Erin and Justin

We intended to stay in Sapa for 2, maybe 3 days, but we stayed for 4.

In Sapa we found a cool climate, mountainsides covered in rice paddy terraces, colourful hill tribes, and some beautiful people from local villages. We met lots of wonderful people, but will likely only maintain contact with La, Ah and Mi.

We caught the overnight train there, and as we were eating breakfast on the morning we arrived, Vee came up to us and said he was on his way to meet up with Ann and Peter! So we took the day to chill out and explore – we walked to Cat Cat village and a nearby waterfall – and then we had dinner with the others. The next day was their last day in Sapa, and we all went for a guided tour with our guide, 16-year-old Black H’mong girl, La, to Lao Chai village where her family live, and to the 2 villages beyond, where Black H’mong and Dai people live. La has wonderful English language skills and an email address. So we’re going to stay in touch.

Luckily we had had our 5 flights of stairs in Saigon, followed by 4 in Hanoi, 5 on Cat Ba Island, and another 5 back in Hanoi, as in Sapa, we had – about a thousand stairs to walk up to get to our room. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. How many stairs in 10-12 flights? It was huge anyway, and usually we needed to stop for a moment and take breath or two on our way up. And we went up and down 2 or 3 times each day! AND, in between we went for big mountain walks that often meant hiking up steep paths – thank goodness we don’t smoke anymore!

It was so nice to wake up to misty mountains and rice terraces. It felt like we could just stop.

However, one “Hello? You buy from me?” can turn into many “Hello? You buy from me?” and then become “Hello? You buy from me? Why you buy from her, you no buy from me? You buy from me? Hello?”

And then you find yourself unable to buy the thing you want without buying things that you don’t want. And then you find yourself unable to buy the things that you want and ONLY able to buy things you don’t want! ☺ …and then you find your wallet empty and your bag heavy and more “you buy from me” songs each time you step outside!

Mi was the first person we bought from. Ah was the last.

So, new boundaries set(!?) and new things to post home ☺

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Sapa.html

and hear Ah's song at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Ah%27s%20Song.html

Upon returning to our hotel in Hanoi, we checked in for another night, and then met up with Jason and Emma, about to fly back to Australia, and Keith and Caroline, who we will definitely keep in touch with! They’re opening a restaurant in Melbourne (Keith already has one, and now he’s opening one with Caroline!).

After watching the ease of ordering dinner with native Vietnamese speakers (Caroline and Keith), we wished that we’d had them along to buy Sapa train tickets!

We were really glad to meet those two, and see them again before they went to Hong Kong.

We were also really glad that we had a chance to see Jay and Em again before they went home! And we finished our trip together with a Water Puppets show!

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Hanoi.html

This trip to Halong Bay really made us feel like we were on holiday!

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Halong%20Bay.html

Even though part of the sell from the hotel man was that we would spend one night on the island (with Keith and Caroline) and one night on the boat (when they went back to Hanoi), and even though it was not so, and we parted ways on the first afternoon, we had an excellent time.

And we arranged to have dinner with Keith and Caroline upon our return to Hanoi.

The boat ride was amazing. And we swam in the ocean for the first time since we left Sydney. We hiked, we kayaked, we visited caves, and we made friends with other people on the tour!

It was just heavenly, on the roof of the boat, cruising through the limestone cliffs around us, passing small fishing boats, junkets, and floating villages.

The hike was at a steady pace, all straight up (actually climbing at some points), and was in the middle of the day in the sweltering heat. The trip up was exhausting, and we needed (well, Erin needed) a little rest (without any shade) before climbing the tower at the top of the mountain. Climbing down was far easier ☺ and the cool well-water poured over our heads (free of charge!) by a kind little man at the bottom was well appreciated.

Kayaking was excellent fun, and we decided that we want to buy one (when we return to living in a warm climate!). We kayaked with the group to a sandy beach and swam there for a bit before kayaking back to the boat, and heading back to the hotel.

During the trip we made particular friends with Peter and Ann (from Belgium) and Vee (British), who were also going to Sapa upon their return from Halong Bay, and who had also decided against the organised tour.

We flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, arriving at around midnight. We tried phoning a couple of guest houses recommended in the Lonely Planet, but of the 5 we called, two didn’t answer and three had no vacancies. We decided to go with a spruiker who was trying to find guesthouse customers at the airport. Given our poor luck, with the enticement of free breakfast, free internet and free (hour-long) ride from the airport, and encouragement/reassurance from another Australian couple, Keith and Caroline – Keith had stayed there before and booked specifically – we took our luggage and climbed in the car.

When we arrived at a hotel that was not the hotel that Keith had stayed at and booked a room in, we had conversations with the driver and hotel owners in the street for about half an hour. The hotel owner apparently owned 5 hotels in the district, and these two (we were outside two, side by side) had vacancies, where the one Keith thought he was booking had no vacancies. We agreed to stay the night, as it was too late to find somewhere else. Before we took our bags upstairs (4 storeys of stairs!) Keith and Caroline worked out that if they were going to go to Halong Bay, and spend time in Hanoi before they flew to Hong Kong, they had better go the next day (or by this stage, in about 6 hours), so we decided to go to. We negotiated to pay $50 for a 3-day/2-night tour – much more than we would have paid at any other time of the day – then went inside.

As we walked into the building with the hotel owner, he asked what our plans were. We told him that we planned to go to Sapa, then get the train down to Hoi An, before heading west into Laos. Within moments he had booklets out, and was writing prices on a piece of paper, and seemed insistent upon having us commit to a guided 3-day tour to Sapa for $250, a flight to Hoi An for $130, and a $50 bus ride from there into Laos. In addition to the $100 for the Halong Bay tour (as the $50 was each – not together), that brought us to $530. We told him it was too late, and we would have to think about it. He tried to entice us with a free night of accommodation if we bought all that (very kind, being that it was already 2:30am, and at 7:00am we would leave to go to Halong Bay). We told him we could talk in the morning, and went upstairs to repack, as we were able to leave our luggage at the hotel during our Halong Bay tour. Of course, by the time we reached our room – 4 flights of stairs - we decided that we would commit only to the Halong Bay tour.

We figured that since we had spent so much time in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we had better go do something, so we booked a day tour to see Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels.

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Saigon%20Day%20Tour.html

On the way we stopped at a workshop where victims of Agent Orange make extraordinary artworks, using crushed eggshell(!) amongst other materials.

Cao Dai (meaning high tower or palace) is a religious sect that was formed as a strategy to unify people, and comprises a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, with much smaller elements of Christianity and Islam thrown in. The temple is brightly coloured, and bears the symbol of the divine eye. Followers dress in yellow, red, blue or white robes, depending upon their status.

Visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels was a strange experience, painting an heroic picture of the Vietnamese soldiers who were awarded medals for killing the most Americans. The strategies they utilised were indeed ingenious, and in truth they had few options. Around the site of the tunnels, bomb craters can still be seen, and walking through the dense jungle makes it hard to imagine the area barren and bare, following the release of American defoliation chemicals. The tunnels were tiny – “Vietnamese size” – and were complex systems with ventilation shafts running through the 3 depth levels, with internal water wells, links to the river, and traps for American soldiers, should they penetrate the tunnels. American soldiers built a base over the top of one of the tunnels, and suspected each other when they found their own, dead in the base.

We went through part of the tunnel system. We went down some steps, then crawled along for a bit, then down some more steps… getting to the second depth caused some anxiety, and required concentration to avoid panic. Getting out of the tunnel was relieving – it’s unbelievable that people lived down there.

As we were leaving, we were offered the opportunity to empty a round in an M16 or AK47 for a small charge. We thanked them for the opportunity and declined the offer.

Our bus ride from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to Saigon, Vietnam, cost us $3.50 each. We were swamped with people trying to sell us drinks and fruit and sunglasses each time we stopped.

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Journey%20to%20Saigon.html

As could have been expected, we ran out of petrol before we reached the border, and after we crossed the border we could see that Vietnam was far better off. The bus we climbed into in Vietnam was new, and had a friendly, English-speaking tour guide riding in it with us. The roads were sealed, kids looked cleaner, healthier, and cared-for.

Vietnam, like Cambodia, has seen much war and poverty. However, where Cambodia’s destruction was caused by civil war, Vietnam has been the victim of invasion. By China, France, and the USA. And where Chinese and French occupations have been oppressive, the United States offered cold murder and destruction.

We attributed that history to our reception in the streets of Saigon. We did not hear calls of “Hello!” like we heard from the children of Cambodia. We received stares without smiles. People would nod to us only in response to our own, and although we met many friendly people in our first days in Vietnam, we felt much distrust both from and toward others. We experienced more blatant lies from drivers, and we were taken advantage of all over again! Charged 10 times the going rate for a shoe shine –and then the little bugger didn’t want to hand over the change! When we insisted that we would go and get change if he didn’t have it, a young man, about 20 or 21 years old, came over, spoke harshly to the kid, gave us our change. When we smiled and thanked him, he did not smile, he stared coldly then walked away with the scared-looking kid keeping up, alongside him. What an introduction!

Then we hired cyclo drivers to take us for a coffee, and then to see the city: a temple – where there were turtles; the Reunification Palace – a palace with a “Gambling Room” upstairs, and a basement full of tunnels and rooms like “the War Room”; and the War Remnants Museum – that museum was pretty full on: it used to be called The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, but changed its name in the interests of tourism. On the walls were gruesome photographs of war – families begging for their lives, American soldiers posing with corpses, and victims of Agent Orange. Outside the museum giant bombs and tanks were displayed.

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Saigon%20City.html

After spending 5 hours with our drivers (during which time we shouted them coffees and cold drinks), and paying them the agreed amount – 200,000VND each (which was about 2&1/2 times the reasonable rate), they asked us for more money, in fact they asked us for another 100,000! We told them we didn’t think that that was very fair. They left, making it clear that they were unhappy with the situation, and we entered another massage room at the Blind Association, feeling stressed and irritated by the constant scamming.

The massages were no good either.

Our sense of security returned however, upon spending our first night in our flash hotel, that had a balcony and a bath, and was as clean, but far nicer than any place we have stayed, and cost us $8 per night. Then our comfort was secured the next night, when we met some friendly English students in the park, who go there to speak to foreigners and practise their English. We stayed and talked to them for 4 hours, and they were really lovely people.

We spent our time in Saigon resting more than anything, in our deluxe room. We slept, we slept in, and our time of many stairs began, with this hotel requiring us to climb 5 storeys to our room.

Everyone has heard of the Khmer Rouge, but do people really know what happened?

Tin-Tin’s stories were shocking to us, when we heard them in Battambang, but visiting S-21 was frightening, sickening, unbelievable. Unfathomable. S-21 was the code for the detention facility based in Phnom Penh. 20,000 people were detained there, 7 survived. People were detained if they were suspected enemies of the Regime. No one was given a trial. People were “interrogated,” – tortured, starved, driven to the Killing Fields and murdered. This facility is famous because it was the only one that kept records. It was a high school converted into a place of horror. It is surrounded in barbed and razor wire, each class room was used either as a torture chamber or was divided into many, many tiny cells.
Many of those class rooms today, remain reasonably untouched. They smell bad and they invoke terror, light-headedness and nausea. Some of the classrooms are now display rooms for thousands of photos of prisoners. Some people in the photos look terrified, some angry, some resigned, some desperate, some absent. Age offered no protection. Elderly people, and children who looked as young as 3 or 4 were photographed individually, with a number pinned to their clothes or skin, considered to be enemies of the state.

Then everyday, truck loads of people were taken to the nearby killing fields, blindfolded and shackled. They were struck with blunt instruments, shot, electrocuted, or (if they were small enough) smacked against a tree, and their bodies thrown into mass graves. About 2/3 of the graves in that Killing Field have been opened and the remains removed. There is a giant monument containing the clothing, skulls and other bones of thousands of people. As we walked throughout the field, where craters marked the opened graves, we could see in the path under our feet, small fragments of bone, teeth, and clothing buried and partially exposed in the mud.

So much damage in just 3 years, and Pol Pot, who murdered millions of his own people in the late 1970s, died in 1998 of old age. I wonder why I wasn’t taught about this at school. It was so recent. Do people even know?

Our few days in Phnom Penh turned into a week, so that we could take time to meet people, move slowly and enjoy the street sights, before visiting the sickening darkness of S-21 and the Killing Fields.

We saw BBQ spiders at the market, alongside skinned frogs, foetal chickens, cockroaches, beetles, grasshoppers… Apparently they’re great foods to eat when you’re drinking beer! We were tempted, but left it all untouched.

See photos at http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Phnom%20Penh.html

We spent time with Lasda and her mother, two beautiful women who own a restaurant business – “Family Restaurant” – and who serve terrific Khmer, Viet, Chinese and European food: $1-2 for a meal, with a free beer/coke/coffee! They moved to Cambodia from Vietnam following some family hardships, and have worked hard to independently support themselves. They are busy saving and are hoping to sell their business (for $4000!) and leave Cambodia, and preferably go to Australia. We would like to help them if we can, so if anyone knows of a potential employer…? Lasda is 19, speaks Khmer, English, Vietnamese and some Mandarin. Her mother, Rose, speaks Khmer, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and some English. Both are gorgeous, honest, friendly and cook amazing food!

We also met Minakshi and Sunil, and their 2-year-old son, Dhruv. They have been in Phnom Penh for 6 weeks, having moved from India to open an Indian restaurant. Their food was excellent too, and their son was very funny and liked to dance.

We went twice to Seeing Hands, where we decided we had received the best ever massage by people who could tell at a touch what was tight and what needed work. The masseurs are blind and the organization was set up so that blind people could have dignified employment. The training takes years and the people that we spoke to had been with Seeing Hands for more than 10 years. They were really good.

SEE PHOTOS AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Phnom%20Penh%20-%20Animal%20Sanctuary.html

This is Gangster town! Our driver is a gangster. He pays the police $300 a month to stay away from the guest house. The tuk-tuk drivers selling opium in the street are gangsters.

We went to the Animal Sanctuary, way out of town. There were about 10 boys and men who followed us around the sanctuary, acting as guides and carrying coconuts and machetes and peanuts. They cut open the coconuts randomly and handed us pieces to feed the animals (despite the clear signs written in Khmer, French and English all saying not to feed the animals).

We liked the Otters and the Gibbons and the baby monkeys the best, and we discovered that raising your eyebrows at a macaque makes them mad. we met one gibbon who we loved. We thought about the possibility of adopting him and teaching him to play guitar - one with slack strings so that he wouldn't hurt his tiny soft fingers. We could call him Gibson. We decided not to take him with us, understanding that it would be just too hard when he left home to pursue his musical career...

Anyway, back to the real story These coconut men wanted us to pay for all the coconuts. We didn’t want to pay for all the coconuts. We paid for the ones we had asked for, or the ones that we had agreed to, but as we only had $1, $5 and $10 notes (and the coconuts were 2000 riel – or 50c – each), we gave one guy $5 for all of them and then he took off with all the money. The other 9 wanted to be paid too. We told them, as we had told the guy with the money, that it was to be split. They didn’t like it.

They were mocking us (but not directly) and they were all carrying their machetes.

But they showed us around the rest of the animals, and then wanted to be paid for that. We paid two pf the friendlier boys a minimal fee. Tee drove us away swiftly as it began pouring with rain. He told us that he had become very concerned.

Those people at the animal sanctuary were gangsters.

Our moto-driving friends gave us a free lift to the bus in the morning, and Kris hooked us up with his friend, a tuk-tuk driver, to look after us in Phnom Penh.

SEE PHOTOS AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Phnom%20Penh%20-%20Museum%20%26%20Palace.html

AD MORE PHOTOS AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Phnom%20Penh.html

We were pretty happy that the bus ride was much faster and much smoother than our last bus ride.

Upon our arrival in Phnom Penh, it was difficult to leave the bus as the door was crowded with tuk-tuk drivers competing with each other to gain the business of the bus passengers. Tee was standing amongst them, holding up a page with all our names on it, written in large print in blue texta. He took us to the Guest House where he works, and we checked in to the mid-range rooms – room with a private ensuite – for $4 per night.

We love Phnom Penh! French and Cambodian architecture and foo
lots of wonderful food, everything so cheap… Its amazing! A vegetarian meal – that comes with a free beer(!) – for $1.25!!

Jay and Justin had a shave at the Barber, we went to the National Museum, the Royal Palace, and we met a friendly Kiwi traveller called Billy.

At the park we saw an elephant called Sambo and an old monkey with a little pigtail in his hair.

Also at the park however, the begging kids were different, they weren’t prepared with persistence, English language skills and a knowledge of the market – they asked us for our bottles of water and when we gave them, they ran. A completely different kind of poverty in these parts.

And in the evening had a whole street full of tuk-tuk drivers calling out the standard “tuk-tuk, sir?”, but then followed by “Smoke Pot? Opium?” and they held out small bags…!! No secrecy or discretion at all, we couldn’t believe it.

The all day boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang was extraordinary, with kids running to the rivers edge to scream out "hello" to us in tiny voices.

SEE PHOTOS OF THE BOATRIDE AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Boat%20to%20Battambang.html

SEE PHOTOS OF BATTAMBANG AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Battambang.html

We made lots of friends in Battambang! We met Graeme from England (who gave us his email so that we could get in touch when we get there!), and Steve and Jess from USA, who gave us a load of Lao destination inspiration, and we met moto drivers Chin-Chin, Tin-Tin, Kris and Jay.

Our drivers first took us, through back and rural roads, to a nearby hill where there was a rural community living, and a beautiful walk, and monkeys running around, and other animals being kept.

The walk up the hill from the village was just beautiful.

And above this community, at the end of the beautiful walk up the hill, were the Killing Caves.

Here Tin-Tin gave us a comprehensive overview of the political history of Cambodia, and gave us his own history within that context. He explained the formation of various parties, political relationships with other nations, between the Government and the King. He also explained that the history is not written, as all of the educated people were killed under Pol Pot. Tin-Tin has studied from many sources – books, accounts written by foreigners, and personal stories from many people, including Khmer Rouge soldiers – to get as much of the picture as he can.

He showed us the killing caves, and the human remains still stored within them. And he described how the cave looked, as he had seen it with his own eyes, right after Pol Pot’s reign ended. We all had trouble stomaching the story, and it really gave us a new understanding of just how much suffering this country has seen.

And yet the People of Cambodia are smiling and very, very friendly.

Next our drivers took us to a nearby 9th Century temple where we met Ing, Mohm, and David - three kids that lived at the bottom of the hill. They taught us that Mai ohm bau means butterfly

On our way to the Bamboo Train, it began to rain heavily and we saw a group of enthusiastic people from a small rural village scrambling around on the road. The road was a little flooded, and they were FISHING!! They were catching tiny fish that ended up on the road with nets and plastic containers and with their hands. Jason and Justin helped, and the people there let them, though laughed at them – they weren’t very skilled. ☺

We rode the Bamboo train – the 4 of us, the 4 moto drivers, the 4 motorbikes and the Bamboo train driver and 2 kids – almost right back to town.

When we got back to our guest house, we asked our new friends to join us for dinner. They took us out to a pub that does not target tourists – and for the eight of us to eat dinner, with so much food served that we couldn’t finish it, and for all of us to have a couple of beers – the final bill of $26 made it a very cheap shout!

SEE PHOTOS AT http://web.mac.com/erinfearn/iWeb/SE%20Asia/Siem%20Reap%20-%20War%20Museum.html

The man who worked at the War Musem had set off 6 land mines, had been shot 3 times with an AK47 and he had shrapnel – a ball bearing and 3 nails still under his skin. He was blind in one eye, and he expected to be blind in the other within months, following an unsuccessful operation.

When he is blind, he will no longer be able to work.

Both of his parents and his brother were killed under the Khmer Rouge, his sister was killed by a land mine. His wife was killed by a land mine – 1 year and 11 weeks ago. He became anxious about the volume of his words when he became passionate and bitter and angry with the Government.

When we had money out for the donation box, he told us that the donations placed in the box went to his boss and did not help the victims.

Next we were taken to the killing field nearby. There was a large structure with glass windows, containing bones of people killed there.