Clark's Crazy Adventures

Vientiane - Laos

Next stop, Vientiane and it's bloody freezing. We just left a country that was like being on the surface of the sun, only to disembark the plane and discover it's 16 degrees! WTF. Everyone poo-pooed me, but luckily I packed my ski thermal which was quickly thrown on last night..... Bummer that I didn't bring my beanie.

Before I tell you about Laos I need to impart some valuable knowledge I learned regarding Cambodia.

1. It's fucking hot!

2. It's extremely dirty and dusty.

3. They love to celebrate everything and anything. In fact they have 32 public holidays per year! Nice one.

4. They play very loud music when they are celebrating. Whenever there is a funeral or wedding the music must be played at an ear splitting level for 1 to 7 days. Yes folks not just a couple of hours, days and days and days. We could even hear it while on the boat on the Mekong.....

5. We had to fly to Laos to escape the music.

So back to Vientiane, which is so very quiet. We all emerged from our hotel this morning not looking so homeless. In fact I even washed my thongs in the shower and then dried them with the hair dryer. We are now a group of 6 rather than 4, we picked up 2 elderly people we felt sorry for..... LOL To the temples and beyond!

View from our hotel room. When we were looking at the reclining Budda Tom asked who the Shelia was - OMG

Ian and Dad ready for a big night!

The night markets along the Mekong.

Mekong River

Yesterday we left Phnom Penh and sailed along the Mekong. We spent a night on Suon's boat and had the most remarkable time. It just blew us all away. It was a huge gamble booking the boat trip. I have spent hours on forums reading about the places we are going to visit and pouring over hundreds of reviews. This company however only had 7 reviews on Trip Advisor, thus I would normally skip right past them, however sometimes you have to take a chance and hope for the best! This time it worked out..... Woo Hoo

Life along the Mekong...

Tom learning how to weave.

Village ladies making fresh noodles. Which we purchased and had with lunch, yummo

Swimming in the Mekong.

Suon teaching Tom how to catch dinner.

Tom failed - we had chicken!

Letting off lanterns....

Sleeping on the top of the boat, under the stars and mossie nets.

Breakfast on the banks of the Mekong.

Once we jumped of the boat we had to dash past the apartment, grab our gear and head straight for the airport. We were booked on the 6pm flight to Vientiane, Laos. OMG we all looked homeless. We hadn’t showered for 2 days, had dirty clothes on, my hair was sticking up like a friggin peacock and we were dragging our bags behind us like we had been travelling for months. This plane had 3 seats, the aisle then another 3 seats. Ian, Emily and Tom all sat together I sat opposite beside the drug dealer. He may not have been a drug dealer but he was wearing more diamonds than you would see in a jewellery department, had decided that the arm rest was for him and him alone and turned the pages of his magazine incredibly slow, making everyone hit the seat rest in front of him which in turn created a really irritating noise. Why oh why didn’t I choose Tom for this flight. Of course I was trying to be polite. If he was a drug dealer he may murder me. The politeness ended abruptly when he was flicking his plastic fork and a part of it broke of and hit me in the head. I turned and he smiled, I advised him that the word he was looking for was ‘sorry’, he just smiled again. As if he couldn’t speak English!!!! He then started praying - WTF. Maybe he was worried I was going to kill him? The flight was only 1 hour and 20 minutes, however we had a slight mishap when landing. The wheels came down, we could see the runway lights, then suddenly we started to climb again. After a few minutes the captain announced that as we were landing air traffic control had failed to mention there was another aircraft in front of us that was also landing – oops….. Maybe the praying drug dealer beside me saved us all!!!!!

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a fabulous city, once you get here. We meet some amazing people, learned about Cambodia's tragic history, shopped, ate snake, frogs and beetles. We rode around on tuk tuk's and got more smelly and dirty - if that's possible. I truly hate being dirty and it's just a constant state here. You put on sunscreen, then aeroguard, then ride around in the dust all day. I woke up this morning wondering weather I smelt, Ian smelt or we all smelt? It's hard to tell.

The Genocidal Center, or Killing Fields and S21 Prison was very harrowing and we debated on our decision to take Emily and Tom there. In the end we decided that history is something that needs to be told, good or bad.

S21 - Toul Sleng

Emily's a tad over it!

For something different we opted to stay with Frances, originally from Australia and her partner Suon who is Cambodian. They rent out part of their house. This turned out to be a fantastic decision. We were invited to their roof top terrace for drinks, they shared loads of local knowledge with us and Frances even volunteered to take Tom back to the markets on her motorbike as the rest of us were completely marketed out! As there are only 3 beds a mattress was set up on the floor for Tom. They slightly underestimated his length so his feet hung over a fair way LOL.

The Central and Russian Markets, guess what Tom purchased - more watches.

For dinner tonight we joined another Australian who is working and living here, Ducky. If your lucky enough she will take you on an amazing food journey through the city. It's starts with welcome drinks on a remarkable roof top terrace, moves onto the markets then ends with a huge Khmer feast.