Laos Traveling Journal

28/10
In the rural areas of Laos people live very simple life. Tonight it was a 4 year old boy playing with a cocroach. He found it quite cool to make this poor bug that makes most of female westerners run away screaming into what you call a little car driving it through the dirt ground under the table.
Laos fascinates me with its Laos PDR (please dont rush) & "no problem"s & "dont worry"s. In fact this is what makes this place so laid back and special. However this can easily become a pain in the ass when traveling with a big group like we did.
Today started off with a 6am morning run. Yes! Finally back on my running routine. Run along the river. The temperature was really pleasant in comparison to other south asian countries. Met a few other runners on the way.
Our 3 hour long drive to the start of our hike into the village was full of teenager based topics such a "how many celebrities have you met?" Hike in was quite adventurous thanks to the lovely blood sucking creatures (leaches). Had to be brave not to freak out as I had to knock off a few of them climbing omy shoes. Village & villagers were very welcoming. Squat down toilets and bathing in the river in our sarons became another challenge for us. However the biggest challenge for me personally was seeing a duck being killed for our dinner. Couldnt touch it when it came cooked on our table. So instead I filled my stomach with lots of sticky rice which quickly became the main food on my plate for most of the meals in the village. Spent the evening playing guitar a nd singing. It was nice to get some music going after so long.

Words to remember:
Sabadi - hello
Kapchai - thank you
Lakon - goodbye
Non lap fandi - good night
Sabadi tansa - good morning
Dilaj/ Namlaj - that's nice

29/10
The "rice" day. Spent the day harvesting rice on a steep hill as well as eating it for lunch&dinner. Played with the little village kids and bath in the river for the first time.

30/10
Today I became a specialist on planting mango trees and did a bit of art&crafts with the local school kids. Another bath in the river and finally  Baci ceremony connecting the spirits back to our bodies with its magic atmosphere.

1/11
Laos is slowly becoming the most favorite country that i've traveled to. It's amazing how peaceful and chilled the streets are. Welcoming temperature, slow pace of life topped with romantic lights of the night market street. I dont usually feel this safe and relaxed in a new country after spending only a week in it. But i guess this one is different.

9/11
Once again feeling very gratefull for being a daugther of my dad, the pilot of czech airlines. Not only he saved me 24h of traveling (Moscow-Geneva-Prague) and spending another night at the airport by organizing the tranfer of my bag which got checked in from bangkok all the way to geneva but thanks to him they placed me to the International VIP Lounge with free food, drinks & wifi for 5 hours. Couldnt wish for more. Great welcome back gift dad! Xxx To make it even better he is flying the plane home!!!!! I cant be more happy. Seriously, thank you thank you thank you whoever you are up there

Cambodia 10/10

Wondering if my car made it back home already. Today was based around temples. Visited the famous Angkor Wat, however my favorite was a smaller temple with huge smiling faces. It would be amazing to see this place with all its kings and people back in the old times.

Afternoon belonged to the Amazing Race with my team won! Counting from 1-10 in khmer, going to the moon photo, old market, eating fried bugs and frogs at a basket market, planting trees, learning a local Apsura dance and tangram puzzle were part of this challenge. But the best part was riding our tuktuks from one challenge to another using khmer to navigate our driver.

Dinner was a BBQ at a local restaurant. Challenged myself to eat weird things including shrimps that still had their heads or some kind of sea mushroom. Pretty tired after waking up at 5am to give alms to monks at one of the temples. Tomorrow waking up even earlier. 4:15. Last day of the trip here we come. 

Cambodia 8/10

Coming back from a lovely dinner at the Tara Boat my thoughts are all about how would it feel to live here your whole life. Cambodia is a place that really makes yu think. Think and appreciate what you have, who you are and where you were born. Seeing these families on floating houses makes me feel guilty for having my stomach filled with good food that i didnt really have to earn and eating as much as i wish. Because most of the people here cant. But the local people seem happy. Happy for the little they have. Maybe we should all come to see the life here to reslize this. Because it's not having a big house, shiny car or fancy cloths that you barely wear that matter.

I dont need to travel to countries that are same to my own. I want to visit places like Cambodia  that challenge my comfort zone and make me think and truelly connerct with myself. Do things that I've never done before. Not man made ones but things that local people here do everyday. 

Cambodia 7/10

Today we wen biking. Developed a better way of counting them (girls,boys,travel groups) and of getting them to be quite. Was quite happy that i was the mtb specialist when i was organizing the kids for biking. Didnt have enough tandem bikes so had to swop the kids in tuktuks around. A few of them werent feeling good and as we stoped for our first break i started to realize how much stress is to be a group leader. A boy started to vomit, sun was turning the heat on and i had hard time counting the kids. The fact that we stopped just next to a place were 3 pigs were being killed at the same time didnt make it any better. Hearing them screaming for life made me wanna cry. 

Second half of the biking went better, kids got better at riding though few fell in the water surronding the road they came out with big smiles.

Evening program was circus workshop and show. Workshop was really cool. Kids enjoyed it, and we all made it save back to the hotel while it was pouring down heavily. Discovered I got another week of work in November and got an email from school about my thesis. I wonder how i'll explain to my prof that i'm not working on my thesis very much..... 

Cambodia 5/10/2013

Very tired. Havent recovered from the 24 hours journey from Geneva yet and losing a night of sleep and rest after full on VC OED autumn season. However the visit to Cambodia has been a great adventure so far and definetly worth it. Breakfast was interesting. Lots of hot meal options like noodles, rice with vegetable, sausages and omelets. No cereals or yogurt so i went for healthy fruit plate option. Got a ride to the village with a cart pulled by oxes. However seeing that all the cows and oxes have a string pulled through their nose which people use to guide and stop them makes me wonder how they do this to these poor skinny animals. Not sure if I want to ask. Today we started to build a house out of bamboo and palm leaves. The main 3 working groups are framing, leafing and flooring. Looks easier than it really is and the heat from the sun doesnt make it any easier on us. Walking a path flooded by water up to my knees is everyday reality for the local people and kids that have to push their bikes through the water to get to school (if lucky) or to work where they earn about 3USD a day.

Favorite meal: spicy noodles with shrimps or spicy mango salad. Yumm!