Tony and Petra's Travels: April 2013

Before this great country leaves our fresh memory, we better update our adventures in Laos, the most bombed country in our planet (thanks to the USA, no surprise there). Initially our itinerary did not leave room for a visit to Laos, but since we had decided to extend our stay by nearly another month, we decided to go for it. The things you hear about Laos on the road really make it a no-brainer; gorgeous country, cheap, and above all, the most amazing people in the whole of Southeast Asia. Although some argue it is the Burmese, who knows.

Either way, we entered Laos through its Southern border-crossing point, to which we got to from Siem Reap. This journey is in means recommended to anyone. It sucked. Not only did the bus take a ridiculous detour (we might as well have travelled to Phnom Penh again), but the experience itself was hands down the worst out of the 20 long bus journeys we have taken up to today. The first bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, which means 2 hours of sitting around in the heat (do note this happens ALL THE TIME in Asia) and the second bus is overbooked, which means we sit on the bus floor for 7 hours while people around us sleep tightly in their comfy beds. But we hold no grudge, shit happens. We finally made it to 4000 islands, which is probably the most popular traveller destination in Southern Laos, just a few km from the Cambodian border.

Out of few options that the 4000 (I know, the figure can be misleading) island offered we ended up staying in Don Det. This place had a bit of a Koh Rong (the amazing island in Cambodia we loved) feel to it. Its services are pretty basic, no 5-star resorts or fine dine restaurants, just cheap guesthouses and good simple restaurants and a few bars. Also, the lack of authority enables the islanders offer the needy a wide range of ‘happy products’ they openly advertise on their menus. Overall, this place is very chilled. Its also probably one of the very few places you can safely enjoy the refreshing Mekong, I sure as hell wouldn’t jump in it in China.

So we ended up doing largely just that. Floating on tubes in the river and relaxing. We also did a full day kayak trip along it, which was great fun, although very exhausting. We kayaked to 2 different waterfalls (one of them being the largest in Southeast Asia), had lunch in a local village, and even witnessed a few Irrawaddy dolphins. Hence, totally recommend doing this if you happen to be in the neighbourhood!

The biggest waterfall in Southeast Asia

Another cool waterfall, one we actually got to swim in.

Our favorite Spanish people

Vietnamese farmer on his lunch break

Chilling by the Mekong

After some hippie life on the island, we headed to Vientiane (Lao capital) for a pit stop. Again on this overnight bus journey, the bus broke down just 30km away from the destination, so we ended up hitchhiking a ride to the city. I am not going to tell much about Vientiane, simply because there is not much to tell. Do not plan to stay here for more than 2 nights, its pretty boring. Although we did have a very unique experience, getting a Lao style massage in a wooden shack nearby a Buddhist temple. It only cost us $5, and included a homemade herbal sauna and complimentary bone cracking (ouch!). That’s about all I would recommend you do in this confusing capital.

Lao street food in Vientiane

Since our time in Laos was limited, we decided to make Luang Prabang our last stop before exiting to Thailand. This is the place most people visit in Laos, and definitely for a reason! The town is adorable and it is also the Buddhist/cultural capital of Laos with tons of temples and cute monks everywhere. The only unfortunate incident happening was me getting a stomach bug, might have been due to Malarone…Don’t take it peeps! In conclusion, Laos is definitely worth visiting! Next time we’ll make sure we have more time to see it though.

$1 night buffet in Luang Prabang

The best way to get around in Luang Prabang as the roads are fairly safe. We took a day trip to a famous waterfall outside the city.

Cold lagoon at the bottom of the waterfall

Waterfall

Hike to the top of the waterfall

More of the same waterfall

Tony and a temple

Big Buddha on a nap

After Koh Rong we caught a ridiculously long bus to Siem Reap. Due to lack of roads we pretty ended up going through Phnom Penh, which made it into a serious detour. Anyway, we did get to Siem Reap to be greeted by our Canadian friends, as they were a few days ahead of us in their travels.

The next morning we arranged us a private tuk tuk driver to take us to the world famous Angkor Wat, a crazy big ancient temple complex just outside Siem Reap. As most visitors decide to, we also started our tour at sunrise. This meant getting up at 5am to get there and share this romantic moment with 500 other camera-obsessed tourists, mainly Chinese. We ended up finishing our tour around midday, and for us the time we had was plenty enough to see the highlights of the main temples. If you are into ancient temples enough, you can spend up to a week walking around them, for a price of $60. For one day you get charged $20, unless you’re Cambodian when you get in for free.

This day also happened to be St. Paddy’s day, which of course cannot be missed no matter where you are in the world. Hence we ended up celebrating this important religious holiday according to the Irish custom. Making this happen was rather easy considering what a party town Siem Reap is. Apart from doing a ton of activities aimed at tourists; getting drunk of Pub Street, haggling with market vendors all selling identical products, getting a pampering at a spa (which was totally awesome) or a street massage chair and eating fairly good-quality Western food, there is not a whole lot to see in Siem Reap. Except Angkor Wat of course, which you HAVE to see if you go to Cambodia.

busy market in Siem Reap

About time the sun came up!

inside the Angkor Wat

hundreds of tuk tuks taking tourists to the next temple

at the scene of Tomb Raider

Petra and Kate enjoying green beer at the Irish pub in Siem Reap

Tony's hangover meal, crispy frog

The next day we had arranged to go do volunteering at a nearby orphanage. This is a trend that has been growing massively in Southeast Asia, and perhaps mostly in Cambodia in the recent years. Unfortunately with a trend come a load of unwanted baggage, which means there are a large number of really dodgy organizations that claim to do good for kids but in fact do more harm than anything. Hence, just like we did, you really need to do a bit of research before you sign up for just any NGO. We were very lucky with our choice at Rainbow Orphanage, as it turned out to be exactly what I personally want from an orphanage project. Locally run, self-sustainable, small in size, healthy environment for children and free to volunteer at. So for 10 days, we taught English mainly at the village school to kids from grades 1 to 6 but also at the small Rainbow school that was luckily a bit more advanced in English.

The experience itself was an amazing way to see a whole new side of Cambodia. I almost feel bad for tourists that travel to Cambodia and completely miss the rural side of it. Its completely different from anything you see in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap (where the vast majority of people go). Mostly we loved that fact that people are incredibly nice and don’t have hidden agendas when approaching you. No one tries to sell you anything, which was such good change. Food was very simple, as most stuff they eat they grow themselves. Again, a great way to experience truly local cuisine you won’t find in any restaurant in the cities. Note that every single meal consists of rice and some sort of side, which too often turned out to be fish. We were also the only Westerners in the entire village so you can imagine the attention we got from the locals. It was pretty overwhelming how excited everyone (adults and kids) was to see us walking around.

No one really spoke English either, including the 2 English teachers at the village school. You could have a simple conversation but nothing too complicated. This meant we were forced to learn some basic Khmer (language in Cambodia), which is something to brag about. The days were all identical, speaking of routine! We would get up at 7.20, get served breakfast by the lovely kitchen lady at Rainbow, head to the village school, teach 3 classes, come back to Rainbow for a 3-hour siesta when we also had lunch, go back to village school to teach another 3 classes, head back to have dinner and go to sleep at 9pm. This may sound simple, but add the daily 40C heat to it and maybe you can imagine how exhausting it was. So by the time 10 days were up, it truly felt like a great accomplishment, although a very rewarding one as you got to see from the kids’ faces how much they enjoyed learning new words like ’banana’, ‘apple’, ‘cow’ and ‘dog’. After a hassle of trying to get us a ride back to the city (note that no cars or tuk tuks can access the country roads) we managed to get ourselves back to Siem Reap, where we rewarded ourselves with ice-cold diet Coke and pizza. Overall, we definitely recommend everyone (although you cant be a total diva) doing similar volunteering while travelling, just make sure you are 100% certain about the organization you do it with.