backpacking-backtracking

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OK OK! So once again I start with an apology, again for the length of time in between my splurging drivel otherwise known as my blogs. I’m sure as sure can be you are all sitting by your computers waiting with the greatest anticipation as to when the next entry will be published, and on that note I shall not disappoint, but please, before you go on, make yourself comfy, grab a cup of hot, and settle down into the nice buttock shaped groove of your chair, as I have a lot to write!

So we got to the point of arriving in HCM City. Finding a room, once again at the very top of a guest house, requiring the sort of mountaineering equipment Bear Grylls might use just to scale the enormous height of the stairs. Anyway, we made our base and set about in walking the city’s sprawling mass of roads and paths. HCM is a funny place, a mass of traffic, people, market stalls and hawkers. Quite similar to Hanoi only on a much larger scale.
The following day we walked and explored as best we could on foot, finding the markets, the parks and many coffee sellers to name but a few. We also visited the Reunification Palace; this is a fantastic building, set straight from the 60’s. We joined a tour and moved through the many rooms inside the building, learning the history and taking in the fantastically retro style throughout. It was such a nice day, I find it really exciting to take a map and go walking, especially when you get off the beaten track and start exploring the parts where Westernisation hasn’t taken over, mixing with the locals. Most people we have met this way have been more than friendly and I really feel like we have seen their way of life. Lots of smiles and hand gestures, but somehow we manage to bridge the language gap and leave with smiles flowing in all directions.

The next morning we got bussed with the masses to the Cu Chi tunnels. These are similar to the Vinh Moc tunnels further north, the difference being that the Cu Chi tunnels were used by Viet Cong in the fight against the South Vietnamese and the Americans. It was due to the military involvement that the tunnels weren’t as big as the Vinh Moc’s. The height not exceeding 1.4 meters and the width a tiny 60cm. I could barely fit sideways let alone stand up. Unfortunately due to this I only managed to complete one section of the tunnel as being constantly crouched made my oversized and ridiculously long limbed, lanky body look impressive next to even the most complex of origami. We also saw working traps the Viet Cong made to maim and harm the southern activists and American soldiers. These were shocking. You read, hear and watch films about the devastating and cruel implements of booby traps, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. After seeing the size of the bamboo spikes hidden under trap doors in the ground, when you see the different leg trap devices that were made and used and when you realize just how cruel and ruthless things were during the war, you start to get a real feeling of sorrow for whoever was involved. This was then amplified when after the Cu Chi tunnels; we went to the war museum. We got dropped off the tour bus here and spent the afternoon taking in more war information, facts and figures. Once again, the realization of how bad things were is shocking. I couldn’t believe that the Americans starting using the war in Vietnam as a live testing ground for experimental, new weaponry. Agent Orange is the main Chemical that was tried, tested and then widely used throughout Vietnam. It killed thick forestations and devastated farm lands. It killed thousands of people and is still having huge negative effects today. The farm land still can’t be used and families are still suffering the effects by giving birth to deformed and contaminated babies.
It is so interesting to find out all of this information and I am very glad we went to both the Cu Chi tunnels and the museum; it makes you realize why the Vietnamese don’t have the fondest view of American people.

Our time in HCM was fun, I enjoyed it. I don’t think I clicked with the city though, not as much as Hanoi anyway. The reasons behind this I am unsure, the people, the buildings, the atmosphere…I have no idea, I just know I didn’t really feel comfortable there. The last night was a lot of fun however. A little explanation is needed before I head into what happened. The Vietnamese LOVE football with most people, even the women, following a team religiously, mainly English teams, but they seem to know more about what is happening in the English Leagues more than most English people I know. With this love of football in mind I now go on to our final night, and what also turned out to be the final of an Asian cup between Vietnam and Thailand. Whilst the game was being played the streets were virtually empty, nothing was happening. Everybody seemed to be glued to the smallest of TV monitors catching a glimpse of what was happening. The game ended with Vietnam being victorious. You didn’t have to watch the football to know this; you only had to look outside to see the hoards of people on bikes, beeping horns and waiving flags. So many smiles and so much laughter, one woman even danced with Lydia! This was a fantastic way to see HCMC on our final night.

The next morning we grabbed a bus to My Tho, from My Tho we took the (free!) ferry to Ben Tre. What then happened in the following week I do remember, although my mind became a little pre-occupied? The Mekong Delta (where we have traveled into) is mainly rice paddies- rice paddies mean a lot of standing water- standing water and the hot climate we are in is the perfect breeding ground for those little bastards otherwise know as mosquitoes. These little bastards aren’t just any little bastards either, these little bastards have the possibility of carrying malaria, something which isn’t at the top of my list of things I want, so both Lyd and I took good precaution methods and got Doxicycline. This is fine and understandable; I don’t mind having to take a tablet every day, what I do mind however are the side effects (very very small print!). Without painting the brownest of pictures for you, I needed to be sure of where the little boys room was most of the time, it was this that clouded my mind slightly. Like I said, I do remember things, just not in as much detail as I would have liked, therefore this is going to be quite a short description. Please send your letters of complaint to my bowels, I had nothing to do with it!
We spent one night in Ben Tre. It’s a tiny fishing village that doesn’t get many foreign visitors. We were eyeballed constantly as we got off the bus with people staring, pointing and laughing at us (something my skin has thickened too!). Ben Tre was a bit of a one stop wonder really. We needed to head back to My Tho to get anywhere, I’m really glad we did stop there though, it was nice to be away from the travelers route, even if it was just for one night. Our faces have been full of that from HCMC so to get away from it all (and those pesky tuktuk and motorbike drivers constantly asking “you want mo-to-bike?”) was fantastic.

So from Ben Tre to My Tho and onwards to Can Tho. Here we stayed in a really nice guest house situated down a small alleyway and was the home of a really nice family. Through them we booked a tour to take us to two floating markets and through the Mekong. The tour however was just Lyd, Fran and myself, none of the package tour, cram-them-all-on-a-bus stuff. We boarded a really small wooden craft and headed off at 5:30 in the morning, this was so that on the ride out we could see the sunset. It was cloudy. The floating markets were brilliant to see, loads of boats stuffed with everything to the point of sinking or losing its load (was going to use the word shedding there, obvious reasons to the change of vocab…). We pulled up alongside the café boat stall, had a coffee and sailed onwards. The rest of the tour was fantastic, the driver (?) took us around lots of little rivers that merge into the Mekong and at one point, moored up and said we could walk along the bank, through a small rice paddy village. We briefly met some villagers and crossed the river on the most unstable excuse for a bridge I have ever come across. From there we went for lunch and then back to our guest house. We got back at around one in the afternoon and put what was left of New Years Eve day to good use, and fell asleep.

Our new year’s celebrations were incredible. Due to my (and Frans) issues with the stomach monster we decided to stay in and see what was on Vietnamese TV. I’m glad we did but I also wish we didn’t. For some reason unbeknownst to any of us we watched Vietnam’s version of X-factor with the highlight (?) being the winner who sung at midnight. It was so bad, but so addictive. There were 3 of us, one of us could have changed the channel, but we didn’t. We sat there, glued to the drivel and ear piercing wails of pop ‘artists’. We had a giggle anyway and saw in the New Year with a big mug of tea (no milk).
The following morning we were heading off to Chau Doc, from there we then decided to catch a boat to take us across the border into Cambodia and to the city of Phnom Penh. Chou Doc is basically one big market, its lots of fun and gave us many new things to try. We did walk around the town a little, but there wasn’t much to it, so we ended up buying our boat tickets earlier than we thought and heading off the next morning.

The boat was a slow boat and took us up the Mekong to the Cambodian boarder. It was a lovely old school wooden boat with spaces to sit on the bow of the boat and on the top deck. It was such a lovely day, the sun was shining bright and hot, so I decided to sit on the bow, book and ipod in hand and watched the Mekong world flow by. It was fantastic, so relaxing and chilled.
We docked a few hundred meters from the border, stopped for lunch, then walked overland and crossed the border, getting on our second boat of the day to take us further up the river. This was again another old wooden boat where again we were able to sit on top deck and soak up the now Cambodian sun rays. We docked a few hours later and had a bus waiting to take us to Phnom Penh.
On arrival (at yet again, a different place we were told.) we booked tickets straight away to Sinhoukaville which left the following morning. Our place of stay for that one night in Phnom Penh was interesting to say the least. From our own powers of deduction and using the information around us at this ‘guest house’ we came to the conclusion that we were staying in a place used probably as a brothel. A seedy and cheesy casino was near by and the people running the guest house all seemed a little on edge and dodgy. An experience none the less, but I don’t think I want to be in that situation again. Needless to say we didn’t hang around in the morning and got out as quickly as we could.

The bus turned up and we spent the next 6 hours getting to Sinhoukaville where, on arrival, we found another guest house and set up base for the next 4 days. The beach was our destination which Lyd found using her expertly trained sunbathing radar. The beach is small here, with what space there is used almost completely by pubs, bars and restaurants all selling Western food (groan) and most pumping out huge volumes of music (again, groan) which isn’t entirely what we wanted as some chill out time. Fortunately the bars seemed to stop about 1km up the beach, which is where we headed. Setting up our individual arse grooves in the sand and basking in the beautiful heat. Perfect!
I is such a shame that the bars have all become so westernized (when I say westernized I mean lots of pizzas, chips and Carlsberg, all mixed together with extortionate prices), it feels as though the Cambodian way of life has been completely wiped out, most of the waiting staff spoke almost perfect English (some even were English). Still, despite that, it was nice to kick back and recover from quite a lot of traveling we had done over the previous few days. It also gave me bags of time for some well earned juggling practice. At least 3-4 hours a day, on a beach, in the sun. What could be better? I was also surrounded by beer at a price of $0.50. I was in my element, with Lyd and Fran both enjoying the time spent reading and topping up the tan (or turning into a strange kind of lobster leg, Fran!).
This was relaxing to say the least, and the evenings were spent eating at some of the many beach BBQs that were set up by the restaurants. An ice cold beer also accompanied the beautiful sunsets all the nights we were at Sinhoukaville.

After a few days of sun lounging and turning a disgustingly brown color we decided to head for Siem Reap, this was to be an 11 hour journey taking us back to Phnom Penh and then switching bus to Siem Reap. This is the town where Cambodia’s most famous attraction, Angkor Wat is situated….

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