Siem Reap

After  the long bus journey to Siem Reap in the morning, I arrived and my tuk tuk man brought me to the hotel, which was alot better than I'd seen in the past few days, so I was thrilled. After meeting up with James and Terri, we walked around the city a bit and it was easy to see that it was more chilled than Phnom Penh. After a little while or maybe 20min...:)we decided to stop at a trendy beach bar and ordered a drink. When someone says "Cambodia" to you, you don't think "rain" but after sitting there for a awhile...it was evident rain was coming...we've upstairs in the bar for a bit more shelter and we didn't move for the next few hours. It was a tropical downfall...the power went out and we stayed in teh restaurant over candlelight and chatted whie waiting for the rain to stop. It was the 2nd time the power had gone out in a few days...and it wasn't going to be the last,  It was fine, we passed the time drinking and chatting about our lives and seeing the temples the next day.

 After the rain subsided, we ventured out onto the flooded streets to find a place with power where we could get something to eat and we wound up at a Mexican restaurant...lol...in Cambodia. They had fish tacos...my favorite...:) Well...the local food and the local market would be part of tomorrow's experience at the temples. We bought a few supplies like crayons, shirts for the hot weather and were ready for tomorrow at Angkor Wat( I hope I spelled that right).

The fish nibble pond

 During dinner Terri was telling me about the fishes at their hotel that would nibble on your toes. After walking around all day, it's easy to get a bit dirty and dusty. I got to try it at their hotel and it was genuinely bizarre....they stuck your foot in the pool and these fish would come along at nibble a bit here and there. They were even selling it on the streets...even to the boys...who could have it with a beer and the same time...makes it seem more manly if you can have a beer while doing it..;)

Cambodia- Phnom Penh

So where it start...after the speed boat ride to Phnom Penh, I arrived to my hostel..which brought me back to college university days for sleeping 6 to a room... well for 4.50US a night what do you expect? It was only one night anyway. I got out of there quickly and went for a walk to get local currency, once i found an ATM, to my surprise US Dollars popped out. I thought...hmm..well I'll try another ATM...US Dollars again... but I soon found out you can pay everything in USD and they will give us local currency as change. It's sort of felt like a bit of a rip off everytime, but Cambodia is a poor country, so part of you wants to help and the other part doesn't want to get taken advantage of. In the bustling city of Phnom Penh, you can quickly see that everyone is trying to sell you something like books...where you can negotiate down to 3USD and then you realize later...you've bought a copied book. Does it really matter though? You're helping them...they words still are the same. It's hard to say "no" to a 6yr old who is selling books on the street and her boss who is a an amputee in a wheelchair who has been hurt by the Khmer Rouge or a landmine.This seems to be a common theme.

So after a walk about town, I wandered into the Green Vespa where I sat down for some food and to cool off from the 40C(more or less 100F) weather. I started chatting to a nice lady from England and her son who was living in Sydney. They were also there on holiday and going to Siem Reap in the morning. I sepnt the rest of the day with them, chatting and walking around town. Terri and I bought a few dresses at the local market, we had a lovely dnner and we planned to catch up the next day in Siem Reap.

Mekong Day 2 & 3

After our boat transfer, from the tiny boat back to teh toursit boat, we were taken to the flosting markets on the river. This is the where the locals go to purchase the fruit and veggies for selling on the streets. There were loads of boats filled with pineapples and potatoes all for selling to the locals. Our new tour guide pulled us up right next to one of the pineapple boats where this family was living to purchases pineapples to eat. It was great, the guy would carve it for you and give to it to you just like a lollipop. 

After eating a big breakfast, I didn't want any fresh pineapple, but the guy was quite skilled at it, so you couldn't help but watch them. They live their enitre lives on the boat.

After the we left the floating markets, they took us to the rice noodle factory. This family makes rice noodles and work everyday until the rainy season to make the rice noodles for production.  They pour the liquid on the which is a flat gridle that looks like what you's use to make pancakes or crepes. They leave it on there for 2 to 3 minutes and it come off the in the pancake shape and is placed onto the drying rack.

The guy is taking the rice noodle off the hot burner and placing it onto the drying rack..Once the rack was full it is plaved into the sun for 4 hours to dry before it's put through the grinder to make the rice noodles.

One bag of rice can cost about 7,000 Dong

The rice ashes from the stove are even used as a fertilizer in the rice field and sold to the local farmers for 30,000 Dong(20,000= 1USD). They seemed to use everything they produced. The family works for the enitre day, no one is paid wages, and they work until the rainy season starts. During the rainy season, the factory is used for...cock fighting. It's a source of local gambling and I guess every farm has prizes cocks...for fighting and all the men gather together, gamble and watch the cock fight...(Michael Vick would like that..;)

At our next destionation, we again..more prizes roosters used in the cock fighting. 

This farm grew fresh mangos, pineapple and dragonfruit.

Wow...this was quite a second day, we had to say good bye again to everyone not continuing and make our way down to the Cave pagoda as the last stop. After a few long days, I wasn't really interested in seeing it, but I quickly changed my mind after arriving. That's not the spirit..is it? :) The pagoda was built into the side of the mountain and you could see all the way to Cambodia. We ventured up the side of the mountain to the cave pagoda. There were several monks walking around and it did feels like something out of a Samurai movie. They were in the middle of building a living quateres for the female monks too.

Inside the caves we were able to see the Buddhas, and much to my surprise the cave were normally lit, but due to the power 

 outage in town it was completely dark inside the cave. A monk was walking around setting up candles for us to see inside the cave. It was a good ambience, very peaceful and quiet. This particular monk had a glint of happiness in his eyes as he walked around lighting our way.

These are thw twevles faces of Buddha...it was a little surprising to see one tha smaller statues that Buddha was wearing sunglasses...a bit modern right..:)

After our long long day, we landed in Chau Doc where we would wake up the next day to take the speed boat to Cambodia.We arrived to our supposedly 3 star hotel which had no power...so no A/C...I wandered around town for a little while tired and feeling dirty...just wanting a nice shower and to cool off. The hotel staff had a generator that they were refusing to turn on...which was a bit crap of them. There were bugs all over the place...I spent that night tucked inside the silk sleeping bag...eww...but i guess it's alll part of the experience...even the bad bits...:)

This was my last day in Vietnam. I had a great time in Vietnam in the 2 weeks I was there and I would go back to several places. I read a book about a personal account of a girl and her families experience during that wars with the French colonialists and the American war that help me understand alot more than I would have . It was called "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" by Le Ly Hapslip.

Tomorrow...Cambodia..:)

Mekong Trip

On the following day, I left for the Mekong Delta Tour for three days. The tour was great and allowed me to see parts o Vietnam that an independent tourist couldn't see on their own. There's a little something for everyone in this tour. Despite the fact that my camera didn't have a battery, a few people took some photos for me which was really nice.We took the bus trip from Saigon early in the morning heading to the ferry where we started the tour by going to the unicorn island to visit a coconut candy making factory. It was impressive to see how they made the candy from the coconut...available in several different flavors..:) Yummo!

We had a seafood lunch where we learned how to make spring rolls..which if you have the right ingredients is pretty easy...after lunch they gave us some bikes with baskets to ride around the island for a little while.

I met two lovely guys from Australia and we chatted about what we'd done in Vietnam, and all the recent flooding in Melbourne and Brisbane. They put us on a boat long slender boat which normally the villagers weave around the little inlets of the islands. They only held about 5 people including the boat operator who paddled us through with no problem. We stopped at a local place where we sampled some tropical fruits like bananas, pineapples, papayas, jackfruit...and one other really slimmey looking fruit which looked really disgusting at first but actually tasted quite good. After several years of not liking papaya..I tried again for the "first" time and it was amazingly juicy and melted in your mouth...:) I might become addicted to it when I get home.

Sadly at the end of the day I was told I'd be joining another group because no one else was continuing on....so I said my goodbyes...collected my things and reluctantly left my new found friends. My tour guide pointed at me and said ""you....you do home stay tonight" to which I replied replied..""ümm ok."" As part of the tour, I was going to do a homestay with a local family in a local village for a night, which I was a little reluctant to do at first, but when I found out there would be a few ladies from Germany doing the homestay, I felt a little more relieved.

We were collected by our host(can't remember his name now) and we took a taxi to a nearby town where he led us to a long boat and loaded all of us in the boat each with individual seats...however he was still stood on the shore. Once he'd loaded us in the boat...he waved and said "bye-bye""...:) All of us laughed... and he jumped in the boat. Then what he did next was amazing, he walked on the edge of the boat which was about 1 inch wide to the other end of the boat.

Our Boat

We drove thru the darkness to his house looking at the stars and the full moon bouncing off the Mekong. During the boat ride several thoughts are flying through your head...of course the first one is how much this reminds you of a horror movie and what "could" happen....but then you tell yourself..."Have a little faith,"   this nice guy is only trying to make a living for himself and his family.

We arrive at the dock and walk up the plank bridge to his house to meet his family and his 3 little kids come out to meet us. The 2 little girls are given our passports and start to write down our details to register us with the local authorities. There are loads of plants and flowers around and I am excited to see what this place looks like in the morning. There are a few hammocks hung up outside for us to rest. All of us was of own rooms with mosquito nets and 2 bathrooms available to use. I thought to myself...at least it's not an outhouse like we had in Canada as a kid.

Our Rooms

His wife brought`` out our dinner which was a carp fish dinner where we made our own spring rolls...His son who was about 2 years old had alot of fun getting cold drinks from the fridge and touching it to his face...and had fun putting the cold drinks on our arms. Everytime he did this, we squealed and he giggled. He was so cute. It was easy to see that he inherited the playful nature from his dad.

After dinner our host pulled out the rice wine and started doing shots with us...he thought it was really funny to fill up our glasses all the way to the top and tell us things to try and scare us. He quickly learned who was afraid of snakes, spiders...so each time we would "cheers"which was ""Mung Hi Bi Yo""...(I totally butchered the spelling), he would....'"to... no spiders... to no snakes.."' After all, we were in the middle of the countryside and could easily find spiders, snakes, rats or geichos in our rooms. 

After having a coffee down at the local cafe, I went to bed. In the morning we got up early after a nice sleep to go visit the watermelon fields and rice fields. As we're jumping across, I loose my footing a bit and almost fall into the rice patty... I hear my grandmas voice in my head saying "'Don't go in the rice patty'' :) After going back, we had a nice breakfast  and can finally view the landscape it is lovely.

As we wait to leave, we play around in the hammocks and Regina tries out the monkey bridge which is how the locals get around over the water. The monkey bridge is a small bamboo pole and a railing. Knowing my own gracefulness...I don't attempt it as I'd be right in the water...:)  Later in that days, we tried a one that was a bit more sturdy. Our host takes us back on the boat to our group, and we reluctantly say goodbye.

The more sturdy monkey bridge

Our host and the boat..;)

Arrival to Saigon

ON this morning to leave, I was picked up by the motorbike driver to take me to the boat for transport back to Vietnam. After seeing families of five on one bike, even a refrigerator and a chest of drawers, I knew that loading me plus my little bag would be no problem for the bike. Since some of the roads have just been paved, my driver was going pretty fast on the bike to the boat. We sped across the paved bit and not so paved bits to the boat. We arrived ahead of time for the trip on the Superdong...which was a speed boat. They put on some Jackie Chan movies...the men sitting next to me fell to sleep and started snoring...for the long journey to the mainland.

The bus driver found me immediately and put my on the bus to Saigon. I was the only foreigner on the bus. There was a group of about 8 20 year old guys...who were smoking inside the bus when we stopped at a ferry crossing. At one of the local markets, a bunch of villagers rushed on the bus selling steamed corn, drinks and other treats.

I arrived to Saigon and found myself a good moto driver to speed me across the busy city of over 4,000,000 motorbikes to my hotel.I walked down the street for dinner and bumped into a guy who as it turns out remembered me from the airport ...we chatted for a while and he told me he was living in Australia working as a emigration official...he actually escorts people who have been deported...(for my family, ....this guy looked exactly like Mike Brin...who is a judge and a family friend at home) It was odd...

Phu Quoc

The next few days in Phu Quoc were nice and relaxing. I met two lovely couples from Sweden and we hung out alot and chatted about life. It was a nice place to sit back and get your laundry done, get a massage and regain some energy for the travel ahead The place we stayed at was a bit comical. When I first met Andreas and Eva I was speaking to the front desk because my mini fridge smelled like a rat crawled in there and died. They kindly put some coffee ground in the frig to try and overwhelm the death smell...but the stench still overtook the room within seconds. Andres told me that their frig also smelled like that. Yuck!! This place was quite old and been there for a while

Philip and Anna told us that the road had just been paved a few months ago and the street lights were brand new. Many of the restaurants were also new, so it seems that tourism is just blossoming for foreigners in that area.

I thought it was quite funny that night that Andreas told me they ordered a mixed drink with vodka...and it arrived with gin...It was quite funny becuase at our dinner we ordered a vodka with lime juice and got tequila...so 2 nights in a row this happened to them...From that point on, I was content not to order mixed drinks. Instead we bought some vodka from the shop and mixed it with Lychee juice..which was heaven.It was nice to relax for a few days...because the next day was an all day journey back to Saigon for the Mekong Tour.