South East Asia

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My first stop in Vietnam was Sapa, a small mountain town filled with tourists. Mainly there for the trekking and the local tribal minorities. The place was very pretty although over ran with tourists and almost continually shrouded in either mist or rain. It was pretty colourful and had loads of young tribal girls in traditional dress selling trinkets. The first couple of nights I hung out at a local bar and met a few people including an irish lad that was heading to Lijiang in China to visit his mate that ran the Stone the Crows pub that I'd spent so much time at, and an indian lad who writes for the times of India, the leading english language paper in India.

On the second day I went on a two day trek to some of the local villages, including a home stay at a local house. The trek was pretty tame in itself but we walked through several H'mong villages, and made our way to our homestay for that night. Our guide was a young H'mong girl who now lived in Sapa and worked as a guide, and had become completely modernised, she wore jeans and a T-Shirt, and was continually on her mobile phone. One of the villages we went through was her village and she told me the rest of her 7 brothers and sisters all still lived in the village only she had left and abandoned her traditional life to live in Sapa.

On that first day she also asked us if we would like to go to her friends wedding instead of doing the walking on the second day. All 3 of us on the trek jumped at the chance. The other two on the trek, were a swiss guy and his South Vietnamese girlfriend. They were having a break as they were up in Hanoi trying to get a tourist visa for Switzerland for his girlfriend. The paper work they had to do was staggering.

So that evening at the homestay we had an evening meal with the family, where the father quickly made the 3 of us and our guide down shots of home made rice wine periodically throughout the meal. Every now and then, he would suddenly fill up our shot glasses from his plastic coke bottle filled with the stuff, and raise his glass. At which point we were all expected to raise our glasses and say Yo!, then down the drink. It was ok at first but the drinking quickly started to happen more than the eating. And as the meal was cleared at the end, he wanted us to continue with the drinking and a card game. By the end of the evening I knew I was gonna sleep really well.

So the next day we got up, and I didnt feel too bad. As we were going to this wedding, we only had to walk back to one of the villages by about 11 and then we could have some food and drink there. But, the walk wasn't as easy as it seemed. Once at the village to get to the house where the wedding was we had to walk through several rice paddies, which were extremely muddy due to the overnight rain. All of us nearly fell into the water several times apart from our guide, and worryingly, the two old local women that were following us, who were extremely nimble when it comes to muddy rice terraces, compared to us.

Finally we arrived at the wedding where we were immediately greeted by the bride, who spoke perfect english and said she was glad we came. It seems because so many of the girls and women sell trinkets to tourists they all speak english well, where as the men all work in the fields so know next to none. When I met her husband later he could just gesticulate, although that could've been the amount of rice wine he'd been forced to drink.

So we were sat down at a table with the two old women and a few other people and served food. The food was, well not the best, of course the cuts of meat were particularly bad because they cant normally afford meat so they only get it for special occasions like this and even then its obviously the cheapest stuff. I ate a fair bit and once again the rice wine was quickly being bandied around to everyone including the old women. At one point one of the young guys looked so shocked that old woman had put a soft drink in her shot glass that he tipped it on the floor and made her drink another shot of rice wine with him.

Following the food, the party quickly degenerated into lots of people walking up to tables and making the whole table down rice wine with them. After a while I ventured into the house, to find several tables of people all just continually drinking, men, women, everyone. Also inside one of the more drunk girls introduced herself to me, asking if I was enjoying myself. She spoke english with an australian accent and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt so at first I thought she was an ozzie, but when I asked, I found out she was a local girl and was a tour guide, she'd just got the accent from australian tourists I suppose.

After a few hours at the party our guide informed us it was time to go. So I walked out of the house a little worse for wear hoping we didnt have to venture through the rice paddy again. And thank god we didnt, we had to wade through a river instead! With the cunning help of a local guy from the party and a stick. In turn we each crossed the river with the guys help, and then it came to my turn, and guess what happened.... I fell in, after a couple of steps and feeling a little giddy from the wine, the current took me off balance and so over I went onto my knees. It wasnt that bad but it did mean that I was now wet all the way up to my waist as opposed to if I'd have waded across successfully and I would have only got the bottoms of my legs wet.

After the fun at the river we walked back up to the road to catch a lift back to Sapa, where I could shower and change ready for my overnight train to Hanoi. The train was pretty similar to the sleeper trains in China so a million times more luxureous than India.

The next morning I woke up to the sun coming up over the rooftops of Hanoi. The train pulled into the station and I negotiated my way around the moto drivers and out onto the street. I'd looked at the map and knew that the hostel I wanted to stay at was walking distance from the station.

I'd decided to stay at the only backpackers hostel in Vietnam, Hanoi Backpackers, brilliant name isnt it. It bills itself as Vietnams only Australian backpacker style hostel, and it certainly does what it says on the tin. The place was ran by two ozzie guys, it had colourful walls, free internet, free breakie, a bar, a rooftop terrace and BBQs and happy hours all the time. Well the happy hour was only an hour a day, but every day. The beds were a little expensive, ($7.50 for a dorm) but I made sure I got my free breakfast and used some free internet to take advantage of everything. Plus the guys that worked there were really helpful, and unlike so many places in asia didnt try and sell you their tours etc, just told you what things cost and the like. They were also a little cunning with their happy hour timing, they seemed to have made it as early as possible so that people will start drinking at happy hour and continue all night, thus spending plenty of money at their bar. Happy hour was at 5, which is pretty early, but most of the hostel took advantage then and continued drinking. One swedish girl in my dorm seemed to tell the time by its relation to happy hour. "Whats the time?" I'd ask in the afternoon sometime. "2 hours to happy hour!" (3 o'clock) she'd repy.

I really liked Hanoi, the city felt quite small, the old quarter was compact and the buildings were all reasonably small, set around a picturesque lake. The city was less hectic than many asian cities but obviously more hectic than home. I thought the traffic wasnt too bad, but I met a few people who it was their first stop from home and they couldnt beleive the traffic. And the traffic of course was the uniquely Vietnamese situation of being 90% motorbikes. The Vietnamese have really taken to motorbikes, almost every person owns one and I think it has to be up there as the highest level of motorbike ownership per person in the world. The streets of Hanoi teem with bikes everywhere and doing everything you can imagine. There are so many bikes, at one end of the street the hostel was on was motorbike repair street. An inner city street littered with bike parts and people fixing bikes all over the pavement.

The other thing about the bikes is that in Vietnam a country dedicated to the bike you can cross the road in a unique way. A way that can only work when a car is a rare thing. In fact everytime a car turned up when I was crossing a street in Hanoi it was a real pain as I had to move quicker or simply force the car to stop. You see the way you cross the road is just walk very slowly through the speeding traffic, all the bikes will go around you. Its brilliant,and at first it takes some getting used to, but if you dont do that you can never cross the road. Sometimes you even end up crossing the road before you planned too. You step off the pavement only by a couple of feet and then look for a gap to cross and already theres a stream of bikes driving behind you, cutting you off from the pavement.

In Hanoi I did one of my usual things, I managed to not see two things I was recomended to see through a combination of late nights, and laying in bed when I could get up. This was of course made worse by the Euros being on, and even though England werent there, there was still plenty of good matches to see, you just had to wait until 1 in the morning. I was particularly supposed to see, the water puppets and Ho Chi Minh's body. I didnt get to the puppet show because I just never got round to booking a ticket. And, Ho Chi Minh's body is only open until 11am each day so I was never up early enough to get a moto over there. Its weird it seems dead communist leaders are very popular figures for embalming and leaving open so everyone can view them. I met a guy that had seen 3 of the set of 4 and was hoping to see the forth soon. I cant quite remember who the forth was, but the 3 are Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Lenin, if anyone knows who the forth is let me know cos its been driving me nuts trying to think of it.

I did manage to see a few things including the market, the old quarter, but I was there all the time so thats cheating, and the revolutions museam, which wasnt the best. It didnt really put any of the exhibits in context so it didnt really teach me about various wars of the 20th century. The other place I visited in Hanoi was the amazing, beer corner. Its a crossroads in the old quarter that is surrounded on 3 sides by street cafes selling beer hoi, a local cheap beer that was 10p a glass. Everyone there is sat out in the street on tiny plastic chairs chatting and drinking. It proved to be a really colourful scene as it was frequented by a combination of westerners and locals.

Also near the hostel were loads of really nice cheap food places. This one place I found did this Vietnamese cornish pasty type thing. It looked like a pasty from the outside but was filled with Vietnamese style meat and veg. It went really well with this chilli tomatoe sauce condiment thing that all street places in Hanoi seemed to have on the tables. In fact I really liked that stuff, my mouth is really watering now as I type about it, no chance of finding it round here though.

One night I went out for food with the swiss and Vietnamese couple who were on my trek in Sapa. The girl took us to a really nice cafe place and we had loads of different Vietnamese dishes that she ordered for us. It was the usual bowl of rice each and about 5 or 6 plates to share between us, including fish, chicken and veg. I certainly think Hanoi had the best food in Vietnam, I could never seem to find as good options further down the coast.

So after a few days too many in Hanoi, I decided to go to Halong bay. Now normally everyone was doing it as a kind of tour, from Hanoi, but certianly the ones from hostel seemed like a boozy boat trip, and I wasnt sure after so many nights out in Hanoi that I wanted that, so I figured, I get a boat over to the main island, Cat ba, and spend a day on the beach there then get a boat back. Thus I'd get to see the scenary, and get a day off doing anything, just chilling out on the beach. This plan with hindsight, proved to be a more expensive option than the tours, as I spent US$40 just on transport and accomadation, and most of the tours cost 60 and included all food a night on a boat and some activities like visiting caves or kayaking as well.

So I left the hostel to go to the bus station to get my bus and boat ticket to get me to Cat Ba, and first I picked up a moto. But getting him to understand where I wanted to go proved an issue, after getting some help from another moto driver off we went, me trying to stop my giant backpack from unbalancing the motorbike. Then after 5 minutes he pulled up outside a hotel and pointed with a smile. "No, I want to go to the bus station." I said. He still didnt get it, so he got off his bike and ran in the hotel to get an interpretur. The guy came out and quickly helped us explaining to my driver where I wanted to go, and we got underway again. We flew through the streets towards the bus station, and he got me their that time.

So I got a bus then hydrofoil over to cat ba and arrived at the small resort town surrounded by karst peaks, similar to Yangshou in China. I'd read that Halong Bay was more beautiful than Yangshou and Guilin, as the scenary was similar, but set on the sea. But I thought Yangshou was much more beautiful than here, but anyway. On Cat Ba I stayed in a hotel over looking the harbour filled with fishing boats. On my full day there I went to sit on the beach but I managed only an hour before the heavens opened, well it is rainy season, and I had to retreat back to the town and a cafe with a roof.

After one day at Cat Ba I got a boat, and bus back to Hanoi, this time going via a different route though. The boat was a slow boat and crossed a more picturesque area, and as a tour was on the boat the guide said I could have lunch with them for a few thousand Dong, which i did.

Back in Hanoi I spent 3 more nights there before heading south. Once again I managed to miss out on both Ho Chi Minh and the water puppets. This time whilst I was there I came across one of the funniest scenes you can ever imagine. One day I wandered into the hostel's bar area to find a group of four guys, mainly aussie, drinking beer and shouting at the TV over some sport. Not very strange you may think, but once I realised what was on the TV I couldnt beleive it. They were watching one of these american kids spelling contests, a spelling bee. They were drinking and getting abit rowdy like it was a football match. The guy on the TV would say, "Spell Confusion!" And the kid would spell it correctly, and the guys would all shout and cheer at the TV. I said to one of the guys, I cant beleive your watching this, and he turned to me and said, "Its really adictive, if you stay for 5 minutes you'll be joining us, trust me!" At that point I left I really didnt want to be watching advanced spelling on television at all.

Also whilst I was back in Hanoi I took out a huge group of people to beer corner one night, as most of the people were all new there, except I managed to lose almost everyone. About 5 of us made it there successfully, then all night extra groups of 3 and 4 people would turn up, saying, "Where did you go?" The old quarter was always busy with people and bikes, so you could see how it was easy to lose everyone. One day a group of about 6 of us went for a walk to a couple of places and by the end we'd lost two of them.

Finally on the monday evening I got an overnight sleeper bus to Hue, halfway down vietnams coast. I'd bought one of these open tickets that took me to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) with about 4 stops on the way down. Most people said dont go to Hue, theres nothing much there, but I thought I needed to see some old palaces and the like, plus it sounded interesting. Its an old capital from the 18th century and has a huge citidel in the middle.

I arrived the next morning and the bus dropped us off in the town. Immediately everyone was beseiged by hotel touts and moto drivers. I found one hotel that seemed ok and they gave us a lift in a minibus to the place. So I got in and waited for a few extra people. Once on the bus I got chating to a chinese girl, just briefly asking her where she'd been and that. Then when we pulled up, the hotel were immediately trying to put us in a room together. I would've been ok with that, but I'm not sure she was. I've found this a lot in SE Asia, if you talk to anyone briefly on a bus or when your checking into a hotel, thats it they think you're all a group or something.

So I just spent a day in Hue, and that afternoon I walked around the citedal. It was in a bizzare state of semi repair. Some parts have been completely restored, and other sections of it were a giant building site. What was restored was really nice, but then round the corner would be over grown with weeds or have drills going etc. Like much of Vietnam the country has been so heavily bombed that little of its old history is still preserved. Hue in particular suffered as its very near the line between north and south Vietnam.

The next day I got a bus 4 hours south to Hoi Ann. Now, before I went to hoi Ann I kept asking people whats there, why should I go, and all people could say was I dunno its just a nice town. And, you know what I cant think of anything in particular to recommend it except its a nice town, and worth a few days definately. A couple of things it does do is, cheap tailor made suits, and cooking courses at almost every restraunt in town. I didnt get a suit as it seemed a bit pointless at the mo, but I did go to a cooking course.

The course was just a few US dollars, have you noticed I've started to refer to things in dollars now, because I've been in SE Asia so long and both Vietnam and Cambodia in particular use them everywhere, even though in Vietnam I used Dong to pay, but in Cambodia they use dollars with Riel like common currency. The problem in Vietnam was hotels quote their rooms in dollars then have a fluctuating exchange rate so when you go to pay the price in Dong has changed. They also can be pretty inventive in their favour with the exchange rate. One pair of hotels in hoi Ann charged 7 dollars a night for a room, but one was 115000 Dong and the other was 145000 Dong??!!!

Anyway the cooking course I did in Hoi Ann was good, we learnt how to cook Steamed Spring Rolls, Vietnamese Hot Pot, and vietnamese Curry. The hot pot and spring rolls were good, but the curry was that generic curry type thing that vietnam and china does, so not so good. The spring rolls in particular surprised me as they were really easy to make, I thought it would be difficult. Also on the course, we took a walk to the market, where the teacher showed me the stuff they buy and how to choose good, veg or fish, etc.

Also whilst in Hoi Ann I took a trip to nearby My Son (Pronouced Mee Son), a set of temple ruins left behind by the now extinct kingdom of Champa. The temples are supposed to be similar in style to the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, but there arent many left, as with most of Vietnam they were bombed to pieces in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The temples were interesting but it only took a few hours to see them all. In fact the best thing about the guided tour was our guide, the most enthusiastic man in the world. He told ever piece of information like there was a twist in the tale coming, and with a number of strange pauses along the way. "And then... they would come.... into the temple.... and wait..." he would say. Doing all this whilst slowly gesticulating with his arms at different parts of the temple. He was much entertainment value and worth every bit of money I spent on the trip.

After a few days in Hoi Ann, I moved on south. I decided to go straight down to Saigon as the halfway stop was a beach town called Nah Trang, and I'd heard nothing but bad stories about the place. Its kinda like the costa del Vietnam, loads of high rise hotels and tourists everywhere. So I had a 24 hour trip down the coast, the first bus was a really nice sleeper bus overnight to Nah Trang, then I had a two hour break for breakfast, then 10 more hours to Saigon. The second bus was a seated bus with a vague airconditioning system, and of course the thing about buses with broken aircon, is that they dont have windows that open. So at that point you're wishing for the rubbish local buses that have the luxury of windows that open and hence air coming in.

To add to that we stopped in a little beach place called Mui Nee halfway down, and the place looked amazing. I really wanted to abandon my plans and get off the bus and stay there for a few days. It was another beach resort, but much quieter, and it just had loads of beach huts rather than giant hotels. But, I'd paid for the trip to Saigon, so I stayed on the bus.

Also whilst on that bus I got chatting to a local guy who had got on with his family at Mui Nee. He spoke really good english as he is an Air steward for Vietnam Airlines. It seemed from the sounds of it he was doing pretty well for himself, he'd worked at the airline for 15 years and now was a head steward, they even sent him to Laos to help train the stewards at Laos airlines, a couple of years ago. He told me about his family, and that his father was in the North Vietnamese army during the war. That after the war when he was little they moved south from near Hanoi to near Saigon, as part of a massive excercise the government undertook to encourage northerners to move south following their win. It was interesting to hear a Vietnamese perspective on the war.

Finally that evening we arrived in Saigon, and a swiss girl from the bus and me were immediately acosted by a woman insisting that we go to her hotel. After some disscusion, we both agreed to come, I mainly agreed because I thought the womans pure cheek deserved my support. One thing she said was, "You got stomach like me so you come to my hotel", Patting my beer gut whilst she said it. So we ventured to check out the hotel, and it was OK and reasonable price so I said fine.

Saigon was not as nice as Hanoi, the city is so much bigger and more manic. There was no equivelant to the old quarter, the centre just spread out for ever. The roads were much wider and hence the number of motorbikes you had to walk through much bigger. I spent a few days there but mainly used it as a base to see a couple of things and look at some museams. I visited the history museam, and war remanents museam, the first was dull, the second was very good. Lots of pictures on the war, pretty difficult stuff. It even didnt have all negative stuff on the yanks, although much of it was. It had a small section on american journalists during the war and told their stories as if they were the good guys.

Also I went and visited the Cu Chi Tunnels complex nearby. Home of one of the most famous sets of Viet Cong tunnels. The tunnels at one point stretched from near Siagon all the way to the Cambodian border. The tour was very interesting and we even got to crawl though a 100 metre section. The section has been widened for tourists but its still a very tight fit. Also whilst on the tour we watched an introductory video about the tunnels. It was all very much presented from the north Vietnamese perspective, and very anti american. At one point it even called them, 'A crazy batch of devils!' I shouldnt laugh really, but that choice of words sent half the audience into hysterics.

After a couple of days there I booked myself a Mekong delta trip that would leave me in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The first day we had a 4 hour bus journey south to part of the Mekong, there we took a boat to see some local villages. In on of the villages we watched them making a variety of things including coconut candy, rice paper, and tried some snake blood infused rice wine. The tour was in truth very packaged but it was interesting to see all this. Then we took a further boat trip in which several of us were continually asked if we wanted to upgrade to spend a night on a boat rather than in a hotel. They continually made the hotel option sound rubbish, "But you'll spend another 3 hours on a bus!" " But you could be waiting 2 hours for a ferry!"

Anyway, I still opted for the hotel option, so in the end a few of us were dropped off by a bus, and then driven and took a ferry up to Chau Doc near the Cambodian border, for our last night in Vietnam.

The next morning we met up with the rest of the group and got a boat over to another village to see a fish farm, which was amazing. They keep thousands of fish underneath a house floating on the river and when our guide opened the hatch to the water and threw food in the fish went mad making a huge splash all over the deck area. After that we took a long boat journey up the Mekong to Cambodia. The border itself was a few huts on the river bank, and with the river being so wide how they stopped boats from going past it I dont know. We first got off at Vietnamese immigration and customs, got stamped out and had our bags scanned by customs whilst an attendant looked out at the river, rather than at the X-Ray machine. Then we got back in the boat and headed up the river for 15 minutes to the Cambodian border post. Here we got Visas put in our passports and filled out customs forms, before being whisked back onto the boat and sailing straight past customs!!?

Then we had another 4 hours on the boat which wasnt the most comfortable, and led to me trying the local Cambodian beer, Angkor, (original name I know) because I was bored. Not so sure about it though it wasnt the best at all, this slightly worried me that Cambodia would have no decent beer on offer, but to my releif later that day I found out they also sell the popular Laos beer, Beer Lao (another original name aint it?) all over Cambodia, and Beer Lao is really good. I have to say its the best beer I've had in asia. It certainly beats Kingfisher (India), Dali (Yunnan, China), and Saigon (Vietnam). And just about surpasses, Tsingtao (China), Tiger (Singapore and everywhere), and Bia Hoi (Vietnam).

So we arrived at a small jetty and transfered onto a minibus for the hour journey north to Phnom Penh. Immediately once on the bus I could see the huge differences between Vietnam and Cambodia. The bus drove through small towns, much poorer than I had seen in Vietnam, and of course hundreds of huge colourful temples in the Thai style. The people also looked much more similar to the Thais, than the Vietnamese who look more chinese. The real eye opener though was the amount of visible poverty. Vietnam is in no way a rich country but on the street although it was poor, there wasnt the number of shanty towns and beggars that littered the streets of Cambodia. Of course Cambodia has only recently seen lasting peace arrive, which came as late as the 1990s whilst Vietnam has had peace 20 years longer.

We arrived at a guesthouse in Phnom Penh, which I decided to give a try, as I was gonna get the morning bus straight to Siem Reap. I'd decided on this because I arrived friday night, and in Phnom Penh I needed to get a visa for Laos from the embassy, which of course meant hanging around week days. So it seemed best go to Siem Reap for the weekend and come back early next week.

The other thing I had to get used to in Cambodia is the two currency system. In Vietnam although many things had dollar prices still locals and many tourists, myself included conducted all transactions in Dong. Here in Cambodia though everyone including the locals use Dollars and Riel symaltaenously. They have a fixed rate of 4000 to the dollar and use Riel a bit like cents. Except the real confusion happens when they give you change made up of a bit of both. So you hand over 10 dollars and expect 7.50 change, or 7 dollars 2000 Riel, but you get back 2 dollars and 22000 Riel back. This then leads me to spend an hour trying to convert 22000 Riel into dollars to make sure they didnt short change me. Also to show that they've fully embraced the US dollar in Cambodia, the ATMS give you, guess what? Thats right US dollars, you can only get Riel as change or from money changers.

So the next day I got a 6 hour bus to Siem Reap, the tourist town that serves Angkor Wat and the other temples of Angkor. After arriving I found a dollar bed in a guesthouse/hostel called Garden Village. It was bizzare the dorm was 6 matresses in a hut with a mosquito net over each, but the bizzare thing wasnt that, it was that they gave you a clean towel and fresh toilet roll on each bed. Most of the hotels I've stayed dont provide you with those items, so to get them from a place like that was amazing.

I stayed in Siem Reap for 3 full days to see the temples. I bought a 3 day ticket and managed to get around a lot of the temples, the only problem with 3 full days of looking at temple ruins starts to take its toll on your sanity, but I managed to survive it. The number of temples in the area are truely stagering, and Angkor Wat is by far the largest and best preserved, but some of the others looked as if in their heyday they would have been more impressive.

The first day I got a motorbike taxi to Angkor Wat and arranged a pick up at 6. That day I just looked at Angkor Wat and the nearby city of Angkor Thom, which has lots of temples inside it. Near all the temples there were loads of shops and cafes ran by locals, who would endlessly ask you if you wanted, cold water, postcard, a t-shirt, some food, etc. In fact the only thing no one offered you near the temples was a bloody moto or tuktuk, because all the moto drivers there were waiting for pre-arranged passengers.

Whilst having lunch I was beiseged by a young girl who spoke inpecable english (She could probably spell inpecable even though I cant) She wanted to sell me a bracelet or a book or something. When I said no, she then asked where I was from, "England" I said. "Capital: London, Population 60 million" She replied, "Now, you buy!" How does that work I asked her, so then realising that this wasnt working her next move was a blindside of asking me geography questions, "Whats the capital of Madagascer?" "Erhh I dont know!" "Ha! Now you buy bracelet?" This line of sales went on for a while, I ended up reasoning that I couldnt buy the bracelet because it was too heavy for me to carry, she didnt beleive me so gave it to me, at which point I dropped my arm to the table and said I couldnt lift my arm now. For a second she looked as though she beleived me then, she was like: "No you are a man, you must be able to lift this bracelet, especilay if I can and I'm only a little girl!" She tested her theory again by lifting the bracelet and trying to give it back to me to see my reaction. I dropped my arm again, but I could see this time she wasnt convinced.

The conversation went on in this vain until I finshed my lunch, and she lost interest. In hindsight I felt I should've bought something from her even if I was just going to throw it to the bottom of my backpack, but I didnt. You sometmes meet these kids who are incredably intelligent but because of poverty are reduced to selling stuff to foriegners and cant afford to go to school.

Also whilst at the temples on another day whilst having a cold drink I got chating to one of the shopkeepers about her life. She complained that she had only managed to get a spot by a less famous temple and so had to charge less money for her goods. Unlike the shopkeepers near Angkor Wat who could put their prices up for the same goods bought from the same place as her, purely because so many tourists went past they could afford to turn down some who wanted the price too cheap. She was a young woman of about 24 with one baby who was asleep in the shop, next to where I was sat and didnt seem to have much hope for her families life to get much better. I asked her if she thought that he baby may have more money and a more comfortable life by the time hes her age, she said no it will be the same. I'm not sure I agree, I think Cambodia like all the countries in SE Asia can only get richer, and thus there is more opportunties for people to get jobs, etc. Of course it doesnt mean that everyone will be better off, but I think poverty will be reduced and hence more people will be pulled out of that cycle, so maybe her son might be one of the lucky ones. Certainly in Phnom Penh Cambodians are starting to think that development is quickening, and they are hoping to be dragged along with it. Hey, they just got their first KFC this year, that must be a good sign!!! Joking aside though that does suggest that the company sees a potential to make money and thus a new class of people that can afford the packaged delights of fried chicken.

The second and third day I was at the temples I hired a bicycle and rode around them visting various temples further out. Both bikes I hired were pretty awful the first looked good, it was a mountain bike, but the gears slipped when i went uphill or tried to speed up too quickly. The second bike had no fundamental problems, but it was a really old style womans bike with a basket, and had no gears as a result.

On the second day I managed to run into an english lad I knew from Hanoi, right in the middle of a temple. It was certianly one of the most bizzare meetings. I was walking down some steps, and suddenly he walked out of the doorway ahead of me. Also on my ride home on the second day as I approached the central part of Siem reap on my bike, a motorbike pulled alongside me. "Hello, How are you?" asked the rider. "Erm OK" I replied. After this he continued to ride along beside me in the busy traffic chatting to me about what I thought of Siem Reap and the temples. It was really strange as he kept causeing a hold up behind him, but he didnt seem too concerned, he just wanted to have a chat, and if that meant holding up the traffic then so be it!

After my 3 days in Siem Reap I got a morning bus back to Phnom Penh with a malaysian guy I'd met at the hostel. On the way back at one of the several food stops we made on the 6 hour journey, there was a group of 3 kids begging outside the bus. Now I've read several things and talked to people about whats the best way to deal with child beggars, and a lot of places think that giving htem money is a bad idea because they find they can make more money as a beggar, and so never do anything else. So I thought I'd give them some biscuits, my reasoning being kids love biscuits. Well some kids love biscuits, but I dont think the three of them knew quite what they were. The biscuits had melted slightly so when I offered them to the first boy, he put his hand to take one and then quickly took it away slightly apprehensive, the next boy tried and did the same thing, then the little girl. In the end I took one and ate it and then offered them again, the two boys took a biscuit each and looked really happy once they started eating it, but the little girl still looked very scared by the whole process, and refused to have one.

After a couple more hours we arrived in Phnom Penh. I immediately had to go to the Laos embassy to get my visa. At the Laos embassy which was tiny there was a sign in english detailing what you needed to do for the visa, but someone had graffiti'd over it several comments about how it was the worst embassy in the world, and dont pay for express because its just as slow as standard. I assume the people that work there cant read english so they cant know whats been written, and they've left it.

After that I went and found a new place to stay by the lake. The lakeside area was really nice all the guesthouses had bar areas looking out over the city lake, and it was very peaceful, you wouldn't have known you were in a city. The only downside was across the lake from the guesthouses was a kind of shanty town, but me being me I thought it added a unique character to the place.

I spent a few days in Phnom penh relaxing a little after the busy few days visiting Angkor. I went and visited the royal palace, and the city market, which actually was worth visiting for its architecture rather than to buy anything. All over asia they always try to get you to visit markets, but well a markets a market even if its the otherside if the world.

Also on my last day I hired a motorbike to go and visit both the S21 museam, about a Kymer rouge prison, and the killing fields. I hired it because it was cheaper than getting a tuktuk, but of course driving a manual motorbike through Phnom Penh traffic when I havent riden one for 3 years was not the best idea. The traffic is manic and they even drive on the wrong side of the road if they feel like it. At one point I was doing a left turn at a big junction, and when I got round the corner into the new road, the first thing I saw was a bike driving towards me. My first reaction was because they drive on the right side of the road, I'd managed to put self on the wrong side, then I thought and looked and realised no, I was on the correct right side, he was just driving up the wrong way of a massive city street.

In the end I spent so long at S21 I never got out to the killing fields, but many people told me that S21 was the more interesting and powerful of the two. It was a school that was converted into a detention and interigation centre during the Kymer Rouges 4 year reign of terror. You walked into rooms with empty beds and pictures hung on the wall of some of the past occupants. Then in another room there were rows and rows of photos, and all of them were of people that stayed here before being executed. They said that of the thousands of people that were detained here, less than ten people survived.

I also watched a video about a particular girl and her husband and what happened to them. It even included talking to a guy that used to be a jailer. He said they'd tell people they were being moved, then take them in trucks out to the killing fields, and club them to death to save on bullets. Pretty horrific stuff.

So after all that I left Phnom penh on a bus north to a remote northern town called Stung Treng, there I would stay a night before crossing the border into Laos. Stung Treng was a small cambodian town, it had a few guesthouses, but wasnt really designed to cater for tourists. The town sat at the confluence of one river meeting the Mekong. On the bus I'd met an english girl who had the same bus ticket as me, including going all the way to the 4000 islands in Laos, but it seemed this ticket wasnt quite what it should've been.

The guy with the bus company told us that we had to meet him at 8 in the morning, then when we turned up he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually a guy turned up on a bike and proclaimed the other guy had lied and the bus had left earlier. At this point we found a phone number for the bus company, and phoned them, the guy from the other night answered and said we were half an hour late and the bus had gone, I told him we'd been there since 8, he didnt seem convinced. He then turned up on a bike and said he could get us on an 11 o'clock bus from a place called riverside guesthouse, so to head over there. We did and the guy rode off quickly when we got there. It seemed this was because they guy at riverside wasnt happy with him, and told us the real story.

The previous evening the guy from the bus company had phoned the guy at riverside to get us on their minibus, but their morning bus was full, so he'd asked for us to get on a 1 o'clock bus, and was using all this shenanigans as an excuse. We were actually going at 1 in a car.

As 1 neared we were put into a car and joined by a slovenian girl and another english lad, and an old Cambodian woman. We had to squeeze 4 of us in the back it seemed. We then drove for an hour to the smallest border in the world. Just a pair of huts about 50 metres apart, one was Cambodian immigration, and hte other of course was Laos. After that we drove further were swapped into a pick up, where we were joined by two more people, and then headed to catch a little longtail boat across part of the mekong to one of the 4000 islands.

The 4000 islands were really nice, they were really relaxed, I stayed in a little hut with a balcony and a hammock, which cost next to nothing, and all the locals on the island were so laid back they never seemed to remember to ask you to pay for anything. They would just say, Sabadee to you whenever you appeared (Laos for Hello), and smile then go back to whatever they were doing. Also the island had electric only for 4 hours each day, between 6 and 10 in the evening, which actually added to the charm of the place, although every bar and restraunt closed just after 10 because of it.

I spent a few days there hanging around with the group I arrived with, it rained quite a lot at night which meant the mud paths (closest thing to a road on the island) were quagmires a lot of the time. One day we went out cycling round a couple of the islands which were joined by an old railway bridge. In fact these two islands were the only place in Laos that ever had a working railway on them. The french built it because the river around the islands had waterfalls. So boats would dock on one side of the islands, load the goods onto a train, and then the train would take the goods to the otherside to be loaded onto another boat.

After a few days there we all headed north by boat and minibus to Pakse, the largest town in the area. From there we were all taking a sleeper bus north to Vientiane, the capital. When we got on the sleeper bus we realised it was not as good as hoped, unlike the ones in China and Vietnam, this bus was only thin double beds, which meant you had to sleep in the same bed as someone else, in my case a random Laos guy.

Once the bus got moving though the conductor kept trying to move people around. Firstly he wanted to move one of the english girls into a bed by herself, then wanted her back sharing with the slovenian girl. Then gave her his seat, then after that decided I had to share with the slovenian girl, because I knew her, and he was only going to share with a guy. All this went on whilst blaring karaoke continued to play from the two TVs in the bus.

Finally we arrived in Vientiane early the next morning, and got a tuktuk into the town. First thing we discovered was that all guesthouses were full, and that we couldnt get into anywhere until 11 or 12. We managed to book some rooms for later and leave our stuff at reception before wandering off to look at the town.

Theres nothing much in Vientiane, the town has a few temples and a market, and we looked at the Laos national museam, but it was quite small. That night we went out for a beer and some food.

The next day I left the others and got a local bus north to a town called Phonsavan. It was nice for the first time in months getting a local bus where I was the only foreigner. The bus had the best air conditioning, open windows, and was quite comfortable. At one point on the journey we were stopped for an hour by the police because there was a motorbike on the roof and they didnt seem to think it had the correct paperwork, in the end they confiscated the bike, although I never worked out what happened to the owner.

Once we arrived at Phonsavan bus station I got a share tuktuk into town with lots of locals and sacks of rice and various things. The next day I went on a tour to see the Plain of Jars, which is what the area is famous for. The plain of jars, is a big open space where loads of ancient stone jars have been discovered. No one knows quite what they were for, but they are certainly several thousand years old. The most popular theory is that they were used to house the bones of dead people. Some of them had lids but most are just big stone cylinders with holes down the middle.

After the tour there I went and visited the unexploded ordinence centre in Phonsavan. It is ran by a charity which is working to train teams of people to remove and disarm left over bombs. Per capita Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world, during the Vietnam war american planes regularly dumped left over bombs over Laos before returning to base, this despite the fact that a peace accord was signed by all sides involved in SE asia, garenteeing Laos's neutral status. There was also a powerful video showing at the centre about the UN sponsored teams that are training people to deal with the situation.

The problem is the illegal scrap metal trade is a good money making exercise for the poor rural people. So when a bomb is found, people want to sell it for money. Many kids play in the fields and find bombs and think they are safe and play with them too. At the current rate they think it will be another 30 years before Laos is almost completely cleared of unexploded bombs and mines.

After my day in Phonsavan, the next day I got another local bus over to Luang Prabang, an ancient Laos capital. Luang Prabang is a very picturesque town surrounded by mountians at the confluence of the Mekong and another river. Filled with temples and a royal palace, its a place you can wander around for a few days. Although compared to the rest of Laos it was very expensive for food, and rooms, etc, because of the tourists.

I spent a couple of days in Luang Prabang, didnt do too much apart from looking at the many temples and the Royal Palace, oh and avoiding the rain. After Luang Prabang the plan was, on the wednesday night, take an overnight bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, spend the day in Vientiane then take an overnight train from the Thai side of the river near Vientiane down to Bangkok.

What actually happened was, bus left Luang Prabang on time about 7:30 in the evening, at about 10 it drove over a large rock and broke down due to a massive oil leak. Then we waited there all night with the driver desparately trying to fix the leak. We kept getting promises of a replacement but none arrived. Finally after almost everyone on the bus had slept on the broken down bus all night, at about 7 in the morning they got it going again. So off we went, by this time it had started to rain. After a few hiccups of brokendown trucks, on the way, that we had to get round, we finally started to make good progress. At 10ish we stopped again, it was raining really heavily so no one got out to look at why we'd stopped, and the driver only spoke Laos so all the foreigners were in the dark. Anyway after an hour people began to venture out to see what the hold up was. The hold up was a large mudslide about 50 yards down the road that had engulfed the road and made it inpassable.

At this point there seemed no reasonable plan to get us moving, no one had a phone signal so the driver couldnt call for another bus from the otherside or anything. Everyone became more and more annoyed until we started planning how we were gonna get out of this problem. The first reasonable idea the locals had was to try ramming the mud out of the way with two large petrol tankers?!!?

Every now and then one of the tankers would get stuck, and then in would come the other with a tow rope to pull it out. I was particularly entralled by it and stood in the rain drenched watching this go on for a while. Finally one of the tankers got through, and then a steady stream of trucks started to make it through, but still our bus and the cars couldnt manage it. So this time loads of us went into the mud and dug it out with our bare hands, trying to get the water to drain away too, because the mud was creating a huge puddle as it blocked all the runoff water from the rain.

Whilst all this was going on everytime our bus was started our driver had a set of checks he seemed to perform, which were: First, turn on engine for a good 10 minutes before moving. Second, turn on blaaring Kareoke almost immediately after engine. Third, just sit. Forth, turn on air con. Fifth, slowly engage gears and move. In particular it was this weird fascination with the fact that the Kareoke was more important than anything else, and he never liked to turn the air con on. Surely in a sweaty bus full of people aircon comes before Kareoke in your priorities.

After a few more hours at about 4pm finally our bus driver agreed to brave going through. So we cleared out of the way and when it came to his turn he managed it. Then we washed ourselves off abit and got back on the bus. We finally arrived in Vientaine at 10 at night, I spent the night in a guesthouse, then got the first morning bus over to Thailand, and once at Nong Khai got a 12 hour bus down to Bangkok at about 9. Happily the Thailand part of the journey was problem free, mind you the thailand journey was mainly on close to motorway standard roads. In Laos there isnt a single dual carraigeway, and that raod with the mud slide is the Laos equivelant of the M1. In Thailand they are alot more modern, in fact after the last 6 weeks since China, Thailand is by far the most developed country in the region.

So I arrived in Bangkok the friday night and had just 3 days before my flight to Sydney. The plan was to buy some bits and peices, and maybe have a beer or two. Both of which I accomplished. One day I took a boat down to Chinatown, and apart from that hung around the Koh San Road area of the city, where all the budget tourists tend to congregate.

One night I got chatting to some girls that ran a barbeque stall on the Koh san Road, mainly because they had shelter from the rain, and nice smelling food. Anyway after the rain cleared off I ended up staying there for another hour, and it was really cool as I got to see the Thai side of the story of the Koh San Road. They knew everyone who ran pitches near them, and even the tuktuk drivers trying to get business from the tourists, who stood there every night. At one point they wheeled everything to the side of the street, because the police were coming. IT seems the police want you to pay them money for the stalls on the street, but if when they come you just have your clearly working barbeque off to the side slightly they ignore you. It wasnt like the barbeque was doing anything there but selling food to people, but the main guy only seemed bothered with one stall across the road that hadnt put his racks of T-shirts and CDs away. I asked one of the girls why he hadnt put his stuff away like everyone else, and she replied he was from Myanmar and new here, so didnt realise.

After my final few days in Bangkok I got on an early morning flight out of Bangkok to Singapore. I spent about 8 hours in Singapore airport, although it has free internet there, and loads of TVs showing different stations and even two free cinemas, so the time passed ok. From Singapore I got an overnight flight to Sydney, in one of those new giant double decker airbus planes, which was cool. Although our approach to Sydney wasnt the best. The pilot warned us several times that it would be a rough approach, but at one point the plane jolted downwards so suddenly that half the people in the cabin screamed. The pilot quickly told us that it was fine there was no problem, it may just prove a little uncomfortable on the approach.

And then, we landed in Sydney, which is where I am now, not sure how long for as need a chest Xray to get my New Zealand work visa granted so we shall see how long that takes. Sydney is pretty cold at the mo, and raining a lot, so it almost feels like home.

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