Snapshot of Vietnam

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The Ho Chi Minh City Skyline.

My Intrepid group for Vietnam :)

Firing an M16. I couldn’t resist.

Chilling in the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Vietnamese dug hundreds of kilometers of these tunnels by hand during the Vietnam War.

 

Helen and Kathleen on their cyclos.

At the Vietnam War Remnants Museum.

Arty shot.

Ah, my old friend Saigon beer. The first of many wonderful brews tasted in Vietnam.

We ate all sorts of weird things in this country.

Hoi An River at night. The lights from those restaurants lit that river up like Christmas!

Another arty shot.

 

 


Quite possibly the most delicious thing I ate in Vietnam.

I was more impressed with this massive flag than the building it was at.

Fun times dressing up for our ‘royal banquet’!

 

The presentation of food was amazing during the banquet, Every plate the staff brought out for us had a different bird carved out of vegetables on it.


The narrow corridors and low ceilings of our sleeper train. It was a really cool experience being on there but I must’ve whacked my head on at least 3 different door frames within the first 20 minutes of being on board.

Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum.

The amazing dining room on our Halong Bay boat.

 

Halong Bay was absolutely stunning, I couldn’t take enough pictures of this place.

 

 


Aww, poor Helen (centre). Bless her, no matter how hard she tried she never took a good photo.


The top half of an octopus head. I ate it about 20 seconds after this picture was taken. All sorts of nasty juices oozed out when I stuck my fork in and it tasted just as disgusting as it looks. Probably the most horrible thing I’ve ever eaten.

Phnom Penh Part 2: Quadbiking and Partying

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The last of my major activities in Phnom Penh was a 4 hour quad bike tour of the Cambodian countryside. It was by and large a brilliant time, but the day I chose to do it was blisteringly hot and unpleasantly dusty. I later realised that every day was probably this dusty and polluted but I hadn’t noticed because any significant distances I’d previously travelled had been in a car, rather than on a tuk-tuk or quad bike. (The starting point of the tour was an hour from my hostel but the quad bike people sent a tuk-tuk to pick me up. An hour in a tuk-tuk wouldn’t have been so bad but the dusty, ridiculously pot holed road did not make for a pleasant journey).

There was one other guy in the tuk-tuk with me, Anton from Germany. He was only doing a one hour tour though (whereas I went for the half day option) so after we got started on the quad bikes, we only travelled together for about 20 minutes before our paths diverged. The Cambodian countryside was, as I had already found it to be in other places, absolutely beautiful. As the day wore on it became clear that the heat was a mixed blessing. I’ve told you before that I don’t deal with the heat well so I wasn’t loving it at first but the weather conditions that resulted from that heat made the visibility excellent. You could see out over the unspoilt Cambodian landscapes for as far as your eyes would let you. It was important for several reasons to take care when navigating the dirt roads we were on though. I had a guide leading the way on a motorbike so the paths he took around the sometimes massive holes and fractures were not necessarily the best ones for me to take, being on a four wheeled vehicle instead of a two wheeled one. There were also very sudden drop offs by the sides of a lot of these routes, sometimes leading into river, sometimes leading into a field or rice paddy. And also, just like with the horse riding I’d done in Siem Reap, our path took us past a number of long ‘residential roads’ (I’m not sure if I can actually call them that given that they look like they’re in the wilderness but they did have lots of houses on them and people living there). The people living in these houses often had young (and unspeakably cute) kids with them. When they heard the quad bike coming they’d run outside and start waving and saying hello, it was absolutely adorable and one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. After seeing this and the dance I saw a few days earlier in that Siem Reap orphanage, I can see why Angelina Jolie felt so compelled to start her adoption spree here. Some of the slightly older kids that were already outside would stick their arms out as I went past so I could high-five them, it was really fun.

The heat wasn’t as bad as it could have been because on the clearer, child and pot hole free roads, I could cut lose a little and build up some real speed on the quad bike. As I was so close to the ground, the sense of speed was fantastic as the air rushed past me and the Cambodian scenery blurred by. It was nice that, unlike the horse I was riding a week earlier, the quad bike did not get tired or suffer from heat exhaustion.

About 2 hours after we started, my guide gestured that we stop for a light lunch. It was only a pack of crisps but the drinks he got us were very refreshing. He got us sugar cane juice mixed with mandarin orange juice and ice cold water. I was expecting not to like it because I don’t like things that are overly sweet but it was pretty good. After being in the Cambodian heat for so long it was just what I needed.

All the dust I’d surely eaten on the way there (and I’m guessing an element of heat exhaustion too) caused me to have brief spells of dizziness on the ride back. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle but it probably wasn’t the safest thing to be riding like that. I was fine, though I didn’t feel so good on the tuk-tuk ride back to the hostel. It was even dustier than the first time and the only way I could make it through was to pull my shirt up and cover my nose and mouth.

A while after being back at the hostel I perked back up and felt completely normal. Things perked up even more when I finally had a chance to speak to the people from my room. The first night I was in this hostel I had my 6 bed dorm completely to myself. This room was unusually big for a hostel dorm too (and the beds were huge) so it was a nice little treat having it to myself. After my first night, I headed out to do some stuff the next day (the Killing Fields etc.) and when I got back saw that all the remaining beds had now been taken. I also saw that they were probably all girls (my first and only required hint was all the bras laying around). The six of us and an American guy we’d met (Gordon, cool dude) ended up going out for a big night that evening. It was pretty epic but I’ve run out of space to tell you about it :)

Cambodia was brilliant, in the end Siem Reap ended up going exactly how I wanted it to and I ended up getting a nice little bonus in Phnom Penh meeting all those great people. Vietnam is going to be fantastic! Since it’s the only country on my journey where I’ll be with a tour group for the whole thing, I’m expecting to meet loads more great people over there :)

Siem Reap Part 3: Floods and Orphans

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With the horse riding, I thought I’d seen just how bad the floods in Siem Reap were. I hadn’t seen anything yet. Later that evening, since I couldn’t do the microlight flight, I brought my plans for the next day forward. Every weekday, the orphans at a local Siem Reap orphanage, Acodo, perform traditional Khmer dances, I really wanted to see this and since I had time, decided to do it today. I had someone from the front desk of the hostel call to see if they were still open, they said that the street outside was flooded but that the show was still going ahead. They made it sound so minor. It really wasn’t. I had a guy with a motorbike take me most of the way, we went through the level of flood water I’d become accustomed to over the last couple of days, maybe a few inches here and there but when we got to the start of the road the orphanage was on he said he couldn’t go any further. The water was too deep for his bike. Shit, what was I going to do now? Luckily, the motorbike driver answered that for me. He wandered off for a little bit and when he came back, was telling me to get in a different ride. In this area, I’d seen these strange tractor-like vehicles driving around pulling wooden carriages behind them but had no idea what they were for. I later found that people were calling them tuk-tuks. I think mega tuk-tuk is more appropriate. They were way bigger than the regular ones and were so high above the water that there was no way anyone inside the carriage would get wet. That said, they weren’t exactly a smooth ride. The seats were made of metal and since I was already sore from all the horse riding earlier, the lack of suspension did not help.

As we headed down the road it became darker and darker, the power to the street lights in this area must have been damaged during the flooding because the only illumination was from the headlights of oncoming vehicles and the faint light a few people had coming from their houses. It was very dark and on many sections of the road you couldn’t make out anything. Walking here was dangerous because even with a torch you’d have no way of knowing what you were walking on or where the sudden drops in the road would be. And they really were sudden. I don’t know how bad the road looks when it’s not flooded but it must be pretty terrible. Numerous times, there were very sharp, sudden drops in the road for which there really was no warning at all, the water was deep almost the whole way. Despite these conditions, I could just about make out a few people that were braving it anyway and still walking through like they normally would have. They didn’t look like it but they were pretty badass for doing that.

I got to the orphanage in one piece, and thanks to the kind help of one of my fellow passengers, I managed to find it even without any lights. Everyone else on the mega tuk-tuk was Cambodian and I guess they were all headed in the same direction as me. The hard bit came after I got there though. The water wasn’t so deep as I first stepped on to the road, it didn’t go much above my ankles in the spot I was standing, but with each passing step I took towards the orphanage it got deeper and deeper. By the time I was inside the grounds it was knee high to me so it was at least half way up the thigh of most of the locals. Most of the kids at the orphanage would have been completely submerged if they’d attempted walking through it. The orphanage was mostly an outdoor complex but the stage had a large roof covering both it and the seating area. It was still surreal seeing any sort of a performance while there was knee high water everywhere. The audience seating area was on a second floor that as I mentioned earlier had been built under the same roof that was covering the stage. It wasn’t a proper second floor, it felt like more of a large balcony but it meant we stayed dry during the performance so I didn’t have any complaints. Even with that roof though, the orphanage was still all ‘outside’ .

I was expecting the performances to sort of be like the ones on those ‘8 out of 10 cats’ Christmas specials where kids from a primary school or nursery perform a scene from a well known film or TV show. Everyone loves the segment because the little kids are so cute and adorable but their actual performances are always shit. That wasn’t the case with these kids. They were just as cute and adorable but their performances were fantastic, they did a great job on everything and I was genuinely impressed. It was really cute when they made minor mistakes though :) It was funny when the kids back stage would peek through the stage door to take a look at the crowd too, they’d always try doing it discretely, thinking nobody had seen them but we always did. I think that made it even cuter. They performed 3 traditional Khmer dances; the monkey dance, the fish harvest dance and the coconut shell dance, I think that of the three, the monkey dance was my favourite. For each of 3 dances we saw, there were 12 kids on stage. They moved about the stage and interacted with each other in very interesting ways. I have to say, traditional Cambodian dancing is pretty cool.

Everyone gathered on stage at the end and all the people in the audience (there were maybe 12 of us) got some pictures of the kids before we said our goodbyes. I’m so glad that there were a good number of people in the audience. As I was entering the orphanage (and during the whole ride over) I didn’t really see many tuk-tuks going back towards my hostel. If I had been the only one, I would have had no way of back and may have even had to spend the night at the orphanage. Luckily, as there were so many of us, the guy running the orphanage came out with us and arranged transport to take us back. It was a truck with seats this time, and was much nicer than what I had come in on. The truck dropped us off at the Siem Reap Night Market. Apart from the fact that it was (surprisingly) very clean, it was more or less like any other night market I’ve seen in Asia. I still enjoyed it though.

With all said and done, Siem Reap was brilliant and I had a great time there. It’s a shame it didn’t work out with the microlight flight but I already knew that New Zealand has loads of them, I guess I’ll just have to do it there instead :)

Siem Reap Part 2: Flood Plains Horse Adventure

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That something else ended up being horseback riding in the Cambodian countryside. I’d wanted to do a microlight flight over the Angkor temple region too but the guy running it said the runway was too saturated with water for the landings to be safe. I’d have to hope I had better luck with that another day.

I’d only really rode a horse once before, and that was very briefly, so I wasn’t sure how I’d do. I felt a little better though that I was in good hands when I got to the ranch. Even though I’m in such a deprived country, the ranch was beautiful and it was clear that all the horses there were very well cared for. It was a little strange being up there when I first climbed on to LA, my horse. Just like it was with the elephant though, I got used to it pretty quickly; I was going at a steady canter before long. One problem I realised I’d have early on was that the heat wasn’t just a bit much for me, it seemed to be affecting LA a fair bit too. He didn’t want to run at any sort of speed for very long and the couple of times I tried getting him to he almost threw me off! It was a good thing for both of us then that the areas we were riding through were so flooded. The water sloshing up provided some much needed relief from the heat (I’m going to pretend that I don’t know what was probably in that water).

When we started the 3 hour ride the dirt road we were on was really dry, there was plenty of water by the sides (we had some fantastic views of rice paddies and flooded farm land) but the path itself was high enough to avoid the water. We weren’t even at a trot yet with the horses so even if there had been water it wouldn’t have affected us much. Before long though, my guide, Yen, had us turn onto a narrow dirt road with small, make-shift looking, but almost certainly permanent, houses on either side. I’m guessing these people worked on the flooded fields we saw earlier. Their road had large sections that were flooded too. It was fun walking and trotting through it on horseback. I had a pretty good view from up there and the kids that lived in the houses were so happy to see us go by :) It was my first experience going through water on horseback too. On this flooded dirt road, Yen lead the way on his horse. With every step he took the horse was disturbing the dirt under the water. As he moved forward he left a trail of gradually expanding, circular mud blooms in place of each step. It looked really cool. The water wasn’t very deep (yet) but it came a fair way up LA’s legs. Going through was a bit of a struggle and I definitely was not confident enough to try and ride through at speed. There were loads of water buffalo and cattle just chilling there too. The road was really long so I could see them quite a far way off. Some of them were just laying down right in the middle of the road, as they were visible from so far away, I noticed that they weren’t moving for anyone, not even the couple of motorbikes that were passing through. Everyone had to go around them and get more wet than they otherwise would have. I was thinking it might be a problem since there wasn’t enough room for us on either of the sides of the road, Yen just calmly continued towards them without saying anything. When we got there I realised why, those buffalo couldn’t get out of the way quick enough. We didn’t even have to do anything. I guess they’re scared of horses. The same thing happened any other time we came across cattle (which on this long road, was quite a lot). Not all of these dirt roads we were on were flooded and none of them were without at least some dry sections but with the next one we turned on to, there were some sections that must have had almost 2 feet of water on them. It was cool passing through but it occurred to me that this water must have ruined a lot of people’s day when it first showed up.

We were on an actual road next. You’d think it would be nice with the lack of obstructions and flood water but the lack of something else made it more unpleasant than what we’d been riding through before. There were way less trees here than on the narrow back roads we’d just been on. We felt the full force of the mid-day sun and it was not pleasant. It was less visually interesting too because the thick vegetation and trees along the earlier dirt roads created a cool looking play of light and shadow, the way the leaves were breaking the sunlight was both refreshing and it made everything look better. LA didn’t even want to trot on that tarmac road so we went pretty slowly for most of it. Since it was such a long road too I wouldn’t be surprised if my skin got a full shade darker just while I was on this stretch of the ride. All the roads were pretty wide and open now, there were almost no trees on them, even the dirt road we were on next. LA got a second wind though so we managed to trot for almost all of it. As that road was finishing we came to a few flooded fields but I couldn’t see any roads leading in other directions. Where were we going to go? Through the flooded fields, that’s where! The water here was ridiculous, it came all the way up to LA’s belly and for sections of these fields, the water level was about a third of the way up my shins. It was pretty extreme but it felt weird too. Because of the baking heat, the water was all nice and warm, if it wasn’t for the myriad nasties swimming around in it, it might have been quite a relaxing experience. Riding that horse through such deep water will definitely be one of the things that I remember for a long time.