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.