trip to cambodia

boat trip back
Originally uploaded by deepwarren

From the 4000 islands we went to the laos border, a 45 min car drive away. There you pay yr special $1 (bribe) and change buses and get driven to the next border.. where you pay for yr Visa ($21 american) and then you go over to the next both were you pay another dollar to the guards and they stamp something and
Bingo!
you're in Cambodia.

Take-away lao style

pork, glorious pork!
Originally uploaded by deepwarren

Street food here so far has been very, very good. Fresh, yummy and very tasty. I've become a fan of the catfish on a stick, which is a local fish that tastes smoked, and very salty. For 10,000 they reheat it on the BBQ and pass it over on a banana leaf.

There is a line of fruit and meat sellers (pork, chicken, and fish - loads of fish) and people roar up on their scooters and motorbikes and buy bits of this and that, and disappear off home. Take away at it's finest. They also sell fermented vegies (okay, but not great) and lots of condiments.. which look fantastic.

I've looked very deeply at the duck eggs with the half embryo, and although it kinda looks better than I thought, i'm still not going there. Saw chicken heads yesterday, and I hope that they have more meat on them than chicken feet , cause they're a little scarier than the feet.

Stuffed toys can be art, right?

Night markets - the toy maker
Originally uploaded by deepwarren

I've been wandering the streets in Leung Prabang in Laos. It's one of the world's beautiful little secrets. Tranquil, relaxed, fabulous architecture.. perfect for a romantic /dirty weekend with that special other. And they have night markets, with a sprinkling of food, but mostly just handicrafts. All the scarves fisherman's pants, bags, more bags and bracelets, jewelry and Buddha's a person could want. Because the goods are sourced from outlying villages there is a lot of similarity in some of the stuff, but also lots of little differences.

You can buy stuffed toys made from old fabrics and bedspreads at a dozen different stores, but the range is slightly different and the pattern that the bunny or chook is made from differs. So when you see something quite different - it sticks out like the proverbial dogs balls.

Wandering the market on night 3 (yep, it's fun and market shopping is just my idea of good time), even when it's raining! We spotted this woman with her collection of misshapen toys, all made from basic fabrics (the stuff that other stalls where using as a base material for their bags) sitting next to one of the many stalls selling bedspreads was this woman with her wonderfully odd collection of stuffed toys. In the photo you can see the ones we didn't buy. I should have taken a photo before we started bargaining, but one moment you're looking at something, and next you involved in a limited but detailed discussion on price. With one mentally trying to work out what these thousands of kip mean at home. After too many zero's my brain turns off, and you just feel like it's all paper money. Not real, and one can just spend and spend and spend.

Anyway, the toys were weird, and loveable. And they seemed to be trying to say something about her (or whoever made them) with their 2 heads, and the dreaming of riding rhino's and everything just that touch wonky. It was maybe naive art, maybe just a local woman selling stuff for her children - but i liked it. It had the sense of dreams.

Tubing on the mighty Zhong

Tubing
Originally uploaded by mic*

The number 1 highlight of traveling through Laos so far been tubing on the mighty Zhong in Vang Vieng, Laos. It's a little side river of the Mekong, and the whole idea is simple - pay the money and take a inner tube and float down river..

It's brilliant - you flat. Get reeled into bamboo bars that are perched up and down the river by 'tourist fishers' who perch on rocks and fling little tubes that you grab, and they pull you in.
There are firefox's and rope swings for the foolhardy and the game. And loads and loads of alcohol. And even happy shakes at the Last Bar. Sun, water and beer - can't go wrong really. Any attention to local rules about not too much flesh are here abandoned, and at least 60% of the female population is wearing a bikini - often in their national colours. the day we went, you could add some mud, and loud Brit house music and you had a scene that made us wish we had our camera's.

In fact, we went back for day 2 - not as many boobs as day 1, but lots of fun. We got to try the bars that we didn't get to on the first go, and had to cope with the shortage of cash disappointment at the last bar - not enough money for happy shakes!

An unnamed member of our group asked: Where do the inner tubes come from? And when told tractor tires - went 'Noooo, i've seen tractor tires, they have bumps on them.' Giggles all round really. Tractors and bus tires would be my guess, and they are guarded by the tubing cartel of Veng Viang with a zealous charging system. $15 if you lost one, $2 if you're returning your tube after 6pm. They also run on a rotation basis in the town, so if one doesn't open for the day, the other tubing place will. It stops competition, and perhaps shares the profits around a bit more.

The odd bit of the tubing scene is the number of girls in bikinis wandering through town afterwards dressed in nothing but their bikini (that, and the drunken teary scenes of girls freaking out cause it's dark and they don't know where such-and-so is..). After doing tubing, you realise the answer is often, sleeping it off in some bar along the way, half way down the river or in the closest pub.