A letter from home

Our thoughts always go back to our trip to Vietnam. I tell people we could never have imagined how amazing the trip was to be. I still see your faces smiling at Hanoi airport. Who would have thought we would be reunited in such a distant place. One day soon I will write about our adventures. I feel privileged that we were able to experience the Vietnamese culture so closely. Andy's Vietnamese certainly helped us - who would have known green dragon fruit is the best. Remember the delicious grilled fish dishes - wrapped in leaves - cilantro - morning glory greens - those wonderful local dishes on the waterfront in Hoi An. People shouting "hello" as we cycled through the rice paddies. The silhouette of the children, fisherman walking along the dyke when we were on our tour of the floating city with the hills protruding like a landscape from another planet behind them. The old lady almost bowing gesturing to us to join her in the church, such a spiritual event.
Following Andy on bikes for the first time in over ten years as we cycled out of Ninh Binh into the countryside. Stopping for that oh so wonderful icecream or bottle of water. Feeling warm all the time. Being able to carry your possessions on your back. Riding the bus with the locals through little villages with the factories that will change their life forever looming up. The challenges of travelling when things do not quite go as you planned but it is fine because actually things work out better than you expected. Traveling by overnight bus and train comfortably - Dad has since said he has always wanted to go by overnight train although he thinks he prefers the bus because you see more of the countryside - if it is a comfortable bus that is. Travelling with our daughter and son-in-law - as family and best friends. Knowing that there are difficult times at times when we all have opinions but making that turn around to making things successful. Accepting that being bothered by touts is a game we must play - not a Western culture event but very much part of most of the rest of the world as you have discovered. Riding on the moto-bike not done since we were very young but still the same buzz as then - bodies tight, leaning in to the bend up hill and down. Getting soaking wet but feeling warm. Shopping in the market with you, buying lovely things while the boys hung out. Wishing Sophie were there but knowing she would understand our experiences because she had been to Asia. Such images....

For you two at times things must be tough. But your experience and knowledge of these different cultures will always be with you to look back on and say we did it! Thanks for everything you did for us in Vietnam, the planning, Andy always finding water for us, the relish with which you taste and experience the cuisine and bia hoi, Sarah the kind way you relate to the people, your walking tours and on and on...

And you guys have experienced so much, so many different cultures and countries, so many stories. Now yes you can feel time slipping by but remember you still have a third of this big trip to go. I want to hear all about Laos, Thailand, India, Pakistan. And I am sure you will have adventures here in Western Canada to look forward to.

Let me know if you need more malaria pills or anything else. Take care, we are just sipping a Vietnamese coffee - quite wonderful.

Love Mom

PS Did you get to ride elephants?!

decompress

We arrived in Sihanoukville at nightfall and took a few days to decompress. There are nice beaches but not as many as you'd think. We just spent the time swimming, reading and writing. The snorkeling is somewhat unspectacular as the area has been overfished by dynamite. But it is a beautiful setting with lovely, unusual sunsets.

We took a day out and decided to head east to Kampot and Kep, the old French Colonial Towns that there wasn't much left of anymore, but ride was pretty wonderful. With Andy driving and Sarah on back, we took off helmet-less (the Cambodian way) up Highway 4 turning East on Highway 3. In the distance we see the huge lurking figure of Bokor 'Hill,' an enormous plateau 1000+ meters high stretching miles and miles in every direction, consisting of a National Park and the French Ghost town at the Hill Station with shells of hotels and casinos and water towers still standing. We had heard you could get up there and thought it might be an interesting detour.


But first we had to get through the dust choking roads and unstable rocky layout to Kampot. After holding our breath and protecting our eyes as much as possible, we made the 3-hour trip without incident, and saw some amazing scenery along the way, with kids (and adults) greeting us with hearty "Hello(s)!" the entire way. This time we treated ourselves to hot water and air conditioning and did something a little different -- sat in our room and watched HBO, one cheesy movie after another and did absolutely nothing except eat grilled chicken and frog.

After checking out the surreal little seaside town of Kep the next day, we came back through Kampot and found the entrace to Bokor Hill. It was 12pm and we learned that it would take 3 hours to come up and 2 hours to come down and the sun set at 5:30pm. And the entire 30km road up was in disarray. 4x4's or mountain bikes are recommended, but moto-bikes have made the trip. Andy asked the woman taking the $5 for the 'privilige' of using the road if we could do it on our little moto-bike. She turns to some old man sleeping in a hammock in the other building. He says something back and she tells Andy, yeah you could do it. After much internal debate we decided to go for it and just stay up on the mountain for the night. The woman said there was a ranger station and that we could find good "Thai noodles" up there.

We knew the road was bad but didn't realize just how bad. It was pretty much intense concentration for not 3, but 4+ hours just keeping the bike from falling over through big stones, dirt gullies, little stones and the worst -- miles and miles of medium-sized stones stretching end to end that simply ate tires up and felt like a hand was reaching over and trying to pull the bike down. At 4:30 pm and pretty exhausted, we saw the glorious sight of hulking old buildings on the horizon -- Bokor Hill Station. Before we checked in, Andy noticed another problem, we had used so much gas struggling to the top, we only had a little over 1/4 of a tank of fuel left. Surely they would sell fuel there, right? Anywhere there's a way to make a dollar, they're there.

We checked in at the Ranger's, got supplies for an immediate picnic stat! (we hadn't had any food since 9am) and set out to watch the sunset from the shell of the old Palace Hotel -- a glorious structure built by the French in 1908, briefly used by the Khmer Rouge as a hideout, and now a ghost of its former self, covered with brightly-colored orange moss, with glass shards and original French tiles scattered about. On the middle terrace of the grand structure at the edge of the plateau, we watched an almost indescribable sunset over the horizon in the distance 1000+ meters below. Enormous grey clouds gently wafted right over our heads like an giant, abducting spaceship. You better believe that drive was worth it, but next time we might hop in the back of a truck!

When we got back to the Ranger station, we found out, amazingly, that they did NOT sell fuel. A couple of the Ranger guys looked at the gauge and said that we could still make it down as it takes much less fuel. We guessed we really didn't have a choice!


The next morning we ate the 'thai noodles' which were really just a dyhadrated cup of Nissin. We decided before we left to hike to the waterfall, which ended up being a disappointing trickle. We wondered how it could be the gusher all the books were talking about because we were already on top of the giant plateau. Where exactly was the river coming from? The main story though was Sarah who, wearing flip flops, somehow got stung by a giant black ant on her foot. It really smarted, and she was writhing in pain for a few minutes collapsed to the ground almost on the verge of tears. Andy thought if she passed out or something, he might have to carry her or run back the 6 miles to get help. Luckily, it retreated to simply a big red welt and she was able to hike on and not even notice it for the rest of the day, but it was a real scare for a few minutes. We hoped this wasn't a bad omen for the ride down!
Actually, the ride down turned out to be much easier (relatively speaking) than going up. It was the same road but it seemed as if the rocks were bouncing off a little more gently, the road falling a little more easily in our direction. That said, it was still a ride from hell that lasted well over 2 hours, took the life of a disfigured the right brake pedal, and after the pounding our bodies took the day before, just seemed like it would never end. At about 2pm, we emerged from the park, saw the same non-plussed lady from the day before and went on. We did manage to convince a couple of locals to try to bend back the brake pedal to its original position, but it was still pretty messed up. We got plenty of gas and made it back to Sihanoukville a day late, but in fine fashion, and well before sunset (You don't want to be on those roads at night). Luckily the renter never discovered the cosmetic damage to the brake and took the best $12 we ever spent for four days.



A couple of more days and then we're on to Angkor Wat, then either Northeastern Cambodia or directly to Laos. See? We don't have EVERYTHING planned out. Sometimes we even make it up as we go along!



Thanks: to everyone who is still following along and enjoying the details. And thanks to everyone who is replying to the blog. We really love hearing from you, as many times, the only other friends we find ourselves having is subtitled HBO! We miss you.

'on cue'

The bus of course took not 4, not 5, but 6 + hours. Two ferries and one nightfall later we were in the dumpy town of Chau Doc set to hightail it out by boat in the morning. We ended up taking a rickshaw to the docks where the guy with us from the hotel found a woman willing to row us by hand in her long boat. While boarding with our big packs on the unstable, narrow vessel, Sarah almost fell and we almost capsized, right there in the dock. A few moments later, we were off. The woman was rowing hard for a long way and we were passing right through the middle of a fascinating floating village complete with blaring TV's and children waving to us (almost 'on cue') then met up with our real boat, which only had about 10 others in it as we chugged up the mighty Mekong River and stopped at the border. As promised, formalities on the Vietnam side were not a problem. We had lunch, then got on another boat. A boy was pleading with Sarah to give him her pen. She gave it to him thinking, "Poor thing,he has nothing to write with. How will he ever learn, get ahead or have a descent chance at life without a measly pen?" She then looked on the other side of the boat and there appeared the same boy with the pen asking another guy filling out a customs form if he wanted to buy it!

The boat left and crossed the border into Cambodia. We then disembarked for formalities there, which was also painless. 

A couple of hours later, the cattle along the river changed from being velvet-y brown to white. They also seemed to grow in size and a few were even being bathed in the river by their meticulous Cambodian owners. Almost every group of children that saw us let out ecstatic screams of "Hello! Hello! Hello! Goodbye!"

We boarded a bus at our stop and were soon on our way to Phnom Penh, the capital, when we noticed another change. Now there were huge groups of people riding on the TOP of buses and minibuses. And we were iffy about our luggage being up there.

We arrived in Phom Penh and had a little trouble finding some place to stay as it seemed like everything was really booked. Once we did, we stayed there for a few days visiting the Palace, Silver Pagoda, S. 21, and the Killing Fields, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, and how they orchestrated the most bizarre, closed-off government and social experiment in recent memory. Supposedly, from 1975-78, they abolished the calendar and made everything start at year 0, sealed all borders and canceled all flights except one night flight to Beijing, suspended the entire postal service, and required every citizen, including all women, children, elderly and infirm, EVERYONE to go out into the fields to work every day in backbreaking conditions, abolished schools and were suspicious of anyone intellectual -- to the point of executing an estimated 2 million people. Apparently no one in the world had enough political currency at the time to intervene except the Vietnamese, whose border was being crossed and attacked by the Khmer -- a decision they perhaps regretted as the Vietnamese invaded the entire country and kicked the Khmer back into the hills. Andy spoke with a few people who said the Khmer were still around 'in the hundreds,' mostly in the mountains, but that most people, in their words, "No like."


We also went to the only hill in town and saw monkeys -- TONS of monkeys playing around the temple -- so many it was almost a little gross. Andy also tried a few of the popular local delicacies including spider, which the leg tasted like crispy pork skin, cricket or grashopper (not sure which one), which tasted the same, and silk worm, which was the toughest psychologically to get past just because of the squishy texture, but in the end, it actually tasted like a creamy brazil nut. All were fine, it was just getting past a huge mental roadblock.

Our next stop was to go south to the coast and Sihanoukville, the beachside 'resort' that was a favorite of the old King Sihanouk. There we'd rest up, catch up and maybe have a little side adventure. At 1pm, we were on the promised four hour bus ride. This time, the times turned out to be accurate!