Kiara's South East Asian adventures

The end is nigh . . .

2006-06-24T16:21:00.000+01:00

I was awoken rather abruptly by powerful rumbles of thunder at around 5:30am this morning, and I have never been so scared by a thunderstorm in my entire life. There was a flash, which lit up the inside of my bungalow like a powerful neon light, and the loudest crash of thunder that I have ever heard. I cannot even begin to describe what it sounded like but it scared the s**t out of me! In fact, envisage the worst earthquake you could ever imagine - the ground was breaking in two and buildings were collapsing - and you're getting somewhere close.

Fortunately the worst of the storm was over by the time I had to leave to catch the ferry back to Ban Phe. In fact, by the time I was on the ferry you wouldn't have known there'd just been a terrible storm, the sun was shining so brightly that I was in danger of getting a bad case of sunburn on my arms as I hung over the side of the boat breathing in the sea air. At Ban Phe 10 of us squeezed into a mini bus, our bags at our feet and our knees subsequently level with our elbows. The journey took approximately 4 hours, and the moment we pulled into Khao San Road, the skies opened again. Even making the 5 minute walk back to the Wild Orchid Guesthouse would have involved me getting so wet I may as well have gone for a swim in the river, so instead I ran to the nearest internet cafe, updated my blog and emailed Todd (he's apparently back in Bangkok applying for various chef positions at some of the city's top hotels).

By around 8pm this evening I still hadn't heard back from Todd, so I headed out for some food and one of my favourite mango and passion fruit shakes from the vendor just in front of the 7-11 on Soi Rambuttri. I subsequently sat down at one of Khao San Road's many cafes and ordered a beer Chang, and it really started to dawn on me that I am actually going home tomorrow. It's a concept that's always seemed far too distant for me to dwell upon that seriously, and it's not one that I'm looking forward to. I have a feeling that it will take me longer to adjust to being at home than it did for me to adjust to being out here nearly 6 months ago. Of course I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and family but I'd sooner them being flying out here to visit me. I love Asia : aside from having to barter the price of the majority of your purchases (right down to a bottle of water in Vietnam) and having to deal with people (not everyone by any means, and it's only a serious issue in Vietnam) trying to rip you off or constantly trying to sell you their wares, I love the culture, the people and the pace of life over here. I love the food, I love the climate (although not the fact that you're sweating most of the time as a result!) and I love the sights and the sounds and the smells that constantly surround you.

I can honestly say that I haven't missed any of my 'creature comforts' as it were from back home, but one aspect of home that I have been craving is being able to go to the gym. I know it sounds crazy but a trek every now and then does not keep you fit (which I've realised having puffed and panted my way through several of them!) and I've lost all my muscle tone. So, one of the first activities I shall be persuing as soon as I get back to Shrewsbury is a dam good run (if I can manage it!) and some work on my muscles (namely my triceps, biceps and my abs). Tony, I may have to enlist your help as my personal trainer to get me back into it all! Aside from that, occasional longings for marmite and cheese have entered my head, and I shall certainly look forward to not having to sleep under a mosquito net every night and not being covered in bites all the time.

This is probably the last time I shall visit an internet cafe over here (aside from checking my mail around lunchtime to check whether Todd has got back to me and wants to meet for lunch) so I shall update the rest of todays journal when I return home on monday. Looking forward to seeing you all and boring you with endless tales of my Asian adventures . . .

Here comes the sun! . . . and several playful puppies!

2006-06-22T13:33:00.000+01:00

Before hitting the beach in the morning, I collected my laundry from the washerwoman who lives down a little alley next to the 7-11, only to discover that she'd managed to lose one of my bras as well as the bottom half of my pyjamas! I'll add those items to the long list which currently includes my toothbrush, my alarm clock, my watch (well, actually that broke but at the end of the day I no longer have it!), several pairs of underwear, a memory card, and my mobile phone! I guess losing a few items is inevitable bearing in mind that when you're travelling you're packing and unpacking and moving on every few days.

We had another beautiful sunny day on Ko Samet. I finished reading 'Smoking Poppy', fell asleep on several occasions and got woken up by a couple of playful puppies running across my stomach - on several occasions! I don't know what it is with me and dogs lately but first of all I looked around the beach and noticed that, of the many dogs that had fallen asleep on the sand, most of them had decided to do so within a metre radius of where I was lying. Secondly, out of all the people on the beach, a couple of mishchievous little puppies decided to have a playfight on my sarong with me lying in between them. They kept running across my stomach, trying to bite each other and biting my leg or stomach instead, rolling their wet sandy bodies all over my sarong, licking my face, and trying to run of with my flip flops and my shorts. One of the little buggers did actually run off with my shorts, so that i was there tryng to wrench my shorts from the jaws of this puppy in the middle of a beach full of people who were finding this the most hilarious thing they've seen in months! The trouble was, the little puppy thought it was all just a game too, and subsequently fought even harder against me and my shorts. I finally threw down the gauntlet and added my shorts too the ever increasing lost property list at the beginning of this entry.

This evening I watched "Ray" (I saw the film about 18 months ago at the cinema but it's a first class film so I didn't need any persuasion to watch it for a second time) and then joined Danny, Jesicca, Paul and a collection of other people whose names I can't remember, at Naga Bar. There was a different D.J on the decks there, who was playing a much better set and mixing the tunes a lot better than the other guy too (lots of the prodigy, which met with my approval). I also had the chance to make up for the appalling pool game I didn't play the other night : I won the first game with tall guy (well, that's what I shall call him as I didn't catch his name due to the loudness of the music) and then only lost the second one on the black ball. Due to not really chatting to anyone in particular and just mingling amongst the crowds (most of whom I recognised from Naga) I drank my way through several large beer Changs and was subsequently bouncing around on the dance floor at the end of the evening! (which was actually around 3am!)

The following morning the sun was already shining with all it's strength by 10am, so that when the cloud had properly lifted it was so hot I had to go for a swim every half an hour. I sat up in Tok's Little Bar at lunchtime, and was soon accompanied by a Thai guy who calls himself FBI. I've seen him walking along the beach several times, a few of which he's tried to talk me into having one of the henna tattoos he sells. So, I made polite conversation with him. He was moaning about how quiet it was on the beach now that it's low season and that no-one wants a tattoo. Assuming he makes little money from selling tattoos in the rainy season, I asked him if he has an alternative job. He subsequently started to look shifty, lowered his voice, and told me he sells marajuana. He then proceeded to open his shoulder bag, produce a large bag of the green stuff and asked me if I'd like to buy some for a "special price". I have now been offered weed in all four countries I've visited over the past 6 months : from members of the hilltribes in Laos, tuk tuk/moto drivers, guesthouses and restaurants (basically pretty much everyone!) in Cambodia, book sellers and market stall owners in Vietnam, and henna tattooists in Thailand!

Later on that day, he approached me to ask if I wanted to watch the sunset with him; he'd take me to a beach around the other side of the island on his motorbike. Maybe his intentions were perfectly innocent but I wasn't about to jump on the back of a motorbike with a complete stranger, so I told him I was still feeling hungover and just wanted to spend a lazy day on the beach (which wasn't entirely untrue). The misheivous puppies also made an appearance again, but fortunately didn't try to steal any more items of my clothing or take chunks out my flesh. They just covered me and my sarong in sand and when i'd shaken my sarong down and dusted myself clean, they came back to do it all over again. Don't you just love 'em?

Photo to follow.

Island hopping to Ko Samet

2006-06-20T09:36:00.000+01:00

I caught the 9:30am songthaew over to the port as instructed but when I arrived on the mainland I still waited around for over an hour for the bus to arrive, whilst watching the rain pounding down on the pavement outside and drinking the largest banana shake I've ever been served. It appeared that I was the only person on the bus who was not heading straight to Bangkok and I was subsequently a little worried that the driver may completely bypass Rayong (the jumping off point for Ko Samet), so when we made a refreshments stop after about an hour I showed my ticket to the driver and asked him to confirm that we would be making a stop for Ko Samet and what sort of time we would be stopping. As is often the case when Asian people don't have a clue what you're talking about, he simply nodded his head and smiled. So, not feeling at all confident that he could even read the destination on my ticket, I kept my eye on the road for the duration of the journey to ensure that we remained on the correct road. As I suspected, we didn't. Instead of taking the road to Bangkok which runs through Rayong, the driver took the direct route to Bangkok. As soon as I realised I rushed downstairs and showed the driver my ticket. He acted as if nothing was wrong, yet a kilometre down the road we came to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere, and I was offloaded on to a mini bus which subsequently headed in - guess what - the direction we had just come from!

I was driven to Ban Phe, where I caught a small motorboat across to the island. The lady at the port tried to fleece me for a further 100THB for the boat fare, until pointed out that I had already paid all the way to Ko Samet, as it stated on my ticket. I shared the motorboat with several bags full of longans and rambutans, a collection of Thai school children (who had presumably finished classes for the day as it was approaching 4pm), and a Thai mother whose little girl spent the entire journey doing cartoon superhero poses, which resulted in me desperately trying to hold back a fit of the giggles. We arrived on Ko Samet at around 5pm, and as I was the only farang on the boat the taxi driver wanted to charge me 200THB to take me to Ao Hin Kok beach. I decided to walk and I was glad that I did when I discovered that Ao Hin Kok was only around 1.5/2km from where the boat had dropped me off. All the accommodation on Ao Hin Kok is squeezed along a dirt track which runs parallel to the beach and stretches for around 100m. As my choice was therefore rather limited, I chose the cheapest option which was a bungalow at Naga Bungalows with shared bathroom for 200THB. The room is indeed more pleasant that the one at Fisherman Hill but is even more of a mosquito trap - I got bitten about 5 or 6 times simply by walking to the shower. Bearing in mind that getting to the shower involves walking through what can only be described as a jungle of dense vegetation then I wasn't hugely surprised!

I would truly love to find out the real reason why mosquitoes find some people tastier than others. I've heard many theories : that they're attracted to you if you eat cheese, that they're attracted to you if you eat sweet foods, that they're attracted by the surface temperature of your skin, and that they're attracted to slimmer people. All of these I know are myths because firstly cheese is unavailable in Asia (unless you count the laughing cow processed variety), secondly I don't eat sweet foods (apart from fruit), thirdly everyone has a high surface body temperature out here as it's over 30 degrees most of the time (even when it's raining), and lastly Siobhian and I are exactly the same size and she didn't get bitten once. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes can and do bite you through your clothing. How else do you explain the collection of bites on my bum?

In the 'jungle' surrounding the bungalows at Naga there are more of the creatures we encountered on Ko Chang who sound like demented cows. They never seem to shut up and although the noise doesn't scare me anymore I'd love to know what kind of creature it is that's making it!

At Naga they show a couple of films every evening in the common room/restaurant so I spent my first night on the island watching "21 Grams" and "Oceans Twelve" and then retired to bed, serenaded by the demented cows and the music from the Naga Bar across the road. The folowing day I found the library at my guesthouse, rented "Smoking Poppy" by Graham Joyce and spent the day reading it whilst lying on the beach under a very cloudy sky. I comforted myself with the thought that at least it wasn't raining. However, later on in the evening it did. I sat in Naga listening to the persistent rain outside and watching "Keeping Mum" and "Cinderella Man". I got chatting to Danny, one of the long term residents at Naga. He's been travelling for almost a year and Thailand is only his second destination. He spent several months in New Zealand and didn't make it further than Rotarua and I'm pretty sure he hasn't seen any of Thailand beyond Bangkok and Ko Samet! Nevertheless, he was an easy going guy, and equally easy to talk to. I joined him at the Naga Bar once the second film had finished and challenged him to a game of pool. It wasn't until we were half the way through the game and I hadn't had a turn at the table that he decided to tell me that he used to play semi-professional.

The heavy rain would have kept me awake half the night had I not drank several bottles of beer Chang, which was enough to send me to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The following morning, the weather made a bit of a turn around. It started off cloudy but you could still see the sunshine trying to break through the clouds, and by around midday it had. So I relaxed on the beach and got most of the way through "Smoking Poppy". Despite the obvious topic inferred by the title - it tells the story of a father who learns that his daughter has been arrested in Chiang Mai on drugs smuggling charges - it's a novel about much more than drugs. It's a surprisingly moving story which tracks the journey of discovery between a father and his daughter, and explores the concepts of love, redemption, and letting go.

I left the beach sporting a little red rudolph nose and suffering from a persistent sun-induced headache. As a result I spent another lazy evening at the Naga watching their latest selection of films : "40 Year Old Virgin" (which is not the type of film I'd usually watch but I found myself chuckling throughout) and "Crash" (not to be confused with the original film of the same title where people get off on watching car crashes!).

Photo is of statues of the prince and the mermaid (from Sunthorn Phu's epic set on Ko Samet) at the southern end of Hat Sai Kaew beach

Rain, a canine companion, and more rain!

2006-06-17T05:30:00.000+01:00

After Siobhian left I've been unable to do a lot here due to the unpredictable weather. Or perhaps that should be predictable : you know it's going to rain every day for sure, you're just not sure how much and for how long. I contemplated booking a boat tour of four of the surrounding islands, but I wasn't prepared to pay the price the agents were asking merely on the off-chance that the sun may make an unexpected appearance.
Instead I've been spending my time reading, either on the beach when it's not raining (as there are too many mosquitoes fighting for a taste of my blood up at Fisherman Hill) or in one of the nearby cafes. I've eaten at The Food Centre every day, so much so that they know what I like to drink and can hazard a pretty good guess at what I want to eat as well (it tends to be either green curry with seafood, fish cakes, or rice noodles with vegetables and seafood). I've also made a true friend in the resident dog at Fisherman Hill. I'm normally more of a cat lover but this fellow is making a pretty good job of changing my mind. He's a beautiful, healthy looking animal : his fur is the rich colour of marmalade; and of the flesh of an overripe persimmon. The darker patches on his body give the impression of the sun casting shadows upon his fur. As much as I love cats, dogs are much more loyal animals, whereas cats will appreciate anyone who feeds them, pets them and showers them with affection.
Whenever I return to Fisherman Hill, 'Marlam' (as i've decided to call him, variation on the word marmalade) always leaps up (from wherever his resting place may have been) to greet me (which consists of sniffing around my legs and licking my hands as I stroke him, or giving me both of his paws, looking me straight in the eyes and panting excitedly), follows me back to my bungalow and waits on the veranda until I've closed my door and am safely inside. If I've returned late at night, he'll often sit outside on the veranda until I fall asleep. I know this because I can see him through the cracks in the wood and I often hear him barking (at passing dogs) or shuffling around. He's got the cutest brown eyes and when he looks up at you the fur above his eyes wrinkles, creating such a sincere expression of concern and affection. I've watched other guests return and have never once witnessed him do the same for them. Even Siobhian said that he would only greet her when she was accommpanied by me. I never realised I had such a way with animals! It's almost like he's my little guardian angel, bless him.
I've been back to Oodie's Bar every night as well, firstly because they show a film every night at 7:30, and it's a great way to kill a couple of hours when you're on your own, and secondly because I love live music, especially when you've got some great tunes being played and some real characters playing them. Oodie (who plays lead guitar and sings lead vocals) looks like a a big (in comparison to the other guys) teddy bear that you wanna wrap your arms around, and he plays guitar with immense style and flair and incredible talent. He's played with the likes of Carabao, Caravan and Zo Zo, some of Thailand's biggest rock acts, and he's also been in several bands of his own. The drummer, Tien (who also plays guitar, bass and provides vocals) looks like a Samuri warrior with a wicked glint in his eye, and his smile is full of mischief and charm. Mai is the good old reliable bassist. This guy takes his music seriously : for the most part his expression and posture remain unchanged but every now and then you'll catch a spark of recklessness from him. I'm not sure they'll be together as a band for much longer, as Tien was filling in for the original drummer who's taken a 3 month honeymoon (it's alright for some!) and Mai is leaving shortly to get married himself. However, for the time being, they make an excellent trio.
I also got propositioned by the Thai barman at Oodie's. He kept asking me to stay on late at the bar and then offered to walk me home. I politely declined, being under the - more than likely accurate - impression that walking me home was not all that he had in mind!
Becoming increasingly disheartened with the weather and having spent several days frequenting the same hangouts and seeing the same faces, I was beginning to feel a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Consequently I booked a ticket up to Ko Samet, which leaves tomorrow (300THB, takes pretty much the whole day to get there). Although I'm not expecting that the weather will be much better up there, I could do with a change of scenery regardless.
Photos
Marlam, the resident dog at Fisherman Hill, Ko Chang
2nd photo to follow

A scary first time motorbike experience

2006-06-14T04:39:00.000+01:00

This morning we paid our 130THB and exchanged our passports for the keys to a couple of 125CC Honda Wave automatic motorcycles. It all seemed pretty straightforward : turn the ignition on, hold the break whilst starting the engine, twist the throttle up to start and use that to control your speed (up to go faster and down to slow down) and use the brakes when necessary. There were also indicators and lights and a horn to use when encountering fluttering chickens and dumb dogs who lie in the middle of the road. Starting the engine wasn't a problem but when I began to move the bike, I must have been a bit to heavy on the throttle, and coupled with the fact that I still wasn't used to the whole idea of balance (they're a lot heavier than I'd expected), I ended up nearly crashing in to a truck parked at the side of the road! Unfortunately for her, Siobian did crash into the same truck I narrowly missed, fell off the bike and caused a scratch to the paintwork at the front, which she later discovered would cost her a massive 570THB!

Shaken by her experience and worried about any further damage she may do to the bike or herself, she gave the keys back to the lady, deciding that perhaps motorbike driving was not one of her fortes. This left me in a bit of a predicament : taking the motorbike out on my own would have been very little fun for me or her. So I drove the vehicle up and down the road a few times until I was reasonably comfortable with the balance and the amount of pressure I should put on the throttle when starting the motorcycle and then made a proposal : If Siobhian wanted to ride on the back of my bike then I promised I'd drive cafefully and not take any unecessary risks. She agreed, and so it was that not only was it the first time I had really driven a car in around 10 years, it was also the first time I had ever driven a motorcycle and I was in responsible for another person's safety on the back of it!

Don't worry, everything turned out ok but I can't say it was a trouble free experience. The first test I encountered was when I got to the end of the drag that runs alongside White Sands Beach, the road began to weave its way up into the mountains, so that I had to navigate steep gradients and sharp curves. Fortunately there was very little traffic but I was still petrified to go any faster than 20kph! The road flattened out once we'd got around the northern part of the island and past the ferry port, so I was able to relax a little. However I was still unable to appreciate the scenery as my eyes were completely focussed on the road in front, the oncoming traffic, and any sign of movement or obstacles at the side of the road (children, dogs, chickens, fallen trees, large rocks). After a while actually driving the motorcycle wasn't too much of a problem and I got the vehicle up to 70 or 80kph on the straights, but I was still having a little trouble turning corners : I didn't want to tip the vehicle too much through fear it may topple over which resulted in - on ocassions - driving in the middle of the road.

We drove all the way down the east coast with the plan to stop at the southernmost point, Long Beach. However as we approached Long Beach the sky clouded over so we decided to continue around the island with a view to stop at another beach instead when the weather improved. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, the road did not run all the way around the island, so after following what can only be described as an 'abandoned road' to it's end, we had to turn around and head back again. We planned instead to take the turning off to Ban Kwan Chang and the nearby Nang Yom waterfall which was just before the beginning of the precarious mountain roads back in the north of the island. Not long after this turning, another test presented itself : the road began to get very uneven and rocky and then muddy, until I was driving over a layer of mud on top of a dirt track. The motorbike was sliding all over the place and instead of risk losing control of it and us both ending up in the mud, we deposited the bike at one of the local's houses and walked the rest of the way.

When we arrived at the entrance to Ban Kwan Chang, two of the locals were just taking a couple of the elephants out for a walk, riding bare back and steering the animals by pushing their foot against the back of their left or right ear, depending on which direction they wanted them to move in. We followed the elephants half the way to the waterfall, watching them tug at the vegetation lining the sides of the dirt track and separate the leaves from the mound of earth they'd also managed to bring with them! Further down the track we saw numerous grapefruits (or what we thought to be grapefruits : they were about the same size, the skin was green in colour and the fruits hung fairly low in the trees as many citrus fruits do) growing on the trees, as well as rambutans, papaya and durian. There was a group of locals with their pick up truck collecting durian from the trees. They'd piled up quite a collection in the back of the vehicle. When we arrived at the top of Nang Yom Waterfall, there was a little house perched at the side of the falls and who should we see sharing drinks outside in the garden? Only Oodie and his two Thai band members! We'd been to Oodie's Bar every night since we discovered it, so I swear they'll think we're stalking them!

On our walk back, we paid a brief visit to Ban Kwan Chang (Chang is Thai for elephant) to stroke and feed the elephants, before retreiving the bike and continuing on our way back to White Sands. The final obstacle (and probably the worst one of all) happened when I was climbing the hill at the start of the precarious mountain bends. I spotted a huge cement mixer ahead of me and not wanting to overtake when there was a blind corner approaching, I slowed right down. My plan was to stay behind the vehicle until there was an appropriate stretch upon which I could overtake. It got the the point when I couldn't really drive much slower and I'd just spotted an appropriate overtaking point. So I was about to pull out when a large landrover came speeding down the hill on the opposite side of the road. I couldn't then overtake and I couldn't physically drive any slower so my only option was to stop. I had stopped half the way up a very steep hill, so attempting a hill start with or without Siobhian on the back was not an option I was about to entertain. I subsequently took the only option remaining : waited for a break in the traffic, manually did a u-turn with the bike, pushed it down the hill, and then started the engine again at the bottom of the hill, got back on the bike with Siobhian and started the whole hill climb again from the beginning! Anyone watching would i'm sure think this was the funniest spectacle they'd seen in weeks and would probably be muttering to themselves, "stupid farang!"

We spent the evening at Oodie's again. I don't know whether it was the effect of the horror film we'd seen earlier on that night or too many beer Chang, but when we walked home past the 100m stretch of undeveloped jungle we heard the strangest noise coming from the depths of the undergrowth : as well as the usual noises from the crickets and frogs, this one sounded like a demented cow! We both looked at each other as if to say, "what the hell is that?" and then ran the rest of the way back to our bungalows!

Photos
Me in very fetching helmet on the Honda motorcycle I drove around the island, Ko Chang

The 2 elephants that we followed up to Nang Yom Waterfall, Ban Kwan Chang, Ko Chang

Waterfalls and swimming pools

2006-06-13T07:45:00.000+01:00

The following morning Miss 'I never stay in bed that late when I've been drinking the night before' Delany managed to sleep until 1pm! I'd taken full advantage of the free coffee at our guesthouse and consumed about 3 mugs of it, together with a large bottle of water, in an attempt to aid my dehydration. I then ate breakfast at The Food Centre (the cheap restaurant we'd found the night before) and headed down to the beach. It was a gorgeous day and the sun was shining in full force, and I thought this was a sign of what sort of weather I could expect over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, it was not to be . . .

Having sped through my reading of "Saving Fish From Drowning", I exchanged it for the infamous "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden, and began to learn about the life of young Chiyo Sakamoto, as she was taken from her home in Yorido, Japan, and sold into the life of a geisha girl in Kyoto, whilst I waited for Siobhian to join me. We spent the afternoon sunbathing, reading, chatting and swimming down on White Sands beach. Unfortunately it's not a particularly attractive beach : yes, the sand is white(ish) but due to the fact that the entire beach is covered with water during high tide, the sand is not fine and fluffy and soft but hard and uncomfortable to lie on.

In the evening we stumbled upon Oodies Bar, a live music venue and bar where the owner Oodie, his two Thai employees/friends, and whoever they invite to join them play a mix of rock and blues nightly from around 10pm. One member of the band, who they affectionately call 'Mr T' (even though he in no way resembles the big black dude from The A-Team) is enormously talented : he sings, plays guitar, bass and drums, and switches effortlessly between each of them. He also always seems to be (by some degree) intoxicated, and still remains incredibly focussed, and plays each note with complete accuracy.

The next day the weather turned. It had been raining heavily throughout the night (the exaggerated sounds of the rain drops upon the corrugated iron rooves of our bungalows had kept Siobhian and I awake) and it remained cloudy for the majority of the day. We attempted to find somewhere to treat ourselves to a massage but even with a 50% discount, the cheapest massage on offer was still 350THB. Considering that I'd got a Thai massage at a certified massage parlour in Chiang Mai for 150THB, neither of us were desperate enough for a massage to be willing to pay more than double that figure. So we spent most of the day reading on our bungalow verandas, making friends with the resident dog and waiting for the cloud to clear. It didn't.

We also enquired about the opportunity to do some elephant bathing at Ban Kwan Chang. An hour long trek would have cost a massive 500THB, and as I'd already done some elephant trekking up in Mae Sariang with James and Siobian would have the chance to do some a lot cheaper in Chaing Mai in the next couple of weeks, we'd already ruled that option off our agenda. The strange man in the travel agent told us that we were unable to partake in elephant bathing due to it now being the wet season. In hindsight, what he probably meant was that this particular activity was not available in low season but he left us completely confused as to why the increase in water (which is surely condusive to bathing) would be the reason as to why we were unable partake in the pursuit.

The following day, we decided to visit Ko Chang's National Park. We hailed a songthaew for 50THB to take us to Klong Plu Waterfall, which was the main attraction within the national park. We didn't realise that it was also the only attraction, for there were no marked walks through the park, no guides available to hire, and nothing indicated on the map aside from the waterfall itself. Being unaware of this at the time, we paid our 200THB entrance fee and set about spending a good few hours at the park. As soon as we entered the park the heavens opened, making the 500m climb up to the waterfall a rather wet and muddy experience. When we reached the top, there was quite a bit of water flowing powerfully down to the base of the falls, where several locals were bathing fully clothed. We took a few photos and then hurried back down to take some shelter.

As tends to be the way in countries with a tropical climate, the rain stopped almost as soon as we'd reached the park entrance and 5 minutes later the sun was burning down on our shoulders as we walked down the road in search of a taxi to take us back to White Sands. Until we were back on the main road our search was in vain, as there would be no taxis coming from the park unless they'd just transported some passengers to the park. So we walked along in the scorching heat, taking in the sights of Ko Chang's countryside. It got so hot at one point that the sign advertising a swimming pool outside a very luxurious looking resort complex looked very inviting. So we walked in, with the gait of affluent guest (even though we were dressed like a pair of backpackers) and used the pool. As we walked through the grounds of the complex, it was obvious this was a 5 star resort. The gardens were professionally designed and tended with great care, and even the equipment (slides/swings/climbing frames) within the small childrens playground was painted in the same colour as the buildings within the resort. We felt completely out of place at the Ramayana Resort but as the only people using the pool were a couple of young Thai children and their nanny (who was constantly on her cellphone at the side of the pool), we managed not to get busted. The children seemed to be enjoying themselves, especially the young boy who was finding it hugely entertaining playing 'splash the foreigners', an annoying (for us) activity that his nanny seemed to be playing little attention to. If we were to have splashed him back i'm sure she would noticed and in turn disapproved, so instead we continued to grin at him through gritted teeth. Still, it was a small price for the priviledge of using a pool at a resort we weren't even supposed to be at.

Siobhian was supposed to be leaving today but after a couple of beer Chang last night (she's even more of a lightweight than me!) she asked me, "if I stay tomorrow, will you be up for hiring a couple of motorbikes?" Neither of us had ever driven a motorbike before (I haven't even driven a car on a regular basis since I passed my test when I was 17!) but we decided that there's got to be a first time for everything. In Thailand they drive on the same side of the road as both Britain and Australia, Ko Chang's roads seem relatively quiet and we'd noticed that it was possible to hire automatics, so we wouldn't have to worry about gears; just with driving the vehicle and keeping it on the road, which was to prove a lot more difficult than we'd imagined!

Photos

Lake we passed on our walk back from Khlong Plu Waterfall, Ko Chang

Siobhian chilling in the luxurious pool at the Ramayana Resort, Ko Chang

A journey to the depths of the Ko Chang jungle

2006-06-10T11:33:00.000+01:00

I caught the bus down to Trat today so that I could cross over on to the island of Ko Chang and spend my last couple of weeks relaxing in the sunshine (in between the rain storms). As a result of a driver reserving two thirds of the front of the bus for Thai passengers, those of us that were travelling alone were forced to sit next to other solo travellers. Consequently I got chatting to Siobian, an 18 year old girl from New Zealand who now lives in Perth, Australia. She's been in India for the last 5 months so was still suffering from a little culture shock (as well as a severe lack of sleep after a big drinking session last night!), having only arrived in Thailand a few days ago. Coming from Vietnam I noticed how developed and structured Thailand is by comparison, so I can only imagine how vast the differences are compared to India.

The bus journey took longer than I'd expected, but that was partly due to the amount of traffic on the roads (visitors to Bangkok were now travelling back home following the recent appearance by the King in the country's capital). In contrast the boat journey took a lot less time that i'd originally anticipated. We made the crossing to Ko Chang on an enormous vehicle carrier, which even had a bar on board serving beer Chang on tap! When we arrived on Ko Chang, we were met by a kitsch greeting reminiscent of the 'Hollywood' sign in America : in large white lettering perched up in the mountains that provide a backdrop to Ko Chang's beaches, we read "Welcome to Ko Chang", only the letter 'C' seemed to have lost his footing up on the mountain and was dangling at a rather odd angle in front of the 'h'!

We headed down to the beach at first, both having our hearts set on a little bamboo hut right on the seafront - if the price was right. To our disappointment we couldn't see any; they'd all been upgraded to brightly coloured, well-built wooden bungalows. Out of curiosity, we enquired about the price of one of these at Apple's Bungalows and were informed that it would cost us 400THB for a bungalow with a twin room. Considering that you could walk out your door and literally be on the beach the price wasn't at all bad. But Siobian is still adjusting to the rise in prices after India and I wanted to find something a little cheaper as I may well be staying on Ko Chang for the best part of 2 weeks. We wandered up to the road and were attracted to a large sign advertising bungalows from 100THB at The Fisherman Hill Resort. We were a little concerned about the sub-heading, 'economy at it's best', conjuring up images of ramshackle huts crawling with bugs, but we decided to check it out regardless.

What we found was almost like a little rainforest retreat : little wooden bungalows dotted within a jungle of dense vegetation. The rooms weren't up to much : the linoleum floors were peeling, there were enormous cracks in the wood and there was a gaping hole in the floor of my room, big enough for a small cat to crawl through in the middle of the night. However, the fact that 130THB would buy us a bungalow with its own private bathroom in a beautiful and peaceful setting with as much free coffee as we wanted every morning sold it for me. Each bungalow even had it's own veranda and wooden chairs, which was surrounded by papaya trees, ferns and creepers, and I even had chillies growing right outside my door.

This evening we ate at a cheap local restaurant with plastic chairs and tablecloths and seafood pad thai for only 30THB. We each had a large beer Chang to accompany our meal. Siobian is about my size (an inch shorter and the same sort of build) so we were both feeling the effects of the beer when we left the restaurant. We continued on down the main road in search of a bar in which to continue drinking. Well, it was our first night on the island : not getting drunk would have been a crime! We walked into the first place which looking 'happening' : a collection of bars under one roof, lit up by hundreds of little fairy lights draped up the walls and over the rooves. It's only when we sat down at one of the bars that we realised that all the bar staff were pretty young Thai women in tight lycra dresses and all the customers were solo western men, many sat on bar stools, flirting with the women who were serving them drinks. However we did get given free rambutans by one of the bar girls, as well as a fruit the size of a small pumpkin which tasted like a cross between a mangosteen and a pear and which we ate with salt and chilli. The world cup match between England and Paraguay was being screened on T.V but we didn't really pay much attention to it apart from when Beckham scored for England.

We headed on in search of somewhere that wasn't a pick up joint, and landed ourselves at a small bar on the beach, as deserted as everywhere else seemed to be on a saturday night and in the largest resort on the island. The bar had a resident dog who was unbelievably fat (think she was competing with the one you met on Ko Chang, Tony!) and liked lying in the sand having her belly rubbed. We asked the lady at the bar if there was anywhere busier that we could head to once we'd finished our beers and attending to the needs of the fat dog, and she pointed us in the direction of Sabay bar. When we walked in, it was almost like everyone living in or visiting the White Sands resort in Ko Chang was in this bar, it was packed! It was probably the most happening place on the island : loud music, a dancefloor, little wicker mats laid out on the sand and a brave performer playing with fire by way of entertainment for us all. He held a long pole in his hand, burning at both ends. He'd spin this and throw it high into the air, whilst at the same time doing acrobatics. It was awesome, and visually stunning to watch. By this point we were both feeling pretty wasted : we were talking about doing some surfing tomorrow (even though I've not seen anywhere around here where we might possibly be able to fulfill this decision), and I talked Siobian into having her tongue pierced when she gets back to Bangkok (she's been frightened that it hurts too much so when I told her it doesn't she didn't need much persuading!). When we decided we couldn't possibly drink any more beer (through fear that we may well fall over), we danced to a few cheesy songs with a load of Thai people and then headed home, discussing our level of intoxication.

Photos

Our little rainforest retreat at Fisherman Hill, White Sands Beach, Ko Chang

The fire dancer on the beach at Sabay Bar, White Sands Beach, Ko Chang

A royal celebration in Bangkok

2006-06-09T11:50:00.000+01:00

Not much of interest to report yesterday apart from my discovery that Tom has just managed to write off another car! Apparently some bastard pulled out right in front of him whilst he was in the fast lane on the M5, so it was a choice of crashing into the bastard and subsequently causing his car to spin across the motorway, taking other cars off the road in the process or crash into the barrier) So Tom crashed into the central reservation whilst doing 80mph and managed to walk out of it without so much as a scratch - thank God! Makes my tales of Asia pale by comparison!

I had planned to catch the bus down to Trat and then catch the ferry across to Ko Chang today, however the bus was fully booked by the time i got around to enquiring about the possibility of booking a ticket. Instead, through distict lack of anything better to do, I decided to head back into Siam : there was a small art exhibition of the ground floor of the Siam Discovery Centre. As good as most of the paintings were, there were only about 15 of them, so even if I examined every painting for a minute (which is actually quite a long time unless you're a bit of an art critic and start to delve into an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses) it would still only have taken me 15 minutes to view the entire exhibition!

Subsequently I grabbed a coffee at Starbucks (i know but it's one of the few places you'll get proper coffee in Thailand, and after drinking Vietnamese coffee every day for over a month, I was starting to get withdrawl symptoms) and then headed back to the boat, figuring that I could quite easily spend the rest of the afternoon reading Amy Tan's "Saving Fish From Drowning", a book i'd only started yesterday and was already a third of the way through. However, when I boarded the boat, it got as far as station number 5 (which is the jumping off point for Chinatown) and everyone was told to get off the boat. When I enquired when there would be another boat to take me to Phra Arthit, I was simply told "no more boats" and that's as far as the lady's grasp of the English language went. The gentleman onboard the boat did however kindly walk me to a place at which I could catch a bus the rest of the way, and told me the bus i needed was number 53.

Not more than 5 minutes later, the bus arrived. It was packed with yet more Thai people in bright yellow attire, in celebration of the King's 60 year reign. Among the people that got on with me was a monk. As soon as he boarded, a lady and her child gave up their seats for him (that's another thing I noticed on the Chao Praya River Boat Express : instead of seats reserved for the elderly as there are back in the U.K, there are seats reserved for monks). After the monk sat down, I tried to move out of the way so that some one else could take the seat next to him, but the female conductor grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the front of the bus. I don't know whether she thought I was going to sit down next to him myself - as it's forbidden for women in Thailand to sit next to monks - or whether, unbeknownst to me, it is also forbidden for women to stand behind monks. Whatever the reason, it all seemed a bit ridiculous to me considering that in Laos, it's apparently ok for a monk to grope a woman but here you get rebuked for standing within metres of one!

Nevertheless, I got off the bus, eventually found my way back to a part of Bang Lampu that I recognised, and decided to eat some more of my favourite fish cakes at Roti Mataba on my way back to Khao San. The place was heaving, much more so than it usually is (and it's normally the case for there to only be a couple of seats available) and when I left I found out why. Right opposite the restaurant, gathered in a small area of greenery along my the riverfront and next to the old fort, were hundreds upon hundreds of Thai people, all in yellow t-shirts. They were like bees : everywhere you looked, there were swarms of them. They were perched high up on the branches of trees, sitting on walls, hanging over the balconies of the adjacent building, as well as crowds of them lined up behind barriers along the riverfront itself. You'd think they were waiting for a huge celebrity or rock star the way they were all pushing in front of each other, cameras and video cameras poised. As I tried to find an opening in the crowd myself, to decipher what was going on, I glanced across the other side of the river and the sight was much the same. I then saw what - or rather who - it was they were all waiting for : the king, as well as many of the important men who serve him were seated in decorative long boats, which were being rowed down the river in all their glory. It was like something out of a history book the way the soldiers were dressed and the way the boats were adorned with bright colours and intricate designs. As soon as the guards on the site blew their whistles and opened the gates which lead down to the riverbank, there was an enormous surge in the crowd. I really did feel like I was at a huge gig, especially when it became overwhelmingly hot amongst the crowd and I tried to retreat back to my original standpoint and couldn't physically move, no matter how hard I struggled! So, after seeing the Queen during my last visit to Thailand, I've now had the priviledge of seeing the country's King as well.

Photos

The king and his men in longboats upon the river, Bangkok

Thai's sat on a wall in an attempt to get a view of his majesty, Phra Arthit, Bangkok

Long live the King . . .

2006-06-07T07:43:00.000+01:00

Today I headed back over to Siam, a little earlier this time, so that I could visit Jim Thompson's House. I must admit that before my visit, I knew very little about the identity of Jim Thompson and why his house had become a tourist attraction. However we had a very informative and cheerful young guide who, despite her own admission that she was a trainee, did a very good job of filling me in.

Jim Thompson was an American, born in Delaware in 1906, the Chinese year of the horse (the relevance of this I will come to later). He was a practising architect in New York before he served in the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner to the C.I.A) in Thailand during World War 2. After leaving the service he decided to return and live in Thailand permenantly. He is most famous in Thailand for reviving the country's dying craft of the hand weaving of silk. He constributed substantially to the industry's growth and to the worldwide recognition accorded to Thai silk. He gained further recognition through the design and construction of his house, which combines six teak buildings and is one of the best remaining representations of traditional Thai architecture. On March the 26th 1967, Jim Thompson disappeared while on a visit to the Cameron highlands in Malaysia. He was 61 years old, a number which is said to be unlucky for those born in the year of the horse . . . no trace of him or his remains have been found to this day.

His famous Thai house (the buildings of which have been moved from their original site and reconstructed here) is indeed a beautiful creation, and still contains a lot of Thompsons's original possessions, including Buddha images, porcelain, and the quirky 'Mouse House'. It is surrounded by lush gardens and ponds containing turtles, and provides an oasis of calm within the hustle and bustle of central Bangkok.

On my way home I noticed some Thai passengers on the skytrain wearing bright yellow wristbands (like the rubber charity ones that became a bit of a fashion trend in Britain for a while) with "long live the king" printed upon them. It struck me as a little strange that there were so many Elvis fans in Thailand. I also noticed a huge number of Thai people, especially those travelling on the Chao Praya River Boat Express, wearing bright yellow t-shirts or polo shirts with Thai script printed upon them. It all made sense when the boat sailed past an enormous yellow banner hung from one of the buildings along the riverfront. It also read "long live the king" but there was enough English on it for me to determine that this was a celebration of the fact that the Thai king has just completed (on the 6/6/06) a reign of 60 years in the throne. The t-shirts and wristbands were all in aid of this celebration. Wow, the Thai's really do love their king. Although the British population as a whole do, i think, respect their Queen, similar behaviour by the British would be viewed as a little insane.

Photos

Jim Thompson's House, Bangkok

Some of the outfits that he'd designed

Lumphini Park, Red Snapper and tongue bar trouble

2006-06-06T09:15:00.000+01:00

More goodbyes to be said this morning (well, actually it was nearer to the afternoon before we all surfaced) as John was due to fly to Phuket and Todd and his mother Joanna were setting off for Koh Samui. Now that i'm familiar with the Chao Praya River Boat Express and the Skytrain system, I decided to make use of it once again and go for a relaxing stroll around Lumpini Park. The park is named after the Buddha's place of birth in Nepal. There is a large artificial lake, neatly kept lawns, an asphalt jogging track, picnic tables and benches, and the structured planting of tall palm trees throughout the park's grounds. Although it's not natural in any way, shape or form, it's a pleasant enough area in which to do a spot of jogging, play some badmington, have a picnic, or simply fall asleep down by the lake under the peaceful shade of the trees, and it's the best way to escape Bangkok without leaving town.

In the evening, I decided to try some fresh Red Snapper at Thai Garden Restuarant, along Soi Rambuttri. Todd had raved about the fish and I've always fancied sampling it as I like the sound of its name! It was barbequed (so the skin was all crispy) and served with a lime and chilli sauce, and was indeed worth every one of the 100THB I paid for it (under 2 British pounds). Unfortunately however, whilst I was eating it I managed to swallow the ball on the top of my tongue bar. I must of thought I'd eaten a small fish bone as I felt it slide down my throat. Doh! Fortunately though, it didn't work its way loose whilst I was sleeping and I'm in a place where I can easily buy a replacement tongue bar before the piercing heals up. Or so I thought. The next day, when the body piercing shop re-opened, I purchased a new tongue bar and went back to my guesthouse to put the piece of jewellery in. No matter how hard I tried from both directions, I could not force the bar back through my tongue. Eventually, I had to swallow my pride, walk down to the tattoo and piercing establishment at the end of Soi Rambuttri, explain what had happened and beg for their help. The long-haired, long-bearded Thai man struggled for a good 5-10 minutes before achieving success, admitting that he was surprised how quickly the piercing had tried to heal itself. It had been less than 24 hours!

What I meant to do after the tongue bar incident was visit Jim Thompson's House, probably the only major tourist attraction in Bangkok that I haven't been to see. However, Jim Thompson's House is in the Siam district, which is where all the major shops are situated. The exit from The National Stadium skytrain station (the nearest jumping off point to Jim's place of residence) leads right into one of the largest shopping centres in Siam. Hence, what was supposed to be a quick look around the MBK Centre before moving on to the main purpose of my journey materialised as me getting well and truly lost in the MBK centre! You haven't seen the place; believe me, it's easy to do!! By the time I had managed to re-orientate myself with the place, Jim Thompson's House was due to close in half an hour and they had already admitted their last customers.

This evening, having exhausted all there is to do in Bangkok (temples, parks, mansions, shopping, watching films, eating, drinking) I decided to get something wacky done to my hair : a concept that, judging by the people you see mooching up and down Khao San Road, seems to be one that should be added to the list of things to do in this crazy city. Having thought about this carefully (well, over a beer or two) I decided that whilst dreadlocks look kinda cool and funky whilst you're travelling, they do not at any other time - at least not when you're approaching 30 and you have to attend job interviews in a few weeks! So I opted for braids : you can take them out whenever you want to (although i'm not sure how difficult or time-consuming it is), and I quite fancied the idea of having long thick beautiful tresses - well, the acrylic version of them! I chose 3 colours (deep red, auburn and brown) and picked some beads to be woven into a few strands of hair at the end.

I didn't realise quite how time consuming my decision would turn out to be. I sat down at 8:30pm, quite comfortable to begin with, watching the comings and goings along Khao San Road. One guy walked past me about 4 times. I noticed him because he was wearing a T-shirt with hand-written script across the front which read, "I am not Israeli, OK?" It made me smile because Israeli's seem to have a reputation for being a rude old bunch of people (even though Esther's husband is adorable and Gilad (whom I met in Cambodia and Vietnam) seemed a really chilled out and friendly kinda guy)) so I guess he was fed up with being mistaken for an Israeli!! Anyway, as time wore on, I noticed I was getting thirsty and that my bum was getting incredibly numb sat on one of the small hard plastic nursery stools that everyone in Asia seems to use. Shortly after I noticed this, I noticed that many of the vendors were starting to pack away their wares and close up shop. When my hair was finally completed, it was 12:30am!!! Despite the speed at which the lady was plaiting my hair, it had still taken her an incredible 4 hours!!! 1000THB for 4 hours certainly isn't a bad price; it costs me approximately the same for half an hour in the hairdressers back at home.

Photos

Two Thai girls relaxing at the lakeside in Lumphini Park, Bangkok

Me with braids (taken on mobile phone so I apologise for the poor quality!)

Five hours at Chatuchak Market

2006-06-04T14:12:00.000+01:00

Despite Todd's offer for me to meet him for drinks at 1am once he'd collected his mum from the airport, I took one look at my blood shot, tired eyes and decided that a good nights sleep was most definitely in order. I awoke at 7:30am, feeling well and truly refreshed, drank a papaya shake downstairs in the restaurant and then began my journey up to Chatuchak Weekend Market, on the outskirts of Bangkok. It's actually pretty easy to get to from Khao San and the journey takes about 40 minutes and costs around 50THB. It involves catching the Chao Praya River Boat Express to Saphon Taskin (also known as Central Pier), jumping on the skytrain (there's a station right next to the pier) as far as Siam, and then changing trains, on to the green line until you reach the terminating station of Mo Chit.

Chatuchak is a huge market, with innumerable stalls that sprawl over acres and acres of land in Chatuchak Park. I'm sure I didn't even cover half of them in the 5 hours that I spent there. You can indeed buy pretty much anything at Chatuchak, and the goods are spilt into sections so that if you're looking for something in particular you don't have to walk around the entire grounds of the park! There's some original and good quality stuff to be had, so it was definitely worth the journey up there. There's also plenty of cheap food and drink establishments if you need to re-fuel or rest your weary shopping legs! I bumped into Todd and his mum whilst I was fighting my way through the crowds, which is quite strange considering how large the whole place is!

Back at Khao San, not much has changed since I was last here : there's always at least a couple of travellers getting dreadlocks or braids; there's countless food vendors selling fresh fruit, Pad Thai, spring rolls, and barbequed corn on the cob; there's music blaring from the speakers of each CD stall lining the street (and there are many!); there are enough clothes being sold that you could safely arrive in Bangkok carrying nothing but the clothes on your back; there are funky headscarves and leather and silver jewellery; every other building is a guesthouse and those that aren't guesthouses are bars or restaurants full of travellers exchanging travel stories, or internet cafes, with the odd 7-11 and pharmacy scattered in between. Despite the unoriginality of it all nowadays, I still like the chilled out vibe that permeates along Khao San.

This evening, I soaked up the Khao San vibe. There was a street performance taking place and a large audience had gathered around the musicians, acrobats and dancers. The performers were oozing energy from every pore so it was difficult to capture the essense of the spectacle in a single photograph, hence I recorded a short video of the entertainers in action. Back at The Wild Orchid Guesthouse, I ordered a beer Chang and started reading the novel that Todd had kindly passed on to me : "Borderlines" by Charles Nicholl, a story based on the author's experiences of travelling through Thailand and Burma (now Myanmar) prior to 1988, when the book was first published.

Shortly after I had started reading, Todd showed up and joined me for a beer, after which we decided to head out and check out the nightlife on Soi Rambuttri. We found a little bar which basically consisted of a collection of wicker mats placed in the middle of the street and an oil lamp in the middle of each one. We sat ourselves down around one of these oil lamps, and were reluctantly joined by an American from California who was a tad strange to say the least. When asked what brought him to Thailand, he replied "the Dali LLama" Sums him up really : an intelligent guy but something about him was a little off-key.

We were subsequently pleased when the group who were sat next to us, with whom this strange guy was also attempting to make conversation, began to amalgamate us into their group. The group consisted of a happy-faced curly haired American from California called John, a sophisticated looking Indian girl called Nalani, and a dutch couple from Amsterdam : a girl called Irene and a 6'8" tall guy whose name was impossible to pronounce at the time, and hence I cannot remember it now! We had an entertaining evening that included Todd being approached by a little Thai girl wearing Dennis Taylor glasses, which looked comical on her tiny little face. She clearly knew she looked funny, as it was this element alone that persuaded Todd to buy 3 roses from her : one for each of us girls, oh aren't you smooth Todd!! The evening (and the beer) was still in full flow at 3:30am. By 4am the dutch couple and myself were dreaming about our beds, so we headed back to our guesthouses and left the party animals to their beer and now unintelligable conversation. I heard from Todd's mum the next morning that he stumbled in at 5:30am!!

Photos

View of Bangkok's skyscrapers from Chao Praya Riverboat express (look at the colour of the water!!!)

Todd and his girlfriend, the little rose girl. Soi Rambuttri, Bangkok

Bangkok prison to Bangkok airport & a spontaneous all night drinking session

2006-06-03T06:22:00.000+01:00

I sat down in a small cafe on Hang Hanh at some point this afternoon, ordered a 'Butterfruit Shake' (which was actually chunks of papaya, watermelon, mango, avocado, and a strange translucent rubbery fruit which was difficult to chew, mixed with yoghurt and ice) and started to read "The Damage Done", a novel by Warren Fellows about the 12 year sentence he served in a Bangkok prison for traffiking heroin.

Several hours later, having read the final page of this incredibly absorbing and gruelling novel, I looked up from my book and noticed that it was dark outside and my half-finished drink was still in front of me on the table, the melted ice having formed a layer on top of the interesting looking concoction below it. If anyone had asked me if I'd finished the drink or if I wanted to order another then I hadn't heard them. I'd been completely sucked into the events and emotions that Fellow's was so lucidly describing. I felt like a fly on the wall of his prison cell, watching 12 years of his life pass in front of my eyes. At once that life seemed to have been played in fast forward but at the same time, there were certain experiences which stood as still as the prison walls which surrounded them.

It occured to me that many of the novels I've read whilst I've been travelling have been written by and about people who've experienced tremendous emaotional and physical pain in their lives. Why is it that such people make such excellent writers? Maybe it's because pain and suffering are so much easier to put into words than happiness is ...

And on that rather depressing note, I headed back to my hotel, picked up my luggage and jumped on the back of a moto. When I arrived at the point from which the mini bus would take me to the airport, I met a Canadian guy Dan and an American guy Todd, who were also catching the same flight out to Bangkok later on that evening. We shared a few tasty plums purchased from a nearby street vendor whilst we waited for the bus to depart.

At the airport, Dan and Todd had me worried for a while when they informed me that the baggage allowance for the flight was only 15kg plus 7kg worth of hand luggage. I was preparing myself for a hefty baggage excess charge, but the airport staff accepted my 21.3kg backpack through without so much as a blink of an eye, and they didn't even weigh the heavy rucksack I was carrying as hand luggage. Phew!

On the flight there was a free seating arrangement, which basically means that you can choose where you sit. I'm not quite sure how that works in conjunction with the health and safety regulations, as I was under the impression that the airline were required to have a record of which passengers were sitting in which seats in case of an accident. I sat next to Todd and was telling him how much I still dislike takeoff, despite flying on countless occasions every year. Just at the point when I made that statement, we passed through some pretty serious turbulence and the aircarft was actually dropping in the sky. It didn't improve matters when we looked out the window and noticed a huge streak of lightening not far from the plane's wing!

Suffice to say, we all made it to Bangkok in one piece. I was surprised to find how organised the traffic was in comparison to Vietnam : all the motorists were driving on the right side of the road in neat orderly lines, no-one was sounding their horns and there were no motorbikes - well, aside from the odd one or two (motorcycles make up the large majority of traffic on Vietnam's roads). We all shared a taxi to Khao San Road (which surprisingly only cost 169THB), and Dan continued on to Sala Ya, where he's staying with a friend who is attending the university there. After several unsucessful attempts to find some accommodation, Todd and I finally stumbled upon The Wild Orchid Villa, which is tucked away down a little lane off Soi Rambuttri (about a two minute walk to Khao San Road). One we'd both checked into a room, it was gone 1am, but the surrounding nightlife was still buzzing and we both really fancied a beer, so we met back down in the guesthouse restaurant/chill out area and ordered a couple of beer Chang. Ahh . . .

At the time we didn't realise that the guesthouse bar remained open 24 hours, and we got so busily caught up in conversation and getting pretty much blind drunk that we didn't question the time until we heard the voices of birds outside. It was only 7:30am!!!! Doh! I went straight to my room and don't even remember falling asleep. I probably would have slept for the best part of the day if I hadn't heard Todd knocking on my door at 2pm. I managed to drag myself out of bed, grabbed a shower and met Todd downstairs for a papaya shake. At this point I atually still felt drunk : the world and Todd were looking a little fuzzy around the edges and I had a desperate thirst, which lingered around for the majority of the day.

Todd and I went for lunch at Roti-Mataba. It's a great little place where the seating area is right opposite the kitchen so you can watch the chefs preparing your food and smell the gorgeous aromas as they waft across the cafe. Sufficiently fed and watered but still feeling a little spaced out, we had a brief wander around China Town before heading over to Siam Paragon. This was Todd's idea, as he wanted to show me how the other half live in Bangkok. Siam Paragon is a newly built (the complex was opened to the public post September 2005) modern constuction on a massive scale. It houses designer shops (you name it, you'll find it here : clothes designers such as Gucci and Prada, home entertainment by Bang and Oulfsen, as well as furniture stores and interior design), food halls (including a cooking school run by well known Thai chef, Ing), and a 10 screen cinema on the top floor.

We took advantage of the 10 screen cinema and caught a showing of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" (in English but with Thai subtitles). Going to the cinema is not a concept that ever occured to me whilst I've been travelling, but it made a nice change from the standard sightseeing, and although I haven't read the book, the film made for pretty good viewing. After the film we caught the skytrain (something else I've never done in Bangkok before) to a fish restaurant that had been recommended to Todd, which was just before Soi 27 on Sukhumvit. Todd's a chef in New York City, so he often gets given recommendations for restaurants all over the world. I felt rather priviledged to be given the opportunity to eat at this restaurant, and also to be able to dine with a chef, so that he could advise on what sort of fish to go for, what sort of style to have it cooked in and what sort of dishes would best accompany it. The food was indeed first class. There was all sorts of fish on the menu including Butter fish, Cotton fish, Grouper fish, Sea Bass, as well as many whose names I cannot remember. We went for Seabass cooked in a garlic and pepper sauce, as well as several dishes to eat on the side. In hindsight I think we were a little over enthusiastic about the ordering as we could barely finish it all!

We decided to walk off our food afterwards with a visit to Patpong. It's quite bizarre : Cowboy alley as it's so called is just one street in the middle of an otherwise civilised district. We wandered down past the neon lights and girls and the smell of cheap perfume that permeated through the air. Todd said that even if he was blind he'd know he was amongst prostitutes by the smells of their perfume! There were numerous signs advertising table dancing and lap dancing and girls for you to have at your disposal - for a price. A couple of the signs the girls outside the bars were holding made me giggle : one said "50 gorgeous girls and 2 ugly ones" and over the other side of the street a similar sign read "50 ugly girls and 2 gorgeous ones." Patpong is clearly a place which doesn't take itself too seriously . . .

Photo is of the infamous Khao San Road at night, Bangkok.

A walking tour around Hanoi's old quarter

2006-05-31T08:51:00.000+01:00

I booked the only flight I could find for under $50 to Bangkok, which leaves on the 2nd of June. In the meantime I have a few more days in Hanoi, the first of which I decided to fill by taking my feet on a walking tour of the city's old quarter (courtesy of Lonely Planet). I started by crossing the red painted bridge to an island in the northern part of Hoan Kiem Lake, which is home to Ngoc Son Temple (admission 3000VND). Due to the admission fee being waived for locals, many Vietnamese chose to relax here under the peaceful shade of the trees.

When I visited, there were more tourists (mainly Asian) taking each others photographs in front of a giant tortoise than there were looking around the temple. To explain the presence of a giant tortoise here, i'll firstly have to tell you the story behind the name of the lake. Legend has it that in the 15th century, heaven gave Emporer Ly Thai To a magical sword which he used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam. Once the war had ended, the emporer was out in his boat one day upon the lake, when he noticed a giant golden tortoise swimming on the surface of the water. The tortoise snatched the sword and subsequently disappeared into the lake. Ho Hoan Kiem means 'lake of the restored sword', as people believe that the tortoise restored the sword to its divine owner. There have since been actual sightings of tortoises in this lake, the remains of one such tortoise (which died in 1968, weighed 250kg and measured 2.10m in length!) are preserved and on show at Ngoc Son Temple. I guess the locals believe that this tortoise is one of the desendants of the great golden tortoise . . .

I continued my tour past the shoe district and through Hanoi's colourful (and smelly!) market. It seems that Hanoi's old quarter is full of 'districts' : around the market are numerous shops selling shoes of every colour and variety, and there is also a jewellery district, a district where artisans carve gravestones bearing an image of the deseased, a line of shops selling straw mats and ropes, a row of herb sellers (the carcophony of various aromas fills the air even before you reach the shops themselves), tin box makers and a collection of blacksmiths on the corner of Pho Lo Ren and Phop Thuoc Bac. There is also an entire street selling 'ghost money', which is used for burning in Buddhist ceremonies. I saw an example of this when I was in Laos. I was walking through Savannaket's peaceful and almost deserted streets just after a funeral prosession had passed, and I noticed $100 bills scattered all over the road.

Cua O Quan Chuong, the quarter's well preserved East Gate, is situated just before the turning into the street where all the 'ghost money' is sold. I was just about to photograph the gate when a lady in a conical hat transporting bananas 'Vietnamese style' (in two bamboo baskets suspended from the ends of a long wooden pole which rested on her shoulders) walked into my shot. She made an interesting photograph out of what would otherwise have been a fairly ordinary shot of Hanoi's East Gate.

I continued on to the neo-gothic St Joseph Cathedral where a collection of children were playing football outside, and that game where you kick an object resembling a shuttle-cock between players, not allowing it to fall to the ground. It's a sight you'll see everywhere in Vietnam, on the roads and the pavements and in the parks, and it's a game which requires a great deal of skill. I couldn't get into the cathedral - apparently the gates are only opened when mass is held - so I sat in a little street cafe opposite drinking coffee and watching the football and shuttlecock matches.

Evenings aren't as much fun when you're travelling alone so I wandered over to the Little Hanoi (1) Restaurant for a meal (not to be confused with the seriously overpriced Little Hanoi (2), a block away from the lake) and then took advantage of the free internet facility at my hostel by sending several well overdue emails to my friends.

Photos

Ngoc Son Temple

Typical Hanoi street scene

A rainy boat ride to the Perfume Pagoda

2006-05-29T10:21:00.000+01:00

We pulled into Hanoi station at 5:15am and I was surprised to discover that the sun had already risen and as usual, Vietnam was alive with activity at a time when most people in England would still be in bed. We spent the day watching the T'ai Chi and aerobics groups, joggers and badmington players down by the lake, drinking inumerable cups of coffee, continually bumping into Colm and Rory, wandering around the shops, and abusing the free internet facility offered to us by our hotel.

I moved around the corner to the grottier (but cheaper) Tam Thuong Guesthouse and Sam moved to Laos - well, on to the bus that would eventually take her to Laos. So, after travelling around in a group of 7 a couple of weeks ago, I am now solo once again, a feeling I haven't properly experienced since leaving Laos (with the exception of a couple of days in Mui Ne)

The tour I wanted to book to The Perfume Pagoda, 60km outside Hanoi wasn't running on a sunday (?!) so I spent the day soaking up the sights of life in the northern capital :

I was eating breakfast at The Whole Earth Restaurant and watched an old lady hanging out newspapers on her balcony at the apartment across the road. Yes, you haven't read this wrong : she had a washing line strung across the balcony but instead of hanging laundry on there to dry, as most people do, she was hanging out old newspapers!
A little boy 'watering the streets'. Nothing subtle about it at all : he was standing on the pavement, holding his little banana and peeing out into the street, causing cyclists to swerve out of the way of his firing range!
A old lady carrying watermelons in two large bamboo baskets suspended from the end of a long wooden pole, which rested upon her shoulders. Nothing remarkable about this as you see women carrying foods like this everywhere in Asia, but what was amazing was the quantity she was carrying : if you consider how much your average watermelon weighs. she had about 15 or 20 of them piled up in each basket!

The next morning I set off to The Perfume Pagoda, a complex of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs of Huong Tich mountain. When we arrived at our destination after a 2 and a half hour bus journey, rain was falling heavily from the sky, leaving ripples in the murky river water. Having left my umbrella at the Mountain View Hotel in Sapa (it's probably still drying under the sink in reception), it was time to get back into that very fetching plastic rain mac (they must make a packet selling them at 4000VND each)

I sat in a little paddleboat, along with 2 German girls (Liza and Nicole) and their mother, as we were transported downstream along scenic waterways between limestone cliffs. As a result of the persistent rain, a heavy mist was obscuring what would otherwise have been a spectacular view. Numerous other paddleboats were plying the river, most of them full of locals and containing huge piles of rice plants that had just been harvested. A few ducks were splashing around in the reeds at the rivers edge, and numerous colourful dragonflies were buzzing around just above the surface of the water.

When we arrived at the entrance to the Perfume Pagoda, the rain had cleared up but the paths were still very wet, and the rocks we had to climb in order to reach the pagoda, were very slippery. It was a tough climb in long trousers, the bottoms of which were caked with mud and soaking wet and thus wouldn't stay rolled up due to the weight of the water. At the top, there were a series of steps leading down into a large cave. Inside the cave were numerous buddha statues, candles and burning incence, and worshippers had left money wedged between the folds of the stalagmites.

Only 4 out of the 12 of us decided to walk the slippery route back down, the rest of them choosing to take the 30,000VND cable car ride. I lost count of how many times I was offered a coconut or a can of coke by the numerous food and drink vendors who'd set up shop along the route. I can't stand coke and a coconut would be a rather awkward and bulky object to carry whilst trekking!

Back on the river the sun was attempting to shine through the grey rain clouds and we all had a bit of fun, as the ladies who were rowing our boats decided to partake in a bit of an Oxford/Cambridge boat race! One cocky gentleman passenger obviously thought he could do a better job than the professionals, but ended up rowing the vehicle around in circles! As we were pulling in to the docking station, our lady demanded that we give her a tip. The rich German family (you didn't see the hotel we picked them up from this morning!) gave her 20,000VND, which she accepted very ungratefully and immediately asked for another 30,000! I certainly wasn't going to tip someone who was demanding, ungrateful and downright rude! That's one thing I won't miss about Vietnam : the people that try and milk you for every dollar you have . . .

Photos

Pagoda we explored on the climb down from the cave entrance

Rowing boats plying the river, which was surrounded by limestone mountains

Hill tribes and mudslides

2006-05-26T06:15:00.000+01:00

I left Sapa this morning equipped with a large umbrella, in the hope that it would keep the rain away or at least keep me a little drier than I was yesterday (which wouldn't really be difficult). The paths were still very wet from yesterday's downpours and there was a thick mist over the mountains, obscuring the view. The Hmong village of Lao Chai was todays destination, tucked away in between mountains and rice fields and beside a beautiful clear stream running through the rocks.

Not long after leaving Sapa, we were met by a bunch of adorable little Hmong girls wearing wreaths on their heads made from tree ferns. They were incredibly photogenic, so I bought a couple of woven bracelets from them in exchange for a few photographs. One little girl immediately warmed to Sam and the two of them walked down the road together holding hands and chatting and laughing like old friends. The children's command of the English language was absolutely incredible. I know their livelihood depends upon it, but when I think back to the 15/16 year old kids in Laos, who were only just managing to grasp English on a very basic conversational level, the fact that these children (who couldn't have been more than 10 years old) could also understand and answer questions about their culture and lifestyle was remarkable.

We said goodbye to the children and set off down a rocky track, which was extremely muddy and slippery after the rain. The views were awesome, but managing to watch our footing as well as take in the scenery was an incredibly tricky task. It became even more tricky when the heavens opened a few moments later, and the rain began to wash the mud down the slopes, taking us with it if we lost our concentration for a split second. Bearing in mind the difficulty we were having simply staying on our feet, it was most annoying to see the local Hmong children in wellies or plastic sandals skipping past us with ease . . .

The further downhill we clambered the more difficult the track became. We were picking our way down steep slopes caked in a thick layer of mud, and there was a distict lack of vegetation to hang on to, should we lose our footing. At the bottom of the steepest slope, after several of our group already had attractive brown stains on their trousers or rain macs, we had the task of crossing a river, balanced on a length of bamboo which was coated with mud, like grease. Most of us chose to wade through the river rather than take the pretty high risk of falling in. We then continued our trek by walking inbetween ricefields balanced on a narrow, wet, muddy ledge. One foot wrong and we would have ended up like the buffalo : bathing in the stuff! We climbed the wet rocks beside the rice fields and walked along a rather precarious escarpment until, after 3 long hours, the village finally came into view.

As we made our descent into the village, we passed a group of villagers skinning a buffalo and separating the blood red meat from the bone. The unfortunate animal had lost its footing and fallen down the mountain. Rather than leave his body there to rot, the Hmong tribe were being resourceful with his remains. I wouldn't have minded this encounter so much if it hadn't been just before we stopped for lunch!

As if by magic, in the time that it had taken us to eat our lunch, the rain had cleared up and the sun was shining in full force. We passed a number of women working in the rice fields, and men guiding their buffalo through the muddy soil, preparing it for the next crop of rice. The Hmong children cheerfully followed us, and chatted to us as we waded through the muddy path, which lead to the Zay tribe village of Ta Van. It was quite a surreal sensation : the sun was burning down on my shoulders whilst at the same time my feet were wet and cold and covered in mud. If you've seen the film Labyrinth, think of the bog of eternal stench and that's exactly how it sounded as I squelched my way through the mud! I truly believed I'd try to pick my foot up and leave my shoe behind! One girl lost her leg in the mud, and rather than help to pull her out her friends stood there and took pictures of her! Still, I think I would have done the same had it been one of my friends!

We walked uphill through Ta Van village until we were so high up we were looking down upon the layers and layers of ricefields, the blue sky peeking through the clouds. This was more like it; it's weather like this that helps you appreciate the real beauty of this place. Sapa is much more than I'd imagined and I wish I'd chosen to spend longer than just 2 days of my trip here.

Although we organised a tour from Hanoi to Sapa, it is possible to complete the journey and the treks independently. Two French Canadian girls we spoke to had done just that and reckoned that the whole experience (including accommodation, food, admission to the villages, and the train to and from Sapa) had cost them $40, when we paid $57.

Back at Sapa, we showered, washed our muddy footwear, and just had time for dinner before catching the overnight train back to Hanoi. I took the top bunk this time and actually managed to fall out of it before I'd even got in! I'd put my right foot on the little step (which was barely large enough to accommodate my big toe) and then put my left knee on the bed to lift myself up. Only my knee slipped and my whole body subsequently came hurtling to the floor. I scraped my leg somewhere along the way and landed on my arse with a bump. Sam looked rather bewildred to find me sitting on the floor looking up at her only moments after I'd made my climb to the top!

Photos :

Woman working in the ricefields with her baby strapped to her back

Cute little Hmong girl who made friends with Sam

The beautiful rainy highlands of Sapa

2006-05-25T08:51:00.000+01:00

Believing that we'd be too hot trekking in waterproof jackets, we failed to pack ours last night. So this morning we set off for Cat Cat Village in the terrential rain, looking like a pair of walking plastic bags in our flimsy transparent rain macs we'd bought from the local shop for 3000VND.

Despite the rain the scenery still looking amazing. It reminded me a little of Queenstown in New Zealand, the way the clouds hung ominously over the mountains. In the foreground, the slopes had been formed into rice paddies that looked like steps down the mountainside. Everywhere you looked there were tribespeople (Black Hmong) with their buffalo tending to their crops. Some of the steps were a rich emerald green, where the rice plants had begun to grow. Others were chocolate brown and thick with mud, where the villagers were preparing the soil for the next crop. There were also fields of maize, beet, and hemp scattered across the hillsides.

Today was one of those many ocassions on my travels when a dry bag would have been a godsend, for every time I wanted to take a photograph I had to remove one arm from my rain mac in order to release the rucksack from my back and the open the freezer bag (kindly donated to me from Kotoe) in which my camera was contained. Even so, my camera was getting dotted with raindrops simply while I focussed the shot.

We followed the road from Sapa down to the black Hmong village of Cat Cat, encountering villagers along the way, also dressed in rain macs and wellingtons, carrying huge bamboo baskets of firewood on their backs. We also met a little boy who had captured a snake and was proudly displaying his catch by dragging it along the ground on the end of a long bamboo pole taller than he was. It wasn't until the snake moved its tail that I realised it was still alive. Our guide proceeded to inform us that if we were to be bitten by one of these snakes we would be dead within 10 minutes!

When the rain really started to hammer down, we stopped under a little wooden shelter where a couple of the young Hmong girls were attempting to sell pretty woven bracelets and purses. However, as soon as the snake boy appeared, bringing his catch with him, the little girls dissapeared inside, their heads peeping out from behind the door.

The rain refused to ease, so we continued our descent down a series of stone steps, avoiding puddles and huge piles of buffalo dung. We passed a number of small waterfalls, but the water running through them was a creamy brown colour, like caramel. It reminded me of a scene out of Willy Wonker and the Chocolate Factory.

When we returned to Sapa village, I was relieved to be able to peel the rain mac from my wet skin, but a little disappointed that the full day trekking we'd been promised had turned out to be a relatively easy two and a half hour walk. We had the whole of the afternoon free, which I spent wandering around Sapa village and taking in the sights. A crowd of black Hmong people were gathered in front of the old church, which made for a great photo, with pine trees and mountains in the backround. I also paid a visit to Sapa Market, which was a treasure of Hmong handicrafts, such as blankets, skirts, purses, belts, hats, bracelets, and metal bangles of various designs. I was even offered marajuana by a Hmong gentleman as I browsed innocently through his wares.

This evening we ate a delicious dinner of pumpkin soup, vegetable spring rolls, steamed rice, and fruit curry (which was fruit in a pureed apple sauce with cinamon), accompanied by a nice cold tiger beer. We then spent a typical rainy night in, relaxing on the leather sofas in the hotel's common area and watching films on Sky TV.

Photos : Hmong people gathered outside church in Sapa town

The mountains surrounding Sapa.

Card games, dead bodies and goodbyes

2006-05-24T07:56:00.000+01:00

We left Cat Ba Island around 7:30am and spent the entire 4 hour boat journey playing cards (Shithead, Trumps and Sevens) and laughing hysterically at Tasha's explanations of the rules to her favourite Christmas day card game, Newmarket. The other members of our group were being very quiet by comparison, many of them asleep with the heads hanging out the window or resting on the table in front of them.

At Halong City, we walked into a restaurant where our lunch arrived, and kept on arriving . . . soup, stir fried squid and vegetables, chips, morning glory with garlic, meaty fish chunks in curry sauce, sweet and sour beef, noodles with pork and seafood, a whole barbequed fish in blackbean sauce, and rice! It was enough to feed 50 people, not 5!!!

Back in Hanoi, it was still raining. I applied for my visa extension (I really don't understand how people can claim to have 'done' whole countries in the space of 2 or 3 weeks), Sam and I booked a 2 day/3 night trek to the northern highlands of Sapa, and I had an argument with the waiter in The Golden Drum, who had put chicken in the prawn and vegetable spring rolls I'd ordered. No amount of explaining could make him understand exactly what was wrong with the dish and why I couldn't eat it.

I awoke the next morning having had a very strange and vivid dream about being very sick (a fever and lots of blackouts) and doctors finally diagnosed my illness as one caused by a 'snow leech' which had found its way inside my body and had been living there for months. At the time of the diagnosis I only had minutes left to live and I was given a bowl of mashed corn beef and carrots (and one other ingredient I can't remember) and instructed to eat it as fast as I could. I've had a number of vivid dreams whilst I've been travelling but that has to be one of the more bizarre . . .

As the rain still hadn't cleared up this morning, we caught a taxi over to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. We queried the price initially with a taxi driver who'd just pulled up outside our hotel, and were quoted an incredible $10, which we immediately refused to pay. After a great deal of bartering the final price offered to us was $5, which was more than we'd wanted to pay but which we were just about to agree on when the helpful lady at our hotel overheard and informed us that the journey should cost no more than 30,000VND (under $2). She subsequently called another taxi for us. It was a metered taxi and when we arrived at the Mausoleum, the meter had stopped at 22,000VND ($1.38). It just goes to show how much the locals try to rip us off. Anyone would normally think they'd scored a bargain, having managed to haggle 50% off the asking price. However, little would we have known that this still a hugely inflated price, over 3 times more than the real cost of the service.

We arrived at the Mausoleum to find hundreds of Vietnamese (and a small scattering of westerners) queuing up to pay their respects to Ho Chi Minh, affectionately known as Uncle Ho. It has become a place of pilgrimage for many of the Vietamese, and also the destination for many school trip so it seems.

There were security guards all over the grounds, displaying their authority by repremanding you if you stepped out of line (which included laughing, talking too loudly or literally stepping out of [the orderly] line in which you had to queue to gain entrance to the Mausoleum). They wore crisp white uniforms and carried spear guns, and 3 of them marched passed us as we queued, looking like they'd just stepped out of Monty Python's 'Ministry of Funny Walks.'

As we entered the Mausoleum, it was almost as if you could feel death in the air, the air conditioning was turned up so high. The lady behind me in the queue kept prodding me in the back as she lost her balance on numerous ocassions trying to look at Uncle Ho rather than where she was going!

His body, as it lay inside its glass coffin, a soft blue light upon his face, looked almost like a waxwork. His skin was tight and devoid of the wrinkles you'd normally expect a 79 year old man (dead or alive) to have. As I left the Mausoleum following my surreal whistle stop tour, I pondered over how strange it was that Hanoi's primary tourist attraction was a dead body in a glass box.

When we arrived back in Hanoi's old quarter, we ate lunch at Trong Khach Restaurant, just around the corner from our hotel. It's got paper place mats with pictures on, some very friendly and accommodating staff, and some interesting items on the menu such as fried pumpkin leaf with garlic. I never used to eat much garlic until I left the U.K, but now I don't enjoy my food unless its got huge chunks of the stuff chopped up in it. I also discovered that I'd lost the ability to use a knife and fork when we were preseented with them on our Halong Bay tour. It's strange how easily you adapt to new processes and ideas. I'm sure I'm going to be visiting my local supermarket at home and trying to bater down the price of a cucumber!

Sam and I said goodbye to Emma, Tasha, and Neil this evening as they embarked upon their 22 hour bus journey to Savannaket, Laos. We made a great little group and they've certainly made my last couple of weeks in Vietnam a lot of fun. So 5 became 2 . . . Sam and I almost didn't get on our train to Sapa, as the incompetant guy at our hotel failed to give us the correct tickets and then arranged for us to be taken to the train station 15 minutes after our train was due to leave! Fortunately alarm bells started ringing in my head just in time for him to correct his mistake.

Photo to follow.

mountain trekking with a hangover and a rather wet kayaking experience

2006-05-22T09:38:00.000+01:00

I was awoken at 5am by the ship moving noisily from its anchored position in the middle of the bay. Emma stirred and then awoke in a panic wondering when, how and why she went to bed fully clothed. At breakfast Caroline had remembered crying in front of everyone but was a little embarrassed and confused about the fact that it was over something so petty as a missing flashlight.

The boat pulled into Cat Ba harbour at around 8am, we all checked into the fancy (by backpacker standards) Sunflower Hotel and Sam, Emma and I spent the next hour watching a moving film (based on a true story) about 2 austistic children. By 9am, only 9 out of our 14 group members had made it down to do the 3 hour mountain trek, the other 5 still fighting monster hangovers from their hotel beds.

When we started the trek I was starting to wish that I had stayed in bed as well. Exercise is a great way to cure a hangover but not with the level of concentration that our trek required. For the most part we were picking our way through a pathway that didn't exist. We were either climbing hills so steep we were almost on our hands and knees, or clambering over huge rocks with gaping holes in between, or clinging on to every available tree branch as we slid down dry slopes, the earth crumbling beneath our feet. It was just beginning to rain so the air was extremely muggy, and coupled with the fact that we all had so much alcohol running through our bloodstream meant that we all sweated more than we've ever done in our entire lives. I couldn't tell what was rain and what was huge beads of sweat dripping from my face. I was pleased that I'd made the trek at the end (it had cleared my head and my body felt a lot lighter and less sluggish) but I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed the process of getting there.

After lunch at the hotel, we had just about enough time to grab well needed showers before we set off to do some kayaking around the bay. The rain had turned the skies all grey and misty so that the huge limestone rocks now looked more mysterious than picturesque. I shared a kayak with Sam, who's done kayaking several times before and knows how to steer and reverse as well as simply paddle. However, Tasha and Neil, the only 2 in the group other than me who hadn't done kayaking before, shared a kayak; the weaker of the 2 (Tasha, purely because of her sex) taking the stronger position at the back of the kayak. It was doomed from the start . . .

It didn't seem to matter too much that it was raining as it was warm rain and I was already sitting in an inch of water at the bottom of the kayak. However I do think it would have been an altogether more enjoyable experience had the sun been shining down upom our shoulders. Nevertheless, i'm pleased that my first kayaking experience was through the beautiful waters of Halong Bay.

We lost sight of Tasha and Neil about 15 minutes after leaving the boat, and it was a little worrying that our only guide was in a kayak with Emma, several metres in front of everyone else. When the rest of us returned we were seriously concerned that Tasha and Neil had lost their way amongst the collection of rocks, rocks which to an untrained eye, look very much the same as one another. Our guide eventually took his own kayak out and went to search for them, just at the moment that we spotted a one kayak appear from behind the farthest away rock that we could see. The pair of them slowly zig zagged back towards the boat, cursing each other and dodging large ships and fishing vessels and hawkers in small paddle boats who swarmed around our boat like bees to a honeypot, calling,"hello miss, you buy something?" It may have been a stressful experience for them at the time but hearing about the obstacles they encountered certainly amused the rest of us and at least it was a memorable and exciting first time kayaking experience!

After kayaking, we stopped briefly at Monkey Island where we watched a few monkeys playing in the trees, took a a couple of group photos on the beach, and several people were stung by jelly fish as they swam in the sea. Ouch!

This evening, I don't think any of us wanted a repeat of last night, but as it was Colm's birthday we all congregated in The Noble House bar for some celebratory drinks. As there are a distinct lack of cake shops on Cat Ba Island, we bought him a bottle of tiger beer and attached a candle to each side. So when he returned from the toilet we had lit the candles and all 13 of us were singing 'Happy Birthday' to him in the middle of the bar. We subsequently provided him with several shots of Yagermeister (I seem to be the only person on this earth who actually likes the stuff!) as birthday chasers for his beer.

Photos : Tasha and Neil kayaking back to the boat

Sam and I at The Noble House celebrating Colm's birthday.

The beautiful bay of Halong and a cat among the pigeons!

2006-05-21T13:15:00.000+01:00

We departed this morning at 8am for our 3 day small group (14 of us in total, most of us Brits) tour to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. The journey to Halong City took about 4 hours, so we arrived at the port just in time to enjoy a beautiful lunch spread on board the ship. Without a doubt it was the tastiest and most exciting mix of food that I've been served on a tour since my 3 day trek in Nan with Tao.

As we left Halong City the sky was a little hazy, but the further out to sea we travelled the clearer at became. The sea wasn't quite as blue as all the postcards suggest but Halong Bay is certainly a very beautiful place to spend a couple of days on board a ship. Imposing limestone rocks rise out of calm green waters and numerous wooden ships with tall sails and tiny one-man fishing boats are dotted across the bay. The scene is so serene it could have been painted on to canvas in front of your eyes.

Allan (the guy I met on the bus to the beach party at Nha Trang) was part of our group, along with 4 Irish guys (Simon, Colm, David and Rory), a girl called Caroline from Bristol and a girl called Anna from Bolton, all of whom have been travelling together for some time. The other 2 members of the motley crew were kiwis Anita and Anna.

Our first (and only) port of call for the day was a huge limestone cavern, whose name in English means 'surprise cave'. Although I appreciate that the authorities have to ensure the cave is both safe and accessible in order for tourism to flourish, I did feel that the concrete floor and steps, metal handrails, coloured lighting and litter bins in the shape of penguins did make this natural wonder seem a little artificial. Nevertheless the coolness of underground was a welcome contrast to the blazing hot sun outside and we had a giggle posing with all the phallic stalagmites.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent admiring the stunning scenery from the deck of the ship, soaking up the sun, writing postcards, playing with the resident 3 month old kitten (a boat seems a strange place to house a cat, as they're scared of water!) and exchanging travel information, advice and anecdotes with the rest of the group. When we watched the sun set it was through a partially cloudy sky, but beautiful all the same. The bodies of Rory and Allan were silhouetted against the sun as they dived into the water.

This evening after dinner, Allan took charge of some drinking games. We all sat up on the deck on cushions from the seating area downstairs and under the light of a single bulb suspended from the ship's mast. We played a couple of card games, one of which was called 'Down The River' and finished up with a dice game called 'Pigeon.' Once you've played Pigeon you'll never want to roll a dice again for as long as you live, through fear of rolling a 2 and a 1. I've not had as much fun with a couple of packs of cards, 2 dice and 3 bottles of vodka for a long time! Tasha is a hilarious drunk : she kept singing "Catch The Pigeon" and then proceeded to have a supposedly in depth conversation with Colm, which mostly involved her saying, "to be sure, to be sure" and, "top of the mornin' to you", in a semi-credible Irish accent!

Emma was pigeon for around 20 minutes and had to consume as much alcohol in that time as the rest of us did over the whole evening. She subsequently disappeared at around 10:30pm, with the intention of going to the toilet, and didn't return. Rory was stumbling around in typical Rory style, and trying to jump off the side of the boat, and Caroline was blubbering drunkenly about the fact that she'd lost her torch.

Everyone peaked a little early I think so by around 1am most of us were asleep in our beds or passed out on the deck of the ship. I stumbled back to our room to find Emma, fully clothed, lying on her bed with her head half the way down and her legs dangling over the edge of the mattress . . .

A good night had by all!

Photos : Halong Bay at sunset

The girls at dinner (Tasha, Emma, Sam, me, Caroline and Bolton Anna)

Temples, puppetry and the grottiest street cafe in Hanoi

2006-05-20T11:54:00.000+01:00

I hadn't planned to do a lot more sightseeing in Hue once the others left but the extra 24 hours here gave me a good chance to get this journal up to date and was a welcome break from the constant company I've had since leaving Mui Ne. Travelling with people has the added benefits of making booze cruises and full moon parties and even simple things such as an evening meal and a few drinks a lot more fun, but it completely abolishes any sense of personal space or independence that travelling solo offers you. In spite of this I did feel a little odd eating breakfast at Cafe on Thu Wheels when all the other diners were sharing laughter and conversation with their friends.

Through no fault of my own I almost missed the overnight bus to Hanoi. It was 5:45pm and I was the only person sitting in the hotel lobby with a backpack by my side. So I asked the lady at reception if everything was ok, only to be told that the bus had already left because I wasn't there on time. I'd been sitting in the lobby since 4:30!!! So she called a moto taxi to drive me to the T.M Brothers office in time to catch the bus at its last point of call before leaving Hue. Due to the extra weight in my backpack after my shopping expedition in Hoi An, I almost lost my balance and tumbled off the back of the motorcycle everytime the driver put his foot down!

I was the last person to get a seat on the over-crowded and over-booked bus : the Canadian guy who boarded just after me was given a wicker mat and told to sit on the floor! Ironically, although it may not be the most comfortable way to travel, at least he had room to lie down and therefore had more chance of getting some sleep than the rest of us.

I read my book (Graham Greene's "A Quiet American") for a few hours until we made our final refreshment and toilet stop just before midnight. From this point onwards my eyes became increasingly tired after every hour that passed, but sleep was a long way from my grasp. Not only was the air conditioning not working but the bus was so hot I was sweating like I had some kind of fever. Moreover I was convinced the driver was about to fall asleep at the wheel : he was driving so erratically and swerving all over the road as if he thought he was on a racetrack. Everytime I closed my eyes I was woken by the urgent sounds of car horns and the glaring headlights of the approaching vehicle.

We arrived in Hanoi at 5:30am and were greeted with the surreal sights of aerobics classes in full swing around the lake, numerous joggers limbering up as if they were preparing for a marathon and badmington matches taking place along the sides of the roads. Food vendors lined the pavements, selling bananas, mangosteens and crisp white baguettes out of large bamboo baskets suspended from either end of a long wooden pole; locals were wolfing down bowls of noodle soup with chopsticks, sat on tiny red plastic nursery school stools. This was at a time when in Britain the only signs of life, other than the birds chattering in the trees, would be a postman just beginning his rounds or a milk cart trundling quietly through the streets.

Due to it being Ho Chi Minh's birthday the day before, many of the streets were cordoned off and we had to continue our hourney to the old quarter in several smaller mini buses. As I walked to the Holiday's Hotel where the others were staying, I was hassled the entire way by one of the local touts, despite the fact that I made it perfectly clear that no amount of persuasion would encourage me to stay anywhere other than the hotel at which my friends were currently staying. The Vietnamese are certainly a persistent bunch of people!

Despite my plan to creep quietly into the room with the hotel's spare key, the porter insisted on knocking loudly on the door and a very sleepy-looking Sam opened it. A mattress had been set up for me on the floor and within 5 minutes of me entering the room, I was lying down on it fully clothed, the warm feeling of imminent sleep washing over my incredibly tired body. I awake 3 hours later when the others were rising and Emma had just returned from her run. We had a late breakfast at the Whole Earth Restaurant, booked our tickets to the water puppet show this evening and then began our long walk over to the Temple of Literature, on the outskirts of central Hanoi.

The Temple of Literature was founded in 1070 by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong, who dedicated it to Confucius in order to honour scholars and men of literary accomplishment. It was also the site of Vietnam's first university, established in 1076. It's made up of several gates and courtyards enclosing several serene lakes in the middle of the complex. We watched a traditional Vietnamese musical performance using unusual stringed instruments and a large curved xylophone made of bamboo. Neil was given a traditional hat to wear and was lead up on stage along with 2 other members of the audience. We had a good giggle and judging by Tasha's video footage, so did Neil.

Emma and I walked back from the temple while the others caught a taxi (lazy buggers!) and spotted several barber shops which had been set up along the pavement, using a stool and a mirror attached to the wall. Also very surreal!

The Water Puppet Show this evening was original, energetic and nothing like I'd expected. The orchestra were in full view of the audience at the side of the stage and not only did they perform the musical score but they also communicated the voices for the characters. The story line was summarised in English in the programme but was performed entirely in Vietnamese. I don't know whether I expected some meaningless childish antics like Punch and Judy, but The Water Puppet Show was actually a story, performed in short scenes, that was both energetic, amusing and captivating. It's a shame we hadn't managed to get seats a little closer, as I'd love to have been able to capture some of the magic on camera.

We went back to the Whole Earth Restauarant for dinner (where they do a selection of vegetarian dishes which are designed to look and taste like meat) and then we found possibly the grottiest street cafe in Hanoi at which to drink some beer Hoi. It was so reminiscent of being in a sewer that we half expected a couple of rats to join us at our table. It also had, by Tasha's own admission (as she was the only one brave enough to visit it), "the worst toilet in Vietnam." Think Trainspotting, only take away the presence of a western toilet, or any kind of toilet for that matter . . .

Photos :

Barber shop set up on the side of one of Hanoi's streets

Tradional Vietnamese music performers at the Temple of Literature, Hanoi

Hue's 'Tour on Thu Wheels'

2006-05-18T05:48:00.000+01:00

The others left for Hue at 7:30am, but I'd decided to stay a couple more hours in order to get a few more gifts I'd seen for my friends and family back home. So I arrived in Hue at around 5:30pm, to be met by a moto driver holding a card with my name on, which the others had organised for me.

We spent the evening opposite our hotel, at Cafe on Thu Wheels, a small bar run by the eccentric, fun-loving Thu. It's a real backpackers hangout with cheap food, permenant happy hours, grafitti from past visitors adorning the walls, and the kind of music you used to listen to at Uni. Thu welcomes her punters with questions like, "what's your poison?" and, "how's it hanging big boy?" and she got everyone in the bar playing her imaginative, slightly rude, and largely hilarious drinking games. Tasha's friend Chris (who she knows from home but who's also travelling around the world) spent the evening with us and almost got his hair singed when Thu stuck a cocktail stick in his head and lit it, because he was hesitating about whether to join us on Thu's motorbike tour tomorrow! Clearly she doesn't believe in gentle persuasion!

After laughing so much our ribs hurt, we left Cafe on Thu Wheels in order to check out Belgian bar B4. It may well serve Belgian beers (Leffe, Hoegarden and Grimbergan) but at four times the price of the Vietnamese variety. So we all drank beer Huda and amused ourselves by playing Jenga and Uno and listening to Tasha's quirky limericks.

The next morning Thu insisted on cooking us all breakfast before we embarked upon our 'Tour on Thu Wheels'. We headed into Hue's countryside, down narrow dirt tracks only just wide enough to accommodate the width of the motorcycle. We witnessed working water buffalo, and men, women and children tending to the rice fields. It was a real glimpse of Vietnamese village life, and I had the luxury of a driver who enjoyed taking me over the largest bumps and potholes and running chicken off the road!

We stopped firstly at Thanh Toan Bridge, a covered footbridge similar in design to the Japanese Bridge in Hoi An. It's mostly used by local villagers for naps in the shady walkway and a number of young children stared at us curiously through the decorative stonework, their legs dangling over the sides of the bridge.

We subsequently took a drive up to Thien Mu Pagoda, which is built on a hillside overlooking the Perfume River. It's one of the most famous structures in Vietnam and is the unofficial symbol of Hue. The 21m high seven storey tower is the main feature but there's also a huge marble turtle (a symbol of longevity) and a 2052kg bell (which is apparently audible up to 10km away) housed in pavillions at either side of the tower. Thien Mu Pagoda is also home to the Austin motorcar which monk Thich Quay Duc drove to the site of his 1963 self immolation in Saigon, and a photograph illustrating 'the event.' Thich Quay Duc was protesting against the policies of president Ngo Dinh Diem. It strikes me as a rather extreme method of argument . . .

At Tu Hien Pagoda (a pretty temple complex in a shaded area surrounded by gardens and lotus ponds) we witness an alms ceremony taking place. A long line of monks and novices (the novices wear white robes and exhibit small tufts of unshaved hair at the front of their heads and to the left and right of their crowns) paraded through the gardens in front of the temple and along the pathway leading up to its entrance, where we stood in a long silent line as if we were about to greet royalty. They carried their alms bowls and a glass of milk into the temple and we watched them chanting and praying through the open windows.

We continued our tour by driving up to Bunker Hill, an old American gun position with a commanding view over a bend in the Perfume River, and finally the most famous of the royal tombs, the tomb of Tu Duc (entrance fee 55,000VND) who was a poet and the king of Vietnam from 1847 to 1883. His Mausoleum is spectacular and there's also a wooden pavillion built on a peaceful spot by the lake where the king used to write his romantic poetry.

The tour ended around 2:30pm (6 hours in length) and was well worth the $6 price tag. We ate a late lunch at Lac Thanh Restaurant, which has a good selection of Hue specialities and vegetarian food, and in the style of Cafe on Thu Wheels, grafitti covering the otherwise dreary interior. The cheerful owners certainly made up for the slightly drab and dated feel to the place and the food was both cheap, original and first class.

When the others returned to the hotel to pack in preparation for their overnight train journey to Hanoi, I visited the Citadel and had a full blown argument with a cyclo driver, who tried to do me out of 15,000VND. I reluctantly agreed to the ride to the Citadel as it was, preferring to walk everywhere if at all possible. In hindsight I wish I hadn't succumbed, as the driver managed to taint my view of the Vietnamese as a race of very friendly and welcoming people. He demanded I pay him 30,000VND for a ride we'd initially agreed would cost me 15,000VND. After relaying our initial conversation to him several times and stating that I would not be paying him an extra 15,000VND for taking me to a pagoda I didn't even ask to visit, I shoved 15,000VND roughly into his shirt pocket and walked off, half expecting him to follow me and try and run me down with his cyclo or re-appear with one of his friends who conveniently happened to be a policeman. Fortunately he didn't.

Photo is of monks at the alms ceremony, Tu Hien Pagoda, Hue.

Ancient Champa ruins at My Son and Mr Kim's taste sensations

2006-05-16T05:02:00.000+01:00

We said goodbye to Pill and Rob this morning as they both headed up to Hue and I hope very much that we'll meet up with them again in Hanoi. Pill is brilliant fun and so easy to talk to I really felt like she was one of my friends after only days in her company, and Rob seems like a really laid back, down to earth, chilled out kinda guy.

The remaining five of us (Sam, Emma, Tasha, Neil and I) boarded the bus to the Unesco World Heritage site of the ancient kingdom of Champa at My Son. During the Vietnam war the Viet Cong used My Son as a base and in response the Americans bombed the monumnets. Traces of 68 structures have been found and Vietnamese authorities are attempting to restore as many as possible. Archeologists have divided My Son's monuments into 10 main groups, lettered A-K, all of which are in easy walking distance of each other. I must admit that the ancient Champa kingdom was not as intact as I'd imagined from the photographs in my Lonely Planet guide, and the amount of vegetation growing between the bricks made it difficult to appreciate fully what is left. However, it was a pleasant walk around the grounds and the interiors of some of the monuments resemble mini museums displaying Cham artifacts. We were also able to watch traditional Cham performances of music and dance.

We travelled back to Hoi An by boat and ate lunch out of individual plastic boxes which looked like miniature steamers. We all sat up on the deck of the ship, soaking up the sun and watching village life along the river. We made one stop at a wood carving village where everythings from bowls to buddhas to huge wooden boats were on display inside the many shops and workshops we visited.

We arrived back at Hoi an just after 3pm and collected our completed clothing from Phuong Nam. Emma and I were so impressed that our linen trousers were such a perfect fit that we joked about the fact that it was a shame we didn't have time to order another pair. A joke that was taken seriously by Thao (the store owner), who informed us that it wouldn't be a problem for her tailor to make us another pair of trousers by around 8pm this evening. When you're wearing a pair of fully-lined tailor made trousers that you've designed, out of a quality material that you've chosen for the equivalent of 7 or 8 British pounds, it seems like an impossible offer to refuse. So Tasha, Emma and I put another order in with Thao at Phuong Nam tailors and vowed to get our backpacker budget back on track once we left Hoi An.

Following our final fashion splurge, we got a couple more sections sliced off our sightseeing ticket by firstly visiting the Assembly Hall of the Fujian Chinese Congregation, and secondly, Tan Ky House. We were warmly welcomed into Tan Ky and given cups of Vietnamese tea whilst a friendly lady who spoke excellent English talked us through the history of the building, its inhabitants and the features within it. Tan Ky is the oldest private house in Hoi An, built two centuries ago as the home of a well-to-do ethnic Vietnamese merchant. The owner's family has lived in the house for seven generations, three of these are still living in the house today, the youngest of which is a 20 year old female student. The house is beautifully preserved and the design indicates evidence of Japanese and Chinese influences.

We walked back to our hotel across the Japanese Covered Bridge, which was built by the Japanese community of Hoi An in 1593 (it has been restored several times since) in order to link them with the Chinese quarters across the stream. After we'd collected our clothes from Phuong Nam this evening (and Neil was measured for yet another shirt which he's asked me to collect for him tomorrow), we ate at Cafe des Amis, an original riverfront restaurant which has no menu to speak of : diners eat whatever the chef, the friendly and attentive Mr Kim, feels like cooking that day. There are three set menus, consisting of 3 courses and a small dessert : 60,000VND for vegetarians; 70,000VND for seafood; and 90,000VND for meateaters.

The idea in itself deserved one final splurge. We'd been traeted like celebrities at the tailors over the last couple of days, so why not dine like one? I can honestly say, it was the most delicious meal I've eaten since my arrival in Vietnam, and a wonderfully unusual choice of dishes, most of which I've never tried before. We ate shrimp, squid, crab and some kind of meaty fish (possibly tuna), and the mix of flavours used in all 3 dishes was spot on. The meal was finished with the only dessert I'll actually eat (with the exception of the odd cheesecake) : a wonderfully smooth creme caramel. Tasha wolfed hers down so quickly that Mr Kim gave her a second! No visit to Hoi An should be complete without a visit to Mr Kim's restaurant to sample his delicious mix of the best Vietnamese food in Vietnam.

Photo is of the remains of the ancient Champa kingdom at My Son.

Fittings, adjustments and some historic sites in Hoi An's old town

2006-05-15T04:20:00.000+01:00

Pill and I ate breakfast at Bo Bo's Restaurant (where they serve the tastiest home-made chilli sause I've eaten in a long time) whilst we waited for the others to rise. For all of us, the whole day was spent flitting between tailors for fittings and adjustments (I had a pair of Ali Ba Ba pants made which had to be altered twice at Impressions Boutique and are still a little loose around the ankles), sightseeing and shopping for gifts and souvenirs.

We all bought a 75,000VND ticket for the Unesco World Heritage site that is Hoi An's ancient city. The ticket permits viewing of one museum, one assembly hall, one ancient house, one temple, the handicraft workshop and the Japanese covered bridge. I visited the Museum of History and Culture (which is basically a room full of uncoverec artifacts and took me all of five minutes to view) and Quan Cong Temple nextdoor, which was a more interesting site and displayed many Chinese influences including carp-shaped rain spouts on the roof surrounding the courtyard. The carp is a symbol of patience is Chinese mythology and is popular throughout Hoi An. I also wandered around the corner (I love the fact that Hoi An's old town is so compact) to the Handicraft Workshop, where craftsmen and women make lanterns, sculpt wood carvings and cast silver to create jewellery and ornaments.

Hoi An truly is a shopper's paradise. There are some fantastic art galleries where local artists create beautiful pictures that capture the essense of Vietnam or excellent copies of famous paintings by well known international artists. You can also by silk bags, ties, scarves, gloves, and purses, along with lanterns, wood carvings, wall hangings, jewellery, beautifully crafted bowls and plates, and obviously as many items of clothing and pairs of shoes as you can fit in your suitcase. Rob even bought another holdall to fit all his purchases in!

It's a wierd sensation buying clothing that we've been unable to try on and not even seen, but overall we were all pleased with the outcome of our garments, especially the items we'd ordered at Phuong Nam. My top and skirt (made out of aubergine coloured Vietnamese silk) had been made exactly as i'd designed it and imagined it to look.

The plan this evening was to get dolled up in our new garments and go for a nice meal, but Tasha and Emma were frightened of damaging their clothes (as they needed their dresses for a wedding when they returned home), and my top and skirt still needed hemming, so we abolished the nice meal idea and ate at Bo Bo's again. Nevertheless, Rob went out suited and booted and I accompanied him in my baggy ali ba ba pants and semi-smart Vietnamese silk and linen top. Before we'd even reached the end of the road, Rob had received numerous comments about how handsome he looked - mainly from young female Vietnamese shop assistants!

After our meal (or rather, after the football match that all but Tasha and I were intent on watching), we headed over to Treats Bar for a few beers and games of Pool. It wasn't exactly a treat in Treats, because as soon as the clock struck 11pm, the staff became a little too keen to evict us from the premises, so much so that they were removing the pool balls from the pockets as we potted them!

Photo is of a typical street scene in Hoi An's old town.

Tailor made treats in Hoi An

2006-05-14T13:40:00.000+01:00

When I woke up this morning I was rather relieved to find myself in a nice comfortable hotel bed, having managed to get around six hours sleep, as opposed to on a sandy beach, thoroughly knackered, surrounded by random strangers and covered in mosquito bites. So, in hindsight, I was pleased I'd made the decision to come home with the others, despite my stubborn determination to party until dawn.

Pill and I ate breakfast at Cafe Amis before burning to a crisp on a very windy beach. Pill forgot to put sunscreen on her arms and ended up with a couple of limbs almost the same colour as the meat hanging up in the market! After a whole afternoon of achieving nothing constructive, we ironically found ourselves running around at the last minute to get cash and food before our night bus to Hoi An left at 6:30pm. Sam, Emma, Tasha and Neil were also on the bus, as was Rob, a Brentford fan from Uxbridge who we chatted to until the seven of us fell into some degree of semi-consciousness, which in my case could be loosely described as sleep for around two hours of the journey.

When we arrived in Hoi An about 12 hours later all I wanted to to was go to bed. However, after being hassled by moto drivers (2 of whom blatantly lied to us about the price of a hotel room in order to obtain their commission from the hotel) I decided to ride out the desire to sleep and simply get an early night later on this evening. So the seven of us checked into a couple of rooms at the Hoi Pho Hotel and ate breakfast at the cafe next door. The power was out (and remained out all day as it happened) so our choice of food was limited to what didn't require cooking, hence we ate very healthy breakfasts of fruit, yoghurt and museli, accompanied by some strong coffee to keep us awake.

Hoi An is famous for the quality and quantity of tailor-made garments produced here. Almost every other shop along the quaint streets of the old town is a virtual treasure trove, with fabric of every colour and variety stacked to the ceilings inside. Garments can be made to measure in a matter of hours and for little over the cost of the material itself. With these facts in mind, we all (including the men!) decided to throw our backpacker budgets out the window and treat ourselves to a few items of clothing during our stay in Hoi An.

Choosing a tailor is not an easy task and it's a decision that's often made based upon the fabric that's available inside the shops, the designs you see in their magazines, or simply when a garment on one of the manequins outside catches your eye. Between us we chose a number of different tailors, but the one which stood out solely from our initial consultation (as this is all we were able to do today) was Phuong Nam, just left of the entrance to the Central Market. It's a family business and the girls appeared to be a lot more attentive, patient and friendly than many of the other outlets we visited. Moreover, the measurements they took in preparation were more detailed and seemed to be more presise. Tasha and Emma were both measured for dresses here and I was measured for a top and a skirt, which I wanted to look like a dress when worn together. Depending on the tailor and whether or not you want your garment lined, a pair of trousers will normally cost between $12 and $15, a dress between $15 and $20, and a suit between $40 and $50.

In the evening we wandered around the quaint streets of the old town, beautifully lit by the colourful glow from the lanterns hanging up just inside the shop doors. We ate at Bo Bo's Restaurant, a small and very cheap (by Vietnamese standards) eatery along Le Loi. We all sampled the local Cao Lao (doughy flat noodles mixed with greens, beansprouts and croutons, and topped with pork slices (vegetarians get tomatoes and carrots instead) and crumbled rice paper, and served with soy sauce). It received mixed responses from us all but I liked it, and at 8000VND it's always going to be the cheapest meal on the menu.

We finished up enjoying beer Larue in fancy pint glasses at Tam Tam Cafe, and despite our good intentions of retiring early, we arrived back at our hotel just before midnight.

Photo is of some colourful lanterns which were being made at the handicraft workshop, Hoi An.

Drunken shenanigans at the Full Moon Party

2006-05-12T12:33:00.000+01:00

The lack of natural light in our room meant that Pill and I awoke very bleary-eyed at ten to one in the afternoon! I think the lady at Duy Phuoc Cafe must have realised we were hungover when we ordered 2 cheese omelettes (the necessary unhealthy fried food that tastes so good after a night on the beer), a fruit salad (to replace the nutrients in our body lost through the excessive amounts of alcohol we'd consumed) and enough water to fill an ocean! Even after I'd finished the last drop of water it had come nowhere close to quenching my seemingly unquenchable thirst.

We spent a couple of hours on a very windy beach, so windy in fact that everytime someone walked past us the movement of their feet disturbed the sand, which was subsequently blown all over our faces and bodies as we lay. The objects we'd placed upon the corners of our sarongs to prevent them from cocooning us on the sand, were also being blown out of position. As we left the beach, the wind was so strong and the humidity so high that we really thought there was a storm on its way.

The storm didn't arrive, which was quite fortunate as we were on our way to the full moon party this evening on a secluded beach about 30km from Nha Trang. We all met for drinks beforehand at The Red Apple and were given straw hats and bandanas to get us in the mood. When the bus left around 7pm there were not enough seats to accomodate all of us, so I was wedged on to the front seat with the arm rest digging into my back next to Pill and a British guy who's just bought a bar in Guatemala.

The bus stopped by the side of a dark and deserted road and we were met by a man dressed like a security card who was carrying a flashlight. This in itself was very strange, so when he confiscated our empty bottles and instructed us to follow him down an unlit sandy pathway lined with dense vegetation, the experience became even stranger. Considering we'd expected to get off the bus and be met by the sounds of DJ's, thumping bass, and a vast array of colourful lights decorating a beach full of revellers in various stages of intoxication, to find a lone security guard and a deserted dirt track was surreal to say the least. We walked for about 500m before approaching the brow of a hill. From the top of the hill we beheld a small stage, a couple of amateur D.J's (the flyer promised 'international D.J's'), one bar, a scattering of fairy lights dangling from the trees, a bonfire waiting to be lit, and a very beautiful but very empty beach. This was certainly no Kho Phanyan!

Nevertheless, I was determined to make the best out of the evening and it did turn out to be a lot of fun after the inappropriate magic show and dancing competition, reminiscent of a school disco! An hour or two into the party there were two girls, trashed, dancing around the - now lit - bonfire. An hour later two security guards were attempting to prop up a semi-conscious guy who was so wasted his legs had turned to jelly. The two tiny Vietnamese men were strugling to hold the weight of this western giant and he eventually crumbled to the floor, still holding his partially smoked cigarette in his hand. Copious amounts of cocktail buckets were consumed, numerous photos were taken of the five of us in our silly hats and bandanas in various stages of intoxication. The cute guy who got ran over last night was hobbling around with a drink in his hand, mingling with the guests and pulling strange faces in everyone's snapshots. I was up on the stage with the rest of the crowd, bouncing around to the likes of the Chemical Brothers with a load of random strangers, including the older guy with dreadlocks who I'd met in the toilet queue at the Red Apple.

As soon as I decided to sit down and join the others for a while, Tung from The Red Sun (I didn't even know he was at the party until this point) found me. Well, that was it : I was then stuck with a love-sick lap dog for the duration of the night. Everywhere I went then so did he. I tried to make it clear that I wasn't interested in him in that way, but either he didn't understand or he was incredibly persistent - or just plain drunk! When the five of us decided to catch a taxi home at around 4am, he not only walked me to the taxi holding my hand like a child, but he got in the taxi with us! Poor Sam was sat in the middle of us like a gooseberry, as Tung once again grabbed hold of my hand like it was some kind of lifeline. By the time we reached Nha Trang, Tung had fallen asleep in the taxi, so I - if a little guiltily - stepped over him and crept back into the hotel with Pill.

Photo is the best depiction of the evening I could find : a very drunk Tung trying to nuzzle my ear, Full Moon Party, Nha Trang.

A birthday booze cruise and an intoxicated evening at The Sailing Club

2006-05-11T10:58:00.000+01:00

Pill and I really could have done with breakfast this morning so it was just typical that the bus arrived 30 minutes late to take us down to the harbour. The mini bus was full of 'older' Vietnamese people who were not exactly dressed for a boat trip so this didn't bode well for the expectations Pill held for a sun-filled, fun-filled birthday. However our fears were allayed when we got to the harbour and approximately 20 other tourists were already waiting on the boat, along with possibly another 100 on similar boats owned by alternative tour companies in Nha Trang.

We set off on the May Linh boat for Mun (black) Island, and were immediately entertained by our amusing guide who talked excessively about kissing and strip shows and the fact that he was single, and liked to use the phrase "same same but different" at the end of all his gags. I haven't been on a boat trip on the ocean since I've been travelling so it was beautiful to see the huge mountains rising from a piercingly blue sea. The sun glistened on the surface and fish were jumping out of the water, creating ripples in the calm sea. At Mun Island the boat stopped for an hour and we were able to go swimming and snorkelling. Once we'd swam far enough away from the boat, the water was both very clear and very deep. There weren't a huge amount of fish but the coral was spectacular. Of the fish I did see, those that caught my eye were the following :

A Moorish Idol (I know the name of that one because it was in 'Finding Nemo')
A fish with a white head and large black eye, a black body and a saffron coloured tail
A long aquamarine and blue fish with a large snout
A flat round yellow fish with a black splodge on it's body
A large turquoise and green fish

If anyone knows the names of the other fish I have (badly) described, answers on a postcard please . . . (i.e leave a comment at the end of my blog)

We then got back on board the ship and stopped for lunch close to a lobster farm. Considering we were right on the ocean I expected to be eating a bit of fresh seafood, but there wasn't a squid or crustacean in sight and eating rice and soup with chopsticks was rather interesting. Following lunch our strip show we'd been promised turned out to be the crew of the ship forming a band (a tambourine man, a guy on drums made from empty steel containers, an electric guitarist, and our guide as the singer who'd managed to take off his shirt but nothing else, fortunately) and performing tracks such as Yellow Submarine and Waltzing Matilda. It finished with a dance off to The Twist, where our guide dragged willing (and unwilling) tourists up onto his makeshift stage.

By this time Pill and I were thoroughly enjoying the day. Everyone was a lot more relaxed and we all began chatting enthusiastically to one another. After 'the show' our guide introduced the inpromptu 'floating bar' where we were all served fruit wine (in fact I think it was Dalat mulberry wine) and floated around in rubber rings upon the ocean, drinking and sharing conversation with our newly made companions.

We also visited Tam Island, where we had to pay 5000VND for the priviledge of sitting on a very dirty, very shingly, very overcrowded beach, and Mot Island, where we visited the floating bar again whilst the Vietnamese visited the Aquarium. We said goodbye to people when the trip finished around 5pm and promised to meet up with a lot of them later at The Red Apple for Pill's birthday celebrations.

It was certainly a birthday I wouldn't forget : one of those nights where you're still piecing the events together the next morning. We ate at Cafe Amis and met Laura and Sam and another girl called Emma (although I'm not quite sure where we adopted her from) in The Red Apple. Emma's friends Tasha and Neil bought Pill a bottle of red champagne and as soon as the staff at the bar discovered that it was Pill's birthday, she was plied with drinks all night, which we all helped her to consume.

The night was going fantastically, the staff were even doing some funky choreographed dance moves in the street to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', when all of a sudden there was a huge crash, sparks flew across the road and the whole pub went silent. One of the staff (a cute Vietnamese guy in a funky t-shirt and baggy low-slung skater jeans) had stuck his leg out whilst dancing and meanwhile a motorcycle driver on the road had not given him a wide enough birth and had run straight into the guy's leg, knocking him to the ground. The motorcyclist had subsequently come off his bike and the bike had skidded along the road with him underneath it. Surprisingly I'd not seen any motorbike accidents until I got to Dalat (apart from the unavoidable waterbomb induced ones in Phnom Penh over new year) and now I've seen three (although the other two were only minor) in the space of three days. The guy from The Red Apple was taken to hospital (I'm still not sure what happened to the driver of the motorbike) and returned an hour or so later, hobbling badly and with a huge bandage on his head, blood still visibly seaping from his wound.

Pill and I left the others at about 1am to head down to The Sailing Club for a bit of a dance. We walked in and we were at the bar about to order a drink when a blond Danish guy sat at the bar placed two cocktail buckets in front of us. He said he'd ordered too many and needed us to help him drink them! In hindsight I probably shouldn't have accepted a drink from a random stranger, but then everyone's a random stranger when you're travelling and it didn't seem to do us much harm - apart from getting us hideously and hilariously drunk. We chatted to the Danish guy and his friend for a while before getting rid of some alcohol induced energy on the dance floor.

The rest of the evening (or rather, morning!) is a bit of a blur. Lots of dancing and having our photographs taken with people we accosted on the dance floor and trying to escape the drunken affections of the Danish guy's friend. We left The Sailing Club when it closed (at 4am) and stopped for more drinks (although I don't quite know how I managed to consume any more alcohol) on our way back at The Red Apple, which was still open. We ended up going home in a cyclo, although this was no ordinary journey : Pill had hijacked the cyclo from the driver (all amicably) and was cycling me around the streets of Nha Trang, pointing out shops and restaurants and random objects as if they were tourist attractions.

Photo to follow.

Beaches, bars and love notes in Nha Trang

2006-05-10T12:21:00.000+01:00

Our bus to Nha Trang surprised us by leaving on time this morning, so that we arrived in time to spend a few hours of the afternoon on the beach. Not only is the T.M Brothers main office here, but there is also an attached hotel which the company own. I swear they're getting far too big for their boots, and for this reason we were reluctant to check into one of the hotel's rooms despite it being the cheapest in Nha Trang and there being free internet thrown in with the bargain. Unfortunately, due to requiring the majority of our available cash to celebrate Pill's birthday in a couple of days, we swallowed our pride and chose a very large $5 room - with air con no less!

The beach at Nha Trang is a lot more pleasent than I expected : yes it's busy (especially after 4pm when all the Vietnamese finish work and jump in the sea fully clothed) and full of touts distributing flyers for various bars and restaurants, but it's surrounded by the mountains of the central highlands and the sea is both clean and crystal clear blue.

When we wandered back from the beach a few hours later we stopped for a fruit shake at a local street cafe where Gilad (the Israeli guy I met on Victory beach in Sihanoukville) was also doing the same with a few of his travelling companions. I'm used to bumping into people i've previously met travelling but what was stranger was the fact that Pill also knew him. She'd met him on Ochheuteal beach a couple of days beforehand, so Pill had been on the same stretch of beach as I had been at exactly the same time!

In the evening we ate at Duy Phuoc, a tiny local eatery where the people inside were transfixed to the television, cheering and shouting in excitable Vietnamese. The set was showing none other than a Vietnamese version of Who Wants To Be a Millionnaire! Due to their good choice of quality tunes and cheap Saigon beer, we decided to stop for a drink and a few games of pool at the Red Sun Bar after finishing our meal. We were the only customers in the establishment all evening but we had a really chilled out night, mixed with the locals and learnt the numbers from one to ten in Vietnamese :

Mo
Hai
Bar
Bo
Nam
Sow (as in pig)
Bye
Dam
Gin
Boi

We started playing pool with a couple of Vietnamese girls who worked behind the bar, one of whom fancied herself as a bit of a hustler. Her two friends joined us shortly afterwards, a couple of Vietnamese guys, one of whom was called Tung but the other one's name escapes me. We played a couple of games with the two of them and joined them for drinks and peanuts afterwards. All was going so well until Tung leaned over and passed me a note which read "I Love you". At that Harp moment, it was time for a sharp exit . . .

Pill went scuba diving the following morning but unfortunately due to the stinking cold I'd caught (probably from the freezing - in comparison to here - highlands of Dalat) I was unable to join her. I consoled myself with the fact that - as there was no need to be able to breathe through your nose whilst doing so - I'd be able to go snorkelling on the boat trip we'd booked for Pill's birthday tomorrow. Even so, I love the sensation of being at one with the ocean, a sensation which is not fully realised when you only have your face in the water.

The afternoon was spent on the beach again, one hand holding a tissue and the other hand turning the final pages of 'When Heaven and Earth Changed Places'. We ate at Nha Trang Quoc in the evening, before heading to the Red Apple Bar to begin our warm up drinking session in preparation for tomorrow's celebrations. Due to having blocked sinuses and a banging pressure headache behind my eyes, a heavy drinking session was not really what the doctor ordered. However, as you guys back home know, being ill does not stop me enjoying a beer or two - or three . . .

Aside from the fact that there were Vietnamese people working behind the bar, when we walked into Guava, we could have been walking into any bar in the UK. We met up with Sam and Laura, a couple of girls Pill had been scuba diving with, and the four of us continued on to The Sailing Club (an upmarket bar come club that's right on the beach)and the Why Not Bar. By about 1am I was feeling so full of cold allI wanted to do was go to bed. I was also a little disappointed that Nha Trang was so un-Vietnamese, and resigned myself to the fact that my time here was going to be spent either on the beach or in one of Nha Trang's numerous bars, so I planned to make the most of that time and enjoy myself with the friends I was accumulating here. Hoi An would be full of culture ; Nha Trang is just a beach resort that happens to be in Vietnam.

Photo is of a lone ship floating on the sea in the afternoon sun, South China sea, Nha Trang

Easy Riding with Dalat's Easy Riders

2006-05-08T07:07:00.000+01:00

After yesterday's insane and non-sensical events we were half expecting the curse of Dalat to permeate its way into todays plans. However we were pleasantly surprised that the problem with the ATM seemed to have fixed itself so we were able to get some money, the bikes we'd booked (a Husky and a Bonus) were waiting for us when we arrived at the Crazy Gecko Tours office, the sun was shining down from a perfectly clear blue sky and continued to do so for the duration of the day, and our drivers Tung and Hai were laid back, down to earth, amusing guys with an unfaultable grasp of the Englsih language.

As I'd given Pill the double bed in the attic room we'd had to move into this morning, she allowed me the first ride on the Husky. If you're not a fan of motorbikes I guarantee you that a ride on this one will most certainly change your mind. The designers have not only given detailed consideration to the comfort of the driver but to his passenger also : the foot rests are in a perfect position and the back rest gives you the feeling of being seated in a comfortable sofa, whilst enjoying the sensation of the hot sun on your face, a cool breeze racing through your hair, and the absorbing sights and sounds of Dalat's countryside. Comfort aside, the speed, appearance, and gentle roar of the engine meant that this bike totally and utterly rocked!

We stopped firstly at Hang Nga (Night Queen) Guesthouse, otherwise known as Dalat's 'Crazy House'. It's designed by Vietnamese architect, Mrs Dang Viet Nga and is a cross between Gaudi's innovative Barcelonean architecture and decorative themes reminiscent of Lewis Carrol's 'Alice In Wonderland.' The design of the structure promises something unique, original and full of character, but unfortunately what's actually delivered is closer to the countercultural kitsch we've witnessed largely throughout Dalat. Nevertheless exploring Hang Nga was a fun experience and the priviledge of staying in one of the guesthouse's themed rooms will cost you between $26 and $62 per night.

We then drove deeper into Dalat's beautiful countryside and up into the hills to reach the Zen Meditation Pagoda. Newly built in 1990, it's worthy of a visit as much for the view of the surrounding valleys and across the Lake of Sighs as it is for the pagoda itself. The scenery was almost how I imagine Canada's great lakes to look, with masses of tall pine trees dominating the foreground.

Our next stop was Datanla Falls, which lie at the bottom of a 350m descent through a diverse forest of trees and plants and wildlife, in particular numerous birds and butterflies. What's good about this place is that it's peaceful and pretty and natural - with the distinct exception of a large rollercoaster winding its way through the trees. Work is expected to be completed on this rollercoaster by the end of 2006, and it will transport visitors to and from the falls. I remember thinking that this was how Alton Towers began life. We rested for a drink with our drivers before beginning our ascent back up from the falls. Mine and Pill's curiousity got the better of us so we sampled the ominous 'Birds Nest' drink, which was piled up with cans of Cola and Miranda and Winter Melon Tea. It does actually contain - as it says on the can - birds nest, as well as white fungus, sugar and water, creating a taste which resembles caramel. Not sure I'd drink it again though after learning what it contains!

Our favourite part of the trip (aside from riding around Dalat's countryside at high speeds on the back of a Husky!) was a wander around Dalat's minority village, nicknamed The Chicken Village due to a very large stone statue of a chicken greeting you as you enter. We bid the villagers "Nim Sa" (hello) as Tung led us through some beautiful fruit and vegetable gardens (where the residents were cultivating beans, beetroot, corn, grapefruit, papaya, guave, passionfruit, and dragon fruit). We stopped in a sheltered little flower garden decorated with artwork by Dalat's Crazy Monk. We watched an old lady make insense sticks from the ground residue of the rubber tree and coat them in cinamon or sandalwood powder, and enjoyed fresh passionfruit (I'd forgotten how wonderful this tastes), guava, and bags of dried corn.

Due to their lack of appeal upon arrival at the following attractions, we rushed through our viewings of :

Valley Of Love (a picturesque valley and lake surrounded by kitsch little fairy-tale style houses, cheesy romantic music blaring from hidden speakers, and horses and carts adorned with garish pink flowers)
The Magic Table (a random wooden table in the middle of a woman's driveway which is supposed to turn clockwise or anticlockwise 'by magic', depending on the thoughts you transmit as you rest your hands upon it)
Dalat's Flower Garden (which we expected to be a beautiful jungle of tropical flowers but was yet again another display of decorative kitsch)

Our final port of call, after the necessary cafe sua-da at a little mountainside cafe, was the residence of artist, poet and scholar Vien Thuc, otherwise known as Dalat's 'Crazy Monk'. I could understand why some people call him crazy : the original and eccentric character has been painting for 52 years, and has churned out over 100,000 works of art, the majority of which fill every room in his pagoda. Masses of paintings are hung busily on the walls and stacked up on the floors. I bought a copy of his Zen Poetry, not because I necessarily liked his work but simply because I was in awe of it. The poems he writes are very much the same as their predocessors, just like his paintings, but he keeps on writing and he keeps on painting because that's what he's passionate about and I respect him for that.

I was a little saddened to finally say goodbye to Hai and Tung. They'd been fantastic guides and we'd had a wonderful day with them. And that bike . . .

Photo to follow.

Crazy House, Crazy Monk, Mad World . . .

2006-05-07T06:05:00.000+01:00

I don't know whether it's the altitude up here but the people of Dalat seem to have some kind of sickness. As the day drew on, so too did the number of bizarre occurences we encountered here, and by the end of the day Pill and I were really starting to question our own sanity. The same woman who had offered her laundry service to us twice last night, appeared outside our door this morning like a little Green Irish lepracorn. Our only conclusion was that either she's suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder or she's got a fetish for dirty knickers!

We ate breakfast at The Peace Cafe, served by the exuberant and overenthusiastic owner who seems to emit a mildly psychotic aura. Nothing strange there then. We then decided to try and locate two of Dalat's Easy Riders ("a witty crew of freelance motorbike guides who carry their clients on the back of vintage Russian and East German motorcycles" - Lonely Planet) to take us on a tour of the city and its surroundings. The manageress of our hotel offered to call one for us, which we thought was incredibly helpful until we began talking to him. It was like trying to get an answer out of a politician : he would either answer our question with a question or answer a completely different question to the one we had asked! He told us it was too late to start the tour today (it was only 9:30am) but when we asked if we could go tomorrow, he simply said,"no". One comment summed up the whole conversation. He asked, "where are you from?" and our - not unusual - response of "England" prompted him to inform us, "I take a lot of dutch people on my tours!"

So we wandered into town in the hope that a slightly more sane Easy Rider who could meet our requirements would find us, as the Lonely Planet says they invertantly do. Indeed we were approached by someone who claimed to be an Easy Rider, a toothless gentleman in an oversized anorak who insisted upon continually showing us photos of himself in an army uniform prior to the Vietnam war. We finally haggled the price down to an acceptable $10 each, but when he turned up 10 minutes later with the bikes that we'd be riding on, they weren't the vintage Russian or East German motorcycles that we'd expected, but two of your bog standard 125cc Hondas which ply the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Feeling disappointed and a little guilty that we'd already agreed upon the tour, we tried to describe exactly what we were after. We were told that, due to the unreliability of the older bikes, they were no longer used by the Easy Riders and that there were only two remaining in Dalat. Believing that this gentleman and his colleague were not the genuine article, we decided to head back to the hotel to re-assess the situation.

Upon re-entering the hotel the manageress presented us with a new key for our room, informing us that the original lock broke when our room was being cleaned. Flashbacks of the incident at Kompong Cham suddenly entered my haed so we headed upstairs to assess the situation. Upon entering the room we discovered that no cleaning had been done and everything was as we had left it, including all our belongings. The events of Dalat and the people within the city were becoming increasingly puzzling. Why was the lady so eager to do our laundry? and why had the lock on our door been changed when no cleaning had been done and nothing had been stolen?

It was getting later and later in the day and we still hadn't found ourselves a pair of Easy Riders. Confused how such a simple task could be so difficult, we decided that a coffee was in order. On our way back into town we passed Crazy Gecko Tours (everything in this city is crazy!). Attracted by the name, we decided to pop in for one final attempt to organise a tour with the Easy Riders. The lady was sane and friendly and helpful. She explained that there were in fact only 2 vintage bikes used by Easy Riders in Dalat : one was at her office (a beautiful black Corin Husky) and the other was with one of the Easy Riders who was currently out on tour. She promised that she would try to contact the driver in question but could not guarantee that a) she'd be able to get hold of him, or b) that he'd be free tomorrow.

Grateful for the fact that someone was eventually trying to meet our requirements, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to write off the tour today and do some sightseeing around the centre of Dalat instead. However, as we walked down to the lake the skies opened and a terrential storm was upon us, making any kind of sightseeing also impossible. We dashed into the nearest cafe, which turned out to be one of Dalat's most exclusive restaurants, and drank coffee whilst dripping all over their expensive tablecloths.

Once the rain had cleared up, the rest of the day was spent checking out Dalat's Central and Vegetable Markets. We secured our Easy Rider tour for tomorrow (the lady had been unable to contact the lone rider so we would have one husky and one ordinary motorbike and share the ride) and continued to encounter bizarre experiences and crazy, non-sensical people :

We walked to the Stop and Go Cafe, labelled by Lonely Planet as "Dalat's avant garde hangout", to find that we'd walked into someone's vegetable garden, only that someone was no-where to be seen.
We found the House With 100 Roofs, which despite Lonely Planet's claims that it had been "torn down as a fire hazard because the People's Committee thought it looked anti-socialist" was still a kooky little cafe reminiscent of a collection of tiny fairy grottos
I entered a travel agent which advertised 'Visa Extention' in bold letters on their large window, but when i asked the girl inside, "could you tell me how much it would cost to extend my Vietnam visa?", she simply answered "no". It was like walking into a coffee shop only to be told they don't serve coffee!
We ate at a restaurant this evening where lots of the locals were sharing large hotpots. When i asked the waiter for soy sauce (and even pointed at the bottle on the gentleman's table adjacent to ours) he walked out of the restaurant and then returned 5 minutes later with a large bowl of white noodles!?!
At this same restaurant, I asked the waitress if I could use the toilet. She showed me to a room containing a wash basin and two urinals!?! I was still female last time I checked!

The latter experiences at the restaurant did it for us. We were no longer able to deal with that surrealness that seemed to embody Dalat, so we retired to bed - only after the laundry woman had found us yet again - and hoped that tomorrow would make more sense . . .

Photo is of Pill and I on the Husky we secured for tomorrows trip, Dalat.

A neverending bus journey into the central highlands of Vietnam

2006-05-06T05:29:00.000+01:00

I had planned to spend a couple of hours on the beach this morning before catching my bus up to Dalat, and in hindsight I would have been able to. Today has well and truly confirmed my opinions of the T.M Brothers and as greedy and incompetent tour agency. I was due to catch the bus at 12:30pm, so when I awoke a little later than I'd planned, at 9:30, I decided to have a relaxing and unrushed breakfast at the hotel and read some more of my book whilst I waited for the bus to arrive. 12:30 passed, as did 1:00 and despite my polite enquiries as to where my bus may have got to, no-one in the Happy Tours office (a subsiduary of T.M Brothers) seemed very bothered by the fact that it was late or very keen to find out when it was due to arrive. Eventually at 1:30, I was told to get on a bus headed for Nha Trang, but this bus had already come some distance so it was stopping in Mui Ne for a further half an hour so that its passengers could eat some lunch. Down at the actual T.M Brothers office, I met the only other western passenger headed for Dalat, a 22 year old girl from Reading called Pill.

We sat together on the bus journey, sharing travel experiences and doing enough talking to compensate for the fact that everyone else on the bus was either asleep or had their heads in books, so were deadly silent save for the loud snores of one gentleman sat a couple of seats behind us. We'd been told we had to change buses about 100km into our journey, on to one which take us on to our final destination of Dalat. Neither of us had watches so we were unsure about how long we'd been travelling, but we were both a little worried that we had covered over 100km of ground and not made one stop even for a drink or something to eat, let alone to change buses. The driver began to have a heated telephone converstaion with someone who we assumed knew (or perhaps didn't know) the whereabouts of our alternative bus. Shortly after this telephone conversation had taken place, a local bus passed us, heading in the opposite direction. Our driver made frantic hand signals to the driver of the local bus, trying desperately to flag it down. We didn't need to be told that this was the bus we'd be catching. It was not an air conditioned tourist bus as it was supposed to be, and it wasn't even a bus that had been waiting for us; it was just the first one that had passed us heading in the opposite direction. We were both bundled on this bus, with no explanation as to where we were or how far we were from Dalat. However we guessed from the fact that the sun started to set not long after we boarded, that we'd travelled too far in the wrong direction on the other bus and were doing some serious backtracking.

I know I said in my previous blog that I wished I'd paid extra for the experience of travelling on a local bus, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind! Our bus headed up into the mountains, far away from any form of civilisation. We were constantly teased by the sights of a series of lights up ahead, but these turned out to be the lights of several small villages tucked away in the highlands of Vietnam. We finally pulled into Dalat at 9:45pm, ravenous, stressed and seriously pissed off. It didn't help the situation that we were dropped off 5km outside the centre of Dalat, and not at an appropriately priced central hotel, as was supposed to have happened. We paid our 10,000VND each for a moto ride into the centre, intent on lodging a complaint at the T.M Brothers office the next morning.

We checked into a pleasant $6 room at the Peace Hotel, but I wouldn't even have cared if it was a dirty cockroach infested hovel (well, maybe I would just a little!), I was so relieved to have arrived at a place we thought at one point in the journey we'd never make it to. We ate our first meal since breakfast at 10:15pm in the Peace Hotel Cafe, which was fortunately still open - but only just! When we returned to our room, a lady appeared at our door to give us some towels and ask if we wanted any laundry done. All we both wanted to do was sleep so we were a little annoyed when, about 15 minutes later, the woman returned. I didn't really understand the point of her second visit, which was to point out that we had hot water in our bathroom (which we'd already discovered when we ran the tap) and ask again if we required her laundry service. A very surreal end to a very stressful day . . .

Photo to follow

Sand surfing and sand dunes

2006-05-05T12:37:00.000+01:00

Considering I was awake before the birds this morning, I was surprised to find that I wasn't the only tourist waiting for the sun to rise at the yellow sand dunes about 5km outside Mui Ne. I booked a moto driver for $6 to drive me around Mui Ne's most famous sights : the yellow sand dunes, white sand dunes, red canyon, fishing village and fairy stream. When we arrived at the first set of dunes, it was still dark and the sun was just beginning to show it's face from behind some low lying clouds, giving the dunes a mysterious reddish glow. As I walked up the dunes, I spotted a group of tourists ahead, accompanied by the same number of kids carrying pieces of thin shiny plastic with rope handles at one end. The children soon adopted me as part of the group (which I later discovered was not actually a group but a number of individuals who'd all begun the same circuit with their moto drivers as I had) and one little boy asked if I wanted to slide and memorized my - not particularly easy - name within seconds.

We all sat atop the dunes and watched the red sun gradually illuminate the sky. Having seen the Moroccan dunes of the Sahara desert, I was rather disappointed with Mui Ne's initial offering. However, having experienced the thrill of sliding down the dunes in various positions upon the little boy's makeshift sand sleigh, I was beginning to appreciate them a little more. So when he asked me for money afterwards, I didn't mind parting with a few thousand dong.

My driver and I then passed through some awesome scenery which looked more like parts of the Arizona desert than Vietnam, in order to arrive at Mui Ne's white sand dunes. These were more like the ones I remember from Morocco : sculpted, untouched and on a much larger scale. Surrounding the dunes were immense lakes and forests and a rare tranquility, which made me feel like the only person on earth. That was until I was approached by a couple of kids who insisted on following me the majority of the way around the dunes. When I stopped then so did they, and wherever I chose to tread their little feet would make sure that they didn't remain far behind. When I finally decided to leave the peaceful mounds of sculpted white sand, the liitle girl reached out her hand to me with the words "money", words which - with her poor grasp of the English language - sounded more like "morning" so I cheekily bid her good morning in exchange, and continued on my way.

Our next stop on the circuit was Mui Ne's Red Canyon. When I arrived here, it really was like being in the desert : the sun was now very high in the sky and shining with all its strength, and what vegetation there was, offered little shade. There were a couple of lizards scurrying over the dry rocks, as the imposing canyon towered above my tiny and now very dehydrated little body. I'd stupidly had nothing to drink since leaving my hotel this morning, and seen no-where on route from which I could obtain even a small bottle of water. I don't think I've experienced such a genuinely desparate thirst before, so when I located what I recognised as a rose apple tree, I picked a couple of the sun-ripened fruits and franticly sucked the juice out, savouring every single little drop.

We continued on to the fishing village, which was basically just a viewpoint from which we could see a large collection of fishing vessells floating upon the ocean. Having taken a few photos, we quickly moved along to Mui Ne's fairy spring : a pretty little and incredibly shallow colourful stream winding its way through a patch of sand dunes with interesting sand and rock formations. I began the long walk along the stream bed and towards a waterfall which supposedly lay at the other end. However, the sun quickly stole any feelings of rehydration that the rose apples had offered me, and I was soon feeling sick and lightheaded. As there was no-one around to pick me up if I did pass out, I decided to head back before I did. Back at my hotel, I drank my way through a whole litre and a half of ice cold water. It didn't matter that it cost me 10,000VND and I've never appreciated a bottle of water so much in my life.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on the beach, drinking so much water I was starting to imagine all those horror stories about people dying from consuming too much water, and continuing my reading of 'When Heaven and Earth Changed Places' by Le Ly Hayslip. It's a fascinating, evocative and very moving tale of the author's experiences as a child growing up in a small village just outside Danang in the middle of the Vietnam war, and gives a good insight into the horrors and brutality of war and how it affected innocent civilians.

Photo is of the white sand dunes at Mui Ne.

A stressful shopping expedition and an afternoon on Mui Ne beach

2006-05-04T12:56:00.000+01:00

Due to International Workers Day (Quoc Te Lao Dong) falling back-to back with Liberation Day (Saigon Giai Phong), the Vietnamese people are allocated a public holiday from the 30th of April until the 3rd of May. This means that many local businesses are closed, and those which stay open for the tourists - namely the T.M Brothers - can unfortunately get away with charging inflated prices over this period. Therefore, if I were to leave for Mui Ne on the 3rd of May (as originally planned), it would cost me an additional 40% on top of the normal ticket price. I wasn't prepared to part with an extra $8.80 for my open ticket up to Hanoi so I decided to stay in Ho Chi Minh City until the end of the public holiday. I needed some shopping time to find birthday presents for my parents and as Ho Chi Minh City is supposed to offer some of the best shopping in Vietnam, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out.

It seems that moto and cyclo drivers have a solo female traveller radar attached to their vehicles and I never realised quite how annoying it would become throughout the duration of the day. Even before I left the backpacker ghetto that surrounds Pham Ngu Lao I had alreday been approached by about 20 or 30 drivers who offered me their services and enquired what I was looking for (I had my map in my hand simply so that I didn't have to rummage around in my bag to locate it at a later stage), where I was going, where I was going after that and so on.

As I was shopping I wasn't going anywhere in particular, which is a little difficult to explain to a moto or cyclo driver who speaks limited English. In the end it was simply easier to say I was walking to one of the nearby attractions, but they then wanted to show me where the attraction that I mentioned was on my map. I'm sure they were only trying to be helpful but I felt like saying, "I know I'm female but I'm perfectly capable of reading a map!" So my shopping expedition was a little more stressful than I'd anticipated.

However, I successfully found the gifts I was looking for, as well as a lovely little local street cafe slap bang in the middle of the Dong Khoi district, where I was served a deliciously strong cafe sua-da and the usual complimentary pot of Vietnamese tea that you're given in the majority of the more 'local' dining establishments, for 5000VND (approximately $0.30). I also found a large hypermarket, the Co-op Mart, where I managed to get hold of some dye for my hair, which was closely resembling the colour of straw after months of exposure to the sun.

The next morning I caught the bus to Mui Ne. As Vietnam is a much more developed country compared to the likes of Cambodia and Laos, and a lot more tourist orientated than many parts of Thailand are, it was actually cheaper for me to book an open bus ticket to the north with the T.M Brothers (who seem to have a bit of a monopoly in Ho Chi Minh City) than it would have been for me to catch a local bus to each of my destinations. An open bus ticket gives you transportation (via air conditioned tourist bus) to the destinations you choose (I chose Mui Ne, Dalat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and Hanoi) and allows you as long as you wish to spend at each place within a two month period. Yes, it's easy, comfortable and hassle free but I rather like the authenticity that comes with using local transport; the strange sense of fun you experience from being squeezed into your seat with your knees up to your elbows, from losing all sensation in your feet, from feeeling every bump in the road, and almost passing out from the heat or achieving an instant tan as all the dust from the streets blows in through the open window. I don't like the separation that catching a tourist bus inadvertantly provides, as one of the main reason I choose to travel to countries such as this is to be part of the culture that they embody. So I guess in hindsight, despite the cost and the comfort, I wish I'd have parted with a few extra dollars and a few extra hours of my time, and opted to travel the same way the majority of Vietnamese people do.

Nevertheless, I arrived in Mui Ne and checked in to the hotel which our bus stopped outside, the Ngoc Bich, as the room I looked at was $5 and I know from my experience in Ho Chi Minh City that cheaper rooms are very few and far between. I quenched a four and a half hour bus journey worth of thirst at a nearby cafe, The Sand Dollar, where the cheapest drink on the menu other than water was 15,000VND (I guess the same principal applies to Vietnam's beach resorts as it does to Cambodia's) before heading down to check out the beach. It appears that each hotel has its own portion of Mui Ne's beach, which they all use as a selling point on their business cards : advertising it as a 'private beach'. The beach wasn't very private but it was very pleasant all the same, with numerous windsurfers and kite surfers scattering themselves upon the ocean.

I set my towel down in front of the occupied sunbeds and amused myself by watching a young boy build a den out of some large tree ferns that were lying around on the beach. For those of you that have played Zelda on the N64, he then decorated himself with the tree ferns so that the result was a creature resembling a deku scrub, and then charged full throttle into the den sounding much like Link when he chops those little rupee plants down with his sword. It was both bizarre and random and for those reasons, it was also the most hilarious sight I've been witness to for months!

Photo to follow.

Floating markets, rice paper and pigs

2006-05-02T11:57:00.000+01:00

Yo-hey and I were rudely awoken very unnecessarily this morning at 6am by a loud knock on the door from a gentleman who claimed to be 'hotel law inforcement'. Either his position of porter had allowed his imagination to run a little wild or sleeping in past dawn was breaking some crazy Vietnamese law i didn't know about! I showered, ate (I can't really say 'enjoyed') my very bland breakfast of a plain baguette and one triangular sized portion of laughing cow cheese spread, provided by the hotel, and I was still ready to leave by 6:50, 40 minutes before our given departure time.

We walked along the river front to the port from which we would charter a small motorboat out to Cai Rang floating market. It wasn't the kind of market I'd experienced in Bangkok, where vendors sell their wares in tiny wooden paddleboats on a narrow stretch of river only wide enough to accommodate half the number of boats travelling upon it. This was an incredibly large stretch of river and some very large boats by comparison. All the boats displayed tall masts and attached to them, a collection of the wares that they were selling. So there were masts decorated with pineapples, carrots, watermelons, potatoes, as well as other unidentifiable objects.

Having passed the first market we continued along to a small village where we were able to watch the process of rice paper making. I had witnessed this process before in Cambodia but never on such large a scale. There were barrels upon barrels of the mixture, which looked like thick white emulsion and had stained the outside of the barrel as if to mirror this fact. There was a lady thinly spreading the mixture on to a large cast iron plate, which smoked as she did so due to the intense heat below it. A young man would then remove the cooked rice paper, wrapping it arounda thick wicker baton and then placing it on a length of bamboo gauze, along with three other dinner plate circles of rice paper. The now full gauze would then be placed, along with hundereds of others, on a large wooden frame in the garden and left to dry in the sun. There was also a rather enormous and exhausted looking pig feeding her six babies in the pen outside. I spent so long trying to snap that perfect pig picture that I nearly lost the rest of my group!

We next arrived at a rice husking mill where there were so many cobwebs hanging from the rice husking machines that you'd think they hadn't been used for centuries! Finally we meandered through Phong Dien floating market, where smaller paddle boats mingled with the larger motorixed versions, which gave it much more of an authentic market atmosphere. We watched people on the boats exchange wares and a few of us bought some mangos from a passing fruit vendor.

Back at Can Tho we ate lunch at the neighbouring hotel, whilst watching an over-dramatic, over-acted Korean soap opera on T.V. Alison and her friend (Canadian and British English teachers from Japan) who I met at breakfast this morning were wrestling with a crab next to me, whilst Stacey, Susan and I chose the cheaper and easier to eat option of fried noodles and vegetables.

After lunch we began the journey back to Ho Chi Minh City, stopping at Leng Dinh Pagoda, which is also the site of a small incense stick making factory. Due to the distinct lack of parties (myself excluded; I love local markets) interested in visiting Can Tho market, we arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City an hour early, at 5pm. I checked into a $5 room at the guesthouse nextdoor, the Ngoc Guesthouse. They do actually offer $4 rooms but these were unfortunately full, so for the extra dollar I got cable T.V with very bad reception. As the music channel is the only one you can really appreciate when a serious snow storm is interfering with the picture, this is the one I tuned it to when I arrived back from having a drink with East Rider Tony, who was occupying the same spot in Ngoc's 'beer garden' as when I met him a couple of days ago.

Photo to follow.

Honey wine, snakes, and a cancelled homestay in the Mekong Delta

2006-05-01T12:50:00.000+01:00

Only last night we were informed by the friendly staff at our guesthouse that Bich Thuy is actually closing today. We were a little concerned a couple of days ago when we returned to our room amd discovered that the T.V had been removed and a little note had been left beside it by way of an apology! The staff have no idea why they're suddenly out of jobs, and I'm a little surprised considering Bich Thuy is featured in the Lonely Planet guide and is one of the cheapest guesthouses in Ho Chi Minh City, but today they said goodbye to their last customers.

Kotoe and I checked out, shared hugs and goodbyes and made our way down to the T.M Brothers Office (where they kindly agreed to let me leave my backpack overnight) so that she could catch the bus up to Nha Trang and I could join the 2 day tour I'd booked to the Mekong Delta ($18 including a homestay). I was a little concerned when I boarded the bus, that the majority of passengers seemed to be just shy of collecting their pension or Vietnamese, and that I wouldn't be able to make a friend for the duration of the tour.

We took a short bus journey to My Tho where we all piled into a motorboat which transported us through the Mekong Delta to our first point of call : a site where coconut candy is made. The site was also home to several large rose apple trees where Vietnamese men with long poles were retrieving the almost-ripe specimens from branches well out of reach of hungry hands (the fruits from the lower branches had already been picked and eaten or trampled into the ground). Coconut candy is made by boiling coconut milk, which produces a sweet much like a toffee.

My earlier fears were allayed when we made our second stop at a bee keeping farm, where I sat down at the same table as and introduced myself to an Autralian girl called Stacey, who's been travelling for 13 months, and her mother Susan who's flown out to travel with her daughter for the final six week leg of her trip. At the bee keeping farm we were able to sample honey wine (which tasted like sweet rice wine) and honey tea (which tasted like thehot honey and lemon your mum used to make for you as a child when you were poorly) and I volunteered to be the first person in our group to hold a giant Python. They're incredibly strong snakes : as well as wrapping himself around my neck, he also wrapped himself around the arm of the chair I was sitting on, so that when I stood up so that the adjacent gentleman could take my photograph, the chair came with me!

We continued our cruise down the Mekong on several smaller paddle boats, each being rowed by a Vietnamese lady wearing one of the traditional conical hats. The river was lined with coconut palms, which formed an archway over our heads. We were all given similar conical hats to wear and a small oar so that we could help with the paddling if we so desired. We took it in turns to paddle (as we kept getting our oars tangled) our way through the Mekong's narrow channels to a small riverside resort where we ate a rather unimaginative lunch of rice and salad.

After lunch we continued on to a small riverside village where we ate fresh fruit (mango, papaya, longans, dragonfruit and pineapple), witnessed a dispaly of local southern Vietnamese music performed by a selection of the villagers in traditional dress, and wandered around the handicraft shops selling whatever you desire made from coconut shells, including handbags, jewellery, cutlery, crokery, and hair decorations.

We were taken back to My Tho by boat and those of us who had signed up to the two and three day tours began the very long bus journey to Can Tho, a bustling city with a population of 1 million and the capital of the Mekong Delta. I was surprised to discover that the majority of people on the tour had opted for overnight accommodation in a hotel rather than a homestay in a local village. It's not every day you get the chance to transiently become part of a local family, and to live life as they do and learn about their cultures and customs, which is why I was very disappointed when we arrived in Can Tho and our tour guide broke the news that the homestay was unfortunately no longer possible. Can Tho had experienced a lot of heavy rain over the past few days (much of it still blocking the roads as we drove in) and the home at which we (myself and a Japanese guy) were supposed to be staying was still waterlogged.

So we were given our $4 refund and allocated a twin room in the Huy Hoang hotel for the night. Instead of drinking copious amounts of rice wine (which is what i was earlier informed I'd be doing), I joined Stacey, Susan and the Japanese guy (whose name i later discovered was Yo-hey) for a meal at The Mekong Restaurant, which was located right opposite the imposing statue of Ho Chi Minh right on the riverfront. The food was good and the waiter even went to the trouble of separating the bill for us unprompted.

After the meal we explored Can Tho a little and photographed some cocky little children who followed us around asking for money. We then spent the remainder of the evening at a little local street cafe opposite our hotel drinking cafe sua-da, sharing conversation and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Photo is of street life in Can Tho, the Mekong Delta.

The Cu Chi tunnels and a visit to the circus

2006-04-30T09:34:00.000+01:00

We grabbed a fruit shake at Cafe Sinh To this morning before arriving at the T.M. Brothers office for our 1 day tour to the Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels, only to be told that the tour we'd booked wasn't running because we were the only two people to have booked it! Perfect time to break the news. It was too late to book a similar tour with an alternative company, so we had to take the only option being offered to us, which was to join the half day tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

So we hopped on the bus (which was half an hour late leaving) and headed on our way. Our guide was a 55 year old long haired war and prison veteran who called himself "Survivor" (for obvious reasons - he spent 6 years serving in the Vietnam war, 3 years in prison, and 1 year uncovering land mines : 10 years of living on life's knife edge) and kept following each piece of information with the question, "do you know what I mean?" in a thick Vietnamese accent.

We arrived firstly at a place where we watched rice paper being made, had a close up look at a rice plant, and witnessed the usage of a machine which separates the rice grains from the kernels. We then continued along to the tunnels themselves. Ben Duoc Tunnel is part of the Cu Chi tunnel network which is situated 70km north west of Ho Chi Minh City. Contrary to the information contained within the latest Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam (which states that the tunnels actually ran from Ho Chi Minh City to the Cambodian border), our guide informed us that the tunnels stretched for 250km in a winding network beneath the town of Cu Chi. The tunnels were built on three different levels - at 3m, 6m and 10m below ground level - and were in use for 26 years, from 1949 until the war ended in 1975. They are an architectural monument set deep in the earth and included sections for living, dining, meeting and fighting.

As we entered the site of the Ben Duoc tunnel, we watched a DVD detailing the history of the tunnels and were given a 'Dia Dao Cu Chi' sticker, and as the entire bus load of us were guided through the site, I felt like I was re-living my childhood as a 10 year old on a school trip. The tour was interesting and our guide knowledgable and informative, but I felt more like part of a process rather than an individual. Many of the tourists had the opportunity to squeeze themselves into the first hidden tunnel and have their photograph taken as they disappeared into the ground, but when you're 3 rows back in a group full of about 40 other people and pushing rudely to the front is not a idea practised back in your country, the opportunity for me to do this was taken away almost as quickly as it presented itself.

After learning about the various different traps set up for the soldiers and witnessing waxwork models recreating life within the tunnels, we were finally given the chance to enter one of the remaining tunnels. The 500m stretch of the surviving underground network was a lot smaller than I'd imagined so manouvering my way through required me to either crawl or to squat right down with my heels touching my bum and walk along on my feet, which gave the calves and thighs a good work out! When we reached the end of the poorly lit and exasperatingly hot tunnel, we were all presented with a well needed cup of Vietnamese tea and a snack of sweet potato sticks and crushed peanuts.

We arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City at 2:30pm and were met with a beautiful lunch spread of spring rolls, fried rice and noodles. There was no mention of this being included in the tour so it was a pleasant and welcomed surprise and went some way towards compensating for the disorganisational error with our orginal tour.

This evening was the final evening Kotoe and I would spend together, as she only has 2 weeks in Vietnam (any longer and she's also need to apply for a visa like us Brits) so she's heading north and I'm sticking around to do a tour of the Mekong Delta, We shared a litre or two of beer Hoi at the street cafe next to our guesthouse and I met one of Vietnam's Easy Riders (a group of guys from the central highlands who run motorbike tours around the area) from Dalat who gave me his business card. We then - upon a strong recommendation from John and Jasmin last night - paid a visit to the circus. The company were visiting Ho Chi Minh City for 2 nights in celebration of Liberation Day - 31 years since the fall of Saigon. It was a brilliant and original experience (with the exception of the performing elephants and monkeys) full of vibrance, colour and diversity, and was a fantastic and memorable way to spend our last night together.

I'll miss Kotoe. It's been great to have had company for so long from someone I now consider to be a good friend. Kotoe's a genuine, down to earth, intelligent, funny, and quirky (and a little bit crazy!) girl and we've got a lot in common (apart from the speed at which we conduct our travel ; I'd call it laziness, she's call it being sensible and not running yourself into the ground!). Considering that we were complete strangers prior to travelling together, and that travelling together meant spending time with each other 24/7, we made pretty compatible travelling companions, and I shall always look back on the experiences we shared together with a very large smile on my face.

Photo to follow.

The atrocities of war and a hilarious beer drinking session with John & Jasmin

2006-04-29T10:11:00.000+01:00

Lonely Planet could indeed have been correct when they described Cafe Sinh To as having "the best fruit shakes in Pham Ngu Lao." The menu is extensive and includes rambutans, dragon fruit, avocado, taroroot, and green dragon (whatever that may be!) and all for only 5000VND. You can even mix 2 or 3 of your favourites for exactly the same price. So this is where I chose to have my breakfast while I waited for Kotoe to wake up.

When she arrived we had more or less decided to take a cyclo ride around the city with a driver who I warmed to due to his cheerful nature, enthusiasm, knowledge and eagerness to please his prospective customers. However I assumed that the cyclos seated two people (as they do in Cambodia) and that the $7 he quoted us was for the both of us. They don't and it wasn't, and unfortunately neither of us could afford to pay $7 each, plus the entry fees to the museums we wanted to visit. I felt terrible watching his endearing smile so quickly disappear when I broke the news to him.

Instead we hired a couple of moto drivers for the day at a price of $3.50 each. They drove us firstly to the War Remnants Museum, which was opened to the public on September the 4th 1975. The outer grounds are home to a collection of U.S armoured vehicles, artillery pieces, bombs and infantry weapons. There is also a model of the tiger cages used by the south Vietnamese Military to house Viet Cong prisoners on Con Son Island, and a guillotine used by the French on Viet Minh 'troublemakers'.

Inside there are photographic exhibitions displaying the atrocities of war. Many photographs illustrating U.S atrocities are from U.S sources, including photos of the infamous My Son massacre and a pignant black and white photo of a G.I from the 25th Infantry division with a satisfied grin on his face as he carries the mangled body of a grenade victim. A further exhibition 'Requiem' displays a collection of photos taken by 134 war reporters (from 11 nationalities) who were killed during the Vietnam war. Finally there are pictures taken by Japanese reporters Ishikawa Bunyo and Nakamura Goro, including dioxin (agent orange) victims and those wounded and deformed by napalm and nail bombs. Visiting the museum is a disturbing experience but it's a poignant reminder of the brutality of war and a vital lesson in the understanding of Vietnam's history.

We were next driven to the far western side of the city, to Giac Lam Pagoda, which dates from 1744 and is believed to be the oldest pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. The main sanctuary is filled with countless gilden figures, lamps and miniature statues of Bodhisattvas, and although it's a very beautiful place, it did remind me of being in an old antiques market! The Jade Emporer Pagoda was our final stop before lunch. It was built in 1909 by the Cantonese congregation and is an incredibly colourful Chinese temple. It contains statues of ghostly divinities, grotesque heroes and decorative wood carvings, and the strong aroma of burning incense follows you wherever you tread. In the garden is a couple of lotus flower ponds containing coi carp and turtles.

Our drivers took us for a lunch of Pho and Vietnamese tea at a local restaurant, where the tiniest, most delicate little tom cat was finding his feet as we entered. After re-fuelling, we made our final stop of the day at the History Museum, which has an excellent collection of artifacts illustrating the evolution of cultures in Vietnam. Still getting used to the local currency upon our return, I almost started a full blown argument with my moto driver because i mistook the 50,000VND note he gave me as change for a 5000VND note! Easy mistake, I was profusely apologetic and he - fortunately - saw the funny side . . .

In the evening we ate at Lac Viet, one of the cheaper Vietnamese eateries down a little alley off Phan Ngu Lao. I ordered chinese spinach (which is actually morning glory) with garlic and cheese, and a drink, and it came to the grand total of 15,000VND - under a dollar. After the meal we decided to wander around the shops in order to make room for a beer or two. We walked past one of the numerous stores selling knock off North Face and Berghaus rucksacks and backpacks and spotted the British couple we'd crossed the border with from Laos to Cambodia. We'd previously bumped into them twice in Battambang and thus shared a joke about the fact that we were stalking them, so I crept up behind them until I was close enough to utter the words, "found you!"

We subsequently joined them for a few litres of Bia Hoi at a nearby cafe, and I can honestly say it was one of the most entertaining and enjoyable evenings I've had the pleasure of being part of. I cannot remember why but at one point we were trying to explain to Kotoe what an otter was. After comparisons to a small furry sea lion and a large aquatic ferret, and a number of very bad but highly amusing sketches, Kotoe finally understood what creature we were describing! We also solved the mystery of the men on bikes with briefcases and tambourines : they're actually masseurs. We know this because one of the guys sitting next to us stopped one of them and exchanged 10,000VND for a shoulder rub. The couple are called John and Jasmin, and they are two of the coolest, genuine, most entertaining and original people I've met since I've been travelling. We've exchanged email addresses and I seriously hope I run into them again.

Photo is of a statue in the history museum who had Kotoe and I in stitches because he looks like he's on drugs!

Art, artifacts, and kitsch cathedrals

2006-04-28T09:36:00.000+01:00

Despite my distinct lack of sleep over the past few nights, I woke up this morning fresh as a daisy. I updated my journal, used the internet and was the majority of the way through my breakfast at the Sinh Cafe before Kotoe surfaced. We set off to Ho Chi Minh City's Fine Art Museum, dodging traffic on the city's crazy roads and passing numerous shoe shops selling knock off Doctor Marten sandals with a ridiculously high $50 price tag.

The Art Museum is housed in a classic yellow and white Asian European style building, which was built by French Architects in the early 20th century. It was previously privately owned by a businessman, Hui Bon Hoa before its conversion. There is an imposing entrance lobby and stairwell, and all work on display is exhibited in several large rooms leading of a couple of long corridors on each floor. The first floor (or ground floor, as is called in Western society) introduces selected works from individual artists, both domestic and international. Much of the work however depicts well known places in Vietnam such as Halong Bay and My Son, or scenes of Vietnamese life. There's a good mix of styles, techniques and genres, as well as a few pieces of modern sculpture. The second floor contains pieces of contemporary art from experienced artists who graduated from Indochina and Gia Dinh Art School, and the third displays collections of antique art (art artifacts and funeral statues) and traditional handicrafts.

Following our enjoyable perusal of the work on display, we took a coffee break at The Garden Cafe in the museum's courtyard. At the moment I am only carrying U.S dollars as currency, and - as I discovered when settling the bill for my iced coffee - this presents you with the following problem :

Most cafes, restaurants and small shops use the exchange rate of 15,000VND to the dollar (some as little as 13,000VND, as was the case at The Garden Cafe) when the official exchange rate at the bank is a little over 16,000VND to the dollar. Thus you will lose at least 1000VND for each transaction you make.

After having consumed our Ca-fe su-da (iced coffee with milk), we headed over to The Museum of Ho Chi Minh City (not to be confused with The Ho Chi Minh Museum which is soley dedicated to the life of Ho Chi Minh himself), stopping for a browse and a fruit shake at Ben Thanh Market. The Museum of Ho Chi Minh City displays artifacts from the various periods of the communist struggle for power in Vietnam, however many exhibits seemed to have little relevance and the whole tour became very labourious as a result. Considering it's a museum, there were articles on display which i don't consider old enough to be considered 'historical', such as the former British 5 pound note, which only went out of circulation less than a decade ago (i think - correct me if i'm wrong!)

Our plan next was to visit The Re-unification Palace, which Lonely Planet describes as " one of the most fascinating sites in Ho Chi Minh City." However, when we reached the palace gates we were informed by one of the officials that it is in fact closed for refurbishment until June 2006, and a large sign on the wall re-iterated this fact. So instead we continued along to Notre Dam Cathedral, the sky growing rapidly darker as we walked. The cathedral was built between 1877 and 1883, and from the outside the building is a spectuacular piece of work : it is Neo-Romanesque with two 40m high square towers, tipped with iron spires, which dominate the city's skyline. Unfortunately the inside is disastrously kitsch, with 'Ava Maria' illuminated in neon lights at the front of the nave and a statue of the virgin Mary donning an electric blue neon halo.

As soon as we left Notre Dam, the tiny specks of rain landing on my face fell in rising quantities and we soon found ourselves far from home in the middle of a full blown storm. We took shelter inside the Diamond Department Store and spent the next couple of hours trying on silly hats and clothes we couldn't afford, and drinking coffee in the mezzanine cafe next to a couple of young Vietnamese girls who looked like they'd just stepped out of a fashion shoot.

When the worst of the storm was over, we began our journey home. Innumerable puddles had formed on the pavement and someone was wringing the remaing droplets of rain from the clouds. When we got half the way along D Bui Vien (a couple of minutes walk from our guesthouse), the road suddenly disappeared beneath a mass of rain water which covered both the street and the pavement either side. Our only option was to join the Vietnamese and wade through the water, plastic bags and vegetable scraps floating around my feet as i walked. Motorbikes passed me, splashing me with dirty flood water, cyclo drivers in oversized rain macs continued to search for custom, and a lone fruit cart stood unattended at the side of the road, only the top of its wheels visible above the surface of the water. As we neared the turning into D Do Quang Dau, the water suddenly became deeper, touching the bottom of my thighs. It reminded me of being back home in the middle of the October 2000 flood, only the water here was a lot warmer, which made wading through it instantly a more enjoyable experience.

We trawled our sodden feet into Bich Thuy, showered, changed into some clean clothes and headed back out in search of some food. In under an hour the water levels had already dropped substantially, so we were able to make it to Kim's Cafe without getting too wet. Many of the locals were also dining here, which is always a good indicator as to the quality of the food. Indeed it was good and very reasonably priced. I ate fish fried in Vietnamese sauce for 22,000VND and shared some shrimp spring rolls (30,000VND) with Kotoe.

We finished the evening by enjoying a beer Hoi at one of the small street cafes on D Bui Vien and watching snippets of Vietnamese life. The crazy sumo wrestler who we encountered on our arrival showed up on his motorbike to buy fresh crab from the adjacent food vendor and we became increasingly puzzled by the number of men on push bikes shaking tiny bells which sound like tambourines. We noticed that all of them have briefcases strapped to the back of the bike or in the basket on the front, which made us wonder if they were in fact selling something. But what? and why is it never on show? The mystery of the briefcase carrying tambourine men gets curiouser and curiouser . . .

Photo is of the Fine Art Museum, Ho Chi Minh City.

Goodbye Cambodia, hello Vietnam!

2006-04-27T02:47:00.000+01:00

In the morning I said my goodbyes to Margaret and set off to find a taxi back to Phnom Penh with Tony, Emma, and Paul. We didn't get further than the bottom of the road before the same moto driver who dropped me at Blissful Guesthouse a couple of days ago stopped us and asked us if we needed a taxi. He wanted $25 but by walking away (it always works!) we got him down to $20 with drop offs right to the door of our guesthouses. It was such a pleasant journey by Cambodian standards : we all had bags of space and we were able to wind the windows right down. Due to the speed our driver was travelling at, we made the journey in a little over 2 hours, nearly running several motorists and the odd cow off the road.

I was met at The Lakeside Guesthouse by the little grinning 'always stoned' member of staff and the words, "ah, you come back!", follwed by a series of incomprehensible mutterings about how good the smoke is! i collected my backpack, checked into our new room, left a note for Kotoe and disappeared into town to collect a few things. When i returned to the guesthouse, Kotoe had arrived from Sihanoukville and was sharing beers and conversation with Scott and Sophie, a newly married couple on their honeymoon. Scott, an Australian originally from Brisbane, met French Canadian Sophie when she was travelling in Australia a few years ago. They were a really nice couple and I especially warmed to Scott. We clicked immediately : he was down to earth, open, intelligent, amusing, and a little bit cheeky, and talking to him felt like talking to one of my best friends back home.

Kotoe and I returned to La Dolce Vita for our last meal in Cambodia. The cheerful chef remembered us, as we'd complimented him on the food last time we visited. I ordered the same eggplant dish and Kotoe joined me. I wish I'd taken down the name of the dish, as all I can remember was that it was number 25 on the Khmer menu! Kotoe was feeling pretty tired before the meal and having a full stomach afterwards made her even more lethargic, so I left her sleeping in the room whilst I joined Scott and Sophie out on the veranda. The three of us had such a good giggle, swapped travel tips and stories, and played some of our favourite tunes on the very irritatingly faulty guesthouse C.D player. When we finally retired to our beds, the stoned guy was asleep just behind us, wrapped in a foetal position around a large plant pot.

The next morning, after two early starts in Kampot, dragging myself out of bed in time to catch the 6:30am bus to Ho Chi Minh City was not a concept I welcomed with open arms. The 8 hour journey (cost $4, booked through The Lakeside Guesthouse) was comfortable and surprisingly easy. As I entered Vietnam at Moc Bai, it felt almost like I was at an airport : the complex there is on a massive scale in comparison to anything I've seen in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia, you are required to produce your passport on four separate occasions, and your bags are passed through a security check before you are permitted to enter the country.

Once we'd all obtained our official entry stamp, we were separated into two smaller groups and continued our journey in an oversized minibus with a crazy Vietnamese guy who called himself Peace and fancied himself as the next Michael Jackson. We were dropped off right in the middle of the backpackers ghetto along Phan Ngu Lao Street and right outside his travel agency, Hanh Cafe, where we were allowed to leave our backpacks whilst we trawled around the streets in search of accommodation. It seems that, unless you're prepared to share a dorm room, $6 is the cheapest going rate even for a single room in Vietnam. We managed to get a room at Bich Thuy Guesthouse discounted to $5 by turning down the complimentary breakfast they offer each morning. I'm not sure how long I'm staying in Ho Chi Minh City and I figured that a breakfast of noodle soup (which is all that was on offer at Bich Thuy) may get a little boring after the first few days.

Whilst we were hunting for accommodation, a fat shirtless Vietnamese man ran at Kotoe with the crazed expression of a Maori warrior and proceeded to play fight in the style of a sumo wrestler. He had us both in stitches but after our experiences with Michael 'Peace' Jackson on the bus journey over, it did leave me with the impression that the Vietnamese people are all a little crazy in the head!

Once we'd settled in at Bich Thuy, the night was drawing in. We ate Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) for dinner at a little local street stall around the corner from our guesthouse, sat on mini plastic chairs which wouldn't seem out of place at a nursery school. The meal cost us 7000DONG each, which is just under $0.50. Afterwards we decided to try one of the local beers (there are many), Bia Hoi, at another of the local's dining establishments where they had a strange combination of pet dogs : a chiwawa, a large dog with short stumpy legs that didn't fit his body, and a little white puppy with a sad face and a bottom that she wiggled seductively as she walked. We ordered 2 Bia Hoi (at a cost of 3500DONG each), thinking that what we'd actually ordered was 2 pints, but when it arrived it was actually 2 litres! 3500DONG for a litre of beer goes some way towards compensating for the expensive accommodation costs.

We spent the remainder of the evening wandering around the neon lit streets and perusing the shops, which stayed open well into the night. Kotoe found a couple of book shops which stocked Japanese literature, one of which also contained three of the cutest fluffy white puppies, who were playfully biting each other in the middle of the shop floor.

Photo is of the mother to the adorable fluffy white puppies (who wouldn't stay still for a photo!) in a bookshop in Ho Chi Minh City.

A bumby ride to Bokor and wrestling with a crab at Ta Eou

2006-04-25T15:13:00.000+01:00

A generous portion of good fortune and good timing meant that i was able to book a $10 full day tour to Bokor National Park for today. Margaret (a 51 year old Australian social worker who now lives in Montreal, Canada) informed me that the tour had been postponed for the past few days due to a lack of interested parties and bad weather.

Today there were 10 of us on the tour : Margaret, a young British couple called Emma and Tony, 2 more British guys (one called Paul who's actually from Wellington, Shropshire) and 4 other Europeans whose nationality of which i'm unsure. We began the bumpy ride up to Bokor in our 4 x 4 convertible. There were 8 of us and a cool box bouncing around on the back seats as we were driven along a very rocky and unmaintained road full of large craters left by landmines that had been uncovered within the park. The original road was commissioned by the French and completed in 1921, and there are plans to rebuild the road sometime this year. For much of the journey we only caught brief glimpses of the surrounding scenery (which was a dense jungle of plants and the tallest coconut palms I've ever seen, with leaves stretching for several metres and creating a canopy for the vegetation beneath) due to the fact that we were constantly having to avoid the foliage which was in parts, trying to reclaim the road!

Shortly after the road was completed a small community was established at the old French hill station of Bokor, which included a grand colonial hotel - The Bokor Palace - inaugurated in 1925. Located at an altitude of 1000m are the first buildings which made up Sihanouk's villa complex at Bokor, known as the Black Palace. Providing you arrive here before 11am you can see a fantasic view over the coast. After this time an eerie mist moves into the picture, and continues to come and go in a surreal and haunting manner, almost like something out of an old horror movie.

The hill station was twice abandoned, and since the early 1970's it has remained uninhabited, save for the presence of either Vietnamese troups or Khmer Rouge Guerillas during much of the 1980's and 90's. The Bokor Palace is an imposing building and all the more atmospheric for the fact that it remains untouched since its abandonement. The exterior remains intact, save for the usual weathering of the stonework, but inside the walls are crumbling, broken tiles and glass from the windows lie loose on the floor and there is a mass of grafitti everywhere. Most of it is written in English and is the usual pointless, childish crap like "Baz was 'ere", but this one stood out :

"Live your dream; don't dream your life."

It is possible to wander through the kitchens, along the corridors, up and down the stairs and into the enormous ballroom downstairs, imagining the magnificance and grandeur of the hotel in its heyday.

We ate lunch in the ranger station and were joined by the Scotish guy from our guesthouse who'd made the corageous journey up to Bokor on a dirt bike. I got chatting to him over a very tasty vegetable curry with rice and subsequently discovered that he's from my home town of Shrewsbury. He lives up by the army barracks at Copthorne, about a 5 minute walk from my parents' house! It truly is a small world out here!

After lunch we undertook a two hour trek through the dense jungle. We walked along an escarpment and to a viewpoint where we could look down on the tightly packed mass of trees below us. Our guide spotted a poisoness blue spider guarding his web, Tony's feet were attacked by biting ants and one of the european guys had his blood sucked by a couple of leeches he discovered on his legs. I've never seen a leech before : they look like skinny grey worms who move almost like a slinky (one of those silver springs you had as a kid) walking down the stairs.

Following our descent and exit from Bokor we stopped at Tek Chhouu Falls, a set of small rapids and a pleasant bathing spot. We watched as several of the local children jumped fearlessly into the rapids and floated downstream. As soon as they spotted that a few of us had cameras, they posed, pulled funny faces, performed acrobatics, and splashed around in the water.

The final part of our tour was a 'sunset boat cruise' on a little motorboat decorated with healthy green pot plants and a couple of pensive looking Cambodian children. The scenery was stunning and as the sun began to set the sky took on a beautiful purple and orange hue. The water, which appeared black like treacle, glimmered softly under the sun's fading light. I sat on the deck chatting to Paul and Margaret and enjoying the free beer which had been provided as part of the tour. At the end of the cruise we were dropped off just across from The Rusty Keyhole, where we stopped for a drink and rested our weary sea legs.

Margaret volunteered to accomapny me to Ta Eou, a seafood restaurant right on the riverfront. We fought our way through a delicious meal of crab with pepper whilst chatting enthusiastically about each other's travel experiences. Out of all the people on the tour Margaret was the one person I warmed to straight away. When we left the restaurant at around 10pm the streets were very poorly lit and deserted, save for a few street vendors, moto drivers and stray dogs. We picked up a few rocks to protect ourselves against attacks from the latter two and continued along our way.

I felt a little bit uneasy about a moto driver who seemed to be following us, but we made it back to the guesthouse safely and spent the remainder of the evening chatting to the Danish owner, Angela, the British guy who works there and the Scottish guy from Shrewsbury. We also watched the resident cat catch and taunt a defenseless little mouse. Just before we retired to our beds another storm arrived and the rain was pounding so hard on my bedroom window that it sounded as if it was trying to break into my room.

Photo is of some local children playing in the water at Tek Chhouu Falls, near Kampot.

a crowded mini bus to the sleepy riverside town of Kampot

2006-04-24T06:35:00.000+01:00

When we arrived at Rose's Place this morning for breakfast, she made us both laugh by producing two of her deliciously strong Vietnamese iced coffees for us moments after we sat down, no longer needing to ask which beverage we wished to order. It was an endearing touch and one that made us feel valued as customers. For anyone who is planning a visit to Sihanoukville, Rose serves the best iced coffees in the city and also the best (with the possible exception of You Hong Guesthouse in Kratie) in Cambodia.

As it was my final day down on the beach in Sihanoukville, we bought a large $2 bag of fruit (la hong, swai and allah) from Linda, as well as some shacko (which we have since discovered may possibly be rock lobster) and barbequed squid with garlic and chilli, the remains of which we fed to a hungry little kitten who was sat beside us on the sand. Feeling guilty that i'd still not given the beautiful Gali any business, I agreed to let her demonstrate her nail art skills and paint some beautiful purple and gold flowers on to my finger nails. The result looks quite effective but i do feel a bit like i should be wearing a daisy chain around my neck and spreading peace and love throughout the land!

In the evening we returned to Mama Cambodia and shared some fresh spring rolls, shrimps and oyster mushrooms, and a seafood barbeque served with their delicious homemade lemon and pepper sauce. For the second time whilst dining here we watched a Cambodian man at the local market (which is actually more like a store selling fresh produce but without the presence of a ceiling or any walls or doors that one normally associates with the word 'store') saw his way through a huge block of ice. This is how Cambodian restauranteurs purchase ice : in a solid block the size of a coffee table which they saw into smaller chunks before attacking it with a hammer. So when you order an iced coffee, it's not simply a straight-forward task of getting a few ice cubes out the freezer; you'll actually hear the staff violently attacking the enormous hunk of ice, in an attempt to break it into pieces small enough to fit in your glass!

When we arrived back at the guesthouse, one of the guests had just put a film on : a horror movie with Robert De Niro called Hide And Seek. There's nothing like a good horror film before bed and this one certainly had a twist which was a little different from the norm.

The next morning i caught the 'shared taxi' (which is actually more like a minibus) to Kampot ($3, 2hrs). The road was not quite as bad as i'd been led to believe but i did get crammed into the front of the van with nine of the locals, two children and the luggage belonging to the other westerners, who were comfortably sat 3 to a seat in the two back rows. This is not unusual practice in Laos or Cambodia : loclas will never refuse one (or two or three or four!) of their own people a ride, no matter how little space remains within the vehicle. They'll just keep on packing the people in, to the extent that they are sitting on luggage and their heads are touching the roof of the bus. Even in Thailand, they would sit three to a seat in the local buses, in seats only designed for two.

I arrived in Kampot and hitched a free ride to The Blissful Guesthouse from a strange looking moto driver whose eyes were too far apart. Blissful Guesthouse has a comfortable and welcoming atmosphere. It's set amongst lush gardens and the rooms, in an old wooden house, are all tastefully decorated with nice homely touches. There's a fantastic restaurant/chill out area/bookshop (which also offers a rental service and sells a few postcards and items of clothing) downstairs.

In the afternoon I wandered around Kampots streets. It reminded me a little of Savannaket in Laos : lots of crumbling buildings, muddy streets and curious children, and a peaceful riverside location. Kampot is also well known for producing some of the best pepper in the region. As is often the case after a heavy storm (like the one which hit Sihanoukville at 1am this morning), the sun was burning down with all its strength, draining the sweat from my pores and giving me a seemingly unquenchable thirst.

I stopped to cool down and rehydrate at the Epic Arts Cafe. Epic Arts is a charity arts organisation which was formed in 2001, and 50% of all profits made in the cafe go directly into funding workshops and performances. I haven't had a chance to look at the website yet but if you're interested to learn about the kind of work they do, the address is www.teangtnaut.org

After the incident in Sihanoukville, I didn't think it was particularly wise to wander Kampot's streets after dark, so I ate at the guesthouse, with the resident cat curled up beside me on the comfortable wicker chair.

Photo is of the tourist information office and a monument outside it, Kampot.

eating barracuda, phtographing geckos, and hiding from a giant grasshopper!

2006-04-22T11:26:00.000+01:00

As we waited for Pros this morning, a moto driver who claimed to be his friend tried very blatantly to steal our business from him. He told us that Pros had called him, said he couldn't make it and that he would take us instead for the same price, yet when we questioned him he didn't know exactly how much this 'same price' was. When we informed Pros, I was surprised that the pair laughed between themselves in much the same way as two people share a joke. In Britain, poaching someone's customers like that would be treated a lot more seriously.

We checked into the Green Gecko, ate breakfast and took advantage of the on-site internet facilities. We were about to head down to the beach when I heard what was now becoming the familiar sound of rain pelting down on the corrugated iron roof. Instead we made a dash over to Rose's Place for an iced coffee and fruit salad, and waited for the rain to stop. In a couple of hours it did, and minutes later the sun was shining brighter than ever in what was now a perfectly cloudless blue sky. I spent the last couple of daylight hours on a very deserted beach, constantly being approached by vendors desperate to regain the business that two hours of rain had cost them.

In the evening we enjoyed a tasty meal of fried calamari, lemon and pepper sauce and rice at Mama Cambodia. We then returned to Rose's Place for another iced coffee, and amused ourselves by watching some overweight western men being serviced by the bar girls in the drinking establishment across the road. When we arrived back at the Green Gecko, there was a wedding party in full flow next door, and we tried very unsuccessfully to sleep through the thumping trance music pulsating through the walls of our room. I recall the words "your mama's a bitch!" from one of the tracks, and remember thinking that it was a strange choice of song to play at a wedding, and therefore a highly inappropriate way to gain popularity with the inlaws!

An annoying combination of incredibly itchy mosquito bites, and an all night party taking place on the other side of the wall to which my bed was situated, meant that sleep remained very elusive for me for the majority of the night. The next morning, the party was still simmering next door, so after eating a huge breakfast at Rose's we headed down to the beach to take a nap under the sun. Unfortunately Kotoe was suffering from bad menopausal stomach cramps, so she returned to the guesthouse a couple of hours later. I started munching my way through a large bag of fruit I bought from our fruit lady, Linda, and shared the remainder with an Israeli guy called Gilad, who had taken up residence next to me on the beach. The two of us chatted for a few hours (he has also just moved from Ochheuteal beach and is possibly heading to Kampot tomorrow), agreed on the merits of mango and entered into the big pineapple and papaya debate!

I met Kotoe back at the guesthouse around 5pm, and the two of us caught a moto taxi over to Ku-Kai again for dinner. Considering neither of us were especially hungry, we managed to munch our way through bonito (which Kotoe thinks is a kind of swordfish), striped threadfin, and barracuda sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi, deepfried barracuda (yes, we like barracuda!) and two onigiri, as well as a couple of mugs of Angkor and a pot of Japanese green tea. I got a round of applause from a Japanese man at the adjacent table when he heard me ask the waiter, "be du wo kudasi?" (Can i have a beer please?) - apparently with perfect pronounciation and accent. Clearly I have a good teacher in Kotoe.

Back at the guesthouse we spent an amusing evening photographing geckos, conducting a harmless experiment using a green backed beetle, a bug which looked like a coffee bean, a long-bodied creature with huge antennae, and a large piece of over-ripe sweet banana (did you know that beetles always climb uphill but will never walk down?), and hiding from a large green insect that looked like a giant grasshopper. The creature in question measured about 15cm in length, 5cm in width, was grasshopper green in colour and had an interesting leaf design on his wings. I successfully took a photograph of it in an attempt to identify it, but the flash frightened him, he took flight and headed straight towards me! I managed to duck just in time and avoided his flight path but it left Kotoe and I both frightened and intrigued. We sat on the wicker sofa outside our room, hiding under the security of Kotoe's sarong, only our eyes poking out over the top. Anyone watching us would have thought we were watching an incredibly scary horror film and not an insect more than 100th of our size.

Photo is of Kotoe and a rather sunburnt me at Ku-Kai Restaurant, Sihanoukville.

making bracelets, eating sashimi and a move up to Victory Hill

2006-04-20T09:35:00.000+01:00

This morning we bought shack-o again for breakfast, from the lady who now calls us "my friends". Buying from the same person has its benefits : we get bigger, juicier and more shack-o for our dollar every time we buy. If nothing else i'm certainly going to miss all the fresh seafood from Sihanoukville.

We headed over to Ochheuteal beach around lunchtime so that we could sample some of the delicious looking Khmer Tom Yum that we'd seen a couple of the locals tucking into at Khin's Shack a few nights ago. Whilst we were waiting for our food to arrive we had a $1 pedicure from a very skinny, very sweet lady who took great pride in her work. She left with the widest grin on her face, excited that she'd now be able to go to the market in the evening to buy some food for her family. If parting with a dollar can bring such happiness to someone who is genuinely in need of the money, then it's a dollar I don't mind losing.

There are so many people begging on the beach - amputies and blind men - who become angry and aggressive when you refuse to give them money, as if their physical condition entitles them to a portion of everyone else's wealth. The pedicurist clearly had a problem with her back and one of her legs (she walked hunched over and with a limp) and was seriously underfed, but she has still found a trade from which she can earn her living and doesn't rely upon the sympathies of others.

Khmer Tom Yum is a lot tastier than the Thai version I've tried. It's more like a sauce than a soup and brimming with numerous varieties of vegetables, as well as peanuts, shrimp and squid. It's served in a large boiling silver donut-shaped utensil with rice and chilli.

We left Khin's Shack just as a storm was approaching and made it back to the guesthouse just before it arrived. We sat in our room for a couple of hours listening to the rain pelting down on the pavement outside and watching several geckos scurry through the crack at the top of the door to take shelter. Finally our thirst got the better of us and we ran over to Happa, unsuccessfully dodging the huge droplets of rain falling in rising quantities from the sky. We shared a pot of Japanese green tea, perused the handicraft shop and when she wasn't busy serving customers, we chatted with the Japanese lady who part owns the business with her German husband.

We told her about the robbery last night and she wasn't surprised. She recalled an incident only ten days ago when two Cambodian guys had pulled a gun on three western tourists. It had taken place right outside our guesthouse, and the tourists - obviously rather shaken up after the event - had taken refuge inside Happa. I had wanted to move after three days at Serendipity beach - for a change of scenery more than anything else - but after learning about this incident and the fact that it had happened so close to home, Kotoe was also convinced that a move up to Victory Hill may not be such a bad idea.

The next morning we decided to spend the day over at Victory beach and find ourselves some new accommodation up at Victory Hill. We shared a bit of banter with one of the moto drivers, Pros, down at the beach. He wanted $2 for the ride over there but we knew it cost no more than a dollar, because we had put a whole tank of fuel into our bike for 3500RIEL. So we began to walk away, grinning to ourselves, waiting for Pros to follow us, catch us up and agree upon the $1 price, which he did - sheepishly. Once he'd recovered from the dent to his pride he chatted cheerfully to us, we warmed to him and subsequently offered him our business again for the ride home around 5pm.

We ate breakfast at Rose's Place, a small upstairs dining establishment that i'd chosen because it looked a little more 'local' than its neighbouring counterparts. We drank strong Vietnamese iced coffee, and munched our way through a huge fruit salad of banana, pineapple, papaya and mango drizzled in honey - all for just 5000RIEL (a little over a dollar). We then secured ourselves a $4 room at The Green Gecko Guesthouse, which we'd be able to check into first thing tomorrow morning.

Victory Beach may not be as attractive as Serendipity beach and there's not much of a cross breeze, but it's cleaner, and if anything it's a little quieter than Serendipity. We took a seat at Jungle Beach, a shaded area with funky lights hanging from the trees and a large blackboard advertising fresh Barracuda. We bought some fresh spring rolls which we shared with a hungry little girl selling bracelets, and we purchased a bag of fresh fruit from a very chatty, very smiley lady who sat down with us and taught us some Khmer. We already knew a few of the phrases but i will write them down phonetically for future reference :

Swai - Mango
La Hong - Papaya
Jai - Banana
Allah - Watermelon
S'ua S'dai - Hello
Lee Hai - Goodbye
Sok Sabaii - How are you?
Oh Kohn - Thank you
Ot de oh Kohn - No, thank you
June bow neh awee mean som nang la-awe - Good luck for you in Cambodia

We were subsequently joined by a girl who must have been about 15 or 16, also offering fruit and bracelets for sale, as well as manicures and pedicures. We made it clear we were not interested in any of the above but she still remained friendly towards us. After Kotoe had shown me how to make a twisted bracelet a few nights ago, I had been on the look out for some colourful pieces of thick cotton from which to try and make one. I noticed the girl (Ga-li) had a bag full of them, and I asked if I could buy some. However, despite already having denied her business, she allowed me to choose 10 of these pieces of cotton, and refused to take any money for them. The three of us proceeded to spend the next few hours making bracelets together under the comfortable shade of the trees above us.

In the evening we ate at Ku-Kai (Ku means ocean; Kai means sky), a Japanese restaurant immediately next door to Happa, owned by a Japanese couple who met whilst travelling Cambodia some years ago. We enjoyed rice balls (onigiri) and fresh sashimi (barracuda, vinegared mackeral and yellow-spotted kingfisher) with soy sauce and wasabi, and fried eggplant with white radish and ginger. The flavours brought back so many memories of the time I spent in Japan 18 months ago, memories which are unfortunately a little bit tainted now (due to the subsequent actions of a certain person who is no longer worthy of having his name mentioned) but which make me smile all the same.

Photo is of sunset at Victory beach, Sihanoukville.

Mangrove swamps, mudbaths, snakes and a pair of thieves in the night

2006-04-18T04:58:00.000+01:00

After a couple of lazy days on the beach, we decided to explore a little of the surrounding area today and hire a motorcycle to make the 26km journey out to Ream National Park. It's frighteningly easy to hire a motorcycle out here in Cambodia : you don't need a licence and you don't even need to have ridden a motorcycle before. Fortunately Kotoe had owned a scooter back in Japan for some years and the 125cc motorbike which we rented from the Diamond Guesthouse was quite similar in its operation.

Ream National Park is located just of Route 4, an undulating but straight road slicing its way through the Cambodian countryside. When we pulled into the ranger station, we were met by a Jica (Japanese International Co-operation Agency) representative who happened to be from the same province in Japan as Kotoe. This worked in our favour and we managed to get a $10 discount off the $30 price to charter our own private motorboat around the national park. We relaxed on the deck of the boat as we were transported through dense mangrove swamps, several storks, some jumping shrimp and a few fisherman being the only other signs of life upon the calm shallow waters.

Our relaxing river journey became a little less relaxing when we reached the end of the wide river and were about to turn into the smaller tributary leading back up to the pier. It was still low tide and the water was not deep enough here to carry the weight of the boat, so our vehicle became stuck in the mud. Following our driver's failed attempt to shift the boat, Kotoe and I volunteered our services. I stepped out of the boat and my entire leg, knee and half my thigh disappeared into a river of dense clay-like mud. It took a huge amount of effort to simply move my legs through the mud, let alone try to move the weight of the boat through it. No wonder our driver was struggling! Eventually, with the four of us (our driver, English-speaking guide, Kotoe and I) wading knee deep through the muddy waters, pushing the boat forward with all our strength and being watched by amused onlookers from another tourist boat upon the river, we managed to move the boat into deeper waters. Once we had done this the driver was very quick to restart the engine and as Kotoe and I were unable to walk as fast as the speed of the boat, we were almost being pulled along through the mud. Clinging on to the side of the boat, I managed to clamber aboard in the style of a beached whale, my legs caked in inches of thick mud reminiscent of those face packs they sell at Boots.

Shortly after we'd restarted the journey, the skies began to darken and large grey rain clouds floated into view. Within minutes there were large droplets of cold rain pelting down upon the roof of the boat. The other tourist boat had lost its roof in the wind and the couple aboard were attempting to keep dry under the shelter of a very flimsy umbrella. As soon as the boat docked, we jumped back on the motorbike and headed back into Sihanoukville, the hard rain burning my face and making it difficult to see.

We drove to Victory Hill (above Victory beach), and drank some warming coffee at Na Na Restaurant. Victory Hill (the original backpacker ghetto in Sihanoukville) looked very unattractive in the rain and there was no-one around, save for a tiny gathering of moto drivers parked at the end of the road. Once we'd dried off a little we headed over to The Snake House, an inventive little restaurant set amidst a flourishing reptile house. The glass-topped tables contain snakes inside and the nearby pond houses a rather ferocious looking crocodile who surfaces cunningly as you approach.

If you don't choose to eat here, there is a fee of $1 to see the snakes, which includes a free soft drink. Among the snakes on display, there is a white python, an oriental whipsnake, a long-nosed whipsnake, and an indo-chinese ratsnake, as well as some turtles, a couple of forest geckos and an odd looking furry creature with huge eyes. It's certainly a unique dining experience, but for those more adventurous meat-eaters, the snakes are only for show and not for consumption!

After leaving The Snake House we watched the sunset at Victory Beach and then headed back to the guesthouse. In hindsight I wish we'd have returned the motorbike at this point but as we still had half a tank of fuel we decided to hang on to the bike for the evening and drive into downtown Sihanoukville to find a place to eat. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn off the Three Lions roundaboat and ended up driving down the road to Sokha Beach, a road which was very poorly lit once we passed the enormous 5 star hotel complexes which surrounded Sam At Lake.

We were driving quite slowly as I was looking at the map to try and find a road that would lead us back into the centre of town. Two Cambodian guys on a motorbike appeared to be trying to pass us but were driving a little too close for comfort. Kotoe attempted to speed up but as she did the guys drove past and a hand came out to grab Kotoe's bag from the basket on the front of our bike. As the bag was actually locked on to the basket, their attempt had been unsuccessful but it had managed to throw our bike off balance and the two of us fell on to the grass verge at the side of the road.

Once we realised we weren't hurt - other than what would probably turn out to be a few cuts and bruises - we got up, remounted the bike and were about to start the engine to make our escape. However, in the time that it had taken us to do this, the guys had turned the bike around and one of them had returned to our bike on foot and made another grab for the bag. Kotoe tried to hit the guy to throw him off balance so that we could drive away but in a split second he had managed to wrench the bag, together with the basket it was still locked to, off the front of the bike, and started to run down the road, where his accomplice was waiting for him on the motorbike.

Instinctively we both leapt off our bike and let it fall to the ground whilst we chased after the guy. Clearly he hadn't banked on us doing this, as I caught him up pretty quickly and made a grab for the bag. He tugged it from my grasp, and belted me around the head with the basket it was still attached to. Once I had recovered from the shock of the impact and managed to steady myself again to continue the chase, the guy had jumped on the motorbike and the two of them had sped away. Kotoe had been unable to catch him either. Following much cursing and shouts of "fucking wankers!" and "I cannot believe he came back for it!", we jumped back on the bike, my head still thumping, and returned to the safety of our guesthouse.

Although the contents of her bag ($20, a camera, several memory sticks full of photos she was about to burn to CD, and a watch) were not insured, I tried to persuade Kotoe to go to the police station for three reasons :

If, as was the case when I was mugged back home and my bag was stolen, the thieves were only after the money, the bag and the remainder of its contents may be dumped, found and handed in.
If we had a crime reference number and the rental company (whom we'd hired the bike from) were insured, we would not have to pay for a replacement basket and padlock ourselves.
We'd picked up the thief's shoes (which he'd lost whilst running away from me) and I was hanging on to the possiblity that the police (or rather, a police dog) may be able to trace him from his footwear.

In reality, I was probably looking at the whole situation with a slightly idealistic viewpoint. The chances of the bag being handed in were very minimal, it's very unlikely the rental company were insured (as no-one in Cambodia seems to have insurance) and i'd be very surprised if a policeman would be prepared to waste one of his dogs (if he has one) or his time on investigating an incident which is probably not altogether uncommon. When we returned the bike and paid $8 for the damages, we discovered that it's actually quite a common occurance in this part of Cambodia : within the last few days, there have been another 2 incidents that the staff at The Diamond Guesthouse know about (one of them involved a couple being pushed off the motorbike and the motorbike itself stolen!) as well as the possible incidents they don't know about.

Having returned the bike we walked down to the beach and ordered two large mugs of cold Angkor beer and Kotoe chain smoked about 3 cigarettes! In light of the situation Kotoe remained very calm and positive. I was seething with hate for the pair, furious that people like that can get away with such crimes and such brutal treatment of other human beings. Momentarily we laughed , recalling the way Kotoe had punched the guy and I had chased after him, and imagining how different the situation would have been if we were both martial arts experts. But, as rumbles of thunder approached and flashes of lightening illuminated the sky, I quietly hoped that a thunderbolt would find its way to that shoeless, heartless, cowardly little man, running through the streets with Kotoe's memories in his hand.

Photo is of a longnosed whipsnake, The Snake House, Sihanoukville.

Shack-o, mango and Japanese dining

2006-04-17T04:29:00.000+01:00

We headed down to the beach again this morning and spotted a lady with what looked like a tray of large shrimp balanced on her head. She told us they were lobster but upon closer inspection Kotoe identified them as "shack-o" (which is the phonetic Japanese spelling, as she didn't know the English word for them and i'm pretty sure it's not a crustacean i've ever eaten before). We bought 10 of the creatures to eat for breakfast, coated in black pepper and lemon juice. They taste similar to shrimps and are - according to Kotoe - used as bait to catch Snapper.

As we ate we were constantly interrupted by children selling bracelets, sarongs, and shrimps woven from colourful pieces of cotton. I bought a $2 anklet for a dollar from a cheeky little boy who can't have been more than 7 or 8 years old but had already perfected some effective sales techniques. Later on in the day, at exactly the time my mouth was watering for some juicy pieces of mango, another little boy appeared and asked, "you wanna buy my fruit?". At any other point in the day my answer would have been a disinterested "no" but on this occasion he secured my business simply by a very co-incidental piece of good timing. Having exchanged a large bag of ripe mango for a dollar, he skipped across the sand with a huge grin spread across his tiny little face.

This evening, having been given a flyer for Mick and Craig's Mexican Restaurant earlier on in the day, we decided that the concept of tucking into a sour cream and chilli bean fajita sounded rather appealing. Unfortunately when we arrived at the joint, the prices weren't so appealing (the seafood platter last night cost me less than most of the dishes on Mick and craig's menu), so we politely drank a Vietnamese coffee and then departed, in search of a slightly cheaper dining option.

We chose Happa (Japanese for Leaf or Leaves), a newly opened and tastefully decorated Japanese and Khmer restaurant, which also sells locally made handicrafts. It's run by a Japanese lady and a German man (who also speaks fluent Japanese) and I think Kotoe was pleased that she could actually have a conversation in her native language, for the first time in weeks. The food was rather slow in arriving but when it did it was well wortn the wait. We ate shrimp in a ginger and soy sauce, squid in Kroeng sauce (a Khmer sauce containing lemongrass, galangal, chillis, peanuts and coconut milk) and Okonomiyaki with oyster mushrooms and cheese. Okonomiyaki translates as "whatever you want, fried", "yaki" meaning "fried". When we left it was gone 11pm - we'd spent the best part of 4 hours chatting, eating and drinking the night away.

Photo is of Kotoe and our friendly shacko seller, Serendipity beach, Sihanoukville.

Manicures, razors, and fresh fish

2006-04-16T06:17:00.000+01:00

We moved guesthouses this morning, to the cheapest available room with two beds, which was at Sea Sun Guesthouse, right at the top of the beach road, and about five minutes walk from the coast. The room, at $7, is still expensive by south east asian standards, but unfortunately it's the price you pay for having the beach (almost) on your doorstep!

Sihanoukville seems more of a holiday destination than a backpacker's joint. Locals and expats living in Phnom Penh make the four hour journey here to escape the crouds and pollution that are inadvertantly part of life in the capital city. I also get the impression that it's becoming a popular spot for westerners looking for an alternative to Thailand's beaches.

The girl who secured our business yersterday had no trouble locating us on the beach this morning, and proceeded to give us both the manicure we'd agreed to. I've never had a manicure before and I liked the results but I'm not sure I'd pay any more than $2 for something I can probably do, without too much effort, myself. Kotoe bought the girl, Som, a drink afterwards, which gained us popularity amongst her and her companions. Many of her colleagues were hard at work : an older gentleman was having his nose hairs removed, a large sunburnt man was receiving a shoulder massage and one of his friends was lying face down in the sand, having his back pummled by a lady in pyjamas.

This is one of the bizarre sights we've encountered since our arrival in Cambodia : women and girls wearing what looks - to all intents and purposes - like a pair of pyjamas. This wouldn't seem so strange if it were within the restraints of their own homes, but evidently it is not. Women serve at guesthouses and restaurants, shop at markets, catch lifts on motorbikes, and do business on the beach - all whilst dressed in their pyjamas. I'd love to know why they chose to dress in such a way but until I do Kotoe and I will laugh quietly between ourselves.

After removing the nasal hairs of the gentleman who was sat over the other side of the table, the lady decided to take up residence in the empty seat beside me. Disappointed that my legs were already hairless and that I'd remembered to shave my armpits, she then targetted my face. "You have small hair on your face. I can make smooth", she said. "No thank you" I replied, "I like my small hair". Unperterbed, she continued, "You like, I show you" as she took hold of my face and I felt something rough on my cheeks. It wasn't until Kotoe finished her conversation with Som and turned around to face me that i was alerted to the fact that the lady had a razor in her hand and was actually shaving my face! She was shaving in places I didn't even know I had hair - like my forehead!?! When she'd finished I felt like the top layer of my face had been removed with a cheese grater! If the fact that i'd just had my face shaved wasn't bad enough then the fact that the lady actually asked me for money for doing it was!

This evening we walked over to Ochheuteal beach (the local's hangout) in search of a nice restaurant at which to consume some fresh seafood. We passed many of the locals enjoying the last of the New Years celebrations, many were holding their own private firework displays along the seafront. The speakers inside several of the restaurants were spreading the jovial sounds of Cambodian music out across the ocean. Revellers dined and chatted loudly amongst themselves, sharing drinks and laughter. Others, especially children, danced in time with each other on the sand. We chose Khin's Shack because of a lively young girl who bounced over to us and said the words "discount". So we bartered the seafood platter down from $10 to $8. $4 is probably the most expensive meal I've eaten since I've been travelling, however the seafood here tasted so fresh and so delicious that I think it's the best $4 I've spent for some time.

Photo is of two child vendors selling bracelets on Serendipity beach, Sihanoukville.

Cleaning up the dirty waters at Serendipity beach

2006-04-15T05:27:00.000+01:00

Kotoe and I caught the bus down to Sihanoukville this morning. We'd decided that after spending nine days in Phnom Penh, a change of scenery was in order. We were also hoping to get caught up in some New Years celebrations on the beach. Fortunately we'd managed to secure the last available seats on the 8:15am bus. Unfortunately these seats were right at the back of the bus, directly on top of the engine. After an hour on the bus my feet were cooking; after two hours I felt like I was sitting in a sauna and in desperate need of some fresh air. I was willing the bus to stop, whivch it did about half an hour later, at a small cafe which sold fresh papaya and green mango with salt and chilli.

When we arrived in Sihanoukville there were several moto drivers offering us a ride to Serendipity beach, insisting that it was 4km away and that it was impossible to walk. According to our map it was only 2, and as we'd left the bulk of our luggage in Phnom Penh, we decided to give it a go. In less than 30 minutes we'd passed the Three Lions Roundabout and were treading the sandy path leading down to the ocean, the fresh salty smells of the sea in the air. There is a scattering of guesthouses along the beachfront (Eden, Coasters, Nap's House) but overall Serendipity beach was a lot quieter than I'd expected. Despite the fact that it was a public holiday and the majority of the guesthouses were full (and charging inflated prices), the beach was surprisingly empty. We managed to secure the only remaining room under $10, at The Diamond Guesthouse, just a short walk up from the beach.

We took a seat at the Same Same Restaurant on the beach and ordered a drink whilst we soaked up the smells of the sea and listened to the rise and fall of the waves. Less than 10 minutes after we'd sat down, we were surrounded by a group of young girls offering massages and manicures. One girl took hold of my little finger and proceeded to cut away at the skin around my nail, shape my nail and coat it in lemon juice. I was actually pleased with the result and we both warmed to the girl's cheeky but friendly nature, so we agreed to treat our nails to a $2 manicure the following day.

We then spent a lazy afternoon on the beach. Kotoe disappeared for a swim and i managed to locate her about an hour later, plastic bag in hand, wading through the water. She was disgusted to find the water so dirty that she'd taken it upon herself to clean it up! Before long there were three other people voluntarily helping her to collect rubbish from the ocean. My conscience wouldn't let me simply sit and watch so i too waded into the very warm and very littered waters and gathered rubbish in one of the many plastic bags floating around on the surface of the water. We picked up rubber gloves, plastic spoons, playing cards, underwear, washing powder packets from Vietnam, as well as the usual empty packets of crisps and drink cartons and sweet wrappers. One girl, an Australian called Kate, actually works just outside Phnom Penh, at a conservation site looking after turtles. She was so impressed with our concern for the environment that she invited us back to her guesthouse cafe and bought us both drinks. We chatted with her and her friends, and petted her beautiful black dog, Gus, before heading back to The Diamond, just as night was beginning to fall.

Photo to follow.

A very wet and powdery Khmer New year!

2006-04-14T07:12:00.000+01:00

I narrowly escaped a water fight at Number 10 The Lakeside this morning. The staff and guests were chasing each other around with bottles of water, and the only reason I managed to stay dry was due to my close proximity to electrical equipment, as I checked my email on one of their computers!

Kotoe and I headed down to Wat Phnom again in the afternoon and were pleased to find the place crawling with people, the sounds of music, screams and laughter filling the nearby streets. The grounds were so busy that even the resident monkeys had been forced to retreat into the trees. The temple itself was alive with colour, flags draped around the outside and each Buddha image was decorated with fresh coconuts and lotus flowers and beautifully crafted offerings made from banana leaves. The smell of incence filled the air. On the lower level a large sound system had been set up in front of a colourful painting of Khmer dancers. A number of Cambodian teenagers were moving to the rhythmic urban sounds being emitted from the speakers. On the street level food vendors filled the grounds and there were beggars at every corner, many missing limbs and one man displaying a blood-red gaping wound in one of his legs.

We began to walk around the base of the temple, constantly being met by the sight of powdery-faced Cambodians. Eager to join the race of ghostly apparitions, we purchased a 2000RIEL bottle of baby powder from one of the Cambodian children who seemed to have endless supplies in their possession. The second we held one of these in our hands, the onslaught began, almost as if the fact that we were in possession of baby powder at once gave them permission to attack. From behind I felt a pair of hands across my cheeks, I heard a mischievous giggle and the words "Happy New Year!" in my ear, and I turned around to see the face of a grinning Cambodian girl, a wicked glint in her eye : the anticipation of retaliation.

So we retaliated and a chase ensued, and we surfaced minutes later looking like we'd been caught in the middle of a serious icing sugar explosion! After laughing hysterically at each other's appearances, we continued around the grounds, in search of some unsuspecting victims and armed with the remaining contents of the baby powder bottle in our hands. Kotoe spotted a well-dressed, well-groomed, spotlessly clean tall Cambodian man wearing shades and standing on the grass in front of us, his back towards us. He seemed strangely out of place amidst the beggars, food vendors, and revellers. Kotoe crept up behind him, baby powder in hand, all ready to soil his crisp, unspoilt appearance. Now I don't know whether he heard us talking and understood our English or whether he possessed a sixth sense and super fast reaction time, but it was like a scene out of The Matrix the way he sped across the grass with such style. The whiteness of his smug, sparkling smile as he ran, was as immaculate as his attire.

After a couple of hours of having the most fun I've ever had with a bottle of baby powder, we decided to leave Wat Phnom and check out how the rest of the city were celebrating new year. It must be one of the only occasions that it's ok to walk the streets of a capital city covered head to toe in ghostly white powder. Yes, you'll get laughed at, but at least people won't think you're crazy! We walked to the market, which was noticeably quieter than yesterday's hive of activity. We sat down at one of the remaining tables, ordered an iced coffee and noodle soup each and wiped the powder from our faces. Just as we had done so, we looked across to one of the other tables and spotted one of the guys we'd had a powder fight with at Wat Phnom, one of his cheeks still faintly advertising the evidence of this fact.

After we'd eaten, we sauntered on down to the riverfront. It wasn't as busy as Wat Phnom had been but there were still crowds of people milling around. There was live music, and people praying, incence sticks held between the palms of their hands. There were also street vendors with cages full of birds, offering people the chance (at a price) to set the creatures free.

The evening was drawing in as we began our walk back down Sisowath Quay. However the revellers were still out in force and very soon we were whiter and wetter than when we left Wat Phnom. Local kids and teenagers were armed with plastic bags full of water. As well as throwing them at passing 'barang', they also aimed them at motorists as they drove past. Evidence, in the form of burst plastic bags, lay scattered all over the road. One motorcyclist was hit with such force that he lost control of his bike and he and two fellow passengers fell, like dominoes, on to the road below, still with smiles on their faces. There were police in the vicinity, who had very much turned a blind eye to the waterbombing until the incident with the motorcycle occured and the traffic drew to an abrupt standstill.

As we arrived back at the lakeside and neared our guesthouse I spotted one of the locals carrying a huge water gun. He hadn't seen us and as he turned his back on us I emptied the remaining baby powder into my hands, tiptoed towards him and rubbed my hands across his chheks. "Happy New Year!", I smiled. AS I expected, he turned around, a full tank of water strapped across his shoulder, and chased Kotoe and I down the road, washing the powder from our faces and clothes.

All was quiet at our guesthouse when we returned, until later on in the evening when one of the staff, baby powder in hand, decided to decorate the faces of all her guests. Kotoe and I were the only tourists who willingly joined in the fun. We grabbed some baby powder, ensured all the staff were as decorated as we were, and the took it in turns to chase the two guys around with a water gun. Most of the guests didn't batter an eyelid : they continued to play cards, watch TV and drink beer, whilst we ran rings of havoc around them.

Photo to follow.

Market life in Phnom Penh

2006-04-13T06:17:00.000+01:00

This morning, in preparation for Khmer New Year celebrations (when it is apparently tradition to throw water and talcum powder over your fellow countrymen or alternatively, over unsuspecting tourists who are brave enough to venture out into the streets), we waterproofed our valuables and cameras in some freezer bags Kotoe had brought over from Japan. Kotoe also wore her bikini, due to the fact that it's very quick drying, should we come under attack from any Khmer-induced terrential downpours!

We left our guesthouse and managed to walk to the end of the lakeside without the remotest sign of any water attacks, and then we walked down Monivong Boulevard and across to Wat Phnom and witnessed nothing out of the ordinary. Finally we entered Wat Phnom (where the majority of the New Year celebrations in Phnom Penh are supposed to take place) and the only water being thrown around was on to the resident elephants, to cool them down as they transported passengers around the base of the temple.

Disappointed that we'd avoided a water fight (not only would it have been a lot of fun but it also would have been a great way to keep cool in the stifling April heat), we took a seat at RS Bar on the riverfront and watched a pair of child book vendors develop large smiles on their faces as they sold three of their $4 books to a couple of young British tourists on the adjacent table. We must have spent well over an hour quenching our thirst and observing life along the riverfront, before making a trip to the local market.

We bought papaya and mango and enjoyed an iced coffee and some sweet potato with the locals, and then continued on through the market, keeping our eyes open for some good photo opportunities. The atmosphere was that of urgency, anticipation and good spirits, of people preparing for a forthcoming event of great importance. Maybe celebrations began later on in the day?

As we walked through the market, the floor was a carpet of fruit and vegetable scraps, of polystyrene egg cartons, and of feathers and rice. There was a lady making fruit shakes, slicing papaya whilst chatting to passers-by and being over enthusiastic with the sweet milk and crushed ice. A young girl was peeling cooked sweet potato, revealing the soft mustard colour flesh beneath the sharp knife edge. A scruffy looking boy was balancing a bamboo tray containing lotus flowers upon his head, weaving his way cleverly through the crowds. A man on a motorbike was attempting to drive through the market, chickens hanging from either side of his vehicle, appearing limp and lifeless save for the eyes which blinked at me as I passed, as if to say, "ha ha! You thought I was dead!". There was an old toothless woman with an interesting face selling green mangos and bananas, a couple of giggly girls selling shiny brown pebbles (which was noticeably out of place amidst all the food), the biggest shrimps I've ever seen, and catfish, still writhing around in a centimetre of water on the bottom of an old washing up bowl.

We decided to buy our dinner at the market : a barbequed catfish and a beansprout and chilli accompaniment, a similar eggplant dish to the one I ate at La Dolce Vita last night, and the vital ingredient - a large bag of sticky rice (total cost 3500RIEL - approximately $0.85). We proceeded to tuck into our purchases back at the guesthouse, together with a mango shake, which one of the staff had made for us with one of the mangos we'd picked up at the market earlier on today.

Back at the guesthouse, we also asked the staff about the New Year celebrations - or distinct lack of them. We were subsequently informed that, contrary to our previous beliefs, Khmer New Year celebrations actually begin tomorrow, on the morning of the full moon, and that Wat Phnom will definitely be a more 'interesting' experience if we return tomorrow. Indeed we will . . . .

Photo is of an elephant cooling down at Wat phnom, Phnom Penh.

Rambutans, spring rolls and stray sheep

2006-04-12T07:39:00.000+01:00

We decided to try somewhere different for breakfast this morning, so when we spotted a random flock of about 6 very dirty looking sheep roaming the streets around Boeng Kak lake and wandering down the lane towards the Sunrise Guesthouse & Restaurant, we decided to follow them. The Sunrise is actually a really friendly little guesthouse. It's part British owned and because it's off the main drag, the prices aren't as inflated as they are everywhere else. We'd just finished eating when the two owners invited us to join a gambling game they were about to play with a couple of the long-term guests.

The game features a plastic board split into six segments, each featuring a picture of an animal (fish, crab, ladybird, chicken, tiger, and shrimp). There are also three dice, featuring, in equal quantities, pictures of all six animals. The idea is to place a bet (we were all playing with five 100RIEL notes, which is about $0.13) on as many animals as you wish. The caller then rolls the dice, and if any land displaying the picture of one of the animals you've chosen, you win back double the bet you placed down. Otherwise you lose your bet. I lost my money pretty quickly (that dam fish!) but it was fun watching everyone else and listening to their shouts of "ooh!"and "yay!" as they lost their money and then won it back again.

After the game, we returned to our table and were joined by an Australian girl called Emma who had just arrived from Sydney. We chatted for a while before Kotoe and I realised the time - we'd been eating, gambling and chatting for the best part of 4 hours, and the day was quickly disappearing.

I had to apply for my Vietnam visa before 2pm, so i hurried over to Same Same But Different Guesthouse (where I'd been quoted the cheapest price for a 30 day Vietnam visa) to place my application. Due to the fact that it's Khmer New Year from the 13th through to the 15th, the embassy would be closed (a fact that had previously escaped me), meaning that I was unable to use the cheaper 4 day service if I wanted my visa returned to me before i left Phnom Penh. So I used the 1 day service : $38, ready for collection by 6pm the following day.

This evening, for a change of scenery, Kotoe and I walked down to Sisowath Quay and ate and Happy Herb Pizza. We caught a moto home Cambodian style : me and my rucksack squeezed between the moto driver and Kotoe, who was balanced precariously on the back of the bike!

The following morning I walked into the centre of Phnom Penh to post the New Years card I'd been carrying around for Tao for the past week. Despite there being several post boxes around Phnom Penh, it appears the only place to buy stamps is at the post office. So this is where I headed, passing numerous moto drivers asking the usual, "you want motorbike, lady?", followed by, in a lower, more discreet tone of voice, "you wanna smoke?". I declined on both accounts, although the ride would have been a godsend, considering that i was contantly having to wipe the sweat from my brow as the sun burned down on my face as I walked.

On the way back to the lakeside i bought some rambutans from the market and shared them with random people at the guesthouse on my return, most of whom didn't even know what a lychee was, let alone one of their hairy relations! I spent the afternoon sitting out on the guesthouse veranda, catching some rays, reading my newly purchased book 'Tiger Balm' and enjoying the refreshing breeze blowing gently across the lake.

In the evening Kotoe and I ate at La Dolce Vita, worthy of a mention because the friendly waiter here served up some of the best food I've eaten in Phnom Penh. The main reason we chose to eat here was because the menu contained fresh spring rolls, and Kotoe and I had been hunting for a restaurant at which we could eat these, since our arrival in Phnom Penh. We were both reasonably hungry, as we'd not eaten since breakfast, so we ordered the fresh spring rolls as a starter to share before our main course. when the dish arrived, it was the strangest interpretation of fresh spring rolls i've ever seen : it looked like half a baguette on a plate and when we cut into it, it was almost like calzone with a slightly pickled spring roll filling. It was indeed delicious and certainly unique, but left my taste buds a little confused, having expected something a little more like the the fresh spring rolls served in Thailand and Laos.

For my main course I ordered an eggplant dish, which looked like eggplant pulp when it arrived but the flavours blended brilliantly and it tasted supreme. Kotoe had a coconut milk curry, which was equally delicious. Unfortunately, due to the pastry from the spring roll sitting heavily on our stomachs, we became full rather quickly and had to request to take away what we hadn't managed to eat.

Photo is of an banana and green mango vendor at the market.

Hectic streets, flat tyres and a visit to the disturbing Tuol Sleng Museum

2006-04-10T08:49:00.000+01:00

The streets around the lakeside had dried up considerably well in the morning, considering how heavily it rained the night before. However, the sky remained very dark and there were the odd few rain drops escaping from the clouds. We debated hiring a bicycle but the ground remained a little on the muddy side and we didn't want to run the risk of the skies opening upon us, so we decided to wait until the weather had cleared up.

We spent the afternoon typical rainy-day style, in a comfortable chair whilst watching a movie. We chose The Killing Fields due to it's relevance to our current location in Cambodia. It's a film documenting events through the eyes of the journalists reporting upon them, one of the journalists being a Cambodian guy called Phran who works for the New York Times. Having read First They Killed My Father and being thoroughly moved by the author's first hand account of her experiences under the Khmer Rouge overthrow, I felt the film to be a little superficial. It tried to be dramatic, it tried to be poignant, but I didn't feel the immediacy that i felt reading Loung Ung's work.

The following day, due to me feeling a little under the weather and Kotoe being her usual lazy self, we did absolutely nothing until late afternoon, when we took a walk down to Wat Phnom, a temple on Phnom Penh's only hill. The temple itself wasn't much to write home about but it's a nice escape from the crowds. Wild monkeys roam the grounds and there are local food vendors scattered around the vicinity. It's resembles a miniature park in the middle of the city and is where many of the locals gather for the Khmer New Year celebrations.

After two days of relative inactivity, I persuaded Kotoe to join me on a mammoth bike ride today. We hired some very dodgy looking bicycles from just outside our guesthouse and then cycled off down Phnom Penh's precarious traffic-filled streets. I think it's the first time I've attempted to navigate my way around a capital city on a push bike and it's a pretty stressful experience! None of the drivers seem to have the remotest regard for the rules of the road (if there are any!) : there are motorbikes weaving in and out of the traffic, paying little attention to cyclists; there are cars pulling out of roads or parking spaces, not looking or caring whether there are any other motorists in their way; there are drivers continually running red lights and motorcyclists blatantly driving on the wrong side of the road, and everyone who has one is using their horn like it's going out of fashion. So, although the journey to Tuol Sleng museum involved travelling down just one street (Monivong Boulevard) until the final turning into street 310, it certainly didn't feel like so simple a task.

Tuol Sleng Museum is well worth the $2 entrance fee. The site used to be Tuol Svay Prey High School until, in 1975, it was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S21). It soon became the largest centre of detention and torture in the country. Between 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek, 15km south west of Phnom Penh. The museum is a poignant and heart-rending reminder of the appalling conditions the prisoners were kept in and the horrific treatment they received. There are rooms where prisoners were found dead, which remain relatively untouched save for the obvious removal of the body and stains of blood and excrement. In each room there remains a bed, which the prisoner was chained to, complete with the instruments used to torture them. Finally there is a large black and white photograph on the wall, taken presumably when the victim was discovered. Other buildings contain the tiny wood and brick cells used to detain prisoners; in some cells are the shackles which were fastened around the prisoner's ankles and wrists.

The Khmer Rouge were meticulous in keeping records of their barbarism, so all around the museum are black and white photographs of each prisoner, often taken before and after torture. Do not come here if you are at all squeamish : a lot of the photographs really churned my stomach, not solely because of the visible physical pain which has been inflicted upon the prisoners but also because of the overwhelming fear in their eyes. It's a wide-eyed, helpless and desperate look, almost like they're staring death in the face.

Despite having witnessed a huge number of harrowing images at the museum, I encountered another when I walked out the gates : a man with half his face burnt off, approached me, his one remaining hand outstretched, begging for money. After everything I'd already seen, I couldn't bear to look at him and averted my eyes and my sympathies as I crossed the road to the Boddhi Tree Restaurant. When Kotoe and I had regained our appetites, we ordered lunch here. The food (grilled eggplant with sundried tomatoes, melted cheese and garlic) was delicious and the lush garden setting provided effective shelter from the midday heat.

After lunch we perused a couple of local handicraft shops before setting off on our tiring 15km ride out to Choeung Ek. A ride which would have been lot less tiring a ceratinly a lot less stressful had my bike not gotten a flat tyre and had we not got lost before we even left Phnom Penh! Fortunately, right at the place where I discovered my flat tyre, there was a skinny mahogony coloured Cambodian man fixing a motorcycle on the side of the road. He didn't speak a word of English but we managed to converse as much as was required in order to get my bike repaired. The inner tube had perished and it would cost me $3 to fix it. I agreed, thinking that I would be able to take appropriate photographs of the repair and ensure that I was issued with a receipt in order to claim the money back from the bicycle rental establishment. The photographs weren't a problem (one of the beauties of a digital camera) but the receipt unfortunately was. My phrasebook did not contain a word for 'receipt'; the closest was the Khmer for 'please bring the bill' (as used after eating at a restaurant). I showed this to the man but, due to the obvious communication barriers, all I managed to get him to write down was the number 3 and his name. Even so, I thanked him and we continued on our way.

Despite the fact that my Lonely Planet guide states that The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek are "well signposted", they are not. There is one sign for The Killing Fields, once you have already left the city centre and taken the correct fork in the road out into rural Cambodia, but that is all. We had to call upon the assistance of numerous locals, most of whom were incredibly helpful. As we neared the site, we didn't even have to tell them where we were going, as Choeung Ek is clearly the only reason foreigners venture out into this neck of the woods.

After navigating several very bumpy, very dusty roads, we arrived at The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and were immediately surrounded by a group of scruffy Cambodian children all wanting water, pens and money. The site, once a longan orchard, is now home to a large memorial stupa errected in 1988, and 129 mass graves containing the remains of 8985 people. Fragments of human bone and bits of cloth are scattered around the disinterred pits and there are 8000 skulls visible behind the glass panels of the memorial stupa. Also on site are 'The Killing Tree', where victims were beaten against its trunk, and 'The Magic Tree', which had a microphone rigged into it to drown out the screams of the victims as they were bludgeoned to death.

The site was closing as we were leaving, so we quickly shared some iced Angkor beer offered to us by the locals (which we drank out of a plastic water bottle with the top half sliced off) before heading back into Phnom Penh. It's a wonder we made it, right in the middle of rush hour traffic, where it was every man for himself in the crowds of vehicles (cars, landrovers, buses, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cyclos, push bikes and locals pulling wooden carts loaded with goods) that filled Phnom Penh's streets.

When we returned the bikes, it started to look like I wasn't going to get a cent of the $3 it cost to repair the bike, paid back to me. The staff believed I got the bike fixed (so they should, I have the photographs to prove it) but they didn't believe it cost me $3, informing me that if they had got the bike fixed it would have cost no more than 3000RIEL. They tried to tell me I should have returned the bike so that they could have fixed it, to which I informed them that I was in the middle of no-where when I discovered the flat tyre, so i could not have walked the bike back and I certainly couldn't have ridden it back. My only option was to get it fixed. The owner then had the cheek to try and pass the blame, insisting that I had broken the bike so I should pay for it! Well, that was it : I wasn't angry before but I certainly was now! After much arguing and shouting I managed to get a dollar back, and as I hadn't yet paid them the $1 fee for the hire of the bicycle, it ended up costing me $1 instead of $3, for the repair.

We eventually arrived back at The Lakeside at around 6:30pm, after having cycled what we calculated to be approximately 40km today. We used what remaining energy we had chatting and drinking beer Lao out on our guesthouse veranda, enjoying the only rain-free evening since our arrival in Phnom Penh.

Photo to follow.

Smoking buildings and thunderstorms

2006-04-07T06:30:00.000+01:00

I couldn't even get off the bus at Phnom Penh : there were moto and tuk tuk drivers voluntarily jammed into the doorway like sardines, all waving their laminated guesthouse flyers or keys to their vehicles, in my direction. Unfortunately this time none of them were offering free rides but we bartered one tuk tuk driver down to 2000RIEL. We asked to be driven to the Number 9 (original name!) Guesthouse on the lakeside. After 5 or 10 minutes we were dropped at the end of a small lane, and by the time we'd gotten out of the vehicle two guys had removed our backpacks and were carrying them down to the end of the lane. We paid the tuk tuk driver and then followed them. However, we'd only been taken to a completely different guesthouse, and the tuk tuk driver was fully aware of that fact. Aw, that annoys me!

Angry at the principal of the matter, I refused even to look at a room at The Green Lakeside, and stomped off down the road to our original choice. The rooms at Number 9 Guesthouse aren't up to much and the shared bathroom is small and a little on the dirty side, but the restaurant/veranda/chill out area is a reason in itself to choose this guesthouse as a place to stay. As soon as we'd checked in, one of the local tuk tuk drivers, Kim (who lives at the guesthouse) met us outside our bedroom door, introduced himself, followed us downstairs and asked me, "you wanna smoke?". We also got asked the same question by numerous other tuk tuk drivers as we wandered around the streets of the small backpacker ghetto that is the Lakeside. So, although I've had no experience with guns (thank God!) and I'm the wrong sex to know much about the 'girls' in the city, it seems that Amit Gilboa was right about Phnom Penh being THE place to come if you want to smoke ganja.

Kotoe and I, upon my instruction, ate dinner at the wonderfully named Lazy Gecko cafe, which also sells T-shirts and offers a book exchange facility.

The following morning Kotoe and I decided to change rooms. Ok, so the room at Number 9 hadn't been quite as bad as my bungalow at Mr Tho's on Don Det (where I had to get up several times during the night, have a cold shower and then get back into bed!) but I still woke up several times in the night, feeling feverish, the sheets damp with sweat. The cooler rooms downstairs were $5 ($2 more expensive) and the shower head was broken in the only available room, so we moved nextdoor to The Lakeside Guesthouse, to a downstairs $4 room with bathroom inside.

Once we were settled into our new surroundings, we decided to take a walk around Phnom Penh, by way of orientating ourselves with the city. We walked down to Sisowath Quay (the main shopping/eating/drinking street that runs parallel with the river) and stopped at the Mekong River Restaurant to watch the antics of the resident monkey, Aladdin, who was on a leash in his makeshift home, at one end of the restaurant. Kotoe decided, on the advice from restaurant staff that Aladdin wasn't dangerous, to say hello to the resident pet. However, in a series of comical incidents which ensued, Aladdin jumped on to Kotoe's head and tugged at her hair, whilst she crouched in a corner, hands over ears, looking like one of the wise monkeys herself!

We continued on down Sisowath Quay to the National Museum. Over 5000 objects are on display here, including Angkorian era statues, lingas and other artifacts, most notably the legendary statue of the ‘Leper King.’ We wandered around the museum until The Royal Palace re-opened at 2:30pm. Entrance to both the Natioanl Museum and the Royal Palace is $3 but there's an additional $2 at The Royal Palace if you have a camera in your possession, even if you don't plan to use it. The Royal Palace was built in 1866 and is the site of the famous Silver Pagoda. It's the city's most visited pagoda because of its display of priceless historical objects.

It was 5pm by the time we left the grounds of the Royal Palace, the sky was an ominous blue/grey colour, pre-empting rain. We began our walk home along the river front, passing numerous market stalls selling barbequed bugs and spiders and the tiniest little chickens. The shouts of "2 beers for $1!" from a member of staff as we neared the Happy Phnom Penh Pizza Restaurant, were enough to lure us into the establishment. We were quite grateful to be eating hot pizza, nibbling peanuts and sipping cold beer under the shelter of the restaurant, when the angry grey skies opened and it rained like it hasn't rained for months.

Whilst finishing our beers we started joking around with a couple of the tuk tuk drivers who had parked their vehicles outside the restaurant, probably hoping for a fare from us, providing that the rain persisted as heavily, pounding the pavement and leaving numerous puddles in its wake. The driver wearing a funny rain mac wanted $3 to transport us back to the lakeside, which prompted my question, "do you charge more when it's raining?", but we managed to barter the other driver down to 3000RIEL ($0.75)

When we arrived back at the lakeside, it was like we'd walked on to a film set, it was so surreal. There'd been a fire at the Family Restaurant and smoke was still billowing out of the windows and filling the air. The rain was still pounding down, the ground covered in about 3 or 4 inches of muddy water. There were crowds of people gathering in the street, others running, splashing, through the smoke and the rain. As we got closer to the smoking building, there were local people brandishing iron poles and attacking the wrought iron bars on the windows, attempting to smash the padlock on the door and ripping chunks out of the wood with a macheti, in a frantic attempt to get into the building. There was such a determined desperation in their eyes that i thought someone was trapped inside, and the more they broke parts of the windows, doors, and framework, the more the smoke escaped, blinding and choking people in the street and polluting the clear night sky.

For the most part I stood there in helpless awe, my jaw locked open, catching rain water on my tongue and feeling it run over my lips and down my chin. I never believed it was possible for it to rain this hard : this was how it rained in all those war movies, it couldn't be real. At one point Kotoe disappeared into the smoke, in an attempt to give her torch to one of the men trying to break into the building. I stood there for a while amidst the crowds, surrounded by people running past me in all directions and shouting to each other. Managing to break out of the trance I appeared to be in, I started running into the smoke in an attempt to find Kotoe, but I was forced back by its intensity, blinding me instantly and attacking the back of my throat.

Kotoe re-appeared seconds afterwards, having failed to locate the people who may have needed her torch. We both stood in the doorway of the internet cafe opposite, where one of the locals informed us that fortunately no-one had been hurt in the fire. It was an electrical fire, possibly brought on by the storm, but the residents were out when it started. Feeling relieved, having learnt that no-one in fact had been trapped inside the building, we ran, laughing, through the muddy, water-filled streets and thick rain, back to our guesthouse, flashes of lightening giving a bright purple hue to the black of the night sky.

Everyone back at our guesthouse was also rushing around, as if they were in the middle of a natural disaster. This did worry me for a while, especially when the ceiling in our room began to leak and it sounded like there was water lapping around just inches beneath our window. When we eventually dropped off to sleep, I had rumbles of thunder in my ears and flashes of lightening behind my eyes and the sensation that there was water rushing over my body.

Photo is of Kotoe with monkey on her head, Mekong River Restaurant, Phnom Penh.