Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank the following people who were part of our journey…

Maria, David & Rueben (Santander) – Gracias por alojarnos, hacernos sentir en casa de nuevo en Santander, y una noche de risas con comida japonesa, la otra Maria y el famoso Jose Maron.

Ana (Santander) – Gracias por empezar nuestra viaje con un recorrido maravilloso de la costa Cantabrica y memorias de donde nos conocimos. Gracias a dios que no tuvimos que bailar con la chica y su bufanda en el Sahara.

Rafa & Elba (Rio) – The best ambassadors ever for couchsurfing and the perfect hosts. We saw a side of Rio we could never have seen without them. Don’t think we’ll be eating white chocolate pizza any time soon though 😉

Agustin & Amigos (Buenos Aires) – Gracias por introducirnos a fernet con coca, palabras prohibidas y como festijar estilo argentino.

Elina & JP (Vilcabamba) – Thanks for sharing the peace of Vilcabamba and the terror of horsebackriding. Do you remember Nick and his nickname?

Claudia & Peter (Mexico) – Salud to the best salsa dancers in Mexico (and the steamy hot Hermetinger reggaeton style…). It was great to explore ruins, cities, cenotes and beaches with you, all the time being careful not to chomp down one of those damn hidden chiles (and Claudia, watch out for wild iguanas and Mexicans dressed as bulls!).

Roberto, Isabella, Roberto Snr, Nora, Norma, Octavio, Samantha, Ignacio, Isaac y Maru (Queretaro) – No hay palabras para agradecerles. Nos han cuidado durante ‘la influencia porcina’ como su propia familia. Nos sentimos muy en casa y esperamos que venga toda la familia un dia al campo austriaco para que podamos hospedarles igual.

Rafael y familia (Cuidad de Mexico) – Gracias por un dia bonito en el centro de tu ciudad, introducirnos a tu familia y intercambiar memorias de Viena.

Nico & Gina (Guadalajara) – Memorias de dominos, soyamigo, el orfanato y los ruidos de la manana mexicana. Gracias por todo, suerte en Berlin y nos vemos pronto por Viena.

Ezra Anton el Rey (Los Angeles) – We both dream sometimes of a frightening figure on a dark beach burning paper above his head. Then he hands us a plastic bottle and says “Take this, you’ll need it” before running away down the pier. Hasta la proxima.

Chris & Anika (Koh Tao) – I think you’ll agree that our full moon party was much better than the real thing.

Julie & David Youngs (Siem Reap) – Thanks for interrupting our backpacker style with a bit of comfort and for exploring the Angkor temples with us. You are true adventurers!

Bev (Cambodia/Vietnam) – We don’t think we would have survived the strains of Vietnam travel without you! Great to finally travel with little sis and share some memories; tennis evenings, motorbike terror, vomitting night busses, private boats, no money no honey and a forever goodbye.

Alvaro (Hanoi) – Thanks for showing us how to survive in Hanoi, taking us on nighttime motorbike rides and up hidden alleyways and staircases to peaceful terraces looking down on the chaos. Buena suerte!

Sarah & Albrecht (Laos) – Here’s to memories of riverside sunsets, beerlao, lao lao whiskey, veggie buffets and games of backpacker. Hope you enjoyed the rest of your trip!

Anne (Osnabrück) – Thanks for taking all those embarassing pictures and videos of us climbing trees, and for laughing constantly at us! It was great to arrive at yours after such a long time in the wild! We enjoyed Malte’s cooking, Paula and Karlsson and talking to somebody who actually speaks real German, merci.

Lisa (Copenhagen) – The best city guide after only three weeks in Copenhagen! Strolls along the harbour, expensive (delicious) cakes, a carrousel ride over the rooftops of the city, cooking lasagna and martinis in the garden – the perfect cure for travel fatigue. Enjoy Copenhagen (but come back soon!).

Raimondas (Copenhagen) – Thanks for hosting us, making us feel very comfortable and introducing us to TED!

Jen & Tim (London) – A great last night of Neighbours, fish & chips and Belguim beer. Thanks for putting us up and hopefully see you in Vienna soon.

And last but not least thanks to all those who read and commented on this blog!

Top Ten

Through a marathon of family and friend reunions we are back in Austria, the tranquility of Gallspach, job interviews pending and flat hunting on the agenda. We have been in England for three weeks of rain (the occasional sunny interlude) and some quality ale drinking time. Four of the very rainy days were spent in a secluded stone house in the Lake District (north west England) with both sets of parents and both sisters (our part time travelling companions) all interacting perfectly in various different languages. After so long and so much out of the ordinary, we’re almost longing for normality and routine…almost. So looking back is a mixture of happy memories and sadness. Those who know me will know my unnatural love of lists. Mock if you will, but that’s what’s going to happen now. For your general amusement, here are our Top Tens of the trip, in no particular order. I’ll let Dani begin…

DANI’S TOP TEN

COUCHSURFING IN RIO: Being welcomed by people we’ve never seen in our lives, listening to their stories, experiencing their routine, exploring parts of their pasts, getting explained a country we’ve just stumbled into with curiosity and overwhelming exitment. A neverending cooking-session, Sweet-Pizza with a big family, an afternoon downpour supermarket walk and renting Tropa de Elite in the nearby Favela won’t be forgotten.

KOH TAO: Just wind and a deserted beach, a swing and turquois water, corals and sea cucumbers, full-moon and golden spirit houses, green curry and an offroad jeep, Dutch story telling and English kisses. That’s all I need.

ELEPHANTS: They are really big and we were supposed to approach them from the right side. I was scared and nervous, but if you don’t annoy them, they let you ride on their neck. Then you are close to thick grey skin, itchy black hair, constantly moving ears and a trunk that can’t stop grabbing for delicious plants. Maybe your mahout is a little Scherzbold and gets the elephant to duck his head under water while you’re sitting on his neck during the riverbath? That’s the best. Since then I love the elephants.

DRUMMERS IN SALVADOR DE BAHIA: A cacophony of sounds and colours beats energy in your half  hibernated Vienna winter soul. Standing by the open hostel window, looking down at the noisy crowd you realize what pleasure lies before you. Bom dia Brazil.

MEXICAN RUINS: Although not visited, Lila Downs’ singing about the ruins of Monte Alban comes into my mind as soon as I place myself de nuevo on top of Palenques’ pyramids, overlooking a deep and humid jungle or clapping like mad to provoke an echo in dry Chichen Itza or climbing the narrow steps of Koba’s highest ruin, only to get a warm and comforting dizzyness on top of an ancient cultures’ skyscraper and waving down to a jungle creature who doesn’t like the heights.

SACSAYHUAMAN: Maybe the best clouds and definitly the most impressive blueness, a gentle sunlight and my favourite grassy plain. Nowhere else I wanted to be able to fly more desperately. Taking off by the Christ statue, a circle around the ruins and up into the clouds. Had I known the entire Finn Brothers album by then, gentle hum would have been sung.

TULUM: One of the most vivid memories of Tulum might be the strong wind blowing around (and sometimes through) our cabaña. It brought ocean smell and well known tales of longing and freedom and strength. And there we stumbled over Iguanas, splashed into the waves and greeted the mexican nightsky. All in company of hermana favorita and Mr. Pete. Perfect.

INCA TRAIL: One step closer to thin air, through fairytale hills and magic cloudforests. Another favourite ruin and a last minute ticket for Wayna Picchu. Exhaustion and pure happiness when the ruins stetch out in front of you.  Too good to be described properly.

IGUAZU: Must be one of the most beautiful waterfalls on earth (I’ve never been to another big one though). The power and beauty of the water leaves you breathless, even if it’s your forth visit (like Tom). It’s a challenge to follow a chosen bit with your eyes and it never gets boring. A hipnotising place, one’s in danger to be carried away.

HOI AN: One of Vietnam’s World Heritage Sites, the town center of Hoi An, gives you a break of general traffic crazyness and opens a world perfect for quiet wanders, peeping into old wooden houses, observing the famous lantern production and admiring the countless little tailorshops. One night, Tom, Bev and I were lucky enough to see the town lit by hundreds of those colourful lanterns and candles floating in the river.

TOM’S TOP TEN

INCA TRAIL: Okay, I may have said no particular order, but this one comes first for a reason. Important note: getting the train there doesn’t compare. Day three, for me, was the highlight. After the heady highs of the second day, altitude headaches and in-tent vomitting, we set out on a misty morning, past the half-moon temple, along the real Inca Trail. More than the spectacular ruins or the stunning mountain scenary that changes rapidly from alpine to cloud forest to jungle, it was the original stone road used by the Inca’s that impressed me. And that’s before you get to Machu Picchu.

TA PROHM: If, as a child, you imagined jungle clad secret temples, then Ta Prohm is probably a pretty close match. The number of Khmer era temples in the Siem Reap area is frightening, but Ta Prohm tops even the grand darkness of Angkor Wat. Tree and ancient stone live together symbiotically, branches reaching through broken windows and carved faces peering through the roots.  Worth the endless sweating.

HALONG BAY: Tourism in Vietnam is somewhat of a lottery. You pay a fortune for five days trekking and you get a two hour walking tour of a rice paddy. Pay five cents and you’re taken on a hot air balloon to the moon. There’s is no logical relation between how much you fork out and what you end up with. In Halong Bay we struck gold. Our beautiful 20 bed boat, complete with friendly crew and buckets full of fresh seafood, for only three people. Sitting on our private sun deck as the sun dipped below the dragon-spine horizon was a wonderful peaceful moment in a hectic country.

CHAPADA DIAMANTINA: We opened our trip with this little known national park in Bahia state, Brazil. It’s a landscape full of surprises; monkeys in the tree, natural water slides, enormous caves, sparkling swimming pools and table top mountains. More people should know about it.

ROBERTO’S HOUSE: The one disaster of our trip, the dreaded swine flu, could not have come in a better moment. The Osorio family looked after us wonderfully, with Isabella’s vegetarian cooking and Roberto Snr waking me up at 7am to watch the Premiership. I’ll remember most breezy evenings on the terrace with Roberto and a cold beer and the dangerous effects of cheap tequila. You’d have thought after so long in Mexico I’d have learnt to be wary…

MEXICAN CITIES: No doubt, Mexican cities easily match up to their European counterparts – Puebla’s azulejos tiled streets, Mexico City’s amazing slanted cathedral, Guanajuato’s narrow ‘kissing’ alleys, Queretaro’s great restaurants, Oaxaca’s chocolate markets. Oaxaca is my favourite, Dani’s is the small northern city of San Miguel, with it’s wedding cake shaped cathedral.

PARQUE NACIONAL CAJAS: On an empty, cold bus we climbed into black clouds and towering peaks to an isolated info booth at the entrance to a deserted park. The rain clouds drifted away and the sun occasionally crept through the clouds onto lofty lakes, marshy ground and wooden walkways, dotted with mystical forests and bright flowers. More Scotland than South America, Cajas is a gem of a nationl park. We saw two other hikers all day.

SAPA: Trekking features prominently on this list. Sapa’s rice paddy scenary, redefining green, are a match for the Peruvian highlands. Accompanied by the women of the Black H’Mong and a gaggle of odd tourists (some in flip-flops) we spent two days walking through the Vietnamese highlands, rewarded in the end with an ice cold dip in the river with the waterbuffalo.

GRAN CENOTE: I’m slightly miffed that I’ve been to Tulum three times previous and no one told me about cenotes. These underground natural wonders, limestone caves filled with crystal blue water, were the highlight of my return to Mexico. The Gran Cenote, near Tulum, has an underground river you can follow between two pools, bathing in tropical fish wreathed in sunlight.

BANGKOK: No where sent my travelling obsession into fever pitch like Bangkok. I had to do everything! Crazy hostel, ladyboy encounters, snakes and lizards, canal boats, temples, tuk-tuks, Queen’s birthday parties, temples, multicoloured Thai curries, markets ready to explode, massage palours of the morally sound nature, sky trains and much much more. There is no better introduction to South East Asia.

Volver

So, our journey has come to an end in Newton with Scales, England, where the sun is trying to shine between days of wind and rain and we attempt to come down from the constant activity of travelling. It’s not easy. Tom is grumpy and Dani is constantly hungry. Perhaps they are travel withdrawl symptoms. Either way we’re enjoying a short rest before the Hermetingers fly, en masse, to the UK and we head to the countryside for some dual family entertainment.

Arriving back in Europe from Asia caused quite a culture shock…maybe more than the other way around. We stayed in Osnabruck, a quiet northern Geman town full of cyclists and European perfection. There could not have been a better contrast to the wilds of Laos or the chaos of Bangkok. Late summer treated us well; we had one day of clouds in 12 days moving through Europe back to England. The best day with Anne was a challenging trip to a climbing forest which had us both sprawling, leaping, swinging, crying and falling through the treetops. Great fun once the initial fear goes away.

Our return trip took us through Hamburg, Copenhagen and London. In Copenhagen we visited Lisa and stayed with our second couchsurf, Raimondas. Denmark is even more expensive, clean and organised than we imagined. For the price of one very, very, very delicious cake we purchased, we could have eaten 22 times at our local vegetarian buffet in Luang Prabang, Laos. However, the city is incredible and we had a great time with Lisa and her new friends.

The last night, accompanied by various very strong Belgium beers, we spent with Jen and Tim in Stoke Newington, north London. The hangover made the last bus north seem to go on forever. The rain started as we reached Manchester and we splashed through deep puddles over the countryside to Preston bus station, where Tom’s parents waited to take us home.

So that’s that, but this blog hasn’t ended quite yet. If you’re still reading, check back soon…

Sabadeeee!

We were more than a bit lazy in South East Asia in language learning. In Vietnam we didn’t even get past ‘thank you’. In Laos however we developed a substantial vocabulary: hello, goodbye, thank you, left, right, straight on, stop, knee up. Everybody in Laos greets you with a warm ‘Sabadee’, in contrast to the other countries where English has taken over even the most basic communication in tourist situation. Laos is different to its neighbours. Tourism has developed only in a few centres in the northern part of the country, most of the population lives and works on the land, there is only one cinema showing comercial films, bars must play a certain percentage of Lao music instead of Western pop, and there is a curfew at 11. The only places to go as midnight approaches are bowling alleys.

Laos is covered with jungle, even the capital Vientiane seems more like a big village. Infrastructure is limited compared to Vietnam, Thailand and even Cambodia. What exists for tourists is merely a facade; Luang Prabang, Laos’ World Heritage town, is simply too expensive for the ordinary Lao to live, with wages for a waiter in a tourist cafe around 1.25 euros per day. We visited the hospital in Luang Prabang, a ghostly building with few doctors or patients and little in the way of facilities. On the 2 day slow boat to Thailand we saw one town.

Culturally, Laos is more similar to Thailand than to Vietnam. It is a Buddhist nation with many beautiful temples and a long, independant history. Like Cambodia and Vietnam, it was also occupied by the French and then suffered a lot during the US wars in South East Asia. While the war in Vietnam is common knowledge, the US bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia has been kept largely hidden. However, in Laos the Americans dropped more tonnes of explosives per km squared than in Vietnam, many of which did not detonate, leaving the countryside covered with lethal landmines.

Coming from Vietnam, Laos was beautifully quiet and friendly, devoid of traffic noise and congestion and hassle. We passed the majority of our time there in Luang Prabang, recovering after so long on the tourist trail. We met a German couple, Albrecht and Sarah, with whom we spent evenings by the Mekong drinking lao lao (awful Lao whiskey) and beerlao (awesome Lao beer) and playing Backpacker. On the last day we took a mahout training course. Mahout’s are elephant owners and trainers and we learnt how to give commands (hence our language skills) and ride up on their necks. The day finished with comunal bathing, Dani’s mahout repeatedly telling her elephant to dunk her under the water. She came up laughing every time. Lao elephants have no space left in the wild and, as the logging trade is reduced, they are no longer profitable for their owners (not to mention very expensive to care for). Tourism supposedly provides elephants with employment (gracefully, we humans allow them to live so long as we can make some money out of them). Whatever their employment, Asian elephants have a pretty bleak future.

We returned to Thailand on the Mekong, a two day trip that redefined boredom. Dani got it the first day, Tom the second, and we were more than glad to reach Thailand on the other shore. Our second visit to Bangkok didn’t disappoint – we still loved it, especially Samsen Road. It is a world away from nearby Khao San (the backpacker district that opens ‘The Beach’) full of an amazing variety of cool bars, cafes and restaurants with the friendliest owners. Even though we were sad to leave, tiredness, insect bites and cockroach invested bathrooms meant we were ready for Europe.

We’re now in Osnabruck, Germany, staying with Anne and Malte, enjoying wholemeal bread, low humidity, speaking German, flushing paper down the toilet and drinking tap water. One week to go…

Same same

Vientnam has created two unknown wonders of the modern world. One is a system of urban traffic chaos revolving almost entirely around the motorbike, where nobody stops, everybody beeps and yet, miraculously, avoids crashing into each other. The second is a piece of linguistic genius, at the same time ambigous, meaningless and profound that can be applied equally to every day life and to business with startling effects.

It was introduced to us on a tour of the Mekong delta by a manic guide (in fast forward…Hello, my name Mr Lee, and now we go now, on bus, to boat, see local people, take picture, okay, and now we go now, see coconut, see rice paper, take picture, more local people, take picture, okay, and now we go now, buy honey, no honey no money, less honey less money, no honey no baby, take picture, okay, and now we go now…) who used it to comment that all Europeans looked the same to Asians, and all Asians look the same to us. “Same, same… but different”. We are all the same, he was telling us, yet not. A glorious claim to universality? Or proof of unbridgeable difference? Was he saying although we all look the same, we are all individuals, or rather that the foreigner, the outsider, could never see that? Or was it more the threat that our cultures, even though they grasp hopefully at similarity and empathy, are irreconcilably different?

It turns out it’s just a slogan, and a very useful one at that.

“This tour, that tour, same same.”

“Ahhhh”

“… but different”

“What’s different?”

“Not different, same same.”

“So why shouldn’t I go for that one?”

“Different.”

Admitedly, it’s success relies heavily on confusion.

It’s just one of the reasons that makes travelling in Vietnam sometimes challenging and difficult. It was an exhausting months and by the end of it, we were ready to move on. But that’s not to say that we didn’t have a great time there. Bev was travelling with us since Cambodia and joined us on our trip through the whole length of Vietnam.

We started in Ho Chi Minh City where we were confronted with an evil taxi driver who charged us 10 dollars for a distance of approximatly 500 meters – after driving us around the city for 15min of course. Normally we look at the map first, but this time we had no clue where the hostel was, so we didn’t get suspicous early enough. In this city we had our first encounter with hundreds, thousands, millions of motorbikes – ’till the horizon. Whole families could be found on one motorbike along with huge bags of rice or anything else that needed to be transported (for example a cupboard).

As the heat was unbearable sometimes, we decided to go to Dalat, which is situated in the mountains and therefore has a very nice climate.  The temperature supposedly attracts many couples on their honeymoon. The town itself is a bit strange (a green, totally polluted and hence toxic lake in the centre, complete with swan paddleboats floating around it) but the surrounding area is pretty amazing. We met a group of old guys called the Easy Riders, who drive tourists around Dalat on their motorbikes. It was our first time on bikes, at times scary (at least our driver, Hung, Hung and Phuc, drank the local ‘Happy Water’ they bought after our trip) but mostly enjoyable. Professor Phuc and Co. showed us around silk farms, coffee plantations, a Chinese pagoda, told us the history of the area and how the people live there. We shared a slurping, scooping meal overlooking the valley with these charasmatic old guys.

On the bus down from Dalat to Hoi An, we found ourselves among the vommiting, burping, snorting, sniffing and communal pissing habits of the Vietnamese, a bit of a culture shock for those who do these things mainly in private (unless they are drunk). After changing busses in the middle of the night, we were handed over to a gang of motorbikers on the outskirts of Hoi An and forced to take a ride with them to town. When Bev didn’t appear at our hotel, we had a few minutes of worry. When she did arrive, she said her driver had taken her to another hotel (probably friends of his) and asked her if she wanted to stay here or with us. Tough question.

Hoi An was one of our favourite places in Vietnam, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means no (or less) traffic in the old quarter. Hoi An is famous for clothes and lanterns, so the town is full of tailors and little shops where you can watch the production of colourful lamps or get yourself a fitted suit. By night you find them all lit up and, in the absence of glaring streetlights, you wander around surrounded by the soft light of red, green, blue, violet and yellow lanterns.

Our last stop with Bev was Halong Bay. All the tours there are, unsurprisingly, same same but different. We got the different one. Our ‘junk’ (old wooden boat) had rooms for twenty people – we were the only three on it. We feasted on delicious sea food (Dani on delicious vegetables) with Khong, our awesome guide, and watched the sunset from our private sun deck. Halong Bay is an almost mythical landscape of a thousand limestone islands, said to have been formed when a dragon spat down enormous jewels, which turned into the islands, and created a protective wall against the Chinese invadors. Except for some nasty looking jellyfish that appeared just after we had been for a swim, these were wonderfully peaceful days in a hectic country.

We said goodbye to Bev and hello to Hanoi. At first the excitement and noise gives you a buzz but it quickly turns into a building anger and rage at the simple impossibility of crossing the street without feeling you’re about to get hit by a thousand motorbikes. We never quite got the hang of the crossing technique – close your eyes and walk out without hesistating. We met Spanish ex-pat Alvaro, living and working in the city, who showed us some cool areas and cafes, but still we longed to escape as soon as possible. We fled to the hills, Sapa, a gorgeous mountain town surrounded by bright green rice paddies where we did some challenging trekking for a few days.

It was our last stop in Vietnam. Before we set off on this trip, I think it was the country we were most excited about. All the guidebooks say it’s one of the most colourful countries on Earth. Judge for yourself.

Cambodia

There’s nothing like an epic journey followed by total relaxation to get excited about a new adventure in a new, unknown country. After 2 weeks on the beach in Thailand, we had to retrace our steps hastily to rendezvous with Tom’s parents in Siem Reap, the departure town for an extensive exploration of Cambodia’s Angkor era temples.

We began with a wet longtail boat from the shore to the ferry at 7am, followed by two ferries to carry us back to Krabi, on the mainland. An 8 hour wait ensued (nothing like waiting to make sure those upcoming long bus trips seem even less appealing) before boarding a flashy, double decker bus back to Bangkok. Avoiding the tourist transport seemed a good idea; we didn’t stop every five minutes at some conveniently placed souvenir store and we were served dinner for free, sat with all the other Thai passengers at long marble table in a dark restaurant somewhere inbetween. The night passed uncomfortably, and at 5am we reached Bangkok’s bus station and hopped on a relatively short ride to the border town of Aranyaprathet.

On arrival we jumped onto our 172nd tuk-tuk, only to be diverted a few kilometres away from the real border to the “new Cambodian embassy”. Fighting the great desire to trust everyone until proven guilty, we walked away, despite the “consul’s” protests. “When we have to come back here I’ll charge you more,” he shouted after us.  After finally reaching the obscenely obvious Thai/Cambodian immigration buildings, we decided not to go back. Our first encounter in Cambodia was with a slightly confused border guard who tried to convince us a tourist visa cost 25 dollars, standing directly under a sign in English which said TOURIST VISA: 20 DOLLARS. We got away with  hundred baht “tip” to the cashier in exchange for not waiting another hour.

We drove out into the Cambodian countryside in a taxi to Siem Reap, stopping only briefly at a rustic petrol station with explosive looking objects everywhere and four workers cheerfully smoking beside them. Sweaty, tired and overjoyed, we rolled from the taxi into tuk-tuk 173 and sheepishly announced, “We’re going to the Sohka Angkor”. Backpacking lifestyle was on hold for a few days as we trundled into the grand driveway in our puffing tuk-tuk and marched inside, smell close behind, for a few days of luxury.

To say the Sohka, with it’s waterfall decorated pool, bath tub and BBC equiped television, is a world away from the country sitting on its doorstep would be a massive understatement. We stayed only 10 days in this small country, but it left a big imprint on our memories of this trip.  A short history…

The trouble in Cambodia started in 1970 when pro-US military leader,  Lon Nol,  kicked out the royal family and offered his support to the Americans fighting the Viet Cong in his country. The exiled king in Beijing advocated the guerilla group, the Khmer Rouge, in an effort to regain his throne. The leader of this group was Pol Pot. In 1975 the Americans and Lon Nol retreated and the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. The people’s hope for peace was quickly crushed as the Khmer Rouge iniciated a systematic genocide against their own people. The city populations  were evacuated into labour camps in the countryside as Pol Pot tried to create a classless agrarian society. The result was torture, killing and starvation of around 3 million people. Educated people and their families were often executed immediately and by the downfall of the regime the Khmer Rouge had also turned on the uneducated peasants and even their own. What the leaders (most of them educated in France) were aiming for was a nation of oxen, working without emotions or human attachments. This supposedly classless society consisted of New People (the educated) who were forcibly “re-educated” in labour camps to be citizen of Angkar (the Khmer Rouge political front) and Ancients, uneducated agricultural workers, who were treated slightly better. The main cause of death was starvation or related illnesses. The Khmer Rouge itself was split into different factions and counterproductive in regard to prolonging their own regime (for example, destroying useful machinery and cars because they were symbols of the imperialistic enemy). When the Vietnamese entered in 1979, the Khmer Rouge finally collapsed.

The genocide museum in Phnom Penh the question of guilt in a country where everyone claims to be a victim. Testimonies of prisoners are lined up along side those of torturers, most of whom were young boys when they were drafted into the Khmer Rouge. The leaders, meanwhile, are mostly awaiting trial, while Pol Pot died under house arrest.

Generally, the attitude of young Cambodians is one of live for the day and forget about the past. We were lucky enough to spend time with three guys who told us lots about their lifes and experiences. Sorin was our guide for 3 days around the amazing Angkor temples in Siem Reap . He was born in a labour camp and his parents lived in a nearby village. Although he didn’t want to talk about the Khmer Rouge in public, he made frequent references to them, especially regarding the current prime minister, who is a former Khmer rouge guerilla and a puppet of the Vietnamese.

Sorin had studied tourism and languages and has a good job as a free lance tourguide. Coming from a village in the countryside it was a long road to achieve all this. One of his colleagues, when asked about if he had ever travelled to Europe, told us a trip to England would be like a trip to the moon. Sorin was about to visit Thailand for the first time.

Elvis was our guide and tuk-tuk driver in the capital Phnom Penh. He had been the manager of a guesthouse before buying a tuk-tuk and moving to Phnom Penh to have more work flexibility. He took us around the city for 2 days, waiting strechted out in the tuk-tuk with a magazine while we visited the sights. He seemed reluctant to talk about the past, prefering topics such as Liverpool football club. He spoke with a perfect London accent, had a new born baby and seemed content with his way of life.

The most lasting impression was made by Van Tan (not Claude), a tuk-tuk driver in Kampot, a small riverside town south of Phnom Penh. Van Tan took us to a mall shrine and cave nearby, before taking us to his home on the rice paddies, where we sat amongst the chickens, drank coconuts from his trees and unintentionally scared (Dani) his tiny nephew half to death with only a smile. Van Tan is 25 years old and has just finished high school. His education delayed because groups of remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas hid in the surrounding mountains and raided local farms every Saturday, while he hid with his family in an underground shelter. He has taken out a loan of 400 dollars to pay for his tuk-tuk and has paid off 200 so far. After that he wants to save to study at university in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia was a vivid and moving experience. We picked up a fantastic account of survival during the Khmer Rouge regime called “Stay Alive, my son”. Although several pages were missing or misprinted, it is an amazing testimony to the horrors of that period and we would recommand it to anyone who is interested in the topic.

We are currently in Luang Prabang, Laos, in the most beautiful wooden hotel room, coming to the end of our journey. We will try and update our blog with Vietnamese and Laos adventures before we reach Bangkok…

Tourist Trouble in Thailand

It’s hard to look back and reflect when everything is so vivid and immediate. We’re travelling fast at the moment, teaming up with Bev (Tom’s sister) for the Cambodian and Vietnam leg of the trip.  Right now we’re in Ho Chi Minh City, the largest in Vietnam. We arrived last night, dodging the city’s 3 million motorbikes to a relaxing little guesthouse where we are preparing and recovering, ready to explore. But I was gonna look back…

It’s three weeks since we left Thailand and feelings are mixed. After an intense and amazing experience in Bangkok where we were lucky enough to meet some people and get under the surface a little, the tourist paradise of southern Thailand has left us floundering. With the most perfect of tropical beach landscapes, it’s no wonder tourists are hassled and objectified. It’s hard to complain, we do it to ourselves, we do, but it’s also hard to fall for a place where meeting “real” people is impossible, meeting sunburnt Brits is inevitable, and oversaturation results in everyone and anyone wanting a piece, offering makeshift tours and feeding the “cute” (read vicious) monkeys til they are fat and bloated.

The friendly smiles and welcomes of Bangkok sometimes seem a world away, but who can blame them? We are a blight and a plague on the landscape. Some examples…

In the gulf of Thailand there are three main islands: Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao…roughly divided into stereotypes the first is for pakage tourists, the second for young party goers, the third for diving fanatics. We opted for Koh Tao where the tourists are underwater and the beaches deserted. A lucky decision led us to beautiful Sai Daeng beach, which we shared with the only other two people there, dutch couple Chris and Annika. One peaceful night we had a late one (up til midnight!) over dinner and cocktails, a full moon over the bay, while in Koh Phangan…

Some decades ago some backpackers (possibly Leonardo di Caprio) celebrated a birthday under the full moon and Koh Phangan’s monthly party was born. These days it’s quarter moon, half moon, sliver of moon parties all month, with the main party attracting up to 30,000 revellers in the high season. And these are not big places. Locals are faced with a conundrum; these drug-wielding foreigners bring plenty of money to the island but they also leave tonnes of rubbish and cause many a sleepless night. Authorities are trying to crack down, arrest drug users and limit visitors, but too many people have a hand in the profits to shut the venture down. It’s endemic of the tourist situation in much of Thailand.

Koh Phi Phi in the south may just have been one of the most beautiful islands in the world not so long ago. The sand strip between the two main landmasses, however, has been developed in such a manic, unsustainable way as to leave the whole bay rather ugly and souless. In 2004, the tsunami hit and caused extensive damage, pretty much wiping out the main town. In the aftermath of the disaster, the Thai government saw a second chance and attempted to regulate and slow down the redevelopment. No such luck. In little over 4 years Phi Phi town is an unchecked, sprawling mess. Not a bit of flat land remains and the bungalows are shooting up on the cliff face. There are some initiatives geared towards cleaning up the bay and promoting sustainable development, but it seems tourist demand and the rewards reaped from meeting it are too great to stop.

That’s not to say we didn’t occasionally find moments of tranquility and natural beauty. The markets in the coastal towns of Hua Hin and Krabi are fantastic, as is the food (a common factor everywhere we’ve been so far here). The beaches truly are manificent. On Phi Phi we beat the crowds with a wooden longtail boat to Maya Bay aka “The Beach from the Beach”. The journey was hairraising, a fiercely concentrated old boatman steering us unsteadily up and down immense waves. Caught in the trough, it felt as if the ocean was all around, above and below. We made it to Maya Bay, greeted only by a few happy campers who’d spent the night, and had a few hours of peace on one of the most stunning beaches I’ve ever seen until, at 10 o’ clock sharp, the speedboats came in like the invasion of Troy and deposited their armies of tourists on the white sand.

We claim no superiority, we played the role of tourist happily and saw some wonderful things. However, Thailand is a hard place to get to know, to unearth, and an easy place to visit, skim the surface, and leave knowing as little about it as when you arrived. Thankfully, Cambodia provided a very different opportunity, but I’ll leave Dani to write about that…

A Guide to Bangkok in 8 Days

DAY 1
Arrive early morning to allow yourself a full day fighting jet lag. Take a bus to the city and walk to your waterfront guesthouse. Remember the way: at the pier turn left into the impossibly narrow alleyway, past the rows of caged birds, turn right at the fat child doing his business in a plastic potty, straight on at the spirit house, run past the smelly bit, say hi to the women cooking rice & into the guesthouse door. After that adventure spend the day resting.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343387639857470514

DAY 2
Get up early and head to Chatuchak market. Go crazy at the sight of millions of stalls selling everything you can possibly think of; Thai silk scarves, bags, jeans, miniature tea sets, bottle openers, paintings, living mice, dead butterflies in picture frames, unidentifiable food, dog dresses and plastic flowers. As you probably packed mostly long-sleeved clothes when you left home in winter, buy yourself three summer dresses for the price of a cinema ticket. Purchase some cashew nuts as you leave. Save them for later, given time for the ants in your room to crawl inside the bag. Eat them under twilight so you don’t notice the ants until they are PISSING ON YOUR LIPS.

DAY 3
Dress adequately for a tour of Bangkok’s temples with the new trousers you bought at the market yesterday. Make sure to tie them at the back with a double knot. This will provide a healthy challenge when you need to go to the toilet urgently later. Use a tuk-tuk to reach the Grand Palace, one of Bangkok’s many transport adventures, allowing you to breathe in the fresh street air at close range. Choose your guide there carefully. The one whose slogan sounds like “happy, smiley, silly bugger laughing” is probably the best bet.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343383386728403074

DAY 4
Today try underworld canal boats and skytrains; the former is best during a midday downpour. Visit the Jim Thompson House, the teakwood home of an American businessman who revitalised the Thai silk industry. He disappeared on the same day his Chinese horoscope predicted. Spooky huh? Consider the title Land of Smiles has been taken too literally when your tour guide smiles so frequently that it impedes her speech and starts to freak you out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343387432228265730

DAY 5
Spend a beautiful morning at the Temple of Dawn. When using Bangkok’s water taxi on the way home, take a boat in the wrong direction and continue upstream for a few kilometers. If your girlfriend suggests getting off, ignore her and hope it turns around. When it doesn’t, give in and get off at the next pier to admire the outskirts of Bangkok. Be traumatised by a conversation about the death penalty and execution methods, vividly described to you over dinner by a bored restaurant owner. On the way home through the dimly lit alleyways remember to watch out for the BIG FUCKING SNAKE slithering its way across the path close to your hostel. When your girlfriend suggests stepping over it, tell her she’s stupid and run away. Wave goodbye to the ladyboys in your hostel as they set off on a snake hunt, on the off chance it might be an albino worth 50,000 baht.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343384403674296754

DAY 6
Learn to cook vegetarian Thai food with May Kaidee. While singing the cooking song entitled “Sap, sap, sap, sap, sap” (“Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy”) question your sanity or, more importantly, hers. Later on use the language barrier to trick the friendly owners of a nearby cafe into thinking it’s your birthday. They’ll bring you a cake, a song and a hug.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343387210541091490

DAY 7
Take a tour of the Vimanmek Teak Mansion and marvel at the “picnic basket used to trip up countries”. Unwind in the evening with a relaxing Thai massage and discover the painful true meaning of assisted yoga.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343387502824648338

DAY 8
On your last morning read a book by the lake in Lumphini park until the BIG FUCKING LIZARD crawls out of the water and greets you with his flickering tongue. At lunch inform your boyfriend there’s a worm in your noodle soup. When he only replies “Is it meant to be there?”, decide he’s too stupid to talk to for a while. Finish your tour of Bangkok with a blast to the senses in Chinatown and dream of the beach.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnandshiver/Bangkok#5343387822001917010

An update…

Sometimes you need a break from the smelly backpacking life. Between the dry heat of northern Mexico and the sweat fest of Bangkok, we took a breezy time out in the USA.

It’s a country we think we know so much about, yet one which seems often very foreign. True, the bready cuisine, overdose of potato based snacks and flushing toilets hark back to the comforts of western Europe, but in many ways America seems more different to Europe than, say, Argentina or Brazil. Our stomachs revelled joyfully in the absence of the Mexican chile and we threw ourselves wholeheartedly in the American way of life.

This included: lots and lots of sport, volleyball on the ball (brought to an end spectacularly by Dani’s violent attempt to break my nose while diving for the same ball) and beach cycling were the favoured activities, bbqued burgers on the terrace, reading comic books (I read the Watchmen, the new, awful looking film – it is, however, a cracking read), eating cookies and brownies masterfully baked by Ezra’s housemate Amanda, attending a baseball game and trying the inexplicably named root beer and chile dog combination, a delicacy of the American diet.

We came to the conclusion that Americans, at least on Santa Monica beach, are either super-fat or super-fit. Muscle Beach with it’s weights area and monkey bars, is a cultural entity that could only exist in the USA. We also decided that I would certainly, given the time, be one of the super-fat. My belly expanded thrice fold in six days.

Central to our stay there was the beach house. Playa del Rey, a quiet, pretty section of bustling Los Angeles, was the view from the window, all green parks and Little League baseball pitches. Inside was carpeted, sofa strewn comfort, perfect before hitting hot and humid South East Asia for the final leg of the trip. Ezra (also known as the Rey) was our obliging host who showed us the sights and provided us with some weird and wonderful drunken antics on the beach. We know you’re reading…thanks!

We’re now in Bangkok, a week of frantic sightseeing and sweating behind us, and are about to head south to the islands. More on that manic first experience of Asia very soon…

A beginner’s poem (oder: Ode an Suedamerika)

Joy and anger beat the drums,
black men in chains, not long in the past.
Surrounded by humidity and constant noise,
you put a smile on your face and praise your choice.
(Escuche y te vas a despertar)

Ancient walls, once puma’s head,
the high plains beauty, your cheeks turn red.
Still in the crowd, but also long gone,
to worship the clouds,
your symbol of childhood, freedom and longing.
(Corre y vas a volar)

Desert and dryness for in-between-days,
only the hairless dog can ease your aches.
You may find yourself haunted by poor little souls,
children abandoned, to please the gods.
(Huye y te vas a liberar)

A high-speed bus, rapido, rapido,
takes us to a tranquile place.
When the horses carry us away,
we find both – horror and peace.
(Muevete y te vas a encontrar)

The landlord a saint,
a satisfying thought, a happy dream.
No work in the hidden garden,
the fast lane calls, again and again.
(Acercate y vas a ver)

Too young to be content,
no settling down now.
Harrass us! Trick us! Push us!
Show us your dirty face, show us your beauty.

Here we are, world, and there we go.
Only in dawn, you’ll see our hands shiver.