It was about a 4 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Sihannoukville. I managed to take a few pics out the window, but was mostly sleeping unfortunately.
When we arrived in Sihannoukville, we were bombarded with motorbike and tuk tuk drivers fighting to transport us to a hotel (as the city is now quite firmly on the tourist map). There were three of us and after lots of negotiating, we each got whisked away on individual motorbikes. The plan was to all end up at the hotel we had decided on and worked out with our drivers. Mic’s driver and my driver both made it there. And when Dae didn’t show up right away, we started to worry. Eventually he did show - but was clearly pissed off. It turned out that his driver decided to take him to a different hotel and try to bully him into staying there instead.
We ended up staying at the GST Guesthouse, a huge structure built to accommodate as many tourists as possible. It wasn’t particularly special, but it would do for a few days. And it was just easier to stay there than argue with our pushy drivers who wanted to collect their commission and get back to the bus station to trap more tourists into staying there. Making up for its lack of coziness, the hotel offered mediocre meals and an (overpriced) Internet service. It also had a nice set of rules.
As far as orienting ourselves goes, we picked up this little guide from some store and it turned out to be pretty helpful.
I especially liked their map of the downtown area (particularly because in the bottom left corner it says: “This is not a map”). Um…what is it then?
In Sihanoukville, you aren’t allowed to pick flowers.
You also aren’t allowed to speak.
First we visited Ochheuteal and Serendipity Beaches. I thought they were kinda awful - overcrowded, filthy, and full of scantily clad tourists drinking cheap beer at one of the many waterfront bars and restaurants advertising “all day happy hour”. Beggars, amputees, and children selling bracelets meandered around the crowds.
The most fun I had at this beach was playing with the little kids who were either begging or selling stuff. These kids lead really troubled lives and it always made me sad to see some tourists push them off like they’re annoying pests. I saw one particularly awful man shove this small girl into the sand. Since she was bugging him during his dinner, he apparently didn’t feel the need to treat her like a human.
The problem about child beggars is that most of these little kids are being used by their parents or some other adult agent. This ringleader sends them out into the streets to beg for money, often beating or abusing them if they don’t bring any back. Sometimes the kids are injured before being sent out, as the more sickly and pathetic they look, the more money they’ll bring in. Here’s an article about this. And here’s an article about why you shouldn’t give money to child beggars. While I don’t think money should ever be given to children begging (as it never actually benefits those it was intended to help), and I don’t think begging behavior should ever be encouraged, I couldn’t help myself from giving away food. Many times, we gave our leftovers to the kids we met. And before scarfing down the food in between grateful “thank yous”, they would always glance around nervously to make sure they weren’t being watched by whoever was in charge of them. Poor guys.
Generally I found that a lot of these children were just happy to have attention. Most of them spoke really great English, in addition to bits of every other popular tourist language, and they were more needy for affection than anything else. Once they realized you weren’t going to give them money, they’d stop the sales pitches and go back to being kids again. While it was still obviously very sad to see all these helpless children being exploited, and being incapable of offering a long term solution to the situation, I felt that the best thing I could offer at the moment was simply my time (time spent drawing pictures, telling stories, playing thumb war, and doing whatever else to make them laugh). I’d like to think it made a small difference.
Anyway, we spent a good chunk of the day hanging out with a little boy who called himself “Mr. T”. He was trying to sell us a boat tour package, but in the end decided he could just be our friend instead.
This little girl came up to me to beg. She started off really aggressive - pulling at my arm and whining.
But after a few minutes of talking with her and asking her questions about her day, she stopped begging and sat down to play with us. Her mood changed and she giggled, ran around, and ate some of my curry.
She loved learning how to take pictures and then viewing them on the LCD screen.
At one point she stole my camera and ran around to take her own pictures. Then she brought it back. Here are some of the pictures she took.
In a country that survives largely on tourist dollars, children are brought up to believe that tourists are walking bags of money. They learn English at an early age so they can hopefully take advantage of this cash inflow. But this is obviously a very complex issue and its sickening to see how tourists - generally large flocks of teenage boys - contribute to this problem by being obnoxious, ignorant, and just generally insensitive to the residents of the countries they’re visiting. They may have good intentions, but obviously the money they’re throwing around so casually is not always benefiting a community. Instead it often inspires a predatory behavior that definitely doesn’t stop at childhood. Sihanoukville was full of beautiful teeenage Cambodian girls praying on “exotic” and “rich” foreign boys. As I was traveling with two boys at the moment, I got to witness this first hand. And the few nights we spent on this beach, there was always a flock of pretty Cambodian girls glancing over at our table. Every now and then one of the girls would stop by and ask if I was someone’s girlfriend. They seemed pleased knowing that I wasn’t, and I retired to the hotel early so as to let the girls do their thing. Of course the guys I was traveling with were gentlemen, so no crazy stuff ended up happening. But I’m sure many boys do take advantage.
Aside from that though, I just wasn’t feeling up for partying all night. Here’s an example of one of the sketchy bars the boys visited….and it just wasn’t really my scene. They did have some hilarious stories to share with me the next morning though.
After we’d had enough of the (ugly) beach, we walked around downtown - towards the (horribly misspelled) Independence Square.
I loved the red dirt roads that veered off from the main street.
And all the hand painted signs.
This was the “Economic Zone.” Not very booming apparently.
One surprising thing we found on our walk was this place.
I definitely didn’t expect to find vegan desserts in a place like this. I couldn’t resist and ordered the Vegan Love Sponge so I could eat it as we walked.
A few days in our crappy hotel on Serendipity Beach was all we really wanted. So we piled into a tuk tuk and took the bumpy dirt road over to Otres Beach, the least developed of all the Sihanoukville beaches.
Otres Beach was a very different scene entirely. Low key and quiet, relatively clean water, and with secluded shorelines actually worth photographing.
The deal with Otres Beach is that once you get there…you’re kinda stuck. There aren’t many bars or restaurants, and there’s absolutely no nightlife. Well I get the feeling that will change pretty soon with all the new development, but for now it’s calm and quiet (which was exactly what I wanted).
Luckily from the Sihanoukville guide we had picked up, we learned about the Solar Bar, a place with solar powered cabins, free camping, coop style dinner meals, and movies projected outside at night. This was my kind of place. Since we had tents, we opted for the free camping option. The Dutch guys who ran the place didn’t go out of their way to be friendly, but they were extremely easy going and accommodating (they made me a special veggie meal while everyone else got fish). Mot mostly they just seemed to want to do their own thing and not deal with anyone too much. If we wanted to stay there - cool. But they didn’t really care either way. It felt kinda like we walked up on someone’s house and were expected to tend to ourselves and not ask too much of them (which made sense – as we weren’t paying any money to camp there).
I was just excited to get to sit in a lawn chair and read my book undisturbed. Peace at last.
This picture is funny. I look pregnant and the dog looks dead.
Otres Beach was so mellow, we didn’t even encounter many other people while we were there. But we did see a lot of crabs and crab holes.
And we walked to the far end of the beach to go snorkeling.
One day, we hired a boat to take us out to a few of the neighboring islands. Unfortunately while we were busy looking at the fish, our driver and his friends were busy trying to hunt them with spears.
That could have been the reason why we actually didn’t see all that many fish. We saw lots of nice coral though.
And some other fun sea creatures.
I have no doubts that Otres Beach will be overly developed soon. While it was calm and peaceful when we were there, numerous construction projects were already underway …and more people have already started staking out their territory.
So far the guesthouses on Otres Beach are small and tasteful. I just hope it stays that way (especially now that foreign property ownership in Cambodia is likely to be a possibility soon). As it is, the corrupt Cambodian government makes a profit by seizing property from poor people (read NY Times article in this forum post). As we were leaving Otres Beach, we passed a community of shacks clustered along the road, and dozens of residents were huddled around one tiny TV. It made me wonder if they used to live closer to the beach before their waterfront property was seized and sold off to developers. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Anyway, our last day in Sihannoukville was Dae’s birthday. And since he wanted to celebrate, we figured we’d need to leave Otres Beach and go somewhere more lively. So we called our trusty tuk tuk driver to have him pick us up and take us to Victory Beach (the only other beach we hadn’t yet explored).
Victory beach had lots of budget guesthouses, pool halls, bars, casinos, and even a fancy nightclub that looked like an airplane hangar. The whole place had a very sketchy vibe to it and it didn’t hold our interest for very long. We played pool while a bunch of sleepy eyed Cambodian girls hovered around us….then I decided to call it a night. I wasn’t really up for getting a “healthy massage” at a place called “Ho Yes!”
Victory Hill did have a vegetarian restaurant though. And since Dae and Mic are such easy going guys, and saw how excited I was to try it, they went there with me (even though it was Dae’s birthday and he probably should have been the one to choose where we ate).
The next morning, I had to wake up at 6am to catch a bus all the way up to Siem Reap. And our trusty tuk tuk driver who transported us to the hotel the night before gave me a ride to the bus stand. Dae and Mic had a bit longer in Cambodia than I did, so they weren’t in as much of a hurry as me. Unfortunately I had to move on if I wanted to have enough time to thoroughly explore Siem Reap. But I was happy to have been able to spend some time with good friends. We said our goodbyes and I was off on my own again.
And I LOVE the bags she’s selling, which are made from recycled rice bags and assembled by disadvantaged Cambodians based in Phnom Penh. I actually bought a few while I was there, but didn’t end up finding her website until much later. Check it out:
Knowing that my flight to Cambodia was departing at 6am (or some ridiculous time like that), I decided that I couldn’t be trusted to wake up early enough to be at the airport on time. Staying up all night my last night in Bangkok seemed like a much better plan….so that’s what I did.
I arrived at the airport still a little bit dizzy from partying with the lady boys, but all my bags were packed and I was even early. So far so good. My flight to Cambodia wasn’t long enough to get a sufficient amount of sleep though, so I was running on empty by the time I arrived in Phnom Penh. It also occurred to me when I landed that I didn’t have any plans of where I was going to stay. I’m not sure if this was due to my exhaustion or because I’d been traveling for so long that I just couldn’t be bothered with such preparations anymore. Up to this point, I always had a few hotel names scribbled down, or at least an idea of how much a taxi should cost to get into town. But this time I was completely unprepared….and not too worried about it either. Good energy seemed to be around me, so no worries. Things just tended to work out how they should.
As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I was greeted by all kinds of characters fighting to give me a ride to my hotel. Generally I tended to have a plan at this point, but since I was planless and had no clue where I wanted to go, I found the tuk tuk driver with the kindest looking face and hopped inside. I asked him to give me a hotel suggestion (knowing full well that he’d just rush me over to whichever hotel would give him commission), but I didn’t really care at the moment - I just wanted to find a place to sleep as soon as possible. And to my surprise, the driver wasn’t all that sketchy. He chatted to me the whole way as he drove me to his hotel of choice and he didn’t pressure me to stay there once we arrived. He said he’d wait outside while I had a look and if I wasn’t happy with it, he’d take me to another one. The hotel he took me to, Diamond’s Guest House, actually wasn’t bad at all. It was right near the city center, the owners were friendly, it had hot water, and the price was good. But honestly, I was so tired that any place would have probably seemed wonderful - as long as it was cheap and had a bed.
No kidnapping was allowed, unfortunately….but I guess I can’t have everything my way. Maybe next time.
Anyway, I paid the tuk tuk driver (too much, I found out later), got the keys to my room, and fell asleep for a solid 6 or 7 hours.
When I finally woke up, it was time for dinner. I dragged myself out of bed and ordered some food at my hotel - a vegetable curry “with no fish sauce” (though I have my doubts). And I watched as one of the smiley owners pointed to the celing to show me the biggest gecko I’d ever seen in my life (according to him, they bite). Afterwards, I left to go check out the town. I was still in a sleepy stupor and disoriented from being in a new place….so I remember the rest of the day feeling a bit surreal.
This is what I read in an online guide about Phnom Penh: “Visitors who can’t handle rubbish and dust in the streets, risky traffic, blocked sidewalks, prowling tuk tuk and moto-drivers, touts and beggars may not enjoy the city.” This is all very true…but by this point, I’d kinda learned that I enjoy grubby, chaotic cities. In my opinion Cambodia had a similar feel to Vietnam, but everything and everyone seemed to be just a little bit gentler.
After walking along various footpaths clogged with garbage, stagnant water, tuk tuk drivers, cyclo and motorbike taxi drivers, sleeping people, begging people (often amputees and children), farm animals, and chunks of concrete or mud…it was time to find a place to relax for a while. I discovered the Mekong River Restaurant, where the waiters were super friendly, the curry was nice but greasy, and they had free wifi (although it only seemed to allow one person on it at a time). They also had a small movie theater upstairs with daily showings of short films about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Regime. The Mekong River Restaurant seemed to be the perfect place for me to sit for hours and catch up on work (YES I do work sometimes), so I decided to make it my office off and on for the next few days.
I loitered at the restaurant until they finally closed, then headed back to my hotel thinking I’d probably be awake all night since I had slept so much during the day. Luckily on my walk back, I met Jimy (his real name is Cheat Chum Socheat, but he refers to himself as Jimy since he deals with tourists so often and many tourists get stressed trying to pronounce such a foreign sounding name). Jimy was hanging out with a few of his friends at a table outside a convenience store and they invited me to sit and have a beer with them. This sounded much more interesting than watching TV alone in my hotel room, and I was close enough to my hotel that I felt comfortable staying out a while longer. So I let them buy me a beer and we all sat around and talked late into the night.
Jimy is awesome. He speaks great English and is a really dedicated student (I can’t remember anymore what he studies, but I think it’s something like International Business). When he isn’t in school, he visits his family in a nearby village or he works as a motorbike driver. Jimy doesn’t make a lot of money - partly because his job just doesn’t pay well (a trip across town costs about 2,000 riel or 50 cents), but also because he says most of the tourists prefer to travel by tuk tuk rather than motorbike taxi. So when he’s working, his job mainly consists of sitting on the same street corner every day and chatting with his motorbike driver friends while they wait for occasional work. To anyone visiting Phnom Penh and wanting a tour of the city or just a reliable driver to take you somewhere in town, I would definitely recommend Jimy as a motorbike driver. Many motorbike traxi drivers come from rural villages and may not actually know their way around town (or care about getting you there safely), but they’ll obviously try their best to convince you of their skills, just to compete with all the other guys vying for your business.
So moral of the story - with so many drivers to choose from (many of whom don’t care about anything but your money), it can be hard work to find one that’s honest, kind, knowledgable, and safe. They’re there - you just have to find them. And I was happy I managed to find one my first day.
While Jimmy was calm and peaceful, one of his friends was a bit more agressive. It seemed he used to have a very dreamy view of foreigners, but after years of trying to befriend them beyond a superficial level, he had become bitter and disillusioned. As he showed me his notebook full of tourists’ names, email addresses, and references written next to their native countries…it appeared that he felt there was some status to be gained by collecting as many foreign acquaintances as he could. Most of these ”friends,” were people who met him only very briefly, but made all kinds of promises to keep in touch. Then they promptly finished their Cambodia vacations, went back home to “their real lives,” and forgot all about him….and this guy was pissed off.
As it was getting late at this point, I decided to say goodnight. I got Jimy’s number and said I’d give them all a call tomorrow and we could go eat lunch together. Jimy’s friend had had quite a few beers and this set him off on a rant: “I’m sure you’re just like all the rest. You smile, you drink a beer, you take our number and say you’ll call…but you never do. You’ll go back to America and never think of us again!” I told them I’d keep my promise and call. They had their doubts.
The next morning, I called Jimy first thing. I was happy to have found Cambodian friends my first day, but I also wanted to prove that I wasn’t going to ditch them. He seemed really surprised (but happy) that I actually called like I said I would. When we met up to decide what to do that day, I suggested he call his friend (the bitter one who didn’t trust me) and invite him along too…but Jimy was weird about it and didn’t want to. He was basically giving up a day of work to hang out with me and it didn’t seem like he wanted to share his newfound foreign friend with anyone else.
I was hungry, so we took off on his motorbike and went to eat.
I wanted to eat at a place called Romdeng because it’s run by “Mith Samlanh” (”Friends”), a nonprofit that helps provide jobs to street children and their families…and because I heard it had good vegetarian options.
The restaurant was much fancier than I expected, the food was very expensive for an average Cambodian meal, and the only people eating there were wealthy looking foreigners. The food was really good - but I could tell the poshness of the place made Jimy uncomfortable. And even though I said I wanted to pay for both of us, he said he wasn’t hungry and only ordered an overpriced coke. So I ended up ordering a meal while Jimy just sat and watched…and the whole thing was slightly awkward. Food was great - just not the type of place locals would ever go.
Later Jimy told me that he doesn’t think much of the money actually goes towards helping ordinary Cambodians. I don’t think this is entirely true, but I can kinda see his point. Rather than supporting a foreign owned organization that dedicates a portion of its profits to helping the local community, I could just eat at a small, family run business and that would be a much more direct way of helping Cambodian families.
After that, I decided to let Jimy make the decisions. So when he suggested we go to a big Western-style shopping mall, I wasn’t going to argue. To me, it was just a big, ugly (quite sterile looking) mall - not nearly as colorful or interesting as the traditional markets. But it seemed to be something the Cambodians were quite proud of. It has AC, a huge supermarket, lots of fast food outlets, video games, a movie theater (that seems to show mostly crappy Khmer horror films) and even a skating rink on the top floor. The mall was full of locals - most of them just walking around and looking rather than buying anything. And from the top floor, we got a great view of the city.
Next we went to the Tonlé Sap and sat along the waterfront. This river reverses its flow during the monsoon season (June to November), forming the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and having a tremendous impact on the Cambodian economy (supporting over 3 million people and providing over 75% of Cambodia’s annual inland fish catch). During the dry season (December to April), the Tonlé Sap’s reverses again, preventing flooding downstream and contributing to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Due to the lake’s importance, the Tonlé Sap and surrounding provinces were officially recognized as a biosphere reserve in 2001.
Many villagers live in floating houseboats and stilt house communities along the Tonlé Sap, enabling them to actually pick up and move with the water flow. Here are some great pictures of what this life is like. Even during the dry season (when I was there), it’s obvious how much people rely on this water source. Families gather en masse to bath, fish, wash dishes, pray, or simply sit by the water and enjoy the outside. Women wander around the hoards of people, bearing baskets of nuts, fruits, and other objects on sale. Others bless the lake by floating shiny paper boats with incense or flowers. It’s a busy place in the evening when the weather isn’t so hot, and I had fun sitting and just watching all the action.
When Jimy found out I had never had “penfruit”, he called a woman over and bought me some. This became my new favorite food in Cambodia - you pop the little seeds out and eat them like nuts. So fun!
After watching the water for a while, Jimy took me to my hotel and we sat outside waiting for my friends to arrive. I hadn’t even planned to visit Cambodia, but when I found out Daemond and Michael, two friends I had met in Perth, Australia, were planning to meet up there…I adjusted my schedule to meet them too. They both arrived quickly, one after another. Perfect timing.
Dae arrived with Po, who would be our designated tuk tuk driver for the rest of our stay in Phnom Penh. I’m going to track down his contact info. so I can post it here. It was a fun reunion and nice to have some familiar faces around. And since it was St. Patricks day, Dae wanted to go to an Irish Pub to celebrate.
Again, poor Jimy felt a little out of place…but he had a good time.
And that night Jimy took us to his favorite dance club (which ended up being full of Cambodians, but quite expensive). Everyone loved Dae’s dancing and our presence in general turned out to be a big hit.
After dancing for a while, we sat outside the convience store near our hotel. Intrigued by the giant poster outside advertising “special muscle wine”, we decided to buy a bottle and make up a simple drinking game that involved rock paper sissors. It didn’t make our muscles any stronger, but the whole scene was entertaining. Jimy had to wake up early for school though. I wonder if he ever made it….
The next day, Po the tuk tuk driver, basically took us on a marathon of sadness.
First stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former high school that was used as a security prison and interrogation center (code named S-21) by the Khmer Rough during its horrific regime from 1975-1979.
During this timeframe, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned here, starved, brutally tortured, and eventually executed. Most of the victims were soldiers and government officials from the previous Lon Nol regime, in addition to leading intellectuals, academics, doctors, teachers, factory workers, monks, engineers, children, etc. (most of whom were innocent of all charges against them, but forced to confess under extreme torture methods).
In some cells, you can still see blood stains on the floor.
And some sort of tallies and markings.
When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979 the S-21 prison staff fled, leaving thousands of photographic records. In 1997, Nhem Ein was identified as the official prison photographer. You can see his photographs, along with a documentary and a NY Times story about him (in light of the long awaited criminal trial of Khmer Rouge leaders that began while I was in Cambodia in February).
Van Nath is thought to be one of the only 4 prisoners who survived. He is an important painter who lived by working for Pol Pot, painting pictures of prisoners. Van Nath is featured in the film S-21: The Khmer Rough Killing Machine, where he gives a tour of the prison, drawing on pictures and personal memories to reenact scenes of the prisoners’ horrific treatment. He also interviews and confronts some of his former captors.
Because the prison/museum now attracts hoards of tourists and daily visitors, you can find lots of writings and comments by people who felt their words of wisdom were so important, they had to write them on the wall of the museum. In a way, this made me even more depressed. Some people are stupid…and insensitive.
Here is a summary of some of the wall writings I discovered:
This seems to be promotion for some artist called Codefc. While I like the stencil, not sure it belongs on the wall of a torture prison.
These wall writings seem like they are probably written by Cambodians.
Inside the museum, there are strings of paper cranes that were donated by Japan. But while Hiroshima’s Peace Park had a hopeful and uplifting feel to it, this place was all sadness.
There’s even a sign telling you not to smile or laugh (not that I think you’d feel like it).
Next we visited the Choeung Ek extermination center, the best known site of The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge exteminated and buried prisoners, many of which were held at the Tol Sleng prison.
Today Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa filled with human skulls and clothing scraps found from inside mass graves. By looking through the glass windows, you can see that many of the skulls have been bashed in.
Choeung Ek used to be an orchard….and there were actually tons of butterflies floating around when we visited. I’d like to think that is a hopeful sign that these poor people have found some sort of peace.
After visiting the genocide museum and the extermination center, many tourists choose to top off their itinerary by visiting a shooting range. Now after a full day of torturing and killing…I can’t understand why ANYONE would be motivated to do this.
Probably the Cambodians think of this as odd and horribly insensitive too, but hey - money talks. Whatever business concepts bring in the tourist money (no matter how wacky or awful they are) will obviously be supported by locals. Apparently there are various shooting ranges around town (of various degrees of professionalism) with over 50 different weapon options ranging in price from $20 to $250.
You can even kill live animals. Here’s a blog all about this, with comments underneath describing such events (warning: in addition to some crazy shit being described, there are also lots of porn ads on this site…just more indication of the type of cool kids attracted to this type of thing).
And here’s a youtube video illustrating how tourism negatively affects the disarmament in post-war Cambodia. The video starts by visiting a shooting range in Phnom Penh, where a young backpacker proudly shoots a cow with an M-16 machine gun. My conclusion: Tourism is a horrible virus. We do more harm than good.
Since we obviously weren’t going to the shooting range, our tuk tuk driver decided to take us to an orphanage. And after going into a big speech about how much the place meant to him, he suggested that we stop by a store and purchase a $40 bag of rice to help feed them. We were all about helping the orphanage kids, but when we saw another tuk tuk full of tourists stop at the same shop to purchase the same bag of rice (most likely going to the same orphanage)…the whole thing seemed a bit too weird. Clearly they were getting some sort of commision and we decided to hold off on the rice buying until we could talk to the orphange director to see what kinds of things were actually needed.
When we arrived, squealing children ran to the gate to greet us. The Lighthouse Orphanage, which provides free housing, food, education, and parental support to the children, is clearly legit and worth supporting. And the children are adorable! We played volleyball with them and visited their English class, where they took turns interviewing us.
After talking to the volunteers, we learned that they actually have enough rice (well, duh), but what they really needed at the moment was toothpaste and soap. We told them we’d go buy that stuff and come back in a few days to deliver it.
And when I told this little girl we would probably come back to say hi in a few days, she grabbed on to me and said “No Maybe!” Heartbreaking. All in all, the kids seemed really happy and well cared for though - the place kinda had a (very basic) summer camp feel…and the children get daily playtime with visitors from all over the world.
The next day was a work day. And Michael and I tried several different places before we could find one where we could both sit comfortably and get consistent wireless Internet. Eventually we found a place called Iris Bar, with large dark windows and a huge sign saying “free wifi” right next to the sign saying “opening soon.” As we were standing outside debating whether it was already open or not, a waitress opened the doors and pulled us inside promising we could sit there all day while drinking cheap beer at happy hour prices AND using their free Internet. After about an hour of trying to access the Internet with no luck, the woman grabbed a neighboring shop owner, along with some customers and random friends to try to sort out the situation. Eventually she called the Korean owner and thrust the phone in my face, demanding that I speak to him instead (because she said he scares her). He ended up coming into the bar, calling the man he just bought the shop from to get the wifi code, and after all that…we were finally able to connect…and everyone in the bar cheered! The whole ordeal was a hilarious celebration of team work.
This waitress lady was pretty flirtatious and kept cuddling up to us while we were working. After giving up on work and talking to her for a while, we decided to leave. In her broken English, she insisted that we come back in the evening. “Big women. There will be BIG women” was all she kept saying. We did end up returning - partly because we felt some weird sort of loyalty to stick to our promise, but also because we were curious to see what she meant by “Big Women.”
When we came back in the evening, the bar was a completely different place. And this time the door burst open, we were greeted by not 1 flirtatious lady…but about 30 (as it turned out, ”big women” meant “many women”). When we entered, a few of the women were dancing on the bar, but most were massaging the shoulders of the only customers in the place: two creepy, balding white dudes. And all the women were wearing skimpy black clothing and way too much makeup. Around this time, I looked out the window to see the names of the neighboring bars (such as “Cheerleaders” and “Beaver Bar”). Not sure why we didn’t pick up on this vibe during the daytime, but we got the gist this time. This should have been our cue to walk right back out, but we ended up staying and having a drink. The second we sat down, we were bombarded by “big women”, many of whom were hitting on me just as much as the boys. They probably thought I must surely be a rich lesbian and it would be much less threatening to cuddle up to me instead. And well, in the end, I did end up buying one of them a drink. After a few hours of conversations and weirdness, we said goodbye to our new group of “big women” friends and left.
Sometime between our first orphanage visit and our Iris Bar escapades, we ate at Knyay, an upscale restaurant serving vegan versions of traditional Khmer dishes. Daemond and Michael weren’t as thrilled about the more costly, meatless menu as I was…but because they’re really amazing travel companions, they happily joined me for dinner. The food was good and there were amazing photographs displayed on the walls - part of a photography project with Phnom Penh street children. The photos of daily life scenes, of cyclo drivers, fruit sellers, and trash pickers, were sobering and eye opening. All the photos and their captions were created by children - children who are not only curious, creative, and fearless when it comes to photographing strangers…but children who understand their surroundings because they live that life day in and day out. Since these child photographers have such an intimate relationship with their subjects, I felt their photographs portrayed daily life scenes from an important pespective - showing more honesty and emotion than foreign photographers probably could. Anyway, I was impressed.
Our last day in Phnom Penh, we went to the market to buy massive amounts of soap and toothpaste. But since we knew the kids wouldn’t be excited about the soap and toothpaste, we wanted to bring out own gifts as well. The boys brought a small collection of musical instruments and dance moves.
I brought a huge stack of colored paper so we could make snowflakes and other paper crafts.
Our craft and music party turned out to be a huge hit with the kids at the orphanage. And it was definitely the most memorable part of my Cambodia trip. I’d love to go back and volunteer someday!
This kid was the most inventive. He assigned Michael with the project of making him a paper dog.
Which he used to make his very own dog bracelet.
Then a crane hat.
Then a full on face mask.
Everyone else wanted bunny hats. And after I had made a few bunny hats for some of the younger kids, I got bombarded by children thrusting paper into my hands, poking my shoulder, and screaming “You me rabbit! You me rabbit!” After an hour or two of nonstop bunny hat making…I was able to please everyone. And we had a (very happy) bunny clan.
After spending all day at the orphanage, it was time for us to say goodbye. This little girl, Srey Nich, was particularly attached to me. I gave her my passport photo and she said she’d keep it in her room so she could remember me.
All the children were super sweet. And lots of them made me presents…some of which were quite elaborate and impressive.
Since I wasn’t able to stuff all their presents in my backpack, I photographed them in my hotel room.
Notes:
Here is some cultural advice about traveling in Cambodia.
If you’re able to order Cambodian curry without the fish sauce…it can be vegan and delicious….and bright yellow!
Cambodians have one official passenger train, which goes from Battambang to Phnom Penh. But there are also many unofficial bamboo trains (constructed by locals out of bamboo, motorcycle engines, and recycled tank parts). They occupy the same tracks as the regular train and are used to transport passengers and cargo to neighboring villages. Here is a great blog post about Cambodia’s train system. Here is an article about the bamboo train.
Short distance travel options in Cambodia include cyclos, motorbike taxis, and tuk tuks, tuk tuks being the most popular mode of transportation.
This tuk tuk looks especially cool.
Among the things discouraged in Cambodia (understandably) are….
electrocuting yourself
bringing guns, grenades, or syringes
For a good, but sad movie about Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime, watch The Killing Fields.
Cambodia has a wide array of delicious fruits. Check out this link and this link.
Well, after a year of prancing around the world…I finally made it back to Austin - my home sweet home!
In addition to spending quality time with my family and friends, eating breakfast tacos was high on my priority list. And during my first few days in town, I proceeded to make both these things happen as often as possible. Yes!!!
But the best welcome of all was when my wonderful friends threw me a surprise homecoming party!
They sent an e-mail invite to all my friends and family (although I obviously didn’t know about it at the time). I’m gonna post it because I think it’s super cute, so here it is:
It’s time for Homecoming 2009!!!! (America!… Football!… High school!)
When? Friday, Oct. 16th at 9:00pm
Where? Kasia’s house
Time to welcome our Homecoming Queen, Cristen, back to Austin tomorrow night… but we’re gonna make it a surprise and do it in style……meaning, let’s pretend we’re all back in high school!
Don’t worry, we’ve got some chaperones lined up, so tell your folks you’re in good hands.
Get all dolled up, pick out your dancing shoes and be sure to line up a date.
*for real, y’all… I’m going to bust out the costume box and try to get Cristen to wear something ridiculous so you should, too! Then, get over to Kasia’s house by 9:00 pm so you can be in on the surprise.
Some light refreshments and snacks will be provided courtesy of our chaperones, but maybe bring something to loosen up, if that’s what you need to get footloose.
Feel free to submit inquiries to the Homecoming Organization Committee: Agnes and Kasia
————————————————————————
So Agnes encouraged me to dress up all crazy and ride a tandem bike with her over to Kasia’s house (well, honestly it didn’t take a lot of convincing). And because we do this sort of thing on the average Friday night outing anyway, I found the whole idea to be completely normal.
So there I was - completely unsuspecting and all dressed up, riding on a tandem bike with Agnes leading the way in a ridiculous wig. Then we pulled up to Kasia’s house and…SURPRISE!
Wow, was I surprised. My friends and family are crafty…and amazing. It really is good to be back.
Everyone dressed up in formal attire (as you do at a true homecoming party).
And we even had chaperones
And a mascot
And a patriotic backdrop for homecoming photos.
And a dance floor.
After the party, we were all feeling a bit rough.
And the following morning, we were feeling even rougher. But at least we got to cuddle on the floor together (one of the other things I missed while I was away).
P.S.
I know!!
I still have to post stories and photos about the rest of my trip!!!
I’ll be getting back to that pronto. So stay tuned….
I promise I haven´t forgotten about the blog. I really haven´t. There´s just so much fun stuff to see, that I can´t justify spending hours in front of a computer when I don´t have to.
When I first started my trip in October, I thought I´d have so much free time that it would be easy to post travel updates while on the road. But now seeing that my last post is about my Thailand trip in February, that today´s date is Sept 10th, and that I will return to the USA (New York) Sept 30th….well, I´m clearly not capable of catching up at this point.
I´m 6 months and 9 countries (Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Norway, Iceland, Ireland) behind. And at this rate, I´ll just have to post all my travel stories and updated vegan travel pages once I´m back home. The good thing about this is that because I won´t be feeling rushed, everything will be that much better!
So…the moral of the story is: Please don´t go away. I´ll get everything up and running eventually. Promise.
Here are all my travel pics if you´re impacient and want to see where I´ve been recently:
After a time consuming border crossing at Vientiane/Nong Khai and a night bus, Miguel and I ended up back in Bangkok.
It was nice getting off the bus at 6am and knowing exactly where we were going to stay. We showed up at Siri Baan Thai excited to plop down into our usual room. We hadn’t made a reservation, but it was never necessary before and we just assumed that would be the case this time too. Unfortunately, we were wrong. This time it was fully booked…and would be for days. Miguel and I had been advertising this guest house so much to people we’d met while traveling, that maybe it was our own fault it was crowded now. Oh well. The owners are really sweet people, so it’s nice to know they’re making good business.
So…we tried a new place nearby. We stayed at Palin Guesthouse for two nights. It was a decent place, a good price, and the owners were cute and friendly. But we were spoiled from Siri Baan Thai and went back there to try again. No luck. Still full.
But the woman helped us out and took us to a new place that had just opened up near the same street: Phiman Waterview.
Some young guys had recently taken over the place and parts of it were still under construction. It was a nice place already though (with free wifi, community kitchen, nice outdoor lounging area, fun activities, and nice people to chat with)…so I imagine it will be really great once things are all organized.
The two guys who own the place now are art students and they were in the process of painting and decorating all the rooms. I’ll look forward to visiting again in a few years to see what they ended up doing with them.
My room was nice because it had a view of the pond and the river. But since the windows were open all the time, I had to be very proactive about my mosquito net. And there was only one plug in the room, meaning that before I bought a splitter, I had to choose between plugging in my computer and plugging in the fan. Often I’d use my computer for hours and find myself in a puddle of sweat.
Phiman Waterview has a pretty pond surrounding the guest house. A big monitor lizards lives in it and I saw him poke his head out a couple of times!
And the view of the water is great! Most of the hotels with a view this nice are expensive, so we were lucky to find this place. Although their prices may have gone up now if they’ve finished renovating…
My favorite thing about Phiman Waterview is that it’s tucked away on a sidestreet and you have to navigate through a bunch of little alleys to get to it. I could see that turning some people off (as it was a bit confusing the first few times and we got a little lost), but I loved living in a residential area rather than on a large strip of budget hotels. Miguel and I started recognizing some of the people living there and it was fun to talk to them each time we passed by. A few of them sold things from their houses so we knew exactly where to go if we needed anything – beer, water, bootleg whisky posing as energy drinks, seaweed flavored chips, puppies, etc.
Here’s one of our friends we met in the alley. One day we sat around with him while he and his relatives sang and played guitar. The next day I walked by and his friend tried to stick a bunch of newborn puppies in my purse. And another day, I discovered a tiny temple tucked in between all the houses. It’s never a dull day in the alley.
Miguel’s last day in town, the guys were having a party at their guesthouse. I wanted to pretend it was Miguel’s going away party, but Miguel and I passed out pretty early. We were tired from being in the sun all day…and kinda depressed that he was leaving….and we had to wake up around 3am to get him to the airport! We took a brief nap and set my alarm. There were still some stragglers from the party milling around when we woke up.
Once at the airport, it finally hit me that Miguel was leaving. Saying goodbye was sad! I cried.
The next few days were super lonely. I had no problem traveling alone during the beginning of my trip (I actually really did prefer it)…but since I had gotten used to having a 24-hour traveling companion for a month and a half, it felt like something was missing. Miguel was a great person to travel with, so it was sad to see him go.
Over the next few days, I revisited all my favorite Bangkok restaurants and I even tried a few new ones. One day I was eating alone at a restaurant and feeling particularly sorry for myself…when in walked a girl named Ester. We started talking and found out that we were both from Austin, both vegetarian, had both been traveling for about 6 months, and we had a bunch of other things in common! I told her I was missing Austin and must have manifested her. She said the same thing. Crazy how that happens. Ester was in Bangkok to meet up with her family and the next day, I got to join them all for dinner at my favorite veg place (no picture unforunately). Sweet people. They invited me to join them on a trip to the beach, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time. Ester lives in New York now and I hope to meet up with her at the end of my trip. During her travels, she spent a lot of her time starting a weaving coop in Guatemala. I’m hoping to teach her to crochet in exchange for weaving lessons.
I also made friends with Ben, a Welsh guy who was staying at our hotel.
So really whenever I’m traveling alone, I’m never alone all that often…
And whenever I get sick of being a tourist (which happens often), I’m never at a loss for projects.
For my project, I taught the maid at our hotel how to crochet with plastic bags. She loved the idea!
And so did the hotel owners. One of the guys took me to the craft store to buy a bunch of cheap crochet hooks. And we rounded up all the kids from the slums nearby to organize a workshop. Most of these kids just hung around in the alleys looking bored all day, so they were excited to have something new and interesting to do with their time. And since the maid spoke Thai and had already learned to crochet earlier that day, she was a huge help in teaching them.
I’d really love to stay in one place longer and teach more classes like this. Once people realize they can make things with plastic bags rather than thowing them in the river or the streets…the world will be a much prettier place. And it was encouraging to see how receptive the kids were to the idea. The next day, I saw some of the same girls in the alley. They said “Hey you!” and smiled huge smiles while pulling their crochet hooks out of their back pockets to show me. So cute!
My last night in Bangkok, one of the hotel owners took me out to celebrate. Since I had a flight to Cambodia at 5am, the plan was to stay up all night.
We went to Khao San Road, a place I’m not a huge fan of…but it was a nice change from the norm. I got to see all the farang, dreadlocks, and street performers out in full force!
Afterwards, we went to a ladyboy bar. We all sat outside talking for a while, but then one of them dragged me inside saying “Hurry up. The show is starting!” I must have had a weird look on my face because he laughed and said “Oh. Don’t worry - it’s PG”.
And it was. It was a massive cabaret/comedy show with a bunch of elaborately dressed male/females singing and dancing on the stage. A pretty entertaining sight. I loved it! Apparently some of the ladyboys were making fun of people in the audience, but I didn’t understand any of the jokes since they were all in Thai. I’m assuming my friends would have mentioned it if they had made fun of me. Not sure though.
After the show, we relocated to a bar on Khao San Road. And I proceeded to merge into the crowd - a pulsating mess of dancing, bucket drinking, glow stick waving drunk people.
I generally tend to avoid places like this….but it was a lot of fun. And I made a bunch of new Thai friends.
We stayed at the bar until the early morning when everyone got kicked out. Some of the people at the bar didn’t quite make it all the way back home.
But I still had lots of energy! I had been going to sleep pretty early and didn’t actually think I’d last all night long…so I was impressed with myself for really doing it. Back at the hotel, I said goodbye to everyone I had met, gathered up my belongs, and took a taxi to the airport. Cambodia was my next destination. And it’s a shame I had to fly to Phnom Penh rather than driving this luxurious car.
Notes
Sometimes the cats leave interesting presents for you on your doorstep. Ew.
Here is a bike made of Chang beer cans. “Chang” means Elephant, by the way.
From Vang Vieng, Miguel and I took a VIP bus to Vientiane. We managed to lose our bus tickets twice before boarding the bus (as is our style), but it all worked out in the end. Arriving in Vientiane, you would never think it to be the capital of a country. To me it felt much more like a sleepy, medium sized town.
The hotels were kinda expensive considering how crappy and characterless they were. And after wandering around for a while, we decided that all the options in the city center were basically the same and we just settled on one. It was hot and we weren’t too excited about carrying our backpacks around any longer.
To be honest, Miguel and I didn’t do a whole lot in Vientiane worth writing about. I remember spending a lot of time sitting inside our hotel room or in the shade somewhere near the river reading, sleeping, or just laying around and sweating. To our credit, this is what most of the locals seemed to be doing as well…so we fit in perfectly. I think the laziness of Laos was starting to rub off on us at this point.
We didn’t see any of the sights except for this small temple near our hotel.
And I’m not sure what my deal was in this city, but looking back…I was really lame at taking photos.
We did see a cute dog that seemed to be from Fraggle Rock. And I took his picture.
We saw a crazy tree.
We saw some more “no trumpet” signs.
But a lot of our time was spent lazing around by the Mekong and doing nothing.
And playing with waterbugs.
One day, Miguel let a bunch of little kids borrow his skateboard.
Out of the group, each had their own learning style and it was fun to watch them play with the board and figure it out.
I thought it was cool that this tiny kid had a Rancid shirt on.
This kid was the bravest. He kept falling down over and over and over. After falling so many times, he took his shoes off and I thought that meant he was finally finished. But, nope….he had a different plan - elbow pads!
A few days we managed to met up with Renae, a girl I met in Perth, Australia. She’s an ecologist and works for biodiversity conservation in Laos. That was fun. We went to a few bars with her and her friends, and we ate dinner at a restaurant called Mak Phet, which is run by former street kids and is one of many projects of Friends-International - a nonprofit aimed at providing vocational training to children living (or at risk of living) on the streets.
Miguel and I also checked out a few bars on our own.
The first place we tried was Galaxy Bar. The beer was overpriced, the music was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself talk, and even though it was packed full of trendy local youths…nobody was dancing. Everyone just seemed to be standing around and staring at each other while these little sparkley lights whizzed around all over everyone’s faces (making it difficult to take people seriously). We had one beer, then left. It seemed to be an upscale bar and we didn’t seem to quite fit the dress code, but the guards in the front let us in anyway. Sometimes you get away with these things when you’re a tourist - especially if there’s a language barrier and the people are afraid to talk to you.
The second place we tried was Wind West. It was a wild west themed bar, but yes - it really was called “Wind West.” There was a big birthday party at the bar while we were there, but nothing too interesting going on. The music stopped pretty soon after we arrived.
We also spent some time wandering around the various markets. There were quite a few markets that all merged together, making it difficult to tell which one we were at.
And even though the government puts up these signs…
They don’t do much good.
One day at the market, I saw a man with a little cart full of animals and creative things he had carved from assorted trash and pieces of Styrofoam. I was impressed. He could sit around and beg for money - or he could make a little bit of money from free stuff laying around. I wanted to take his photo and buy something from him…but figured I’d come back. Of course when I did, he was gone. Sad.
And now on to the food….Miguel and I dedicated a large chunk of time one day trying to find this vegan food stall, but we never managed to. If anyone has luck, let me know and give me directions please!
Aside from the odd vegetarian restaurants we managed to find, I didn’t think the average Lao restaurant food was all that wonderful….but it could have just been our luck. I’m sure home cooked Lao food is great, but there was definitely no love at the restaurants on the main strip alongside the river. The first place we walked into, the woman scowled at us and looked so annoyed that we were interrupting her soap opera…so we knew we’d get horrible service and just walked right back out. The second restaurant we tried wasn’t any better. Our curry came back full of tiny red ants. When we tried to explain this to the girls inside, they kept insisting that it was chili and not ants. But we were sitting outside in the sun and could tell clearly that it was NOT chili. When I went in to complain and saw how dark their kitchen was, it made perfect sense why they couldn’t see the ants. After much pushing, they eventually made us new food…but I was still too weirded out to eat it. If they couldn’t tell the difference between ants and chili, who knows what else was going into our meal. And after we had complained so much, I was worried maybe they would spit in our food. The funny thing is, ants are considered to be a delicacy in Laos (ant eggs especially)…so the girl was probably wondering what the big deal was. ew! This was our last meal in Laos and it made me excited that we’d soon be back in Thailand - the home of wonderful, spicy, vegetarian curries. On the topic of food in Laos, here’s a book that seems interesting.
Anyway…one of our last days in Laos, we rented bicycles. But there were a lot of one way streets and the heat combined with the traffic (although the traffic was definitely more chill than many places) didn’t make it the most relaxing bike ride. While riding, we happened across a waterpark…and that is where we stayed. It was a very surreal experience.
When we got to Nong Chanh Waterpark, the place looked deserted and we were convinced it was closed. But some man showed us where to park our bikes and assured us that it was open. When we walked in, we seemed to be the only ones there….even though there were plenty of workers all over the place. A bunch of employees were drinking tea in the bathroom and there was an excessive amount of lifeguards considering they hadn’t been guarding anyone until we arrived. A few other tourists showed up later (considering the entrance fee is pretty pricey for the average Laos resident, it’s not surprising that the park is mainly visited by tourists trying to escape the brutal heat).
The park consisted of a few curly slides, a few wavy slides, and a few straight slides…as well as some shallow swimming pools that seemed to be designed for children (although there weren’t any children).
And there were lots of rules and procedures to follow.
After a lot of confusion as to which colored mats were used for which slides, Miguel and I marched up the stairs to give them a try. One lifeguard seemed really annoyed that he had to accompany us up to the top each time we wanted to go down a slide. And we had a large audience of bored looking lifeguards staring at us each time we went down one. The whole process was awkward…but kinda hilarious!
Miguel almost fell out of the curly slide and decided he had had enough.
I went down a straight slide, but it was a bit too straight….ending abruptly onto a flat surface. It knocked all the wind out of me and I got a scrape on my leg somehow. I decided I had had enough.
We spent the rest of the time floating in the shallow pools at the end of the park. Noone was watching us there and it was definitely safer.
Later Miguel and I ate at a restaurant and told the owner about our adventures at the water park. He said something like “You went there? It has only been open for a year and so many people have ended up in the hospital! Nobody goes there anymore except for tourists because they don’t know any better.” When we told my friend, Renae, she said basically the same thing. No wonder there were no kids in sight!
So since Miguel almost fell out (but didn’t) and I got only a minor war wound….we’ll consider ourselves lucky.
Notes:
Here are some nice stickers and stencils I found.
Like the rest of southeast Asia, tuk tuks are everywhere in Laos. But the funny think about Laos is that the tuk tuks don’t really seem to want to work. During the heat of the day, you can find all the tuk tuks parked on street corners with the drivers comfortably lounging in hammocks strung up inside the back. Occasionally you’ll walk by and one will glance up and mumble “tuk tuk” very unconvincingly …then go right back to napping once you pass. Maybe that’s why there is a “no tuk tuk” sign on this street corner. They don’t really want your business. They’d rather sleep.
This is what the little toilet elves in Laos look like.
I may be wrong….but I don’t think she looks like that.
Ummm…that’s nice dear.
And to end on a happy note…Lao is the most heavily bombed country in the world, per capita. The US has dropped more bombs on Laos than Germany and Japan during WWII combined. Here is a really insightful blog post explaining some of Lao’s horrible history: Saddest in the Happiest Country.
Posted on August 4th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Laos | No Comments »
From Luang Prabang, Miguel and I took a minivan to Vang Vieng. Of course it left about an hour later than promised and made a few extra stops to squish as many more people in as possible. After polling all the other tourists in the van, it turns out we all paid different prices for the same journey. And we all sat in the hot car while our driver smoked cigarettes and waited to see if one more person would show up to fill the tiny bit of empty space. No one ended up coming and I felt like he was mainly waiting around just to annoy us. Eventually he got into the driver’s seat and left. That’s how transportation works in Laos. No schedule.
I was still feeling a little queasy and a long, hot bus journey sandwiched in between a bunch of other people was not helping. And it didn’t help that the obnoxious English girls in the seat behind us talked nonstop about stupid things the entire time. Luckily I managed not to puke and finally we made it to Vang Vieng. The bus dropped us off 3 kilometers outside of town (according to the driver) and the tuk tuks were charging a ridiculous amount to drive us the rest of the way. Everyone else piled into the tuk tuks anyway, but Miguel and I walked just to protest the whole thing. The town turned out to be a lot closer than they said it was. I was still not feeling 100%, so as soon as we arrived and found a hotel room, I went to sleep almost immediately.
Vang Vieng is a tiny town that consists of a bus stop and a few streets. With a beautiful, winding river and massive limestone karsts surrounding the city, there is no doubt it is a pretty place.
But like many tourist hubs, it’s charm has been squashed by the massive influx of teenagers invading the town each month to sleep in cheap hotels, watch nonstop Friends episodes, go on all day/night drinking and smoking binges, and march around as if they own the place. Many of these tourists are very insensitive to the Laotian culture and don’t seem to care that the locals used to (and are still trying to) live a calm and peaceful existence here. And despite all the signs posted around town asking the tourists to please be respectful and wear conservative clothing (specifically no swimsuits for girls), you see a lot of skimpy bikinis out on the water. I even saw some drunk girls parading around the street wearing their bikinis with stupid phrases written on their stomachs and chests in magic marker. My Lonely Planet guide describes Vang Vieng as “having lost its innocence.” Travelfish’s review of Vang Vieng also sums up this place pretty well.
Anyway, after scoping out the town, Miguel and I knew we’d only want to spend 1 day here. Since I went to bed so early the night before, we woke up pretty early. And after eating some quality food from the Organic Farm Cafe, I felt much better and ready to start the day. Profits from the Organic Farm Cafe / Guest House are used to provide support and education for the local villagers. Check out the Organic Farm’s web site to learn more about their projects: Laofarm.org.
Their menu had many tasty looking things on it, but a vegetable sandwich was about all my stomach could handle.
Vang Vieng is most known for tubing. We love tubing in Texas and with the weather in Laos being so hot, we were craving some time in the water. So we decided to join the masses and do the tubing thing.
But since Miguel and I woke up early and we couldn’t get a ride to the river until there were enough people to fill up a tuk tuk, we had to wait a while. While we waited, Miguel spotted some locals bashing up a concrete foundation with sledgehammers. And after a friendly nod from the guy who seemed to be the ringleader, Miguel joined them - and spent at least a good half hour pounding rocks with a bunch of tiny (but TOUGH) Laos women wearing long skirts. They amazed me. I sat to chat (well, gesture) with the women who were taking a break from the work. I shared my water with them and they were all smiles - seeming to really love the fact that Miguel was so excited to help and I was so excited to sit with them and watch. I would have loved a photo of this, but didn’t want to make anyone feel like a spectacle. We were just happy to connect with these people - even if just for a brief minute.
Eventually we said goodbye, joined a tuk tuk full of people to the river, and headed for the main event: Tubing.
Here is a note on tubing in Vang Vieng. Tubing is obviously always fun….but this type of tubing is not for everyone. This forum can help you decide if tubing in Vang Vieng is for you or not. Here’s a summary of what to expect: Rent a tube from the rental place (there is only one place), pile into a tuktuk with your tube and get dropped off a few kilometers upstream, and hop into the Nam Song River. Don’t expect there to be much swimming or floating involved - as every few meters you’ll be literally fished out of the water with a long rope or pole and reeled onto a wooden platform bar - often with loud music pumping, a frighteningly high swing or trapeze over the water, and cheap beer, shots, or buckets (sometimes served by an 12 year old Lao kid in his underwear). If you watch this video, you get the picture.
In short: If you fancy drinking as much as possible for as cheaply as possible, hanging out with a bunch of half naked foreigners, and using zip lines to hurl your drunk body into the water over and over, this is exactly the thing for you. If your goal is to float quietly down a river while observing serene scenes of daily life in Laos, you should probably give Vang Vieng a miss (well the end of the river trip is quite peaceful actually, as there are bars during this last section and many of the drunk people don’t even make it this far). Well…after spending a full day drinking, smoking, and throwing yourself into the river…can you blame them?
The tube rental guys are obviously happy to exploit this tourist attraction to its full. The tube rental price is already quite high, and if you don’t return your tube by the specified time, you don’t get your deposit back. And many people don’t make it back in time.
I honestly would have preferred a more low key tubing experience - like those little kids we saw tubing down the Mekong in Luang Prabang. But we still had a good time. Since I was still kinda ill, I drank more water than I did beer and I didn’t go on any of the rope swings or zip lines. Miguel did go down a really big water slide though. It’s really too bad I didn’t take any pictures of that, but I didn’t have my waterproof camera case and I didn’t want to ruin my camera.
Here’s a tubing photo I stole from someone’s blog:
Now…If the massive, makeshift bars over the river aren’t enough to to make you forget you’re in the middle of a small farming village in Laos, the “Friends” bars certainly will. Almost every bar or restaurant in town seems to be catering to backpackers wanting to bum around on sofa cushions and watch reruns of Friends episodes - often several simultaneously…and often very loudly. This is a very strange phenomenon and a true indication of tourism at its worst. Maybe some people consider this to be a paradise, but I thought it to be more like a bad dream!
And if you still have energy after your day of tubing or “Friends” watching, there are plenty of bars to choose from. Pretty much every building in town is either a hotel, bar or restaurant.
And if you’re sick of drinking and want to move on to something new, many of the bars advertise “happy shakes” or “happy pizza” (happy being a synonym for “made with weed”). I’m not sure what “Fried spacy with rice” is, but maybe it’s along the same lines…
Instead of chowing down on “happy” food, Miguel and I found our own truly happy place - a Vegetarian Buffet (I really have a knack for finding those).
This guy makes delicious vegetarian dishes every evening. Everything was cooked with love…and this was the first real meal I managed to eat after days and days of being sick (a credit to his cooking).
The next morning, I went to get desperately needed money out of the ATM. But…oh no….the bank was down! There was one travel agent in town who provided cash advances with credit cards, so I managed to get out enough money for Miguel and I to get on a bus to the next place. The guy at the travel agency told me it was a good thing I got there early, because he wasn’t going to have enough money for all the people who would most likely be showing up soon with similar problems. As we were leaving for the bus, we saw a long line of frustrated looking people outside the travel agents and Western Union office….and I was really glad I had woken up early and gotten the minor money crisis taken care of. I really didn’t want to have to stay in Vang Vieng another day.
Notes:
Here is another Rambo sighting.
It’s possible to kayak from Vang Vieng to Vientiane. I’m not sure about all the details, but it sounds like a fun alternative to tubing. If we had the time and energy, I definitely would have been interested in doing that.
Here is a link about Warnings and Dangers in Laos. One of the posts mentions the happy shakes.
Posted on July 19th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Laos | No Comments »
From Luang Namtha, Miguel and I took the bus to Udomxai. I was glad we decided to ride our bikes to the bus station the day before and buy bus tickets, because the bus was full! But of course that didn’t stop them from squeezing more people on anyway. They just brought a bunch of plastic chairs and stuck them in the aisles. And a crazy man with a giant bouquet of colorful balloons of various shapes (birds, hearts, airplanes, swords, clowns) made his way onto the bus too. He stuck his giant mound of balloons right in the aisle so every time anyone had to move around or get off the bus, they had to maneuver around them. And of course the bus stopped many times so everyone could pee. As soon as the bus stopped, all the men went in one direction and I had a cute little female bonding moment with some of the Laos women as we all marched off in the opposite direction and shielded each other while we took turns peeing in a patch of bushes. Everytime the bus stopped, the crazy man with the balloons seemed to use the opportunity to take his pants off and walk around in his underwear. Not sure what that was all about.
The bus was going all the way to Luang Prabang, but Miguel and I had the idea that we wanted to stop in Udomxai to check it out. We hopped off the bus just before the town center (on accident) but it ended up working out best, as Udomxai has a really great tourist info center that we would have missed had we gotten off the bus in town. And…we had an interesting greeting squad when we got off the bus:
Anyway, in my opinion, the tourist info center is the best thing about the town. They have a nice library with books about social and environmental topics pertaining to Laos and Southeast Asia, informative displays about local handicrafts, and they have pamphlets with a list of things to do in Udomxai. And the smiley people at the counter give you a free map (more than I can say for most places) and let you use their bathroom. It’s clear that they’re really trying hard to turn Udomxai into a tourist destination. We decided not to stay in Udomxai though. The motorbike rental options looked gloomy and the town itself didn’t really motivate us to stick around long.
After eating at a restaurant serving lukewarm food cooked without love (which I think was the cause of my food poisoning), Miguel and I walked to the bus station to look into our options of going straight to Luang Prabang. We had just gotten off a bus headed in that direction, so we had to find another one. Luckily we found a minivan leaving in a few hours, so we sat around at the bus station and waited. Miguel entertained little kids with his skateboard while I wandered around searching for a book (only to get more strange stares from people when I tried to explain what I wanted). I returned empty handed.
The drive to Luang Prabang was long, but I wouldn’t have been able to read anyway…as the ride was super bumpy and curvy and I felt a bit carsick even without a book. Our bus was already quite packed (with people as well as bags of rice and other produce). But of course the driver kept stopping to pick people up. And just as I was thinking we were packed full and couldn’t possibly fit another person, someone just wanting a quick ride to a neighboring village would hop on and manage to squeeze in somehow. We’d all shift around to make room for the extra people. Some people would scoot over and share their seats, others would lose their seats all together. As uncomfortable and long as the trip was (not to mention dusty and hot), it made me realize why I love traveling the way the locals do. Not only do you get a peek into how these people live, but there’s a sense of camaraderie when you’re on a long journey like this. It doesn’t matter if you’re a farmer or a mother or a monk or a tourist. You’re all in it together.
After about 6 hours of long, curvy roads alongside tiny villages, our minibus stopped in Luang Prabang. Well actually it stopped just outside (so we’d have to pay an extra little bit of money to a tuk tuk to get into town). It was already dark and we didn’t feel like bargaining, so we just paid the price the guy was asking even though we knew it was a bit too much. At the last minute, some random guys jumped on and piled mounds and mounds of rice bags into the back. And even though we had paid the full fare ourselves, the tuk tuk went out of the way to drop these guys off at their house first. That’s how things go in Laos. No sense in being frustrated, because you can’t do much about it. Just expect everything to take 3 times longer than it should.
Anyway, what can I say about Luang Prabang? Most people arrive via slow boat. Traveling to Luang Prabang by slow boat seems to be almost a rite of passage among travelers to Laos. Here’s a forum about the Xuay Xai - Pakbeng - Luang Prabang slow boat. But Miguel and I didn’t want to take the slow boat. It sounded….slow.
We opted for the slow bus instead.
Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage site. With its French architecture, cobblestone streets, art galleries, used bookstores, and nice but overpriced restaurants, it feels a little bit like a European town with an Asian flare. It does have a serene feel to it. Monks meander around the temples and along the Mekong river, tiny Laos women stroll around town perched on top of bicycles while holding umbrellas, and small street stalls sell coffee or fresh juice or vegetable sandwiches for people to take away and eat while wandering around the river.
Luang Prabang is a nice town, but all the tourists certainly do take away from its atmosphere. Large groups of young, inappropriately dressed tourists wander around the streets. They snap photos of the monks without asking, they pack into tuk tuks to tour the nearby waterfalls, and at night they pile into the bars to have obnoxious sessions of cheap beer drinking. And because Luang Prabang is such a big tourist destination, hotels and guesthouses are not cheap compared to other towns in Laos. And there are so many hotels now that it’s tough to picture what Luang Prabang was probably like 20 or 30 years ago.
Anyway, I apologize in advance for my lack of photos and my post’s failure to capture the essence of Lang Prabang. I know there are great things about the city. Luang Prabang has many famous sites and it is often the only Laos city people visit on their trips to Southeast Asia. And while Luang Prabang is popular for a reason, Miguel and I didn’t really see any of the temples or other sites unfortunately. There are several reasons for this.
For one, it was miserably hot and dry and walking around for even just one hour made us feel like our brains were boiling.
For two, the air was terrible! It made my eyeballs red and irritated and I was afraid to breath too deeply. Apparently we were there during the worst time. While this photo looks pretty…this is not mist - it’s smog from slash-and-burn farming. Here’s a health warning about this problem in Laos. Apparently the dry season (February to March) is the worst time to travel to there. And we were there in February.
Aside from making my eyeballs hurt, I had a bad cough and my lungs sometimes felt like they were burning. It didn’t make me want to be outside.
For three, I was terribly terribly ill most of the time I was in Luang Prabang. I had just been bragging about my stomach of steel and how I never get sick from the food or water. And of course….the very next day….food poisoning! I spent an entire day in my hotel puking. Miguel stayed with me most of the day, then would wander outside for a bit and return to check on me periodically. He tried to make me feel better, but there wasn’t much he could do. Still it was really nice not to be alone. Every now and then I’d try to leave the hotel and eat something, but I’d always end up running back to the room. My stomach was queasy for the next few days….and it didn’t help that every time I went outside, my lungs would fill up with smog. I never thought I was a big fan of papaya, but it was the only thing I was able to keep down. Now I think papaya is great.
When I wasn’t holed up in our hotel room puking, we did manage to see a little bit of Luang Prabang. We walked around the night market, where people from various tribes come to sell their handicrafts. You have to bargain of course, but I thought the prices were very reasonable and I bought a few things from them. Another night, we went bowling. Good times.
During the days, Miguel and I tried to keep cool by swimming. And we had a fun time looking for ways to gain access to the water.
We tried several ways. One involved walking on a bridge, another involved tromping through someone’s garden, another involved sliding down mountains of trash. None of these worked out well.
Eventually we found a way through this person’s backyard (thanks to the little kids who saw us on the bridge and directed us).
The current was really strong. We saw a few kids with inner tubes and wished we had our own, but who knows how far down the Mekong we would have ended up. If we’re ever back in Luang Prabang though, we’ll buy some tubes and go tubing.
The monks also went for a swim. But they didn’t go tubing. Maybe next time we can get them to join us.
The buffalo also liked the water.
And, if a vegetarian person comes to Luang Prabang, where should they eat dinner? Here! It’s a veggie buffet right inside the night market. I never would have expected that, but there it is. It’s not the most amazing food you’ll ever have, but there are many different things to choose from and it’s perfect for the price. 5000 kip for a plate (about 50 cents) and you can buy rice paper rolls for an extra 1000kip each (which we did). It’s a small street stall with a few big communal picnic table attached.
Notes:
Sorry to say, but the tourist brochures that talk about the pristine, tree lined banks of the Mekong River….well, they never mention the piles of trash that are also there.
Alms giving is an ancient tradition in Luang Prabang and unfortunately there are many disrespectful tourists who go simply to take a few photos rather than to understand and appreciate Buddhism and the Laotian culture. Here is a Lonely Planet forum about this topic (and tourism in Luang Prabang in general).
Miguel’s new look. Doesn’t he look like a scary cop?
Olive oil crossing!
This cat seems to be wearing lipstick.
Posted on July 18th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Laos | 1 Comment »
From Huay Xai, Miguel and I took a minibus ride north to Luang Nam Tha (Luang Namtha), which is very near China and Myanmar. Here’s a map of Laos. Normally buses don’t leave until they have been completely packed full of people. But since ours only had a handful of tourists in it, we had to wait for a long time. Eventually the driver decided he didn’t want to drive us afterall (I guess it wasn’t worth the money to him), so he transfered us and all our stuff to a different minivan with a different driver who seemed happy enough to take us even though our minivan wasn’t crammed full.
I had read in some guide somewhere that the buses in Laos are really really slow and stop every few minutes so people can pee. I didn’t really expect that to be the case, as most long bus rides I’ve been on in other countries were the opposite (the drivers never seemed to stop - especially when I had to pee). But…this explanation of Laos turned out to be exactly correct, which I found to be kinda funny. We did stop a ridiculous amount of times in a few hours.
The road to Luang Namtha was long and winding, weaving through beautiful forested hills and country roads lined with tiny wooden shacks. Occasionally our driver would have to maneuver around naked babies, assorted farm animals, crazy looking tractors, and women walking up giant hills with baskets strapped to their foreheads. The minibus dropped us off about 6km out of town and we had to get a ride in a tuk tuk the rest of the way. We learned later that this is a typical theme in Laos.
When we arrived in Luang Namtha, it really did have “a remote, cowboy town feel to it.”
I can’t remember where we stayed, but I’m pretty sure it was this place. I do remember that it cost about $4, that the owners only spoke Chinese, and that the water in the shower was either scorch-your-skin-off-hot or icy cold. Each floor had a shared living room and balcony and you could hear the sounds of roosters and chickens in the morning, adding to the country town feel. Not bad for the price and it seemed to be cheaper than all the other places around.
Luang Namtha is a good place for organizing trekking excursions into the nearby forests (like the Nam Ha Protected Area). Rafting and kayaking are also popular activities. Unfortunately Laos isn’t the type of place where you can just wander off and do your own thing so easily. Laos only recently opened up to tourism and they don’t seem to be too thrilled about independent travelers who want to get off the standard tourist route. While this is kinda annoying, I don’t really blame them for being wary of allowing foreigners to inundate their country and wander around aimlessly. For this reason (well, and the fact that there are still landmines scattered around the country), you can’t explore the forest without an organized tour. But if you want to go into the forest, the ecotourism industry is certainly not a bad thing to support. Tourist dollars spent on wildlife tours and forest permits can hopefully help show the Laos authorities that the forests will bring more money into the country if left alive rather than cut down. Deforestation is a big problem in Laos, as well as Vietnam and Cambodia. Here is an article about deforestation in these countries.
Anyway, while I’m sure a multi day forest trek would have been fun, Miguel and I just decided to rent bicycles and explore the town that way. We didn’t need a guide for that….and it seemed more relaxing. Luang Namtha proved to be a great place to rent and ride bicycles. For one thing, it’s nice and flat.
We rode to the Boat Landing Guesthouse, where we had one of our first introductions to Laos food. Laos is not famous for its vegetarian cuisine, but luckily this place prepared veggie versions of standard Laos dishes. It was obviously more expensive since it catered to the tastes of foreigners, but the food was really good and I was glad to get to try some standard Laos dishes - vegetarian style. The Boat Landing also has great info on their web site and on display at their restaurant. And even if you don’t want to eat anything, it’s worth making a stop just to read all the helpful info they have about the area (which is much better than the info provided at the tourist information center). Not only do they have useful info sheets and photos about the flora and fauna in the area, but they aim to spread awareness - both to the Laos people as well as the tourists - about supporting environmentally friendly projects. You can read their environmental policy on their web site.
And as I said, The Boat Landing’s food was great. Here is a page on their site about Laos food.
A Laos meal is not complete without sticky rice. To eat it, you grab a little bit of rice and roll it in your palm to make a ball. Then you can dip it in chili paste or mix it with other stuff and pop it into your mouth. It’s traditionally steamed in a bamboo steamer.
I loved the sticky rice. When I couldn’t finish all of it, I’d make little balls and wrap it in my bandana for later.
Another standard component of Laos food is jeow, which is like a roasted chili paste. So delicious! There are many different types of jeow, each with its own set of flavors (some spicy, some sweet, some sour). Fish sauce is a common ingredient in some of them, but not all of them. You just have to ask.
This was a roasted peanut jeow
And here’s a green pepper jeow (which kinda tasted like salsa)
The Boat Landing had so many different things we wanted to try, that we ended up ordering way too much food one day.
Afterwards we were miserable (but in a satisfied kind of way). And I was burping fennel for the next two days.
While riding bikes one day, we passed an old temple and decided to stop by and take a peek. I thought it was more interesting than many of the temples I’ve seen. Definitely a nice contrast to all the glittery, shimmery temples in Thailand.
My favorite part was all the morbid drawings on the walls. People being decapitated, thrown into boiling pits, being speared to death or pecked by birds. I’m not sure what all that is about….but I loved the drawings.
We also rode our bikes to the Ban Nam Dee waterfall, just a few kilometers out of town and accessible by a dusty, bumpy path. The waterfall itself was disappointing.
But the bike ride to the fall was definitely worth it, as we got to see the Laos countryside up close.
After riding for a while, we stopped to swim with a bunch of kids in the stream. The kids were thrilled about this, but their parents all came out of their houses to stare down at us with skeptical eyes….so I didn’t take any photos of the children. Wasn’t sure the parents would approve.
These people were making massive amounts of bricks.
There are many different hill tribes in Laos, such as the Hmong, Lahu, Akha, Yao, and Black Thai. I’m not sure what tribe they were from but some of the women in the town were chasing us around trying to sell us opium. When we wouldn’t buy that, they tried to sell us their trinkets. One woman was persistent and seemed to really want me to buy a tiny woven hat for a child. When I told her that I didn’t have a baby so didn’t need the hat, she pointed to Miguel and made crude gestures showing that we should go make a baby and then come back and buy her hat. Funny.
These women from the Yao hill tribe were making paper out of bamboo. It is one of the many handicrafts made by the ethnic minorities of Laos. They paint a thin layer of bamboo pulp onto mats and peel it off once it has dried in the sun. Miguel bought some.
Notes:
Laos is the home of lots of sad animal stuff. In one day, I saw a cock fighting match, a live baby pig tied up and blindfolded and ready to sling onto the back of a motorbike, a monkey tied to a pole on top of a latrine in the back of someone’s house, and the owners of my hotel ripping feathers out of ducks to prepare them for dinner. In my opinion the ducks got the best deal. At least they were dead already.
Too bad we didn’t read this sign before the wedding in Huay Xai.
People don’t like trumpets in Laos either. It’s a conspiracy!
The only snake I saw in Laos was a dead one.
Looks like Rambo has a restaurant in Laos! Also…Beerlao seems to have a monopoly here. Its the country’s only national beer and and all the restaurant signs use these same Beerlao advertisements.
So this is how they dry rice noodles!
In honor of Kasia, here is a picture of me eating a strange bean!
It can be difficult to find English books in certain cities in Laos. I wandered all over Luang Namtha trying to find a small book store or a hotel with a book exchange. Most of the hotel owners looked at me with blank faces as if they had no clue what a book was and didn’t understand why I would want one. I ended up finding one hotel that had a few English books lying around. I honestly don’t think the owner even knew they were there or would have cared or noticed if I had swapped my book for one of them (he didn’t speak much English anyway), but once I took an interest in his book….he decided he should use this opportunity to make some money. After inspecting my book and seeing that the the publishing date was older and the initial retail price was about $6 less than the book I was swapping for, he decided my book was not worthy of an exchange unless I paid the difference. I was trying to explain to him that this isn’t a fair assessment of a book’s value, but he didn’t get it. And my book, Girl in the Picture, about a famous Vietnam War survivor, would have been much more interesting to Southeast Asia travelers than the book I was trading it for. Anyway, I was annoyed and didn’t end up getting his book. I ended up bookless for the next week.
Speaking of books, Big Brother Mouse is a publishing project aiming to inspire the children of Laos to read. Reading is not a popular activity in Laos and children’s books are not commonly available in the Laos language. This non profit company aims to change all that. I think it’s a very cool project.
Here are some of the lovely things we found under our mattress.
Yummy! So that’s what they use all those buffalo for…
Here is a page about the Lao language. I think the characters are very pretty.
Posted on July 11th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Laos | Comments Off
