Ho Chin Minh City to Cambodia

Sorry for delay in update.
How is everyone? Nice to hear from you Elle - what is your email address?

We left the peaceful life of Muine on a night bus into Ho Chin Minh City or Saigon. Stayed at this small arty backpacker place tucked into a miniscule space down a back alley. Wandered the streets and into the markets -quite expensive but good fun. At first its overwelming. The staff kind of grab you and pull you and talk non stop and they stand in your way so you can exit their market stall! That was the clothes dept - once passed that it wasnt so bad. Although we have heard horror stories from people that ate there finding hair and even a receipt in the bottom of their food!

We had been recommended to eat at a restaurant whos name translates into 'Delious' and boy was it. It was really classy and nice and even had a que to get in. The food was fab - we asked advice and the waiters showed us how to eat each dich -rolling rice cakes filled with pork balls, vermicelli noodles, pineapple, greens and dipping them in sauce. Also tried Lotus tea there = very refreshing and different.

Continued to wander the city seeing famous buildings etc. Then for the first time on the trip in daytime - the heavens opened and we had a solid hour of terrific rain. All the cars and motorbikes travel at the same speed and dangerous fashion no matter what the weather except now wearing ponchos! We stood under shelter with about 50 Vietnamesae people and watched the rain pass. Chatted to0 one lady who wanted to practice her english.

We went out in the evening hoping to match the fantastic lunch only to fail and sit in backpacker zone eating western foor. Although drinking local vodka - cheap and by the bottle! Did some souvenier shopping.

Next day we rose early and took a bus to the Mekong Delta. there we took a boat and visited various sites. A fish market - all still alive and flipping. Also sold frogs. The locals were noisy and arguing. And as it was saturday the kids took to plaing in the river by hamging onto the side of our boat and catching a free lift. Or climbing on - almost tipping the boat and then leaping off. Its amazing there were say between 8-10 years old and had bodies full of muscles like a man wood. Must be the fish diet!

We then had lunch on an esland in the middle of a fruit orchid where there were all kinds of fruit including pinapple - very strange to see a pinnapple perched on top of a plant. Visited small villages that make coconut candy -mmmm yummy yummy -brought some to take home don't worry. We then drank sweet honey lime tea - yummy and listened to a local band - nice music - shame about the high pitch squealing - oh sorry singing!

We then were put onto a mini bus with no aisle - it was crammed with seats. This was 3.30pm we thought ok so we travel for an hour..... (heading for Chac Doc - the boarder crossing city)So we arrived at our hotel about 9pm! lovely. Crossing terrifying bridge after terrifying bridge. I think they were made of railway sleepers and made such a loud noise when you went over them. The driver im sure had his foot to the floor the whole way. Very scarey when you think there are children and cyclists right by the roads. Anyway stayed in our worst room yet built just big enough to fit the bed in the room. Ahh lovely.

Woke early - 6am by man banging on door. Walked to the river and took a boat - visited the local floating fish farms and a small village. then continued up the Mekong Delta - arriving at the boarder poit at lunchtime. This was nice passing small villages, boats filled with fish, rice factories etc. The boarder crossing was almost static in pace - we carried our bags in boiling heat off the boat and up the huge banks, to pass our bags through a scanner and then on to the boat again and then off again to passport control about 6mins per person - we had about 60 people with us yipeee!. Then we climbed onto another boat which was made of metal - iot was a hot tin can on water travelling so slow there was no breeze! It looked like a plane that had crashed and then had been welded together and turned into a boat! - not what the posters showed!

But we realised we could climb outside and sit on the skirting making it a really pleasent journey. There were nice people and the kids that lived by the river bank were fantastic. There were all playing in the water and would start doing flips, waving madly and shouting hello. The cows changed from Vietnam being muscly and brown to Cambodia where ther were white and super model skinny. We were then put on another bus that thankfully only took an hour or so to get to Pnomh Penn - capital of Cambodia. We jumped on Tuk Tuks ( a motorbike with a sheltered cart on the back) to the backpacker land and found a lovely Pink room to stay in.

The next day we were hoping to take the boat to Siem Reap but we were warned that it was rubbish and overpriced. Often leaving customers stranded on the river waiting for the tide to change so we took the cheap and chirpy option of the bus. At 5.30 am there was a massive downpour of rain with thunder and lighting leaving our street ankle level in brown water - nice!The bus was Packed with Vietnamese people including Monks in their orange sheets!. We stopped and ate local foor and bought lovely fresh fruit.

We arrived at Siem Reap in good time - 12.30pm and wow its crazy when you get off the bus. there were 50 or so drivers all fighting for your custom even when you are on the bus they bang on the windows and try to talk to you. Lucky we had booked ahead. Getting off the bus there were 2 policemen with canes to beat the locals back! Our driver had picked up chirs' bag for him and was heading to the tuk tuk when the police stopped him and took it back to the bus - a good sign i guess.

We wandered the town - mainly a building site at daytime - every other building is a building site here. But at night it turned out to be really nice and cool with art galleries and restaurants and bars dotted everywhere. The only down side was all the children begging and trying to sell you things. Also there are many land mine victims around the streets with missing limbs begging too.

We ate the best meal of the whole trip at a restaurant called Amok- every bite was delicious and i followed it with a dreamy dark choc moose. We arranged to go and watch sunrise the next day at 4.40 am.

BUT our driver turned up late - just after 5am. You can imagine that I wasnt so happy at that hour in the morning so we gave him the sack! We tried to get another but couldnt so returned to bed tired and grumpy!

Waking later we took a different Tuk Tuk driver and headed off to the temples. They are absolutly amazing and are really the only reason we came to Cambodia. They go on and on forever and its amazing to think how they made them thousands of years ago and they only took about 40 years to build each one. Using thousands and thousands of slaves. The stone travelled 60km by boat - but the boats would have sunk if they were on board to they sunk them and hung them underneath the boats. Amazing. The high peaks of the temples are reached by climbing big and as steep as you can imagine stairs. You go up ok and then think oh my... how will I ever get down! One regret is that we didn't have a guide with us for the day. But from the next temple on we picked a local person who told us what they knew and gave them a tip at the end.

We went to the tomb where they shot Tomb Raider and it was fantastic with all these 150ft trees with roots as big as houses growing over the temple. Huge wow factor. Went to see sunset from a temple on a mountain - but sorry to say it was a massive tourist trap - chris felt like he was at Glastonbury - so we left early to enjoy each others company and to see the front of the optherwise very dark Ankor Wat be lit up nice and warm by the suns last few rays.

Shattered.
Tomorrow we will try for sunrise again. fingers crossed.

wow wee sorry so long!

Good luck to Steve and Rach - counting down the days to their wedding.
Also to Helen counting down the days til retirement... oh no so redundancy!

lots of love
Sweaty Anna and Chris