The Wanderings of busman7

Haven’t had that scam tried on me in a while. Just goes to show what affect too many tourons have on a place. As I hypothesized more tourists the more money hungry & in your face the local vendors & beggars become. That is proven in spades in Siem Reap where the multitudes go to stare at the stone piles of Angkor.

The polar of Phnom Penh, where the natives are friendly & people can’t do enough for you, Siem Reap is a tourist jungle with substandard service (at least that’s the case  when comparing The King Guest House which has locations in each city) extremely pushy, in your face vendors this includes the children that should be in school & the woman with the fat baby & an empty bottle in hand playing the milk scam.

The touron is a herd animal that travels in large groups with their photo entry tags hanging from their necks & roam all over while following a guide who either speed walks like he is practicing for a marathon or stops so the group is blocking walkways, stairs etc. These are the people that tend to over tip & through their money around indiscriminately causing hassles for the travelers trying to enjoy the same sights.

The only way to get a few pictures is to try & position yourself between the herds so you might be able to get a couple of clear shots without somebody in the way.

Yes the temples are worth $20 US for a days visit for the ordinary person or the $40 for a 3 day pass if you are really into that sort of thing. Go early as it gets hot after lunch, have a rest then take in the buffet & show at the cultural center in the evening then leave in the morning for Phnom Penh or Laos or Thailand or anywhere that isn’t called Siem Reap.

Off to Pattaya (my 3rd entry to Thailand) manana for a couple days to check out Thailand’s “Sin City” before moving on to Phuket.

My Vietnam entries were all over the map so will try to summarize them the best I can.

From what I have learned Hue where I first stopped is near the DMZ between what was the communist North & the Republic in the South, sort of explains the different attitudes as Vietnam borders China to the north where people also have an attitude problem whereas the re-education of the south kind of got lost in the shuffle Clinton dropped the US embargo in 1995, a mere 15 yrs ago. So the people there are friendlier. At least that’s my thought.

Saigon has oodles of tourists & while the economy is good there still is no MacDonald’s or 7/11’s which might account for the great food but there are KFC’s which is NOT a bad thing!

Also the gov’t, on the surface anyway seems to have hit on a workable solution between state owned enterprises & the private sector as evidenced the private produce boat for sale at the floating market.

As I have already made clear Saigon is an intriguing city & should be on everyone’s bucket list. So in general the economy is doing well as is all SE Asia, tourism is up, the food is great. Definitely worth a visit, if in the area but wouldn’t recommend a special trip just to visit Vietnam. Then again running a produce boat to one of the floating markets still sounds like a cool plan!

 

 

 

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Nice to be back in a country that makes you feel like you are more important than the money you are spending. Near as I can figure the friendliness of people is tied directly to the number of tourists it ... [Continue reading this entry]

Booked a 3 day trip of the Mekong Delta country from Saigon culminating with the Slow Boat from Chau Doc to Phonem Phen. They combined the 1, 2 & 3 day trips so that we  were 30 some odd people ... [Continue reading this entry]