SE Aisa

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Already it’s been a few weeks since we were in Hong Kong but our tour off SE Asia was so fast moving that I have had little time to update my blog! I can’t do every country justice as it’s been a while but I will try and recall some highlights! Hong Kong is a fantastic city and we spent a great long weekend there, the intense city life, smog, and sprawling and endless questions from tailors etc took a bit of getting used to as we’d not experienced that for the last few months in Oz and NZ. We quickly became very familiar with the MTR as we whipped around the city squeezing in as many sights as possible. We went almost to the Chinese border to see an amazing Chinese temple which was well worth the travelling; the anscenterol worship that they practice was fascinating to see. We also visited some beautiful gardens in several districts and had traditional afternoon tea. To visit the giant Buddha up on the hillside involved a fairly long journey and an even longer queue for the cable car back but it was magnificent to see it despite the fog over the city.
Every evening at 8pm there is a sound and light show across the harbour which is a real spectacle. A real highlight was the second evening when we had dinner with James who had just arrived in HK for business. It was nice to have a catch up, although far too brief and see a friendly familiar face after over 4months on the road!

After HK we flew to Bangkok and spent an evening there sitting with our Singhas watching the sights that you are only ever going to see in Bangkok. We had decided to get a cheap flight and fly to Phomn Penh the next day to save time, good job we left when we did as only hours later the airport was taken over by protestors and remained closed for a long time afterwards, what a relief!

Phomn Penh is another typical busy, slightly smelly SE Asian city with serious traffic problems and mental moped drivers but it has a curious charm about it and we spent a great couple of days. We explored the beautiful Royal Palace with their many impressive gardens and temples and paid our respects at a much more somber visit to the Killing Fields if Chueng Ek. It’s unbelievable that the site contains 129 mass graves and 9000 human skulls form the Pol Pot regime.

After Phonm Penh we took a bus to Siam Reap, starving we stopped for lunch and were dismayed to find all on the menu was fried spiders and crickets, that certainly is an instant appetite suppressor! One of the local girls had her pet tarantula on her jumper and was showing it off proudly to lots of gasps for the tourists, no-one took up her offer of holding it despite her claims it wouldn’t bite!
Siam Reap bus station was chaotic and small children were intent on taking my bags and could see no reason behind the fact I actually wanted to keep my things and not give them to them! Well what do I say about Angkor that could so it justice, an absolute highlight of the trip. The temples and amazing and Wat was spectacular, I had never appreciated what a grand scale the temples were actually on! We managed to get around most of the temples and were very excited at Ta prohm to see the much photographed trees growing in and around the temple walls, what a magical place.

We flew to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving at the airport early we asked if we could get on the earlier flight and told no problem we’ll put you in business class instead, excellent! Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon still to the locals!) in a lot more crazy than Phonm Penh. Here there is a real art to crossing the crazy, crazy roads and you just have to be brave and try and part the traffic. Despite the mental roads we enjoyed sightseeing and had an interesting tour around the Reunification Palace, the previous palace of South Vietnam and the Communist tank that’s stormed the gate the day in 1975 when Saigon surrender still stands in the grounds. We couldn’t visit Vietnam without taking in some history of the atrocities of the war. The war remnants museum as you would imagine is very scathing of the US and there are some truly heartbreaking photos of the victims of war. The market in HCMC was crazy and an experience, we were told you are given different color bags depending on how hard you bargain and we had rather a colourful collection by the end! I was ready to leave when I was physically restrained an d a lady much larger than me had me in an arm link and insisted I must buy a t-shirt, she couldn’t understand that I just didn’t want one an did was a long time before she let me go as I was getting angrier an angrier! I hate the way you get grabbed all the time, I value my personal space!

We had a quick stop in Nha Trang which is mainly a beach resort and the weather was not too great but it was nice to chill out and we visited a nice temple, braving the treacherous pavement s we walked which is very very difficult in Vietnam as for them the pavements are for parking their bikes, walking is an alien concept, you are asked constantly if you want to go on the back of the bike, I couldn’t think of anything I would like less!

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