The virtues of sticky rice.

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From the hustle and bustle of Bangkok we travelled east by VIP bus (a double decker coach with air-con and lurid interior decor complete with flashing lights and pelmets) to the Cambodian border on Thai high quality highways. At the border things changed in many ways. We suddenly hit signs of abject poverty, children and amputees begging and a noticeable deterioration of the road system - i.e. there wasn't one. We spent 7 hours on a bus being bumped around covering the mere 150km journey to Siam Reap. Rumour has it that a Thai airline is paying off the Cambodian government to keep this road in a poor state so the tourists with any money are inclined to fly.... We travelled through landscape which was soon to become very familiar to us: lush green paddy fields and tall isolated palms.

Siam Reap is a massive tourist mecca attracting thousands to visit the temples of Angkor. We spent a day visiting the enormous site. The temples date back hundreds of years and are in surprisingly good condition. Some of them have barely been rescued from the jungle and have trees growing in and and even on top of the them. We finished the day at the hugely impressive Angkor Wat where, whilst taking in the views, we met an English teacher and his students who invited us to visit their school which we did the next day. The rain poured down as we left the site which had the odd effect of making the local kids throw themselves from the elevated walkway into the murky moat below - a hilarious sight.

The visit to the english school was an amazing experience but not exactly what we had expected. We arrived at a very basic concrete school with blackboards and wooden desks and within minutes were up in front of the classes teaching!! Totally unprepared we taught all ages and abilities covering all sorts of topics for 3 hours (naturals). It was great fun but exhausting. We then went for Khmer soup with the teachers and some of his better students. The soup was delicious and we tried some of the local red wine (interesting - but definitely not related to wine) and it was really nice to chat to some real Cambodians about their lives. This was the first in a long line of great local dishes, often accompanied by sticky rice - a fantastic invention - rice you can eat with your hands which should be more widely available.

The next day we headed on to Phnom Penh (PP) the capital. We were not really prepared for what would greet us there. In one day we visited the famous 'Killing Fields,' one of the sites of mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge genocide and then to S21, a Khmer Rouge detention centre. Set up in a school this was a gruesome place where thousands of intellectuals, monks and normal people were photographed, catalogued before being tortured and killed. The displays of mugshots alongside the dingy cells made it all very real. That afternoon we also visited the Royal Palace, a smaller version of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, with an impressive display of religious art.

We spent a couple of days in the very relaxed PP enjoying the lakeside accommodation and cheap indian food. The capital was effectively obliterated during the Khmer Rouge times (1975-9) and therefore is relatively young and small for a capital city. It was very difficult to get a handle on the effects of the Khmer Rouge perhaps because it is all too fresh in peoples minds and they don't seem to talk about it.

Our next stop was Kratie, north of Phnom Penh. This is a small town on the Mekong and the main reason for visiting was to see the Irrawaddy river dolphins. The river was very full being in the rainy season and we had to travel a fair distance against the fast flowing current to find the dolphins. We were lucky and got to see about 15-20 bluish-grey dolphins with a flat head - 7 of which jumped and dived together. Unfortunately you're going to have to believe us as photographing them was near impossible. The next day we hired a moped and whizzed around the Cambodian countryside visiting wats (Buddhist temples), chatting to monks and locals and having local kids shout 'Hello' at us. We drove along the river and watched daily life - and apart from Dave nearly losing his glasses to a random fisherman, we felt very at home.

After Kratie we continued on up to the Laos border by bus and then by highspeed boat. This was a border crossing like no other. The Cambodian customs official was in his flipflops and a towel when we arrived. He kindly put on his uniform, found his briefcase and then tried to charge us for his immigration stamps - we were not impressed and had to barter to get through. On the Laos side, things were little better although we had to pay overtime to cross through there on a Sunday! Once in Laos we took a boat to the '4000 islands' situated in the Mekong. We stayed on Don Det island, attached to another island Don Kong by a old railway bridge (built by the French). We spent a day cycling/sliding around in the mud across these two islands and visiting an impressive waterfall in the Mekong.

We continued to head north and the next stop was the town of Pakxe. Here due to a problem with keys ended up with a plush room with satellite TV and a hot shower. It was the first TV or hot shower we'd seen in a very long time and we made the most of the facilities!! While we were there we also visited Wat Phou - the biggest Angkor temple outside Cambodia. This was set in a beautiful valley with mountains behind and was special because it had hardly been restored at all.

From Pakxe we decided (with the help of the guidebook) it would be a good idea to visit the Bolaven plateau in the south-east of Laos. We set off early in the morning on a bus carrying 6 tonnes of rice and as much fruit as they could fit in under our legs and on the roof. When we arrived at the town of Attapu, which was in the middle of nowhere, we found that very few other tourists had made it that far off the beaten track. The tourist office itself, while offering great sounding tours, was in fact fairly chaotic and we wondered how we were going to spend our time. We hired bikes and spent a day trying to follow the directions from the girl in the tourist office. We visited an ethnic village and had fun playing with the giggling kids there. But after a couple of days it was time to face the long ride back to Pakxe with the intention of moving straight on to the capital Vientiane that night. During our evening back in Pakxe before getting the bus to Vientiane we were invited to prayers at a local wat which was a moving experience but at times made you feel like a teacher in school assembly with the smaller monks messing about at the back...

Although the Laos political situation is very secretive, it is clear it is very under-developed compared to its neighbour across the Mekong, Thailand. There was also a noticeable lack of landmine victims here, even though loads were laid during the Vietnam war to cut off supply routes from China and North Vietnam. Apparently this is because the type of mines laid here don't maim but kill people outright which is why Laos doesn't get the kind of international financial support given to Cambodia to deal with this problem.

Vientiane truly feels like a small town. It is very hot and humid and soon you feel incapable of achieving anything. We did do some sight-seeing and then collapsed in the Laos herbal sauna and massage, (for sauna stories ask Dave). The massage included a practice called 'cupping' which we are both yet to understand how it helps you but it does leave massive red circles on your back for over a week...

We had to leave our passports with the Chinese embassy for 3 days and in this time we went to visit Vang Viang, about 3 hours north of Vientiane. Here you are right in the Laos countryside with the river and massive limestone peaks rising up everywhere. There are two things to do - 1. visit caves which we did with the help of a moped and 2. tubing!! This is basically hiring a big rubber tube and sitting in it while you float down the river maybe stopping off for a beer or two at the bars en route. It was great fun and ended hillariously with little local boys who tell you where the end is by yelling 'hello', 'finish tubing' and diving into the river to help hoike you out...

Back in Vientiane we moved our passports from the Chinese to the Indian consulates before setting off again this time to Louang Prabang. This is a really lovely town in the north of the country with great traditional architecture. It is situated on the Mekong and has a very high concentration of buddhist temples and monks. We spent days wandering around and taking photos. We enjoyed great food, managing to find a place to have breakfast and read the paper - perfect! We crossed the Mekong to view the city from the other shore and visit various temples and caves there. Local kids were only too happy to show us around for a few kip.

From there we continued north as the roads deteriorated and the transport got more uncomfortable. We had a 10 hour journey up to Louang Namtha where we hoped to visit the hilltribes. We had heard that all treks had been cancelled due to the rain so we were releived to arrive and manage to get on a two-day trek the next day. This was a fantastic experience. We walked up and down seemingly enormous hills in the boiling heat visiting different ethnic villages. We stayed overnight in a Lanten village (a tribe originally from China)where they slaughtered a pig and a chicken in our honour. The next day we walked on further through bamboo forests and streams, fighting an onslaught of leeches - we are now experts. By the end we were sweaty, soaking wet and covered in mud and so quite relieved to reach the Namtha river and find the boat to take us home.

We broke the trip back to Vientiane again in Louang Prabang and finally made it back to the capital a couple of days later. From there after a few negotiations with the Indian consulate over the length of our visa we were able to move on and head back to Thailand. We went straight through from Vientiane to Bangkok. This journey really highlighted the difference in economic development and westernisation between the two countries - one side of the Mekong in pitch black, the other shining alive with bright lights.

We are now in Bangkok being dynamic. We have had some problems negotiating a visa from one particular very stroppy Pakistani embassy member of staff (might be to do with the cricket) but in the end we prevailed. We also had a very entertaining evening at the local nightmarket where we were entertained by a Thai band doing covers. They had a crack at YMCA along with various other disasterous rap numbers - it was hilarious.

We are heading for Rayong tomorrow where we hope to meet up with a friend before catching a flight back to China on 30th August. We are both in good form and would love to hear all of your news. We hope this finds you all v well. Love D&C

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Photos

Temple at Angkor
Nature trying to reclaim ground

Skulls of genocide victims, Cambodia
The gruesome evidence of the Khmer Rouge's handywork.

Monks do Parasols, Phnom Penh
out for a stroll.. take a brolley!

Fishing on the Mekong, Kratie, Cambodia
A simple system.

Vang Vieng - Laos
A great place to kick back and experience 'tubing'

Louang Prabang - Laos
A place you can't move for wats

Louang Namtha - Laos
Two Lanten girls in the village where we stayed on our trek