Muang Sing, Luang Namtha Province, Lao

Lao Airlines plane to Vientiane - Chinese built Xian MA60 turboprop

Transportation from Luang Namtha to Muang Sing

My room at the Chanthinmeng Guest House

Chanthimmeng Guest House as seen from the fields

Chanthimmeng Guest House view

Chinese visitors in Muang Sing

With the Chinese border nearby Renminbi is popular at the market moneychanger

Tuk tuk ride to the Adima lodge outside Muang Sing

With the tuk tuk driver

Lukewarm reception in the Akha village of Mam Ded Mai

Akha weaverin Mam Ded Mai

Akha village of Mam Ded Mai

Exceptional piece for the tourist trade in a Yao village

Sunset from the Adima Lodge eating area

Burning rice fields from my balcony at the Adima Lodge

Gecko on duty eating mosquitos in my room at the Adima Lodge

Dawn at the Adima Lodge

NORTHERN LAOS after Northern Cambodia seemed a welcome respite in some ways. I had enjoyed the people and culture immensely over two and half weeks in Cambodia but the dust and heat was sometimes challenging. Flew on February 20th from Siem Riep to Vientiane, changed to another flight to Luang Namtha, in Northwest Laos. Both planes were Chinese built MA60 turboprops operated by Lao Airlines.

Travelled in a small bus nearly 60 kilometres to Muang Sing up in a broad high valley. I was dropped off at the Chamthinmeng Guesthouse where i had a reservation. As I was getting over a cold my first day here was relaxing. I walked along the main street and spent time at the Old Market. Also walked out to the fields that the hotel faced. 

The next morning I took a tuk tuk out to the Adima Lodge 10 kilometres north of Muang Sing and off  the road, to the Lao/Chinese border, just a few kilometres further. Big Chinese trucks loaded with goods came lumbering down the narrow highway forcing the little taxi almost into the shoulder. At my lodgings it was only a 10 minute walk to a nearby hill tribe village. Mam Ded Mai was up a dirt road and looked very different from a typical Lao lowland village. Some house were on posts but the design was somewhat different. I felt a bit intrusive, especially with a camera, walking into the community. Children begged for pens and tried to sell me textile pieces from the village. Continued my walk to the next village, or cluster of villages, were the atmosphere seemed different. This time the inhabitants were Yao ethnicity.

Had a late lunch at the lodge which seemed very greasy and quickly got food poisoning. Spent the rest of the afternoon recovering, and god forbid, stayed off food till the middle of the next morning. Just the same the trip out here was worth it. As the day ended the sun descended into the haze and behind the hills in a trail of pastel hues. As darkness fell burning rice fields could be seen across the valley. It must have been the mosquito eating Gecko in my room that brought me good luck. The next morning I felt better, after a long sleep and with my cold almost gone

Now I am in Huay Xai on the Mekong River with Thailand across the water. Tomorrow I will join the hordes of tourists for the popular trip by slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

Goodbye Cambodia

Open air restaurant meal in the Pasr Chas (Old Market) area of  Siem Reap

Bougainvillea blooms

Buddhist temple steps at Lolei

Children from an orphanage at the Bakong temple

Working in the rice fields East of Siem Reap

Novice monks at Lolei

Rural transit with a Russian built Zil truck

Shadows near the Banteay Srey temple

Local Palm sugar candy

GOODBYE  CAMBODIA!

This post coincides with the end of my visit to the Kingdom. Tomorrow a Lao Airlines flight from Siem Reap to Vientiane will take me on to Laos. By evening a second flight should bring me to Luang Namtha, in the far North of the country. In the meantime, here is a roundup of photos to end these 16 days here. They are from the last few days and from the Siem Reap area.

Day 2 at the ruins

TODAY BEGAN with a visit to Baphuon temple which was a trial to ascend in the morning heat. Following that I walked past the ruins of Phimeanakas and Preah Paililay before strolling on to the Terrace of the Elephants. This was Day Two of a three day tour of the ruins of Angkor Archaeological Park. There are dozens of temples to visit but I will lucky if I see just a hand full. Originally visited Ta Prohm temple yesterday and I enjoyed the place so much, I returned this afternoon, finding a shady spot and absorbing the atmosphere. Sketched some musicians to begin with, out near the East entrance, who were playing traditional Khmer music. Once in the temple I did my first watercolour of the trip. Ta Prohm, built in the early 13th century, was a monastic complex that is only partially cleared of jungle growth. It was built under the direction of Jayavarman VI, the best known of all the Angkorian kings.

Tomorrow's travels will take in temples that are much further afield.

On the way to the ruins

Add Monkey inside the Angkor Thom complex

Causeway to Baphuon

Sri Tek purification ceremony for good luck

  

Terrace of the Elephants, Angkor Thom

Musicians at Ta Prohm

 Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

From Siem Reap to Battambang

Leaving the port near Siem Reap with a nine hour journey ahead

Fishing folk who live on their boats

The water here is used to wash in, brush one's teeth in, fish in but it is also treated as a sewer

Cambodian cooking class in Battambang

Cooking class and two travellers from France

Seller with smoked edible bats on the Bamboo Train

This Pepsi factory, now derelict, supplied product till 1975 and the arrival of the Khmer Rouge

Late afternoon at the crocodile farm north of Battambang

The Battambang killing fields memorial

Nith, the friendly tuk tuk driver in Battambang

A MOTLEY ASSORTMENT of places visited are in these notes which cover the last two days. Left Siem Reap yesterday morning for a nine hour trip, by boat, which included mostly river travel. Because it is the dry season here in Cambodia, the trip took nearly twice as long as in the rainy season. We tired passengers arrived in the early evening and I got quite good accomodation after five nights of $6.00 sleeps, which hadn't offered much in the way of creature comforts. Last night I watched some BBC on TV, in my air conditioned room and enjoyed washing once more with hot water too. 

This morning I slipped into a Cambodian cooking course at the very last minute. The class  included a trip to the market to shop for the ingredients followed by us creating three dishes. They included Amok, a national dish which is a kind of coconut curry. Of course we ate our creations after cooking our way through the rest of the morning.

Having been given a cheap cell phone in Phnom Penh I finally discovered how to phone overseas with this new gadget. With this basic Nokia I was able to call Canada and Germany while being driven somewhere in a tuk tuk. The driver, a kindly soul named Nith, took me out to the legendary Bamboo Train, which is what has been salvaged out of what remains of the Cambodian national train line (Battambang to Phnom Penh). Now rickety wooden platforms on rail wheels, powered by 8 HP portable gas engines and a simple drive belt, have replaced traditional train travel, which had dated back to the time of the French colonial era. I ended up riding some 20 minutes on the narrow gauge track to the next stop, drinking something cold at a stall and then coming back again, hurtling unsafely over crooked rails that didn't always quite meet.

From here Nith drove me to a derelict Pepsi factory where I photographed industrial decay. The bottling plant had come to a dramatic standstill, when the Khmer Rouge arrived in town, in the Spring of 1975. The next stop was a crocodile farm where we were the only visitors. While Nith remained by the gate i walked around staring down into the large concrete pens. I have to confess that I didn't feel all that comfortable being observed, as a culinary item, by the large reptilian gathering. Alas, their future pointed towards shoes and handbags and so I could cry my own crocodile tears. On a graver note the tour ended at the local killing fields. Battambang was not spared the terror of the Khmer Rouge. After that Nith and i went to the local version of a pub, well away from Downtown, and shared a pitcher of Anchor Brand beer. This Cambodian brew was excellent.


All in all a very eventful day!

Phnom Kulen

Video #1 - Riverbed with carved lingas, Siem Reap River, Phnom Kulen

Video #2 - Riverbed with carved lingas, Siem Reap River, Phnom Kulen

Reclining Buddha at Preah Ang Thom monastery

Monk at the Preah Ang Thom monastery

Truck delivering concrete cast sculptures.

Siem Reap River waterfalls

The incredible location of a Thousand Lingas carved right out of the riverbed

Detail of a linga

Linga and yoni symbols, within lotus borders, form an underwater pattern

PHNOM KULEN is a mountain range in Northern Cambodia and 1 1/2 hours by car from Siem Reap. I was attracted to this place, sacred to both Cambodian Buddhists and Hindus, after stumbling across an internet entry. Today the "Mountain of Lychees," as it is know in Khmer, is a National Park about 45 kilometres from Siem Reap. Entry to the site has been privatized, and the way in belongs to one of one Prime Minister Heng Sen's cronies. Having been on the access road today I can say that it is little more then a jeep track, in places, given the steep grades and deep ruts, The mini vans and Toyota Camry taxis managed to crawl up to the monastery in the thick jungle, at the end of the route. Here at Preah Ang Thom one walked through a gauntlet of souvenir stands before reaching the long flight of steps, lined with beggars, that led to the monastery above. Once on top one had to remove shoes and continue up steep steps beside a three story high boulder. It was crowned by a reclining Buddha, within a building, perched a top this mighty rock. The giant sculpture was built in the 16th century. The Buddha is carved right out of the sandstone rock and is some 8 metres long. As for the views over the jungle plateau, they were sublime.

The tour continued to a gorgeous waterfall, where I saw only saw Cambodians at the time of my visit, reveling in being in the pool below the cascade, clothes and all. Nearby were the ruins of the 9th century Prasat Krau Romeas temple.

In a sense this is the birthplace of the Khmer Empire. It was at Phnom Kulen that King Jayavarman II proclaimed himself a Devaraja (God King). With that he asserted Khmer independence in 804, freeing the new nation from vassalage with the Kingdom of Java, which may have been the name at the time for modern day Laos. He also initiated a linga fertility cult which was also a way to assert his new power. Evidence of this can be seen in the Siem Reap River above the waterfalls, where the riverbed is carved with amazing patterns of lingas and yonis.

The Phnom Kulen area is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List and was also the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge which came to an end in 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phnom_Kulen

Cambodian Rural Homestay

While still on pavement, a minefield warning, just beyond the roadside

The long tuk tuk drive to Sambor Village

Teng and Nai with their children

Sambor home stay  in morning light

Buddhas behind a gauze curtain at the local temple

Fish monger at the Kampong Cheuteal Market

Family members at the Sambor home stay

Digs at the Sambor home stay with mat on the floor and a pink mosquito net

The hand held device was not a road hazard  in this case

Prasat Yeai Poeun is part of one of the three temple complexes at Sambor Prei Kok

Children in the yard at the Sambor home stay

Whooping it up with home made palm wine paired with smoked fish

Fisherman on a stand in the lake beside Sambor

Sambor farmer in the rice fields

THE IDEA of a visiting a rural home stay came by accident. I was surfing for information back in Vancouver, on the pre-angkorian temple complexes of Sambor Prei Kuk, located in Northern Cambodia. Once in Phnom Penh, further searching brought me to www.samborpreikok.com and the correct contact information. With that I was able to get the reception at my hotel to kindly phone the community tourist organization in the village of Sambor. On the sixth evening, after leaving Vancouver i arrived in this community partially off the grid. The trip by tuk tuk (a trailer with two benches that is covered and pulled by a small motorcycle), from the provincial capital of Kampong Thom, took nearly 1 1/2 hours. En route I asked the driver to stop so I could photograph some signs by the side of the road, warning of land mines in the forest beyond. After all, this had been were Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces had battled back and forth, in the 1980s. The last 13 km (of the 35 km trip) was on a dirt road. The tuk tuk ride included clouds of reddish dust as well as numerous holes and washboard.

At Homestay #7 i met one of the tourist coordinators from the community tourist service. My host named Teng showed me where to sleep. It was in a simple wooden house, with cracks of light coming through the boards in the walls and floor. The large dark living space was partitioned off into smaller sleeping areas and the peaked roofed structure was raised on high posts, like most rural Cambodian homes. In Phnom Penh (at the Salita Hotel) I had enjoyed 3 star comfort but here conditions changed to a tiny $6 room (or cubicle) with nothing more then a mat and a blanket on the wooden floor, covered by a pink mosquito net. Meals were cooked under the house, at the back, and with the use of firewood and two open hearths. The first night I helped with dinner by cutting local vegetables. That introduced me to the spinach-like flavour and texture of Morning Glory greens, which was prepared with oyster sauce, for part of the family stir fry dinners. A young man and family member, named Samei, took me the first day to the rice fields where we visited two crumbling brick kilns beside a small shallow lake. A lone fisherman out in the water, stood on a stand and cast a long bamboo rod. As the light faded we followed a herder and his water buffalo back across rice stubble fields, up a dusty lane lined with cane fences and back into the village.

The next morning Samei took me on a bike ride. First we followed the red dirt road further East to the Kampong Cheuteal High School, a sprawling compound with a sports field, covered concrete stands and a series of one story buildings were some 1,000 students were taught. (www.kampongcheuteal.org – which is unfortunately in Khmer). Why would I go here? Your internet addicted blogger asked (but did not demand), at the home stay that is, if there was internet access in the village per chance. An hour in an empty classroom, equipped with a few computers seemed to be the best solution my hosts could come up, which I deeply appreciated. From here, my guide (and minder), took me first to the local Buddhist temple and then to the next village of Kampong Cheuteal. By mid-morning the covered market in this next village was coming to life. Around the outer perimeter were meat, vegetables and fruit stands while the dry goods, small electronics and other services (including getting nails done or a haircut) were available in the centre of the market.

In the afternoon it was off, in the cramped confines of an ox cart, to the 7th Century ruins of Sambor Prei Kuk. Given the age of these Hindu temples as well as a US Air Force bombing during the Vietnam War, there was still much to see. Before visiting temples like Angkor Wat, it seemed important to first visit this site first, from the much older Chenla era. Back at the home stay I joined four men in emptying a large plastic bottle of home made palm wine. Of course we all got a little jolly, on this sour tasting brew, which strangely different.

Otherwise of note, was the easy pace at the home stay. That included meals together with the family, playing soccer in the yard with the kids and drinking palm wine from next door with some of the men from around the neighbourhood.