Laos, Cambodia, and Koh Chang

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Hello again!

We apologize for the delay, but things get a little busy with this difficult lifestyle of ours!  Welcome to our update for Laos, Cambodia, and Koh Chang (yes we went back to Thailand - again). Hope you Enjoy!

Lovely Laos:
Well, our first experience of Laos was not so impressive. First of all, after a very long travel day on the bus, we got to the Lao border and found out that Canadians must pay $42 USD to enter the country, and all other countries pay only$30. Nice. All we wanted to know was why? And of course we did not have the right amount of USD, so we ended up having to pay a disturbingly overinflated price in exchange with Thai baht. Apparently, the border people are criminals and thieves. Anyway, after the blood pressure settled back down, we entered the country and headed to Champasak town, which turned out to be a bus ride to the bus station --conveniently closed, of course-- and was then followed by a tuk-tuk ride to a ferry made out of canoes whcih were held together with rotten planks, and then had another tuk-tuk ride on the other side. All this just to get to a sleepy little town that has some nice ruins (small), but nothing else to do. We’re talking the town shuts down at 6pm when it gets dark. All you can do is pretty much just hang out at your guest house. Stayed there for just enough time to ride around on our bicycles and see the small local ruins, then promptly headed out to Pakse.
With a good-sized ex-pat community, Pakse had enough of the conveniences we needed after Champasak. Here we spent a few days, and experienced a Lao wedding (from a distance) with over 900 people. It was hard to imagine we were in the poorest country in Asia, and here were these upper-crust people dressed to the nines in their silk dresses and suits, driving their land rovers and hummers. But the best was the dancing. All the men on one side, and all the women on the other side, yes line-dancing. Can’t beat that. And since there is a curfew in Lao, everyone must be at home tucked in bed by 11:30. But apparently it has to be your own bed, cuz it is illegal to have any hanky panky going on in Lao, and even if you are married, you have to get permission from the government to have any bedsports going on. How crazy is that? A little conservative we must say. Anyway, we spent a few days here, then hopped over to Vang Vieng. This is essentially a VDT (very dirty traveler) backpacker town, in existence exclusively for tourism. All it is: hundreds of restaurants with low tables and cushions with either Simpsons or Friends playing on the big screens all day long. Ummmm, personally, not into that so much. But if you are adventuresome and get out of the town, there are tons and tons of activities and tours to jump on with. Rafting, kayaking, trekking, tubing down the river. This was great. In essence you pay $3 or so, and get a big inner tube for the day. And you also get a number written on your hand. We think this is so that if you should happen to die on the river by accident, then they can identify your body, because your name is logged in their book, next to your number. Maybe they thought it was cheaper than just buying pre-emptive toe tags and body bags for everyone! Anyway, you set yourself up with your beverage of choice to start with (not in a cup but a plastic bag of course) and head out on the river. It is no exaggeration to say that every 20 meters there is a bar and/or place to zip line or jump off a platform into the river etc. And they pull you in from the river using a bamboo pole: you simply raise your hand if you want to go ashore. It is an all day thing. And possibly well into the evening too, depending on the number of stops you make. After seeing some of the basketball-sized groin and bum (don't ask how we know about these) bruises of our friends who voluntarily flung their bodies into the river, and essentially landed on large rocks, we were quite content to merely float and enjoy the sun and the water (and our beverages in to-go bags!).
After V.V., we headed up to Vientiane where we basically waited in slightly organized chaos for our Thai visas to be processed. Why can’t they just get the number system??? After Vientiane, up to Luang Prabang, a more upscale shopping town with basically loads of shops and nice, mostly French restaurants. Nice little night markets there, great scarves and silks.

Essential Cambodia

Next it was off to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The name Siem Reap literally means “Thailand defeated”, called so from the days where Cambodia claimed new territory from the rival Thais. Siem Reap is hard to believe once you are there, it is so developed and quite overrun with bars and restaurants. And of course there are the places supposedly endorsed by Angelina Jolie, her hotspots when she is in Cambodia. We looked for her, but to no avail. So we settled on just having an overpriced cappuccino in her little coffee bar in lieu of the sighting. We picked our good friend up at the airport and spent our time with him in Cambodia. Stayed at a really cool little guesthouse where the boys were all very eye-candy-esque (OK this is Marcey speaking), and at first I wondered “why are all the men here oh so cute…. Then we figured out that the “Golden Banana” is quite a popular place for international and local gay men, and it all made sense. Shoulda figured it out from the name!!! Nonetheless it was a great time and we met some really cool girls from Australia to have some fun with. We went on a major 3 day temple tour from Siem Reap, and saw many interesting temples. Of course saw the amazing and awesome Angkor Wat in all of its grandeur. What a breathtaking experience as we saw the magnitude of the temples themselves, and as we realized how much work it must have been (and still is) to excavate and maintain -- much less to build it in the first place! It is a sight to behold and see for sure!
From Siem Reap we bussed it to Phnom Penh where we did the educational toursist thing. Actually it is essential to see the history there. And heartbreaking. You can read all you want about the Khmer Rouge regime, but to see the killing fields and the genocide museum is completely sobering and rendered us speechless. It is difficult to believe that these horrific things took place in the last 30 some years. It seems so brutal and ruthless. And genocide is still occurring in our world today. Even more disturbing. We visited the sites of the mass graves where 100-500 people would be dumped and buried in each grave, after various unspeakable things happened to them. Seeing the skulls was shocking, but at the sites, you see the actual clothing of the victims still lying there, and coming up from the earth over the years. There are still small bodies of water (pond sized) that have mass graves underneath them that are not yet uncovered. So when there, you are basically walking all over mass grave sites. The holding cells where the interrogations of the prisoners occurred, brought us to tears. Seeing the rooms where the beatings took place, viewing the pictures, and reading some of the accounts was almost more than we could stand. But we are glad we went and learned more about the history of these gentle and beautiful people.

Two days in Phnom Penh is definitely quite enough. It is a larger city and with that comes all the larger city annoyances, so we headed down to the coast to Sihanoukville. Here we spent Christmas on the beautiful beaches, soaking up the warm sun and splashing in the clear water. Needless to say we caught up on our tans, and relaxed a little. Here however, the hassle is relentless, and literally every 15 seconds tourists are accosted by locals who are selling ridiculous things that no one would ever want. And they don’t give up either. It does get to be a bit much. And the amputees and poor people were out full stop as well. You can give and give and it is never ending. We have very mixed feelings about the situation. It is difficult to see and deal with, and the amputees are completely disowned and ostracized by their own people, who believe it is the victims’ own karma that allowed those things to happen to them, and the rejection is blatant. So to give or not to give, that is the question of the day. But that is a topic unto itself which has no ending, so we will leave it at that. To finish our time in Cambodia, we had a fantastic full-on Christmas dinner at our expat-run guesthouse owned by two Dutch couples, and celebrated with friends.

Thailand Once Again.

(It's as if we just can't get enough!)
After our week in Sihanoukville, we headed back to Thailand, to an island called Koh Chang for more beach time. Of course being on the beach for New Years is great. We hung out with some great Dutch guys and rang in the New Year with a good little party on the beach. Koh Chang is a beautiful island, the second largest in Thailand after Phuket, and has a great little scene going. We did nothing other than relax and chill out at the beach or the pool, and just enjoyed ourselves. After Koh Chang, we headed back to Bangkok with our friend and spent a few days in the city. Did the local sightseeing a bit, and tortured ourselves with KhaoSarn Road once again. Then there was the night out at Calypso, the famous ladyboy show. That was cool. After a few days, we said goodbye to our friend in Bangkok, and headed to Chiang Mai. Here we took a great Thai cooking class and learned how to make 14 different Thai dishes. Chiang Mai is an interesting, cute city, it is the second largest city in Thailand, but it has a way better feel to it than Bangkok. Not crazy, not so busy, just right. Basically we just spent our last few days here before Marcey went home for a few weeks. Next stop: India! Until then, take care and bye for now!

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