Round the World ’06-’07

I arrived in Cambodia by boat up the mekong. When we got there I was so hot and tired that I just checked in to the nearest guesthouse, which I regretted in the morning when I was woken by rush hour traffic at 5:30 am!!! Phnom Penh was actually quite quite because most people go home for the New Year, which Cambodians and Thais celebrate for 3 days!

I decided to go on a sightseeing tour of the city with some people I met on the Mekong trip. We saw the killing fields, still with piles of bones and old clothing lying everywhere. After that we were taken to the S-21 prison camp which was a converted school where the Khmer Rouge tortured prisoners before taking them to the killing fields to be killed. It was really shocking! The Khmer Rouge took photos of everyone who was ever there, there were rooms full of photos of babies, right through to pensioners! Only 3 people survived when the Vietnamese liberated the city.

In the afternoon, we went to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. It was really beautiful. And after that we went to the national museum, I was really bored because 1 of the girls on the trip is going to study archeology at uni, so she took about 2 hrs to go round this quite small museum where I thought everything looked the same!

We then went to Wat Phnom, which must have been whee everyone in Phnom Penh was for the new year, we all got covered in talc, which is apparently what the Cambodian tradition is, that and water balloons!

I left Phnom Penh the next morning to Sihanoukville, a beach resort.

Its been a while since I added to the blog, but the internet in Cambodia is really slow! Saigon was great, I really liked the city, even with the crazy traffic! I visited the war remnants museum which was very interesting, if not a little depressing. I was staying in a tiny little room at the top of someones house, down a side alley! They were really nice people though and the room was OK really, and cheap!

I also went on a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnel system where the comunist guerrillas fought in the war. The tunnels were tiny! There is no way I could have got into the tunnels that they used in the war! Fortunately for me though there is a 150m section that has been widened for fat tourists! Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t stand more than 30m of that even! It was really horrible, I don’t think a job in mining would suit me at all. There is a shooting range where you can fire a lot of weapons, 2 americans paid $60 for 50 rounds on a machine gun, but I made do with 10 shots on an AK-47. It was much more fun than crawling in the dirt!

I left Saigon on a 2 day boat trip up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. The trip was really good, we saw a coconut candy factory, fish farms and lots of floating markets. The final trip from the border to Phnom Penh was on a long thin boat, that was more like an oven!!! Everybody was just sitting on the roof, or hanging on to the sides because it was too hot inside!

I arrived in Dalat with a huge hangover, as a result of my last night out with the people from Scuba zone in Nha Trang! We went to a kind of Vietnamese street pub called bia hoi, where you sit on tiny plastic chairs in the street and drink their home brew beer with a big glass of ice to keep it cool. A big jug of Bia Hoi is 50p! Scuba diving was excelent, and I am now a fully qualified advanced open water scuba diver!

Dalat is up in the mountains quite close to the Cambodian border. The weather here is a lot cooler than on the coast or in Saigon. The scenery around is lovely.

Today I went on a minibus tour of the surrounding area. The first place we went was to an ethnic minority village of the Lat people. We spoke to the head tribesman, and even drank some rice wine which was fermenting in a big pot.

Ater that we went to a coffee plantation, and a mushroom farm, and a really interesting silk factory. We were taken to a waterfall where you could climb down behind the water, It was really good.

We were taken for lunch in the market in the middle of Dalat. The food was nice, and really cheap. I had beef noodle soup, for 12000 dong which is about 50p!  

This afternoon we visited the ‘crazy house’ which was like something from Alice in Wonderland. Very strange, and very out of place in Vietnam! After that we went to a pagoda which was nothing special.

I am leaving for Saigon tomorrow morning at 7:30 am, so I will just get something to eat and then get an early night. I have posted more photos, so check the other website.

I took a night bus from Hoi An to Nha trang, which was a 13hr trip. I spent the first day on the beach, and so I am now a little bit red! I booked a 3 day open water diver course which started yesterday. The first day was watching a video and then in the afternoon I went to the swimming pool to learn the basics. It was 1 on 1 tutoring. My teacher is a crazy Vietnamese man called thoung. Yesterday was brilliant, but today in the ocean was unbeleivable. I saw loads of different fish, eels, lobsters, and seahorses, and spent about an hour looking them up in a reference book to try to identify them. I saw a lion fish, loads of different coloured parrot fish. I had an excellent time. Tomorrow I finish the course with 2 more dives and I will then be a cerified Scuba Diver! The food in Nha Trang is also excellent, as it is everywhere I have been. They cook the fresh seafood straight from the ocean, on barbeques on the beach!

Having a great time!

 It is really nice to receive emails from everyone at home too!

I spent a week in Hoi An, which is a unesco world herritage site. The old part of the town was really nice. The town is full of tailors shops, and so I had some clothes made. A suit, coat, trousers, jeans, 2 shorts and 2 shirts. All for 115 pounds. Most of it has been sent home by sea mail, so it should arrive in  the UK in 3 months time. I took a day trip to My Son, which is old temple ruins from the Champa kingdom. I don’t know if I was expecting too much, but I was a liitle disappointed. Probably my own fault though. It was still really nice. I don’t think it will be anything compared to the temples in Cambodia.

I arrived in Hue on the overnight train on Sunday night, after getting my bearings, I booked to go on a tour of the sights along the DMZ, the border between north and south Vietnam. Hue is actually quite a way south of the DMZ, so the tour began at 6am! We visited some famous battle sights like Khe Sahn US base, and the saw the Ho Chi Minh trail. Its now been paved, and is a main road to Saigon. We then had some lunch and in the afternoon we were taken to the old border, a river. There were watchtowers on both sides with loud speakers for blasting out propaganda from both sides. We went to a village that was in an area bombed alot, so they had dug a tunnel system that they could live in for weeks at a time. We got a tour through the tunnels, and even saw a maternity room where 17 babies were born underground!

On the tour was a Vietnamese woman, and her American husband. The lady ‘Houck’ was 14 when Hue was occupied by the North for 25 days, and her father was a high ranking government official for the South Vietnamese government. her father was on a list of people to be shot, but managed to escape out of the windon and hide from the NVA soldiers. The family then managed to steal a little boat, and 10 of them got all the way to Hong Kong! She then settled in the USA. The family still lives in the area, and they invited me to go to the house and have dinner. The food was great, and they kept bringing more and more for us to eat.

 Today I have beenon a private guided tour of the  countryside around Hue, it cost $5 for a 4hr tour, and the guide spoke very good english. It was great fun whizzing down little roads through rice paddys, dodging dogs, cows and children!

I will have some photos up soon, keep checking!

I’ve just got back from a 2 day cruise on Ha Long Bay, which is north west Vietnam. It was an organised excursion from Hanoi which the hostel booked. It was a little bit more than some tours, but at $49 for a 2 day trip, sleeping in a private cabin on the bay, and with excelent Vietnamese seafood, it was worth every penny. Some other people paid less to go on other tours, but alot were left disapointed by the food, or bus transfers.
The minibus ride was 3 hrs, and we stopped halfway at a craft centre where Vietnamese women were making embroideries, and selling silver jewelry.
When we got to Ha Long city, the number of boats was astonishing. We had to go through 3 other boats to get to our own. We then had Lunch served as we cruised towards the “amazing cave”. The food was really tasty. There was Squid, King Prawn, Fish, Rice and Tofu, as well as some vegetable dishes.
After lunch we arrived at the “amazing cave”, we climbed up through the cave system, while our funny guide, ‘phoung’ was explaining about the bay area and the cave formations. Some of the limestone looked like different things, a budda, a monkey, a dragons tail and a turtle were the best. We then had a short cruise to another limestone island where we had the opportunity to climb up to the veiwing area. Unfortunately the veiw was worse because of the cloud, but I didn’t find this out til I was a sweating wreck stood at the top!
The weather wasn’t great for seeing a long way, but it did still look amazing. I don’t think the weather really spoiled my enjoyment, but a lot of the photos have not come up very well. You’ll just have to come and see it for yourself!
After the veiwing island, we sailed into the middle of a really impressive area of islands, where we dropped anchor for the night. Dinner was then served, and it was again fantastic.
After dinner I stayed up drinking whisky and rum with some other passengers. It was really interesting hearing what other people thought of different places that I know I will visit soon.
This morning, we went to a floating village, were we set off on our Sea Kayaking trip. The trip was for about 1.5hrs and was amazing. We were the only group in that area, and it was so peaceful, even if it was drizzling a little bit! We waited about 10 minutes to see the monkeys, I just managed to get them on film.
After showering off, we had another great meal on the way back to the port, where our minibus was waiting to take us back to Hanoi.
I got lost walking back to the hostel, but it was nice to wander through the little streets.
Some photos are on http://www.flickr.com/photos/gareth_pratt/

I arrived in Vietnam today, at 12:00 local time, which felt like 5am for me. I was the first ever online booking at the hostel, as I was informed by email last week, turned out to be genuine much to my supprise. I was greeted with a traditional bunch of flowers from the head of Hosteling International in Vietnam. I’m being picked up tomorrow for a photo shoot! Famous already. Just hope that my photo doesn’t end up on any dubious websites!
The hostel is really nice, clean and with nice hot showers.
I’m going for an explore tomorrow, if I have caught up on my sleep by then.

Finished work on friday, don’t think i’ll miss the early morninings too much. Have spent this week packing and re-packing, getting medicines and traellers cheques, and generally having a bit of a panic that it has come around so quickly.

Nothing major left to do now except probably re-pack my bag for the 10th time!

I leave on Monday morning so the next chance i’ll get to post i’ll be in Hanoi (and wide awake in the middle of the night due to jet lag!!) 

Had a day off work today to go to the Vietnamese Embassy in London. £42 for 1 month tourist visa seemed a little expensive, but seeing as i can’t go without one I’ll just have to live with it!! Sould be receiving my passport back on the 6th Feb. Getting very excited now, and spending all my spare time on travelling websites, and reading guide books. Roll on the 13th!!