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January 31, 2006

In transit...

so we took a train on Jan 24 for 17 hours (and it left 2 hours late...which is almost early for here) from Bangkok down to a place on the SW coast of Thailand called Trang. From there Mo and I took a bus, then a pickup truck, and then a long-tail boat to get to a place called Ton Sai beach near the town of Krabi. Ton Sai and area is Thailand's premier cliff-climbing-thrill-seeking destination and we were able to have coffee each morning while watching a bunch of crazies climb straight up a huge number of limestone cliffs.

From Ton Sai beach (which wasn't much of a beach for swimming due to the coral) we could trek a short ways to get to West Rai Lei beach...

...where we were able to find lots of nice sand and swimming. There was also another beautiful beach (Pra Nang) that we spent a bit of time at, but we had to trek around a massive resort to get there...the top "villa" at the resort went for more than $5000C per night so we couldn't even get onto the property to try and cut through to the beach.

While on Ton Sai I also ran into the first person on this trip that I recognized - a girl named Jade who also studied Development at McGill and with whom I had shared some classes. We also met a couple of great Australians who we will be trying to catch up with when we're there later this spring.

But now we're in Malaysia - Georgetown to be exact. We came down here on the 30th to spend a few days before we go to Kuala Lumpur en route to Bali...so we keep moving :-) Malaysia has been an eye opener for us - it's a much wealthier country than Thailand and we have yet to meet a single person here who does not understand and speak English fairly well. Georgetown was the first British settlement in Malaysia (1786) so there is a huge English influence in all the architecture and design of the city. Anyway, pretty cool place, but it's been pretty slow at the same time as it is Chinese New Year right now and everything is shut down (25% of the Malaysian population are ethnic Chinese)...we should be off to KL pretty quick I hope.

Posted by David at 5:52 PM

January 24, 2006

Ebay anyone?

Now that the sun-burnt skin from my back has started peeling, Mo and I have decided to try and auction it off on E-Bay for, say, $50 per square inch, in order to fund our latest change in itinerary. We've given up on the idea of getting a house for 1 month in Southern Thailand and will instead spend about 2 weeks there, 10 days in Bali, and around 4 days in Malaysia...gotta get more stamps in our passports :-)

Posted by David at 1:17 PM

Killed by Coconut

well...almost. How bad would that look on a death certificate?!?

We just spent the last week and a bit on Koh Chang island and here in Bangkok. On Koh Chang we managed to score a beach hut on White Sands beach and didn't do a whole lot there other than eat, sleep, read, swim, and flip over so that our other side could burn. The beach was spectacular and the sunsets were amazing -

THE GALLERY HAS A BUNCH OF CAMBODIA AND KOH CHANG PICS TO CHECK OUT

one of the highlights was that there were a pile of restaurants with bbq set out on the beach each night where you could choose your own fresh seafood...which brings me to the coconut...one fell out of a palm tree about 35-40 feet above our table and missed my head by about 1 foot...that would have been a rough way to go!

Posted by David at 1:11 PM

January 16, 2006

oops. didn't mean to post this until now...Cambodia...

shoot - I posted this by accident before I'd finished it...so to any of you who actually check our website on a regular occasion, the rest is now added

...man, it's hard to believe how much time flies - our time is done in Cambodia and Mo and I are now back in Thailand...so let me fill you in on what we've been seeing and doing over the last week...

-we have a pile of pictures from Cambodia to post, but it will probably be 3 or four more days before we're able to do that...

click on the link below to keep reading

Siem Reap is a bit of a weird town. We got there following the brutal bus trip Mo described in the last entry. When you're driving in, both sides of the highway are lined with massive resort hotels with room rates up to $1900U per night. There were at least 15-20 of them, all catering primarily to wealthy tour groups from Korea and Japan. The draw for all this money to Siem Reap is a 30 square km group of temples from the 10th-13th centuries - with the Angkor Wat as the star attraction. Angkor is often included as one of the wonders of the world and it is the largest religious building in the world. While we didn't have the big money we were still able to enjoy our time there (although first Jisca, then Paul got sick). We spent two days in Siem Reap exploring the town and 1 day out exploring the temples - which were spectacular. There was one temple called Ta Prohm (if you've seen Tomb Raider or Two Brothers, they were both filmed there) that we liked the best. At its peak in the 11th century it had 80,000 servants within its walls, but today it is in ruins and the jungle has taken it over. In many places huge trees that are over 8 feet wide at their base have grown on top of, around, and over the walls and temple buildings. But enough about temples...there was this one place that served this amazing spaghetti bolognese......sigh....

Anyway, moving on...after getting royally abused on the bus ride, we got into Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital city) on Monday, Jan 9. We spent three days there exploring the city, spending money in the markets, and playing cards at our guesthouse (we were staying on a lake with a patio over the water...pretty sweet). Phnom Penh was a beautiful city - lots of green parks, a great stretch along the Mekong River with flags from every country of the world (you can see the pic with the Canadian flag in the gallery). We also visited World Vision's headquarters for the country (45,000 Cambodian children are sponsored) and hung out at a really neat coffee shop called Jars of Clay that employed 'at-risk' women from the city's streets. What else...oh yeah, we were the guests of honour, along with Paul and Jisca, at the home of their taxi/scooter driver one evening - a great eye-opener to real life in Cambodia. And speaking of eye-openers, we spent a day walking through one of Cambodia's Killing Fields from the Khmer Rouge era where mass graves have been unearthed (over 8000 skulls are on display by age and sex). It was a sickening to walk through the grave sites and realize that the bumps on the path you're walking on are actually human bones and clothes poking through the dirt. Mo wrote more about that and our visit to S-21 in her own entry.

Lastly, we made it down to Sihanoukville - a beach town - to see the ocean for the first time since we arrived in SE Asia 7 weeks ago. Now we're paying the price...red and burnt. We stayed right on the beach for a couple nights and then today we took the ferry back to Thailand. The boat ride was a neat experience - Mo and I rode on the roof of the boat (about 9 feet wide and 80 feet long) with a few other passengers - however, we had been planning to spend a day out of the sun after getting burnt to a crisp on the beach...riding on the roof of the ferry for 4 hours only made matters worse and we both look like tomatoes (...and you all feel really sorry for us, I know)...

yikes...that's the longest entry I've written that was just full of info...does anybody even read these things?

Posted by David at 10:04 PM | Comments (3)

January 15, 2006

Cambodia has been a hugely eye-opening experience for me...and I think for all of us. From the rich history of Angkor Wat, which was beautiful although somewhat of a reminder of how even great kings and kingdoms at some point are just a bunch of ruins to take pictures of. Nothing lasts forever...especially this trip...the time is just going so quickly. And then there's the gruesome, much more recent history of the Khmer Rouge genocide. I don't remember hearing much about this while I was growing up...or maybe it was because I wasn't really interested in world issues at the time, but much of the hurt and heartache that has taken place in Cambodia has been in my life time. The effects of it are still so real and fresh in the Cambodian minds...there are almost none who are untouched. For those of you who don't know, the Cambodian government was overthrown and taken over by a communist revolutionary group called the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Their goal was to completley agriculturalize the country and eliminate all those who had an education (or who knew more than they did...as they were uneducated group). So all the intellectuals, teachers, doctors, government officials, even those who wore glasses, and their families were thrown into prison and tortured/executed...while the rest of the people were evcuated into the country and forced to work the land...and many of them were killed also. Over the next four years almost 2 million men, women and children were killed...until the Vietnamese invaded and forced the Khmer Rouge into hiding in western Cambodia. From there they fought a guerilla type war with the government army right up until 1998.
Today you can see the effects in so many ways, one of which is that there are not many middle aged people...there are alot of young people and some older but there is definitely an age gap. There are also many people who still make their living searching for landmines...

In the capital city, Phnom Penh, they have turned 2 major sites from the Khmer Rouge period into museums. We visited both of them. One was the main prison where over 17,000 people went through, but not more than 5000 at a time...and only 7 were found alive when the Vietnamese found it. The Khmer Rouge were very concise in their documentation of their prisoners, and displayed in some of the former cells are thousands of mugshots that were taken of the prisoners upon their arrival to the prison. It broke my heart to see the fear, confusion, humiliation and hatred on their faces. The pictures of the children were really hard to take... they just didn't know what was going on. The other museum was called "The Killing Fields", where the prisoners were taken to be executed. They have made a memorial at the killings fields that showcase hundreds of skulls that have been excavated, all categorized into age and gender. You are also able to see the mass graves, some of which have been excavated, some of which haven't...but what you realize before too long is that the whole place is a mass grave as you see bits of clothing and bones coming through even on the walking path.

It made me sick and angry to see what man is capable of...so many people died needlessly. And yet, I know that as a human, I am also capable of doing all these things. The Cambodians called it "the darkness that lies within all of us".

So Cambodia is very much a country in need, but we were also encouraged to find that there are things are being done. World vision has a headquarters in Phnom Pehn that we stumbled upon, and found out all sorts of cool things that they are doing to help the people and country get on their feet. We also ended up in a really cool coffee shop that is run by a lady who employs "at risk" women and gives them skills that they can use to make a life for themselves. And I'm sure there's much more also. But I just want to say that if any of you are considering sponsoring a child or even adopting a child, Cambodia would be a great option.

So yah, I guess this has been a bit of a heavy blog entry...thanks for those of you that have made it this far. In all, Cambodia has been awesome. We went to visit an orphanage the day before we left Phnom Penh; we had such a great time playing with the kids...but it was hard to leave. Like I said, I think Cambodia has left a lasting impression on all of our hearts.

Posted by Maureen at 9:16 PM

January 6, 2006

we made it!!!!

Wow, it has been the marathon that we predicted, but alas we have arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia: home of the famous Angkor Wat temples/ruins.

Once across the border from Laos to Thailand, we took the first bus out to Korat, where we planned to spend the night and then get to the Camobian border the next day. The bus ride was supposed to take approx. 6 hours, and it probably would have if we hadn't got caught in a grid-lock traffic jam about 50km outside the city. We still don't know what the cause was, but it took us about 3 hours to go a little over 30km. Thankfully we were kept quite entertained with the Thai movies that were playing. Even though we couldn't understand what they were saying, we were definitely able to catch the jist. One was a romantic comedy where at one point they were totally mocking Western tourists, portraying them as completely clueless picture takers...so funny! Another was an action film where a tribal kid turned himself into a superstar kung fu fighter in order to go save his elephant which was stolen by some gangsters. It was all an interesting little window into Thai pop culture; what they think is cool, and the types of people that they look up to. Ok enough about that. So we ended up getting into Korat at about 11:30pm and decided not to go to bed but to catch the next bus to the border. The next bus left at 3am so we got to the border at about 7am and found the first hotel and crashed til about 1pm.

The next leg of the journey....

...the Thai border to Siem Reap, is famous for being one of the worst roads ever. We heard that it could take anywhere from 4-12 hours depending on the season, etc. We've learned by now to not really believe anything we're told about when we'll leave, what type of bus we'll have, when we'll arrive, etc...it's much easier on the whole sanity end of things not to have much for expectations. I think because we were all expecting the bus ride to Siem Reap be so awful, it wasn't actually so bad. The road was terrible...extremely bumpy and falling apart in places, and the bridges were pretty sketchy...BUT...air-con worked the whole way for the first time (they had to fix it once....but they actually fixed it!!!), the villages and country side were really pretty and surprisingly reminded us alot of Saskatchewan, and it only took us 5 1/2 hours...not too bad. I think we'll spend a few days in Siem Reap, one of those exploring Angkor Wat and the rest of our time in our air-conditioned hotel room:o) JJ, but it's definitely getting hotter and more humid the further south we get.

We'll post pictures of our trip and of Cambodia soon.

Posted by Maureen at 1:44 PM | Comments (1)

January 2, 2006

Good times in Laos

Well, we left Luang Prabang on Dec.28...the mini-bus back to Vang Vieng was not nearly as bad as the "VIP" bus there, and it was over an hour faster. When we got there, it was HOT and it stayed that way for the whole 3 1/2 days we were there.

(We just added a bunch of pictures to the gallery from Vang Vieng and Vientienne)

We sought refuge from the heat by floating down the Namsong river on inner-tubes. It was a great time, so great that we actually went a second time with Paul and Jisca when they joined back up with us a couple of days later.
Basically, you get dropped off with your tube 3km up the river from the town and can take however long you want coming down. We were expecting it to take about an hour and a half...what we weren't expecting were all the entertaining things there would be to do on the way down...making it take a little more like 4-5 hours.

There were numerous places all along the way that one could stop at for drinks, etc (starting at about 100 yards from the beginning point), but the two places where we went spent our time had these huge jungle swings and zip lines into the river and volleyball courts. They were such a blast and it was quite entertaining watching those who had already had a few too many Beer Lao, make some not so graceful landings in the water... well, you actually didn't have to be drunk to do that. David did about one and a half back flips off the zip line when it came to an abrupt halt at the end of the line and he just kept going...wish I had caught that one on video. The trick about the whole tubing thing is to make sure you leave the bar soon enough that you get back to town before the sun goes behind the mountains. The first day we were a bit late and we were freezing by the time we got down. About half way we got ambushed by a bunch of really cute Lao kids, who we naively thought just wanted to go for a tube ride. Turned out they wanted money when we got back to Vang Vieng for paddling for us...but we didn't have any.
The next day we biked out to PhouKam Cave which was also a very worth while expedition. The cave was beautiful and enormous...I personally have never been in anything like it before. We got some cool pictures, but as usual it just doesn't capture it. There was also a nice place there to swim called "The Blue Lagoon". It was quite blue and it was refreshing as the day was so hot again.

We woke up on New Year's Eve morning to Paul and Jisca outside our hotel room saying that we needed to leave Vang Vieng ASAP. They were kept up all night with sounds of mortar and gun fire (they even saw the glow from the explosions). Dave and I heard nothing as we were staying in the centre of the town and they were on the edge. We were just about to buy our tickets when we were told by a local that it was a once a month military practice exercise...Phew!!! So instead, we went tubing again.

Now we're back in Vientienne, the capital of Laos and ready to head out tomorrow on our way to Cambodia via Thailand. It should take us a couple days to get to the Cambodian border. We got into Vientienne yesterday after a fairly eventful bus ride...our driver was really crazy; basically running people off the road all over the place...but he made the mistake of bumping into a Harley (while they were both driving). The guy chased down the bus yelling at the driver and at one point pulled out a hammer and hurled it at the bus. Thankfully it didn't hit a window so there was no broken glass, just a dent in the side....so crazy! Anyways, we'll take a day here just to rest and prepare for the marathon ahead.

Although Laos was not an original part of our itinerary, there are definitely no regrets about making the venture. It's such a beautiful, unique little country that I think we would like to come back to someday as we left so many places unexplored. The things I will miss about Laos: it's seemingly untouched beauty, the great coffee (there is no coffee in Thailand...only instant stuff)...and in Laos they make it with sweetened condensed milk...mmmm, and the awesome baguettes...thanks to the French colonization in the late 18th century.

And now, off to Cambodia.....

Posted by Maureen at 6:31 PM

January 1, 2006

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Hi all - just wanted to wish you a happy New Years from Laos and all the best in 2006. And Mom, just wanted to reassure you that we found out yesterday that the mortar and artillery fire just outside town the night before was only an unannounced military training exercise.

Posted by David at 12:32 PM