Category: tim

We are still in Saigon at the moment, just back from a magnificent shellfish dinner. We have eaten all sorts of weird and wonderful things that one would usually leave on the sea floor, fishing them out of their shells with a safety pin!

This week we headed up into the highlands of Vietnam, more specifically to the tourist trap of Dalat. The scenery on the ride up was breathtaking, which was lucky given that it was an 8 hour trip!

Once in Dalat we jumped on the back of a motorcycle and toured the surrounding countryside, temples and waterfalls with the notorious ‘Dalat Easyriders’. It was quite interesting – especially as we visited some local farms and had tea with an ex-VC captain!

Yesterday we hired our own motorbike and set about finding some of the waterfalls and lakes that dot the area around Dalat. With a couple of wrong turns along the way we visited Tiger Falls (complete with giant concrete tiger – the Vietnamses really know how to ruin scenic locations with kitsch junk). Due to our navigational difficulties we didn’t quite make it to as many places as we had planned but crising through the countryside was fun anyway.

This weekend we are heading to Phu Quoc – a Vietnamese island off the coast of Cambodia (stolen from the Khmers according to Chhay’s dad). It is supposed to be absolutely fantastic – beautiful beaches and very little development. It will be the only beach time that we spend during this trip as we will be racing up to central Vietnam and into Laos next week.

I’m currently sitting in our friends office in Saigon when I was supposed to be kicking back by the Mekong in Ben Tre! We had a small mix up with our bus – well perhaps we were a bit slow to realise that we had reached the spot where we were supposed to get off – and instead of disembarking from our bus at My Tho and catching the ferry to Ben Tre the next thing we knew we were sitting at the bus station in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)!

We should be able to really check out Saigon as we are now here for 10 days. I think we’ll do a few short trips into the surrounding areas and just relax for a little bit. I woudl have liked to have seen Ben Tre but Chhay was getting a bit sick of the delta so perhaps we were meant to get here early?

Since we left Chau Doc we have been staying in Can Tho, in the centre of the Mekong Delta. We hired a boat for half a day and explored the surrounding canals and waterways, including the much vaunted floating markets. While the markets were a little underwhelming it was fantastic to watch the variety of working boats that ply the delta – especially once we got away from the main channels and were drifting through small creeks that lace the area. In fact it was possibly the highlight of our trip so far – for me at least.

Now we are staying with friends I should be able to dowload a few more pictures so keep an eye out here and on our flickr page.

We are now just inside the Vietnamese border in a little riverside town called Chau Doc. The boat trip here was quite uneventful, some interesting scenery but the river was so wide that little detail was available from the boat – very different from the trip from Siem Reap to Battambang.

This morning we climbed (with the small help of a couple of motorbikes) the local protuberence into the otherwise dead flat Mekong Delta. The views from the top were quite impressive – the border between Cambodia & Vietnam clearly marked out and water covering 75% of the territitory we could see.

Excessive beauracracy to get into the country aside, Vietnam seems much more organised than Cambodia and definitely cleaner. There is food absolutely everywhere – baguettes for sale on every street corner, and iced coffees wherever you go (heaven for me). So far the fodd that we have tried has only been ok – the cold rolls that we had for lunch today couldn’t compare to Chhay’s efforts at home but I am expecting great things as we get closer to Saigon…

We are still kicking around Phnom Penh – taking it very easy at the moment. We have ticked off most of the must do’s – royal palace & museum, Tuol Sleng S-21 genocide museum, killing fields, Russian & Central markets and numerous strolls along the riverfront.
Highlight so far was our trip this afternoon, we hired a motorbike and headed out to the Sunrise Children’s Village – an orphanage run by Geraldine Cox – a relatively well known expat aussie (their website is well worth a perusal if you have time) We had attended a fundraising dinner for the foundation in Brisbane earlier in the year so it was great to see first hand the facilities that they have set up, and to meet some of the kids. Chhay was an absolute hit because she could speak Khmer – she was swamped with kids at one stage and even managed to pick up a new sister in the process! The trip out was also fun – dodging Cambodian traffic and trying to keep us all in one piece (no helmets or insurance in Cambodia)!

We have one more day here before we head into Vietnam to amble through the Mekong Delta. Any ideas for presents for Chhay’s upcoming b’day warmly welcomed.

I have added a couple of photos to some of the previous posts. For more pictures check out our flickr page. I will be adding more in the next couple of days. None of the photos are great – the light in Cambodia seems particularly ill-suited to photgraphs at this time of year. They do say that in order to get good shots we would have needed to be at the temples just past dawn – but you can imagine the chance of that happening when Chhay & I are involved 😉

Apologies for the lack of updates – our blog seems to have been offline for the last couple of days.

We have spent the last few days in Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city (by a long way) and the spot noted in Chhay’s passport under birthplace.

It has been fantastic – the place has a very sleepy colonial town feel and is surrounded by spectacular countryside – small farmhouses nestled between banana plants and surrounded by brilliant green paddy fields, rice drying on the side of the roads, irrigation ditches full of kids playing, people washing and fishing.
Our days have followed a fairly predictable routine. Early breakfast of noodles or congee (a savory porridge) at a packed bustling stall in a market follwed by a trek out into the surrounding country along torturous but scenic back roads to meet another branch of chhay’s family – be fed a feast for lunch, have a nap in a hammock under a thatched roof somewhere before ambling back to town via one of the local scenic attractions before yet another fantastic dinner courtesy of Chhay’s town based rellies who have been giving us the five star treatment.

We have been to Chhay’s birth village and hung out with her crazy aunts, harvested coconuts , chillies and paw paws from their farm before eating them straight away, visited Poipet along possibly the worst road on the planet – a place noted in the Lonely Planet as the “armpit of the earth” (but perhaps only being comparable to the back of the knee), we have climbed mountains (well hills really but they call them mountains) to visit temples and pre-Angkorian ruins – along with a side track to see a Khmer Rouge death cave, and primarily it seems we have been fed – dish after fantastic dish.

I now have earned cred with the rellies for being willing to eat anything they put in front of me – fiery chillies, smelly fish, salty fruit and durians! All the food has been amazing, although sometimes I feel that we are a bit of a burden to have to constantly be fed. I have becaome an expert in reading body language too as I am the only one who doesn’t understand Khmer (apart from about 5 phrases).
We are heading off to the big smoke tommorrow – Phnom Penh. Should be quite a change of pace from the relaxed vibe we have enjoyed here.

It’s our last evening in Siem Reap. Lots to recount but I’ll try and keep it brief.

On Saturday we headed out to Banteay Srei as we planned. It was well worth the 40 min drive if only for the view of the countryside and villages that we passed through. We left early enough to avoid the hordes – there was a procession of tour buses heading out there on our return journey.

After stopping at another temple whose name I forget we headed back to the main Angkor complex with a small diversion looking for one of the very minor temples. The road out to it was a muddy track and the temple itself was a bit of a mystery – to Mr Sna our tuk-tuk driver and locals alike. We gave up after half an hour of fruitless searching but got to see some of the countryside off the tourist trail.

After a very long lunch to try and avoid the worst of the heat we completed the “outer circuit” in the afternoon. The highlight was definitely Preah Khan it had similar qualities to Ta Prohm with overgrown and partially destryed sections but with a greater variety of spaces including some interesting courtyards and secret passages.

Yesterday we hired bikes and rode back out to Angkor Wat itself. Cambodian bikes are definitely not designed for people my size so had a few structural issues on the way out. It was a beautiful morning however and the ride made the journey much more pleasant. Once inside the Wat we spent the morning reading in various nooks and crannies while slowly taking in the bas-reliefs along the galleries at the base of the temple.

For dinner we finally caught up with some of Chhay’s relatives and had a fantastic feast of sour soup, prawns and baked fish. The food (and the company) was so good in fact that we were back there for lunch today and are on our way back for dinner at the moment!

This morning we headed out to the Floating Village with one of Chhay’s cousins. Floating schools, floating workshops even floating pig farms, it was all there. After using our local contacts to finally grab some food at local prices we went to the West Barray, a giant man-made lake that was part of the Angkor complex and around which the locals have set up awnings and hammock to chill out in. I went for a bit of a dip but the water was the temperature of a bath so it wasn’t particularly refreshing.

We are off to Battambang tomorrow – it is the provincial capital and supposedly quite a sleeply little place to chill out in (although I am tearing through our reading material with all the relaxing we have been doing & won’t have much left soon). We are taking the boat which is supposed to be quite spectacular – as long as it doesn’t sink!

Back from a full day of exploring the so called ”ínner circle” of Angkor which is primarily based in and around Angkor Thom.

We are quite templed out as our driver was very reluctant to take us back to our guesthouse for a mid-day break as is the supposed custom. Hence we ended up touring sites during the middle of the day, with only englishmen for company (even teh dogs here are too smart for that). Tommorrow a siesta mid trip is definitely in order.

The highlight by far was Ta Prohm which has been left in large parts as found with the jungle still consuming it. It was quite peacefull and ethereal with intricate passages leading to spooky ruined courtyards. Wandering through dark passages we stumbled on buddah statues wrapped in saffron robes, and were suprised by the occasioinal Buddist nun tucked into an alcove making offerings and blessing us.

Angkor Thom had some very pleasant elements but was over-run with tourists generally. The most interesting part for us was when we escaped from the masses and explored some smaller temples nestled in the jungle to the east of the main attractions – we had the whole place to ourselves and had a relaxed stroll through the area.

Sick of paying tourist prices for food we delved into the slightly dubious world of Khmer Street food this evening. Customer service is definitely not a forte (along with hygine one suspects) but the food was reasonably tasty and at less than a dollar a dish it is difficult to complain. I’ll keep you updated on whether our experiement is a success in further installments 😉

Tommorrow we are planning a visit to Banteay Srei which is a bit of a trip north of the main complex before we tackle the ”outer circle” on Saturday – possibly by bike rather than tuk-tuk if we can summon the motivation.

…and to think that we left Brisbane because of the heat!!!

After enduring 36° in KL yesterday we have sweltered through something similar today in Siem Reap. Have found a quaint little guesthouse in the old part of town. After a cold shower (which made no difference to my temperature) and with a couple of ice cold Angkor beers under our belt we ventured out to to the famed Wat for sunset.

For once I wasn’t disappointed with a hyped up tourist attraction. It is truly an awe inspiring place. There is a definite power which comes from a combination of the appearance of the stone, the setting, and the sense of scale and balance in the design.

We have a three day pass for the area and a tuk-tuk driver lined up so will be exploring the rest of the Angkor complex as well as revisiting Angkor Wat provided we can get up early enough to beat the heat.