Mekong Delta, 23-25 Nov

Mighty Mekong and its many channels was up next during a three-day trip of the delta. The scenic region is a wonderful green and fertile land with lots of people. While the second largest city in Cambodia is home to 140k people, it looks like every town in the delta has at least 200k citizens. First stop was the pagoda at My Tho with its smiling, happy Buddha. Might be nice for tourists who are on a two week holiday in Vietnam but unfortunately I am spoilt already and so it was nothing special.

Happy Buddha. Look at the people for comparison.

 

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam 19-22 Nov

The 7-hour bus journey to HCMC, including a Mekong crossing, was a bit too long but manageable with a scenic countryside just outside your window. Departure and immigration procedure at the two borders was a bit annoying, but what you gonna do?

Without a valid visa for Vietnam (there is no visa on arrival) you were not even allowed to board the bus. I guess they had some bad experiences in the past. Anyway, all the passports were collected beforehand and all of us had to alight at the Cambodian border to receive your passport in person before handing it back to the tour guide. At the Vietnamese border you had to take your luggage thru the usual x-ray scanner in a building. I bet they wouldn’t have found anything even if someone had any illegal substances with them. Once again you retrieved your passport only to show it to another official five minutes later. After these intricate procedures, that took us the better part of an hour, we continued on to our destination.

You might remember me being fascinated with the traffic in PP but Saigon definitely tops that easily. While there were about 10 motos to 1 car it is now 50 bikes to 1 four-wheeler. Reason for that is the fact that the government adds 20% of import tax on each car but none to Chinese motos which are quite affordable ($300-$500). I probably haven’t seen the town’s main intersections but what is going on at the smaller streets is also worth mentioning. All motos and vehicles honk unceasingly in order to announce their coming. Frustrated bus drivers basically steer with their hand on the horn but at least they don’t have such a screaming noise but rather a wah-wah sound. Also, you always have some pedestrians interfering as well as your usual hawker stalls and street vendors. Just like marvelling at the waves on a beach or staring into a fire, I could watch the traffic here for hours. When it comes to crossing the street yourself it is quite scary at first. I usually looked for a local and just followed him. The trick is to move slowly but consistently and the motos will simply move to avoid you. When you hear a beep you might consider stopping to let someone in a hurry pass. On the other hand, it seems everybody is in a rush.

Apart from the Independence Palace and the War Remnants Museum, HCMC doesn’t offer many more sights if you have seen some temples and pagodas already, and so I dedicated some time to update this blog. Having been lazy in the last 6 weeks it was about time for a decent make over. Most of the time it rained quite heaviliy and so I looked up some markets or other places of interest.

candy at the Ben Tanh Market

Phnom Penh 16-18 Sep

Back to PP on a sort of a local bus as I was the only Westerner. I had a nice talk with an English teacher who visited a friend in Sihanoukville and he told me the fare is $2 for the locals. I paid $5 and I wonder if the bus company or the travel agent pockets the difference. Anyway, $5 for a 5 hour bus ride is still a good deal.

I went back to the same place that I had stayed before and even my tuk-tuk driver who took me to the Killing fields, recognized me immediately and was happy to see me again (probably because I tipped him before).

Just before you get to the Killing Fields, I noticed some quads in front of a shop and asked my driver to take me there. Unfortunately there were no tours on that day but I scheduled a trip for the following. Asking my driver what is around here to see he answered there is a shooting range nearby. Having not been drafted to the military service, I was curious how it would feel but I am not gonna elaborate on this.

The next day I should have been picked up by a tuk-tuk from the quad-shop but the driver never showed and so I eventually called them. The owner said the driver had gone to a similar sounding guest house but he (the owner) could pick me up on his motorbike.

The ride to the quad shop takes about 45 minutes by tuk-tuk but we managed to get there in 15. So you get an idea how fast the guy was driving. Evading traffic by taking shortcuts on the side-walk, squeezing thru two busses with 20 cm to each side at 50 kph and overtaking trucks on the dirty, unpaved side of the road. It was literally like in a video game but also great fun and scary to death at the same time.

my quad

Sihanoukville 13-15 November

It was $6 for the ticket to Sihanoukville and to watch how a small boy throws up several times on the seat next to me, probably motion sickness. Anyway those bus journeys are slowly annoying me as they always take ages. This one took me another 6 hours and I have to go the entire way back to PP. On the other hand it was a two-level bus and I got a seat at the window. Travelling overland I realize that Cambodia is not as lush as for example Malaysia or Bali with lots of palm and banana trees and but rather bushy.

Accommodation-wise it was “back to basic” without air-conditioning or hot water but my guest house is clean and big enough for me. Also, it is conveniently located next to the dive shop.

lots of activities at the beach

Phnom Penh 09-12 November

We took the bus at 7:00h to go to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. The 6.5h bus ride with monotonous Khmer folk music was a bit too long imho. Jonas travelled on to Kep and we might meet again in Sihanoukville.

It seems like that it’s not you who select your tuk-tuk driver but rather the driver who picks you. When you arrive in Phnom Penh at least ten drivers are pointing at the passengers and shouting at each other. When you exit the bus you are then approached by one person who offers his services.

The Royal Guest House had let me wait quite some time before I was finally able to get that long awaited shower after the strentious bus ride.

In the evening I looked around town and the traffic is even worse than in Bangkok. Moto-madness is apparently the right word to describe what is going on. They take every opportunity to sneak thru the traffic be it on the pavement, using the other side of the road facing the oncoming vehicles or ignoring any traffic lights. If you want to cross a major road as a pedestrian you need good nerves and a bit of luck won’t do any harm either.

Sorya Shopping Mall was the first mall in PP and this is where most Cambodians can take their first ride on an escalator. Especially elderly people and monks sometimes prefer to take the stairs, after having a good long look at that strange moving thing in front of them. The mall is nothing special but I was glad I could pick up some earphones since those bought in BKK didn’t last long. Also the food court offers some tasty bites and the mall is also home to the largest supermarket I have seen so far in this country with decent prices.

It seems to me the touts are much more eager to sell stuff and services than in Siem Reap or Battambang. Although they do understand the meaning of a smiling “No, thank you” and let you on your way, the number of people offering their service is much bigger. From the mall to the next side street you get asked alt least 10 times if you want a moto or tuk-tuk.

Battambang 07-09 November

The day started by getting to the boat ferry terminal some kilometres outside of Siem Reap. The trip took about 7.5 hours from Siem Reap to Battangbang, the second largest city of Cambodia and just the ride over was worth going to Battambang. The boat was about 25 meters long, 4 meters wide and packed with tourists and locals.

our boat for the trip

 First we had to cross a small part of the Tonlé Sap Lake, before we went upstream on the Sangker River to Battambang. Although there are much more inexpensive options to get to this destination, none of them has this flair and atmosphere. The landscape changes rapidly from small vegetation to endless lilly areas to open water where you could see neither a plant nor land to villages on the lake, to swamp-like areas where you could hardly get thru, to fishing settlements on the banks of Sangker. At times it felt like a morning on the calm sea, cruising on the Shannon in Ireland, fighting thru the Everglades in Florida or like gliding thru a lily pond. All at once.

Kids in one of the stilted villages

 

Siem Reap, Cambodia, 02-06 November

With Cambodia, Vietnam and Lao now the real adventure begins. That’s at least the way I would like to think of it before even getting started.

Cambodia only has two international airports at Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. The former was my first destination to see the temples of Angkor Wat. You know that you are in an exciting country when they charge you for a visa. Although I knew I had to have a passport photo for the visa, I forgot it in my backpack and so got charged an extra Dollar to scan my passport. About seven or eight “officials” are sitting next to each other passing your passport on to the next person, each one looking and checking. But I am glad that they have established visa on arrival and that it only takes two minutes to get it.
Siem Reap means "defeated Thailand", hardly the most tactful gesture to name a major city so close to the Thai border.

I shared a tuk-tuk to my guest house with an elderly scot who is a professional photographer taking pictures Cambodia’s people, so he told me.

People are finally driving on the right side of the road again. After Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand it’s kinda strange but you easily get into the old habit of looking to the right side when crossing a street.

I stayed at the Mandalay Inn, just next to the old market and for $14 I was really impressed how clean the room was. All staff spoke excellent English and was very eager to please you. Free wifi also contributed to the positive experience.

After a lot of turmoil in recent decades (colonisation by the French and the Khmer Rouge reign) people lost confidence in their own currency (Cambodian Riel) and so they adopted the US-Dollar. Although the Riel remains as the official currency all prices in supermarkets, when booking a bus, tour or tuk-tuk driver are quoted in US-Dollars. Well, that is not entirely correct. All charges must be settled by new, clean, crisp US-Dollar notes. Any torn, old, dirty notes are not accepted. It occurred to me several times that notes were “not good enough” and so I had to tender a different, “better” one. The official exchange rate is 1$ = 4200 Riel, but most places round the Dollar off to 4000. If the price is $2.50 and you tender a $5 note you will get back two Dollars and 2000 Riel.

Also, Cambodia is more expensive than expected, especially the prices at the supermarket for every day items like tooth paste and candy.

For some reasons Diet Coke is more expensive than regular Coke, also no fast food restaurant (McDonald’s or Burger King don’t exist but I have seen one KFC) offers Diet Coke.

On the other hand you can buy a carton (200) of cigarettes for as cheap as $3.00 and a tuk-tuk driver for the whole day to see Angkor Wat only charges $10.00

The classic Thai tuk-tuk is a one-piece vehicle with one metal frame. Cambodia’s tuk-tuks are technically called a “remork” as they consist of a tuk-tuk-like carriage drawn by a moto.

Remork