Angkor Wat and our way back to Bangkok

In Siam Reap we found a new, cheap, really good guesthouse almost having a hotel style. When we got of the bus thousands of tuk tuk drivers with advertisments of different guesthouses in their hand gave us a warm welcome, making the police helping us to get our backpacks and chosing one of those annoying guys to take us into town. We wanted to go the first evening to Angkor Wat to see the famous sunset, however, our driver told us that it would rain and that it would not make sense. Indeed it did not rain and it turned out to be an amazing sunset with rainy clouds on the one side with two rainbows stretching across them and a beautiful sun setting in the most amazing colors - bad luck for us. The next morning our drive took us to Angkor Wat. It was a day excursion and how it always happened: I had really bad stomach cramps all afternoon. But still, the Angkor Wat area with hundrets of old Buddhist and Hindu temples being built thousands of years ago was really impressive. As we went only one day because of the high entrance fee we saw the major temples: Angkor Wat itself, the temple used to film the movie "Tomb Raider" having these trees with them humangous roots growing through the temple, some other smaller ones, and the wanted sunset on a little mountain overlooking the surrounding plaine. After a hot nice day we went back to Siam Reap and enjoying one or the other cool drink in the Angkor What bar. The next day we did some shopping and relaxing, watching the opening game of the Word Champiochip Germany-Costa Rica with a Cambodian girl we met during her work in a restaurant and two British girls we met on the 4000 Islands. Looking at the result it was a fun night. Early the next morning we left for Bangkok: 165 kilometers in 7 hours to the Cambodian Thai border - do I have to say anything more to it?! The way to from the border to Bangkok was ok, however, once we only touched the city border we needed 1,5 hours for 1 kilometer because the Thais were celebrating their king's 60th anniversary of being king. So we grapped our backpack and walked the rest of the way and we were lucky because we got to see some nice fire works!

Some more info: I cannot put up more pics on my page because of the capacity available to me but my brother and I will find an alternative!!! Also, the page is almost up to date: We spent 4 days in Bangkok, Uli being really sick for two days. We spent the nights at friends of my aunt who were really nice to us. Thank you very much Didi, Tom, and Fabienne. Tom showed us arround in Bangkok with a special highlight: A bar on the 59th floor on the second highest building in Bangkok. Very nice, I can tell you! Now we are on Kho Samui enjoying the sun, beach, and sea...

The 4000 Islands and an adventure of its own kind

The time on the 4000 Islands was really relaxed. We booked into a guesthouse having bamboo bungalows directly at the shore with a view over the Mekong River on the West side of the Don Det guaranteeing awesome sunsets the next three nights. On our arrival day we booked a tour to watch some of the last existing sweet water dolphins and a huge waterfall were the Mekong River drops into the deep. In fact we got to see some dolphins but unfortunately very far away. The scenery has been just impressive and the weather was really hot. On our second island day we rented bikes and rode them over the island and its neighboring one which are connected by an old train bridge introduced by the French. We followed the old train route and got eventually to places where the Laos people used the old steel tracks as bridges. We carried our bikes over those bridges having nothing underneath them but empty space - scary I can tell you, but we survived :-) We also visited another waterfall which was nice but half as impressive as the other one. With our last cash money, no ATMs were available on the islands, we booked our trip to Siam Reap in Cambodia because there was no way getting there with public transport. This is the time when "The adventure of its own kind" started.

The trip started at 8 a.m. in the morning and the first part went very well. We were taken to the Laos-Cambodian border, got our Visa for Cambodia without becoming victims of corruption (just some overcharging of 6 US dollars) and continued our journey to Stung Treng with a nice minivan with airconditioning as promised. In Stung Treng our guide took us on a ferry to cross once again the Mekong River and we all had lunch in a nice little restaurant we were taken to. Jep, I know why guides do that, have been one myself with Rainbow Tours - Commision!!! Anyway, we were waiting for the next minibus taking us to our overnight place, and here the horror began: the minivan was completely rusty (so much that it had holes in the floor, giving us a nice panorama of the street, it had two seats more than there was space for and some local people put on the roof, the windshield was cracked (so the drive had to push his hand against it every time a car came on the other side of the road), all cables in the front were visible, no rear lights and only one working in the front (which became an issue when it got dark and the drive rode the bus over those bumpy dirt roads), and last but not least a driver who must have been a Japanese Kamikazee in his first life. The next 12 hours we were on that car and for those who do not know: Cambodia has only a few European styled smooth roads, all others are dirt roads...We arrived at 9p.m. at our overnight place, all dusty from the dirt of the road being in the car, in our backpacks, in our nose and lungs, and on our clothes. One good thing was that the hostel he took us to was mentionned in the Lonely Planet. We spent the night and got up early in the morning to take a public bus for the rest of the route to Siam Reap. Once we opened our eyes we realized that it was not a nightmare but real and were happy to be alive :-)

Tubing in Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is known as Laos' tubing capital. So what did we do?! The first morning we went to the rental plce for the tubes, jumped on a tuk-tuk with 13 tubes and 13 people plus the driver (amazing, just have to see it, full is really full here in South East Asia :). To clarify: morning is 1p.m. because most poeple start that time and we were just tired in the real morning. Also, we enjoyed a long breakfast in our most favorite cafe/restaurant/guesthouse which we named: The FRIENDSbar. Why? Because from 8a.m. to 11p.m. they showed the comedy show FRIENDS and in the end I started to like it. We ate there pretty much every time chilling in a half-lying position in front of two TVs and nice food. Hey Nadja: you and Sandra would have definitaley enjoyed this place :-) Anyway, we were dropped of the tuk-tuk at the starting place for the tubing, the sun shining and the river at a slow speed. Just after 100 meter the first bar with a zipper invited all the tubers for a drink because if you wanted to use the zipper you had to buy a beer. Actually they also offered Pepsi, which for some unexplainable reason was sold out *g* After doing the zipper a couple of times, droppping you in the middle of the river, we continued to the second bar only 50 meters further (we thought we would never made it to the end) and again had to consume in order to use a swing of some 3 meter hights. Uli tried some backflips succesfully while I just had the feeling to drop safely from the moment you let of the swing until your body touches the water. And yes, it was a good exercise because the next swing started at some 9 meters hights forcing you to let go at some 6 or 7 meters hights. It was so much fun that we jumped over and over again being a challenge every time. After the third bar we floated down the river for another 50 minutes enjoying the sunset. We had so much fun that we decided to stay longer in Vang Vieng and do it again the next day. It was much fun again, this time with rain but more fun people and a 60-year-old lady doing everything we did, amazing and lots of fun to watch going down that big swing. The next day we started our longest journey to southern Laos, the 4000 Islands in the Mekong River. We started at 10 a.m. in Vang Vieng and had 4 hours ride to Vientiane where we spent the day to visit the major sights. Vientiane has nothing much to offer so the afternoon was enough time to explore the city (which was confirmed by an Australian goverment official we later met at a traffic light. Later that night we took the nightbus to Pakse and celebrated Uli's very good graded diploma thesis (got to his grade this day). After only 2 kilometers we had a flat tire but Lao poeple are good in repairing and fixed it very fast. After changing the mode of transport twice to another bus and a ferry we arrived on Don Det where we spent the next three nights.

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a very nice town somewhere in Laos. It has a nice market, some wats and some good bars we later went to. The first night had an impact on us making us sleep-in the next morning. After grabbing some breakfast we looked at the major wats being nothing special after those in Thailand and got on a pick-up taking us to a very amazing waterfall. It has to major drops after which some smaller drops form cascades leading the blue water down the river. We climbed up to the very top and jumped into the pools where the water dropped into. In the second pool a swing made it easy for everbody to enter the water.After we came back to Luang Prabang we climbed the small local mountain with a wat on top, sitting down and looking at the sunset being destructed by some annoying mosquitos. Later we enjoyed some Beerlao (very good) and got to bed to travel to Vang Vieng the next morning. One of the best things was that we paid for a fan room only and managed to get the airconditioning running being in our room (Two smart persons, an engineer and a tourism manager, what do you expect :). The journey to Vang Vieng was very beautiful offering a breathtaking scenery. For the first time we decided for a more expensive way to travel - a minibus - because the route from Luang Prabang via Vang Vieng to Vientiane (the capital) used to be very dangerous. And eventhough we again saw some machine guns on the way we were to experience some great days in Vang Vieng.

The slowboat trip from Huag Xai to Luang Prabang

There is nothing much to write about Chiang Khong, because there is nothing. Also Huag Xai, the border city on the Laos side of the Mekong River had nothing much to offer. We just made one experience confirming the prejudice of Laos being a very laid back country. We arrived with ferry at about noon in Laos and found out that all busses and boats in any direction leave one time a day in the morning - we were stuck but a Canadian girl recommanded a good guest house to us and we could relax and do some reading, writing diary, and sleeping. Early the next morning we boarded the famous slowboats floating down the Mekong till Luang Prabang. The boats look nice, however, only have wooden benches sampling a high challenge to our bums. The scenery on the shore was very beautiful, jungle and mountains, but remained the same till Luang Prabang making the whole story a little boring in the end. Still we enjoyed our ride and chatted with other people and once again read (so that I could finish the Davinci Code - nice book, can just recommand it). The night we spent in Pak Beng a small village full of guest houses. The next morning nobody was sue when the boat was about to leave, everything between 7:30 and 9 o'clock was spread. Taking the middle, 8a.m., we got on the boat, with us three with machine guns armed military persons and another guy with a briefcase spreading once again a feeling of discomfort. But again we were lucky and arrived safely with an unhappy bum in Luang Prabang.

Trekking and elephant-riding in Pai

The busride to Pai started eary in the morning and led over a curvy road through the jungle to Pai. At some point police or military officers stopped the public bus to see our IDs, not bad at all, however, they wore some machine guns with them making us feel a little uncomfortable :) Not being shot or arrested we checked into Mr. Jan's Guesthouse, feeling attracted a little by the name of the hostel. The first day we just walked around and booked our trekking for two days. It started at 9a.m. and a pick-up truck drove us some 1,5 hours into the jungle to a Karen village (a hill tribe finding its origin in Burma). From there our trek started with some 9 people and 2 guides. The trail led us over bamboo-bridges and through all sorts of vegetation which can alos be found in Europe except for the rice field which seemed to be a little boring at this pint. However, the more we good into the woods, the more the vegetation changed and suddenly we stood in the jungle like everybody knows it from TV. Amazing trees and bananatrees growing close to eachother hosting spiders and all sorts of other 6 or 8 legged, crawling, not so friendly looking animals including our best friends from the Khao Yai Nationalpark - leeches. One good looking girl from a rich familybackground got bidden and behaved quite manly: Congratulations :) After a long and tyring walk we arrived at a very beautiful waterfall which we used to cool down a little. After further 45 minutes we arrived at our dinner/overnight place, a Lahu village (also a hilltribe). The Lahu people cooked for us in our bamboo hut over open fire (definitaley not in accordance with European fire regulations :) a very delicious meal. After dinner we had a chat with our guides and enjoyed some beer and Lahu Whiskey (very delicious also) putting us to a deep sleep some hours later. The next morning the constelation of the group was rather astonishing: deducting all injured and sick people, only four people could continue the track. After some 6 hours and lucnch in another village we arrived safely at our starting pint and were brought back to Pai. The way home turned out to be a fun adventure because once again the rainy season caught us. Very strong rain made the road slicky and two times Uli and I had to pull the truck up a hill respectively jump on the back to give the rear axis some grip. In between we crawled under our raincoats with the two girls accompanying us.

The next day gave our life another fun experience: Uli and I riding on an elephant. Those animals are really hairy rubbing of your skin on the legs but it was fun anyway. We rode through the jungle on the animal's bare back. After one hour of being shaked around and enjoying the funny laugh of our guide we arrived at the river hosting brownish water which later, after the guide gave the elephant some instructions we did not understand, colored our swimming suites. Yeah, the elephant threw us of and after that we played with this animal for some 30 minutes in the water: climbing on the back to be thrown of again: Real fun, I swear!!! Afterwards we tried to clean our close, without any luck...The next day was a travel day once again and for some 13 hours we rode the bus to the Thai-Lao Border at Chiang Kong.