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Published: December 9th 2008
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Cu Chi Tunnel Entrance
I would have tried but I would have got stuck!!! Hi everyone. Sorry it's been a while but you know how it is! Here's our next installment...
19.11.08
Last night we planned on a quite sedate evening but we got talking to a lovely couple from Adelaide, Adrian and Megan and spent the evening with them. Had a few too many large Tiger beers but tore ourselves away knowing we had an early start this morning - we suffered a bit but once we got to the Cu-Chi Tunnels, we weren't feeling too bad! Cu-Chi tunnels were what the Viet Cong used in the war to hide from the Americans. They were tiny - 70cm x 40cm and they had a whole living / hiding space over 3 layers under gound. We had the chance to go inside one of the specially widened ones (100cm x 70cm or something). We went in last and nearly bottled it! They were still tiny and we're both claustrophobic but we took a deep breath and did it (25m at least!). They had a shooting range there also and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to fire some real-life AK47s with live rounds. It was fantastic! Nearly got deafened but what a feeling to
fire a machine gun! Only in Asia eh?
20.11.08 - 22.11.08 3-day Mekong Delta trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Visited the islands by boat off My Tho. Amongst other things, Jase got to hold honeycomb covered in bees, saw some coconut candy being made and various village life activities. Our first night was staying in Vinh Long at a homestay with a local Mekong family. Arrived after dark and were guided by torch light to the house - very secluded and quiet. Had a lovely meal which we helped to prepare / cook and had an early night. Quite scary going to the loo in the middle of the night - it really did feel like we were in the middle of nowhere. On the second day we travelled by boat to see a floating market which had pretty much finished trading and took some small boats with local ladies paddling us along in their conical hats, down some little tributaries / canals which dissect the islands - really nice. Got a bus to Sadec where we boarded our night boat to Can Tho. Louise was ill with a heavy cold and only got an hour's kip
(not helped by the loud engine room beneath us!). In the morning, we were up at the hideous time of 5.30am in order to visit some blasted fish farm (they went crazy when some food was thrown in - very Piranha-like) and then head up to Chau Doc (Cambodian border). The border crossing went without a hitch. A bit of waiting around and showing our passports what felt like 100 times to various officials, but they let us in, which is the main thing. Took a fast boat up the Mekong, most of the way up into Phnom Penh before catching a bus for the final stint. Found a room nearby the drop-off point and Louise went to bed to sleep off her cold. Later that evening, we went to the Blue Chilli bar, where we unexpectedly had lady boys serving - didn't expect to see that until the more liberal Thailand!
23.11.08
Visited to Royal Palace in Phnom Penh but had to take a tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel before they'd let us in so Louise could change her shorts - too short apparently! (no, they weren't hot pants!) Nothing mentioned in the guidebook about that so
a little annoying - especially as we'd seen others with short shorts getting let in. It was OK and worth the visit (well, Louise didn't see it that way, still ill....not another temple!). That night, we found a great restaurant and sampled some Khmer food - very spicy (even for us!) but delicious.
24.11.08
Hired a tuk-tuk for the day to take in some local sights. First up was Tuol Sleng genocide museum where the Khmer Rouge tortured their many victims who did not fit in with their oppressive ideology. A disturbing and thought provoking place. Next we visited the site where these victims were killed and buried in mass graves - the killing fields of Choeung Ek, just outside of Phnom Penh. What really brought home the atrocities of this period was the glass tower of 8,000 excavated skulls, erected as a monument to those who died, and the remnants of their discarded clothes, still scattered around the grounds peeping through the grass.
On a lighter note, on the way there, our tuk-tuk broke down (just as it started to lash it down with rain!) so we had to help push the thing to the closest repair shop
- luckily not far - to get the thing fixed!
26.11.08
Took the bus up to Seam Reap (the base for our trip to the temples of Angkor) today and experienced our first contact with creepy-crawlies on the loo break on the way - fried tarantulas! Louise wasn't impressed to look down and see a live one crawling next to her foot and then see a local girl pick it up and tease a Western man with it! Needless to say, we waited by the bus door until we could set off again...
Really liked the feel of Seam Reap - surprisingly the busiest bar scene we're seen so far.
27.11.08 -28.11.08
Hired a tuk-tuk for the next 2 days to visit the many temples of Angkor, including of course, the massive Angkor Wat. Very impressive, in particular we liked the Bayon Temple, in the centre of Angkor Thom. The designs of all of the temples are so intricately carved - would have been amazing to see them when they were new, almost 1,000 years ago. Really enjoyed spending our evenings in Angkor What? bar. Very lively and lots of cheep beer flowing until the early hours!
29.11.08
Headed back to Phnom Penh in order to get on the right route north again up to Loas. Starting to get used to these 6-7 hr bus journeys now - feels like we're really travelling as it seems so normal now. Stayed in a dive of a place overnight - a place run by an Irish alchy! He was drunk when we arrived, drunk when we came back after dinner (gave us a couple of free shots though, and told a few amusing stories) but was still drunk the next morning when we came down to catch our 6.40am bus! Crazy!
30.11.08
Took (another) bus to Kratie, northern Cambodia, on our journey up to Laos. Kratie is famous for its Irrawaddy fresh-water dolphins so we took a trip to see them. Quite a few of them graced us with their presence (or their dorsal fins at least!) but not very close up. Still, worth it and we got a nice motorbike and bus trip out of it too.
Heading over the border tomorrow into Laos - looking forward to it! We know we're behind but we'll try to get the next blog installment out soon so we're
up to date.
Take care! Louise and Jase XXX
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