Jolly frogs and Volcano chickens Note: this is rather a crass post, apologies.
Ok, I cannot believe I forgot to tell this story!
So we decided to head east from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, with a Scottish couple we met, M and S. Our minibus dropped us off right outside a backpackers place called the “Jolly Frog. We decided to stay there on the basis of the excellent décor (we had clouds on our ceiling, a mixed texture of bamboo, concrete and an 80’s paint-splash motif, but most importantly we had a picture hanging on the wall) and the low, low price. There was nice little garden area overlooking the river with hammocks too.
We headed to a 10 baht whiskey bar (literally a street bar with paint drums up turned, a draughts set on a miniature table, and a small belligerent dog named Cocktail who was most angry at the ugly outfit she was wearing; a harlequin dress with tinsel and bells) before heading to another place for a bucket or two where you were awarded upon entry with a free shot of what tasted like potent sloe gin. Tired, I went home early (1ish) Dan and the Scots stayed out ‘til 5 with a Welsh couple E and L who I vaguely remembered meeting that night. Thai whiskey will do that for your memory. The next morning I found myself up early so I got a coffee while Dan slumbered further. I sat in the café area and other than myself were 4 middle aged men, each with a rough looking Thai prostitute. At least they had the decency to buy them breakfast. I felt incredibly queasy, as L later pointed out “you have to wonder what has gone wrong with your life when you’re in your 40’s and you go on holiday for 2 weeks staying in a hole paying 4 quid a night for a room to bang skanky Thai hookers” . Never a truer word spoken.
Later that day we decided to stroll down to the famous bridge, we were told it wasn’t far. It took ages to get there! At least I had a Lipton Peach Iced Tea for the journey. When we finally arrived, it was overrun with tourists. Many people had started to walk across the bridge which was iron and half rotten, holey wooden planks. We’d gotten to the part of the bridge which was over the water when L called over “there’s a train coming”. We thought he was joking, there were hordes of tourists on the tracks, and a few platforms that jutted to the sides. I looked, and sure enough saw the light of a train, and heard the toot of a horn. I was quite in a state of disbelief; it was a bloody big train! We waited and waited for it to pass, as it did some Thai douche (unsuccessfully) made to grab Dan’s camera from around his neck. We decided we’d had enough of the tracks and went to look at the market stalls. We saw some incredible hats, Trilbys made of leopard, tiger or zebra (take your pick from those delectable flavors) velour. Dan tried on the leopard print and looked like he belonged in 70’s LA. We set off to find a whole outfit, found some dreadful silk Hawaiian shirts, native African dress robes and t-shirts with pictures of elephants playing football akin to the 3 wolves howling moon tees that people who think they’re ironic love to wear. I had to laugh when a little old Thai lady scolded us “you buy! YOU NO PLAY!!” We headed back and I got another peach iced tea, and decided to have a delicious meal together in the Jolly Frog’s restaurant. We waited I swear to God 20 minutes for one of the staff to tear themselves away from their gossip/bitching session to come and take our order. . Volcano chicken. A sumptuous whole chicken cooked in plum sauce. It cost 3 quid and a whole chicken would feed 6 of us with sides. What we got was far beyond our wildest expectations. The chicken was served impaled and upright on the dish and resembled Isla Nublar, a small island off the coast of Costa Rica that had once hosted Jurassic Park. Green foliage surrounded the plum sauce at the base of the chicken/volcano, and we were presented with spoon and fork to carve. I’d like it to be noted here that earlier that day, Dan had been presented with a steak knife for fried eggs. The fruits of the volcano were a delight- it literally was a whole chicken; head attached, beak and all. It should also be said that M was still feeling hung over and so utterly repulsed by the whole affair, which only made me more hysterical- I still feel a little guilt at laughing so much. L was the only one man enough to attempt to carve, and served up neck shaft, wing and some meat. The chicken itself was actually pretty good, but I thought M was going to run away when we discovered its little feet talons and all, tucked up inside itself. I nearly died laughing. 
Unsurprisingly we were still hungry so we headed to the Seven-Eleven and got a ham and cheese toasty and iced tea. Later that night, we discovered how the hostel had gotten its name. Walking back to our room Dan kicked a frog, totally by accident. He didn’t see it as he strolled down the pathway. I did see it, and I also saw a rather large rat chowing down on leftovers on a table the staff could not be bothered to clear before they went home. It was a big, big rat. I can honestly say there’s no love lost between myself and such rodents, I did not sleep at all that night, terrified it would it crawl under our door and onto my face for dessert.
I woke early, about seven the next morning, completely unrefreshed and haggard, stumbled into the bathroom for morning ablutions, stumbled back out and retched violently for five minutes. The humidity, the heat, the fact our bathroom had a non-flushing toilet with no lid, no bum-washer hose, and the bin hadn’t been emptied made me violently ill. It was the most terrible smell I have ever had the misfortune to inhale (and I’m from downwind of Widnes), and the worst thing about it was that it consumed the thick, humid air, forced its way to the back of my throat. I almost wept. Dan was awake, fuming, not because I’d woken him- I’m a master at silent despair, but because a guy in the room adjacent, or above, or probably across the garden was playing Angry Birds on his iPhone. He stopped when Dan screamed at him. It could have been worse, we didn’t hear the incessant whore-banging that E and L had been subjected to by their middle aged neighbor. Desperate to get out of the room I went and bought a peach iced tea. That day we headed to the stunning Erawan waterfalls, though I will admit I was too much of a wimp to go in the freezing water, I just played photographer with Dan’s camera and watched a monkey taunt a dog.
I had my first fishing experience in Kanachanaburi. We decided one afternoon to go fish as L had seen a posters advertising a plaice (yes I did just type that) we could go. Now, normally you can’t walk down a street without being harassed by tuk-tuk drivers. We hunted one down, sat on the pavement smoking and he quoted us 100 baht. We found one other driver who didn’t know where we wanted to go and couldn’t read a map we’d peeled off a lamp post. Resigned, we went back to the first guy who’d then quoted us 150 the second time around. I guess he really didn’t want to work that day. We set off down the road and eventually flagged one down. Four of us squeezed into the side cage with the driver’s portly wife. The bike barely moved. Later that afternoon we arrived, greeted by a vicious sounding, rather large dog that was thankfully chained. We got kitted up and set off for the large ponds. L was the first to catch a sizeable fish, I have no idea what type. Next was E, who honest to God caught a catfish as big as myself. She needed help holding it for the photo, I can’t imagine how heavy it was. I was determined, not at all put off by the unleashed dog that had been watching me from behind a tree. It was Dan’s turn next, he caught a baby catfish. Their whiskers always make me laugh. I was desperate now, and headed back to the pond where E had caught Moby Dick. Now the entire time we were there, the first angry dog had barked continuously. But out of the corner of my eye I noticed five dogs spread around the perimeter of this pond. Some tied to a post, some free as the wind. I steeled myself against them and stood my ground when one of them started barking furiously. The free dogs started to move to the leashed dog and suddenly, out of the bushes I saw why the dogs were so aggravated- a bloody big Komodo dragon. Or crocodile. Or velociraptor. It was huge, whatever it was, and fast. It stared out the dog closest to it for a long ten seconds and then scurried into pond. Forget fishing, I wanted to catch the monster from the deep. I’ll be honest here, I cast my line once more before the fear got the better of me and I ran away to the other pond where the other guys were, resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t catch anything and that I was a wimp. It was getting dark and we decided to go home. The tuk-tuk that had brought us to the fishing place had somehow psychically returned, again with his wife who took up much of the room and took us home, not before angry dog tried to eat me as I walked past (at distance). We got back, and I got myself a delicious peach iced tea. I couldn’t face the prospect of our room for much longer, the rats or the useless staff and so I begged Dan to go back to Bangkok to kill time before we left for Hong Kong. We left the next day, myself with a harrowing addiction to Lipton’s Peach flavoured iced tea, Dan with the knowledge that he is a better fisherman than me, and both of us with memories of a hilarious and also disturbing few days.
Planes, trains, automobiles and tuk-tuks.
Inspired by my good friend Alex, I thought I’d tot up a few statistics…
Hours spent in the air: 39h 50min
Hours spent on a boat: 12h 30min
Hours spent on a bus: 117h 5min
Hours spent driving: 59h
Hours spent on a train: 22h
Number of Tuk-Tuks: 234325678
Highest Altitude: 4800m
Deepest depth: 18m
No. of police stop-checks: 2
(yep armed police with polished Sigs and sturdy looking batons got only Dan and I off the bus to check our documents. # of times I was terrified: 1 (the first time))
Border crossings:
Land: 2
Air: 5
Water: 1
I will update as we go along…
Circo fantastico!
We’ve been in Colombia less than a week now and we’ve hit up Cartagena, Medellin and we are imminently heading to Manizales for some snow-capped volcano hiking action.
In some ways there was a massive culture shock, in others my expectations had been realized. Our first hostel was very different to what we were used to … we’d been spoiled prior. There were 8 bunk beds and 0 privacy, a shared bathroom across a courtyard, which for lazy me was a pain in the ass having to pack a day bag just to get dressed and brush my teeth. There was one guy who is backpacking like us and has 6 hats. Big ones! It’s ridiculous, I can’t believe he’s carrying them round with him- I saw him wearing a straw one, but last night I saw him SLEEPING in a blue one.What made our arrival so bewildering, and it’s completely our own fault, was the fact that Dan and I did not make the effort to learn Spanish like we’d promised ourselves. Obviously the locals don’t speak English, but nearly everyone in our hostel speaks Spanish fluently- which doesn’t make us look very good. We made a few attempts with the phrasebook which is fine to ask a question, it’s when you get a fast reply that everything comes undone! We have managed; we booked bus tickets to Medellin and ended up in… . Medellin not Venezuela. The bus journey was interesting too… the seats were super comfortable and we slept a little, but the journey scheduled to take 13 hours took 17, probably because our porky driver stopped what seemed like every 40 minutes to feed. I got to eat some yummy Pan de Coco, bread similar to naan filled with sugar and coconut. We saw some beautiful countryside and discovered the Colombian’s love of Jason Statham films (we watched enough, dubbed of course), and I cracked out the Christmas music!
The weather has been great- lovely warm tropical climate after freezing LA, and there are amazing thunder and rain storms every afternoon you can set your watch by. I love Medellin’s vibe, big big city that’s incredibly green. As always the people are wonderful, we sat in a mall huddled over the phrasebook wondering how to ask about international phone calls when we were accosted by a woman with 3 kids and her husband in tow. She asked us what we needed, conferred with her husband, took us under her wing and helped us. She took us to where we could make a call, waited with us to make sure we were ok and gave us her phone number and invited us to call her if we needed anything or anyone to show us around the city. We walked around for the rest of the day with a warm feeling inside. We got the metro into the city centre and as any city centre on a Saturday it was coco loco. Stalls lined the streets, clothes, cigarettes, coffee (coffee fact of the trip #2+3: Coffee is the world’s second most traded commodity after oil and Colombia is only the world’s 3rd biggest coffee exporter) make up, leather goods, carts with food, donuts and pastries delicious cream-fruit sundaes. People were out on the streets drinking beer milling about; Dan got his bottom smacked by a small kid as he was being wheeled past on a pallet cart, Spanish music floating up into the ether. What we’ve encountered so far has been an atmosphere unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, and it’s wonderful.
A little bit of Cartagena
A little Carribbean sunset
Attention our precious guests!
Attention our precious guests!
Hong Kong was excellent, my new favorite city! It’s beautiful day and night, and truly the place where east meets west. It’s a modern, sleek, financial business mecca, but the many bright neon signs are dominated by Cantonese script. We stayed in Chungking mansions which from the outside looks somewhat derelict, a dominating shabby office block building. On the steps are many hawkers who see you carrying a bag and attempt vigorously to get you to stay in their guesthouses. Once inside we had to navigate our way through the labyrinthine passages past the small shops selling postcards, Indian food, mobile phones and sim cards, electronics and hats, to find the rickety elevator to take us to the Maple Leaf Guesthouse. Once up there we were greeted by the incredibly nice proprietor and shown to our tiny space-aware room. We did have a miniature double bed (fine for me but at nearly 6ft Dan struggled) with a closet sized bathroom. It was so cute I loved it, though I didn’t fully appreciate the smell of deep fried Indian appetizers that more than occasionally wafted through.
As true travelers, we hit up all of the free/cheap tourist activities; strolled along the Avenue of Stars, watched the cool light show (I’m a sucker for anything bright and colorful), strolled through the markets, took the ferry and tram up to the peak to admire the view and did a fair bit of people watching. I honestly loved it there so much; I want to start learning Cantonese and move out there! It’s such a big bustling metropolis I was not expecting the people to be so friendly. They were real stars! For example, on our way through the airport as we were leaving a young woman stopped us and asked if she could do a brief survey regarding tourism in Hong Kong. She asked how many times I’d been to the city and to my response of my first time she asked how I liked it and I said that I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to return to that she said:”ah Hong Kong welcomes you for next time!” what a wonderful attitude! (much better than Thailand “land of smiles”).
Amazing HK light show
LA also was cool, not what I was expecting. We stayed in a hostel off Hollywood Blvd, a couple of blocks down from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Our first day we went to Universal studios, the rides there were a lot of fun, and seeing sets from Desperate Housewives and other stages on the backlot was quite surreal. The next day we hit Six Flags Magic Mountain and that was AMAZING!! Whiteknuckletastic! The best ride was X2, where you climb incredibly high, the seating arrangement so that you are on your back headfirst as you plummet at God-knows-what speed but the seats spin round 360⁰ up and down loop the loop. It was mid afternoon we rode X2 I hadn’t eaten for hours nothing in my stomach and I still wanted to throw up!
There’s quite a dingy side to the city, and it’s so sprawling. We decided to walk down the famous Sunset and Santa Monica Blvds, and we walked for quite a while through what seemed to be industrial blocks or weak concrete strip malls consisting of pawn shops, launderettes and liquor stores. To get to the fancy parts where the beautiful people go I guess you have to cover some distance by driving, which I don’t really know how anyone could be bothered with the traffic (a 12 minute drive from Dan’s brother’s hotel took nearly an hour during the day). We hadn’t seen any celebrities and were somewhat disappointed- we’d had a near miss the night before with Paris Hilton who’d been partying down the road from us but I was too lazy and couldn’t care any less about her to make the effort to go out star spotting. It was our last day so we decided to cut our losses and head to the Hollywood-Highlands area again, get a few snaps of the famous sign and Angela Lansbury’s star on the Walk of fame. As we wandered out of the Kodak theatre we saw a crowd of people, and I saw a person dressed as an armchair. Bemused by such a random costume I was about to exclaim loudly to Dan about said armchair when I saw what the crowd was looking at … James Cameron; megadirector of Terminator, Titanic and Avatar. I was just in awe, this star-spot made up for the previous 3 day drought! He was giving a speech at the inauguration of the creator of Cirque Du Soleil into the walk of fame. I’m still delighted that I’ve seen someone of such epic talent and fame – it by far blows seeing the fat singer from The Zutons out the water.
JC
We headed to the downtown area still in awe, to visit the fashion, jewelry and toy districts. This was the best day of window-shopping I’ve ever had. The products really were sights to behold. Instead of fancy high-end stores like Chanel, a winter grotto toy stores like Hamleys and beautiful jewelry stores. What we found were ugly ass velour blankets with terrible pictures of Marilyn Monroe or the lone wolf howling at the moon and glitter t-shirts stating “sexy bitch”, miserable toys that already looked broken and the most offensive jewelry designs that make Craigslist look like Tiffany’s. Brilliant!
Hollywood and LA are unusual places, and a little disappointing. I was expecting the glitz and glamour so often portrayed but it seemed to be an even tackier version of Vegas, seedy and sad. The place reeked of crushed dreams and rape. On our last night, there was a premier for some film directly across the road from the McDonalds we’d stopped in for food before our flight. A few meters away from us were celebrities in their $1000 dresses grinning and sparkling for the cameras, while right next to us a gang war was about to start, the manager was kicking out a homeless woman while another guy was trying to steal fistfuls of sugar packets and napkins. It was about to kick off, we inhaled our food and got the heck out of there.
hey you long hair! hey you rockstar!
So we’ve been in Thailand for a couple of weeks now, currently residing in Bangkok in a cheap room (2oo Baht: a very hard bed , shared bathroom, no power outlets, small table and a couple of clothes hooks, backpackers delight: CLEAN) and I must say I’m growing to love it more each day. There was a sadness when we boarded the flight from Siem Reap to Koh Samui- no I don’t want to leave an underdeveloped gem, no I don’t want to see hoards of tourists, no I don’t want to go. The beach at Samui was quiet and the water so blue, but it was when we got to koh Phangan that we got to enjoy the sun and sand so soft you couldn’t manufacture it. Full moon party was fun, though maybe I’m just getting old or a lot less tolerant of shitty trance music. I went to bed early, 4.30am, unable to force myself to remain awake for another 2 hours to see the sunrise (and it was beautiful, I really did miss out). We were lucky enough to stay in a nice place for my birthday- air con and my first hot shower in a month. I even got to watch tv, a sort-of-rubbish but also enjoyable Disney film starring Bruce Willis and a questionable hair piece. And my first ever infinity pool. Koh Phangan was where I was introduced to my first bucket, the Millennium trilogy and banana choco pancakes. The street vendors’ pancakes were by and far the best- I remember one diabolical Snickers pancake in a restaurant where I ordered said pancake expecting a choclatey-peanut gooey mess of love. What I received was a stone-cold pancake blanketing a hard oblong outline, reminiscent of the white-man outline at a crime scene. It was just nice to stay somewhere for a relatively long time and not have to schlep my backpack around every couple of days. We met an American trilogy of military men and two very miserable Israeli girls (every time they opened their mouths they complained. Literally. I am aware that I can be a grumpy cow too, but Jesus they were something else. Later we were to bump into them in Bangkok and again they moaned for a full five minutes. Could not wait to get away from that stop and chat. Also made me wonder why some people bother to go on holiday if nowhere matches up to the oh-so high standards of home). We island hopped to koh Tao so I could learn to scuba dive, and I’m not ashamed to say that it was pretty scary. We did some classroom learning, some swimming pool learning, and some open water learning. Seeing such wildlife in such circumstances was pretty awesome. We did 4 open water dives and in that time I managed to see a tiny stingray, butterfly fish, sea cucumbers (GROSS), parrot fish, Harlequin sweetlips (demented little cuties), Clark’s anemone (NEMO!), banner fish, porcupine fish, damsel fish, titan trigger fish, angel fish, white-eyed eel, but the very best was saved for the last dive. We saw, and swam with a hawk billed turtle. It was RAD.
We intended to hop on over to Koh Phi Phi on the night boat, but learned about an hour before we were supposed to board that the boat would not sail due to bad weather. The night was calm and dry. Our options were to risk booking the boat for the next night with the possibility that it could be cancelled at the last minute, or to book the catamaran to Bangkok the next morning. After some deliberation we decided on Bangkok- the boat was a guaranteed sail ( as apparently it was better equipped to deal with choppy waters) and we couldn’t really afford Phi Phi anyways- we’ve been hemorrhaging money since we landed on Samui. We boarded the white knuckle ride the next morning. Honest to God, I swear the boat took off a couple of times, and at one point I selected Radiohead on my Ipod as I wanted to listen to something apt on the way down. The swell was huge, the waves roared, it was as if the Great Wave of Kanagawa had come to life and bellowed right underneath our boat. Everywhere, people around were heaving and chundering into little delicate plastic bags. Wimps. I loved it! Dan asked if I was looking to the horizon to keep me from feeling nauseous. Hell no, I was looking into the waves trying to work whether we’d take off on this one! I could see why our vessel hadn’t sailed the night before and I was glad. We arrived safe and sound, and got on a bus for 8 hours to bring us into Bangkok.
Now, Bangkok does have a bad rep. I will admit that when I got off the bus at one end of the Khao San road I was dismayed to see Starbucks,McDonalds, Burger King and Subway. Many say that BKK is where east meets west. I say it’s where west is attempting rape of the east and has it in a stranglehold. Eastern civilization has got on pretty alright so far thankyouverymuch, and Thai coffee is much nicer than the below-average, over-priced rubbish they sell in Starbucks. But I digress. Many say that BKK is “too seedy” , “too touristy” and “too dirty and polluted” . There is a simple solution. If you think it’s too seedy, stay away from the sex shows and red light district, if you think it’s too touristy stay away from the Khao San road- do your research and go to one of the many districts and suburbs where the locals thrive, and if you say it’s too polluted, well what big city isn’t? Everyone on London is grey no matter what their natural colouring is, LA and Paris aren’t exactly sparkling- quit moaning, it’s not hard. What is hard is trying to resist buying clothes and twak from the street markets, or laughing at the ingenious slogans the suit-sellers come up with as you pass them on the street. It’s a great place, sometimes you feel like you’re in the 70’s with the building architecture and old school air con machines, the pretty coloured formica lanterns and psychedelic tablecloths in the cafes. A wonderful place to be, the bread is excellent too.
hungry fish, hot hands and heavy rain.
Monsoon season is here.
I am posting slightly out of order here- I still want to write about visiting the War Museum in HCMC and the S21 and Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, but I need time to collect my thoughts and to write in detail that shall do them both justice. But now I will concentrate on Cambodia so far.
Phnom Penh is a small city with a very laid back vibe. Our second day there, it rained hard for about half an hour. We took shelter in a bar getting caught in the downpour wasn’t the problem; it was the flooded streets afterward. Seriously deep- I know I’m short, but I stood on tip toes and the water was thigh deep, condoms floating past. Drainage systems were not the best.
We didn’t do too much other than pay our respects at S21 and the Killing fields. I did very well to succeed at not crying. We’d met E, my absolute favourite Dutch person, and travelled with her entirely though Cambodia. She’s lovely and so very interesting; I learned an awful lot from talking to her about politics, life in Holland, the television industry. And strangely we had actually met many weeks ago in Hoi An. We’d been walking down the street with J and L, a great Aussie couple, when they were stopped by a girl who knew them in Sapa, and we were briefly introduced. A couple of weeks later, when we were in Dalat I noticed a very pretty girl in our hotel but had never spoken to her. When we crossed the Mekong delta into Cambodia on an incredibly slow slowboat, I recognized the girl from Dalat- it was E. One night in conversation we realized that our paths had crossed twice before but we’d never properly spoken and realized how awesome each other are! There is a travellers path in Asia and you know that you will see many people, getting to know some of them or just recognizing faces but it still my mind when I think about how close you come to making great friends and how easy it is to pass them by never knowing how great a person is. As I’ve said before, we’ve been so lucky with the people we’ve met- we’ve had brilliant experiences while we’ve been out here that really were only made so good by the people we were with. They are all legends, and I really was so sad when we parted ways.
Battambang was a small town we visited as we headed north. The journey there was amusing. As there had been a major holiday, many people had visited their families in the capital and then headed home the same day that we travelled by local bus. We were the only white people on the bus (well I was orange but that’s really splitting hairs). Dan and I sat next to each other and enjoyed the Cambo-pop karaoke played loudly over the speakers. The accompanying music videos were incredibly entertaining- dramatic affairs with one young man singing his heart and life away to a pretty girl, giving her a necklace and then watching her cast it to the floor of the mall foodcourt as she ran to the arms of his arch enemy rival, a true broken heart story. The tv captured much of our attention, but on the opposite seats a girl of about 5 watched Dan, entranced by his flowing blond locks and bright blue eyes. For 6 hours she did not take her eyes off him, and at one point Dan had dozed off only to be woken by said girl stroking his fine leg hair, petting him like a dog. He looked right at her and she did not break her gaze as she continued to pet, along with her little friend from the seat in front. Dan decided (had no choice) but to ignore it and put his earphones in, to which the 2 girls put their hands over their ears and started dancing in the aisle of the bus.
We did a wonderful tuk-tuk tour around Battambang itself- we visited an ancient temple 358 steep stairs up a hill. The temple complex was crumbling, hundreds of years old atop a hill that gave us views of the sprawling countryside. There was a distinct juxtaposition of peace and violence here, the Buddhist temples where peace has been preached for many centuries, and in the surrounding trees on the slopes of the hill stark red signs that declared “Danger! Land Mines”. It’s the sad story of the Khmer people’s lives. We also visited another temple and monastery atop an even bigger hill. It was hard work climbing it in the midday heat, but we were rewarded with stunning views, and a long conversation with a young Buddhist monk. The monastery and temple were gorgeous, ornate, and the monks were keen to practise their English:
Monk:“Do you have meskeets in England?”
Me:“I’m sorry, pardon?”
“Um, meskees?”
“Er, I don’t know, sorry I don’t hear very well, DAN!”
“Do you have mekeees?”
Dan:“Mosquitoes? No we don’t”
Me:”aaah, mosquitoes, I thought you meant Mosques. Well we do have mosques too”
Monk: “Ah, Mosque. The temple of Islam”
There is something about when a Buddhist monk smiles. It’s just so genuine and serene, and it’s really wonderful. Obviously it’s a prerequisite of the job, it’s not exactly hard to see one smile, but it is special.
Siem Reap was a cute little town, very touristy with lots of bars and restaurants (“Best Mexican in Cambodia!”) and a big night market. Of course we hunted out the traditional food, went for lunch in a great place that proclaimed “Khmer and proud”, had some great Khmer curry- fish, shrimp, beef and chicken washed down with 50 cent Angkor beer. We really are spoiled for amazing food, and I have stopped taking pictures of it, mainly because I forget and have demolished half of it before I realize my error. We decided to wait a day to get some rest, and then to head to Angkor Wat for sunrise- an eye burningly early 5.50am tomorrow. So we went for a wander, did a few errands and found the pretty night market. Lots of silk scarves, bags and jewellery. As we wandered out, we passed a sign for Dr Fish, proclaiming he could make us “happy and funny”. 60 minutes of little fish nibbling at your feet, free beer or cocktails and fee back and nack (yes nack- their typo but it stays) massage for $2.50. How could we refuse! Well yes, it did make us happy and funny. It was so ticklish, and I could barely order my drink I was in stitches. Those fish are hungry, they just swarmed round all of our feet munching away. At one point it did cross my mind, would they stop when they got to the live flesh? So we stayed, and chatted and drank and had our necks massaged and then the skies opened and how there is that much water in the sky I don’t know. Thunder rolled in and flashes of lightning. The rain didn’t seem like it was going to let up any time soon, and our time was up. So we thought, well it’s only $2 for a full body massage, why not? What an experience. Mood lighting (blackout), the sweet sounds of gentle tapping (the roof started leaking, so much so that I was woken from my relaxed daze, the guy next to me had to be replaced by a large bucket) and I got an inexplicable attack of the giggles when the girl had me sit cross-legged and put her knees into my back, pulled my arms over my head and rolled me around like a spinning top. We all felt like we were unable to walk after, it was as if we were made of clouds.
Angkor Wat was everything you’d expect, magnificent, imposing, ancient. I will admit I didn’t have the spiritual enlightenment everyone bangs on about, but I did enjoy seeing the wonder of another time.
Our last night in Siem Reap, we went out for a few drinks, and wound up in a rooftop bar, the “X Bar”, that played metal and served dodgy cocktails. It reminded me of a place in Liverpool. It was almost empty, other than us were a few weird American expats. I got stuck talking to a skinhead from LA who kept muttering” these Buddhists over here, these monks, they don’t know, y’know. They don’t. They haven’t got a clue. I’m a real Buddhist. These monks aren’t real. They don’t know”. He then proceeded to tell me about how he had to sleep with his bedroom door barricaded with a dresser because his best friend (and housemate) had threatened to murder him and his girlfriend. Then someone in the bar stole his t-shirt and set it alight in the middle of the dancefloor. I ought to sum this up in some way, but words truly fail.
We were so sad to leave the amazing Khmer people, the earnest country behind. I can’t wait for Cambodia to fully heal and know the grace it deserves.
it’s gone coco loco
So we’re in HCMC, but first I have a tale to tell…about Nha Trang.
First off, Nha Trang is brilliant. It’s somewhat bigger, busier than Hoi An but not as crazy as Hanoi. And there is a sweet beach. We arrived at 6am, got to our guesthouse about half past and our room wasn’t ready, so the staff kindly put us in a quiet dorm room for a kip before we could properly check in. The bunk beds were super comfy, air con was working, and there was only one other person in there sleeping away. We passed out pretty quick, and it was wonderful. We awoke to banging on the door, the proprietor of the guesthouse and sleeping beauty from our room. He’d managed to lock himself out. D got up and tried the door. No dice. Lots of banging, rattling ensued as a number of different people tried the door. Nothing. At first I wasn’t too concerned, but after 45 minutes I started to need to pee. More and more people appeared but no one could get the door open. Eventually someone showed up with a big chisel and hammer and knocked the handle right out of the door. We were free! Grabbed our things and checked into our own room, closing the door behing us with much trepidation.
Eventually we went for breakfast, a bacon and egg sandwich, unexpectedly the best bacon we’ve had since leaving the UK. Over the following days D endeavoured to consume at least one per day. We hit the beach, swam in the warm blue sea, and met up with some friends, P and K. Over the next couple of days we hung out with P and K, we went to some mud baths and mineral spas, watched the Liverpool game, hung out in their daddio villa, went drinking and ate cake for K’s birthday and had a ball, but the best was yet to come.
On our last day we decided to go on a boat tour, to the 4 islands close by. 2 other friends from Hoi An had arrived the previous night, T and L and had managed to get on the tour last minute. We were picked up at 8m and it was burning hot already. Our tour guide Tom had already given us a taster, proved his caliber as such, by wandering into our hotel and sang to us “hello…is it me you’re looking for?”. On the short bus ride to the dock K and I had purchased comedy hats and we had all witnessed the beauty of a model couple. She was blonde, pretite and gorgeous. He was big, buff and loved himself. We all boarded the boat, and the beautiful people showed their manners by sticking their fingers in their ears while Tom was talking on his mic. Yes, it was loud and annoying but I managed fine and I was hungover. They even turned their backs and blatantly ignored him when he was going around the boat aking people where they were from.
We got to the first island to do some snorkelling. Now I’d never been before, a true snorkelling novice. Oh my! It was amazing, like a whole new world. It felt like “Blue Planet”…we saw clown fish, and angel fish, and these odd long flat fish, and I saw a snake. I’ve not had so much fun, and never been such a keener about anything, but it really was the best morning and the best hangover cure EVER. Begrudgingly we got back on the boat and set off for the 2nd island. During this, we were served lunch, wich as usual was delicious, if not a little small. After lunch, when we got to the island we were treated to a “music show”. There was a 3 piece band (4 if you count the dude with the maracas), drums gee-tar and bass and those guys were belting out the hits. They were truelly a wonder, singing dancing, everything. We all loved it, lapped it right up! A couple of keeners managed to steal the mic off the singer and treated(tortured) us with their drunken dulcet tones. And then, AND THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, (we were only being warmed up!) we were also treated to the “floating bar”. Now we all expected a bar like a floating village, all civilised and quaint. No. One of the boat crew got into his Speedos, tossed a giant float into the water, hopped aboard and cranked up the soundsystem blaring Leftfield and other Eurodance, and started gyrating, pouring wine into little plastic cups like a manic Ibiza go-go dancer. Everyone, young or old, launched themselves into the water whether they could swim or not and paddled to the free booze. Dude was gyrating his heart out, I swear I’ve never seen anything funnier in my life! The beautiful people were stone-faced, unimpressed throughout and had stropped off to the top deck to ignore everything and everyone. The wine was ok, though strangely got hotter and more awful the more we drank of it. But what fun! Eventually they managed to get us back aboard the boat and we set sail for island 3. Our little gang were quite tipsy at this point, and we scored ourselves a bottle of whiskey and got drunk, playing on a slide at island 3. The swimming was great, as was the conversation…
Our last stop, island 4, was an aquarium, which none of us had any inclination to visit, so we spent and hour jumping off the top of the boat. L was great and jumped with me a couple of times until I found a pair and manned up. I did, however, jump and just catch my foot on a bunch of sea urchins the little pricks (ba-dum-tsch). Vietnamese Heath Ledger looked at my foot and gave me the a-ok, and I was off again. We had such a ball that day, probabaly my favourite day so far. We were all sad at hometime, got on the bus, but were all extremely amused as we realised the bus drove straight past the models. They’d been to busy getting off the boat quick they missed their ride home.The bus pretty much erupted in laughter. It must be a hard life being that beautiful, having to be so up-yourself and concerned about your looks that you can’t allow yourself to smile and actually enjoy life.
it’s so damn hot…milk was a bad choice
Passing the time waiting to catch the overnight bus to Nha Trang.
Hoi An was excellent. Great, cheap food and we have now immersed ourselves in street food- the Cau Lau from the vendor at the riverside was by far the best we had and today we went for a 3 course lunch, coffee, beer and large bottle of water for the princely sum of 3 pounds and 43 pence. The food was goooood, Hoi An speciality ”White Rose”- shrimp wrapped in rice paper with dipping sauce, the best wontons I ever did have- topped with shrimp, pineapple and veg in a light sweet and sour sauce, spring rolls, cau lau and sizzling eggplant that had been baked in a clay pot with tomato, onion and spices (pictures will come eventually, technology keeps letting me down!). We waddled out of the Friendship cafe which overlooked the river, into the heat so happy and at peace. The town itself is just beautiful, centuries old and has not been modernised, left to grow old gracefully and we will be sad to leave. Last night was the Hoi An legendary festival- the full moon. The town suddenly became populated and all the high school girls came by the river with their boyfriends to go out on boats and put lanterns on the river to bring them good luck. There were games and dragons and drums and small kids parading everywhere, the people so lively and clearly having a ball. The lightning really added to the night too.
Hoi An lights
D had a suit and shoes made, we are in the tailoring capital of Vietnam after all, be rude not to, and the end result was sharp and mod. I had a dress and sandals made, Catholic guilt for the extravagance (I hate you Primark) but I love it and can’t wait to flounce about the next beach town. The girls in the shop were incredibly sweet, although constantly trying to get D to buy more shirts. When they pulled out a tie rack and asked him to pick one, desperation overtook him as he exclaimed “But I’ve already got loads of ties back home!” (a bare faced lie), “No, no, it’s our gift to you. Pick one.” Such a lovely gesture.
The anticipation for the night bus is minimal, as our overnight journey from Ha Noi to Hue wasn’t all that bad, quite fun actually. There was plenty of leg room and the beds were reasonably comfortable. The only annoyance was the extremely loud, badly dubbed (one Vietnamese woman playing each character with no tone or emotion), badly acted Chinese gangster film. At one point there was a fight scene reminiscent of Anchorman when Luke Wilson got his arm chopped off. Terrible as the film was, and the fact that we couldn’t understand what was going on it was pretty amusing. Some time after the film ended and I no longer had monotone Vietnamese blaring into my ears I went to sleep. It was a decent one too as I didn’t wake up to hear an Irish girl puking up the Valium she’d taken to help her rest. I did, however, wake up to what sounded like the bus driver beating the shit out of the side of the bus with a wrench. Turns out the battery had fallen out and the driver had to do an emergency stop (well executed as said the only guy who’d been awake and had the agony of being the only person to know we were about to die) and pulled in at some sort of service station. The driver banged on a shack, waking the mechanic who came out in his boxer shorts, scratched his head, and immediately set to work welding the battery back together. Or something. I only woke up when the driver set off again at warp speed and I slid right down to the bottom of my bed. Got to see a few stars too- the night sky might just be my favourite place after the Icefields parkway. We met some great people on that journey, actually we’ve been so lucky the whole time we’ve been here. Met some really cool, fun people. And one German oddball who introduced himself as “Hillbilly”, spoke of “unfinished personal business” and kept talking about getting a whole new identity. Not a fake student card to get discounts etc, but a whole new name/age/occupation. Might go and check the Interpol website…
Fluorescent heaven
We’ve been in Vietnam a little over a week now and have done so much already. I have now mastered the art of crossing the road (ridiculous but if you’ve ever seen any sort of footage of the mopeds and cars in Vietnam you will know what an achievement that is). The peope at the are wonderful when you move out of the big tourist traps- the constant screech of “you buy from meeeeeeeee” does grate somewhat, and it’s a pretty beautiful country too. In the one week we’ve spent time in Hanoi, Ha Long bay, Sa Pa, Hue and now settled in Hoi An.
The Vietnamese coffee is great, super strong and sweet, they have it with condensed milk so it’s dee-lish. The only street food we’ve had is the donuts, not brave enough for anything else yet after seeing a large pile of dried bbq dog. Whole dog, still with teeth and a gnarly expression on their face. Think I might become vegetarian for street food. Hanoi was wonderful, crazy busy with large tree lined boulevards juxtaposed with narrow winding labrynthine alleys, and the architecture you’ll walk past a shop and it looks tiny and crammed with shoes or whatever they’re selling, doesn’t look anything special, then you’ll glance upwards and see a lovely ornate builing with balconies and and old European fee. However, my last night there was marred somewhat by a big fat rat running across my feet, his warm hairy belly scraping right over my unsuspecting foot. I’m quite proud of myself, I didn’t scream I did however spasm quite violently. D was walking ahead and unaware of what was happening. He turned round and saw women sat on their mopeds and on the kiddie chairs pissing themselves laughing at me. Fair enough, but I wouldn’t be laughing if I were them seeing as the rat had just run out from where they were eating. I still get those shiver spasms thinking about it.
HaLong bay was great too- the skies were cloudy but it was still very warm (gutted I won’t be making people jealous with my photos). The water so green. We stayed on a junk boat and sailed to explore caves and did a little kayaking. I managed to overcome 2 fears- claustrophobia (climbing through a particularly small crevice in the caves) and jumping into the water off the top of the boat. It wasn’t particularly high but as I’m so short it seemed like a big distance. I hit the water with enough force to give me a wedgie but at least I’d done it. I’m a little embarrassed at how scared I was but I have no shame telling a story. D loved the water practising his pike dives and such, a true water baby. We ate fresh fish for lunch and dinner and the food was amazing.
HaLong
Sa Pa was stunning, rolling green mountains with rice paddies cut into the sides, beautiful ethnic villagers going for the hard sell and amazing food. There was only one thing that bummed me out, the litter and garbage everywhere. Plastic bags and bottles trodden into the mud paths. We did a homestay too, the family were lovely although we didn’t quite interact as much as I had thought/hoped (they seemed quite content watching Matthew McConaghey rom-coms in another room). the actual homestay was a large room with mattresses on the floor and useless mozzie nets (giant holes in them). The building was quite rickety, big gaps between the wooden slatted walls and we were worried that we’d be too cold, but the blankets provided were badass- I have no idea what they were made from but as soon as we got under them we were sweating! There was about 6 of us and pretty much everyone had fallen alseep, I was just dozing when I heard the most horrific scream, it was like something out of Saw. I tentatively asked: “what was that? Was it a ghost?” but one of the others didn’t do much to calm my fears, the rest responding with “I’m not worried what it is, I worried what made it scream”. I did not sleep the rest of the night.
We’re now in Hoi An, going to go and explore, it’s shoppers heaven! Clothes shops and tailors crammed next to each other in an old heritage town. The weather is amazing, bright blue skies yummy food, cheap beer. What more could a girl want?
“There must be some way out of here” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion”, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.
“No reason to get excited”, the thief he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”.
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
Bob Dylan, as if you didn’t know.
