Cambodia

A typical sight in Cambodia. Planting rice

Our trip to Cambodia was sandwiched between our trip to South Vietnam and Northern/Central Vietnam. After our 2 night 3 day trip to the Mekong Delta we boarded a small boat that took us on a 3 hour drive up one of the Mekong River tributaries to a Cambodian boarder control office. After the visa formalities were completed we were driven by road for another 3 hours to the capital, Phnom Penh. Our hotel had arranged for us to be picked up from the drop off point at the tour operator’s office. We were met by one of the hotels friendly Tuk-Tuk drivers who took us to the hotel.

Taking a Tuk Tuk to the hotel

It was almost dark when we arrived at the hotel and so we went for a walk around the area and to find a restaurant for dinner. After ten minutes we came to the main promenade alongside the river. This is a confluence of 3 great rivers including The Mekong. Along the promenade there were lots of people walking between people selling various things, men playing football and an open-air everyone can join in aerobics class.  We ate at a “Friends” Restaurant who have a great policy of taking on street children and then educating them to work in the catering industry and gaining practical experience in one of their two restaurants in Phnom Penh. The food was good and so was the service although the waiters appeared a little nervous since it looked like they were having some kind of evaluation since the managers were watching them closely. Eating at the restaurant supports their work.

The next day we wanted to do the typical tourist run in Phnom Penh by visiting the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum. Our Tuk-Tuk driver drove us the 40 minutes to the ominously named Killing Fields. He kindly stopped on the way and bought us a face mask each that covered our mouth and nose so that we got a bit of protection from the exhaust and dust of the busy city streets. Pol Pot, the Maoist leader of the Khmer Rouge, took control of Phnom Penh in 1976 and immediately ordered the evacuation of the cities and all commerce stopped. The Killing Fields was the area used by Pol Pot between 1976 and 1979 to execute those that were supposedly against him. This included mainly the educated city dwelling people of Cambodia. Pol Pot started his regime by establishing “Year Zero – an agrarian communist utopia” which involved evacuating all urban areas and sending the city dwellers (if you were not a farmer you were “educated”) to the countryside to learn hard labour and traditional farming skills. These people were only given two bowls of rice a day and suffered severe malnutrition. Pol Pot stated that the new Cambodia only needed 1 – 2 million people so the previous city dwellers were not required and the quote “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss” was used. They were taken to many “Killing Fields” around Cambodia. The one we visited just outside Phnom Penh is the most infamous. The audio tour around the site was moving, disturbing and interesting at the same time.

The Memorial Tower

Skulls in the Memorial Tower

The site of the tower with hundreds of the skulls that were found in the mass graves of the area is a shocking but somehow fitting memorial to the people that were beaten to death here. The guards were told not to waste their bullets on killing the people. These events are still in the minds of the Cambodian people and many of the people we meet referred to their parents or siblings that were killed by the Khmer Rouge. We could empathize with them after our visit to the Killing Field. Whilst these atrocities were carried out the Khmer Rouge managed to hide and deny what was happening to the rest of the world.
After this sobering tour around the Killing Fields we were driven to the equally sobering Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge used the site of an evacuated school in Phnom Penh as their torture headquarters. After having tortured a confession out of the traitors - doctors, lawyers, shop owners, artists any so called educated person or people in the same family as someone that went to university – that they were indeed educated then they were taken to the Killing Field. The class rooms in the school contained torture beds and various cruel devices and hundreds of black and white passport style photographs of the people that were sent to the Killing Field.

Praying statues in the Royal Palace

By coincidence this was Phil's birthday. Not quite the way we would normally have chosen to spend the day but this was where we were and we felt it was right to visit these two places before moving on to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat the next day. To celebrate Phil's birthday we ate at the other, slightly more up market, Friends Restaurant.  On the morning before leaving for Siem Reap we visited the impressive Royal Palace. This reminded us of a smaller version of the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The drive north from Phnom Penh takes about 6 hours. From the window of the “Luxury Coach” we could see typical Cambodian scenery with people working in their rice paddy fields and water buffalo grazing.

We were also met at the bus station in Siem Reap by the hotels Tuk-Tuk driver. The hotel we were going to spend the next 5 nights in was called Soria Moria. This name caught our attention whilst looking through TripAdvisor since it is Norwegian. The hotel was owned and run by a Norwegian couple and we thought it would be good to stay at a home from home. It seemed strange to conduct the check-in in Norwegian. Siem Reap is a rapidly growing small town that tourists use whilst visiting the many temples and palaces collectively known as Angkor Wat. We have now stayed in a Norwegian hotel in South Africa, Guatemala and Cambodia.

Beat Richner playing to his public

Iren outside the Children's Hospital

When we were in Borneo we met a Swiss couple that told us about Beat Richner, a Swiss pediatrician and cellist, and his Children’s Hospital in Siem Reap and that every Saturday night he holds a concert/lecture to raise money. Beat was an amazing person that has achieved an incredible amount in his life. He won the Swiss “Man of the Year” prize in 2002. He is an accomplished cello player and between pieces he talks about the challenges of running his soon to be 5 hospitals in Cambodia and of the history of how it all happened. Iren was especially impressed with what he had achieved and for his continuing vision. He pays all hospital staff much more than the going rate in the hope that it removes the necessity to take part in corruption. He has a strict zero tolerance policy against corruption in the hospital and as a consquence of this he can't buy any medicines from within Cambodia.

A Cambodian version of the Tuk-Tuk

The next day after having eating some Norwegian waffles for breakfast, the Tuk-Tuk driver drove us the 20 minutes or so to the entrance of the main temple complex at Angkor Wat. This is somewhere we have wanted to visit for many years and not least because it is included in lists of the “7 New Wonders of the World”. There were a lot of people visiting although there were not as many as we had expected. Angkor Wat is a huge area with many stone temples and palaces. You could easily spend a week here if you wanted to see everything in detail. It was hot walking around the complex but it was very impressive to see.

The most famous temple at AW

The complex was built sometime between the year 1100 and 1200 and is the largest religious building in the world. Much of it is in ruins but there are many buildings that are intact and local traditional craftsmen try to restore many of the buildings. The Tuk-Tuk drivers are “yours” for the day. They wait outside each complex and then drive you to the next place to see. They do this all the time and therefore have a set schedule for each day although they will take you where you want if you ask. They also take you to “tourist restaurants” for lunch. Without these it would be a long drive back to town.

A moated temple at Banteay Srei

There are many ruined temples to see and it is difficult to remember what is what. The Angkor Wat area is about 400 square kilometers in area and after the demise of the Angkor Empire it was forgotten about for over 300 years. The french naturalist Henri Mouhot discovered it in 1861. During this time it was reclaimed by the jungle.

The tree from the "Tomb Raider" film

A mass of roots around a door

It was a huge job to clear the jungle and rebuild some of the temples. The work is still going on. Some of the giant Fig and Silk Cotton trees that have been growing for 300 years can't be removed because they support the walls of the buildings. This just helps to give Angkor Wat a mystical and exoctic feeling.

A Linga carved in the river bed

Carving of Vishnu by the riverside

Another Tuk Tuk ride took us to the River of a Thousand Lingas at Kbal Spean. We have seen hundreds of rivers and streams in our time but never one with carvings on the stone river bed. Some of the rocks on the river bank also had carvings on. These carvings were done about 800 years ago by hermits living in the area and was only rediscovered in 1969. After the water has flowed over the carvings it is believed to be blessed by the lingas.

Statues at Bantreay Srei

Carvings at Bantreay Srei

We then visited the Banteay Srei Temple (Citadel of the Women) which is at the bottom of the valley from the 1000 Lingas River and is about 200 years older than Angkor Wat. It is known for its carvings that are carved in the red sandstone as if it was wood.

Statues on a bridge to a temple

It's easy to get "Templed out" as many people say but we really enjoyed our 5 days in Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat area. You feel a wonder at the greatness of previous generations that have built these fantastic buildings and then compare that to the relative poverty that you see in Cambodia today and the terrible times they went through in our life time. Siem Reap has grown dramatically during the last few years and seems well equiped to handle the growing number of tourists even though it is still fairly basic when compared to western standards. It looks like Cambodia is going in the right direction despite the problems of corruption that Beat Richner mentioned in his lecture. We would definately recommend visiting Angkor Wat and Siem Reap.

Vietnam

Before the rush hour



The first thing we did when we arrived in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), the capital of Vietnam, was to try and get used to their money – the Dong. We felt rich in this country because we had a few million Dong in our wallets. Ten Norwegian kroner (about £1 or US$1.65) is worth 34,619.41 Dong! From the airport we took a taxi (147210 Dong) to our hotel in District 1 where we would be staying for 3 nights. It doesn’t take long to understand that there is a lot of traffic on the roads in HCM, particularly mopeds! There seemed to be no public transport system so instead of having thousands of people sat on The Tube, like in London, everyone had their own moped so that there was an endless river of mopeds on all the main roads at any one time.

Surely there's room for the kitchen sink

HCM has a population of about 7.5 million and it seemed like all of them owned a moped. Like many other countries in Asia, they try to squeeze as much as possible onto their moped, like all family members and just about everything else imaginable. We had to learn from the locals how to cross the road. If you stop and wait for the road to be clear then you will never get across. You simply launch yourself into the road and then either walk very slowly or stop every couple of steps. The mopeds will just pass you by on either side. If you keep walking then most of them aim to drive behind you. Obviously you have to pay attention all the time since not all the mopeds manage to steer behind since there are too many mopeds around. After a while we got used to crossing the road. There are so many mopeds that they can’t actually drive very fast but we manged to see a couple of accidents. At cross roads there were either traffic lights that they took no notice of or no traffic lights. The mopeds just seemed to mingle in and come out in the desired direction. This was probably more efficient than stopping at the lights.

On our first night we decided to go out and taste the local food. However, there are so many restaurants and various other street stalls to choose from that we didn’t know where to start. Wireless internet was available in many places so we decided to trust our luck to the Restaurant guide on TripAdvisor. This was quickly done and we spent the next half an hour trying to find it. When we finally found someone that had heard of it and we discovered to our dismay that it was down a little lane right opposite the hotel! At least it wouldn’t take long to get home. We are not that used to eating Asian food and so it was difficult to choose from the huge choice on the menu so we stuck to the recommendations on TripAdvisor. The meal was good although we seemed to eat a lot less than everyone else. They had several plates of various delicious looking food on the table that they all shared from. We also had the usual discussion about why they like eating with chop sticks when it would be so much easier to use a knife and fork!

Outside the War Remnants Museum

It’s not possible to be in HCM for long without being reminded of the Vietnam War. We were very young whilst the war was reported in the media so we found ourselves having to read up on what the reasons for the conflict were. We visited the War Remnants Museum which had many disturbing pictures showing the realities of war. The museum presented everything from Vietnam’s point of view but despite this it was clear to see that both sides suffered a lot during the war.

After walking around the streets of  District 1 in HCM it felt like it was time to get away from the noise and all the traffic. We booked a three day two night trip to the Mekong River Delta. This involved a 3 hour drive south to join the first of many small boat trips in the huge Mekong River Delta area of southern Vietnam.

Iren enjoying the ride



There were many stops along the Mekong River tributaries such as visiting a bee farm and tasting the honey, listening to traditional Vietnamese folk music, sampling various fruits and tasting home made chocolate coated coconut sweets straight after they were made. One of the stops made an impression of Phil since there was a friendly Python there. Phil does not like snakes but after seeing other people survive holding it draped around their necks he decided to have a go. It was heavier than it looks and it didn't remain around his neck for long before Phil generously gave it to the next person that wanted a go.

Floating Wholesale Market

The women do all the hard work

The next morning we cruised off to a floating wholesale fruit and vegetable market. There were hundreds of small boats selling their wares and trying to get noticed. Most of the small boats were powered by women standing at the back of the boats with the oars crossed and then pushing forward. They seemed to be very strong as they never stopped paddling between destinations. They deserved their tips at the end of the trip!

Lunch with a Vietnamese family

Cheap and tasty in a Chau Doc restaurant!

There were several stops for meals and at one of these we were lucky enough to sit with a Vietnamese family who could explain to us what we were eating and how we should eat it and gave us a lesson in how to use chop sticks. 

The video above is a short clip from an early morning boat trip to a floating fish farm. The women paddling the boats were in good humour.



The Mekong River Delta trip ended by dropping us off in Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Look at the post for Cambodia to read about the trip there. From Siem Reap in Cambodia we flew back to Hanoi in northern Vietnam.

Hanoi Water Puppet Theatre

In many ways, Hanoi was similar to HCM in that there was a lot of traffic on the roads consisting mainly of motorbikes. Our hotel was in the old quarter in central Hanoi close to the Hoan Kiem Lake. In this area was the traditional Water Puppet Theatre. We managed to buy some tickets since some people didn't turn up and found ourselves sat right at the front with an excellent view.  The picture to the right doesn't show the puppets very well. The puppeteers stand in the water behind the screen and operate the puppets by moving rods. Traditional song and music is performed at the side of the stage. The stories were based aound different historical events and myths from farmers and fishermen. It was different and we enjoyed it although we didn't understand much of what was going on. 

A popular stop at some limestone caves

It was Christmas whilst we were in northern Hanoi and we decided to spend it by taking a two day one night cruise in Halong Bay just south of Hanoi. The bay is characterised by 3000 very small islands. It is a beatiful place and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. The islands are predominately made of limestone and have been eroded by the wind, rain and sea for thousands of years turning them into what they are today. The boats are modern although they are made to look like traditional "junks" with sails. Our boat was full with about 18 guests. Unfortuanately our room was next to the engine room which could be easily heard through the wall. Since the boat was full there was no chance of changing the room but we were pleased to hear from the guide that the engine is turned off at night and the boat anchored at sea so that it would be quiet by bedtime.

Making the perfect Spring Roll

Early moring Chi Gung on deck

There was a full programme on the boat with a cookery class on how to make Spring Rolls, a visit to a huge limestone cave, a visit to a floating village and its fish farm and floating market, kayaking and a Chi Gung lesson on deck before breakfast on the second day. The meals on the boat were excellent.


Float fruit market stall



The junk in the sunset

After lunch on day two there was just enough time to sit in the sun on deck before the boat got back to the port and the 3 hour drive back to our hotel in Hanoi. The next day we took a short flight to Hue, approximately in the middle of the country on the eastern side.

 

Hmm, who's copying who?

Who are these two?

Hue is also a World Heritage Site with numerous palaces, tombs and pagados. We saw quite a few of them in our 3 nights in the town. We left by car and were driven south for about 3 hours to the coastal town of Hoi An. Both Hue and Hoi An were much quieter than Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Hoi An was probably our favorite place to stay of the places we visited in Vietnam since didn't have much traffic and the town was old and quaint to walk around. The river going through the middle also gave it charm and it had a beach that was only 10 minutes away.

A pagoda outside Hoi An

The river in Hoi An

We spent New Years Eve in Hoi An and watched the locals float candles in small cardboard boats down the river. Our time in Vietnam and Southeast Asia was soon to be over. The last couple of days was spent in Bangkok before our flight home. It was 33 degrees C in Bangkok and -5 when we landed in Oslo!