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Published: October 31st 2006
Claire and Sam go local
After 20 shots of rice wine - we agreed to try anything on !Firstly apologies for taking so long to write this blog entry but in the words of Sam and Jim "we have been caning it "! We left you last in Phnom Penh, from here we traveled down to the south coast of Cambodia to Sihanoukville and for the first afternoon we were very lucky and had gorgeous weather so spent some time on the beach with a few cheeky beers! However, from then on it proceeded to pour down with rain, so after a couple of days we decided to head back to Phnom Penh. From here we headed north to Kratie (on the way Sam willingly decided to sample the local delicacy in Kompong Cham, of giant spiders…mmmn tasty! Claire declined this savory delight…) to see the rare fresh water Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong River - after being drenched on a very small wooden long tail boat for an hour we finally got lucky and saw lots of dolphins - an amazing sight.
The next morning we took our lives in our hands and took a shared taxi further north to Ban Lung. We should probably give you the definition of shared taxis in Cambodia: eight people -
Sam eating Spiders
For those who want to know, they were quite salty but the actual spider meat tasted a bit like crab. two in the front passenger seat and another person squashed in with the driver (we kid you not!) and then another four people in the back seat…that was us two and a friend and then another local…all of us were squashed into the seats of a clapped out old banger! The roads, sorry dirt tracks, to Ban Lung were not pretty due to the crater-sized holes we ended up driving through, 7 hours and a few numb bums later we got to our lovely destination. There were hardly any other westerners there and the town was very basic but all good fun. We stayed for a couple of days and in between the bouts of rain we managed to spend two very relaxing afternoons swimming in a stunning natural volcanic crater lake (Boeng Yeak Laom) and having swimming races and “how long can you hold your breath for?” competitions with the locals, great fun! Our voyage back to civilization was equally eventful, we crashed twice into bushes and each time we had to push the car out of the mud and another time we had to be towed out of the mud by a huge old truck!
Once safely
Irrwaddy fresh water dolphins
After nearly crashing on the way there and then getting soaked -we were very chuffed to actually see these ugly but rare dolphins. back in Kratie we decided, perhaps in a moment of madness, to book another journey, this time to the east of Cambodia to Sen Monorom - this involved Sam having to sit on top of a huge and very well laden pick-up truck with 16 locals and Claire very tightly squashed inside the cab with 8 other locals, a painful journey for us both! The journey was hair-raising enough due to the very steep mud tracks but poor Sam had to endure being pinched (as he was too big “biggie big” as the locals called him!) and was spat on twice, which is a normal custom in Cambodia apparently, although we are not so sure… Despite all of this the journey was well worth it.
Sen Monorom was like the land that time forgot with limited electricity and only one place to have food. Whilst there we managed to hire a very dilapidated motorbike and went and explored some villages, but best of all we crammed in a fantastic day of elephant trekking through the jungle, our elephant was beautiful and so strong, he even moved trees out of our path. For our journey back to the capitol we
All aboard
How many people can you fit onto a pick up truck (at least 20)! That doesn't include two speakers. an air conditioning unit and a motorbike. decided to upgrade to business class (yes even pick-up trucks have business class), we bought out the whole of the backseat in the cab, the best $20 we have ever spent!
In Phnom Penh we decided to stay lakeside, which is the main backpacker hangout and basically consists of lots of guesthouses all clustered on the lake front. It's a bit of a hippie hangout and everybody seems intent on selling us smokie smokie or opium to which Sam just reples in his best Oxford accent "Not today thank you"... they don't really have a reply for this so they just walk off confused. We spent a day chilling out here and watching some wonderful sunsets over the lake.
After spending an incredible month in Cambodia it was time to jump on a bus and head to our next destination: Vietnam. Our first port of call was Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City. Straight away it was apparent that Saigon was noticeably more affluent and westernized than anywhere in Cambodia, we were even told that there are more motorbikes than people here - which we believed after visiting the city! Also everyone does really wear Conical
hats, so funny but very cool at the same time! Whilst in Saigon we went to the Cu Chi tunnels - a network of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong to gain entry into the south of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Sam loved it, regressing back to his childhood days of watching war films when we climbed through some of the tunnels on our hands and knees using our head torches for light!
From Saigon we headed to Mui Ne, a lovely quiet coastal town but with a hidden delight....yep, you guessed it....Sand Sledging!! In Mui Ne there are lots of gorgeous red sand dunes and they are calling out to be sledged upon, so we took up the challenge and headed out there with a friend and some local children as our guides. We had a mad time sliding down these huge sand dunes and were covered from head-to-toe in red sand by the end of it! We also got to see an amazing sunset over the dunes. On the way to the dunes we went for a walk to a waterfall which ended up being a trek through a river to a not so impressive waterfall
Boeng Yeak Lon
A stunning volcanic creator, great fun to swim in. but the fun part was dodging the water snakes (much to Claire's horror), the locals assured us they were perfectly safe but we weren't so sure as they started jumping out of the water as fast as they could whenever they saw one!
Next stop was Nha Trang, where we managed to get in a day of scuba diving. Brilliant fun, very different to diving in Thailand and visibility was not as good but we saw the biggest, scariest Moray Eel ever....amazing sight! We also saw a Stonefish, which our instructor then told and showed us horror stories about on the way back to shore. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach watching the sun go down before getting the night bus further north to the very beautiful Hoi An.
Hoi An was probably one of our favorite places so far, it is so relaxing there and the old town is a named Unesco World Heritage site and the architecture there is really wonderful. It is also the place to get clothes tailored for you but as we only had 2 days there we didn't have time, but we did have time to check
out the local cake shops and try some of the best cakes we have ever had! We lived like kings there and had a fab time. We also went on a rather cheap and touristy trip (it is hard to get off the tourist track in Vietnam and do things independently, which can be a little frustrating at times) to the ruins at My Son, which are likened to those of Angkor Wat but not in the same league, especially after the American bombardment during the war.
From Hoi An we booked a cheap flight with Pacific Airways (supposed to be a no frills airline but lets just say that it was a lot better than easyjet!) to the capital Hanoi to save some precious traveling time. Hanoi is totally mental. You can't walk on the pavements because they are crowded with either motorbikes or street markets and every time you cross the road you just have to close your eyes and run screaming across the road (well that’s what Claire did anyway) and hope that you make it to the other side in one piece.
After only an afternoon here we decided that we would like
Claire in the Cu Chi Tunnels
Finally proof that Claire has not been eating enough chocolate, actually we both managed to get through this narrow hole. to go somewhere a little more peaceful, so what better destination than the very gorgeous Halong Bay, which is another Unesco World Heritage site. We booked a 2-day trip on a big wooden Junk boat and spent the time swimming in the sea and kayaking around the islands and eating the best seafood ever! Got to stay in our very own wooden cabin too.
Back in Hanoi again, we decided we would rather spend more of our time trying to see the more picturesque north-west of Vietnam and so caught the night train to Sapa, however we booked rather last minute (not like us I hear you say!) and ended up only being able to book a hard sleeper (mattress only 1 inch thick and crammed between 2 other beds) carriage that we had to share with 4 other locals.... they loved us and our big rucksacks. It was all fine in the end and we arrived in Sapa in the early hours of the morning. We got lucky and managed to find an amazing room with a stunning view of the mountains, although they seemed to be covered with mist most of the time which gave it an
eerie but also magical feel.
Sapa was brilliant fun but we wanted to see more of the surrounding area and visit some of the hill tribe villages, so off we went on the back of 2 motorbikes with our local guide, Kai and our fantastic driver, Singh and headed out on an off-the-beaten-track tour for 3 days and 2 nights staying in local villages. We saw some awesome sights and met some really friendly locals and learnt a lot about all the different hill tribes and how they live day-to-day. We also got to experience the joys of homemade rice wine, which we had to drink at each home stay. You start dinner by having a quick shot of wine and then it all goes downhill from there on...you have to toast everything under the sun and this stuff is strong...40% we were told, so by the end of the night you can imagine what state we were in...at one point Sam even taught them how to sing our national anthem and Claire had singing competitions with Kai to the Backstreet Boys (they love them out here, you would have loved it Sharon!).
When we made it back
Extreme Sand Sledging
As good as sledging on snow but warmer and with sand getting everywhere. to Sapa we had just about got over our rice wine hangovers before we headed back on the night train to Hanoi (not before having another shot of rice wine at a local restaurant, just to be polite!). We spent the day in Hanoi sightseeing, taking in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the very decorative Temple of Literature before catching a fantastic show of water puppetry (Sam did his usual amazing blag by getting us tickets to a sold out show). Then we caught another night train out of Hanoi and back south to Dong Ha by the former Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) to cross over the boarder at Lao Bao into Laos but that is different story for our next blog entry in the near future...
So all that remains is to say goodbye and send lots of love to you all!
The traveling duo aka
Sam and Claire😊
P.S. the other news to report is that Sam has grown a full on beard and is content to keep it until we reach Thailand. Apparently the locals love it !!
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Muv/Gill
non-member comment
I'll bring a razor with me to Oz
Can see why this has taken time to get updated difficult to fit in round the wealth of fantastic experiences you two are having. So good talking to you as well. Not sure about the beard or whatever that is hanging off the edge of your chin Sam !!