KD Travel Blog 07

We spent a few days on the beach in Koh Samui at the start of September. Very hot and we found a few secluded beaches to chill and relax. Bit of a culture hangover after being in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia for so long. The main strip in Koh Samui has 2 Mcdonalds and expectedly, the whole island is catered for 2 week holidaymakers. Enjoyed some nice seafood though and the locals were good craic. From Koh Samui we flew to Singapore...just in time for the earthquake in nearby Jakarta. News reports of buildings shaking in Singapore but we didn't notice anything. We visited the landing site of Sir Thomas Raffle who set up a trading post in the early 1800s. Had a Singapore Sling and visited the local museums etc. Also, Singapore is the cleanest city ever. Chewing gum is banned and there is no grafiti anywhere. Great mix of cultures as east meets west. Everyone gets on just fine and we enjoyed our time there. From Singapore, we flew to Perth in western Australia on the 13th and this is where i'm emailing from. Perth is exactly like Glasgow. Civic planners must have spent a few days in Glasgow, for instance the St Georges hotel is next to the Woodside Hotel!! It's funny having a spring again, very cool winds and we've been wearing jeans for the first time in 2 months!! We took a trip to Rottnest Island yesterday, which is about 40 minutes off the coast of Perth. First lighthouse on the west coast was built here by aboriginal prisioners who were kept on the island. Took a bike trip round around the island, saw some pelicans and quokkas which are marsupials that only live on Rottnest. Met a few nice folk in the hostel we're staying at. Fisrt guy was Dimitri from Uzbekistan. He's an explosives engineer and he drives around Australia looking for precious metal, water etc. Crap english but we enjoyed the banter never the less. He's invited K and I over to his homeland 'you stay 1 week, we drink vodka, we have good time'. Also met a nice guy Stefan from Frankfurt, he's driving around Oz and we're meeting up again in Melbourne. Wednesday, we're taking a 10 day trip up the west coast. Distance wise, it's Glasgow to Marseille....on a bus. Places we stop at sound amazing though, Shark bay, Dolphin Bay, The Pinnacles, Karijini National Park, Ningaloo Reef, Shell Beach and finally to Broome where we will chill for a few days before flying to Melbourne.

After spending a week or so travelling up the Mekong Delta, we reached the border town of Chau Doc on the Vietnamese side.  Stayed there for one night and as there was a massive thunder storm outside, or should I say the worst weather we've ever seen!, we turned the TV on.....one channel with a live concert with STEPS!!  We braved the weather and ran to the restaurant.  No one there just us in our raincoats and a torch as the power had gone out.  To give you an idea of how bad the weather was that night, I went outside the apartment to take a video clip with the camera and with the loudest crash of thunder and lightning overhead my ear popped!!  I don't mind saying that I was petrified..Bit like Cape Fear when Bobby D comes up from under the boat.....

After being stiffed (not for the first time in Vietnam) by our hotel for our Cambodian visa, we made our way to the jetty and on to our speedboat.  Before long, we were firing up the bassac river.  Like Vietnam and Laos, the riverside was very lush and green and everyone was waving at us. Started to notice all the sugar palm trees, which you only get in Cambodia.  Like palm trees but with a big dandelion shape on the top.  About 50 feet tall and as Cambodia is totally flat they looked very impressive against the backdrop of paddy fields.

Finally, we reached Pnomh Penh.  First I was asked if I wanted to shoot an AK47? This was before K and I had even checked into our hotel.  After my kind rebuffle, we made our way to the Paragon Hotel which was situated right on the riverside.  We had impressive views of both the Mekong and Bassac river as they condulated just in front of our hotel.  We where also close to the Royal Palace, National Museum etc and there were lots of restaurants about. 

We visited the Killing Fields and S21 Detention Centre.  Very humbling places and it was a struggle to think that just 30 years ago such things went on in the world.  But the Khmers, like the Vietnames, don't think about today or yesterday its all about tomorrow and where we go from here.  A great attitude and outlook to have.

From Pnomh Penh, we took the bus to Siem Reap.  En route, we drove past the Tonle Sap which is the biggest freshwater lake in the whole of SE Asia.  Siem Reap is the small town outside the Temples of Angkor.  We arranged with a tuk tuk driver to take us to Angkor Wat at 5am the day after we had arrived.  Brutal getting up so early but this pailed in comparison to the jostle we had trying to get a good photo space....I actually saw one guy with a really expensive tripod with a mobile phone as his camera!! crazy stuff... We spent 3 days walking around the temples of Angkor.  One of the highlights so far.  The Khmers built the largest religous structure in the world between 900AD and 1400AD and today, archaeologists are still finding more temples in the jungle.  In the end the temples fell to the jungle, thus the Khmers fell victim to their own success.  Today, the ancestors of the people who built the temples still live there. An awe inspiring place and something that pictures can't really communicate.  You really get a feeling of what it must have been like as you walk through the jungle.

Overall, we really enjoyed Cambodia.  Wonderful wonderful people who were so generous and eager to please.  I just wonder whether Cambodia will still be about in 50 years.  The Thai baht is legal tender in the north of the country due to the mining and logging that goes on.  To the east, the Vietnamese, who already have the Mekong delta, are building far into Cambodian territory.  Vietnam is undergoing massive changes and continued state captitalism will ensure that Cambodia is left behind. Finally, the Mekong itself.  A third of the river flows through China and currently they have 4 dams underway in order to meet their ever increasing energy needs.  The effect?  The Tonle Sap lake gets less fresh water and fish stocks decrease.  Water from the Mekong also floods the paddies and brings with it a new harvest. Further south the salt water from the South China gets further up the Mekong and destroys the ecosystems.

From Siem reap, we fly to the island of Koh samui in southern Thailand.

Sorry.. the web address for the photos is http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathanddarren/

Had to delete all our photos from the blog site as it was running as quick as a week in the Bangkok Hilton....  However, K has added some photos so far from our trip at http://

We're now in Dalat which is in the central highlands of Vietnam.  Not as hot as the coast and it's nice to recover from our sunburn.  From Luang Prabang in Laos, which by the way, was the finest wee place we've been.  Great food, nice locals, cheap beer and the only place open after the midnight curfew was a neon bowling alley up in the sticks!  Highlight in Laos was giving Alms to the monks.  Up at 5am with rice and bananas as 400 local monks passed through the town.  Whilst handing over the rice and bananas we also dropped in a couple of oreos, which the monks seemed to like!!

Back to Vietnam.  We flew from Luang Prabang to Hanoi, capital of Vietnam.  As a capital city, It's ok bit we maybe stayed longer than we should have.  From Hanoi, we took a bus to Halong Bay on the coast.  This was on 4th August my 30th.  Spent a night on a junk boat sailing round 3000 limestone islands and caves.  Had great seafood and some champers and it was a great way to spend my birthday.  We then went back to Hanoi and took a night train to Hue down the coast.  The night train was mental.  We stayed with 4 others in a cabin the size of a kitchen!!

Hue is the old capital of Vietnam and we took a few tours to see palaces, temples and pagodas.  Also got to see the remnants of a few municipal buildings, the rest were bombed in the war...  From Hue, we travelled to Hoi An.  A small place with over 100 tailors.  K and I got a suit each and some shirts made up.  As we moved south, I could sense a difference in the people socially.  Hoi An was great, very chilled and the food seafood was terrific.

Next, we took a bus to Nha Trang, which is where the Vietnamese go on there holidays.  Whilst the beach in Hoi An was very quiet and clean the opposite must be said for the beach in Nha Trang.  Lots of broken glass and litter so we didn't really hang about.  In a few years, the place will be like Blackpool promenade.  Great foof though and we had a massive seafood platter at the nicest seafood restaurant in town.  We had clams, giant mussells, whole red snapper, oysters and shrimps.  Also met a nice we local guy who is off to Belfast to work for 6 months as a chef.  Gave him our email so he can come over to Glasgow in the new year.

From Nha Trang, we took another bus to a place called Mui Ne.  A small beach resort south of Nha Trang.  It's famous for it's sand dunes and surfing.  The sand dunes were awesome, although we felt a bit like legionaires!! Pretty hot although the sand sledging was a bonus.  Also had a full lobster for the first time...best food I've ever tasted.  From Mui Ne, we came to Dalat where we are now.  Great place and as mentioned earlier, the climate is a bit like home.

Probably our first and last border crossing by boat!!  We left Thai immigration which was on the shore of the mighty Mekong.  2 minutes later, we had crossed the river and we were in Laos.  Instantly, you could see the difference in culture and the 2 litre bottle of moonshine in the 'Duty Free' shop (with 2 inch sediment) really caught the eye!! After our visas were stamped, we passed through immigration and changed our first travellers cheque in Laos. Currently, you get around 18,000 Kip to the UK pound.  Changed 25 pounds and felt like a millionaire!  We then had a quick sandwich for lunch and assembled at our slow boat.  For the first day (Wednesday 25 July), we were to travel on the slow boat for 7 hours to a small town called Pakbeng.  When we got on the boat, we found that there were only a few seats left....the boat held 140 people but by the time we left, we knew we were close to capacity or just over.  K and I weren't too bothered by this as the Beer Lao had been cracked open and there were a few irish and english guys keeping us amused.  The captain was a young lassie about 12 years old spitting out orders to older guys!!! We soon set off after 140 rucksacks had been stuck up the back of the boat.

Straight away, we were awestruck by the sheer natutal beauty of Laos.  Over 85% of the country is deep forestation and there are mountains all around you.  We saw a few fisherman and some water buffalo en route to Pakbeng.  Knew before we'd reach Pakbeng that we would really enjoy Laos.  Thailand was great fun but we were glad to get a break from the larger cities.  We arrived in the small harbour village of Pakbeng just before sunset.  Our guest house, Sarika, was perfect and better than we had anticipated.  We enjoyed a nice meal of local buffalo and K tried the local grilled fish which was superb. 

The following morning we set off for Luang Prabang at 9am.  We sat up the front of the boat with the locals and took some great photos of the Mekong river.  Before we knew it, we'd arrived in Luang Prabang.

 

 

Yesterday (Tues 24 July), we took a minibus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong on the border with Laos.  Bus took around 5 hours and we were joined by a couple of dutch girls, 3 boys from Israel and a few boys from France.  Our guest house, Nam Khong, sits on the bank of the mighty Mekong.  Great to finally see the river, bit bigger than the Tay though!!

Family run guest house is ok and our dinner was included in the price.  After dinner we chatted to a Belgian couple who are touring SE Asia for 6 weeks.  We joined them in the local and had a couple of beers before crashing out around 11pm as we have a big day ahead of us today.  K and I have just taken down the mosquito net and had some breakfast.  In half an hour, we get on the slow boat to Pakbeng.  Takes around 7 hours and this is half way between Chiang Khong and Luang Prabang in Laos.  We've bought some cushions for the ride.....

On our last day in Chiang Mai (Monday 22 July), we visited the National Museum and soaked up a bit of history.  Very interesting and our taxi driver, Maew, filled in the gaps regarding the past 20 years.  Thai's have a good relationship with their neighbouring countries, apart from Myanmaar which is a heavily restricted by the military.  We then went to the local Art Museum and took in the exhibition by Myanmaar artists.  Lots of surreal paintings but also a lot of wonderful still lifes depicting hill tribe peoples etc.

We then went to the Suan Dok temple which is the resting place of the Lanna royal family.  The Lanna kingdon lasted about 100 years, up until the mid 1800's, however a lot of influences from this period are still visible around Chiang Mai today.  There is even a Lanna princess alive today and living in the old town of Chiang Mai.

Suitably 'cultured up', we told Maew our driver that we were thinking of taking a spa.  I asked him what he would do if he had one day left in Chiang Mai.  Maew asked if we had been to Doi Suthep? We said no so he asked us to turn round and look up the mountain.......Great big golden chedi (temple) sitting high in the mountain surrounded by mist!! 'That'll do me driver' and he whisked us up the mountain to the temple. In years gone by, the King placed a Buddha relic on the back of an elephant and where the elephant stopped, the temple would be built.

Best thing we've seen so far.  300 hundred steps up the mountain led us to the temple and we could hear the monks deep in trance.  They pray for around 8 hours per day if not more. Never forget this place and will post some great photos soon.

Wow..old town in the centre of the city is wonderful.  Visited Chang Mai Wat, which is the oldest temple in the city.  Funny seeing a Starbucks though...Took a taxi with 7 folk who couldn't understand me but they were kind enough to tell me when my stop was.  Heading back into the old town tonight to visit the night bazaar.

Saturday 21 July (I think!)

 Raining today but still 33 degrees

Ola

 Arrived safely in Bangkok...36 hours before our luggage!

Today, Thursday 18th, we took a trip into town on a tuk tuk.  We were taken into a jewellers and then into a tailors, either my english is poor or the big tourist stamp stuck on my forehead was still showing.  Had some nice sushi tonight and we are off to the Grand palace tomorrow then sorting out our tickets north for the train to Chiang Mai...which takes 12 hours!

Peace

k&D