The Circus is in Town!

The night before we began the disaster at the orphanage, Kristina, Becs, and I went to the circus. Phare, The Cambodian Circus was created in 1994 by eight survivors of the Khmer Rouge who wanted to help bring back the arts to Cambodia. These eight opened a school in Battambang focusing on visual and performing arts. The school began taking in disadvantaged students and offering them free food and education.

I didn't know any of this before going to the circus and went to the event expecting clowns and a lot of laughs. However, what we got was the story of Sokha. This is based on the life of one of the co-founders and how she survived the Khmer Rouge. What I thought was going to be a night of laughs turned into a beautiful, gut wrenching, acrobatic performance.

Sokha was the only female performer and stayed in the same role throughout the show. There were six main acrobats that changed from roles to include, Sokha's friends, civilians doing their best to survive during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, and in the end students at the Battambang school for performing arts trying to recover from the horrors they had witnessed.

There were many times during the performance that gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes. The performers clearly love what they do and are capable of stunts that leave the audience gasping.

Phare is currently trying to raise funds to get their own land space in Siem Reap for a permanent home. I don't know if Phare goes on tour, but all I can say is if you ever see The Cambodian Circus advertising a performance, drop everything and go. Seeing this, topped even some of the temples in the Angkor area.

Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

Sunrise behind Angkor

The last day of my temple pass was used to see the two biggest and baddest temples in the Angkor area. We started out dark and early for sunrise at Angkor Wat. Again, this was much different that what I was expecting. In Bagan, Danna and I would sit on top of a temple and watch the sun come up over the distant mountains. However, here at Angkor, you stand on the lawn in front of the North pool and watch the sun come up behind Angkor Wat and reflect it on the water. What a beautiful experience this turned out to be! We had perfect weather, clear skies, and a spectacular sunrise.

Thousand year war with Vishnu in the middle.

Angkor Wat was built to be a representation of heaven on Earth. The Angkor king of old built it to be a representation of Mount Meru, the abode of ancient Hindu gods. As a result, everything in the temple is perfectly symmetrical. The temple is three stories with the third story being off limits to visitors unless you happen to buy a VIP pass and bribe the police as a couple we met did. The first floor contains thousands of carvings from floor to ceiling. One of the walls depicts the thousand year tug of war with Vishnu in the middle. Kristina and I spent what felt like ages walking around the first story looking at the carvings, but in reality, we only made it about halfway around before I decided I couldn't wait any longer and wanted to get to the top. Finally being at Angkor Wat and arriving on the second floor was a bit of a surreal experience. It's somewhere I've wanted to go for so long that actually getting there seemed like it was happening to someone else.

Vishnu

As I stated earlier, we weren't able to go up to the third level, but getting to the second was good enough for me. I was able to see the towers up close and get a good look at their carvings. I did watch a documentary on the temples of Angkor and it said that the alter at Angkor Wat is tiny in comparison to the size of the structure.



After spending a couple of hours in Angkor Wat, I headed back over to Angkor Thom to see some of the temples I had missed during my second day. The main three places I went were the Elephant Terrace, Baphuon, and Phimeanakas. The Elephant Terrace connects these two and is this massive, stage that the citizens of Angkor used for a viewing platform during public ceremonies. It is 350 meters long and the outside of the stage is covered in elephant carvings and stone inscriptions. On either side of the staircases, there are carved stones made to look like elephant trunks.

West wall with reclining Buddha.

Baphuon is one of the larger temples in the area behind Bayon. I really enjoyed this one because the second level had these huge window like cut outs in the wall that were the perfect size to sit down in, relax, watch the other visitors, and just take a moment to enjoy where I was. When it was originally built, a reclining Buddha was built into the West wall. However, sometime in the 1900s archeologists completely deconstructed it because the temple was extremely unstable and couldn't hold the weight of the built in statue. The reconstruction was interrupted for a number of years during the Khmer Rouge reign and following Civil War. When reconstruction did finally resume in the late 90s, archeologists had to treat the temple as a huge jigsaw puzzle because Khmer Rouge soldiers had destroyed all the blueprints regarding how the temple was to be put back together. It took them a few years and a computer program to sort it all out, but they did figure it out and the result is an impressive temple.

Phimeanakas

My last big temple of the day was Phimeanakas. In comparison to Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Baphuon, it is a rather small temple, but it does have a tiny little moat surrounding it. Unlike the other temples, there is only one entrance and exit. Three of the other staircases are blocked by water. Legend has it that a great nine headed serpent lived here and appeared to the king as a woman. Every night the king was required to sleep with her before going back to his wives. If he missed one night, it was said to be the sign of his impending doom.

At the very top level.

On the third level, there is a woman waiting to bless you for making it all the way up. I liked how friendly she was, so took the time to pray, be blessed, and give a small donation for her efforts. It truly was a great way to end my trip at the temples.

Temples around Angkor Thom and Bayon

Stairs looking down at Phnom Bakeng.

My second day of temple hopping around Angkor included the smaller temples surrounding Angkor Thom before looping back to Angkor Thom to see Bayon. I decided to save the big one, Angkor Wat, for my last day on my temple pass. We rented bicycles and biked the 8km to Angkor Thom. The first two temples of the day included Bakse Chamkrong and Phnom Bakheng.

Kristina and I before the climb up.

Phnom Bakheng is this massive, tall temple with one of the scarier sets of stairs I was on that day. Climbing up was a hands and feet operation. Once at the top, I have to admit I felt like a champ for being brave enough to climb up the crumbling staircase. Kristinga and I climbed up the East staircase and directly at the top of the stairs, there was a tiny alter with a reclining Buddha inside. It's amazing to me that they built these huge stone structures for such tiny alters and statues. The view from the top of here was of the tree tops of the encroaching jungle.

Entrance to Ta Prohm

The rest of the morning was spent biking through the temple complex and stopping at countless smaller temples all leading the way to Ta Prohm, quite possibly my favorite temple in Cambodia. Ta Prohm is also known as the Tomb Raider temple because some scenes from the movie were filmed here. When restoring the temple, archeologists made the decision to leave some of the trees that had grown up out of the temples and walls. The result is a breathtaking, spectacular place that seems like it should be out of an animated other world movie.

Back when this temple was at it's prime, 80,000 people either worked to maintain or attend temple here. Now, the temple has been overrun by trees and their roots. As a result, many old corridors and other areas are impassible because of the fallen stone blocks. I just don't have the words to describe how magical this place was. It was awesome to be able to catch a glimpse of what the temples must have looked like when they were 'rediscovered' back in the early 1900s. Explorers must have had their breath taken away!

Entrance gate to Bayon.

After a quick lunch at a roadside cafe, I split from Kristina and Becks to make the loop back towards Angkor Thom so I could see Bayon, the temple with all the faces. The entrances into the Angkor Thom complex are these huge causeways with massive stone gates at the end that have a four faces carved into them. Along the causeway are statues locked in the thousand year tug of war between good and evil. Riding up this causeway towards the South gate is a bit of an intimidating experience as this massive stone face looks down upon you.

The face in the stone is said to be the face of the compassionate Buddha, but has a strong resemblance to King Jayavarman VII,  the king who had the temples and complex built.  From this South gate to the temple of Bayon, it's about a kilometer. The road leading to Bayon is surrounded by forests containing a lot of monkeys hanging out on the side of the road, just looking for some sort of trouble to get into.

Faces of one of the towers.

If Ta Prohm is my favorite temple, then Bayon comes in at a close second. As I parked my bike and walked up the stairs leading to the interior of the temple, I was awestruck at the number of faces looking down on me in what seemed to be some sort of ancient smirk. In Bayon, there are 216 'smiling' or in my opinion, smirking faces looking down at visitors. Each tower has four faces on it, each one facing one of the cardinal directions. I could not imagine being a peasant when the kingdom of Jayavarman was at it's height. It would have been terrifying to have come across this and had the feeling of always being watched.

Bayon from the front. How many faces can you see?

Temples and Land Mines

I've finally found my way to Cambodia and that means temples, and lots of them! As I mentioned in my previous post, I've met up with my roommate from Jakarta. There were complications with my flight, getting the information to her, and knowing if she received it. Finding each other involved Kristina showing my picture around the airport, in a "child on the milk carton" fashion. We did eventually reunite and spent the evening catching up on the past few months over a delicious meal of Indian.

My first full day in Siem Reap was spent going to the temples of Banteay Srei, Kbal Spean, Pre Rup and the Land Mine Museum. It was an awesome day mixed with a some heart wrenching stories. Kristina arranged for a tuk-tuk to take us to all these places as they are much further than the temples surrounding Angkor Wat. It was a lovely ride filled with stunning views of mountains and rice paddies. 

Detailed carvings

Banteay Srei

Banteay Srei is also known as the pink temple or the temple of women. The name for it translates into 'Citadel of the Women'. It is said to have been carved by women as the carvings are too detailed and delicate for the hands of a man. It is also known as 'Pink Temple' because the stone it is made from has a pinkish tint to it. Banteay Srei is quite a small temple compared to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in carvings. I've seen a lot of ancient and not so ancient carvings in my time here in SE Asia, and honestly, this temple contains the best I've seen anywhere. Banteay Srei is estimated to have been built 967. Despite being almost 1000 years old, left to the jungle for hundreds of years, and being partially destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, the carvings still look 3D and are in amazing shape! 

Spirit Guards

Most of the spirit guards surrounding the temples are missing their right arm. They are sandstone replicas of the original statues found there. I'm not entirely certain why they are missing their right arms, but if memory serves correct, the Khmer Rouge again had something to do with it. This temple not only survived the Khmer Rouge Regime but also a Frenchman's attempt to steal important statues and sculptures in the early 1930s. He and his accomplices were caught before they left the country and he only served one year in prison. 

Top of the river at Kbal Spean

River carvings

Our next stop of the day was Kbal Spean, a beautiful area that doesn't actually contain a temple. It's a 1.5km walk up to the beginning of a riverbed where there are carvings in the stone in the river. The river leads to a waterfall and all along the river, there are carvings of Vishnu, Shiva, and random animals such as a crocodile and turtle. Because of the uphill hike and distance from the other temples, we didn't encounter too many other tourists, just a handful of locals. It was extremely peaceful and we surmised that the area must have been bathing pools the people of old. It is amazing to me that these carvings have lasted in the water for as long as they have. Some of them have water rushing over them constantly during the rainy season yet most of the carvings do not look like they've been affected by this. 

As we meandered our way down to the waterfall, a lovely site guide took us under her wing and began pointing out all the different carvings in the riverbed and on the boulders surrounding the river. Without her help, I wouldn't have noticed 3/4 of these as many of them were in places I wasn't expecting. There were huge patches of the riverbed that had been carved to look like tiles. This is what made Kristina and I come to our conclusion that it was used for bathing back in the day. 

Mines from Aki Ra's collection

Our next location of the day was a bit of a tear jerker but inspiring story of Aki Ra, a man born in 1970, turned child soldier, Vietnamese defector, Cambodian Army Solider, civilian, unofficial de-miner, owner of an NGO and orphanage. Aki Ra believes he was born in 1970 but is not entirely certain. By the time he was 5, both his parents were dead and he was a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge. It was during this time that he learned to plant land mines and could do hundreds in a day. When the Vietnamese Army entered the war picture in Cambodia, Aki Ra defected, and fought against the Khmer Rouge with the Vietnamese until they pulled their troops out. He then joined the Cambodian Army and continued to fight against the Khmer Rouge. When the civil war ended, he started digging up landmines and defusing them on his own with no assistance or recognition from the government. 

Aki Ra

To go about finding and defusing the mines, he would poke the ground with a long bamboo stick. He would do this in neat rows to deem an area safe. Once he found a mine, he would dig it up and use pliers to remove the detonator. Upon doing this he would use a couple of different methods to remove the TNT. All of this work was done in flip flops, shorts, and no protective gear in sight. His years of planting mines as a child, teen, and adult provided him with a wealth of knowledge on the different types of mines. In all the years he defused mines, he and everyone he worked with never blew one up or was injured in any way. I'd say this is a major feet considering how unpredictable they can be! Now to be sanctioned by the government and have his organization recognized as an NGO, Aki Ra has to follow international safety standards for defusing and removing land mines. This means he can no longer walk around in flip flops and poke the ground with a stick. Nor can he remove the detonators with pliers. Now he has to wear a massive protective suit and blow the land mine up where it is found. At his museum, he says these safety standards have slowed his work and he can no longer remove hundreds of mines in a day. 

Behind the museum is an orphanage for children who are victims of land mines. It provides them with an education and offers them a chance to go to university or some sort of trade school. Aki Ra has made an incredible transition from child solider to a man driven to help rid his country of the legacies of war and to help those that have been affected by it.

Vientiane

The last stop of Laos was Vientiane. Everyone we met along the way told us not to spend much of any time there because it was a terrible city with nothing to do. This made me think of Jakarta, a bustling, dirty, smelly, no green space type of city. I was pleasantly surprised when we did arrive to find that it was not very busy, fairly small, and not nearly as stinky. We stayed at a guesthouse right near the river and used the awesome river walk as a way to stretch out the legs after the bus ride from Vang Vieng.The sunset along here was spectacular and it was fun to see the amount of people out enjoying the evening whether they were strolling with family and friends, running, biking, or partaking in a Zumba class. This was another huge different from Jakarta. Being outside and enjoying the day or evening never happens there.

Our time in Vientiane was spent going to Wat Si Saket, a museum, and hanging out and enjoying our last day together. Wat Si Saket was a cool temple and is much different from others we've seen. It had hundreds, probably even thousands of little 'cubbies' that housed small stone and wooden Buddha statues. They covered all the wall space inside the temple from floor to ceiling and side to side. The outer buildings surrounding the temples also had the same 'cubbies' filled with Buddha statues. Some of these small cut-outs even contained two statues. In all, there had to be thousands of tiny Buddha statues plus hundreds of larger statues. We did get to see a bit of restoration work being done on the paintings inside the temple. I've never seen that before and it looked like an incredibly, hot and painstakingly slow process. The museum we visited was a little less than impressive as it was dark and offered no descriptions of what we were looking at.

While eating brunch at a cafe, we did meet two Americans who happened to be there on a business trip for their company that offers teaching solutions for schools and universities abroad. After sharing the short version of the how I came to be backpacking through Laos story, they invited us to sit with them and explain how we came to work in Jakarta at such a young age. It was a fantastic networking opportunity that I stumbled into on accident. It was great talking to them, sharing our experiences we had at BBS, and hearing the ways they help their new teachers adjust to being in a new culture and country and the support they offer. I'm not sure what the future holds for me but I hope this organization is somehow involved!

Vientiane is where Danna and I parted ways. She went on to Taiwan to visit Chinese teachers we became friends with at BBS. I moved on to Cambodia where after much confusion, eventually met up with my old roommate Kristina. After 3 months of traveling with Danna, it's a little weird not having her around but I've thoroughly enjoyed my time bumming around the temples of Angkor Wat and catching up with Kristina.

Kayaking and Tubing down the Nam Song River

Danna and I were recently in Vang Vieng a hot spot for backpackers from all over. The main draw of the town is the tubing down the river. Tourists rent tubes, get dropped off at the river, and float back to town while stopping at bars along the river to take part in adult beverages, play the games set up and relax in cabanas and hammocks. All along our way south to Vang Vieng, we were warned not to drink too much as many tourists have gotten injured on the river in the past due to strong currents and slow reflexes.

The elephant carving.

Danna and I decided the getting drunk on the river culture really wasn't for us and signed up for a kayaking adventure with tubing through a cave. Before arriving at the cave for tubing, we stopped in a small village at the Elephant Cave. I don't know when or who but at some point and time a large elephant carving was put into the cave and that is how it got it's name. There was about a 10 minute walk through the village and rice paddies to get to the tubing set up. As always, it was a spectacular view and rice paddy green really is the best color green in the world!

Entrance to the cave.

 In my mind, the cave was going to be this huge cavernous room, with holes in the rock for natural light to get in and all of us would be lazily splashing around. What they should have advertised for the tubing was practicing your limbo skills while sitting in a tube in the dark and pulling yourself along a rope against a surprisingly strong current. I had to laugh when reality smacked me in the face!

The tubing was really fun and we were given headlamps so we could sort of see what we were doing. To get into the cave we had to squeeze between and under two rocks while pulling ourselves against the strongest part of the current. When we reached the back of the cave, our guides had us get out, store the tubes and then belly crawl and wade through water chest deep to the deepest part of the cave. The guide leading this expedition was a real jokester and kept playing tricks on Danna who was right behind him. His goal was to scare her and I think he freaked her out a couple times. I'm just glad I wasn't right behind him! I probably really would have freaked out! When we all arrived at the very back of the cave, there was a tiny little waterfall and the guides had us shut off our lights so we could experience true blackness.

After a delicious lunch, we set off for our 18km kayak ride back to Vang Vieng. I've never been kayaking before and I have to say, I really enjoyed it! I think it is something I could get into at home as long as the water isn't too cold! Danna was the navigator as she's been kayaking before. She did a pretty good job as we didn't flip or run into anything! We did encounter some pretty strong rapids and by the time we arrived at the Sabaidee Bar on the river, I was fairly soaked, and by that I mean completely drenched! The scenery along the way was spectacular! The mountains, clouds, and rice paddies combined made for some incredible views. We were even able to see a waterfall way up high on one of the mountains at one point and time. I really enjoyed that!

Much to our surprise, our guides had us stop at one of the riverside bars for a short break and rest. Everyone grabbed some drinks, sat back and watched the tubers make the decision to pass or grab on to the rope and stop in for a drink. The bar had cabanas, hammocks, basketball and volleyball courts, a ping pong table, and loud music blaring for the party goers to enjoy. With every drink you buy at these bars, you also get a free shot (absolutely terrible stuff), and a bracelet so everyone knows how many drinks/ shots you had on the river. Even though it was an unexpected stop, I had fun at the bar and can understand why backpackers get lost here for days on end.

Xiangkhouang Province and The Secret War

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of American history after WWI is a bit lacking as anything after WWI was never covered in school and I’ve never taken the time to learn about it on my own. I’ve learnt a lot being here in SE Asia about American involvement in different wars and it has fueled a desire to know more. Being the nerd that I am, I’ve already started a list of things I need to read up on and try to understand. When reading about Laos in my guide book, I kept running across the phrase, “The Secret War” and was very puzzled by it was and what it meant.

What I learnt about this Secret War and America’s involvement in it made me quite upset.  During the time period of the Vietnam War, America was not supposed to be in Laos as we had signed the Geneva Conference stating that Laos would be neutral ground. However, the military broke this agreement and bombed it heavily in an attempt to disrupt supplies being sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to destroy a communist Lao group that was in the area.  Between 1964 and 1975 enough bombs were dropped in the Phonsovan area to equal one bomb being dropped every 8 minutes for those nine years. A lot of the bombs dropped were leftovers that were not able to reach their targets in Vietnam. Instead of taking the risk of landing the aircraft with bombs still on it, the pilots would just dump them indiscriminately on the Laos countryside. These bombs were not targeting military bases or strongholds but instead ruining the farmland and killing wildlife, farm animals, and people.

Nobody knew what was happening until the villagers began fleeing to Vientiane to escape the bombs and their destroyed homeland. Hundreds of villages harboring nothing more dangerous than farmers and children were destroyed. In one instance, four planes dropped bombs on a cave holding close to 400 villagers that had been living there for years for protection. The first three planes missed their target but the fourth one hit the cave killing everyone inside. In the documentary we watched, a man interviewed said it took three days for the heat to subside for him to go in and look for the remains of his wife and three daughters. 

It is estimated that 10 to 30% of the bombs dropped never exploded and they are found everywhere today. Most of these unexploded bombs are cluster bombs or ‘bombies’ as the locals call them and are designed to kill or maim people, not to destroy military vehicles or buildings. They pose huge risks to children and farmers still today. Children think they are balls and pick them up to play with them. In doing so, it sets the bomb off, either maiming or killing the child and anyone around them. Farmers are at risk of setting one off when they plow their fields or go out to stake a cow or buffalo for the day. As a result of all the bombies, villagers and farmers are scared to plow new land or put in irrigation systems for fear of setting off a bombie. Because of this, most Lao people live in extreme poverty and barely grow enough food to feed their families. 

The organization, Mines Advisory Group, (MAG) works to educate and clear the land of the bombies. They have trained local Lao to be bomb specialists. They find the bombies everywhere including school grounds. An education program has been put into the schools to teach students how to identify the difference between a bombie and ball and what to do if they encounter them. Even though MAG works daily to clear the bombies, it is estimated that it will take over 100 years to clear all the land of the bombs and make it safe again.

I understand that times of war require a different set of rules but I still feel that what happened in Laos was excessive and unnecessary. Despite knowing how unreliable cluster bombs are at exploding when they are supposed to, more sophisticated forms of them have been developed and are still used today in other war torn areas. I am very blessed to have grown up where and how I did and could not imagine trying to raise a family as the people in the Xiangkhouang Province do, worrying every minute that a child or other family member will be killed by something that fell out of the sky some 40 years ago. 

Phonsovan

After our relaxing, lazy days in Luang Prabang, Danna and I again spent another day in a minivan to get to Phonsovan to see a few historical sights and learn some history. There will be another blog post coming about what I learnt about America's involvement in the Secret War with Laos.  For now, this blog post is going to focus on what we did, saw and the lovely, friendly people we met.

Phonsovan is home to the Plain of Jars, different areas containing huge stone jars that are thousands of years old. Archeologists aren't sure who built them or why but they have their theories as do the local Lao people. As we always do when we get to a new spot, Danna and I stumbled out of the minivan and into a pre-chosen guesthouse. We then went in search of a tour that would take us to the places we wanted to see and would be willing to negotiate a reasonable price for us. It's still low season here in Laos and we had wandered off the beaten path (not as far as we did in Muang Sing) so it wasn't until late evening at dinner that we started seeing other backpackers and tourists in the area. 

We ended up going with the first tour option we had originally heard about. I really liked the guide that had sold us with his sales pitch and he was willing to negotiate the price and let us customize our tour. At our guesthouse we met an older British man traveling and decided to have dinner with him. Through him we met an interesting Westerner who lives full time in Phonsovan and runs the Lone Buffalo Foundation. A place that teaches English and other academic skills to teens and emphasizes the importance of staying physically active. We didn't get to talk to him much because he was on his way to lead a tour. However, I found the idea of his foundation fascinating and it seemed like he was really helping the youth of the community.

Bull fight!

The day of our tour started with Ming arriving early to help us book tickets on a sleeper bus to Vang Vieng. Danna and I had decided that we had wasted enough full days in minivans and would rather arrive at a ridiculously early time than waste another full day in a car. On our way to the Hmong Village we wanted to visit, Ming started sharing a little bit of knowledge about the war with us. We also learnt that he went to University to be a teacher, decided he didn't like it, and became a UNESCO certified tour guide. He was extremely knowledgeable and and I enjoyed my day with him.

A fence made out of old bombs.

On our way to the village we passed a field with bull fighting. We pulled over to watch and learnt that the people there were Hmong and only had bull fighting for special occasions such as weddings. Fortunately, we got there at the tail end of the fighting and didn't see much of it. The Hmong Village we visited is different from the others in the area because they've recycled old bomb parts and use them to build houses, fences, herb containers, water troughs for animals and various other things.

A herb and onion container.

Kiddos playing and sitting on the bomb shells.

As I stated earlier, there will be another blog post regarding my thoughts and what I learnt about the Secret War. However, seeing bomb remains used in this village was fascinating. Ming shared that there were less bomb parts used in the village because a lot of it had been sold for extra money as scrap metal. A lot of houses had used the bomb shells as stilts for their houses. They've also recycled the metal to make farm tools, kitchen utensils, and various other objects around their house. There is another village not to far from the one we vistited known as Spoon Village because they make spoons using metal recycled from bomb parts. Unfortunately we didn't get to see or meet many villagers as it was a Sunday and most of them were out tending to their fields.

One of the many big craters.

Our next spot was a mountainside filled with bomb craters verging on 40 years old. The mountainside had recently been cleared by MAG (Mines Advisory Group) of bombies. (Explained in the next blog.) Standing on the mountainside looking at the beautiful mountains in the distance and the greenery covering them, it was hard to picture it as a bombed out place destroyed by years of unending bombing.   

For lunch, we convinced Ming to take us to a local noodle shop to try a more traditional Lao dish as we’ve been eating more Western influenced dishes during our time here. I was not disappointed in what we got and my noodles were delicious! Although, I did add some chili sauce halfway through and made it a bit spicy for my spice level tolerance but it was still good. 

Mulberry stalk

Silk worms

After lunch we headed to a Mulberry farm where they raise silk worms, make natural dyes, and produce silk thread, silk weavings, and make products from the Mulberry trees. I had no idea how silk was produced but I learnt a lot with Ming acting as our translator. The silk worms only eat mulberry leaves and are kept in a controlled room. It takes about a month for them to mature and cocoon themselves with the silk. Depending upon the type of worm, each casing can hold anywhere between 300 and 700 meters of silk. Upon reaching maturity, the worms are placed in a refrigerator for control to keep them from breaking open their shells until the next step can be completed. 

Helping to pull silk thread

Next, the worms are boiled and the tiny silk threads stick together, are pulled through a little opening and make one slightly larger piece of thread. The batches are boiled two or three times. Then, the worms are pulled from the remains of their cocoons and cooked again for selling to the general public. They are apparently delicious. I decided not to test that one out for myself but the ladies working there seemed to enjoy them. 

After the thread is pulled from the cocoon, there a couple of other stages to getting it ready for weaving but the process wasn't explained to us and it looked tedious. The mulberry farm also makes their own dye using products found around the farm. They can make up to 100 different colors using various flowers, roots, leaves, and other materials. 

The largest jar.

The last spot of the day was at the Plain of Jars site one. Ming explained that archeologists estimate the jars are between 2500 and 3000 years old based off of some tests they did on the stones. They believe the jars were used to bury families in as they've found small bone fragments inside of them. If memory serves correct, the archeologists believe that the Hmong and another ethnic group may have been the ones to create the jars because of modern day burial practices and where they choose to live.

It weighs 6 ton.

The Lao legend states that giants used to live in the area and they are the ones who built the jars. They used buffalo skin and another material to build the jars and over time, these two things turned to stone. The jars were built to hold whiskey for a celebration. The largest jar is the one that belonged to the King.

Plain of Jars

Which ever belief is right, the jars really are a mystery and it is hard to imagine mere humans moving those stones anywhere. Archeologists believe they found the stone quarry site at another mountain 18 km from the Plain of Jars because they've found unfinished jars there. If this is so, I do not understand how they moved any of those stones, even the small one, without modern technology.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Phonsovan and was pleased to discover that the people seemed even happier and friendlier here than what they seemed to be in Luang Prabang. They live very hard lives but know how to make the best of their situations.

Luang Prabang, land of bread

 After our tiring trek in Luang Nam Tha, Danna and I headed to Luang Prabang where the game plan was to chill out, eat and get real massages. Laos doesn't have the best transport options for the area we were coming from, so in order to get to Luang Prabang, we spent 9 1/2 hours cramped into the back of a hot, stuffy mini van with limited air flow. However, getting to Luang Prabang was well worth the effort. It is an adorable little town with an old French quarter filled with bakeries, cafes, and shops offering all sorts of tours. I have to admit that after two solid months of rice and very limited amounts of plain white bread, I was looking forward to the French influence and spending my mornings eating a croissant and reading a book.

My favorite man in the night market!

One of the many stalls serving tons of Lao food. 

We landed in Luang Prabang for 4 nights and 3 full days which is the longest we've stayed anywhere in about three weeks. It was really nice to unpack the bag and let it breath for a bit as things were starting to get a little smelly! :)  Because the mini van journey thwarted our plans of spending the afternoon wandering around the city with the extra two hours it took, Danna and I dumped our things and headed straight for the night market and street food. We were starving as the food from the roadside stand at lunch combined with the crazy mountain potholes and curves, did not sound appealing. The food at the night market was delicious as most street food seems to be and the market was huge! We spent over an hour perusing the stalls and seeing what all there was offered.

I have to admit that I was very lazy during my time in Luang Prabang and did not make much of an effort to go see or do anything. I used the time to relax, recharge, read and journal. I spent a lot of time wandering up and down the French quarter, eating pastries and finishing an awesome book.

Piah demonstrating a dish for us.

The most strenuous activity I did in the city was join a cooking class for an afternoon which as always, was a delight! There was only one other 'student' in the class with us, an Australian man so it made the class feel like it was catered to our needs. Our instructor's name was Piah and he demonstrated four dishes. We got to sample all of them and choose two we would like to make. They were all simple dishes yet full of interesting flavors! Danna and I chose to make a chicken/ pork curry-like dish and a pork salad. The pork salad wasn't a salad with the traditional lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Instead, it contained, banana flower, lemongrass, spring onions, cilantro and few other leafy greens whose names I cannot recall.

Our food turned out delicious and we were given sticky rice to eat with it. I don't understand how this rice turns out so differently from normal white and brown rice but it really is very sticky! The locals eat it with their fingers and it sticks to everything it touches! One of the other dishes Piah demonstrated was a chili paste that sounded brutally hot but actually was fairly mild. The recipe calls for 50 dried chilies, countless garlic cloves and a variety of other spices. The garlic helps counter some of the spice of the chilies and makes for a lovely vegetable dip as I discovered.

Danna and I with our finished products.

Sticky rice being cooked.

I believe I fell a little bit in love with Luang Prabang and the laid back feeling it had. I also felt like we started to meet some genuinely friendly people. During our time in Muang Sing and Luang Nam Tha I was a little disheartened by the lack of friendliness we had received from the locals but it seems that the further south we go the friendlier the people are getting. I am definitely enjoying my time in Laos more than what I was during the first week. I never realized what a difference a smile would make in making me feel welcomed in a foreign place!

These Shoes Are Made for Walking, Laos Style

About a week ago now, I was on the hardest trek I've ever been on to date. The trek we went on in Myanmar was long but basically childs play compared to this two day one in Luang Nam Tha.

After our failed atrempt at a longer trek in Muang Sing, Danna and I made the journey back to Luang Nam Tha in search of other bules to split the cost of a trek with. As soon as we got off the bus we saw a number of other backpackers and we were speculating on who would be up for an adventure. We checked into our guesthou

se and the owner inadvertently introduced us to two of our trekking friends when he tried to give them our room. Sean and Kyle are from the UK and were the first backpackers we had seen and talked to in days!

In our search for a trekking option that fit ourbudget and met our expectations, we met Steven, a Canadian traveling with his girlfriend and volunteering at the agency we ended up going with. Steven and Erin were awesome and thus far in their 8 months of travels have not flown on a single plane! They got to Asia on a cargo ship and apparently had a great time. Who even knew you could do that?!

Our group met the next morning at 8:30 and consisted of the UK guys, the Canadian couple, an Isralie couple, the two of us and our guide, Zouk. Somehow Danna and I managed to please the rain gods because it didn't actually ever rain while we were on ourtrek but we did have to deal with the aftermath of previous rainstorms.

To start our journey, we were driven in a tuk tuk to the jungle. Upon getting out of the truck, none of us could figure out where we would start hiking. Everything I could see was a tree covered slope with lots of undergrowth. Zouk, our guide,  led us to our trail, a tiny path almost hidden by the vegetation. Our hike started out vertical and just a little bit muddy. We got in a solid three hours of hiking before lunch. It was during this leg of the hike that we encountered a killer bee along the path. Prior to coming across this bee we had run into a team of four men sent out to find and kill such bees. Zouk cleared a new trail for us to avoid the bee on our path and informed us that it could indeed kill a child or elderly person with a sting. If it stings a healthy adult, they will fall sick for about a week. Armed with that knowledge, I freaked out just a bit anytime any sort of bee came near me on the trip.

At one point as I was slipping and clawing my way up a particularly steep and muddy path, I thought, 'If this is up, what is down like?' The answer to this question came shortly after I posed it. The answer: holy slippery, muddy mess! 5 of the 9 of us wiped out at least once. Somehow I managed to avoid falling on day one and am still questioning how in the world I managed it! The journey down to our lunch spot was a slow process with everyone attempting to find the least slippery spot. Multiple times I gave up on normal walking and did a front crab crawl down the slope because even standing still, my feet would start to slide apart.

Lunch was a very authentic assortment of Lao market food and consisted of sticky rice, bamboo shoots, another type of bamboo, veggies, buffalo intestine, fish and bananas. Bamboo shoots are a very intense food with a very strong smell and taste that I do not find appealing. However the other type of bamboo wasn't too bad but I definitely could not bring myself to try the intestines.

After lunch came the real challenge of the day in terms of hiking. I had foolishly thought that it couldn't get any harder but the trail proved me wrong. Most of the afternoon's hike included tromping through streams and walking on barely there paths up steep mountain sides. At first, walking through the water was refreshing. However, after I found my first and certainly not last leech on my leg, the water quickly lost its appeal. My

shoes alternated between being insanely muddy to clean countless times. I did completely sink my shoes in the mud and after saving myself from a face plant, thought for sure I was going to lose them while trying to get out of the mud.

In the late afternoon, Danna gave me a mild heart attack when she slipped on our barely there trail and then caught herself on the tree we were simultaneously climbing under and over. Thankfully she was not hurt and

no one was despite the countless falls the group had.

Finally, after what seemed like days of hiking uphill, we finally made our way out of the jungle but still had a ways to go to reach the village we were staying at for the evening. Part of this leg of the hike consisted of walking hunched over through the vegetation Zouk had haphazardly cleared for us. Between the overgrown trails and barely there paths, it was clear that no one had been on this particular trek in quite some time.

Around 5:30 we finally stumbled into the Akha village we were to spend the night in. Compared to the warm welcoming greetings we received at the homestays in Myanmar, the welcoming we got here was almost glacial. It was quite the shock. Not many villagers seemed happy that we were there and more than once I got some strange looks from adults and children alike. Apart from this, it was interesting to see how they lived. Showers are communal spigots with nothing to block you from watchful eyes. Families build tiny huts for each of their teenage sons once they reach a certain age. The boys are allowed to bring their girlfriends into the huts and I quote, "See if they can get along," before getting married.

That evening, before bed, one of the more awkward experiences of my life occured. The trekking company had advertised a massage at the end of the day and it came to us in the form of giggling teenager girls with a random group of village men standing in the doorway watching, laughing and talking. The 8 of us laid on our giant bed and then the girls

attempted to squeeze into the space left, which wasn't much. Then, the very unskilled pounding and weird butt grabs in the name of a massage began. Anytime my 'massause' paused to giggle and shout something to her friends, she without fail rested all her weight on my tailbone. I think all of this lasted maybe 15 minutes but it felt like it went on for hours. As Steven so aptly put it, "Who's idea was it to get the village teenagers to do these massages?"

The next morning dawned bright and not so early by the time everyone rolled out of bed. Everyone was still pretty tired after a night of sleeping on the floor in extremely close proximity to everyone else. The roosters at 4am also didn't help but made for a good laugh once everyone was awake. We set off for a day of what Zouk promised to be much easier than the previous day's hike. This proved to be true expect for a very hot, hard 45 minute

vertical climb. We stopped here for a short rest before continuing on to our lunch spot. It was at this point I had my first and only wipe out of the trek. I found my fall fairly funny as it felt like I was doing the running man backwards.

Lunch was delicious and included rice, a pumpkin dish, and veggie dish. Zouk made us bamboo chopsticks to eat with. After eating, we continued the short jaunt to the road where the tuk tuk was waiting to pick us up. Before we got to the road, we had to pass through some rice paddies and very sketchy bridges over irrigation systems. I was positive I was going to pull a Becky and land in the paddy while crossing some of the bridges. There was one in particular that was really tough to cross as it was just a trunk of bamboo and not secure. It rolled and if someone hadn't been there to give me a hand, I definitely would have went in!

The scenery along here was spectacular and made the trials of the bridges worth it! Our blessed tuk tuk and driver were already waiting for us and on the drive back to Luang Nam Tha, the thunder and rain clouds rolled in. It was an absolutely perfect ending to the trek to know that we had just barely beat the rain.