Ahoy Hoi An

Okay so we were waiting for a mission in Saigon last time. About 8.30pm we headed to the station and found a great little tiny red plastic chair cafe just outside the station where we sat and had a couple of beers and gathered some snacks and water for the marathon ahead.

The train pulled in about 10.45pm and we shuffled aboard Coach 6 Cabin 1 and immediately I went into panic mode (WARNING: If you are Mum Carol, John Walkup, Aunty Jean or any other being suffering from claustrophobia do NOT take the top two berths in a 6 berth sleeper in Vietnam!)

The tiny cabin comprised of an ancient Vietnamese chap sporting an Uncle Ho chin-string beard, his 80 year old dauighter sporting similar chin fluff, a middle aged pair of Viet fellas sporting hacking coughs and the national nose picking habit all ensconsed in their bunk beds either side of a 3 foot floor space. Above these bunks on each side a further "bed" amounting to a crawl space with a head clearance of about 2.5 feet max. The height up to said bed was about 8 feet up.

Simon began his ascent from base camp on the bearded Ho's pillow and having made the summit rolled around on to his back and craned his neck up slightly, until it touched the ceiling and could go no further, to shout down to me "Climb when ready" The Vietnamese all sat in stunned awe, nervously chuckling and shaking their heads as yours huge and truly began to clamber up in a style much like that used for climbing chimneys- sort of a legs akimbo bridging technic.

Once up in the coffin I discovered that the bed was a hard shelf with a disgusting old carpet on it (like a hall runner) You couldn't sit up at all. I lay on my back and heard Si whisper - "Just stay calm there's nothing we can do! You just need to stay calm - take a valium (which was a gift from our dreadlocked pal Gary in Kampot-as Diazipan are freely available over the counter in Cambodia) The thought of drugging myself seemed worse because I was so afraid it would disable me in some way which would prevent escape and then I would be trapped paralysed in some sort of living burial.....


.....About 30 seconds later I was sitting near the loos in the corridor on the floor trying to breath through the cotton of my sarong to regulate my breathes. Complete panic attack: throat constricting, no air, sweats, absolute terror. The guard came by and I was terrified he would yell like the bus driver and try to force me back up there- I thought I will have to literally fight him if this happens. A nice guy standing by Si explained to the conductor in Vietnamese that I was allergic to small spaces! In the end they arranged to swap me with someone in the cheaper seats in another coach. I was happy enough to spend the whole journey on the floor though- or in the toilet- anything but that space.

So Si used all his powers to zone out and lie back in his coffin space all night whilst I sat in a seat 5 coaches away surrounded by Vietnamese people eating eggs with fertilisd feathered chicks in them before spreading themselves out and snoring, hacking, yocking. Several women didn't seem to have seats and so laid down in the dirty aisle. One women on floor next to me was sick in the night. Neither Pants nor I got any sleep.

The next morning about 7am the guard who'd helped negotiate a bed to seat swap for me - told Si that he should go fetch me and locked up the now empty sleeper cabin so that we could have it for our own use the rest of the journey (almost 8 more hours)
After the bus journey from Cambodia and then this journey almost straight away we were in a pretty exhausted state when we finally arrived in the absolutely gorgeous town of Hoi An.

Hoi An is a World Heritage site as it has remained unspoiled by the wars that ravaged and destroyed so much of the surrounding towns and villages. It is a preserved example of an old Vietnamese trading/fishing town. Cars and mopeds are forbidden to drive in the old town and by the river. The town was used in the Michael Cain film "The Quiet American" those bits set at night with the lanterns floating on the river. This lantern floating thing only happens once a month to mark the full moon. Lucky for us that's tonight!!

We pottered about yesterday taking heaps of pictures. Everwhere you see images so evocative of Vietnam: ladies in the conical hats balancing yokes across their shoulders with baskets on each side full of fruit or tea making implements. Old dears similarly dressed punting boats across the river. The shops and houses are ancient and look sort of how you imagine old Chinese houses to be- wooden or with earthern-ware tiles on the roofs, red lanterns hanging everywhere.

Today we are going to explore further and then get ready for what promises to be the visual spectacular of the full moon celebrations tonight. We have booked in here until Friday 30th July as we really need to rest after the journeys of recent times. Then we think we're heading for Hue and thence to Hanoi maybe via a little countryfied place on a river or via Ha Long Bay possibly -if we feel able to handle the touts and hassles associated with the area. (We left home 3 weeks ago - seems like an age)

As I type here- Simon is loading up some videos he's taken to help give you a feel for the experience.
Hope all are well. Will update again in a few days.

Travel hell and Miss Saigon

Kampot was great - particularly for Pants who went adventuring by bike each day. Meanwhile I got sick and spent one of our main days resting up and mainly seeing the bathroom. Sad to leave the fantastic folk at the Magic Sponge. (Correction to previous post- Dan is actually called Neil and we got muddled coz his son calls him Da!- Sorry Neil)

Took our direct VIP bus from Kampot to Saigon yesterday and it turned out to be a living hell. The Cambodian bit was fine and we were informed that we would change to a VIP big bus in Ha Tien (Vietnam boarder town) which would take us direct to Saigon. Well we transfered to a tiny bus which was fairly comfy anyhow and had wide open windows -there were 7 travellers on it only. This was great as we set off down really poor quality dirt roads for hours watching the folks of the Mekong delta go about their day. Unfortunately we were then stopped at a travel agency place somewhere... and told "get out! Wait here!" Next we were piled into a people carrier for a ten minute ride to another travel agents place and told as we left we were getting on the "big bus" for Saigon and that the driver would drop us in District One of Siagon (right in midst of backpackerville) The big bus turned out to be a 14 seat minibus packed with squawking Vietnamese and a vile driver who started screeching at us all in his own tongue forcing all the remaining 6 of us into the back seats (two big Irish boys concertinered in with Si and I on the very back four places. It was literally like sitting on an upright dining chair with nowhere to move your feet even an inch (because they'd thrust all our backpacks under the seats) nothing to hang on to and nowhere to put your arms (really just had to cross them in front of you).

This horror then continued for 6 and half hours whilst the b**tard driver drove like a maniac over the dust roads, sending mopeds, cyclists, cattle, pedestrians flying, honking his horn constantly and yabbering in the most vile screeching voice I've ever heard. At one point a seat became free and si moved into it so that the Irish guys had some more room- this was bliss for about 5 minutes until the driver stopped came around, opened the door and literally screamed at us forcing a return to cramped up agony.

Finally finally at 8.45pm we pulled to a stop in the midst of Saigon. Two of our tourist number were a couple from US who'd lived in Saigon for a month before and started yelling at the driver as he began unceremoniously dumping our gear on the street, to take us to District One. He screamed back and ignored any reasoning or beseeching (like ..we paid for D1 not to be dumped here) Each one of us had completely lost our zen and were all for causing this guy some hurt (preferably physical and lasting!) In the end we decided to hop a shared cab to District One and within a short time Si and I had headed down a back alley dodged rats and cockroaches and found our guesthouse (the Vy Khanh) Lady here very nice and helpful- changed our dollarage into dongage at the best rate imaginable and gave us maps and advice.

We headed out - me limping badly after a stealth mozzy attack on both my feet sometime during the last 24 hours-which left both feet with around 8 blistering, weeping bites -extremely painful. The tiny proportion we saw of Saigon was madness. Busy, loud, smelly, great scuttling roaches running amongst litter and red plastic chairs outside bars and cafes. We supped a few local ales (30p each)and then found a lovely little restuarant serving trad Vietnamese grub - lush.

The dong situation is a mind bender (currently I'm a multi multi millionnaire ($250 dollars into dong) You order a coffee for say 20,000 dong (that's a dollar-which in turn is about 75p-so we're trying to suss it out. We slept well and were awoken at 7am by the sound of someone trying to break in through our bedroom wall with a slug hammer. Turns out next door are demolishing something and start at 7am until 5.30 each day... great!

After brekkie we set out to book our train ticket for tomorrow night to Hoi An - problem- no sleepers or seats left at all all day! Tonight at 2300
hours, there are two berths left only -so we needed to make the quick decision to book those and cut short our Saigon trip. It's a pain in the jacksie to be honest as we're still beat from yesterday's 13 hour bus horror so to already set out on a 33 hour train journey isn't appealing. Having said that, the idea of spending three nights in demolitionville and four days in crazytown doesn't bode of rest and recreation time either. So here we are at 12.45pm in.... "Saigon - waiting for a mission and every hour we're here we're getting weaker and every hour Charlie is out there in the jungle he's getting stronger!" (paraphrasing there from the start of Apocalypse Now- seems appropriate)

On the plus side.. we have met some really sweet folks- the hotel lady is a poppet and is letting us keep the room until 9pm and will still refund us for tonight. The little lady in her room across the alley sewed a button on Si's shorts and wouldn't charge him, the lady in the cafe where we had breakfast gave us a plate of chopped banana and announced very sweetly that she was so happy we had come here.

So dear reader we are offski again tonight and will hopefully be able to update from a place of safety, serenity and stillness in Hoi An sometime on Saturday. Hope all are well and thanks again to the terrific folks in Kampot if they check by here- we very nearly turned around and came back at about 10.30 this morning (only the thought of another journey with the psycho small bollocked bus driver put us off!)

Everyone loves photos!

fear=loafing in Kampot

We left our darling Mother Home Guesthouse in Siem Reap on Sat am about 6.30am and took the bus to Kampot. What a great long journey. The first 6 hours to Pnom Pehn was interesting but uneventful on a VIP bus which showed horrendous Khmer pop videos- dreadful (laughably so at first but after the first few hours it really began to grate on the cramped nerves)

At Pnom Pehn we waited half an hour befor getting on the next bus for another long journey. The second leg was really great- red dust roads, beeping people driving their great white hump necked cattle along the road. Incredible medieval life happening all around- huge families bent double in rice paddies, folks outside their stilt shacks cooking, dragging a dog out in one hand with a machete in the other, tending pigs, goats, kids playing, working, sleeping, bathing under water pumps. Really really magical! At one point our bus broke down and we were all unloaded to stand around this little village whilst the driver sewed some piece of bus together!

Finally we reached Kampot about 7.30pm and hopped a tuk tuk to Blissful Guesthouse where we were turned away to the tune of "No Room at the Inn". We wandered next door to an amazing ex-villa/ex-bank which called itself "The Magic Sponge Guesthouse" No probs we could each have a bed in a dorm with another guy for the night with a room to ourselves next day.

The place is really really chilled and funky. Run by a fab chap named Dad (from Eire) and helped by his laid back fun son Gary (talk about a craic these guys are so welcoming and funny) First night we grabbed some great grub and a few large G&Ts at the bar and were immediately dragged into the bar talk of several folks who loved it so much they stayed here. Tony - American advertising guru who regaled us with tales of his bush baby which he bought off poachers for $20 to save it from being eaten and also of his work selling bed bug terror to the good people of NYC. Roy - previous manager of the guesthouse who warned us of the perils of the packs of dogs late at night and chatted charities, NGOs and Cambodia's state of play right now. We went to bed early a slow steamed until about 6.30am when we arose for iced coffee and chilled out until about 9ish when we went to explore the town.

I have to admit I am possibly the greatest coward in living history and walked gingerly around scanning every pavement for canine terror baring it's teeth in my direction. We then crossed "the old bridge" jeez- I was almost crawling I was in such unfounded terror once over the and on the other side of the river we were in dogville proper. They were everywhere. At last one fella decided to come tearing out of his place of abode barking at us. I jumped sky high and basically descended into a blubbering wreck, which needed escorting back over said rickety bridge and to the nearest bar for restorative beers. Si went for a wander whilst I calmed down and then we headed back to safety of the hostel. Si took a bike out and toured far and wide getting some interesting pix.

The dog story basically is that the Khmer have dogs to protect their property and after dark (fairly late in the evening) they release the hounds and lock their gates.. You then get a situation of huge gangs of canines packing together around town- howling their coded attack messages to each other all night. They are notorious and the local rag describes how you should pretend to pick up a stone and fake hurling it the dogs. Walking down the middle of the roads exuding confidence is also recommended. Unfortunately this just exacerbates my terror as I know there's no way I can be confident.

That said we did venture out after dark to the river front where we ate some food before hopping a tuk tuk the 2 min journey back to the hostel. A crazy night then ensued with Gary (the dreadlocked son of Dan) and three girls form Uk and US who are out volunteering in an orphanage in Takeo and were enjoying a weekend break in Kampot. American Tony joined us and the evening descended in to an hilarious boozy night-finally drawing to a close at 6.30am.

Si is feeling terrible and has just gone back to bed. (it's 3.25pm)(Actually, I went back in because it was about 100 degrees out - Pants) I'm slowly improving. I think tomorrow we may take a tuk tuk tour of the area or Si will bike out and I'll hide with my book. We have our 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) booked for 9am Weds and have a guesthouse pre booked there.

Cambodia is fantastic and we keep thinking everyone would enjoy Siem Reap for a few weeks. The people are wonderful, though many are poorer than anyone I've ever known. There's quite a lot of begging (from children) in Siem Reap and a considerable number of land mine victims about selling photocopied books to earn some sort of living. It is incredibly interesting country and here in Kampot you get the sense of what they've been through over the last 50 years with war and dictatorship of Pol Pot and khmer Rouge. They really are only starting to stand upright again and it's a slow process.

Kampot is hard for me to describe.. it is very laid back on a beautiful river and everywhere are old French Colonial buildings just descending into shells as they have been abandoned and stand empty. It seems that the Chinese have bought up a lot of land and property and have plans for developing the town - which will no doubt mean large casinos and hotels- a real shame I think.

The other thing which is new to us is the amount of charity and NGO workers around (non government organisations) There is so much help required from schools, medicine, building and infrastructure, orphanages, land mine clearances. Fascinating place it really is. Incredibly beautiful countryside and people - we both feel we would like to come back and if we do we will pack heaps and heaps of toys and books for the kids. Anyway we hope you're all okay. Probably going to chill out for the rest of the day and maybe won't get a chance to update again until Vietnam on Wed or Thurs.

Lessons learnt

I guess the title refers to yesterdy and our cycling trip to Tonle Sap (lake) It was ridiculously hot and shadeless along the lake road. On the return trip we stopped at a stilt house which was displaying a rather beat up sign in Khmer which looked to be advertising the place as a cafe or something. Anyway we stopped and were sourly invited in to the place- which consisted of a floor overhanging -at the moment -a 25 foot drop into stagnant waters and some muddy pools with some chickens pecking around (no doubt in a few days or weeks the rains will come and the house will be above the lake water) The floor was made of halved bamboo canes nailed to a rough wooden frame on these tall stilts. The place noticeably moved as we wandered in (bare foot as is right and proper in someone's home) There was a group of about 5 women sitting on a mat playing cards and about 9 children - 7 of whom were under the age of 5 & a couple of mankey looking dogs panting in the shade. There were no walls - all was open at the sides and no concrete or cement or stone (everything was grass roofs and wooden posts) The lady threw a woven mat on the floor and went off to buy us the drinks borrowing money from one of the card players. Amongst the children crawling, rocking and lying face down on the floor was one little tyke about 3 who stood near us, leaning back on the "fence" that protected him from the 20 foot fall out of his home. We were immediately hit by the complete deadness in his eyes. It was heart breaking! My smiles and silly faces didn't raise a flicker of anything which you would associate with a toddler. All the children were completely left to their own devises and there was not a ball, a crayon or anything bright or soft or shiny for them to respond to. Eventually Si gave me one of his postcards (on one side a pic of the College in the snow and on the other a colourful pic of a Thai chap painting a Fly Tail boat in Phi Phi island.) I made a little hat /sail boat thing out of it and tried to engage the little guy. He was interested but obviously didn;t know how to respond to my giving this to him. He still didn't smile and still his eyes were blank. After a while he climbed in to a hammock (the place was full of hammocks were they clearly sleep) and I gently placed the boat on him before turning away and pretending to ignore him. The moment I did that he rolled out of the hammock and ran to a quiet corner of the room clutching the boat. We watched him as he opened up the folds and looked at the picture of the Thai boat..... The smile that cracked his face had us both in awe. He then ran smiling and then stopping to look again at this picture. Heartbreaking but so real - what you always hear about such a little thing making such a difference. After about five minutes he brought the other little kids around and they stood by tentatively as our pal came forward and stuck 3 fingers up - so we gave him three more cards. By this time we had to go - it wasn't a very happy place. The little boy ran after us as we put our shoes back on and put his little hand out so Si did the high five for him - he was clueless so we spent some time teaching him up above down below you're too slow. When we finally started to wave good bye his face crumpled and we were worried he may cry- it was absolutely horrendous just how they had no stimulus or anything at all. Now staying another day and plan to take some things and leave them outside their place tomorrow (just some picture books or a ball -anything really)
Another long day on the bikes today cycling back along to the temples area. We have a bus ticket booked now for Saturday to travel to Campot in South East (near seaside place called Kep famous for Crab) Will spend some money tomorrow on tcrayons and paper etc and run back up to poor places by the lake ..probably just leave that little boy and his siblings some stuff by the door but there's also a temple school where we stopped and spoke to a young trainee buddhuist monk and they could use some resources too.
Hope everyone is well.

Cycling tour of Cambodia

Great day yesterday - we took bikes from the guesthouse and cycled off towards Angkor Wat and the site of the temples. Awesome! It is only the state of the infrastructure at the moment which is stopping Angkor Wat from becoming as big as the pyramids on the tourist trail... though the time is very near. Incredible architechure and feat of engineering quite unlike anything we've ever seen.

We both had thoughs of the Inca pyramids as the closest to describing these great structures. We wandered about Angkor Wat itself and then cycled off around to Bayon which is even more beautiful with its many towers with smiling Buddha faces on each side. All the temples are surrounded by jungle and it wasn't long before the monkeys were playing along the walls and surrounding areas.

It was very hot and sweaty, Simon loked like he'd been in the bath fully dressed. One child who was trying to sell us water even remarked on it! Poor old Pants- everywhere so far people have been calling out to him or saying straight to his face "Your body very fat!" I have tried to assure him this is a compliment.

We cycled around past the Terrace of Elephants and decided to start making our way back to Siem Reap but went the wrong way- ultimately making the whole journey 36kms long!!

Glad we did though because we stopped at a village on the way for a cold drink and had all the children talking with us and so sweet telling us their names, Boi, Po etc. We took some photos and showed them the images and they were delighted. In the end I gave one little lass my head torch and she was absolutely thrilled- running off bare foot to show her mother. These folks have absolutely nothing. The children (even tiny ones) are engaged in trying to tout bottled water & post cards to tourists around the temple sites and,as in this case, at the road side)

In this case the road was very quiet and in between the odd tourist climbing out of a tuk tuk near their home in order to enter the temple compounds, the children sat about playing with each others hair or tugging their naked baby brother about from one adoring sibling to the next. They have no toys, no ball, nothing at all. The all waved us off when we set out again and we felt that if we ever come back we will definitly fill a rucksack with books, crayons, beachballs, small games etc. The journey was so lovely through the jungle and past the farms.

We stopped at another shack later and again were greeted shyly by a group of 7 small semi dressed kids. they hid beind the big cold box and peered over at us with big wide eyes. Simon drew a face in the wet caused by the base of his can of beer and they drew the arms and legs for the figure. Si videod them and showed them - the laughter and delight I'll never forget (even now writing this my eyes are filling up)
I think it safe to say - we absolutely love Cambodia. Today we're planning on cycling down to Tonle Sap lake and then tomorrow back to explore some of the temples we didn't get around to.

We've pretty much decided to skip Pnom Penh now - as we've heard so many bad things (even from Cambodians) and we can't be bothered with hassle and potential risk this time. Instead we're going to look into getting a bus down to Campot and Kep (about 20km from Campot) they are in south east Kep on the coast and Campot a river resort - quiet but mellow) We are due to enter Vietnam on 21st Aug (A week today) so hopefully we can bus it from Kampot.

Last night Simon had Cambodian bbq which included Croc and Roo... He liked the roo but not the croc. I didn't know they had ros in Cambodia!! So far we've both faced all our fears with dogs, rats (huge rats) snakes. Last night we sta having a relaxing G&T at the Foreign Correspondants Club as night drew down and watched the biggest bats I've ever seen leave their roosts for the night (I think they may have been fruit bats- huge things)

Anyway hope everyone is well- you're all very quiet!!!

BTW- sorry about typos and bad spelling- just not getting long ebough to re-read these blogs. Also quick note- apologies for spelling Khmer- Khymer in earlier posts. It is y-less and spelt Khmer! (as in: Khmer Rouge!)

Across the lake and a day in the country

Yesterday we decided against the temples after a bad night's sleep and went for brunch into town. Ended up taking a tuk tuk to the river where we hopped aboard a boat with a very helpful young driver who lead us off to Tonle Sap lake (a huge fresh water lake that runs off into the Mekong.) It was pretty incredible as all along where reed shacks built on stilts with families going about their business. Everywhere nude kids swimming and fishing and playing along the mud banks.

Eventually we moved out of the river into open water and on to the floating village (complete with floating catholic church, school, police, general stores) The views were stunning with the lake silver and endless to all horizons.

At one point I was clicking away at a little boat chugging in the distance and as it started to come closer I was enjoying focussing on a cute little ragamufin of a girl aged about 5, sitting up front of her dad's boat and wearing a too big hat. I put the camera down to wave at her and the boat made a beeline for us. Within seconds I jumped in horror as I realised she was holding up a big snake which was writhing around her shoulders. Well as soon as I alerted Simon (who is afraid of snakes) the panic ensued (because I am afraid of everything let's face it)The girl was begging for money and bring the snake closer and closer, eventually pulling up right next to our boat - which was almost toppling from the sudden movement of Si & I rushing to find some reasonable small change to pay her off.

Later we saw another small pants-less laddy merrily rowing a plastic washing-up bowl around other tourist boats and profering snake threats!

It was a great trip and we were struck by the life of the people on the lake and also on the way to the area by tuk tuk. Our driver was a great guy named Botra and he secured a deal with us to use him to take us to the temples today.

We met up with him at 8am and decided to use the first of our three day pass to head about 30 miles away to see the furthest temples which we wouldn't be able to cycle to. The journey was really great and once again -probably our favourite part because of the opportunity to see real rural folks living and working their normal day. Fascinating how this morning on our way out every family was involved in some industry- in the paddy fields, making carvings, sewing, cooking, sweeping, fixing generators, making bricks or rice noodles.

The countryside is so beautiful and lush - the rice fields are the most vivid green. We stopped at the first temple and it was HOT and full of japansies, chinese, korean tourists in big groups so wasn't that great a deal- but pretty stunning. Next we travelled further out and stopped in a kind of national park where Si and I set off walking 1500 meters up a mountain path through the jungle. Amazing noises of insects, frogs, birds and monkeys. It was extremely sweaty going and Pants looked like he's been in shower fully clothed by the time we reached our destination. At the end of the walk we got to see some beautiful carvings in the rock floor of the river (so underwater) It was a pretty magical place and featured in the film (terrible film) The Two Brothers (about the tigers) It's called the Linga River.

We had a leisurely lunch with Botra and he invited us to his home to meet his wife and children- bless him... not sure I would feel comfortable doing this but still. On the ay back to town we had a chance to check out the Land Mine Museum (pretty bloody grim -that's about all I can say about Kymer history at this time of night)
Anyway we were dropped back in town tied, sweaty and dusty but having had a really insightful day. Early night for me - Pants is off on his Jack to watch the footy at 1.30am- idiot! Not sure tomorrow may be cycling templewards again or chilling depending on how late back Si is and how he feels in the morning.

Hope all are well... we've got ages to go and don't know what to do about Pnom Penh as we keep hearing it's pretty dicey and prob best avoided -even from Cambodian's whose best advice is if you have to go - stay one night only and then in the morning visit the Killing Fields and then leave. (So Killing Fields are the option rather than the city- that doesn't bode well) Update soon...