Cambodia to Vietnam

The lure of Laos having proved to much for us (we never meant to go there originally... oops), we didn't have vast amounts of time to spend in Cambodia, so it was something of a whistle-stop tour for us (even more so than the rest of our trip...).
Having endured the second worst bus journey of our trip on a road closely resembling the surface of the moon and resulting in an experience they could probably have charged a lot of money for if they had called it an indepth vibro-massage, we finally arrived at Siem Reap - home of not a lot except the whole of Angkor Wat.
Despite the fact cambodia is supposed to be a relatively cheap country, we spent an absolute fortune here in just two days. Got a 3 day pass for all of the temples - $40!!! ouch! (which are spread out over a really huge area. The temples of angkor made a really refreshing change from thailand, cos they're mostly ruined and have none of the glitz and glam. They're also cool because they have insides and you can go exploring and the cambodians have never ever heard of health and safety - woohoo!! :D Just think about all the castles at home that are ruined and then take away all of the no entry signs - lots of big holes, rubble everywhere, andmassive arches that are falling down and have helpfully been propped up by one or two thin branches - quite scary, but very fun... there's also a couple of really cool temples that have been taken over by the trees and the roots have become part of the structure and vice versa. see http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=ta%20phrom%20trees&sa=N&tab=wi v v cool.

Having got priced out of seeing anymore at siem reap we moved onto Phnom Penh. Saw the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda - wasn't that impressed.

The next day we had a somewhat more sobering experience visiting S21 and the Killing Fields as a poignant reminder of the Khmer Rouge and what they did to cmbodia. S21 is a school which was taken over and used as a prison and interrogation/torture unit. They've left it pretty much as it was found and there are some intruging exhibitions with stories of the people killed there, surprisingly on both sides (Khmer rouge and resistance seemed to be killed in equal number in the end... :o( ). They had truely horrific methods of torture there and i think pactially everyone went through it too. I just don't understand how anyone can even contemplate doing that to sooo many people. They estimate that roughly 20,000 people that went through there and know of only 7 that left alive. hmm...
Next we went to the Killing fields whih is just werid. It's one of hundreds of sites across cambodia where people were taken and beaten to death and dumped in mass graves or simply buried alive and lft to suffocate. Nice... In the centre they've built a huge temple to remember them and the centre is filled with thousands of skulls that have been exhumed from the graves. You can wander around and there's signs saying what what was in each ("846 women and children, mostly found naked." springs to mind) there's bits of rags/cloths still half buried inthe ground, along with a few pieces of bone that weren't taken up. It's absolutely incredibly, in the worst way. I'd say may it never happen again, it's just a shame to think that there are parts of the world where things like this are still going on, and i really wish there was something we could do to stop them.

Having got thouroughly depressed, and since we were already eating into our visa for vietnamwe decided it was time to moved on.

...and so on to Vietnam....

We like vietnam. Its much more 'real' than Thailand. Having spent a mere 5 days in Cambodia we moved onto vietnam va boat - good choice given the 2 hour bus journey to the boat which was a little like being on a big dipper - i just don't understand how a road can look soooo smooth and be soooo bumpy!

Spent the last 3 days on an organized tour of the Mekong Delta doing alsorts of things that involved a lot of boats, a home stay, traditional food, tours, coconut sweets and banana wine... The places we were staying have no signs in english or french and no one speaks any english - so we have to try alot harder - esp. to get vegetarian food. think we might get a little stuck here - they don't do any vegetarian food - it all has crabs or snakes or weird stuff in it... hehe... i guess we'll live!

We just arrived in Ho Chi Minh/Saigon yesturday and are exploring today and doing general admin-y stuff... It seems like a really nice city and has a nice selection of shops and galleries (with copies of just about every famous painting ever) and cafes - we like. It's gonna be expensive for us though, if we not careful, because all the street sellers totally have us down to a tee. I explain; in every other country we've been to there are quantities of street sellers that wander around the cafes and bars and try to ell you random stuff while you eat, which is fine cos they're mildly entertaining in their persistance and are selling things like wooden frogs, hats with bells on, bracelets that are too small, bamboo flutes or jaw harps, or comical giant working lighters - now you can understand how we could resist purchasing suh items with little difficulty (except perhaps the giant lighter, which appeals rather a lot (you can just imagine it - "you got a light?" "well, yes, actually *reveal giant scary lighter*)) It would be quite cool, but given that it wouldn't fit in my bag, i'd never have the nerve to actually offer it to anyone, and given that the airlines don't like normal lights, they might object to one that's at least a foot high... However, every street seller here, goes around the cafes in the evening, when you winding down with the most ginormous pile of really decent books at really cheap prices - last night we bought four when we'd not meant to buy any!! We're totally doomed! (but it is rather cool :D )

In the next few days we're going to visit the famous tunnels the Vietnamese used in the war (specially enlarged, now, for fat westerners!) then head up the coast until we get to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay where w plan on ending our tip together! Then off on my own to 'merica and NZ!!! It seems soooo close to coming home now but i still have just oover 6 weeks.... hmmm... weird.