So...after almost two weeks just lying in my hammock I got the feelingthat I need some action...I was almost sure that I was going toThailand but then changed my mind and left to Phnom Penh with Jake. Wewere suppose to get there during the same day but arrived the nextmorning after 24 hours and one broken bus. Well anyway...In Phnom Penhwe met Ezra and Ville who we had got to know already at Don Det.Joonas, their third "travel-mate" had also joined them. For a changethe time went by really fast, and I definitely got the "action" i waslooking for although partying all the time isn't my thing either :) Istill haven't found the perfect place where I could party at night andlie in my hammock during the day...Anyway the five days I spent inPhnom Penh were the most funniest, craziest and nicest days in a while,so I should have a nice six-pack after all the laughing. Such funnyguys I'm traveling with át the moment :) I think the only time I wasn'tsmiling or laughing was when we visited the genocide museum, that Mikialso told about in his journal. We also visited an orphanage and got tospend some time with the kids. Ezra, Ville and Joonas had together, bythrowing a party back at home, collected a huge amount of money todonate to orphans in Cambodja... They spent the money on rice, fruits,water, books, pencils, and medicine which we personally took to theorphanage to make sure that the money goes into right hands. Suchlovely and happy kids who really love to be in the spotlight, so myvideocam was very popular ;)
I'm still going to continue traveling with the same guys and hopefullyfind the coloured pig in Sihanouk Ville, which is our next stop :)

...

I think was the most spontaneous decision I've made so far. Nobody had to talk me into it. It was suggested to me at 02:00am and 8 hours later I woke the pigs up, ''hey guys, Im off to Cambodia.. see you around!"
My travel plans was to speed through to Siemreap to admire the famous Angkor Wat. Speed through to Phnom Penh and check the killing fields and then speed to Sihanoukville. Why speed? The built up tension of utmost desire, to finally run across a beach of squeaking. white sand and dive through a wave into the clear, warm, turquoise water of a tropical sea, was killing me!

So from the Lao border onwards it was quite a hassle. I dont really remember how many times I switched buses, argued over money, got ripped off so eventually I ended up laughing at the mess. Whenever I asked why something was happening the friendly Cambodians would answer, "T.I.C. - This is Cambodia" Reminded me of the movie Blood Diamond: T.I,A.
At some point though a huge double-decker-ultra-VIP bus popped out of nowhere when I was supposed to be stranded and carried me of to my first destination. I do wish I had informed my self more about the temples of Angkor because they were absolutely amazing and would have been even more so had I read up about them! Its a vast complex that spreads over tens of kilometers, each temple having its own unique style and architecture. Why doesnt anyone build anything as awe-inspiring anymore?
Even though I only spent a day there I really liked Siemreap. It had a very friendly feeling about it and I met quite a few interesting people, tourist s as well as cambodians.

I arrived in Phnom Penh at about noon the next day and spent the day just lazing around in a Guesthouse called top banana. Don Det hasnt worn off yet so Im not used to all the running around.
I visited the killing fields just outside the city and went on to the infamous torture prison which is now S21 museum. Both provided a raw and ugly insight into the all to recent history of Cambodia under Pol Pot's reign.

Ive now been in Sihanoukville for four days.. I think, and although the feeling I get about this place is very neutral, I must say Im enjoying. You can find me on the beach or in the sea at almost any time of the day and during the night, the parties go on till we drop down after drunken games of beach football. Weekdays dont matter coz every night theres just as many people partying. Im staying at a place called Chivas Shack which is primarily a Cambodian party place. My little room is directly above the dancefloor so I can forget sleeping. Its so funny coz when the neighbouring bars are opening up we are still at full swing! Tonights my last night there though. Tomorrow I start work as a bartender in the more touristy Nap House, which despite its name is a big party place too. I get the benefit of free accomodation, as much booze as I can drink at any time and free food. No money.

So for now Ill be hanging out here until my visa expires and then I guess Ill head towards Thailand. Ill update this blog-post every now and again with pictures or some crazy story so check up every now and again ;)
...

Yippee!!

Now we are in the beautiful island of Det among the 4,000 islands in south of Laos. Very relaxed and chill place to be : )) We've been enjoying ourselves here for nearly a week and Miki has already left to Cambodia! The bastard woke us up yesterday saying only : "gyus i'm off to Cambodia, see u in thailand!" Well fine by us, hope he'll have a good time..

So Ida, me and our comrad Jake decided to stay here for another week or so mostly just to do nothing but to lie in our hammocks and read our books.

So long suckers! we shall get back to u in a while...

Mat

EDIT 22.10.09


It has been a while since we've been editing our text and as it seems Miki has taken no effort in keeping his travel journal here. Last we heard of him was somewhere in Phnom Penh. Hopefully he's still alive in Cambodia :D

We've spent a week and a half in here Don det and we've done pretty much nothing but lying in our hammocks so there's not much to tell about :D

Next travel plans

Mat is going to Thailand to see some friend from Finland, Ida and Jake decided to experience Cambodia so now the Pigs are totally separated from eachother..

Hopefully Ida will catch up with Miki.


...

Taken from Mats “Sailor’s Log”  4.10-10.10

Day 1

And we have a take off! We started our little boat trip at noon after we hadbought it. We were actually supposed to buy another one that we had bargainedfor the day before but the owner didn't want to sell it to us anymore. Wellthis bigger boat is definitely better for our purpose. The total sum wasonemillionsevenhundredthousand WHAT A PRICE! ok, so that was about 140 euros ^^

The current flows slowly but surely to the south so in a way we’re on a freeride even though we do quite a bit of rowing. The sun was setting and wedecided to stop at some village to eat and sleep. It appeared that there weresome party going on and we were invited to join the festivities! After fewbeerlaos and some hulahula kind of dance (which seems to be very popular inLao), we were invited to sleep at MR DIN’s in his village across the river. :DFunny guy although he didn't speak a word of english. We ate and washed and thefullmoon was bright and beautiful in the sky. =)

It feels so chilled out to be here, among the rural Lao people, sleeping in abamboo hut and experiencing the village life. It is so different compared tothe modern luxury that we have back at home, but the people are just as happyand content… if not more (okay to be totally honest with u guys, one dude isspeaking on the phone right next to me) Globalisation... There is electricityhere but otherwise it is a very authentic place.  I feel rewarded whendoing things like this, taking the trouble to organize everything by ourselves.The independent traveller sounds good to our ear. "
Tomorrow we gonna tune our boat by adding some bamboo to it so you’ll see whatwe’ve come up with :D

Day 2

Woken up by a crazy rooster at eight ( he was screaming through the night)and decided to continue our journey. We skipped the "pimping" of ourcanoe cos it was cloudy in the  morning and Miki thought that he dontwanna build it if its not sunny. Destination Vientiane! -> and maaaaaaany kilometres,rapids and villages ahead of us. The day went by easily and we stopped on asmall beach during the heat of noon. We ate stickyrice which was given to us bya generous lady from the village (We're getting sick of this thing already,like tomato&egg mix in china although it’s good and healthy) but the onemango we had with us was delicious!

Result for the day was according to our guess 30km and we definitely can’t beaccurate cos we dont own a friggin map! would be useful... We were driftingaway nice and easy and decided to sleep at yet another village. A coupleof guys offered us a ride with their motorized canoe through some strong rapidsand we thought they offer it to us freely or with a small price, but when wegot to the village they ripped us off for 50,000kip (~5euros) for a few minutesride.  That’s big money for us.fuckers... We're starting to get annoyed by this rip off stuff already (gotripped off at the "restaurant" where we ate later also. Maybe that’sthe reason for all the swearing. :P The people in the first village were sonice... =)

Day 3

Battle strategy: Wake up at 6.30 and start paddling hard and achievesome distance before the noon sun strikes us down.

Result: It took us few hours to wake up and get to the boat only to find outthat our two machetes were stolen along with one of our paddles.F******S***!!!!! Well we got a new paddle from the same dude that ripped of usyesterday but Miki thought, “how he would know that we needed a paddle beforewe even asked.” Probably he stole it...

Stopped for lunch at quiet looking village... made out of bamboo. A huge crowdof children gathered around us to watch us eat. I wonder what they werethinking. They bid us farewell when we left and were amazed by the toy phonesMiki gave them. : )) He was relieved to give some away after carrying a dozenof them half way around the world. :D

We had taken some bananas and eggs with us in the morning and planned to sleepon a beach under the stars. So now we have a bonfire which beautifully lightsour little camp and we've been swimming and enjoying the sounds of the jungle.Cut few bamboo sticks and prepared our mosquito nets and its all done. We arethe hippies of Mekong as Miki said and we havequite an audience cos water buffalos keep walking right by us. Ida saw one 5meters away from our bonfire and Miki shoved it off by shouting and holding ahuge stick. Me and Ida got a bit scared... :D

Day 4

Too much rain over paradise.

It surprised us in the middle of the night. The Rain.  And why, why did ithad to happen just that night when we are sleeping under the stars?

The pages of my diary and most of our stuff are now wet and covered with sand.We escaped to the boat which had the roof on it but it was very uncomfortableto sleep cos it was lying very tilted on the beach. In the morning half of thebeach had melted away. Now I want the hammock and the beach more than ever.. Ithink we should charge our batteries for a while and enjoy more of thetravelling part, not just getting as fast as possible to Vientiane. That's the thing. To enjoy thetravel, live in the moment.  The most important thing is not yourdestination but how you get there and everything on the way.

We are getting used to these bamboo villages, stickyrice and the languagebarrier so it doesn't feel so exotic anymore. We slept in a village… made ofbamboo and washed in a river where we saw fireflies in the night. They werebeautiful and bounced around in the air like maniacs. Ida is my wife so thevillagers would not dare to lay their hands on her. :D
Its funny that people in Chinaalways asked that whether you’re studying but here people ask whether you’remarried.

Day 5
Hitchhiking on the Mekong

The usual morning routine.
Woke up in the village, roosters screaming like crazy and people looking at uslike rock stars. Ida is getting annoyed by the people always watching her. Butfor them we are a most unusual sight so what can we do but get along with it.
Hanging around for a few hours more in the village. We are still little tiredfrom the whole sleeping on the beach night. Then we walked back to our boatwhich was totally on sand due to the sinking water level. My approximationwould be 30cm daily (Miki disagrees.. he says I’m a dumbass). We lifted ourboat back into the water with the help of a few guys who asked for 20 000kipfor three minutes of hard work. Of course, this is Laos and they think that everytourist is rich as hell. We didn’t give them shit.

Well, lazy day, lazy paddling and everyone was lazy. We saw some rapids andMiki steering the boat from the front must have thought that its just one ofthose lame ass ones. Yeap it was, if not for the ROCK!!! CRASH! It sneaked upon us while we were sideways and for a moment it looked like we would flip. Idadropped her paddle and luckily nobody fell into the water :D  The rock had hit the canoe in centre and heldus stationary in the middle of the rapids. After a few moments of thinking wemoved to the front to disturb the weight distribution and voila, we got offnice and easy and the stream took us along its way again. No damage to the boatand I only had a small scratch on my fingertip. If only Ida had filmedit.. would have had nice footage to show to friends but then again, she mighthave dropped the camera...  we found the missing paddle spinning in awhirlpool about a hundred meters on and were, once again, fully equipped.

At some point we waved to this one guy and he steered next to us with hismotorboat. He offered us a ride to Paklai which is the next big city on the wayto Vientianeand now we are camping in a bamboo shelter with this guy and his friend. Eating,watching the moon shine, and mostly enjoying the campfire we built. :)
"By the rivers of Babylon"is playing and we are enjoying the freedom!! A question crawled to our minds:How many of our friends would do the same? Not so many I think.. Now I have thefeeling of being a long long way from home. Ah, this is life.
Tomorrow we arrive in Paklai.

Day 6

It appeared that these two generous guys were not as helpful as it had seemed.They asked us for the two hundred american dollars that we had promised themfor the ride to Paklai. Promised? Aaaah.. we realized that the “Songlai don”that they had been talking about all the time, was not a place along the way.:D Big misunderstanding on both our parts but they understood after some timethat we didn’t have such money and we were very sorry. We gave them ~20 eurosand they got on their way. This is getting really annoying though cos now wehave the idea of Lao people that all they want from us is money and they areonly being shallow. One may smile to you and greet nicely but still have theshining dollar image in his mind. Lao is a good backpacker country, but when youreally get off the beaten track you’ll probably get ripped off. I was kinda fedup with sleeping in the villages cos it reminds me of the days in the army, notshowering for three days, not enough food etc. (Miki and Ida think I’m a wuss).

Day 7

 Still criminal

We decided that we wanted to get to Vientianealong the Mekong, as was our goal in thebeginning, so we took the high-speed slow boat with our canoe strapped on theroof.

It took us 8 hours to get to the capital city whereas if wehad paddled it would have been another 14 days…

Upon our arrival in Vientianethe militia caught us and demanded to look at our passports… no problem, butthey saw us offloading our canoe. They saw Miki and me trying to park it andMiki falling into the river (LOL)! That’s when they really got interested inour story. First stop in Vientianewas the police station. We were very disappointed in ourselves because evenafter questioning we didn’t lose even a single drop of sweat. It would havebeen so cool if one of us had shit in their pants. :D Anyways they told us thatit is illegal for tourists to buy and sell canoes in Lao PDR. We didn’t tellthem that we had already used the boat from Luang Prabang to Paklai. In theiropinion only crazy people paddle the Mekong.They confiscated our canoe and wished us good luck for the rest of our trip… byland! (Extra emphasis added)

Anyway, despite these little mishaps it was a great experience! 6 days on ourown at the mercy of the Mighty Mekong river, WOW. It’ll make for good bedtimestories for our grand-children.

I had heard a lot about Dali so my expectations were quite high about the so called hippie paradise in China. As soon as we arrived I knew that I wasn't going to be dissapointed! A place with laid back athmosphere, friendly people and hemp growing wild in the nature, do I need to say more :) And finally the three pigs were together again and I realized how much I had missed my pigs! Mostly the days went by chilling, doing nothing and getting to know the town. We spent a lot of time in Mulan, a bohemian music bar with gypsy music and laid back athmosphere. There we got to know many people, especially couchsurfer Roberto, the bartender in Mulan. Everytime you felt like having a beer and take it easy Roberto warmly welcomed you to Mulan. Hours went by and sometimes we even felt like we were living in the bar. One day Ass Pig, Pierre, Martin and I climbed one of the mountains in Dali, but we didn't go higher than about 2500m (Dali is already at 2000m). It was nice despite the rainy weather and luckily all of us came down in one piece, although Ass pig almost fell in to the waterfall and then slipped and almost fell off a big rock. And of course we had to take a refreshing swim at the "Seven dragon bathing pool" even though the water was ice cold (coming from the mountain top). It took a while for me to get in but afterwards it felt great! Dont' know if it was because of my swim or something else but during the night I got ill again. Fortunately I felt almost normal in the mornig so it couldn't have been anything serious, although I got a bit worried because it was already the second time in two weeks I suffered from high fever. Maybe I should have visited a chinese witch doctor or the hospital for traditional chinese medicine :D Anyway, the next morning, after eating a bunch of painkillers for breakfast we headed to Erhai lake to go cormorant fishing. I'd never heard about it before but it certainly was interesting and fun! It was amazing to see how birds can be trained like that and they actually were really funny and cute birds :) Overall Dali has definetly been my favourite place during the trip until now, and I think the other pigs also agree on that. Even though the weather have been quite bad during the week I haven't been bored once. Doing nothing is really nice sometimes :) 

Today we're leaving to Jinghong and then continue our journey to Laos. Ass Pig and Coloured Pig have to leave China before wednesday so hopefully we'll get to Laos before that...Still waiting for those "real' hippie paradises with beutiful beaches and a place for my hammock..

And what comes to one of the pigs...well lets just say that coloured pig is now even more coloured, thanks to Nate ;)

-Cute Pig

On friday evening at 11pm Martin and I jumped on the train at Huangshan railway station. 42 hours in the train and we would arrive to Kunming, and then continue to Dali and meet my piggies :) The train ride went by surprisingly fast even though I was really excited about seeing the other pigs again. I spent the time mostly sleeping, eating instant noodles and studying german. At the time we arrived to Kunming I had 30 pages of german grammar in my notebook...huh.. :D And the views were amazing as the train litterally were in the clouds.

In Kunming we checked in to the Hump Hostel because we had to wait until the morning before continuing to Dali. We spent the evening walking around the city and the Green Lake. I loved walking at the lake because late in the evening there's a lot of traditional chinese musical and dancing performances. And they're not doing it to attract tourists, it's mostly just local people hanging aroung playing instruments and dancing :) Kunming seemed like a nice city, though big and crowded. Sadly we didn't see that much because we had to leave next morning at 8am. Another 9-10 hours in the train and then an hour by bus before we would arrive to "Old Dali", the so called hippie paradise. Luckily it was a daytrain so the time went by fast. Dali is a city about 2000 meters above sea level so the views from the train were breathtaking! Finally, three days after leaving Huangshan we arrrived to Dali city on Sunday 20.9 and found a bus to take us to the "Old Dali" were the two other pigs were waiting for us :)

Shangri-la was not the kind of place we had expected. It means "home of the dreams" in chinese and its suppose to symbolise an idyllic and perfect place but after the beautiful and tiny town of Litang it turned out to look like any other chinese city. Hence from now on we shall call it by its chinese name Zhongdian. Apparently the scenery around it is beautiful but we had no need to go out of our way for sceneries since the amazing ride through the backdoor had offered us more than enough.

We decided to take on huge step drive straight to Ancient city of Dali skipping Lijang and Tiger Leaping Gorge coz hiked enough and our visas have twelve days left. We didn't want anymore shallow experiences of cities. (We plan on using rest of our time in Dali) The ride was the most boring so far because the roads were wery good. Altough Mat succeeded in crashing once again bringin the score to 1 for me and 5 for Mat. :D

We carry no map with us so every now and then we have to stop to ask for directions "LOCAL" people :) Somewhere along the way  near to the junction of Lijang and Dali I picked it up a notch coz there was a lovely serpentine road ahead and left Mat behind. I got to the junction that Dali was straight ahead and not to the left and I waited for Mat but he never came. At this point he had only fallen for four times so according to statistics he was bound to fall again. :D Ofcourse I was getting worried and all these horror scenarios kept running through my head. So I drove back to the last place I saw him but he wasn't there. "What the hell I guess I'll just carry on alone then."

Ass pig takes the keyboard for his own account 

So there I was. Eating up Mikis dust and watching his dissapearing to the distance. I went past the junction and took a left not noticing that Miki was waiting for me there. I drove for nearly an hour and kept asking people the directions to Dali and everyone said continue this road forvards until at some point some old man said that its the opposite direction. "DAM!" I thought, I should have gone srtaight from the junction as my instincts had told me before. So now I knew that I'm way behind Miki and so I put the pedal to the metal. I went too fast to this one turn and it all happened so fast before I knew it and I was sliding on the tar with Redcat as I named my motorbike. (Mikis bike was named Tash'dele.) I got small bruises on knee and elbow. First thing I thought was "FUCK, not again. the score is 5 to 1 now." and stared laughing. :D All this falling is turning humorous "Huumoritouhua"

Maybe im not in that hurry after all coz I wanna get to Dali in one piece.. After few hours of driving it became dark and with my headlight busted I was in deep shit. :D I had no idea where I was and not knowing wether I had past Dali already but I kept driving this time trusting on my isntincts. I passed a building that seemed like a hotel so I decided to make it a day. Nobody spoke english in the hotel but I managed to get a room for 50Y and some beans to eat. Maybe next day I'll reach Dali I thought. Mainly I think it was hilarious coz altough we are traveling together with Miki im not dependant on him. (I turned out that Miki was thinkin exactly the same thing)  

Next day I woke up, walked outside and looked for and english speaking person. I found one in a hostel that belonged to the International Hostelling chain and they had english speaking employee. "Where am I?" :D I'd never thought that I would ask that question while sober. It appeared that I was 30km from my destination so it was no problem to get here. By chance I found Miki in Four sesason youth hostel dusting off his motorbike. He told me that he had driven the whole way one time and it was about 300km and it took him for 9 hours. Thats rough man. His ass must be sore. :D

(But actually I think he's lying and he did it on purpose to lose me coz he was fed up with me at the moment : DDDDD) Sooooooooo spontanous : )))

So Dali is the hippie paradise in China and two minutes of walking outside a woman came up to us asking " U lika smoka ganja hasa?" By now we've learned that the best way to get rid of them is to ask for cocaine :D

Dali is a beautiful city and we're gonna spend some time in here and within few days Ida and her future husband Martin are coming here.

We'll add pictures once we take them. : )))