Day 10 – Vietnam/Cambodia

Greetings my little sunbeams…..

Not much to say today……

I hear you are experiencing a mini heat wave……make hay whilst the sun shines as tomorrow it may rain
Confucius may have said something similar!!

Today was our last day in Vietnam and as we had no touring, site seeing or shopping to do – we took advantage of the sunshine and sat by the pool and just relaxed.

Before you knew it, it was 2.00pm and time to go, have a shower and prepare to leave. The suitcases are now quite heavy – 26kgs and 27kgs – considering we haven’t bought anything of any significance so I don’t know how??

Hairy was in the lobby to meet us to take us to the airport and that was that……

G O O O O O O O D B Y E V I E T N A M

Hello Cambodia……………

We arrived in Cambodia to a beautiful looking airport – two buildings both with high wooden pitched roofs similar to a temple….upon arrival we needed to sort out VISA’s – what an unfriendly bunch!! I felt like a criminal and all I had done was buy Lotus seeds!! (no one was interested in my lotus seeds though.) We collected our luggage and were met on the outside by Som……Som call him Dong but we will stick to Som (where over the rainbow,,,,,,)

You are required to have a VIsa to get in an out, which is a $20 charge. 10 minutes later, if the immigration people have stopped talking to each other long enough – you are called to the counter to collect your passport.

On the way to the hotel Som gave us the brief run down on Cambodia……Cambodia’s population consists of about 14 millions people (give or take a few) out of which about a million live in Siem Reap. 75% of them are Buddhists and the remaining 25% are a bit of a melting pot.

The currency is 4000 bits to the £1.00.

In 1997 there were approximately 7 hotels here in Siem Reip as it was still a reasonably undeveloped town – since then, with the growth of tourism, an additional 120 hotels have been built (mainly from 2003 onwards) and another 20 are under construction. These are very big, nice looking resort hotels. There are also 200 guest houses/B & B’s and hostels which cater for the backpackers.. The original Cambodians are called Khmers and many of the restaurants boast Khmer cooking.- the other Cambodians are the mixed race ones……chinese, thai, vietnamese, who arent the proper ones at all!! (According to Som)

The main influx of tourists to come to Cambodia are the South Koreans followed by the Japanese, Vietnamese, French, UK and USA – then the rest of the world.

Our hotel is very pretty and by comparison to the ‘resort ‘ hotels is quite small. Where all the other hotels are quite ‘Las Vegasy’ ours is very woody……a bit like an old ship.

Once we had settled in it was off to the town. The main transport here for the tourists is a kind of trendy tut tut carriage….attached to a motor bike. No shortage of taxi’s!!!! However, we decided to walk – the exercise would do us good.

We had been told to head for ‘Pub Street’ which is the centre of town where all the restaurants are and the night market was just a bit further up the road. We walked along the river side which was all very pretty with fairy lights glistening in the trees and a scattering of restaurants on either side. Then we had to make a right and apparently we couldn’t miss it!

We had arrived in Blackpool!!!!!!

From nowhere neon lights, bars, pubs, road side vendors, and restaurants, appeared – fortunately I hadn’t changed for dinner as even in shoes, I would have been over dressed!!

We wandered down the streets constantly accosted by massage girls and boys, tut tut people, t shirt people, jewellery people – in fact anyone who had anything to sell…..a foot massage is $1 In fact, most things are $1 (pronounced wun dollaaaaaaar) – Cambodian is not dis-similar to Vietnamese and as you know I have a flair for languages!)

However, the good thing is that the vendors are not allowed in the middle of the street so they have to find ways of getting you onto their side of the pavement!! After a while we got wise to this which made walking down the road much easier!!

The big thing here on every corner is the fish tanks where you sit on the side of the tank, put your legs in and millions of dead skin eating fish attack. It’s like a scene from Piranha!!
Indy decided to give it a go!! At first he wasn’t happy….I can’t imagine the fish were too overjoyed either, but then after a few minutes he settled into the whole thing. 5 mins later he had had enough……however has anyone thought about who or what these fish ate before him??? Verukas? Bunions, Blisters, and that’s just the tip of the toeberg. It’s enough to make you wanna gag!! Obviously a picture opportunity!!

Further down the road there are the sales reps trying to drag you into their restaurants…..the average dish is about $2 and that includes rice!! Local beer here is 50 cents a pint, (see picture) so you could survive here quite happily for about $5 a day which is 3 good square meals.

After walking around the market which is huge (bought nothing….couldn’t give the money away) it was dinner time. We selected the restaurant we ate at based on a variety of criteria……
1. Cleanliness
2. Cleanliness and
3. Cleanliness

We were wondering why there were no flies in VIetnam…..simples…..they are all here! Mainly little midges which are everywhere and one tends to have the need to scratch a lot – especially your hair!! I can’t be sure how many were included in dinner but I think it’s safe to say they blend in quite well with the food!

DInner was ok although we won’t be going back to town again to eat!…..3 dishes to share, 2 bacardi and cokes (branded drinks are at least double the price of the local stuff) and a litre of bottled Tiger beer for Indy and the bill came to $17. The drinks bill was the same, if not higher than the food bill.

Pink robed monks sat in the middle of the street clanging away at their musical triangles begging for money for land mine victims……..Bars had booming music trying to attract you to come in and huge TV screens with football matches were abundant

Time to leave….but first an ice cream and select who was going to be the lucky Tut Tut driver to take us back to the hotel!! It was like a scene from Shrek with Donkey jumping up and down shouting ‘pick me….pick me’!! Selection made, it was time to retire…..

Back at the hotel, safely tucked up in my clean fly free room, complete with air conditioning – I bid you good night.

Until tomorrow…..toodle oooooo

A and Indy
xxx