Cambodia, Phnom Penh to Battambang

The journey over from Saigon was fine, the border crossing interesting, lots of money changing hands and going in back pockets. Thankfully we managed to avoid being scammed, $3 for a 'health check' was one of the scams on offer, but we were wise to the problem thanks to a warning from Sham.



How the Cambodian's can smile so much given their recent history is amazing. They are such a lovely people, very friendly and helpful. We stayed 3 nights in Phnom Penh and although we didn't do all the typical sights due to the heat and odd opening times, we did see a lot of the city. The buildings and roads are in a poor condition, you can see a lack of investment, all being well though they are moving forward. We had some really nice local food down by the water front, I had a chicken curry and Kate had a dish with Pork and coconut served with crispy rice.

It's a bit more expensive than Vietnam, but we are still able to save money to bring us back on budget. Days at the moment seem to be spent wandering round in the morning and then finding a cafe or bar to relax in the afternoon with a beer and a book. We then have an all important cold shower before heading out for the evening.

Mosquitos are a pest here, the hostel in Phnom Penh didn't have air con so the window had to be left open to keep the air coming in. I thought it would be wise to use my mozzie net for the first time since I carried it around the world. The first night was fine, we had those Raid burning coils in the room and no one seemed to get bitten, I had a dry cough which I just put down to the start of a cold. I thought it would be wise to use my net again the next night, but I found that I was having trouble breathing. After being awake for several hours with no sleep and a constant cough we came to the sleepy conclusion that something was amiss. I'd said to Kate that I found the chemical taste in the room some what annoying, but Kate said she couldn't taste anything. At about 3 o'clock in the morning we decided that the net, or the treatment of the net, was causing me breathing problems. Sure enough, as soon as I removed it I began to recover almost straight away. It was a Sea to Summit treated net which wasn't cheap and I'd be interested if anyone else had similar problems. Anyway, all better now.

We took a Tuk Tuk ride to the killing fields on the Saturday. The site served as the disposal point for many of the 'inmates' from the Phnom Penh prison S21. The are over 8000 people buried there in a number of mass graves. If you are of a weak constitution then I would suggest you sit down to continue reading...

People were brought to the site in trucks and for the most part 'disposed of' during the course of the day, or the next if it was a busy period. They were killed by a number of different means, some had their heads smashed in, some had their heads hacked with a garden hoe, some had their throats cut, some were shot, some poisoned. There was a tree which was used for the killing of young children, they would be held by the arms or legs and swung at the tree until their tiny bodies were lifeless. All manner of horror took place at this and 100's of other sites around the country. It is estimated that over 2 million people were killed from 1975 to 1979 by the Khmer Rouge. Some people starved to death whilst the then government sold rice to China in exchange for weapons. As the 'official' government of Cambodia (or Kampuchea as it was renamed) The UN allowed the Khmer Rouge to have a seat in the UN whilst all this was going on, nothing was done at the time by our glorious leaders to stop this, and almost no one has been prosecuted for this crime. Its quite unbelievable. I sure that many people have said this before, but crimes like this should never be allowed to happen again.

The Cambodians seem keen for people to see the evidence and have built a tower which contains the visible remains of over 8000 people, skulls, clothes and bones. As you walk around the site, you can see clothing and bones sticking out the ground. There's a school next door and it was play time, at first it was odd to hear the sounds of children running and having fun at break, but then it became more of a comfort, a sign that life was moving on.

The next stop was the prison, S21, where a lot of the intended victims for the killing fields were tortured before dispatch. It was a former school and consisted of 3 blocks, each with 3 floors. The classrooms had been converted into either cells or torture rooms. It was a sobering sight. There were pictures on display of hundreds of the victims, all ages, all backgrounds. Many of the victims were educated and therefore at odds with the proletarian aims of the new order, although a lot the leaders of the regime were all educated to a high level, universities in France for the most part. Some of the victims were even former members of the regime, caught out in the struggles for power or just victims of paranoia.

I'll leave my interpretation of this unpleasant period in history, I'm sure there are many more who understand these events better. I don't think I could ever fully understand why a human could treat another human so cruelly, but I know no one could ever justify it to me.

Taking up arms in Saigon

Our last city in Vietnam has been fun, we took a ride out to Cu Chi tunnels for an 'independent' take on the war in Vietnam. It was interesting as it was the site of years of resistance by pro Communist fighters who took to living under ground for more than 10 years. We got to have a crawl through the tunnels and I got to fire an M16 rifle, as used by the American forces.

Kate went down a fox hole created for individual safety, later she made tea in one of the bunkers.

It was very interesting and quite scary how much people suffered on both sides.

Hoi An Part 2

Some more pictures from Hoi An, note my new tailored suit, I like it and hopefully it it will be on its way home as I type.

Scuba diving in Nha Trang, Vietnam

Today we went scuba diving, this makes our grand total of dives to 13. We dived with a company called Rainbow diving and had a local guide called Duc. He stopped logging his dives when he reach 4000, so we have a long way to go before we get to that standard.

We did 1 dive at Debby Beach and 1 at Moray Beach. We have no photos from the dives as our camera doesn't have a housing, but we took some whilst snorkeling in between.

We saw Moray eels, Puffer fish, Barracudas, Cuttlefish Parrot fish, Angel fish, Wrasse and some of the other usual suspects. The eel was mean looking, reminded me of the thing that lives in the asteroid in Empire Strikes Back.

After the big old fat rain

We left Ha Long Bay on Sunday and arrived in Hoi An via Hue yesterday. Its been an interesting few days...

Electric Shock #1 Parts A, B, C and D
The showers on our island retreat in Cat Ba were interesting in that every time you touched the tap, you got an electric shock. Shock part A was the discovery shock, at first I thought I'd just twinged my elbow, but then shock part B proved that it was more than that. Shock C was for fun and shock D for pleasure... After that we thought it wise not to have anymore showers.

Electric Shock #2
After we got back to Hanoi from our trip we went to our hotel to dry off. We had a nice relaxing evening and an early night. When I used the switch on the cord to turn out the light there was this almighty blinding flash. The cord fell apart in my hands and I was left holding what remained. Thankfully I didn't receive any current, but my finger was covered in black soot.

The Great Escape
Picture a 1940's bridge in Germany, with a couple of German soldiers each armed with a bayonet, stabbing at a farmers hay truck checking for escaped POWs. That what it must of been like for the Cockroach hiding in Kate's Vermichelli. With each stab of her chop stick, he must have been sweating more and more until it just got too much and had to make a break for it. Dispite the shock of the situation for us, I managed to capture the roach in my chopsticks to show to the waitress. Kate has come along way from standing on a chair, screaming at the sight of the little buggers running round our room in Australia. She received a new serving of Vermin-chelli and carried on eating.

The night bus for little people
14 hours on the night bus was easier for Kate, hard for Tim. The bus is made up with about 40 bunk beds, each with the head of one person, resting over the legs of the one behind. The concept is fine, but the designers must have used the height of the average local man when deciding how much room to give. Kate as a result had loads, I on the other hand had none. Add to this the fact that Vietnam doesn't have roads, and that the bus driver needs to beep his horn constantly to prevent him from running people over. The best bit was when the bus drive started praying at the front of the bus for a safe journey, that really made me feel comfortable.

Hue, tally ho, Barf Barf!
When we arrived at Hue, I felt really rough, so we had an hour or so sleep before heading off to see the sights. As the day went on I began to feel worse and worse, until eventually, just after we went to bed in our shared dorm room at 8pm, I started to be ill from both ends. This went on every hour all night, much to the delight of me and the poor sods I was sharing a room with. The next day, Kate looked after me whilst we decided if I could make the 3 hour bus journey to Hoi An as planned. I plugged myself up on Imodium and we made a dash for the bus. In the end all was fine, we arrived in Hio An without trouble and a very nice place it is indeed.

All this makes Vietnam sound like a place worth missing, but it just adds to the fun. Vietnam is really nice, the people are lovely for the most part and it's extremely pretty. Looking out the bus as we drove through the country side was so interesting, with School kids dancing in the playground, water buffelo wandering in the rice fields, a chicken legging it across the road, little temples outside the villages to honour the village founder, miltary graveyards from the Vietnam war, tiny shops selling everything from sugar canes and fruit to car parts, all of the them held together with Bamboo, a shop selling coffins in all sizes (big and, unfortunately, very small)...

Its an amazing place and really worth a visit.

Back from Ha Long Bay

China catch-up

Believe it or not, but the Chinese government don't like you visiting some websites whilst within their country. The ones we couldn't access were Picasa, Facebook and our Blogger site. In fact you would do well to access any blog site. Here in Hong Kong its not quite the same, they have different rules which means we can update the blog a bit more. Above are a collection of pictures we couldn't post due to not being able to access the blog site.

Thanks for all the comments on the blog, there will be more to come once we can access them better. On Monday we fly to Vietnam, its a whole other country...