Vietnam & Cambodia

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(Dave writes...)

Before we left Laos, we celebrated my birthday in Vientiane. Of all things, we found a bowling alley there and went bowling with the Dutch couple we'd met, Arrie and Joke. The following day (my actualy birthday) we made a real pilgramage - we went to the Beer Lao brewery! I was very excited. They even had specific road signs outside the brewery (see photo). We were allowed into the bottling plant and received a free beer too. I was delighted with my birthday celebrations. Gem also bought me some tooth floss amongst other presents, which I was very excited about as it's hard to come by.

From Vientiane we took a bus to Savanakhet, further south, en route to Vietnam. The following day we travelled to Hue in Vietnam. Hue was once the capital of Vietnam, and as such has royal ruins and interesting heritage sights.

I think it's worth recalling the journey to Hue, as it might give you some idea of how budget travel works in Asia.

We got up at 5.30am and flagged down a tuk-tuk outside our hotel, for about 30 pence each we were taken to the bus station, albeit with a stop to pick up one of the driver's friends on the way. At the bus station we bought a ticket to the border and for breakfast grabbed baguettes and snacks from the ramshackled stalls that populate most bus stations. Our bus was a typically clapped out coach, with crates of beer lao stacked on the roof and a large amount of furniture in the back - buses are used as a kind of cheap postal and shipping service. Someone was probably moving house. To get to our seats we had to climb over four giant tanks of oxygen, lying on the floor of the coach unsecured and rattling for most of the journey. A few locals and a group of Swedish backpackers joined us just before the bus left.

The journey to the border was very slow, as we stopped every few minutes to pick people up, drop things off etc. At one point the driver's 'assistant' jumped out to take someone's mobile phone to a little repair place on the way. That kind of thing. By lunchtime we were at the border and the bus stopped in the nearest town. A few guys on motorbikes turned up and, without alternative, we climbed on the back to get a ride to the border for another 30 pence, me with my now giant backpack on my back, full daypack on my front and large cloth bag full of purchases on my knees. No fear.

At the border we paid a few thousand kip to have our passport stamped (a little corruption) then walked about a kilometre across a dirt track to the Vietnamese border controls. Got through there fine, with a token effort on the security scanner front. On the other side was a guy trying to sell us a minibus ride to Hue. We refused and got another bike to the nearest bus station to get a local bus. Walking through the bus station (really just a square patch of dirt with a fence around it) we were hounded by locals insisting we should not get on the local bus. After arguing with them a little, we relented and decided to go with the minibus along with the swedish guys from our bus. We bartered hard and got the minibus fee down to 8 US dollars.

The minibus gradually became more cramped, with people flagging it down along the way and the usual 'postal service'. Eventually 20 people were in an 11-seater minibus. We refused to share our expensive seats though. At one point one guy had to stand up bent double for over an hour. Ouch.

The minibus dumped us outside of Hue and again we were left with no choice but a motorbike into the town. The drivers tried to tout us to a guesthouse be we steadfastly insisted he take us to one we'd chosen from the Lonely Planet, and hence we finished a twelve hour journey.

The highlight of Hue was a motorbike tour (we agreed this would be the last motorbike journey!) through the countryside outside of the city. We found a really nice guy named Tuu, and along with his friend they took us out at 8am in the morning out of the hussle and bussle of Hue into a tranquil countryside landscape. The temperature was cool and mist hung over the rice paddies like a Scottish Loch, we took small tracks and bridges across deserted riversides. We stopped to take photos as a duck farmer, in a tiny wooden boat, punted his way down a narrow river hearding about a hundred ducks.

The best parts of the tour were two monasterries. The first was a very quite, relaxing place under shading trees and set by a lake. The monastery was made famous by a monk called Thich Nhat Hanh who left there during the cold war to try to bring peaceful thinking to the United States. He now runs a famous monastery in France and is well-published.

The second monastery gave the world an even more famous monk, Thich Quang Duc. He left the monastery in June 1963, drove to Saigon in his light blue Austin, got of the car at a busy intersection, sat down calmly on the pavement and set himself on fire. It was a protest against persecution of Buddhist monks by the Vietnamese Government at the time. His car is kept at the monastery, alongside an awe-inspiring photograph of the event, he remained still as people looked on in amazement.

After Hue, we went to Hoi An. Hoi An was a great trading port in the 17th and 18th centuries, frequented by Chinese and Japanese traders. The old town still contains many of the buildings and structures from the time. It was interesting to walk round and see the sights, but it is quite spoilt by too many tacky tourist shops and more motorbikes than the narrow streets can handle. Modern Hoi An is famous on the backpacker circuit for it's multitude of tailors - you can have any clothes made you can imagine made within a day. Most of the shops have Next and other British brand catalogues (!) for you to point out designs and fabrics from. We bought suits and a few other bits and pieces.

Whilst having breakfast in our tailors one morning (yes, they invited us for breakfast - typically Asian!) we met a guy called Nick, a Scottish bloke who'd moved out there for a while to help administer an orphanage. We paid the orphanage a visit in the afternoon, and spent an hour or two playing with disabled kids, who as far as we could tell had cerebral palsy. It was obvious how far the orphanage had come in recent years, but there is still a long way to go and after leaving at eighteen it is hard to see how the disabled kids especially will be able to survive.

Also in Hoi An we took a trip to My Son, where Cham ruins are still standing. The temples we saw there were quite interesting, and very busy with tourists. Most of the temple ruins were flattened by carpet bombing during the Vietnam war.

We took an overnight bus to Nha Trang. Overnight buses in Vietnam are akin to Space Mountain at Disney Land, except they go faster and are accompanied by horn-blaring every ten seconds or so. Another strange feature of buses in South-East Asia is the poor quality pop music and - even worse - the karoke DVDs that drivers insist on playing, especially in the early hours of the morning. Ear plugs are a necessity for coach travel.

Nha Trang is just a beachy resort, we used it as a stopover on the way to Saigon. We managed to discover a delicious Italian restaurant there and we also bumped into Daniel, the Swedish guy we'd travelled with in Malaysia.

Another night bus later and we were in Saigon. We stayed in the backpacker ghetto there. The first night, we went out for a drink at a bar. After sitting there for a few minutes sipping a beer we began to notice that the bar, despite being a restaurant and respectable place most of the day, was being used to sell more than just drinks. Waitresses negotiated with clientele sat in the bar and negotiated prices before other staff would show them the way to a building nearby. It was quite sickening, we saw backpackers agreeing prices as well as the stereotypical sad old men. Saigon turned out to be quite seedy, and we saw worse things in Cambodia - worst of all old European men with young boys.

The next day in Saigon we went to the war relics museum. Outside of the museum is a collection of large USA aircraft and tanks etc. The museum at the moment (it's being renovated) is essentially one large room. It was busy but silent as people wandered round the edges of the room looking at the photo displays. Many of the pictures documented the use and effects of Agent Orange. There were mutated fetuses in jars. It was quite a shocking display, but at the same time I don't think it was a balanced view of the war.

On our final day we took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon, a large tunnel complex used by the Vietcong. Two Australian veterans were in our minibus, we were very lucky to have them with us on our tour. One of them, Rick, was very open and willing to talk about his experiences during the war. It was the first time either of them had returned to Vietnam, in order to compile a report on the legacy of Agent Orange to be presented to the Australian Government. Rick was able to balance the occassionally one-sided presentation of the war.

After what amounted to a propaganda video for Communist resistance, we walked around a forest landscape that certainly brought back memories to our Australian companions. There were demonstrations of traps and weapons made by the VC from bamboo and materials from American bombs. It was fascinating to see the resourcefulness of the people we have been surrounded by for the last three months used for the purpose of war. I think if the USA and its allies had really understood the resilience and ingenuity of people here they would have realised that the war could not have been won by force.

One stretch of tunnel had been enlarged and reinforced to allow tourists to enter - most entrances and tunnels were deliberately small to impede any American invasion of them. You still had to crawl on hands and knees. It was claustrophobic and dark, despite the electric lights installed. The air was so musty and got worse as you dropped down into lower levels. Some people lived in these tunnels for 16 years, during both Indochinese wars.

Halfway through the tour was a bizarre opportunity to fire the weapons used during the war on a firing range. Inexplicably, a Swedish guy from our bus paid fifty pence a bullet to fire an AK-47.

After those mixed experiences we headed to Vietnam. On the tour of the tunnels we met Will, a Taiwanese guy who emigrated to New Zealand before attending Yale in the US before moving to work in Singapore before going travelling. We spent most of the next week travelling with Will.

Next stop Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

When we crossed the border, everything changed. The road became bumpy. The tarmac dissappeared. The dwellings looked more like those we had seen in Laos, and then Lombok. It became clear that Cambodia was the poorest place we have been to. Arriving in Phnom Penh, things changed again and the contrast between urban and rural areas has never been so great. In the tourist areas we saw for the first time large numbers of street kids, begging and selling tack and photocopied books. The kids could be quite aggressive. We saw homeless people searching through huge piles of garbage in the backstreets. Things were strangely very expensive - prices were listed in US dollars, but it seems the locals were also paying more than Vietnam and other neighbouring countries.

The following day we went to see the legacy of the Khmer Rouge. In the morning we went to Tuol Sleng musem. On Pol Pots' orders, in 1975 Tuol Svay Prey High school was transformed into a prison for those arrested by the Khmer Rouge, who were held at the school in terrible conditions, tortured into all sorts of confessions before being transported to the Killing Fields to die. The school has been left almost as it was - the rooms used for torture still hold items used in the torture, visible in photographs on the walls. A local told us that only in the late 1990s was the blood removed from the floors and walls of the rooms.

As you can imagine, it was a horrific experience. Having been to Dachau concentration camp outside Munich, I felt I was prepared but the way the museum was, the building didn't feel at all like a museum but as if the cells were inhabited yesterday.

In the afternoon we went out to the Killing Fields, as we realised it was better to get it over with in one day rather than go through it all again the next day. It's outside of Phnom Penh, a small area in the countryside with a large Stupa set in rememberance of those who died there and filled with some of the remains found in the mass graves. Human bones and fragments of clothing still litter the place. There's not much else to say.

Cambodia feels like a country still in recovery, still trying to rebuild it's sense of nationhood and move on from the past. So many of the people were involved in the Khmer Rouge that it creates a huge sense of confusion and sometimes anger. The Cambodian King harbours a guilt for encouraging people to join the Khmer Rouge. But even Khmer Rouge fighters were victims of the Khmer Rouge, and it all adds up to a sense of intense madness without a real explanation.

After that extremely heavy day, we spent the rest of our time in Phnom Penh shopping, wandering and a little sight-seeing.

We took a bus up to Siem Reap to see the huge temple complexes at Angkor, built at the height of Cambodia civilisation from the 10th century to the 12th century. Angkor is now the symbol of hope and pride that Cambodians can boast about. We hired a Tuk Tuk and driver for three days to explore the monuments and bought a three-day pass.

The first day we got up at 4.45am and went to Angkor Wat, the sunrise was just perfect and the scene incredible. One of the highlights of the trip. We took breakfast with us, and I sat pondering how strange life could be on the wall of the gateway to a 1000-year-old temple eating rice krispies and yoghurt.

Over the next three days we visited all kinds of temples and ruins. We saw the temple used in filming 'Tomb Raider' (and ate in the bar where Angelina Jolly and crew hung out), which is very dramatic as the jungle has invaded the structures. The experience of Angkor Wat can't really be described. The site was so huge, the temples stunning, sometimes towering over us, with so much interesting history immortalised in them. The photos might do it more justice, but safe to say it can deservedly be called one of the wonders of the world.

After that huge sight-seeing binge we came back to Bangkok. The road to the border from Siem Reap is so bad that we took people's advice and got a taxi to the border - which was like driving on cobbles at 50mph - then a bus from the other side. We arrived at the tail end of the Thai New Year, Songkram. The original tradition and spirit of the festival has been somewhat lost and it has become a huge water and talculm powder fight. In the taxi we saw kids throwing water at motorbikes and trucks full of people as they went past. And if that sounds a little dangerous, that's because it is. We saw one accident on the way to the border and it looked likely that one guy had been killed. This year in Thailand over 400 people died during the festival period. Drink driving is a major factor.

Arriving in Bangkok, we took a taxi to the backpacker area to avoid being drenched and having our stuff wrecked. Unfortunately our driver couldn't get very close to our hotel and our efforts at telling him to take us somewhere close fell on deaf ears, so we walked about a mile to where we wanted to stay. The streets were overrun with Thai people drunk and throwing talc and water everywhere. We did not enjoy it, it was quite intrusive and violent at times. We saw one girl on the verge of being assaulted before her friends ran to the rescue. We found another girl (a backpacker) in tears and led her out of the madness to her hotel. It was like a giant rave that was out of control.

Since then we've been shopping mostly and went to the cinema. It's strange to be back in Bangkok, a giant fairly wealthy city after the poverty we saw in Cambodia - even without venturing from the two tourist hotspots.

We loved Vietnam and would like to go back there. The people we mostly great, they were the best cooks! It would be fascinating to see rural Cambodia, but at the same time very difficult.

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Photos

Sunrise, Angkor Wat
The view from outside of the temple.

Bowling Gem
Dave's birthday in Vientiane, Laos.

Playing Pool with Arrie and Joke
Dave's birthday night out.

Local Bus in Laos
Transporting goods on the way.

Lake at Thich Nhat Hanh's Monastery
Outside Hue, Vietnam.

Young Monks eating at a Monastery near Hue, Vietnam
They start at 11 or 12 and usually are monks for life.

Thu Vien Quang Duc's car
The Austin he drove before setting himself on fire.

Dave in a Cyclo, Hue
You have to feel for the driver.

Dave in the Cu Chi Tunnels
Outside Saigon, Vietnam