Cambodia: Travelling from Phnom Penh to Mondulkiri

So after a dusty bus journey we arrived in Phnom Penh. The city surprised us by being quite run down, red dust is everywhere and the roads were alive with motorbikes, cars and tuk tuks. We headed to the backpackers area… a small road with numerous budget guesthouses and western restaurants. We checked into a 4$ room which had no aircon and no hot water, the bathroom door was falling off and we could barely stand in the small space of the room but it was clean so we stayed for 3 nights.

We spent our time learning more about the rule of the Khmer Rouge… they were in power from 1976 - 1979 during which time they forcefully implemented communist rule. Within a few days of coming into power the marched everyone (even those sick in hospital) into the countryside and forced them to farm for 12-14hours every day. Doctors, teachers and other professionals were killed if they admitted who they were and everyone suffered from hunger, many dying from starvation and exhaustion. The Khmer Rouge also began to kill members of their own party - anyone who was not fully Cambodian or any soldiers trained by the Vietnamese were murdered. These deaths resulted in the Killing Fields - an area of mass graves near to Phnom Pen. We also visited the S21 prison in the city , it used to be a school before the KR turned it into a torture and prison camp. The KR also stopped people from calling their parents mum and dad, they had to eat communally and were punished if they caught their own food and didn’t share it (a tough rule during a famine). Their aim was to have everyone worship the KR organisation. It was brutal and I can’t look at an older person without feeling sad about what he or she went through.

Before we knew it we were back on a bus heading south to Cambodia’s coast. We relaxed on Otres beach in Sinhoukville for three days… our bungalow had glass doors opening a few metres in front of the ocean. We soon headed to Rabbit Island which had a few more palm trees and even more rustic accommodation. We stayed in a bamboo hut and relaxed for another two days. After that we moved onto Kampot… ever heard of Kampot pepper? It’s produced in Cambodia, has been famous for its quality and has recently been granted the same status as champagne so that only pepper from Kampot can be labelled as Kampot pepper (it really is very good pepper!).
From Kampot we headed towards Siem Reap - we were surprised by how touristy the area was. Apparently 4 years ago there were only 4 bars, now there must be about 100! We enjoyed being able to walk around easily and do a bit of market shopping. We soon headed to the temples of Angkor. There are loads of beautifully decorated temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. They are still quite intact and very beautiful. We enjoyed Angkor Wat at sunset and woke up at 4am the following day to get to Sra Sang for the sunrise. Surrounded by a smallish group of tourists and a whole lot of Cambodian kids calling “you buy bracelet, 5 for 1$, you buy bracelet” we watched the sunrise. We then did a fair bit of temple seeing… including the Tomb Raider one before heading back to our hotel to catch up on sleep. Check out the photos at www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2183506&id=60506421&l=6a0b8d066d

After Siem Reap we hopped on a bus to Kompong Cham. We were trying to get to the remote region of Mondulkiri to visit the Elephant Valley Project - an elephant rehabilitation centre for injured or ill elephants. The bus trip thee was an experience in itself. Because of the rain our bus was cancelled and we were instead pushed into a minivan. On a seat meant to take 3 people we fitted 4. I was pretty much on top of a Cambodian man while Rich was almost hanging off of his chair. We spent 7 hours like that. The best bit was when we got to the dirt road… it had already turned to thick sludge so we skidded part of the way before our driver stopped to put on mud chains. The rest of the journey had plenty of stops and starts because of the mud. We didn’t pass any villages and had to pee in the bushes (always keeping an eye out for landmines!). So we were quite relieved to get off the bus at the end of our day and slip and slide to our hotel and a hot shower.


The Elephant Valley Project was an amazing opportunity to get up close and personal to elephants. We fed them and washed them and walked through the jungle with them. You could tell when they were smiling and one elephant had such a cheeky personality... she kept digging her trunk into us in search of more bananas. It was a fantastic experience which we both loved. See the photos at www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184035&id=60506421&l=d36d94e0ce

More to follow ASAP on the rest of our journey through Cambodia.

S&R. xxx

The rest of Vietnam...

HUE

So from Hanoi to Hue we went… on a sleeper bus designed for the extremely small Vietnamese people. I just about fitted into my bunk while Rich had to sleep on his side with his legs curled up. Both of us almost spilling out into the aisle! On the upside the n

arrowness of the bunks at least made sure we weren’t flung to the opposite side of the bus with its crazy side-to-side lurching! But as we say about anything slightly bad… “it was an experience”.

Hue is in central Vietnam near the demilitarised zone, it saw some heavy warfare during the Vietnam war - so heavy in fact that villagers went into hiding underground. The area contains a network of underground tunnels set at three different depths… the deepest living area was 23metres and even below that there were bomb shelters! I could walk through them although Rich had to stoop, we saw wells, dedicated washing

areas, maternity rooms, kitchens, meeting rooms and

numerous exits and entrances. The tunnels also come equipped with a primitive drainage system and a smoke filtering system so their

kitchen didn’t give away their tunnel positions. It was all pretty impressive and we were shown around by the mute caretaker who was one of the babies born in the tunnels.

Our day to the Vinh Moc tunnels was also noteable for the local train we hopped on to get there. It was packed with locals who all stared at us and wanted

to chat. So we got out our Vietnamese phrasebook; they taught us how to count in Vietnamese… we showed them we were married and they found the Vietnamese word for honeymoon and all cheered when we said yes. The Vietnamese people have been so friendly… they love to chat to us, they always ask where we are from and before they try to sell you something they will often offer their help - in our case we got a few Vietnamese people laughing at us trying to open a local rice dish bought on the street. It is wrapped in a banana leaf and it looks nothing like rice.

Instead it was a transparent jelly substance accompanied by honey. We had advice on how to eat it, what it was, how to unwrap it and they even ran off to borrow a spoon for us.

Of course they also laughed at us throughout the whole experience!

HOI AN

We didn’t spend too long in Hue before hopping on a bus to Hoi An - a city FULL of tailors. A shoppers dream! We were there for 4 nights and we got drenched by heavy rain every day! It was a fantastic place purely for Café 43... A local café selling exquisite and cheap local food (and beer for Rich!). We spent a lot of time there! Hoi An is definitely somewhere I’d go back to with an empty suitcase just to get a few suits made…

200USD for a fitted suit is so worth it. We also hired motorbikes for a couple of days and headed out into the village towards My Son - an ancient Cham civilisation that existed in Vietnam. My Son is a collection of run down ruins set in beautiful thick bush

. It was a good day for beautiful scenery and for seeing villagers at work on their farms.

My Son ruins

NHA TRANG & DALAT

After Hue we set off on another sleeper bus to the beach town of Nha Trang. We had a luxury room booked over Christmas and treated ourselves with a

few great seafood meals. We met us with some Aussie and Dutch friends from Halong Bay and r

eunited over a few too many cocktails at Christmas eve. It was a great night dancing on the beach bumping into friends. The area is notorious for muggings and a few people had their phones/cameras/wallets stolen but Rich and I managed to avoid it. Christmas day was spent recovering (for me) and on the beach (for Rich). A big group headed out for some fancy seafood and had a pretty early night. Boxing day was spent luxuriating on the beach with lobster cooked fresh on a BBQ right in front of use (the sellers carry mini stone BBQs on their shoulders!) followed by a huge fruit salad… amazing! We finished off our Christmas celebrations with a divine Italian dinner (thanks Kath!) so all in all it was a great fe

w days.

Nha Trang was followed by a visit to Dalat… a highlight of ours because of the canyoning we did. Hiking, swimming, abseiling, jumping into waterfalls and sliding down natural waterfall chutes made for a great day in the canyon. An abseil down the middle of a waterfall was particularly tough because of how slippery it was but such good fun - we both loved it.

Our first abseil, 25metres

We went to bed exhausted and looking forward to getting to Saigon for New Year. (Oh and Dalat is also home to the Crazy house… it’s a house out of a kid’s fairy tale and we had a good time exploring all the nooks and crannies)

SAIGON / HO CHI MIN CITY

Say Saigon and the first thing I think of is motorbikes… HUNDREDS of them!!! Crossing the road was even more tricky than in Hanoi and yet Rich dec

ided to hire one! He is practically a local since he got through the city safely. He’s a great driver but the bikes get so close to each other that I still claw my nails into his tummy and make constant back seat driver comments (sorry Rich!)

Saigon was really lively… full of young westerners (and quite a few old ones with beautiful Vietnamese girlfriends!), street hawkers, bars and restaurants. We arrived just before New Year and headed straight to the War Remnants Museum which houses gruesome displays from the Vietnam War - it was often difficult to handle

because of the graphic images and even the bodies of deformed foetuses caused by Agent Orange chemicals used by the Americans during the war. The museum blames absolutely everything on the Americans… the south Vietnamese are excluded and the Viet Cong made to look heroic and innocent of war crimes (I am reading The Girl in The Picture which tells a different story) . Another thing that horrified me about the museum is that there was a group of school children (about 8-10years old) looking at the pictures and the deformed babies - there were photos there that children should never be exposed to! It kind of brought the word ‘brainwashing’ to mind simply because the museum was so one-sided that seeing and reading the displays would make children love their government

and dislike Americans. Still it was an interesting experience and a definite eye-opener.

On New Years eve we celebrated at a street party with thousands of locals. We cheered, we sprayed foam streamers and we danced… the locals loved us and cheered whenever we shouted Happy New Year in Vietnamese. Rich had a few of them sitting on his shoulders which got us a few more loud cheers - it was awesome. After midnight the street emptied quite quickly and we spent the rest of the evening in a dodgy little bar.

New Years Day = Sleep sleep sleep.

And the following day I headed to the Cu Chi tunnels - another network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the war. These tunnels were instrumental to their success in the war because it got them so close to the South’s headquarters. The tunnels are incredibly small - I went through on my knees in places. The tunnels also had a few booby traps on show - horrible things! Lots of spikes buried into the ground which would hurt you if you fell into a hole and then hurt you even more if you tried to escape. There was even a trap for American sniffer dogs - horrible but all very clever guerrilla tactics.

In the Cu Chi tunnels

After Saigon we headed on a three day cruise through the Mekong Delta - an area characterised by the huge Mekong River and the amount of rice the region produced. It was pretty, relaxing and really really hot. The cruise took us across the border and into Cambodia where we hopped on a bus in Phnom Pen.

The Mekong Delta cruise

More on to Cambodia to follow ASAP.

xxxxxxxxx

Hanoi & Ha Long Bay

After much procrastination I've decided to write some bits about Vietnam 3 weeks into our time there and only 4 days before we leave for Cambodia!

After the constant development of China (huge shiny new train stations, wide clean streets and loads of shops) we had no idea what to expect from Vietnam... The dire warnings in the Lonely Planet pretty much said everyone is out to rip you off in Vietnam, so we were obviously a little nervous.

Taking a night train from Nanning to Hanoi we had to stop twice. Firstly by 4 Chinese guys in military uniform who checked, double checked and re-checked our passports and visas then off into another brand new Chinese station to have our bags x-rayed and back on to the train. So far so good, next an hour later we pull up on the Vietnamese side of the border crossing at a small rickety old building, no platform walk across a railway line. Inside we fill in the entry exit card, then go for the swine flu test, the lady behind the desk hold up a sign asking for 2 dollars which Sue went off to get. Whilst I weakly argued... hang on a minute if you want to test us for swine flu why should we have to pay?? A blank look and another point at the poster and we gave up and paid... rip off number one and we failed, the Chinese people in our set of bunks were not asked to pay!

So back on the train and a few hours later at 5am we arrived at Hanoi station, once again not a shadow of the Chinese stations we were used to. Armed with a lonely planet we knew a Taxi should be 2-3 USD. We were prepared with dollars in hand, only to be told $25 by the first taxi driver who very kindly dropped to $15 after some debate... Eventually armed with my trusty compass and a map with an arrow at one edge saying Railway station 2km we set off to walk with 3 other westerners we bumped into. They were soon offered a 4$ taxi and took it leaving us frustrated and wondering whether to walk on or try one last time to negotiate a better rate. Finally we got a $4 rate agreed and were taken right to our pre-booked guest house.

A recommendation from an American girl we met at our guest house took us to a swanky restaurant overlooking the lake which is central in old town Hanoi, the dish she recommended was very nice indeed BBQ'd pork with noodle soup know as Bun Cha. I was already warming to Vietnam, nice weather, BBQ'd food, a great view and it was all quite cheap.

That evening we met up with some friends we had spent some time with in China that night for a drink at the big (and rather expensive to stay at backpackers), another BBQ, this time a burger and a few beers and we decided to book to go to Ha Long bay with this backpackers (it seemed like they were up for a party).

The next morning we were on the bus heading to Ha Long bay a cluster of thousands on tiny islands in the South China sea. Our first day included lunch on the boat then all the boys jumping off the side going for a swim in the sea, with a bit of natural competition... He jumped off the fourth deck so now I'll have to, all great fun though a few people who's technique was not up to scratch ended up walking like penguins! After that Kayaking to a small island with a cave (or tunnel) which lead to a rainwater lagoon surrounded by cliffs, unfortunately no pics due to the lack of a dry bag or waterproof camera.

That night we partied on the boat then went for a swim, a few of us swam to another boat but the Vietnamese boat hands told us to go away! We then swam to one of the islands and when we swam away from the lights of the boats we could see some sort of glowing plankton, is was pretty cool, making your hands glow when you moved them through the water. We retired to our surprisingly comfortable cabins only to be woken at 7am buy the crew of our boat for breakfast, check out then a boat to our own private island, there we sat on the beach then swam to another island which was completely empty. When we came back we were up for wake boarding, the activity we had chosen to do. It was pretty hard but eventually both Sue and I go up on our feet albeit only for 20 meters or so. We are looking forward to doing it again and improving, some of the guys, who had snowboarded before were better than us and made it look easy others didn't stand up at all.

Another party that evening and the next morning we were heading back to Hanoi, one boat to another then lunch on the big boat followed by some more sunbathing on the top deck.

The next day we went to see the Prison in which American POWs were kept during the American (Vietnam) War, it looked like they were kept in ok conditions but then that was according to the Vietnamese. The french had also used that prison to keep Vietnamese political prisoners and had apparently not treated them as well, they had done a pretty poor job of running the prison as hundreads of Vietnamese had escaped...

One last funny thing about Vietnam is that they have no copywrite law so a few years ago a guy made a good name for himself running a company called the Sinh Cafe, they do good tours and transport in Vietnam. Unfortaunatly for him loads of people have copied his name and opened up their own shops called the Sinh Cafe offering similar services but more expensive or less reliable, There are hundreds of Sinh Cafes in Hanoi, we managed to find the original with the help of the Lonely Planet website!