Bye bye Cambodia and Aloha Laos

After a quick afternoon in Ban Lung where we visited the magnificent vulcano craterlake with perfectly round shape and green jungle around it we were heading further. The tempo is quite high and I think we have to stop a little bit in Laos. 4000 islands with relaxed athmosphere seems like a great idea! 

Blue crater lake in Ban Lung

But first we have to come in the county and tyr not to be ripped off by officials trying to get another dollar from tourists by making up ridicilous fees for stamp or fewer check. Exit out of Cambodia went almost smoothly. After refusing to pay 2 dollars for the stamp they made us wait for 15 minutes in which all other passengers on the bus paying without a question were processed. A truck comming from Laos casually dropped 2 boxes of beer to the policemens which gave him fast (but not completely free) entry to Cambodia. We were quite shocked how open they are playing their game. 

On the Laos side it did not get that easy. On first part they wanted us to pay additional 1$ for service fee and when we said we do not have a change everything was fine. But later we got stuck - the ink must be very expensive since the stamp would cost us 2$ each. I told the guy I do not have any more money looking at him as he was staring in the book behind the window. We went to sit and wait so all other people got their passport. Together with 2 chinese guys who did not speak english and werequite confused about what is happening. It went something like this: chinese guy pointing on profession box on visa application and saying:

"what this?"

 I was trying to explain him:"you work?" 

And after that several arm and whole body movement. He did not seem to understand. If i put work or profession in his translator on mobile phone he just started to laugh, so I assumed it was meaningless. I gave up and just wrote retired as he looked quite old. :)

Time was flying by and every 5 minutes a minivan driver whodid not speak englis came to us pointing at minivan where all other passanger ps were waiting and telling us: "Stamp, 2 dollars!" When he saw we are not gwiving up he called his english speaking friend on phone and gave it to me saying thry will leave without us if we donot pay and he do not care what happens with us if we stay there. I politely replied to him:"Is this official that we have to pay?"

"No, not official but everyone pay that is how it is in this country. Even Cambodians they pay!"

"Ok sorry but if it is not official we do not pay as we do not know where the money goes to," I told him back.

Another 10 minutes and we were trough, this time the bus driver came very angry to us again shouting:"Stamp, 2 dollars", at the same time giving some money to the police guy who than finaly threw the passports to us. We ran to the bus with a driver looking at us very angry, but I was sure he must get a part of the money from this everyday scam.

Few kilometers north at Don Det, the most turisty of the 4000 islands time flew by wery slowly. Our morning was quite long. We rented a bike, which was too small even for Špela, but all the island had the same type so we couldn't really do something. A breakfast was our standard baguette with some kind of eggs and fresh fruit shake! But this time it included a lot of waiting as the waitress/cook/owner just had what seemed a very interesting debatewith one of the local guests. We were done in an hour, but as we were sitting on the terrace by Mekong looking at a fraction of the 4000 islands in the area that were bathing in the sun we did not really care.

By the Mekong on 4000 islands, where time stops.

Later we went around the island where we discovered small wat, planty of sand dunes and rice fields thet were just beeing harvested! What a lovely place this is. Appart from tourism that gives some mony to the locals majority of the islanders still live more or less self sufficiend all growing their rice, vegetables, chicken and cows or buffalos. The buffalos are slowly beeing replaced with small tractors as a working force but the place still has its charm!

Too litle bike even for Špela.

Village life

Evening on Mekong.

Where we stayed: there is plenty of cheap and also a bit more pricey appartments in all inhabited islands there so there is not really any need to book anything in advance. The same is with restaurants: they all serve similar dishes for similar price.

Elephants, jungle and Buong people

As iI tried to write this already third time and because so much happened in between I will try to shorten this part of our journey into fewer posts.

Another minibus packed with people and cargo of all kind brought us from Kratie to Sen monorom. Our mission was to see the elephants, go for a short trek and sleep at one of the sorounding villages. 

We decided to stay in bungalows a bit off from main square, which was not the best idea considering we wanted to do start trek already next day. After a good meal at restaurant of an australian guy who moved to the jungle town because he fell in love with a manager of a guesthouse where he stayd during his travel we also decided to ask him to organise 2 days trek for us. All gueshouses seem to have almost the same prices, which are quite high (30$ per day per person) considering how much money goes to the locals actualy doing the job. If we knew earlier renting a motorbike and going direct to them would be a better option.

The treking started with a good breakfast and bad coffee. Altough this area is also a coffee producer western coffee culture did not really came to them. So beware when having a coffee - only good one i had in Sen monorom was at coffe Phka, where they have a help from swedish friends that teached them how to make good cofffe and great cakes!

A good ride with motorbikes for 20 minutes and we were ready to go in the jungle. Actualy we found out jungle as we expected it is long gone in this area, it is more a highly exploited forest with ocasional field of mountain rice in between. We saw monkeys, spiders, scorpions... And we had a nice swim under the waterfall combined with fishing. After that we had lunch and we went slowly to the Buong village. A place where they only got electricity 3 years ago was quite another world. Kids, actually a lot of them, pigs, dogs, cats... It seems that they all like to reproduce a lot in these places:) and they all live in perfect symbiosis, with chicken and pigs wandering around in kitchen and with cats and dogs eating the rest of our nice dinner cooked by our guides wife. 

Scorpion on the way

Guide's daughter

Sleeping in hammocks

Next day it all started very early - around 4 the roosters started to sing following the kids after an hour. We were going to have a meeting with an elephants today! Soon after breakfast another group arrived and we went to meet them in the forest. Our was a young one, 37 years old Baku. He was great, very patient with 2 tourists on his back. As he was a bit dirty after an hour of walking we also cleaned him in the small river next to the hut where we had our lunch in the middle of the rice fields.

It was fun, but maybe just a disclamer for future travelers: if you take one afternoon and rent a bike to sorround villages you might get everything much cheaper without guest house commision. Just go to the village and there are signs for homestay and elephant tours.

Where we stayed:

Happy elephant

Australian guy

The mighty mekong and magnificent dolphins

OKratie, a small riverfront town by Mekong looking towards west and offering really nice sunset (apart from the garbage under the wall) was only 7h (in a crowded minivan with 16 and some kids, lots of luggae under your feet, a motorbike and some cargo packed at the back, but hey, we got our personal mini fan to keep us cool) and 2 stops for eating proper breakfastand lunch away (fried noodles and lunch - a variety of soup like stews with all possible things inside which we skipped). 

The goal was clear - see the Irravaddy river dolphins, a rare and highly endangered species that only lives in this part or Mekong river. There is only around 100 more of them swimming and unchanged river in this part gives home to almost half of the existing population so it is easiest to spot them with a boat departing 30 km north of Kratie. 

They were peacefully swiming around us

We decided that sunset time is great to see them and the light will be good to take nice photos, so we went straight there with australian couple which we met in our  guesthouse (double room with tv! for 6$).

After a short ride with lawnmower driven boat which makes A LOT of noice we shut down the engine and went a bit further by muscles of our local driver. A peace without any manmade sound and sun just starting to fall into the ground we were carefully looking and listening to spot sny sign of them. And there they were, comming out to take breath from the top of their odd shaped head in several groups of 3-4 four dolphins. Once or twice they even jumped out a bit and give us a bit of special show:)

Even without seeing them the nature and colors would be worth the trip and as we watched the sunset     I was asking myself if they will still be there on my next visit of Cambodia whpenever that might be. or will relative short time financial interests prevail. I do not opose them, however they are way to often faced to serve the few with majority of locals getting only breadcrumb of the multimilion dolars worth business. Currently there are plans to make several dams for powerplants providing Cambodia (and Laos) with much needed electricity. But will it really help the local comunities where majority of kids only go to school for 4 years and change education when we are barely starting it. I doubt that this few years when they are still kids prepare them to live in the emerging capitalism driven country (but apparently also more than a decade of western style education prepaire us for it either).

Look, Another one there, and there!

Perfect ending of a long day.

Špela was happy to 

After dinner in a nice spanish driven restaurant just next to local market (they offer water bottle refill - huray, we did not have to throw another perfectly fine plastic bottle away) we headed to sleep (watch a bit of TV since we paid for it already) to start a new day and head to island overlooking the Kratie.

A local ferry droped us on the other side of the river where we walked to the real shore (it is start of dry season so ferry stops a bit further on the sand) where we rented simple but perfectly fine bikes for a dollar. An island is a peaceful community oasis where they decided to go on the sustainable tourism with lovely homestays and friendly locals that all greet you with smile waveing their hands and shouting "hello". The kids were playing, cows and buffalos calmly eating the grass and adults peacefully working with a slow pace. They even have a small floating village with around 30 houses/boats.

Cycling

Local floating village. Amazing that these people live and work on water all their life.

Kids having fun riding way too big bicycles.

Ferry to the island.

Kratie market

After a peacefull time on the island we went back on mainland and spend nice sign language conversation with locals, a dinner in local style and sunset over the Mekong.

Goodbye Kratie.

Next destination - Sen monorom with elephants, a bit of jungle (as much as they did not cut it yet) and minority tribes in hills around the Cambodias least inhabitet province. And a bit colder weather! Stay tuned for more:)

Where we stayed: http://www.booking.com/hotel/kh/heng-heng-guest-house-and-restaurant-kratie.html?aid=884625 heng heng guest house with nice rooms but a bit too controling guy at the reception desk:)

Magnificent Angkor wat - part 2

Angkor is believed to be the biggest city at its time between 9th and 13th century with area around 1000 km2 able to support up to million inhabitants. The only rival city by size at the time was blabla in Mexico and London for example had 50.000 souls living in the city. So one might ask what happened that Angkor kingdom faced such a decline, still visible today, and United kingdom becamethe biggest kingdom of all time with colonies all over the world? Cambodia is blessed with great climate able to sustain intense agriculture, they have their own domesticated cattle ( humpback bll and water buffalo) and they live in region close to where a lot of inventions, believed to make industrial revolution and rise of European empires possible, come from. So were Europeans smarter, maybe more open to new things that change your way of living completely? Or maybe just lucky to be on the right place at the right time? 

I believe that there is not a single factor contributing to that and that proximity of fertile crescent with greatest potential for domestication of various grasses, like wheat, and developement of steel industry and usage of horses in transportation and warfare was the biggest trigger that made all subsequent events possible. With all that happening few tousant years before other parts of the world it means that our civilization had a big headstart before others. If they would be given another tousand years to flourish, maybe they would develop whole set of "guns, germs and steel" as Jared Diamond is arguing in his book with the same title. I recomend it to anyone interested in how civilizations developed. Wandering around Angkor really makes you feel how it was possible to make such a great things only with what we now believe are primitive tools and manpower.

Simple plow

Rice fields around Angkor wat

The highlights of Angkor is for sure Angkor wat, which is believed to be the biggest religious building in the world. With its distinkt shape it invites a lot of tourists to come and take picture of its skyline in early mornings.

The moment would be beautyful only if there was not soooo many people:)

I have to say that inside of it did not impress me, but the city of Angkor Thom with main palace Bayon really is a masterpiece. 

216 smiling faces are looking at you form everywhere and the dark gray stone ruins give a special feeling to the place - a unique energy that makes you wonder what is it all about:)

Smiling faces of Angkor Thom

Another marvelous temple is the Ta Promh whic was left as it was when they discovered it - jungle is taking over and here you really see the ultimate power of nature and Jungle. Very famous for its role in Tomb rider and Indiana Jones movies it gives the perfect coulise with its surreal mixture of roots and ancient stone.

Tomb rider tree

There is probably no tourist that comes to Cambodia and misses Angkor temples. This can be seen with all the tuk tuks, bikes and mini buses on circular paths around the main temples. And in relative pressure from salesmans, restaurants and kids trying to get their dollar from enormous amount of money that is flowing to Siem reap area.

Where we stayed:http://www.booking.com/hotel/kh/golden-papaya-guesthouse.html?aid=884625

Cheap (9$ double room) and reasonably clean guesthouse. Restaurant is not the best and is a bit more expensive than what you can get in the center.

Magnificent Angkor wat - part 1

I can't imagine how the first exploler felt when they discoveret Angkor wat and all other temples, but it must have been crazy feeling! We tried to feel the same but since Angkor wat with more than 1000 temples alltogether is a major tourist atraction in Cambodia, quite a bit of its chars is wanished because of mass tourism.

First day after a night bus to Siem reap we met Astric, nice Swedish traveler and we sucessfuly found a    Basecamp - golden papaya near the city center. Siem reap seemed much differend as our previous destination - everything here is for and because of tourism with tuk-tuk drivers and restaurant owners much more agresive in geting their share of dolars from backpackers and package tourists from China and Europe. 

In the afternoon we got a tuktuk to the floating village 35km out of the city. If you like paying a lot for a boat ride around the lake with people living on the boats do it:) It is amazing to see that they still live and do everything on the boats but appart from that there is nothing more to it. It really semed that they only want money from tourists with not many things to give in return!

School on floating village

Where are we going to park today?

On our way we stopped in a small village where we could see all the poverty and economic undevelopement of Cambodia. A lot of kids, houses made of cardboard, a bit of wood and roof out of banana leaves. But despite all that they seemed quite happy, especially the kids. They were playing with everything they had, driving too big bikes and running around with half naked. At that age they really do not need much to be happy! Sadly they already aquired the habit to beg for money or sweets, which they get from tourists. You do feel sorry for them, but knowing that giving them some money will not make situation any better, but rather worse we decided we will not give any money to beggars or children selling things, as they are encouraged to skip school for doing that.

They want to play, but they also want dollars.

This friend showed me their catfish farm

Too bad that almost noone can speak english as it would be very interesting to talk to them and hear their opinions on such delicate topics. 

Anyhow we had to go back to town for a diner and making plans for next day. We decided we will explore Angkor wat area for three days - 2 days with our tuk tuk driver and last day on bikes. As Astrid and her friend joined us we negotiated the price of 45$ for 2 days ride with tuk tuk. Quite fair price I think and Mouin looked happy to earn some of much needed money for his family.

Mouin - our driver

Where we stayed:http://www.booking.com/hotel/kh/golden-papaya-guesthouse.html?aid=884625

Cheap (9$ double room) and reasonably clean guesthouse. Restaurant is not the best and is a bit more expensive than what you can get in the center.

Costa de Cambodia

After a "dark hours" in Phnom penh and hassle of the capital we decided we need a bit of relaxing on the beach. Koh rong seemed like a good idea and after nightbus to Shianoukville and ferry to the island we finaly arrived to Village Samloem where we booked our own bungalow directely on the beach - But hey, for 15$ per night you cant expect so much more:) Very basic, but also very pristine. The beach is streaching for almost 7 km and you have it more or less for yourself! Great for swimming and laying around. And eating nice Khmer food. If you want more action than the main village on the island is the place to be with many bars and restaurants. But to be fair, we were quite happy to go away from the crowds and just do nothing - apart from chasing cockroaches, walking in the sunset and swimming:)

7 km of sand like this...

View from the bar!

Visitor

Cute crabs on the beach.

Local kids searching for shells.

The bar had amazing fruit shakes for bargain!

Where we stayed: http://www.booking.com/hotel/kh/soksan-new-beach-bungalow.html?aid=884625

Life becomes so much better when you remove all negative people from it.

Phnom penh, 30.10.2015

A statement many of us would agree on. Knowing it is a quote from Pol Pot, a leader of Khmer Rouge that was rouling in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and killed approximately 25% of population in prisons and working camps, may be at milest seen as very weird way of sarcasm.
Our first touch of Cambodia, however, started a bit more cheerfuly. Already on a plane we met a Slovenian living for few years in Phnom Penh who equiped us with all the basic information needed for first day.
With its a bit caothic traffic ruled by tuk-tuk drivers and motorbikes the capital of Cambodia really is something new for a person who has never been in SE Asia. Hot and humid weather made us sewatin in no time, but welcoming and nice people made everything better soon. After checking in a basic but very low priced guesthouse Londgin house we went for a first walk full of smell, noise and a bit of adventerous crossings of the roads. Here size does matter! But anyways everything runs in its caothic kind of order and it seems that trafic runs quite smoothly.The food is nice too, Khmer amok was very nice introduction to Cambodian cusine. In the park in front of Silver pagoda many people gathered for the celebration of national holiday with a big fireworks - a nice view into ordinary peoples life who were eating and drinking on the grass with kids scraming and playing around - it really looks like they have a happy childhood full of play and laugh! After the diner it was not very difficult to go to sleep even if the heat in the room was quite intense.

Next day we started off to a nice sunny day and planned to see the Tuol Sleng museum. The whole experience is quite traumatic with the pictures and torturing equipment and prison cells on display. After the liberation from Khmer rouge forces there were only 7 survivors, 4 of them kids. Two of the survivors are still in the place every day talking to the visitors and selling their books. Quite sad that the victims of such a horror have to sell themselves every day to make for a living while majority of people responsible for the tragedy still walk around without any problems. Probably an uotopian state where everybody is the same really is uotopia.

After the hour of darkness we went with another tuk-tuk to silver pagoda. We tried our rusty negotiation skills and they got better, as we were able to lower the price quite a bit:)
Silver pagoda with king's palace is a buddhist temple in the center of the city with a nice arhitecture, cute rooftops and kich interior decorated with plastic flowers. While there a big group of monks came to visit the pagoda and you can see that developement did not skip them. Taking group photos and selfies with smartphones seemed to be their main ocupation:). It was quite funny looking at this bald guys, most of them really young, running around in orange dresses and every now and then taking out their iphones.

Going on trough streets with people ocasionaly waving and screaming:"Do you want tuk-tuk sir?", but in a very polite and not at all pushy way like in some arabic country. I have a feeling that inspite
their relatively bad situation they are happy. Everybody is smiling and when asked they want to help you.

Evening was reserved to find some of Khmers delicious cusine. Beef with ant sauce and aquatic plant on the street was a nice introduction in the insect world. I think our food is boring:)

Chains used to lock prisioners at tuol sleng during Pol Pot's regime.

Ants sauce with beef and some aquatic plant

Phnom penh's market has many things to show!

Monks at silver pagoda