Coming out of the past...Cambodia

Photos of prisoners from Tuol Sleng prison...

The Royal Palace

Ice cream bun!!

Yesterday we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Upon crossing the border the change and poverty versus what we saw in Vietnam was immediately present. (Except for the bizarre concentration of large casinos just across the border...not sure who can afford to go there!). Our bus had to take a ferry to cross the Mekong, and there were children banging on the side of the bus asking for money. Taking a tuk-tuk out to the Killing Fields today, children ran beside, holding on to the side...also asking for money. They are also out trying to sell you books, and souvenirs. We've seen this before, but this is the worst. Even though Laos is supposed to be worse off, it was the one country where most of the kids were saying 'Hi' and waving, just because they were being friendly!!

Today was exhausting (emotionally & physically). We took a tuk-tuk out to the Killinf Fields where mass exterminations were performed by the Khmer Rouge - they have many of the skulls from the excavated graves on display in the memorial. It chills your bones. And if that's not enough to make you question humanity - the Tuol Sleng Prison (S-21) which was a former school converted into a prison would do it. Thousands of people were disgusting kept and butchered here...the cells remain in-tact, and just stepping inside them puts goosebumps on your skin. And yet, it was never a story told in History class. I feel very ignorant for not knowing about it until traveling here! The stories of SE Asia certainly don't paint a pretty history.

On a lighter note to end the afternoon, we visited the Royal Palace - large & beautiful (although with a wierd mix of gold and GREY? paint). Saw some friend spiders, crickets, and tiny birds for sale on the street. And ate ice cream on a sweet hot dog bun! ohhh, I love street food!

Here are some pictures..FINALLY!!

xoxo.

Motorcycle Diaries

After a quick one day visit in Natrang, where we cycled out to mud baths in the pouring rain! We headed for Dalat. I beautiful town at the top of the central highlands...up in the mountains it's so cold people were wearing toques? Yes, in Vietnam, in the middle of the summer. We were glad we finally didn't have sweat pouring out of our skin, and all of the locals were bundled up.

In Dalat we arranged a 3-day motorcycle 'tour' with 2 Easy Riders. Mom, I hope I didn't freak you out too much when I told you this!?!?

It turned out to be a fantastic (although a little wet) trip. We sped through the central highlands on the back of motorcycles seeing some BEAUTIFUL scenery!! We saw minority tribes, silk worms, waterfalls, the HO Chi Mihn Trail, and a diversity of the agirculture crops they grow here (rubber trees, coffee!!, pineapples, tapioca, pepper, rice-dry&wet, etc.). As we made our way from Dalat to Saigon, we would pull off to the side of the road every 1/2-1hour and our guides would tell us about the spot. It was a great way to see another side of Vietnam, which was way different from the North (yay!). There are so many stories to tell, which will have to wait until I get back with pictures...& videos! But I can now leave Vietnam with a good impression, and a couple good Easy Rider friends left behind.

Random story - we had stopped along the road yesterday for a rest. They have these fantastic road side 'cafes' where you can have some drinks/food & lay in hammocks! We were hanging out for a while when another two guys with their 'Easy Rider' guides pull in. We started chatting, and asked where each was from, and guess...one of the guys was from Penticton!! And knows Mike Harris (they studied together at OUC Penticton, his name's Aaron), craazzzy eh. AND, the other guy is from Calgary, but is half-cousins with the Bells (Sheena). AND, today at the Cu Chi tunnels (which, although already widdened for tourists, were incredibly narrow), we were waiting outside and a guys comes up to me and says, "you're from B.C." yes, "you're from Summerland" yes, "your brother's Jeremy Kwok!" WHAT!?!? And then he just walked away without telling me his name. I recognized his face from high school. But this world is WAY too small!

Now we're in Saigon, but hoping to head to Cambodia tomorrow to meet up with Natascha's friend who's been waiting for us for a couple days, oops!! The motorbikes could not be missed though!

xoxoxo.

Back to Vietnam

I seem to be having trouble accessing my blog here in Vietnam - they won't let me see my posts...always scamming me in some way (and always with a smile!!)

So we've made our way back to Vietnam after another full day of bus rides. But received a great bonus - one ten hour ride that we booked after spending the night at the bus station, was only with one other couple...i.e. five people on the bus and with AIR CONDITIONING!!! Serious luxury after taking a four hour local bus that started with 30 people, and finished with 75!! (And there's only seats for 30 - the bus just keeps picking up people from viliages along the side of the road)

We spent a couple nights in Hue where we visitied the former Demilitarized Zone and walked through the Vinh Moc tunnels (where 300 people lived during the war - incredible small!). The morning before we left, I biked with a Vietnamese-American girl we had met on the tour, to the ocean to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, the supposive 12 km to the beach, ended up being 20-25, so by the time we finally got there, the sun was already up! Nothing like biking at 4am though!!

After a beautiful train-ride along the ocean's cost, we arrived in Danang, where we took a taxi to Hoi An. Along the way we stopped at Blue Mountain - where they have Buddhas carved into large caves, very impressive! In Hoi An - it's the tailor capital. You can walk into any one of the hundreds, tell them what you want (jacket, dress, shoes, suit) and within a day they will have it made, cutsom for you!! I got two jackets (orange and white!) and one summer dress..I pick them up today, and we'll see!!

I've gotta run and pack-up, because check out time at our 'splurge' hotel (which is $10/night & had a pool and free buffet breakfast) ist in 20 minutes, and I'm not packed up at all...

Loves& misses to you all!!
xoxoxox.

Laos - relaxing, friendly, beautiful

Wow! As soon as our bus crossed the border into Loas, it was a completely different feeling. Beautiful green mountains enshrouded in mist - and roads that twist and turn so much that it takes 12 hours to cover 400 km.

Two days ago, Chanel had the crazy idea to rent mountain bikes to cylce out to the Guang Si waterfalls, a short 32 km outside of Luang Prabang! Ha, she's never cycled for then 5 in her life, brilliant! Poor Natascha gets to put up with my crazy antics...but we made it! There was one monsterous hill about 10 km in, which we walked our bikes up; but it was followed by a wonderous downhill ride!! The waterfalls were picturesque (I really will post pictures soon!!). When we finally found the designated swimming 'pools' and jumped in with four beautiful local Laos girls, who were the sweetest! We played tag, and jupmed off of the rocks...loads of fun even though we couldn't understand each other!! We took a tuk-tuk back to town, don't know if we could've ridden the whole way, and Natascha would probably have murdered me if I suggested it!! :D

Yesterday we took the morning bus through the Loas mountains again...fantastic...and landed ourselves in Vang Vieng - a small town with one main street that's remind you of an old-school version of Las Vegas! It's famous for the tubing you can do down the adjacent Nam Song river, once the rain lets up...we're headed out!!

In Vang Vieng they are famous for their 'Friends' re-runs. Yes, the tv show we all used to watch Thursday nights! Your can actually sit in restaurants/cafes and watch the DVD episodes all day!! I think we watched a good 6 yesterday, just lounging around drinking .50 mixed fruit shakes...mmmmmm.

Tomorrow we're set for another big series of bus rides to take us back to Vietnam (we are going very reluctantly, Laos has been fantastic!!). Here's to hoping central and southern Vietnam will leave a better impression on me than the North! Or I may just have to hop up back into Laos - I seriously recommend people to come here!! I wish I could post pictures right now...but I'm paying per minute, and it would take too long, haha.

Loves & Misses.
xoxo.

p.s. Happy Father's Day DADDY!!! :D

36 hours on a bus....

will take you away from the crazy motorbikes of Hanoi, through the beautiful mist-surrounded mountains of Laos, and into the UNESCO town of Luang Prabang. Despite many stories of horrible bus rides here from Vietnam, we made it, (sadly?) without any horror storeis - oh, except for being scammed, onces again in Hanoi, and having to 're-purchase' our bus ticket from the capital, Vientiane to LP! Another reason, I'm glad to leave there.
We arrived bright and early here at 6:30 am, found a place to stay for US$4! Grabbed some breakfast and then started exploring town. We walked around, and when we were walking by one of the many temples here, some young monks called us in. We went in and chatted to them for a while - they just wanted to practice their english! They even gave us some bananas!!
Anyway, now it's time for some quick research for the remainder for our month, before heading up the mountain to see th etemples and sunset.
Loves & misses,
Chanel :)

Case of the Mondays

We had another huge thunderstorm here last night, which actually woke me up (shows you how loud it must’ve been)! I got up early this morning, grandma style, to do some internet research on our pending bus ride to Laos…it’s impossibly hard to find out how much a trip should actually cost, it’s different every time through different agents, for different people! Bluddy ‘ell. We’ll decide tomorrow…’always out off today what you can do tomorrow.’

Today we trekked around the west-side of the city. Over to the Laos and Cambodian embassies to get visas (Laos only took 10 minutes for a pretty sticker!). Then it was over to the beautiful Temple of Literature stopping at a gorgeous little temple along the way. It had four layers and heights of gold statues behind the offerings…not listed in LP, and I think one of the most beautiful temples I have ever seen. The Van Mieu was very Chinese as it was dedicated to the study of Confusianism. It also had the added bonus of a student 50% student discount (i.e. 2,500d!!) After some street fried rice & freshly cut pineapples, totalling 26,00d less than US$2, we headed back to our hotel for a rest.

When we headed out again it was to search for bus prices to Laos, with little success of course. We shopped for some small daypacks, and I pissed off a lot of them when I offered $2-3 for a small knock off North Face, oops! Paid 3,00d to see a tourist pagoda in the middle of the lake, and was harassed by a tout wanting to sell leaves folded into grasshoppers - he took my hand and put the leaf in it and it took nearly 5 times for him to take it back. We have been very grateful with the ease of which touters are sloughed off here - a polite 'no' and they walk away (unlike other countries we've been to), but today, being Monday, had them harassing us all day. Motorcycle, tuk-tuk?, food...argh.

Well that's enough writing for one day, I'm bored and the rain's back - time for a Bia Hoi!

Vietnam - Halong Bay

After hours of searching around Hanoi for a 'good' deal on a 2 day trip to Halong Bay, we were just more confused. Many 'travel agencies' here copy names from reputable agents, which are no longer distinguishable, making life very confusing, as you don't know who to trust (Sihn Cafe, Sihn Cafe Travel, Sihn Travel, etc.). In the end, we still paid too much from our hotel, but it was a very nice trip. The islands of Halong Bay are breathtaking - they are just like the limestone mountains of Guiling/Yangshou!! We got to go swimming and kayaking around in the warm water (which is not at all refreshing when you just want a cold shower), see a cave and sleep on the boat. We also had a good time hanging out with the lot of Brit and Aussie backpackers on the boat with us.

When we arrived back in Ha Noi, we found out that our old Hotel was now full, and we couldn'd find another place that was as cheap or as nice...we complained (also about paying too much for the tour, which we had booked through them). After trying to show us to a few other close places which weren't as nice and charging more. They finally gave in, and took us to a 'friend's' hotel which is very nice, and are paying for the room! (We get to save us$8!!). And the room has a hair dryer and a real tub-shower!! We were extremely excited to see this. Although it's gushing rain outside, so the hair dryer won't be very helpful.

Now, we have a couple days in Ha Noi, unfotunately due to some poor planning our part - all of the museums are closed today (i.e. no embalmed Ho Chi Mihn can be seen). Hopefully we can get to them tomorrow morning and then set off on a ~30 hour bus ride to Laos (which is supposed to be horrible, yay).

Well it's back to research, one of the exhausting parts of traveling on a tight schedule & budget, but also exciting.

I would love to hear from anyone reading this - what/how are you doing??

Loves & misses.
Chúc ngú ngon (Good Night)

Vietnam - Hanoi

<-- Countryside of Vietnam

26 hours after leaving Hong Kong we arrived in Vietnam! It took a bit of work. We arrived in Guangzhou only to find out that the next train for Nanning didn't leave until 5pm the next day! (which would've meant a horrid 20 hour wait at that train station-some of you might now what it looks like, there's no seats!). Option 2-sleeper bus. Owing to a certain trip to China during the New Year, I was not too keen on this idea. Oh, and we also didn't have a map of the city or speak the language...how does one go by finding a bus station in this situation?? By drawing pictures and playing charades of course! Luckily it was very close, and they had a bus leaving in 5 minutes. AND, I can sooo thankfully say that this ride was 100% different from my previous experience. The bus 'attendant' handed out water and 'oat mixed congee' in a can! He even used a chinese/english dictionary on his phone to tell us when we were at the rest stop (w/ clean bathrooms!).
After a series of transportation transitions and negotiations, we have finally arrived in Hanoi. The countryside we saw driving here from the border was beautiful (reminded me of the Philippines). And now we've been searching for a tour to Halong Bay, which has been ridiculous, because many companies here steal the names of companies with good reps, subsequently, you have no idea what you're going to get, no matter what you pay! Let's hope it works out...
We're off to try to catch some of game 5 of the Cup finals which they're showing at a bar here!!
Over & out.
Loves & misses to everyone reading this!!
-Chanel