Day 79 - 81: Siem Reap, Kbal Spean, Banteay Srei and New Year's Eve

The bus ride was comfortable and uneventful, and we arrived at around 7pm in Siem Reap. After a tuk-tuk ride to a road with a load of guesthouses on, where the tuk-tuk driver was very keen for us to stay at his brother's hostel, we ended up choosing Golden Takeo for the night. Aside from the overpowering smell of air freshener, the room was clean, cool and comfortable. We soon found out that the internet speeds in Cambodia are nowhere near as good as in Vietnam, and coupled with a wireless connection far from the router, we only managed to get about 10 photos uploaded overnight.

The next morning we had breakfast on the terrace, and enjoyed a free "fish massage". For some reason, fish massages are all the rage in Cambodia. For the uninitiated, a fish massage involves you putting  your feet in a tank of hungry fish, who proceed to nibble away the dead skin on your feet. That's the idea, anyway. In reality, it's a bit of an odd sensation which doesn't appear to pedicure your feet in any way. It hasn't stopped the bandwagon from rolling on though - there are literally dozens of places in the centre offering fish massages, some chuck in a beer to enjoy with it.

We moved down the road to Prohm Roth Inn, after circling the block of other guesthouses, most of which were full or only had fan rooms. The temperature in Cambodia is significantly hotter than Vietnam, and air-con is pretty much essential after a day in the baking heat. The guesthouse was run by brothers, and they couldn't do enough for us.

I'll be honest: I wasn't looking forward to Cambodia that much. Out of everywhere we'd planned to travel on our trip, Cambodia appealed the least. It was probably my western ignorance thinking that it was a dangerous, under-developed hole with a few tourist spots to strip foreigners of their cash (and sometimes belongings). I was pleasantly surprised then, to find Cambodia is actually a really beautiful country and the people are amongst the friendliest and most genuine of any country we've visited on our trip. It's good to have preconceptions smashed to smiling bits every so often.

We took a 15 minute stroll into town, and changed our remaining Vietnamese dong into US dollars. Cambodia appears to work primarily with the buck, and only uses its native riel for loose change (anything under a dollar) which is based on the US conversion rate at the time. All of the prices in supermarkets, restaurants and guesthouses are in dollars. For the most part, this means that a lot of things (such as water) are relatively more expensive in Cambodia than other SE Asian countries, but food can still be found as cheaply or as expensively as you're happy to pay.

Our first taste of Khmer food came courtesy of Khmer Kitchen, recommended to us by Tom and Holly. The national dish is called amoc or amok and is a type of fish (or chicken) dry curry mixed with a kind of paste made from onions, cabbage, beansprouts and egg, then served in a banana leaf. It's really rather good. The other dish they do (which Gilly went for) is a traditional Khmer curry, which is similar to a Thai curry but much less spicy and just as tasty.

Siem Reap is Cambodia's fastest growing city, thanks mostly to the attraction of the Angkor heritage park which hosts dozens of temples of various shapes and sizes. The most famous of these, only 6km away, is Angkor Wat, with adjacent Angkor Thom dwarfing that. However, there is a well-established route around the "main" (read: most interesting) sites which you can take in a tuk-tuk. Angkor passes come in 1-day ($20), 3-day ($40 - 3 visits within a week) and 7-day ($60 - 7 visits within a month) flavours, and allow you to pick and choose the days you go.

The town itself has a main hub of activity circling "Pub Street" which, as the name implies, hosts more bars than you can shake a beer glass at, along with a plethora of decent places to eat. Alongside "The Alley" which runs parallel, you will have no problems finding nightlife, food, or fish massages. Supermarkets abound, as does street food and markets, both day and night (I counted at least 5). Unfortunately, the shadow of poverty is all too apparent, as is the impact of the Khmer Rouge. Street children prowl the tourist areas, selling postcards, books and general tat - you are strongly advised not to buy from them, as they are usually controlled by unscrupulous adults who have removed them from school, and see practically none of the profit - as do landmine victims who have been maimed and are missing legs, arms, eyes or all three. Selling copied books and art seems to be all they can do to survive, and they will come into restaurants to ask you to buy from them.

We'd decided not do too much on the first day, as we wanted to laze around and enjoy the sun and the (relative) lack of pollution after Ho Chi Minh City. On the second morning after a great breakfast at Prohm Roth, we moved to our pre-booked accommodation - Angkor Wonder. This is run by a legendary owner named Mr. Why Not, so called because that is his de facto response to most questions. In fact, he was one of the most accommodating hosts we'd met on our travels. We took the afternoon to look around the relatively expensive Angkor Museum, which looked to be recently developed and was very well laid-out in a lovely modern building. We spent a few hours there, but the audioguide is recommended, otherwise you'd zip through it a lot quicker.

We decided to get a 3-day pass for Angkor, which also allows you to get in to watch the sunset for free on the night that you purchase it. Unfortunately, this was a complete bust. The ticket booth opens at 4:45pm and the entry to climb either one of two temples to actually get a view closes at 5:30pm. The queues of tourists are so long that we didn't even get near the entrance before we had to turn back. It seems a little ill-conceived, and a bit pointless to let people into the park on the same day since they'll have trudged half an hour for no reason. Feeling a little dejected, we got a tuk-tuk back to central market and found Father's Restaurant, where we had some more great Khmer food before calling it a night.

New Year's Eve arrived, and we decided to visit some of the more remote attractions included in the Angkor pass: Kbal Spean, and Banteay Srai. We took a tuk-tuk with one of Why Not's drivers, Sam, who had taken us to the sunset debacle the previous evening. He's a quietly spoken man, whose father was killed during the Khmer Rouge atrocities, yet he has a quiet dignity about him which is indicative of a lot of Cambodians we've seen.

Kbal Spean is a carved riverbed, apparently unique in the world, which has a number of religious images etched into the rocks around the river and in the river itself. It leads onto a waterfall which is unfortunately not big enough to swim in, but is good if you fancy a cool shower. We didn't. It already takes 10 minutes to cover ourselves in suncream, and we really didn't want to go through that process again! The fact that the riverbed remained fairly undamaged despite the constant flow of water is testament to the design of the images:

Banteay Srei was our first proper temple and was small, but ornately carved. It was built in the 10th century, and roughly translates to "citadel of the women" due to the detail in the carvings.  It's hard to show the intricacy of the carvings in the temple in a few photos, but I will give it a go:

Looking back, I think this is the most detailed temple we visited on the circuit.

In the afternoon we fancied a change, so we visited the Landmine museum. This is run by a former Khmer Rouge child soldier called Aki Ra who planted hundreds of mines when fighting for them, only to defect and spend his life up to now undoing what he did and de-mining the country. He has also turned the grounds of the museum into a home for 20+ children who have been affected by landmines either directly or indirectly.

Afterwards, we went to the Angkor Butterfly Centre, an interesting diversion from anything we've done so far. I remember visiting a butterfly farm when I was in school (I believe it was called Countryworld in Shropshire, but I may have made that up) and loved it, so this was a real nostalgia trip for me. We got to see quite a few different species, as well as being taken around by a very enthusiastic guide who showed us the various eggs, chrysalises, caterpillars and species dotted around the place. It made for a very enjoyable hour and we got some excellent photos.

We got back to Angkor Wonder for about 5pm and found that Mr. Why Not had put on a party for all of the guests. There was food and drink all round, including more amok, fried chicken and mushrooms, rice, and most importantly: beer. The national beverage is Angkor Draft (on tap) or Anchor (in bottles or cans). Both are fairly decent. Even Gilly is getting into beer now, words I never thought I'd write. There was one extra food item we got to try - fried spider. It tasted a bit like crispy chilli beef, but a little chewier.

Apparently I had something stuck in my teeth:

Oh, it must have been the huge spider.

The Angkor Wonder guests and staff:

Mr. Why Not - what a guy!

Just after 2012 was rung in:

Pub Street:

After a few hours of merriment, it was past 11pm so we decided to head to Pub Street. The road was chock-full of people, Cambodians and tourists alike. Water and beer was sprayed everywhere and everyone was in a fantastic mood, as well as being universally inebriated. The sound system in the street counted down to 2012 and everyone went berserk. If we weren't drenched beforehand, we soon were! There were no fireworks as such, but a few people had some interesting little sticks (for want of a better word) which fired out a series of sparks. I felt so happy we'd decided to come to Siem Reap rather than Phnom Penh to celebrate.

Moving on from the street, we headed over to Red Piano for some new year cocktails and 80s and 90s tunes to dance to, much to the amusement of the locals. I don't really remember what we did there, but the next time I looked at my watch it was 3am. We went back to the hotel via a supermarket (Pringles were essential to fend off hunger, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to buy a cigar in a tube) and then crashed out.

Happy new year 2012!

Acer Aspire One D257 - Freezing issue resolved

Our Acer Aspire One D257 netbook had an odd issue where it would simply freeze when any sort of load was put on the wireless network (for instance, when downloading files). There is a dearth of information about the issue online; some people blamed the wireless drivers, some thought it was overheating.

One bright spark managed to track down the problem - a bad BIOS. Flashing it to a later version (in my case from v1.08 to v1.15) fixed the problem immediately, so I'm posting this resolution here in case anyone else has a similar problem.

The BIOS update file is on Acer's site:

http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/BIOS/BIOS/BIOS_Acer_1.15_A_A.zip?acerid=634583037092226871&Step1=Netbook&Step2=Aspire%20One&Step3=AOD257&OS=722&LC=en&BC=Acer&SC=EMEA_16

Just in case it gets removed, there's a copy available here.

Hopefully this will be of some use to someone!

Day 74 - 78: Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City

After crawling off the worst sleeping bus we'd yet experienced (I think the beds are designed for children or adults under 5 feet tall, given the amount of leg room you get), and making our way to the Duc Vuong Hotel which we'd splashed out on for Christmas, we found we couldn't check in until 12 without paying for another day's accommodation. We decided to make use of the free bananas, tea and wi-fi in the lobby to check out Amazon, and it turns out that Amazon have an incredible returns policy: if your Kindle gets damaged within 12 months of buying it, you can send it back to them and they will send out a replacement free of charge. Obviously this poses a problem when you're not in any given place for too long, so I opted to have it sent to Australia where we'll be headed in April and staying with friends. They were fine with this, and also said that they would pay the cost of posting my broken Kindle back to them. Unbelievable customer service.

Whilst I'm handing out plaudits, I would be remiss if I didn't mention another amazing website: Natureshop. I bought my Keen sandals from this company, and unfortunately after only 2.5 months of wear, the glue attaching the sole to the upper has started to dissolve, and the material is coming away. I emailed them and asked what they could do, if anything, and they replied back saying that my size was out of stock but as soon as it was back in they would send a replacement pair of the same sandals out to Australia for me free of charge. Fantastic. Companies that stand by their products and treat their customers like normal people instead of assuming they are all chancers deserve our patronage; I'll definitely be using them again.

Since we had 5 hours to kill, we ditched our bags and decided to head down the road to the Fine Arts Gallery. Two floors of the gallery were under renovation and closed to the public which was a shame, but turned out to be a boon as we were so utterly knackered that, after walking around the only open floor and adjacent art shops, we were ready to sleep. We got back to the hotel at 11am where they mercifully let us check in earlier, and we had enough time to get showered and changed before going to meet Scott and Hannah at La Marq restaurant for lunch. We ate some excellent Hue food, and almost made us forget we'd had three hours' sleep.

After grabbing another three hours' kip in the hotel we were feeling a little better. The hotel put on a Christmas Eve party for all of its guests; the Vietnamese appear to celebrate Christmas Eve as the main holiday rather than Christmas Day - at least, that's the impression we got. Regardless, the party involved food, Dalat wine, beer, plenty of funny hats, some very bad dancing, and some even worse karaoke. It turns out that everyone in Vietnam is obsessed with Lionel Richie, specifically "Hello". Now, I don't know "Hello", other than the chorus. That didn't stop microphones being shoved in our faces with expectant looks once the karoke selection was made. I think we delivered an improv-version of the song worthy of "Who's Line Is It Anyway?". That's how it plays out in my head, anyway.

The department stores in HCMC go a bit crazy for Christmas and there seems to be an odd custom of locals all swarming around outside them just to see the displays they put on. Everyone loves Christmas over here.

We found out that Scott and Hannah had never been to Swensen's so decided to rectify this horrific problem immediately after dinner, and they are now convert thanks to the Chocolate Ring-a-Ding. We saw in Christmas on the rooftop terrace of the hotel, playing some cards and teaching the Aussies how to play cribbage. Seven floors up, the smog and noise seemed to be much reduced, and the terrace was decked out in fairy lights and tinsel. It was a subdued, lovely way to welcome Christmas Day, and unlike any I've experienced before.

This made up for Christmas day, which was a bit of a bust. Somehow, I had managed to pick up a stomach bug: the first illness I'd had since travelling. Of course, it had to happen on Christmas day. It wasn't so bad in the morning. We'd set off for the War Remnants Museum to get some perspective (Vietnamese, naturally) on the impact the US had on the country during the war. I'd heard that it was graphic, but even that didn't fully prepare me for the photos and stories on display. Mutilations, corpses, burned out villages, deformities caused by Agent Orange (the dioxin spread over the jungle to kill it off and expose the Viet Cong); the atrocities committed by the US were so horrific that at one stage I just had to walk away from one of the galleries. It was a relentless, brutal onslaught of inhumanity on show, a sobering and harrowing journey from one act of cruelty to the next. Yet if we choose to ignore what we do to each other as a race, how will we ever learn? Happy Christmas, indeed.

Feeling a little queasy (and not just from the museum), I soldiered on with Gilly to the Reunification Palace where we had a fairly interesting guided tour around the various conference rooms and the underground bunker used during the war. At this stage, amidst a pretty large crowd of tourists being shepherded to each room, I started to feel a lot worse and by the time the tour was over I was in agony with my stomach. We stopped at Napoly cafe for some overpriced peppermint tea, before heading back to the hotel. I zonked out for a couple of hours and was feeling slightly more human after some sleep. So much so, that I was definitely feeling up for a Christmas curry courtesy of Mumtaz. We took a bottle of decent wine along with us (which in SE Asia takes some tracking down), which the staff were happy to let us drink with our meal, and even a piece of plastic in the curry couldn't spoil the evening. Unfortunately, that was about all I could manage as I was again feeling completely drained, so went back to the hotel whilst Gilly went out with Scott and Hannah for some Christmas evening drinks.

The next day I was feeling much, much better so we decided to carry out our original plan which we'd postponed from the day before, and go to Dam Sen Water Park. We took a bus with the locals (it's weird how few tourists want to do this: it's far cheaper, and lets you see parts of the city you'd otherwise miss) and stayed there from 10am to 4:30pm, having a cracking time on water slides, wave machines, lazy rivers and other water park staples. Foreigners have their own tiny changing area, segregated from the masses for some bizarre reason. The park itself was heaving with local kids who insisted on queue jumping, but a few well-placed glares soon sorted that out. I'm British, damn it: we live to queue in an orderly manner. Thankfully from lunchtime onwards, pretty much all of the kids buggered off in their respective school groups and we pretty much had the run of the park, so we rode each slide until we couldn't take any more then headed home. We went back to La Vanq for the evening meal, but it wasn't as good second time around. We also moved hotels to Ha Vy on Scott and Hannah's recommendation since Duc Vuong were going to bump up the prices way beyond our budget.

On the 27th we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, to see how the Viet Cong lived during the war. Guided by a Mr. Tung, a 64 year old ex-Viet Cong soldier who had been strafed by a helicopter machine gun which wounded him in the arm and foot, he gave us (and the other 40 tourists in our group) a whirlwind tour of the area, showing us some of the rather nasty traps that the VC used, the holes that they would dig and hide in, and finally a crawl - literally - through one of the tunnels. I have no idea how they could have lived in those conditions; I only crawled for about 5 minutes from beginning to end and that was more than enough. To say the tunnels were small would be an understatement. I was on my hands and knees for the most part. Carrying a backpack would be near impossible, and we had to push ours in front of us from beginning to end. After that ordeal, we got to the firing range, where I got to try my hand at using an M-100 machine gun, with live rounds. Now, I'm not condoning guns, but shooting a sand hill was pretty therapeutic. Mind you, the only reason I was shooting the hill was because my aim was appalling, and I missed pretty much every target laid out for us.

Heading back to town in the afternoon, we spent half an hour or so in the post office returning the Kindle. Vietnamese post offices are fantastic. You just take whatever you want posting, fill out a form, give everything to them, and they sort out the packaging, wrapping, and postage. It's all dirt cheap, and saves you loads of hassle. The UK could learn a lot from their efficiency. Near the post office was Notre Dame cathedral, a poor facsimile of the Paris original which we saw in January for my 30th birthday. 5 minutes in and out was plenty...it's just another church. For our final activity of the day, we headed over to the botanical gardens and zoo, which had some fairly rare animals including a white tiger and a rhino. I'm not a fan of zoos, but there is a fairly decent argument made for them in The Life of Pi which I'm currently reading, so I can appreciate both sides.

For our final meal in HCMC, Gilly suggested we take a punt on one of the roadside restaurants on our street selling seafood. I'm glad we did, as it was some of the tastiest food we'd had for days. Scallops, crab claws and some sort of fried fish meat rice cake - all excellent. I'm glad we ended Vietnam on a high note for food.

I'm not sure we gave HCMC a fair chance, but I really didn't like it that much. It was noisy, crowded, dirty and smelly. It had plenty of things to do, but didn't have the charm of Hanoi which offset the bad aspects. If you disliked the bikes in Hanoi, you won't get on well in this city; there are about 6 million bikes on the road in a population of 7 million people and the road system is utter chaos. On the plus side, I can probably cross any road in the world safely now, since I can judge vehicle distances with millimetre precision.

Sihanoukville was off the table for New Year's Eve. We'd contacted a good 10-12 guesthouses and all were full; even the more expensive hotels were booked out. There was a Sea Festival taking place which would see a good 50,000 people descend on the town, and we simply couldn't get there unless we just turned up and hoped for a room somewhere. Instead, Gilly suggested we go directly to Siem Reap which was another great idea, as it meant we wouldn't be in the rather depressing Phnom Penh for New Year's Eve, and could work our way down to the coast.

So, on the 28th we found ourselves on a bus heading for the fourth country on our trip: Cambodia.

Day 72 - 73: Easy Riders tour to Central Highlands

We set off at about 8:30am, with our luggage strapped to the back of a couple of bigger bikes, which were also more comfortable to ride on. Just as well, since I was using muscles I forgot I had since my karate days and they were none too happy about being asked to work again yesterday, particularly Mr. Hip Flexor. We were ready to go!

Our first stop was Truc Lam Temple which contained some lovely sculptures, topiary, flower gardens and water features. This was one part of the "exercise" portion of the morning, and we walked around it for a good 20 minutes before rejoining Bin and Ky.

Soon after, we arrived at the Chicken Village, so called because of the huge chicken statue in the centre. We have no idea why. This was followed by a mushroom farm where we saw a packed greenhouse full of mushrooms. When I say full, I mean there really wasn't "mush room" in there. Ahem.

On the next stop, Bin found some "lipstick trees" which he cracked open a few fruits from, and proceeded to use the crushed seeds (which act as a natural colourant and flavour for curries, and also as a dye - hence the informal name of the tree) to draw a Vietnamese star on my forehead.

We stopped for lunch at a cafe with magnificent food (a literal feast - there must have been 9 different dishes) and even better views of the vista. More exercise followed, as we were made to climb a huge flight of steps on a hill, which must have been some sort of abandoned water system, and which offered magnificent views of the rural countryside. Bin and Ky pointed out some shrubs (Mimosa) which closed their leaves when touched. I felt like a kid again, discovering new and wonderful things that are, at their core, simple and all around us. It made me realise how much we simply ignore our surroundings back home, barely appreciating nature as we take it in.

We passed over a bridge under which a floating village rested in the waters, and before long we were at our final destination of the day - Lak Lake.  This is a Mnong village, with its own language separate to Vietnamese, where the villagers live in longhouses. We had the opportunity to either stay in an authentic longhouse for the "real Vietnam" experience, or take the easier option and stay in a guesthouse. After a day on the road, we'd opted for the latter and were happy that we did; Bin informed us that the villagers usually wake up at around 4am to kickstart the generators and get the vehicles moving for the day ahead. This, whilst undoubtedly a "real" taste, would have probably wiped us out for the following day. The evening meal at the restaurant down the road was equally excellent, and we shared a couple of small bottles of rice liquor, whilst Bin and another Easy Rider showed us some classic pub tricks (removing a bank note from between bottles, etc) and in return I showed them some card tricks.

We then thought it would be a good idea to track down a karaoke bar. Bin was enthusiastic, Ky less so. I will hastily brush over the fact that we decided to get on the back of bikes with people who had been drinking (without wearing helmets, no less) and skip to the part where we spent 15 minutes trying to find a place. Vietnamese people love karaoke; it's incredibly popular all over the country. And when I say popular, I mean that at 8:30pm on a Thursday, we had to try three different karaoke bars before we could find one that had a free booth. After avoiding police traps thanks to locals warning us that they were performing spot checks on people wearing helmets (drink-driving is apparently fine), we got ourselves a room and proceeded to belt out some tunes. Well, the three of us did - Ky wasn't particularly up for it. I think he was knackered, bless him. Bin certainly gave it both barrels, and we found out he's a not-so-secret Lionel Richie fan.

The next morning, feeling absolutely fine, we had a rather meagre breakfast of fruit and bread and set off back to Lak Lake to watch the elephants being brought in to the village and fed. Banana plants were very popular, with one elephant dragging an entire tree branch down the road with it after he was prompted to finish his meal and move on. I can understand: you never know when you may get hungry later. Bin treated us to some excellent guitar playing (Metallica, The Eagles, more Lionel Richie) over some Vietnamese tea, and I attempted to play "Nothing Else Matters" and failed miserably, so we got back on the bikes again.

Next stop was a rice field where a few local ladies were busy toiling in the sun and cutting the crop. After being invited to have a go ourselves we made a bit of a hash of it with the sickle, much to the amusement of the locals. Fortunately, no limbs were severed. The wind had been blowing strong all morning, and at this point it decided to really hammer both us and the bikes. It blew over the bike I had been on, rolling over my luggage in the process, and blew Gilly off completely as she attempted to get back on. She was fine though, apart from a bruised ego.

We drove on - slowly - over a bridge that had been bombed during the war, and then on to another area beyond it which had a burned out church sat in the middle of a field. Bin and Ky stopped for more tea whilst we wandered down to the church shell, and when we came back they showed us some of the ordnance that had been left behind by the war, including a 20kg bomb shell.

This was followed by a stop at a local animal lady's house. She kept scorpions and boa constrictors. One of the snakes was a hefty 35kg, and must have been a good 10 feet long at least. After holding a smaller one, Gilly then had the monster wrapped around her:

I helped put it around her, and I couldn't believe how heavy it was. I'd held boas before but nothing this big; not ideal pets, but pretty harmless to humans and fairly cute in their own scaly way.

Not far away was a series of peppercorn trees. We tried a few freshly picked peppercorns which blew our heads off. Not spicy, just really...peppery. Odd, that. I picked a few for us to mix in with our lunch which we had soon after in Buon Ma Thuot - the capital city of the Central Highlands. Compared to the other food we'd eaten on our tour, this was fairly bland (even with the peppercorns) and also cost more than the other meals. Maybe we'd been spoiled early on.

The highlight of the day was visiting the national park outside the city after lunch, and going to the waterfall inside. We also had plenty of time to swim. The water was warm in places as the sun was baking down, and we managed to get a few good snaps of the surroundings:

And with that, it was time to head back to Buon Ma Thuot again to get some food ahead of another sleeper bus which would drop us off in Ho Chi Minh on Christmas Eve morning. We said a sad farewell to Bin and Ky who had been magnificent during the entire tour:

In the evening I found out that when the bike had gone over with my luggage in, the weight of it had crushed the bag, my Kindle case, and the Kindle itself. The Kindle was completely unresponsive; it accepted power, but the screen was crushed. We'd been told that Easy Riders had insurance, so I rang Bin only to find out that the insurance covered people and not belongings. Who knows what would have happened if any of our stuff had been stolen from the bikes en route... Regardless, I rang my own insurer who told me that it was probably covered, but they couldn't guarantee it. Typical insurance company, then. I would have to submit a claim on my return (if not earlier) and they would assess it. I was obviously more than a little peeved to learn that Easy Riders hadn't clarified the insurance situation at their end, but Bin must also have been worried as he asked a colleague in the area on a tour to come into the bus station office where we were waiting and have a chat. He said that whilst it was a freak accident that had never happened before, the name and reputation of the Easy Riders was important, and if I wanted, Bin would find the money to replace the Kindle. This put me in a bit of an awkward situation; obviously the company should have explained the insurance side of things beforehand and I could have made provision to move valuables to my smaller bag which would have been more protected, but on the other hand I couldn't really ask Bin to fork out $230. Easy Riders, it turns out, isn't a company but a club. They pay tax to the government, are registered, but arrange everything themselves - including tours. It seems that each member keeps the fee they agree with tourists, and they are effectively individuals working under a group name. Therefore there isn't a company account; anything Bin paid out would have to come from his own pocket. Troubled by this, I decided to see what other options were available when we got to Ho Chi Minh City the following morning. R.I.P. Kindle.

In spite of this - our first major loss on the trip - we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Easy Riders, and would highly recommend taking a tour with them to see more of Vietnam than the well-trodden tourist traps in the popular towns and cities.

Day 70 - 72: Dalat - Arrival and countryside tour

We left for Dalat at 8:30am, and stopped for breakfast less than an hour later where I ordered a Tiger beer for no other reason than I could.  I didn't even want it really, but  this is a voyage of discovery, and I have now discovered that a beer isn't really the best thing to drink first thing in the morning, especially with a 4 hour journey ahead of you. I guess hair of the dog only works if you’d had enough hair the night before to justify it, which I hadn't.

Gilly was in charge of finding us accommodation after our original hotel plans fell through due to being booked out and not replying to emails asking if they were full. We landed at the Peace Hotel in a spacious, if not particularly warm room.  After grabbing a cheap, tasty meal in the attached café, we decided to explore Dalat.

Home of the famous Dalat milk, I’m almost ashamed to say I didn’t drink any whilst I was there. I guess my milk craving had been sated back in Nha Trang, and now that milk was everywhere, the excitement of finding it just wasn’t there.  Dalat is a city which I was quite looking forward to seeing, but ended up feeling a bit disappointed to. Maybe it had been hyped a little too much by some of the people we’d met, but it was no Chiang Mai, and no Luang Prabang. It wasn’t even Hanoi. As cities go, it was small in comparison, but there was a decent sized lake in the centre which had swan-shaped pedaloes.  We decided to give them a go, and jumping into the hastily named “Cedric” (Gilly’s choice) we pumped our legs for the best part of an hour in order to get a river view of the surroundings. It turns out that an hour of pedaling against a stubborn current is bloody hard.  It got to the point where we almost beached ourselves against the bank, much to the bemusement of a local fisherman whose waters we disturbed.

Back on dry land, we strolled through the hilly streets, taking in the usual assortment of rstaurants and art galleries. One gallery in particular had some spectacular palette knife paintings at crazy cheap prices – well, compared to what you’d pay back in Blighty, anyway. I vowed that if (when) our lottery numbers come in, I will be on the phone to Mr. Phuong immediately and getting some paintings shipped over to decorate my new castle-mansion.

It’s fair to say we use TripAdvisor a lot. Some may argue that part of travel is in exploring the unknown, seeking out new life and new civilization, and boldly going into the culinary world where few westerners have gone before. I agree, to a point. That point being: if a boatload of people recommend a western restaurant and I’m in the mood for western food, then I’m damn well going to eat there if I can. Sometimes though, TripAdvisor gets it wrong. The “Wisdom of Crowds” doesn’t necessarily hold if people a) are being paid to write good reviews of a place, b) have lower standards of what merits “good” or c) are idiots. Such was our experience of V Café, which promised a wonderful mix of excellent food and live jazz music. On our arrival, the latter didn’t transpire as the musician had buggered off for the day elsewhere. The former was a disappointment. Quesadillas and green curry aren’t particularly time-consuming dishes to make, or even get wrong. When they finally arrived 45 minutes later, we were expecting the culinary equivalent of Mozart but ended up with a Hans Zimmer rehash.  Only the homemade chocolate pie - ordered on a whim since I was still hungry - managed to get everything right with delicious shortcrust pastry and a divine chocolate mousse topping. It was the saving grace of the restaurant. On our way back, we stopped at the Les Sapins hotel next door to ours to ask about rooms. It was a spotlessly clean place, double-glazed, and almost certainly new – there was plastic still covering the wall sockets.  The bed was firm but after some discussion with the very odd girl running the place, she agreed to match the price of next door’s room.

The next morning we moved our stuff over, and walked to the outskirts of the city centre to check out a couple of Dalat’s sparse sights. We contemplated getting either bicycles or a motorbike, but decided against it after seeing some of the insanity on the roads. If there’s one impression present-day Vietnam will leave me with, it’s the chaos you have to deal with when crossing a street. You need to be 18 to have a licence for a lot of bikes, but for scooters and mopeds under 100cc, a licence isn’t required.  People of all ages take to the roads, texting whilst riding, calling whilst riding, loading their bikes up with planks of wood, sacks of rice, live animals, sometimes 4 people to a bike. Apparently, Ho Chi Minh city (our next destination) makes Hanoi look like a fairly quiet town and Dalat an abandoned wasteland – 10 million people, 6 million bikes.  Can’t wait.

We decided not to get ourselves killed, and walked to Ga Da Lat – the city’s old train station; it only runs one service to Nha Trang and back from what we could gather. Gilly’s dad loves trains so we thought we’d take a few photos of what looks to be a steam engine which is no longer in use, both for his enjoyment and also so he can tell me that it isn’t a steam engine. These are for you, Steve:

After grabbing a decent-sized lunch at a nearby café whilst having the “pleasure” of listening to Michael Bublé murder a dozen Christmas classics on his cynical new cash-in album,  we moved on to the excellent Lam Dong museum.  The main building housed the usual collection of pots and other excavated gubbins, but also a bizarre gallery of taxidermy and some interesting musical instruments. In the surrounding grounds there were a couple of traditional tribe “longhouses” which gave us an idea of how the various tribes lived, a house dedicated to the former king and queen of Vietnam and a huge gong placed next to the longhouses for reasons unknown.

Food that night came courtesy of Tu Anh’s, the proprietor of the same name being what can only be described as “a bit nuts”. Lovely woman, talks incessantly at a machine gun rate, takes care of her customers, a real dining experience. The food, mostly western, wasn’t bad either.

The next day we decided to take a tour with Dalat Easy Riders Club. This was essentially a day trip around some of Dalat’s sights outside of the city, riding pillion on a motorbike being driven by one of the 26 club members who make up Easy Riders. They must be doing something right, as we had seen dozens of copycat tours during our travels through Vietnam; the bikers do anything from day trips to month-long bike treks up and down the country.

We were introduced to our riders, Mr. Bin and Mr. Ky. The former had been in the club for about 4 years, the latter only a couple of months. Whilst Bin spoke fantastic English,  Ky had barely half a dozen words, which he made up for by a number of energetic and often hilarious mime actions. The day tour was jam-packed, and we crammed in a whole host of visits including:

•           A huge Dragon Pagoda with a massive dragon statue which snaked around the courtyard

•           A silk workshop where we were fascinated by the way the workers took silkworm pupae and stripped them of their threads via some huge machinery, before using cardboard templates (not dissimilar to those of a pianola) to weave them automatically into rugs, sheets and rolls of silk fabric

•           A coffee farm where we saw farmers harvesting millions of coffee beans from the acres of trees in the countryside (Vietnam is the second-biggest coffee exporter in the world)
  
•           Thac Voi waterfall, which left us drenched and happy

•           Chua Linh An pagoda, which hosted a very happy (and large) Buddha statue

•          A rice wine farm, where we got to see how the locals brewed fermented rice liquor and tried some 60% ABV wine / turps.
•           A flower farm where we saw thousands of roses, lilacs, gerbera, tulips and more all growing under tarpaulin greenhouses. Dalat is known as the Flower City for good reason – they are everywhere, beautiful and cheap. Farmers drive 10 hours to Saigon to sell them in the city, such is their popularity.

We ended the tour in the afternoon with a trip to the Crazy House. Built by the daughter of a former Vietnamese president, it lives up to its name, looking like the lovechild of Tim Burton and M.C. Escher. It feels completely organic, with paths and corridors intertwining and going off in a hundred different directions, and a variety of themed rooms such as the Kangaroo room (complete with kangaroo statue with glowing red eyes), the Bear room, the Tiger room, and so on. It was a fascinating place to explore, like a Disney house would look if Uncle Walt had taken a rather nasty LSD trip. A 20-year labour of love, the architect Dang Viet Nga had to overcome a lot of opposition to the house, mainly from the local community who considered it an eyesore. Happily, the reaction by most visitors appears to be positive. It’s certainly unlike any place I’d visited before, and was probably the highlight of the day and a great way to end the tour.

Once back at the Easy Riders office (handily located next door to our hotel), we talked to Bin about doing a 2-day tour and exploring the “real Vietnam”, as he put it. We wanted to be in Ho Chi Minh for Christmas Eve, so he arranged a tour that left on the 22^nd December, finished on the evening on 23^rd December, and would have us on a sleeper bus which arrived at about 7am on the 24^th. We thought it was an opportunity too good to miss, so decided to go for it. The tour would take us up to the central highlands, and en route we would see a plethora of authentic Vietnamese sights which aren’t generally covered in the guidebooks.

We ate at Tu Anh’s again that evening and, excited for the tour ahead, got an early night ahead of an 8:30am start.

Happy Christmas!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

This is going to be the most bizarre Christmas we've had. Away from much-loved and much-missed family and friends, we wanted to let you all know that whilst we're having a great time, we can't wait to catch up with you all again next year.

In traditional Vietnamese fashion, we're going to celebrate Christmas by going to a water park. Don't let the turkey burn!

Hope your Christmas is amazing, and 2012 is a year to remember for all the right reasons!

love Rob and Gilly xxxx

Day 68 - 69: Nha Trang

If anything, I slept worse on the sleeper bus to Nha Trang than on the one from Hanoi to Hue. After trekking for about 30 minutes to find "Hotel Alley", we checked in at An Hoa and I got a couple of hours kip. We headed out for lunch on the recommendation of the hotel staff to Mecca and had some great seafood (swordfish for me, fish in a clay pot for Gilly).

Feeling a little more with it, we wandered along the beach. The weather was warm but overcast and it drizzled periodically, but it was a refreshing walk. There isn't actually that much to do in Nha Trang; it's a fairly small beach town with a couple of historic sites and a huge stretch of beach, and is inexplicably popular with Russians - so much so, that many of the menus have Vietnamese, English and Russian translations.

We decided to take it easy on the first day, and treat ourselves to a pizza at Olivia - the second best pizza we've had since Vientiane.

On the second day we walked up toward the Long Son Pagoda, whose claim to fame is a huge white Buddha on a hill behind the pagoda itself. It's adorned with memorials to a number of monks who killed themselves through self-immolation, including Thich Quang Duc, mentioned a few posts back. There is a large cathedral in Nha Trang and we saw significantly more Catholic artwork and trinkets in the town than anywhere else in Asia until now.

We got a motorbike taxi to the other main historical site - Po Nagar Cham Towers, which was a fairly interesting diversion, but nothing particularly spectacular. A motorbike taxi back to town brought us to our lunch destination: Lanterns. To be honest, we couldn't see what all the hype was about on Trip Advisor, as the food was distinctly average and we much preferred yesterday's meal at Mecca. On the upside, Lanterns hands out free meals each Monday to the locals and also does a lot of charity work in the area, so there are definitely worse places to spend your money.

In Nha Trang, I also found some fresh milk for the first time in 2.5 months. Needless to say, I was pretty excited:

Nha Trang has the world's longest over-sea cable car, but the weather just wasn't worth us taking it - the visibility would have been appalling. On the upside, we did see some spectacular waves on the beach.

We ended our last day with some excellent seafood at Cafe Des Amis, followed by a quick drink at Why Not? bar.

We have booked an early morning bus to Dalat tomorrow (7:30am) which should take 4 hours - not too bad. We also need to try and book accommodation for New Year, as we are hoping to be in Sihanoukville in Cambodia, and it looks like hotels are selling out all over...