Can Tho, Vietnam: 27th October 09

This morning we had a lie-in followed by a 3 hour bus ride to Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. We were joined on the journey by Uc, a 49 year old chap whose house we would be staying at – we’d arranged a homestay through the hotel in Chau Doc. We’ve only done one homestay previously, in Malawi, which was an amazing experience, but didn’t really know what to expect from this one – turns out it was cool! Despite the fact that Uc could barely speak a word of English, we just about managed to communicate.

We arrived at Uc's home, in the middle of the delta mid-afternoon. The house was full with Uc’s family – 9 adults and 4 kids, so we were put in a hut at the back of the garden. I say garden, but actually it was an orchard – he calls it the Cai San Orchard, and it’s beautiful – full of Banana, Melon, Lime, Lemon and Orange trees, cris-crossed with streams and bridges and little pagodas to sit, not to mention the pet snake, pet crocodile and flock of ducks!


Once we’d dumped our stuff he took us around the surrounding area on bikes – we crossed dozens of bridges winding our way through the delta backwaters. Everyone who saw us stopped and waved as they don’t get many tourists in this particular area. We stopped for refreshments at a river side stall – a pint each of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice – the lady ran the canes through a sort of mangle and out came the juice, really tasty!

After the bike ride we sat on the veranda of our hut and had dinner – rice paper rolls with fish and noodles, spring rolls, pork and tofu – a real feast which we couldn’t manage to finish. This was followed by a brief walk around the neighboring night market. On the way back we were shown around the house and tried some of the rice wine, some fermented with banana and the other fermented with…snake. Then we sat back in the orchard and spent an hour trying to converse with Uc – mainly pointing at phrases in the guidebook such as ‘I don’t speak much English’ and ‘I don’t speak much Vietnamese’! We resorted to showing him photos in the end!

At about 9pm Matt and I were both fairly tired so suggested that we turn in, but he said ‘no, eat’. We were still stuffed from our massive dinner, but he led us back to his house where we sat on the floor in an out building with his son and three sons-in-law and ate another meal!

This time the meal was a tad bizarre, consisting of Chicken entrail broth and boiled chicken. The broth contained all sorts of weird things, not just the livers and kidneys, but some curly bits too – I think intestine. I managed to eat liver and the broth itself but prayed to god I wouldn’t get any curly bits!

The boiled chicken was freaky to say the least. We just didn’t ‘get’ it! It seemed to be bits of bone with very little meat on, and really rubbery thick skin, which we were expected to suck off. Delicious it wasn’t! But we didn’t want to lose face so slowly sucked the bones. Hmmmm. It was good fun though – they’d brought some beers out and approximately every 30 seconds would chink the bottles together and swig a load down. It was a really good experience. Despite the fact we couldn’t actually speak to any of the 5 men we were with, we did feel a sense of camaraderie!

Chau Doc, Vietnam: 25th – 26th October 09

Today we crossed the border into Vietnam. We took a cab to the Cambodian side of the border and then had to walk 200 yards or so, stopping off to fill in forms. They didn’t have any taxis, buses or tuk-tuks at the Vietnamese side, so we had to travel the 30km to Chau Doc on motor bikes – this was a bit weird as we both had massive rucksacks with us and our motor bike drivers appeared to be in their 80s. Oh well, it was fun once we got going!

The next morning we had an early start – 5.30am to have a sunrise trip on the Mekong delta. We sailed around looking at floating villages and a floating market, and visited a fish farm and a Cham village. It was great as many people were getting up to start the day – we saw people bathing in the water and young kids rowing themselves to school. We bought some waffles for breakfast off a couple of sweet young girls in the Cham village. The Cham are an ethnic minority that I don’t know much about yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out more as we travel up the coast.

After a few hours rest in the middle of the day we were picked up by a couple of motorbikes and driven to Sam Mountain – more of a hill really, but it’s the biggest one around here and the views are amazing. We had a look around and then visited a couple of temples at the bottom of the mountain.

The temples in Vietnam are bizarre to say the least! Whereas in Cambodia all of the new temples are built in traditional style, using traditional techniques, the temples we saw today seemed completely…weird! They had gaudy statues of lions and dragons and snakes. They mixed Buddhas with Hindu gods – some of the ‘statues’ looked like they’d been shop mannequins in a previous life, and some were surrounded by flashing lights that wouldn’t look out of place in Blackpool. Very odd, but interesting to see, I think I quite like them!

Kep, Cambodia: 23th – 24th October 09

We’ve spent the last 2 days chilling out in Kep, swinging in hammocks. It’s a very quiet place so aside from popping out for a couple of meals we’ve kept ourselves to ourselves. Not having any TV or internet to distract us was quite nice for a change so we read a lot and planned travels for the next few days. From our veranda we looked out over trees leading down to the sea, and over the sea we could see Islands and Bokor Mountain. The first evening we had an amazing sunset, and the second evening a very dramatic thunder storm.

This is our last stop in Cambodia and Matt and I have both found it captivating, we’ve loved the temples of Angkor, Phnom Penh, the countryside – and most of all the people. It’s a great place and we’ll definitely return.

Kampot, Cambodia: 20th – 22nd October 2009

We took the bus for a 4 ½ hour journey south to Kampot. As usual we were the only Westerners on board. On the way into town we saw lots of old colonial buildings in ruins. Kampot, and its neighboring village Kep (40km down the road), were once the most popular resort towns in Cambodia. All of the wealthy Cambodians and French colonials had holiday homes here and it really was a smart place. However when the Khmer Rouge came to power they destroyed nearly all of the colonial manor houses. Many were completely removed, so all you can see is the old garden walls, but some remaining standing as a shell. In recent years some of them have been restored.

The actual town of Kampot has fared better with lots of the colonial architecture still standing, some of it restored but some still very scruffy. The town is based on a river overlooking the Bokor Mountain, which has clouds covering its top every evening – it’s a picturesque setting and the town has a very chilled out, relaxed vibe – we took to it straight away! Some highlights have included:

- Walking along the river in the evening, seeing all the locals doing their exercise. An aerobics troupe were strutting their stuff to some excellently cheesy Cambodian pop music whilst the sun set behind the mountain – it felt like being in a musical with lots of people dancing around and waving their hands in the air – very good fun to watch!

- Visiting some nearby caves. We paid some local children to be our guides. First they showed us a large cave containing a pre-Angkorian temple and then asked us to follow them on a ‘short cut’. Matt and I were slightly concerned as we scrambled down into a pitch black void, lit only by the Kid’s torches. Before we knew it we were scrambling over boulders with drops of 20 or 30 feet on either side and were pretty terrified, but it suddenly became too late to turn back! Some of the foot holds and hand holds required a lot of stretching to reach and I must admit to have being a bit panicked. An ex- colleague of mine died rock climbing earlier this year, and I thought of him as I was pulling myself from boulder to boulder and was incredibly relieved when it was over. It didn’t help that one of the kids kept referring to me as ‘King Kong’, “come on King Kong, you can do it” - the little git!

- Visiting a lake and having noodles on the shore.

- Enjoying the views of the countryside from our Tuk-tuk. The rice fields are so green at this time of year, and they go on for miles, dotted with homesteads and palm trees, with hills in the distance - really pretty, but it’s hard to get photos to do it justice.

- Chatting to 2 charity workers on the veranda of our guest house – they were both ladies in their 60’s, one American and one British and were working in local schools and orphanages – they told us about some of the corruption they’d seen in the country, and said that the average life expectancy is only 46! We were both quite shocked as we’ve seen poverty in Cambodia but didn’t sense that things were that bad.

Tomorrow we travel the 40kms by tuk-tuk to Kep, where we plan to sit on our veranda and look at the view for a day whilst planning the next stage of our travels – Vietnam!

Phnom Penh: 16th -20th October 09

We've spent the last three days in Phnom Penh, following a 6 hour bus journey from Battambang. The journey was very scenic, lots of paddy fields, lakes and temples. During one stop Matt and I were joined by 2 local old men who were intrigued by our rolling tobacco and joined us for a fag!

Phnom Penh is a large city, and fairly modern in parts, but has managed to keep a lot of its colonial architecture and charm – once you see through the dilapidation, it’s kind of pretty. Everyone has pot plants outside their shops and little gold stupas, or temples. We were staying in a nice guest house about 15 mins from the Royal Palace by foot, or 5 mins by tuk-tuk and the local area had some great bars and restaurants. We spent a lot of time chilling, but also some time doing the sights– here are some of the things we’ve done:

- Visiting the museum: it’s got loads of buddhas!

- Having a meal on the waterfront and about to pet a cat under the table, before realizing it was a huge rat. Nice!

- Visiting Tuol Sleng museum (S-21) and the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. I don’t want to write too much about these. As you can imagine they were quite harrowing. Matt and I were quite upset at times hearing what went on during the four years of the Khmer Rouge. You can google if you want to find out more.

- Visiting the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda – very impressive and very pretty. The King of Cambodia is called Norodom Sihamoni. He came to the throne in 1994 following his Dad’s abdication. In Cambodia they don’t have an heir so-to-speak. When a King dies, the Throne Council elects a new King from the remaining princes, so it’s not always the son, it could be a cousin, nephew or brother.

Good job, as Sihamoni is unmarried and childless. Prior to becoming King he had worked in Paris for 20 years as a ballet teacher. King by name, Queen by nature me thinks! It seems to be an open secret here, but nobody’s bothered – the Buddhists are quite cool with it.

- Going for a $1 dollar hair cut at a roadside barber. Matt came out with a shiny new grade 1 - aka no hair, and I came out…with a side parting. How did that happen?

It’s still the rainy season so we’ve been caught in thunder storms a few times, sometimes quite dramatic. You just have to stay where you are, grab a coffee and watch everyone dash about!

Tomorrow we’re off to Kampot, a quiet town on the river in Southern Cambodia, then on to Kep, a coastal fishing village, and then to Vietnam and the Mekong Delta!

Battambang – Cambodia: 15th Oct 2009

Today we hired a tuk-tuk driver for the whole day to show us the sights around Battambang. As soon as we started out the rain began, and didn’t stop until midday! Our first stop was a limestone mountain, which juts out of the surrounding countryside and is famed for a temple on top, and more recently for the ‘killing caves’ where the Khmer Rouge carried out many atrocities.

We arrived in the small village at the bottom of the mountain and were introduced to Pay (pronounced Pee) a 13 year old boy who would be our guide on the mountain. Due to the rain and my loathing of walking up hills, we opted to go up the mountain on motor bikes – yay! I’ve never been on one before! So off we set, Me on one bike with a driver, and Matt, Pay and another driver squished onto the other bike. As soon as we set off a thunder and lightning storm started and the rain became torrential, so it was a very dramatic and slightly scary first motor bike ride!

We stopped at the first temple, about ¾ of the way up the mountain and went to sit shoe-less inside, in front of a large Buddha, whilst Pay told us the history of the area and how the Khmer Rouge had brought people here to kill them. They killed anyone educated - teachers, doctors, students – all just for being educated. Even anyone who wore spectacles would be assumed to be educated and would be murdered.

We both know a lot about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, from reading a book called ‘first they killed my father’ which I’d recommend anyone with an interest to read. This didn’t stop us feeling quite shocked though – there we were with a 13 year old boy (with excellent English) telling us about these horrors that happened to his parent’s generation – he seemed so happy with his life, taking tourists around in the mornings, going to school in the afternoons, followed by an hour of private English lessons – it seemed a world away from what happened in this country just 30 years ago.

After he’d finished briefly explaining what happened he led us down a rainy path to a cave. We walked down the steps and could see a huge reclining Buddha and a ‘Wat’ or small temple within. The thunder was roaring as Pay pointed out where people were killed, where they were thrown through a hole in the roof of the cave, and where there were piles of bones and skulls- some of which had been placed in the temple. It was very moving, and quite sinister, and very sad. But because we were there with happy little Pay, it almost felt uplifting, like there was a new beginning and those bad days had gone forever.

We’ll be visiting the killing fields outside Phnom Penh to find out more about what happened in this beautiful country – but for today that was the end of any talk of horror, and we headed further up the mountain to look at another temple at the top with stunning views of the surrounding countryside.

The ride down the mountain was precarious but fun and we got back into the tuk-tuk. We were heading for Battambang’s infamous bamboo trains but on the way stopped at a monastary known for its fruit bats which were hanging asleep all over the trees, and then at a vineyard to try some local wine and buy a bottle (nice..ish).

In Cambodia the government have been ploughing a lot of money into the roads but at the expense of the railways which have fallen into complete ruin. However, the residents of Battambang have been enterprising and designed bamboo platforms which fit onto the tracks and are powered by a motorbike engine to travel along the tracks that trains can no longer use. These so-called ‘bamboo trains’ are completely mental, very unsafe, but really good fun to ride! So Matt and I climbed on board to our ‘platform’ and sat cross-legged on a matt, about 1 foot above the tracks as the driver let rip. We must have been speeding about 40 miles an hour, which was exhilarating, being so close to the ground! We hit a few bumps which shook us around a bit but other than that we just relaxed and enjoyed the breeze and the views of the countryside. The funniest thing about the trains is that if you meet something coming the other way (there’s only one track), you have to get off the train, dismantle it, let the other one pass, and then put your train back together again – sounds complicated but only takes a couple of minutes. It was really good fun!

We went about 6km and then were given a short tour around a local brick factory. We hadn’t realised this was on the agenda, but it’s obviously something that’s done to raise a bit of money out here in the countryside. The family who ran the factory had 7 children who kept handing us flowers - we gave them a few Riel each as we left – amounting in total to about a dollar, so everyone was happy!

One absolutely bizarre thing was when one of the girls ran past us with a toy insect flying behind her on a string – wow, we thought, never seen that before – it was petrol blue and iridescent and would flop down, then she’d spin it round and it would start buzzing all around her – she was flying it like a kite.

We thought this was some amazing mechanical treat that hadn’t reached the west yet, until we realised it was a real insect that they’d tied string round and were playing with like a toy – excellent! (bit cruel but cool!)

After that went for a very late lunch of green and red curry and then retired for the evening in the guest house. We have really enjoyed Battambang after all and we’re off to Phnom Penh tomorrow!