Mekong Delta and the Beginnings of our Holiday in Cambodia

 The Mekong Delta was great. There is a definite change of pace compared to the rest of Vietnam, everything seems unrushed and everybody happy. We travelled on so many different types of boat, and the occasional bus during our three days. The rowboat on the last day was my favourite experience as we got expertly navigated by a local woman through a brightly coloured floating village where everybody’s going about their daily lives and their dogs watch you float by from their porches, all in the early morning sunshine. The floating market we visited on the second day went by quickly but seeing all the buying and selling from the big boats stuffed with fruits and vegetables to the small boats was fantastic and the big boats even advertised what they sold by tying a selection to the mast!

As part of the trip we learnt how the people of this area make money from the natural resources of the Delta which was really interesting. We visited a brick factory and saw the thousands of clay bricks they produce and then sell on - 30 for $1! A family business to do with coconut processing where nothing is wasted of the coconut and they make sugary candy, coconut drinks, coconut toffee and the shell of the coconut gets pressed into wooden souvenirs such as salad servers that we bought with some of our left over Vietnamese money. We also visited a fruit farm which grew all the exotic fruits of Vietnam, a fish farm which consisted of a house built over a huge square net that fish swim into to get fed through a hole in the floor and then never leave and of course rice fields that when glimpsed from the boat stretched endlessly into the horizon.

The lunch on the first day of the trip is worth mentioning because we had this HUGE ugly, angry looking Mekong fish presented to us. He tasted so good! We had fresh spring rolls prepared in front of us which consisted of a bit of fish, mint leaf, pineapple, and rice accompanied with a dipping sauce. Mmmmm! We then had about 3 other dishes all delicious but none of them could beat the spectacle of the fish.





The border crossing was no problem at all, we had an hour wait for the visas so we ate something in the border cafe and by the time we were finished they were done! Getting to the border was the most interesting as we took a 3 hour slow boat. All the houses were set back on land with stilts rather than in or very nearby the water as we’d seen previously. Children would run to wave and blow kisses to the boat (one girl even pulled different poses with her fingers making the peace sign – I blame the Japanese!) and people just carried on as they always do crossing from one side of the river to the other in a row boat to visit friends, casting fishing nets from small boats to catch lunch or ferrying huge amounts of vegetables from the fields on the back of a pedal bike over a rickety looking wooden bridge - it was fascinating.

Cambodia so far has been really friendly and everyone always has a smile on their face even if half the people we talk to are tuk-tuk drivers looking for a fare... The Khmer food that we’ve tried has been fantastic and the beer seems good too which is always positive! The money can be a little bit confusing at first because they mainly use US Dollars but you can also use Cambodian Riel mainly for smaller things. This means that a lot of the time we’re using the two currencies together – to pay $4.50 you might put down $4 and 2000 Riel. The temples in Phnom Penh remind us a lot of Bangkok and rest of Thailand’s glitzy and slightly gaudy style. We took a walk around the main sights and the river front on our first full day taking in some more French Colonial architecture combined with monuments, temples, wats and even the national museum! Phnom Penh is certainly a busy city and we’ve found finding certain cafes has not been the easiest as streets and buildings are given a number whenever they are built meaning you might see buildings 14, 36 and 108A all sitting next to each other. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the cafes mentioned in the Lonely Planet have closed making them impossible to find.

Yesterday we went to S-21 and the Killing Fields. S-21 was a school that got turned into a prison and interrogation / torture area by the Khmer Rouge an extreme Marxist style party who took over Cambodia from 1975 – 1978. During their time in power they abolished money and forced everyone from the cities to become slaves in the fields working 12 -15 hour days and receiving nothing but watery rice for food. Naturally the leaders were suspicious of everyone including their own party members thinking KGB or US informants were everywhere so they rounded people up and tortured them until they lied about whatever they wanted to hear. Then truck loads of these self-confessed ‘spies’ and ‘traitors’ were taken to the killing fields 15 km out of Phnom Penh and savagely killed by most often a blunt instrument such as a lead pipe and pushed into a mass grave with hundreds of others. It’s appalling to think that this happened just over 30 years ago and the leaders behind it have still not been punished. S-21 had portrait photos of each of the victims, some photos were also taken after the torture everything is mostly the way it was with tiny cells and barbed wire covering any escape routes. It’s still quite a brightly coloured building and so ordinary looking which makes it all the more chilling for the crimes that were committed there.

Hope everyone who reads this blog is doing well just a quick note to say on Flickr you can browse by 'Sets' (Places we’ve been) as well as 'Collections' (Countries) if you want to look through any of our older photos it’ll be much quicker to find than scrolling through our Photostream.

Love C&K xxx

Beaches, Bullets and Buildings

We are now qualified PADI Open Water Divers! This means now have the training to go down to depths of 18 meters and skilfully hover above colourful coral whilst little luminescent fish largely ignore us, regard us with mild curiosity or dart away. As you can probably guess we loved diving regardless of what the fish did and now can’t wait to try some other diving spots on the rest of our travels.

The actual PADI course was quite tiring due to early starts and the sheer amount of reading and videos you have to fit into 3 days. We found we’d be shattered by 10pm each day trying to finish off the last few pages of our required reading. Having said that slowly gaining more control over our diving was so rewarding it was more than worth it!

Day 1 of the PADI course involved a number of confined water dives in a local pool that was around 6 meters deep. We practised the core skills of diving including clearing your mask of water, recovering the regulator (breathing apparatus), preparation of Scuba gear, buoyancy control, removal of Scuba gear underwater, emergency ascents and breathing from another diver’s spare regulator. Kat’s hair generally broke the waterproof seal of her mask after removal and it needed clearing, I looked very undignified when trying to take off and put back on all the Scuba equipment underwater and on the surface closely resembling a turtle on its back struggling to right itself but apart from that we didn’t really have any problems!

Days 2 and 3 then consisted of four dives in open water where we practised the skills we’d learned in the pool then went on to generally have fun exploring the bottom of the ocean, 16 meters deep was the maximum we got to! On these dives we saw a multitude of fish that you can see a selection of on Flickr having hired an underwater camera on our last day. As you’ll see this also meant that we had an underwater photo shoot with our instructor directing us to pose in certain ways – actually quite difficult to know what he wanted without hearing him!

On our final day of the PADI course after our dive and in the break before our final exam (which we both scored 96%) we trekked out to the nearby Cham towers which were very similar to the ones we’d seen in My Son and the Nha Trang Cathedral which was huge and very picturesque. These activities all combined and mixed in with a good Indian meal and a beer meant that we slept soundly throughout the night bus’ journey for once all the way through to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as everyone still calls it).

In Saigon we stayed in a hotel situated in the back room of a tailor shop. It was a real hotel you just had to walk through the tailor shop to get to the street. We really enjoyed doing a short walking tour of some of Saigon’s historic French Colonial buildings, the famous Rex Hotel which was where all the reporters stayed during the Vietnam War and the Reunification Palace which was where the American backed President commanded the South’s war efforts from - untouched 60’s / 70’s decor means that it looks a lot like a villains lair from a James Bond movie! Crossing the street is as much of an experience as everyone says it is – doing it slowly is the key! Scooters just jam the road at rush hour and a few times when we weren’t sure quite when to step out into this death trap a local came to our aid or one of the tourist police helped us across.

We visited a Cao Dai temple that looks a lot like a Disneyland for religion and the worshippers hedge their bets by taking the best bits of every religion and worshiping all the gods. We attended mid-day mass which was really interesting as there was a choir, band and lots of people in multi-coloured robes (to identify which religion they believe in most). Cu Chi tunnels came next where the Viet Cong dug a network of tunnels into the ground to evade and kill the Americans during the war. We were shown numerous traps that involved falling into horrible looking sharp spikes. The tunnels themselves for us were a hot, tiny mad 200 meter dash which included a section we had to go flat to the ground and slide ourselves down because it was that small, and they’ve been widened for Westerners! I certainly couldn’t imagine staying down there for months at a time and not coming up for fresh air. Whilst we were at the tunnels we also fired an AK-47 (which has quite a kick!) loaded with 10 real bullets into an area nowhere near the targets we were aiming for! Certainly a new experience and something we felt we had to try as the opportunity was there!

We’ve just arrived in Cambodia and for the past 3 days we have been thoroughly enjoying boating around the Mekong Delta and waving at all the local kids (more about that in another post).

Love Chris & Kat. xxx

Moving Down Vietnam

We're enjoying Vietnam now that we're in the swing of things here.  It has a very different feel from neighbouring laid back Laos, and it is a world from the land of smiles but it does hold its own charm.  

There is a big Chinese influence; the most obvious was seeing the Imperial Palace in Hue which was like a miniature Forbidden City – much more attractive in my opinion, green and mostly un-restored.  But Chinese style temples and buildings are generally ever present and their shared enthusiasm for building huge Mausoleums for Kings (we viewed a few on the a tour down the Perfume River in Hue)  again show the similar Architecture and adoration of their rulers – Ho Chi Minh is just as well loved as Mao!  The Vietnamese temperament also reminds me of the Chinese, quite blunt and to the point, I often joke that restaurants must entice people in with their warmth and customer service – "You! Buy something!"  When we were in Shanghai we went to a Propaganda museum to see the old Communist posters – amazingly here they are still used & we've seen them everywhere! 

As well as the Chinese influence – the French have also put their stamp on the place.  Again baguettes lurk at every street food stand!  Also the buildings around Hanoi and Hoi An were very European featured, very colonial looking.  There are even Notre Dame Cathedral replicas in both Hanoi & Saigon. 

We enjoyed Hue, we did a tour of the DMZ which was a day of bus travel and photo opportunities, then the impressive tunnel complex where a whole village hid for the duration of the Vietnam war.  The following day was the Perfume River tour, it was really very hot – 38degrees – and the boat was the slowest moving object that I have ever travelled on!  But despite the distinct lack of breeze, we survived and enjoyed seeing a pretty pagoda, a traditional garden house & a few Mausoleums all just off the bank of the beautiful Perfume River.

Next on the destination list was Hoi An.  A lot of travellers rave about here – and it's easy to see why!  A gorgeous riverside setting, a typical mix of beautiful French vs traditional Chinese buildings, an abundance of restaurants selling delicious seafood dishes (can't get enough of the squid!) and the crowning factor – fresh beer for 12.5p a glass!!  We indulged in a lot of 'Bia Hoi' and generally enjoyed some relaxing around the town.  One day we hired a bike and went on a really nice 5km ride to the beach, which was beautiful & so quiet; we had a walk along the shore (burnt our feet on the hot hot hot sand getting there!) and played some Frisbee in the surf (great gift Lianne J).  It was so lovely to have a relaxing day. 

The following day was back to sightseeing.  We headed to My Son, a Cham temple complex dating back from the 4^th Century.  It's unknown how they built it, much like the pyramids it seems an engineering feat and nobody knows how they stuck the bricks together, even top scientists can't replicate the technique!  Its full of more recent history too – the French found the sight and cut off all the Hindu god heads to take back to France (they are now in the Louvre in Paris!) and there are numerous bomb craters & stories from the Vietnam War.

From Hoi An we embarked on another night bus – this would be our 2^nd in Vietnam.  The experiences have so far been much the same.  A bed on an incline, so you're slightly upright – your feet go under the head of the person in front of you.  Its slightly too small – especially for Chris, the pillow is like a rock, the driving includes frequent swerving, the film is dubbed in Vietnamese and played loudly, the horn honking is louder than the movie and mostly continuous!  But this delightful experience is cheap and so far has delivered us safely to our destinations!  Only one more night bus to go to Ho Chi Minh!

We are now in Nha Trang and after a Discovery Diving Day we have just signed up to do our PADI Open Water Course.  We did 2 dives today, once we started to understand how to regulate our buoyancy to avoid floating up or crashing down into Coral then we soon started to enjoy ourselves.  We saw numerous fish; to name a few we saw Dory from Finding Nemo, really cool trumpet fish, a school of humbug fish, an ugly looking octopus, lots of sea anemones and lots of coral.  It was beautiful and we seemed to get the hang of it enough to sign onto the PADI.  So we have lots of reading, DVDs and the day in a swimming pool tomorrow for practice!  Wish us luck! Hopefully we'll be qualified divers in the next 3 days!!

Love K&C xxxxx

Good Morning Vietnam!

We crossed the border quickly and with no fuss from the guards. They even exchanged our small amount of left over Laos Kip to Vietnamese Dong at a bad rate for us! This Dong worked out to be the perfect amount for lunch that day and a taxi ride to our hostel from the bus station. The only problem we had was with the Vietnamese bus company we used who were really aggressive and had a bad attitude towards women.

We swapped buses towards the end of the journey to get to Hanoi and finally arrived after 15 hours where we then got into a taxi that we thought was ripping us off as the meter was running crazily fast, even when we were stationary - turns out later we actually got a fairly good price when we asked at our hostel! The thing with Vietnam is we’ve heard so many bad stories of the locals ripping you off so you’re always on your guard. Certainly we’ve noticed that you ask at a street stall how much a drink costs and the owner will pause for slightly too long to consider and then say some outrageous price. Also there’s no real service in the tourist industry it seems to be run by dour faced people who don’t care if you buy a tour from them or not which is a big contrast to the rest of SE Asia so far.



Bamboo Ladders anyone?

Hanoi was face meltingly hot and bustling with lots of scooters all over the place. Literally you can’t walk on the pavement because all the scooters are parked there! After the ordeal of the border journey it was nice to have 2 days pottering around Hanoi. We enjoyed seeing the Old Quarter with its product specific streets such as the electronic fan street, the bamboo ladder street, the paper lantern street and many more. All featuring multiple shops selling the same things! We saw a traditional long house that was a single room size wide and about four room sizes deep (long and thin) with two stories. The History museum was full of army tanks and anti-aircraft missiles captured from the Americans during the war. Most interesting was the sculpture made out of parts of crashed B-52 Bomber Planes. We also walked to see the B-52 memorial which is a lake that still has the untouched wreckage of a crashed Bomber Plane floating in it! You’ll all be pleased to know the street food in Hanoi is as fantastic as the rest of SE Asia J

We did a lot of research into which Ha-Long Bay tour to do. Fortunately we choose to do the cheapest tour we could find as we’d heard all the budget and mid-range tours get thrown together and all you pay more for is the tour company’s commission. Well we were very happy! We went with low expectations and out of everyone we met; only one other couple seemed to actually enjoy the tour! Everyone else seemed to be unhappy with everything and complained non-stop!

The first day was a bit drizzly so we didn’t get great views of the bay. It was still quite cool to see all the shadowy Karsts rising out of the sea as we slowly passed them by. We visited the heavenly cave which was massive and reminded us a bit of Chedder Caves because it was all lit up. We passed a floating village where houses float on oil drums and docked nearby to Cat Ba Island for the night for some swimming in the warm sea before dinner and drinks on the boat.

The next day the weather cleared up around mid-day. We went onto Cat Ba Island and did a short, but very muddy trek up to the top of a hill and saw fantastic panoramic views of the Island’s National Park. We had the rest of the day at our leisure so we walked around the lovely Harbour admiring all of the multi-coloured boats and enjoying iced coffee in a cafe. Later on in the evening we went out with Simon and Claire who we’d met on the boat the day before and found a bar selling tasty Beer Hoi (fresh low alcohol draught beer) where we had six drinks for under £1!

The final day we were back on the boat to cruise through the bay again and we had absolutely brilliant weather all day and what a difference it made! I couldn’t stop taking photos as it was so stunning! On the way back we stopped off to do 20 minutes of Kayaking around natural caves in the Karsts which was really nice for a different view point.

Ha Long Bay

We had one more day in Hanoi yesterday where we wondered around some more sights including the very Chinese Confucius Temple of Literature and then in the evening we caught the night bus to Hue where we have just arrived and seen the Imperial Citadel. Tomorrow we’ve booked onto a tour to see the De-Militarised Zone or DMZ. The DMZ is a small strip of land that divided Northern and Southern Vietnam and the opposing political parties during the war. Looking forward to it!

Love Chris & Kat xxx