Retraction of Previous Statement from Jan 27

This was a draft and I never finished it, I think because I knew that there was worse to come....

So I think I may have been a little tired and emotional when I wrote the last blog, because although I may not love it in the way that I loved Laos, I have so so much respect and admiration for Cambodia and the people in it. Everything got better after I wrote that tirade, I think God must read my blog. The one heeding I would give is to go to Angkor Wat on a tues or weds when there aren't bus loads of Korean and Japanese tourists (however much I did love them for their perms and visors and gloves and masks - they looked like Michael Jackson impersonators, and his and hers outfits and the fact that they get their picture taken with every random rock and then also kindly posed with us) and go early in the morning - or lunch time, like a ghost town!!

The only time go to the Lara Croft temple, Ta Prohm is at lunchtime and it is amazing, they left it just as they found all of the temples, with lots of overgrown roots entwined and twisted in between askew bricks, and all the trees have taken on a slightly metallic silver look as if they are slowly turning into stone too. There are lots of fallen boulders and twists and turns and in the middle of rubble there are little ancient buddhist nuns with shaved heads praying with tiny little shrines, it makes you think they must be quite nimble even though they are so old to weave in between the broken pillars.

The most complete and best temple we saw was about 20 km from the Angkor Wat site, it was when we went to this one that everything became better, to get there you drive past actual villages where real life goes on, not the tourist sprawl of Siem Reap. We got stuck in the lunch time rush, when hundreds of little children came out of school holding up their own little lollipop lady stop signs. Most were running, but there were lots of 3 or 4 children to a bike, hanging on whichever way they could and lots of 5 and 6 year olds with adult bikes so they had to sit on the lower frame and not the seat to reach the pedals. It was just business as usual, people transporting massive bundles of firewood on the back of motos, lots of make shift hairdressers and sowing stalls made out of ply wood with corrigated iron rooves.

There were also tons of NGOs - red cross, landmine, unicef, so it was good to see that relief and aid was there - does that in some way make up for no one doing anything during the khmer rouge? I feel like there is a bombardment of help now, but the damage has already been done.

Anyway so there's a miniature Angkor Wat all made of sandstone with all the designs complete - lots of naga - the many headed serpent, aspara - the dancing girls and garudas - bird headed men, there were originally lots of linges - penises, representations of shiva, because they were hindus, but the vietnamese came and cut them all and took them home, it's so sad if you go to the field of a thousand linges and you just see stumps. The Vietnamese after they forced the Khmer Rouge out, pillaged Angkor Wat and the whole of the country, taking whatever they wanted. A lesser of two evils - during the Khmer Rouge reign 2 million (although our tour guide, well not ours because we didn't pay for him, we just tagged along at the tail end of someone elses group, said 3million) died - were murdered or starved or fell victim to disease, this is out of a population of 7 million. And this was happening a year before I was born, of course the cambodians went to the Vietnamese for help, it was that or face complete decimation. All of the crops they were growing were being shipped off to russia to pay for guns. Oh look it, I'm not going to preach because it will be very dull.

As soon as I saw a life outside of tourist trade in local villages and then got to Phnom Penh, where there is hustle and bustle and industry, I liked Cambodia so much more. Everyone is out for a scam but they do it to each other too. You can see it in the way they drive, everyone's trying to overtake everyone else, so you have 3 lanes of overtaking tuk tuk after bike after van and no one will back down. Our tuk tuk driver sent a moto with 3 old ladies on the back flying into a ditch and didn't even look back. I think because the corruption is so visible from the top - where vietnamese can stay without passports or citizenship and vote in elections, and roads don't get finished because enough palms weren't oiled, everyone's just trying to get their piece.

But Phnom Penh is fun, there are tons of cyclone rickshaws - old turn of the century bikes - one big back and smaller front wheel transporting king sized matresses, sheep and goats rummaging through garbage, the russian market where you can buy anything and everything and I did!!!, clubs, restaurants, cinemas, not just for tourists but all this for locals.

Anyway so since the Khmer people went through genocide, extermination of culture and free thought, foreign occupation, isolation, distrust, corruption in the past 30 years, I think they're doing pretty well. They seem to be happy friendly busy people for the most part, they just need a little tweaking with customer relations.

Best bits of cambodia - Aki Ra landmine museum - former Khmer Rouge child soldier who layed landmines and now deactivates them with a stick, the museum funds his home for children who are landmine victims

S21 and the Killing fields, S21 especially, just the types of torture people were put through, the people who are still missing believed dead, testimonials by families, so so sad and it makes you angry that no one did anything

RUSSIAN MARKET - I now have all of the oscar nominated films for this year on dvd, my weekends when I get back will be fun filled in front of the television.

Mum - the tuk tuk driver we eventually found in siem reap who was so reliable and said what he meant and meant what he said instead of hiking the price up a bit and then standing in silence until eventually you give in as all the others do - the most annoying passive agressive technique.

I hate Cambodia

There comes a time in every trip where you hit your low - all your excitement plummets to dire depths all you can think about are the mosquitos swarming around you like gnats, the grease in the food, how much you start to hate your copanions - you start to realise that you have nothing at all in common with them and that in fact you think the opposite to what they feel the majority of the time, you think everyone is parasitical and after your money, that all kindness is false and then eventually you go to see somethinmg very moving like the Cambodian Landmine Museum and as you read the stories of the victims you start to cry, but not for them, for you and the overwhelming crapness you feel. I've hit that point and it's in Cambodia. I don't blame Cambodia for my dislike of it, it'was under the khmer Rouge until 1998, and Vietnam was still bombing until 1999, tourism is a new thing,they just haven't quite mastered relations yet. You'll haggle with the tuk tuk drivers for prices, they'll agree and then suddenly forget they agreed to an extra stop or ask for 50 cents more at the end of the journey and when you say no to their demands, they shout 'fuck you lady'' and then try to mow you down. At Ankor Wat - which at the moment I feel is NOT worth the trip out for - built in the 12th century - by that time we had the bayeux tapestry, magna carta, a thousand years after the romans built great ampitheatres, before that the greeks built intricate friezes on the acropolis, before that there were the pyramids!!! Angkor wat is basically a big estate with lots of empty buildings with carvingd, if you want to see something similar only better go to versailles or hampton court! Same difference only less exotic! Don't you think it's slightly patronising to be like oh it's amazing what they achieved that early on - by that time chinese and europeans had already established mercantile trading and we're like wow they built a palace in the jungle. Anyway you go to ankor wat and little children are the main pests, I want to stamp on their feet! You try to politely shoe them away as they follow you to the toilet and when you come out they demand payment for showing you where it is?! And when you refuse 'I help you and you give me nothing?!! I get zero lady?! Fuck you'. They, they make you want to cry. By the end of the day after being shouted at by children anddrivers you feel so demoralised you don''t want to get back out of your bed. You envisage some bitter tuk tuk driver waiting for you at the bottom of the dark alley by your guesthouse in a black mini van waiting to leap out with a few of his friends waving base ball bats. And then you think you could take a bike and go off the beaten track and meet wonderful people who don't want to sell you anything, but you think what's the point, already did that in laos and they were much nicer, and the setting was prettier.

Everything started badly at the border various scams, lost money, mini vans breaking down, waiting on the roadside for another. Getting shouted at in Pnom Penh.... it''s endless but the same kind of thing. Plus Cambodians have a strange habit of laughing when they feel uncomfortable and then being silent when they know their in the wrong but not wanting to justify themselves so they stare into space and say nbothing until you eventually do what they want you to do anyway. Maya said in her frustration, this is what happens to a country when you kill all the smart people, and I can't help thinking to myself all this disorganisation and chaos maybe it's true???!!!! A czech girl we met was outside the royal palace at noon with her bag slung across her body from one shoulder to the opposite side of her body and a guy on a motor bike came by, grabbed the bag - thinking it was like a hand bag on a shoulder? and dragged her for 50 meters before realising he wasn't gonna get the sucker off - meanwhile she had to have stitches above her eye, her tooth was broken and she had various other cuts and bruises. I know otyher people who love cambodia who went off the beaten track - beaten landmine ridden track!! who loved it, but even then they said for every good thing that happens an equally bad thing happens too. Cambodia is just too bipolar! My next blog will be about the end of lovely laos, where everyone is chilled out!

To everyone who had emailed me, please keep doing it!! It's so nice, I can't really respond though b/c computers are insanely slow here.... When I get to India hopefully they will be faster

No more Nepal on this trip, too violent, very sad

Opium Vomit and Guns

The title of this post very much reveals a few issues that I've had with Laos. We've been travelling on the local buses rather than the VIP tourist buses - for price not authenticity. But each bus ride has been memorable and equally unique. The last one we took to Vientiane the capital, a night bus, was fairly traumatic - for different reasons - the first thing I've realised is that the reason I never get scared or nervous while traveling is because most of the time I am completely oblivious to my fears. Maya seems to be on a mission to allay hers and spark mine. All modes of transport in Laos wait until they are full of passengers and then go fill up with petrol - I guess they keep to prety tight fuel budgets... as we pulled into the petrol station Maya asked why I wasn't nervous and I couldn't think what she meant - but we were on a forecourt with the engine still running and loads of laos people lighting up their cigarettes, it just never occurred to me. I figure it's difficult for us because we live in a nanny state and here they take more risks b/c they are more responsible - that they will have common sense enough to look where they are going and not fall into the open sewer where the pavement had cracked. She also pointed out to me on the journey that the man sitting next to me had an AK47, which made me insanely nervous, expecially as he promptly fell asleep when the bus started and left his machine gun on a bag of rice, I thought if we went over a bump a wrong way I'd get a shot in the head as I was in clear line of fire and when I asked maya to switch seats she refused!! Apparently the men are marshalls in case we get hijacked - for what the locals have??? Many bags of rice??? There are always more bags of rice being transported then people. The whole premise of this bus being a "sleeping" bus was so absurd!!!! There were so many twists and turns and bumps that it's policy that the buses hand out little plastic bags to be sick in. The first time we encountered this lao appreciation vomit was on a truck back from Mueng Sing a little market town on the border w/china, full of minorities - lots of little old hmong ladies who look like cartoon characters - the 7 dwarf ancient buck toothed hmong ladies - there was a dopey and a doc look alike... awh but I mean they were so cute!!! They dress in black and make quilts and crafts w/big chunky shapes of people or animals - looks very african, then there are the thai leu who are so elegant and wear bright greens and pinks with fine little stitched details about the seam and wear their hair in a fancy kind of french twist. Then there are the akkah ladies who seem a little spooked, they wear pink scarves over metallic medallion and beaded headdresses which they reveal for pictures for a price. They get shipped out to every market town in the north and patrol the streets for tourists. As well as nick nacks and handicrafts they sell opium and keep tons of other drugs mixed in in their bags. It took ages to realise what was happening but, we got swarmed by them at lunch and we ended up buying a belt each and giving away most of our food and all of our water, then a western dressed man jumped out of a truck and took all their money!!!! SO horrible, no wonder the akkahs are a little bit harder to deal with.

Oh anyway the vomit bus, sarah sort of had a sense that something bad was about to happen when the akkah family sitting next to us all started sniffing a bit of orange peel, but nothing could have prepared us for the chorus of chundering that happened after, they seemed to set each other off continuously for an hour - then I realised that that would be my personal chamber of hell.

Sometimes bus rides are really really nice and interesting, you see beautiful landscapes - big mountains and little ones juxtaposed, sharp ridges - some so severe they look like fingers on a hand. Lots of roadside villages with thatch huts woven out of palm. The first long bus journey we took, the road wasn't even built yet, it was like off roading some stretches we had to wait until the digger cleared the path or the roller moved off. It was certainly the dustiest ride, it was like going to the salon and getting a spray tan only with dust, I thought it was quite becoming. The pain your rear end felt I can't described it was like riding a galloping 3 legged horse for 8 hours!!!

Still I'd recomend it to anyone!! Oh another integral part of the bus experience that gives you insght into the laos culture - is the whole personal space thing - everyone leans or lies on their neighbour. I had a seat next to an exit, so my thigh was used as a support rail to pull people up on. But Laos people are so kind and generous - they share blankets and oranges, give lifts everybody in it together - I think the communal wee stops on the side of the road solidifies the bond. You actual forget that it's a communist country - more in name than anything else until you get to the capital and they have hammer and cickle flags flying - the only visible forms of communism that I've seen are the flag and the fact that only 1 brand of beer exists - beer lao, but it's a proper lager so who needs fosters or any crap import? The tuk tuk drivers in Vientiane are unionised though and have a chart of costs of journeys, not that you can't haggle even over that - just b/c it's on a laminated piece of paper doesn't mean it's official. But Laos nice b/c it doesn't have the hard sell of vietnam or thailand

Now we're heading down south and it is so so different. The north is completely rural and people live like peasants, thatch huts, bathing and washing in the river, some do have satelite though and everyone knows who david beckham is, Luang Prabang is sleepy and dreamy and very french and old world loveliness, you can see why those ex pats had such a good time, vientiane is all hussle and bussle and urban sprawl with no street names or planning - a lot like costa rica. I definitely see why people prefer the north.

Little things that I've noticed - there are tons of babies here and no kreshes, so most people leave their babies in the next room under mosquito netting, only it looks like the chicken nets they use to trap them.

I find the little boys here really easy to get on w/, we each try and top each other with bruce lee impressions, screeching and kicking.

A lot of the ethnic minority women now where synthetic blue and pink towels around their heads instead of the traditional pretty headdresses.

All the little baby girls have their ears pierced with thread and as they get bigger the earrings get chunkier and heavier - the adult earrings in the lanten village were impossibly thick for me to put through my ear.

Oh I forgot to talk about the trek we did - stayed in a village, had the best picnic ever on a banana leaf - such a good theme, had dinner with the chief and basically he said everyone was happy, they have a school, have a charter, have elected representatives, have a big party every year for the harvest festival, only wish they had better medical facilities - or some at least. So
funny because there were tons of pigs wandering about and they all loved sitting on the cinders and we thought to ourselves piggy piggy piggy if only you knew the irony. Went to a lanten village, where the girls were insanely pale and beautiful. They struggled to put an ethnic jacket on maya, and started pulling stitching out to get it to fit, then eventually found one somewhere in the village that was especially made for white people or was just a maternity dress. Ohhhh and they caught and killed and roasted small big cats and kept the skins on a stick by the bbq as decoration!!! The second day of the trek, we drank boiled water from the village that tasted like they';d scooped ash directly into it, that made my tummy feel awful and for once in my life I didn't want to eat, I am only sorry that the pain has gone, I hope to get it again as a dieting method.

Market in Luang Nam Tha - lots of fruit and rice and coconut sweets, and live animals - frogs all tied together to stop them hopping away, insects that looked like scarob beatles, roasted rat!!! At the meat counter there were bowls full of jellied blood that would be cleavered and wobble as it went into the bag. Furry lungs! White intestines!!!!

Ok that's it, I was gonna put pictures on but the battery switched off!!!!! Next time....

Monk - eee Magic

So I don`t really feel like blogging very much, but you never really do, so this will be random thoughts and quite boring ones. Especially as I`ve just eaten - Indian food - which has been most of our main meals while in Laos - the Indians sure do get around with their restaurants - the one we just ate in, came here via Malaysia - definitely one way of funding a world tour. Rice and noodles and vegetables can become quite samey, but I love looking at the lao menus - instead of vegetables, they advertise veggie tabbies - makes me think of little kittens roasted in a pan with carrots and brocoli. I am defintely gonna try the river weeds though because we see lots of girls at the river picking them and then washing them. Life in Laos totally revolves around the river - they bathe in it, wash clothes and food in it, you see tons of tiny little girls carrying huge vats of water connected to a wooden board hanging off each shoulder making their way up incredibly steep steps to their houses - they look like the competitorsin the worlds strongest man competitions when they pull cars - and make the same noises and gurn the same faces. A lot of children seem to work here as opposed to go to school, but then a lot also stand staring vacantly in fields with a rake not really doing much at all, which is exactly what I would be like. All of Laos is quite sleepy though, loads of people nap on the job which I think is something that should be transferred into western workplaces. Even at the night markets you often have to tap the vendors a few times in order to buy something from them. We`ve had tons of fun with kids here, I tried to steal a baby that belonged to our guesthouse in Nong Khiaw, we were sure it was a boy because it was so chunky and sturdy and growled a lot and was fixated by lifting up womens skirts, but when they dressed in sequins and gave it a hand bag we realised she was a girl. So many of the little boys are so cheeky - most people wave and shout sabadee - hello as you drive past on your tuk tuk or river boat and it givesyou a sense that this is the land that time forgot where people are courteous and excited to see our white faces and blonde hair and blue eyes and then you`ll wave at a nine year old boy and he`ll gyrate and make pelvic thrusts and kissy faces and it puts you straight back in your place and takes away the patronising haze. Boys will be boys.... Oh but one thing that is very functional but offends my western sensibilities is that all the men who work on the river wander about in their very small very tight underwear - it seems bizarre that we have to keep completely covered from shoulders to knees but they can display their crown jewels so to speak..... I`m still astounded by the men who work the boats how they hop about and run about on the tin roof of the boat and you hear them so light footedly pitter patter as they barge their way out from the mess of all the boats in the harbour.

We went out one day with a fisherman, who just wanted to make a quick buck from us going about his job, and it seemed a pretty high input low output business, most of the fish that he was picking up were the little ones that we`d throw back, but he said it would do for his little boy. They cast out nets that they delicately fold over their bent arm - like a matador with his cape and then fling them and they somehow spread so wide and hit the water in a perfect circular shape. It`s so sad that they mainly bring up bamboo and plastic bits. Our fisherman abandonned us in the middle of the river in the baking heat on a pile of rocks for about an hour while he did some more serious fishing and came back with a substantially sized catfish and was so pleased that he stuck a razor in it attached to a string on the boat and as we went back to sure it bobbed and weaved and spat at the side of me as it struggled against death, not my favourite part.

People are so free with time here even yours so that bus drivers and boatmen make detours to drop their kids off at school or buy a fish or some chickens.

Laos also means temples and buddhist monks - who take a while to get used to looking at because they shave their eyebrows as well as their heads - took me a while to locate what feature was slightly different and I did a lot of offensive staring and scowling at that time.

Today we went round lots of temples (wats) in Luang Prabang - the old capital of Laos - it has lots of faded french indochine glory, very sleepy, by the banks of the mekong. It seems to be a centre for novice monks - universities schools, etc... We were a bit unsure of the protocol when it came to interactions with them, are you supposed to not make eye contact, not talk. But the student monks are just like any teenage boys, only with really appalling music taste. We got commandeered into going into one of their bedrooms in the temple - which was so nice all red and orange and gold - just like the rest of the wat maybe to help the boys maintain their spiritualism, but they just wanted us to write down all the lyrics to the crappy love songs that they listen to so they can sing along. I happily played air guitar and hairbrush kareoke to westlife, but even that was a bit rockin for them. I was like boys we need to expose your ears to some thrash metal, but I suppose that isn`t so conducive to buddhist tranquility and meditation. They weren`t shy at all either, they all clambered to touch maya`s tattoos and asked after if she had a boyfriend and how long shed be in town for and then tld her that they didn`t have to be buddhists all their lives and that they could leave in as short notice as today or tomorrow.

As we head further south in becomes more and more touristy and less rural, but it`s fun to be somewhere urban and with coffee and amazing nightmarkets!!!!!! Can`t wait for Phnom Penh and getting dresses made.... The north was great, full of tons of indigenous villages, vomitting buses, Akkah opium pushing syndicates, markets with roasted rat,but I`ll write about that later.

What else have we done - lots of caves - where villagers hid out when the americans were bombing, entire towns and their infrastructures were transported with special sectionsofthe cave for the mayor or the bank, etc... lots of caves with old buddhas in them - because they can`t destroy images of him, so they hide it, like me with clothes that might come into fashion again so they live under my bed because I can`t face throwing away something so precious. Lots of waterfalls, although as it`s the dry season they aren`t at their most spectacular. BUT I DID GET TO PET A TIGER!!!!!!! OH YES!!! Just like a bigger version of my cat. Tigers stilll live wild in Laos but there are so few now as poachers steal cubs to sell to the chinese who make them into medicine - EVIL!!!!!! So phet the tiger was one such cub but she was rescued, only she had to remain in captivity as she had no hunting skills, or at least that`s what they said. We got to watch her feed - such a scam the lady who was in charge made us eat at her stall first in exchange for the viewing - location location location, all these entrepreneurial loas ladies - we call them the mamas. So the lady rang the bell for dinner time and in came phet to the enclosure for her buffalo, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Such a top heavy animal, an enormous furry head with a small narrow body - her actual body was no bigger than that of a really big dog - I thought she was going to be like a small elephant for some reason. And her fur was just so flattering to her curves, the lines and the patterns, I may even start wearing tiger print - or not on second thought...

Anyway, a little toddler got to close and phet swiped for her, but no one was too bothered, then as sarah had her back turned phet got up went round and sniffed her, I yelped and sarah moved, but phet has a definite interest inhumans, maybe we smell like chocolate. After everyone else had left the keeper lit up a cigarette and asked us if we wanted to touch her, always pays to hang around. And she felt just like a cat, only bigger. I want one.

They also had rescued black bears at the Kuang Si Falls, who were cute but not as exciting as the tiger even though they stood on their hind legs and looked like they were wearing mickey mouse ears.

So I can say sabadee - hi, lakon-bye, kop jai lai lai - thank you very much, but I always say cock jai lai lai - the terets in me, len-run, soap-mouth and teen-toes (did head shoulders knees and toes in english and then some little boys did it in lao can only remember the mouth because its a cleaning product I use every day and the toes because they are teeny so its onamonapea).

Things we don`ty get used to - cockerels crowing throughout the night, people hocking and coughing up lughies EVERYWHERE!!!! Unfiinshed roads with diggers and rollers going up and down them, nowhere near built roads, being covered in dust after off roading for 8 hours - I thought it was a tan but it was just dirt!!!!

lovely things - emerald rice paddies and the cone shaped hats - they really do wear them not for tourists, monks with yellow bobble hats on bicycles or with umbrellas that they use as parasols. FRESH SPRING ROLLS!!! TRY THEM!!!!! Waterbuffalos - so lazy and fat and each individual flaps independently all the time!! Did you know they come in sandy colours as well as blackÉ

Sorry this one was so long, I don`t expect people to read it all in one go or even at all.

It's a start

Right, so this is not going to be very long or even from the beginning but at least I'm writing something and making contact. All I can say is that I think this computer and all computers in Laos have been clobbered about their units a few times and are more than just a little bit slow.

Right now all I want to talk about is the self - styled trek Sarah - and I really feel sarah was the ringleader in this as she lulled us into a false sense of security b/c she can read maps and understands how machinery works, Maya and I went for a wander around Nong Khiaw. Nong Khiaw is as maya says 'epic' like the mountains you see in chinese drawings - limestone casks with tons of green vegetation and mist coming in and out, over an emerald green river - the kind of place you expect to find thousands of tourists hopping on and off air-con buses snapping and flashing everything. Anyway I digress.... so the setting wasn't enough for my two companions and after having been on a guided trek - that cost, sarah seemed pretty sure she could handle any stretch. So we set off and w/in minutes we were into the jungle and far away from the noises of boats and fishermen and children washing clothes and lettuces by the stream. Then Maya pointed out what could have been either blood spatter or a berry juice that the villagers suck on and it stains their mouths and teeth red as if they had just ripped the beating heart out of a fawn... or at least that's how I see it. So then thoughts raced through my head - that maybe because we were so close to the golden triangle there were secret opium plantations and that they hacked anyone to pieces who accidently stumbled upon their set up. Then I started to wonder about unexploded land mines and being blown to bits, then I thought about being eaten either by a tiger or a snake or poisoned by a funnel web spider. Or maybe even villagers who were cannibals and preyed upon silly backpackers like us who they could just pick off..... But in the end we made it to a village where everyone was very friendly - either b/c they thought we were ghosts - which apparently they sometimes do if you aren't with a tour guide, or b/c we gave the kids balloons - would win me over anytime.

Then we reached the river and watched the boat men glide past on the wide mekong. Then we got lost for 3 hours trying to bushwack our way back through bramble and thicket and scaled cliff edges and sunk in quicksand and eventually got back to the guesthouse very bedraggled and dirty - feeling like Kathleen Turner in romancing the Stone after having lost my footing on a ledge and landed on my left knee in the splits. Next time, I'm gonna sip green tea at the guesthouse.