Laos and Cambodia

Sunday, April17, 10:00 am

On Friday, April 1 we left Thailand after spending six months there. It was not nearly as hard as leaving Tak. Tak was our home for so long. Southern Thailand felt so far removed from what life was like in the north. It was much more touristy, and expensive. However, the beaches were some of the most beautiful that I had seen, and I had a blast island hopping with the Molly and the friends that I had made throughout the year. In order to get to Laos, we flew from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and then from Kuala Lumper to Vientiane. We got into Kuala Lumpur around 10:00 pm and our flight to Vientiane was at 6:00 am the next day, so we found a cozy spot to sleep in the airport. It was an adventure but we made it through the night! Who knew that airplane covers for osprey backpacks could double as sleeping bags.

Airport floors aren't that comfy 

Vientiane

Upon landing in Vientiane we split a cab ride with some other travelers from the airport to the city center. We paid around $2 each. I had read that Laos was more expensive than other southeast Asian countries but actually found it to be much cheaper than southern Thailand. Once we were checked into our hostel we rented bicycles and had a blast cycling around the city. We stopped in a park for lunch before heading to Thot Luang. That night we had an amazing traditional Lao dinner that included chicken laap, a local soup with “Mekong fish”, fried morning glory, a garlic/chili dipping paste, and of course sticky rice. The next day we walked all over the city, and attended the COPE visitor center. There we learned about the ongoing UXO problem in the country. UXO stands for unexploded ordnance and refers to undetonated bombs left over from bombings during the Vietnam war. To this day many people each year die, and many more are injured from these left over explosives. COPE works to outfit patients with prosthetics and spread awareness about the issue. You can learn more about it at their website here. After two days wandering the streets of Vientiane we were ready to head north to Vang Vieng.

Thot Luang

Beer Lao in Laos

Vang Vieng is a little town situated among small mountains with limestone karsts jutting out of the ground every so often. It is a beautiful setting, but is filled with many more tourists than locals, kind of like Pai was in Thailand. It used to be an even bigger tourist destination because of the reputation of its tubing party scene on the Nam Song River that meanders through the beautiful region. The partying got out of control a few years ago and has since been ratcheted down to a much safer activity. We enjoyed tubing on our second day in town. We got to meet up with some friends who happened to be passing through at the same time, and had a blast floating down the river for a few hours. The next morning Molly and I took a hot air balloon ride over Vang Vieng for sunrise. It was a stunning view and a simply amazing venture. Riding in a hot air balloon is something I had always wanted to do, and the relatively low prices in Laos made it much more manageable to experience. 

One word of caution for anyone who plans to visit Vang Vieng: it is the area with the most petty crimes in Laos. Molly and I had money stolen that was hidden in a bag in a locked room in a guesthouse. We later learned that some guesthouses will book activities for people and then go searching for money in their rooms. They take only a small portion of what is there in hopes that the guests won’t realize the money is missing until they have moved on in their travels. It was definitely a wake up call to Molly and me that we need to be more careful. Despite the theft, I really enjoyed my time in Vang Vieng’s beautiful countryside.

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang was my favorite place that we visited in Laos. It was a quaint city situated along the Mekong and a few other rivers. The first day we got there in the afternoon, and after some downtime, headed down by the Mekong for dinner. As we were waiting for our food a freak wind storm came out of nowhere. Us along with the restaurants other guests were forced to take shelter from falling tree fruits and debris in a nearby guesthouse. A nice Chinese man started passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels for people and said "this was supposed to last our whole trip, but maybe we finish tonight". After waiting for about a half hour, and having a little whisky, it was safe to go out again. It was crazy walking around after the storm had passed: the night market in the city center was in shambles as wind storms are incredibly rare in Luang Prabang. We grabbed some food at an indoor restaurant before turning in for the night. The next day we visited Kuang Si Waterfall. It was beautiful, and reminded me a bit of Thi Lor Suh on a smaller scale.

Luang Prabang night market

Dinner by the Mekong

On the morning of our last day in Luang Prabang Molly and I took a trip to the nearby Living Land Farm to learn more about traditional rice farming in Laos. People in Laos eat more sticky rice per capita than any other people in the world! After eating so much rice throughout our travels here in Asia, Molly and I were excited to learn about the agricultural process behind the crop. We got to experience almost every one of the 14 traditional steps at the farm from separating the best seeds to plant with to eating delicious rice and drinking rice wine at the end of the process. My favorite step was plowing the paddy with Rudolph, the farm’s buffalo. I think Molly’s favorite was thrashing the rice out of the dried crops.

Straight outta Luang Prabang

Enjoying rice wine after a "hard day on the farm"

That night Scott, one of the friends we met up with in Laos, and I went to a traditional Lao storytelling theater. We learned some of the local folk tales and heard music from the khene. I noticed some overlap with Indian stories I heard when I was young and enjoyed learning a bit more about the Lao culture.

Siem Reap

Next we headed down to Siam Reap in northern Cambodia. The obvious highlight of this leg of the trip was seeing Angkor Wat, Bayong, and Ta Prohm (the temple used to film the first Tomb Raider movie). We woke up at 4:30 am to get tickets to the temples for the day and drive to Angkor Wat for sunrise. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day to take us all around the ancient complex. Our driver Chiney was awesome, answered so many of our questions and was so patient taking us around the complex all day. By the time we were done we had spent eight hours exploring the ruins and had walked over ten miles. It was a busy day to say the least, but the ruins there are worth travelling around the world to see. 

Angkor Wat:

Sunrise

The back gate

Ancient swimming pool

Party like it's 1399

Bayong:

Ta Prohm:

Other than the ruins there was not a ton to do in Siem Reap. After three days there we took a night bus, with lay flat beds, all the way to Phnom Penh. It was an awesome way to make the seven hour journey. 

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh was quite different from the other cities we have been to on this trip. It was much dirtier than we were accustomed to and seemed a bit more aggressive of a city. We only spent one day there, and decided to pay our respects to the genocide that Cambodia experienced by visiting the monument at Choeung Ek, more commonly referred to as “the killing fields”. From the mid to late seventies over a quarter of Cambodia’s population was murdered under the communist dictator Pol Pot’s rule. There were hundreds of these execution sites throughout the country. It was somber, heartbreaking and moving to learn about what had happened at that place only 30 years ago. I could not imagine what it would be like to lose about 3 of every eight people you know in the span of only a few years. It was not an easy place to visit but I am glad that we took the time to learn about what happened throughout Cambodia in those dark times. 

Currently, we are in spending almost a week in Bali. So far it is beautiful and we are having a blast. Time is moving too fast though, and it’s crazy to think that already a week from today we will be in India. Thanks for reading!

Island Hopping

Friday, April 1, 10:00 am

For the last two weeks or so we have been adventuring around southern Thailand. It has been a blur of different islands, beaches, viewpoints, and pools. We have had so much fun down south.

Koh Tao

The first island we visited was Koh Tao. In order to get there, we took a short flight from Chiang Mai to Surat Thani. By the time we landed and got through the airport to catch a taxi it was 3:00 pm. We were told that the last ferry for Koh Tao left at 4:00 pm and the peer we needed to get to was over 100 kilometers away. I asked our taxi driver if we could make it in time, he just smiled and nodded as we got into the car. This was by far the most exciting cab ride of my life. The driver went as fast as he could go while not being too reckless. At one point our speed eclipsed 200 kilometers per hour, which is a little over 120 mph. He turned what should have been an hour trip into one that took less than 40 minutes. I was astonished by the way other drivers on the road reacted to his driving. Instead of honking, impeding his progress, and thinking that he was a maniac like people would in the states, the reaction from other drivers seemed to be something along the lines of “oh he is driving fast, he must be in a hurry, let’s make room to let him through”.

Our first day on Koh Tao we took a longtail boat to a nearby island called Koh Nangyuan. It was stunningly beautiful. The small island is two rocky mountains connected by a narrow white sand beach. The entire island is surrounded by a coral reef, which made for some excellent snorkeling. Molly, Grace, and I had a blast observing lots of brightly colored parrotfish, yellow snapper, trumpet fish, and an overall abundance of tropical sea life. However, once we were about 100 yards off of the shore I felt something hit my foot, hard. I whirled around to see a large fish, around 3 feet in length, sizing me up. Molly and Grace had seen it dart up from the depths to ram me and immediately retreated toward the shore. I knew I couldn’t outswim it so I kicked it and got my back to the shore. This allowed me to keep my feet out in front of me so I could kick towards the shore while defending myself from the fish. Once I was out of its territory it stopped coming after me. I later learned that this was a titan triggerfish, a species that is known to be aggressive in the Gulf of Thailand. The experience was a little scary but I was back in the water within an hour or two. Koh Nangyuan also has an amazing viewpoint from which you can see the entire island.

Viewpoint at Koh Nangyuan

Longboat taxi

Longboats at Koh Nangy

The next morning, I went on a diving trip to Sail Rock, the premier dive site in the bay. I saw groupers, schools of barracuda, queenfish, trevally, puffer fish, and, of course, titan triggers. That afternoon we went to Freedom Beach and the adjacent viewpoint which provided a great view of Koh Tao.

Freedom Beach viewpoint

Koh Samui

Next we travelled to Koh Samui where we met up with all of our friends from Tak. We split an Airbnb between ten of us. The days on Koh Samui were relaxing: filled with reading on the beach, and relaxing in our private pool. The biggest adventure from this part of the trip was heading to the full moon party on Koh Phangan. It is a massive party held once a month on the full moon. After reading lots of blog posts about how hard it is to stay on Koh Samui for the party, it turned out to be very easy. We all pregamed a bit at our place near Chaweng beach, caught a ferry from Big Buddha Pier at 9:00 pm, enjoyed the party until around 3:00 am, then took a longtail boat all the way back to Samui. It was an awesome night. My one tip for anyone staying on Samui for the party is to not book the speedboats through a tour company. They overbook, overcharge, and leave you with long wait times to get to and from Phangan.

Chaweng Beach

Chilling at our pool

On the ferry

Phuket

Next Molly, Willy, Grace and I headed down to Patong beach on Phuket. This area was pretty built up and the beach wasn’t quite as nice as the one we were staying on in Samui. The first night there we tried stingray for dinner, and it was surprisingly delicious. The next day we spent at Patong beach and went on a banana boat ride. After our first day Grace left to go back home. It was so fun having her here with us on our travels. It was great to share a bit of what Thailand is like with her and I think she really enjoyed Island hopping with us. The next day in Phuket we headed down to a much quieter place, Kata Noi beach. After spending the day on the beach we explored some viewpoints and even ventured to the southern tip of the island.

The southern tip of Phuket

Scuba Trip

After our brief stay in Patong, Molly and Willy headed out to Koh Lanta, while I headed north to Khao Lak for a four day, live aboard, scuba trip to the Surin and Similan Islands. We left from Khao Lak on Wednesday and returned on Sunday. There were a little over twenty guests aboard the boat, along with the dive masters, and crew. The daily wake up time was at 6 am and each day was packed with diving. Basically we would dive all day, eat in between dives, then have a few drinks and hang out at night. One of the other divers in my group, Michelle, was also from Ohio! We had a lot of fun talking about OSU football and even showed sang some fight songs for a few other people. I met lots of awesome people: Ryan, my guide from the bay area, Matt, another English teacher from Ontario, Beth, a lawyer from New Jersey, and Sam and Tom from the U.K. just to name a few. We saw some awesome wildlife and beautiful reefs. The top sightings included sea turtles, a massive school of barracuda, leopard sharks, sea snakes, an octopus and even a guitar shark! Guitar sharks are extremely rare and look like a hybrid between a shark and a stingray. We even saw flying fish, dolphins, and a marlin from the boat. I had a blast on the trip despite not seeing the two big ticket items: a whale shark or manta ray. I have another dive trip planned in Bali where I have a good chance of seeing some Mantas. I had such a blast on my trip and Molly loved Koh Lanta.

Our boat: The Dolphin Queen

My cabin

Hanging out on Matt's sundeck with Sam, Tom, Beth and Michelle

Buckeye fans, and Chang fans

The guitar shark with some blue fusiliers

Michelle and I with Ryan, our dive instructor 

We also visited a deserted beach:

Up next is Laos and Cambodia. I am so looking forward to exploring these new countries with Molly. We have had such a great time in Thailand and feel like we have truly made the most of our time here. We have seen much of the country from top to bottom. I have loved my time here but I am ready for something new. Laos here we come!