Bumping Around the Bolaven Plateau

Pakse, Laos - Bumping down a dusty road high in the mountains of Laos is how I imagined traveling the Bolaven Plateau would be. However like much of our trip most of the road that we traveled was in fact paved.  All through Cambodia and so far Laos many of the roads that until  only recently were dusty (or muddy in the rainy season), potholed, tracks have now been paved making travel along them a breeze.

Yesterday we spent the day exploring the Bolaven Plateau.  This high altitude area (~1000m above sea level) is known for its coffee plantations, rich soil, lush jungles and stunning waterfalls.   It was much cooler up on the plateau than in Pakse with temperatures in the low 80's compared to low 90's.

We visited a coffee/tea plantation, a minority village where people make their own coffins before they die and store them under their homes until passing.  We also visted 4 waterfalls of varying size and intensity.  The picture above was of the Tad Yuang waterfall (waterfall #2) which was probably our favorite.  By waterfall #4 we were suffering from waterfall fatigue!

The main negative of the trip was our guide's severe lack of enthusiasm.  He didn't say much didn't offer much and provided very little insight into what it was we were seeing. It was pretty funny when the indian woman on our trip suggested we all pool some money together and tip him because he was such a nice guy and the rest of us just laughed and said she was welcome to tip him but none of us would be.

We are off to Vientiane the capital of Laos tomorrow.  We are catching the night bus that leaves at 8pm and arrives at 6am Saturday morning.  It is a sleeping bus which means you have what look like chaise lounges to sleep on. They can go flat like a bed or sit up like a seat.  We'll see how it goes but should be more comfortable than a regular bus.

We'll probably be in Vientianne for a few days as we need to get a Burmese visa if we plan to go there or a Thai visa if we decide to skip Burma.

Part III - Getting out of the 4000 islands!

Pakse, Laos - So the 4000 islands is described as idyllic, quiet, timeless etc etc. I would agree with quiet. There is no electricity on the islands except for a few hours a night when the generators kick in.

The 4000 islands is the widest part of the Mekong River and depending on the water level it is said there is up to 4000 islands in the river. Only a few of these are actually inhabited

This wouldn't be so bad if the temperatures weren't so oppressive. Lonely Planet describes March-May as hellishly hot in the 4000 islands and they are right.

We had planned on spending several nights on the islands but it was so hot and uncomfortable that we only stayed one night. It was 100F (35C) during the day with probably 80-90% humidity. Trying to sleep under a mosquito net in those conditions without a fan (or AC) was impossible.

We did enjoy our one afternoon though. We rented bikes and biked around the island stopping at some impressive waterfalls where the Mekong narrows into a gorge and drops several hundred feet and also stopping to see an abandoned French locomotive.

The French had built a short railway track the only one ever built in Laos but abandoned it almost immediately.

Lunch at a restaurant along the Mekong, dinner at our guest house and a sleepless night and it was back to the mainland for our 2.5 hour bus ride to Pakse.

We arrived in Pakse around 2pm and quickly found a nice hotel, with AC, Wifi and a few english tv channels. We could stay here forever!

Pakse is a large (by Laotian standards) town of about 36000. We will probably be here a few days as there are a few interesting day trips and Pakse seems like a nice town.

We had a good meal of Lao Style Noodles, pork in chili paste and a couple of cold Beer Lao's on our hotel's rooftop restaurant overlooking the Mekong.

The 4000 islands were nice but way too hot for us to stay long. We actually ran into a couple that had been on our boat from Vietnam to Cambodia and they too had left the 4000 Islands after only 1 night because it was too hot.

Part II - Onward to Laos

Don Khone, Laos - In the last post I talked about our trip from Phnom Penh to the border town of Stung Treng.

We were up at 6am, as we had to get breakfast and packed up and ready for the bus to pick us up at 730am.

There was a bit of confusion as to what bus we were supposed to get on, first a big bus then a small bus and finally a minibus.

Finally by 8am we were off to the border about 50 miles away. Our minibus consisted of a couple of Lao guys, a Vietnamese woman, a Japanese girl and ourselves.

The roads in Cambodia have been surprisingly good, many seem like they were recently paved in the past couple of years and the road to the border was no exception. It will be interesting to see if they are maintained going forward.

We reached the "border" in an hour. I say "border" because all it consisted of was a little hut on the Cambodian side with a gate across the road, followed by a walk of 500m down the road to the Lao hut and accompanying gate.

We got our passports stamped to get out of Cambodia (with the requested $1 to the border guard to "stamp" our passport). No dollar no stamp was how it was politely explained to us.

Same thing with the Lao side, a $1 contribution to the border guard got your passport stamped into Laos and given back to you. A few people grumbled a bit but what are you going to do, these guys are out in the middle of nowhere getting paid nothing I have no problem giving them a dollar if it gets me through the border quickly and painlessly.

The funny thing was that in the 90 minutes we were at the border we saw one person (a buddhist monk) on the back of a moto come through the border. This is the only border crossing between Cambodia & Laos and it doesn't seem to be a busy one.

Anyhow now into Laos we waited about 45 minutes for our Lao minibus to arrive. Out scrambled a half dozen Aussie backpackers going the other direction, we got into their minibus and were off to the 4000 Islands. A few stops (some for no apparent reason??) and an hour later we were at the boat landing to go to our island in the Mekong Don Khone.

We went down to the boatmen and handed one our ticket we had purchased in Cambodia he motioned us towards one of the boats in we hopped with the Japanese girl from our minibus and 20 minutes later we were being dropped on the beach.

We stumbled up the hill with our packs to the main road (dirt road about 10 feet wide) and went in search of a guesthouse, we looked at one that was too expensive and found another that was right on the Mekong River with a nice veranda for only $12/night.

After a day and a half of traveling we were in Laos and settled into our guest house.

Part I - Goodbye Cambodia

Stung Treng, Cambodia - We have made it to Laos and it was definitely an adventure getting here. We left Phnom Penh at 645am on Saturday morning and hopped in a minibus to where our big bus was supposed to leave at 7am.

We were underway by 730am (not too bad) and on our way to Stung Treng which is the last major town before you hit the Lao-Cambodian border. Once again we were the only non-locals on the bus which was completely full. This was also our first bus with chickens on board. We were in our usual first row seats (the Oh Sh*t! seats) but could hear baby chicks in the back of the bus chirping off and on.

We had a 10 hour ride ahead of us and had bought some supplies (i.e. food) for the journey not knowing what kind of stops we would have along the way.

Our first stop was only two hours in and was again in the town of Skuon (aka Spiderville, see earlier post).

We made a few stops along the way picking up and dropping off people but didn't stop for an extended period until we made our lunch stop about 130pm in the town of Snuol only a few kilometers from the Cambodia/Vietnam border.

Lonely Planet describes Snuol as a dirty, dusty town that time has forgotten and I think they are being kind. We weren't about to partake in the gruel they were serving as lunch so we pulled out the cheese and crackers we had with us and Betsy went to buy a coke, only they didn't have coke, all they had was something called Winter Melon Tea. What it tasted like was maple syrup juice! Blech!

Fortified by our granola bars, cheese and crackers Betsy decided to hit the loo before the bus left. What she wasn't prepared for was her first squat toilet and the lineup to use it!

The bus started honking its horn while she was still inside, lets just say by the way she was running her ankle is feeling much better!

Four hours later we arrived in the dusty outpost of Stung Treng. We were immediately accosted by several guys who said we had to come with them to get tickets to Laos or see their guest house but we just ignored them and headed to a guest house we had researched before we got there.

After getting into our room and settling in we organized our bus tickets to Laos and headed over to a little restaurant right on the Mekong where we had a quick meal, a couple of beers and called it a night.

Up Next Part II - Welcome to Laos

Holiday in Cambodia!

The post title is in reference to the classic Dead Kennedy's song (1980) of the same name. In our case our Holiday in Cambodia is about to end.

Tomorrow we have a 10 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to the border town of Stung Treng (one horse town from the sounds of it). From there we'll try and organize transport across the Cambodia/Lao border and onwards to our first destination in Laos the 4000 Islands.

These are a group of islands in the middle of the Mekong that people pretty much just go to chill at. There isn't even electricity on most of the islands...not sure how long we'll be there without AC!

Needless to say we will probably be without internet for a few days until we get further into Laos and get to the southern capital of Pakse.

Wish us luck!

Spiderville!

We took the bus today from Siem Reap back to Phnom Penh today. It was a pretty uneventful bus ride though on this bus we weren't the only non-locals.

We made one pit-stop along the way in the town of Skuon (aka Spiderville). Skuon is known for its spiders,specifically tarantula's that the locals like to catch, fry and eat! There were women walking around with platters of these things trying to sell them. We might be adventurous but we aren't THAT adventurous!

Betsy almost had a heart attack when I told her to turn around and look at the girl selling pineapple behind her. The girl had a live tarantula crawling on the front of her shirt like it was a pet. Needless to say Betsy hightailed it out of there pretty quick!

Cinco de Mayo Cambodian Style

Siem Reap, Cambodia - Stacy and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo by going to a Mexican restaurant in downtown Siem Reap. The El Camino served up wonderful margarita's and excellent Mexican food. Our dinner was definitely an improvement compared to our breakfast this morning which contained all sorts of pieces of "meat"(or "un-usable bits" as Stacy calls it) in our pho soup that we could not identify.

Finally Some Photos

I've finally gotten a somewhat stable internet connection and managed to post some of our remaining Vietnam pictures.  Click on the link on the right side for "Central & Southern Vietnam"

I've also uploaded some of our Angkor Temple pictures as well.  Click on the link on the right side.

I've also created a map "Our Route So Far..." that shows the route we've taken up to this point. You can access this on the right menu as well.

I've also turned on the comments for the blog so you can leave a note at the bottom of a post by clicking on the "Comments" link.

Ruminations on Temples, Touts & Tourists!

We've spent the last couple of days whipping around Cambodia in a Tuk-Tuk revisiting many of the temples we saw last time we were here (5.5 years ago) as well as a few we missed.  The weather hasn't been too bad.  Hot but not unbearably so but still very humid.

The temples were great to see again but didn't seem as spectacular as the first time we visited.  I suppose that is always the case when you go back somewhere you've been before.  The first time you are there everything is new and exciting and unexpected whereas subsequent visits you know what to expect.

One of the things that made the temples not as interesting was the amount of reconstruction being done to many of them including Angkor Wat.  It is hard to be as impressed when there is scaffolding all over a temple.

Angkor feels much less adventurous this time around.  All the roads in town and all the roads to the temples are nicely paved as opposed to the dusty, dirty, potholed roads that we traveled before.  There are ticket checks at all the temples and it feels much more organized now.  You used to be able to clamber all over many of the temples whereas now many areas are roped off and inaccessible now.  The temples are still impressive but it feels more like visiting Disneyland than it does some far off remote part of the world.

There are also many, many more tourists than there were 5.5 years ago which takes away a little of the uniqueness of the experience.  One of the upsides of so many more tourists is the plethora of great restaurants around Siem Reap now.  Last time we were here there wasn't nearly the selection of great restaurants there is now.  That part of the increased tourist traffic we are very much enjoying.  That and the 50 cent draft beers for happy hour!

Finally the touts in Siem Reap are much worse than they were.  They aren't overbearing but they are annoying.  When you walk a few hundred meters down the street and 15 tuk-tuk drivers ask if you need a ride it can get a bit annoying.  Did they not see you saying "No thanks" to the first 14 guys??  I understand they are just trying to make a buck but it still gets annoying pretty quickly.

We are off to Phnom Penh on Thursday and then have a day there and on Saturday will begin the long slog to Laos.  That should be fun!

Cambodia Update

Well we arrived in Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) today from Battambang.  We only spent two days in Battambang but it was probably one of our least favorite places so far, very dusty, dirty town with not a heck of a lot to see.

The  best part of Battambang was organizing a tuk-tuk for the day and going for a tour of the countryside.  We saw a couple of neat Wat's (Temples) and an ancient ruins site that was supposedly a model for Angkor Wat.  It was a long hike up 338 stairs to reach the ancient ruins but we made it!

A lot of our time was spent getting to these sites and we were COVERED in dust by the end of the day.  We also looked at going on the bamboo train  which is a gas powered "train which is really just two axles and a platform over the top with a gas engine attached that go careening along the abandoned railroad track.   When two trains meet the one with less cargo is taken apart and pulled off the track then reassembled once the other train goes by.

The other strange thing about Battambang is there were NO tourists there.  We saw about 6 other westerners in our 3 days and 2 nights there.  Our hotel had about 50 rooms and I swear a couple of nights we were the only guests.

Today we took the bus from Battambang to Siem Reap.  This used to be considered the worst road in Asia but it has only recently been paved and we made the 200km trip in 3hours.

Siem Reap has changed greatly since Betsy and I were here on our honeymoon 5.5 years ago. Most of the roads are paved and not dirt, they have proper ticket offices now to get your Angkor tickets and they are building new hotels, restaurants and shopping like crazy.  You can't even recognize the place anymore.  It feels more like Las Vegas or Disneyland than the eighth wonder of the world!

Internet is horrible in Cambodia, I have pictures from the south of Vietnam waiting to upload but can't get a good enough connection to upload them so one of these days there will be more pictures.