Into Cambodia

The plane flight was fairly straightforward even being that we were flying on a communist run airline (Laos).  They were flying a newer Airbus 330 and the pilots seemed to know their stuff - although how ATC understood them, I'll never know.  They'd do English PA announcements and I could only pick out about half of what they were saying - even with their Chuck Yeager drawls slowing things down.

Corruption is supposed to be rampant in Cambodia so I was a bit surprised when we went to clear customs and they had about 20 different guys doing something with your passport (one to collect the money for the visa, one to do something, someone else to do something else... all the way down the line to where some guy calls our his best idea of what your first name sounds like in English.  It was almost worth the price of the visa to hear him attempt our names!

Then it was a queue for a taxi chit ($7) to our hotel.  When we got into the taxi (a nice fairly late model Toyota from Georgia!), we were delighted to find our driver spoke English very well and gave us a good tour of the city as we drove in.  We then arranged for him to be our driver for the next three days as we would buy a three day pass to see the temples around Angkor Wat.  He also promised to hook us up with a guide.

We'd worked up quite a sweat by this time with all the travel and were happy this hotel had a great pool so we took advantage of that for a few hours.  Then we took a tuk-tuk into town to hit a local restaurant (we decided upon Mexican as we had a craving the moment we saw the sign - the $0.75 cent drafts. $1.50 Margurita and $1.00 Authentic Mexican Tacos didn't hurt either!)  Then it was into their version of the night market...  quite nice but shops instead of stalls that move every day for traffic!  I saw an "Omega" Speedmaster watch (the one the astronauts wore to the moon) for $20 (retails at over $2500).  I'm sure it won't work next week but hey!  We were fairly tired by then, so back to the hotel for our early start the next day on the temples of Angkor Wat.  Cambodia is looking pretty excellent so far!

The tuk-tuks are different in Cambodia.... decidly more upscale and driven by a detachable motorbike (versus the three wheel trikes with a sit down seat for the driver).  We quite liked these versions.  Certainly a lot more maneuverable and feels more stable as well.  Yup, the four of us fit just fine.

Luang Prabang Again (sorry, couldn't resist)

After our little sojurn up the river to Nong Kiau, we spent a few more days in Luang Prabang enjoying the place while waiting for our flight to Siem Riep in Cambodia.  One day we rented some bikes and drove around the town and into some of the outlying villages.  We went across bridges only suitable for bicycles and pedestrians with their eyes closed, went to places where they make the fine Laos Silk Weavings that Jen eventually bought up the town's supply of, and visited some more Wats and Museums.  Every night the girls (and occasionally Shawn and even less occasionally, me) would tramp into the Night Market which were a series of stalls that would be setup on the main street of Luang Prabang and would try their luck at negotiating extremely good deals on various hand made items.  Rachel as usual, was the best negotiator.  The poor Laos market women had no defenses against her little smile and claims that she only had XX to spend on that item.

The confluence of the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers.  We stopped at a little shack here and had a cool drink with the bikes.  Luang Prabang is on the bank on the left hand side.  Its on a peninsula that is formed by the Nam Ou paralleling the Mekong before turning 90 degrees to join it.  You are looking at the tip of the Luang Prabang peninsula.  

The mighty Mekong

A fairly newborn calf that was at the restaurant/aka shack we stopped at.

One of the weavers busy at her loom.  They can make a 2 metre table runner in 1-4 days depending upon the complexity of the pattern.  

She only had 2 frames running here so she'd do it in a couple of days. 

The bridge over the River Nsm Ou

We aent the kids across first... they made it OK

Monks working on the new roof - capital funds provided by the US Embassy - perhaps to make up for the 2.2 Million tons of bombs dropped on Laos in the 10 year "Secret War" (only 1.9 Million dropped by ALL sides in WW2).  Interestingly enough MOST of the land mines and U|XO (unexploded ordanance) is from the Eastern Bloc/China.

Hand painting the gold trim

The royal crypt

And heres... Budda (again)

On another day, we watched the Monks collect Alms (food mostly) from the locals and tourists.  They get up at 4:30 and march around the town (hitting the tourists about 7:00am) with big pots that they take back to the Wats and then feed themselves (after feeding any poor that are looking for food).

A street vendor showing us how to ball up the rice and bananas/cookies/biscuits for the Monks.  Jen wasn't allowed to touch the food or present to the Monks although we did see women doing it and the Monks seemed OK with it (from tourists at least).

Here comes the first batch... there were about 50 in total

They don't smile or acknowledge the alms... and no the dog didn't get any.  

The Wat at the Royal Palace

They like their gold!

And their dragons

Shawn just before his haircut - drinking an Ovaltine "fruit" shake.

Jen knows how to polish off a real fruit shake... note the granny glasses (so she can read the menu)

After the hard work of lifting the shake, its time for a massage!  Note the borrowed clothes.  I had one beside her and the kids got to watch.  Mine pounded on me after the massage and I ended up with the worst Migraine I've ever had...  1000 mg of Ibuprofen didn't touch it and I was literally in tears.  Moral of the story is enjoy the massage but don't let them hit you (she only did it once).  

Chinese lanterns we would have loved to be able to send back home

On our last day in Luang Prabang, we booked another kayak, hiking and elephant riding tour up the Nam Ou river.  This time, we got dropped off and had to hike across the river on one of those rickety old bridges, then toured a local village with three different tribes (Khmu, Hmong and Lao) and learned how to tell their homes apart.

The Hmong are the mountain people and build their stick homes right on the earth but with only two doors (the front and back) and no windows.  The back door is only used by the house holders (the new bride enters through the back door) and the dead - they carry the body out the back door. The Khmu on the other hand, build their homes on stilts.  The area under the home is used for storage and hammocks to while away the hot portion of the day.  The Lao are more practical and cover in the stilts and will actually live on both floors.  From what we could tell, the Lao were the most modern, followed by the Khmu and then way back were the Hmong.

The other Bridge Across the River Nam Ou

Its fairly wide here

An example of a Khmu house... lots of storage space underneath.  We'd later see that the Khmer (the Lao call the former Khmer people Khmu) houses all look like this.  Gives them a place in the shade to hang out when its 43 in the rice paddies.

Jen flipped out when she discovered the girls were playing "Jumpie" with a series of elastic bands

A Hmong house.  That's the front door.

She's got me hiking up another mountain... for no good reason other than to get to the top.  I'm still not losing all the rolls despite sweating out buckets.  I guess the beer isn't helping (but it's SO good at $0.75 for 2 bottles! They did point out a nasty plant that leaves a bad rash so we could avoid another Costa Rica type outbreak

After our hike up the mountain and back down through what they haven't yet cut down of the forest we got picked up in some leaky longboats and shuttled across the river to where our Kayak's were waiting for us.  In the 70's Laos was 90% forested... now it's supposed to be about 20% - I don't know that I'd go that low but the logging they are doing primarily for firewood is VERY noticeable.  Then we paddled about 2kms downstream to the Elephant Village at Tonsay waterfalls.  The water levels were quite low so although I imagine it must be as beautiful as the other waterfalls in full flood, they were barely a trickle.  This is where the kids got to ride the elephants.

First they fed them to become friends... they liked the sugar cane sticks and bamboo better than even bananas!

Hopping on.

Shawn says the skin rubs your legs raw.  

The took them on a 20 minute trek through the forest (up the mountain again - where were the damn elephants when I needed them?!).

Somehow they managed to swap places

Then it was back to the stand for lunch... for the kids and the elephants.  The elephants never stop eating... 21 hours a day.  Their digestive system is so poor most of their poop is undigested but the other animals like the dung beetle use that poop and take it all the way.  Seeds the elephants eat, wouldn't be able to survive through a more robust digestive system so its fortunate for those plants (e.g. the Acacia in Africa) that the elephants can distribute their seeds widely.  Isn't nature amazing?

After lunch it was onto big Mama for a ride down to the river to take a bath.  The seat is on the one in the back.  Rachel had only the rope.

Shawn's watching his little sister show him how its done

He figured it out quick enough.  It was cool how the Mahouts (drivers) could get the elephants to put out a leg like that to climb up.  They also had the elephants doing all kinds of circus tricks but I didn't want to encourage that so no pictures of that.

Good thing they have such big ears or you'd slide right off the front of them!  That hill was quite a bit steeper than it looks here.

Right over and around our kayaks.. without disturbing so much as a paddle.  And Jen was worried about Beefy accidentally knocking over our Land Cruiser in Africa.  They know where their feet are (unlike Simba) and are amazingly good with their trunks.

And straight in to the river!

Rachel's elephant like to play submarine!  You'd often see just Rachel's head!  

Rachel's has disappeared again!

Rachel's Mahouts couldn't stay on the little submarine but Rachel could1

Back on the river to paddle out.

As you can no doubt tell, we really enjoyed our time in Laos although it wasn't as relaxing as we'd hoped it would be.  Most of this was due to the fact that we'd probably jammed two more countries into the South East Asia portion of our trip than we should have.  The Laos people are quite friendly but have embraced capitalism with as much fervour as the Indians so they hardly ever leave you alone.  They even sell tee shirts that say "No Tuk-Tuk, No Massage, Not today, Not Tomorrow!".  My favorite were the tee shirts saying "Same, Same" on the front and "But different" on the back.  You hear the touts saying "same, same" all the time (like that Omega Speedmaster they are pedalling really is the $2500 version).

The other noticable characteristic is that the men really don't seem to do a lot of work.  The women are busy in the streets selling things for the market but even they do a lot of sleeping or just standing around talking.  To get something simple done, you may have to ask about 4 different times giving slightly more detailed instructions as you go.  They'll do the bare minimum of work they think they can get away with.  I figure they were never really conquered because the conquerors just gave up on trying to get them to do anything.  I often wish I had their work ethic!  I suspect I'd live longer and have a lot less migraines!

Anyway, on to Cambodia as we had booked our flight out to Siem Riep after taking the little tuk tuk with all our possessions to the airport! If you though this post was long for Luang Prabang, wait until you see what we have for Siem Reip/Angkor Wat!

Nong Kiau and Muang Ngoi

After the hustle & bustle of Vientiane and Vang Vieng, we decided to stay put in L.P. for a while to recharge the batteries although we did take a two day trip up into the Hmong neck of the woods to a town called Nong Kiau on the Nam Ou river (one of the major tributaries to the Mekong) about 4-5 hours (120 Kms) from Luang Prabang.  For some reason Google Maps calls the place (Nong Kiau) Hat Sao so I put that into the location tag but everyone calls the place Nong Kiau.  Anyway, we made like the Clampetts and packed up our stuff and moved to Nong Kiau (actually left most of our gear at our old Guesthouse in Luang Prabang and took our day packs).

On the trip up, we took a local minivan and had a good ride up with about 8 other backbackers from all over the world.  We had a bit of a fight with the driver and the bus company as they wanted to shove another 2 people into the van (to make it 15) but we quickly banded together as a ground and said..  12 seats and 12 seat belts... 12 passengers - no more.  Then the rest of the minivans had similar mutinies so they had to get one more minivan to carry the overflow (and left one poor guy standing at the bus stop wondering how the hell to get to to Nong Kiau - there was another trip scheduled for another hour later so we didn't feel too badly for him - especially as he showed up late from his hotel).  We've discovered that these minivans are the backpackers way around the country and we enjoyed the experience of getting 9 of us into a tuk-tuk as it raced from one hotel to the next picking up folks to drop us off at the minivan where they'd pile all the packs on the roof and then try to jam as many people in as possible - til they ran into Cameron Ahab...  :-)

It was a pretty drive up to Nong Kiau on fairly good roads and our driver was driving quickly to make up for lost time so we arrived at the bus station in Nong Kiau about 2kms from town in good time (4 hours for 120kms).  Then a bunch of us piled into an even more beat up minivan taxi for the short ride into town across the bridge.  We hadn't had a place booked and nicely enough were dropped off right at our eventual location on the other side of the bridge.

Nong Kiau (the north east side) from the southwest side

Our new home

 We spent the night in our new guesthouse which was fine although surprisingly cold!  The beds came with 3" thick duvet comforters and they were needed!  The days were also much hotter than in Luang Prabang.  Never did figure out the reason.  I suspect it was to do with an inversion in the mountain valley we were in.  Didn't have to worry about the mossies though!

The next am, we took a boat up the river to see Muang Ngoi which we'd been told was one of the prettiest river trips in Laos.

Das Boat...  love the chair he's on.  Ours were seats from a car... complete with the ability to recline (although you were taking a chance if you did as they were held to the floor with wire and rusty bolts!)

Albino Water Buffalo... we saw lots of these in Laos... along with 4 horned versions (two on either side right behind one another).  I suspect there is some serious inbreeding going on here... da daling, ding, ding, ding, ding...ding.

We also got to do some light class 2 whitewater in Das Boat but it isn't so exciting when you simply power through  it -  although on the way down, we did manage to get a good rate of knots going with the current!

Pulling into Muang Noi... that red one is like the one we're on.

Wild Boar now... didn't seem too shy either.  Barely looked up at us.

The ever present smog haze... (and stupid camera spots!)

Local fishermen.  We saw one of the catch... it had to be 3.5 feet long and looked like a cross between a catfish and an eel except it was very wide.  I suspect they are what the menu calls Mekong Fish.  I googled it and the closest thing I saw was the Giant Mekong Catfish which has been recorded to grow to over 9' long and 646 lbs!  I'm not telling Shawn that these things live in the Mekong or we'll never get him to within 20 miles of it.  I don't think it was that particular fish though because it has a regular tail whereas the one we saw had a tail more like an eel.  It still looked like it would feed 50 people though!

Catching shrimp

It gets clearer the closer you get (except for those damn spots)

The forest grows right down to the river... although you can see that they are deforesting the place at a terrific rate (they burn it for firewood)

Main Street in Muang Ngoi

But they have a great temple!

See what I mean?

The boat from Luang Prabang up to Nong Kiau.  This is the same as what we'd chartered.  They move along pretty well but bank alarmingly in sharp turns!

It was a beautiful trip

Swimming au natural

Adds to the fun

They spend their lives on the river

Home, sweet home back in Nong Kiau.  Nope it wasn't raining... that's just the smog again.

Looking back up the river from the bridge in Nong Kiau towards Muang Ngoi (30 kms up the river)

From our balcony

We didn't have as much time here as we'd have liked.  Jen would have really liked to have spent a night in Muang Ngoi but we only really had an hour or so (after the 1.5 hour trip up and back).  We had originally showed up to take the 9:30am boat up planning on taking the 2pm boat back but found out they don't run the 2pm boat anymore so were left with chartering our own boat up to Muang Ngoi so we could get back for the room we'd already booked in Nong Kiau.  They had a hike up the mountain to some cave but we didn't have time (which really got under Jen's skin as she loves to climb mountains!).  The kids and I were happy enough to stroll the street of Muang Ngoi and grab some lunch.  We compromised and walked about half way to the caves and back.

Then it was back into the boat for the trip back down the river to our bungalow on stilts at Nong Kiau.  Our "captain" asked us if we minded carrying a local man back to Nong Kiau on our charter and of course we didn't refuse.  It turned out to be a good thing as he was a local that worked with a Canadian to setup a local school.  His English was quite good and we (more specifically Jen) got some good local colour from him.

After that, it was time for dinner so we marched back to a nice little restaurant we'd found the night before on the other side of the bridge (place was filled with unexploded - but dearmed) bombs and communist flags, etc.  They played Forest Gump while we had dinner and we met some interesting characters.  Unforunately the place decided to close that night (after advertising the daily movies that morning) so back across the bridge we went and had dinner at a place across the road and watched the stars.  We had a very good view of the 1/4 waxing moon and Jupiter and Venus all in a nice line on the ecliptic.  Uranus was there as well but it was so smoggy that we couldn't see it.  (The PlayBook has a great astronomy app where you just point it at the sky and it tells you what you are seeing - yes, I know the iPad had it first... but the PlayBook is small enough to carry around with you when you actually want to be out looking at stuff!)

The next am, we decided to try the local bus again to go back as we'd seen a boat heading from Muang Ngoi and they didn't have nice seats but low wooden benches with no backs and we couldn't imagine being cramped in with our knees up around our ears for 6-7 hours with 20 other backbackers.  When we showed up at the bus station, it turned out that our minibus was going to be a big local bus and they managed to fill that to the brim too (we still didn't let them put any more people than seats in it).  This trip was a bit of a disaster however as the top two gears on the bus seem to have been broken so we never got out of second and had to stop half way to fix a flat tire.  This turned it into a 5.5 hour ride and we were all wishing for the boat as you could walk up some of the hills faster than we were going!

Evidence of the inversion

That's mostly smoke from the wood fires

Our bus from hell.

Back at the bus station in Luang Prabang, we piled into a tuk-tuk with some other backbackers and headed off to our new guesthouse (we'd found a more rustic place at half the price). More later.