Project Runaway

When we left on our travels, time seemed to stretch far ahead of us. Now it is 2010 and we are already nearly 8 months into our 10 month trip. SE Asia has been exhilarating and exhausting, and I have just not had time to keep up with my blog as well. So this is an update on the last few weeks.

After sunning ourselves on Koh Lanta, we headed to Bangkok for a few days where we were able to meet up with Gillian and Jason (www.one-giant-step.com) for more beers and general light-hearted debauchery. Then it was our first overnight train to Northern Thailand  and Chiang Mai. This ended up being the train ride from hell for Dwayne as he spent most of it getting sick in a bathroom you would not want to answer Nature’s call in.

Christmas in Chiang Mai

We spent Christmas week in Chiang Mai, where Luc and I also succumbed to the mystery illness. But with all this projectile vomiting we did manage to get in a cooking class, ziplining in the jungle, and the boys even went  mountain biking.

Next was a bus trip to the Thailand border where we crossed into Laos and took a slow boat down the Mekong River for  2 days to Luang Prabang. The slow boat is a long wooden boat with teeny tiny wooden benches that looked like they were constructed in a junior high shop class. Apparently the boats hold 70 but to make it interesting over 100 travelers are packed on board. This means every teeny tiny bench has two, sometimes not so small, derrieres trying to find the elusive comfortable position. And imagine doing this for ~ 6 hr on day 1 and 9 hr on day 2! To be honest I was very nervous about this stage of our travels as I could not find any good information regarding crossing the border here, nor the process and cost of booking the slow boat. We managed to bungle through and while I do not think I would do it again, I think it was definitely worth the hassle. There was a camaraderie that grew between fellow passengers over the 2 days and we met some interesting people, many whom we continued to meet up with over the following weeks.

Slow Boat on the Mekong

Laos is a poor country and we saw people living in the most humblest of circumstances. It seems every minute we are in Asia we learn to value what we take for granted back home. Simple things like clean running water, a soft bed, a good pair of shoes, an education. But yet Laos is stunningly beautiful and so are its people.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage city and so far one of my favorite places to visit. It is charming and scenic and there is just the right combination of things to do versus just chilling at a cafe. From there it was down to Vang Vieng for tubing the river  for Luc’s 16 birthday, then to Vientiane to catch a flight to Cambodia.

Cambodia was not on the original plan as we thought there would not be enough time, but when we decided to fly instead of bus to Vietnam, we saved enough travel days to squeeze it in. For me Cambodia was perhaps the most complicated country to understand. It is a country struggling to find an identity and gain an economic footing. It has a rich past and yet one of the darkest pasts in history also.

To see both sides we first went to Siem Reap to visit the temples of Angkor. The temples were beyond words. You think of Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones and ancient treasure and lost civilizations. You wonder which came first the jungle or the temples. Seeing the temples gives Cambodia and even SE Asia more perspective. Put it on your Bucket List!!

Sunrise over Angkor Wat

We rounded out Cambodia in Phnom Penh were we went to the Killing Fields and the infamous S21 prison. If this trip has been a life education for our children, the day we spent at these 2 horrible places was a shocking revelation and an in-your-face education for all of us. The horror and extent of what we saw and felt seems like it would be trivialized by my writing about it, Suffice to say that it was a hard and haunting day and the suffering of the Cambodian people will never be forgotten by us.

So where are we now? Vietnam, baby! So now we are all on the same page.