After Laos we flew to Hanoi. After years of Vietnam war stories (or the American war as the Vietnamese call it) I was very much looking forward to experiencing the country myself. Albeit, in a more welcomed and explorative way. When we drove from the airport I got that feeling you get when you finally arrive at your long anticipated destination: so much excitement for and buildup to the trip that when you arrive you can’t quite believe you’re finally there. I definitely had the same experience in India. Having family and other people there to help create buzz helps you appreciate the feeling. Driving the 35km into Hanoi town, packed into a minivan with half foreigners and half Vietnamese, I just couldn’t stop taking pictures. I think I’ve gotten the idea across: I was excited.
We only spent 2 days there, but we managed to cram in a few good things. We started the first full day by walking to the Hoa Lu prison. The prison was originally built by the French, then used for political prisoners and finally for POWs during the war. The prison has since been torn down and a large high rise apartment building built instead, but they graciously kept one side of the original structure for posterity. The contrast between the descriptions of the political prisoners from the 30s and 40s versus the POWs was striking. The description of how the former were housed and treated was atrocious, as you would expect in a prison. And the latter were treated oh so well, with exercise, trips out of the prison and permission to raise and cook meat for their Christmas dinner. There was quite literally no mention of any mistreatment of the prisoners. Alex is positive it is all bullshit. I’m not convinced it is all bullshit, but I am certain their time there was not all light and fluffy as the museum curator likes to make it out as. If I’m not mistaken Presidential candidate John McCain has said that he was tortured in the prison. They have a picture of him from his surgery to treat his arms from his bad landing. They also have his uniform on display, the one he was captured in, kind of like they are proud to have this connection. That was the first of our light and bubbly material.
Before we hopped on a bus to get to Halong Bay, we squeezed in a trip to see Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnam. Despite expressing his wish to be cremated he has been embalmed and put on display in Hanoi. Every year for two months he is sent to Russia for ‘maintenance’. We were lucky enough to see him, though. It was a little creepy because he looked like a wax model. He was in a temperature controlled room with low light and six military guards for approximately a 3m x 3m room. It was pretty surreal. No pictures allowed, sorry.
Hanoi was the scariest traffic I have experienced yet. India was seemingly chaotic but when you crossed the road you could see the patterns well enough to cross safely. Hanoi not only seemed to have absolutely no rules, there seemed to be no regard for the pedestrians who were crossing the road. About 80% of the traffic is motorcycles. We saw people driving on the sidewalk, sometimes creating a two way path separate from the road. No matter where you were walking, expect a moped to almost mow you down. On our way to a old colonial house that has been refurbished we spotted a cramped market that went the right direction. Alex said “Let’s go this way, it’s too narrow for bikes so we’ll be safe this way.” Obviously, just at that moment a moped came zooming out of the market and we all had to jump out of the way. When we could justify taxis we took them because it was the only way we felt safe on the roads.
We hopped a 2 hour bus to Hai Phong. We had thought we missed the last boat to Cat Ba, the national park island in the middle of Halong Bay. When we arrived we were told it was in 10 minutes, from a place that was a 10 min taxi away. We decided to just take our time and stay the night. As we were walking to a guesthouse we were stopped by a woman on a moped telling us we were going to miss the boat, according to her it was actually a half hour later that we were originally told. This woman was almost scary in her insistence that we had to HURRY! She then proceeded to lead the taxi to the port. When we got there we were told the price that was posted was actually more because the posted price did not include the buses we would take on either side of the boat. So we paid double what was posted, mainly because she was so urgent about everything that we felt pressure to decide. Ultimately, we only paid about £9 for about 2 hours of travel, including a fast boat. It turns out the buses were free for ticket holders for the boat. Live and learn. We looked at the bright side and realized we were happy we were there that night as opposed to having to do it the next day. So even though we overpaid we were glad the woman kidnapped us.
The following morning we got onto a tour of Halong Bay. In the morning we left on the boat and went through what is incredible landscape. Unfortunately, in addition to the noise pollution of our motorized boat there was also rubbish and floating pollution in the water. This was particularly visible when we went kayaking. It was pretty nasty water. We also saw this pretty cool massive cave. Too bad it was not as amazing since they put colored lights all around. It gave the whole place a Disney feeling. After lunch we went for about an hour until they took us to a small bay for swimming. The water there was blue and beautiful. The whole trip took the day. It was the perfect way to Halong Bay. The next day we took the reverse route we used getting to Cat Ba, we paid the posted price that time.
Another bus from Hai Phong to Ninh Binh, a relativey small town but with a few beautiful things to see. When we arrived at our little guesthouse, Xuan hotel, we met an English couple who were on a three week holiday to see Vietnam. With 6 of us (Me and Alex, Joe and Laura and Greg and Denise) we hired the car of the guesthouse, with a driver for the day for $8 each. It was a nice big SUV with fantastic air conditioning. The major attraction is Tam Coc, aptly nicknamed Halong Bay on the rice paddies. You take a small row boat up a little river that passes under three grottos. It only takes about 2 hours but that is plenty since there is no sun cover and even at 9am it is bloody hot. I preferred Tam Coc over Halong Bay, but if I needed to see both to appreciate Tam Coc as much as I did. We also saw a few temples and climbed up a mountain to see the view.
That night we got our first sleeper bus to Hue. It was a pretty funny thing. We got on at 10pm and there were only enough beds for us 6 who got on. There were also people lining the aisles. I did manage to sleep, surprisingly. When we stopped for breakfast the next morning we were convinced by a tour guide to get off the bus and go for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). It was probably the best spontaneous decision we have made in the whole trip. Ironically, the DMZ was the area of Vietnam that saw the most violence because it was the divide between the warring democratic south (whom the US was supporting) and the Communist North. It was so bizarre to be on a battleground. I'm sure if I were telling my grandfather, a WWII pilot he would be dumbfounded why I would want to visit a battleground, but it happened recently that it still abounds popular culture that I feel I should see what I can of it and connect to it as much as I can. I was not alive then, nor do I think it was a just war, but I believe that whether I think it was a good or bad thing, it happened and I can learn about it. And learn about it I did. Our tour guide was a really nice guy and very easy to listen to. His English wasn’t perfect, kind of English that is from practice not education, but we certainly understood him. Mr. Hoa is from the town where he still lives today, very close to the border between North and South Vietnam, but firmly in the South. He turned 18 six months after the Americans left Vietnam, but before the war ended so was conscripted to the army. He was very good at giving us all of the sides involved. I learned more from him than I did in all of my schooling. I took what he said with a grain of salt, but I still believe he was being less biased than any establishment I have ever come across. We visited a battleground and saw a bunker. It was very important to take a guide with us as the local people know where the unexploded bombs are. Yes, we did see one of those too.
We saw one of the cemeteries of the Northern soldiers the South had created during the war. Many of the 4000 soldiers were unnamed. That cemetery was one of about 10 and small in comparison to others. We got to see the actual border and where the DMZ would have started. Lastly, we went to the tunnels on the north side. Hundreds of people lived down there for years. They were pretty small. The network wasn’t particularly large but the height and width of the physical tunnel was apparently larger than the infamous Cuchi tunnels in Saigon. After our tour, we had some lunch and took a minibus down to Hue.
After reading about Hue and the next town we were going to Hoi An, we decided to skip out Hue and head out the next day to Hoi An. It took about 4 hours on a bus. We arrived and the boys scouted a place to stay. They scored what seemed like a 3 star hotel for only $12 per night. We had a bathtub and everything! Hoi An was a nice place to relax. There was a beach there and the town is a very charming old colonial town. We spent 5 days there. Probably too long, but we enjoyed it there. We also all had some piece of clothing made. Vietnam is the place to get clothes made, and Hoi An specifically. I had a leather jacket and two pairs of jeans made for $150. Alex had two shirts made: black pinstripe on both, one shirt has pink satin trim (under the collar down the button track and on the inside of the double cuff) and the other one has a dark purple in the same places except is the whole cuff. Laura had an outfit of a green sleeveless top and linen trousers made for a wedding she is going to soon and Joe had them make a Hawaiian Suit. My favorite part is that the material is normal Hawaiian except for the Lotus flower that is very Asian. Look out for the photos because your imagination just can’t do it justice.
For some reason we opted for a $27 bus ride, which worked out at a dollar an hour, instead of flying for $55 and would have taken less than an hour. Silly us. But we saved the money and now we have a funny story. This took us all the way to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The last stop on the War route for us was the War Remnants museum in Saigon. Outside they have about 10 American military and Air Force vehicles all in pretty good condition. Inside, they use mostly photos to convey what they want to. There are a lot of very savage photos. As could be expected we weren’t up for very much else that day. In order to counter balance the gloom of wars past we decided to head to the water park. Not very cultural you might accuse, but in reality we only saw 10 other foreigners in a completely packed water park, I kid you not. Despite the cost, the water park on a Sunday was a big family destination. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Saigon was our last stop in Vietnam. I could’ve used more time in Vietnam, two and a half weeks was probably a little short, but it’s a good excuse to come back now. From there we hopped over the border to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The activities to do here are even more heart wrenching because it still feels so recent. A prison/concentration camp, ex-school, S-21 was the primary prison in the capital. The place is falling apart and decrepit. And most of the place is filled with the photos the guards took when the prisoners arrived. Most of the people who were taken here were not criminals, they were intellectuals, or artists, or in some way threatened Pol Pots regime. All of the people who were taken to S-21 were destined for the killing fields. 10s of thousands were murdered at the killing fields. They have dug up about half of the mass graves so far, I don’t know if they are still working on it or not. They have built a structure to hold some of the bones as a remembrance for those who were killed. Probably the most jarring about the whole place, despite staring at about 30 mass graves were the old bones and clothes run into the dirt on the pathway.
That evening we were having a beer when a young American approached us with her small organization that arranges groups to go to the city dump to feed the children that live there. We decided to go as an antidote to the sadness we had been experiencing that day. Although going to the dump was going to be difficult, we were going to be helping and seeing the immediate reactions on their faces. We donated $20 each and went to buy food at the market. The organizers buy it, because they can negotiate more and they know what to get. Then we all pile onto a flatbed truck and go to the dump. This group goes 2-3 times a week, so the kids know what’s going on. It was pretty bad conditions, the kids were all dirty, some had school uniforms on, and many had cuts all over their body. With 9 people on the trip that day we had enough money to buy food for about 400 kids. That is all of them and some got to get back in the line again. It was grueling in the heat with the smell but incredible to meet these kids with good English who wanted to know your name and if you were married. Most of them were so sweet. It felt so different to experience the sadness but to be doing something about it. The effect is completely different from a museum. I know that’s obvious, but after going to so many sad museums I was so happy to have done that.
Our final stop in this whistle stop tour was Siem Reap, the second largest city in Cambodia and the city closest to the ancient temples of the Angkor kingdom. Unfortunately, we only ended up with one full day to do the temples. I’m quite sure that we could have been able to drag them out to three days or even a week to do justice to the beautiful place and to avoid the midday sun. Instead we got a very early night and rose at 4.30 in the morning to get to the temples by sunrise. We saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the main temple there and the national symbol for Cambodia (it’s even on their flag). We had a coffee to wake ourselves up then proceeded into the decaying temple that was built in the 12th century. It isn’t decaying as much as many of the temples, but it is covered in moss and the effects of time are obvious. However, I’m sure that is one of the biggest reasons it is so awe inspiring. Next we went to the tomb raider temple Ta Prohm. We also saw Preah Khan, Banteay Kdei, Bayon and Ta Keo. Bayon is the central temple inside the old city. There used to be homes and many other structures where the surrounding these temples but they were all made out of wood. Stone was reserved for the home of the gods. Ta Keo was my favorite temple. There were 4 levels of steep steps on all four sides that were very thin but the view and the breeze were completely worth it. We just powered through the heat by stopping often for water and soft drinks at the numerous little cafes. We made it until about 4.30 when we decided we were pooped and we didn’t think it was going to be a great sunset. The Angkor temples were so beautiful and sacred that I don’t think I could’ve dreamed a better way to finish our South East Asia portion of this trip.
Traveling is all about the people you meet, what you get to see and the crazy stories you collect. It has been amazing that whenever things go wrong or are threatening to go wrong (which happens a lot) if you laugh about it, it always turns around. It’s not that it changes the circumstances it just makes you realize that you will be fine and actually it is kind of funny how things got to that stage. I am mostly talking about travel. A good example of this is our journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok. When we booked our tickets we asked the usual questions to try to assure that the journey will be reasonably good: same bus on both sides of the border? Does it have air con? Bus, not a minivan? We received yes to all three of these questions so we assumed it would be a reasonably easy trip. When we got on the bus, there was no room for our luggage, so the bus was a little cramped to say the least. No air con. Alex and I had no leg room. I sat with my knees 6 inches from my chest and Alex had to open his legs wide because he literally didn’t fit. When we arrived at the border they asked us to take our bags with us. So we took our bags. Our bus drove off. We ‘departed’ Cambodia then we were directed to walk to the Thailand entry about half a kilometer away. We literally walked to Thailand. Then we ‘entered’ Thailand. They took my temperature, but not the three Brits I am traveling with. Maybe because I’m American? We waited for about a half hour, with no info, and then got directed to the next bus. It was a minivan. In the end we got there and faster than they said it would take. So all was fine, but you just gotta laugh about it.
We only spent 2 days there, but we managed to cram in a few good things. We started the first full day by walking to the Hoa Lu prison. The prison was originally built by the French, then used for political prisoners and finally for POWs during the war. The prison has since been torn down and a large high rise apartment building built instead, but they graciously kept one side of the original structure for posterity. The contrast between the descriptions of the political prisoners from the 30s and 40s versus the POWs was striking. The description of how the former were housed and treated was atrocious, as you would expect in a prison. And the latter were treated oh so well, with exercise, trips out of the prison and permission to raise and cook meat for their Christmas dinner. There was quite literally no mention of any mistreatment of the prisoners. Alex is positive it is all bullshit. I’m not convinced it is all bullshit, but I am certain their time there was not all light and fluffy as the museum curator likes to make it out as. If I’m not mistaken Presidential candidate John McCain has said that he was tortured in the prison. They have a picture of him from his surgery to treat his arms from his bad landing. They also have his uniform on display, the one he was captured in, kind of like they are proud to have this connection. That was the first of our light and bubbly material.
Before we hopped on a bus to get to Halong Bay, we squeezed in a trip to see Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnam. Despite expressing his wish to be cremated he has been embalmed and put on display in Hanoi. Every year for two months he is sent to Russia for ‘maintenance’. We were lucky enough to see him, though. It was a little creepy because he looked like a wax model. He was in a temperature controlled room with low light and six military guards for approximately a 3m x 3m room. It was pretty surreal. No pictures allowed, sorry.
Hanoi was the scariest traffic I have experienced yet. India was seemingly chaotic but when you crossed the road you could see the patterns well enough to cross safely. Hanoi not only seemed to have absolutely no rules, there seemed to be no regard for the pedestrians who were crossing the road. About 80% of the traffic is motorcycles. We saw people driving on the sidewalk, sometimes creating a two way path separate from the road. No matter where you were walking, expect a moped to almost mow you down. On our way to a old colonial house that has been refurbished we spotted a cramped market that went the right direction. Alex said “Let’s go this way, it’s too narrow for bikes so we’ll be safe this way.” Obviously, just at that moment a moped came zooming out of the market and we all had to jump out of the way. When we could justify taxis we took them because it was the only way we felt safe on the roads.
We hopped a 2 hour bus to Hai Phong. We had thought we missed the last boat to Cat Ba, the national park island in the middle of Halong Bay. When we arrived we were told it was in 10 minutes, from a place that was a 10 min taxi away. We decided to just take our time and stay the night. As we were walking to a guesthouse we were stopped by a woman on a moped telling us we were going to miss the boat, according to her it was actually a half hour later that we were originally told. This woman was almost scary in her insistence that we had to HURRY! She then proceeded to lead the taxi to the port. When we got there we were told the price that was posted was actually more because the posted price did not include the buses we would take on either side of the boat. So we paid double what was posted, mainly because she was so urgent about everything that we felt pressure to decide. Ultimately, we only paid about £9 for about 2 hours of travel, including a fast boat. It turns out the buses were free for ticket holders for the boat. Live and learn. We looked at the bright side and realized we were happy we were there that night as opposed to having to do it the next day. So even though we overpaid we were glad the woman kidnapped us.
The following morning we got onto a tour of Halong Bay. In the morning we left on the boat and went through what is incredible landscape. Unfortunately, in addition to the noise pollution of our motorized boat there was also rubbish and floating pollution in the water. This was particularly visible when we went kayaking. It was pretty nasty water. We also saw this pretty cool massive cave. Too bad it was not as amazing since they put colored lights all around. It gave the whole place a Disney feeling. After lunch we went for about an hour until they took us to a small bay for swimming. The water there was blue and beautiful. The whole trip took the day. It was the perfect way to Halong Bay. The next day we took the reverse route we used getting to Cat Ba, we paid the posted price that time.
Another bus from Hai Phong to Ninh Binh, a relativey small town but with a few beautiful things to see. When we arrived at our little guesthouse, Xuan hotel, we met an English couple who were on a three week holiday to see Vietnam. With 6 of us (Me and Alex, Joe and Laura and Greg and Denise) we hired the car of the guesthouse, with a driver for the day for $8 each. It was a nice big SUV with fantastic air conditioning. The major attraction is Tam Coc, aptly nicknamed Halong Bay on the rice paddies. You take a small row boat up a little river that passes under three grottos. It only takes about 2 hours but that is plenty since there is no sun cover and even at 9am it is bloody hot. I preferred Tam Coc over Halong Bay, but if I needed to see both to appreciate Tam Coc as much as I did. We also saw a few temples and climbed up a mountain to see the view.
That night we got our first sleeper bus to Hue. It was a pretty funny thing. We got on at 10pm and there were only enough beds for us 6 who got on. There were also people lining the aisles. I did manage to sleep, surprisingly. When we stopped for breakfast the next morning we were convinced by a tour guide to get off the bus and go for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). It was probably the best spontaneous decision we have made in the whole trip. Ironically, the DMZ was the area of Vietnam that saw the most violence because it was the divide between the warring democratic south (whom the US was supporting) and the Communist North. It was so bizarre to be on a battleground. I'm sure if I were telling my grandfather, a WWII pilot he would be dumbfounded why I would want to visit a battleground, but it happened recently that it still abounds popular culture that I feel I should see what I can of it and connect to it as much as I can. I was not alive then, nor do I think it was a just war, but I believe that whether I think it was a good or bad thing, it happened and I can learn about it. And learn about it I did. Our tour guide was a really nice guy and very easy to listen to. His English wasn’t perfect, kind of English that is from practice not education, but we certainly understood him. Mr. Hoa is from the town where he still lives today, very close to the border between North and South Vietnam, but firmly in the South. He turned 18 six months after the Americans left Vietnam, but before the war ended so was conscripted to the army. He was very good at giving us all of the sides involved. I learned more from him than I did in all of my schooling. I took what he said with a grain of salt, but I still believe he was being less biased than any establishment I have ever come across. We visited a battleground and saw a bunker. It was very important to take a guide with us as the local people know where the unexploded bombs are. Yes, we did see one of those too.
We saw one of the cemeteries of the Northern soldiers the South had created during the war. Many of the 4000 soldiers were unnamed. That cemetery was one of about 10 and small in comparison to others. We got to see the actual border and where the DMZ would have started. Lastly, we went to the tunnels on the north side. Hundreds of people lived down there for years. They were pretty small. The network wasn’t particularly large but the height and width of the physical tunnel was apparently larger than the infamous Cuchi tunnels in Saigon. After our tour, we had some lunch and took a minibus down to Hue.
After reading about Hue and the next town we were going to Hoi An, we decided to skip out Hue and head out the next day to Hoi An. It took about 4 hours on a bus. We arrived and the boys scouted a place to stay. They scored what seemed like a 3 star hotel for only $12 per night. We had a bathtub and everything! Hoi An was a nice place to relax. There was a beach there and the town is a very charming old colonial town. We spent 5 days there. Probably too long, but we enjoyed it there. We also all had some piece of clothing made. Vietnam is the place to get clothes made, and Hoi An specifically. I had a leather jacket and two pairs of jeans made for $150. Alex had two shirts made: black pinstripe on both, one shirt has pink satin trim (under the collar down the button track and on the inside of the double cuff) and the other one has a dark purple in the same places except is the whole cuff. Laura had an outfit of a green sleeveless top and linen trousers made for a wedding she is going to soon and Joe had them make a Hawaiian Suit. My favorite part is that the material is normal Hawaiian except for the Lotus flower that is very Asian. Look out for the photos because your imagination just can’t do it justice.
For some reason we opted for a $27 bus ride, which worked out at a dollar an hour, instead of flying for $55 and would have taken less than an hour. Silly us. But we saved the money and now we have a funny story. This took us all the way to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The last stop on the War route for us was the War Remnants museum in Saigon. Outside they have about 10 American military and Air Force vehicles all in pretty good condition. Inside, they use mostly photos to convey what they want to. There are a lot of very savage photos. As could be expected we weren’t up for very much else that day. In order to counter balance the gloom of wars past we decided to head to the water park. Not very cultural you might accuse, but in reality we only saw 10 other foreigners in a completely packed water park, I kid you not. Despite the cost, the water park on a Sunday was a big family destination. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Saigon was our last stop in Vietnam. I could’ve used more time in Vietnam, two and a half weeks was probably a little short, but it’s a good excuse to come back now. From there we hopped over the border to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The activities to do here are even more heart wrenching because it still feels so recent. A prison/concentration camp, ex-school, S-21 was the primary prison in the capital. The place is falling apart and decrepit. And most of the place is filled with the photos the guards took when the prisoners arrived. Most of the people who were taken here were not criminals, they were intellectuals, or artists, or in some way threatened Pol Pots regime. All of the people who were taken to S-21 were destined for the killing fields. 10s of thousands were murdered at the killing fields. They have dug up about half of the mass graves so far, I don’t know if they are still working on it or not. They have built a structure to hold some of the bones as a remembrance for those who were killed. Probably the most jarring about the whole place, despite staring at about 30 mass graves were the old bones and clothes run into the dirt on the pathway.
That evening we were having a beer when a young American approached us with her small organization that arranges groups to go to the city dump to feed the children that live there. We decided to go as an antidote to the sadness we had been experiencing that day. Although going to the dump was going to be difficult, we were going to be helping and seeing the immediate reactions on their faces. We donated $20 each and went to buy food at the market. The organizers buy it, because they can negotiate more and they know what to get. Then we all pile onto a flatbed truck and go to the dump. This group goes 2-3 times a week, so the kids know what’s going on. It was pretty bad conditions, the kids were all dirty, some had school uniforms on, and many had cuts all over their body. With 9 people on the trip that day we had enough money to buy food for about 400 kids. That is all of them and some got to get back in the line again. It was grueling in the heat with the smell but incredible to meet these kids with good English who wanted to know your name and if you were married. Most of them were so sweet. It felt so different to experience the sadness but to be doing something about it. The effect is completely different from a museum. I know that’s obvious, but after going to so many sad museums I was so happy to have done that.
Our final stop in this whistle stop tour was Siem Reap, the second largest city in Cambodia and the city closest to the ancient temples of the Angkor kingdom. Unfortunately, we only ended up with one full day to do the temples. I’m quite sure that we could have been able to drag them out to three days or even a week to do justice to the beautiful place and to avoid the midday sun. Instead we got a very early night and rose at 4.30 in the morning to get to the temples by sunrise. We saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the main temple there and the national symbol for Cambodia (it’s even on their flag). We had a coffee to wake ourselves up then proceeded into the decaying temple that was built in the 12th century. It isn’t decaying as much as many of the temples, but it is covered in moss and the effects of time are obvious. However, I’m sure that is one of the biggest reasons it is so awe inspiring. Next we went to the tomb raider temple Ta Prohm. We also saw Preah Khan, Banteay Kdei, Bayon and Ta Keo. Bayon is the central temple inside the old city. There used to be homes and many other structures where the surrounding these temples but they were all made out of wood. Stone was reserved for the home of the gods. Ta Keo was my favorite temple. There were 4 levels of steep steps on all four sides that were very thin but the view and the breeze were completely worth it. We just powered through the heat by stopping often for water and soft drinks at the numerous little cafes. We made it until about 4.30 when we decided we were pooped and we didn’t think it was going to be a great sunset. The Angkor temples were so beautiful and sacred that I don’t think I could’ve dreamed a better way to finish our South East Asia portion of this trip.
Traveling is all about the people you meet, what you get to see and the crazy stories you collect. It has been amazing that whenever things go wrong or are threatening to go wrong (which happens a lot) if you laugh about it, it always turns around. It’s not that it changes the circumstances it just makes you realize that you will be fine and actually it is kind of funny how things got to that stage. I am mostly talking about travel. A good example of this is our journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok. When we booked our tickets we asked the usual questions to try to assure that the journey will be reasonably good: same bus on both sides of the border? Does it have air con? Bus, not a minivan? We received yes to all three of these questions so we assumed it would be a reasonably easy trip. When we got on the bus, there was no room for our luggage, so the bus was a little cramped to say the least. No air con. Alex and I had no leg room. I sat with my knees 6 inches from my chest and Alex had to open his legs wide because he literally didn’t fit. When we arrived at the border they asked us to take our bags with us. So we took our bags. Our bus drove off. We ‘departed’ Cambodia then we were directed to walk to the Thailand entry about half a kilometer away. We literally walked to Thailand. Then we ‘entered’ Thailand. They took my temperature, but not the three Brits I am traveling with. Maybe because I’m American? We waited for about a half hour, with no info, and then got directed to the next bus. It was a minivan. In the end we got there and faster than they said it would take. So all was fine, but you just gotta laugh about it.
We are now in Bangkok and we leave on Wednesday for Hong Kong. We are currently planning two weeks in HK then 3 weeks in Japan then 5 weeks in China before we board the TransMongolian Railroad for 3 weeks. We haven’t bought our tickets yet, but we are planning on flying back on the 18th of September.
Can you tell us the name of the organization feeding children at the dump?
ReplyDeleteThey aren't really an official organization. It is one guy who went 6 years ago and since then has been recruiting his friends and created an unofficial thing. They organise the project out of the bar that he owns with his friends called Bogey and Bacall in Phnom Penh. This is the direct link to the charity part of their website: http://www.bogieandbacall-cambodia.com/charity/index.html
ReplyDeletePlanning on contacting them?