Vientiane

After moving on to Laos, we started with a couple of nights in Vientiane. This is a different city again to the places we had visited during the trip - for starters being much smaller with a population of less than 1 million people. Travelling during the off season definitely has its advantages, but in this case it seemed that the lack of tourist numbers had left the city very quiet, with only a small city centre to start with. One of those upsides is the fact that walking was a reasonable way to get to the places we were interested in visiting, despite the heat and humidity of the wet season.

After arriving and settling in to our accommodation, we took a walk along the river (the Mekong again...), where we could see Thailand on the opposite bank. It was less developed than the city waterfronts we had seen previously, and very quiet - again reinforcing that we were there in the off season. We found a statue of the last king of Laos overlooking the river, which doubled as a shrine, complete with people praying. On our way back into the city centre, we admired some of the French-styled architecture and also passed the presidential palace. Gillian, of course, had to get a photo. We found a lovely family run restaurant for dinner, and managed to muddle through ordering with the help of google translate. The food was great, but as the only customers it was a shame to see the place so quiet. Some more people came just as we left, although it's hard to see how 4 customers a night keeps a business viable. 

With a strong French influence, there is a huge boulevard running through the city, with the Patuxay sitting at the halfway point. This is a "victory gate", celebrating Laos independence from France and loosely modelled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris - which feels a bit like mixed messaging. You can climb to the top and get a good view over the city, and there is a bunch of information on the way up about Laos culture, as well as some plugs for tourist attractions across the country. 

Further out from the centre, we found Pha That Luang - the Great Stupa. This is an impressive monument dating from the 3rd century BCE, and rebuilt several times since. It is said to house a relic of Buddha, and is part of a bigger complex of temples which included another of James' favourites - the sleeping Buddha. While open to tourists, it is not as well set up as previous sites we had visited to date on our trip, which was a bit of a theme in Vientiane. There is less tourist traffic, and I think we would be prepared to say much less than the country deserves, which means that attractions are correspondingly less well set up for foreign visitors.

Other highlights included two more significant temples in terms of the regions history, Wat Sisaket and Ho Phrakeo, which once housed an emerald Buddha (moved from Chiang Mai, to Luang Prabang to Vientiane) - taken to Bangkok when the Siamese invaded Vientiane, and now considered the talisman of Thailand. We also saw the Black Stupa, had lunch at another iteration of the Friends restaurants that we first encountered in Phonm Penh, as well as exploring the street food at the night markets and finding a couple of new dishes to try. Our last evening finished with us finding a small cafe/bar in which we were (again) the only patrons, and had Gillian feeling profiled as a selection of 80s music was played over their sound system. To be fair though, the waitress also seemed to be bopping along to the tunes, despite being half our age. 

Siem Reap - the city

While mostly famous for the temples, Siem Reap was a lot of fun to visit in its own right. Being the off-season for tourism, it was pretty quiet, which we liked. However, there were still a wide range of nice places to explore and go and eat, although it was hard to not feel sorry for some of them when we seemed to be the only customers. One of these was a little local restaurant near our hotel, which had a great range of cheap Cambodian food, as well as some cute little kids who were keen to play with us. We went there twice, and were very impressed. As with Phnom Penh, there was also a restaurant run by the Friends organisation, which trains underprivileged kids in hospitality - after our experience previously we had to try it out. The food was great and we had a really nice chat to the manager about their program. The standout was the chocolate pepper cake, which James claimed was the best chocolate cake he'd ever had. He had the cheek to ask for the recipe, and to our surprise they brought it out for him. The family is now anticipating fun acting as taste testers as he perfects it on our return!

On our first day we did a sunrise tour to Angkor Wat, followed by visits to a few other temples (including breakfast!). It was a great intro to the complex, and we had two more days of visiting to go after that. Having scoped out the lay of the land, we decided to hire bicycles for the next two days, which proved to be a great choice. We got lucky with the weather (and our timing, one day we got back to the cafe next door to our hotel for a milkshake just as it started to bucket down), which helped. Cycling out to the temples and around to some of the many sites meant that we had a lot of flexibility, as well as being a pleasant way to keep moving for the day. We probably did 40 km or so on the bikes each time, and it gave us the option of visiting some of the other tourist attractions in town. the one down side was coming back after one temple visit to find the bikes claimed by a monkey, who was trying to chew everything in sight. After trying to be patient, James ended up taking a more "proactive" approach to getting rid of it, thankfully without any biting. It is apparently a common problem, at the bikeshop, they told us they chew off the saddles on the bikes, and the handlebar covers as well. And they steal the locks, somehow...

In addition to the temples, we went to the APOPO centre, which has a program training rats to detect landmines. It is a huge problem in Cambodia, and elsewhere, with mines from the American war and civil war in Cambodia, as well as more recent conflicts. The rats are an African breed, and are trained in Tanzania before being imported to work in Cambodia. The demonstration was great, and followed by a chance to hold a couple of the rats. Gillian did so, getting extensively licked for her troubles!

We also visited the Angkor Museum, which houses lots of artifacts from temples around Siem Reap and elsewhere. It has a huge collection which is really well presented, along with a pretty comprehensive history of the development of the various temples around Siem Reap. This includes the history of the temples switching between Hinduism (Brahminism) and Buddhism and back, which is also associated with some defacing (literally in the case of many Buddha statues) to emphasise one side or the other - which seems like a great shame.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Siem Reap and would happily visit there again. Great food, fantastic temples, interesting history and an accessible town centre make for a perfect tourist storm!

Siem Reap - Temples

Siem Reap is famous for one thing, Angkor Wat and the rest of the temples sitting, reclaimed, from the jungle outside the city. There's little that we can say about them that hasn't been said. There's a fantastic history, stretching from the 10th century, and the whole site is mindblowing. Temples vary from "(partially) restored", to "preserved", to "original condition". Almost universally, there are blocks lying around waiting to be fitted back into the original structure, like the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle. 

The scope of it all is mind boggling, and rather than try and go through a detailed description we will just post photos here from each of the places we visited over our 3 days in Siem Reap. That came to about 10 temples, only 390 more to go!

Angkor Wat

Banteay Kdei

Baphoun

Bayon

Preah Khan

Preah Palilay and the Royal Palace

Ta Prohm

Kratie

After recovering from our journey, and having a lovely dinner at our hotel (it runs a hospitality training scheme for local kids, and works towards elimination of poverty and environmental degradation), we started to get excited about the next day. Why? Dolphins! This is the last place in the world where you can still find freshwater dolphins, a species called Mekong dolphins. They have been historically known as Irrawaddy dolphins, but given that they haven't been seen for many years in the Irrawaddy river, Mekong dolphin is a much better fit. They used to be found all through the river system, but encroachment by humans and damming of the river have reduced the population to a relatively short stretch of the river around Kratie. There are something like 130 left. 

The next day we set out for a kayaking and bike riding day. We still feel scarred by a poor experience viewing dolphins in Bali, where scores of small motorboats aggressively chased pods of dolphins in the ocean. It seemed like kayaking was a much gentler way of going about our business. The tour started with a briefing, which had us slightly worried - the current in the river is quite strong at the end of the rainy season, and it looked like paddling could be tricky. There was also the obligatory disclaimer about no guarantees - spoilt by being told straight afterwards that they've seen dolphins every time they've gone out for the last 8 years. We loaded ourselves into the back of the truck with the kayaks (!) and headed off to the launch point.

Spoiler alert - we had no interest in offering one of our phones to the Mekong river gods, and paddling in the current was not bad, but not completely stress free, and the end result was no photos. However, we took plenty of photos in our brains! The river is wide and we had to paddle more than 1km across to get to the deep pools where the dolphins live. Then it was a matter of slowly going downstream until we found them. When we did, it was spectacular. We probably saw 20 or so, maybe more and they moved up and down the river around where we were located. We paddled up and down after them. We got quite close several times and had a fantastic time of it, with the kayaking part of the day going seriously overtime as a result. There were 3 couples on the trip and we were the oldest by at least 20 years. We took quite pleasure in being the first ones back to the disembarking point...

After lunch, it was on to a bike ride around Koh Trong island - which is a farming community, with a couple of floating villages as well. The ride across the river was in a tiny little wooden ferry which seemed to be on its last legs, and had quite a lot of water in the bottom (being pumped out by the world's loudest diesel bilge pump. We managed to make it across safely, although it felt like a close run thing. 

The floating villages next to the island are populated by Vietnamese fishermen, who are predominantly Muslim, and do not yet have permanent residency rights in Cambodia. It was interesting to hear the afternoon prayers being broadcast as we cycled around. Apparently the island is famous for the flavour of its pomelos, which we got to sample. We also saw a colony of fruit bats and a very big old tree which is worshipped by the locals. James also collected half a dozen high fives from the local kids. Thankfully, the ride back across to Kratie was on the usual ferry, which was considerably more seaworthy (riverworthy?) than our ride over. 

We finished the day with a drink watching the sunset over the river, followed by another lovely meal at our hotel. All-in-all, Kratie was an entirely worthwhile experience.  

Sen Monorom and beyond

While the clear highlight of our stay in Mondulkiri was the elephants and the jungle trek, we had yet another day to explore around the area of the town we were staying in - Sen Monorom. It is a very pretty part of the world, and quite close to the Vietnamese border, and we had a tuk-tuk driver organised by our resort who took us around and acted as tour guide for the day. 

The biggest attraction was Bu Sra falls, which is the biggest waterfall in Cambodia. We were prepared to be a little underwhelmed, given that we had already seen a couple of spectacular waterfalls on the trek, but this one surprised us in a positive way. Given the amount of rain that had recently fallen, and the fact it was the rainy season anyway, there was a truly impressive amount of water cascading over the falls, which are in two (big) steps. It is popular with local and international tourists alike, and the amenities there are well set up - which was something we needed after the mud of the previous trek. We spent a couple of hours there, walking to the top of the falls, gazing from the viewing platform located over the pool between the steps, and having a cold drink in the cafe overlooking the falls. It seemed like a lot of people were making a day of it, and setting up for picnic lunches in some of the viewing areas.

 After the falls, we went on to a coffee and then pepper plantation, and our driver - Minea - gave us quite a lot of information on how they are grown and prepared. Along with a bunch of the other agricultural products of the region, including jackfruit and dragonfruit. It was very interesting, and reinforced the impression from the previous day that there are real moves towards more broadscale and modern agricultural practises in the region (and, by extension, across the country). 

The final stop was a lookout, but the rain had caught up to us and it was belting down so hard we could barely see out of the pavilion we were sheltering in. We had a sense of what the view might be like, but no more than that really. After lunch we headed back to the resort for a relaxed afternoon before departure the following day. 

The resort itself - Nature Lodge Mondulkiri - was great, with spaced out "bungalows" and a really nice common area, which doubled as the bar/restaurant. This was built around a bunch of trees, and included a pool, so naturally we ended up spending a lot of our "relaxing time" there, rather than the room itself. There was the added attraction of the 6 year old daughter of the manager, on school holidays, who took quite a shine to us and spent extensive time playing with us and giving us instructions on what she wanted to do. It was a bit sad to leave in the end.

The onwards journey was to Kratie, and the journey itself is worth a mention. We had organised, through the resort, a local company to take us on the 6 hour journey there. These all tend to be shoestring operations, and the world's most beaten up Toyota van showed up to pick us up. There were several other passengers, one of whom was on an IV drip, strapped to a bamboo pole. In addition to people, there was various forms of cargo, including several bags of durian that we picked up along the way. For those who don't know, this meant quite a funky aroma for the bulk of the drive. Along the journey, we dropped off cargo at various seemingly random streetside stalls, passengers left and joined, but eventually we were dropped at the front of our hotel in Kratie, with a sigh of relief. Did we mention that there were no seatbelts and that Gillian could see the road through the floor of the van? This must be what they mean by "adventure"...   

Elephants and jungle trekking

Elephants! This was the big ticket item for the next part of our journey, and probably one of the biggest ticket items for the whole trip. Luckily, they did not disappoint. We had a two day elephant and trekking adventure booked, thanks in no small part to James' sister Kate who had recommended a resort in Mondulkiri province that she had stayed in 17 years previously. It was still there and made all the necessary arrangements for us. 

We jumped in a beaten up van to drive out to an elephant conservation project, along some of the worst roads we'd seen on the trip so far. In particular, there was one hill where there was a crevasse in the middle of the road, looking like the hill was splitting in two, it had to be 4 metres deep. There was just enough room to drive alongside it, although the view from the left hand side of the van was pretty scary. At the top of a hill we could drive no further and went the rest of the way on foot. It was steep and slick, not helped by overnight rain, and the hike down was slow. Faster was the motorbike ridden by one of the mahoots, although neither of us can imagine how he made it down without having a serious accident (let alone carrying a bike full of supplies). 

At the bottom, we came across some huts and toilets, and the two mahoots who took us to see the elephants. The project has 300 hectares of jungle for the elephants to roam in, and they have 3 elephants who have been rescued from working lives elsewhere. They are in negotiation to save some more, although it is a tough ask when they are used as farm workers and tourist attractions in local villages. The two females are very social, and we were given bananas to offer as snacks, and were promptly approached. Feeding the elephants was an amazing experience, and they were very enthusiastic about the bananas, only by showing them two empty hands could you slow their approach! We were able to feed them and pat them, at least for as long as the bananas lasted, at which point they wandered off to continue feeding in the jungle. We followed them around for a while, standing in awe at the amount of destruction a hungry elephant can cause -there's no mistaking where they have been with wide swathes cut through the dense bush. 

Next stop was the home of the mahoots on a riverbank, the river was pretty thunderous at the end of the rainy season and with a fair amount of recent rain. We had lunch and a rest, followed by the elephants coming down for their daily bath. On other occasions it is apparently possible to get in the water with them, but with the flow high, it seems like this wasn't so much of an option. Not that it stopped the mahoots. Some more banana feeding and watching and the elephants headed back to the jungle, while we were directed to our camp for the night, on a platform over the river. 

In mid-afternoon the rain came down, and we watched the water level rising, with some concern from Gillian about the safety of our perch for the night. The worrying was in vain, thankfully, and we had dinner by the side of the river where our guide, Chea, made us a pork curry in a fresh cut bamboo tube, cooked over the fire. It was super tasty.

Chea is from the local Bunong tribe, which has lived in the area for hundreds of years, well before the establishment of Cambodia as a nation and the arrival of Khmer people in the region. He gave us interesting insight into their culture and some of their way of life. This included typically marrying young, having many kids (his family of 3 kids is considered small), and heavy penalties for divorce (typically the contract payment specifies one elephant). He also described the method of swidden farming practised by the Bunong, and the importance of the transfer of knowledge from older people to younger generations, as well as talking about there animism beliefs.

The next morning we packed up and headed across the first of several rickety looking bridges on a hike through the jungle. James was excited when Chea made him a toy bamboo gun that operated with a very satisfying "pop", and shortly after taking off we also disturbed a troop of monkeys who hopped through the trees to escape. The paths were pretty treacherous after a lot of overnight rain, and slippery enough to slow us down considerably, even with the fresh cut bamboo walking poles provided by our sage guide.

We continued up hill and down dale, with no mistaking that we were in the jungle, headed to visit two impressive waterfalls. The first had a cliff in behind the falls, and a path through behind the waterfall to continue the trek. The second had a huge flow of water that meant it felt like it was raining close to the falls, and also a very slippery rock clamber up and out. Along the way we walked through a number of Bunong farms, concrete examples of the agriculture described to us the night before. They were broken up by a series of fenced off private properties, that are disrupting the traditional approach of the Bunong, in a familiar conflict between modernisation (possibly more accurately described here as real estate speculation) and traditional life. 

Lunch was at the smallest of the three waterfalls for the day, followed by a decent hike out, including more homemade bridge crossings that didn't thrill Gillian. As we climbed the last hill out to our ride back into town, we were treated to a display of the motorbike riding skill of the locals, riding up and down a road that didn't look remotely passable, complete with ruts that had to be 20cm deep. The "up" part included a load of bananas, unrealistically big for a single bike. At the top, we encountered another elephant, this time owned by the local village - thankfully not put to work except for trying to attract tourists. We were also treated to a group of tourist zooming past (on the good part of the road) on a series of quad bikes. We took the time to consider our moral superiority as they went by. 

Despite some slips and falls, and a lot of residual mud on clothes and boots, this two day excursion was certainly one of the highlights of the whole trip.  

Phnom Penh

The trip from Can Tho to Phnom Penh was 6 hours on the Mekong in a relatively small, fast ferry. As is our wont we struck up conversations with a couple of Kiwis and a French med student taking a break before starting her residency. The trip involved 2 border crossings which were fairly painless, and very casual, though we we rather nervous about watching our passports being taken by motorbike to the immigration office by the ferry crew. 

Travelling by fast ferry was a great way to catch a glimpse of life happening on the banks and river as we went along, with lots of floating houses and businesses. We also saw a lot of evidence of sand mining operations, with most of the ships being on the Vietnam side of the border, mostly illegal. 

Phnom Penh immediately had a different feel to anywhere else we had visited to date. Development is probably a little behind somewhere like Vietnam, but there are a lot of new building still going up, and according to our new Kiwi friends it had changed a lot since they were last there, a few years previously. Although the approach to wiring up internet connections is still quite chaotic...

One thing that struck us was that there were far fewer tourists than we expected, which is a combination of the time of year (rainy season) and the border troubles with Thailand (we're so brave!). It did mean that the attractions we went to visit weren't crowded at all. 

We spent a morning at the National Museum, which is not that huge, but it was pretty spectacular. It is filled with statues from temple complexes across the country, including Angkor Wat. There was one room in particular that reminded us of both a Nock Bantock book - The Merchant's Wife (worth looking up if you don't know it). We got there only a little later than planned, but really should have given ourselves more time, it really is fascinating (I feel like that word keeps cropping up). Interestingly, they had a little piece on the illegal trade in artifacts, which had a huge impact on the country. During the worst of the war periods in the early 1970s there was a raging trade, a lot of it driven by one person, Douglas Latchford, who was (much) later prosecuted and convicted in the USA. We saw a donor plaque from 2009 that had his name on it - the cheek of him was astounding. Repatriation is an ongoing exercise in negotiation skills, by the sound of it.

We also visited the royal palace, which is spectacular. It is still "operational" so there are areas closed off, but it contains several significant temples, including one housing a jade buddha, carved out of a single piece of jade. It's a true national treasure - unfortunately photos are strictly forbidden. The detail and craftsmanship that goes into everything is quite breathtaking. We really knew we had changed countries when we got caught in the rain that came in in the afternoon. Spoiler alert, it has happened every day so far in Cambodia - this is why it's known as the rainy season. It became quickly clear that all planned activities had to factor this in. 

Phnom Penh is, of course, on the Mekong river, and has a huge island just adjacent which is entirely agricultural - Silk Island. No points for guessing what the main industry is there. With a need for something a little different (and with James having withdrawals), we went over to the island for a bike ride. There is a loop of sealed road that is about 20km long that goes around the perimeter, and we found it a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. We took a tuk-tuk to the ferry, which was a bit of an exciting journey in itself, and rented bikes and took off. It worked out significantly cheaper that the $200 tour that we looked at briefly... Apart from the clacking looms in nearly every house we went past, the notable feature was the number of temples on the island, servicing what seems to be a pretty small population. They all seemed very well appointed compared to the houses that we saw, and it was the day the monks were out collecting alms. Which made us wonder if there is any resentment towards the relative wealth of the temples. Not that we want to cast aspersions on religions exploiting less well off people...

Food was the other stand out of our entry into Cambodia. Gillian had looked up a couple of community run/co-op places, and we managed to get some spectacular traditional meals as a result. James had a frog curry he was particularly impressed with. We also hit the street markets to eat, which was somewhat less salubrious, and came complete with a view of rats ferreting through the garbage. We escaped with no ill effects. On the final evening in the city, there was a big market down by the river, with the local streets all closed off. We were both impressed with the upscale approach, which wouldn't be out of place on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. Unfortunately, we had eaten a massive lunch and neither of us were tempted by the treats on offer. We also caught our first glimpse of deep fried spiders for sale. Even James decided that he wasn't game to go that far...