Pool at the Mekong Estate

We were welcomed by our host Khamphanh from our accommodation at the Mekong Estate, a private residence on the banks of the Mekong, and from that moments we slipped into Laos time quite easily. What’s Laos time you ask? It means you stop wearing a watch, don’t set an alarm, and anything booked for a particular time will still happen…just give or take a bit.  We were quickly greeted by the two resident pets, a tabby cat and an adorable puppy called Tuk Tof. Check the photos below of Paul trying to get a reaction from the tabby who visits at breakfast.

Adam and Tuk Tof having a wrestle

With no real plans made for the 5 days, we ventured out on our bicycles provided and peddled our way around the compact, yet beautiful streets of Luang Prabang. We discovered a bustling night market that is the best of it’s kind we’ve seen on our trip, held each night along the main street of town, it is filled with the amazing silks, weavings, souvenirs and crafts of the diverse local cultures of Laos.

Paul realising he's a better teacher than student

Khamphanh recommended and booked us into a cooking class at a local family run restaurant. Paul nervously had agreed to trying this out earlier in our trip (probably after a drink or three) and upon our arrival we were greeted by two local chefs and found that we would be experiencing this on our own! The four dishes demonstrated included some of the flavours and ingredients we have become accustomed to seeing in Laos cooking, yet had never been able to place what they were. Now not only do we know what they are, we can confidently (sort of!) prepare four unique Laos dishes, and without being too modest, did blow our socks off when we had finished cooking them!

Laughing after bath time

Venturing out of town we had picked up a tour to a fantastic elephant rehabilitation village. The elephants had either been purchased, or ‘rented’ from farmers and loggers – providing them a much improved quality of life, significantly better diet and a much easier day of taking tourists on rides and playing in the water during their bath time. The village had 9 female elephants ranging in ages from 17 to 65 (their oldest elephant of 101 passed recently).

Our private tour consisted us learning some of the ways of the Mahout (elephant carers) including commands, feeding, riding techniques and bathing. Let us tell you that when you are 2 metres off the ground on an animal that eats 130 kilos of food a day and weighs in the tonnes, it is humbling to ride on their necks while they carefully carry you up and down steep hills and through the water.

Adam was given the oldest and largest elephant (trying to not take that personally…are they saying something?) who was extremely patient and careful and followed the commands given to the letter. On the other hand, Paul was given the precocious teenager, the 17 year old girl! She did what she wanted, when she wanted, including a stop at the sugar cane store for a snack, and what seemed like repeated attempts to try and knock Paul off her back when she was having a bath. The Mahout working with Paul was laughing constantly, while almost surfing on her back he would give commands that would get her to almost jump up in the water bucking Paul all over the place, then submerging completely under the water – quite a unique thing for an elephant to do as most rarely submerge their heads. Adam found his had less than lady like qualities during her bath, as she proceeded to break wind and go to the toilet while he was facing her back end cleaning! It has been one of the best days of our lives, getting closer to these gentle and inquisitive creatures, who having now spent many hours with us, will remember our scents for approximately 3 years.

We have two days left of our trip, with the most challenging tasks being riding our bikes the short trip into town for crepes, juices and slow shuffles along the beautiful streets. A perfect wind down to the last 4 weeks.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what it took to get there:

• 6 hours in a minivan driving on cliffs at 100km per hour (we hit one cow and broke down in the mountains…scary!!)
• 2 days on a slow boat up the Mekong to a Thai border town called Houy Xai (the boat was awesome.. we’d booked ages ago and ended up being the only two people on it with a crew made up of a family and our guide.  The food was delicious and we learnt a lot about Laos people along the way)
• 2.5 hours crammed in the back of a large tuk tuk with 7 other people, 3 sacks of food, and a full gas cylinder
• 3.5 hours of trekking/hiking through the jungle, with periods of 40 minutes straight up mountains on rough paths no wider than 30cm.

So what does this get you?

• How about 3 days living in two different multi storey treehouses, built 50 metres above the ground, located in the centre of valleys only accessible via a zip line.
• We had access to over a dozen ziplines ranging in length from 50 metres to 500 metres, and over 150m above the ground.
• Two guides names Lu and Sing Lee, who added immensely to our time – more on this in a sec!
• A huge range of home cooked Laos dishes that kept us going through the 3 hours of trekking we did each day.
• The time to bond with an amazing group of 6 other travellers, sharing stories and fears of dying a grizzly death after falling from the toilet in the treehouse at 2am!

The Gibbon Experience is hard to explain, and to be honest wasn’t what we thought it was going to be. It was actually really hard work and not everyone could do it. It physically pushes your endurance, and tests your mental limits in both the exertion of the trekking and that there was no other option of reaching our destination without facing your fears of jumping off a bamboo platform to zip 500 metres over a valley.

One of our guides Lu has been working with the project for over 4 years. Started as a way to reduce poaching in the Park, the Gibbon Experience funds rangers to protect the flora and fauna, and to take groups like ours on this adventure. Lu was a total charmer! After nearly collapsing after walking up mountains for an hour, he’d cheekily tell us the strange sounds we were hearing in the forest were made by deer…or bears…or whatever…even though they were clearly birds!  We started to realise he had mastered a very sarcastic sense of humour.

Did we see a Gibbon?  No.  We did hear one though. We think.  We did see a beetle that looked like a leaf though!!!  Ok so as one of our group said, perhaps the Gibbon Experience is less about looking for Gibbons and more about living like a Gibbon by seeing the jungle through their eyes.

Check the video and pics for a better idea of what the best of this experience can offer.

All experiences look easier when montaged with inspiration music playing

View from the hotel

So Vang Vieng typically divides people when asked their opinion. It’s either a filthy mecca for alcohol fuelled backpackers, or it’s one of the most unique, beautiful and special places on the planet. We feel it can be both.

We really only touched the surface of both of these facets – taking a tame approach to the much maligned tubing experience, exploring a cave and taking a journey along the Nam Song river on an early evening cruise.

Backpackers flock here due to the cheap booze (Gin is cheaper than water), illicit drugs made freely available (though punishable by death.. or at least a 1million Kip fine), and wild parties. We were in Vang Vieng for less than 1 hour before meeting a pack of crazy Irish backpackers and being dragged up river to where the bars start. We survived our first two buckets of booze (yes they serve alcohol in buckets here.. that should give you some idea about this side of Vang Vieng) and made a sneaky exit jumping into a tuk tuk with two girls from Essendon (home town for Adam!) and a crazy American guy who owned a bar in town.

Boat Cruise

Take 10 years off us both and we’d of probably stayed all night, but the allure of fresh crepes and some real dinner was too much for us! We scoffed some rather average pizza (we’ve learnt that if you want a GREAT meal, eat the local food!) and tried to brave another bucket of Mojito, but failed miserably and decided to walk it off.

Waking at 8am on New Years Day we decided to give the famous Laos Tubing experience a go. Hiring an inner tube for about $5, we got a tuk tuk 4kms up river, jumping into the cold Nam Song river. We were two of the first out at that hour, NYE had certainly kept the backpackers in bed, or staring blankly at one of the many TV’s in bars playing reruns of Friends or Family Guy.

We tried a couple of the trapeze swings, ignoring all the warning bells of OH&S issues and broken necks, before taking a leisurely 3 hour float down the river. We say leisurely until you hit what looked like teaming rapids running over rocks that could slice you into shreds! Ok perhaps we’re being a little melodramatic! You see the river from a whole new perspective and have a greater appreciation for the number of people who’s lives depend on the river. It washes them, their clothes, provides food and a means of transport.

Tubing!

Vang Vieng has a lot to offer, but for the majority of western tourists who come here they barely see past their next bucket of booze. We found wonder in a mammoth cave inside one of the limestone krasts, climbing 100′s of steps to experience a spectacular view and wander the cool caves with their limestone stalactites and stalamites.

We found some of the tastiest local food at an Organic Cafe, and the street side crepes got us coming back for seconds. Vang Vieng is worth a stop for anyone moving through Laos – for both it’s crazy fun and insane tubing experiences and it’s sheer beauty and outdoor activities.

We will probably be offline for the next week, back on the 10th Jan as we are heading north into a forest in Laos to live in tree houses. Check out www.gibbonx.org for the details. Will have lots to share when we get back!

Out hotel was one street back from the Mekong and we scored a sweet top floor Loft Room with some nice views and heaps of space.

We hadn’t made any significant plans for Vientiane, it was a bit of a rest spot before we hit the madness of Vang Vieng for NYE. We managed to walk the main parts of the city during our stay, checking out their version of the Arc de Triomphe (the city was a French colony until the 50′s), cafes and shops on our first night.

During our day we hit GloboGym (well we cant remember what it was called but it was run by some mad American ex Bodybuilder/Hulk Hogan with his Grey beard and dwarfish stature) spending $8 which included a 1 hour post workout massage! Fitness First are clearly over charging us.

Wandering back after lunch we spotted a cool art gallery and managed to buy one of the most expensive pieces there by a local Laos artist – however we’re excited by our first art purchase and looking forward to getting it re stretched when we get home.  We’re very cultured

To balance the mature admiration of local art, we needed to balance our day – so we hit the only Water Theme Park in Laos! The result… is in the video below! Enjoy!

Russian Market Food Hall

We spent our second day getting a little closer to daily life in Phnom Penh – we searched through the Russian Markets, picking up some souvenirs, and stocking up on gifts and a 50kg bag of rice to take to our next stop; a local Orphanage setup in June 2006. Sam our Tuk Tuk driver had seen our interest in a local NGO quilt making workshop the day before and realised we were less likely to go out to the shooting range, and more keen on spending our money and time on worthwhile causes.

Reading the books at the Orphange

He took us to the second branch of a locally run Orphanage just on the outskirts of northern Phnom Penh that housed 20 local children and taught classes for over 80 kids in the area.  While we anticipated seeing a centre focused on doing the best for the housed children, we didnt expect to see their focus was actually on improving the lives of Cambodians who were in an ever more dire situation than themselves.

Khmer/English Fairytales were a hit

They had setup a range of projects including building houses, micro credit, and farming assistance programs to improve the communities where the orphaned children came from in a hope that as these communities become more self sufficient and stable the likelihood of additional orphaned children would reduce. Our gifts of books, colouring pencils and a volleyball were a hit with the kids all sitting together sharing them out and reading to each other or playing makeshift volleyball games (a hugely popular sport in Cambodia).

Juravet and Sam

We ventured off with waves, hugs and thank you’s from each individual child with Sam offering to take us to his village to meet his family and 2 year old little boy.  Built either side of what appeared to be a disused railway line, the local village was mostly constructed out of timber, with houses stacked against each other.

We saw his parents house, and then were greeted warmly by his wife, father in law and sister in law. They laid out a special matting in the front open foyer area and we all took a seat for introductions.  With Sam the only one able to speak both English and Khmer he acted as translator as we explained where we were from, what we did for work, and had to explain why two 30 year old men were not yet married

Sam's Father in law, son and wife

Sam’s wife Malé (Mar-lay) brought out their photo album from their wedding and we both thought the same thing – she had more outfit changes than a Kylie/Madonna/Cher concert!  Here we got to see the use of the amazing Cambodian Silks we’d seen in the Markets in full swing. Every shade of the rainbow was used to great effect in their wedding outfits.

Sam’s little boy Juravet treated us to his best Hip Hop dance tricks for 100 Riel (about 2 cents US). What we learnt quickly is that like most families, they want their kids to have more than they did growing up. The kids were clearly well cared for and loved, and Sam was responsible for providing the significant earnings for over a dozen people who lived in the one house.  It was a rare opportunity to see a side of local life we had only previously observed on the side of the road from our Tuk Tuk.

Procession of Monks on our walk

We took a few hours out of the afternoon to have a bite to eat at a great Deli and went for a 2 hour walk around the city centre seeing the sights of the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda and National Museum.

Walking through the city

Wrapping the day up we ventured back to the city for Dinner at a Vegan restaurant K’nyay and our taste buds were treated to an absolute treat!  The BEST corn fritters either of us have ever tried, a total taste sensation of crunchy fresh corn and a sweet chilli sauce. The meal was rounded out by a unique banana curry and a potato, peanut and pumpkin stew served with french bread.

All in all, phnom Penh grew on us. It was initially an overwhelming place full of thousands of motos and tuk tuks all vying for space on roads, streets that lost any sense of uniqueness as they were all covered in street vendors and markets, and smells and noises that just overwhelmed you. We would be treated to smells of coffee beens roasting in one breath, only to travel 50m and be hit by open sewerage and nearly lose your breakfast.

K'Nyay Restaurant

However, seeing families all socialising together on Sunday night in local parks, and realising that like any big city the range of living standards would vary more than in a tourist oriented town like Siem Reap, we came to love the place.  While not sad to leave Cambodia for Laos today, we are glad we came this way.

From April 1975 till January in 1979 an estimated 3 million Cambodians were killed by their government of the time to maintain absolute power.

Our waiter convinced us to try some of the local cuisine – one being very sweet and flavoursome, the other spicy and hot! We were treated to a free traditional Cambodian Apsara Dance performance before Paul braved the bridge to the toilets and discovered the open Crocodile pit. Minding the signs to hold onto his children, but also noting there was no rail, he ventured close and started snapping photos of the sleeping crocodile…which strangely seemed to be getting bigger in each photo, eventually deciding that if Paul was going to be stupid enough to sit still for that long, it might try to see what he tasted like.

Paul sitting on the ledge of one of four basins in the cloister

The sensory overload continues on Day 2 of our Temple Adventure. We needed to be up at 4am to get to Angkor Wat in time, so I set the alarm on my phone to wake us up!  We jumped out of bed ready to go, scoffed down some pastries we’d purchased the night before for breakfast, and then wondered why my watch said Midnight, and not 4am…!!

Putting the pieces together we realised Adam had set his alarm for the right time, but the time on the phone had gone back to Aussie time – getting us up 4 hours early.  So back to bed for another four hours with a full belly.

Take two: alarm goes off again and our Tuk Tuk driver met us outside and we had a short 15 minute trip out of town. Let me paint you a picture of Angkor Wat at 4:30am.  We were the ONLY people there!  There were no Lights! Our Tuk Tuk driver in his best broken english points in a direction and sends us on our way through the darkness. Even with a great torch we were completely disorientated.

Adam standing on the edge overlooking the inside wall

We had a couple of dogs bark Good Morning at us, and found ourselves looking at someone’s shack. Finally a street vendor pushing his cart up the road pointed in the opposite direction and said “Angkor Wat that way” so we sheepishly followed him back up the road.

Seeing another Tuk Tuk with it’s lights on we were able to make out the massive bridge that took us into Angkor, and we showed our passes and made out way in.  The advantage of being so early – we were practically the first people through the entrance, greeted by a cheerful young Cambodian guy who got us seats right on the bank of the Northern Reflection Pond and a nice cup of strong Khmer coffee.

The rest is unable to be explained in words… we were shadowed by the largest religious structure in the world and a sense of quiet reflection fell upon us.  We hope the video below paints a fair picture of what is one of the most amazing experiences of our lives.

The photos below are from the final two temples we visited off our list – The Bayon and Ta Prohm.  We hope you enjoy the visual adventure:

Seeing the sky through Preah Khan

No amount of words, photos or videos we post could ever paint a true enough picture of the diversity and sheer majestic beauty these temples make. Considering they are classed as ruins, the magnitude, detail and complexity of their construction has left us needing time to reflect on what we have experienced.

There is an extensive and rich history surround each and every temple in the region, and we only were able to explore five over the two days.

The five temples we visited were:

• Banteay Srey (a Hindu Temple from the 9th century),
• Preah Khan (a monastery and school that once housed 1000 monks),
• Angkor Wat (the largest religious structure int he world where we arrived at 4:45 am to get a front row seat for sunrise on Christmas Day),
• The Bayan (an epic structure of towers covered in faces, with three distinct levels raising 49 metres above the ground)
• Ta Prohm (a temple swallowed by the jungle and perhaps the most famous Angkor Temple due to it’s feature in the Angelina Jolie movie Tomb Raider).

Below you’ll find a small sample of photos from the first two temples, the rest we’ll drop into the next post with a video of the sunrise over Angkor Wat on Christmas Day.

Getting ready to head off...

We spent 4 hours Quad Biking through the Cambodian countryside on a private tour with a local guide. The Quad Biking tour was setup by a local Frenchman, and in conjunction with a local Cambodian businessman they fund the majority of the Chress Village School and Orphanage – which was our first major stop on our tour.

At the school over 500 local children gain an eduction in languages including English, French, Japanese and Chinese to help them break the poverty cycle. 49 of the students live at the school after being orphaned. They sleep in large groups on the floor in the classrooms – sharing all clothing and possessions. We were fortunate enough to be welcomed by four of the boys who lived at the school, and they spent the next 30 minutes showing us their classrooms, facilities and methods of remaining as self sustainable as possible.

Raising Pigs to fund their schooling

This included designing and printing a range of t-shirts which they sell to tourists like us, as well as the challenging task of raising and breeding dozens of pigs to be sold at the markets. The majority of the pig farming was done by the older brother (who’s name was also Paul!) of one of the boys showing us around, and he too had been a student living at the school.

Neither of us have ever met more gracious or responsible young people in our lives.

We disappeared into the countryside with a sincere good bye and plenty of waves from our hosts, continuing to explore the varied countryside until we stopped for a cold drink in a local town.

For both of us, the adventure was made all the more special as over the 4.5 hours we experienced hundreds of children running out of their homes to see us zip past on the street, yelling hello’s ad waving. Neither of us will forget the sight of a 2 year old girl carrying her baby brother out under the arms to wave hello!

And to show that kids will always be kids, Paul was even lucky enough to have one throw a stick at him and another chase him and hit him with a broom giggling madly!

We finished the day by crossing a couple of wooden bridges…..thinking that this was just another normal part of the tour….ignoring our fears of the cracking timbers and gaping holes….only to find out at the end from our smiling guide that he’d never been that way before and was unsure if the bridge would hold a Quad Bike…so glad I signed that disclaimer!

You can find out more about the Quad biking here or learn more about the fantastic school and orphanage here.

You could make a difference…. just by tearing through the countryside on a Quad Bike!