Travel through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia

Travel Thailand Laos Cambodia

Long time no blog entry. I really have to apologize for that, but in the past 2 month I was so much more eager to take photos of my Asia adventures than writing all that experiences down.

Ok, I will try to make it "quick". :-) (of course you know that I won't be able to keep my promise)
After I finished my internship Sebastian came to visit me for 3 weeks. We went to see the Golden Triangle (a mysterious region, well known for opium production, situated at the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos. There we hired a 250cc motorcross bike. For me the first time to drive on a big bike with clutch, but it worked out pretty good and was so much fun, since before I had only been driving on the little 125cc city cruisers.

The next day we crossed the Mekong river and entered to Laos, which costs us 20US$ for the 30 day-visa. On a speedboat together with "Native English speakers" from several countries we rode 200km on the Mekong to the town of Luang Prabang, which is a great example for French colonial architecture, but has also plenty of young Laos men, that try to sell drugs to Western tourists.

On the bus to the Laos capital of Vientiane we couldn't sleep all night long because the driver was listening to loud Laos style karaoke music without a break, probably to stay awake. Earphones are probably unknown. It was just a nightmare!! After a few hours of sleep, we hired two big motorcross bikes again, this time even bigger and heavier, and started off to a tour, which was meant to last for one day, but in the end became 4 days! The first night we spent in Vang Vieng, which is a surreal scene. After driving several hundred km through beautiful, but also very poverish and least developed Laos countryside, suddenly a Western backpacker oasis with nice guesthouses, internet cafes and pubs, that offer drinking alcohol out of buckets, pops up out of nowhere. It took us some time until we felt right there.

The next day we drove up to the mountains, which provided us with unforgettable mountain sights. Also the temperatures fell down to under 20 degrees, so we bought a long trouser (remember we had only clothes for one day) and long after dark we arrived in Phonsavan. The next day we visited the "plain of jars", which is an interesting archeological site, and consists of fields of stone jars, that, according to a theory have been used as a graveyard many hundred years ago. The area was still full of unexploded bombs from the time of the Vietnam war, actually thrown to defeat the Vietcong troups, that had fled to Northern Laos.

From this town back to the capital we then decided to take a "dirt road", which didn't have any pavement yet. This road was quite ok in the beginning, although driving speed was limited due to little stones on the track. But later the road became steep and washed out, and finally we had to cross some little rivers and mudholes with the bikes. We were not prepared for that and the longer and deeper the mudholes were, the more desperate we became. So desperate that when I tried to drive through, my bike slipped and a moment later I was lying in a mudhole, my leftside looking like dipped into melted chocolate, unfortunately it was no chocolate. Not much later, Sebastian slipped too and fell off the edge of the track and right into the jungle with his bike upon him. Fortunately he was not injured at all, which would have been a catastrophy, since we were in the middle of the jungle, and there were no hospitals, only pieceful villages with villagers that live a simple life without all the Western standards we are used to since so many years already.
Dirty as we came out of the jungle, we filled our tank at a bigger village at the edge of the jungle, and organized us something to eat, although the villagers looked at us like aliens. And they were right. After the mud fight in the jungle we looked as if we had been on a wellness mud bathing, but forget to wash it off afterwards. Pretty exhausted from the jungle dirt road struggle (believe me, this road was the most miserable I went on ever) we made our way back into civilization.

Next day we crossed the border to Thailand again and left Laos behind. A country, which calmness (people drive slow and with patience, holding umbrellas in one hand and steering the motorbike with the other hand :-) ) and overwhelming friendliness had fascinated us from the beginning. The travel through the Eastern part of Thailand was not so spectacular, so I skip this. After a few days in Bangkok (I already wrote about Bangkok a few month ago), we took the plane to Koh Pagnang, a beautiful, relaxed and still developing island in the south of Thailand. The majority of tourists is still backpackers there, although higher quality accomodations are being built already. We participated in the legendary full moon party, where 10000 young people (Western and Thais) danced the whole night to Electronic beats, fire-artists, alcohol and drugs were everywhere. The whole scene was truly spectacular.
We also went diving during our stay there, which was on a beautiful spot called Sail-Rock. For Sebastian and me, who had not been diving since we got our licence two years ago, it was a marvellous experience.

Back in Bangkok, Sebastian had to leave to Germany, and Tip came down to see me. Together we wanted to the the world famous temples of Angkor in Cambodia. We bought a bus ticket and made our way to the border. Just when we were crossing the border, the conditions suddenly became much worse, than we both had ever expected. Little children with even more little siblings on the arm and dirty clothes, were begging us for money. In the office we then saw a sign that said "Please don't exploit our children. A child is any person under the age of 18." Cambodia still suffers from a huge prostitution problem, and also little children are among the victims of ruthless men. It is so sad.
Just behind the border the road again had no pavement, and was half flooded. Plus, huge roadholes that can easily make your car breakdown, covered the entire road until Siem Riap, the town close to the temples. According to some rumors a Thai airline is supposed to pay a large amount of money to the Cambodian government, to make sure the road is not fixed too quickly.
After our arrival I could not just accept these miserable conditions all over the country, so I bought a lonely planet guidebook for Cambodia and read about its miserable past. In the 1970s, the communist regime of the Khmer Rouge had devastated the country, when they tried to establish a peasant state and even abandoned money, and important infrastructure like hospitals. An incredible number of people died during the period of their reign, and even after their regime had been cracked down by the Vietnamese, random raids and killings among the people still took place for many years. These harsh developments threw Cambodia back far behind and still the country has to develop in all areas.
Despite these discouraging experiences the actual temples of Angkor were the most splendid and spectacular architectural complex I have ever seen. The sheer vastness of the ruins takes one's breath away. The whole area of Angkor occupies over 400 square kilometers. Some of the ruins have been maintained over the time of a thousand years, but others have been left to the jungle, so at the temple of "Ta Phrom" (the movie Tomb Raider was filmed here) huge trees sit on the walls and there enormous roots "flow" down to the ground.

After a few days in Angkor we felt "templed out" and made our way back to Thailand, were we visited Kanchanaburi, the town of the bridge over the river Kwai. We learned a lot about the death railway, that the Japanese built during the second world war. They used many thousands of war prisoners (mainly British) to build an insane railway route through the deep jungle. The prisoners were given only starvation rations, and had to work allday under the burning sun, exposed to exhaustion and diseases like Malaria or dengue fever. Many died under that inhuman conditions.
Despite its miserable history the surrounding of the town has plenty to offer, like the Erawan national park, with its gorgeous 7-level waterfall, containing crystal clear water, as well as curious and hungry fish, that tried to feed on my skin.
To explore the beautiful countryside over there, I hired a cruiserbike, which was the best idea by far, since its a bit like "easy rider" cruising up and down the countryside.

After coming back to Chiang-Mai for one week I finally had to leave Thailand, had to say goodbye to my friends and Tip, which was the toughest after more than 4 month, having been together almost every day.

At the moment I am in Germany again, in my hometown Kassel and I am looking for a job, which I will hopefully find soon.
Thanks for reading my blog, and sorry again for the long time without any notice.

Greetings
Marius

P.S.: I would be happy if you let me know what you think about the quality of my photos!!

Today I got wet!

Today I went into the city and participated in what some people call "the biggest waterfight in the world", the Thai Songkran Festival. Before I actually arrived in the city centre there wasn't any dry spot left on my body, since people were throwing water from the sides of the street everywhere. Usually the water is normal tap temperature, which is kind of refreshing at temperatures of 40 degrees outside. But sometimes they throw ice water, which is of course even more refreshing, but cools the body down too much if it appears to often and makes you freeze even at these crazy outside temperatures. Armed with buckets a watergun and a watergrenade we went on a truck of Tew's and made our way into the city center, where the slogan was: "Make wet or you get wet".

Songkran Water Festival

Happy Songkran

When I went out with the motorbike this morning and just came out of the first corner, a brigade of little children were lurking on the side of the road and poured 2 or 3 waterbuckets over me.
Woooo, you might think, I should have stopped the bike and beat the hell out of these little rats. :-)
But this was no act of bad behaviour or ambush, but the first day of the Thai new year celebrations, the so called "Songkran-Festival". Actually the time of the 3 day celebrations have been traditionally used by Thai people to carry out a general clean-up of their house. But in recent years the big cities and tourists centres have become a scenery for massive "Water-wars". People use water guns and buckets to make everybody wet that is close to them. Many people drive on pick-up trucks with big tons of ice cooled water in the bag to be able to refill the "weapons". Tomorrow I will join the fights on the back of the pick-up truck of my friend tew. Together with my friends I will prepare a few dozens of cool showers for my Thai people down there on the streets!!!

I am back from long travel

Hey fans,

today I finally can tell you about my travel experiences from the past. I apologize for my long absence from here, but very often I prefer catching some sunlight, dealing with friendly Thai people around me, and eating the delicious Thai food, instead of spending hours in front of the PC with sorting and postprocessing photos etc. So, sorry for the inconvenience!

As I already announced in the last post, I went to travel to Bangkok, the old historical site Ayuttaya, the floating market of Damnoen Saduak and finally Koh Chang, the "Elephant Island".
After a 10 hours ride with the very comfortable VIP bus we arrived in Bangkok in the early morning. When I stepped of the bus, I was struck by the enormous heat all around me. It made me feel so uncomfortable that my thoughts more and more focused on where I could find the next air-conditioned (AC) area. Fortunately this area materialized in form of a taxi, that took us to Tew's house. After the ahh so refreshing taxi ride we encountered crazy temperatures again in Tew's house, but since there was one AC room, everybody knew where they would find me for the next hours.

So my first impression of Bangkok was: Crazy heat, crazy traffic (almost everywhere we went we got stuck in a huge traffic jam), and crazy people, who somehow manage to stand the craziness of this mega-city for longer than a few hours. Well, actually I was becoming part of them, since my first stay lasted for 3 days. But on the first day we already fled to Ayuttaya, which is an ancient historical site from the old Thai kings, and is a well 1 hour drive over endless highways on giant concrete pillars north of Bangkok. I could take many nice shots in the heat of the day until we went back in the evening in a AC car, which was driven by the niece of Tew and her friend, two nice looking girls who somehow didn't really communicate with us and hardly participated in the activities.

The next day we got up early and visited the floating market of Damnoen Saduak. People sell food and goods from boats there and use old waterways to get from one place to another. The whole market is in constant movement, and if a seller does not find enough people to buy his stuff anymore, he just moves on with his boat to another spot, where the business might bloom again. We even went on a 1 hour canal boat trip, which we enjoyed a lot, since we saw a lot of the simple Thai life along the old canals, and plus the boat was going fast, which made the temperatures a lot more bearable.

The next day we left Bangkok with the bus (this time a normal bus without comfort) and a toilet that didn't have a regular flush but an overfull water bucket that threatened to make me wet each time we drove over a bumb. From the main land south-east of Bangkok we took the ferry to Koh Chang, which is called the Elephant island due to it's shape. We checked in to the Magic resort, a cheap accomodation with only a small bedroom, only a whole in the ground as a toilet, no basin and a shower with cold water only. But since this wouldn't be the place to stay for most of the day, we made ourselves comfortable with the circumstances.
I rented a motorbike there, which was a bit of a hazzle, since the bikes were in such a bad condition. The funny thing is that the island doesn't have real petrol stations, but many places just sell the fuel from whiskey bottles. If nobody would have told me that I would have probably tried to drink from the bottles, because the fuel has a warm reddish brownish colour, like whiskey. Anyway, the bike is the most convenient thing to have on this island, so we were driving a lot. Since the island has very steep mountains, some roads are so steep, that I could hardly go up there with the motorbike. See the video inside the picture gallery for that. :-)
During the next 4 days we relaxed at nice beaches, listened to chilled-out music at the beach bars and on the last day, I even went scuba diving with Michael. I must admit, that I could not remember so much from my scuba diving course at the Great Barrier reef two years ago, but since almost everything is no problem in Thailand, I had a lot of fun, although the water didn't have so many attractions like the great barrier reef.
As a summary, I would say that Koh Chang is a nice island, but developes much too fast. On the more crowded westside, new hotels and accomodations are created very quickly to attract even more tourists, while environmental questions play only an underpart. But who likes it more quiet, can explore the beautiful east side, where a winding road passes through steep green valleys, sugar cane plantages and dreamy villages. At the far end, even a rough off-road adventure awaits the tourist, that makes it that far.
Plus, apart from the more luxurious tourist locations, one can see Thai families living under most simple conditions, that reminds the blessed western tourists of the so called "Third world". People have simple bamboo houses with a roof made of leaves, live and cook directly on the main road, sometimes don't know where to put the garbage. And little children play in that environment. Although I had been staying in Chiang-Mai for many weeks now, I first had to get used to that kind of conditions.

Back from Koh Chang, me and Tip stayed 4 more days in Bangkok, where we visited the Grand palace, where the Thai Kings have lived in the past, took a ride on the river and visited the marvellous temple "Wat Arun", which has steep stairways for brave european hikers, that are not afraid of height. In the evening we went up on the Baiyoke sky tower, which is the highest building of Thailand. We enjoyed an endless view across the Thai capital and I shot a few nice pictures of the sunset and the always pulsating highways, appearing like the veins of Bangkok from far above the ground.

When we finally got back to Chiang-Mai after a crazy 14 hours train drive, on which I didn't get much sleep due to heavily shaking waggons, I was pleased by the cool temperatures and little traffic in Chiang-Mai. After 2 weeks in the hot south and especially 4 days in the Bangkok craziness I was glad to be back "home".