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Published: April 13th 2010
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wat in Phnom Penh
The preparation for New year in Phnom Penh Hey guys...sorry for the long delay...all is fine...we only had some trouble using internet in Cambodia and Lao...it costs a lot of money in many places and the speeds are laughingly slow. But now we are in Bangkok and have about 3 days waiting for our flight to Indian Culcutta...yes slight change of plans...but don't worry all will be explained.
Well to pick up from where I left u...so many things happened so many new friends we have met and kilometers we have covered. Sooooo, after Saigon we went, for the second time in our lives to Phnom Penh and were trully astonished to find that the city has changed already within the last year...mainly down to a lot of new development but also there were much less poor people on the streets...at first we thought that the economy has alowed for them to be looked after but sadly we have later learned that the oficials wanted to make the city more "tourist friendly" and have relocated many homeless amputies and children outside Phno, Penh into large slums where there is no jobs and basic fasilities, but luckily there is many NGO's that are slowly changing the situation...I was lucky to
Charity work in Sigon
painting a big canvas which was sold to benefit the children continue my project about voulenteering there with Friends International who are established in town already for 15yrs...in exchange me and my beautiful assistant Katka were able to help them out by shooting their new online catalougue and some other editorial photos, which we both enjoyed and met very nice people doing it...hi guys if u are reading it. From Phnom penh we have set out to explore the maighty Mekong and folowed it all The way to the Lao capital Vientiane. Well this is how we did it...After about 5 hour bus drive we have got to Kampong Cham a small quiet market town in the hope to find a boat service that would take us to Kratie or posibly all the way to the Lao border. Unfortunately we have discovered that there are no such services any more...mainly becouse it is faster and cheaper to transport goods and people by the roads and also Mekong water levels has droped to dangerous levels since the Chineese build the fourth dam on it...so far we have seen so many people afected by this change it is frightenning!
Well we wanted to make most of the time there and hired bicycles to
explore the villages around there scatered on the little islands. It was a great day trip...there was a season for harwesting and drying tabaco and cofee which left this very plesant audeur in the air...the vilages were inhabited mostly by peasants who were all very welcoming and we had always few children running with us and laughing. We were almost presuaded to stay there in one monastry for a week to teach children little english but that would delay us even more and we had to think of our visa to India that canot be changed so we just spend the day there and waited until the sunset sitting near one of the bamboo bridges that conects them to the main land till the rain season is going to isolate the till another dry season. Well the day after we have set of to Kratie in the hope of seing the Irawaddy dolphin. We wanted to beat the crowds so we have arranged with another couple to hire a boat very early in the morning and went of...the boat driver said that if see no dolphin we dont have to pay, with which our confidence grew... when we got to
our destination the sun was starting to climb up and apart from huge flock of birds there was no movement and so we were all quetly waiting and after while as if from nowhere there were in groups of about 3 many dolphins swiming around our boat...they were very shy and we had to be very quiet not to scare them...they only showed their nose spray a bit of water and top fin and disapeared again so i did not even attempt to photograph them and we just sat to enjoy the moment.
From Kratie we have decided to cross already to Laos and bought a trip to 4 thousand islands very close to the border. Around mid day we got out to cross the border by foot...this was the wierdest looking place...there are 2 small huts with people walking around as they like a women chasing little piglets there and back cross the border and few police man watching television...really a pleasant change compare to Vietnam officers watching u closely.
After a short bus ride we have maneged to find a boat to get us to our disired island Don Khon and we set of to find a little
quiet place from which we could explore the island and where to crush in the hamock..we found a little place on neigbouring Don Det which was conected to our island via bridge, which was build by French colonist who used Mekong to transport goods from China...it was bautiful we were making little trips to waterfalls, little sand beaches in lagoons created in rocks by water during rain seasons it was really nice there and we understood the people that have just decided to stay there or that come there year by year...even we did not want to leave but when we run out of books and shortly after money we had to move on. We heard about a temple that was apparently sort of a blue print for Angkor Wats which was not far away from where we were...that turn out to be also the plan of our friens from the island a young german girl travelling with her parents and Hungarien guy Christian...we have all decided to explore the tample very early and set of in complete darkness...the landscape around Champasak is very flat and so it was very spectacular to sudenly see this big mountain standing there a
front of us...parts of the temple are carved into the rocks and in four sections each higher then the other we have climbed to about 300 metres to watch the slow sunrise and wonder at the beuty.
The day after we have decided with Christian to move up north to explore the Bolaven Plateau with its many waterfallsand caves. The best way to do it is by motorbike as shorter circle is about 380km long and takes 3 days to go around, so you can imagine my hesitaion since I have driven the bike only once in my live...luckily Christian was in the same situation and it made Katka brave enough to say we are all gonna be in it together and so we have hired one bike each and with few things set of to explore the Plateau as "hell" riders.
....just realised we have to go ...will ad some more tomorrow...also I have managed thanks to Katka's father to get a new copy of the photoshop so perhaps i will be able to get some images on as well tom.
by for now from me and Katka
well some photos and more comming up....this time from
Culcutta...
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