My Trip To Australia, New Zealand and Asia

De-Dredlocked and Onto Cambodia

Location: Saigon
Weather: Very warm

After much hesitation our next planned stop was decided on - Angkor Wat - the famous ancient temples of Cambodia - near the town of Siem Reap. After finding all the flights from Vientiane to Siem Reap booked out for weeks, I discovered the only ways to get there was either a nightmare 24+ hour bus journey south or to go back to Bangkok and then take the bus to Siem Reap - this sounded much easier as the roads are 100% better.
After a big night out with Laura and Charlotte at a very posh French restaurant, costings us a staggering $10 a head, Dom left. This was a day before me, but he wanted to sort some stuff out in Bangkok and I couldn't go as I had to wait for my visa to Vietnam. After another big night out at another very nice restaurant with Laura, Charlotte, Neeheet and Bas(a Dutch dude we met in Phonsavan) - Laura & Charlotte decided something had to be done with my hair - so they spent from midnight till 3am de-dredlocking me!! I am grateful beyond reason - Laura - you are a true star.

By The Bar On The Night Out With Laura, Charlotte, Neeheet & Bas
After 4 hours sleep, I went to the Vietnam embassy at 8am and all the man did was take out the papers I'd filled in 2 days before, take out a visa from his drawer, laminate a date on it and stick it in my passport. It took 2 minutes for him to do this - why they make us wait 3 days I don't know and it's a total rip-off in Vientiane as it costs $55 as opposed to $25 in Phnom Penh, which the rubbish Rough Guide nor Lonely Planet mention.

After considering many options, I eventually got back to Bangkok by taking the most convoluted route possible. After 3 tuk-tuks, a public bus, a plane from Udonthani Airport which cost me about 12quid and an airport bus I made it to Ko San Road and met up with Dom again.

At 7am the next morning we got the bus to Siem Reap. Dom had a slightly different ticket to me, which meant his bus was much nicer, my bus looked about 50 years old and rather unsurprisingly broke down(the gearbox or clutch went) about 30mins from the border!! after 2 minibuses finally turned up, we were taken to the border crossing - here total chaos ensued. I doubt there are many places such as Aranyaprathet / Poipet border - hundreds of random people doing random things, tons of begging/stealing kids, motorbikes with trailors laden with cement or rice piled as high as houses with people sitting on top of the mound. We were escorted across by a man from our bus who welcomed us to Cambodia by ripping us off for 20Baht for a useless bit of paper, this was in-cahoots with the Cambodian border guards. Even more chaos ensued when they put various groups of us onto different buses and even funnier Dom and I ended up on the same bus somehow.
Now, the famous part, legendary to backpackers - the road from Poipet to Siem Reap - stories such as French airlines paying to have this road broken up and other airlines paying the Cambodian government NOT to tarmac it are numerous and from my view true. The road was semi-covered, but so rough that you bounced along like on some kind of fairground ride, also so much red dust got kicked up that the bus's air-conditioning brought in the dust and you could see particles inside the bus when car headlights shone on us. Even better some of the bridges on the road were down so we often had to take detours off-road and back. To top this off, the bus stopped at a restaurant and whilst we consumed noodles costing an extortionate 7000kip for dinner, the driver changed one tyre because it was flat. Another hour on the road and another tyre burst! so we all had to get out in the pitch darkness and wait for yet another bus. At least the guesthouse we were all forced to stay at - the Sak San - was good.

I slept well that night, maybe it was the long day, the journey or maybe that tablet of Valium I bought in Laos, but I was out cold for a full 8 hours!

So, the reason for being in Siem Reap was Angkor Wat. I ended up spending 3 days exploring the various temples - Angkor Thom, Phnom Bakheng, Preah Khan, Banteay Srei, the ancient Roulous Group and the most famous Angkor Wat - I saw sunrise and sunset there! I am very glad to have seen just about every temple of Angkor and it was fun riding around on the back of a motorbike (foreigners aren't allowed to ride motorbikes themselves in Angkor) and most of them are quite stunning & very interesting, but I was a little bit templed out by the end, although seeing Angkor Thom & Angkor Wat at anytime is great - the shear size of them is truly a wonder of the world.
Siem Reap town was surprisingly modern with some excellent restaurants and bars. We had a great time there and met up with our friend Woody who we met in Chiang Mai. Sadly time ran out and Dom had to fly to Singapore, so this meant the end of the adventures of Dominic and James from Wimbledon - oh well.

By JamesReed on 30.03.05 @ 02:45 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Plain of Jars

Location: Vientiane
Weather: Warm and humid

My trip to The Jars was through some extremely windy roads in a minibus. Only 3 of us went on this tour - Dom, Laura from London and Me. Our friend Anne-Marie gave us the idea to visit them, but changed her mind at the last minute! Anyways, after 5 hours of meandering we got to the town of Phonsavan. We stayed in the best guesthouse I've ever been to, it was more like a 4 star hotel, the rooms and staff were top quality - the hot shower was awesome.

Phonsavan is the capital of the Xieng Khuang province which the USA bombed 800 times a day for 4 years during the secret Laos war during the 60's, thanks to this it wins the title of the most heavily bombed area in the history of the world per capita! A bit of an overkill if you want my opinion. UXO (unexploded ordinance) are still being recovered/suffered by people in the area today and it is dangerous to walk off the paths by the jar sites because of this - they found a 500lb bomb under a jar site just 2 months ago - our guide said he'd showed tourists that area many times - well done to the Mine Action Group (MAG) for finding this. Most of the guesthouses such as our one have a fine collection of grenades and bombs on show in the foyer.

Our tour consisted of seeing 3 jars sights. At each site we got to see the mysterious jars, which they think, strangely enough were made to hold the remains of dead people in - some kind of funeral right. They were all different sizes - some huge, some small just sitting on the hillside and I'm very glad I saw them, because in a few years I reckon you won't be able to touch or view them up-close. The landscape of the jar sites and of Phonsavan(and I suppose rural Laos in general) is spectacular - rice fields, mountains and even idyllic water buffalo wandering around. I really liked the place. We also got to see a cave where villagers hid to escape the bombing and a Buddhist temple which had been bombed to bits but the Buddah was left standing. I think Phonsavan town is clearly gearing up for the future tourist industry, in 5 years it'll probably be too popular, I think I'm lucky to have seen it as it is now.

We had to leave bright and early the next day because our minibus driver wanted to get back - so we left at 8am and did a straight 6 hour drive to Vang Viang. This is THE other town in Laos - it is very much like Ko Phan Nga, backpacker central, but a bit more laid back. There are cafes showing DVD movies and bars selling potent Laos whiskey (called Lao Lao) buckets. We met up with Laura's travelling friend Charlotte there and hanged out with them quite a bit. Spent an entire day floating down a river on an inner-tube again, like in Pai, but Vang Viang is very famous for this, because they have numerous people along the river flogging Beer Lao to you. There are also platforms and swings that you can jump off into the river, which is great fun. Amusingly they cost 1000kip to have a go and get you get a free beer(which funnily enough actually costs 1000kip normally). oh yeah this Japanese dude accompanied us on the river that day and he was stoned and drunk by 10:30am during this trip, that dude ruled, haha.
When we got to the end of the river and were pushed along the last bit by a bunch of Lao kids (yes we had to pay them afterwards) we walked to a cave, which Vang Viang is also famous for. Taking my camping torch which I bought in Louang Phabang that I can wear on my forehead, we went swimming IN the cave because it was flooded! Once inside it was total darkness, but the water wasn't cold. There were quite a few different passageways in there and you could get totally lost if you wanted, but we somehow found the way out. This was really great, I actually enjoyed swimming in that cave more than the river.

By JamesReed on 21.03.05 @ 10:29 AM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Laos PDR

Location: Louang Phabang
Weather: Warm

I am now in Laos or more correctly the People's Democratic Republic of Laos for all you evil capitalists out there! I got here two days ago with my friend Dominic and an English girl called Anne-Marie whom we met on the bus to Chiang Rai.

Laos is a lot more modern than I expected and not hugely different from rurual Thailand. The money situation is a bit different, interestingly you can pay for everything here in Laos KIP, US Dollars or Thai Baht! The people ARE reasonably friendly, but hard barginers and they attempt to short-change you all the time.

We got here by going to Chiang Khong, which is on the Thai border and near-by the Mekong River. One of THE things to do in Asia is to ride down the Mekong on a slow boat for 2 days...So we spent 6 hours packed in a slowboat(a bit like a barge) on the river, cramped in awful seats to get to the 'town' of Pakbang where we spent a night in a rat infested room. Somebody had actually grafettied a warning about the rats in our room, which was lucky, else our bags would've been gnawed in half if we'd left them on the floor, like some folk did. I didn't mind the constant scuttling of the rats much, but most other people did, apparently one couple paid $10 to move guesthouses that night! This 5 star luxury accommodation was also accessed by extremely steep near-vertical stairs, had a bathroom area with a ceiling lower than one Bilbo Baggins would use in Hobbit-land and was hosted by a fine man who tried to sell us dope, opium and coke the second we stepped in the door. Even better Pakbang only has electricity from a generator and this turned off at 10pm, candles have to do after that. Amazing, considering it's a major travellers hub due to the river. Us three couldn't face another 7 hours on the slow boat, so we took a speedboat to the next stop - Louang Phabang - that only took 3 hours and was vastly better - not only was it majorly faster at 50mph, but it had no roof and you saw much more scenary. Interestingly the slowboat behind us the previous day took 12 hours and 99% of those nutters still wanted the slowboat because of the numerous rumours about how dangerous these speedboats were and how bumpy the ride was. If you ask me this is coblers, we had no troubles at all, our driver was excellent and the ride mostly felt like we were gliding on glass.

Anyways, Louang Phabang is quite a big town and surprisingly modern, very picturesque and quite interesting. We went to a big waterfall today, had a bit of a swim and saw a local village. Tomorrow Dominic and I are heading to the Plain of Jars, where there are ancient jars sitting on a landscape, I've read about these back home as they are a bit of a mystery - a kind of Laos Stonehenge - so it should be interesting.

By JamesReed on 15.03.05 @ 04:37 AM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Added some photos

Location: Chaing Chong - border with Laos
Weather: Warm

Well I managed to find a cybercafe that is fast enough to upload some photos of my Thailand trip, so here they are:

View of Burma from the longboat	Another view of Burma from the longboat	A Buddah in Bangkok	Chinatown - Bangkok
The Fantastic Ko Lanta Beach	A Ko Lanta Sea Cucumber	One of Ko Phi Phi's stunning beaches	Main Street of Ko Phi Phi, Post-Tsunami
As you can see the place is wrecked	A Wat (temple) in Chaing Mai	View of Haad Rin Beach (Full Moon Party Place) from the Natural Home Guesthouse
The Storeroom I slept in there	James Bond Island - near Phang Nga

By JamesReed on 12.03.05 @ 01:59 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Bangkok, Chaing Mai

Location: Chaing Rai
Weather: Warm

The Burma daytrip meant I now had a new 30 day Thai visa and another stamp in my passport, hooray! so we took a night train to Bangkok. The train was surprisingly pleasant, slept in bunk beds on it, much better than any bus journey I've been on. Spent a day in the city looking around the markets, a few other sights and Ko Saon Road. It wasn't anywhere near as busy, polluted or dirty as I'd been told, far better than Kuala Lumpur I can tell ya.
We then took another night train to Chaing Mai in the north. The reason for going to Chaing Mai was to go on a 3 day trek in the hills. To do this we met up with Troy again and he brought some friends - Will from Reading, Heidi from Holland and Woody from Canada. Woody decided to do some motorbiking instead of the trek, but the other five of us went. It turned out to be most excellent, trekked the mountains on foot, stayed in hill villages with a glorious outside fire and no electricity, saw the villagers dancing, got woken up at 4am by the hundreds of yodelling cockerells (once one started all the others did, so that they echoed round the hillside), rode on elephants and sailed down a river on bamboo rafts - this was great fun - me, Will and Dom had one raft and Troy & Heidi the other and we had a bit of war so that the rafts were almost destroyed by the end of the trip. And I wouldn't be surprised if we've all got Hepatitus A now because the river was so filthy. I really enjoyed this trip. Chaing Mai is a cool place.

After this Dom and I hired a car, because we wanted to go to Pai, a town 150km's west of Chaing Mai and said to be wonderful by many people. Troy and Will were going to join us, but Troy had a plane to catch, so it was just me and Dom again. After driving up some of the most windy roads I've ever seen, we got to Pai. I found this place very relaxing and peaceful, a bit like Ko Lanta, but without the beach and surrounded by mountains and hills + with a few more shops. They have a hot springs there, but it is so hot you can't bathe in them, which is a bit annoying. What else, oh yeah, we saw Pai Canyon -which is a rather small canyon in some rocks up a mountain, not too impressive, but the best was probably the river. You get a tuk-tuk or motorbike taxi up the hill and then float down it on a rubber tyre innertube - takes about 1 hour and was great fun. The bars and food in Pai is probably the best I've known in Thailand - I had a great shepards pie one night - you've also got many very nice friendly travelling girls around, probably because it's such a relaxed place. The guesthouse was also very laid back - I think I'd like to hang out there for a few weeks and just play the guitar they had in reception all day long, if I didn't have other places to go/see.


By JamesReed on 11.03.05 @ 03:52 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Making a run for the border

Location: Chaing Rai
Weather: Warm

I had to leave Ko Phangan because basically my 30 day Thai visa was running out, this happens to a lot of people and to solve this problem you have to make a 'border run'. It seems my friend Dominic had the same problem, so we took a 3 hour ferry to Suritani, then a 4 hour bus north to Ranong, which is on the Burmese - the driver of this bus was the worst I've ever experienced. He couldn't keep his eyes on the road and didn't posess the ability to drive in a straight line, EVER, it was incredible. Anyways we spent a night in Ranong and then took a longboat to Burma or Myanmar as it is now called. We had intended to see Burma for a couple of hours but we were infested with kids begging for money as soon as we got off the boat, it was a bit of a shame really, so we left after about 45mins. I did purchase some Myanmar whiskey, but declined their offers of cheap Viagra and Valium.

By JamesReed on 11.03.05 @ 03:26 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Ko Pha Ngan - Full Moon Party

Location: Pai, North Thailand
Weather: Warm

I headed north and got a bus to Suratani and a car ferry to the island of Ko Samui. This is a big island and a top holiday destination for package tourists. I spent 2 days here, hired a motorbike and drove the 50km's around the island. I didn't find it particularly interesting and the bungalow was no way as good as the one on Ko Lanta.

Anyways, I was headed to island Ko Phang Nga, so I got the very rough 45minute ferry - I'm amazed nobody was chucking up on this voyage, the swell was very large. The reason to go to Ko Phang Nga was to meet up with my friends Dominic and Troy(from Melbourne) for the Full Moon Party. Upon landing I expected tons of guesthouses to be begging for clients, but there was literally nobody about, except idiots in tour agencies saying "oh no, everywhere is full". So I took a random bus up to Haad Thong Noi in the north east of the island. The bus cost 150Bart, took 1 hour, was up the worst, most hilly road un-sealed I've ever seen and I had to pay 400Bart to stay in a bungalow that had a manually flushing bog, Internet access was also the most expensive I've seen in Thailand. The beach outside was nice enough, very quiet and sandy.
But this was way too far away from the full moon party, which was an hour south in Haad Rin. So, the next day I took the bus back. I spent about 45mins wandering aimlessly lugging my heavy backpack in the intense heat, looking for a bungalow to stay in and got tired of repeatedly hearing "sorry we full for party"...until I met two young English girls - Gabby and Alex - at last somebody with beauty and brains, so I got on a bus with them. We went up a hill to a place called The Natural Home - that had a stunning view of Haad Rin beach. As it happened, Gabby & Alex got the last room, but this drunken Nepal dude called Ram who was some kind of advisor to the staff made it so that I could sleep in the storeroom! after they put a padlock on the door and a mattress on the floor it wasn't great, but once I'd blasted the mosquitos with my bugspray it was at least sleepable! Even better Haad Rin beach was only a 10min walk away!
I found Ko Phang Nga a great place, a great party atmosphere on the beach at night, the restaurants had pretty good food and they showed top movies as well - I saw Napolean Dynamite, Old School, Ray, Around the World in 80 Days and the Aviator (yes, all highly illegal cinema copies, but who cares, this is Thailand, right) whilst enjoying bbq'd fish and other delicious food.

For the Full Moon Party (on the 24th) I met up with Dominic and Troy and that was cool. But I guess the other 3-8000 people that joined us on the beach made it even cooler! yes, people boated in from Ko Samui, Ko Tao and from everywhere else on the island and around. I had a great time, got totally smashed on 'buckets' - basically for about 2 quid they put a bottle of Thai Whiskey + a can of Sprite and a can of Redbull in a bucket and you drink the mix through a straw. All the bars along the beach had awesome sound systems and music playing. Met many random people throughout the night and ended up jumping around in the ocean as the sun rose before going to bed around 9am.

I spent a couple more days on Ko Phangan to recover, after 2 nights I moved out of my store room to a bamboo bungalow on the beach, this was ok the first night, cos I went out partying until day light, but the 2nd night I tried to go to bed early, but you cannot get any sleep when it sounds like you've got a ghettoblaster next door thanks to the bars on the beach being so loud.



By JamesReed on 09.03.05 @ 01:39 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]