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Published: September 21st 2006
The Jungle Reclaims
Lo the empires of man fall etc etc. Due to a mixture of technical difficulties and pure laziness/neglect I have not uploaded any photos since Vientiane about a 2 months ago, so this will be a mammoth blog covering Cambodia, Vietnam, second trip to Thailand and Malaysia.
In brief, The rest of my trip through Laos was cool, someimes I was the only white person in town and it made for a few interesting situations and a total lack of communication. after Vientiane G and Phil headed on ahead to the Si Pan Don and I took it a little slower going down through Tha Khaek, the Bolaven Plateua (high altitude coffee, tea and waterfall growing area of Laos) and eventually Si Pan Don also. I did not know you could cultivate waterfalls until I went to southern Laos...
The journey into Cambodia was unbelievable. I met back up with Phil and Garteh and we shared a taxi which I'll never forget to Siem Reap. We crossed at a little border town called O Smack. I have learned never to end up at a border town unless you have a well defined and immidiate means of escape, as they invariably attract all sorts of fraudsters and gangsters,
S 21 Concentration Camp, Phnom Penh
This was a very chilling experience. 20,000 people were tortured to death here in the late 70s. and without any options one is often fishfood. We had only one place to stay - an upmarket brothel, and one option of transport - a taxi across an impossible road to Siem Reap. The taxi was something I will never forget - starting with a drive through a little shanty town where the doors of the car were locked and I could have sworn we would be robbed and added to the killing fields as fertiliser. Then the next morning the car stopped beside a collaped bridge and 15 locals carried it across a river up to their armpits, then carried me across. Between us they were given about a pound fifty and were over the moon! then twenty minutes further down the road and a fallen tree completely blocked the dirt path (not really a road, interesting story behind that - the Cambodian government were given a shedload of money to improve the roads but it seemingly disappeared. Strangely the transport minister also owns the airline responsible for flying people from Bangkok to Siem Reap...), anyway, back to the tree. A further hour trying to dig the car, and the tractor that came to aid us, and the
Cu Chi Tunnels 2
Goddammit!! Chalie's got to be down here somewhere. 4x4 that came to aid that out of the field we had to go through, thoroughly mucky and insect bitten. The temples of Angkor were amazing, especially the overgrown parts. and Siem reap was good craic for drinking. Went to a club called Angkor what? which stayed open all night and attracted all sorts of loons.
Phnom Penh is absolutely crazy, if anyone ever goes there you must stay at the Lazy fish on the lake and go to a club called the heart of darkness. I saw a lot of really grim museums on the Khmer Rouge regime including a concentration camp that still had the beds and chains where prisoners were tortured and killed (20,000 of them in that particular one) Also saw the killing fields. After Phnom Penh I spent a while in Sihanoukville on the south coast while the boys went to Kampot. Very nice beaches, no hawkers or any hassle and a nice bar called the monkey republic, hammocks and no chairs. A very horizontal place indeed.
Vietnam is completely different to what you might expect. It is obvious that the country operates on the basis of a completely free market and the
Mortal Kombat
Finish him... people are very entrepreneurial (do the French have a word for that?) yet the Vietnamese claim to be fiercely communist. Far too many scams to mention but I managed to negotiate through without rip off. Mostly. But plenty of arguing. The country was beautiful though and tons of craic. Saigon/Ho Chi Minh was buzzing and hectic, got a bus up through the entire country and stopped at various cultural hotspots, ex-warzones and beaches along the way. Hanoi was excellent but the scams grew thicker as we proceeded north. G and Phil went to Ha long Bay and we parted company for a week while I went trekking in Sapa which was an absolutely beautiful mountainous area inhabited by a different ethnic group and many suspicious plants. Then I took a trip to Ha long Bay, loads of fun, stayed on a boat called a Junk and had a good laugh on a not-so-lengthly kyaking trip and a night in a karaoke bar. Oh dear.
Back in Bangkok we met up with Jude and stayed in a swanky hotel for a change (just one night). Jude brought two bottles of the finest wine known to mankind!!! One was savoured on
Unusual foliage, Sapa
Hmm... a strange bush growing by the side of the trail in the mountains of Sapa the first night there and the other travelled on to Koh Phangah for the full moon party. The full moon party was mayhem, we were joined by Jay and a couple of other fellows, spent the night partying and conducting and quasi-anthropological study. Unfortunately you can see a year on year decline in Koh Phangan. In five years it will be Koh Samui. In ten it will be Santa Ponsa. But I still had an amazing time staying on a much quieter beach away from Haad Rin called Thong Nai Pan Yai. Very laid back, some parties but mostly just swimming, playing volleyball, lazing in hammocks etc. Jay had a go jumping through a ring of fire at one beach party which ended in tears as he burnt his foot. Then one girl decided she wanted to go for it too but it was too high. Her rather foolish friend provided her with a plastic chair to stand on in the sand aaa(which of course grew all the more stady as our drunken heroine climbed atop), and beckoned from the other side of the fiery circle. Amid the desparate cries of "nooo!" from the crowd she stumbled forward landing one
Tong Nai Pan, Kho Phangan
A bottle of Devonshire's finest tonic wine, the first of it's kind to be exported to the region. leg on either side of the hoop. Ever hear of the band "the flaming lips"? I don't think she is a fan. Shorts still on fire, she casually strolled into the sea to put herself out and retired to her chalet, dignity and perhaps womanhood in tatters.
After Koh Phangan we went to Koh Tao for a couple of days snorkling, then headed on to Haad Yai in Southern Thailand. Some car bombs went off there a couple of days later which were nothing to do with us. Nor was the FARC incident. We were just on holiday in Columbia. Ask Gerry.
After crossing into Malaysia I made my way to the Parhentian islands. The place was pretty nice and the centre of the island was full of proper jungle which had to be trekked through to get between the main two beaches, a walk which I did on about 8 occasions sometimes in the pitch dark, encountering 6 foot monitor lizards and indescribably violent beasts. One night one of the locals took a disliking to G on this trail and without provocation or warning smacked him, leading to us scurrying off (the last foreigner who actually fought
Night Sky, Kuala Lumpur
The Petronas Towers as seen from the KL telecommunications tower back against a local left the island with a machete wound and had 70 stiches in his head) and hiding/sneaking through the jungle with a mixture of anger and terror at about 5am. But all that is pretty small part of the real fun to be had on Pilau Parhentian Kecil which is...
... Scuba diving!! I have rarely done anything as interesting, thrilling and astounding in my whole life. It is an indescribable feeling to be 50 feet underwater gliding astronought style through schools of fantastically coloured tropical fish, undisturbed coral reef and the occasional Steve Irwin Slayer. There were coral sharks and Kingfish, turtles and jellyfish all over, although we weren't lucky/unlucky enough to see everything on our four main dives. The course was excellent (Dive Tribe if anyone goes there) and my instructor was very good. He also DJ'd in the jungle bar there - very nice retro collection. Diving was pretty scary to start with but something I'll definately keep up when I travel onward.
It was quite sad moving on but Kuala Lumpur is great and I'm sure there will be more fun to be had in Singapore before I get to Perth
Jungle Canopy
The oldest constant rainforest on the planet is on Peninsular Malaysia next week. Our little fellowship is breaking up, and this time not to be reunited a few days or a week later as on previous partings, so as G heads to Indonesia and Phil to Canada, I'll have to start putting a little more effort into my Australia blogs, since G can't be cited and hyperlinked for a backup any longer. But I can still fall back on him one last time; here is one link for a previous blog:
Saigon and Nha Trang To look back through my blogs if you're new to this mailing list, just scroll to the bottom of this page and click previous journal or next journal. The same is the case for scrolling through Gareth's.
And I know blog is not a real word. Don't be pedantic Neil.
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