Asian adventure

The last post

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 05:41:00 +0000

After a needlessly long and complex journey from blissful Koh Jum, Amanda and I arrived in Phuket Town - which is nowhere near as awful as we'd been told.

Everyone we met along our travels warned us about Phuket: 'Horrible. Horrible!'

But I'm pretty sure they were talking about Patong, the island's main beach. It's supposed to be Thailand's answer to the Gold Coast or Benidorm. But Phuket Town, the island's capital, has its charms.

It's not on the beach at all, and is a Thai city for Thais rather than a resort for tourists. We were reminded of a Chiang Mai-On-Sea, and it was nice to end our trip in a real Asian city - with busy streets and bustling markets.

Phuket also has a colonial past - both Chinese and Portuguese - and that's left a nice little legacy of streets packed with pretty and historic little shophouses and fading, European-style hotels.

Admittedly, it's only a few streets and a couple of hours is all it takes to see them. It's interesting that Phuket makes little noise about these lovely buildings - preferring to point tourists straight to the beach. You get the feeling that perhaps they'd really rather keep Phuket Town for themselves. I don't blame them.

We wandered about for a day, taking our time and going nowhere in particular until it came time to jump aboard a taxi for the airport and fly out of Phuket, out of Thailand, and out of Asia.

Leaving one Asian town seemed familiar enough, but not arriving in a new one was a strange feeling after six months on the road. The Asian adventure was finally at an end.

While it's a little sad saying good bye to Asia, there's a lot to look forward to: seeing my native Australia for the first time in seven years, catching up with friends and, best of all, enjoying my first family Christmas in 13 years.

And Amanda and I have some memories to treasure. The past six months has been the greatest of our lives, an eventful and thrilling adventure through some of the most interesting and exotic places in the world.

Highlights? It's tough to pick some favourite moments, but if pressed to pick a top three it would probably be the slow boat down the Mekong, Hanoi and Angkor Wat.

But then there was also tooling around the DMZ with a former South Vietnam soldier, climbing Thailand's third-highest mountain (and somehow surviving) and, of course, spending nearly two months actually living in Chiang Mai - immersing ourselves in genuine Thai culture.

I could go on and on like this, but I won't. As for lowlights, well, the only one I can think of is Hoi An, and at least that was a learning experience - Amanda and I learned never to go there again!

Even the travelling itself has been fun, mainly thanks to the astonishing variety of local transport we've found along the way. We've been on planes, trains, boats, cars and motorbikes. Small planes and big planes, long boats, speed boats and row boats, buses, song thaews, tuks tuks and motorcycles. For a while, it seemed as though every town or city we arrived in had found a new and novel way of getting us about.

We learned a lot about Asia and Asians along the way. We discovered that travelling around Asia is a lot easier than you'd expect - we felt as safe there as anywhere in Europe, and often a lot more welcome. On the whole, the people of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia are the friendliest, warmest and most generous people you could meet anywhere.

Up until July, neither Amanda and I knew the region at all - I had been to Bangkok for a few days and Singapore for a weekend, and that was it - and now we've been all over South East Asia.

And this fascinating new region we've discovered is not a long-haul destination for us any more, to be visited only ocassionally. Now that we live in Australia, Asia is in the neighbourhood - like the Continent was when we were living in the UK.

So we're looking forward to coming back again and again, and discovering somewhere and something new every time.

And so now I'm coming to the end of my final blog post. I've enjoyed writing it even more than I expected, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, too. I've not won an Oscar, but I feel I should thank some people for the whole experience...

I think I've already thanked Asia and Asians for giving us a such a great time and welcoming us into their countries, their cities and their homes.

I should also thank a certain online media corporation for inadvertently and reluctantly paying for the whole thing - they know who they are!

And thanks to Amanda for sharing the whole trip with me, and making it all so exciting and worthwhile. If you're looking for a travel partner, you couldn't find a better one than Amanda - except she's mine, so go get your own.

And thanks to everyone who regularly read our blogs (Amanda's got one, too, but I'm sure you know that!), especially to the many people who took the time to leave comments. A special thanks goes to one Dominic Greves, who made the effort to leave insightful and witty comments on practically every post I wrote - Dom, it was like you were with us at times!

And foreign adventures aren't over for good. There are still many other places to visit in the world and I know one day we'll visit them - and blog about them.

So does anyone know how much a one-way ticket to South America costs?

The rocks of Ting Rai Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 06:33:00 +0000

When Amanda and I arrived at Ting Rai Bay, we were disappointed in one aspect of the place. The welcome was warm, the weather was perfect, the bungalow was comfortable and the beach was beautiful - so it wasn't any of those.

No, it was the rocks. As our longtail pulled into the beach after one very long journey, the water was so shallow that it couldn't quite reach the beach.

As we climbed out and into the inches-deep waters, one of the staff warned us to keep our shoes on - we looked down and saw why. The floor of the sea was positively carpeted with rocks. Big ones, little ones, sharp ones and flat ones.

I turned to Amanda and said 'this place is great, but we won't be able to swim'. We were feeling a little disappointed.

We can't have been the first to think this, because Tam, the lovely owner, immediately told us not to worry. The tide was especially low right then, she said, because the moon was full. Wait until the next morning and everything will be perfect, she said.

We smiled but we doubted her - the tide would have to come a long way up the beach to cover all those rocks. But the next morning, I woke up and stepped out of the bungalow and onto our balcony to look down on a welcome sight.

The tide had come in and, as promised, it had come in a dramatically long way and all we could see was dreamy clear blue waters lapping a now much, much smaller beach. We walked down for a dip and found the rocks had receded to the depths of the sea - you'd need diving equipment to reach them now.

In the two-and-a-half weeks we were there, we got very used to the dramatic differences between the low and high tides: the high waters perfect for swimming and the low tide transforming the beach into a bleak but beautiful rocky landscape.

And there's a story behind those rocks - they are the scars of the small part this little beach played in very recent and very traumatic history. Once this beach boasted nothing more than blonde sands, no matter how low the tide was.

Then the Tsunami came.

On Boxing Day in 2004, not even three years ago, while the guests of the bungalows slept or ate breakfast up on the hill, a wave of unimaginable force pounded the pretty little beach, bringing with it countless thousands of rocks from the depths of the ocean.

Tam told us how the staff first noticed that the waters were rapidly receding and a high tide suddenly turned into the lowest tide any of them had ever seen. The approaching Tsunami was sucking the waters ahead of it, but they didn't know that.

Tam said she and a few others walked a little way down the hill to investigate, and then they saw it. Far offshore was a thin but solid band of white breaking water, forming a long line that reached from one end of the horizon to the other.

And it was moving towards them very, very quickly. They continued to watch until it hit, first from the right of the beach, then from the left of the beach and finally right through the centre. This last one was the most powerful but, Tam told us, they didn't see that one - they were fleeing up the hill as fast as they could run by then.

Fortunately for all on Koh Jum, the island is steep and even a wave that powerful couldn't make it very far inland. Nearby Koh Phi Phi was not so lucky - built on a flat sandbar, the wave hit from the front and the back and at least 2,000 people died.

Besides a few broken arms and legs, no one on Koh Jum was hurt - but much was still damaged. At Ting Rai Bay, a longtail was deposited in the branches of a tree that is now high above the water.

Further down the beach, a longtail lies high on the beach - destroyed by the killer wave. It now looks like the skeleton of a long dead dinosaur, languishing among the new rocks of Ting Rai Bay. Destroyed with it was someone's livelihood.

And at the other end of the beach lie huge dead trees, roots and all. They were ripped out of the earth and dragged back to the beach as the tsunami eventually retreated into the sea.

At Ting Rai Bay, only the beach-side bar was close enough to the waters to be touched - and it was destroyed. Replacing it must have been expensive.

Expensive, too, was clearing the beach of rocks. They were everywhere - far more than there is now - and many couldn't be lifted even by several burly locals. Earth-moving equipment had to be hired.

And when the climate here means you can only open for six months of the year, this is not the sort of expense that's easy to bear in the middle of the high season. Even worse, the guests who were there at the time left immediately and tourists stayed away for years. They're only now beginning to come back.

Times have been tough since the Tsunami.

But that's nothing compared to the personal toll of the Tsunami. Mango, the older of the three brothers who serve and entertain everyone at Ting Rai Bay, told me sadly that he lost one of his closest friends at nearby Kao Lak.

Although no one died at Koh Jum, Mango told me that everyone he knows - and everyone in this huge part of Thailand - knows someone, or was related to someone, that was killed by the wave. Most know many more than just one.

Homes and businesses were destroyed by the tsunami or by the disappearance of the tourist trade that followed it. Many locals had to move away from beaches and islands and lives they loved.

But now things are getting better. New longtails have been launched, destroyed buildings have been replaced and people are moving back to the Andaman coast. And the tourists are returning in droves.

It's almost as if the Tsunami never happened. But when the tide is low, those rocks reappear, and they will never go away.

I'm a tourist, get me out of here!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:14:00 +0000

I'm beginning to think Amanda and I have recently angered the gods of travel, if our ill-fated day-trip to Koh Phi Phi is anything to go by.

After enjoying a week on our secluded and tranquil beach – doing little more than swimming, reading and eating, we decided it was time to see the local sights. The place to go around here is Koh Phi Phi, a little chain of islands – a national park - famed for their almost supernatural beauty.

So on Saturday morning we climbed aboard a longtail boat for the hour's journey from our island of Koh Jum, along with a charming Dutch family – the children are our age on a year-long sojourn around the world, and their parents joined them for a sunny holiday in Thailand.

It was a windy day and the hour-and-a-half trip to our first stop, a place called Bamboo Island, was a little on the rough side – but fortunately uneventful. We arrived to find an island straight out of central casting: brilliant white sands rising out of stunningly turquoise waters and fringed with palm trees. And Bamboo Island is not even the prettiest place we would see that day.

All the islands around Koh Phi Phi are famed not only for their beauty, but for the swarms of tourists who come to appreciate it. But on that morning we were alone on the beach but for some friendly local fisherman tending to their catches of crabs.

We all went snorkelling for a while, but the water was very shallow and there's not much to see. All these islands were hit very hard by the tsunami three years ago, and where there used to be abundant living coral there is now just a vast bed of shattered dead coral. There's new life poking through here and there, but I suspect it will be years before this part of the sea has fully recovered.

After lounging around on the fine, white sands, we got back in the boat for an hour's journey to Koh Phi Phi Leh. Koh Phi Phi is made up of two islands, the main one is Koh Phi Phi Don – where you can eat and sleep – and the smaller is Koh Phi Phi Leh, which is not inhabited.

If you've seen The Beach, then you've seen Koh Phi Phi Leh. It's the where Leo Decaprio finds his backpacker's paradise. But the film put it firmly on the tourist map, and no one who comes near here misses it.

And with good reason. If you've seen the film and wondered if they made it look as spectacular as they did with a little creative effects, then I'm here to tell you that they didn't. If anything, it's even more beautiful in real life.

The famous beach is surrounded by enormous rocky cliffs that rise high in the sky, and which circle the beach almost completely to form a sort of tropical lagoon. As our boat rounded the cliffs and entered the lagoon, we all gasped. I've seen a lot of beautiful beaches – I'm Australian, after all – but I've never seen one to match this.

The water is so clear it could have been shipped in by the Evian people, but at the same time manages to be a shade of turquoise that doesn't even seem possible. The sands of the beach are the whitest I've ever seen – in the bright sunlight it's almost blinding.

And, of course, it's packed with boats like ours filled with sightseers like us. And being a national park, there's a fee to get out of your boat and onto the beach. We hadn't been told this and didn't have enough cash on us (we were planning to get some money out at the town on Koh Phi Phi Don).

But the beach was so crowded with sunbathers and – sadly – rubbish that we weren't fussed. We jumped aboard the boat and our boatmen headed back to the centre of the lagoon so we could snorkel. The water is so clear that you can see all the coral as if it were inches below you, even though the water is actually some four or five metres deep. And the coral was largely untouched by the tsunami, thanks to the sheltering arms of the surrounding cliffs.

And diving in, we discovered that the lagoon is teeming with life. There were hundreds of fish just inches in front of my face – completely unafraid of us. We counted dozens of kinds of brightly coloured tropical fish, jellyfish and coral. As Don, one of our Dutch friends said, it was more like an aquarium than the sea.

Our new friends had an underwater camera, and shot some great photos of the local aquatic wildlife....

And the lagoon is easily large enough to accommodate a lot of people snorkelling in it without feeling crowded or busy. We spent a long time there, and found it hard to pull ourselves away.

Incidentally, one of the people staying in our bungalows caused a little local ruckus when he came here on the same tour a few days before us. This guy, a vaguely creepy Norwegian who may or not be the navy diver he claims to be, took it upon himself to dive to the ocean floor here and chisel a huge clam off the coral and bring it back with him.

While it didn't concern him that clam was an endangered species and this is a national park, it certainly outraged an older Canadian guy who is also staying here. He wrote a long J'accuse-style notice condemning all who went on the tour and demanded the staff post it in the restaurant. They did – but only while he was there. As soon as he left, they'd hide it so none of the accused guests would see it. A little soap opera can enliven any holiday.

But the clam got its revenge in the end: the Norwegian got the staff to barbecue it and he ended up spending a couple of uncomfortable days with acute food poisoning.

We weren't tempted to take anything away with us apart from photographs, and were soon on our way to Ko Phi Phi Don – and that's when it started to get a little hairy. The wind had picked up and our wooden boat was being mercilessly bullied by big waves. Each wave would smash into the side and we would all hold our breath as it shuddered. It wasn't far to go, but we all got off the boat relieved and soaking wet.

Koh Phi Phi Don is also a stunningly beautiful place – two mountainous islands connected by a big sandbar and a gorgeous beach – but it's all rather ruined by Koh Phi Phi town.

The town is actually built on the sandbar itself, and has everything you'd never imagine could possibly be built on mere sand: Bars, multi-story hotels, paved roads, ATMs and plumbing.

All of this was destroyed by the tsunami in 2004 – which swept over the town from both sides and killed thousands – but it was very rapidly rebuilt. Now the only sign of the recent disaster is the 'I Survived' shirts on sale at every shop.

Which is a shame, because it's a horrible place. It's packed to the gills with young party people. It boasts German bars showing German football and serving German food to German people, and English pubs showing English football and serving English food to English people. And French bars... well, you get the picture.

There's nothing Thai about it - you could be at any beach resort anywhere in the world, which is why we nicknamed it Koh Ibiza.

Koh Ibiza is also terribly expensive. There's no doubt it's catering to young Europeans who have saved up all year to go on a raucous two-week bender in the sun.

But we were meant to be there only for a couple of hours, so the cost wasn't bothering any of us much. A couple of beers, a chat and back on the boat home, that was the plan.

So much for the plan. We had barely put Koh Phi Phi behind us when our boatmen decided to turn around and go back. And we thanked our stars he did – that short voyage felt like a scene from The Perfect Storm.

OK, I'm exaggerating. But the wind was fierce and the waves were even bigger and more threatening now. We would watch in fear as a wave picked up the boat until the prow was pointing up at the sky, and hold it there for a frightening moment that seemed never to end. Then the boat would be thrust back into a deep trough between the waves with bone-rattling force. Over and over and over.

So now we were stuck in Koh Ibiza. Amanda went to hunt down some rooms for us – not so easy at the end of the day, and in the high season. Standards were low, but prices were high. At first she couldn't even find a room anywhere, but eventually three materialised – for a whopping 2100 baht each. Ouch.

It was officially the most expensive hotel room of our entire trip. And the worst. In the rest of Thailand, 2100 baht will buy you a palatial suite, with a a big TV, luxury breakfast and all the conveniences you can imagine. On Koh Phi Phi, it didn't even get us a complimentary bar of soap in the shower. But, hey, the loud nightclub next door and the 100% pure nylon bed sheets were a nice touch.

At least we got to eat dinner watching a beautiful pink-and-orange sunset over the many dozens of longtail boats parked on the beach.

The next morning we all gratefully clambered aboard the boat – in which our poor boatman was forced to spend the night – as the sun was coming up. The family with us were catching a flight out of Krabi that very afternoon, and Amanda and I were just as keen to get the hell out of Koh Phi Phi.

The ocean that morning was not the one that forced us back the afternoon before. It was still a little choppy, but the waves were more playful than menacing. An hour and a half later and we were back on our beach in Koh Jum – no ATMs, no faux-English pubs, no thumping dance music.

No wonder I kissed the sands of Koh Jum as I finally tumbled from the boat.

As usual, there are lots of my photos of Koh Phi Phi right here

The long way to paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:21:00 +0000

Kanchanaburi over with, it was time to set sail for Koh Jum, the paradise island where Amanda and I were planning to spend the last few weeks of our trip.

It was always going to be a long haul south, but it turned out to be much harder than we'd imagined.

You see, Koh Jum is remote. It's a little off the usual Thai-beach tourist trail, unlike the islands around it that are said to be as beautiful, but crowded and expensive. Koh Jum – also known as Koh Phu – barely rates a mention in any guide book.

Best of all is the arrival: the regular tourist ferries only pass Koh Jum, they don't stop there. So a small longtail boat is sent out to meet the ferry that plies its way between Krabi and Koh Jum, and you climb off the big ship and into the little boat for the short cruise to the island.

Amanda and I thought this would be a great way to arrive. The romantic vision of leaping off a crowded ferry and waving goodby to bemused tourists as we headed for our own private tropical island kept us going through the cramped, two-hour minibus ride back to Bangkok.

But it was not to be.

Unlike our last trip south, we got to the train with plenty of time. We even had the time to buy novels for the beach and check the internet – to discover to our unalloyed joy that that vile racist reactionary John Howard had been resoundly beaten in the election back home.

We celebrated with a few beers on the train and climbed into our beds with dreams of sunsets over the white sands and blue waters of Koh Jum.

And that's where it started to go wrong. I woke up at three in the morning to find that our mobile dormitory on rails had transformed itself into a very stationary hotel on the tracks. The train had broken down.

For nearly four long hours it stood there, going nowhere, and our chances of catching the ferry from Krabi to Koh Jum were slowly evaporating.

When the train finally arrived at Surat Thani – at 10.30am instead of 6.30am – the buses to take us further south to Krabi were still waiting for us. But that was the last piece of good news we were to get in a while.

The coach took us some of the way, but we were soon crammed into the back of yet another minibus, for yet another two hour drive. We knew we'd never catch the 11am ferry from Krabi, but the 2pm version looked a definite possibility.

We arrived in Krabi – now with two other Australians we met on the train, who liked the sound of Koh Jum and joined in the fun – at 1.30pm and headed straight for the ferry terminal. We were elated... we could still catch the 2pm ferry!

Except that the 2pm ferry didn't exist. Apparently, the second boat is in dry dock at the moment.

Amanda got on the phone to the Ting Rai Bay Resort, where we were supposed to be staying for the next couple of weeks (Incidentally, it's not actually a resort, just some bungalows on the beach). The owner told us to get a taxi south, from where a boat would be sent to pick us up.

So we piled into a taxi for an hour's trip south. We arrived in a scruffy little town which boasted a wooden pier. The boat to pick us up was 10 minutes away.

That would have been perfect, had it not been for two insane and hysterical older French women (it's always the French), who were intent on muscling in on our ride.

They weren't staying in the same place, but somewhere else on the same island, and they didn't want to catch the normal express boat to the main port of Jum. Instead they wanted to divert our boat to save themselves the princely sum of 100 baht.

OK, fine. We were all too tired to argue. If only the same were true for our French friends, who continued to argue the toss with the bemused staff at the pier. They wanted to continue to bargain down the price, and confusion reigned.

Suddenly a man appeared with a sunny smile. 'Ting Rai Bay Resort?' he asked. That's us! We followed him down the pier and onto his boat. It was only 20 metres or so, but the French women insisted on being driven there, which further slowed us down.

And while we sat on the boat, they continued to argue and argue and argue. The staff at the pier got annoyed. Our boat driver got annoyed. The passengers on the express boat next to us – the ones the French women refused to pay an extra 100 baht to get on, even though it was going precisely where they wanted to go – were getting annoyed.

And we were getting very, very annoyed.

As this dragged on, our boatman gave us a knowing grin. We understood immediately and all four of us urged him to go – just go! He pushed away the boat, started the engine and, with the French woman screaming after us, pulled away from the pier and into the open ocean.

For good measure, we all gave them a cheery wave goodbye from the boat. They looked furious. And then, just to add to our joy, the express boat – their only remaining chance to get to the island – decided to do the same, and left them fuming on the pier, boatless.

We rounded Koh Jum and in an hour were jumping off the boat and wading through the water and onto a tranquil and secluded beach. It was everything we had hoped for: beautiful and peaceful.

There are only 14 bungalows, so not a lot of people around. The electricity is from a generator and only comes on in the evening (but somehow you can always get a cold beer, so someone has their priorities straight). And the sunsets are the most beautiful we've seen.

And it only took 28 hours, two minibuses, two taxis, a coach, a train and a boat to get here.

Riding the Death Railway

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:23:00 +0000

For such a pretty little town, Kanchanaburi has a very nasty history.

North of Bangkok and nestling against the picturesque River Kwai, Kanchanaburi was the setting for The Death Railway. Here, during World War II, imperial Japan sacrificed hundreds of thousands of prisoners to build a vital rail link to its conquered Burmese territories.

As is the way with these things, what was once the site of such misery is now the source of fascination for millions, and tourists flock here every year to see the famous bridge over the River Kwai and to ride the Death Railway.

Amanda I hopped onto a packed mini-bus for the two-hour ride to Kanchanaburi from Bangkok yesterday. Many travellers just visit for the day, leaving the capital early in the morning and returning late in the evening.

But we thought it deserved a little more time than that and, fortunately, we were right.

Our first stop was the Death Railway Museum, a short walk from our guest house. There are several museums devoted to the infamous railway in town, but this one is supposed to be the best. It's small but fascinating and informative.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese are many and varied, and recounted in full in the museum. It tells of how thousands of captured Allied soldiers were shipped here and to Burma to build the railway, living and working in the most inhumane conditions possible to build a railway through some of the toughest terrain and in the most squalid conditions imaginable. Very few survived.

The whole Death Railway experience tends to focus on the ordeals of the Allied soldiers, mainly Brits, Australians and the Dutch – 16,000 Allied POWS died building the railway. But, and I didn't know this, the museum informed me that the number of Asians killed was far, far greater – something like 100,000.

Most of them were labourers left unemployed and desperate by the war raging around them, and were tricked by the Japanese into coming to work on the railroad. They were told there would be work for them. Of course, there was no shortage of work – there was just no pay, no days off, and no escape.

Next to the museum is the beautiful and poignant Don Rak cemetery, where 6,982 POW graves are set out in neat rows. The Thais are deeply respectful people and they take great care to look after these graves and keep the cemetery immaculate. It's very touching.

It's sobering and sad to wander the grounds of the cemetery and read some of the thousands of names of young men who died unwillingly serving the Japanese war effort. As we walked among the graves, the sun began to set and all was missing was the distant strains of The Last Post.

When the cemetery closed, we grabbed a song thaew and raced upriver to see the sunset over the River Kwai and its famous bridge. It doesn't look much like the one in the film, but it turns out the film wasn't all that accurate, anyway.

Instead of being destroyed by commando sabatoeurs, the bridge was badly damaged by Allied bombers towards the end of the war. But it was long ago repaired and is still authentic and in regular use – it even has wooden guard posts with Rising Sun flags at regular intervals. And unlike most rail bridges, you're welcome to wander across it when the trains aren't using it.

Amanda and I strode on to it, and it's a bit of a hairy crossing. The tracks are only a metre wide, and then there is an unguarded and very long drop into the river on both sides. That wouldn't be a problem if there weren't thousands of people trying to cross it and, inevitably, take photos of themselves while they do it.

I would be very surprised if tourists don't regularly fall off the bridge. Particularly annoying are the busloads of Japanese tourists – I know they have as much right to be here as anyone else but I was surprised to see them here, frankly – who push and shove anyone and everyone aside in their haste to see the bridge and leave. Anyone would think they built the bloody thing.

We didn't even make it halfway, fleeing the bridge and instead watching the sun set over it from the banks below. It was a beautiful sight.

The next morning we did what every tourist who comes to Kanchanaburi does – we rode the Death Railway.

We headed for the station to catch the 10.30am train and bought our tickets. You wouldn't know it, but you can ride the route with the locals for just a few baht, but the staff want you to buy the 300 baht tourist ticket. Fair enough, you get a guaranteed window seat and the ride is pointless without one, so we paid the full fare.

The train takes you across the bridge and to a place called Nam Tok, about two hours away. The route is often described as Thailand's most scenic train ride. I can't be certain of that, but it's certainly very pretty – through rice paddiesand farmers' crops, and past pretty little towns and stations. And always with some impressive mountains marking the Thai/Burmese border in the distance.

The tourist carriage is identical to the one used by the locals – wooden seats facing each other – but 300 baht buys you some comfortable cushions and some free coffee and snacks. You even get a certificate to prove you rode the railway. And see if you can resist whistling Colonel Bogey as you cross the bridge.

The words on the certificate are as charming as they are incomprehensible: 'The train ride passes the sorrow of the nation to the era of beauty and peaceful moments given lovingly by Mother Nature.' And: 'The voice of the jungle brings back memories from the real soul of the human nature out of this busy world.'

It's hot outside but the windows are down and the breeeze is blowing through the carriage. The view is varied and spectacular. All in all, it's a grand day out.

Which seems ironic given the horrendous cost of building this picturesque stretch of railway - endless suffering and countless lives.

The POWs who were forced to build it didn't get comfortable cushions, free coffee and snacks, or a certificate suitable for framing. They got dysentry, typhoid, cholera and malaria. They got the life beaten out of them by brutal Japanese soldiers. They got buried.

It's impossible to forget the horrors of the Death Railway as you take the two-hour ride. Especially when you pass some of the more shockingly tough terrain. At one point, we travelled through thirty-metre-deep solid rock cuttings, dug at a place called Arrow Hill. Someone had to dig through that solid rock, against their will and with little more than a pickaxe. Few who did survived.

Even more spectacular is a spot near the end of the line where POWs had to build an enormous wooden trestle bridge high above the river, clinging to a bare stone cliff for some 300 metres. I could hardly believe it would even have been possible. Every man who worked on that bridge died.

Finally, we reached Nam Tok, a one-horse town that probably wouldn't exist if the train didn't terminate there. There's lots to see around there in the way of waterfalls – Thais are obsessed with waterfalls, I don't know why – but you really need your own transport or the local song thaew drivers will positively gouge you.

So we turned around and headed right back.

It sounds like a long journey that gets you nowhere, but the Death Railway is the classic example of one of those trips where the journey is the entire point, and the destination is irrelevant.

After all, you get an unbeatable view of some breathtaking scenery, as well as some free coffee and a certificate. And, even better, you're rewarded with a brief glimpse into the brutal cruelty of which people can be capable, and the indominatible resilience with which others can respond.

The Asian adventure is very nearly over. On Saturday, we leave Kanchanaburi for Bangkok - our fifth and final visit to the capital - to catch the overnight train south to Surath Thani. From there, it's a bus to Krabi and a ferry to Koh Jum, a remote island off the Andaman Coast. There Amanda and I will end the trip the way we started - spending a few weeks doing very little on a beautiful beach.

The dawn of happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:54:00 +0000

So it was 'bye bye' to Chiang Mai and 'hi' to Sukhothai.

After a seemingly endless coach trip from the northern capital, we arrived in Sukhothai in central Thailand, once the ancient capital of the nation. It was also the first capital of Thailand, founded in the 1200s.

Once upon a time, swathes of Thailand – along with much of South East Asia – was ruled by the Khmers, with Angkor as their administrative capital. So ancient Angkor was once to Asia what ancient Rome was to Europe.

And just like the Romans, the Khmers' powers eventually faded, and the ancient Thais leapt at the opportunity to strike out on their own, founding Sukhothai as their first capital. Thais now consider this the very beginning of modern Thailand and Thai-ness – which is why it's called Sukhothai, literally 'dawn of happiness'.

While the town is still a thriving one, it's moved several kilometres away from its original site to a place called New Sukhothai, leaving a collection of ancient ruins crowded into a beautiful park at the centre of Old Sukhothai.

The park is justly popular with tourists, foreigners and Thais alike, and most stay in New Sukhothai and are ferried in by car or bus to the ruins each day. But Amanda sniffed out a guest house well away from New Sukhothai, and it turned out to be a great choice.

The Mountain View Guesthouse is just a few kilometres away from the ancient city, but still too far away to walk to. Fortunately, the owner is a very helpful guy who is happy to ferry guests to and from the site as often as you want.

In fact Malcolm, who hails from Colchester of all places, is about the most helpful person we've met in Thailand – he just can't do enough for you. He picked us up from the bus station and drove us to the guest house – a beautiful and appealing place, but still cheap, with nice rooms and a great swimming pool, set amid rice fields and pretty paddocks. There were even cows grazing nearby. I highly recommend it.

That night he organised dinner for us, driving into town to pick it up and serving it right there on our terrace. The next day he gave us an invaluable run-down on what to see in the ancient city – he's been here the best part of a decade and knows everything you need to know about Sukhothai – and then drove us there, even organising cheap bike rentals for us.

Sukhothai may sound like the same deal as Angkor Wat, but it's much more compact, and if you're pressed you can probably see all you need to see in a day. But it's not so compact that you can easily walk about, so rent a bike.

We rode ours to the ticket office – unlike Angkor, tickets are embarrassingly cheap – and then on to the main part of the site, Wat Mahathat. Wat Mahathat is a very large collection of well-preserved ruins, mainly the remains of temples and other religious buildings that were at the heart of the ancient capital.

When Sukhothai was founded, the new rulers spurned the Khmers' fascination with all things Hindu and went for Buddhism in a big way. And it shows – there are more Buddhas in this one site alone than seems feasible. Seated Buddhas, standing Buddhas, teaching Buddhas, meditating Buddhas, small Buddhas and big Buddhas. Mainly bloody big Buddhas.

Most of these Buddhas are in superb condition, and are still being worshipped today. Their feet and hands are adorned with floral offerings, and incense sticks and candles sit before each of them.

With lakes and moats all around, all in a very peaceful and verdant park, the historical site is a truly beautiful and serene place. We cycled about all day, stopping every few minutes to take in one ancient temple or another.

At one, I stumbled across a couple of monks who had travelled down from Chiang Mai and were taking in the sights with the rest of us. The foreign tourists were all standing at a respectful distance and snapping their photos with long lenses, but I just bounded up to them and started chatting.

These two were very friendly guys. I took photos of them with their digital cameras (for an order that eschews all things material, monks have a lot of modern gadgets), and they took photos of me with mine.

Obviously karma actually works, because I then got to wander around one of the temples snapping photos of them to my heart's content – they didn't mind at all. I got some very jealous looks from the other foreign tourists, though.

Later in the day, we left the main historical park and headed north – there are various ancient sites dotting the countryside around the old city as well. The north zone is the most interesting and, fortunately, it's only a short ride from the rest of the site.

We wandered through one set of crumbling ruins that pre-dated most of Sukhothai. It was built by the Khmers and it shows – it wasn't just reminiscent of some of Angkor's ruins, it was exactly the same. You could even see some fading Hindu imagery and signs of various Buddhas being built over the top of them.

These ruins had the added attraction of a herd of cows grazing among them – a very picturesque scene. Amanda managed to coax a few over and was soon patting a cow for the first time. It was a blissful friendship until the cow tried to nibble on her toe. Ouch!

Back on our bikes, we rode a little way to Wat Sri Chum. There's not much in the way of ruins here, just a seated Buddha. But what a Buddha. This guy is enormous – something like 11 metres from knee to knee and 15 metres high. One of his hands was as big as any of the people looking up at it.

By now, the heat of the day – and it was very hot – was getting to us, so we rode back to the Mountain View for a swim and some beers. Malcolm went and got us dinner again that night.

The next morning we followed a route that Malcolm had marked out for us on a map, taking us to some of the more remote temples to the west of Sukhothai. Well, we tried to follow the route. There was nothing wrong with Malcolm's map, but a lot wrong with our ability to read it, and we ended up cycling for a long way down the wrong road.

Eventually, some local men – apparently drunk at 11 in the morning – set us straight and we found ourselves touring crumbling ruins with barely a tourist about. To be honest, few were that exciting in themselves, but it was a nice ride among lovely rural scenery.

But one of the temples was interesting – another vast Buddha, but this time perched atop a hill. We parked our bikes at the bottom and climbed a stone path up to the top. It wasn't a very tough climb, but after the whole saga of my mountain ascent, I hope never to climb a slope of any kind ever again.

From there we rode back into Old Sukhothai for lunch – despite most of the town being in New Sukhothai, the old version still has enough shops and restaurants to keep you going. Malcolm came and fetched Amanda while I went to get some sunset shots. Sadly, the clear skies vanished for the first time in two days, but I still managed to get a few interesting pictures.

And the next day we were off again, this time to Bangkok. It was a whirlwind visit, just two full days in the end, and a place as lovely and as fascinating as Sukhothai probably deserves more than that.

But at least now we have an excuse to return.

See lots and lots of my Sukhothai photos here. If you like Buddhas, you'll love this!

Climb every mountain

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:46:00 +0000

I wanted a serious trek, and I got one. Maybe a little too serious.

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided I would climb all the way to the top of Thailand's third-highest mountain. Have I ever been mountain climbing before? No. Am I particularly fit or athletic? No. Do I even enjoy camping? That's right... no.

But, like most bad ideas, it seemed a good idea at the time.

It began early Sunday morning when a song thaew pulled up outside my hotel to take me to Chiang Dao, a town an hour and a half north of Chiang Mai, from where the trek up Doi Chiang Dao would begin.

The mountain is at the centre of an untamed and largely untouched national park, and the peak is 2,245 metres high. Nearly two-and-a-half kilometres. What was I thinking!

I climbed into the song thaew and met my two fellow travellers on this trek, a great couple from Brooklyn. Chaim and Jen had only just arrived in Chiang Mai less than hour before, from Bangkok on the overnight train.

I was worried I might be teamed with a couple of athletic fitness freaks who climb mountains before breakfast, and who would make me look like the unfit fool I am, but I got lucky. Both Chaim and Jen were fit and sporty, but they were friendly and found the climb a challenge. Not as much of a challenge as I did, but a challenge all the same. And they were fun to spend three days with.

It wasn't long before we caught sight of the mountain. And I thought it looked big in photos. In real life, it was more than impressive, towering miles above us. We tried to pick the very summit, our destination, but it was obscured by clouds. Now I was getting nervous. What had I got myself in to?

Soon we were at Chiang Dao Nest, the guest house at the foot of the mountain that was organising the trek. I didn't stay here, but I think I can safely recommend the place anyway. Beautiful views, attractive bungalows, friendly and helpful staff and great food.

The first day of the trek didn't involve the mountain at all, except to look at. Instead, we were kicking off with a gentle wander around some of the Lisu hill-tribe villages that live beneath the shadow of the mountain.

After breakfast we were driven to the first one, where we were met by one of the villagers and taken on an hour long journey through the forest to see a cave. One of the owners of Chiang Dao Nest told us they only hire local guides for the hill-tribe treks, because outsiders tend to look down on the villagers. Instead, their guides are villagers.

The countryside was pretty, the walk not too taxing and the cave spectacular.

It was in the middle of nowhere and not one of the many caves around the area that are visited by busloads of tourists. It was just us, two local guides and some torches.

We walked, crawled and clambered through the hot and dank caves, admiring dripping stalactites and stalagmites - apparently made of some kind of iron ore, judging by their metallic feel and appearance - and the ocassional bat.

We went deep into that cave - it took us about an hour to get to the deepest point possible, before we turned around and headed back the way we came.

Back in the village, we enjoyed a tasty lunch (all the food on this trek was simple but satisfying fare) before embarking on a long hike by and through a pretty little stream to an even prettier waterfall.

After splashing about in the ankle deep, and refreshingly cold, water for a bit, it was off the the next village - where we would be spending the night.

Here's where the trek started to get tough. The path between the two villages was through the jungle and straight uphill. That's the problem with hill-tribes - they tend to live on hills.

After an hour and a half of hiking, we emerged from the forest and into a village with a spectacular view. It was built onto the side of a steep hill and directly faced the mountain - a stunning sight.

I might have enjoyed it a lot more if my heart wasn't filled with dread at the thought of climbing the damn thing. Already my muscles were aching and I was out of breath - how was I going to climb all the way up there?

I drowned my worries in a couple of cold beers and a long chat with the lovely woman who hosted us that night, Alima. She spoke little English and I speak no Lisu, but we still managed to establish that Alima was the sister of the villager who guided us through the caves and to the waterfall, and that they were two of seventeen children.

She kept pointing to the very top of the mountain and asking 'you go up?'. That's right, she couldn't believe I was going to do it, either.

We had an early start the next morning so, after half an hour of sitting on a little deck in front of my comfortable room looking at the most spectacular blanket of stars I've seen in many years, I went to bed.

As I dozed off, I wondered if I was really going to be able to hack this climb. I was about to find out.

The next morning we were driven a short way to the bottom of the mountain to meet our guides and begin the serious trekking.

We had three guides taking us up. An older guy called Lun was in charge, assisted by a young Burmese fellow called Han and another guy whose name I can't remember - mainly because we didn't see much of him.

Lun was particularly impressive. He must have climbed that mountain a thousand times, and you could see every single trek etched into his face. He was friendly but serious, and made sure every aspect of the next two days went smoothly. He was a pro, and we always felt safe with him around.

As we got ready to go we were each given sturdy bamboo stick - and that stick saved my life. If you ever attempt the same climb, make sure you get one. You can use it to keep you from sliding down slopes or for hauling yourself up them. You can use it to push away branches in your path or test out the ground in front of you in the dark. Best of all, you can lean against it and whimper when you feel you can't go on any further. If I could have, I would have adopted that stick and taken it home to raise as my own.

All we carried up that mountain was a small pack each and our trusty sticks. The same could not be said of the guides. They got up to leave and started hauling enormous loads on to their backs.

Only Lun had anything that approached a proper pack on his back. The other two had enormous plastic sacks tied together, old towels strapping them to their backs.

We were a little shocked. As Chaim said, 'I feel like a slave owner here.' I knew what he meant but, short of quitting the trek, there wasn't much we could do about it. So we tried to put it out of our minds.

To give you an idea of the size of the packs these guys carried, here's a photo of Lun, and this was taken on the way down, so it doesn't include the food or the - count 'em - twelve bottles of water he carried up the mountain.

Amazingly, none of our guides seemed to have a problem with these huge loads. They practically skipped up the mountain - Lun even rolled and smoked a cigarette every time we stopped for a breather!

While Lun lead the way, the other two guides fell behind, which was great. I wasn't quite keeping up with Chaim and Jen, but I didn't need to as long as two guides were somewhere behind me. It meant I could stop and catch my breath whenever I needed to. Which was often.

In my defence, I'm not that unfit. But this trek was tough. Very tough. How could it not be - we were trekking a 10-kilometre uphill path to reach the summit of a mountain nearly two-and-half kilometres high.

Some parts of the walk were difficult, some were nigh on impossible. But for the next six hours I hauled myself up a narrow and steep dirt track through the jungle with nothing but grim determination and a bamboo stick to keep me going.

The countryside we travelled through was as diverse as it was stunning. We seemed to experience new kinds of terrain every 10 or 20 minutes. First it was jungle, then it was a vast expanse of tall grass growing higher than our heads, then meadows full of pretty flowers, flat fields of black rock, and heathery gorse straight out of the Scottish highlands.

I noticed none of it. All I could concentrate on was placing one foot in front of the other - my concentration ocassionally broken by looking up to see the frighteningly high peak of the mountain, which never seemed to get any closer.

My heart was pounding through my chest, my muscles screaming in pain, my feet aching with every step, my mouth getting dryer by the second. So, I thought, this is exercise. Perhaps I should do more of it - and before I attempt to climb a mountain, not after it.

At least I was distracted by an entertaining soap opera, as it slowly dawned on the three of us that the youngest guide had somehow disappeared. We had stopped in a clearing, about four hours into the trek, when we realised.

The two younger guys had fallen so far behind that we hadn't seem them for at least three hours. Lun motioned us to stay where we were - no need for that, I was already lieing on the ground trying to work out how much it would cost to call for a helicopter to get me out of there - while he went to find them.

He returned with Han, but without the other guy and we pushed on. We managed to work out that the young guy - who had looked a bit distressed after just a few minutes of the trek - was not coming with us.

Later we were told he'd got lost. We never did quite work out what happened. But we never saw him again, at least not until we returned to our starting point the next day and the trek was over.

Finally, after six hours of solid trekking, we reached a field of tall grass in the shadow of the summit itself. By the time we got there, a beautiful sunny day had turned into a grey and overcast one - and the main reason I'd come was to take photos of the the sunset. Depressing.

Much to my relief, Lun got across to us that the day's trek was over. With no sunset, there was little point in climbing the summit that day and that field of flat grass was our base camp.

In the blink of an eye, Lun had set up our tents and started a fire for dinner. We fell in a heap on the ground. We couldn't believe we were here, at the base of this intimidating mountain. I couldn't even believe I was still alive.

Lun and Han cooked us a simple but delicious dinner. But we were concerned because, as far as we could make out, the missing guy had left the trek with their dinner, and they weren't going to have enough to eat.

We tried to share our food with them, but they politely but firmly declined. We felt bad about it, but we weren't sure what else we could do.

So we crawled into our tents and went to bed, me praying that the clouds above would break long enough to show us a spectacular sunrise the next morning - and that I could get some great shots that would make this whole thing worthwhile.

I woke up several times that night and looked out the tent flap each time. And each time, I saw no stars. But, at 5am, we were roused by Han and I stepped out and looked up. Above me was that same spectacular blanket of stars that I saw the night before, and my heart lifted.

Torches in hand, we began the final ascent. This was the toughest part of the journey. There was little in the way of path, and a lot in the way of rocks. At times, we were climbing them almost vertically.

But as first light began to creep into the sky, we could see the summit just feet above us. My arms and legs found new energy, my lungs new air - it was so close.

With one heave up and over a large rock, I was there with the others. I had hauled myself up to the top. There was no further to go. I had finally arrived.

I felt, literally, on top of the world. I raised my arms and whooped in delight with Chiam and Jen. I thought the mountain was going to conquer me, but I conquered it.

And it was worth it. The view was astonishing - but the sense of achievement, of rising to the challenge was even better.

It didn't even matter that we still had to make our way back. And don't let anyone tell you that walking down a steep hill is any easier than going up - it's not.

But my muscles fed on elation, and I all but skipped the 10 kilometres back - this time drinking in the view, enjoying the varied terrain and all the time looking up at the daunting peak behind us, pointing at it and smiling and cheering.

'I've been up there! I've climbed a mountain!'

How much for the buffalo?

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:38:00 +0000

If San Pa Tong is famous for anything, it is the weekly buffalo market where hundreds of traders and farmers meet to exchange money and the uniquely Asian form of livestock.

But San Pa Tong is not famous. A non-descript town half an hour south of Chiang Mai, San Pa Tong is completely off the Thai tourists' beaten track. Which is suprising, because what could be more uniquely Thai than a noisy, frenetic cattle market?

Search for it on Google and you'll find just a handful of mentions. Now that's obscure. Maybe because it's only in full swing around dawn on a Saturday morning. You won't find a lot backpackers around here willing to get on the road before daybreak to see a buffalo market.

Amanda found it, mentioned only fleetingly on a map of Chiang Mai and the region, and suggested I go. We thought it might be a great opportunity to take some interesting photos of something tourists rarely see.

But try as I might, I couldn't find out how to get there. I could barely work out where it was.

But someone at Amanda's school knew of it, and knew a man who could get me there. So on Friday afternoon, as I was beginning to run out of hope of ever working out how to reach the place, a driver was arranged and booked for me.

The next morning I left our room at five and climbed into the front seat of a song thaew and raced out of Chiang Mai.

I was hoping to pass some pretty countryside on the way, for some nice rice-paddy-at-sunrise sort of photos. But it turns out that San Pa Tong is practically a distant suburb of Chiang Mai, and we passed nothing prettier than a few car showrooms and an enormous Tesco superstore (yes, they have Tesco here - Boots and M&S, too).

After half an hour we reached the market. There were people everywhere, but I could see no sign of any buffalo. But there was certainly plenty of market. San Pa Tong market, as I soon discovered, is about a lot more than buffalo.

It's actually an enormous market for all the people of the region - selling everything from home-made sickles and machetes to t-shirts, shoes and socks, second-hand jeans and a hell a lot of used motorcycles.

It's a local market for local people. No hill-tribe bags, no fisherman's pants and no bloody 'Same Same But Different' T-shirts. Everything's vastly cheaper, too - a pair of socks that would have cost me 100 baht in Chiang Mai cost me 10 baht (14 pence) in San Pa Tong.

But no tourists means no English, too. And I could see no sign of the cattle market. I was worried about that, because you'd think a cattle market would be just a little obvious.

I asked for directions, but no one understood. Not until I curled my fingers and help them up to my head in a rudimentary impression of a buffalo. That did the trick. They may have laughed, but at least they pointed me in the right direction.

Off I went, towards the very depths of the market, and within moments I knew I was on the right track. Not that I could see any cattle yet - But I sure could smell that unmistakeable fragrance of farm animals.

I was spat out of the back of the first half of the market and into the main attraction. It was still dark but I could hear the snorts and lows of many, many cows.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light of dawn, and I could finally see it. Many hundreds of cows crowded into a muddy paddock, surrounded by hopeful sellers and buyers. Even in this light, I could see the buyers cautiously circling one cow or another, affecting indifference while being enthusiastically roped in by the used cow salesmen.

The cows were all of the Asian kind - Brahmans, the ones with the big hump just behind their shoulders, enormous ears and often very impressive horns. There were all kinds; white ones, brown ones, smaller ones and some frighteningly large ones.

And more were arriving by the minute. A road running alongside the fringes of the market, which I missed earlier, was backed up to the main road with trucks and pick-up trucks hauling even more cattle into the market.

But where were the buffalo? I'd seen one or two in some of the holding pens near the cows, but one of the few mentions of this market on the net suggested it was the biggest buffalo market in northern Thailand. Surely there had to be more than one or two?

I tried my buffalo impression again, and a laughing trader pointed to the other side of the road, which was obscured by a phalanx of parked trucks. I squeezed between two of them and over a little hill. And there they were.

In another large and muddy paddock were more buffalos then I've ever seen at one time. Which is not saying much, I've only ever seen a few at once. But, trust me, there were a lot of buffalo here.

I'm not even sure what you need a buffalo for in Thailand - they're often seen pulling a plough in Laos and Cambodia, but you don't see that much in Thailand. But someone must need them, because there was a roaring trade going on.

Men inspecting their teeth, their hooves, their horns. Smacking them on the rump - is this the buffalo equivalent of kicking the tyres of a car you might want to buy?

I hung back taking photos - much to the amusement of the buffalo traders. I don't speak Thai, of course, but it was pretty plain they were gently taking the piss out of me.

I've never been too close to a buffalo before. And with good reason - have you ever seen one? They're huge and their horns look lethal to me. But they're supposed to be docile, so I gingerly joined the traders inside the buffalo pen.

They all wanted me to take a photo of their buffalos, so they could have a look at them in the screen of my digital camera. Odd, they're right there in front of you, you know.

I got close up with a few and found them to be friendly giants. I swear one of them was trying to pose for me - he seemed to love the camera. That big fella was the first - and probably the last - buffalo I've ever patted.

And how much does a buffalo cost, I hear you ask? Well, I can't be sure, but judging by the rapid transactions I saw going on around me I'd say they cost a couple of thousand baht - a little under 30 quid.

Looks a good deal to me. But now I'm having second thoughts about it. Anyone want to take this new buffalo off my hands?

There are a pile of photos of the Sa Pa Tong cattle market right here

A trekkin' I will go...

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Remember my last attempt to enjoy a trek from Chiang Mai? It didn't go well. In fact, it didn't go anywhere.

But after spending the last 10 days recovering from two months of constant travel and sightseeing - by basically doing little more than lounging around the hotel room surfing the internet and watching the movie channel - I was getting itchy feet.

So a couple of days ago I started to looking into treks again. Like last time, I wanted something substantial and something a little out of the ordinary. Not your average, run-of-the-mill, one-day elephant-riding-and-bamboo-rafting trek-lite. After all, I've already done one of those.

So I scoured the internet and found somewhere interesting: Doi Chiang Dao, Thailand's second-highest mountain. An hour or two north of here, it is the centre of a national park and is dotted with picturesque caves and waterfalls.

I found a guesthouse in the area, Chiang Dao Nest, which has a good reputation for organising private treks up the mountain to watch the sunset and the following sunrise.

Problem was, I'm the only one I know who wants to go and private treks with just one person are very expensive. So I emailed them to see if there was a group going up the mountain I could join.

I soon got a reply. There was a place on a trek, but instead of being a two-day and one-night trek to the summit, it was a three-day two-night trip - with a day's exploration of the surrounding jungle, caves and waterfalls thrown in. Plus visits to two fairly remote hill-tribe villages.

Sounded perfect. So I slapped down a deposit this morning and will be picked up from the lobby of my hotel early on Sunday morning.

The trek combines two existing schedules offered - the first day of this one followed by all of this one.

It was put together for two others, but the price drops substantially when the group rises from two people to three (the number of trekkers starts to outweigh the number of guides, for one thing), so I guess these two were keen on more people.

So on Monday night and Tuesday morning, I will be at the summit of a mountain more than two kilometres high, hopefully admiring a spectacular view and taking a whole lot of photographs.

Stay tuned.

PS Fortunately, I still have the right shoes!

The road to Chiang Mai (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 02:01:00 +0000

So here we are in Chiang Mai, two months after leaving 'the rose of the north'.

This time, the trip here was not the hellish experience it was back in July, but it certainly had its interesting moments.

We set out early in the morning from Siem Reap with trepidation. The road that connects Siem Reap with Poipet on the border and Thailand beyond is notorious. Traveller legends and myths about scams, dangers and extreme discomfort abound.

There are many ways to make the trip - we hired a car and a driver to tackle the journey. It wasn't long before we'd left the dusty streets of Siem Reap and were on the road to the border.

This road is bad. It's very, very bad. Essentially, it's nothing more than a dirt track. Someone has made the effort to seal it with tarmac here and there, but never for more than a few metres at a time.

The story goes that Bangkok Airlines, which has an exclusive deal to fly between Siem Reap and Bangkok, makes sure the road never gets fixed. I have no idea if that's true - and I don't want to be sued - but the road is certainly a great incentive to fly.

Our driver was clearly in a hurry - it took him just three-and-a-half hours to make what is supposed to be a five-hour trip. It helped that it hadn't rained for a while, though the road was still swampy in spots. I don't want to know what it's like after a heavy rain - impossible, probably.

So after a few hours of being thrown around the car like reluctant ragdolls, we climbed out of the car in Poipet - a lively and scruffy little town that marks the frontier between Cambodia and Thailand.

Most of the legends about the dangers of this trip centre around Poipet. Scammers, con-artists, thieves and bandits - you name them, they're supposed to spend their days hanging around Poipet in search for their next victim.

But we had no problems. A few young guys descended on our car when we pulled up and started to hoist our packs onto their backs - we think to carry them to immigration, not steal them - but we quickly put a stop to that.

We found the Cambodian check-out point easily and were stamped out of the country exactly two weeks after we arrived from Vietnam.

Cambodians and Thais don't need a visa, or even a passport, to come and go through the border, so it's something of a free-for-all. People are everywhere, going in every direction. I can see how you can somehow come a cropper if you don't keep your wits about you.

We strode through the no-man's land between the Cambodian and Thai immigration points and marvelled at the sight. I've been through a lot of these, and it's the first time I've seen a no-man's land populated by half a dozen sparkling and plush 'casino resorts'.

Thais love casinos but they're illegal in Thailand, so wherever there's a border with the country there's a huge casino on the other side. There's one across the border with Burma in Mae Sae, another across the Mekong on the Laos side of the frontier. But none are quite as gleaming as these ones.

Once past the casinos, it was across a little bridge and a dirty creek that marks the border. We raised our arms and cheered as we entered Thailand. Minutes later, we were through Thai immigration and into the bustling little market town on the other side.

We could immediately tell we where back in Thailand. We couldn't quite put our finger on it, but it was unmistakeable. Whatever it was, we were loving it. We felt like we'd just arrived home.

Soon we were on a minivan to Bangkok, another three-and-a-half journey but this time on smooth sealed roads all the way. We unloaded our bags on Khao San Road and piled into a taxi to our hotel next to Hualamphong station.

And that's where it all started to go a little wrong.

We had booked a room at a place called The Train Inn. The rates were reasonable and the rooms looked good. But when we got there, we found the rates had, magically, been inflated by 25%. And that's before they added mysterious charges for each piece of baggage and - wait for this - a charge for using electricity in the room. To cap it all, the rooms on the website must have been in another hotel - the rooms we were shown were miserable and dirty.

Worst of all, the tickets for our train to Chiang Mai the following evening were supposed to have been sent to the hotel. They were nowhere to be found. So we picked up our bags and headed straight to Baan Hualamphong - another hotel near the station where we'd stayed before. Nothing special, but clean and honestly run.

It was too late in the day to ring the travel agent and find our tickets. If you want a sleeper to a popular destination like Chiang Mai, you need to book at least a few days ahead so we spent the night worried about our chances of getting out of Bangkok.

The following morning I woke early and rang the agent - they had the tickets and couriered them over within an hour. What a relief. Now we could enjoy a day in Bangkok.

The metro was nearby, so we used it for the first time. Unlike London's Tube, its range is pretty limited so it's not always very useful. But also unlike The Tube, it's cheap, clean, cool and efficient.

We visited Jim Thompson's House, a mildly interesting collection of Asian artefacts and artworks, and wandered through Lumphini Park - Bangkok's answer to Hyde Park or Central Park.

We returned to the hotel, grabbed our packs and marched to the station. We learned a lesson from the last trip to Chiang Mai - three months before - and this time booked sleepers aboard an air-conditioned carriage, and made sure we got at least one lower berth.

We were rewarded with an infinitely more pleasant 12-hour trip to the north. Not even the obnoxious American who got himself outrageously drunk and tried to feel up every female tourist in sight could ruin it.

The next morning we were in a song thaew to The Emporium, the pleasant and cheap hotel where we spent two weeks the last time we were in Chiang Mai.

The familiar sights and sounds of our favourite street greeted us, and we were treated like long-lost friends by the people at our favourite eatery across the road, by the man who makes our coffee next door, by the flamboyant lady boy who runs our favourite neighbourhood bar, the brilliantly named Golden Ball. Even the chap who does our laundry was pleased to see us.

That's why Chiang Mai is the closest we've got to a home at the moment, and we love it.

Amazing Angkor

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:11:00 +0000

You know when you spend years looking forward to seeing something amazing, and build it up so much in your mind that you're just a little disappointed when you finally see it in real life? Well, Angkor Wat is nothing like that.

Despite wanting to see it almost since I first heard of it, and despite looking forward for months to visiting these ancient ruins as one of the big highlights of the trip, I was still surprised and amazed by Angkor Wat. It is, literally, awesome.

You know it must be great - it's not only on the national flag, but the national beer is named after Angkor. Can you think of a higher honour? Me neither.

We got up to Siem Reap, the nearest town to the temples, by boat from Phnom Penh. The boat plies its way up the Tonle Sap – which starts off as a river, then widens into a flooded plain and, finally, becomes the biggest lake I've ever seen. It's virtually an inland sea, and its waters help feed practically all of Cambodia.

The boat up here isn't particularly pleasant, unless you like to be squeezed into a cramped seat deep inside a narrow metal sweatbox. If the boat were operating anywhere outside of Asia, it would be sealed from the off – you wouldn't be allowed outside.

But in this region devoid of health and safety regulations and personal liability laws, you're more than welcome to climb out the front doors and risk life and limb tiptoeing along a precariously narrow apron along the outside – all while the boat zips along at about a million miles an hour.

But the boat is always overbooked so someone has to make that dangerous journey to get to a spot on the roof. Fortunately, it wasn't us.

After five hours, we reached Siem Reap and were picked up by a cheerful tuk-tuk driver sent by the guesthouse. We spent the afternoon checking out the town, which is great. A bit Wild West, Siem Reap is dusty and a bit backwards, packs of stray dogs wander about and the electricity seems to go off at three o' clock every afternoon – but the people are friendly and the whole place has a great vibe.

And how many other towns do you know can boast a restaurant with a pit full of live crocodiles – big ones – in the corner?

The next morning, we were ready to see Angkor Wat. The name 'Angkor Wat' is used to describe a whole region of many and varied ancient temples and ruins, but Angkor Wat itself is just one of them – it's the most famous one you will have seen in all the pictures.

It's not like, say, the Taj Mahal – you can't just go to one spot, see it and go home. You need transport and at least a few days. You can hire a car or a van, you can go on an organised tour on a bus, or you can hire a tuk-tuk driver to pick you up each morning.

We hired a tuk-tuk. We chose the driver who had picked us up from the boat, Sukla. Sukla ferried us about for most of the next week for about $10 or $15 a day. A bargain – he was knowledgeable, helpful and attentive (his contact details are below if you're coming here anytime soon).

We climbed aboard that first morning a pair of very excited tomb raiders. First we had to stop off at the ticketing area and buy a pass – we opted for the full week version for $60. You can also get a one-day and a three-day version, but the one week pass is the best value if you have the time to use it.

Then it was back into the tuk-tuk for the short drive to Angkor Wat. We were practically leaning out of the tuk-tuk to grab that first glimpse, and as we rounded the temple's enormous moat we finally saw it in the distance.

We gasped. For a start, it's absolutely enormous. The three towers, shaped like lotus buds, pierced the sky in the distance as we scrambled to reach the stone causeway that bridges the moat.

But first we had to negotiate the crowd of kids you get at every one of the Angkor sites, selling guidebooks, drinks, scarves and all manner of souvenirs. After a while , the shouts of 'Lady, you buy from meeeeeee' or 'Meester, you wanna a cold beer' (at 9.30 in the morning?) become as much a part of the Angkor experience as ruins and carvings.

Fortunately, the kids are sweet and not too pushy - although you can't help but feel concerned that they are here selling things when they really ought to be at school. But that's Cambodia - you work before you can even walk, apparently. For all its cute-ness, it's a sad thing to see.

And these kids are smart little cookies. When they find out which country you're from, they spout all sorts of amazing facts and figures, and a stunning variety of expressions in poor Aussie accents. We've had everything from 'g'day mate' to 'how you goin', Sheila' to - a classic, this one - 'a dingo stole my baby!'

But my absolute favourite had to be the young girl who drew a deep breath and blurted out, as if it was one long word, this little gem: 'John-Howard-is-your-prime-minister-but-not-for-very-much-longer'. Girl after my own heart. Still didn't buy anything off her, though.

Once past the kids and across the causeway, we were in Angkor Wat itself. You walk through an enormous stone structure and find yourself in something akin to a courtyard - the biggest damn courtyard in the world.

In the distance are the beautiful three towers - right at the end of another stone causeway flanked by beautiful ornamental nagas and other figures from Hindu mythology. It's a breathtaking sight.

The temples were built around a thousand years ago by the Khmer kings - Khmers are ethnic Cambodians, essentially - who once ruled huge swathes of South East Asia. They traded mainly with India and were apparently deeply impressed by their culture. So they adopted the Hindu and Buddhist religions, and built many, many great temples to display their piety.

Inside many, if not most, of the temples are intricate and elaborately carved bas reliefs depicting scenes from the Ramayama, the great Hindu epic, stories about the kings that built the temples, and hundreds and hundreds of Apsaras - the topless celestial dancers who entertained the gods. Some of the reliefs take up 50 or 60 metres of wall, all in meticulously carved detail.

There are something like 30 or 40 of these temples scattered across the countryside - some of them, like the main Angkor Wat, beautifully restored and as close to pristine as a 1,000-year-old temple can be. Others are ruins buried deep in overgrown jungles.

And as huge as Angkor Wat is, it's not even the biggest of them. Just to the north is Angkor Thom, an enormous complex of temples and royal palaces.

That was our next stop on that first day - to see The Bayon, a brilliantly crumbling collection of black-rock towers. There are dozens of these towers, each carved with three or four serene and enigmatic faces. It's hard not to be in awe as you look up at all these huge and ancient faces smiling down at you.

One of the surprising things about Angkor is how free you are to do what you like. Some of the most precious bas reliefs are roped off - though no one guards them - but in most of the temples, you're free to wander around and touch anything you like.

I don't know if it will last forever. It probably shouldn't, really. But while it lasts, it's certainly fun to scramble around, through and over just about anything you see.

Another essential part of the whole Angkor experience are sunrises. If only seeing them didn't involve setting off at five in the morning. But, the very next morning, we did just that. It was worth it - witnessing the golds and purples of the sun rising over the towers of Angkor Wat is something Amanda and I will never forget.

Unfortunately - there's another essential part of the whole Angkor experience: the crowds. It's not even high season yet, but there are a lot of people here at the moment. A lot.

Even at that ungodly hour there were at least a couple of hundred people awaiting the sunrise. In a temple the size of Angkor Wat, there's plenty of room for everyone. But at our next stop, a distant but small temple called Banteay Srei, the crowds made the place uncomfortably cramped.

And, after we took a day's break, we found the crowds not only large but obnoxious on our first visit to one of the 'jungle temples' - temples rising out of a barely cleared stretch of dense jungle. This was Ta Prohm, an incredibly atmospheric crumbling ruin.

The bits of ancient temple lie around covered in years of moss, or are half-choked by the grasping tendrils of huge strangler fig trees.

It's an enormously picturesque scene, and that's part of the problem. The masses of tourists we encountered here are not content with standing back and taking photos of the ruins.

Oh, no. No, they have to put themselves in every picture. These people were practically fighting each other - I certainly saw a little pushing and shoving going on - to get themselves in front of one of these trees for a keepsake photo. And many of them weren't happy with one - they did it for every one of these trees they saw. Do they have shockingly cynical friends who simply refuse to believe they went to Angkor Wat unless they bring home photographic proof?

Even a tough climb doesn't put off the crowds. One late afternoon, Amanda and I walked for 20 minutes uphill on a dirt track to watch the sunrise on Phnom Bakeng, a steep hill overlooking Angkor Wat. It was already crowded when we got there, but as sunset approached more and more people streamed in. When the crowds got so thick that we literally couldn't see the horizon, we gave up on that sunrise.

Then on the way down we passed one tour group after another. We must have passed, literally, 600 or 700 people on their way up. God knows how they all managed to fit up there - or how disappointed they all were when a storm eventually blotted out the sunset.

But don't get me wrong - the crowds are nowhere near bad enough to ruin the experience, but I wouldn't want to be here in high season and I certainly wanted to get away from them.

Fortunately, I found a way to do it. It's pretty simple, really: get up very early and head for one of the outlying temples.

So the next morning I was up at 5am again for a trip to the Rolous group. This group of three temples were part of an older city built by the Khmers before they moved some miles away to Angkor.

I headed for the main temple of the three, called Bakong, to watch the sunrise. There's a working, modern monastery at the foot of Bakong and when I got there at first light there were just a couple of monks about.

One had a torch and raced up what is basically an enormous ancient pyramid topped with the same lotus-bud tower as Angkor Wat. The orange-robed boy's name was Somna and he was just 12. I didn't really need his help getting up, but I was happy to have his company as I sat at the top and waited for the sun to rise.

He was as fascinated by me as I was with him, but he was even more fascinated by my camera - it all looked deceptively professional sitting atop a tripod and pointing towards the spot where I figured morning would break.

I was still barely awake, but the early rise was worth it. I got to sit atop an ancient temple pyramid, just me and a monk, and watch the sun rise over the surrounding fields and rice paddies.

I wanted to take a photo of the young monk but as the dawn arrived, the sounds of chanting started up from the monastery and Somna raced off without a word. Never did see him again.

I wandered around the ruins for ages - enjoying seeing it bathed in a golden morning light. And even after all that time, there was no one else around.

Except for a cow...

...and some kids on the way to school.

After Bekong, Sukla drove me to Beng Mealea. This ruin is even further away - it took more than an hour to get there - and if you want 'jungle temples', this one is the real deal.

It's well off the beaten track and it's a completely unrestored ruin. I wondered why that was until I crossed what was once the temple's moat and saw a sign on either side of me. They both proclaimed that 'This minefield has been cleared'. And only about five weeks ago. I was a little stunned.

You need a guide to get around this one, and one of the gaggle of uniformed girls who staff the place leads you around. Over piles of precariously balanced rocks, through tiny holes in walls, down darkened internal corridors. And, again, not a tourist in sight.

If you have an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft fantasy, then Beng Mealea is the place to live it out.

But travelling to somewhere well off the beaten track is no guarantee you'll miss the crowds. The next day kicked off at a place called Kbal Spean. It took well over an hour and a half to get there, crashing and bumping along the most diabolical dirt track I have ever seen.

'This is great,' I thought to myself. 'No tourist bus is ever going to drive across this.' Wrong. When I got there I instantly noticed - count 'em - nine tour buses parked outside. Bugger.

Kbal Spean is not a temple, but a length of burbling river running down a mountain. What makes it remarkable is that someone, a thousand years ago, carved depictions of Vishnu and Shiva, a Yoni and hundreds and hundreds of stylised Lingam (ask your mum).

These things are carved into the living rock below the waterline. Someone actually waited until the height of the dry season and laboriously carved shapes and pictures out of the rock of the riverbed. It's amazing.

But what's even more amazing is just how many tourists are happy to ignore the very clear warning signs to wade into the river - which flows dangerously fast down a steep hill until it reaches a waterfall with a very long drop to the bottom - to stand on these precious, and slippery, carvings. All for a photo opportunity.

I'm surprised none of them died. Maybe some did. Here's hoping.

But for all those crowds, Kbal Spean remained a remarkable sight.

That was the last of five days of exploring temples, and I spent the rest of the day touring East Mebon, Ta Som and Neak Pean - all uniquely interesting places in their own way.

Sukla was keen to keep going for a sixth day, but I was finally all templed out. It took five solid days of exploring, two sunrises and something like 24 temples. I was tired, happy and completely in awe - and resolved to visit Angkor Wat again someday.

But next time, I'll make sure I'm there in low season.

If you're coming to Angkor Wat and want to hire Sukla, you can give him a ring on 012675726. Or you can find him parked outside the Two Dragons guesthouse - look for the guy with 1079 on the back of his tuk-tuk tunic. I can't recommend the guesthouse (it's rubbish) but I can definitely recommend Sukla!

Oh, and all my Angkor Wat photos are here.

The other Cambodia

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:44:00 +0000

Phnom Penh isn't all broad boulevards and happy pizzas. Far from it.

Even in a corner of the world known for its miserable recent history, Cambodia still stands head and shoulders above the rest for tragedy.

As most people would know, the notorious Khmer Rouge spent a little less than four years, from 1975, apparently attempting to wipe out all vestiges of anything good from Cambodia - killing around two million people in four short years.

As an act of genocide, this horrible episode has few parallels.

While tourists come to Cambodia mainly to see he ancient ruins of Angkor Wat - ourselves included - the country's grim past can be confronted by foreign visitors. You can ignore it if you want to - that's not hard - but most choose not to.

It's not a pleasant piece of sightseeing, but a necessary one if you want to try to understand Cambodia and Cambodians.

The place to begin is Toul Sleng museum in the suburbs of Phnom Penh.

Toul Sleng was an innocent school before Pol Pot and his vile cohorts decided to turn it into a prison - the notorious S-21. But it was more than just a prison, a lot more.

S-21 was a centre for interrogation and torture for the Khmer Rouge. Detention was just the beginning for the many of thousands of innocents who were brought here. Over periods of weeks, months and sometimes years, people were forced to concoct one ridiculous confession after another, and were brutally tortured.

Only a handful of the poor souls who were brought here survived.

The prison has been kept pretty much as it was found when the invading Vietnamese chased the Khmer Rouge out of the country in 1979 - only with a ticket booth and gift shop added.

You're free to wander from classroom to classroom - each turned into a grim cell. The bigger cells - used for interrogation and torture - usually hold a rusting iron bed and the implements of torture are placed upon them - batteries, shackles, whips.

The smaller cells, in which prisoners awaited their turn to be tortured, are in a second block of the complex. Here the jailers knocked holes in the classroom walls to connect them, and then built hundreds of tiny brick cells. They are so small you could barely sit down in one.

The landings outside the cells are covered in barbed wire - not to stop inmates from escaping, but to stop them throwing themselves to their deaths as soon as they got the chance.

Some of the cells are turned over to chilling exhibits: there are torture contraptions I wouldn't even want to describe, and room after room of black-and-white photos of doomed inmates taken by the prison administrators - who were meticulous record-keepers.

Another room contains some of the most powerful exhibits here: simple written accounts by people whose husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons or daughters were taken away to Toul Sleng. Few of these people knew exactly what had happened to their loved ones, but most suspected and there was nothing they could do about it. After 1979, they learned the devastating truth.

It's very easy to lose sight of the individual terror and pain felt in a place like this when you're overwhelmed by photo after photo, cell after cell. But these stories bring home the countless personal horrors and heart-breaks that go to make up a national tragedy.

If you ever come hear and read these stories, you may shed a tear. I did.

But, strangely, the locals don't seem to feel the same. Most of the visitors on the day we were there were foreigners, but the few Cambodians that were there seemed to find the whole thing dreadfully funny - laughing at everything and mucking about. Odd.

Out the front of the prison are the white tombs of some of those who died here. But with at least 10,000 people perishing at Tuol Sleng, there was never the room here to dispose of the bodies.

So the Khmer Rouge used to take them out of town - to the now notorious 'Killing Fields'.

One of these Killing Fields - there were many - is at a place about half an hour outside of Phnom Penh called Choueng Ek. Choueng Ek is where most of those who were held at Toul Sleng were eventually dumped.

They were driven out to this part of the countryside - often being told they were going to spend the day labouring - and unceremonially shot. As the Khmer Rouge's policies ground down the country and bullets became scarce, they were stabbed or beaten to death.

However they died, their bodies ended up being dumped in mass graves at places like Choueng Ek.

Choueng Ek is a moving memorial now. The government has built an enormous pagoda, filled with skulls recovered from the surrounding Killing Fields. The skulls are arranged by gender and age - and there are thousands of them.

You buy some flowers and some incense sticks from a stall nearby and step up onto the memorial, offering the flowers and incense as a tribute to the brutally murdered. Or you can do what I saw an American guy do, and get your laughing girlfriend to take a photo of you in front of the skulls with a big grin and both your thumbs up.

After that, we wandered around the Killing Fields themselves, basically shallow pits into which corpses were thrown. If you keep looking at the ground, you'll soon notice that bits of human bones are still lieing around.

In fact, some young locals boys ran up to me, holding a human leg bone for me to look at.

I'd like to have asked these kids if they knew what this place was all about, but they ran away moments later when a policeman suddenly appeared in the distance.

They were just little kids, but I hope something of the significance of the place has sunk in for them. Just so all this never happens again.

There are some more photos of Tuong Sleng and Choueng Ek here.

Holiday in Cambodia

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Sitting in a boat moored on a choppy river in the pouring rain while waiting for your passport to be returned by a mysterious Vietnamese guy is not the best way to spend the morning.

It's even worse when it happens to be your birthday.

In the end, crossing the Cambodian border was pretty straightforward but, as usual in South East Asia, no one gives you any idea what's going on - so you can't help but worry.

We climbed aboard a tiny enclosed speedboat - like a mini-van of the water - with four others and raced upriver through a thunderous storm to the Cambodian border.

When we arrived at the Vietnamese exit point, we pulled up at a jetty and a man boarded to collect and take away our passports. Given that your passport is the most valuable thing you own when you're travelling, it's amazing how often and how easily you have to give it up.

So who was this guy? The guy captaining the boat didn't speak enough English to explain, so we just had to trust the man and hope for the best. An hour later, we pulled away from the jetty - without our passports.

The boat captain smiled and grinned when we protested, obviously trying to tell us not to worry. A few minutes later and we're floating somewhere between Vietnam and Cambodia, watching a local woman washing her clothes in the river. For no apparent reason.

Finally, we pulled up at the Cambodian border jetty - still without our passports - and we were asked to get off and sit around a table. Suddenly, the first man turned up and started distributing passports - and now they've got Vietnamese exit stamps, a Cambodian visa and Cambodian entry stamps. Phew.

A few hours of river cruising later and we arrived in Phnom Penh. The capital is not what I was expecting at all. I had imagined a run-down provincial capital crippled by poverty and neglect.

But when you arrive, you find yourself on a pretty waterfront packed with happy locals and tourists in bars across the road. The French influence is obvious here - it looks exactly like the croisette in any Riviera town.

We climbed into a tuk-tuk - a different design here, and they're so large you feel like you're tooling around town in a golf buggy - and headed for the hotel. The hotel - which Amanda had chosen for my birthday, was beautiful. A renovated French colonial pile with a sparkling swimming pool in the gardens. I felt like a rock star.

The hotel is owned by a foreigner, as is - apparently - every business in Phnom Penh. Every hotel, restaurant, bar and shop we've been into has been staffed by Khmers, but run by and for foreigners. Magazines for foreigners abound. It's an expat sort of town.

Unfortunately it's been a public holiday since we got here and the place is empty. Big broad streets, no cars - it's a little eerie, especially at night.

Actually, it's probably not the best place to be at night. It's immediately obvious that anyone that can afford it places their buildings behind impressive walls, and all have at least one security guard keeping an eye on the place.

But during the day, it's a pleasant place to be. Fortunately, a couple of museums were still open, despite the holiday.

We visited the National Museum, a slightly ramshackle collection of ancient busts and statues, many from Angkor Wat.

Many of the statues are of Buddha and, unlike any other museum I've ever visited, they are being actively worshipped. Incense, flowers and prayer mats are placed before them and the locals stop and worship in between admiring the rest of the exhibition. When was the last time you saw that at the British Museum?

Also open was the National Palace and the Silver Pagoda. One is the ceremonial heart of royal Cambodia, the other is its most venerated temple - but it's really all one huge complex.

The main room of the Silver Pagoda is particularly impressive. It's named for its many thousands of solid silver floor tiles. Unfortunately, most of them are covered up by rugs.

Here you can also see hundreds of Buddha statues and images made of solid gold and encrusted with diamonds and precious stones. In a country of such crippling poverty, it's odd to see such amazing riches on display.

But since they are charging all us foreigners six bucks apiece to see them, I'd say they've found an effective way of making their riches pay for themselves.

Later we found ourselves down along the quay, watching the locals promenade along the waterfront while a spectacular lightning storm lit up the sky over the river.

Here on the waterfront is a great place to see in action Cambodia's general attitude for the law. They have them, but who cares? For along the waterfront is a variety of establishments selling 'happy pizzas'.

Yes, they're pizzas topped with marijuana. Of course it's technically illegal, but given that they are being sold quite openly and without fear of arrest or prosecution tells you all you need to know. And, yes, we had one and, yes, we were pretty happy.

Why not? Phnom Penh is a pretty happy kind of place.

Last day in Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:08:00 +0000

It's our final day in Vietnam. Tomorrow morning we'll be on a boat to the Cambodian border and then on to Phnom Phem.

The trip to Chau Doc was the usual Vietnamese shambles – picking us up from the hotel in a car too small and too crowded to actually fit our bags (they ended up piled up on a back seat with me on top of them). The driver got us to the bus terminal on the fringes of town and walked off.

Fortunately we were able to work out which of the dozens of unmarked buses and mini-vans were ours. The trip was supposed to take four hours, but the driver went like the clappers – much of it in the wrong lane – and got us there in just two.

Chau Doc turns out to be a great place. The local tourism association ought to call it something like the 'Pearl of the Mekong'. Like Can Tho, it's not overly pretty, but it's been a very pleasant place to spend a few days.

The town manages to be bustling and laid back at the same time, with plenty to see and do.

Our first stop – after a night in one of the best and the cheapest hotels we've enjoyed anywhere in Vietnam – was Sam Mountain. We hired two scooter drivers for the trip – 10 or 20 minutes all told, with a very and bumpy and steep ascent up the mountain.

Sam Mountain is a 'mountain' in the same way Vietnam is a 'socialist republic' – both do just enough to live up to the label, but no more than that. Anywhere else in the world, Sam Mountain would be just a hill.

But the Mekong is flat – oh so flat – so any elevation is remarkable. The view from the top is even more remarkable, and we watched the sun go down – at least until a storm raced over the horizon and blocked it out.

It's about the only rain we've seen here – we've been very fortunate with the weather. It's been hot and dry and sunny almost without a break. If we didn't have news channels in the room, we'd never know dozens of people have been killed by a typhoon in nearby central Vietnam.

The next day we embarked upon a little voyage that is the main attraction around these parts - a boat tour around some of the many crowded tributaries of the Mekong Delta.

We rocked up to the waterfront and negotiated a hire of a boat for two bucks an hour. It's an easy thing to do here, you're practically accosted by boat owners as you reach the waterfront.

We gingerly stepped onto a makeshift pontoon and into a wooden motorboat. Thank God it had a roof, it was scorching out on the water.

The boat took the two of us out onto the river for a close-up look at the rickety houses crowding the opposite bank. From a distance, they seem to be built on the shore, jutting out on to the water.

But when you're next to them, you can see they are either houseboats or stilthouses - built on wooden or cement stilts hammered into the riverbed - and are far out from the shore.

Many of these houses operate as fish farms, and our boat guy took us on board one of these farms. They are quite ingenious contraptions built over the water, with enclosed sides beneath them that keep the fish in.

Built into the decking that forms the floor of the house is a trapdoor - lift it and the water laps just beneath it, and the farmers can feed their fish until they are big enough to drag out and take to market in Chau Doc.

The next stop was Con Tien island. We reached the island by clambering onto a wooden boardwalk far out in the river and walking into a Cham - indigenous Vietnamese tribespeople - village.

Inevitably, we were lead straight into their workshop - really a giftshop with a loom on display. But at least the textiles they were selling were of superior quality and reasonably priced. Amanda bought three pretty scarves.

We were still over the water, in a wooden stilthouse, but soon we found ourselves on land, on the island itself.

Con Tien is an interesting place. The locals are actually Muslims, and it feels as if you've stepped into a tropical version of the Middle East. The people don't look Vietnamese, and the men wear Islamic skullcaps and some of the woman wear hijabs. There's even a rather grand mosque.

That was the last stop of the trip, and our last bit of sightseeing in Chau Doc - and Vietnam.

We are going to miss Vietnam - we'd stay longer if they were more generous with their visas. The people have been great (except in Hoi An!), the sights amazing and the food spectacular (better even than in Thailand).

But there is something we certainly will not miss, something I've been dieing to get off my chest for a while!

That something is the apparently irresistible urge of anyone involved in the Vietnamese tourist industry to twist the truth. I don't know what the reason is, but they just cannot help themselves.

A perfect example is the trip we took to Ha Long Bay, when we were told explicitly and repeatedly that there were only 10 people in our group. They omitted to tell us that there were three groups of that size on the boat.

Okay, technically it's not a lie. But it certainly isn't the whole truth and, at best, it's, er, 'economising with the truth' - that's the most polite way I can describe it.

It's also completely typical. Time and again we have been mislead on small but crucial details of tours we've taken. The sad thing is, it's completely unnecessary. Tours are dirt cheap and you don't need to imply that lunch is included when it's not - no one minds that it isn't, they just want to know so they can take enough money with them to buy some.

But when you're lied to - even inconsequentially - it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

It's as if the country can't believe it's luck when it comes to a pretty sudden influx of tourists, and that they'll all go away if they don't tell little fibs all over the place.

They need to take a leaf out of Thailand's book - what you see there is what you get, and there's no messing about.

Fortunately, it's not bad enough to prevent anyone having a great time in Vietnam - we certainly did.

But if you want my tip on how to best enjoy seeing the sights around the country then - and I cannot stress this enough, people! - hire a xe om.

For just a little bit more cash you will avoid the half-truths and shambolic disorganisation of the Vietnamese tourist industry. Instead you will get a local who knows his part of the country inside and out, and you will get to spend some time seeing a slice of real Vietnam in your own time and at your own pace.

As a bonus, it's great fun.

One other tip I can offer - if you're interested - is to learn to say 'thank you'. Sounds obvious, I know - being able to thank people in their own language is a well-known golden rule of travelling.

But in Vietnam, you can say more than just literally 'com on' - the 'on' is pronounced like the Spanish 'un'.

Depending on who you're talking to, there is one word you can add to the end of that. It's 'em' for someone younger than you (for us, practically everyone we've dealt with in Vietnam!), 'ong' for an older man, 'chi' for an older woman, and 'ba' for stooped and grey-haired old folk.

Learning this makes all the difference, believe me. The Vietnamese go a little ga-ga if you get it right. At the very least, you'll get a big grin - but I've had slaps on the back and shakes of the hand just for making that little bit of effort. At the very least, the service will improve infinitely.

It's the single most useful piece of advice I can give to anyone about to enter Vietnam, just as we're leaving it.

So we've loved this country, we've had an amazing time and we'll definitely return one day.

Com on em, Vietnam.

My mate the Mekong

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:51:00 +0000

The Mekong has become like an old friend of ours.

From our first glimpses of the mighty river in Thailand to the slow boat journey down one long stretch of the Mekong in Laos, we've come to know it very well.

It was only a matter of time before we saw her again. And so we found ourselves back on the Mekong, this time crammed into a tiny car ferry near the end of a journey from Saigon to Can Tho.

We were the only foreigners aboard the ferry and with all eyes upon us, we felt like animals in the zoo - but everyone was smiling and friendly. Amanda found herself chatting to a young boy in an immaculate school uniform, while a man with a shy young daughter asked me, quite inexplicably, for my phone number.

From the ferry we could see the rubble of a major new bridge that collapsed a couple of weeks ago, killing around 60 but somehow not gaining a fraction of the media attention garnered by a bridge collapse in America that killed eight.

The short hop from one bank to another took just minutes and soon we were in the heart of the throng spilling out of the ferry, two human islands surrounded by a sea of scooters - and their delightfully aromatic fumes.

And so we were in Can Tho, the largest city in Vietnam's Mekong Delta - where the river finally ends its epic journey all the way from the Himalayas and spills out into countless tributaries as it strains to reach the sea.

The river ensures this part of the country is Vietnam's breadbasket - the vast majority of the nation's produce is from the green and fertile delta.

Can Tho is the delta's unofficial capital, but as we walked off the ferry and first set eyes on it, we though the signs weren't good. We arranged a couple of xe oms, jumped on the back and were relieved to see that the town gets nicer as you get closer to the waterfront.

I'll admit that Can Tho is never going to win any prizes for beauty, but it has a certain scruffy charm. The waterfront is busy and breezy, dominated by a huge and fantastically ridiculous statue of Ho Chi Minh, made entirely from tin.

Across the river, just over Uncle Ho's shoulder if you see him from the right angle, is an enormous neon sign advertising '100% Natural Latex Matresses'. How can latex be natural?

There are tourists here, but not many - so Can Tho feels properly and satisfyingly Vietnamese. But there are enough facilities for tourists to make it easy enough to travel to and find a place to stay.

Amanda found us a hotel right on the waterfront. It's nice... OK, 'nice' is possibly an overstatement, but it's clean, comfortable and cheap - so we're happy with it.

The only drawback has been the place's owner, or manager, or whoever he is. In a country where selling unnecessary tours to tourists is a much-loved national pastime, this fella still stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Even before we had looked at a room, he was asking us to go on a tour the next morning. Amanda went upstairs to check out a room, and he continued with me. I said I wasn't interested.

When she came back, he motioned us to sit down while he checked our passports and gave us the usual paperwork to fill out - standard practice here. Or so we thought.

In fact, he dispensed with the usual routine in favour of continuing to talk us through the tour we were apparently going on the next morning. You know... the tour we didn't want.

We told him we were tired and wanted to check in and enjoy a shower, but he refused to even give us the door key until we'd heard him out in full. We politely turned him down - again.

When tried to leave the hotel to get something to eat and take a stroll around Can Tho, he had another shot. Now he was beginning to get really irritating.

But that was nothing. An hour or two later, we were walking off lunch with a good look around town. We were many blocks away from the hotel, when who should suddenly pull up next to us on his motorbike? You guessed it. The hard sell continued. The man was stalking us!

We were aghast. It was so pathetic and amateurish we were almost embarrassed for the guy. Almost. So we refused yet again and he reluctantly drove off. He tried yet again late that night, and I finally had to tell him we'd leave the hotel if he didn't bugger off. We've not seen him since, so he must have got the message.

Or maybe he's sitting all alone on the tour he just can't seem to shift tickets to.

The trip he was trying to sell - and all those like it - is the main reason tourists come to Can Tho. The area right around the city is famous for its crowded floating markets.

All the tours take you to the nearest one, Cai Rang. But Cai Rang has a reputation for having almost as many water-borne foreigners as local traders, and we turned down his tour because we thought we could do better than that.

Besides, we've not exactly fallen in love with the crowded-bus-and-boat tours the operators pack us foreigners on to. The best trips out of town we've done in Vietnam have been on the back of a pair of scooters, and when you're on to a good thing you should stick to it.

So we got up at the very un-holiday hour of half past five this morning, with the hope of finding some xe om drivers to ferry us to a more distant, and less visited, floating market called Phong Dien.

I headed to the ATM for a wallet top-up, while Amanda scouted out some drivers. Fortunately, even at that hour, they are everywhere and she soon recruited two friendly drivers to get us there and back.

Can Tho is no Saigon and we were out of town in no time, racing past some of the countless tributaries of the Mekong, over rickety wooden bridges and through little market towns. We were under clear blue skies for the first time in some 10 days, and enjoying the real Mekong Delta.

At one point, we slowed a little to navigate through a muddy patch and around a corner. Suddenly I was delighted to see we were manouvering across a wooden pontoon reaching out onto the Mekong, and racing onto a crowded and tiny ferry.

There are many of these little things, taking commuters from one bank to the other - some just feet apart - where there are no bridges.

After 45 minutes, we got to Phong Dien and our drivers dropped us off. We walked along the waterfront to see the hundreds of wooden boats making up a bustling and authentic local market.

We were told we'd immediately be offered a boat trip by an enterprising trader - not true. In fact, no one was interested. But one of our drivers appeared and lead us across a wooden bridge. Within moments, he'd negotiated a deal for us - with a deserved cut for himself, I'm sure! - and we were soon aboard a long and narrow wooden boat.

Our captain headed straight for the thick of the market: hundreds of boats selling all sorts of produce and goods. If they sell it, they advertise it - by hanging a sample from a bamboo rod mounted high on the front of their boats.

And you name it, it's sold here. Not just produce, but drinks, ice and even cooked food - with little makeshift ovens aboard someone's boat.

At first we were powered by a noisy engine, but once within the market it becomes so crowded that people get around by merely pushing or pulling themselves against the boats crowded around them.

Best of all, there were no other foreigners around. We did eventually spot one other couple of travellers - a far cry from the hundreds at Cai Rang at the same time of the morning.

The people of the Mekong are said to be the friendliest in Vietnam - especially the ones not accustomed to seeing tourists all the time. While on the ferry over to Can Tho we felt like zoo exhibits, here we felt like celebrities. Everyone waved and grinned, all the children shouting out 'Hello!' and giggling when we shouted back.

Eventually, we reached the outer edges of the market and the guy piloting the boat stopped to score us a couple of coconuts for the journey back. It was getting hot - and it was still before eight in the morning - and we lapped up that coconut juice with great enthusiasm.

We were on the water for an hour, and smugly congratulating ourselves for avoiding an organised tour. If you ever come to Vietnam then take my advice, see the country on the back of the scooter. You'll have fun and experience parts of the country most others don't.

Tomorrow morning - at a far more reasonable hour - we're moving even deeper into the delta, to a town near the Cambodian border called Chau Doc. It's supposed to be a pretty and relaxed place, so we'll be whiling away the final days of our visa there, before we cross the border on the 10th.

It's longer than most people spend on the Mekong Delta. But why not? There's a lot more of it to see.

Saigon crazy

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:03:00 +0000

How great it is to be back in civilisation.

We flew into Saigon and soon had our love for Vietnam revived, after Hoi An almost sapped it completely.

Saigon is wild. It's lacking the charm of Hanoi - one of our favourite places on the trip so far - but it's still a fantastic and fun place.

We're ensonced in a nice hotel in Bui Vien Street - the heart of the city's backpacking district. It's Saigon's answer to Khao San Road in Bangkok, except it's good.

Unlike Hanoi, there's no taste of France in this part of town. Around Bui Vien, you are in a pulsing, noisy, bustling and unmistakebly Asian metropolis. Maybe that's why we love it.

Sure, there are plenty of foreigners around - especially from the I've-got-dreadlocks-and-a-same-same-but-different-shirt brigade - but even in the centre of cheap tourism, the locals outnumber us by hundreds to one.

In fact, the street buzzes with local life. Cafes and bars that spill out on the street at night, packed restaurants pumping out delectable barbecue smoke, incessant beeping horns and the shouts of the locals as they chat from opposite sides of the street. It's heaven.

But the French influence certainly does exist in the centre of Saigon (no one seems to call it Ho Chi Minh city, by the way). In fact, once you leave the packed Asian alleyways behind, you venture past the enormous and spectacularly out-of-place Catholic cathedral and the beautiful European-style GPO.

In fact, as we wandered the wide boulevardes of the city centre, we were reminded of any large European city. There were even a couple of streets that are reminiscent of Manhattan.

Of course, there is an American influence in Saigon - but it's not in the architecture. If you want to see it, you don't have to go far - just visit Saigon's number one tourist attraction, the War Remnants Museum.

The museum is not the greatest, I'll admit. Its displays are pretty much limited to gruesome photos of the horrors visited upon the nation's citizens in the Vietnam War - and a set of deformed foetuses pickled in a jar, silent victims of Agent Orange.

The captions on the displays are full of anti-American vitriol. A lot of people I've spoken to and guides I've read are deeply critical of this sort of rhetoric. Perhaps I'm biased, but I think this stuff is almost measured given that the Americans spent more than a decade here letting loose an historically unprecedented number of bombs, napalming innocents in the countryside, and supporting more than one vicious regime in the name of fighting Communism. What else would you expect?

But the museum's main attraction is its grounds, which are packed with captured American helicopters, jets, tanks, heavy artillery and all sorts of frightening military equipment.

That theme is continued around the corner, where a Soviet-built tank sits just inside the grounds of the Independence Palace, also known as the Reunification Palace.

The tank - and the palace - are part of history. On a hectic and frightening day in April 1975, the tank - at the head of conquering North Vietnamese forces - smashed its way through the gates of the palace.

The palace had been the seat of the government of South Vietnam, and on that April day the war finally ended. More NVA forces followed the tank and stormed the palace, raising the flag of a unified Vietnam.

A few blocks away, at the now-destroyed US embassy, US and foreign personnel were desperately fleeing the country in helicopters leaving from the embassy's roof. After the loss of countless lives on both sides, America had lost - and the North's reprisals were about to begin.

The palace itself is a brilliantly tacky 1960s affair. The ticket includes a mandatory guided tour, so Amanda and I followed around an enthusiastic young chap who spoke a new and incomprehensible variety of English.

The building boasts floors and floors of tacky and ostentatious rooms that once housed America's puppet regime. The highlight of the tour is the basement - a bunker from which the war was (unsuccessfully for them) executed.

It appears untouched from the mid-1970s - with maps, furniture and hulking communications and computer equipment still in place.

Although the guide was incomprehensible, he was at least friendly - something he has in common with most of Saigon.

After the aggressive hostility of Hoi An's unpleasant citizens, it's a relief to be back where people are friendly again.

Sure, there are still a lot of people trying to sell you stuff you don't want or need, but it's done politely and without harrassment. Even those who don't want anything from you still smile brightly.

And we've had a lot of fun mixing with the locals. On our second night, we wandered down to a street nicknamed Restaurant Alley for dinner. We didn't quite find it, as a crowd of locals eating in a restaurant on the street noisily persuaded us to dine where they were dining.

One even pressed a beer into Amanda's hands and urged her to down it one. And she did - what a trouper!

The menu was entirely in Vietnamese and we were able only to figure out bits and pieces with the help of some back-of-the-guide-book translation. Somehow we ended up with barbecued prawns on skewers and some baked pork. Both were unbelievably delicious.

We returned a few days later and tried again. This time we ordered different prawn and pork dishes. The prawns arrived cooked in delicious roasted garlic... and then we got the pork. Even as it arrived, we could see it wasn't meat as we usually know it.

I picked up a piece and slid it into my mouth. It was liver. And I love liver. And it was the most beautifully delectable liver I've ever eaten. Amanda's not as much a liver-lover as I am, but after one taste she ate as much as I did. It was that good.

And remember, if you're a food lover head over to Amanda's blog for a lot of Asian deliciousness.

Unfortunately, the restrictions of our visa mean we can't spend as much time in Saigon as we would like. In fact, we're about to board a bus for Can Tho, a city south of here in the Mekong Delta.

But don't worry, Saigon - we'll be back.

Going underground

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 04:47:00 +0000

I think I've had enough of tunnels.

Although I've already seen the tunnels in which a whole beleaguered community lived in Vinh Moc, I wanted to see the Viet Cong's fighting tunnels at Cu Chi, a popular day trip out of Saigon.

The tunnels here were never really lived in, but used for sheltering guerillas from American raids and springing attacks of their own. They were never meant to be any more than functional, so they were never widened to accommodate facilities like maternity wards or small theatres, like those at Vinh Moc.

Consequently, they are narrow. Very narrow. To get inside them, I had to go down on my hands and knees and climb into a muddy hole and crawl through. I still don't know why I did it.

As I moved through the tunnel, with most of the rest of my tour group, the clay tunnel got darker, hotter and more frightening, until it's pitch black and the walls are pressing against my head, my feet, my shoulders.

I admit it – I was absolutely terrified. I found myself having to fight off a rising tide of panic, concentrating instead on moving ever forward until light appeared, and I could gratefully clamber out of the exit.

Fortunately there's a lot more to the Cu Chi Tunnels than just the tunnels. A couple of hours outside of Saigon, it's the most popular day trip you can do and it's on offer with all the tour agents in around the backpacking area of Bui Vien Street.

You can opt for a half-a-day tour to the tunnels, or a full-day tour that includes a visit to the Cao Dai Great Temple at Tay Ninh, a couple of hours from Saigon, and that's the tour I took.

The Cao Dai temple is really something else. Cao Dai is an indigenous Vietnamese religion, and a wacky one at that. Founded in the 1920s by a civil servant who was into seances, it attempts to fuse Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity (why isn't it called 'Christism'?) and any other religion it can find.

The religion has a load of saints, including familiar names such as Shakespeare, Napoleon and – get this one – Winston Churchill. I have no idea how or why this lot were chosen to be part of their pantheon, but play your cards right and they might worship you one day.

A weird religion should really have a weird temple, and Cao Dai's got one. The seat of the religion, the Great Temple could have been designed by Walt Disney. It's a riot of bright colours, fairytale flourishes and strange imagery – the most common being the Divine Eye, the same eye-inside-a-pyramid you see on the American one-dollar note.

The temple hosts four services a day, and we're dropped off to see the one at noon. You have to take off your shoes and enter through one of two doors to the side of the main entrance – men on the right, women on the left.

Once through the door, I had to step over dozens of men in white robes congregating around the entrance, waiting for the service to begin. Some look like they've had their fill of tourists, but most smiled or waved as I passed them.

I was ushered up some stairs and onto a walkway running the length of the temple, and offering a great view of the altar below. The whole place was enormous and inside it's very reminiscent of a Catholic cathedral. Apart from some pillars painted day-glo pink, the interior is much more restrained than the exterior of the temple.

Suddenly the service began. From behind me a band struck up, music that sounded rather like the high drone of an Indian snakecharmer.

Hundreds of men and women in many versions of the one white robe - segregated and each sticking to one side of the temple – filed out and formed neat rows. At first they stood, and then they fell to their knees.

They began softly chanting in time, and the chanting filled the temple like the sound of a breeze. Their heads nodded up and down, hundreds of men and women in synch - until somewhere ahead of me a gong sounded, and they all bowed to the ground.

That continued for many minutes – simple but mesmerising. Like many religious ceremonies, it's basically absurd but somehow touching.

If you want to see more photos I took of the temple and its worshippers, have a look here

It was all so fascinating that I forgot the time and had to race back to the tour bus before I was left behind forever. But I made it, and we were soon on our way to the day's main attraction – the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Cu Chi is a town just outside Saigon – in fact it seems more or less a satellite suburb these days – that everyone involved in the Vietnam War was keen to hold and protect as a gateway to Saigon itself.

In the nearby jungle, Viet Cong guerillas were encamped and were able to harass American and ARVN forces. Americans and south Vietnamese would try to catch them, but the guerillas would vanish into the complex of tunnels hidden in the undergrowth. There's something like 250kms of tunnels here – one of them even ran right under an American Army base.

You kick off the tour by watching a mandatory and very hilarious propaganda film about the tunnels, before being lead into the steamy jungle to see them. We were shown tiny hidden trapdoors that lead into the tunnels and a whole series of vicious and lethal booby traps used to hinder the enemy in finding them.

It started bucketing down with rain the moment we got there, and track that takes you around the sight was instantly flooded. We gingerly stepped through the undergrowth, especially after one guy trod on what appeared to be an innocent puddle and suddenly found himself waist deep in mud.

You're never going to get closer to the experience of a GI in the Vietnam War than creeping around the jungle in the pouring rain, especially with the rat-a-tat of nearby gunfire ringing in your ears. And I don't mean a piped soundtrack of gunfire, I mean the sound of real guns shooting real bullets.

It turns out that the complex includes a firing range next to the souvenir shop, set up for us tourists. Yes folks, you get to fire a gun. It's tacky and it's tasteless, and I had to have a go. The bullets cost abut $1.50 each, but you have to buy a minimum of 10 – more money than I had on me.

So I split the cost with another guy on my tour group and together we decided on an AK-47 – you have a choice, but that was the only one we'd heard of – and we were lead onto the so-called National Defence Firing Range.

The guns are all lined up on a low brick wall, each with an official looking after them – and you.

He locked and loaded the gun – or whatever it is you do with them – and showed me how to stand and how to hold the AK-47 – a fearsome looking weapon up close. The gun is actually bolted to the wall, so you can't actually pick it up.

I've never even touched a gun before, let alone fired one, and it's a little nerve-wracking when you get it in your hands. I took aim at a distant paper picture of a tiger and gingerly pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing happened. The attendant pulled back on some part of the gun on the side, spitting out a bullet, and I tried again. Same thing. He did it again and I did it again, and still it didn't fire. He messed about with it some more, smiled and signalled that I should try again.

I squeezed the trigger. This time it worked. The AK-47 is bolted down so tightly that there's no recoil, although you can feel it fighting to break free as it lets loose the bullet. It made an almighty crack that scared the life out of me. It's the loudest noise I've ever heard, and my ears were ringing for an hour afterwards.

For the record, I hit not a thing with my five bullets. But at least now if anyone asks if I've ever fired a gun, I can say in grizzled voice: 'Yeah... back in 'Nam.'

Just don't ask me about the tunnels.

No fan of Hoi An

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:15:00 +0000

On the way down here, we heard a lot of great things about Hoi An.

'It's beautiful.'

'It's peaceful.'

'It's great.'

There must be two Hoi Ans, because the one we stumbled into is not beautiful, it's not peaceful and it definitely is not great. The Hoi An we have found is a disappointing and irritating tourist trap.

The disappointment began with the famous Japanese covered bridge, the town's top tourist attraction. Yes, it's old. Yes, it's historic. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. And I don't. It looks like it was slapped together yesterday afternoon out of someone's left over timber.

How appropriate, then, that the bridge is the emblem of Hoi An. The historic and supposedly beautiful streets are all made up of old buildings that are either decaying, and not elegantly, or are pretty poor fakes.

And just to make it a little less attractive, someone has come up with the brilliant idea of linking up a system of loud speakers in its tourist district, playing a soundtrack all day long. Great idea – if they had decided to play, say, traditional music. But they don't – they play elevator music at full volume. Walking the streets while hearing a Muzak version of You Don't Bring Me Flowers makes me feel like I'm in a movie. A very, very bad one.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. I'm sure Hoi An was a charming place once upon a time. And I think many of the old buildings would be very pretty, if only they weren't all packed to the rafters with tacky tourist tat and shouty shop owners.

And there's your problem, Hoi An. A once appealing place has been wrung dry for all its tourist appeal until its original charm has been utterly obliterated.

The most significant sights are now little more than big shops with small museums attached. People scream at you from every shop and pounce on you if you dare to walk within a few feet of the door. Shopping in peace is simply not possible here.

Even more irritating are the people who follow you on their scooters as you walk the streets, aggressively demanding to know where you're staying. As if it's any of their business.

I couldn't fault all this hard sell if the shops – and my God, there are a lot of them – were packed with buying tourists. But every single one of them is deserted, because the tourists – who are of course keen to spend money – are too afraid of the inevitable aggressive sales pitches to enter. Many dash from street to street trying to avoid the hawkers and touts.

If the shop owners took a leaf out of Thailand – or indeed, the rest of Vietnam's – book and sat back and let their products on display do the work, I'm sure they'd find their shops full of happy buyers. And even happier shop owners.

Instead, Hoi An is flirting with trading its reputation for being a pretty and historic town with one of being a charmless and irritating tourist trap. To my mind, it's already there.

It's not that I'm naive or new to persisent sales techniques (hello India!). But never have I seen traders behave with as little grace or humour and as much aggression and hostility as I have in Hoi An.

It's a tribute to its complete lack of appeal that we tried to flee after little more than half a day there. We climbed onto the back of a couple of scooters and headed for Cau Dai beach, not far from Hoi An.

The beach turned out to be a lovely place to spend the afternoon. Locals still wandered the beach trying to sell us stuff, but at least they were friendly and took 'no' for an answer, a change from the sour and insistent attitudes encountered in Hoi An.

Unfortunately, there are no Thai-style bungalows in which to stay in Cau Dai, just resorts beyond our budget. So after sunset we returned – to book a tour the next day and a flight out of here as soon as possible. We wanted to get the train, but again it's been booked out for weeks.

So this morning we got up early for a half-day trip to My Son, ancient Hindu ruins about an hour and a half out of Hoi An. The ruins were beautiful, but the tour we took was shambolic – it left half an hour late and then forgot to pick some people up, leaving us waiting in the bus outside of town for another half an hour while they were ferried to us.

We got to My Son so late that we got little time to actually enjoy it. In fact, there were major parts of it they wouldn't even let us go to, such was their determination to stick to their schedule. Disappointing.

So tomorrow we finally head for Danang, where the nearest airport is, to catch our flight to Saigon.

You won't be surprised to learn that I will not miss this place, although I appear to be alone in thinking that. I'm no fan of Hoi An.

Hue to go

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:09:00 +0000

One thing Hue is famous for in Vietnam is terrible weather. And it lived up to its reputation while we were there. It has some sort of micro-climate which turns it into a warmer version of Britain. It drizzles a lot in Hue (pronounced 'Hway').

When it isn't drizzling, it's pouring. On our first day here, we braved the drizzle and got up to explore the town's famous citadel. Within half an hour we were trapped in a torrential downpour that lasted all day. Hue's sights are mainly out of doors and are unfortunately tough to enjoy when it's raining so hard you can only see a few feet in front of your face.

But yesterday morning we saw the sun poking through the clouds and had to take full advantage. I may have been a little saddle sore from my tour of the DMZ, but I still climbed up onto a bike. A bicycle this time.

Amanda and I braved the traffic – Hue is a hectic place – to get to the old part of town. The old town is completely surrounded by a massive citadel wall, inside of which is a living, breathing city. Homes, shops, restaurants, bars and schools. But deep inside the citadel is an ancient Imperial City, from which a succession of emperors ruled central Vietnam until they were supplanted by the French.

We parked our bikes inside, admiring from close quarters the massive flag tower that dominates Hue, and which was one of focuses of the Tet Offensive in 1968. It faces the main gates of the Imperial City, through which emperors, their mandarins, wives and elephants once paraded.

Now it's only tourists coming and going across the beautiful moat, filled with lotus flowers, and through the imperial gates. You buy a ticket from a man at the desk and then, a mere three feet later, hand your ticket over to a ticket collector. That's communism for you.

The complex inside is enormous. There are all sorts of beautiful palaces and pavilions built on endless green lawns, dotted here and there with elegant ornamental gardens. Most of the buildings have been well restored and conserved, but some are slowly crumbling away – and you can scramble through the ruins and go wherever you feel like.

You could easily spend hours at the Imperial City, and we did. The afternoon slipped away as we explored the place, imagining what it must have been like to be an idle Vietnamese royal before the French came and took all this away.

When we got back on our bikes and rode back into the city of Hue, we soon discovered we were on the roads during rush hour. Hairy. There were scooters everywhere, racing by at impressive speeds while hammering their horns.

And there were Amanda and I, stranded in the middle of various intersections as we tried gingerly to navigate a safe crossing. We successfully got to the iron girder bridge which only allows bikes and scooters to cross the river – and it was so packed with people on two wheels that we could barely see where one lane ended and the other began.

We got behind an old lady on a bicycle and just followed her, as all the scooters raced by us. All seemed well, until we got off the bridge and discovered just how hard it is to turn left from the right-hand lane when the frantic – and unsympathetic – traffic is against you.

In the end, we made a hasty decision to go with the flow and turned right instead, careering down the road until we got a chance to turn around and head back in the right direction.

With our visas running out on October the 10th, we really had to move on from Hue, but there were still sights we wanted to see. Amanda organised a bus ride to our next destination, Hoi An, for the following afternoon, which gave us the morning for some more sightseeing.

To my surprise, she went and bravely booked a half-day motorbike tour, her first, of the royal mausoleums that dot the countryside around Hue. So the next morning, we donned some helmets and jumped on the back of two scooters.

This time we got two young guys with big smiles. Mine was leading the tour, Amanda's guy didn't speak much English. Unlike Bill, who took me through the DMZ, these two were keen to move a little faster.

They raced out of town, darting in and out of the traffic to get us to the sights just a little faster. I was having a great time, but I could see Amanda was hanging on tightly to her driver, but grinning all the same.

Now, while the emperors of Hue lived in their Imperial City, they chose to be buried in the countryside – in beautiful and ornate mausoleums they designed themselves. The mausoleums are more than mere tombs, they are huge complexes which often served as country estates for the emperors who built them while they were still alive.

The first was Tu Duc's mausoleum. This guy was a funny chap – he wasn't much interested in ruling and instead spent most of his time holed up in the mausoleum with his hundred wives and countless concubines, drinking lots of wine and writing poetry.

He also found time to write his own eulogy, which is carved on a stone tablet erected above his last resting place. It's apparently a 4000-word explanation of why it was so tough to be him. What did a man who spent all his time drinking wine with his wives and concubines have to complain about? He obviously felt life was hard on him, but I wish I had his problems.

He may have been a whinger, but he had great taste. Tu Duc's mausoleum is a beautiful place. You start with a reflective lake, full of lotus flowers and hosting a serene wooden pavilion, where Tu Doc drank his wine and wrote his poetry.

Away from the lake is a variety of evocative stone tombs, gates and pavilions, all built near ponds or bubbling waterfalls – and all in relaxing gardens full of whispering pines. You could easily get lost for hours.

But we had our bus to Hoi An to catch in the afternoon, so we reluctantly left the mausoleum for our next stop. We were going to go Minh Mang's mausoleum, which is the most popular one amongst tourists because it's right by the river and therefore simple to get to on one of the many thousands of boats plying the waters of Hue.

But our drivers told us Minh Mang's resting place was pretty similar to the mausoleum we'd just seen and recommended Khai Din's tomb instead. Well, there's nothing like a little local knowledge, so we took their advice.

The road there was circuitous and bumpy, and a lot of fun. Our drivers took us on an insanely enjoyable roller-coaster ride, racing around corners and haring it up and down the hills. We were driving higher and higher, and eventually emerged in a clearing in a pine forest on a hill, offering a view of the countryside for miles around.

But it was Khai Din's mausoleum that drew our eyes away from anything else. This emperor was an even stranger chap than Tu Doc. He visited France once and was taken with all things French and decided to design a tomb that combined classic Vietnamese and French styles.

Unlike Tu Doc's tomb, which covers a wide area, Khai Din built his bizarre confection on a steep hill, and it basically amounts to sets of stairs climbing ever upwards as if to heaven, with his actual tomb at the very top, crowning the complex.

The climb is broken every now and again with enormous terraces populated by stone mandarins, horses, dragons and elephants. The view of the surrounding hills from each terrace gets progressively more impressive, until you reach the Baroque tomb at the top.

The rooms here are filled with French ornaments and architectural flourishes – you could easily be inside the Louvre. In the very centre of all this is a huge, stepped tomb, every surface covered in a riot of colourful and garish mosaics and topped by a life-size bronze statue of the emperor himself. It's all a little odd.

We climbed all the way back down to the entrance and raced back into Hue and followed the Perfume River to the Thien Mu Pagoda, an old but working temple populated by monks of all ages.

As beautiful as the temple is, it is for its place in recent Vietnamese history that it's best known: in 1963, one of its monks, Thich Quang Doc, drove his blue Austin down to Saigon, got out at a busy city corner and became the first of many monks to set himself alight in protest at the repressive policies of the American puppet regime of President Diem.

The car is on display, along with a chilling photo of the brave monk committing fiery suicide, a photo that shocked the world at the time.

And that was our final stop in another highly enjoyable motorbike tour. The guys got us back to our hotel with half an hour to spare, and hung around to chat with us until our bus arrived. The bus turned out to be comfortable, climbing the mountains south of Hue and through a very impressive tunnel – it took more than 15 minutes to get through it – under the Hai Van Pass.

That brought us to Danang, Vietnam's third-largest city and once the main base for US troops in the Vietnam War. We didn't stop there for long, and drove south past the Marble Mountains – little like a mini-Ha Long Bay without the bay – and enjoyed the briefest glimpse of the famous China Beach, where so many exhausted American GIs enjoyed a little R&R.

After yet another packed day, Amanda and I could do with a little R&R ourselves.

Weird scenes inside the goldmine

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:10:00 +0000

That's me, deep underground in the Vinh Moc tunnels, an amazing complex of subterranean tunnels and rooms that once sheltered hundreds of Vietnamese from the incessant bombing of US forces during the Vietnam War.

Families each got a tiny room off a main tunnel, none larger than a single bed, and the tunnels contains wells, washrooms, a medical centre and a maternity ward, even a small meeting hall and a theatre.

The whole thing appears at first to have been carved out of stone, but when you scrape your fingernails against the walls you soon discover that it it's been dug out of soft, red clay.

The tunnels were the last stop on a brilliant tour I did yesterday of the 'Dee Em Zee', the part of Vietnam that once officially formed the border between the warring north and south of the country, and which was the focus of much of the fighting and bombing that makes the Vietnam War such a miserable episode in the life of this country.

Everyone offers tours of the DMZ out of Hue, usually in a bus and usually with dozens of other tourists and a tour guide. I opted for something a little different - I was driven around the DMZ on a back of a motorbike by a former soldier, for whom the many sights along the way had a personal resonance.

The trip was advertised as a motorbike tour but, of course, there was no motorbike. I don't think I've even seen a motorbike in Vietnam. Instead I was on the back of a Honda scooter, so it was just like a longer version of my many trips around Hanoi on the back of zippy moped - except I got a helmet this time.

The DMZ covers a wide area, so an early start is required. At 7am, the irrepressible Bill turned up at our guesthouse and together we were off through the streets of Hue, where Amanda and I are staying, and were soon heading out of town.

Our first stop was for breakfast, and Bill told me his story over a strong black coffee.

Born in 1945, Bill joined the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN, as a young man and his ability to speak English soon got him involved with the American Marines attached to the 21st Airborne Division as an interpreter.

He was with the Marines throughout the rest of what is known here as 'the American War', but in 1975 found himself on the losing side as US forces left the country. He had to lie low, and became a monk for five years. It's only in the past few years he has been able to be open about his past.

Bill - he had to choose an Anglicised name when he hooked up with the Marines - had a tough time of it and is still angry with the Americans for not taking him to the US, and safety, when they left. But he's not bitter in fact, you couldn't ask for a more cheerful and fun tour guide.

And Bill had plenty of stories – more than I could ever tell you here. If you come to Hue, look him up and you're sure to be as spellbound as I was.

After breakfast, we got back on the bike and headed for one of the many, many cemeteries built by the Communist government for the countless thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers who died in the war. There doesn't seem to be any equivalent for the soldiers who fought and died for the ARVN.

The cemetery was empty and quiet, a sombre sight. But it turned out to be just a prelude for Troung Son, the national cemetery built just inside the area officially designated as the DMZ in 1954.

Here enormous Socialist-style statues tower over more than 10,000 graves - all exactly the same but for the name and dates, all in neat rows. It is a sea of yellow stars on red fields. I found myself completely alone there, just the noise of a gentle breeze to keep me company.

After half an hour gazing on this sober sight, we were off again. Out on the open road, it felt like we were racing along at breakneck speed - but I could see Bill's speedo and we never got over 40kms an hour.

We passed and were passed by dozens of locals on their own scooters, all waving and smiling at me as soon as they got the chance. One women even accelerated to catch up with us, so she could chat. Wheel to wheel, racing along in the same lane, she shouted to be heard.

'Where. Are. You. From?' she screamed over the wind and the sound of both our bikes. I told her and she grinned. 'I. Am. From... Viet. Nam!'

This has to be the friendliest part of South East Asia, and that's saying something. I think that by the end of the day I had chatted or waved to every child in central Vietnam.

As we raced by giant Communist billboards (I was moving too fast to get any photos, sadly) and rice fields, Bill pointed out apparently innocent ponds in the paddies. 'Bomb holes,' he said. There are hundreds of them.

Later he pointed out an enormous empty field behind some houses, with more bare red earth than green fields visible. It was what used to be the largest Marine base anywhere in central Vietnam, and you can still see where buildings and airstrips used to be.

Soon we were passing by rubber plantations, owned by the government and planted on land that has only recently become fertile enough for agriculture after years of lying fallow - because of the damage done to the land by the immense scale of US bombing here.

He drove into and past one plantation and soon we were off the road, scaling a hill via a muddy track. The ground here still cannot support much life, although the view of the surrounding countryside was impressive.

Which is exactly why the Marines chose this spot to build Con Thien firebase – the name literally means 'fairy hill', but it was not a happy place during the war. Here the Americans were able to pound NVA positions, and the NVA pounded them right back.

All that's left now is a cement bunker, riddled with bullet and heavy artillery holes – scars of intense fighting that virtually never stopped here, even after the North Vietnamese overran the place in 1972.

Bill showed me decaying sand bags left over from those troubled times, and on the way back to the bike we spotted an old artillery shell lying innocently on a rock. Bill warned me not to touch it, but he need not have bothered. I had already taken note of the many signs around the countryside warning people not to go in various areas where unexploded ordnance remains – waiting to cruelly end someone's life more than 30 years after the end of the war.

Bill told me he came up to Con Thien firebase once during the war, aboard an American helicopter. Now he ferries occasional tourists to it – mostly American veterans who, said Bill, see it and cry for hours.

Back on the bike, we drove to Hien Luong Bridge – which once marked the very divide between the north and the south. You can still see the towers from which both sides used PA systems to assail each other with rival propaganda. Bill said they often got into petty arguments with each other, arguments that could be heard for miles around.

The original bridge was destroyed in 1967 and the one there now was built in 1973. In turn, it's been replaced by a modern road bridge nearby and has fallen into disrepair. A big sign clearly warns you not to cross, but Bill insisted I should.

I was doubtful, but the bridge looked strong and safe. So I clambered over the fence and walked from one side of the Ben Hai River – the famous 17th Parallel – to the other. And I was now officially in North Vietnam.

The final stop was the Vinh Moc tunnels. Hot and claustrophobic, it's impossible to imagine that hundreds of people made a life here. The tunnels emerged on a beach from which hundreds more launched another life – risking everything to climb aboard a tiny wooden boat and float to Hong Kong or Australia. The so-called boat people were trying to escape the triumphant North Vietnamese. Many never made it. For most, this beach was their last view of their homeland.

So then it was time to return home to Hue.

Unfortunately, I had no idea just how uncomfortable sitting on the back of a scooter can be. Around Hanoi, the trips never lasted longer than 10 minutes – not nearly long enough to discover just how tough it can be on your backside.

And on the way up to the tunnels I didn't notice it, either – we stopped every half an hour or so to look at something.

But coming back from Vinh Moc is a three-hour ride. At first the seat is very comfortable. At first.

Half an hour later is a different story. It's not like you can move around or change seating positions when you're flying along on the back of a scooter. First your bum gets numb, then it feels red raw.

Fortunately Bill felt my pain, so we stopped every half an hour for a short break, and that was enough to save my posterior from permanent damage.

So Bill and I spent the late afternoon cruising down the freeways of central Vietnam – part of the world so recently ravaged by an utterly pointless war.

As we rode, Bill and I watched the sun set over rice paddies and small towns you'd usually never see, until he got me home at around seven – tired, with a slightly sore bum, but with a whole new view of Vietnam.

If you're in Hue and you're interested in touring the DMZ with Bill, you can ring him on his mobile on 0982859152 or email him at nguyenvanthanh1945@yahoo.com. Don't let the slightly sore backside put you off, it's well worth it!

I love the sight of Ho Chi Minh in the morning

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:16:00 +0000

The ultimate tribute you can make to Vietnamese Communism is to go and meet Ho Chi Minh. But be warned, he's not well.

Like Lenin and Mao, the father of modern Vietnam is preserved in a mausoleum and you're welcome to take a look.

Unfortunately, the tediously strict Vietnamese visa rules mean we had to abandon plans to get the sleeper from here to Beijing and back and so I have yet to see Mao's body. But 10 years ago I saw Lenin's in Red Square, so visiting Uncle Ho is the second part of this sacred troika.

Perhaps they could get the three of them together and tour the museums of the world – I think a Dead Reds tour would be huge.

Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Hanoi and fancy seeing Uncle Ho, make sure you get there early – the mausoleum opens at 7.30 in the morning (who wants to view a corpse before breakfast?) and closes at 10.30.

I suspect he's actually still alive and gets up for a cuppa at half ten.

The first time we went to see Ho, we arrived at just after 10.30, and missed him entirely. For the next few days we had to make do with seeing his loveable face smiling up from every banknote, T-shirt and poster in town.

The next time we made sure we got there in plenty of time. Just as well, as there are a lot of pointless procedures to go through before you come face to face with the father of modern Vietnam.

First, you have to submit to a metal detector and drop off your bags – you can take nothing with you but yourself - while a very stern woman demands to know if you have any guns, knives or bombs on you. Who would own up? She doesn't miss the chance to sell you a pointless and uninformative brochure, either.

As Amanda fairly asked: 'Why all the security? The man's already dead, for God's sake.' Good point.

But that's not the way the Vietnamese think, apparently, because you still have to go through another metal detector.

Then you follow one of two long white lines on the ground that seem to snake half way across town before finally turning the corner into the long road facing the mausoleum.

It's an impressive sight. Not pretty, but impressive. A monstrous grey granite building faces you – surely far bigger than a man of Ho's diminutive physical stature should ever need.

As you continue the walk, the elaborately uniformed guards become more and more common. And judging by their behaviour, more and more bored. They look for anyone straying off the two white lines, which are only inches thick, and force them back into place.

Amanda found that out the hard way when she meandered a millimetre out of place and was shoved back where she apparently belonged. Seconds later, as we climbed the steps of the mausoleum itself, one of them barked at her to remove her sunglasses. Yeah, these guys are seriously bored.

As soon as you enter, you're hit by a blast of cold air. It takes only moments to round the corner and enter the room in which Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to be cremated, rests against his will.

You come in behind him and walk a short loop around him. He's a little below you, in an elaborate wood and glass sarcophagus, dressed soberly and with his hands resting on his lap. Even dead, he somehow looks benevolent and loveable.

Behind him on the granite wall is the hammer and sickle and a Communist star motifs. The atmosphere is, not surprisingly, sterile and sombre.

You have no chance to pause – the guards make sure everyone moves along at a fair clip. Amanda – who by now must be listed as an enemy of the state - dawdled for one second and a guard grabbed her by the arm and shoved her, not gently, along.

And then you're out. An hour's queuing, a minute's viewing. Well Uncle Ho, it was nice meeting you.

That's it for amazing Hanoi - tonight we're flying south to central Vietnam and the country's ancient capital of Hue. We were going to get the overnight train, but it was booked out weeks before we got to Vietnam. No matter - turns out it's cheaper to fly!

We heart Hanoi

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:41:00 +0000

“I could live here”

Amanda's words on just our second morning in Hanoi sum up just how quickly and easily we've fallen for Hanoi.

After the hassle of the amateurish taxi scam, we slept soundly in the right hotel and woke up with fresh eyes, determined not to let that first bad taste of Vietnam sour our view of the capital. And when we stepped out on to the street and wandered the Old Quarter, we were thrilled and amazed.

Hanoi looks nothing like any other Asian city I've ever seen. Sure, it's busy and crowded but as we wandered the tight alleyways and lanes of the Old Quarter we were reminded not of Bangkok or of Chiang Mai – but of Paris.

The similarities are uncanny. The colourful awnings of the cafés, the Belle Epoque architecture, the narrow streets. And it's not just of Paris that we're reminded – we've seen streets that could be in Barcelona, squares that could be in Italy.

In fact, there's an enormous Catholic cathedral here – St Joseph's - that is built in a square that is the very replica of any such square in Mediterranean France, Spain or Italy. We were standing in one of the alleys leading away from the cathedral – green louvred windows, the walls painted yellow and graffiti that read: “Milano!” - when its bells rang out. We were suddenly in Italy. It was surreal.

It even has districts, like you sometimes see in European cities and towns. There's a clothes district, a haberdashery district, a shoes district, a hardware district, an electronics district, a toys district, even a banging-shiny-sheets-of-tin-into-something-mysterious-but-probably-useful district.

The best I can describe the look of the place is a Paris that's been transplanted in South East Asia and slowly allowed to go to seed, elegantly and in the most pleasing way.

But where Luang Prabang had that French colonial look, Hanoi is very different. Its similarities are to a more urban France, and while Luang Prabang is preserved in aspic for the tourists, Hanoi is anything but preserved.

Luang Prabang is also pretty quiet. Hanoi is not. There's the traffic for one thing. My God, the traffic! Its streets are as busy as Bangkok, but without the ridiculous gridlock. Maybe because everyone – I mean everyone – is on a scooter. Scooters must outnumber cars by at least 100 to one.

You see scooters piled high with some amazing loads - you wonder how it's possible to stay upright when you're carrying a passenger who's holding onto an enormous fishtank, complete with water and fish. I actually saw that!

Add to that all the woman in the conical straw hats (yes, they really do where them) carting all manners of things in baskets hanging from yokes carried over their shoulders.

There are few traffic lights, so if you're going to get around Hanoi you quickly have to learn to get across the road. On our first attempt, Amanda and I spent about 10 minutes just staring at the constant traffic – how were we going to get across?

Then we saw an old lady near us. She stepped, without fear, onto the street and just walked as if the street was empty. To our amazement, the crashing river of traffic just absorbed her – scooters seamlessly darting around and past her until she was across.

So we took a deep breath and dived in ourselves. And it really is like being in a fast-flowing river. You feel like you're being buffeted one way and the next, but you push on until you clamber safely on to the opposite bank.

Now it's second nature. We just walk across the road with our heads held high as scooters whiz by us, millimetres away, and don't even think twice about it.

Of course, there are other ways of getting about besides walking. There are taxis – same as everywhere else, but check they're licensed before you get in or you'll be vastly overcharged.

There are cyclos, which are basically rickshaws that travel at slower than a walking pace and are strictly for tourists – they are everywhere, and if you've not been offered an hour's tour in a cyclo four hundred times in one day then you're obviously not in Hanoi.

But the best way to get about is the xe om (pronounced 'say om'). This mode of transport could not be simpler – it's you on the back of someone's scooter.

The drivers hang about on practically every street corner and wave as you walk by. If you're interested, they jump on their scooters and pull up for you to climb on. Then, for a few pence, you're off.

It took me until yesterday morning to get the nerve up to try a xe om (and until last night to persuade Amanda to give it a try!), but now I'm addicted. It feels a lot safer than it looks, and it's exhilarating to be darting in and out of the traffic, and past the pedestrians that used to be you.

You would think all this hectic excitement would have been dulled a little in the capital of a country still actively ruled by a Communist regime. But no one seems to notice that.

It certainly affects the look of the place, though.

In the French Quarter, where the alleys become wide boulevards, old French mansions stand next to the occasional Soviet-style granite edifice for organisations with names like 'Hanoi Power Company Number One'.

Statues in the Socialist realist style abound – white granite depictions of workers and soldiers striving to reach a workers' paradise, that sort of thing. We've even seen a couple of Lenin statues – and you don't even see those in Moscow any more.

In the Old Quarter, there are little areas where party announcements and posters are pasted up to be viewed by the locals.

There are little socialist touches everywhere. My favourite so far has been the napkin holder you see in restaurants – a cartoon of a stereotype Italian chef holding a pizza is beneath the proudly emblazoned words 'Work is Glory'. Weird.

For a Communism junkie like me, it's heaven. Of course, I don't have to live with it.

But none of this seems to get in the way of Hanoi's love for life. It doesn't dull the cacophony of beeping scooters, the chatter of the locals, the astonishingly good food, the drive to buy sell and trade you see everywhere.

It's an exciting place, Hanoi. And, yeah, I could live here.

Messing about on boats (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:06:00 +0000

After our epic voyage down the Mekong, boats are becoming something of a theme on our trip.

But a three-day cruise around north Vietnam's Ha Long Bay wasn't quite the same voyage as a trip down the Mekong. This time we enjoyed a little luxury, locals weren't climbing on and off board and it cost a whole lot more. But, to be honest, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much.

The Ha Long boat cruise is a standard one for most tourists that come this way - from independent backpackers to pensioners on package tours. It's offered by every guesthouse and travel agent in Hanoi. We picked the tour we did after a lot of research on the Net and finding it highly recommended - and decided to pay the extra, about £100 each for three days and two nights. You can do the same for as little as £30 each, but horror stories about the cheapo deals abound.

But in the end, Amanda and I didn't think it was worth what we spent.

But don't get me wrong - we had a great time. It didn't quite live up to our expectations, but they were probably a little high. And we did have fun, thanks to the great bunch of people we were on the boat with.

We met first thing in the morning in Hanoi when we piled into our mini-bus for our three hour drive to the coast, over Hanoi's Red River for the first time - seeing a bridge still sporting the scars of American bombing in the 60s and 70s - and through the towns and villages of north Vietnam.

On the bus with us were a lovely Aussie couple from Brisbane, a fun pair of Kiwi guys, an Australian guy returning home after a long time in the UK (sound familiar?) with his English girlfriend and Matt Damon and Salma Hayek. Well, actually, a great Californian couple who could have doubled for them.

It's just as well we all hit it off, because the tour company was determined that we stick together at all times. When we arrived to board our boat - a beautiful replica junk called Dragon's Pearl - we were put at the same table for lunch and positively discouraged to mix with the other 18 people on board. One woman sat down with us and was shooed away by the staff.

And speaking of other people... we had all been told repeatedly that there were only 10 other people in our group. But when we got there, we found that this was technically true, but that there were two other groups aboard.

The boat was easily big enough to accommodate us all comfortably and we had not been technically lied to, but we'd obviously been mislead and that left an early bad taste in the mouth.

And that's a neat segue onto the topic of food on board the boat. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either. Faux Asian food - none of it even vaguely Vietnamese - for Western tastes. And never enough to fully satisfy. Disappointing.

Now the good news. The boat itself was beautiful. The room was small, of course, but lovely and clean and well appointed. To be honest, it was one of the nicer rooms we've stayed in so far!

And Ha Long Bay itself is beautiful - astonishingly beautiful. It's famous for its karsts, rocky outcrops that suddenly emerge from the emerald green seas. There are, apparently, 1,969 of them - they are everywhere. As you gently cruise about the bay, they are always all around you, and behind each one is several more fading into the heat haze. It makes for a very beautiful and dramatic sight - like a mountain range in the sea.

Unfortunately the water is not as clean as it could be, thanks to the floating villages that appear here and there. Literally little huts built onto makeshift pontoons, they gather together in little clumps and house the local fisherman.

Ha Long Bay is a World Heritage site and the government, we were told, has tried hard to stop the fisherman polluting the waters but it still happens. I can't fault them for that - life has to be tough when you have to live in a bare hut on a floating pontoon. I'm sure they have more important things to worry about than the cleanliness of my swimming water.

Being a World Heritage site, the tourism is strictly controlled. That means that all the tours, and there are a lot of them, have to moor at the same beaches and spend the night in the same small stretches of water. You see a lot of replica junks!

But some tours - ours included - offer kayaking, and in a kayak you can go where you want. It took us somewhere where the water was clear and clean. Kayaking is something I've never done, thought I would never do, and never want to do again. But it seemed a great idea when we signed up.

It turned out to be hard work, but worth it. We got to see some of the karsts very close up, even getting to go inside an enclosed lagoon. That was the first of two sessions of kayaking that day - with a barbecue lunch on a deserted beach in between.

But as much as Amanda and I enjoyed the morning's kayaking, we'd had enough and hung around on the beach for a few hours while everyone else went off to see the inside of a partly submerged cave instead.

While they were gone, a local woman rowed up to the beach with her two little girls to try to sell us some of her crisps, beers, fruit and just about anything else you can imagine. We declined, but her kids took such a shine to us that she left them with us while she went off to hawk her wares to some nearby boats.

The kids were a great laugh - swimming with Amanda, trying on all our hats, sunglasses and generally having a great time.

When we got back, we enjoyed an evening that ended with a few of us being smuggled by the staff into the private back deck for some free beer and lessons in Vietnamese. It was the birthday of one - possibly two, it was hard to work out - and they were keen on defying the captain's orders not to fraternise with customers.

The night before some uptight Australian pensioners had whinged about the staff making a little noise after hours and some had been docked some of their already measly pay. Apparently they had decided that they may as well make the crime fit the punishment, and were intent on enjoying themselves that night. We happily joined in.

The next morning we were taken to the Amazing Cave, also known as the Surprising Cave. If you don't want to know what the surprise is, look away now... the cave boasts a stalactite that looks rather like an enormous penis. In case you miss the resemblance, it's all lit up in pink. Perhaps they ought to change the name to the Childishly Amusing Cave.

After that, the boat pulled out and moored somewhere in the middle of the bay and we got to leap off the deck - an impressively long drop - into the sea. A blast, and the best swimming of the whole three days.

We made it!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:39:00 +0000

At last, we're in Hanoi. And it's been an interesting trip.

The delay was a pain but there was a bright side. For one, we got to enjoy a little more of the boat race festival in Luang Prabang. I say boat race festival, but the boat races themselves seemed to be little more than an excuse for an orgy of drunkenness. My kind of town.

On the way back from writing the last post in an internet cafe, we were waylaid by one particularly drunk local. He dragged Amanda and I into someone's house and we found ourselves in the midst of a major party.

We were plied with alcohol, we joined in the karaoke – inevitably, it involved South East Asia's most popular song, Hotel California. We were only there for half an hour, but we were treated like the guests of honour.

Another bright side was meeting some of our strandees. James, an English guy living and working in Saigon, his girlfriend Mae from Saigon, and Rob, a backpacker from Jersey. We ended up hanging out with them for a few days, and are going to look up James and Mae in Saigon.

After a night in a nice hotel – free – and a dinner, breakfast and lunch – also free, and worth every penny – we were bussed back to the airport and piled on to the smallest commercial aeroplane I can ever remember boarding. It had propellors, for God's sake.

We figured we'd get a great view of Luang Prabang after take-off, since a flight path goes right over the centre of town and we've been watching planes fly so low over the main street that we felt as if we could reach up and touch them.

We weren't disappointed. The view of Luang Prabang was stunning, and so was the sight of the hills and dense jungle surrounding it from high up in the air.

The flight was quick and easy and soon we were through immigration and officially in Vietnam. But that's when things went a little awry.

The taxi the hotel was supposed to have sent to meet us was nowhere in sight, so we got our own. He raced into town, leaning on his horn and dodging scooters, trucks, bikes, cars, cows and pedestrians all the way.

We made it pretty clear where we were going, but not clear enough. The driver took us to the wrong guesthouse, and some guy practically ripped open the door and tried to hustle us out of the taxi. We knew the street we were supposed to be on, and we knew what street we were on – and the two were definitely not the same.

We knew instantly what was going on – it's the oldest trick in the book. The cab driver takes you to the wrong guesthouse, he gets a commission and you don't have a clue what's going on. Fortunately, we were wise to that one.

But despite our protests, Fake Hotel Guy kept up his desperate patter. Yes, this was The Hanoi Guesthouse. Yes, he had our booking. But it was one of a group of three guesthouses and we had been placed in a better room in the better guesthouse.

Of course we were confused. It was all fishy, but who knows? But Amanda came up with the brilliant idea of demanding that this guy name the hotel manager – she'd been emailing her for a while.

He made a wild stab at it, and the answer was wrong. At about the same moment I spotted a street sign up ahead and recognised it as the street we were supposed to be on. We demanded the driver take us around the corner. Fake Hotel Guy protested. The cab driver protested. We protested right back, and prevailed.

Sure enough, around the corner we found the right guesthouse. Amanda leapt out to check everything was okay. I stayed in the car, but the driver – minus the commission he'd no doubt already spent in his head – was out and trying to throw our bags into the traffic.

I clambered out and told him to hold on. He was hopping mad and decided to start squaring up to me – a pretty comical sight given that I had about two feet on this little chap. I'm sure he was trying to get into my face, but all he was doing was getting into my chest. And even then he was on tiptoes.

I tried to calm him down, but the guy was doing a brilliant job of pushing all my buttons, so in the end I taught him a few English phrases he might not have heard before.

Turned out the hotel was the right one – everything was fine. The owner was painfully apologetic for our minor ordeal, which wasn't even her fault, and gave us a great room with an enormous terrace overlooking Hanoi's old quarter.

The hotel is, according to its brochure, “your ideal resting place”. Well, I don't know about that, but after two long days trying to get from Luang Prabang to Hanoi, we rested very well indeed that night.

So now we've just spent our first day in Hanoi and we're rapidly falling in love with. It's one of the most exciting and intriguing cities I've been to. But I'll have to wait to tell you about that because it's late and I have to start packing.

Yep, Amanda and I are moving on already. But we'll be back in three days for an extended stay in Hanoi. In the meantime we're heading to Ha Long Bay for a three-day cruise - click here to see what we'll be doing...

Famous last words

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Cathro) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:14:00 +0000

"Tonight we'll be eating dinner in Hanoi..."

That's how I ended my last post. Well, no... tonight we'll be dining in Luang Prabang. Again.

Because half an hour after that last post, we were sitting at a cafe enjoying a coffee and teaching ourselves Vietnamese phrases when the heavens opened. And I do mean 'opened'. We've seen some pretty impressive rain storms so far, but this was a whole other category.

Within 10 minutes, the streets were submerged. The steps up to temples had been transformed into powerful cascades. We made a dash for the guesthouse where our bags were being stored, but got as far as a food stall at the end of the street. We took shelter under the vendor's umbrella with a few of the locals. By this time, we were already soaked through.

We had timed the spending of our money very carefully - you cannot exchange the kip for any other currency and we didn't want to get saddled with any significant amount of useless paper. So we had exactly enough to get a tuk-tuk to the airport, but not enough to get a tuk-tuk to the guesthouse.

But Amanda smiled and sweet-talked a driver into taking us to the guesthouse and then the airport for nothing extra.

When I slid and slipped my way into the forecourt of the guesthouse - intent on getting our bags as quickly as possible - I was waylaid by some Laos celebrating that festival I was telling you about. And celebrating it very merrily indeed.

A glass of beer was thrust towards me.

'Drink for good luck!'

I had a bulging pack on my back and another in my hand - this was not the time for a convivial social beer. I refused, but they insisted. 'Drink it, drink it!'. Well... if you insist. I downed it in one, thanked them and raced out into the downpour with the bags.

We made it to the outskirts of Luang Prabang without trouble, but then it became clear that the tuk-tuk had problems. It kangaroo-hopped and spluttered its way along, threatening to break down at any moment. The driver wrestled it, but I think it was the furious silent prayers of Amanda and I that got it there.

It actually did break down - right outside the airport. What a stroke of luck (but not for the driver). We heaved our bags into the airport.

But we weren't so lucky after all: The flight had been cancelled.

It wasn't all bad news. Contrary to all our expectations, Vietnam Air wasn't planning to let us fend for ourselves. We were bussed back into the city and to a hotel they're paying for - meals included - and we're due to fly out at 3pm tomorrow instead.

The hotel has turned out to be quite nice. It's certainly the most luxurious place in which we've stayed in the past two-and-a-bit months (that's not saying much).

I'm going to be sorry I typed this, but... tomorrow night we'll be eating dinner in Hanoi.