Mui Ne, Vietnam

On 24th March we headed out from Ho Chi Minh on the bus to Mui Ne, a small seaside town about a four hour ride away. We had a rest stop on the way and bought fruit and snacks. An elderly Chinese man was laughing his head off and taking photos at the toilets where customers are expected to remove their own shoes and put on the sandals provided to use the facilities. We've got used to it, and I try not to think about all the skin diseases we might catch from sharing sandals with complete strangers! Most of the time it makes for spotlessly clean toilets though.

Unusually, we hadn't booked any accommodation in Mui Ne, but as we were arriving about lunchtime, we didn't think there was much of a risk of having to camp on the beach. We went into the nearest resort when the bus stopped (which happened to be owned by the bus company) and got a room in their guest house across the street, $30 a night cheaper than staying in the resort and we could still use their pool and have access to the beach (what there was of a beach, from water's edge to wall was about a metre).

We spent two nights in Mui Ne, which is renowned for kite surfing. We didn't do any kite surfing, we were out of season but Liam did buy a kite out at the Red Sand Dunes which we're still carrying along.

The wi-fi at the resort wasn't working one day and when I went to reception to report the problem I got shrugged at and told 'yes it is a problem' and when I suggested that maybe they could re-set it by turning it off and on again - she just laughed. We're getting used to the giggling. And the non-smiling staff at the resort. We tried to make them smile, we really did. One day I nipped back to the room to get something and found the door wide open, turns out it was the cleaner, vacuuming the room next door, but using the electrical socket in our room, leaving the door (which opened onto the public pathway) wide open with all our belongings in there and letting all the mosquitos in. Great.

On the second day we took a ride out to the White Sand Dunes and hired a couple of sledges from one of the small boys (they were more sheets of plastic really) and used them to ride down the Dunes. Cliff and Liam managed it many more times than I did (once) as I'd managed to come slightly unprepared, wearing a dress. Click here to see the video of the sledging . A couple of the older boys from the village followed us up to the top and 'helped' to push us down and then expected a tip for their trouble. Cliff gave them 50,000 dong, this is about £1.70 (about what you'd pay for lunch in Vietnam, so not a mean tip by any stretch). But they asked for more, which is a general trend here. We said we didn't have any more change, which was true.

Liam did a bit of kiting at the Red Sand Dunes and then it was onto the fishermen's village to see the catch being brought into shore.

The fishermen use small rounded bamboo basket boats which seem to hold at least four men as far as we could see. They appear to stem back to the time that France governed Vietnam. The French levied taxes on many things, including boats. Many poor villagers could not pay the tax imposed on their small boats so they invented a new type of boat called 'thuyen thung' to evade the tax because the thung (round basket) was not considered a boat.

On our last day, the resort restaurant staff upset us again by taking over an hour to serve us lunch when they knew we were getting the bus to De Lat at one o'clock. We sound like the hotel guests from hell, but we're really not hard to please. Honest. I chatted to an American guy on the morning we were leaving and he was saying how grouchy the hotel staff were here too (all these demanding westerners I expect ;) He works as cabin crew so knows a bit about customer service. He said he been up the road to a resort about to open and had stressed to the owner about the important of some smiling service :)

There wasn't really much there in Mui Ne, so we were quite pleased to be getting on our way. Although on the way out to the bus, an English guy who had just arrived said 'Oh you're not taking the bus up to Da Lat are you?' We were. Apparently the journey down the mountain can be a bit hairy, no worries we thought, we're going up!

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

On 21st March, Lucky collected us from the hotel for the final time and dropped us to the airport, about a 30 minute trip. After we'd argued at length with the lady at the departure tax desk ($25 each!) that Liam's 23rd August date of birth meant that he is 11 and not 12 so we should pay the reduced rate for him, we made it through to departures. I picked up a journal in the duty free shop for Cliff for his birthday the next day and we were soon on the flight to Saigon - or Ho Chi Minh City as it's now officially known. We'd sorted our visas online from Bangkok so it was just a matter of handing over some more dollars and a photo each to be let into Vietnam.

We headed straight to the hotel where there was a mix up with the suite I'd booked as a treat for Cliff's birthday, with them wanting us to pay for an extra bed. When there wasn't an extra bed. And on top of that they tried to charge us for breakfast for Liam, when they had clearly stated under 12's were free, and then said oh no, it's under 11's that eat free (when they'd looked at his passport). Well, it might seem a small thing but I'd had about enough of people trying to squeeze a bit more money out of us. Westerners are considered rich (and they certainly are that by local standards) and are rightly or wrongly considered fair game for overcharging. And this wasn't a private hotel but a large chain. But the stark truth is that that neither of us have a job waiting for us back in the UK and if we are going to manage to complete this trip within our budget, we have to watch every riel, dong and dollar. Staying in some cheap places (our minimum standards are that they have to be safe and clean) means that we can splash out a little now and then for special places and occasions.

Anyway, the suite was lovely and they even sent some flowers up the next day for Cliff, to wish him a happy birthday. Free of charge. There was a small pool on the roof which Liam enjoyed and was great for cooling off after another hot day in the city.

As we had a short time here and wanted to see as much as we could, we found a travel agency and booked a full day trip for our second day. The morning was spent at the Cu Chi Tunnels which the Vietcong dug to hide in and fight from during the Vietnam War. Liam and Cliff tried one of the ground entrances out for size - I wouldn't have got my hips down there :) Later we crawled down a length of a widened tunnel and it was difficult to understand how the Vietcong would have spent sometimes weeks underground, in these dark and tiny tunnels. The video we watched there was quite informative but I would not have wanted to be an American sitting there; balanced and non-partisan the commentary was not!

In the afternoon we headed to the military museum, where they had some captured US tanks and planes, a quite vivid display of the (ongoing) effects of Agent Orange and a really good exhibition about the photographers who covered the conflict.

Our next stop was the Reunification Palace, the presidential palace and the site of the official handover of power during the Fall of Saigon in 1975. The tanks that crashed through the gates are still here. The building itself it pretty swanky, having been re-built in a modern style after having been bombed in 1962. Although the president didn't have a swimming pool (I asked and was told he didn't have time to swim; he was too busy running the country), he did have a nice cinema. And a bomb shelter. Our last stops were the Notre Dame Cathedral, a smaller version of the one in Paris and the impressive Gothic post office building opposite - designed and constructed by Gustave Eiffel. Inside is a large portrait of 'Uncle Ho' - Ho Chi Minh; Communist revolutionary and statesman.
Ho Chi Minh City (re-named from Saigon in Uncle Ho's honour in 1976) has a population of 8 million people and it's reckoned 6 million motorbikes. The traffic is unbelivable and we have learned to just cross roads the Vietnamese way - walk steadily, in a straight line, don't run and the bikes will swerve around you. The good thing is that you don't see any road rage. Although Liam and I did witness a bit of a stand off between two moped drivers who were both trying to use the same bit of the pavement (clearly because the road was full), in the dark, without the use of lights.

We had three nights here before heading off on our Vietnam adventure. We'd booked an open bus/coach ticket that would take us in a fairly northerly direction to Mui Ne, Da Lat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and into the capital Hanoi. A total of 1145 kms (711 miles) in a straight line, although we were taking a couple of detours. It would be a bit of a whistle stop tour because we were flying out of Hanoi on 5 May for Beijing and we'd arrived in Vietnam about a week later than we'd originally planned, after our extra trip to Bangkok and having taken our time in Cambodia.

Happy Birthday Cliff!!!

Liam and I would like to wish Cliff a very happy 40th birthday. So far we have managed to have a late breakfast, had baths and showers and watched four episodes of Star Trek (original series). And it's not yet 2pm. Perfect.

Cliff nearly gets arrested

Cliff had a run to do and thought what better place to go than the mystical surroundings of Angkor? After about 3 or 4 miles of running in ridiculous heat, he reached the exit gate for the complex and was told he could only enter if he was taking the airport road. Unfortunately he didn't know where the airport road was, so he carried on the road he was on. His friend at the gate had radioed ahead to his colleague, who also stopped him and pointed him in the right direction. But rather than actually take the airport road, Cliff decided to turn back onto to the forbidden road. All of a sudden a guy appeared on a motorbike asking why he hadn't carried on the airport road, so news of Cliff's journey had travelled far and wide. He threatened Cliff with a $100 fine if he so much as stepped any further off the prescribed route. And he wasn't very nice about it. This all seemed a bit excessive. Although I exaggerated a bit when I said Cliff was nearly arrested.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We're celebrating St Patrick's Day here in Siem Reap, Cambodia in Molly Malone's. Cliff is drinking green beer and Liam and I are eating baked potatoes. Exchanged some welcome messages with our genuinely Irish friend, Valerie (on her own adventure in Kenya). Facebook is great. Sometimes.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Our tuk-tuk driver Lucky picked us up at 10am and drove us out to the Angkor Wat complex. Our first stop was the ticket office. We didn't have Liam's passport with us and have some difficulty convincing them that he was under 12 (and is therefore free), his height puts him at about 15 out here. Finally, with three-day tickets in hand, we headed along the shady tree-lined road amid forest and farmland. Our first sight of the temples was the moat around Angkor Wat itself. If you could call it a moat - it's 190 metres wide. But this wasn't our first stop, we headed along through the South Gate into Angkor Thom (Great Angkor or Great City) and onto Bayon. We got dropped off here and agreed to meet Lucky again on the far side.

The Bayon's main feature are the 216 huge stone faces, which all bear a striking resemblence to the Kymer King Jayavarman VII, who built the state temple. There are around 11,000 figures depicted in the bas reliefs, showing life in 12th century Cambodia. This was once a city, but only the religious buildings were built of stone and have survived, the wooden city buildings are long gone. We spent about an hour here before moving on. There are 37 different archaelogical sites so we had some hard choices to make.

The Baphuon was the centre of the city that existed here. Restoration was disrupted by the Cambodian civil war and the Kymer Rouge destroyed all records. So the French team now working on the restoration ave been left with a rather big jigsaw puzzle, but without the pictures to guide them.

The Terrace of the Elephants was used as a viewing stand for public ceremonies.

The Terrace of the Leper King is a 7 metre high terrace which once supported a pavilion. The front walls are decorated with at least five tiers of seated asparas carved into the stone. At the base, Liam found the narrow entrance (we had walked right past it) into a hidden terrace (covered up when the outer structure was built) - the carvings here look fresh and almost new.

We headed over for lunch at one of the many tented restaurants opposite the terraces. We were joined by two young boys (both Liam's age, although much smaller, you would have thought they were around 7 or 8). They were selling little bronze figures of animals and religious dieties. We finally bought five of them ater a long negotiation. The boys' selling point was that they knew all (and I mean all) the world's capital cities. They go to school in the mornings (funded by their sales) and then sell until 4pm when they can have some free time (they said they enjoyed watching the cows and football).

In the afternoon we rejoined Lucky and he drove us out to the Chau Say temple. We met a Buddhist nun out there who performed a prayer and gave us each a pink wool bracelet. She later followed us out and got us to exhange a euro coin she'd been given for riel. After that we drove onto the Ta Keo temple. The steps were incredibly steep. There was another small boy working up here, selling postcards. Cliff had a chat with him and bought some and on our way out he gave Liam a paper origami crane he'd made. He was keen to know the time because he was knocking off at 4pm.

After that we went into Angkor Wat itself. The bas-relief of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (the Hindu creation story) was undergoing restoration so we only got to see some pictures of it on the east section of the temple. Cliff and I then climbed the central tower for some expansive views. Under 12's weren't allowed so Liam sat down at the bottom reading. We saw the static air balloon in the distance and decided we'd try to take a trip this week. After that we called it a day, it was now late afternoon and as we had three day tickets we didn't have to rush.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Today, Monday 15^th March, we took a bus up to Siem Reap, a fairly easy five hour trip north. We had the choice of either the bus ($11) or the boat ($35) both take around the same time, but apart from the cost of the boat, we'd heard it was very noisy. And it's nice to be able to stop along the way, as you can do when travelling by bus. We arrived at the bus stop, outside of the travel agency about 20 minutes early so Liam and I went around the block to see if we could get any fruit for the journey. But we couldn't find any so came back with new Nike baseball caps (genuine of course!) for $2 each instead. The bus left about 20 minutes late and was packed with foreigners (who pay more for their tickets) and locals. We stopped for lunch at Kompong Thom - cold drinks and stir fried vegetables and rice for $5, for all three of us. And really clean toilets.

It seems pretty weird using US dollars here, but Cambodian Riel are about 4200 to the dollar and whilst you get some in change and use them for small purchases, most things are advertised in dollars and that's what you get from ATMs.

When we arrived at Siem Reap bus station, Cliff saw a tuk-tuk driver with our name on a card who had been sent by our accomodation. It was just as well because there were loads of drivers there looking for customers fresh off the bus. But that was nothing, once we'd got our luggage off the bus (we had to wait for two motorbikes to be unloaded first), they opened the bus station gates (we hadn't realised they'd been closed behind the bus when we'd arrived). It was like the first day at the January sales, with about 50 drivers all running inside, cheering. I had to pull Liam back to avoid getting trampled.

The first thing that strikes you in Siem Reap is the dust and colour of the earth - red. We were staying at a French run place with a pool - $30 a night. Apparently you can get rooms here from $2 to $2000 so we're certainly mid-range. We thought we’d need a cooling swim after a long day at the temples.

We arrranged with our tuk-tuk driver to collect us at 10am the next morning to take us out to Angkor Wat and the temple complexes. This was going to cost us $15 for the whole day.

Siem Reap is a lively town, it has a good night market selling local crafts and lots of places to eat and drink. We were a ten minute walk from the centre, along a dusty road and practically no street lighting. We dropped off our bag of washing ($1 a kilo) with some lovely girls who took a real shine to Liam ('he's so handsome'!) We had some $1 rice and noodles for dinner and an early night.