We've been having an exciting time since our last entry. Luck, the Deity of Cambodian highway #9, and God have been on our side keeping us safe and sound.

We left Phnom Penh on the Angkor Express. This was the fanciest bus trip yet with snacks and water served onboard. In addition, our steward made PA addresses throughout the journey, including an explanation that we needed to stop at a roadside shrine to make an offering to keep us safe on our journey. In case you find yourselves in the same situation at some point, it appears the going rate for a Deitys blessing for a large bus is one clump of Bananas. I think that's not bad at all.

We had intended to spend a bit of time in Sihanoukville on the south coast of Cambodia. We knew fairly quickly that this wasn't the oasis that our travel book had made it out to be, or perhaps it had changed. It was a very pretty beach with nice waterfront accommodation, but loaded up with tourists, hawkers and loud pumping music that went well into the night. Our first day at Cloud9 (our resort) turned out to be a bit of a bust. They were repairing our terrace railing which took until 6pm at night. As you can see from the pictures, the terrace had a beautiful view of the gulf of Thailand so this was a major setback. Day 2 at Cloud 9 found us installed in our terrace hammock enjoying life when ash started flying around and landing all over us. We were giggling at how ridiculous this all was and "how much garbage someone must be burning" as we see piles of burning garbage all the time. Next thing you know, we hear some crackling and popping and then people are running up the hill yelling for everyone to get out. As it turned out, some guy had been burning leaves and his little fire got out of control igniting the thatched roof of the guesthouse 4 meters away from our bungalow. We quickly grabbed our bags that were sitting there and scurried out with most of our belongings and made for the waterfront. In the end, 3 of the 7 surrounding bungalows were burned beyond use in addition to the guesthouse right beside us. Amazingly our little cottage wasn't affected except for some ash that had floated in. What a couple of lucky drop-outs we are!

The number of amputees in Cambodia has been astounding. We've even seen one guy with no limbs. Often they're begging in the streets but we saw one guy who, admittedly, had only lost 1 arm but he was amazing. We noticed him because he almost hit us as we were crossing the street. He was, typically, coming the wrong way against traffic as he tried to short-cut during rush hour. His moto was modified so that his left hand operated the throttle, brake and his cigarette. I'm telling you, this guy was impressive!

The trip to Vietnam involved about 150kms & 2.5 hours in a 1988 Burgundy Toyota Camry (just like my Dads old car - ahhh, the memories), then a walk through the 500m of no-mans-land at the border receiving many, many stamps all the while being worked over by two moto drivers that wanted to sell us lifts to Ha Tien in Vietnam. In the end we worked out a price and they got us to the bus stop in Ha Tien just as our bus to Rach Gia was leaving. 2 more bone crushing hours in the bus. The only seats that we actually fit in were at the back of the bus, well behind the rear axle. At one point I actually hit my head on the roof as we bounced over the rough roads. I also learned a valuable lesson on this bus ride. Sitting at the back of the bus in Asia is not the best idea, especially when the windows are open. Twice I got spit on me from people further up front spitting out of their windows. I don't really want to talk about it, at least not without my therapist present. That was probably a new personal low. In the end we made it to Rach Gia and into our hotel pooped but relieved. We were kind of concerned about the Vietnamese people. We've been hearing some horror stories about how aggressive they are and their scamming skills. This, however, is not the case where we've been thus far. The people have been so friendly and curious it's been just marvellous. I often feel like the King of Kensington walking down the street waving to little kids and older people alike.

We only saw one other white person in the whole town and ended up eating dinner with Richard and his Vietnamese girlfriend Can. What a fantastic evening. Can is so serene and kind, and Richard is full of more stories than you can imagine. He worked for the CIA back in the 60's and spent 5 years in the area, both as a CIA operative and as a POW. Such an enjoyable evening and so interesting. Baebs also got all kinds of 411 on some of the food and local cooking methods.

We've been quite careful thus far trying to avoid Dengue fever, Malaria, unwanted gastro-intestinal hitch-hikers and other forms of bum upsetness, common colds, being smoked by cars and motos. What we hadn't factored in but were made aware of by Richard was the threat of head lice from using the mandatory helmets from the moto drivers. Apparently this problem is rampant in the population here and one is strongly advised to either buy their own helmet, or to wear a hat under their helmets. Sheesh, does a guy have to think of everything?!?! It had never felt so good to wash our hair that night. Now any little itch and we get all paranoid.

We're now on Phu Quoc island and will be spending Christmas here. This is sort of the final rest before we do a 1 month whirlwind tour of Southern Vietnam, Laos and Northern Thailand. Time is actually starting to run out and after so many months of really taking our time, we're doing some serious planning to make sure we fit in what we really want to see.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We think of you often...actually most often after checking the Canadian news about the coast to coast deep freeze. Admittedly, we are truly starting to miss seasonal changes and are looking forward to a bit of winter ourselves, but that'll have to wait until February. We hope you're all safe, healthy and happy and we wish you all the best for the New Year.
Love from Vietnam,
Jason & Baebs