Journey to Vietnam

On Sunday we got the minibus from Kampot to Sihanoukville, which is a bit like the Magaluf of Cambodia. Not really appealing to us, we only went there in order to get our Visa for Vietnam as it's the easiest, cheapest and quickest place to obtain it. Even if you apply in Phnom Penh they send your passport on down to Sihanoukvile, apparently.

The bars on the beach are packed so closely together you can normally hear 3 different sound systems at the same time, competing for your attention. There isn't much to see of the beach for all the furniture, beggars, sellers, food stalls and the like.

We did, however, rent ourselves a scooter and headed off to Otres beach a few km away to see the sunset. I'm including the picture below if only to remind myself I've never had so many people take such a close interest in my toenails! "Cut your nails, sir?"

Ray, the son of the family running our guesthouse spoke great English for a nine year-old, and so was the person to come to for visa advice, taxi booking and scooter rental - all for a small commission, of course. However, when it came to finding him the following morning for booking the taxi to the border, we we both pleased and disappointed to find our 'fixer' was in school!

Getting the visa itself was a doddle. We just turned up with our passports, filled in the form, handed over the money, then five minutes later we were out of there! In the short time we were there we met Al, a builder/scuba diving instructor from Philadelphia. He was heading in our direction that morning, so we agreed to share the taxi costs.

After passing back through Kampot and Kep, the road got progressively worse as we approached the border. As we crossed the border we were followed through by the troupe of moto drivers, despite us politely refusing their services. Little did we know they would be our only option on the other side!

In the few kilometres they took us from the border to Ha Tien, we (well, Hazel) had repeated offers and suggestions for us to take somebody's cousin's friend's brother's fishing boat to take us from the port at Ha Tien over to Phu Quoc - our destination.

Although it would have made for a shorter journey, we agreed we'd 'stay on target' and get the bus from Ha Tien down to Rach Gia, which is the better known route to Phu Quoc via the Hydrofoil.

Two and a half hours' bus ride later, and we pulled up at the bus station in Rach Gia, only to be mobbed (again) by moto drivers. One of the first things that struck us about Vietnam was that many of the street cafes seemed to have furniture like that in the local primary school - ie if you are 4' 2" and weigh 6 stone then you'll be pretty comfy! I'm sure many a person has come a cropper on these miniature chairs!

After we'd sorted ourselves out with a hotel for the night, we searched out somewhere for some scran, and discovered this great place to get Buffalo Soup. Here's us (with Al) conversing with the owner, who regaled us with wondrous stories of his love affairs with western women.

After a few thirst quenching beers, we were ready for a good night's kip... Or so we thought. More on that in the next instalment.

Namaste!

del.icio.us Tags: cambodia,vietnam,visa

Kampot and Messing About on the River

We both really enjoyed the vibe in Kampot. Bodhi Villa was a lovely place to unwind for a few days, the tone being set by the sign as you go in:

Jos and Hugh (our wonderful hosts/chill consultants) kept us supplied with delicious food, beer Lao, cocktails and regular 'rock out' sessions from behind the bar, which tended to get a bit more lively as the day wore on:

During the day it was great watching Hugh taking people out on the speedboat - often being towed at high-speed trying desperately to cling on to a rubber ring!

Hold... on... tight!

Our bungalow overlooked a lovely frog pond - although they seemed to prefer our washroom to the water, giving Haze great anxiety during the night when reaching for the elusive lightswitch! The laidback atmosphere also meant that none of the bungalows had doors, only curtains. This proved very welcoming to the lizard population; Haze jumping a foot off the ground upon seeing a foot-long lizard crawl out from under the mattress was one of the funnier moments to date! :-)

We don't have a closer photo of our bungalow unfortunately, but here's the view from the other side of the water:

And here's what you see coming back the other way:

We walked into town down the suggested route along the railway line and across the bridge. It all felt very 'Stand By Me':

Kampot itself is a lovely sleepy little town with a friendly community feel to it:

Part of this spirit comes from the Epic Arts Cafe, which we stopped by a couple of times. It it run by people who have disabilities, many of whom are also involved in dance and performance arts, and have toured around Cambodia. We had the great fortune to be in Kampot when they performed in their home town, and it brought many locals and supporters of the cafe out onto the streets.

Here's a brief snap of what we saw that evening:

We met many people who came to Kampot just to visit, and five years later are still here. It's easy to see why!

Namaste!

Taxis, Cambodia Style!

We were looking forward to the luxury of a Taxi from Phnom Penh to Kampot, since no buses travel in that direction. Our Tuk-Tuk driver dropped us off at the departure point, and we quickly negotiated what we thought was a good deal ($10 for us both, as opposed to the $40 for the whole cab that other drivers were offering). 'Nice job!' we thought as we set off, thinking we'd just be squishing in alongside the many parcels another guy was bringing with him. Then, just round the corner, we collected a lady and her granddaughter, who both fitted in snugly next to us on the back seat. 2 minutes later, another chap got in,  and sat on the lap of parcel man on the passenger seat. To top even that, we pulled over to get some petrol next, and a new guy got in the driver's seat, and the driver quite confidently climbed upon his lap! We hoped that either the car was an automatic or the driver had extra-long legs. All of this didn't prevent him from overtaking on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, of course! Here's the front seat - the driver is second on the left:

And this is the back seat.

Hazel's thought bubble would have to read: 'One is not amused!'

Two and a half hours later we arrived in Kampot, still a little shaken but glad to be alive. We got a Tuk Tuk for the shortish ride over to Bhodi Villa, which was recommended to us by Mat and Sky (nice work guys!). More on that in the next post, but it's worth mentioning that just by the bar they had up on the wall a blackboard with a chalk drawing of a "Typical Cambodian Taxi Ride" which pretty accurately defined our experience. Too late to forewarn us, but funny nonetheless.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: always remember that Cambodian Taxis seat up to 8 people - it's up to you to buy as many seats as you feel safe and comfortable with!

Phnom Penh

After the poor experience of Kompong Chnang, we luckily got an earlier bus to take us the short ride to Phnom Penh - but knowing what we were going to see there, we weren't really expecting a pick-me-up, if you know what I mean...

On arrival at the bus stop, we experienced the now-familiar feeling of being beseiged by the motorbike/tuk-tuk drivers' assault. Both of the hotels in our price range were full, but fortunately Pete stumbled across a gem. A well-run private guest house with its own gardens, set back from the quiet road, and well away from the attentions of the tuk-tuk drivers up the street.

If anyone else is heading to Phnom Penh, it's called 'Changiville', and it's just round the corner from Bodhi Umma Cafe/Guesthouse and the notorious Tuong Sleng prison. It was $15 for a lovely room with access to the rooftop terrace, and the lounge/garden area was a lovely haven to escape from the hectic streets.

Ismail (our gracious host from Singapore) made us feel most welcome here, and we enjoyed the fact that that the premises also hosts regular classes on the roof terrace for the local children to learn English. Ismail plans to open a cafe there also - if we make it back there at any time we'll be sure to check it out. :-)

We enjoyed a lovely dinner that evening at the Bodhi Umma cafe, then the following morning steeled ourselves for a not-at-all-pleasant-but-had-to-be-done trip to the Tuong Sleng prison round the corner. This former school, set in the middle of the suburbs like many others, was also known as 'S21'. Of the 17,000* or so people who entered its gates during the horrific reign of the Khmer Rouge, only 7 people survived. The rest of the poor souls were taken a few kilometres away to a place now known as the 'Killing Fields'. Shockingly, this is but one of many thousands of mass graves that exist across the country.

The first part of the prison/school/museum (it's hard to define what it is now) was a brutal introduction to the the realities of the awful things that happened to the people who passed through its gates. Amongst the many photographs of the prisoners, it was horrifying to see children as young as 4 or 5 staring back at you. The second part of the museum showed many other aspects to its history, such as the story of some of the prison guards (some of whom work as tour guides there apparently) and how they've gone back to their own villages. It also explained how children became torturers due to the fear of meeting a similar fate if they didn't carry out their orders. And it gave some explanations as to why, nearly 20 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, many of its high-ranking members are not only still at large and not brought to justice, but hold important jobs within the current government!

After this experience, we felt it almost too much to follow it up with a ride out to the Killing Fields, and so instead went to check out the Royal Palace. We'd read in our guide book that appropriate dress was required, such as arms being covered, so Hazel brought along her shawl in her bag. Despite our best intentions, this still wasn't enough and we were barred from entering, even though many people in a tour group (arms bared to the world) were allowed straight through. In our disgust we turned down the 'offer' of buying a T-shirt from the stall next door, and took our well-earned tourist dollars elsewhere.

The evening finished nicely, however, with a beautiful sunset over the Royal Palace and a delicious meal at a local Khmer Restaurant.

 

Namaste!

Kompong Chnang... Sometimes it just doesn't work out

To break up the trip from Battambang to Phnom Penh, we thought we'd go with the advice of Lonely Planet and stop off in Kompong Chnang for a night. Three things in particular were highlighted to us: a trip on the river, a visit to the nearby village devoted to making gold-speckled pots, and a sunset tuk-tuk ride up some non-specific road to take in the view. Our overly-friendly tuk-tuk pimp (the only man in town who spoke English) seemed to appear around every corner to provide suggestions on how we could be separated with our money! After some (rather poor) bargaining, he offloaded us to his non-English-speaking relation, who made excellent money from the limited time we spent with him. Our trip to the riverside finished abruptly when we got sick of the incessant offers for non-specific boat rides for indeterminate lengths of time to unknown places for dubious amounts of money - all this coming from 7-year-olds got a bit much! Exit stage left! We then hoped things would improve with a trip up the much-hyped mountain. 5 minutes' ride later (up a mild incline) we had supposedly reached the 'summit'. Having come this far we figured we'd climb up the rocks at the top to check out the view, only to find our wonderful 360 degree panorama was totally obscured by the tree line. Trying to explain to our driver why we were somewhat dissatisfied with the trip so far proved futile - but we cut our losses for the day and told him to take us back to town.

Thankfully there was at least something interesting for us there: the local football derby (Kompong Chnang vs Kompong Dalai) was taking place, and half the town had turned up to watch.

Despite the home team winning by what must have been a 7-goal margin, the crowd seemed a bit subdued. The highlight on our side of the pitch was when a lady turned up on her scooter, forgot how to apply the brakes, and rolled off, onto the pitch.

Where we felt most let down by our guide book was the recommendation for the Holiday Guest House, which reads as follows:

'Bending over backwards' does not half describe the efforts here: free pick-up, bike hire, Khmer lessons... Internet available, and restaurant recently added on-site.

In reality, our experience was that on arrival we were ushered into the reception area by the girl from the next-door gas-bottling business (see the photo below) since we couldn't find anyone in the hotel itself who seemed to be running the place.

The reception area was a dirty, junk-filled room with an empty fishtank on the counter, and the upstairs lounge area was full of broken furniture. I asked about their Internet service, and was told they didn't have it - despite me pointing to the sign out front. The restaurant didn't even exist (unless you consider the next-door snack stall), which shut promptly at 9pm, just as I went over to grab a bite. :-(

Anyway, the spartan room was only $5 a night, and since we were too tired to look elsewhere, we took it. I was proud of my determined DIY efforts to put up our mosquito net for the first time on our travels - and it worked a treat! It's just a shame it wasn't able to protect me from the flea-pit of a bed we had to sleep on - the majority of my insect attacks were received on that night... Pesky critters!

The following morning, and we're still waiting for someone at the reception to even show up, let alone 'bend over backwards' for us! Things got so bad that Hazel made 3 attempts to pay some money to the not-so-helpful people from next door (who, I should add, woke us a 6am by unloading their exceedingly noisy bottles from the truck, mere feet from where we were trying to sleep.) Being honest folk, we left the money for the room on our pillow, but based on the non-existent customer service  we received, we think they were lucky to get anything at all.

Note to self - don't believe everything the Lonely Planet tells you!

Namaste!

del.icio.us Tags: cambodia

River Trip down the Tonle Sap, Cambodia.

We were collected by minibus to take us to the boat. To all the passengers amusement and dismay the guide tried to pack in 4 extra people on the bus without a seat amongst a mountain of baggage. The bus was so bumpy and packed one guy had to stop the bus as he got so claustrophobic and sick. We were mobbed on arrival by people selling food and drink at the port and our bags were ferried off the bus onto the boat by locals (without any choice in the matter) who proceeded to ask for a large tip for the job.

We took up what space was left with the other back packers on the open deck to catch the breeze and some photos.

The trip was a real highlight - we saw Khmer riverside life at its best: hordes of smiley Khmer kids sprinting to the banks of the river to wave with a chorus of "hello" at every wooden home we encountered. The boat steered around the little fishing boats we came across and the odd child floating around in a steel tub.

After 8 hours on deck we were sun-drenched to say the least, and were grateful that our guest house were lying in wait for our business as we disembarked!

The evening in Battambang wasn't much to write home about as there isn't much to see or do, but we did come across a rather bizarre Colgate/L'Oreal Convention (appalling Rock music included) in the street!

Ready to cash in on the extravaganza, all corners of the street were peppered with stalls selling deep-fried tarantulas, honey-coated locusts and the like. Now don't forget to floss, kids!

del.icio.us Tags: cambodia,siem reap

The Singing Tree Cafe, Angkor Wat

We 'did' Angkor Wat yesterday on just the one-day ticket. It's a stupendous place covering a surprisingly large area - a 'Masonry Marathon', as Hazel aptly puts it.

 

It was my Birthday the day before, so we didn't really fancy the dawn start - so at a respectable 8.30 we were whisked off on the Grand Tour by our fearless tuk-tuk driver Thierry.

Starting off with the smaller and lesser-known temples in the morning, we were accosted at every opportunity by children selling us there wares: flutes, bracelets, postcards, water, T-shirts, books - you name it! Some of the sales patter was astounding, especially as some of them were at best 6 years old, speaking in a foreign tongue. "I can see you like this one lady, you cannot take your eyes off it" is one encounter that springs to mind. Both of us were knackered with a capital K by the end of it all - what better way to close out the day, than with some Mexican food! ;-)

This morning we set off to the Singing Tree Cafe, a local community centre cafe in a garden, offering lovely food, yoga classes, cultural 'stuff', as well as a focal point for numerous charities and projects for the town and surrounding areas.

We purchased one of the children's paintings from the Sihanoukville-based Cambodia Children's Painting Project, where the local children are encouraged to paint rather than beg on the beaches. We're happy to think that 10-year-old artist Cham Mialy will receive a well-earned third of our $6. Our breakfast finished just in time for us to go on the weekly visit to a local school, arranged through the Schools For Cambodia organisation (www.schools4cambodia.org). Only a few kilometres away, the visit is scheduled to arrive during the midday break between the morning and afternoon sessions (the majority of children go home at this time as they attend half days - meaning we don't go interrupting lesson times and so that the children do not feel observed by tourists). There happened to be a small group of the local children still playing who seemed happy enough to follow us around with our guide Kate.

Here's a shot of Hazel in 'Yes Maam' mode:

We also saw some of the kids playing their favourite playground game - an interesting combination of elastic skipping rope, hop-scotch and heel clicking!

We were happy to donate some dollars towards the organisation - and were told the money would be enough to equip 1 classroom with basic resources! The best money we ever spent! Whoooo!

Namaste!

del.icio.us Tags: siem reap,cambodia