Hot Springs - Nha Trang

Just outside of Nha Trang was a hot springs and spa centre. It must have taken me and Rob about five seconds to decide to go! We thought we would go for the whole health experience and decided to hire bikes and cycle the 5km to the centre. I was very lucky on this occasion with my bike, as it had full working breaks, gears, a saddle that was firmly attached to the frame and tires without punctures. The same, however, could not be said for Rob, who sustained a double puncture shortly after setting off and ended up cycling the whole way there and back on the rims of his wheels! This did mean for once I led the ride while Rob worked hard to keep up!

The spa was wonderful. The centre not only had volcanic mineral water, but it had thermal mineral mud too. We opted for the package where we could experience both. Firstly we were led to a 2 person wooden tub, which was very much in the style of an old tin bath.

Our attendant turned on the tap and out poured this gooey, gloopy warm mud! It reminded me of melted chocolate but unfortunately didn't smell like that!! We climbed in so we were sat opposite one another and the attendant handed us a large wooden ladle and then scuttled off. We covered each other in mud for about half an hour - I particularly concentrated on pouring it over Rob's rather pink sunburnt head. Once showered, my skin felt wonderful, and Rob no longer resembled a fresh beetroot! Next it was to a set of open topped corridors of water jets, the idea was you stood in the corridors and the jets would blast you at different heights, it was especially nice on the lower back. After these we soaked in a heart shaped private pool of lovely warm water, before moving on to explore the rest of the complex.

There were maybe 4 or 5 large pools of varying temperatures (from 35 - 43C), one pool for the children with a fountain in the centre and then the rest for adults. Most of them had some kind of waterfall/ running water feature and one area was just a waterfall to stand under! It was already a hot day - 34Cish - and I found that I couldn't last anywhere as near as Rob in the various pools and was a coward when it came to the freezing cold jets you were supposed to subject yourself to between soakings, so I spent a lovely time instead lounging on the many deck chairs placed poolside.

We spent a full afternoon there, and then glowing, we jumped back on our bikes and cycled back to our hostel. It was a wonderful experience and my skin definitely appreciated the pampering! If I had been stressed I'm sure it would have been washed away too - hard life this travelling lark!!

Diving Take 2! - Vietnam

You have probably already seen the skewers of crocodile and ostrich that we had as part of our diving lunch but I thought I would finally fill you in on the rest of our time diving in Nha Trang.

Now proud owners of our PADI certificates we headed to the dive shops in the centre of town and settled on one which was actually run by Vietnamese divers, and booked 4 dives over a 2 day period. Brian and Roald also decided to join us for the first day and dive with us.

Early the next morning we jumped in a minibus to the docks and hopped on one of the many wooden boats, most of them were set up for day trips to the surrounding islands but ours had all the necessary diving equipment of course! We had an awesome dive master Phu, who was very experienced, and the first day dives were great. The difference in the water was very marked from our experience in Cambodia. Now we were in the South China sea instead of the Gulf of Thailand so the water was slightly cooler and definitely more salty, I only swallowed it once and made sure I would never do it again! The four of us dived with our dive master, and after losing Brian at the start temporarily due to a little confusion and some poor visibility we were on our way. We saw a lot of different life to our previous dives. We saw a lot more sea cucumbers and coral, but unfortunately the sea urchins were still very abundant too! Our dive master was obviously very knowledgeable on the area and the wildlife. He picked up one of the sea cucumbers and got it to stick to his hand so we could watch its muscles constrict. I got a real sense of its movement and it looked a lot more graceful than I expected. We observed an ugly and dangerous scorpionfish hiding in the rocks waiting for it's dinner to come by, and on our second dive of the day Rob got very excited after having spotted a pair of seahorses, although they turned out to be pipefish (these look like straightened out seahorses and weren't quite as rare!) and we had a very enjoyable encounter with a seal faced pufferfish who we chased around the coral for several minutes.

The second day proved to be just as wonderful as the first, although we were missing Roald and Brian no one else was assigned to our dive master so I think as a result we got a much more interesting and exciting exploration of the water. We were diving a small distance away from a little rocky island called the Madonna Island by the dive instructors. This was because the formation had to hills to it resembling Madonna's famous bra!

In this dive we went down to the lowest either of us had been - just over 19m - actually a little deeper than our certificate allows, but it was fantastic. On our way down Phu found some small stripy shrimps, so he got us to hold our hands out still on the rock. As I did this the little shrimps no bigger than a 10p piece climbed on to my finger nails and I could feel them tickling as they moved their little antenna around and nibbled my nails. It was explained when we got to the surface that they are little cleaning shrimps and they eat dead skin off fish, so they were giving my cuticles a clean!! We swum around and explored the sea bed for a little while, this time is was more difficult as there were a lot more rocky outcrops and coral to negotiate and I had to be very careful as I moved around so I wouldn't hit and damage anything. We then got to a point which must have been right under the island. We looked and in front of us was a cave, our dive master beckoned us inside. It was very small with a hole either side, so we swum in through one side and out the other. Inside though was beautiful. There was a large school of small yellow fish right above our heads and above that was the roof of the cave where you could see our air bubbles, which resembled mercury moving around. The whole experience was mesmerizing. I felt very lucky to have a dive instructor that trusted us so much on only our sixth dive to give us that experience. Can´t wait to dive again!!!!

Post-dive Partying

We also had two fantastic nights out in Nha Trang. It was sad when we realised this would definitely be the last time on this trip we would see Brian and Roald, our friends since we arrived in Laos, as our time restrains and routes were now taking us on completely different paths. So we had a couple of great nights out with them and a new found friend Nguyen who worked in the dive shop. The first night we spent playing Jenga and pool in one of the local bars. We actually managed to beat Jenga and made it so no more moves were possible. Brian was the most excited as he had never managed this, I am pleased that I could share the moment with him!

We also had another night where Nguyen took us to a local restaurant to show us some of the local cuisine. She translated the menu for us, much of the food was very unusual such as pig stomach, frog and wild pig. We got her to pick some of her favourites for us to try. We ended up with a frog dish, a venison dish, some spicy beef and a spicy fried rice. We also had these wonderful spring rolls with a delicious dipping sauce. It such a feast, it was so tasty and it was nice that there were no other tourists it felt very authentic. To add to the enjoyment a local guy turned up on a bicycle with a huge speaker balanced on the back - a very mobile karaoke system! We watched and listened in amusement as he sang for the diners then some of the locals did a turn! Later we headed to a few more bars, and ended the evening playing pool and drinking cocktails. It was a great evening and a fantastic way to end our time with two great friends that we may not see now for a while.

Po Nagar - Cham Tower - Nha Trang

Nha Trang is the main beach spot for the locals, and as a result has everything you would expect from a little touristy beach town, lots of tacky nic nac stores, bars and resturants. We stopped there for the diving but on doing a little research we also found out a few KM´s north of the city was a Cham Tower called Po Nagar.

Myself, Rob and Brian decided to hire bikes and cycle there to have a look. Although the traffic wa a little daunting at first, we soon got out of the main resort area and once we'd crossed a busy bridge we began to discover the less touristy and more local side to the town. This was far more what I expected the whole town to be like, and it was nice to discover. After just over half an hour of cycling in nice flat conditions we'd arrived.

The tower was very different from any of the temples we had seen before. It had 3 separate buildings, the first two having shrines just set back from the entrance that were easily viewed from the doorway. The whole place smelt of incense and gently playing in the background in another area of the gardens was some live traditional Vietnamese music. The whole place had a wonderful, very traquil atmosphere. We went to go into the final temple building and yet again I found myself inappropriately dressed! Thankfully just to one side of the entrance was a small wardrobe containing what looked to be hairdressing gowns. Although I looked ridiculous and Rob found it very amusing I popped one on and we went for a look round the temple. It was beautiful inside with an ornate shrine at one end. Covering the statue of the godess was many coloured cloths, offerings and everywhere there was more burning insence. It was quite crowded and there were many people praying and leaving flowers, but it still felt very calm. It was great inside but I must admit I wasn´t sad to leave and get rid of gown - not only did I look like I was about to perm someone but it was very hot too!!

Here's a little video of the shrine, I hope it gives you a good idea of the atmosphere I'm describing:


After viewing the towers we followed the sound of the music and watched some musicians play for a while. It was quite a haunting sound but added to the surroundings. The final thing of note to mention is as we were leaving we had a Chinese family stop us. I thought they were asking if I could take their photo - it actually turned out they wanted to take a photo of them with me in it! I oblieged and after the strange event was over Brian explained. He´d been in China for 3 months before we met him. It turns out that for the Chinese it is a big deal to have westerners in your photos. It makes them look more travelled and cultured when they get home! It happened a few times more throughout the trip, and although I understand a little more now it is still bizarre to think that I am directly part of a stranger's holiday snaps!

Cu Chi Tunnels and The War Remnants Museum

The Cu Chi tunnels are about 80km from Saigon, so we booked a bus tour to take us there. However before we reached the main attraction our tour diverted to a small set of workshops that made different types of traditional handmade Vietnamese crafts. What was particularly special about the workers in this factory though is that they were all disabled from the US Military use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. It was a complete tourist trap, but it did a small amount to prepare us for the awful things we would see and hear today.

The tunnels were a complex of networked chambers that the Viet Cong built to hide from and be able to continue the guerrilla tactics they employed against the US forces and their puppet South Vietnamese government. During our bus journey we were given a brief history of the conflict from our guide. His obvious pride of the resilience his countrymen showed was engaging, and I found myself warming to the Vietnamese point of view.

Once we arrived we were shown a quick film, and then our guide led us into the forest. The grounds were lightly covered in trees, and as you looked around you could see holes that were made by the many bombs that had been dropped in the area. Our guide set us a challenge. We were GIs and we had to find the entrance to the VC’s tunnel system – Go! We looked around us moving the dust and debris on the floor, until someone shouted that they thought they had it. We gathered round the area. What he found looked more like a ventilation hole to me! There was a little board no bigger than 20cm x 40cm. He had indeed found it! I couldn’t believe what I was looking at – it was so small, I had been looking for a trapdoor maybe four or five times bigger! Our guide called over a member of the museum staff who was dressed in typical green Viet Cong dress. He swiftly pulled the board up, lowered himself into the hole and placed the lid back on top. He got in and out with considerable ease. Rob had a go, he was very nearly too tall and had a few problems putting on the lid, but he managed it when many in the group couldn’t even fit in the hole! (Obviously pulling up a couple of floorboards and crawling around under the floor to lay a sky TV cable several months earlier had honed his tunnel rat skills!)

We then walked a little further and our guide talked about the various booby traps and tactics employed by the Viet Cong. Trip wires were a favourite method to send spiked metal objects swinging down from the trees, or to detonate a crude landmine. They would commonly use pits, covered by leaves or with revolving trap doors. These traps would often contain bamboo fashioned into spikes and smeared with urine and faeces to infect any wounds the unfortunate ‘trapee’ sustained. These methods were highly effective in slowing the enemy patrols down as they stopped to rescue their fallen comrades and keeping the wounded out of action for as long as possible.

Our guide explained that the Viet Cong were highly under equipped compared to the invading forces and often had to improvise with what they had around them. We were shown a mock up of a room where they would try and empty unexploded ordinance in order to try and retrieve and reuse their contents. Not the job I think I would have chosen!

After seeing some of the tactics above ground, we were told more about life underground. The Viet Cong’s first advantage was their size. The tunnels were made just barely big enough for people with an Asian stature. So if an entrance was discovered and a larger framed American tried to enter the tunnels he often got stuck, or was soon rendered so immobile he was quickly and easily killed. There was also a clever set of drainage points put into the tunnels which stopped the chambers being filled up with water in attempts to drown the occupants. Ventilation points and chimneys were made to look like termite hills, and after the enemy began using dogs to find these points in order to gas them, the Viet Cong would spray the aftershaves the US army used on the hills to confuse the dogs. Tunnel complexes were excavated on several levels so there were many options for the inhabitants to move around, fight, hide and seal off sections. There were areas to store food and water supplies, and the tunnel network was truly vast, allowing long term habitation totally underground when required. They were very ingenious indeed.

Next the bit we had all been waiting for, a crawl though a real tunnel to begin to get a feeling of what it must have been like. The tunnel was only 100m long, and had emergency escape points every 20m for those who became claustrophobic. 100m didn’t sound that daunting – until I entered the tunnel. This tunnel had actually been widened for tourists, but it was still so small that I had to crawl the entire way through. I felt much more anxious while doing this than I expected, movement and lighting was very limited, and what made my most uncomfortable was not really being able turn and see behind me, though there was always a sense of Rob on my heels! (I felt very grateful he didn’t at that moment decide to tickle me as there would have been very little I could have done about it!) We emerged after 100m (which felt more like five times that distance) and I was very relieved to have made it, and I was surprised to see that out of a group of about 25 of us only about a quarter of us had made it all the way through. It was then that I realised my sunglasses had dropped off my T-shirt at some point during my crawling! To my relief, Rob gallantly offered to crawl the gauntlet again, and after frightening another group of tourists by crawling the wrong way through the tunnels he emerged for a second time holding my unharmed sunglasses – result!

After the tunnels we stopped at a table and were offered the tea and tapioca that made up the Viet Cong wartime diet. It was bland, but not unpalatable. We were also shown mock ups of the many chambers that would have been connected by the system of tunnels. It was amazing to think that these troops lived entirely underground for months on end crawling through many Km’s of these small tunnels to achieve their aims. It is when you seen the amazing sacrifices and obvious resilience and resolution you see why they ended up demoralising and ultimately defeating the Americans.

The final part to this trip was a shooting gallery. If you wanted you could fire one of the weapons used by the US or Vietnamese during the war. Rob chose an AK 47, bought 10 bullets and we trotted down to the outside trench. A Vietnamese solider loaded the gun and instructed Rob how to fire it. We were given ear defenders, that, on closer inspection were just headphones with the cable cut off! So pushing this ‘protection’ as close to my ears as possible I watched Rob aim for one of oil drum targets. If you managed to hit a target you got a memento of the day. We don’t think he hit anything, the gun had definitely seen better days, and how accurately it was calibrated is anyone’s guess! The gun was very loud and looked to kick back relatively hard, however it was chained to the counter top, which probably stopped some of its reaction.

I had had a very educative and enjoyable morning, learning a lot about the Vietnamese side of the war, which I realised until this point had been lacking. All I knew about the Vietnam War was through watching the numerous Hollywood films! The guide had been very entertaining and informative and his message was simple – the North Vietnamese won because they were fighting for their country, lives and beliefs, which was more than could be said for US conscripts and soldiers on the payroll.

We headed back in the bus and were dropped off at the War Remnants Museum, a slightly catchier title than it’s former and less P.C. version: “The human rights violations and war crimes atrocities American and French forces committed in Vietnam”!

We were greeted outside the museum by many captured American tanks, planes and helicopters. It was, however, what was inside that shocked me greatly. Downstairs there were many shocking and graphic pictures of the Vietnamese War. There was no sense of censor and many of the photos were difficult to look at once you comprehended the atrocities portrayed. In addition there was a large exhibition focused on the environmental and anthropological devastation caused by Agent Orange. This exhibition was continued upstairs with a series of photos of children who have been born deformed or mentally disabled as a result of their parents being exposed to the chemical. All of these exhibitions were undoubtedly designed to shock, and make people acutely aware of the damage these chemicals caused.

The most compelling exhibition was a series of photographs and information on many famous war photographers. This dated from the 40’s right through to early 90’s and although mainly focused on Vietnam it covered other wars too. The pictures were fascinating and very moving, and Rob and I actually ended up returning the next day to do the photos justice by giving them the time and consideration they warranted, considering how many journalists lost their lives to provide the images. A wonderful aspect to the exhibition was the range of emotions the photos covered, covering all elements and aspects of human interaction and war.

The final part of the museum was a small complex just outside the main building. This had frightening echoes of S21 and the Killing Fields of Cambodia. It was dedicated to showing how the South Vietnamese imprisoned those from the North, and the hideous conditions and violent torture they had to endure once captured.

I found the museum very informative of the Vietnamese view of their War with America, but it was always important to remember that it was very biased in places. It did fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge however. Walking around the museum was very sombre experience and at times very moving, it did a very good job of highlighting the brutality and very human reactions and emotions to war.

Fine Arts Museum and Reunification Palace – Saigon

Fine Arts?

We hadn’t been to an art gallery for a little while by the time we got to Saigon so we thought this would be a nice opportunity. The building turned out to be more interesting that the actual art! The former school was light and airy with 3 floors and a series of internal balconies which looked out onto a small square central courtyard that created a wonderful sun trap. Just visible on the concrete floor was the painted remains of badminton court.

Downstairs were mainly paintings in many and varied medium. Most of them painted during, post and about the many wars the Vietnamese have endured. As we wandered through the old classrooms housing the exhibits, the museum felt more like its former self, as if we were attending a GCSE Art open day! We hastened upstairs where the gallery redeemed itself with some interesting sculpture, but I remember hoping this was not the extent of the ‘fine art’ in Vietnam and that we would find some better examples later on in the trip!!!

Reunification Palace

This site, although relatively modern, had a long and turbulent history in Vietnam’s past. The surviving building we went to see dated from the mid 20th Century. From the outside it looked it’s age – too heavy on concrete and straight lines for my liking! From above the building was designed in the shape of an old Vietnamese character for peace and strength.

Inside though the building was fantastic! It had a very modern decadence about it, and it felt incredibly kitsch. On the ground and first floor there were numerous conference, reception and guest rooms, all of which felt like they should of have been part of a set for a Bond film. There was even a small cinema all decked out with red velvet and gold silk banding! On a helicopter pad joined to the building was an old helicopter once used at the palace, and next to where it sat were still remaining marks from the last time the building was attacked at the end of the Vietnam War.

The best part of the building though was the basement, once down the stairs the lush interiors changed to cramped clinical cream coloured claustrophobic corridors (the C’s aren’t intentional I promise!!), with a rabbit warren of small offices leading from them. We had entered the war rooms. All dating from the 60’s and 70’s there were fantastically dated communication machines and maps. My favourite room was an old Formica desk with a series of bakelite cream and pink phones. We spent a good hour feeling like we were the men from U.N.C.L.E. as we wandered the many rooms and tried to work out what the machines did and what the function of each room was. After a quick look in the palace kitchens we left being thoroughly surprised by the whole experience – I had expected a palace like we had seen in Thailand or Cambodia – but I really enjoyed the whole experience nevertheless.

Welcome

Greetings first time reader! Here´s a quick post to explain what our blog is all about and hopefully ease your journey through our pages.

We set it up in early 2009 to document our round the world trip and put the best of our thousands of photos in one place for friends and family to see. Since starting out with good intentions to blog regularly, our travelling has often taken priority over publishing! You may notice that as we catch up on telling our stories the dates we publish them don't match the actual events, so here is a summary of our travels so far which I hope will help you make sense of the material:

Travel Itinerary 2009-2010

Thailand [May 6th]
Laos [June 6th]
Cambodia [June 19th]
Vietnam [July 5th]
China [July 26th]
Hong Kong [July 30th]
Japan [Aug 4th]
Hong Kong [Aug 13th]
Australia (Sydney) [Aug 15th]
New Zealand [Aug 18th]
Chile [Nov 14th]
Argentina [Nov 17th]
Bolivia [Nov 26th]
Peru [Dec 9th]
Argentina [Dec 17th]

Brazil
UK [29th Jan]




Navigation

Each post has a label giving the country and month that relates to the story. The country labels are summarised in the 'Navigation' box at the top right of the blog so by clicking on a country's name you will be taken to see all the entries for that place. I hope that makes it easier to find the articles you want to read!



Photo galleries

The best of the photos we've taken are held on Picasaweb and a slideshow will be included in each post. If you want to browse the photos on their own just follow the link or click on the slideshow.


Subscribing

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Thanks for reading and please leave your comments to let us know what you think!

Saigon

Saigon was wonderful – and everything I expected it to be, a large quite modern city with way more than its fair share of motorbikes and scooters adding to the chaos.  It had lovely architecture with a French colonial feel in many places. As we arrived the shops and houses lining the main roads seemed very smart in comparison to their Cambodian counterparts, with signs that were far more intelligible thanks to the latin alphabet introduced to Vietnam by 17th century missionaries. It was pretty late in the evening, but we were nice and relaxed after a smooth border crossing on a comfortable bus that for once dropped us off in the main travellers spot and not a remote bus depot – result! As usual were met by a swarm of our eager touts all trying to persuade us that they had the biggest, newest and best accommodation.  We picked our man and followed him down the street.  It was a good fifteen minute walk by the time we got through a rabbit warren of alleys to eventually find our place.  We were both pretty sticky by this point, as even at night the humidity was still at a high sweating level!  It turned out to be great, the owner and his wife lived on the first two floors, with his young son sleeping on the couch in the lounge which was also the reception!  The top two floors had been recently converted into a series of ensuite rooms.  We had a little balcony from which we could see and hear the daily life of the locals in the alley.  It was wonderful as it felt like we were in the middle of a mainly Vietnamese area, however one of the main tourist streets of Saigon was only a few minutes stroll away.  As we wandered through the alley we observed the families mostly watching TV and cooking, but it looked like everything was conducted out of one room of a house, so there could be many families living in one block.  There was also a 70’s style hairdressers offering the ‘latest’ mullets and a shop selling wonderfully gaudy clothing.


We had split from Chris, who had gone back to Thailand, and Roald and Brian who had caught a later bus, but who were ultimately heading the same way.  In a typical small world fashion who should we meet on our third evening in Siagon but Roald who was having a beer outside his accommodation right next to the cashpoint we had chosen to use!!  We went for a drink and he told us that they had heard about a great water park in Saigon.  We decided to go with Roald and a few of his friends from his hostel.

The trip to the waterpark was a little confusing, our big group had to get two taxis and it turned out that there were two waterparks, each taxi driver having his favourite! After a short while we all managed to arrive at the same place and paid our admission fee.


We had a great day!  Not at all what I would have expected from Vietnam.  It was by the far the biggest water park I had been to, with many different slides, wave machine, rapids and even a zip line!  The slides were so fast I could hardly speak after the first one!  It was quite tame at the beginning and just as I thought the slide was coming to the end and I was relaxing thinking ‘oh that was pleasant’ then the tube opened out and dropped onto a 1 in 2 grade slope and I picked up speed at an alarming rate!!!  At the bottom I just had time to catch my breath when I realised that the top half of my swimsuit was gathered around my neck and I had a very amused lifeguard smirking away!!!

We had lots of fun racing each other on mats, and another fun slide called the Twisterbowl which dropped you into a funnel which you slid round and round on before dropping through the hole.  I now know what it feels like to be a spider in a plug hole!!!  By the end of the day Rob had created a hole in his swim shorts from the friction of all the slides! We could have been anywhere in the world, and maybe not a cultural experience but a great one nevertheless.



Another thing to mention in this section is our experience of the Durian fruit.  It had been everywhere during our travels during south east Asia, we had obviously arrived during the peak season.  The main thing to say about ‘the king of fruits’ is that it stinks.  Not in a nice way either.  People actually compare the stench that this fruit gives off to rotting meat!  We had seen signs in hotels which showed a picture of a fruit with a large cross through it – they were obviously not welcome everywhere!  We had seen it in all the countries we had visited so far piled up in the back of pickup trucks.  Each seller only had a weighing scales and a knife, and you could buy the whole fruit or a section of the pale insides.  It was relatively expensive for a SE Asia fruit, and the more times we walked past it the more times I thought I should give it a go – there must be some reason why people eat this fruit and give such a regal title.  So as we were passing one of the many stalls we stopped and bought a portion.  I held my breath (so I couldn’t smell how bad it was) and bit into the soft stringy flesh.  It was disgusting, repulsive, sickening, abhorrent and as many more of those adjectives as you care to think of!  The best way I can describe it is as a slightly sweet rotten cabbage flavour. Mmmmmmm tasty!  Rob was equally unimpressed by the experience, so we decided to give what was left of it to the hostel owner, who turned round to us and said he felt exactly the same way as us about it – but his niece would be very grateful.  We had obviously stumbled on the Marmite of the fruit world!

Diving in Cambodia

After our double boat trip we just relaxed and enjoyed the hotel pool, I finally finished the last book Dom and Katie had given me back in Manchester and I was a little worried where my next book was going to come from!! In the evening we decided to indulge and went to a European restaurant for tea, it was nice not to have rice for a change and we had our first bottle of red wine in nearly 2 months. It tasted great!

During this time we were wandering past the many dive shops cluttering the resort and decided to enquire. It had been something we had both been keen to do at the beginning of the holiday, but the opportunity hadn’t arisen yet. We popped into a PADI dive centre, and we were instantly sold. We signed up for a 3 day ‘Open Water’ course, were given a text book and told to come back the next day for a classroom session.

We spent the next day learning all the main principles and basic apparatus from a DVD and our books. After passing a test at the end of the day we were ready to go! Not that me and Rob are at all competitive but I am pleased to report I got a higher score on my test! However I knew this was the last time on the diving course that I would be better than him at something, so I thought I would use this opportunity to gloat!

The next day we climbed aboard a boat and sailed to the island where we were to spend the next 2 nights. The island was beautiful, very picturesque. We unfortunately didn’t get an opportunity to explore the island beyond the rickety wooden pier that was our accomodation, but we certainly did explore the waters!!!

Once we had arrived we had to show our swimming competence by swimming 20 lengths between the 2 piers. We looked at all the gear, were shown how all the various meters, buttons and connections worked and then got to put it all on and waddle into the water. There were four of us in our group with a very amiable French guy called Olivier as our instructor. The first day was all about learning the various drills. We did this in the shallow water near the beach so you could stand up if you had any problems. I got the whole inhaling/exhaling confused a few times at first while trying to clear my mask of water while under water - which I can tell you is not so pleasant, and trying to breathe water is not necessarily the best idea, I soon learnt not to get these confused!!! Once Olivier was happy we could do all the drills to a safe and competent standard, we finished the day by doing our first ‘dive’. Although we never went deeper than about 5m and stayed within the bay we had been practising in, it was magical. We saw a large colourful hermit crab, some sea cucumbers, sea urchins and loads of yellow and blue stripy fish. It was such a great way to end the day as it really inspired us to do well the next morning so we could get out into open water as soon as possible to start the real thing. I also felt lucky as when we got back to the shore we saw the other group of 4 older dive students were not doing as well and so did not get this experience.

The second day we set off bright and early and went to much deeper water. I was incredibly excited and slightly anxious as we jumped off the edge of the boat and into the water. Rob was a great dive buddy though and was always making sure I was comfortable and ok. He was a very natural diver. We went down to a depth of about 10m and did some of the more important drills again. Then it was back in the boat, and back to the island for lunch. After lunch we were back in the boat and went to our first proper dive spot. We jumped in, gave the sign that we were ok, and slowly sank below the surface. As we swum around I couldn’t get over the amount of sea life we were seeing, from large shoals of brightly coloured fish, sea cucumbers, a large moray eel, starfish, trumpet fish, clown fish and countless sea urchins (these ones I steered very clear of, they had viciously long spines and were apparently incredibly painful – all the divers had stories to tell about urchins, especially the dive shop owner who confessed to occasionally butchering them with his dive knife to watch the fish feed on them!). We went down to about 12m on this dive and it was about 40mins before we had to surface as we were running low on air. The whole experience felt like it lasted about 10mins and while I was swimming around I remember it all feeling very surreal.

The second dive was just as amazing, this time it was in a very different spot, a lot of the dive was much shallower, though we did eventually get down to about 15m. This time we did not have as great a visibility but we saw many more beautiful corals as we swan around a small island. It was an indescribable feeling of freedom while we were diving. It was wonderfully peaceful and I couldn’t believe how the sea life we were observing didn’t seem to be bothered by our presence at all so you could experience them so closely in such a natural way.
After two fantastic days in the water we were now qualified open water divers. This means we can dive to a depth of 18m, with a dive master. It is fair to say now that I can’t wait until my next experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to try, if you can already swim it is actually very easy to learn and so very rewarding.

Shianokville Seafaring

Shianokville is Cambodia’s main beach resort so we headed down there next for some sea, sun and sand. The long beaches filled up at night with chairs, tables, BBQs and touts from the bars and restaurants that lined it. Because the rainy season had started the resort was fairly quiet but the sensation of swimming in the warm ocean to escape the cold rain was certainly interesting! While enjoying some cold beers at one of the more lively bars we were approached by an America called Dana who came to tell us about his boat that he co-owned and proudly built with a Bavarian guy. He offered an all day cruise where we would have breakfast and lunch on board, along with stops at the nearby islands for swimming, snorkelling, fishing and kayaking. We considered briefly and then Chris with his finely honed bartering skills managed to knock some money off his price and get us vouchers for a few free mojitos. We were sold.

We got up early next morning and jumped in a tuk tuk to the docks to see the ship. It was wonderful. It was very clean and new and consisted of three main decks; the lowest held the galley along with comfy sofas and chairs around a few coffee tables, the mid level housed a very well stocked semicircular bar with stools, soundsystem and more chairs. The top level was a spacious sun deck 7m above the waterline. The main material was wood, all painted in a rich mahogany colour with blue and red metal details.

As we arrived at the pier we were greeted by our cordial Bavarian host Robert and went straight to grab ourselves a cup of coffee to be met by the ship’s dog – a lovely Rottweiler even friendlier than her owner!
We set sail, unfortunately the weather wasn’t brilliant but with the covers down to keep out the rain there was a lovely atmosphere on the boat as we left the port. After cruising for about 3 hours, enjoying the unlimited coffee and cakes, we escaped the clouds and anchored off an island. Without delay our hosts stripped off and dived from the railings of the top deck down into the sea. Chris, Rob and Brian quickly followed suit and before long we were all in the water. We snorkelled for half an hour, entertained by the colourful stripy fish playing in the coral, while all the time watching out for the many spiny sea urchins! It was only my second snorkelling experience and it was equally as enchanting as the first - again, as in Thailand the water was wonderfully warm and clear.

For lunch we were treated to a wonderful Asian buffet prepared by Robert’s wife and the crew, with everything from noodles and rice to garlic bread! Once we had all eaten we set sail again, until we anchored an hour later just a small swim from a beach. I decided I would stay on the boat and have a go at fishing, but my luck must have stayed behind on the shore - it was not to be my day, I spent over an hour being outwitted by the fish who seemed very good at getting the bait off the hook without me being able to land one. I was feeding the fish rather than the fish feeding me! I drowned my frustrations with my free mojito - it’s a hard life!

We then set sail for the long trip back to Shinokville harbour – this is where the fun really began. Robert poured tequila for all and the many passengers on the boat united in a shot, with the traditional salt and lemon. He then asked if any one wished to join him for a dice game of Mexico - with the loser of each game round having to buy a liquid round for all the players. We stepped up to the bar, along with Chris, Brian and a guy from the Cook Islands – aptly calling himself Cookie (it turned out this was his 3rd time on the trip, and he had got this one for free!). After every game a new drink appeared, each more potent than the last - by the time we were approaching the harbour we each had a long island ice tea on the bar in front of us! Robert was in great spirits, and the more we drank the louder his renditions of Frank Sinatra became! When we arrived home there was a mixture of sadness and relief to get off the boat, but with Robert slightly the worse for wear, we got a generous discount for a return trip and decided to come back and do it all again on the very next sailing!! That evening we went for dinner with Cookie and enjoyed an excellent table BBQ and buffet, which helped to soak up the many drinks from the trip!!

Apart from missing our Mexico expert Brian who had to make a start on his diving course, our next cruise on the Sun was even better. No rain this time, and early excitement on the way to our first stop as one of the fishing lines that Dana was trawling from the back of the boat went crazy… After 10 minutes of fighting Robert managed to land an impressive meter long Barracuda! The catch was immediately gutted by Robert, who made the process look very easy, slickly filleting the fish at the back of the boat as it bobbed around. It made up part of lunchtime buffet as small battered fish fingers and tasted delicious!

I decided the Barracuda was an omen of a better fishing day, and indeed it was – using some lucky squid as bait I landed 4 fish myself, some more ugly than others, it was lots of fun and very satisfying. While I was doing this Rob and Chris had swum to the island and were trying to play what looked from the boat like a very unsuccessful game of 1-a-side volleyball. They were soon back on the boat laughing at my puny catches and ordering themselves a beer.

Time for Mexico again and this time we were joined at the bar by Jens from Denmark – who did not necessarily realise that we were by now seasoned Mexicans so he had to stand for more than his fair share of the rounds – thanks Jens! The game was great fun, with most players on a combination of beer and more exotic cocktails, and Robert’s wife playing on behalf of the ship who also stood for a fair few drinks! When we got back to the pier, all the other guests disembarked as we stayed at the bar drinking our many winnings and chatting with Jens and Katrine – it was then that we noticed that everyone else had got off the boat and we were sailing again! Robert poured us another beer and explained that we were going to the docks where the boat was moored overnight. He then offered to take us to a local restaurant and show off some of his favourite parts of the local cuisine – we gladly agreed and followed on. Dinner was lovely, many shared plates of different foods that everyone dug into and demolished. Some more easily identifiable than others! My favourite was a Cambodian speciality of raw shrimps in lemon juice. Drinks were Cambodian style too – Robert ordered several bottles of whiskey for the table which we all shared with our own choices of mixer! After a long evening chatting to an interesting mix of people who seemingly had appeared from nowhere (for example one guy was in Cambodia studying snake venom!) we staggered towards a Tuk Tuk and off home.

The Killing Fields and S21

Although we also visited these places while in Phnom Penn I felt they deserved a separate section. Before arriving in Cambodia I knew very little of its dark history involving Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. The whole day turned out to be a very haunting and emotional day, as we were shown, sometimes in graphic detail, the atrocities that occurred during the dictatorship.

The first place we visited was the Killing Fields. This is where large amounts of the victims were taken to be tortured and killed. It is now exists as a memorial, and the first sight is the large stupa at the entrance which contains over 8000 mangled skulls of the people found buried at the site.

We slowly walked around the area, stopping for signs such as how many people were found buried in a certain pit, how people were executed and where they were detained. It was very moving, we were told that at the peak of the executions over 300 people a day were murdered, there were speakers fixed to all the trees which used to play loud music in order to cover up the sounds of the people being tortured and killed.

After a very sobering couple of hours we were taken to S21. If I thought the killing fields were bad that was nothing to our next experience. S21 was where Cambodians were detained and tortured before being executed. One of the first shocking things I discovered was it was run by child guards mostly between the ages of 12 and 18. They were taught to torture the countless Cambodians who were suspected of rebelling against the revolution – even just in thought. Confessing would not save your life. During Pol Pot’s reign most of the intellectuals of the country were killed, as they were perceived as a threat to the Khmer Rouge ideology. As the regime failed more and more working class and peasants were killed in a desperate effort to validate his attempts in building a communist society.

The school had been left frighteningly untouched since the regime. In the grounds there were signs displaying the rules of the camp, in the original Khmer, French and for the tourists now in English, such as “if you contest the guards in anyway you shall receive 10 lashes or 5 electric discharges”. The school was on several levels, the first level had rooms where they would detain individuals for torture, and inside each of these rooms was the original bed, the implements found in the room – and the most shocking of all a picture of the last victim that was discovered on each bed. These were very graphic and incredibly disturbing. We walked into each room, I found each and everyone very distressing and upsetting.

The next 2 floors contained a mixture of these torture rooms, rooms where they would detained up to 50 people, all shackled to the floor, and tiny holding cells which were barely big enough to sit in and had no light. A morbid juxtaposition in all of these places was there was still much evidence of it once being a school with lessons still written on the walls and classroom numbers still hanging.

In the second block of the school there was a gallery with all the photos of all of those that had been detained at S21. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all who looked emotionally weary, bewildered and so incredibly sad. In addition to the photos was a collection of paintings depicting the tortures and conditions, these were painted by one of the few survivors. To make the paintings more provocative some of the same torture devices were placed in and around the pictures, giving you a glaringly harsh reality to what you were observing.

We were shown pictures of the guards, what age they were when they joined the Khmer Rouge and the fact that most of them now just live ordinary lives, this was surprising and difficult to see, and made me think extensively of the situation Cambodia is now in. To think that so many people alive now remember very vividly the regime also does credit to the way in which Cambodians are now trying to move forward and build their country from this very dark time.

The whole day was a very humbling and sobering time, and I did not expect the atrocities I saw, especially as all of this happened in the 70’s! I could not believe things like this still happened in the modern world, and hoped this would be the only time on my trip that I was enlightened like this in such a horrible way, and although a harrowing day I am very glad to have gone to be able to respect the memory of the many victims.

Phnom Penn

We arrived to Phnom Penn by bus and what a welcome we received! As we got off we were instantly besieged by a hoard of Tuk Tuk drivers. There must have been over 15 of them all vying for our custom – even me saying “the first person to leave us alone will get our business” didn’t deter them. Instead you would find them grabbing at our backpacks in an effort to take you to their vehicle – it was complete madness! When we finally jumped in a Tuk Tuk he made a beeline for the lazy fish hostel, obviously where he worked, so the hostel paid his fare because we were happy as it was the area we wanted to stay.

Tuk Tuks are different in Cambodia to their Thai counterparts in that they are a regular moto to which is hitched a 2 wheeled, 4 seater carriage that they tow - and there’s no limit to what the drivers think they can carry! 4 travellers desperately clinging onto all their baggage as it spills over the sides, seemed to be fine by them and I’m sure if they could put people on the roof they would!

The hostel turned out to be fine. Basic but fine. It consisted of several wooden sheds on stilts over a small brown lake which gave it a nice view, but it was obvious some major earthworks were happening on the opposite bank. We later learned that the lake was slowly being filled in to make way for posh hotels and apartments, displacing the working class locals and their tourist businesses, so I’m pleased we got to stay there while we could. It was however a little disconcerting that there were holes in the floor of room where you could see directly down into the water, which was also where the sewage ended up! There was also an equal amount of mosquito sized holes in our net – but after a quick repair job with the LX tape we were protected once again!!!

Phnom Penn couldn’t have been more different from Siem Reap, it felt instantly much poorer and was a far more chaotic busy city. It was dusty and dirty but had a wonderful bustle about it too. Lots of street food vendors and interesting tiny shops selling anything and everything. There was also an assortment of backpacker bars around our lake, and it was from one of them that we heard about Michael Jackson’s death – they were blaring out his music and the blackboard outside announced ‘Thriller’ zombie cocktails on promotion! We even managed to get an Indian curry fix with an awesome canteen selling Thali set meals for less than a pound a head.

We spent a day touring the Royal Palace, which although not as ostentatious and well manicured as the one in Bangkok it was nevertheless beautiful. What was interesting was that areas of it reflected Cambodia’s French colonial past with a beautiful wrought iron building in one area. As always the temples were very decadent and peaceful and the gardens were great to wander around. Apologies in the photos for the rather bright T-Shirt I am sporting, we arrived at the entrance to find out I was deemed as inappropriately dressed so I had to buy one of their souvenir shirts in order to get in!

Another point of note is that the palace is still used. Next to the public access is the Kings residence, if we knew what he looked like we might even have spotted him - we watched over the fence as many black 4x4’s arrived and people were escorted up the red carpet and inside.

That day we also visited the National Museum, it was in a peaceful green more touristy area. It was quite an interesting place mostly made up of statues and stonework from Ankor Wat (which to be honest I think I would have rather have seen in context at Ankor). The highlight however was in the centre of the Museum - a courtyard with a series of ponds all containing lots of large koi carp. We bought some fish food and spent a lovely hour feeding and watching them, very relaxing!