Venturing north: Hanoi

Running from tailor to tailor--and then back again!--yesterday I managed to collect all my purchases, fill a big box with them, and ship it all home by airmail. Supposedly it will reach my Mom's home for Christmas; we'll see. Tired but happy I got on a moto (motorbike taxi--i.e., a guy with a motorbike and a spare helmet) with my backpack, to get to the bus that would take me to Huế and finally Hanoi--happily sleeping in a bed on the road! Well, that was the plan anyway, but as I'm sure you know--planning is highly overrated! The first bus arrived 1 hour after I was picked up and the moto driver hurried me for being late, as it was already 2 pm and 5 minutes past pick-up time! (They always pick you up 30 mins after pick-up time, so I delayed deliberately to get some fruit.) Then, at 3 pm this was, we left--and broke down within three blocks from the bus company's office. That is about 5 minutes of driving. Yet an hour or so later, we started rolling again, finally! Arriving in Huế I had to change to a sleeper bus, which was a sleeper bus alright. I got a bed at the very back, where you have five beds cramped together. Originally bunking me up with four local guys someone in the company thought a bit and by the time I was back from the toilet I was bunking with four other international girls. So far, so good! I even had a window bed, so fresh air could be abundant as well as a view if I couldn't sleep. All I needed was dinner, and they assured us--food stop is at 6.45 pm! Closer to 21 pm I got some sort of meal at the kind of roadside dinner the busses always stop by in Asia, and was finally ready to go to sleep like a little baby. That's when the driver decided we had delayed too much, and it was time to pick up some speed... You know those video games with car races? It looked like that from my point of view--and a grand view that was, at the very rear of the bus with a widow my own length, as I saw the lights of cars coming from the other direction, swerving a bit, honking! They honk a lot when they drive in Asia in general; most often just to say that "hi, I am here". Added with the zig-zag patern the driver took the bus in to advance on the other cars, the total amount of honking was coming close to unbearable... You'd think it would stop after a while, but as it turned out--I spent two solid hours awake, finaly gave in and took one of the valiums some other traveller had given med previously when I could not sleep, and dreamt that the bus was trapped in a traffic circle surrounded by angry elephants hinking and charging at us... and the I woke up in central Hanoi, it was 7.30 am and apart from the added sunlight--nothing had changed. The joy of Vietnamese busses is getting me to a point where I will be getting a train ticket for my next leg of independent journey--Sapa. Before that, however, I go on a small group tour to Halong Bay with my hostel. It's time for karst rock scenery from another world, kayaking, rock climbing and (jada, Jarle!) deep-water soloing! Woho! Don't expect to hear from me the next week, I'll be out having fun.

PS: Hanoi is beautiful, at least the old quarters, and water puppet shows are good fun.

Streets in Hanoi

The Temple of Literature

Tailors and ruins

Winter is coming in Vietnam, with storms and floods dominating the weather in Hoi An. Although it's not really cold--I never wear any more than a long sleeve sweather during the day; sight-seeing really isn't the big thing as the water forces me from the streets into little cafes and tailor shops. What normally happens is that I find something very pretty and give my visa card yet another blow... Although still within bearable dimensions, it seems to be time to move on after two days at various tailors'! This morning I defied the pouring rain and darkness though, and headed towards My Son--the ruins of hindu temples built by the once mighty Champa kingdom, controlling the middle of Vietnam for several centuries at around 800-1000 AD. The Champa were apparently notorious for waging conflicts with neightbours both in the north and south , and were later crushed into oblivion. The remainig people converted to Islam at some point, with only a fraction of the 100.000 antecendants still believing in the Hindu gods the temples were built to worship. The ruins today are very worn down and mostly shattered--particularly as a reault of the Americans' B-52 carpet bombing during the war, when the Viet Cong hid there. They still hold plenty of beauty in their own way, and covered in mist with a backdrop of lush green and no more than 4 other visitors at the same time I had a lovely morning wandering around. Back in Hoi An I had the sense to get my bus ticket to Hanoi for tomorrow--before I found yet another lovely dress at yet another tailor's...

Hoi An: A 24 hours bus ride to the tailor's!

My next stop in Vietnam was Hoi An, pretty much half-way up the country on the map, just south of China Beach where the Americans landed their first troops in the country. Yes, that is actually a geographical description that means my grandfather can figure out where I am, and although it is practical it is also a little scary. However, to get here is another story! It is late and I am famished, so I have to make this short, but let me say--despite being long (24 hours as oppsoed to the 18 hours promised by the agency that sold the ticket), it was truly entertainig! Highlights include a poor little boy who had to puke every hour or so; as his mom struggled with the smell the n'th time I offered here my little jar of tiger balm (Asian people use tiger balm for all sorts of smart things!)--to sniff, I though, but the boy nex to me rubbed it on the little boys tummy, and on his tongue! Oh my..! I made a rather weird crying sound; I had never imagines to put tiger balm on anyones tongue!--and so the entire bus laughed equally at me and the littl eboy trying to clean his tongue from the ghastly taste. Yet again the bus laughs, yes--it happens on most of my bus rides here. After that people seemed more eager to interact, and half of the people asked to borrow some tiger balm for this or that, lending a warm smile as they did. At the first food stop this paid off as help to order food, and one of my best meals in Vietnam! No need to say, it was a curry; my favourite by far. As the bus wheeled on along the coast for hours and hours, I had to chat with a lady who showed me photos of the buddhist monk son with a newly shaved head, befire she photographed me with her cell phone camera in the same manner. Then she tried to steal a small dog for me (this was at a food stop), but was discovered. Fortunately all laughed. Then she did as all Asians do--pinched my nose, smiled like an old grandma and exclaimed "Big! Beautiful!" and laughed warmly. The entiore bus agreed that indeed my nose was particularly big and beautiful. A little while later one of the guys working for the bus company told me he travelled alone too and showed me all the half-kinky photos of magazine girls in typical page 3 style he had on his phone. Needless to say; no explanation given as to why. Arriving in Hoi An at noon today I checked in to an amazingly cozy guest house--an old Chinese family home, complete with a small family shrine in the courtyard! My room overlooks it all, with old wooden patio doors leading to a tiny balcony and a view of the market and even a few tailors. Having strolled the city for a few hours I've found some cozy cafes, the prices for shipping stuff back home, and realised that I have to keep watch on my visa card as I am liable to order a new wardrobe from the amaxing stuff they tailor here.

The American War

Saigon is a lovely city to explore byt foot, cyclo and moto--and I have tried it all in the few days I was there. The vendors try to charge you astronomous amounts of money for a small bottle of water, but in the end you the get hang of it (or at least so you think; who knows--they'd never go in on a deal if their end was too short!) and so you can see past the hassles and enjoy yourself. I went for a lovely stroll in sunshine and then rain to find the Pagoda of the Emerald Buddha--a peaceful retreat only one street away from a busy intersection, in a typical Chinese style and with a myriad of doves and other birds fluttering about as I sat down; then cooling me off with their flapping wings as they moved around to inspect me from one angle or another. However, as one explores Vietnam the more protruding part of history that one "have to see" is always related to the Vietnam War--or the American Agression War as it is named from a Vietnamese perspective. Saigon was a Viet Cong stronghold as strong as any, and the remnants of the war are not difficult to find. I started with the Cu Chi tunnels. Viet Cong's network of undergound tunnels had every function of a normal village. They would hide here during the day only to be able to come out at night, for fresh air and raids agains the Americans. The tunnels are an amazing web of tiny shafts, originally no more than 80 cm high some 40 cm wide--and with plenty of traps to kill you even if you manage to enter, unless you know where to go. They have anlarged a section for tourists to crawl through; the truly much bigger 130 x 60 cm space still made me claustrophobic, though! In total they had a few hundred kilometres of such tunnels, on three levels; connecting them to the Saigon river, to schools, kitchens, workshops, ... all the amenities needed to live and rund a war. In a similar manner, the area above ground was filled with any nasty home-made trap you can imagine; most of them designed to make it a horrible experience to discover them by chance... It did not take me long to realise that arriving there from a small American town, with no previous experience in wandering a jungel where an unknown number of invisible people want to kill you with metal spikes must be truly terrifying. Still, the Americans on my tour were smiling and happy as they posed on the tank that was left in the forest in 1970, after a landmine destrayed its belts. Sure we'll smile and pose on the remains of our country! (Yes, I did ask if they actually thought it fitting..) Their smiles were replaced with indignation and disgust at the end of out visit though, as an old propaganda film from 1967 was shown--"I didn't expect the propaganda!" might be a natural thing to say, it was rather anti-American; but what did you expect the Vietnamese side of the war at the time to be? And how could you not see it coming when they parade the tank and whatever else of yours they managed to destroy? To be honest, the variations over childish joy and pure indignation and hatred the Americans on the trip showed fascinated me just as much as the tunnels; it was like watchin little kids love the game and play it hard, but when they feel and their own knees got scratched, it hurts and they want it to end as it's no fun anymore. They seemed to forget to reckognise that at the same time, the Americans were not really much better than the Viet Con, bith in torture and propaganda. The photographs at the War Remnant Museum in Saigon have mainly been taken by Western photographs documenting the atrocities that were committed. More than anything else, the motifs are only sickening, making me realise that the Iraqi prison happenings are no new pehomena in American warfare; it's just that back then most soldiers did not have their own digital camera, and so their perverted ideas of "everything goes in love and war" was never digitalised and sent online to the extent that it is now.

In Saigon

After a lot of discussion, waiting for "5 minutes only now" and a few minor threats, I got on a bus to Saigon this morning. I was the only non-Vietnamese person there--and today that apparently meant that everone should make an effort to say at least one word to me. Amazing! I have tried eating water lily seeds (don't eat them whole; peel them and then eat them, or else the entire bus laughs), learnt to say hello in Vietnamese by the local vendor women, eaten my luch with completely random, friendly old men from another bus, and had a truly long moto ride with a poor guy balancing my big backpack for a very decent price. They warned me that Vietnam is a continuously ongoing scam; and it seemed so this morning, but as I've left the border city this country has also become much friendlier... It is a quick stop though! Trying to do it all, which is always too much, I have only a day or two here in Saigon before I go on to Hoi An in the middle of the country. My tickets to Taipei have finally been booked (sorry for taking so long, Christiaan!) and Aslak is booking me onwards to South Korea as we speak. The globetrotting part is definitely picking up speed, but I am having a great time on the carusel and still looking forward to getting home for Christmas. But first; Vietnam has to be discovered ...

Boating my way to Vietnam

New day, new country is always an exciting thing to be able to say--and today started pretty much so, as I got a bus to somewhere before venturing on a boat taking me down the Mekong to a border crossing between Cambodia and Vietnam. After a few whiles of waiting, a 1000 riles (USD 0.25) fee for a "medical examination" made by a "health camera" (which looked pretty much like any other CCTV camera to me), some bad exchange rates and a free coconut the boat arrived in Chaou Doc, Vietnam early in the afternoon. It took a bit of walking and looking before I could find a decent guest house along with an unnamed Aussie/Swiss couple I met on the boat (they had a map, I tagged along)--but I am currently residing at the roof toplevel of a charming guesthouse set in a typicalold French building, with varandah doors,a lovely double bed and hot water (that's a rare one here!) for the lovely price of USD 5. The joy is short-lived though; I already booked my bus to Saigon for 6:30 am tomorrow.

Exploring rural Cambodia: Mondulkiri province

I have just spent a few fantastic days in Sen Monorom! The "capitol" of the Mondulkiri province is quite a charming village with its population of 7000--red dust, cattle, old motorbikes, a market and plenty of surrounding forest and jungle with the opportunity of visiting minority villages and trek by elephants to waterfalls descripes most of what I've been doing. The stay itself was amazing, with friendly people both in the city and the villages, amazing food! and a lovely time with my new Italian friend, Conchita. As much fun was the trip to get there and back; some 7-8 hours (and that is quick!), mostly on bright red dirt roads through a stunningly beautiful scenery of jungle. On the way back Conchita and I got a "seat" in the back of a pick up--and with 15 people outside, 6 people inside, a full garden ornamental shop at the base of the car, one banana palm and a small motorbike, we set off! Needless to say, it was an adventurous trip. Now I'm back in Phnom Penh for the day, heading to Vietnam tomorrow.

Phnom Penh

Arriving Phnom Penh by bus from Siem Reap, I find it to be a rather lovely city. I'm stayin on the lake side, and--like all other places--photos will not upload on the internet cafes here... Sorry about that! So far I have seen the Royal Palace and its Silver Pagode, I have enjoyed a meal on the lake side, eaten local food at tiny food stalls with the locals, tested the night life with Mervyn and Simon, two nice huys I ran ito as randomly as one always runs into people when travelling; I have located the post office and bought tremendous amounts of stamps, walked through tiny streets with a local flavour of rubbish and food mixed together; seen the S-21 (Tuol Sleng) museum and tried to digest the genocide Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime forced on their people ... I really enjoy it here, but the impressions are many, and some of them indesidedly strong. I reckon I'll need a day or two to consolidate most of S-21, despite having had my nerves tested by years of WW2 history. Tomorrow is the start of the Bon Om Tuk, or Water festival--an event celebrated by boat races and plenty of joy! I will watch it tomorrow before I catch a pick-up to Sen Monorom in the more remote Mondulkiri province of Cambodia--known for its elephant herding hilltribes! Supposedly the road there is some 10 hours during the rainy season, but "don't worry, they'll get you there!" so it should be an experience :)

The ruins of the Khmer Empire: Angkor Wat

Having spent 3 days wandering among the Angkor ruins, it is hard to summarise and describe the experience with words and sentences. The essence of my experiences at the ruins include far more than the mere sights--reading about the old Empire, how it worked, how the temples were built; realising that what is now vaste amounts of jungle must have been where they had all their wooden houses and some 1 million people lived at the most; marvelling at the shear size of the temples, the intricate building techniques, the details of the carvings. And at the same time, the maybe most majestic about some of the ruins is the fact that they are now ruins--the roofs of the towers caving in, the walls bulging with age as they threaten to come down, the jungle trees both supporting the big bricks of stone and at the same time threatening to throw them over at any moment now, to finally swallow the remnants of the buildings completely. The air around Angkor is dusty and sometimes busy, it smells from food during the day, but at dusk the smoke from the locals'fires and a scent of watermelon is carried on the fresh breeze that sometimes breaks away from the petrol fumes from the hordes of tuk-tuks and cars, all leaving the site in a darkening frenzy. I struggle to keep my bicycle on the road as they pass me, but the dark roads are enjoyable and arguably not so dark once the worst trafic is past me.

Day 1 was spent in a tuk-tuk with Norwegian Kristi and Lars. We left the hostel at 4.30 to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Sadly, it was more overcast than anything else, and as the sun arrived we never really got to see it rise. Angkor is an impressive sight in itself though! Temples seen included Banterey Srei, Ta Prohm and Bayon ... all amazing! Ta Prohm is where they shot Tomb Rider and the classical photos of the jungle trees crawling amongst the ruins; it is an amazing place to wander! I also loved the Bayon very much, will all the faces (and Ane's stores of them ringing in the back of my head). Day 2 I got up late and ventured out to the ruins on a bicycle--oh, the joy! Passing Angkor Wat I strolled past Phnom Bakheng and Baksei Chamkrong before I spent the whole day within the walls of Angkor Thom, seeing the Baphuon (closed for restoration), the Terrace of Wlephants, Phimeanakas and Preah Palilay. The latter two are rather small temple structures that have been damaged quite badly by the jungle--but there are no hordes of tourists there, so you are free to actually take in the impressive sight in your own sweet time.. I also went for a bike ride on a section of the outer wall of the city of Angkor Thom (from the north gate to the west gate), a most pleasant though bumpy ride with a stunning light as the sun set! Day 3 I decided to stay on my bike to be able to keep my own pace. Pedalling a great deal of what is known as the grand circuit, I visited Prasat Kravan, Banteay Kdei, Sras Srang, Ta Keo, Ta Nei, Thommanon and Chau Say Trevode. My most favoured moment was biking on the forest road from Ta Keo to Ta Nei--as a shower of proper tropical rains broke out I rushed along for coverange in the ruins, which were damp, overthrown by the jungle, and compeltely deserted...save for me! Walking around there, simply soaking up the atmosphere completed my three days at the Angkor ruins perfectly.

Meeting up with the Cambodian mafia

As I arrived at Hualamphong, Bangkok's main train station, Sunday afternoon they informed me that ticket booking had closed and I had to come back the next morning to buy my ticket to the small city of Aranya Praphet at the Cambodian border. At 5am that very next - Monday - morning, I had had a whole night of packing and organising, some 2 hours of sleep, and a 30 min taxi ride through a dark and seemingly deserted version of the otherwise vibrant city. Even the train station seemed dead, apart from the ticket booths here they charged me 48 bath (less than NOK 10) for a 3rd class bert (the only class available). I dozed off most of the trip, and some 6 hours later I was trying to navigate the tuk-tuk offers to get to the border and into Cambodia. Getting a correct tuk-tuk price wasn't all that difficult--but you have to be scammed once in every country, right? And Thailand had gone pretty well so far, so... In short, the tuk-tuk took me and two Italian guys to a place whe we could organise our visas. At double price, obviously. I knew this was a scam, but couldn't stop it in time. Then the visa-guy tried to sell me a seat in a shared taxi from the border to Siem Reap--clearly at a bargain price, for him anyway. When I declined, he pointed out ""that all the money goes to me anyway, I control all the taxis, no point in not buying my taxi.." I guess that should have tipped me off! The charming fella, let's call him "Tony", walked a group of 10 people, including me, across the border before he tried to sell us all taxi seats or bus seats at double price. In fact , he tried to sell us every single scam the Lonely Planet has listed for Cambodia--pretty impressive! We all declined and walked off to get shared taxis to Siem Reap at a fair price. Tony and his driver followed us in their car, offering us a better price now but still scamming us completely from what I'd found in travel blogs online. It got to a point where I forced a smile and tried to make it into a joke as I told him he was crazy, and he was offended and told the other travellers I was both crazy and rude when I walked off. Whenever we asked a taxi driver for a car to Siem Reap, he would eye Tony and his driver stalking us, point to their car and tell us to get a taxi with them. A whole street of taxis, a whole street of drivers pointing to Tony. In the end, we really had no choice but to get a ride with one of his guys--and I was fuming with anger! Until I discovered that in many ways he was right, I must have come off as rather rude: When negotiating the prices I quoted prices per person, while he quoted a price per car... And so, as our young and friendly driver explained that the police and Tony's company owned the main road in Phoipet and noone else got business there, the lot of us got to Siem Reap paying way less than most people do anyway.

Off to Cambodia!

I will be leaving with the 05.55 am train tomorrow morning, planning on reaching Siem Reap by nightfall. Photos are not yet up as the internet seems to be broken and unable to transfer pictures at the moment. (Trust me, this upsets me too!) As my bags have yet to be packed, I will have to share my additional words about Bangkok with you once I end my adventurous train trip has been followed by an expectedly bad bus trip and I am in Siem Reap.