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Published: July 13th 2007
Really meant to get my act together and not leave it so long between blogs, somehow this didn't happen. I can partly blame the crap internet connections in Laos and Vietnam, and partly me.... the plan to make it shorter didn't seem to work that well last time; Rod, one of my friends who I'm travelling with, encapsulated it by saying, "I read your blog. Well, some of it. It does go on and on..."
Anyway, back to Laos.
Will just say a little bit more about our time in Luang Prabang, that I was brief about last time. We had a really relaxing nice time there, and it's one of those places that's hard to leave, just being a very chilled out place, full of nice cafes where you can actually get real cheese and bread (sounds really boring but when you haven't had that for months and months it suddenly becomes really important...), and so a lot of the time was spent sitting around eating and drinking. Lots of that. While we were in Luang Prabang we also met (or re-met, as we'd met him on the boat down the Mekong) Tony, from Australia, who ended up
travelling with us through most of Laos.
Having been to the waterfalls, as I mentioned before, and also a trip to see some caves, which weren't really that much to look at, especially one of them, which involved climbing up hundreds and hundreds of steps to get there, we thought we'd better leave before we stayed there forever, or became unable to move due to being weighed down by all the baguettes (and me, cheese) we'd eaten. Having now been to the next town, I now remember the name of it, the one beginning with P: Phonsovan. The reason for going here was to go and visit the "Plain of Jars", actually a little way out of Phonsovan. More on this in a while. We decided to take a more comfortable journey there from Luang Prabang, and booked a minivan, which was air conditioned and really comfortable, and would only take 6 hours. However the journey, being mainly mountain roads, though with absolutely spectacularly beautiful scenery along the way, wasn't great mainly because of the speed of going up and down and round and round the mountains, leaving us all feeling really queasy. Still, we made it, and booked
into a guest house, and bumped straight into Tony, who'd got the bus down, and was also staying in the same guest house.
Phonsovan itself hasn't got much to it, it almost feels a bit like a border town, though the guidebook talks about its lively nightlife. Mmm. Barry dealt with that one swiftly by falling into another marathon sleep from 6.30pm, though unlike in Pak Beng, he did wake up at 9 when I went to tell him where we were going to eat, and he said, "yes I'm definitely coming down, I'll be there soon. No, don't turn off the light, otherwise I'll go back to sleep."
Rod, Eimear and I went along for dinner to a place where we were the only customers (actually we would have been the only customers in most places there) and ate, none of us expecting to see Baz walking down the street, so we weren't really surprised that he didn't, and was happily sleeping away with the light on when we got back.
The next day we'd booked a tour to take us out to the plain of jars. I can't remember the name of our tour guide, so
I'm going to just call him "Lao Lao", as this is what he spent most of the day talking about/drinking/giving to us to drink. (Lao Lao is a really strong local rice wine, by the way). Lao Lao seemed to already be drunk from the off, (about 9.30am) and spoke about how the day would go ie, go and see Plain of Jars site 1, followed by going to watch Lao Lao being made, drinking Lao Lao, then site 2, maybe more Lao Lao, then lunch (with Lao Lao), then site 3, then Lao Lao (the guide, not the drink) telling us at length about his heartbreak over his ex-girlfriend (actually he didn't list this bit on the day's itinerary but with the help of Lao Lao (the drink) is what ended up happening). Then to see an old American tank, and then back home.
The Plain of Jars sites are kind of Stonehenge- like, (except for the fact they're jars), it being a bit of a mystery who left them there, and what they were used for. They are huge stone jars, that are believed to be up to 2 thousand years old, and may have been used
(these are just theories) as storage, or as funeral urns, though Laos legends say that they belonged to a race of giants who used to live there, and were used for storing rice wine (Lao Lao).
But the sites themselves were also badly bombed by the US in the 1960's and are still full of unexploded ordnance, and you can only walk along certain bits.
The site 1 is supposed to be the best one, but personally I preferred the other two, which weren't so sprawling and in a way because of that, the sizes of the things seemed more noticeable in a smaller area. I kind of felt like I didn't want to know the theories or even the legends about why they might be there, but just wander round and see them as a mystery.
Site 3 was the site of the story of Lao Lao's broken heart, which I have to say I didn't listen to too much of, mainly because I also by that time had drunk too much Lao Lao (which is really strong), then gone out in the midday sun on the last walk to the site, which didn't feel like
the best thing to have done....
Won't say much about the stop off to see the American tank, mainly because there's nothing really to say about it; ie, tacked on to the end of the tour for no particular reason.
We got back to town sort of mid-afternoon, and went with Tony and another Tony (well, I went off to the post office first to post some stuff home, including some Lao Lao for my dad - actually that bit''s an interesting story (by the way the apostrophe doesn't work on this computer, hence the inverted commas in "bit''s". OK, I"m getting sidetracked now) The people at the post office who were packing the rice wine seemed to be extremely interested in it, like the sort of interested where you think that when they nodded and grinned gleefully, took my money for the postage and packing, and took it into the back room, the chances of it making it to England for Fathers Day, or even any day, are quite slim, and I'm still yet to hear from my dad whether it arrived or not). Anyway, after the post office, I went to join the others at a
cafe, where we had some drinks and food, more drinks, then headed back to sit on the terrace outside our guest house.
We left the next day for Vang Vieng, a town another few hours away, where people mainly go to go 'tubing" (will explain in a minute). Baz and I caught a later bus than the others because I wasn't feeling too great that morning, and had what we thought was the name of the place we were going to try and get rooms at. When we got there, we ended up wandering around for probably not that long, but with rucksacks and in the blazing heat feels it, only to finally find it and discover that it was actually the same guest house that the tuk tuk driver had wanted to take us to when we got off the bus, and we'd said, "no, no, we're not going with you". But it was definitely worth the walk, had a nice cafe right on the river front, and we got nice bungalows with terraces to stay in. And a really sweet kitten who lived there.
The tubing that people go to Vang Vieng for, is basically floating
down the river in the inner tubes of truck tyres (like giant rubber rings). The river has sections where there are rapids so you can (in theory) lie in the tubes and float down the river, stopping frequently along the way at the several bars (well, some are kind of very rickety bamboo platforms on stilts on the river, that you feel like you're falling through when you walk on) which also have aerial slide-type swings that I didn't have the courage to try out in the end, mainly after watching people slide down, scream, then let go just after they're meant to (strange, now the apostrophe's working again....), scream again, and generally belly flop or back flop into the water.
I missed the tubing the first time as I was feeling a bit ill, but went the second day. We all piled into large tuk tuks with the tubes and with our few belongings (no cameras, so no pics, too worried about water damage etc) in supposedly airtight, waterproof bags which you can hire (ours leaked so the hunch not to bring cameras turned out to be spot on).
Then you take a tube and get in the water,
get on it (can't really do that in a dignified fashion) and float to the first stopping point aka bar aka bamboo platform that you fall through. It took me at least the first 3 bars to work out how to steer myself to the side to get out - just couldn't work out the "going backwards, which way do I move my arms" thing, and had to be rescued by the bar workers initially, who steered me in. Most of the time you do actually have to paddle with your arms or else you just float around in circles or into rocks; one section had a good bit of rapids but it only lasted about 50 metres so it didn't take us far. After we'd stopped off at the second (or third) bar, we got back in the water just as the monsoon rain kicked in, and you couldn't see a thing. Eimear lost her scarf in the water and Barry lost his sunglasses; apart from this we all had a really good time though got separated late afternoon when me and Baz stopped at one bar, expecting the others were coming along but they went onto another so
we didn't catch up with them till after we all got back. By the time we got back in the water it was practically dark and became completely dark within minutes, we didn't know where the next stop was and eventually decided to get out where we could see some lights. When we eventually managed to agree a price with a tuk tuk driver to take us and some others back, the tube hirers were angry that we were back late and tried to charge us more, so we argued over the fact that the ''airtight'' bag wasn't airtight, which didn't really get anywhere and ended in one of the men calling Barry a bad man and telling him not to come back to Vang Vieng again...
We left the next day, with Tony, for Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and our last stop in Laos.
Coming into Vientiane was a bit like coming into an Indian city, in that it doesn't really look like your idea of 'city', and also huge amounts of the main roads were being dug up so there were diversions all around the place.
We spent just a few days here, mainly enjoying
the Joma cafe, eating lots of cheese and drinking lots of wine. Laos was so great for this! In between that, we went out to see the Buddha park (see pics), a little way out of Vientiane, which was pretty good.
We booked flights out of Vientiane to take us on to Hanoi, Vietnam; all of us having loved being in Laos. which as I said before has a really nice feel to it, pretty laid back for an Asian country, and incredibly beautiful, being so mountainous. Road trips showed really spectucular scenery, as well as having the chance to pass through villages on the way from one place to another, clusters of pretty bamboo houses on stilts (some built right on the edges of the mountains, a bit disconcertingly).
Arriving in Hanoi after Laos was a bit of a shock. It's a big, bustling, noisy noisy city, full of small streets jam packed with motorbikes both on the roads and pavements, street sellers, other traffic etc etc - you have to walk in the roads as there's no room on the pavements, and try and actually cross the road? - best to try and find what you
need on the same side or you'll be there all day.
Things didn't get off to a great start, having heard various stories about scams, and general hassle towards tourists, when our shuttle bus from the airport asked everyone where they wanted dropping off, then proceeded to drop everyone where they felt like it; we landed up in the middle of the street not knowing where the hell we were, and walked into the first hotel we saw to have some food and work out where to stay. In the end we just stayed there.
Hanoi is really full on in terms of constant hassle from people, and though I thought I'd be used to it from India, it happens in more of a cut throat way in Vietnam, and with a lot less charm. All of us were very quickly under enamoured with the place, and with street sellers carrying those things that look like giant scales across their shoulders, full of fruit, saying 'picture, picture' and then dumping the thing on you before you have a chance to say a thing, then demanding to be paid for the privelege.
There were a couple of tours
away from Hanoi that we were quite interested in doing, mainly for the benefit of escaping from Hanoi, made a bit complicated by the fact that I needed to leave my passport in Hanoi to get my visa extended (having been told before I left Laos, no, I definitely didn't need a new visa, I'd be stamped in for 30 days, and was stamped in for 6 when I arrived...), and the tours requiring that you have your passport with you. This was then compounded by my bank card getting eaten in an ATM for the second time this trip. Still, it worked out in the end; we booked two trips through a place called the Kangaroo cafe in Hanoi, which I would highly recommend purely on the basis that they have toast and vegemite on their menu... but they are also a great cafe for other food and the trips they ran were good, and well organised (though maybe a bit too well organised at times...more in a bit).
We left Hanoi on a 2 day trip to a place called Sapa, up in the mountains, taking a night train there, spending one night in Sapa, and taking
a night train back. The train was fun, we were all in a 4 berth compartment together, and got more drunk than we anticipated mainly because we'd been told there was a dining car on the train and there wasn't , and we hadn't eaten..... got to the train station at Lao Cai at around 6 in the morning, met up with the other people who were on the tour with us, and were taken up to Sapa, to the Cat Cat hotel, about an hour's drive from Lao Cai. When we got there around 8 in the morning, it was raining, and getting more misty by the minute. In the five minutes it took to sort out who was getting which room, the mountains went from being vague shapes to being completely invisible, and we were meant to be going on a walk that afternoon.... still, by the time we'd checked in, slept a little, had breakfast etc, the weather cleared up, and by the time we set out that afternoon with our local guides (2 young girls who looked like they should have been in school, but told us they were 19, then continued to skip down the
road in front of us), the weather had cleared. The mountains were really beautiful and we had great views from the terrace of the hotel, and really good views of the mountains and all the rice paddies during the walk The girl guides took us down to some waterfalls where you could supposedly swim, except that when we got there it didn't look like there was anywhere to swim, and there were signs up everywhere saying 'Danger'. After looking at the falls for a few minutes, the girls came up to everyone and asked, did we want to swim? ??????? Everyone said ..er, no. The way back was a bit gruelling, being uphill all the way, and we abandoned the group halfway up to take a break in a small cafe.
We found a great French place to eat that evening, called 'Baguettes and Chocolat' , had a really nice meal (yes, involving cheese and wine again - and chocolate), and went back, so we could get some good sleep ready for our: what had been described as a combination of walking and strolling around Sapa, and amongst the rice paddies. Mmmm. The next morning we set out after
breakfast. It started gently enough at first, just walking down the hill, enjoying the scenery of the mountains, and rice paddies. This is great, I thought, a nice day strolling around. After about half an hour, we stopped for jasmine tea at the side of the road, and to be hounded by people selling bags, jewellery etc etc - in fact we had people accompany us all the way and no-one knew whether they were meant to be guides, or people who were just following us, waiting to sell something. After a while that uncertainty was cleared up, when after the usual, 'where you come from, how old are you, etc etc' over and over, and then walking and more walking: 'later, you come my shop?'
After the tea stop, the guides suddenly turned down a steep, rocky, treacherous looking path, and me and Eimear looked at each other in panic, Eimear saying, 'how do we always manage to get in to these situations?'. I lost my nerve within minutes and had to be helped down the path by one of the guides/sellers, till I managed to catch up with Barry, who I'd spoken to the night before about
maybe needing 'a bit of help if there's any scary bits'...... He was great and stayed with me the whole time, keeping me from falling in to total hysteria, and was (unfortunately for him) trapped with me for the whole of the rest of the 'walking/strolling' aka dangerous rocky nightmarish trek, as I stumbled, froze, slipped, panicked, and ended up in tears at one point, as the trek took us down more and more rocky slippy paths, across rocks in a stream at the edge of cliffs (there MAY be a bit of exaggeration going on, but not that much). We got further and further behind our group which meant that every time we finally arrived at one of the stopping points, our group had already been there for 10 minutes, and as soon as we got there, the guide would say, 'right, time to go,' The last stop before the final bit, we arrived and managed to sit down for about two minutes at least, which was nice until Rod who was sitting next to me, turned to me, motioned over his shoulder and said, 'and now we get to climb up that treacherous path over there'... The treacherous
path turend out to be even more treacherous than it looked, getting steeper and narrower and literally (no exaggeration at this point) ran along the edge of the mountainside, where the ground was actually falling away, then finally as we started going down, it turned into an almost vertical descent also on the edge of the mountainside, also very rocky, slippy and everything else horrific you can imagine. You can tell I really enjoyed the day.... Eimear lost one of her sandals in the river we crossed just before the end, and ended up wearing Rod's flip flops, who ended up going barefoot the rest of the day, and in the afternoon one of Baz's sandals broke, so not a good shoe day for anyone....
Was a real relief to finally reach the jeep that was picking us up and taking us back to the hotel... we were getting the train back that night so only had a short while to relax before leaving again for Lao Cai, where we had dinner before getting on the train this time, and all slept well enough not to realise we'd arrived at Hanoi at around 5.15 am, despite being given wake
up calls. We managed to find a cafe across the road from the station, and had practically undrinkable tea/coffee there, before getting a taxi to take us back into Hanoi so we could find somewhere to stay for one more night before leaving for our next tour the next day. We ended up at a place called the Venus hotel which is in Lonely Planet but shouldn't be, and isn't to be recommended for various reasons I'm too tired to go into, as there are so many stories of Vietnam not unlike that one.
The next morning we went back to the Kangaroo cafe to go on our 3 day trip to Halong Bay, which was taking us one night on a boat around the bay, to visit some caves, visit Cat Ba Island where we would see monkeys (more later), one night in a hotel, then back to Hanoi.
The Halong Bay tour was great, really relaxing, the boat we stayed on was really nice, etc etc, and was just a bit of a shame that our otherwise really sweet guide whose name I can't now remember, thought she was our teacher. The first hour on the bus
going up to where we would catch the boat was spent with everyone having to introduce themselves; as my turn came round I could see Eimear and Rod looking at each other and laughing, waiting for the tour guide to get my name wrong, and were so happy when she also came out with something like 'Grabby' when I said my name; then the tour guide told us a lot about what we would be seeing, some history of Vietnam, and, most importantly, the itinerary of what we would be doing, and when, which was to become a constant theme of the trip. From then on, everything became a regimented '10 minutes, then meet here, 15 minutes, then we leave, 30 minutes, then this. Any questions? No, then let's go'. When she asked about food, I thought it would be easier just to say I was a vegetarian, as when I tried to say I eat fish and some seafood but not all, it got a bit confusing, and then she said all the vegetarians would have to sit together at all times, so people would know where to serve the right food etc. We were told which cafes we
would be eating in and when, what time we would be doing this, that, everything...
After we stopped for lunch and I'd sat with the other vegetarians who also weren't vegetarians but both had tummy bugs, we got on the boat, got our rooms which were really nice, though as Rod pointed out, the beds were about as wide as half a bed, and travelled out towards the 'Surprising Cave'. We were all quite sceptical as the caves in Laos had been barely caves and quite disappointing but I have to say this cave was actually surprising, really spectacular, huge, and my pictures don't do them justice at all.
Back on the boat, we anchored at some point and could go swimming, which was really nice, except we had to jump off the boat to do it, and were all standing on the edge for ages saying, ' who's going first?'
Dinner was nice (I was getting to know the other 'vegetarians' quite well) except that Barry and I got told off for being late, and came up to find that no-one was allowed to start eating until we were there, (which probably precipitated the tour guide grabbing me as
I came out the room at ten to eight the next morning (ten minutes before breakfast) and quizzing me as to whether we were ready, and where was Barry, and I should go up now, as people were already sitting at the table.....) After dinner we sat out on the deck for the rest of the evening, and got talking to Helen, who was on our tour, and who has ended up being in the same places as us since, and then travelling with us. She's Australian and a real character, good fun.
The next day, we took a trip out to some more caves, the Dragon caves, which were also good, though not as good as the Surprising cave, which is just as well, otherwise it wouldn't be so surprising, and then the Dragon caves would have to be called the Surprising cave and the Surprising cave wouldn't have a name.
From there we went to Cat Ba, where we checked in at our hotel, given the usual '15 minutes we meet downstairs' (and absolutely no longer) where we were taken to the Green Mango restaurant for lunch - there had been a bit of confusion about this at
some point, so confusing that I can't remember when the confusion actually happened, but the tour guide got muddled about where she'd told us we'd be having various meals, and said she'd said we'd be having breakfast at the Green Mango, but actually it was on the boat, or we'd be having lunch on the last day at the Green Mango, but actually it was at the first place we'd had lunch.... the confusion continued once we were actually in the Green Mango (though most of this is stuff I heard as I didn't end up eating in the end as I wasn't hungry) with what you could actually have. Up until that point we'd just been given food, so there was no choice, but the Green Mango gave menus to everyone; then it was unclear what you could actually have from the menu (as it was part of the tour price). Could you have soup and salad? soup and a main course? Salad and pizza? Panicked by the fact that for the first time so far on the tour, there was a window of slight choice, things got very confusing and a bit panicked. It turned out you could
only have one thing.
After lunch we got on a boat to take us to Monkey Island. A word about the boats by the way. Getting on and off the boats on this entire trip is an experience in itself: when we got on the first boat at the beginning of the tour, the people who worked on the boat were expecting us to make a jump of about 10 feet to get from the boat next to it to our one. From then, on, getting on and off boats was a series of obstacle courses: jumps, leaps, clambering up and down ladders that sloped inwards and ended halfway down the boat, rickety steps leading to a gap, then the sea, then dry land...
anyway, back to the story. Having climbed down the said sloping ladder that ended halfway down the boat, the tour guide said, actually there wouldn't be any monkeys because it was too hot....
we briefly thought we might go kayaking but in the end just relaxed and went swimming, then we got back on the boat, with Rod reliably laughing at me and Eimear climbing back up the ladder, and went back to Cat Ba, where
we had the evening 'free', though were strongly encouraged to all meet downstairs anyway at 7 and go for dinner together. We went out to a place recommended by the tour, which was spent in darkness for the first hour on and off due to power cuts, and every time we tried to order food, the power would go again and the owner would disappear. In the end the food was a real disappointment anyway.
We decided to be rebels and not go downstairs at the required time for breakfast the next day, but went a bit later, and still managed to check out and be ready in time; though as we were waiting on the steps, joking about getting into trouble, the tour guide came out and told Rod and Eimear they were wanted in reception, where they were accused of breaking the ashtray in their room and burning a chair, neither of which they'd done.
When that was sorted, we were taken on a boat back to the place we'd had lunch the first day, had lunch, then got on another bus back to Hanoi. Despite the rules, it had been a really good, relaxing time.
We only
had a few hours back in Hanoi before catching a night train to a town called Hue, south of Hanoi, which we spent mainly in the Kangaroo cafe. The train wasn't leaving till late, so we made our way to the station around 9.30 or 10, where we bumped into Helen, who was meant to be catching the earlier train which had been cancelled - we were all working out where the platform was and being given misinformation; eventually we found it, and Helen's compartment was in the next carriage but she ended up staying in ours anyway. It was a pretty fun night up to a point, but I (unwittingly- kind of) ended up drinking more than I intended and then got ill and ended up sitting in the loos with Eimear and then Barry for half the night; in the morning I was still feeling ill, prompting Rod to say 'how's it going, Grabby? Feeling good?' as I stood out in the corridor wondering if I should go to the loos and try and be sick before the train arrived at Hue. None of us were feeling great, and we ended up having a really long walk in
to town from the station, stopping briefly at a cafe where they asked Rod if he wanted his iced coffee hot, but finally got to the area near where the hotels were, and stopped at the Mandarin cafe for something to eat before Barry and Rod took Helen round to her hotel where she'd booked, and booked us in there too, as it was very nice. It was a really nice hotel but the laundry lost my favourite top, and wouldn't admit it, and kept trying to blame me for losing it somewhere else and saying tourists always lose things in other places, then blame their hotel... Won't go into that story either....
We spent a couple of days in Hue, the second day we booked on a tour which would take us into the Demilitarized Zone, and amongst other things into some caves which were inhabited for safety by people during the Vietnam war. The tour itself for the main part was pretty crap, we had to be up at 5.30 am, were picked up late, and the bus drove backwards and forwards throughout Hue, picking up people in a completely nonsensical order. When we eventually got going we
were taken to a place for breakfast a couple of hours into the trip, which was meant to be included in the price but didn't include drinks and the food we did get was not good; then most of the rest of the trip was actually spent on the bus, with maybe a 5 minute stop to look at the 'Rock Pile' or at the Ho Chi Minh trail, which the tour had described as us visiting but in actuality was ' There's the Ho Chi Minh trail over there - 5 minutes to look at it' then the bus went in the opposite direction. the guide was regimented in a similar way to the Halong Bay guide and got more and more frustrated with us throughout the day, looking over at us and emphasising '10 minutes here. Just 10 minutes.' The rain didn't help though the day got slightly better with a visit to the Khe San combat museum, which has lots of pictures and descriptions of the Vietnam war, and is well worth a visit; and later on in the day, to the caves. However, lunchtime we were taken back to the great breakfast place so we decided
to defect and ran away to have lunch somewhere else; eerily the bus driver knew exactly where we were and when it was time to go, followed us up the road, having abandoned Eimear back at the original lunch place, who'd gone back to use the loo, despite seeing her, then wouldn't wait for her where we were, and drove back, forcing her to run across the road to catch us.
We left Hue the next day for Hoi An, further south still. Feeling pretty weary with Vietnam by this time, with constant hassle from sellers, generally being unable to trust in having a straighforward communication with anyone you were dealing with, or a transaction that didn't end with someone trying to get more money out of you, giving you something you hadn't asked for etc etc; we thought from Hoi An we'd just do a quick stopover in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), then move on to Cambodia. So in Hoi An, we didn't really do much but it was actually quite relaxing, and again (should just call this a food blog) found a good cafe called the Cargo club which we ended up going to for every meal
once we'd found it (and Baz spent all day there), and generally chilled out. Have hardly any pics from there as like I say, we didn't do much.
We flew to Saigon in the end, as it's a really long journey by bus or train, and were literally there for an evening and night, booking a bus to take us to Phnom Penh the next morning.
The bus journey to Cambodia was fairly straightforward, compared to the stories we'd heard of experiencing shenanigans with changing buses, visas at the border, having to pay extra money etc etc; it all went really smoothly, and we got to Phnom Penh late afternoon. We hadn't sorted out anywhere to stay, and we eventually fended off all the tuk tuk drivers around us at the bus station, and organised one to take us the river front, and went for something to eat while we worked out where to stay; in the end had problems as everywhere was either full or too expensive, and we ended up staying in the guest house where we were eating, which wasn't great, and who told us we had to be out by 8 the next morning. We moved
to the area by the lake the next day which was much better and had a nice place to stay.
However, walking around Phnom Penh, at least in that area, turned out not to be very nice; me and Eimear were followed, then leered at the whole way to the Post Office in our tuk tuk. Although I'd heard some stories of Cambodia and the feel of it, I was still surprised; and you also have to be really really careful of your belongings all the time as there is a really high incidence of theft and muggings there.
While we were in Phnom Penh we visited the S21 prison, where the Khmer Rouge held captive political or suspected political prisoners, who then underwent tortrous conditions there and most died or were sent tot he Killing Fields to die. It was a really distressing visit, seeing photos of the conditions in which the prisoners were kept, but most powerfully because of the rooms and rooms of photos of all the people held there, all with the same kind of look in their eyes. We visited the Killing Fields that day too. I didn't feel it was the sort of place
to take photos, so there aren't any photos of that.
From Phnom Penh, we moved on (still with Helen) to Siem Reap, which is the town close to the Angkor temples, and Angkor Wat itself, which is a world heritage site, and the largest religious site in the world. We got a 3 day pass for Angkor; it is an amazing site, the ruins of the temples and what's left there in itself is so impressive. Really worthwhile. Only a shame that there is so much there, and it's so hot walking around, that it's difficult to fully appreciate it after a while.
The only other downside to it is that there are treacherous steps to climb on the outside of most of the temples. Getting up them is one thing, which you (or at least me and Eimear and Helen did) soon regret once you're up, as getting down is even scarier. Hopefully the pics illustrate some of this.
Other than that, it was an amazing place; and there was another great restaurant (yes again) in Siem Reap, called the Red Piano, which we got obsessed with again and ate in all the time.
Cambodia ended with a
'taxi' ride in one of the tuk tuk driver's friend's cars, to the border. The road between Siem Reap and the Thai border is notoriously bad, like a dirt track really, and was probably a hundred times better in the car than it would have been on the bus, but still pretty gruelling and was 3 and a half hours.
Cambodia was really interesting and has such a strong history, and was definitely a really powerful experience visiting it. But kind of worn down by Vietnam, and the same relentless selling/hassling, and also like I mentioned the fact you have to be so careful of your things all the time, taints it a bit, and the week there was enough really.
This is just (as always) going on and on so I'll stop here for now, finally done it! Back in Bangkok briefly, but will leave the rest for next time. A few pages of pics again so scroll and click on the numbers.
Till next time - currently who knows where I'll be as at the moment I keep changing my mind... xxx
PS the top picture is of Eimear's toy lemur who hangs off her bag,
and my pig torch which I got free in Lampang, Thailand with a pack of Duracell batteries. Their inclusion in the blog is because they've become a significant part of the trip. Really. :-)
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