Log 32: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi via LOOONNNG bus ride…

Having put the wrong time frame on our Vietnam visa back in November, we had to get an extension on arrival in order to stay in the country for more than 3 days. After arranging that with our guesthouse/travel agency, even with an express service we had to stay in HCMC for 5 nights. Not ideal as we were really pushed for time in Vietnam, and the big city wasn’t that appealing to us country bumpkins for 4 whole days. No other way around it we just settled in and relaxed more than anything. We went on a walking tour of the city and our first stop was the War Remnants museum, a very well done but obviously quite one sided account of the horrors done to the Vietnamese during the war.  War is war, and it is never easy on the civilians in the war-zone but reading the accounts of the people and seeing the photo evidence was hard to take.  There was also quite a big exhibit on the chemical warfare used and the heartbreaking effects of Agent Orange, and Agent Purple that not only damaged people directly exposed but it damaged their DNA so thousands of children were born still born, deformed, handicapped, mentally handicapped, etc.   They did make the point that the Vietnamese were not the only people exposed, many American soldiers were directly exposed and suffered illness along with having children with the same handicaps as the Vietnamese.

Agent Orange, or dioxin, was used as a chemical defoliant to destroy the jungle with the idea that it would flush out the VC as well as make the tunnels the VC used more visible to bomb squads and foot soldiers. Millions of gallons of these types of chemicals were sprayed over the countryside and even now the environmental effects of destroying that much forest, as well as the run-off of the chemicals into rivers and water-ways are still being seen. There are still hot-spots in areas of Vietnam where dioxin is still found in the soil and water and people are still showing effects of exposure and babies are still being born dead or with handicaps and deformities from their parents exposure. It is a heartbreaking image and after leaving the museum, you can see the direct effects on the streets as people you once just saw as beggers or special, now became victims of chemical warfare.

Our last day in HCMC, I went on a ½ day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. These were tunnels built by the Vietnamese people decades before the war, but were used during the ‘American resistance’ for guerilla warfare.  The tunnels were already there when the war started, and the Vietnamese people are quick to tell you how the American’s put the main military base right on top of one of the most extensive parts of the 3 level tunnel system when they arrived.  Even with the tunnels being widened, to get western bodies through them for a tourist attraction, they were still extremely cramped and I was crouching down and scooting along the 100m length tunnel.  We were shown how they made fake termite mounds that were hidden air vents for the tunnels, as well as the different boobie traps that were used to maim and kill soldiers. In between the tunnels we were taken to a shooting range where we could be bullets in packs of ten to shoot AK-47’s, and throw grenades and set off land mines… somehow it just didn’t seem appropriate.  I wasn’t hungry and hunting an animal that I planned to eat, or putting something ill or maimed out of its misery, so I saw no point in shooting a gun and thought it a little sad that others thought it was entertaining. 

On our way home we were re-routed to a warehouse of souvenir crap supposedly made by ‘victims of the American resistance’.  There were many of them walking around and diligently beating away on something resembling an unfinished craft, but the items were EXTREMELY over priced and everything there could be found in every other souvenir shop around the city.  But being the bleeding heart that I am and the fresh dose of guilt from the tunnels tour, I managed to buy some chop sticks for 4 times the price they were in town.  My naïve mind wants to think that the ‘extra’ I paid goes back to help the real victims of the war but the real world fact is that it was likely a huge scam. DOH! 

After being reacquainted with our passports with our new visa extension, we hopped on an 8 hour bus to Nah Trang beach, which we stayed at for nearly an hour before getting on our first sleeper bus of the trip for another 10 hours.  We quickly found some dinner and some cocktails at a bar to fill our stomachs and attempt to knock ourselves out for the journey but we were put in the very back and top of the sleeper bus… behind the rear axle… we BOUNCED for 10 hours but some sleeping was done. Matt’s seat had a pro a can. His seat terminated at the aisle so he had plenty of leg room, but everytime the driver hit the brakes, which was nearly every 30sec it pushed him towards the end of the seat and the aisle 3 feet below. He quickly decided to buckle in to keep from sliding into the aisle completely. 

Finally arriving in Hoi An we bypassed the moto drivers, and taxis surrounding us with hotel offers and ‘cheap rooms’, and headed towards the rivers edge to search out our own accommodation that didn’t pay someone to stalk westerners at the bus stops. I crashed for a few hours then we walked around town seeing the historical sights and trying not to be talked into having anything sewn or tailor made for us.  Difficult with every other shop selling clothes and hand-made shoes. Hoi An was spared somehow during the decades of war and had minimal damage so most of the old buildings and homes are intact, creating a very old, and quaint feel to the town. There aren’t the boring, box shaped, socialist buildings seem around most of Vietnam, but a combination of Chinese, Japanese, French and traditional Vietnamese architecture throughout. It was also extremely liberating to be OUT of a big city. You could casually stroll the local markets, still full of taunts and souvenirs but plenty of produce, meat, and every day items like fans, motorbike parts and tires, and a plethora of homemade medical masks. These are EVERYWHERE in Asia and I think they are worn more from misinformation of how disease is spread than actual protection of the wearer from disease and smog.  They only protect healthy people if the DISEASED person is wearing one and sneeze. It’s a sneeze guard, not a disease guard. 

At night the city was dressed up in glowing lanterns and lit animal sculptures on the water and after a supper of tradition Pho Bo ( a beef soup with noodles) and some Whites Roses (seasoned shrimp puree in rice paper, YUM!) we strolled along the streets and across the bridge just enjoying the scenery. For awhile we watched what looked like musical Bingo, where numbers were picked by a man and woman leader and they would sick a few lines taunting each other back and forth then end in a drama outcry of the winning number spot.  The audience members with the called number on their paddle were rewarded with a flag.  We didn’t watch enough to see what happened when someone won but it quite popular with the locals and tourists alike.

The next morning, staying with the pattern in every other country, I signed up for a cooking class to learn the Vietnamese style. We took a tour of the local market where they pointed out local fruits, produce and meats as well as coffees, spices, and cooking items specifically used in Vietnam. Then we loaded onto a boat to go down the river to the restaurant.  We were shown around the herb garden, and then settled into our course with a very enthusiastic and funny chef, that knew lots of English slang and knew how to put it into joke format.  It was entertaining to say the least. My favorite dish was an eggplant stew with onions and tomatoes that was to DIE for. I was excited to finally learn what to do with an eggplant, an underused vegetable in my kitchen. 

I met up with Matt and we walked to the bus to get to Hue, our next city, and 3^rd of the 5 ‘H’ cities we were visiting in Vietnam. We walked to the King’s old palace, now mostly ruins since the way but restoration efforts are in full swing.  We also rented bikes and biked 4km to a famous Vietnamese pagoda, and then onwards to the kings tombs. Before we found the tombs though, our Indiana Jones ‘map with no names’ took us through some locals veggie garden and the local cemetery where people kept pointing and saying HELLOOO, road!  A nice food stall lady gave us ‘free parking’ at her shop so we could go see the tombs, with maybe a promise of buying a cold drink when we got back. The king and queens tombs were quite elaborate and we found out that the king that had them built put so much money and labor into building his royal refuge that a coup rose against him which he quelled with secret assassinations. It’s good to be the king.

We indeed go back and get a cold drink where our lady was patiently waiting for us, and another tour guide that came by for a rest and his lunch had us deep in conversation about his family, that he studied as a monk for 12 years, and many of the basic concepts of Buddhism. It was quite a relaxing and educational cold drink.

Back in the city, we packed our bags again and boarded the next sleeper bus that night to Hanoi, that lasted 15 hours.  The sleeper buses are perfect for people 5’2’’ and shorter, for Matt being 6’2’’, it was a slight nightmare. He also chose the shortest seat on the entire bus. When we did our first, and only stop for the night, I couldn’t stand watching him in pain any longer so I swapped seats to give him an extra 6in of space. I was a bit more cramped but still manageable.  

Pictures will come later (I'm posting from China after the computer was stolen...)
 

Log 31: Trip across the border to Vietnam via bus, boat and Chau Doc

There were many options for buses to across the border into Vietnam, the regular bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or tours galore. Having had quite a few typical drive through the countryside local buses, we thought we’d shake things up and go by mini-tour that took us to the border, on a boat down the Mekong river, a night in Chau Doc, then a bus ride to HCMC the next day, all for $30USD. This was actually quite a deal, as we would have paid this just in bus fairs and day trips to see the Mekong, and as it turned out we got more out of our tour than we should have.

We took a van from Phnom Penh to the border with a lovely older German couple that we chatted to the whole way. Upon arriving at the border crossing our strange trip went into full swing.  We turned off onto a very narrow bumpy dirt road only to find an official passport stamping station, after our stamping and official ‘leaving of Cambodia’ we were shuttled back into the van where we came to the border patrolman. He was fast asleep in his hammock  next to the red-stripped lift gate that looked into Vietnam. Our van driver, sighed, got out of the van and lifted the gate, we drove through, then he dropped it again, all without the ‘guard’ so much as stirring.  We were taken to the official line, where we had to walk across with our packs, and onto a floating dock where we would take the boat from. We were escorted into a restaurant and told to wait while our passports were stamped and our boat.

After saving our German friend, Sabine, from a dodgy picture card that wouldn’t work in her camera, we loaded onto our Mekong river boat that took us up the scenic river past villages built on stilts for the rainy season, when the river floods meters above where it sits in the dry season. The people seemed poor, but simple and happy in their ways with much of their income and food from the river itself, along with rice farming vegetables beyond the houses.  The Mekong is used for just everything too, fishing, washing people clothes and dishes, toilets, watering and bathing water buffalo, etc.  With overpopulation along the river, over fishing, and all the excess nutrients going into it, it is not hard to see why there is concern over this river’s sustainability. There is a real worry that the river will be killed and millions of people’s source of food and income will be at stake. 

Our boat dropped us at the harbor of Chau Doc, and we were immediately offered rides to our hotel from no less than 3 different cart drivers.  This was all included in our ticket, but of course our drivers wanted a large tip for taking us the 1km that we insisted we could walk which made our ‘tip’ price go down by half.  So Sabine, George, Matt, and I all packed our butts and bags onto two very small cycle carts that were not built for 2 people, let along 2 western sized butts. But we made it there with only a few new bruises from sitting on the edges.

As it turned out, our friends Mike and Maya, that we met in Indonesia had e-mailed a few days earlier and were going to be in Chau Doc for a days on their way to Cambodia.  Thrilled to meet up again with people we knew already, we found their hotel and we all headed out into the city of Chau Doc to find a few beers and some dinner. We exchanged stories and tips of sites to see in Vietnam and Cambodia over a warm beer in a street market, while mixing in stories of the scams and ways to avoid them.  Speaking of scams,  even with bartering our beer was still more expensive than most of the locals would have paid for a meal, but was still just over $1USD for us so hard to argue with. We went to the one restaurant in town that wasn’t a street stall, and indulged on some fish hotpots, spring rolls, and noodles.  Feeling crazy, Mike, Matt and I shared a bottle of banana wine that would be more properly described as a banana liqueur. For a few days we swore we were still burping the taste of the banana wine as well as the fish sauce but one MUST give these things a try.  The Vietnamese fish sauce wasn’t subtle and tasty like the Thai fish sauce, the fish are fermented in a goo for 3 years and it takes on a very unique smell of rotting Mekong river.  Its then used in many of the traditional dishes, and more commonly as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or noodles.  I do eat anything and will try anything once, but once was enough for this sauce.

The next day we boarded a tour bus that took us to the dock once again where we went down the Mekong on Vietnamese row boats, rowed by some of the tiniest women, in size and stature, I had seen yet.  I felt incredibly guilty and lazy being rowed out to the floating villages by these women, but their strength and ability to maneuver those boats was well beyond their size. They took us aboard one of the floating fish farms that are the main source of economy for the floating villages. They grow catfish in the cages attached to the bottom of their sheds and make the fish food themselves from rice and left over fish parts. They fed them some pellets to show us and the fish all but jumped out of the water and splashed everywhere on the surface!  They make about $2USD a kilo of fish,  that gets shipped all over Asia, to the UK, and the US.

Our next stop was to a Cham village, a Muslim group within Vietnam, to see their Mosque.  The Cham people originally inhabited the whole south portion of Vietnam, and the Vietnamese were just in the north.  Several hundred years ago the Vietnamese people came through and annihilated them and almost destroyed the culture. It still survives today and is recognized by the government so the children go to school with Vietnamese and the people now integrate with society. Our visit brought children selling little cakes that we were warned would give us diarrhea and not to buy, and handicrafts made by the people.

Back on the river our rowers took us back to the dock and we were loaded back on the bus to go to some Buddhist temples near Sam Mountain. This wasn’t supposed to be in our tour but the guide had no other way to get us to the bus so we went along.  After the temple he took us to our ‘local bus’ that was to take us to Ho Chi Minh City, and a heap of directions to get us from bus to car, to taxi, to hotel. We wrote down directions, went over them 4 times with us, told us we looked smart enough to handle them, and also a letter to give a cab driver that he would pay for if he couldn’t arrange a car to pick us up at the bus station.  Our guide found us our bus and introduced us to the bus assistant, who I’m pretty certain was threatened with death if he lost the two westerners because he stuck to us like glue even though he didn’t know much English.  At a lunch stop, he had us wait on the bus then guided us to the depot to show us specifically where the toilets were, waited for us outside, then onto the lunch area and ordered for us. When we were finished eating it was THEN time for the bus to leave again so he shuttled us back to the bus door.  Arriving in HCMC, the assistant then took us personally to the transfer car that would take us into the city, put us on, then peeked back in the door before the car left to make sure we were on it.  As promised there was a car waiting for us, name tag sign in all, at the bus station to take us to our hotel, even though we didn’t have one booked. 

It was nice to not have to worry about getting from place to place, and this was all included in our original $30USD, but if this is the way all tours for tourists go, I’m glad this was our first go of it. I felt like a 10 year old being put on an airplane to meet a parent in another city. No post-it note pinned to our shirts, but our white skin was as good as a post-it.

Finally in the backpacker district of HCMC, but still called Saigon by the locals and everyone else, we wandered down a few alley’s and booked a hotel that was fairly cheap for the city and the air-con, then headed out for a much needed drink.  We met a German guy traveling on his own and chatted with him for a few hours about Vietnam since he had been in the country for 4 weeks already.  The Lonely Planet is great, but first-hand experience and tips when you get to a place is always better.  

Our German friends Sabine and George

stilt village

Sabine viewing the Mekong

Bike on a bridge... very solid bridge

BUFFALO!! Riverside water buffalo!

Mekong ducks

Bath time and wave to the tourists

Sabine and George in the tiny Vietnamese cart-cycle

Floating village rowers

Matt on the Mekong

fish farm under a floating shed

Kat on the Mekong

Mike showing off the Banana Wine/liqueur  

Banana wine down the gullet!

Frog legs... tasty but mostly breading and tendons

Our meet-up dinner with Mike and Maya

Kat on the Mekong with life jacket... though I think you'd die of disease before drowning if you fell in

Kids selling cakes that will make you sick for 1 dolla

Warning sign for the cakes...

Log 30: Local bus ride, Phnom Penh, and The Khmer Rouge

Our ride came to the guest house to take us to the bus stop and once boarded we definitely knew it was the local bus. Families with small children, old ladies with plastic bags of items, men on their way to what looked like important business meetings for Cambodian standards (not exactly suits but dressed up at any rate) and we were the only two westerners on board. We were saving $2 dollars by taking a local bus instead of the VIP bus with all the tourists, but is was actually quite nice hanging with the locals even though we stuck out like a sore thumb.  The whole ride we were entertained by the Khmer pop music/music videos that played on screen up front, and the bus driver was a really suave looking dude that was loving these videos. We stopped twice for toilet stops at the Cambodian equivalent of a truck stop with squat toilets and a hole in the ground, where I couldn’t decided if I was supposed to ‘tip’ the lady standing there that was ‘attending’ the basic toilets.  By the time we reached our destination we were dropped in the middle of Phnom Penh near the central markets and were immediately swarmed with tuk-tuk and taxi offers to get us to our hotel, which we hadn’t even booked yet.  After a hold-up on a bus station bench, a consult with “the book”, and a nice tuk-tuk driver that really wanted our business and spoke English true to his little sign he held, we were off to a guesthouse we hoped had a room. We also signed up our driver, Mr. Sokhom to drive us around the next day to the sights. 

The above story is basically every transit and entrance into a city in Asia, and I think I’m finally getting used to it, instead of the small panic and rushed feeling that I have to hide in order to get to where we want to be.  It is still strange being without a car for my own transit from place to place, its also the concept of having to  be served that’s still hard to get used to.  I am DYING to cook myself a meal, make myself a juice or coffee, or even just get to where I’m going on my own and park. 

Phnom Penh is just how I remembered it, though last time I definitely remember being culture shocked for a first few days, so the amazing newness of the Cambodian lifestyle was a bit less fantastic to me but that was about it. I must say I think there are more tourists here now and the riverfront area is finished and looking quite posh, a good push for the tourism industry even if it didn’t need that much of a push.

The next morning as I headed down for breakfast, the news was on and all over it was the devastating earthquake in Christchurch, that had happened just a few hours previously. This one being much wrose than the one last September, buildings were crumpled, the cathedral steeple had fallen in, and roads in the city center were cracked wide open. Tragically, this time was during the middle of the day so people were in the city working, and its high tourist season so many more people were there. I was instantly a bit shocked and rushed upstairs to contact my friends to see if they were ok in Ashburton, as well as Christchurch. After the initial news broadcast and the e-mails there was really nothing left to do but go about my day, as there was nothing I could do. 

Mr. Sokhom picked us up and our first stop was The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, I had been before but this is not a place you don’t go to just because you’ve seen it before. During the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-1978, the soldiers and leaders killed 3 million people across Cambodia in an attempt to cleanse the country of imperialism and western ideas to create a pure agrarian based society. If you were educated, an intellectual, didn’t join ‘the party, said anything against the party, etc, you were killed or sent to a prison before being tortured and forced into confessing that you were CIA or KGB.  They would also kill your whole family because they didn’t want to leave anyone capable of taking revenge in the future.  The Killing Fields is just one of the many sights around Cambodia where people were killed and buried in mass graves, but it has become a national monument to the people that perished during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. A monument has been erected with the bones and clothes from the graves they excavated housed inside. There is also a museum of sorts off to the side with more information on the evils of the regime.  We walked around the mass graves and the tree that was used to killing children in a very somber state, just trying to realize the horrors that happened here.

The next stop was Toug Slang a school in the city that was renamed S-21 and converted to a torture prison for the Khmer Rouge. The 30,000 people that were killed at The Killing Fields were all housed and tortured here first. Individual chambers were built within the school rooms, as well as the larger classrooms used as mass containment areas. Victims were tortured to get confessions of crimes against The Party, or for being a spy for the CIA or the KGB. On Liberation Day when the Vietnamese invaded to put an end to the Khmer Rouge, as the regime was also crossing into Vietnam and killing civilians by the thousands, only 8 people were found alive in S-21.  Only 4 survived to tell their story. This was another very somber place to walk around, talking was discouraged, but this was not a place that you wanted to talk or be chatty. 

We walked up to the river front area and checked out the café’s and restaurants. I found the café that my friend and I had frequented and found it to be just the same, except the bamboo trees along the edge had grown considerably. I sent a message to Amrit, the Green Peace worker from India that we met in Siem Reap, and he met us at the café for dessert and conversation.  We were headed to Vietnam the next day so we had an early night of it.

Matt gets chicken strips for dinner.... I just found it hilarious

COWS! Road side cows. They clean everything up, roadsides, rice paddies...temples

View from our guesthouse

In Cambodia you just drive where you want when you are on a motorbike

Mr. Sokham and the Amazing Tuk-Tuk

The mass graves at the Killing Fields

The skull pagoda monument at the Killing Fields commemorating the dead

One of the torture cells in the S-21 prison

Rules for prisoners at S-21

More prison cells built inside the classrooms of the school

Neon Buddha!!  The highlight of our night out

Log 29: Cambodia and Angkor Wat once again!

I had been to Cambodia 2 years ago traveling with another good friend Mike, but it was only an 11 day adventure instead of our current 3 month journey. I’m also much less naïve this time around, as that was my first exposure to Asia. Mike had planned everything and herded me from place to place, while I stared wide-eyed at my new environment with a mixture of excitement and terror not really knowing where to step and definitely not knowing how to haggle for anything.  I remember getting robbed whenever buying water and a certain box of oatmeal raisin cookies because of my ignorance of the system. Mike had told me those better be the best cookies I had ever had, as I had paid the American equivalent of $25 for 10 cookies. DOH!  I was determined to be better this time around, and on the whole I have. Matt still hasn’t gotten the hang of bartering and still gets robbed blind sometimes because he just doesn’t seem to have the patience for it.  It is still cheap but it should be even cheaper, but our western faces get us an inflated price everytime.  

Siem Reap is the same for the most part, but there are definitely more hotels, grander and newly built, some finished that were still skeletons when I had seen them in 2008.  Pub street, the main tourist center, seems livelier, and definitely a bit more expensive as the locals have caught onto the tourism traps and the money that can be made. Again, its still very cheap for the average westerner, but we backpackers budget on the fact that Asia is ridiculously cheap and like me, plan on only spending around $2000 to see 8 countries. It wouldn’t take long to eat through that in Europe or the US, but here even the cheapest backpacker can live high on the hog for that.  I have a sad feeling that one day this great place will develop itself to Western standards and lowly backpackers won’t be able to afford what they used to. Great for the country’s economy and people, but bad for young backpackers and the culture of the local people that gets lost in the mean time.

With Dean and Daisy, Matt and I hired a tuk-tuk for the day and we set out to see the infamous Angkor temple complex, the capitol of the Khmer Empire that thrived from the 9^th-12^th centuries.

 Here’s some background from the always debatable Wikipedia: The self declared Hindu God-King Jayavarman II, along with succeeding princes and kings, went on a building spree and built over 100 cities and temple complexes. The kingdom was Hindu until the middle of Kind Jayavarman’s reign who was a Mayahana Buddhist and began altering the Hindu temples to Buddhist images until the 14^th century when Theravada Buddhism became established. During war the civilization declined and was eventually abandoned by the 15^th century but Angkor Wat was still used as a Buddhist shrine. Thankfully during the Cambodian civil war, when the Khmer Rouge tortured the country and declared anything western evil, the Angkor temples were seen as valuable history of the people and were not destroyed. 

 We started with Angkor Wat the largest temple, and most reconstructed. It was an amazing expanse of sandstone built in Hindu style but with Buddhism clearly adopted into the structures and carvings through the centuries of religious changes. As it was mid-day, most of the tourists that had arrived for the famous sunrise over Angkor Wat had gone home for lunch, a nap, and a reprieve from the sun, so we had the temple more or less to ourselves with only a few groups of guided tourists breaking the silence.  We headed to 4 other temples, Angkor Tom with Bayon, the giant Buddha statue, the kings palace, and the elephant terraces, before stopping for a much needed cold drink and some shade at the tent restaurant run by our tuk-tuk drivers sister. Always related, always a bit of a kick back for bringing in the tourists, but at least we didn’t have dozens of purposefully dirtied children giving you sad eyes and asking you to by postcards, magnets, scarves, grass bracelets, or wanting to trade beads for your watch.  While we had our cold drinks, they did cut open a young coconut for us to eat the soft insides once they made a drink from the juice.  The coconuts grow wild EVERYWHERE so paying for one seems a bit silly, until you see the cleaver and the muscle that goes into opening one.  These little Asian women are tough chicas, between the coconut chopping and the mortar and pestle that’s used to make every sauce and curry these ladies have some mad muscles.

We ended our day at sunset on a mountain temple, but before there was much sunset, lots of cloud moved In as well as 100’s of tourists brought up for the viewing and we quickly decided we had enough of the crowds and people and since the sunset wasn’t even visible we made our way back to Siem Reap to clean-up and find some dinner. After supper, we talked ourselves into dessert and found a bakery with half-off pastries and ice cream so we made purchases for tomorrows breakfast at the temples and some much deserved dessert.

Daisy and Dean found a bit of cake that looked very much like a chocolate lingam and we quickly made many jokes about it.  Some background first:  Shiva, one of the three primary representations of the Hindu God, the destroyer or reproducer. Shiva is also represented by phallic symbols called lingams, and these are present in all Hindu countries as well as Buddhist cultures that used to be Hindu.  So basically there are small and large penis representations all over Asia.  A guide of Daisy and Dean’s in India liked to enunciate quite a lot and shee-vaaa lingggg- gummm was one of the more common phrases he slowed down. So as we were running around temples, we were also pointing out shee-vaaa lingggg- gummm’s everywhere and giggling. The chocolate cake lingam after a long day in the sun and a few beers was the funniest thing we’d seen in a long time. 

Our next day we did the larger loop of the temple tours, again with our trusty tuk-tuk driver Tong, and we started at 5am hoping to get Ta Prohm, the temple famously shot in the Lara Croft film, to ourselves as the day was starting.  During the drive to the temple though in just about pitch blackness, we started regretting our decision of the early start. But as we arrived and sat in stillness with the ancient ruins, a mosque in the distance calling for prayers, and birds starting to chatter, we were all content sitting and taking in the expanse of the remains of the great temple. We sat with our own thoughts in the temple, and munched on the pastries we had purchased the night before in preparation for the early morning. Just after the first rays were making the stones clear, the other tourists started arriving in mobs and the magic was broken. Still with few people around, we made our way through the galleries and chambers enjoying the feel that the jungle had taken over rule of the place for the last several hundred years. Reconstruction and restoration of the ruins is in full swing but its hard to miss the giant trees that have taken over sections of the temples and that could not be removed without causing the stones to fall with it.  We made our way around 5 more minor temples and by noon we were ready to head to Siem Reap for some lunch, a cold shower and nap.  I managed a few hours of shut-eye but awoke drenched with sweat from the heat of the day making our room an oven. I made my way down to the restaurant and joined Daisy in some chatter and cold drinks, while the men folk went off to find much needed haircuts. 

When the boys returned, we met up with another traveler, Amrit from India, that Daisy and Dean had met on the train who is working for Green Peace on a ship but has a break in his assignment and had been diving in Thailand.  We continued our chatter until the day cooled a bit and then we all headed into town and found a local restaurant on Amrit’s suggestion that was off the tourist track and much cheaper than the main street places and to be honest a much better meal. There were also amazing lemon shakes that cooled the body and mind, before we switched over to a refreshing beer.

Our next day, I signed up for a cooking class being a bit templed-out, while the rest of them went to some temples further afield.  I arrived at my class and found I was the only one signed up, I think the cooking class is a new arrival to Cambodia, unlike the well established classes in Thailand. Having private instruction I made a Mango salad, that was sweet, sour, and spicy all in one; Khmer Amok fish a curried fish dish with egg that’s AMAZING, and a pumpkin tapioca dessert with egg that was actually REALLY tasty! I had my doubts when the egg was being added but it made a sort of custard that made the tapioca a nice texture. I seem to be cooking my way across Asia but I love it! Afterward while I ate my dishes, the instructor Niang, sat and chatted with me and asked me about my life and travels. She’s my same age, single, and living in the city about 3hrs from her family. They are rice farmers and she was the only one interested in going to school and they could only afford to send one child. Her other two siblings weren’t interested in school and are helping on the farm.  She was surprised that I was a doctor and still so young, she also thought I was about 20 to start with but we soon discovered I’m a few months older than her.  She also kept telling me she eats tons, trying to be bigger and taller like me, but she can’t seem to get there. I’m getting used to the Asian comments about my size but it still threw me off guard at first. I told her how I’m quite short in my country and that my family is from a farm as well, which made her even more surprised that I went to university. 

When the gang came back from tuk-tuking around all day, we headed out for some farewell supper as we were going our separate ways the next. After a few beers, and a stop in to see the traditional Apsara dancing, we found a seat by one of the big screen TV’s on the street to watch an English football game that Dean was keen to see. It was a minor league team from his area of town in London, Leyton Orient against a more well known team Arsenal. We thought we’d only watch a bit as Leyton Orient was predicted to get annihilated but it ended up being a very exciting game with a tie 1-1 at the end. We were also instant Leyton Orient fans because we knew someone from there, therefore sending our hate out to the Arsenal team. 

After a partial nights sleep though, we were up and away via local bus to Phnom Penh to continue our travels while Daisy and Dean were off to Battambang.   

Dean and Daisy our new adoptees!

Angkor Wat

Khmer stone carvings

A kitten that decided Daisy's lap was the place to be during lunch. Also the 2nd animal of 4 to scare the bejesus outta Daisy while we traveled with them. 

The top of Angkor Wat from the mountain trek for sunset

Elephants! Ride to the top for $10US

Ta Prohm at sunrise... awesome place to be!

Tree growing on temple: Matt being silly

Tree growing on temple: Kat being silly

Lion statues... all three of them

Tree growing on temple: The JAUNT's

VERY green spider... still need to Google this one

My Khmer cooking class, Mango salad, Fish Amok

Angkor Wat

On temple steps, attemps at a CD cover for our mythical band 

Bayon 

Four windows, for peeps!!

Very steep steps down from a temple

Tuk-Tuk RIDE!

Cambodian sampler dinner, SO good!

Chocolate Liiiingum

Bayon 

Ta Prohm, used in Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie

Angkor Wat walkway, half restored, half WILD

Giant Buddha

Our gang in Siem Reap!

I finally found some real heavy feet to match my driving! A bit old but they'll do.