Tha Khet

We decided to get the heck out of Savannahkhet and escaped to Tha Khet.  Tha Khet is a much nicer town! This has meant that we have spent way too much time on buses and with us going to Vientiane it'll be 3 days out of 4 on buses... yuck

Nov 28 – To Tha Khet

This morning we went out in search of an ATM and breakfast. Our low opinion of Savannakhet was not improved by the our morning exploring. What was called romantic with some crumbling french architecture was really just a dump. We quickly found our way to the bus to get a ticket out of there. We purchased a ticket to Tha Khet and Beau zipped off to our hotel to pick up our bags and check out. We spent about 14hrs in Savannahkhet and that was quite enough. Our bus ride to Tha Khet was pretty uneventful although we did stop for an hour at some other bus station so again another slow ride. I think that will be the standard in Laos, buses taking a long time to go relatively short distances. I miss knowing that you it will take you about 2hrs to go 200km. We arrived in at Tha Khet bus station and started looking into getting a tuk tuk. We were talking with some other travellers and got a deal on the ride for all 6 of us. It was a pretty cramped ride. We started looking around for a room, the first two places only had more expensive rooms available but we found one for a reasonable price. We headed to the river front for a snack and got this really delicious pancake/crepe type thing. I don't know what it was made with, the guy used some sort of pastry, looked toffee like, and rolled it out super thin then put it on his grill and cracked an egg into it. Once it was all cooked up he poured condensed milk onto it, YUM! We then went to a restaurant and had a beer while we watched the sun set. While sitting there we saw two guys from the tuk tuk so we went for dinner with them and the other tuk tuk couple. We had a nice dinner together by the river side. We made plans to meet up with them tomorrow morning to discuss going to see some of the caves in the area. We realized when we got back to our hotel our room was right next to a karaoke club. The music was quite loud but some how we were able to sleep, I don't think it was open too late either.

Nov 29 – The Caves around Tha Khet

We met up with the group at the tourist information center, they were interested in going to one cave in particular which is about 7km long and you go through by boat. This cave is also about 200km from Tha Khet and chartering a minibus to go see it was just too big of an expense for us. The other four went ahead with the trip though. After having some noodle soup for breakfast, with not so yummy noodles, we rented a motorbike and decided to check out the caves near the town. The caves we went to were Tham Xang, Tham Pha Pa, Tham Xieng Liap and Tham Nang Aen. We were a little let down by our experiences. The caves we went into were mostly set up as alters and there wasn't much exploring to be had. Near the end of the we went to one which had more facilities but it was also more money to go in and there was the option of renting a boat. We had been let down by the other caves and decided against going in this last one. We just could drum up any enthusiasm to go in. We did go to a lake, Tha Falang, which was very pretty. The water was Caribbean blue, not really sure what made it this colour but it was quite clear. We head back into town and had a much needed shower. The roads were very dusty so we were covered in it. We went to the only restaurant that offered wifi, there were internet cafes though, and got some food and some beers. After eating and catching up on our e-mails and blogs we found the magnificent pancake man again and this time ordered two one with banana and one with egg. We had thought last night there was no way to improve on the deliciousness but the banana proved us wrong. We relaxed by the water front with another beer before heading back to our hotel. Beau and I have rediscovered TV a little but mostly its on the news station. Tomorrow we are going to try to catch an early bus to Vientiane.

Funky looking rock that looked like a face

Inside one of the Caves

Tha Falang, the pretty lake

Don Det to Savannahkhet

Savannakhet was a big let down we are moving on to Tha Khet. Hopefully it will be much better.  The bus ride was super slow with it stopping every few km to pick up people, scooters and even animals... there was a chicken.  The seemingly disorganized bus ride and having to change vehicles numerous times undid the relaxed feeling I had in Don Det.  Lets hope the next day of travel goes a little more smoothly.  Sorry I didn't really take any photos the past few days.

Nov 26 – Hanging in Don Det

Today was to be a quiet day. We went for breakfast then headed more into town to find some internet. We hung out at a nice riverside restaurant for the bulk of the day. We ran into Gregory breifly while there before he and the girl hopped on a boat to the main land. Mostly we just spent the day catching up on computer stuff and relaxing. It was nice. We tried to go to go watch the sunset at one restaurant but we got there a little late and the menu was quite overpriced. We went to the reggae bar for some beers but it was kind of pathetic as far as reggae bars go. There was no reggae music playing actually there was no music playing period. We moved on to find another restaurant for dinner and then head for an early bed. It was nice to have a quiet do nothing catch up day. We did buy a bus ticket today to go to Savannahket tomorrow, suposed to be a kind of pretty and romantic although a little run down.

Nov 27 – To Savannahket

We've been eating at the wrong places the past few nights. The restaurant attached to our guesthouse, which I hadn't really noticed before, had super cheap food. We ate here for breakfast which was a little cheaper than elsewhere but we could have had dinner last night for half the price. Boooo ahhh well you win some you lose some. We waited at the south west ferry terminal for our boat pick up around 11am. We were the only ones waiting there and were a little nervous about the fast but fortunately a boat showed up to take us to the main land. We had our own private boat although we were without shade on it. From the boat we caught a maxi bus to Pakse. This bus was bigger than a mini bus (a 15 seater van) and smaller than a coach bus (a greyhound). It also lacked air-conditioning but the windows opened and the bags were on the roof. From Pakse we transfered to a bus to Savannahkhet. This bus took a long time to get anywhere. We stoped every 500m for the first 10 km picking up passaengers including 3 motorbikes and a chicken. I don't understand why these people could go to the bus station to be picked up! Honestly! So it took forever to go 200km. We were told we`d arrive around 7pm and arrived at 9:30pm. We were dropped off outside of Savannahkhet and directed towards a jumbo, a pickup truck with benches in the back. The jumbo took us about 300m to another van. We were talking with a Lao girl, around my age, trying to figure out where we were. We found out we were dropped 35km outside of the city center. We were supposed to take the van into town but no one really indicated this to us but fortunately the Lao girl helped us figure this out. We were operating off the Lonely Planet and Rough Guides book and asked to be taken to a guesthouse which turned out to be closed. We were driven to another which was good enough for 9:30pm so we checked in. We then went in search of dinner and got some chicken noddle soup for $1. After this we went back to the hotel and for once turned on the tv. Low and behold there was a movie on so we watched Couple's Retreat before going to bed.

Laos and the 4000 Islands

Don Det has been a great place to recharge for a couple of days.  The quiet island life is exactly what we needed after cramped mini buses and long rides.  So far life in Laos runs at a much more sedate pace we'll have to see if this just island life or if it's like this everywhere.  It would be a nice change from the rest of the hullabaloo that is Asia.

Nov 24 – To Laos

Today we head to Laos. Our minibus picked us up from our hotel at 7am. We were one of the first stops since there was only 1 girl on the bus. As usual we picked up people till the mini bus was full and then some. The problem with mini buses is there is no room for luggage storage. They fill every seat but leave no space for bags. By the end of the pick ups there were 13 of us in a 13 seater mini bus but not everyone had a proper seat. The back seat, which sits 4 had 2 people plus bags, our row which sits 3 had 4 people with Beau sitting on a cushion in between seats, 3 in the row ahead (the older couple had paid extra for another seat but obviously they didn't get it), and 4 in the front with the driver sharing his seat. I think they need to learn about roof racks! It took about 2 hours to reach Strung Treng, we didn't actually go into the city just changed to a big bus to take us to the boarder. We were given visa papers to fill out and entrance/exit cards. We wanted to use our British passports to enter Laos, the visa was $11 cheaper than the Canadian, we were told we couldn't do it. It would be allowed. I think it would have been fine if we were doing the visas ourselves but a guy from the bus collected all the papers and passports and got our visas for us. We had to wait at the boarder while this happened thankfully under some shady tarps then walked across to a new bus which was to take us on to the ferry to Don Det. This ferry ride was infinity quieter than our last one, we didn't get stuck or anything. We arrived on Don Det and went in search of a room. Most places had very basic bungalows with a shared bathroom, we got one for 50,000kip ($6) with our own bathroom and shower. We walked around Don Det into the “town” which didn't take very long. The town is about 1km from our bungalow. We stopped for lunch and then headed back to the bungalow. We lazed about in hammock for the afternoon reading, napping and relaxing. Ahhh the island life. We went off in search of internet and dinner and found both. We ate at a nice little riverside restaurant and were able to use the internet. Most restaurants advertise free wifi since none of the guesthouses have it. So far Don Det seems like a nice little island.

Nov 25 – Don Det and Don Khon

We decided to rent some bicycles today to check out our island and the adjoining one, Don Khon, the two are connected by an old railway bridge. After breakfast we rented bikes from our guesthouse and set off to find an “ATM.” There aren't actually ATM's but you can take money out using your credit card with there credit card machines, we're just hoping this is seen as a sale not a cash advance. We were also thinking about doing a kayaking day trip but it cost abut $20 per person and upon further enquiry didn't sound that great. We biked along the western side of Don Det which was lovely. We stopped to talk to a guy (not sure where he was from Australia, NZ or South Africa) who was building tee-pee bungalows. He's trying to set up his own guest house. When we hit the bridge we ran into a few people who had been one our boat and bus from Strung Treng. The one girl was actually the girl who had been smushed on the mini bus with us, her name was Leah from Switzerland. The other two were Gregory and Loren from Belgium. We went to see Tat Somphamit, or Li Phi Falls, which were pretty nice. They were quite wide not all that high but there was quite the torrent of water flowing through. We walked along the path a ways and ended up in a sandy area where our new friends had gone swimming and met some Spanish dudes as well. It actually wasn't recommended swimming in this area so we headed off to another place with everyone else in tow. The beach was okay but the water was crisp and refreshing. The Mekong is pretty silty right now but we were told it was okay to swim. Beau had gone swimming and forgot he had money in his pocket so he had it all strewn over a bush to dry out. We ate lunch at the little beach side restaurant. The food was good but it was quite slow to get our meal, then again I don't think they normally have to prepare 8 dishes at one time. We headed back to Don Det and took the eastern route this time along the river. We had a little trouble with the bikes with chains falling off and getting stuck but we made it back okay. We had a quick shower then join Gregory, Loren and Leah at their bungalow to watch the sun set. After the sun had set, which was pretty spectacular, we headed to restaurant for some dinner, it also had a snooker table. I can't recall what my dinner was but it was very tasty and pretty spicy. Beau had some sort of Laos dish which pretty much burnt his face off, I think he liked it. Gregory and Beau played some snooker and the Spanish guys were coincidentally at the same place. After dinner and hanging out we headed down to another bar called Pai in Laos. They were open later then most other restaurants. There was a guy who put on a fire show, with a flaming baton and flaming balls on chains. It was pretty cool but a little scary too, you just had to hope he knew what he was doing. After all the excitement and exercise we were quite ready for bed so headed back to our bungalow. The stars are amazing here on the island with so little light pollution!

Beau on his bicycle

A tee-pee bungalow

Tat Somphamit, or Li Phi Falls

At the waterfall

A money bush

Sunset over the Mekong

Sunset

Angkor Day 2

Okay so I'm pretty much caught up with this day two post from Angkor. We are now in Laos so internet may be a little spotty sometimes but I'll do my best to stay up to date. We were told it wouldn't work to leave Cambodia on our Canadian passport and enter Laos on our British one. We need to do some research of our own to confirm this because we were told this by a young Cambodian guy who was taking care of our bus load of visas. It did cost us an extra $11 each... boooo. We are now in Don Det a little island on the Mekong. We're going to relax here for a few days because I'm tired of crappy bus rides :P

Nov 21 – Angkor Day 2

This morning, thankfully, had a later start to it with the tuk tuk picking us up around 9am. Our first temple was Preah Khan and our guides favourite temple. To get there we had to get through the chaos of Angkor Thom. Man am I glad we were there much earlier yesterday, it was packed with people. Preah Khan was lovely, definitely one of my favourites too. Our next stop was Preah Neak Pean which was an island temple. There was a long board walk over the water to reach it and no railings. You couldn't go too close to this temple since it was surrounded by water, makes me wonder if it was always this submerged. Our next stop was Ta Som, it had an awesome tree growing over an entrance in such away that the roots formed a second archway. Eastern Mebon was next, it had some great almost fully intact elephant statues at each corner on each level. It was also pretty impressive once you climbed to the top. After that came Pre Rup, there were a bunch of people trying to sell shirts and paintings on the walk up this one. Beau smushed himself into a corner to get this amazing shot of Pre Rup. At Sras Srand, our next temple, there was a huge set of stairs to climb. I had to catch my breath in the shade after reaching the top. It was hot out. We were starting to get templed out but we only had one stop left, Prasat Kravan. There was some construction to hop over to enter the temple site, looked like they were working on drainage. There were some great carvings in this temple and of course some amazing trees. After finishing with the temples we asked our tuk tuk driver to drop us off at the market so we could grab some lunch. After lunch we headed back to the hotel to beat the heat and have a shower. Just down from our hotel there was a local restaurant roasting a whole pig. We've seen this every night and Beau really wanted to try it so we ate dinner there. It was really delicious. We then went to find a bar with happy hour to have another beer before bed. Tomorrow we are off to Kratie and will be on the bus all day... Yuck. 

Preah Khan

Preah Khan

Preah Neak Pean

Ta Som

Eastern Mebon

Beau's awesome pic of Pre Rup

Sras Srang

Prasat Kravan

Kratie Dolphins

I'm a little behind on my journeling so I figure I'll give you an update on the past few days then post the rest of my Angkor stuff tomorrow! Speaking of tomorrow we are heading to Laos! We took a bus yesterday to Kratie and saw the Irrawaddy dolphins of the Mekong.  We are thinking we'll use our British passports to enter Laos as the visas are much cheaper!

Nov 22 - The bus to Kratie
This morning we caught a bus from Siem Reap to Kratie. The shuttle bus picked us up at 7am and took us to the bus station. It was a long uneventful day on a bus. We had to change buses at one point and they second bus was not as nice as the first. We arrived in Kratie around 5:30pm. We set off looking for a hotel and actually had a little trouble between guesthouses being full, lack of wifi and mosquitoes it was dark before we found one acceptable. After check in we went in search of food and ate at a decent restaurant.  At the end of my dinner a large fat grasshopper type bug jumped from the bushes onto my plate and scared the bejesus out of me.  It then ended up under the table hopping around and on my leg till it was flicked back into the bushes. I may have squawked once or twice. We booked a trip for tomorrow morning to go see the Irrawaddy dolphins.

Nov 23 - Irrawaddy Dolphins
We had another early morning this morning with a tuk tuk pick up at 7:30am. Before heading out we booked our bus and boat for our Laos boarder crossing tomorrow to the 4000 Islands. Our tuk tuk ride took about 30min to get to the dolphin site. Once there we waited around for a little bit in hopes another couple might turn up to split the boat cost with, the price dropped two dollars per person with one more person. No one turned up so off we went just the two of us and our driver. We went up the river a litle ways in hopes of spotting the dolphins. And we did!  They seemed to stay in the area, called Kampi pool.  They are interesting looking with short dorsal fins and more of a beluga whale type head. A couple of them were playing together splashing about. We spent an hour on the water, I probably could have sat there all day trying to get the perfect picture. We were taken back to our hotel with a small side trip an ATM. Once back our hotel suggested we take a ferry across the river to Koh Trong and bicycle around the island. It seemed like a good idea so after lunch we did just that. It was a 9 km bike ride around the island. Its suggested to do this in the morning or late afternoon but  being the fools we are we did it at 1pm. Fortunately it was pretty shady and we has quite the breeze to keep us cool. Our ferry ride back was interesting. The boat was quite full and the wind very strong and we got stuck on a sandbar!  The driver and a tour guide jumped in and tried to dislodge the boat with no luck. Another local guy jumped in too and still no luck. Then they asked for all the guys on the boat to help so Beau and 4 other guys all jumped into the Mekong to get us unstuck. And they did Yay!  It was pretty funny.  Before they asked for help Beau had seen it coming and started emptying his pockets. Fortunately the rest of our day was relatively uneventful. Although we did buy 8 small bananas for $0.25.

The Irrawaddy Dolphin

Dolphins playing

A tail!!

Bike riding on Koh Trong

Beau in the Mekong pushing the ferry!

Angkor Day 1

Nov 20 – Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

 We were up before the sun and were on our way to see the Temples of Angkor at 5am. We arrived at Angkor Wat, along with many other tourists, and waited for the sun to rise. It was quite spectacular with the sky changing colours as the sun came up. The only things that marred this moment was the scaffolding encompassing part of Angkor Wat and the locals trying to get you to come eat at their restaurant. Once the sun had risen the crowds seemed to disperse and we were able to explore Angkor Wat without too many other tourists. We had brought some longan with us so we had a little break to snack on them. We headed back to the tuk tuk and went on to see Angkor Thom. We got out at the north gate and walked through so we could take pictures then hopped back in the tuk tuk and continued on to the center of Angkor Thom. We saw the Bayon, the Baphuon Temple, the Royal Palace & Phimeanakas, the Elephant Terrace, and the Leper King Terrace. We were starting to tire after seeing all these site but our tuk tuk driver whisked us away to another set of temples. Our next two temples were Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon. At Chau Say Tevoda there was a man selling temple rubbings. They were very beautiful so we bought a big one for a decent price. Next we went to Ta Keo and then on to Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm was very cool. It's called the jungle temple and was actually used as the set for one of the Tomb Raider moves. One of the coolest things about this temple were the trees. There were massive trees growing out of some of the walls and roofs. The building was built over 800 years ago and the trees would have started to grow on the buildings after Angkor was abandon. It was really cool to see how nature will grow right over top of the things man builds. Our tuk tuk driver still had two temples for us to see today but we put them off till tomorrow. We were quite hungry and footsore, we had been explore temples for about 7hrs and it was only 1pm. We went back to the hotel and just ate their restaurant before having a nap. We headed out to the restaurant area called the Alley and Bar Street. For dinner we had a self bbq dish. There was broth to cook your vegetables in a metal center to cook your meat. Ours had a mixture of meats including snake, beef, chicken, shrimp and alligator. The alligator was very tasty but the snake was tough. It's good to try new things!

Outside Angkor Wat at Sun Rise

Inside Angkor Wat at sunrise

Angkor Wat

North Gate to Angkor Thom

The Bayon

The Bayon

Baphuon Temple

Royal Palace & Phimeanakas

Elephant Terrace

Ta Prohm

One of many trees growing on the temples

2 Months Gone

It dawned on Beau and I today that we have been traveling for exactly a month! I feels like so long ago we were preparing to set off on our journey.  It's been an amazing two months though and am excited to see what the future has in store for us.  I do think it'll be nice to take two weeks and relax in New Zealand without having to catch a sleeper bus! 

I do have a little Asia rant though, it has become apparent to me that my pet peeve is noisy eaters.  So often I find myself cringing because someone is eating like a cow.  Just chomping away with their mouths open, smacking their lips.  This isn't a trait of any particular social class, gender or age.  It also doesn't matter what they are eating, it could be soup or bread or something completely different.  Why has no one ever taught them to chew with their mouths closed!! It drives me nuts and it is gross to boot.  The main thing that sparked this little rant was on our bus from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh we had just gotten back on the bus after stopping for a pee brake and the Cambodian guy in the row next to me kept smacking is lips and making chewing noises.  He wasn't even eating anything!! I cringed every time.

Nov 18 - Sihanoukville

We had a fairly restless night due to our neighbours thinking they were motorbikes. They were making vrooming noises and security had to tell them to be quiet twice. We were taking it easy today after how busy our last 4 days have been. We stopped by EcoSea and picked up our temporary dive cards then we went to the beach. We spent the afternoon hanging out at a beach bar with $0.50 beers, wifi, and power. We updated our blog/website. We also talked a bunch with one of the guys working at the Bar. He was a very nice Khmer guy named Vida. We told him a bunch of stuff about Canada and explained some English words to him too. It was interesting talking to him. I had a dish called amok for lunch which is a delicious Cambodian coconut curry dish. We caught a bus to Siem Reap around 7 or 8 pm. We were on a sitting bus to Phnom Penh and then had to change buses for a sleeper bus to Siem Reap. The sleeper bus sucked; the seats were fixed and not reclined very much although they were wider than some, the bathroom was gross. It was dirty and you had to flush with a pail of water which took up the entire floor space so it would be very difficult to pee. Needless to say I hung on till we reached our destination.

Nov 19 – Siem Reap
We arrived in Siem Reap around 6 or 7 am. We had been promised a tuk tuk would be there to pick us up but there was not. We paid the $2 fair to take us into the city. Our tuk tuk driver took us to a hotel where we checked out their rooms. The rooms were nice but we wanted to do some comparison shopping. When we went to leave the guy dropped the price to $6 for a fan room so we took it. We then got to talking with our tuk tuk driver about trips to Angkor and we made a deal for 2 days for $25. We lazed away most of the day since we were so tired from our bus ride but it was nice to just read and nap. Late in the afternoon we explored some of the markets and then found a cheap restaurant to eat in. We called it a night pretty early since we were still kind of tired from the night before and we're getting picked up at 5am so we can see the sun rise over Angkor.