Mon, 04 Mar 2002

What can I say about the past 5 weeks since my last email? So much has happened; I just don’t know which parts to tell you. I realize that this email is too long, I should probably not wait so long before I send the next email. Last time I wrote I was in Northern Thailand, since then I have been through Laos and much of Cambodia. Traveling overall has been much easier than I expected. Many people speak some English and I have learnt how to talk with fewer words so that people will understand. Instead of “Is this the bus to Kampot”, I would say “bus? Kampot?” Instead of “how old are you” I would ask “how many years you?” Hopefully I won’t keep talking like this when I get back :)

THAILAND:After Chiang Mai I headed north-west to Mae Hong Son and went on another trek. This one was very different from the first trek since there were only 4 of us (not 13) and we didn’t see any other travelers for the whole three days. I loved it. We passed hunters, fisherman and farmers on the trails between the villages.
This time we visited the Karen hill tribes and stayed with relatives of our guide. They were so friendly and I enjoyed sketching some of the thatched houses on stilts. After the trek I flew back to Chiang Mai and then took a bus to Chiang Rai. The bus was supposed to take 3.5 hours so I was a bit surprised when we got there after 2 hours (but then new roads are being built all the time and the buses can go faster than before). In Chiang Rai, I went to the local fair with the managers of the guest house and was the only foreigner there. I had fun on the bumper cars and watching the motorcycle stunts and a Thai concert. There was also gambling stalls, Ferris wheels, and lots of food.

LAOS (Feb1):After Chiang Rai I headed to Chiang Khong and over the Mekong River to Laos. Laos immigration was a little hut on the road up from the ferry dock. I had to pay a “fee” for arriving after 4pm (they will come up with any excuse for extra money). The next morning I got on the boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. It takes two days and there is a stop-over in Pakbeng. At first we thought our boat was crowded, but then we talked with travelers who went on other days and realized how lucky we were that we didn’t have to stand or sit on rice sacks.
(One week after there was another boat that sank and everyone’s stuff was soaked through and they had to stay in a small village overnight). Thailand now feels like a 1st world country now that I have traveled in Laos. There is not a single ATM machine in all of Laos or Cambodia; some towns don’t even have a bank. I would not want to see what the hospitals are like here. Luang Prabang was a lovely city at the fork of two rivers. It has just one main street and it was fun to walk along since we kept running into people from the boat. I met a British girl, Phong, on the boat who was also traveling alone and we were able to share a room and save some money. We rented bicycles for the day and enjoyed seeing more of: the houses, Wats (temples), and local sights. After a few days we took a bus down to Vang Vieng. We got to the bus an hour early and were lucky to get the last two seats, then the bus driver decided to leave 30 minutes early. The road was only 100km, but it took 6 hours since the road was so curvy, twisting around the mountains. It was scenic, but I was very glad when it was over. The re is no such thing as a “full” bus in Laos. Once all the “seats” were gone, people (locals and travelers) started sitting on the sacks of cargo in the middle aisle and little plastic stools. Once those were full, people started to crowd in by the doors. The bus would honk the horn every time we went through a village and more people would flag down the bus and get on! Vang Vieng is on a beautiful curve of the Mekong River surrounded by mountains. It is a breathtaking site, and quite a back-packers place. The main thing to do is rent inner tubes and float down the Mekong for several hours. It was really relaxing and fun. We got a group of around 20 people together, so there were lots of people to talk to as we floated down. There are also some great caves nearby. I went caving with 4 others and a local guide. The guide handed us all candles and we entered the cave. It was fun to climb over and under the rocks and to see the cool rock formations. The only English that the guide knew was “this way” and “watch your head” so we didn’t know that there was another way out of the cave until we got to it.

I said goodbye to Phong in Vang Vieng since she wanted to stay, and took another fun bus ride to the capital (Vientiane). There were lots of live chickens on the bus, and every time we stopped we were offered street foods like: bbq chicken on a stick and boiled eggs on a stick, and mystery packages wrapped in banana leaf. It was a bit of a shock to be hassled by tuk-tuk drivers as soon as I got off the bus, since the rest of Laos had been so laid-back. It was a big city so I rented a bicycle for a day and just biked around seeing the Wats and other local attractions. One day was enough and then I headed to the south of Laos. The towns were very different from the North. There are more concrete buildings, and more industry, but the buildings were older and run down. I was also there during the Vietnamese New Year so everything was closed. I took another boat from Pakse to Champasak and saw the Ankor-period ruins at “Wat Phu Champaskak”.
It is built at several levels, each one getting closer to the fresh water spring at the top. The main walkway is surrounded by flowering trees and there are some beautiful views from the top. The next day I took the boat again down to the four thousand islands. I spent a night on Don Khong where there were only 4 travelers in the whole town. I was going to go to the islands for the day and then head back to Thailand, but I met some people heading down to Cambodia so I stayed for four days instead. I enjoyed the resort-like quality of the bungalows and the small beach on Don Det, and there is a nice 3-hour walk to see a nearby waterfall. There were many restaurants and guest houses which had great food and great “Lao Lao” cocktails.

CAMBODIA (Feb18):One of the most interesting border crossings I even did had to be the Laos/Cambodia border. I had to pay a penalty at the Laos border since I had overstayed my visa for four days, but as long as you pay in American dollars it is “no problem”. The Cambodia border on the other hand wasn’t as fast. There were 11 of us crossing together and we designated 3 people to go and negotiate with the guards. They wanted $25 US each person, but after an hour of negotiations they were able to get it down to $13. The border is supposed to be legal and open, but the guards can charge whatever they want since you have little choice. We took a boat down to Stung Treng. Along the river we saw farms and cows and villagers doing their washing in the river. When we got to Stung Treng we decided to stay for a night. Then we found out that there was no ferry the next day. Five people decided to hire and car and driver to head south, but 6 of us stayed and had a great day visiting a stone cow across the river, a local school, and a shopkeeper’s house. They don’t see many foreigners and our guide was a great interpreter so we could communicate with the locals. The next day we found out that again there would not be a ferry on the following day since the nephew of the boat driver was getting married. Instead we hired a fast boat and driver to take us down to Kratie. Boats are really the best way to travel in Cambodia. It sometimes is even faster than bus since the roads are in such bad condition.

From Kratie we hired moto drivers and then a boat to take us to go see the white Irrawaddy Dolphins. They were so graceful and beautiful and it was such an amazing experience to see them in the wild. After Kratie, I headed to Kompong Cham and then to the capital, Phnom Penh.

If I thought Vientiane was big, then I was even more surprised by Phnom Penh which is huge. Moto drivers are everywhere. I don’t know why they bother painting lanes on the road since no one pays any attention to them. I visited the silver pagoda at the royal palace and chatted with a few monks. I was a bit surprised when the Monk’s cell phone started ringing, but even more when he gave me his email address and wrote “I love you” beside it :) Buddhist monks are not usually a monk for life so they have different attitudes than Christian monks. The Buddhist monks here are very well educated since becoming a monk is one of the ways the poorer people can get an education. This also means that women do not have the same opportunity for education since they can’t become monks. I met one guy who was a monk for 1 week. It is something most local men are expected to do for at least a short period of time.

I spent a day at the “Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum” where prisoners where tortured and executed and the killing fields where the bodies were buried. I saw photographs that the Khmer Rouge took of their victims. I saw the tiny cells where people where imprisoned. I saw a huge memorial filled with hundreds of skulls. I had not known much about Cambodia’s history before coming here and it is so hard to believe that atrocities like this happened so recently, during my lifetime. At least one million people died between 1975 and 1979 as a result of the Khmer Rouge government and the gap in the population is very visible today. Every Cambodian lost somebody they knew, and some lost their whole families.

The next day I visited the National Museum and had a great massage from Sothy, a blind man at “Seeing hands Massage” at the National centre for Disabled Persons. It was probably the best massage I have ever had and I am going back for another massage. Land mines are still a major problem here and we always stay to the paths wherever we go.

That night a few of us from the guest house went to a big theme party with 300+ people at a nearby hotel. There were DJs, dance music, and real cocktails. It was so strange to be surrounded by travelers and ex-pats and to be at a party like that in Cambodia!

The next day I took the bus to Sihanoukville and swam in the ocean for the first time this trip. There was a beautiful beach and food vendors who would cut up a fresh pineapple for you while you waited. But I wanted to get to Bokor National Park so I headed to Kampot the next day. I met a German girl (Michelle) who is working on her thesis in Cambodia and we decided to go to Bokor together (since ne ither of us wanted to stay overnight in the park on our own). We bought some tuna, veggies, and noodles at the market and then we went up the hill on Michelle’s motorbike on the worst road I have ever seen. There were more gaps than road and actually it would have been better if there was no pavement at all since a dirt path would have been better. There is an abandoned town at the top of the hill which was built by the French in the 20s or 30s. We explored an old casino/hotel and a church. We hired one of the rangers to guide us to a local waterfall, but there was almost no water! It was still a great walk since we could climb through the humongous boulders down the river. On the way back we passed a small forest fire that had somehow started. It wasn’t very big, and our ranger/guide didn’t seem too worried, but we were glad to get past it. They have no way to put the fire out, but it rains quite often at the top of the hill so the grass/bush/trees are not too dry. We cooked our meal and it was actually pretty good. That night we again visited the abandoned casino. It was really spooky and we played a bit of black-jack on the floor of the casino using flashlights. We stayed at the ranger station overnight in the dorm and could hear the rats crawling around the ceiling.

The next day we had a grueling trip down on the motorbike back to Kampot, it is much harder going down since you can’t use the momentum of the bike to stabilize as easily. The next day Michelle and I hired a boat to take us to Rabbit Island. It had beautiful beaches and a great walking path around the perimeter. One of the boat drivers climbed a palm tree, dropped down coconuts for everyone, and then chopped the top off for us. There is a clearish liquid and white coconut meat inside which didn’t really taste coconutty, but it was still good. Michelle and I again headed up to Bokor National park to get to a party that we had seen flyers for. It was really strange to see the Casino lit up with candles, and to hear the music pumping from the speakers. The party was really great, and we again stayed at the ranger station. The next day I took the pickup truck down to Kampot. If I thought the bike was bad, this was even worse. The truck would go fast over holes and we were bounced around the back, holding onto the rails to keep steady. I was very glad to get to the bottom.



I have now returned to Phnom Penh and will be heading to Siem Reap tomorrow to go see the ruins at Angkor Wat. After that I will head back to Bangkok and then probably Myanmar, then Vietnam and China.

I hope you are all doing well. I love getting your emails and apologize for not getting back to you promptly. The internet is so slow here. It can take up to 30 minutes just to login to hotmail, get to your inbox and read 1 email. It is so nice to hear news from home.

Take Care,
Jen