Off to Malaysia

It's been a while since I last managed to update this, we've been pretty busy over the last week or so, so lots to tell. We're now in Singapore (country number 4), which is quite a change after Cambodia and to a lesser degree Vietnam. We saw a slightly less appealing side of Vietnam on our last day in Hoi An, over 10 days ago, which was a real shame as it was generally such a great place. But there are always some unscrupulous people where there are some tourists to make money off (usually unrepresentative of the majority of people) and on our last shopping errand we really saw that when we had to argue over a couple of bags we'd got made. Without going into the whole story it was pretty unpleasant but overall we'd had a great time there and Rachel has sent back some lovely (and cheap) clothes. We got a night bus to Nha Trang, which set off stupidly early, got us up in the early hours, bounced us around in the middle of the night and then deposited us in the early hours at our destination. Nha Trang just felt a bit like the south of France, with some great bars and restaurants but just too developed - we could have been anywhere, so we decided to head straight off to Mui Ne down the coast.
We had 3 great days there, staying in a lovely beach-front bungalow and I got to kite-surf! I've tried it in the UK twice and Tarifa in Spain too but always been defeated by the lack of wind, but here, despite it being off-season, there were 3 days of good wind and I almost managed to get up and riding. The sea was not great for swimming (full of jellyfish and algae) but I loved the experience and now need to find somewhere else to get up on the board! Mui Ne was very cool and relaxed, pretty quiet and spread along a long expanse of beach but just what we needed.
It was a real shame we couldn't stay longer, but we had to go so it was a bus journey to Saigon for a day there. Saigon was great, and I'd really recommend a visit. Great wide open streets, lovely restaurants, but still with a bit of Vietnamese crazy thrown in! We had a long day visiting museums mainly. Having done very little relating to the Vietnam War this was our chance. I am now reading a history of the war written by a Canadian, which seems relatively unbiased, so it was interesting to see the Vietnamese take, and it definitely proved the old adage that the victors write the history. This did seem very odd in southern Vietnam, where so many people faught with the Americans against the North Vietnamese. There was very little balance in their view on the war, which is understandable but very simplistic and somewhat patronising. The museums were probably better than the Chinese ones, there was some narrative and interest (if a little too much gore) and some great artifacts (like old US fighter planes) but it all makes you realise how well we do museums in the UK - and they're free!
After a long day we had a pretty hell-ish day's bus journey from Saigon to Siem Reap, via Phnom Penh. The roads got progressively worse and I think we'd become used to a reasonable standard to living, which made Cambodia a bit of a shock. Siem Reap itself was great though and Angkor Wat made the journey worthwhile. We had the best part of 2 days (including a dawn start) seeing a fraction of the temples in various states, and it was truely awe-inspiring, especially the temples that have become partly overgrown and overcome by the jungle. It was then back on the bus to the capital, which was an even worse journey because the air-con wasn't working, but we recovered in a lovely French hotel with a pool. We then flew to Singapore yesterday, which is basically a Western city with all the mod-cons and expense. Our friend Rhod has arrived and tomorrow we're off the climb Kinabalu!

I've mapped all the places we've been to on Google maps, so paste this link into your browser and have a look!
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108274988049637803328.0004502b7b2deed1e582b&z=4

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