Koh Chang Thailand and where we went after...

Hello everyone!

Thanks for the few messages we got on the blog and on email, it's good to know you are actually reading! We hope everything is ok with everyone, and that this neverending winter (as i'm told) isn't too hard!

Not to make you envious but here, it's so hot we can't sleep... it's sunny all the time and we pray for rain! And when it finally comes, we leave everything we were doing and go for a natural shower, but that doesn't happen often.

So where we went next:

The day after i wrote the last update, we went on our snorkelling trip. Big Thai boat setting off at 9am for the pretty little islands that i can't remember the names of but that are fairly close to Koh Chang. We spent the day flying (same feeling) over the world of fishes and star fishes and coral, it was lovely. The water was so clear it was unreal. We also had fun jumping off the boat, about 4 or 5 meters i would say, pretty impressive, but when you see that clear water, so warm, so inviting, and also how bloody hot you are on the boat, you don't think twice (and when Thai men try to push you off anyway!)

So that was a lovely day, and really, Koh Chang was very nice: The proof is that we spent 10 days there. We were also waiting for Sophie and Richard, 2 of Steve's friends to come and join us, as they had booked a week's starving course (detox)... It was great to see friendly faces, people to whom you don't have to reiterate your whole life story to before actually having a conversation! We spent a few days more with them, just soaking up the sun before leaving to Cambodia...

So, Cambodia:
We got there, in a town called Pailin on the 23 of March, just after a big storm which we were able to watch from the back of our pick up truck taxi to the border. Storms are pretty cool when they do happen.
So Pailin, well, for the first time of our trip, i felt a little uneasy. First i had just started reading about the genocide of the Pol Pot Regime, and was just at the introduction, and the place sounded quite scary, to say the least. So when we passed the border, I just kept on thinking about the book, and how those guys in uniform could decide to shoot us in the back as soon as we'd turn it. That didn't happen, thanks god. We got to that little tiny town, Pailin, by a mud road. A trail more like. The roads in Thailand were so lovely and smooth, and litterally, as we passed the border, the tarmac vanished into thin air. Flat land, red dust, transformed into mud by the recent rain, and a driver that must have just wanted to finish it with life... Holding on to our sits and closing our eyes in the corners... You'll have understood that everyone in Asia is pretty mad on the driving, but this, believe me, was worse.
Anyway, we did survive that, too, and after all these frights, we got to that not so friendly town, where people looked at us like we were aliens, and served us some strange and chewy beef with plain rice, and a big tea pot full of, we think, tap water... which shouldn't really be drunk if you don't want to get the s....!
We went back to our prison cell like room (really) and barricaded the door. (ok, not quite, but it was 7pm, and we didn't go back out, it was dark you see!!

You understand we didn't want to stay there longer so we set off the next day for an old french colonial town called Battambang. We spent 2 days there, and did funny things like riding a bamboo train: plank of bamboo placed on train wheels and powered with a... lawn mower's engine (but a powerful lawn mower) That was cool, they sat us on a little carpet, and off we went. This little thing is used by the locals to move from town to town (their roads are so rubbish, you need to have another way!) and they use the same rails as, well, the trains do!! haha, that means you have to watch out for them if you don't want to end up in bamboo jam! We fortunately didn't meet any, but we did meet a few cows grazing here and there that we had to shue off and slow down for...
Next day we did a cooking course at one of the restaurant. Here we were, Steve and I and 3 more english people in our lovely pink aprons... First we went to the market. Well, let me tell you that was an experience all by itself. Fishes still alive being wacked on the head by a crazy women who then start scaling the poor thing while it's still alive!!! Ants 's eggs being eaten by Steve (didn't kiss him for a while after that) Headless and skinless frogs still moving, fertilised duck eggs being eaten by locals (thanks god Steve was disguted by this one too) and a lot more happy things went on before our eyes... And our cooking teacher was just laughing, and saying, no no, it tastes good, you'd like it! Well, it's a viscious circle in a way: If i like the sight of it, i'll eat it, and then i might like it, but if the chain breaks right at the start, well...

Anyway, once the food looked normal again (like they present it in Tesco's) we started cooking it, and it was really cool. We made our own curry paste, grinded our spices, leaves and whatever else was around, and i have to say, all our dishes were PRETTY good.. : Fish Amok, Hot and Sour Soup, and a stir fry dish that sounds like Luk Lok, or was it Lok Luk?? i don't know. It was good anyway!

That was the second day in Battambang.
On the third, we left for the town of Siem Reap, home of the mighty temples of Anchor. We went there by boat, an 8 hours journey on the Tonle Sap river, in a boat kind of like Evinrud (i think mum, you'll be the only one getting that cause i don't think that Disney movie was so famous.) A long narrow boat that glided along for hours, when it didn't get stuck in the shallow shores of the dry season... It was very nice, little kids smiling and waving at us, villages after villages of houses on stilts, little floating markets, villages, quite a sight. And on the last leg of the trip, while getting into the enormous lake of Tonle Sap, we were guided by a few Pelicans, and other birds flying about. It was a very scenic journey, although a bit long, and our poor bums were quite happy to jump out when it was over.
Haha, and you think we got into a comfy cab to a hotel? No no no... from the "ferry port" if you can call it that way, we got taken by a rickshaw driver onto an other crazy bumpy muddy track, with our bags shoved onto the front of the trailer, almost falling down at every move.. Oh well, it wasn't so bad, and the road soon got better. You see, Cambodia is an amazingly poor country, but there are places, like Siep Reap, that manage to sort of get themsleves out of it. Or that's what you think when you get to your lovely air con civilized room, and sip your beer at the civilized hotel bar...
We booked our rickshaw for the next 3 days to visit the temples and started at 5.30 the next morning... argh! We got there for sunrise, and as we stepped off the rickshaw/Tuk tuk, we were surrounded by a hord of kids with dusty faces and no shoes wanting us to buy their postcards for "only one Dollar"... Those kids don't work for themselves, someone else sends them to do this everyday, and they end up making more money than their parents farming, and therefore, it keeps on being done, and it's painful to watch. Obviously you want to give all these sad kids something, but as you give to one discretely, 10 more arrive behind, and you end up having to jump in the rickshaw and leave, leaving your conscience behind... you visit countless temples, that by the way were pretty amazing, you pay 50 dollars easily for the 3 days pass, and those millions of kids are fighting for you to give them just one... It's painful.

The temples were good, although after 3 days, we were "templed out!!" as they say here. We went to the one where Lara Croft has one of her adventures in Tomb Raider... Steve would be better at talking about these, cause i lost interest pretty fast. It was Hot... soooooo hot. Cambodia is so flat and so dry, we were just like in the middle of a desert and drank about 10 litres of water a day.

The town of Siem Reap is like a building site, between all the beggars, the children and their mothers waiting for the doors of the hospital to open, the rickshaws trying to get your attention, there are countless brand new lovely hotels being built... And who is building them? Who has the money to, and why do tourist have to be accomodated better than all the people that live there. I found it hard, to leave the hotel in the evening to go and have dinner and drinks and play pool in a completely civilized and clean and EXPENSIVE part of town, while in the next street, there was poverty in every house...

As i said, a very uneasy feeling about it all.

We left Siem Reap for the capital Phnom Penh the day after the end of our tour, and there, we got the same. Our hotel was great, the area clean, and the rest was just very sad... We stayed there about 3 or 4 days i think, we did a walking tour follwing our guide book, tried the local markets, we even went to a 5 star hotel at happy hour for some cocktails to see how it was, and a pianist played lovely songs while we were playing pool, again, and while the rickshaws were waiting outside for their 1 $ fare to drive us home... You'll think i complain a lot about the poverty, but am quite happy to try the 5* places and all that... Well see, they set up all this stuff for tourists, and apart from those bars and the temples of Siem Reap, there isn't much, and we didn't stay long enough to know what else to do. So sadly, we didn't think much of Cambodia. The people are not ready i think for the amount of tourism it's getting, and the money isn't going to the right places.

We left Phnom Penh on the 4th of April and have been in Viet Nam since.
As we passed the border, by boat, and arrived into the town of Chau Doc, it was a great feeling. Smily faces, people busy, getting on with things, not looking especially rich, but healthy enough, and strong, and pleased to see us. I fell in love instantly! VietNam has plenty to offer, and we're going to spend a while here i think. They too have a bad history, but they really look like they're pulling out of it, and the people are as sweet as Indians, and as welcoming and helpful.
After Chau Doc, we left for Can Tho, the biggest town in the Mekong Delta (the mighty Mekong that i had only seen in war movies like apocalypse now and all these... ) Well the Mekong is impressive, slow and enormous, peaceful... The people live of it in such an enormous way! There are so many fishes in there, and fruit plantations, and everything that is alive can thank the river. Those people live on it, shop on it, as we were able to witness on our boat tour of the area... Our driver, Dix was very sweet, and took us into the canals, brown quiet things... There isn't a benk inhabited. The benks are the place to be! Everything around is green, no dryness, the air is so much cooler than in Cambodia, I can't actually describe it properly, i lack vocabulory to describe how it feels to let the boat carry you around.

The food is great, although we haven't tried the dog yet or the snake, or the live monkey brain. To be honest, i'd rather not!! It's not really spicy, but has plenty of taste, and a lot of the preparation gets done at the table, which is fun.

We are now in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City, it has been 2 days, and it's a cool place, but i can't face describing it now. it's 11.20 pm, and my chair in unbcomfortable, i'm jealous of Steve who's already left and is in a bar with his friend the beer, and i need to go and meet my friend the beer too! 60p for Saigon beer in Saigon! So i'll stop there...

Everyone please take care of yourselves
Keep on sending us some of your news!

Lots of Love from Saigon xxx
S n J 2007!