After 2 tours back to back, I was lucky enough to have a whole week to relax on my own. I spent the first 2 days in Delhi and then the last few in Bangkok. I was nervous to come to Southeast Asia due to the news about all the flooding. Based on what we heard, it sounded like the whole city of Bangkok might just float away! However, we arrived and it wasn’t nearly as bad as they said it would be. In fact, for the first 3 days I didn’t even see any water. There were lots of cars parked on top of overpasses and it was hard to find bottled water, but beyond that it was business as usual. We did go out of our way to find some water on our last day in Bangkok and this is what we found.
The next few days in Thailand were pretty relaxed for me, since I had been to Thailand a few years ago. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of sleeping during this part of the trip and it was wonderful! Next we crossed the border into Laos. I was so excited to go to Laos since it’s only been open to tourists for about 10 years. I thought it would be much less spoiled than some other places, which have catered so much to what they think tourists want. We started our time in Laos with a 2 day trip down the Mekong. You jump on a long boat, which isn’t just a cute description – the boat is literally as long as 3 full size busses! The family lives on the back 1/3 of the boat and we get to lounge on the rest. I have no idea how they steer these huge boats through the river without hitting any rocks, but it’s absolutely incredible. The days were a wonderful chance to get to know everyone. I was so excited because I am going to be joined for a whole month of the trip by my friend Catharine. We met at work and traveled last year to Peru together and it was so wonderful to see a friend from home!
One of the interesting and fun days of my trip so far was tubing in Vang Vieng. It’s absolutely crazy – you rent a tube for the day and wear any wild clothes you can find. You are driven in a tuk tuk about 2 hours upstream from town and dropped into the river. You float on your tube from one bar to the next, stopping to have a shot of snake whiskey or a bucket of some Lao Lao vodka concoction. There is music playing, spray paint and people just having a great time. There are also lots of fun water activities – diving into the river, pendulum swings and huge slides….it is so much fun! The day is supposed to end at the last bar, where you jump in a tuk tuk and are taken back to town, but of course it doesn’t always end that way. Some people climbed through jungle and walked back to town while others floated in the dark all the way back and had to be fished out of the river by some local kids looking for money. The whole day is an absolute riot and my whole group made it back with no visits to the hospital – success!
Our last day in Laos was also incredible (can you tell that I absolutely love this country?). We woke up in the early morning and drove about an hour into the jungle. There, we jumped on elephants for a ride! Catharine and I had a wonderful elephant whose name we didn’t know, so we just called her Sweetheart. She loved to be in the lead and often stopped for “snacks” along the trail. Our mahout, the elephant guide, was very relaxed as well. After about 10 minutes he jumped down and let Catharine and I ride on the front of the elephant for the rest of the trip. He took our camera and was taking all kinds of pictures – some were of us riding Sweetheart and some were just of the river and the scenery around us – I think he liked being artsy! So wonderful and different from any elephant ride I’ve been on before.
After Laos we flew to Cambodia. Seeing Cambodia from above was shocking – it was completely covered in water. I honestly didn’t see any place we would be able to land, it was so flooded. It was definitely the worst flooding we had seen the whole time in SE Asia, and you could see why it was such a tragedy. Phnom Penh was spared from too much water, but since the area around it was flooded, they had to cancel much of their annual “Water Festival”. Ironic, I know.
After just one short day in Phnom Penh we jumped on a quick flight to Siem Reap. We spent the afternoon on a boat tour out to the floating city. It is amazing to me that people live on these small houses that just float on the water. They are powered by car batteries and they seem so primitive, but some of them even have satellite tv! Then we did something I never could have predicted – we went to this farm where the guys could pay to go fishing. They would catch a catfish, then they would tie it to a pole and feed it to the crocodiles. It was insane! There were 15 or 20 crocs in this pen and they would fight and bite each other to get to the food. The poor catfish! I guess many of these crocodile farms have been flooding recently and the crocs have escaped – so bad for the locals! It was amazing to see how strong and determined the crocodiles were though.
Our final day in Cambodia ended with the highlight, Angkor Wat. We got up super early so we could go there and see the sunrise. Seeing the reflection of such an old building with the sun rising over it was beautiful.
We spent the afternoon going to some of the lesser known temples, including the “Angelina Jolie” temple. I preferred some of the others over Angkor Wat simply because they have been left more natural and have had the trees and wilderness overgrow the temples in some places. It makes me think more of what the temples looked like before they were “discovered”. In one of the temples we also saw some people from the Amazing Race who were running around, as well as the flags for the checkpoint as we were driving away! Great to see them actually in these places, but I felt so bad that they had to run through them and didn’t get to take their time and really enjoy the sites. All in all, SE Asia so far has been incredible!
The next few days in Thailand were pretty relaxed for me, since I had been to Thailand a few years ago. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of sleeping during this part of the trip and it was wonderful! Next we crossed the border into Laos. I was so excited to go to Laos since it’s only been open to tourists for about 10 years. I thought it would be much less spoiled than some other places, which have catered so much to what they think tourists want. We started our time in Laos with a 2 day trip down the Mekong. You jump on a long boat, which isn’t just a cute description – the boat is literally as long as 3 full size busses! The family lives on the back 1/3 of the boat and we get to lounge on the rest. I have no idea how they steer these huge boats through the river without hitting any rocks, but it’s absolutely incredible. The days were a wonderful chance to get to know everyone. I was so excited because I am going to be joined for a whole month of the trip by my friend Catharine. We met at work and traveled last year to Peru together and it was so wonderful to see a friend from home!
After just one short day in Phnom Penh we jumped on a quick flight to Siem Reap. We spent the afternoon on a boat tour out to the floating city. It is amazing to me that people live on these small houses that just float on the water. They are powered by car batteries and they seem so primitive, but some of them even have satellite tv! Then we did something I never could have predicted – we went to this farm where the guys could pay to go fishing. They would catch a catfish, then they would tie it to a pole and feed it to the crocodiles. It was insane! There were 15 or 20 crocs in this pen and they would fight and bite each other to get to the food. The poor catfish! I guess many of these crocodile farms have been flooding recently and the crocs have escaped – so bad for the locals! It was amazing to see how strong and determined the crocodiles were though.
Our final day in Cambodia ended with the highlight, Angkor Wat. We got up super early so we could go there and see the sunrise. Seeing the reflection of such an old building with the sun rising over it was beautiful.
