Sunday 31 August 2008

Rapid Catch up

We're now in Hue, Vietnam and here for five days before flying to Hanoi and Ha Long.

So there's lots to catch up on: Ho Chi Minh City where we stayed at the Svetlana ('Grand') Hotel – yes a bit Soviet Union – then the Reunification Express overnight from HCMC to Hoi An when we roomed up in a 4-berth sleeper with a little old Vietnamese lady with the flexibility (and skin almost) of a four-year-old who clearly was not too keen on sharing with two hulking great Westerners. She moaned constantly and groaned loudly when I planted a shoed foot on the bed to hoist myself inelegantly on to the top bunk. Her compatriot – a sweet and younger woman – obviously embarrassed, compensated by buying us some vietnamese milky coffee for breakfast. Mined was iced and lovely; Jenk's was hot and swamp water.

But back I should go to Siem Reap. We'd so looked forward to this – not just for the temples but of course this is where Gill and Lynda had spent 9 months volunteering. We wanted to get an idea of how they lived. Bloody well I should say. Siem Reap is a party town. We checked out some of their favourite haunts and recommendations including Dead Fish Tower which keeps a crocodile pit downstairs; plus numerous other eat and drinkeries. Slightly surprised at first at how opulent relatively speaking SR is – full of plush and big hotels, loads of bars and restaurants. Typically though for Cambodia you only have to move a street or two back and the poverty is overwhelming. In many ways I thought Cambodia more poor even than Laos – there is obviously much more money in Cambodia but the contrast rich/poor is stunning here. And the begging and the hassling is in a different league to any other part of Asia we've been to. As for that matter is the sex tourism – at least as overt as we saw in Thailand. We were there slap bang after the election – so stacks of propaganda everywhere – especially for the Cambodian People's Party – the winners of course. I'm plotting a pol com blog in the fullness.





Temples – awesome – and pix above of Angkor Wat, Angkor thom – my favourite and one of the wonderful jungle strangled temples. But Siem Reap so so hot and the temple tours – there are so many of them – take whole days, leave you drenched and exhausted. It was here that my skin eruptions started – and that started to slow us down a bit. We managed to catch up with a couple of Gill & Lynda's mates Pok & Tom – but missed out on a lot of stuff, and didn't get to see the shelter where they worked.



From Siem Reap to Phnom Penh by speedboat. A proper boat this time – not the Laos variety. Fab journey past the floating villages – and three hours to cross the colossal Tonle Sap lake. The river journey gives some idea of the poverty too in Cambodia – tin shanties for miles along the river banks as we close in on Phnom Penh.



From there the bus to Ho Chi Minh – by far the biggest, most prosperous and consumerised city we've seen since Bangkok. Hugely busy port on the Saigon River, masses of industry, department stores and shopping malls. Fantastic food here – but that has been true generally of Vietnam. The food easily the best we've had in Asia – aside from the wonderful Kampot pepper crab and the fish amok in Kep.

Corn plaster report
: ah hah. Last blog had the prickly heat update. Aided by the steam room in the hotel Svetlana it transformed into a creature-from-the-deep outbreak. Industrial strength anti-allergens seem now to be working. I'm enjoying my new vampire like status – only coming out at night. Fellow travellers calling me 'the lady of the night'. It has a certain charm. Jenks in sympathy has come down with a full on cold. We are planning a dawn raid on the imperial city and ancient tombs tomorrow and will book some serious luxury to stay in Hanoi - just in case I'm still confined to th dark. Corn plasters - amazingly still haven't used em.

Footie update: watched us draw with Villa last night – for God's sake Rafa! Get a grip man.

Friday 15 August 2008

Phnom Penh again

Back in Phnom Penh at the Billabong Guest House. It's our third time in the capital and we are back here for a couple of nights before we head to Vietnam. We've come to view it as home. We've a a good room by the pool and that's essential in PP. it's so sticky hot here. Siem Reap was blistering and we arrived by boat today and I was just working up to a cooling dip when the monsoon heavens opened again, crashed upon us with the wrath of God, got harder with thunder and lightning and since then the rain has not stopped. Jenks sparko out as I write; meanwhile I'm dispatching a Johnnie Walker Black, and searching the internet for hotels in Ho chi Minh city and cures for prickly heat.

So much to say about PP, Cambodia and Laos - the people, cultures, politics...but just at the moment it's those little things that are on my mind. Little things that you discover about yourselves. Like jenks' obsessive compulsive disorder with the washing. She opens her eyes in the morning, disappears into the bathroom for half an hour and emerges triumphantly declaring that's another six pairs of knickers off our laundry list. I meanwhile can't pass a pharmacy without wandering in stocking up on medicaments and always in the vain hope that there might be Dr Hauschka or MagicoolPlus maybe a little Clinique. I had the bright idea last night to try two different preparations on my heat prickled legs - I put calomine lotion on one and Savlon on the other. One leg showed definite improvement. Had I remembered which leg had which it would have been an excellent experiment.

jenks also has this thing going on about Wales. The whole of south east Asia brings new and hitherto unsuspected comparisons. Angkor Wat? "It's just like Neath Abby - only bigger". Wait till we hit New Zealand.

Love to you all. We'll be up late tonight catching Liverpool v Sunderland - about 11.30 here. The new season? Optimism of spirit, pessimism of the mind. Come on you Reds.

Sunday 10 August 2008

Kep. Cambodia

After the total chaos of Phnom Penh we are powering down in Kep – a sleepy little village by the sea famed only for its pepper crab and for the fact that it was once the hang out of Cambodian royalty before it got smashed to pieces by the Khmer Rouge. Tried the crab last night – wonderful meat and doubtless slimming since it took so much energy to extract. When I say powering down – no internet here, no newspapers and last night the few Tv channels gave out with the ominous warning on some that 'this channel not allowed in this country'. We had no way of knowing if this was a temporary blip or if the trouble at the border had spilled into outright war between Cambodia and Thailand. Slight uneasiness not helped by the soldiers with rifles loitering outside the crab restaurant.

Feels strange to be so far from news. I had to text Chris. He replied straight away Rangers 0 Liverpool 4. Retired to bed much comforted.


Rabbit Island






Fantastic to be beside the sea. The air so clean after Phnom Penh, the street – there is only one – so quiet. save for the breaking waves. We took a ferry across to Rabbit Island on Sunday – noted for its bathing beaches. As is the norm for us in Asia every trip is an adventure. We were talked into it by charming lad who met us off the bus from PP – and offered us a bargain price. Like very many lads we've met here, he has one thumbnail very long and scrupulously clean. A guitarist and budding rock star of course. A Cambodian version of 'Beautiful girl', sung in English although it's hard to tell, is the soundtrack here. Makes a nice change from Hotel California.

The young lad took us to the ferry dock on the back on his motorbike. Fortunately, he had a mate so that was a bike each for us. No crash helmets of course but a bike each was a bonus since three and often four per bike is normal. At the so-called dock it was the usual thing: scramble over rocks, wade through thigh high water, throw yourself into the boat – like gazelles we were. Jenks' swallow dive into the boat especially impressive and clearly a new technique for the nimble Cambodians. Rabbit Island was a delight. Goats, chickens and even cows meandered thru the coconut palms and hammocks. We floated for hours in the South china briny, lunched on fresh prawns and coconut water and then wandered back to the boat across the hillside path.
Then from nowhere came the monsoon rain. We waited wondering if we would have to shelter in the thatched huts overnight. Two by two the other passangers turned up since it turned out we had all been given different departure times. We watched the rain and a lonely paddle boat struggle thru the thundering waves. then it was our time to leave. Somehow I found myself sitting alone at the front of the boat. Rabbit Island is only about half an hour from Kep but as the boat heaved and threatened to capsize it looked an awfully long way off. Make it we did – drenched by the waves and for the first time in Asia cold from the wind. No fish for dinner that night – spaghetti please.

Thursday 7 August 2008

Vang Vieng: dump to delight


8 hour bus ride from Phonsovan to Vang Vieng, some of it above the clouds as we drive through the mountains. Apart from the magnificent views the journey memorable for the landslides and a huge boulder on the road – the product of three days monsoon rain. Oh and the co-pilot who hawked and gobbed continuously and displayed his roadie's arse at unscheduled comfort breaks by the roadside.

Our first sight of Vang Vieng not promising. We toured the few streets and found bar after bar full of listless young Western backpackers stretched out on mangey cushions watching Friends on continuous loop. Just about everyone we saw that night looked stoned or dealing. Found out later from a restaurant owner that VV came to notice from a piece in the Times when a travel writer reported the ready availability of opium. Bars quickly cashed in, offering 'happy menus' and 'happy shakes'. The river gangsters – as we came to see them – opened up makeshift bars along the banks of the Nam Song and rented out tyre inner tubes at extortionate prices so that kids could drift along the fast current topping up on booze and happy stuff along the way.

Spirits lift the next day. Breakfasted by the river under glorious sun over the awesome limestone karsts. Fantastic setting (see pic). Across the river the mountains, caves and immaculately tended paddy fields drew us in. We soon met some lovely people here. a young Lao, name charmingly pronounced Annoy, guided us on a 16km kayak ride down the river, told us his life story, his ambitions for university, and dazzled us with his athleticism as he somersaulted into the water off a high trapeze at a riverside bar. Also got friendly with a restaurant owner who served great food and was one of the few with no TV. amazing guy. Had lived in Bromley for 20 or so years before returning to Lao. Politically sharp, seemed to know everything that was going on in the town and supplied ad hoc medical care to the young Westerners who limped in with scrapes and bruises from the river tubing.

We ended up staying five days. Rented out scratchy old town bikes with no gears nor brakes and went touring through the rice fields to the caves. Jenks sure I was trying to kill her as of course we did this in the heat of the mid-day sun. The tubing looked so tempting at the end of that day. Had we stayed another day...well I'm sure we'd have gone tubing, and maybe slurping happy shakes and watching Friends with the best of them.

On our way out of our Guest House – the Elephant Crossing – bumped into Ivor Gaber and his wife Jane, touring S.East Asia for a few weeks. Small world.
Next stop – the capital Vientiane.