Scream if you want to go faster! Crossing the Cambodia / Lao border

Oh look! A nice bridge. Just a taster of things to come....


The boat to Stung Treng


The speed boat. Complete with on-board dinner of flies, mozzies and whatever the huge things were that really stung when they hit you. The motor was so loud I thought my ears were going to explode. Our 70 plus year old friend didn't seem half as scared as I was.


I kind of accepted that we'd lose the luggage at some point.



The obstacle course - dodging plants, tree branches and humans




We've been in Laos about a week now. We crossed the Cambodian border at Voen Kham in southern Laos. The border crossing has to be one of the most memorable ever. It’s described in the lonely Planet as a ‘semi-official’ land border, so we had an idea that things might get interesting.

We’d spent the night in the most fabulous hotel in Kratie overlooking the Mekong. It was spotlessly clean with marble floors, a huge terrace and private bath with hot water - all for the princely sum of $5 between us! Having organised our trip at the hotel we boarded a boat for a four hour trip up the Mekong.

The first boat is supposed to leave at noon. Its said that boats are not allowed to leave earlier because, apparently, that would take away any need to stay overnight at the first stop - Strung Treng. The chap at our hotel warned us and told us to insist that our tickets covered the cost of continuing the 1 1/2 hr trip to the border at Voeung Kam that day. I think the idea is that they get people there so late they have to stay overnight and then pay again for the 2nd part of the trip. We were told we’d just have to cover the 'police' overtime on both the Cambodian and Laos borders.



We arrived at Strung Treng nearly an hour late where we were rushed onto a speedboat ( = tiny wooden fishing boat with a motor on the back). Nobody tried to tell us we couldn’t go any further which makes me wonder whether any of the overnight stuff was true at all. A James Bond style 50 mile an hour race down the Mekong later and we arrived at the border, totally deaf, faces covered in bugs and half terrorized.

Tim pointed out that in NZ we actually paid 80 dollars for a similar experience with the jet boating trip. This was pretty similar only far more scary and, at the much discounted price of five dollars, I suppose was much better value. There are boulders and tree trunks sticking out of the water all over that area of the river. All the boat had to do was hit one and we would have all been thrown overboard.

The border closes at 5pm. We reached it at ten to six – just in time to pay the ‘overtime’ fee.
Immigration was a tiny wooden shack with a zillion mozzies that attacked in clouds the moment you walked into the place. Immigration for Laos was on the opposite side of the river. The Cambodians at least tried to make it look slightly official. On the Lao side teenagers in ragged clothes charged us a dollar for our entry stamp and a dollar overtime. They earned their cash just by sticking out 10 million mozzies flying in faces for an extra 50 mins.

All good so far, but then we started to have the piss taken out of us.

There was only one tuk tuk available. The driver was demanding that six of us pay 5 dollars US each to go three miles down the road. It was dark and totally deserted – we had very little choice. Everyone was really pissed. Bare in mind we’d left a fabulous hotel that day for which we’d paid 2.50 US each! Here was this guy taking 30 for a short tuk tuk ride. Brixton mini cab drivers eat your hearts out.

It got worse. We arrived at the beach to get the boat to take us to Don Det. The Lonely Planet said the price was 50 cents per person. Surprise, surprise there was only one boat driver available who charged six of us two dollars each to go 10 mins to Don Det - one of approx 4000 tiny islands that rise from the Mekong in dry season.

I'm sorry if I sound as if I am labouring a point. The border crossings made me laugh. Basically it’s not even an official border. We wanted to cross it so we had to pay. Fine. The Cambodia/Laos border trip is notorious. The guy at our lovely hotel in Cratie promised us that no matter what he’d get us there – and he did. Some people don’t actually make it that far without having to stay on in Cambodia an extra couple of nights. Our guy had also warned us of all the extras we’d have to pay, so we were totally prepared, and no-one tried to get any more money out of us other than what we’d already been warned about. So on that front we did well – you just have to smile and accept how shockingly corrupt it is.

What really does annoy me though are the ridiculously inflated transport costs. It's only a few dollars you might be thinking. But when it is constant, every day, ten times a day, it starts to get to you. You just feel like a complete mug – paying 4 times more for a 3m tuk tuk ride than you pay for a night in a really lovely hotel. It’s fucking crazy.

I am not complaining about the tourist price. Most of these guys could never afford a passport, never mind a trip out of their country. A lot of backpackers get arsy about the two tier pricing system. I'm not fussed at all. In fact I agree with it. Why should the locals pay the same as us when they can’t even hope to earn the same money in 10 years that we are spending on this trip.

What I don't like is the sudden quadrupling, or more, of the tourist price. Especially when we are seriously worried that we might have to go home early because we are running out of cash. South America is supposed to be the corrupt place. I'm sorry but, so far it's got nothing on Asia. Bus prices and hotel rooms double overnight. Restaurant bills arrive with prices double than those on the menu. Every time we question it we get the same answer. "My boss put the prices up but I haven't had time to change the menu'. It's really starting to piss me off.

I never knew the death of a small creature could give me so much pleasure

The Mekong. Lush river, loads of green, more mozzies than the f***ing Amazon!

2nd Feb 2005, Vientiane, Laos.

Sitting in a hotel room in the Laos capital watching Rats....that’s the film by the way. A really fat animal lover is currently being devoured by hundreds of them. It's a shit movie but Star Movies is way better than anything we get free on cable.

I am deliriously happy because I have finally bought a mozzie killer tennis racquet. We first saw them in Cambodia but couldn't find one to buy. Tim was trying to haggle the price down. It was never going to happen. The woman in the shop could see I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I would have paid 20 dollars for it if I had to. In the end we paid three and a half - every cent well spent in my book.

The only annoying thing is that you have to charge it for 10 hours before you use it. Damn! I was so looking forward to getting it into action straight away. I never knew that I could derive so much pleasure from killing something. I don't like spiders, I despise cockroaches, but I would never kill them. Mozzies on the other hand...I'm smiling just at the thought of tomorrow night! Just you wait you little fuckers.

We've found Paradise again- Bamboo Island, Cambodia

Simply Cambodia. One of my favourite pictures of the trip so far. We could have stayed on Bamboo Island forever.



Snooze time




The western side of the island


The eastern side


Bex, Richard and another chap who decided to come fishing with us.


Sunset on the western beach


The local kids

We’d teamed up with a couple called Bex and Richard who we’d met on the bus from Thailand to Siem Reap. They’d heard about a deserted island off the coast that you could visit, so we checked it out. There seems to be numerous names for it, but the boat man who took us there called it Bamboo Island, so I’ll stick with that. The boat trip over was madness. We’d got used to some pretty rough travelling in Cambodia, but this was crazy. We’d been waiting for the boat on the beach for an hour when I finally managed to convince the ‘organiser’ to tell me which boat was ours. He pointed at least ½ km out to sea. With the waves crashing in as they were it didn’t take an expert to work out that there was no way that boat was coming in any closer.

We had ALL our kit with us, rucksacks, passports, money the lot. One by one we had to make our way to the boat. Tim was in up to his chest. I was in over my shoulders, with my back pack held as high as possible, waves crashing into my face and a spindly little boy on the boat desperately trying to reach down to grab my bag from me. How the hell our kit remained dry I will never know.

It was worth it though. We reached the island to find exactly what we had been promised: nine tiny bamboo huts fringing the eastern side of the beach with one bamboo hut that formed a café area. One toilet, no showers and that’s it. The whole of the rest of the island was deserted except for a small military base in the jungle in the centre of the island. Only three of the nine huts were occupied and two of those were by us. Welcome, once again, to Paradise.

You had to walk through the jungle for 10 minutes to get to the western side. The one family that lived on the island who ran the café had scratched out a ‘path’ leading the way and assured us there were no snakes or dangers of any kind. Half way through we came to a clearing and found ourselves staring at two HUGE guns. I’m not quite sure whether ‘guns’ is the correct word to use here. Think old style 30 foot long barrels that you would expect to put a cannon into. It freaked me a bit at first until I saw the two soldiers that were ‘guarding’ them – asleep in hammocks. We tiptoed past them and walked through to the western beach.

WOW!!

The sun had just started to set over the water. It was really calm on this side and lapped up to a golden beach which was about 50 feet wide and completely empty. Not a sun lounger, umbrella or even another human being in sight. Our only company was lots of ants. And even they disappeared once you moved closer to the water’s edge. Bliss.

As the sun started to fade away we made our way back to our huts. Once again passing through the military base I spotted a soldier coming towards us. My heart started beating faster as he got closer, why I’ll never know. He met us with one of those massive, gorgeous grins that every single Cambodian seems to have. He spoke no English but he was trying to get us to try some fruit and pointing up at the tree where he’d obviously taken it from. I could not make out what he was calling it, but it was chewy and tasted a little like banana. So much for scary soldiers.

We stayed six days in the end. During the day some of the Sihanoukville hotel owners were organising boat trips to the island, but after 3pm we were always the only ones left. There was precious little to do of course but I think Bex and Richard are now Peaknuckle champions, soon to be ousted by the Bamboo Island kids.

On to Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Happier times on our little deserted island beach. We taught the kids how to play peaknuckle


It’s been odd visiting Cambodia. In just a few weeks we’ve gone from visiting one of the former greatest civilizations on Earth to the most shameful place on the planet and now I find myself looking at the horrific results of a poor country’s attempt to cash in on tourism all in an area of land less than half the size of Germany. Sihanoukville is on the south west coast of the country and looks out onto the Gulf of Thailand. It’s been known as a beach resort since the 50’s, so I wasn’t expecting a deserted Paradise, but arriving in town I was shocked to find that a taxi to Serendipity beach – just 3km away - was going to cost us $20 US. When we told the drivers we’d walk, we were approached further down the road by one who took us for $8.

On arrival we found café after café after café – all the way down the beach. The beach itself was lovely. Quite wide, golden yellow sand and waves that could be played in but not so big as to scare me away from going swimming. (I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to big waves). The problem was you had to strain to see it. Almost every inch of sand was covered by deck chairs and sun loungers. I was so disappointed – and also saddened – because there were barely any tourists there. I can only assume there had been a bit of a boom when Cambodia was really trendy 8 years ago and now the sun-loungers en masse had scared all the back packers away. There certainly was no sign of any of the package tourists that flocked Angkor Wat.

Wherever we went we were approached by really cute kids who begged you to buy their fruit. At $2.50 a bag it wasn’t something we could oblige them with too often. They’d beg you to promise them that you’d buy some the next day. One child started crying and shouting at me because I bought some fruit from another girl. He said I’d purposely not bought it from him because he was a boy! I didn’t know what to say to him. In Thailand that same bag of fruit costs 10 Bhat – about 20 US Cents. It was a horrible moment, you know that you are being completely taken for a ride with the prices – $2.50 is about 100 times more than the correct price, so you don’t want to let them get away with it, but here was this kid crying on me. Since I already had a bag of fruit in my hand which I had bought really reluctantly anyway, I told him to come to find me the next day.

I feel it’s totally wrong to be worrying about paying $2.50 for something I don’t need or want and I hate the guilty feelings I keep getting time and time again. These kids see us as millionaires – which compared to them we are. But at the moment our money is running out so fast that I’m really worried we are going to have to cut the trip short and won’t get to see India at all. I keep trying to remind myself of that and tell myself to toughen up a bit with the kids, but then I can’t help the little voice that keeps saying ‘oh poor darling, you’ve been half way around the planet having an absolute ball spending cash that most people here could only dream of and now you don’t want to give this kid $3 because you might have to cut your holiday short.’ I told that kid what time we were leaving the next day and told him to make sure he was there so I could buy some damn fruit from him. I wanted to try to teach him that he wasn’t going to make a good businessman by having tantrums on his customers. I even waited around. He never came.

Everyone walking around the place, male and female, was deathly silent and choking back tears. All the people photographed were murdered.

S21 Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The school was taken over and used as a holding centre for prisoners before they were sent for execution at the killing fields.













Killing Fields, Phnom Penh,Cambodia












The S21 prison is one of the saddest places I have ever been to in my entire life. It has been left as it was found. A school turned into a warren of torture chambers. Iron bars and chains still hang on steel beds. The tiny single prisons that were made out of the classrooms are still there. Those on the first floor had brick walls and were about 2x2 meters. Each one enjoyed about a quarter of a barred window on the back wall. The cells on the second floor were wooden, half the size with no windows at all. All of the cells had huge bolts on the floor to which was attached a big chain. Horrible.

Worse still was block B. The animals decided that they would not only meticulously document and photograph every prisoner, but they would photograph the 'questioning' as well. The whole block is full of black and white photos - mainly mug shots of terrified, bewildered or furious men, women and children. Others are of them being tortured. There are hundreds of them, all with expressions of either pleading sadness, sheer terror or bewilderment in their eyes. They all have the same haircut and a prison number.

Everyone walking around the place, male and female, was deathly silent and choking back tears. I want to say this could never happen again, but I know I'd be wrong.

Where are all the old people? Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Apparently these little fellas became popular during the Pol Pot regime when many people were starving. They decided they liked them and they are still a delicacy.


I didn't dare! I've tried some strange foods on this trip so far, but my revulsion was so acute I couldn't even get close enough to take a proper look.










19th January 2005
Phnom Penh is the most chilled capital city on Earth. I found it strange that it has that vibe about it at first, because of all that this city has endured, but then maybe that’s why. We found a lovely little guest house called ‘TAT’. The lounge area has a row of hammocks in front of a huge TV which shows loads of really good films. There are five dollar bags of ‘happy’ on the menu. You can also get happy pancakes, happy milkshake, happy green curry, basically happy anything. Tim was overjoyed. He had a three course Happy Meal… of course. I just had a quarter of his pancake and was buzzing for hours! It's the kind of place where you could just stick around doing nothing at all for months, (especially if you order too much from the happy menu). The owners are lovely and they have a three month old pure white puppy called ‘White’ who I have fallen in love with.

I was a bit doubtful about going to the Killing fields and the S 21 Museum at first, but I'm glad we went. I was really surprised to find the vibe at the Killing Fields to be really peaceful - the same as any other cemetery. Only this one housed so many tortured souls. I figured that at least here, despite how brutally they were murdered, they finally found peace. Our guide was 14 when the Khmer Rouge took over. He was bitter and still had tears in his eyes when he pointed out the now empty graves. Imagine how many times a day, every day he tells the same story and it still makes him cry.

What happened to these people was horrendous, unthinkable. And it was only 30 years ago. It happened to the Jews in WW2 and I guess then everyone said they would never allow such an atrocity to happen again. Bollocks! It's happening now in Somalia. It happened in Croatia. The weirdest thing about this is that they were doing it to their own people, same creed, same country.

Walking around you hardly ever see any old people in Cambodia. Most of them were murdered. Tim’s mum mentioned to her Cambodian friends in France that we were here. They said they had no family left to put us in touch with because they had all been wiped out. It’s horrendous.

With those older people you do see you can't help but wonder which side they were on. To be honest, I don't think it really mattered. Most of the adults in the Khmer Rouge knew full well that they had no choice. That’s why those animal ‘leaders’ turned their children into monsters. “Year Zero”, they called it. Poison the minds that are not old enough to have an opinion or understand and then train them to kill without mercy. Sound familiar?