Dark Clouds on the Horizon

In the morning, I went wandering around the village, and there didn’t seem to be anybody around. I heard a familiar sound and searched around for its source. I found them – all the girls form then night before and other women and boys were huddled around a black and white TV, watching some dubbed Chinese kung fu/love story movie. Map strikes again!

After breakfast, the elephants arrived. We figured the elephant ride would be pretty cheesy – like cheap circus attractions, but we had a great time. Map went off – we would meet up with him later – and we mounted the elephants from a platform built off of the medicine man’s hut porch. Beth and I were on one elephant, while the other three were on another. We started off, working our way out through the village farms. Our elephant (quite obviously male by casual inspection) was hungry and kept tearing out corn from the fields, only to be hit on the head with a heavy metal pipe by the “driver” – it looked and sounded quite painful! It was amazing how good the elephant’s balance was. Just the day before, Beth and I were slip sliding down the slick mud hill to get to the “showers”, but the elephants handled it with the greatest of ease. River crossings were a bit intense, but again no problems.

After about thirty minutes, we were in the middle of the jungle when abruptly the elephants stopped. The “drivers’ looked at us and immediately I thought “this is where we get robbed”. Horrible to assume something like that, but that’s what happened when you heard too many bad stories/rumors and had a wild imagination. Moments later, the other elephant in front of us took the most enormous piss I’d ever seen and proceeded to shit huge cannonballs all over the place. Who knew?

It took us just over an hour to meet up with Map and banana man on a newly built road. Map said the road was put in three months before, and in six months the surrounding villages would be “electric town”. Some people were happy about it, others were not. The Thai government was trying to integrate the hill tribes into the main population mainly because the tribes were sitting on vast amounts of resource rich land that the government wanted to get at. The North American Indian situation was happening all over again in almost every Asian country we visited.

We’d been lucky with the weather, but just then it started to pour. Beth and I were well equipped, but the other three got soaked. Luckily we were walking on a hard, earthen road and not on the slippery clay paths of the hills. After about half an hour, a truck picked us up and drove us to the rafting jetty.

We had ant filled noodle soup for lunch – we were so hungry that we casually picked the bugs out and continued eating. We laughed – a couple of years before, we would have complained to the waiter and pompously demanded a new meal, and afterward we would have spread the word to family and friends about the restaurant’s cleanliness or lack thereof – OK, I’m exaggerating a bit! Now, we just picked the bugs out and got back to business.

The rafting, although fun, wasn’t the excitement packed adventure that I’d expected. It was the rainy season, yet there were no rapids. Still, sitting (and occasionally poling) on a small raft made of lashed together bamboo poles that barely floated above the surface of the river was pretty good fun. I wouldn’t have been so keen on excitement had I heard the story a woman we met in Nepal who told us about her raft breaking up, killing one of the other rafters and forcing her to hike through the jungle for two days before finding a village that helped her out!

Map wanted to take us to a butterfly and orchid garden, but we vetoed that, so instead he took us to some waterfalls in Doi Suthep National Park. The ten-stage waterfall was pretty nice, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit them.

The Thai people say you haven’t seen Chiang Mai until you’ve seen Doi Suthep pagoda, but we opted to sleep in the next day before our flight to Myanmar. We got a tuk-tuk to the airport for 60 baht – the first time we’d been in a tuk-tuk since our initial Bangkok experience two years before. The airport had a post office, free Home Country Direct phones, a good book store, and even a Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut. We blew our remaining baht on Blizzards and pizza. As we were waiting to board our flight, dark clouds were blowing in over the western mountains…….

Jungle Trek

We lucked out again. Our trekking group was small – two American girls (Amy and Elizabeth) and a Brit named Richard. We all got along really well, but what made the trek was our “Map”. We left our packs at Ben Guesthouse, and put our valuables and some supplies in packs that Map lent us. We had just the right amount of stuff:

ü Raincoat

ü Shorts

ü 1 Pair of socks/day

ü Long pants

ü Hiking boots

ü T-shirt/day

ü Flashlight

ü Squeegee towel

ü Underwear/day

ü Pack of cigarettes/day (to give singles to the hill tribe men)

ü Zip lock bags to waterproof everything

ü Plastic laundry bag to waterproof our clothes

ü Soap, toothbrush, toothpaste

ü Valuables, film and camera

*Depending on your personal philosphy, some people brought candy and pens for the kids

**This was during the rainy season – you wouldn’t need rain gear unless you went at this time

Map’s position on keeping valuables for trekkers was – he didn’t. He guaranteed to take people to safe areas, so there was no need to store valuables. It was also important to check if the guide you were using was licensed (it changed quickly, due to drug testing – so we were told not to rely solely on recommendations from books or other travelers) and whether or not the guide registered with the police before and after the trek like they were supposed to.

We drove for an hour and a half in a songthaew (like a covered pick-up where you sat on benches) northeast towards Doi Saket. We were all dressed in our boots, while little Map wore low cut Chuck Cons and knee high blue socks. We started walking. Map stepped in a deep puddle and happily exclaimed “Oh, I’m lucky”. He would do this anytime something “bad” happened!

After about an hour, we arrived at a Lahu tribe village. Map sat us down in the medicine man’s hut and we snacked on bananas while he explained about the tribe. The Lahu people numbered around 60,000, but their village was only about 150 in size. They (especially this tribe – closer to civilization) had abandoned their traditional clothing and wore a mix of tattered Western clothes and traditional clothes. We were welcomed into their village, but felt neither welcome nor unwelcome.

The medicine man in most villages was the most important person in the village – there were no hierarchical systems in place, but he was the centerpiece of the village. His knowledge was passed down to his son, and if there was no son, they usually got a medicine man from another village. Map talked for a solid half-hour on the customs of the Lahu. They were still very animistic and relied heavily on the stars to tell them if they should work or not from day to day. During the month-long New Year’s festival, there was a week of “free-for-all sex” where a man tapped any women (or girl) married or not, on the hand and they went off to what we dubbed “love huts”. These little huts belonged to the village and were built away from the main settlement in corn or rice fields. They were found everywhere in hill tribe areas. This sparked a half-hour conversation among the five of us about Western values and Eastern norms regarding sex.

Map hired a Lahu nicknamed “banana man”. He got this nickname by eating 45 mini bananas in 10 minuets, winning 500 baht off Map. Banana man didn’t talk too much, but he was full of smiles. Map didn’t really need him to carry his bag, but I think Map paid him to help banana man out.

Walking from village to village, Beth and I were surprised at the scenery – we hadn’t seen anything like it. It was beautiful – walking up and down hills surrounded by steep rising mountains. We passed through hillside corn and maize plantations, and then the scene would suddenly change to dense bamboo and teak forests.

The second village, after an hour walking (40 minutes “Map time”), was a Lisu tribe village. There are about 25,000 Lisu, and this village seemed pretty big. Map was greeted with a warm welcome (as everywhere else) and we were greeted by aggressive Ahka women vendors. The Ahka women wore the distinctive headdresses made of silver (tin?), beads, coins and buttons. They attacked everyone, but honed in on Richard – he was the greenest looking and best dressed of the five of us, and the women sensed this like dogs sensed fear. There were about 33,000 Ahka (we passed by their village shortly thereafter) and their dress was in sharp contrast to the half Western, half Chinese dress of the Lahu and Lisu.

Richard was as green a traveler as they get when we met him, and he readily admitted it. We told him about getting “ripped off” by a tuk tuk two years before. The driver drove Beth, her Dad and I to a gem store and two temples as promised, but took off without us having paid anything, leaving us in the middle of nowhere. Not exactly the worst scam in the world, but anyway…

Richard said he had a better story. He had arrived in Bangkok, white as a sheet and dressed “nicely”, and on his first day, a tuk tuk driver offered to take him around the city for 500 baht (an expensive proposition). He thought it would be a good way to get a feel for the city. The driver asked him if he was interested in Thai massage. He thought “yeah, I fancy trying that, but I wonder if he means a prostitute”. The tuk tuk driver took him outside the city to a shop, and introduced Richard to the masseuse. “When I got a look at her, I knew it wasn’t prostitution… she must have weighed over two hundred pounds”. On the islands, you usually paid 100-150 baht for a one hour massage, 300 baht tops for a 5-star hotel, but Richard dickered the price down from 1000 baht to 800 baht! He said he was pretty happy with his negotiating prowess. After just over an hour, he paid the woman and she said she usually got tips, so he toipped her 200 baht! So much for haggling! When the tuk tuk driver dropped him off, he had a huge smile and told Richard he’d be waiting for him the next day. I bet he did too, every tuk tuk driver needed a guy like Richard!.

More hiking, including passing through several streams, and we arrived at Map’s village – a Karen tribe. There were four kinds of Karens – the most famous of which were the long necks (or more anatomically correct “low shoulders”!). The other three had other distinct features, one of which we saw later that night.

Map’s parents died when he was 11, and he moved to Chiang Mai to live with Burmese foster parents. He told us that he went to a movie shortly after moving to the city. The movie was King Kong and it was the first time he’d seen “moving pictures”. He was cheering for the people to kill King Kong - “get the monkey meat!” He had grown up with a slightly different perspective than city dwellers. Hill tribes eat everything – bugs, roots, plants (banana leaf, flowers, stalk, steam, root, and oh yes… the fruit as well) and animals – including monkeys!

Now, every year Map took kids from the village into Chiang Mai and treated them to a movie. He did this because he thought it was fun, but also to expose the kids to other parts of life that he never had a chance to see until his parents died.

When we arrived at Map’s village, a man was stuffing large locusts into a bamboo chute, to later steam and eat. Map brought him some presents for a little girl in the village. An American couple had sent them after trekking with their son and staying in the village for two nights the year before. Map had done well for himself (he and his 3 partners own their trekking company) and the village had in turn prospered. They had a small school and a black and white, battery powered TV, all care of Map.

After another hour and a half of trekking, we came to our final stop at another Karen village – the long belt Karens. We were a little surprised that we hadn’t seen any other trekking groups, but Map told us that only two companies came to those villages. He laughed when people told him “we want to go to an area with no tourists” – he told them to go to electric town (the city) and they would see no tourists. Still, we were glad and lucky to be alone.

The village seemed pretty big. We put our stuff down in a large hut which was built by Map (he called it the “Map Holiday Inn”) next to the medicine man’s house. A little boy led us down to a river where a bunch of women were showering – when I pulled off my shirt, they all turned around embarrassed, and the kid quickly ushered us into some makeshift shower stalls – oops!

An hour later, Map called us for dinner, and we headed over to the medicine man’s hut. The dinner was awesome – by far the best meal we had eaten in Thailand, and the five of us were all sickly full. Later, the villagers who weren’t married (they marry around the ages of 13-15) sang traditional songs for us and wore traditional clothing. The long belts are made of bamboo (and sometimes silver or tin) and Map said they never took them off except to shower. I questioned this, and he laughed and said “they also take them off to …. exercise” and he giggled like a schoolboy.

The Map Holiday Inn was a fairly large hut. It was raised about a meter off the ground and the flooring was a soft bamboo weave. There were sets of blankets and pillows all folded up and placed neatly along the walls. The place was devoid of insects – flying or crawling – due to the burning of a natural citronella-like candle. We slept soundly on our thin mats, and didn’t wake up until morning.

Phad Thai ala Tyndall

The next morning we were picked up at the cooking school office. We were driven about 15 minutes out to a brand new housing development in the suburbs of Chiang Mai. Their school was a half outdoor building and an air conditioned theater style kitchen, located next to their huge, brand new house. There were 16 of us in total. There were 4 middle aged women from Canada who had just finished a 3-day trek that sounded like a bit of a nightmare – especially for the 2 Japanese guys who went with them who came back to empty “safety” boxes at their trekking office. Apparently, they’d used a simple key lock and the women had used a tougher combination lock – but I suspect that the fact that they were Japanese might have been part of the reason – the thieves knew that a) they had money and b) they probably wouldn’t raise a stink. Everything was gone – plane tickets, money, passports, traveler’s checks – everything. Of course, there were tons of warnings in every guidebook about leaving your stuff in hotels or guesthouses. The best thing to do was either rent a safety deposit box at a bank, or take your valuables with you. The danger in that was being robbed while trekking, but unless you were going to the far-reaching interior areas, it was pretty safe.

The four Canadian women had an interesting story. All six of them were nurses and they were in Thailand for six weeks. They had all agreed two years back that they would open an account and deposit a little money in it every week to save for a trip. Each one of them was responsible for researching and presenting a country – South Africa, Argentina, Mongolia and Thailand – and obviously Thailand won out.

We sat Thai style on the floor in a semi-circle and Somphon taught us about herbs, vegetables and most importantly chilies used in Thai cuisine. We then went into the kitchen and watched him make four dishes. There were chances for a little participation, but it wasn’t exactly encouraged and the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to it. Beth and I were a little disappointed, as we’d pictured a very hands-on experience - that said, the day was informative and interesting and we didn’t regret going at all. After the four dishes were finished, we went outside again and feasted. We recovered a little, and then went back inside for two more dishes and more gorging. We washed it all down with fresh in-season fruit, and abruptly, Somphon clapped his hands, said “OK, we’re finished!” and we were whisked back to town. Again, we felt it was a bit cold (especially for the notoriously warm Thai reputation, I guess Somphon had lived in England a little too long….) and we didn’t feel the need to thank him or say goodbye. As for the 2 or 3 day course – I probably would not recommend it. Going through the herb and spice intro more that once would be a total bore, and the cookbook was laid out such that all you needed was one day.

Chiang Mai

We left for Chiang Mai on Tuesday. The train left at 10:00pm and we fell quickly asleep. It arrived at noon the next day and even though the train had been packed when we left, only a few backpackers were straggling around the station when we got off. We were met by the usual tout "welcoming committee”, loaded with pamphlets and brochures and accompanied by free transport minibuses. We took them up on their offer to go to Ben Guest House, as it rang a bell. Since it was the rainy season, and Chiang Mai was known for trekking among the hill tribal areas, the city was nearly devoid of tourists. Ben Guest House was empty, although eight Belgians had gone trekking and left their bags there. The rooms were nice and clean with fan, shower and hot water for the low season price of 120 baht (it was usually 150 baht). The guesthouses in Chiang Mai were all pretty cheap, as they tried to get you to go trekking with their guide.

The location was great for us – quiet and convenient (just east of the Mae Ping River, a 10-minute walk to the night market and Tha Phae Road) and they had great food.

Although Chiang Mai was the second biggest city in Thailand, it seemed fairly quiet and very livable. We only had 4 or 5 days, as flights to Mandalay (connecting through Yangon) ran only twice a week (Sunday and Thursday), so we decided to relax, explore the city and do a cooking course. We’d kind of ruled out trekking as it would have been too rushed.

The information center in town was pretty good – they gave us a map and pointed us to the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School (just inside the eastern gate (Tha Phae) of the walled city). A British/Thai couple named Somphon and Elizabeth Nabnian runs the school. We talked to Elizabeth but she seemed a little cold and business-like for a family-run operation - I guess they churned through lots of customers. We went back through the gate to another school’s office (next to Daret’s Restaurant) but the school was opening later that month. We went back and signed up for a 1 day course (700 Baht – 1,400 Baht and 2000 Baht for 1, 2 and 3 day courses) for Thursday, September 25th. The course included an excellent cookbook (written by the Nabnian’s) that details Thai cuisine’s main ingredients and their Western substitutes, as well as a dozen or so recipes.

On our way back down Tha Phae Road, we were looking for plane ticket agents, when we practically stumbled into the Arinda Travel Agency in the Tapae Inn (they rented out a small space in the doorway of the hotel). An older man had us sit down, and we woke up this little tiny guy with extreme bed head and the most tired look on his face who was sleeping at the desk. It turned out they didn’t sell plane tickets, so we asked about trekking for the hell of it. The little guy showed us a book plastered with recommendations from travelers accompanies by some great photos (lots of shops had these). On every page, there were 2 or 3 highlighted words – “Map”. We read further and it was a guide everybody was raving about – one guy had done 5 treks with him! We asked the little guy “who’s map??” and the response was a huge, smiling “yeah, that’s me”. Five minutes later, we put down a deposit for a 2-day trek with Map (1,000 Baht per person total)!

Brief Stop in Bangkok

We took an airport taxi – regular fare + 50 baht and paid an extra 50 baht for the driver to use the newly opened toll expressway. You could say what you wanted about the traffic in Bangkok, but we got from the airport to Khao San Road in 40 minutes. We quickly checked in to New Joe’s, put our stuff in the safety box and were off. We had plenty to do. It was Monday and our train ticket to Chiang Mai was for Tuesday night. We had to find out if planes flew out of Chiang Mai to Mandalay – otherwise we wouldn’t have gone to Chiang Mai and backtracked to Bangkok. There wasn’t a whole lot of information on flights from Chiang Mai, but we did get a lot of advice from Mrs. Yao at Vista Travel on Khao San Road. She knew absolutely everything and was as honest as they come. When we asked her about getting visas for Myanmar, she said “better you go yourself – it’s cheaper and faster” – OK then! She also helped us with our train tickets – she sent us to Songerm down the road who booked train tickets at no commission.

Our next task was at the post office. They had a great office just north of Khao San Road, across from Wat Bowonniwet. They cheaply packaged things for you and had air, sea and combination rates. Upstairs, there was a telephone center where we made our Home Country Direct calling card calls home. Everywhere else, you usually had to pay 540 baht for 10 minutes to make the “free” call.

We took a cab to the Myanmar Embassy and were surprised when two pictures, $10 and five minutes later, we had our visas. I had yet to sample a Big Mac Combo in Thailand, and luckily the Golden Arches in Pat Pong was only a 20-minute walk away. I would have walked for an hour! Beth and I had both been dying for something “Western” after Cambodia and Vietnam, and the 69 baht combo hit the spot!

Forget-me-not Cyclo

The Sunday after we got back, we were greeted in the morning by a squeaking “madame, madame, forget-me-not cyclo, forget-me-not cyclo!!” – it was our little friend with the same English speaking partner. They took us around the city, finding whatever we needed. I found a Tin Tin book for my brother (Tin Tin is all over Ho Chi Minh – shirts, paintings, books) and Beth got a little English textbook for her “forget-me-not cyclo”. Later, we visited the Reunification Palace. It was the site of the dramatic end to the war when tanks broke through the gate and soldiers stormed the building. It was definitely worth going – the video they showed was pretty interesting, and the view over the fountain and out through the historic gate is great.

My cyclo driver arranged for his friend to drive us to the airport. When I had pointed out a bunch of vintage American cars around the corner from Kim’s Café the day before, he said his friend owned a metallic green 1972 Chevy Nova, and we thought it would have been fun to cruise to the airport in that beast. As it turned out, the car really motored, and it got us to the airport in no time. We were headed back to Thailand, exactly halfway through our “journey”. Though we had a lot of excitement planned for the coming weeks, I felt like time was slipping by way to fast.

Accommodation $11

Travel $10

Meals and snacks $11

Misc $13

Visa $100

Flight to Bangkok $346

Mekong Delta Trip

The Mekong tours were cheap: 1 Day $8, 2 Days $20, 3 Days $30, with everything included but food. Our group was perfect- the Dutch couple (Carolina and Andre from Amsterdam) turned out to be a scream. The six of us got along really well and it simply made the trip. It was the middle of the rainy season, and we were expecting to get a little wet, but we go really lucky – the only time it rained was when we were in the minibus. Our guide and driver (Phuc1 and Phuc2… pronounced “Fook”) were hilarious – constant jokes and funny stories from Phuc1 (the guide) and silent chuckles by Phuc2. At night, Phuc2 would “disappear”. They called him “butterfly” – he had “girlfriends” in every place we stopped.

We took a lot of great river boat trips on sampans and longtails that gave us a front row look at life in the Mekong Delta. We visited a floating market, a snake market, a couple of tacky Chinese temples, and a few villages. One day we drove up a small mountain that overlooked the Cambodian border and surrounding fishing villages.

We would eat at small restaurants, getting sick of eating noodles, rice and vegetables. We were usually surrounded by homeless children who would beg the entire meal, then finish off our plates when we were done.

Beth and I taught the other guys how to play asshole – and they loved it! We would call Andre and Carolina “klootzak” when they were asshole (Dutch for asshole), and they ended up teaching us a few other “bad” words. When we saw the large 2-day tour contingent, we had to snicker at them (you always looked down on people taking shorter tours than you, and tried to avoid those taking longer tours!).

Phuc1 was in the army and Phuc2 was an American-trained green beret during the war, and they had some good stories. One way to get out of the army was to have 6 children, so Phuc1 tried his darnedest. He had his 5^th kid in 1975, but then the war ended. He looked at me with an insider’s grin and winked, “I worked very hard during this war!” He was sent, as were many others, to a “reeducation camp” until 1988, where he had to work the fields and attend brainwashing sessions. He all but forgot how to speak English, but after getting out, he started studying by radio. That’s probably why he speaks with an unexpected Australian accent!

The accommodation was pretty good, though the staff were unhelpful holdovers from the days of communism. As for the meals, they were decent enough, but we missed the variety of fare in Ho Chi Minh – we all ended up eating, drinking and playing asshole together at length our last two nights.

Ho Chi Minh Museums

The next morning, we found our cyclo driver, but he had a new partner that spoke pretty good English – he used to be with the South Vietnamese Army and had been driving his cyclo for 25 years. We negotiated to go to six places for 50,000 dong each. Our favourite stop by far was the Pho Binh soup/noodle shop, owned and run by a man who had become recognized as a war hero. The shop was a secret meeting place for the Viet Cong during the war, and it’s where they planned a lot of the details for the Tet Offensive, and the attack on the old American embassy. We got to meet the owner in person, though he doesn’t speak English – it was pretty cool sitting there, eating the great food and imagining what is was like there during the war.

We went to the Revolutionary Museum, covering all the revolutions in Vietnam’s long history. We were disappointed with the lack of English explanations and captions on pictures, it would have been a worthwhile visit had there been any understandable commentary. The war crimes museum (renamed “War Remnants Museum” after the resumption of diplomatic ties between Washington and Hanoi) was excellent. Although it was clearly biased towards the Vietnamese viewpoint, but what did we expect? There were some disturbing captions to pictures (“this American soldier is smiling as he hold the head of his victim”) and there were also disgusting pictures of GI’s brutalizing what looked like innocent farmers. All in all, it was really interesting. In the last room of the museum, we bumped into Victor, a guy from Chicago we’d met in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. We convinced him to sign up on the Mekong tour, and we’d meet him later for dinner.

When we met Victor at 7:00, he was with an American girl, Kelly, who he’d just met in a restaurant. We convinced her to go with us, and when we cheeked the board at night, there were the four of us and two Dutch people signed up. Perfect.

Day Trip to Cu Chi Tunnels

At 8:00 the next morning we went on our Cu Chi Tunnels tour on a bus with about 18 people and a great guide. The roads were pretty bad, and we drove quite a lot (about five or six hours that day), but it was nice getting out to the countryside. Our morning stop was to see the biggest Cao Dai temple (Holy See) near the town of Tay Ninh and to witness a ceremony at noon. Cao Dai is a Vietnamese religion “invented” in the 1920’s, a religion that combines all major religions (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism) in a “peaceful” spirit of “acceptance”. Good in theory, but when we arrived, we got the distinct feeling that we were trespassing on or interfering with a kind of cult. Most of the followers seemed like they’d been there from the start – the average age was well over 60.

Since it was the day of the full moon in September, it was one of the most important days of the year for them. Because of that, the grounds of the “temple” were unusually crowded and we were surrounded and being groped, hit and even kicked by people of all ages. I had never felt so uncomfortable – it was like I was in Waco, Texas and waiting for the last “sermon” from David Koresh. The ceremony was really strange. Luckily when we were asked to take off our sandals before we entered, we brought them with us, as one guy in our group had his nicked and had to walk around barefoot for a couple of hours before he was able to replace them with a pair of cheap, local thongs.

The Cu Chi area was the secret (or not so secret) headquarters of the Viet Cong army in the south. It was heavily bombed by the Americans, and you could still see huge craters in the fields as you approached the tunnel area. The Viet Cong built huge networks of tunnels (over 200 miles of tunnels by their estimation), dating back to the 1950’s. Going through the tunnels made you appreciate how they lived, and made you wonder how any of the American tunnel rats came home with their sanity intact. The tunnels were extremely narrow (a good workout for people who hadn’t exercised very much over the past three months), and they had been widened for tourists!

It was a long day, but worth it if you had time to kill and you wanted to see a bit of the local history. When we got back to Kim’s Café, we noticed that no one had signed up for the three day Mekong Delta tour (they usually posted the numbers of people and nationalities of those that had signed up – a great idea!) so we signed up.

Around Ho Chi Minh

On Monday, we hired two cyclo (like rickshaw/trishaw) drivers to take us around the city. You basically paid them 500 dong for a short trip (2kms or less) and a thousand dong for a trip anywhere else in the city. We went to An Dong market, across town. The ride was…. I guess the word would be exhilarating. The traffic was like Phnom Penh but at a million miles an hour. Our cyclo drivers stayed together and boldly crossed busy roads like the old pros that they were.

The market was pretty good, but the focus was more for locals. Walking through the narrow aisles, chock full of tacky, cheap looking clothes and having every vendor grab us was pretty unsettling. While waiting for Beth to get some stamps, there was suddenly a group of seven men surrounding me, touching my dive watch and offering to trade it for theirs. It got a lot of attention because of it’s size, but this was hilarious. We enjoyed driving around in cyclos so much, that after we got back we tried telling our driver that we wanted him on Wednesday – but the only word he could speak was “hello” – and that covered every greeting, including goodbye! We ended up writing a note “Wednesday, around 10:00am, go around city”. He took the paper and ran off, holding it like a valuable present.

We took a walk, past the roundabout and parallel to souvenir ally Le Loi street. We found a mini shopping center that had tons of CDs – for $2 each We bought a half dozen, and should have bought more, but it was hard picking winners out of the selection of mainly mixed love ensembles – no thank you. There were wooden lacquered Disney carvings everywhere, which led me to believe that the Japanese were starting to come to Vietnam in droves – that was later confirmed. On the way home, we stopped on a pub to get of the rain. I played pool with a ten-year-old Zippo lighter vendor, and he damn near kicked my ass.

At the hotel, we witnessed a classic exchange between the nightshift guy at the hotel (we talked to him in Japanese, which was bad but better than his English) and a British woman.

Brit: (speaking very quickly with a very strong accent) Can I leave my rucksack here?

Hotel guy: (staring blankly) Paadon mee?

Brit: My rucksack.. can I please leave it here?

Hotel guy: I… don… understan….

Brit: MY RUCK – SACK. Leave here???

Hotel guy: Wat that?

Brit: (very loud now) RUCK… SACK… You know, RUCK SACK. Here?

Hotel guy: I don know… sack?

Brit: RUCK SACK!!!! (she finally gestures towards her backpack)

Hotel guy: Ohh…. Ok… No problem (smiling)

Beth and I cracked up, and the woman smiled like she was part of the joke, not knowing she was the butt of the joke. I guess Beth and I would have tried some synonyms and more gestures, but to be fair, we had just finished three years of teaching English….

Viet Nam

After a short flight, we set down on a runway that must date back to the war – put simply, it was a bumpy ride. The runway was surrounded b bunkers and aging aircraft hangars. It seemed like nothing had changed too much in the recent past. The annoying Vietnamese bureaucracy of the immigration procedures at the airport made us really angry, and got our trip off on the wrong foot. We were bounced around between customer officials, made to sign forms, and generally harassed, but we did eventually make it through. We changed $100 US for a bag full of the local currency – the Dong. I’d never before nor since held so much Dong in my hand, I’m said to say… The exchange rate was about 11,700 Dong per US dollar, so you can just imagine how thrilled we were to get some 200 Dong bills. We hopped in a taxi bound for the #70 Guest House.

From what we understood from the locals we talked to, Ho Chi Minh is changing at light speed. There were hotels and guest houses everywhere, and more kept springing up every day. #70 was in the backpackers section, and we loved it. We paid $11 for a super clean, big, hot-water, air conditioned room run by a super nice family that really made us feel at home (it was their home after all!).

After we dumped our bags, registered our passports with the police (you no longer had to give it to the hotel – they took it to the police (in that case next door) registered it, and returned it), and put our valuables in the safety box at the inn, we went exploring.

Before we managed to step outside, we were thoroughly warned by the hotel staff about pickpockets and muggers – definitely a worthwhile warning. We went around the corner to the main backpacker’s area, Pham Ngu Lao, and had lunch at Kim’s Café.

We ended up eating all our breakfasts in Ho Chi Minh at Kim’s (great strawberry shakes and fruit plates) and were happy with the tours we booked through them. The Lotus, around the corner from Saigon Café was pretty good, and a personal favourite was Len’s Vegetarian Restaurant, a couple of alleys over. They had great Mexican food (mmmm.. guacamole) and veggie burgers. On our first afternoon in the bustling city, we explored nearby streets and markets on foot. Everywhere you looked there was poverty. The people were very friendly, but one thing we hadn’t experienced before on our trip was the constant touching and grabbing from the aggressive touts and beggars.

We got a roll of film developed for 56,000 dong – pretty good deal since the quality turned out to be quite good. All over the streets there were people playing all sorts of games – chess, checkers, cards and others – and we really felt a sense of community.

We really wanted to go north to Nha Trang and possibly Hoi An, but after checking out buses, it seemed like the only ones available were nine hour busses during the day to Nha Trang – we couldn’t waste 2 days traveling so we opted to fully explore the south. The other problem getting around Vietnam, was going anywhere “on our own”. Public transport seemed like a real pain – point to point to point… and the package tours, although we usually avoided those like the plague, seemed like the way to go. We booked the Kuchi tunnels tour ($4 + $3 admission) for Tuesday.

Last Day in Cambodia

On Saturday, the day before leaving, we got up early and Sohka and his other moto friend took us to the embassy. We handed our passports to a grumpy clerk, and he proceeded to set them on his desk and start reading a newspaper. After 15 minutes or so, he set the paper down, stamped our passports and that was that. Six days to wait for bureaucratic dinosaur to simply stamp our passports! Of course, we smiled, and walked away shaking our heads.

We wanted to beat the heat so we had the drivers take us to a hotel and a sports facility in hopes that they’d let us swim, but they were both over $10 a person – we chose to suffer. We went to the Wagon Wheel for breakfast (near Happy Herb’s) and soon discovered were all the expats hung out. We treated ourselves to whole wheat pancakes, lots of fruit, yoghurt and fresh squeezed orange juice – just like home – you needed that every once in a while.

All we had energy for the rest of the day was the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, a beautiful place that, like most poor countries ruled by some form of dictatorship for decades, showed where all the wealth of the country had ended up. Pure gold statues, a huge emerald Buddha, silver carvings and decorations – it was really kind of sad. The booty from one room could have probably solved all the problems of the entire country.

Despite looking for a decent Khmer restaurant we could afford, we ended up gong down the street to Baggio’s Pizza, where one choice of pizza was “happy” (I guess Herb had competition in the illicit food category). The place was good too – the calzone was awesome – but we felt a little guilty for not trying more Khmer food – next time I guess. On the way back, Beth and I hopped on one moto – a nightmare experience at best. As we drove home, I did a double take as I noticed a familiar restaurant… wait a minute – it wasn’t Pizza Hut but Pizza Hot! - Classic (they also used to have a “Rock Hard Café” in Phnom Penh).

For a souvenir, we picked up a coffee table book on Angkor called “a passage through Angkor”, a great pictorial book by Mark Stanton. When I looked at the jacket cover, there was a picture of the author, credited to… wait a minute…. Lap Tek! I then saw in the credits that Lap Tek had guided and translated for the author. Our Lap Tek had briefly mentioned something about helping a photographer over a period of 18 months, but this confirmed to us how lucky we’d been to have had Lap Tek as our guide.

The airport waiting lounge was surprisingly full, and before we knew it, we were off to Vietnam, with few expectations and not much to go on.

9/8 – 9/14 – 7 nights

Accommodation $6 / day

Travel $14 /day

Meals/snacks $23/day

Misc $52/day

Book $52

Ticket – Siem Reap $220

Visa $40

Ticket – BKK – PAN – SGN $424