Bamboo Railroad

We took a bus this morning from Phnom Penh to Battambang, Cambodia's fourth tourist destination. As soon as we arrived at the bus station, actually just a corner in the North of town, we were bombarded by tuk tuk drivers. There was one guy who was literally running next to the bus with a sign for some hotel as the bus was still moving. The drivers were so in your face that we grabbed all of our stuff and ran off as quickly as possible to get them to leave us alone and give ourselves some room to breathe.

We hadn't prebooked anything so we started walking around the small town to look for the two accommodation we had identified as possibilities.

Khmer Rouge

We had breakfast at the same place again today and it was once again incredible.

The Russian Market

My first impression of Cambodia is that there are more people begging here than any other country we have been to in Southeast Asia and there are also more fancy SUV's and western restaurants than anywhere we have been. Last night for dinner we had margaritas and burritos and for breakfast we went to this amazing cafe and I got a full breakfast with poached eggs. Normally I wouldn't indulge in so much western food but it's everywhere here and it has been a couple of months since we have had the chance.

The tuk tuk drivers here are also more persistent than anywhere we have visited on this trip. We had one guy who literally followed us around all day everywhere we went and waited outside of places while we were inside of them in hopes of building rapport and getting us to ride with him.

Goodnight Vietnam

We were heading to Cambodia today which is only 6 km away from Phu Quoc island but we had to take a ferry 45 km to the Vietnam mainland and then get on a bus to the border, there is not a sea crossing passport process.

We woke up this morning with crazy strong winds, massive amounts of water pouring down from the sky and with gigantic waves. We were worried that the ferry wouldn't go and if it did it would be even more rough than on the way to Phu Quoc Island when I nearly vomited (read about that here). We called to make sure the ferry was still running and it was. Twenty minutes after we were supposed to be picked up and there still wasn't anyone to come and get us, I was worried we would miss the ferry.

I've got an idea!

Yesterday on the motorbikes was so much fun that we decided to stay for another night and explore the North of the island. To get to the North you need to pass through town over a floating bridge that is on the back of a boat. When we were trying to cross the bridge it was turned sideways as it does six times a day to let other boats passed. We joined the line of other people waiting for the bridge to open back up.

Clever Plan

Sometimes I impress myself with how clever I am. The problem that needed solving wasn't Maria, it was that we hadn't seen much of the island yet and our hotel were liars who wouldn't get a penny more than I prepaid from me. So we needed to switch hotels to somewhere else but everything within walking distance was out of our price range. We decided that we would rent two motorbikes and use them to transport our stuff from our current hotel to our new hotel, which was 3 kilometers away.

How were we going to do that without needing a taxi or walking 3 km to return the bikes at least once? Here is where my cleverness came in to effect

RRRRHHRHR

Despite promises from the receptionist that construction work doesn't start very early, I was woken up by an elderly Vietnamese man sitting outside my window sharpening his saw. RRRRHHRHR, RRRRHHRHR, RRRRHHRHR, RRRRHHRHR, so obnoxious! I went over to reception and made a bit of a scene telling a different receptionist that I wasn't happy being lied to about all the rooms being full nor by being woken up by RRRRHHRHR.

Same Same

I made our way to Phu Quoc Island today. I loved the bus ride the other day on Phoung Trang ( I promise I'm not getting any kickbacks for good reviews) that we went to the bus station to book another bus with them. For the same price that locals pay Phoung Trang picked us up at our hotel, drive us to the bus station, take us on the bus and then at the destination drove us to the ferry terminal.

We waited around at the ferry terminal for an hour for the ferry to leave and then loaded on board. The boat was bigger than I expected with two levels and two sections in the bottom of the boat where our seats were.

Rye Hushed Asses

We have had to get up early everyday for a week now and I am getting sick of it, if I wanted to wake up early all the time, I would get a job! We were woken up at 5am by boats roaring up and down the river and then the tour started at 6am, we needed to get going before it was too warm outside. We met Hung just outside of our room where the boats were docked and climbed in to the narrow boat, with just enough room to have two people sit side by side. Our boat was made up of three Spanish people, Hung, the boat driver and us. There was also another boat with a Dutch family of five who were driven by a lone female driver.

The boat headed down the river while Hung passed out breakfast of bread with soft cheese and coffee or tea. First we went to the floating market where people from 11 different districts come to buy and sell their goods.

Best Bus Ride

We are headed to a "homestay" near Can Tho, in the Mekong Delta, about 5 hours South of HCMC. I asked the owner of the hostel if he could book us a bus as he does everything for cheap. He told me that the best way was to take the local bus from the bus station down the street, the one with the liars and thieves, to the west bus station and to get a bus from a company called Phuong Trang. This is NOT something that would happen at a normal hotel, they would try to sell me some extremely expensive bus ticket and I was really thankful for his help and honesty.

We got the bus to the west bus station for 4000 VND ($0.20) and found the booth to buy the tickets. The price was written permanently on the glass and the women at the counter were really helpful.

Cu Chi Tunnels

We booked a trip to the Chu Chi tunnels through our hostel as they were the cheapest and all of the tours seemed to be essentially the same. Strangely none of the tours actually include the price of admission, only a tour guide and the bus ride. What I knew before going was that the Cu Chi tunnels were used during the Vietnam War by the Viet Cong(VC) to secretly get around and attack the American and South Vietnam forces.

I imagined that the tunnels would be a memorial to all of the lives that were lost and there would be some recreated tunnels that were made for tourists to crawl through to see what it was like being in the tunnels.

Instead we were first shown a video that was made in the 1970's and shows the "American Devil" invading Vietnam and killing both women and children.

HCMC

At least he is wearing a hard hat.

The guesthouses and hotels that we could find online for HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City formally Saigon) were quite expensive, by our meager standards, so we decided to stay in a hostel for the first time since Singapore as it was only $6 each per night and had good reviews.

I got an email from the hostel manager about how to get to the hostel and here is an excerpt:

From bus station have many people try to cheat you, be careful! someone try to steal your bags, taxi drivers try to cheat you

Cau Lau

We rented bicycles for $1 and rode them all over Hoi An. Janelle went back to look at the first draft of her dress and it was nearly perfect. We were told to come back at 2pm when all of the alterations were complete. We stopped to take some pictures of the river next to a bridge and a motorbike with a local on it lost control and skidded along the road and came to a stop where the bridge met the road.

High Expectations

After everything positive everyone had said about Hoi An and the terrible bus ride to get here, I had very high expectations. I knew my expectations were unachievable but I rolled with it and today was actually a lot of fun.

The Night Bus Nightmare

We pretty much spent the last two days laying out by the ocean in lounge chairs, you can get two of them for the whole day for $3. The lounge chairs are also really padded like small beds, which makes them really comfortable. All of the locals wait until the sun goes down before they come out as they don't want to get sun on their skin. As the sun moves lower in the sky throwing shadows off of buildings and trees the locals move closer and closer to the water, while staying safely in the shadow.

Bizarre $7 Boat Cruise

Today we went on a boat cruise called Mama Linh's Boat Cruise. It was supposedly started back in the day when there were few if any rules in Vietnam. Mama Linh had a boat and drove it around getting people drunk and high while cruising the ocean around Nha Trang.

It took off in popularity as people broke the first rule of Mama Linh's Boat Cruise's and talked about Mama Linh's Boat Cruise's to other people. Other companies soon copied the formula and everything became commercial and planned out. Fortunately though the price has stayed low and as such I didn't expect much.

Mud Bath

Yesterday we hit the road at 7am to get to the airport for our 9:30 flight, only to discover that at the last minute the plane had been delayed until 12:30. To compensate us for wasting our time the airline they gave us food vouchers to be used at a shop near the gate. Our choices for lunch were; a hot dog, cake or noodle soup. There were literally cockroaches crawling on top of the hot dogs.

1000 Vietnamese Dong

We arrived in Hanoi in the early morning as everyone was heading off to work.

We are staying in another hotel in Hanoi, outside of the really touristy area, which allowed us to see some more of real Vietnam. We walked down a street where people were preparing various kinds of meat for the day.

Su's Village (Lao Chai)

We met our guide Su again and this time were joined by two Israeli girls and a father and his little boy from Vietnam in addition to the Thai guy. As a result of the extra people this group was much slower than yesterday when we were virtually on our own. As such Su tailored the route to the easiest possible way, which meant we spent a lot of time walking along the road.

Janelle and I kept trying to get Su to lead the group into the fields and she finally relented and we started walking among the rice terraces

In Sapa with Su

Stunning views of rice terraced hills among minority villages while being lead by an amazing local guide makes for a great couple of days.

We got dropped back in Hanoi around 6pm and were supposed to get picked up at 7pm, we ran around frantically stocking up on supplies for the train ride and shoveled food down our throats as fast as we could. Then we sat waiting until 8:30pm for the transfer to pick us up. Apparently I am the only person in Southeast Asia who values my time.

We got to the train station at 9pm and waited until 11pm to board our 11:30pm sleeper train.

Halong Bay

Yesterday when we arrived at our hotel we needed to get our laundry done and the hotel manager said he could get it done for us by last night, so we unloaded everything on him. I literally only had the clothes I was wearing. When we got back to our hotel last night not only was our laundry not done yet but it wasn't even in the hotel to recover our dirty clothes. The problem being that we were supposed to be going to Halong Bay at 8am. The manager told me to come down in the morning and we would get the laundry together.

I went down to reception at 7am to go with the owner to get our laundry, "They will bring it very soon, I will call your room" he assured me. When it was 7:50am and we still didn't have our laundry we went to the lobby to have breakfast and to wait. I was wearing yesterdays clothes still, which probably weren't even clean when I put them on.

When in Vietnam

Yesterday, after a well deserved nights rest we packed up our stuff to get out of Vinh. I learned my lesson that I need to have things written down in both English and Vietnamese when I'm not in a touristy area so that people know what I am looking for. We caught a cab to the bus station and went inside. I was not going to talk to anyone who wasn't firmly planted behind a desk selling tickets. While walking through the parking lot of the bus station, I spotted a large new bus that was marked "Hanoi" on the front.

Vinh

The conclusion to the entry "Bus Full of Beer"

We arrived in Vinh just as it was starting to get dark, without any Vietnamese dong(VND), without anything booked or planned and knowing nothing about the town. We didn't know where to tell the bus to drop us off so he dropped us off at the bus station.

Bus Full of Beer

We asked the four teenage girls that ran our guesthouse what time the songthaew back to Ban Khoun Kham was and were told we should be ready by 7am. We have gotten really good at getting ready in the morning, it is amazing how fast you can pack and dress when you don't care what you look like and you simply cram all of your stuff in your bag. We were ready by 6:40 and started walking in the street towards Kong Lor Cave, where the songthaew would be coming from. Before long we could hear the horn of the truck and then it rounded the corner in front of us and we hopped on with the the locals.

Kong Lor Cave

My pictures won't convince you and neither will my description but Kong Lor Cave is one of the most incredible places I have ever been in my life!

Off the Beaten Path

We are heading off of the tourist path some to go to a small town and to visit some caves tomorrow. We packed everything up in Vientiane and headed to the songthaew stand to get a ride to the bus station. There was a boss man who had very good English and did the negotiating and we had to storm off to finally get him to give us a price that was reasonable. The boss man then called one of his drivers over who directed us to his songthaew. I threw my bag into the back but was startled by something moving around and I screamed like a little girl!