Vietnam and Cambodia

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Hello All-

I hope everyone is doing well. I apologize for the long gap between blog entries, but I was moving at a faster pace than usual and I never had enough time to write it properly.

This portion of the trip began by leaving Reed in Bankok and heading off with Connie to Hanoi to start our journey. As usual, we arrived with no plans other than needing to make it from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon or HCM for short) in 2 weeks, which is basically top to bottom of this narrow country.

Hanoi

We arrived, bought a share bus ticket with a bunch of locals, and headed for the backpacker district to find a cheap hotel to stay for the night and arrange our itinerary for the coming days. At first glance Hanoi would appear to be hosting a lawless and overcrowded motorbike (moped) rally, but this is business as usual. At some point in time they apparently decided that cars are not pratical and they need not sell them. Crossing the street here is treacherous, and trying to do it while holding the hand of another person who is screaming and reluctant to move could be considered an action sport. After finding a place to stay we began walking around to look for a restaurant, which would normally be easy to find in a 'tourist' area, but Hanoi does not cater to tourists much, so it does not have many as Vietnamese eat meals from street vendors or at home. After fing one we ate and then jumped into a frontloaded pedal rikshaw, which are the other staple of short-distance transportation, and headed for the sights of the city. On the way to the HCM masoleum and gardens our driver actually slammed into the rear of one of the motorbikes at an intersection, where all drivers simply ignore the signals (if there are any) and dodge each other using eye contact, hand signals, brakes, accelerator, yelling, and some blind faith. This apparently was no problem as he simply adjusted his bike and kept moving as the passengers of the moped we spun around just gave us an evil eye. We took a short walk around, saw some of the sights, and returned on another pedal rikshaw to plan our trip to Halong Bay the following day. In the morning we grabbed bowls of Pho (Hanoi specialty noodle and meat soup) on the street for just under $1 and we were off.

Halong Bay

This is a huge bay filled with thousands of limestone rock formations jutting verticallly out of the Gulf of Tonkin to create one of the most stunning landscapes you can imagine. After a short bus ride from Hanoi, we boarded a Junk boat (wooden ship with sails and motor resembling an asian pirate ship) and began a 3 day ride meandering through the limestone mountain islands. These boats are also called dragon boats because each has a hand carved wodden dragon on the bow to honor the dragon that the Vietnamese believe created these formations and protects the bay from intruders. This was a great experience and the landscape was just as majestic after 3 days as it was when we first laid eyes on it. The highlights included: passing by the occasional floating villages that scatter the bay operating just like normal communities (schools, shops, pets...), exploring an enormous cave just discovered in 1998 by a fisherman fleeing a storm that has already become a national treasure and World Heritage Site, kayaking the still waters ducking into water level caves, touring Cat Ba Island National Park on bicycle until my rear tire exploded and hitching a ride back together on motorbike, climbing a mountain on Monkey Island our guide called a 'nice hike' (despite requiring climbing vertical sections and repelling portions on ropes) and encountering curious gang of Macaques and hidden beaches, dinners with our new friends while listening to Vietnamese karaoke style Christmas songs, and relaxing on the deck for sunsets.

Ninh Binh

We traveled here via Hanoi where we bought our Open-Tour bus ticket, which works as a system of sleeper buses that run north-south between Hanoi and Saigon and you can hop on or off at any city as long as you continue in the same direction. This city is quite small and average, but it is surrounded by some very cool sights. In the morning we rented a motorbike to join the action on the streets (much more tame here than Hanoi) and headed towards the attractions. It was a bit tricky to pay attention to the road as it took Connie some time to stop screaming slow down/look out/we are going to die..., but we both adjusted eventually ; ) Our first stop was Tam Coc, called the Halong Bay of the rice paddies, it has similar limestone formations but they jut out of fresh water that is full of rice paddies. We toured this place by renting a row boat and 2 paddlers to take us through the canals, caves, and rice paddies. This was a very cool way to spend an afternoon, but ended rather anti-climactic as our 2nd driver turned into a common street vendor with all types of garments and paintings to sell us, which was distracting. We continued from here to Bich Dong, a temple built into one of the limestone caves. This was quite interesting, but we discovered the best part when we passed through to the other side of the cave where we met a gentleman who showed us a climb up the mountain the cave was built into (for a nominal fee of course), so we climbed to the top and took in the views over all of the rice paddies and waterways, which was beautiful. The last stop in this city was Hoa Lu, which is an ancient city and citadel built in the 10 and 11th centuries, but it is in pretty rough shape. Some of the parts of the structure had been rebuilt as the original was in ruins, but it was an interesting place to see. From here it was back to the hotel and back on the bus.

Hue

This city was a very laid-back place to visit. The city itself is built around an ancient citadel built in the 1800s which still houses almost half of the city's population. The Imperial Enclosure within the walled city was worth an entire day exploring in the pouring rain (rain on and off about every day in Vietnam) through ornate pagodas, Buddha statues, temples, and 2 more citadels within the citadel (apparently the emperor was a bit paranoid). We spent the evening in the citadel where we ate a 7 course gourmet meal for about $10- gotta love the prices in Vietnam! We spent the next day here roaming as well and then continued on our open-tour bus.

Hoi An

This is where we ended up for X-mas, so we decided to stay here for three days and splurge on an actual hotel. When we went exploring on the first night we discovered that much of the main walkway along the river was underwater, but this didn't stop most people from finding alternative routes to their dinner destinations. Walking around this city is a great experience as it is full of great restaurants, shops, pubs, and markets. Hoi An is like the Vietnamese Riviera, where people come from all over the world to relax, dine, and buy custom clothing and shoes as we would soon find out. Much of our time here was spent picking out fabrics for new suits, dresses, shirts, and coats. By the time that it was all said and done, we had purchased 6 suits (2 for Tony), 2 coats, 2 dresses, one shirt, and lots of ties. The shopping experience here is a bit addictive, which we were warned of, but there is not much you can do about it when the going price for a custom tailored suit is $70-$85. Our days consisted of waking up for a nice buffet breakfast, wandering around, going in for fittings, stopping on the streets for spring rolls and Bia Hoi (draft beer for 30-40 cents everywhere in Vietnam), enjoying dinner, and then stopping back for a final fit and pick-up at the tailor shops. Awesome X-mas, and one that will be remembered. Unfortunately, we did not make it to the famous temple My Son, a nearby World Heritage Site, as it poured rain everyday and we couldn't stop shopping.

Nha Trang

We arrived in this quiet beach town to more rain, which we were used to at this point. It is a cool little place with lots of french influence, so there are plenty of good cafes and restaurants everywhere. The second day that we were here we rented a motorbike and went on a tour of the sights in the area. The first was Long Son Pagoda, which is a cool pagoda built beneath a mountain with a large Buddha statue sitting on top looking down on it. Po Nagar Cham Towers were the next stop, which were a bit uninteresting. The final stop and most interesting was Thap Ba Hot Springs Center where we enjoyed a hot thermal mud bath, followed by a shower and a walk-through water massage wall, and concluded with a mineral water hot tub. The return trip got a bit interesting though when we got stuck in a total downpour, got lost, and could barely see while going through intersections (again- nobody stops). Another highlight of this city was finding the Lousiana Brewhouse where they had great micro-brew beer, fresh sushi, and live music. The days that we spent in this beach town were actually very fun despite never actually going to the beach.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

This city was crazy- another motorbike free-for-all. We spent only one day here touring the sights, but found them all a bit plain, much like in Hanoi. It seems that Vietnam's treasures all lie in smaller cities, towns, and villlages. The best part of this city was the 'botanical gardens', which is actually a very large outdoor zoo. There were some very interesting animals to check out and it was a very large complex, so it took up a good portion of the day.

Overall the highlights of Vietnam included Halong Bay and slowly cruising through the majestic limestone islands, floating through rice paddies and caves in Tam Coc, Hoi An with all of the fine shopping and dining, seeing the landscape full of mountains and rice paddies fly by through our bus window, cruising around on a moped with Connie screaming form the back as we narrowly avoid collisions at every intersection, and Bia Hoi- 30 cent draft beers all over the place! The low points would be constant rain for 2+ weeks, the dislike of Americans (we told everyone we were Aussies after the first 1/2 day), and the overall attitude of the Vietnamese people- they all seem to be very miserable (might be the rain).

Cambodia

Siem Reap

This was one of the places that I was most excited to visit on this trip, and it was incredible! We arrived in Siem Reap on January 30 and discovered that Reed was there, so we went to meet him at a restaurant right away. After eating we headed straight to Angkor Wat- the ancient temples that surround this city that some say are the best in Asia, or in the world. We watched the sun set over the amazing complex and waited for it to become dark as we paid to tour it at night while being lit by colored spotlights. We spent hours walking around the complex looking at reliefs carved into stone walls that spanned hundreds of feet depicting different religious stories and battles. The vision, patience, and dedication that it took to build this are hard to imagine. Although Angkor Wat alone is definitely worth a trip to Cambodia, there is so much more to see here. That night we returned straight home to get some sleep as we had rented a moto-rikshaw (moped with a covered 2 seat trailer usually connected with rope) and it was picking us up at 4:30 a.m. In the morning we got in the rikshaw in total darkness and started a full day of exploring temples. We started at Angkow Wat again to watch the sun rise over the complex and cast a mirror image into one of the reflection pools in the courtyard and then continued to explore it some more in the daylight. From here we visited every other major temple in the area, and many smaller hidden temples as well, before we decided to head back to our Guesthouse. This was probably the most exciting day of the trip so far. The temple sites are so remote and amazing that you feel like Indiana Jones roaming through a lost civilization. Some of the features that are found in many temples are: stone face towers (4 sided faces- made famous by a temple called Bayon), enormous moats surrounding each complex entirely, stangler figs which are causing serious destruction to the temples but are also amazing as these huge trees can grow around and over just about anything, blocked passageways which make for constant backtracking and rerouting, and wall after wall of carvings. By the time we arrived back we had spent 12 hours at it, and it was time for a nap before our big New Year's Eve celebration on Pub Street- a street in Siem Reap with nothing but bars and restaurants. We had a great NYE, and despite being in a small place, Siem Reap threw an awesome party. Pub Street turned into a massive street party packed shoulder to shoulder from one side to the other. The next day we went to tour the older section of temples called the Rolous Circuit, which were lesser in scale and detail but provided good insight into the progression that made temples like Angkor Wat possible. Siem Reap is an amazing place and I would encourage anyone that will be traveling to SE Asia or who is looking for an adventure to visit, it is a must see before you die place if there ever was one. The city caters to everyone and there are almost as many 5 star hotels as there are cheap hostels, tons of great restaurants and bars, transportation is incredibly easy, and the people are likely to be the kindest that you could run across anywhere in the world.

The next part of our trip involoved what was supposed to be a 6-8 hour boat ride to a city called Battambang, which turned into about 11 hours winding through crazy water forests, floating villages, and riverside towns with homes built 12' in the air on stilts. This trip would get very intersting as some of the paths cut through the water jungle were wide enough for only one boat, so as we would come upon smaller boats we would push them into the trees and bushes and scrape along until we passed them. This boat ride was excellent as it gave a raw snapshot of the life of real Cambodians in the countryside/on the water and how they live. I had very high expectations for Cambodia after hearing stories from so many friends and backpackers along the way, and it surpassed them all several times over.

Unfortunately, all of my Cambodia pictures were lost in transit from Thailand to Indonesia a week or so later, so I do not have many to share with you, however, I will post some of Reed's in the near future, so check back for updated photos in the next 5 days or so. I will try to post some of the Vietnam pics, but I will most likely add more later as well as I am now out of time. Also, I should have the next portion of this blog written (Thailand and Indonesia) in the next week or so, but I am off to Melbourne for the Australian Open for the next 3 days, so I will catch up when I return.

Sorry again for the delay in blogs for those of you who were getting anxious. Also, if you have left me a note on this website, I was just made aware that this exists, so I apologize for not responding and I will do so soon- I have not been ignoring these. Finally- I miss all of you and wish you all the best, Happy Chinese New Year, and go Roddick and Serena (look for me in my 4th of July USA shorts if you are watching)!

PS- I didn't have time to proofread, so I apologize in advance.

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Photos

Imperial Junk
Our boat in Halong Bay