Cambodia - Kratie to Phnom Penh - Day 225 (19,418 miles)

At our first fuel stop in Cambodia the lady serving us was wearing pyjamas, turns out this is quite the usual workwear of many women. Cheap, comfy and makes getting ready for work a bit quicker!

While staying in a nice little riverside town called Kratie we followed the river to a village called Kampi and took a boat trip out on the river to look at the Irrawaddy dolphins. The photo above was our best shot unfortunately! These are a rather shy breed and look quite different to other dolphins, their heads are more like a Dugong or Manatee.

At the town of Kompong Cham we stopped to admire (and try out) this bamboo bridge, it looks pretty rickety and moves and creaks a lot but can take the weight of well loaded trucks ok. It's currently the end of the dry season so the river is low but the bridge is usually washed away in the rainy season and rebuilt every year. John tries a couple of the local delicacies, fried spider and....... frog. We'd seen plenty of elephants working or giving tourist rides in rural areas but this one seemed to be out for the day in the middle of Phnom Penh, sightseeing perhaps.

During the period when the Khmer Rouge held power in Cambodia (1975 to 1979) this central Phnom Penh school above became the Security office 21 and is now called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. On the 17th April 1975 Pol Pot's soldiers entered Phnom Penh and told all residents that the US were going to bomb the city and they had to leave. The whole city was emptied and the only inhabitants for 4 years were the Khmer Rouge soldiers, officials and prisoners at S21.

Our guide Luan explained how prisoners (to begin with these were the educated members of society but later also anyone considered to be a traitor or lazy) were imprisoned for approx 3 months during which time they were tortured and made to sign confessions. Within 6 months they would be murdered and buried at the Choueng Ek killing fields a few Km outside of the city. The same was happening in many other prisons throughout the country.

Luan lost family members as did many people we have met. In total around 25% of the population were either murdered or starved to death during this period which equates to around 1.5 million people.

We've read some accounts written by survivors of this period whilst in Cambodia and although there is still a huge amount of poverty it is humbling how hard most people you meet work just to get by and how much they want the chance to improve their lives.

General prisoners were kept in cells that measured 1.8 metres by 0.7 metres, basically a cupboard. The larger cell above was for Khmer Rouge officials some of whom were also accused as traitors and tortured then murdered.

These photo's were incredibly sad, many faces looked resigned to their fate.

This is the monument to the murdered at the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre, one of the many killing fields in Cambodia.

Some of the exhumed bones are in the memorial and others have been given a Buddhist funeral.

The area was cleared of all large bones but teeth, fragments of bone and clothing are washed to the surface every rainy season.

For us visiting these places and finding out what these people went through a little over 40 years ago was worthwhile, other people we have met felt it was too harrowing and they knew enough and that's understandable.

The rest of our time in Phnom Penh was spent visiting the Royal Palace, museums and enjoying the city.

These are water lily seed heads, a healthy snack in it's own handy container. We spent several enjoyable evenings with (from the front) John and Kelly who you've met in previous blogs and Merijn and Els who are on the road for a year riding from Amsterdam to Australia. At the back are Lisa and Simon hardened world motorcycle travellers, they're Brits who have been on the road for 8 years (with no plans to go home yet).

Bye for now

xxxxxx

Laos - A week of R & R, Tadlo Falls and 4000 Islands - Day 210 (18,914 miles)

All this driving around gets tiring you know, OK we know we don't deserve any sympathy! For our last week in Laos we met up with John and Kelly for a 1 week, 2 centre 'holiday'.

Our first 2 days were spent relaxing near the Tadlo waterfalls, the accommodation on the falls was rather over our budget but we stayed in a nice modest little guesthouse just down the road.

Life on the river.

Our guesthouse was called Tim's Place and Tim was quite a special guy. Very quite and unassuming but dedicated to providing schooling for the local kids. In this very rural area the government do not provide any finance or resource for education so Tim uses the profits from his business to fund a school. He relies on European volunteer teachers and he also teaches, fundraises and acts as an interpreter for the volunteers.

Next we were off to the 4000 Islands, an very scenic part of the Mekong just above the Laos border with Cambodia. We had a fairly long, hot day riding to the ferry and had no idea what type of transportation to expect. Well, it's Asia so the 2 longboats and a wooden platform loosely roped together were no real surprise! John and John were negotiating a reduction in the rather inflated ferry fare when 2 young dudes making some kind of Jack Ass type TV programme for an American cable TV channel came along and agreed to pay full price (obviously on expenses) so jumped the queue and ruined our chances of a deal! Now we were not only paying more but travelling on a vessel that looked pretty unseaworthy with dusk fast approaching.

On your marks, get set...



Go!

Both John's managed to get up enough speed to get off the sand and up the ramp without going off the back of the boat and splosh into the Mekong (just!).

We then had a pleasant 10 minute ride to Don Dhet Island with one of the crew bailing water out of the boat as fast as he could.

This picture really doesn't tell the story, when we reached the other side we were faced with a 20m long 40 degree soft sand slope with a shop front a few metres from the top, and it's getting dark!

After much deliberation "can it/can't it be done", "how much will it hurt if it goes wrong", "shall we leave the bikes on the beach" and anyone that knows John Mc will realise the last one was never an option! Anyway with some help from others it happened and we could start to relax.

In the photo above John, John, Kelly and I are joined by 3 young Aussies who helped us get the bikes up the beach the night before. They had bought old small bikes in Vietnam that were still going strong a good few thousand Km later. They had a great "anything is possible" attitude and were filming their exploits along the way with a view to some kind of TV/DVD deal sometime in the future (if not it will probably all be on YouTube!)

What more could you ask for?

It's a pretty place.

This little chap loved the sheepskin.

This is as wide as the streets get on the island, no cars at all.

Luckily getting down the beach and back on the boat to leave was much easier. However......

When we got back to the mainland the beach had been turned into a building site so a few more challenges before we got on the road to Cambodia.

Our passports including $1 bills, this is the Laos customs officials "special payment" and the only way we were going to get stamped out of the country. Surprisingly they were "unable" to provide a receipt!

Before being granted entry into Cambodia we all had to have our temperature taken by this young man. He looked about 12 so we were glad he didn't have to carry out any more complicated medical tests!

Laos - Viang Xay to Vientiane - Day 206 (18,390 miles)

The Laos national flag is often flown along side the Communist movement Hammer and Sickle, on a day to day basis it's easy to forget this is a communist country but that may be because Laos is the first one we have visited. We haven't seen any Mao style suits, queues outside food shops or heavy military presence but these are obviously pretty stereotypical symbols of communism.

While researching places to visit we were intrigued by the information we read about Vieng Xay a town in the north east part of Laos. Like some other places we visited it would require a 3 day round trip to visit one place and it was going to mean rejigging our already full schedule. We decided to go for it and the 170 mile journey took around 7 hours, very scenic but very, very winding roads. The road surfaces where pretty good but the lack of speed made it a tiring day for John, all I could do to help was give him regular bum massages when he was feeling a bit numb.

This area is a remote pretty valley surrounded by limestone cliffs that contain a network of caves, for this reason it was chosen as the Pathet Lao Revolutionary (Communists) headquarters during the second Indo-China war. From the mid 1960's 20,000 PLR military and civilians sheltered in an underground city, it was basically a civil war but the US fearing the spread of Communism funded the Royal Laos Government and used US aircraft and weapons to bomb areas where the PLR were active.

It became known as the Secret War as few Westerners were aware the US were involved. Unfortunately as it was hushed up the information we have heard here and the Internet information give varying accounts as to what happened so I don't want to quote any facts and figures. However during our time here we have seen many huge bomb craters, areas where bomb shells are reused for other purposes (the Laos are resourceful people), amputee victims of unexploded ordnance and visited the offices of a charity called the Mines Advisory Group who are training local people in bomb disposal.

Heavy stuff, if you are want to know more try Googling Pathet Laos, Laos Secret War or Vieng Xai

The tour of the caves took around 4 hours over an area of around 7 km, the caves contained offices, living accom, kitchens, a school, a hospital and a large cave with a stage used for concerts, filmshows and weddings amongst other things.

Above is the Politburo meeting room.

Each set of caves had a bomb proof emergency room with a sealed door and an independent filtered air supply in case of chemical attack.

Outside one of the caves.

On a lighter note we shared the cave tour and dinner that evening with Agnes, Bara and Margret 20 year old Icelandic girls, they were great company. We don't have a photo as I didn't think it would be healthy for John to be in possession of a photo of 3 such gorgeous fit women!

After our 3 day trip we stayed a couple of nights in the town of Phonsavan, we took the easy option and booked a guide and drive to take us round a few of the local sites. Above is Ban Tajock village the locals use spent bomb cases for various uses including fencing, stilts for buildings, to grow vegetables in and many other uses. They also melt down and reuse the steel to make knives and tools.

We were taken to some hot springs, apart from being very smelly the water was so hot it would definitely have resulted in third degree burns so rather than take a dip and risk a visit to the local hospital we watched this man fishing in the adjacent river.

The Plain of Jars are areas of Laos where large Bronze Age stone jars (some up to 2m high) are scattered over the landscape. Supposedly there is no confirmed explanation as to the reason/use for these jars but the scientific work that has been carried out over the years suggests they were burial vessels. This is another area that was heavily bombed in the war and there are still lots of unexploded ordnance and bomb craters. Paths have been cleared and marked so that's where we walked (seemed sensible).

Next stop was Vang Vieng, we travelled through possibly the most dramatic scenery we have seen in Laos. However, it was a really misty day and the higher most jagged peaks were hidden.

This is a bit of a party town and is on the Backpacker's circuit of SE Asia so to avoid being middle aged and grumpy we opted for a nice little bungalow across the river from most of the action that was accessed via this bridge.

It was nice to watch life on the river, trucks, people, clothes and dogs were all washed here and fish and various river weed gathered for food.

Leaving Vang Vieng we hit the first wet weather we'd had for several weeks and although this was the main road between VV and Vientiane (the capital) the oily tarmac surface covered in a layer of red clay dust soon became like a skating rink. Buses and lorrys where sliding and unable to get any traction up the hill. This didn't bode well for us!

John did a marvelous job and negotiated round the trucks to the bottom of the hill without dropping the bike. I followed behind on foot, it really was like walking on ice.

We only drove 98 miles that day but it took around 4 hours! It was good to get to Vientiane and find a guesthouse, we then bumped into Julia, Jill and Allie 3 Brits travelling around Laos by bus, we had previously met them in Vang Vieng and joined them for a nice curry.

Vientiane is an OK city, but we weren't planning to sightsee too much. Our main aim was to get new 60 day visas for Thailand so this meant 2 trips to the Thai Embassy on consecutive days.

We took a Tuk tuk 30k out of town to the Buddha Park, a rather weird place full of various Buddhist and Hindu statues. It's fairly new so the old looking statues are aged concrete rather than stone! My memories of the visit were that the tuk tuk ride was fun (as always) and as I had a bit of an upset tum and the only toilet on site was the squat variety I was glad to leave!

Local oncoming traffic.


Love Jane and John

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx