Originally written on November 19, 2004

We awoke and got downstairs to order some bread and jam before leaving the Sunday guesthouse at 640 am in a dirty cramped mini bus. Just what we ordered!

From there we transfered to another bigger bus in makeshift bus station. When we got on the bus there was LOUD dance music pumping, and not the good dance music either, the kind with weird voices - very thai. We sat down and I evaluated the situation, the bus was quiet except for the LOUD blaring dance music, we were at the front, tired, and the seats where big. Still way to loud for before 7am. So I got up, walked up to the front and turned the volume on the radio down to zero. There was an audible sigh from the passengers, as I turned around I said “sorry”. Several cambodians smiled at me and no one was unhappy about the new peace. Unfortuneatly the peace was short lived. Some guy got on the bus and told us to move seats and move to the end of the bus, ostensibly so we could be together with the other foreigners. The catch was that we would have to sit apart. I casually mentioned that we had actually been assigned these seats (they were numbered). The wheels in his head began to spin. He changed his tactic, ‘this is not your bus, your bus is there’ (pointing to another one). We wanted the 7:30 bus, and it was 7:23 am so we were on the wrong bus. I said we’d be happy to move if we sat together near the front on a bus going to Siam Reap with our bags on the same bus we were travelling on. Again the wheels in his head churned, ok he said. Heather got on the next bus and figured out the seating arrangments while I negoitated with another gentleman to ensure we got our bags off the wrong bus and onto the right one — not as easy as it sounds. Meanwhile, Heather was duking it out in the bus to make sure we sat together, she won making another lady sit in the ‘jump’ seat. Once we were up and going they put on Jet Li movie (not so bad). Then some karoake thai style, but not loud (ok). Then when we saw “Best Chinese Classics” go into the machine we hit bottom. Thank goodness we had the mp3 player. Heather almost peed listening to David Cross explain how drunk he was in KC and trying to find the phone.

We had been told the bus would arrive at 12:30 pm, but who believes those times anyway. The bus broke down an hour out of Phnom Penh, overheated. Water was pouring out of the large dirty radiator. Luckily, there was a tube of superglue (no joke) in the bus drivers tool set. Once applied we waited while it dried (the whole time water was pouring out). Once done, water was taken from local rice patty, by large buckets (that just happened to be inside the engine hood) and added to the radiator resevoir by using smaller bottles filled with the paddy water from the buckets. Various bathroom stops (pulling over where there are bushes or a hill) and a 15 minute lunch stop which turned into an hour break eat into the time. During lunch the driver took a hose to the radiator to cool it down, all better! Back on the road we stopped again only once to splash water on the radiator to get the temperature guage back down to ‘middle’ on the dial. Incidently, the odomoeter read over 2 million, the spedometer zero the whole drive. Anyway, we arrived in Siem Reap at 2pm to a scene out of some movie. A dirty, dusty, parking lot filled with tuktuk drivers with signs, right in your face. All of them yelling at you, tuk tuk 500 riel, take you anywhere. No disturb. What do they mean???? And I mean in your face, they where so close with their signs that you phyiscally couldn’t read the sign because you couldn’t see all the letters. Heather and I became German almost immediately, not talking any English, and trying to ignore the 30 or so people trying to catch our attention. Once we had our bags it became obvious we would not be allowed to leave without a tuktuk driver. Somehow we chose a driver, we have no idea how it was decided. It turns out the reason why the fare is so cheap, is that the tuktuk man wants to be the driver, I.e in and out of Angkor for day. We got him first to take us to the bank as we envisoned 2 days of living off of our remaining liquid assests of 6 US to be difficult. We got enough money for the 3 days we will be here (quite pricey! almost 80 US a day) and began our search for a place to sleep. On the 4th try we found a place that had a room available, 20 with AC and 13 with just the fan. Personally, I think they were trying to milk us for more money thinking that 13 was to low for our stature or something. They where very hard to get a price out of until I saw the room. Maybe they wanted to read my reaction to see how happy I was? Kirk ‘Stone face’ Montgomery didn’t give them anything to work with. The room is nice and very big, great water pressure and a nice fan. Most importantly it has sheets instead of towels for sleeping under. Off to the internet to check how the tuktuk system works here and and also how to leave this place without dealing with insanity again. Dinner at some place with 0.80 cent pints playing the best of the worst elevator music. Over dinner Heather and I came up with the worst elevator songs of all time:

* 1. Music box dancer, david foster
* 2. Endless love
* 3. Bridge over troubled water, garfunkel
* 4. Stand by me
* 5. Bodyguard theme song/ michael bolton stuff/ titanic theme

Dinner was a big pizza served on a really heavy portion of a tree trunk. Back to base for an early start tomorrow.

Originally written on November 18, 2004

After a crappy sleep, under oversized towels (provided as sheets), we awoke and realized that sometime during the night the air conditioner had turned off. We had our bread and jam breakfast and spent the morning looking for a better guest house in our price range. Perhaps not so far from the main road, as our current guesthouse is situated on a dark, dirt road created by tossing bricks, rocks, whatever and compacting it into a road. Much of the city is like this, dirty and kind of creepy, especially at night.

We went guesthouse/cheap hotel hunting closer to more restaurants in a nicer area of town, only a 20-30 minute walk away. Although the places we saw were on a paved back road, one block off of the main road, the condition inside each room was the same and the price was more. So, we decided to stay with our current residence.

We went to the international bookstore and bought a book on Angkor, with maps of each temple and a description of buildings and bas-reliefs (images carved on the walls). Further along the main street we found a quiet restaurant for lunch, curry soup and sweet and sour pork. Still expensive, but less than at some other places. The waitress negotiated a moto ride for us to the national museum, about 60 cents US for a 15 minute ride.

The national museum is dedicated to Angkor statues. Many of the statues have been stolen from the sites, so the museum was created to store the precious pieces. Kirk and I encountered the first of many flower offerings to buddha, and placed the jasmine flowers beside a statue. Statues date between 9th and 15 century, amazing. Other artifacts, bowls, etc from 9th to 20th century.

A short walk to the Royal Palace, where the newly crowned young King resides. Palace grounds are clean and buildings lovely, however none of them matched the beauty of the Laos temples in Luang Prabang or the Royal Palace in Thailand. Once you’ve seen the best it’s really hard to compare, or appreciate another similar place for its own face value. Within the palace grounds is the silver pagoda, which without reading the guidebook appears to be a pagoda (temple) full of silver coloured buddha’s and other gifts to the king. However, all of the buddha’s in the temple are made of silver, gold or bronze and the main life size buddha (gold) has hundreds of diamonds embedded in it, one is 25 carats! Their are two other smaller gold buddha’s also share the same feature. The floor itself is made of pure silver, 5000 tiles worth.

Upon exiting the palace grounds we made our way along the main streets taking in the sun set and enjoying the wide paved sidewalk and manicured walkway (trees, shrubs, fountains). We ate dinner, a set plate (.50 US per person). The food was good, (see tomorrow’s blurb for the after effect). We each had a soup (Kirk’s sour salty fishy yucky!!!, mine curry chicken!), vegetable plate (Heather fried mushrooms, Kirk mixed veggies), Kirk - fish cakes (actually good!), Heather barbecued pork ribs (yummy). For dessert, sticky rice (tastes like coconut with mango). Back home to bed.

Originally written on November 3, 2004

We arrived in Hue by late morning, and were approached at the train station by many tuk tuk’s. Having looking at the guidebook before hand, we already had three in mind. The driver who worked for one of those guesthouses (bingh duong II) approached us, we enquired about the price and accepted to go have a look.

The guesthouse was fairly new, but in a quieter part of town. Often this is good. I was shown a variety of rooms and settled on one. We turned on the air, got comfy and watched the American election while cooling off.

We decided to make the most of our day so we headed for lunch, at Mandarin cafe, one of the first decent meals (chicken curry, rice, shrimp n noodles) in Vietnam (not great, but not bad). After lunch I enquired at the travel office, part of the cafe, about the tours they had on offer. The perfume river tour interested us, as it took us to many of the King’s tombs. We decided to book a private tour/ and driver to avoid the cookie cutter quick and dirty tour. This private tour was more expensive and we booked only on the condition that we could cancel if we could not find other tourists with which to share the cost.

We also booked the Demilitarized Zone tour (an all day affair for the following day). After lunch we made our way to the citadel, an Ancient royal city. Most of it is in ruins with the exception of the flag building, the main entrance and the queen’s reading room. We wandered off the beaten path, no worries no landmines or snakes!, and saw some other ruined buildings away from the tour crowds, as well as some restoration work in progress.

Back from the citadel we watched more of the American election, which remained unsettled (Ohio was still yet to call) and then went out to dinner to the Stop and Go cafe. This cafe is basically an open shed, a corrugated tin roof held up I don’t know how and open sides. The food was ok, cannot recall what we ate. The cafe is also a travel agency, but this one is pushy. After we ordered food the owner came by and put other menus in our face, tourist books. I think there were two or three, and thick. Then he began his speech. Man oh man. This place came recommended in the guidebook but I really don’t see why. There was also a picture of a Vietnamese man with long white gold locks wearing a tank top, framed in the centre of the shed. We got a glimpse of him for real, and looked just like his picture. To bed early for our 5am ish start.

Originally written on October 25, 2004

The bus ride to Vientiane was uneventful, and a little longer than the ride to Vang Viang some 8? days earlier. In Vientiane, we stumbled upon a great buffet in a nice resturant for lunch. All you can eat Lao and sushi food, with chocolate milk too. The place was rammed, so we knew it was the right thing to do. After lunch we went to the Lao History museum.

The museum started out as a history of the ethnicity of the peoples, some dinosaur talk, geology and other typical museum stuff. Then it quickly turned into Communist propaganda and with displays on the workers, Lenin, and various ‘famous’ lao revolutionaries and the fight against the evil forces of the west and the ‘american puppets’ (boo capitalism). When we came out I didn’t know if I should call the guards ‘comrade’ or not. » Read the rest of the entry..

Originally written on October 24, 2004

We got up early and got in the Tuk tuk to take us to the bus station. The bus ride itself was much less eventful (no babies or pooping, snakes). Heather slept and I listened to “Against all enemies” by Richard A. Clarke. Amazon blurb: From the first thrilling chapter, which takes readers into the White House center of operations on September 11, through his final negative assessment of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 war on terror, Clarke, the U.S.’s former terrorism czar, offers a complex and illuminating look into the successes and failures of the nation’s security apparatus. » Read the rest of the entry..

Originally written on October 20th, 2004

The mouldy smell in Dokoun 2 finally got to us making us both sick? with at least the sniffles, so we were glad to get out of there. In the morning, we caught the bus on the old runway to Luang Prabang. Wheras the first bus ride was short, cool, and bumpy this ride turned out to be very twisty, sweaty, and a little smoother. The road to Luang Prabang is basically a series of switchbacks up on over successive ranges of mountains. Because these mountains are very steep all the way to the valley floor (which was the width of the river at the bottom usually no more) the road was always built into the edge of the mountain. One side of the bus had a solid green view of vegetation moving swiftly by, the other side had a steep cliff panorama view of the country side. These views alternated depending on whether we were going up or down a mountain. Regardless, the whole trip was either up or down, never really straight and flat for more than 30 seconds (and usually at break neck speed as the driver seemed to have a death wish). » Read the rest of the entry..