Vang Vieng & Luang Prabang

When you're travelling, you learn a lot of new things everyday. Things about culture, about the countries you're visiting, but mostly, things about language. My English is improving, little by little, every single day. When I don't know the word for something in English, I always ask an English native speaker to tell me. I think this is the best way to learn a language, and it's also a fun way!

When me and Katja were waiting at Thakhek Bus Station though, we both learned something different. We learned about the origin of the English saying: 'Screaming like a pig'.

We were just sitting there, waiting on our bus to Vang Vieng, when we suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the luggage storage in the bus next to us. It took us a while to recognize the sound, but then we realized it was a pig. It wasn't screaming just yet, that part is still to come. First I want you to think about the fact that there's a pig running around in the same room where all the luggage from the passengers is stored. That's strange right? For example, what if the pig has to shit?! I'd rather not think about what would happen to all the luggage then. Well, luckily it wasn't our bus, so not a problem of our concern!

Oh, by the way, the day before, in another bus, the man on the seat behind us took his ducks with him in the bus. They weren't caged. So what happened was that there were some ducks running around between the seats. Oh, and the man next to us took his chickens. The chickens were tied together with a rope around their feet. Also still alive. This isn't a problem at all in Lao, and it wouldn't have been a problem for us if the animals would just have been quiet. They weren't. The bus ride was dominated by the cacophony of terrified screaming chickens and ducks. How nice... Ok, back to the pig.

At the moment the bus with the pig in it started riding, suddenly every single head of every person at the bus station, turned in the same direction. One of the man started running after the bus and yelled: 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'

What had happened, was that the pig's leg was hanging out of a small open area in the bus, and it was grinding over the concrete. It was already painful only to see it, but the pig made sure we all could feel his pain. The pig: 'Oink, oink, ooooiiii, oink!!!' I've never heard such a horrified screaming sound in my life. Luckily the bus slowed down a little and the man put the leg of the pig back inside the bus. So. That's how we learned about the saying: 'Screaming like a pig'.

We waited for another hour, and then, finally, our VIP sleeper bus arrived. Katja stepped into the bus first. She was already sitting on her tiny, less than one meter wide bed when I walked in. To my surprise all the other beds were already occupied, and, to my even bigger surprise, there were two persons in each bed. So Katja's tiny bed, was also my bed. I don't think I've ever - I don't count my baby-bed from back in the days when I was still a cute little girl - slept on such a small bed, and especially not with someone. My god, it was tiny. For the first time I was extremely jealous of all the small Asian people who looked so comfortable in the small beds, while me and Katja were still trying to squeeze in. The bed was not only narrow, it was also by far not long enough for my Dutch body. In the end we both found a position which was quite comfortable, considering the circumstances - and I have to admit, I slept like a baby!

When we arrived in Vang Vieng after a long ride, I did the 'getting back on the horse' thing. Our bus dropped us of on a - how fortunately - gravel road. We didn't know where our hostel was so we had to take a motorbike taxi. While sitting in the back, driving over the gravel, I was absolutely terrified. I saw the whole accident happening again. But of course, nothing happened and we arrived in our hostel safely. The only danger that occurred during the ride was the possibility that I would drown in the cold sweat that stood out from every pore of my body. Yes, I know, I'm a coward!

Well, Vang Vieng was a lot better than we expected so on our first night we decided to extend our stay for three more night, so five nights in total.

The next day, we explored the area on a mountainbike and went to a big cave. It was a nice, but scary trip. The cave was gigantic! It was a huge empty area with a lot of nice stone figures in it. Our guide stopped every once in a while to point his torch at a rock and tell us: 'Dragon. Bird. Snake. Dog. Man.' etc. We tried to recognize the figures and most of the time it worked. So, at first, we weren't scared at all when we passed by some English girls in the cave and they pointed their torch at something, and said: 'Spider'. Ah yes, a stone figure of a spider, I thought. Well. Not. It was a huuuuge black spider. I didn't realize that this deserted-looking cave had some inhabitants after all. And once you noticed one, you start noticing all the other ones as well. My god there were so many! Do you remember the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Well, in that cave I felt exactly like Ron Weasly. Totally freaked out and surrounded by way too many eight-legged creatures. Brrr that was scary! But, brave as we are, we carried on walking and climbing through the cave, and eventually we had reached the "lagoon". There wasn't much of a lagoon inside because it is dry season here. But it was a nice walk. We took the same way back and tried to ignore all the spiders on the way.

I was relieved when we exit the cave.

On Saturday we took the bicycles again and decided to cycle to a market. It was an adventurous trip, over dirt roads (my ass was hurting sooo bad from the saddle, I'm definitely not used to cycling anymore haha) and through the forest. There were some steep hills, and, most exciting, some seasonal bridges. These bridges only exist in the dry season, because in wet season they will be washed away by the violent water.

These seasonal bridges are considered capable of carrying people, animals and even locals on motorbikes. They consist of bamboo, and more bamboo. Extremely stable and reliable if you'd ask me. 

Sometimes the advise of a wise man is needed to do things you wouldn't do otherwise, and I think Dylan's 'don't think twice, it's alright' is most suitable in this case. Because if you would think twice and would actually be wise, you'd never take the risk. 

Well, we did it. And the bridge didn't collapse. I still think we had an angel on our shoulders. 

The locals on the other hand, were laughing at us and even taking pictures while we were crossing the bridge extremely careful and slow. I felt a bit stupid, but, I've already cracked through a bamboo surface twice this trip, and I certainly didn't want it to happen for a third time while standing 10 meters high above a river. Better safe then sorry!

Oh yes, we failed in finding the market. Apparently we took the wrong way... All this effort and all these risks for a market which isn't there. Yes yes, that's Asia!

It was a nice bicycle ride though, so no hard feelings on the non-existent market!

Our Sunday wasn't a lazy Sunday at all. We got up at 7.30 in the morning and had a huge breakfast. It was ziplining day! We went to a small village up in the mountain and had to do a short trek to climb to the top. Once we were there, our guide explained us all the ins and outs about ziplining. Our groups consisted of three English girls, a Korean family and us. We were all pretty excited about the ziplining tour down the mountain, except for the Korean mom. She looked horrified even before we actually started. It turned out to be an extremely funny tour!

The ziplining itself was great fun! And what made it even better, were all the facial expressions of the Korean lady. First of all, she was too short to be able to reach the platform after the lines. Luckily our tour guides, had a chair on each platform, so when she arrived, they quickly put the chair under her legs so she could stand up. Second, she was screaming all the time and murmuring things in Korean whenever she managed to survive another zipline.

Last of all, and most funny, was the end of the tour. The last platform, high up in a tree, didn't have a ladder or anything to get down. The only way was to kind of do a free fall, while the guides secured you. This free fall was extremely scary and a lot of fun! The Korean woman though, didn't want to do it. But there wasn't another option. So she did it. The rest of the group was already down and waited for her to come. She yelled to the guides: 'Slowly! Slowly! Please, please, slowly!!!' But of course, they didn't listen, hahaha! They let her drop down until she almost hit the ground, and then stopped her. Hahaha! She looked as if she was going to cry! Great fun!

The next day, we decided to go tubing. If you're in Vang Vieng, tubing is a must. It's tubing is famous all over the (backpackers) world.

A few years ago the tubing in Vang Vieng used to be different. There was a LOT of drinking involved, and also several slides and other fun stuff. But two years ago, after a few backpackers had drank themselves to death, the rules became more strict. Nowadays there's only a few bars along the river, and no more slides.

All this didn't make it less fun, and it turned out that we had picked the perfect day: St. Patricksday! 

The first bar we were at, was located at the place where we were dropped of. It was the start of the tubing place. The bar was some sort of Irish/Asian pub. There were small huts where you could sit and drink on the river and everything was coloured green. We did a beer there and wanted to go further, but then we suddenly needed to shotgun a beer with the crew there to celebrate St. Patricksday. I'm am probably the worst beer-shotgunner ever so I was already soaked before we even hit the water.

Then we started tubing. After about 20 meters we arrived at the next bar. Beers again. 

50 meters further we arrived at the third bar. It had a basketball field, a volleyball field, and a lot of mud. In our attempt to walk up the hill, we slipped in the mud and ended up with our ass on the ground, haha! There was a bunch of people standing there and waiting for this to happen, so we had a nice crowd that all saw us falling. Guess we were not the first ones haha!

Then I decided to play some volleyball with the people there. It was a fun game. No one was able to hit the ball properly but we all had fun in attempting!

As the day proceeded the party became better and better. I'll not give too many details but we had a lot of fun.

At seven in the evening, after the tubing we went crazy on the pancakes of an old lady on the street. We ate three of them and went to bed!

Then, we went to Luang Prabang. This is, I discovered, one of those few Asian cities I could live in. It's an awesome place! The atmosphere is very relaxed and, even though it's one of - if not THE - biggest cities in Laos, it's still a small town.

I stayed in Luang Prabang for a whole week, basically to just wait for my flight to Indonesia on the 28th and because I liked it there. We just chilled a lot, spent a fortune on the night market and on the amazing food in this town, watched a lot of movies in our private movie room and went to the famous waterfalls.

One of the highlights of my stay in Luang Prabang was definitely the live music on the river on our second (?) night there. The band was amazing and the atmosphere was great. They played a lot of good songs and we sang along with every single one of them.

Another highlight was our trip to the waterfalls. The waterfalls were one of the prettiest ones I've ever seen. There's one big one, at which you can climb to the top for an good view (I wasn't able to climb the steep trail because of my knee, but I heard it's amazingly beautiful up there). The rest of the waterfall consists of many small waterfalls and natural pools, in which you can swim. Of course we wanted to do this so we jumped in the water, but to my surprise it was one big Dr. Fish Spa in there. And those tiny fishes don't only eat your feet, they eat fucking everything! I totally freaked out, haha! Oh, not only because I'm a big coward, also because those shitty things were eating my knee. They loved it. A big feast. I didn't want to loose all the progress my knee had made so, moving as wild as possible to scare them away, I swam to the side and climbed out of the pool. Survived it!

After Luang Prabang I had a horror trip to Jakarta, one night bus, a night train and a very short night in Bangkok. I arrived in Jakarta yesterday evening and I'm going to investigate the city in the coming few days. On my first evening in Jakarta I've already sort of decided to skip the volunteering in Borneo and spend my last two months of travelling both in Indonesia. I love it here.

Today I am going to visit the family of my Indonesian aunt, Babs. They live near Jakarta. I'm excited to go there, and I have no idea what to expect. A new adventure!

'Selfie' on the back of an elephant

Mountainbiking in Vang Vieng, you cross some scary bridges!

Ziplining Vang Vieng

Waterfalls Luang Prabang

In the hostel, Luang Prabang

Motorbike accident and a slow recovery

This blog is mainly about my motorbike accident and the time I needed to recover. This is also the reason I was a bit lazy with writing my blog over the last few weeks. Simply because I didn't really do a lot of things, seeing as I wasn't able to do so.

Sunday the 16th of February, I arrived in Kampot. Kampot is one of those amazing places you love instantly. It's impossible not to like Kampot. And then my hostel, Bodhi Villa. It's amazing! It's like heaven on earth! The vibe is unique, the people are amazing, the view is wonderful and the food and drinks are incredible and cheap! The one and only downside of this place are the geckos, which of course also love to hang out at a cool place (in this case on the ceiling above the common area). And, you know, sometimes a gecko's gotta do what a gecko's gotta do. So our conversations were often interrupted by someone screaming because a gecko had shit on them again. Haha!

On Sunday I rented a motorbike and drove around the countryside. The view there is one of the prettiest views I have ever seen. The people were very amazed there was a foreigner there. "Ferang! Ferang!" they yelled when I passed by, which means "Foreigner! Foreigner!". When I took an afternoon break at a local countryside restaurant to drink a sugar palm juice, the lady gave me not only a drink, but also a plate of rice with chicken and green mango with chillisalt. When I wanted to pay for the food, she didn't accept it... She only wanted the 500 riel (12.5 eurocents) for the palm juice, nothing else. I found it strange but I also thought the people were extremely friendly seeing how these people give away things that they can't really miss. It's not as if they are rich, but still they want to give things away to make us feel welcome in their country. So sweet!

Well, my first day in Kampot was amazing! The same evening I met some cool people and we decided to all rent a motorbike and do a day trip to Kep, to the crabmarket and the beach the next day. I had heard really good stories about the crabmarket, and I found out they are all true! We ate loads of crab, prawns, fish and rice and only paid 4 US$ a person for this. And it tasted even better than you can ever imagine!

On the way back over the dusty national highway, which partly consists of gravel- and sandroad, I had a motorbike accident. I was lucky for driving very slow, but the impact was big. Fortunately, it could have been way worse.
What I remembered what happened:
I was driving on a dusty gravel road at when it happened. A few seconds earlier a truck had passed by so it was extremely dusty and the dust was stinging in my eyes. It was difficult to see properly so I slowed down a little. Then, at the time a tuktuk was just passing me by on my left side, I suddenly saw someone standing still right in front of me. I couldn't go left, I couldn't go right and I didn't want to hit the person in front of me. So I hit the breaks as hard as I could. Of course I slipped away because of all the gravel and the next moment I was on the ground. At first, I felt quite okay, so I quickly got up and said: "I'm okay guys!! Nothing wrong!". And then I took one look at my knee and lost consciousness. It looked horrible. A combination of blood and flesh and sand and gravel all in one big hole in my knee. Altea dragged me to the nearest chair at a local family's house and I sat down. What I remember mainly was Tim trying to clean my knee a little, the incredible thirst I suddenly had and only seeing white spots instead of a normal vision.

The local family unfortunately didn't speak any English and didn't have a car so they couldn't really help. After what seemed to have been ages, someone finally pulled a car over and yelled "Hospital!" to them.

After a short ride, we arrived at the hospital. Tim had come with me. We figured that would be easiest because he is also Dutch so we could help each other to translate what had just happened. I guess luck wasn't on my side that day, because the doctor only spoke French! And not even proper French, it was broken French with a strong Cambodian accent in it. Tim didn't speak any French, and I only speak it a little bit. That made things very difficult. Whilst the doctor was cleaning my knee, which hurt like hell, he wanted to talk about what had happened, my medical history and about various illnesses and if I had had the right injections. I don't know how many times I told him "Parlez lentement, s-il vous plait" and "voulez vous répéter, s-il vous plait", but this didn't really help.
Well, after I asked him for some anesthetics (It seemed like he wanted to put the stitches in without any anesthetics) he stitched up my knee. It still doesn't look very pretty, but that's okay. I was happy they at least used sterilized materials (or at least everything looked quite clean and they definitely used a clean needle, I checked that) and were able to help me.

We came back to the hostel and I haven't been out of that place much for the rest of the week.

The next night, I went out with the rest of the group to go to the Rusty Keyhole for their amazing spare ribs. Yes, there was nothing wrong with my appetite. The day that followed they all left and I had planned to leave as well, but that was not an option now. I had to change to another room because mine was already booked, but the treehouse bungalow was still available. I wasn't able to climb the stairs to that bungalow so the hostel told me to wait for this guy named Dave. He would arrive later that day, and maybe he wanted to change bungalows with me. Well, I didn't really have anything better to do because I couldn't go out, so I decided to just sit and wait.

After a few hours a guy came in. He was covered in blood. Guess what?! It was Dave. Dave just had a motorbike accident as well! It was actually quite funny, and useful. Because we were both not really able to go out or do something, we hung out at the lounge area together all week. His legs were working fine, my arms were still ok. So we helped each other out with a lot of things. He went to the bar to order food, I buttoned his shirt. He bandaged my toe, I bandaged his elbow. And luckily for me, he took the treehut bungalow! He looked really funny while climbing up and down the ladder, without being able to hold the rails, but at least he could do it!

The next day, Dave and I went to the hospital together to get our wounds cleaned and to take X-rays. Turned out everything was ok and we both just had to give it some time. We would be fine!
Thanks for being my co-patient Dave!

After our trip to the hospital I decided I would follow the doctors advice and take it easy. I killed a lot of time on the couch with a good book. First in Kampot, then in Phnom Penh and from then on I exchanged the couch for a hammock in Kratie, in Laos, 4000 islands and in Don Det. 

I actually didn't do a lot. In Kratie the most exciting thing was the trip to the freshwater Mekong Dolphins. There are only about 170 of these dolphins left in the whole world, and 55 of them live near Kratie. We went there by tuktuk and then on a small boat and we saw so many dolphins! They came quite close to our boat, which was cool because we could really see their faces! After that I realized the trip was a little bit too much for my knee because it gutted again, and I went back into the hammock.

In Don Det I didn't do a lot either the first few days. I hung out a lot with Larissa, Bird and Katja, my two friends from Deventer and a German girl I met in Kampot. Exactly two weeks after the accident I decided that I had healed enough to at least go tubing in the river. Bad decision. The wound hurt again afterwards. But during the tubing we had a lot of fun so I guess it was worth it haha.

After one more day of recovery we all went kayaking! It was a really nice trip including breakfast and a barbecue lunch. We went to see two different waterfalls, we saw some Irrawaddy Dolphins and we did a lot of kayaking. An excellent workout after such a long time of doing nothing!

The next day, Larissa and Bird left and Katja got sick so me and Katja decided to stay a little longer. We both had a recovery day that day. It didn't turn out to be one recovery day as Katja was still sick the next day and I had already given up the hope for my knee to heal soon. The next day I went tubing with Brett, a Canadian guy. We took it really slow and had a really nice relaxing day on the water. Anddd I got a really nice tan!

The next day Katja was feeling slightly better so we decided to take the bus to Tadlo, a small village slightly north from Pakse. We arrived when the sun was already down so we had a nice dinner and went to sleep.

The next day, we did a short hike to the waterfalls, which is actually the only real thing there is to do in Tadlo. We decided to rent an elephant to make a ride along the river and to a local village! It was a really nice experience. Our elephant driver was such a sweet guy and he really cared for the elephant. That was good to see. After the ride we got invited by some Lao girls to join them for a beer and of course we couldn't resist! The girls were all soldiers from Pakse, a big city about 100 kilometers south of Tadlo. The girls had a day off and decided to go swimming, picnicking and relaxing at the waterfalls.

This is our second day in Tadlo now and we are planning to proceed our long trip to Luang Prabang tomorrow with a stopover in Thakhek. The journey from south to northern Lao takes a total of about 36 hours by bus, so we will have to take some breaks on the way.

My knee is pretty good at the moment. The feeling at the place of my wound is gone, so I guess I hit some nerves with the crash, but the movement in my leg is great. I can already bend it as far as I want to, even though it still feels unnatural. The wound is almost healed now. It is three weeks after the accident now and I think it will not take much longer for the final scraps to come off. It will be an ugly scar, but I was lucky it didn't get infected. I don't think the hole will ever go away, so no future career as a model for me haha.

From now on I consider myself as recovered. And I promise; no more motorbikes for me on this trip!

Yes, that's the cause of all problems

Crabmarket, Kep

Enjoying an awesome lunch!

Road to the secret lake, Kampot

Sonja Kill, probably the worst hospital name ever...

Tubing Don Det

Sunset from my balcony, Don Det

Cambodia

On the last day of January, during breakfast, my mother arrived. One hour later, Bibi left.

The next day, me and my mom flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

My mom had planned two weeks in Cambodia (I stayed a little longer) so I let her decide our destinations. We ended up going to Siem Reap, Battambang, Koh Rong Samloem, Kampot and Phnom Penh. 

In Siem Reap, we went to Angkor Wat. When you literally translate Angkor Wat, it means City of Temples. It is the world's largest religious monument and it was built in the early 12th century. I really wonder how they built such a huge thing so long ago. It's enormous! 

Since I've been to both Bagan and Angkor Wat within a weeks time, I can easily compare them, and there are a lot of differences.

Bagan is a big area with mostly small temples, while the Angkor Wat area (Angkor Wat is just the main temple, there are more temples around it) has, I think, less temples, but they are way bigger. In my opinion, the tempels themselves were more beautiful in Angkor Wat, but I prefer Bagan when it comes to the surroundings and the total view. 

What I didn't like about Angkor Wat were all the tourists, especially the big groups of Chinese tourists (it was Chinese New Year when we were there). There were just too many tourists. It was annoying. I couldn't take a photo without tourists in it. In Bagan that was an easy task.

So overall, I prefer Bagan. Nevertheless, Angkor Wat is very beautiful and very special as well! Especially the Tomb Raider temple with all the trees and the temple with all the faces!

There is a 'floating village' in Siem Reap which we visited, named Kompong Pluk. The village is actually not floating, but it's very special because all the houses in the village are built on piles. They're about 10 metres above the ground. And the locals are sooo nice to look at! I probably shouldn't say this, but it's like you're in a zoo. You watch them from the boat whilst they're playing in the water, sitting on the boats, fishing, and smiling. Everyone was smiling! It's like you're in some kind of movie from a very long time ago. It was a wonderful view! 

In Battambang, a small city, we went on a tuktuk tour. Our driver and guide, Tintin, was said to be the best in town. He showed us around and had a story to tell about every small thing we saw during our trip. If he wouldn't have told us about these things, I am sure I wouldn't have noticed any of it. The most impressive part was when he showed us the Battambang killing fields. 

The Pol Pot regime (1975 - 1978) hangs over Cambodia like a dark cloud. Pol Pot made an army, called the Khmer Rouge. Khmer is what the Cambodians call themselves. The Khmer Rouge was an army that consisted of Cambodian people, forced to do this work. The people who got offered this job, had to make a choice, join the Khmer Rouge or die, probably from severe torture, and they would probably kill their families as well. 

Cambodian people were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work in the fields. Many people died from starvation because they had to work almost 24/7. The 'educated' people were mostly killed straight away or were first tortured and then killed, or died from the severe injuries the tortures caused. When I say 'educated', I don't really mean educated. You were seen as educated when you, for example, wore glasses, could count to ten, were from a rich family and so on. So what happened is that almost 1/4th of the whole population in Cambodia died. Either they got killed, or they died from starvation. This regime was so incredibly cruel. They separated families by separating men and women, including children from eight years and older. These kids got separated from their parents. The people only got a minimal amount of food every day, by far not enough to survive on. It is very seldom you see a Cambodian person that is older than 40 years old. They all died. It's terrible, and it happened such a short time ago. Also, I have to admit, I really didn't know all of this happened here. I knew the name Pol Pot, but that's all. 

So Tintin took us to the killing fields. Tintin is one of those men who is older than 40. He was there when it happened. He told us he was 8 years old when the Khmer Rouge arrived in his hometown. He had to work on the field. He lost his whole family. 

As we were walking around the monument dedicated to the people who died, he told us intriguing stories. The monument by the way, consists of four walls with big windows in it, and inside it's full of skulls of people they found under the ground at this killing field... Tintin told us his younger sister died from starvation. He was already separated from his family by then, but his sister could stay with his mom because she was so young. When she died, his mother was already so weak she wasn't able to dig a deep hole to bury her, so she buried her very shallow. Not deep enough, because 'the white animals ate her' he said. With the white animals he means maggots. It's so gross and such a terrible way to loose a member of your family! You could really see the pain in his eyes while he told us this. For the rest of his family, he know they were taken away and he has never seen them again. He was so emotional... 

While he was telling us this story at the monument, a whole bunch of people gathered around us to listen to him. It made a huge impression on me to hear these things first-hand.

After Battambang we went on a long trip to Koh Rong Samloem. We had to take a bus to Phnom Penh, then to Sihanoukville and the next morning we went to Koh Rong Samloem. Koh Rong Samloem is one of the most beautiful islands I've ever seen in my life. I've heard - I don't know for sure - that this beach is the number 16 on the world's most beautiful beaches ranking list. I would believe it straight away! It was wonderful! To be honest, I didn't do anything at all during the three days we spent there. I read 4 books, did some sunbathing and ate a lot of food - probably way more than I should have haha - and that's about it. We had a lovely time!

After this lovely little trip we went to Kampot. Kampot is known for their famous Kampot pepper. So we went to the pepper plantation. It was a bit of a disappointment. Yes, there was a pepper plantation. But that's all there was. Just pepper trees and pepper shops haha. Fortunately the drive to the plantation was nice! We went by tuktuk, over all the dusty sandy roads (I joined the facemask club!) and saw all the rice fields, locals, cows and happy children. I think we didn't spend enough time in Kampot, so I just booked a ticket back there for tomorrow. I can't wait!

After Kampot we went to Phnom Penh, the place my mother was departing from the next day to fly home. We went to the killing fields and the S21 genocide museum. I saw things I honestly didn't want to see. For example the killing tree, which stood in the middle of the killing fields. It was used to smash babies and little kids to death in front of their mothers' eyes. So cruel. There was a sign on the tree which said that when the tree was discovered, there were still some parts of brains and skull-fragments on the tree. Next to the tree was a mass-graveyard for all the mothers and their babies. The whole killing area is actually a mass graveyard. People were killed on the spot and thrown into big holes in the ground. About 10.000 people were killed there. In total, counting all the Cambodian killing fields, at least 1.386.734 people were killed.

The S21 museum is a former school which was made into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. Since education was prohibited, there was no use to keep the schools. The S21 museum is one of the many schools that turned into prisons during that time.

The most of the people who got imprisoned in S21 didn't get out alive. They were repeatedly tortured and forced into naming family members and close relatives, who then were arrested, tortured and killed. Most of the victims were former soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc.

Upon arrival a photo of their face was taken, and in the museum you can still see many of these photos. The people look scared, but not scared to death. You can see they were clueless about what was going to happen to them.

They were severely tortured. The goal of this was to make them confess crimes they didn't commit. Prisoners were often beaten and tortured with electric shocks, hot metal instruments and were hung. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated in plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners’ heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique. Females were sometimes raped by the interrogators. Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions. Medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. Inmates were sliced open and had organs removed with no anaesthetic. Others were attached to intravenous pumps and every drop of blood was drained from their bodies to see how long they could survive. The most difficult prisoners were skinned alive.

Out of an estimated 17,000 people imprisoned at S21, there were only twelve known survivors.

The whole Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge experience made a deep impact on me. But for now I've seen enough terrible things. I'm still staying in Cambodia for a while and from now on I'm just going to enjoy the lovely people and all the other beautiful things this country has to offer!

My mother and I said goodbye to each other and I'm travelling alone again from now on. After another week (I might stay longer) in Cambodia I'm planning on going to Laos. Sorry for letting you read all these horrible things, but I want people to know about what happened, seeing as most people don't. Thanks for reading again! 

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Flooded forest

Koh Rong Samloem

Facemask!

Killing Fields Phnom Penh

Faces of people at S21

Burma/Myanmar

First of all: the name of this country, is it Burma or Myanmar?
In my blog I'll use the name Burma because I read an interview with Aung San Suu Kyi in Lonely Planet, and according to her Myanmar is a name which is chosen by the government, the people didn't have any say in this. This is why she prefers the name Burma. And since Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the most respected persons in Burma, I'll do as she says.

About four years ago I read a book called 'De Onzichtbaren' by Karel Glastra van Loon (the Invisibles, a Dutch book). I read it because I had to, for school. But the book made a big impression on me. I became kind of fascinated by this country, and the people who live here. So many things have happened here, so many big things which were only small news items in the Netherlands. Most of the violence has stopped by now, and the Burmese government decided to open their borders for tourists a few years ago.

You can imagine I was thrilled when we arrived in Yangon. Finally I got to visit this mysterious country! And I don't regret visiting at all! Burma is wonderful. The temples are breathtakingly beautiful and the Burmese people are the nicest people ever! They're just so extremely friendly I've been starting to wonder how that's even possible. They seem to have dealt with their past and are totally willing to build up a present which is better for everyone. They all work together, and they try to help each other whenever they can.
They're also very kind and helpful to tourists! And sooo interested as well, haha. Their English is quite good, not perfect but they're trying. They all ask questions and try to improve their language skills whenever possible.

On our first full day in Yangon we realised tourism is still only happening on a small scale here in Burma. We could easily count all the tourists we saw on that day with a total of eleven. And we didn't at all stay in the Burmese neighborhoods, we went to the biggest touristic attraction of the city, the Shwedagon Pagoda. This is the biggest pagoda of Burma. It's fully covered in gold and the top of it is actual gold. It weighs about 500 kilograms. This pagoda was so shiny and the reflections of the sun were so extreme it hurt my eyes a little. Burmese people must be crazy about gold! To me, it was a little bit too much, but still definitely worth a visit. It is beautiful. Also, I loved the view of all the locals praying to Buddha together. The Shwedagon Pagoda and the area around it, is considered the most holy site of Burma.

Shwedagon Pagoda

Ladies praying to Buddha

On our second day in Yangon we did something totally different. We went on the 'one dollar circuit train'. This train, which rides in a circle around Yangon, is mostly used by locals to transport their goods. You can easily hop on in Yangons city centre and hop off at the same station exactly three hours later (we thought it had a delay because the train stopped moving for a long time somewhere in the middle of nowhere on a field, but apparently that's normal since we arrived in time).
One thing we loved about the train ride, were the views. You start in the centre of the city, and the train takes you through the suburbs to the countryside and back. We thought it was very cool to 'go local' and sit in this big, open, two bench cabin. The benches stand opposite from each other, and between them is an area the locals use to store their goods. They transport oranges, flowers, tobacco, bananas and big plastic bags (I think they contain rice but I couldn't look inside). All the people are hopping on and off the train, even whilst it's still moving. One woman even fell out of the train. We heard a big 'boom' and all the people started looking through the open windows. Guess it

happens more often as the train didn't stop.

 

View from train, market at trainstation

After a while two of the cutest kids ever stepped into the train. They must've been about four years old. At first, they were staring at us, a little bit scared. We really do look strange, don't we? After a while the kids must have realized we weren't going to hurt them, and they came over. We gave them an orange and that really broke the ice. I think we played with them for about two hours. A nice experience!

That evening, we took the overnight bus to Bagan. We expected the worst, but were positively surprised when we stepped into the bus. We had big luxurious seats, we got free foods and drinks, and they even had karaoke... with... George Baker's awesome song Una Paloma Blanca! Yes, a Dutch song in an overnight bus in Burma! How nice! We really had a good time in that bus!
Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell we had met an Australian guy on the airport in Yangon. His name is Lionel. Me, Bibi and Lionel shared a room in Yangon and decided to meet again in Bagan. He went to Bagan one day earlier.

When we met up again in Bagan, he told us about his awesome first day there. He had planned to go to the big temple area there when his bicycle got a flat-tire. Two locals on motorbikes saw him struggling with his bike and decided to help him. One took him on the motorbike, the other took his bicycle. They took him to their house and helped him repair his bike. While he was waiting, the women offered him as much food as he could eat. He took many photos of the house, since it was not a regular house. These people live on a market and when the market closes, they put all their goods in big bags and transform the market stall into a house where literally the whole family lives. Grandma, grandpa, sons, daughters, all the in-laws and all the little kids. They sleep on bamboo mattresses. Lionel decided to get his photos developed and bring them to the people as a present and to thank them for their help. The family was very happy with this present! They've never had any printed family photos because their money is better spent elsewhere.

The next day, our first 'active' day in Bagan, Lionel took us on a small tour through Bagan. First we went to the Shwesandaw Pagoda. This is not the highest one but it's definitely the one with the best view!
After the pagoda, Lionel took us to the market where his new local friends lived. We got invited in and talked a lot with them by using body-language. They brought us special local pancakes filled with beans and they made us some corn. After filling our stomachs, we talked a little more. We asked them what this thing is that all the ladies wear on their face. It looks a little bit like a mud mask, but they walk around with it all day. They told us it was special Burmese make-up. One of the men picked up a plate and a special piece of wood. Then, he started putting water on the plate and rubbing the wood against it. To our surprise, a strange, grey looking substance appeared. The lady put it on our face and after a while it became solid. Now we really looked like locals! All the ladies yelled 'oooh beautiful!!!'.

After the make-up ritual, we played football with the local kids. They play with a bamboo ball on bare feet. Yes, that hurts like hell. But it was nice to play with them. After the football we played some feet-friendly badminton. That was a lot of fun!



Bibi playing badminton with a local kid



We ended our local experience with a cup of Burmese tea (extremely strong black tea with vanilla cream in it). We said goodbye to the family and to Lionel, who was going back to Yangon that evening, and went to the temples to see the sunset.

When we discovered you had to pay a 15 US$ fee to watch the sunset from the big temple, we decided to find our own temple instead. After a short walk we found one. One problem, the stairs were inside. It was so dark in there you couldn't even see the stairs. But brave as we were, we decided to go into the dark hole anyway. We used the flashlight of our phones and managed to reach the top. And, I must say, it was totally worth it! An awesome sunset in Bagan with a 4000 temples view - on a private temple! Wow!

On our way back, after the sun set, we accidentally bumped into something which looked like a massive graveyard... We saw a lot of skulls and bones, and it was already getting dark. Very scary! We were a little bit freaked out so we were glad to finally find our bicycles. We hurried back to our guesthouse.

The next morning, we checked out at the guesthouse because we decided to sleep in one of the temples at Bagan. We figured this might be our one and only chance to ever do this, even if we would ever come back, it wouldn't be the same. I'm afraid the tourism will have increased so much, that maybe in five to ten years this place will turn into a copy of Angkor Wat, where big buses full of tourists arrive every other minute. The nice and quiet atmosphere will be gone by then, and of course, the security will increase. Ok, so we wanted to sleep in the temple. First we had to find one. We took a horse carriage to the temple area and started our search. We wanted to find a temple where no one would be able to find us, because we didn't know whether it was illegal or not to sleep there.

We walked through the fields for about an hour and finally found something suitable. A small temple, right in the middle of two villages, but the distance was just big enough so they wouldn't be able to hear or see us. The sun was already going down so we were just in time. Unfortunately, we saw the door of the temple had a lock on it. It wasn't locked, but we figured there might be a small chance someone would lock all the temple doors at night. If this would happen, we would be most likely to get locked up inside. Not the best thing that could happen... So, we decided to sleep next to the temple. No roof, no walls, only the stars above us and the nature around us. We made ourselves comfortable and waited for bedtime. During this wait, we talked a little and listened to the surrounding sounds. The village people singing songs, the birds getting ready for the night, the howling dogs, some distant motorbike sounds... It was a lovely experience, and though we were extra alerted by every sound we heard, we had quite a good sleep. Luckily we didn't get haunted by the dead people from the graveyard the other day, and no living humans nor animals showed itself during the night.

At four in the morning we were woken up by the slowly rising sun. It was the best sunrise I've ever seen (I have to admit I haven't seen that many sunrises in my life since I'm waaay to lazy to get up that early, but still...). We enjoyed the beauty of the sky, with all the temple-tops and hot-air balloons flying above in the sky. Wow! It was magical!



Sleeping at temple: before



 

Sleeping at temple: after

During the following day we rented E-bikes, you know, the electronic motorbikes, yes, those granny things. Haha! We drove to the river and rented a private boat for four hours. It was only 22 dollars and we had an awesome big boat with free food and tea! We did some relaxing in the sun, went to some more temples, and watched the sunset. We drove back to our hotel and fell asleep straight away as we were exhausted..

We got up early the next day to catch the 7 am bus to Mandalay. We had a big delay and didn't really do much that day.
The next day, I have to admit, we didn't do much either. We went to a really nice bar, had lunch, beers, dinner and cocktails there. We read a little and I wrote on my blog. Guess we were a little bit temple-tired.

On our last day in Mandalay we wanted to go to the Amarapura U-Bein Bridge. But then we got ourselves a food poisoning. So we ended up spending the evening and the whole night in the toilet. Yes... Very nice...
I don't know how we survived the flight to Bangkok the next day, but somehow, we made it.

After one night in Bangkok me and Bibi said goodbye and my mom arrived.

Next destination: Cambodia with my mom!



Wonderful sunrise after our night at the temple