On the Doorstep

So we've learned a valuable lesson about long-term backpacking on this trip:

Leave something BIG for the end.

It's been just a hair over four and a half months that we've been away and we've only got about three weeks left. Lynn and I decided to shave about 4 days from our trip so that she could make a little side trip home to Ontario before having to get back to work. As fate would have it, just as we decide this, my mom also let it be known that a family trip to Montreal is in the works so that I might get to meet the most important Lee ever to be born. That is to say, I get to meet Ezra, my brother's first son and my very brand new nephew. If it isn't crystal clear, I'm very excited about this.

(As a sidenote, though I haven't cleared it with my brother, Ezra's transformer name is unofficially "Ezracon" unless he overrules me when he's old enough to pick one for himself. I know it sounds like a decepticon, but the bad guys always transformed into cooler stuff anyway.)

And this highlights what most everyone already knows about traveling, which is, regardless of how long the trip is, it's right near the end that "normal" life starts to creep inexorably back into your head and you can't shake it off no matter what. You're sitting on some 11 hour bus ride watching endless tracks of rice fields roll by and you start to think about ... sushi ... friends ... that massive credit card bill you've racked up ... and of course ... work. Damn. You try to focus on that breath-taking waterfall you just crawled into or that delicious meal you've just inhaled, and it works. You lose yourself in the wonder of travel yet again, but now, with only a few meager weeks left, your head starts to drift back to that other life. The one where you don't live out of a backpack that smells slightly of the guy behind you on the bus that was sitting on it. We're both thankful that we both have such wonderful bonus mini-trips to look forward to to help soften the blow of saying goodbye to Asia.

We're also very extremely grateful for the lesson we learned. "Being on the doorstep" as it were. Saving something big for the end like ... Angkor Wat. The biggest baddest temple of them all.

We just arrived here in Siem Reap (the staging ground city for the mega ruins) so we haven't actually been into the temples yet, but knowing they were our next big stop was an emotional life raft for us. No matter how tired, or sore, or frustrated (often with really useless toilets) we get we always knew we had Angkor Wat left to wow our socks off. Now I've been before, but this is Lynn's first time and inspite of this we're both equally excited.

Anyway, that's for the next entry for now, I'll quickly run through some catch up as it's been too long since we blogged (brace for boring details).

After the physical, mental, and alcoholic insanity that was Vang Vieng, we slogged our way further north to Luang Prabang, former capitol of the old Laotian kingdom. The road up was hideously windy which is a recipe for disaster with Lynn's stomach, and without those nifty motion sickness bracelets you can get, we improvised. Rather, I just sat there and held her wrists and pressed on those two points for about four hours to help get her through the ride. Amazingly, it worked and Lynn, though ill, didn't decorate the road with any spring rolls (go-go Chinese acu-pressure!). Luang Prabang is absolutely lovely, by the way, and was worth the journey. Sandwiched between the Nam Kong and Me Kong rivers and stuffed full of temples, french colonial mansions (converted into slick cafes and restaurants), and orange-robed monks, LPB was a wonderful place to realize that Laos wasn't westerners drinking their faces off while half-heartedly attempting to commit suicide on unsafe water apparatus.

We were then going to head further north into the jungly area of Luam Nam Tha, but decided against it as a) it would mean more icky roads and b) we both realized we weren't huge on jungles. Everything is alive, creepy, and generally hostile when you don't know what you're looking at. So, back down south ... and we mean all the way south to Don Det in another lovely rivery area (this time named 4000 Islands ... you can guess why). It should be said that the Me Kong creates a lot of waterfalls. I mean it felt like every town you come across has an exciting new day trip to a waterfall wish crystal clear water or the like. Caves are also super common among the karst formations and waterways. What I'm trying to say, without sounding too whiny, is that you kind of get waterfalled-out (and caved-out for that matter). Anyway, despite being on a remote river island surrounded by lovely scenery and nearby waterfalls, I was itching to move on. I will be honest and admit that part of it was the awful heat, the total lack of clean accomodations, and my general sense of being tired of ghetto-level travel. I am ashamed.

Further south brought us into Cambodia with our first stop in the remote highland jungle area of Ratanakiri, and by remote, we mean, off the beaten path by about 4 hours on an unsealed mud road described by the Lonely Planet as resembling "papaya shake" in the wet season (which it happens to be). My 31st birthday happen to land on our second day in the area and we celebrated wonderfully by sleeping in, renting a moto, swimming in a volcanic crater-lake, stumbling on a french villa resort, having a wonderful Khmer dinner, and then finishing off with a couple of fantastic massages at the spa. Starting off my thirty second year of life in Cambodia with that shopping list of "yes-pleases" ... priceless.

The next day Lynn and I had our first motor vehicle accident. Parents, don't panic. We're ok. Check out the pics of Lynn, but basically while coming back from yet more waterfalls we had to ride through some sketchy backroads. I lost control in the mud going at about 5km/hour and we bailed. Sad really. We laughed it out and then took shelter in some very accomodating locals' house when the monsoon hit mid ride.

Oh shoot, that reminds me. Cambodians are bar none the nicest people we've met. We'd heard all this hoopla about how nice Thai people were, how laid back Laotians were, and so on, but no one ever mentioned anything about the Cambodians. Our guidebook goes on and on about how tortured their current national psyche is (and with good reason), but nothing about how easily they smile, how ready they are to help, how they don't try to REALLY cheat you, and how fully nice they are ... and we're including the tourist touts! Okay, yes, in Phnom Penh, the constant litany of "moto?" "tuk-tuk?" can be aggravating, but it doesn't even approach north vietnamese insistance let alone rajasthani. Anyway, stereotypes can be dangerous and foolish, but who cares ... we like Cambodians!

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