Luang Prabang and Kuangsi Waterfalls

A much later start to the day today; our pickup was at 9:30 so we had plenty of time to relax over breakfast.

Nikhom arrived on his motorbike, and our driver brought the mini-van along shortly after. We headed out through the suburbs of Luang Prabang, passing scores of schools with their yards a sea of bicycles. The houses thinned out and the water buffalo became more frequent as we left the city. The road started weaving through the mountains, and we passed many young teak plantations and small villages.

Don Khong Island

Mone picked us up from the hotel and dropped us off at Talat Suo Market. We had a quick wander through and bought a few woven scarves. Then it was to the airport for our Air Laos flight to Pakse.

Inle Lake

A more relaxed start to the day today, though I was awake long before the beautiful sunrise which I watched from the balcony over the water.

After a huge breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, coleslaw, tomato, toast and bagel with excellent coffee(I’d heard a lot about Laos coffee, but if was going to have to be damn good to be better than the Myanmar coffee I got everyday), Phyo met us at 9:00 for day of touring of Inle Lake by Long Boat.

We cruised up the largest creek feeding the lake which was a beautiful soft blue colour, presumably from the limestone in the surrounding mountains. We passed many people making their way to the markets, leading water buffalo, kids walking to school and monks on the riverbanks.

Bagan - a city of temples

Today was a very early start, up at 4:00am. We had a quick breakfast at 4:45 then met Tun at 6:15 for the early morning drive to the airport. A bus took us out to our Air Bagan flight, a Fokker 100. We were welcomed on board and were soon in high in the air flying above the clouds.

As we approached Bagan, we could see multitudes of temples from the air scattered around the fields as well as on the mountains across the river. This was the dry season and many of the streams and smaller rivers were dry. The river also was very low with large sand banks exposed.

The plane landed onto a wet tarmac; a light rain had been falling earlier at 6:30am. Our new guide, Soe welcomed us and organised our baggage collection for us and we were soon in our car. After a short drive from the airport we stopped at our first temple. We got our first lesson in Bagan history and temples as we walked around Izza Gona temple. For example you can estimate the era of the Buddha statues: if the ears were touching the shoulders then it was likely built after 1100AD.

Beng Mealea, Banteay Srei, Banteay Samre

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Kong met us early after breakfast to take us on the journey through the countryside to the jungle temple of Beng Mealea.  The road had been recently upgraded by a private company, which required a payment of a toll.  A price well worth paying given stories I had heard about the previous road and the time taken to drive to the temple previously.  The drive through the country side was great, and gave us a better appreciated of the country outside Siem Reap and Angkor.  We passed a number of small houses along the road as well as a few small villages.  We stopped at one to buy some drinks; yes it was hot again!  Nobody spoke English, but the transaction was easy, and the price was reasonable too!

Continuing along the road we crossed a small bridge over a river, and stopped to photograph some water buffalo, who were quite pleased to pose for the camera.  While walking back to the car, a Stork-Billed Kingfisher flew past, with it's brilliant Blue-Green head and back and bright orange neck and chest.

All along the road monks and people were collecting to build a new road out to a Buddhist temple.  The cars often just threw the money out the window as they passed.

In just over an hour and a half we were at the entrance road to Beng Mealea.  We crossed the old bridge with the ancient Naga and made our way towards the temple, past a group of young girls sitting in the shade on the crumbled balustrade.

We passed the fallen stones of the southern wall and made our way through this temple were the jungle has been allowed its own free reign.  We clambered up rickety timber ladders, across teetering stone walls, squeezed through windows between broken columns and along darkened corridors and timber walkways as we explored this amazing place of history, age and nature.  Fortunately along the way we picked up two young guys who led us through the maze of passageways and corridors, past precariously balanced columns and lintels, broken stone coffins and fallen walls.  All with the constant heat and buzz of the Cambodian jungle all around.

We lunched at the restaurant across from the temple, made all the more memorable with Liam's trip to the toilet; a squat toilet back behind the houses.  I think Liam will remember that experience for the rest of his life!

Back past the pigs wallowing in muck we returned through the restaurant and were back in the car and heading to Banteay Srei.

An hour back the way we had come saw us take a different fork and heading towards Banteay Srei, the Citadel of the Women.  The bridge across the river had collapsed two nights previously when a truck loaded with about 30 tons of stolen timber from the jungle further north had tried in vain to cross the 8 ton limit bridge.  It wasn't the first bridge that the truck had damaged on it's journey, but it was certainly the last.

We crossed a temporary bridge across the river in our little Camry and decided to have lunch before braving the worst heat of the day at the most open and hottest temple in Cambodia.

Loaded with coconut milk we braved the heat and explored around one of the most beautiful temples in the world.  The carvings were very finely detailed and very well preserved and the stone of the temple differed from all of the other temples with it's pinkish hue.

Walking back through the small village, a procession made it's way through with girls in colourful dresses carrying what looked like money trees.  After a quick look around the many stalls we jumped back into the welcome relief of the air conditioned car, and made our way across the temporary bridge with scores of kids cooling down in the river.

We stopped at Banteay Samre on our return to Siem Reap.  This temple was unique in that it had an inner moat, which was presently dried up though the moat was grassed and it was easy to visualise the water lapping against the steps descending to the moat surface.

We returned to the Guest House late afternoon and freshened up whilst Liam played shuttlecock with Srei Pic.

We visited some of the more upmarket souvenir shops, which had some beautiful stone carvings, timber carvings and clothes, but the perfect apsaras I was looking for proved elusive.  We also saw some demonstrations of teaching of various stone and wood carving skills.

We headed over to the market, and had a bit of drama when a minibus reversed into us as we were looking for a parking spot.  These things are best left to the locals to sort out, so we explored the markets in Siem Reap for half an hour or so and then headed out for dinner.

Oiyee was determined to have Frog legs, with our restaurant the previous night being all out.  Tonight she was in luck and feasted on the tasty little amphibians (which tasted like chicken).  Regrettably the crayfish were small and overcooked, but this was easily solved with the order of another dish.

China Beach and Mountains of Marble

Michelle spent most of the night up with Liam while he vomited and had diarrhea throughout the night. Liam felt better when he woke up but he was still a little seedy all day.
We started off the day by taking a minibus from Hue to Lang Co Beach. We were accosted by teenage kids on the beach trying to get foreign money and an old fisherman who offered a photo pose for small change. The beach was nice - but it was an overcast and misty day: not very good for taking photos.

As we continued south, we travelled over the Hai Van pass. It was a fairly hair raising trip with steep S bends with slow trucks and cars and bikes overtaking on the wrong side of the road. Due to the mist and fog, we couldn't enjoy the views, and we eventually reached the top with some bunker fortifications shrouded in mist. The clouds started to clear as we continued on, and we stopped for a short time to enjoy them.



In Da nang we stopped for lunch at a really nice Chinese Restaurant and stopped off at China Beach. I really enjoyed the TV Series, so wanted to see the actual beach since we were here. The Vietnamese have bad memories of this area, so there were few if any locals here. The beach isn't good for swimming anyway, due to the strong currents and rips, so Liam paddled and jumped in the shallows.



From China Beach we went to Marble Mountain. There were lots of families in the marble trade with small shops lining the streets as we approached the mountain. We looked through the huge assortment of marble carvings on display and bought a nice carved Chinese dragon.




From Marble Mountain we continued through the country side soon arriving in Hoi An. The hotel had a pool up on the roof, which quite impressed Michelle and Liam. We had a light dinner at a restaurant over the road from the hotel, which also had an Internet Cafe, so after dinner and sending some e-mails we retired for the evening, with Michelle and Liam still feeling a bit on the delicate side.

Ha Noi, Handcraft Villages, Water Puppets and Silk Worm Wine

Today we were heading off to various handcraft villages around Ha Noi. Each village over time has specialised in a particular handcraft, and now catered very well to the tourist market. We were up early for breakfast, downstairs in the hotel restaurant where we bumped into Fred and Jean. They decided to change their plans for the day and join us on the handcraft village tour as well, which was great. The bus soon arrived and by 8:30 we were off and out of Ha Noi, heading down an unmade busy road though the pottery village.

We saw the potter making pots on an electric wheel using a mold, and she was able to pump out perfect little pots at an amazing rate. Liam was lucky and was offered a chance to try out making a pot. His first one went a bit wonky but his second one was pretty well spot on. We saw the glazing of the pots done as well, and we ended up buying two beautiful Tea Sets. Michelle was offered to sit down and share some tea with the shop owners, but our tour was moving on so we missed out.

We drove through some really nice small towns on the way to the next handcraft village, the Paper Village. Liam tried his hand at printing on rice paper, which was done with a stamp using different colours. His first couple of attempts were disastrous, but with some instruction on how to line the stamp up with the small marks on the paper he produced a perfect print, which now adourns our fridge at home.

We bought 4 beautiful scrolls which each depicted one of the 4 seasons. They were framed magnificently in the shop, but we had to buy the unframed versions, rather than carry these huge pictures around for the rest of our trip!

We then returned to Ha Noi as the remaining village on our tour was on the other side of town. We passed through many small villages, surrounded by emerald green rice paddies, and passed all sorts of wares being carted on the backs of motorbikes; one bike had 3 small pigs, another one a large pig, as well as bikes carrying chickens, hay a sewing machine, doors, in fact everything and anything you could imagine.

Back in Ha Noi we stopped at a Pho Restaurant for lunch where we had a very nice chicken noodle soup with all the extras. Michelle reckoned it was the best soup she had ever had!

We then headed off to the silk village where we saw silk being made into material on a very old and extremely loud loom; a legacy of the French. The girls working here must suffer ear damage, working those machines all day.

Outside away from the noise we were offered some silkworm wine. I'm sure the locals don't really drink this stuff, and have a good chuckle at us gullible tourists drinking fermented rotting silkworms, but it was actually quite nice! We were then into the shop which had a large assortment of all things silk. We bought a Kimono each for James, myself and Liam as well as pyjamas for some of the neices and nephews back home.

On the way back to the bus, walking the streets we visited an old buddhist temple, which like many of the temples in Vietnam had the most magnificent bonsais in pots. A young boy offered Liam a ride on the back of his bicycle, which we politely declined. Another motorbike with a pig on the back shot past; they were plentiful, but very hard to photograph! We bought some silk bags in another shop and then made our way back to Ha Noi.

We stopped into the Kangaroo Café and met Tan. We did a little DVD shopping and made our way to the Water Puppets. Crossing the road near Hoan Kien Lake for the first time was an experience! We eventually just walked out into the traffic at a steady pace as the waves of motorbikes parted around us. The tricky bit, coming from Australia, was to remember to look the right way as we reached the middle of the road!

The water puppets were quite fun to watch, but Michelle thought they were a bit boring. We caught a taxi with Fred and Jean back to the hotel, which was another hair-raising ride through all of those cars and bikes weaving and beeping all over the place. We had dinner back at the hotel; pretty much the same as last night, which again was very nice.