Photos: South Vietnam

Nha Trang beach (Vietnam - 27/07/06)

At the 'Valley of Luurve' (Da lat, Vietnam - 25/07/06)

Out for the night with Jon , Laura & somebody's greasy hair!
(Saigon, Vietnam - 22/07/06)

"Meet the gang 'cos the boys are here,
The boys to entertain you..."
(Cu-Chi tunnels, nr. Saigon, Vietnam - 22/07/06)

Highway code? What's that? Which side of the road to drive on ... (Saigon, Vietnam - 21/07/06)

Gooood Morning (from) Vietnam...

So, we left Cambodia on the dawn bus to follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trip was uneventful though we saw lots of cows randomly crossing roads/walking around - they roam free all day and find their own way home at sunset apparently!!!

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (still Saigon to Steve as he doesn't recognise communism) just in time for lunch and our first impression was cleaner, cheaper, wealthier and a lot more relaxed than anywhere we'd been so far - a relief as we were starting to get a bit jaded! Ate at HCMC's original vegetarian restaurant where Ali was surprised to find both seafood and ham in her fried rice!

After lunch we headed around town to check the place out and for some reason the street names caused a great deal of amusement for Steve - especially "That'll 'Duong Dong Du' for me" street ...

There are 5 million mopeds in HCMC (which is about the size of the City of London) so crossing the streets caused a little concern, especially when we discovered the only way to was to launch yourself into the oncoming traffic, stick to your route/speed and they would swerve around you (hopefully!). This is the closest they get to true communism apparently as responsibility for your own safety belongs to others.


Later we met up with Jon 'five high' Sparrow and his girlfriend Laura who have been travelling in the other direction. It was great to swap stories and pick-up tips on what's to come, though I think we may have put them off Phnom Penh a little!

The next day, we all took a tour of the Cu-Chi tunnels which was interesting, though came complete with a lot of one-sided propoganda (as did the War Museum). They had an AK47 firing range here also, obviously an Asian thing! Later we headed out to the Eden Bar where they were celebrating their first birthday by giving away cocktails and food - funnily enough we stayed quite a while ...

Our last day in HCMC was spent route planning, replanning then planning some more after a few issues with planes, trains and automobiles (all fully booked). Eventually organised the trip through to Hong Kong and are heading to Dalat (mountains), followed by a couple of days on Nha Trang beach (where Ali is busily writing this) before heading off to Hanoi.

As it was Jon & Laura's last night in Vietnam we went out for traditional food at a posh restaurant, which at around $9 each was our most expensive meal yet!!

The next morning we headed off for our bus to Dalat armed with the 'packed breakfast' the guest house insisted we took with us - fried egg sarnies! Dalat is the honeymoon capital of Vietnam so we had high hopes of our trip...

Arrived 2 hours late and it was cold and very wet! The place itself was quite nice - a cross between an alpine resort (albeit a slightly derelict one) and the lake district (only with one small lake). We later discovered Mama's home made strawberry wine which made Dalat look more attractive and feel warmer!!!

The next day we took a tour of the surrounding area and waterfalls, which included a trip to Chicken Village - a minority race with its own language and customs. Here the women go topless and if a man stares at her navel and is good-looking she kidnaps him - Steve escaped unscathed! The women also have to chase their preferred partner up the mountain and if they catch him he has to marry them - the uglier the woman the faster the runner... It's not all one-sided though, if a man makes the 'mistake' of sleeping with a girl out of wedlock they have to publicly apologise to her family by providing a big feast and giving buffalo - rich men make lots of mistakes we're told!

Another stop was the buddhist monastry where you can have room and board for up to 2 weeks free of charge - only snag was you couldn't speak and had to shave your head! Ali refused - despite our tight budget...

From here we went on to the Crazy House - a hotel that has taken 16 years to build and is still very much a work in progress. The architect owner is clearly as mad as the hotel - it is supposed to be fairytale like with rooms designed to look like (concrete) enchanted forests. However it's more like a nightmare with rooms being lit by red bulbs in the eyes of big bears/spiders etc!!!

Our final stop was the Valley of Love - basically a love theme park! Very tacky with heart-shaped toadstall seats, man-made waterfalls, big love heart statues everywhere and piped love music throughout - the only thing missing was a sick bucket! On the way back we stopped at a strawberry farm where you could buy the local aphrodisiac, Copperhead Wine - complete with a whole snake inside (also available with ghekko, scorpion and deer foetus)....

And so our trip to the honeymoon capital of Vietnam was over and to be honest it was about as romantic as a wet weekend in Sellafield - though with Vietnam's only nuclear reactor based in Dalat, honeymooner's do go home glowing!

After yet another early morning bus trip, we arrived at Nha Trang for a couple of R&R days by the sea - yeah! Beach lovely, as is the town just a shame everything covered in litter. They cater much more for western needs here (not a squat toilet in sight) and we quickly discovered a beach bar with a pool, sunbeds on beach and waiter service - we've not moved from the spot! Ali even had a massage on her sunbed - this is the life ;-)

Nightlife is also very European with lots of bars/restaurants lining the street, and with happy hour lasting from noon til dawn this is definitely Steve's favourite place so far!!!

Photos: Cambodia

Local (only) taxi services (Sihanoukville, Cambodia - 20/07/06)

Ream National Park beach (Sihanoukville, Cambodia - 19/07/06)

Ali at the Internet 'surf' shack (Sihanoukville, Cambodia - 19/07/06)

Steve was more than happy with the branding of the best-selling bottled water - 'Steve'. However, no sure about 'The Quality Drops' slogan! (Cambodia - 18/07/06)

Taking your Elephant for a walk (Phnom Penh riverfront, Cambodia - 16/07/06)

Tuk-tuk stop at the petrol station (15/07/06)

Photo: Angkor Wat Temple

Angkor Wat Temple (15/07/06)

Photo: Angkor Temples

At Angkor Temples, nr Siem Reap, Cambodia (14/07/06).

Photo: Grand Palace, Bangkok

At the Grand Palace, Bangkok (11/07/06)

Live from Cambodia

Since we last wrote we haven't been up to that much really...

Spent our last day in Siem Reap visiting yet more ancient temples and palace ruins after changing guest house as our room had been double booked - we suspect someone was willing to pay more! However, all ok as we got a nicer room elsewhere for less money!

Went to Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world and very spectacular - it's spread over three tiers the highest of which is reached by climbing 80 degree steps (which obviously we regretted the minute we had to climb down again!).

We then got our driver(!) to take us to Bantaey Srei, another ancient temple around 26km away from Angkor and highlight of the trip was stopping for petrol - picture a couple of water coolers filled with petrol along the roadside and you have a Cambodian petrol station!!!

Day 7 and on to Phnom Penh. We caught the bus which was surprisingly on time and quite comfy - discovered the Mekong Express which is a tad more expensive but has air con, snacks, toilets and karaoke/cambodian hit parade videos most of which had a crazy frog theme (we now believe crazy frog was a clever Apple invention to boost sales of the iPod!).

So...Phnom Penh...after about an hour we decided to head out to Sihanouk Ville (where we are now) the following morning! Once we'd booked our onward bus tickets we began to relax a little and took a river boat cruise to see the grand palace and floating village - both of which were memorable for very different reasons!

The locals recommended a trip to S-21 (Toul Sleng Genocide Museum) but we decided against spending the afternoon looking at thousands of human skulls encased in glass towers! We also refused the taxi driver's offer to take us to the killing fields and have a go on theAK47 assualt rifle range - something specifically for the tourists!

After ruling out the major Phnom Penh 'tourist attractions' we decided to regroup in a busy riverside hostelry to plan our evening, where Steve was mightily surprised to catch a glimpse of a passing elephant on the other side of the road! We obviously had picked a good spot as we later saw a family of monkeys crossing the street via telegraph wires - and we were still only on the first drink!!!

The next morning we checked out of Room 101 (no joke!) at the Last Hope (Home) Guest House and got a tuk tuk to the bus station after our taxi failed to materialise. The guest house owner assured us it would come and the bus would wait but we really didn't want to risk spending another day in Phnom Penh! Arrived in Sihanouk Ville, Cambodia's premier beach resort, safe, sound and on time! Our home until the 20th is a really nice GuestHouse by the beach with it's own pool - not bad for $5 each per night!

Sihanouk Ville is strange - it has masses of potential but Cambodia's still catching up with the rest of Asia where tourism is concerned, we keep forgetting it's the 10th poorest country in the world. There's real problems with street children etc here but Ali's been doing our bit to help since she found a shop who's proceeds go to helping them learn a trade for the future - a good justification to buy some clothes ;-)

We're off on a tour of the Ream National Park a bit later, having spent the last 2 days chilling on the beach by the pool we feel the need to do something! Looking forward to it actually as there's a swim in the K'bal Chhay waterfall included plus an hour on a secluded beach! We've both really enjoyed ourselves here, food and ambience been good and v. relaxing, and we're not looking forward to heading back to Phnom Penh tomorrow (20th) but only way to get anywhere else!

We're off to Ho Chi Minh (Siagon) in Vietnam at 6.30am on the 21st - yet another bus trip to look forward to ...

Our next update features the Travelling Percivals, Live from Vietnam ...

Ps photos will feature on the blog soon - difficult to do from here as many places don't allow uploads and those that do are soooo slow!

Bangkok & Siem Reap, Cambodia

Hello!
Day 5 and we're having a fab, if tiring time, haven't stopped as trying to fit as much in as possible - if we carry on at this pace we'll need a holiday after the end of the year!.
Bangkok was good - started well and took the budget option of an airport bus to the city, which unfortunately would only drop us off at the Kaoh San Rd - a good km from where we'd booked to stay. So off we marched with our rucksacks to get there, stopping every 50 yards to consult the map and keeling over from heat and humidity when it started to rain. Let it pass we thought as we took shelter rapidly - erm it didn't stop all night! Made it eventually - wet through but still smiling!
How to describe Bangkok? A great experience but wouldn't want want to go back! We stayed in the old town which was tightly packed pavement markets (most of which sell food) and loads of character so we spent the next day walking through it to get to the Grand Palace and temples on the other side. Magnificent buildings, but very OTT in the amount of decoration and colours in them - more bling than P Diddy! Also did a river tour - put us off eating fish for a while as it was a filthy yellow colour-suddenly river prawns no longer sounded so nice!.That night we walked 4 miles down a lying planet recommended road looking for somewhere for dinner - didn't even find a bar! Turned out we'd walked the wrong way and we wanted the other end of the street - a few hundred yards from our hotel ;-) However, the road did take us passed the kings palace so saved a bit of sight-seeing time the next day!
Day 3 and we ventured further afield and walked through Chinatown - even busier with the pavement markets and food (whole nation's more obsessed with food than mum!!!), but to be honest none of it looked that great and mixed with the drain aromas we were never tempted to try any. We also caught a skytrain - handy to get about and sight-see at the same time!, Took us by PatPong - the red-light area - which was seedy and full of wierdos.
Glad we went to Bangkok, but not in a rush to go back - although it is a shopper's paradise - so hard for Ali not to buy anything!
So on to Cambodia - we thought we'd try the bus as was 'all part of the experience'... and experience it certainly was! They said it would take 12 hours and it would be on a 'luxury vip air-conditioned bus'.... All started well when the bus turned up and hour and a half late and it turned out luxury and vip had a very different meaning in Bangkok - Cliff had a better bus in summer holiday and at 250Tb each (about £3) we expected better!
The bus was further delayed when we needed to stop at the driver's brother's cousin's friend's restaurant for an hour to wait for another (non-existant it turned out) bus - convenient because they could take care of our visas and lunch - for a small fee obviously!
Eventually got through the border at Poipet (grimmest place known to man) and first intro to the Cambodians was street kids trying to pickpocket everyone and pester for money. Needless to say we were stuck waiting for our next bus for a couple of hours, but it was ok cause you could change your money here plus get some more lunch! When it did turn up at about 5pm (still another 6 hours to go at this stage), we were surprised to see that luxury VIP had reached an even lower status. No longer an air conditioned coach, but a 16 seat minibus welded together out of spare parts with no space for luggage so bags had to be kept on floor between seats or on laps and the air conditioning was now an open window!
We had been told that the road to Siem Reap (where we are now) wasn't very good but nothing could prepare you for the bumpy ride that was ahead - massive pot-holes on a dirt track squashed into a tin wreck with no suspension - am never complaining about the British public transport system and roads again!!! We eventually got here 4 hours late at nearly midnight after yet another hour long pit-stop -turns out they do this deliberately so you arrive so late that the out of town guest house they drop you off at seems like a great option to stay the night! Anyway, Ali said she wanted a free lift to the guest house we'd booked (nice place over an Irish bar called Molly Malone's!) 'NOW', so we got one - lad who took us there in his tuk-tuk (moped towing a sofa on wheels) has been working for us today too - paid him $8 for the day to drive us around the Angkor temples and ruins - they stretch over 30 kms (8km).
So last night was a few well derserved drinks to celebrate reaching our destination in tact and today was spent visiting old temple ruins that are about 1200 to 800 yrs old, but were lost to the jungle until about 100 years ago. Bit like Pompeii only not a city as such, just Buddhist temples and ancient palaces. Tomorrow we visit the biggest one at Angkor Wat (largest religious building in the world apparently) then we have to sort out our next stage which is a visit to the coast via another 12 hour bus trip, although from here on the roads are sealed tarmac (or so we are told).'
Off out to dinner now for Ali's birthday - a tough life but hey!
Steve & Ali
ps Thanks for the birthday messages ;-)