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Our first day in the beach town of Nha Trang was rainy. It pissed it down. We were all psyched up for soaking in the last sun of our holiday too... instead we spent most of the day on the internet! :-P Nerds that we are...
But in the gaps between the rain we did head out for some food and a wander along the beach esplanade which is quite nice. We found a little bar with tiny plastic seats on the streets selling cheap bia hoi - fresh beer. At 50 cents a jug we settled in for a couple of hours! There were two very lively little kittens that entertained us while we drank as well - and it poured with rain outside!
We found a great monkey that belonged to an art gallery (well maybe all monkeys are great, but this one was especially great) to play with for a little bit, he stole my sunnies and chewed them up a bit, and messed up Gav's hair! 
On our second day we headed off to Thap Ba - mineral mud baths! This is a great way to spend a day in Nha Trang. You go and sit in a bath of mud for about half an hour, then sunbake for a bit covered in mud, then rinse off in these high powered spray shower things, and then go have a hot mineral water bath (these are big outdoor tubs with straw roofs on them) for a while, and then grab a cold beer and head to the big hot swimming pool! It was like a massive bath tub - the water was 38 degrees but felt hotter! You couldn't really swim for very long, it was too hot! In all, great fun - I recommend this if anyone goes to Nha Trang!
After the mud baths we grabbed a quick dinner and said a last goodbye to Minsoo before catching the overnight train to Danang.
We arrived in District 1 of Saigon which is the city centre and the bus dropped us off in Pham Ngu Lao which is where all the cheaper guest houses and hotels are. The original hotel we planned to stay at was full but easily found a nice one just across the way for $15/night.
It didn't take us long to realise that this city's roads are ruled by motorcycles, just crossing a small street is risking fate and with Jess's hand in mine we danced across the streets with 2 steps forward and two steps back. I think 8 of our 9 lives have been used up already, and that was only on the way to get a beer! Speaking of which, we tried the local drop called Saigon Red or 333 which turned out to be a wheat beer. Not really much to say about it as it was pretty tasteless which was dissapointing. From here it was time to eat the local favourite - Pho. It's a simple but tasty noodle soup dish, with beef or chicken, plenty of spring onion and you can add a variety of different garnishes that are offered such as lime, chilli, bean sprouts and basil. Absolutely delicious!
We wandered the busy neon-lit streets for a while to take in the local surrounds and gather our bearings. It seems no matter where you are in south-east Asia there's always someone asking to take you somewhere and in the case of Vietnam you have a range of options from a 'Cyclo' a modified bicycle for a more traditional ride, random people sitting on their motorbikes called xe-om's and of course taxi's. It was just very strange to not here them shouting "tuk-tuk!?". Of course if you decline you will then be offered another tourist service in the form of marijuana. I don't know if it's my beard, but I swear if I had a dollar for everytime I was asked!
So in the evening we thought let's relax and enjoy a few beer's and after all the street vendors plastic seats and chairs were full, thought we go to a cafe nearby. I'll admit it wasn't the most authentic choice I could've made and ordered a garlic bread which once it arrived seemed it had been dipped in a vat of oil. It was only then that we notice the large pictures of Harley-Davidsons on the walls to find that this was an American grill! Bleh...but they gave us free peanuts in shells so we stayed for one more beer before getting some Zzz's for our big day crawling through some tunnels.
The Chu Chi tunnels are absolutely fascinating and sometimes hard to believe the fact that they managed to live in such places so deep below the earth. Getting the opportunity to climb in to these small spaces, no larger than 1.3 metres, really felt as if we'd stepped back through time. It's hot, stuffy, the smell of dirt penetrates your nose and all you can see if pitch black with the odd camera flash going off strobe style. Some of the English girls in our group must've suffered from claustrophobia as they took one look and were quick to turn in the opposite direction. Not the place to be if you have that condition that's for sure! They only place smaller was the one of the secret entrances to the tunnel that I was just lucky enough to fit in to, unfortunately for another girl she managed to get a little stuck with everyone standing around her, a tad embarrassed.
A few craters caused by B-52's and cheesy animatronics depicting how the Viet-Cong made mines and ammunition from American bombs we followed the sound of large bangs going off until we arrived at what I was most excited for. It was time to shoot some guns! For $US1.25 a bullet I got a mag of 10 to share with Jess and we made our way down to the trenches to shoot some stationary cardboard cut-outs of animals. Yee-haw! I'll tell you now the sound of an AK-47 is LOUD. Trying to talk to the person next to you is impossible and how the military guy could just stand there and not even wince standing right next to the AK amazed us. I grabbed the ear-protection and the guy loaded the mag - I told him to set it to semi-auto as the guy before us blew his load in a second before it was all over. I wanted to enjoy every bullet of it! It is strangely addictive firing a gun, especially one of such fame as the AK-47. There were other fire-arms on offer like the M-16 and Colt .45, but the AK suited just fine. And of course I didn't hit a single thing except the dirt, I blame it on wind sheer. It was quite enjoyable watching Jess shoot off a few rounds and I think she may have even done better than me! After it was all over and our emptied shells had joined the millions littered on the ground it was time to leave. Awwwwwww! I felt like a little kid that didn't want to leave his friends house to go home. Jess was more than happy to leave the ear shattering ka-booms behind.
Our tour bus was kind enough to drop us at the War Remnants museum, our next stop to improve our knowledge of the devastating Vietnam war. Outside the main building sat numerous American war machines ranging from jet-fighters, helicopters, tanks and of course the very impressive 600 pound bomb used during the war which could clear a 3.2Km area. Scary stuff! Once inside museum, we saw the walls adorned with photos which documented the effects of napalm, Agent Orange, and all manner of variety of menacing devices used to inflict injury and death on both sides, more so the weapons used by the Americans. In cases lay the weapons American GI's used against the VC and stories of the American terror brought upon the Vietnamese.
So after a couple of emotional hours at the War Remnants museum we took off for a hectic walk beside the Saigon traffic the train station to buy our tickets for the 5-star express to Nha Trang, only to find that the 5-star express no longer exists! So we booked a regular train instead, and then looked for a ride back to the hotel. We thought it would be fun to try out a Xe-om (motorbike taxi) and while being surrounded by a number of drivers who seemed to be arguing with each for our business, were finally given our helmets and we were off in a flash to get around Saigon, authentic style! You just haven't been to Vietnam without trying this, it is thrilling, exciting and shitting you're pants scary at the same time. Whizzing between a seething mass of cars, trucks and what seemed like an endless stream motorbikes, the only thing we could do was just to trust our drivers not to crash in to anyone else - or them crash in to us! Going around a round-about was the worst as there are no rules to these roads and only driver etiquette which seems little more than beeping at anything that got in your way. We made it back to our hotel in one piece a little buzzed and in Jess' case a little shaky!
Photos here!
So we get to Siem Reap and are greeted by a friendly tuktuk driver, who insists on showing us his guesthouse before taking us to the one we want to go to, so what the hey, we check it out, and no its a bamboo fan room with a single bed (I just want a nice room! * in desperation*) so he takes us to another one which actually turns out to be really nice, so we get a pretty luxurious room for $15 and I'm so happy!! Air con, comfy bed with real spring mattress, nice pillows, cable tv, white sheets, hot water shower, you get the picture).
We found a really nice restaurant in the old market area - Khmer family restaurant - nice little candles on the table - comfy chairs and a traditional Cambodian group playing music traditional music just next to the restaurant. They served up some brilliant Amok - the Cambodian specialty dish - meat cooked in coconut and lemongrass curry served in a banana leaf bowl with rice. (see pic above) Yum!! And the fresh spring rolls are great there too, by fresh I mean they aren't deep fried or cooked at all.
The next day we spent exploring the Angkor temples. Our tuk tuk driver from the bus station took us around all day for $12 which we thought was a pretty good deal for them, but then again they really just sit in a hammock in a restaurant for most of the day while they wait for us - its a hard life hey... but on the other hand they're only earning $12 a day (this is a lot to them though).
Anyway we went to Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom & Bayon tmeple, and Tha Phrom I think it's called - the one with the trees growing through the temples. It was pretty amazing - definitely worth all the travel to get there, it is incredible walking around such ancient temples that are in such good condition (some more than others).
This was all we could manage in one day - they are massive and it is hot and tiring walking around them - we did a good 7 hours or so before calling it quits. We don't usually go back to a restaurant twice but we went back to the same one for some more Amok - it was so good and figured we probably won't ever come back to Cambodia so might as well. We met a very down-to-earth American guy sitting at the table next to us travelling by himself, turns out he despises America and will never go back. He has a solar panel business in China that runs itself and earns him a good living so he's pretty much just travelling the world trying to find a new country to live in. Very interesting! His parents were travelling jugglers! We had a great time chatting to him...
Not much else exciting to report about Cambodia - we got a bus back to Phnom Penh the next day, found a nice guesthouse run by a Norwegian guy right near where the bus dropped us off - oh and I had a really nice spaghetti carbonara that night!!! The best food that's not Asian in my whole trip I think. We took off the next morning on a bus from Phnom Penh to Saigon, Vietnam. :-)
We arrived in Phnom Penh at about 8pm, were dropped off in the Lakeside district and after being accosted by guesthouse touts and looking at 4 different guesthouses we decided to stay at the Floating Island guesthouse which is a hovel, but the same as the rest of the guesthouses in this area. We tried to find a more expensive room but couldn't! The average seemed to be around $3 a night which is what we paid for very old and basic room with double bed, fan and tiny bathroom. The foam mattress was thin so you could feel the wooden slats underneath and the floorboards were all uneven so I kept stubbing my toes! And the walls were very thin, and the drains in the bathrooms are crap so your bathroom is literally a pool after a shower (which is cold btw) - just trying to paint a pretty picture here! hehe... its similar to a lot of places we've stayed in SE Asia. The staff were really really friendly though!
I think I had enough of roughing it by the time we got to Cambodia so after our failed efforts at finding a nice room in Phnom Penh we didn't settle till we found one in Siem Reap - I'll mention this later.
So we found a room, the first one with aircon actually, we literally dumped our bags and were trying to get the aircon to work when an english guy came out of his room and started saying that his friend is sick and he didn't know what to do. So we went in with the guy who worked at the guesthouse and saw this his friend wasn't in good shape, sweating all over and fading fast - wanting to pass out, couldn't walk at all so Gav and Sangheon (Korean friend) had to carry him out of the guesthouse (which was in an alley etc so a little walk) and into a tuk-tuk and off to the hospital. It was a bit full-on especially after our 12 hour journey! We hadn't eaten since lunch and it was about 9pm so we were shattered.
Our aircon ended up not working, so we switched to a fan room, had a shower and finally could sit out on the lovely terrace overlooking the lake for a quick meal before going to bed.
We wanted to get out of PP and head to Siem Reap as quick as possible so we booked a bus at midday the next day, and arrived in Siem Reap at about 6pm.
I'll also just mention that the Lakeside in Phnom Penh is the backpacker area, and a great place to stay if you want a room that costs under $5US. They are all pretty scummy but there's loads of cheap cafes, bars etc and the drugs are definitely a-plenty! :-S Gav seems to be a magnet for being offered weed - it must be the beard!! Don't worry mum we're not the slightest bit tempted though - no way! We were speaking to some American guys after we carried the british guy to the tuk tuk, and they said that they heard that 7 people have died in the last 10 days or something in Phnom Penh... :-( very sad... sampling the beers of each region is more than enough for us hehe..
There are pretty cute bars lining the lakeside, some playing music and have pool tables etc so it's a pretty sociable place to be as well. Mana you probably did well not to stay in this area I think! There seems to be only one nice guesthouse in the whole area - Simon's place, which seems to be always fully booked.
After enquiring at 3 different travel agencies about different prices for the trip from Don Det to Phnom Penh, we decided to pay $20 for the agency that promised a minibus to Stung Treng (about 40 mins fromt the border in Cambodia) and then a VIP bus all the way to PP. (ha!) Travel agencies across the island were all charging different rates, from $16 to $24 some saying that you can't even go all the way to PP in one day, that you have to stay overnight in Kompong Cham, about 2 hrs from PP. We've read loads of horror stories on traveller's blogs about this trip, all saying that it was the worst day of travel in their whole trip. We considered flying but it costs too much.
So here's our journey in a nutshell. It actually panned out a whole lot smoother than we anticipated and took roughly 12 hours from start to finish so we were happy enough!
6.30am - Wake up and pack
7.30am - Breakfast
8.00am - Boat to Ban Nakasang on the mainland Laos... wait around for... not sure what?
9.00am - Minivan to the border - first stop Laos immigration to stamp out ($1)
9.20am - Told by the driver that we have to walk to the border to the Cambodian immigration and he'll pick us up there. So off we go... about 5 mins walk to the Cambodian immmigration to get our visas on arrival ($20 + $1 for the officer) and stamps (another $1). Here we are told we have change minivans, so we all pile into the minivan and wait.... we weren't sure what we were waiting for, as the van seemed to be full already, but it turned out that we were waiting for more people! 5 more people turned up and looked in disbelief at the van that they were told they have to fit into! We all kicked up a bit of a fuss to no avail, so in the end 19 of us squeezed into a minivan with 14 seats! And a couple of the seats were broken too. It was a bit of a laugh though - well Gav and I thought so, not everyone did though :-P
10.45am - We finally take off in our crammed minivan into Cambodia - heading to Stung Treng where we crossed on a ferry (seriously, a dodgy bridge goes about 75% across the river and a ferry connects the rest of the way - why not just extend the bridge?! Sometimes I just don't understand these people!
12.00pm - We stopped in Stung Treng for lunch (worst lunch) and waited around until 1.30 - again not sure why!
1.30pm - Leave Stung Treng and head for Kratie
3.00pm - Arrive in Kratie, and change minivan again! This time its even smaller.
3.30pm - Leave Kratie and drive over some pretty bad dirt roads. It's a solid 5 hour drive.
8.30pm - Arrive in Phnom Penh!! Shattered.
We arrived in Pakse on an overnight bus (10hrs) from Vientiane at about 6.30am and then managed to get straight on a minibus to Don Det, another 2 hours drive south from Pakse. A short long boat trip and we were on Don Det searching for a bungalow on the water. We settled on the 3rd bungalows we looked at, for about $3 per night, along with an English girl, Gee, that we made the journey with. The bungalows here are very basic - a small wooden hut with a bed, thin mattress and mosquito net, as well as two hammocks on the balcony overlooking the water. Don Det is so peaceful and quiet (apart from the farm animals - chooks, pigs, buffalo, roosters) and the views over the water from the bungalows are amazing. We had a brilliant time there during the day. Night time is a bit of a different story though! The island only has generators for power and so there is only electricity on some parts of the island from about 6pm until midnight, other parts and most of the individual bungalows have no power at all (including ours). So no lights and most importantly no fans! Which makes things a little uncomfortable at 30 degrees at night! But we survived :-)
Our first day we were shattered as we didn't really sleep much on the overnight bus, so just kind of chilled out on the hammocks and slept for the afternoon. We watched a beautiful sunset from our balcony with a couple of Beerlaos and had yummy banana muffins from an Aussie baker who has a bakery on the island and delivers cakes and bread to the whole island every evening on his bicycle! When the sun had gone down we went in search for a little nightlife - we were expecting much but literally couldn't find anywhere that was lively - of the few bars and restaurants that are there, there was only a couple of people at each. So we ate a very average Indian meal at the only restaurant on the island that had fans! :-P We joined a Swiss couple and German guy who had also made the trip from Vientiane with us.
On our second day we hired bikes headed down to the Aussie's bakery for breakfast (The pumpkin burgers are yum!) and then headed off to Don Khon, Don Det's sister island - the two are joined by an old railway bridge that the french built and used to carry freight between the islands before World War II. Don Khon is host to some waterfalls, a couple of rusted train engines and some Irrawady dolphins to the far south on the Cambodian Border. We made it down to one of the waterfalls which is one of the biggest in South East Asia, volume-wise anyway, not in height. As you can't swim at the waterfall there is a tiny beach about 200 meters away from it where we headed to cool off for a bit, although the water is pretty warm so we stayed there for at least half an hour trying to cool down and chatting to some Americans. Sadly travellers had died here before as the undercurrent is so strong, so you can only wade about in the shallows.
After a litte exploring on Don Khon we decided to head back to Don Det, found ourselves at the bakery again drinking cold Beerlaos! hehe... Here we met Sangheon, another Korean! We spent the afternoon and evening chatting to him, and since he was also heading to Phnom Penh, we booked our bus trip together.
Hello!
Thought I would drop in and say hi before we head off to Southern Laos on our way to Cambodia. We are planning on staying a few nights in the 4000 island region of Laos as we've heard from other travelers how beautiful it is there. Our original plan was to head back in to Central Thailand and East to Cambodia as the border is a bit more, how could you say, legit so to speak. The border that we are planning to go through isn't really governed appropriately as there has been talk of paying US$1 for 'stamp tax' twice, which i think is Cambodian speak for drinking money, either way I'm sure we'll find out!
We've just come back to Vientiane after spending the last week and a bit in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang for the Laos New Year (which is for the year 2551!). There isn't all that much to do in the capital city which is why we are on the internet. I would be drinking beer right now but since we have a 10 hour bus trip ahead of us through the night maybe it's in our best interests not to! Really though Laos has definitely been one of the highlights for on our trip as the Laos people sure know how to party for their new year! They practically have about 7 days worth of solid celebrating and 3 of those are spent soaking the crap out of each other with water pistols, buckets and pretty much anything that will hold H2O! We had a blast joining in on the action and although after 2 days of being dripping wet, by the third we just really wanted to be dry for a change - but the people of Laos waiting for us down every street we took had other ideas.
Well the weeks are surely flying by right now and Jess and I are constantly checking and changing our plans to make the most of our time, which is about approximately 3 weeks I think? It's funny that we have truly lost all concept of days of the week as just this morning Jess asked me what day it was and I thought it was Thursday, then Wednesday only to finally figure out that it was really Friday! We amuse ourselves like that. Haha. We won't be in Cambodia (or as we have heard travelers call it "Scambodia") for very long and will visit Angkor Wat and then back to Phnom Phen to get in to our last leg of our trip through Vietnam. We have made a Korean friend who we are going to meet up with once we are in Na Trang after spending some time in Saigon who is going to show us around and mentioned something about a mud pack, so we are very curious!
Well I hope you guys are all OK back home and can't wait to see you! It won't be too long before we do! Can't wait!
Love and miss you! xoxox
Gavin & Jess.
Let us just say this first off, we have never been more wet in our lives and Laos sure knows how to party! After hearing that Luang Prabang is the place to be for the Lao New Year (which it is now the year 2551 according to their calendar), we enduldged in another 7 hour 'VIP' bus ride North from Vang Vieng. When the Laos say VIP, they mean a grotty old bus that you would have thought surely wouldn't even start any more, with windows for aircon and not even enough seats for everyone! After the bus filled up, out came the plastic outdoor chairs and they piled people into the aisles as well - there was about 10 people sitting in the aisle! The bus drive, although long, was actually superb, as it drives most of the way through massive mountains, so the views are simply spectacular (and some of the mountain curves are quite scary!) and the tiny mountain villages that you drive through are fascinating - pure little huts lining the edges of the mountains along the roads, such a simple life these village people live.
After being dropped in to town from the bus station, the touts at once began riding their bikes towards us flogging their 'special price' for accomodation to fill their guesthouses. We conveniently enough ran in to one touting the guesthouse we had already booked, at a much cheaper price! Feeling liberated from the huge mark up we had been quoted on the phone since it's the new year, we threw our bags down, threw on our soon to be wet clothing and hit the streets to join in celebrations.
As soon as we stepped on to the main strip which follows the Mekong around the town we were greated with "Happy New Year!" by Laos young and old followed by buckets, pans, saucepans, and water guns filled with good ole' H2O and then they proceeded with the drenching. It didn't matter if you were driving a tuk-tuk, a car or a motor-bike, no-one was safe from the festivities. The favourite seemed to be throwing big buckets of water into the faces of motorcycle riders as they rode through town. But it didn't just stop with water, oh no! Once you thought you could not get any more wet, it was time to bring out the wok-grease (while little kids brought out the muffler grease!) and flour and have it smeared any where they could get you. We were hit with the 'good luck' trying to escape down a back street. Good plan Jess! Haha! It was pretty much a tar and feathering that we received!
Across the Mekong from all this madness was an island filled to the brim with Lao under marquees drinking, eating and singing their finest renditions of Lao and Thai-pop karaoke. Of course we had to go check that out! After jumping on one of the 50 or so boats going back and forth between the mainland and island, we arrived to see the beach lined with sand sculptures which looked like mounds surrounded by balls with white flags depicting images of Buddha and the animals of the zodiac made to bring good luck. By the time we had made it over this way however, it was pretty late in the day and the beer already warm, so we endured one beer, walked around the island and handed our water pistol over to a young Lao boy whose face lighted up like all his Christmas' came at once and sped off to soak his friends and family immediately.
To describe the vibe that was engulfing this town today would mean to say that there was not a frown in sight, everbody constantly laughing and foreigners and locals were as one wetting each other and drinking the local Beer Lao (which we found is half owned by Carlsberg now). Being in Luang Prabang for the Laos new year is just one of the many things that you need to see for yourself, but be sure to put it near the top of the list.
We've been crap with blogging lately - about a week behind now as there's still most of Chiang Mai and Bangkok to write about, but just wanted to let everyone know that we're heading to Laos tonight and will hopefully have some blogs published while we're there. We'll be in Laos for about a week. We haven't had wireless internet in Bangkok (of all the places!) so this is the first net cafe we've been in for a few days. Bangkok has been busy busy busy with lots of walking! But will write about that later....
Write again soon!! xox
After a quick banana shake we set off to begin our early morning start to a day long tour of Northern Chiang Mai booked through 5 star tours (which we can highly recommend as our agent, Map, is very friendly and courteous).Our minibus filled with Australians who were hungover, and a token Canadian who had been living in Korea for 2 years. Our first stop was the Orchid and Butterfly farm about an hour drive outside of Chiang Mai. There isn't too much to shout about here. From here it was time to go venturing deep into Chiang Dao cave to see numerous buddha images strewn throughout the cave once used as a hideout for the Burmese invaders. We went as far as we could into cave before needing a torch as it was pitch black. After finishing lunch we were off to visit the hill-tribes. A 2 hour drive later we entered the village and were introduced to a few members of the long-neck tribe when we could ask a few questions like the obvious 'does it hurt?' which they say it does not. They take the rings off to add a new one with more coils. Such a charming people and very welcoming, we felt lots of guilt for exploiting these very friendly villagers. But then again it wasn't a 'true' village as all we walked through were shops to sell their hand-made wares, which we bought plenty of and saw how they were made. It was more of a refugee camp as the long-necks aren't a Thai tribe, so they are living off the Thai government and the money their tribe makes from tourists. So a few photos later, we set off back for the 3 hour drive to Chiang Mai.
