Vientiane, Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang

We didn't publish a single blog from our 20 days in Laos... oops!  Alright, let's start with Vientiane - beautiful, calm, not much going on city.  From there we headed North to Vang Vieng and hung out there for a few days.  It's a tiny town set right on a river where it's popular to go toobing (although they spelled it this weird "tubing" way???) and caving.  Seeings how we live in Central Texas, we opted out of toobing and rented a motorbike to explore the country side and find ourselves some caves.  We had a blast scooting around the muddy back country roads in the rain looking for caves before we finally found ourselves at Tham Phu Kham cave.  We love the caves here because, unlike in the US, you can hire a guide if you like - or you can just rent a head lamp and go explore and try your best not to get lost.  Inside we found a prone Buddha statue (Nirvana) and lots of little "ponds" at the back of the cave - it was really a site and we enjoyed getting to explore it alone.  Afterwards, we sat on a small open hut on the nearby river and had a few of our favorite, beerlao (creative naming at its finest.) 

Funny story - Mo wanted very badly to get in the river even though it was flowing pretty hard... well, since it had been raining so much our feet were very muddy so she stepped in to wash her feet off.  When she did, Richard gave her 3:1 odds she would fall in.  She scoffed and didn't take the bet, "I'm a Russell!"  First time, no problem, feet cleaned.  Second time, she wants to feed the fish with some rice some monks gave us so she stepped in just up to her ankles again no problem.  Third time she decides to clean her feet again from walking around in the mud and who can guess what happened?  Fell right in up to her chest... jeans, shirt, everything soaked.  :)  We had a good laugh and it only took her one extra beerlao to dry off.

From Vang Vieng we hopped on a mini bus and had a gorgeous, but somewhat scary, 8 hour ride through the mountains to Luang Prabang.  Scary as the drivers here have no issue with passing an 18 wheeler on a blind corner while going up a large slope.  There had also been a recent mud slide that we got to try and slide our way past, tires gripping for tracking on the wet mud, all while less than 4 feet from a huge cliff.  There is a video that should be uploading into Travel Gumbo 3 album in the next few days (what can we say, internet here kind of stinks!) 

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous old town with lots of French architecture and old wats set at the intersection of the Mekong and the Nam Ou rivers.  While the city itself was very nice, it also has an international airport (this turned out to be a great thing... you'll find out in a later blog why) but that did make it VERY touristy... not exactly our cup of tea but nice none the less.     

Phanom Rung and Korat Candle Festival

After leaving the wonderful Faasai resort we headed North to Korat.  From there we were able to witness two awesome sites: Phanom Rung and the Korat Candle Festival.  Phanom Rung was built around the time of Angkor Wat and (in our opinion) we enjoyed it more... less tourists (dang farangs) as it's kind of difficult to get to.  That night we were treated to a huge festival in the town of Korat - the Candle Festival.  It's basically the start of "Buddhist Lent" where the monks spend 3 months indoors.  Because of this, the laypeople would offer huge candles to the monks to help them stay inside and gain merit.  Overtime it evolved to a near Mardi Gras-esque festival with huge floats made of carved wax (giant candles) and tons of singing, dancing and prayers.  The only thing we noticed was that there was zero drinking... so maybe it's more like ash Wednesday. :) 

All of the pictures should be uploaded and we hope you enjoy!

Pictures Part 2

Our 2nd album of pictures can be found at:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108781435296042098143/albums/5760063359419671281

The 1st album is here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108781435296042098143/albums/5742105012611135265

Wat Kongdin and Faasai Pt. 2

We've made it through a wonderful 3.5 weeks in Cambodia and are back at Faasai Resort near the city of Chanthaburi at the Thai/Cambodian border.  We couldn't be happier to be here at in this little slice of heaven working in the garden and hanging out with our favorite Kiwi, Bronwen.  Today, both she and her husband, Surin, took us to Wat Kongdin "The last temple of Rayong province's."  It is centered around a Buddha statue built in 1499 by Pracho Prom Maharaj on his 24th birthday and two Bodhi trees planted 245 years ago by King Taksin.  There is a popular story Thai children learn of the battle that ensued (the Burmese had taken the capital of Ayuttaya and the Thai's were going to recapture, although heavily outnumbered) where King Taksin told his army "We are going to attack Chantaburi tonight. Destroy all the food and utensils we have, for we will have our food in Chantaburi tomorrow morning, or we will die."  The Thais succeeded in battle and he became the first commoner King of Thailand.  Reminds of us of a popular battle all Texas children are taught concerning a Colonel Travis, a sword and a line in the sand... except the obvious opposite outcome of the battle (but not the war! Republic of Texas, est. 1836, yeehaw.)   

Rural Cambodia

We've spent the past 2 weeks teaching children in rural Cambodia (Kampeng Village, Takeo Province - 12km from Phnom Chisom) and just made it back to Phnom Penh last night.  No running water, lots of rice, limited electricity, cart and ox still heavily used for transportation, no connection to the outside world and a LOT of smiles.  We were treated like movie stars in the village with the women handing us their children with pride and not being able to walk anywhere without all of the kids coming out of their huts to greet us and show off one of the 3 English phrases they have mastered: "Hello!" "What is your name?" "How are you?"  We truly enjoyed our time out there and the 15 days flew by with the generous hospitality extended to us.  The meals consisted of rice, water and a portion of meat... quite a few times frogs (note I said frogs... not frog legs as they just grill the hell out of it and serve it whole and you eat every part of it.)  The average farmer in this village makes around $60 a month and uses that to support generally a family of around 6-8 people (lots of kids) so needless to say this area was very poor.  That said, the outlook, attitude and welcoming we received proved to be all the luxuries we needed (OK, OK... we would have liked toilet paper.)

We just uploaded our pictures to the "Travel Gumbo 2" album so feel free to check them out.  I'll post a link to it soon if anyone has difficulty seeing them.  There are a lot btw, once the kids got ahold of our camera it was a no holds barred free for all photography frenzy.     

S21 and the Killing Fields

Having been in Cambodia for less than a week we have seen the beautiful proud side of the Khmer people and the dark side.  It's difficult to imagine that collectively 7 and 9 years before our birth, while our parents were complaining about OAPEC and soaring gas prices, nearly 2 million people were killed during a 3.5 year period under Pol Pot to create a crazy marxist agrarian wet dream.  Today we visited S-21 (a prison for torturing confessions out of people) and "the Killing Fields" where the condemned prisoners were taken and bludgeoned to death (bullets were too valuable to spare.)

S-21 is a chilling place, a few of the 4 buildings were kept exactly as they were found.  In fact, you can even walk into the wooden cells where prisoners were shackled in between torture sessions.  You can see their scratch marks in the wood, presumably counting the days they were there (highest I counted was 21), and there are still blood stains on the floor.  The other buildings are monuments to the dead.  Like the Nazis, the KR was meticulous in its documentation and systematic extermination of people - photographing all of the prisoners.  The other buildings house picture after picture of faces of the dead.  Taken when they were first admitted to the prison, some smiling, some scared, some angry, all confused, only 7 survived.

The prisoners were then taken to the "Killing Fields" to be executed immediately some 10-15 km away.  There is a stupa now in the middle that houses almost 8,000 skulls and it takes quite an effect on you.  There is also a tree where babies were thrown against to be killed "to kill the grass, you have to kill the roots as well." 

Obviously, we were highly moved.  Specifically by how everything was kept in place, no excuses made, and by how recently all of this occurred.  Makes you think about the other genocides that weren't even less than 10 years before our birth: Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka to name a few.  Also makes you amazed by the spirit of the Cambodian people and the pride we see here. 

Legends of the Hidden Temple

I call Red Jaguar team!  Ok, ok, enough of our hilarious 90's kids humor.  Spent 7 hours exploring around Angkor Wat and the surrounding Wats on the 7th.  Had a blast - really enjoyed the fact that in Cambodia they let you climb all over everything and hardly anything is off limits if you want to climb into it.  We got a ton of pictures but are having difficulty getting a good enough internet connection for them to actually upload.

In other news, we leave for the orphanage tomorrow (ourfriendsorphanage.org) and will be there for two weeks.  Not sure what the internet will be like out there so maybe a few weeks without posts.