Feb 2006

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City - Saigon to the people in Southern Vietnam.

After a few days of busy touring to get to Saigon, we really had no itinerary once we arrived and we were happy about that. As you might suspect, Saigon is a very bustling city, with more motorbikes than you can count. We arrived into Vietnam at the end of the Tet holidays (New Year's), so it was actually a lot quieter the first two days, but on Monday, the motorbikes were out in full force!

The street where we stayed.

The first night we found a vegetarian restaurant that was calling Amber's name. She was able to get all the local favorites, meat free! "Seafood" pots, "fish" cooked in clay pot, fried "shrimp", etc. I tried them all and still feel the real thing is better tasting, but I have to say, they do a pretty good job imitating.

Fish head and all!

After tempting our anti-carnivore taste buds, we walked around the city and managed to find a few places to poke our heads into.

Justin LOOSING at Big 2!

Justin wishing he was as cool as Axl in the GN'R bar.

Amber is showing off her 1 MILLION DONG!

The first full day in Saigon we went on our own "walking" tour of the city, complete with the hiring of a cyclo, Vietnam's version of a tuk-tuk, human-powered, with seating for 1.5 people.

The Vietnamese Flag in flowers.

The Communist Party Flag.

A bowl of Pho, a famous Vietnamese dish. This was eaten at Pho 2000, made famous because President Clinton ate here in 2000 when he visited.

The traffic going by.

The endless stream of motorbikes.

The Municipal Theater.

The following day we headed out to the Cu Chi Tunnels, part of the Viet Cong's tunnel network constructed to combat the southern Vietnam and American alliance stronghold around Saigon. This highly visited tourist site was actually really interesting and impressive. The introductory video was not very kind to us Americans ("evil-doers"), but you have to realize that this is a government-run attraction in a "communist" country. The ingenuity and adaptability of the people who lived in these tiny tunnels for weeks and months was amazing. We got an opportunity to try out a 100-meter (~350 feet) section of the 240 km narrow tunnel network, including going to the second level which is about 20 feet below ground.

Snake Wine - we bought you all these for gifts!

We also visited the War Remnant's Museum (formerly called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes), again a gov't-run institution. It mainly contained photographs of many atrocities committed by the Southern Alliance (i.e. America) during the Vietnam War, or American War as it is known here. Despite the one-sidedness of the photographs displayed, it was a very chilling and horrific view of what happens during wartimes (and is surely happening somewhere as we type this).

One of the highlights of the day was our guide, Cao. Cao served in the southern Vietnam army during the end of the "American War", after which he was sent to a Re-Education camp for two years by the north. It wasn't until 1990 that he was legally allowed back into Saigon, although he had been living there illegally for many years.

We also had the opportunity to hang out some more with our Canadian and Dutch friends, including spending our last night together having a few drinks at a Bia Hoi establishment. "Bia Hoi" literally means "fresh beer", Vietnam's very own microbrew. Basically, they are set up wherever there is room, and this one spilled out into the streets every night. I guess that's because for a 1.5-liter jug, you pay 8,000 dong (or 50 cents!).

Nathalie & Steve

Jeroen & Jos

As much as we would have liked to stay in Cambodia and seen more of the country, we had to make our way to Vietnam if we wanted to see the sites up the coast.

We decided to take the less traveled route to Vietnam and hopped on a 3-day tour down the Mekong River, through the Mekong Delta, all the way to Saigon. It was very nice to not worry about the next place to stay, the next stop, the next bus, etc. for a change. We managed to be "paired" up with a couple of French Canadians and a couple of Dutch guys. We left Phnom Penh in the morning and headed down the Mekong for about 5 hours, through the Cambodia/Vietnam border, and to the town of Chao Doc.

Our "deluxe" yacht in Cambodia - just like the brochure!

This border crossing was a little less hectic than coming into Cambodia!

The trip along the river was very scenic, passing many farms (mainly rice paddies), men tending to their water buffalo (look like oxens) and small villages. Every village greeted us with smiling children jumping up and down along the riverbank screaming "HELLO!"

All the houses are hooked up with TVs, as you can see by the number of antennas.

The Mekong sustains an incredible amount of life, from fishing farms to vegetable farms to rice fields to live stock. The Mekong Delta region produces 70% of Vietnam's rice, plus all the rice that they export. This all surprised us greatly considering that the river is the place where everyone washes themselves, their clothes, pets, dishes, whatever; where all waste (trash, human, etc.) is disposed of and the list could go on and on. But, I'm sure that is how things were done (and maybe still done) not so long ago in the "first worlds" of the world.

We stayed our first night in a guesthouse just outside of Chao Doc at the base of the Sam Mountain (all of 230 meters high). We hiked up to the top of Sam Mountain/big hill for sunset where we could see Cambodia to the west and the Mekong to the southeast.

The next day we went by bus to Can Tho where Amber and I went to a home stay for the evening. We were picked up from the town and taken by motor scooters to the home of the family we were to stay the night with (I (Justin) just happened to see (and be involved in) my first scooter accident, just minor rear ending, I survived unscaved!)

Safe and sound at the home of a family of 8, we had lunch and enjoyed a little nap in the hammocks under the banana trees. In the afternoon, we took a walk through the village with Niem where we met his grandparents, who in perfect grandparent-style, fed us fresh food from their garden. Niem fired many "how do I say in English?” questions to us while telling us about the different farms in the area.

This is called a monkey bridge - I think you can see why.

That night we had dinner and homemade rice whiskey with the family. We ate dried fish (well I did), steamed banana flowers (we didn't even know those were edible), rice, and veggies w/tofu. One shot glass was passed around while two people would share each shot, half & half. Despite our attempts to claim our "last shot", it wasn't until the bottle was empty that we were done. Luckily, rice whiskey is not very strong (unluckily, it's not very good).

Our Vietnamese breakfast - noodle soup and tea.

The last day we visited a floating river market, saw how rice noodles were made, and then made our way to Saigon.

Rice Noodles drying.

We look just like the locals!

After 4 nights in Siem Reap, we headed to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, which is much smaller than you would expect a capital to be. Another nail-biting, white-knuckle bus ride kept us on the edge of our seats for the 6-hour journey. No rules, no one else deserves to be on the road but us, and no looking back - just amazing!

This was our route.

We found ourselves at a little riverfront guesthouse with air-con, hot water and cable TV (all the luxuries for only $10/night). We did not have any itinerary planned while in Phnom Penh, just relaxing and seeing the city a bit. We managed to stumble upon the Foreign Correspondence Club (FCC) the first evening where we sipped some drinks, watched the sunset, and pretended to be journalists. The prices were decent since it was happy hour, and the views from the balcony onto the streets below were great!

The national museum of Cambodia at sunset.

The first day we simply walked around the City and let the sites come to us. We stumbled upon a bustling street market that kept us entertained (and disgusted) for a while. Brilliant fruit and vegetables abound, people everywhere, and some not so pretty sites (especially for the vegetarians in the crowd). Scooters, people, vendors and the occasional stray dog filled every inch of this street.

The following day we hired a tuk-tuk to take us about 15 km out of town to the "Killing Fields" of Choeung Ek. This was just one of thousands of horrific sights in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge practiced genocide from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge soldiers killed 1.7 million Cambodians, or 21 percent of the population, in an effort to return the country back to "year zero" (a completely agrarian society) by exterminating or "re-educating" the intellects and those against the regime. It's hard to imagine that such atrocities happened just a couple of decades ago and they are surely happening elsewhere now. We were also surprised how little we knew about it before coming here (almost nothing).

The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek contain approximately 8,000 human skulls in a glass shrine that were excavated from this location. As you walked around the grounds there were many human bones and tattered clothing that were partially exposed, which was equally hard to stomach.

After the Killing Fields, we headed to the S-21 prison memorial site in Phnom Penh where 17,000 people were detained, interrogated, and tortured from 1975 to 1979. This former high school was taken over by the Khmer Rouge as a prison. In the prison cellblocks, there were haunting photos of the former prisoners; young, old, men, & women. If you could read or write, or even wore glasses, you were a target of the Khmer Rouge. Only about 15 people who were detained in this prison survived.

We spent a lot of time just walking around and exploring the city, as there are not too many "tourist" attractions. Here are a few photos:

One of the local kids you see around town. Some are clothed, some partially, some not at all. His family was nearby enjoying the park.

In Cambodia, gambling is a national pastime. Almost every alley you look down has a group gathered around a deck of cards. At night, they play by candlelight on the street.

A comfortable place to nap?

Two different worlds - girls walking down the street with buckets on their heads next to a Mercedes.

After a 6-hour bus ride from Bangkok, we arrived at the lovely Cambodian border town Poipet. I (Justin) overpaid our visa fee, which zipped us through the border in about 1 hour, instead of 2-3 hours (basically sweetening the coffee of the border patrol, you gotta love corruption!). We had heard that the town of Poipet was about the worst place in all of Cambodia, and it definitely lived up to it’s reputation.

The chaotic border crossing. Adding to the confusion, the two countries drive on different sides of the road!

From there we had two options to get to Siem Reap, a 5 hour bus ride or a 3 hour cab ride on the infamous “nightmare road”. The bus ride was $10 pp, and the taxi was $40 for the whole car. We asked everyone around the border we could find until we managed to locate a Finnish couple who had the same timesaving idea that we had. So we were off! We think the taxi drivers either have an ongoing bet who can make the best time, or who can make the most people in the car pee their pants, because this guy flew. While speeds of 55 mph may not seem like that fast, you have to realize what this road is like. I had to remove my sunglasses as they kept on falling off and my head literally hit the ceiling many times. In addition to the road conditions, there are no real traffic lanes, nor considerations of imaginary traffic lanes in Cambodia. We were all over that road, into oncoming traffic, swerving around animals, people, whatever. It was like we were in the Baja 5000 in a Toyota Camry; I can't believe that car made the trip. After a 12-hour day of travel, we kissed the solid ground in Siem Reap and made our way to a guesthouse.

The next day we headed off to explore the ancient ruins of the Khmer Empire. The Khmer Empire established it’s capital in the area of what is now Siem Reap in the early 9th Century. The empire at its greatest extended over the valleys of the lower present-day Thailand and the lower present-day Cambodia and Vietnam and north into Laos. The capital city was centered around the massive Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious structure. When Europe was in the Dark Ages and London only had 50,000 residents, Angkor has 3 million inhabitants and the ability to build some of the greatest temples ever built.

Angkor Wat

Justin at the top of Angkor Wat.

The view above the trees.

They built glorious temples throughout the city, all with extensive carvings. The temples were all made of stone and were built to house the Gods. The empire thrived for hundreds of years until the Thais captured Angkor and the capital was abandoned in the 1400’s. The only surviving structures today are made of stone, as the wooded ones were either burned or taken back by the jungle.

The size and ornateness of the temples is quite mind boggling, I hope these pictures do it justice, a few of them have a good looking model or two in them for perspective.

Banyon

There are over 200 of these large faces on this temple, pointing in the 4 directions of the compass.

Ta Prohm

This temple has been taken over by the jungle and the massive banyan roots.

Preah Khan

Justin showing some novice monks a few pictures from home.

We toured the temples for two days with a guide that took us around in a tuk-tuk. The third day we rented bikes from town and saw the sites on our own.

The town of Siem Reap was very nice with lots of restaurants and nightlife to keep the tourists happy. We were overwhelmed at times by the constant begging and the onslaught of people selling the same thing over and over again. It was very heart wrenching to have a 5-year-old carrying a 6-month-old follow you saying, “poor, milk, help”. We at times would buy a carton of milk for the child, but once that happened the kids came out of everywhere after you, which made us feel that we were not greatly impacting the child’s life by this small offering. We decided that money was not the best thing, because it would probably just go to the parents sitting around the corner, so we mainly have given food, which the kids usually eat on the spot. Hey, we can’t all be like Angelina Jolie, who by the way has a drink named after her at one of the places in town. We have had many discussions between us and other travelers about the children and the overall poverty situation in Cambodia and we have not found a solution (big surprise), but maybe the fact that we are openly discussing this between us, other travelers, and now you is a step in the right direction to finding a way to help.

Overwhelmed by bracelet sellers.

To follow are just a few other photos of some of the things we have seen here in Cambodia. You’ll notice several pictures dealing with various methods of transportation by the locals, which still amaze us.

They will ride for hours on the top of trucks and vans like this. This was a mild case, we saw many much more loaded.

Supposedly, this is not a frog or a toad. Not sure what it is, but it's cute!

We accept the photo assignment given by Coomey (iwannafly), and will be keeping our eyes open.