Powered by Tofu

We took the bus over the dancing road to Battambang yesterday morning. I did a moto tour when we arrived. We drove into the rural areas of Battambang and saw rice paper being made as well as rice noodles. Battambang is a very typical Cambodian city. There’s very little tourism and a lot of poverty. So this is “real” Cambodia. The women who make the rice papers to sell to restaurants make about $3 a day. In Siem Reap, the street children all sell postcards and bracelets. A little girl who looked about 3 years old, tawdled up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a pretty bracelet. I told her I didn’t need a bracelet and she said “but I need the money!” How do you say no to that!? Cambodia is such a different country, it’s heartbreaking and hopeful all at the same time.

Today we left to finish our journey over the “dancing road” to the Thai border. After a lunch of pad thai at the the border, we loaded into nice vans and drove on nice, smooth roads to Bangkok, ah, so nice. After wandering around Chinatown, we met for our “goodbye” dinner, since everyone is going their separate ways tomorrow. We ate at a really cool little restaurant near Chinatown and then went out for drinks. At 4 in the morning I headed back to the hotel to grab my pack and left for the airport.

Goodbye SE Asia, it’s time for my long journey home (via Beijing)!

This morning we woke up at 4am to go see the sunrise over Angkor Wat (the main Angkor temple). What an amazing experience. We bought coffee from one of the little entrepreneurial Cambodian boys who arrived shortly after us. After the sun came up, we toured the temple, before getting breakfast at a nearby cafe. By 11am I was templed out. I was beginning to feel like I did in Kyoto, except it was sticky hot out.

The last temple was the Ta Prohm temple, otherwise known as the Tomb Raider Temple from Laura Croft Tomb Raider movie. This was my favorite temple of Angkor. It’s the only temple that the trees have grown over and inside the temple, so it’s a mix of trees and temple, which has turned into a catch-22, in that the trees and temples can’t be removed, because they support each other.

When we got back to the hotel, I swam and did leg kicks in the pool with Sarah (part of the triathlon couple). Then Orla (Irish girl) and I went into town in the rain, and got pedicures. It was fun to have some girl time, since it feels like I’ve been hanging out with the guys for two weeks. After dinner on Pub St, I picked up a few souvenirs at the night market.

Yesterday morning we flew to Siem Reap. We’ll be here for a few days to tour the Temples of Angkor. Siem Reap and the temples is the main tourist attraction in Cambodia, so there are tourists everywhere! I haven’t seen this many Westerners since I was on Khao San Road in Bangkok. In the afternoon, I had lunch at the Blue Pumpkin, got a massage, and then swam at the hotel pool.

We toured the Angkor temples all morning and part of this afternoon. The temples are amazing. It’s hard to describe. They’re huge and have been there for centuries! And they’re so detailed! The entire temple area is huge! And there are over a thousand temples that at one time covered 400 square miles. OK, enough talking, here are some pictures.

We took a public bus to the Cambodia border yesterday morning. We arrived in Phnom Penh (pronounced ‘panom pen’ ‘p’ as in ‘pup’ and then ‘pen’) in the afternoon. As soon as we crossed the border, the poverty of Cambodia versus Vietnam was very apparent. There are beggars everywhere. After arriving, we went to a cafe by the river and people watched, until an elephant walked by. Yes, Nelly the Elephant was just walking down the street, past cars and motorbikes, it was the weirdest thing. Hilarious!

Today was probably the most depressing day of the trip. We toured S-21, the prison during the Khmer Rouge regime and then went to the Killing Fields. I felt pretty sick to my stomach by lunch time. And I didn’t take any pictures, because it just seemed to sick to photograph. I’d heard of the Khmer Rouge, but really had no idea about Cambodian history. It’s hard to imagine that something so awful in human history happened so recently.

We went to our S-21/Killing Field guide’s house for dinner. He runs an English school out of his home, so we played with the kids before dinner. My girls were hilarious. We talked about our families and then played rock, paper scissors and they taught me one of those hand clapping games (very similar to the kind we played in elementary school). Then we took a few pictures. Here’s one of them “posing”, they’d fit right in in Japan. ;) Anyway, dinner was huge and delicious! Cambodian food is excellent. And for dessert we had deep fried tarantula and tarantula wine. I ate a tarantula leg… it was really salty.

We toured the Cu Chi Tunnels this morning. What a cool place! It was really amazing to see the tunnels and museum. The Vietcong were really creative. I can’t believe that people lived down then, for years. The VC were really determined. After seeing the tunnels, it makes you realize that we (the Americans) had no idea what we were getting into, or who we were dealing with. We got to go through a section of the tunnel. No worries, I brought my trusty headlamp. :) It was really cold, damp and even though we just went through a short section, hard to imagine living there.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) yesterday. HCMC seems to just be an “official” name in southern Vietnam. Ever since we went through the DMZ area, it’s been referred to as Saigon. So Saigon it is! It’s heading into rainy season here, so we did a cyclo tour of the city, through the rain. But that’s what my Columbia rain jacket (with duck bill hood) is for. :) We stopped at the War Remnants Museum. It was a tough walk-through, but still interesting. After leaving our cyclos behind, we walked around the downtown square and then had drinks at the Rex Hotel (that’s famous for housing all the reporters during the war). We had dinner at a more local (not touristy) place. Their specialty is “beef on a roof tile” dish, where you cook strips of beef on your own rooftile and then make little rice wraps with them. Unfortunately, “tofu on a rooftile” wasn’t on the menu, so I had a so-so veggie dish and rice.

We drove down to the Mekong Delta this morning for a daytrip. We took a boat into the “islands” and then visited a coconut candy place. We watched them make the candy (from whole coconut to complete, wrapped candy). The candy was really good, so I bought some. After the candy place we had lunch at a bee farm. I had some of the fish for lunch. It was delicious. FIrst you pick off some fish, wrap it in a rice wrap with pineapple and cucumber and then dip it in a sauce. It was fun to make and to eat! After lunch, we had the chance to stick our fingers in a beehive. Yums! Then we rode on little wooden boats back to the bigger boat to go back to the mainland. I was expecting the Viet Cong to jump out at anytime. ;)

Although I’ve been laughed at lately for this, there’s a reason I usually pack my bag the night before I have to leave early. Yesterday morning, it came in handy. I didn’t wake up to my alarm, and since I don’t have a roomie, I just kept sleeping! (I know, what a pain to have gotten stuck with my own room!) So I got ready in 15 minutes, and yes, that included a shower.

We bused to Hoi An, and arrived around noon. I’m so excited because our hotel has bikes! Yay for bikes. We rode our bikes into town and then several people went to get things tailored. If I ever come back to Hoi An, I will definitely get some things tailored, but I really don’t want to carry a bunch of stuff around right now.

This morning, I went on the snorkeling trip that goes out to an island near Hoi An. Unfortunately, I started feeling sea sick, especially after snorkeling in a wetsuit. Note to future wetsuit snorkelers: It’s not fun at all! So I sat on the boat for about 20 minutes, and we finally got to the island. By the time we arrived I was feeling better, but I decided to play it safe and just had rice and 7-Up for lunch. Then I laid in a hammock for several hours. So relaxing! Before we left, we had the option of taking a 10 minute walk to an island village. After 30 minutes of hiking uphill, we arrived at the village. It was kind of strange to see a village that exists without really being connected to the mainland.

Today we took a motorbike tour of the Hue countryside. We drove through little villages, past rivers and rice paddies, saw conical hats being made, incense making, and stopped at a nunnery for lunch. A vegetarian lunch I might add. After lunch we cruised on the perfume river (it sounds fun, but was actually the most boring part of the day), across to the Tien Mu Pagoda. It was a very full and exceptionally fun day. I totally recommend bike tours. It’s a chance to see parts of the countryside and rural life that you really can’t see unless you’re out on the back of a motorbike.

After a day in the heat, I decided to splurg on a foot and leg massage at the Imperial Hotel Spa. Sometimes it’s just more fun to go to the “expensive” spas here. They’re still half (or a quarter) of the price at home, but they have all the added touches like the spas at home (think air conditioning and quiet). And I got more ginger tea! After my massage, they let me use the free Internet in the wonderful aircon lobby.

For dinner, we went to a local’s house. Our guide for the motorbike trip hosts people in his home. It’s worth it for them because they charge, and it’s worth it for tourists because it’s an awesome experience. The food was amazing (best meal so far in Vietnam), and it just kept coming. Since I was the only vegetarian, it was very apparent what I did and didn’t eat, and after what seemed like 10 courses, I was feeling bad that I couldn’t eat more.  :)

We arrived in Hue this morning. After checking in and showering, I headed out to find some lunch. I did a little wandering around and then decided it was way too hot to be outside. In the afternoon, we took a tour of the Citadel. It was really impressive. Hue is just south of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) from the Vietnam War (they call it the American War). After taking way too many pictures of the Citadel, we went to the Imperial Hotel to look at the views of the city. I ended up ordering a cappuccino and a pizza at the rooftop bar. See what I do when I’m around western-style places! I go straight for the coffee and cheese!

I woke up at 5:15 this morning. I went up to the top deck, but the sun was already up! The sky was still pretty cool though. It was nice to have some morning quiet, since I haven’t been able to find that in Hanoi. After breakfast, the boat headed back to the docks. We were back in Hanoi by lunchtime. After lunch at a local cafe, I checked out the Prisoner’s Museum with Sach. It’s nickname is the Hanoi “Hilton.” They even have a picture of John McCain as a POW from the Vietnam War. My guidebook said that he tried to commit suicide several times while being at the Hanoi Hilton, but there’s not much media publicity on that back home. Although that would be a touchy subject, “oh yeah, well I hear you tried to off yourself as a POW!” Anyway, after touring the jail, we walked to I-Box, a really chill bar that Tracey recommended, over by Hoen Kiem Lake (not the lake that John McCain was captured out of). It’s so different than everything I’ve seen so far in Hanoi. I-Box is full of the Vietnamese yuppy class, that you don’t see out on the streets. So it was a cool experience. We ordered cocktails and chatted until more of our group showed up. It was really funny being there before, during, and after happy hour. After five hours at iBox we had dinner and then headed to the train station. We’re overnighting to Hue. This is my third overnight train experience in Asia. Apparently, I started at the bottom, because the Vietnamese trains are even nice than the Thai trains! We had our own compartment, with only two bunks to a room.