What's different: Food and drink

Fried spring rolls with the special dipping sauce

As the end of our time in Vietnam approaches I thought I would put together some of the differences I have noticed between life in Australia and Vietnam. The first one is on food and drink.

While living in Hanoi, I have heard this saying a couple of times from two completely different sources - "Vietnamese eat anything with four legs, except the table". They also eat things with two legs and no legs at all. The more unusual foods that many eateries sell include turtle, dog, ostrich, buffalo and coconut worms. Eel, duck, snails, frogs, chicken, beef and pork are very common.

Peanuts with bia hoi

They love garlic and they love chilli. their diet consists of a much broader range of fruits and vegetables than we eat in Australia. Dried meats accompanied with aniseed flavoured leaves. Blokes will sit back and enjoy sliced cucumber with a beer. Peanuts are served almost always with beer. But here the peanuts are boiled, not roasted. They come out of their shells quite soft, almost mushy, but once you get used to it they are excellent.

There are very few pubs here as we know it, but restaurants and cafes are where you can buy beer. The local beer here is called Bia Hoi, which means "fresh beer", naturally brewed and consumed very quickly after brewing. It is quite low alcohol compared to Aussie beer and it is possible to drink 15 glasses of beer and still be quite coherent.

Food is served progressively. So when you order you almost never get your entire order in one serving. People take ages to eat their food compared to us. They drink beer, eat a little, have a cigarette, then nibble a bit more. People don't care if the food goes cold. Chop sticks lend themselves to eating slowly as it is hard to pick up huge amounts of food in one go like you can with a spoon. Knives are almost never used as all meat is cut up for you when it is served. As plates arrive on the table people almost invariably share their order and split the bill at the end. So a smorgasbord style of eating is the norm, whereas in Australia everyone gets their own plate, and compared to Vietnam, Aussies eat their food as fast as possible.

Our neighbours sharing a banquet with us for lunch

People chew their food with their mouth open and it is a little difficult at first to listen to this. People eat their food from small bowls after taking what they need from the selection on the table, but unlike Australia, they lift the bowl to the mouth and scoop in the food, whereas the Aussie way is to leave the plate on the table and lift the food to the mouth.

Meat market

Another thing that is a bit hard to get used to is the food markets that sell meat that is not refrigerated. Walking through the markets with the smell of meat when it is 35 degrees and flies buzzing around is a little off putting. We did buy meat from here a couple of times and never did get sick.

Our favourite tea lady

There are many old ladies here that sell green tea on the side of the road. Unlike in Aus., tea and coffee are drunk cold, and often with ice. I guess you need to, when most of the time the weather is so hot.

What you almost never see here is bread or dairy products. Having said that though, we lived in Hanoi in the same block as the Australian Embassy. There are many embassies near where we lived and all sorts of foods  could be bought from a supermarket nearby.

We did buy bread from here and were even able to buy Vegemite to have on toast for breakfast. After being away from home for a long time the familiar things seem to taste so much nicer.

Sa Pa

One of the villages in Sa Pa

Kim reckoned that Sa Pa was her favourite place in all of Vietnam, so with that sort of wrap we had to go there. Sa Pa, or Sapa is pronounced "sar par" or "sappa" depending on how posh you are. Sa Pa is located well inland from Hanoi and is very close to the Chinese border. It is the home of the  Hmong, Dao (Yao), Giay, Pho Lu, and Tay minority peoples of Vietnam.  Sa Pa is high up in the mountains and is therefore much cooler than Hanoi. For the first time in ages we started to feel cold. It was probably got down to 20 degrees Celcius, brrrr! ;-) Sa Pa is very beautiful too, you can  picture vivid green rice terraces on the misty mountains. As a result of this beauty, it is a favourite place for tourists to visit, and unfortunately the local culture has adapted to the tourist influence only too well.

Kim at the train station

We started off with an overnight train journey, arriving at the station at about 7:30 pm. We walked across numerous railway tracks to wait on our platform until we were shown our cabin. We had to share with a couple from Vietnam that spoke no English. An hour or so after the train leaves they turn the lights off and you try to sleep. But after becoming accustomed to having very late nights and with the rocking and noise of the train, getting to sleep proved very difficult, even though we could stretch out on a bed each. Maybe I got a couple of hours sleep, because at about 6:30 in the morning some really awful music gets played to wake people up and half an hour later we arrive at the railway station. We get our stuff and walk out and it feels cool and it is starting to rain. Outside the station we see a sign with our name on it and then wait for some others to join us before being bundled into a mini-bus with another 12-15 people for another one hour drive to the village of Sa Pa.

At Sa Pa we wait for another hour for our guide to arrive in a hotel lobby. There are young children running around making heaps of noise while their parents seem oblivious. But we are both pretty tired and somehow manage to get a little bit of sleep before our guide arrives. Our guide was a female, maybe in her late 20's or early thirties dressed in traditional hand made and embroidered clothing and gum boots. We leave the hotel and start our maybe 15 km walk through roads and bush tracks in the countryside. We are joined by maybe another 4 women also dressed in traditional clothing, gumboots and with large round baskets on their backs and they seem quite friendly and talkative. They ask the usual questions, where are you from, how old are you, do you have children ... I ask them what the baskets are for and they don't say much at all. They all spoke the best English of any group of people that we have met so far.

Tony getting the hard sell

We walk along a road, up a hill and then start to walk through the countryside on some tracks. Once the track gets a bit steep or slippery the ladies grab your hand and give assistance. Its all very nice. Except the ladies seem to lead you through the steepest  and slipperiest sections so that you really do need their assistance. Once or twice I had to ask them to move so that I could walk through the easy sections. 

3 purses, thanks, what I always wanted

When we had lunch we were basically get mobbed by heaps of them trying to sell you stuff. Of course you say no thanks, but that seems to encourage them more. You tell them you don't want and they just ask how much you pay. They drive you insane with their persistence, so you make them an offer just to get rid of them. What ever you say is never enough, so they try to talk you up. In the end I bought about 5 handbags, pillow cases and purses. As you can imagine I really "needed" these things, or more-so, needed not to be crowded and pestered. This happened at least another two or three times at Sa Pa, and in the end they are ruining the experience for tourists with the relentless selling. Either that or tourists will start becoming very rude to them so that they go away. This is a real pity.

The view from our home-stay looking through some drying corn

We finally arrived at our accommodation which was a "home stay" with some of the locals in one of the villages. It was really nice, peaceful and relaxing. We had a good outlook to the mountains and other village houses in the distance. There was another another Australian family staying with us. They had two young sons who were enjoying having a few fights and learning to make pop-guns from bamboo with the locals. The father ran a sheep farm and winery in Victoria and the mother taught psychology but as an online teacher. We got on pretty well with them.

At tea time the locals prepared as huge meal with plates of different meats, vegetables, fried rice and tofu. One of the local ladies there brought some rice whiskey which she shared liberally with us. Their guide was a local woman that told us of the customs in the village. The classic tale is how people go about getting married. The potential bride is kidnapped by the potential groom and has to go and live with the groom's family for a few days. If she likes the family then she can agree to marry if she wants to. It sounds like fun really, tradition dictates that the groom needs to be accompanied by females too so there isn't really any violence involved. This particular woman had been kidnapped six times by six different blokes before she decided who to marry. In the end she was getting used to being kidnapped, so she said to her kidnappers, "ok, I'm coming" rather than going through the ritualistic dragging, because as she said, the next day you feel all sore.

The view from the waterfall with some of the tourists

The following day we walked out, this time up the side of a mountain and through a bamboo forest. Along the way we stopped at a huge waterfall. It was pretty spectacular, except for maybe another hundred tourists there. We finished the walk at a village and were transported in a van back into Sa Pa, where we were taken to a hotel and were given a room to have a shower and relax a while before going out to walk around the town of Sa Pa. Here there were plenty of women, in traditional clothes, wearing gumboots and carrying big round baskets, but we did not buy off anyone as by now we had learned to say no, and really mean no.

Down town Sa Pa

We caught the train back in the night and got lots more sleep this time. At the train station we were met by taxi drivers wanting extortionate amounts of money to travel back to our room. But we told them that we knew prices and not to bother us and kept walking until we found another taxi driver asleep in his car. But this one was the from the reputable Hanoi taxis, and we got home for about 1/6th the price of what we were to be charged at the train station.

We starting to know the prices and the scams and how to avoid them and begginning to feel like locals now.  

Ha Long Bay

The view from Sung Sot Cave (Cave of Surprises) 

While we waited for Kim's work to start we did an overnight tour to Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is a bit like Cradle Mountain, in that the geology is so remarkable that it is a 'must see' destination if you ever visit this part of Vietnam.

Ha Long Bay is an archipelago of almost 2000 islands or islets that jut vertically out of the sea. The islands are mostly limestone, so there are many caves here, and earthquakes over the millennia have collapsed some of these, leaving the high points, and eventually the area was flooded by the sea. Ha Long Bay has had human habitation since about 18000 BC and has been the setting for a few wars over the years, most recently the Vietnam (American) war, where the area was mined, which even today still pose a threat to shipping.

Ha Long Bay is a World Heritage Site and has recently been named as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. So, its pretty flash!

Among the islands

The bus trip out there from Hanoi takes four hours, which sounds like a long time, but it was only a relatively short trip compared to some we've had lately. We get off the bus and walk over to the wharf area where there are literally hundreds of boats taking tours and tourists everywhere. Here we get on a small boat that takes us all out to a larger boat which has cabins and dining facilities. We put our stuff in our room then go up for lunch and they started brining out food, then more food, then even more food. As you don't really know what to expect, you tend to eat a fair bit more of the first courses then are too full to even try the later ones.

Out the back of the boat

Then the boat heads out among the islands and we are looking out the window, taking photos and taking it all in. Eventually we get taken to a huge cave which was possibly my favourite part of the whole place. It was massive, lit up with colourful lights and probably just as spectacular as the islands themselves. Our guide De Cheng showed up many of the features or similarities to other things in the rock. There are words for this, apophenia or patternicity, like the man on the moon for example. So we saw what were snakes, dragons, monkey, and in the back of our minds we thought, "really??", but the classic of all classics was the "happy finger", which was perhaps intended to be a polite description for something else... I'll let you guess.

The happy finger

After about an hour in the cave we went kayaking. Kim and I had had a gut-full of kayaks after 6 hours of getting "dragged off" by all the young-uns in Laos. This was a much more relaxed though and you could take the kayaks inside some smaller caves. After that we were invited to go swimming. I haven't been swimming for the sake of swimming for years, and as you could imagine I am no body builder, so wasn't too keen to be walking around scantily clad in public. But it was pretty hot and humid and everyone else had gone in. So I did a big dive head first from the deck, which was probably 2-3 meters high. It seemed to impress a few people because everyone else had jumped. It was just like in the "olden days", when I was a kid spending all my spare time at the Burnie Olympic pool.
We had been told by the crew not to buy beer from the people coming up to us in small boats, or if we did we would be charged a surcharge. It has something to do with keeping the profits on the boat we were on. However, I did buy a couple of cans for about 1/4 of the cost on our boat. I bought one beer from upstairs and bought the same brand of the  lady on the row boat. No one ever knew, except Kim, who I shared the beers with :)

A fishing boat heading out

Then it was tea time and once again they brought out plate after plate of food. This time I paced myself a bit better and got to try most things. The evening entertainment consisted of squid fishing out the back of our boat or joining in the karaoke. No surprises that I spent a lot of time trying to catch a squid. I did see one and it chased the lure for a second then swam away. No one else caught a squid either. I talked to a couple from Switzerland that had spent some time camping in Australia while they also tried in vain to catch a squid.

The other happy finger

Kim was in at the karaoke and I went in to see how she was going. They offered me the microphone at one stage and I politely declined. But Kim did sing Down Under, the old Men at Work classic and did a pretty good job. What else do you sing when you are one of only two Australians? I did contemplate Helen Reddy's "I am woman" but chose not to disclose those thoughts to anyone in case I got pressured into singing.

In the morning I dragged myself out of bed before the sun came up hoping to get a good photo, but it was really cloudy and we never did get to see the sun. But still it was nice just to stare at the beauty of the place in silence.

Eventually we had breakfast and the boat headed back. Often our guide would show us islands that were supposed to look like other things, including another 'happy finger'. We sort of grinned and thought "yeah, right oh".

Luang Prabang to Hanoi

From Luang Prabang we rode a took-took to the airport. It was pretty hot, a little dusty and the occasional truck billowing out the black diesel fumes, so wrapping up the face in the Cambodian head scarf as a precaution was the go, even if I did look pretty stupid. Out of the took-took, at the airport under the blazing sun, with no wind, you sort of try to put the heat out of your mind and head into the terminal. Here we had the usual airport checks and went to wait in the lounge, where briefly, the air conditioning made it feel cool. There were maybe 150 other people in the room, which wasn't much bigger than the terminal in Wynyard, so pretty soon, even with the air conditioner going, we had the beads of sweat rolling down. We had to wait here for about two hours.

However, the monotony was broken when suddenly 3/4 of the room went up and crowded around the window. Military vehicles and army types in uniforms started gathering outside. Then a plane landed, and based on what was written on the plane, I guess, it was the King of Thailand that got out. He walked out with his wife onto a red carpet with the military types providing a guard of honour on both sides of the carpet. They got into a big flash black car on the runway and drove off. After that they lackeys unloaded massive amounts of suitcases. Then they drove off and we were left thinking "that's hav'na, I wonder who that was". Most other people in the terminal were French speakers, so we will never know.

It was really good to get on our plane. We almost had the plane to ourselves, with only about 10 other people on it. The air conditioning was working really well this time and gradually the sweat evaporated and we felt cool again.

A couple of hours later and we were in Hanoi. We had multiple entry visas for Vietnam, so had no hassles or delays getting through. Also, we are getting good at beating the scammers and had arranged for our hotel to pick us up from the airport for free, rather than pay the usual ridiculous fee that seems to be charged to anyone that doesn't look Vietnamese. We were taken to our first hotel in the historic old-quarter of Hanoi.

We spent a couple of nights here waiting for Kim to be called by her contacts in GeoVisions, who were brokering her teaching. Soon we met up with them and had a big night out, and they arranged for a different hotel for us nearby. 

The second hotel was to be our new home for the next couple of weeks. Much of the time here we just spent walking around the city and Hoan Kiem Lake. The old quarter looks nice, but is pretty much full of tourists, scammers, too much traffic and crammed impassable footpaths, so you end up having to walk in the traffic. It takes a bit of getting used to being dodged by motorbikes doing maybe 30-40 ks/hour and missed by maybe 15 cms. While it is a good place to visit, it was starting to get a little tiring saying no to almost everyone that wanted to talk to us. While here we went on a 3 day tour to Halong Bay, which is a spectacular area of large vertical islands jutting out of the sea.

Once Kim had her work lined up we found an online broker that found accommodation for us 5 minutes walk from where Kim was working. Here we leased an apartment for 3 months at $125 US per week, which includes blazing fast Internet (compared to my pathetic ADSL 2 back home), housekeeping 3 times per week and washing. It has been great living here and getting to know people and joke with them. More on our street in later posts.

Luang Prabang

After recovering from our ordeal on the bus, we ventured out onto the streets of Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang used to be the Capital of Laos and is steeped in history with Buddhist temples and French Colonial architecture. The city is World Heritage listed. We hired bikes while we were here and that let us have a good look around. This video shows some of the sights.

Sagas, slackness and sidetracking

Sorry about the lack of posts on here lately. First of all I had the blog ban to contend with. That kept me busy for quite a while trying to sort out a legal work around. For people with an IT background, if I used a proxy server from another country then it worked, but it is also against the law to subvert the Internet policies here. I'm not unhappy about that. Governments have the right to govern as they see fit. All blogspot sites had been banned as well as all wordpress sites, very suddenly, and I thought the problem would go away, but it didn't. In the end I registered the domain www.vietmanian.com through Google for just $10 and put through a redirect, and it worked first time. As far as I know I have not broken any laws by doing this as I am not using any covert means to access any unendorsed material.

So then I started compiling a video about our time in Luang Prabang in Laos. I have taken lots of video while travelling around the city on push bikes. That went really well and took a few days using Windows Media Maker. I had it finished, it was perfect, all I had to do was to produce the final video to upload to Youtube then link it to the blog. When the final production phase got to 28% through, the program just crashed, with a message saying something like "An unexpected error occurred". I tried everything, moved it onto different hard drives, deleted sections out and retried producing. Nothing worked and I felt sick in the guts with despair.

So I then went looking for alternative video production software than runs under Linux. I have found a program called kdenlive, which seems to do most things, but is a little difficult with the titles and transitions. I've had a bit of a go with that and need to do more, but I have lost a bit of motivation to learn yet another bit of software, when I had the last video perfected before the crash.

Since then I have become extremely side tracked by my involvement in the campaign to prevent the FV Margiris super trawler coming to Australia. This has involved a few phone calls to Australia, emailing various fishing organisations on the mainland, helping with a paper-based petition and setting up another website www.stopthemargiris.net to enable the petition to be printed and circulated Australia wide. I even emailed Rex Hunt last night, hoping he might give some support. Other than the effect that this might have on the food chain, I am concerned about the risk that professional fishermen's jobs will be displaced, and recreational fishing will diminish further. Its been a long time since I have been fired up so much on an environmental issue.

Other than that we are settling well in our flash apartment in Hanoi. We have made lots of friends with the locals in our street. It is always a good thing to be on good terms with the locals, especially if you want to save money. We keep buying from the same people and make them laugh. I use Google Translate on my phone a lot and can't really survive without it. Today as I write this post we are at about our half way point of our time in South East Asia, two months down and two months to go. Yesterday we booked our return flights to Australia for the 27th of August. It will be great to be home again for a few days and very sad to leave here as well. Not sure how we will handle the cold.

Blog ban!!

I woke up this morning and clicked on this blog, but nothing happened. I thought it was pretty strange, I can't see anyone else's blogspot or wordpress blogs either. I have also tried browsing using my phone, which is on a different network, but still no luck.
As an IT bloke I understand that it is possible to find a work around. However, I don't really feel safe doing so in case I am being monitored. It is illegal to subvert the system. Last thing I want is to get in trouble for this.
However, if you are reading this post, then it must be possible to create and edit articles, I just can't see them here.
I am not sure why, but it appears to be a blanket ban, it's not just me being banned. I can still post on Twitter and Youtube.
I realise now, how much I take my freedom in Australia for granted.

The mother of all sleeper bus trips

Zooming out in the took-took

After relaxing in Vientiane for a couple of days it was time to move on and once again the sleeper bus seemed as good an idea as any. A took-took picked us up at our hotel along with a few other tourists. One bloke from the Netherlands was telling us of all the hassles he had had. Somehow it makes you feel better when you hear of other’s hardship, so it was pretty funny really.

We got on the bus expecting the worst, it was hot, humid and uncomfortable, but you get that. At about 2 am the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere for a while and while it was stopped the barely functional air-conditioning was turned off and it soon started to feel like a sauna in the bus. After maybe 10 minutes the bus got going again, but stopped again maybe 10 minutes later. One more start then a final break down, this time outside a bus station in a remote town. The radiator was cooked. It was maybe 2:30 or 3 am and we waited for a while in the stinking hot bus, our clothes feeling wet with sweat, not really knowing what was happening. It was one of those unbearable times where you just have to put the torture out of your mind.

Misty mountains early in the morning

Outside it was raining lightly, with no shelter about, so you got wet from sweat inside the bus or from the rain on the outside. Thankfully a minibus turned up by maybe 5 am and offered people a lift to Luang Prabang which we gladly accepted but had to pay for about ½ the value of the original bus ticket. It was worth it though just to be moving on from our hell-hole.

Clear-fell logging, just like home

The area going into Luang  Prabang is very mountainous, and with that comes very windy roads. The scenery is usually pretty good though, with misty clouds near forested mountain tops; sort of what I hoped Laos would be like. And like home, lots of clear-fell logging. Not just the scenery changed though, you could clearly see the faces of the people changing. Without wanting to sound racist it is perhaps easy for us to think that all Asians look the same, but here you could see people of a more Mongol appearance, or somewhat similar to American Indians.

We finally got to Luang Prabang by lunch time and got a took-took to our hotel. We were met by a Vietnamese girl who was very nice, helpful and caring to us the whole time we were there. 

The sleeper bus to Vientiane

Statue in Vientiane

Travelling from the 4000 Islands to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, proved to be a bit of an ordeal. In a classic case of over promising and under delivering, we booked a ticket on the V.I.P. over-night bus, thinking bewdy; this saves us a night’s accommodation and a day of sitting around on a bus.

After a half-day minibus journey to a city called Pakse (pronounced passé), we had to wait about 5 hours before we got on the sleeper bus. That wasn’t too bad though, it was scorching hot and we had an air-conditioned waiting room. Occasionally we would venture out and look at the local shops. We went and had some ‘street food’ and by about 7:30 pm got on the bus. It all looked pretty good; everyone had a bed on a bus that had 2 level bunks up both sides.

The VIP bus

Then a rude, control-freak, female bus conductor got on and when she found out that Kim and I were together she made us share one of the beds. As I was packing my bag she kept nagging me to move. So much for our VIP status! Another couple also had to share, but all the single people got to stretch out. I found out later that there were still some free beds. The problem was that the beds were made more for people much shorter than us, so you couldn’t really straighten your legs. As well as that it was hot and humid. As the bus lurched through the potholes and swerved around the corners and other vehicles, the motion made it almost impossible to sleep. Kim said she would never do another sleeper bus again, but later on we did, and believe it or not, the second trip was much worse than the first!

At Vientiane we arrived at a large bus station at about 7 am, feeling a little tired and peeved. We were immediately set upon by a rabble of took-took drivers wanting to take us into the city. They all talk at you at once, and as you can imagine, first thing in the morning after hardly any sleep, it feels a bit overwhelming. The price seemed reasonable at about $2 each into get into the city, so we got in one of the took-tooks. I remarked that the Lao took-tooks looked very large compared to the Cambodian ones. So next thing we are doing slow laps of the bus station as the took-took driver prowled for more tourists to fit in. “Strangely” the driver appeared to not understand us when we asked him when we would go to the city.  After maybe 30 minutes of prowling, he eventually found about another 8 tourists with their packs to cram into the took-took, then he took us into the city. 

Patu  Xay Monument, Vientiane

Thankfully we found a good hotel, and had a good cooked breakfast just up the road, we had a shower and started to feel human again. I don’t want to sound like I am whinging, just telling it like it is. Like in other times of hardship, it is often OK to laugh at them in hindsight. You can not expect Western standards of customer service in a 3^rd world communist country, rather you “go with the flow”.

We spent about two days in Vientiane taking in the sights, the French influence in food and architecture, a really nice Buddhist temple. We went too a French restaurant that was excellent – Kim had the roast lamb and veggies and I had duck which was superb.

The Mrs, proud to be winning

Before we left we went bowling. The bowling alleys are a free-for-all, where young blokes pelt the bowls into the air, slamming them into the alley, but somehow always hit their target – amazing to watch. I started off extremely poorly and didn’t even know how to hold the bowling ball correctly, while my sporty Mrs showed me up time and time again. Fortunately for me though I learned very quickly and soon gave Kim the flogging she deserved. We are both pretty competitive with each other, and the banter that goes with it is pretty good fun.

After a couple of days recuperating, we left Vientiane to catch another sleeper bus to our next destination Luang Prabang. 

Getting to Laos from Cambodia

When we left Cambodia we were packed into a minibus with more people on it than the seating arrangement allowed. Our bags had to be packed in near our feet, so no leg room unless you nursed your bag. The driving was pretty ordinary too. The driver seemed to want to start off in 3^rd gear, so after massively revving the engine, the car would crawl forward and stall. He did this about 5 times in a row – not sure why, as at other times he did use the lower gears. The other thing was that there seemed to be no easing on of the brakes. As an obstacle was approached, a violent braking occurred that made your whole body lurch forward in the seat.

At the border

As we went on, more people got off the bus, so we gained a bit of leg room, but it was a scorcher of a day, so I guess it is fair to say this trip was pretty unpleasant. We got to the Laos border and had to walk with our packs a couple of hundred meters across the border between the Cambodian exit point and the Lao entry point.

We were met at the border in a modern, comfortable, air conditioned mini-van, with enough space for all of us. The van was beautifully cool and had good music playing loudly and clearly on the sound system. Welcome to Laos! After about 10 kames we got to our boat that took us to an area known as 4000 Islands, on the Mekong River. 

We stayed on Don Det, one of the 4000 islands where there is a small tourist village.

Kim and Caroline + beerlao

On the bus we met another Australian tourist, called Caroline, an archeologist from Queensland. She was travelling alone. She liked a beer and was friendly and down-to-earth and we spent a bit of time with her for the next few days. Normally we don’t associate much with, if not avoid Australians, while travelling. Because, beyond the normal stereotyping of Tasmanians that mainlanders seem obsessed with, Aussies are often as loud as Americans are – “Aussies are the new Seppos”. Besides that, we like to experience different cultures while away. But Caroline sort of reminded us that Aussies were OK after all, and that you could share humour and thoughts about home easily, without having to repeat simple words all the time, just to be understood.

Satellite dish in traditional village

While on the island we took a kayak tour on the Mekong. Along the way we saw some villages that would have looked traditional if it were not for the large satellite dishes that you see everywhere in the back yards. I guess you need something to get good reception on the large flat panel TVs though. 

It's not easy being green

We also saw some waterfalls that would have been pristine if it were not for the plastic and rubbish swirling around the bottom. We did see some fresh water dolphins though, but that took some patience as we had to wait a long time sitting in kayaks, maybe ½ an hour, before we saw our first one.

Khon Phapheng Falls

Here Kim and I were reminded that our age was catching up with us. Every time we set off on the kayaks every other person in our group always overtook us and we always came last, no matter how much we tried. Strangely, we would see others in kayaks not even paddling and when we paddled hard could not even gain any ground on them. It didn’t make sense, but that’s how it was, a little dispiriting.

Still, the scenery was  nice and we probably needed the exercise. The island was quiet. The people on it were very laid back and didn't hassle us to buy things at all, if anything they almost completely ignored us. It was good to just relax after so much time on the road. 4000 Islands was probably my favourite place visited so far, and if I get the chance I would come back here for sure.

Banlung, Ranatakiri

After a few days in Siem Reap we headed to Banlung (pronounced barn loong) in the province of Ranatakiri, which is “out in the sticks” of  far North-Eastern Cambodia.

Kim behind a waterfall

Although still a beautiful and relatively undeveloped area, the change is coming fast. Here the native bush is being clear-felled at a rapid rate and being replaced with Chinese-owned rubber and cashew plantations. The roads are wide and flawless. One of the locals told us that the roads were built by the Chinese so that they could log the area even faster. The clear-felling and burning reminded me a bit of home. The jobs bonus included at least one bloke being employed, driving a tractor that dug post holes for the trees to be planted in.

Tony, at the bungalow, about to clean teeth

Our first room was in a bungalow in the bush on the outskirts of town. There was no air conditioning and stuff felt damp like it does in the tropics with very high humidity. The door of the room had been left open, with the light on and there were a fair few insects inside. We brushed most of them out – but not all of them. I got stung by a bee on the soft part of my foot, which bloody hurt, much more than bull ant stings do. Shortly afterwards Kim also got stung on her foot, so we decided not to stay for two nights like we had originally planned. Besides, there was no wi-fi in the rooms!!

The accommodation came highly recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, mainly because of the quaint bungalows in the bush setting. There was a good atmosphere in the restaurant area, but the down side is all the Western tourists, talking loudly on their mobile phones and being a little too demanding of the staff. These come as a result of the publicity.

Once we got to the natural bush we went to a waterfall where we met a 70 year old Canadian woman that had retired to Cambodia. She was really talkative, almost too talkative. She spilled her guts to us, and told us of her life and travels, and gave graphic details of how she had been attacked in her house in New Guinea. The details of the attack are too gruesome to write about on here, but she was left for dead. However, she was remarkably resilient. She said that she had not spoken to anyone in English for months, perhaps explaining her enthusiasm.

The next day the owner of our bungalow took us to a new hotel. He apologised for the bees and said there was a large nest near our room. An older Australian lady had fallen over and seemed surprised that her leg was not broken, even though she could walk on it. I expressed my sympathy to her, but the term “drama queen” did enter my thoughts.

Our new hotel, for an extra $2 per night

The new hotel was really nice and not that much more expensive. We got to talk to our friends and family back home on Skype. It was great to be able to say ‘Happy Mothers Day’ with a webcam at both ends.

Getting out of here on the bus proved to be a bit of a saga, as we accidentally gave the bus company the wrong pickup address. We had to get the reception staff to contact the bus company. Their English was poor to non-existent, but somehow we managed. The bus was small, cramped and hot, but it was still a relief to be heading out.

Tonle Sap Lake

The next day we headed to Tonle Sap Lake.


Tonle Sap is unique because the river that feeds it reverses direction twice per year.






The Tonle Sap River flows into the lake during the wet season and out during the dry season.



When we visited it was the end of the dry season and the canals that connected our boat to the main lake were very low. Large wooded boats were getting “bogged” in the mud, and blokes had to get out of the boats and try to lift the boat out of the sand. They motors were revving hard and a rooster tail of muddy water was spraying out the back.

Once we got to the lake, it appeared huge and you could not see the other side of it, just a distant horizon. The lake has a floating village. People that have constructed houses on top of boats, that include cages to contain fish and even crocodiles in farms. There are schools here and even a floating Catholic church. We ended up getting scammed again here, and were asked to buy food from a shop, then take the food to the orphanage to give to the kiddies. However the food prices were extravagant, even by Australian standards. We bought a carton of 50 packets of noodles for $20 and donated them to the poor kiddies, knowing that the shopkeeper was probably taking half.

That's havna!! A kid rowed up to us in a basin to show us a snake

In the afternoon I went to the museum. Kim had been feeling under the weather so she had a sleep. Cambodia under the control of the French was once known as Indo-China. The museum pretty much emphasised the history of that amalgamation of both Indian and Asian cultures, and the once great Khmer empire.

Siem Reap

After Phnom Pehn we headed to Siem Reap, which is near the Angkor Wat ruins.









Angkor Wat is pretty amazing. 

Basically it’s a huge Buddhist temple. 

Almost all Cambodians are Buddhists, which is interesting given that Buddhism started off in far way India.


The Indians have had a huge influence here due to trading links over many centuries.



You can get great Indian curries here, cheap too, $2-$5 with beers.

Then we visited the Angkor Thom temple.

Kim cracking onto one of the statues

This temple has the huge faces carved into stone all around the place. I liked it more than Angkor Wat, although it was smaller, it is a massively complex labyrinth of rooms, corridors and chambers.

Despite the many tourists here, Kim and I could easily find small sections of the temple where no one else could be found.

Then we went to Ta Prohm, which is where the trees grow through the building.

All of these sites are being gradually restored with international aid.

By now we had been walking around in 38 degree heat for most of the day.


Given how much I once hated hot weather, I seem to be faring pretty well. 

Kims update

Well week 1 and a bit down already. My, how times flies when you are on holidays and having fun. We are just doing a 12 hour bus trip from Seam Reap to the north east of Cambodia so a little time to kill on the bus.

The weather has been just beautiful, 35+ everyday. Had a bit of rain, but that is in the late afternoon and only for an hour or so, no big deal. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, greeted by the hustle and bustle of a big city.

Crossing the road is a major task until you get used to it, which takes a couple of days. We're like the locals now though, putting our hands to your side, like a stop sign just to let then know you are in control. Hierarchy is bus and cars have right of way, then rest is open slather, the motor bikes are very good a dodging pedestrians, worst thing you can do is walk really fast or stop in the middle of the road as the motorbikes try to anticipate where you are or will be as the approach you. It's so much fun.

As you know we did the "American war" museum. Far out it was amazing, horrific, and very sad ...... It was good to hear and see the Vietnamese side though. But, it was a very solemn affair. Everyone was very quiet, probably in shock when you see the atrocities that took place. The Vietnamese certainly gave the yanks and I guess the Aussies a run for their money that's for sure. The napalm and agent-orange stuff was just horrific, the damage done to the people and the countryside. Enough of that, lets hope we have learnt....wishful thinking I suppose.

We did the Mekong River, oooh it's had a real working over. Not sure I would be swimming in it, haven't really been able to come at eating fish either. Although there are fish so I guess that says something-there is life in the river, crocodiles as well.

We booked a tour to do the Mekong and met some great people, that’s the beauty of tours gives you the opportunity to meet others. We have since met up with Jose and Sylvia from Spain, and Sammy and Yvonne from Switzerland a couple of times.

Cambodia, wow!!! What a beautiful place and beautiful people. It's hard to explain, but there's a real innocence about Cambodians. Interestingly, a lot of people speak English and the US dollar is the preferred currency. ATMs dispense US dollars, menu prices also in US dollars. There seems to be a lot of countries giving aid to Cambodia, lots of orphanages, agencies to combat domestic violence, assistance with new buildings and helping to restore temples etc. Great place to come and work if you interested in welfare area....mmmm, maybe next time.

The children here have a hard life as you could imagine, but I tell you what, they are little entrepreneurs. Not only do they have things to sell, like the photocopied Lonely Planet books, bracelets etc. they are also working with two currencies, the riel and US dollars, and are very good at switching between the two.

They have all the sayings. First thing they ask is, "where you from", then when you answer them, I'm sure they think ‘beauty that’s one tick closer to getting a sale’. They then say “g'day mate” in a very Aussie accent; you laugh, second tick. Then the "you buy ….?" As they go onto telling you why you need the book about Cambodia, or that you do need another bracelet even though you have half an arm full, because as they say, "you haven’t brought from me yet".

When you go to barter with them, they then go onto to tell you, that they will make no profit on it as they only brought it for that price, and that's its not good for their business. The kids working on street selling their wares go to school from 8.00 am -10.30 am, then for the rest of the time until 10 pm they walk the streets, selling. It's a hard life.

I ended up spending $15 buying 5 of them tea one night. That was an experience to watch and I'm not sure how much I understood of the whole process but it went something like this. They had their favourite restaurant probably one that they knew they were allowed into. Some restaurateurs won't let them in, as we had previously witnessed.

So, they perched themselves up, reading the menu and ordered. There were two families, aged from about  3-11 years. Not all the siblings were there at this stage, some had missed out. Those that ate were so grateful, saying “thank you, thank you” and asking me if I was going to eat with them. I had already eaten so said no, as I just wanted to wait around to make sure the food was delivered.

They pulled up a chair for me and a couple proceeded to give me a massage while the others played Angry Birds on my iPod, they were very good at it too. I remembered later that I had seen a couple of them picking nits out of each other’s hair earlier that day.

When the food came out the older ones divided the rice up amongst them and they sat there eating away. One of the little boy’s brothers came in and straight away the little boy gave his brother one of his kebabs. By now we also had a pregnant women outside wanting food, so Tony gave her money, then one of the older sisters came in and saw what was happening and was very put out that she wasn't included, hence some money for her also.

It's was worth it though, a couple of dollars is nothing to us and so much to them. At the end, the workers at the restaurant brought out take-away food containers, I suspected the full portions where not given in the first place and this was the rest to take home.

Later in Siem Reap, we met up with another young bloke, probably 13 years old and when he found out we were from Australia, he went on to name all of our prime ministers from Julia, calling her a “wranger”, then back in sequence through to Gough Whitlam.  I then, of course, paid him the asking price for the book, $4 as opposed to the $1 I could have got it for, had I bartered.

Another time when we had already brought the all the books and bracelets we needed, this little kid was just running out of his usual lines to use, so he looks at Tony and says "I like your hair" !!!

When it rains here, it sure does rain. It flooded one day to nearly knee depth. But, life goes on, particularly if you have four wheel drive or motorbike. At one stage this four wheel drive was going that fast through the water, the ripple effect or should I say waves knocked these two blokes off their motorbikes.

Angkor Wat was spectacular but bloody hot also. It was so hot that I actually got sunburnt through the long sleeve top I had on. The food is yummo!! If we have to pay more than $5 we feel like our throats have been cut. However, perhaps a bit insensitive to say, considering the country we are in and the whole Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge regime story.

Accommodation is good we are paying between 5 and 15 dollars each per night and in most cases that includes breakfast of toast and jam, eggs on toast or an omelette. The rooms have a/c, wifi and cable tv. It takes a bit off getting used to not flushing the toilet paper, but putting it in the bin next to the toilet instead.

We are know off to the jungle in Ratanakirri in the North East of Cambodia. In my guide book it says not to touch or pick up any unexplored ordnance (uxo).  If you come across anything that looks like a land mine, to etrace your steps only if you can clearly see your footprints, but if you can't, don’t move to get help, Mmmm. On the flip side, there are beautiful volcanic lakes and waterfalls to swim in, wildlife such as elephants, bears, tigers and deer to name a few.

We have been on bus since 5.30 am this morning it's now 3.00pm, we have to get off this bus soon and onto another for the last couple of hours. It's started to rain, lighting and thunder and we are told the bus we are to get onto is full so we will need to sit on our packs in the isle, fingers crossed the bus is there waiting for us. Luckily I have my trusty ponchos i brought from the Reject shop before I left. Tony wasn't keen to get him any I'm sure he might like to borrow one of my spares once he get off the bus :-)

Genocide tourism

We took the fast boat from Chau Doc to Cambodia, and that took about 6 hours counting the border crossing.








In the back if your mind is the thought of the killing that went on here.

For those that don’t already know, a communist extremist known as Pol Pot seized power in this country at around the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. While in France he learned about communism and came back to his country and indoctrinated young farming peasant boys into thinking that they were hard done by city people and intellectuals.

So Pol Pot’s regime set about killing doctors, lawyers, teachers, anyone with glasses, and anyone associated with or related to another suspicious person. Like the Nazis, meticulous records were kept. Pol Pot famously said 'it is better to kill an innocent person accidentally than to accidentally allow an enemy to live'. In the end about 2 million people were killed. They even killed two Australians among many other foreigners. But they weren’t shot or gassed. To save money the Khmer Rouge used axes, hoes, machetes, even the rough fronds of palm trees.

Here at the Choeung Ek killing fields there are many large pits here that contained the bodies. Most of these bodies have been exhumed now and everywhere you see the burial pits. Human bones and the bits of rags, the remains of their clothing, still float to the surface, and this jaw bone could be seen on the path we walked on.

Possibly the most horrific part of the story where babies were held by the legs and swung into a tree trunk, known as the killing tree, often in front of their mothers, before the mothers were also killed.

Now the site is very peaceful and serene. A large structure has been built that keeps the bones on display. Although the sight of these bones is macabre, it serves both to remind people of how bizarre and out-of-hand unchecked power can become and to maintain the memory of the victims.

It probably also seems macabre to even visit a place like this. But when you arrive in this country, the story of Pol Pot and the killing fields is in your face most of the time. Children come up to you in the street selling you books about the killing that went on here. Taxi drivers offer you special deals to go there. There are organized tours, tour guides, souvenir shops, and just before we left about 10 buses of tourists turned up. As the Lonely Planet tour guide says, these people have been to hell and back, the best thing that you can do is to come here, spend your time and money with them and help them rebuild.