OldLadyVagabond

The Big Ones Today was the trifecta of Angkor temples: Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, and the iconic Angkor Wat. It goes without saying that because these three are on every visitor's A-list, crowds are inevitable. The tour buses disgorge pods of Japanese, Chinese, French, British, and every other nationality tourists, each one clutching their i-phone, digital point-and-shoot, or massive Nikon with enormous lens and tripod. At lesser-known temples one can wait a few minutes for the masses to pass to get a good photo, but at these big-three, one could have a birthday waiting for a break in the traffic. Our guide, Heng, did a great job of helping us avoid being part of the pack by taking us cross country from one site to another through the jungle, but those iconic photos that everyone wants ... read more

Banteay Srei The most popular sites at Angkor are over-run with tourists every day, so we took the opportunity to go to two of the temples that lie some distance from town. The first is called Banteay Srei or “Citadel of the Women”. It was built in the 10th century as a Hindu temple, much like the temple we saw at Vat Phou. What makes it unique is that it was built of pink sandstone. It is a small but exquisite temple. Almost every inch of its walls and doorways are covered with delicate carvings of scenes of the Ramayana. The temple was discovered by the French only in 1914, but was the first in the Angkor group to be restored by anastylosis, which is a method of recording, dismantling, and reconstructing ruins first developed at ... read more

Because of a scheduling glitch regarding the Vat Phou Cruise we ended up with an extra day between it and our flight to Siem Reap, so we took advantage of the time to check out the Bolaven Plateau just east of Pakse, Laos. Pakse is the third largest municipality in Laos after Vientiane and Savannakhet, although I don't think any of them has as many as 100,000 inhabitants; the entire country has only about half as many as New York City. At the bottom I have added the photos from our stop at Wat Phou while on the Mekong Cruise. Bolaven Plateau In the early part of the 20th century while France was trying to build up the economy of French Indo-China it recognized that the cool climate of the Bolaven Plateau at 4000 feet average ... read more

In the rainy season the Mekong rises probably 50 feet or more above its current height. To compensate for that vast difference, there are long cement stairways that go from the riverbank to wherever the mighty river finds itself. We arrived in Thakhek Laos and our trusty guide and driver helped us lug our suitcases down the long stairway before saying our good-byes and we boarded the local ferryboat for the trip across the river and back into Thailand. We were the only falangs, but everyone smiled and said Sawasdee (if they were Thai) or Sabaidee (if they were Lao). Our new guide, Andy met us on the other side and with our new driver, Sunny, helped us lug or bags up corresponding cement stairs to Nakhon Phanom. Meeting Andy and Sumontha Andy turned out to ... read more

Yesterday I finally turned the corner. I woke up feeling human again. So we tried to make up for a couple of lost days. In the morning we took on the “must-do” event of climbing Mount Phousi. This, the only elevation on the peninsula of Luang Prabang’ is the sacred mountain. A daunting 360 stairs take you from street level across from the Royal Palace to the summit. It is cool in the morning now so the trek that wound back and forth across the face of the hill was a pleasant climb. We were rewarded at the top by a sterling view of the entire town, including the surrounding rivers. Unfortunately it is also quite hazy in the mornings, the result of cooking fires and the burning of the waste from harvested rice, so we ... read more