thewills'wanderings

The bus ride from Vietnam(Saigon) to Cambodia(Phnom Penh) takes 6 hours including the hour or more it takes at the border to apply for visas. The whole idea of crossing land borders is still very exciting to me probably because NZ is surrounded by sea, I guess. The bus company we travelled on also helps you with your visa application, take your passports and processes them for you at the border. Because we’re now seasoned SouthEast Asia travellers and want to save every penny we can, we told them we’d do it ourselves which saved $5US per visa and in the end did it just as quickly as everyone else. We even managed to get the girls under 12, free visas after some inside knowledge from the Ayres family(thanks!) . There’s no official information saying so, they just take your money and hope you don’t notice the ‘gratis’ stamp on the visa. Because we knew this Tim just marched up and told them 6 visas, 3 gratis, right? They looked grumpy but didn’t argue. So nice to win a fight(or not even have a fight), after a few weeks of fighting in Vietnam.

The bus trip was pretty cruisy, not a bad road and I didn’t even fear for my life, so that was good. Driving through the border and into Cambodia where gradually things start to look a little different is quite amazing. The outlying small towns are so poor, reminding us of Nepal, yet arriving in Phomn Pehn there’s plenty of signs of wealth with some very grand buildings and expensive cars. Tim kept pointing out the Hummers to anyone that was interested.

Right away we could feel a difference between the Vietnamese people and the Cambodian people. The Cambodian’s are still very keen to sell their wares and try quite hard to do so, but they do it in a much nicer way. They are warm and friendly and very easy to like. We’ve been shocked at the good level of English here and the willingness of people to help you out for nothing in return.
We spent 2 nights in PP. The girls spent a lot of time just relaxing and playing which they definetely need to do after lots of travel. They really do cope amazingly well with it all and I think the key is making sure they can have down time and just do normal things like make up shows and film them , or for Charlotte to play with her Polly’s or draw. We’ve been really glad to have the lap top with us, so the girls and us too can watch movies. We have to confess to buying quite a few dodgy copies of movies. We normally are really anti “stealing” movies or music but figure that while there is no way here to buy a real copy we can live with it. One of the mornings I stayed back at the guesthouse with the girls while Tim went to the genocide museum. We decided the girls didn’t need to see it. They’ve heard enough about what happened under the Pol Pot regime and we talk about it a lot. It’s hard not to when everyone you meet has a story of family members who died. Today, our tuk-tuk driver told me about his grandparents who were killed. It’s hard to believe when you look around today that it was only in the 1970’s that around 3 million people died either from brutal killing or starvation. Apparently the trials of some of the war criminals are taking place now in Phnom Penh. Now, Phnom Penh seems like an up and coming city with lots of development going on and obviously quite a bit of wealth. It’s hard to reconcile the wealth with the deformed beggars on the streets and the poverty in the country areas. I know we talk about the gap between the rich and poor in NZ, but it’s just not the same when the poor here are so desperately poor.

From here it’s off to Siem Reap to explore the ancient ruins!

href=’http://blogs.bootsnall.com/adventure/files/2009/08/vietnam-121.jpg’ title=’vietnam-121.jpg’>So after 4 nights in Nha Trang we jumped on a train from to Saigon(Ho Chi Minh City). It was an 8 hour train ride arriving in Saigon at 9pm, so we had to be organised with a place to stay when we arrived. We’ve figured out that unless we’re arriving in a big city or late in the day, it’s better to find accommodation when we get there. There are always better, cheaper options than what you can book on-line, so usually I sit with the kids and bags and Tim goes on the hunt for accommodation. It was great to have something organised when we arrived in Saigon though and we got a taxi straight to the Yellow House Hotel right in the middle of the backpacker, party zone. Actually, we had two pumping pubs right next door, so we didn’t get much sleep and in the morning Tim went on a mission to find something better which he did, around the corner in a quiet street with way nicer rooms.

We spent a few days here which can be described best as the Surfers Paradise of Vietnam. It was a fun place to hang out for a few days but didn’t really have any character. It was full of Vietnamese people who were on summer vacation and overseas tourists like us. There were lots of resort style restuarants on the beach with umbrellas you had to pay to sit under. (We just went kiwi style and actually sat on the sand except for once when we snuck into a flash restaurant and Charlotte dived in the pool while we looked at the menu and decided that the prices were a bit excessive, and then dragged her out of the pool and hit the beach). I know, life’s hard.

So, here we pretty much just hung out, recharged our batteries,swam and lay on the beach. Tim, once again felt the need to hire a motorbike (personally, I think he’s struggling having no vehicle of his own and the cheap motorbike hire is a good opportunity for him to hoon around).

One day we went on a snorkelling trip out to an island which was fantastic. We were pleasantly surprised by the clear water, colourful coral and tropical fish. It was a very cruisy trip with our own boat, lunch provided and lots of time for the girls to jump off the boat into the warm, blue water. Charlotte shocked all the people on the boats around with her swimming skills and bravery as she leapt off and swam to the side. It was amazingly cheap for a day trip, we really felt very spoilt!

We’ve now been in Vietnam for about 10 days. We flew into Hanoi from Laos and it didn’t take long for us to realise how different Vietnam is from our experiences of South-East Asia so far. Everything and everyone is faster, meaner and way more rude. We stayed in the Old Quarter of Hanoi which is filled with streets selling everything you can imagine. They seem to be organised according to what they’re selling, so you get a whole block of sunglasses, then a whole block of plastic toys or t-shirts or tools or whatever. It was fascinating to wander, but very exhausting especially with the stifling heat and the huge numbers of motorbikes you have to contend with just crossing the street. Crossing the road is a talent that I haven’t quite perfected. Having traffic driving on the right hand side of the road makes it more of a problem. Tim nearly got wiped out with Charlotte on his shoulders as he stepped out confidently forgetting to look left first instead of right. Very scary! After a couple of hours out on the street it was so nice to retreat to our hotel room and escape the chaos.

So far we’ve found Vietnam quite hard work. We feel as if everyone is trying to rip us off and we have to constantly be on our guard. In Hanoi I had a bit of an incident with a shop owner which was quite amusing. I went into a guesthouse that advertised international calls. At that moment there was a power cut so she said I could use her mobile and that it would cost the same. She very clearly quoted the price per minute and then dialled the number for me. I talked for about 10 minutes and then went to pay. She was all friendly and told me the amount to pay her and then suddenly she saw that she’d made a mistake and that her phone credit had gone down more than she had expected and she went nuts! She started yelling at me and telling me I was a bad, crazy lady! I don’t like confrontation and don’t get stroppy easily but after a couple of days in Hanoi I was ready for a fight! So after lots of her yelling, telling complete lies about the price she quoted and me telling her that NO, she is lying and dishonest, I just said “Goodbye!” and walked as fast as possible back to our hotel, occasionally looking behind just to check she wasn’t chasing me! We had lots of similar incidents which make life hard work. It’s all part of the experience, though, seeing how different people are and wondering why cultures are the way they are.

While in Hanoi we went to a water puppetry theatre one night and a circus another. The circus was more like a stage show and was Ali Babar, Vietnamese style. It was a real ‘old style’ circus with monkeys riding bikes and en elephant balancing on one foot.

After 3 nights in Hanoi we booked a trip up to Halong Bay which is probably one of the ‘must see’ sights in Vietnam. The tour was for a night on a boat cruising in the bay, checking out the islands , swimming, kayaking and going to a cave. Well, after the 3 hour ride by mini-bus we then queued with hundreds of people who were all getting on boats like we were. The difference was that we had all our bags,(we decided not to leave most of our bags back in Hanoi as most people do, in case we stayed longer up at Halong Bay. There was so much waiting around and so many boats and no one really telling us what was going on. Anyway, we FINALLY got out in the bay and the scenery was stunning, huge limestone cliffs and over 3000 islands of various sizes. We had lunch and dinner on the boat and we had two rooms, our one even had a bathroom. We all got to jump off the boat into the sea which was awesome even though we only got to swim at about 7pm and the girls had been waiting all day. Michaella got stung by a jellyfish which was a bit of a bummer. That night we were told that a storm was coming so first thing in the morning we’d have to head back early along with the hundreds of other boats. At first we thought they were tricking us and just trying to shorten the trip but a storm was really coming and the other boats were all heading back too. Our boat seemed on a mission to be the first boat back so we were woken at 5.45am, given breakfast, and then dumped on the pier by about 8.30am. So, the trip was a bit of a disappointment really, not just because we came back early but just the lack of organisation and waiting around. I guess also, because Halong Bay is promoted as this beautiful spot to see, you have huge expectations and while it is awesome it’s so commercialised that it has been spoiled by so many boats and tourists everywhere.

Because we had planned to stay up north after the tour, we hadn’t booked the bus back to Hanoi. With the weather not going to be great for a few days we decided to head back to Hanoi for a night before we headed south for Hue down on the Central Vietnam coast. Booking a bus back was a mission but we finally got a bus (which again involved Tim fighting about seats and money) and we held on tight for yet another scary bus ride with the scariest overtaking moves yet. We arrived back in Hanoi, just ready for the afternoon downpour which turns the streets into calf deep puddles within about 5 minutes of torrential rain. We jumped into a taxi to avoid the rain and promptly got ripped off by the dodgy meters that run super fast. By this stage in the day I didn’t really care, I just wanted somewhere to stay. We were dumped in the Old Quarter where all the hotels were and Tim went off in the rain to try to find us a room. He came back and said he’d found a place so off we went. After walking in calf deep water in the rain, where we were dodging cockroaches that had been washed out of the drains, we got to the hotel only to be told that sorry the rooms are gone now. Fortunately, they found somewhere for us which was out of the centre a bit but they took us in a taxi and paid for it! Amazing! I wish I could have managed to get the camera out when we were all walking along in the deep water because we did look very amusing. The six of us and all of our bags, slushing our way through the streets of Hanoi was quite a sight and we were getting lots of laughs from locals and foreigners too! We finally reached our hotel and collapsed. That was one of the least enjoyable travelling days so far, but definitely a memorable one!

That night we booked tickets for the overnight train for the following night heading to Hue, down on the coast. We wanted a six berth cabin but when our hotel booked it for us they said they were all full , so instead they booked us a 4 berth which was cheaper, but 2 of us would have to share. We decided that would be fine, but when we boarded the train we found that we didn’t have a 4 berth to ourselves, we had a six berth but only 4 beds, so we had to share with two strangers. Fortunately, they were a really nice couple, a kiwi and a South African, and it was all fine.
From this point on we started to enjoy Vietnam a lot more. It’s true what everyone says, the further south you go, the more open and friendly people are. We spent a couple of nights in Hue, a really pretty town which we explored on bikes. We spent an afternoon at the beach just relaxing, or trying to at least, quite hard to do with so many people trying to sell us something though.

From there we caught the train 3 hours south to Hoi An which is where we are now, and LOVING it! The train ride was spectacular as it followed the coast and below we could see the white sandy beaches and rice fields. The girls were very excited to see the beautiful sea and couldn’t wait to get swimming!

Hoi An is a gorgeous town full of history with old Chinese buildings, over 600 tailor shops that make the most amazing clothes and to top it all off, fantastic white sandy beaches with coconut palms and gentle surf. At night, the town is lit up with lanterns on all the old buildings and it is stunning.

The beach is about 5km’s from town so we hired bikes and rode there. Maddie had a wipeout and got some nasty grazes on her leg. I came round the corner and there she was in the gravel on the side of the road with a little Vietnamese man running out to her rescue. He came over with clean water and and cleaned it all up. Just as we were about to go, he said, “No wait, medicine is coming!”Then another man on a motorbike arrived with first-aid gear and he then did a bit more cleaning up. He didn’t even ask for money for his help. It’s horrible that that went through our minds, but it was quite a surprise for someone to do something nice here without asking for something in return. In Hanoi, Tim asked someone where an ATM machine was and the guy told him and then asked for money for telling him! So, Vietnam is growing on us. We’re having lots of positive encounters with people now and that changes everything. Our time here in Hoi An has been very refreshing, there’s nothing like the beach to chill you out! (especially when the temperature is 35degrees in the shade!)

Just in case you all think we’re doing nothing except sit on the beach, I must tell you that we have been doing a bit of schoolwork here. Yesterday, Tim did a ‘lesson’ on the Vietnam War(known as the American War here). He found a great site on the internet which showed all sorts of photos of the area we’re in. It was fascinating for the girls (and us) to see the beach we’re at, with American troops landing on it and running through the rice fields etc. The beach we’re at is the iconic China Beach where the American troops spent a bit of time during R and R times during the war. Occasionally we see older Vietnamese amputees and I wonder what happened to them and how they felt about the war. I only wish we could have a conversation with some of them.

Yesterday we hired a motorbike and joined the locals in seeing how many family members we can get on one bike. Tim ferried us to the beach. First he took Charlotte and me, then came back for the big girls. I was a bit of a nervous passenger at first, but I must admit I’m quite enjoying it now. For $5 a day for a motorbike it’s such a good way to get around. Tim’s trying to convince me to drive one so we can all go out at one time. I’m not so sure.

In the next couple of days we’ll leave here and head for Nha Trang which is again a beachy town with lots of fun stuff to do, so we’ll probably hang out there for a while. We’ll then make our way to Saigon and arrange getting to Cambodia. We’ve arranged with World Vision to meet our sponsored child and her family on August 5th which is quite exciting. We spend the whole day, first visiting the office and hearing about the work in the area and then meeting Samreth and her family and having lunch together.

We’re also now planning the Europe part of our trip. We’ve discovered Germany is the cheapest place to hire campervans(way cheaper) and also discovered 1 Euro flights to and from London(actually about $35 flights with all the other costs) but still the cheapest option, so we’re going to fly to Frankfurt, hire a camper and drive around Europe for a month. It will be lots of driving but we can’t wait. We’re looking forward to having our own transport and ability to cook for ourselves. Of course, this plan could well change by that time but at this stage that’s the plan.

Don’t forget to check out the ‘more photos’ link.

………will post photos on here later today