Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

I’m sitting at the airport retrospectively thinking about this trip.  My time in Sri Lanka and Singapore has come and gone along with this trip in general.  I feel and don’t feel ready to go back home but those are the breaks.

Sri Lanka
After a week in Singapore I had a lot of time to look back and put into context and comparison my trip in Sri Lanka.  Everything I type and feel at this point is in retrospect of Sri Lanka and after my time in Singapore so things will obviously be very slanted and construed.
Overall I had a good time in Sri Lanka but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the country in general.  I wouldn’t recommend anyone going to Sri Lanka nor would I want to go back myself.  That’s pretty harsh sounding but that’s sort of the way it is. I`d go back to Thailand and Laos and recommend them anyone.  Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with a lot of diversity and friendly people but it’s lacking in a lot of other ways that other Asian centers don’t.  It’s hard not to compare Sri Lanka with other places but I’m human and it’s what we do; comparison brings context to everything we experience.

Food: Easily the most disappointing thing about Sri Lanka was the food.  It was ok to good in general but there was nothing I ate that I will be waking up in the middle of the night craving or anything that I’ll be pining over   The curries were good but not great and the complete lack of variety in general didn’t help.  In all honesty I never ate so many omelets in my life; they were easy, quick, cheap, and safe and were without surprise.  The same could not be said for food in general in Sri Lanka.

Other Travellers: Albeit I met some great people while travelling Sri Lanka, I did find it was hard to meet other travellers in general; there wasn’t an abundant of other “backpackers” travelling the country.  Instead most of the other travellers that seemed to be frequenting Sri Lanka were older vacationing Europeans and middle-aged Europeans travelling with their children; lots of grey hair, families and small children in the country.

Getting Around: Getting around was a bit of a challenge at times but overall taking public transit was cheap, easy and except for the trains, were pretty fast, except for the last bus ride I took to the airport.  That was the most ridiculous and insane bus ride yet.  What was to be a relatively quick trip from Colombo to the airport 30km away turned into a 2 hour long painful journey with the bus driving 30km/h, which meant no breeze or wind into the bus, and then proceeding to stop at EVERY bus stop, regardless if the bus was flagged down or not.  This added another hour to the trip.  On top of all this, the ticket guy on the bus would get off at each station and call out “aipit-aipit-aipit-aipit-airport!” in an annoying Corky the Pig fashion (ask me to do an impression of this sometime).  After about the fifth time of him doing this I was ready to knock the guy’s teeth in but refrained, regardless of the call continuing on for the next 2 hours.  Fortunately I left to the airport with 9 hours before my flight due to boredom in the capital Colombo.

As painful as some of the buses and trains were, travel in general was part of the highlights of Sri Lanka.

Costs: I hate to make it about this but the costs in Sri Lanka were way too high for what you got.  From the accommodations to food to activities it just wasn’t worth the bill.  When I sat down and tallied my day-to-day costs covering transit, food, accommodations and activities it came out to about $38/day.  For what I got, where I slept and what I ate I don’t feel that was a worthwhile price-tag.  I didn’t “spurge” on any meals or accommodations, I skipped out on a number of activities that held higher price tags and there were days I kept my meal expenses pretty low (omelets, omelets, omelets!).  I think if you did spend a bit more, which I’m sure the European vacationers were doing, you’d get a bit more of bang for your dollar but for the budget backpacker it was more a fizzle.  I figure with a bit of conscious thought and budgeting one could easily spend the same amount per day in Singapore as in Sri Lanka, while sleeping in better places, eating amazing meals and seeing some pretty nice sites.  Even public transit was cheaper in Singapore.  This is all hard to come to grips and terms with comparing one is a developing nation and the other is a first world country.  All in hindsight and by comparison I suppose.

Lackings
Of some of the minor things that I felt Sri Lanka lacked was the simple things like renting a bike and riding around the country side.  I did a lot of this in Thailand and Laos but it was rather dangerous and sketchy to do in Sri Lanka as most of the towns were built around the main road with few or no smaller roads leading out to the country side.  Riding along these main roads with the buses, cars and motorbikes flying along them was a death wish.  Even the towns were pretty sparse and didn’t offer much wander and exploring like other cities and towns I’ve been to in Asia.  There was a large absence of foreign ownership, for good and bad; often these foreigners open nice restaurants and cafes that help break the curry and rice routine.  Overall I feel the country was a bit one dimensional and lacked a deeper level.

I don’t regret going to Sri Lanka, in fact I had a good time regardless of all the smack talk.  Just simply getting out back on the road was great for me.  Going at it alone was really good too.  I gained a lot personally and feel I`m a fuller person than when I left.  That probably sounds a bit hippy-dippy but I feel a greater appreciation for what I have, the life I live and the world I live.

Towards the last couple of weeks in Sri Lanka I couldn`t help but keep my eye on my calendar, counting down the days I had left in the country.  Looking back, that`s obviously a bad sign.  At the time my thoughts were that I was probably done with this type of travelling, that I just didn`t have it in me anymore and would probably stick to Canada and Europe from here on in.  I figured I wouldn’t travel alone again and would probably travel with a partner from here on out; it’s not that I was lonely but that I was a bit bored.  Then I went to Singapore and like a wave rushing over me I was reenergized.  So much to see, so much to do, places to aimlessly wander, markets to check out, great food and other travellers to hang out with.  This is the feeling that I wanted and didn’t really experience while in Sri Lanka.  Yeah it’s hard to compare the two places but compare I shall.

Singapore
What a place.  What a town.  I had an amazing time there and wish I could have stayed longer.  I originally was supposed to stay only 4 days but shorted Sri Lanka time and extended time in Singapore and I probably could have added another week onto it and not been bored.  Did a fair bit of touristy stuff (museums, zoo, gardens) but also did a lot of market wandering and a tonne of wandering around through the cities many cool neighbourhoods.  I spent a good amount of time and kilometers wandering around checking out different cafes too.  I figured I walked over 12km a day there and that was with using the buses a fair amount.  A great city to do one of my favorites; wander and explore.  The food markets were amazing too.  I had some of the most amazing curries and dished I ever had in those places and al for a few dollars a serving, it was awesome.  I kept going back to this one place in the Indian market that made the most amazing butter chicken and mutton masala.  What we have for butter chicken in Canada is nothing compared to what they were serving there and the mutton dishes were amazing.  You don`t get mutton or sheep like that back home.  Those were dishes that I`m already pining for and make up for the poor food in Sri Lanka

Overall Singapore was great and from what I could see and feel, it would be a great city to live in.  I have half a mind to seek out a nursing job there but that`s a bit of a crack-pot idea and scheme; then again maybe not…  Leaving was tough but I felt the same way when leaving Montreal a few years ago or Oslo last summer.  It`s hard leaving cities you could see yourself living in.

Hungry
I’ve left Singapore with a bit of regret that I wasn’t still going on, that I wasn’t heading into Malaysia and Indonesia for another month in each respective country; the travel bug has bitten me again and my fire to see more as been rekindled. I was thinking that I would probably sit tight for here on in and not go on a major trip again until I’m done with getting my degree but nuts to that; life’s just too short and you need to make things like that a priority or another 6 years will pass by again before you realize you haven’t left home.  All things considered I’m heading back out there next winter but longer this time.  8-10 weeks in Malaysia and Indonesia is the loose itinerary.  Again, all things considered.

So that`s the end of this little trip.  It was a good 5 weeks.  When I left home I was very hesitant to leave and was tempted to cancel it all; I`m glad I didn`t.  I feel that I gained a lot out of it this trip and it has me hungry and excited for more.  I learned what I would do differently, what I`ll take with me and leave behind for next time.

I like having this blog kicking around for future travels and rambles.  It would be cool to be 60 years old and still be contributing to it after x-many years.

Until then, safe travels.

Beaches, Beaches and more Beaches
Decided that I’m spending the rest of my time here in Sri Lanka on the beach but am going to cut my time here short a couple days in favor of Singapore.  I know I’m insane for changing my itinerary but 10 days of doing nothing, even in a beach-side town and especially when you’re travelling alone is too much for me and there’s not too much else I want to see in the country.  That and I’m not much of a beach person.  Plus I need some amenities that I thoroughly miss such as:
Laundry service: the going rate here in $2-3 per piece of clothing.  PER PIECE OF CLOTHING!  $15 to do your underwear and a pair of socks?  I’ll wash them in the sink like I have been thank you very much.
A novel to read: I could just sit on the beach reading and chilling out but there is a complete void of English books in the this country, which is kind of odd for two reasons; 1) there’s English signage everywhere and the majority of people seem to be English literate. 2) Everywhere you go in Southeast Asia from Thailand to Indonesia to India you can buy photocopied and knocked off books in the streets for a few dollars.  You can find just about any book you wish, new or old, meanwhile here such a market/system does not exist so I am stuck reading a Star Wars fan fiction novel I found in a guesthouse.
Coffee: enough said.
Green vegetables: chopped up, in a bowl with salt, pepper, oil and some hardboiled eggs or chicken.
A stable internet connection: I’m a slave to the interweb

Mosquitoes
One downside to the beaches are the mosquitoes and evidently they like me.  I assume (and hope) it was mosquitoes that got inside my mosquito net and completely my neck, shoulder and upper back.  They are covered in red welt bug bites at this point and needless to say I’m very itchy.  Bug spray before bed I suppose…

But enough ranting…

Turtles
Near Tengalla is a beach where large sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.  I had a local guy take me out at around 8:30 at night to a distant, protected beach to potentially get a glimpse of this if I was lucky.  It’s a long piece of beach stretching about 4 km.  We had to march quite away along the beach looking for the guys running the show; my driver called 3 times before we could see their signal light off in the distance to where they were.  The beach itself was amazing at nighttime, far away from any lights and there was no moon or clouds making the stars look amazing; the Milky Way was clearly visible.  We went walking along a good 2-3 km before we came up to where a number of other people were settled down on the beach with the turtle project-manager guy telling us we had to remain there until they started laying their eggs; they`ll leave if they sense danger but once they start laying they don`t stop or move away.  Laying their eggs is also the only time they come ashore.

I guess I was pretty fortunate this night as there were two different turtles ashore laying their eggs.  The first a Olive Riddle that we watched lay it`s eggs, bury them and then pat down the sand, quite violently mind you, before crawling off and disappearing back into the sea.  The second was a huge green turtle that was probably about a meter long.  It too laid it`s eggs and buried them but didn`t smack down the earth like the other – probably too big.  I took off before I could see the green turtle go back to the sea; the animal was exhausted and I`m sure it was going to take it another hour to get back to the water.  On the way back to the tuk tuk we stumbled upon another green turtle crawling up onto the beach getting ready to lay it`s eggs.  This one hadn`t started digging yet and quickly hid in its shell so we left it as be to do its business.  All in all this was an amazing experience, everything from the complexity of the stars above me to the simplicity of these amazing animals coming ashore to fulfil their part in the cycle of life.  Definitely the highlight thus far here in Sri Lanka.

Whales
I also went whale watching while in Mirissa, which was still good but not as amazing as seeing the turtles.  I saw a couple blue whales and a pod of dolphins but they’re really elusive animals and you can only get brief views of them.  I think I enjoyed just riding around in the boat, seeing the Sri Lankan fishing boats and just being on the ocean as much as I liked seeing the whales and dolphins.

More Buses and Highways
Another thing that adds to the craziness of busses in Sri Lanka is the highways or lack thereof.  All the major roads go through the small towns and villages along the way but the busses still treat these road ways like they are highways, flying through town at +80km/h, blaring on the horn.  It makes these nice little villages and towns along the beach and countryside noisy death traps.  Today I think I had the worse driver yet; I swear the guy couldn’t see more than 20 meters in front of him.  He’d floor the peddle for about 5 seconds before realizing that there was oncoming traffic or there was a bus stop 30 meters away and then slam on the breaks coming to a stop.  Insane.

Appreciation
I think the main thing I’m going to take away from this trip is an appreciation for the things that I have and the life that I live.  It’s been really great just getting away from home and getting away from everything that I take for granted in my day to day life. Yeah there’s a lot of stupid day to day stuff that annoy me and that I wish I didn’t have to deal with but at the end of the day I live a pretty great life full of things that I really appreciate and love.  A little list of things that I miss right now:

Family
Sarah
Coffee
Cooking
Working out
Veggies
Big Salads
My Knife
My bed

I realize these are all pretty simple things and that makes me happy that I can find such joy in the simplest things in life.  I also realize that I don`t miss work; I love my job and all but work is work.

I also appreciate the world that I live in and the possibilities that it offers.  I can continue training and educating myself for a better and bigger future for myself and continue challenging myself for a more worldly me.  I`d venture to say that the majority of the people on the planet don’t have that luxury, whether from external forces or from internal forces within themselves that prevent them from making those changes or make them unaware of the power they do have to change.

Stepping Outside of Yourself
There’s one thing I wish I could do on this trip and that’s step outside of myself and my cultural confines and see things from the perspective of a Sri Lankan.  I’m extremely interested in how the majority of Sri Lankans view us westerners and you’ll never get a straight answer from the people themselves.  Many places you go people hassle you to buy their stuff or pester you if you need a taxi or tuk tuk ride.  You’ll be walking down the street and you’ll hear someone yelling “hello!” and you’ll look over to see a guy next to a 3-wheeler tuk tuk asking “tuk tuk?”  This gets pretty annoying pretty quick and as a westerner when someone yells hello to you its instinct to turn and say hello back.  The tuk tuk drivers and shopkeepers come across as a bit stupid and airheaded with their constant “hello, tuk tuk?” and “hello, come see,” but I’m curious as to their perception of us westerners; perhaps they view us the idiotic cattle who’s attention is easily obtained with a basic tactic of saying hello or feed on our politeness of always saying hello in return to bait us in.  Will never know…

Lone Male Traveller
Being a lone male traveller has its advantages, with regards to safety and security, compared to being a lone female traveller or a family travelling together with children or even a couple travelling together.  Yeah I have to keep my wits about me but I can take some liberties as compared to other groups of people.  Basically put, I’m not as vulnerable as others but it’s that vulnerability that allows other people to be open and open up to other people in different countries and cultures.  As a male I’m not easily approached by Sri Lankan women, children and even men.  Women on the other hand have the benefit of being able to converse and exchange with both segments of the population.  Make it a couple and it’s that much easier.  Add children to the mix and you see families from the different worlds mingling, exchanging and opening up.  As the lone male traveller I feel I’m rather cut off from those experiences and cultural exchanges because I am not as vulnerable as others.

Haggling
One weird thing about Sri Lanka is that people don’t really haggle all that much.  I’m used to elsewhere in Southeast Asia or China where haggling for goods in the market is part of life and part of the culture.  Here you go to the market and show an interest in something and begin the haggling game, asking for a better deal or offering less money and people won`t hear any of it.  If the price is 600 rupee, it`s 600 rupee.  I`ve seen shopkeepers walk away from people looking at their goods after telling them the price.  Meanwhile the usual taxi rides and tuk tuks are negotiable and oddly enough the rooms in guesthouses are open to haggling too.

Tipping
Another area of confusion is tipping in Sri Lanka; some restaurants expect tips, others you don’t meanwhile you pay to go on a tour and then there’s the expectation that you’re to tip the tour guy but what was the ticket cost for then?  We paid to go on a tour of a tea factory.  The tour guide was very friendly and knowledgeable but towards the end of the tour went ice cold on us.  In hindsight we figured we were supposed to tip him. And how much do you tip?  Is it a percentage or what?  On top of that a number of places put a 10% surcharge on your order.  Isn’t that for tips or is that taxes?  Confused.

Nuwara Eliya
I spent a couple of days in Nuwara Eliya where about the most exciting thing I did was went to a tea factory.  The place smelled amazing and got to see the basics of tea processing.  It was a quick tour and kind of lousy but it was free.  I was asking the tour guide a number of questions but she obviously didn’t know the answers and was obviously annoyed by me questions.  The tea factory there was pretty touristy but it was free and they had free tea at the end of it.  Nuwara Eliya was pretty nice and a nice change from the heat but not too much to see and do there and not a lot of food choices, which seems consistent to Sri Lanka thus far.

Ella
From Nuwara Eliya was a long train ride to Ella, a tourist town in the highlands.  It was only about 75km tops to Ella but the trains are slow moving here, which is alright as the rides are usually a bit romantic and extremely scenic.  Ella is a tourist town in the highlands but at a lower altitude so it’s much warmer than Nuwara Eliya.  It’s pretty scenic here, surrounded by mountains and strangely touristy.  It’s a lone strip of a town full of restaurants and guesthouses and not much else.  It seems to be set entirely up for tourists.  There is some hiking in the area but nothing major.  The restaurants are pretty good though and it’s been a nice change.  I took a cooking class, which was pretty solid and went to another tea factory.  This tea factory was closed when we went to it but the guide gave us a tour anyway, which was probably for the best as the last one we went to was really loud.  It was a pretty solid tour, I learned a lot and the guy had answers for all our questions.  In retrospect I guess we should have tipped him; alas.  Other than tea and cooking I just chilled out in Ella, did some reading and writing and worked out a bit.  I found a nice place to stay and am enjoying the view while lying in my bed of the mountain (hill).   I’d be tempted to do some more hiking but my calves are still sore from climbing Adam’s peak.

Biggest Fear
The biggest fear I have while on this trip and travelling in general is being bored.  I’m so used to filling my days with something that I enjoy: working out, cooking, Sarah, work, my many DIY hobbies and projects and self-study…I’m fearful of getting bored without them.  I’m 2 weeks in country and 2 weeks to go and I’m fearful that at some point I’ll be somewhere with nothing to do.  It’s a funny notion really because on the other-hand I want to slow things down for the rest of my trip, spend more time in fewer places and just chill.  I’m sure I could probably spend a couple days just sleeping in, working out and reading.  From here I head south to the beach country and I’m hoping to find someplace comfortable to do just that.

Busses
Another thing on busses in Sri Lanka is their tackiness, the loud music and insane driving.
On most buses you’ll see the driver has decorated the front of their windshield and dashboard with tacky lights, trestles, and the guaranteed religious ornaments.  This is typically a plastic Buddhist ornament of sort, often multiple statues, some somber, but most lighting up like a Christmas tree.  From a western point of view, most of it is all very tacky and somewhat freaky.  You’ll find this tackiness in a lot of places actually; temples, shrines, the side of the road…
On top of the tackiness of the busses is the loud blaring music. For some strange reason it’s within Sri Lankan culture to put huge speakers on busses and crank music as loud as it can go.  You look around and it’s not like people are dancing, nodding their head to the music, humming along or even enjoying it really; it’s just there being blasted nonstop.  So earplugs are a must on any bus ride and that’s almost not enough.  The last bus ride I took the music was still loud even with earplugs.  I was shocked how loud it was when I took them out at our destination.
Add to all that you have drivers who are peddle to the metal speeding up to around 80km/h, overtaking other vehicles on blind corners, swerving into other lanes on turns, driving oncoming traffic off the road and then slamming on the brakes to pick up a person signalling for a pickup.  All the while the music is blaring, the tiny plastic Buddha is flickering away and the driver is constantly blasting on his horn.  It’s kind of like a video game actually; swerving to miss obstacles, slowing down enough to pick people up all while the clock is ticking away.

Beach
I survived the last bus right and now I am typing while sitting on a beach in a town called Tangalla.  The water is a bit rough here for swimming but the place suits my needs right now; beach, sun, warm weather and chilling out.  I have a feeling this is how I will be spending the majority of the my remaining time here in Sri Lanka.

It’s been nearly two weeks in Sri Lanka, I’ve been busy busy and have neglected to do much writing.  I spent a couple days in a beach town called Negombo before taking off north to an area filled with ancient temples called Anuradhapura.  I`d upload photos but it`s too much a pain and too time consuming.

Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura was a bit of a dive and the ancient temples weren`t too much a spectacle.  I suppose having previously seen Angkor Wat my expectations are a bit high.  The temples were pretty touristy but mainly by Sri Lankan pilgrims, which was cool but very busy.  There wasn`t too much going on in the town either and all in all it was a bit of a dump and the guesthouse was a bit dodgy and then some.  The only redeeming thing about the place was that I met up with some other great travellers; Andy (England), Danika (Australia), Case and Sonia (Holland).  The opinion of Anuradhapura was shared by all and we all got out of town on the same day via separate buses and somehow managed to all land in the same guesthouse in Sirgiriya.

Tattoos
The Sri Lankan`s really like my tattoos.  I get a fair bit of attention because of them with many people asking to take a closer look at them and to take photos of them.  At Anuradhapura some people visiting a shrine took a picture of my tattoo saying, “thank you, very spiritual.”

Sirgiriya
Sirgiriya is this huge rock formation that was used by monks long ago as a monastery.  I guess the locales say it was a king’s palace or fortress but anthropologists say different.  Anyway to climb the rock was $25, which I was willing to pay until the really amazing owner of the guesthouse we were staying at recommended climbing the giant rock right next to it called Lion rock that was only $1 to climb. It was a fun climb and I ended climbing lion rock twice and I completely skipped out on climbing the Sirgiriya rock.  Sirgiriya is usually a 1 day stop for most people but we ended up making it a 4 day stop, exploring to area and going on a jungle hike, a safari where I saw about 30 wild elephants, got a Sri Lankan massage and hit up one of the 5-star resorts pools for an afternoon.  Also met up with another really cool guy, Sebastian (Chile) who joined Andy, Danika and I.

Adam`s Peak
From Sirgiriya we bee-lined it a mountain called Adam`s Peak, which is a holly mountain that is sacred to the Christians/Muslims/Jews because supposedly at the top is the footprint of Adam’s form when he was cast out of heaven, meanwhile Buddhists believe the footprint Is that of the Bhuddha as he walked into paradise and to top it off the Hindi think it’s sacred for something that I can’t remember.  Anyway, climbing it was a must thing to do in Sri Lanka and because of the heat it’s best to start the climb in the middle of the night.  I met up with some other Canadians and we all started the climb at 1 am, which in the back of my mind felt was way too early but decided to keep quiet.  All the way to the top were vendors and little shops selling food, drink and bizarre stuff that I`ll get to later.  Sure enough Sebastian and I got to the top before everyone else at before 4 am and proceeded to stand around waiting for the sun to rise.  At this point I started to freeze my ass off; the top was probably about 15C, windy and it was all concrete and cold rock at the top.  I ended up having to descend down a bit to warm up by some vendor’s fire and watched the sunrise from a lower vantage point, which was probably for the better as I had no crowds bothering me and it was just me on the way down.

Trains, Buses and Tuk Tuks
One thing about Sri Lanka is getting around from place to place usually takes a full day and can be quite exhausting.  To go even 50km is a full day’s journey and a “4 hour” train ride usually turns into 8 hours pretty quick.  The town near Adam’s peak was shit and to get to it was about a 10 hour journey, where we travelled all day, slept for 5 hours (maybe), hiked up and down the mountain and got back into a bus and train and travelled another 6 hours.  What was supposed to be an easy 3 hour train ride turned into 6 hours crammed on rails.  It’s fun times though and part of the experience here.  It’s also Asia.

Tourism
Tourism in Sri Lanka is pretty funny.  A lot of tourists are Sri Lankans visiting their own country, which has led to a void of kitchy and cheesy tourist souvenirs.  I’ve yet to see any Sri Lanka t-shirts and I was certain you’d find dumb little replicas of Adam’s peak for sale as souvenirs but none exist.  Instead what you find is the weirdest shit for sale in the touristiest of places; random articles of clothing, stuffed animals, plastic statues of everything from Buddha to Bambi and cheap dollar store plastic junk by the boat full.  Completely bizarre from a westerner standpoint and the entire time I never saw a single person, specifically the Sri Lankans buying any of it.  Meanwhile all I want is a bloody t-shirt that says Sri Lanka on it.

Buddhism and Hinduism
One thing that makes things hard to put into context is that everything revolves around Buddhism and Hinduism.  They`re really interesting religions and I can appreciate them for what I know about them but it makes it really hard to put into context history and a linear time span.  Yeah X temple is super old but it means nothing to me because it`s not my history or culture.  It`s quite strange and hard to put to words.  I suppose I felt the same way in Europe with old ass churches.

Food
Up to this point food has been pretty disappointing here in Sri Lanka.  It`s good but very lacking.  Their mainstay is curry and rice, roti with curry and deep fried bread items. Past that there`s really not much else.  Even western foods are a bit hard to come by and I find myself craving a basic roast chicken and veggie meal.  There’s little street foods and what of it there is, is typically deep fried battered rice or weird bread items; not my flavors.  The curry’s are pretty good overall but there hasn’t been any that have stood out for me.  Typically you order curry and rice, a couple of hours ahead mind you, and you get an array of curries and rice.  It’s not like in Thailand/Laos or restaurants back home where you choose the red chicken curry or the eggplant curry, instead it’s a bunch of different curry’s that you have to guess what they are.

Costs
Overall Sri Lanka is a bit more costly than I thought it would be and most costly than Thailand/Laos.  Accommodations are bit pricier at around $15-$20 a night, which typically gets you a basic room with mosquito net, warm water and your own bathroom.  Food it alright at around $4-$6 a meal but again, pricy by Thai standards especially compared to what you get.  Travel on the other hand is stupid cheap; less than $0.50 for a +50km train ride or take a 3 hour bus ride and pay $1.50.   It’s pretty funny.

Highlands
From Adam’s peak we made our way to Nuwara Eliya, a British colonial town in the highlands.  It was a hard day’s travel to arrive there but worth the visit.  The temperature there was much more temperate than elsewhere in the country.  The temperature up there was probably around 25C tops and around 15C at night; made for some chilly nights when you only have a hoodie and shorts.  That said it was a nice reprieve from the usual +30C every day.  I was envious of the temperature there though; the guesthouse I was at had a wide variety of veggies growing in their garden ranging from cabbage, kale, and lettuce to lemons, citrus fruits and other exotic fruits.  The English started growing the cold-climate veggies and the Sri Lankans continued on with them.

It’s taken a bit but I’m starting to get into “travel-mode” and feel I’ve gotten past the WTF am I doing here, I miss home mindset.  It’s a good feeling I know there’s only more good things to come, namely beaches and Singapore.  I haven’t had coffee in nearly 2 weeks now and my tea consumption has gone down a lot.  I wish I was living my regular lifestyle as I was back home, diet and working out wise, and could see how the lack of caffeine makes me feel without the other changes.  That said I’m jones-ing for a cup but am holding out until I get to Singapore, which has some reputable cafes.  I’m also excited about the food scene in Singapore too.  But before that I have some more of Sri Lanka to see and some amazing beaches to sit on.

Well I’ve been in Sri Lanka for a couple of days, am starting get my travelling feet wet and have already gotten my legs covered in mosquito bites; I was told there’s no malaria in these parts by the travel clinic, so worries?   Thus far it’s been overall good with the people here coming across quite friendly and not pushy.  You can walk down a busy street, exchange smiles and not get accosted by taxi drivers or people selling things.  Yesterday, as I was walking down the street it started to rain and a couple huddled under two umbrellas passed me by and offered to give me on.  I had to refuse but was blown away by the courtesy.

People
I was a bit worried about not meeting many other tourists along the way, most other people seem to be couples or travelling in groups, but I met a nice Dutch couple who reassured me things are much different further south.  It seems odd that you’d want to travel all this way and see other travellers but at some point you want to talk to someone with a bit of cultural familiarity, can offer travel tips and someone to just shoot the shit with.  Actually, from all my travels meeting people has been the best parts; not just the locals but other travellers from different areas of the world and walks of life is bar none the best part.

I spent a day in the beach town of Negombo getting myself together.  I stayed in a nice family run guesthouse in Negombo and had a nice home cooked meal.  The owner couple there had worked in hospitality for a number of years abroad, spoke great English and provided good conversation and insight on the country.  From there I heading north via bus to Anuradhapura to see the ancient Buddhist temples there.  It was a fun bus ride, passing through some interesting country side, where I was the only foreigner on the bus and town that I had to transfer in.  It was pretty straight forward and people pointed me in the right direction.

Keeping your Wits
Albeit the people are super friendly and my experiences have been all around good, you do have to keep your wits about you, especially when you`re travelling alone.  On the bus ride up I met a great young guy and had a good conversation with him outside the usual hellos, what country you’re from and do you have a wife kind of stuff.  I noticed he had a dossier for a blood pressure medication and the nurse inquired and ends up he was a drug rep for a pharmaceutical company.  We continued talking and there were no red flags about him; well dressed, nice cell phone, educated and was going to Anuradhapura to visit an astrologist friend of his to who was going to help him with his headaches he`s been experiencing.  He even went so far as commenting it was hypocritical of him being a pharmaceutical rep and not using a headache medication.  All in all everything checked out.  He wanted to give me a ride with his friend from the bus station to my guesthouse.  This I where things get sticky; albeit I felt no red-flags about him, as a lone traveller you simply can`t get into that car with them.  I’m sure things would have worked out great and I may have missed a chance to meet a new friend but in the end I can’t take that chance.  It really kind of sucks because it’s then almost impossible to break that tourist bubble that you’re in and see Sri Lankan’s as they are without the object of money coming into play.  I got the guy’s name, number and email address but it’s pretty illegible …

Coffee ETOH
On January 23, 2013 I drank coffee.  It was the first time I’ve gone a day without coffee in around 4 years.  Up to this point in my travels I’ve gone to either good cafes in Hong Kong and McCafe or Starbucks in airports.  Albeit I am a slave to coffee, I must say I’ve faired quite well in the detoxification process; no headaches, no diaphoresis, no hallucinations or tremors.  I have tempered it with Sri Lankan tea, which only makes sense as it’s a prominent tea growing country and pretty tasty, even if they look at me like I’m insane when I say I drink it black without sugar.  I will say I do have a mid-day drowsy hump and I`m super early to bed.  I chalk that up to a combo of no coffee and bit of jet-lag I’m still experiencing.  Today is day two without tea ad all is well.  I’m tempted to keep on without coffee for my entire stay in Sri Lanka but think the odd cup when in more touristy and developed areas might be nice.

So here I am beginning a trip that seems a long time in the making; I’ve talked about going to Sri Lanka for a long time and it’s finally happening.  It’s actually been a long time since I’ve taken, what I consider, a trip.  Europe didn’t fit the definition for me and neither did going to places like Portland, Montreal or Toronto.  They were fun and all, just not the same.  It’s been nearly 6 years since I returned home from my last “trip”; that one lasted a year and upon my return I figured I’d be back out on the road in no time.  6 years later…

When you travel alone you don’t have anyone to bank weird ideas, observations, rants and commentaries off of, so I thought it would be fun to write again.  These writings are going to be that and probably more.

One of the first funny things I noticed at the Vancouver airport was the number of Chinese tourists going crazy buying things in the duty free section of the airport.  When I first walked through the duty-free area I was approached by an attendant working there who spoke horrible English.  At first I thought it was odd they’d higher someone with such poor English there but soon realized she was higher’d because most people going through there were Chinese tourists that were buying anything that wasn’t nailed down.  Clothes, booze, cigarettes, maple syrup, and specifically designer clothing.  This amused me; we go to China and go on crazy spending sprees for cheap stuff and they come here and go on crazy spending sprees for the real thing.

So I was in Hong Kong for a full day and about the only thing I did was wander around and go to coffee shops.   Typical.  Even when I was travelling 6 years ago that`s about all my travels turned into; me going around looking for places with good coffee and this was before “specialty coffee” had a name.  Regardless, I had some good cups from a couple of cafes; a cup from Finca Kilimanjaro in El Salvador from Knockbox, which was one of the more memorable coffees I’ve had in a while, and a pretty Ethiopian from Rabbit Roasters.  Happy to find great coffee in Hong Kong and really beautiful cafes at that, especially Rabbit which was on a second floor balcony and had a cool little open air private back porch area.  These places had the weirdest hours though; Knockbox didn’t open until 1300 on weekdays and Rabbit didn’t open until 1100.  Different coffee cultures I suppose.  I don’t imagine I’ll find any good coffee in Sri Lanka but I’ll try.  Excited to see what Singapore has to offer.

I think my searching for good coffee and frequenting cafes in general is a yearning for some form of familiarity.  I definitely feel like I’ve had some wet feet starting out this trip and was asking myself on a number of occasions, “WTF am I doing here?”   I also felt a bit lonely right off the bat and yearning for some form of familiarity.  Things were very different in Hong Kong and I suppose hitting up a couple cafes allowed me to temper those feelings; In fact I’m kind of surprised just how quickly those feelings have dissipated.  It’s only been 3 days since I’ve left home but I feel I’ve been on the road a lot longer than that and I mean that in a good way, not in a fatigued sort of way.

Hong Kong was a busy ass place and I got out pretty fast.  I was thinking about spending a couple days there but decided one day was good enough (it was either one or four because of flights).  A couple friends didn’t speak too highly of the place and the guy sitting next to me didn’t give it the greatest review either.  In retrospect I realize that I don’t like large cities like that; it’s just too much.  Too congested, too busy, too polluted…  I realize I wanted hill countries with tea plantations and beautiful beaches, not high-rises and the world’s largest commercial hub.  Hong Kong would be a great place to go if I wanted to go on a shopping spree, especially jewelry and watches.  I don’t know what gives but there was this one jewelry shop on practically every corner.  It was like Starbucks in downtown Vancouver.  There were even a few across the street from each other.  It was fucking weird, especially from someone who doesn’t wear any watches of jewelry.  A lot of the stuff was pretty gaudy too and really not that expensive.  Status symbols I suppose.  It got me thinking though; there were a lot of pieces going for less than what I put into my right sleeve.  Status symbol perhaps, but just in a different context?  One could easily argue both are forms of art, vanity and are a status symbol of sorts…Anyway; Hong Kong.

Hong Kong had its interests but not enough to keep me around.  I more or less appreciated the diversity/disparity, depending on how you look at it.  You’d have a kitschy urban store catering to the ex-pats and upper class of the city and around the corner you’d have an alleyway full of vegetable mongers and hawkers selling anything from batteries to bras.  The food wasn’t that great either.  I know there are places out in the city that are amazing but I didn’t have the time or energy to seek them out and there’s only so many rice and meat and noddle dishes you can eat.  In my case one of each.  After that I’m ashamed to admit that I hit up a McDonald’s and had a chicken salad.  It’s all I frickin wanted.

I find myself not trying to find the cheapest place to stay, haggling over the small stuff and being stupidly anxious about the little things.   I was thinking that I was getting older or lazier when it came to my travels but I think I`m getting wiser; instead of worrying about the little shit and trying to cut all the dumb little corners I find myself just letting go and saying, “fuck it, it’s not worth the energy or effort.”  And it isn’t.

So now I sit in the Singapore airport in the middle of a heavy travel day consisting of multiple flights on my way to Colombo listening to a pair of live entertainers sing your favorite songs of old that the airport has put on; enthralling.  Next up Sri Lanka.

Well I spent a whole 2 days in Battambang, took a cooking course, sat around was going to see some sights but just instead holled myself up in my room and watched TV.  From there I high tailed it Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, getting here on the 14th and am still here and will be here for a while.

In Phnom Pehn, again we have the usual extreme contrast of wealth and poverty, mixed in with a large dose of plenty of expats.  Also here we have a couple very stark and mallicious buildings and places that serve as a reminder of the madness of humanity.  One being the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the other is the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, both of which were setup by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 to facilitate the genocide of the Cambodian people.  I won’t give a history lesson on these places and the Khmer Rouge but I’ll let you click on the links for you’re personal education on the subject at hand.  Tuol Sleng was a former school located in the heart of the city and was used as the interrogation facility for the KR.  While the Killing Fields were just that, killing fields and were located just south of town.  Both places were terrible and I mean that in the worst possible way.  I was fighting a bit of a cold when I went to both so it didn’t help blunt the shock of this place.  To walk into a room knowing full well that an untold number of people had died in there was sickening.  I forgot my camera for both of these places but if I had it with me I wouldn’t have used it.  I’m rather speachless of how bad it was, especially the killing fields.  I was walking along and noticed what appearred to be garbage and sticks poking out of the ground.  On further inspection I realized it was bones and clothing.  I was rather happy to leave both of these places, they were just awful.

So that’s what I’ve seen in Phnom Penh so far, something you definately need to see but something that stick with you.  As for other thoughts and such, when I was back at Angkor I was sitting for lunch with another guy I had met and an old Khmer fellow started talking to us.  He was old by Cambodian standards at 70, which is ancient here and was a tuk tuk driver and was one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a while.  We got talking to him asking him about the past, present and future of Cambodia.  I swear every answer he had was in riddle, it was great.  He was saying that back in 1970 he made a documentary about Angkor Wat with Unesco and in the early 90’s had been asked to submit a list of reccomendations for what the country to do to get back on track.  I can’t remember all the list but the first one was the most important and that was that the people had to believe, believe in not only their god but most importantly themselves.  We were hooked on this guy’s every word.  He also went on saying about there were people living around the temples of Angkor Wat but have never seen Angkor.  Around the temples there were people living, making out a living in little huts and shanties, selling this throughout the day at the temples and such.  Most of these people had lived in the shadows of the temples all their lives but have never really looked at them, they were just there and they really didn’t care.  They were more interested in the tourists and the money they could make not really appreciating that in fact Angkor was their’s and was something they should be proud of and working to protect and restore.  After he said all this I really noticed it more so with simple things like the moats around Angkor being converted into rice paddies and the people fishing in the canels around them.  I guess people gotta make a living though but it was kind of an odd sight.  I saw this lack of respect or appreciation or whatever you want to call it at the killing fields where a local had setup a hammock on a tree that was growing over one of the mass graves that had been dug up.  It was a pretty sad sight.  Nice to see their respect their dead.  I see people of things like this from the Khmer people but I thnk that probably after years of poverty, war and strife, making out a meger living is more important than anything else…

Also in Phnom I got my teeth cleaned.  She showed me how dirty they were, it was quite shocking actually.  No cavities though.  I also donated blood at a local blood bank.  That was sureal.  The blood bank and clinic were surrounded by a tall concrete wall with barb wire on the top and guards at the gate.  There was a line of sick people outside of it and it was a pretty stark scene.  Stark scenes, that’s Cambodia…When I went up to the gate I was quickly cut off and questioned as to what I wanted.  Their faces lit up when I told them to donate blood though.  When all was said and done they gave me a can of coke, which was the first can I had drank since I can remember and a bag full of food ranging from cookies, instant noodles, sugar and condensed milk.  They love their condensed milk here.  And sugar.  They put it in everything ranging from coffee to their shakes.  I always make a specific point as to making sure they don’t put both in my shakes and even stand by watching them.  When they put it in the shakes all you taste is sugar and milk.  They do have another little secret with their great shakes though that’s rather odd; raw egg whites.  Makes it nice and frothy…

My Home is a Rome…
There’s a saying here in Asia that goes “Same Same But Different.”  It’s on people’s shirts.  It’s the name of guesthouses and restaurants.  It’s on billboards and so on.  The meaning of the saying is pretty simple; when two things are similar but different.  For instance Shell gas stations and Esso gas stations.  They both sell gas but are different companies, therefore they’re both same same but different.  Same as Safeway and Sobey’s.  Both are grocery stores that sell food.  Same Same but different.  I’ve begun to realize that was the case with my travels, many of the places I go and see are same same but different.  Eventually things start to become a blur, a painting on a wall that you take no notice of, or a tunnel that you look straight into not seeing what’s going on around you.

I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid and I’m pretty dam sure I still have it to this day.  If I’m not challenged I bore quickly and lose interest.  I started travelling because I wanted a challenge, I wanted something new and that’s exactly what I got.  I was soon bored only after a couple weeks in Australia so I started wwoofing and I got a new challenge handed to me.  After a while that too became boring and I wanted a new challange so I flew to Sydney and got a job waiting tables.  Something new, something challenging but as usual it too became a bore and I looked for a new challange.  Asia I thought would be a good fun challange.  Sure enough it was but as time wears on it becomes less and less a challenge and becomes the everyday.  Travelling is my 9-5 job.  There’s only so many waterfalls, caves, museums and temples you can look at before you just don’t care anymore and there’s only so many tough routes you take to get to a place before it just becomes the norm.

Another great thing that I had been loving about travel and challenges in general is fear.  Fear and anxiety of the unknown.  Of not knowing what’s around the next corner and what to expect.  I felt it when I first left home way back when, experienced the rush when I started wwoofing, again when I landed in Sydney and when I flew into Bangkok.  It’s addictive and makes me feel alive.  I live for it.  I haven’t felt that fear for quite sometime now.  I also try to always get something as a person out of my travels in some way.

Here in Asia I’ve been having a tough time keeping active and fit.  In Oz I had no problem finding nice parks and isolated areas to workout in plus people just didn’t care.  Here on the other hand a green space with grass is such a rarity that I am quick to draw a crowd during a workout with numerous beggars drifting my way.  I could just not care and not workout but it’s something I love to do.  It makes me feel alive and good about myself.  I had felt that feeling my entire time in Sydney and when I left there in September I felt better than I had ever felt in my life.  Same when I was climbing in Thailand and also when I was biking around Laos.  I really enjoy living an active physical lifestyle.  I honestly don’t know how people can not exercise or be active.  I feel myself getting way out of shape and gaining weight.  My tendonitis has been acting up some days and my shoulder hurts some days, all this because I’m not working out.  All in all, physically I don’t feel well.  Going from being my strongest, fastest and in my best condition ever to feeling like I’m in my worse in years doesn’t help.  Couple this inactivity with the fact that their’s food everywhere and I’m a glutton and you get the picture.  I don’t care what anyone say’s, the Asian diet is not that healthy, in fact I’ll go as for as saying it’s unhealthy. 

I’ve been fighting with these thoughts and feelings for a while.  I was really thinking about buying a bike in Vietnam and cycling the country when I got there but the more I research it and see the bikes around here, it sounds like it would be a tough stretch to find a decent bike let alone gear.  Not to mention the Vietnamesse are notoriously clever, sly and pushy people looking to rip you off at any and every corner.  I know that sounds like a generlization but I hear it through and through from others.  All the people that I had travelled with and kept in touch with all sped through Vietnam faster than they had planned.

Back during Christmas I felt tired weary and to my dread board.  I was board, I looked ahead at my itinerary and the only thing that really spurred my interest was Angkor.  Well I’ve been there and spent a good amount of time there so now what?  Continue going on, going through the motions, taking the picture and more same same but different?

As one can see I’ve had a lot on my mind as of late and you’re probably wondering where am I going with all this?  Home, I guess.  I simply decided it was time.  I wasn’t amazed, enthralled or bedazzled by my surroundings as I once had been in fact many of the things I once was amazed with or found to be humerous were turning into being annouying more than anything.  Jumping on the back of some guys motorbike, speeding down the wrong side of the road, swerving between traffic, narrowly missing other cars and bikes all at 60kph just to get to someplace, isn’t that exciting anymore.  It’s just another day in the life of.   I’ve been dwelling and quarreling with myself on this subject for too long so I finally just decided to end it all and call it quits, all this over Indian food at a great restaurant (thanks for the recommendation again Kev&Tanya).  It all happened so suddenly too.  I was thinking that I’d spend a couple day’s in Phnom Penh, one day seeing the sights and then another getting my Vietnamesse visa and transportation to the border figured out and by in Ho Chi Min City by the weeks end.  From there I was stmped as what I wanted to do and see.  I figure that if I keep going like the way I was I won’t be really enjoying myself and fully getting all I could out of where I am and what I’m doing. 

Just like that huh?  Just like that…  All I had been doing a lot of the time was pissing around, drinking coffee and eating food, all things I could do at home plus I was becoming more and more eager and wanting to do everyday things like watch TV, cook a meal, go grocery shopping.  Borring stuff.  The last couple days after Angkor while I was in Battambang all I did was sit around and watch movies on satellite TV.

I don’t want to go home but here I am setting the wheels in motion.  I’m not homesick in anyway, I’m just sick of being homeless.  Living out of a bag for 14 months is hard.  I just don’t see me getting anything out of continuing on past this point.  I’ve experienced all I’ve wanted to experience, seen what I want to see and am content for a break from this life for a while untill the next go at it.  It’s on my blood now and there’s no way I’m going to be able to stay still.  I’d love to hit India on a bike…

I’m not really looking forward to going back to Edmonton, in fact I’m kind of dreading it.  Sydney would be much more fun or perhaps Vancouver but I know if I went there I’d be just spinning my wheels as it would be much harder to start up my next goals in those places.  I think about my next step, my next set of goals in life and it scares the shit out of me and I like it.  The thought of settling somewhere, looking for a job, upgrading my highschool and applying to University scares me to death.  It keeps me up at night and gives me a nice dose of the anxiety and fear of failure drives me.  New goals, challenges and opportunities are all that lay ahead.

I know a lot of people have major problems when they get back home from long term travel but pretty much all of them step right back into their old pattern, something I intend not to do.  Going back to Mascto or even drafting in general would kill me, I couldn’t do it.  I view going back there as taking a step back in life regardless of the fact I could make a pretty penny there.  I’ll take and expect to take a huge pay cut but money doesn’t matter.  I’ve seen how simple other people on this planet live.  All the way from a basic simple living in Australia to complete poverty here in Asia.  People do manage to live on just basic necessities, it strangely enough is possible .  I know nothing has changed back home and I expected just that.  I’ve changed though and I won’t be going back to the way things were.  It’ll be nice to see friends and family again but it’ll be nicer to be handed a new set of goals and challenges.  I do think one of the toughest things about going back home will be the culture shock.  I didn’t really experience much shock here in Asia or in Oz but I honestly think that after all I’ve seen and done that the culture of back home will shock me the most.  I actually have a bit of a tough time remembering what back home is like but I’m sure I’ll be quickly reminded.  It’ll be interesting to say the least.

So yeah, I’ll be flying from Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the 28th to Beijing where I’ll be meeting my mom, who’s coming to pick me up.  I’m such a big boy.  From there I think we’ll be landing back home on Feb the 3rd.  One day short of 15 months away.  As for now I’m held up in Phnom Penh doing my shopping that I’ve been holding off doing, picking up some odds and ends that I’ve had my eye on and will probably do a bit more in Beijing.  So far I’ve bought lots of knives.  Gonna get a suit made in Beijing along with some other clothes.  I feel like I’ve gone awol with all the stuff I’ve bought but then I realize it’s really not that much comparing with how long I’ve been gone for and what i could have been buying.

So that’s the plan and now that you know all my thoughts and plans I hope to have no one pester me with questions on why or questions as to why I’m “home already”.  The only other people that I have met that have been away from home as long as I have are people working abroad, usually teaching English or expats in general.  That said I know people will bother me with it and annouying questions.

Well that’s that.  I’ll probably put up one more update on here but after that this blog will become an archive but I’m sure I’ll be starting up a new one of my personal thoughts and keep my Crossfit blog going or start up a new one with more frills and gimicks.

Things I look forward to about home:
–No dust and air pollution
-Not having to see litter and garbage pilled everywhere
-Cooking
-Owning more than 3 pairs of clothes
-Not living out of a bag
-Not having to wash my underwear in the sink or shower
-Sleeping in the same comfortable bed for an extended period in my own room
-A clean bathroom
-Being clean.  I always feel dirty.  Sweat and dust is all I know
-Not talking about travelling.  Where I’ve been, what it was like, how long I was there for, where am I going next, how long have you been travelling, how much longer do you plan to go for…blah, all questions I don’t want to hear.
-Quiet/Silence – Asia is noisy.  Music going on everywhere, cars, dogs, roosters and people.  I was always under the impression Asians were soft spoken.  Not true.
-Not having to constantly say NO.  No is the single word I use most on a daily basis.  Beggards, drivers, sellers.  No No No No No No.  I was thinking about making a shirt to sell here that just had the word No on it.  I would probably make millions.  Every single foreigner would be skooping them up left and right.  Actually I’d probably sell like 10 of them and then every bloody local would be selling them from then on in.
-Working out and getting back into shape.  I’ll be honest, I think this is one of my biggest reasons to going back home.  Taking away something someone loves to do on a regular basis that’s part of their life is torture.  It’s like if someone took away your right to drink beer everyday or something blue collar like that…

So let the comments, complaints and whatever flood in. Cya Soon I guess
Troy

Angkor
For a year while working at Mastco I had hanging on the wall of my cubical a picture of Angkor Wat.  It was there partially for symbolism and partially because I really wanted to go there.  Angkor is a huge ancient city built from about 900 ro like 1200AD.  The place is huge and is a masterpeice to a kingdom long forgotten.  You can read more about Angkor here as I’m not writing an essay on it.  

All those hours spent in my cubical being miserable have paid off and that time has come.  I bought myself a 7 day pass to the temples and all the temples in the area and have been slowly chipping away at a good portion of them.  I’ve been taking my time in them and in some cases spedning two hours in them.  The place is huge and I can’t really describe the vastness of it all.  There’s temples seemingly everywhere.  Lots are pretty beaten up and others are still being taken over by the jungle.  Restoration seems like a pretty slow process and because there’s so much to restore I can imagine it’s pretty overwelming.  Add in the fact that profit seems to be a little bit more important than restoration due to the entire plus up untill about 10 years ago this place was still in the grips of civil war you really get a feel of why things are where they’re at.

The amount of toursits here is quite insane but I guess that’s to be expected, Angkor is quite the thing to see.  Mainly Korean and Japanesse tourists with a mix of French.  The tour groups and the sizes of them are ridiculous.  Lot’s of French in Laos too, I guess because they both used to be under French “Protectorite”.  There’s been a couple places where the amount of people has been a joke and other times not another soul to be seen.  I kind of think that a lot of the tour groups are told what to like and appreciate.  I went to Angkor Wat for a quick stop to look at these carvings that I somehow missed earlier.  There was a line up going in but everyone was just going straight in and climbing to the top, which is what I did my first time in there too.  This time though when I got into the main door I went down one of the side halls to where these carvings were and was astonished as to what I saw.  All the way around the entire complex was some of the most detailed and beautiful carvings in most likely the world and the only person there was me.

Wall to Wall Carvings

Turning of the Ocean’s Milk

Judgement

I am the best self-photographer in the world.

I was a bit confused as to how I could have missed the carvings but how the tour groups missed all this I couldn’t believe.  Mean while at another temple with some OK art work, people were flocking in droves to see them.  The ones on the outside of Angkor were nsane though and was the highlight.  The detailing was amazing, the fights and battles etched on those walls were epic and the accient Buddhist and Hindu stories breathtaking.  If you’re ever passing by Cambodia, stop on by and check this place out.

I was a bit confused as to how I could have missed the carvings but how the tour groups missed all this I couldn’t believe.  Mean while at another temple with some OK art work, people were flocking in droves to see them.  The ones on the outside of Angkor were nsane though and was the highlight.  The detailing was amazing, the fights and battles etched on those walls were epic and the accient Buddhist and Hindu stories breathtaking.  If you’re ever passing by Cambodia, stop on by and check this place out.Yeah so Angkor Wat is freaking cool.  I spent a lot of my time there just pissing around, getting lost and general wandering.  I really can’t put it in words and explain any of the things in writing in words only really breath taking.  I took crap loads of pictures of the place but they give little or no justification as to what I saw there. 

Cambodia
Siem Reap is the town just south of Angkor and therefore has become the base for massive amounts of hotels, restaurants and spas.  It’s really quite sureal to see some of the nicest 5-star resorts I’ve ever seen next to some of the poorest people I’ve ever seen.  The disparity here is pretty huge.  The rich are rich and the poor are dirt poor.  Everyone in Laos on the other hand was much more close together.  The people weren’t, on a whole as poor as they are here but they’re not as rich either.  That’s communism for you I guess.  I read that something like only 20% of the country has power and I’d believe it, when coming from Laos all of the farms and small farm towns had no power, unless they generated it themselves.  I also read that like 90% of the country is substance farmers, meaning that what the people grow they use for their own use and don’t take it to market.  The place is pretty dam poor.  Fair amount of beggqars and even worse amputies from all the mines and UXO’s left over from years of fighting.  Meanwhile you look across the street and see luxury items and shops and imported items from back home all over the place.  I had this expat that lives in Phenon Phen, the capital telling me things weren’t all that bad and that things were actually really good.  I brought up the lack of power in the rural areas and fact that most of the houses I passed on the way from Laos to Siem were in pretty rough shape and made from just about anything from plastic bags, feedbags and cardboard.  He said they prefered it that way, that they liked houses that were breezy and open, it was there style.  Sure, whatever you say.  It’s pretty easy to think that when all you see is city and it’s inhabitants.  I saw another side which I have written of down more.

Schedual to Asia Time
One thing about traelling here in Asia is that it’s nearly impossible to sleep in past 7am, as they’re all early starters here.  I’m often up at 6am  and in some places as early as 5 depending on the mood of the town.  The more of a market town it is the earlier the people are up and doing there thing.  In Nam Tha you could go down to the market at 6:30 and the place would be packed and the streets would be buzzing but once 8 rolled around it was a ghost town.  It also doesn’t help that there’s fame animals meandering in the streets and nearly everyone has a couple chickens kicking around.  Even in the large centers like Chiang Mai with a popullation of 1 million I was often woken up at 6 by roosters.  In Siem Reap, a city of about 160 000 with an economy based around tourism I saw a guy herding cattle in the main street.

Ordering food in Asia
I have the this re-occuring problem here in Asia where when I order a meal I’ll often get something more than I ordered.  In Pakse I enquired about the steamed fish and was told it would take 20 minutes to cook so I decided on the red curry.  I got my curry and was about to pack up to leave when I was given the steamed fish that I enquired about but didn’t order.  Good thing I was still hungry as I ordered the curry without rice and was going to go down to the market for some nibbles.  In Siem Reap I was asked if I would like another coffee, I said I was good.  2 minutes later I was handed another coffee.  Again in Siem Reap I saw this Japanesse Cafe and my coffee sences were tingling, telling me that they might pour a good cup there so I went to look at the menu.  They had the lunch special on display and I looked at it a bit enquiring about how much it was.  I then sat down, looked through the menu andordered an espresso.  Minutes passed by and I still hadn’t recieved my coffee but this is Asia and everything takes forever and I’m used to it now.  Plus I thought it must be a really good coffee to be taking this long.  Along comes the waitress with the lunch menu set.  I guess espresso is Japanesse for lunch set.  In this case I was just about to go for lunch after my coffee so it kind of worked out plus it was dam good.  Same with the steamed fish incident and the coffee one too.  Again it happened just the other night when I was having dinner with a couple from Ottawa, Ryan & Julia.  We all ordered a set meal and all ordered the same soup but when the soup came they gave us all the wrong soup.  It was still dam good though.

Also, when eating in Asia it takes a really really long time.  They don’t do any pre-prepping the food so when you order something they gotta go and chop it all up and then cook it.  Getting your food quickly just doesn’t happen.  I’m used to this by now and don’t even notice it, meanwhile I have to feel bad for the people that come in here for 2 week vacations or in package tours and expect the same speed and hospitality because they just don’t get it here and most don’t seem to understand it.  Asking for something to be a little different, have something held or have more of isn’t going to happen and you’re going to get it the same as they always cook it.  It’s not that the people are being rude it’s just that most of the time they don’t understand and just smile and nod out of politness.  It’s sad to see the people get chewed out by some fat tourist and there’s lots in and around Angkor, as the people just don’t understand and they try so dam hard at the same time too.

Buying Stamps
So after my Japanesse espresso incident I asked where them where the post office was and made my way off to buy stamps to the lucky few who get postcards from me.  Along the way I started chatting with a young Cambodian guy and he asked me if I wanted to sit down and talk a while.  Sure I said, having no having no where of any real importance to be plus talking with him might open up an interesting insight to the country and people of Cambodia.  We chatted for a bit and learned that he was a student studying English and at night vollenteers to teach young children at a school for kids who are too poor to go to school during the day.  Pretty honorable I figure.  Soon he asks me if I could give him money for the school aka a donation.  He pulls out this crumpled piece of paper that has some information on the school and on the back a list of names, a short list albeit, of people who have made donations in the past.  He tells me a bit more about it all and points out his friends nearby that they all help at the school.  They’re the typical looking Cambodian teen and there’s lots of them here as the average age in Cambodia is 20.  I’m thinking that this is a bit fishy and decided to call the guy out asking him if we could take me to the school.  He says yes and that it’s not far, we start walking down the street and he hesitates saying that it would be better if I went with his friends on their motorbike.  I say sure and jump on with two other guys on this little scooter and we take off down the road.  We drive the length of Siem Reap, which isn’t that big, and start to get to the outskirts of town, vear off the main road where all the traffic is heading out to Angkor and continue on.  I can feel the guy behind me holding on to the seat of the bike and can swear he’s feeling out my wallet.  I think great, another strange one I could be getting myself into.  I’m starting to get a bit uneasy and we soon pull off down a dirt road, while we do one of the them points out a beaten to crap old, or appears to be old, sign on the side of the road that says something about a school for empoverished youths.  It’s pretty rustic and am eased a little by it.  We drive past some artists carving statues and such and pull into a little area with some regular looking straw huts and they proclaim we’re here.  They take me into what appears to be the main office and sit me down.  There English is not that great and they and explain what they’re about and that the director will be here soon.  Sure enough a young monk pulls up on a bike, orange robes flowing in the wind and a greating smile.  He introduced himself, Nn Rathana and told me about the school and all it was about.  I’ll save the typing and link their site.  I thought it was pretty cool and made a donation.  What I really liked about the school and his operation was that it is grassroots.  I get the feeling that here in Cambodia, with so many charitable organizations, NGO’s and international funding that much of this money is not getting to the people and tackling their problems directly but instead is disappearing into the blackhole of bureaucracy and corruption that is Cambodia. 

After we talk for about an hour or so he asks me if I’d like to help out by teaching English at night from 5-7.  I tell him I’ve never taught before but he says that I can speak English and that’s all I need to know.  It was about 4 and I thought sure, maybe tomorrow I’ll stop on by and check it out.  I kind of stutter a “yeah sure” and as I say that I’m shoved into a classroom and suddenly from around the corner a stream of young kids come ushering in and take their seats.  For the next hour I teach English, going through my name, where I’m from and lists of words that many of kids produce that they want the pronunciation for and the definition.  One girl had what appeared to be a list of words she took from a keyboard and mobile phone.  Words like “Anykey”, “Delete”, “Text Alert”, “Instant Message” and so on.  Defining “Anykey” was fun with me drawing a keypad from a mobile and going from there.  It was good fun and an hour passed by pretty dam quick.  I’ve ended up going back a couple times now to help out at nights.  2 hours passes by really fast in those little wood thatch huts and I leave with a good feeling inside, which is a nice change from how I feel when going around the town of Siem Reap.  I helped out there a couple more times, it was good fun and rather insightful.  Talking to one of the guys was really interesting and had some interesting things to say about the furture of Cambodia and it’s many young people.

Arbitrary Thoughts and Happenings
Coffee Laos – I miss Laos coffee big time.  In Vientaine I found this little cafe that roasted there own beans and served nothing but coffee.  In the cafe they these big bins of raw beans and while I was there after the owner had served me she began sifting through the raw beans meticuously picking out the top beans for roasting.  Good coffee there.  Someone mentioned I should open my own cafe.  Someone else mentioned I should write a coffee guide book.  hmm…. 

Ryan and Julia – Two Canadians that I kept running into all throughout Laos and now a into Cambodia.  They’ve taken off to Nepal now so I guess that’ll be the end of chance meetings with them.  Here’s a small worlder for you; Julia was in New Zealand and Australia for a month or two before Thailand.  She flew from Sydney to Bangkok on Oct. 31st.  So did I.  She flew with Thai Airlines.  So did I.  She flew on the evening flight landing in Bangkok at 10pm.  So did I.  Don’t get too much smaller then that.

A shout out congrats to Kate and her new baby Slater.  Wish I was there.

That’s all I can think of typing for now.  In Battambang now and just finished taking a Khmer cooking class, good stuff.

Troy

Where was I? Oh yeah, Vientiane. Well now I’m not. I left Vientiane on an over night bus down to a town in the south of Laos called Pakse. I spent a day there cycling around and seeing the people do their thing. Pakse is a little ways from the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos which is home to some great land to grow one of my personal passions, coffee.  I took a tour from Pakse to the plateau which went to a ocouple different waterfalls, coffee and platations and finally to TadLo Falls, where I stayed a couple days.

Coffee, coffee everywhere but not a drop to drink.

Freshly picked

Traditional Roaster

Tea Please.
 

Coffee Plants and their flowers
 

Golf Anyone?
 

TadLo

Christmas
TadLo is where I spent Christmas, if you want to call it that.  There was no Merry Christmas this year, instead it was more like laid-back Christmas.  My day consisted of sleeping in to about 9:00, which is a major accomplishment here in Asia and then procedded to lay in bed until 10.  From there I had breakfast and made my way to the waterfalls and sat there playing Sudoku from an old paper that I found at the guesthouse.  There was one paper there that I it looked so fresh thought was brand new but realized that it was over a year old.  That’s Laos for you, like it really mattered though where I was.  The place was pretty cut off from the rest of the world and the perfect place to rest my weary bones.  After Sudoku time I had a workout and pretty much just lazed around I had intentions to do a number of things but for about 3-4 days(I can’t remember) I just relaxed, read, worked out and relaxed some more.  For Christamas dinner I had a great steamed fished from the upscale guesthouse/lodge on the falls.  This dish has become one of my favorites here, consisting of fish wrapped in banana leaves and either steamed or bbq’d with lemon grass, ginger, garlic and a couple other herbs I can’t quite place.  Up in Luang Prabang they had another version of it with lemongreass and dill which is superb.  The Laos definately know their fish and how to cook it.  Also in Luang Prabang you could get this amazing BBQ’d fish that was stuffed with lemon grass, I realize now how BBQ oriented their food is and great of a job they do with a small BBQ and some charcol.  So I basically sat around for a couple days at TatLo for Christmas, there was no mention of Christmas from any of the other foreigners there and no on said Merry X-mas to me and I didn’t say it back to anyone else.  I have a feeling most people just didn’t want to think about not being at home with their loved ones and decided to treat it as another day.  I was feeling a bit homesick myself for a couple days, at times thinking that now everyone back home would be doing this and that or sitting down for this right now but after some R&R all was forgotten.  I actually didn’t even call home or send out an email as I was sure it wouldn’t have helped the way I was feeling at the time so I just let be plus from what I heard the phone sucked out there and the internet was dial up.  To top it off when I did get back to civilization I found out that an earthquake off of Tiawan had screwed up the internet all over Asia.  From TatLo I headed back to Pakse for a day to get myself ready for Cambodia.  My visa was out in a couple days and I had to get out or pay the price.  I would later find out that it was a big price. 
Pictures of Pakse and Tadlo

Waiting to get a shave.

Getting my watch fixed.

Khmer Dawn
I was up bright and early as per usual and got myself set for the road ahead of me.  I wanted to get from Pakse to the border, cross it and then down to Kratie in one day I set out at 7:00am from my guest house door.  I took a motorbike with a side car to the market from where I stocked up on some provisions (fresh spring rolls, the food of the gods) and changed over to a tuk tuk to take me to the bus stations.  At the bus station a couple guys quickly jumped me in the back of the tuk tuk demanding to know where I was going.  I told them Veun Kham on the Cambodian border.  They grabbed my bag and threw it ontop of a covered pick-up.  I guess they were my ride.  To my relief I was joined by 2 other foreigners.  Just in case things got dicey, and they always do, at least there’s someone in the same boat as you.  I staked my spot on the bench in the back of the pick-up while the other two guys went for breakfast, silly fools.  Some blind begger came along and I gave him my baguet, +1 karma to me, I thought.  Soon the truck was full and we started to pull away without the two other foreigners.  I started hammering on the window for them to stop and waving at the two to get their asses in gear or we were leaving without you.  They looked blankly at my waving and we started to pull away again.  I hammered on the window again and waved at the two guys eating their breakfast to get going.  They looked a their watches with a, “ït’s not 9 yet,” look but we were full and going.  The truck started to pull away now and by then they figured it out and got their asses moving jumping onto the back of the truck as it drove down the road.  They got the shitty “seats”, if you want to call sitting on the tailgate a seat, in the sun at the back of the truck.  Suckers.  +2 karma for me.

So we were on our way to the Cambodian border.  Along the way we’d stop here and there, drop off some people, pick others up, each time being surrounded by local women selling food from chicken on a stick, bbq bananas and fresh spring rolls.  3 for 1000kip you say?  I’ll take 10.  My ass was killing me after a while as my large north american ass isn’t made for the skinny benches that are better fit for the tiny asian asses.  On the last leg of the trip we made our way off the main road down a side road of just dirt and pot holes and then back down it.  At this point there was just us 3 foreigners.  Next stop Cambodian border. 

All along the way I was watching the road signs that said how much further we had.  According to the signs we had 5km left before Veun Kham and got to a wooden shed out in the middle of nowhere and pulled off into it.  This is where we knew where were going to get ripped off and why it’s good to have more than one person with you to get out of these situations, hopefully ontop.  All I saw was a mini van and a couple guys standing around and knew what was up; we were going to get dropped off here and pay these guys an inflated price to take us across the border, which would be 100m down the road.  Nuts to that and we began raising a stink not even listening to the guys.  The two other foreigners (a couple Hungarians I later found out) were srewed negotiators.  The way they handled the situation and bargaining was impressive and a glimpse of things to come.  The guys that drove us down there then grabbed our stuff and threw it back into the back of the truck and got back on the truck with an air of victory amongst us.  We made our way down the road but quickly turned off from the nice tailored and manicured main road down a, what I would view as a logging road.  It was a small forested bumpy as hell road that stretched as far as the eye could see.  It looked like it had haredly been used and that it was by no means you’d find an internation border crossing at the end of it.  We drove and drove and drove some more down this little bumpy road, not to be passed or seeing anyone else along it.  All there was a deep forest around us and nothing but forest ahead of us.  This is where panic and imagination sets in and I beging to think that this isn’t right.  I could be shot in the back of the head, dragged 10m off the road and no one would ever find me.  I looked over at the two Hungarians and noticed they were digging through the bags and taking out all their valuables and money and putting them in different pockets and into their shoes.  I took the que and started stuffing all the cash I had on me into my shoes.I was quite surprised that I could shove US$250, in $10, $5 & $1 denominations into my shoes.  It was surprisingly comfortabe too.  We continued along the road wondering what the hell was going to happen to us.  Soon a scooter came from the opposite direction, passed us, turned around, came to the side of the truck, where the guy waved at the two in the truck and drove off ahead out of sight down the seemingly endless road.  By now I’m sweating bullets and thinking great, hes gone off ahead to tell his buddies we’re on the way and to get the AK47’s ready.

Soon we could see something coming ahead, a pole across the road it looked like and were confirmed it was just that as we got closer and pulled up to it.  Attached to the pole across the road was a small shack with a sign over it reading, “Laos Customs”.  I was still a bit hesitant to believe that this was the border crossing but after a couple minutes a couple of American’s cyclists came from the otherside and confirmed that this was it.  I guess this was an official unnofficial border crossing.  It was there but Laos didn’t admit to it being there, which explains the road or lack there of.  I got my passort stamped and paid my border “upkeep fee” of US$1 and walked down the road into Cambodia.  The two Hungarians were having problems though.  It ended up that they stayed their visa over 10 day’s and were to be fined $200 each.  They talked down the price to $150 on the notion that they only had $100 on them each and would have to see if they could borrow money from me.  We made like I was giving them money and all was happy.

Laos Side

Cambodian Side

The Cambodian side was a bit less dodgy.  It was a well manicured road and on that side the government awknowledged it as an official border crossing.  On the Khmer side I found a Swiss guy eating soup at the soup stand on the side of the road.  He was a bit pleased to see another whitey and proceeded to tell me what our situation was.  We were 50km away from the closest town.  The bus comes in the morning from that town, it was now mid-afternoon.  One of the locals (I’m sure he was the border official too) had a van and was willing to arrange transportation to the destination of our liking for a price.  A heafty price.  We were basically in the middle of nowhere and he had us by the balls.  This is where things got ugly.  Name calling, stamping of feet and throwing of temper tantrums ensued for the next hour as we tried to bargain our way down to a reasonable price.  The Hungarians as I mentioned before were srewed when it came to the bargaining table and started to take things personally.  As for the price at hand I’m rather ashamed to say it.  The guy was trying to charge $20 to Krattie, about 200km away.  In North American terms thats a deal and a half but once you consider I drove across Laos for $15 and half of Thailand for $10 you begin to see that we were getting ripped off.  I wasn’t getting too upset and really didn’t care actually.  I was willing to pay the $20 but decided to see what I could get the guy down to.  A tour bus pulled up from the next town 50km down the road and we tried to get the driver to take us there but soon found out it was the guy who we were bargaining with van.  I asked some of the people getting off the bus how much they paid to get here and manged to use that as leverage.  In the end I got him down to $17.  Still a complete rip off but it was a fun little barter session.

From the border we shuttle vanned it to a town called Stung Treng where we dismounted, got onto a ferry, crossed the mighty Mekong river and sat down for lunch on the other side.  We threw our bags into a different van and from there the guy who took us here disappeared and we were left in the hands of the restaurant owner, Mr.T.  He was a nice guy and had a nice conversation with him about Cambodia.  From there we were about to go when Mr.T stopped us and told us we couldn’t go to the van that our stuff was in and would have to go around through the alley.  We followed him down this narrow alley way filled with trash, people cooking food and doing the laundry as Mr.T told us that due to coruption we had to go down this way as if the police saw us leaving town we’d have to bribe them to get out of town.  Welcome to Cambodia.  We came out the other side to the van and all our stuff waiting for us and were swept down a rural road with more bumps and dust until we got to the “main road” and took it from there.  About 4 hours later we arrived in Krattie just shy of 7PM.  12 hours, 2 tuk tuks, the back of a pick-up, 2 shuttle vans and a ferry later I arrived.  I figure it was about 300km.  Fun fun.  Me, and my bag as per usual was covered in the lovely red dust that is so synonymous to Laos and so far Cambodia.

Good Bye Lovely Laos
I really wanted to stay in Laos longer.  It was an amazing country, with great food and friendly people but alas, with my visa up and it costing a fair bit I decided to head off but I’d definately go back in heart beat.  So far I’d say the food there was the best in area simply because it was the most basic and seems to have taken bits from all the countries around it.  You could find Vietnamesse fresh spring rolls, a personal favorite of mine, fine curries, amazing BBQ, delicious fish and baguet sandwhiches.  The native Laos dishes were great and really simple which was a nice pace from the hot, spicy flavor explosion that is pretty much all Thai dishes.  To top it off they have amazing coffee and tea there.  Laos coffee was superb, you’d seriously have to look to find a really bad cup.  Even the street stalls and local shops poured a great cup.  Compared Cambodia, where I am now, the worst cup in Laos is still better than anything just about anything I’ve found here, with the odd exception which was the amazingness of Lavazza coffee.  I’m realizing that the reason for thisbad brew is that the coffee here is Vietnamesse coffee which is pure, or very near to all Robusta coffee beans, the lower grade of coffee.  The smell is awful and smells like burning rubber and tastes just the same.  Everytime I smell it my stomach turns.  I was under the impression that coffee was good in Vietnam but if it tastes anything like this I’m screwed.  The food here in Cambodia is also something to be desirred, at least the local restaurants and street stalls that is.  The Khmer food in the western restaurants is great but what the locals are eating makes my stomach turn.  It’s extremely greasy and grisely.  They cook up and eat just about every organ and part of the animal.  Bugs are a common sight, which is nothing new or too bad but where I draw the line is the steamed duck/chicken embryos.  What they do is when an egg is about to hatch they kill it, steam it and eat the small partially developed embryo with lime juice and salt.  I had seen this before in Laos and had heard about it even before I left home.  In Luang Prabang I thought it was a hardboiled egg, bought one and soon realized what it was.  I dropped it right then and there and stated to the people I was with that that’s as far as I go when it comes to strange food.  There is one thing the Cambodians know how to make though and that’s fruit shakes.  Best dam fruit shakes I’ve had yet.  The food in the restaurants is also really good.  I just had a great pumpkin soup the other night and an interesting baked pumpkin dish the next, to top it off there were these mine victims playing music next to the restaurant that really added to the atmosphere.

Kratie
I spent a couple days in Kratie, which was quite the busy busseling market town.  The people were extremely friendly, as per usual in this area of the world and I had a lot of fun trying to buy and make my way around the area.  I had a Kmher scarf made, which was good fun.  I rented a bike and toured around the town and onto this one Island on the Mekong that was scattered with farms and was a nice look at rural Cambodian life.  From there I was off to Siem Reap for new years leaving the 31st. 
Pictures of Kratie

Getting a Khmer Scarf Made

While getting it made, granny here grabbed my workout log and proceeded to peruse it.  She was impressed by my number and times.

The little kid at the tailor shop that I was playing with.  I had good fun getting that thing made.

On the Island in the Mekong.  It was full on windy and since it’s the dry season there’s a huge sandbank that whips up tonnes of dusk and sand.  Good thing I have my scarf.

Yep. still horse and cart here in Kratie.

New Years Day

New Years
My plan was; leave from Kratie to Siem Reap on the 31st, probably have a fairly quiet eve and walk around the city square seeing if anything interesting was going on an such.  I’d stay up a bit into the new year and from there wake up at like 4:00am and go out to Angkor Wat and watch the sunrise on the new year on one of the most amazing ancient ruins on earth.  Sounded good huh?
Instead the night before I left Kratie I started to feel a bit sick.  I woke up the next morning for the bus ride with a bit of a fever, feeling a bit nauseous, gross and clammy and generally like crap.  I laid in my bed wondering if I should go or stay where I was.  My mindset was that I could get more sick by taking the trip while I could get more sick anyway and being in a larger center with lots of tourists like Siem Reap pretty much guaranteed me a place with access to decent medical attention if needed.  I decided to just take a look at the bus and see what the day of travel would entail.  If it was a pick-up truck, shuttle van, ancient bus that was probably used in combat or tuk tuk I was staying where I was.  To my surprise and joy it was an up to date bus with AC, TV and designated seating.  To my dismay it had AC and a TV.  This meant it would be freezing in there and we’d be watching karaoke of Thai pop music.  I’ve heard so many of these songs all over the place that I know get some stuck in my head and reconize many of them.  Some of the more folkish Thai and Laos music isn’t that bad mind you.

So get onto the bus and am told that I will have to make a transfer in a town called Skoun; don’t like the sounds of that.  I figured since this was up to date bus it was surely a foreigners bus but to my surprise it was a regular Khmer bus and much to my shock I was the only white person on it.  Many people would say this is good because you get a good chance to mingle with the locals.  Yeah, I know hello, thanks and no thanks in Cambodian, they know hello in English.  Lets mingle and exchange culture, how rewarding.  Plus this is also a bad thing because if something bad happens…no WHEN something bad happens, it’s nice to have someone else there with you to sock it out, espeically when your sick. 

I made it to Skoun with no problems, drifting in and out of a fevered sleep the whole way through.  At the bus station it was full on with beggars, people selling just about every type of fruit and bugs.  Lots of bugs.  The little eatery was jammed pack with locals wolfing down some pretty harsh looking dishes.  Mixed my nausia this was not a good combo.  It was also bloody hot and mixed my fever I was eager to get to the next bus.  If anything bad was going to happen this is where it was going to take place.  The bus driver, who didn’t speak English took me to another guy who worked for the bus company and spoke English who did and he said he’d look after me.  The was to be there at 1PM and he’d come and find me when it arrived.  I sat down, ate some jack fruit and pineapple, the only things that my stomach could handle and waited.  Soon it was 1 and no bus.  Then is 1:15 and still no bus.  During my waiting I had lost sight of my babysitter and began to worry.  I thought this one guy was him and went up to talk to him but I soon realized that that wasn’t him.  I hate to say it but a lot of Asian people look the same to me.  That said, I know a lot of Asian people think us westerners look the same too so it’s all funny in the end.  Soon though my sitter found me and told me the bus was running late and would sonn arrive which it did.  I hopped on and made the last leg of my journey to Siem Reap, again falling in and out of a fevered sleep the entire way.  We made a pit stop at this really weird place that looked to be at one time an old pool with ajoining restaurant and washrooms.  The place looked like it was 200 years old.  The washrooms were scary and I pee’d outside of them, too much for me.  I didn’t go look into the pool for fear of what I might see.  There was garbage everywhere around the pool, which is really nothing new.  There’s garbage everywhere in this country.  I thought Laos was bad but this place is 100 times worse.  It was a really strange place as it was in the middle of nowhere and quite out of place.  If it was built recently it would have had to of been built in the last 5-8 years because of the previous wars and termoil that gripped the country and had quickly fallen into disarray and was a stupid thing to build in the first place.  If it was from before the war, Pol Pot and the decades of insanity, I’m amazed that it still stands.

Finally made it to Siem Reap with no problems.  When the bus pulled into the terminal the tuk tuk drivers were stampeding towards the bus even before it stopped, they were pretty agressive and not even to just the foreigners but also to the local people as well, which is new.  most of the time the local peoples are ignored and the drivers just go after the tourists.  The people here are full on poor and I was told that as so they’re desperate for work they go for anyone.  I picked a friendly looking guy as my driver and he took me around the city looking for a place to stay.  I was told it was hard to find a good place here as most places were just about always full.  I just wanted to get into a place and was willing to take anything.  After about 5 stops I found a place with a TV, my own bathroom and shower all for the steep price of $10 a night, the most expensive I’ve paid here in Asia yet.  I took it and proceeded to spend my new years eve watching Star Wars 3 untill about 10Pm when I fell asleep and slept for 12 hours.  Happy New Year!

Eyesore on the Mekong

Notice the dead dog?

The next morning I found a different place for $5 a night and probably a little nicer too but no bathroom and the TV doesn’t get as good reception.  You might say, why go to Asia and watch TV?  I’m sure most of you who read this have watched more TV and movies in a week than I have the last year travelling so go to hell.

I got plenty more to write about and some really interesting things happen in Siem Reap but I’ll leave it there and update more in the upcoming hours, days, weeks, months, years…

Peace
Troy

Been Listening to Tiger Army lot’s lately, specifically the song “The Long Road”, great stuff. I just landed my self in Vientiane, the capital of Laos after spending a day in Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng was an interesting little town that seemed to be based around tourism and tubing down the local river. It kind of reminded me of Nam Th but with tonnes of foreigners, lots of restaurants with pretty much the exact same menu, a whole slew of bars serving “happy shakes” and absolutey no charm. There was some nice caves in the area and I biked out to one of them and got a tour of it. It was a pretty cool cave going about 1km into the mountain side with tonnes of really cool stalagmites, some of which you could knock on in different areas and make different sounds. I got a tour of it, or more like was taken on a tour of it by a couple locals with flash lights. I was grateful that they were taking me on it and thought it was going to be like $1-2 for it but was a bit shocked afterwards when they came asking for $6 for each me and this Aussie I was with. The Oz talked him down to $5 but I walked away a bit pissed off as they didn’t say or post the price before hand. I’m sure I would have paid for it as going by myself would have been a bad idea but it was just a little annouying. But in the end it’s only $$$.

Luang Prabang
Before Vang Vieng though, I had to force myself away from the great town of Luang Prabang. I guess we all have our chill out towns, places that we get stuck in while travelling and stay there longer than expected, well LP was my town. I spent 10 days there and 12 nights before I forced myself to leave and already I’m regretting leaving thinking that I should have stayed there for x-mas. I kept putting off going, always finding more things to do. The last couple days there I rented another bike and headed out to Tad Sae waterfall, which this time I’ll took pictures of. I also took another cooking class, this time in Laos cuisine, went to the museum, which was actually really good and just chlled out at my favorite cafe Morning Glory. The place was owned and run by a guy from the states who knew his coffee. The shakes they had there also rocked and although I never ate there, from what I was told by others was dam good.

Morning Glory Cafe

My View from MG

Christmas
Thought I’d just touch base on this again. After some thought I’ve realized why Christmas doesn’t matter to me out here. Family. Christmas to me is about family and without my family here it’s nothing but just another day. Without Mom, Dad, Tiff, Booboosh & Mike, Brad, The Smiths and every last Hynek, it’s nothing. Same goes for New Years. Without my friends New Years is just another day, I highly doubt I’ll drink or do anything exciting. I’ll probably stay up to 12:05 and then go to bed. Without Mike & Erin, Colby & Steph, Sean and Jesse it’s again, just another day.

About as Christmas as it’s going to get

Random Thoughts and observations
I see a lot of local people here watching WWE, it’s pretty popullar. Everywhere from Nam Th to Vientiane I’ve seen people wearing and buying WWE shirts and watching it on TV.
There’s lots of travellers travelling with their kids. Children from toddlers to teens. Anyone can travel.
Seemingly everyone no matter how poor looking they appear to be has a mobile phone. Welcome to the digital age.
Roads in the north of Laos reminded me of the trains that go through the Rocky mountians and have to circle and loop around the mountains to make it through. You can be driving and see a road way across this gorge and like 10 minutes later be on it and looking up or down on where you just were.
Asians love Red Bull and their version of it M-150, at least I think it’s their version of it. Don’t remember seeing it Canada or Australia. They drink that shit by the truck load.
Berr Laos is a very very popullar beer here and from what I’m told is really good. If you can try it ever back home give it a swig.
One thing that I’m really missing and finding a bit hard is variety in food. I’ve gone form one extreme to the next; I’ve either had to pretty much always cook for myself to the opposite where I’m always having to eat out. A lot of the restaurants here serve a lot of the same thing and I’ve seen many that have the exact same menu as as place down the street. Things can get very borring especially if you’re in a town with limited market stalls and street food and finding restaurants that serve some of the local foods and cuisine can be a bit of a challenge.

So like I say, I’m in Vientiane now but I think I’m only going to spend like a day here if possible, depending it I can get my Cambodian visa sorted and then just on a bus all in the same day. There’s not too much of an appeal here for me but I’m sure that’s mainly because I really liked Luang Prabang so much and find it doesn’t compare. From here I’m off to the south to a place called Paske which is suppose to be coffee country and from there either up to some waterfalls or down to near the Cambodian border to a place called 4000 Island which is suppose to have quite the draw.

Peace
Troy