I am on extended leave from London, due to a dearth of desire to remain in situ. I met up with Colm (mate from DCU days) & his in the capital of Laos, Vientiane. He’d been trekking around Thailand and Laos for a few weeks prior with his friend Debbie. The 3 of us spent a rowdy evening acquainting and reacquainting and eating dinners without rice and anti-malarial tablets for me. The local ‘Beer Lao’ was tremendously tasty and helped wash down.
The only other part of Laos I really got a feel for was a part of the region called ‘Four
Thousand Islands’, which is part of the delta on the River Mekong. (Laos is land-locked you know?). We stayed at a lovely guesthouse place on the riverside called Mr Pon’s. The Mekong Fish curry I had that evening and again a day or so later rank up there in the memorable meals of all my time! We toured around for most of 1 day, and can claim to have seen the rare freshwater dolphins, if only from a distance and not too clearly.
Pushing on from there was really hard after only 2 nights, but that’s the name of the game when you’re a beckpecker! Next up was skipping down by plane to Siem Reap, the second city of Cambodia, which serves the Angkor Wat temple area. If you don’t know about Angkor Wat, then I’m not going to tell you, as it’s a big story. Google it, innit? Inna nutshell though we spent the best part of 3 days touring ancient temples of the centuries goneby, in various states of ruination. Terribly intricate beautiful buildings. Siem Reap itself is a frenetic place that could nearly be a tourist city anywhere in the world now, though one feels it has modified its charms to become more attractive to the lazy tourist dollar. We did stay in a fab hostel there though, that had a pool, very good staff & wifi access & other useful things. Also had our induction to the system of ‘beer girls’, which left us abit confounded. English was not her forte, but a more elegant beer-pourer I have not seen. When she poured herself some of our beer and sat down to our table as we ate, we just weren’t sure what was the protocol; so we tried our best to go with it; without encouraging her untowardly. The bill came in and the beers were as much as the food when Big Momma came out with the bill.
So, in truth, I’m writing this bit a good 24h after the last bit. I must get this out tonight, as the saying goes. Had a good stint down by the beach in Shinaoukaville on the coast. It’s like, apparently, Thailand 20 years ago, for those of you who know what that may mean. It is rustic and pretty basic in spots. Still, I am writing this in a beachside bar that has wi-fi access, so not all backward. I had my first real interaction with the asian police on account of losing the mobile. I met one beachside ‘guard’ yesterday whose grasp of English at the time could only have been enhanced by the amount of drink he had had at an earlier celebration (someone built a house, apparently) & he wanted $10 for the privilege of being drunk on duty & not able to write me a report. He took off on his moto & I ambled up the beach to the most spectacular seafood dinner we’ve had yet at ‘on the rocks’ which is run by Swedish Anders and his Khmer colleague. Awesome in places, toilet-like in others. All in all another great night. Rounded off by meeting some middle-aged Yankee teachers who were on vacation from their home in Japan – yes, you meet them all here in Camodgie.
I best get this off now, I’m sorry if it’s a bit scrambled. A lot has happened and resources are tight - sure like there’s so much to do and I have so little tan. We have to amble off now and find the sister bar to the Mexican restaurant that we went to in Phnom Penh. It’s run by an old-timer American who’s seen a lot of action. We had a swell time out in PP courtesy of an old mucker from my DCU days, Kevin Doyle, who’s an editor of ‘The Cambodia Daily’ here for the last few years. He gave us quite a special insight into the country, having been here for the last decade.
Ill leave it there now, in the hope that this gives some version of my life just at the moment. I’m off diving tomorrow, for the love of Jebus! If I don’t make it back, at least ye have this. I haven’t doven (sic) since January 2002, so it’s a bit of a panic to get reaccustomed to the lark. It will be great though!
Oh & another thing. From what I understand, you will be able to ‘comment’ on my story above (or the ones yet to be written) within the blogger application. That's cool, if you want to. However, as it’s visible to many, if you’ve anything more special/personal to write me, please just drop me an old-fashioned (email to aodan1@gmail.com). You should know my stance on such things!
My very best & can I just thoroughly recommend these countries to you. Come!
oh, PS: I'm trying to slideshow the pics that are already on my picasa, if that means nought to you. just click here & look happy:
