825km Down - 825km To Go

We are currently in Hue, which is very close to the DMZ, or mid-way point, between South and North Vietnam. While historical and war-based differences between North and South are downplayed here, there is no denying that there are some residual attitudes and outlooks that define each region. Saigon and the southern cities have been exposed to  British/North American values and economic standards since the French were booted out of the country in 1945, while the North has always stuck to its Communist guns. The North won, and we are curious to see how this fact affects the feel of cities such as Hanoi, Ha Long, and Lao Cai. 

We definitely felt a difference between Saigon/Vung Tau/Nha Trang and the cities of Hoi An and Hue. While Hoi An and Hue are technically in the South, there are actually the main cities of Central Vietnam, and they have a unique feel. First, French colonial architecture remains well preserved here, and Hoi An's Old Town was designated UNESCO World Heritage status for this architecture in 1999.  Hue's walled Imperial City is also impressive and fairly intact, considering how heavily it was bombed in the 1960s. Second, these two cities are smaller than Saigon, Hanoi, Danang, and Nha Trang...and they have fewer tourists. This provides them with a calm character, and it also means that the touts are less aggressive.

Hoi An Holla

IS it Cool that Hue's Imperial City has Elephants?

For You Cissy! Hoi An's Trademark Cao Lau Dish

Kate's Custom Silk-Lined Jacket

This area is also known for its Cham ruins. We visited My Son (pronounced mee sun) while we were based in Hoi An. They were fun to explore, but they did seem tiny when compared to Angkor Wat. To their advantage, the My Son ruins are older than Angkor.  We also visited the Marble Mountains one morning. These are five marble and limestone hills in the middle of flatlands, between Danang and Hoi An, that are filled with caves, pagodas, and Buddist sculptures. While a few areas within the complex are kitschy (we thought it was just plain wrong that a group of little old ladies had setup a cafe ON one of these sacred mountains), some of the caves are jaw-dropping in their scale and ambience. We also spent a day in Hoi An's old quarter, where there are  tons of cute cafes and shops, and more than 300 tailor shops in a 3km radius. We broke down and ordered some custom clothing, including a dress shirt for me and a silk-lined spring jacket for Kate.

We were originally planning to spend a few days in Dong Hoi, in order to cut-down our travel time up to Hanoi, but a few travelers we spoke to suggested we stop in Hue. We are glad we did, despite the 13-hour sleeper bus that we had to take in order to get to Hanoi in time. We spent a day visiting the Imperial City, and hired a pedicab to drive us around the Citadel in the afternoon. As we have done throughout the trip, we rented bicycles one day. We biked 10km down to the Royal Nguyen Tombs, which was harder than we expected due to the 35C sunshine. Our next entry will be from Hanoi, the capital of the North. We have four days to explore the city, and then we are taking an ecotour up into the hills, near the China border.   

RTW Soundtrack

Regardless of our own musical tastes, the powers that be have provided us with a soundtrack for this trip so far. Please note that the songs below are in no way indicative of our personal musical tastes; rather, these are songs that we keep hearing in stores, that we keep seeing videos for in our hotel rooms, that are playing as ringtones, that we hear blasting from car stereos, and (in rare circumstances) that both of us continue to play on our respective digital audio devices (id est, Fleet Foxes, Them Crooked Vultures, The Beatles).

Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars - Cousin Jamie introduced us to this Sydney outfit
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos - We saw these guys live in Paris, and they are on our iPods

Eric Carmen - All by Myself - A song that we both sing when we see people traveling by themselves

JLo - Get on the Floor - Asia LOVES this song and it plays everywhere, unfortunately

Joe Dassin - Les Champs-Élysées - Introduced to us by friend Houston in Strasbourg
Katy Perry - Last Friday Night - We really wish we didn't know every word to this
The Beatles - Help - Keeps rotating on our iPod playlists, and we went to Abbey Road
Bruno Mars - Lazy Song -  We both want to punch Peter Hernandez in his Hawaiian face
Them Crooked Vultures - Elephant - Played over and over on our drive through the Black Forest 
2NE1 - Lonely - On every Asian music video chanel, every five minutes
Radiohead - Lotus Flower - Bought the bootlegged version of this album in Phnom Penh
Simple Plan - Jet Lag - This single was being promoted in Asia and Oz...wtf?
Matt & Kim - Good for Great - On both of our iPods, with appropriate lyrics 


We will add to this list as we uncept new songs from our travels.

Nha Trang: Where White People Go to Burn

Nha Trang is a bustling beach town on the mid-coast of Vietnam. On our first day we decided to take a boat tour to a couple of the small islands off the coast of the city. It was only seven bucks, and we stopped at Hon Mieu, Hun Mot and Hun Mun.  Snorkling was first on our stop, and though Alex was a bit (*understatement*) leery of putting his whole head under the water, we both managed to spot some beautiful tropical fish through the clear blue sea. The rest of the day was mainly spent sitting on the various beaches sunbathing and drinking fiddy-cent beers. No complaints here! Though there was some serious douchbaggery happening aboard, the seven dollars was well worth our first day of beachlife. Our second day was kind of up in the air for us since the previous day's sunbathing left some painful memories (I know what you're going to say Mom). Finally, after a typically loooong deliberation from Brosif Johanssen (aka Al), we decided to take the world's longest cable car over to Bamboo Island. This wasn't a totally random odyssey because upon Bamboo Island there sat a huge, Vietnamese water-slash-amusement park...Vinpearland! Yes, we were already burnt, and yes we were semi hungover from the booze-cruise, but we just couldn't resist the slippery plastic gold on the other side of that cable car. I must say the rides were less than memorable but the waterslides more than made up for the rest as our inner children emerged after the first go-round on our two-person innertube. Topping the list of slides (for those who are taking notes) were the classic black hole and the never-before-seen tube halfpipe.

Floating Bar During our Boat Tour

Alex the Apsara

"Jump for me, Monkey! Jump for me!"

Monkey Island Sans Monkeys

The day after Vinpearland was spent hanging out on the beach, applying copious amounts of sunscreen, and eating ice cream. By our fourth day in Nha Trang, we decided that we had experienced enough of the beach, so we looked into other activities. Scott Wild, a family friend, suggested that we rent scooters and head 15km north to Monkey Island, an island that hosts a large colony of...you guessed it...primates! In the morning, we rented a scooter, hopped on the long seat designed for two people, and then quickly discovered that a) we did not know how to drive a scooter and b) were not comfortable with driving in SEA. We bailed on the moto idea and decided to hire two dudes to drive us there on their scooters. While the island is most definitely a tourist trap, it was memorable. Unlike the cute little monkeys that we fed at Angkor Wat, these monkeys were spoiled and demanding. They were expecting food, and they bared their tiny sharp teeth if they weren't happy with the food you were offering. Fortunately, we brought ripe bananas for them, so we avoided their viscious little mouths. As an added bonus, the island also had a go-kart track!

Nha Trang is essentially a beach resort. People go there for the stunning beach and the island-hopping lifestyle. As a result of this it attracts a huge number of tools, douchbags, rude tourists and solicitors. This is not to say that we disliked Nha Trang - it really is impossible to dislike - but we feel that Hoi An will have more culture and history to counterbalance the beach-based hedonism that dominates the coast.

HCMC and Vung Tau

Good Afternooooooooon, Vietnam! Kate and I are now in Nah Trang, after spending four days in Saigon and one day in the beach town of Vung Tau. We were staying right in District 1 (central HCMC is comprised of 16 Districts) and the endless, aggressive scooters flying all over the place quickly alerted us to the fact that we were no longer in Cambodia. Also, there are no tuktuks in Saigon, which seemed weird coming from Phnom Penh.

Most of our days in the city consisted of sight-seeing, pho-eating, and moto-dodging. Many of the attractions in Saigon are linked to the Vietnam War (or American War, as it is referred to here), so we often needed to counteract our cultural experiences with ice cream, cheap beer, and films...I must admit that we went to see Transformers 3 one night in order to dissolve those images of the Agent Orange aftermath and wartime atrocities. After a failed attempt at visiting the Saigon Racetrack (always thinking of you, Dad!), we also spent a day exploring Cholon in District 5, the Chinatown of Saigon. This area is known for good food and atmospheric pagodas. Out of the dozen or so temples in Cholon, we visited the Quan Am, Phuoc An, and Thien Hau pagodas.

War...What is it Good For?

Scooter Madness and Fresh Coconut

The Horse of Quan Cong - Shake the Bell if you are on a Voyage

Kate at Reunification Palace

One day we took a hydrofoil to the beach town of Vung Tau, south of Saigon. It is a popular weekend retreat for those wishing to escape the big city, but it is small enough to see in one day. Our afternoon there was pretty normal (explore the city and climb to see the huge Jesus statue on the hill...which is taller than Rio's puny savior) until this group of 13 rowdy, middle-aged Vietnamese men demanded that we sit with them on the beach. We were wary at first, because we thought they were trying to rent us beach chairs and sell us beer, but they were so friendly that we went and sat with them. As soon as we entered their boisterous little circle we were plastered with lychee, steamed baby crabs, bbq squid and Heineken. While the first few minutes of this gathering were awkward, due to the language barrier and general oddness of the situation, the beer soon loosened everyone up and our hosts began toasting to no end. As we were preparing to head back for our ferry, one of the senior members of the group (and the employer of most of the guys as well) kept repeating that all the food and beer was free because he expects us to return to Vung Tau and buy him beers next time! We'll be seeing you again, Vinh, we promise...what great people.

One last thing: there are LOTS of fat little boys here!   

No Silent Pees, Please

We spent three days in Phnom Penh, and we have had a difficult time describing our impressions of the city. We know that we like it more than Bangkok, but we also know that we like Siem Reap a great deal more. Phnom Penh is located right where the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers meet, and it has been Cambodia's capital since 1866. It is more organized and user-friendly than Bangkok, in that there are more restaurtants/cafes/activities for visitors, but it also feels extemely poor and dirty.

Kate caught the ubiquitous SE Asia Tummy Bug early in the week, but she bounced back pretty quickly after obtaining some $1 Ciprofloxacin from a PP pharmacy. On one of the days she was sick, I visited the ex-capital of Oudong with a Cambodian friend-of-a-friend named Leah (thanks Landon!). I was the only whitey at this mountain temple, so Leah was great in providing some context and additional info about the site. A "highlight" of this excursion was viewing the mummified body of the benevolent monk Sam Bunthoeun at the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Meditation Center. Bunthoeun was assassinated in 1996 and is kept on display for monks and visitors to pay homage.

After Kate was feeling better, we spent a day hitting up the city's tourist spots. We went to the deeply disturbing Cheung Ek Killing Fields, and S21 Prison, as well as the claustrophobic Russian Market and the elegant Royal Palace. I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau a few years ago, and I experienced the same feelings at Cheung Ek...you want to leave as soon as you arrive, even though your logical mind knows that it is an important historical site. It was worse than a Nazi concentration camp for many reasons, but the fact that no guns were used by the Khmer Rouge made the experience especially upsetting. We won't get too graphic but the most disturbing part for me (Kate) were the teeth, bones and clothing that were still being pushed up through the soil due to heavy rainfalls. 

Clothes of the Dead at Cheung Ek

Same, Same - But Different

Before leaving Vancouver, there was one day of our eight-month trip that we were worried about: the epic overland crossing between Bangkok and Cambodia. Known for it's rough surface and countless touts, the road to Siem Reap is rocky. However, our guesthouse in Bangkok hooked us up with a guide for $20 that took us through the two border crossings to Poipet, where we caught a tourist bus to Siem Reap.

We immediately felt a change in ethos and attitude upon entering Cambodia. First off, the Khmer love to laugh, and everyone looks at you with an open, friendly expression. There are as many (if not more) tuktuk drivers and vendors in Siem Reap as there were in Bangkok, but solicitation is respectful here...it is almost as if people feel bad for pestering you. It is not as if we had any bad experiences in Bangkok (except for that second day there when I paid $4 for two pieces of fruit because I wasn't familiar with Baht!), but many solicitors seemed aggressive and grumpy. It also seems as if many businesses here are connected to charities and specific causes. Our current guesthouse is operated by an older Australian couple who support six rural elementary schools, which you can visit. Many of the pubs and restaurants also donate a portion of every bill to a local cause.

We have been on the go since arriving here. We purchased a three-day Angkor Pass for the temples, but also completed daytrips to the unusual stilted village of Kompong Phluk and the carved river basins of Kbal Spean. Excluding the temples of Angkor, Kompong has been the most memorable experience for us. For starters, this is the off-season in SE Asia, so all attractions and villages are devoid of tourists. Also, Kompong is about 30km outside of town and is fairly inaccessible. Composed of dozens and dozens of elevated bungalows on the edge of Tonle Sap Lake, Kompong is only reachable by boat. Kate and I hired a rickety motorboat to take us around the village, and the boat stopped at the mouth of Tonle Sap for us to buy a beer from a tiny floating restaurant. After paying and giving the owner's toddlers a few lollipops (a great way to appease cadging children) we were driven back into the heart of the village and offered to walk around with the locals. It was an interesting experience, as the villagers were intrigued by us, but didn't ask us to buy anything. We did buy a watermelon from a family there, however, and we ate it for breakfast two days later.

One of the other highlights during our week here was the morning we awoke at 5AM to see the sunrise from the temples of Pre Rup, Sra Srang and Banteay Kdei. Armed with pastries, canned coffee, and a dragonfruit, we arrived at Pre Rup before 6AM and watched the sky illuminate.

Hey, Kate here. I just wanted to describe a couple of Angkor's temples to you all in some more detail.

Angkor Wat - This is the best preserved and was King Suryavarman ll's state temple. It is a Hindu and Buddist temple so many of the reliefs on the walls contain Hindu and Buddist symbology and stories. It has 5 lotus-bud shaped towers which most of us recognize as the true Angkor Wat  and are even seen on Cambodia's flag! Its incredibly beautiful and intimidating and would definitely deter any past enemies with its 1km by 1.5 km moat along the sides and front. 

Ta Prohm - This was the most powerful to us of the temples because it has practically been left to be eaten up by nature. Huge, and I mean HUGE, trees burst through the top and the sides of the ruins creating an intense and dramatic atmosphere. This was my favorite. 

Pre Rup - We got to this temple at 6am. like Al mentioned. With not a soul there except us and the dew of morning it was incredibly peaceful. Its made out of brick and sandstone mostly and shoots high into the sky almost like a mountain. The literal translation is "turn the body" as it was used to funeral ceremonies but there was not anything of an eerie feeling there. Like its big brother Angkor Wat, it has 5 towers in a quincunx pattern and libraries on either side, and it's no surprise that it was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. This was an awesome place to watch the "sunrise" and eat breakfast.  

Okay, well those are just three of the many amazing temples we saw. Hope to come back one day and finish the rest of the twenty here!