Cambodia, Part II

January 22-29

dara / The travel in Cambodia has been fabulous! We have taken the bus a couple of times to Sihanoukville and Siem Reap. But overall, it has only cost a couple more dollars for the luxury of a private car. The three of us (our Danish friend Claus, Jim & I) have enjoyed nice rides with lots of leg room, and it takes less time to get there. My favorite transportation though is the fast boats up to Northeastern Cambodia on the Mekong River. We would sit on top of the boat and watch all the riverfront villages as we cruised on by .... I enjoyed watching the water buffalo relaxing with their heads peaking out over the water. Definitely one of my favorite animals along the ride! However, I did enjoy the fresh water dolphins in the Mekong too!

Claus, Jim and I all did a three day trek through the mountains in Eastern Cambodia. We spent two days traveling by elephant and one day hiking back. The ride on the elephant was fabulous! It was so much fun to watch the elephant push his way through the jungle, walk down into rivers, climb up steep hills, wash himself in the river, etc. I probably could have done without his spraying himself off (water, snot or whatever flying out of his trunk). That was gross! But overall, it was worth it.

We slept in a minority village on the first night. It was obvious not a minority village that has seen many Westerners. The children would watch us and see what we were up too. Jim would show him the wonders of his video camera and how they could film each other.

The next day, we wandered through the mountains again. It was so much fun to be on top of an elephant checking out the mountain scenery and feeling alone in the middle of the jungle without anyone else around ....

When we arrived at our campsite for the second night, we went for a swim in the waterfall. We also went climbing on this bamboo bridge over the river. That was a little more scary. It was not exactly strong by any stretch of the imagination. One piece of bamboo flew off as Jim was climbing down from the bridge. Our guide had to repair it for Claus and me to cross the bridge. Thankfully, we all made it across the bridge in one piece, and Jim has some great pictures and video of our crossing the river.

More importantly though, it was Claus's Birthday. We put some candles in a granola bar and sang "Happy Birthday" around the campfire. We then slept in hammocks covered by mosquito nets under the stars, next to the river and down from the waterfall on the second night. That was great fun!

Cambodia, Part I

January 6-22

dara /As soon as I crossed the border, I fell in love with Cambodia. The countryside is peaceful with wood constructed homes, mostly on stilts with grass-thatched roofs. There are crops for miles, and life is simplier and slower.

We started our tour of Cambodia with the roughest part, the tours of the Killing Fields and S-21 Museum (an old school where hundreds of Cambodians were beaten and tortured during the Khmer Rouge reign from 1975-1979) in Phnom Penh. It is horrible, and all the deaths are well-documented (similar to the Nazis). There are pictures of all the prisoners, and some of the torturing too. There are still blood stains throughout the prison. It is all pretty raw.

Then, we spent some time resting and relaxing on the southern beaches in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. It is quite peaceful. It is a more secluded beach with only a couple of grasshut restaurants along the beach. We found this great ice cream shop with homemade ice cream and hersey chocolate sauce. We never missed a sunset or a night sitting under the stars and listening to the waves crash on the shore.

We rented motos to see the coastline. As we would ride down the dirt roads on a moto, the children would run out, wave madly and yell "hello." The kids were so friendly. We spent hours on a moto wandering through the countryside and yelling back "hello." It would bring such a smile to our faces.

After traveling the Cambodian southern coast, we returned to Phnom Penh for a few more of life's simple comforts. We purchased yogurt & granola cereal for breakfast at the nearby Lucky Market (a real supermarket!). We even spent some time at the shooting range. Although I have never been a big fan of guns, I did shoot an AK-47 at a target about 10 meters away. That was rather wild! There was alot of pressure bouncing back from the shots and gun off my shoulder. We then ended the day with a race around the track in go-carts. I have not been in go-carts in quite awhile, but these little cars flew. It was quite fun overall.

The best part was the temples of Angkor. They are pretty amazing too! The temples date back from the 9th to 12th centuries. The sandstone detail is still well preserved, and my favorites temples include Bayon (all the different faces on each side, north, east, south and west, of the temples), Preah Kahn (an Indiana Jones type temple with tons of passageways to explore and climb) and Angkor Wat (the steep steps leading to the top of the temple is pretty cool, along with the views). We woke up early, and watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat and reflect on the pond as it rose over the temple. That was fabulous!

Vietnam, Part II (photos)

December 18 - January 6

Ok, so I finished the last one with lunch near the tunnels in the dmz.
From there, we went down to Hue, which has a temple that we didn't see and some other stuff that we didn't see and I can't remember what we did there. I do remember a grand night out at the DMZ bar, which ended with Lisa riding off on a rickshaw. It was a pretty non-descript town though, but it broke up the bus rides, which, I think Dara mentioned, or I mentioned were painfully long. On one ride, my foot swelled up like an eggplant and I was convinced I had deep vein thrombosis, but anyway...
After Hue we went down to Hoi An, which is known for its tailor shops. It seemed the entire town was dedicated to selling tailor made clothing to foreigners. I had a tough time getting in to it, but eventually did. Despite being the kind of person whoe wears shorts and T-shirts to work, I bought a dark grey three-piece suit of Italian cashmere and a more modest brown suit, seven shirts and some pants. Dara got a pant suit and some blouses. We wanted to have a formal party with some of our friends (surprisingly, a number of previous acquaintances converged on Hoi An at the same time) but we shipped straight from Hoi An to the states, thereby getting rid of a lot of stuff we had been carrying.
So, after a grueling day of shopping, Paul (remember him?) and I sat at a bar and drank beers while Dara and Lisa (remember her?) went off shopping for tailor made shoes. While we were sitting there, a Chinese guy came up and asked if he could take a picture of me with his friend. This is the second time this happened. I agreed, only if I could get a picture of myself with his Chinese friend. Not much else happened there except that I bought the final elements of my coffe making kit, which I don't have a picture of but have to demonstrate at some time, since it is the only "cooking" that we are able to do. Oh yea, the guesthouse had a pool, which was nice. I think the rooms were expensive, maybe even over five dollars a night.

From there, with Christmas rapidly approaching, we stopped next at Nha Trang, which was our first beach town. It was nice enough and we had some fantastic seafood dinners, with Lisa and Paul and Christmas music playing everywhere. "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away" That one got pretty annoying. So, we used an internet place across from our guesthouse run by a guy named, or rather, a guy who called himself, Phil. On Christmas Eve, he had free drinks and wrapped presents (I got a roll of Mentos) and there was an English (Manchester) guy there dressed as Santa. I think he stayed up all night because we saw him staggering down the street Christmas morning. We hung out there for a while, where this photo was taken (a photo of a photo sitting on a keyboard), and then we had slightly below average Christmas dinner at an English run cafe and then went to "The Sailing Club" for a night out. So that was our Christmas... pretty weird.

From Nha Trang, we headed down to Mui Ne, another beach town. The first night we stayed in a standard bungalow, but then Dara and I used a "Honeymoon Wildcard" and upgraded to a resort with a pool (since there wasn't much to do other than sit around). The beach was interesting, and as Dara noted, there were fishing villages interspersed between fancy resorts. Here is a boat and here are some cows walking along the beach. Here is Dara trying to decide if she should walk towards them. It was their aloof attitude that was frightening. Mui Ne is the place where we discovered the glory of the motoscooter. We rented one for a day and enjoyed the freedom so much that we rented it each day from then until we left. We rode up the the edge of town, which afforded this view of the boats in the harbour. The half-spheres in the foreground are also fishing boats. We also took a ride out to see the dunes that were nearby. Here is the two of us at the dunes. Some kids were there that rented sheets of plastic for sledding on the dunes. We didn't rent them, but we hung out with them for a bit. They were fascinated with my chest and belly hair. I have video of that... it's pretty funny.
We were in Mui Ne also for New Year's Eve. We had a good time on the porch in front of our room with our neighbors who were from Sydney and with Lisa and Paul. Eventually, our neighbors went to bed, Lisa fell asleep on the tiles and Dara went to the room. Paul and I decided to stay up for New Year's in London, which was 6am our time. We made it, and at sunrise, we went down to the beach where a group of people were pulling in a huge fishing net from the shore. There were two ropes coming in to shore from either end of the net with two lines of people, about 20 meteres apart, pulling in the ropes. Paul and I both helped, and since I didn't have one of the straps you used to lash around the rope, I was put in back, anchorman, with the rope wrapped around my waist. At first I pulled hard, but that annoyed the others, and I soon realized that you had to be slow, strong and consistent. The sun had risen a bit when the net came in and they all crouched around it to see what they got. There wasn't much. One large squid, a bunch of small fish and a handful of shrimp. They seemed pleased and I felt that it was an awful lot of work for so little payoff. A lady handed me a shrimp and I didn't know what she wanted me to do with it. At first I thought she wanted me to eat it or maybe just look at it, and then she made a throwing motion toward the sea and I realized she wanted me to throw it into the ocean, which I did. I was feeling pretty welcomed. Then, one of the older men was motioning to Paul, saying something that sounded like "twinkie". Neither Paul or I knew what he was talking about and then he wrote "20" in the sand. He wanted us to give him 20,000 dong. It ruined the mood for us so we left. I hate to say it, but that was what Vietnam was like. We were nothing but money to a lot of people. The experience was worth 20,000 dong (15,000 is a dollar), but we were helping, it was ten or twenty minutes of fairly hard work. I went to the room and went to bed, not making it for New Years on the East Coast. (by the way, I didn't have my camera for this)

Not sure what it was, probably too many nights of holiday cheer, but I got pretty sick after Mui Ne. We went next to Dalat, where I stayed close to the bathroom. I read "The Tunnels of Cu Chi" which was a non-fiction acount of the role of the tunnel system in the Vietnam war and then read "The Killing Fields" about the Khmer Rouge's revolution in Cambodia. Dara did some sightseeing. She went on a moto tour and saw the crazy house and got some good views of the valley. It sounded pretty fun.
Next stop was Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC, or Saigon. We spent a number of nights there and enjoyed it. Dara already mentioned Thong, the precocious Rock-Paper-Scissors player. We also ran into our Sydney friends from New Years and met up for dinner. Here we are with Lisa, Paul, Connel and Karen on our last night in Vietnam.

Vietnam, Part II

December 29 - January 6

dara/Mui Ne was a beautiful beach in Southern Vietnam. Jim & I decided to upgrade to a nicer room for New Years. We found this wonderful resort with a swimming pool on the beach. We enjoyed the days resting and relaxing in the sun. The breeze was perfect off the water, and we could hear the waves hit the shore.

This resort town is unique in the fact that the fishing villages are found on prime real-estate. There are little fishing villages between the guesthouses, bungalows and resorts. You can spend the day watching the locals launch the smaller coconut-shaped boats, pull in their fishing nets with the recent catch, and cook dinner in a campfire.

We decided to rent a motorbike to see and enjoy the coastline. We took our new favorite form of transportation to the sites near Mui Ne. The drive was pretty spectacular! We passed the red dunes, and along the road were palm trees, coconut trees and cactus. As we got further away from the coastline, there was this beautiful blue lake resting at the bottom of the white sand dunes. Turns out, there are several lakes throughout the white dunes.

From there, Jim & I headed to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It is a fun place, and we stayed in the backpacker neighborhood. Lots of restaurants, bars and late nights.

We met this smart little kid selling cigarettes on the street. He would sell them for the average price (85 cents), or you could play him in rock, scissors and paper. If he wins, you pay one dollar. If you win, he sells them for 70 cents. He was a genius at the game, and he would come over and hang out with us every now and then.

We also went to the War Rememberance Museum (formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes). It was pretty rough. Lots of documentation on the effects of Agent Orange, Napalm, etc. Lots of birth deformities and skin disease. Lots of additional pictures on the destruction.

Overall, Vietnam was not quite what we expected. The people were not as friendly as in Thailand, and it seems everyone (English, Irish, Danish, etc.) that we met felt the same way. We did enjoy seeing the country though.