After a week exploring new sights, sounds, tastes, smells and toilets of Cambodia and Laos, we finished a truly epic 2023 in the familiar surrounds of Chiang Mai. The first international city we’ve ever visited twice in a calendar year (and same hotel come to that!). Our first night was New Year’s Eve and, thankfully, also the Sunday night markets…because it was Sunday. This made it even more spectacular, as we traversed the 1.1km closed off road, eating our way through markets set up in all the temples, listening to live music in newly discovered bars, ducking as random fireworks were let off next to us, watching in awe as lanterns were released and floated off creating a yellow brick road into the heavens, running for cover as flaming lanterns crashed back to earth or got stuck in overhead powerlines and trees and rang in 2024, Chang in hand, with an amazing (city sponsored) fireworks display, 12 months on from freezing on the banks of the Thames.

To break up the 6 nights we had in Thailand, we organised a “tour guide” to drive us the ~4 hours up to Chiang Rai, to explore a different town and see some of the more recently manufactured sights to suit both spiritual and tourism requirements. On day 1, we saw a giant, white, lady Buddha, a restaurant covered in orchids under a waterfall, what is best described as the MONA of Thailand, the Baan Dam museum or “Black house” and got to see the annual flower show in the heart of town. Despite a misguided walk to the river, we had a great day in Chiang Rai. Stumbling across the best Khao Soi we’ve ever had, hot-potting in the night markets and exploring the bar scene taking in live music, listening to English kids sing along to Don’t Look Back in Anger and watching locals hustle tourists at pool. The only sport than ironically begins with a Thai break.

On the way “home” to Chiang Mai we stopped off to see the mind blowing white and blue temples and were treated to a surprise hike to see some waterfalls. We had zero complaints about the drive and our lovely driver who stayed in Chiang Rai over night to wait for us, however, she really stretched the definition of “guide” in “tour guide” when stopping the car, pointing up a paved road and saying, “you go, waterfalls, I stay, wait.” It was only once we got a little out of sight when we realised this paved road didn’t lead to the falls and saw the rickety sign in the bush highlighting our mile each way adventure we were embarking on…perfect for Lea dressed in her finest modesty ensemble for visiting temples. It was the second sign that probably hit home more, telling us to “beware green viper bites”….I figure, once you have a green viper bite already, it’s probably a tad late to start being wary in a once-bitten-twice-shy type response, so we decided to start being exceedingly wary as James stomped his way thought the jungle (hoping Thai snakes are as scared of stomping as they, apparently, are in Aus). We comforted ourselves with the knowledge of it being “winter”, but simultaneously had the same memory of James’ research the previous day into Thailand having the largest population of wild tigers in SE Asia, although neither of us said anything at the time, just put our heads in the sand and hoped they too would be terrified of a sunburnt engineer stomping through the bush.

Once at the falls it was certainly worth it (although had we not made it, it would have paradoxically certainly not been worth it). A little precarious for Lea in her Church garb to get to the bottom, James and his old ankles ventured forth. The power of the falls was surprising and blew me away. And, having been keen not to leave any human traces along the path in, our bodies went into shut down (ie. no weeing) mode, but it really is true what they say about waterfalls as James set about being ones with nature just as the only other misguides turned up from downstream. A quick, panicked re-adjustment hopefully avoided them seeing their first snake of the day, eyesight dependent of course.

Our last hotel in Chiang Mai gave James the chance of being outsmarted by a toilet. Once you think you’ve got the better of it and all the learning is behind you, the slight (and seemingly randomly changing) delay in selecting the posterior wash function and its delivery can come as quite the shock at first, but gets addictive after a while. Lea was a bit more cautious to use some of the posterior functions, but I told her to give it a crack anyway. Perhaps it was the genius of our hotel toilet, but our recent debates over men leaving the seat up or down when they use a unisex toilet resurfaced. James was under the again, misguided position that ‘up’ was best, so as to covey a sense of “only 1’s delivered by this guy, come on in!” Whereas what Lea had already meant was to leave the cover UP, but seat DOWN, to avoid creating a “oooh I wonder what that guy just did in here?? Why don’t you bend down, grab hold and take a closer look” type situation. A new strategy that back-fired almost immediately (no pun intended). While using the facilities at a bar (1s), James opted for the “cover up” method (contrary to the previous inhabitant, and with some difficulty as I couldn’t quite stand up in there in the first place) only to see the seat covered with, let’s hope, water, but was reminded what the hoses next to the loos are used for and realised what the mix could actually contain, and, with that look you might have on your face right now, exited stage left to be confronted by a line of beautiful, hopeful, young girls about to walk in my watery footsteps. Thus leading to the common three word phrase of, “Lea, next bar”.

We did our final food tour by “rod Daeng”, where we saw more cricket than the rainy SCG that day and got to re-live some of our favourite places from last time (https://europez2a.com/category/b2p/), but for the most part we wandered the street food markets and listened to live music, where they expertly blended in 90’s English pop classics with local music, I don’t know how, but they sure did Thai it together well.

Our adventure concluded with an “all you can chew” flight to Singapore as we dwindled our gum supplies. Despite this being our third trip to Singas, it’s never made it to a blog…. And, after a few overpriced cocktails, we decided now wasn’t the time to sling anything together.

From the Cambodian capital we flew on to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. With only about 30 hours or so in town there was only so much we could see, but luckily for us…there is only so much to see. We arrived after dark on a Wednesday night, between Christmas and NYE, aka the best time to see any city at its peak. However, we lucked out (read: meticulously researched) and booked a hotel right over the mighty Mekong and next to pretty much all the nightlife the town has to offer.

We had a brief intro to the waterfront markets and street food on the first night, including a few drinks with some random Aussies at MAGIES BAR!! But 25000 steps the next day took us to all the sites…at an average of about 25000 steps per sight. Only (slightly) joking, it was well worth the stop over, but it was really at night where things came alive. Cool, derelicte style pubs, where we met our NBF’s including a local who thought James was sooo smooth that we had to join them. He never confirmed if the smoothness he witnessed was from the engineering hands or the slow winks to get the waiter’s attention. It was a real treat to hang out with these generous strangers, and even learn how he loved to raise cocks. And don’t worry, nothing dodgy, they’re raised for fighting. The best cock tip we got was that they grow harder in the sun…

After a number of drinks, we tried deciding between the very touristy but still delicious looking street food on offer. We settled down at a poorly named establishment called Tumouur…but after reading the menu, it hadn’t grown on us so we moved on. So it was back to proper street food. So far we’d mainly stuck to street food where possible, however, this was broken earlier in the day on our one sight seeing walk of Vientiane, where, ironically, the impact of street food made us rush for an early lunch at what turned out to be a lovely restaurant.

From Vientiane we had planned to travel by train to Luang Prabang, but as it’s only possible to plan 3 days in advance…once in country, we opted to fly. A good choice, as by the time we turned up in Laos all the tickets were sold and given the amount of documentation required, most people’s identities were already potentially stolen. Something we couldn’t afford, given the precarious credit card situation we somehow found ourselves in.

Luang Prabang was beautiful. We feel lucky to have been there on what seems to be the brink of its transformation into a full tourist town. Kind of the perfect moment in time for us. The ideal mix of local food, a quick sprint from your known hotel toilet, Ma and Pa shops selling beers at water prices, dingy bars over looking the Mekong and newer wine bars in an architecturally French inspired row of buildings next to the night markets. The latter of which we may have sadly caught just too late to be for locals anymore. But, I guess there’s a fine line between made in Laos and made in the PRC…I believe it’s called a border.

As well as some amazing experiences such as a tuk tuk food tour out of the main touristy area and a sunset cruise on the Mekong, we had some interesting ones as well. We’re pretty sure James will have ended up in the background of at least one Tik Tok video carrying our 2 bags of dirty laundry, possibly inspiring some sort of “what’s in those sacks?” trend; ‘one of us’ also left the safe wide open with passports and all our cash on full display (and the wardrobe door where the safe was too) just as we were leaving and the cleaners were entering (there’s no way these lovely people would steal anything, but I…sorry I mean ‘one of us’ is worried they may have thought they were being tested); and ended up with the odd occasion where that “known toilet” wasn’t quite as close as hoped.

We also ended up with two classic Lea quotes:

“I just don’t think my body likes anything other than wine” (which may or may not have been in relation to the previous mention of toilet proximity) and,

“On the hole, the loos have been better than Italy”…the choice of spelling is my interpretation of the intended meaning.

To conclude our time in Laos, we sweated through a car ride to the airport, with the heater on. Much to our discontent. After all, it is winter, now.

https://europez2a.com/sx-2023/

Our spicy xmas journey started in Siem Reap!! Not long after arrival, Mr James was already being mocked by our tour-guide, while Miss Lea was being treated like the Princess she is, but it left me wanting to ask: Are you for Riel pal?? However, everyone was so genuinely lovely I just said Khmer you, gave him a hug and let them run Amok. (Ok, those puns were terrible, but got them out of the way early and posted when out of the country so as not to risk being put in the Phnom Penh Pun Penh)

We spent ~14 hours over 2 days with our personal tour guide / Professional photographer / Mr James teaser Chhong, who took more photos of us than we had at our wedding. Angkor Wat and the 5 other temples we saw were truly breathtaking and an easy reason to want to visit this amazing place. Other less easy reasons are the clear impact of setting up for 5 million tourists per annum and only now up to 500k post covid, resulting in immense pressure to submit TripAdvisor reviews at smile-point (only disappointment being your worry of not doing them justice) and watching 4 year old children walk around clearing beer cans from your table to support their families…totally removing the concern we had of buying beer from 10 year olds on the street. Not to mention the secret war, the need to have a genocide museum and subsequent civil war. All within half a century.

Our amazing hotel went full on Khristmas, playing Jingle Bells on repeat on xmas eve for so long even James wanted it to be boxing day, and reminding us that a hotel room in SE Asia really should have doors to the bathroom that are airtight from the rest of the room. Apart from the temples, we enjoyed an all-the-beer-you-can-drink tuk tuk food tour with a lovely guide Neera and driver Mr Yi (we initially struggled to understand Mr Yi, but, luckily, Neera was clearer), had amazing street food, sang along to great tunes at Hard Rock Angkor (small price to pay for handy dunnies and the applause we got from the band when we left….both times. In a good way…we think), discovered that blue cocktails had more booze than expected, pondered how you can make a negroni even more boozy (and hoped it wasn’t from a healthy dash of methanol) and learned that despite all the planning, Lea’s bartering skills had not improved…after learning James hadn’t the brain capacity to get around to organise a Christmas card for her and after earlier turning down 10 postcards for $1, we found a wine bar, had some wines++ and got offered a Christmas card to $2.50, to which Lea kindly countered: “How about 2 for $5?”

From Siem Reap we drove to Phnom Penh on Khristmas day!! 5+ hours + lunch! Along the way we saw lotus fields, rice fields, fires, cattle in the fields, buffalo in the fields, cattle on the road, dogs on the road, cats on the road, sticky rice vendors, sticky rice vendors, beer ads, beer ads, beer ads, beer ads, beer ads…got thirsty and drank beers thanks to superliminal advertising, learned the art of the triple overtake: tuk tuk overtakes, bike, who is overtaken by a truck, who we overtake and push oncoming motorbikes into the dirt. All the time wondering if our driver has a good life insurance policy…as a passenger, I sure hope not! However, he got us to our destination in one piece and found an unforgettable spot for our Khristmas lunch looking over a lake covered in pink water lilies, which was just laably.

Phnom Penh was a big change from Siem Reap. We were reminded of the simple pleasures of plastic straws…in plastic cups, carried in plastic bags, and the magic of eating baby octopus on a driveway and roast chicken on a dirty bench, we were also reminded of the downside of an all you can drink sunset cruise mixed with the need for a toilet, an otherwise empty craft beer/coffee house, attempting to preserve cash by paying with credit card, having the card declined, trying another one…and another one…yeah and another one and waking up to the cold sweats induced by messages from your credit card provider asking if you’d been ordering a shop out of tacos in Florida.

Despite an accidental chilli* at our first stop of our first food tour in Phnom Penh (another all beer inclusive tour on Christmas night with 6 other people who don’t drink…a real Christmas first for us), we had a surprisingly great time in the capital. Amazing food, street art and, it should go without saying again, ridiculously lovely people, despite of (or perhaps because of) what they’ve endured. We loved it from our first craft beer house (non frauded one that is) to our last few hours with some unorganised relaxing and several green fairy cocktails ( / wine for one of us) and started to miss it before we even left. Reminding us that absinthe really does make the heart grow fonder.

*Accidental chilli: When you purposefully and (somewhat) soberly add tiny, whole green chillis into your dish for flavour and accidentally scoop one into your mouth, and stupidly start chewing on it wondering if it’s lemon grass, and then try to keep cool while casually eating all the limes and drinking all the sugar cane juice you can find on the table.

https://europez2a.com/sx-2023/