Cambodia, Laos and Singapore 2022

 It was an early morning market day.  I rise early to meet with Pheng and our driver and we head to the market for 6:00 am.  Everything seems to be within walking distance in Champasak, so the drive to the market is about 2 minutes.  Although the market is busy it’s small in size and I am finished looking in about 30 minutes.  But that’s after I go through each stall looking for items I would never find in Canada and this place was a gold mine full of them.   First up were the flowers from Banana plants.   Next up were tiny frogs.  They’re still alive and tied at the hips to each other.  Maybe frogs are a French influence brought into this area or did the French start consuming because they colonized this area?  I think it’s the later. Crickets.  Yup, Pheng got me to try one. Rats, Frogs and Fish.  The rats were definitely in the “I’m not sure I want to be close to them” category even though they were no longer moving.   O...

Today we were scheduled to do some bike riding around the Mekong delta islands.  Given an ambient temperature in the low 30’s, humidity in the 80’s and zero wind, we opt to just cruise the islands by slow boat and skip the biking.  Judith’s shoulder is bothering her and I also make up my share of aches and pains to avoid excess sweating by bike.   Instead we decided to lay back and cruise the islands by boat.  Much more civilized and much less sweaty. I really love the breakfasts at this hotel.  Today I have poached eggs on toast.  My late spouse, Steve, used to make this for me on weekends.  Other than the sweatiness due to climate, I know he’d enjoy the travel too.  The climate for this week has been unseasonably warmer.  People here have blamed it on global warming. We have a leisurely start, making it down to the resort’s dock at 8:00 am.  We have checked out of the hotel and taken our bags with us on the water taxi because we’re sta...

Today the itinerary has us down for a Jeep tour. We have a leisurely breakfast at the restaurant and check out some more of the grounds.   Our hotel unit.  We have the top floor of this building.   Breakfast is on the upper terrace.  It has a great view of the Mekong River.  I have a couple of eggs, toast, fruit and a cappuccino.  And then were off on more adventures. We head down to the hotel’s boat launch and take a water taxi boat to go to the other side of the Mekong. The River hotel where we are staying is located on the west side of the Mekong River at Champasak and our destination is on the other side of the river.  Although theres’s an option is to drive across using the bridge, the water taxi is way more adventurous.  We get in the water taxi and head south to clear a small island in the middle of the river.  We round the tip and head across to Muang, the small village on the other side of the river from Champasak.  The village ...

It’s 6:24 am and Judith is already at the door of the restaurant waiting for it to open at 6:30.  They take pity on us and open early because we need to be on way to the airport by 6:45.  I opt for museli and yogurt and we’re both done by the requisite time and on our way to the airport.  Lai helps us check in and before we know it, we’re standing in the same spot and saying goodbye to him again.  He’s been great as a guide and I hope he’s able to rebuild his guiding career.  We’ve been told by the guides that Laos travel is slowly coming back — it’s not yet pre covid levels with guesses at the 50% level of what it used to be.  All of them had to find new work for the 2+ years of tourism closure caused by Covid.   The flight was quite uneventful, having a typical pattern of a flight selfie, Judith falling asleep sometime around takeoff, a snack or two and pictures out the window if I get the window seat.  Paske is a small airport and we deplane on...