Akha hill tribe - Muang Sing

Did a 3 day trek in the Muang Sing region, to the Akha hill tribe. Muang Sing used to be the biggest opium market in the Golden Triangle. But in the recent year the Lao government has discourage the cultivation of opium that has led to the hill tribes to move to the lowland struggling for there existence and finding to ways of income.

It was just stunning nature and such an amazing experience. We were only 3 people and 2 guides. One Lao-guide and an Akha guide. Both just the lovely !! We did an 8 hour hike the first day where we saw a lot of nature, 3 snakes ( 2 green vipers ) and tried different kind of fruits that we found in the forest. At the end of the first day we arrive in a village. It was so amazing. People live so primitive there compared to what we are used to. No electricity, no running water, chickens, pigs, dogs and ducks everywhere. (We saw our chicken been killed for dinner.) These people are so hardworking, so sweet and friendly. We got to walk around the village and observe and participate in what people where doing. After work everybody went to a little river and shower in ICE cold stream. After dinner we got Lao Lao whiskey and people sang for us and we had such a good time. The next 2 days where also just amazing !!! One of the highlights of my trip !!!

Laos - Luang Prabang

Amazing !! That's the only word I have for it !! I think it's one of the most charming places I've ever been to. Luang Prabang is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's so relaxed !! After other parts of SE-Asia it's like a haven where things are relaxed and no beeping the horn!! Met up with the 2 Canadian girls that I was with in Ha Long Bay. Did sight seeing around the city. Swimming in waterfalls and biking around. Just so nice. Did a one day Slow boat trip up the Mekong as well. On my way up north now to do some trekking to some hill tribes. Travelling with a Spanish girl and a Canadian guy. More details later....

My Ipod

Worst case scenario for me has been to loose my iPod, I love it. It's very personal. I've changed my music a few times. In Sydney when I stayed with my friend Grant I got a lot of good music. In Phnom Penh I visited the "Boom Boom Room" where you could upload music to your iPod and got more good music. So when I realized on my way to the airport from Hanoi that I had left my iPod on the bed in my room at the guesthouse I just froze. Luckily the taxi driver, that spoke no English had a mobile phone and I managed to get him to understand that I needed to phone the guesthouse. Soon as I said I was staying in room 201 and I forgot my iPod on the bed, the girl went "Oh yes, it's here". I went: "OK, I need it, can you send another taxi to the airport with it?" Yes, she could do it but it would cost double or 20$. You do the math, yes still much better than loose your iPod. So I agreed and she called 5 min later to let me know it was on it's way. Happy ending !!! But what really pissed me off is this: I checked out at 11:00. My taxi arrived at 12:00 to take me to the airport. So for an hour I was hanging out at the guesthouse, using the Internet and having breakfast. I met each and every person that was working there. I sat next to the girl that got my room, when she got it, after they cleaned it !! At that point it must have been clear to them that I had forgotten my iPod. Specially since it took about 10 sec for them to recognize it when I called. It just makes me mad, specially since they were all smiling at me when I left. I just can't understand that peopole can be so dishonest. And for me that's just been Vietnam a little bit. Everybody try to scam you. I took a taxi back from a restaurant. I had taken taxi to the restaurant and paid 9000 dong, back it was 14.400 dong on the meter. But the taxi driver tried to charge me 144.000 dong which is a rip off. And when I said no way, I know that that's not the price. He just went: " Oh, sorry". Like it's just OK to try to rip you off. But I got my iPod back and that just made my day, but left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Vietnam.

More pictures....

New pictures from Cambodia and Vietnam.

Sapa - "You Buy From Me"

Sapa is a small town in the north of Vietnam where a lot of ethnic minority groups live around. It is a mountainous area, full of rice paddies. The typical touristy thing is to go on a hike through the villages around and stay overnight in a home stay. I decided to do that. My group was really nice, all girls around the same age. The women from the villages are really keen sellers and follow you around from the start of the trek to the villages. They speak good English and ask you all kinds of questions that all lead up to: "You buy from me?. Bracelets?" The home stay was fun. We got amazing food and had a good time inventing dance routines and drinking "happy water" aka "rice wine".

I'm taking the night train back to Hanoi tonight. Spending a day in Hanoi and flying to Laos on Saturday. It is weird that my travelling is soon coming to an end.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is gorgeous and so much bigger than I had imagined. Did a 3 day trip that was just excellent. Since I'm coming to the end of my travels I decided to take the Deluxe tour to the bay. We stayed on a very nice boat and got awesome meals. My group was really nice. We did some bicycle tours around the national park, kayaking and swimming and there was nobody around us. Which was so nice, it felt like a little paradise.

Rainy season and things

SE-Asia is definitely heading into rainy season. It has started to rain more and more for the last week. And by raining I mean pouring down. It's incredible how much it can rain. Everything floods and the heats dies down for a while. It is so hot and humid here as well. Hope there will be less rain up north. But I'm heading to Hanoi tomorrow.

So far I've enjoyed Vietnam. The border crossing was easy and very civilized and you could see right away that Vietnam is much better off than Cambodia. The houses changed and you could see people wearing the traditional Vietnamese hats. The houses in the city are very narrow and tall. This is due to some tax laws, because they pay taxes I guess according to ground space.

The country is corrupt, like the rest of SE-Asia. The first night we went out was a Saturday night and all the clubs had closed. We could not understand how early they closed, but then found out that the police had just raided the whole area and were pointed out where we could go. Just after we arrived at this bar that had a club upstairs, the police raided the club. Very official officer was writing a fine and there was a lot of making phone calls by the staff. 2 minutes after they left we saw people going up again. So we decided to go up, but the doorman stopped us: "Finished, all finished tonight" he said very loud and then whispered: "5 minutes". Hmm, OK then.
5 minutes later, we tried again. "All finished" he said very loudly again but then pointed us to go up, where the club was in full swing. Bizarre how things work sometimes.

Mekong Delta

Did a 2 day trip down the Mekong River in the Mekong Delta. Our tour-guide was very good and informative. We saw a candy factory, that makes candy out of coconuts. Visited a rice noodle factory and a rice husking factory. All of them where interesting, specially since 2 of them where kind of outdoors and health standards very different to what we are used to in production. Tasted different kind of local fruits and wines (rice and banana wines). Visited the floating market in Can Tho, where people trade with fruits and vegetables. The farmers move their crops down the river on boats and smaller vendors buy from them on the river. Enjoyed trips on small boats up the river. During the war a lot of fighting between USA and Viet Cong took place in this area. Difficult to imaging that now.
I enjoyed the tour, but a lot of the "older" people on our tour were so negative and sure everybody was out to get our money. Sometimes people just have to RELAX !! :o)

Vietnam - HCMC

In Ho Chi Minh City aka HCMC aka Saigon, Vietnam now. It has been like a little reunion. The day we arrived and before we left hour hotel we met up with a Ducth guy that we had been hanging out with in Phnom Penh and at this local beer place we ran into Jesse & Jordan the 2 American guys that we hung out with in Siem Reap !! So we have had a little reunion for the last days and it has been so much fun.

Did some sight seeing around town and today we went to the Cu Chi tunnels. That was very interesting. Our guide was a former Viet Cong that had fought around the area. The tunnel system is pretty impressive. After that we went to The War Reminant Museum. It was so sad, just all the suffering a war imposes on people. The aftermath of the war was also so sad. Specially The Agent Orange victims.

Everybody has a story

I really like Cambodia !! Have had such a good time and met so many nice people. The locals are so friendly. I've made an effort to sit down and talk to a lot of people that I've met about the war and the Khmer's regime. It has been very humbling at times, everybody has a story. This one guy that owns a sandwich shop close to where I was staying that I talked a lot to was 8-12 years old when he was send to work camp. His father was killed in front of his whole family. Then the family was split up and he was sent away on his own at the age of 8. He said he was so scared and cried every night, because he missed his mom. They got a handful of a thin rice porridge twice a day and they where so hungry that they ate bugs that they managed to find while they where working. He saw a boy throw up and another one eating it. He remembers of being so so tired all the time because of hard work and lack of food and how people got killed for minor reasons. And with tears in is eyes he just said: "I know it sounds unbelievable today". I truly feel that I've been floating through life on a pink cotton cloud!!

Mr. Sok

The other day me and Juli (the Canadian girl) where sitting in a park eating corn and people watching. When this guy on a "moto" pulled up and started talking to us. We knew he was a driver trying to pick up some work, because that's what they do. His English was very good and he was very interesting. We told him that we had just been to the museum, so we started talking about he Khmer's and that time. He told us that his father was a doctor and was killed. He grew up in an orphanage after the war because his mom could not support her kids. He was from a small village but work in the city. Then he told us that he had played in a "cyclo" driver in a movie with Matt Dillon called The City of Ghosts. (I had never heard of it). He had met him on the street, thinking he was a backpacker and that led to that he got a part in the movie. He was invited to the States for the premier. Must have been an amazing adventure for a Cambodian "moto"-driver.

Later we met a Swedish girl at our hostel, and she knew him. She had actually gone with him and his family to his hometown and stayed with them.
She told us that he had never seen a movie before he got the part and Matt Dillon got him to watch "Forest Gump" as his first move. He got paid 26.000$. Now he has a house in Phnom Penh and his hometown. Owns a car and runs his own taxi & moto. A very lucky man!!

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the capital of and has extremes of poverty and excess. It is so interesting to travel around it, the poverty is so visible and people work so hard. But the Cambodians are so friendly and smiley. I've had some lovely conversations with random people on the street. We got lost in a tuk-tuk on the way home yesterday, our driver was not sure where we where staying and we ended up in a very dark and poor area, close to our hostel. We came across this family that was eating outside there house and our driver got out to ask directions. The grandmother came over to us to touch our arms. Then she took my hands and looked me in the eyes and just smiled. And then we were off with some directions and eventually got home.

It was emotional to go to the Tuol Sleng Museum. The place served as an prison in the Khmer Rouge times, where a lot of people were tortured and then shipped of to the Killing Fields where they were killed and dumped into mass graves.

I've been travelling with a Canadian girl here in Cambodia and we are staying in hostel where the room is 2$ a night. It is not that nice, but so so cheap. When you walk down the street you get many interesting offers like: Internet, tuk-tuk, smoke skunk, happy pizza, shoot a machine gun and the guys get boom boom lady. There are many very very dubious persons hanging around and it is a bit sickening to think about what there motives are. Specially since it is well known that Cambodia has been a haven for pedophiles. I don't want to judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes it is hard not to do!!!