Vietnam Part 1 (Ho Chi Min City, Nha Trang, Hoi an and Hue)

It's another fairly long bus journey from Phnom Penn to Ho Chi Min City, our first stop on our exploration of Vietnam. On arrival, we're immediately scammed by a taxi driver. I try to be stoic and get over it, but as I write this weeks after the fact, I'm still pissed as hell. Like in Phnom Penn, our hostel is on the main backpacker street, but with fewer prostitutes. On our first full day we go into town and go on a free walking tour. This is not like free walking tours in Australia and Europe - these are run by students trying to improve their English and as a result do not expect a tip from you. We are taken around the sprawling metropolis of Ho Chi Min city, which is much more developed than Cambodian cities, not to mention a lot easier to walk around. We are taken to the central government building, the Notre-Dame cathedral, the Opera house and the post office. Most of these are examples of French colonial architecture, and are very pretty. On the tour we meet Brendon and Annalisa, a couple from Edinburgh. They've also just come from Cambodia, so we swap a few stories along the way. The tour ends at the War Remnants Museum. This is a particular sombre collection of photographs and artifacts from the war, chronicling it's history. Outside are American tanks and choppers captured during that time. Some of the wording inside the museum has been described as 'one sided' but I guess it's understandable when a foreign country deploys over 100,000 troops and drops 4.6 million tonnes of bombs in your country, whatever the reason.

City Hall

Notre-Dame Cathedral

American Chopper

After the tour, we all decide to go find some lunch. We eventually wonder close to our hostels, which is where a large street food market is. I have a fried rice pancake with pork and shrimp, and a bit of chicken as well. We agree to all meet for dinner. When we return to the hostel to cool off, however, the rain begins. The rain turns into a storm. We watch the storm with our roommate Mat like little kids out of the window, and watch the road get wetter and wetter. The power on the street goes out. We play a round of the card game Monopoly Go. We get very hungry. We go downstairs and now the street is flooded, with the water about a foot deep. The staff at the hostel are eating takeaway, so brave the storm and wade out to the same takeaway a few dwellings down. They are, understandably, inundated with orders. "Now all we need is some beer", I joke, but Mat takes this seriously and goes out on a beer run. With the water rising, we fear we might not see him again. Luckily, he does return and, accompanied by more guests of the hostel, we play another round of Monopoly Go. When the lights turn back on it's somehow less fun, but it was still a pretty awesome experience.

Bright lights, wet city

The following morning we decide to check out the Ho Chi Min City Museum. This is just O.K, the most interesting bit is the history of the struggle for Independence against the French colonists in 1945. We fly out in the evening to Nha Trang, which is a beach resort. It rains the whole time so we don't really do much and decide to leave a day earlier than planned. We spend our one day trying to find a pagoda with a giant Buddha statue. It takes us a long while, but eventually we get there, have an explore and I climb to the top.

The buddha and the bastard

It's from Nha Trang we get our first experience with the sleeper bus. As I understand it this is a staple of low-budget travel around Asia and I'm quite excited. To some, spending 10 hours on a reclining seat on a bus might sound like hell but to be honest, I was fairly indifferent to it. The worst part was I opted to wear long trousers and so got super hot, which affected my sleep, but apart from that it was fine. We were lucky enough on this outing to get the backseats which allow us to spread out a little (although, I imagine these are the worst seats during high season as you would be cwtched up next to total strangers.) As we roll into Hoi An, Heidi spots our hostel - it's a 2 minute walk from where the bus stops.

Hoi an is a very beautiful spot to walk around. The old town consists of French Colonial buildings and have been kept pristine. At night the streets are lit up with an array of multi-coloured lanterns and smaller ones which have been put to float out onto the river. Boat trips are so popular the river looks crowded and therefore uninviting, so we just wander around the markets and soak up the atmosphere.

Hoi an by night

Pretty lights

Pretty people

We opt for a half-day trip to the nearby My Son ruins. Our guide takes us round the ancient ruins, which are similar in structure to Angkor Wat in that the materials seem to be planted on top of each other with no adhesive. "How did they build it?" our tour guide asks, "...no-one knows!" The ruins are quite amazing, though have seen their share of damage. Heads from some statues were removed by some French Colonialists, and it was bombed during the Vietnam war due to the site being used as a Vietcong hideout. There are still large craters here from these bombings.

My Son ruins

Bomb crater

Hoi An to Hue is only 4 hours by bus, a doddle compared to our recent transport adventures. It's on a sleeper bus, and we head straight to the back once again. We're getting more and more organised as we go with this trip, and so the first thing we do is book our bus out of Hue. Then we head over to a massage parlour to receive a massage by a blind person. That's right, this is a set-up which gives blind people the opportunity to train and work as masseuses. The massage is an hour long and is fairly intense (not to mention hard to explain in words" I feel noticeably "lighter" afterwards. The next day we go 'tomb raiding'. Hue used to be the capital back way back when, and as such a number of ancient kings are buried nearby in elaborate tombs. We have a tour that takes us to the three main  tombs, as well as a few other stops. These are all beautiful in their own way, and I decide a tomb is something I will need in the future.

Getting some inspiration

In the afternoon we visit a rather lacklustre garden house and another pagoda before heading back to the centre via dragon boat. The boat is cool, but the afternoon doesn't quite match the morning. The next day we plan to go to the citadel, but it pours down and we decide it would be pretty miserable so we holeout in a cafe.

Dragon boat

Next time: Hanoi and Luang Prabang!

Cambodia

Our cheap flight from Bali to Siem Reap involves a long stop over in Kuala Lumpar, so we spend a good 12 hours people watching, sleeping on the floor and trying to find working charging stations. We touch down in the morning, completely shattered, and are welcomed by a blistering heat. We decide to have a chill day at the hostel. After lunch, the blue sky clouds over and, whilst we're sat in the sheltered patio of the hostel, the heavens open and we get our first taste of monsoon season. The rain is torrential, neither of us have ever seen anything quite like it. It's not long before we have to raise our feet above the floor to avoid getting wet. 

What follows for the next three days is being driven around the various temples of Angkor Archaeological park via Motodop (a motorbike with a little carriage attached). These temples date back to as far as the 9th century and whilst most of them were originally Hindu, they were re purposed as Buddhist later on. The temples are uniquely beautiful, and it's especially impressive how the stones stay in place without modern building materials such as cement, but I couldn't possibly list them all here. We visit Angkor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world, on the second day and decide to shell out for a guide who gives us a bit of history and religious context. He also points out some bullet holes, one complete with lodged bullet, that was a result of a civil war battle fought nearby. 

Strong and stable

Ta Prohm

I can't remember what this is

Angkor Wat

Neak Pean

Our next stop is Phnom Penn, which is 6 hours away by bus. Here we visit the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. In 1975 the Communist party of Kampuchea, the followers of which are known as the Khmer Rouge, took power. It's leader, Pol Pot, had a vision of a pure communism by forcing everyone into a rural lifestyle and moving them from the cities into the countryside. In addition, monks, intellectuals, artists and anyone else who was deemed to be an enemy of the party was killed. Depending on who you ask, somewhere between 2-3 million Cambodians were killed and it is now known as the Cambodian genocide. The bodies of those killed were piled into mass graves which were all over the country - Choeung Ek has now been turned into a memorial and information site about this horrific part of the countries history. An audio tour narrated by a survivor guides us through and tells us stories from the sites and others like it. It is truly horrific and I don't feel much like taking pictures of the tiny grave sites where hundreds of men, women and children (including babies) were thrown in like rubbish for political idealism. The last site is the memorial tower itself, which contains excavated skulls and bones from the site. I can't bring myself to even look at the skulls, so we don't even go in. The next stop is the S-21 prison. This was the prison were enemies of the police state were held until being taken to the fields to be killed. It is, once again, a monument to human misery as we're shown how people were tortured for little to no reason. 

Near Phnom Penn there is a shooting range where tourists can fire AK-47s and rocket launchers. I was originally thinking of popping a few rounds until we discovered it was quite expensive. But I don't think I would have really been in the mood after today.

I hear there's a popular T-shirt in Phuket that reads "No, I don't want a f**king suit, tuk-tuk, or massage, thank you very much". I really could have done with this on our last day in Phnom Penn. It's possible the hottest day of our travels yet and as we head over to the Royal Palace, we our hounded by moto drivers. It's a short walk but I'm dripping with sweat. When we get there one driver tells us it's closed this morning and tries to get us to go on a tour with him instead. I had read about this scam but totally forgotten, so we wonder round the outside for a bit until another driver tells us it is open (and tries to get us to go with him to the entrance). We walk back and wonder round the palace, which has stunning architecture. We don't have a tour so I can't say we learnt all that much, but it was still worth the price of admission.

Not a bad crib

Neither Siam Reap or Phnom Penn strike us as amazing cities to visit - there's not a lot in the cities themselves and the lack of pavements makes getting about a bit tricky. Nonetheless, what we have seen and done hear has been amazing and enlightening. That, coupled with 30p draft beer and great food equals a pretty excellent week.

Next time: Vietnam!

Bali

We arrive in Denpasar, Bali, late at night and have a few hours sleep in a hostel. I have less sleep than intended, having not changed the time on my phone and waking up at 5 instead of 7, and being very confused as to why reception wasn’t open. When Heidi wakes up at the correct time, we have our first taste of indonesian cusine for breakfast – a generous portion of Nasi Goreng, fried rice. We then relocate to Ubud via taxi. Our new hostel consists of a few 8 bed dorms in a small bungalow – we seem to be the only guests here. We walk down the pavementless track to Ubud proper and have a bit of lunch on one of the high streets. We visit the market, but we’re still pretty knackered from the night before so we head back after a short wander.

The next day we are meeting Heidi’s best friend from school, Kiff, some of his friends and some people they are on a tour with. We can’t get a hold of him (due to a big night) so we decide to have breakfast at their hotel and surprise him. We’re introduced to the other guys from the tour and form a group to go to one of the big draws to Ubud – the monkey forest sanctuary located just next to the hotel. I don’t think I need to explain what this is, but needless to say there are tonnes of monkeys – some aggressive than others. Shortly after we enter one jumps on Kiffs back, resulting in him swinging off his backpack. During our walk through the beautiful forest, a lady with an open bag is mugged by another monkey. It steals her purse and climbs up a tree. A gent from one of the shops has to, somehow, coax the culprit into dropping it.

Hail Hydra

Because monkeys need temples too

We head back to Kiff’s hotel and jump in the pool. The monkeys are still about, mind. We can see them clambering over the wall and occasionally descending onto the hotel grounds, where they are immediately chased by hotel staff wielding staffs and slingshots. I don’t know if this is their only job, but part of me hopes it is. We’re all having a great time chilling at the pool, keeping a watchful eye of the monkeys, when I spoil it all by cutting my big toe on a loose tile in the pool. I jump out and begin getting nursing treatment from Heidi, whose soon relieved by four members of the hotel staff. They put all manner of treatment on my toe, including what I am told is “traditional medicine”. There’s talk of me going to the clinic, but after a bit more nursing the chief first aider tells me I should be alright, so long as I give it a wash in an hour or so. We decide it’s time to head back.

That night Heidi wakes me up in the middle of the night because she can hear something. I get up and walk over to what was once a kitchenette. In the sink is a 2 inch cockroach trying for dear life to get out. I attempt to get rid of it using humane methods (water) but when this fails I opt to kill it (water bottle) and return to my sleep. Part and parcel, I guess.

We’ve booked a driver for today to take us to our next stop, Candi Dasa, but first we’re making a few stops around Ubud. First we go to a beautiful rice terrace. Frustratingly, there are ‘donation stops’ along the way that stop you from going any further without making a ‘donation’. This is mainly annoying because we run out of small notes early on and can’t walk around the whole thing, I’d have happily paid more for the entrance fee. On the other hand it’s scorching hot so we’re not too upset about doing the full circuit. The next stop is Gunung Kawi, otherwise known as the rocky temple, as it was literally carved into the rocks back in the 11th century. It’s an impressive site. The next stop is the Tirta Empul, also known as the water temple. I have both my shoulders and knees covered and yet I’m still called up to put a sarong. As soon as the gent has wrapped it around me, he pats my beard and says “Ahh, Hanuman!”. I don’t know if he knew that I knew Hanuman is the Hindu monkey god, but he certainly seemed amused. The water temple is given the informal name due to small pools where visitors can have their own purification ritual. We don’t have towels so we give this a miss.

Rice Terrace

Rocky Temple

Water temple

We arrive in Candi Dasa in the late afternoon. Our hotel is very nice and has it’s own stretch of private beach. Kiff and the others join us the next day and the rest of the week is spent mostly pool side, working on the tan and drinking Bintang, the local lager. On our second day, Heidi and I go for a relaxing massage. A few days after this, after a stressful morning trying to get passport photos for our Cambodia visa, I have quite a few Bintangs plus a bespoke cocktail. Overall we had a great albeit mostly sedentary week in Bali. I won’t list everything I ate but it was all tasty, and people are very friendly and eager to help.