Nha Trang and Hoi An

We've stepped up the pace again, after our week spent lazing in the sun. We left for Nha Trang, a large seaside resort, on Saturday afternoon. We had pretty much decided to skip straight through Nha Trang as its principal attractions are beach-related, and we think we've had about enough of that. Ignoring all the sales pressure to take a boat trip around the outlying islands (lovely, I'm sure but just not our thing at the moment) we arranged to stay for one night and get a long bus out to Hoi An the next morning. After waiting for the bus for half an hour, we were told it was cancelled so we ended up with a day in the town after all. We spent it watching TV and going to the Oceanographic Institute where we found many specimens of life from our seas; live, half rotten, dried and pickled, including a pickled manatee (sea cow) and some falling-apart dead seals. Interesting.
So we ended up on the overnight bus to Hoi An; fine for me as I slept all the way - again - and once again Andy spent the whole night painfully awake.
Hoi An is a beautiful little town by the river and the Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site, with beautiful old Chinese style merchants houses and pagodas. For a small fee you can wander in and out of temples, pagodas, private houses and assembly halls, and also see some traditional music in action (which we missed today because it was too hot and we just couldn't be bothered, even in the name of research for the blog, sorry). The reason for this afternoon's malaise was that we were up at the crack of dawn (well, 7) to go to My Son on a guided tour. Its another Unesco site; Hindu temples built by the Cham people (look it up...) between the 6th and 14th centuries. The bits that are still standing were very interesting and the whole site is nestled in amazing forest scenery with misty hills in the distance. Unfortunately parts of it were bombed by the US in the war as the Viet Cong were using it as a hideout. Seems incredible that something that has been preserved for centuries can be lost as recently as 1970 for such a futile reason... Andy dutifully listened to our guide drone on whilst I sought shelter in the shade, so apologies if my temple knowledge is a bit sketchy! Can you tell we're all templed out?
Of perhaps more interest to me is the local food, which is reknowned in Vietnam. Among the specialities are "white rose", a steamed dumpling stuffed with shrimp, Cao Lao which is pork noodle soup, and wonton. We've been stuffing ourselves since we got here, and well done the French for leaving a legacy of decent drinkable red wine!
Our big achievement today is to get ourselves sorted out with the next leg of our trip. We leave Hanoi by air on the 8th for Bangkok. We're not flying to Kuala Lumpur until the 10th and we're not keen on an extra day in Bangkok (spent too much time there already and the kids with new tattoos and corn rows make me want to commit hari-kiri) but unfortunately our visas expire on the 8th so it can't be helped. We are going to pretend we're not in Bangkok by staying in a nice hotel by the airport and spending the whole day in the gym (Andy obviously, not me...) pool (me) and spa (me).

Charlie Does Surf!

Just to prove Colonel Kilgore wrong, we've made our way to Mui Ne on 'Nam's East Coast and the balmy waters of the South China Sea, where Charlie and a hell of a lotta people are most definitely surfin'!
After 3 years of good intentions, a few moments of procrastination and a little bad luck with my attempts to learn to kitesurf, we've accidentally landed in one of the best spots in the world; a constant inshore wind, gentle break and low costs for an easy life!

For the first time in our 2 months on the road we've actually stayed in one place and enjoyed a holiday (the rest of it has been soooo hard!), so I immediately enrolled in lessons and have spent the last 3 days being dragged all over the place by a kite, drinking a lot of South China Sea and occasionally getting up onto a board. It's taken around 6 hours of lessons to get me in vague control of these floaty things, with the exception of when I brought it down over the rooof of a bar, and now its a case of combining this with board skills and keeping afloat. A bit like snowboarding but you get to create your own mountain, or wakeboarding where you drive your own boat. My Gallic instructor, Jean, is very patient and says I'm doing well, so I keep throwing dollars at him and extending our time here...

In the meantime, with the local attractions of a mountain, sand dunes, waterfalls and a quaint fishing village, Rach has assumed this pose from dawn til dusk....

and neither of us has ventured more than 500m from our bungalow. Except when I've been dragged down the coast by a stubborn kite.
Our days have been dominated by this strict regime; days on the beach, watching for wind and catching rays, a little lunch then more wind and sun, a sundowner then a stroll along the road to one of the many restaurants by night. So you can imagine why we've extended for a few days and actually our plans for Laos are probably going out the window...

It's not all fun and games, though; last night Rach had to ward off an attack by killer cockroaches and beetles, and then very nearly stepped into the road in front of an oncoming cafe (that's right - a cafe. Lights, display cases and delicious produce, all strapped onto a speeding bicycle).

Well, I'm sure we'll make our way north at some point. Until then, here's to all of you in your offices on a rainy British day in November, from us soon-to-be unemployed bums. Cheers!

Adventures in the Mekong Delta

We've just come back from an excellent two day tour of the Mekong delta, in the area south of Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City, whichever takes your fancy). We left early on Friday morning in a lovely air-con tourist bus for My Tho on the Mekong river. We were with a group of fifteen people of all nationalities who had signed up for the trip and they were (mostly!) good fun. We transferred onto a boat at My Tho, and after a short interval when our boat broke down and we had to clamber onto a replacement (see photo for how far fromt he shore we managed to get before we broke down....) we headed for the many small rivers that comprise the delta.
Our first stop was to see how the local villagers make their famous (?? - we had never heard of it either) coconut candy. Its basically fudge as its made in a similar way - the coconut milk is extracted and then boiled and cooled and cut into pieces. It was delicious, but not as nice as the fresh unadulterated coconut which Andy kept stealing from the back of the machine when no-one was looking. We were then herded to a bee farm where honey is made for the local chai which is a lovely mix of honey, cooked oranges and hot water. I was very brave and held the hive for a photo, the whole thing was buzzing under my hands and it was a very strange sensation! We tried the honey, which is the only honey I've ever eaten which I've liked. You can't get it any fresher than scraping it from under the bees with a spoon!Andy then held the owner's pet python...After a lunch stop we took smaller boats like dugout canoes in groups of four and were given a vietnamese hat each to wear for the duration of the journey. It was very relaxing floating along under the palm trees and dense jungly greenery with our man at the back poleing along. Andy joined in with the rowing - we're still not sure if it was a help or a hindrance.... We were heading for a taste of some of the local tropical fruit, including "green dragon fruit" which has a bright pink outer skin and is white with black seeds inside, and to listen to some of the local music. We all clapped enthusiastically of course but it sounded to us like the discordant mewling of depressed cats. "Auld Lang Syne" in vietnamese was a highlight...
At the end of the day we went by bus to the large town in the area, Can Tho, where we had a free evening which we spent having dinner and a beer with a Kiwi couple who have been travelling since 1998 and are on their way to a ski season in Meribel. They must have been a sight when they landed at Bangkok airport with snowboards...
The next morning was a very early start to get down to the famous floating market - farmers sell their produce on land to people with large boats, who then head down to the floating market to sell to people with small boats, who cluster around the large boats attracted by their "adverts" - long poles on which samples of produce are tied to entice buyers. These people with small boats then sell to the end user, either at markets on land or door to door. Sounds like a good job creation scheme to me... We bobbed about for a while taking photos and watching life go by and then set off further into the delta. There we visited a rice noodle factory where we saw the broken bits of white rice being crushed and boiled, then rolled and steamed to make rice paper, before it is finally cut into long thin strips for the ubiquitous rice noodle. The vietnamese live on the stuff and beef rice noodle soup is a tasty (and cheap!) staple of their diet. After a further visit to a rice factory to see the rice being husked, it was back to Can Tho for a well deserved lunch and the trip back to Saigon.
The trip was extremely hot and sweaty and tiring, and it was the epitome of being a mindless tourist; dragged around on group transport to have things shown to you, but for all that it was very enjoyable and interesting and the Mekong delta is a beautiful place to "mess around in boats". A fun time had by all....

Good Morning Vietnam!!

Well for the next few weeks we'll be rockin' you, as the man says, from the Delta to the DM-Zee...and a little farther North, actually, as these days Hanoi Hannah seems to welcome the presence of us capitalist pigs.

Having quit Cambodia, we hightailed it out of Phnom Penh opting once again for the tourist bus option (well you all would, they pick you up at your door and our bags are getting heavier!) to whisk us across the border into 'Nam. On the morning we left, though, Rach felt a little crook and we had only just crossed the Mekong river, west of the border, before she decided she couldn't face the journey and we had to leave the bus. So there we were, plucked from the cocoon of our air-con tourist coach watching it recede into the distance and stranded in the sweltering heat of some backwater Cambodian town. Time for a little panicky Khmer learning, I quickly flicked through the phrase book and pantomimed the need for a hotel so we could install ourselves and take stock. The town was actually pleasant, the local people friendly and amused by our presence and the views over the Mekong at sunset were superb; maybe this was the adventure we had so foolishly wished for!?
Rach felt better later in the afternoon and that evening as we sat in a local shack, peering into a dark pot and smiling encouragingly at whatever we would be eating, we met a Kiwi man who has been dragging his family around the Far East for the last 2 years. The 5 of them, kids no older than 13, were travelling on less than a shoestring and had run out of money. His outlook and achievements, including sailing a boat up to Borneo, left us aghast; it seems no matter where you go somebody else will make you feel like a home bird!

Next morning we managed to catch a lift on a passing coach and crossed the border in style, finally riding into Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's second and still called Saigon by most. Immediately we got a good feel for the city, beginning with a quick lesson in traffic rules on the famously busy streets where thousands of scooters, carrying everything from a family to a coffin, swarm in every direction. The main rule is that there are no rules. Rach seemed to grasp this immediately; perhaps she identifies with the anarchy of it, and has chosen this moment to overcome her fear of crossing the street. The key seems to be to shuffle inexorably forward, allowing the tide of vehicles to wash around you. Don't hesitate, look them all in the eye and don't stop. Oh, and these rules don't apply to cars or buses. We quickly evolved into a symbiotic road-crossing creature, each looking a different way and pulling the other on, only occasionally squealing or accusing the other of attempted murder.
In this way, we spent a day wandering the main sites of Saigon highlighted by the anti-yank War Remnants Museum. This collection gives a biased but interesting view of the Vietnam war, detailing the atrocities committed by the US, including use of Agent Orange and torture. The museum also showed an excellent display of photos by war correspondents many of whom were killed working close to the front line. Our problems with cameras continue. Having got a decent digital, it has decided on 3 occasions now to wipe its own memory every time we link it up to a computer. We know you don't care, but hear us out; you're the ones who want grinning snap shots! Well sort it out, and are off to the Delta tomorrow to explore. The bus is at 0600...you know what the 0 stands for!

Phnom Penh and the Khmer Rouge

After spending far too much money pretending to be rich American tourists in Siem Reap we decided to head to the capital city, Phnom Penh to find a less developed scene... no such luck. Cambodia seems to have exploded in the short time that it has been open to tourists, and everywhere that has any sights for tourists to visit is firmly Westernised. Its a real disappointment - Cambodia is a lot more like Thailand than we expected and the local culture seems to have been lost along the way. If you want a beer, a glass of wine or a dinner of roast lamb with mint jelly, yorkshire puddings and apple crumble for pudding then you will be in heaven here, and don't get me wrong, we had the former for dinner last night and very delicious it was too! But its not really why we're here...

We decided to see the city sights and then head out to Vietnam to see if thats any different.
To that end we spent today at the Cheung Ek site also known as the Killing Fields. This is where during Cambodia's dark years of the Pol Pot regime (1975-1979) thousands of people - men, women and children, including some foreigners, were taken outside the city limits and executed, then interred in mass graves. Only a fraction of the mass graves have been exhumed, the largest found to contain the remains of 450 people. There is one grave solely for the women and children and one where all the bodies had been beheaded. In the centre of the site there is a large charnal house where 9000 skulls of the victims are on display.
The victims came from the prison at Tuol Sleng, or S21, the former school where the Khmer Rouge took 14,000 prisoners to interrogate, torture and execute them. These prisoners included so-called intellectuals (you could be classed as one of these simply by wearing glasses or speaking a foreign language), farmers, ex-soldiers who were thought to be too lenient, monks, women, children and even babies. Nine foreigners were also sent here and later executed. Out of the 14,000 admitted, 7 survived. The cells and torture chambers remain as they were in the 1970s - we saw rooms with iron beds with manacles attached to them and photographs on the walls showing the prisoners on the beds being tortured. All in all around 3 million people were killed by the regime and the brutal civil war which followed its downfall. What is so shocking is how recently all this happened - there are many people alive today who have lost entire families, or have been injured by land mines which are still plentiful around the Thai border.

So, we have toured Cambodia's grisliest sights and paid our respects to those affected. Tomorrow we leave by bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) thus entering the 7th country on our trip....

Angkor Wat on a Flat Tyre and a Hangover

The decadence of Hong Kong is now but a distant memory and we find ourselves deep in the jungles of Cambodia with Lara Croft, seeking out the ruins of ancient temples...

At any rate that's what we were expecting. The reality in the town of Siem Reap near the ruins of Angkor Wat is a tourist fest of swanky hotels and bars with names like "Molly Malone's", where all the prices are in dollars and staggering.

We spent long enough in Bangkok's Khao San Road to get our fill of young westerners dressed like they're on the beach, ugly men finding love in the calculating arms of Thai girls and to receive offers from the odd lady boy whom Rachel still fails to spot. Then, ignoring our own instincts, we took the lazy option of a tourist bus to lead us by the hand across the border; we were thus condemned to a day of being shipped like cattle, talked at like kids and scared into paying commission for people to organise visas.
After air con coach, video and smooth road from Bangkok, the change in Cambodia could not have been more marked; we innocent passengers, 25 of us packed into a 15-seater minibus, shrieked in ignorance as the driver careered for 6 hours down a rutted dirt road, oblivious in the dark and the dust to the potholes, bumps and even a 45 degree camber which nearly toppled the bus; by the end we had all learned the Khmer for "the louder you scream, the faster we go!"
After such a long day, surely on arrival we would just need a shower, some food and a good night sleep? Foolishly not; after chatting to another Brit couple on the journey, Michelle and Dave, it turned out that he has relatives in Mold and that I used to be childhood friends with her older brother; and so a wine-fuelled meal and a natter turned into drinks and a club, raucous dancing and the write-off of many dollars and the entire next day!

And so eventually we got to see the largest religious complex in the world, the site of Angkor Wat and the temples dating from the 9th century when most of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam formed part of the Khmer empire under the devaraja god-kings who ruled from Angkor.

Such is the scale of the site that we intended to allow 3 days to explore, but having lost a day we would have to do it in 2...we coughed up a fortune and allowed a tuk-tuk driver to convey us round at first, dutifully getting out to clamber up and wander the overgrown and crumbled ruins which are being restored by various governments (the Japanese effort looking efficiently finished, nothing happening at the Indian one...). Our stamina gave out in the heat and we hit upon a cunning plan to go back and forth to see the sunrise, sunset and the other main sites the next day; by push bike!
This meant setting out and returning in the dark, with no lights of course, and it was only after an hour's peddling at 5am that we worked out why Rach was knackered and slow; she had a puncture! To top it off, after being passed by every other tourist in a rickshaw, when we arrived bathed in sweat, our sunrise was almost ruined by a dawn downpour; although at least it scared away all but the most devoted tourists.

All in all, the temples are impressive but not the breathtaking spectacle, on a par with the pyramids and great wall, that we were led to expect; what's more, with the innumerable international hotels and restaurants catering for coach loads of tour groups, the place is fast becoming too expensive for backpackers.
And so, we shall take ourselves away from the madding crowd and off to the capital, Phnom Penh...at least, after another swim and this fat cheeseburger!

Bongkers in Hongkers

Well we have actually now left Hong Kong, but here is a belated post to let you all know how utterly fantastic, and expensive, it is there.... For a start the internet was ten US dollars an hour rather than the usual one dollar an hour, hence no post.
We arrived in Hong Kong more than ready to experience modern city life as a total contrast to India. The city didn't disappoint. Right from when we landed at the modern air conditioned airport we knew we were in for a treat! On the bus heading to Kowloon we drove down wide streets full of people, lit up like Tokyo, with large banners full of Chinese characters we couldn't understand and enormous advertisement hoarding for the designer shops which Honkers is full of. It was definitely an assault on the senses and nice to get such a dramatic change of culture from India.
We set the tone for our 5 day stay on the first night - planning to go out for some quick noodles we ended up having a slap up feast plus alcohol (a treat!!) and spending a days budget. Mmm it was worth it though!
Our first full day was also my birthday, and it was a lovely day. We commenced with breakfast in bed - naturally! - and then I had some in-room beauty treatments which was heaven. We had lunch in the hotel restaurant, which was an enormous buffet of sushi, oysters, huge mussels, every kind of fresh fish, noodles, meat - it went on and on. The best part was the desserts section which had a dozen kinds of pudding, cakes, chocolate mousse, bread and butter pudding, souffle, tarts - it was a feast fit for a king (or a birthday girl!). A walk on the harbour front aided digestion and then we went for a swim at the YMCA, which also had a jacuzzi and sauna. I don't think you can imagine the utter bliss after 2 months of filth!
In the evening we went for a drink at the bar in the Peninsula Hotel, HK's most luxurious hotel. The bar is on the top floor overlooking the harbour, which was lit up and was an incredible sight. At 8pm sharp the laser show began and we had prime seats by the huge plate glass window. To music, which is pumped into the harbour front, all the city skyscrapers light up with pulsating coloured lights and lasers - it is quite beathtaking. We reluctantly left the show, vowing to head down to the harbour front the next night to see it in full, and went for a lovely birthday dinner, complete with a surprise cake that wasn't much of a surprise as the waitress was the least subtle person in HK and kept whispering in Andy's ear throughout the meal.
Hong Kong seems never to sleep, so after dinner we did a bit of drunken shopping and I got a lovely black silk chinese dress with red piping as a birthday present from Andy.
The following day we spent on Hong Kong island, which is the main business district. We did all the usual tourist stuff like a tram ride, lunch in Soho, and walk through the zoo and a ride up to Victoria Peak, which has great views of the whole area, although it was a bit hazy when we were there. In the evening we saw the laser show from the harbourfront and it was even more impressive with the music playing. Each building taking part was introduced, and as its name was mention the lights on it lit up and flashed and went mad - it really made the building look as if it had a personality! That evening we browsed around the many electrical shops for a new digital camera - if you have noticed the lack of pictures of Andy and I recently its because I dropped the digital camera in Delhi and broke it, I was Miss Popular that day! So we have been stealing them from the internet. But no more; Andy is now the proud owner of a tiny - and cheap - new Olympus camera.
The next day we visited Macau, which was owned by the Portuguese until 1999 and retains a Mediterranean feel which is an odd contrast to its chinese culture. We did our usual in-depth sightseeing tour consisting of lunch and a bottle of wine, some shopping, a quick wander to the fortress (just to say we'd seen it...) and then home! Saddened by the knowledge that this was our last night in Hong Kong we headed for the amazing buffet once again, I had a final and lovely hot bubble bath and then we packed our stuff...
Andy was starting to panic slightly about the amount of money we were spending; the only reason I wasn't is that I had made a determined effort not to know the exchange rate calculation into US dollars and therefore totally avoided knowing the true price of anything. However when our hotel laundry came back at 700 HK dollars (with 7 HK dollars to the US dollar it was 100 US just to wash a few pants and t-shirts) even I had to agree it was a good thing we weren't staying any longer...
The next morning I was physically dragged from the hotel room kicking and screaming, thrown onto a bus and frogmarched to Bangkok.