Monday, May 25, 2009

SE Asia Trip

July 10, 2005 10:00am - Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

This notebook is to document my travels to Southeast Asia.... I left Las Vegas at 7:55am on United.

 

July 13, 2005 Noon - Flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Riep, Cambodia

I arrived in Bangkok on Thia Airlines around 10:30pm on July 11. The total travel time from when I left the house in Las Vegas to Comfort Suites in Bangkok was about 26 hours. I met my brother Paul and his brother-in-law Craig Martin, has a quick chat, and fell asleep. Breakfast was good the next morning, the juice here is delicious. We decided to take the bus into the main touristy area of the city. We caught Bus 29 and rode it for 45 min to the train station. The humidity here is very high and we are all sweating within minutes. From the train station, we catch a tuk-tuk to what we had requested, the "Grand Palace". Instead we were dropped off about 2 miles away. From there, the fun/scams began.

 

July 13, 2005 9:00pm - Siem Riep, Golden Temple Questhouse

[Bangkok] Once we were dropped of at the corner of some random intersection, the tuk-tukdriver pointed to a temple and said that was it, but it wasn't. Another tuk-tuk driver and friend approached us. We asked where we were at and he showed us on our map. He then told us the temple we were at was closed because of the Buddhist Holiday. He also told us only the Standing Buddha and the Lucky Buddha Temple were open. We jumped into his tuk-tuk and he drove us to the Lucky Buddha temple. This temple was nothing spectacular. He then took us to the Standing Buddha, a statue about 200-ft tall. Next we went to a travel agency, booked our flights to Siem Riep, Cambodia, and a room for the night at the White Orchid. Finally we had thetuk-tuk driver take us to the Grand Palace around 3:00 and he left. Come to find out, the temple had been open all day but had just closed and the day was not a Buddhist holiday. We did get to see the temple next to it, Wat Phra Kaew, one of the largest and ornate temple in Bangkok. TheBuddhist temples are very ornate and they rely on donations from believers and tourists to support the maintenance of the buildings and the monks.

 

July 15, 2005 6:00 am - Golden Temple Guesthouse, Siem Riep, Cambodia

I am a couple days behind on recording our activities. I have just been so exhausted by the end of the day, I can't write anything. Let me take you back to Bangkok; on July 13, we awoke and took a train to the airport (it cost about $0.25 to ride about 20 miles). Out flight was around $170 on Bangkok Airways, we booked it through a travel agency in Bangkok. We checked prices at the airport for the same flight through the airline carrier and it was $130. We will be trying to book through carriers at the airports from now on.

 

We arrived in Siem Riep around 1:00pm. We hire three motorcycle driver to take us into town about 7 km away. Like Bangkok, these drivers are "smooth operators". They drove us to the Golden Temple Guesthouse, one I'm sure they are connected with and receive a kickback from. It is a decent place and we picked a room with three beds and no AC, $9/night. Our drivers would not leave us and soon we were being sold all day transportation service. We settled on $4 per person for the day. We ended up giving them a $20 for the three of them.

 

We decided to visit the floating village. Hanging on to handles by the seat, they whisked us about 10 km to where a village on a river was located. The people lived in floating huts. The river was close to a lake and the huts would be floated down the river to the lake in the low rainy season. It is the rainy season now so the river is high and carrying a lot of silt. We took a boat ride down the river to the river to the lake and traveled through the village. They lived up to 10 people in a hut. Their untreated sewage was dumped directly into the river along with every one's else upstream. They would bath, drink, play and swim in the water. It is their livelihood. Only the poorest of the poor lived on the river. Many did have a TV though that would be run off a car battery. Every once in awhile, we would see a generator charging batteries.

 

July 15, 2005, 9:00pm, No Problem Questhouse, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

After visiting the flouting village, our drivers took us to a restaurant for tourists, Jasmine Ankor. It had a delicious buffet, especially the fruit. The restaurant included a stage where dancers performed Cambodian custom dances. We then returned to the guesthouse for a restful sleep.

 

The next day, July 14, we set out for the famous Angkor Wat. The Angkor ruins are from the late 9th century to early 11th century, Angkor Wat being the largest and most famous. There are dozens of these temples throughout the regions. The temples are regarded for the intricate relief carvings in the stone temples. The temples were built to honor Buddhist gods and are still used today by the monks who have set up shrines. We walked about 5 miles between the many temples; it got rather hot and sweaty. The temples had a very unique smell; I think someone said it was from bat feces. This is a common location for weddings and we did see one. We also saw several monkeys and some other wildlife.

 

Today, July 15, we picked up the bus at 7:00pm and headed to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We saw country side, many live in a wood shacks along the side of the road with rice farms in the country behind the home. The road was built on a high berm or dike and the homes were built on stilts; I assume flooding is common. Along the way, we encountered the end of a fight between locals. One man was getting beat up by a mob. As we were arriving, a police officer was just pulling him out. The officer got him onto his motorcycle and they spend off out of the mob.

 

We arrived in Phnom Penh and wet to the Tuol Sleng Museum, a compound used by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-79 to jail and torture political prisoners. 

 

July 17, 2005, 7:45am Happy Tours, Siagon (Ho Chi Minh), Vietnam

Continuation from July 15:

After we visited the torture camp, we  went out to the Killing Fields where hundreds of thousands were murdered and thrown into a mass grave. The genocide was conducted against there own country men by a man named Pol Pot; who was never punished for his actions. In total, somewhere between one and two million people were exterminated.

 

After the Killing Fields, we went to a shooting range were they had military guns available for shooting. It was somewhat expensive so I did not shoot anything. Craig threw a grenade into a dug out pool for $30.

 

That night we stayed at the No Problem guesthouse for a total of $6. It had a perch on the Mekong River and the host was great and they served very scrumptious food and shakes. It was a good stay. Like in Siem Riep, we had motorcycle drivers take us around on the cheap.

 

July 16:

We got up early and Craig and I caught a bus to Saigon, a 9 hour ride. Paul flew out of Phnom Penh due to his military restrictions. I had thought we would make it into the city earlier than I thought, but we did not get in until 4:00p. I told Paul we would meet him at the Tunnels (constructed by the Vietnamese for protection during wars). It was going to be a 90 minute ride to site, they closed at 5:00 and it cost $10. We should have planned an alternate way to get in contact with Paul if needed, but we did not. Nonetheless, I decided to abandon the meet and try and hook up with through phone call to his wife. I called Andrea (at 3:00am), told him we lost Paul, and gave her our location. While Craig was checking his emails, he noticed he received one from Paul with a phone number to his guesthouse. It turns out, he checked into a guesthouse just a couple down from ours. Saigon is a very large city, but I guess most of the backpacker guesthouses are centralized. He was very bitter about the whole situation since he spent extra money on his motorcycle driver to keep him around to prevent getting stranded at the Tunnels. And he was upset that we never showed up.

 

July 19, 2005, 3:00pm, Boat Ride, Halong Bay, Vietnam

Events of July 17:

Craig and I booked a tour to the CuChi Tunnels. We saw the tunnels the Vietnamese used to fight in and hide form the American troops. They were originally stared in the mid 1900's when the Vietnamese were fighting the French who had come in to colonize. The tunnels were designed so they could attack and then hide. Their entrances were very well concealed and there breathing holes exited in large termite mounds. A typical tunnel was about 3 feet high by 2 feet wide, very small and very hot. The people were of course smaller than the Americans and could walk through them much easier. Anyhow, the conditions for the living them are unimaginable.

 

That afternoon we caught a plane to Danang and then a bus to Hoian. Hoian is on the beach and is known for there fine silk retailers.

 

July 18:

We went to the beach and did some swimming and body boarding. The water is really warm. Unfortunately, there is only one dive shop and they only do one excursion per day, leaving at 8:00 am. I missed it and was rather upset. In the afternoon, we caught a bus to Hanoi, which turned out to be the longest bus ride of my life, 18 hours. We arrived at 8:00am. Keep in mind, driving these roads is like attempting a gauntlet- constant honking, swerving, and near misses.

 

July 19:

Arriving in Hanoi with little sleep, very sweaty, and sunburned, we booked a tour to Halong Bay and immediately jumped onto the tour bus for a 3 hour ride to the coast. I'm sick of buses. We tried booking a train where we could get some sleep, but it was full.

 

July 21, 2005, 7:30am, Royal Hotel, Sapa, Vietnam

These events occurred July 19:

In Hanoi, we booked a tour to Halong Bay. We jumped on a minivan that drove us 3 hours toHalong City where we boarded a boat to see the bay and swim. Our first stop was a cave on the one of the islands. It was an amazing cave with very large formations and rooms. Since we were sunburned, we only swam a little. The water is very warm, I think at least 90deg. We then went to Cat Ba Island and stayed in a hotel overlooking the bay. The bay is a beautiful turquoise color and is populated with unique little islands that shoot out of the water. The islands are densely vegetated and the locals say they were created from the back of a dragon that plunged into the bay. On Cat Ba Island, there is a village where we were able to observe some of the local customs. The young men would walk the streets holding hands or putting one hand on the shoulder of his partner. We were told this is not a sexual act, just a custom of friendship. 

 

July 20:

We left Cat Ba Island in the morning, took the boat back to the dock, jumped on a minivan and arrived back in Hanoi in the early afternoon. We had a difficult time deciding what we wanted to do and eventually we ended up settling on a 3 night / 2 day round trip tour to Sapa, a mountainous village town just south of the Chinese border.

 

Due to our schedules, I also booked a flight to Luang Prabang, Laos, a closer destination, while Paul and Craig booked a flight to Kuala Lumpor Malaysia. As you can see, our destinations were decided as we went. Paul was not expecting to travel to Laos, so he did not get US military clearance to enter into the county and he may not have got even if he had asked. Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos are controlled really restrictive communist regimes. Paul was not to disclose that he was an active soldier in the US Army, especially since his post is an Intelligence position. 

 

We walked around the streets of Hanoi for a couple hours and then boarded the train around 8:30pm. The train had 4 beds to a room. The fourth person in our room was occupied by a Danish girl traveling alone, named Christa. We arrived at a town close to Sapa around 7:00am.

 

July 23, 2005, 9:30am, Hanoi Airport, Vietnam

These events occurred July 21:

We drove an hour in a minivan up to Sapa on a sinuous road that climbed a few thousand feet. We checked in at the Royal Hotel and had breakfast. We met our Hmong guide at 9:30. The Hmong are tribal hill people of Chinese descent. They settled south of the Chinese boarder to escape Chinese wars. As minorities, they have been persecuted throughout the centuries (just like how the Cambodians persecute the Vietnamese in there country). The apparel worn by the Hmong is very unique, their religion unique as well.

 

Our guide, Sem, is a 20 year old female. She is about 4-ft tall which is the typical height for the women. Their clothes are all dyed purple with indigo and have elaborate, colorful stitching patterns. Many of the women's hands are stained purple from the dye as well. These are farming people that have built large terraced rice fields into the mountain sides. Sem took us on a 3 hour trek to a village where we visited with the locals. It is beautiful county.

 

We spent the rest of the day talking to the tribal women and browsing their merchandise. The men where worked the fields all day are rather aloof. The women, especially the teenage girls, would constantly harangue us to buy their goods. Opium seems to be a common drug used by the locals.

 

That evening, Christa joined us and we enjoyed some fun card games.

 

July 22

We met our guide, Sem, at 9:30am. We did some trekking through three tribal villages. The sun was hot and we were all getting burned on top of our already burned skin... The trek was about 5 hours with a stop of in one of the villages for some lunch prepared by the locals. After about 14 km, we exited onto a road where they had a jeep waiting for us to take us back to Sapa. 

 

Did I mention there annoying selling habits...

 

We left Sapa and took the sinuous road back to where we caught an all night train ride into Hanoi.

 

July 23

I make my split from Paul and Craig and board my flight to Luang Prabang. I figured with future trips into SE Asia it would be easier to visit Malaysia than Laos, so I am going to take advantage of my opportunity now and visit Laos. Craig is almost out of money and he can't stand the humidity or the food. I hope they can they get along together long enough to finish their trip. Craig is 17 and home sick. At each airport, I certain he is going to demand he books a flight home. Keeping up with the Bunch twins is no easy task.

 

I enjoy most of the food, but we often don't have time for a descent restaurant or cafe, so we grab quick meals consisting of rice, vegetables, bread, and eggs. 

 

July 26, 2005, 12:10pm, Los Angeles Airport

Events of July 23:

I flew into Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. I had a five hour lay over and was expecting to go into the city for a few hours and do some site seeing. Unfortunately they closed the city off to all foreigners due to an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. It is a summit held in one of the ten member nations once a year to discuss political and economic policies of the region. What are the odds that I would encounter this? I sat in the airport  and played some cards with some English guys and an Australian lady.

 

I finally made it into Luang Prabang and got booked a room in a guesthouse for $3. I quickly went to work on a plan to get myself to Bangkok in 48 hours to make my flight home. I explored my options with a travel agency and discovered I was in trouble. The sales rep said all flights were booked for the next week. If I left immediately I could jump on a boat that would power me up the Mekong River to the Thailand border, hope to catch a bus to Chang Mai, and then hope to catch a flight into Bangkok. The last option was to take a bus to Vientiane and then a flight to Bangkok, but the bus was full too. The rep indicated that sometimes seats open up as people change plans. I decided to take my chances on the bus to Vientiane. I check back a few hours later and was able to get a seat on the bus, a plane ticket, a tour for the following day.

 

July 24:

I started my tour in a minivan with a few other tourists. We drove an hour to a village and shopped briefly. As Laos is one of the poorest countries in the region, handmade goods are very inexpensive. I picked up a beautifully, large, silk woven tapestry for $13. We then boarded a boat to cross the Mekong to visit some caves on the other side. The locals had turned the cave into a Buddhist shrine with thousands of Buddha statues. Our guide then shuttled us over to a waterfall in the jungle. We spent a couple hours hiking to the top and exploring the falls, it was an amazing scene.

 

I liked the Laos people better than any others that I had visited, mainly because the respected your space by not continually pester you with things to buy. That night I jumped on my bus for an 11 hour ride to Vientiane, only 150 miles away. Along the way, the police pulled the bus over and the drivers disappeared for an hour. Nobody knew what was happening. When they came back, nothing was said, they just resumed driving. The terrain was very mountainous with heavy fog constantly limiting the driver’s vision. Oh yeah, the windshield had cracks all over it. I tried to sleep most of the way and not worry about the narrow roads on steep mountain sides, in dense fog, with a spidered windshield, and a driver that is probably on crack.... The scenery of a day trip would have been enjoyable.

 

July 25:

I flew out of Laos and landed in Bangkok around 12:00pm. I set out to find Kheseon Road, the backpacker street. After several hours battling the confusing bus system and horrendous traffic, I arrived, booked a room, ate a delicious meal, bought a few more souvenirs, and crashed.

 

July 26:

Arose at 4:00am to get to the airport by 5:30 (it's an hour drive on the right bus, 3 hours if you are lost). I prepared myself for the upcoming 22 hours of travel back home.