Bermy Girls & a Full Moon on Koh Panghan!

Since returning home I've been asked by quite a few people if I plan on updating the blog. I hadn't realized so many of you actually read it! I guess I'd better fill you in on the rest of our crazy travel adventure...

So we finished off our tour of South East Asia with a serious going out party. Possibly the biggest one of my lifetime - Full Moon Party on Koh Phangang Island, Thailand. It all started a few days leading up to Full Moon when we arrived on the Island. While exploring the Island on our rental bikes we realized that it resembled Bermuda more than any other we'd seen before (still not quite as beautiful of course!).

One of the highlight of the Island were the unpaved roads that were very windy, steep and to add to the danger (...or adventure!), cluttered with speeding tuk tuks full of excited tourists. Riding in the back of those things late at night as the driver went full speed around sharp corners in order to make it up the next hill is something I will never forget!

We spent one day searching for the beach with the worlds largest sand bar, but ended up finding a pretty cool palm tree to play on and waterfall to chill by instead!

We found the sand bar the following day though... and it was worth the wait. The rest of our time was spent relaxing in our Bungalows, enjoying a fantastic meal in one of the restaurants or cafes that were scattered across the Island. Or in one of the many stores that lined the streets of Had Rin, watching Kirk & Cabral shop their little hearts out :)...

...And then there were the party's at night where we witnessed people from around the world let everything they had hang loose, giving us a glimpse of what the party would be like on Full Moon when thousands more people came to join in on the fun.

After seeing how wild people were on the nights prior, we were all a bit apprehensive about the party on the day of the Full Moon. However after a few gulps frpm our buckets of rum swizzle and our bodies covered in neon painted designs we were ready to join them. We had the time of our lives dancing and chatting for hours and hours on the sand under floating Chinese lanterns, laser and black lights and of course a stunning, and never forgotten Full Moon.

And the night would never have been the same without Kirk and Cabral there to spice up our night even more!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!

Cambodia - suk sabai sai sabrok!

PHNOM PENH
After another long bus journey, we arrived in the sweltering, sprawling city, Phnom Penh. Our first stop was the famous Russian Market, Psar Toul Tom Poung. It is packed with rows and rows of trinkets, jewellery, art, clothes and food... It was fun for the first 20 min until the heat and smells forced me to step outside for a breather amongst the many tuk tuk & mototaxi drivers... who turned out to be pretty sweet guys once they accepted that "NO, for the fifth time, I do not need a ride anywhere!!" (the most said phrase during our visit to Cambodia).

Sarah joined back up with us in Phnom Penh after a visit to the coastal city of Sihanoukville! To celebrate we enjoyed a night out on the town. We were very surprised by the night life in Phnom Penh and had a great time... However, after realizing that just about every Cambodian girl in the club was a prostitute I found it hard to get past the amount of sadness & pain I could see through the dancing & boozing...

We spent a lot of time driving around the city in a tuk tuk with our favorite driver who we called Angelo . It was a great way to see the rugged, crowded city and its people. On our last day with him, Angelo very kindly pulled over and treated us to some very sweet & refreshing surgar cane from a street vendor. Thanks Angelo! We visited one of the many Pagodas in Phnom Penh, Wat Phnom, which can be recognised by a gigantic clock outside. It had the most beautiful Buddhas that I had seen so far...

Choeung Ek - A memorial filled with more than 5,000 human skulls that were left behind at the Killing Fields located near Phnom Penh. Signs were posted around the field to mark the spots where over 300 victims were detained, executed & dumped daily by the Khmer Rouge executioners during the 1975-1979 genocide...

BATTAMBANG
Rach & I continued west to the very quaint town, Battambang. We explored the countryside, following the Sangker River by bike and past many remote villages and amazing scenery on our way to Ek Phnom. Sadly, we saw many shoeless kids walking along the dirt roads on our excursion... One of these shoeless girls was hiding from the sun inside the ruined temple and she stole my heart. I wanted to steal her away and take her home with me... instead I gave her the measly 8000 Riel ($2) that she needed for a week of school...

Phare Ponleu Selpak - we went to this amazing and, from what I can see, extremely effective arts school and orphanage to see their circus performance and were blown away by the talent and passion we saw. We had dinner at the school and had the chance to meet a couple of the performers, learning their stories and the problems that Cambodian children are facing today. We returned the following day to purchase a few of the students amazing paintings and hope to be able to help this organisation in a much bigger way in the future....

SIEM REAP & The Arrival of Kirk and Cabral!

I have never been so shocked, surprised and excited to see someone in my life, until 2 of our best and wildest friends from home jumped out at us from the shadows in Siem Reap, yelling "Aye gurl, What bus you catch?!" I think Rach & I must have woke up the whole city with our shrieking. We had no idea that our friends had been planning this surprise and Sarah & Jessie had been in on it for months! You guys are amazing!! XX

Angkor Wat - One of our days was spent exploring the spectacular Ankor Wats. We learnt a lot about the history and culture from our Cambodian tour guide who, as a child, was one of the first people to start working as a vendor at the temples after the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Out of the hundreds of Apsara carvings around the Angkor Wat this was the only one smiling...

Enjoyed a Khmer cooking class at the Temple Restaurant on Bar Street.

Had a treatment by Dr. Fish after a night out.... can you guess who's feet the fish liked the most??

Chres Village School & Orphanage

One day we loaded up a tuk tuk and headed out on our way to surprise the kids at the Chres Village Orphanage with toys & food. Jess handed out photos of the kids that her boyfriend Johnny had taken during his stay at the orphanage last year... They called him Teacher Johnny and spoke about him with the brightest smiles I've ever seen. They were ecstatic when they found their face in a photo!

A group of us learned how to play with a South East Asian toy that looks like a badminton birdie with a spring at the top. Its supposed to be kicked around without touching the ground... I saw a group of people doing some pretty wicked tricks with it in a park in Vietnam. We also enjoyed some hula hooping, colouring, a failed attempt at dodge ball & later a session of very entertaining (for us mostly) karaoke.

There were 5 classrooms, one of which was turned into the girls bedroom at night. The teachers told us how they loved coming to work as the children were always so happy and eager to learn.

If your interested in learning more about this amazing orphanage go to - http://www.cambodianorphanage.org.uk/

The people in Cambodia are the most kind hearted people I've met on my travels and I have truly been touched by this amazing place...

A breeze through Vietnam...

With only a week to get through Vietnam, it seemed as though we spent the majority of our time on buses. Luckily, the beautiful scenery we came across was definitely worth it. Hanoi was our first stop. We managed to find the best Hostel around - Drift Backpackers, which was our home and family away from home for the few days we were there.

Our first day was spent at the Maison Centrale Museum - a prison built by the French in 1896 to detain the Vietnamese opponents to colonialism, and then again during the second World War to house the Americans. It was very eye-opening & a great introduction to the Vietnamese culture.

The following day we joined a few of our new friends on a day trip to Halong Bay which was beautiful, yet sad when we realized the amounts of pollution that tourists like ourselves were creating around this spectacular collection of small limestone Islands.

We were still able to enjoy the fantastic seafood lunch that was served on the boat, a visit to a floating village, a short kayak through the arches in the Island cliff sides that lead into serene lagoons, and a stroll through the enormous Dong Thien Cong caves.

One thing we noticed when arriving in Hanoi was the endless amounts of scooters and motorbikes that littered the city roads. We were told that the only way to cross the road was to take a deep breath and just walk, and hope that the riders would avoid you... it was quite a rush once you got the hang of it! We were surprised to find that the popular bars with the with the cheapest beers were on the corners of a junction of 2 busy roads with stools basically in the middle of the street. We learned to hold onto our beers very tightly that night.

I will always remember Hanoi for the very calming lake that was placed in the middle of this crazy, scooter infested city. We spent a lot of time strolling around this safe haven, and even witnessed the appearance of a turtle, which is lucky according to the Hanoians, and that hadn't been seen in the lake for nearly 10 years. Unfortunately Jessie had to leave us in Hanoi, and Sarah who had already seen a bit of Vietnam, was on her way to Cambodia, so Rach and I made our way down the coast to Hoi An.

Hoi An is a charming little city in the middle of the Vietnam coast. Filled with cute cafes, tons of tailors and shoemakers, this quaint city is every girls dream. Rach & I spent our days cycling between appointments, enjoying homemade passion fruit sorbets, Vietnamese pancakes and learning how to make a few light and very tasty Vietnamese dishes. An excursion with our friend Chris along the coast led us to a very bizarre cave that had wall carvings and statues that we decided must be some one's gruesome visions of demons and hell.

We enjoyed an authentic meal of Vietnamese pancakes in the neighboring city, Da Nang, and a good night out on the Cua Dai Beach. We managed to stumbled across the street side hotspot for local workers who were either starting their day or finishing it and were catching up on an early morning meal of mystery meat & noodle soup on their miniature tables and chairs in near silence. We decided to join them... Being a vegetarian... and 2 mixed girls from Bermuda, this encounter made for a very interesting experience.

The closest we got to sightseeing in Saigon after 24 hours on a bus and a 2 hour stop in Nha Trang, was our trip to the Saigon Central Post Office - a beautiful Gothic building that was constructed when Vietnam was part of the French Indochina. The highlight of our stay in Saigon was the cheap and delicious food that we devoured in abundance at the Ben Thanh market.

I definitely think that another, much longer, visit to Vietnam is needed in the future... even if it is just to satisfy my intense love for the many tasty treats we came across in Vietnam - Vietnamese iced coffee, tea, mango salads, fish hot pots, pancakes, homemade passion fruit sorbets, grilled corn & chili sauce were just a few of my favs.... mmmmmmmh yum!

Sabaidee Laos!!!

Our next destination was the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, the destination on our itinerary that I knew nothing about except that it is the least well known country in South-East Asia and you can go tubing on a river. To get to Luang Prabang we had to cross the Thailand-Laos border at Chang Kong, about 8 hours minibus drive from Chang Mai. The Mekong River serves as the border between Chang Kong and Huay Xai. We had expected to take a two day slowboat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, as is the customary backpacker method, however due to dams being built in China upriver, the river was too dry and shallow to be able to take the slowboat so we had to take a minivan. A minivan for eleven hours on windy mountainous unpaved roads. Though the drive was less than comfortable it gave us a great way to see the undeveloped lush and sprawling mountainous landscape of Laos.

I fell instantly in love with Luang Prabang, a tiny French village on a peninsula of the Mekong River. Shops and cafes are built in colonial France style, orange-clad monks wander from temple to temple and cafes serve up sumptuous Laos coffee and croissants. We explored the temples and shops around the main road, getting suckered into buying too many silk scarves at the night market.

Our most memorable day here was our visit to the Tat Kuang Si waterfalls. Ashley and I decided to be adventurous and bicycle to the waterfalls... 35 km from Luang Prabang. Did I mention that Laos was mountainous? And that we don't cycle? The 10 km mark was the hardest. Sitting on the side of the road dizzy and regretful, ready to give up and hail a tuk tuk to take us the remaining 25 km, the passing tuk tuks with laughing passengers, Jessie included, encouraged us to put our pride first and finish the ride. The ride to the waterfall was a test of the body and spirit. We enjoyed the beautiful countryside at a more leisurely pace than one out in a tuk tuk. We arrived at the waterfalls 3 hours after setting out and about one hour before it shut. The waterfalls were a true Eden. Lush foliage lined the blue waters of the waterfalls and swimming lagoons. One of the swimming lagoons had a ropeswing attached to an overhanging tree and after a 35km bike ride we didn't hesitate to swing into the freezing cold lagoon in a manner that would make Tarzan proud.



The following day we set off for Vang Vieng. We were told by many that the tubing on the river is the thing to do. We had no idea what exactly this entailed. Much like Koh Phi Phi, Vang Vieng turned out to be like a European spring break with less of the westernization... We found cozy bungalows on the other side of the river away from the town. Stunning limestone cliff faced mountains surround the area encapsulating this hidden gem destination. The nightlife was a line of bars set on an island in the river. Bucket Bar (yes, they serve drinks in buckets) started the party off, which would move to the neighboring bars throughout the night and into the early morning.

After a good night's sleep in our bungalows we decided to check out the tubing experience. Beers in hand we set off on our tubes for the first populated bar on the river. Every bar had a trapeze pendulum swing - so dangerous... for those unskilled non-Bermudians anyway, yet so much fun! We spent the day jumping off of high dives, and shocking the crowds by diving off the swings. A lot of our day was spent cringing at the people who would realize their fears of heights, barely making it off the platform before they ditched the swing... way to close to the rocks that jutted out at the foot of the platform. The best bars are at the top of the river and quickly regretted renting tubes.



We got in touch with our adventurous sides and dallied scooters through the countryside and over some rickety bridges to discover stunning limestone caves and lagoons that rivalled Bermuda's. Our much needed tour guide equipped us with headlamps and took us through a cave crawling with big cave spiders. Fears of the dark and spiders (and particularly spiders in the dark) were challenged.



Our final stop in Laos was the capital city of Vientienne. Wanting a break from spending several hours travelling on the bumpy unkempt roads around the windy mountains in a minibus, we decided to kayak down the river from Vang Vieng to Vientienne (well technically we drove an hour and a half, kayaked for a couple of hours and then drove another hour). Vientenne was much more developed and western than everywhere else we saw in Laos but it was still incredibly charming. Unfortunately we did not have the time to do the city justice. We ate some wonderful food and hit up the local bowling alley which was strangely and wonderfully playing recent hiphop - definitely forgot that we weren't at Warwick Lanes!

Laos was the biggest and best surprise of the trip so far and I had the time of my life. Laos, thank you for the wonderful memories!