Crabs, rabbits and pepper

From Phnom Penh we headed South to the Cambodian coast, first stopping at Kep to get a boat out to Koh Tunsay.

The crab in the title refers to the seafood - Kep is well known for its crab and hence the very large statue they put in the sea!

However the rabbit story is less obvious. Apparently back in the day when the King of Cambodia had a navy he used to stop at a particular island on the way back from military campaigns. This became such a habit that the island was named De-mobilisation island aka Koh Runsay (sp?) in Cambodia. 

A few years after the navy stopped using the island the locals started forgetting why is was called De-mob and started calling it Koh Tunsay as it sounded very similar. Tunsay means rabbit in Cambodian and hence the name Rabbit Island today.

So we headed out with some provisions:

The island is very basic with only a few places with huts on the beach, no electricity or running water.

We managed to entertain ourselves with drinking, floating in the sea, a walk to the seaweed farm for sunset, eating lots of local crab, more drinking and cards! Then when the generator went off by storm & phosphorescence watching.

Sea weed farm!

Sunset on Koh Tunsay

Coco's new wig

View of the beach at brekkie

Local crab at the market - yummy! Especially with the local pepper sauce.

Kampot was the next town we headed to and is famous for its pepper. We stopped at the local market to buy pepper, deep fried snacks and fruit - too full to try more tasty crab or the squid on a stick!

After checking into our dorm room we headed out for a cruise on the river at Kampot - apparently at this time of year it's fresh water at the top (wet season run off from the mountains) and salty underneath. Usually it's all salt water this close to the sea.

We took provisions in the form of a beer tower! (But we didn't let CoCo our Stay leader drink it all himself!)

No sunset - but we saw some fishermen

Another landmark in Kampot - the large durian and other fruit roundabout. I spotted coconuts, pineapple, mangoes, rambutan, longun - all of which I have tried whilst in South East Asia - just need to complete the circle and try some durian!

A sobering day - S21 and the killing fields

After a hideous 13 hour bus trip from Don Det we finally made it to Phnom Penh at 11pm.

Having had a 6 hour sleep we were up early to join the Stray bus for the Cambodia leg of the tour. Our first stop was S21 the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

This place used to be a secondary school before the Khmer Rouge gained power in 1975. They turned it into a prison and torture centre. It's truly chilling - especially the photographs of the young Khmer Rouge guards - just children....

Middle picture -  block C left at it was at the time of the prison with electrified barbed wire to stop escapes

From top left:

VIP cell - with photo on the wall showing the prisoner who was executed shortly before the Vietnamese won Phnom Pehn back. VIPs were usually members of 

Photos of piles of skeletons from the killing fields excavation

Rules of the prison

View through the old school classrooms where prisoners were held

Barbed wire gate into block C

Cell 22 -  where Chum Mey was kept - one of 12 survivors of the prison, of the 20,000 who came through the doors

Shackles used for long rows of prisoners on the crowded upper floors

Me with Chum Mey! He now sells a book about his experiences and has given evidence for the war crimes tribunal in Cambodia

Map of Cambodia demonstrating how the genocide covered all the country 

View of the prison block showing the upper floors - barbed wire was added to stop people jumping off the top to commit sucide

Prisoners weren't killed here - they were transported to killing fields to be killed and buried. Off the 12 to survive I met 2 of them - Chum Mey and Bou Meng - both old men in their 80s. They were selling books about their experiences and were determined that people should know about the atrocity, however they weren't bitter, in fact this sums up the attitude of the Cambodians in general. 

Our Cambodian guide CoCo said that this was driven by their Buddhist faith. Still it's strange to think that the war crimes tribunal isn't finished yet and some of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime are still at liberty.

We moved on next to the actual killing fields outside of Phnom Pehn. There isn't just one location for the 'killing fields' there are about 500 places found through out the country that were used to kill men women and children. We visited Choeng Ek.

Here there are many gruesome reminders of the killings. The Khmer Rouge saved bullets by bashing people over the head by large pits, ready for them to fall into. Babies and children they held by their legs and bashed their heads against this tree. 

A man who stumbled over the killing field after the Khmer Rouge had fled gave testimony on discovering this tree with blood, hair and bits of brain on it.

We all had tears in our eyes.

Still today after the rains they find pieces of bone, teeth and clothing washed up to the surface - so the work here is ongoing. 

The main bones and skulls are preserved in the monument to the people who died.

Don Det - 4000 islands?

Next we headed to Don Det - but first we had to get the Stray bus across the Mekong... On a raft of planks, as you do in SEA.....

Getting the bus on the raft

Success!

Driver and fellow strays relaxing until the next tricky bit - getting the bus back off!

Our punk rocker captain!

How many men does it take to get a bus off the 'ferry'? At least 3 with one to photograph it!

Success! We gave the driver a standing ovation!

So the main thing about Don Det is that it's an island. There are a lot of them in the Mekong at this area - however there are not 4000 so the name 4000 islands is a misnomer. The name arose from a language misunderstanding and stuck.

The other things that Don Det is known for is chillaxing by the river, tubing and hammocks! We participated of the hammocks but not the river - it's very brown at this time of year and didn't look too clean. Kitty had seen a dead pig floating in it further upriver and that was enough to put us off....

So hammock for sunset it was - and a very nice sunset it was too:

The following day we decided we needed some exercise - so we hired bikes and headed off down the island towards Don Khone where there promised to be another waterfall and perhaps some Mekong dolphins.

The path down the island was basically a track, but heavily used by the locals on motos, bikes and on foot. The wooden plank bridges across the streams were a little unnerving given that the planks moved!

We made it to the bridge across to Don Khone and to the waterfall - the waterfall is a large rapid which makes the Mekong impassable to boats from the ocean. Now the reason why there is a bridge between the 2 islands is because the French - whilst trying to defend their Indochina possessions from Thailand  - wanted to get gun boats over the rapids. With Vietnamese help they built a railway all the way from the base of Don Khone up to the top of Don Det - so the bridge was the railway bridge and the 'road' we cycled on was the old railway bed.

Waterfall

Cat at the tip of Don Khone - can you see the dolphins?! (No me neither, but you can see Cambodia in the distance!)

Water buffalo at various stages of watering & mudiness! Mud mud, mud mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!

On the way back up the island for beers at a sunset bar we met a few locals on the path - one guy pushing a trolley by hand (you usually saw them hooked up to a motorbike) was very taken with my height, sunglasses and blonde hair, and having noticed that I wasn't wearing a wedding ring, said I could marry him! I just laughed and then cycled on....

Another glorious Don Det sunset -this time with beer!

Nb the accommodation on Don Det was bungalows - however not all are the same quality - we put up with concave beds in a sweat box because we were only there for 2 nights, so check out the room before you agree to take it! (We didn't have much choice being on the tour :s )

Monkey homestay, another waterfall & Wat Phu

After a dubious 'local' baguette of homemade pâté with extra pig lard we left Thakek and headed to our next homestay.

This required buying our dinner from the market and changing from the orange Stray bus to a Sorngtaaou (4 wheel drive truck with seats - more robust than a tuk tuk!) and heading down some dirt roads.

On the way we stopped at a turtle sanctuary - the turtles are considered sacred as they are meant to be the souls of departed villagers, however they are ugly as f*ck!

Next stop was the Buddha park and scroll library where we girls had to dress up in traditional dress to access (not entirely sure why - the boys could just wear what there were wearing!)

Library on stilts

Buddha park

Religious scrolls on palm leaf

The cupboard the scrolls are kept in - amazing that they've lasted so long without proper storage!

The girls dressed up traditionally - we almost look demure!

After the religious stop we headed to our second homestay which was at a village by the monkey temple - so in our luggage was a lot of bananas for feeding time. Most of the monkeys were well behaved with us - but the squabbling over the bananas amongst them was a little scary!

In the back of the truck going to meet the Stray bus the next morning. We waved to a lot of school children on their way to school!

Next stop was Tat Lo waterfall on the Bolvean plateau - this area of Laos is famous for its coffee growing. We just enjoyed the spray from the waterfall!

Getting a little bit wet!

Next stop was Wat Phu - billed in the guide book as a smaller less crowded version of Angkor Wat - a load of tosh! Yes it was built at the same time as Angkor and had a road leadi directly to that other temple complex, but it's nothing like the same scale of size or grandeur and hasn't been well preserved despite the fact that its still in use as a religious site - originally Hindu, now Buddhist.

Kong Lor and boat festival

From Vientiane we headed to Kong Lor - a tiny tiny village with one rather large cave.

7.5km of cave to be precise....

The cave was carved out through the karst by the river - so the best (& only!) way to see it is by long tail boat.

However these were considerably smaller boats than I've been in before - no fancy chairs, life jackets provided and only 2 inches of clearance above the water, needless to say we got wet!

The cave was pretty spectacular - in places the ceiling soars to 100m high and when we stopped to look at the rock formations the stalagmites and stalactites were impressive (especially because of the lighting - everything else was pitch black!). We also saw bats hanging from the ceiling.

When we had done our successful pass through the cave - which involved climbing a rapid, some weren't so successful at that! - we paused at the village the otherside and grabbed some refreshments. Shortly it was back on the boat and back to the rapids - whilst we made those we did get grounded on gravel banks inside the cave a few times - luckily for us the boat guys got out and pushed!

That evening we enjoyed a movie marathon when we should have been out in the village enjoying the opening celebrations for the end of Buddhist lent. Those that did go took part in the ceremony and blessing and then the traditional dancing etc. However for most of us overindulging in the Lao Lao the night before meant a lack of motivation to get out and join in!

On the way to the border town of Thakek we stopped at a secret location surrounded by rock formations for lunch - unsurprisingly it's well known by the climbing community.

On arrival in Thakek we were met by hordes of crowds - the boat festival was on to celebrate the end of Buddhist lent - the ceremonies to bless the boats had been the night before.

We managed to see a few boat races from the edge of the packed street we were staying on - prime location for all the activities, centred between about 7 soundstages, no point trying to sleep so we had to join the party!

To start off we saw paper lanterns being lit & flying majestically away into the night sky. Also offerings of flowers were being made and candles in them lit before they were floated down the river. Large floats of lights in the shape of ships came down the river - firing out fireworks periodically. 

It was all a bit manic with hand launched fireworks whizzing above the crowd - paper lanterns either failing to rise or going up in flames.But after a few beers you didn't really mind that - so off we went to one of the loud sound stages to dance like falangs amidst the young Lao people! 

The people were very welcoming for the whole of the festival - although we stood out so obviously and we got a lot of stares for wearing shorts or singlet tops. A few women stopped to stare at us and attempted to ask questions - but there was a bit of a language barrier. We managed to communicate that we liked the falang music, but we also knew Laos style dancing - that got a laugh out of them!

Some of the older women and kids would also come up to us and grab and rub our arms - I'm not 100% sure why - think they were checking to see if our whiteness came off! They were more confused with those of our group with deep tans!

Coping with cluster bombs

Laos is the most bombed country in the world.

Not many people know that, strangely enough as it was never publicised at the time.

The US spent $2m a day to bomb neutral Laos during the Vietnam war - every day for nine years.

WTF America?!

The reasoning behind the bombing was to close down the Ho Chi Minh trail which came over the border from Vietnam, but they managed to bomb 70% of the country.

However the effects are still seen 40 years later as 30% of the ordnance is unexplored and still live in the ground in Laos - just waiting for kids to pick up cluster bombs (they look like tennis balls) and play with them. Or for the adults to see a large bomb casing and imagine how much money it will bring them to feed their family.

Bombies - the anti personnel cluster bombs - one canister could cover a 30m radius

100 people die from bombs or bombies exploding each year.

Many more are injured and disabled.

This is where organisations like COPE come in. We visited the COPE centre in Vientiane, next to the disabled stadium & Paralympic training centre.  

COPE helps people without limbs from exploded ordnance and other disabled people in Laos - including those with club foot. They help in a number of ways - prosthetic limbs, household improvements, physical therapy and training with specially adapted devices like the ones below:

Despite the fact that the Americans are to blame for the unexplored ordnance their main source if funding is from Austria - not the US.... Even Hillary Clinton admitted that the US should do more in a recent visit.

Viva Vang Vieng!

So the road to Vang Vieng on the orange Stray Asia bus was the windiest one I've been on in a while.

Getting to Vang Vieng meant going up & over some mountains until we arrived in limestone karst scenery - truly stunning!

On the way we stopped at a rest point with a loo with a view. The squatties didn't have any windows - just open sided to the valley and view after.

After we got to Vang Vieng we had to go through the official rite of passage for the town and go tubing. This requires renting an inner tube, getting a tuk tuk up the river and drifting down it stopping off at bars as you go. The multitude of bars and swings and zip lines meant that lots of people used to die here - so the government closed down most bars and removed the swings and zip lines. Having almost crashed into rocks under the surface of the water in my tube I can see how things would go wrong...

But for us it was all fine - until Cat and I got into some mud wrestling - unfortunately there were rocks under the mud and we both got grazes - ouch!

That evening was a group dinner with the Stray Asia crew and for those that could handle drinking for that long - dancing! However I couldn't so to bed it was.

The following day whilst some of the girls chilled out their hangovers, V, Kitty, Morag and I cycled out of town to the organic mulberry farm. Mr T - the owner and manager took us on a tour around, showing us the different mulberry bushes (for fruit or for feeding the silk worms - not something they focus on anymore), the goats, the pigs, the guinea pigs, the mud brick houses and then finally we got to try some mulberry leaves tempura, mulberry green tea and goats cheese!

Day 3 in Vang Vieng we decided to cycle out of town to the blue lagoon. This is situated by a cave about 7km along the dirt track out of town. 

To get to the track you have to pay a toll to cross the bamboo bridges and when they say dirt track they mean track with a lot of stones... Even on a mountain bike it felt like being on a bucking bronco! 

But it was worth it for a dip/swing/jump into the lagoon!

Whilst the girls went tubing on the final day V and I had a chilled morning (me nursing my illness with a tonne of paracetamol and strepsils - it's amazing what the pharmacies stock over here!) and then took a tuk tuk to the second bar to hang out with the girls for a few hours, grab some lunch and body paint before heading back to get ready for dinner.

That's my leg at the bottom - Cameo was body painter extraordinaire!

Our final dinner was pies at Gary's Irish bar - not exactly Lao!