Aug 2006

The Cameron Highlands, Malaysia that is. It might as well be Scotland though, it's so frickin' cold. Going from dreaming of air-con to requesting extra blankets in one day is a little strange, but it's a nice contrast. I feel I might have left a few wee things out in the 3 weeks since I last wrote though, so I'll go back to the beginning. And this time I really will try not to fall off the blogging wagon again!

I last wrote from Saigon, which I totally fell in love with in a lot of ways. From there we travelled over the Cambodian border into Phnom Penh, which didn't exactly turn out to be my favourite place to be, but was good in a "that'll put hairs on your chest" kind of way. The main cultural attractions are the relics from the Khmer Rouge era around the city. The infamous Killing Fields lie a few kilometres outside the city, where tens of thousands of people (civilians, mainly) were slaughtered and buried in mass graves. In the heart of the city lies the S-21 museum, a former school which was used by the regime to hold and interrogate prisoners (many were actually members of the Khmer Rouge, such was the level of suspicion and paranoia). To put things into context, between one and three million people in total were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and of the 20,000 held over the years at S-21, 7 survived. Seven.

We visited these two places in a morning, S-21 first, and by the time we got to The Killing Fields I was completely numb to the fact that I was walking over pieces of bones, teeth, clothing, and looking at a mural containing over 8,000 skulls dug up from the area, arranged by age and gender. I think after seeing the prison left just as it was, complete with torture instruments, photos of the remains of prisoners after 'interrogation', and blood stains left on walls and floors, I just couldn't take any more. In spite of all the gruesomeness and the graphic portrayal of the regimes cruelty, the most harrowing part was an area of the museum containing thousands of photographs of the inmates, the faces of men, women, children and babies who were indiscriminantly wiped out for crimes such as 'laziness' or 'fear of being killed'.

I found that after I had learned more about the scale of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, I couldn't look at a Cambodian who was more than 35 or so without wondering how in the world they survived something so brutal and cruel and widespread. The sad part is that Cambodia is still riddled with corruption, and there's still a massive gun culture. There's not much more offensive than being asked, on leaving The Killing Fields, if you want to go to the shooting range to shoot an AK-47, but that only happens because there is a demand for it. Some backpackers obviously do leave The Killing Fields and think "Yeah, this is as good a time as any to go and mess about with the kind of weapons that helped create what I've just witnessed." Not only does it seem tremendously distasteful and disrespectful to do so, but you've got to wonder whether these people actually got the point of what they'd been looking at in any way.

The rest of out time in Phnom Penh was spent trying (unsuccessfully) to extend our tickets for another month in Asia, and making friends with many Dutch people (and an Irishman). Time being tight, we went from there straight to Siem Reap, home of the temples of Angkor. The temples themselves were amazingly old and beautiful, but the experience itself, unfortunately, was pretty unremarkable, due to the number of tourists who were there. We've been pretty lucky so far, even the Taj Mahal was pretty deserted when we were there, but it's difficult to enjoy sunset from the top of a mountain temple when there are so many tourists that you can't even see what everyone's standing on. I guess we were probably quite unlucky with the time of year that we visited.

From Siem Reap we had to get back to Bangkok, on what is commonly known as one of the worst roads in Asia. We'd met several people who had told us that the 7 hour trip from Siem Reap to the border was the worst bus trip they'd ever done, so we came armed with exceptionally low expectations, and valium. It really wasn't that bad in the end, the road was appalling, but in the absence of Bollywood films, I'd have to say that Trivandrum - Pondicherry wins hands down.

Back in Bangkok we spent a couple of days meeting up with people we'd met in various places, going to the dentist (immaculate, professional and CHEAP!) and doing a bit of shopping for warmer clothes for our arrival in NZ. We decided on Koh Phangan for our island stop, as the west coast weather hadn't been too great and the north side of Koh Phangan is really quiet and beautiful. On a recommendation we went to a tiny little cove called Haad Khom, with only three guesthouses and no proper road connecting you with the next town. There were lots more friends to be made there, and we ended up staying for a week and still being gutted when we finally had to go. We spent 3 days diving, and got our PADI Open Water Diver Certificate. I'm not sure if it'll be cheap enough to use it in NZ, but we both fancied a bit of a challenge anyway, so it seemed like a good way to spend a few days. I was pretty apprehensive at first, and found all the equipment made me feel really claustrophobic, but once you actually get under the water and learn how to handle the things that would normally make you panic, it's great! We had gorgeous weather and clear seas and loads of coral so I think we chose a good time and place for it.

From there we went straight to Penang, on the west coast of Malaysia, but to be honest, we were still in a bit of a huff about having to leave Haad Khom, and were a bit lazy about exploring much of the island. Malaysia seems to have elements of all the countries we've been so far, such is the diversity of the people. There are loads of muslims, hindus, thais, people of chinese descent and notable remnants of the colonial era. Know what all that means? Yup, the food is amazing!

I'll write more about Malaysia next time, which will be soon, I promise, but for now we're off to run wild in the hills for a few hours before Earl Gray and jammy scone o'clock. Hopefully we won't be out for as long as the Polish guy who got lost for four days on a tea plantation.

Hope everything's great at home,

Juliet

I'm getting better at this blogging thing, in that I am still actually in Vietnam, but only for a couple more days. We flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, North Vietnam, 3 weeks ago and have been working our way down the country with the help of the ridiculously cheap open bus ticket. It's a flexible ticket you can use any time, and takes you to set destinations going either north or south. For the princely sum of US$20 we have spent about 40 hours on buses in the last 3 weeks (more if you count the sitting about waiting for them to actually go anywhere).

I'll try to keep this to highlights I think, otherwise I'll be here all night, and I'm hungry.

Our first stop, Hanoi, was a pleasant surprise. The old quarter surrounding a lake is the backpacker ghetto of the city, but is really quite beautiful. It's a dead busy place, but manages to retain a laid-back sort of atmosphere. It's pretty good for evening wanders and people watching. One highlight of Hanoi was a trip to the Ho Chi Minh Complex, which was really informative and quite beautiful. The socialist touches were evident too, frog-marching soldiers guarding the mausoleum, huge, angular, unadorned buildings and the like. Seeing the ex-president's embalmed body was a little strange, but I'd have gone in again just to get some more of the industrial strangth air-con they had inside! Another nice bit was visiting the first university in Vietnam, which was full of ancient Chinese-style courtyards, ornaments and bonsai trees.

We spent a couple of days floating about in Halong Bay, which has beautiful, clear waters and enormous limestone rocks jutting out of the sea. We got amazing weather and a really nice group of people to go with, so it remains a favourite with us. The downside was the touristy-ness of it all, in Vietnam everyone seems to do the same route in a similar timescale, which is nice in a way as you meet up with the same people in different places and get to exchange stories, but also means that a lot of the bits we've seen don't seem too authentic anymore. Halong Bay has some enormous caves in the rocks which are pretty spectacular in themselves, but the neon lighting and crap made-up myths about them don't really do them any favours.

After heading back to Hanoi, we made for Ninh Binh, a small town famous for it's surrounding hills, paddy fields, fishing villages and an enormous national park. We spent a day there exploring by motorbike and seeing some incredible countryside. It's a pretty small place, so we were safe from the hoardes of tourists for a short while. We got an overnight bus after spending a while in the guesthouse drinking beer and munching noodles, and made friends with some English girls who we'd end up spending the next week or so with. From there we went to Hue, another smaller place, on the tourist map for it's heavily bombed citadel and being the closest port of call to the De-militarized Zone. Feeling a bit woozy after a 12-hour bus ride, we decided to take it easy, and rented a car and driver for the day, costing 6 quid each, and the 4 of us drove up to a brilliant waterfall, with big, warm lagoons to float in, rope swings over the water and enormous flat rocks to lie on in the sun. We deposited ourselves there for most of the day, and headed back to the town when we were too hungry to want to swim anymore. The following morning Peet and I hired a cyclo- a rickshaw which is steered from the back by the driver, with the passengers sitting in a chair-like contraption on the front. It's a bit of a tight squeeze to be honest, and somewhat uncomfy to cram two people onto, limbs akimbo, although we seemed to be an endless source of amusement to Vietnamese onlookers. (Amused Vietnamese people seem to be a bit of a theme actually, I don't blame them though, if you compare their elegance and size with that of the average backpacker!)

After another bus ride, we arrived in Hoi An, a small town on a river, full of amaz tailors and silk merchants. The streets were lined with clothes shops with beautiful dresses, suits and coats which could be whipped up to measure in a mere 12 hours, and we were a tad disappointed we couldn't really justify investing in some new clothes to replace our quickly fading travel wardrobes. We mainly chilled out in Hoi An, found some nice bars to play pool and chat to folk, and rented bikes to ride around the old quarter, which is full of pagodas and beautiful old Chinese and Vietnamese architecture.

After such a nice few days, arriving in Nha Trang was a bit of a shock to the system. It's pretty Costa Del Sol like (I'd imagine) and the main activity is the mass booze cruises which leave daily from the harbour. We went on what we thought was a perfectly respectable day trip to 3 islands with a bit of snorkelling thrown in, but were pretty disappointed by the reality of 'international karaoke' (which in my opinion is not acceptable ever under any circumstances) and a floating bar serving up red wine that tasted like tartare sauce. The massively redeeming feature of our trip there was dinner on the beach, where we had a lobster, 3 baby lobster and 8 tiger prawns the size of your hand barbequed in front of us, about a metre from the sea. Add garlic bread and salad from a nearby bar bumping the price up to 4 quid between us, and we had a pretty nice dinner.

Wow, I've just realised this is an epic. Anyway, we headed to the hills the next day, to the kitchy town of Dalat, and - get this - we had to wear jackets and proper shoes! It was like Scotland! Nice for a day or two but I'm happy to be hot again now. We took a trip around Dalat with the 'Easy Riders', a group of motorbike guides who are pretty well known and well regarded for their local knowledge and excellent English. We explored the countryside for the day, keeping away from the horribly touristy waterfalls, and learned loads from the guides about Vietnamese culture, the Socialist regime, the war, modern politics, the police, Vietnamese healthcare... All fascinating and great to be able to get an insiders view and being able to properly communicate questions and responses. I did feel pretty inadequate with my odd hellos, thankyous and goodbyes in Vietnamese when these guys were probably fluent in about 3 languages other than their own.

Mui Ne next. Rainy, dull and disappointing it was, but you can hardly enjoy the highlights of a town famed for it's beaches and enormous sand dunes in the torrential rain, so we won't hold grudges. The best bit was the bus ride out, and not just in a sarcastic way, but there had been so much rain the next town was completely flooded, up to about 3 feet in some places, although the people seemed to largely be going about their business as usual. We marvelled at the cheery passers by in the knowledge that floods like that would grind whole towns to a halt at home, but here they're just part of everyday life. Getting our backpacks out of the hold wiped the smiles off our faces though, as they'd been submerged in the flood water and were soaking wet.

And that was our arrival in Saigon 2 days ago, and I think this may be my favourite city so far. It's big and imposing, but seems to be a nice place to walk around. I keep getting wee ideas about coming back here to get a job teaching English at some stage, but I guess I should focus on the next year and a bit of travelling before I make any more plans.

We've vistited the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon (built and lived in by Communist guerrillas in the Vietnam War) and the sombre bit of the trip will continue in a few days with the Killing Fields and Khmer Rouge Security Prison in Phnom Penh. I'm not expecting to enjoy these bits much but I reckon they have to be done on a trip to Cambodia.

So I think I've also learned my lesson about frequent blog-updatery, what with my aching fingers (if only I could type with more than 2 of them) so I'll expand soon on where the adventuring's taking us next.

Take care and keep the emails coming.

Love Juliet x