Cambodia and on ...............

Hi everyone. Sorry we haven't written in a while, it's been nearly 3 months since the last blog and this is most likely the penultimate( for this trip anyway). We have been all over the place and seen some amazing things, there is just too much to write about. In this blog we will give you an overview of where we have been and as usual loads of pictures. So enjoy...

On landing in Cambodia we were taken by surprize by all the tourists in Phnom Pehn ,we were now firmly back on a tourist trail. Many places around Phnom Penh are all linked with the attrocities of the Pol Pot regime. It was fascinating and harrowing visiting The Killing Fields and S21 -The Re-education Centre. Within the 5 years of Poll Pot's regime he had wiped out 40% of his own population.

From Phenom Pehn we travelled north to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Watt. This place is beyond belief, the temples are huge and so many of them. We travelled by tuk tuk from sunrise to sunset for the first day then 2 half days after that. Magnificant structures with early hindu themes carved into the walls entangled in hundreds of years of roots from still growing trees. By the end of 3 days we were feeling a bit of Temple overload so spent a day soaking up the city ,walking along the river, and around the market
.
We then headed for the beach, the main reason was to get our Vietnamese Visa (issued in the office there in 10 minutes instead of 3 days). The visa application was fine, though the beach trip was rained off by a typhoon.

We entered Vietnam by boat on the Mighty Meekong River. This was a great 3 day trip down the Delta visiting floating sea gysey villages and floating markets, fish farms and rice noodle factories as we headed to Ho Chi Minh. HCM is a great bustling city, in a controlled chaos kind of way. One of the scarriest parts of HCMC was crossing the huge roads. There are no pedestrian crossings there and the 6 laned streets are filled with swarming masses of mopeds all beeping thier horns. On the first attempt we were nearly taken out by the bikes but after watching some local people we got the idea. The techinque is simple -keep a steady pace, don't look anyone in the eye (they seem to wobble when you look) and just let the bike flow round you like water. Its even more fun after a beer!!!

Next stop Hoi Ann an ancient trading City with a great chinese influence. This place was extreme tailoring- Its main industry is making clothes. You can go into any of the tailors there and pick up the "2007 Next Directory "
and say make me that, in this colour, please. The answer is no problem will you collect tomorrow morning and will you be having shoes. Argh as you can guess we both spent a bit of cash there and somewhere over the ocean is a 16kg parcel on its way to us.

Hanoi next another mad vietnamese city a lot more cramped here old french buildings with tiny narrow streets and still the unstoppable mass of mopeds bibbing away. From Hanoi we did 2 trips one to the hill tribes of Sapa and another to Hao Long Bay. Sapa is supposed to be beautiful unfortunately when we were there it was misty and wet. While there we did a 2 day walk through spectacular hill side rice terraces, led by Lang our Hmong guide.
Ha Long Bay was great the weather was kind for a start so the views from our boat were amazing. The bay is made up of thousands of limestone pillars and islands towering out of the water, we cruised around for 2 days on our tour boat taking in the views and watching the local fishermen getting on with their lives in this awesome setting.

Back in Hanoi Caroline and I spent 2 days together and then parted company for a month. Caroline went to do a month of yoga in Thailand, Yoga not being for me really I decided to play in Lao for a month.
After a 23 hr very cramped bus journey to Vientenne Laos capital I headed to the touristy but adrenalin filled town of Vien Veng. While there I tubed down the river and swang from the many trapeeze swings and zip wires over the water. I climbed on the massive limstone rock formations and hired motorcross bikes and headed into the mountains on my own.
On one of the days on the bike I went through a village and had to turn back due to a big impassable landslide, back at the village I was stopped by 4 gun men all pointing AK47s at me. On trying to explain that the track was impassable and I had just come from the other direction, they motioned with there guns that they were not letting me go passed them and I had to go over the landslide. Well obviously they won and with a giant knot in stomach I rode on. I reached the landslide and rode over it untill I fell off, I then dragged the bike by its front wheel to the other side all the time thinking am I about to be robbed round the corner. Well I wasn't robbed and I made it to the back to the main road ok so all was good.
Well I told you I went to play I wasnt expecting that kind of adrenalin though.

My next stop was the cultural city of Luang Prabang where there are so many Budhist temples its untrue, a really great place to unwind after the thrills and splills of the previous week.

From there I met travelled with a group of Isrelis and did a great hilltribe trek on the border region with China. The views here were stunning and spending a night with the Akka tribe was a great experience. the tail was pretty harsh though the paths were very slippy and again with the same worn out boots it was a bit of a comedy to see me flying through the air and landing on my backside.

Fro I spent the next week travelling to the border of Thailand and flew to Krabi to meet up with Caroline.

See some fo you soon.

---

---

---