Saigon to Bangkok

Hi everyone....

Well it has been an eventful time since I last wrote - some of it shocking - to be explained later...

As I wrote before I was heading out to the Cu Chi tunnel system to check out how the Vietnamese used to resupply their frontline troops to combat the Americans - fascinating place and the tunnels are tiny - I fitted in the ones that have been specially widened to fit Westerners (for clarity here none of the current Vietnamese can fit in the old tunnels as they are all fatter than in wartime so whilst I have been ribbed mercilessly by email by various "friends & family" I don't feel that bad as I made it to the end of the network with three other travellers whilst our local Vietnamese guide only went about half way...

After another night in our dodgy accommodation we set off by public bus for the Cambodian border - pretty uneventful journey and the crossing was relatively harmless - we then carried on our journey by public bus to Phnom Pehn ("PP" from now on....)

In PP we had a cyclo tour of the city which ended up with the more competitive of our group actually changing places with the drivers and racing each other through the streets - now there are no gears on these bikes so the effort factor is multiplied heavily - sweat was dripping off some people when we finally made it to the restaurant for dinner. We chose the restaurant as the profits went to support local orphans - good food though... After dinner some little kids (maybe 5 or 6 years old) came up to us and offered us some travel books and then started playing around with us.... (memo note to self - don't play with the little sh*ts as they pick pocketed me for $20) - in the end I had to give in as the little tikes did actually succeed where many have failed in the past all round Asia so I have to hand it to them - they did well and I wish them all the best with my $20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day we had a bit of time to visit the stunning Royal palace and surrounding buildings built for the emperor of the day... although Erin was forced to make herself more "decent" - hence the grow-bag you might have noticed on the photos I published on Picassa... haha

In PP we went on a tour of S21 ( the forboding place that many a Cambodian was detained for questioning and torture prior to being taken to the Killing fields) The photos show the horror of the place but even being there you cannot get a true sense of just how evil it was!! Afterwards we were taken to some of the "Killing Fields" themselves although we maybe saw about 30 of them there are more than 800 know about and it is estimated that there are another 3-400 unknown ones... It must have been a horrible time and the genocide just made me think about whether this is going on today and we are turning a blind eye to it just as we (as an international community) did between 1975 and 1979.

From PP we headed down towards the coast but stayed at a Cambodian homestay with a local village family - think rustic hut in the middle of nowhere with a straw roof and just a mosquito net for protection from malarial mossies... The two older Canadian women travelling with us had clearly not experienced things like this before and one resorted to drinking beer (she never usually drinks and certainly not beer) and the other restarted smoking after 30 years of quitting... it was pretty funny watching the two of them after a few drinks... I think one fell of the log she was on... The village community was actually very hospitable to us and showed us around their lives and their extended families so we got a good idea of how they lived... very subsistence farming existence...

The next day we woke up and we off to Sihanoukville ("S" from now on). This is a properly weird seaside town that I can only basically describe as a place where weird foreigners (excluding us) come to take advantage of the local young girls (and boys). I actually got asked if I had a boyfriend!!!!!! Thinking it was a translation issue I tried my best to explain that Erin was my girlfriend - in retrospect I think I was being naive!!!!

The problem with S is that it has amazing beaches and marine life that we saw by day boat trip to some outlying islands... so it is a complete contrast to the seediness of the main part of the city.. shame really as it made all of us feel a bit creepy.

I did also manage to have a pizza that I "mistakenly" thought was normal - as it made me want to go to sleep after about 30 mins... ;-) won't be doing that one again...

Next we headed back to PP for the public bus to Kompong Cham - a major gateway town to Northwest Cambodia and actually quite pretty rested on the Mekong river... On the way the bus stopped for a rest stop and we got off... to be greeted by deep fried tarantulas and crickets - I tried both and they both tasted a bit like prawn crackers from a chinese restaurant - I have photos to prove it too!!! ;-)

Here we only stayed a couple of nights but managed to fit in a bike tour to the local river islands which involved cycling over a 300 metre bamboo bridge (and paying for the privilege). Once on the island though we got taken to a tobacco farm and saw how they cultivated the leaves, dried them out and then harvested them ready for sale to companies like British American Tobacco. We then weaved our way back to the bridge via the local village community and little 3 or 4 year old wanting to give us "high fives" all the way back - lots of fun...

We then went by bus to Siem Reap ("SR" from now on). The hotel we stayed at was probably one of the nicest so far and the town itself is clearly geared up to the hoards of tourists that fly or bus in to see Angkor wat and the surrounding temples... although a trip to the Irish bar on St Paddys day led to some pretty sore heads on the bus the next day... Erin even managed a "blind massage" here - for blind people it is one of the few ways they can earn a living here...

Going round AW is an awesome place - it is magnificent for the architecture, the scale and the engineering that must have been involved as well as the religious significance... WOW! Photos on the web when I get round to it will probably still not do it justice but may show some of it... We also visited the Tomb Raider tombs with the trees that have grown over them - these are VERY picturesque as you will see...

We also managed to visit a charity that helped poor people learn a new skill - silk weaving. We went to the silk farm and saw the silk worms hard at work and then cultivated into the end product - as I had an order from mum it was nice to buy some of their efforts and support the charity. From the silk farm we went on to the local floating lake community where we saw crocs and snakes being harvested (not sure if this is legal but its certainly happening). This part of Cambodia is very poor and it also felt pretty malarial too so plenty of DEET was applied...

On the way back to SR we stopped off at a hammock bar and had a few beers whilst the sun went down. Our guide Sam introduced us to turtle (chewy and hard to get meat from) and snake (too much cartilige) but at least I gave it a shot...

Back to SR and then private bus to the Thai border and then on to the 7eleven. You;d be surprised how excited everyone got when they found they could finally buy Cadburys chololate again.... and then we finished the journey to Bangkok to stay in a bed bug ridden hotel (not nice as I killed one when I got into the room and Erin killed one about to attack me at 2am). So I paid for a much more expensive hotel close to the Koh San road the next night that at least had decent sheets and no bed bugs.

Next post will have Bangkok.

Hope you liked it so far

Al