Ok, so this regular blogging thing, whilst travelling, is proving to be trickier than I thought! I'm also still unable to upload any of my pictures, but for those of you on FB, you should be able to see some of the ones from my friends that I have been tagged in...
So, I'm going to give you some bullet points of what's happened so far, including highlights (and lowlights):
Weds 9th November - Drove from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (pronounced Per-nom Ping - we got great amusement from getting Randa to repeat this because we loved the way he said it!).Stopped at a silk farm along the way and saw some local girls at work - AMAZING stuff and so intricate.Was a little bit surreal as it's owned by and American guy named Bud.Haha! I purchased a scarf and went and thanked the girl who made it (she was like a little kid at Christmas when she saw her item had been bought!) and had a piccie taken with her. We also stopped at a little place which is renowned for selling fried crickets and tarantulas on the roadside -EEEWWWW!!! A few of the lads ate the tarantulas, I just tried a bit of the leg.It just tasted like fried stuff, but it made me gag a bit when I thought about what it was I was actually eating. Yuk.There was a huge bucket of live tarantulas under the fried ones too and Randa kindly decided to take one out and scare the living daylights out of me. On arrival in Phnom Penh we went on a tuk-tuk tour of the capital and took in the sights.It was a fab time to be there as it was their independence day (coincidental as this would have been a particular anniversary date for me, but I now I'm celebrating my independence through my travels!!).We stopped at a restuarant which overlooked the river and were treated to some amazing fireworks.Perfect night! LOVING the spring rolls here. Loving all of the food, to be perfectly honest!
Thursday 10th November - This morning we visited S21 and the Killing Fields, renowned places showing the horrendous atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge.Between 2-3 million people were killed in the space of 3 years, 8 months and 20 days, all in the name of Communism.It was a really tough morning and really took it out of me, and the others.I had a bit of a cry when we got to the end of the S21 tour and I met one of the two living survivors (7 people survived out of the 20,000 that were imprisoned there and tortured).He was miming everything that had been done to him as he couldn't speak English, and it broke my heart. It's unimaginable what humans will do to other humans, even their own people. If you've not heard of the Khmer Rouge regime or Pol Pot I strongly suggest reading up on it. In the afo we went for a look around the Royal Palace, did a bit of market shopping and haggling and had a cheapo full body massage. Unfortunately, by this point, I was PROPER sick and so took to my bed and dosed up on drugs in the hope I'd get better soon!!!
Friday 11th November - Nothing very excited happened this day thanks to the sickness bug I'd come down with. Ugh. We got a boat on the Mekong from Phnom Penh to Chau Doc and crossed the Vietnam border in the process. I changed $50 into Vietnamese dong and became a millionaire (20,000 dong to every dollar)!!! Then, got to the hotel and laid in bed suffering for the rest of the day ...
Saturday 12th November - Travelled from Chau Doc to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. We wtopped for lunch on the way and all commented on how much we missed Cambodia!! Feeling more human... We arrived in CRRRRAZY Saigon in the afo and got a cyclo tour of the city. It's really a city of contradictions. We went past the really posh area with 5 star hotels and designer stores like Chanel and Chloe, only to see a man a stones throw from Ralph Lauren crouching in the road and doing a poo. Gross. The traffic is mental - I can't believe I haven't seen any accidents as none of them seem to follow any road rules! It was the last night with my Cambodia intrepid group, so we went for dins and then to the Crazy Buffalo for drinks and dancing - Randa got particularly drunk (SE Asians tend to go red and get really bloodshot eyes when they drink!) so we had to take him back to the hotel. Bless 'im. We were also treated to a bit of a festival feel as there were hundreds of bikes out on the streets in massive groups beeping their horns and cheering, as Vietnam had just beat Brunei 8-0 in the football. So much fun, but sad to say good bye to the group!
Sunday 13th November - Made a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels with Amina - there are over 250km of tunnels from the time of the Vietnam war. The whole system is amazing and the techniques that the locals used to hide from and capture the Americans were ingenious. The yanks definitely underestimated the resilience of the Vietnamese people.I had a bit of a go a tunnel but you had to crouch all the way down and it was really stuffy, so I got out at the first opportunity I had! We had a hilarious guide at the tunnels who called himself Lionel Richie, and gave us a rendition of 'Hello' before we left.Classic moment, caught on my vid :-) To add to our historical discoveries particularly with regards to the wars in Vietnam, we headed to the War museum in Saigon. I was completley unprepared for what was there and I hadn't realised how devastating the war had been on so many levels, for the Vietnamese and for the Americans. Agent Orange (dioxin) was the biggest culprit and is still affecting people today as it has caused the children of those who were exposed to it to be born with all sorts of terrible deformities. It was very difficult to look at some of those pictures.There are also massive areas of countryside that were completely flattened by it and aerial shots show how the beautiful lansdscape was completely destroyed. Much like the Killing Fields and S21, this really zapped me of my energy. In the evening I met up with the rest of my group - Lucy (a Psychiatric Nurse from Perth), Rebecca (a Psychology student from Wellington) and Lukas (another traveller out for a few months from Belgium). Our guide's name is Y (pronounced 'ee' - going up at the end otherwise it has a different meaning if the tone goes down!) and she's fab. Very enthusiastic and very quick witted! We had to run out to find Nic, Debs and Sam as they got a bit lost trying to find the hotel, but we found them and headed out to dins with the group - delish, AGAIN!
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