(again spelling and grammar should be ignored - this takes ages to write)
So what have I been up to?
Been rather busy to be honest hence the limited blogging.
So flew into Bangkok. Arrived 3am. Got whorey non regulation airport taxi into the backpacker hub that is Khao San Road with a English doctor and an English Thai kick boxer. Random. Had some street Pad Thai and hit the hay. Tired. Got up in the morning and sorted my flight to Nepal with Royal Nepal Airways. You can't book them online at all so had to get a Thai lady to ring the airport or something. So I now possess I piece of paper with some numbers on it. Apparently a plane ticket. But before Nepal and India is have Cambodia and other places to go.
My plan is to more just go wherever the wind blows rather than have it planned out. A lot of people are asking how I fund this travel. I've worked all summers I wheel and deal on Trademe and am a self confessed stinge, and last year's trip cost jack all due to the stinge factor traveling with me. And screw traveling with a family later on in life.
'Money is better spent on experiences than assets'
I met up with some uni friends, well didn't end up meeting but very randomly bumped into. Long story short, one beer led to numerous, which leads to ping pong show, which leads to dodgy back alley suburban warehouse for an overpriced show, I refused to pay, so off to Cowboy Soi (soi = side street in Thai) to the Go Go bars, more beers, then hungover as hell for 7am bus to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. There is some Bangkok lingo in there. Cowboy soi, Ping Pong, Go Go bar. You do the googling.
Phnom Penh was a casual 16 hours away.
So a short trip.... I ended up getting sat next to a 9/10 Cambodian uni student. I shared her my cashews I had put through as budget peanuts in the self check out back in New Zealand, she brought me fried insects which I happily munched down as you do. Not bad at all. Said our farewells as she was getting off earlier than me and eventually arrived in downtown Phnom Penh at 11pm. (I'm still yet to receive the facebook add from her) Got a tuk tuk (a motor bke with a carriage on the back, budget taxi) to a guesthouse I had planned to stay at. He drives to a hotel because he will get a commission if I stay. They say my guesthouse is full. I say I have a booking (I don't, I never do) and I eventually get taken to it. I have to direct the idiot. Phnom Penh is gridded with numbered streets. North to South even numbers, East to West odds. It's easy to get around yet these drivers suck. I could run the most efficient Tuk Tuk service if I had the chance. Arrived at my guest house, pretty much empty. Fly infested noodles from the late night vendors for dinner. Up in the morning for iced coffee x3.
I love Phnom Penh, out of all the Asian cities I have been to it has the x-factor. A mix of wealth and poverty, great food, and its lawlessness. You can get away with anything here. French influenced with grand boulevards and impressive house mixed with Buddhist temples. At intersections you see rickshaws next to brand new Range Rovers.
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| Shinoukville Beach |
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| BOTB - Beers on the beach |
Then bus to Shinoukville. Met some legit Aussies on the bus. Brent and Andy - their names give away how they are just true aussie battlers. I ended up drinking with them the next few nights. And getting so sunburnt. School boy error thinking pasty white Dunedin skin will be fine without sun screen at 10am. Amateur. Shinoukville is a funny place on the amazing Cambodian coast (which Shits on Thailand's coast), big Russian Mafia influence, sex trade, children hustling on the beach trying to sell you shit. But some mean bars right on the beach. 50c beers, $1 accommodation. It's win win. The average wage for example of someone who works 10-12 hours in a Guesthouse is $60US a month, yes a month, not a day. It's crazy how they can live of that, and manage to buy motorbikes and feed their families. And that's a good job. Tip them 25c and that's like 2 hours wages. Shinoukville was just a lot of drinking, but I heard the islands of Cambodia are amazing. So booked a boat out to the one furthest away. Met some Dutch girls who I would end up traveling with for a week on the boat with the classic travelers intro 'oh where you from?' works every time. It took me 1 hour on the boat sitting right next to them to ask, hungover and pondering whether they actually spoke english. Koh Rong is the name of the island out in the Gulf of Thailand, no power and just beach side bungalows and 2 dive centres with casual 32 degree water. Puppies everywhere, no dog breeding control here. It's a puppy lovers dream. Apparently they had to get someone in to shoot the majority. Did a couple of scuba dives and just chilled out with the Aussies and Dutch girls, with cheap beers of course. Stayed for 2 nights. Sadly this island has plans for a massive airport and resort. Gotta love the corrupt government here, selling off everything they can to chase the dollar. So get here asap if you can. It's Thailand before Thailand became mainstream. Sadly had to leave this beautiful place and head to Kampot with the Dutchies. The Aussies were staying on for huge diving trip. They admire our drinking games, such as scrumpy hands. And I taught them Siamese goon face. Sending that thing Trans Tasman. Australia can thank me later.
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| Koh Rong - The view from my crib |
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| Cheesy on top of Bokor Mountain |
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| The Church |
To get to Kampot we paid a guy in a car to drive us the 200km trip for $4, 4 in the back seat and a baby, 2 in the passenger seat. He is barely making anything after petrol costs! Overloading is just the normal thing to do. If you have any space in your car there is a Cambodian that will fit in it and make you money. It makes sense. Well doesn't make sense when you have a head on collision but hey that is life. Kampot is a cool chiller town on the river, with a very French colonial inspired architecture. Stayed at a backpackers run by a Scottish guy, so with Scotland comes drinking, so we drank every night. Beers, pepper vodka, cocktails. All for loose change.
On a side note if you ever make it to Kampot there is a zoo apparently. You can give the a monkey and cigarette and a lighter. It will smoke the cigarette and bite open the lighter.
A monkey addicted to nicotine and lighter fluid - only in Cambodia.
Sadly I only found out about this the day I was leaving.
Other activities included scooter mission number 1. Taught the girls how to ride the semi automatic scooter which the whole of Asia drives. If you come to asia please don't be a noob and drive the automatic pieces of crap. They were (semi) Automatically addicted to riding. Did 2 day missions, one to the kilometre high Bokor mountain, which has abandoned French hotels and churches on top. Pretty cool! Literally. It's a nice temperature change from the instantaneous sweat inducing climate down on the plains. Even a 13 year olds anti perspiration lynx has no chance at preventing the sweat. But you sweat so much you don't actually smell, a sweat shower. You are constantly dripping. The 2nd trip was to Kep, a crab fishing town. Had to buy some crab from the locals. It comes straight from the sea gets walked 10m into pot of fire boiled water. That's fresh. Couple bucks for heaps of crab. Gave a lot to the locals. Where its is way out of the majorities price range. We also visited a butterfly farm which was on the map. Buzzy, and free.
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| Me with a butterfly. |
Then some back country special from me through rural Cambodia where few tourists go. Cambodians are friendly but even more so outside the tourist towns. Picked ourselves up a guide from one of the little villages, they offer their services as a local expert for the outrageously huge price of $1. Snapped one up with great English and he jumped on the back of my motorbike and off to a cave. Climbed up some 200 steps into a cave. And he told us what stuff was and how some rocks look like elephants and pigs and stuff. Well worth the price. Then to some extreme jandal caving down through the cave. One wrong move and it was all over. Slippery rocks, darkness, mostly vertical. He had a torch, but on of those torches which actually doesn't illuminate anything. You could pick one up locally at the Warehouse for $4.99 if you wanted. But with the help from the guide he knew exactly were to stand and navigate the death trap. Then we heading to the 'Secret Lake', arrived to a Cambodian Christian retreat. So random. In the middle of nowhere. Retraced our dirt roads back and dropped him back at his house off the dirt road and paid him all my loose change. I'm always a bit sceptical about paying children as the majority of children working here are working for an adult. It's like the slum dog millionaire thing. Sometimes I'll buy them food and it's like they haven't eaten in days. They run off a hide from the glancing eye of their pimp who is somewhere to munch down the food quickly. It's a sad life. A child can be tempting to give money to but you should use you brain to think where it will be going. A classic scam is a 5 year old will sit with a new born outside a shop asking for milk powder. Generally stupid Americans will buy them milk powder, once the American has left the child will return the milk powder, take the $22, give to shop owner some commission and head home to give the money to their parents. But you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. But yeah our guide was legit and he benefits from talking English with us. Make it home just before dark. Which is good. Cambodia roads are a nightmare at night. Such rules exist that it is illegal to ride during the day with headlights on, but legal at night to drive with headlights off. Wtf.
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| The kids who got some crab |
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| Entering the depths of the cave |
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| Exiting the cave |
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| The Secret Lake - Guide and Aneik |
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| Myself and the guide |
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| Drinks break in the shade - backcountry Cambodia |
The next day had a lounge day in Kampot where I sat in the hammock for hour after hour. Next day me and the Dutchies headed back to Phnom Penh. Buses were full so we decided to catch the local van. With only 6 people when we left town in it, it seemed like a great idea. Again to cut a long story short after numerous stops we ended up having 27 people in our standard non air conditioned van. 27, try picture that. And all the baggage. Even the driver was sitting on someone. There was 10 people just in the boot. This was your standard run of the mill van. I was loving it. $5 for getting a 130km ride with 26 people in a shitty van was worth it. Back door and side door wide open doing 80kmph down the highway would be a magical sight. It was an honour to travel local style. Next time I plan to pay someone to drive me with their donkey and cart on some long distance journey. And back in Phnom Penh to catch up with the dentistry crew.
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| The Gang |
Now everyone gets the shits here. Bacteria change and heat just give it to you. The CC's (Cambodian cramps) as they are now know are a common occurrence in our group. Statistically one of us is bound to have bowel issues at any one time. It been one of our main topics of conversation other than teeth. Destroying toilets is our new favourite past time. Picking the time and place is crucial. A squatter with no paper is a recipe for disaster. We have had to move room many a time due to toilet blockages,, with the room change record being set at sub 2mins after arrival. I avoid western food, or quite restaurants, street food with a high customer turn over is the key to not getting food poisoning. Power cuts happen all the time here, that's really good for your chicken and shrimp that's been stored in a fridge at a restaurant. I could write for ages on this topic, I even plan to write a book 'Shitting my way through South East Asia', every traveler has a poo story that is sure to bring some laughs. Its sure to be a best seller.
We have planned to do 7 days of dental volunteer work. Beginning with 2 days working in the International University Clinic doing slum dwellers. They just drove a van to the slums and rounded up anyone, we also provided some work to the university cleaners who are on a very very low wage. Extractions hungover at 9am was rough. Equipment and materials all sub par. X-rays developing done the old school way dunking into the liquids. (but sooo cool) The real challenge was next week working in a prison in the back blocks of Cambodia.
The Prison days
The prison is surrounded by a 200m by 100m barbed wire fence and those old school watch towers on each corner with a guard smoking with a Ak47. The yard is a dust bowl, semi open sewers run through it. There is 3 buildings, or sweat boxes. Maxed out with prisoners. I would love to go look inside. Apparently they sleep on the floor all next to each other curled up. A window seat would be prime real estate. There is a few woman in the prison and young boys around the age of 15. Walking in for the 1st time was one of those experiences which money cannot buy, when they got let loose from the cells was even more crazy. If a riot broke out, your fucked. God knows what they are locked up for, drugs, murder, who knows? They are allowed to roam free in the yard, the guards do minimal. We set up our gear in a building with no walls and we're surrounded by prisoners watching us set up. With no TV, radio or electricity we were great viewing.
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| The outer wall |
We also allowed them to be let out of their cells for more time than the usually are. A qualified Thai dentist was our leader who would smash out a quick examination, then on to us for whatever needs done. I am yet to see a decay free mouth, and have seen shit that would put the South Dunedin locals to shame. Teeth pretty much falling out, infection everywhere. Decay everywhere. Inmates that are Hep C positive, HIV positive, some probably don't even know they have serious blood diseases_ These guys are tough. Back home the stuff we would be doing would require sedation and or serious drugs. We ran out of Ibuprofen (nurofen) at one stage some inmates were getting paracetamol for the most ruthless stuff, which just doesn't cut it. I ended giving away most of my personal supply of drugs to the inmates who needed it most. Thanks must go to John Key and the New Zealand Government for their $3 for as much codine as you want policy. Here you do surgery and cut away tissue with what can best be described as a screwdriver, or elevator. Everything can be done with this. (for the dentistry people reading this, curved splayed roots, impacted wisdom teeth with elevator, give it a try) A few people have teared up one me. One on my first day has given me a friendly wave everyday since because we had a laugh in front of all his mates as he cried getting a ruthless double extraction from me. I'm no expert, I've done 3 days of extraction at Uni, but the amount you learn when you are let loose is pretty amazing. I had never done surgical stitches on someone, but manage to complete some nice ones on a wisdom tooth surgical/butchery. It's unsupervised but we can get help from either the Thai Dentist or the tooth pulling master 'Mad Dog' if we need it. This guy is a professional. A skinny taxi driver turned dentist has pulled thousands of teeth in his 3 years working as one.
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| Me numbing a inmate up, Mad Dog sitting on the table. Also Fake ray bans as safety glasses. Keeping it casual. |
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| The set up, inmates having a watch. |
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| Tools of the trade: from the bottom needle for injection, elevator, foreceps, and more elevators, and some blood. |
On a side note to be a dentist here just like a doctor, a policeman or any other job for that matter you don't need to be qualified. Our driver was once a policeman, he got the job because his Dad's friend was a policeman, instead of the 6months training, he did 1 week, got given a Ak47 (even though he never put bullets in it) and was out making money through tickets. He explained you can ticket for anything you want, usually a few dollars but that's a huge amount here. So if you ran a red light you would be forced to pay on the spot or wait for a friend to bring you money. The only way to beat the system is to wait it out till 6pm when the policemen finish their shift. He quit because no one likes them due to high level corruption.
Prison is a crazy system. One prisoner seems to be the leader and reports to the guards. He kept a very close eye on what we were doing at all times. He kept order in a military style fashion. At 6ft he was a very powerful figure. People traded money for food, biscuits for cigarettes. The inmates did the ironing and washing of the guards clothing. It's everything I imagined a 3rd world prison to be and more. On the day we left it was actually rather emotional. It felt like leaving school on that last day. We had built up respect with both the guards and the inmates. Having laughs with them and going on one end of the equipment boxes with them that we put away each night. We met with the prison warden who expressed his thanks to us for coming and providing the work. He also mentioned that he knows the prison is over crowded but it is beyond his control. And that was that, back to Phnom Penh.
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| The Team - from back row left, 3 guards, me, guard, Joe, guard, Simon, James, sterilising guy, Rambo. Front row- Yos (Thai Dentist), Dental assistant x3, Elliot and Cambo Dentist Missing in action - Mad Dog |
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| The Prison Warden and us. |
I booked a 6am bus to Laos (another country for those geographically challenged), then bumped into a friend from Dunedin and 3 girls he was traveling with. Once again by pure chance. I was run down, in much need of sleep but the offer of another night out in Phnom Penh had the #yolo voices getting louder in my head. Happy hour 50c beers, $1 red bull vodkas which are more like a glass of vodka with a drop of red bull put us in a good mind set to hit the greatest place in Phnom Penh - Pontoon. Arriving there, a door charge. We are in Asia let's haggle, haggle successful. Once inside Pontoon you could be anywhere in the world. Paris, New York, Monkey Bar. Pontoon is the goods. Although drinks are a huge $2.25 for a beer. Outrageous! Pontoon has 4 types of people - backpackers, sleezy western men, cambodians and prostitutes. With a ratio of 20%, 20%, 10%, 50% respectively. Long story short again, don't play who can grind the prostitutes with a drunk Scottish girl. We were wanted dead or alive. Home at 4am, up at 6am to begin the 15 hour trip.
We got a sleeper bus, but a Chinese one, I have now concluded that Chinese people are short. I could not fit in the bed and I tried every position imaginable. I was dying for a normal seat. Mix that with a standard Cambodian crap road and shit air con and it's just another standard Asian bus trip really. I tried to befriend some people who I thought were English, turns out Slovakian. Broken English is hell hungover, dry chat where you really don't get anywhere. So once in Laos we headed to the 4000 islands. Which as the title describes is that many islands in the Mekong river. Don Det is the chiller backpacker one. I've went on my last trip and knew the price for the boat over. The boats aren't ferries. More like wooden canoes. Anyway I knew the price was roughly $3 for the trip, when a Lao guy came on the bus wearing some travel lanyard who runs the ferry system said $5 there was me and 7 other furious backpackers. It should be a free market where who ever what's to take people can. None of this one company controlling all the ferries bull shit.
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| Ferry Area in the day - google image |
Now this is one of these stupid stories where once you start you cannot give in and go back to their price. A great quote is if you are presented with options when it comes to transport always choose the one with the most anecdotal value. I'm a firm believer in this. We haggled - failed. We tried the other ferry drivers but he came up and stopped them - fail. So we decided to wait it out. I knew there was a little fishing village area down further. In the darkness we all snuck down, woke up some old guy who quickly agreed to take us for $2 each. We all crept down the sandy bank into his boat knowing that if the proper ferry drivers saw him or us with there we were screwed. We were in the boat. But in the moon light I caught the flicker of the lanyard. Phones going off, torches on us. People wondering what all the commotion was about on an otherwise quiet tranquil night. We were in the boat and we weren't moving. So we waited and so did they. Police were said to be called (if this ever happens play the 'I don't speak English' card, and never ever give your lifeline back home, your passport over) we sat there in the boat for an hour or so. Lanyard man was furious. Once he came down and attempted to untie the boat and set us adrift. A Dutch guy in the front was not having a bar of this and punches were nearly flying, thank god for his girlfriend. We haggled and haggled, and lanyard man stayed firm. Suddenly he dropped down to $4, amateur play. We had him now. Haggle haggle, $2.50 each! $20 for boat! Where is police, you said they be 20min! Etc etc. He went and got a chair, we waited. His patience growing thin he left. One of the dudes ran up and showed the old guy 25 fresh American dollars. Another techniques to persuade people, show them what they are missing out on. We had him, in the stealth of darkness we unbeached the boat and puttered off to the island. All proud of ourselves, wasting near on 3 hours for the sake of $2. But worth it. The beer we all had together was amazing. We felt like local celebrities. The people who tried to beat the system and won. Legends. Had a good night on Don Det and left the next day. I missed all the buses, even the locals ones. But was fixated on leaving.
The only way to Pakse some 150km away was to hitchhike. One side of my brain saying you are just a target and it's too dangerous, the other saying yolo. Yolo won.
I got the ferry, got a random on a motorbike bike to drive me to the highway. This is a battle in itself. No one speaks English. Point down the road and say 2 kilo meat (that's how the say kilometers here) and write down a figure on a piece of paper. First 2 people wouldn't take my low ball figure, 3rd guy. Some army dude was like 'hell yes I want your money, get on the back of my bike (well that's what I imagined he said to me) with nothing to lose and all to gain I was off. Reaching the main highway which is pretty empty, dusty and hot. I realised soon enough that the thumbs up doesn't mean anything to them. Having no sign also added to issues. I was just getting waves from the one car that would pass every 5min. But I remembered reading somewhere that here you wave towards the ground. I comboed the Western and Asian hitchhiking gestures into one magnificent action. Fusing the Orient and European attributes like a professional chef. The locals were like 'what the Fuck is he doing' but yeah it worked.
4 wealthy Thai businessman on a trip through Laos. What up! Cold as air con. All the leg room in the world. All of them on the beers. Classic stuff. One even spoke rough English. After where you from, name, what you doing, where you been, where you go, you come Bangkok, you can stay with us Bangkok chat it was a rather chilled ride. Got his business card as well, they love giving them out. Dropped off rather close to where I needed to be. Asian hitchhiking trip 2.0 = check.
Total cost $3 (can't get a free ferry and no local with motorbike you for free if you can't chat them up in there own language) Total savings in Don Det $4, so that's 4 nights accommodation in Cambodia, or 8 beers, or motorbike rental for a day. List goes on. Haha. The savings bring the good stories. It would have been more boring than your Facebook news feed on a Saturday night if you did everything the proper way.
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| Sunrise over Pakse |
Now in Pakse, you have no idea where that is but yeah I'm here.
Met up with my sister, rented a motorbike and back to show her some ruins I visited last year.
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| Wat Phou Champasak |
Stay tuned - there's more photos on my Facebook
And you can also follow me on Instagram - olly_manson
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| Me having my favourite meal - soup with random meat in a market |
