Updates from the Road Archive

Updated : 27th October 2005 - Yogyakarta, Central Java,  Indonesia

INDONESIA...

Selamat Siang from hot and sweaty Jogya! We arrived in Indonesia just over a week ago after a four and half year hiatus from travelling - far too long! We plan to make up for lost time now though as we are heading all the way back to Scotland along the overland trail. It's especially nice to be taking photographs of inspirational places once again. Although consumer digital technology has advanced light years since the last time we were on the road, I'm still using my trusty ol' manual Nikon film camera - although we also have a more compact digicam for those happy snaps which we can use to update this section of the site.

We landed in Bali, a far more interesting place than I ever imagined. We were very sad to hear of the bombings a few weeks back but were determined to stick to our plans regardless. Needless to say the Balinese are heartbroken and are hoping for a return of tourist numbers (very low at the moment).

The highlight so far at this early stage of our trip is certainly the volcanic massif of Gunung Bromo National Park. We spent two days there hiking around the area, usually before dawn with torches to get to the viewpoints for sunrise. The picture below (centre) was taken from the summit of Gunung Penanjakan. The big volcano in the background is Gunung Semuru (3676m), it belches out giant plumes of sulphurous smoke every 15 minutes (when I was first told this i thought it was just a sales pitch, but it's true, regular as clockwork!). The picture next to it below is a view down into the crater itself.

Prambanan Temple,
Central Java, Indonesia

We spent a week in central Java, taking in the sights (and having them pretty much to ourselves) as well as attempting to view one more of Java's spectacular volcanos - Gunung Merapi. We made our way to Kaliurang, got up at dawn and arrived at the viewpoint, where we sat for hours forlornly contemplating the thick blanket of cloud that obscured everything. Oh well, "you don't know if you don't go" (it's become our new mantra).
 
The famous temples of Prambanan and the unique Borobudur monument were great to see at last, though the sky was perpetually overcast and the humidity made it feel like you were walking through warm maple syrup. I persisted with my camera & tripod in the muggy heat, always a challenge to photograph giant stone structures in dull conditions, though I certainly made the most of the absence of garishly clad tourists putting themselves in between my lens and the subjects. 

Having Indonesia's world class ancient monuments pretty much to yourself and staying in empty hotels may sound like paradise for a backpacker, but there's something eerily depressing about it. We hear alot about Bali on the news and how tourism suffers there. Well, the rest of Indonesia's tourist industry has been dead for years now. Hotels, restaurants and travel/tour companies that once thrived and employed thousands now stand empty, like tombstones. Former guides and tour operators stand around looking defeated in "tourist areas", trying to hustle whatever scraps of business they can.  A govt. 100% tax on petrol and a world-wide bird flu/media pandemic is pretty much rubbing salt in the wounds.

From Jogjya we flew to Padang in central Sumatra (what? flew? yeah, long story - to summarise : don't travel across Indonesia at the end of Ramadan!). We headed by bus through countryside bursting with lush green rice paddies and steep volcanic valleys and peaks. We spent alot of time by a couple of very beautiful lakes set in the craters of extinct volcanoes - Lake Meninjau in the centre followed by the very Scotland-like Lake Toba in the North. The bus ride across Sumatra to Toba was particularly beautiful, and apart from it sliding off the road into a muddy ditch and getting stuck there at a perfect 45 degree angle from which it had to get towed by an earth mover at 2 in the morning, incident free.

What really left a lasting impression on us both is Indonesia's people. We met some real characters & experienced some quite touching hospitality. A lot is said (in Australia) about how Indonesians feel about their neighbours to the south. After a month in the country I can honestly say that it's rare to turn up somewhere and be received so warmly. Indonesians (that we met anyway) are honest, down to earth & generous people. Travel there isn't the easiest we've experienced, it's quite grueling alot of the time - and there's a LOT of people there to fight over the scraps of rag-tag tourists that wander through. But the end of a hard day when you're kicking back with the local crowd, drinking black local coffee or Bintang (the local beer, a pilsner in a green bottle, need I say more?) playing guitar, singing (well if you can't beat 'em, join em!) and generally just chewing the fat with really cool people - it makes you genuinely sad to have to leave - there were even a few tears at one point...

So we moved onwards to Malaysia - our first international border crossing on this trip. Stepping off the ferry in Penang was a bit like arriving back in circular quay in Sydney. There was none of the usual commotion with rickshaw and taxi drivers you normally receive at such places, no hotel touts to accost us, as a matter of fact we had to try quite hard to persuade a taxi driver to take us to our hotel! The traffic was organised, most of the cars on the streets were brand new - we were briefly back in the first world (we even visited the local shopping mall where we sat in a freezing cold cinema through the latest Harry Potter film - my first of the series, and last!).

Penang is full of Indian and Chinese communities living side by side. We had dinner in the Indian part of town every night (you can't keep me away from good Indian food) and spent the rest of the time wandering about checking out the numerous Chinese and Indian temples. The one "major attraction" we visited was the Kek Lok Si Temple - a towering Buddhist spire about five levels high rivalling the Vatican in terms of commercialism and Disneyland for kitch. Available amongst the many hundred souvenir stalls crowding the complex were giant Micky Mouse dolls, the complex itself could be traversed via a giant travelator!  Forget this prostrating yourself every step lark!

From Penang we travelled directly to the beautiful island of Ko Phi Phi off Thailand's Andaman coast. We weren't entirely sure what to expect in this tsunami ravaged region. The closer we got however, the more we realised that we were simply part of the peak season horde descending on the island like pilgrims. The region has become a mecca for trendy backpackers (though they come with suitcases nowadays) in search of sun, sea and a CD and liquor catalogue that remind them of home. There's not much in the way of Thai culture to enjoy there - just bungalow resorts, bars, restaurants and shops aimed at western holiday makers. Even the coral reefs around the islands are now largely in ruins as boat after boat load of novice divers clumsily clamber over the marine environment in pursuit of their qualifications.

The village of Ao Ton Sai was unrecognisable from what we saw four years ago when we were there. What was once a ramshackle huddle of bamboo huts sprinkled with bars, shops and bungalows has since been flattened by the tsunami. It is now a construction site. Homes are being re-built higher on the hillside whilst big-money developers have moved in to fill the void left by a destroyed home-grown industry without insurance. At the end of the day however, Thailand can consider itself lucky to have such a resiliant tourist industry which has helped it to bounce back so quickly.

From Penang we travelled directly to the beautiful island of Ko Phi Phi off Thailand's Andaman coast. We weren't entirely sure what to expect in this tsunami ravaged region. The closer we got however, the more we realised that we were simply part of the peak season horde descending on the island like pilgrims. The region has become a mecca for trendy backpackers (though they come with suitcases nowadays) in search of sun, sea and a CD and liquor catalogue that remind them of home. There's not much in the way of Thai culture to enjoy there - just bungalow resorts, bars, restaurants and shops aimed at western holiday makers. Even the coral reefs around the islands are now largely in ruins as boat after boat load of novice divers clumsily clamber over the marine environment in pursuit of their qualifications.
 
The village of Ao Ton Sai was unrecognisable from what we saw four years ago when we were there. What was once a ramshackle huddle of bamboo huts sprinkled with bars, shops and bungalows has since been flattened by the tsunami. It is now a construction site. Homes are being re-built higher on the hillside whilst big-money developers have moved in to fill the void left by a destroyed home-grown industry without insurance. At the end of the day however, Thailand can consider itself lucky to have such a resiliant tourist industry which has helped it to bounce back so quickly. 
 

We spent a week at our beloved Rantee Bay which although having experienced its own share of development (about 3 times the number of bungalows, a new restaurant and snorkelling/longtail taxi hire office, a beach bar and another one in progress!) in the 4 years since we were last here, it still retained the curfew of peace by shutting down the generators at about 11pm. We then caught a ferry south to the "quieter" island of Ko Lanta, but after a few nights of trying to fall sleep over the sound of the Chilli Peppers reverberating up from one of the beach bars until dawn every night, we gave up and took an overnight sleeper train (14hrs) to Bangkok. This time we found an area of town near the National Library and far enough away from the notoriously BAD backpacker haunt of Kao San Road. 

Updated : 28th December 2005, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

CAMBODIA...
 
We travelled up to the Thai/Burma frontier town of Mae Sot, our friend Pete drove us up there from Bangkok and showed us what can be done with a modest sum of money gained from his various fund-raising efforts back home in Sydney. Pete managed to fill his hire-car twice with rice, fruit & veg, stationary supplies, washing powder and winter blankets and deliver them to two schools for young Burmese refugees. Inspirational stuff! There are more than forty schools for refugees along the border, a major medical clinic and many refugee camps full of people fleeing the military dictatorship in Burma. Mae Sot is a real frontier town - full of Burmese, many of them Karen people (a sizable ethnic minority persecuted inside Burma), also gem-traders, NGO workers, volunteers, expat medics, monks and backpackers all milling about.

We then headed back to Bangkok and off to the opposite frontier, this time on the Cambodian side. Crossing the border was a long wait in a long queue under a baking sun, but walking out into the Cambodian border town of Poipet, passing a couple of massive casinos en route to passport control (gambling is illegal in Thailand but Thai punters don't have far to walk when they cross the border!) felt every bit like entering another country - less developed, a little more unruly and much more exciting! Getting a ride out of Poipet was anything but straightforward and it seems there wasn't much negotiation to be had with the drivers. It was a case of pay up and get on with it, so we did. 

The road to Siem Reap is legendary so we braced ourselves for a very bumpy ride. Either the stories we've been hearing are apocryphal backpacker nonsense or the road has been considerably improved - it was bumpy as hell as the road was riddled with huge potholes, but it wasn't that bad! It was actually a beautiful ride - one long straight red-dirt road, flat green pastures on either side and one huge blue sky everywhere else. An old man on his moped carrying the dead pig he'd just shot, kids playing on antique farming equipment, Ox carts driven by young boys with their families in the back riding past. The glitzy shopping malls, maddening traffic and terminal pollution of Bangkok were a world away. 

The obvious first port of call was Siem Reap - the place to stay when visiting Angkor Wat and it's surrounding temple complexes. Naturally it's a busy, busy place (for a small town) and right now is like one huge construction site for new hotels and guesthouses. The sound of hammering and power tools compete with predictable western pop-anthems blaring from the many bars and restaurants to make it one noisy place. We bought three-day passes for the Angkor region and had three very solid days of sight-seeing. 

The Angkor Archaeological Park is big, sprawled out, immaculately well kept and very impressive! It's basically just like you've heard it is (and alot has been said about it!). It's amazing to think that these monuments were pretty much off-limits to casual visitors until a decade or so ago. What it must have been like for those few lucky (or crazy) enough to have braved war and genocidal regimes to see the place empty of tourists and walk alone through the gates and along the promenade up to the base of the thousand year old monument. Nowadays the place is overrun by tourists (and who can blame them, we were amongst them after all!). Angkor Wat is a photographer's paradise and getting the obligatory post-card shots of the temples without holiday-makers posing in front of them - one after the other, after the other, is dedicated work. The heads peering out to the four cardinal-points from the towers of the Bayon, illuminated by the early morning sun, are beautiful. The tree roots clawing away at the ruins of Ta Phrom - with giant trees growing over archways - are extraordinary. The number of temple sites (and tourists) was overwhelming. 

Sïem Reap, the Angkor temples and every other place where tourists converge in Cambodia are always full of young kids selling post-cards, cheap pirated books and souvenirs. They speak English impressively and are full of lively banter. They are persistent, some might say pushy, but they are actually loads of fun to talk to, and they're good at their job. Limbless victims of landmines also compete for your attention and are a sobering reminder of what a battered country Cambodia is. It's depressing to see so many innocent people suffering at the hands of a previous generation's conflict. It's also amazing that Khmers are such laid back and friendly people considering what they have been through. 

We travelled from Siem Reap to Battambang by boat down the Ton Le Sap river - another beautiful ride through floating villages, submerged forests, impossibly narrow watercourses and broad winding river scenery. All along the way children waved and yelled hello from the river banks or from their floating homes, schools and shops. We hired a couple of moto-drivers to take us around the Battambang country-side down narrow dirt tracks, through small villages and along the river. They took us to a hilltop Wat via a grim cave - a sky hole ten metres above was once used by the Khmer Rouge to throw their bludgeoned victims through. A cage full of skulls and bones is all that remains of them.

From Battambang we travelled by bus to Kompong Chnnang - part floating village /part French colonial town. We headed down to the river, a dense, ramshackle area of wooden houses on stilts, and were accosted by a rowdy group of kids who man-handled us onto their canoe. They paddled us around the floating village of small houses and shops built into boats or on stilts for a bout half an hour before it all ended a little sour when we had to settle our bill. Afterwards we wandered about the local market where of special interest was the fresh food section - pig heads, snakes, frogs, eels, squirming fish and all manner of unrecognisable entrails and innards. Our dinner menu included Ox Stomach Salad, Ox Testicle and Fried Intestine with Sour Vegetable. We looked out for deep-fried spiders but alas there were none. The disappointment wasn't to last however - here in Phnom Penh there's deep-fried spiders galore sold right outside the Royal Palace each evening along with other locust-type treats like silk worms and crickets. Khmer people seem to eat everything going (but not cockroaches!) - an astonishing variety - and hats off to 'em. The only thing that made us really feel squeamish was the bucket of fist-size LIVE spiders on display at the nearby Psar Thmei (central market), and not just any old spiders, these were tarantulas! I guess some folks like to pick up a bag of fresh spideys and fry 'em up themselves at home! We should mention at this point that Khmer food isn't all creepy-crawlies, the local curry "Amok" is a delicious blend of meat, veggies or tofu with coconut milk, lemongrass and chilli-paste served inside a coconut shell. Very tasty!

The streets of Phnom Penh get especially crowded at peak hour. Chaos, being the rule rather than the exception, seems to work out for the most part. There are no local busses in Cambodia, only motos, which are just dudes on motorbikes who you pay to take you wherever you want to go. There are about 10 to 1 motos to cars on the roads so it is fun whizzing around the traffic with drivers who know how to go with the crazy flow!!

The first places we visited in Phnom Penh were the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields. Tuol Sleng, otherwise know as S-21, is the preserved site of the Khmer Rouge's premier detention and interrogation facility. It is especially disturbing that it was built (or rather clumsily renovated) inside a suburban primary school. Originally designed as a place of learning for young Khmers it was ultimately (and sickeningly) used to train young Khmers to torture suspected "traitors" to the Khmer Rouge regime, to document their purported confessions (made under extreme duress) and to cart them off in their thousands to the Killing Fields - the site of their horrific executions. The bed frames and shackles sitting in the middle of empty class rooms are iconic images of modern genocide. The black & white "mug-shot" portraits of the victims, the men, women and children (including babies) were even more disturbing. The petrified faces of the doomed victims on display are a testament to the depravity of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot wanted to achieve a complete a communist revolution within four years. His forces marched every one out of the cities and forced them to work as peasants in the rice fields. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, died in the process. He died an ignominious death in 1998 and left a country full of mass graves, land-mines and deep psychological scars. They are still recovering from his regime's brutality as elderly former Khmer Rouge leaders still await trial.
 

Such a grim day of sight-seeing needed to end on a different note, so our friendly young moto-drivers took us to see some live Cambodian boxing! We watched a few competition fights which were being filmed for live TV - they are crazy about boxing here and the boys set us straight that "Thai" or Muay boxing actually originated in Cambodia and that all the good Thai fighters are trained in here. Fists, feet, elbows and knees were all used to attack the opponent and defend through several rounds of aggressive fighting. A live soundtrack was blared out via a small musical troupe, adding to the tension and drama. Evenly matched fighters fought to the end of the five allocated rounds - usually embracing in mutual respect in conclusion. Less evenly matched pairs didn't last as long, the less strong or skilled being immediately carted off by medics (after his 10-1 countdown) once "knocked out" of contention by the victor. Such a violent sport seemed quite normal after having toured through the misery of Cambodia's recent past. 

Christmas in Phnom Penh was low-key (phew!), although there were Khmer girls in all the bars wearing santa hats and playing the usual cheesy Christman tunes! We spent new years in Cambodia's eastern province of Mondulkiri, a sparsely inhabited area of slightly higher altitude with hilly, pastoral landscapes that reminded us of rural NSW because of the red earth and gum trees. We hired a moto, rode a dirt track out to completely the wrong direction and met a South African WWF worker who told us to swing by "Jack's Bar" that evening to ring in the new year. We did just that, after dinner at a restaurant overrun by a large group from a Phnom Penh based shipping company on a weekend retreat. They danced around the fire as inebriated local "minority people" played truly bizarre music from un-describable instruments. We joined in (at their insistence) but the city folk soon tired of the ritual (which was as foreign to them as us it seemed) and wheeled out the van with the sub-woofer stereo and partied the rest of the night to their beloved Khmer pop. We went across the road to "Jack's Bar" (aka the Pub in the Middle of Somewhere) for the actual new years bit - sitting in the back under a gum tree with a tinny and covered in red dirt talking with other random travellers. We were briefly back in Australia it seemed (though our hotel had caged monkeys waiting in the back to be cooked and eaten as a nine-year-old kid reeked havoc with a karaoke machine, yep still in Cambodia!).

And so we crossed the border from Cambodia into Vietnam. How weird it is that you cross an imaginary line and all of a sudden everything is so different - the people, their language(s), the landscape, food, currency, history, political ethos - but crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam, the most immediate difference you cannot fail to notice is the amplitude of the bus/car/moto horns which are just sooo incredibly loud, and constant, it really makes your head spin.
 
First stop was Ho Chi Minh City - bit of a mouthful, or Saigon, and what a full on crazy city it is! It's a place where the motor-scooter rules the roads and you very quickly have to learn the art of crossing them - a combination of slow & steady treading (in sync with locals if you're lucky!), having faith that the dense mass of oncoming Honda dreams will skillfully dart around you, and/or running for your life!! In Saigon you can sit on a street corner, slurping on a breakfast of vermicelli noodle soup (with basil, a squirt of lime and a dash of chilli, yum!), and sip on a delicious ice-coffee whilst watching the world go frantically by. High school girls wearing ao dai (the traditional full length tunic over long pants) and conical hats ride bicycles alongside hip chicks tearing through the traffic on fluro pink mopeds, wearing slinky tops, hipsters and diamonte studded high heeled boots whilst sending text messages!
 
The most interesting places we visited included the "Re-unification Palace" the immaculately preserved HQ of the former regime, the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City and the War Remnants Museum (formerly "The American War Crimes Museum" - guess that name wasn't so popular at the ticket office!), where you can feast your eyes on the peculiar art of war photography, some gruesome "Abu Ghraib" style happy snaps and even some grossly deformed dioxin contaminated foetuses kept in formaldehyde jars. You leave the building confronted by landmine victims selling books & souvenirs. You don't feel anything but a hatred for war and its evil weapons and a grim realisation that we don't seem to have learnt much about it's futility in the last few generations...

Visiting the Cholon district, Saigon's "Chinatown" it began raining the minute we arrived. We took cover under the sheltered market as the heavens opened wide and an ocean of rain thrashed down upon the corrugated steel roof, pouring off the sides and out of drains like waterfalls. It wasn't long before the entire area surrounding the market was flooded and we were forced to evacuate our refuge from fear of being engulfed by the thick, sludgy, poisonous looking water lapping at our feet and steadily rising (the thousands of cockroaches, rats and other netherworld creatures surfacing at this time sped our departure along nicely). We waded through the shin deep water across the road, but there was nowhere to go to wait out the storm as the footpaths were crammed with parked motos and people busily packing up their street stalls. Bicycles, motos, cars and buses splashed through the murky black water (up to half a metre deep in places). Amazing to think that the whole area was bone dry an hour before. We ended up reluctantly accepting a moto ride home (separate motos - it's the law in Vietnam). Outside of Cholon the streets were dry with no sign of any rain, but the evening peak hour thrill-ride back to our hotel was as hair raising as public transport gets. Traffic in Vietnam is truly frightening.

From Saigon, we jumped aboard a tour of the Mekong Delta region. That's how it works in Vietnam, you do tours. We sat on a bus as our friendly guide stood up front, microphone in hand, spouting off facts and figures about HCMC and the Delta & running through our rigid itinerary. At our first stop we were marched onto a boat and hauled across the river, stopping at various points of "cultural interest", then piled onto small canoes and paddled down a shallow canal with a million other western tourists, alternately bashing into and scraping alongside them. Ahhh the serenity. The best part of this tour was the homestay which was fun - we were the only two in our group who elected to crash at a locals pad for the night instead of a hotel in the city. Two young brothers and their family put on a huge feast of sour soup with catfish, pineapple and tomato and dishes of veggies and tofu and tried to get us sloshed on rice wine! We chatted into the night and then crashed. It would have been a peaceful night's sleep in between the dogs finishing their howling chorus and the cockerals starting their wake up call, if it wasn't for the snoring of the uncle coming from the partition next to us!

The markets around the river are lively and full of all sorts of interesting fare - pig anatomy enthusiasts would get a kick out of the stalls offering severed heads, snouts, trotters, tails, ears, intestines and all manner of unrecognisable entrail laid out for your perusal. If fish could scream (after their face has been sliced off that is), the fresh seafood section would sound like an early Diamanda Galas album.

We then did a join-the-dots journey northwards starting in Mui Ne - a windy coastal resort set along sweeping sand dunes where you swim with the risk of having your head split open by the pointy end of a piece of fluro fibre-glass (it's wind/kite surfers paradise). The actual town surrounds a picturesque fishing village a few kilometres up the coast, but the "tai balows" (lit: Western backpackers) congregate where the surf is at. Here you'll see plenty of European fit-bods doing push ups on the sand alongside old gals spilling out of their one-piece cozzies as their hubbies strut about in grossly immodest speedos sporting bulging red bellies and scrawny, white-haired covered chests. It's actually a peaceful enough place, and it was nice to fall sleep with the soothing sound of the surf crashing against the shore. We visited the nearby "white" and "red" sand dunes - and dunes are always fun. Moving northwards to Dalat - a central highland hill-station with quirky cafes and chilly nights, the drive up there was pretty crazy (a drive anywhere in Vietnam is crazy) but worthwhile to at least get a taste for the central highlands. The beachside town of Nha Trang was - um... well, we did have the best penne napolitana in all of Asia there...

Things finally started getting interesting again when we arrived in the beauiful ancient trading town of Hoi An in time for Tet, the lunar new year. It is a very picturesque town straight out of an episode of Monkey with terra-cotta roofs, lanterns, dragon temples, narrow lanes and covered bridges. It's where busloads of tourists head to soak up the French/Far Eastern exotica vibe and dine in restaurants built inside beautiful old Chinese-style wood beamed houses - most of  which (sadly) play the same instrumental-spanish-guitar-muzak CD - beginning with Scarborough Fair, Lionel Richie's "Helloooo" and building up to a cooking rendition of Careless Whisper - on repeat!! We took another tour to the Cham temples at My Son which was ok because we could separate from the group when we got there. My Son is considered to be the ancient Kingdom of Champa's smaller counterpart to Angkor, Bagan, Ayuthaya and Borobodur, but disappointingly the temples are in a pretty unrecognisable, ruined state. According to locals, the Americans deliberaly obliterated the main temple during the war.  
 

On our last evening in Hanoi we went to check out the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre which is so much fun it makes you grin ear to ear. Colourful wooden puppets dance around on the water recreating folk tales and rural river scenes to an awesome live musical performance of first rate traditional Vietnamese folk songs. Best of all were the floating, fire-breathing dragons that opened and closed the show. A thoroughly entertaining evening and the image of Vietnam which will endure in our minds. On our last day, we visited Ho Chi Minh himself - lying in state (a state of preservation anyway) a pretty intense and surreal experience that lasts about 30 seconds (you are ushered in and out, two by two in single file, hands out of pockets, hats off, lips shut) but that's Ho alright (or a Wax replica that'd do Madame Tussaud proud!). He lies there, warmly lit, looking pretty good for a guy who died 37 years ago, inside a glass coffin and flanked by armed guards posted at each corner sporting expressions as lifeless as his. It's a memorable way to spend a Saturday morning.
 
And once again, before we knew it our month was up and it was time to leave, just as we were starting to really enjoy it!. Getting over the hills to our next destination in Laos was our least straightforward and most adventurous experience in Vietnam. We'd heard the direct bus (Hanoi to Vientiane in 24 hours, no way baby!) was a scam, a rip-off, a never-again-in-my-life type of experience. We opted for local transport and an overnight stop en-route. The journey in the mini-bus screaming down highway 1, with the maniac driver's hand firmly pressed on the horn for the entire duration, was pretty stressful but we got to the first part of our destination. We haggled alot and managed to wheel and deal our way onto a series of connecting mini-buses right the way up the mountain pass that is the frontier between Vietnam and Laos. Sitting in the back of a mini-van amidst a cargo of vegetables, raw meat and a box of live squawking chickens, we ascended into a blanket of thick fog. By the time we reached the immigration post we couldn't see 3 metres in front of us. It was bloody cold too. Exiting Vietnamese customs was straightforward (just a dollar to the nice Customs Officer for "stamp duty", yeh right!!!), the only drama was when iSh opened the wrong door (thinking it was the WC) finding a room of contraband guarded by fierce dogs that had she not slammed the door shut any quicker might have made a nice lunch out of her! (she's starting to prefer cats these days!).
 
We walked through the no-mans-land in the mist with some fellow Lao passengers who were smuggling themselves over the border (dodging immigration on both sides) until we reached the next official border post, passed under the archways - and entered into Laos...

Tom at the Laos border!
 

I wouldn't say Laos is a peaceful place (it's as noisy as anywhere, ok maybe not Vietnam) but it's certainly a very laid back, hassle free country to travel where the people are genuinely warm, friendly and a joy to be around - and no smile goes unreturned. Sure, the "sights" are limited and there's only so many caves and waterfalls you can visit before growing somewhat weary of them, but then there are the stunning wats of Luang Prabang, the enigmatic Plain of Jars - ancient neolithic stone jars by the hundreds spread out across the hills - straight out of a Dr Who episode (and riddled with craters from US bombing raids), pristine river scenery and breathtaking mountains, big mamas with big hearts, adorable kids, and of course cramped, sweaty, never-ending yet memorable bus rides (the drivers' appetites for human cargo on these things is exceptionally voracious).
 
It's a poor country that's been defiled by the rich and powerful - but once again the people smile, the kids have endless fun doing back-flips and kick-boxing in the Mekong, the wats are so bright & colorful they look brand new (many are, though some date back centuries). It's a new generation without bitterness (despite having the dubious honour of being the most bombed country in the history of... well bombing countries), doing what it can to prosper in the modern world. 

 

As for the people that come to Laos?  Well, we've met a few nice folks - but sadly it's mostly just backpacker trash barging their way around SE Asia on the lookout for cheap beer, local women and drugs - no consideration for their hosts or fellow travellers. Honestly, we've seen some shockers. It may not be the majority - but the minority is far from small or silent. Places like Vang Vieng demonstrate how ridiculous the backpacker scene has become. There was once an idea that travellers went abroad to expand their knowledge and understanding of human cultures and histories, indulge in esoteric banter ...and maybe get stoned. Today they rock up to guzzle beer, get laid and watch re-runs of "Friends" on blaring flat screen TV's. It's a pretty good synopsis of where this generation of privileged white kids are at spiritually (or at least intellectually).
 
We've been in Asia for five months now. There's still so much ahead of us - we fly to Burma in the morning - and we're still very excited about all of it. It's been exhausting and hard at times, but it's also been alot of fun. 

Thank you Laos - Khoop Jai Lai Lai. We'll miss you.

Updated : 18th May 2006, Chiang Mai, Thailand

MYANMAR...

We got back into Bangkok from Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma if you prefer) a few weeks ago now. It was a very worthwhile trip - we are so glad we decided to go. It's easy not to go there - travel restrictions apply, there's some pretty good don't-go-to-Burma material produced by boycott groups (such as www.burmacampaign.org.uk). But I'm not overly keen on boycotting countries - it's a pretty shallow act unless it's backed up by a blanket boycott of everything else that makes the country's corrupt element tick - which in Myanmar's case is much of the rest of Asia (especially China and with a lot of help from Thailand and India) and all the great Japanese companies whose products we invest in daily. So yeah, as I don't do that, I don't boycott the amazing people of Myanmar either. That all said, I don't necessarily disagree with what the boycott groups are doing, and agree that everyone who goes to Myanmar should be fully aware of the human rights situation there and it's association in many cases with the emerging tourist industry (forced labour on tourist sites, forced re-location of villages to accommodate tourist facilities etc). 
 
Yangon is one of the most interesting places either of us has ever visited. The downtown region is structurally a British relic, the people are a mix of Indian, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Burman and Chinese, there are mosques all over town as well as Hindu temples, Churches - even a Synagogue. the central traffic circle is a gilded 1000 year old Buddhist pagoda. The streets are crammed with people flogging their wares and yelling/chanting all sorts of sales-cries, the 60 year old British buses are still running. You don't see many tourists around, the locals sometimes give you a slightly nervous/curious look at first - then relax into a beaming smile and warm words of welcome. Language is not a problem - you randomly stop someone on the street to ask directions and you get a reply in scholarly English. There's Indian style chai shops set up all over town on the streets at night and all the usual musical cacophony of Scorpions vs Burman pop blasted from towering PA stacks.

The city's power supply runs for about six hours a day. The rest of the time the city runs on petrol-generator power. There is no predicting when the official "government power" supply will be running so petrol generators are constantly at the ready outside every place of business. When the lights go out and they are all cranked up, chugging away in unison, you need to shout above them to be heard and the streets are filled with suffocating smog. As the Generals plays "disco lights" with the power supply, they also turn a nice profit on petrol sales.
 
People are quietly open about the regime and some we met were keen to vent their frustration/anger - despite the risks. One man who invited me for chai went to great lengths to describe the conditions he and his fellow downtown Yangonese were forced to endure. Accepting visitors overnight (friends, even family) requires official permission, applications must be made to the relevant authorities and a followup report must be lodged. Random checks are made in the middle of the night with armed police doing head counts. Violators are carted away to prison. Military police use rape and torture as a matter of course. More well-to-do Burmese seemed less inclined to bring up the human-rights situation, instead pointing out what a safe city Yangon is thanks to tight security and an outright ban on the public owning guns. There's little doubt that from our privileged standpoint, Yangon is arguably the safest city in the world. Everybody knows we white foreigners walk around with several hundred dollars worth of Kyat wrapped around our waist (there's no ATMs or official currency exchange booths making the cash black-market the only option) yet despite being a walking equivalent of an average local's life-savings you couldn't feel less intimidated or more secure.
 
One thing you really notice on your way around town is the distinct lack of western brand-name advertising and products. Instead you see giant billboards promoting "Spirulina Beer - Great New Taste - Young Forever - Anti Ageing Drink - Manufactured by the Ministry of Industry (1)" and the omni-present "People's Desire" slogans :

Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views
Oppose those trying to jeopardize stability of the State and progress of the nation
Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the State
Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy

Attributed to the people of Myanmar, these purported desires seem farcical - immediately bringing into question the authenticity of the regime that authored them. The rambling texts published in "The New Light of Myanmar", a government mouthpiece/newspaper published in English, is full of this type of jargon. It makes amusing reading but is a depressing reminder of a grim political situation that is no laughing matter for millions of people in Myanmar.

The centrepiece of Yangon is the incredible Shwedagon - kind of like a giant gilded Buddhist spaceship preparing to blast-off to Nirvana! We arrived there before dawn to witness the beginning of a procession of gong-beating, concho-shell blowing monks and nuns circumnabulating the towering monument. We soon discovered that Myanmar is home to thousands of impressive pagodas, every prominent hilltop in the countryside is crowned with them and they feature as the centerpiece of every single town district. As Myanmar is isolated from the outside world, it's cultural focus inwards (particularly on it's impressive Buddhist heritage) gives the impression that Myanmar is one of the most spiritual countries on Earth. It's a phenomenon that the government seems to have no qualms in exploiting for all it's worth. The passive nature of Buddhism and it's philosophy of the abandonment of earthly pleasures seems to play conveniently into the Generals hands - many of whom build their own pagodas at the end of their corrupt lives in order to pay for their salvation. 
 

Shwedagon Paya, Yangon, Myanmar

We travelled northwards to Bagan - a plain of ancient pagodas that sprawl out to the horizon in every direction. You stand on the terrace of a pagoda and look around you at a 360 degree panorama of (no exaggeration) 3000 ancient temples sprouting from the simmering plains as far as the eye can see. Riding bicycles along the sandy roads that connect the various complexes throughout the temple-strewn landscape (under an insufferably hot April sun) was very sweaty work. Standing barefoot on the steps of the ancient edifices became torturous by mid-day, akin to walking on hot-plates. It was worth it for the views though.
 
We reached Mandalay on the eve of (for us) yet another new year, where things became even more interesting. The streets quickly became crammed with humanity. All the stores were fronted by double-stack PA systems, every knob firmly affixed to maximum position. The resulting cacophony of several dozen high-energy Burmese pop-tunes blasting at over-driven levels whilst sprukers plug their wares through equally distorted megaphones and trucks squeeze past honking their ear-piercingly loud horns was an assault on the senses. This combined with the 40+ degree heat, constant approaches from cyclo/tri-shaw/taxi drivers and crazy traffic made for a stressful time on the streets of Mandalay!

In Myanmar the Buddhist new year is marked by Thingyan "The Water Festival". Locals demonstrate their pious devotion on this spiritual occasion by sanctimoniously throwing buckets of water at passers by. Un-surprisingly this sacred ritual is favoured mostly by kids between 5-15. Day one was hilarious - you walk outside your guesthouse and are blasted by water from kids carrying water-pistols connected to water tanks on their back. This is followed by slightly older kids with buckets. Within 30 seconds you are soaked to the skin all over. Convoys of jeeps and pick-up trucks tear about town loaded with revelers in the back throwing water at everybody. This goes on for four days. The novelty quickly wears off! We made the un-wise choice of travelling up to Pyin U Lwin (the former British hill station) during this time. We were on a pick-up truck with buckets of water being hurled at us as we travelled at 80kph - this hurts! Slowing down as we passed through the throngs was worse as they were able to spray us at length with fire-hoses at point-blank range!
 
It's easy to be cynical about the detachment of this ritual from it's spiritual significance - but then over exactly the same period folks in the west were telling their children apocryphal tales of anthropomorphic bunny rabbits who distribute supermarket confectionery to commemorate the resurrection of a man executed in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. 
 

Shwezigon Paya, Bagan, Myanmar

Myanmar has a long road to freedom ahead of it. It would be nice to think that if the perennially detained National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi were to be finally released from house arrest (imposed and maintained by the ruling junta for the last 15 years in response to the NLD's overwhelming electoral victory in 1990) that Myanmar/Burma would be suddenly free from the shackles of military rule and ready to pursue a peaceful future. The reality is far more complex than this. Whoever rules Myanmar/Burma will be responsible for managing ethnic conflicts far older than the modern state of Myanmar itself. One thing seems certain though - if there is a desire that can generally be ascribed to the people - it is that Aung San Suu Kyi is the person they genuinely want to take on this challenge. As of this writing, her name cannot be uttered in public for fear of imprisonment. 
 
Anyway, cheers for now,

Tom & iSh

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