It's "Brill" to be home !

We're back and it's bloody freezin!

Travelling from 35°C to -3°C in one day just ain't right ! Anyway, even though it's cold, the weather today was ideal for a stroll in the countryside. It was one of those really clear blue sky days, so we headed to "Brill on the Hill". It's about ten miles from Oxford and sits on the highest point for miles and miles. There's some nice views from the top and it also has a good pub and a pretty windmill to keep us entertained.

There's isn't really any snow in Oxford, but the hills have had a dusting, which made for a nice stroll, but stressful driving on the untreated back roads. Anyway here's some photos of us wearing much, much more clothing than we've had to for quite a long time. I reckon Athena looks like a character from Fiddler on the Roof and I must remember to shave before close up shots....

Southern Thailand Island Hopping - Part 2

Ko Lanta
Woah, this place is laid back. Once you've got through the swarms of taxi and hotel touts that attempt to drive the tourists back into the sea as they try to climb of the boat, this island slows down massively. The coastline is one huge palm-tree fringed beach with just the occasional rocky headland to add interest. Development is very low key, with nothing to be seen from the sea front at all. There's quite a lot of big resorts here, but they're buried in the trees as are the bungalow type guesthouses that we stayed in. There's a scattering of small bars and food shacks every four hundred metres or so and the food, as with the rest of Thailand, is really good. Bit more expensive here, but still very good value compared to Europe. There's no light pollution here so at night it is absolutely pitch black. Just in case you happen to come here, remember to bring a torch if you've gone for some sunset beers on the beach....

Phuket ( unfortunately, it's pronounced Poo-get )

Phuket is a large island ( somewhere between Isle of Wight and Mann sized ). It's ringed with beaches and we didn't really know which one would be best to stay at, so we decided to stay in the old town of Phuket instead and use the local buses to ferry us around the island. I say buses, but they're really just old flatbed trucks that somebody has stapped a wooden bus-like rear end on to.. We started with Patong beach as Athena was on the hunt for knock-off designer handbags. Patong is pretty much Costa del Thailand. Not really our kind of thing, but to be fair the beach itself was great and the market did come up trumps with a selection of dodgy items, though we were both thoroughly fed up with the circus act required to actually buy anything here ( haggling, posturing, mock walking away, hand waving etc etc ). Kata beach, which is just a little further south, was much more like it. It was still way busier than Ko Lanta, but had a much more relaxed vibe than Patong. Not one person tried to sell me a tailor made suit. The water was warm and crystal clear, the beers were ice cold and the papaya salads were lip stingingly spicy. Perfect.

Slog.
As I finish typing this, we're about to get a tuk-tuk to Phuket airport where we'll leave salty damp patches and sandy stains on the plane back to Bangkok. A brief overnight at an airport hotel later and we'll be back in the air heading for Abu Dhabi and then London. Must remember to dig an extra t-shirt out. I suspect waiting for the bus back to Oxford might be a bit chilly.

Southern Thailand Island Hopping - Part 1

We're into our last ten days of our time away now so we're going to hop around the islands off the coast of south west Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Time for some beach R&R !

Krabi.
We got a bit of a shock here. This famous Thai seaside resort town, isn't actually by the sea. It sits on a river several miles inland. Arse - must read the guidebook better. This was easily remedied with a forty minute songthaew ride ( back of a pickup truck ), but certainly gave us a trembly lower lip for a moment when we first found out, especially coming on the back of a nine hour minibus epic from Georgetown.

Ao Nang.
This is a small beach town just up the road from Krabi. It sits alongside 1.5km of golden sand in a bay surrounded by karst mountains. It was quite developed, but was nicely done with virtually all buildings below the palm tree line. It was nice to be back in Thailand with consistently the best food in South East Asia - chicken in tamarind sauce - fantastic. We took a walk upto the end of the beach in the photo and found a troop of small monkeys doing exactly the same as their human neighbours, namely lounging around in the sand and cooling off in the warm sea. Very entertaining. There were also evening Ladyboy shows with Cobras ( the mind boggles ) if you like that kind of thing.

Ko Phi Phi
A couple of hours across the sea by fast ferry are the Phi Phi islands. We arrived late in the afternoon, but had found accommodation and had got ourselves out in time to find a beachfront restaurant whose ploy to entice customers was to play Shakin' Stevens tunes. Athena admitted that Green Door had been her first ever record purchase, so we had to go in.. Food was good mind. We did hit a small snag later on though ... We hadn't noticed the roof top 'stealth' bar ( ie quiet during the day and very loud during the night ) when finding a hotel. Not a good night, but we managed to move rooms in the morning.
Ko Phi Phi is one hell of a bit of geography. Its classic karst limestone scenery gives it twin white sand beaches with a small town in between and shear cliffs either side. The water is crystal clear, stuffed with fish and was running at about 30°C according to the diving shops. Have a look at this aerial shot.

We had an amazing snorkelling trip to the smaller of the two islands in the group( Phi Phi Lei ). It was like swimming in a tropical aquarium. A stunning number and variety of brightly coloured fish. On the way home we stopped off in Maya beach which was the main location for the film "The Beach". It was pretty obvious why with it's stunning lagoon, tropical waters and icing sugar sand. We finished off with a gorgeous sunset out to sea. Nice day !

Here's a view from the boat as we headed into a Ko Phi Phi Lei lagoon.

Georgetown - Penang Island

This town on the North West coast of peninsular Malaysia was established by the venerable British East India Company as it sought to establish a presence in the straits of Mallacca. This was largely to wind the Dutch up who had been busy running the port of Mallacca just down the coast since they pinched it from the Portugese a few hundred years previously....
It's a little bit like Hong Kong ( in that it's an oriential island port established by the Brits etc ), but lacks the trading clout of it's Chinese sibling. There are quite a few big business tower blocks, but there is also a liberal smattering of colonial edifices. It's not a bad place, but we're struggled a bit with the heat and humidity to be honest, so a couple of days was enough for us. Must admit that the ready availability of India food was a big help though.
Athena talked me into some sundown beers in the very posh bar of the Eastern and Oriental Hotel one evening. It was all very posh, with fellas in '50s shorts and pith helmets opening the doors, and waiters dressed in tuxes serving the booze. Nice, but I could dine for a week on the price of half a shandy here. Nice nuts though (bar snacks, not the waiters).
To escape the heat a bit, we took a funicular railway up to the top of the island's highest point, Penang Hill. The peak is eight hundred metres above sea level so it knocked a good five degress of the air temperature and the humidity didn't seem as fierce. The views were good, but a bit hazy. The best overview I can give is this bit of video taken as we approach the docks when arriving on the ferry.

Final thing to report is a funny conversation we had with a old fella who worked occasionally in the guesthouse we were staying in. It turns out that about fifteen years ago he retired from the police service where he'd risen to the rank of Assistant Chief Constable of Penang. He'd actually joined the police back in 1955 when Britain still ruled the Malaysian roost. He told us that the pay wasn't very good, but that he'd soon realised that there was a fortune to be made from back handers etc. He was posted down to the south of Malaysia to Johor, so he would send most of the dodgy money back home to his Granny for safe keeping and also to help with the upkeep of the house and to look after his two younger sisters ( both his parents had died ). He did this for quite a while, so was very surprised to see little evidence of the money when he eventually returned to Georgetown on leave. A nephew explained that Granny was spending a lot of time a few doors down the road at an illegal gambling den. A few quiet words established that Granny had blown the lot gambling on dice. He reckoned she'd lost around 100,000 Ringits at a time when 6000 Ringits would buy a small apartment ! He obviously had a few words with Granny and his gambling neighbours, but when the money was still being lost he eventually obtained an arrest warrant, and picked up everyone in the gambling den, including Granny, and dumped them in the cells for the night. Apparantly, even after this Granny still couldn't be trusted with the cash, so he simply didn't send any home anymore. Slightly ironic, that all the cash he was raising through underworld corruption in Johor, was being return, via Granny, to the underworld in Georgetown. Nice old fella. Bad teeth though. Or should I say tooth.

Tanah Rata - Cameron Highlands

We're 5000' up a Malaysian mountain range surrounded by dense rainforest and we've hit upon three staples of British life, namely, tea, curry and drizzle. We'll tackle each in turn...

Tea. The hillsides here are very, very green and lush. It's either jungle, market garden ( every kind of vegetable, strawberries, grapes, blackberries, herbs etc ) or more than likely, tea. Mmmmm tea..... There's quite a few tea companies up here, but the 'Boh' company have a tea factory that offers tours and tasting so we paid them a visit. Interestingly for the etymologists out there, Boh also claim to have invented the word 'Ummph' as part of one of their advertising slogans back in the '50s. The factory itself was quite old, with some of the big cast iron tea rollers that are still in use, dating back to 1935 ( see video below ). The smell inside the factory was fantastic and we could follow the entire process through. There was also a great view from the tea shop where we could sample the various local brews and munch on strawberry tarts.

Curry. There is a much greater proportion of Indian folk here than we saw in Kuala Lumpur. I've a suspicion it's got something to do with the tea plantations. Either way, there's loads of excellent food options. Best value we've come across is the 'banana leaf' curry. You don't actually eat the banana leaf, it's used instead of a plate. Very eco-minded. For about two pounds sterling, you'll be given healthy dollups of about four different vegetarian curries, lime pickle, popadums, a savoury soup, rice, a dollup of a main course ( mmm... mutton ) and a naan bread. Oooh, and a nice cuppa tea to wash everything down with.

Drizzle. There's a lot of it. We're right up in the clouds here and there's plenty of water flying about. We took a three hour hike along a jungle trail and found out just how muddy the area gets. Lovely walk though with a real jungle feel to it. Athena managed to fall over several times ( to my amusement I have to admit ) and had collected a fair amount of mud by the end of the walk. Fortunately, a nice bloke in a fancy BMW took pity on us and saved us from a slow damp slog home along nine kilometres of steep road. Shame about the muddy bum prints left on his leather seats.

STOP PRESS. We discovered a fourth British stalwart - cream teas ! After our slog through the jungle we found a tea shop selling scones with jam and cream. Eat your heart out Dog !!

Mallacca

We jumped on the bus from Kuala Lumpur and two hours later arrived in Malacca. It's the famous port that gave it's name to the straits between Malaysia and Indonesia. It was very nearly a nice trip out, but it was ultimately ruined by the chronic traffic problems that seem to afflict the centre of the town.
There are some nice old colonial buildings in the old quarter of the city. They were mainly from the period that the Dutch ruled the roost, but there were some remains of the old Portugese fort alongside the river. There wasn't really much to suggest the Brits had been here other than a few monuments and plaques celebrating Queen Victoria's Silver Jubilee. Even thought the buildings were nice, you were always peering over the roofs of cars as the ever present traffic jam crawled noisily and smellily past. To add the the traffic noise, the locals had taken the time and effort to fit large stereo systems to their previously silent bicycle rickshaws. They used these systems to pump out dreadful 80's Euro-pop at ear splitting volume. Bum-sniffers the lot of 'em.
The day was rounded off nicely by the two hour return trip ballooning to four hours as the coach trundled it's way back into Kuala Lumpur in a huge holiday traffic jam. The driver had a peculiar staccato technique with throttle and brake that he skillfully used to thoroughly piss off every single passenger on board.

I think I need a nice cup of tea and a sit down. And I think I know just the spot.....

Kuala Lumpur

Now just to get it out of the way at the start, let me tell you that Kuala Lumpur has rubbish street signs. Absolutely, useless. There, that's better.

We're staying right in the middle of the city in Chinatown. It has a real hubbub. Here's the view from our window. It was a top location for food and beer ( expensive though ! ) and for buying even more dreadful tat in the famous Petaling Street Market. It also drops us in the middle of all the disparate Malaysian transport systems, that almost link up....

What have we been doing in Malaysia's capital city ? Well, first we took some advice from our agent on the ground (cheers Anu). The Petronas towers are very impressive. I'm not usually one for shiny objects, but these take the biscuit somewhat. We went up the KL Tower ( a big communications tower in the middle of the city with a big viewing gallery ) and had a great view across the city. It's a real mix of low rise, high rise and greenery. We also schlepped across the city to the City Mosque (very busy with prayer time so didn't actually go in) and to the National Museum which gave us a nice insight into Malaysian history, right up to the present day.
The local buses are good and cheap, so a quick hop on the No 11 dropped us out to Batu where there are some vast caves. They are used as a Hindu shrine these days, but are open to the public. Very impressive and I was especially delighted by the indigenous population of cave chickens doing battle with the cave monkeys for the rights to bananas.

We only spent two days in the city, but seemed to have filled them. It's very, very hot and humid here which tends to make life for us pasty faced Europeans a bit of a trial, so we're knackered again. I think a day trip to the seaside might be in order.

Did I mention the rubbish street signs by the way ?

The Temples of Angkor

Where do I start ? I'm not going to attempt to describe what we've experienced here. There is simply no way I could do it justice. This is a place that exceeds even the highest of expectations.

Briefly, the area north of Siem Riep is a huge archealogical park sitting in a beautiful, verdant forest. The jungle adds greatly to the experience, giving a feeling of vitality and mystery to the temples and also providing much need to shade to sweaty tourists. The temple sites cover a vast area. Some complexes are thirty kilometers away. The earliest date from the ninth century and latest, from the the thirteenth. They are considered to be the finest examples of Kymer culture and technology and come from the period when Kymer culture dominated South East Asia.

Here's a few photos and notes to give you a bit of an over view of some of the highlights.

Angkor Thom and Bayon
( a 9km square fortified city, complete with vast moat - previously the Kymer capital city )

























Angkor Wat
( the world's largest religious building at 1km square - We had to get up very early for the sunrise photo ! )

Ta Promh
( a temple partially taken over by the forest )

Preah Khan
( more temple versus tree action with impressive stone carvings )






















East Mebon
( nice views across the forest from the top - might just be able to see the tips of Angkor Wat in the distance )

Banteay Srei
( amazingly deep and intricate bas relief stone carvings )

Siem Riep

Siem Riep is about the size of Oxford and is just as touristy.
It's a great place to buy God-awful tourist tat in lieu of proper Xmas presents. There's loads of options for food and drink, both local and western. So far we haven't got bored with the excellent local nosh. Today's favourite was a spicy chicken and mango salad ( plenty of fish sauce as usual). We've travelled around the surrounding area a fair bit on tuk-tuks and the countryside is lovely. Seeing as I've failed to take any photos for the town itself, here's a shot of the view just up the road.Good deed for the day - Picking up a tiny frog from certain death on the road and plopping into a pond.
Bad deed for the day - Dropping the frog into the safety of a pond, only to see it chased and devoured by hungry fish.....

Anyway, the reason we're here is nothing to do with the town itself, nice that it is. It's what's just up the road that we're interested in....

Sihanoukville to Siem Riep via Phnom Penh

Big bus journey this one, bit it was probably less hassle to get it all done in one long day. And we didn't really want to spend another night in Phnom Penh without good reason.

It was a pretty trip. There are some small hills near Sihanoukville that were very attractive, but the real interest was beyond Phnom Penh.

We seemed to enter a bit of a time warp. Other than the road traffic and occasional small town, you be hard pressed to see anything to suggest that we're in the 20th, never mind the 21st century.
The countryside was patchwork of rice paddies, rivers and lakes, with the occasional higher bit of ground featuring a few homesteads and farms.
Most of the people we could see seemed to live in small hamlets close to the road. Houses tended to be wooden and were usually built on stilts. I presume the rainy season causes frequent flooding, or perhaps it helps keep people cool ? Amongst the houses there were kids running around chasing black pigs and chickens, people flaying rice, drying fruit and waving hammers at ancient looking farm machinery. Most houses had an ox cart parked out front, with a couple of skinny looking cows tied up close by. Every now and again, there would be a few huge water buffalos, though these were sometimes hard to spot as they tend to lurk in the ponds with only nostrils, ears, eyes and big scary horns above the surface. Mind you, it gives the ducks somewhere to sit.
The bus broke down briefly ( soon sorted with a bucket of water and a bit of percusive maintenance ) and was soon surrounded was the local kids. Doesn't look like much happens around here. We were only about fifty kilometers north of the big city, but we could have been two hundred years away.

Sihanoukville - Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...

Sihanoukville is a coastal port about two hundred and twenty kilometres south east of Phnom Penh. Fortunately, one of only two fully paved sections of road in Cambodia head this way, so the bus journey was a quite pleasant four hour affair. The town was orginally built about sixty years ago to provide Cambodia with a deep water sea port as an alternative to the Mekong Delta which the Vietnamese were taking over.

It's quite a spread out town, with several long beaches. The one we're lurking at has a string of beer and food shacks along the edge of

the beach for breakfast, dinner and tea. Very nice . Especially for BBQ fish, squid and shrimp. It's still a few weeks from high season here, so it's all a bit on the quiet side, but not that that bothers us. It's nice to escape the chaos of cities for a few days.

The beach itself was nice white sand with an occasional rocky patch to give a bit of interest. There was a serious storm here about three months ago that coincided with a spring tide that managed to strip away fifteen metres of beach. As a result, at high tide, the water is right on the edge of the food and beer shacks. The owners are all a bit cheesed off. They reckon the beach will recover, but it might take a few years. They're worried about the loss of trade, but to be honest, unless you intend to spend a lot of time sunbathing, it wasn't a problem. And if you do spend a long time in the sun here, you won't have any skin left.

The sea is ridiculously warm - just over 80°F. Apparantly, just beyond the beaches, the sea bed drops away to about seven metres and then maintains this shallow depth for miles and miles and miles. The sun, which is skin shrinkingly hot, doesn't have much mass of water to warm up. There's some decent snorkling to be done amongst the rocks, with shoals of fish, crabs and octopuses swimming and skuttling around. There's lots of brilliantly coloured lone fish too. Leopard's spots and zebra strips seem to be all the rage. Most impressive were the large black spikey sea anenomies with blue irridscent centres around bright orange mouths.

There's not much to the town itself. We hired a scooter for an afternoon ( more than enough - the traffic is light, but terrifies me. Even the police

ignore the red lights. Utter chaos. ) and didn't find much to see other than the, admittedly awesome, beaches. The local cops were out on a money making venture too. Apparantly you should have an International Driving Permit in Cambodia, which I haven't got. I managed to convince the cops that the Euro license was a worldwide jobby and got prodded on my way. A rather morose looking Aussie explained that he hadn't been so persuasive and the cops wants him to pay $10 to avoid a trip to the local station. Bolivian border guards Xmas fund again. Pay it and save the hassle I say.

Phnom Penh

An arduous overnight schlep via Kuala Lumpur ( Yes, I know it's quite a detour, but it saves us, or more precisely our rumps from, a three or four day/night bus extravaganza across the unsealed roads in the south of Laos and the north of Cambodia ) sees us in the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It's a big city with about 1.5 million inhabitants and its sits at the confluence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. I'm sure the Mekong has been stalking us on this trip....

Flying in showed us that the surrounding countryside was pancake flat and covered in a dense network of lakes, pools and rivers. Perhaps the Mekong delta starts here ? While I've got my geography hat on I can also treat you to another juicy nugget - The Tonle Sap river actually swaps flow direction depending on the season. It's due to some complex interaction between the large fresh water Tonle Sap Lake that sits a few hundred kilometres further north, close to Siem Riep and the Mekong River. Very nice.

So, what's the city like ? Hard work and a bit grim to be honest ! It's bloody hot ( over 32°C at 9am in the shade ), the sun is ferocious and it's very humid all of which conspire to make any kind of physical activity a tiring and very sweaty affair. The city is beset with chronic traffic chaos which generates a lot of pollution, both noise and fumes. Traffic laws are either ignored or non-existant. Traffic generally flows on the right hand side of the road but there are always a few motorbikes or cars running along the wrong side of the road to take a short cut or just to add spice to the experience. Intersections are a mess of horns and creeping bikes, cars, tuk-tuks, trucks and buses. Might is right. Pavements don't really exist. They're either strewn with vehicles, shop fronts, rubbish or electrical installations..... Walking around isn't much fun ! The only way to avoid this chore is to take to the melee with a tuk-tuk, but this isn't really very calming...

So what have we been doing here ?

We spend one day exploring the dark underbelly of humanity. I'm not going to go into the history of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge who governed the country in the late '70's, there's plenty of information on the fishing net, but suffice to say that their policy of converting Cambodia into a wholly self-sufficient, communist, agrarian society ( banning religion, outside communications, money, science and technology etc ) led to the brutal slaughter of several million of their own people. Nearly 20% of the population died. Everybody knows somebody who disappeared. It was a true genocide.

We visited Tuol Sleng, also called S-21, which was coverted from a high school into a centre for torture and exections. Over fourteen thousand people met their grisly ends within it's grounds. Only seven people survived after passing through the gates. More poignant than the cells and instruments of torture on display, were the rows and rows of mug-shot photographs of scared looking men, women, children and babies that were taken on their arrival. I've never been but I'd imagine only places like Auschwitz would come close to the feeling of this place.

We also travelled out of the city to visit Choeng Ek. This was one of about three hundred and eighty killing fields used by the Khmer Rouge to slaughter those that crossed their path. People were marched to the sides of pits dug in the ground and simply clubbed and hacked to death, their bodies being dumped into the mass graves. Some of the pits have been excavated, whilst some are still untouched. A large white Stuppa, containing over eight thousand skulls extracted from the pits, sits at the centre of the site as a monument to those that died here and throughout Cambodia. The site itself is quiet and pleasant. It feels like and orchard with fruit trees and chickens running around. It is truly chilling to wander through it and to try and imagine the terror and evil that happened here only thirty years ago.

Fortunately, there are some more pleasant things to see and do in Phnom Penh.

The Royal Palace is beautiful and sits in manicured garden grounds. The silver pagoda, whose floor is made from solid silver tiles ( about four tonnes worth ! ) is stunning as it the Emerald Buddha it contains. The National Museum is definatly worth a visit. It contains a large collection of historical Khmer artwork going back over a thousand years. There are numerous labyrithine markets to explore and to gawp at weird and wonderfull produce.

There is also the pretty location of the city on the river banks of the Tonle Sap to stroll along. Next to the banks of the river is the Foriegn Correspondents Club. It's the old drinking club frequented by the press that reported on the wars that led up to the Khmer Rouge government. It reminded me alot of Raffles in Singapore. Very posh. Surprised they let me in.

Food has been pretty good so far. Favourites so far include Pro Hok Kriss ( fried minced pork, fish paste, coconut milk, roasted peanuts, chillies and vegetables ) and Majou Kreung ( beef with lemon grass, turmeric, morning glory and tamarinds.

We need a break from cities, so next we're off to the seaside.

Ultimate Lao Tea

Generally, I'd agree with the notion that Lao food is good, but perhaps not quite up to the standard of their Thai neighbours from across the Mekong. Mind you, they do have several cracking dishes, so here's our favourite tea menu.
Laab ( mince, fish sauce, shallots, mint leaves, lots of lime juice, roasted and ground rice and chillies ) with a portion of "Morning Glory" ( like a long leaved mild flavoured water cress, with big crunch stalks ) cooked with garlic in soy and fish sauce and a large fistfull of sticky rice. A nice glass of Beer Lao would go down well, or a cool drink of crushed ice with lemon juice and mint leaves might be better to cool down the Laab chillies.

Vientiane

After a ten hour bus journey, we finally returned to the banks of the Mekong at the Lao capital of Vientiane. Boy, has the river grown since we left it. We arrived into town pretty late so we headed straight to the river bank for a bargain tea of hot red curry and spicy crispy noodles from some open air kitchens that had set up on the sand. It was a nice end to the day, but the river bank didn't look quite so salubrious in the morning light...
The builders working on the top floor of the guesthouse had us up and about early in the morning by seeming to use tactical nuclear munitions in an attempt to demolish whatever they were upset with. This turned out to be a good thing. Vientiane is seriously hot and the sun is very powerful around noon. Bearing in mind my experience cycling through the midday heat in India last year, we made every effort to be out and about in the mornings and late afternoons and to be in hiding from the sun during it's peak. We also stumbled across a nice shop for breakfast baguettes and coffee whose main selling point for me was that the waiter had clearly entered the All Laos Boris Johnson Lookalike Competition. What a barnet for us to behold and admire.

We had an interesting few hours in the Lao history museum. Did you know the Lao were keen on standing stones ? Perhaps Obelix of Gaul was the first Frenchman out here ? The most interesting displays went through the more recent history of the country, from the growth of anti-French Colonial feeling in the 1920's, through the active fight for independance in the 50's, the struggle against US sponsored forces spilling over from the Vietnam War in the 60's, the establishment of a Lao government in the early 70's and finally the Communist take over in 1975. The museum had a very Soviet feel to it, with lot's of busts and pictures of Lenin and much communist phraselogy.
Just up the road from the museum is the Wat Si Saket. This beautiful 18th century wat that was quite different from the others we've come across on our travels in that it wasn't glitzy and gold, but was naked in it's old wooden construction. The roof beams would have been at home in the Tobie Norris pub in Stamford. It was also cloistered on all four sides. The cloisters contained thousands of little Buddha statuettes hidden away in niches cut into the outer walls.
We also visited the Wat Pha That Luang. This big gold wat is supposedly the most important in Lao and from a distance it looked spectacular. Up close if was a bit scraggy and down at heel..

About 25km out of central Vientiane lurks the Buddha Park. One fellas obsession with this Buddha dude lead him and his cronies to create literally hundreds of statues and place them in this lovely garden. Most are Buddist, but there's a liberal sprinkling of Hindu deities too. Some are only a few feet tall, but others are the best part of 50' long. Huge. They're all cast from concrete and unlike in the UK, the material has weather to give a lovely old stone kind of finish. I know it sounds a bit naff, but it was really good. We really enjoyed the local bus journey too.









Here's a sweep of the Buddha Park.

We've had a good couple of days in Vientiane. It's not the prettiest of cities. It's lost much of its colonial history to a swathe of contrete. There are a few tree lined boulevards remaining, but not enough to bring it up to Luand Phrabang standards. Anyway, we're off for a big fish supper by the Mekong tonight and then we're off to Kuala Lumpur. For the day.....