Vang Vieng, Laos 12-3-09

Our flights to Laos (pronounced Lao) both went smooth and easy. We arrived in Vientiane and had 3 hours to kill till our bus would arrive to take us to Vang Vieng. We passed the time eating at the rest stop (no questionable soup for me), walking around the area, and playing hackey-sack with a bat mitten feather-ball (they call this game Kator in Laos).

When our bus finally arrived we threw our bags underneath and took the bench row of seats in the back. Before our bus left a man selling valium and sleeping pills walked up and down the bus- just incase someone wanted to knock themselves out for the 5 hour bus ride, we declined.

When we got in to Vang Vieng a tuk-tuk driver brought us to our hostel, The Spicy Laos, and we arrived just in time to sit around a campfire and listen to Pong, our hostel owner, tell us the history of Laos and the rest of SE Asia. Our group of 31 was the largest this hostel has ever held and to accommodate us all, Pong had to set up beds inside tents. This hostel had one of the coolest set-ups I’ve ever seen; it’s like a sleep-away camp. There is one big bamboo tent which holds 20 beds in it (most are bunk-beds and some are on the second floor of the structure), and each bed has a little mattress, a pillow, and a mosquito net over it. Aside from that, everyone is pretty much sleeping out in the open, but it’s a nice feeling to sleep and camp together as a group.

Every morning we woke up to the roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing or from the monks banging on drums. Then the whole group of us would congregate at the breakfast table and eat our regular morning meal of bananas, toasted baguettes with butter and jam, and coffee or tea before gathering up to head to the river. Vang Vieng is known as a major party city in SE Asia (said to be bigger than Koh Phangnan) and is famous for their daytime tubing festivities.

How an average day works is as follows: rent inner tubes from inside the town (a five minute walk from our hostel), take a tuk-tuk to the river (a 10,000 kip expense = $1.19 US), and arrive to the first bar on the river to start your day. There are 12 bars next to each other that line the river. Everyone starts at the first bar and sets their tubes down to drink and party. There is a huge rope swing at the first bar and everyone watches as other people swing into the river. The two major themes of Vang Vieng tubing are to have your body spray painted/drawn on and to collect as many string bracelets as you can from each bar. So, by the end of each day, most people are covered in writing and pain and have all sorts of different colored bands on.

Everyone moves from one bar to the next either by tubing in the water or by walking from bar to bar on land. After the first day of tubing we figured it would be easier to walk from bar to bar and not have to worry about hanging on to our tubes all day and bringing them back to the tube shop in time to get our deposits back.

At the second bar is a bamboo pole that’s greased up and slick at the top of it, similar to the greased pole from La Tomatina (but this pole wasn’t as tall). The goal is to climb up and touch the top to receive a free bucket, the same ones from Koh Phangnan. On our first day a few of us from Spicy Laos tried to climb up and failed, but I remembered the winning strategy from La Tomatina and got on David’s shoulders (one of the Aussie’s staying at Spicy Laos) and started to climb up the beam, as I inched up the pole, Chris (another Spicy guy), climbed onto Dave’s shoulders and when I stood on his shoulders I was close enough to scoot up to the top of the pole… “ding-ding-ding, FREE BUCKET!” The second bar also had limbo challenge every day and a balloon popping game where you would tie a little balloon to your ankle and the last person left with their balloon inflated would win drinks. This bar was good and also had a zip line to fly down on.

Although the second bar was fun, the third bar was where the real party was. Good music, a large crowd, free whiskey shots, beer-pong, a big rope swing, and it had a platform to jump off of too. Our Spicy Laos group of 15 spent most of our time here before heading back at the end of each “tubing” day.

Just past the third bar is a fourth that is deserted and a fifth bar which has a volleyball mud pit to play in. We walked down there on our second day and I passed my camera off to my friend, Ryan, who worked there (who I had randomly met in Koh Phangnan one month earlier). I planned to just get a little muddy and play some volleyball, but Rob (another spicy laos) tackled me, then Rich and Chris (another spicy) grabbed me by the arms and legs and threw me into the mud, and to top it all off, Rich smashed my face into the muck. I got him back of course, but I was done for and completely covered from head to toe and looked like a lagoon creature! My only visible war wound from the pit was a scratched forehead from when Rich pounded my face into the dirt and I hit a rock. Not too bad considering most of our group had cut up feet, arms, legs, and other battle bruises.

The very last bar that anyone could triumphantly arrive at is the Death Slide bar. Known by such name because the slide swings you up into the air and you land whichever way it wants you to. Rumor has it that two weeks ago, a guy went off the slide while a girl was going off a zip line, they collided mid-air and while the girl was fine, the guy cracked his neck in the air and died instantly. While this tubing adult playground is fun, it’s reported that about 4 deaths per year occur here. Makes sense since so much alcohol, partying, rope swings, zip lines, water, and rocks are involved. Another death reported this year was from a girl who swung from the first bar’s rope swing; story goes that she swung all the way out, swung back towards the platform so she could slow down before jumping off, but she either lost her grip or scared herself and fell down by the platform and onto rocks, killing herself instantly. We had heard these stories before tubing and were careful not to become another statistic.

The restaurants in town here are similar to those on Had Rin beach in Koh Phangnan in that they play either Family Guy or FRIENDS episodes all day long. After my first day of tubing I got into a routine of waking up early and getting an hour or hour and a half massage at a Laos massage spot right around the corner from us (which only cost me $3). After the massage I would have some lunch at a Family Guy restaurant and just hang out to watch a few episodes. Every morning like this was perfection.

Rich, Will, and I spent 4 full days in Vang Vieng; meaning tubing/bar hopping all day and partying at night. But, I cheated and took the third day off to relax, had an almost 2 hour massage, and shopped around town a bit. That day saved me because it seems like most people in our Spicy Laos group are starting to feel sick after all the boozing. In contrast, Will has been a real trooper and has managed to stay completely drunk all day and night for the four days. I don’t know how he's done it, but it is a real feat.

Today is our fifth day in this party city and Rich, Will, and I just packed up our stuff and arranged for a mini-van to drive us up to Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang is a place I’ve been looking forward to seeing since Thailand. The city is known for its authentic trekking, beautiful waterfalls, and laid-back atmosphere. The three of us will have a week in LP before going our separate ways (Rich and Will are off to Thailand, while I'm headed to Vietnam), and it will be nice to spend some quality time together before splitting up.

I think after all of this partying (Vang Viang, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Phangnan, Oktoberfest, La Tomatina, Lagos, and the Greek Isles), I’m ready to take a break from it all and relax. Luang Prabang is just what the doctor ordered.

Speak to you from LP!

Sihanoukville and Siem Reap, Cambodia 11-29-09

Emma, Will, Rich, and I piled into a mini van along with 4 other travelers; I was all the way in the back sitting on a single seat with everyone’s backpacks on my left and kilos of rice bags at my feet. The soup I had ordered from our guesthouse before we left was too hot to eat quickly so we cut off the top half of a liter bottle of water and I ate my noodle soup from that on the drive.

Just 2 hours later we arrived in Sihanoukville, only stopping once to pick up a woman rice farmer who was on the side of the road and needed a lift. When we arrived we were mobbed with people directing us to one guesthouse or another. It’s the kind of feeling like, even if they were giving the best advice on the best place in town, you almost don’t want to go just because they are pestering you so much. We started walking down the street and stopped at one of the first guesthouses we saw, which was also the largest, GST.

Sihanoukville is known as touristy beach town in Cambodia that we were almost going to skip, but we figured since it was sort of on the way back North, we might as well stop and check it out. Within 5 seconds of stepping onto the beach, we knew why it was known as a tourist town. The “beach” consists of less than 10 feet of sand and all along the shore are lounge chairs occupied by westerners. Cambodian children and women walk up and down the beach selling bracelets, jewelry, scarves, bathing suits, sunglasses, and services like massages, manicures, pedicures, and even hair threading! We walked up and down the small strip of sand to check out what was around and all we saw were endless lounge chairs and restaurant after restaurant situated behind them. The three of us eventually settled into a few lounge chairs and were soon swarmed by local children.

They kids were tying bracelets on everyone and actually being pretty rude demanding money from us. Rich and Will said they didn’t want bracelets and the children started screaming at them calling them all sorts of bad names. One girl even spilled Richard’s drink on him! Emma and I gave in to the pedicures and had our feet scrubbed and toes painted for $4. Another little girl talked me into having my legs threaded, which is sort of like a form of waxing, but it’s a hair removal method that works by using the friction of two pieces of thread running past one-another to remove a strand of hair, one at a time. Well, for the next hour and half everyone had a good laugh watching me wince in pain as each hair was individually plucked from my legs. It was pretty unpleasant and only by the end of it did I distract myself enough in my book to not think about the pain.

From our lounge chairs we watched an incredible sunset and then headed back to our place for some dinner. In the morning we packed day packs and left our big bags at our guesthouse as we set off on a boat day trip to a few islands nearby. A tuk-tuk brought us to a restaurant where we were to have our “complimentary breakfast” which consisted of a cold baguette with jam. 10 minutes later a man with a Cadillac picked us up and the 4 of us hopped in our private car which took us to the beach. A long-tail boat was waiting for us in the water and we climbed aboard along with a few other people and two of the smallest dogs you’ve ever seen. A gay couple from china had 2 puppy Chihuahuas that were about the size of one of my hands and each had a little puppy outfit on. They were so cute!

Our long-tail boat first took us to a small island nearby to snorkel around. The visibility was pretty poor and the reef was over visited so most of the coral was dying or broken off. Most people don’t realize that when you touch the reef or coral, it damages it and prevents it from growing as well. I’ve been snorkeling most of my life and could only look with astonishment as I watched dozens of snorkelers stand on, kick, and touch the reef.

Next up we went to Bamboo Island where we had lunch, fresh grilled fish, baked potato, and veggies, and a fresh coconut to drink and for dessert. We hung out on the island for a couple of hours and just lied on the beach and snorkeled around. We found a huge red starfish with black spikes on it on the ocean floor and later I made friends with a little black reef fish who had lost his way and was near the beach. For about 30 minutes he stayed right next to me following my hands wherever I moved them. I thought he might be sick so I led him to little rocks with algae on them so he could eat. I wished I could have taken him home with me and nursed him back to health, but we had to get back on the boat to leave so I left him behind.

Will and Emma planned to stay on Bamboo island and had packed little bags in advance to sleep there over night. Rich, the rest of the boat, and I stopped at one more island where we snorkeled before heading back to Sihanoukville. When we got back, Rich and I packed up for our morning bus and ate some soup for dinner. We found the soup near the beach where a few Cambodian women were crouched around the pot. They were all eating it so we figured it must be good, and it was! The noodle soup was incredible; it was in a yellow broth and was savory and slightly sweet with a peanut sauce and had all sorts of vegetables in it like scallions, bok choy, cucumbers, and maize.

Since Rich and I left our passports in Phnom Penh a few days ago to get our [Laos and Vietnam for me, Laos and Thailand for him] visas, we had to stop off in Phnom Penh before heading to Siem Reap. Our five hour bus ride to the city was pretty comfortable and normal, aside from the baby chicks that were in a cardboard box and chirping in the isle next to me. The bus only stopped once at a little rest stop where there was a dirty toilet and a few choices for meals; mangos, pineapples, sticky rice, and what looked like the same yellow noodle soup I had last night. Well, my choice was clear and I went with the soup. The lady picked up some noodles with her hands and dropped them into a bowl before adding some of the lovely yellow broth with vegetable in it. It tasted so good at the time, but this was a decision I would later regret. A few hours after our stop we arrived in Phnom Penh, picked up our visas and left around 6pm on a bus that would get us up to Siem Reap in another 6 hours.

During the tuk-tuk ride to the bus station I started to feel ill, bad stomach cramps that I tried to ignore. The six hour bus ride could not have been more uncomfortable as I was freezing and in so much pain, while the bus was bumping along the road and swerving. Thankfully a tuk-tuk driver from our hostel in Siem Reap was waiting for us at the bus stop (planning ahead is the best) and we got back to our guesthouse in 10 minutes where I went straight to bed.

Will and Emma arrived to Siem Reap in the morning so we could all explore the city together, but I was unable to do anything. I had a horrible stomach virus, loss of appetite.. and plenty of other horrible symptoms (damn rest-stop yellow noodle soup!). So, while my three friends explored the famous temples in Angkor Wat (the only reason why most people come to Cambodia), I just stayed in bed for three days, only able to drink water, Gatorade, clear vegetable broth soup, and eat bits of rice and bananas. The stomach pains were the worst I’ve ever felt, I wasn’t allowed to take pain killers because they would upset my stomach more, so I just had to ride it out. Looking back, I think a stomach virus is worse than Swine Flu.

Luckily by my 4^th day I was 70% recovered and able to get out of bed and walk around. Rich, being the nicest guy in the world, spent the day bringing me back to all of the best temples. I owe him A LOT of credit because I wasn’t in the best mood and he really was a trooper. I should probably buy him a big plaque or something for how great he was.

The temples were incredible, built in the 1100’s and larger than life. So much detail was put into each stone, which was obvious by the elaborate engraving covering every surface. Most of the temples were so large I had to take between 6 and 12 pictures of the same site and stitch them all together in a photo-stitching program I have to fit the entire image in one picture. Five hours of walking and seven temples later, we had completed our day.

Emma had to leave enroute to Goa, India (she’s moving there for a month), so now Will, Rich, and I are a traveling trio. Today is our day to relax and do the productive traveling thing; like book hostels, flights, respond to emails, upload pictures, and write in our journals/blogs. Our next destination is Vang Viang, Laos, and we have the option to either take a 30 hour bus for $70 or fly for one hour for $130. It’s a blow to our budgets but we going to take the flight, it’s the only reasonable thing to do after all. Tonight will be our last night here in Siem Reap and I am happy to note that I can eat whole (bland) foods again. Yay! :)

Speak to you soon from Laos!

Kampot, Kep, and Rabbit Island, Cambodia 11-26-09

The bumpy bus ride down to Kampot took about 5 hours on a “local” bus, which meant that Rich and I were the only two white people on it and no one spoke English. Half-way through the trip we stopped for a bathroom break and were mobbed by dozens of little Cambodian children selling pineapples, mangos, and sticky rice in bamboo leaves. I had already eaten two huge bowls of steamed white rice before we left on this trip and my stomach was so full full, but the little relentless kids were hard to avoid so I gave in and bought from all of them… mango, pineapple, and sticky rice in hand I defeatedly walked back onto the bus.

Another few hours of bumpy riding and we arrived in Kampot, a city in the south of Cambodia known for their world class pepper. Rich and I headed for a hostel we picked out in his lonely planet book, but it was full so we walked from guesthouse to guesthouse in search of an available room. We found one, called Pepper Guesthouse, and paid $3 each for the room with hot water (rooms in SE Asia work that you have to pay more for some amenities like AC and hot water).

In the morning we rented manual motorbikes from our guesthouse (this time we were professionals) and with a hand drawn map in our possession, made for us by the guesthouse owner, we set off to explore the land between Kampot and Kep. Our first stop on the map was to see some salt fields, yup- salt fields. Didn’t even know those existed, but here we were, looking at acres of pits of water. Exciting. From there we rode out another 5k looking for a big lake and mountains. On the dirt road drive we passed by a couple of cops who were resting off to the side. When they noticed us coming the stepped out into the road and raised a flag in the air, waving us to stop. I was driving in front of Rich and remembered hearing about how the cops always try to stop foreigners to scam some money out of them, so I just pretended like I never didn’t them and kept driving. I checked my rearview mirror and Rich had done the same, we were safe from the crooked cops.

As we kept driving we passed school children playing with garbage on the side of the road, women carrying bundles on their heads or bamboo poles on their shoulders, men pushing wheeled carts, and a few roaming cows, chickens, dogs, and cats. In Thailand, stray cats were everywhere and here in Cambodia it’s been mostly stray dogs so far.

On the side of the road I noticed some high school boys playing volleyball and stopped to watch. I wanted to get in on the game and started taking off my watch and bracelets to prepare myself. None of the boys spoke any English more than “Hello”, so I just kept pointing to myself and then to them over and over again until they figured it out. They finished their game and then I joined. It was a 4-on-4 game at 1:00 pm when the weather was hot and sun was high in the sky. As we played, more and more townspeople came to watch and soon we had a pretty large crowd standing around. I don’t think girls around here usually play volleyball and the Cambodian townspeople seemed pretty impressed that a westerner knew how to play their game. Plus, I was a few inches taller than all of the guys, so every time I jumped to spike the ball, they would all go- “OOOUUUUUU!”

My team won twice which I was excited about, but I felt so dizzy by the end of the game I had to sit down. I think I was having a bit of heat exhaustion because it was so hot out and I hadn’t had anything to drink all day, plus I had been jumping around in the heat for about 2 hours now. I had some water and rested up for a few minutes until I felt hydrated enough.

One of the volleyball boys decided to skip going back to school in the afternoon and instead, sprung onto the back of Rich’s motorbike as we rode off to find the lake. About a mile after we passed the lake we realized that that little bit of water we had passed WAS the lake. So, we turned around to head back to the main road. We dropped off our new friend and set off in search of a cave nearby that was drawn on the map.

We turned onto a side road which looked like the right way to go for the cave, but all we found was a pagoda and a school yard. A few monks were hanging around but there was no cave in sight. Rich and I decided to turn around and head back in the other direction and I took off first back towards the main road. I waited at the entrance for Rich but he didn’t show up. I figured maybe he had stopped to talk to a monk or something, so I drove across the street to buy some water and snacks from a little side-road cart.

About 10 minutes had passed now and I still couldn’t see Rich. I didn’t know WHAT he could be doing. I rode back through the gate and on the dirt road to find him but didn’t expect to see what I saw-; Rich was surrounded by monks and other people and had dirt and scratches all over him. He just looked at me and started explaining… “Well, a monk walked up to me to give me directions and then he leaned on my accelerator and the bike went flying forward and fell over on top of me, and this side piece broke off and we bent this piece straight again, and these two mirrors were already broken before I think…”. I was just in shock standing there with my mouth open in disbelief. He asked me what we should do… I mean, it wasn’t really his fault that the bike was broken, but then again, how can you ask a monk for money to repair a motorbike he accidentally wrecked? Monks don’t even have money, they live off of donations. So, we just left.

By the time we made it to the Kep beach we were spent! I was still a bit worn out from volleyball and Rich had scratches all over him and an exhaust burn on his arm. We hadn’t eaten all day and just wanted to crash. We ate some noodle soup at a little soup shop near the beach and then fell into some hammocks and rested for over an hour. Our friends Emma, Will, and Russ would be arriving in Kampot at around 6pm so we left the hammocks in time to make it back to Kampot for them... only stopping to take one picture of the sunset and not for the cops who tried to flag us down again!

I made a sign for our friends and gave it to our guesthouses’ tuk-tuk, driver so our friends would get picked up from the bus station and be brought directly to us, it read-“EMMA, WILL, AND RUSS, Follow These Tuk-Tuk Drivers, They Know What They’re Doing. See you soon! Love, Lauren and Rich”. As Rich and I waited we each had our 4th banana milkshakes from our guesthouse, the best banana milk shakes I’ve ever had and only at a cost of 50 cents.

When our friends arrived we talked about our different time schedules for a while and decided that we each had time to check out an island close by for a couple of days. Rabbit Island is a very remote island just one hour from Kep; off the south tip of Cambodia. We arranged for a long-tail boat to take us and set off on another adventure with our little daypacks in the morning.

The boat ride over was slow and surreal as we coasted in water surrounded by mountains. We had a group of 8 with us in the boat- Rich, Will, Emma, Russ, Nancy (a girl we had just met at our hostel), Ann, and David (a couple who met each other while backpacking and were staying at our hostel too). It felt like we were exploring new land as we pulled up to the secluded beach. A few bamboo-hut bungalows were located on the north tip of the island and the rest of the coast was deserted (except for a few fishermen who live just inland from the coast on the other side of this small island). We booked a couple bungalows and spent some time exploring our new rooms. The huts were made from bamboo with spaces visible through the walls and floors. Each bed had a mosquito net on top of it to protect from mosquitoes and other insects and the bathroom/shower/toilet was semi-outside, all inclusive, and a very wet place to be. The water was cold, the island was hot, and we loved it.

We started our day by ordering fresh coconuts and lying by the beach on bamboo platforms that were stretched across the sand. We pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves so we just spent the afternoon relaxing and reading our books. There were a couple island dogs and a little puppy so I quickly had some new friends to play with.

As the sun set and night came upon us we decided tonight would be a good night to party. We bought a bottle of tequila from our bamboo bungalow owner and we spent the night taking shots out of bamboo shot glasses and playing card games. We went into the water later when it was pitch black and we saw lights everywhere! The luminous plankton was here too! We swam out pretty far and everyone loved playing with the water lights for their first time.

The following day was Thanksgiving back home and another relaxing spent on our private island over here. Will, Rich, Russ, and Nancy decided to take a walk around the island while Emma and I laid in hammocks and lounge chairs to enjoy the beach. About an hour later they were back from circling the island and reported that we didn’t miss much… “the place is deserted”.

Once everyone found out it was my first Thanksgiving I’d be spending away from my family, they decided we’d make it extra special. At some point while our friends were walking around the island, Emma and I started to make some Thanksgiving decorations. Emma made hats out of magazine paper and I cut out little turkeys, using the skills I learned in elementary school when they taught us how to make a turkey by tracing your own hand on paper. We taped the turkeys to the hats and were ready to party!

Earlier in the day our group decided we would catch our own chickens (because wild chicken were roaming around the island) and we would make a fire and have a Thanksgiving the way the Pilgrims did… but after a few attempts to catch a chicken, we decided it would probably be a better idea to ask our bungalow owner if he could catch a couple chickens and cook them for us. We put in an order for 2 chickens, 12 baked potatoes, 6 servings of stir-fried vegetables, and a couple portions of steamed white rice; we were in Cambodia so we had to make due. Our dinner was served at 7pm and we had a feast! We each went around the table to say what we were thankful for and after each came a toast of tequila. We played a drinking game, Ring of Fire, for the rest of the night until it was time for bed.

Our 9am long-tail boat awaited us in the morning and we sadly said good bye to our little private island. Tom, our guesthouse Owner from Pepper Guesthouse, was waiting for us at the pier and brought us back to Pepper so we could pick up our big bags and hop onto a mini-van in route for Sihanoukville, a beach town on the south west coast of Cambodia.

Phnom Penh and Kampong Chnang, Cambodia 11-20-09

I landed and headed straight for customs to pick up my Cambodian Visa. Just a $20 fee and I’m given a month to explore this beautiful country. A tuk-tuk driver from my guesthouse, SUNDAY guesthouse, was waiting for me by baggage claim with a sign that had my name on it (that was written in chicken-scratch by what seemed like a child). My tuk-tuk driver and I left the terminal and walked down the street till he asked me to wait so he could bring around his tuk-tuk… from there we drove through the city and I got a good feel of what this place was like.

At first we passed little shops (like what we saw in the small towns in China), then passed a elementary school, houses, fruit markets, more shops, until finally reaching SUNDAY. I checked in and was escorted to my room upstairs which was down a corridor that I had to duck through to get in. I spent the evening catching up with friends online and then spoke with a retired French couple who have been traveling around Asia for a few months now. We traded traveling tips on places each other should see (me on China, them on Cambodia) and I headed back up to my room with a map of the roads and sights nearby and plan for what Richard and I would do when he arrived the next day.

I had some time in the morning to myself, so I walked down our street to check out the local market. I bought some dragon fruit, lychee fruit, rambutan fruit, a pomello, and an orange.. all for two dollars US. I even bought a coconut for about 50 cents from “the coconut man” as I call him. He and I had a pretty in depth conversation (in pantomime) about the knife he was using, the quality of his hands, and how much I liked his coconut cart. We became good friends and I promised to come back… I think he understood.

I’m realizing now that Cambodia is even cheaper than Thailand! The currency conversion works out that 4000 Cambodia Reil equals one US dollar and most food is between 50 cents and 1 dollar. But, the strange thing here is that everyone in Cambodia accepts US money or Reil as currency and if you pay with US money, your change will be in Reil. Even the ATM’s give out USmoney, which differs from every other country I’ve been to so far where they give out their country’s currency.

When Rich got in later in the afternoon I was so happy to see him. He had been traveling on a 6 hour bus from Vietnam since 5am, so he was a bit exhausted and starving. I had the fruit waiting for his arrival and we feasted as we caught up on our last month spent apart. He told me all about Vietnam and I caught him up on my time in Thailand. I told him about the couple I met last night and showed him our new itinerary; he was glad that we had a plan. Luckily since I met Rose in Thailand, I also had an itinerary for our next 2 weeks in Cambodia and 2 weeks in Laos, so Rich was pretty thankful to have a tour guide now, instead of how it was before when he was leading me blindly through China and I couldn’t even point out on a map where I was at that time.

The two most important (in respect to history) things to do in Phnom Penh (pronounced Nom Pen) are to see the Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek; neither particularly fun sites to visit. But, they needed to be done, so Rich and I set off to sight-see for the day.

Our tuk-tuk driver brought us to the Tuol Sleng National Museum first and we hopped out with high spirits, ready to see some of Cambodia. Well, stepping even one foot inside the “museum” takes your breath (and happiness) away. The museum is actually an old children’s school that was taken over by Pol Pot’s security forces and turned into a torture prison, known as S-21, in 1975. In just three years, more than 17,000 people were tortured and killed here. Walking around, we could see each “classroom” with a bed in the center that was nailed down, jail bars secured the doors and windows, and blood stains covered the walls and floors. It was one of the most shocking sights I’ve ever seen and definitely stripped me of any joyful thoughts or feelings I had in me. After viewing the three story building of torture/prison rooms we walked into another building which showed pictures of every man, woman, and child that was captured and held in S-21. Their blank expressions said it all and I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be held here. After viewing some pictures of torture techniques (while someone was being tortured in the photo), reading about what went on, and gazing at prisoner’s skulls and clothing, we were ready to leave. And next up was to take our tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields, which were located 15km outside of the city center.

It was just after sunset when we arrived and we were able to check out the place briefly with the last of the sunlight in the sky. Not much to see really… this place was where all of the victims of S-21 were taken to be beaten to death (the Khmer Regime wanted to save bullets) and buried. Over 8000 skulls were visible in a glass case along with the clothes of the victims. Human bones and teeth were still visible at the bottom of the grassy pits and even around trees where often young children and babies were beaten to death against.

On the way out, 7 young Cambodian gypsy children followed us and were asking for money. They were pretty cute and we took some pictures with them and walked to leave, but as we were departing they started chasing our tuk-tuk down the street and jumping on! It was one of the funniest things to see and we were all just laughing and having the best time. Eventually they jumped off, yelled goodbye, and waved us off.

In the morning Rich and I bought some coconuts for breakfast from my favorite coconut man. Then turned in our passports to the Laos (and also Vietnam for me) Embassies, packed a light daypack, left our big backpacks with our hostel, and set off to rent motorbikes. It was my first time riding a manual bike, but it wasn’t too difficult to figure out.

So, Rich and I set off to explore a little town called Kampong Chnang, the French couple had told me about. We rode 2 hours North of Phnom Penh going as fast as these bikes would take us (about 65mph). At first we passed tons of little works shops but soon the sights cleared and we had a nice drive alone on the road, just our bikes and us.

When we arrived at Kampot Chanang it was around 4pm and we took our bikes down a dirt road that looked like it was heading towards the river we heard was here. Instead, the path lead us to a smaller dirt road with a few houses scattered around it. There were 2 little bamboo huts set up where someone was selling food, so we stopped at the one that was selling coconuts. We wound up talking to the Cambodian lady and her husband for a while and he even brought out his wedding photo album so we could look at their family history. The husband knew a little bit of English so we were able to understand him. He later showed us the VHS tape he had called “LEARN ENGLISH TODAY”.

After our snack Rich and I took the little dirt road to the main dirt road to get to the highway we had arrived on. We checked into a really nice hotel across the street and paid $3 for a large room and a floor to ourselves (actually, we had the whole hotel to ourselves since no one else was staying here). Then we took our bikes back towards the little dirt road to see the sunset. We saw water in the distance and came across a little palm fraun shack with children playing around it. We watched them climb all over the shack and Rich and I made friends with the kids by showing them our cameras. They LOVED seeing themselves in the pictures and we snapped so many pictures of these cute kids. As Rich and I were leaving we realized that their mother was our bamboo shack coconut friend. She was really happy to see us again and we took more pictures together before Rich and I left to find some dinner.

We ate some traditional Cambodian food at a little shop near our hostel which consisted of fish, a couple different kinds of soup, some noodles, and rice. Everyone who worked there was very curious about us westerners and they kept walking by and smiling at us; they were happy to see we liked their food.

In the morning Rich and I woke up at 7am to catch a glimpse of the school children going to school but when none showed up we realized it was a Sunday; funny how days of the week go unnoticed when you’re traveling.. especially when you’ve been traveling for so long. So, we headed back to that little bamboo hut to have some breakfast and see what else was in town. We heard there was a pagoda, temple, just down the road so we left to check that out.

One of the little boys from last night, Jon, was hanging around the steps of the pagoda and we walked over to him as some Monks walked over to us. Six monks approached us and started speaking to us in English. We learned that every weekend these monks go to the childrens’ school and an older monk teaches them all English. They spoke very well and we understood each other easily. They loved asking us questions about how to pronounce certain words like, studying, photographer, prison, quality, etc… it was funny because Rich has an British accent and I have an American accent, so we would sort of argue over which was more proper (obviously the American one). Interestingly, in school the monks learn both American and English pronunciations. We spoke to them for over an hour and a few more monks joined in with the questions. A couple of them wrote down my email address so they can ask me grammar and English questions if they ever get stuck in the future. I absolutely loved talking to them and this experience has since been set in my mind as one of the best cultural experiences I’ve had.

After Rich and I left the temple we rode out another 5km north of Kampong Chuang. We arrived at a little village and planned to just stop at the market to eat. We passed by a western looking couple on bicycles and they stopped to chat to us for a minute. They told us about a floating village 2km up the road which was the reason why they were visiting this area. So, after Rich and I ate some local food we drove some more looking for this village.

I was ahead of Rich on our bikes and noticed a river up ahead… all of a sudden people started running after me, yelling- “5 dollar- one hour” “pick me”. I had NO idea what they were talking about but then realized that they each wanted to take us out on a boat to tour the floating markets. I stopped and the mobs of Cambodian “tour guides” grew. They were all shouting to me and yelling out prices. I said I would do it for 4 dollars and they all yelled- “OKAY!” “YEAH!” “PICK ME!“. Hmm… maybe that was too high of a price? They were swarming so I pointed to Rich and said HE had all the money so instantaneously they ran from me over to him! It was the funniest thing to see his face as everyone was running towards him. Every guide around us was about 50 years old, but there was one young boy fighting for our business, I told Rich I wanted him and Rich agreed. I asked the boy if he would take us out for $3 and he said yes as he lifted his chest and proudly told all of the other people, in Cambodian, that HE would be taking us on the river.

For the next hour our little 8 year old boy, named Iam, paddled us around the water streets in the river. The houses here are actually floating on top of the water and were all connected to one another by bamboo poles and ropes. This area was VERY impoverished and it was amazing to see how these people lived. Every child would run out of their house when they saw our long-tail boat passing and would wave and yell out “HELLO”. At least 40 kids in total must have greeted us in the hour… it was remarkable. One of the best parts though was that Iam was so happy to be riding us around. He was the youngest boy paddling a boat in the village and every person we passed, Iam would put 3 fingers in the air and yell out in Cambodian how excited he was that we paid $3 US for an hour (probably as much as a normal worker makes in a day!). By the end of the trip, Rich and I got into the action and were showing the number 3 to everyone we passed and telling them that we paid $3. At one point we passed by a house and the father called out something to Iam in Cambodian, then Iam whispered to us that there was another boat in the river right now that paid $7 for an hour!! We all laughed and when we passed by the two girls from France we just smiled and said “bon jour”.

It was a really nice ride and we were happy to pay Iam for doing such a great job (I only had to assist and paddle at one point when we were out in the river trying to get back to the houses and the current was too strong for him). So, we said our good byes and then headed two and a half hours back to Phnom Penh, stopping only to check out a couple temples we passed along the way.

When we got back to SUNDAY, Rich’s friends he had traveled throughout Vietnam with were checking into our hostel! He knew they were coming to Phnom Penh at some point and we just got lucky that they checked into our same place! We had our introductions and then took a couple tuk-tuks to a restaurant called FRIENDS. The restaurant’s chefs were ophan children / street children that had been taken in a few years ago and taught how to cook. The restaurant runs so that a portion of the money from our meals goes back to the organization which funds this program of taking kids off the street in Cambodia an teaching them a trade to make money. The food was delicious and not too expensive (I think my meal of 2 main courses and a dessert came to about $5), and our group of 8 had a feast and a really nice time together.

Our plan for the next couple of weeks is to explore the south of Cambodia and then loop back up to check out the temples in Siem Reap before making our way to Laos. Rich and I are now on a 5 hour bus to Kampot and three of Rich’s friends (Emma, Will, and Russ), will meet up with us down there tomorrow. I’ve loved seeing some culture in central Cambodia and now we’re off to relax a bit and explore some beaches.