Vietnam Bound

We lost our safety net.  Our safety net went home to the Arkansas.  After two pampered weeks of organized transportation, fancy hotels, built-in translations and adult supervision, Neil and I were officially on our own to stumble our way through more countries.

Since Barb and Holly's flight home was late in the evening, Neil and I spent one more night in Phnom Penh before catching a morning bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  When we booked the tickets through our hotel, we were told a shuttle would pick us up an hour before the bus' departing time, so woke up at the crack of dawn and repacked our bags.  We were at the lobby right on time (fine, maybe two minutes late), but when the receptionist told us the shuttle had arrived, we got a fun little surprise.  Because of the election protests and the hotel's proximity to the Prime Minister's house, the  shuttle couldn't get anywhere close to our hotel.  The road to the hotel is always blocked by a guarded security gate, but now instead of a one block walk, we were treated to a half-mile jaunt carrying everything we own.  The other passengers didn't seem too excited to see us when we finally arrived.

Gate leading to our hotel.  According to Neil, taking a picture of armed
guards at a military check point when tensions are high is a bad idea.  I'm not sure why.  

Again because of the protests, there was no good way to get from our location to the bus depot.  Our shuttle driver spent the next hour dodging barricades and driving all over the city.  Our van was definitely the last to arrive, and people were anxious to leave.  Not to worry though, there was on-board karaoke to lift everyone's spirits!  Can you imagine? Not only did we have a seven hour bus ride ahead of us, but we also had to experience terrible, terrible songs, music videos and passenger singing.  Thankfully the loud, tinny music only lasted for the first half hour of the trip, and everything went smoothly after that.

Everyone, sing along!

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon, which is shorter to type, so we're just going to call it that), we weren't sure where we were being dropped off or how close we would be to our hotel.  This is when we made rookie mistake number one.  As soon as you step off any form of mass transportation, you are immediately swarmed by a dozen cab drivers just waiting to take your money.  Since we weren't familiar with our surroundings, we just picked a driver, gave him the hotel address and off we went.  

One crazy-expensive cab ride later, and we were almost at our hotel.  For all we knew, he just did 16 dollars' worth of driving around before dropping us off around the corner from where we started.  For added fun, in broken English the cabby told us that we needed to walk down a random alley to find our housing.  It's not quite as scary as it sounds, but yes, we spent four nights living down an alley.

I tried to get the cab's information in case he stole our bags.
Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for over charging.
(Plus you can't really read anything on the tag)

In Vietnam, cities are filled with streets, lanes and alleys.  Just because cars can't fit down the alleys, doesn't mean they aren't utilized for everything just like streets.  They're cramped with hotels, apartments, stores, nail salons, food stands and scooters ready to run you over.  The scarier part was that we had booked a one-star hotel.  It had good reviews online and was close to things, so we took a chance.

Welcome to our alley!

Our gamble paid off.  The Cat Huy Hotel was clean, and the room was big.  It wasn't the rats' nest I was afraid to find.  It's a one star because there are no amenities, no elevator and the towels were just plain tiny, but those things were easy to ignore.  Well everything but the lack of elevator.  We were on the fifth floor, so that got old fast.

Aside from painful bus karaoke and an expensive cab ride, we had made it to Saigon and found our hotel.  We even managed to fit in a reasonable dinner.  In the morning, we were ready to take on a new city all by ourselves.  

     Check out that view!

Cambodia Round Up

Now that our trip through Cambodia has come to an end, it's time to take a look back.  Since we knew very little about the country before we arrived (OK fine, Neil knew way more than me), we figured we would share a bit of information along with our thoughts.  So here's our overview as mostly borrowed from Wikipedia:

Cambodia, officially called the Kingdom of Cambodia and called Kampuchea locally, has a population of a little over 15 million people with a median age of 24 years old.  Like most of Southeast Asia it has been wrought with violence over most of the 20th century with internal and external wars.  Cambodia though has a particularly devastating past with the civil war between the the communists (the Khmer Rouge) and the royal government.

The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, came into power in 1975 and were removed from government by the Vietnamese in 1978.  During these three years nearly a quarter of the population (2 million people) were killed by the government in an effort to purge the society and return to the agrarian heyday of the 13th century Angkorian society.

Since then the government has been controlled by one man, Hun Sen.  He has been in power for over 30 years, and in elections held over the summer, his party won according to the election officials to retain power.  This has caused the opposition party to call for an outside overview of the votes, which so far has not happened.

The economy is growing but is still one of the poorest in the area.  As Nyp told us, one of the outspoken, local comedians jokes "we export the trees but import the toothpicks."  Cambodia relies on exporting natural resources but don't have the manufacturing ability to create the products internally.  Much of this is blamed on the current government and its close alliance with the Vietnamese who are receiving these resources.

Now that we're safely out of the country, we can tell you there were several protests held in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap during our stay.  Although the vote this year was declared much closer than previous elections, Hun Sen is still in power.  The protests started peacefully enough, but clashes between police and the opposition quickly escalated.  We know at least one person was killed and many injured.

I promise this is as close as I got to the protest

Soon after arriving in Phnom Penh, we found out that the election results were going to be announced and caught wind of the protests, so we asked Nyp what to expect.  He kept us up to date on the election results and how to stay safe.  I think he liked talking local politics with foreigner, so he told us all of his opinions (he agrees with the opposition).

Now that you have an overview of Cambodia we will try to give you a feel for the country itself.  The people are very friendly.  They are some of the happiest people we have ever met.  The countryside is full of beautiful greens and so fertile.  We enjoyed all the places we visited, but not necessarily getting there.  As we mentioned before, the roads are terrible.  While nearly everyone is trying to make money from you, we never felt in danger or that people held any animosity toward us, as foreigners or Americans.

Just another traffic jam 

And now a quick rundown of the highlight (and a few low lights):

Favorite city- N Siem Reap, C Siem Reap for the related sights (who can argue with Angor Wat?), Phnom Penh for the actual city

Lease favorite city- N Chhlong (that's French architecture?), C Stung Treng (nothing much to see)

Favorite hotel- N Rajabori Villas on Koh Trong island, C Tara Angkor Hotel in Siem Reap

Least favorite hotel: N Sambor Village in Kampong Thom (leaky roof), C Gold River Hotel in Stung Treng (I'm afraid there's a chance that was the fancier hotel in town.  Yikes!)

Favorite meal- Fish Amok

Favorite activity- N bike riding around Koh Trong island, C jungle trekking

Least favorite common occurrence- N trash everywhere, C have I mentioned the squat toilets?

And now some fun details:

Days in Cambodia- 14

Number of hotels- 5

Means of transportation- 6 (minibus, bus, walking, boat, bicycle, tuk tuk)

Taking our first tuk tuk ride!

Number of phrases learned: 4

Number of phrases remembered and used: 1 (soo s'day= hello)

Number of bathrooms without toilet paper or hand soap- more than we'd like to remember (always carry spare toilet paper and hand sanitizer!)

Bottles of water consumed- more than one can count (it was beyond hot and the tap water isn't even safe for brushing your teeth)

Number of smiling children: thousands

Number of pictures taken: 1117

Number of good pictures: debatable


Neil and I cannot say enough good things about Cambodia.  We absolutely loved our trip, but it's not ideal for everyone.  The people are very friendly and the land is beautiful, but with the lack of government accountability, there is certainly a lack in infrastructure.  It can be seen in the piles of trash on the streets and the excessive number of beggars.  I hate to focus on the negative, but I also don't want to give a false impression of the country by only showing fun pictures.  Given the opportunity, I would suggest a visit to anyone, but be ready to take the good with the bad.  You won't regret it!

And so we don't end on a sad not, here's a picture of Neil being silly!

Our Last Day in Cambodia

For Barb and Holly's last day in Cambodia, we decided we should finally get around to finishing our visit to the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace.  We were supposed to go there on our first day, but that plan didn't work out so well, if you remember.  This time around, we planned better and actually made into the complex during open hours.  Neil decided to skip because he wasn't feeling well, so it will just have to remain a mystery to him.

Arriving right after everything reopened in the afternoon, we were rewarded with almost no other tourists around and great architecture.  There were so many beautiful buildings, it was hard to process it all.  The problem with the experience was the lack of information.  For being the chief tourist destination in the city and a source of national pride, there was little effort put into informing visitors.

The exhibits were no where close to American museum standards.  When a placard was available, it would say something vague like "Buddha figures."  Pieces that were centuries old were numbered with sharpie directly on the item.  Sections of the silver tile flooring in the Silver Pagoda (the namesake of the pagoda) were held together with tape.  TAPE!

At the end of the day though, there were plenty of pretty things to look at even if I didn't know what they were.  Here's a nice sampling:

The Throne Hall

Kinnara figure

Stupa Kantha Bopha

That evening we sent Barb and Holly off to the airport with our trusted driver, Mr. Guerilla.  Neil and I hopped on a bus to Vietnam the next morning.  Needless to say, it was an amazing two weeks seeing a great variety of what Cambodia has to offer.  We couldn't have been happier to spend that time with Barb and Holly in a country none of us had been to before.  We'll have memories (and thousands of pictures) to last us a lifetime.

Shopping Frenzy

The next couple of days were very stressful.  How do you ever know if you're getting the best deal at the tourist market?  The thought of overspending can be almost unbearable.

After taking in days and days of amazing culture, it was time for something a little less cerebral.  It was time for shopping!  We were going to try out our bargaining skills at the Siem Reap Central Market and the Phnom Penh Russian Market.  Plus for good measure, we got massages at Seeing Hands, which is an organization that trains people who are blind to be masseuses, and Barb, Holly and I got pedicures at Dr. Fish.

Neil and I quickly found a routine in the Central Market.  Because any form of eye contact with a vendor or mild interest in an item solicited excited sales pitches, we needed a game plan to fight back.  Since I'm better at negotiating (and more interested in shopping), I was the face of negotiations, while Neil played the bad cop who thought everything was priced too high.  The result was a fantastic combination of getting some great items and buying way too much stuff.  Check out a few of our treasures: (Cambodian flag, coconut-wood box shaped like a mangosteen fruit and a shopping bag made from recycled cement bags)

My favorite experience of the day came at a jewelry counter.  I was considering buying a necklace pendant made of aquamarine.  It's hard to know what's genuine in this situation, but the vendor was prepared for my skepticism.  Before deciding on a price, she brought out a small, black device.  She told me it was for determining if a stone was real.  She pressed the pointed end of the box on the glass counter top and showed that it was not real gemstone.  Then she pressed it on my potential stone, and the box showed that it WAS real.  Next she pressed it against her ring and a stone in her display showing that they were real and fake respectively.  How can you argue with that?!  Neil's still not convinced, but I was sold.  Her machine said it was real!

OK fine, she talked me into blue topaz earrings too

After buying one of everything we saw, we stopped for lunch at a "Belgian" restaurant featuring a cocktail created by Angelina Jolie.  Barb was brave enough to order one in the hopes of being a big winner.  Every 10th Tomb Raider they sell is free, and every 100th wins a t-shirt and 100 bucks.  She was lucky enough to get hers free (they may have felt bad for us, we're not sure)!

Live entertainment with lunch

 Next it was time to pamper our tired feet, so we found the best deal in town:

Dr. Fish stands can be found all over the tourist areas of Siem Reap and other Asian cities.  As soon as you sit down on the side of tank, the little fish start swarming, and boy are they hungry!  They will nibble on your dead skin for as long as you will allow.  Holly was a real champ and kept her foot in the tank the entire 15 minutes.  Barb and I were another story.  We could only handle a few seconds at a time at the beginning, but eventually we relaxed a bit and enjoyed ourselves.  Neil decided the owners wouldn't appreciate their fish being kicked clear across the street by his sensitive feet, so he acted as official photographer instead.

Fishies ready for the feast 

Barb and Christine: giggly messes

Holly: calm and collected

It was really an interesting experience.  We decided it just felt like tickling bubbles if you didn't think about it too much.  It looks like there are a handful of similar services around the States, if anyone is interested!!











Our time in Siem Reap was over after that day, so we hopped on a bus headed for Phnom Penh, where we started the shopping process all over again.  It really was a tough way to spend a couple of days.