Cambodia

Hey everyone,

Quite a lot to write about...luckily no robberies though.


Journey to Ho Chi Minh

A much better designed and smoother running sleeper bus took us to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). Was meant to be a 10 hour journey...no surprises, it took much longer.

I wasnt placed next to two girls id never met like last time...shame.


War museum

Despite how massive Ho Chi Minh is, there didnt seem like a lot to do at all...Plus I was getting fed up with Vietnam. I needed some peace and quiet so when we turned up and all we could hear was "beeep beeep beeep beeep beeeeep beeeep f***ing beep"I couldnt believe my luck.

Checked into our hostel...our room was on the fifth floor...there was no lift...luckily, after lugging our bags all the way up the boiling hot stairs, we were greeted with a warm room in which the air-con didnt work properly and there was no fan. Sweat box. Luckily there were showers in the room which helped...It took all of five minutes to have a fresh sweat on after a cold shower though.

We had a few beers to knock us out for the night as we'd planned on getting as much done as possible the following day. Got up nice and early and was pleasantly surprised that id lost about 3 stone overnight. Put it all back on at breakfast which was a couple of baguettes, tea and scrambled eggs (all free).

Went to various unexciting places such as the palace and a roundabout (yep, that was a highlight) before reaching the museum. It basically tells "the story of the Vietnam war from "the other side...turns out the Americans were rather naughty indeed, breaking all sorts of international laws. There were some horrible images of the Vietnamese people (and some American) who had been affected by Dioxin, a chemical used by American troops. They were awful images. Enough said.

Cu chi Tunnels

The next day we planned a half day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels with which the Viet-Cong used in the war. It was a great little trip... educational...so.

Our guide was self-named "Mr Bean" He got a few chuckled early on, but he loved to talk. After 2 hours of non stop talking about the war, I noticed that pretty much everyone on the bus was a sleep...The only person really paying attention was this French guy whose seat was right in front of the Mr Bean. He had no choice but to listen as the guide kept saying "Understand?" after every sentence while looking straight at the French guy. The guise was always shortening the word "understand" to "'stand?" and then to "stan?" Unless the French guys name was Stan...

We stopped at a handcraft by the handicapped place. All the artwork etc was done by people with disabilities. You walked through the workshop before entering the shop...It was weird, loads of people watching the handicapped people work, and taking pictures. Imagine that happening while you were working. They'd made way too much stuff...massive shop full of various ornaments, art etc. Pretty amazing stuff, but really expensive...an ornamental tiger cost 3 grand.

We got to the place and had to watch the most boring video ever made about anything ever...could hardly hear it either.

showed us some interesting things, mainly the booby-traps left by the Viet-Cong. Some were pretty horrific, but ingenious.

We got to fire real guns at one point as well, I chose the M1 Garand rifle.

Then we were shown into the little underground tunnels to walk through them...I say walk, but in no way could you actually walk. I could barely kneel in these dark, hot tunnels. So we shuffled through over a 100m of this, fighting a little claustrophobia. Came out drenched in sweat but smiles on our faces...Dont know how the Viet Cong managed that every day, with bombs going off all over the place.


Cambodia

Was glad to leave Vietnam...Cambodia was the next stop, more specifically; Pnom Penh (capital). I instantly felt more at home in Cambodia...its nothing like home...but you get a feeling about a place very quickly - and it was a positive one. The bus journey was rubbish - took over 5 hours longer than the original 6 and included stops in massive unused lorry-parks where the toilet (as guided to by our driver) was a lovely barbed-wire fence.

Anyway, arrived at Encounters hostel in Pnom Penh...nice little place with Martin, an English guy running the place. He gave us loads of advice on what to do...

S-21 and killing fields

Pol Pot was a bad man - he started a massive revolution in the late 20th century and anyone he considered to be an enemy was killed.

We went to a high school that Pol Pot converted into a prison. It has been left in more-or-less the same state as they found it...and they dont hold back: displaying photos of the dead in each of the 14 cells that were occupied at the end of Pots reign. It was an experience similar to Auschwitz in Poland - so difficult to comprehend the voilence that happened in the same place as you are standing...lots of people were continuously tortured there before being loaded into a truck with 59 other blind-folded prisoners...they werent told where they were going...

Killing fields

This is where they were taken...about 15km away from the prison. The truck would pull up and the prisoners taken into holding cells before taken to the field, executed (sometimes beheaded) and thrown into a mass grave. There was a tree which the Khmer Rouge used to smash babies heads against. Its unbelievable to think that this happened only 30/40 years ago.

As you can imagine, its an eerie place.

Chill at the pool

The following day, we decided to go to a pool to chill out for the day. Managed to find a little restaurant/bar that had a pool and sunbeds...all we had to do was spend over 5 dollars on our tab each and we could use the facilities for free - had a full English breakfast - read - swam - read. It was absolutely baking.


Market


Went to the market in the evening. Purchased some Abercrombie shorts (defo real) and a Hai Dong...Which is basically a big shuttle cock shaped thing with a feather coming out of a spring. Difficult to explain but all the locals love these things. They stand in groups and do kick ups with it. So when we got back to the hostel we played with it outside the front.

Gradually people became interested and a few lads joined in (locals) they were pretty good, and after a while they invited us to play soccer with them...

The ball was this strange woven thing made of thin wood...flip-flops for goalposts. Had a great little game with them, they were pretty awesome as well, some of them were only 8 years old.

Siem Reap

Arrived at our hostel in Siem Reap (Which means "Thailand - Defeat") From when the Cambodians defeated Thailand.



Siem Reap is home to Angkor Wat - The largest religious temple in the world. It takes about 3 days to fully take it all in, so we hired our very own Tuk-Tuk driver for the time we are hear. Hes a ledge, gave us a discount cos I got him a beer...During the day we'll get him the odd can of coke, or pay for his lunch...In return he will take us anywhere at night for free. So he came and picked us up after the first day to go out...more of that later...

Angkor Wat is incredible. Its like a massive area of jungle where the Angkors built their empire. A huge centre-piece temple looks spectacular and has lots of religious symbolism. There are many other temples surrounding the centre-piece...Including pyramid based temples, one with lots of faces, and one now dominated by trees. This was my favourite part - as massive trees wrap their routs around the temples, They are so huge that it looks more like an Alton Towers ride. This temple was where the Tomb Raider movie was filmed.

So the night out then...We arrived at "Mr Hang's" (tuk tuk driver) recommended night spot. It looked OK, a little quiet but they had a big screen with the football on. We decided to go flash and buy a bottle of Jack Daniels for the table, with a loads of cokes, an ice bucket and some lime. The manager came over and introduced himself, he drank with us for a while, talking about football and the like...the like being that the rules of the club were that you pay 3 dollars to actually enter the inside of the club...can pick a girl and she will dance with you for 3 dollars ("This include kissing, touching, dancing") and you can take them back to the hotel, all night for 50 dollars. That was good to know. We drank and played cards...I banged out a couple of magic tricks that they buzzed off (Cheers Segger-pot). They said we were now VIP so we could go into the club for free, we took up his offer and went in. Was actually an awesome club..music was ledge as well. Neither of us used the services...

Went to another club to play pool and carry on drinking...crashed in bed around 4.30am.

Pick up at 9.30am...ouch.

The next day, was today...We were picked up at 5am to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat...Bit cloudy so wasnt really worth it...But went on a different circuit to some other highlights.

Just got back now...Tomorrow we visit some waterfalls and more temples (All the temples are just like Indiana Jones)

If its a comfort to anyone, its too hot here.

OK blog done, Im knackered... will blog again soon...either back in Bangkok or in Sydney, our new destination.

Jay x
Angkor Wat

Hanoi - Nha Trang

Hey,

Been a few days since my last update, quite eventful ones too.

After recovering from the most horrific bus journey in the world, we decided to take the 3 day trip to Ha Long bay which was recommended by a few people. The trip consisted of a bus journey to a pier to get on a big boat called a "junk"...but dont let the name fool you, these junks are top notch. There were only 12 guests on each boat, each with an ensuite room with air con and all the works...

Luckily there were only 12 guests on each Junk, with a range of ages and nationalities - this is perfect as it means the chances of it turning into a cheap booze cruise are slim-to-none.

The food on the boat was delicious, all Vietnamese with second helpings etc... So we reached Ha Long bay (no idea if thats the correct spellign by the way) and its beautiful...loads of tiny islands with floating villages and huge caves. We were given Kayaks and soem free time to explore and see the caves in our own time...then we were guided through the main cave, which is absolutely massive...there were loads of rocks that the guide pointed out saying thins like "Can you see what that rock looks like?" ... well, a rock. Apparently, they looked like anything from chickens to sitting ladies, fat Buddhas, and an erect penis. The latter was the only one that actually looked like its description (It was also deliberately well lit) The usual jokes came out, as you'd expect.

Back on the boat for free time during the sunset...A few of us jumped off the top of the boat into the freezing water - then hot shower and chill time on top of the boat. We had a few beers with the rest of the guests up on the top deck while the sun set....Another amazing meal followed...

Then it was "Killer" time...I introduced the card game we played on almost every evening in S.A where everyone has a certain card, one person is the killer and the rest have to work out who the killer is...I dont have the time or energy to write all the rules of the game on here...its hard enough to exlpain to a group of adults face to face....all you need to know is that its awesome.

We had a great laugh and all got a little drunk...a couple of Czech guys decided to dive into the water again (It was pitch black and quite cold....crazy Europeans.)....

Bed...on the boat.

Woke up to another decent breakfast, followed by a short journey to another island. We had a choice of either climbing to the top for a good view, or taking bicycles around for a bit. Seeing as we had already done some trekking we opted for the bikes. Didnt go very far, but stopped at a cave that had been converted into a hospital during the war. Was pretty impressive, if a little eerie.

Then, after lunch (guess what...it was really nice)... we were taken to monkey island - a tiny private beach with bamboo bungalows...we met up with people from another boat (as half of the people on ours were only doing the two-day trip) and it turned out we were the only people on the island.

Spent the afternoon playing beach football, pool, snoozing, eating, drinking and playing killer. The guys from the other boat were in their sixties and hilarious...An Aussie couple who swore at eachother constantly (in a playful way) and could drink people under the table. We introduced the noobies to killer and we played for over 3 hours. We've been invited by the Aussie couple (Jan and Dee) To visit them in Aus.

The next day it pissed it down and was freezing, luckily this was when we were travelling back to Hanoi so we were kind of glad.

Night out - After watching the Manchester derby (Soz Rooney), we went to a few bars with two of the girls from the trip - then onto a mingin night club (more grungy than Kam-bar)...I was a fan.

Met a lovely young lady called Hetty-Kate, who happens to be a jazz singer in a five-star hotel in Hanoi - She invited me to go see her set the following day....so I did. Never before have I stood out so much as I did in there. The place was huge, and oozed class...everybody dressed in suits, dresses, gowns etc...the waiters pouring aged wine...the smooth sound of jazz. I bowled in late with my only pair of jeans, white converse and a t-shirt...what a rock-star.

Swiftly ordered a drink (only 5 times more expensive than the previous night) and sat and watched Hetty sing. It was great, and I started feeling more relaxed after my third Jack Daniels. During the set-break she came over and got me a drink and we were then invited to sit with her friends....Minutes later, conversation began to flow... as did the red wine. I felt so classy.

At the end of the night, one of Hetty's friends, Mimi (think ive spelt that right) invited us to carry on drinking at her hotel (We being the three of us, plus a well travelled guy who Im sure is in the mafia...His name escapes me as it was difficult to pronounce, top guy though) ..So back to this other 5 star hotel over-looking a lake - the swankiest apartment ive ever been in. Room service at 2am, prawn spring rolls and other such appetisers with sweet chilli sauce - and of course, 2 more bottles of red.

Hetty and I left at some time past 3am, dropped her off back at the other hotel then I headed home...

I got in at around 4, got up onto my bed (top bunk in a dorm...theres your contrast) ... and Craig woke up - I asked "what time is the alarm set for?" (As we had a flight to Nha Trang that morning)...he replies "one minute"....I waited for him to look at his phone to check how long tilt he alarm sounded...but he literally meant one minute til it went off.

We got up and packed, checked out, taxi to airport, check in, fly for two hours, land, taxi, check in, bed. I felt absolutely disgusting....and according to Craig, smelt pretty bad too.

Nha Trang, by the way, is a beach town. The weather here is much better than the England-like Hanoi and the beach is lovely - And if you happen to take drugs, there are hundreds of men on mopeds offering them willy nilly.

After sleeping all of yesterday, we decided to go out for a few drinks and see what was going on. We left the last bar at around 3am and began to walk home...down the dark streets...and this is when something happened...

As we walked away from the well lit bar, we were approached by two ladies asking if we wanted them to "sucky sucky" us. I laughed and said no thanks. She was persistant and was all over me saying it only costs 100,000 VND (vietnamese dong...ha...dong.) which is about 30 quid. I still said no, despite the value...But now she was being more handsy and started squeezing the old fella. I was like "whooooa now, none of that please" but she wasnt takign no for an answer...at that point I realised that Craig was in a similar position just ahead of me, not only that, but several moped drug dealers were hovering very near-by. The whole thing was beginning to escalate and I said to Craig that we needed to get inside somewhere asap. The girl who was trying it with him gave up and decided to team up with my .... "sucky-sucky girl". This new one just grabbed me from in front and started grinding and what not while the other held my hands as to stop me pushing her away. I worked out what was happening...I was being mugged. Free'd my hands and went straight for my back pocket which was hanging half out ...The "grinder girl" quickly pulled her hand away seeing as shed been rumbled and they ran onto the back of a druggy-ped and sped off.

I opened my wallet...money had gone.

Luckily, Id stopped her taking my whole wallet, which had my cash-card in. Plus the money she took was only the equivalent of around 15/20 quid so no harm done. I was still pretty pissed off, but at the same time you've got to appreciate her skill of removing cash from a wallet inside a back pocket.

Ive had more romantic valentines days.

Just spend the day on the beach soaking up the rays and attempting to cross roads (remember that game 'Frogger'...yeh just like that)....Tomorrow its a 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon).

Well, another epic blog, thanks for reading...Hope everyone is golden.

Jay

p.s Vietnam dont like people having fun, so they've banned facebook...there was a way of getting onto it, but it seems they found that out and banned that one as well. Will try get on there soon.

x

Tubing vs Jamie - Round 2

Right, as you know we decided to leave Vientiane and head back to Vang vieng for the weekend. This was a good move. I was not sick, nor did i break or lose anything...amazing.

Booked our trip to Hanoi (Vietnam) while we were there and got picked up at 1.30pm yesterday. Arrived in Hanoi today at 5pm...yeh, over 27 hour bus journey. Ive never experienced anything like it - Imagine a coach, but instead of having horizontal rows of seats - they have three rows bunk-beds going along the inside of the bus... Each bed could not fit me in, neither length or breadth. Luckily, my bed wasn't one of the ones down the aisle...it was a much smaller one at the back, lucky me. They had converted the usual 5 back seats into a toilet and three beds alongside one-another with no gap (both under and over) Craig was in "the cave" underneath where I was sleeping alongside two girls Id never met, giggidy.\\There were things written in the cave such as "Toilet leaks - Get out while you still can - enjoy pissy feet - I want to shoot the driver - Fucking bus, 24 hours in hell" Which...is....encouraging.

Oh by the way, we had already had a sweaty 3.5 hour journey from Vang Vieng down to Vientiane for the connecting bus, which makes things even better.

So I make my introductions to the girls im sleeping next to, took two valium, read some of the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and fell into a deep sweaty cramped sleep. Woke up at the border where we had to get off the bus and fight with everyone else to get our passports stamped...after this, we then went to find the bus to discover it had gone somewhere. By the way, this is at 6am and it was freezing. Luckily there was absolutely no one willing to help us find the bus or tell us what to do next so we had to guess our way through the border....Finally we found our bus and went to get on to be told "no" by the driver....Cheers.

Turned out they had nicely thrown our bags off the bus and we needed to go put them through security, after getting our passport checked again. Headed back to the bus with our checked bags and guess what, someone wanted to check our passport...Got back on the bus feeling cold and very hungry. Obviously, it wouldn't be long until we stopped for breakfast, toilet and something to drink...nope....we drove for ten straight hours before reaching Hanoi. As you can imagine, a very hungry, tired, thirsty, hot Jamie left the bus.

We managed to find the backpackers, after nearly being run over by the millions of motorbikes flying around (by the way there are over 16 million motorbikes in Vietnam...fact). The backpackers is awesome though, free breakfast and wifi...free beer between 8 and 9pm and its cheap as you like...Bumped into Tom, the Aussie lad we met on the first tubing...he's staying here as well.

Planning to go on a 2 or 3 day trip to Halong Bay which looks pretty amazing, so will blog again then.

Cheers,

Jay

Tubing in Laos

So as you know, I am in Loas. The last time I blogged I talked about the slow boat etc to Luangprabeng.

We headed to Vang vieng which is where the tubing is...and not a lot else. Checked into a little guesthouse that cost a ridiculous 3 pounds per night, might as well put a mask on and robbed us.

Vand Vieng is the best place in the world if you happen to love tubing, drinking, friends and family guy...every cafe/guesthouse has several screens with either friends or family guy on all day every day. We had planned to do the tubing on the second day but Craig was violently sick all night so couldnt do it - he spent most of the day in bed so I went and watched a couple of seasons of Friends and a season of family guy. Watched some football in the evening then hit the hay, hoping Craig would keep his intestines in the right place for a night...he did...so the next day we got our tubing vests on, packed our little waterproof tubing bags with camera and money, headed to the tubes and got a tuk-tuk to the river. You have to return the tubes by 6pm so we started at 12...I was the 7th person of the day to get a tube, and Craig the 8th...when we got to the river is was dead, couldnt believe it. Decided to just sit and have a beer to wait and see if it filled up a bit - another guy was doing the same, Tom from Aus, who happens to be one of the few Aussies who arent dickheads! (going on what we've experienced on this trip that is) Gradually we walked up to the first bar which had a few people in, including 3 mancs that we met on the slow boat. Eventually the place filled up and before you knew it, everyone was jumping in the river from the massive rope swing and the drinks started flowing...heavily. Every bar gives you unlimited free shots of local whiskey...its no Glenmorangie, but its not the worst. After a while at that bar, we got on our tubes and splashed our way down to the next one, that happens to have an even bigger rope swing, this was awesome, except we both touched the floor when we landed in the water - didnt hurt though...cos we're hard init - lost my vest in this bar also. Had a few more drinks there then went on down to the next place to play beer pong (I won)...Time was going against us at this point so we rushed down to the next place for a quick beer and some ping-pong, needless to say we were both terrible and managed to lose 2 ping-pong balls in the river (was hardly the same quality as the ping pong show we saw in bangkok) It was at this bar that i realised that my "waterproof bag" had leaked and my camera was soaked, brilliant. A quick look at the watch told us that we had ro run accross the bridge and get back to a Tuk-Tuk ASAP before we lost our deposits and got in trouble with the locals.

Made it back just in time and headed to a family guy bar for some food....we ordered...i looked at the screen and the whole place was spinning violently. I then went to the toilet and was sick. I came back...still spinning...went toilet...was sick...came back....spinning....went toilet...was sick. Half hour later decided to go back to the hotel...where i was sick, several times.

So, to sumarise: I lost my vest, broke my camera, was violently sick many times and was in bed by 7.30pm. Still though, between 12 and 6 is was absolutely ledge.

Spent the next day, as you would imagine, feeling somewhat rough...was cheered up by, believe it or not, Friends and family guy.

The following day, we headed down to the capital, Vientiane...which is where we are right now. Its pretty much France abroad, as they protected the city or something at some point...I realise that wasnt the most informative sentence in the world but its all I know about it! Its OK here but pretty boring, some nice places to eat and drink but in general its more of a big capital city than a tourist trap. Due to boredom, we decided to rent some mopeds for a day. The place we rented them from gave us a special price...it was the least he could do seeing as their insurance had expired, and both the mopeds had no tax. We got helmets though, so...every cloud. Had a really fun day on the mopeds, mine was awful and slower than Craigs which was annoying, neither ped had a working speedo, nor did the mileage counter count miles. But they moved. We headed out in prety much random directions to see what we could see, ended up at the national football stadium. The road was blocked off, but we managed to squeeze our peds through the gap and drive on up to the stadium. There wasnt anyone about (apart from a couple blokes who looked like they really wouldnt care if we decided to take a ball on the pitch and have a kick about) We didnt do that, but we went inside and had a mooch around...not bad...no wembley though.

Left the stadium and followed signs to the friendship bridge (oooooh friends) ... Went on for quite a while until we realised we were both verging on empty tanks...and with no gas station in sight we decided to take a turn off the main road. Which led us to a dirt track. We didnt have much choice but to carry on bumping down this road, luckily it led to a little village where a local sold whiskey bottles filled with gasoline for a quid a pop. We filled up there and headed back to the city centre, it took an hour - and several inquiries as to where the hell we were...the locals didnt like us, one even just said "no" and got back to her chores...soz.

Anyway made it back and had a couple beers at a nice little place by the river where we met some cool french people the night before...played a couple games of shithead and a couple of english girls joined us for a few games.

Today we took the peds back to the shop and headed to a swimming pool...its absolutely roasting here and theres no beach...it turned out it was a massive gym with spa and all the works...the lady at the desk was lovely and gave us a day each for only 3 quid (was meant to be over a fiver) Had a little work out (was depressing to realise how weak I am after 6 months of no gym action) and hit the pool.

Now back by the river on the worst computer ever...remember those Acorn computers, with the black screen and green letters? yeh its a little bit better than that...but just a little.

Heading back to Sticky Fingers for some more games with the English girls, then the French are meeting us there and we might go onto a club with them as its a Friday night.

We attempted to get tickets on the sleeper bus to Hanoi, Vietnam, for tomorrow but they dont facny it this weekend...so with nothing to do...we are heading back to Vangvieng to do the tubing again...hopefully this time Ill have a more successful day!

So thats it, much love,

Jay