August 31, 2002
05:42 AM dublin time
ok. we've reached phnom penh, had a much needed lie-in, banana pancake & coffee and have summonned enough energy to relate the start-stop-start travelling of the last two weeks.
it was a simple journey on paper : bangkok [thailand] - don det [laos] - phnom penh [cambodia]. though any journey in laos is rarely that simple and it did involve two border crossings. the first leg; bangkok to don det, took about five days and thirteen transport changes [bus, train, taxi, bus, songthaew, songthaew, samlar, samlar, songthaew, ferry, boat, tuk tuk, boat]. we had a bit of a rest en route in champasak where we visited an impressively crumbling angkor-period temple - whetting our apetite for angkor wat - but arrived eventually in mr. tho's guesthouse, don det, with a severe longing for inertia.
we couldn't have picked a better place. mr. tho's provided us with all the basic necessities; bed, food, cold beer, books, chess, hammocks, but had none of the distractions; electricity, loud music, tv, internet. good soul-cleansing stuff. for our six dozily simple days there we budged no further that one twenty minute walk across the island and one ten minute boat ride to the morning market [where i invested $0.40 in a half kilo of lao (the world's most expensive) coffee (what did you think i was going to say?)].
if i'd wound down any further i'd never have left, but our laos visa was quickly expiring and we'd gathered a posse with whom to make the rumouredly open laos-cambodian border crossing. i'm still not sure if it's "officially" open - one has to pay rather more than usual for the privilege of crossing - but there were no difficulties. it ended up costing $5 for the laos departue stamp and $3.50 for the cambodian arrival stamp - the gold toothed cambodian border official being more in the mood for bargaining - we've since heard of people leaving cambodia for as little as $1, though it's always $5 on the laos side.
we had left don det at the crack of dawn to try to catch the relevant connections straight to phnom penh, but still had to stay one night in stung treng to wait for a boat connection. one more early early morning start later and we reached the cambodian capital; civilisation; internet.
[link]August 30, 2002
12:50 PM dublin time
our last week has been spent on the idyllic little phone and electricity -less island of don det in southern laos. hence no updates. these will follow anon.
[link]August 17, 2002
01:12 PM dublin time
bangkok is an incredible city; bustling, pungent, clamarous, vibrant. and yet i've spoken to fellow backpackers who's been so unimpressed with its reputation that they've opted for two back to back ten hour flights and a few hours in the airport rather than stepping out to inhale the thick unconditioned bangkok air.
this is our third visit to bangkok and as much as i enjoy and feel comfortable and familiar here, i can hardly claim to know it more than superficially. us backpackers ghetto ourselves into one area by the lure of cheap accomodation and [more importantly] beer - from the night-time street cafes around the backpacker infested koh san road it's 40baht [about 0.80usd] for a large 650ml bottle of "chang beer".
chang is thai for elephant - a fact i was reminded of in our first couple of days here; aonghus had just ordered "one chang" from the proprietress of the cafe we were at when up the street came a hawker selling bananas with which one could feed the small elephant he was leading. the proprietress gigglingly proceded to offer aonghus the elephant to drink - much to the hilarity of the rest of the staff. it was quite amusing but aonghus declined, preferring his chang cold, fizzy, from a bottle and containing 6.4% alcohol.
we took a trip out of bangkok for a couple of days while waiting for our laos and cambodian visas to be processed, heading down to kanchanaburi - a pleasant little town where one can find a "bridge on the river kwai", a world war II prisoner of war camp museum and the infamous death railway. we had booked ourselves into a tour that brought us to some of the significant wwII sites as well as a picturesquely impressive seven tier waterfall for some swimming. unfortunately our appreciation of all this was dampened by a monsoonal rain that descended as soon as we started the trip. we had forgotten that 'rainy season' is no empty name. still at least when it does rain, the temperature drops by a refreshing couple of degrees.
the weather lightened a bit as the afternoon wore on and we were given the option of visiting a 'tiger temple'. recalling a trip to an elephant camp in chiang mai on our previous visit which had reinforced my dislike of animal performances, i wasn't looking forward to seeing tigers bullied into playing with a ball or jumping through hoops. just as well really coz this is not what the tiger temple was about. picture a handfull of relaxed looking monks hanging out in what looked like a disused sandstone quarry with three untethered tigers all sitting around enjoying the view. as us tourists arrived, one of the tigers was put on a leash and we were given the opportunity of stroking its head and getting our photo taken doing so. mad i tell ya. and we all escaped with the correct number of limbs.
[link]August 14, 2002
08:45 AM dublin time
you really have to keep an eye on this travelling thing, or next thing you know you're in some crazy foreign [and yet strangely familiar] city, barely aware of the circumstances that got you there.
it's all too simple these days. i mean i knew we were planning to head off again, but it happened so quickly and bewilderingly easily without a snip of fuss. there was some sort of arrangement with a couple of places in melbourne involving an exchange of paper [and accasionally plastic] for different coloured paper. then we blinked and we were at the airport. another blink and the airport superfically altered [well, all the signs were in a strange script, i couldn't understand the tannoy announcements and the toilets were closer to the ground, other than that it was pretty similar].
and that was it. welcome to bangkok.
[link]August 08, 2002
03:54 AM dublin time
so after a little bit of stress [but not too much] we managed to sell the van for a reasonable amount - so we won't be apallingly in debt by the time we get home - though i guess that depends on how spend-happy we get in asia.
yay asia! this time next week we'll be sipping on a cool 40baht chang beer in the sweltering humidity of a bangkok summer. we've given ourselves six weeks in asia and are planning to visit cambodia and the south of laos - places we missed last time round. there's also talk of a meditation course in southern thailand which sounds interestingly tempting, though we'd have to extend our flights by a couple of weeks to fit it in. i'm reluctant to make hard and fast plans because as soon as one gets back into the south-east-asian atmosphere, priorities change and plans inevitably get altered.
for now we're trying not to get too sad about leaving melbourne and our friends here. we're visiting for the last time all the essential places - most of which seem to be eating establishments - for our final fix. i'm so gonna miss melbourne.
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