Finding computers that work and time to spend sitting inside writing is not so easy when you have awesome things to see and people to catch up with, so sorry that this blog entry is a bit delayed.
Now where were we...... Oh yes the bus ride from Laos till Vietnam. Eventually we got to Hoi An, after 30 hrs sitting on a bus with only 10 front seats left with the rest filled up by sacks of potato and rice doing the 2 hrs mandatory lunch stop 30 minutes from the destination and getting 6 or more shots of homemade whisky from the driver!!( extremely rude to say no thank's).
Hoi An was a nice and relaxed place, very beautiful with it's old architecture, islands and river setting. This was the town to get tailor made clothes! we hadn't planned on getting anything, but as we were there, and as the hotel manager insisted more than 3 times on driving us to her boutique, we went with and got some stuff.
Around the town of Hoi An is lots to see, so we hired a motorbike and went to the marble mountains. They are cast peaks in the landscape, they only remain because they're of marble and everything else eroded away by the ancient sea that used to cover this area. Now it is used for religious purposes, it's caves and every available surface full of Buddhist temples.
China Beach is only a stones throw away so we took some time to hang out there, famous from an American TV show (though never shown in Sweden?or maybe just before Frida's time) now it's just a very quiet place with fishermen in strange basket boats.
We also visited My Son, the first temples built by the Angkor people. Not so spectacular now, but the history goes back nearly 2000 years which is impressive in itself.
To break up the trip toward Saigon and find a little more party we headed for Nha Trang, a beach town 10 hrs south. Here we found little. Mainly some old British men hanging around in the European pubs. Though the beach was nice, there was no vibe nor tourists as we had hoped for. After a visit to the giant Buddha and the beach we left.
Arriving in Saigon at 4 in the morning turned out to be an adventure. We took the local bus to town and found a cat, a witch and a ghoul in a pub (oh yeah Halloween). Waiting for any hotel to open, we decided to join them for a beer, turned out they were Irish and English - what a surprise.
There are many differing opinions amongst travellers, most seem to like Saigon over Hanoi, but to us it was the opposite. Saigon just seemed plain.
Outside of town however, are the Cu chi tunnels, 250km of underground "villages" built by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. These amazing feats of human persistence were carved out of almost solid rock with three levels, escape routes, kitchens and traps set for American "sewer rats" (soldiers small enough to fit down the tunnels back in the 60's). It was a great experience and proudly shown off by the local people.
In town we visited a few museums including the war remnants museum which had many captured US hardware and vehicles displayed but most chillingly, all the facts on the use of chemical agents during the war - especially agent orange to which the effects are still seen today in the people. A table spoon of this could kill millions of people and the US dropped tonnes and tonnes of it... It was used to clear the jungle to find the guerrillas, it poisoned the drinking water, generations after would suffer from it. Making people sterile, disfigured or dead.
After Saigon we headed for Cambodia and Phnom Phen. It was an awesome city, maybe since we had no expectations it became a nice surprise. Just like normal we hired some bicycles and went around the city which turned out to be an adventure with 10, 000 thousand mopeds, wagons, cars and the random elephant to compete with. We stayed at the lake, which is about to disappear because of landfills and buildings, it was a nice place with stilt houses made into hostels and dodgy restaurants with joints for 1 dollar on the menu. Everything was dealt with in $US.
The population is very young and when you visit the S 21 prison museum and the killing fields you notice why. About a third of the population died during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot 1975-79, from starvation and murder. The Khmer rouge army and S-21 prison guards was mainly young boys who were brainwashed by to torture and kill every non-communist and their families. S-21 was an old High school in Pnohm Phen, that was turned into a prison where people got tortured until they confessed to a crime against the regime and then sent to the killing fields to get their skulls crushed and thrown in mass graves.
We visited the coast in Cambodia for a couple of days, at Sihanoukville. But it was a bit of a disappointment. The beach had gotten washed away and the restaurants at the beach were made from crumbling concrete and the only people there were Englishmen, many hanging out with suspiciously much younger local girls. We did have a good time at the pub with a group of finns but it was nice to leave.
We went to Kampot, famous for its green pepper. It's a small town on the river surrounded by jungle clad hills. It was full of old colonial buildings charmingly ruff. We did a hike up the mountain at Bokor, to see nature and the old casino complex up there. It was a luxury resort on the op of the mountain in the 20s, but stopped by the french war and after used by the Khmer rouge as guerrilla headquarters. It was a ghost town now.
The highlight of our visit to Cambodia was probably the Angkor temples. We stayed in the town Siem Reap just 3 km from the temples. The area where the Angkor people built their temples is enormous and spans over several hundred years of constructions. We bought a 3 day pass and spent the days looking around as much as we could. We biked 2 days and hired a tuk-tuk driver one day when it was to far away. The best day was probably when we biked in complete darkness at 5 am to arrive at Angkor wat for sunrise to see the profile of the towers and reflections in the moat. It was spectacular to say the least.
The feeling we had in Cambodia was very positive, the Cambodians try hard to make a living from tourism and seem to be doing well for themselves. The people we met are very family oriented and friendly. You'll find that the head of family is a 23 year old guy already with 3 children and a wife and all the sisters and brothers all helping out in the family business. There were many children running around selling things and there are many orphanages around, but the kids are all very smart and know good English, all what they have learnt from tourists. I think the future is bright for Cambodia.
We took the cheapest possible bus to Bangkok from Siem Reap, and I suppose we got what we paid for (6 $US). In non-air con bus in style of an old school bus from the USA with the bags lying in the aisle the trip went ok until we got to the border of Thailand were we had to wait for about 5 hrs for the bus to take us the rest of the way.
In Bangkok we stayed at Khao San rd, an ok area made up for backpackers and other budget tourists. The Pad Thai there was the best, a big serve of fried noodles and seafood for about 2 $US.
We headed down to the southern islands almost immediately. At Koh Tao the weather wasn't the best for lying on the beach, but we were there for the dive. Aaran took his open diver certificate and I followed on some fun dives. Since we signed up with a dive school we got accommodation and some food for free, it was a sweet deal. The dive was good the first days, but the weather got ruffer and after Aaran finished his course it was time to move on and check out the other coast, the Andaman sea. We just had to make a visa run to Burma to get our stay in Thailand prolonged, since going overland in to the country only allows a 14 days stay. The visa run was simple, but the boat ride from Koh Tao to the mainland made me sick and I just didn't recover on a speeding minivan.
Koh Phi Phi was super touristy but still nice. It was small and nice without any mopeds or cars. The main part of the tourists seemed to be Europeans on a 3 week holiday. In Phi Phi it was all about diving again. The water was beautiful and warm (30 c!). Getting on the dive boat out amongst the cast limestone peaks was great. Aaran did his advanced divers and nitrox course, I did fun dives. We saw some stingrays, octopus, leopard shark and tonnes of fishes. At night we tried out the nightlife with the typical fire shows and buckets.
We took a ferry to Koh Lanta and stayed there for a few nights, just to do nothing. We got a bamboo hut on a calm beach with not much around. We just swam and watched the sunsets. That lasted for a couple of days, but then the ants in our pants started bugging us and we had to do something. We hired a moped and drove around the island.
Taking our time we did a slow tour of the island, checking out the oldest seafaring town, watching the local macaques (monkeys) scurry off the road as we cruised along. We went to the viewpoints and looked out over the islands of the Andeman sea, went past the mangrove forests of the east coast and finished up at the lighthouse in the national park on the western most tip as the sun was setting to finish off a fine day.
That night we splashed out and bought dinner in a fancy seafood restaurant over looking the beach. Barbecued squid and snapper broke the budget for $US15......
Next morning we went for a quick dip before starting the 14hr bus ride that would take us back to Bangkok where we had one night before heading off to Western Australia. The day was 34deg and 85% humidity so we took it easy and had a few last great Thai dishes. The fabled land of Oz awaited us!! See you all next post
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