Cambodia & Vietnam

Phew. So as you can see, there's a lot to cover, and not even sure I can remember it all!

Angkor Wat in Siem Reap was brilliant. The temples were beautiful and the information about the empire and how the temples were constructed was fascinating, particularly how they mixed Hinduism and Buddhism depending on the particular kings religious leanings. In the carvings on one of the later temples, Angkor Thom, from the 12th century they even mixed in scenes of every day life with the more standard myths and battle scenes, showing things such as women giving birth, a "china town" market, people playing chess, fishing, etc. We went up on our own the afternoon we flew in and just walked around, but got a guide for the next day which was absolutely worth it. Our guide was incredible, he had this encyclopedic knowledge of the Kmher Empire, and also spent hours telling us about Cambodia's more recent - and tragic -history. Apart from the rule of the Kmher Rouge and genocide which were obviously horrible, they really aren't too fond of the Vietnamese.

Oh yea, and there were some monkeys running around and on the first day, in trying to entice the monkey closer to me for a picture, I accidentally gave it a beer (yes, I just figured out that I could add pictures to the blog):

And, technically, it wrenched it from my hands, so consider that before you judge me.

From Siem Reap we took a boat to the capitol Phnom Penh which was sunny and quite nice (brushed up on the tan - finally). In Phnom Penh we went to the Teul Sleng Genocide Museum, which is actually on the site of the high school that was turned into the prison where over 20,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and eventually killed. It was turned into a museum only a year after the Khmer Rouge fell, so it's basically all still in tact and is extremely eerie, sad and disturbing, but definitely worth the trip. We were also going to make our way to the killing fields, but it started to monsoon when we left, so, since we were pretty wrecked, we just headed back to the hotel.

From Phnom Penh we took a bus to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) in Vietnam. We loved Saigon, it's a really cool, bustling city and - as you can see from the picture, the traffic there is crazy. There's about 7 million people in the city and over 3 million motorbikes, so you can basically do the math.
We spent 3 days there and had a great time. One of the highlights was the War Remnants Museum (formerly the "American War Crimes Museum," which is unfortunately pretty apt). It was very well done, although again, extremely sobering and depressing. Still it was probably the best museum I've been to on the entire trip. We also took a day trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels which was good, and we went to the "Worlds Only Water Puppet Theatre." It consisted of live musicians on either side and then about 10 short acts with these "magical" puppets that came out floating in this big pool of water - "how do they do it?!?!?!." Surprisingly, "Boy Returns to Village After Winning First Prize in National Exam" was quite boring, while "Protecting Ducks and Chasing Foxes" was hilarious (yes, I've also just realised that you can use italics).

From Ho Chi Minh we took a lovely night train to Nha Trang. On Keith's advice we skipped Nha Trang and went straight to Paradise Resort on a little beach 45 minutes away, Doc Lech. We were there for a couple days and it was great to just relax, swim and read. There was very little around, so all 3 meals were included. The place is run by Cheri, an eccentric and hilarious croatian-french 82 year old man, now living with his 30-something year old "wife." He has 4 kids, all boys, the first two in their 60's and the second two 8 and 10 years old! Apparently living on a beautful beach in Vietnam with a wife 50 years your junior is a great way to stay young!

The meals were great and we met some nice people, particularly a middle-aged Texan who had sold his house and was travelling around S.E. asia for a year. Poor guy was too nice for his own good and had some incredible stories about getting ripped off in Vietnam, but these are probably better told in person with a lilting Southern accent. He was really interesting though, and great company.

From Doc Lech it was a night bus (slightly better than the one in Laos, individual seats that go all the way back, about the size of the passenger seat in a car) to Hoi An, a little tailor town, which was quite beautiful. I got a coat made and Michael had some shirts done, and we splurged on some seriously delicious crab. From there, we went on to Hue and My Son (the very old temple remains from the Cham Empire - which they keep telling you not to compare to Angkor, probably because it's not nearly as good).

Like Saigon we really liked Hanoi, it's quite beautiful with a lake in the centre of the old town and a French area with old colonial architecture. We had some good food and visited temples, museums, etc. It was raining like crazy though, so one night we sought refuge in the Hanoi Cinemateque. Everything is either subtitled in English or in Vietnamese (if originally in English), so it obviously doesn't cater to the local crowd, but it was really cool. It's this artsy cinema set in an old French-style building with a cafe in the courtyard. When we went they were having a Mexican film festival, so we went to see "El" by Lusi Bunuel from the 1950s, which was brilliant - kind of like the original Sleeping With The Enemy.

Once the rain cleared up a bit we were free to book our 2-night, 3 day cruise in Halong Bay. This was probably one of the highlights of the trip so far. Halong Bay was beautiful, with these massive limestone carsts jutting out of the water. We had one night on the boat and another night on a large island, Cat Ba island, where we also got to cycle during the day. The weather was great and we had a good crowd on the cruise, particularly these two Danish guys who insisted on a " Booze Cruise!!" - Michael and I backed out after the 2nd bottle of whiskey was ordered! They ended up with a 3rd half-empty one in the morning that neither of them remembered ordering...Booze Cruise!!!

After Halong Bay we were back to Hanoi in order to fly to Hong Kong to meet Keith and Lindsay!

Since in reality I'm already in Shanghai at this point and this post is already ridiculously long and I need to run (we're going to go splurge and try Kobe beef for the first time!) I think I will leave China for another day, perhaps even some good ol' face to face conversation :)

Hope all is well and can't wait to see everyone! xx Jo