Part 2 of 2 (chronologically screwed up, I admit)

The launch point of our holiday was Bangkok. Bangkok was chosen as a place to ease in to Asia, experience software and DVDs at low, low prices and to visit some wats (temples). The first couple of days were spent meandered along the mighty Choa Phraya river, visiting the royal place, locating an interesting fertility temple, shopping, being massaged and planning the rest of the trip.

After a couple of days, we decided to move on to Cambodia with two goals in mind:
1) to see famous Angkor Wat and surrounding temples and
2) to understand something of the country’s history with Pol Pot and the killing fields

Entrance in to Cambodia was a bureaucrats dream. Arriving in Siam Riep airport, a production line of six officials, each with a stamp and an open palm, pass you on towards your dream aspiration - getting out of the airport.

One of the first things you then notice in Cambodia, or rather do not notice, are the roads. Rather then “road”, a better description would be “great swathes of uneven orange dust trails cut between jungle, fields and houses” - and road “repair” consists of dumping a pile of dirt in the middle of a track and spreading it around a bit.

After an all too brief night, we were up at 4:00am to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Here you join a hording tourist stampede, stumbling around in the dark prior to this auspicious event. Once you can actually see the temple, there is a common intake of breath as its stunning form emerges from the blackness and you get up close to examine the intricate reliefs.

From Angkor Wat, we visited umpteen other Wats, including:

• the Banteay Srei, so beautiful that only a woman could have created it yeah, right
• Ta Prohm, which was the film set for the Tomb Raider film (and has some amazing trees) and
• Beng Mealea, my favourite, which was about an hour away from the rest, but is how I think a temple should be. Totally ruined and over-run by the jungle, it was like discovering it for the first time (but luckily the local guides showed us where it was safe to put our feet).

To get from Siam-Riep to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, a boat trip on Tonle Sap Lake beckoned (at least there are no roads). We took the fast boat (6 hours) for the ca 280 km trip, as the slow boat (36 hours) has been attacked several times by pirates.

Phnom Penh is what I expect the old wild, wild, west was like. It is a wheeling, dealing town, with everyone trying to make a buck to basically survive. Here was the heart of Cambodia, and where in 1975 Pol Pot (meaning brother #1) and his Khmer Rouge party forced the country in to 4 year of becoming a “rural utopia” and ruining much of it in the process.

After coming to power, Pol Pot started by destroying all churches, cinemas, theaters and schools and forcing everyone to work the land. All intellectuals (defined as those people with long hair or that wore glasses) were interred and brutally tortured in the S-21 prison camp (a converted school). After a couple of horrendous months, they were driven out to the killing fields and beaten to death (bullets were too expensive). All in all over 200,000 people were killed and 1.5 million died of malnutrition. A memorial in one of the fields had hundreds of skulls (sorted by sex and age) and the surrounding grounds, where human bones and old clothes regularly surface, were deeply moving.

Those responsible for the atrocities (which ended in 1979 when Vietnam invaded) have still not been bought to trial (including Pol Pot, who died a free man in the Cambodian jungle in 1998). This has bought much unrest and even the reigning king is pretty unpopular. The problem is how to bring the Cambodia up from a 3rd world to a 2nd world country.

In some respects this is working, by jumping technology generations e.g. as there are no telephone lines, they are switching to wireless technology, under which resides the whole of Phnom Penh (supplying a ubiquitous internet and phone network). However, years of physical infrastructure neglect can not be undone quickly; there is a single post box I found in Phnom Penh and a “petrol station” is a table on the side of the road with wine bottles, each containing a liter. I would really like to help these people, but I do not know how. However, a few thousand tons of tarmac would be an excellent first step.

Part 1 of 2

Upon entering Vietnam, most of the senses experience overload, not least of which is hearing, a veritable cacophony of sound assails you as you leave the airport. Taxi drivers, street sellers and hotel touts shout for your attention. But this is not all. The main noise starts at 5:30am (sunrise) with loud music accompanying aerobic workouts at the lake side. Hundreds of people play badminton and swing swords (although not at the same time) and exchange news and gossip until 7:00, when all mysteriously disappear - leaving a few notes left hanging in the air. From then on the traffic noise really gets going. This is not just the roar of the car engines, but the literally thousands of motor scooters that constantly beep at each other to establish right of way. This incessant noise never stops, regardless of where you are.

Even in the remotest areas of the country, you are additionally bombarded with cries of “you buy from me - I have big size for you”. Noise pollution and indirectly insulting foreign visitors is big in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese people are incredibly resourceful, which is reflected in daily life and is highlighted in the country’s museum. For example during the Vietnamese “Police Action” (the US never got round to classifying it as a war) every “advantage” the US forces has was turned against them. The larger sized Americans were trapped in the underground tunnels (the Vietnamese could run through them bent at the waist). The plethora of US bombs dropped provided raw materials (metal and explosives) for the Vietnamese to make horrific weapons and traps. While the Americans were left with soggy uniforms and boots, the locals ditched their uniforms and used old US tires to make sandals, so feet dried quickly. US bombing runs, supposedly killers, compacted the earth and strengthened the underground tunnel network. The list goes on and on. No wonder the US resorted to pouring 72 million liters of agent orange on the country, the horrendous side effects (birth defects) is still being felt.

The Vietnamese are a proud race and it shows in the blatant propaganda. Funnily though, chickens and ducks seem to play a big when towing the party line. A film at the underground Cu Chi tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) starts off informing us about the “US antagonists bombing and killing many innocent women, children, ducks and chickens”. At the “Hanoi Hilton” prison camp in HCMC (aka Saigon) a pamphlet sent back to the families of the detainees show them making friends with the chickens and ducks as well. This poultry fascination may well have something to do with the huge number of eggs consumed. We will not go in to the eating of dogs though.

After HCMC the next stop was Hanoi, with its fascinating old town - each street is home to a cluster of shops selling identical produce. It is interesting to walk down Hang Mam Street to find 8 shops all selling pickled fish, or Hang Manh for bamboo screens and my favourite, Hang Loc for the comb localities. After a good walk in the old town, we unwound with a display of water puppets, although after an hour of misunderstanding, a good drowning would have brightened proceedings.

Hanoi was also a launch point for 2 tours, one train journey almost to the Chinese boarder and to the breath-taking (figuratively and, due to the altitude, literally) mountains and rice terraces of Sapa. Here the inclement weather and mud made walking on the edge of the paddies quite treacherous (OK, I admit it, I fell in). The other trip was a cruise in Ha Long bay and out to Cat Ba Island with its 3,000 neighboring islands, floating villages and caves. This was some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen.

Vietnam is a fascinating place and the economy will go far due to the friendly, hard working and noisy population (50% of which is under 30). It is also internationally poised as most of the people have a good smattering of English (with a few glaring mistakes, such as the medical questionnaire, you will out on entering the country, which asks if you are suffering from “oblivion”).

However, they do need to shake off the government controlled thing. Limits on 2 children per house, curbs on Internet sites and censorship of books is holding them back. Personally, I think a decent metro system in the major towns would go a long way (pun intended) - strange these have not been built yet - they have already proved themselves good tunnelers.