SAIGON - MEKONG DELTA

Again appologies etc.We are so far ahead of ourselves and these updates we've reached far flung (and quite expensive on the old internet) Australia. More on that in a few weeks or so, for now dear patient reader we shall cast our minds back, back into what is fast becoming the mists of time and legends. Back to 'Nam; and to quote Mr.Sheen:

" Saigon ! s***! I'm still only in Saigon "

We didn't feel quite as aggressively as he did, however, we did realize that out of our 2 months to be spent in South East Asia we had already spent well over 3 weeks in Vietnam, and our exit point via Singapore was getting nearer and nearer. We had dillied (as you well know) in North Vietnam for some time, so we were hoping (rather selfishly) that the south would hold less appeal, and we could skip through rather quickly and be off on our way to Cambodia like two happy little country skippers! That hope was dashed within moments of hitting the balmy friendliness of the capital of the south.

We knew we weren't going to be able to spend very long in Saigon (officially called Ho Chi Min City, but after meeting just a handful of locals we realized it's really called Saigon still, to them anyway, and they're who count, right?), so we had to really prioritize what it was we were going to see. After some reading and talking the big 'must do' was (other than wonder the friendly warm streets eating great food) was the Cu Chi tunnels. A site preserved from the American war, consisting of a series of tunnels designed to confuse the American army, and increase the potency of the resistance in the south. The American war was a very complex business, and though we certainly have a better knowledge of the pointlessness of the loss of lives and the horrors suffered by both sides we will not lecture nor pretend we are experts on the subjects but we certainly feel the subject has had a new light shed on it for us since our visit.

The journey to the Cu Chi was an adventure in itself. Tired of a few bad experiences with large tour groups, not spending enough time seeing what we had wanted to see earlier in the journey, we were determined to see Saigon's outer sites under our own steam. With no buses, and taxis costing an arm and a leg we thought we were stuck. Step in Chin, or Mr. Chin (or Chin Beer as we were later to find out!!). Chin is a motorcycle taxi driver (or Xe Om). He was casually hanging around on the street calling for fares when we walked past. We got chatting and before long we had booked he and his friend for a motor bike ride out to the tunnels for 10 Dollars, not bad. 2 hours there and 2 back on the back of tiny motorscooters was quite an exciting ride (Vietnamese roads are nothing like the English ones we know, and the traffic is also a bit bonkers).

The tunnels themselves were brilliantly educational and if anyone would like to see Jemma or I shooting an AK-47 rifle please ask on our return, as we have some fairly funny/weird/chilling video footage of the event depending on your view of guns in general! Chin and Yon (the co driver) then took us to their fav local restaurant where we shouted them some beers, somewhere over these beers (lost in the mist) we agreed that they should take us on a 300+ km journey to the Cambodian boarder via some of the sights in the Mekong Delta!! Those beery decisions huh!

The very next day Chin and Yon picked us up nice and early. What followed can be summed up very easily. 3 days on the back of scooters, backpacks between the riders legs, us pillion style, beers, sore bums, dusty faces, hammock ice coffee stops in the middle of nowhere, dodgy (but cheeeeeppppp) hostels, cheep beers with locals, late nights, the odd river boat trip around the Mekong, bizarre foods, beers, bike crashes (not us but we witnessed at least 1 family stack it off the road!), a speeding ticket, beers, lunch in Chins mates house on stilts over the Mekong, beers and weird moonshine, frustrations and fun, lots of fun, tired fun, but fun none the less.

Chin and Yon were pole opposites, but very sweet, and for all the things we learnt from them one was that we LOVE motorbikes no matter how sore they make your bum!The drop off at the Cambodian boarder was painless, and the next country/ leg of our journey was about to begin, but we couldn't help thinking that one of the best parts of our journey had just ended, and with heavy hearts (and really sore bot-bots!) We bid farewell to Chin Beer and Sweet Yon!

To sum up this leg of our journey I remember the moment as we were driving, about 4pm, as the sun was starting it's slow climb towards the horizon, the glow of the sun was exaggerated by the smoke from the fields being burnt off drifting across the road, we were dirty we were tired, but as another sleepy Mekong Delta town drifted past at 60km/h without a tour bus, or sign in English in sight, we felt like we were doing what we had set out to do, see things we never thought we would.

Onwards then....... To the wilds of Cambodia!

SIEM RIEP - PHNOM PENN

I'm having trouble trying to remember what we did here as it was so long ago now! I had to refer to my diary to refresh my old memory!

Okay, so we got off the boat in Phnom Penn and literally within seconds we were mobbed with tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting to take us anywhere in town - this sounds good as it means you know you can hopefully get to where you want to go, but if you haven't even had time to get your bearings, your weighed down with perhaps maybe a few too many purchases from the last town in your already bulging rucksack and it's about 35 degrees, then it's safe to say we were feeling slightly pissed off with aforementioned drivers!

"No, no thanks, no, no, no, no thank you very much, no, no, no, ohhhh sounds good but no thanks....really no", this went on for about half an hour as we just tried to walk down the road trying to find a hotel. Having managed to eventually shrug off the dozen or so drivers we finally found a place to lay our heads for the next few days. It was a French restaurant which as an after thought and an extra money spinner had decided to add on a few rooms and let them out to bedraggled backpackers. We felt totally out of place walzting through the rather posh restaurant to our very unposh room but at this point we just didn't care!

First thing we did was do our usual orientation, check out where we can buy our daily necessities, this being water, food and of course drinkies in the evening to while away a few hours! (As I'm writing this in Australia now and having to pay out a small fortune for a drink, it makes me want to weep at remembering just how little we could buy drinks (pinacoladas esp.) and food for back in SE Asia! Big sigh!)

The next few days we saw some of the sights in Phnom Penn. Due to Cambodia's rather shady past, the tourist attractions here weren't really of the 'wow this is so beautiful' variety, more of a pause for thought and then a few more thoughts after that kind. You know if you going to see the killing fields and S-21 your not going to be posing with Mickey and Minnie while licking an ice cream, but then not all attractions should be shiny/entertainment packed fun for all the family kind of things. Well, before I went to Cambodia we had heard of Pol Pot and of the Killing Fields and knew that a lot of innocent people had died, but I'm ashamed to say we didn't really know more than that. Basically in the mid to late 70's Pol Pot was the leader of a hardline communist-ish guerilla group who had some rather extreme (to say the least) ideas about national cleansing and creating a 'better future' - as a result hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, tortured and killed - mainly in S-21 and then taken to the killing fields where there were many mass graves.

We went to the Killing Fields first and saw the memorial for the people who had died. They had disinterred many of the graves and put the bones of the people there into a giant purpose built building. It was an unerving sight seeing all these skulls peering out at us from behind glass, but what really hit it home were the clothes that were in there too. After this we made our way to S-21 which is where they held many people prisoner and tortured them. The beds were still there, photos documenting all the people who came through there were up on the wall as well as photos of people being tortured. We couldn't believe some tourists were laughing and joking there and having their photo taken next to these beds and cells like it was some theme park - we left there quite angry that some people could be so bloody insensitive. What we viewed that day took only a few hours, however the impact will last much longer, the recent nature of these events (within our life times!) was sombering, and made us think a little bit harder at some of the current world regimes!

Back to the tourism trail..... We only had one afternoon left so we tried to go over to the Palace, but the Royals had decided that that was the day they would entertain friends and not allow the common folk in for a tour - how inconsidertae of them!

We left Phnom Penn by bus to make our way over to Siem Reap, this took most of the day again and like before we were mobbed when the bus pulled up (the bus didn''t take us into town - it droped us off outside town in the middle of no where so we had no choice but to get into a tuk tuk. We went with the guy who was reading his newspaper in his cab and not one of the blokes who were yelling at us to go with them - funny that!)

Siem Reap is one of the lucky towns to be slap bang next to one of the biggest tourist pulls in the world and they certainly play up to this fact. Every tuk tuk, hotel and souvenir shop pushes the fact that the Temples of Angkor are just down the road and they can offer tours, deals and locally made t-shirts with I've been to Angkor on them. At 8 the next morning we left town in a blaze of dust as hundreds of tuk tuks raced to get to the temples first. After buying our 3 day pass we headed straight to the main temple Angkor Wat - one of the most known temples and it certainly lived up to the hype. It was huge, surrounded by a stunning lake and..... well beautiful!

I won't babble on about all the many other temples as we don't won't to ruin all the little surprises that these sites (oh it's a big site) contain, but I will mention one temple which seemed to attract more than most - even more than the mighty Angkor Wat. People came here in their droves, why? As it was where Tomb Raider had some scenes filmed. All we could here was "Is this where Angelina stood?". Nice to see that people come for the history and culture of this most ancient and interesting of sights........

Siem Reap town is very small but lots of development is going on to accomodate all those Angelina Jolie fans out there. The locals were really friendly once you got past the whole 'no, I don't want to buy anything, thanks' line and we were both sad to leave and move on again.

So there was Cambodia - we felt awful that we were only there less than a week and went to the 2 main cities, completly bypassing the rest of the country, but we have develeoped this saying that pushes us on without too much guilt " We'll do it next time!" There are a lot of 'next times' so far, but it's damn near impossible to see everything in the time frame we have available to us.

So from Cambodia we headed back to the country of food poisoning... sorry Thailand, which is where I will leave you for now, but not for too long as we know we have to try and catch up on this blog before we get home (less than 10 weeks now people - so you had better start getting the bunting, party poppers and cucumber sandwiches ready to welcome our return!)

More when's there more!

J&J