We’ve done a heck of a lot of stuff since I last posted so I’ll try and keep it brief. We’re now in Laos which means yet another currency to deal with. Pounds to Thai Bhat to Cambodia Reil (but everything is priced in US dollars) to Vietnam Dong (cue many dong related jokes from the boys…) and now to Laos Kip. And we’re travelling with mostly Aussies so they’re converting back to Aussie dollars. Hurts my head. Need to now get used to dividing by 12,000 – not easy!
Our last day in Hoi An, we visited the My Son temple ruins (a small Angkor) about an hour from the city. The ruins date from the 4th – 11th century and were built by Cham kings. A lot of the temple complexes were bombed by the US during the war in 1969 and 1972 as there were covered by thick jungle – the US government were sent a letter by the Vietnamese basically saying please don’t bomb our sacred mountains and temples but apparently it was received too late and the damage had been done. Such a shame as the temples were in pretty good condition for their age until the B52s arrived… That afternoon we hired bikes and followed our guide around the back streets and into the countryside surrounding Hoi An – beautiful expanses of paddy fields and fishing ponds – made even nicer by the sunset!

We then had a 4 hour drive north to Hue – the drive was beautiful and we had to cross a mountain pass which our bus hobbled up laden with 15 people and their luggage. The views were spectacular and we all wished it was bright and sunny to make it even better. We also stopped at a picture postcard beach – completely deserted and proper white sand and blue blue sea – shame we only had 30 minutes there as we all could have happily spent the rest of the day lounging and swimming, but we were on a schedule to get to Hue for lunch and to visit the citadel. The citadel is about the only thing to do in Hue and it was well worth seeing – similar (but a lot smaller) to the forbidden city in China – lots of temples, royal buildings etc – again some of which was destroyed by the US bombs (and a typhoon).
From Hue, we caught our final overnight train (which thankfully smelt less like cabbage than the previous one) to Hanoi – we arrived again at 5.30am but this time couldn’t check into our rooms till midday so we all spent a knackering morning wandering around the Old Quarter, eating ice-cream on ice-cream street, drinking coffee on coffee street and looking at all the weird and wonderful food on sale in the markets. After a well needed rest and bath, we went to watch the water puppet show – quite interesting but glad it was only an hour and cost only £2!
After our long day in Hanoi, we packed our daysacks for a 2 day trip to Halong Bay – a UNESCO site 4 hours east of Hanoi filled with limestone karst inslands and lots of caves. We took a bus to the port and then hopped on a wooden junk boat for an afternoon cruise around the islands which included a visit to a cave and a stop for swimming. The cave was massive and a complete tourist trap - gift shops on the way out! Only 4 of us ventured in the water for a swim – it wasn’t that warm outside but the water was almost as warm as the air so it was great diving off the boat into really really deep water. We stayed the night on Cat Ba island – the only permanently populated island in the bay. We spent the following morning kayaking in the bay to get to a small beach on an island populated with small golden monkeys who were very inquisitive and ready to steal any of our stuff including our shoes! Fortunately we rescued our belongings and spent a relaxing hour swimming, sunbathing and exploring the beach – was the nicest beach we’ve been to so far possibly as we were the only ones on it and we’d got their by the power of our arms only! Unfortunately we had to leave paradise behind and get the hydrofoil and bus back to Hanoi for our final night with the Vietnam group and leader. We had dinner and then headed for some drinks at a Bia Hoi (fresh beer) stall on the pavement – they whip out some plastic tables and the small plastic stools and ta da you have a bar! We had one day on our own to explore some more of Hanoi before meeting our Laos group and leader that evening. We tried to visit the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum (where Uncle Ho’s body is encased in glass sarcophagus for all to see following the tradition of Lenin and Stalin) but we got there an hour after it closed and during the lunchtime closing of the museum – timed it all wrong! So we abandoned that plan and after some Pho (noodle soup) we visited the Temple of Literature (site of the first university in Vietnam) and then walked the scenic route back to the hotel to see the non-touristy parts of the city. Hanoi was a lot nicer than Ho Chi Minh City even though it’s just as manic and busy but it being about 15 degrees cooler and not humid helps a lot!
From Hanoi, we started the Laos portion of trip with 2 very long days on buses – a 7 hour trip to Vinh, and then a 12 hour trip across the Laos border and onto Vientiane. As soon as we got into Loas, the rain and cloud disappeared and we were treated to spectacular sunny views of the Ammamite mountains. Although the drive was long and our bus very cramped, the scenery made it pass a lot quicker and again it was interesting to see how quickly the buildings, people and atmosphere change as soon as you cross the border.
We had 2 nights and one full day in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It is a tiny capital city with only 600,000 inhabitants and sits right on the Mekong River overlooking Thailand. We spent the day visiting a temple and museum, climbing 100 steps to see the view from the Victory Monument (the Lao-ish Arc de Triomphe) and having a very good (and not ‘special’) massage. We all assembled at a riverside bar to watch the sunset over the Mekong – beautiful before heading to a nearby restaurant serving delicious BBQ fish and meat. We entertained ourselves by singing along to the very cheesy and bad karaoke video being played! From Vientiane we had a 4 hour bus drive north to Vang Vieng – the adventure capital of Laos. The drive was again beautiful and through the mountains and we had another blue sky day, as we do again today. Yesterday we all went tubing - literally you hire a truck tyre inner tube for the day, get driven up river and float back down stopping at bars on the way. Most bars have swings, zip-lines or waterslides over the river - Chris did a zipline and the waterslide and I sat on the side and laughed at everybody's crash landings in the river :-)

We heart Laos.

Good evening Vietnam

We’re now in Hoi An in Vietnam and have spent the last few days exploring a new, and very different, country. Our first introduction to Vietnam wasn’t brilliant. It took us nearly two hours waiting in a very stuffy and crowded room to cross the border. Not what you need in the middle of a 10 hour bus journey… but we made it, and immediately over the border you knew you were in a different country – the evidence of more money is quite prominent and the shops seemed more like proper shops rather than people’s belonging spilling onto the street as it seems in Cambodia.
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and immediately realised that crossing the road would involve risking your life every single time. For a city of 6 million, there are 2 million registered scooters/ motorbikes. Craziness. And they come at you a lot faster than they do in Phnom Penh! We had 3 full days in HCMC and had to say goodbye to two of our Cambodian group, and our guide L But we’ve picked up 4 new people and a guide who speaks Vietnamese which comes in pretty useful.
We visited the War Remnants museum in the city – a lot of photos from the American War and guns and bombs etc used. Some very graphic images and it was interesting to hear the stories from a Vietnamese side, as opposed to all the American-centric movie versions. That afternoon we headed out of the city to the Cu Chi tunnels – a massive underground network of tunnels that the villagers of Cu Chi used to hide from the Americans. It’s all a bit ‘theme park’ but trying to crawl through the tunnels (which have been slightly widened for us porky westerners) was really hard work and I can’t imagine how people used to spend the majority of their time down there. They had pretty ingenious systems to prevent against damage from flooding, and special protective caverns for women and children and methods of dispersing the smoke from the kitchens.

The following day, we took a boat trip on the Mekong Delta, about 2 hours from HCMC. We hopped on a boat and headed to an island where they make practically everything from Coconuts or coconut palms – we tried juice from a fresh coconut (yuk), coconut candy (yum), could have bought coconut carved souvenirs, saw coconut palm leaf roofs etc etc. Strangely it wasn’t called coconut island….

That evening, we caught our first night train and we were spoiled with a recently refurbished carriage. It didn’t bode well for the next trains that our guide said he’d never seen one so nice… We were 4 to a cabin and our room turned into ‘party room’ and we had 10 people in at one point with their beers, snacks and music - great fun till we had to wake up at 5am to get off… yawn…

We arrived at our hotel at Nha Trang and went straight back to sleep for a couple of hours before heading to the beach. Nha Trang is the main seaside resort in Vietnam, and was surprisingly quiet even though the weather wasn’t great and there were some mega offshore winds creating some big fat waves. Chris attempted to swim but mostly got smacked in the face with waves, and got a lot of sand in his shorts :-) We lounged on the beach till lunchtime and then 10 of us went to the local mud baths. We spent a blissful afternoon moving from mud pool to hot mineral showers to mineral hydrospray things to a hot mineral bath and then finished up in the pool – also filled with hot mineral water. So relaxing and we all felt cleaner than we had done for a long time, although I think I still have some mud in my ears….
The following day the weather wasn’t so nice, so we had a bimble round the shops in the morning and then decided to have a massage. Mine, and the other girls, massages were ok but Chris got a lot of hassle from the masseurs trying to get him to pay for ‘special extras’! Not such a relaxing experience :-)
We got our second sleeper train that night, and if the first train was hotel train, this one was prison train. The cabins were basic and the toilets even more so, but the worst was an evil rotten cabbage smell that didn’t go away all night. I had to fall asleep pinching my nose as I couldn’t bring myself to breathe it in. This time I wasn’t so bothered about getting off at 5am!
We arrived in Hoi An yesterday morning and again got a couple more hours sleep and then woke up to torrential rain that didn’t stop till 4.30 and then started again at 5.30. Just walking to lunch got me completely soaked and my trainers are still wet today! So we didn’t do much yesterday and rescheduled the walking tour to today. Hoi An is a UNESCO world heritage site, and preserves a lot of old Chinese and Japanese architecture with a bit of French colonial stuff thrown in for good measure. The place is teeming with tailor shops offering to make you any garment in 24 hours. A few people have bought things, and I definitely would have done if it wasn’t going to be squished in my backpack for the foreseeable future!

The dark side of Cambodian history

We’ve left Sihanoukville and I miss the beach already! We arrived in Phnomh Penh yesterday lunchtime and headed straight to lunch at the Friends restaurant – a charity run restaurant aimed at training street kids in waitressing and cooking – tasty tasty food and for a good cause.
I explored the Palace after lunch – amazing Khmer architecture and it is where the king and queen currently live so a lot of the grounds are cordoned off. The Silver Pagoda is the highlight of the palace – a large temple with a solid silver tiled floor (hence the Silver Pagoda…) and contains both the Emerald Buddha (actually made from jade) and a diamond encrusted Buddha. Lots of sparkle… They also have a display of models of the King’s coronation – they’re very proud of the monarchy as is to be expected when it was overthrown and the country taken over by communists intent on ruining the country.

Crossing the street in Phnomh Penh is quite a skills - there are motorbikes, tuktuks, cars, buses and bikes everywhere and the centre of the city is built on a grid system so you have to cross many many roads. Made the mistake of heading back to the hotel yesterday during rush hour. Oops.
Which leads me nicely on to today’s visits to the genocide museum and killing fields. A haunting experience, but really opens your eyes to the terrible history of Cambodia. The genocide museum is located in a old high school that was used as a prison during the Khmer Rouge period. The classrooms were turned into cells and thousands of people were held and tortured there before being taken to Choeng Ek to be executed. Some of the classrooms contain row upon row of copies of all the mugshots of the prisoners. Some of which were babies and very young children who obviously would have had no idea what they were there for. So horrible you can’t even imagine what they went through. We then went on to visit Choeng Ek (known as the ‘killing fields’) about half an hour outside the city. The site is surprisingly small as nearly 9000 corpses have been exhumed from 90 mass graves on the site. It is believed that there may be 30 more graves not accounted for so far. It is a sobering place to visit, not helped by numerous rags of clothing poking out of the mud, and the glass stupa filled with skulls.
That was all a bit depressing so I apologise, but it is a very important part of Cambodia and it amazes me that people who have been through so much, and almost every Cambodian was affected in some way at the time, are such friendly and happy people – they always have a smile.
It’s our last night in Cambodia and I am sad to leave it – we’ve had an amazing couple of weeks, and have learnt so much through our guide and the local people we’ve met along the way. Bring on Vietnam…

Kampong Cham & Sihanoukville

From Siam Reap we headed to Kampong Cham – the 3rd largest city in Cambodia. It is very off the tourist track and was refreshing to be pretty much the only westerners around. We hired bikes and cycled along the banks of the Mekong River to pick up the ferry across to a small island in the river called Koh Pen. We cycled across the island and loads of kids came running out yelling hello – I discovered that I am able to cycle a bike across a potholed dirt track whilst yelling hello in Khmer and high fiving kids J We visited a local school and took some gifts of books and pens etc for the teacher to distribute to the kids. One of the girls had brought balloons and the kids were very entertained with balloon keepy uppy! We then visited the temple which every evening holds free english classes for the kids on the island run by a NGO and the monks. We were split off into classes and we all ended up doing a bit of teaching – Chris got to pronounce the alphabet and I got to read a postcard from their textbook whilst they repeated. Not rocket science but they’re doing a great job with very little resources and funding available. That evening we ate a local house where they’d cooked us a fabulous meal of local dishes including deep fried tarantula… ewwww… pretty much everyone tried a bit – Chris ate a leg but I declined the offer of spider eating. Gah.
From Kompong Cham we caught the local bus to Pnomh Penh where we had a couple of hours to kill so spent it in the shopping centre eating and internetting. We then picked up a charter minibus to take us to a tiny village in the hills called Chambok. There we stayed overnight in a local farming house – mattress on the floor and mosquito net to keep out the nasties. I’m doing much better with the bugs that I thought I would but still not too keen on the bigger ones or the ones that bite! It was really fascinating to see how rural families live and how they’re even running a local ecotourism centre to protect the area around a nearby waterfall. The kids were very eager to talk to us and laughed a lot at our attempts to speak Khmer – they’re English attempts were much better J
After a traditional Khmer breakfast of rice porridge, pickled cucumber and omelette, we got back into the hottest minibus in the world to drive 3 hours south to Sihanoukville – Cambodia’s first seaside resort. Again, like Siam Reap, the place is still small and developing and the rest of the coastline is pretty unspoilt but is already earmarked for development. We’ve had 2 ½ days here to ‘rest’ but we’ve been pretty busy – took a boat trip yesterday to Bamboo Island – a very unspolit island off the coast with proper picture postcard views. We stopped to snorkel on the way but the visibility isn’t great at this time of year because of the rain – still saw some pretty fish and coral and a lot of evil black sea urchins. Today we visited some waterfalls – our guide organized for one of his friends with a jeep to take us and we managed to fit 7 of us plus the driver in – Chris and Pete had to stand up in the back J We got a lot of laughs from the locals even though they’d probably have managed to fit twice as many in! We had a quick dip in the waterfalls before heading back to the beach for some afternoon sun/rain bathing. Most of us got pedicures on the beach from the locals who apparently are multiskilled in manicures, pedicures, threading, massage etc etc and are very keen for you to try (and pay for) all of them. It’s quite an effort to insist that you only want your toenails painted!
This place is a little heaven and I’m going to miss it – Pnomh Penh tomorrow and back to reality…

Siam Reap

We left Bangkok early Tuesday morning to head to Siam Reap, Cambodia. The journey is quite an adventure – takes around 8 hours including the border crossing. The Thai side has a good road and is quite uneventful, but as soon as you cross the border, the road deteriorates rapidly into what is known as the ‘dancing road’. Pretty much just a dirt road and is not helped by the almost daily downpours throughout the rainy season. So, it’s not that far from the border to Siam Reap, but the bus only can average about 20 miles an hour! Our rickety little bus made it to within 10km of the city before running out of petrol and the driver tried and tried but couldn’t get it started again! We spent around an hour on the side of the road chatting with a local family whilst waiting for a new bus to come pick us up – we had a great time as the kids were really happy and excited and our guide translated for us so we could find out bits and bobs about the family and their lifestyle etc.
We spent the next couple of days exploring the area around Siam Reap – the temples of Angkor are the main attraction and have made sleepy little Siam Reap into a goldmine for American/Chinese/Russian investors – 5* hotels are popping up left right and centre and the land prices are soaring. It’s still a nice little place at the moment but will even tually turn into tourist central.
The temples of Angkor are pretty spectacular and are spread over a much bigger area than I thought. We visited Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. The temples of Angkor Thom are much more collapsed than those at Angkor Wat, but are really interesting to clamber around and try to imgaine what they would have been like in their hayday back in the 14th century. One of the temples at Angkor Thom has been taken over by the jungle and has trees all growing out of the rocks. It was the temple used in the Tomb Raider movie apparently so the boys got excited about that! Angkor Wat is more complete than the others and has some very well maintained stone carvings of mytholgical battles and stories that are still a big part of Khmer culture now.
Our second day in Siam Reap we spent exploring Tonle Sap lake – the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia and makes up 44% of Cambodia. We jumped on a long-tail boat which took us out on a tributary to the lake – very very big and flat but with trees and bushes scattered everywhere as it is very flooded at the moment as it is the end of the rainy season. We passes through a couple of floating villages – all houses built on stilts and the communities thrive on fishing (fish and shrimp) and some people don’t every leave the villages as traders pass through selling all the necessities. We stopped in one of the villages for lunch – an amazing spread of all things you can do with fish and shrimp accompanied by the ubiqitous rice! After lunch we got into local paddle boats paddled by kids – very wobbly and I was a bit scared for my camera! They paddled us through the mangrove forests alongside the river and we even stopped for a swim J The water was lovely in this heat, but was quite silty which stuck to everything including every hair on our bodies – we discovered hairs in places we didn’t know we had hair!
Siam Reap was wicked and the town is thriving which makes me glad I went before it becomes too commercial – already there is a street nicknamed ‘Bar Street’ chocablock with restaurants and bars – good fun but completely aimed at western tourists.
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=60305&l=9e887&id=710385422