Heart of Darkness

Ok, that title may seem a bit dreary, but it's just a reference to the movie Apocalypse Now (modeled after Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness) where they went into Cambodia. Curiously enough, there's a club in this town by the same name.

We arrived in the city at around 2pm and found a reasonable hotel near the river. We actually heard about places that could be had in the city for $2/night, but never let it be said that I take my babe to a place like that, we travel in style (ours was $10!)

Once again, we were ready to get to exploring, so we went out and had lunch on the Tonle Sap River.


Notice anything strange in that picture, Texans?
Mattie tried a local Cambodian dish, chicken amok, which came served in a coconut and turned out to be very good. From the restaurant, we took a stroll to see the main sights in the city, which are all pretty central. There's the Royal Palace:


The Liberation Monument:


and The Independence Monument:


From here, we walked down a street full of embassies on our way back to the hotel, bought our bus tickets to Siem Reap for the next day, and called it a night.

In the morning, we wanted to visit the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum on the southern side of the city. This is where many Cambodians were imprisoned, tortured, and killed under Pol Pot's rule in the late 70's. Many of the bodies were later uncovered in the mass graves at the Killing Fields outside of town in the 80's.

















The place was reminiscent of Dachau, a concentration camp outside of Munich, Germany. Our knowledge of Pol Pot is limited, but the evidence presented at this museum speaks to the terror that many experienced during his reign. However, we can't know how accurate any of it is without further research, because, as we have already learned, history is told differently from opposite sides.

From the museum we took a very comfortable Tuk Tuk back across town to pick up our bags and head to the bus station. It was worthy of a pic:


We boarded our bus to Siem Reap at 10am and are excited to finally get to see the greatest set of ruins in SE Asia, Angkor Wat!

- Mattie and Julian

Location:Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Saigon

Ok, before we get in to talking about Saigon, a few lines should be written about our bus ride from Nha Trang. The bus itself was similar to our previous night bus, but about 20 years older. That's 20 more years of people sleeping in those same seats, if you know what I mean. In addition to the smell and worn away cushions, it turns out they assign some of the seats on the bus. The problem is, there's no way of knowing which ones they are. We grab a couple of decent seats in the back, and just as we start to relax, a family comes on and we are in their seats. Ok, we'll move, whatever, all the seats are the same anyway, right? WRONG! Mattie gets put in a seat that only a midget could love, and Julian's seat was just about perfect - for someone Mattie's size! So, we had the option of Mattie being comfortable and Julian being absolutely miserable or both of us suffering together... Well, we're married now so if one of us is going to suffer, both of us are. She took one for the team. Anyhow, the night was pretty miserable, but we made it to Saigon eventually.

We got off the bus and wandered around checking out a few of the hotel options, but the prices seemed a bit high so we continued to look. Finally, a woman came running down the street after us(not at all uncommon) telling us to check out her place for a good price, and she was right. The only catch was that it was above her store, a suit making shop. So, although our "lobby" was filled with silks and shoppers, the room was nice enough and we took it.

The first sight-seeing place we went to visit in the city was the War Remnants Museum. I would hardly call it a museum and more a propaganda warehouse, but it did contain some mint-condition American vehicles from the war.
CH-47:


M-41:


175mm:


UH-1H:


F-5A:


Don't know what this one is:


Back to the comment about the museum. We expected a pro-NVA, anti-American slant going in, that's only natural. But, in a museum, I also expect that stated facts be accurate, or at least accurate enough such that a person born after the war(such as myself) can't walk around pointing out about a dozen blatantly obvious lies. One room contained the following statement, "the guillotine was used by the Americans in the war in 1960," complete with a life-sized model. This is one example of many false facts we saw. Statements like this ruin the credibility of the entire exhibit and serve only to take away from the true realities that the people suffered through, as if that weren't enough. I am sure that some of what the museum says is accurate, but there is so much b.s. in there it's impossible to distinguish between fact and fiction. I was sorry that we paid 30000 Dong to see that garbage.

Moving on... We continued our sight-seeing over to the former presidential palace where NVA tanks broke through the gates in 1975, a moment that has come to define, depending on where you're from, either the Fall or the Liberation of Saigon. It had a beautifully manicured lawn, but the building had been turned into a museum, and we had had enough of those for the day.

Almost directly across the street from the palace is a large catholic church, the first we have seen in Asia. It was really surprising to see right in the heart of old Saigon.


From the church, we made our way down to the Saigon River and made a loop around the city back to our hotel. If we thought the motorbikes in other cities were crazy, we hadn't seen anything yet. At every stoplight, they're lined up like race cars, hundreds deep, engines being revved up waiting for the light to change. The crosswalks only give about two seconds of warning between green and red, so if it changes when you're in the middle, you better start running! It happened to us, but we were lucky enough to make it back to the hotel.

On to dinner... Julian has been eating lots of pizza on this trip but has largely been dis-satisfied by the quality. So, you can imagine his excitement when he saw that our hotel was next door to his favorite pizza place, Pizza Hut! Mattie, who is much more willing to experiment with the local fare, caved and let him drag her in. We went in and ordered a large, pan, meat-lovers pizza. It didn't disappoint:





Afterwards, we went back to our hotel in anticipation of the food coma which was sure to come. The next morning, we had an 8 o'clock bus to catch to Cambodia!

-Mattie and Julian

Location:Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The Beach At Last

We arrived in Nha Trang at about six in the morning and promptly found a decent hotel room about 100 meters from the beach! After dumping our bags, we decided to get right to seeing the sights since we had such a pleasant sleep on the night bus. We started out by having breakfast tacos at the Texas BBQ restaurant - it was no Rudy's, but we hadn't had tacos in awhile so it sufficed. At our hotel they were advertising for an all day boat tour that went to some of the surrounding islands leaving at 8:30, so we bought tickets. Apparently, we have been spoiled by riding catamarans around Hawaii, Mexico, and the Cayman Islands over the past couple of years, as we kind of expected the same thing. How naive we were! Here is a boat identical to ours that we were following.





But, we settled in amongst about a hundred locals/Vietnamese tourists and set off to sea.





The weather was really pretty and the scenery quite nice, but the cruise itself wasn't all that. After a couple of uninteresting stops including a lame aquarium and a crappy place to snorkel - the corals were covered in soda cans from the nearby restaurants - we pulled into a little cove and had lunch. We were on the roof by this time and lunch was served family-style to us and our "family" of about 20 Vietnamese. It wasn't very good, but it was included with the cruise and we didn't have any other options. The rice was ok.





Next was the finale of the trip that they had been selling us on all day - we were going to the "floating bar" for free red wine! Needless to say, we were unimpressed when a teenager floated out in the water and announced that he was, indeed, the floating bar:





Despite our reluctance, we jumped in the water to have some of the wine and came to a happy realization - Vietnamese(for the most part) don't like swimming, nor being in the sun! We had the "bar" to ourselves with about five other westerners and a small group of Chinese, and we weren't leaving until all the wine was gone! The locals watched from the boat in envy, but besides a couple of brave souls, they couldn't bring themselves to participate. Their loss, our gain!











After the lame-but-kind-of-cool floating bar, we rode on the roof all the way back, got some good sun, and retired to our hotel for the day.











The next day we bought tickets for another night bus to head to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, as it was renamed after the war. Night buses are great for travel, but they leave you kind of homeless for the day. We left our bags with our hotel and figured the best way to spend the day was to relax on the beach. This turned out to be a great idea, as, since we mentioned previously, the locals aren't fans of the sun. So, here we are sitting on this huge beach(miles long) in the middle of a really big city, and there aren't more than a hundred people out here - incredible!





It was sunny, near 90 degrees, the water was warm and the beach itself was great. If it were in southern Europe or California you wouldn't be able to find a spot to sit, and here it was deserted. There were a few chairs set up so we rented a pair for the day and took it easy.





Of course, there was no lack of vendors, and a couple of them were selling fresh seafood. We bought a huge lobster, crab, and shrimp and they went off to cook it for us. It looked really good, but we didn't expect very much from the cooks - we were wrong! Best lobster ever!











The lobster and crab were about a kilo each, but I think we could have eaten twice as much - it was so good. With full bellies and the sun going down, we decided to go wait for our bus and say goodbye to the beach - for now!

This night bus wasn't quite what we were expecting after our last one, but that's another story for another posting!

-Mattie and Julian

Location:Nha Trang, Vietnam

First Valentine's Day!

Hoi An is something of a shoppers paradise. If you're into custom made clothes, shoes, belts, or purses, this is where you come to get them - cheap! The streets are literally lined with tailor after tailor, hundreds of them, ready to make you an entire custom suit in a matter of hours! However, we found most of the material to be pretty cheap itself, so we didn't make any purchases.

We spent our first Valentine's Day as a married couple here in Hoi An, Vietnam. We found a nice restaurant with a good view over the river and "splurged!" Here is Julian with one of the local specialties, hoanh thanh chien, or fried wonton things.











After dinner we went out for a drink and came across a pool table. Mattie's not very good, but Julian found a suitable opponent, a local pool shark.

















For every full moon, the entire town is lit by lanterns - no street lights.
We weren't there for the full moon festival, but we were close and got to see the some of the lanterns anyway.

















The following day, we hiked out to An Banh Beach to spend the time since our sleep bus to Nha Trang didn't leave until the evening. It was gorgeous and not crowded at all, but it was also super windy and therefore cold. We tried to take a little nap and then had lunch and headed back.












Here we are on our first sleeper bus! Don't worry, those seats recline pretty much all the way back. A fairly pleasant experience!






- Mattie and Julian

Location:Hoi An, Vietnam

Good Morning, Vietnam!!

Everyone we encountered in Hue was nice and friendly. We weren't seen as walking ATM's and nobody tied to scam us (that we know of). It was quite a refreshing change from what we experienced in Vientiane. This may just have something to do with the stage their tourism industry is in, but regardless, this has been our experience.

Our lovely bus drivers kicked us off the bus in the middle of the road. We had no idea where we were and we were being hassled by a million guys to take a ride on their xe om, or motorcycle. We eventually got far enough away to pull out a map and get our bearings. As we made our way to the hotel area we had our first experience trying the cross the road. There are so many people on motorcycles and bicycles and they are all driving like a bunch of crazies... We found it's best to just walk and they usually go around you! We also saw a pretty bad motorcycle accident and that has sufficiently scared us into never renting a motorbike, ever! I'm pretty sure that the only cars on the road are taxis and tourist buses, no locals own cars.

The first day we just walked around town and rested, since there wasn't much of that on the bus ride. That night we were invited to join the family that was running our hotel for dinner. We had rice soup with chicken and for dessert, we had a green bean pudding type thing... We were scared to try it at first due to it's name, but we didn't want to be rude, so we ate it and it wasn't all that bad.

The next day we went on a De-Militarized Zone(DMZ) tour. The DMZ was a 10km strip of no-man's land straddling the Ben Hai River, near the 17th parallel, which divided Vietnam before the war.


As we drove north, it was interesting to think about the history of the area we were covering. When you begin to filter out the satellite dishes, communist flags, power lines, advertisements, and other modern changes, you realize that you are seeing the same place that so many American soldiers saw on their way to the front so many years ago. The same animals, foliage, rivers, landscape and people:

















Our tour began with a stop at a place known as "The Rockpile," which was a tall rocky peak where American artillery was placed to support surrounding bases and patrols near the DMZ.


They had a picture from during the war, so I tried to get a pic from a similar location to see the changes.
Then:


Now:


Our next stop was the highly anticipated Ho Chi Minh Trail, and we were imagining a rudimentary dirt trail, concealed below dense layers of jungle canopy. Unfortunately, the part of the trail that we visited is now known as the Ho Chi Minh Highway.


However, there was a small monument commemorating the trail, along with a river crossing where no bridge existed.





We were very near the Laos border, and the tour guide explained that during the rainy season, another of the main arteries of the trail that crossed into Laos was used.

From there we continued on to Khe Sanh, home of an large American base during the early parts of the war. It was attacked in early 1968 and was abandoned later that year. More than 200 American troops were killed there during the attack, along with several thousand North Vietnamese Army(NVA) soldiers. There is a small museum on the grounds of the base which contained some good relics from the war, if you could stand to sort through the propaganda.
UH-1H:


M-41:


155mm:


Airfield (I'm pretty sure it was reconstructed):


Finally, our last stop was at the Vinh Moc tunnels, on the north side of the DMZ. This was where a village of 300 or so people built tunnels and spent most of their time underground for nearly 6 years to avoid bombing, as the village was helping the North Vietnamese Army transfer supplies to sea. It was cold and wet, literally within 50 meters of the South China Sea.


A family of four is said to have lived in rooms such as these:


Here I am in one for scale:


One of the exits:


That concluded the interesting parts of our DMZ tour. We should mention that many of the facts mentioned here come from local sources, which we have found to be somewhere in the range between somewhat accurate to total b.s. With that said, if we have made any errors, feel free to let me know so we can fix them.

Next stop - Hoi An!

- Mattie and Julian

Location:Hue, Vietnam