Cambodia, Vietnam & Laos Dec 13 - Jan 14

CAMBODIA

30 November

We arrived in Cambodia after starting out from Bali at 2am, but all went smoothly, even the 2 hour stopover in KL. Got picked up by the driver from the Pavilion where we were staying and off we went, must say visa, passport and customs went smoothly and quickly, they do have it on Bali. The city seemed to be the usual chaos we were used to with the addition of TucTucs, now that made it that touch more interesting. We arrive at our digs unscathed after hearing our first mention on the Khmer Rouge from the taxi driver, apparently 4 million people killed in just less than 4 years. I have to admit, KR is something I have heard about, read about but not really thought about and that was going to change very soon. Check in was smooth, bungalow with private garden and Jacuzzi as well as a lovely pool under the palm trees to relax under if and when you get the time. Wandered around the air after we unpacked, past the royal palace down to the river where we sat at the Himawari Hotel overlooking the Mekong and the Tonlasap Rivers drinking wine. Now we discovered very early on in the piece there is a very strong French influence here, so wine and wine bars aplenty, oh yeah!  And compared to Bali where we paid $15 for a glass of wine on a special dinning night, here it's about $8 for good stuff, yep things were looking gooood! Went back to hotel for dinner then headed out again to check their other side of our district. Good shops, good quality material and not expensive at all, most notable thing after Bali, there was no hassling in shops and everyone was friendly. I don't recall ever coming to a country where the people where so friendly, not fake overbearing friendly but straight faced but IF you smile and acknowledge them, their smiles light up the world. We found very few surly and unfriendly people. We checked out some of the many wine bars and found a huge French influence in the local cuisine, foie grass being amongst them, I could try that one but it was just one of the many French options if that is what you like. Home and bed.

1 December

Up at sparrow fart, not sure why, had some of our imported coffee with UH milk we managed to scavenge from the bar last night and then off to breakfast, which was included. Now this is where the whole weight issue goes pear shaped for two of us we got, walnut sourdough bread, one each of pain au chocolate, raisin snail, croissant, muffins by two and then of course whatever you wanted to order from the cooked menu and a plate of fruit. Coffee dodge, but fresh passion fruit juice was great. After that we had booked the day sightseeing tour, Genocide Museum, Killing Fields followed but the Russian Market with our driver Mr Van. First stop was S21, Tuol Sleng or the Genocide museum not really sure where to start with this, whichever way it is said it potentially sounds pathetic and egotistical but as this is our diary I will say it as it is. Firstly the history of the place for those, like me, who are fairly ignorant of the whole thing.  The term S21 comes from it being S for Santebal (state security organisation) and 21 the walkie talky number of the prison chief, but firstly about the events leading up to its creation.  Put most bluntly, in a period of 3 years, 8 months and 20 days (June 1975 until January 1979) the Khmer Rouge killed about 2 million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the population, 1 in 4, that figure plays on my mind.  Every single person you meet who lived in Cambodia at that time was somehow affected by this.  In a period of 3 days the town was emptied of all its inhabitants and sent to work and try and survive in the countryside.  If you were educated, government, police, had short hair, wore glasses or anything else that might identify you as a ‘non-farmer’ you were targeted, you were known as a 17 April person, anyone who was not a 17 April person could kill you without consulting anyone.  The former Tuol Sleng Primary and High schools were converted into Security Office 21 on orders of Pol Pot, barb wire was erected, and classrooms turned into prison cells and torture chambers, gymnastic equipment turned into torture devices.  About 20,000 people, not counting children, were inmates here, generally they died here, if not they were taken out to the Killing Fields.  This all happened while I went to the movies to see Saturday Night Fever and go to the disco after to have drinks and fun with friends. 

Right, now the emotional side. You enter this building complex that was once a school but has an evil and menacing atmosphere, ok, imagination get over it. We decided to take a private guide for the grand total of $8, but we both thought this does give you a more detailed insight. May have been good or not, by doing this it become somewhat more personal.  One of my first thought prior to coming here, based on what our taxi driver had said was that in theory, every person over the age of 40 would have some recollection, involvement or story associated with this brutal regime. Our guide would have been in her 50's, hard to tell age in this country, and she seemed lovely with very good English and also very knowledgeable and informative. She took us through the buildings explaining what happened, to whom and by whom, writing this I am getting teary, this whole shambles that happened here was unthinkable, indescribable, unbelievable, not sure what else to say. What brought it home to me much more than the Killing Fields later were the photos of the prisoners, kids, babies, women and men, photos when they were first brought in, photos of what happened to them and photos of the ones who did there. Apart from that there are so many stories that just blow your mind. Pol Pot lived to the ripe old age of 84, acknowledge for many years by the US, the UN and many countries as the leader of Cambodia, after killing 1 in 4 people in his country. Although a handful of the top ranking people were made prisoner, many were given jobs by the government, left to walk away from what they had orchestrated. I do realise that many of the guards were in a situation where it was kill or be killed, however some of the high ranking officials did not get there by being averse to inflicting pain or being compassionate to their fellow humans, be it neighbours, family, friends or work mates. Enough now, it was tragic and for me was more traumatising than places like Dachau or Mauthausen. I think the most poignant moment was when we met one of 7 survivors of S21, he has written a book and comes and talks to visitors sometimes, your heart sinks and you wonder if you could ever be that gracious after all that has happened to you. Having said that, our guide also told us a little of her life, again hard going. Reading this having not visited this place, I might be inclined to say, "yep, lay it on thick and they will give good tips", honestly, at the beginning that did pass through my mind, at the end it wasn't about $.  Last thought about it all, most of the people responsible walked away, granted the guards were in a kill or be killed situation, but of the top level of officials a handful were ever convicted, mostly given home detention.  Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow by the Vietnamese, were considered allies of the US, UK and other countries, and its representatives were allowed to occupy seats at the United Nations representing Cambodia on the insistence of these nations.  Go Figure!

After finishing the visit here, I really considered calling off the Killing Fields, but Colman didn't say anything so on we went. This place was different for some reason, the horror was still there but it had been sanitised to a degree, it was more impersonal but very interesting and again many times I found myself shaking my heading thinking, "how, why", but I guess we all know the answers. A few bits that I found …..Interesting (!?!).  People were shipped here from S21 and killed and thrown into one of about 129 mass graves.  People were killed by having their throat cut with the serrated edges of palm leave fronds, one ancient tree was given the name of Magic tree, and this is where babies and small children were killed.  Lastly in the evening they would play loud propaganda music so the people living around the area could not hear the screams of the captives.  The whole tour is conducted using personal audio players, one of the last things you here is the noise of the diesel generators supplying power and the sound of this propaganda music.  The tour finishes at a Memorial Stupa (monument) where some of the bones found have been gathered, sad and frightening.

When we fished here we went to the Russian Market, not black and open to the public every day. Well, we were back in touristville, stalls selling cheap imitations, people everywhere, noise, smells and little pokey market aisles where an exit was not visible anywhere. It took me all of 5 minutes before I asked Colman if we could please leave before I lose the plot, luckily he had been thinking along similar lines so off we scooted. Home, freshen up and then off to a sunset cruise on the Mekong Delta which was entertaining. It reminded me of a holiday with friend’s years ago, headed down to the river via TukTuk, got to jetty and saw gorgeous boat, which wasn't ours, saw very nice boat, which wasn't ours, saw nice boat, yep, wasn't ours, which left two boats, a reasonable boat and a dodgy one. Luck was on our side and we got the reasonable one, phew!! Our little boat was called the Butterfly and was a traditional rice boat and the owner Kim used to be a monk before he decided to ferry tourist around. Got our glass of rose, a comfy seat and staff coming around every so often explaining stuff. There were about 15 people on board and we got talking to some so we had a good time, only took about 1 hour but it was a lovely sunset and very relaxing. Well, as long as you didn't think too hard about what exactly it was you were floating on!! Or in!!!  The harbour, delta was full of all sorts, there were dredges getting sand to build new islands everywhere, fishing boats in every size and colour as well as a floating village which was home to Muslims as well as houses on stills on the river bank which were the Vietnamese. Both these groups are basically illegal immigrants who have to survive any way they can so they tend to do lots of fishing, little fish is their supper, big fish they sell. We had booked into a restaurant recommended by our hotel, but after talking to some people on the cruise, we changed our mind and ended up in a typical Khmer restaurant with a lovely view of the Tonle Sap River. Ordered local food which. Included (much to Colman's consternation) Deep fried Frog in Spicy salt & pepper sauce and a variety of other dishes, so tasty, 3 dishes with 2 beers came to a grand total of $15. After we walked back along the river front towards the hotel, dropped into the Phnom Pen night market to do a spot of shopping. I also decided to try the local sugar cane juice, had a sip as Colman pointed out to me it was filled to the brim with ice, not a good idea, a little kid was delighted to get the juice so all was well. We then had a glass of wine and watching the locals, a fascinating thing to do in this place, especially watching the traffic...before catching a TukTuk back to our hotel.

2 December

Organised a TukTuk to take us out to Silk Island, which is by road to the ferry, then a ferry and more driving. We managed to miss the early morning traffic, arrived at the ferry, interesting to say the least. Again, it is best not to cast your mind towards OH&S because you will send yourself insane, there was cars, bikes and TukTuks carrying everything imaginable from pigs (in car), mattresses (on little trailer attached to back of TukTuk and panes of glass (held upright by the guy sitting on the back of a motorcycle. For those who don't know what a TukTuk is, it is usually something like Honda 90, single cylinder bike designed to carry a maximum of 2 people. Having said that there is nothing to stop you carrying 3 adults and a baby squashed in the middle, driver talking on mobile, old lady asleep in middle with baby who is also asleep and young girl sitting on back texting. Anyway, back to the ferry, the drive onto the ferry is via a gravel, steep driveway onto rusty iron plates that lead onto the ferry, park where you like and off we go, easy. Having said all that, there is this hidden organisation everywhere, everyone works together, two lanes with two cars, a couple of bikes and a TukTuk riding parallel, no problem, no road rage, no arguments nothing, just horn tooting, more about that later. While we were waiting for the ferry a young guy started talking to us, turns out he and his family has a silk weaving place on the island and would we like to come visit, no surprise there. He was friendly, spoke good English so we agreed, the island is simply a village, there are no shops so this is one of the only ways to buy silk, to go to someone's house and he seemed interesting. We met his family, kids, parents, in laws and more and it was great to see how they all lived, were invited into their house, had all the silk weaving explained, the wife was the weaver, the mother was the one who spun the silk and made thread and had also been weaving for the last 50 years. They made all sorts, scarfs, bedding, table runners as well as selling silk by the meter, all was well. After that we headed off to see where tourists could swim in the Mekong, relax in little bamboo huts on little bamboo rafts and eat local food. As there was no chance I would but any part of me into that water, nor would I be laying on a bamboo raft amongst all the litter, and I most certainly was not going to be eating That Food, this was a bit of a fail, and the woman who took us there was a little disappointed to get nothing out of this one. Mr Singhj then took us to a newly set up Silk Farm, it has only been going for about 3 months, it cost $1 to get in and supported single mothers and orphaned children. The mothers and older kids could come to this village where they would be thought various aspects of the production of silk, how silk is created, spun and woven after which they would be able to work there in different roles, improve their English and then maybe move on to something bigger and better. They were just in the process of setting up accommodation for tourist, a little like a home stay with very basic facilities but all very traditional in still houses over the Mekong. After that visit we headed back to the big smoke, hotel for a bit of a massage relax around the pool before heading off to the Royal Palace. Normally with these places you have to wear longer pants, and keep your shoulders covered and after visiting many different spots in our travels I have always been able to wear my big red scarf thing that looks pretty much like a shirt when I've finished tying it, well not here! They saw me organise myself and came over to tell me I needed to wear a t-shirt, I explained that this was doing exactly the same job but just didn't have seams down the side, No, it must be a t-shirt, come on guys, what's the difference!?!  At this stage Colman asked how much a t-shirt was ($3) and gave me one of those looks as if to say "really, you're going to get pissy over $3?"  Fine, deep breath, and bought one of their stupid shirts, I think the guy tried to make up for it by giving me a pretty one with the Royal Palace, Cambodian logo on it instead of the plain white one, oh ok then!!!!  The palace itself was interesting, we took a guide who explained it all, but it was a bit much for me, info overload.  Here are a few bits, the Silver Pagoda is called so because it has pure silver tiles on the floor, 5,500 tiles weighing roughly 1 kg each, one floor is embedded with diamonds, there is one diamond in a headdress that was about 24 carat, set amongst more diamonds than you can poke a stick at. This is also the home of the emerald Buddha, a Buddha about 75cm tall made of a piece of emerald, it was lovely, there were also more gold and silver Buddha’s than you can imagine. There was a couple of pavilions donated by Napoleon the 3 back in the 18's and various other outrageous gifts from various countries. One thing I found interesting, during Pol Pot’s regime the palace itself was never damaged, as Pol Pot believed in the king, my thought is what was the king thinking as Pol Pot killed of half his people, anyway, Pol Pot did kill the royal elephants, they ate too much!! After that we headed over to the Himawi Hotel for drinks and Colman for a traditional Khmer massage with healing herbs, still trying to get his shoulder better, I sat outside in the sun overlooking the Mekong and had a nice glass of Chilean Sav Blanc, hmmm. After that back to Pavilion, get changed and off to dinner at Marlise, a restaurant recommended by our TukTuk driver, very posh place, lovely setting and somewhat traditional Khmer food.

December 3

Up, packed because we were leaving today and off to Khmer cooking class with Lucky2, brother of Lucky1. Met at a local restaurant, 16 of us crammed into 3 TukTuks headed off to the Central Market for a bit of a tour, a bit of talk and a bit of shopping. Then he took us to his cooking school which was on the roof of a building with lovely views of Phnom Phen, all set up with woks, and cooking equipment for each of us. We started off being tough how to make spring rolls with Taro and carrots, and sweet chilli sauce, both of which we made and then cooked and were delicious, after that we made Fish Amok, made our own curry paste and then steamed the fish in a banana leaf bowl, also made by us. Again delicious and we will try to make that again at home. After eating we headed off back to our hotel to organise to catch the bus to Battanbang, our next stop. The mini-bus ride on the Golden Bayon Express was about 5 1/2 hours long, and probably not something you would want to do if you were even vaguely hung up about safety and driving, the only way to do this is to look out the side window, ignore the horn and hope that there is a guardian angel somewhere in the immediate vicinity. I did, however, on this trip decipher the Cambodian road rules, and they are as follows. Any type of safety equipment in a moving vehicle is surplus to needs, helmets, seat-belts, safety straps or indicators are simply a waste of time. The only piece of equipment that must work on a vehicle of any kind at all times is the horn. In daylight hours this is used on a continues basis and depending on how it is used, indicates the intention of the driver. A gentle toot means, "excuse me please, would you mind if I nip through that little space there", a proper toot is "watch out, coming through". Then you have the tooooot, meaning "listen here, I'm going that way so just keep out of my way and no one will get hurt", then there is the penultimate of the double or triple toooot and this is really the ultimate. It means "listen pleb, move it or lose it, I'm bigger and will win this game of chicken. And finally there is the above with the addition of the headlight flash meaning, "Do Not Mess With Me, I will go straight over the top with no second thought", luckily we have never been on the receiving end of that one, but I have seen the worried look on people's faces as they have encountered it. So safe yourself the drama and get your @rse out of my way". Interesting enough, this works and we have seen a grand total of 2 accidents, only minor ones, people drive slower than back home.  On a 2 lane road (one lane each way) it is not uncommon to see a bike or TukTuk closest to the curb, then a truck, then a car overtaking the whole lot with something similar happening in the oncoming lane. Everyone weaves and filters and we have never seen even a skerigg of road rage. At also appears that as soon as it gets dark, the sound of the horn is replaced by flashing and dimming of headlight. So after surviving these potholed roads, caused by the recent floods, we arrived in Battambang, the last 30 seconds on the bus involved a welcoming committee of guys jogging next to the bus holding up signs of hotels they want you to stay at.  Now one thing I need to say here, this bus had Wi-Fi, a bus travelling through the middle of Cambodia has Wi-Fi, and we have problems in the centre of Alice!!!  We had pre-booked our home stay so luckily had a TukTuk driver waiting for us, Nicky seemed very nice, spoke good English and was helpful from the start, all well. He asked if we wanted dinner first, which we did, and took us to the White Rose, good for tourists, but at this stage we really didn't care and the food was fine. After dinner we headed off to meet Mr Kun owner of My Homestay, he seemed pleasant enough and welcomed us, showed us to our room, asked us about plans for the next day and the left us in peace. The room was cute, they had draped green leafy vines all over the place to give it that home feeling, the mattress was probably on fraction off being a concert slab and the bathroom was interesting to say the least. A good friend of mine would have loved this place, the bathroom was one room about 1.5m x 2.5m, the toilet at the far end, then basin on right, mirror on left and shower by door. The shower was not a cubical or anything, just a shower head out of the wall with the plug hole next to the toilet bowl and the best bit, this was not a room as such, just a 2 meter high partition separating it from the bedroom. No such thing as a quiet moment here! Anyway, we slept well.  Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia and founded in the 11^th century, as almost everything here seemed to be, with many lovely French building still intact today.  Battambang means literally ‘Loss of Stick’, the legend has it that a commoner got great power by eating rice that had been touched by the Kranhoung tree, he cut the tree and made a stick which was his personal weapon.  He then overthrew the king, tried to (unsuccessfully) kill the kings descendant and took over control, each time someone tried to oust him he threw the Stick, and it would kill the person.  Now the story gets good, one of the children who had run away had been caught by solders and thrown into a fire to die, someone took pity on him and pulled him out but he had lost both arms and legs.  He was taken in by monks who brought him up, one day he was walking (!??!) along the river when he met a Brahman (wise man) who gave him the reigns of a horse to hold and a bag.  The horse pulled at the reins and low and behold his arm came out, so the next arm and the two legs.  He then went to confront the upstart who threw his stick at him, the stick never killed this guy but disappeared and he was made king.  The spot where the stick disappeared is now called – yep, Battambang!

4 December

Traditional breakfast of rice pancakes for breakfast, no coffee but I still had leftovers from Bali so that was good, but am learning to drink black coffee, milk a bit of an unknown quantity here. Then Nicky picked us up for our TukTuk day tour via country roads.  First to Bamboo train, which is a section of train line that was built by the colonial French back in1860, when the Khmer Rouge came in they shut the train down and it fell into disrepair.  In early 2000 the locals started to us it to transport stuff using axels from cars which just happened to fit onto the tracks, held together with bamboo to form a little platform. It then turned into a tourist attraction and now you pay to sit on this little platform, on a mat with a 1 inch soggy cushion and absolutely no suspension to be pushed along by a little engine connected to one of the axels by a belt over a railway track that has seen better days.  It is a 1m gauge railway and can travel up to 50kmp, mind you the tourist trip travels at about 15kmph, so the 3.7km trip takes about ½ hour each way.  Incidentally the fuel for the train is bought at villages along the way; the fuel has been decanted into glass bottles which are used to top up the tanks.  Apparently Absolut Vodka is the preferred bottle as it holds just under 1 litre, but you still pay for the full litre!  You wouldn't want to have bad knees, bad back, loose teeth or a headache, in fact the entire trip, which takes about 20 minutes each way, there is no point in thinking about safety because you will send yourself insane. At the end there is a little station in a village called O Sra Lav, where bricks used to be made; maybe this was the reason for the railway, to transport bricks. Anyway at this point of return there are the usual touts trying to sell anything and everything that they managed to print Battambang Railway on, also heaps of little girls selling bracelets and they just follow you in case you refuse. Colman gave in and we have 3 pretty little bracelets bought for a grand total of $1. Nicky told us not to give the driver money as they drink and gamble it away, they did hit us for money but we decided to heed local advice. After that it was off to the Wat Ek Phnom where we had lunch at one of the local stalls and it was excellent, we then climbed 380 steps to the top, it was built in the mid-11^th century in the Bayon period and still quiet spectacular, again you could see the results of US bombing.  We left there and took lots of little back roads through villages, spots where the locals don't see many white people so day had a little cavalcade of kids waving us through the various villages, they were excited. Then we ended up at Wat Phnom Banan which is built 400m up on a mountain top and has spectacular views of the whole area including Battambang.  Again between the looting and the shelling during the American/Vietnam war many artefacts, including pieces of the building like lintels or heads of statues have disappeared, and still are from what we hear.  What is left are 2 guns left over from the Khmer Rouge period and kindly supplied by the Germans at the time, you are wanted to stay on the well-worn paths and not wander around as landmines are still in place?!?!  Because we were running late, they suggested instead of walking we take a guide each on a scooter to take us up the hill, which was ok, however coming down they were a bit short on bikes so they did it the traditional way, the guide, then me then Colman, going down an impressive gradient with sheer drops on the side.  I closed my eyes!  Then to Phnom Sam Peau or the Killing Cave which originally were used for theatre and drama performances but during the Pol Pot regime was used to kill people, there was a hole at the top of the cave where they simply lined people up and pushed them in, simple and inexpensive was the idea.  They have a glass cabinet in the cave with bones and skulls of the victims found, another sad story.  Finally it was off to the Bat Cave (love it), every evening & every morning bats fly into and out of the cave high up on the hillside.  This exit takes about 45 minutes, these guys stream out of the cave and you see this massive black ribbon disappearing off into the distance sky, there are millions of the little critters.  As usual I tried to get up close and personal and ended up getting peed on by these things, still the sound the make and the sight was worth it.  Right next door to the cave they had started to build a 9m high Buddha, but ran out of money so now it is this Buddha face that is slowly disappearing into the undergrowth, looks good.  After that we spent an hour in our TukTuk heading back, and as it was dark Nicky gave us a set of Chinese masks to wear with our sunnies so we wouldn't get "injured" by incoming bugs.  We asked Nicky to take us somewhere local for dinner, which he did, the local motor repairers/mechanic who had a ‘restaurant’ business on the side.  Food was excellent and the whole exercise costs us (food & tea) $6, which naturally included Nicky’s dinner as well.  The previous night we had paid $15 for two of us for similar quality food.  Goes to show!

5 December

Breakfast which again was local and consisted of hot and cold spring rolls, I'm getting to enjoy my black coffee and apart from the continuous lilting of Chinese music and the opposing wailing of the nearby mosque, it is peaceful. After breakfast we got the TukTuk into town to the museum which was interesting. A huge room with bits of masonry from temples dating back to the 10th century just strewn about the place, it cost a grand total of $1pp to get in and took about 20 minutes going slow to see it all. Very little was labelled but it was mostly lintels, statues of Gnisha, and other gods where you could see the chisel marks where the head had been removed as well as other small ornaments, bowls and a couple of musical instruments. After that we walked down to a little coffee place called Café Eden, which served great coffee, a little shop out back where I bought our Christmas tree as well as a pair of thongs made from recycled tyres.  After that we walk to the Elephant temple and a little bit more of town, lunch and back to Café Eden.  We then rang Nicky to pick us up and he then took us to local market and explained more food, after that back for r&r and a bit of packing and organising. Nicky picked us up in the evening for a visit to the Insect Market where we tried deep fried crickets, and tried to eat a deep fried drain cockroach. The cricket just tasted like a crunchy little morsel with a sweet taste in the centre, neither of us could do the cockroach drain or otherwise, this was not going to happen. Colman bit into it but couldn't swallow the stuff, so a fail really, but we tried. After that we went to the local Battambang circus, this was street kids who could come to this NGO and be thought circus skills  that they could then make a living on. They were excellent and very funny also, a couple of them have been accepted by the Montreal School of Circus so there was great excitement. We had drinks there beforehand, and after when Nicky picked us up we want to dinner at Geckos where I had earlier done a bit of shopping. The food was nice enough, not spectacular but tasty, very Europeanised or Americanised as the case may be. The staff were very friendly but over-happy, but all good, back to Homestay for bed and up for 5am the next morning. 

6 December

Up at 5am, just to hear both the Chinese music and the wailing kick off, there seems to be a bit of a competition between who was louder, not sure if this happened every morning and we just never heard it or if this was a special Friday morning thing.  Said our goodbyes, Nicky collected us, took us to bakery, then coffee shop then to the boat to Siem Reap which travels up the TonLeSap river the onto the lake to get to SR on the other side. Full, cramped, old with a fascinating toilet, about 1meter high, with a hole in the floor that goes straight into the river and a door that doesn't close properly. Need to be a bit of an acrobat to get that one organised, for once it might be a bit harder for the men! The trip on the boat lasted for about 6 hours and was very interesting, you will want to be early so as not to get a seat near the engine and toilet at the back, we were early so got a double seat each near the front and enough room to be comfortable. The trip was pretty, past many floating villages, lots of wildlife, met some interesting people on the bait including the second Cambodian who was involved with environmental protection. He told us there were areas of the TonLeSap where fishing was forbidden to ensure that fish stock was replenished, these people bred fresh water crocodiles instead in pens outside their floating huts, right next to where the kids went for a paddle! It was interesting to see the high water mark from the recent floods here, probably about 6-8 meters above the current water level. There were quite a few houses destroyed but as many were floating the damage seemed not too big, but that was only from where we were sitting. The river itself and the banks were covered in rubbish, plastic everywhere, bags, bottles and god knows what else. Although the guys keep their belongings clean, never seen so much car and bike washing, the environment is a bit unimportant. Eventually got to the lake after getting stuck in reeds and banks along the way, and thinking we may all need to get out (?!?!) and push. This was usually after the trainee captain took the least likely route through green shrubbery. It's a bit like the Everglades, reeds, trees and bits sticking out everywhere with the water looking to be about a meter deep in places, well most places actually. When we finally arrived at the port in Siem Reap we were literally "boarded" like you see in pirate movies. They hadn't even thrown out the 'tie up rope', I had just finished commenting to Colman "at least they won't get to us in a hurry here" when there was a rush of TukTuk driver storming on. Down the aisle, on the roof, along the outside of the ship, hoiking themselves along holding onto the roof, man they were everywhere. They swarmed like ants and the peacefulness of the last 6 hours was replaced by "you want TukTuk" and "which hotel you stay" over and over, luckily we had arranged a pickup, this part does get to me and I'm delighted when I know someone is waiting for us with their little hand painted sign with our name on it. Our driver then took us to the Temple Villa Guest House, from where it went pear shaped. It wasn’t really in the area I had thought when booking, it didn’t feel right and to boot, it didn't really look like the pictures, different Buddha at entrance, pool a different shape...mhhh.  We were shown up to our room by some surly guys who obviously had other ideas of how to spend the day.  Which turned out to be the most pleasant part of the next hour, the room was a disgrace, filthy, shabby, smelly, beds you wouldn’t let your dog sleep on and towels that you wouldn’t to get anywhere near you.  And this is what my mother was coming to, and this is where we were going to spend the next 6 days, I think not!  We went to the town for drinks to regroup, followed by more drinks and dinner at Viva Hotel.  It was then I did a bit of research, made a couple of phone calls and discovered that the buggers had put us into a different hotel, a hostel in fact, so for the same price we had gone from Villa to Hostel, I think not again!  We told them we would be back to speak to the manager in 1 hour, went for a walk down Pub street, decided that we would move the next day to the Viva Hotel after checking it out and finding it much better, cleaner and better location.  Back to our “Villa” where an important man in a suit was waiting for us, bearing a sad face and uttering many platitudes as we arrived.  Apparently the Villa was under renovation, the manager was away and this character was a friend of the manager, who conveniently enough had a Villa we could stay at, much better and at no extra cost.  It was all terribly misunderstood, confusing, shouldn’t have happened, can’t explain why it did, but he would throw in free breakfast. And yet again, you guess – I think not!  We explained that we would be staying this night, sleeping in our clothes as the bed was unusable and moving out the following morning, at no cost!  With that we left him and headed upstairs.

7 December

The name Siem Reap came into existence in the 18^th century when the Cambodian (Khmer) kingdom was at was with the Thai (Siam), not sure where the spelling changed but Siem Reap means ‘Defeat of Siam’, SR was also emptied by the Khmer Rouge.  Angkor Wat was rediscovered by the French in the 19^th century and made a UNESCO Heritage site.  It is the remains of the Khmer civilisation, was built from the 9^th to the 15^th century and covers an area of 400sqkm, there is so much history and so many stories associated with it many well worth reading, others not so much.  Back to the tourist stuff, we once again got up at sparrow fart, 4am for sunrise over Angkor Wat, now this was interesting.  Got picked up by our TukTuk at 4.30 to be the first at the gates to get tickets, which I considered ridiculous, sunrise is at 6am, what half-wits would get up and get there 2 hours prior, but our little man insisted.  So we got to the ticket booths, there were queues, there were tourist buses, it was madness.  We handed over $45, got our photo taken, got our little pass and were shooed back into the TukTuk who took off at breakneck speed to get to the Wat before everyone else.  Luckily Colman brought a torch as we were turfed out of the TukTuk and told to go across the moat and veer left, great instructions to follow in utter darkness, what moat where??  We eventually found where we were supposed to be, at the edge of a large lake, behind which was (supposedly) Angkor Wat and behind which the sun was going to come up in about 1 hour, ughh!  Now it gets nasty, all my dear friends know well that I don’t deal well with mornings, mornings surrounded by snorting, burping and pushy individuals who are of the opinion that they are all that matters really don’t work well for me.  So when the first little man came up next to me with his camera expecting me to step back and let him through, I suggest he might wish to take off his shoes as the next step he took would be in the lake, I aint moving!  Next we had another one who thought he had god’s gift to come through and stand in front of me, this time I mutter a couple of expletives, turns out he was English speaking, had understood what I said and apologised by saying “oh, sorry I thought you didn’t speak English”, huh?  Anyway, there we stood, toes touching the lake, no one in front of us but literally hundreds of people surrounding us, all snapping away, shining torches around to make sure that anyone who was into photography couldn’t get a good shot, and generally being right pains in the rear.  And then the sun came up, about 100 meters to the left of the building, nowhere within cooee of the actual Angkor Wat – What??  Anyway, the sun comes up, Colman admire the view, take a view deep breaths, prepare ourselves for the day and turn around, to find the area deserted, not a soul, almost everyone had scampered back to their tour bus and scooted off to breakfast somewhere.  We had breakfast at the Wat and had what was probably the worst coffee ever (or so I thought at the time) and then we had the place to ourselves.  It was gorgeous; the light was just so, you could get photos without a soul in them, no lining up to get in, perfect timing.  As we left at 7.30, the crowds were beginning to return, but we had had our chance and it was perfect.  We then took our TukTuk back to the “villa”, checked out and move to Viva hotel.  So much better, after we wander around town, lovely town, great atmosphere and best of all, we found a handmade shoe shop.  Crepes for lunch and then back to Angkor Wat till sunset, just wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere and watching tourists everywhere.  After that we went to a performance by Beat Richner a doctor who plays the Oboe and has helped built 4 children's hospitals in Phnom Phen and Siem Reap.  In typical Cambodian style we all waited in our seats while the staff fluffed around and waited for 7pm when the concert was due to start, at 7 on the dot a guy hops on the stage to inform us that Beat was in fact in America fundraising so there would be no concert tonight, but they will show us a film about all the good he has done.  Fund raising with no Beat I think it’s called!!  When all was said and done I must say what this man has achieved in a country as corrupt as this is amazing, even more interesting I found was that despite many donations from philanthropists, governments, and assorted individuals, pharmaceutical companies have not contributed any noteworthy amounts, they will happily sell their drugs to the local people but will not provide anything either cheaper or free!   Back to town, drinks and watching locals and being hassled nonstop about ‘you want TukTuk’ etc etc. 

8 December

Mutti (mother) arrives at 11.50am and we decided to set the standard then and there, so we picked her up by TukTuk.  All good, back to hotel, sort that out, then a walk around the town to get oriented and then after a quiet drink in Pub Street we headed off to find ourselves some typical local food, but still in the tourist stretch.  We ended up at a traditional Khmer BBQ restaurant where we tried ostrich, frog, buffalo, beef, boar, cuttlefish and snapper cooked on a typical Khmer BBQ, big pot with coals light set in the middle of the table with an iron plate in top where you cook you own meal, served with soup and heaps of vegies.

9 December

Up early and TukTuk to Angkor Wat for the post sunrise scenery, which was again spectacular, just sitting and absorbing it all and imagining what it would have been like in its heyday.  When you look around you can see the evidence of looting everywhere, most statues have missing heads, bits chopped out of walls, lintels and columns gone.  Again much of it due to Khmer Rouge who said that there is no need for security and it was a waste of money; the looters had a field day.  We did get conned by a monk who blessed us etc in exchange for a small fee, my mother and I were trapped and Colman showed no compassion and simply disappeared around the corner in hysterics.  Ah well, we got a bit of Buddha blessing for $1, you can’t go wrong there, well assuming this character was a monk, I wouldn’t actually like to swear on that one!  All this excitement was followed by breakfast at Lady Gaga with possible the worst coffee ever, again, but we had to make my mother appreciate true local coffee, which funnily enough she didn’t!  Then Colman managed to organise a tour guide with the husband of one of the woman working at the café, who recommended, him highly, hmm dodgy.  Which it was, a couple of hours with a very uninterested character who told you nothing you couldn’t read in a guide book, just as it got interesting he said, ‘well that’s it, good-bye’.  After that back into town, a look around, a nice hour sitting at the Blue Pumpkin, then off for a spot of shoe fitting and dinner.  This was followed by drinks at the bar of the local circus which we had seen in Battamabang (well the same company, but these were one step better again)  The circus we had seen was great so we decided to spend another $15 to show my mother and it was worth every cent.  Funny enough when we walked out of the tent the bar tender cornered us, we had done a runner, it was pretty embarrassing as I’m sure many people try it, but we had been so busy talking no one thought to pay!

10 December

Today is a big day, Sweet picked us up in his TukTuk and we headed out to Anchor Thom, the centre of which was the Bayon.  Anchor Thom was quiet derelict and although still lovely it wasn’t on the top of the hit list.  The Bayon was another thing altogether, almost every one of the 36 towers has a face carved facing the cardinal points, so literally hundreds of these beautiful, calm, serene Buddha like faces gazing off into the distance.  Nobody is sure whose face this is but some say it a Buddha’s face or a combination of that and the face of one of the kings.  It was built over a century, so lots of different building styles, spectacular are also the carvings of everyday stuff (as well as the mandatory battle scenes) of things including a chess game and child birth.  Great photos, especially with Sweet taking us to some unusual spots for just the right snap.  Next we went to Banteay Srei or the Citadel of Women only discovered in 1914, a Khmer temple with some gorgeous carvings out of pink sandstone giving everything a pink hue.  There were lots of carvings of Apsaras, which translates into Celestial Dancers and which are everywhere, but extra beautiful here.  Then we went for a bit of nature to the Kbal Spean waterfall 49km out of SR, it’s also called the River of a Thousand Lingams.  Lingams (the sacred phallic symbol of the Brahaman) were carved into the river bed at times when the river was low or dry and we managed to see quite a few different ones, some were under water but we got a local show us around and take us to some of the out of the way places where you could also see carvings of gods and animals.  To get to the waterfall was about an hour hike over pretty rough terrain but well worth it, great views, unusual rock formations, lots of pretty healthy looking jungle and a massive flock of butterflies, very friendly ones at that.  Back down to my mother who was having a little rest in the hammock that Sweet had set up for her and we headed off to our final temple Ta Prohm in eastern Angkor. This was all our favourite, most likely Colman’s pick because he had visions of Angelina Jollie romping about in skimpy clothing with boobs akimba; this is where they filmed some of Tomb Raider.  This is usually shown on photos and is the temple overgrown with giant tree roots as the temple sits in the middle of the jungle which is trying to reclaim it, luckily we got there quiet late in the afternoon, not many tourists and brilliant light, I took some of my best photos here.  It was originally built as a Buddhist monastery back in the late 12^th and early 13^th century and is now being overgrown.  They are trying to stop the temple being completely devoured by the huge fig and silk-cotton trees but this is pretty hard as the two are complete intertwined, cut that root and that wall will fall, remove that tree and that temple will collapse, so what they have taken to doing is supporting trees that support walls and trimming back only what they can without damaging something.  This means lots of metal support structure, metal bars propped up here and there and scaffolding all around, nevertheless it’s still possible to get photos without any of this stuff in it.  Would love to go back here and spend the day, it has the best feel of all the temples we have visited, very serene and calming air. Personally my number one, it has more feeling than Angkor Wat.  Sweet then hightailed our TukTuk back to SR.

11 December

Another early start and off to the Terrace of the Leper King and the Terrace of the Elephants.  This is a wall about 300m long with huge carved elephants, Apsaras in various poses as well as carvings of a 5 headed horse which was in a ‘no go area’, but with the distraction of my mother and Colman I snuck in and got some photos.  Not sure why it was called after the Leper King but the carvings were worth the visit, opposite this was the Temple of 12 Wives built by a king of ancient Khmer to house his wives, each one got her own little house where she lived until he deigned to grace her with her presence, hmmpff.  After all this history Sweet wanted us to go for a boat ride on some lake, it all got a bit confusing and after sitting in the back of the TukTuk for an hour rattling over rough roads and through very pretty countryside we came to the Tonle Sap, the river Colman and I had sent eight hours on getting here, it was hot, we were tired and didn’t feel like being tourists anymore.  Decided against it especially as it was getting late and we had booked in to see an Apsara show and dinner, so back to town it went.  Now one of the things Colman and I say is that we will not do any of these cultural shows.  The ones where they herd you in, off you go to get your dinner from a huge, partially cold, soggy unappetising looking smorgasbord followed by a bunch of performers gazing off into the distance probably thinking about what they’ll put on Facebook tonight while they mimic off some traditional dance routines and stories.  But we did and it ticked every box in the above criteria, check to check with the person next to you, and the one behind you (!!), quick in, sit down, eat, watch and get out now.  These guys on stage hadn’t taken their final bow when they were herding out the first lot of tables, we sat and watched and within 5 minutes about 500 people had been removed from premises and the tables were reset, gobsmacking!  Off to bed, tomorrow we are off to Vietnam.

VIETNAM

12 December

Breakfast at creperie, pick up shoes. Off to airport all of us in Sweets TukTuk and off to Vietnam. So just to clarify, we had 3 adults, 3 suitcases, 2 cabin bags, 2 handbags and 1 camera bag (and a partridge in a pear tree) in this TukTuk. Just as well I can sit cross legged for long periods, and it is the first time I have been driven to the airport by a Honda 100cc whilst sitting in the lotus position!! Anyway, check in was no problem, airport quiet reasonable with a few shops and then off it was for our 1 hour flight to Ho Chi Min city (aka Saigon). On the plane we were literally thrown a bottle of water as the steward whizzed passed before being told to prepare for landing. Again customs was efficient and we were out and in a taxi before you could bat an eyelid, off to the Signature Hotel in District 1 which turned out to be a great little place, friendly staff, and lovely rooms close to the old market.  After settling in, we planned our touring for the next days and off we went to the old market and getting our first taste of Vietnam traffic. This involved crossing several 3 lanes in each direction roads which proved interesting but once you got the hang of it, not, impossible. Everything we had been told about crossing roads was true and here is how it goes. Wait for the lane closest to the footpath to have no cars or buses and at best only about 2-3 motorbikes, then start walking at a calm and measured pace. Do not stop, do not hesitate and never turn around and run for cover.  These guys are amazing, they calculate your road speed and adjust their driving and directions accordingly, no problems, try that on a western road, you'd be flat in seconds. The old market consisted of a huge building containing stall after stall of very similar stuff, this place closed at about 6pm. We arrived just around that time and watched the proceedings which were entertaining, as the "proper" market closed up there were people running around like lunatics setting up the Night Market, identical to the other one except these are outdoor stalls. Where one minute there had been a street with traffic, there were not hundreds of little stalls, no more car traffic but nothing stops the motor bikes, so caution was still called for. Had a wander then off to one of the local restaurants to try the famous Beef Pho noodle soup, all the food was great. Back to hotel, wine and bed.

13 December

Up early and off to see the Cu Chi Tunnels, decided on a private car so we could be back for our exciting afternoon tour. Took about 2 hours to get out there, roads dodgy at best but eventually we did see a little bit of country side and then we arrived at the tunnels together with a couple of hundred other tourists. Our arrival should have warned us!  We have decided that the Vietnamese are substantially less friendly than their Cambodian counterparts; have yet to get a smile out of anyone except the hotel staff and this proved no exception. It was basically "here's your ticket, get over there, don't bother me anymore and if you have a question don't bother me with it". My question of getting a local tour guide was answered with a short and sharp "inside", it took that as meaning "yes there are guides but they are inside the entrance and they will assist you there", dopey cow!  To get into the tunnels you take the ticket just purchased and walk down a long tunnel much like the London Underground where you have more unsmiling people ready to grunt at you to "give ticket", "go there" and more of the "guide inside" stuff. After being herded through we, after much ado, found a guide who appeared to be less than delighted to be at work that day and got put together with another group of 5 English speaking tourist to go on this grand tour. No point in saying too much but here is the gist. The other 5 consisted of 4 Americans and 1 local, the local was friendly enough and the 3 American guys were ok, the woman......well the less said the better.  Could have been a poster child for everything that is annoying about American tourist, been there, done that, know better and of course all this being said at maximum volume.  Now about the tunnels themselves, where to start...This was tourist trap number 1, there were tourist shops which you had to walk past to get anywhere, these consisted of beer cans turned into boats and bullets turned into ashtrays. There were models dressed in Vietcong clothing sitting around cooking and making weapons that you could pose with for that special souvenir photo. There were the locals (and tourist) standing around having a good laugh and great fun standing next to tanks and perched in the entrance of tunnels built by the Vietcong. And my all-time favourite for a certain amount of cash you could get the chance to fire an AK47 or a machine gun, and if you hit the target twice you won a cigarette lighter or a stubby holder. Disney would have been proud had he designed this!  We all hated every minute of it, as much emotion the Genocide museum or the Killing Fields evoked; this left you with bad and bitter taste in your mouth. The couple of interesting things we did discover were that the Vietcong built 250km of tunnel in three layers, the first was 2 meters below and used for fighting and moving about, the second was 4m below and used for storage and the third was 6m below and used for hiding out when they were being bombed.  The Vietcong were incredibly good at camouflage, using the most basic materials to make weapons and surviving on rations of boiled Taro with some sort of sweet dipping sauce. After that disappointing outing we headed back to the hotel for the afternoon event, we had booked a motorcycle tour of Saigon. We each had a driver and the three of us scooted through the city as the locals do, and loved it. You get a great appreciation of the driving methods and see how this thing we see as chaos works, my driver only hit (gently) two other bikes on our travels, this included the last half hour in rush hour traffic. We stopped to taste the local food, sugarcane juice, black jelly, and assorted fish, chicken and beef dishes as well as the local tea (quiet nice) and coffee (ugghhh). There are 7million motorcycles in town, these are only the registered ones. The law is that you can have 2 adults and 2 kids under 10 on 1 bike, legally, the kids do not need to wear helmets. The largest load you can have on a bike is 60x 60cm, not sure if 4 bags of cement or a bag of straw meets the size criteria but who cares. The deal is that should you get stopped by the police, the fine is $40 with receipt and $20 without, easy money!! Vietnam is still a communist country but the laws are getting more liberal daily, they are just in the process of legalising gay marriage and surrogate mothers, however should you be overheard slating the government, you may never "see the sun again".  Conversations were interesting; in the confines of a car everything could be talked about, walking amongst people on the street the conversation was about tourist attractions and statistics. Anyway that night we went to a different part of town, dinner at a local restaurant, a spot of 'spa'ing' and a spot of shopping.

14 December

Up early for our overnight trip to the Mekong Delta, our guide Kim was friendly and informative and the driver rated up there with the worst drivers on the planet. The drive to the delta was about 3 hours, and we all were car sick by the half way mark. This guy’s idea of driving was gas, break, gas, break, etc, etc, etc, ugh, Colman got pissy and asked him to stop doing that, the man looked blank, the guide said something, they both nodded and then off we went again, gas, break, gas.... A couple more bits of trivia, there are two kinds of Karaoke in Vietnam, the one where you sing and the one with your hand....yep, work it out. One is called Happy Karaoke and apparently it always has Happy Ending, oh and this usually happens in a Happy House. We were a bit worried when we than stopped and Kim directed us to the Happy Room, but that is the way some locals describe the toilet. When we arrived at the delta, we got on a boat that took us to the floating market, a local temple and a walk around a village. All interesting and it was even better as we were the only 3 people on the tour, they can get up to 20 people but we were just lucky.  Stopped at a place that produces the local fermented fish sauce, smell was woeful, then off to learn how to make Vietnamese rice paper. After that we got to taste the local snake wine, where they stick a cobra into alcohol and let it ferment for 6 months and then drink it, we tried it and it was ok, just. Oh, the cobra is still floating in the bottle you drink out of!!  Then we took the boat up to our Homestay, a lovely ornate wooden house is a village surrounded with fields and rice paddies and on an island in the Mekong. Comfortable room with big bed, communal bathroom with no hot water and more food than you can poke a stick at. The local guide Thu who had joined us when we got on the boat took us for a walk around and showed us a nursery, this is apparently the area where much of the food for Vietnam is grown, then to a Bonsai farm where we tasted different fruits and then to hear a musical group sing us a couple of local songs. They used song as a form of courtship as people work all the time and had no time for the usual courtship we would be used to, so they would sing to each other and this is what this group of 4 musicians showed us. The songs were very emotive and dramatic, but (sorry everyone) to me it sounded a bit like a cat being strangled very slowly and cruelly. Just glad they weren't trying to sell us a cd!!!  After that back and into the hammock for a well-deserved rest, we were to report to the kitchen at 6.30 for cooking demonstrations, interesting and I think slowly I am learning how to make a spring roll that looks a little more like the elegant little ones the locals always make. Then dinner, we had, pancake with pork and veggies, a whole fish, beef with taro chips, vegetable soup, stir fried vegetables, chicken stew, rice, fruit and I'm sure a couple more things I forgot to mention. We learnt that in this country when you finish everything on your plate it means that you are still hungry and they bring out more, so once we got that bit we were feed a bit less, but still enough food was brought out to feed at least 6 people comfortably. And then we had That coffee again, ughh.

15 December

Up, cold shower and panic, my little camera had vanished, after much ado it turns out Colman had left it in the hammock last night so we recovered with a cup of the famous coffee and baguette and cream cheese and jam. Then we took a little boat along a tributary back to the Mekong, very tourist but pretty because it was early on a Sunday morning so no other tourists and only a couple of motorised boats to spoil the silence. Back on the main boat and a stop at a pottery which also makes garden gnomes, just what we wanted. Another temple, a Buddhist one built by a private individual with the second largest Buddha in Vietnam. Then we said our goodbyes to Thu, piled back into the car with the woeful driver for our 3 hour drive back, stopped for lunch along the way for another huge quantity of food and arrived back at the hotel for a bit of r&r before heading off to the train station for our 7pm train to Denang. Train station was quiet clean with a good coffee shop, before being ushered on the train. As we were still early I got off quickly and got us a bottle of red, Delat Soft Red, I had the whole shop mesmerised with my bottle opening skills. They handed me the corkscrew with this bemused look on their faces, as if to say well, what are you going to do now!?! So when I flicked out the little cutter to cut the foil they realised I was a professional and within seconds I had a 6 member audience and more gathering. Luckily the cork cooperated and I was able to get it out in one expert looking move, a round of applause and many sounds of appreciation later and I ran back to the train. Just in time to get back to our 4 berth, soft, air conditions, deluxe room, which we shared with a local guy and a 20kg sack of spuds. Turns out our little man was a government worker, parliamentary secretary, one of the great jobs we had heard about from others. They get a pension, health cover and regular work, sounds like the pay isn't great and there are quite a few rules to go with it. Two he told us about, if you want to get promoted, no alcohol and maximum of two kids, don't obey either of those and no promotion. He was funny because he questioned us on what was good, bad, could be improved and more, he planned to take it back with him for future reference. He climbed into his little bunk at 8.30, which is when he goes to bed he had informed us earlier, and lights out, the end. We rumbled through the night, but all up not bad, mattress was a reasonable piece of foam, we had clean sheet, pillow and quilt with covers, we all slept relatively well.

16 December

Our little man had to get off at 6am, so we were awake fairly early, which in the scheme of things was lucky. We stopped at the station, the little man had left the cabin and closed the door, we sat back in our pjs just as the door was flung open to the yells of "baguette, coffee, baguette, coffee, yes, you wan???".  We were all a bit speechless, so I said ok and off she flew, back with 3 coffees, black with straws, then off again and back with 3 baguettes and a packet of Laughing Cow cream cheese. I took a bit long with the money so she just reached in, sorted through it, under all our watchful eyes, showed me what she took, yelled a bit more and headed off. I had bought some milk so I put that into our ball coffee, for the next five minutes all these ladies were sticking their heads into our cabin checking out the white coffee, looking bemused and having big discussions amongst themselves about what we obviously had done wrong with their coffee. Coffee was as normal, they don't believe in not put sugar into everything should it stand still long enough, so, although the milk was better, it still had about 2 teaspoons of sugar, oh well. We got a new replacement for our little man, and surprisingly enough he got a new sheet, pillow and quilt from the guard. We figured that they decided everyone should be awake by 8.30, because they started blaring out what sounded strangely like propaganda music and speech and full volume for about 10 minutes before the silence resumed. The countryside is mostly rice paddies up until now, mountains are appearing and we have seen (we think) the ocean on a couple of occasions.  Arrived in Hoi An after 1pm, this was a 16^th century trading port of the Thu Bon River and is now Unesco Heritage listed.  After arriving at the train station there was much ado at the station as various drivers, taxied, TukTuks tried to get you to pick them. We had arranged a pick up through Nick from the Mekong cruise so all was well. The Ancient River hotel was a fair way out of town but nicely set up, especially if it had have been 30 degrees, it wasn't and the pool, open air restaurant and outdoor relaxing area didn't have that much appeal. What did however was the huge bathtub; this was followed by very chilly cocktails on the open air restaurant and dinner.

17 December

Lien came to collect us for our cooking class in the morning including a visit to the local market, boat trip back to restaurant, cooking class and the lunch consisting of the food we had just made.  Today we learnt a little about Hoi An famous for its lanterns, they are handmade of bamboo and silk, each colour and shape has a meaning and the usual round ones are a symbol of harmony, balance, warmth, peace and good luck. No one really knows what it dates back to but believed to be from late 16th century when Chinese traders first settled here.  Hoi An is famous for a beautiful covered bridge dating back to 1593 and built by the Japanese traders, the bridge leads into a very old part of town and a toll needs to be paid to get over it, which we did.  Unfortunately Lien was in a bit of a hurry so we didn’t get to see as much as we wanted, it appears she was keen for us to see another Apsara show, no one was greatly excited but I guess a little culture never hurt anyone! After a lot of looking here and there, clothes fitting, back to hotel and lunch in the very very cold restaurant of the hotel overlooking the river.  After that we took it easy, then back for another wander around town, Mutti then went home and Colman and I stayed in town for cocktails, then dinner and a couple of glassed at a nice little wine bar we discovered. 

18 December

Off to do a day tour with Lien, first stop was My Son, a religious centre from the 4^th to the 13^th century and now a cluster of mostly ruined Hindu temples outside of Hoi An.  It is UNESCO heritage listed as it is a stunning example of very old civilisations, something that the Americans didn’t take into consideration when they spent a week bombing the be-jesus out of it during the ‘American War’!  There were over 70 temples to start with, now maybe about 30 can be seen and they date back to the 4^th century and continued to be built and added to until the 14^th century.  So imagine how much history and information was recorded within those walls, sad. They are in the process of restoration and both Italy and Japan are major sponsors in conjunction with UNESCO.  One of the problems they are having is working out how the bricks in these buildings were fired and then stuck together.  They think that they hardened the bricks by fire once the building had been built, so they heated up the entire structure to set the bricks, another problem is how the bricks stayed together as there is no mortar.  A theory is they used tree resin, another that they used the same clay as the bricks themselves, no one knows.  The various temples were dedicated to mostly 3 gods.  Brahma, God of creation, spawned from a lotus flower from the naval of Vishnu, he holds a beaded chai, a symbol of continuous flowing of time. He is the source of wisdom and master of humanity and has four fasces looking in four directions, an omniscient deity.  Then there is Vishnu the God of Preservation and the most revered deity, usually shown as sleeping on a huge serpent that floats on a boundless sea of milk, he is the guardian of heaven, search and all beings.  Lastly there is Shiva, God of destruction who is the opposite to Vishnu, his breath creates and destroys the world and he is usually depicted as a dancer holding a destructive flame and a creative drum, the destruction is not totally negative as it is necessary for new life.  In My Son there is a stone linga (giant stone penis) dating back to the 10^th century which is dedicated to Shiva, interesting piece, nearly a meter high.  Lien then wanted to take us to another Apsara Show, I balked refusing to go and went and took photos instead, much more worthwhile although both Colman and my mother said it was very good.  You can only walk around the temple area as the land around is still full of landmines waiting to be trodden on, great.  When we finished here we headed off country side, it was decided that the best way was by bike, so once again we got three drivers, three bikes and off we went to the country side, first stop a Pottery village.  There are villages here that specialise in certain things and everyone in this one was into pottery, we went to a particular house, no doubt a friend, relative or other connection to Lien.  The people still do pottery the traditional way, so when we arrived Grandma who was all of 92 with not a single tooth was sitting cross legged on the floor shaping clay while her granddaughter stood next to her spinning the potting wheel with her foot.  It worked beautifully and what Grandma made was very pretty, she was the most cheerful of souls, not a word of English but a toothless grin for ear to ear and laughing all the way, she also had the most exquisite elegant hands for a lady her age, it was fun and we all got to try to make something.  Needless to say they didn’t give you what you made, probably melted it down for the next tourist arrival.  Had a little walk through the village and sure enough pottery and pottery wheels everywhere.  After that we went to the vegetable & herb village, this time a couple of villages where they worked together to tend massive fields of herbs, lettuce, spring onions and everything else you can imagine wanting in your local Vietnamese food.  Apparently they supply most of the markets in the northern part of Vietnam.  Here the woman still walk around with the Sampan hats and watering cans hanging of poles draped over their shoulders.  They also had massive sprinkler system so technology had arrived, but much of it is still done by hand.  Next was a trip that your insurance company would probably advise you to stay well enough away from.  We hopped on the back of the bikes and headed off on dirt tracks that had more pot holes and ruts and bits of obstacle in the way that you can poke a stick at, the interesting part was that you were riding through these obstacles on top of a ditch, maybe 2 meters wide.  Either side of the ditch, steep drops into canals, where they grow and had recently harvested bamboo, so as you look down into these ditches all you could see were bamboo like pointed spears sticking straight up out of the water, where they had been cut off at a nice pointy angle by the locals.  As we were riding my driver was telling me that just the other day a guy around here at lost control of his bike and fallen into the canal, death due to spearing!! Hmm, at that stage I decided that thinking too hard about OH&S was not a good thing and concentrated on the scenery instead.  Then we got to the buffalo man, he had a huge water buffalo that he expected us to go for a ride on, Colman went first, it looked hairy.  Off the buffalo went the aforementioned embankment and a little gallop through the water with Colman looking most uncomfortable clinging for dear life to the little man sitting up front; I thought it was very funny till it was my turn.  What the heck, up I hoped and attached myself to the little man, he thought it was hysterical but there was no way I was letting go, not a sheet of paper could have fitted between him and me.  When we came to the end the little man hopped off and left me to it, getting off this beast was not an elegant look, but it did keep everyone amused, poor beleaguered buffalo!  After we had finished with the poor beast the little man took the bridle off him and told him to ‘Go Home’, well this creature didn’t need telling.  Within a minute we were back on our bikes and following this buffalo along the embankment , the buffalo picking up speed as he headed off towards a main road, not stopping or pausing as galloped up onto the road, across the road and down the other side towards his family!  An aside, there really is nothing quite so funny as watching the rear end of a well-endowed buffalo heading of ahead in the distance, made me dizzy really.  After that we were brought back to the hotel, had a bit of a ‘misunderstanding’ with Lien and decided we would not need here from now on.  I think she realised we weren’t happy with some of the money stuff that had gone on in the course of the day  and asked if she could meet us quickly the following morning.  We went into town for our final clothe fitting and I decided to have a pair of boots made as we were heading north into the cold and all I had were thongs, got all that organised, dinner while watched the lanterns floating down the river. 

19 December

Lien arrived and gave us a Christmas present each, hmm interesting.  Then we finished packing, they brought our shoes out for final fitting, then our clothes arrived and then our driver arrived.  Off to Hue via Marble Mountain or the Five Elements Mountains which are named after the 5 elements, metal, water, wood, fire and earth.  Different colour marble were mined there and it is said to match these elements, black, blue, brown, red and white, not sure how though, we did see marble that had been carved where all the different colours seem to swirl into each other, looks fake but is in fact how marble looks from there.  Again lots of different shops around the base of the mountain and each shop specialises in another type of carving, one will carve lions, one dragons, on balls, these thing are huge, talking half a shipping container big and the sellers are very keen shall we say!  There is a Buddhist temple, Thuy Son, at the top which Colman and I climbed up to, all 156 steps; they love their counted steps here.  The temples and towers have lovely marble, no surprise there, carving and decorations, worth the walk.  There are also quite a few grottos you can wander around in, if you want to do a spot of abseiling, it’s all there and the view is also spectacular, interesting as Lien told us it’s not worth going to!  On the way we passed an interesting/sobering spot where the My Lai massacre happened, it was funny because the driver didn’t say anything about it and both my mother and I asked what happened around here, the atmosphere had suddenly gone very strange.  The driver just told us it had to do with the American War and told us the town that was here was called My Lai, after a bit of research we discovered that some US troops landed here, killed 500 women, children and elderly in a 4 hour massacre in 1968.  Some of the soldiers who balked at this were threatened with court marshal and aiding and abetting the enemy!!  We also found out that the leader of this massacre was a total misfit, but when they decided to prosecute him for crimes against humanity it was all fluffed over and I think he got a couple of weeks prison, it was apparently the turning point of the war especially as some photos taken here were broadcast on international TV.  After that back into the taxi for a little spin down to the local beach in Danang, a nice cup of local tea some peanuts and a walk along a cold and windswept beach, which looked to be lovely on sunnier days.  Mind you we were told that the place was infested by tourists in the peak season and no way could you even get to within cooee of the water.  After that over the Hai Van Pass, via a road describes by Top Gear as ‘one of the best windy roads in the world’, they love their Top Gear here, we hear about it lots.  This pass is 500m up, and yes the road is windy and then some, car sick you wouldn’t want to be.  At the top there are both ancient and modern fortifications, guard towers and such like as it’s the perfect barrier between the north and the south.  Looking back and down the embankments takes a good stomach, luckily our driver was very calm and not in too much of a hurry.  On to Hue where we checked into the Pilgrimage Hotel, exquisite, loved it. It’s big with a few different restaurants, bars, a great spa and all really well kept. Good place to hang out. Organised ourselves for the next few days.

20 December

Got ourselves a driver to take us to some of the tombs which this place is famous for, first we went to the Khai Dinh tomb, it was constructed over 11 years and finished in 1931 and is an interesting mix of eastern and eastern architecture constructed by Khai Dinh an emperor who was considered to be working for and paid by the French, not much loved in this country.  At the centre is the Thien Dinh palace which contains his crypt with a life size bronze sculpture of him, an ornate gold canopy made of concrete and weighing 1 ton over him and every surface covered with mosaic made of colour glass and porcelain.  You can see bottles, teacups, teapots, plates and all sorts embedded in the walls, very spectacular.  Outside there was a huge chessboard with sculptures of the pieces larger than me as well as the biggest sculpture of 2 dragons in all Vietnam.  After that we headed off to the tomb of Tu Duc tomb another interesting character.  We became infertile due to smallpox when he was young and stood at a total of 153cm, so what does that mean, small man complex.  He had 104 wives and more concubines than you can poke a stick at, all of which had to be fully searched by the eunuchs before they came into the king’s presence.  Apart from everything else they had to endure him reciting poetry and singing songs he had composed, while looking enthusiastic no doubt.  He built his tomb and made his own inscription as there were no offspring, then when he was buried he ordered that the 200 servants who were involved were to be beheaded and buried with hi, nice fellow!  After that it was off to the Minh Mang temple in a lovely forest overlooking the Perfume River.  Then into the city to see the Imperial Citadel, Dai Noi which was built about 1800 and is so large that it has a 10km moat around it. It is another Unesco site but both the Vietcong and the US bombed it to pieces I was terribly excited because within the citadel was the Forbidden Purple Temple.  The palace was built for the king and designed only for the queen, his 9 concubines, female servants and the eunuchs; any man except the emperor who set foot into the palace was executed.  I think this was the beginning of the end of our ‘old stuff’ visits, none of us could see anything but derelict buildings, tourist shops and tourist here.  The Purple Palace was none existent, bombed to smithereens by the US and try as we might to get a map or directions we failed, not one sole spoke English or even attempted to so.  We had agreed to meet our driver at a different exit so walked around in ever decreasing circles, asked one of the guards sitting at one of the entrances if this was the right gate, he looked at us blankly and went back to playing on his mobile.  A local overheard our conversation and pointed us in the right direction; we found the attitude of this guy to be pretty typical of all government employees here.  As someone said, he is only there because he has friends or family members who got him the job, that is the only way to get into the public service, that or pay cash about $1000, a huge amount of money in this country. After that we headed back to the town, wandered around a bit in the rain and decided to head back to the hotel.

21 December

Managed to squeeze in the Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady or the Elderly Celestial Woman, (Then Mu) which is the symbol of Hue and which delighted Colman no end, but it was one of the better ones.  Legend has it that she appeared on this spot and asked that a Buddhist pagoda be built and they did a splendid job.  It is 7 tiers and is meant to represent the 7 human formes taken by Buddha, or the 7 steps of enlightenment and there are still monks living and worshipping there.  As you go on there is a massive bell, a giant turtle and 12 huge wooden temple guards, complete with real human hair beards!! This is also where the car driven by the monk Thich Quang Duc resides, what he did was in 1963 he drove his blue Austin car to Saigon, parked it at a traffic light, sat crossed legged in the middle of the intersection poured petrol over himself and set himself alight.  This was as a protest against the violation of religious freedom in Vietnam and made international headlines.  There are photos of the flames covering his body, he is sitting calm, legs crossed, eyes closed, an amazing photo, they say he was in such a mediation trance, he felt nothing and looking at the picture that would be easy to believe, totally alight with a calm and peaceful face.  After that we decided on a trip on the Perfume River, something else that had taken my fancy, where once again we were 'conned'. We wanted to go on a cruise but ended up settling on getting a boat/taxi back from the pagoda to the Hue market as the weather was pretty ordinary. As we arrived at the temple we were already accosted by a lovely lady offering a cheap trip back to town, we decided this was a good compromise because of the weather so decided if she was still there when we came out we would go with her. About 1/2 hour for about $8, no drama. Came out, surprise she was there got on board with her, husband and young child, all well, then she hauled out here stuff, scarves, placemats, statues, tee shirts, you name it. We noticed the boat slowed down considerably, and she explained to Colman that they lived on the boat and they use the money earned from this to look after the child, well what do you do?!  Between the three of us we supplied enough money for many meals in this country, the things she sold were good quality and we did need more souvenirs and pressies. Once we had purchased the boat miraculously sped up and we were deposited at the old market, exciting it wasn't. Wandered around a bit and decided that back to the hotel was a good option in preparation for the train to Hanoi at 1845, needed to be there early but were somewhat better prepared, had our wine, nibbles and breakfast rations. We needed to haul our luggage across the tracks to get to our platform and when the train arrived and we founded our cabins we were delighted to find that our beds had been "pre-warmed", hmm, nothing like warm sheets and pillows to settle down on. Luckily we all had scarves or towels so it wasn't so bad, also we were on our own on this trip so a bit easier

22 December

Arrived in Hanoi morning and headed off to the old town to the Calypso hotel in the north of the old town. Set off to check out what's around us and ended up at the doors of the Hoa Lo prison, or the Hanoi Hilton, decided to have a look inside. Only a small part of it has been rebuilt and preserved as a memorial but it was fascinating and (again) though provoking. It was originally built by French colonialists in 1896 to hold thousands of Vietnamese revolutionary fighters, after 1954 it was used for criminals and from 1964 to 1973 some parts of the prison were used to house American pilots shot down over Vietnam. When going into the prison you are given a guide book, and this makes some interesting reading. I completely realise that this would have been a horrendous place and the French would have not been the kindest of guards, based on stories from assorted wars and take overs, they would have been horrible at the best of times. Having said that, propaganda in this country is alive and well, reading some of the plaques inside the prison caused me to smile every so often, but reading the brochure caused a decided chuckle. I will transcribe my favourite bit. "Hoa Lom was nicknamed 'hell on earth' and it is because the French used most ruthless and Inhumane torture against patriotic and revolutionary prisoners. The Hoa Lo prison administrators were worldly-wise, cunning and experienced jailers, cruel overseers and stool-pigeons together with a harsh detention regime and subhuman conditions, thus turning Hoa Lo prison into 'hell on earth'.........despite being shackled, patriotic and revolutionary fighters were staunch, persistent and undaunted in their struggle against French harsh prison conditions under different forms such as shouting, going on hunger strike and forcing the enemy to make concessions". Several pages later I came across this piece of information, "American captured pilots were created favourable conditions for entertainment, culture and sports activities and listening to Vietnamese radio in English. They were able to listen to music and watch films and parties were organised for them during New Year, which was impossible for the Vietnamese at the time."  Also interestingly enough they allowed the catholic prisoners to dress like tourists and go out to church at Christmas, Protestants however had to stay locked up and the parson came to them and performed mass in the jail. Hmmm!  Enough about that, a pleasant place it was not. After the prison we stumbled on St Joseph's cathedral which was in the throes of getting decked out for Christmas. The church is lovely with great stained glass windows built in the typical French cathedral style. We continued to wander around and ended up for drinks at a rooftop bar with spectacular views, you could sit inside AND they had heaters, bliss, never expected this place to be so cold, then down to Hoan Kiem Lake which is where the famous Ngoc Son temple, the temple is dedicated to the turtles which live in the lake and greatly revered. If you see one alive !?! It means lots of good luck, we only saw the 2 meter gold plated one on display in the little temple. Very picturesque place and has one of the most photographed bridges in Hanoi/Vietnam leading to it, well so the guidebooks say. Through the markets in the old town, the hotel, a spot of spa for all of us, drinks, dinner at a local restaurant with tasty food and bed

23 December

Dragged Colman and my mother, under much protestation, to the Old Citadel, after our experience at Hue we were all a little wary of this stuff.  Arriving with moans all around we were told the Citadel was closed Mondays! After all that we could only wander around the grounds, Colman was delighted because at the very far end he spied some tanks and fighter jets left over from the American War?!?  My mother and I however spied an open gate into the citadels and decided "why not", so off the two of us trotted to check it all out. Colman decided he would keep watch outside, just in case, and as there was no screaming guards after us we explored in peace. As it turns out there were wedding photos being taken in there, so we just mingled with the photographers and hanger onerers, we figured we wouldn't stand out too much. After that my mother and I checked out the Temple of Literature and Colman went to the army museum, I think we got the better bargain, this temple was spectacular built in 1070 in honour of Confusiscm and so beautifully designed and very well kept, well worth the effort, lots of great photo opportunities too.  After that we wandered back via Ho Chi Minh’s tomb, he’s closed on Mondays, and also at the moment he was off having a facelift in Moscow.  Apparently when alive he was humble and hated all the pomp and ceremony, they say he lived in a small cottage rather than the grand palace built for him and wanted to be cremated with ashes spread over the country. To honour that tradition they stuffed him, embalmed him and send him off for facelifts every year.  We walked past his mausoleum and there was a long section in front that was forbidden to walk in, just a bit of the road that must have been special to him?!?  Anyway I decided to check how observant the guards were off in the distance, I had maybe taken 10 steps when the whistles started, Colman had removed himself thinking I was going to end up in the gulag and I ignored it for a little then looked up all surprised to see guards off in the distance waving and whistling and throwing odd shapes.  I figured I better move off, so they like rules over here.  Meandered through the city, I preferred Saigon, but still interesting.  That evening we decided to try a local recommended market type restaurant called Quan An Ngon, a kind of food market restaurant where you walk around the different stalls and pick what you would like, everything traditional and stuff more touristy.  Then you go back to your table and order ad they serve it up.  Unlike western style there is no entree and mains, it comes as it comes.  There was a bit of confusion when ordering, we cancelled one dish and replaced it with another, the dish we had cancelled was a steamboat, too much and we wanted to try more little bits, waiter looked confused, his first day on the job but he nodded lots and did lots of smiling.  Our dishes arrive, excellent food, ended up being quite a lot as we had order lots of little dishes but when we had finished we were all nicely full. Then we got the Steamboat, plates and plates of meat, salad, vegetables and soup to cook the whole lot in, enough for 2 people as a main.  When the waiter realised we didn’t want it, he was mortified and so upset so what do you do, eat it.  We rolled out of that place, we highly recommend it but make sure the waiters repeat your order back to you.

24 December

Halong Bay Cruise, pick up at eight and down to Halong Bay where we met Mr T who escorted us onto our ship. The drive down was marginally better than the last drive we took for a cruise, this guy could at least work out the difference between break and accelerator and not jump between them every couple of seconds.  Arrived in the town of Halong Bay and with precision timing were shepherded onto our beautiful Junk called the Marguerite.  Halong Bay is about 1500km2 area and consists of more than 2000 limestone karsts, limestone bits sticking straight out of the ocean.  The name Halong Bay means descending dragon because unlike some claim, the bay was made by a giant dragon plunged into the Bay of Tonkin and created islands with his thrashing tail.  The first place we went was the Cave of Awe (Hang Sung Sot), it’s a 100 step climb into two huge cave/chamber type structure full of the most amazing rock formations which you walk through on a path about 500m long.  One rock formation looks a bit like a horse and a long sword and the story is that a saint came down to chase away the evil spirits and when he had done so he left behind his horse and sword as a deterrent.  After that we stopped on a small island with sandy beaches where you could wander along the beach or climb up for a great view, Colman and I climbed, it was steep and bits of it a bit dodgy.  Funny enough about half way up was a cage full of monkeys that you could feed and photograph, poor things. We came down at sunset for drinks overlooking the bay and then back to the boat for cocktail hour and then a most magnificent banquet, local food, European Christmas treats, a Christmas tree and even a very well-tanned Father Christmas turned up.  The food looked brilliant and tasted as good, Christmas presents was champagne and a free cocktail for everyone.

25 December

Everyone split into different groups and as we were the only ones on a 3 day cruise today we picked up a couple and their child from another boat and went to check out some sights further afield. First we went to the Dark cave and Light Cave area, photogenic rock formations where you could take hundreds of photos, some of the islands had collapsed in the middle and at low tide you could get into them by small boat, again great photos.  Tried my hand at rowing one of these boats and managed to do a couple of circles before almost crashing into rocks, Colman took over and of course he did fine, even the 5 year old child who was the daughter of the boat rower did better than me.  Colman and I got into some Kayaks and paddled to a little secluded island, strolled around a bit, stuck our toes into the water and shortly after about 10 tourists arrived, oh well, we had our 10 minutes.  Back to boat, more happy hour and another spectacular meal and chatting to some of the people we had met, including one amazing French woman who had recently moved to Hanoi.  She had quit her job in France, sold everything and came here to work a couple of days a week and spend the rest of her time either doing volunteer work or travelling, sounds like she was very well of and enjoying it all.

26 December

Heading back via the Wooden Bar Cave which has the remnants of sharp wooden columns that were built under the water in the 13^th century to sink the Mongolian invaders, the stakes are now above the water line- damn global warming.  We saw Frog or Con Coc Island which got its name when after a long draught a frog got all the animals together to protest to god about the draught and demanded rain.  So now (apparently) god has to accept the frog as his uncle and whenever the frog grinds his teeth the god has to pour water to the ground.  I love these stories.  After that to a very commercialised pearl farm where they have trained people who pries open the oyster very gently, make a cut in the flesh and insert a small artificial seed, around which a pearl will form.  They are then put into special cages and kept in huge farms until they are done.  I got to pick an oyster out of a barrel and was lucky enough to get one that had a pearl in it, everyone was very excited including the owner and our guide, I was too until I realised I couldn’t keep the pearl! Next we passed the Cua Van floating village made famous (again) by the Top Gear team who filmed one of their shows here, apparently one of the first things they built as a floating bar, priorities!  Back to the port where we had a bit of to-do with paying the bill, then back to Hanoi where we had a few problems with the bank, then to our hotel, which was again perfect.  The staff were great and so helpful, I had lost a necklace in the resort at Hue and they had found it the day after we left, the staff here managed to get it sent down by courier, can’t thank them enough!

27 December

Slept in, got a taxi to take us to West Lake and convinced everyone we needed to visit one more pagoda, to everyone’s delight it was closed, walked around the lake a bit, coffee and taxi back to hotel to get ready for tomorrow.  Then we decided to take a Cyclo to the Metropole hotel (Sofitel) for a drink, it was opened in 1901, Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin, Michael Caine and Putin, as well as Brad Pit had all stayed there in its time and lots of memorabilia to be seen, well worth it.  They also had a great Christmas shop around the corner, looked like a huge gingerbread house, it must have been a good time for weddings because everywhere you looked there were brides and grooms having their photos taken with the gingerbread house, and frequently us, in the background.  We were going to have dinner there but the food didn’t appeal, so after a drink and a spot of shopping we headed back into the old town and had dinner at 69 Restaurant, and the food was great. After that it was the Water Puppet show, a show with traditional music in the background performed by a little band, while the stage was in fact a pool in which puppets acted out 14 different tales of local legends.  The puppeteers did the whole 60 minute show standing in hip deep water. It was fine, but once was enough, especially the music, definitely and acquired taste.

LAOS

28 December

Leisurely trip to the airport where Mutti leaves and we head off to Laos, we had changed our mind about going overland as a local had told us the route we had planned was also the major route of the Golden Triangle drug cartel.  Flight and a bit longer in Luang Prabang sounded fine, had booked into the Mekong Charm Hotel with a balcony overlooking the Mekong.  Arrive in Laos, very efficient taxi service, no haggling or touting, line up there, get a ticket, line up there get a taxi, all people going in similar directions will share the taxi, the end. Luang Prabang has been around since 8000BC and the entire old town is Unesco Heritage listed, it was named after the golden Buddha image, Prabang, can’t work out where the Luang comes in.  We were dropped off at our hotel where we met Tayko our host, a no nonsense woman who was organised and in control, our room did have a lovely little balcony, unfortunately it was freezing so no sitting out there.  We then discovered that the room did not have a heater, no point its usually hot here, and the bed was hard, not firm, hard, as were the chairs and the floor, all made of Teak and solid. Right, off we went to the night market which is on every day from dusk till 10pm, where all the usual tourist stuff is for sale, some lovely things too but pure tourist heaven, I bought a pair of slippers.  Then went for dinner where we met Dan, got along great and had a good night, decided to catch-up again the following day for dinner. Home to our damn hard bed.

29 December

Late breakfast at the hotel and then to checked out some of the Wats via the backstreets, we stumbled on Temple of the Golden City or Wat Xieng Thong built in 1560 via the back door (so to speak) through one of the side street, the ticket collectors were not happy when she saw as and yelled across the square about having to pay.  It took us a second to work out where we were and then happily paid, it was worth it.  Saw the Buddha’s boat shed, his garage and his bathtub, as well as other assorted stuff with monks in their traditional orange robes everywhere.  Continued on our rambles and ended up having coffee at Salt & Pepper, after which we bumped into Dan and organised to meet for dinner.  Found a place for a Laos massage, on the floor with your head tilted to the side and the two girls not overly interested didn’t enjoy it at all but we did hear the monks to their thing with drums and cymbals outside.  We asked what it was about and this happens for two days every full moon and new moon, so tomorrow we were going to check it out.  After that we walked down to Bar district along the Nam Khan before checking out the Night market again.  Dinner with Dan at Tamarind restaurant on a balcony overlooking the main street, the food was great but again they have no concept of entre or mains, so the salad came out, then the sticky rice, then various chicken and fish dishes followed by the spring rolls. But a good night was had.

30 December

Coffee at Joma Café and then went for a climb up Phou Si Hill, all 328 steps and checked out Wat Chon Si on top of the hill.  We also bought and released a couple of little birds meant to bring you luck. These two guys were squashed into a tiny little homemade bamboo cage no larger than a beer can and were delighted to be freed, probably like homing pigeons going back to their owners to be caged for the next lot of luck hunters.  The locals do it too, so we didn’t feel too touristy.  Had our lunch at La Bretagne and then checked out some more side streets and found a coffee shop opposite Wat Sirimoungkhun Sayaram.  Watched the monks do a musical celebration in honour of the full moon, great beat and it really gets into your system, found myself dancing along to it, great exercise beating those drums too. Quiet dinner.

31 December

Spent the day relaxing and just taking in the scenery, we had booked New Year dinner at The Terrace, overlooking Nam Khan River, $30pp for canapé and all you could drink till 9pm.  A nice way to spend an evening, we got there a little early so we got a coal brassier to ourselves, which we later shared with another couple we got to talking to.  The music consisted of a duet singing and playing guitar, they were excellent, you could pick every song they sand but no words ever matched the English lyrics, very funny.  After the meal we walked down Main Street and left off lantern to float away in the night sky with some memories written on the side of the lanterns, after we headed down to the Bar district.  We checked Lao Lao, a reggae bar owned by a Canadian where we also watched some local break dancers, then to Utopia, a huge outdoor bar overlooking the Nam Khan full of really drunk, stoned or both, tourists. Full, noisy and cold, back into main area, drink at Lao Lao and then across to Lao Garden for the countdown, which I believe we missed by about 1 minute. Got talking to a lovely couple from Belgium. And watched lunatics let of lanterns and firecrackers which got stuck in the canopies of trees and power lines.  They had lifted the curfew for tonight so everyone was allowed to party till late, which everyone did.

01 January 2014

Managed to get a little sleep in and then headed off for a walk across the bamboo bridge over the Nam Kham.  The bridge is erected only during the dry season and then removed in the wet so it doesn't get washed away during heavy rains which flood the river.  We wandered about aimlessly and basically spent the first day of the New Year getting lost.  The great thing is you come across stuff you wouldn’t normally see, the real countryside, many shops were closed but the ones we pocked about in were not designed for tourist. This place loves kitsch; everything is shiny, glossy, full of diamantes or fur covered, we did come across a couple of interesting things.  A temple dedicated to Vipassana where we saw what seemed like the original version of the 3 monkeys, deaf, dumb and blind with descriptions of what they mean in the funniest English.  The tomb of the founder of Vipassana who was originally from Myanmar was also buried there, I love these coincidences.  Checked out another couple of Wats and also the Souphamouvong monument, a statue of the aforementioned prime minster of LP and eventually crossed back via the Old Bridge. Dodgy at best, rusted steel supports covered with bits of planks, you wouldn’t want to look to closely and I would definitely not want to be on it when one of the overladen trucks goes rumbling across it. Headed back to our hotel checking out the Belgium beer cafe on the way, where we had a very tasty hot chocolate that appeared to be made with real milk.  Talked to the owner who told us they brought the chocolate into the country in their suitcases, otherwise it would just disappear at customs.  Decided to go back there again for dinner but thought we would check out the Hive first, a pub, restaurant where they have a tradition ethnic fashion show very night. And how interesting it was, as we walked in a local woman started waving at us and asking us to come and join her and her partner/boss/boyfriend for drinks, and that is how we met Huyn and Graham.  I sat with Huyn and Colman sat down next to Graham, drinks were order and we both ended up having great chats with them, more drinks, then we ordered dinner there and then the fashion show started.  Now here it got a bit weird, as the girls came out on stage beautifully dressed in their ethnic costumes parading to great music, Huyn started to talk very loud.  She explained what group the clothing were from, how many people in that group, the languages, so far so good.  Then she started to talk louder and louder, each time saying “This is my ethnic minority”, “I come from that group”, on and on it went going up steadily in decibels.  Between all this she told me she was a teacher, a policewoman, a bodyguard, a few other jobs I have forgotten and also private security for Graham, her boss, well boyfriend, well she sleeps with him anyway.  By this stage I was feeling a little uncomfortable and glancing over at Colman his eyebrows were half way up his head and Graham was looking a bit titchy too.  Finally the fashion show was over, followed by some local break-dancer, we had seen them the night before at another bar and they were good.  Music starts, out come about 7 boys and start dancing.  I tried to get Huyn to stop talking so I could watch these guys, Colman and graham had also turned around and were watching them, and that is where it came undone.  Hyun noticed we were all watching the boys, well she went ballistic, not so much at us but at Graham.  The language coming out of her is unprintable, she was calling Graham a gay homosexual, homosexuality is not allowed in Laos and she is in the police and she will have him thrown out of the country.  It went on and on getting worse and worse, the funny thing was that what she was saying was probably true about getting kicked out of the country, so graham really didn’t react at all, just tried to talk her down, unsuccessfully.  At some point I had enough, excused myself and said I was going to sit elsewhere, so of I trotted, bought myself a drink at the bar and sat as far away as I possibly could from that table.  A guy, who turned out to be the manager, came over to ask me if I was alright, I explained the situation and he said he would keep an eye on it.  Next thing Colman turns up, I explained about the manager and Colman went over to explain to him that Huyn was getting violent and he had noticed a knife on the table, he thought it might be prudent to hide it under a chair, which he had done.  The manager thanked us and we decided we would head out before anything else happened. We made it home safely.  Now about the fashion show, there are 13 ethnic groups here with Khamu and Hmong being the major groups.  The Hive shows 100 different traditional garments from 160 different ethnic groups, some groups have only a couple of hundred members and there are 82 languages spoken.  T (the manager) employs uni students as the models and the pay gets them through Uni.  Women are responsible for all aspects of textile productions from growing the raw material to gathering and making the dyes and then weaving the fabric and making a garment. 

02 January

Up early for TamTamChoeng cooking class held at a local restaurant.  Our chef was very knowledgeable and explained everything first, then we went to the Phosi Market, which is the local market, chopped vegies, made decorations and then started to cook.  It was a fairly small group, 9 of us so we all got a go at cooking, unlike a previous class we had done in Cambodia we didn’t have individual stations with this one, we used the restaurant kitchen.  One funny story was that Jamie Oliver came to a class, one of the first things you do over a cup of tea was tell everyone what you did, well when it came to Jamie’s turn, the chef didn’t know him.  When Jamie said he was a chef, there was much talk about where, what and who, it took others in the class to explained to the chef that he was a TV star and relatively famous.  Apparently Jamie thought it was hysterical.  Which should have finished at 1 but ended at 2.30, but very interesting and a lot of fun, got some good recipes too.  Watched the sun go down over the Mekong, perched on a concrete wall at the ferry terminal, seems like it was a local thing to do, great views. Saw lots of boats with people living on them, coming home, having a little bath in the river, washing their clothes and starting to cook dinner.  No electricity, no running water and just a little single burner gas cooker, but it all seemed to work.  After we walked down to night markets and had dinner at LP’s Pizza joint, Colman was looking for comfort food.

03 January

Rather than take a tour we set of on a regular boat run to the Tam Ting caves, about an hour boat ride up the Mekong, after 10 minutes our boat broke down.  It was freezing cold and there we were perched on the water while our captain waited for someone to come past, so he could tell him when he got back to the city that he needed someone else to come up and rescue us.  Half an hour later we were back on the way, with our first stop at Bang Xang Hai or Whiskey village.  As you get off they hand you a small glass of rice whisky, tastes a bit like Schnapps, then we were invited to wander around the village where the woman do lots of weaving, some of the stuff was lovely but much of it was very similar.  Some of the stuff was very similar which made me wonder a bit, a few days later I saw heaps of tags that you usually see on Pashmina scarves lying on the ground around the night market, I wonder!  Back to the boat for the next leg up to the Tam Ting caves.  There are 2 different caves and you really need a flashlight, luckily we had ours so we could explore a little more.  The first cave wasn’t terribly large, it had a huge wooden water wheel at the front and love big bronze gates and inside there would have been over 2000 Buddha’s, all sizes, shapes and materials perched on the ledges and anywhere where there was a free space.  The French discovered it and I dare say there would have been more statues back then.  The cave was originally used by the king when he wanted to get away for meditation.  The second cave was also full but somewhat smaller but with some lovely views.  We got back at 2pm and decided on a quiet afternoon so took ourselves off to Utopia Bar for the afternoon.  During the day its designed for R&R, sofas, reclining chairs, mattresses thrown on the floor and cushions scattered everywhere.  We found a spot on a deck overlooking the Mekong, reclined on our mattresses ordered cocktails and that was us done until it was time for dinner, around a fire at the Belgium beer café.

04 January

Got up, finished packing and moved to Vila Senesouk opposite Wat Sene where they had the Alms or TakBat, the original accommodation I had booked because this was something I really wanted to see.  I had been warned by a girl we met at the cooking class that it was very touristy and I would probably not like it.  We had a room with a balcony overlooking the street where TakBat takes place, so I had planned to watch it from up there to start with and head down the next day to partake.  Today after moving we did a trek which included a visit to a Hmong village, and then trekking for about 2 hours to the Tad Kuang SI waterfall and then a car back.  It started off with a minivan trip to the start of the trek with 3 others, South Americans and seemed nice.  On the way we had an interesting conversation with the tour guide who told us all about these new, you beaut roads that were being built to upgrade the area we were heading into.  A new bridge to make traveling over the Mekong easier, wider and better roads to make getting into and out of the city to the airport easier and generally wide, bigger, better roads to get out into the surrounding areas.  All sponsored by the Chinese, how good are they!?!?  We casually asked if there were any minerals in the area, oh yeah there is a big bauxite mine just around the back here, owned by the Chinese, but that really had nothing to do with anything at all.  Oh, Ok.  After a short drive we arrived in a Hmong Village where they were celebrating King Chiang, a festival celebrating the harvest and the New Year.  It is also a time when matchmaking was done and many of the young girls were dressed up in the most beautiful costumes.  One of the games was that rows of girls stand opposite a row of boys and they toss a ball to each other, specifically to the one you fancy and hope the person on the other end catches it, much cuter than texting I think.  With the festival goes all sorts of other stuff, we saw a cock fight (unpleasant for me, C thought it was good), dancing and general merriment, it wasn’t done for the tourists so we were largely ignored allowing us to wander around and take photos, discreetly!  Then off we went on the trek, it was interesting but not what we expected, not much information was given and a couple of places most of us wanted to stop the guide wouldn’t have a bar of.  We spoke to him about his work and he gets about $30 a day for this 8 hours, he much prefers the bicycling tours where he gets about $90 a day, a small fortune around here.  We arrived at the top of the waterfalls, again we wanted to wander around the pools at the top but the guide took off leaving 3 of us to defy him and check it all out.  Which meant we had to make our way out of the area and try and find the group again further downstream, we managed!  Those brave enough to go for a swim went, we decided against it, but just wandered around taking photos, a most photogenic spot.  Speaking of photogenic, a local (we presumed) was doing the whole Lady Chatterley thing out in the middle of one of the pools on an island.  He the soap and the shampoo and was having a great old time in his skimpy swimmers, lathering up and scrubbing down, not bad looking so I sent Colman off to take more nature photos while I concentrated on getting some good ‘people’ shots of the area.  After all that excitement, back to the minivan and a very speedy drive back to town, didn’t even drop us off at the hotel, not a big drama as the walk is nice but just added to the ‘issues’ we had about this tour.  Dinner at the Tamarind, a lovely restaurant with excellent food, recommended by a couple of people we had met, and then to bed for a good night’s sleep – or so we thought!

05 January

We thought the bed at the previous place was hard, this bed was a little harder than a concrete slab but the good thing, a balcony overlooking the Giving of Alms.  Great I thought at the time of booking, and as they say ‘Hindsight is always a wonderful thing”, so this is how the morning progressed.  Monks get up early, and they are woken by a gong, banged several times at various intervals, we were in a hotel directly opposite the Wat.  The fun started at 4am, several ‘tomtomchengs’, enough to wake you up and wonder what the noise was, drift back to sleep till 4.15am, when we get a couple more ‘tomtomchengs’.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound, but not in the middle of the night, Colman can’t comment because he was busy snoring.  Anyway again I drift off to sleep, by this time the monks are awake and the ‘tomtomchengs’ start again as they are called to prayer.  Right, another bit of sleep as it was 4.45now, too early to get up, except now there was the sound of motorbikes outside, lots of them hanging around outside the hotel.  Right, I’m awake so I will sit myself with my blanket out on the balcony and watch the goings on, it was interesting and very disturbing.  The bikes I heard were the locals rocking up to lay out mats, little chairs, bowls, bags of food, each one had his or her little area where they set up.  This was pure commercialism, and it was pandemonium for about ½ hour, then they quietened down and the tour busses arrived.  Maybe 30 or more, each bus disgorging 20+ tourist who were shown to their little spot, handed a bag of food which they were told to drop into the monks bowl as they walked past.  Everywhere around LP are signs saying do not put stall bought or instant food into the bowl, fresh fruit, vegies, anything that is healthy and not meat as they have to eat everything that is put into their bowl (obviously within reason, but the meat they must eat).  On the same sign there is the request not to take photos; well we can all guess what next.  As the tourist settled, hovered, paced around waiting for the monks to show themselves, sellers were going around with souvenirs and all sorts, I got Colman up at this point as it was approaching 6am.  Then the monks started to come out of the Wats, they all wear orange robes of different shades, no shoes and carry a metal bowl into which the food is dropped.  As I said, the town requests no flash photography, do not stick your camera into the face of a monk for ‘just that shot’, do not stalk monks down the street, do not talk to them.  Sadly many tourist can’t read, think, show signs of intelligence or thought processes or even just have the most basic human courtesy that might be expected in this situation.  We had been warned about this being a sad and pathetic tourist circus, and it was, the monks were doing what they had always done and needed to do as part of their philosophy, the tourist were being ^&*%& (don’t want to write what I really think!!)  Anyway, once the majority of monks had passed by the tourist buses rolled up, the tourist piled on and 5 minutes later no evidence was left behind of what just happened.  We eventually got organised and headed off to Banetton patisserie for breakfast where we ran into T owner of Hive and his partner K.  Had a great time chatting, I asked if K knew any good places for massage in town as the one I had I didn’t like, turns out she is responsible for the spas in the Amantaka resorts which incidentally are all over the world.  After a bit of thinking we decided that would be our anniversary treat, so she organised for us to have a spa the following day.  Can’t wait!  After that we headed off to the Ethnology and fabric museum which is highly recommendable, then walked over other bamboo bridge and checked out another hotel which had a lovely back porch overlooking the Mekong River.  We crossed back via first bamboo bridge tried to find the duck restaurant which we had heard lots about, just some private guy that sells 50 cooked ducks twice a week at some point in time between 5 and 7 pm, if you’re lucky you get one, if not you don’t.  We weren’t so found another spot for dinner, another stint at the night market and home to our rock solid bed.

When we spoke with the owner in the shop it sounded great, but unfortunately that is not how it turned out. 

06 January

This morning we went down to take some discreet photos of the monks doing alms, I had a couple of altercations with assorted tourist who did the whole flash and stalk thing.  We then moved rooms as they had stuffed up our booking and now only had a cheaper room downstairs, without the balcony but at the back of the building, away from the Wats… yes!  Then head off to the patisserie for breakfast again, had a relaxing wander around the old town, sat and watched people and monks around the Royal Palace for ages, had a little look through Wat May and then headed back to the hotel for the pick up by private car for our afternoon treat at the spa at Amantaka.  Now this is how the other half lives, K had booked us in an hour early so we could enjoy a private spa prior to our massage; this is not what we were expecting however.  We got there, over a cup of ginger tea we talked about what we wanted and then we were escorted into the spa area.  We had an area to ourselves, exclusively, the size of a small house.  There were his and hers change rooms, showers and toilet then you came out into a marble hallway.  Left a sauna, right a steam room, a bit further down, left a huge multi shower-headed shower, right a plunge pool you walked into up to your neck and then walked out the other side.  In front of you was a massive marble spa, it was totally roman emperor Nero style.  I think I want to be rich in my next life.  The cheapest room here was $850 per night going up to $2500, sight!  I had the best massage ever and Colman agrees, it was absolutely exquisite, they knew exactly what they were doing and did it so well.  K later told us later that she gets the masseuse to give her a massage, when they do something wrong, she gets them to lay down on the table and makes them feel what was wrong, I want her job!.  This was followed by cocktail around the pool and then a leisurely walk back to our hotel via The Hive where we ran into T.  Decided on dinner at the Belgium Beer cafe where they had a huge outdoor heater, it was warm, yes!!  Talked to the owner before walked home via Ikon Bar, where contrary to advertisement they were not playing Tom Waits.  We stopped and had a Calvados at a bar in town and just made it home before curfew at 11.30. 

Interesting facts we learnt that day, like in Vietnam you have to pay $800 to become a government worker.  Recently teachers were asked to return to their profession with the promise of extra pay, they were going to get $300 a month. After 6 months of no pay, the pay was reduced to under $200 and if they leave they get nothing.  People "disappear" into caves which are on military land, if their family want to see them again they have to bring them food or else there is nothing to eat.  Someone we met told us of a friend who was asked by Chinese to help set up a business in Laos, when he had helped them and tried to help them do it right the military police turned up to take him to a lake on a dark night in a dark car.  They had words and the next day this guy left town with nothing but his passport and wallet.  NGO’s build schools, there is a big huha with international press of another school being sponsored, opened up with computers and lots of school books.  Within a month the building is taken over by town chiefs or someone important who needs a nice spot to live, the computers and books are sold and money distributed amongst the wealthy government officials.  Also cars are pre-order in specific colours because they know the NGOs will leave them behind and well, you might as well get the colour you want, thus all the official taxies in LP are the same colour.  Apparently it is easier to get money if you keep pleading third world poverty status, so although the people are stone cold poor, anyone involved in the government has money to burn.  Another story we heard was of a top paediatrician who had retired from his job in England and decided to come to Laos to help out this poor underdeveloped country.  He was operating on a woman when there was a power failure, he asked that the generator be turned on but was told that there was no diesel to run it, one of the officials had decided his car needed fuel more so than the hospital, the woman died as a result. He left went back to England and never came back.  Back to the room to find the bed in the previous room had been soft, the floor was looking appealing but didn’t look completely inviting so we left that one.

07 January

Again to the patisserie for breakfast then off to Elephant trekking for the day.  Picked up and driven to boat for a trip to Tad Se Falls, then hiked for about 2 hours to Elephant Sanctuary for a ride on My Son, a 2500 kg female elephant rescued from the loggers.  It was great and the places we went were very unspoilt, it took about 1 hour on the elephant; we also met a baby who had been rescued from the logger about a year ago.  What they do is try and get the mahout to grow up with the elephant so they get to know each other really well.  This baby elephant had a boy who was 9 years and who would be the official mahout when he left school, at the moment he just hung around the elephant, fed, watered, cleaned and played with him after school and weekends.  The mahout we had was so funny, he had massive discussions with My Son in his own language, I’m sure a couple of times My Son replied and the guy laughed at whatever she said! We came back, packed and went over to the Hive to meet K and T and watch the fashion show, in peace this time.  A lovely relaxing last night in LP, we even made it back in time for curfew, on the way back we bought a couple of Pain au Chocolate for breakfast and off to get no sleep on the hardest bed ever. 

08 January

Up at sparrow fart for flight to Bangkok where we had booked into day hotel with screaming kids, then onwards with more screaming kids to our flight to Sydney then Adelaide.