Travel Accounts; SEA 5
06-28
Today we’re scheduled to meet up with my darling stepmother, the brilliant Australian Officer responsible for several accomplishments of staggering genius.
The night bus from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap was one easily forgotten, it was comfortable and quick, no hiccups except for our arrival time. Instead of the scheduled 6:00am we arrived at 4:30am. The bus station was in the middle of NOT Siem Reap and we had to take a taxi to get to the hotel, all the while praying they’d let us into our room early.
The taxi driver took us through narrow alleyways and straight to the hotel, this would be, as we found out later, the only time that finding the hotel would be this easy. The good people of Landing Gold Villa helped us out a bunch. We had to wake up the hotel receptionist but he was SO good; he placed us in our rooms at 5:00am for a spot of sleep before we would explore the city. He would later allow us to checkout late as well, so all in all we were up 1 full day with no extra expense. Score!
As we’d already been to Siem Reap we knew where to go and were happy to meet up with Anne at her hotel, her hotel being the biggest resort in Siem Reap also helped navigation wise.
We found the wicked, in a good way, stepmother in the hotel lobby and after she had settled in we were on our way. We walked through pub street, had a few drinks and she took us to a very nice vegetarian restaurant. We had dinner and talked about going to Angkor Wat somewhere during the week. The goal was to get up real early to watch the sunrise over this ancient city. –we’ll see how that goes..-
06-29
Today Anne would take us to the FCC in Siem Reap, the place all the journalists used to go to in the old days when this was the only real nice place in Siem Reap. Nowadays it’s not hard to find a spot with the same level of sophistication as the FCC seeing as how Siem Reap is basically a theme park. We had some really great cocktails and met one of Anne’s colleagues, we had some dinner that was equally great, and not to mention well within a price range our backpacker wallets could never reach. Extremely content, as we usually are after being pampered with nice food, we went back to the hotel as the alarm would go off at 4:45 to head over to Angkor Wat.
06-30
4:45: Angkor WHY are we up so early? I struggled to get out of bed and into clothes in time to depart at the scheduled 5:00am. We were groggy, cursing our existence, but on route at 5:15.
As we were going we noticed that the sun was breaking over the trees already. I guess you can’t trust the Internet to tell you what time the sun rises, crap. We tried our best with the little energy we had, having had no time to break our fast, to get there as fast as the teeny tiny bikes would carry us. By the time we got to Angkor Wat the sun wasn’t fully up over the buildings but that legendary shot opportunity was gone nonetheless. We stopped for some pictures, coffee and scoffing at Chinese tourists doing all of the above times 1000.
We decided to try and get away from the mainstream tourism and cycled on through the vast jungle looking for temples.
The first one, I reckon, was the best. We parked the bikes and walked for 30 minutes up a hill, all the while getting some really impressive panoramic views of the jungle as well as Siem Reap. When we got to the top a couple of signs said that the temple itself was closed, I gestured at one of the builders with puppy eyes and the question mark face, asking if we were allowed up onto the stairs anyway, he nodded and up we went.
The views we got from the top were spectacular, we could see all the way over to the city and all around us. It also gave us a clear idea of how freaking HUGE this place is. All in all we would cover between 40 and 60km on these mankey bikes. I gotta say, all in all we were pretty tired from the cycling but it is SO worth it. The history just brims off the top of these temples and the sights are insanely beautiful.
We got back to the city by 10:30, just in time to bring back the bikes to the rental shop without having to pay for an extra day. We got back our passports that we put down as a deposit and tried to find a half decent place to have breakfast.
As it so happens we stumbled upon quite an excellent place to have breakfast. They had top-notch burgers, sandwiches, milkshakes, the works! And as if already it couldn’t get any better, they had excellent coffee! They made me a perfect flat white and sent me floating to a long overdue coffee high. We read on the menu that they had avocado on toast, as well as a ‘breakfast trifle’ consisting of granola, yoghurt, and fruit. I thought we must tell Anne about this place; maybe she’d like it.
As we had a severe case of wooden bum we went back to the hotel, took a swim and a little nap. In the afternoon we’d meet up with Anne again, she had made reservations at a restaurant and a cocktail course. She had sent me the directions by email to the restaurant and I took it upon myself to navigate us to it. Turns out; not easy to find the place, we ended up walking about 30 mins into the wrong direction through muddy alleyways. When we finally got there she said, “are you sure this is the right place?” –uhh yeah look this is the restaurant right here. “Restaurant? We’re meant to go to the cocktail place first!”
So there we were, right on time at the wrong place. We hurried and grabbed a taxi toward the cocktail place and arrived there a fashionable 15 minutes late. The course itself was pretty cool, learned about some Cambodian cocktails, which were basically variations on known cocktails with Cambodian spices added.
We felt bad about this but we decided not to trek all the way back to the restaurant where we started and just to have dinner at the cocktail place. There was a $13 BBQ special that we just couldn’t resist. We enjoyed some more drinks and had a really good time.
07-01
Today we’d say goodbye to our darling Steppie and we wanted to do something nice for her to thank her for the good times. We took her to that same breakfast restaurant we ate at yesterday. Even though they were out of soymilk she had a real good breakfast I think, she enjoyed some avocado on toast and we filled whatever appetite she had for coffee with good conversation, as best we could.
About an hour later we said our emotional goodbyes and watched her taxi fade into the busy streets of Siem Reap.
At night we were scheduled to take the night-bus to Ho Chi Minh City. To prepare for this arduous journey we thought it best to relax as much as possible for as long as we could. We arranged with the hotel that we could check out at 17:00 so we could leave our bags in the room and just hang by the pool. At around 19:00 we were picked up to go to the bus station. Now the bus ride itself would prove to be one of the worst ones yet.
We were all crowded into a minibus, this bus had enough seats to assign everyone their own, but it in no way could accommodate the body sized backpacks everyone was carrying. At the last stop we picked up two Cambodians who seemed to be in no rush at all. The pickup was already an hour later than we were told and we were worried we might miss the bus. After listening to them yack on with the hotel people for about 10 minutes I asked if they minded that we go along. They got really offended and said “you can just wait.” As I felt like they were holding up the entire party I responded in a ‘you’re not alone in this bus’ kind of way.
The weirdest thing happened after this.
They started complaining about me, and the other westerners, and the fact that the bus was late, in English. Right. Next. To us. The complaining started out quite mild with just the occasional ‘Fuckingk off’ thrown in there. We decided not to respond any further as the language seemed to piss them off even more. Some Australian guys there were not worried as there were 5 of us and only 1 of him, they just laughed and advised me not to go into it with this guy regardless.
When we got to the bus stop the bus was there, it looked mankey and broken down. Definitely not the ‘luxury VIP bus’ that we had booked, regardless this was the one we were taking.
As we still had to wait for about an hour before the bus was going to leave so we basically just stood there while this Cambodian couple was ramping each other up. At one point he appeared to be extremely violent, he kicked a couple of cardboard boxes and started yelling in our general direction. Now I really don’t know what they were talking about at the hotel but they seemed extremely aggravated over my interrupting them. In the words of the not great Dr. Phil: F-bombs were thrown and feelings were hurt. While this was going on, the girl in the couple videotaped the whole thing with her cameraphone. At one point she was even face-timing with a friend, occasionally pointing the phone at us. They acted as though we had thrown poo in their faces or something. It was really uncomfortable. I mean if someone is aggressive like that, and I know what I did or at least understand the situation I can respond accordingly. Now I was confused and at a total loss for words. I decided it’d be best to just let him rage on and hope they weren’t in the bunk opposite ours.
They were in the bunk opposite ours. The bunks had no curtains. This was going to be a long ride.
The travel agency had promised us that this would be a direct bus to Ho Chi Minh, a single stop in Phnom Penh, but no change of bus would be necessary. We stopped at Phnom Penh; it was light out, the driver opened the doors and started making us get off the bus. Guess we’re changing buses after all. Puck went over to the booking office while I collected our big bags from the luggage compartment. Before I knew it we were taking a tuk-tuk to the next bus.
07-02
It was about 6 in the morning and we were ready to have an extension to the already broken sleep. The bus we were on from there wasn’t even a hotel bus. Let alone a sleeper bus. It was just one of those ordinary ‘we’re going on a field trip’ buses. Not comfortable, not suitable for sleep, not cool.
The most annoying thing about the poor quality of what is given in contrast to what was promised, is that there is not a single person that is accepting responsibility. The buck doesn’t stop. You can complain to the bus service but they are just booked through an intermediary, you can complain to that intermediary but they’ll point at the bus company. When you complain to the bus company they’ll say that the tourist office sold you lies. The tourist office shifts blame on the bus service and the circle is complete. Not a good position to be in when you love placing blame, and confronting guilty parties. Like I do.
Anyway we got into Ho Chi Minh at around 14:00 in the afternoon, the hotel wasn’t too far from the bus stop in district 5, and we shared a taxi with some Argentineans so the cost of this taxi was fairly low.
In Ho Chi Minh, we had a bit of a walk about, checked out the neighborhood where we were staying and met up with our friend Evan, the Canadian we met in Koh Rong. He took us to this strange mall; it was just an old apartment building, made completely out of concrete and steel. But instead of apartments there were stores and small boutiques. Needless to say Puck had a blast and vowed to come back here someday later on in our stay to do the necessary shopping.
We had some dinner and local beers and called it a night.
07-03
Well,.. this hotel doesn’t include breakfast, so we’re forced to go and explore. We got up quite early because we were going to the Cu Chi tunnels today. We’re going to be picked up from the booking office, which was opposite a ‘breakfast-ish’ place, might as well take advantage. Against my better judgment I ordered a cheese baguette with ‘real Gouda’. This sweaty knock off cheese tasted nothing like Gouda and made me crave something that was actually what it’s supposed to. Coffee.
I walked around the block to find a genuine Italian coffee maker, ordered my particular taste in black gold and walked away smiling.
A small van arrived to pick us op and we were on our way, just 4 pick-ups away from heading to the tunnels. On the way there we were educated on the Vietnam war, or as they call it, the American war of aggression. It was very interesting to learn about the more intricate details surrounding this war. The most impressive feat being, total cooperation from almost the entire nation, to fight off their invader. We stopped at a lacquer workshop on the way there, operated solely by victims of Agent Orange. These poor souls were infected by this terrible stuff, and it left them deformed and handicapped. Regardless of their handicap, what they produced was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately it was beyond any price we could afford; otherwise we’d have left with some pretty pictures.
Half an hour later we arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels, our tour guide seemed very knowledgeable, we were also lucky enough to have found a guide who’s English is not only fluent but also very understandable. He seemed to really enjoy his job and made us laugh on several occasions. He explained gleefully how the Vietcong managed to outsmart the Americans on several occasions, displaying their craft of invisible warfare. He would end the explanation to yet another scheme with a Gollum like smile saying: “But the Americans, they didn’t know”, cracked me up every time. The tunnels themselves were as impressive as they were claustrophobia inducing, crawling was about the only mode of transport for us giants.
After the tunnels we had our first real bowl of Pho, I half expected it to be special but it’s just beef soup. You can add spices and herbs to taste, this is a cool feature as you decide how you want it to taste. Even though it seems real simple, we’ve had some terrible pho’s and some really great ones too. The great ones required very little taste-tweaking and the terrible ones were beyond saving. The price of a bowl varies as well as the size, but mostly it’s between 1 and 3 dollars for a serving, depending on what meat, and noodles you choose to add. We ended the night with a couple of drinks at a local bar and a bit of dessert at the dessert café. After this we said goodbye to Evan as he would spurt ahead of us, straight to Dalat, we wouldn’t be there for another week at least.
07-04
Because Puck hadn’t had the chance to do some shopping and I was behind on my stories, as usual, we went to that weird big concrete boutique ridden building. Puck would just drop be off at one of the coffee places and she would hop and shop around. I had literally just ordered and sat down for 5 minutes when Puck came into the shop. Apparently the boutiques were shut. There goes her ‘massive shopping spree’. We walked around Ho Chi Minh a bit more, looking for some markets to compensate her lack of shopping so far. We stopped at a little tourist office to buy an ‘open bus ticket’, this is basically a stack of pre-paid bus tickets. All the main stops are on there and depending on how many stops you want you pay either $40 or $50. We went with the only company that offered a stop at Ninh Binh, and took the 5 stop one.
At night we felt adventurous and tried some of the street food; chicken with fried rice and vegetables. Wasn’t bad, but to be sure we wouldn’t get sick we drank a can of coke with it.
We decided an early night would probably be best, we were taking an early bus to Mui Ne the next day.
07-05
So we didn’t really know what was on offer in Mui Ne but this was the first stop on our open bus ticket, so why not.
We got to Mui Ne right on schedule but as we had no clue as to where we were we decided not to take one of the many taxi’s that were on offer as usual, but to sit down for some food and WiFi. I took out my laptop, ate some fried rice, and booked a cheap little hotel not too far from the food place.
The hotel was actually really good, it offered motorbike rental, the rooms were clean, and it was just opposite like 4 different restaurants.
We took one of the motorbikes, a map, a liter of petrol, and off we were!
There’s not much to do in Mui Ne.
There’s some sand dunes, we saw a motorbike accident, and walked on the beach. EASILY could’ve done without this town.
07-06
Glad we decided not to spend another night at Mui Ne, the most polluted beachfront I’ve ever seen, we were ready to head onto Nha Trang.
Nha Trang offers two equally appealing pastimes; you can get lost hating the obvious nuisance, a swarm of Russians wherever you go, or you can chill at the beach or one of many excellent coffee shops. On the Internet we’d already researched the different diving schools so on the first day we dropped in at the Sailing Club, and booked Puck’s refresh course. She’d be occupied doing what she loved from 8:00 to 13:00, and I’d get to spend the morning roaming the streets, searching for a proper coffee hut, and just enjoy the quiet ‘me-time’.
07-07
Turned out the adapter to my laptop was broken so I had to go out and replace it. I found a couple of Apple dealers in Nha Trang, took me about 20 minutes to find them. By now I could navigate Nha Trang pretty well, having walked most of the streets. The main help was figuring out where the main roads connect, then you can basically walk anywhere without a map. This might not seem important, but walking with a map even near you, you get stalked and harassed that much more.
After successfully replacing my adapter with a new one I found a cool little coffee shop, explained what I wanted 3 times, got it, and set myself down for a good old writing spree. At about 1300 I picked up puck, we booked a second set of dives for her and I would come along for some snorkeling. We chilled out at the beach, watched some of the more obvious Russians do their thing, chuckled, then went back to the room for a quick shower.
We had dinner at the Sailing Club, this might’ve been a bit pricy seeing as it cost about $40, but it’s SO worth it. The food is really good and the view is just amazing. I had a pasta with shrimp AND bacon, there is literally nothing better. Puck had some type of risotto with chicken and mushrooms, was also pretty good, also the first time we got an entire chicken breast.
07-08
The alarm was set for 7:00, we had a full day booked with Diving and snorkeling, no time for a proper breakfast. We dropped the bags off at the new hotel, they told us to just drop them at the reception, no special room, we were a little hesitant but whatever, adventure time right?
Got to the pick-up spot right on time, or as it is in Southeast Asia; 15 minutes early. This gave us some time to grab a coffee, yay.
The minibus came, picked us up and dropped us at the boatyard, about 20 minutes away. Once on board we were instructed not to get onto the roof, and to wear life vests, at least until we’d gone around the corner, out of sight for the port monitors. As soon as we did everyone took off their vests, and listened to the instructions of our dive master.
At first I didn’t pay much attention to the people on board, there were two Spaniards, two Americans, another Dutch couple, two Chinese people and I think the two middle-aged late arrivals were French. This whole set up seemed very much like Noah’s Arc.
I think in retrospect I might’ve paid more attention to the two Americans as they turned out to be very cool, we later shared drinks and would even end up meeting them again in Hanoi.
The snorkeling was pretty cool, the visibility was between 6-12 meters which meant that when you get away from the rocks you can’t see the bottom anymore. I never realized how scary that could be; the swim from the rocks to the boat, about 500m, seemed to take forever. I decided to take the rest of the trip off and just read my book. Yeah you read that right. My book. It was the second book on this trip, third in the series written by Thomas Harris, Hannibal.
Puck came out of the water, the boat moved on, stopped at the second dive site, people jumped into the water, I stayed. This was actually when I properly met the Americans, Phelan came over to talk to me about the book, we ended up talking about the culinary aspect to the TV-series, I told him about the cow tongue my friend Lars and I prepared, to mimic a recipe of Dr. Lecter’s.
On the way back we had lunch, a chicken curry, though everything juicy tastes great when having been in salt water, this curry was especially good. Phelan, Puck, and me had a long conversation on the different countries in Asia and their Cultures, on the way back and when we arrived at the Sailing Club we decided we weren’t done with each other just yet. They showed us the way to another little restaurant, this one had a pool, apparently as long as you have some beers there, you’re welcome to use the pool. What a great way to end the trip; lounging at the pool, beer in hand, just talking about ludicrous American politics.
Around 17:00 we thought it was enough for a while and went back to the hotel to change, shower, and lie on the bed for about 30 minu- oh crap it’s already 18:00. We were supposed to be at the ‘Why Not bar’ in about 10 minutes so we’d better get going.
Instead of just having a couple of beers with the guys we just met, the night turned out pretty darn memorable. We had ordered some beers and some pizza to share, they came out, and before we knew it we were having a ball. Some lady came out to our table selling books, I’ve picked up this nasty habit to scan the books I come across to see if the 2nd book in the series, Silence of the Lambs, was amongst them. I don’t know what to tell you other than I really like these books. The book I wanted wasn’t there, but ‘Catch 22’ was, a solid recommendation by Dad, reinforced by the two Americans present. John had apparently bought books from this lady before so he worked out a good deal for me. He also bought us another book, ‘The Quiet American’. Phelan and John both scribbled a personal note to Puck and me inside the cover, I only read them weeks later (sorry guys), but was still moved. After Why Not we checked out this plastic chair establishment John had been raving about all night, wasn’t as good as his ravings promised, still pretty damn good.
We filled our bellies, and made our way to ‘Liberty Central’, a big extravagant hotel that had a rooftop bar. What a view! We overpaid for some cocktails and stretched out the evening, as well as our budget, to way beyond the time we had originally intended.
For some reason instead of following the saying; “You set a budget and you don’t budge” turns into: “You set a budget and you budge it” with Puck and me.
No regrets at all for either stretch mark, but we did have to get up really early the next day. At some stage during the night they had offered to accommodate us when we made it to Hanoi, both of them worked in the city as teachers, or John did and Phelan was going to be. So we exchanged contact details and kept in touch.
07-09
The hotel we were staying at offered a good price for the motorbike rental so we decided to drive up to Dalat ourselves. Though the bike appeared fine at first, calamity struck halfway up the mountains. While driving up a rather steep bit the engine stalled and died. I turned it round to face down and we rolled toward some Vietnamese road workers. I tried my best help-face as well as some rigorous gesturing and pointing but to no avail. They looked confused and didn’t help us at all. As a last ditch effort I tried starting the bike again, this time it worked. We just took it as a ‘oh problem fixed now’ and kept going.
We got to Dalat at about 14:00, plonked our wooden bums down at a ‘Lotteria’, had some lunch and tried to book a hotel. Booking.com helpfully told us that 85% of accommodations in Dalat were booked out. We later confirmed this by checking hotels and none of them had vacancy. The one place that did have vacancy was way more expensive than we had planned on, but for 23$ we could stay 2 nights and the hassle would be over. This ghastly place was IMPOSSIBLE to find, to this day I have NO clue as to where it is. We found the street fast enough but the numbering of buildings doesn’t make ANY sense here. Number 2/7 eluded us. Turns out we didn’t have to find it anyway, they sent us an email after confirming the booking that they couldn’t accommodate us after all. I angrily responded, they got short with me, I decided to deal with Booking.com instead.
Right now I’m in the process of getting a refund, as we had to redirect to another guesthouse, more expensive and 5km outside of the city centre. They will rue the day that they ever denied me lodging.
We had about as much trouble locating the picturesque little place called Pensee guesthouse, we got some help from locals and they took us there.
Though they had many rooms and the look of it was much like a hotel, it felt like we were just visiting relatives; the people were so friendly, and ever helpful. Tired from the drive we slept like babies in the comfort of the extra large double bed.