Jan 20th 2012, Phnom Penh, Peltsi

Oh a lot has happened during the past days. Some people are complaining why we update the blog so rarely but believe it or not there simply isn't enough time for writing. Our schedules are often quite hectic and planned. Too hectic. And the planning isn't so essential, plans fail often anyway.

But let's continue from where last blog left us. The following day after Russian market we did travel to Battambang (fun name to try to pronounce by the way). We could've just taken a direct bus to Siem Reap which was our real destination but we had some spare days so decided to make a detour. It turned out that there is almost nothing in Battambang except one silly bamboo-train-tourist-thingy, You get on a bamboo raft on small railroad and go 7km one way and the same back. There's only one pair or rails so if (when) you encounter another 'train' the one with the least cargo is disassembled and waits until the other one passes. Strange thing. Besides that we didn't do anything in the city. Maybe some food,



Following early morning we took a boat to Siem Reap and left the girls to spend one more day in Battambang., From the boat we saw quite some nice places along the river – floating villages, poverty, sunshine, fishing and beautiful sceneries. Me and Olli managed to steal places from the roof of the boat which was an excellent choice (as long as we exclude the sunburns). Will attach some pictures hopefully.



Well we got to Siem Reap with the boat, eventually. The main reason the city exists is its temple area. Everyone has heard of Angkor Wat but there's tons of other temples aswell. We spent the first day exploring Angkor Wat and an ancient village next to it. Angkor Wat is the main temple in the area and it is surrounded by some 100-meter wide moat. Personally the Angkor Wat was a bit of a disappointment – I expected something spectacular similar to the Pyramids, but somehow this seemed to be almost just a huge pile of rocks resembling something. Maybe someone else has more things to say about the area – Sampo spent the following day alone exploring the other temples and claims he found nicer things. Beats me. The ancient village next to the Angkor Wat used to include even a million inhabitants which was quite puzzling to think of.



In my case the most exciting thing that happened in Siem Reap was visiting a holy place in the town. This holy place is of course the brand new boutique hotel Pippeli Pensione. Let me tell you the story.

A few months ago for some strange reason (believe me or not, I do not remember why!) I googled word pippeli which in Finnish is a cute word for dick. Either the first or second hit was this boutique hotel in Siem Reap called Pippeli Pensione. I shared the link with some friends and it started spreading and a few weeks later I even saw a newspaper article of it. And at some point I realized that god damn – we are actually going to Siem Reap during this Asia trip! So I made a promise to myself to make a pilgrimage to the place.

It took me a few hours to find the place even if they had an almost-exact location provided in google maps. The reason why I almost didn't find it is twofold: 1) the place is not officially open yet 2) according to local traditions if you don't want bad luck to the place you can't reveal the place's name before the place is fully ready.

But I did find it. I went in and a really nice couple greeted me at the entrance and asked if they could help me. I told them I'm just looking around and that I'm from Finland – at that moment they immediately understood why I was there. They were obviously aware of their name's reputation. In reality the name comes from the couple's children's names Pip and Eli (if I remember right). They started smiling a lot and showed me around a bit and offered some beer. In exchange for the beers they demanded that as the first Finnish person (they obviously now have an obsession for the strange Finnish people) I sign their bardesk. So I did. They promised to post the pictures to their facebook site but I'll see if I can post one here aswell. What a proud moment for a Finn!



Now we came back to Phnom Penh but without Olli. Olli took a bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok and his flight back to Finland leaves from there this Saturday. What a sad moment to lose our lottery minister! We have already been lost as we don't know who should do the lottery for bus seats for us, any of us three doing it just doesn't seem right. I hope we can manage somehow. Currently we are having some breakfast in Phnom Penh and in half an hour we continue to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) in Vietnam by another bus. Some 10 days of Vietnam ahead of us three – wheeeeee. Let's see :)

Jan 15th 2012, Phnom Penh, Olli

Our last evening in the chill-out paradise in Don Khon we spent mostly.. chilling out. So the same way we spent the previous days as well. We also tried to see some Irrawaddy Dolphins, but we failed. On Friday we took another 12-hour bus-trip, our destination being Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We had heard rumours that there might be some well-organised scams near the border. In our bus there was a guy collecting passports so that he could get visas for us in the border. He asked for 29 bucks for that. But we were prepared for that, so we didn't give him anything and got off the bus before the border and walked through the no-mans-land instead. After a long and difficult battle with four different officials in four different buildings we finally got to Cambodia and guess what? In total we ended up paying 28 bucks for our visa. So afterwards you could say, that maybe it wasn't worth the effort this time... Anyhow, after sitting 12 hours in a bus and feeling really tired, we finally were only 15 km from Phnom Penh. But then something weird happened. The bus suddenly turned away from the main road to some strange detour. Also the bus drove really slow, using only the first gear. After driving like that for 10 km it finally stopped and we were told that the bus was broken and we had to change the bus. So we actually almost got to our destination without the bus breaking. Almost. Another funny thing in the bus was that there were 10 Finnish people in the same bus! Our group, Suvi and Kristiina whom we met earlier, one couple and two guys.



Saturday was the museum-day of our trip. We went to Tuol Sleng Museum and Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Not the most joyful places to visit. I would put them to same categorie as for example Hiroshima Bomb Museum and Concentration Camps in Auswitch. Horrible places with horrible history that really makes you think what the hell is wrong with the human kind? How can there be such cruelty in world?

In Cambodia the most horrible times were from 1975 to 1979 when the Khmer Rouge ruled the country. Its goal was to transfer Cambodia into a giant peasent-dominated agrarian cooperative. For example the whole population of Phnom Penh was forced to move to countryside in only a couple of days and start work basically as slaves up to 15 hours a day eating only two small portions of rice per day. The unrealistic goal was to triple the rice production. During the three years and eight months that the Khmer Rouge ruled in Cambodia it's estimated that even 2-3 million people lost their lives.

First we visited the Tuol Sleng Museum, also known as Security Prison 21 (S-21). The former class rooms of a high school were transformed into torture chambers and prison sells. At some point even 100 prisoners were killed every day. People who got captured were tortured as long as they admitted being guilty in whatever accusations the guards had on them. Also they had to give names of friends and relatives who were ”guilty”. Nowadays the rooms of S-21 are full of photos of the victims (each prisoner was photographed) and information about the torture mechanisms used and the leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

Another depressive place we visited were the killing fields of Choeung Ek, where most of the 17 000 prisoners of S-21 were transported and executed. Prisoners were transported there in trucks and killed with whatever tools were available (bullets cost money). Most of them were beaten to death and buried in mass graves. The place was quite horrible. For example there is a tree, against which the executers used to beat children to death, and other horrible things. I mean really, what the hell is wrong with people?? The next couple of hours after the museums were mostly spent in silence. Everyone was just thinking what we had just seen.



Today we visited Russian Market, where we found lots of cheap clothes. It was a bit like the Silk Market in Beijing, except much smaller and much more peaceful. No-one tried to force you to buy anything and the prices were almost fair. In Silk Market the real price of a product was often 10 % of the price first given, but here the price given was quite good. We also went to Royal Palace, which was quite impressive. After that we have just planned the next week. Tomorrow we will take a bus to Battambang. The plan is to stay there for one night and after that continue to Siem Reap by boat. Suvi and Kristiina are still travelling with us to Battambang, so it's getting more and more clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with these girls...



By the way, Janne and Nikke, in case you are still reading our blog, you do not believe what happened! We played MPJ... with GIRLS! I cannot believe I lived long enough to see this happen. We'll give you the details later, just wanted to let you know what you have been missing...

Jan 12th 2012, Don Khon, Sampo

Our long journey south has taken us to Si Phan Don, i.e. the 4000 islands. It is a rather large grouping of, surprise surprise, islands, between which the Mekong river slowly flows towards Cambodia. Before coming here, we spent one night in Savannakhet and two nights in Pakse. Both were small towns with quite little to do, except for savouring the relaxing atmosphere and enjoying local food. We did rent bikes for a couple of hours in Pakse, though, and managed to see a little more than just the inside of our hotel room. However, these towns were just waypoints on our journey towards the ultimate level of relaxation to be found on Don Khon.



Our gang has temporarily grown from four to six. When leaving Pakse on a minibus, we happened to sit next to two Finnish girls, who also thankfully let us know of their nationality before we blurted out anything stupid in our native language. We've spent some time together on the islands and will travel together to Phnom Penh tomorrow, before going our separate ways again. Obviously our clever wit and sophisticated sense of humour make us the perfect company to travel with. On the other hand, the ladies decided to come from Luang Prabang straight to the islands, enjoying nearly 30 hours of Lao bus travel in one go. So it might just be that they hang out with us because they're out of their minds.

Life on Si Phan Don is concentrated mainly on three islands. Tourism is concentrated on two small ones called Don Det and Don Khon, which are connected by an old bridge. Don Det has plenty of bars and restaurants, and its more for the partying types. The old, lazy fancypants go to Don Khon, which is a lot more quiet and relaxed. We chose the latter. Our guesthouse had double beds, so naturally the Minister of Lottery had to get to work again. Indescribable happiness ensued when Olli and Peltsi won another three nights with each other. What were the odds of this happening four times in a row? We calculated: 1,2 percent.



The past two days have probably been the most chilled-out time I have had in my entire life. The best activity here is to simply lie in a hammock while the Mekong slowly flows by and watch the sun set behind the green hills of a neighbouring island. This, combined with the occasional sip from a cold bottle of Beerlao, has allowed us to reach a previously unimaginable state of relaxation. Doing absolutely nothing has never felt this good.

We haven't been just lying around, though. We went cycling a bit with rented bikes on Tuesday and on Wednesday, and managed to see most of both islands. Yesterday we also tried out tubing, which is basically the national sport in Laos, practiced by everyone but the locals. It consists of lying in a large inner tube while slowly floating downstream on the Mekong river. This sport often involves beer as well. The level of relaxation can be compared to that of lying in a hammock.

We have now been in Laos for nearly two weeks, and tomorrow we'll cross the border to Cambodia. Travelling through Laos has been a very interesting experience, and we have really enjoyed our time here (only Esa has periodically found reasons to complain). The general pace of life is just somehow slower in here: it's as if the people move slower than anywhere else. This is not to say that the people are lazy – on the contrary, they seem to work from sunrise till sunset – but they do everything in a stress-free manner and without hurrying. I'd say there's a lot we could learn from them.



At the same time, Laos is still a very poor and undeveloped country, and a great number of people live on subsistence farming. Things are changing fast, though: like China, Laos has opened up for private business and its economy is growing very rapidly. At the same time, more and more tourists are drawn here by the warm climate, beautiful nature and ridiculously low prices. A telling example of the transformation is that the 2010 edition of Lonely Planet is already completely outdated when it comes to information about the availability of services (ATMs and cash exhange for example) in different cities. Tourism indeed seems to be the driving force behind the changes – where there are tourists, there you can also find hot showers, ATMs, restaurants, bars and cafes. The clientele of any restaurant is almost uniquely white, as very few locals seem to spend their money on such luxuries.



I'll be leaving Laos with some mixed feelings, too. It's hard not to feel guilt about the mere fact that we can afford to fly here from the other side of the world and buy cheap stuff, while most of the people here live on so little. I guess the only consolation is that like all tourists, we are bringing a lot of money in and thus supporting the local economy. But still. I'm also not sure about what the locals really think of us – of course almost everyone has been extremely friendly, but at the same time they must be pretty confused about how much things have changed since tourists were allowed in the country in the 1990s. If they're displeased, they're not going to show it, though. And it's not like they really have a choice.

We have another 12-hour bus ride planned for tomorrow, so I guess we'll spend most of today lying on our backs. I'm very interested in seeing what Cambodia is like, but damn, it's going to be difficult to leave behind mankind's greatest invention: the hammock.

Jan 8th 2011, Savannakhet-Pakse, Esa

Lao Airlines Airbus 320 had lime-green leather seats and fancy blue lights running in the ceiling. The announcements sounded as if they were from a South Park character. My first impression of Laos. Vientiane airport was the most laid-back airport I've ever seen, and the visa-on-arrival procedure didn't take long. We filled in the application forms, handed in a passport photo and 35 American dollars. Our visas were ready in 3 minutes. One traveller didn't have a photo, but it didn't seem to change the world. Another funny thing to mention: In the application form there was a question about the applicant's race. I wrote ”human”. Should be about right.

I'm writing this posting on a shaky bus somewhere in the Lao countryside. There is little traffic, and no-one is in a big hurry. That's how it feels at least. These crowded buses seem to be the main form of transport in this country, and have become familiar to us, too. Today's trip is about 270km and the expected time to cover that distance is somewhere between 5 and 7 hours. Excellent! There is an elderly Lao couple sitting close to us. The man bought some meat on a stick and ate it with great passion. I wonder what it was. Maybe rat. That could be true, by the way. We saw them selling rats at a market. Well, meat is meat. Always delicious. We must also remember that there is no honest bus trip without endless Lao Karaoke music filling the air. It sort of gets on your nerves after a couple of hours.

Lao P.D.R is formally a communist society. You can see that, for example, in the prices of everyday products. In our case that often spells out as beer. The price of beer always the same no matter where you buy it. Restaurants, kiosks, markets...it's (almost) always the same, 10 000 Kip (1 euro). Here, in spite of the political system, pretty much everything seems to be available (compare: Cuba).

Some 300 km north from here, around the Konglor Cave, the scenery was mountaneous and looked somewhat other-worldly. Extremely pointed mountain tops and cliffs made for base-jumping. Good that none of us is into such things. Here, instead, where we have reached the lowlands, fields and some kind of bushes are dominant. But a few words about the cave. The little ”Indiana-Jones-excursion” we made took us through a mountain on a boat. The river flowing through the rock is about 7 kilometers long and was formed probably millions of years ago. It was a strange feeling to sit on a long-tail boat speeding through the darkness. The cave itself looked like a man-made highway tunnel at some point, while at some other point rock formations of different sizes and shapes made the place look very scary. We were wondering what kinds of creatures were lurking in the dark, secret rooms of the mountain. Sampo was a little afraid. The only lights in the cave were the spotlights from our flashlights dancing in the ceiling. The river was surprisingly shallow - only some centimeters. In fact we got stuck a couple of times. In general the cave trip was really cool!



The place that we want to, or hope to, reach today is Pakse which is rather close to the Cambodian border. The last place before crossing the border will be an area called ”4000 islands”. We hope to find a nice place there, relax in a hammock, drink Beerlao, and watch the Mekong flow by. They say you can, with good luck, see some Mekong dolphins in the area. I'm sure a friend of ours, who couldn't join us because of his friend's relationship problems, would also love to be there. Well, we wish you were here! :)

Practicalities and traditions is the clue that keeps the group together and helps to cope with difficult situations. These things make life a lot more fun, too. By this I mean our normal daily lottery. Olli is the lottery guy, officially ”Minister of Lottery” (arvontaministeri) who uses his magic and quickly organizes a little card game or a paper flipping moment to solve a problem. As many of you already know, we have used the very same method hundreds of times during our previous trips. An example: There's four of us and only three beds. Who's going to have to share a bed with another guy? Or: there are three cold beers and one warm. Who will be the unlucky one? Just to let you know, Olli has had to spend a lot of time in the same bed under one planket with Peltsi ;). And Olli got also that warm beer.. Maybe he'll then win a some huge lottery prize later.

I've had some minor heath problems since the 3rd day trip. It might be that the anti-malarial drug that I'm taking has some side effects, or I simply ate something that screwed up my stomache. Anyway, I'm fine now. And no matter what they say, it's malaria that kills, not the medication. I just can't wait to hit the beaches...

That's it for now. Timo and Laura: Have a great time in Barcelona! :)

Btw, photos added to Jan 4th post.

Jan 6th 2012, Ban Kong Lo (Konglor Caves), Peltsi

Hooooooowdy hou! I welcome myself to Laos and to fancypants blog! As Olli mentioned, they found us, Fortunate or unfortunate for us? Time will tell.

Me and Esa both left for the trip from Riga after spending new year there. A fifth friend was also invited but unfortunately he couldn't join us because he had to play floorball. Esa travelled through Berlin, Amman and Bangkok, I travelled only through Helsinki and Bangkok. I spent my Helsinki-Bangkok flight sleeping and chatting with a Finnish golfer and didn't even have time for a single movie. What a pity, I missed Cowboys and Aliens!



Anyway. As mentioned, Vientiane didn't impress us much. Nice lazy city but didn't look or act like a capital at all. Lots of comfortable and cute street restaurants but we decided to only spend one night there with all four of us. So after some heavy bargaining we left the town the following morning by bus towards Konglor Caves which is supposed to be some fancy set of caves.

Bus ride took about 7,5 hours. Bus broke up only twice during the ride which I guess is about average. Lots of time was also spent on unloading lots of random stuff from the bus to random places. It was even raining in Vientiane when we left which was a bit odd. But eventually we did get to a very cute little village next to the caves.



We arrived to the village a bit before 6pm. First we sent out scouting squads to find shelter for the travellers against the dangers of the wild. (Such as cute little dogs, beautiful sunshine and fellow travellers.) It was already dark so we didn't see much of the village. We had supper with some other Westerners in a strange little restaurant where all the Westerners were already waiting for their food. Waiting seemed to be the Thing in that place. Our guesthouse also had a restaurant but we didn't find a way to get any food there. Later in the evening we visited some local celebrations where we met a lot of extremily friendly Laotians. If waiting was the Thing in the restaurant, friendliness is the Thing in Laos in general.



Now the boys are having some showers and soon we'll head to the caves. Esa has been feeling a bit sick but he seems to be already better today. Nice! Tomorrow morning we'll take a bus and head further south.

Jan 4th, 2012, Vientiane, Olli

As Sampo mentioned earlier, the plan for Monday was to go visit the Kuang Xi -waterfalls and one cave. Well, that never happened. I woke Sampo up around 9 am, so that we would have a full day ahead of us. The next seven hours we spent changing our plans every fifteen minutes. We left our hostel maybe four times and headed to downtown, always a clear plan in our heads. The only problem was that none of the plans worked out. Either we didn't have the passports with us or we couldn't find a tuk-tuk or something else went wrong. All-in-all it was maybe the most unproductive day ever. In the we ended up renting bikes for a few hours and went to a Lao massage. The massage was ok, but not nearly as good as the Thai-massage.



The next day we had learned something from our earlier mistakes, and we had all planned out and in the morning we woke up even earlier. We rented a 125cc motorbike and drove to the waterfalls, which were about 35km away from the city. (By the way, the man in the shop was great, he kept telling us how dangerous it is to drive in Laos, how bad all the other drivers are and kept telling us examples of other travelers who had ended up in big troubles after renting a bike. But finally he let us rent the bike anyway..) The roads were not in a very good shape so it took us a long time to get there, but I still enjoyed the driving a lot. We spent many hours in the waterfalls, which were totally amazing. The color of the water was exactly as you would imagine it to be in paradise. The waterfalls were in many parts, and inbetween there were kind of small pools. In some of the pools you were able to swim also. We also found a more quiet spot after climbing higher, even one place where we could swim under the waterfall to a small cave. Not bad at all.



In the end we didn't have time to go to the caves because we spent so much time in the waterfalls, but we didn't mind at all because we had a really good time. At 6 pm we took a tuk-tuk to the bus station, from where we started the long journey to Vientiane. We had booked tickets in advance to a VIP bus. The bus was ok, much better than the cheaper bus. I found the bus good enough, because after all we are in Laos, so I don't think you should expect very much. Sampo clearly was not quite as satisfied. The trip took 12,5 hours, so it was very rough. Every time the bus hit a bump or slowed down or something else unexpected happened I woke up really scared, because the road was a really small and narrow one in the mountains and I did not trust our driver 100% either. So sleeping was really difficult. We only had one longer break. Luckily we were well-prepared and had bought many baquettes and a packet of nutella.

We arrived in Vientiane around 8 am and headed to the hotel where we knew two Finnish fancypants should be waiting for us. And they were, so now we have spent the day feeling bad about the fact that we have to spend many weeks with each other. The city of Vientiane really did nothing to impress us, so basically we just wandered around the city the whole day without doing anything special. In the evening we decided to eat in a fancypant-restaurant that had a really nice view to the Mekong-river. Tomorrow morning we'll take a bus and continue our trip to central Laos.



Oh by the way, we have finally also made contact to some other Finnish travelers also. In Chiang Mai we heard a couple talking Finnish in our hostel restaurant. In Luang Prabang we were eating in an Indian restaurant and had just had a discussion how we haven't met many Finish people this time, when two Finnish girls passed us by. And today we first saw a Finnish couple in a bus station and later two Finnish guys in a restaurant. I have a feeling we're still going to meet a few during this trip.

(Btw, we have also tasted many strange things already during the trip, for example in this picture Sampo is drinking the famous "Karmes-viina" a.k.a. "Snake-whiskey". Yep, there is an actual snake inside the whiskey bottle. Yammiiii!)

Jan 1st, 2012, Luang Prabang, Sampo

So, the year 2012 is upon us! We had a very interesting new years eve. But let's start from the beginning.

A lot of people do the trip Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang (henceforth LPB) overland. Basically that means sitting one day on a bus and two days on a small boat floating down the Mekong river, with an overnight stay in a little place called Pakbeng. Because we're fancypants, we decided to save time and fly instead. Those who know me know that I despise flying, but even I preferred a one-hour flight to a three-day bus/boat trip.

Our taxi ride from the the LPB airport to our hostel§ provided us with an interesting introduction to Lao culture. Our minivan was slowly crossing an extremely narrow bridge when suddenly its right front tire hit one of the iron bars on the side of the bridge. By a huge coincidence, the bar moved, flipped over and the car's front tire lodged itself very tightly inside it. We were stuck for at least half an hour. Several cars behind us had to back down because the bridge was too narrow for them to pass us, and needless to say, all of this caused a huge traffic jam. Eventually some guys from the taxi company showed up with a second car jack and some planks, with which the car was lifted in the air and the bar fell off. The interesting thing about this whole sequence was that not one person in the line in front and behind us honked or showed any other kind of anger, annoyance or displeasure during all this time. If anything, people were curious to see what was the problem. I can't imagine what the noise level would've been like if something like this happened in, say, southern Europe.



Anyhow, we eventually got to our (very cheap) hostel, where a pretty rowdy new year eve's pre-party was just taking off. Naturally we joined in. Later in the evening almost everyone headed to a club called Utopia, but we stayed a bit longer at the hostel with some other travellers. When we finally took off, we found out that no one really knew where Utopia was. Needless to say, we got a little lost on the way, but this turned out to be a blessing in a disguise. I don't know how it happened, but we accidentally crashed a local family's new years party. I felt a little uncomfortable showing up uninvited like that, so me and Olli left the other guys there and took off quite soon, only to run into a bunch of Lao language students having their own party next door. They welcomed us with open arms and offered us beer and food. Some of them spoke pretty good English too, and before too long they were teaching us the intricate choreography of a Lao group dance. And like this, the year 2011 came to an end without us even noticing it when it happened.

By the way, we did end up in this Utopia place later. It was a huge outdoors club and in all honesty a pretty good one. It was also extremely full and 100% of the people there were westerners. We had a good time there too, but the time we spent with the locals earlier was what made the evening truly unforgettable.



Thanks to our nightly endeavors we have spent today virtually in a coma, but we still managed to walk around LPB quite a bit. Due to its unique history and culture, LPB is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The town is small but has a lot of charm and a nice, relaxed atmosphere. It has a rich history, lots of old temples and french colonialism has also left its marks on the place. I'm under the impression that LPB used to be a little bit isolated and hard to reach, but ever since it became possible to fly here, it has attracted a lot of tourists. This can be seen especially on the main street, which is full of semi-fancypant restaurants filled with western people of all ages. I never expected Laos to be so touristy, but I guess things will be a little different when we start heading south.

Our plan now is to visit some waterfalls tomorrow and some temples on Tuesday, before catching a night bus to Vientiane. I heard that another couple of ugly Finnish guys are heading there as well. Maybe we'll meet them and have a Beer Lao. For the mothers out there: we're in good health and Olli has recovered from his earlier “minor setbacks” very nicely. He's also eating a packet of chocolate cookies every day, which is a sure sign things are back to normal.