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q club
mike hung and friends at the q bar in saigon so much has happened since the last time i blogged that i can't really remember where i left off so i am going to give it a shot.
i got into saigon after a long bus ride. it ended up being about 14 hours. i was lucky because for the first time in vietnam i had my own sat on the bus and nobody was throwing up the whole trip!! i have a friend from the states who has been in saigon and who is going ot move back there...mike hung. when i got into saigon i also so 2 guys that i met in hoi an at the post office...ben and ben from england. i decided to the city the first day in saigon with my best friend...my ipod. so i got a ride to the war museum...it was of the vietnam war and had tanks, planes, guns, and also a ton of photos showing the war and theimpact it had on the people. agent orange was used a lot and it was pretty sad of the after affects it had on unborn babies and stuff like that....
after that i headed to notre dame..they have a catholic church
tunnels
me in chu chi tunnels outside saigon. the vc crawled threw these. so small!! in the heart of the city, and i finished the day at independence palace...where the tanks stormed down the gates to finish the vietnam war....
it was so hot in saigon...the humidity would just drain you. so then of course i had to go bcack and take a lil siesta. it is the first time i had had air conditioning in asia so it felt good to chill in the room.
the next day howard met back up with me and so we went to the cu chi tunnels. it was pretty cool stuff showing what it was really like for troops having to battle against booby traps, gun fire...i can't imagine what it felt like to know that you at any minute were going to get hurt...crazy. we ended up going through another set of tunnels. i couldn't even stand up...i basically crouched down and waddled through the tunnel.
mike hung took me to eat a couple of times and introduced me to a couple of his friends. saigon has a good night scene...the last night we went to a place called volcano for hung's going away party (he was going back to the states). the place was packed
skulls
this is at the killing fields where there were mass graves from the genocide in phenom phen in the 70´s. so sad and then at 12 they turned on the lights because it was indepence day and the government (communist) decided it didn't want people at clubs around the city past 12...kind of crazy. if the club pays off the cops then they can keep it open. so we ended up going to one last place before we left saigon...gogo's. open til5.
howard and i caught the bus to phenom phen, cambodia at 8 am. it was the strangest boarder crossing that i have ever done. at the vietnam boarder we gave the bus driver our passports...he came back 10 min later and said follow him. i didn't even talk to a customs official. the same thing happened on theway into cambodia. i could have had anybodys passport and gottne in.
the next morning we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day. 10 us dollars...not too bad. he took us to the prison s 21 in phenom phen where the pol pot coup tortured people and killed them. they killed thousands ofpeople in the 70's. then we headed to the killing fields where they had mass graves where they put all these people...kids, women, old people...everybody. it was a depressing morning,
hays house
this was our tuk tuk drivers house hay. 1 bedroom with 5 people. they were so happy to have us eat there but it is something that you need to see. after that we went to a military base where you could shoot guns. pretty crazy..you can shoot a rocket launcher for $200 dollars and even buy a cow to shot it at...or then throw gernades. i ended up shotting an uzi. pretty crazy. that night our tuk tuk driver invited howard andme to eat at his house. one of the best experiences that i had in cambodia/asia. this guy lived about 10min from our hostel. we drove to the market, and he bought a chicken, then we went to his house. after that his wife killed and skinned it. he lived in a one room place...like most of our bedrooms with 3 kids and a wife. we stayed about 3 hours and he was the only one thatspoke english so we used a lot of hand talking....his wife made chicken soup which was really good!!
the next day we decided to head to siem reap to go see the temples of ankor wat. we hired a driver for the day at the temples too. we woke up at 3.45 am to see the sunrise over ankor wat. it didn't turn out
ankor thom
dan, howard, haidee, and me at ankor thom. the whole temple had these statues with heads on everyside. pretty cool so well since it was cloudy and raining a little bit but was stillcool. they filmed the movie tomb raider at this place. it was huge and had a ton of courtyards. you could spend all day taking pictures there. after that we went to ankor thom (my temple i guess?) this one was really cool. had huge pillars and on every side was aface....we went to like 6 other temples during the day. we came back at night at ankor wat for sunset. very cool since t he sun was finally out! it was a long day but so many things to see.
the next day we left again on abus ride. like the 3rd one in 5 days. this by far was the worst of the whole 8 months i have been traveling. the road from siam reap to the border is not paved. for 6 hours i was sitting in a cramped bus bouncing and going from side to side....no way i could sleep or read. just listened to music. i finally made it to bangkok after a 12 hour trip!!
the next day i headed to hong kong to meet up with alicia that i
ankor wat
howard and me at ankor wat. i felt like i was indiana jones... met in vina del mar, chile. she hooked up a place to stay and showed me a lil bit of the city. i need more time in china for sure! a ton of things to see and do.
i finally made it to europe! i can't believe i am here. i got into london 4 days ago. time is flying and i know that i only have a little bit of time left before i'll be back in the states! joel hart that i met in buenos aires is living in london and he let me crash at his place. he has a great place and it felt good to hang out in a flat instead of a hostel or hotel! i went down to brighton too. brighton was so cold. it was like 10 with wind. definitley the coldest weather i have been in in 8 mths.
i just got a spanish number. i can receive phone calls for free so anybody that wants to give me a call call me at .....0034 697806882
peace
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