Scorpiosail Blog

[To Scorpiosail Home Page]

We didn’t visit all the 300 temples, only a dozen or so – guess that our temple quota is full by now. But they really are quite amazing.

Chiang Mai is a cool place, despite the heat and a population of 1,5 million (according to Lonely Planet) – it is Thailand’s second largest city. It has been a major centre on ancient trading routes, where caravans stopped between Simao (in China) and and Mawlamyine (on Burmas Indian Ocean coast), and it is still today the Silk-Capital of Siam. Chiang Mai’s leading tourist attraction appears to be the Night Bazaar, which is one of the largest we have experienced.

Chiang Mai is also where our tour of Indocina/Siam ends, two weeks from it’s beginning. Because of the political unreast in Bangkok, we decided to return to our yacht in Langkawi. As there are no direct flights, we will first fly to Kuala Lumpur and then to Langkawi.

A full report of the tour will be posted at the Scorpiosail website in due course.

Mobile meditation?

[To Scorpiosail Home Page]

Today we arrived in Chiang Mai, the cultural Capital of northern Thailand, 700 km north of Bangkok. We traveled by Lao Airlines from Luang Prabang in Laos.

Our 12 days in Indochina are now a past and we are back in Siam, although I guess that these geografic names from the past have no exact borders. One particular detail, ubiquitous everywhere regardles of country, is the monks in their orange robes.

Chiang Mai was founded in the 13th century and it has more than 300 temples, almost as many as Bangkok, which is a much larger city. We’ll explore Chiang Mai for a day or two before we start heading south. Originally our plan was to travel via Bangkok, but the present political unrest in the Thai Capital may force us to skip it this time, so we may fly back to Scorpio in Langkawi (via Kuala Lumpur) a few days earlier than planned. No big loss though, we’ve been in Bangkok before.

[To Scorpiosail Home Page]

– Hello from Luang Prabang.
– Thank you, but … wonder where that is …

Well yes, I didn’t know about the place either until I started to plan on our journey in Indochina.

We are in Laos PDR. The letters PDR stand for Peoples’ Democratic Republic and the only reason for my generation to have ever heard about this landlocked (no sea border) country is the Vietnam War – some of you may particularly remember the fabled (CIA owned) Air America and its Ravens. I suspect younger generations know even less.

As a matter of fact, Laos was a kingdom until the revolution of 1975. The first kingdom was established already in the 14th century with the title Lan Xang, or (Land of a) Million Elephants. But unlike their neighbour Cambodia, the Laos have not returned to kingdom – on the other hand they didn’t have any Khmer Rouge period either.

OK, and Luang Prebang …..?

This city, only 400 km but still, about a 10 hours bus ride north of the present Capital, Vientiane, was the home of the Royal Family. Only a decade ago this area of Laos was very difficult to access (actually its not easy even today except by air), with no decent roads accross the mountains, but today, with better road connections, this once sleepy Capital, with its myriad of temples, glittering in emerald and gold, with its orange-robed monks, and great food, restaurants and night-market may be the most sophisticated and photogenic city in the whole of Indochina.

We travelled by bus from Vientiane, and it took all those 10 hours mentioned above and although the VIP bus was reasonably comfortable, the serpent-roads made it a tough ride.

However, Luang Prebang is certainly not an unknown place among serious globetrotters. During the last 5 years it has 4 times been voted “The Worlds Top City Destination” by readers of the UK’s Wanderlust Magazine. Latest trophy was awarded last month, Siena in Italy came second.

The whole city is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995.

“Maybe it’s the languid pace of life instilled by the monks, maybe it’s just being in the shadow of those majestic temples; maybe it’s the presence of the mighty Mekong – but the whole place makes you slow down, forget any stress and just appreciate the environment around you. Yes, there are things to see and do, but that’s not the point. Luang Prabang is simply a great place to be” (Wanderlust Magazine).

French connection

[Back to the Scorpiosail Homepage]

We arrived in Vientiane (pronounced Vien-Chan) by Vietnam Airlines from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). The Capital of Laos is a delightful, compact place – at least the traveller’s enclave in the centre is. Bougainvillea-blooming streets with French colonial mansions and an incredibly rich international kitchen surrounded by steaming noodle stalls and Buddhist temples – it is a charming backwater, and surprisingly sophisticated.

Patuxai, the Vientiane version of Arc de Triomphe.

Vientiane’s peaceful appearence hides a turbulent past. Over a millennium of its histyory the place has been abused by successive Vietnamese, Siamese, Burmese, Khmer and French conquerors. The signs of French occupation and colonialism is particularly in evidence, but today mostly in a positive way: beauful colonial buildings and the French cuisine.

However, the most surprising evidence of foreign influence was this sign:

[Swedish snus (snuff) is a kind of chewing tobacco, outlawed in the rest of the European Union.]

[Back to the Scorpiosail Homepage]

Hello from Phnom Penh. Yesterday we came face to face with the Khmere Rouge killing machine.

I find it difficult to display some photos I shot at these, once horrific locations, without also trying to give them a historical background. However, I trust that most of you are pretty well aware of what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s. For younger generations I recommend some research for a better understanding of Cambodia today. There are several sites on the web trying to document the Cambodian holocaust. One of them, as a random example, is called Cambodian Communities out of Crises. I haven’t had the opportunity to really check them out, but try and find out for your self.

In short, what happened was, that in 1975 a new Communist movement, called the Khmer Rouge, took over power in Cambodia. They were led by Pol Pot, a lunatic who instituted an extreme and cruel version of fundamentalist Communism that quickly forced the population into farm labor. The regime outlawed money, markets, schools, healtcare and religion. In four years, more than 2 million people (over 20% of the country’s population) died as result of execution, diseas and starvation.

Tuol Sleng prison, or “Security Office 21”, was established by Pol Pot and designed for “detention, interrogation, inhuman torture and killing after confession from the detainees were received and documented”. Today this facility operates as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Almost everybody held at S-21 was later executed at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek.

Detainees who died during torture were buried in mass graves inside the prison grounds, sometimes at an average of 100 victims per day. Tuong Sleng demonstrates the darkest side of the human spirit and stands as a testament to the unthinkable horrors that took place here.

We also visited the Killing Fields, today offcially called Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. A monument rises over the 129 mass graves, where 17,000 men women and children were executed by the Khmer Rouge security forces. Encased inside the monument are 9,000 human sculls found here during excavations. Many of these sculls bear witness that they were bludgeoned to death.

Visiting S-21 and the Killing Fields was a chilling experience and as antidote we spent the afternoon admiring the Royal Palace including the Silver Pagoda. The floor of the pagoda is covered by five tons of silver and there is a life-sized solid-gold Buddha, which weighs 90 kg and is adorned with 2086 diamonds, the largest weighin in at 25 carats.

The elephant is an important symbol in this part of the world, in the Royal Palace compound they can be found in many shapes.

Malla with a young street vendor, who sold us cold water in the heat outside the palace.

Cambodia is truly a country of contrasts.