Phnom Penh, Cambodia

We started our time in Cambodia in the city of Phnom Penh. Our hotel was located a couple of miles from the tourist area, and as a result there were lots of local shops and markets. My favorite was the night market which would appear each evening at sunset just a block away. I was excited to try new food in Cambodia and I wasn't disappointed. Everything was pretty cheap with internet at 30 cents an hour and most meals were only a dollar. The interesting thing is that when you use your ATM card in Cambodia, instead of dispensing the local currency of riel, it gives dollars. Dollars are used for most purchases and your given riel as change.

Our second day there we visited a shooting range outside of the city and found the prices to be a lot higher then we expected. So we stuck to trying out an M16. If you had the money you could shoot just about anything. Backpacker legend has it that in the villages up in the mountains you can shoot a leper if you name the right price. Yes, a leper, like a human with the disease of leprosy. The scary part is that I've heard this story from quite a few people, some who have claimed to have first or secondhand knowledge of such going ons. Well I'm just going to keep on believing it's a legend.

The next morning we took a minibus to the outskirts of the city to the "Killing Fields" where the Khmer Rouge killed thousands of people and buried them in mass graves. Afterwards we visited a highschool that the Khmer Rouge turned into a brutal prison known as S-21. A popular book sold in Cambodia was "First They Killed my Father". My freshman year of college our grade was required to read this book before school started, and in the fall the author came to AU and told us about how she barely survived the Khmer Rouge. It touched me of course reading her book and hearing her speak in person, but not in the same way as when I actually visited the spot where the atrocities occured. That's one of my favorite parts of travelling; having the ability to take information and learning that was once detached and foriegn and make it real. I've read a lot of books detailing the accounts of Auschwitz survivors, but it wasn't until this summer when I visited the camp that I was able to really begin to take in the full scale of what happened there.


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Sun Damaged Chicken

We ended up spending quite a while in Saigon, a large city in Northern Vietnam. Two weeks actually because we ran into a snag with our visas when Dan got sick. But as a result we had a lot of great experiences that we wouldn't have had otherwise. One of the most visited museums in Saigon is the American War Museum (what we refer to as the Vietnam War, they understandingly refer to as the American War). I knew it would be graphic before we went, but I didn't realize how the museum would affect me. It is one large open room and you work your way around the walls. They are filled with photos and accounts of atrocities committed by American soldiers. I quickly stopped reading the captions as an entire family laying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads is explanation enough. While I found it difficult to see such gruesome acts perpetrated by Americans, I was glad I visited and saw the evidence because it gave me a much better understanding of their perspective.

A few days later Dan and I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels an hour and a half outside of the city. The tunnels were constructed by the Vietnamese soldiers over the course of twenty years and spread almost 250km. The Vietnamese used the series of tunnels to stealthily enter and exit through various concealed entrances and fight the Americans. I found it interesting that a good portion of the tunnels were dug deep enough that if the Americans dropped a bomb the tunnel would remain intact. I had the opportunity to crawl through the small tunnels and on my first attempt there were people squished behind and in front of me and I retreated to the surface after going only a couple of metres in. I waited until the crowd had dispersed and Dan went down with me for a second try and without the crowds I was able to make it the first 20m then I took the first exit out. It is unimaginable to me how people lived down there for months and even years. As we passed through the jungle we saw the gruesome traps laid for the Americans and their extreme disadvantage in fighting a hidden enemy. There is a tourist shooting range nearby and the sounds of guns and uzi's erupted every 15 seconds. I felt like I could imagine in a small way the fear the soldiers must have felt knowing that at every step they could fall into a hidden pit filled with spears or be gunned down by an enemy they never saw. I've heard people talk about how the Vietnam War left so many soldiers changed mentally because of the style of warfare and after seeing it firsthand I can begin to understand why.

After visiting the museums and the Cu Chi Tunnel we were planning on heading out to Cambodia to spend Christmas in Siem Reap, but our plans changed when Dan became really sick and ended up the in hospital. They gave him antibiotics through an IV and released him later that night. It took him a few days to recover so we had to get visas extensions. The extensions ended up taking over a week and Dan was better before they were ready. So we decided to get of Saigon and head to a popular Vietnamese beach town called Vung Tao. On the minibus ride there we met a Vietnamese Woman named Hang who invited us to come to her house on our way back to Saigon. Hang is an english teacher and had recently been to the US. She told us people there were so kind to her that she wanted to return the favor and have us come to her home and talk with her students. After a few quiet days on the beach in Vung Tao we called Hang and asked her if we could take her up on her offer. She met us at the bus stop and I got on the back of her motorbike and Dan, lucky him, was given both our packs to balance precariously on the back of the other motorbike. When we entered her house Hang showed us right to the spare bedroom that was made up for us, and we realized that this wasn't an afternoon visit as we'd thought but we were expected to spend the night. So we went with the flow and unpacked and then had lunch with Hang.

My favorite part about my visit with Hang were the cultural differences. She was forever pinching me telling me to eat more then pinching Dan telling him he eats a lot. When she saw me outside in a short sleeve shirt she pointed to my arms and said gravely, "Oooh, you have spots from sun damage. Too bad. You should be wearing long sleeves. Ooooh, too much sun." I tried unsuccessfully to explain that my spots were freckles and I've always had them. But yes I conceded, they did come out more with sun, and yes I'd been getting a lot more then usual, but it isn't damaged I insisted, now with a trace of uncertainty in my voice. She gave me a placating pitying look and thats when I just started to laugh. Later when we were drinking tea on her porch she asked me at what times I usually wake up and go to bed. I told her since I've been in Asia I get up around 8 and go to bed around 10. "Just like a chicken!" she exclaimed, "You're just like a chicken! Up early, to bed early!" Dan from then on enjoyed referring to me as the sun damaged chicken.

That evening her students came and we all went out to a coffee shop, a favorite in Vietnam since they don't really have bars. Unfortunately I had a headache and an upset stomach and by the time we got home I had to excuse myself and go to bed. The next day Hang didn't seem to understand that my stomach was not up to par and all three meals were filled with fish and lots of spice. Canned, fried, salted, pickled, and grilled fish all made their way onto the menu. My stomach turned but I tried my best to be a good guest and eat as much as I could keep down. When we went to the local market that afternoon we stopped by, what else, the fish section. There were all sorts of live fish squiggling around in pans filled with a few centimeters of water. Hang selected a couple and the woman took her machete and started hacking away. Apparently you don't actually kill the fish until the last step of hacking, so the poor thing just slithered around till it was finally put out of its misery. The hacking of the fish and the mixture of dead animal smells was enough for me to slip away and find a seat outside the market in the fresh air. After Hang taught her evening English Class she took us out for a walk into the town to visit her son's bubble tea shop. My new love after banana pancakes is now bubble tea! I love it! It's flavored jelly balls in a sweet flavored tea. I haven't seen it very much in the states and maybe opening a bubble tea/banana pancake shop is in my future. We said goodbye to Hang the next day and headed back to Saigon. After a few more days there we got our visas and we were happy to be on our way to Cambodia.


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From the beach to the mountains to sledding in the desert

Moi Ne was a quiet one street beach town stretching 7 kilometers. It has more luxury resorts then I've seen the whole trip with huge 5 star hotels doting the western end. We stayed on the eastern side in a small resort on the beach. It was our splurge and included a large pool with a pool bar and chairs and umbrellas on the beach. We were unsure whether we wanted to spend the money, but the receptionist had us the moment she said "breakfast buffet". We spent two days on the beach and by the pool, and the second evening we met a nice British couple, Giles and Samantha, at the pool bar. Unfortunately Samantha had her purse stolen on the beach earlier that day and they were waiting for the police to come and make a report. After speaking with them the cops made it clear that they thought they were making the whole story up so that they could make money from the hotel or insurance company. We later found out its not uncommon in Moi Ne, or Vietnam in general, for the police to be distrustful of tourists accounts of theft because it makes the country look bad. After a few drinks though they quickly forgot the craziness of the day and we all ended up taking our beers down to the beach.

After a couple of days at the beach we took a long bumpy mini bus ride up to the mountains to a town called Da Lat. We stayed in a nice guesthouse with great banana pancakes (didn't I tell you I'm a banana pancake connoisseur?). It was about fifteen degrees cooler there and it was a welcome break from the usual heat. We rented motorbikes and explored the outskirts of the city including a cool pagoda perched on a hillside with beautiful views of the surrounding rice terraces. That evening we visited a silk embroidery studio that was so much more impressive than I had expected. We were taken for a tour to the upstairs work room where women embroidered detailed pictures that looked more like paintings. It takes them 6 months to a year to finish some of the larger pieces.

We returned to Moi Ne to get back on our Open Bus Ticket. We rented a motorbike and headed to the desert of Moi Ne, which interestingly enough is located right next to the beach. The children held their sleds out to us and fought fiercely for our business. We negotiated with them to leave us in peace while we ate our lunch and we would pick sleds when we were finished eating. Their clothes were dirty and they knocked a ball around and poked in the sand. I remember thinking that they strangely reminded me of the lost boys from Peter Pan except harder, more tired. I ended up going with the little boy who had first approached me when we arrived. Another fierce kid got angry at me because he argued he was the first to ask me (bad call on my part to say out loud why I made my choice). He screamed "Fuck You Lady!!" a few times and gave me the middle finger and that's when the Nanny in me flared up. I yelled back at him that he shouldn't ever speak to anyone that way, especially if you want them to buy something. We left the kid fuming and went with our young guides up the dunes. The sand was absolutely scorching hot and I did a bit of a dance as I walked. Accompanying me was a little 8 year old girl with her dirt covered pink princess sweatshirt who put me to shame as she blithely walked through the sand. I asked her if she went to school at all. "No," she replied quietly, "My parents have no money. Need money for school." When we reached the top the older girl of 14 and the boy of 10 deftly dug out a sledding path for us. The girl explained that they pushed away the hot sand because the cool sand underneath made for a faster ride. They took a sled and stuck the front end into the sand, positioned me on top just so, and then gave me a hard push. My first time down I made it to the bottom before falling flat on my face! Ha! It was so much fun!



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banana pancakes and rice paper rolls

To get to the next city, Hue, we took an overnight sleeper bus. There were rows of bunk beds extending to the back of the bus and we chose the big bed/mat at the very back. When we crawled in their were two girls already there who were none to pleased to have to share the large bed with us. The girls got off an hour two later and the bus driver put a couple in their place. I had known what would probably happen next. In Vietnam if there is not a clearly defined seat with no possibility of squeezing someone in next to you then you can be assured more people will be forced in. In this case, around 11pm the driver directed a 5th person to our 4 person bed. We all attempted to protest but knew from the start it was futile. I resigned myself to the situation and spent the rest of the night crammed between Dan and a British journalist. While it was uncomfortable at the time, that's the type of funny memory that will pop into my head years from now and still make me laugh out loud.


"the food critic"

Hue was a relatively quiet town for Vietnam and the tourist section was small so it was easy to spend time where the locals live. It's not hard to get comfortable in the tourist area with all of the amenities you need right outside your hotel. Dan has been really good in pushing us to get out to the more local areas so we can see what the cities are really like. Hue is known for their great food, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. My favorite lunch spot was a restaurant over looking the river that is owned by a deaf mute couple. I loved to order this one dish with meat, grilled vegetables, and greens and you roll it all up in rice paper and dip it into a peanut sauce. My favorite dessert sport was a small restaurant that served the best banana chocolate pancakes. Pancakes here are a common dessert and usually resemble a crepe or a very thick traditional pancake. In this case it was the latter and filled with sliced bananas and melted chocolate chips. I've become a bit of a banana pancake connoisseur.


Our second day in Hue we rented motorbikes and drove to the countryside covered in rice fields. We stopped at a historic bridge our book mentioned. The bridge itself was a let down, but the old woman sitting inside made it a whole lot more interesting. Motioning with her hand she called me over to sit next to her and talk. Her face was rolled with wrinkles and covered in carefully applied bold colored makeup. Where her eyebrows had once been were two thick black pencil lines spanning across her forehead. Her thin wispy hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She was quite the character and asked me questions about where I was from and my age, then she got down to business. She took my hand, twice the size of her small frail one, and traced the lines across my palm with her thin finger. "You want me to read your palm?" She asked. "I will tell you when you get married, if husband will be handsome. I tell you if you have babies. Oh, you're going to have many babies, many babies." I smiled at the offer but politely declined. She was definitely one of my favorite parts of the motorbike ride that day outside Hue.


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