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Published: August 7th 2015
Cambodian National Museum
One of the most beautiful museums there isI've heard rumors and stories about Vietnam and it's chaotic cities and was excited to see it for myself in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City which locals refer to equally as Saigon, is the largest city in the country and our gateway to the Mekong Delta and a grand adventure into the unknown. Antoine Wilson, my great friend in Korea and proud NYC native, is my travel companion this time and we were very excited to get underway. I arrived in Vietnam after midnight and sought a reputable cab to take me to Saigon Inn located in the heart of the backpacker district downtown. Pham Ngu Lao is Saigon's answer to Bangkok's Khaosan Road. Though not as crazy and disgusting as it's Thai counterpart, Pham Ngu Lao offers everything a backpacker is looking for be it legal, illegal, expensive, or cheap. I arrived at the hotel around 1am and, having not seen each other in over a year, were happy to go out and see what the fuss was about. Noisy and crowded and cheap. Exactly what we were looking for. We had a couple of beers and called it a
Spiny Lizard
One of the many animals we saw in Bokor National Park night before anything too interesting went down.
We decided to do our Mekong Delta tour in the middle of rainy season which was a serious gamble that ended up paying off. We woke up to bright sunshine and hot (and I DO mean HOT), humid weather. One can't make a trip into Southeast Asia without a visit to the tailor, so that was the first stop. I opted for a couple of new shirts, khakis, and linen shorts. ~$125 altogether is not a bad deal. Antoine more than one-upped me with two linen suits, a pair of slacks, and a couple of shirts. He was in the middle of a transition from New York City data entry to Manila real estate. Hot is hot, and a linen suit would probably do well. Anyway, after a fitting, a wander around the fancier part of town, and an early happy hour trip to what turned out to be a hostess bar*, down came the rain! We had JUST left the bar when the rains came down, so we ducked into a small BBQ spot for cover and an early dinner. BBQ pork and chicken over rice hit the spot!
*Hostess
Getting Lost in Bokor NP
Antoine is really enjoying it bars seem to be most bars in SE Asia. Antoine and I wandered in, lured by the sign advertising cheap, cold beer, and A/C. We sat down, ordered a couple and like a couple of vultures, the hostesses (whom we had not seen upon entering the bar) appeared. After a few seconds thought, we declined their company and they disappeared as quickly and silently as they had appeared.
Phnom Penh The following day allowed us to sleep in a little before catching a lunchtime bus to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. 7.5 hours later, we were in the Cambodian capital city. I had been to Phnom Penh once before about 5 years ago and also arrived after dark on that trip. Phnom Penh at night is a... um interesting place? First of all, it is DARK. Cambodia is NOT a wealthy country by any standard, and street lighting is considered a luxury that the government cannot yet afford. The weirdos don't ONLY come out at night, but there are a lot more of them. Phnom Penh attracts the creepiest of the creepy foreign expats in my opinion. There are the NGO and mayybe the odd business expats, but then
there are the early retirees from the west looking for some easy "action". Did I mention hostess bars already? I don't know what Phnom Penh's backpacker district is called because there doesn't really seem to be one. We stayed at a decent spot in the middle of the city and not too far a walk to the Mekong River. The first night, after avoiding the oddballs, we found an amazing BBQ spot (a running theme on this trip) that was specializing in grilled frog legs and river clams. Now that ain't bad! Looking for the stalls or restaurants packed with locals seems to be a dead giveaway as to which places are good and which ones are not.
The following day, we wandered about the city. We checked out the riverfront, the Royal Palace, the central market (touristy!), and the National Museum. The National Museum is absolutely beautiful. Ancient Khmer sculptures and art are housed in what looks like a palace centuries old. Dark red stone with black tiled roofs with a lush central garden really make for an excellent museum space. The Royal Palace (which you are not allowed to enter) is GOLD. Gold gold and more gold.
A View from the Top!
Bokor National Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean Cambodians seem to have taken their culture more from India than from China like in other Southeast Asian nations. Lots of curries, Indian soaps, and even the faces and skin tones look quite Indian. Much more than their Thai and Vietnamese neighbors. A long day of walking around in the hot summer sun called for a drink at the Foreign Correspondents Club on the river. The FCC is located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a beautiful French colonial building and is a really nice environment to relax and watch the people milling about below. It looks over the river as well and, despite no air conditioning, is quite cool in the evenings. After a drink, we took a cab a bit out of town to a big night market that we saw the night before when we arrived on the bus. We had a really nice meal there of fried rice and went home.
Kampot We woke up early the next day to catch the 645a bus to Kampot on the Cambodian coast in the South. Luckily, the bus first stopped in a place called Kep, which was planned to be our second destination. First impressions
Downtown
The main street of the village we stayed at on Koh Rhong Island mean everything and Antoine and I gave Kep two thumbs down and continued on to Kampot. Proved to be a great decision, but more on that later. Kampot would turn out to be the culinary highlight of the Cambodian leg of our trip. Papaya salad, Banh Mi, BBQ, fruit smoothies and icy desserts... Great stuff and soooo affordable... We stayed at a place on the edge of town called the Monkey House. It had a pool and a small dance floor/bar. Nicest hostel I've ever stayed at for sure. Our room even had a private balcony. When a dorm is $7 per person and a private balcony room is $9.... Gotta do it.
Kampot is famous for the Bokor National Park. It is one of the highest points in the country and has waterfalls, dense jungles, interesting wildlife, and an astounding view of the ocean from the top. Antoine and I rented a motorbike to explore it thoroughly. We set off early, and after having a nice banh mi* breakfast and procuring a banh mi lunch, we headed off for the jungle and mist covered mountains! After winding our way up the hillsides we got to the end of
Bungalows
Right on the water! the road and a trail head that lead into the jungle. Yeah, we'll check it out. The guard by the entrance of the trail said it makes a circle and should only take about a half hour. It does make a 30 minute circuit if you know which turns to take. We did not, so IN WE WENT! I misspoke when I said turnS, really there is just one turn and we missed it. The trail continues deep into the heart of the park and some serious jungle. I got stung by a bee almost immediately. No idea what kind of bee or wasp it was that stung me, but man, what a sting! It hurt for nearly a week and made my ankle swell up. He got me on the left calf. Gross. We continued and found huge millipedes, big spiky lizards, monkeys and a wild boar! Wowee an adventure! We were not prepared. After our second monkey (and nearly 1.5 hours of walking) we decided to cut our losses and head back. The trail was a mixture of mud and flowing creeks. Jungle trekking is a totally different ballgame than mountain trekking. I'll stick to the latter. Fewer
Gulf of Thailand
Bathwater. Beautiful! spider webs, too. About 2.5 hours later we reemerged at our starting point and headed for the waterfall. It was a nice one! About 8m tall and with the rainy season, was in full force! A lot of water coming over the rocks. A choice spot for our picnic lunch! We continued on the motorbike further up the mountain to an abandoned church, casino, and a few other odd buildings left over from the colonial period. The French chose this spot as a way to beat the heat and get away from it all. I have no idea what the place must have looked like in the early 1900s. Talk about jungle! How they even got up there is a mystery. It was really cool to see the buildings though and they offered the best views in all of Cambodia! We motored back to town after that, satisfied that we'd done all there was to do in the national park, and rewarded ourselves with a pizza and drinks. There was an expat couple sitting at the restaurant when we came in, and they decided that we would be a good pair to have a conversation with. I'd say the couple
was in their mid 60s and they had been living in Kampot (doing God knows what) for the past 7 years. Didn't speak a word of Khmer either... The woman loved talking about how great black people are at music and dancing, and the man was testing my knowledge of films. They were a couple of dopes, but it was funny to talk to them and watch them argue about nothing. Part of the experience I suppose.
*Banh Mi is the Vietnamese name for a pate and fresh vegetable sandwich served on a baguette. The Cambodian version has some sweet/spicy sauce and is really nice and refreshing.
Koh Rhong The next day we took the bus over to Sihanoukville, located on a small peninsula to the west. This was our launching point to Koh Rhong Island in the Gulf of Thailand. A boat full of backpackers took us to the island which was a little over an hour away. There was a small town where everyone else was happy to settle down in. NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANTOINE NOR I! We pressed forward... INTO THE JUNGLE... again. Up and over a ridge we went and down a
Rainy Season
No tourists because of this?? steep cliff of rocks and ropes to the nearly deserted beach on the other side of the island. Jungle treks mean creeks, not paths, and a lot of freakin' spider webs. There was rumored to be a herd of feral water buffalo on the island that also like using the "trails". We didn't see any of them, but a couple of Israeli backpackers we met later weren't so lucky. Had to cut through the dense jungle to go around them. Anyway, we got to the beach and there was a solitary bungalow that offered cold beer and water. I don't know how they had ice over there, but hey, we'll take it! After a rest and a short sparring session of Muay Thai between Antoine and the son of the owner, we set off down the beach to a small village in the distance. It took us nearly 2 hours to get there. Long Beach lived up to it's name and is nearly 10km of uninterrupted, unspoiled beach. We got to the other side and found a bungalow in the village right on the ocean for $15 a night. How cool is that?? The village was very small with maybe
Bye Bye Koh Rhong!
Note the age of our boatsman, the foliage behind the village, and the size of the village a population of around 100 people. I imagine it could double during high season, but that's why we chose low season! We spent the next 4 days swimming, eating, drinking, listening to music, and really REALLY relaxing. The villagers didn't have much interest in us (especially unusual for Antoine) and left us alone. We were the only guests in the whole village for 3 of the 4 nights. It was really nice, man. White sand, clear blue water, warm, sunny, perfect. Antoine had some stomach issues for a lot of our time on the island unfortunately. We decided to keep to light breakfasts: bread, eggs, porridge maybe, and fruit. Bananas were a good idea, so after successfully conveying that we only wanted bananas on the "fruit salad" on the menu, the waiter came out with a huge plate of bananas. Like 15 bananas! "What is this, the monkey breakfast?!" Thankfully it was on the ONE morning where there were other guests at the restaurant, so we were able to give a few away. We still ended up eating 5 bananas each. "She KNOWS we don't want 15 bananas, what is she thinking??" Pretty funny!
Mekong Delta We had
Coconuts in Can Tho
The happy fella buying the coconut is my barber a full travel day after the island. Up at 6 to catch a 7am boat to the small town on the island, 830am boat back to Sihanoukville, lunch, noon bus to Ha Tien on the Vietnamese border, 5pm bus to Can Tho and our final destination. We arrived around 10 or 11pm and were happy to have already booked the hotel and found it with ease. The next day we took it easy and just wandered about the town. I got a terrible haircut and a shave (also terrible ...and terrifying). Can Tho is a great town though and very livable. The people were the friendliest we had met on the trip. Everyone was super nice; it was almost weird. We were trying to convince everyone that we were brothers, but no one was having any of it. Black skin and white skin? BROTHERS??? No way! "But it's America!" we protested. Not buying it. Dinner that night was Vietnamese hot pot. It was AWESOME! Hot pot is served on a table with a gas stove in the middle of it and then a big bowl of broth is brought out and heated to a boil and left to simmer for
the guest to use. Then one places various meats and vegetables into it, soaking up the broth, and then EAT. The special thing about this hot pot was that sweet, sour, spicy flavor that the Vietnamese have perfected. This hot pot even had pineapple chunks floating around in it. One of the best meals on the trip! The owner of the place (which seemed to be quite famous and was definitely popular) had about my body type. Very thin with one exception: a GIGANTIC beer belly. It looked like he was 10 months pregnant, yikes! Too much hot pot I guess!
The day after the hot pot, we took a tour of the famous floating markets in Can Tho. These markets are everywhere in the Mekong Delta, but Can Tho has the biggest one. Before roads, the rivers of the delta were by far the fastest, easiest, and safest ways around, so it made sense to put the market right in the middle of it. These days, the markets have shrank in size, but are still very exciting and colorful and were a highlight of the trip. The tour started at 5am (Vietnam was already wide awake by then)
Our Boat Driver
Never stopped smiling all day. Boating level: Diety and was almost completely on the rivers. Before reaching the first market, we were greeted by a lady in her boat selling coffee. 5am? 2 please! Fresh made on board and then passed between the boats. Cool! The market is still huge and so are some of the boats. It seemed to be more popular to buy in bulk as we saw several fruits and vegetables being tossed from the larger boats to smaller ones before being transported further up/down/off river. The boats advertise their goods by placing the good on a high pole attached to the front of their craft. Then, everyone knows where to go to buy what they want. Durians, jackfruits, pumpkins, squash, oranges, lemons and limes, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, meals, coffee, sacks of rice, anything you need was at the floating market. People live on their boats. We saw laundry and hammocks hung all over the boats. Some even had the little Buddhist shrines inside to pray to the ancestors. The tour took us on smaller canals and made a stop at a small village that was growing fruits. Have you ever seen a dragonfruit tree? It is bizarre! Hard to describe, see pictures! Note
about the boats: nearly every boat and ship in the Mekong Delta has giant eyes painted on the front of it. Why? Our tour guide explained that in ancient times, monsters inhabited the Mekong and the eyes were used to scare them away. The tradition continues to today.
The next day we left Can Tho via motorbike and headed into the heart of the delta. We cruised south through lush, bright green rice paddies and banana plantations to Soc Truong, a town famous for it's Bat Pagoda (ooooh!). We arrived there pretty late (after dark) and found a crummy hotel with a crummy room and one double bed (oh well). The next day we woke up earlier and went to the bat pagoda which is famous for (hey!) bats! These ain't your daddy's bats, though. These were giant fruit bats with 4-foot wingspans. Holy cow! They were mostly sleeping, but we saw one get disturbed and take off. Man, they are big. Looked like a cartoon! The temple where the bats are was also kinda neat. It was prayer time when we were there and so we watched the monks and congregation chant and pray. Pretty interesting. It was
the countryside after all, so there was a big dog sleeping behind the head monk. It got up mid-chant and started sniffing a guy's face (people were all sitting on the floor). The guy tried to ignore the dog, but ended up pushing it away while continuing to pray. Gave me a chuckle.
We continued on our motorbikes all the way to Ca Mau, which, if you are looking at a map, is about as far south in Vietnam as you can go. The roads were nearly empty and they were in the middle of a huge bridges project which meant ferries and really narrow wooden bridges. The roads, though big and yellow on the map, were barely wide enough for two motorbikes to pass in a lot of places. It was an obstacle course of wooden bridges, water hazards, and winding narrow roads. No cars. We made it through safe and sound though. Ain't much happening in ol' Ca Mau (pronounced Ga Mow). It was supposed to be famous for turtle meat, but we never found any. The hotel we DID find was quite good though and had excellent staff working the place. They didn't speak English, but
were very helpful and patient with us. We stayed for 2 days and motored about the region. So much fruit, so much rice in this part of the world. I live in China, but I've never seen so much rice. They have THREE rice harvests per year! Crazy! We did end up going to a nightclub on the first night in Ca Mau. It seemed pretty posh and happening so we went in and were hustled to a table. Even before we could blink there were a dozen beers, a huge fruit plate, and two young sexy girls at our table. Didn't even say anything. Looking around, the nightclub was deserted except for me, Antoine, two other gentlemen guests, security guards, and about 40 hostesses. Each more scantily clad than the next. Wow. The music (provided by an equally scantily clad DJ) was blaring loud. Could not hear a god damn thing from anything or anyone else. Antoine wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to one of the hostesses at our table. "How old are you?" "18" "Really?" No reply after that. We drank with the girls as fast as we could and got the heck out
of there. One of the two other guests at the club walked over to our table and bumped shoulders with me. I thought, OK, here we go. Kunming has the some macho crap at it's clubs, too. Not that
I would know. Before I could turn around, the man was gone. Security on each arm escorting him back to his table. Security escorted me to the bathroom and back when I had to go. Security escorted us out. Nice place.
The following two days had us motoring around the countryside. We went out to some island on the other side of a national park (which was closed!) and we ran into a Vietnamese guy, "Pretty cool scenery, huh?" "Yeah man, it's great". "Cool, well you guys have a good trip!". "Your English is pretty good". "Of course it's good, I'm from Chicago!" Huh? Turned out he was visiting family back in the old country. Cool guy. We took a couple of pictures with his family, shared a beer, and were on our way! Small world, eh? After that, we motored back to Can Tho and returned the bikes. We wanted to catch the next bus to Ben Tre, coconut
Floating Market
Anything you need! city!
Ben Tre is the coconut capital of Asia (and probably the whole world) and is obviously famous for it's coconut products. I bought about 2kg of coconut candy, a half liter of coconut oil (75 cents!), and some cooking utensils made from coconut husks. We toured one of the coconut candy factories where child labor and sanitation laws don't seem to apply. The entire factory had about 10 employees and was what might be considered sweat shop conditions. But it was recommended by wikitravel! Still, interesting. Still, I bought what they were selling... Aside from coconuts, there wasn't much else to do in Ben Tre. Antoine and I splurged on a really nice hotel that came with a free breakfast buffet. It was really nice. Soft beds (WHAT?) and a helluva view over the river and coconut plantations. We wandered through the market nearby and Antoine continued to get all the attention from the lady fruit vendors. White guys are old news, black is the new white in Ben Tre Market. Gotta know that Vietnamese though! We ate dinner at the same restaurant twice in a row. We made a failed attempt to find coconut salad, but we
Keeping Watch
Monsters beware! stumbled upon some fantastic, surprise, BARBECUE! Hooray for barbecue! Pork sausages, minced meat wrapped in some sort of leaf, grilled to perfection. Delicious! We had to go twice.
Ho Chi Minh City (Part 2) It was an easy trip from Ben Tre on the new highway to Saigon. Saigon is a monster of a city. Streets that wind every which way, narrow alleys that dead end and don't make ANY sense, and motorbikes, my God the motorbikes! If Ben Tre is coconut city, Saigon is motorbike megalopolis! We spent the first day back getting re-fitted for our clothes, wandering, and seeing the Vietnam War Museum. I recommend the war museum, but man, it's a tough one. The Americans did some bad stuff in Vietnam and a lot of it is documented and on display in the museum. Agent orange, war crimes, photos of it all. I was pretty embarrassed... History is written by the victors, and in this case, the Vietcong, whom, according to the museum, were amazing! The Vietcong: hardworking, warm-hearted Vietnamese. Photos of women filling in bomb craters, re-sowing fields, repairing bridges, etc. Hmmmmm... This, along with the COPE Museum in Vientiane, do not paint the
Durians
Me for scale United States in the warmest light. What can I say? That evening, we met one of my CELTA classmates for a drink. It was fun to see her. Georgia, from South Carolina. One in a million! She had just finished a two year gig in Korea and was headed to Greece to see her relatives and, though it is a LOOOOONG shot, find some work. I had a dragonfruit beer which was awful followed by a ale which was tremendous. I don't even like fruit beers, I don't know what I was thinking. So, for all of those going to the Pasteur Street Brewing Company in Saigon, I don't recommend the dragonfruit beer. ANYWAY, earlier in the day I had bought a small painting of some Vietnamese women riding bicycles that I liked. While it was being framed, I was going through the shopkeepers English IELTS book and made notes and corrections. I chatted with her a bit, a college student about to graduate and go to FINLAND for graduate school. These are people that wear hoodies and jeans in the Saigon summer and don't break a sweat. Have fun in Helsinki, dear. Anyway, I got her chat name and
Dragon Fruit Tree
Crazy looking premature dragon fruit she and her friend wanted to take us around the city the following day. It was great. We rode on their motorbikes to a temple, a disappointing restaurant (the food was fine for us, but I think they were a little embarrassed), and the Independence Palace. It was nice to have a couple of local tour guides show us around. The Independence Palace was pretty cool. It was THE place where the war officially ended. A tank (on display on the palace grounds) crashed through the gates of the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace, therefore ending the war. Everything in the palace is supposedly exactly how it was the day the war ended. Full of 50s and 60s architecture and furniture. Pretty interesting actually. Bunkers and antiquated radio rooms as well as a helicopter landing pad in case things got especially hairy! We bid our tour guides farewell and went back to the hotel. Had a slow final evening of *gasp* BBQ and beers. We relaxed and talked at the park and got approached by a fair number of transsexual prostitutes there. SE Asia, baby! Anyway, I had to call it a night early as I had a 345am wake up
Home Sweet Home
A life on the water... call the following day.
Up at 345 and out the door at 4. Saigon is already awake and busy. People setting up the market, streets being swept, drunk foreigners being drunk. Saigon, I bid thee farewell!
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