We got back to Cần Thơ from our trip to the floating markets around lunchtime. After a quick bite in Cần Thơ, we caught a minibus heading towards Sài Gòn (the Vietnamese are adamant that their language is monosyllabic so I'll stick to their spellings) a.k.a. Hồ Chí Minh City. Unsurprisingly, government employees and policemen aside, Southern Vietnamese people prefer the name Sài Gòn. We don't intend to go to Sài Gòn though - our intended destination is Vĩnh Long, a small city located one Mekong-branch along from Cần Thơ. At Cần Thơ bus [View Full Entry]

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There isn't a huge amount to see and do in Châu Đốc. The morning after our arrival, we catch a minibus to Cần Thơ pronounced c'n-ter), some three hours or so away from Châu Đốc. Which brings me to another thing...when it comes to trying out new languages I'm usually quite adventurous, but with Vietnamese I think I might as well give up already. As soon as we arrived from the border, the switch from Indian-derived scripts (as in Thai, Lao and Khmer) to Latin alphabet was particularly striking...Even though we couldn't even begin to guess what anything [View Full Entry]

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Today we head across the border into Việt Nam, a country neither I nor Alex have visited before. I am looking forward to this part of the trip immensely, in spite of warnings I have been given regarding travel in this country (on which more in the next few entries). We have slightly more than three weeks here, as we have a flight booked out of Hà Nội to Bangkok on 12th August. There are three land border crossings between Cambodia and Việt Nam, of which one is located on the Mekong River. Crossing the border at this point involves a [View Full Entry]

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Today is our second full day in Phnom Penh. After having spent yesterday faced with the horrors of S-21, today we intended to see slightly more up-beat sights in the city. Phnom Penh being the noisy, grimy, steamy place it is, Alex decided to spend the morning enjoying the hotel swimming pool. Not our hotel, of course. Across the road from our little guesthouse is the Hotel Cambodiana (loving the name) which allows non-guests to splash about in its pool for a few dollars. While Alex swam, there were a few tasks that needed taking care of - posting cards, getting [View Full Entry]

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Until 1975, located in a quiet street away from the cacophonous centre of Phnom Penh, was the Tuol Svay Prey High School. After their capture of Phnom Penh in 1975, the Khmer Rouge, having cleared the city of virtually all its habitants (sending them away to work in the rice fields), turned this otherwise ordinary-looking school into a prison. The rebaptised the place S-21 - "Security Prison-21". Here, over four horrific years, the Khmer Rouge imprisoned thousands of perceived enemies of the Revolution. The prison gates saw between 16,000 and 20,000 inmates on their way in. Only seven people c [View Full Entry]

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We bought a couple of bus tickets for our trip from Battambang to Phnom Penh at the hotel. When we asked how long the trip would take (we should have seen this coming, really), the staff replied "six hours - actually it takes five but we tell you six so that you get a nice surprise". Or words to that effect. It was a remarkably candid reply we weren't expecting ! Obviously too many farangs are worried about the length of bus trips - to locals the issue is more or less irrelevant ! The passengers on the bus comprised about [View Full Entry]

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We have a nice little room here in Battambang - power shower, much needed after the Incredible Never-Ending Journey from Siem Reap...we also have the additional luxury of satellite TV, so we can catch up on (depressing - surprise, surprise) world news. Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city. This doesn't make it particularly big, but the traffic comes as a bit of a surprise ! It has a large collection of beautiful colonial-period buildings (shophouses, mainly), some restored, some crumbling. Regardless of the state of repair they are all very attractive and give the city a very laid- [View Full Entry]

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Answer ? In Cambodia ! Let me enlighten you... We booked some tickets a couple of days before to catch the "Angkor Express" (oh, the irony) from Siem Reap to Battambang. This boat departs from the Siem Reap River (a few miles out of town, bus trip included), sails down it for a few miles before entering the Great Lake, the Tonlé Sap, which occupies a large part of the country. It then enters the Stung Sangker (Sangker River), and sails along that to Battambang. The journey is only possible from June to November, when the water is high enough, and [View Full Entry]

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After our lazy day in Vientiane, we got an early night. Our Vientiane-Siem Reap flight was scheduled to leave at 6.30am ! According to a charming American NGO worker we met in the pool of Le Parasol Blanc, it used to be timetabled for 6, but the air-traffic controller never made it out of bed in time so it got pushed back half an hour ! Apocryphal maybe, but funny. Our taxi was waiting for us at 4.45am (urgh). All was quiet as we silently drove out of Vientiane (no other traffic, hence no honking - a bizarre experience owing to [View Full Entry]

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Safely off our flight from Phonsavan we made our way into Vientiane by taxi, accompanied by an American mother-and-daughter couple we had met on the flight (well, before the flight - I wasn't in a talking mood during). I had booked a room for Alex and me at Le Parasol Blanc, a small hotel in Northern Vientiane, based around an old French-period house. It's equipped with a swimming pool (aaaah) - I stayed there some 6 years ago when I was in Vientiane after my expedition in Indonesia. It hadn't changed a bit, and the rooms were still a steal - [View Full Entry]

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