Monkey Travels

Our last destination was to my favourite city-Hong Kong! A brief visit of just 5 days (its all we could afford) to visit my non biological brother, Nick, and go SHOPPING! First evening we watch the light show from the habour:

We managed to squeeze in a couple of day trips- one to Disneyland. This is us about to go into the 3D cinema at Disney with Nick and his wife Connie.

And a day in Macau, which has the tallest bungee jump in the world at the Macau tower. We didnt actually do it- mostly cos we were too scared and also cos we blew our money at Sands casino. So instead we walked around the colonial district built by the Portugese.

Phil, Nick and me having our photo taken at a shopping mall, and Phil eating a very tiny burger-this is why the chinese are so small!

Our last night in Hong Kong we take a trip up to the peak to see the lights of the city again. As its our last meal of the year we decide to splash out at one of the hugely overpriced restaurants up the Peak; Phil (not me!) choses to eat at “Bubba Gump’s” - a Forest Gump themed restaurant, with great views over the city.

And after a 12hr flight we are now home in bloody freezing England. So if anyone is reading this thanks for following our monkeytravels blog and I hope you have a vrey merry Christmas!!! (apologies for not sending any christmas cards out this year)

We had a spare 10 days before our flight to Hong Kong so we thought we would pop across to the Military Dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma).

Here we visited Mandalay where the Moustache brothers live (see above), 2 of the 3 have spent time in prisons for telling political jokes. At the moment they are only allowed to perform in their own house on a little packing crate stage.

Next we took a boat on the Ayeyarwady to Bagan and tested to the limit our asian temple fatigue by visiting some of the 10,000+ stupas, temples, wats etc. there.

Finaly we ended up in Yangon (Rangoon), the name change is part of the plan to remove all traces of the British ever being here. In another effort to achieve this goal they also moved to driving on the right instead of the left like Britian, however they still haven’t got round to replacing the right hand drive cars with left hand drive ones. Consiquently overtaking is all done blind! Our bus driver on the 15 hour journey to Yangon seemed to judge if it was safe to overtake by pulling out into the middle of the road and seeing if the passengers screamed or not…

We have visitors! Dave and Steff not only flew all the way from England to say hello, but also booked us into a very plush 4 star hotel (at discount price!) for five days in Bangkok. It was a hectic 5 days, during which we managed to pack in all the sites,as well as eat lots, drink lots, shop lots, be entertained by the Thai ladies, and even celebrate a very important birthday.

Shopping frenzy at Suan Lum night bazaar drives Dave and Phil crazy:

The boys enojoy a beer along the river, and Thai boxking match where we saw only 2 boxers taken away on strechers:

Happy Birthday King of Thailand! i hope he likes our honoury yellow t-shirts:

This was actually quite a while ago now but we have been very busy and maybe a bit slack at the whole blogging lark…so here’s a few pictures from Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Phil in front of Angkor Wat-largest religious monument in the world!

Monks enjoying the temples too, and me in Ta Prohm - sadly its much more famously known as the site that the Tomb Raider movie was filmed…

The temples at Angkor are spread out over some 40 miles around the village of Siem Reap, and so the only way to get around is by bicycle (too much effort), private air con car (boring and expensive) or tuk-tuk carriage, which was great fun especially with our lovely driver/guide, Te-Ah.

On our last day here, feeling a little more energetic, we decided to try out the elctric bikes… And we also popped in to the mine museum, run by Mr. Aki Ra, a former child soldier for the Khmer Rouge who spent much of his childhood planting the mines that he now dedicates his time trying to remove.

Yesterday after travelling via bus for a few hours from Saigon, we crossed the border and were welcomed into Cambodia by friendly smiley kids and crazy skooter drivers who seem to be having a competition for who can carry the most on their 30+yr old decrepit honda bike… I think this potato carrier may have won the prize:

Our first port of call in Phnom Penh were the Killing Fields - the mass graves excavated and opened up to tourists to witness the extent of the Khmer Rouge regime during the late 70s.

The name of the place kind of sums up what to expect here, and when we picked up our map of the fields and saw the title on it “Hell on Earth” we realised this wasnt going to be an easy visit.

The 3 storey memorial pagoda erected in honour of the 20 000 victims killed and burried here has 8000 skulls on display categorized into sex and age . And as you walk around the fields its evident you are walking over the mass graves when you see bones and pieces of clothing sticking out from the soil and grass. From the killing fields we went on to the Toul Sleng Prison which is where the prisoners were interrogated and tortured before being trucked to the fields for their execution. Here you can see photos of the prisoners (of which 7 out of the 20000 are said to have survived) as well the cells, torture rooms and tools etc… Estimates of the number of dead in total range from 1.5 to 3 million out of a population of around 7 million in Cambodia. Looking back it may not have been the best idea to visit both places in one morning as it’s all a bit depressing,but was very interesting all the same and I would recommend anyone visiting the country to pay both a visit.

A little bit of history and culture at Hue - we visited the citadel by bike and then took a river tour to the emperor’s tombs. After Hue we spent a sometime in Hoi An, which was great fun! (for me- Im not sure about for Phil). Hoi An is a pretty little colonial town with good restaurants and hundreds of tailors, so is a shopping mecca for bespoke clothing. Being able to design the clothes, chose the fabric, lining, buttons etc.. and then end up with your clothing within 24hrs for crazy cheap prices is just brilliant! Got myself a new jacket (can see in the photo)…and a few other pieces which probably wont fit after christmas, whilst Phil mostly stayed in the hotel room watching old James Bond movies.




Phil: I’m just small enough to fit into Cu-Chi tunnel and am therefore qualified to join the guerilla and kill american - Woo Hoo!

This is the Chinese President Hu Jintao arring in Vietnam for the Apec conference in Hanoi, earlier in the year Vietnam signed up to the WTO. Seems 3 and half decades after the war, the Amercians have finally won the Vietnam war(!), Uncle Ho would be turning in his mausoleum if he wasn’t currently having his anual sprucing up in Russia.

We took the smuggling bus from Laos to Vinh (Vietnam), the contraband was being hidden behind the speakers, in the engine, in the air vents and every other place (under our feet) possible when we turned up a little early at Vientiane bus station. Bizarrely enough the bribes used to get this lot through the customs at the Vietnam boarder seemed to consist mainly of pairs of black socks… After 15 hours on this very dodgy and particularly uncomfortable bus we were very glad to get off in Vinh and catch a train for the rest of the journey to Hanoi.

In Hanoi we discovered Bia Hoi - 10p a glass no brand beer served on the curb-side to you while sitting on the smallest plastic chairs ever - as you can see in the picture I found it tasted surprisingly good!
Debs: We also escaped to the northern countryside of Sapa for a couple of days. As you can see from the photos its a bit different from Hanoi -more water buffalo than skooters here. Did a bit of shopping at the local market for new togs; Phil bought himself a Vietnam flag t-shirt, and I splashed out on a “Good Morning Vietnam” one - both came to less than a pound! We did some walking in the hills, thru villages (where people wear some bizarre Starlight Express style outfits, without the skates) and farms…very nice but bloody freezing, so we quickly headed back to the warmth and chaos of Hanoi for more sightseeing…

For most backpackers travelling thru Laos, Vang Vieng is an essential stop. On the road from Luang Prabang to Vientiene, it is dusty little town surrounded by pituresque mountains, rivers and paddy fields. We took a public bus for 6 hours where upon we arrived at the town’s bus stop- an old deserted landing strip.

For a brief moment I started to question why we bothered coming here… especially after a short walk into the town when we came accross endless bars and restaurants all playing back to back Friends episodes- after 30mins that bloody awful Rembrandts song was starting to drive me insane! But we soon found a nice $3 bungalow to hide in and the following day we remembered why we came to Vang Vieng - for CAVING AND TUBING!!! In the morning we squeezed our way thru a few caves, which apparently were hiding places for some local (Im guessing very small?) people during the Vietnam war. And in the afternoon we floated along the Mekong river in tractor inner tubes, stopping off at numerous riverside bars for the odd Lao beer and making use of the rope swings too. What better way to spend the afternoon?
Me squeezing thru a little cave, and then on a rope swing

a big rock, and after a few beer Laos Phil realises he doesnt need a tube to float

This is the biggest butterfly in the world, and it lives in our toilet

It took two full (and pretty uncomfortable) days to get from the north east of Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos, on a long boat via the Mekong river. And although it was a slow jouney, it did give us plenty of time to admire the scenery along the way -although we were pretty fed up of green mountains and a big river by the second day.
View of Mekong river:

Upon our arrival in Luang Prabang, Phil and I were amazed at the lack of hassle we received from tuk tuk drivers and hostel scouts, in fact the locals were actually quite helpful and instantly decided that we were both going to like Laos! Despite being the the most bombed country in the history of warfare (by the Americans during the Vietnam war), the people of Laos have a reputation for being amongst the most laid back and friendly you will meet in SEA.
Luang Prabang is a world heritage site, so any new building work is hugley restricted. And it’s in a great location, surrounded by mountains at the junction between the Mekong and Khan rivers. It’s packed full of temples and fabulous european bakeries (BRRREEEAAADDD at last!!!) housed in quaint shuttered buildings; a hangover from the french colonial times.
Colonial buildings and another temple:

Phil having a pensive moment (right)…and then decides he’s had enough so leaps from a waterfall (left)

Miraculously he survives and takes time to look up at the waterfall that he risked his life on:

Me looking happy because Phils still alive.

Up till 10 years ago the little hill village of Pai was just that, a little village (with a few leftover hippies), however then the tourists turned up and now it’s a booming, if still quite small, Farang town. (Farang by the way is the mildly derogative term for foreigners here, or so I thought - in fact Farang is a shortened version of the Thai word for French - so as it turns out every western here is being called French, so it’s actually very insulting!) Most people come up here for the trekking, however as we are very lazy we hired a motorbike to view the beautiful scenery, temples and villages here…


In 1989 logging was banned in Thailand and as a results thousands of elephants which used to work moving the logs were put out of work. The unemployed elephants could not be released into the wild as there is literally no space for them. So a number of which have found new jobs giving tourist rides, though not exactly ideal, its preferable to alternatives - starvation or begging on the streets on Bangkok. This is of course providing that the people running these tourist elephants camps look after them well - which we are hoping the one we visited does. More Asian Elephant Info

All this visiting of Wats (Buddist Temples) seems to have effected Debbie, it possible that she could be converting, next stop shaven head and wearing of orange robes…

Debs: On our return to Chiang Mai we managed to meet up with Steff, Benny and Daniel, from Jakarta, for essential shopping of knitted rabbits (with potential for Indonesian import business) at the night market, followed by food and drinks at the very nice Riverside bar.