Endless Bus Rides and a Few Temples

Feb 14th-15th

Matt had been so kind as to book Josh and I a room in Luang Prabang for the night because they were arriving 12 hours before us. What he failed to do, however, was tell me the correct name of the place.

After spending 10 hours on a bus, we only arrived after dark and spent over an hour searching for a guesthouse that didn't exist; until another backpacker finally understood what we were talking about and brought us to the right place.

There, we met up with Matt and Till who were enjoying a drink with fellow travelers and proceeded to have a night out on the town.

We started at the handicraft night-market to grab a bite and book our onward ticket to Huay Xai, our northernmost destination in Laos.

Then we went to Utopia Bar, easily the busiest and most popular of all Luang Prabang's backpacker-friendly bars. We enjoyed some drinks there before the bar closed at midnight.

What most people do after Utopia, is go to the local bowling alley and continue to drink there because there is some bizarre loophole in the communist constitution of Laos that exempts bowling alleys from the same rules and curfews as other bars.

Go figure.

We, on the other hand, opted to buy some beers and enjoy a nightcap on our guesthouse patio.

Luang Prabang is renown throughout Laos and the rest of the world as the spiritual heart of the country. Not only is it a UNESCO World Heritage site, but it houses thousands of Buddhist monks and countless temples and monasteries, some dating back hundreds of years.

Our first stop was Phu Si: a hill providing beautiful views over the peninsula and the Mekong river.

Phu Si is also home to That Chomsi, a modest yet beautifully located temple.

For the remainder of the day, the four of us visited numerous temples and monasteries; and marveled at the unique architecture and displays of monastic life in the former capital of the first Lao kingdom.

At a certain point, Till and Josh got bored of temples and monks and went off to grab a drink. Matt and I continued to explore the furthest reaches of the peninsula and stumbled upon Wat Xieng Thong.

 

Wat Xieng Thong was built in 1560 by King Setthathirat and represents the template for the classic Luang Prabang temple.

Matt and I continued our tour, stopping to admire several stunning views of the Mekong before heading back to join the others.

That afternoon, Josh and I went to do some last-minute shopping and snacking in the market before saying our final goodbyes to our German travel buddies.

After having spent less than 24 hours in Luang Prabang, it was already time for Josh and I to hop on yet another 10-hour bus ride, this time our destination being Huay Xai on the north-western border with Thailand.

While this is a relatively uninteresting city, it is the base for exploring Laos' most adrenaline fueled adventure: The Gibbon Experience.

Imagine zip-lining over one-hundred feet in the air, above pristine Laotian jungle, inhabited by a unique and rare primate, the black-crested gibbon.

Now imagine no further, I will tell you all about it!

Laos: Like a Drunken Baby

Feb 8th-13th

In Kratie, we had arranged a minivan to bring us to Stung Treng, the last big stop in Cambodia before the border with Laos.

From there, we took another minibus to the border. We waited for over an hour before everyone had their visas and passports processed. Despite having got a visa in advance, we still had to pay a stamping fee (aka bribe) to pass through customs.

We then walked through the no-mans land and onto yet another bus, this one bound for Don Det, our first destination in Laos.

Don Det is part of Si Phan Don, or Four Thousand Islands: a stunning portion of the southern Laotian Mekong river, comprising literally thousands of islets, sandbars and proper inhabited islands.

Once at the pier, we took a small boat to Don Det and were greeted by a group of backpackers swimming and tubing on Don Det's small beach. What was hilarious was that there was also a buffalo bathing along with them and as he was leaving, he took a massive shit just upstream from them. Needless to say, this prompted the swimmers to scream and get out of the water, much to our amusement.

Don Det is the primary backpacker island in Four Thousand Islands and since we were there in the high season, we knew accommodations would be hard to come by.

In fact, we walked around for quite some time before finally securing a basic room on the sunrise side of the island.

For the rest of the day, we just lounged around and enjoyed the river scenery.

That evening, we spent the first of many nights at Pool Bar, the most popular bar on the island. After about 2 or 3 of the tremendously famous Beer Lao, we had to call it a night because we could hardly keep our eyes open.

Since it was such an early night, I woke up and took a walk around the entire island. After only 10-minutes from our room, the accommodations thinned out and you could see the modest homes of local islanders and the gorgeous riverside landscape nestled between Don Det and neighboring Don Khon.

From there I walked another hour to the southern tip of the island and then made my way up the sunset (western) coast.

While this side was more sparsely occupied, it didn't have the same beautiful views as the eastern coast.

Upon my return, I was surprised to see Matt and Till relaxing at a beach-side restaurant. I joined them for a coffee and we discussed our respective plans for Laos.

I also joined them for a swim in the Mekong and luckily the resident bull was downstream from us.

That evening, Pool Bar was having a DJ from Europe spinning at a special event and they went as far as bribing the local police to keep the bar open until 1:30am!

Laos is officially a communist state and because of this, they have certain restrictive rules in place like 11pm curfews in some places, Si Phan Don being one of them.

The Dj was quite good and the four of us enjoyed buckets and danced on the cramped dance floor before it was last call.

After the party, everyone congregated on the small beach and continued the festivities, albeit without music or a dance floor.

At a certain point, Till was quite drunk and said he feels like a drunken baby, and when asked how that feels, he responded "comfortable" with a sleepy smile. It actually became a recurring joke after that night.

To unwind after a solid night of partying, Josh and I took a walk to Don Khon island.

It took around 45 minutes to reach the French-built bridge and we crossed over to Don Khon.

From Don Khon we then found Khone Pa Soi waterfall.

Our longer than expected journey took us through dry rice fields, purposefully burning crops and over a few suspension bridges before finally reaching the falls.

The falls were quite impressive and it was interesting to see how locals set up nets and other contraptions to catch fish in the strong currents.

Once back on Don Det, we met up with Till and Matt and enjoyed a delicious Indian meal.

We had reserved a bus to take us to Tha Khaek, our base for exploring Kong Lo cave. Till and Matt would also be joining us on this journey.

Don Det to Tha Khaek took roughly 11 hours and we arrived at almost 10pm. It then took us almost 2 hours of wandering around before finally finding a place to stay.

Tha Khaek is located just across the Mekong river from Thailand and because of this strategic location, many Thai businessmen come over for trade and cause room rates to be rather inflated and difficult to come by.

The following morning we hired a van to take the 4 of us to the Phu Hin Bun National Protected Area: home to Kong Lo cave.

Kong Lo cave is a 7.5 km cave/subterranean river passing through a huge limestone mountain. You need to hire a long-tail boat to traverse it.

After around halfway, you moor and walk through an impressive array of stalactites, before continuing the rest of the way by boat.

Of course, once back on the boat, the safe meal of chicken and rice I had eaten prior to our boat trip was not agreeing with me and I really wished I had popped an Imodium prior to leaving. At a certain point I broke out in a cold sweat and told our boat driver I needed to get off the boat, and fast! Luckily there was a massive gravel pit in the cave and I sprinted up it, pulling down my shorts just in the nick of time. I had no toilet paper at the time so I had to use my boxers to clean myself off.   

So please, if you ever find yourself in Kong Lo cave and come across a pair of black Calvin Klein's, by all means do not pick them up! I turned one of the Laos' longest caves into the world's longest toilet!  

Anyways, back to the boat trip...

It was extremely impressive to see the grandeur and absolute darkness (thankfully) when traversing the cave.

Once we reached the exit, we took a brief break before going back through to the mouth of the cave.

On our way back, our driver stopped at a viewpoint overlooking the beautiful mountainous countryside before completing the rest of the 2-hour drive back to Tha Khaek.

The next day, it took another 6 hours by luxury coach to reach Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

Matt and Till opted to immediately transfer onto a night bus to Luang Prabang, while Josh and I would spend a night in Vientiane before joining them the next day.

Before our German friends headed out, we briefly stopped in front of the That Dum Stupa (no joke!), and presidential palace.

In the past 3 days, we had driven over 23 hours between Don Det and Vientiane and we had another 10 hours of mountainous roads before reaching Luang Prabang the next day.

For such a small country, it sure takes a bloody long time to get anywhere!

A History of Violence: From Tragedy to Triumph

Feb 3rd-7th

We took a ferry back to Sihanoukville and had arranged a bus to Phnom Penh. We arrived after dark, taking a tuk tuk to our hostel, the awesome 88 backpackers (88backpackers.com).

Despite checking into a 12-person dorm, the room was incredibly spacious and very well air-conditioned.

Sweet dreams.

The following day we decided to learn more about Cambodia's horrifying contemporary history and went to visit Tuol Sleng museum or Security Prison 21 (S-21).

A little background: on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, had taken over Phnom Penh and implemented his extreme-Maoist policies among its inhabitants.

He proclaimed 'year zero' or the restarting of Cambodian society and civilization as the world knew it.

As part of the restructuring, the city of Phnom Penh was virtually liquidated, its inhabitants forced to leave the city, march into the countryside and work in the fields as slaves for 12-15 hours per day in agrarian cooperatives.

Any enlightened individual or intellectual, comprising anyone capable of speaking another language, read, or even who wore glasses were executed by the thousands.

Many of these intellectuals, considered enemies of the state, passed through the various security prisons, including S-21, being executed in the various killing fields throughout the country.

Tuol Sleng was a high school prior to 1975. It was renamed Security Prison 21 when taken over by the Khmer Rouge.

Today, it is a museum commemorating all the men, women and children held and tortured within those walls.

It has remained untouched since it was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979, blood stains still painting the dirty walls and floors.

Much like other genocidal regimes, the Khmer Rouge meticulously documented and photographed all its 17,000 prisoners, often after a fresh round of brutal torture.

What makes it particularly haunting is that these thousands of prisoners' pictures line the walls of the museum, personifying the terror that occurred in this complex. Some of the prisoners were children, being implicated in a purge they were even too young to comprehend.

Josh and I took our time walking through the various rooms, corridors and cells; reading the numerous posters explaining methods of torture and absolute horror inflicted on these innocent people.

It was a sobering and emotionally draining afternoon, but I'm very glad that we went.

It is said that out of the 17,000 prisoners held at S-21, only 7 survived and only because the prison was liberated by the Vietnamese before they could be executed.

Believe it or not, but some of the rescued 7 men actually continue to work as tour guides at S-21, acting as ambassadors for peace and to help young Cambodians understand about their modern history.

The following day, we went to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, 15km out of central Phnom Penh. We were joined by Maria from Mexico; and Matt and Till from Germany.

The five of us rented a tuk tuk that brought us to the site.

The killing fields are where most of S-21's prisoners were brought and bludgeoned to death: for the Khmer Rouge, bullets were too expensive to waste, so they used farming tools, bamboo shoots and pretty much anything else they could get their murderous hands on, killing the prisoners often in the longest and most excruciating way possible.

The now peaceful field is littered with mass graves and Buddhist prayer beads, honoring the victims.

The most intense part of the audio-guided tour was when we were led to an oak tree and it was explained that it was against this tree that babies and infants were slammed until they died.

The final stop on the tour was to a memorial stupa containing over 8000 skulls of victims and remnants of their clothes.

Like the killing caves near Battambang, it is unfathomable to believe that this is but one mass execution site out of hundreds during the four-year period that Pol Pot reigned.

It is estimated that up to 3,000,000 people were executed or died of starvation during the Khmer Rouge age.

What is also unbelievable is that the Khmer Rouge were viewed as the legitimate leaders of Cambodia by the UN until 1993!

However, the most unreal aspect of it all is how despite all the carnage and suffering, Cambodians are the most kind, sincere and warm people I have ever met.

There was not one day where I was not greeted by an ear-to-ear smile or waved at from an elderly person or child.

Cambodians are the personification of the human spirit and I am truly in awe of their amazing perseverance and incredible ability to rise above the past, no matter how difficult it may be.

After 2 days of lump-in-the-throat, tear-jerking emotional turmoil, the five of us needed a break.

Matt and Josh went to shoot an M16 and AK-47 at the military base, while I worked on my blog.

Josh and I had also handed in our passports in order to get a visa for Laos to resume our tour of Asian communist regimes.

To break up the trip, we decided to spend a night in Kratie, located on the mighty Mekong River.

Kratie, which lies on one of the most beautiful sections of the Mekong in Cambodia, is also home to the highest concentrations of Irrawaddy, or freshwater dolphins, in Laos and Cambodia.
 

In fact, the tourist office guarantees you will see these bizarre looking creatures on every boat-cruise they organize.

This section of the Mekong was absolutely stunning and to see it as the sun was setting and the dolphins breaching for air was breathtaking. A fitting end to our three weeks in this magnificent country.

While Angkor Wat was incredible and the museums heart-wrenching, it is the people that truly make this an unforgettable place, and I hope that as the years go by, their prosperity improves so that they can impart their amazing spirit on many more of those who are suffering as they did only several decades ago.