Petey & Ellie's Fantastic Farung Frolic

Last Stop - Singapore !

2005-05-14T12:21:00.000+10:00

Arriving again in Singapore we were struck by the organisation and efficiency of it all. The prime example was the hotel reservation clerk who gave the sort of service you would only get in Australia if you walked into a BMW dealer wearing a pimp hat and carrying a briefcase with 100 dollar notes bulging out the side. He talked us through every available accommodation option until we settled on a hotel in what he had gently counselled us was the "red light district." Elly and i didnt know such a place existed in Singapore so signed up for this place on the spot. When Elly told one of the female staff where she was staying the woman said indignantly, "That is no place for you, madam!" We were making a good impression from the outset.

When we got to the hotel their were numerous "ladies of the night" lining the street and rotating through the rooms of the hotel that did a good trade with their hourly rate. It was good to have a soft mattress and our own shower. It was late but we had time to duck into Chinatown to look around and discover how expensive beer is in Singapore.

On our last day, we headed to Little India. Eventually. My now seriously depleted navigation skillls sent us walking in the wrong direction and our bold plan to walk into the city was dashed. We took the MRT. Little India was well, little. We had some difficulty finding it and a place to eat but eventually did. We had a collection of tasty indian and shared a table with a very chatty NZ girl who'd just come back from China. She kept on saying, "Lovin' it .. lovin' it" every second sentence. Very odd.

Being in Singapore and not havng spent really a zak in the last month we resolved to buy a vidayo camera. We did some maths figuring out how much we've saved from not smoking and well, frankly, we could've bought Paramount Pictures, but we settled on the camera. We fiddled with it while having a coffee and dreamed of alll the stuff we'd be able to do when months later we bought a new computer with Windows XP and a stack of memory and processing grunt.

To finish the afternoon we walked up Mt. Faber, a hill of green, surrounded by the Singapore build. It was cool and a respite after the heat of the city. Standing at a set of lights in Little India, i'd felt almost nauseous from the humidity. At the top of the hill though it was green and refreshing. We had a drink and walked down. It was on this walk we had the idea of the awards for best this and best that, what would becomne the ElPetey's, and had a sweet time basking in reminiscences and the good moods of the trip.

For our last night we were heading out to a drag show which took some finding but when we got there we discovered it had closed only a week earlier ! Dang. Asian transvestites are so hot right now. We wandered about untilwe found a little restaurant where we sat ourselves down to nachos and spent the meal dishing out more awards and writing them down for this blog that hjd begun to solidify in our heads as the kind of thing it's finally become.

Singapore is worth spending a day (and not a day longer in). You can either shop or go to the bird park/zoo and go to Chinatown and Little India and get a feel for affluent Asia. It's a different world.

We made it back to the hotel around 1 am after buying a "Singapore is fine" t-shirt which sported all the various fines the city dishes out across its front. Chewing gum, spitting, jaywalking, not flushing the toilet etc. We had to be up at 5am to get the MRT out to the airport.

Dozily we made it out the next day with the lackof puff that accompanies the end of a trip. It was a glorious trip - a great adventure. We had fun, we met a lot of great people and without wanting to sound like a scientologist, learnt a lot about the world and the Elly and Petey team, too.

Postscript - When we made it back to Sydney, we proceeded to go on a 4 day bender. The End

The road, rail and flight to Singapore

2005-05-14T11:31:00.000+10:00

Sitting in Chiang Khong over breakfast noodle soup it was hard for us to imagine that in a little more than 24 hours we'd be in Singapore. We had been travelling slow and short for the best part of a month and now we were looking at doing pretty much the K's of the last month in 24 hours. We started off with a mini-van to Chiang Mai, the cultural and traveller centre of the north of Thailand and our last shot at buying a SAME SAME t-shirt. We were lucky to have lots of room in the van. We were not lucky that the lack of people meant less weight which made it that much easier for the van to veer and swerve all over the winding road to Chaing Mai. Woozy very. Our afternoon in Chiang Mai was spent in the markets and thinking how cool it'd be to spend a good length of time there. There's so much to do. Cooking, trekking, walking, eating, looking - it's very much a city of verbs. Chiang Mai was also where i emailed my boss to get another week off. Sweet !

In the markets, i bought a SAME SAME t-shirt. Too tired of bartering, i got fully taken but so didnt care. We were all bartered out. After sorting through the colours i settled on a khaki sorta one. Now we are back here, we always point out to each other when we see a SAME SAME t. Look out for them. There everywhere .. it's the souvenir of choice from Thailand. If you don't already know, SAME SAME ( the front of the shirt ) BUT DIFERENT ( on the back ) is the ubiquitous chorus of the Thai when sellling you anything from food to sex. it is used to indicate a variety of goods or services. eg When looking at two rings, one with a red stone another with green, both fake of course, the seller would point to the first ring, and say " very good ring. very goood. look goood on lady's finger .." then he would point to the second ring and say " same same .. but different .. " simple but very effective.

Elly bought Oscar a yo-yo driven mouse ( i can't really put it any other way ). Oscar loved this and tore it to pieces within minutes of us giving it to him. It's scrappy remains can still be seen in the kitchen.

The next installment to Singapore was by overnight train to Bangkok. We got no sleeper carriage but did get a fantastic dinner and breakfast which fortified us enough to get a public bus to the national Museum in Bangkok. It was a comforting relief from the bustle and crazy of BKK. We saw funeral chariots of dead kings, textiles and art and had a quick lunch in a generic museum cafe that looked like a museum cafe you might find in Australia. Except no pies.

We got cocky and thought we could get the bus back to the train station and then to the airport where we were flying to Singapore. It was only after about an hour on the bus that it dawned on us we had done a loop and were almost back at the museum that we both jumped out, now slightly panicky, and found a taxi. After giving rather stern instructions to the driver to go to the train station we were a little um, non-plussed when he produced a small baggy of pills , showed them to us and explained he needed to buy some water. So he stoppped the taxi, bought his bottle of water and sculled a couple. Elly and I looked at each other not sure what to make of this. Drugs are a big problem in Thailand particularly, Ye Ba, which is a nasty speed thing and translates rather menacingly as "crazy drug." Running late for our plane and potentially in the taxi of a Ye Ba fiend, things were getting close to dicey. As it was, if it was ye Ba, it all helped cos he got us to the train station too sweet. We collected our bags , jumped in a taxi that we'd heard could take an hour to get to the airport, which would be a close thing but in the end another great drive saw us fly through all the tolls and get there in about 20 minutes.

We got ourselves cleared and onto our Finn Air flight which had some real live Finns on board. If yv never seen one of them, they look just like Swedes. The plane was practically empty. No wonder it was such a cheap flight - they must sell BKK to SNG for a bowl of steam just to get a person in each row. Otherwise, it's just embarrasing.

Anyhow, two hours later. We were back in Singapore. The City of the future.

A little more Luang Prabang and then we river it

2005-05-14T10:36:00.000+10:00

Getting back to civilisation, or the particular brand of civilisation that was LP, we arranged to dine with the trekking crew. Maciej arrived in his SAME SAME t-shirt which only concreted my urge to get one when we got back to Thailand. Elly and I had bought some fruit wine (the fruit not being a grape) and shared that around with more of the LP cuisine. Goes beautifully with the fried river weed. After dinner Maciej was kind enough to invite us to share a spliff he intended rolling out of the remaining gear he had left from buying off a local opium addict. Most generous. Walking the dark backstreets of LP at night will have you inevitably whispered at from the shadows "Ya fin .. ya fin" which is Lao for opium or "You want smoko?" We declined. Maciej wanted to try the opium but nobody he knew could use the pipe!

We wandered round the streets for ages trying to find a quiet spot to smoke. When we did find a spot, Maciej discovered he had no papers and we wandered again trying to buy some. First up, he bought some banana leaf papers, which um, have no glue and well, you can imagine. We eventually ended up back where we started from and bought some big ol' tally ho's to do the job. Down by the river we smoked this contraption and proceeded to levels of bentness i have not conceived off. Time and space distortions, roads leading nowhere, lights in the distance remaining equidistant from us as we continued walking towards them. A brief stop at The Hive a backbacker bar before it all got too much. We left, Elly and i somehow managed to lose the gang and found ourselves on the streets somewhere. It was an enormous mental effort trying to navigate back to the guesthouse. Really.

The next day we saw Karin outside our GH and she told us they'd gone to have a fruit shake and it all sounded rather genteel without the untidiness of our bent trip. During the conversation on the street, Karin stepped back briefly and managed to get her backpack, which she was wearing, caught on the metal frame covering the back of a passing song thow. She literally flew and was dragged along the road with he head narrowly missing going under the wheels. We raced over to her when the song thow pulled up. She had landed on her pack so escaped unharmed but was inches way from something much more serious. Brushed herself off and went to buy her bus ticket back to Vientianne. Probably a good idea.

Our next day was in the speed boats to Chiang Khong, the border town on the Mekong that funnels backkpackers into and out of Laos. The discomfort of these boats can not be recorded in words. My knees were bent so tight that when i got out at the lunch stop at Pakbeng (the half way mark) i felt like i imagined i might feel like if i'd ruptured a cruciate ligament, had my patella replaced with a ceramic piggy bank and had been kneeling down on the hardest wooden pew for 40 days and nights. I exaggerate. I actually couldnt feel anything below my hips. Lunch was a welcome relief. We fed. We watered and i walked into the top of the toilet door as i forgot to bend down walking out. That gave me a very impressive red welt on the head to go with another one i'd picked up i think during the night of bentness somewhere. Elly and I conferred at lunch and agreed that it looked like we would survive the trip. "This isnt as bad as we thought it'd be," we agreed. We had held our hands and looked into each others eyes as we roared of from the landing outside LP. " Don't let them chop off my legs .." Elly said. "At least where in the boat with the locals," we thought.

In the end after hours , i think it was 7, we made it to Chiang Khong. We loved Laos. Elly's idea to reshape the trip and get us to Luang Prabang was the stroke that made the holiday. I can't imagine it would've been anything like the trip it was without LP. Beautiful work, baby !

I guess the interminable refrain of all travellers is ," it wont stay like that for long," but as far as Laos is concerned, really, " it wont stay like that for long." Unlike Cambodia, the country doesnt offer up much of an idea of its tumultuous recent past. As a country, it's like a cross legged Buddha, sitting, smiling, getting off on the satisfaction of what it knows - something that we visitors might be lucky enough to understand and get a little off. I think Elly and I got our share.

Chiang Khong welcomed us with a BBQ that was endless, meats, fish, noodles, everything and right next door to a night club we popped in to. There was a Thai pop group playing and the place slowly fillled up. Elly and i , well mainly I, drank some Tiger Beer and i appproached some backpacker girl and said, " Are you Swedish ? " when she shooked head, i replied " English? " and she proceeded to pick up my beer and scull the thing after nodding, "yes". Definitely English. Elly thought this hilarious. We chatted briefly but after that and given the singer was now wearing a 2 piece furrly leopard bikini outfit, we knew it was a time to be heading.

Chiang Khong. Short but sweet.

Multi-award winning Luang Prabang

2005-02-28T16:26:00.000+11:00

I hope I can do Luang prabang justice, as it was our favourite place in Laos and the place we spent the most time in the end.

Luang Prabang is located in the North. Previously all of northern Laos was fairly insular due to lack of good roads connecting it to the capital of laos, Vientianne. Even the Mekong can't be traversed year-round. Luang Prabang province even had its own monarchy until the Pathet Lao took over in 1975 and sent the royal family to live in a cave and die slowly of starvation. There are heaps of small hill-tribes in Luang Prabang province, and as its not real good country for rice-farming they have goats and farm coffee and other crops as well. Its still mainly subsistence farming though and apparently theres no opium farmed anymore. The hill-tribes here lack the colour of some of the Thai hill-tribes, but they still dress up in traditional costumes for the tourists when they sell their wares at the markets.

A Canadian we booked our kayak/mountain biking adventure through gave us a good explanation of the way to tell the Lao hill-tribe people apart. Apparently they all carry their wood differently. The Lao Loum(lowland lao) carry their wood on rickshaws, trucks or whatever town vehicle they get thier hands on, the Kamu carry their wood on their fronts, and the Hmong carry it in a basket strapped to their foreheads. Simple really. I'm sure they identify a number of other unique parts of their cultures too, but for cultural numpties, this is an easy way of differentiating them. Of course we only saw 2 people carrying wood the entire time we were in Luang Prabang province, so we were none the wiser.

Luang Prabang was declared a World Heritage town by UNESCO in 1995, mainly because of all the temples in the area. Even Petey and I couldn't manage to avoid seeing at least one temple while we were there. We did try, but they were everywhere, 32 temples in a town of only 16,000. The city is at the junction of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, and has a really unusual layout, one that used to be more common in Asia, but rarely survived through to this century. Small communities of houses were centred around a buddhist temple and set their own rules of civil conduct. They'd all come together and join forces when necessary, such as during wars. These little village neighbourhoods date back to the 14th century and even now locals sometimes identify more with their muu baan than the city as a whole. Once you know this the layout makes more sense...

Our first day in Luang Prabang was spent telling each other what a beautiful town it is and shopping around for a trek to go on. We settled on one where we mountain-biked for 5 hours up river, stayed overnight in a lao loum village and kayaked and rafted back the next day. What appealed to us most was that it was a new company, the Canadian who ran the show was very keen on low-impact tourism and the group had only gone out 5 times previously. Also the Canadian spoke like Ben Stiller in Zoolander. He also told us about Muang Sua, the local nightclub, which we visited that night.

If only more clubs were like Muang Sua. We were ushered in through red and blue vinyl studded doors like royalty and seated on a comfortable couch. The couches were all placed so that everyone had a fantastic view of the dancefloor, which was great because Petey and I were keen to see some real Lao dancing. The coverband played a predictable mix of euro-pop, followed by a traditional lao or thai song then a slow song. The aim at the end of each song appeared to be to get off the dancefloor as soon as possible, so as not to get stuck up there for the wrong song-type. Earlier on that evening we'd stopped by one of the posh hotels in town to watch a traditional dance performance. The costumes were fantastic, but the dancing is mainly about the hands. I can understand that, as the Lao sin(skirt) is pretty difficult to walk in, let alone break out into some Saturday Night Fever dance moves.

What I love about the Lao(and other SE Asians) is the total lack of pretension. Muang Sua was not like Sydney night clubs where everyone is checking each other out, all dressed up in their skimpiest gear and dancing like the rest of the world is watching and generally trying to out-cool each other. In this club everyone was dressed like they were in the street and the dancing was like at school socials in the 80's. The slow dance involved getting a partner and side-stepping around in circles on the spot. Petey and I had a go at that one, remembering to dash off the dancefloor as soon as the music stopped. We also got up for some lao doof dancing, but felt it was too early to introduce the lao to jumpy dancing.

Petey was convinced that Sua meant something seedy, as our Lao bus friend told us not to say it as it was a bad word, but wouldn't tell us what it meant. Later we were to find out that Sua means something like "stupid". Muang sua, however just means "night club". Its a confusing language.

For the second day in Luang prabang, Petey and I flew solo. Petey was in need of some rest, while I wanted to go and see the Royal Palace museum and explore the town a bit more. The museum was impressive in its own way, but I was most taken with an exhibit showing gifts that the royal family had received from various different visiting dignitaries. Among the cabinets full of the beautifully engraved silver and gold pieces from all the other countries was a boomerang from Australia and a piece of the moon from the USA. How thoughtful, you really shouldn't have...

After my trip through the museum i explored the town on foot, sorta doing the suggested walking tour, minus the actual visiting of the 37 wats. Everywhere i went people commented on the Lao sin, so it was a real conversation starter. The town is really beautiful. Set amongst huge mountains and with water along two sides, its really scenic. So far there aren't any huge buildings, though we heard while we were over there that a huge hotel chain has bought up the opposite side of the mekong, so it will soon change.

In the afternoon Petey and I joined forces again to go and visit the waterfalls. These were absolutely stunning. Several tiers, with various places to swim in the turquoise water. We got there very late in the end, so there were few people there and we got to enjoy the tranquility.

The next day was our trek. We were given these fantastically modern mountain-bikes with brakes that were that good that you couldn't use the front ones alone or you'd sail straight over the handlebars. This is actually the first time i've been mountain-biking, so it was a hard slog for the first half of the trek as i braked all the way down the hills then had to do it hard going back up hill again. I finally worked out that if you just go hell-for-leather downhill you can almost make it back up the other side with minimal effort. Its also much more scary and fun that way. At each village we stopped at on the way, all the locals would turn out and check us and our fancy-pance bikes out. We got out the digital cameras and took happy snaps at the children and showed them pictures of themselves, which always made them laugh. All the photos show these very serious looking kids staring straight at the camera, its only after they see what they look like that they break out into those beautiful smiles I so wanted to capture!

Our lunch stop was about half way, where we attempted to chat to the locals, watched the lady make the fried seaweed and Petey attempted to enlist a posse of local kids with popguns to our cause after Vincent and Marianne went a little crazy with the new weapons they had been made. One of the local blokes carved up about 5 of these little popguns out of bamboo in record time, leaving the French Canadians fully tooled up. I eventually confiscated Vincents weapon on the trip home...

In all of this i've forgotten to give our companions for the trek a huge rap. Vincent, Marianne and Karine were from Quebec, while their travel buddy Phillipe is Swiss. The other 3 boys, Maciej(whose name up until this point i've spelt all wrong), Peter and Paul are from Perth. All top fun, particularly when not armed.

After a day of cycling we arrived at the village we were to stay at overnight. As foreigners are not allowed to stay in the homes of villagers, the Canadian had negotiated the use of a spare house from one of the villages. It was the traditional stilt-variety, with just one big room and mattressess on the floor, i suspect the locals don't get mattresses, but we're just softy westerners! Petey and I really should have worked out where we were to sleep earlier in the day, because we needed to work it out after returning from the wedding to find 1 sleeping body on each of the 3 mattresses. We concluded in the end that it must be girls on one mattress, boys on the other 3...after Vincent slumped face-down starfish-style on the mattress next to me, we worked out we were wrong, but hey, everyone was either too ill or too pissed to care by that stage.

Phillip and Vincent both felt a bit unwell that evening. Phillip in particular had to spend entire evening and next day sitting out the entertainment...which was such a shame as he was excellent company, even when feeling absolutely horrible.

After several hours of cycling we were all pretty hungry and smelly. We took care of the second part by taking a dip in the river. The current was incredibly strong and the boys found a log to ride the current on. A few of the local kids turned out to watch us, and Petey and I practiced some of our Lao on the kids. After our refreshing swim, we managed to get our hands on a crate of warm beer lao, so settled down nearby the shop for a few drinks. We happened to be near the local shop, so we secured an interesting array of beer snacks. This is where we found tasty beef jerky, meat floss, pork crackling and various other treats. We also ate some tasty chickens feet fresh off the barbie. We were pretty hungry.

One of the local ladies prepared a dinner for us, which we still had plenty of room for. After the guides got the lao lao flowing each of us had to sing a song from our home country. The French Canadians rose to the challenge with some hearty drinking songs, Sevon sang us a thai pop song and Maciej recited a rap/poem which he was working on...Petey and I sang the only verse of Waltzing Matilda that we can remember. Gotta love Aussie culcha.

All this time we could hear and smell preparations for the wedding ceremony. The entire town appeared to be in attendence, and we were invited as well. Not having any idea what to expect we trooped over and were given a long table to sit at. This is when the first round of Lao lao began, continuing at regular intervals throughout the night. Luckily I escaped quite a few rounds of Lao lao because all the girls at our table were asked to dance for every song. Or more often, a prospective dance partner would come up and ask Sevon or one of the other guides at the table whether they could dance with one of us. By the end of the dance they were just coming up and pointing. I'm still not sure how the dance really goes. But the dance is in honour of a donation by one of the families to the couple to be married the next day. Our table made a donation to the couple, so there was a dance in our honour. This involved the girls (Karine, Marianne and I) standing out the front in the dance space while the MC made an announcement, something along the lines of "thanks", but much more long-winded. It may have been something like "who'd like to bid for these nice fresh young pieces of meat" for all we knew. We'd seen quite a few of these ceremonies so far, so we had pre-arranged for the boys to come out and be our partners so as to make the whole thing a bit smoother. Some of the other girls who had stood up the front before us had waited quite a long time before partners had come up for them and the rest of the ceremony could continue. After the boys came up to join us, we were each given a shot of the ceremonial Lao Lao, which was much tastier than the sake-style gear they dished out at the tables. We then took up our positions in the circle-dance and began. The circle dance involves all the girls standing opposite their partner in a circle, girls on the outside, boys on the inside. As the dance progresses and more partners are secured for the dance the circle gets bigger and bigger and more chaotic. Theres lots of hand waving, all below the shoulders and at some point in the song, everyone gets a bit more animated and the girls swap positions with their partners, and then back again to the same spot. Its great fun, and thankfully simple enough that it can still be done after many shots of Lao lao. We danced and drank well into the night, or at least it felt quite late, but in a town with no electricity 10pm is well past most peoples bedtimes. Petey and I eventually left when I couldn't dance anymore, I just couldn't bear to say no to any of the well-meaning and friendly locals.

The rest of the group trailed home to our hut one after another at various stages of the evening, none of us so drunk that we forgot where the door was to exit through the open wall on one edge of the hut, this would have meant a drop of about 10 foot and was a very real concern. We woke up the next day slightly hung, to find a gathering group of locals down by a fire next to the hut, waiting I presume for us to wake up. I'm sure we weren't a pretty sight!

We soon began preparations for the rafting and said our goodbyes to the village. The river we were to traverse was hardly a white water rafters dream. At one point Karine caught Sevon our guide bouncing up and down on the back of the raft as we were going through the rapids trying to make it all a bit more exciting. It was top fun with the crew we had though. There were a couple of spills on the kayaks, Maciej and Paul went over first, then Karine and Marianne, while Petey and I managed to wedge ourselves on a rock suspended over the rapids. We were there for about 5mins before we managed to get off. Again we saw some spectacular scenery, lots of little waterfalls, locals fishing the river and huge mountains on either side. Beautiful.

To Savannaket and beyond

2005-02-11T01:36:00.000+11:00

We had a quiet old time in Savannaket as this is where we overate on tasty things on a stick and Petey was feeling a bit seedy for most of our stay there. We did however take in the sights of the provincial museum, which mainly revolved around the former LDR leader Khaysonne Phomvihane, who was very well-liked and respected. The museum mainly held photos, and some old wrecked planes outside. Interestingly the school next door sported its own mangled tank in the front yard, which was an interesting accompaniment to the schoolkids practicing some sort of dance/health hustle on the basketball courts.

a tank in the grounds of the school next to the provincial museum

We decided to exit savannaket pretty quickly, making a dash for an overnight bus on foot due to an absolute lack of sawntows after about 9pm at night. Strangely it is easy to get off the tourist trail in Laos just by getting a non-government bus. There are just so many bus companies available, that although the bus we were aiming for didn't end up stopping in Savannaket, we had our pick of 3 different buses all going to Vientianne in 1/2 an hour. Eventually we settled on one of the buses and commenced the award-winning worst bus ride ever (see awards section). After we finally arrived in Vientianne after 7hours we made a dream connection for the bus to Luang Prabang, which I think was about 10hours. We apparently had it pretty easy on this journey, I heard some horror stories later on, which made me realise how lucky we had it. The trip is nauseating, and quite a few people lost their breakfast on the way. We were lucky enough to have the security guard in the seat behind us, carrying a machine gun and wearing a hawaiian shirt. We ended up with a flat tyre (see awards), which was such a relief to be able to get out and have some food and fresh air...The crazy windy roads of this journey forced us to contemplate the speedboat ride featured in the awards as best journey, just simply 'cause I couldn't face the return leg. That speedboat trip, the lonely planet likens to riding on a giant chainsaw and one of the LP editions warns that people are injured on a weekly basis...so this bus trip was pretty bad. At least it was bad up until the point of the flat tyre, but with some tasty foe and a rest we were all set to continue onto our favourite place, Luang Prabang. Now, i must get some sleep before writing this one...am starting to get a bit bleary eyed and I need to do luang Prabang justice!

Tatlo...could life slow down any more????

2005-02-10T23:11:00.000+11:00

Our bamboo hut with petey experimenting with alternative hammock positions. NB: there is only one hammock position. Face first does not work.

After the beautiful vistas of Don Khon, Don Khong and Don Det, Petey and I decided to head to Tadlo, which is famed for waterfalls and elephants. We actually managed to combine the two things, so that was all good. In another of the many times in which our transport connections worked out perfectly, we managed to get a boat, bus, another bus and walk the last 1km to the falls all before mid afternoon. Giving us enough time to inspect the various accomodation options available. Again there was an abundance of hammocks and little huts on the river, but this time we stayed back from the river in a cute little hut with a stagnant pond next to it. We also had a very lazy piglet and a couple of dogs who seemed to spend 24hrs a day lying outside our little hut. Very homely.

broken bridge over Tadlo waterfall

tatlo waterfall

The bridge across the river to the swanky Tadlo resort which owned the elephants we were later to ride on looked as though a truck had fallen through it. What i love about countries like Laos is that you can still cross the bridge, you just need to walk across a precariously placed steel girder (i think this is what a girder is) which spans the hole and try not to look down. The elephant ride was fantastic, we ploughed through the bush, across the river a couple of times and witnessed a very strange dog-elephant interaction.

Laos and Cambodia tend to have a huge pariah dog populations that live on the fringes of communities. Some dogs are owned, some are strays. They tend to breed out of control and suffer quite a few health problems, some of which are transmittable to the humans they live with. Anyway there were a few of these dogs following along on the trek, one of which was a younger one who was challenging the "top dog" for supremecy. These two were busy showing each other how big their teeth were and generally about to brawl when one of the elephants intervened. I've never heard a noise like this from an elephant before (of course, i'm no elephant expert!), sorta a mewing, high pitched noise...and she stood right between the two dogs and shooed one of them off. This actually happened a couple of times before the dogs decided to settle the dispute later out of range of this huge beast. Very interesting, particularly as up until this point the elephants had been plodding along as elephants do, treading the same path they probably do several times a day, snacking a bit on passing tasty bushes and taking no notice of the dogs.

Our elephant bouncer

While in Tatlo we copied a map from a nearby guest house and determined to find a few hilltribe villages. We ended up somehow back on the main road, nowhere near where we wanted to be...we also had a great language lesson with a couple of boys in town when we spurned the touristy restaurants in search of some good home cooked foe. My need for Foe was by this stage verging on addiction. As with many conversations in Lao, we discussed whether we were married (yes), how long we had been married and how many kids we had. At this stage in the conversation, after admitting we had no children after 4 years of "marriage", we are looked upon as objects of pity, how sad that we can't have children. In this particular conversation we spent about 15mins talking about how many children we wanted and what sexes we wanted them to be...by this stage our Lao was improving by leaps and bounds!

We were determined to visit one of the local villages, as we read that this region was famed for many things, including snails that are used as purfume(?), weaving and many other types of handicrafts, coffee and some sort of full-moon buffalo sacrifice. We decided to aim for a weaving village, on the way to Pakse and our next destination Savannaket. It was home to katu weavers, who tend to put a lot of beading into their work and tend to labour mainly on foot looms, which involves sitting with legs straight out in front and slightly apart, with the loom strapped onto the feet and looped behind the back. Petey can't even get into that position, let alone sit in it for several hours doing intricate weaving.

We caused quite a stir in the village, as I think Farung usually don't stop there, particulaly Farung on the local bus. The whole village pretty much wandered over and they all started promoting their wares. We of course bought many beautiful things, and paid well more than what the locals would have. The girl I gave $10 US to looked at the note like she'd never seen american money before, and i suspect it may have been her first sale direct to the public. Their wares tend to end up all over the country and even Thailand, but I would guess rarely do they get to see that much of the profits. Best of all I purchased my first Lao Sin(skirt), which I was to later learn how the hell to wear. The original method I was shown in Houay houne was sorta like wrapping a sarong, and after witnessing Petey losing his fishermens pants on a couple of occasions I wasn't taking any chances with inproperly secured clothing.

All the wares on offer at Houay Houne

Eventually after spending far too much money we determined to work out how to get back on a bus back to Pakse. We worked out that the best way is to just dump your bags by the side of the road, thus indicating to passing buses that theres someone in town who wants to go somewhere. After a while a local girl invited us to her house and showed us how she did the weaving and we had another stilted Lao conversation and picked up some more conversational gems.

One of the katu folk and her children

On the next bus we met a lovely girl who was an english teacher, whose english was really fantastic. She had just been to an english teachers conference and was heading home to her village. This was when we made our real language breakthroughs, it was just fantastic to be able to ask questions and have someone tell us how things work in English....By an absolute fluke, the bus we were on was continuing onto Savannaket, yet another dream run with transport.

Me with Seu King Chao, our english teacher friend

Kicking back in Si Pan Don-4,000 islands

2005-02-10T11:49:00.000+11:00

I've just come back from the airport picking up Adele and Paul, back from their South American adventure...welcome back kids!

It was a bit of an adventure getting from Cambodia to Laos and after seeing relatively few tourists in Cambodia, except for around the temples of Ankor we all of a sudden ended up crossing the border with 10 other tourists. There must be some sort of deal between the guys who ferry people to the border and immigration, because we all managed to get there just after the border had closed, thus requiring us to pay "overtime" on the cambodian and lao sides of the border. There was much discontent among the posse over this, but really if it were Australia there would be no way we could get over the border after closing time, we would just have to wait until morning.

The whole system is just vastly different to ours. Bribery and corruption are so deeply ingrained in Cambodia and Laos, but more so in Cambodia. Cambodians are surprised to hear we don't have roadblocks in Australia and can drive pretty much anywhere we want with no entrepreneurial locals charging us money for the privilege. One person I spoke to said that they worried that if their child got sick and needed to go to a hospital, they would not be able to afford to go, because of the roadblocks. Added to this is the general lack of doctors (the khmer rouge pretty much killed off any educated people in the country) and lack of medical facilities and they really don't stand much of a chance.

Okay, back to the story! So we paid our "overtime" and petey managed to negotiate a Sawngtow for us all to get us to the place where we could get the next boat to Don Khong, the largest of the islands. This was our first encounter with the impossibly good looking french boys. Now, i'm not usually a fan of the French, and we met many French travelling around Laos inspecting the former colony and generally being very badly behaved and sometimes openly hostile to the locals. These two boys were funny, friendly and made a real effort to treat people like human beings. They were also very hairy and extremely cute.

We could see Don Khong from the other side of the river. We actually thought there was no electricity on the island, but from the other shore we could see fairy lights...not quite what we expected! There were also sealed roads (though I think only a couple of cars on the island) and a definite "tourist" area of the island lined with guest houses. Petey and I stopped at the first guest house we came across and headed for the neon party lights...we were pretty exhausted by this stage. Apparently the current president was born on Don Khong. He appears to have directed quite a bit of funding towards infrastructure on the island.

We spent the following day cycling around the island. I think we must have cycled 50km or so. The kids aren't quite as excitable as in Cambodia, where they come dashing out into the street when they see a Farung(foreigner), yelling "hello! hello! hello!", but we still said "sabai dii" about a million times and waved to the point of RSI of the wrist.

Waterfall on Don Khong

We decided to head to one of the smaller islands, where the French laid their one and only piece of railway in the country. The railway was designed to avoid some rapids and make shipping supplies between Vietnam and Cambodia easier. It went for 14km and linked Don Det and Don Khon, so that boats offloaded their gear at the southern end of Don Khon and boats would be waiting on the northern end of don det to reload again.

The French contribution to the region

We found a fantastic place to stay on Don khon. It was right in amongst the village and was a little shack with balcony looking out over the mekong, complete with hammocks. No electricity this time, but who needs it when you have a hammock. Our room went for the bargain price of $2 a night. The only other place we asked at had rooms for $25 a night...not sure what they included! The lady who ran the place we stayed at, appeared to have the only TV on the island, running off what is suspect was a car battery. This meant that every night at 7pm half the village would gather in her little restaurant to watch their favourite Thai soap opera. We were just enjoying some foe in her restaurant when we met Jake and Amy who had moved in next door, and later on, Al. Jake and Amy were top fun and really good people. Wish they lived here not in the UK! Al was/is a doctor of tropical medicine in the UK. They had all just been swimming in the Mekong, which the Lonely Planet strictly warns against due to a nasty burrowing creature called Schistomoniasis which messes with your liver...i was somewhat reassured as to the safety of the water, after all if a doctor was swimming, it must be fine. That was until Al explained that he was just going to go back home and get tested for it, and that he was ideally placed for whatever illness he might pick up while travelling. Good point, Al. Think i'll try to stay out of the water.

Jake and Amy's hut. Theirs had a distinct lean to it, but again had very cofy hammocks on the deck.

This was all a very good idea until Jake and Amy told us about these fishing boats they found for hire on Don Det. After drunkenly making plans to meet them the next day out on the water, petey and i headed for our shack. The next day we dutifully got up early so we could get our hands on one of these boats. After eventually locating the guy with the boats, we paid up, then went and had some much needed lao coffee and breakfast. Petey charmed the mother of the lady who ran the restaurant by speaking Lao and generally being his friendly self. She gave us some baci strings, which are usually given by family/friends before someone takes a journey. They're supposed to rein in all the spirits who have been roaming about freely and ensure that you don't lose any on your journey. These skanky bits of string were with us until a week ago, because you're supposed to let them fall off, not cut them off.

baci string

So, back to our boating trip. You see locals in these long boats and they make them look like the easiest things in the world to get about on. They stand on the front of them, throw nets off, jump into the water and get back on the boat, all without the slightest wobble. Petey and I went round in circles, rocked crazily from side to side with every movement and almost ended our relationship in that boat. The guy renting out the boats was either stoned or had just been chewing a lot of beetle nut. He kept saying "do not go South. Even Lao men die if they go that way". We got the picture. To the south were some pretty impressive water falls, and we were pretty keen not to see them from the top. Of course, South was the only way we were going without a huge battle against the current. We started with Petey in the front and me bossing him about from behind. That just wasn't working so we headed for land, eventually managing to run aground in the mud on the opposite shore. One of the locals came down to make sure we'd managed to pull the boat up far enough to ensure it didn't drift off. I think they felt sorry for us. After a break we headed back to the boat, with me sitting in the front this time. This worked marginally better, though i remain convinced that I was doing all the work while Petey put his feet up for a free ride! Just joking, baby! Oh, yes and we tipped over the boat and ended up in the drink when we pushed off. Most ungraceful. This time some local kids came to help us.

the boat.

Anyway this time we made it to a little island in the middle of the mekong and declared it as our land "Leona", which means something like "all good". Our land measured about 5m across and 8m long. It was beautiful. By this stage our boating skills had improved, but we were still causing much amusement in this area, where everyone appears to be able to navigate the river from birth. We honestly weren't enjoying it all much, and we still hadn't found Jake and Amy...we later found they'd gone out for a quick paddle and had similar problems to us and decided to just return the boat rather than risk certain death on the waterfalls...like i say, they were smart people! After 1/2 a day of boating and working out our land really didn't have much to offer besides some very thorny plants and lots of rocks we headed back to return our boat. That was the last time we rented a boat.

Declaring our land..

We joined Jake and Amy for dinner and drinks and had a close encounter with a monkey. The poor little guy was chained up in the corner in a restaurant. Jake was brave enough to get within range of his chain and the monkey jumped all over him, finally settling on his head and gripping on for dear life. I then got in on the action and the little guy climbed me like a tree and made himself at home on my head. What a cute little creature, but so young and obviously very much in need of company.

And then there was the food...

2005-02-09T11:56:00.000+11:00

I've just been looking for a recipe on the net for Olam, a tasty dish we tried up in Luang Prabang (Laos, you will hear more about this place later!). Petey absolutely loved this dish, so I thought I might try and cook it as a surprise for tonight. I'm pretty sure I can get the ingredients down in China Town, and was thinking to find a recipe would be easy with the internet...you can find anything on the net can't you? Well, apparently not!

You don't hear much about the food of Laos, and as with many places tourists tent to shy away from street stalls and local foods fearing "bali belly" or something inedible. Instead they stick to western style restaurants, where the locals attempt to cook dishes they've never eaten, such as Spagetti. Not surprisingly this food is awful, they don't have the benefit of the ingredients required to make western food, and they have no idea how its supposed to taste...Anyway, my theory is eat the local food. They've been eating it for years, and its safe..with the exception of the pa dek in some areas, which contains liver flukes! Petey and I made an effort to try the local dishes wherever we went, and subsequently ate our way around SE asia. I may be the only person to have ever gained weight while on holidays...

So the following post will be entirely devoted to food. I fear we will not be eating some of the culinary delights we discovered in Laos for quite some time, so i will be salivating in anticipation of our next visit while i write this!

Anlong veng-where we tried many strange foods including the fertilised duck eggs. This place had bowls full of soup-like stuff, some sweet some savoury...we think tapioca and coconut milk may have been involved.

Pa dek, is fermented fish paste. I think its also popular in northern Thailand, which is where we first tried it. Its a bit smelly, but like a really concentrated fish sauce. It is of course eaten with Khao Neo (sticky rice).

Sticky Rice is actually available in Coles. Bertie was most excited to hear about our find, as she was hooked on sticky rice with mango while she was in Thailand and Cambodia. Now, we didn't try sticky rice with mango, but we must have tried it with everything else. Its a glutinous rice you roll into a ball with your right hand (not your left hand, that would be considered quite disgusting as thats the hand you use to wipe your ass), and dip into whatever sauce or fish paste or whatever you have. Kids take sticky rice to school with them as a packed lunch. Its not really eaten hot, and is delicious, with much more taste than normal white rice.

Olam-this is the dish that i was looking for, for Petey. Its a norhern Laos cuisine, and we had the wild boar olam. I have no idea whats in it, just that its a khaki green colour, involves some bitter roots and is delicious.

Baguettes-petey was of course a big fan of these! It seems that the French gave the Laos people absolutely nothing except baguettes and coffee. Baguettes are usually served stuffed with whatever the specialty of the stallholder is. This could be a pate-style meat paste, pickled cucumber, well pretty much anything tasty.

"want some cats with your foe?"

mmmmmm foe

Foe-you will have heard already about foe. Its a noodle soup that I pretty much ate every day for breakfast. The foe stall holder seems to have a big pot of stock which she periodically slices meat/fish into and cooks the noodles in. You then get a big ladle full of soup and then the rest is up to you. There are usually plates of bean sprouts, beans, mint, cress(I think...), and various condiments available to flavour your foe as you like. One of the greatest thing about foe is that its cheap and all the locals live on the stuff. The stalls are arranged so that the cook is surrounded by tables in a horseshoe shape, with little stools around the edge. Its like going to sit at a bar, but with much more tasty fare. This means you can watch all the unidentifiable things going into the foe as she cooks it, and its a very social way of eating.

mmmmm....getting hungry! Must move onto something that is not food!

Lao coffee-this coffee is fantastic. I'm not sure if its because its unprocessed and incredibly fresh, or why its so good. Apparently Lao coffee is acclaimed throughout the world coffee-making community, and fetches very high prices on the international market. In any case its not at all bitter, incredibly strong and delicious served with condensed milk. Surprisingly, you need half the amount of normal coffee to get a strong cup of this gear. We thought while we were over there that they just made it strong, cause they liked it strong and sweet....mmmm, strong and sweet like Petey! Anyway we brought some of this gear back, but unfortunately not enough. We shoulda just emptied out our backpacks and brought back 25kg each of the stuff!

Lao beer-lao beer is so famous it even has its own t-shirt. I'm not one for beer really, but its pretty tasty stuff. I also like that its served in 1l bottles, so Petey and I could order Nyung lao beer (one beer), sawng glasses( we never did learn the word for glass, but its jawk. I just looked it up). This of course meant that I drank about a 1/4 of the beer and Petey sculled the rest, which worked out perfectly!

beer lao

Lao lao-we've also talked about the rice wine before. What we didn't talk about was that there are many different flavours of this local moonshine. Some we had that was spicy, like it had cinamon it in, some was pure alcohol, like japanse saki, we even had a coffee flavoured one. We have brought some of this back too, so all readers are welcome to join us in a toast to the lao people and their ability to make good plonk!

tasty sweet little bananas & some bizarre chilli fish creation wrapped like little presents in banana leaves

Now, back to the food. We had some tasty fruits while we were over there. Quite a few weren't in season, so we didn't get to try the famed Durian, which is banned on trains in India I think, 'cause its just so smelly and offensive. We did eat a lot of pineapple, which was always delicious, and tried a mangosteen, which is really delicious, once you work out which bit is the edible bit! The outside is purple gear and is quite a thick and tastes really bitter, its the tiny white bit in the middle that is the delicious part. Apparently the Queen of England at some stage offered a fortune to anyone who could bring her an edible mangosteen...not sure where I read that and which queen...so don't ask! Also delicious are rambutans (those spikey red/white fruits with the soft lychee-like bit in the middle). We bought a dragon fruit, which is really pretty to look at. Sorta a hot pink colour with big fleshy spkes coming off it and about the size of a large mango. Unfortunately we're not sure how you're supposed to eat this thing and the part we ate (the middle) was quite bland. This was roundabout the time in the trip when we decided to buy a knife...We also tried milkfruit later on in the trip, which is again really pretty to look at. The flesh is white with little black seeds and has a really good texture. Bananas are of course available everywhere and are sometimes the sweetest little things, although we had a run of bananas with hard black things in the ends, which I guess is where the next banana tree would grow from...not very tasty!

Not things on a stick, but a similar arrangement with various parts of a pig including intestines

In all of SE asia, putting things on sticks and cooking them over hot coals is a big thing. Some of the tastiest things we had came on a stick. The only real day of sickness Petey had was due to things on a stick, though I maintain that it was due to overeating rather than actual food poisoning. On this occasion we stopped at a mekong-side stall and started pointing...we were very hungry. We ordered a whole fish (pa), which was encrusted with salt and baked directly on the coals, 2 half chickens splayed and squished flat(ga), plus a salad of some sort and of course sticky rice. I heard the stallholder discussing us with friends while she was warming up our food on the coals, and i think she was saying what gluttons we were! That sort of meal could have served 10 people! We managed to finish pretty much all of it though, it was just so tasty!

Young girl cooking us some chicken feet

The finished product

Also found on a stick are crickets, chickens feet(very crispy, particularly the claws), assorted parts of a pig, assorted parts of chickens...pretty much anything. One of the many things i love about travel in many countries, but particularly India and SE Asia, is that when you're on a bus/train and you arrive at a station/town, there are always people thrusting things through the window at you to eat. We were talking to a young english teacher on a bus on one journey and she was telling us that the next town was renowned for its chicken on a stick, so she was going to buy some for her mother, as she was on her way home. Sure enought 5 minutes later a crowd of locals were thrusting flat chickens on sticks through the window of the bus. Petey has already mentioned the place known for its fried spiders( I was asleep at that stage), and there was another town which must have been famous for its root vegetables. We later bought some of these and they were delicous. They look like white turnips and you peel off the skin and eat them like apples....mmmmm! i wouldn't say that everything on a stick is tasty, but its a good general rule!

Frogs on a stick. We didn't get to eat these though...

tasty root vegetable.

One of the wierdest foods we tried was a shellfish, which we were given a taste of from a girl we bought a baguette from. She taught us how to pry open the shells and suck out the snotty-like thing inside. We thought this was quite tasty, so later on we bought a whole cupfull of our own. The first few were delicious, very salty, but after a few the snot-like consistency is a bit nauseating. I think some things are an acquired taste!

Shellfish-don't eat too many though!

Luang prabang in itself is a culinary delight. The town is set amongst the mountains, heaps of rivers to fish from and lots of hilltribes bringing produce into the markets. This is where we tried olam, and in the same meal a tasty fried riverweed with buffalo skin and chilli jam...Again the seaweed was incredibly salty, and was encrusted with sesame seeds. Just delicious.

a local preparing the fried pondweed. This particular weed was snagged in the river only 50m away, how fresh is that?

Anyway, i'd better get back to searching for this recipe. I'm now starving! More on tasty treats to come!

And Then And Then

2005-02-06T09:57:00.000+11:00

Jan. 6 - Khnyohm Da Psar

Today was our one day devoted to the temples of Angkor. Some people say you could spend days there and you could - anything from one probably up to 5 or 6, there are a lot of temples but hey, we had a lot of stuff to do.

We rode bikes out there, quite swish ones, too. The Cambodians drive/ride on the wqrong side of the road, um, the right side that is. This combines with the traffic made for amusing times. On one occassion I had to do a swinging 360 degree turn as i turned into oncoming moto traffic - it was a beautful turn.

As we rode out to the temples we came across monkeys along the side of the road and made a monkey stop. Elly had a great time getting up close and personal with these very cute critters. I wandered across the road to look at one of them as he jumped up and down on a motorcycle taxi. We wished we had some bananas.

The ride to the temples is about 6 k's and the loop we did around them about 17. Everyone has their own impression of Angkor Wat. I think it comes into its own for me up close when you are able to see the lintels and engravings that were etched into the walls over hundreds of years. The Hindu motifs, like The Oceans of Churning Milk where Gods and Demons battle, are preserved remarkably and the scale of the place is just huge. We stayed there for about three hours. And that is one, granted the biggest, temple of a complex that stretches for 30 kilometres and includes roughly 100 or so temples and ruins.

Ankor Wat

We also took in Ta Prohm, a temple that has been left to the jungle, where enormous roots encase the walls and chambers of the place. It gives an idea of how much work has gone into these places when you think that every temple was like this and more only a hundred and fifty years back.

Ta Prohm

And our other visit was to the walled city of Angkor Thom which apparently once held a population of 1 million people sometime back in 1000. It was the capital of an empire that stretched from South Vietnam to Laos to Thailand. It's an interesting story of how their empire failed. Seems to be a mixture of the arrogance of the Khmer Hindu Brahmin's toward their people (which got the people a little uppity)and the fact that these civil difficulties conincided with the empire being at its most vast and the lack of attention there meant the empire started to fray around the edges. Bad timing or something. And before you can say, "Jackfruit tukalok,awkun tom tom, " the empire is finished and the Thai are running the place.

The guys at our Guest House also provided us with the answer to a question that had plagued us for all of the 4 days we'd been in Cambodia. Khmer is not a tonal language (tricky pronunciation but no tones) so we picked up about 3 year old standard while were there. Maybe 2 year old. Or 18 months. Maybe cot standard. But we could understand when people asked where we were going and we often weren't actually going anywhere. Y'know, just hanging about or walking around. And we wanted to know what we say in reply in those sorta situations. And the Guest House guys revealed all. When you're asked in that situation, which in Cambodia is often on every corner, especially in the countryside, you say, "I'm going to the market." - "Khnyohm Da Psar." Write that down.

Jan. 7 - Is that him again ?

We hopped onto a bus today which made for a change. It was the first one of the trip. And we headed to Kompong Cham - about 5 hours away. The road is now all sealed (hence the bus and not a pick-up) and we made good time. Not far out of Kompong Cham we stopped for about 5 minutes and I could briefly see a woman out the window holding up what i think might've been a plate of fried spiders. Tasty.

Kompong Cham is a provincial capital on the Mekong. And it was a change to be on a river. From here we would follow the river for almost the next fortnight up Cambodia and all the way to the North of Laos. A lot of water. But not under the bridge. There is only one bridge over the Mekong in Cambodia (in Kampong Cham) and only one in Laos (near Vientianne, the Friendship Bridge that Australian aid money built).

After arriving around lunch we walked over to a Mekong Island that was reachable by foot as it was the dry season. A bamboo bridge/walkway made walking over the sand easier and it was an impressive bamboo creation. 4 wheel drives could cross it and the bamboo wouldn't flinch.

We started walking around the edge of the island practicing our one Khmer conversation with kids, old betel nut chewing ladies and a group of monks. The monks were also helpful enough to tell us the island was 12 k's around which saved a lot of leg work. It was a hot old day so we turned around after we asked if we could take a photo of the monks and managed through sign language, Khmer and English to get a picture of one of the approximately dozen monks that were about. Still he was a very phtogenic monk. Maybe they take it in turns.

As we walked back we generated almost a-list celebrity attention. The path around the island was lined with village houses and little children would come barreling out as we walked past. Part of our one Khmer one conversation was to ask the names and ages of people. Each little kid almost lined up in giggly anticipation of these farung asking him or her their name and age. One little kid, a boy of about maybe 3 or 4, was with his sister i think, and somehow i became involved in a little game of chasy with him. That is, i ran off and he stared chasing me. Great fun it was, me running in ever decreasing circles, around Elly and other little kids until the little boy would get close and i would try to gently brush away his tiny arms. After a couple of minutes of this Elly and I both had to just run in a straight line away.

We continued on back towards the bamboo walkway back to town. After about 5 minutes we turned around as we heard a banshee like shriek. It was the kid running towards us again, cackling with glee accompanied by his sister on her bike. He started running at me and Elly again and we bolted again after a few laps around the kid. It was a good thing we jog regularly. This kid could run. Huge lung capacity. After about a 5 minute jog, where we put a safe distance between ourselves and the kid, we stopped and just chatted with the other villagers as we walked.

The kid and his sister reapppeared twice more over the next 10 minutes or so and Elly and I would run off. We were starting to get a bit buggered. It was hot. We had a day pack. We started thinking his sister was carrying him in the basket on her bike. "The kid just can't run that much," we thought. We decided to put a real distance between us and the kid and ran until we couldn't see him anymore. After about 10 minutes we heard the shriek again and turned. About 20 metres away, we could see the sister on her bike and another kid, a small boy about the same age as the kid, running towards us but there was another kid concealed behind him who was also running towards us. "Is that him again ?" i said to Elly. "I think it is," she replied. " And this time i think he's got a human shield." And we ran.

Finally we stopped, pleaded for the chasing to stop and exchanged a pen for a photo. Ko Paen, is the island. It was one of the best days Elly and I had.

Petey, the kid, the human shield and the sister on her bike.

We did make it back to Kompong Cham. Eventually.

Back in Kompong Cham.

Jan. 8-9 - Kratie which is Cambodian for "we stay put for a while"

Kratie was only a few hours away by boat, fast boat. We started the trip up the front which was loud, fast and wet. Elly produced the balacklavas which made a difference and looked good !

Elly on the boat to Kratie to rob a bank.

We split up with the touts on arrival and Ellie's place nailed it. Marble staircase, marble balcony, statues of little boys peeing,hot water and TV all for $5 a night. Bargain. "Let's stay here a while."

Kratie was a relaxing place. We spent a couple of days cycling north and south of town. North to Kampi where we could see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins lolling about in the water. South through quiet villages as well as past Wat Rokakandal, a restored Wat where we spent a while checking out handicrafts put together by the locals. Elly bought a bag that still is going, i bought a wicker backpack ( hard to imagine, i know) which i overloaded and treated poorly. It only made it to Savannaket in Laos, maybe lasted a week.

Kratie handicraft and it's irresponsible owner.

Kratie was notable for some piercing insights into Khmer culture. Here's a sample.

Elly on Khmer music - " Boy meets girl, girl meets serpent, serpent steals girl away."

Petey on Khmer music - " Boy meets piano in open field, boy falls in love with piano, piano leaves boy."

Elly - " All Khmer kids run with their hands in the air like the temple of love."

And we came up with these without trying any of the local "muscle wine," an alcoholic beverage that the makers promise is "a flavour previously unknown," and that features a label with a clearly roided up fake tanned guy on the front.

What we did try was Cambodian Whiskey. We bought two bottles. The first one seemed to mysteriously precipitate gear as the level of the whisky lowered. We showed one of the Guest House guys and he said, "Is that ganga ?" "Um, we don't know. We didn't put it there."

We watched a vivid red sun falling from our balcony. Red Sun Falling is a great phrase but not original as it was ripped of from the name of a expat owned restaurant in Kratie. The owner, from Chicago i think, was telling us all about his restaurant, life in Cambodia and expat friend in Sihanoukville (a beach town in the South) who had an accident with red wine and valium. Expats in Cambodia in general are a little crazy.

Red Sun Falling.

Jan. 10 - To Laos

We were heading to Laos today, to Si Phan Don, 4000 Islands, in the Southern reaches of the Mekong in Laos. There the Mekong widens to 14 k's in places and thousands of islands (ranging from sandbar size to 30 k's in cirumference) pop up. to get there we needed to fast boat up to Stung Treng, near the Cambo border, and take a speed boat up into Laos. The fast boat to Stung Treng wasn't leaving until lunch time so we got to sleep in. Sahweet.

The boat to Stung Treng, our last brief stop in Cambodia, before we head to Laos.

There is a distinction between a fast boat and a speed boat. Do you know what it is ?Read the blog closely. It's the only question that's in the exam.

And Then ...

2005-02-05T07:57:00.000+11:00

Hya, team .. thanks, Elly for kicking off the frolic and reminding me that it's about the content and no fancy formatting. So sans formatting -

Dec. 30 - 10 Ringgit, No Battery

The start of the trip racing up the peninsula from Singapore thru Kuala Lumpur and Butterworth/Penang to Bangkok turned out perfectly. Train travel is sweet and we got to hop out for half days here and there.

We stayed in Singapore about three hours and injected the cost of two train fares and a can of fizzy drink into the economy. We walked the causeway into Johor Bahru in Malaysia - it was around 1 am local time and only Elly, me and another pedestrian, an Indian guy, were crossing - and about 200 or 300 motorcyclists who looked like they might still be there at daybreak.

The next day we woke at 7am. I opened my eyes and had one of those moments you have when you wake in an unknown town in an unfamiliar room, with an unfamiliar view and your spirits soaring. Very pleasant way to wake up. But was still tired and gagging to sleep on the train to Kuala Lumpur.

The train was late and we walked around the station and surrounds (mainly money changers, barbers and hawkers ) soaking up the sweet and sour Asian smells for the first time. Some rank, all exotic. There are no smells in Singapore.

On the train it had it's moments. The auto sliding door was broken and wouldn't shut so for about an hour a supersonic screech pierced through our carriage. Elly unbeleivably seemed to sleep straight through most of it and the sappy movie they were playing as well.

In Kuala Lumpur we hooked to the market in Chinatown- knock-off watches, fruit, steamed pork rolls and cold beer and alarm clocks. Our alarm clock was looking a little proppy already so we launched into bargain mode with a local alarm clock stallholder. After plenty of smiling, a bit of uppy downy and a "10 Ringgit, No battery" we were the proud owners of our own little alarm that was to wake us failsafe for the next month when we weren't just sleeping, sleeping ..

Elly in KL with temple

Soon after we bought our first Tiger beer and I was Cadburied in seconds. The local guy who served us told us he used to work in Dickson Street, Chinatown and live in Potts Point !

Using the wondrous KL train system we angled to Little india. Mainly saris and textiles but it was colourful and we had our first vertical downpour (my travel diary says "first" but i can't recall it actually raining at all after this !!)which was welcome cos it was well steamy. Highlights of the Little India market were the open-air vibrator and penis-enlargement pump stall and the gentleman who spotted my baldy head and leapt up to offer me his magic anti-balding potion of the ancients.

Dec. 31 - No more beer for the children .. on to the spirits.

We had overnighted from KL to Penang/Butterworth in a first class sleeper of our very own. It was fun - we squeezed into the bottom bunk which gave some protection from the icy, pulverising aircon streaming out of the vent in the ceiling. We arrived in Butterworth early, about 5.30 am. We wanted to walk Penang for the day until we left on the train for Bangkok about 4ish so we left our packs with an entrepenurial station worker who stored them in a room out the back with a crate of coke cans for about 50 cents.

The First Class Sleeper. The offending aircon vent is unfortunately not pictured.

Penang was without tourist as we would our way round the town. We took a tour through an old blue walled Chinese mansion that had been fully feng shui-ed and that ,according to the tour guide, emitted bursts of chi through the court yard that could make a coin suspended over the courtyard spin in circles. We returned a couple of times to the courtyard to recharge with Chi but had to leave early to make it back to the train via a very tasty chicken biryani. Penang was worth the day trip just to eat, eat, eat ..

Penang Street Scene

We made the train toot sweet. 3 carriages and what appeared to be about 8 passengers only ! As it was practically empty, we were upselled for free into a bigger carriage where the aircon worked and Elly and I had plenty of space to share a bottom bunk and the aircon was merely working not freezing. It was NY's Eve and we were lucky enough to have an interesting group of 6 that made up the 8 of us on the train ( at least until we got to Thailand, where they added a dining car and some more carriages but from what i could tell, in terms of passengers, just one French man). Brian and Caroline, who were 8 days from finishing an around the world in a year trip. They had bought some Vodka. We bought some beers. She was brought up in Chullora near Granville. We reminisced. He was a pom who had been an unlawful non-citizen in Australia for two years but scored another visa from the UK. We talked about visas. Elly said I worked for Immigration. "I'm on holiday and I've never said to no to anyone anyhow .. i visa DJ's etc ... "

Caroline, Elly, Brian and very empty train to Bangkok

We found the dining car. It was so quiet the staff were alternately sitting down with us at the tables and plying us with beers, hoping probably to get us to bed so they could down tools.. Elly suggested we buy fried cashew nuts.

There was a family of New Zealanders, mum, dad and two kids from Timaru. Mum had stayed back in the carriage for a sleep cos they had to get of the train at Surat Thani at about 11.45 and try and get a room or a ferry out to Koh Pha Ngan, Island of the famed Full Moon Party but also from all accounts a good good island for the whole family. Dad and the kids were installed in the dining car before we even found it. Dad was a 7 foot farmer who had intended to take the family to the Tsunami hit West coast and was palpably, even in his pissed state, relieved he hadn't. To celebrate he was lagering up and so were the kids, a boy of about 14 and a 16 year old girl. After a period of time, the father audibly announced to the carriage, " No more beer for the children .. on to the spirits."

We didn't make it close to 12 o'clock.

Jan 1 - One day in Bangkok

We awoke all bright eyed and waited for the train to chug into Bangkok. We had practically been living unshowered and in the same clothes since arriving in Singapore as the plan was to buy up big and cheap in Bangkok. So, we headed to Khao San Road, backpacker mecca and home of cheap cheap clothes. It was great fun day. We smiled a lot, gently bargained for t-shirts, dresses, pants,practiced a little Thai and found ourselves a Finnair flight from Bangkok back to Singapore for the return leg. The flight was almost as cheap as the clothes. Khao San Road is lined with travel agents who somehow contrive to get the cheapest flights. Who knows how. We paid peanuts.

In the afternoon we bailed up a Tuk-Tuk and headed to the mother of all markets at Chatachak. 1000's of stalls. We bought some squid, a none too tasty papaya salad and a hat for Elly. We could have bought everything from food, furniture, pets, plants, real estate, VIP Jets ...

After the market we headed back to the train station for our (next!!) overnight train to Surin via the dreadfully impressive Sky Train follwed by the Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) transport system. We stopped briefly in the Silom area of Bangkok which is somewhat swishier and look who Elly saw and insisted we go and say hello to.

The wai-ing Ron

We MRT'ed to Hualumpong (the train station for long distance). This is public transport as it should be. Australia has crumbling old rattlers that can't run when it's hot. This Bangkok creation is just, just, Elly and I just couldn't stop saying it, "It's the Future."

At the end of the line there was an underground museum of sorts dedicated to those who built the MRT, dedicated to the King and telling us how it would one day sprawl out into all of Bangkok. If we didn't have a train to get we would've lingered.

After purchasing our first ridiculously cheap Thai whisky (about $1 a hipflask) we popped onto the train, an older style with thinner beds. We were so tired. The train took off, the beds got put up, we slipped into the bottom bunk and had one or two sips of the whisky we'd poured into a bottle of pepsi - and then we slept. We were going to be up the next morning at 5 am to arrive in Surin.

We endorse Sangserm, Cheap Thai Whisky.

Jan. 2 - "Just remember to spit it out."

We arrived in Surin at 5 am. The train attendant farewelled us with what had become the customary " Sabah dii bii mai, kup" which is sort of see you later, happy new year .. New year is big in Thailand. Everyone goes back to their village/home town for the 5 days of holidays. Quite a few people got off at Surin but we looked like the only Westerners. The first thing we noticed was it was sooooo cold ! We didn't think this was possible. I changed out off my thongs into shoes and socks and put on my hat to try and keep the head warm. We really wanted to get inside somewhere and get coffee, please coffee, but had no map, it was dark etc but in the way that the universe provides we stepped out of the station and saw the lights of a small coffee house just over the road. We got caffeined and had some foood and started to wander around the town as the sun rose. We found the market and each bought a balaklava/beany that all the locals seemed to be wearing. We felt quite a novelty in Surin. Lots of old people and kids smiling at us. We stopped for coffee by the roadside and headed back towards the train station for an urgent toilet stop (damn omellete !!) before getting to the Guest House, the only one in Surin.

We arrived at the GH just in time for the owner, Pirom, who runs small tours, to get us into his jeep for the day tour to a collection of Khmer Temples around the province and other sites. Sweet. No time for a shower yet, though. Damn!
Although we were buggered we learnt a huge amount on the day and enjoyed it greatly. I might have to refer to dot points.

- Betel nut is, as well as being a drug from "pre-history" according to Pirom, an antiseptic, good for the breath and porevents cavities. Pirom, after we showed some interest offered to take us to some betel nut chewing friends of his. They were Khmer Kreu ( High Khmer whose language differs from the Khmer Leu ( Low Khmer ) of Cambodia itself ) and were happy for us to sit in their house for 15 minutes although my incredible inflexibilty meant my feet placement was culturally inappropriate. Still they loved that we were having a go at the betel nut. The actual deal is that the nut is wrapped in the betel nut leaf with a smearing of limestone ash. The tell-tale red stain on the teeth and lips of the users only happens when the chewing of the three ingredients take place. Jt, feel free to explain the chemical process involved here. It is also important according to Pirom that you "remember to spit it out," which i kept forgetting. I found a lingering buzz, a numbness to the jaw and mouth, and almost a dizziness from the nut. Others didn't get much or anything. My view is that thousands of toothless, red lipped old ladies can't be wrong.

Pirom prepares the betel nut.

- Peasants in Isan (The North East of Thailand where Surin is located) dig for crickets by the side of the road. It is the poorest part of Thailand so they will eat most anything.

- Each of the Isan villagers have a house, a spirit house (there is a significant animist streak to their Buddhism) and a house for the rice.

- 670 people died on the roads over the 5 days of New year in Thailand last year.

- There are no casinos in Thailand but they do allow fish fighting on occassions.

- The farmers grow Gum trees for making paper.

- My fisherman's pants bought in Bangkok fell down unexpectedly as we were walking through the grounds of a ruined Khmer Temple Hospital. Pictures at 11.

- Thai military shadowed us with an M-16 (they appeared to have an arrangement with Pirom) as we walked along a trail to look over into Cambodia. We see the first of what will be many, DANGER ! MINES signs. We stick to the path. So ubiquitous are the signs that in Cambodia they are even put on the front of souvenir t-shirts. When we return from the walk, the soldier pulls barbed wire, with dangling tins attached, back across the path behind us. Pirom gives him a newspaper and some fruit and we are away.

We did about 250 km's in the jeep and saw things we would never have been able to see on our own. We got back after dark and went with Anika and Eline, two Belgians we'd spent the day with, to the night market. It was short and sweet. And cold !

Jan. 3 - Holiday in Cambodia

We finally sleep in . Until 11 am. I finally have a shower. Elly still bravely holding off.

We walked to the bus station after detouring for some noodle soup. Easy enough, surprisingly, to get the tickets for the border. We appeared to have lucked it when we got tickets for the bus leaving in 10 minutes. Only to be told with 5 minutes to go that the bus would be delayed for an hour. Mai pen rai as the Thai say which is sorta "don't worry about it."

The bus ride had a loud but quality set of Thai pop film clips followed by a loud and inexplicable show of Thai comedy. We made the Thai/Cambodia border around 4ish and cleared very quickly. There was nobody else there. We were heading for Anlong Veng which was about 70 k's and two hours away by car. We negotiated for a car and started off on on a very ordinary road. Unsealed, severely pot-holed, at least the bridges were up. The car, which was fine, a Camry, i think, just bumped and rolled the whole trip. Even with belts on we were thrown about the back of the car. We made it in to Anlong Veng in the dark at 7.15.

Our driver dropped us at a Guest House where after about 15 minutes we managed to arrange a room. After another 10 minute conversation we managed to explain we wanted to change some money. One of the owner's children, a 9 year old boy, gave us a lift on a moto down to the market to change the money and then he gave us a lift to a restaurant we'd seen on the way in to town. It was all of 20 metres from the Guest House but he insisted on driving us there. And he didn't want to leave when we did get there. He sat outside on his moto as we ordered. I tried to explain to him that he could go home, we didn't need a lift back, we could walk. Eventually,to our relief he rode back home. Only to come back 5 minutes later, this time on foot. Then he sat down and waited to walk back to the Guest House with us.

Jan. 4 - Learning to count with Karaoke Bar girls.

At this stage of the trip we had little idea of the noise a small karaoke bar could generate. One night sleeping in a Guest House next to one gave us plenty of idea. Anyhow, we still managed to sleep in and when we wandered over to the bar later that night for a warm beer, we even managed a few Khmer lessons with the staff.

When we walked out the door we were immediately engaged in negotiations with 2 moto drivers for the trip round the various Khmer Rouge sites. Anlong Veng was the last refuge of the Rouge. It only fell in 1999. Before then, in between continuing to work towards losing the 20 year civil war they fought after getting turfed out of Phnom Penh in 1979, the mad pinkos of the Rouge "insisted" that the town not even have a market. They have a market now. Elly bought a Kramas (Khmer scarf) from there that would become a fetching accessory of choice through the trip.

Anlong Veng is very poor. I reckon I saw more people with sunken cheeks there than anywhere. Along the one street of the town, as far as buildings go, there appear to be only barbers, Karaoke bars, the market, some Guesthouses (i think they were all empty cos we didn't see any other tourists) and a few stray restaurants .. the rest of the street is made up of stalls selling food and drinking water.

The majority of people in the town wear army fatigues. We assumed they weren't all military (if they were it would've been nearly the whole town!) when we saw even one of the barbers wearing them. And very few people appear to be aged over 50.

We did the trip round the various Khmer Rouge sites. It is not inspiring. The road up the Dagrek Escarpment is steep and bloody awful. On the way there I saw a line of three one-legged men, two on bicycles with prosthetic legs. There are amputees everywhere. The escarpment itself rises 400 metres straight up and it is no wonder the Khmer Rouge held out there for so long. About half way up, you can see a sculpture of three soldiers that the KR worked out of a boulder. The heads have been hacked off.

Khmer Rouge sculpture

On the plateau at the top of the Escarpment, you can see the last safe houses of Pol Pot and other KR people. They are all shells destroyed by Government soldiers. Some tiles remain. In Pol Pot's house, the stump of the base of a Western toilet remains.

Pol Pot's cremation site sits about 5 minutes walk from the Thai border at Chong Sa Ngam. I guess there is a sense of history and finality to the places we saw. But I think i enjoyed Anlong Veng for the people who in spite of everything had survived and who were very friendly. Their friendliness was all the more forthcoming when we flashed a smile or stuttered out "S'ua sdei" in our busted Khmer. And it gave us a look at a little visited part of Cambodia. They also had the best tukaloks.

Jan. 5 -

We woke in the morning round 6.30 and headed down to the market to get a pick-up to Siem Reap, the town for Angkor Wat. Arranging transport is always fun. This was no exception. We almost got into a bidding war between two pick-up drivers. In the end we took the one who said he was leaving earlier. This off course, didn't happen and we saw our other pick-up driver heading off about an hour earlier than we did but the wait was great. We spent an hour hooning up the main street with the driver honking at everyone on the street or a moto that might look like they wanted a lift to Siem Reap. There was good natured wrestling and hooting between pick-ups over passengers and cargo. We waved at our moto driver through the window and another guy from the guest house. We almost felt like locals ! Just before we headed off the pick-up drove past a large billboard at the north end of town that announced over a picture of a snapped M-16 and happy looking Khmer that " We No Longer Need Weapons ! "

The trip to Siem Reap was another shocker. More of the god awful roads all the way to Siem Reap barring the last 20 minutes where the road is sealed to allow easy access to all the temples surrounding the town. I was surprised during the trip to see the driver had to pay off a number of soldiers along the way. This was often done without even stopping just by hanging a hand with the cash out the window. I assume the prices are set. This was quite common when I was last in Cambodia in 1999 but I thought it might've gone the wayside now.

Well, we finally made it to Siem Reap which was a great change from Anlong Veng. Sealed roads, even grass, the many tourists that visit the temple (there is an International Airport where you can fly from Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos) mean there is money there. We explored the town by foot, eyeballed some bikes for our planned ride around the temples tomorrow and ate early followed by a tukalok.

We found the Indian restaurant that I remembered had Bang Lassi from last time (it was still on the menu but had a line through it )and tried to find the nightclub I'd been to and show Elly. It was closed. Bugger! The Khmer are gun dancers.

The ElPetey Awards - Awarded to notable events, people, foods and locations that were all good on the trip

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Best representative of his country - this award goes to the fellow who works at the Hotel Reservations booth at Singapore airport. Not only did he manage to find us the cheapest place to stay in Singapore, but it was in the greatest of locations, the red light district. And yes, Singapore does have a redlight district surprisingly. This guy was so enthusiastic we left the place totally psyched and loving the country already. He also told us the directions several times, so there was no way we were getting lost.

Nation most agreeable to short-shorts - this award would have to go to Singapore. Not as conservative as its other SE Asian counterparts, the wearing of short shorts is not frowned upon. And my, do those girls have the legs for it. It is also extremely hot.

Most goodlooking man-farung - While the locals, particularly in Cambodia deserve an award of their own, this award was created for two gorgeous french boys. mmmmmm! Both bearded, long-haired and the first French I've met who were funny and genuine. At this point we should mention that Jake came a close second in this award, its really only the power of numbers that won it for the French.

Most amusing form of local transport - Petey's bike in Don Khong. The handlebars were wonky, the seat was so far down that his knees were approaching his ears. Gave the school kids a good laugh.

Petey, Don Khong, Wack bike.

Most consistent Food - Foe (pronounced fer ). The noodle soup of Laos. Meat or no-meat.

Most consistently mis-pronounced word - Foe. For most of the South of Laos, we pronounced foe as foe or fo .. just how it looks. Our pronounciation was remedied at a small village near Tatlo Falls where we got into a Lao v English language workshop with a foe cook and some of his mates.

Best foe - Near the Mekong, Luang Prabang. Good greens. Top location. Excellent condiments.

Elly, foe, greens and accompaniments.

Best non-alcoholic beverage - Tukalok, Cambodia. The tukalok really defies words. It's closest Australian relative is the thickshake but that's still comparing apples and oranges. The tukalok is a fruit shake, blended by the side of the road, that mixes fruit, the finest of shaved n smashed ice, sweet sweet condensed milk and sometimes an egg. All served in a glass that usually looked like it came out of a 50's ice cream parlour. Sep Lai !

Look for this if you are ever in Cambodia. It means the tastiest beverage of all. The tukalok !

Best tukalok - Jackfruit tukalok, Anlong Veng. Ordered one night after Elly saw someone next to us in fatigues sipping on what appeared to be a shake. The ordering process took upwards of 5 to 10 minutes. When we started drinking it, brain freeze set in within seconds. The sign of the best of tukaloks.

Most inappropriate dress - The chick whose ass was hanging out of her skirt in Angkor Wat. This chick streeted the field. No contest. Simply breathtakingly inappropriate.

Worst trip - Savannaket to Vientianne, Laos. The trip commenced with us hauling our packs at about 9 pm to the bus station. Savannaket is one of those towns where everyone is in bed by 9 so no tuk tuk for us. We got to the bus station and were set upon by touts, noisy, grabby touts. The guy selling the tickets wouldn't loook me in the eye. After about half an hour later we finallly bought a ticket and waited. Waiting is a big part of transport in Laos.

Departed round 10.30 pm.
Driver commences playing incredibly loud Lao pop through the bus speakers, 10.35 pm (deafening even after applying ear plugs, wrapping head in scarf, placing beany over scarf).
Vile smelling liquid starts seeping along the floor of the bus from containers at back of bus. Daypack and some other belongings soaked in vile smelling liquid. 10.55 pm.
El and Petey sleep fitfully (to put it generously).
Music turned off. I'd guess around 4am.
Arrive Vientianne 5am and buy ticket for 10 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang, leaving at 6.30 am.

Best trip - Speed boat ride along the Mekong from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai on Lao/Thai border. What do the DFAT travel advisories know ? What do the Lonely Planet authors know ?
They know enough to suggest this mode of transport has some issues. Safety, comfort and safety being three of them. As Elly put it, it was the best trip because we didn't die. We told each other how much we loved each other before donning ear plugs and Evil Knievel helmets. Petey was given strict instructions that if there was a crash, they were not to amputate Elly's legs. Crammed into an open topped canoe with screeching outboard at the back and our knees touching our chin we saluted the finishing line 7 hours later.

Speed boats and a very slow raft made of logs.

Worst Food - Fertilised Duck eggs, Anlong Veng. These come with eyes and almost fully developed duck foetuses inside. Not tasty at all and not pretty to look at.

Most confusing town - Anglong Veng, Cambodia. How do we - get a room, get money changed, order some food, get the kid from the guest house to go home, eat this food.

Dust upon dust. Anlong Veng. Last refuge of the Khmer Rouge and most confusing town.

Most enjoyed place - Luang Prabang, Laos.

Kayaking and Hyaking around Luang Prabang

Most good looking nation - Cambodia.

Elly and a collection of very good looking Cambodian men - including Mr Tel on her right.

Most days without a shower - Elly, a clear winner. 5 days and about 1500 kilometers by land. Sydney to Anlong Veng.

Best food - Olam, a stew in Luang Prabang. We had a very tasty one with wild boar. It's a particularly notable winner as it is coloured almost completely green.

The mighty Olam or what's left of it (back), Fried Mekong River Weed (front left) and Chili n Buffalo Skin jam (Front right).

Best alcoholic beverage - the ceremonial Lao Lao (Lao rice whiskey) served at the Lao wedding we attended. This was the good gear given to the honoured guests who lead each dance (Elly included !). The rest of the guests (about the whole province) were poured out simple Lao Lao at the rate of approximately 1 shot every 5 minutes. I kid you not. I took to moving around the table to stay ahead of my shot but was caught in a pincer movement by a second shot moving in from my left. Damn !

Best beer - A very competitive field. In the end goes to Beer Chang from Thailand. Particularly, the Beer Chang in Chiang Khong (See below).

Best English Backpacker - Rachel in Chiang Khong. Mistaken initially for a Swede, kissing everyone, drank all Petey's beer.

Best Belgians and best people to chew Betel nut with - Anika and Eline.

Anika and Eline who were doing a great itinerary of the little visited North East Thailand. Also, betel nut buddies of ours.

Best Nightspot - Muang Sua, Luang Prabang. Half Pulp Fiction, Half Year 12 Social. We were escorted through a red velvet walled parlour and shown to our very own seat (there should be more of this in Australia) where we were provided with a beer and a view of the dance floor. The locals dance a beautiful dance. All hands in parts. Elly and Pete danced, Petey using mostly legs, to what may have been a Bananarama remix.

Best bargain - Purchase of gear in Kompong Cham. For further information please ask the authors. Probably worth A$1,000. Bought for US$5. Thrown in a roadside bin the next day.

Worst bargaining - Petey, Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. SAME SAME T-shirt purchased with no bargaining at the asking price of 250 baht. Do the maths.

Best Local Transport System - Bangkok. They had a skytrain, a subway (MRT) that was the future, a normal train, a bus. We expect they will have jet packs within the next year or two.

The Bangkok subway. The trains are behind closed doors.

Best train catering - Thailand. Ohmigod, Yum ! QANTAS should send out an agent.

Petey's worst navigating moment - sending us West insted of East as we walked to breakfast in Singapore.

And best navigating moment - finding the hotel in the Singapore Red Light District in spite of the distractions on the street.

Best People across the board we met - Jake and Amy in Si Phan Don. They were fun. They thought a lot like us. Looked at the world like us. Did a lot of good things in the world. Also, Jake loves playing with monkeys like Elly.

Jake n Amy n us.

Most discrete red light districts - Cambodia, where most of the brothels are cunningly disguised as Karaoke Bars.

Most confusing cultural episode - Drinking with Vietnamese child prostitutes in Anlong Veng and the gender confusion over how many penis' we had and hair length.

Most difficult night of sleep (non-transport) - Anlong Veng and the neighbouring Karaoke bar.

Karaoke Bar

Hardest bed - Savannaket. Bruised our ribs. Every breath hurt to take.

Best conversation with adult non-English speaker - Kratie to Kampi. Explained to a lovely old lady where we were going, where we had come from, what our names were, that we were husband and wife and that we wanted to order a tukalok. She woke up her next door neighbour who appeared to be in the tukalok business. There was no tukalok. We think it was an electricity problem.

Biggest Bill - Singapore. Do not buy the beer. DO buy the digital camcorder.

Most overpriced drink - You kind of expect beer to be overpriced in Singapore. What you do not expect is to pay US$5 for a glass of French red wine plonk in Siem Reap. Specially when the plonk is not real good.

Best lines (non-native English speaker) - "Didn't i see you on a bike out near the airport" said to El by Guesthouse worker in Siem Reap.
"You foreigner but you just like Lao girl," again said to El, this time by young girl in our fave Luang Prabang lunch place.

Person most incorrectly/unjustly accused of being a paedophile - Majek from Perth. Majek was a serious psychonaut tripper. He was not a paedophile. Very entertaining and also a reflective individual and into headspace in a big way but not a paedophile.

El and Majek from Perth. Also pictured are two French Canadians.

Biggest spliff - Majek and his neighbour, Peter. Luang Prabang. Ken Huge.

Best item of clothing - El's Lao Sinh (skirt).

El in her Lao sinh (skirt). An enormous favourite with the locals.

Worst item of clothing - Petey's white Bangkok shirt.

Most crazy man - Crazy man of Luang Prabang. First sighted carrying a gun in each hand as he walked down the main street. Also sighted trying to offer/sell passersbys a saw and a coconut. Gave money away. Carried a radio down the street and stopped at restaurant tables to play it for diners. Offered his pipe to diners, too. All without ever uttering a word. Very crazy. Clear winner.

Luang Prabang crazy man in hat and smoking pipe.

Best Security - Military guy sitting behind us on the Bus to Luang Prabang carrying a M-16 and wearing a blue Hawaian shirt.

Best Flat tyre - the same bus. Over a 10 hour trip, through remote hilltop countryside, the driver managed to get a flat 10 metres from a restaurant that served some very tasty foe. Bang !

Best flat tyre. "well it didn't change itself when i looked at it. Do you want a go ?"

Best moment I just remembered now - Little Lao kids running off the road shouting "lot ! lot ! (bus!bus!).

Best word learnt - Guatre (Lao for ladyboy).

Best conversation - Elly and Majek. An example of how to make real conversation. In the back of a Songthaew (sorta truck) on the way to trekking, Elly strikes up conversation with Majek. Within minutes I notice they are talking about mushrooms, taste in ladies, a smorgasbord of topics .. someone should've taped it ..

In the beginning....

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Well now we're back in sunny Sydney and back to the realities of life. While we still have that holiday feeling we're going to update this sister blog with stories and pictures from our travels. So keep your eyes peeled. We promise content will be more important than formatting, don't we Petey?

Because my half of the holiday was funded by Frequent Flyer points, and we were generally disorganised and thus too slow to get any choice flights, we ended up flying to Singapore on the 29th January. Petey had painstakingly organised our train travel via the wonders of email before we got there, as he was worried that the New Year would be a busy time to travel. Of course the Tsunami meant that tourism was severely effected, so the trains were very nearly empty.

By the way, this is Peteys silent partner in blogging making a posting debut. Luckily I have good material to work with, so the quality of my writing can be ignored...please?

This is from my travel diary (30 Dec.): On the train now from KL to Butterworth. We have prepared for this trip with tasty sweet, sweet buns, rambutans, dragonfruit and some other fruit which we still can't identify. We tackled the LRT in KL, visiting China Town and Little India. Initially we decided to walk from the train station into the city, as it appeared quite close on the map and Petey the Navigator was sure we could get there. However on exiting the train station we were actually several stories above ground surrounded by these huge overpasses and no way of getting back down to street level. KL train station is very fancy, lots of shiney metal and glass. It connects to 3 train systems, so we decided to sample the LRT. What an efficient and clean beast that is.

Our initial flight arrived quite late in singapore, so we tackled their amazing train system, arriving at about midnight at the causeway for the walk into Malaysia. For that 1km, we were in no mans land. We'd checked out of Singapore and weren't yet officially in Malaysia.

Singapore-Malaysia border. V sleepy at end of day 1. It's 3.30 am Sydney time.

This posting business is harder than it looks. Think I'll come back to this later! Lets switch to the infinitely more exciting business of the Elpetey awards. Awarded to notable events, people, foods and locations that were all good on the trip.