Day 8: Angkor Wat!

Sorry for the late updates, I've been busy and then blogger decided to hate me. 

So we arrived in Siem Riep at 3am after our bus ride decided to extend its trip for an extra 6 hours! 

We had planned that friday we were going to go to the Temples of Angkor Wat. Its tradition to get up and watch the sun rise across the temples which means that you wake up some where around the 4am range at your hotel and then go to the temples. Which meant we got to our hotel slept an hour and a half woke up threw on clothes, and grabbed our tuk-tuk to go to the temples. It was amazing. But I was exhausted. The down side was the sunrise wasn't even that great so I really got 1 and half hours of sleep for nothing. 

The temples were built in the 11th century and was a part of a city complex that stretched for miles, it sense has been abandoned, taken over by jungle and then once again explore and become a major tourist destination. 

"I can't believe I woke up at 4:30am for this..."

And this is where blogger decided not to let me upload anymore pictures...

But essentially what you see are cool temples where trees grow out of the sides of walls and temples that have giant heads all around and more ruins and myself pretending to be Laura Croft Tomb Raider (after all it was filmed here). 

After the temples we were finally able to get money, surprisingly money exchangers aren't open at 3am, or 4:30am, who knew. The there we took a much needed nap for several hours. When we woke up we went for dinner at a wonderful restaurant that served Cambodian food, which is amazing! Its like a French-Thai fusion without quite as much spice as Thai food. Its still spicy, but you won't feel like you've been attacked with a biological weapon spicy. Then we explored the night markets, which were a great mix of clothes, handy-crafts, spices, jewelry, and tourist stuff. 

Day 7: The Never Ending Bus Ride

On day 7 we left Pakse and took a bus from there to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We left at 8am the bus was to get there at 9pm. A total of 13 hours.

Throughout the whole trip we had been nervous about the boarder crossing because we had read several placed that this boarder was one of the most difficult to cross at. That to get from Laos to Cambodia you needed prearranged visa. We didn't find this out until 5 day when we left before our trip, too short of a time for us to be able to get the visas done at embassy in Manila. Everyone had told us that it was super easy to get in to Cambodia, it turns out they that had all crossed at the Thai or Vietnamese boarders. Other travel sites had told us as long as we're willing to bribe the boarder guards it usually works out ok. So fingers crossed we started our journey.

This is the current boarder crossing station

This is the one that they are building. Our visa fee magically went up from $20 to $30, I feel like this is the reason why.

This is no mans land between the two countries, you have to get out of the bus with your luggage and walk it across the boarder. This was particularly entertaining to watch the European women with the large wheeled suitcases and the high heels attempt to walk it across the dirty road. 

So we arrived at the boarder in good time. We took the tourist bus, which was supposed to be direct and better equipped to help you with the visa process. At the boarder we were informed that our visa for Cambodia would actually cost us $30 each instead of the $20 that was posted everywhere else by government agencies. And then we had to also give the guard an extra $5 to overlook the fact we had not arranged for these in advance. 

We then got back on to the bus and surprise our 'VIP Tourist Bus' was not exactly as promised. It turned out that they also picked up random locals along the way making it a milk run rather than an express. In fact your ticket did not even guarantee you a seat, several people were sitting in the middle aisle on their bags. This is when our 13 hour bus ride turned interesting. So we drove.

And we drove...

picked up randoms and we drove...

dropped off randoms and drove...

and drove...

and drove.

And then it got dark. And we weren't even half way to our destination yet. We were supposed to reach Siem Reap at 9pm. We got in at 3am. The next morning we had to get up for sunrise to visit the temples of Angkor Wat. We got an hour and a half of sleep in a bed before we work up.  

Day 6: Pakse, the Bolaven Plateau.

 So the night before in Paske we went on a search to find something to do the next day. We found a couple places that were actually open. Yay! But unfortunately they informed us that because there was just 2 of us it was too few people to run any kind of tour. So we went on a hunt to find other tourist would we could convince to do stuff with us the next day. Lets just say it was more difficult than you would think. Because the next day (aka Day 6) there was going to be a massive dragon boat races going on all day for the festival. By this point we had started to hate the festival and dragon boat races. They just seemed to ruin all travel plans.

We meet a group of french tourists who suggest that we rent some motor bikes and drive out the Bolaven Plateau where we could see some waterfalls. They had done it the day before and said it was pretty fun. So that was our game plan if we could find anyone else to book a tour with. The only problem being that Natalie had never driven one that was standard, and I have never drove a motorbike standard or other wise. So it was going to be an adventure, where we possibly might end up stranded somewhere.

Just when all hope was lost as we walked back to our hotel for the night we saw a couple enter a tourist center, on the off chance they would want to do something we went in, and as luck would have it this German couple was also looking for a tour and needed 2 other people!

Tea Plantation

The workers hoe the grass into the soil to add nutriance and to avoid veins from growing on the tea plants. 

Where the tea is laid out to dry

Tea tasting with the german couple and the tea master seen standing in the back with his wife. They are originally from Vietnam and came to Laos during the war as refugees. 

Coffee Beans

In each fruit are two of the beans.

The healthiest cows I've seen in asia

Waterfall!

At the beginning of our jungle hike

Our guide Kham insisted that he help me across. 

So remember that giant waterfall that you just saw up there, well this is the ledge to it, just 15 away is over  a 100 foot drop. Our guide didn't seem to get why this might be a safety concern. 

As we finally emerged out of the jungle this was our view. 

Another waterfall!

These are the steps down to the waterfall base, years of mist has left them covered in algae.  And there was several close call from all of us walking down. 

Swim Time! The water was very cool, but incredibly refreshing. 

We went to a market, these are traditional medicines to treat illnesses. 

We went to an area where there are traditional Laos housing on display, many people still live in homes like this. 

Suspension bridge to the next waterfall.  It had a lot of give to it. 

Last waterfall of the day

We got back in Pakse just in time to see the final rounds of the Dragon Boat races. 

We had an amazing adventure! 

Day 5: Savannakhet to Pakse

So seeing as that we had done everything that there was possible to do in Savannakhet the day before we decided to get the hell out of dodge and move on to our next location of Pakse which is further south. We were told that in the morning there would be Dragon Boat races early in the morning at 8 along the river. So we thought we would watch those for a while and then catch the 10:30 bus to Pakse.

Dragon Boats. They actually weren't racing at 8, there was one boat practicing. 

Street markets just beginning to set up.

We wandered the streets looking for breakfast. 

Looking at the Lonely Planet while eating breakfast trying to figure out the best way to get across the Laos Cambodia boarder.  

The bus ride to Paske.

On the bus to Pakse, at every stop women would come on to the bus to sell food, chicken on a stick, green mango, pork on a stick, crickets on a stick and fermented chicken embryo eggs were all options. I got nothing. 

We arrived in Pakse just in time for the parade.

Monks setting up for the lantern lighting later tonight. 

This picture fails to capture the effect of the lateens, but it was awesome

People lighting lantern. We did one too, it was a struggle, I burnt my thumb and it provided endless entertainment to the locals.

Our Lantern! We picked a red one.

Also during this day I had one of the itchiest experiences of life. The night before I was eaten alive by bug and no matter how much mental power or after bite was used it was still super annoying. My legs were covered with bites. Luckily no Malaria was contracted!