CAMBODIA SUPPLEMENTAL Our departure from Cambodia stirred many deep emotions for us both. More truth and the tourist illusion avoiding oppression and abuse in many forms became evident and since our return to Australia, these truths have challenged us greatly and made us aware of much pain, anger and deep sadness that we have about those who choose to act unlovingly- in the extreme. We have been feeling the emotions these events have brought to the fore, and we ...

SIEM REAP From the moment we hit the Tarmac we observed a feeling of gentleness and openness here in Siem Reap- which we thought was a little strange given the mass murders by the Khmer Rouge and previous wars here. However after visiting the Temples of Angkor today, which are a stones throw from the township, we can feel that there are many, possibly millions of natural love Buddhist and Hindu spirits residing here which create an illusionary blanket of peace....

HO CHI MINH- PHU QUOC ISLAND We stayed in Ho chi Minh only over night, as we were told it was busier than Hanoi, however when we arrived the city appeared to be quite beautiful, well maintain and much more orderly than Hanoi ( there's my control issues again!) We stayed in district 1, and the shops we passed on our walk mirrored Melbourne in many ways- so maybe we were in the affluent area of town so our perception of HCMC is a little warped. We had dinner at a ...

DALAT The Highlands of Dalat we were looking forward to investigating. This city is surprising large, and productive, as its known as the flower and vegetable capital of Vietnam. Around 1500m altitude, it was not cold. Acres and acres of mountainous valleys were adorned with hot houses, veggie gardens- as far as the eye could see. Dalat is also home to the famous hand embroidery village- which we didn't find out about until after we'd left!! Bummer- cos their wo...

HUE- HOI AN-DALAT After our horrendous experience on the sleeping bus we decided to hire a driver to take us the 4 hrs to Hoi An. Trai was an awesome guy who shared with of us much of his culture and beliefs and opinions about Vietnam and its communist political party- an openness rarely witnessed as there are great penalties for speaking against the government. Acquiring a private driver also meant that we got to stop along the way and visit a few sights like, ...