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Jim Macpherson
this is a travel blog for Me and Leighs travels through South East Asia. Jim Leigh
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Beer cheaper than Water? What the?
Published: March 3rd 2006Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City
March 1st 2006
Yep, I never imagined that it would be possible but beer is cheaper than water, which is amazing because Im no brewmaster* but I think that a vital ingredient in beer is water....beer being cheaper than water is also a sign that we are comming closer to a utopian society** or maybe that communisim is the way to go...so for all the cheap/broke alcoholics out there, read on and you too can enjoy the beaty of vietnam..... HCMC Well after our stellar Meekong riverboat cruise we booked the 7:30am mini bus to HCMC (Ho Chi Mein City or Saigon for all you Nam Vets) got up early again, got on the bus... met a german couple and shared a taxi from the bus depot to the backpacker area of town...Decided to see a bit of the ... read more
February 27th 2006
Well not really having a party, and there is no cajun queen turning 21...and we are not on the mississippi*...but close enough.. So we split from the border town, and headed on the stinking hot mini bus to Can-tho antoher town on the mekkong river. Got a nice room on the 6th floor with a balcony..booked a tour of the Meekong river for 530 am the next day.... Getting up was a bit of a chore..Leigh likes to hit snooze and I cant muster up the energy to stop her, so we ended up having bout 9 minutes to get up ready and out the door. Our boat driver/tour operator picked us up and walked us the 2 blocks to his boat..it was a little dingy with a long moter on it..we got in and were ... read more
February 25th 2006
OK we made it off the beach and are now in Vietnam trying to figure out the curency, where to go, what the custums are and all the other confusing things that go along with visiting a country for the first time.... OFF THE BEACH Leaving Khins shack was hard...well not for me, but more for Leigh, they coaxed us into staying one more night, but I was determend to leave the next day...having your bed room 20 meters away from beach and water with cheap drinks and good food is a hard thing to get away from...We organized a Share taxi to take us to Kampot for 8 in the morn...the girls all got up early to see us off, made us presents (bookmarks) and we left... We thought that we were leaving but, of ... read more
February 23rd 2006
Alright, after my last blog I have been accused of being unromantic..and I have two words to say...Dirty Dancing...thats right...our valentines night was capped off with a painfull viewing of the 1987 chick flick Dirty Dancing ..the whole thing....so that makes up for everything else..I figure watching Dirty Dancing or Footloose or Ghost or basically any 80's movie with Dancing or Patrick Swayzie or a dancing Patrick Swayzie cancels out anything horrible that a boyfriend has ever done.... Ok so we spent another day in Phnom Pehn going to the Genocide museam...it was an old school that was converted into a jail/torture center by the the Khmear Rouge....it has now been turned into a museam..you get to walk through the cells (which used to be classrooms) and see the torture rooms and devices..pretty creepy ..but ... read more
February 15th 2006
Well we are still in Phnom Penh, waiting for our washing and planning to leave tomorow. Yesterdday was Valentines day and I wanted to do something romantic and special with Leigh.. The Killing Fields First stop on Jim's Valentine Love Express Tour was the Killing Fields. These are the Fields where there was Killing. Between 1975 and 1980 hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and killed by the Khmyear Rouge for being educated, urban, skilled, ethnic, religious, or enimies of the state. This was one of the sites where they killed and buried people in mass graves...after the regime change they dug up the skulls and built a monument. Inside there are thousands of skulls...10 stories of skulls...and the tour guides like to point out how they died..bullet holes, skull fractures, axe wounds..very romantic...I knew ... read more
February 13th 2006
After a couple more days in Siem Reap we have moved on to Phnom Penh, the Capital of Cambodia.. great city, very small but very busy. Landmine Museam On our last day in Siem Reap we visited the landmine museam outside of town. Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world and a lot of people still are killed or maimed by them. This museam was started by this guy who had been fighting with the Khmear Rouge since he was 10. Grew up in the Jungle, spent his youth killing and setting booby traps and land mines.,Never saw a city until he was 25. when the fighting stopped he started to de-mine Cambodia, by hand with no metal dectors or anything. Started a school for child landmine vicitms as well...verry cool ... read more
February 10th 2006
Well we just finished off two days exploring the Temples of Angkor, and its pretty cool...you know except for the constant begging and the landmine victims..besides that its a pretty happy place...today we are going to the landmine victim museum and maybe visit a school here…here are some highlights of the last couple days… Temples: Well the temples are really cool, and there are lots of them, in two days we visited about 11... we now have a ton of pictures and video of temples that we will never ever look atagain….so the temples are big and really amazing.. at one temple complex they was 3000 monks and nuns hanging out. swimming, cleaning..smoking..very weird…found out it was a once a year festival attended by monks from all over Cambodia…they called it Monk-a-pa-looza….it was really cool ... read more
February 7th 2006
Alright, we made the border cross..after a week of planning and hearing horror stories about 15hr bus rides from hell, breakdowns, scams ect ect, we did it in a cool 4hrs. Border Crossing: Woke up early, got a tuk-tuk (threewheeler thing) to the border...got hassled by a bunch of people trying to "help" us with our visa's...stiff armed past them and made my break to the immigration office...blew past a bunch of Thai's waiting in the "thai" line...got our visa stamp and were off to Siem Reap in an air conditioned Toyota Camery..most people take a bus for 8$US...I recruited a couple of girls (whom I thought were dudes at first,) to split the cab with us 4 ways (10$ each) and we were off..intersesting girls, I think they may have ben thespians.... The Road: The ... read more
February 6th 2006
Well superbowl is over and if you read my other blog, I called it right...well mostly... woke up at 6 am to go to the TV room at the guesthouse to find it full of Seahawk fans....whiney, complaining seahawk fans....even when the game was close, they just complained the whole time "well on any other day they would have won" blagh blagh blagh.. and when the lost they all got bitter and sulked.. Left Bangkok again, took a VIP bus to the Thai-Cambodia border..staying overnight here...which is cool cause there are no tourists and everything is even cheaper.....got a nice room with a TV in it that was playing "into the blue" in Thai...watched it all....got hooked trying to figure out what was happening (not that hard, I think if I watched it in English I ... read more
February 5th 2006
Thats right, Night Train, not just a good song by GNR but a comfortable ride as well. Made it off Koh Phangan, got the "12:00" boat, which left at 1:15....just barely caught our "5:32" train back to Bangkok...whcih actually left at 630...which is great about Thai time, it might leave on time or it might not (chances are not) but you dont want to be late anyway...so we booked a Lower sleeper cabin or so we thought...I imagined a private room, with just a bed in it, like in old movies....on the lower level, hence the lower sleeper cabin..but when we got on it just ment we got to sleep on the lower bunk in a tran car that was kind of like a dorm room...it was cool though, had couple drinks, nice fried rice dinnner..and ... read more
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