Floating down the Mekong

Hi Folks
So we did it. We floated down the mighty Mekong. Well, at least a little part of it. 130 km from Kratie to Kampong Cham. That's a little less than planed, but we simply overestimated our own speed. Nevertheless it was wonderful! There is hardly a sunset or sunrise that compares to those we had on the Mekong. Waking up by the first sun rays, after spending the night under a star sprinkled clear sky in your own boat feels just amazing. And gives you the right amount of energy to go out and paddle (battle?) the Mekong. Those wooden boats are bloody heavy and difficult to steer. Plus we had only one normal paddle and one standing oar, which we had to learn how to use first. The first day we were going in the planed direction about a third of the time, the rest was getting twisted around by oversteering and the powerfull current. And the wind direction wasn't on our side either. Well, kind of, it was blowing hard sideways almost every day, in a way that we were struggling to keep our position and not being blown away in a random direction. Each day just after sunrise we started in calm weather and during the morning the wind picked up heavily, up to an extend where we had to stop on the riverbank to prevent our little boat from sinking, because the waves were to big and jumping into the boat. Then we sat there, read a little or wrote some diary, all while getting sandblasted. Gladly around lunchtime the weather usually calmed down again and we could continue. At one of these stops we met some fishermen that had rigged their catch in the sand to dry, and were scraping them out again with huge combs ("Durchkämmt die Wüste!").
Note that Cambodia is so close to the equator, that it almost has a twelve hour light, twelve hour dark day. This meant for us that we stopped at four o'clock, had a huge pile of delicious Cambodian rice with vegetables for dinner at five, and were in bed at six.
And eventually we reached Kampong Cham, where we decided to stop because Christmas is approaching and we are treating ourselves with some days on an little island of Sihanoukville for the rest of the year. And completely by chance that island also hosts tree houses, an absinthe distillery and a Italian gourmet restaurant.
Good enough for the rest of the year.
Skateawhile whishes you all a merry merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Cheers

  

  

  

 

 

 

  

 

Skateawhile becomes Floatawhile

Yes, you heard it. Its time to unveil the secret that we hinted on a while ago. Due to very bad skateboarding conditions here, and our lust for adventure, we have decided on a drastic change of our mode of transport.
We have bought a boat. A small wooden canoe to be precise. With this canoe we will float down the Mekong river from the city of Kratie to the Cambodian capital, to Phnom Penh. It took us about a week of searching in three different cities until we found a boat, but now we are satisfied. A sleek, green arrow, fairly new and in good shape. Because we used a week until we found the boat, we only had half a day to organise all the remaining equipment that we needed. Fortunately, every Cambodian village/city has a central market where you can get almost everything. Let's hope we didn't forget anything. And hope for good weather too, because right now it's raining cats and dogs.
Tomorrow morning we will embark to our boat for about a week, during which we will not be able to post stuff up here because we won't have internet. But we are sure the stories and pictures from this trip will be worth the wait!
So cheers, and hear you in about a week!

Entering Cambodia

Hi Folks
A day after out last post was Saint Nikolas day, and hey, look at the pictures, Saint Nikolas was in Stung Treng... After that we planned to skate to Siem Reap via the northern route giving us the possibility of having a look at the inglorious Prasat Preah Vihear temple. The road was said to be completely new after the border conflict with Thailand, to facilitate the deploiment of soldiers to the border. Oh and there were many of them at the temple. In fact there were way more policemen and army than tourists, which made the visit slightly unreal. Unfortunately, and almost expected by us, the new road was completely unskatable, having the biggest, coarsest stones that I have seen so far. The surface is even too coarse for tires of cars and motorbikes, and within a four hundred kilometer journey, the vehicles we hitchhiked on had three blown tires. Our last lift invited us for dinner and to spend the night at their home, which we gladly agreed, before continuing with us the next morning to Siem Reap. There we did the obligatory thing and temple hopped for two days. Impressive. And way too hot. But their food is remarkably good. Even though some of the stuff might be a little off-putting at first glance, almost everything is super tasty. The oddities we have eaten include the classics of roasted crickets, fermented fish paste, and deep fried whole frogs. 

  

Pictures from Laos, part two

Voila, second half of pictures coming through!

that was from Pakse, where we spent a good time with some very nice travelers, till the "4000 Islands"

 

 

Pictures from Laos, part one

There you go, pictures of the first third of our Laos skateboarding adventure.

Laos

Hi Folks
Laos Laos Laos... Whew, that was a ride. We started from sunny Savannakhet, where we had spent two nights for preparing and settling in Laos. Orientation was easy enough, as there is just one road southwards. Easypeasy we thought. Nice weather, enough food and water in our backpacks, well rested and ready to skate. And then we hit the road out of town. Uuuh. Surface structure like a cheese grater. Every push gave you a nice massage for your feet and body, and shaked you up to your head. And as soon as you stopped pushing, you immediately stopped. Judge for jour self, I have attached some pictures of the roads, I call them "Painful pavement pictures". So this wasn't gonna be easy, but hey, we aren't easily scared of roads. So we stubbornly pushed on, through beautiful landscapes which reminded us a little of Africa, while the sun was rising higher and higher and it was getting hotter and hotter. Sweat started to flow, and it wouldn't stop for a long time. In the evening we started to look for a camp spot and asked some locals if we could camp in their field. No problemo. So we put up our tent, watched a kitsch sunset and ate some serious pasta. Everything looked calm, some cows grazing nearby, some chicken running around, the glow of a huge garbage fire behind a close range of hills. A good night of sleep. Until the moment when we realised that we were not alone in our tent anymore. Not a thief like in Russia had entered the tent, but termites. Thousands of them. They had chewed holes in both the bottom and the moskito net the size of big coins. And then they were attacking the cookies we stupidly left in Kyras backpack on her side of the tent, and the rubber of the bike lock on my side. And some of the brave ones went to explore our sleeping bags. Which in turn woke us up, because termite bites hurt a lot. So we got up in the middle of the night and packed our stuff in order to escape the angry termites. On the other hand we were up and on the road really early this day. The skateboarding then was the same as the day before. Painful crawling along the road with glacial speed, all while being roasted by the scorching sun. But we kept up, had some lengthy lunch breaks in the shadow and pushed on. In the evening again the quest for a camp spot. A little worried because of termites now. Luckily the locals we asked invited us into their home for the night, so no worrying about termites. A nice place, three houses/families with joined backjards, where all sorts of farm animals where poking around. Plus a water well  where we could wash of the dust from the road with fresh water. Later we were invited for dinner by them, which unfortunately sounds more exciting than it was. In their honest effort of being good hosts, they assumed that their food would be to spicy for us, so they cooked us some rice and a omelete, while they ate the deliciously looking local food. Shortly after dinner, everybody said goodnight and went to bed. This was maybe around 9pm, but as sunset is around 5.30pm and at 6pm its pitch dark, it feels a lot later. Next day after morning coffee we took our goodbyes and continued on the cheese grater. By now we had already discovered that the very rough, sharp edged pavement, combined with the shaking, had started taking its toll on our boards. The wheels had started to chip, and the delaminations on my board had spread, completely covering (well, separating) the tail and new the nose of the board aswell. Uh oh, I hope this thing last until the next Skateshop. The day continued like the last two, horrible skating in wonderful landscape, with vast plains of yellow rice fields, dotted by huge trees, and from time to time a refreshing looking river. And we learned that it is illegal in Laos to take photographies of bridges and to skate in the middle of the road. In the evening finding a place to camp was difficult, but with the help of a crazy guy from Finland in a Jeep we found a decent guesthouse in the end. Then remaining distance to the next town was a little to much for one day, and not enough to split in two days. So we thought we'll just try. On the way we met some cyclists from Polland, coming from the other direction, from Cambodia, which had very bad news for us. Apparently the road gets worse after the next town, and detoriates further the closer to the Cambodian border you get. Hm. We continued until we ran out of time shortly before the town of Pakse, and opted for flagging down a local bus for the last kilometers into town. When poking around town in search for a guesthouse, we soon met some nice dudes from Switzerland and the USA and joined them for their guesthouse. Which was a lucky strike, as Basil, the Swiss guys proved to know the area really well. Plus the guesthouse was very cute, right at the riverside with a sunset view terace and hammocks. After two nights and meeting a lot of nice people, we left Pakse to skate on a sideroad to Champasak, and for half a day we had really nice roads. We couldn't stop in Champasak, because we had forgotten to search an ATM in Pakse and had ran out of money. Well, after a ferry ride to the other side of the river, we continued direction main road, and as soon as we hit it, the road surface turned unskateable. OK, hitchhiking from here. Two rides, one broken down car and one ferry later, we are on Don Det island, at the very south of Laos. Very cozy this island. We rented a super basic riverside bungalow and relaxed for a day. That's about it of what you can do here, but I liked the quiet atmosphere very much. Oh and we cut each others hair, so watch out for the new style in future pictures. Speaking of pictures, they will be delivered in separate posts due to technical reasons. Sooo, and right now we are already in Cambodia, having hitchhiked here to the town of Stung Treng today. From here we will plan future adventures and post some pictures in the next days.
Cheers
Robert