Cambodia--Who Knew?

Cambodia is probably the country that I knew the least about, but apparently it is full of all sorts of history and beautiful areas!

Kep's Crab Statue

I started my trip in Kampot, which is a sleepy riverside town in the "mountains."  One day I took a motorbike about 30km to another town called Kep, which I had to check out for its "blue swimmer crab" market alone!  After checking out the town and the beach, I went to the market for lunch.  The lady literally walked out into the ocean and I watched her pick a pot up and take some live crabs out that'd soon be my meal!  They wouldn't have made the legal size in MD, but they were meaty!  This area is also famous for growing pepper, so I had the pepper crab for lunch and was very satisfied!  You can take me away from MD, but it'll always be in my roots...  The next day, I went to Bokor National Park and Bokor Hill Station, which is a beautiful area full of ruined buildings that got abandoned 60 years ago during the war.  The views out over the sea are amazing, as well!  We even found an impressive waterfall. That night the tour included a two hour "sunset and firefly cruise."  It was fairly uneventful, but the sunset was nice and the lightning bugs were shocking to people who hadn't grown up with them!

Sunset on Kampot River

From there, I went directly to an island called Koh Rong.  Unlike most islands around Asia, it hasn't been overrun with tourism, yet. It's not far off as construction is rampant, but for now, there was no road, just one little village, poor wifi, etc.  The beaches were gorgeous and the water was refreshing.  I took a SUP out one day for a bit and trekked across to another beach one day.  Despite being warned, the trek was still harder than imagined and the other beach was actually being heavily constructed!  One day, I took a boat trip including snorkeling (sub-par), fishing (we got skunked), watching the sunset (beautiful) and swimming with bio-luminescence plankton (amazing)!  I spent a fair bit of time just relaxing in the sand on the beach!  While the island wasn't as stunning as Gili T in Indonesia, the lack of infrastructure was refreshing.

Koh Rong

Now, I'm back in Phnom Penh, the capitol city.  This place is full of recent history that much of the rest the world seems to have never heard of!  They had a giant genocide led by the Khmer Rouge.  Essentially, the Khmer Rouge wanted to rebuild society exactly how they wanted it to be, so anyone who wasn't a farmer was executed.  They killed 3 million of the 8 million Cambodians at the time.  Not only did they kill them, but because bullets were too expensive, they used knives, bamboo rods, hoes, axes, and even serrated leaves!  They feared redemption, so killed kids too by swinging them, by their feet, into a tree until their head was smashed.  At the killing fields, you can still see bones on the ground.  We also went to the S-21 Prison were people were held before going to the killing field.  They were tortured horrendously there and the floor is still covered in blood stains.  There were only 7 survivors at the prison, 2 of whom are still alive and one is still there to talk to tourists.  Our tour guide at the prison lost her father, brother, and sister at the time, but she ran through the jungle for 3 days to Vietnam until the Khmer Rouge lost power.  And all of this happened between 1975-1979!

Skulls in the Killing Field

Again, Cambodia was the country I knew very little about, but apparently has remote islands, lush jungle-covered hills, and an unbelievable history.  Tonight, I'm off to my last stop in Cambodia, Siem Reap, to explore the town and Angkor Wat--one of the man made wonders of the world!

A Little Bit of Everything!

Sorry, I've been quite busy lately moving around through the last bit of Vietnam.  The country is very diverse, although on a smaller scale than NZ, and the trip through the South saw a bit of it all!

33 foot cliff jump near Da Lat

From Hoi An, I went to Nha Trang just for one night where I had a day on the beach.  It's a strange place as it's a big Russian holiday-resort town.  Other than that, it was nothing special and the beach was not as nice as the one in Hoi An.

The following morning, I was on another bus down to Da Lat. Da Lat is up in the mountains, which meant it was significantly cooler than the rest of the country.  It was amazing.  I walked 7km around the lake without sweating!  Usually I can't walk 7 inches without becoming drenched.  The town itself was nothing special, although it had a big night market.  It was odd though, that the entire market was full of stalls selling the exact same things--dried fruit and veggies.  Anyway, the main attractions are the waterfalls and mountains.  I met a group of people who'd been travelling together, so I joined in with them and we rode out to Pongor Waterfall, which was really pretty and easy to climb up and around!  The next day I went "canyoning" despite the lack of a canyon.  Basically we hiked to a river then followed it downstream by means of cliff jumping, sliding, and rappelling down two waterfalls.  Of course, I was in my element, and thought this was good fun!  Da Lat was also full of amazing food!  Apparently Vietnam has quite a bit more than just noodle soup.  I also got bed bugs somewhere along the road, but luckily washed all of my clothes and equipment and aside from one miserable night, I survived.

Rappelling through a waterfall!

From Da Lat, it was down to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City).  HCM is the largest city in Vietnam, but isn't full of attractions.  Other than walking around and going up to a skybar for rooftop views, the only other real attraction in the city was the War Museum.  That was an eye-opening experience.  It is extremely graphic with pictures and descriptions and is very clearly anti-American propaganda.  Many people in the building were in tears as it described how terribly Americans treated the "innocent" Vietnamese. As with anything, I'm sure the truth lies somewhere between what we're taught in American school and what the museum portrayed. Outside of the city are the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used as an underground bomb shelter during the war.  They were designed to be small enough that Vietnamese could fit through, but not Americans and it was a struggle for me to wiggle through bits of it.  While it's cleared now, it was amazing to see how well disguised the entrances were and how they built traps to guard them.  There were over 200km of tunnels that could fit 12,000 people, in three tiers (3m, 6m, and 9m under ground) all dug by little hand shovels!

The lights of Saigon

From Saigon, my last stop in Vietnam was Bien Hoa.  This is merely a suburb of HCM, but a (American) friend who I'd lived next to while studying in New Zealand now teaches English there, so I thought it'd be nice to catch up and get off the backpacker trail a bit.  Despite being only 15 miles from the city, the public bus took nearly 2 hours!  I was the only white person in a bus with no AC that was loaded with boxes (apparently buses make deliveries) and shoulder to shoulder with people.  I tried to give my seat up to older people or women with little children, but was constantly pushed back into my seat as they yelled something in Vietnamese at me.  It got even more interesting when a fight broke out--of course I have no idea what over!  Anyway, once I made it, it was great.  Just getting back into doing "normal" things that you'd do at home was great.  We spent one day laying by the pool.  We went to an amusement park one day.  We went to a BBQ at a friends house one night.  We played soccer for 2 hours with some of the teachers and students.  Doing those kinds of things was a great breath of fresh air from the backpacker life.  It was also interesting as the town is obviously not designed for tourists and white people (only us) often got stared at and people spoke little to no English, nor were menus or signs in English.

I barely fit in the Cu Chi Tunnel

Anyway, this morning I took the bus out of Vietnam and entered Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tomorrow I'm off to Kampot then headed north through Cambodia for a week and a half or so.  From there it's back to Thailand before my flight to Nepal on September 15!  Sorry I haven't been keeping in touch as regularly, but I love and miss you all!

Cruising Through Vietnam!

Well, it's been a while and a lot has happened (which is why I've been too busy to write a blog!)

Khu with her mom and dad in Sa Pa

After Ha Long Bay, I went off to Sa Pa in Northern Vietnam.  It's in the mountains, yet full of rice terraces, making it especially beautiful.  I did a home-stay there, which basically meant a local lady from one of the villages guides you trekking through the mountains, then you spend the night at their "house."  I got a 24 year old girl called Khu from the H'mong Tribe and even that was interesting.  The tribal people don't consider themselves Vietnamese, but H'mong rather, and speak a different language.  Khu was married at 18 and had a 5 and 4 year old kid already.  She spoke decent English, but anyway, her husband took my bag by motorbike to the house, while Khu and I trekked for nearly 7 hours to her village!  The landscape was amazing and her mom even joined us.  It still shocks me how these people work so hard out in fields and on mountainsides despite the heat.  Her house was merely one room in a bamboo shack with a cement floor.  The food was extremely plentiful and good, consisting mostly of veggies and rice, all cooked on a little wood fire on the floor.  I slept on a loft, on a thin mattress, with a mosquito net, but after a night bus and a long trek, I slept well!  The second day was another day of trekking, but I stayed at her mom's house that night in a different village, which was very similar, but slightly larger.  It's quite interesting as there are animals roaming everywhere, including cats, dogs, chickens, and ducks in the house along with water buffalo and pigs outside.  The last day we trekked back to the town and I was still very happy with how friendly they were and treated us so well!

Along Hoi Van Pass

After Sa Pa,  went to a small town called Tam Coc, which is really just the Ha Long Bay on land.  Rather than the limestone cliffs popping out of the water, they come out of the land along a river with rice paddies on the banks.  The first day we did a river cruise and the second we just rode around the area on motorbikes!  From Tam Coc, it was down to Phong Nha, which is a national park full of caves.  I met a few people on the bus and in the town, so we formed a group and went to Dark Cave, which was good fun.  The cave itself was impressive and huge, but you also get to zipline to the entrance, swim through the cave, take a mud bath, then kayak back out!  I intended to spend the night in Phong Nha, but decided instead to stick with the British couple I'd met and head on another bus down to Hue.

Lanterns in Hoi An

We spent only 12 hours in Hue, mostly sleeping, then got motorbikes and drove to Hoi An.  The drive includes 3 mountain passes, along the coast, then through the coastal beach town of Da Nang before getting the UNESCO World Heritage Town of Hoi An. The drive was also featured on Top Gear and we got perfect weather and the scenery certainly didn't disappoint.  Hoi An is really just a laid back town on a river that gets beautifully lit up by lanterns at night.  It's also known for getting custom tailored clothing, which I neglect
ed to do.  We spent one day laying on the beach as well, but unfortunately were constantly hassled to buy things and pay more, which ruined an otherwise gorgeous day at the beach.

Overlooking Tam Coc

Hoi An also has the best food I've had in Vietnam so far.  Vietnamese food varies from all sorts, but most commonly (in the north at least) different types of noodle soups.  In Hoi An there is more variety with things such as dumplings, chicken with rice and veggies, or a unique (and better tasting) noodle soup.  One of the oddest things I had was a shrimp pancake (more like a dessert crepe kind of thing) where it had whole shrimp, in the shell, fried in with it!  They had crab as an option too with little crabs, shell and all, in it, but I went for shrimp!

Anyway, I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing from here.  I may head to Thailand Sunday or spend ten more days in Vietnam before going into Cambodia!  I'll keep ya posted!!