Lady, you need a tuk-tuk?

The day after our tour in Kanchanaburi was pretty chilled out, so nothing really to report. We checked out the nightlife that evening and got a free tuk-tuk ride from a guy who we met the day before. He was really into reggae and has it playing from his tuk-tuk. We went to a cute wee bookshop restaurant for dinner and met some nice people from Holland. I had ginger chicken and it was served with delicious, aromatic, blue rice.  They had board games so I taught Carol how to play speed scrabble.

Blue rice and my pick of beer so far - Chang

The next day we caught a ‘bus’ to Bangkok. It was the funniest trip ever and taught us a few lessons about public transportation in Southeast Asia! To start with it was what we call a mini-van. We looked in the door and it was what we’d consider full and we wondered how on earth the two of us and our packs would ever fit in. We were told to sit right down the back and our packs would go in the aisle. After accepting that and thinking at least we’d have a bit of leg room we picked up a guy from Holland and four others from Australia! By this stage all the non-Thai people on the bus were in hysterics when the driver threw a guitar down our way as well! I don’t think I’ve ever sat so close to a complete stranger in my life. What made the trip worse was the Thai pop music. It didn’t stop there because then the driver dropped down a wee TV so we could also watch the video – perfect. At the half way point we also discovered there was a baby on board and we could have sworn he was born on the bus!

Getting dropped of near Khao San Road wasn’t quite as manic as I was expecting. We’d booked our hostel so we just had to find it! It was a couple of streets away from Khao San Road with food stalls and markets right outside. Here I had the worst meal of the trip so far. We went to a touristy restaurant that also did a lot of Western food and I went for the vegetarian Phat Thai. It tasted like they’d added a tin of tomatoe sauce to the noodles – it was disgusting. Washed that down with a Chang and headed for the markets. They were amazing and I could have gone crazy, but am really conscious of the next three weeks with 20kg on my back and the move to the UK, so held back. Highlights were the bookstalls, clothes and street food. We did a bit of bar hopping that night and checked out a break dancing competition which was really cool. On our way home we got a gorgeous 30 minute massage which put us to sleep.

Us with the packs

Worst meal to date

Street food off Khao San Road, Bangkok

Break dancing comp

Bugs!

It was an early start to fly to Ho Chi Minh City to get on a bus to Chau Doc and then catch the boat to Phnom Penh. I’ll sum my experience of Ho Chi Minh City up like this: dirty, unpleasant, no one spoke English. It’s like they are complete tourist haters! The amount of taxi drivers that hassle you at the airport was mental – much worse then what we experienced in Thailand. After almost getting majorly ripped off by several taxi drivers we boarded a bus into the main part of the city where we had to get another bus to the bus station our Chau Doc bus was leaving from. We had no idea what time it went so were hoping it was pretty regular or we would make it in time. We made it with 30 minutes to spare. Again the ‘bus’ is actually a mini-van and there are two other tourists on it – also from Holland (we've met lots of Dutch people so far). These two really saved our bacon. By the time we got to Chau Doc it was dark and we hadn’t booked anywhere to stay. No one spoke English so we followed the Dutch couple and we all stayed at a hotel (rather flash for us backpackers, but after that hideous trip we totally deserved it).

View from outside our hotel. Chau Doc, Vietnam. 

The boat trip the next day was the highlight of the trip so far for me.  Seeing how people live on the river and how they fish was incredible. It was also very beautiful and what I imagined Vietnam to be like. After the Ho Chi Minh City experience this was a relief!

Some people fishing on the river

Lots of these houses on stilts along the river

I love Phnom Penh. After being hassled by tuk-tuk drivers getting off the boat, one very smooth driver showed us to a café where we could gather our thoughts and decide where to stay. Unless you’ve got something booked it’s very hard to get away from them because they offer you lots of different things and suggest places you can stay – very overwhelming, especially after the peaceful six-hour boat ride.  Our tuk-tuk driver took us to a central hotel and then drove us to the killing fields, Tuol Sleng Museum and to an orphanage. I can’t describe in words what being at the killing fields felt like. No one speaks and the silence is chilling. The museum on site was very informative and I don’t think the video in the theatre has been updated since the 1980s. Tuol Sleng Museum is inside Security Prison 21 (S-21) which was formerly a highschool. During the Khymer Rouge regime it was used to interrogate and torture people. It was made up of two different types of exihibits. There were thousands of photos of the faces of victims which was just horrific and made the whole thing much more real. The other rooms were empty apart from bed bases with different torture instruments on them and a single photo of someone being tortured on one wall - haunting.

The orphanage put a more positive spin on the day. We took a 50kg bag of rice for them that will sustain them for a few days. There were 17 children in total. They were all gorgeous and it was so hard saying goodbye. Two of them don’t have parents and the rest are there because their parents are very poor or are substance abusers. We hope to spend some more time with them on the way back to Vietnam. The orphanage has a blog which the director updates daily with photos and information about what the children are up to. They often have volunteers teaching English but no one can stay long so it’s hard for the children. The director is an orphan himself, and his wife and two children live at the orphanage (he is the one in the wheelchair in the photo below - it's a terrible photo). 

At the orphanage - terrible photo, sorry

As soon as we left the orphanage Arnie, our driver suggested he take us out for a few jugs of Angkor and some BBQ beef. We were a bit weary about going somewhere really local but we bit the bullet and did it! As we approached the restaurant I noticed two huge cows on spits – that was dinner. Arnie’s fried Ty joined us and then we jumped on the back of their motos and went to a club to dance. There was strict security (it was of course a Monday night!), about five people with torches checking bags and patting us down. My camera was taken out and I could collect it when we left, they were also very suspicious of my tampons and weren’t going to let me take them in. Then the woman came over and knew what they were and allowed it – it was very funny. After some boogying to Mary J Blige, Usher and Dr. Dre the guys dropped us back at our hotel, not before trying to sneak in another jug somewhere – I don’t think so!

Cambodian BBQ beef. Seems like their national dish - scrumcious

Out to dinner with very friendly tuk-tuk driver

We slept in on Tuesday as we were a tad under the weather after our first big night out. We grabbed some breakfast in the touristy part of the city and then planned our next leg – Siem Reap and the temples. There is free wifi everywhere - it’s awesome. Our bus to Siem Reap left at 12.45pm and for some reason everything takes a really long time in Cambodia and there are always several random stops letting people on, dropping people off and for eating. We must have got to the station later than other people because we missed out on having our packs stored and had to sit with them on one seat for the whole trip. What we were told was a three or four-hour bus ride ended up being seven gruelling hours. You really appreciate the air conditioning during the day but when the sun goes down it’s freezing and you can’t turn it off. We arrived in Siem Reap when it was dark and got a tuk tuk to our guesthouse. We had a feed at the guesthouse restaurant and turned in early to prepare for the temples.