Filling in our World Heritage Site gaps around South-East Asia
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  • Day 11

    Back to Hue

    July 9, 2019 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 37 °C

    Time to leave Hoi An and retrace our steps back to Hue. Our bus wasn't leaving until 1:30pm so we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the morning. We had a leisurely breakfast and then one last wander around Hoi An for me to finish filming my video.

    It's a very pretty little town, but it's absolutely flooded with mostly Koreans and Chinese taking endless selfies and doing Instagram model poses. In the evenings it was so crowded with tourists I'd almost put it on par with Venice, though it's in a much smaller area. Not too crowded in the morning though, as most of the group tours stay in Da Nang and only come down in the late afternoon.

    Filming done, we spent the last couple of hours in the hotel and checked out at midday. Grabbed some banh mi for lunch then waited for the bus. It was another sleeping bus, though this time I was on a lower bunk and much more comfortable. It was also only half full which helped a lot.

    No sightseeing from the bus this time, we went straight through Da Nang and then took the tunnel instead of the mountain pass that we'd done a few days earlier. Four hours later we were in Hue, and checking back into the same hotel where the staff were a little puzzled!

    Had an early dinner at a pizza restaurant around the corner which was actually quite good and fairly authentic Italian style pizza!
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  • Day 12

    Long Haul to Savannakhet

    July 10, 2019 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Our epic journey continues, this time with a long bus ride across Vietnam and Laos. Early start, waiting at the travel office at around 6:30am before eventually a shuttle turns up to meet the bus at the southern bus station.

    It's not a sleeping bus, unfortunately, but it's a proper coach with good sized seats and working air conditioning. The downside is that it's being heavily loaded up with goods - a full half of the 50-seater bus was piled up with cargo, and the entire floor under the seats too. Packed full of boxes mostly of produce: carrots, potatoes, limes, rice. So for almost the entire ride I had my feet on a box of bananas.

    The bus left right on time at 8am and only stopped once to pick up more people. We were sitting just near a young English couple who were the only other westerners on the bus, so we chatted to them a bit. After about 3 hours and one brief bathroom stop we arrived at the Laos border.

    Filling in our visa on arrival took ages partly because they were slow, but I had to fill my form in twice as they wouldn't use my Australian passport - they insisted I had to use my UK passport since that had the Vietnam exit stamp on it. And the British couple had been caught out that you need to pay for a visa, so they had a slow trip to an ATM as well.

    Finally clearing the border, the bus had disappeared down the road though we'd been expecting this. The four of us walked in the heat for about a kilometre before we spotted the bus again, waiting impatiently. He could've parked a bit bloody closer!

    Back on board where we drove basically straight across Laos without stopping, arriving eventually in Savannakhet at around 5pm. Said goodbye to our English friends and then walked to the hotel nearby, since we'd deliberately booked a hotel near the bus station.

    All up the journey was long and uncomfortable, but nowhere near as bad as I'd anticipated.
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  • Day 13

    South to Pakse

    July 11, 2019 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Another day, another bus trip! Up early again and back to the bus station, where we bought our tickets and boarded the bus to Pakse just before it left at 7am. This was a local bus, so no air conditioning, but mercifully it no cargo inside and surprisingly roomy seats/footwells. So we were comfortable enough.

    The bus was pretty empty when it left Savannakhet, but it stopped fairly regularly to pick up new passengers. There was one early stop at a sort-of rest area which was fairly grim, but after that it didn't stop at all. And the bus kept filling up and up.

    We were comfortable enough in our seats, but after a large crowd of monks boarded it was basically standing room only for the last couple of hours. We finally arrived in Pakse around 2pm, after having basically no idea how long the ride was going to take. Google Maps had estimated five hours, but clearly didn't account for the endless stops of a bus! Ah well, we made it.

    Annoyingly, the bus dropped everyone at the bus station 7km out of town where we had to catch a songthaew into town. For this 7km ride we paid 20,000 kip each, or about $3.20. For reference, the 7 hour bus ride was 40,000 kip each. So the last few kilometres increased the price by 50%! We heard later from a local that the bus is supposed to go to another more central depot later, but since nobody on the bus was from Pakse, nobody knew that. Easy way of getting your songthaew driver mates a bit of extra cash I guess.

    Right after hopping out we bumped into a Belgian man who owned a travel agency in town. Chatted to him for a while, then booked our tour for tomorrow and transfer to Siem Reap the following day.

    Walked a kilometre or so to the hotel, then back out for a lunch / dinner at 4pm. Had a few different Lao dishes at a nearby restaurant - nice enough although Lao cuisine is generally less interesting than Thai/Vietnamese or even Cambodian.

    Upstairs for an early night as a big thunderstorm rolled over the town.
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  • Day 14

    Wat Phou

    July 12, 2019 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Today was the reason we came to Pakse - visiting the ruined temple of Wat Phou just outside town. We'd organised an early pickup from our tour driver, simply because we knew the site would involve a bit of walking and stair climbing, and the heat was once again going to be oppressive.

    While we were having breakfast in the hotel lobby, a young Irish girl also staying approached us and asked if she could join our tour. Since we'd basically just booked a tuk-tuk driver for a half day and there was plenty of space, it was no problem at all and she hopped in once our ride turned up.

    The site is about an hour south of town, and we spent the tuk-tuk ride chatting and getting to know our sudden new companion, Clare. Eventually we arrived, paid our entrance fee and headed into the small museum which had a UNESCO certificate and some significant finds from the ruined temple.

    Wat Phou is the remains of a Hindu temple complex that is built into the side of a hill. It runs along a long single axis, with a causeway between two lakes, and then a series of large staircases running between temples up the hill. It was originally used as a temple site starting from about the 5th century AD, but most of the remaining buildings date from the 11th-13th centuries. It was built by the Khmer Empire (centred on Angkor) which ruled a lot of SEA during the medieval period.

    We spent an interesting couple of hours wandering around, slowly climbing stairs and taking photos in the intense heat, despite it still being only mid-morning. Some of the buildings were in pretty good condition, though others were closer to rubble than ruin. One thing I quite enjoyed though was that as the Hindu Khmers were pushed out of the area, the shrines were repurposed into Buddhist shrines, so the main areas now have Buddha statues and people praying etc. Interesting to see people lighting incense sticks to Buddha in a building covered in carvings of Shiva!

    We were done by 11am and so headed back to Pakse via a restaurant overlooking the Mekong. Nice little lunch there, before retreating to the hotel and glorious air-conditioning. Didn't do much else for the rest of the day aside from spend the afternoon working away on various things.
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  • Day 15

    Pakse to Siem Reap

    July 13, 2019 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 34 °C

    Super long day of travel today! Our hotel pickup arrived at 7:30am for the first section of our many-legged journey to Siem Reap in north-west Cambodia. Spent about 3 hours on a cramped but okay minivan heading south through Laos. Eventually the minivan pulled over and Shandos and I were ordered out, along with a Dutch guy who'd also been staying at our hotel.

    We were ushered into a songthaew (essentially a covered ute) for the 30 minute drive to the actual Cambodian border - everyone else in the minivan was heading for a different part of southern Laos. Managed to change our last few Laos kip into Cambodian money from the Laos border guy as he stamped us out, but the Dutch guy for some reason had 800,000 kip (about USD 140) which of course they weren't going to change. Oh well, bad luck for you dude!

    While we were waiting a dude on a motorbike rode up and started handing out Cambodia visa-on-arrival forms, asking for our passports, photos and the $40 USD for the visa. Smelling a rat and realising that the visa fee is $35 plus $2 for a stamp, we took our passports back. The guy got a bit angry but we just walked away and walked directly into Cambodia. Sure enough, it was $35 for the visa and $2 for the stamp, so although the guy was legit, he was going to pocket the change without saying anything. A couple of girls followed our lead in ignoring him, but a half-dozen others let him organise things for them. I guess we've crossed enough land borders to know that anyone not in uniform asking for money is pulling a scam of some sort.

    Waited in a crappy cafe on the Cambodian side for about 10 minutes before getting into a new minivan and heading south for a couple of hours to a town on the Mekong. This driver had clearly seen Fast & Furious too many times and was way too reckless - at least we had seatbelts.

    At the town, they split everyone up again by destination as some went to Phnom Penh while others headed for Siem Reap. Unlucky us, we got the same driver again! After a long five hour stint, we finally got to Siem Reap at around 6pm. Despite misgivings and crazy driving, everything actually worked out and I guess the constant changing of vehicles really broke up the trip. It didn't feel like 11 hours of travel.

    We had a free tuk-tuk ride to our hotel; the local drivers accept the free service because you're basically a captive audience while they pitch their services for taking you around Angkor Wat the next day or two. Bad luck for this guy - we weren't going to Angkor, and already had a driver for our day trip the next morning! But I did what I'd learned in India: take the guy's number (rather than the opposite), and promise to call if we needed anything.

    Our guesthouse was nice, with a good pool I couldn't use because I didn't bring swimmers. We headed out for dinner about 10 minutes away at Pub Street, the main tourist area of Siem Reap (though really, it's a large sprawling town entirely devoted to tourists). Ended up having Mexican food for something different, as neither of us had particularly fond memories of Cambodian food.
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  • Day 16

    Preah Vihear

    July 14, 2019 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Up early today for a super long day trip. We were heading to the ancient temple complex of Preah Vihear, about four hours north of Siem Reap on the Thai border. Our driver, Mr Smarty who we'd organised with Google Search and Whatsapp turned up promptly at 7:30 as we were finishing our breakfast. His car was air conditioned and reasonably comfortable, and he was quite chatty with reasonable English so was quite a good companion. It was a long drive there, but eventually we made it.

    No museum here, but the only way up to the temple complex itself was via a 4WD, so we bought our tickets and headed up. It was surprisingly crowded, entirely with domestic tourists, as it's some sort of Buddhist holy week and people were coming up to pray and offer.

    The story here is actually quite interesting as well. It was built by the Khmer Empire as their second-most important religious site, after Angkor Wat. It was built about the same time as Angkor, and was of course built as a Hindu shrine. It sits on top of a mountain, with five large temples arrayed in a straight line. I quite liked that at each level, the only thing you could see was the next level up - there was never any spot you could see the whole shrine. Although it fell into disuse as the Khmer Empire declined and was converted into Buddhist, it sits almost directly on the Cambodian-Thai border and has been the subject of bitter ownership disputes.

    Essentially, when the French drew up maps in the early 20th century, they placed the border on the watershed line of the mountain range. Except, the temple is technically on the Thai side, but the French maps explicitly and for no apparent reason drew the border line around the temple, placing it wholly in Cambodia. The Thais didn't seem to notice until the 1960s that the temple wasn't theirs, at which point they took legal action in the International Court of Justice which basically ruled that since Thais had used those maps in many ways since inception and hadn't disputed temple ownership for 50+ years, it clearly wasn't that important and thus the temple was in Cambodia.

    It's been rather a tense issue between the two countries, with gunfire and artillery exchanged over the border sporadically since the decision. Mostly recent was in 2011, when soldiers on both sides were killed. The situation seemed fairly calm now, but there were definitely plenty of soldiers around.

    Oh well. We just enjoyed the temple, filming various statues and buildings etc and getting ourselves extremely sunburned in the fierce midday sun. Even Shandos, wearing her *conical* hat (which is apparently super offensive to Cambodians because they hate Vietnamese for historic reasons) got burned.

    Back to the car where we had a late lunch at about 3pm and then started the long drive back to Siem Reap. Finally back around 7:30pm, so a loong 12 hour day. And more to come in the following days! We organised with Mr Smarty that he'd take us for our daytrip tomorrow as well, and he gave us a big discount since it was somewhere he hadn't been before and wanted to see!

    Just a quick dinner nearby where I had Korean-style fried chicken which repeated on me in the middle of the night. Three trips to Siem Reap, two bouts of "gastric distress". Not the best luck in this city!
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  • Day 17

    Sambor Prei Kuk

    July 15, 2019 in Cambodia ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C

    Slightly later start today, Mr Smarty turned up at 8am! Also a shorter drive to this one, about 3 hours south-east of Siem Reap. This site is our fourth ancient Hindu temple in a row, and thankfully the last for a little while too. Its distinguishing features are that it's pre-Angkor, and the ruins actually date from around the 6th century which is quite cool.

    Three main groups of ruins here: some in good conditions, others were just piles of stones. But all quite interesting, with a few distinguishing features. Some even had really good carvings that were preserved, and some had inscriptions too with edicts from kings etc. I liked that since the inscriptions were done using Hindu calendars, archaeologists can actually date them precisely; eg 13th September 672 AD. Not bad!

    This was another of those sites that had been essentially lost to the jungle after the fall of the Khmer Empire, and only rediscovered in the 20th century. You could really feel it too, as many sections were densely forested and it would've been hard to notice overgrown temples unless you were really close to them! But as is often the case in Cambodia, many of the temples had been destroyed by B52 bombing runs during the Vietnam war, and others during the civil war with the Khmer Rouge. So it's an interesting history, but a sad one too.

    Another late lunch at a local restaurant, though this one seemed newly built to take advantage of the UNESCO listing (which had only happened in 2017). Watched in amusement as a large table of Americans nearby (one of the only foreign groups we saw, though there weren't many local tourists either) all bowed their heads in prayer and said grace, thanking Jeesus for His Bounty, while the local women who'd cooked the food were standing right there. I also enjoyed that the enthusiastic teenage girl who jumped at the chance to give the prayer spent the entire recitation scanning the table for anyone opening eyes or lifting heads. Weird.

    Back to the car where we mostly dozed the three hours back to Siem Reap, arriving back around 5:30pm. A bit earlier than yesterday, but still another long day of travelling. It's frustrating as well when you have stuff to organise and just don't have internet - neither of us have bought SIM cards in Laos or Cambodia as we aren't staying long enough. Dinner was next door to our hotel, where a German couple running a guesthouse were making tasty pita bread grilled sandwiches.

    Thailand tomorrow!
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  • Day 18

    Siem Reap to Bangkok

    July 16, 2019 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Up and out early again. For our bus we had to be at the nearby tourist office at 7:30, but when we went downstairs for breakfast and check-out at 7am there was nobody except an old lady sweeping floors. Even though breakfast starts at 7am and I'd told them the day before we would want breakfast at 7am! After 15 frustrating minutes of waiting, we eventually just left the key on the reception desk and left without paying $2 for the two water bottles we'd taken earlier from the fridge. Didn't really want to leave cash lying around - sorry guys!

    Quick minivan transfer to the actual bus station where we boarded the bus to the Thai border at Poi Pet. The large bus was reasonably comfortable, not particularly designed for tiny Cambodians. Travel time was about 3.5 hours, with one brief stop. Approaching the border we were all given yellow lanyards which I thought was quite a good idea. Unlike the Vietnam-Laos border and the Laos Cambodian border we'd crossed, this border was a hive of activity.

    Stamped out of Cambodia, we walked across into Thailand, filled in our visa-on-arrival cards and then waited in an agonising line for an hour to get our Thailand entry stamp. Finally into Thailand, we managed to find the connecting bus (it's a different vehicle as Thailand and Cambodia drive on different sides of the road) and then mysteriously waited for 45 minutes before leaving at 2pm. Everyone had been there for ages so it's not like one person was held up or something. Would've been great if they'd said "leaving at 2pm" so you could go and grab food - instead they said "leaving soon" and I ran to grab the closest thing I could find, then waited around for 30 minutes. Sigh.

    Next bus was actually two minivans, really just Toyota Hiace style vans with seats. Crowded but not cramped as others had been, though it was still at least 5 hours to Bangkok. Stopped once for a bathroom and snacks break, then about 30 minutes later the driver decided to stop for petrol as well. No idea why he couldn't do that at the previous stop or hell, even before picking us up! Ah well.

    Eventually we got to Bangkok around 7pm where we hopped out near a skytrain metro stop. It was a 15 minute cab ride to Khao San Road where we were staying, and the first tuk-tuk driver who approached us wanted 300 baht (about $15). We laughed and walked away, flagged down a cab who wanted 200 baht and wouldn't negotiate. Finally a third cab pulled up and after much consideration agreed to use the meter. When we arrived at Khao San Road the meter was about 75 baht. Yeah. He had "no change" so we gave him 100 baht total, but that's still half the price of the next cheapest offer. Taxi drivers are the worst thing about Bangkok, well that and the traffic anyway.

    First thing was to organise our tour for tomorrow, as the ones online were very expensive and we figured we could get it cheaper in Bangkok itself. First office we stopped at had a tour available for about 1/3rd the price, so we paid up and headed for the hotel after grabbing a 40 baht pad thai from a street cart. While checking in the girl from the tour office came running up breathlessly to tell us she'd made a mistake and had only charged us for one person! After a bunch of negotiation we got an extra discount and it was still cheaper than online, but probably more than we wanted to pay. Oh well.

    By now it was 8:30pm and we hadn't been upstairs to the room, so we finally retreated and cooled down with the air conditioning. I went back out to try and get a SIM card and a beer, but was unsuccessful on both because nobody had the one-week SIM cards, and it was still the religious holiday so alcohol sales were banned! At least I got a banana pancake. But not the best day all up, probably the worst one we've had on the trip so far.
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  • Day 19

    Khao Yai National Park

    July 17, 2019 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    I'm getting so sick of the alarm. Today it went off at 6:30 as we got up and headed downstairs for our 7am pickup to head out to Khao Yai National Park, a few hours east of Bangkok. Since we were leaving early, we couldn't have the breakfast we'd optionally pre-paid for which was a bit frustrating!

    At least the tour was just four people - us and a pair of young American girls. It was another long drive out there in a van - 4 hours with only a single stop, but eventually we arrived. This WHS is a series of national parks in the east of Thailand. Mostly rugged mountainous areas, but we had chosen the most easily accessible. The national parks are home to a lot of plants and animals, particularly some endangered species, so we were hoping to see a few cool things.

    First stop was a hike of about an hour or so, partly through jungle but mostly through evergreen forest and not particularly interesting. The biggest highlight was an enormous banyan type tree, though we were a bit dismayed at how many people were climbing on it to get their sick Insta shots. Not much wildlife on display other than insects, though we did see a few elephant poos. They roam wild in the national park, but I wasn't especially hopeful of seeing any - it was midday and the worst time for animal spotting tends to be the middle of the day, particularly when it's hot.

    Back to the van where we drove to the park restaurant and had lunch. Chuckled slightly at how hesitant the American girls were with the food, but once we'd pointed out how busy the place was and that it was likely fresh cooked food, they started to eat. Didn't touch the fruit though! The golden rule with fruit is easy: just don't eat the skin, and if it's something where you wouldn't eat the skin anyway (banana, mango, pineapple etc) it's going to be fine.

    Back in the van where we drove to a famous waterfall which was used in the movie The Beach. This movie really put Thailand on the tourist map, since it was a cult hit and starred Titanic-era Leonardo DiCaprio. This waterfall was short but powerful and wide, though very crowded as well with lots of people since it was only a short walk from the carpark.

    Last stop in the NP was another waterfall, this time a tall thundering cascade. It was about a 2km walk from the carpark so nowhere near as many people, and there was a steep staircase of a few hundred stairs too which really sorted wheat from chaff. Got plenty of good footage and so on before heading back to the van and commencing the long drive back to Bangkok.

    Finally back to the hotel around 7pm, making it our fourth successive 12+ hour day. When you're offline for that long and still trying to organise a trip, it gets really frustrating, and we spent the first hour at the hotel sorting out train tickets for tomorrow (and then bus tickets for a few days later). And we still haven't planned a few things for Indonesia which is rapidly approaching!

    At last we finished then wandered to nearby Khao San Road for more cheap street pad thai, followed by mango sticky rice and banana pancakes. But no beer again - last day of this Buddhist holiday!
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  • Day 20

    North to Sukhothai

    July 18, 2019 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Finally a day without an alarm going off at an ungodly hour of the morning! We were both still up by 8am though, packing and heading downstairs ahead of the trip to the station. Quick hotel breakfast and off we went.

    Managed to get lucky and the second cabbie we spoke to was willing to use the meter going to the station, so our trip was only 60 baht instead of the 150 the first guy wanted. As I said, taxi drivers are the worst thing about Bangkok, closely followed by the traffic.

    Our train showed up and left right on time at 10am which was nice, and it was fairly comfortable too. We weren't squashed in, and were given a "meal" though it was just rice, a packet of chicken teriyaki type stuff and then another packet of mackerel in chilli sauce which we both passed on. All up fairly comfortable, and even the bathroom was clean. The 5.5 hour trip north across Thailand passed without incident.

    Hopped off in the small city of Phitsanulok, where we waited about 20 minutes for a minivan heading to Old Sukhothai, as opposed to New Sukhothai. This ride was pretty awful since we were wedged on a temporary seat right at the back of the van (basically where the luggage should be), and had no foot room at all. At least it was only an hour.

    We quickly moved seats when some people got off in New Sukhothai, though 10 minutes later the driver blasted through Old Sukhothai without stopping. We did some yelling and eventually he pulled over to let us off, but it meant a 20 minute walk back through town in the late afternoon heat which was kind of annoying. At least we'd made it!

    Our guesthouse was nice though a little rustic. We spent a bit of time settling in and cooling down, then headed back to the main road for some dinner. Lots of tourist-looking restaurants with fairly identical menus, so we just picked the busiest one. Still not great unfortunately! Shandos said her dish was okay, but my curry was awful and flavourless. I've always said that the shorter the menu, the better the food, and this restaurant had probably 300+ dishes on the menu (Thai, Chinese, Italian, pizza, sandwiches, burgers etc). At least the beer was cheap!
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