06/12/05 - 12/12/05 Vietnam/Cambodia (Update # 5)

Well its been a while since the last update.. I know I keep falling further behind but good news, this should be the 2nd last one. I had to leave the last 6 Days spent in Vietnam until next week.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. It was different in Sydney to say the least .. 44.5 degrees on New Years day. Fan forced oven winds !!



06/12/05 Sri Lanka-> Singapore-> Vietnam

Just made our flight on time, being delayed by some German Woman who sat down beside us and insisted on telling us everyday of her journey. Yes I know im doing the same with these emails but at least im doing it in installments. She wanted to do it in two hours..maybe ten and if she got a day wrong she'd go back and start again. "No sorry on Monday I vent here so zat means I vent here on Tuesday and den Wednesday i vent..no no wait..." Never ask how was your trip to the elderly. Oh thank god for Singapore Airlines and at last success with on board movies. Not only movies on demand but free drink too. I'll have batman begins please and keep the beers comin. Sure why would i need sleep, it's not as if im going to be hanging around Singapore airport for 9 hours waiting for our connecting flight to Vietnam !! Just when you think your luck is in. But if you're gonna be stuck in any airport for 9 hours then Singapore gets my vote every time.


Flying in to Ho Chi Minh and watching, what looks like, thousands of ants making their ways through ducts. I'd say at least 80% of the population has a bike here. Back into haggling mode again with the taxi drivers so I just stood back and let the chief negotiator step in. I, being the financial controller, would give the nod when an acceptable level of being ripped off was reached. You know you're being done but even in this chaos you have to introduce a standard and lowest price wins.. or sometimes its a decent price and a nice smile or taking pity on the shy drivers who stand at the back. Instead of $8 we got it $6. Pointless really because in all the confusion of getting out of the cab in the hustling streets (all named after someones favourite doorbell music) I ended up giving the equivalent of $8 in dong.

The roads here are just jammed with bikes and again no lights obeyed.They hit corners from all angles and are more skilled at doing this than you would be interlocking your fingers together. Of course there are many deaths but they came up with a brilliant plan to fix that problem. Anyone with a bike over 125cc now needs a license. That should do it alright !!



07/12/05 Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) - War Museum


Visited the "war museum" today. It was once called "Americas war crimes" and recently renamed to but the theme is still the same. It is a one sided 'exhibition' of course but the evidence is so overwhelming and undeniable. Coming from a society given films glorifying the war it was an eye opener.. and can anyone give a reason why America were involved in this ?? Horrific pictures mostly taken from American media can be seen. Sickening images of the effects of agent orange foetus in jars of the deformed.. people around you just silent trying to take it all in. We were all in the same mood..and then the phone rang. I dived on it to kill the sound. It was my brother (howdy Graham) ringing to give me the football results and within a minute I'd forgotten where I was. "Yes..who scored?" I asked.. and as i scanned the room looking at all the people glued to the photographs some girls with their heads stuck to their boyfriends shoulders and crying, one face was staring back at me. Kelly was lip synching.."Lower yer bleedin voice"... or something to that effect..doh !

But i tell ye it was a welcome respite before going into recreations of tiger jails..they had a tape playing the background of people screaming from being whipped or hit. As if what you had in front of you wasn't enough.

Spent about 2 hours there before headed back to organise tomorrows trip to the tunnels and our re-entry visa to Vietnam. Cambodia would be our next destination.

Woke up in the middle of the night realising why were given a room for $5 less. I couldn't get back to sleep, the room had no windows. I was listening out for a fire all night..terrible feeling of claustrophobia got to me.



08/12/05 - Ho Chi Minh(Saigon) - Cu Chi Tunnels

For $3 dollars we booked a trip to the cu chi tunnels, an underground network of crawl spaces which the Vietcong used to live and hide in, plan attacks or ambush the yanks during the war. The trip included a bus and a tour guide who actually fought in the war. I didn't ask for any money back even though i couldn't understand a word he said. Shared a bus with an Australian family, easily identified early on by their politeness and their ability to talk around a subject that the tour guide seemed angry. " ahh he's got the sh1t's" they'd say. But for all their crudeness they'd also have a romantic way of describing things , for example a near accident on the road was "nearly a coming together there" and i don't think he meant the money shot from an 'adult' movie.

The tunnels are a sight and it become obvious just how small the Vietnamese are when you see the entrances to them. Very well camouflaged too. I barely squeezed down one of the original sized entrances. Of course for tourism they've expanded the entrances so people can 'walk' through them. I quickly realised that last nights thoughts of claustrophobia were way off. This was the real feeling coupled with intense heat and pitch black. My legs were giving way trying to inch forward on my hunkers. I lost the group at one point and was alone down there. Hands were touching the walls looking for exits. When i reached a cross roads i had no possible way of knowing which way the group went as it sounds like people are beside you so i just turned back. Brave men fought down here, make no mistake. Clever men too, setting up false entrances to tunnels to supposedly to lure Americans in and kill them on their return but obviously it was made for pizza hut deliveries. you could hardly give out the right address for your entrance could you ?..It might be intercepted for gods sake. They'd already sacrificed super Sundays with the lads so they had to be allowed something. (sorry..when you're here its all too serious sometimes)

The traps that were set weren't just designed to kill..but to kill in the worst way.. slowly and painfully. Some designed to take your manhood away. Opening a door would spring a spiked beam your way and if you blocked it with your arm its hinged lower half would swivel onwards and smash into your lower half.

Bought some bullets and had a go on the machine guns and AK47's (just to take our minds off the war.. ya know)

$3 well spent i reckon for a day like that. Retired back to our room passing two men bringing back women of the night. Im sore when they got a far as the "no prostitutes" sign they turned back and that the night porter could not be bribed in any way shape or form. You just can't beat security.



09/12/05 Vietnam (Saigon) -> Cambodia( Phnom Penh).

Took ourselves and our re-entry visa to the airport on a flight bound for Phnom Penh. On board our propelled plane (don't ask the model number i'd always refused plane spotting with pops on a Sunday) you could see the physical marks of war on the country. Footprints from B-52 bombers continued for miles in clear directions. Something I won't forget in a hurry, the depressions staggered through paddy fields.

Early impressions at touch down in Cambodia is that Phnom Penh is a developing city. Old buildings mixed in with the new. Plenty of wats and hotels and the like and situated on river. In a stroke of luck Kelly checked out accommodation, and while i waited in the cab a little fella knocked on the window selling postcards. He had a

tarantula crawling all over him and he didn't care. I passed on the cards and got rid of him before Kelly came back down. Went for lunch in "friends" restaurant. The restaurant gives all its takings to the friends orphanage and all the kids who work there now live there too. So again its better to give something to an organisation like this than to the individual on the street.

Swapping the imprints of the B-52 for the S-21 "school" in Phnom Penh. It was once a school but was turned into a torture house during the Khmer Rouge regime. Anyone who showed any sign of intelligence was taken away from their homes never to return. Even wearing a pair of glasses was regarded as such a sign..shocking. Families and generations wiped out to cleanse a nation. Pure madness and it happened just 30 years ago. Even afterwards I don't feel right talking about what I saw in there. To be honest you don't want to hear what they did either, I choose to go in to see it. There are rooms filled with mug shots of victims brought there. One picture of a cheeky looking little boy stays with me.. he was no more than 4. Who knows what happened him.

Spent so long at S-21 that we missed the killing fields itself. We'd seen enough and from reports the fields are in fact just empty fields now, nothing really marks the sites.

We met a yank from Seattle and spent the night drinking with him, he was as gay as the month we are in and a really cool fella too. I thought he was joking when he told us we'd better get going before 12. I had no carriage to return. "Oh no, that's when the shootings start. Tourists should be safe anyway" he said.. but i thought we were safe to begin with.. I had no idea we were actually still in a wild town.




10/12/05 Cambodia Phnom Penh -> Siem Reap

Instead of spending $30 on a speed boat to S iem Reap which more than likely would involve swallowing buckets of flies, whilst being stuck on a rooftop in 30 degree heat, we decided to take the less popular option amongst travellers. The $5 bus, I think may add an hour on to our journey but at least it was air conditioned. Vans passing us out or beside us were overloaded with people..and not just on the inside. 15-20 people were on the roof and I don't know how they were hanging on, by the look of it their finger nails were piercing the metal. One decent sized bump and the vehicles would be shedding its load. Every 2nd car or van was the same so there mustn't be a law against it but its insane to allow this. On board our bus they were playing some poor Khmer comedy video. It was a cross between the 3 Stooges and Chris Rock. Of all the times for my i-river battery to die , it certainly picked the worst. My own fault for not charging it. I had to listen to these annoying little " bolli" wail on about trying to travel somewhere. Terrible acting but the bus was in raptures ..some were doubled over on their seats. They'd look at us from time to time for our approval at the jokes.. hilarious.. I might have preferred my chances on the rooftops of the vans outside. Anyone looking in might have thought we were a bus full of special people..some capper faces pulled on that bus during the 6 hours I can confirm. I just hoped the bus driver was doing a better job at concentrating on the road.

At the journeys end my buns of steel felt like they'd just left a frying pan. Back to being mobbed again at a station and for a moment felt like we were back in India, until a police man came along with a baton and hit anyone within his reach. You could be cruel by calling a tout over to you and then tell him to go away.. he was sure to get a smack. Serve him right for annoying you.

Met up with a French couple while on a quest for an ATM machine. Spent the rest of the day with them.. a very handsome and pretty pair. I tried impressing them with my excellent version of their language..they didn't seem to understand " monche tu my son" or "bonjour " while departing.. Where they really French at all ??



10/12/05 Cambodia ( Siem Reap-> Angkor)

Siem Reap is a major tourist hub for Angkor. There is nowhere else to stay if you come to see temples, which was surprising to discover that there was no ATM machine considering the volume passing through. We hired two bikes and two drivers for the day, cost about $10 each. This has to be the craziest thing about Vietnam and Cambodia. Everything is priced and set in American dollars but you can pay in Dong or Riel respectively. Most tourists pay in dollars and mainly the locals use their currency. Now if there is a currency fluctuation of any kind, you know the tourists aren't going to suffer as they don't have to make up the difference of the dollar.

We were driven to each temple on a Honda 125. I really want one. So handy to get around on.

The temples were an archaeologists dream.. perfect carvings and sculptures, architraves, impediments , pillars, columns , sites still being excavated.. magnificent all of it.. and every bit of it wasted on me. Instead of marvelling at the age before me or taking in the tentacle like tree roots surrounding the jungle temples I was blown away by the fact that they filmed Tomb Raider here. What a joke to be more impressed with Angelina Jolie once standing here than the kings that ruled centuries ago. That's when you realise you should be banned from seeing temples.(In all fairness she does have two fantastic monuments of her own though!)

Later on I wasn't sure if the meaning was lost on others too. At the foot of another steep temple we saw what looked like monks about to begin a pilgrimage to the top. Convinced one of the monks was about to take his hands out of his robes to bless himself, the last thing I expected to see was a large, top of the range SLR digital camera. Rambo would have trouble aiming this thing. What else was under that tunic, was he wearing a bra and panties too. Surely these sites are sacred to the Buddhist. Shouldn't he be poor and on a vow of silence... they should be concealing their thoughts, not digital wonders...and prescribe to their religion, not David Bailey. Kelly got a great photo of these holy men herself.. Im sure they wouldn't mind. Hope the enjoyed their I-pod party that night.




Met up with the French couple again. It's true the French do it better.. Their trip put ours to shame that day, their photos were better, their tour guide brought them to better places, and they had another 10 months left touring the world too. But I bet their nation will never come second in the vote for the ugliest people in the world !! Come on Ireland !



Once again sorry for falling so far behind. I was going to do one massive update but it takes a while