Also happy birthday to my wonderful supportive Mother Goose who turns 60 today.

We were determined to watch the gold medal game as well, except that the time difference meant that Canada would face the USA at 3:15 a.m. local time. Unfortunately, our gecko-inhabited beach hut is sans-satellite TV, so we asked Choppers bar if they might consider keeping some unusual hours for the sake of us obsessive hockey fans. It seems that enough people must have asked the same thing, because sure enough, by mid-afternoon the day before, the big game was written on the chalkboard outside: “Olympic Hockey, Gold Medal Game, Live at 3:00 a.m.”

If we were back in our university days, we probably would have stayed up late and enjoyed several beers before the game, but since we’ve grow beyond those days (and because Mike and Sarah were starting a scuba diving course at 9:00 a.m.) we decided to get some sleep and wake up at 2:45 a.m. instead. We hopped on our scooters and drove to the bar, and arrived to find dozens of people already there, drinking and cheering. The game was on! We ordered some coffee and a beer (Meg couldn’t bring herself to be seen drinking coffee in a bar during a hockey game of this magnitude. How old are we anyways?) and started watching.

When Toews scored first for Canada, the place erupted. Cheers and table banging shook the walls. We felt right at home. Unfortunately, someone staying or living nearby (who clearly wasn’t Canadian) didn’t share our enthusiasm and filed a noise complaint against the bar! The owner got up in front of the crowd and warned everyone that the noise level needed to come way down or there would be consequences. Imagine telling a bar full of drunk Canadian and American hockey fans to be quiet during the gold medal game. The second period had barely began, when the TVs were suddenly turned off by the owner. He said that arrests were imminent, so the party was over and we all had to leave. Right in the middle of the game!!! We were devestated. We got on our scooters and drove all over the island hoping to find another venue, but although a few places were staying open all night, none of them had satellite, so they couldn’t show the game. There was nothing we could do. We very sadly returned home and climbed despondently into bed, resigned to the fact that we’d have to wait until breakfast to find out the result.

After successfully reuniting with Mike and Sarah in Bangkok, we headed east by bus. Our destination: Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor in Cambodia. It was a long day of bus travel, with a slow border crossing in the middle of it, but we arrived in Siem Reap in one piece and early enough to plan our expedition to the temples for the following day. The idea was to leave at 5:00am by tuk-tuk in order to be at the temples for sunrise. We were in for a day of heat, sweat, and ancient ruins. This was a destination that we’d been looking forward to for some time, and we’d finally arrived. We went to sleep with excited minds.

Our tuk-tuk driver met us at the guesthouse right on time, and we were off in the Batmobile in the dark. We had the coolest tuk-tuk in all of Angkor, and we knew it. Other tourists lusted jealously after our sweet ride and laid back driver, who was a pleasure to have with us for the day. I mean, really, what could be cooler than a Batman tuk-tuk. Honestly.

We were part of a steady flow of tuk-tuks heading out in the pre-dawn darkness, and we started to get a little worried that we’d simply be a part of a huge mob for the entire day. As we neared the temples, we made a decision that was, in retrospect, brilliant. Instead of heading directly for Angkor Wat for sunrise, like everyone else, we convinced Batman to take us to Ta Prohm instead. We arrived to find ourselves absolutely alone. The four of us wandered in darkness into the heart of the ruins, and as the sky slowly brightened, we marveled at the temple in wonderful, peaceful silence. For nearly the first hour and a half, we had the entire temple to ourselves.

To make things even better, Ta Prohm turned out to be one of the most incredible ruins that we would see all day. The temple is in the slow but sure process of being reclaimed by the jungle. Huge trees are growing up through the giant stones, spitting and toppling them like jenga blocks. The intertwining of nature and structure is so complete in places that it was hard to imagine them apart. The trees were beautiful in and of themselves, but they were made even more so by the way they perched on top of walls and clung to the stone. It was simply awesome, in the truest sense of the word. We were also blown away by the scale of the temple. It was huge! On the little map we carried, Ta Prohm was a tiny square next to the much larger neighbouring temple of Angkor Wat and the city walls of Angkor Thom. But as the sun came up, Ta Prohm revealed itself to be a sprawling complex of corridors and courtyards. It was much bigger than I’d imagined it would be. It took us easily two hours to wander through the ruins and back to the batmobile.

As other groups of tourists started to arrive, we left Ta Prohm and headed for Ta Keo on the advice of our driver. Ta Keo is more of a single structure than a complex, but it rises high above the ground and is accessed by climbing large, steep stone steps. As we climbed, we started to become aware of the day’s imminent heat, and the sweating began. Still, the top was reached and we looked down on the temple below us, parts of which were strewn with rubble, but which was for the most part intact. We had again beaten the crowds to this temple, and we took advantage of our solitude to execute some of our more advanced and choreographed group photos.

As the day went on, we visited the walled city of Angkor Thom, the Elephant Terrace, Bayon, and many smaller temples (relatively speaking, of course). The day continued to grow hotter, and the crowds bigger. With the crowds came the hawkers, and we were able to practice and perfect our haggling and refusal techniques with dozens of kids who chased after us offering postcards, bracelets, flutes, coconuts, and other unidentifiable souvenirs, for “only one dollar, one dollaaaaaaaar only. You buy? Lady, you buy now? One dollaaaaAAaaar.” We discovered that an enthusiastic “No way!” seemed to get our point across, and it was only afterwards that we realized how much this might actually sound like “Go ‘way!”. No wonder it worked. By this point we realized how cherished our time alone at sunrise was — now we were just numbers in a crowd.

Regardless of the heat and crowds, the temples continued to impress. The faces of Bayon were a highlight, with their calm half-smiles and sleepy eyes. The Elephant Terrace offered a taste of the grandeur of the Khmer empire at it’s height. And the jungle offered cooling shade and a mysterious backdrop for it all.

We opted for a lunch and siesta break after Angkor Thom, and we found a patch of grass in view of the massive entrance to Angkor Wat where we dozed lightly in the shade for an hour or so. Feeling slightly recovered, and thanks to some lunch and cold coconuts, we were ready for the big one. Angkor Wat lay before us, isolated across a giant moat, with it’s stone causeway steadily carrying visitors through it’s symmetrical gate. The sun beat down mercilessly as we crossed the wide-open expanses of the temple grounds to reach the main complex.

The scale of Angkor Wat is hard to convey in words. In fact, it was even hard to grasp in person. Some of the earlier temples that we visited were impressive because we could stand back and view their enormous expanse from a distance. Angkor Wat was simply too big to understand in it’s entirety. There were huge areas of the temple grounds that we didn’t even see, and we only had the energy to explore the intricately carved corridors of one side of the main temple. Unfortunately the upper part of the main temple was closed to tourists: it was perhaps the only vantage point that would have offered an encompassing view of all of the walls and courtyards and towers and corridors. Being denied this view lent an unreachable aura to Angkor Wat, both augmenting it’s wonder and frustrating the mind’s eye in its attempts to comprehend it.

We finished our day, like everyone else visiting Angkor, by climbing to Bakheng for a view of the landscape around us at sunset. The crowds were at their densest here, and we were already 13 hours into our sightseeing day, so although we climbed to the top and appreciated the view, we didn’t last until sunset. We did, however, get to see our first elephants, as they carried people up and down the hill (for a price, of course). They were very impressive beasts.

Back in Siem Reap, feeling dirty and tired and hungry and happy, I felt the Temples of Angkor settling into my memory. It was an experience that I think will only become more and more unique and special as days pass and I have time to absorb it. It was beyond anything I had imagined it to be. It was dreamike to be able to see these ancient structures so closely, to climb their stairways and walk through their corridors, to touch the cool stone and stand beneath the giant, enlightened faces. It was a testament to the abilities of humankind, an achievement of incredible scale and symmetry, of intricacy and balance. It was absolutely one of the highlights of our travels to date, and although it sometimes feels like I say that a lot, I don’t think it deserves any lesser praise.

One of my favourite aspects of travel is that it helps me to appreciate where I’m from. Mobile phone rates aside, I am so proud of my home and native land.

Mark and I were feeling especially proud after having watched the Olympic opening ceremonies. Our dear friend Rachel generously gave us a night at her fly guesthouse in Vientiane and our room had a t.v. for us to watch it on. We both got goosebumps and all teary-eyed for home while watching.

We’ll be following the action as much as possible and wishing we were at home to be a part of it.

Our last destination in Laos was the capital, Vientiane, where we were meeting our friend Rachel for a short visit. We took the bus from Vang Vieng (which left on Laos time, meaning about an hour late) and arrived in the city at dusk. Vientiane is a small capital, with a population of just over 200,000 people. Still, it felt pretty big after some of the smaller places we’d been recently.

We hopped in a tuk-tuk from the bus station and went in search of Rachel’s guesthouse. When we found it, she was waiting for us with refreshingly cold Beer Lao at the ready. It was so great to see a friendly face from back home! We only had one day to hang out before Rachel had to carry on to Bangladesh, so we made the most of it.

The first thing we did was head out of town on a local bus to visit Buddha Park. This park is near the river, and was built by a man who decided to blend Hindu and Buddhist religions together, and built this park as a tribute to all of the deities of each. The small patch of land was chock full of concrete statues, including a huge reclining Buddha. Even some of the smaller statues were life-size. They made great camouflage.

The most bizarre thing in the park was a giant sphere with a concrete tree on top of it and an entrance in the base. We could see that people were sitting on top of the sphere, under the tree. We figured that there must be stairs up through the inside. We didn’t figure on the inside of the sphere being one of the creepiest, most bizarre things we’d seen so far. It was divided into several floors, connected by claustrophobically tight concrete staircases climbing up through tiny openings in the floors. Each floor was lit dimly by a single light bulb and traces of light from outside, and was full of more concrete statues in various states of torture and ecstasy. Everything was laced with dust and cobwebs. It felt as if we’d stepped straight into an Indiana Jones movie. Very strange.

After creeping ourselves out at the Buddha park, we headed back into town for some refueling. After a very satisfying lunch and a couple of cold Beer Lao, we treated ourselves to an hour-and-a-half long herbal massage. Ahhhhhh. And the massage only cost about $8 each.

Feeling refreshed, we took a tuk-tuk out to visit the COPE center in Vientiane, where we learned some Lao history that we were very ignorant of. Did you know that Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world? During the Vietnam war, the US dropped over 260 million bombs on Laos, many of which were cluster bombs containing hundreds of individual explosives each. Over 30% of these bombs failed to detonate, and the rural countryside of Laos is still littered with them. They are still detonating to this day, killing and injuring the people of Laos. COPE is an organization that provides prosthetic limbs and training for people injured by these bombs. It was sobering to learn this dark part of Lao history, and inspiring to see the work that COPE is doing to help those affected by it.

We finished our day by having dinner with Rachel and some of the people that she had been working with in Vientiane during her trip. We ended up getting some very helpful consultation and advice from the doctors in the group, and they even donated a whole bag of first aid stuff to us (Thanks Jill and Lorraine). It was a short but sweet visit, and it was so great to see Rachel, even if it was only for one day. Safe onward travels Rachel!

THE thing to do in Laos, on the backpacker circuit, is tubing in Vang Vieng. It’s not just backpackers making their way here, it has become a Euro/Aussie spring break destination as well. It’s a freakish sort of adult fantasy land with bikinis, booze, adrenaline and breathtaking scenery. As odd as it felt to find this party vibe in the middle of rural Laos, we couldn’t miss out and allowed ourselves to have a fantastic time of it.

The idea is to gently float down the Nam Song river, stopping in at riverside bars along the way to become completely inebriated on buckets of alcohol and beer whilst enjoying and/or injuring yourself on the multitude of slides, swings and ziplines into the water.

We headed to a tubing operator in town nice and early where Mark and I were marked as numbers 19 and 20 with giant permanent marker all over our arms. We were then shuffled into a tuk-tuk and taken to the start, aka the first bar along the river. We couldn’t believe how many bars there were, especially at the start. Someone told us 80% of the people who come don’t make it past the first few bars. To warm ourselves up we started the day with a tasty Beer Lao at the first bar and Mark worked up the courage to take the first rope swing.

The first swing had to be the scariest on the river. It was dizzyingly high and the landing was a thread of deep water. There was a rocky shoal just to the left, the shore just to the right and a tree immediately behind. Timing had to be bang-on. I could tell Mark was nervous, but he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do it. I, on the other hand, have no trouble at all living with myself for not doing it. Still, I was more nervous than him. And so he took the big swing. His giant ear-to-ear grin didn’t fade all day. He was hooked.

Leaving bar #1, we plopped in our tubes and allowed the current to drift us all of 20 feet before we were roped in by bar #2. The guys working the bars have ropes or sticks of bamboo they throw at you to grab for them to pull you in because we couldn’t possibly exert energy of our own. They are startlingly accurate with their aim. We had another drink and I watched Mark jump off more things. The next few hours proceeded this way. After much encouragement and a spell of paralyzing fear, even I rode a zip-line. We eventually stopped buying drinks while Mark kept jumping. The bar operators started to detect a pattern and told us we needed to actually buy drinks before jumping. Safety first.

After making it through the gauntlet of bars we started to realize that daylight was fading fast and we had lots of river ahead of us. With no more stops and some gentle paddling to assist us we carried on down the river past a spectacular dream-like setting of sheer limestone cliffs. We were so awestruck by our surroundings that we almost floated right into the middle of a herd of water buffalo. Just as the red sun was setting over some distant mountains we washed up on shore, back in the town of Vang Vieng. We returned our tubes, grabbed a sandwich from a street vendor, and headed to a ‘video bar’ to watched some hilarious episodes of Family Guy to end our lazy day.

One of the things that makes Vang Vieng a destination for so many travelers (besides tubing — more on that later) is the landscape that surrounds it. In nearly every direction, huge limestone karsts, or cliffs, soar upwards in sheer masses. And as it that weren’t enough on its own, the karsts are full of caves and clear, cool springs. We had to get up close, so we rented a motorbike in Vang Vieng and headed west on a bumpy gravel road that stretched towards the karsts through the rural countryside.

The cave that we chose to visit is called Tham Phu Kham, or Blue Lagoon for the benefit of us english speaking falangs. We parked the bike next to a small swimming area, where several people were already enjoying a cold swim in the heat of the day. The water was the same translucent blue colour that we’d seen in Tat Kuang Si, outside of Luang Prabang. It was a beautiful setting — the karst ahead of us rose sharply upwards, and a small, dark opening about halfway up beckoned us towards it up steep steps. We headed for it.

We stepped into the cave and dug out our headlamps. Daylight streamed in to the first chambers and illuminated the limestone formations everywhere. We ventured deeper, and quickly realized two things. First, the cave was huge. Ginormous. It wasn’t long before we’d left daylight behind and were plunged into total, complete darkness. Second, it turns out that my headlamp is absolutely terrible for spelunking. I have one of those little LED headlamps that casts a soft white light — pleasant to read by, but useless in the darkness of this cave. Luckily I had the iPhone with me, so I used the Flashlight application, and it was about ten times better. Yet another argument for traveling with that handy Apple gadget.

The cave just kept going and going. We must have gone at least 400 meters deep. In parts the chambers would be so huge that our lights would fail to reach the ceiling above. The silence was absolute. It was the type of setting that automatically breeds panic in your mind. When we reached the deepest point, which was a gaping chasm in the floor, we stopped for a minute and considered how utterly terrifying it would be to be lost in a cave like this, without a light. After thinking this for a very brief moment, we quickly turned around and headed a little anxiously back towards the exit. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to see daylight again.

We left the cave and went for a swim in the cool waters below. I think that the Tham Phu Kham cave was one of the most stunning natural wonders that we’ve yet seen on our travels. Natural beauty on this scale overshadows even the most beautiful temples and cities. We carried our awe with us for the rest of the day.

~ As read on a menu in Luang Prabang