The long and dusty road

Greetings Readers!

we left the capital of Laos on 29th March, heading down & south to Tha kaek, a transit town for buses, situated by the mekong river across from which you can see Thailand. After two nights of visiting temples and fearsome thunderstorms we moved on to Pakse. On both these journeys we were accompanied by my sister Addrienne and her husband Dave, which gave us the opportunity to catch up with each others news. In Pakse our ways parted as they planned to go back up and on to Myanmar (hope the journey is treating you both well).

From pakse we had booked a 3 day boat journey (a converted timber barge made into a small floating hotel). The boat trip was great, with outings to Wat Phu, an ancient temple complex built on a hill, complete with sacred spring (or so we were told). We met a very nice french couple Gilles and Sandrine (Bonjour!) who helped us greatly with French translation and indiser tips to Paris, many thanks for that!
Our co-travellers on the boat dropped us off at Muang Kha from where we caught a ferry (two canoes lashed together with planks and powered by a small outboard motor) to the island of Dong Daeng in the middle of the Mekong. This was done during a storm, with the ferry driver having little idea where he was heading we only found our hotel due to Claire's persistance and newly discovered talents as admiral and navigator, nice one Claire!
Done Daeng is a tiny island with onl the one hotel, where we spent the next 5 days having a holiday, yep, no dusty buses, crowded canoes or planning travel arrangements bliss, just swimming and reading. I hasten to add not swimming in the Mekong where only water buffalos swim. On the last night things got a little more dramatic when a storm with high winds ripped the roofs of all but two of the bungalows we watched our own roof disappear from the relative safety of our bathroom with the hotel cat who I had rescued on the point of it being blown away.
The next day, peace restored we travelled onto Dong Khong, sharing a tuk tuk with another great english couple, one of the many joys of travel is the people you meet on the road.
Done Khong is at the southern end of laos, on the border with Cambodia and the next day we crossed into Cambodia at a very quiet border post, getting to our first town in cambodia sharing a taxi between 5 of us, a very cosy ride.

Cambodia has an edgier feel to it than Laos, poverty is greater and the country and people are still recovering from the genocide inflicted on the country by the khmer Rouge in the 1970's, watch the film "The killing fields" if you are in any doubt. Everything is for sale in Cambodia, only that most Cambodians can barely afford to eat.
Our next stop was Kratie, we came here for a special reason, to see the Irriwaddy dolphins, the only dolphins to live in fresh water and found only in this stretch of the Mekong river. On our boat trip we were lucky enough to see a whole family of them who would come up to breath and frolic. Although endangered from the intensive use of nets for fishing these creatures may have a brighter future as revenue from peopel coming to see them is increasing the prosperity of the local community who have an incentive to care for them. They are very beautiful animals and we were happy to meet them.

Next to Phnom Phen, capital of Cambodia. It is a city of stark contrasts. We first visited Toul Sleng, a former school that during the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge was used as a prison and torture centre. It is now a museum the classrooms were turned into cells and are ow lined with photos taken of the people brought here for interogation and torture of the estimated 140000 who arrived here less than a dozen survived the others were taken to the killing fields outside Phnom Phen and murdered, the mass graves are still being uncovered.

On a lighter note (no easy way to lead away fro the above) Phnom Phen houses the royal palace home to a gold buddha covered with 1500 diamonds, and if as that were not enough the floor of this building is covered in solid silver tiles each of which weigh 1kg!

Back on the road, this time to Siem Reap, home of the fabled Angkor Wat ancient Khmer temple and city complex rediscovered in the 18th century by Henri Mohout as I think I mentioned. It is now a world heritage site and visited by buddhists from Korea and thailand on-masse, not to mention travellers, yet it is still possible to find temples half lost in the jungle and to wonder along among the amazing carvings and beautiful architecture. We spent 3 days exploring this wonderful place and could have cheerfully spent a month. And as yet most of the archeology of the site remains buried yet to be discovered.

We are now in Battambang, second largest city. I can highly recommend the post office which was very helpful sending a parcel home, otherwise I wouldnt really recommend it for a holiday unless dust and heat are your thing.

Communication with the world here in Cambodia is at best sporadic and poor, so if you dont hear from us, or are feeling neglected be of good spirit, we are out there, just incommunicado

All the best from Cambodia

Shane & Claire

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