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Published: March 12th 2006
Infront of Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat. An enormous temple and very popular... amazing non-touristy shot - a lull in the crowd combined with us pushing the remaining Japanese tourists into the moatLocation check - we just arrived in Thailand - three countries in three weeks! Taking a well deserved break at the beach on Koh Chang, an Island just South of Bangkok. Working on the tans, hard life, ho hum..
Saigon sagas:
We finished off our tour of South Vietnam in Ho Chi Min City. (The South Vietnamese still call it Saigon) We had heard how busy it was, but we were still shocked by the amount of motorbikes on the road. (About six million in Saigon alone) Crossing roads was terrifying and you really took your life in you hands weaving between the fast moving traffic, hoping for the best each time. We decided to save money by walking as much as we could to avoid rip off taxi/cyclo drivers. So on the first day Sarah took the role of tour guide and took us off to the Ho Chi Min City Museum (average place, not much of interest), the War remnants museum (really great place, very interesting with lots of photos from the war). They had an exhibition about the effects of Agent Orange, the defoliant the US used during the war. So many Vietnamese have been disabled or
The All-seeing Eye
The Cau Dai religion originated in Vietnam and is a combination of bits of other faiths! The temple we visited near Saigon is a riot of colours with monks dressed in bright red, yellow and green... disfigured because of the chemicals, including deformed children born to affected parents after the war, so sad! Surprisingly, similarly to our other experiences in Vietnam, rather than being boastful and anti-American, it was more matter-of-fact, and mournful of the tragic loss of both sides. (Sorry my American friends, but the atmosphere wasn't helped by a group of loud American lads, saying things like, 'Wow, cool, look at the deformed foetus' - the ones created by Agent Orange).
We took a guided tour out to the Cao Dai temple and Cu Chi tunnels as well. (Check out the pictures to see what the Cao Dai temple was like, very very colourful!) The Cu Chi tunnels were very interesting. It's the area where the Viet Cong hid out during the war in miles and miles of underground tunnels. The US's inability to flush the VC out of these tunnels is one of the reason that America pulled out of the war. We saw exhibitions on the traps they used to kill American soldiers - unbelievable! - brutal, but not too bad when you compare it to the nepalm, Agent Orange, B52 carpet bombing that the Americans used just above their heads. And
Its like Picadilly Circus!!! No... worse
A Saigon junction... No give way, obeying traffic lights and caring about pedestrians just point, accelerate and hope for the best... also went down into the tunnels - they were tiny and had even been enlarged to allow access to western tourists. Can't imagine what it was like to live down there... Not for claustrophobics anyway! We could have done the 100m route but had to get out after just 40m.
After a disaster trying to find Saigon's water park, we ended up spending a couple of days visiting the city's Botanical Garden and Zoo. It was like an oasis of calm after the chaos of the city. We whiled away hours just watching the animals. Health and safety was a bit different from British zoos though.. You could easily put a hand into the lion and tiger cages and the elephants could reach out there trunks and touch you. Which they did along with blowing lots of elephant snot all over us... We realised shortly afterwards they just wanted some food! Stu's favourites were the monkeys. The younger ones could squeeze themselves through the bars of their cage and harassed you for food or tried to steal your hat etc... Stu got a bit too close and about three of the little devils jumped him and he even got a
An Experience at the hairdressers
Dazed and confused after the haircut with a difference... little bite on the shoulder by one who was not impressed when he didn't give him any food! (cue Stu tracking down an English speaking zoo keeper to check the monkeys didn't have rabies!!) (He did break the skin - Stu). Feeding time at the big cats enclosure was interesting, there was me thinking the rabbit running around the cage was put in there to keep the tiger company - actually it was breakfast! Ditto for the guinea pigs in with the snakes. We went to have a look at the giant crocodiles and a crazy keeper was sifting leaves off the top of a pool of green water. The next minute a giant croc lunges (I would say at least 15 feet) out of the water, trying to bite the stick and the keeper calmly starts whacking him on the head until he goes back under the water again. Rather him than me!! This game continued for ages! Think they both enjoyed it!
Can't finish without mentioning Stu's traumatic hair cut. For a pound he had a haircut, cut throat razor shave, a face pack and a 20 minute ear cleaning session, where, with the help of a bright
From Vietnam to Cambodia via the Mekong
This little Vietnamese girl was pulled from under the seat of our canoe by her mum when we were on the river... too cute lamp, the man cleaned wax out of Stu's ears with metal (surgical?) instruments and kindly wiped anything he found on Stu's arm, mmmm. I had to leave the room and Stu's still traumatised by the experience.. (and the spiky gel-look hairstyle he had at the end, though the hair cut its self was really nice). (I started to worry when he pushed me back into my seat after the cut... he kept doing things and I didn't know what was going to do next.. especially the ear cleaning thing... it did actually quite hurt at points... last was the eye cleaning with the sharp spiky thing... I think he realised I was quite tense about this so stopped... too much wax out of what I thought were clean ears though... I think this wax was from birth - Stu)
Cambodia or bust:
We decided to include a short trip around the Mekong Delta (far South of Vietnam) in with the journey over the Cambodian border. So spent a couple of days getting there visiting floating markets and a few other things along the way. We arrived into Phnom Penh after an eleven hour journey and the city seemed just
Day Break at Angkor
Banteay Kdei... one of the best temples (in our opinion) in Angkor especially because it retained its mystery with few other people... as crazy as the one we had left! That evening we went out for dinner with some friends we made on the Mekong Delta Trip. Ed took us to a restaurant he'd heard of which is run by former street kids. The food was amazing and all for a good cause too! The poshest meal we've had in ages... we gorged and even a power cut didn't stop them, as they calmly brought out the candles so we could see...
The next day we had a day of hard core sightseeing. In the morning we visited the Royal Palace (where the king still lives) and silver pagoda (so called because the floor is made of blocks of engraved silver). After Lao and Vietnam it was amazing to see a place that still had so many beautiful buildings in good nick and most of it's statues and treasures still there. (Even surviving the Kymer Rouge) At lunch (everything shuts between 11am-2pm for siesta) we went to a cafe, set up by a charity to get at-risk girls off the streets, followed by excellent shopping at the Russian market. Sarah bought a great bracelet which is made from recycled bits of magazines
Stu and Sar Tomb Raiding...
Amazing Ta Prohm - made famous in Tomb Raider because of the massive trees encroaching on it (and slowly destroying it)... ( much, much cooler and pretty than it sounds).
Then we went to the former S-21 prison. This place was a former school which once Phnom Penh had been emptied by the Kymer Rouge (1975) was used as a prison for high ranking officials and other educated/professional people like teachers etc... Basically men, woman and children were sent here and tortured until they wrote false confessions. Then they were sent off (up to 6 months later) to the killing fields just outside Phnom Penh where they were killed. They think about 18,000 people, inc westerners were tortured and killed here over four years. They have pretty good records as all the prisoners were photographed and recorded. A terrible place!!!
We actually visited the killing fields too. (This place is known as the killing fields, although there are mass graves all over Cambodia) This place had purely prisoners from S-21 prison and the graves were found after the Kymer Rouge rule ended (1979). There's a 30-foot memorial containing all the bones, skulls and clothes of the victims aged from just babies up to 80 year olds - if one person in the family was send to prison their whole family was
Giant Faces Appear through the Folage
Ta Prohm, The Bayon and Banteay Kdei are notable by the enormous stone faces... killed too.. At least 2 million Cambodians were killed by Pol Pot in five years, 20 percent of the population! Our guide even told us her sister and grandparents died during the period.
The temples of Angkor, Siem Riep:
Another long journey and we arrived in Siem Riep, the home of the temples of Angkor, most famously Angkor Wat. After a virtual riot exiting the bus (a hoard of about 30 tuk tuk drivers being beaten by the police with bamboo sticks to keep them back from the bus) we got a tuk tuk to our hotel. Just an hour later we were heading out to watch sunset over Angkor Wat. A three day pass to all the temples costs 40$ and we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around for 60$ for three days between three of us, so not too expensive for having a personal chauffeur! I won't bore you too much with descriptions of the temples because the pictures tell a much better story, but we visited quite a few. And you really do get temple'd out by the end of the third day. Here's a quick itinerary of what we did, we were
Steep, Steep Steps...
Crazy steep steps at the Angkor Wat try to thwart Sarah and Sassha from climbing... there was more trouble on the way down! knackered by the end of it!
Day one - Up at 5am for sunset at Srah Srang (The royal bathing pool), then Banteay Kdei (we had the place to ourselves), then 35km and a 40min uphill walk to Kbal Spean (carvings made in the rock of the river bead) and then lastly 13km backs to Banteay Srei and mini pink sandstone temple complex, very cute and amzing carvings. Finished by 2pm, so tired! Not that that stopped us giving blood at the local hospital afterwards though!
Day two - Pre Rup, Ta Prohm (the tomb raider temple with trees growing in it!) which was hideously full of Korean and Chinese tour groups and Angkor Wat (I nearly died coming down the steep steps of the highest temple, so steep!), then Bakeng hill temple for sunset and great aerial views of Angkor Wat.
Day three - Sunrise over Angkor Wat (5am, but truly amazing), Angkor Thom (Site of an ancient citadel) where we saw the famous elephant terrace, leper king terrace and Bayon temple (the temple with hundreds of stone faces). Lastly (we were dying by this point) we saw Preah Khan. We were well and truly finished with temples by
Indeed!
You could get an Elephant ride to the top of Phnom Bakong temple... and just in case you didn't know Elephants were big buggers we have this sign... then. Not that we went straight back to our hotel, nope we popped into a landmine museum on the way home! We loved the temples, a once in a lifetime experience for us!
You can't leave Cambodia without being struck by just how poor it is and how much corruption there is. In a country where teachers earn 30 dollars a month and policeman earns 20, you can see why the have people look for dodgy ways to get extra money! Everywhere you go there are victims of the war or landmines (minus limbs) and children begging for money or selling things to make a few dollars. It's just so sad. Then you hear that 90% of the money from your entry ticket to Angkor goes to a private company for 'administrating' it and you think how much better that money could be spent!
So still recovering from walking miles and miles around Siem Riep we were on the move again. We originally planned to spend 2 weeks in Cambodia, but decided to get back to Thailand and a beach as soon as we could. Spent a fortune in Cambodia, not sure how! We had a terrible 12 hour border crossing journey to Thailand, with me feeling terrible the whole way (Struck down with Cambodia belly!) and us looking a decidedly filthy orange colour (The air-con promised on our bus was non existent so we had to have the windows open, coating ourselves in dust) and then we got a puncture, aah! Just after one night in Bangkok, we're in Ko Chang. But thankfully we will be here for five nights getting some much needed rest. (We haven't had a lie in past 8am for 3 weeks)
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O J from Korea
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Envy you
Hi it's very good to hear from you. Please enjoy.. My little daughter and me gonna go to Taiwan for hiking to YU SHAN. About 3,953m high mountain centeral Taiwan. From May 4 to May 7th. Have a good trip.