Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Arriving in Koh Samui

Our arrival in Samui was fairly easy - the bus and boat connection was dead easy - but once we were on the island, we were in the hands of the local transport mafia. Transport in Samui is notoriously expensive for foreigners, and the minibus operators and taxi drivers were asking 2-3 times what you'd expect to pay on the mainland. Eventually we got into a taxi to take us to our guest house - but unfortunately the driver had no idea where our guest house was in the town of Mae Nam (a beach strip about a mile long). We didn't know either, but as it was directly on the beach, we thought that it couldn't be that difficult to miss! After driving us right along the main road, the driver then asked for more money if we wanted him to find it! We said that the 200 Baht should get us to our guest house directly, and that perhaps he could ask somebody where it was. He clearly wasn't in the slightest bit bothered about where he dropped us, and in the end he dumped us on the main road, a mile from the centre of town. After a debate about money (I wasn't going to pay for a taxi ride to nowhere, and to be dumped on the street with no idea where we were), he roared off without his money, and we were completely bewildered and lost. (Tired and irritable after a 19 hour journey? Hmm, what do you think?). So we just crossed the road and had a soft drink in a small shop. Fortunately, the owner knew exactly where we wanted to go, and got his son to drive us there in his pickup (it turned out the taxi driver had driven straight past our guest house, and had dumped us a mile away). What a fantastic bit of hospitality, and what a relief!

We'd booked The Florist guest house over the Internet 6 months ago, so that we could make our joint arrangements with Caroline and Peter. It was a little tricky finding the right kind of place, as we were looking for somewhere economical (ie cheap!) and they were looking for somewhere suitable for a two-week holiday from England. We were all flexible, and had all agreed that we would all want a swimming pool and air-conditioning as a minimum. In Bangkok we'd got exactly that for 960 Baht a night, but on Koh Samui we'd ended up looking for ages, as few places with a pool were affordable for us.

When we arrived, we discovered that it wasn't as beautiful as the photographs showed - the approach to the hotel was literally through a half-demolished garage, and between two bungalows - although the rooms were as good as they looked on the website. Panicking that our friends would hate it, we hired a jeep and scoured the island from top to bottom to find an alternative. We got back to the hotel at 8 o'clock exhausted and disappointed. We'd seen a few lovely places (Zazen Bungalows, for instance, were just beautiful), but most were well outside our (desperately-extended) budget - most were around 50 Pounds a night. We'd found just two suitable places, but neither were tropical paradises. We went to bed feeling grim and hoping things would be better in the morning.

Monday, March 29, 2004

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Around Siem Reap

Now that our pass for Angkor Wat has expired, we took the opportunity to drive around the countryside a little further, to see some of the sights away from the temples. As long as we're on roads, Mr Heng's tuk-tuk is quite comfortable, but off road it's definitely a bumpy experience. The tuk-tuk is basically a trailer that goes on the back of a normal moped. Sarah and I have a bench seat, while the girls sit on the front rest, holding onto the roof supports. When its moving, there's plenty of breeze, and its great for sight-seeing because there's nothing between you and the world.

In Asia, we've noticed that people are very creative with their transport - the picture on the left is a typical Asian MPV - 6 members of the same family perched on a single moped whizzing around town. If you click on the picture you'll see other examples of how people get around - from squatting on the roofs of lorries, to perching on the bonnets of trucks, and the contrast of a vintage Rolls Royce outside one of the grand hotels of Siem Reap, and how a pig is carried to market on a moped.

One of the things that we've been seeing this week is evidence of the 'missing generation' of Cambodia - during the reign of the Khmer Rouge very few children were born in Cambodia, so it is rare to see 25-29 year old Cambodians. In addition the Khmer Rouge systematically tried to wipe out intellectuals, government officials and monks, and even now the country is suffering from the results of that policy - which killed an estimated 2 million people, about a quarter of the population.

Our trip this morning took us past houses built on stilts alongside the river banks. They are very basic huts, and the toilet consists of a bamboo perch over the river. Unfortunately having a bath means bathing in the same river - downstream of everybody else's toilets. Yeuch! Poverty is evident around Cambodia, but even those in jobs receive low wages. A trained, experienced ophthalmologist could expect to earn $70 a month, a typical staff member at a 5-star hotel would earn $100 a month, and a tuk-tuk driver would typically earn $3-5 a day (which could go up to $10 a day when they were hired for a full-day by tourists). All in all, it means that in employment, a good salary would be $800-$1,200 a year. Its no surprise that we didn't see Cambodians drinking Coke, at $1 a can (on a British average salary, that's the equivalent of 20 Pounds a can!).

A study of contrasts

Cambodia is a country with huge contrasts, as I've already said, and our afternoon was a stark example of that. After spending the morning looking around poverty-stricken villages, the girls were invited over to the exclusive hotel for a swim with their new playmates. The hotel tuk-tuk picked them up, and they all took off across town with Sarah, in high spirits.

They spent the afternoon in and around one of the most expensive hotels I think I've experienced - $725 a night (no, not a typo) buys you a haven of peace and quiet in the middle of the hustle, bustle and building sites of Siem Reap. If you click on the picture on the left, you'll see some views of the kind of luxury that money can buy, and the serenity that it's possible to get even in the harshest of countries. It is all very deliberately low-key - the hotel doesn't have a name on the outside, and it isn't on any of the town maps, or the accommodation advertising. Instead it just sits as a silent oasis. Although it took us by surprise at first, it shouldn't have - after all it is the same the world over. Step outside of the London Savoy in the evening, and you have to walk around the homeless sleeping in shop doorways on The Strand. We still remember the contrasts of luxurious hotels and slums cheek-by-jowl in New Delhi. And I'm sure that the same contrast exists in every city around the world. It is clearer to see, if no less easy to understand, here in Cambodia. I wonder in a year's time, what the children will remember of it?

Friday, March 26, 2004

Last call for Angkor Wat

Our last day at Angkor Wat - our $40/3 day pass expires today, so we set off early again to get the most of our time. We'd chosen two last temples, the first being Preah Kahn (yes, I had to write the names down - there's no way I would remember all of these tomorrow!), which seemed an endless succession of dark passageways. Emily loved exploring through them, seeing what she could find, and seemingly trying to get lost!
Emily and Charlotte also both enjoy 'praying to Buddha' - at the heart of each temple, old women sit with joss sticks, encouraging tourists to make an offering to the temple by lighting sticks and bowing three times - followed by an offering of dollar notes into the indicated receptacle (which always seems to be mysteriously nearly empty). Fortunately, I've got some low denomination riel notes (4,000 Cambodian riel to $1) which means the girls can do it, and the old lady gets the cost of her joss sticks back, but without the multi-dollar profit that goes straight into her back pocket.

Then it was onto our very last temple, Ta Som. Again, the girls sat in the shade in the tuk-tuk, while we went in for a look around. The entrance was guarded by a gateway topped with the omnipresent Angkor face - this one had plants growing out of the cracks, and you could see daylight through some of the huge cracks which split the face. Every temple is undergoing some form of restoration, after years of neglect. Originally the French were the only country allowed to work on them, because they were the colonial power, but now Japan, the UK, India, America and others are all involved, and each has been allocated their 'own' temple to work on. And each seems to be restored differently - some towers are strapped together with ropes, awaiting further work, while some are completely dismantled and completely rebuilt. In the case of Ta Prohm (the overgrown one) the Indian restorers are busily working on how to get rid of all the trees growing around the temple (which is a shame, because that is the major attraction of it).

We also had the chance at Ta Som to take a couple of pictures with an obliging monk. From pictures we'd previously seen we'd expected the Angkor temples to be flooded with bald men in orange robes, but the reality is different. Many, many monks were killed during the Khmer Rouge rule, and we’ve seen less monks here than in neighbouring countries. Inside Angkor, most of the monks seem to be tourists too - from Thailand and Vietnam - who are visiting to see the sights just like us. We saw monks taking pictures of each other while they posed in front of temples.


In the evening, we went to the FCC, the Foreign Correspondents Club, which is a bar and restaurant offshoot of the famous Phnom Phen club. We'd managed to track down Daira, who we'd made friends with on the long bus journey from Bangkok. She was lucky enough to have friends in Siem Reap, who were the resident managers of a very exclusive hotel in town. She'd had a tough few days, with the hotel pool to cool off in, and some very special attention in a place where it would be really noticed. So Happy Hour at the luxurious FCC probably meant more to us - splashing out on $1 beers, with sugar-roasted peanuts to nibble on - and after so long without much beer, we managed to get merry on $10 of drinks! (My friends will at this point say something like "No change there then...").

Then we retired to her friend's apartment at the hotel, where Charlotte and Emily got to play with children their own age, while we ate pizza and talked about everything from living in Cambodia to the price of Sydney houses.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Tomb Raiding

Today's temple was Ta Prohm, which is the one which has been taken over by the jungle. Although much of the undergrowth has been removed, its still astonishing to see trees growing over, around and through the temple complex. The roots of the trees wind their way between the stones of the walls, and as they grow they literally pull the walls apart. As we'd chosen to visit early, we again had the luxury of an almost empty temple, which was a fantastic way to see the site. We already knew that some of the Tomb Raider film was shot here, but we also discovered that during the making of "Two Brothers" here 2 years ago, they had released a tiger to roam around the inside of the temple. Glad we missed that! The temple is like a rabbit warren - numerous passageways and doors blocked by piles of falling rubble, and it was really easy to get lost inside. By 9 o'clock the first bus tour had arrived and the temple suddenly started to fill with people - it changed the character of the temple from the deserted overgrown jungle temple that we'd experienced earlier (When people with American accents start bellowing "Chuck, move left and make your hands look like you're holding that tree up" you know that the magic has gone!)

Then we called into the temple of Bantai Prae, when the girls stayed in the tuk-tuk and we had a quick wander through - but it was probably one temple too many for now - they have all started to look very 'samey'. So by 10:30, we were back in the tuk-tuk, heading into town. On the way we stopped at one of the big tourist souvenir shops, to see if the things they had were different to the things we'd seen in the market. These shops are the ones they take busloads of tourists to, especially Japanese and Koreans, because they don't travel around town independently, and certainly wouldn't get down to the Old Market area (and the tour guides would discourage them, even if they had the time in their busy schedules). We found that the shops sold exactly the same things (wood carvings, stone carvings and paintings), but at hugely inflated prices - a replica of the Angkor stone faces costing $7 in the market, cost $110 in the shop! (Although the kind lady in the shop offered me a 'special' discounted price of $90).

The Landmine and War Museums

Two days ago we visited the Government-owned War Museum, and this afternoon we visited the privately-owned Landmine Museum. Both of them told the same story, of the terrible impact on the country of the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge period, and the continued civil war which ran until 1998. Although the displays focused on land mines, artillery, tanks and guns, it was the personal stories of suffering which will be the memories. At the War Museum, our guide was a 25-year old man who's brother was killed in front of him by Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who had lost his arm in the same attack, and had then heard that his parents had been killed by guerrillas while he was recovering in hospital. His parents had been killed with a spade for not handing over their water buffalo to the Khmer Rouge. Before coming to Cambodia we had read two books covering the Khmer Rouge period, so we have a basic understanding of the recent history of the country, and the impact on families of so many random, brutal deaths. We definitely found it difficult to listen to the personal story of family death, while looking at a display of AK47 and M16 rifles.

The Landmine Museum didn't have a guide there during our visit, but the impact of individuals' stories were still difficult to read, and especially to read out to Charlotte, who was captivated by them. The museum was setup by a man who had originally been a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge, then a soldier for the liberating/invading Vietnamese forces, and then finally a mine-clearer for the UN. His frank and brutal memories were pinned up on the walls, which were dotted with displays of deactivated mines and armaments. The owner still occasionally clears mines - one of the villagers had found a live landmine last summer in their back garden, 2M from the house and only 500m from where we were standing reading the story.

There was also a simulated minefield setup in the garden - even more moving since we knew that mines like these were laid all over Cambodia, and although some areas like the Angkor temples have been cleared, most others still lie in the ground and in paddy fields, waiting for somebody to stand on them. (If you want an innocent challenge, there are four mines in the photo on the left). One of the plaques reads "It costs $5 to purchase a mine and $500 to clear and destroy one. The museum is also home to young children injured by land mines, who's parents send them there to learn languages, go to school and hope to change their lives. As we left the museum, we saw them across the road, playing football on a patch of dirt. At first, it looked like a normal game of football, but after a second we realised that half the players were on crutches because they only had one leg, and the rest were missing one or two arms. It served as a reminder that Cambodia is home to 45,000 landmine victims, and every month there are 120 new victims. Only some of them are lucky enough to be injured within reach of a hospital, and even fewer have the $50 required to get the hospital treatment required to save their lives.

Cambodia is a country with high contrasts, and you can expect to have your thoughts challenged by what you see, hear and experience. And it causes you to ask questions about yourself and everything else.

Floating over Angkor

Somewhat incongruously we went from the Landmine Museum to the Angkor Wat balloon - a huge helium balloon which carries up to 12 passengers 200 metres into the air to get a view of the main Angkor Wat temple and the surrounding forests and fields. We'd chosen sunset to do it, so on one side we could see the sun turn dark red as it dipped, and on the other the reflection of that colour on the dark stones of the temple. Because it is the dry season, the view to the temple was hazy and unforgettable. Below us we could see paddy field after paddy field sitting dry and empty, waiting for the first rains of the monsoon season in May, when the farmers will all be out planting their rice plants in the flooded fields. From up high it was possible to get a real idea for the size of the Angkor site, and the way that much of it has been taken over by forest and jungle.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Angkor afternoon

The heat in the middle of the day is sweltering, even though we have had lots of time to adjust to Asian temperatures. It reaches around 36 degrees, with no breeze to cool you. Its little wonder that it is typical for people to shut up shop and take a rest in Asia during the heat of the day, and it is one Asian habit that we're copying, especially because of the children. We'd arranged for Mr Heng to collect us later, as by 3:30 the heat is starting to fade a little, and we had our second sightseeing trip of the day planned.

We went straight the Bayon temple, inside the Angkor Thom city walls. Amazingly it was empty, as all of the tour groups go there in the morning, and we had it almost to ourselves. Why do they do it - why do all of the buses turn up at the same time, and leave at the same time? It doesn't make sense, especially at Angkor, where there's so much to see, and could be so many different routes through. Anyway, its good for us! From a distance Bayon looks like a ruin, but the closer you get, the easier it is to see the turrets rising out, each with four of the big Angkor-style faces on them. The faces are present at many of the temples, but it is at Bayon where every single vertical surface seems to be carved with them.

As you can see, each of the faces are huge, comprised of loads of individual granite blocks assembled into a single face. Some of them are quite well defined, while others have moss, lichen or plants growing on them. We enjoyed wandering around, climbing and descending the incredibly steep staircases, but by the end of an hour the girls were tired, and ready to rest again.

So we headed back to Mr Heng's tuk-tuk, and drove back to Angkor Wat. Once we were there, the girls decided to stay in the tuk-tuk, while we went to watch the sun set on the temple. We felt relaxed, because Mr Heng was very good with the girls (we discovered later that he had taken them to see the Angkor hot air balloon while we were inside), and they feel safe and relaxed with him. Mind you, the first time we did, we couldn’t help but think of the dialogue ("So, Mr Fleming, when was the last time you saw your children? Oh, you just left them with a tuk-tuk driver you first met this morning..."). Angkor was beautiful in the setting sun, with a pink glow in the sky, but because it was later in the day than our last visit, the beggars were out in force. On the walk across the causeway to the temple entrance we were accompanied by small children begging plaintively. We think that these children are part of a begging mafia clan, similar to Thailand, where they are bussed in by a controlling gang who keep their takings, and pay the children a wage. In town, we know that many of the children are from families who live under the trees in the park, so Charlotte and Emily collect all of our meal leftovers, like bread, and give them to the children on the street.

When we got back to the tuk-tuk, we found the children happily talking away with a dozen of the children who sell things outside the entrance - postcards, drinks, fans, films, and anything else a tourist might (or might not!) want. Although they can be cute when they are selling you something, they also can hassle you if you don't, or especially if you buy just from one of them. Buy a drink from one, and the rest would shot at you "Oh my God, you said you didn't want one. Why you not buy from me? Why you not buy from me?". It can be quite intimidating, and actually lead you to just ignore the worst of them. But with the girls in the tuk-tuk, it was just a case of children talking to children - "Where are you from? How old are you? Do you know David Beckham?" etc

Angkor Wat and Beyond

What are we, mad? After an exhausting day two days ago, we got up this morning at 5am to meet Mr Heng and go to Angkor Wat for sunrise. We knew we had to do it, so we thought we should get it done soon. Although lots of people do get up this early to see it, most of them stop at the main entrance to the temple, to get the view on the left. It was worth the early start, with the trademark towers of the main temple outlined by the red sky. Angkor is actually a collection of dozens of temples spread across 25 miles of countryside, with the largest temple, Angkor Wat, the most famous. Over the next 3 days we plan to visit half a dozen, as well as seeing others from the road (drive-by-tourism), all on the back of Mr Heng's tuk-tuk.

Because we went further into the temple, we were able to get some peace and quiet - its always curious to us that you only have to go 50m of the well-trodden path to have solitude. In this case, the girls are sitting at the inner entrance to the temple complex, which is packed full during the day, but for sunrise everybody stops short of it. When we walked in further to the temple itself, we again had it virtually to ourselves - apart from a little rush of people heading down from the main tower - they'd seen the sunrise, and were heading back home.

Inside the main temple, the detail of the buildings and carvings took our breath away - on every surface were classic Khmer tales, related through stone carvings. Although they are over 800 years old, they still looked new in many places. The girls loved climbing the suicidally steep stairs to the top of the temple, where we could get a panoramic view of the temple and the forest surrounds. Coming back down was a more difficult task, and had to be completed slowly!

Then we went onto the South Gate, the entrance to the ancient city of Angkor Thom. On the far side of the gates used to sit a huge bustling city, but now it is just forest, with temples dotted around. We thought we'd do a classic tourist thing for an elephant photo, but we took the backpacker option of just having the and then hopping off the elephant - costing us $4, but saving the full $30 of a ride into the temple complex! After we'd had a good look around the gate, we went into the city. As it had already been a tiring day (wow, almost 10 o'clock now - 5 hours after we started!) we stayed in the tuk-tuk while we drove around a couple of temples to whet our appetite for this afternoon.

Then it was back to the hotel for a sleep, a quick look around the market, and lunch.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Waking up in a building site

We were woken up at 7.30 by the builders on the floor above, knocking a hole in the wall. Just what you need after a long bus trip. At 9 we checked out, and realised that the whole of Siem Reap is a building site. The whole town looks completely unfinished, and on every corner a new hotel is being built. Tourism has only been possible since 1998, and in that time it has grown immensely - and obviously the investors think it has got a lot further to grow. So huge 6 storey hotel blocks are filling the centre of town, and new ones are sprouting up on any vacant land. But the grandeur stops at the hotel gates - outside is dust, dirt, grime and beggars.

We caught a tuk-tuk to the Old Market area of town, and sat down to breakfast. Amazingly, with poverty and hardship all around us, we were able to have bacon baguettes and café latte. This is a very weird black-and-white city. The architecture is a mix of modern grandeur, French colonial, and bamboo huts. After perking up a bit after breakfast, we saw that there was a guest house right next door (on the 1st floor in the photo), which was lovely. By 11 o'clock we were different people. Our doubts about Cambodia had gone - we had a really friendly tuk-tuk driver, a clean guest house, and had had a good meal. Things were looking up!

Inside the guest house our room was air-conditioned, with a clean bathroom and comfortable beds. As well as our own private balcony, there was also a balcony with a café on it, and an internet café. We could sit there, enjoy the view of the river, and also get away from the street level beggars. Everything in Cambodia seems more expensive than Bangkok - drinks typically cost $1, and an item of food costs $2-4 - at least twice that of Bangkok. We all had a sleep, and then Mr Heng, our tuk-tuk driver took us to see sunset from the hilltop temple beside Angkor Wat.

We discovered that everybody vists Phnom Bakheng for sunset too, so after a steep climb up, carrying Emily, we were met with the sight of a temple-full of visitors. Mr Heng had offered to carry Emily up, and instead helped Charlotte all the way. Mr Heng has his own children, and its obvious that he will be really helpful for our visits to Angkor. As we are so far inland, the sky is quite clear of clouds, and the dust in the air makes the sunsets very red. After yesterday's hellish day, it was a great ending to the day.

For dinner we ate around the corner from our guest house, and discovered that a can of beer and a can of Coke cost the same thing - good news!

Monday, March 22, 2004

The longest bus trip in the world

Well, we can't say that we weren't warned - we did know that the overland trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap would be terrible. But we also knew we had no choice - we really, really wanted to see Angkor Wat, and our budget couldn't stretch to 500 pounds for us to all fly there and back. So instead of the 1 hour flight, we endured the worst bus trip we've done as a family. We had a 7am start at Bangkok, where the bus picked us up outside our accommodation - even at that time in the morning, it was obvious that the air-conditioning was nearly dead, and the thousand mozzies in the bus made a meal of us all. But this was a backpacker-special, and we've noticed that tour operators can get away with things that the Thais would never put up with. The trip towards the border was slow - we were overtaken by everything, including a dustcart - and every few minutes we were passed by a coachload of cold Thais, while we sweated away in our sauna-bus. Finally, after 180 miles on motorways and highways, and 6hours, we pulled into the lunch spot, 6 miles from the border. Basically the trip is run by a bunch of people who want to get every penny possible out of you, so the stop was designed to get people to pay them to collect their Cambodia visas in advance. We didn't bother, because we knew we could get it instantly at the border, and for a lot less than we were being charged - but we still had to wait for 2 hours anyway. The finally, at 3 o'clock we were piled into another minibus and driven to the border.

The crossing was easy, and the visas issued quickly. We had to walk across the dusty bridge and road between the two countries, past the swish casinos that sit in no-mans-land. At the other side we our bus chap collected us, and got us into a tuk-tuk to go to their office for the minibus - and then got us back out of the tuk-tuk because the minibus had come to us! But that only went 300 yards, before dropping us at their office. And then we waited while everybody was sorted into different minibuses. Finally, at 4 o'clock we were off, in a jam packed midi-bus.


The first 40 kilometres were better than we thought - the road had tarmac, although in some places that had been badly rutted by lorries, and potholes a foot deep and six feet long had been made by the rains and traffic. So it was slow going, but it wasn't as dusty as everybody had warned.

But that soon changed. After the first town when the main highway turned right to Phnom Penh, we were on a dust road. The slow pace turned even slower (much of the time the driver couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us), and the windows were all shut because of the dust. We started to simmer gently (outside the temperature was nudging 36-degrees, but the aircon kept it to a gentler 30 in the bus)

Life in Cambodia passed the windows. The snap on the left shows a Cambodian petrol station - basically a line of Fanta bottles filled with petrol for motorbikes (the dominant transport on the road, and seemingly everywhere in Cambodia). We kept going, occasionally overtaking overloaded lorries (a scary time, because there was no way that the driver could see beyond them), and diverting into the fields around broken bridges (hmm, might not have been so bad if we hadn't spotted occasional mine warning posters in the villages). At 7pm the sunset, and soon it was dark. We had no idea how much further we had to go, and at 8:30 we stopped for dinner in the only restaurant on the route - slap bang in the middle of nowhere. Our first impression is of a country with crushing poverty - the villages are the most basic we've seen, and the people appear to have very little.

After another hour we stopped for a toilet break - again the only ones on the trip - and were besieged by small children selling handicrafts, drinks and begging for dollars. (Cambodia runs on dollars - the local currency is useful only for small items in the market - everything else, from drinks to meals to transport, is priced in dollars). Everybody we met was fascinated by Emily and Charlotte, and every time we stopped they were the centre of attention.

Finally at 11pm we arrived in Siem Reap - 16 hours and 280 miles later - and average of less than 20 miles an hour. Of course it was pitch black, and everybody seemed to be in bed. We were dropped at a guest house which was a building site, so we got a tuk-tuk to look for another one. After an hour, failing to find the ones we'd been recommended, we ended back up at the building site, and booked in for one night.

Despite the hour, the journey and the heat, the girls had been really, really well behaved throughout. On the bus they'd enjoyed the bumps, comparing the trip favourably to the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. And they'd had some great company from Bob, an American traveller who had an endless supply of songs, stories and activities for them. Even the fact that we only had 2 toilet stops during the whole day wasn't a problem! We were all wondering how we would enjoy Cambodia - it seems full of hassle and extremely difficult to travel.

Saturday, March 20, 2004

Friday, March 19, 2004

Tuk-Tuk-to-Tuk-Tuk, One More Time

We had a late start this morning, as the crew came to us for 10 o'clock! So we had time to sit down to breakfast, and read the paper. The Bangkok Post's Quote of the Day, on the front page, was a rather prescient quotation from Albert Einstein - "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Although we didn't know it at the time, it rather summed up the day!

We headed off towards the Grand Palace, to do some filming of a tuk tuk trip. These are evil little three-wheeled motorbikes, which you can see all over Bangkok, whizzing through the traffic and leaving a trail of grey smoke behind them. Most of the ones around Khao San Road seem to be driven by scam-merchants, wanting to either take you to a jewellery shop, or asking three times the fare that you'd pay in an air-conditioned taxi. But there are good tuk tuk drivers, if you look hard enough, and Oh Oh found two for us to film with.

We spent the next hour going 1) in circles 2) mad and 3) round the bend! While the crew filmed our tuk tuk weaving through traffic, and mowing down pedestrians, we all kept smiling out of the sides of the vehicle "Oh look, there's the Grand Palace - again". Each time we got to the end of the shot, our driver would start to slow down until Ginny gave a commanding wave onward, and bellowed the words "One More Time" across three lanes of traffic! By the ninth time, we were all dizzy, and nearly unconscious from the exhaust fumes, and the driver was starting to wonder whether he'd make it home that night. Every time we went round the block, he'd yell out to his mates - a huge stream of Thai, with the words "One More Time" embedded in the middle.

The afternoon started with a boat trip down the klongs (the narrow canals that form the backstreets of parts of Bangkok), when the two previous 14-hour days caught up with the girls, and they fell asleep. But after a delicious, and very posh, lunch they perked up, just in time for Charlotte to do her closing interview for the camera. Set against the background of the river and Grand Palace, she waxed lyrical about squat toilets, street food and sharing a bedroom with all of us for the last 9 months.

We then had our final interview, and while all of this was happening Oh Oh played with Emily - brushing the hair of the Barbies, and learning the Emily Rules of Uno. By the time we'd finished, half of the staff of the restaurant seemed to be playing Uno and Barbies too!

We'd reached the end of our filming week, and Ginny rounded it off with a thank you meal for everybody.

Thursday, March 18, 2004

To market, to market, to buy me a...boat

Another day, another early start. We had to jump out of bed at 5:15, so that we were in a taxi at 6:15, racing across town to get to the BBC's hotel. Then we all piled into the minibus to go to the floating market at Damnoen Saduak. There are a number of 'floating markets' around Bangkok, but the one at Damnoen Saduak is a 'real' one - there for the locals - so it is certainly the best place to see the real floating market action. Basically, the market is a pile of vendors, paddling their own boats, selling everything from fruit and veg, to meals, to Chinese-style hats. The trip started at 9 with an exciting speedboat ride through the backwater canals, whizzing past people's front doors. Normally the trip is high-speed all the way, but it was a bit stop-start for us, as we leap-frogged with the camera crew in the boat, alternately being filmed from alongside, in front, behind, whizzing past them, them whizzing past us, etc etc. We didn't get any photo's, but I'm sure you'll see some of it in the programme, because it would make interesting TV.

Then it was a more sedate pace, as a lady paddled us around the market itself, past all of the women trying to sell us pineapples and banana fritters (successful) and fish balls and wooden frogs (unsuccessful). And all the time we were being directed from the shore - "Yes, buy that pineapple on a stick - No, not yet - Okay, now - Do it again, but this time pick it up more quickly - Okay, now eat the pineapple"- at which point we all had to give up, because it is impossible to eat a huge chunk of pineapple in a way that won't put people off when they're sitting down to their tea on a Monday night!. And as you can see, we all got in the boat, crew and all, and paddled around the market some more. Highly entertaining, if not a little cramped and unstable!

Finally, it was all back in the minibus for the two hour drive back to Bangkok, and on to our guest house, where the crew filmed our accommodation, the girls swimming and an interview about the highs and lows of our last 9 months. And then we went round the corner to our local eating place, and had dinner for the camera. I'm sure that when it's all edited together we'll look like total tourists as we were staying in a decent (12-pounds-a-night) guest house, and we didn't have a stitch of tie-dye on all week. We've stayed in some pretty grungy accommodation, and done some awful bus trips, but for a hard week filming in Bangkok, we thought we ought to have somewhere decent to get home too. Still, all the 'rucksack' stuff got edited out last time, and none of it has been filmed this time, so we know what to expect.

After getting up at 5:15, we got an early finish, and we were wrapped up by 7:30 again, ready for the girls to go straight to bed.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

A long day out to the River Kwai

Today started really early, as we all had to get up at 5:30, to catch a 6:15 taxi to the train station. We were due to catch the 7:45 train out to Kanchanaburi, where the 'Bridge over the River Kwai' was built. But first we had to get through a filmed discussion on the platform. This is when we discovered that Emily can be brutally uncooperative at 7 o'clock in the morning! It took us a good 10 minutes to get her just to sit on a bench and listen. But in the end, we got the shot that Ginny wanted. But it showed the part of Emily's character where she doesn't like to do things when she's told (who can she get that off I wonder?) - she makes it pretty clear she's not prepared to be a performing seal! Fortunately, our tourist board co-ordinator, Oh Oh, has been an immediate hit with Emily, and whenever the camera isn't switched on Emily wants to sit with her, talk to her and play with her. And in return, each morning Emily and Charlotte both get a little treat from her to play with (today: a bendy Robbie the Reindeer for Emily, and a brush set for Charlotte).

The train trip was a joy, with the carriage full of Thai teachers on a trip, singing and clapping away, the windows down and warm air rushing through the carriage. The further westwards we travelled, the further away the coast was, and the warmer it became. By the time we reached Kanchanaburi at midday it was sweltering as the train crept over the bridge, packed full of tourists who'd hopped on at the town station. The story of the construction of the bridge is pretty horrific - allied Prisoners of War were used to build a 250 mile railway from Thailand through to Burma, through horrific forest, infested with malaria. During the construction tens of thousands died, including over 6,000 British prisoners. Today, none off that is evident, save the railway bridge and the line which goes about half the original distance. Instead, it's now a major tourist attraction, with people making the day trip from Bangkok to see it. The Japanese tourists come here to see a bridge 'built by the Japanese during the war', completely oblivious to the horrific way that their countrymen treated the prisoners, and the deaths. And few of the Japanese visit the museums, or war cemeteries, that illustrate the shocking story.

After crossing the bridge on the train, we hopped off the train at the next station, and drove back to the town to film us walking the tracks over the bridge. If you see it on the programme it'll look pretty innocuous, but it was far from it in real life - the wooden planks of the path only covered the centre of the tracks - trip up either side and you could fall between the sleepers into the river below! Fortunately we didn't, so we all made it to lunch safely. We really needed to get into the cool shade, because the heat was unbearable, hovering around 40°C, so lunch on a floating restaurant on the river bank was just the ticket.

After lunch, and filming the train returning across the bridge, we went to film at the war graves in town, wandering between the ranks of 6,000 Allied prisoners buried in this one patch of ground. The moment was taken away a bit by the inevitable half-hour wait for filming permissions to be sorted, but we managed to get that sorted and get on with the filming. Filming for something like this is a bit peculiar, because we ended up doing the same walk a few times, from different camera angles. After filming, we made a quick visit to the Death Railway museum, where we learnt more about the conditions for the prisoners, and the work that they did, before piling back into the minibus for the trip back to Bangkok.

It wasn't typical of the trip that we'd have done with the children, as the filming schedule meant that we couldn't do the things the girls would have loved, like elephant riding and bamboo rafting down the Kwai, so perhaps we'll come back to Kanchanaburi again if we have time later.

On the way back to town we all learnt more about Martin, the sound man. He is Swiss, but has lived in Thailand for 10 years, and is soon to get married to his Thai girlfriend. As is traditional in Thailand, he will pay the bride's family a dowry for her when they marry, and this week with the BBC will be exactly the right amount. I can imagine the headlines now "BBC cash used to buy beautiful Thai bride". Martin is unlike any Swiss person I've met before - all week he's been smiling away, cracking jokes and joining in with the fun.


By the time we got back to the guest house it was 7:30pm. After getting up at 5:30am, it had been a long, hot day for all of us, and especially for the girls, so we quickly grabbed a snack each and headed for bed, setting the alarm for 5:15(am!) tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Not getting easier

On our second day of filming, we didn't have much packed down on the agenda, but the traffic in Bangkok makes it so difficult to get around - it takes ages to get between shots. Unfortunately the BBC's hotel is on the other side of town from ours, so we had to set off at 8:15 in a taxi to meet up with the crew at the Holiday Inn, and then hop in the minibus and retrace our steps back to the Snake Farm - it was only a mile, but it took an hour to get there!

Before we could actually start any filming, we had the usual tedious wait for film permissions to be signed off - this is incredibly infuriating, just sitting around waiting outside the gates, instead of being able to wander around and take a look at the displays like all of the other visitors (after about 20 minutes waiting outside, Charlotte and I just snuck in to look at the snakes in their cages, rather than just sit outside for ever). When the paperwork was finally sorted, we went in to watch the show of snakes - the King Cobra looked scary close up, especially when the snake handler showed us his hand with only 3 fingers on it - the fourth finger had been bitten off by one of the snakes years ago. Then they force fed a baby python, with huge pieces of chicken (it looked so awful, there's no way you'll see that on TV!), and milked a cobra for it's venom.

Emily has been having a daytime sleep all the time that we've been in Asia, because of the exhausting heat, but she falls asleep at different times each day - normally on a bus or when we're moving around, or we go back to our room for a couple of hours while she drifts off. But during the filming it's more of a problem, because the only break is the lunch break, and she's not going to fall asleep while everyone else eats lunch! So today she started lunch in a bad mood, because she needed a sleep, and this carried on all the way through lunch until we caught the boat to Wat Arun. This meant that she was irritable (read: stroppy as anything) getting into the boat, and then fell asleep as we were filming the trip. It obviously created a bit of a problem for Ginny filming it, but that's the downside of working with children, especially in hot climates.

So while we all sat at Wat Arun waiting for the filming permission to be sorted (another 45 minutes...) Emily slept soundly in the shade. In fact, she was still asleep when the crew were ready to film us walking around, so we just had to wait for her to wake up (not a popular decision when you've got a film crew waiting, and a schedule to keep, but we (still) think that's the only thing you can do).

But when we finally got going, we managed to film some of the 'walking around, looking at the temple' shots, and an interview with us on the steps of the temple, and then suddenly 5:30 had arrived - we'd been going for 9 hours, and we were all completely worn out from the heat. When the filming finished, we headed straight back to the guest house for a swim and a cool down, and then a quick dinner and bed. The girls were both flat out by 8 o'clock.

Monday, March 15, 2004

Bangkok Filming – Day One

Hmm. Here's a challenge for you – make a factual programme about a family visiting the Bangkok City Palace, without being allowed to film in the Bangkok City Palace. Yup, defeats me too! It turns out that item number one on the schedule was sabotaged by the Thai authorities, who won't allow filming inside the palace except for documentaries – and apparently that means general video shots, without any presenters or anything in it. And we qualify as 'presenters' in Thailand.

So poor old Ginny had to cope with being told that she couldn't film us inside the Palace, but she could take film of tourists milling about etc as long as we weren't the tourists she was filming! So we spent an hour and a half looking round the palace, trying to stay out of camera shot. It was like something out of a satirical movie. (Apparently this is because a company made a 'naughty' film using the Palace, and since then nobody's been allowed to do any commercial filming there). Anyway, we got some nice photos for our photo album, and saw the lovely golden temple.

Click on the left hand photo to find out what Shanghai's answer to David Bailey was photographing... The strangest thing was that lots of Asian tourists wanted to take pictures of the girls – one group of Chinese tourists each wanted a picture like the one on the right – posing with a palace guard and Charlotte and Emily. Maybe we should be doing what the long-necked tribes do in Mae Hong Son – 'One Photo One Dollar'

We finally left the Palace around 1 o'clock (three hours filming anything but us...) and went to lunch. We were all baking from the hours of standing in the sun, so it was a huge relief to get into air conditioning and cool down. Charlotte and Emily were showing signs of tiredeness (they'd woken up at 6:30 this morning, just a bit excited!) but were bouncing with energy after ice-cream.

Then it was off to Wat Po, the home of the reclining Buddha. Even though Sarah and I had seen it before, it can still take your breath away – seemingly an endless gold Buddha lying on his side, housed in an enormous painted temple building.

But before we could see any of that, we had to wait for the filming permissions to be sorted out. Thailand can be quite officious in administrative matters, and we seemed to be sitting on the steps of the temple for an hour before the Tourism Authority man came back with the paperwork stamped (it had all be arranged in advance, but apparently still required the signature of the Abbot of the temple before the camera could go inside). I think we're going to get used to sitting and waiting for things to happen this week.

Anyway, once we were in, it was great, putting gold leaf onto the small Buddha, dropping 100 coins each into the wishing pots – the girls even got to have their fortune told, by shaking fortune sticks from a little tube, and the one that fell out was their fortune – all on camera, repeated three times from different angles. Emily loved this idea – she thought she'd get to pick whichever fortune read best.

Finally I got to collect their fortune sheets, and read them out to them for the benefit of the viewer. Here's Emily's (complete with typos)"Good lucks graduslly approaching. Just like building a bridge, difficelt first but happy later. Your lover is a rich widow and a good match. Health is excellent". I will admit to having some difficulty explaining that to her! Anyway, by the end of all that we were nearly finished for the day, just another two 'walks past camera', and then we took the girls back to the hotel, completely worn out. A combination of heat, waiting, early rising and general apathy, which soon disappeared within sight of the swimming pool.

It was a difficult filming day, because Emily really needed a mid-day sleep, and Charlotte wasn't "into it" in the same way she had been in Canada. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Friday, March 12, 2004

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

The Mai Sai Elephant Training Camp

We hired a car and travelled out to the Mai Sai village to visit the Elephant Training camp there (turned out to be cheaper to do that than buy the excursion tickets for 4 of us!). Thailand has got a glut of elephants at the moment, because they have stopped using them to work on logging projects in the forest, and instead use machines. As these elephants are trained and tamed, they can't just be released into the wild again - in fact, logging is such a big business here, there is little 'wild' to let them back into. So they've been brought down from the hills, trained further, and now are used in the tourist trade to put on shows for the public.

Whether this is a good thing or not, we couldn't decide. There seemed to be few decent alternatives, and at least having them in the full view of tourists all day provides some form of guarantee that they are well looked after.

But we couldn't decide what to think when we saw the elephants playing football, and painting. They seemed to do it willingly, and even turned out to be good footballers and painters. But was it right? It didn't feel right, but the crowds of Thai and Japanese tourists around us hooted, clapped and cheered wildly, thoroughly enjoying it.

The girls loved it, and at the end of the show they fed them sugar cane and bananas. But Emily was very hesitant about getting too close to them. Charlotte, who started off nervous initially, got used to them, and even managed to smile while she was sitting on one of the elephant's heads for a photo. Later we went for a walk right around the elephant training camp, to see the nursery facilities with the new-born elephants, and the places where their food is prepared. We came away pretty sure that they were being well cared for there.

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

The Streets of Chiang Mai

Streets in Thailand strike us as completely chaotic, just a mess of vehicles with motorbikes darting in and out constantly. It makes crossing the road a somewhat hit-n-miss affair, but at least the drivers slow down a little when they see a foreign family weaving its unsteady way across their path. One of the amazing sights is to see what fits on a motorbike. Often bikes pass with the whole family onboard - baby in front of Dad, Dad driving, the second child behind Dad, and then finally Mum at the back. Or we see bikes carrying unlikely loads - once we saw one with an adult pig strapped to the bag, in a basket. The traffic also creates a terrible smog in the busiest streets, where you'll normally see the police wearing face masks, looking like surgeons ready to operate (on your wallet...)

We visited Wat Chet Yot, with its Indian-style shrine. Wats provide one of the most common sightseeing opportunities in Asia, and although they may look superficially similar, there's always something different inside the walls. In Wat Chet Yot we found 'days of the week Buddha', with a number of depictions of different Buddha images for each day of the week. It gave us the opportunity to try and work out who was born on which day of the week, from looking at the positions. We decided that Uncle Euan must have been born on a Tuesday, and I must have been born on a Monday (that body language sums it up!). The one thing that we couldn’t work out was why there were two Wednesday Buddhas - it seemed to be the case on every set we saw. (Our theory? People born on a Wednesday are fussy, and insist on a choice!)

Monday, March 08, 2004

Leaving Laos

It seems like ages ago that we arrived in Laos, but in reality it was only 11 days ago. But now we need to leave - our visa only lasts for a fortnight, and we've got other things to get to. We had 3 options - the two day slow boat to the Thai border, plus 10 hours on a bus to the city of Chiang Mai; return the way we came - 12 hours on a bus, then 12 hours on a train to Bangkok. Or fly out. Eventually, when we managed to get a flight for $70, we decided to fly to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. After spending a few days there, we'll then head back to Bangkok to meet up with the BBC Holiday crew.

So we sadly left the haven of Luang Prabang, and flew with Thai Airways (not before paying 400,000 Kip in departure tax!). As we flew out, the pilot had to dodge around a couple of huge smoke plumes, created by big burning areas of woodland. Getting into the city was easy by taxi, but the Guest House we'd chosen was full, so we wandered the streets for about an hour until we found one we liked (3 pounds a night for a triple fan room). Chiang Mai is an ancient city, and the streets are a complete warren of little alleyways tucked between the big, busy streets. These little alleyways, called Sois, are named after the main road, and numbered along the road. Once you've discovered the secret, it does become a little easier to navigate, but you'll often come across businesses advertising their address alongside a 'description for taxi', like 'The alleyway opposite JJ's restaurant, then on the left'. While Chiang Mai doesn't seem to have changed too much, they have at least put up fancy signs on every soi, to make life easier. The other thing that you see on the street everywhere in Chiang Mai is draping electric cables, in huge bunches hanging down and across the street (you can see them on the same photo above).

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Getting around Luang Prabang

We're becoming experts on getting around Luang Prabang (not difficult – there are so few ways to do it, and so few places to go!).

Slow boat up the Mekong
One of the ways to enter or leave Laos for Thailand is to take the slow boats which ply the Mekong river. Although we've declined the 2 day trip, we did take a slow boat up the river today for an hour, watching the world drift by. The boats, which are designed to be cheap to run, have absolutely no headroom at all – I couldn't imagine sitting on a rock hard wooden seat, with my knees on my chin, listening to a howling engine, for 2 whole days. Although you see lots of life on the river bank, its becomes very 'samey' after a short while. Everyone on the banks is either fishing, bathing, doing their laundry, or collecting sea weed for the market. And with the smokey haze, everything beyond the immediate banks is out of sight. After 2 hours, I think we're glad we only took the short trip ($5 an hour, if you're interested).

Bicycles
Emily decided to wear a sarong-skirt for cycling around Luang Prabang, and therefore spent the whole day side saddle. And because we couldn't get a child's bike, Charlotte was again on the back of mine, which made it even more hard work than normal, especially as Laos bikes don't have gears, and normally the saddle is set at the ideal height for a genetically-vertically-challenged-person (dwarf). But with so few cars around, it wasn't a dangerous undertaking, and it meant we could get right out of the city and into the straw-hut suburbs.(Bikes are $1 a day)

Jumbo
Don't ask me why they're called 'jumbos', because they’re anything but. Basically, a jumbo is a minivan with bench seats in the back and a roof. (Similar to a tuk tuk, but with four wheels not three, but with the same engine - lifted straight from a Travelodge hair dryer). At first we thought they were great, because they seemed to get from A to B okay. But then we made the mistake of going out to the waterfall in one ("Hey Mista! I do you a good price Mista! You come me to waterfall Mista!"). The first 2 miles were good. But then the road ran out, or at least the tarmac did, and we drifted over the top of mud and stones, kicking up a huge dustcloud behind us. What a hoot! Couldn't see a thing behind us, and every bike we passed got immersed in a dust bowl. And then the first lorry passed us, and we started to breathe road-dust. By the time we'd arrived at the waterfall, we all looked like we'd been one of Rommel's tank commanders racing to El Alamein. Our skin had taken on a lovely shade of mud-brown. (The Jumbo cost us $10 to take us, wait and bring us back - a 4 hour round trip)

Foot
Turned out to be a pretty good option in Luang Prabang, because there was always something new around every corner, and the lack of heavy traffic meant that even the fact that pavements stop in a big hole with regularity everywhere in Asia wasn't a problem. (Travelling by foot costs ice creams and fizzy drinks at regular intervals!)

Friday, March 05, 2004

Waterfalls

Although there's enough to see and do in Luang Prabang, we thought we ought to make an effort to get out to the waterfalls, 15 miles from town. As it is currently the dry season, we’d expected a trickle of muddy water over a small rock. We definitely weren't prepared for what we found – a 60 metre stepped waterfall ending in a series of crystal-blue pools (yes, it actually says that in our guide book, but even then we didn't expect it!). We didn't even take the girls' swimming costumes, but that didn't stop Emily stripping down to her knickers and jumping in. The fact that the water was almost freezing nearly stopped her, but then she's obviously got less cold-receptors in her skin than me.

Further downstream we came across beautiful blue pools of water, hemmed in by bamboo thickets, and ideal for swimming in. We also found a tiger – but fortunately (or not, depending on how you view these things) he was behind a fence. He'd been rescued from poachers at the age of 2 months, and was now being raised in a large enclosure in the jungle, with help from a British charity (we donated, but were in two minds – their next objective is to move his enclosure into town, which can't be a good thing, can it?). Although we're enjoying the city, we found it nice to get out into some countryside for a change – we'll have to try it again sometime!

In the evening we went to the night market, a kind of craft-fair (oh joy!) covering the whole of the main street of Luang Prabang. There are hundreds of stalls, all pretty much selling the same thing (Why do they do that in Asia? It's the same with villages – you pass through a village where everybody sells watermelon, and then another where everyone sells strawberries. What's wrong with diversity?) Anyway, the night market thrived on selling needlework, silverware and 'Laos' t-shirts. There are only 3 t-shirts available in Laos – one with the Lao-phabet, one with the Laos flag and one labelled 'Laos Beer'. That's it. Period. Want another design? Go to Thailand.

Sarah drifted off on her own, delighted with the fact that she had a quarter of a million (Kip) burning a whole in her pocket. Seemed like a lot of money to me, but apparently it only got us a painting, two Laos script scrolls, a set of silver opium weights, two shoulder bags for the girls, a pencil case for Charlotte's return to school, five Chinese-style soapstone carvings and a Lao-phabet T-shirt. Hey, that's not bad for $25!. Didn't get much change from a quarter of a million, but then I'd recklessly spent 25 cents on a postcard.

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Monks – everywhere!


Wherever you go in Luang Prabang, the monks are inescapable. On every street corner, set of steps and pavement, there is normally a monk chatting or hurrying between temples. It is one of the things which makes Luang Prabang stand out as an other-world place.

At 6.30 in the morning, the monks leave their monasteries and temples, wearing just their orange robes, and carrying a silver alms bowl. They walk around the streets of the city, receiving gifts of sticky rice from the townsfolk, who get up each morning to give each monk a small amount of rice. As there are dozens of people doing this, the monks receive a days supply of rice.

We tried to relate this back to village life at home – could we imagine Father Hugh going round the village begging for his lunch, collecting one scrap of scrambled egg here, another there? And could we imagine us, as parishioners getting up at 6 o'clock to cook it, and then waiting on bended knees on the pavement for him? I don't think so.

There are hundreds of monks involved too, each queuing patiently in the cold air, wearing no shoes and only their light saffron robes. In fact, there are so many monks doing this, that sometimes they have to have a system of 'traffic control' to stop the separate columns interfering with each other (in the picture on the left, the column going straight ahead, has to wait for the column from the left to cross, before they can move forward. It took about 5 minutes!). After that the monks and novices return to their temples, to eat breakfast and prepare for their studies.

In Laos, every man must become a monk for a few days before he marries, so the monasteries and temples are full of novice monks, all with newly shaven heads. Some of the novices do only stay for a short while, but others are there for 3 to 5 years, with only one trip a year back to visit their families. We met novices as young as 8, living in the temples, away from their families. But it's not as archaic as it sounds – in their lessons they learn Buddhism and restoration of temples, but also algebra, art and other technical skills. And we saw that each evening some of the novices would hot-foot it down to the Internet cafes in town to surf the web and knock out a couple of emails.

All of the monks would spend their days in and around the temples, and were keen to practice their English on anybody who said 'hello'. They also went all giggly in the presence of Charlotte and Emily. Each day we'd pass through the grounds of the same temples, and strike up conversations with the same monks about their lessons today, or particular questions they had for us, or we had for them. Although none of them were superbly fluent in English, they knew enough for us to talk about most things, and their English was a damn sight better than our Laos!

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Royal sight-seeing

Luang Prabang was the historical home of the Laos royal family – until the revolution! In 1975, when the revolutionaries finally won a war against the King's forces, King Sisavang Vattana was forced to abdicate, and then imprisoned in a remote cave, where he and his entire family died from starvation and neglect. And within 20 minutes the royal palace was opened as a museum and exhibition. Now it is a regular little money-spinner for the government, with visitors paying 10,000 Kip for the privilege of seeing the French-built palace. Although I've not visited Buckingham Palace I imagine that, on a different scale, it is similar – large rooms filled with very little, and seemingly offering few home comforts. One of the most interesting rooms displayed the ex-Kings possessions, including his clothes, thrones and his elephant howdah (riding seat).
One of the revealing rooms was that put aside to display the presents given to the royal family from other countries. From Japan, China, France, Canada and others were brilliant gifts of artistic merit – fine crystal, silverware, porcelain and art. And from the USA? Well, the Americans were obviously in their technical age – a 6" model of Apollo 11 from Richard Nixon, 2 scraps of moon rock (and I mean scraps – you wouldn't even see them without the accompanying magnifying glass), and 2 flags taken to the surface of the moon in space missions. (Help me here, because the letter that went with the gifts wasn't on display, but surely it must have said something like "Dear King Sisavang, we're sure sorry that we flew 580,944 missions to Laos and dropped 2,093,100 tons of bombs on your country instead of Vietnam last year. Here, have a bit of moon rock to fill a crater, to make up for it. Yours, Tricky Dicky") (Seriously, that many bombs over the ten years of the Vietnam War mean that the country now has a huge unexploded munitions problem, and people regularly get blown up in their fields).

In the evening, to cap our right-royal-day, we went to the Royal Ballet performance, with heaps of dancers in traditional dress, performing parts of the Ramayana (what a relief – in India the whole thing takes a week to perform). The tickets cost a massive 75,000 Kip (5 Pounds, which is a lot of money in Laos) each, but the number of people involved in the production meant that we felt we got our money's worth. I'm afraid I'm not really into ballet, but Charlotte, who is, rated it as 'boring', but she was chuffed that the attendant piled five chairs on top of each other, so that she could see the stage!

So there we go, a right royal day, all made slightly odd by the fact that the royal family were bumped off in such recent history (like, when I was at secondary school – that's not total-history).

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Luang Prabang

We're now in Luang Prabang, the ancient mountain capital of the Kingdom of Laos. Nowadays it's not the capital, and Laos is no longer a kingdom, but a People's Democratic Republic. But the history of the city is everywhere you look. We arrived last night, hunting for accommodation near the Mekong, which flows on the west side of the town. Upriver is the border with Thailand, and further the head of the river in the Chinese Himalayas, and downriver is another border with Thailand, and eventually Vietnam and Mekong Delta. The city is filled with temples, up to 700 years old, and many, many monks – some of whom look as old as the temples.

All over the city you see monks, and novices. Not just around temples, but dozens walking along the streets going to and from their lessons, and even wading, knee deep, through the river to get home. At first, it comes as a huge surprise to see so many, and we're constantly grabbing our camera out of our bag to take another monk-shot, but by the end of the day we've finally realised that there are so many opportunities to see them, and to talk with them.

Although it is smokey in the hills here too, every cloud has a silver lining – or rather an orange lining. As the sun gets within an hour of setting it starts to turn orange, and then deep red, up to half an hour before it finally sets. It makes for an idyllic end-of-day, to sit on a terrace looking down on the Mekong far below, with the red sun reflected back up towards us.

The other thing that is obvious about Luang Prabang are the French influences, from the old colonial power. As well as overhearing French tourists for the first time, its also odd to see people sitting down at cafes with baguettes and croissants. But all of this in a setting which seems more like a remote Chinese city, because of the absence of cars and heavy traffic.

Monday, March 01, 2004

Into the mountains, and past the guerrillas

The next step of our journey, further north, is to Luang Prabang, the ancient capital city of Laos, sitting on the Mekong and surrounded by mountains. The journey takes 6 to 10 hours, depending on how you elect to travel there – local bus, air-con coach or minibus. We opted for the minibus - the fastest option - which cost us a massive $8 each. Because four of us were travelling together, along with 2 others from the same guest house, we had our own minibus, rather than being cramped in with 20 other people – definitely a bonus when the road got windy and twisty half an hour out of town. And it stayed that way for the next 6 hours!


Although Laos was badly affected by the Vietnam War, there don't seem to be many signs of militarization in this part of the country. Of course, there's the usual posters and placards celebrating the great sacrifice made by the army to forge the People's Democratic Republic, with goose-stepping soldiers waving flags around, but in real life there are few uniformed signs of the military. But in the hills north of the capital is where the Mhong villagers have been fighting a sporadic campaign against the government. A year ago it even got as far as some of the rebels taking a few pot shots at passing buses. So now, armed militiamen prowl the edges of the road, casually carrying AK47's and RPG's, in a show of strength to keep the rebels away. And with armed men seems to come corruption, with the minibus driver having to drop packets of cigarettes at each militia post we passed.


The Mhong (or some say Hmong) villages which we passed through we some of the most basic we'd seen anywhere. They all clung to the side of the road, perched over the mountainsides, because they could get electricity that way. But they had no running water or other conveniences, and seemed poorer than many of the villages we'd seen in India.
All of the houses were really basic – reed walls surrounding floors built on stilts. Out of the back was a drop of a few hundred feet, and out of the front was the edge of the road – they literally stepped into it as they left their front doors. In the afternoon, as we passed through each village, the women were gathered at the pump, filling buckets with drinking water, and washing themselves and their clothes right alongside the road.

As it is the middle of the dry season, the fabulous mountain views have disappeared, to be replaced by the white smoky haze created by the slash-and-burn fires in the area. Apparently we're luck – in March it gets so bad that people are constantly coughing, and almost wears a handkerchief over the faces. It was a sad journey, for all of these reasons, on top of which was the road, a narrow strip of tarmac wide enough for a single vehicle in many places, and twisting all over the ridges of the mountains. We were all glad to get into Luang Prabang and get out of our seats!