You know what I said about the dry season.... (27/28 February 2009)

…in my bit about the waterfall with no water. Well I guess it’s a raging torrent by now. The wet season doesn’t start till the beginning of June – but someone somewhere forgot to tell that to the powers that be. There was a huge storm overnight and another one late this afternoon which is still going on. I guess they’re used to it, but I do feel sorry for the squid fishermen that you can see in the distance – the lights from their little boats are twinkling in a line across the horizon like a diamond necklace. They don’t use nets here – just small boats and fishing lines. Not a lot of fun at any time being out there at night, but with lightning flashing about it’s my idea of hell. It has been really hot the last few days so I suppose this storm has been building up. Yesterday I moved here to the Thien Hai Son Hotel a couple of hundred metres nearer the town than the Seastar. It’s more of a resort hotel than the other place, but I treat myself to a bungalow on the beach. Apparently it’s a Government hotel and there are a collection of bungalows on the beach and in the gardens, with a normal five storey hotel block at the back. The bungalow (I have half of the little semi in the pic), is a bit tired inside and the furniture is "local" style, upright, heavily carved chairs with high gloss varnish. There are a series of heavily swagged yellow satiny curtains, but the bathroom at least has an enclosed shower - a pleasant change from most of the ones I've had here that are not enclosed and just flood the whole bathroom! Every bit of wood - and there's quite a lot - has been varnished to within an inch of its life! It's in a great location – apart from one downside – it appears to be next door to the hotel sewage treatment area. No real problem till the rain started and every so often there is the most ‘orrible whiff… But ignoring that it’s lovely to sit on the verandah looking over the narrow beach out to sea. The hotel has a few Westerner’s staying, but most guests are Asian – a mix of Vietnamese, Koreans and some Chinese. This clientele is reflected in the breakfast….. a huge buffet of various rice dishes and salted eggs, but one sad little toaster that takes about 5 mins to do your toast! I don’t know how many rooms there are but there seem to be quite a few, but in the day there’s no one around. There’s a huge, deserted pool in the middle of the grounds and the beach has loads of empty beach beds – a change from the Seastar where you had to be up early with your towel if you were to beat the German’s to it!

The Pap's in Phu Quoc (26 February 2009)

Well, not exactly the paparazzi, but today I take a tour of the South of the island and my aging hippy guide (dressed in bright orange fake Lacoste so at least I couldn’t lose him) sees himself as a bit of a David Bailey. He takes charge of the camera so for a change, not a good one, I hear you cry, I am in most of the pics. If only I had known, I may have made more of an effort with the outfit! But he decided to take all the pics of me – and just like David Bailey he was on the floor, up trees etc to get the right shot. He also, after a while decided to “dress” the shots – so you can see me as a pepper picker, a fruit saleswoman, a waterbike driver, a fish sauce manufacturer and Amazon explorer. I say Amazon as Phu Quoc is apparently on the same latitude as the Amazon and has the same (albeit somewhat smaller…) rainforest, but like the rest of Vietnam, no big animals as a result of the wars. But there are still cobra’s - I wished he’d have warned me before we went into the jungly bit… Here, apparently the German’s and Korean’s had a bit of a go at one another during WW2, and it was also occupied by the Americans during the “American” War, mainly for R and R. But those Yanks knew what they were doing, it really is a spectacular place. One hundred mountains (none more than 400 metres high, so I guess Everest doesn’t have too much competition), all covered in green forest. I have also discovered why there are no private cars here – there really aren’t too many roads.
We start our journey South from the hotel down the red dirt track. The start is from the centre of the west coast – and the island is 60kms long. So the beautiful Long Beach to our right goes for almost the whole 30kms. After about one kilometre the development stops and the beach is all there is, apart from the odd small fishing hamlet. The land to the left is all closed off – the site of the new international airport, my guide tells me that it will be operational in four years’ time officially, he thinks six years with the delays. But given they will need to build all the hotels to cope before that happens, I would get your skates on to get here soon. But they have started by "re-settling" all the people who lived in the area. No long planning applications needed here - just move people....

Our first stop is at a pearl fishery run by New Zealander’s. Apparently there are only about ten foreigners settled here in Phu Quoc. Nice pearls but not my thing, but the setting is amazing. I am told that all new development will be along this beach, and high rises will be permitted, but it will all be across the small road from the beach – this makes this pearl fishery site worth a fortune. The pearls are all caught here, but the jewelery they are set in is done in HCMC.
Our next stop is at the Coconut Prison. Frankly, I’m a little unsure what this is all about – the guide’s English is quite good, but his history is a bit iffy. He was a teacher in a previous life but taught chemistry and physics – pity really, history may have been of more use in his current role! And they haven’t quite got the hang of the tourist here – all the display labels and info were in Vietnamese. But from what I can gather, this was where the Vietnamese Republic (the South) interned all the “Commies” they captured from the North. Now, of course they are all “heroes” and their pictures adorn all the walls.
We then drive east across the island to the harbour. Now I don’t know about you, but to me a harbour where boats sail to Cambodia is a biggish place. As usual I was wrong. A long dusty street selling all manner of dried fish and live crabs appeared before me, together with the local spirit (“vodka”) in all manner of odd containers, and all containing added ingredients, snakes, seahorses that kind of thing…. One long rickety wooden pier out to sea with a few even more rickety boats bobbing about. The guide talks me through some of the merchandise on offer. Dried shrimp I understand, even dried shrimp rubbish; other dried fish I recognised as well as clam muscles, even that “wine” with seahorses pickled in it were familiar. But the one that stumped me was “penis of sea dog” – it sort of looked familiar, but I decided not to enquire further….. so no shopping here.
We then move on down a tiny dirt track to see Sao beach. This is the stuff of Bounty Bar ad’s. The sand on Long Beach where I am staying is pretty special and squeaks as you walk on it, but this is something else. White, white sand, like talcum powder, technicolour blue sea with a few waves (as we are on the Eastern side). No development apart from a couple of beach bars and one new “hotel” – a beautiful building on the water’s edge just about completed with just three rooms. The card says it’s run by a guy who sounds like a Brit . It looks a perfect hideaway. But I’m not about to publish the name on the net – if you are interested, you know who to ask!
I reluctantly leave “paradise” as we have more things to see. Next stop is a pepper “garden”, where said David Bailey has me up a ladder picking peppers – what was that about Peter Piper? We also have to walk through the chickens and hens to get there – hope bird flu hasn’t got here yet, but frankly, I am probably in more danger from climbing up the pepper picker’s ladder…
We then visit a waterfall with no water… It’s an elaborate place with gardens, crocodiles in a pond, cement animal models everywhere, and stalls selling fruit and bits of jewellery and cokes. But this is the dry season so said waterfall has no water, therefore no tourists (apart from me). It is apparently spectacular in the wet season, then there is lots of water but then there are no tourists .... (a lot of the hotels actually close down). Think the owners were sold a bit of bum advice from some management consultants when they decided to develop this one…
Then on past a tiny tumbledown fishing village, the boats with their faded blue paint look like discarded toys at jaunty angles along the banks. It’s called Crocodile Village as there used to be loads prowling about, but thankfully, they are long gone. It looks a hard life. The guide tells me that the fishermen work six months of the year as it’s too stormy during the wet season - I suppose that's why they dry so much fish. The kids don’t go to school as they are needed to help. There is no tv or other entertainment so the birth rate goes up significantly nine months after the wet season starts…. Very large families are the norm, and the literacy rate is very low in these villages, and even though this is a socialist state, there are no Government handouts.
And then to our final stop, the fish sauce factory. It’s meant to be the best fish sauce in the world…. It’s actually a collection of smaller factories based along the river. They catch the fresh water river fish, bung them with salt into huge vats, press them down and leave for a few months. No chemicals used I am proudly told – but looking at the production methods, I think a few chemicals may actually be beneficial. Eventually, months later, fish sauce is drained off the bottom…. It’s bottled (into bottles washed in the river – but I guess all the salt kills the bugs…), labelled by hand and sold round the world. So a clue for when you are next buying fish sauce – it’s a bit like olive oil first pressing etc. The first stuff that comes out is 40 N. I’m still not sure what that means, but it is the best and taken as medicine. I’m not too clear what it’s taken for, but frankly you would have to be pretty sick to rely on that to get better. The guide said it was for bad stomachs but to me it looked like it could cause more than correct! The next lot drained off after they bung in a few more fish and a bit more salt is 25N and is used for cooking. So next time at Tesco, make sure you buy at least 25N – check your labels…
And then back to the Seastar – and perhaps this blog should be called “Powerless in Phu Quoc”. The power has been off all day, I hope that doesn’t mean my laundry isn’t ready. The hotel had a generator going for a while, but the diesel must have just run out as that has stopped too. They will have to sort these infrastructure issues out before those millions of tourists arrive soon. The island is the same size as Singapore but with 100,000 population compared to Singapore’s three million. But they’ve a long way to go to match their organisation.
So the South of Phu Quoc is a special place. The 30kms Long Beach is the only place in Vietnam where you can enjoy a full sunset as it faces due West and unlike all the other tropical islands I have been to this retains such simplicity, I feel privileged to have visited it now.
I still have to discover the Northern half of the island. I move hotels tomorrow, so will probably do that in a couple of day’s time. I need a few days to get the make-up and hair right if I am to use the same “paparazzi” guide. I also need to make room in the bag – I was presented with flowers, peppers, fruits and a calendar as we went around today – I wonder what gifts my next expedition will come up with…

No flies on Phu Quoc (21 - 24 February 2009)

Well, that’s not quite true, there are rather a lot – but there are no flies on the local’s, they have come up with an ingenious way of stopping them. When I arrived in the restaurant here at the Seastar (lovely, open air and overlooking the beach) there were plastic bags filled with water on most of the tables. Obviously not an attractive table centre, but I had no idea what they were for – perhaps some odd way of showing the table’s reserved or something. The answer is that they are fly deterrents – the unsuspecting fly lands on the bag, and because it’s full of water making it slightly curved, it sees its reflection as bigger than it is, frightens itself and flies off…. All very well, but all that does it make them congregate around your head instead…..
I have settled in here at the Seastar and have also sorted somewhere down the beach for next week as I only have this room till Friday, they were booked up after that. The hotel is nice, simple, minimalist (just not a lot in there rather than a fashion statement…) but it does have hot water which a lot don’t. All the places to stay are on one stretch on the Western side of the island, Long Beach. It appears that this is the only area on the island so far with any hotels. It’s beautiful. Clean white sand, clear turquoise sea, the odd beach massage and fruit seller but that’s it. Really underdeveloped and very “simple” – but it can’t stay that way for long.
I took the 20 minute walk into town today – not something you can do often as it really is roasting and on the “road” there is no shade at all. And no tuk tuks, only motorbike taxis which I don’t really fancy… But there aren’t too many roads for tuk tuks to ride on anyway. For airport transfers each hotel appears to have its own mini bus and there are a couple of taxis. From where I am for about half a kilometre towards town there is no road, just a stretch of red dust, which becomes a dust storm as anything bigger than a bike goes by. They are working on this though and it is gradually being tarmac’d. Most people hire a motorbike to use to get around, but even with little traffic, looking at the roads I have decided this isn’t a good plan. Legally, you need a local license, but no one bothers - apparently as long as you stick to less than 40mph and wear a crash helmet the police don't bother.... but I don't fancy a stint in a Vietnamese prison, even though that would make a good contribution to the blog! Over the next few days I will take a couple of car tours – a bit more expensive but it seems the best way to see the island.
The town (the island capital, Duong Dong) itself is small – with no shops as such just the usual shop/houses where people live and also sell a few things, dusty cans of coke and bottles of water. I was hopeful of a Highland Coffee (Vietnam’s answer to Starbucks that Ant and I enjoyed so much last year). But no luck – I found a place called Buddie’s which from the flags looked like a Vietnam/Australian Enterprise and it was the nearest I could find to a coffee shop with a menu that had Latte’s – but no – Latte’s were off! The coffee everywhere here is dire – an aluminium filter filled with a spoonful of the strongest coffee beans ever, placed over a glass. After you pour the hot water over it, the filtered coffee lands on the inch of sweetened condensed milk that is sitting in the bottom of the glass. The alternative, tea, is a pint mug (as in pint of beer type mug) with a Lipton’s teabag floating about. At least I sorted this on day one and using my language skills, asked for “ho mee” (hot milk…) - finally they understood, so every morning I now get asked do I want “same, same?”! The breakfast menu also needed a bit of translation. “Bread stuffed with half cooked eggs” I discover is the ubiquitous fluffy baguette with two fried eggs, sunny side up – makes sense when you think about it, especially if you substitute “served” instead of “stuffed”!
In terms of sights, the town just has the “famous Phu Quoc Rock” at the harbour. This a temple and a lighthouse combined and a family complete with babies everwhere seem to live in squalour on the top. Just below the rock local boys are fishing, even here at the harbour where you would expect the water to be a bit grubby, it is still startlingly clear. There are pristine schoolchildren in the Vietnamese school uniform. The boys in their blue short trousers and white shirt with the red neckerchief (reminiscent in style of the Hitler youth....) and the girls in their Daz white ao dai's sitting so upright on their bikes as they pedal around. And the usual pictorial posters exhorting the local population to behave in a good Socialist style. On the rest of the island, apart from the beaches and scenery, there is the coconut prison which sounds intriguing, as well as the fish sauce factory which produces millions of gallons a year, and pepper plantations. But I won’t be bringing any fish sauce back as a souvenir – that, along with Durian fruit, is banned from Vietnamese Airline’s planes – I guess it must be pungent stuff. If the smell all over the town today was anything to do with fish sauce then I can see why – but I think that odour was more to do with inadequate drains than anything else – not a smell I could live with….
The harbour is small, with a few fishing boats and a small cargo boat unloading sacks of rice by hand – the island is mountainous and not suitable for rice cultivation, so it’s all brought over from the mainland. The tourist boat harbour where the “Superdong” ferry goes from is sensibly on the eastern side, nearer to the mainland.
So fewer blogs from here as less is happening – but as and when I have visited coconut prison etc., I will report back. But for now, I am enjoying the gorgeous sunsets and reading lots, fab!

Escaping to Phu Quoc (20 February 2009)

An early start from the luxury(?) of Rach Gia to go out to the airport. It’s amazing how cities change from the afternoon to dawn the next day. As we drove out there where loads of older people doing their exercises whilst waving colourful red fans, lots of scooters laden with all sorts of things – a memorable one was the couple, he riding, she on the back. In her left hand she was carrying a huge assortment of carrier bags full of food, and in her right, a bucket of hot coals, whose flames made it look a bit like a jet engine as they whizzed along! And it seemed the whole of the population were sitting hunched on those tiny kid’s red plastic stools eating their breakfast in the open.
The airport at Rach Gia is small as you would expect. The plane, a rusty looking twin prop that looked like it could be left over from the “American” War landed noisily, ready to turn round to fly back to Phu Quoc – a 25 minute flight. It had to be mine – there were no other planes in sight….. We all pile on, and Vietnam Airlines obviously like an on time take off – people were still milling about, trying to get their bags into the tiny overhead compartments as we were taxiing rather quickly out to the runway. They were still trying to find their seats as the safety demonstration took place. They all only just made it into a seat before the engines revved to a high scream and we were off. The airport at Phu Quoc is even smaller than Rach Gia – but it only handles short internal flights from Rach Gia and HCMC – the longest flight to here is 40 minutes from HCMC. There is a new international airport planned which will have a runway capable of taking bigger jets rather than the small props it can take now. Apparently by 2010 it will be capable of taking 2.5 million passengers a year in larger aircraft on scheduled and charter flights, compared to the 248,000 now. Not sure I’m convinced of that timescale, I couldn’t see any construction work. But when it does happen, the island will change a lot so if you want to see it at its peaceful best, I would make plans now. Given my difficulty in finding a room over the last couple of days, they will need to do a huge amount of building to cope with the demand. Expect to see it in the Airtours brochure soon…..
The original hotel booked here (who cocked up my booking) had offered to pick me up at the airport; they said I could go there and leave my bags whilst I sorted somewhere to stay. But it wasn’t needed – the hotel that I thought I had booked online (and obviously I had) last night were also there with Vietnamese efficiency. I am sitting here in the little restaurant at the Seastar having had a coffee waiting for my room. This hotel so far (I’ve not seen the room yet….) looks lovely. There are bungalows right on the beach (all sadly booked up), the only room available for me is a garden room, but it’s still close to the beach, which is private and very quiet. It's on Long Beach which, true to its name, is a very long stretch of white sand and calm blue sea, lined with swaying coconut palms. It’s also a bit of a bargain – the other hotel would have been 70 Euros (No 1 on Tripadvisor), this one is $30US (No 4 on Tripadvisor). I guess it's supply and demad, but accommodation here is a lot more expensive than most other places in Vietnam
I’m trying to work out who stays here, and the library of left books is always a good place to find out. I have just taken a look – out of a huge selection I have found three English language ones so far – the rest are German and Russian. Thank goodness for my little Sony eReader. There are also quite a few US accents around – I have noticed that everywhere – every accent and language under the sun, but no Brits…….

Roaming around Rach Gia (19 February 2009)

I was right, today has been a bit like the original Mekong boat in terms of reservations! Decide against the local bus to get to Rach Gia – stopping and starting and over four hours with nowhere to put my suitcase seemed too much of a challenge. So I take a car (just over two hours). It was a good job I did – I had had no reply from the internet site I tried to book the hotel in Rach Gia with so had no address. No one in Rach Gia appeared to have heard of it, so I dropped into an internet café to see if I could contact them. The girl there very kindly looked up the address so I gave it to the driver. It wasn’t looking hopeful – the address we had been given by her was in the middle of an industrial landscape some way out of the town – rooms looked a bit iffy (I had originally tried to book a room in a small four room villa also called a “full service hotel….” - this definitely wasn’t it. No one there spoke any English and as I had to organise a very early taxi for tomorrow decided against it. Something about the family living in reception with their TV and cooking pots going put me off…. And my taxi driver didn’t speak any English either…. Was all a bit of stalemate until the girl at the guest house had the idea of calling one of her friends who spoke English, good lateral thinking I thought. Long story short, but like a Victorian Grand Traveller (or a brash American….) I announced my driver should “take me to the best hotel in town, where English is spoken”. I was hopeful of a Raffles type place. Actually I am in the Hong Nam hotel in the centre of Rach Gia – it bears no relation to Raffles or even a Travelodge, but I guess at £8 a night, seems clean and includes dodgy wifi - what can you expect! It even has aircon, but that doesn't appear to be stopping the mozzies from getting through the gaps in the windows and doors.....
Looking around Rach Gia I’m not surprised this is the best available. Frankly the town is a bit of a dump with nothing to recommend it. Not sure what it's major economy is, probably rice export as it's where one of the wide Mekong tributaries flows into the sea, the Gulf of Thailand. Part of it is built on recliamed land. Its main tourist purpose is that it’s the stepping stone to Phu Quoc, the island. You can either fly (my plan unless that reservation has gone wrong too….) or take the four hour “Superdong” (what a great name!) ferry. So I settle into my spartan room, and decide to double check my Phu Quoc reservation which was for the next two weeks. Yes, it was going to be one of those days. Even though months ago, I had confirmed a hotel called the Cassia Cottage, they had apparently sent me an email asking for a deposit. I definitely never received that, so no deposit was paid, so they just let my reservation lapse without contacting me again. Lucky there’s wifi in the Hong Nam, but every major website I go on to comes back with no availability in Phu Quoc for the days I want. Some of the smaller hotels require you to fill in a form and wait for a reply, but I didn’t have time for that. And then I remembered Skype, and how you can use as a normal telephone. I think I now have a room for the first week in the Seastar Hotel. I emailed to confirm, and I haven’t heard back yet… I could be setting up a tent on the beach!
But regardless of the reservation traumas, the drive here was really interesting. We soon left Chau Doc behind and entered the rice fields. The road with buses and bikes (no cars) was about as wide as Button Street and lined either side, virtually all the way with tumbledown houses hanging on to the slope down to the small browny grey rivers, of which there are hundreds – more than there are roads - perhaps people have private boats instead of cars... Behind them were the rice fields, that amazing emerald green again, and stretching for miles. No sign of a Tiger economy here – the shacks were in a dreadful state, a lot made with corrugated iron which must be like ovens and shaking on their bamboo legs as we passed. I suppose it’s for that reason that everyone seems to live life out in the open - not for me, but there again if there’s no room at the inn tomorrow night, it might have to be!

Mekong Miles (17/18 February 2009)

It’s a pity there isn’t a loyalty scheme that does Mekong Miles – by now, I would surely have collected enough points to do at least one of the trips still outstanding to make my total Mekong journey by boat complete! Even after today there are a few gaps – but no worries, I will be back to complete them.
So today sees me leaving Phnom Penh in Cambodia to take a boat the 142 miles down to Chau Doc in Vietnam, from where, in a couple of days, I plan to make my way to Phu Quoc Island (Vietnamese) for a well deserved two week break at the beach. Well deserved, I hear you cry….. all you have been doing is enjoying yourself for the last two months whilst we have been suffering cold, ice and snow…. But it will be nice to sleep in the same bed for more than a few nights.
This time, unlike the first Mekong river trip, I was in charge of my own destiny, so didn’t miss the boat. A tuk tuk takes me to Sisowath Pier in Phnom Penh. It’s interesting, a year ago when I was here they were developing the quayside and it was covered with corrugated iron fencing – not a lot has changed in a year, the same fencing is still there, but now is gaily decorated with Coca Cola ads. Plus ca change….
I have to admit to being a bit of a wimp on this one. Yesterday as I was looking out for a boat, they all looked a bit suspect, and then I remembered the Victoria Boats, the slightly more luxe (therefore to me safer) option. But it meant that you had to stay at the posher Victoria Hotel in Chau Doc (Carole stayed in the Victoria at Can Tho last year and liked it) rather than rough it in a guest house – there didn’t seem to be anything in between. Hence I am now in a nice room overlooking the Mekong at the Victoria Chau Doc… But I was glad I did – my posh Victoria boat (this time with a nice loo – but sod’s law, the camel impression took over and I didn’t need to use it) had to act as the AA today – one of the ordinary boats doing the same journey was rolling about helpless in the middle of the river, chock full of worried looking passengers, and an even more worried looking sailor shouting into his mobile phone on the front, as it had broken down. Our Good Samaritan captain stopped and passed over what looked like petrol, seems they had run out mid trip!
We left an overcast Phnom Penh with darkly gathering clouds and spits of rain – not a good sign. The rainy season isn’t due to start until May…. But I was sharing my 42 seater boat with just two others, a Swiss German couple from Berne. In his precise Swiss way he informed me that the weather in Phnom Penh was about to deteriorate into really heavy rain, but in Chau Doc the sun would continue to shine. And of course, being a precise and correct Swiss person, he was right.
Safety was paramount on this boat – the two openings where you clamber on and off were closed off by a white suited officer (reminiscent of, but sadly not, Richard Gere in an Officer and a Gentleman!). Guess it was a bit like “doors to automatic” on a plane, but this time it was just two simple white ropes….. As the low rise silhouette of grey Phnom Penh receded quickly, the landscape slowly changed to agriculture, bright green, and the scenery on the builder’s tea coloured Mekong was the odd cargo boat moving slowly along together with various small fishing boats. Some were casting their nets in the way we did (and Ant was more successful than me!) from our small boat last year on our eco fishing trip in Hoi An. The river here is much wider and slower than it was further north in Laos, as it is so wide, it doesn’t have the same extreme high and low water levels. In fact, compared to the Lao section, it wends its way through flood plains, and seems so much more laid back.
Some three hours later we approach the border – another first for me, a crossing at a river border. In a way it was too easy (let’s hope I haven’t spoken too soon…). We have to get off at the Cambodian exit point – a series of shacks with a spirit house in the middle and a rather fine carved wooden dining table under an awning. The boat man takes care of everything. We then get back on the boat and move a couple of hundred metres down the river, where we have to get off again to enter Vietnam. Again, the boatman does everything, but the atmosphere is a little different. Much more official, an air conditioned waiting room with soldiers and their military caps on the table sending the message – don’t mess with us… I wasn’t planning to!
As we climb back on the boat, the famous French saying “The Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao’s listen to it grow” came to mind, and I reflected how true that was. Suddenly the banks of the river here in Vietnam seemed more populated and busy and organised. There seemed much more of a sense of purpose about it all as we enter the Mekong delta proper with all the tributaries flowing into it. Ferries across the river appeared, as did the practical conical Vietnamese hats, the fields seemed more regimented and even. Thinking of this saying, I was trying to work out which I would rather be, on balance, probably a Laotian, very little work, a peaceful life and the rice grows anyway!
We motor on and all human life is displayed on the river banks. It’s late afternoon so people are washing (themselves, the dishes and their animals), you can smell the cooking fires, the fishermen are out, the small ferries are crossing the river, the river farmers are doing whatever they do to the river weed and the upright girls in their white ao dai’s are cycling serenely along the narrow river banks. From my point of view, a supremely peaceful sight, from their’s, probably a hell of a hard life.
But I arrive safely at the Victoria Chau Doc, a world away from the river bank, although situated on it. It’s in the town of Chau Doc which is at the confluence of the Mekong and the Bassac rivers, and I sit here, having had a great Vietnamese chicken curry and a glass of cold why why, looking out onto the mighty river that’s the Vietnamese version of the M1, M25, M6 and South circular all put together!
Chau Doc’s reason for being seems to be a trading post where the two rivers join. The town itself seems typically small Vietnam, most of which is the ubiquitous market selling all sorts of fresh produce. Well I say fresh, but as usual finding myself in the meat and fish bit, I’m not sure fresh is the word. I reckon I could make a good living as a deep sea pearl diver now, I manage to hold my breath for rather a long time as I try to find my way to a more salubrious smelling area! But the fruit and veg are as colourful as ever, and I still see things that I don’t recognise. One stall holder had obviously taken lessons from M&S and was selling pre prepared veg from her stall, something I haven’t seen here before. There is also the area of the market selling clothes, household items and a huge area selling material by the metre. Apart from the Swiss German couple who I was on the boat with yesterday and I bump into, I see no other Westerners at all.
Out of the market, which takes up most of the town, sees a mix of buildings, but most brightly coloured. Some new three storey narrow buildings and a few very old, very dilapidated ones left over from the French. I find that my vision of a tourist town full of travel agents with excellent English is somewhat misplaced… I have managed to find transport to Rach Gia tomorrow, but trying to book somewhere to sleep still eludes me. I think I may have booked a small hotel, but I haven’t yet heard back…… It may be the Mekong boat all over again!

Budget flashpacking in Phnom Penh (15/16 February 2009)

This morning I take very reluctant leave of Laos, it really is a special place, peaceful, quiet and serene. I’m also glad I visited when I did – I think it’s about to change. It was only opened up to individual tourists in 1999/2000, before then you had to be part of an approved group. But I think they are slowly realising how much tourism can improve their bottom line, and there is quite a bit of development. There is a lot of work going on in Luang Prabang for instance as local people sell their town houses to foreigners who develop them into, albeit charming and in keeping with the UNESCO status, guest houses and restaurants. They take the loot and build a much bigger house on the outskirts with the profits. There is also a huge resort development just out of the town backed with Singapore money. But I will be back.
I arrive in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) with a bump. No, it wasn’t a hard landing on the Vietnam Airlines flight, it was just suddenly I was back in the real world. Thought I wasn’t going to get in at one point. I had been efficient and applied for an eVisa – all a bit odd, every website said they’ve stopped doing these, but my application went through, and I duly printed it off. Looks like the stern immigration officials think they’ve stopped doing them too. I was at the checkpoint for ages (and you know how frustrating that can be when you are stuck behind someone like that….). Other officials were called, my passport taken away. I was questioned and luckily my language skills came yet again to the fore as I was able to confirm that yes, I had applied “onlye”. Great puzzlement all around, but eventually they decided I couldn’t be too much of a risk, they stamped the passport and through I went.
It was bedlam. Taxi touts everywhere, very hot and humid, but being an old hand at this as I was here twice last year, I go straight for a tuk tuk. In the short week I have been in Laos I had forgotten how noisy and dirty Asian cities can be. But it was the noise that startled me, the motorbikes and horns beeping continuously. But I do like Phnom Penh, even though it is hot, noisy and dirty, it has a real charm.
I am only here for two days as the plan is to find a boat to take me further down the Mekong on to Vietnam for a few days before I go to Phu Quoc Island. It’s quite nice coming to a city again, there is no need to run around seeing the sights. So I have booked myself into the Pavilion Hotel, No 1 on Tripadvisor and have spoiled myself with a private pool room. But it is not really spoiling…….. My lovely pool room including breakfast and free wifi (although that isn’t working today…..) is only $80US. And when I booked the rate was 2USD to the pound. It’s a bit more expensive now with the fall of the pound, as is everything, but it’s lovely, and it is only two nights…. And it’s very hot and humid, which is unusual (the humidity that is) so the pool, in its private walled garden is very welcome. It’s rather nice to hear the sounds of the city in the background, but be in my private pool oasis. It’s a decent size too, about three metres by five metres, but a little on the chilly side. Not quite the infinity edge temperature controlled private pool I am used to from the Nam Hai last April, but it will do! There’s something rather decadent about having your own pool in the middle of a city… The hotel is tucked away just behind the Royal Palace complex, so still in the centre of things. The old house itself was built by a Cambodian Princess, and I bet has a few tales to tell from Cambodia’s turbulent history.… The whole hotel is an oasis of calm, as you go through the large wooden gates, guarded by two large white elephants, you enter the courtyard which is full of greenery. The main pool is in the centre and there are lots of little tented cabanas tucked away, with the restaurant on one side. The room itself isn’t luxurious, minimalist is a good description, but a large wooden bed with mosquito nets draped around it, a good size bathroom, and I feel at home, the bedside lamp is an IKEA one the same as I have at home! I think they got the curtains there too – true globalisation. Only downside is, as I came back to my room tonight, there was a rather large rat scampering across the path.
As the internet was down here when I arrived, I wander down the street to find a café – and appearing in front of me as if by magic, was “Rubie’s” Bar – free wifi if you buy a drink. No contest! I order a cube, only to find the password for the wifi was “cubalibre” – spooky! The bar is owned by an English guy apparently. The young barman engaged me in conversation (I was the only customer…..) and instead of catching up on my email and trying to book places to stay in Vietnam, I was waylaid by the “story of his life”. I managed to understand most of it as his English wasn’t too bad – just hope I made the appropriate sympathy noises in the right places. Long and rather convoluted, but it would have made a good episode in a Cambodian soap opera! His mum died five years ago, his father (a policeman) then shacked up with another woman who already had seven kids. He has five siblings and the mum somehow (by visiting the police station apparently…..) managed to leave the kids all the fields which are situated in the south of the country and grow just enough rice to feed the huge extended family all year. They are now lived in by his 79 year old gran (who lived through all the horror’s of the 70’s) and a horde of aunts, uncles and cousins. His father had no contact for the last five years until he contacted them a few weeks ago to say he was getting married again. Reluctantly they attend the wedding, but now he is trying to muscle in on the fields. I was also taken through every detail of his mother’s Buddhist funeral five years ago, interesting rituals, but he was pleased they had given her a good send off. Then he told me about “seeing” her everywhere for two months after the funeral….. it was at this point, feeling like Marje Props, I made my excuses and left!
So tomorrow, I need to go and find out how on earth I get from Phnom Penh to Chau Doc on Tuesday and where I will stay.
Day two in Phnom Penh is unashamedly lazy. I have sorted out my boat for tomorrow, and decide the best course of action is to repair to my private pool and catch up on some reading – bliss.

A Vientiane Valentine (14 February 2009)

I had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day (sadly all a bit irrelevant….) until I arrived in Vientiane. But I was reminded as I was greeted in arrivals by a rather cute guy, who introduced himself as Jack, who presented me with a beautiful red rose and a decent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. My luck really has changed, I thought! But as usual, I am ahead of myself.
I make a reluctant goodbye to Luang Prabang this morning (I really did love it there….) to fly to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. It’s all a bit small in Laos so the airport is very close to the town. My guide (can’t believe I had a guide and a driver just to get me down the road to the airport….) was making the usual hard to decipher small talk. But I understood enough to realise as he was pointing to what looked like tiny toy planes on the tarmac and telling me “Lao Aviation has a few planes, some are French and are good, some are Chinese and are not good”. Looking at the array of twin prop rust buckets, I thought they all looked “not good” frankly. Let’s hope someone’s on my side, and even though, being a Brit, on balance I prefer the Chinese to the French, when it comes to small planes, I would err on the side of the French every time…
But it must have been a French one – a short flight, a small turbo prop plane, but I got here all in one piece. It’s a bit of a stopover here in Vientiane as, due to the problem with the boat, I had to drop a day in Laos, and the plan is to leave for Phnom Penh tomorrow. Thanks to Ant’s advice, I dropped the day here rather than Luang Prabang – good advice Ant! Vientiane must be the smallest capital city I have ever been to in my life. Just a few streets, really quiet and very little traffic. Today is Saturday so I don’t know if this makes it quieter….. Set on the Mekong again, along which there are lots of little stalls and restaurants. The river looks really low here – it divides itself into two, with a narrow brown ribbon on the Vientiane side, a huge exposed beach in the middle and a wider fast flowing bit on the other side. I didn’t arrive here till early afternoon, but had “done” the city by about 5.30 pm – speed sightseeing, and that included a coffee and sugar doughnut. The good pastries are a result of the French influence – even though I was in the Scandinavian Bakery…..
Am pleased I am here for such a short time – it’s a nice place, but not nearly as charming as Luang Prabang , and a much lower “chill out” factor. After the lovely old houses in Luang Prabang, this is more ordinary, with the usual narrow three storey buildings – a shop on the ground floor and accommodation above. There are also quite a few old French Colonial buildings, all going to rack and ruin. It is very tidy though – none of the piles of rubbish you see in other Asian cities. They also seem less neurotic about shoes here – everywhere in Luang Prabang you had to take your shoes off before going in – and I mean everywhere, the hotel, temples (fair enough), shops and restaurants. It would not have surprised me to have been asked to take my shoes off before I stepped on the plane! But here in Vientiane, there is a notice in the hotel room asking you not to leave the room barefoot…. confused or what!
So tonight I am ensconced in my room at the Novotel, fine but probably the least charming hotel so far (oops, I was forgetting the Ashram….) as the local populace attend the 300,000 kip (about £26) Valentines Dinner experience downstairs. An odd one, as well as including wine, drinks, dinner and the live band, you get two Lao airlines tickets…. perhaps I should have gone!
And I am sure you are wondering why I am not down there with Jack, my Valentine red rose bearing cutie. Unfortunately there was a rather less romantic and more mundane explanation for this largesse. The travel company are still trying to apologise for the problem with the boat trip earlier in the week. Jack is the MD of the Vientiane branch, and this was yet another olive branch. They didn’t really need to do more, as I haven’t been charged anything for those two days on the Mekong, and whilst inconvenient at the time, it turned out to be a free adventure! The beautifully wrapped single red rose was proferred and then the wine with the explanation ”we know yu lye why why”. How they know this about me I am not too sure, perhaps they read this blog!

Among the Hmong (12/13 February 2009)

Yesterday was the second day of my tour schedule in Luang Prabang, and it’s a day to travel some 30kms to the Kwang Si Waterfalls.
On the way we stop at a Hmong village – a real village, so no real dress up national costumes in sight, but a few stalls selling the handicrafts they make. These villages have been resettled by the Government (this one 12 years ago) from way up in the mountains. In the bad old days, their income was from growing opium. Once that stopped, they needed to move down the mountain to survive. This settlement had 60 families, and as they all live together in family units, it means just 60 tumbledown bamboo huts – they must be freezing in the winter as there are large gaps in the walls and ceilings. We are invited into one – I attach a pic, but not sure it does justice to the awfulness of it all. But apparently, so the party line goes, they are all very happy to have been re settled – now they have water (see the pic of the 3 tanks….), power (but no sign of any things that could actually be plugged in – dishwasher, hairdryer, flat screen cinema system for example – makes you realise just how spoiled we all are). There is also a school and access to medical care. Additionally, they don’t have to haul up any necessary supplies halfway up a mountain when they are needed. The women sew handicrafts and the men work in the fields. New rice terraces have been made, and at this time of year they are the same startling emerald green as the amazing ones we saw in Vietnam. I’m not one for handicrafts, but ended up buying a small hand embroidered bag, with scenes of agriculture on, very clever and detailed, but no idea what I’ll use it for. And then there were the children, beseeching me with their big brown eyes to buy yet another two hand embroidered bracelets, one from each child. No way could I resist. You can see these two salespeople in the picture, and I bet you couldn’t have resisted either! In the background is their very young Mum, who apparently now has five children, including a tiny baby asleep in a hammock just behind her that was brushing in the dust.
We then drive on through the beautiful countryside to the waterfalls. A leisurely stroll through a community village with rather bad wood carvings takes us to the gates of the National Park. Just inside the gates is the Black Asian Bear rescue centre – these big black bears look more threatening than your average teddy! Up until seven years ago they also had a tiger rescue centre – just the one tiger, but after his demise that was it for tigers in Laos. And this lack of animals here in the wild is not the result of poaching as it is in so many other countries, it’s a result of the American bombing in the 60’s and 70’s when they were trying to stop the “Communist threat”. Laos is the most bombed country in the world, even more so than Cambodia which surprised me. There is still a huge issue with unexploded landmines here too.
After the bears, a slow wend up the hill to reach the falls through the forest. Every so often there are pools, where the amazingly clear blue water from limestone rocks collects, and you can swim. They even provide dinky little changing rooms. Some people more hardy than me were braving the cold water, but I didn’t need a cooling dip - the shady forest was a really pleasant temperature. All in all a delightful few hours, and time to relax this afternoon on the terrace upstairs in the hotel that I seem to have made my own (no one else seems to use it). Writing the blog and catching up with email and banking – domestic duties are never done!
And today, my last day in Luang Prabang this time, was spent wandering around the town, checking out yet more shops, enjoying yet more coffee and pastries and generally chillin’ which is the very best thing to do here to just soak up the atmosphere.

Luang Prabang, so laid back even the money is called kip (11 February 2009)

My SE Asian Esperanto needs a little fine tuning for Laos. G doesn’t seem to be a part of their speech ability, so my new name now appears to be “Hee Hu-Wee”. L may be used but only as a substitute for R, so I have ordered many meals of “fly rye”. Asking for rice just doesn’t cut it so now I have given up and just go with “rye” – it’s really good to see the understanding of what you want to order dawning! But I have learned a couple of Lao words and am bandying about the “Sabaidi” (Hello) and “Copchai” (thank you) with abandon – it seems to be appreciated although on occasions, does raise a bit of a giggle! It is a bit hard going with the guide though – the English is quite hard to understand, but find if I let myself relax a bit and try and think in Gill esperanto it’s all less stressful.
After a good dinner (rye again) last night and a welcome glass of cold, dry why why (heaven!) I retire to a comfy bed quite early. This morning I am woken by some loud wooden bells, and realise that it’s 6.25am, just before the monks process through the streets collecting food offerings from the local people. So up I get. The hotel is actually on this procession route, so really handy. Apparently Luang Prabang is the only place where this tradition still carries on and it’s a wonderful, colourful sight. A stream of orange, brown and yellow clad monks wind through the streets to receive their food for the day. It’s a blessing to give this food. But I do feel a bit sorry for the monks – the younger, cuter ones were getting a bit more than the others – don’t know if they share it out when they get home, if not some may be a bit hungry! People give handfuls of cooked rice, bananas etc. Ever concerned about food hygiene, I did notice that the handfuls of rice were at least in nice clean plastic bags. I understand the monks eat only twice a day – 7 am and 11am – and just what they are given. Would make a great diet – I might write the book. But seeing all this food made me hungry, and there are tables on the terrace at the front of the hotel, so I tucked into my breakfast as the procession continued, another breakfast to remember.
At 8.30 am I start a tour by walking around the town with the guide. It really is such a nice place, not a skyscraper in sight and the first Asian city I have found where crossing the road is easy. Quiet, laid back, stylish, it is on UNESCO World Heritage list. It reminds me of a slightly larger and tidier Hoi An (Vietnam), and I feel I can wander about for days discovering all its nooks and crannies. There are restaurants, coffee shops (but not of the Starbucks kind), craft shops etc. We make a visit to the morning market where the village people come in every day to sell their produce. It’s got loads of interesting things, but it is all in a quiet laid back style, with people quietly buying and selling. One thing that will not be on my shopping list is the local delicacy of buffalo feet, proudly displayed by one stall (see pic).
Then come visits to several of the 32 temples in the town – all “working” temples as such with monasteries attached. At one I watched a monk making a new temple drum, which takes about a week as they beat the stretched cow skin with banana branches after applying alcohol, making a bit of a din as they do. The temple is not far from the hotel, so it may be a noisy few days! Then the obligatory visit to the National museum – the former King’s residence until the Communists arrived and took over in 1975. It was actually very interesting and has a fabulous collection of Buddha statues, including a copy of the Emerald Buddha – the real one was nicked by Thailand and still resides in Bangkok.
During the morning, my guide said that I would be going to the grave of Jim Thomson during the afternoon – he of the silk shops in Bangkok was all I knew. No idea why we were going there but language difficulties prevented an answer – so I would go with the flow. So you can imagine my confusion as we arrived at a white tomb in the middle of nowhere down a track, which was marked as the grave of Henri Mouhot– still haven’t discovered the Jim Thomson connection…. Henri apparently alerted the world to the ruins of Angkor Wat, but for some reason ended up living in cave in Laos. Whilst there, he went down with malaria hence his tomb here. As the guide was regaling this story I translated enough to understand “malaria” so did a hasty application of mozzie milk! Whilst interesting, why this is on a Luang Prabang City tour is a bit of a mystery. Just down from the tomb is the Nam Kam river. Backed by green hills it is lovely, a picture book river scene, with its bright green colour, trees and flowers bordering it and now and again some local Lao’s bathing. At bit further on there are tourists kayaking and navigating the gentle “white water” over the small rapids. The Dyl would love it. It’s bright green due to the “seaweed” I’m told. Think this is probably river weed as we are rather far from any sea, and it is used to make some sort of foodstuff they sell in sheets in the market. It joins the Mekong at Luang Prabang and you can see where its green water joins the brown of the Mekong before it all mixes together.
We then go on to see two more temples, but by now, although all the Buddha’s are fab, I am a bit templed out, so decide against climbing the hundreds of steps to yet another temple high on a hill for the sunset. So back to where I started the day, eating on the front terrace of the hotel, and tucking in to yet more “rye”.