Back to the world

Wakey Wakey you have now arrived in Laos.. where people appear to do absolutely bugger all all day apart from a bit of farming when the feeling takes them! Leaving Cambodia and entering Laos was abit like crossing a magic boundary into the last century (i mean a hundred years ago and not 1999), well almost, they have playstation 2's here!

Our entry was a little on the sketchy side of things, having bought an expensive river entry ticket whereby one sails up the Mekong in a sailing boat for six before arriving at the official border which straddles the great river, we were actually bundled into a small wooden canoe as part of a guiness world record attempt for the most number of people and two backpacks to cross the Mekong on a small canoe. I'm fairly sure we got the record, but neither of us was impressed with the 300 mtr journey which left us outside of shouting range of the man who sold us our ticket! What a wanker! (apologies for the French, but this is an old Frech protectorate.. obvious by the sheer volume of odd Frenchies hanging around!). Anyway having stood dumbly on the shore for a bout 5 minutes we were herded onto a mini bus that drove about 30 mtrs up the hill and around the corner before stopping. We were told we were waitingn for 1 more and only 5 mins.. as it turned out it was an hour and we were waiting for the chief of police, so we didnt complain too much! Anyway we drove a little while untill we were dropped of by a shed in a jungle which apparently was the border, we payed the guard a dollar 'service charge'and he stamped us in. So we drove on down a little jungle track that looked ripe for an ambush untill we got to another hut with another man who also wanted a dollar so he could stamp our passports as well, so we did and we drove on through the jungle untill we got to a corner of a tarmac road in what can only be described as the middle of bloody nowhere! This apparently was our drop off point having opted not to paythe extra 20 dollars to travel 20km to the boat station from where we would get a boat yto Si Phan Don (the four thousand islands). Clearly we were being had as there was no way inhell we would get any other form of transport with the exception of a tractor lawn mower jobby towing a trailer of peasants, but seeing as it was going at crawling pace it would have been faster to walk! So dignity in shatters we agreed to the 20 dollars fee and low and behold a man with a funny truck jobby -they call a jumbo in these parts- rocked up and showed us his mobile phone which he had clearly used to set it all up from the ticket man in Cambodia and ushered us on to a bench in the back of his jumbo! So anyway to cut a long story short (ok just to finish it off then) we entered i suspect illegally into Laos and made our way to the laid back islands of the Mekong river.

Theres not an awful lot to say about these islands.. we stayed on two intotal one with electricity and one without and did pretty much nothing for three days.. we hired bikes and rode around abit and saw a bridge and a waterfall and lots of pigs and thats about it. We were besieged dail;y by thunder storms on all sides and still are now.. the nights are always lit up by about three storms and every so often it will pour down so hard it comes through the roof and through all the light fittings which alarming\ly are left on throughout! And that was it ntohing to report i'm afraid!!

But not to fear we soon moved on up the delightfully named village of chumpasack where one can see an amazing old temple built on the side of the mountain.. and what should the mountain be named.. none other than Mount Penis! Oh yes, fantastic stuff.. and it was an amazing temple and hardly anyone else around the spoil it! The highlight would have to be a> driving a motorbike to get there and b> finding a cool human sacrifice rock carved like a crocodile!! Sweet! Anyway we spent a night there and not doing much else before heading upwards to the town of Pakse which is a dull functional travel centre where you pretty much have to stay before heading up to the capital Vientiene. We decided that we would head to an area known as the Boloven Plateau where they grow Laos coffee which is apparently some of the best according to the Laos ministry of information (yes they do have a ministry of information, Laos is communist apparently only with a capitalist heart!!) . This little venture involved hiring a motorbike for 2 days and riding about 200km stopping at various waterfalls! It was awesome and I got to drive because Jennie is afraid as bikes (although not as afraid as when I told her that actually i'd never really ridden a motorbike before Marmallapuram in India and espeacially one with gears such as the mighty beast I was piloting those two days! Its not as bad as it sounds I did ride a scooter in India but only round a playground! As for the gears on our bike, well there was no clutch so it was semi automatic anyway and had 125 cc engine which isnt too small but could hardly be described as motoring giant! And we only fell off once! Hahaha, calm down parents we were going at about 3 mph and it was on awet dirt track (yep thats a road in Laos) and the only casualty was my sprained wrist from trying to hold a bikes weight and two peoples we tumbled onto the floor much to hilarity of a family who were watching nearby! Anyway I can assure you that apart from a muddy patch on Sandalls trousers and my sore wrist and the old man who crippled himself from laughing so hard there were no other casualties apart from our wallets which Sandall did a good job of emptying by booking us into a 15$ chalet with waterfall view except for the trees in thew way.. no air con and to make up for it a standing lamp which looked like they stole it from your granny!! What was she thinking! Anyway there was a nice waterfall and on our ride back we got rained on big time (cue bright orange poncho jobby) and then alamost ran out of gas (cue stopping at some random petrol station jobby which consists of a barrell and a hose and a reddy liquid which you hope is petrol), but we made it in the end!

After a sleepness night to Vientiene on a VIP bus which leaked through the light fittings when it rained, we arrived in what can only be described as the least built up, busy and generally happening place ever to be given the title of city let alone capital city! The highlight of the city being a rediculous arc de triomphe style archway made in the 60's and never properly finished constructed with of all things concrete and unpainted concrete at that!! Taj Mahal eat your heart out, a true icon of Soviet style communism! Surprisingly enbough we only stayed a night, although during that night we saw Laos first Air Guitar competition (strange) and managed to both drink oursleves silly and spend 10 dollars on raffle tickets and 5 dollars on a t shirt in aid of sending the first Laos rugby team to Cambodia for a competition.. even the ticket seller wasnt too optimistic about there chances, suggesting they could be 'çompetitive'. Still there you have it, so it was with gargantuan hangovers that we arose at 6 am the next day to head off for our 10 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang along what is without doubt the windiest road in existence.. I have never felt so ill for so long without chundering! It was a true experience with stunning scenary but I would never ever repeat it! There was a risk of banditry along the road whcih explained the reason for an ununiformed guard armed with an AK47 to be on the bus although we were never told this so cue Mulliner going into evasive action mode before hangover made death by AK47 preferable to moving too suddenly! Anyway we made it in the end and find ourseleves in an extraordinaryly beautiful place which hasnt modernised in the slightest and looks stunning everywhere you go, Luang Prabang is full of old Temples and French Colonial buildings all decaying with a style that the French can only wish they actually possess! Anyway we've seen many beautiful things like an old russian antoaircraft cannon sitting besdie a buddhist stupa and now ebing used as a merry goround by the local kids and of course yours truly!

Well thats it for me, I'm off to indulge in my to current obsessions.. Beer Lao and football... I only pray it cools down a bit in Deutchland so England can perform like the champions we know they are.. COME ON ENGLAND! ROOOOOOOOOONNNNEEEEYY

Good day,

Greetings Greetings Greetings one and all... So today we met a man that had been shot 6 times and stepped on 3 landmines, leaving him sans gall bladder, sans leg and sans one eye, and gained a nail in his other leg and shrapnel in his arm... yes this is Cambodia!

Cambodia is without doubt infinitely more fun than Thailand and certainly stranger! We arrived here after a mammoth haul from Bangkok ending up in the Cambodian border town of Koh Krong or something like that.. after a bus ride and then a taxi ride we arrived at the architectuly (not a word? it is now) underwhelming village of hat lek which we had been reliably informed would have guesthouses to stay in... instead we found a ramshackle street of huts leading up to a chainlink fence, a man with a gun (border control apparently) and no one who spoke English. No English in Thailand means you're definitely out in the sticks! But no matter we decided we should cross the border now and stay in Cambodia in stead, only a passport photo is required and I didnae have one. Many hand signals later and a few idiotic smiles going in both directions we ended up being stood against dirty bed sheet while some random hut dweller took a few snaps of our gormless mugs and 2 minutes later produced 4 snapshots of us all for the princely sum of a dollar.. a photo me machine at Waterloo station wouldnt even give you a kick in the nuts for that much (physical limitations aside)! So armed with our new mug shots we headed out of one country and into another. Along the way we picked up an entourage of about 20 taxi drivers each offering "helpfull" information as they tried to get our business. However after only 10 minutes in Cambodia I was back in Thailand having been told we needed Thai Baht for a Cambodian visa (you what?!), dollar was not good enough apparently and seeing as Cambodia as about 20 cash machines in the entire country and Thailand has about 1 for every person it was off to try an explain my self to an unamused border guard... hmmm as it turns out the reason for the demand for Baht involves a cunning (see criminal!) way of obtaining extra cash for the border guards due to rubbish exchange rate!! Oh well... anyway into Cambodia and the first thing we noticed is the lack of a road as such. After being spoiled in Thailand and Malaysia it was back to dirt tracks and pot holes with a vengance!

Cambodia holds the awesome tag line of being the most mined country on earth (Laos its neighbour as the title of most bombed country in earth... this part of the world rocks..literally), suffice to say Mulliner went into overdrive on the mine detection front.. so far none detected except at various museums! The country is considerably more rustic and rural than other places we've been and also a lot more pleasing on the eye. The people are a little different and seemingly quite friendly but also very distanced, often you smile at someone and unlike in Thailand where you get blown back by the size of the smile in return, here you often get a look completely devoid of emotion, its quite odd really! But anyway enough with that.. so what about the places we've been... well Koh Krong is a bit of a nowheresville although apparently its popular with bandits...awesome! We left the next day.. we decided to voyage East to the beach resort of Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is mainly a port town with some beaches the main town is functional and has the charm of frenchman which considering the number of french in cambodia is hardly surprising!! The beaches were deserted save for a few random types, ourselves included. The beach where we stayed had the sand and general charm of Bognor Regis only with more shacks and perhaps even less people... we even found a syringe on the sand.. paradise indeed! Theres also a rather high number of tokers.. i.e. those with an afinity to smoking weed. Having spent time on a beach in Thailand (white sands and turquoise sea anyone) and seeing as these beaches are about 4 hrs away by boat, i'd say you have to be high to stay in Sihanoukville for the beaches and seeing as thats all there is to do there (unless you're interested in shipping) I say to thee cross the place of your list of places to go, save the cash and go sit on a deck chair in the garden with an icecream that wont make you ill! Hmmm so we left a day later and headed for the supposed guns, girls and drugs capital of South East Asia.. Penom Penh..

well it mioght have been once (thats still less than ten years ago) but its calmed down a bit now. We both liked it though.. its a small place citywise with about a million residents buts its history along with the rest of Cambodia is a nailbiting and horrifying as the come. We took in both the Killing fields and a museum which was a secret prison during the Khmer Rouge days (1975-79).. The killing fields a place about the size of half a football pitch saw the deaths of about 19,000 people mostly former inmates of S.21.. these people wernt gunned to death or gassed, they were chained together in long lines killed by men armed with hammers who reduced their heads to pulp and then chucked them in shallow pits.. its hard to describe how brutal it must have been.. at the killing fields site their stands a glass walled pagoda containing the skulls of almost 9000 people from children to the elderly.. the remains of which have been disinterred from the site.. so far only half the site as been excavated. You wander through the leafy quiet place poluted only by scraps of cloth and dried sticks.. only after a minute you realise you're stepping on the clothes of the thousands who died here and the sticks are their bones piled in small mounds besides trees which have signs telling you what they were used for.. such as the death tree where they literally beat children against it holding them by their legs and swinging their bodies and their heads into the trunk.. or the 'magic tree'where they slung a microphone so the moans and screams of the men being executed could be heard by everyone. The whole place is so choked up with terror and pain its completely overwhelming and everywhere you look its horrorfying, teeth lie on tree stumps, morbid reminders of what lies beneath your feet.

S.21 is much the same.. not quite so visceral as the killing fields but certainly very powerful.. the building was a former school turned into a torture pit. The classrooms hold iron bed frames still with shackles and other oddments where the prisoners were tortured untill they confessed to what ever they were accused of and then if they were not killed there they would be transported to the Killing Fields. Pictures in the rooms show how they were found when the Khmer Rouge were finally deposed with a dead prisoner shot through the head still shackled tot he bed.. the only difference between the picture and what you see is the absnece of the body everything else remains in place. The pictures of the prisoners line the walls like the mugshots taken of the Jews by the Nazis.. only here they are persecuted not by Nazis but there own countrymen, imprisoned for wearing glasses, for living in a city, for having gone to school or whatever, people often went there just because the KR was not sure if they fully believed in the Angkar and vision of the KR. It doesnt make sense.

The most shocking part for us was the fact that people were being electricuted and bludgeoned with hammers in these places only 4 yrs before we were born. How is it that we know so little of what happened, how is it that the holocaust is so infamous and the current rammifications still so large, and yet here next door to Vietnam where for years Western troops were engaged in the fight against Communism absolutely nothing was done to put a stop to the genocide. It seems from here that it is beyond reproach and yet it still happens elsewhere and while we learn of the horrors of the holocaust at school and honour those who died annually, we take at best a casual approach to the prevention of similar attrocities, it all seems rather superficial and in many way it insults our percieved civilization that we honour the dead and still refuse to heed the causes for their dead..errrrrrrrrrrrrr right enough with the soap box! You get the picture, its all to absurd! Right now for more jolifications!

We headed on up towards Siem Reap and the world famous ankor wat temples which are it must be said amazing! Having spent a mammoth day yesterday from sunrise to sunset taking in all the huge stone heads we could take, i think its fair to say we're templed out! So today we went to of all places a war museum and a mine museum(uh oh here he goes again!), which were it has to be said rather strange and also very good. We hopped aboard our tuk tuk and headed out to the war museum which is as the guide book says, 'a collection of war time junk', what they dont say is that the war time junk includes a Mig fighter a massive ex soviet helicopter, several tanks and APCs, a minefield and countless heavy artillery guns.. not to mention hundreds of guns, rocket launchers and grenades.. all of which are securely left on shelves without chains or anything to hold them down, so you can pick up an AK47 or M16 and have a good laugh with your mates pointing it at each other! Worryingly none of them look in the slightest way disabled.. so if you could get some ammo and yes there was ammo floating around.. you could have yourselves a firefight there and then, and yes you could of course take one home to seeing as theres hardly anyone around at the entrance/exit.. bizare! What the guide book also doesnt day is that there are free guides who are ex veterans of the army KR or otherwise who along with various disabilities accrued during their service will take you around speaking knowledgeably about the stuff they have in the museum, as with our guide he drove one of the tanks in the war!! He also gave us lessons about the different mines which included how various mines took out different bits of his body scars and everything!! Of course we all left a massive tip, its hard to believe people can go through as much as him, both his daughters died by stepping on land mines and anywhere elses I'd be tempted to say it was fabricated as a way of getting a bigger tip, but when the man has the scars and the shrapnel still insde hime and a wooden leg.. its clear hes telling the truth. This of course is the guy i spoke of at the start.

The mine museum is another interesting place and its also free (hooray), its also a home for child mine victims and is run by a mine expert who difuses the things...pretty amazing stuff really! Theres a bit of land set up as a mock mine field (its on the site of a now cleared minefield) where you can have a go at spotting the mines and booby traps, only the mines are not camoflaged in anyway but they're still so hard to spot and thats when your looking for them! Incredible.

Anyway thats abpout it from me.. apologies around, its been a little low on humour but there it is! We're off to Laos tomorrow or the next day which sounds exciting although we have to watch out fro bandits apparently! Sounds cool to me! Ah yes and of course I have been making Jennie watch lots of football, come on England and too bad froggies, nil-nil against the cuckoo clock makers really isnt a good score!! Haha, anyway fingers crossed untill tomorrow, I'm off to watch Spain beat the Ukraine! Ciao for now

Andrew

I'm on holiday so leave me alone... wait, ok not polite allow me to rephrase, I am in thailand where there are more brits than thais wherever i look... annoying, yes convenient much more so! ok ok... so we're in thailand and what more can i say than there is a boots "the chemist" on the road outside our hotel... its is not what one might consider back to the orient in any shape or form.. i should remind you also that i am writing from bangkok hwich doesnt really resemble thailand in either shape or form...

right.. so we left malaysia early. Far far to early in my opinion, mind you there were ladyboy prostitutes on the street so i gues we should redifine that as really really late! anyway we were transported relatively swiftly to the Malay Thai border where, i am now overcome with fear of being wrongly convicted opf some offence in thailand and being sentance to x many years in jail having started to read religously the experiences of those who have been incarcerated in thailand, i trembeled like a wimp at border control.. fortunately trembling is not yet a crime so i was allowed safe passage onwards and there began our thai odyessy! We travelled straight on to the delightfully named town of Krabbi (say it as you see it people), it was pleasant enough although we were eager to make ouiur way to the beaches of West Railee which are a ferry boats journey away from Krabbi, and being naieve as we are we were succoured into beliveing that the ferry would not run when it wa raining (it was raining by the by!) so we took up the offer of a free taxi and a place to stay for all of 400 bhart by a kindly fellow by the bus stand.. we no doubt would have been ripped off had it not been the free taxi part which saved us 300 bhart and actually transporeted us a fair way down the coast to a nice foreign populas that was augh nahn (it probably wasnt spelt that way but who cares right?). OK right so we stayed their a night, their were big waves as it happened but that is not enough to put off any self respecting longtail boat captain (a longtail boat being an overgrown wooden rowing boat without oars and with a lawnmower/small car engine strapped to the back of it... nice). Anyway we made our way to Railee the next day and it twas very very nice indeed, we stayed on the posh side and therefore paid a bit more but got a pool! I wish there was much to tell about this little place but there really isnt, its got a lovely beach and you can wander through the jungle past some caves to yet another lovely beach or alternatively, if you want to drink on the cheap and hang out with other smelly backpackers you can go to East Railee which is an unpleasant marsh but sells cheap beer and provides for all late night drinkers Thailands ubiquitous fireshows. Its hard to believe how fasinating one man with a pair of conkers on strings which are then set onfire and flung around his head can be, When they want to get really dangerous they send on the kids to do the same thing. Its a bit like watching Formula One, you watch it because its exciting at moments, but really you watch it because theres a good chance someone will have an enormous crash! LIke wise you know theres a good chance that the fire-swinger has a good chance of burning himself to a cinder if he accidently tangles himself up. I must admit we never saw it happen and subsequently after about 2 ngihts of the same sort of thing, I couldnt honestly care if i ever saw another fire swinger in my life.. afterall they are hippies.

So anyway, we spent a few nights at Railee and then headed 'pon boat towards the islands of Ko Phi Phi. Right this is taking forever for me to write about thailand and we're leaving tomorrow so time to speed up me thinks... Ko Phi Phi = tres nice, lots of sun lots of greeny bluey holiday brochure sea and pretty girls who apparently had not realised there wasa top half to their bikini (dont tell Jen about that last bit).. we met up with of some of Jennies friends who were on holiday for a few weeks and spent four days together basically lying on a beach and snorkeling and we even managed to squeeze in a dive or two, for the most part I was normally trying to shake off the effects of the nightbefore only to repeat the process that night, i can also report that i am now offically unabloe to hold me drink. So many hangovers and chicken currys later we decided enough was enough and it was time to brave Bangkok.

We left on a midday boat with Jennie pretty much having to support me on to the boy as the hangover was particularly heavy from the night before.. however a nauticle 2 hrs later and I was right as rain or close enough anyway.. and we boarded our direct coach to Bangkok, which as it turned out was not direct, in the end we swapped busses twice.. nice. Bangkok is an interesting city, very pleasing on some aspects and hugely worrying on others... the sheer number of old white men with young thais (i omit gender as both gat a shwoing) is staggering.. very dodgy..the place is full of backpackers all wearing the same clothes bought off the street stalls.. no hippies here, evryones wearing fake designer this and that, i met my clone the other day, wearing same t shirt and everything... amazin. Anyway we tried to sort out our visas for Laos and Vietnam in advance and being completely retarded after too many drinking sessions had failed to realise that embassies dont open at weekends and so we couldnt leave in a couple of days but actually had another 4 full days in bangkok... idiots! Anyway we decided to have a drink and think it over.. as it turned out we decided to Kanchanaburi.. Kanchanawhat? Its the Bridge on the River Kwai folks... so i brought out the camoflage and read 'Bridge on the River Kwai', only to be rudely reminded by the first museum that we went to, that it is of course a novel and the film is based on this novel and therefore not a matter of historical record... well balls to that.. as it turned out the truth was just as harrowing and seeing the bridge and the war cemeotry as well as visiting the museums was quite moving. There were a few random bits like the war museum that had a distinctly Japanese sympathetic bent. ON one exhibit it describes how the Japanese made prisoners drink gasoline or would crush thier hands with a hammer if they were caught stealing. THe conclusion being that the Japanese for these cruel punishements as of course the thief brought it on himself!!! Errr what? Anywayback to Bangkok it was and am glad to say we have both completed preparations for the World Cup by buying fake England shirts I have Wayne Looney on the back of mine, not actually spelt that way, just as the Thais have an unfortunate speach impediment that stops them pronouncing r's and turns them into l's... oh yes Loooooooooney! Jen got a Gerrard one and we're already to go bar a barrel of stella and a bar fight (theirs still 3 days to go folks). Anyway thats all to report i'm afraid I think i need a drink... I'll have one for all of you.. Cambodia tomorrow.. up up and away..

60p a beer? I'll take 7 please.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAndrew