Good Morrrrnnnning Vietnam!

Pretty typical email title but anyway...!

We have spent the last couple of weeks in amazing Vietnam! We'd heard lots of mixed reviews about Vietnam on our travels... some people hated it, others loved it. After having a brilliant time in Laos, and a trying time in Cambodia, we didn't quite know what to expect. Anyway, so far we have not been disappointed.

We spent three nights in Ho Chi Minh City (which is crazy!!! So many motorbikes!) and done the regular tourist things. We saw the Cu Chi tunnels which were dug during the Vietnam war for guerrilla fighters to move through. These tunnels were TINY! They had specially enlarged one of them for western tourists and even these were scarily small. Our group went into one... OMG if you are claustrophobic you don't want to ever do this! The tunnels go down and you have to crawl on your knees in the pitch black, the air is hot and dusty and you cant see a thing! I got really scared in there and just closed my eyes and held onto Jon until we got out.
We also got the chance to shoot a real AK47 in the firing range. This was really cool, you cant imagine how loud these things are! As per most of Asia, Vietnam seems to have no health and safety policies so we were shooting with no ear plugs or anything! Sure I'm slightly deaf now :o$
We visited the war museum in the centre of the city. This was really interesting as it gave the Vietnamese point of view about the American/Vietnam war. Some of the stories and pictures were truly horrifying. It really brought home the tragedy of war, on both sides.

After Ho Chi Minh City we made our way to Dalat, which is a nice picturesque town about 1500m above sea level, so it was nice and cool there and made a nice break from the sweltering cities.
On the bus we met up with another couple, Steve and Jenny (also from London) randomly who we had done a cooking course with in Cambodia! Small world but we decided to travel together for a while and had a really nice time in Dalat. We hired out motorbikes for the first day and explored the town and surrounding areas. We went on some really high and scary cable cars and saw a really amazing waterfall. The next day we all decided to hire out mountain bikes and go on a 40k tour up a mountain! I was very dubious at first having not ridden a bike in about ten years but everyone was up for it and I fancied a challenge so off we went!
I'm soooo glad I done this - it was solid, hard riding from 9am until 3pm, in the heat, in the rain, in a storm... we went through everything but the feeling you get once you've finished is amazing!

We left the next day with sore bums and aching legs and headed straight to Na Trang, which is a beach resort. Unfortunately we made the mistake of going out on our first night and getting totally steaming drunk which ruled out any beach action for the next day! Then it got cloudy so we didn't really get a chance to top up our tans booo :o(

Next stop was Hoi An, which I was reaaallly looking forward to as it's the place where you can get tailor made clothes dirt cheap! I haven't done any shopping in a while and was in need of some creature comforts, so we all headed straight for the shops to find some new outfits! Jon had a lovely black suit tailor made, and also two shirts. I managed to squeeze in a couple of dresses which will be perfect for several things coming up this summer ;o) Everything was so cheap, considering the amount it would cost to have tailor made clothes done for you back home.
We befriended some Vietnamese people who worked in a restaurant, and they insisted we join them later on for some karaoke! I'm never one to turn down the chance to sing a song so the four of us went along, got merrily drunk and broke a few windows with our singing. As soon as our time limit had run out on the karaoke machine our new 'friends" mysteriously disappeared out of the room, leaving us with the entire bar bill!! We kind of expected that as they were ordering drinks like there was no tomorrow and we knew they wouldn't have enough money for it! Oh well, it worked out at only about a tenner in our money and we did have a laugh so maybe it was worth being ripped off for!

We loved Hoi An and spent three days there. The town is built in a french-style, with loads of little nooks and crannies to explore in, and a peaceful river running alongside it. We spent hours just walking round the market and taking in the views of everyday life.

After travelling all of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam on a bus we were getting seriously tired of being on one! So we decided to hire motorbikes out and complete the next leg of our journey from Hoi An to Hue. This turned out to be such a good idea! The road took us along the coast, up mountains looking over picturesque bays, past rice paddies with women working in them... it was great, well worth the money spent. We finally arrived in Hue after about five hours on the bike and found the nearest hotel with aircon and checked in! The weather here is really hotting up as it's approaching the rainy season so you definately can't have a room without a/c!

Hue is a nice enough town but nothing special in my opinion. For the most part it was too hot to go out anywhere, but we did hire out cyclo's (basically a guy on a bike pushes you about in a carriage) and see some of the town, which was a good laugh but I did feel a bit like Lady Muck being carted about by this poor guy in the sweating heat haha!

We are now in Hanoi which is the Northern Capital. The weather has changed dramatically and it's been raining heavily so far which makes a nice change. We have booked a train to the far North (a little place called Sapa in the mountains) but our tickets haven't arrived yet so fingers crossed they will at some point today. It's times like this I miss British organisation! Everything is so up in the air here in Asia... things just don't make sense! We leave Steve and Jenny here too after 10 fun days travelling with them. It's been cool having another couple around, it means Jon can bore someone else with his football talk haha!

We are loving Vietnam so far though. It seems to have a mixture of everything that the other countries we've visited have lacked. It has the modern shops and restaurants of Thailand, the beautiful, remote scenery of Laos, and the fantastic beaches of Cambodia... all rolled into one!

So we are well into our last month of travelling now! Can't believe how fast it has gone.... it seems not so long ago we still had three months left, now it's less than three weeks!! Our last few weeks here should be cool though, we've got some interesting things planned.

Corruption in Cambodia

Well, I finally got that beach holiday I had been waiting for so desperately!! Both Jon and I were getting a bit travel weary, our bodies were tired and our brains frazzled from the constant moving about! You wouldn't think it, but I was actually starting to feel quite low health wise simply because we hadn't stayed in one place for more than a few days.
The coast of Cambodia (Shinoukville) is a lovely beach resort. It's the same clear blue sea and sandy beaches like Thailand, but without the swarms of people. We spent one whole week here and done nothing apart from lie on the beach, drink beer, and read. We had a few nights out here which were a great release of energy after so much travelling!

Whilst we were in Shinoukville I noticed a poster about volunteering in a school in a remote village in Cambodia called the ETO (Education Training Organisation). The school was run by a lone man who had dedicated his life to helping poor children get an education. On paper it sounded great so me and Jon, along with a few others, headed out into the sticks ready to spend a few days teaching kids! Almost as soon as we got there we regretted it. The guy who claimed he was the "director" o the school could only talk about money money money. He made us pay upfront for our stay and rushed off to bank the money saying there were no refunds!?! Didn't sound good. By this time we had arrived in this remote village in the middle of nowhere. He took us to our "accommodation" - a straw hut with farm animals living underneath it, and gave us our "lunch" - boiled rice with cabbage (yum!!). Water wasn't included so we had to buy it from his neighbours at extortionate prices! Anyway to cut a long story short the whole thing was a scam. The "school" turned out to be about ten local kids who would amble in when they felt like it an expect to be taught. Me and Jon tried to teach a couple of classes - it was fun, there were some cool kids in this class, but it wasn't a proper school and no way did these kids see any of the money we'd given the "Director".
Because there were five volunteers there at the same time and just not enough kids to teach, we all decided to have it out with the guy and ask him where the hell this school was (he told us there were 3000 students!) and where had all our money gone? He denied everything of course and made excuse after excuse. We weren't buying anything and decided to leave there and then. We couldn't just walk out though because we were in the middle of the countryside so we asked him for a lift. Oh he agreed.... as long as we paid him another ten dollars!! This was the final straw, cue lots of shouting and demands for a free lift!! He finally agreed (just to let rid of us I think) and dumped us at a bus stand in the sweltering heat.
I couldn't believe it!! You try and do a good deed and help those less fortunate than yourself and it ends up blowing up in your face. It's such a shame because some of the local kids were really fun to teach and there could have been an opportunity for a proper school there had this "Director" actually spent money on it rather than his car and big gold watch!

We left there with a bitter taste in our mouths and headed for Pnomh Penh, the capital of Cambodia. After three days of eating boiled cabbage and rice, and living in a straw hut, me and Jon decided to treat ourselves and splash out to a room that cost $10 (a fiver) - complete with aircon, a TV, and a western toilet! Luxury!
Whilst we were in Pnomh Penh we visited the war museum (formerly a Khmer Rouge prison) and the Killing Fields, where 8000 victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide were buried in mass graves. This was a really sad day for us. For anyone who doesn't know the story, the Khmer Rouge were peasants who revolted against the government after the Vietnam War. They overthrew the police force, and evicted anyone who was middle class, or rich out of their homes and forced them to work in terrible conditions in the rice fields. They killed off anyone who was educated - teachers, doctors, nurses, students.... anyone who wasn't poor or illiterate was exterminated. The most cruelest part of this was that women and children (even babies) were ruthlessly murdered simply because of who they were. This genocide claimed the lives of almost 2 million Cambodians.
This truly opened our eyes to the horrors that were inflicted on Cambodia during the late 70's. The former prison was an eerie place with pictures of everyone who had been killed there. Out of 14000 people who had been sent there for "interrogation", only seven survived. The rest were sent off to the Killing Fields to be brutally beaten to death and buried in mass graves. So far 8000 bodies have been recovered from these graves and more are still being found today. It's a gruesome place with bones and clothes still sticking out of the earth.
Seeing how something so tragic could happen to a country so poor really brought it home to us. It was only 30 years ago - seems crazy that something like this was allowed to happen in our civilised world?? I really hope it will never ever happen again.

We spent just over three weeks in Cambodia and had a really good time. It is such a shame to see such a poor country ruined by war and political corruption. Even now the country still has a lot of problems. There is corruption from the lowest levels (dodgy guys claiming to run a school), to the highest level (the Prime Minister). How can a country ever claw it's way out of poverty when the very people who run it do not care about the poor? With the right governing Cambodia could eventually be like it's rich neighbours - it's has everything, the beaches, the mountains, the historical monuments... everything that could turn it into Thailand no2.... but at the moment it still has to recover from the horrors it has encountered over the past 30 years. I really want to go back and volunteer again properly. There are people there who really need our help!!

We left Cambodia a day ago and are now in Saigon, Vietnam. Only one month left of our travels!!! Who knows what it will hold....

P.S.... we had a lovely piece of news yesterday. Jon is an Uncle!! his sister gave birth to a little boy Louie on 5th of April and we cant wait to meet him :o)