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Published: January 19th 2007
Hi there and a happy belated new year to you all!
It's been a busy couple of weeks since my last update so I will just get cracking on...
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on the eve of New Years Eve about 2 hours late which is fairly unusual as we have been lucky so far and generally have arrived at our destinations early or on time. In the usual tradition we plonked ourselves in a cafe and whilst two looked after the bags, two went on the search for our accomodation and feeling excited to be in the city I volunteered for this task....... what a silly girl!
Due to it being New Year everysingle guest house was fully booked (obviously every other backpacker had the intellignece to think ahead and book somewhere for them to stay!) and after asking what must have been the 20th place if there was any room at the inn we bumped into a bloke who said that he had rooms avaialable at his gaff so we hot stepped it to his place only to find that it was scumsville and they wanted to charge us through the roof for
the privillage of us getting bed bugs or similar. No chance buster, I would rather sleep in the gutter.
Anywho, I eventually stumbled on a place that said they had room for 2 which was no good for us, but after pulling my best lost puppy face the lady got on the blower and made some phone calls and found us a bed! Due to the state of some of these places it is always best to have a look at the room before committing yourself to stay in it so we were promptly scooted off on the back of a motorbike to see if the place was OK. I say we got scooted off on the motorbike as there was three of us on it; the lady driver, Tina and I - very sureal indeed!
The place turned out to be OK so we decided to stay there a few nights whilst we saw the sights of the city (which didn't turn out to be many to start what with New Year celebrations and all) but a fun time was had and we definately could not have chosen a better place to go to see the New
Cu Chi Tunnels
The holes where snipers would hide Year in.
During our travels we have bumped into the same people time and time again as backpackers generally stick to a similar route so by the time New Year came there seemed to quite a few familiar faces about which made the night even better.
In Ho Chi Minh there was a massive street party where the roads had been cordened off in a particular area and a stage had been errected which turned out to be for a dance show. For the count down we went onto the street and hung out with some of the locals and from then on we partied the night away in some of the bars and even got a bunch of Vietnamese folk who looked like they were bored to tears up out their seats and doing the conga around the bar and outside onto the street!
After spending nearly a month in Vietnam (we originally said that we were only going to spend 3 weeks maximum) we decided to get a wriggle on and do the things that we wanted to do in the city so on the 2nd January two of the girls and I visited the
Cu Chi Tunnels
Contraptions to kill American Soilders Cui Chi Tunnels which became ledgendary during the 1960s for it's role in facilitating the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. Basically they are a network of tunnels which stretch over 200km underground where people lived and housed up to 10,000 people and cliams to be the most bombed and devestated area in the history of warfare as the Americans used all of their firepower to destroy them.
On our tour we were shown round by a Vietnamese chap who I think was named was Mr.Bean (that's what it sounded like anyway) who loved the sound of his own voice and for the duration of the 2hour bus journey to the tunnels he didn't stop talking, especially about America as he had lived there for a while. After about 20minutes I couldn't stand the gabber anymore so I switched on the trusty ipod and fell asleep so I luckily didn't have to endure the drone, but Emily said that at one point she woke up and he was singing the American National Anthem down the microphone. How parculiar?!
At the Cu Chi Tunnels we we able to look about the area that was bombed and see some of
Over the Boarder
Tina and I with our Cambodian visas the contraptions which were used in the war to kill American soldiers. We were also alowed to walk (or crawl) down a section of the tunnels but unfortunately when I got down the initial hole and just about the crawl in I freaked out at how small it was and had to get the group to back up! I wasn't the only one though which made it less embarrasing for me thank god!
At the tunnels there is also a shooting range where you can choose yourself a gun, buy yourself some bullets and have a go at firing at a target so I had five rounds on a AK47! I have never shot a gun before but I didn't think that I would be so nervous and I was absolutly bricking it before it was my go. The noise from the guns was so loud which I don't think helped my nerves at all. Anyway, it turns out that I woudn't make a good sniper as I didn't even hit the target once!!!! Ah, it's the taking part that counts right???
That afternoon we headed back into the city to the War Remnants Museum which in a
The Killings Fields
Glass Stupa with 17,000 skulls which were found in mass graves at the killing fields word is horific. As you walk in there are retired artitery pieces which are interesting to look at but the brutality of the war hits you when you get inside and look at the photographs of the victims of war.
All around the main gallery are disturbing photographs of people who have been horrifcaly killed, people who are just about to be killed, victims of agent orange and napalm attacks, and the effects which are still occuring today such as birth defects due to the defoliants the American's used, all with the stories behind the pictures to read. After about an hour I couldn't take anymore as it was upsetting me too much and I had to wait for the rest of the gang outside. I can truly say that nothing has affected me like that before and it has given me a different outlook to what I thought about the war and has opened my eyes cruelty of mankind.
After a somber day, a quiet night was had watching films and packing our bags for the next day as Tina and I had decided that we wanted to get a move on to our next country of
The Killings Fields
Glass Stupa with 17,000 skulls Cambodia which is where we spent about a week exploring.
Our transistion to our next country went exceedingly well as we had paid a little extra for a luxury coach (it was still only $12!) and we were in Cambodia within about 7 hours. As soon as you crossed the boarder you could see the difference between the countires and the poverty was very apparent as there were children up the windows of the coach begging for money.
On entering the capital city of Phnom Penh we were greeted by guest house touts and decided to go with the first one to have a look at the room as he was advertising a place in the backpacker area we had heard of and he also offered free transportation. The place turned out to be nice and rediculosly cheap (1.5pounds each per night) so we decided to set up camp there until Kelly and Emily arrived from Vietnam as they had decided that they wanted to spend an extra day looking aroud Ho Chi Minh. In our room there was note framed on the walls saying that when Angellina Jolie comes to Phnom Pehn she stays in the room
that were were staying in. On talking to other guests they also said that they have the same framed note. The little fibbers!
On the morning of our first full day Tina and I decided that we would crack on with seeing the sights as we were unsure what time the other two would be making an appearance (which turned out to be the next day, approximatly 5 minutes before we were about to call InterPol) so we tracked down the guy who gave us a lift to the guest house the previous day (Ken) and hired him to drive us around the sites all day.
Now for those who are not clued up on your Cambodian history the Lonely Planet guide which I currently carry around as my bible pretty much sums it up as 'the good, the bad and the ugly' and this is because in the early years everything was good with the rise of the Angkor Empire. In recent years it turned downright ugly due to the brutal cival war from the mid to late 70's which resulted in the worst genocide of the 20th Century of which Cambodia is still tyring to recover.
Kids In Phnom Pehn
These kids were selling postcards but they sat with us for an hour or so playing games and generally mucking about This civil war was led by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot who declaired the year that he came into power as 'Year Zero' and from that day money, private property, education and religion were banned and all people were forced out of the cities and to work in unworkable agricultural conditions. Anyone who was seen as an intelectual, educated people in general, western people or anyone who had been in contact with western people, people who wore glasses, government officials and any cival servants were killed. In total, nearly 2 millions people, 25% of Cambodia's population, were killed.
The First on our agenda for the day was to go to the Killing Fields which is an area of Phnom Penh where there are 129 mass graves along with a memorial for the 17,000 men, woman and children who were executed here by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1978. Inside the grounds is a stupa which houses over 8000 skulls found during the excavations at the site in 1980, some of which bear the scars of being bludgeoned to death to save bullets.
From here we then went on to visit Tuol Sleng Museum which previous to
the war used to be a high school which then got transformed into Security Prision 21 (S-21) and was the largest center of detention and torture for the country.
Within this building the small classrooms were converted into small prison cells and torture chambers and in total an aproximate 17,000 men, women and children were imprisoned and tortured for crimes such as treason which the vast majority didn't commit before being taken to the killing fields to be murdered.
The following day Emily and Kelly turned up at our guest house (our e-mails telling them where we were staying didn't get through to them for ages) so we then spent the day seeing a bit of culture at the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda which apparently has five tons of gleaming silver on it's floor, but it couldn't have been that impressive as we all managed to walk through it without noticing any silver what so ever (after walking thorough what we thought was just another part of the palace Tina asked someone where the Silver Pagoda was only to be told it was the building we have just walked through) Ooops!
The following day needing to let
My Driver!
He claimed that he was 15..... more like 12 I reckon! off some steam I decided that I would try my hand again with the guns and was whisked off on a motorbike to the back of beyond by a 15 yeard old lad who's family ran our guest house (he looked no older than 12) to have a bit of a shooting sessions again. On arrival at the shooting range I was greeted by a man who gave me a menu of the guns that I could use and I decided that I wanted to use a handgun as I had already tried the AK-47 shotgun in Vietnam. Unfortunately the bloke who was running this joint had other ideas and persuaded me to go with the shotgun which was $30 for 30 bullets (not the AK, but I can't remember which one it was). Anyway, whatever it was I turned out to be a much better shot and even managed to get close to the center of the target so maybe I would make a good sniper after all????
That night we decided that we needed a big night out and after kicking back on the lake for a few hours we (some of the Vietnam crew had trunded
Angkor Wat
Nelly on the Streets
up) made our way to the local night club "The Heart of Darkness" which turned out to be a heaving little sweat box playing some of the best music I have heard since entering Asia. Top night I say.
Unfortunatly the next day we had booked ourselves on a coach to move up North to Siem Reap so the plan was to sleep our hangovers off on our 'luxury' coach. Ha! No chance matey. This turned out to be one of the worse journeys we had encountered yet as the coach was an hour late leaving, then it broke down an hour into the journey so we had to wait for another coach and transer all of our stuff over, the Cambodian lady behind us has the longest toe nails in the world and kept stretching her tallons out onto mine and Kelly's arm rests and the road was hidiously bumpy. At one point during the trip I woke up to what I thought was moaning noises and looked behind me to see the two middleaged mutton dressed as lamb Cambodian women watching a mini TV screen. Now not wanting to pass judgement on what these ladies were watching
I turned on my music and drifted back off to sleep. It was only at the end of the journey when the Ozzies who were sitting next to the Cambodian's piped up and asked me if I had heard them watching porn during the journey! Have they no shame?!?!?!
The main torurist attraction in the next place we were visiting was the Temples of Angkor which is a series of capital cities formed by the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th Century and is also home to the worlds largest religious building, Angkor Wat. Due to the vast scale of the the area we wanted to cover we went for a three day pass so as soon as we got sotred with a guest house we arranged a guide for the following day to take us to the the Temples and show us the sights. On the first day we explored about four temples including one which was used as part of the set for Tomb Raider. We were then told by our guide that the best place to watch sunset would be on the top of this hill where there is another temple which we could
Temples of Angkor
Ta Prohm where Tomb Raider was filmed! climb up on. What he failed to tell us was that it was more like a trek up to the top of this hill and that then steps to reach the top of the temple were rediculosly steep and you needed a death wish to climb them. Luckily I was feeling brave that day and managed to clamber to the second to the top level (the top level was ram packed full of people) but once up there I found it pretty hard to enjoy the view as I was so concerened about how I would get back down. Eeeek! The girls very kindly said that they would help me down but I declined their offer and said that I would be better if I went at it on my own without the fuss so off I toddled with my heart in my throat and attempted to decend this building without any rails which I had climbed 20 minutes previous. Well I obviously made it without any injuries and I think I gave some Japanese tourists a good laugh anyway as I was having to sit on the ground and shuffle myself forward on my bum and then dangling my
Temples of Angkor
Sunset over Angkor Wat feet off the platform feel my way around for the next step and then slide down with my back on the ground. As you can imagine this process took quite some time and the que behind me started to build up which meant that I got some funny looks and scowls but it worked for me which is the main thing.
On the second day we visited the daddy of all the temples, Angkor Wat which we had been told was best to see at sunrise so day two consisted of getting up at 0430 (!), being picked up by our driver Rooney (he loved Wayne Rooney and had adopted his name instead of his own!) and then being driven to the Temple in order to join the other thousands of people who had rose at the same early hour to watch the sunrise over the largest temple in the world. I must say that it was impressive especially as I decided that listening to some ambient music rather than listening to people chattering was in order which added to the experience.
That day was spend at the one temple and at one point there was a section
which had steeper steps than the previous day so I decided not to put myself through the stress again and sat that one out whilst I watched the other three attempt to scale to building. For the next hour or so I sat watching people trying to climb and descend this building which was extremly entertaining. Looking back I am so glad that I didn't try to climb it as I know that I would have got dizzy at the top, passed out and fell to the bottom and on talking to the other girls Kelly said that she has now developed a fear of heights just from coming down the building.
As we had lots of early starts since entereting Siem Reap we decided that a night out was on the cards again so we went along to some of the local bars which were heaving and playing some great tunes and the evening was spent dancing the night away. Needless to say that the third day of our 3-day pass to Angkor wasn't used, but after two days looking around the sites I was all templed-out and I think that I am pleased to say that I
Sunset at Angkor
Look at at what a days temple seeing does to you feet. At least I had nice nail polish on! have seen the last of my temples in South East Asia. At least I went out on a high note though I reckon.
After spending only a week in Cambodia it was time to move back to Thailand as we were (and still are) running behind what we had originally planned to do. Even though I said earlier on that the journey to Siem Reap was one of the worst ones we had encountered, I can now take that statement back and this WAS the worst jounrney we have had so far!
For starters, the mini bus we were bundled into had no boot so ALL of the bags had to go in the isles; the seats on the bus were actually on the bus's floor, rathers that being raised so that you knees were by your ears and the road wasn't even a road, but a gravel dirt track with so many pot holes that you had to grab on to the seat infront so that you didn't come flying out of the seat. At one point, no word of a lie, I was looking at Kelly and she came out of her seat so much that
she banged her head off the roof of the mini bus! It was one of those laugh or cry moments and fortunately we saw the funny side of it but it was wearing a bit thin on your patients after 6 hours!
From this bus we then crossed the border into Thailand and got away with paying for another visa and then got into a luxury mini-bus and was driven 3 hours on blissfully smooth roads to the ferry port where we then crossed the water to our first Thai Island of Koh Chang.
We have now moved on from there to Railay in Krabi but I will save the next Thai edition for my next blog as I have waffled on far too long again. Tomorrow we are moving to Koh Phi Phi and then over to the East Coast so you will hear from me then.
Adios Amigos X
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Kim
non-member comment
Mate you need to eat more!!
Lucy you look like your fading away! You look like you have lost loads of weight. They are some great pictures of the sunsets and sunrises. The temples look cool. Not sure about those tunnels, I think I would have been straight back out with you! x x