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Published: June 28th 2008
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Sleeper Bus
Wojie holding on for dear life! Both Vietnam and Cambodia were quite a rushed effort. By then end of the three weeks we were exhausted. The journey to Hanoi from china was the beginning of the exhaustion. We took the sleeper bus yet again to border. This was easily the worst sleepbus experience so far. For half of the journey we were driving along a dirt track with potholes the size of volcano craters. Sleep was far from our minds as the survival instincts took over and we held on for dear life! We met a Vietmanese guy on the bus who was also traveling to hanoi and kindly offered to help us across the border. This probably saved us from being ripped off and it was so hectic we may never have found the border. We thought we only had a short (2-3 hour) journey to hanoi as it was only 200km away. We were very wrong.....11 hours later after being squashed in a train on wooden benches we finally arrived in Hanoi feeling very dazed, that evening is a complete blur.
From Hanoi we went to Ha Long Bay. It was a bit of an ordeal getting there, an accident meant an hour long
delay, the drivers couldn't queue patiently, they all drove as far forward as possible totally blocking the lane coming the opposite way. As in China they were all out taking photos, the only evidence of any accident was a slightly dented bumper. Eventually we arrived at the port. In Vietnam you have to hand your passport over if you want to stay anywhere the night. 6 people hadn't even brought their passports with them so couldn't stay on the boat, another two completely refused to hand them over until an hour long debate finally convinced them. This meant only 7 people were staying on our boat. Ha Long bay was beautiful, its a shame its so overrun with tourists. We went in a Chedder Gorge look-a-like then went for a short kayak which was our favourite part. The next morning it was back to port then back to Hanoi. The next day we went to Ho Chi Minh museum. It was only 10:30am but it was so hot, to make it worse we had to wear long sleeved tops and our water was conviscated. After a long queue we were finally allowed to see Ho Chi Minh himself, he's been
dead since the sixties but they spend several months each year preserving hime so it looks like he's just sleeping. Very bizarre, I cant see us doing that to Gorden Brown!
Hue was our next stop. We decided as it was the festival and the river was lit up beautifully we would have a romantic riverside meal in a floating cafe. It was lovely until I saw a rat run past me. We moved inside off of the veranda in the hope that they wouldn't be in there. Much to the amusement of the staff Wojie jumped out of her seat and screamed as two big rats came into the restaurant and ran along the wall. Well and truely put off our food we made a quick exit. The following day was the hottest I've been so far on the trip, temperatures of 38 we followed our guide to a citadel, pagoda and mausoleums. The places were beautiful just about worth enduring the extreeme heat.
On to Hoi An, the tailoring capital of Vietnam. We both ordered our clothes and went for an early morning tour to My Son temples. Even at 5am it was hot! When we
arrived back at our hotel the electricity for the whole town had gone out. Apart from making it very hot as there were no fans, this also affected the making of our dresses and tops. We had to catch a bus at 5pm and still we didn't have our clothes. We try to divide an conquer both going to different shops. I manage to get back by 4:45 thinking I'd made it by the skin of my teeth. Wojie however wasn't so lucky, at 5:20 there was still no sign of her. When a flustered Woje finally arrives it turns out she had been driven to the tailors house and had to wrestle the dress off of the women, so she only had a partly finished dress. After all of this the bus was an hour late anyway!
In the next town Nha Tang we did our diving. Interesting, although not as good as the Great barrier reef or fiji. We did see some cuttle fish, and wojie saw a giant jelly fish.
Ho Chi Minh City, our final stop in Vietnam. We visited the war museum, which had a very one-sided portrayal of the war. The Americans
were made out to be torturers and killers of women and children, this may have happened but I'm sure the North Vietmanese weren't blameless either. Vietmanese were even being labeled American Killer Heroes. The next day we visited the Chu Chi tunnels, 250km long the Vietnamese hid here during the war launching attacks from this base. A very biased video described the americans as 'devils'. Visitors could even have a go at using AK-47s.
We took the boat through the Mekong delta to cambodia. We visited a floating market, and saw how they made sweets, rice crackers, rice paper and rice krispies. Three of us were staying in a hotel for the night. A long journey on a local bus (one of our fellow passengers was a live turtle), a ferry and a 4X4. We went for a walk that evening but the swarm of mosquitoes and the always present rat sent us running for our hotel!
Cambodia
We went straight to Phnom Phen, pronounced Nom Pen not ff-nom ff-en as we had been saying. Visited the Genocide museum, a school that had been converted to a prison for torturing suspected enemies. It hasn't been touched since
it was first discovered so very disturbing. Then we went to the palace much more relaxing than the one at Bangkok. After a break from the horrific museum the next day we visited the killing fields, a monument filled with thousands of skulls and lots of overgrown mass graves are all that is left.
Siem Reip where the three of us (we have been travelling with Sarah since the border) hired a tuk tuk for a tour of Angkor Wat. Again it was really peaceful and very clean. They were all amazing but our favourite was Ta Phrom which had huge trees growing trough the temple.
On towards Laos, stopping at Kratie for the night. We were hoping to get some cash here but there were no cash machines anywhere. The closest was Kampong Cham a town we had been through yesterday, The next we spent the whole time travelling all the way back to get some cash. A very tedious day! We werent the only ones and shared a taxi with another couple.
On to Laos.........
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