Sayonara Saigon

We were to be leaving Saigon at 7:00pm that evening, on the sleeper train bound for Da Nang. Before then, though, we had a spot of business to attend to. As STA had not been able to match the quote we had seen online for the flight from Xi’An to Kathmandu we had gone to book it that night, only to find that the one flight that was of an use to us (only one stop-over and 9 hours in total, rather than 2 stops and 19 or 21 hours journey time) had gone. We had looked at the other options but none of them seemed plausible, and flying from another city, or flying straight into Delhi didn’t seem like a good plan either. So we had to act fast to make sure that we could get out of China, as we didn’t want to go through the visa process again by telling them that our plans had changed. So the best we could do was book the flight for the day after the one we wanted, and hopefully book another night in the hotel in Xi’An, and hope the Chinese government don’t find out.

So with all that done and dusted we left the hotel and headed for the Water Puppet show. We didn’t know exactly where it was, but had heard that it was somewhere near the War Remnants Museum that we had been in the day before. When we arrived the place was closing for lunch (yeah!) so we had a walk round the streets nearby and found the cathedral. We also found the Post Office too, but that wasn’t as majestic.

Ho Chi Minh cathedral, with traffic

We grabbed a late lunch and bought supplies for the train journey, and managed to find someone who could sell us a kicky-thing. We plumped for the cheaper ($1 rather than $2) one as we didn’t know how good we would be at it, and didn’t want to waste loads of money (a dollar). We managed to find a relatively quiet spot in the park, essentially so we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves in front of the locals. We only got two kicks into the game before we were interrupted by two girls walking past that offered to show us how it was done. So, with the teams now two on two we began kicking the kicky-thing, with varying degrees of success. Soon, another passer-by fancied his chances and joined in with us. It was good fun, for a while, but it was just too hot to be jigging around so much, especially as we couldn’t get a shower before getting the train. With a lot of effort put into the game and a reasonable amount of sweat absorbed into the t-shirt, we sat down with our new-found friends and chatted away.

Me and my minions, before the rest joined us

The day before James had taken a walk through the park after his kip and sat down on a bench. Legend has it that students will come up to you and talk to you in order to practice their English. This had happened to him yesterday, and it happened again today. Whilst having a quiet discussion with our kicky-thing buddies they were keen to ask us about the English language and English culture. We responded, naturally, but had been split into two distinct groups – me, with Amy and Kendo, and James with Fi. As we sat there on the benches, more and more people walking past took it upon themselves to stand by us and join in, or simply listen to, the conversations that we were having. Soon we had about 20 people gathered round us, each of us having our own separate groups having our own conversations. After 5 minutes or so it seemed to me that James had a bigger group than me, but after about 20 minutes I heard him remark, “hey, it looks like he’s got more people than me!” to which I just smiled and carried on discussing Unilever, the people on the money and English vs Vietnamese marriages. It was brilliant fun, and even though we knew we needed to leave by about 5:00pm it was almost half past by the time we left our minions and headed back to the hotel.

James, with HIS minions

We grabbed a taxi to the train station, and it was rush hour so it took a stupid amount of time to get there when it was within walking distance. Once we had identified the train we should be climbing onto we found our carriage and dumped our bags in our booth. It seemed pretty basic. Most worrying of all was the fact that there was no curtain to pull across, so we would be out in the open with our two bunk-mates, as it were. They were still to turn up, and they would be up top as we had specifically booked the lower ones, with more room.

Coach 9......brilliant

As James had gone outside to wander round and take some photos an elderly woman entered the booth and sat down on James’s bunk. It seemed that she was being dropped off by her family and that someone, presumably, would be picking her up at the other end of the journey. Even so it looked like she would be above Jimbo, which seemed implausible given her age. Plus, we had been hoping for some more young German girls like we had got in Thailand. Our other bunk-mate turned up soon after; a young Vietnamese girl who spoke very little, if any, English. As we sat there, we realised that we should let the elderly woman take a lower bunk as it wasn’t easy to get up top. We managed to get the message across to her and she seemed very grateful. She didn’t offer to pay the extra for the lower bunk, but that was fine, it was OK by us.

We settled in for the long journey – leaving at 7:00pm and arriving into Da Nang at 12:00 noon, hopefully. The old lady went to sleep soon after we left the station, as did the other girl in our booth. As we (me and James) typed up blogs and read the Lonely Planet guides I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye. But I couldn’t identify it. Maybe it was one of those weird eye things you get that you can’t look at properly, you know the ones. But then I saw something move again, in a different spot to before, and there it was……the head of a little mouse, popping up from underneath the table. It had climbed up the luggage in its search for food and only found my wandering eye. I informed James of our extra bunk-mate and we moved luggage round (quietly, so as not to wake the others) but we couldn’t see it. It meant that we shoved as much stuff that we could manage up top rather than leave it down below as the last thing we wanted was for a little mouse to munch through the lining of our rucksacks or set up home in one of my shoes!

Duvet Day

We were still in Saigon, and we were both still feeling under the weather. Not anything for us to worry about, but just enough for us to crack open the Lemsip Hot Lemon drinks to try and take the edge of the rund-down-ness. We had some work to do before we could go exploring the city again, so after breakfast we walked down to the STA Travel Agents just down from the hotel – we had got our round the world tickets from STA in Leeds so it felt like we should give them a go for a flight from China to Kathmandu.

I wasn’t entirely sure if they would be able to sort it out for us anyway, but I gave the woman our requirements and she tapped it into the computer. We waited. And we waited some more. She said that it might take another 5 minutes or so to come back with a price, so we smiled and waited some more. It didn’t look like James was having a good time, and maybe we should put the afternoon exploration on hold and get back to the hotel so he could sleep it off. We had found a flight to Kathmandu online for just over £200 so we were hoping that the STA computer would come back sub-200. When she wrote down the price I gulped and knew we would be booking online. Some $600 each for the tickets, that wasn’t gonna happen. But we thanked her for her time anyway and went on our way.

The park near our hotel......nice!

Our way, as it turned out, was back to the Ha My 3 so that James could get rid of the possible migraine that had been developing that morning. As it was pretty much lunchtime and I had only nibbled on some Pringles I munched on a few more supplies while watching a video on my iPod, with the lights dimmed so James could get some shut-eye. As I lay there on the bed I felt my eyes closing, but I would fight it, as I was gonna head out for a wander on my own. Next thing I know it’s gone 4:00pm and James is still fast asleep. It felt like a bit of a waste of an afternoon but I think we just needed some decent catch-up sleep.

Dodging the evening traffic!!

That evening we headed down to the “Khao San Road” of Saigon, where we had found the Sports Bar. There were plenty of good eateries down there so we found a busy one without plastic furniture and ordered some grub. There was a good deal on the Tiger beer, which is something that we hadn’t had for a long time since the local tipples seemed to be the cheapest (and most intoxicating) way to go. We had a “thought shower” on the screenplay that we have thought up, and got a few good ideas down, but it still needs a lot of work. 

Sponsored by Tiger beer...

On the walk home we took a small diversion to wander through the night market – basically the same place as the market in the day, but it was at night. There was the usual stuff on offer, but as we had been purchasing things along the way our bags are getting more packed and much heavier, so we are having to slow down our impulse buys. The one thing we were on the lookout for was a feathered kicky thing that everyone seems to play with in the park. You all stand round in a circle and it’s basically just keepy-uppy between the group, and both me and James were keen for a game. Maybe it was the lack of football, or the desire to try new things on our travels, but we didn’t get one in the end, nor did we get a Saigon t-shirt or a multi-coloured lampshade. But hopefully we would have another chance before we left the city.

James bartering with young girls...again

Additional: Papa Roach

I should mention a little story that happened on our first morning in the hotel in Ho Chi Minh. I somehow forgot to add this to the blog, possibly because I was feeling rough that day, but I feel that it must be told now.

We woke, showered, dressed and made our way down for breakfast. After breakfast we headed back to the room and went through our routine for preparing for the day ahead. As I was clearing some things of my bed I noticed something dark near my pillow. I leaned closer, and there, nestled between my pillow and the mattress was a huge cockroach. Had it been there all night? Had it just surfaced when we went for breakfast? Whatever and whenever, I had a little freak-out and exclaimed something along the lines of “what the flip is that mother-licker!”. It remained there, motionless, whilst we photographed the evidence, and then I attempted to contain it. With bin in one hand and left hand poised to remove cushion, I couldn’t help but picture the opening scene in Indian Jones when he takes the idol from the temple. As I made the move, something didn’t go to plan and the cockroach disappeared. It wasn’t in the bin. It wasn’t on the bed. It had probably been flung into my rucksack or somewhere. Oh joy. But then I looked again, and it was casually sitting there, in the bin, clinging on like a stag beetle. I quickly slammed the bin open-end-down onto the bed and went down to reception to tell the of the situation. She was very apologetic and sent the cleaner up to get rid of it. Easier said than done though as the language barrier proved a tricky on to overcome, but I got the message across and she whisked it away. I don’t know what happened to it, and I don’t much care, but it was gone and we could carry on with our day.

Papa Roach

It also meant that every night afterwards I would be checking under my pillow before I went to sleep…

Robbed

Another day in Saigon, and we were still to decide what to do for the day. There was plenty around, but nothing was really jumping out at us, apart from the Water Puppet show (which we had heard was good, but had our reservations) and the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used in the Vietnam War and before to move around, shelter and plan attacks against various enemies. The problem we had with the tunnels, apart from my slight claustrophobia, was that they were some 40km outside of the city. We would need to either get a minibus at 8:00am the next day or get a long and uncomfortable local bus to a stop nearby and then get a motorbike taxi for the rest of the way. And pay the man for hanging around while we were underground. Not great. So we decided that unless we could get a good trip organised with a travel agent that we would give it a miss, as neither of us absolutely desperately wanted to visit the tunnels.

After the basic breakfast on offer we headed out to see the War Remnants Museum, just round the corner. On our way there we encountered a man with his various wares for sale in two bundles each tied to an end of a stick that he carried across his shoulder. As he tried to get us to buy something or enter into a long conversation he motioned for James to try holding his wares to see how heavy it was. Although it would have made a great picture he declined, as I would have done, and we managed to dismiss him without getting too aggressive or impolite. And then we rounded the corner and found the museum.

The streets of Saigon

The War Remnants Museum contains weapons, photographs and other memorabilia from the Vietnam and Indochina wars. Once I had been short-changed by the ticket seller (and she claimed that she thought I was buying two tickets, for some reason, but I got my money back for the other ticket in the end) we wandered round the outside of the museum, in amongst all the old tanks, planes and helicopters that have long been decommissioned. James got cornered by a beggar with no arms, but managed to make up an excuse involving him needing to check with me first before he could give him anything. We got inside before we were collared again.

What a big chopper!

Inside it made for some very uncomfortable viewing. Most of it was focussed on the Vietnam war and the involvement by the US army. Whether there was a slight bias or not we couldn’t really be sure but it seemed like there was a lot of US-bashing propaganda around. I guess you can never be quite sure of the validity of the statements and photographs but some of the things in there were pretty terrible. I certainly didn’t feel hungry for lunch by the time we left.

Gas masks

As we were near to the hotel and we had a few supplies left we grabbed lunch back in the room and watched a bit of comedy on the netbooks to try and lift our spirits from the morning spent viewing some very disturbing images. It was almost mid-afternoon by the time we ventured out and we were looking at getting into Chinatown, as one of the guidebooks recommended we do so. We were also on the lookout for a Chinese travel agent who might be able to swing us a good deal on a flight from Xi’An to Kathmandu, on of the latter stages of our trip. We were using the hotel map to find our way there, and it was of little use. We never did find it, and all the travel agents seemed to be shut for Sunday, for some reason. So essentially we just had a long afternoon walk. But it meant that I could pick up some water and beer from the mini-mart we had found along the way.

"Chinatown" or as close as we could get

We found another little restaurant down the same alley as we had been down the night before, and this place was offering Saigon beer for 10,000/12,000 Vietnamese Dong on Happy Hour (around 30p) and decent enough food prices. We had also ear-marked the Sports Bar a couple of doors down to watch the Everton v Liverpool game that was kicking off at 8:30pm.

Evening entertainment

The food was OK, and the beer was tasty enough, for 30p a bottle. We had the usual hawkers coming round trying to sell us anything from guide books to marijuana, but we managed to fend them off and keep our money in our wallets. When we paid up and went to the Sports Bar we entered a small bar that had a number of ex-pats and smokers all sitting round the bar in the middle of the room. There was space for two more so we joined them. In sitting at the bar, not in smoking, obviously. With a couple more Saigons on the go we waited for kick-off and tried not to get into any kind of conversation with the ruffians frequenting the bar. The game was a bit of a disappointment, mainly because Liverpool should have won 3-2 but due to Everton bribing the referees assistant (allegedly) it remained at 2-2. As it was getting late, and the Chelsea v Man U game would be kicking off soon (which we would be able to watch from the comfort of the hotel room, without having smoke blown in our faces) we made our way back through the crazy streets of Saigon and cracked open a couple of cans of 333.

Unhappy with the 2 - 2 result...

Saigon

So we had made it into Vietnam. Awesome. And we were in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh city, which is the largest city in the country. And now it was time to go exploring.

The main area of Saigon that we were interested in, and indeed 99% of all tourists who visit, was the area west of the river. The river scythes the city in two, and there seems to be only housing and industry on the east side, which wasn’t what we came here for. So we wandered out and down to the river, to see it all in daylight as it had all been quite manic and confusing the night before. It all seemed quite different in the light of day, maybe because we were at a different part of the river and couldn’t work out where we had been the night before, but there were still just as many motorbikes bombing along the road as there had been in pretty much each of the countries we had been through in Asia. Probably more so in Saigon than the others actually, and the tactic of running across the road when you see a gap is absolutely not the way to go in Vietnam. Slowly, slowly is the best approach here, as we quickly learned! We would be waiting on the side for ages whilst an old woman would calmly walk across the street with bikes, cars and even buses weaving around her. Madness!

Saigon baby!

The river wasn’t exactly the best waterway we had come across. This was possibly due to the brown tinge to the water itself, but more so for the fact that we saw the body of a bloated rat floating down the river. Even worse was that not two minutes later we identified the body of a small dog in a coat floating past us. Not very happy viewing.

The "lovely" river

As we neared the main are of the city we were getting hungry so grabbed some lunch near the Opera House. What we were really looking for in the afternoon was the Reunification Palace, but it was not easy to find, mainly because the map from the Ha My 3 hotel was utter garbage. It took us a while to find it, but when we did we weren’t disappointed. Famous for being the site of the end of the Vietnam War when two tanks came crashing through the gates. We were idly browsing the replica tanks and planes in the grounds when we noticed a girl photographing her boyfriend by one of the tanks, but he was not wearing the clothes we had previously seen him in – he was now wearing a pink “onesie” like a big adult baby. A bit weird we thought, but then we did our own little “round the world video clips” and they applauded in mutual appreciation.

Tank 843

We went inside the palace and walked round at our leisure. It was pretty glamorous inside, with dining tables, meeting rooms and even a cinema within. We caught a few bits of information from one of the tour guides who was taking a large group round, but as there was no charge for it we didn’t feel guilty about ear-wigging every now and again. Once we had finished with the palace it was time to head back to the AC of the hotel as we were struggling in the afternoon heat.

Chopper on the roof!

We had identified a cool little alley where there seemed to be quite a few good little eateries that we could choose from for dinner. We chose The Alley Cat as it seemed nice and the price was right. The French waiter/owner seemed friendly and attentive, but the food took so long to some that we nearly left and went next door. And when it did finally arrive it was very much average, possibly below average if I’m being honest. So we knew that we would not be going back there again!

Leaving Cambodia

Our time in Cambodia had come to an end and we would be leaving in in the morning to travel into Vietnam. Or Viet Nam. Whichever. We were all packed and ready to go, so we grabbed a quick breakfast and checked out of the hotel. The Mekong Express had sent a shuttle bus to pick us up and we jumped on board and were grateful that potential problem # 1 had been averted. We were on our way to the bus station, and stopped only once to pick up 3 odd American guys. We checked in our bags and waited for the order to get on the bus, and soon found our seats and settled in for the long journey across the border.

I still wasn’t feeling top-notch as I was a bit run-down; nothing serious but just needing a bit more R & R. So as soon as the coach pulled out of Phnom Penh I put on some tunes and drifted off to sleep. It wasn’t the best sleep in the world, especially not because the girl behind me kept kicking my chair throughout the journey. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant place near the border crossing, but as both me and James had bought supplies we didn’t purchase any of the questionable meals that were on offer. As we pulled away from the stop we arrived at the border crossing checkpoint. We had handed our passports in to the trolley dolly as she would be organising us getting through the checkpoint. When we had stopped she called out our names from our passports and advised us to get off the coach and go to one of the border checkpoint booths to have our passports checked and our fingerprints recorded. After that we handed our passports back in and got back on the bus.

Nearly at the border...

I had earmarked the second half of the trip to Ho Chi Minh city to watch a film on the netbook, and The Killing Fields had been heartily recommended by James, especially after our visit to Cambodia. I pulled out the netbook, plugged in my earphones and settled down for some movie action. And then we were told that we would all need to get off the coach and go through security checks, just like in Canada, Malaysia and Thailand. So I packed everything back up and followed everyone else off the coach. We queued up to go through passport control again and were called up when our passports had been checked again. The next stage was to put everything through the x-ray machine. As I was still feeling under the weather I didn’t bother to take everything out of my pockets and take my belt off, just put both bags on the conveyor belt and walked through the personal scanner. Nothing went off. But then again, nobody was really taking any interest in what I was doing anyway. Once outside I found the bus, got back on and got The Killing Fields on the go, once I was absolutely sure that there were no more stops.

On the buses

I didn’t get to finish the film as we arrived into Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) after an hour or so. We were dumped on the roadside near the bus station and left to fend for ourselves. I had a copy of the city map saved on my phone and the hotel was not far, so we lugged our bags the short distance to the Ha My 3 hotel near the market. It was nice enough, but I think that we have got a little bit snobbish since staying at the Baan Andaman and the Angkor Pearl. However, this room had no windows but had pretty much everything else we needed. And the location was bob-on too. It was nearing dinner time so we wandered out into the streets of Ho Chi Minh to see what kind of eateries we would be facing. It took a long time to find anywhere decent, and the price was right so we sat down and ordered. I was having a “dry” night as I still wasn’t back to normal and I shouldn’t have bothered – a can of Sprite was more expensive than a bottle of beer. What a world…

The Morning After The Night Before

A slight fuzzy feeling was occupying my head that morning, due to only grabbing a few hours sleep and the numerous Angkors the night before. But we had not planned in much for the day so we needn’t stress too much if we had a lazy day. Our next few steps of the trip were in the schedule already and we could just mop up a few last things in Phnom Penh.

After brekkie we grabbed some supplies from the local(ish) mini-mart and got scorched by the sun in only 30 minutes. It was another hot one out there. Once we had polished off the bowl noodle for lunch (again, I said we were taking it easy that day) we headed out to see the Royal Palace just round the corner. As we walked down the main road to get there it was still blocked off and a large crowd were still milling around and offering flowers to one of the buildings with the king’s portrait on show. We weren’t sure if we would be able to get in to the Royal Palace with recent events, but we found the entrance anyhow and queued up to get tickets. The guidebook had said it was about $2, which was fine, but we were quoted $6.25, and that was just for the Silver Pagoda as the Royal Palace was closed. That was too steep for us so we took a wander along the river. Soon enough we were gasping as the mid-afternoon sun had been unrelenting. We took the decision to get back inside and research Vietnam, for we would soon be crossing the border into country number 9 (for me, 10 for James since he took a small trip to Mexico back in the day). 

People in the street

We finally managed to make it into Karma for dinner, and as we were having a “dry” night it didn’t matter that Happy Hour had ended at 7:00pm. It was well worth the wait as my Khmer Amok was served beautifully in banana leaves with steamed rice. It was definitely one of the best meals in Cambodia, and dare I say it…Asia. It certainly beat the bowl noodles we had eaten for lunch. The rest of the evening was the usual for the night before leaving a country/hotel – packing up and prepping for the next days travel.

Nom nom nom

The Killing Fields

Just like the day before we would be witnessing some uncomfortable sights in the morning, for we were off to Choeung Ek just outside of Phnom Penh, the most well-known of all the killing fields in Cambodia. Before we got there though we needed to arrange our bus tickets to Vietnam, and we would be using the Mekong Express Limousine Bus again as they were pretty good the last time. It would take us directly into Ho Chi Minh city and would cost about $13. The guy on reception at the hotel tried to get us booked with Sapaco (a slightly worse company than Mekong Express) and charge us $15 each. Now I know that it’s only 2 dollars different and we wouldn’t quibble about it if we were in the USA, but we felt that we could do better. So we found a travel agents round the corner who sold us tickets on the Mekong Express for $13 including pick-up from the hotel. Boom! Gray Boys 1, Diamond Palace II reception 0.

We had heard the going rate to get to the killing fields was about $15, as it is located about 17km outside of the city. After haggling with a local tuk-tuk driver we got it down to $13 – again, not a massive discount you would think, but when the price of a beer is only 50 cents……! It was a helluva shaky ride to get there, down bumpy dirt roads and weaving between 4 x 4 Lexus cars and massive articulated lorries, and the motorbikes and scooters of course.

Cheesy in a tuk-tuk

We got there in about 30 minutes and were happy to be getting off the chaotic and dusty roads. We paid our entrance fee and got an audio tour into the bargain. We tooled up with the headphones and electronic player and found our way to Stop #1. Again, I don’t want to go into too much detail as it doesn’t make for happy reading, but it just brought home the terrible acts that went on there. It’s unbelievable to think that those kinds of atrocities were going on less than 40 years ago, and how the rest of the world didn’t know about it as it was all done as secretly as possible. Some of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge are still on trial, or being readied for trial (in Case 002) and I will be watching with interest as and when it begins.

The Stupa

As we neared the end of the tour we found ourselves buy the Stupa, the huge memorial to the dead that were found there after the Khmer Rouge fled. Inside lie the skulls of over 5,000 Cambodians that were executed by Pol Pots regime, and it is leaves you dumbstruck. As we were paying our respects we saw a familiar face taking a photo of the skulls. It was Duncan, the Scottish guy who we met at the train station going from Surat Thani to Bangkok. The guy who went to the toilet on the train in his bare feet. You remember. We exchanged pleasantries and as he was just starting and we were finishing we left it at that and carried on our way. The final part was the museum that housed artefacts and information from the camp, and again it really hammered home just how awful that part of the country’s history was.

Inside the Stupa

After we returned from the killing fields we had a relaxed afternoon – James went out wandering and I went back to sleep for an hour, watched some football and generally just lazed around til we went for dinner. I had ear-marked a place called Karma down by the river, but happy hour had finished by 7:00pm so we went next door to the sister restaurant, Anjali. It was the nicest meal we had had in Cambodia, and a little more expensive than the others, but it still only came to $5 for a large meal and a beer. We were going to be making a night of it too, so we moved on to the next place and grabbed a couple of 70 centers – it was gone 9:00pm and it looked like Happy Hour was ending all over the place.

Hmmmm, the chicken or the fish....?

After two beers at the restaurant on the corner (I forget its name) we wandered round the area trying to find a bar that didn’t look seedy. We had no joy. They all seemed to be catering for the type of guys we aint, so we had a decision to make. Head back to the hotel via an offy, or make our way down to the local collection of bars where we had our first “meal” that was a hefty walk away. We went with Option 2 and began the hike through the now-dark streets of Phnom Penh. It felt relatively safe, but we were always on our guard, just in case.

Back at the “bar collective” we selected the least seedy place going and ordered a jug for $2.50. These were the same jugs that were costing us $10 AUS dollars back in Oz, and we smiled in recollection. There seemed to be quite a few older Westerners lurking around the place, with a number of younger girls keeping them company. We weren’t  too sure of the etiquette or what the scene was but we supped on our Angkors and watched the world around us. We had a few people come up to us and chat whilst they topped up our beers, I think so that we would buy another jug from the bar, along with the occasional seller of flowers, etc. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a middle-aged woman sneak up behind James and begin massaging his shoulders. He seemed to be enjoying it, but that went right out of the window when he turned round and saw who it was. She didn’t say how much a massage would be but we both declined anyway and she went on her way. Later in the night she would give a proper massage to the guy sat across the bar from us (who we called Sick Boy, after the guy in Trainspotting) and he seemed to really enjoy it. And for only a dollar too.

"Sick Boy" getting his massage

After that we ended up chatting with one of the waitresses called Thavy for quite some time. She seemed lovely and wasn’t trying to sell us anything or make us drink our drinks quickly, and seemed genuinely interested in spending time with us. And who can blame her! Our conversation was cut short when it seemed like there was a scuffle brewing behind us. Two young women were squaring up to each other, and it felt like it could get nasty. One of the girls went to pick up the big glass ashtray (presumably to throw at, or defend herself against, the other girl) before it was hauled out of her hand by a security guard. The other girl, who was being restrained by some of her friends, had seen this and was thrashing about. She grabbed a glass from the bar and motioned to throw it right at the opposing girl, but thankfully someone grabbed her wrist and took the drink away. Eventually one of the girls was “removed” from the scene by some guy who picked her up and carried her out under one arm. It settled back down after that and we carried on with our Angkors.

We noticed that all the bars had a pool table each (they all opened out into a big warehouse kind of area) and that it seemed to be old Westerner versus young local girl on all of them. Again, we didn’t know what the deal was, but we enjoyed watching them as the girls seemed to be pretty good at it. Whether they were hustling or not I don’t know, but we never saw any money go on the table. We had also got chatting with another waitress, on her day off, called Bopar. She was the queen of the pool table and took on all challengers. Soon enough she was facing James, after he had dispatched of girl-in-black. It wasn’t long before James had been taken care of and he came back to the bar a little dejected. But he would have chance for revenge a little later on.

Me and Thavy plotting our victory

As I was talking with Thavy again she asked if I fancied a game of pool and I felt pretty sure I would be able to give a good account of myself, even after the numerous Angkors. When it was our turn to rack up the balls Bopar had other ideas. She grabbed James and advised us that we would be playing doubles. Fair enough, I reckoned that we could take them down a peg or two. It turns out we couldn’t. I’m not gonna blame the beers, or the wonky table, or anything like that, but on another day it would have been a win for Tim and Thavy. We had another game, but I was partnered with another girl whose name we did not catch, and we lost again. That Bopar was good!

Us with Thavy (she's the one in the middle)

After the pool we felt it was time to depart so we said our goodbye to Thavy and walked the deserted streets back to the hotel. As it was pushing 2:30am there was nobody about, and when we arrived at the hotel the shutters were down. Oh. But there was a guy sleeping in reception and he let us in no problem. It was a good job as I was just about to wonder where we would catch some sleep in the park opposite.

Dark Days

We had seen some fantastic things on our travels, and most of them would easily put a smile on your face. However, apart from the Angkor Wat temples there is another thing that Cambodia is famous for. In the 1970’s Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge party, set about killing his countries people to try and make a communist utopia. Almost 3 million people were killed, of a population of only 8 million, and we were to visit one of the most famous interrogation centres in the genocide. It is now a museum and has many visitors each day, and there would be two more from England on this particular day.

The outside of the Tuol Sleng museum

We arrived mid-morning and already the sun was blazing. When we got inside it was great just to get out of the heat, but then we realised why we were there, and it all became rather humbling. We walked around the 4 buildings where the accused were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge cadres, some with photos of the last victims to be found on the walls. There were lots of others milling around the place and we sometimes caught snippits of information from the tour guides who were leading them through the buildings. It’s too horrible to go into full details, but sufficed to say it was not a very happy place to be around.

Inside one of the interrogation rooms

Three of the other buildings had housed the other inmates in tiny cells, smaller than a single mattress, with an empty ammunition box to be used for waste. Some were made from bricks and others from wood, but they all looked incredibly small and added to the horror of the place. What made it even more thought-provoking and terrible was the fact that the facility used to be a school, with some of the rooms still with their blackboards up on the wall. There were hundreds and hundreds of photos, the majority being the victims who were catalogued intensely. As we left we were set upon by a number of tuk-tuk drivers all asking us if we were heading to the Killing Fields (where most of the victims would eventually end up for execution) just outside of the city, but we declined, as that was a job for the next day – to do both in one day would have just been unbearable.

The tiny cells

We walked the long way back to the hotel and grabbed some food. A lazy afternoon was in order so we booked a hotel for Ho Chi Minh and I looked at the pros and cons of Da Nang vs Hoi An. As we prepared to leave for dinner we noticed that there were hundreds of people in the streets outside our hotel. We knew that the day was the last official day of mourning for the king, so we were expecting something to be going on. We dressed in a white short, as a mark of respect, and before going for some food we joined in with everyone else in heading down towards one of the main temples. We only got halfway though, it was just too crowded with people, and thankfully there were a couple of ambulances on-hand just in case the whole thing got out of hand. We headed to the riverside again and selected our restaurant, based on the fact that there was a massive rumble of thunder from behind us so the nearest place would do just fine!

Spot the Englishmen...

As we sat down to peruse the menu we could still see the throng of people outside, heading down to the temple with flowers and incense sticks in their hands. And suddenly, without warning, people dropped to their knees and formed two rows facing each other. Everyone in the restaurant jumped to their feet and we wandered outside to see what all the fuss was about. I managed to crane my neck out over the crowd and there was a massive procession of monks walking down between the rows of people. We weren’t sure who the top brass were at the front of the procession, but it was a humbling sight, and we watched as hundreds of monks all walked down the line in their distinctive orange robes. Once they had all gone we returned to our table and ordered the food. It wasn’t great food by all accounts and we never go to the same place twice, and we will definitely not go there twice! But as we sat there we saw the first drops of rain. These continued until after about 2 minutes a swirling thunderstorm had hit, and unfortunately for everyone outside they got absolutely soaked. I can only hope that the monks had got to where they were going before the heavens had opened. SO we had to wait it out again, with another beer, until we saw the eye of the storm. The check was ordered and paid within seconds and we dashed back to the hotel just in time for the rain to start again. Somehow, “April showers” don’t seem all that bad now…

The monks, before the storm

Manic Monday

Breakfast was great; eggs, bacon, toast, tea, just great. Although I hadn’t slept well for the last couple of nights as I had been getting the “night terrors” waking up about 5 or 6 times in the night and not realising where I was. So I was a little tired as I supped at my cup of hot brown and ran through the plan of action with James. Finish breakfast, got through the checklist for the Chinese visa one more time and then jump in a tuk-tuk to get down to the embassy as soon as they opened, at 8:30am. The first stages went well, and then a slight mis-communication with the lady behind reception led to a conversation with the tuk-tuk grand master, rather than just getting an idea of how much it would be. A bit of haggling later and we got him down to 10,000 Riel ($2.50, and I got to use my 10,000 Riel note that I didn’t really fancy keeping hold of for all that long) for the trip to the Chinese embassy. He ushered us into the tuk-tuk belonging to one of his minions and we were off.

The streets of Phnom Penh

It was nicely refreshing, a morning tuk-tuk ride in the cool morning air. About 15 minutes later we arrived at the embassy and paid the man his cash. As we asked to come inside the embassy to get a visa we were asked to hand in our cameras. No problem, we wouldn’t be needing them. We braced ourselves for the madness – in Bangkok, the Chinese embassy was a maelstrom with people fighting to get inside. When we emerged from the revolving door we saw just the one person waiting in line. Brilliant! This wouldn’t take long at all…

I handed my application form, photo and passport to the man behind the glass. He flicked through it and everything seemed fine. And then he asked me for my bank statements. My what? We had not been told about this! We would need bank statements to show that we would have $100 for every day that we wanted to stay in China, so 15 days would mean $1,500 dollars. And then he dropped the bombshell that we would also need printouts for our hotel bookings and a full itinerary of where and when we would be in the country, including train and flight details. Well this really put a dampener on proceedings and we turned to each other knowing full well that we didn’t have these on hand and would have to get back to the hotel to print them out, if they would let us. So we jumped in another tuk-tuk and sped back.

It took over half an hour to sort everything out, and we had agreed with the driver to wait for us and we would get the return journey with him back to the embassy. Obviously we didn’t want to take too long and were frantically gathering info and managed to get the hotel to print out a load of pages……for a small fee, of course. And then we were off down the road to find the tuk-tuk driver who had been charged with waiting for us whilst we sorted everything out. He was getting a good deal out of it and I don’t think that they work a huge amount of the day anyway, from what I have seen. We sped back to the embassy clutching our papers, hoping that there wouldn’t be a huge queue of people in front of us as they closed at 11:00am and didn’t reopen until the afternoon. This may cause a delay in our visa application and that just wouldn’t do. As we re-entered the waiting room we saw a line waiting to be seen, but only made up of about 5 or 6 people, so we were hopeful that we would get it in with time to spare.

James went first, and we waited while the chap behind the glass skimmed through the papers. There was a bunch for him to examine this time as they had asked for pretty much everything under the sun, and he fired a few questions back at James. These were relating to dates and travel plans, but he batted them back with no problem. Eventually he seemed to accept the documents and wrote out a receipt and said to come back on Thursday. I stepped up and claimed that my plans were the same as James’s and he didn’t even flick through them, just wrote out a receipt and sent me on my way. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief and set off from the embassy in search of a Canadia Bank ATM, the ones that charge the lowest withdrawal fees.

That's NOT an ATM....

It was a hot and long walk before we finally found the ATM, inside a nice air-conditioned shopping mall. We had taken a detour through the busy indoor market and would no doubt head back there again to see what bargains we could snap up. After lunch we grabbed some dollars from the cash machine, and as we wanted to get a few more than we would really need, for emergencies, we both typed in $180. James had gone for $100 in Siem Reap and been given a $100 bill, and it was great to see and hold one, but it was not good news in terms of practicality. That is why we went for $180 and not $200. The machine churned out a number of notes and it was only later that I realised that I had been slipped a $100 in with the rest of my 10’s and 20’s. Damn. But it felt good to hold that bill.

We made our way back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, making a few plans for future hotels/countries along the way. When it came time to venture out and get some nosh we hit the riverside, as this is where the touristy place was. We found a nice place and had some good food, cheap beers and glum service (from the manager/owner, but we never questioned why she seemed so upset). Later in the evening we were attacked by all manner of hawkers, mainly under 14 years old, and James entered into an all-too-long conversation with one of them that I thought, although she seemed rather sweet and friendly, would only lead to trouble later on. A late night downpour meant we had to stay in the restaurant and order a couple more 50 cent beers (shame) until the rain let up and then we dashed back to the hotel in the eye of the storm. We had had a relaxed day, got our visa in  and avoided buying anything form the hawkers. Job done. 

Phnom Penh

No, my spell-check isn’t on the blink, it is the capital city of Cambodia. It isn’t all that far from Siem Reap and we had arranged a bus ride there, mainly because there is no rail system to speak of in Cambodia. It was only $12 to get there but we could have got it even cheaper, but having read some reviews on the coach companies it seemed that the Mekong Express Limousine Bus was the way to go as they ran a pretty tight ship. We were getting picked up at the hotel at 8:45am so we had enough time to grab a proper breakfast before leaving. As we waited we remarked that the Angkor Pearl could not be faulted, apart from the fact the place didn’t have a balcony, but that was nit-picking.

A ram-shackled little coach arrived to pick us up and drop us at the bus depot to change vehicles. The larger Mekong Express bus was waiting and we had seats booked, which made it already a better system than the US Greyhound! It was a half-decent coach, and we were looking at a journey of around 6 hours, which by our standards is small potatoes. There was only about 5 Westerners on the bus, including us, and we had been expecting many more as it seemed like the only way to get through Cambodia and into Vietnam. But then again, I don’t think that Phnom Penh is on many peoples Bucket List of places to go. And we certainly didn’t plan on spending 5 nights there when we began planning our trip, but as we would need to sort out the Chinese visa there we would need longer than we anticipated.

A happy James in the bus station

The journey was pretty uneventful, apart from a very long, slow and bumpy road when we got stuck behind a dump truck. We stopped for lunch at noon and carried on until we hit the capital city……not that you would realise it from the surroundings.

Add your own caption...

Our bus station was “somewhere” outside the city centre, so we had to tuk-tuk it there before we could grab a shower and some food. Fortunately, the driver was really slow, had a death-wish at crossings and couldn’t find the hotel. Eventually he asked another driver and as we headed along the street it turned out that our road was closed off, for reasons unknown. So we had to lug our gear the last few metres before we finally made it to the hotel. It seemed good enough for under a tenner a night, but we were instantly longing for the comforts and friendly staff of the Angkor Pearl. Once we had unpacked our things and showered we noticed a long line of ants along the main wall. Not a good start. This would never have happened at the Angkor Pearl. They were heading into the bin, which had only contained a used wet-wipe and an empty bag of cashew nuts for a few minutes. But they had found it and had told their mates. The staff had no ant powder and no free rooms to move us to, so we emptied the bin and used our insect repellent to stem the flow.

There was no tourist area/Pub Street for us to visit, unlike in Siem Reap, but it was only our first night and we needed to get back and complete the Chinese visa for the next day. We grabbed some food at a small bar (we nearly went for the traditional Cambodian fired rice with red ants, but skipped it, this time) gulped down a 75 cent (ouch!) beer and headed for home.

Nom nom nom

Once back we got the Chinese visa documents out and spent a good hour or so going through everything with a fine toothed comb. We had the docs completed, our route planned, our passport photo and the fee in US dollars all ready for the embassy. We could now relax and “take the edge off” with a large Cambodia beer and watch the highlights of the Premier League games. Hopefully there would be no ant attacks in the night and we would wake up refreshed and ready to hit the embassy early in the morning.

Admin

We had enjoyed a fantastic day at Angkor Wat, but we knew that the fun could not last. With our last full day in Siem Reap we would need to arrange a few details for steps in our trip later down the line. Due to China wanting an exact itinerary of where and when we would be in the country we needed to book hotels and trains in order to apply for the visa when we got to Phnom Penh. But we also needed to work out the entire rest of our route so that we knew where we could get to with our remaining time – could we or couldn’t we make it to Japan, South Korea or Tibet? It turns out that no, we can’t. Well, we could but it would be a big stretch.

So with our schedule calculated and hotels booked for China (we hadn’t even done Vietnam yet!) there wasn’t much left of the day. We had managed to sneak out for lunch at a nearby eatery, which was where we finalised our details after we had absorbed the proposed route. It felt good to have it all booked and knowing where we were going and when, so maybe China have got it right? Or maybe not. We still needed to fill in the Chinese visa form, and that looked like it would take a while.

After dinner we headed back into the Night Market for one more night of bartering and shopping, and my new technique of putting a small amount of bills in my wallet and claiming that’s all I had as we were leaving the country the next day seemed to work a treat. We managed to make it back in time to watch most of the Liverpool game on the telly too, which was a nice little bonus for the day. After that we packed up and got ready for leaving for the capital city in the morning.

Angkor Wat

After the lazy day we had had after arriving in the country we decided that we needed to get out there and “do” Siem Reap. This would be easily achieved by hiring a tuk-tuk driver for the day and ordering him to take us round the temple complex at Angkor Wat, some 6km north of the town. We had been offered a decent price by the hotel so we accepted and met him outside at 10:00am.

We were greeted by a silver-toothed, friendly-faced tuk-tuk driver, who introduced himself as Mr T. I jest not. We climbed into his tuk-tuk (although it wasn’t really a tuk-tuk, it was a motorbike towing a little carriage) and discussed our route through Angkor Wat. It is spread out over 400 square kilometres and there is no way you can just wander round the place and investigate at your own pace. That is why they offer 1 day, 3 day and 7 day passes, as it is a lot to see in one day and some people (with more time and money than us!) may choose to do it over a number of days so that they don’t get “templed out” as it were. So we purchased our ticket as we entered the park, and Mr T drove us down to the start point.

Mr T and our ride

As we drove along the moat/river we neared the main site, and suddenly, there was the entrance across the river. It was a majestic sight, apart from the obvious fact that there were hundreds of tourists milling around the place. Mr T parked up and ordered us to go and enjoy the site and to meet him back there in the car park in 2 hours. That seemed like a long time, but there was supposedly quite a lot to see, so we jumped out and headed for the entrance.

Approaching the entrance 

It was hot. And I mean HOT. No breeze whatsoever and a blazing sun overhead, even though we had been told there would be some cloud that day, there was none to speak of. As we approached the main site we crossed the river and were blown away even just by the entrance. It was such a distinctive design and architecture, and was very well preserved, with the odd bit of restoration work here and there. As Mr T had implied, there was a lot to see, so we wandered round the outskirts of the main site and saved the central/main bit for last. And it was worth waiting for.

Pretty good, eh?

We climbed up the steep steps to get to the top of the complex and looked out all around us. Amazing. You could see everything and it looked fantastic surrounded by the forest all around. As time was running out we needed to get a move on and headed to a smaller area out the back that the other tourists seemed to not be interested in. We found a small building and a lake, and there was probably a lot more around to see, but we needed to get back to Mr T and his tuk-tuk. The best thing was seeing a huge spider that James very nearly trod on. See below…

This is a life-size picture

We found Mr T no problem and he took us to a place to eat (which I am sure slipped him a few Riel to get us ther) which was pretty over-priced, but only what we expected from being in the biggest tourist trap of the country. We enjoyed the food and left, with our silver-toothed guide taking us to the next set of temples. When we arrived we wandered round at our leisure and agreed to meet up with him after an hour or so. This set of temples had hundreds of faces carved into the huge stone blocks and gave the place an eerie feel all round. There were the usual hawkers all trying to sell you something, and even some small kids trying to get a buck or two from you claiming to be an orphan. Whether they were or not I do not know, but if you give one of them anything a hundred others will come running from out of nowhere.

He got a biiiiiig face!

After the “temple of faces” we saw a few more smaller temples, each one amazing in its own right. There seemed to be a distinct lack of Health & Safety, but it came across as a breath of fresh air compared to what we are used to back home. Soon enough we were with Mr T again and we continued our little journey through the temples and ruins. As part of the deal we were treated to the occasional chilled bottle of water and a lemon wet-wipe, which were very refreshing! We were glad of them as our clothes were becoming increasingly moist out in the blazing sun, especially as we were wearing trousers to show a little bit of respect.

Another cool temple

At one of the temples a little further down the line we came across some indigenous wildlife that I just had to get some pictures of. In Thailand we had come across a decent sized centipede, but here in Cambodia I spotted a massive millipede, like something out of the movies. I got some snaps and then gave it a gentle poke to see if it was still alive. Some local guy came up to us and said to be careful as they bite and are poisonous like a snake. I left it alone after that. I also came across another large spider, which I could not identify, but didn’t fancy getting too close due to the red and black colours on its body. Whilst trying to get a photo of a lake I felt something crawling on my leg. I looked down to see a huge red ant on my calf and managed to flick it off after about 6 flicks (it was a stubborn little blighter). Much to my dismay I realised I was standing in the ants nest and there were more of them charging up my legs. Luckily I didn’t get bitten, but the one I “accidentally” flicked onto James did sink his teeth into him. Apparently insects just love the taste of him.

Don't touch! Poisonous! Too late...

We hit a final temple, which was to be the end of our little journey, and as we walked round and made sure that there were no more red ants around us, we noticed that the skies were darkening. It had been threatening to rain for a couple of hours, and we were half egging it on so that we could cool down. When it did start, it really started. But thankfully we had the temple to shelter in. After 10 minutes we made a dash for it as Mr T would be waiting. Once inside his tuk-tuk he closed the plastic sheeting around us and we felt like royalty.

High Five!

As usual the rain stopped soon afterwards and we parked up to put the sides up and dry off. It was just as the sun was setting and it was a lovely end to the day. When we got back to the hotel we were pretty wiped so we did the usual – shower, food, 50 cent draft beers, and a large Angkor to drink back at the hotel. Lovely stuff.