One bus crash, one tropical island, and one dose of Dengue Fever

Recently our experiences have been a little bit mixed. Some great experiences and some not so great...

We left Battambang and took the 13 hour bus journey to the south coast city of Sihanoukville this in itself would be bad enough but around 11 hours in we were involved in a bus crash. The bus in front of us crashed into the back of a car, and we in turn smashed into the back of this bus. Throughout our trip we've had a number of near misses and now are well accustomed to assuming, what i call, the "brace, brace" position ready for impact, by grabbing the seat in front of us. Normally the bus drivers always manage to avert the situation, but our one wasn't so lucky and the front of our bus smashed into the back of the other bus (where the engine is!), we were in the second to front row and were showered with glass shards, but other than that luckily everyone seemed ok if a little shook up. We thank our lucky stars we were on one of the newest buses we've come across on our trip, because on some of the death traps we've been on elsewhere i don't believe we'd have been so lucky. Anyways we ascertain that we're both ok and then look around to make sure no one else is seriously injured, which their not. It's then that we see a load of liquid spilling out of the bus in front of us (eekk!), so this ensured we got off extra quick however the door was just tangled steel, so had to jump out of a smashed window above the front wheel arch, which you can see in this delightful little photo:-
















We then noticed behind us the VIP bus that we had previously shunned in favor of the local bus had pulled in behind us. I was not keen on getting stranded next to bus wreckage for hours so approached the bus driver and asked for a lift, i explained the situation and he must have even seen us pull our selves from the bus wreckage, and then instinctively asked for $6 to take us, i then instinctively started bargaining down - this was the point that we realised that we've been in Asia for too long, we've just escaped by the skin of our teeth and there we are bargaining already, crazy! We got a good price in the end, and gave the conductor the tainted money as we were picking glass shards out of each others skin and skull. We had our second taste of shock on the trip as well, i get nauseous and Chrissy cries! These near death experiences are a bit too common on this trip, and although they make for cool stories we could both do without them now!

From Sihanoukville we decided to escape to a tropical island to relax for a few days, we chose a really small island called Koh Ru (aka Bamboo Island - ironically we didn't see any bamboo!), we caught a little fishing boat across and arrived at the most perfect unspoilt beach we've seen on our trip. Now the beach only has ten bamboo bungalows on the beach and one restaurant to get food from, so it's majorly underdeveloped and amazingly quiet and hassle free.

Here's some photos of the beach:-



































Ice Delivery:-

















Rush hour on Koh Ru (goat army):-

















This was all perfect except one day into Koh Ru i started feeling really ill, with the worst headache of my life, this i initially thought was severe dehydration, until it was followed up by bouts of a high fever, severe pains in the head, bones & muscles, vomiting, oh and not being able to move! We put all the symptoms together and came up with Dengue Fever (aka Brokebone fever), this is really quite prevalent in Cambodia and is spread by day-biting mosquitoes particularly in rainy season (which it is now). Here's my laying in a Hammock waiting for the return fishing boat to take us back to the mainland from paradise:-

















I look so happy don't i? The boat back was a nightmare, a storm had picked up as well as the wind so we had an hour and a half in a fishing boat going through crazy waves, getting sprayed until soaked with saltwater while my body was trying to fight this, not cool!

We eventually got back and we got ourselves to a guesthouse, and i didn't move again that day, thankfully Chrissy could get food for me, but the rest of the day was spent shivering in bed with all covers on and a hooded top (it's still 35 degrees in the room!) and then far too hot the next minute.

Thankfully after three days of unpleasantness it seems to have gone, leaving me feeling quite lethargic (apparently this can last between a few weeks and a few months!), but that's better than what i had before. Adults generally survive Dengue Fever, and normally takes between 3-10 days for it to go, there's no vaccine for it, and there's four varieties of it. I'm now immune to one strain it would seem!

We've decided to move onto Kampot tomorrow. Vietnam is also well on our radar now, and today we booked an internal flight from Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) to Hanoi, as we'll arrive from Cambodia in Ho Chi but we actually fly back to London from here so we need to make a beeline for the north and work our way back down the snake country.

The land of smiles

We're now 8 days into Cambodia, and so far we're loving it!
After visiting Phnom Penh and it's very saddening remnants of Pol Pots regime, we were glad to move on. S21 detention camp and the killing fields were a brutal reminder of mans inhumanity,the killing fields still have human bones and clothes rags sticking out of the ground along the path, really sad to think thousands were brutally murdered here for very little reason, other than a small groups zealously pursued "ideals".

Our next stop was Siem Reap, the home of the ancient Khmer temples and the mighty Angkor Wat temple, which is the largest religious (Hindu) structure in the whole world. We spent three days exploring the amazing temple complex exploring them all by bike, cycling up to 40KM a day - a tiring three days!

Here's Chrissy at Angkor:-











Yesterday we travelled by slow boat through some of the best scenery in Cambodia, to Cambodia's second largest city (only a population of 140,000) Battambang. The boat journey normally takes around 3 hours, but at is it's dry season the river is really low and the journey was an agonizing 8 hours on wooden benches, a screaming car engine, and 45 degrees of scorching heat - suffice to say every non-Cambodian got burnt!

Today we've been on a visit around the countryside visiting two temples and finishing up riding the bamboo train. Some enterprising locals have taken over an old section of rail track and built bamboo "trains" out of little more than metal train chassis, a motorbike engine and a bamboo platform, which looks exactly like this:-

Now some people in more developed countries would call this majorly unsafe, and certainly it breaks every health and safety law under the sun, and we'd probably agree. However with more danger comes more fun,and this was certainly a lot of fun. You zip along through amazing landscape at 20KM per hour having to dismantle the "train" if something is coming the other way. One of the joys of travelling through developing countries is enjoying such (probably quasi-legal!) activities, where health and safety means nothing!

Tomorrow we head for Sihanoukville, which is in the very south of Cambodia on the coast, from here we're going to explore some of the remote Cambodian islands, where paradise still exists relatively untouched by the ravages of tourism - we'll see!
Here's a scene which greeted us this morning while eating breakfast, Buddhist monks collecting alms, a scene so common in South East Asia it's almost part of the fabric of the place:-

Cambodia

We've been and left Si Phan Don ("Four Thousand Islands") in southern Laos, and are now in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, our sixth country on the trip.

The four thousand islands is located at the very south of Laos where the Mekong becomes wider and shallower and where literally thousands of islands and islets exist in the middle of the river. We stayed on one of the three inhabited islands called Don Det, which showed Laos at it's most relaxed (imagine everyone on sedatives)! The island is the cheapest place we stayed in Laos, with accommodation costing about 80 pence per night, and our daily spending was around four pounds including all food. The type of place you could stay for weeks, providing you had no inclination to continue into Cambodia and little motivation. In fact a lot of travellers seemed content lazing around in hammocks, after consuming Happy Shakes/Pizzas/Cakes. Anything prefixed with "Happy" in these countries means basically it's laced with Cannabis, there's also similar phrases for magic mushrooms as well. One traveller told us he was really touched that one restaurant was offering "Happy Birthday Cake", thinking Laos people were baking cakes for peoples birthdays, only for me to shatter the illusion and inform him he was slightly incorrect! In Vang Vieng we were offered a glimpse of the "special menu" after ordering our evening meal, only to see such healthy things as "Bags of Happiness" (weed), Speed, and Opium! This was around the time we looked around and noticed most of the travellers around us had passed out!

The islands were beautiful and almost unspoilt, where you can witness traditional village life, and of course hordes of fisherman casting their nets into the mighty Mekong river at sunset (and maybe sunrise - if only i could get up at that time!).

Here's some photos of the area:-































Yesterday we undertook a 13 hour bus journey from Si Phan Don in Laos to the capital of Cambodia - Phno Penh. We crossed at the Nong Nuk Khiene border crossing at the very south of Laos, we're still not sure if this is an official border crossing!

On the Laos side we were required to supply a $2 "processing fee" to get an exit stamp out of the country, Chrissy tried to negotiate this to $1 but they held on to her passport and demanded $2, worth trying! We then coughed up and paid, looking at them with as much disgust as we imagined we could get away with. We then proceeded to walk across the "no mans land" road separating Laos from Cambodia, we presented the three Cambodian border officials with our passport complete with Cambodia Visa (pre-applied for in Bangkok, much bribes required on the border i believe!), where they also demanded a $2 "processing fee". While filling in our arrival details we witnessed an Israeli guy refusing to pay, to which the officials kept his passport and told him to wait one hour, as he was in "their country now". Based on this we decided to just pay the $2 and smile at them to just get through the border. Of course bribing is never good, and you dislike it, but these are two of the worlds poorest countries, so you expect a certain level of corruption among officials. The final thing that made us laugh was that all the dollars collected from us, were put in a briefcase, which they probably take home at the end of the day.

End result however is that we're in Cambodia (legally - i think!), and $4 each poorer, but a funny experience none the less!

Yesterday we rocked up at Phnom Penh at around 9pm in the backpacker ghetto known as "Lakeside" and were glad to get some beds with minimal hastle.

Today we walked around Phnom Penh and were glad of the hustle and bustle of the place, something that was missing in Laos, even in the capital! We visited the S21 Genocide museum where thousands of Cambodians were detained and tortured before being murdered by Pol Pots brutal regime. The place is obviously a sad and extremely moving place, and a gruesome reminder of how cruel and deluded humanity can become in pursuit of "ideals".

A moving picture from S21:-




















Tomorrow we visit the killing fields where more atrocities took place, depressing, but a vital part of any trip to Cambodia.

Logistical Planning of Border Crossings

Hey Everyone,

Just a short post to let you know of our plans for the next 1-2 weeks. We're currently right in the very south of Laos (after two grueling days by local bus - and my backpack got soaked in fish water on the last local bus, everything smells quite fragrant now!) and soon we'll be heading into Cambodia over land from Laos via the Dom Kralor border crossing, recently becoming the first official international border crossing, although dollars could always get you through before!

Lonely Planet and Rough Guide both advised against doing the overland crossing, due to very unscrupulous boat drivers on the Cambodian side charging $40-$50 for a $5 boat crossing! But this new crossing crosses the river via a bridge, cutting out this con. All details can be found here, which hopefully will be useful to the travelers not looking forward to this previously bad crossing.

Our original plan was to cross back over into Thailand, travel south, then cross into Cambodia at the Trat border, which was much more official and far less hassle. But now we don't need to, awesome!

Within Laos our next longer stop will be in Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands), which is a cluster of islands and islets surrounded by the mighty Mekong River, we're looking forward to relaxing here a bit, as the past few days have involved extermely painful bus journeys and little sleep. Imagine being stuffed into a local bus for Laos people (who are not European size!) with all their luggage, 35+ degree heat without any windows let alone a fan, for 5-8 hours a day! Only to discover your backpack is wet with fishy water and crawling with ants at the other end. That was a bad end to a bad day yesterday, the only thing reconciling me was the first pizza i've eaten in several months, the noodle and rice diet is starting to wear on us now!

James & Christina

p.s. Here's a typical scene you see while travelling the length of Laos:-