Cambodia

For this stage of the blog we should probably change the name from ‘Bitches be tripping’ to ‘Bitches and co be tripping’ as our whole trip through Cambodia was accompanied by Elton and Peter. We had actually pretty much travelled the majority of Laos with Elton, meeting in Vang Vieng while tubing and again later when we were at 4000 islands. We met Peter for two seconds at the waterfall in Luang Prabang and then again in 4000 islands..little did we know what an impression he’d make! If two slightly hyperactive and highly excitable Irish lassies traveling together wasn't enough trouble, throw a gangster Canadian cracker (Elton) and a crazy "hello kitty" loving German (Peter) into the mix and we had quite the crew. Peters translations directly from German to English leading to many legendary quotes and the introduction to some new songs such as " you put it in the wrong whole" were definitely a highlight of trip. Look this song up its a guaranteed howl :)

So the two of us and our newly found friends, very groggy from the bus ride, arrived at the hostel in Siem Reap to find that there was no rooms available. We were supposed to arrive at 9pm but in true Asia style it was past three in the morn before we got there. We were planning to go to Angkor Wat (our wonder of the world for this week!) at sunrise the next morning but decided we might as well suck it up, stay awake and just go now. A couple of coffees, or in Peters case a hot chocolate (we should have known then he was a pussy!) and we had a new lease of life. We watched the sunrise at the main temple and WOW is all we can say. The photos speak from themselves, it was so striking. Our morning was spent in the tuk tuk going from temple to temple until we were all templed out. Our favourite temple has to be the tomb raider temple, where the roots of trees are wound around the structures. After running around Lara Croft style with our finger guns at the ready for any photo ops that may arise, the lack of sleep had eventually caught up with us- Time for a power nap!

The afternoon was spent in the markets, which are a crazy mix of shoes, clothes, live fish, chickens and creepy crawlies, pungent smells, noise and some more live animals. We may have gone overboard on the shoes, but every good international traveler must have at least six or seven pairs of sandals, now where they were going to fit in the backpack was another issue. Luckily in true Asian style/quality most of them broke within the week and this was never an issue. As it was full moon party time in Thailand we decided we would hit pub street that night for our own mini full moon party- Just getting practice in for after xmas. Boozed up and body painted to the nines off we went, buck wild is the only way to describe us that night! We tried to destroy the evidence but Elton was on hand to publicise our shenanigans! Thanks for that! Let's just say there was a lot of hair whipping, crazy dancing and singing ( even the local shop keepers were serenaded).

Our next stop was Sihanoukville at the bottom of the country and like we had several times before, we got the overnight bus. In what is probably the most terrifying experience of our lives, four hours into the journey our driver who had been falling asleep hit into a parked truck while overtaking a car and swerved the bus across the road, crashing into piles of rice bags that were stacked along the roadside. Tragically the impact of hitting the rice bags, crushed the front of the bus killing two crew members. May they rest in peace. The majority of the details about how the crashed happened we got from one girl who was awake and sitting up the front of the bus and had witnessed the whole thing. Our beds were further back and we were asleep. With the initial impact we were flung from our bunks and were woken by smacking our heads off the roof. The next 20 seconds as we swerved across the road, not knowing where we were or what was going on were the longest seconds of our lives. Even worse was the panic afterwards, with the screaming of the men who had been hurt, windows being smashed, people fainting. What would have happened if we hadn’t hid the rice bags and if the bus had turned over doesn’t bare thinking about. Luckily the majority of us escaped with nothing more than bruises and cuts. In tough times, you see peoples true character and two people were amazing that night. We don’t know either of their names and never met them again, but an elderly English man who guided us out of the bus, making sure we didn’t see the extent of the mens injuries and then lifted us off the bus and a young german guy who sat with the crew members while they died will forever be remembered by us.

Unfortunately crashes like this are common place in Cambodia and the bus company barely batted an eyelid at the news, just shipping us onto another bus. Needless to say everyone was terrified and didn’t sleep a wink. We eventually made it to Sihanoukville, and stayed at the quiet beach front where we took time out to wrap our heads around what had happened and how lucky we were.

For the next few days, we were all in a dream like state and spent our time lying on the beach in the day, and at night going through a routine of playing kings in one bar, heading to the next for pizza and then to Richie's bar for more beer or in Annie's case Mai Tai's. There were so many Mai Tai's consumed on the first night we got there, that the name on her tab was Mai Tai girl! Elton on the other was known as Korean, Japanese guy. Sherry was known as Sherry (shes world famous!). You can’t mention Richie's without mentioning Taka, the barman who not only is the nicest man you’ll ever meet but he can make a mean Mai tai and sing every verse of Seven drunken nights- Legend! The last night before we left the four of us along with Elton's friends who had been traveling through Vietnam and our new addition to the crew, Jarred (who travelled with us through Vietnam) gave Richie's the send of of all send offs. Tabs should be illegal, its just not fair giving drunken people free beer! Damn you Riches. Also for everyone's future reference ten in a tuk tuk just ain't comfortable :)

Time to get back to reality, we left Sihanoukville and headed to Phnom Penh, the capitol. Going to the killing fields, one of many mass graves throughout Cambodia, a result of the genocide (That only happened 30 years ago), was a very eerie experience. Listening to the life accounts of some of the survivors and how they families were killed and they lived in famine conditions for years was numbing. Its hard to believe that this atrocity happened so recently. While we sang in the tuk tuk on the way to the fields, we definitely weren’t on the way home. 

Despite the tragedy of the bus crash, its fair to save we made the most of our time in Cambodia, well under the circumstances anyways. We had great company, great times, met brilliant new people and definitely got some perspective. On to Vietnam next with along with Elton, Peter, Jarred (the worst kings player ever!) and our new perspective! The first stop was Ho chi Minh city, known for being one of the craziest, busiest cities in the world..a far cry from the sleepy world of Richies bar! Eeek gonna be a shock to the system!

Laos

After an almighty 28hour bus from China we finally arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos. The most obvious thing to do after such a journey is to take it easy, maybe grab some food, have a beer, hit the hay early but this was not to happen. The night started off well. We went for dinner, nice and relaxing, and even found the Laos equivalent of blue WKD much to our delight. Felt kinda drunk after one drink,this should have been an indicator for us not to down a bottle of volka but no, in true Annie & Sherry style we drank the heads of ourselves and went on the search of Utopia bar. Being a world heritage site, Luang Prabang is supposed to have an 11pm curfew on alcohol, but the sneaky feckers have all the loop holes sussed,including all night bowling where you can get beer, we choose the other options of the out of town night club, mayhem..damn it we should have went bowling. Start as you mean to go on I suppose, because while up until now our traveling has been 99% culture, things took a massive swing in direction when we hit Laos- we let loose!

We tried to keep the culture ends of things up in Luang Prabang. Its up there with one of the most beautiful places we've been. Until 1945 Laos was a colony of France and you can see the influence in the architecture of the town and the bakeries and baguettes. At night they close down the main street and it transforms into night markets within minutes. The markets were so pretty. All lit up and so peaceful. Nobody hassles you to buy so you could stroll around them for hours looking at all the local produce and handcraft. So many stalls and unlike your usually markets there is no major tack, its mainly yummy food stalls as well selling cakes,crepes and the most delicious sandwiches all for very reasonable prices. 

The only thing that Luang has more of than bakeries is temples and monks- they are everywhere! We did a temple tour one of the days (including a boat trip to temples inside caves) and also got up at sun rise to see the dawn procession of the monks to collect their alms. We were almost expecting a big parade whereas it actually turned out to be a simple affair. Small groups of monks from different monasteries walk through the main street collecting offering of food from local people who line the streets. We were originally shocked to see the amounts of young monks around or even the large number of monks on the streets but you get used to it. They seem to have quite a liberal life, chatting to locals,giving Buddhist classes to young school kids, riding around in tuk tuks, using the Internet and even seen one with a full on sleeve tattoo and it wasn't a Buddha figure either  it was a total river boy job (home & away). He's possibly the coolest monk in town. 

Above everything the waterfall outside the town was the highlight. Definitely one of the most spectacular waterfalls we had ever seen. Started off with a few minutes walk through a forest taking in a bear enclosure. The bears were so cute just chilling out in hammocks and bathing in little pools, when we say cute we mean in a giant killing mammal kind of a way. Then you reach the main attraction the waterfall. The main waterfall is beautifully powerful, gushing down from a height of about 30meters making a nice backdrop for a picture. It splits into lots of small pools which (heres comes the science bit) due to the high mineral content they are the richest opal blue colour. You could swim in these pools or for the more adventurous swing off ropes and dive, Tarzan ahoy.....The water was freezing but for the sake of a photo op we had a quick wardrobe change,bikinis on and into the freezing water which actually wasn't so cold when we were in. Little fish kept biting our feet which freaked us out and we couldn't manage a photo without screaming. These were sharks according to one guy! We went on the hunt for what Miriam Kerins had described in her email as a hidden gem of a pool, climbing up to the very source, but all we found has mud pools! Thanks Miriam, great email (*eye roll).

That was the last of anything cultural in Laos, our next stop was Vang Vieng. Main reason for stopping in Vang Vieng was tubing and feck did we tube. Three days of pure mayhem. Not sure even where to start with this one. Craziness. About thirty years ago a local farmer set up a scheme where volunteers could come to help on his organic farm. He wanted to give them the chance to see the beauty of the nature along the river and so bought a tube for them to float down it and take everything in. Then one day someone brought beer along with them while they were observing; and so tubing was born! An explosion of bars cropped up along the river and it became the most unlikely of party places in the world. This year, due to deaths and injuries, all the bars are closed so its a BYOB kinda situation. We had heard it was a ghost town and decided we'd do tubing once, just to say we did it and then head on,however we had so much fun we went three days in a row. Oh and Est sandwiches became the stable food for our time in Vang Vieng. Est is the best, Est is the best. What a legend. Omelet cheese and veg, delicious. I mean "how could you tube without a sandwich" that would just be wrong.

Well as luck would have it, we happened to start tubing at the same time as a large crowd of peeps (including the one and only Elton who ended up traveling all through Cambodia with us) we all had one common goal and that was to get pissed and have fun and that's exactly what we did. When we arrived to the starting point there were a few more guys hanging there so we had a nice little posy gathered and off we headed. We were quickly to learn Annie was the worst tuber ever and kept getting left behind. She followed many different instructions " lift your bum out of the tube" "put your bum as low in the tube as possible" etc but alas nothing was working so we invented the honey combing technique which involved tucking your legs under the next persons tube until we were all floating along together. Then the crack, bants and many a song was to start. At one point we saw a little old woman frantically waving from the shore and much to our delight she was selling more beer, pit stop ahoy, she then started hissing and pushing us away as another group approached. . After many " never have I ever's" we all got to know each other quickly. It was decided we were to grab a tuk tuk and do it all again. More drink was bought and off down the river again. Gary's Irish bar for more drink and messiness for the night.

You know when something is so good your afraid to do it again in case the second time its shit..that was our debate the whole next morning..should we go tubing again - and maybe get a good crowd of people or maybe end up just floating down the river pissed, just the two of us. We took the risk and thankfully it paid off! We were all singing away, photo's been taken left right and centre when catastrophe struck- the camera fell into the water and even more worrying a beer. There was a lot of splashing and trying to fight the current. While people were rummaging trying to save the beer, oh we mean camera, Sherry who has a fear of water couldn't get out of her tube and got separated from the crowd, floating down the river on her lonesome. While trying to save Sherry, Annie got a tube to the face and ended up falling out of her tube and loosing it..yeah mayhem. We were saved by a group of people who were gathered on the bank further on, who pulled Sherry into shore and swam out and got Annie's tube. The rest of the group (with Annie hitching a ride on another tube), managed to save the beer and the camera and reunited with Sherry on the bank, which became known as Tassie Bar, due to the high ratio of tasmanian citizens present! who knew that that five minute spell would have such an influence on our traveling. The next three days are a blur of tubing, vodka, Garys bar, omellette baguettes, sneaky shots, more tubing, more vodka, orange peel face, and a little more vodka ahhh! When we emerged from the bender, we have rerouted the next six weeks of traveling. Not only were we now cutting short our trip to Vietnam to be reunited with our favorite two tubing girls Alexis and Jordan but were going to Tasmania for Xmas and going to a music festival there for new years with the Tassie boys. Random or what, but thats what traveling is all about.

We should probably add that our tour guide for tasmania is the almighty Brad Doran, officially the biggest mess of tubing. Its going to be an interesting december!!

Okay straight to rehab for us, our livers need a break. Well not so much rehab but the closest thing Laos has to offer, 4000 islands. We were very confused how a landlocked island could have islands, but we learned they are islands in the river Mekong which runs the whole way through Laos. Wowza they were so beautiful and peaceful. They only have electricity in the last few years and are still so untouched. We took bikes and cycled around our island and across to some of the adjoining ones, even finding a secluded beach to chill by. Just what the doctor ordered, some much needed downtime! 

On our last night we went for food, planning to go to bed straight afterwards. Bam! who arrives at our restaurant but the three amigos Sarah, Tom and Elton who had been tubing with us. It would have been extremely rude not to have a social drink with them.. meh, you know what happened next! One leads to two then three... Worst rehab ever, in fact we actually caught a samosas addiction, eating TEN EACH in a row at one stage (damn drunk munchies combined with cheap food!) The next morning with one hours sleep, still drunk, we only just made the boat to the mainland to catch our bus to Cambodia, having to run to the dock with our backpacks (definitely not a fun activity). At least we weren't alone in our pain, we had the fellow hungover company of Elton and also a German guy Peter who were traveling to Cambodia too. We had actually met peter at the very start of our Laos trip at the waterfall, he was the one who had told us it was sharks attacking us (which we both believed for a long time!). So the four of sat eating ice cream waiting for the bus to come, little did we know we'd be spending the next three weeks together, in a very eventful time in Cambodia and Vietnam......