportunity, which I took ofcourse, to sit on the elephants neck instead of the bench. Where else can you sit on an elephant like that.... It was hillarious from time to time, especially downhill, since his head would be to low to lean on. Bec's was sitting on the bench and was sometimes holding on to me by wrapping her feet around me, while she herself had her eyes closed. We also 'washed' them in the disgustingly dirty river. By that time I was feeling so sick that I tasted my breakfast twice. That afternoon we went to the beautiful Kuang Sii Falls and afterwards it was straight to bed for me. I had a fever so didn't go anywhere.

D37: Observing hundreds of monks receiving alms at 5.50am.... don't know what happend to the other 80, because there were only 20.  Since I still wasn't 100% (and I'm not talking about my brains), I slept and slept on our 10 hour boat trip along the Mekong.

D38: Another day of sleeping on the Mekong.

D39: Saw the most impressive temple ever! It was white and looked more like a fairytale, myth temple, with amazing wall painting inside.

D40: COOKING CLASS: It was great! We went to a market for the ingredients and then... started cooking. There were several dishes but most important was Chicken Green Curry!!!  The Pad Thai and Spring Rolls were a succes too. Yummmmm:D Nothingness in the afternoon and that evening I flew into Bangkok taking a bus to Khaosan Rd after... but that's another story!