Goodbye Vietnam & hello Cambodia

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Gemma:

Well, it's time to say goodbye to Vietnam. It's quite sad really, as I've loved it here. It slipped down the country rankings for a while when it was raining solidly for 3 days, but it is now firmly in 2nd place behind Mongolia.

We left Hoi An after 2 days. I'm proud to say I managed to resist all the many shops doing made to measure clothes. I do have 2 wedding to go to next year, but as I am bridesmaid for both I couldn't really justify getting a new outfit!

We moved on to Nah Trang which was rainy. I was gutted - I'd waited over 2 months to go to the seaside and it chucked it down! Also, the sea was brown and had big signs saying 'Danger, do not enter' so it was a bit of a disappointment really.

So we decided to plough on and went to Dalat, in the mountains. Here the weather cleared up and although it was cooler it was still nicer weather. We stayed there for 2 nights which was great as we found a really cheap cafe where we got chatting to all sorts of people who have inspired us for the rest of our trip! Whilst in Dalat we bumped into a girl who had been on our Trans-Siberian trip. We hadn't seen her since September and hadn't stayed in touch but we just bumped into her on the way to the 'Crazy House' - a weird treehouse type place that wasn't made of trees, where I got too excited and fell over and bruised my knee. It seems as one wound heals I do something else!!

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon and half an hour after arriving we saw her again! We also met a couple we'd been on a tour with in Thailand, and again in Laos, and now here they are again in our hotel! It's a small world!

My favourite game whilst here has been spotting the strangest things being transported by scooter. My favourites are a wardrobe and a washing machine! It's become less fun lately though after we passed an accident where a man died. Now I just look at how dangerous they are - people carrying sheets of glass, children asleep on the back, not strapped in. The worst was a man with his toddler son on the back while he rode one-handed carrying a newborn. Health and safety regulations clearly don't apply here!

We did a tour today and our guide told us 80% of deaths in Vietnam are caused by motorbikes and 150 people die and 700 are injured in Saigon alone every month!

Today we went to the Cu Chi tunnels where the Vietcong lived during the Vietnam war. It was strange really - they made comments about the 'crazy, madmen Americans' and the 'sweet, gentle girl' who became a hero for murdering lots of Americans. It was a little one sided! Coupled with our trip to the War Museum it has convinced me that neither side came out of it looking particularly good.

It has been a whistle stop tour really but we have seen so much. I loved looking out of the bus window watching the world go by - people working the fields, travelling by horse and cart in the countryside, drying out corn, harvesting coffee. I really do love it here.

I had heard that the Vietnamese were rude and unfriendly but I haven't found that at all. If anything, they just don't seem very interested in us, and that's fair enough!

Camdodia next. We really are in a rush now as we fly to Malaysia on the 1st but we are used to the fast pace by now!

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Comments

[Susannah Trafford]

Three months!
Hi Al and Gemma I can't believe you have been away for almost three months - the time has flown by. Pleased you are still enjoying the trip. It's almost making me, the non-traveller, want to go to these places! Susannah