From the sublime to the shit in 24 hours...

Today would be the last day of our three day Angkor Wat experience and in a way, despite being by far the shortest trip, was in some respects the best. For this day we would be getting picked up at around 5am, meaning getting up ridiculously early. Getting into the tuk-tuk in the dark you could almost be back at home on a dark winters morning, on our way to work. Just without the tuk-tuks, although southsea is definitely missing them.

Arriving at Angkor wat we knew immediately that we were vastly under prepared. Surrounding by people with tripods, telephonic lenses and torches the sight of the two of us in vests and flip flops must have seemed a tad strange, if not expected...

As we walked over the large moat towards the temple entrance you began to get a sense of just how popular and busy this sacred place can get. Here, at five in the morning, stood literally hundreds of people all gathered around the pond adjacent to the temple jostling to take their perfect shot of this impressive sight. Thing is, much like any other arresting tourist sight, people take so long jockeying for that perfect snap that they miss the whole point of the experience. At one point a german woman, with typical german chivalry, stood about a centimetre away from our ears whilst she snapped away on a contraption that if pointed at the moon above us would possibly have seen Neil Armstrong's footprint.

In the end the wait was worth it as we were presented with a beautiful red sky indented by the silhouette of Angkor wat in front. We hung around for a while, trying to take it all in before heading back in the tuk-tuk to catch an hours sleep before our next adventure of the day, a cambodian cooking class!

Upon arriving, the pupils were split into three groups of five and told to follow our teacher into the adjacent Market to buy the produce for the days lesson. I picked fresh spring rolls (comprising rice paper, lettuce, snake beans, sweet basil, cucumber, carrots, beansprouts and prawns) and chicken amok (amok paste, carrots, onions, stock and coconut milk). Shell picked the deep fried pork spring rolls (that's her Scottish half) and Khmer curry. We had an awesome day here, the teacher was great and the choice of things to learn to cook was extraordinary. Unlike the cooking 'class' that we attended in bali this was a full on experience, really helping you to memorise these dishes for future use. Both shell and I were in our element and after two and a half months on the road was a welcome change to being cooked for, having the ability to be fully self-sufficient is something I don't ever want to take for granted...

After sitting down and both trying and failing to eat through the mountain of food in front of us we were on our way to sort our tickets for our mammoth journey north to Laos in the morning. We got a number of quotes from a fair few travel agents and in the end plumped for the most expensive as it was, apparently, both a direct bus and also VIP, meaning that we were 100% certain to at least have the obligatory air conditioning. Oh how wrong we would be.

Back at the hotel we spent the afternoon relaxing in our room as we had had a maximum of three hours sleep for the past few nights. During this time we found accommodation in pakse and, foolishly in hindsight, paid the total before we set off. I don't quite know why we did this, maybe due to it being a strange new country?

That night we only had a small bite in town before saying our last proper goodbyes to Cambodia before heading into Laos. Although we have only been here for 7 days, I don't think I have been to a place which dishes out the beautiful and the blatantly messed up in such equal quantities.

After only another three or four hours sleep we were up at 4am once again in preparation to be picked up at 5am. After waiting for an hour we were suddenly told to get into a big mercedes which then proceeded to take us all of twenty metres down the road, stopping next to a decrepit old bus and hauling our bags onboard. We thought this was quite normal, apart from the mercedes bit, as we have boarded other buses like this which have then taken us to another bigger bus, plus we had also paid extra money for a VIP bus! After being driven around siem reap by cambodia's answer to the chuckle brothers for an hour we were then on our way, without any sign of a change in bus.

After around three hours the lack of any a/c started to become a problem. Everyone on there, mainly brit's and a smattering of French, were driven insane both by the heat and also the idiot driver's use of the horn. It was as loud as one of those they use to start a race sometimes, in fact it was one of those! He also insisted on travelling the whole way, nine hours in the end, with door wide open! All so he could smoke, and throw foreigners off the bus when he wanted, probably.

Anyway, after passing a town called kampang cham which we thought was to be our place to change busses, we started to feel the opening pangs of anger. Eventually we stopped, nine hours later at a place called memot where were told to 'get off', in those words. He also said we would be changing buses although nothing 'resembling' a bus was anywhere to be found. After fifteen minutes or so an even smaller vehicle arrived (think people carrier) and started, no jokes here, to tie our luggage onto the back with small pieces of rope. To top our joy off the two guys who were given the task of taking us onwards looked about as suspicious as a couple of Khmer rouge soldiers left over to make westerners lives as miserable as possible. After remonstrating, quite loudly, with the first driver, I was from that point on, in their eyes anyway, group spokesman. As we set off it became completely apparent that these jokers were having the time of their lives transporting this car full of cattle, sorry tourists, on into Laos. Unfortunately for us they insisted on stopping every hour, for no apparent reason. In the end it became clear that they were taking their time for a more sinister reason. We all knew that the border closes at 5pm and although leaving at 5.30am had taken every opportunity to hold up our journey to make sure that when we got to stung treng, the closest town to the border, we would either have to stay in one of their hotels and leave the next day or, as on our case, kick up a massive fuss so that they make a couple of corrupt phone calls to get us over the border after hours, all with an added bribe of course. Thing is, even before I spoke to the 'border official' on the phone, passed from the bossman, another van (smaller again) had pulled up alongside. As if by magic we no longer had to stay in stung treng but could pay an extra 'charge' to the border officials and go over the border. After arriving at the border and doing the first dodgy officialities we were then told that the officials, this time on the Laos side, wanted an extra three dollars each. So after being scammed, conned and whittled down to angry westerners in an otherwise peaceful country we were then faced with the grim proposition of paying over $100 for two visa's that we knew over half of which would go in the back pocket of some official or another. Managing to organise another small bus to take us onwards into Laos we were then told that we wouldn't be going onwards to pakse and that we would have to stay in the village where we had stopped or get on a boat to go to Don Det, an island where four of the eight guys on the bus were heading. This was the last straw. I went beserk, along with a few other guys. I have not been that angry since I was an angry, naive teenager.

In the end the owner of the company, who had virtually been killed upon us learning of his position within the company, scampered away, throwing our bags off the bus in the process. This left us, along with two young American girls effectively stuck in the dark, in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. In the end we followed the other guys by paying yet more money for a boat to take us to don det, a place we could stay the night before carrying onto pakse in the morning. Although we now knew we had lost the money we paid for the hotel in pakse we managed to find a small bungalow which, for 2 pounds a night, wouldn't break the bank. Despite a couple of large cockroaches it wasn't too bad and we were thankful for a place we could finally lay our heads after a day that in anyone's eyes was sent straight from hell.

We had a good time in Cambodia but the corruption is mind-blowing, not just in our experience. If you are flying into siem reap, having a few days in Angkor before flying out again, I can think of few better places but to scratch below the surface, by travelling over land and you are faced with almost endless scams. Makes for a great experience though!

Anyway, tomorrow we go onto pakse then get straight on a night bus to take us all the way to Vientiane! A plane ride is most certainly on the horizon though.....

Much love, tommo xxxx

Being shocked in Phnom Penh....

After our two day jaunt down the mighty Mekong we arrived starving and tired into Phnom Penh and into our hotel room at the strangely named Velkommen Inn. After dumping our bags we were off out again to an Italian restaurant that we had spied earlier in the evening that according to some reviews, was as good, if not better than a restaurant actually in Italy. We ordered a stone baked pizza and a lasagne to share and also had our very first wine of the trip, more than 2 months in! I'd have to say that this was probably one of the best Italian meals we have ever had and made such a change to some of the more traditional meals we have had in our time in Asia so far. I know it was only pizza and lasagne but it was homemade and tasted as fresh as possible, especially on the hot and sticky streets of Phnom Penh! We also had chilled red wine for the first time too, not conventional by any means but tasted delicious! Think I may copy at home.

Anyway, rising the next morning we knew that today would be 1 part interesting to 2 parts depressing as we hopped on the tuk-tuk to take us to three destinations. A giant pagoda that represents the city's spritual past, the infamous high school-turned prison of death and torture, Tuol Sleng (otherwise known as S-21) and the truly horrific killing fields fifteen kms outside of town.

The Pagodas were a nice sight, surrounded by lush and manicured lawns but all around you could see the harsh reality of Cambodian poverty as children seemingly as young as three and four begged on the dirty floors. You see, you have to try to be cynical in these situations because if you let your emotions take over, and they really try hard to do so, you would want to give every bit of money and possession away that you possess. Unfortunately, common sense must prevail. On the one hand if you give to one child, sure enough you would have another fifty swarming around you expecting the same thing, you can also never know if the children are part of a syndicate, led by a boss overseeing his 'employees', which has been suggested by some. On the other, a small amount of money could go an incredibly long way to ensuring this child eats today, which reverbarates around your head as soon as you start to walk away.

From there we headed through the dusty streets to Tuol Sleng, a place I've been interested in seeing for a while due to learning about the Khmer Rouge's barbarity a few years ago. The place, converted from a high school in 1975 is appalling. In fact everything that we would see and experience over the next five hours would be truly horrific. All you can do is shake your head in misbelief at the fact that man has the capability to inflict these atrocities on his fellow man but also the fact that this was all so very recent. Not some medieval form of barbarism that you maybe visited on school trips as part of your history lessons but thirty years ago, about the time when people were mourning the death of Elvis or watching Jaws in the cinema. Unlike the Nazi's or Stalin's Soviet purges the Khmer Rouge perpatrated these murders in a very swift two year span which means, killing just short of two million people, men, women and incredibly thousands upon thousands of children in a matter of months.

I won't go into gory detail but if the prison opened your eyes to the barbarism that unfolded here then the killing fields completely underlined it. No one knows the true figures but these half dead people, some as young as nine, who had been tortured beyond comprehension were then blindfolded and packed into vans which shut on all sides, squeezed in until they couldn't move an inch. Once at the killing fields they would be marched one by one to mass graves where they would be executed in the most brutal way imaginable. In fact as bullets would be too expensive, the Khmer Rouge, much like the SS would find other, cheaper methods to execute in vast numbers. Most executors in fact would use blunt instruments or farming equipment. Imagine all of this whilst Communist propoganda music is blurted out of speakers to cover the screams and you can just imagine, maybe only slightly, what the last few moments would have felt like. This truly is a terrible place but one that has to be witnessed, much like Auschwitz, to both pay your respects and also to acknowledge that this must never happen again.

Once we had navigated the busy and very dusty roads back into town we needed cheering up so decided to make good use of the 1 dollar margherita's at a Mexican place round the corner! Just to add to the confusion and errr, fusion?, we ordered the Cambodian sharing platter and were amazed that the food was incredibly good. We ate chicken Amok, Khmer curry, Morning Glory and an assortment of other tit-bits. What made things even more surreal was that in this Mexican restaurant, eating Cambodian food, surrounded by Americans, Newport County were playing Shrewsbury in the FA cup on the big screen. Once again, you just have to pinch yourself to make sure this is all going on! What we did decide over dinner is that we would like to go to Mexico when we are in the States, so making good use of more free Wifi, we did some research and found some cheapish flights! Awesome!

So, the following day we would be off to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat! That night the noise was unbearable! If it wasn't for the fact that we both have amazing ear plugs I would have gone downstairs and started pointing wobbly fingers. Thing is, the hotel is above a pub, which in itself is on a very loud street full of perverse old Western men with suspiciously young Asian girls, not the nicest place! In fact. let's be honest here, you want to throw hot gravel and wasps at these old bastards....

So there we go, Phnom Penh was supposedly a mellow place full of colonial architecture. Although I think we saw it at it's busiest (they were celebrating a national festival) it wasn't the place I think we thought it was. Saying that, the people seem fantastic, a lot more open than in Vietnam but viciously poor. It is definitely the poorest place we have been to. Still, despite the chequered history, we had two fantastic days here, the tuk-tuks are mental!

I hope that wasn't too depressing, I'm re-reading it but I don't want to leave anything out though! I can only say that my words will never do the history side any justice and if you have some time to check out the websites dedicated to the carnage, you must. That is all.

Muchos love, Tommo xxxxx

Floating along the Mekong River.....

So the day finally arrived when we had to say goodbye to Vietnam. We've both become strangely attached and neither one of us know what to expect when we arrive in Cambodia. Instead of rushing there, we decided to take a 2 day leisurely boat tour along the Mekong River to take in the last of the very South of Vietnam, the Mekong Delta. It's a maze of waterways and floating villages so we were looking forward to checking it out.

Having been picked up by a cheerful tour guide, we climbed aboard the bus and settled down to a lengthy drive before arriving at a place called Cai Be, where we transferred onto a fairly large wooden boat. I'm still forgetting how much smaller the Vietnamese are and whacked my head on the entrance to the boat - a classic way to start! The guide was very concerned but told me, whilst pointing to my head 'your electronics will be fine its (the boat) only made out of bamboo'! That said, my head still hurt.

After popping some painkillers, I was able to take in the views from the boat. There were many houses on stilts lining the sides of the river, some of which looked in a pretty bad way due to the floods they have just had to endure. In the centre of the river, there was a cluster of boats which formed a floating market (much more organised than the 'floating shop' we came across in Halong Bay! It was mostly fruit and fish on sale, with smaller boats darting between the larger to collect their goods. Many people seemed to be taking it easy on the boats, lying in hammocks and watching the world (or rather tourists) float on by!

We carried on down the river until we came to a local factory I suppose, where they made popped rice and coconut candy. I'm still not entirely sure how the popped rice was made but it was quite a technical process of heating the rice with sugar, sieving it, then rolling it out before cutting it and leaving it to cool. We got to try some freshly made whilst it was still hot - it was suprisingly good so we got some from the shop to munch on for the rest of our journey. The coconut candy was pretty tasty too but got stuck in my teeth way to much for liking so I avoided any more! Tom was very adventurous for ten thirty in the morning and gave the 45% proof rice wine a try - it's not a wonder they call it 'happy juice'. Apparently they only serve it in small shot glasses as it would burn the insides of your nose - nice!!

We piled back onto the boat for an hour long journey along the river before stopping for lunch. It was pretty relaxing chugging along through a maze of waterways that at one point felt as though we were in a jungle. The engine did cut out half way through and was promptly dismantled and fixed in a bizarre sort of way. Turns out, the boat had hit the bottom of the river as the tide was changing, so half the people on the boat got shunted up to the front and pretty much had to sit on top of one another so that the boat could continue on its journey - very cozy! At least we managed to make it to lunch though.

Lunch was included in our tour but was a tiny portion of curry and rice. Fine if you weren't particularly hungry but as usual, we were both starving! Strangely, you could BUY plenty of extra food, including a pretty weird looking Elephant Ear fish, which is a delicacy in this part of the country. The women that eat this fish every day live to be a least 90 years old we were told. Sitting with a German couple at our table, we decided to give the elephant fish a try. It came in a special stand and we had our very own Vietnamese lady to create the rice paper rolls for us(see the pictures on flickr). Pretty tasty!

The boat continued along the river to a place called Vinh Long, where we had to change to a bus for the remainder of our journey to our overnight stop at a floating hotel - exciting! We stopped at a crocodile farm as our rest stop, very weird. They farm the crocodiles for both their meat and skin, both of which they sold here. There were hundreds of crocodiles and most of them were HUGE seriously obese if there is such a thing. They were all just lying there barely able to support their own body weight so there was not chance of them moving anywhere fast from what we saw. Not a great place to wander around but it made what was a pretty boring bus journey just a little bit more exciting.

The floating hotel was generally a bit of a let down. There was a mix up with the rooms, shards of plastic in our beef noodles and pretty scary staff to top it all off! We were both relieved to leave the next day and head off to the Cambodian border. Having upgraded ourselves to the fast boat tickets (I know, check us out!) we were looking forward to a fairly speedy 5 hour journey through both borders to Phnom Penh - oh how wrong we were!!

In actually fact, the first boat we travelling on was pretty speedy. Border control was not. Hardly suprising really when one of them is floating in the middle of the Mekong River! After an hour wait to clear the Vietnamese border, we climbed back onto the boat and quickly arrived at the Cambodian border (on dry land!). During the hottest part of the day, we waited for 2 hours whilst our visa applications were stamped and processed. Painful, considering how many border officials there were. There was some excitment though when a snake slithered across the path in front of us, making one of the Cambodian officials yelp and run away! We took that as a sign to get out of the way too!!

We switched boats after this and began a somewhat slower journey along the river but it gave us a good chance to check out the new country that we were in. Many houses lined the sides of the river and the damage caused by recent flooding was clear to see. Yet the people were so excited to see our boat go past and were stood on the sides of the river waving to us with huge smiles on their faces! So we spent the rest of our journey sat on the roof of our boat, soaking in the suns rays and waving - not bad really!

After such a long journey, we were grateful to roll into the passenger port in Phomn Penh. The city was celebrating a water festival so was jam packed with people and bikes everywhere! We seem to manage to find ourselves in the middle of crazy festivals wherever we go but thankfully it finishes tomorrow so we can explore the city properly.

Much love,
Shell xxxx

Saigon, will love you long time...

Arriving into Saigon several hours after leaving Mui Ne, you were presented almost immediately with the overopowering sense of being somewhere completely huge. Already, having spent the best part of two hours crawling through the endless city suburbs we were mentally prepared for what waited for us inside the city, but the hustle and bustle of the city just seemed to envelope around you. Bounding off the bus, we headed straight for our guesthouse and were greeted, yet again, by unbelievably friendly and warm hosts. For 18 dollars a night we were put in a nice room with a huge bed, but the hosts just went completely out of their way to make us feel at home. It's almost as if you were staying with your favourite aunty and uncle, the ones who let you eat chocolate digestives all day and torment the dog. If we were not looking forward to Saigoin initially, all worries seemed to disappear.

That night, after grabbing yet more noodle soup (pho), we headed out onto the main tourist drag and settled down on one of the small (very) plastic chairs and ordered a round of beers. After having our first real conversation about wedding guest lists (oh no!) we bumped into Derek and Yulia, the guys we had met in China over a month before. To be honest it was great to see familiar faces, even if we had met them on the trip. After Yulia went off to bed, Shell, Derek and myself carried on knocking back the cheap beers until the small hours. At some point during the night we even managed to bump into a guy wearing one of the famous 'Southsea Bronx' t-shirts, turns out their was a small group of guys who had studied at Portsmouth Uni! Although you are always going to bump into fellow Brits, we are indeed everywhere, this was slightly more surreal given were we were, and after many cheap beers, made us all pretty excited. We also managed to taste one of the many interesting snacks that are on offer from the multitude of different sellers, this time we opted for the dried squid. If you can imagine the worst smell you can possibly imagine, multiply that by infinity and you are somewhere close. The taste is, naturally, pretty foul.

We had planned to be up early the next morning in preperation to visit all of Saigon's inner-city attractions, unfortunately when we arrived back at the guesthouse at 2am, the doors were firmly locked and the lights were off. This meant shouting up to the old hotel owners to get them to come down and let us in. To be fair to them they were fine, but as they bolted the door back up and went to sleep we remembered that we had literally a mouth full of water left in the room. Both feeling very drunk, and massively dehydrated because of the high humidity, this wouldn't be the best preperation for an early start.

After eating a good breakfast in the morning, we headed towards the Notre Dame Cathedral, as the museums closed of lunch. Although not as charasmatic as it's Parisian counterpart, it still holds it own among the newly built skyscpaers. After stopping briefly for a much needed coffee, we headed towards the War Remnants Museum to learn everything there is to know about the famous American War, all gloriously provided in the finest Vietnamese propaganda four pounds can buy. In fairness, the museum leaves nothing out and every piece of history is retold in minute detail. Although in large part dedicated to the inhumane and illegal use of aggressive force by the States, arguably the best section was the story of the brave men and women of the press who risked life and limb to photograph and report the war in it's truest form. Some of the most evocative photo's of the 20th century were taken in Vietnam in the sixties and all were on show here. By far the most gruesome spectacle though was yet again the treatment of prisoners. Retelling thier stories in horiffic detail, you have to keep telling yourself that this will surely never happen whilst being constantly aware that these inhumane acts were purpotrated only 40 years ago. All in all a great museum but you leave wanting to cry for the state of mankind.

After treating ourselves to an amazing burger to cheer oursleves up we had an early night in preperation to be picked up by a tour that would be taking us to the Cu Chi Tunnels the following day. Waking up at six, we wandered outside and found a bakery that did 9p baguettes (warm ones) to settle our hunger for the 70km drive out the city. On the way we were astonished to be part of a bus group that was 100% British. It was an odd feeling to be behind two Essex boys constantly talking about the Thailand Full Moon Parties and a group at the back all complaining of being hungover in their grating home-counties slang.

Half way to the tunnels the bus stopped at a workshop run by the government that acts as an opportunity for people with special needs to work in full employment. Something which is very rare in Vietnam. Due to the devestating effects of 'Agent Orange' and other chemical defoliants used by the US in the war, many people have suffered horrific deformities as a result. Without the protection of a recognised welfare system behind them these people, in many cases, are completely alienated within society. This place then gives them something to do other than beg. You can't help but feel though that you are kind of being shown around on a government tour, you know, someth8ing which ignores the obvious corruption, the choking traffic and huge rich-poor divide and just focuses on the good things they are doing for the special people. You don't fool me Uncle Ho!

Anyway, the tunnels! They were Ok I suppose, the story is amazing. 250 kms of tunnels built under a large swathe of Vietnamese countryside that the Americans, with their vastly superior firepower, just couldn't defeat. Some of the tunnels are absolutely tiny and we at least got to travel for 5-10 minutes underground but it was, naturally, a claustrophobic nightmare. Overall, I guess the worst part was the guns. For 20-30,000 Dong per bullet you could fire anyone of an AK-47, M-16, Shotgun and a few others on an adjacent range. We just felt lost and did not understand why this had anything to with, you know, anything. It's as if people had come here not to hear the amazing story, but to tell their mates they had fired Rambo's gun.

Fortunately for us the day's highlight was meeting Toby and Helen. A couple from Manchester who were coming to the end of a three week holiday in Vietnam. After meeting them earlier in the day it felt as though we had a lot in common and spent the rest of the day with them, arranging to meet up later for food and maybe a beer a or two. Before we did we managed to film two massive rats chilling on the top of a coffee bar. They were as big as badgers! The rest of the night we spent with Toby and Helen, a fantastic couple of people who seemed to have so much in common with our lives. You kind of meet a lot of different people whilst travelling, I guess it's probably the highlight, with these guys though it was as if we had been hanging out with some of our best friends back home. Both of us hope that we can stay in touch and hopefully see them when we return for some Manchester action, it would be a shame if we didn't. In a way, I guess it's probably the worst thing about travelling too, the fact that you have to say goodbye far too quickly. I hate saying goodbyes.

Next stop, Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia and another different country. This means we have to say our farewells to Vietnam, a country we have fallen head over heels for. It has it's problems, some of them are pretty obvious but what it does have, it makes you crazy for more. The food and the people make this country and their work-ethic and determination to better themselves by getting their sleeves dirty has to be admired, in fact scrap that, it's what we should aspire to...