Bokor National Park- corruption and destruction in Cambodia

Bokor National Park must once have been one of the most beautiful spots in Cambodia- a 1500 sq km park famous for lush, primary rainforest and an abandoned French hill station perched upon it's 1100m peak, with views sweeping the coast all the way to Phu Quoc island in Vietnamese waters. 

These days, instead of stunning vistas of unspoiled rainforest and the atmospheric remains of the 1920's French settlement, you get to see the kind of pockets-lining, zero-planning development evident wherever a corrupt government holds power.

 

Behind this eye-watering development is Sokimex, the ultra-connected petrochemical company which also has holds the ticket concessions at Angkor Wat. The Cambodian government awarded the group some 14,000 hectares of National Park land to build a casino, hotel complex and luxury housing estate. Not surprisingly, Sokimex owner Sok Kong is also (gasp!) a senator in the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

 

As if the widespread destruction of one of Cambodia's most important ecological areas isn't bad enough, it seems there aren't even any tourists to allow money from this pitiful enterprise to make its way back to the local community. The 650 room hotel, casino and dining hall for hundreds of people all stand eerily empty; the luxury housing estate is destined to become a sometimes occupied ghost town of second homes for the tiny Cambodian elite.

Aside from the firm that was contracted out to cover the mountain top in concrete (probably also Sokimex owned), it doesn't look like anyone is really going to gain from this astonishingly short-sighted project.

We had been really looking forward to visiting Bokor, having read in a 2007 Lonely Planet about the lush forest and myriad endangered animal species to be found there. I hope the updated edition advises people to avoid the "national park" entirely.  It was probably the most depressing thing we've seen since leaving Australia (and considering the day before we had visited the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, that's really saying something). 

The other awesome thing about traveling...

It occurred to me the other day that I must have trawled my way through quite a lot of books since leaving Australia. Since I have an e-reader it's pretty easy to keep track of just what you're read and after a quick glance at the Amazon accout (and, ahem, download list), it turns out that I've come in at somewhere over 100 in the last 20 odd months. 

So...what are some of the ones that have stuck with me? In no particular order....

1. Into Thin Air and Under the Banners of Heaven (Jon Krakauer)- journo who writes gripping non-fiction on a disastrous attempt on Mt Everest (1) and the growth of the Mormon sect in the US (2)

2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- quite a crazy story about the impoverished black women who was unwittingly the source of the first human cell line

3. The Blind Assassin & the Year of the Flood- Margaret Atwood- two beautifully written and very visual novels- i think she was Booker nominated...it's not hard to see she is also a poet.

4. Likewise- anything and everything by Pat Conroy- granted the man has a bit of obsession with southern USA but he paints beautiful, vivid images of the Carolinas with his stories (Prince of Tides & Beach Music were probably my favourites)

5. Game of Thrones- I mocked Martijn for his love of elves-and-gremlins, fantasy novels...and then I read the first of George R Martin's books and promptly chewed my way through the next four in one concerted effort. If only the damn man would hurry up and finish parts 6 and 7!!!!

6. Les Miserables- stayed with me for all the wrong reasons. Urghh...how did anyone ever get through this?? I really wanted to find out if Jean Valjean and Cosette would ever find happiness....but then Victor Hugo got in the fucking way. Sorry Victor, you are not for me.

7. River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon- awesome account of the one of the craziest feats of exploration. Best read when you're huddled under your mosquito net in the jungle!!

8. Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest  (Wade Davis)- I love these tales of derring-do from back in the day when there was still uncharted territory to explore. The story of Mallory and the earliest attempts on Everest are nicely placed in the historic context of Britain between the world wars. 

9. Inside Scientology (Janet Reitman)- do you already think Scientologists are fruit-loops?? Read this- the truth is much, much weirder than your imagination is capable of believing.

10. Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed: admittedly, this book gave us both a chance to feel good about the amount of booze we ingest. Makes Justin Bieber look like a fucking choir boy (I mean ever more of a fucking choir boy). There are numerous jaw-dropping anecdotes in this book but Oliver Reed downing 126 pints in a single 24 hour session is definitely up there with the best (worst?!?). 

Ahhh, and so many more. The Kindle is by far the most loved item in my backpack. If anyone has any recommendations to see me through the next six months, let me know!!

The Rum Diaries Part XLVI

Happy birthday Martijn!!! We've been trying to tighten our belts a little over the last month or two, in an effort to stretch our funds through the Melbourne winter, but hey, a birthday is a birthday and it seemed like a good excuse to buy a bottle of insanely strong rum. 

St James Rhum Agricole is produced on the French-Caribbean island of Martinique and comes in at a whopping 45%, which at least meant we couldn't do our usual trick and down the bottle in a night or two. 

Rhum Agricole is the French term for rum that derives from freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, as opposed to the usual base of molasses. Most of the rum produced on Martinque is distilled to 70% and then watered down to around 45-55%- rather eye-watering after the comparatively mellow 35% of some Latin American rum!!

The alcohol content means the rum is slightly rough neat- even Martijn has consented to an ice cube with this one, and I need a healthy dash of soda not to turn into a gibbering mess after one glass. In other words, we like it :)

Si Phan Don- 4000 islands, 3000 beers, 2000 papaya salads and one awesome Lao family

We're coming up to ten days here in Don Det and by now we've really got this relaxing thing down to a fine art. It helps that our guesthouse is one of the nicest, friendliest and most beautiful places we've stayed since leaving South America. 

It also helps to have three like-minded, trouble-making, Scrabble-playing, beer drinking companions with us to while away the hours!

Our day begins with coffee and breakfast, prepared by the 17 year old daughter of our hosts, Pradthana. She's an awesome cook, speaks amazingly good English for someone who's only had one month of actual instruction and unlike teenagers at home, is a sociable, sweet and giggly girl who never seems to get sick of feeding falang endless papaya salads and shakshuka breakfasts. 

Her parents are also very sweet- her mother never tires of Beer Lao-falang-ting-tong jokes and giving us fruit from their garden. Most afternoons we get a visit from the cute nieces and nephews from next door too. 

 

After breakfast it's time for a bit of hammock action or maybe a game of Scrabble. Before you know it lunchtime rolls around- occasionally we rouse ourselves to get to another restaurant, some days we just force Padthana back into the kitchen. After lunch it's time for...you guessed it, more time in the hammock. And then suddenly it's 5 o'clock, the sun is setting over the Mekong and it's time for the ritual sundowner Beer Lao, followed by more food. Phew. It's hard work. 

Despite this punishing schedule, we have actually managed to squeeze some proper activity into the last ten days. One day we rented bicycles and cycled over to the neighbouring island of Don Khon to check out the Li Phi Falls. 

 

Another day we organised for a local guy to take us out on his boat fishing, followed by a BBQ on the beach. Louie had won the lottery just the day before (10.6 million kip, or about AUD$1600, more than a years salary for him) so he was suitably chuffed and on his way to getting drunk when we met up with him that afternoon. Unfortunately the glee of lottery winning meant he had failed to do any real preparation for our BBQ and dinner consisted of two fish between five of us. 

 

Luckily we came prepared with a bottle of Thai rum and some fresh coconuts. Coco loco's filled the spot where food should have gone and we were happy. 

  

 The only problem with all this is that it's going to be mighty hard to leave. We're pretty happy in our little bubble and although we have tentative plans to head to Cambodia on the eleventh of February, I can easily see us putting the whole thing off until our visa expires on the fifteenth. 

Anyway, lunch time has rolled around again and I'm feeling energetic today so I think we'll stroll up to the next restaurant and have (surprise) papaya salad, sticky rice and perhaps some chicken with basil and chili...then it's just a few short hours til Beer Lao Hour. Sabaidee!!

Vientiane: hating, then loving, then leaving the Laos capital...all in 48 hours

We arrived in Vientiane with hangovers that had started badly in Thailand and got progressively worse as we hoofed it across the border into Laos. By the time we got to Vientiane we were hot, grumpy and severely dehydrated. Considering we'd drunk the best part of a litre of Sang Som the night before, this wasn't entirely unexpected but we weren't in the mood for self-chastisement and instead turned our fury towards the lazy capital of Laos. 

We hated Vientiane so much on arrival that we planned to leave immediately the next morning. It was only once we'd ingested some much-needed lunch, a much-needed Beer Lao and actually explored the city beyond the stinking bus terminal that we moderated our views and decided that Vientiane was perhaps worth 24 hours of our time before we got all narky. 

By the time evening rolled around, we'd watched the sunset over the mighty Mekong, eaten some seriously awesome barbecued fish and drunk another Beer Lao or two. And we were sold. Suddenly we loved Vientiane. 

As far as south-east Asian capitals go it is laid back to the point of coma (it has a population of just 750,000 versus 7 million in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh). It's pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and seems to have undergone some fairly intensive beautification projects over the last 5 years, adding heaps of green, public spaces and choice sun-downer spots along the promenade. 

 

Granted, there's not really that much to do. We rented bikes on our second, non-hungover and more open-minded day and basically saw everything we wanted to see in about 3 hours. But that waterfront park is pretty damn nice, so sorry Vientiane, for taking my hideous hangover out on you. 

The Rum Diaries Part XLV

Wow. Fifty-five (sorry, forty-five...still haven't gotten my roman numerals down) bottles of rum. Even without counting all the repeats that's not a bad attempt over the last 20 months. I really didn't expect to be adding any more to this rather impressive list until we hit a duty free shop somewhere on our flight back to Australia...but then we found Sang Som! 

Who knew the Thai's made rum?? Not us, that's for sure. We were skeptical about the use of the word 'rum' (having tried Lao 'whiskey') so we did a bit of googling and found out that it is in fact made from sugarcane and has even won a couple of awards. 

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the last spirits we drank were lao-lao and Mongolian vodka, but Sang Som tasted pretty damn fine. I don't think the Cubans are looking over their shoulders just yet, but I can see many Sang Som coco-locos in our South-East Asian future.

Wat in the World

A wat is a sacred Buddhist precinct encompassing the actual temple and the monks living quarters, usually surrounded by beautifully tended gardens studded with stupa, statues and icons from Buddhist texts. 

 

Between the Laos city of Luang Prabang and Thailand's Chiang Mai, there are more than 400 individual wats. Some of them are magnificently restored, some are crumbling ruins. A few seem completely abandoned but most are active monasteries where saffron-clad monks stroll the grounds between lessons. 

If I was going to suddenly find religion, I think I'd go with Buddhism, simply because of the architectural beauty of their temples. While tourists in Florence or Rome complain of 'not-another-bloody-church' syndrome, I don't think I'll ever get tired of admiring the sumptuous gold-leaf exteriors, tiered rooftops and perfumed gardens of Buddhist wats. 

 

While Luang Prabang had some of the most ornate and exquisite wats I have seen, I think Chiang Mai wins the day for the sheer number of temples contained within the old city. For every main attraction flocked with tourists, there are 10 tiny wats where you can explore at leisure. 

 

And unlike the often gruesome images found inside Catholic churches, Buddhist wats are replete with dragon and elephant motifs, mosaics depicting local life and stenciled figures that would not look out of place on a hip Melbourne laneway. 

 

So while Martijn spends the next few days in Muay Thai training sessions, you can find me in my new favourite wat in Chiang Mai, where they have turtles in their beautifully tended pond, and a tiny cafe serving iced coffee. It's the kind of religious experience I could get used to.