Phonm Penh Cambodia

Our first impressions of Phonm Penh weren't that good, there are some pretty parts with temples that looked like Thai architecture, but it was super busy, dirty, and very manic ! As always we settled down in a local drinkery, for a new type of beer, Ankgor Beer, very nice, and begun to work the place out !

The main things that we wanted to go to whilst in this city were "the killing fields" and the Tuong Sleung Museum or S21 prison to understand the Khmer Rouge atrocities, and the history around that.

We had a real day of horror to say the least as we got the two big hitters done in one day. For those not in the know the Khmer Rouge were a political group that threw Cambodia in to turmoil after civil war, and basically within the short period of 3 years brought Cambodia to its knees and the economics back to the stone age, as well as brutally killing around a fourth of the Cambodian population !

The killing fields were our first stop and as the name suggests this is where there are a collection of mass graves that contain thousands of bodies of people killed around 30 years ago after being deemed against the revolution. It was a sad sight , most of the bodies have been exhumed and a pagoda of skulls were on show as a memorial. However there are so many bodies and bits scattered everywhere that it would be an impossible task to identify them all, especially as they were quickly degraded so only bones were left. The result is that a lot of bones and clothing have just been left in and around the grounds as they were , but in the hasty execution, the graves were shallow and you find yourself walking on fragments of bones and the peoples clothing that they died in. I dont think our feet will ever feel the same again!

Straight after we took the trip back in to the City to S21 to get the history behind it and walk around the school/ converted prison that the Khmer rouge used to imprison interrogate and torture before sending off to the killing fields. There were rows and rows of pictures of the people that died in that place including women and little children, all documented. Not pleasant at all and makes you realise what an amazing accomplishment it is that Cambodia is actually exsiting and moving on. For three years they had no currency , closed it borders , had mass famine and disease and exterminated most of the intellectual population in an attempt to make a classless society.

A up point of the day was to see what Cambodia is trying to do now to help the children carve a life for themselves and many are orphans or street kids. We went to a restaurant called Friends to have some Cambodian tapas, not only was it the best food we have had in ages it was served and made by Students who are learning to get in to catering and hospitality. It is a great charity and a little seedling in phonm penh !

So after a packed couple of days we decided to chill out in Sihanoukville on the coast and grabbed a bus there. But we will pop that in another post !

A long goodbye to Vietnam Via the Mekong !

Annoyingly really got used to Vietnam and loving it just as we are having to leave! Always the way! But we took a 3 day trip along the river ways of the Mekong to do it in ! We have had a great three days ,the people of the Mekong delta were lovely and fascinating. In the most part of this three day trip we were allowed to feel more like observers to their way of life rather then being played to as a tourist!

Said goodbye to the lovely Saigon via the river Mekong. The river started off smelling revolting as we passed through the city to its boarders. Everything is dumped in to it and i mean everything ! Ewwww!

As we travelled further the city dropped away to rural river ways, lined by water coconut trees. Beautiful coloured fishing boats and transportation boats with eyes painted on the front crowded the wate , with whole families on board!

After three hours we stopped off at some Islands in the middle of the river! So big it has a town on it and a couple of thousand people. We were treated to some of the local honey tea, and various dried tropical fruits sweetened beyond all proportions, as well as some local traditional music and handling of the local pythons! We also had a row boat trip through the canals which was something I had been looking forward to for a long time and wasn't disappointed! Pictures will describe it better then words!
After lunch we were allowed to explore the island for a short while on push bikes! Oops we got lost ! And were very late back in! After a swift slap on the wrists we were off to another island for checking out how coconut candy is made and of course eating and then subsequently buying some ! Mmm Mmm sorry guys, wont be bringing any of that back!

We stayed in Can Tho for the night in the middle of the Mekong , and proceeded to go out with some new friends we had met, Jemma and Hollie, for cheap dinner and then shots of snake wine ! Yes, that very same stuff that the chap on the train was trying to feed Ben some time back! We proved to be much amusement to the staff as the beer and snake spirit went down ! Good times !

From Can Tho we proceeded the next morning to a floating market, where all the farmers come to trade. It was a wonderful place to be, all the boats were loaded with produce and then offloaded to the other merchant boats. Each farmer had a long stick above the boat with what he is selling to help with orientation! We loved it so much, it was lovely just to be their to watch Mekong life and people get on with their own business , not taking any notice of us , except for the odd sneaky wave and smile !

We also got a great tour of what makes the Mekong tick, rice rice rice ! Where it is made, how it is refined and noodles and pancake manufacture, all very interesting, before making our way by bus to Chau Doc, 5 Km from the Cambodian boarder to spend a night at a lovely floating hotel !


Our final day on the Mekong brought us via the river to the Cambodian boarder to pick up our visas and then on and off boats through immigration ! As soon as we got in to Cambodia there was a subtle change to the surroundings , very rural, no development , very few boats just Mekong Mekong, for four hours to Phnom Penh. Got some great pictures of the locals taking themselves and their cows for a bath in the water , and kids splashing around and generally having a giggle in the river.

So that bring us to where we are now Cambodia !Hope to get some piccies up to make sense of these ramblings, and they are super cool as well, proper feast for the eyes was the Mekong !

Saigon

Sorry the photos are in reverse order and we cant seem to change that! So the top six are from the Cu Chi Tunnels , please dont laugh at me it was a tad scary!! Bare in mind the camera had a flash and that was the only light apart for the odd meager bulb in the tunnels!

Tight squeeze !

Tighter squeeze ! Sniper holes !

. In the war reminants museum the iconic "huey"

Night time over Saigon from the Sheriton Hotels 23rd floor.

We have arrived !

From Nha Trang we headed to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh city by sleeper bus this time. It was a night mare. The beds are not made for someone of my height or width so I could not fit in the bed in any way!! Long night with no sleep! But we got there. That was where we made our last posts from.

The city is much more metropolitan then Hanoi in the north and so felt a lot more laid back. The roads were every bit as busy but much more open with wide streets as opposed to the tight narrow ones in Hanoi.

We did the normal "city" things to begin with, long orientation walk around the city with a look in the War Relics museum. This was another harrowing experience to say the least and pushed home how utterly barbaric and pointless the war was again. Having now been here for a while I would like to get a non biased view from somewhere when we get back. I can't believe everything is as one sided as it appears to be from this side. There is quite a lot of obvious propaganda which you can ignore or take with a pinch of salt but there seems to be huge amounts of evidence that shows how bad the atrocities were. If it is true I don't know how the US has managed to get away without being pulled up for war crimes that are (or appear to be) every bit as bad as some of the things they have gone to war in the gulf for other leaders doing!!

Anyway, enough of that rant!! It's in the past now and things seem to be settling down with relations definitely being made between the countries involved.

We finished the day off with a beer on the 23rd floor terrace of the Sheraton Hotel! An excellent view of the city was had but...at $6 a beer ( and I mean small bottle!) 2 beers each, because we got there too early to watch the sun go down with just one beer, was the equivalent of half our daily budget!! Ouch!

The next day we took a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels which is where the Viet Cong hid and fought the US from. The tunnels are an amazing piece of ingenuity and had the US foiled for the majority of the war. It is arguable that it is these tunnels that made the war so long and hard for the US to defeat the VC. Each tunnel is around 2.5-4ft high and only around 1.5-2.5ft wide. The entire network stretched for around 280Km and was only about 2hrs drive from Saigon. They were built in 3 levels ranging from 4 to 8 meters below the surface. There were rooms built for living in and store rooms and conference rooms for planing and strategising. The next level was used for traveling and communication and the bottom level for escaping to if the first levels were compromised. These generally all lead to the river where the VC could escape. They also built very small surface holes with trapdoors which could be disguised easily for snipers to lay in wait in and then fire on the US from the ground. They built booby traps and even managed to tunnel under one of the main US air force bases where they ran intelligence and weapons gathering missions!! All of this was built by hand using small shovels and baskets used in the fields for farming.

We were able to go down into the tunnels and follow one for a distance of about 120m. This was plenty for all of us that went. When we came out we were drenched in sweat and our thighs were burning as we had to shuffle along on or haunches. In some areas I could not fit my shoulders through unless I went sideways! Good fun but only for a short time!! Stuff doing it with bombs going off overhead and for 3years odd! A very good experience.

I'm afraid that there are no photos at the moment that I can upload as we are in dial-up speed areas now. We have moved into Cambodia now which I will tell you about next but being here will mean that my communication will be VERY limited (possibly none at all!!) being as this is the capital and the best speed I can find is 256mbs! Sorry guys I will have to do a massive catch up in about 2 weeks time from Oz. Sucks huh?!

That in mind I'd best catch you right up to date in at least a verbal (written) fashion.

Xxx

Nha Trang .. re entering the world as we know it .. kind of !

We departed our three days in Quang Ngai on a very odd little journey! We learnt a very swift lesson ( we keep doing that ) don't rely on anyone to look after forward bookings for you ! We were told by our receptionist that she would be happy to book our train tickets so that we didn't have to go back in to Quang Ngai to sort them out. We checked and re checked made sure we had a taxi booked and so on a so forth ! Well the day of departure was slightly different no train tickets and no taxi !
Any-hoo we did get tickets, the train was delayed by an hour and we were on what was called a hard seat ! Basically it is the cattle herding of the human world as we joined the locals on a train with hard wood bench seats with straight high backs, packed to the max ! It was certainly an experience ! However a particularly uncomfortable one for 7 hours ! We faced an older couple from Saigon, the guy got progressively more pissed on a plastic bottle of what he called whisky, but i think it was the stuff they have around here normally with lizards snakes and insects in , basically the Vietnamese liquid Viagra ! ( or so they believe !) . As the journey progressed we were grilled in Vietnamese , mainly over why we don't have children! Our new elderly and drunk friend blamed our lack of sprogs on the fact that Ben obviously hasn't been drinking enough of this chaps firewater, and so must not be firing right ! So Ben was repeatedly offered a swig of this stuff , followed by cigarettes or anything else. The other people on the train repeatedly came down to meet us , normally offering Ben a smoke from their bongs or food or cigarettes , of which we gratuitously declined ! Then one local took a real liking to Ben's hair and started to stroke it ! Then my drunk companion noticed my knee scar and so then decided i was a faulty wife and so i wont be able to have as many children as he first had predicted !! needless to say it was a hilarious journey , i am giggling about it just writing it down !

It was a horrendously uncomfortable journey but 7 hours later though beautiful scenery of the mountains and coast we arrived to Nha trang and marched straight to our hotel just one street off the sublime beach ! Oh Yeah!

Needless to say we went on search for the best drinking hole and settle for a Saigon beer for a night cap . We went to the highly recommended Sailing club, which felt far too upmarket to be called a backpackers bar as it does say in the lonely planet guide , but it was a great place to go , Aussie run they have got it sorted !
We treated ourselves to a day of sun and crystal clear south china sea ! And inadvertently got a tad tiddly whilst sampling the local night life . Need not to say more ! If any one saw my facebook status of "louise cant hold her drink anymore" that paints the picture

Unfortunately we had booked a boat trip for the following day sporting rather nasty hangovers !! Nha trang has a lot of islands around it and some great coral reefs to explore , as well as an aquarium that is only accessible by boat. A jump in to the sea to snorkel around the reefs was a great hangover cure ! Thank goodness, as the crew decided to entertain us after lunch with their band ! Their band consisted of a home made drum kit two singers and a guitarist, and somehow knew at least one song from every nation on the boat and there were a few !

Our last day in Nha Trang was also my birthday , which is an odd experience ! But we went to a mud and mineral spa up the road in nha trang, it was a great way to spend your day , rolling around in a wooden tub full of mineral mud and then getting hard baked in the sun , before taking a plunge in hot mineral water ! Dont know if it done me any good or not but it was certainly relaxing ! And don't be worried i found the equivalent of the Belgium Monk, the Louisane Brewhouse, to have a celebratory beer in before leaving on an overnight bus to Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as the southerners prefer to call it !

Quang Ngai Son My and My Khe beach, there's a mouthfull

Cows on the beach ! As you do !




Taking the route less traveled Ben found out about a place called Quang Ngai, that we could venture down to. Two reasons , it had another cracking beach that is relatively untouched and also we thought it about time to find out what the Vietnamese were saying about the American war in the very sobering place of Son My the site of the Mai lai village massacres.

Arrived by a/c bus and then had an interesting and slightly stressful time trying to get from where the bus had dumped us to My Kye Beach. Mainly trying to talk to Moto drivers and working out exactly where we are with out being ripped off . We are getting quite good at negotiating and standing ground now! It ended up we were about 12km from our destination, so off we went by motorbike past quang ngai through rural villages of Paddie fields and Agent orange scarred mountain tops, a quick reminder of the bombing and mass dioxin that the area had suffered only 30-40 years ago!

After some searching we came to what could be loosely termed a hotel. Nice enough but i am not going to go about recommending My Khy hotel. They do have a monopoly though of being the only hotel there !
We went straight off to Son My Museum. We were two of only a handful of tourists there , so the experience was very concentrated, there were no other visitors to hide behind when things got a bit tough! We had a personal guided tour of the area that used to be the Village of Mai Lai that has been painstakingly preserved back to the state it had been left after the massacre , including the paths showing a mixture of running footprints , bicycle tracks and heavy booted GI prints . It is the center of a huge war crimes atrocity, where a whole rural and fishing village of Mai lai was raided by the US early in the morning with the intent of not leaving anything or any one standing. The whole village of 504 people were killed tortured or raped. Animals, livestock, crops and houses were razed to the ground. Only a handful of people escaped. It was made all the more harrowing because our guide was from a village just a few Km away and her granddad and baby uncles were killed in the massacre, and the event was photographed with intimate detail by a US photographer and his photos were on display with all their grizzly detail.We were glad we went and would say anyone visiting here should go, it is a sobering experience. Due to the nature of where we were although you could take photos we didn't feel it right to do so , so i am afraid your are just going to have to go there yourselves to see it !

The evening and next day was spent negotiating menus as we were the only westerners there but we had great fun with the staff and our Vietnamese is coming on nicely , we can almost read a menu ! And we certainly are getting the very basics down in speech ! We went for an epic and uninterrupted walk along the beach as it was too hot to lay down!!

After 6 days of being out of contact with anyone we thought it about time to reacquaint ourselves with the modern world and got a most interesting train to Nha Trang , but that folks will be for our next journey in to the tour of the Turners !!!!!!...............

Hoi An

We left Mai Chau and headed back to what seemed like an even busier Hanoi, compared to the peace and tranquility we've just had, (by the same public transport) to catch a sleeper train down south to Hoi An, about
half way down the coast near a city called Danang. The train was rough as the soft sleeper berths were sold out which meant we had to go hard sleeper (3bunks one on the other and you may as well be sleeping on ply wood!)

Initial thoughts on Hoi An was a nice peaceful seaside town. Not to far dissimilar in feel to St Ives in Cornwall. Immediately loved it.

As we have been very cultural so far through China and Laos and the beginning of Vietnam we have decided we deserve some down time (being cultural is quite exhausting!!) so Halong bay was the first part of our beach side rest and relaxation...a good intro as this was our first stop at a real beach "resort".

***************Interrupted by power cut!!****************

So, as said, Hoi An was lovely. We spent the first day taking an orientation walk around the town. The place is full of tailors wanting to make you all sorts of clothes. Jo, you would love this place but you would need to bring a lot of money... but then you could make yourself a wardrobe of immense proportions!! We didn't get anything made as we'd heard some bad report of the cheaper places and don't really have enough funds (or space in the packs!) for more clothes.

In the evening there was an open air show of local, traditional culture so we had some local beer (at 4,000dong which is about 20p per glass!!) and sat and watched the show. What we didn't know was that it was a Buddhist festival so part way through the show there was a carnival of floats by the local school kids and organisations which was cool to watch. Then they all went to the river where electricity is turned off on one of the streets for a few hours so there is no streetlights, just oil lamps, and lit small candles in paper boats and sent them down the river. We took advantage of the lack of light and went and had a candle lit dinner on the river front to watch proceedings. It went on for a good hour or so!

We hired a scooter for a couple of days so we could get to and from the beach easier (or in a more fun manor than walking anyway!!) and spent the day times relaxing on a beach under bamboo sun shades. Pretty idealistic if you ask me!! Whilst it wasn't a deserted beach, it was certainly not busy and at over 30km long, we could get away from people as and when we wanted but when you had waiter service for food and drink that was not too bad in price why move!!

After a couple of days we went to Quang Ngai but I'll put that in another section. Photos for your enjoyment!!