10th day

Asia » Cambodia
April 13th 2010

Published: April 13th 2010

We arrived in Chau doc about 5.30 pm. We were very late and things were a bit of a rush. We landed at a pier that was very old and decrepit. We had to carry our bags up a very steep ramp to the top of the river. I guess the river must be tidal as the ramp was designed to move up and down with the movement of the water level. Once on dry land we put our bags on the back of some Vietnamese cyclos (which are totally different from the Cambodian variety) and headed off. We walked to our hotel down the road. As usual the place was mayhem and people and motorbikes were everywhere. It occurred to me that these people have evolved through the usual modes of transport such as walking, carriages pulled by oxen or other things, bicycles, motorbikes and now were evolving in wealth towards the car. There are already plenty of cars on the road but only a few compared to the number of motorbikes. The road system is none the less congested with traffic. So as they get wealthier they will all seek to have cars and then they are all in big trouble. There is no way the Cambodian roads can handle any significant increasing the car traffic.

The hotel we stayed at was OK but as usual not up to western standards. None of the hotels have really been up to scratch except for the first one, the Montien. At the time it seemed like nothing much but in hindsight it was excellent.

All the hotels have reminded me of hotels that I saw in the post Berlin wall days in Eastern Europe. Not everything work quite right, not everything is quite as expected. The service has been average except for the hotel in Siem Riep where the service lifted a very average hotel to a higher level.

We had to rush to get ourselves sorted as we had organized to catch some motor scooters up to the top of the local hill to watch the sunset. It was a very nice evening. This was the firs time we set on the back of a motorbike since the trip began and I think we were both excited. The divers took at a fairly slop pace, Andy in any case with a white guy of my girth on the back of this scooter its not as if it was about to rocket up the hill. Interestingly they don’t have motorbikes here as such, everyone rides scooter, so there are not many actual powerful bikes on the road.

The sunset over the rice fields was very beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I took some panoramic shots and I hope they turned out OK

The rest of the evening was nothing special except that the Phi (Vietnamese soup) that I ate was very good. It is the national dish of Vietnam and it is very good. After dinner we went straight to bed.

The new bus met us at 7.30 and we headed down to Saigon. We now started to see much more of Vietnam. On the surface it looked very similar to Cambodia but in reality this place is much wealthier. Unlike Cambodia, Vietnam does not depend on the tourist for a majority of its income so it has a much more stable economy. Cambodia is going to suffer immensely from the troubles in Bangkok over the last few weeks. Most of the tourists to Amkor come through Bangkok so this is major collateral damage.

The bus ride took about 6-7 hours and it was relatively monotonous with a few breaks in between. We got to see a lot of the Vietnamese countryside but even that wore thin after a while.

I think we are all getting a little tired of traveling and looking forward to some time out.

Once in Saigon we checked into our hotel. An interesting thing about hotels in Vietnam is that most do not offer windows in their rooms. The city is so densely built up and the fire regulations are such that there is no requirement for windows. Our room is comfortable but it is tiny and has no widow. Kind of weird.

We spent some time going to the local markets after checking in. As usual the Ben Than market was as crazy as every other market in Asia. Huge amounts of activity with just about anything you could wish for. Some of the stall holders were better than others. Some are willing to haggle others just don’t care. It is hard to know the price of something as they all start the offer process at different price levels and you have no idea where it is actually meant to be.
Lisa went back to the room for a while and I went out for another motorbike ride around the city. I took some video of me riding through Saigon on the back of the motorbike. I hope it works out OK.

Dinner was really lovely. We ate at a very nice restaurant. Fist we had some cold rolls and then prawns on a skewer. Lisa had some little pancakes with veg and salad. We said goodbye to Dino our guide. One of the ladies organized a card for him and we all contributes some funds for his tip. I don’t know how much we put together but I hope it was right for the effort he put in. Dino was excellent throughout the trip and really thought us lots about the local customs and how the locals thought about things. He did mention to us that only about 50% of the guides are local and the others are foreigners, and this to me seems a shame as a am sure a local guide will add significantly to the dept of a trip.

It is now our second to last night here. It has gone very fast and we both had a wonderful time. We have booked into a day trip to the Mekong delta. This trip was recommended by Dino and we felt that it would be nice way to finish our time here.

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