Ho Chi Minh City

The journey from Phenom Penh was surprisingly effortless, the bus wasn't great, but again it was a real bargain (only $6) and we left early morning and arrived mid afternoon after going through customs at the Vietnam/Cambodia border.


The bus dropped us off in the cheap hotel area of town. We wandered around looking at a variety of places until we found somewhere for $8/night in the oh so amusingly named "Dung Hotel". We still laugh about it now.


The next day we went exploring around the centre of town. Somewhat confusingly the larger city is called Ho Chi Minh City, however the central region is still called Saigon. Walking around is quite a challenge as you are constantly being hassled by street traders trying to get you to take a ride on their motos, or selling you books, sun glasses or whatever else they have. Whether you are walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant having your dinner you seem to be fair game! It's hard to cope with this constant onslaught and on one or two occasions I told the exactly where to stick their chewing gum. Now, deep breaths, count to ten...


We took a look in the Ho Chi Minh museum (one of a number that contains information about the war). All of the museums are (understandably) quite biased and anti-American. But it's interesting to get a non-western slant on things.


The next day Lianne got her wish and we went to one of the three big water parks in HCMC. Lots of big slides and chutes, etc, etc... I think she enjoyed herself at least.


That evening we went to the Rex hotel garden bar up on the 6th floor with views across one of the boulevards (Vietnam was under French control until 1954 and it has a slight French feel to the place). We had a couple of 'expensive' drinks (still only $6 for two) and watched the world go by.


We had planned to leave by train up north to Nha Trang, but we couldn't get a booking so a nice overnight bus was the alternative. That was due to leave at about 7:30pm so we had the day to wander around. We went for a walk along the 'waterfront', which I thought would be nice but was actually a 3m high metal fence for most of the way, not very picturesque at all!

On our way to (another) museum Lianne noticed a sign for a badminton tournament that was being held. It was sponsored by a company called "Robot", so it was the "Robot Badminton Challenge". Lianne's a bit dumb so thought it was robots playing badminton! (It's true, she did). Wanting to see some robot badminton players we wandered into the hotel where we discovered that it was only people playing, however Lianne knew a few of them and called one of them (Tracey Hallam) up. She popped down for a quick drink but couldn't stay for long as she was playing latter that afternoon. Lianne decided she'd like to go see her play so we wandered down the road to where the games were being played. After bluffing our way in without paying (we were both players and we left our passes in the hotel) we watched a couple of games and chatted to a few of the players. Lianne was very happy with herself for this.

The museum we went to before watching the badminton was the "War Remnants Museum", this had some very graphic displays on the impact the war had on the Vietnam, in particularly the impact of Agent Orange on the locals.

After spending a day wandering around in the sweltering heat (had I mentioned it's hot here), we were both good and sweaty. The perfect way to start a 12 hour bus trip...

Sihanoukville

After a relatively easy (and cheap at $4) coach trip we arrived at Sihanoukville, Cambodia's main beach destination. We were, as usual, mobbed as we got off the bus, however one very polite westerner gave us a leaflet for some accommodation. It sounded like a good deal, close to the beach so we jumped on a tuk-tuk and headed there.

The place was run by a couple of guys from Cambridge, very friendly and bungalows were $6/night so we couldn't complain. They also had a free pool table, good food and a room for viewing a large collection of DVDs.

We spent the next couple of days either in the hotel, or at the beach. We had to be quite selective about when we went to the beach, either first thing in the morning or about 5 o'clock at night were acceptable, any time between that it was just too hot. The beach was amazing; fine white sand and clear blue waters.

We had a great time here, but haven't really got anything to say about it as all we did was eat, drink, swim and lounge around. It was a great couple of days though, that we thoroughly enjoyed.

We then headed back to Phnom Penh and then on to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a lot nicer than we expected. After the craziness of Bangkok we were expecting something similar here but it's actually quite relaxed. The driving is controlled chaos, with people driving on the wrong side of the road and ignoring traffic lights, but everyone does it, they all go slow and there's no aggression; it seems to be more relaxed than driving round Auckland.
On the first day here we went to Wat Phnom, a temple in downtown Phnom Penh. The best thing about this place was the cute little monkey sitting outside doing some gardening (Lianne has a thing for monkeys). Then on to the national museum where we saw some statues mainly from the Angkor temples, which is where we have just come from so it was something we could relate to.
We also went to the Genocide Museum which is at a school that was converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge and used to hold and torture political prisoners. It was powerful stuff and a little bit depressing but it's good to learn about these things. You can read more about Cambodia under Pol Pot here.
The next day we went to the silver pagoda at the royal palace. The silver pagoda is so called because the floor is covered with thousands of solid silver tiles, although they looked and felt more like tin to us, but what do we know. We also saw a solid gold Buddha, but it was no where near as good as the last solid gold Buddha that we saw (maybe we are getting to used to these things!).
That afternoon I got to play Rambo. We went out to a shooting range about 30km outside of town and got to fire an AK47 and then after that a 9mm. It was all over pretty quickly as 30 round for an AK47 cost $30 and the handgun was another $15 to fire. There was no mucking about either, after a 45 minute drive you arrive and then give you a menu, from $12 for one of the handguns to $200 for a rocket launcher(!). You point at one, they pick up the gun and one of the many magazines lying around in boxes. You then walk to the range shoot it and your done; no talking. I've not spent money so fast since I last went to Sky City.
After a couple of days in Phnom Penh it was time for a trip to the beach so the next morning we headed south to Sihanoukville, just a little bit nervous of the journey...

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

We learnt from our last big journey to avoid the roads of Cambodia, so we thought we'd get around that by catching a boat to Phnom Penh. It costs $25 instead of $9 on the bus but we figured it would be worth it to glide effortlessly down the river watching the world go by from our air conditioned luxury, arriving refreshed right in the centre of down town Phnom Penh 4 hours later.
We've now learnt to avoid the rivers too.
We read somewhere that they had stopped running these boats but tickets were on sale all over the place, so obviously they must be wrong. We also read that at some times of the year a smaller boat needs to ferry us out to the bigger boat as the water level is too low for the bigger boat to get into port. That was why we were not concerned as we stepped onto a crappy little long boat with 2 bench seats running either side and enough space for a dozen people. This was just to get us out to the bigger boat, right?
Wrong.
This was to be our transport for the next 5 hours. Through the torrential rain. Water pouring down our backs, and into our shorts. I'm writing this 5 days later and our rucksacks still aren't completely dry.
To make it worse it didn't take us to Phnom Penh; there was another 2 hours of bus journey to get us there after the boat.
On a positive note, we did get to see some awesome sights on the way, whole villages floating on the side of the road, complete with floating shops and a floating petrol station. The accomodation was basic, just a raft-like barge with a straw hut on top, although a lot of them appeared to have TVs in them!
When we finally made it to town we were mobbed by tuk-tuk drivers and people from guest houses (we're used to it now, although we both still dread it!). Lianne got a little bit angry, but we made it through. Eventually one of them offered us a free ride to a guest house that looked like our budget and we found our home for the next three days (for $5/night).

Siem Reap

After the arduous trip to Siem Reap we decided to relax the next day and spent it wandering around the town and watching cable TV in our luxurious hotel (well not bad for US$12/night).

We went for a walk along the Siem Reap river into the market area and solved one of the big issues for us - how to get money. We'd heard that there were no ATMs in Cambodia, but that's not the case, there are quite a few and they dispense US dollars. The US dollar is the de facto currency in Cambodia; the official currency is the Riel, but everything is priced in dollars, and the only time you really see Riel is when the change is less than $1. There are 4000 Riel to the dollar so if you buy something for $1.50 and give them $2 you get 2000 Riel in change. A bit bizarre but it seems to work.
So armed with a bundle of US$ we then went and got some cheap lunch and had a look around.
The place was surprisingly nice, although very westernised as this is a major tourist destination. Prices were about $3-4 for lunch, so still cheap, but not dirt cheap. Lots of choice and lots of really nice bars and restaurants.
Lianne had a very lazy afternoon after we went back to the hotel, she dozed whilst watching the finals of the Indonesian Badminton Super Series!
In the evening we went to a really cool bar that had free pool tables, soccer on the TV, Green Day on the stereo and 75c beers and $1.50 cocktails!
After dinner we headed home as we had an early start the following day to go see Angkor Wat.
We had arranged for a tuk-tuk driver to ferry us round for the day to see the temples of Angkor. $12 for the day.
When we woke up it was absolutely pissing down, we were a bit concerned at this as it was going to be a grim day if the weather continued like that, fortunately just after breakfast the weather broke and the rain stopped.
He picked us up at 7am and took us out to Angkor Wat. It is a very short journey out there (about 10mins on a slow tuk-tuk) and the first time you see it, it's pretty amazing. The Angkor ruins are built between 900 and 1300AD and are the temples and residences of the Camobian's of that time. They were only rediscovered in the late 1800's and some of the temples have been restored (others are still in ruins). Angkor Wat (pictured) is the most famous of these and has been restored the most out of all of them. We spent a couple of hours wandering around looking at all of the temples and pagoda's inside and all of the carvings that are in the stone. After Angkor Wat we went on to see bits of Angkor Thom (Bayon, Elephant Terraces, Terrace of the Leper King, and the old Royal Palace). After that we went on to see a few of the other smaller temples and also Ta Prohm which they have kept in it's original form from when they were rediscovered in the 1800's. All of the work they do there is to keep it safe so it doesn't fall on any unsuspecting tourists. Much of the stonework has collapsed and huge trees have grown through and on top of the stones which is a pretty amazing site to see also. About this time, the heaven's opened again and it was also just after 2pm so we decided to head home as we were a bit 'templed-out'. On the drive home, our poor tuk-tuk got a puncture and we were a bit concerned how we were going to get home. Luckily about 100m away was a puncture repair place (a man in a hut with a jack and a pump). Surprisingly, it all worked out and in another 10mins we were on our way again.
The evening was spent quietly in a restaurant in town and then home early (especially as Lianne now has a cold from being in the heat then the air conditioning constantly!). We also wanted a decent night's sleep as we were getting picked up at 5.50am for our boat trip to Phnom Penh...

Bangkok to Siem Reap

We were always concerned about this trip, we weren't sure about the visas and we didn't know what to expect in Cambodia. We certainly didn't expect what we got!
The previous evening we'd picked up our passports (good to see them again!) and in them were what looked like Cambodian visas - all good so far.
We were being picked up from the travel agent at 7:30am by some guy called Somphon(!?). This was the first hurdle passed. He took us to the end of the road and left us there with a handful of other people. We were a bit concerned now as there was no sign of a bus. 3o minutes later and a big bus turns up - another hurdle passed.
We got in the bus and headed off towards the border. This was all going so well, we were very chuffed.
We were quite skeptical about the whole thing as it was only costing us 300Bhat (NZ$12, GBP4) to travel about 400km from one country to another.
The bus trip to the border was great, nice bus and real easy drive (although it did rain torrentially). We arrived at a guest house 10 minutes from the border where you can sort out visas, although we'd already done ours so were feeling quite smug. Bit of lunch and we were all set to go.
I was feeling good at this point.
A short bus trip to the border and we all jump off and walk to the checkpoint (the bus doesn't go into Cambodia, we change onto another bus on the other side of the checkpoint).
The checkpoint leaving Thailand was very straightforward, just a couple of minutes then we walked out and across a bridge into Cambodia, There was another checkpoint on the Cambodian side that we had to clear but that just took 10 minutes of queueing and we were through that. The whole place didn't look very strict as the locals just seemed to wander straight past the checkpoint without a second glance. I think if you look a bit Thai and have no shoes you can just wander straight into the country without any passport at all.
This is where it started getting interesting. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia and the tar-sealed road ended at the border. Just muddy tracks from here on. And did I mention it had just been raining. So mud everywhere and huge puddles of water. We got on a crappy looking bus but were told that this is only to ferry us to the bus terminal where we would get on the real bus for the rest of the journey. Once we had bounced the 2 kms to the bus station we got off the bus (avoiding the puddles by parking on the pavement) and transferred to a much, much worse bus. The seats were hardly padded, except for ours which had no padding, the windows rattled and air conditioning was called 'opening the windows and going fast'.
The guide told us that the roads would be very bumpy for the first 50km and then for the remaining 100km it would just be bumpy.
The journey of 150km took 7 hours of driving. The roads were little more than mud tracks, and it was 40kms in before I realised that they drove on the right in this country - we just spent our time zig-zagging down the road avoiding the bugger pot-holes with on coming vehicles passing either side of us.
Our comfort options were either windows open for cooling or windows closed for not getting mud sprayed in your face.
Once it got dark we had to stop regularly to clean the mud from the windscreen and lights so that the driver could see.
We eventually made it to Siem Reap at about 10pm (the last 5km were on luxurious tar-sealed roads). We found ourselves a nice hotel to stay at and we had a go and cleaning most of the mud and sweat off our bodies before we lay our bruised and battered bodies down for the night.

Bangkok

We arrived in the early, early morning a short walk from Khao San Road. After wandering around for about 15 minutes with a number of other backpackers in tow we eventually found the place. It's a relatively short street and was quite quiet at 5:30 in the morning (although the bars had plenty of people in them still going from last night). We tried a couple of hotels, Lianne was very keen to get one with a swimming pool and we ended up blowing the budget a little and we ended up paying 750Bhat/night for the room (NZ$30, GBP11). But it did have a pool on the roof and that was a godsend in the hot muggy atmosphere of Bangkok.
We had a few hours early morning kip to recover from the overnight trip then went out exploring.
We found Bangkok quite hard work, partly because it is so busy and full or people but mainly because almost all of the Thai people are complete tossers and out to rip you off (apologies to any Thais reading this, but it's true). On a number of occasions tuk-tuk drivers or passers by would lie to us and tell us to go in the opposite direction to where we should be going, I assume so that we'd get lost and confused and end up parting with some cash in order to sort ourselves out. Lots of people hassled us trying to sell us stuff and it became quite tedious after, say, 2 minutes.
The first day we went to the Grand Palace in the centre of Bangkok which was really nice. Lots of amazing temples and beautiful buildings. It was like an Asian St Pauls Cathedral and Buckingham Palace rolled into one.
That afternoon we booked our trip to Cambodia and arranged our Cambodian Visas. We had to give our passports to some random Thai person to do this, and given our current opinion of the Thais we were very scared.We cruised round looking at some of the sites and played a game of 10 pin bowling in the coolest bowling alley we've ever been to. We rounded off the night with a few beers and some food in Khao San.
The next day we slept in, went for a quick swim then caught the ferry down the river and had a wander around.
We went to a snake farm which was really good. Lianne hates snakes but loved the snake farm (I know not why). There were giant king cobras on show right in front of us (no glass or cages involved) - it was actually quite scary. Lianne got to touch some of the poisonous snakes (she was very brave!) and at the end we both had a snake wrapped around our necks.
After this we went to see the golden buddha, which is made of solid gold and weighs in at 3 1/2 tonnes! US$14m worth of gold alone. Unfortunately we weren't strong enough to carry it home, and anyway it would have cost more than that in excess baggage to get it to the UK.
That night we went exploring in Patpong road. They have some great night markets for hooky gear. Lianne bought a Welsh rugby jersey (would you believe it) for NZ$8. We also saw some other stuff that night involving ping pong balls, but in deference to Maurine and Aunty Betty who will be reading this we won't go into the details. But it was an eye opener!
After that we took a tuk-tuk home (bloody tuk-tuk drivers again - they wanted 300 Bhat to get us home and we ended up paying 100, and I still think we were ripped off).
The next morning was an early start for our bus to Cambodia...

From Koh Pha Ngan to Bangkok

We caught a minibus from the travel agent and it was a 30 minute ride to the ferry terminal where we boarder the ferry back to Surat Thani. The ferry trip was long (3 hours) but easy and when we got to Surat Thani we were then ushered into the back of one of the "minibuses" (more of a pickup with bench seats in the back and a roof over where you sit). Another crazy bit of driving took us to the where the coach would come to pick us up. It was about 5pm and the coach was due at 7pm which gave us time for some food and to watch another movie!
The coach arrived (just as the film was ending - good timing) and we got on. It was pretty comfortable, as good as you would get in NZ or UK, if not better. Double decker, toilet, air con and reclining seats.
The journey was long but we both slept through most of it (Lianne had a monster sleep of almost 8 hours!).
The coach was a little ahead of schedule and arrived in central Bangkok at around 5am. We woke from our sleep and dozily grabbed our bags and wandered off in search of somewhere to sleep...

Koh Pha Ngan

We had a bit of a drama catching the bus to leave Koh Samui as we had hired mopeds the day before and I had put in my passport as a deposit. We turned up at 10:30 to return the mopeds and collect my passport ready to catch the 10:45 bus. Unfortunately the person who ran the shop was nowhere to be found (and hence, neither were our passports). We woke up some guy who appeared to sleep there and he phoned trying to find him. 15 minutes later and there was still no sign of our passports, but the bus had arrived. A bit of stalling and hoping later he turned up and we got onto the minibus apologising to everyone for holding them up.
The minibus driver made up for it by driving like a maniac to the port, although when we got there we sat around for about an hour waiting for the boat, so I don't know what all the fuss was about!
We then caught the boat for the short 30 minute trip from the north of Koh Samui to Koh Pha Ngan.
Once there we got on a minibus and travelled around to Haad Rin to find some accomodation. There was a reasonable looking place that we found right next to the bus drop off that we took for 350Bhat/night (NZ$14, 5GBP). We then took a look around Haad Rin.
The place was a lot smaller that Lamai in Koh Samui and it seem to be built around the Full Moon parties that are held there. Lots of bars and restaurants, and places in the streets selling "buckets" which are small ice buckets with a half bottle of spirit and a can or two of mixer for not very much at all (250-300 Bhat). The bars were all playing hooky copies of videos, we watched The Beach and Blood Diamond. I think one of them was playing Spiderman 3, which had only come out in the cinemas a few days before.
We then went down to the beach for a bit of a swim. The beach looked fantastic and the water clear and warm. We went in for a swim and after about 30 seconds we both felt small stings all over our bodies. We still don't know what they were, but maybe small jellyfish or sea lice. It wasn't very painful and there were no after effects, but it put us both off swimming.
We went back to the hotel for a shower, which was when we discovered that we had a shared bathroom. Unfortunately we were sharing it with several cockroaches. We killed a few but just had to put up with the others. There was a lot of girly screaming, and Lianne wasn't much better either.
It started to rain that night and we were wondering if we should stay in, when it was decided for us when all the power went out. We left and wandered down the main street where pretty much everywhere was blacked out. We ended up in a bar with a generator for dinner and eventually the power came back.
I had been planning to go to Koh Tao and do some diving but we were umming and ahing about it and when we looked into it we couldn't find anywhere that would do a day trip to the island, only places that we needed to stay overnight for.
We decided to head off to Bangkok the next morning. Our impression of Koh Pha Ngan weren't great, I think if you like drink a lot (and I mean a lot) and you're into your unce unce music then it could be great. We also heard some good stories of beach resorts that can only be reached by boat, not by land. However the brief bit we saw was unimpressive and we were quite keen to leave.
The next morning we got up, had breakfast and booked our travel to Bangkok. It was a boat and coach, leaving at noon and getting into Bangkok at 6am the next morning. We were not looking forward to the journey...

Koh Samui

Once we made it to Koh Samui things really started to look up. We got a local bus/taxi thing from Na Thong where the ferry arrives to Lamai on the other side of the island. This was only THB50 (NZ$2, 70p) and it was the same as the locals were paying (we were the only foreigners on the bus). This was the first time in Thailand where we didn't feel we were getting ripped off!
Once there we wandered up and down for 10 minutes before settling on a nice place that was basic and cheap (THB350/night - NZ$14, GBP5).
Once there we walked to the beach - which took all of 20 seconds. We went for a swim in the beautiful warm water and then cooled off with a beer and a pad thai on table and chairs on the sand. We really felt like we were on holiday now!
That night we went exploring around the small town of Lamai going to a few of the bars and exploring the night markets.
The next day was really lazy and we loved it, a bit of beach, swimming, exploring, eating, reading and more swimming. We really like it here.
The following day was more active; we hired scooters for THB180 each (NZ$7, GBP2.50!) and circumnavigated the whole island. Our navigation skills were not the best so it took us 3 hours to travel the first 10km, but it got better from there on in.
We went to see the other big resort, Chaweng, the Big Buddha and Na Thon, the capital of the island.
The highlight of the day was going to the waterfall at Na Muang (apart from Lianne falling off the rocks). We went for a swim under the waterfall and then the elephants came up the river to be washed by their keepers (there are elephant tours run from the same area). When we came to leave we jumped on our scooters but watched as the elephants were all paraded down the road back to where they are kept overnight. This looked amazing and we took plenty of photographs as they paraded by. We loved it until we realised that they were going down the same road that we were about to go down. We now had the enviable task of overtaking elephants on our scooters on a very narrow road.
If you ever have to do this yourself here are our top tips for elephant overtaking:
- Go slow, do not rev your engine
- Give them plenty of room as their huge trunks and tusks swing about a bit
- Do not make eye contact!
- Treat them as if you were overtaking a rider on horseback, but with much greater respect for their nose and teeth
Lianne said that she has never been so scared! It was so cool we hardly noticed overtaking the water buffalo 5 minutes later!
The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed of to Koh Pangan but with very fond memories of Koh Samui.

Surat Thani

We figured out what happens with the trains now. You get on and all the seats are as per usual then at about 9 o'clock a man comes around and turns them into beds. This was good as we didn't have to try and sleep from about 2:30pm (although Lianne still did!).
The train got to Surat Thani (the stopping off point for Koh Samui) at about 12 midnight. It was all a bit stressful as the train station is in the middle of nowhere and the only people at the station were sleazy looking "taxi" drivers. We were the only foreigners who got off the train at that station as well, which worried us a little too. The taxi driver "recommended" a hotel and we knew we were going to get ripped off. We suggested another, cheaper one, and he took us there but they just said "no" when we asked if there were any rooms - we don't think round eyes were welcome at that place! We ended up at the hotel he originally suggested which was a little bit more than we wanted to spend but still not expensive.
In the morning we got up and explored Surat Thani a little - there's not much there at all. We then set off for the pier to catch the ferry to Koh Samui. After a couple of abortive attempts to catch a bus and a taxi there we ended up going back to our hotel and getting them to sort it out for us. We were trying to be really budget but we were just making hard work for ourselves! We've learnt to just pay the extra 100Bhat and make it all nice and easy.
From there on in it became nice and easy, if typically chaotic in a typical Thai way. Minibus to bus station to another minibus, no wait, get off that one and on to another one, drive real fast to the pier then wait around then onto the ferry. 2 1/2 hours later we arrived at Koh Samui.

Penang

We spent a a couple more days in KL with nothing much to note other than finally making it up the Petronas Twin Towers (not to the top, just to the bridge between the two, which is still pretty cool).
On Wednesday night we caught the night train from Kl to Butterworth, we had a sleeper bed which was actually quite comfortable and doubled as a night's accomodation not bad for RM38 (NZ$15, GBP 6).
Butterworth is on the mainland and it's a short ferry journey across to Penang island and it's main city of Georgetown. It is, apparently, Malaysia's second largest city, however it is a world away from KL. Where KL has a shiny new subway system to get you around, Georgetown has rickety buses, none of which seem to be less than 30 years old.
There's not much to do here but we did take a trip out to Kek Lok Si temple which was very impressive, although incredibly commercialised. In order to get to the temple you have to walk past dozens of stalls selling knocked off Harry Potter T-shirts and Beckham tops.
We stayed in a very budget hostel and we leave today for Ko Samui which we are both quite excited about as it will be our first proper beach part to the holiday. Bit nervous about how we are going to get there as we are catching a train that leaves at 2:20pm and arrives into Surat Thani at 11:30pm ish and the last boat to Ko Samui leaves at 11pm. We'll figure it out.
Oddly the train we are catching is a sleeper, even though we leave in the middle of the afternoon. I'll let you know what the go is with that in the next blog.