Ah Thailand  - sea, sun, beach and massage on the beach given by local girls  - the landing of the airplane woke me up. Chiang Mai :  No beach but five days of jungle travelling was waiting for us.  Jungle travelling :hiking and on the back of an elephant – elephant trekking they call it .  Is it comfortable this elephant , is there any air co and what about the mosquito’s and the black malaria?  By the way who’s idea was it to organise this ?  But I convince myself :  this will be fun end we will travel trough  a tropic mountain rain forest . This will be a unique experience for city people.

First day we rest and receive guidelines about clothing eating drinking jungle bio-degradable soap and elephants. We stay in a guest house near the national park of Khao Sok Jungle and the food is delicious. Don’t know how many people live in Thailand what is the political situation and economic challenge. Here in the jungle it is irrelevant.

We meet your local guides and we start travelling by vehicle up the mountain to the cloud forest above 2000 meters.  We receive  a lunch with  sandwiches, fruit, snacks and water in our small day pack for a first warming up 3 hour hike through the forest and jungle. The  guides point out all the wild plants, animals, birds and flowers to us. Some of the animals spotted on the trail are civet, sorow goat  and deer. This is the home of the Green Tailed Sunbird, which is found no other place in the world and a common resident . The rest of our journey is more of that and only two hours on an elephant  (and that was enough for me – although I like these animals very much).

It's useless to describe the beauty of the place ... the sounds ... the smells ... the exotic language ... the lost people weaving cotton on the mountains, the waterfall experience ....  you better go and experience it  for yourself.

16-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

We arrive in Kampot Cambodia at night. I was not very keen on visiting Cambodia since it reminded me of the war, killing people and napalm bombing. Anyway we have four days here and we will visit the famous Angkor site and its temple (or what’s left of it ..).

In the morning we join the group whom we will be travelling with. We also meet some Cambodian people and our female guild. These people are very friendly (and very small...). There are about 15 million Cambodians and most of them are Buddhism. The local language is like Chinese i mean it is “kherm”  and likely they speak English and have English tourist information papers . We go to the Angkor temples with the bus. The air co is working but we don’t feel it . It is terrible hot en wet. Imagine one has to fight in the woods in similar conditions. Luckily most of the mines from the war are removed and now it is safe to travel  .While eating delicious local food  (not much meat) locals  tell us that Cambodia is a monarchy and that they also have a democratic government – so that looks like Belgium. Although they tell me that economy is growing fast – i see a lot of poverty and a lot of people that are surviving without any luxury.  Nevertheless they all seem happy and are friendly ...maybe they believe that tourism will bring prosperity. Once outside the touristic places everything we want to do or say we needed a guide/translator – without we might as well stay in the hotel or the bus.

Finally we arrive in the former Khmer Kingdom of Angkor. These people produced some magnificent architectural building or structures more than thousand years ago . It is – even the ruins – very impressive, certainly if one knows that these people had no crane or bulldozer etc.  To many tourists and to much commercial pushing can’t take away the feeling that we have seen something unique before it will disappear due to over exploitation and due to time doing its work. Leaves me with thousand digital picture’s which I will have to sort and to comment so I will remember what was what ... although it was unforgettable.

13-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

Today we got up early. We have two days to visit Indonesia. From east Timor taking a boat to Kalimantan.  Its a joke – so we will visit only a part of the huge country and see a lot of water. We have a local guide that enthusiastically (in difficult English) gives us some basic information (while i am hoping not to get seesick on the first part of our journey.  In 1945 Indonesia became independent

The official name is :”Republic of Indonesia”. The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta. Whit 235 million people Indonesia is very populated country. In Indonesia they speak “Basha Indonesia” but also Englisch, Dutch and local dialects (the most widely spoken is Javenese)

Indonesia is a vast archipelago with about 13,700 islands. It is also the fifth most populated country on earth and the third largest democracy in the world. I think our guide was a teacher in a former life…

Once arrived on a tropic Kalimantan we wait at the small airport to take an even smaller plane from Kota Blaipan to Kuchin. While waiting we see a lot of men and no women. The guide explains that about 90% are Muslim. Indonesia had been noted for its relatively high level of religious tolerance, until recent years when many conflicts between Muslims and Christians have occurred. He  thinks that in the future this religious problems will compromise the economic and democratic possibilities.

I tell him that it seems to me that there is  also a lot of work to do concerning “women’s rights” and for a western tourist Islam religion has to much impact on society and on the way an individual should live.

The guide quickly changes subject and says with some pride that Indonesia is what they call and emerging economic country. Indonesia has a market-based economy in which the government plays a significant role.

Meanwhile we fly over an beautiful country and don’t see a lot of it …. I have to come back here – minimum a month – to discover the culture people and nice country sites…

03-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke