Jul 2005

wasnt going to update this but just thought i would let you know that i am now down on Ko Phi Phi and its wierd. added to the fact that the first night here we had a tsunami warning (the 2nd since the original) and were moved to higher ground, due to the earthquake, and a complete lack of sleep from the bus from bangkok to krabi, the wait in krabi and than the boat across to the island all in all it took ages.

got off the boat to be met with destruction everywhere and a very tangable mood of sadness. despite that people are so very very pleased to see you and more importantly your wallet. but here it is different as they need it to live and more importantly get there lives back in order.

the beaches are still awesome and the diving etc (booked 2 for tomorrow) still are running so there is no excuse for not coming there are a few bars and the main tourist street is pretty much back to normal now, its just a lack of hotel rooms as they are still being pulled down and rebuilt. there is plenty of aid work that still needs to be done and i plan to do some before i fly down to malaysia on the 1st, if not i will stop on my way back up and help then. my intend trip to indonesia has been cancelled due to the earthquake and the fact that 2 western aid workers have been kidnapped and killed within the last month, exactly were i was planning to go.

if you are worried about the threat of a tunasmi hitting before you come here dont worry. we were woken up by banging and screaming from the hotel staff, when they had first heard about the threat. the whole island is aware of it straight away and you are taken up to the highest ground and told to stay there. they dont just go and leave you - infact they were offering tourists drinks and food etc despite the fact that it was 1 in the morning.

so dont worry and just come along and give something back to paradise!

well after a couple of manic days i am now in Siem Reap, well at least till tomorrow morning when i leave to go back to bangkok, again, to complete the circle.

spent a day doing very little in Phnom Penh but did manage to sell half the library i have been carrying around and bought a book more relevant to my travels - the girl in the photograph, its good, have finished it already. had a few drinks and a meal with lucy as it was are last night together before we went are differing ways.
next morning i caught a 6.45 bus to sihanoukville, which is down on the coast. cambodia seems to be like vietnam in the fact that you have to be ready early and then wait for the mode of transport to arrive sometime later. it rained from about an hour south of Phnom Penh till i passed almost the exact same spot a day later. thats because there is (was) a monsoon in attendance. so i arrived got soaked finding a hostel, went to see what the beach was like got soaked, went for a wander to see if the diving was still on - it wasnt and i again got soaked. the icing on the cake being that all power went off for most of the night. i promptly booked a ticket, via the use of candle light, back to phnom penh for the next day. in total i spent close on 10 hours for a few beers in the dark and the rain! one thing the bus journeys have done is allowed me to focus on planning -this was done in an attempt to divert the attention away from a rather smelly local lady. my plan is (subject to numerous changes) to go through southern thailand into malaysia and down, maybe hitting indonesia dependent on time.

anyway i got the bus back to the capital and then just managed to catch a connecting bus to Siem Reap, in order to avoid wasting an afternoon. so i arrived here yesterday after roughly 12 hours on a bus to the most hassle i have encountered so far. people were pulling you off the bus in all directions in an attempt to get you to use there services - i was told that, that is what india is like,if its true then i am not going. it was messy and people were being pushed to the floor in the chaos, one guy picked up my backpack and put it on his bike so i had no choice but to use him, as it turns out he was pretty good and best of all free - well the lift to the guesthouse was.

i went for the usual wander around the new place and found, well, bugger all pretty much - it is alot alot smaller than i thought it was going to be and very smelly. i organised my moto for this morning and basically went to bed early. the guy, called ron, picked me up this morning at 6.45 (thats am,and my 3rd sub 7.00 start in a row) and drove me around the sites of the temples and wats. to be honest i was only really impressed with the Bayon (all the faces carved into the rock) and Ta prohan (which is where they filmed Tomb raider) Angkor wat itself is only impressive due to its size, but as it is being rebuilt and maintained its just to clean for its own good. Ta Prohan is mush nicer as the jungle has been allowed to grow through it and is slowly destroying it, but it looks more real and feels like it should - despite the tourists it was easy to find a quiet spot to sit and ponder.

i only brought the 1 day ticket and am glad i didnt opt for the 3 day ticket which was my original plan. i am not one for buildings etc really and after my, what turned out to be, 6 hours doing the rounds i was well and truly templed out.

so tomorrow i leave for bangkok and you guessed it its another stupidly early started of a 6.30 pickup. not sure what i feel about going back there as i didnt really enjoy it the first time, but then i will be glad to get out of cambodia. i havent warmed to the country at all and to be honest if i was travelling again i would just miss it out altogether, or do it in 4 days quickly.
bring on the islands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well due to computer problems i was unable to post the above when i was till in cambodia so i am now back in bangkok.

got in last night on a journey that is supposed to take 10 hours but ended up taking closer to 16 hours. the road from SR to the border was shocking and so bumpy that you couldnt eat, sleep, drink or read it was mental. met up with lucy again last night and swopped stories from are time apart. going south tonight to Krabi on yet another 16 hour bus journey, this time with the added bonus of it being overnight, so no sleep again.

getting back to bangkok was strange and it felt alot nicer than the first time and like i was a veteran in the travelling world compared to a newie - this time around i wasnt stood looking at maps and saw people doing that made me smile.

have been trying to upload all my photos but it aint happening in this place so i might go and try it elsewhere, as my camera memeory is full again from the temples.

i really, really hate buses - i dread to think how many more hours i have to spend on them before i finish my trip.

well i am now safe and sound in cambodia, after a eventful trip across.....

the bus we booked onto basically ripped us off by promising a large air con bus, however we got a small non air con bus packed to the rafters with people sitting on the floor for good measure. the bus took us from saigon to the border crossing. we were first off the bus and grabbed all bags etc and headed off for the visa / passport checks, in an attempt to be first in the line. this plan worked very well and we were through the vietnam side of proceedings quickly enough (10 mins per person) so we set off on the 300 metre walk across no mans land - we werent in vietnam but werent in cambodia so i have no idea where we were. the check point / entry is being built so there is rubbish everywhere and the heat had started to take effect so we were sweating by the time we reached, what can only be described as a 'hut' which was the crossing. after another 10 mins signing various bits and pieces we were in and headed down the dirt track to where we were told the bus would be waiting.

when we got there there was no one insight apart from a friendly taxi driver. the tour guide eventually turned up, minus a bus, and said that we wasnt sure if it was a big or small, with or without air con bus. we had already waited for 45 minutes and still no one had turned up so i asked the taxi driver how much to take us to phnom penh, as a laugh to pass the time. to are complete surprise he said you can rent the car for $10. so we jumped straight in and enjoyed a 2 hour taxi ride straight to the guest house we had been told to go to, all the way in air con comfort and listening to bob marley. last night we saw two people from the original bus to the border and they said that the bus was worse on the cambodian side and that it took almost 5 hours to get here - what a result!

the backpacker area is strange as it is situated around a lake, so when you sit out on the decked area you can forget that you are in a big city as the noise etc doesnt effect you. also the streets are small and close together with a surface made up of rubbish and grit, its a bit like a getto. the first night in cambodia was spent with dans (drunken dan the RAF man) mum who now lives over here. so she showed us round and introduced a few people she had helped and one brillant thing about last night was that the hostel is right on a lake, the west side of which the sunsets over - the colours were amazing and i took about 10 pictures. we stayed in the hostel despite the fact that the first room we rented had a rat in it, so we moved rooms and last night discovered a family of frogs in the bathroom - who strangely enough go mental when you spray them with water.

yesterday has been spent at the killing fields, which was got to on the back of a bike on the worst road i have ever been down, where due to pol pot about 2 million people were killed by cutting there throats. they had skulls piled as far as you eyes can see and it freaked me out abit. all these countries (laos, vietnam and cambodia) have had such terrible war crimes committed against them (all of which involved the good old USA in some capacity) and yet they are all so generally nice people. here they dont even try and rip you off, which is strange and a first on this trip. also it seems that it is more expensive here, you have to pay in dollars so i think its the fact that you hand over 1 instead of say 15,000 so it makes it more real.

i have booked my ticket to go south to Sihanoukville, saving myself a buck by leaving at 6.30 (it all helps) in the morning, so after tonight i will be back to travelling by myself. i am unsue of how long i plan to spend down there but it looks like i can go from there to battambang, thenn to siem reap instead of having to come back to phnom penh and then heading northwest. anyways i will keep you informed.

off to watch the movie - ''the killing fields'' about the war

i wasnt going to bother doing this today but i have had such an amazing day that i couldnt resist.

i went to the cu chi tunnels just outside saigon on a tour, the tunnels are the actual ones the viet cong used in the war and they are just as they were then. so there was alot of history and stuff to look at about the war, then you get to crawl through 90 metres of the tunnels if you want, with tourist exits every 30 metres. out of 30 tourists only 3 made it through all of it and i can proudly say that i was one of them. your only down there for about 15 minutes but by the time you get out at the other end the sweat is just pouring off you in a stream and the dirt is welded to your legs and arms.

but wait it gets better, they have got a firing range there where you can buy bullets to fire through a variety of weapons. so i turned into Arnie for half an hour and bought 20 bullets for an ak47 and 20 shot gun cartridges. so i fired an ak47 and a double barrel shot gun. it was bloody ace! the pump action on the shot gun was brillant and i felt like i was some sort of war hero mowing down badies. also the noise they made was probably the loudest i have ever heard, especially as it was just by your ear. i have 3 brillant photos with me in full swing firing the guns. one of my highlights of vietnam. its funny that when you dont expect something to happen it makes it all the more enjoyable.

saigon is alot nicer than hanoi for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it isnt as big and is alot less hectic. i think the fact that it isnt as hot down here also helps.

this afternoon i went o see the war remnants museum, which is shocking. tanks and planes are around the outside of the main building and graphic pictures inside. included in which are still born babies which have two heads or three legs and no arms due to the chemicals that the yanks dropped on the country and some of these babies were 'born' as early as 1990. its crazy the level of suffering the country still has due to the actions of 30 years ago. it made me wonder if iraq will become a tourist trap in 20/30 years for the gulf vets? as the wars are similar, only time will tell i suppose.

anyway you might have noticed that i am back to 100% now after 2 days of feeling terrible, (did i tell you all that ?!?) not sure what it was but it seems to have passed through the system.

i am off into wonderful, slighty dodgy (so i am told) cambodia tomorrow morning on another 8-9 hour little bus trip. still travelling with lucy as she couldnt be arsed to go today so it will turn out that we will have done the whole of laos and the whole of vietnam together, although in cambodia she is going west and i am going south.

hold tight, due to the fact that i havent done this for awhile this is going to be a long one!

when i last wrote i was in hoi an and badly sunburnt(it turns out that i gave myself 3rd degree burns), since then alot has happened. firstly the bus down from hoi an was as usual eventful to say the least.

we were last to be picked up so had the choice of the last 2 seats, me being the gentleman that i am i let lucy pick first and as a result i ended up sitting next to a smelly old man, bad enough you think but....it turns out that the bloke had been travelling down the country and hadnt stopped in hoi an (in a sense just going straight through to nha trang) the person who sat next to him for the previous part of the journey had gotten off in hoi an, however it turns out he was missing certain items of his belongings - namely his wallet and money belt and passport, which after much searching were all found in the old guys bag! a petty thief! the bus driver refused to throw him off the bus so i was left sitting next to him for the next 14 hours, as you can imagine i didnt get much sleep.

got into nha trang at about 8 in the morning and set about doing the usual thing of finding somewhere to crash out for awhile. again found the cheapest twin room at $5 in a small hotel. lucy wanted to go and book her diving for the next day so i went along to see how much a course would be. i always thought thailand would be the cheapest place to learn but i managed to get it for $150 for a four day course. so the next day i sat in a classroom watching videos and answering questions relating to scuba diving.

the fun didnt really start till lunchtime the following day when we got to go into the water for the first time. the pool we used to complete the tasks was disgusting and had far to many bits and pieces in it to make it an enjoyable 4 hours. so i was disappointed to say the least, however the next day when we got out onto the open water and did some proper diving it was everything i had imagined it would be - the colours and shapes of the coral and the numerous fish made it hard to take it all in. so i had 2 dives that day going down to 12 metres and the following day 2 more dives going down to 18 metres all of which i really enjoyed and loved every second of them. each dive lasts about an hour but the time just disappears when you are chasing fish around or swimming through caves in crystal clear, warm waters. i could go on and wax lyrical about the diving for ages but i will stop myself there and move on.

the hotel we were staying in, turned out appeared to be somewhat of a safehouse. an aussie guy was living there under the protection of the family as he owed money for drugs and various things. it explained there strange attitudes and the bizzare questions they constantly asked.

the next day we intended to catch the bus down to Mui Ne, however we managed to miss the bus first time around. after a few frantic phone calls a bike came and picked us up and took us to where the bus was waiting. fair enough you think but my driver didnt have a hand on his left side, just a stump and his right hand had fingers which looked alot like toes (i assumed it was a birth defect as a result of the war) i has amazed that he could ride a bike let alone with me and all my gear on the back.

so we made the bus, getting the last 2 seats again and had another 5 hours on the bus. its funny how when your travelling a 5 hour trip almost becomes easy and routine, whereas back home if someone said a trip involved a 5 hour bus journey i would laugh at them and not do it.

arrived in Mui Ne and found a bungalow right on the sea front with a nice little beach. on the hole there wasnt alot to do there apart from the sandboarding which we planned to do the next day so we set about having a few drinks and relaxing in the hammocks overlooking the water.

the next morning we caught a motorcycle taxi to the sand dunes and i proceeded to throw myself down large dunes on a plastic board. really good fun and brought out the kid in me thats for sure. its like sledging but without the cold, although i prefer snow to sand. that night we went to the 'hot rock cafe' for a few drinks and some food but it wasnt that good and we ended up back at the hotel pretty early. so i decided to go and sit on the beach and look up at the stars and think about nothing, just letting my mind wander to random things. when i went back to the room i was greeted by a cockroach, two moths, 3 geckos and numerous ants and flys - after abit of a killing spree i fell alseep straight away.

yesterday we caught a bus down to saigon (or hcmc, if you prefer). for some reason i felt really bad and managed to sleep for pretty much all of the trip. when we got here, i just couldnt stand up and felt exhusted so lucy found us a hotel and i promptly fell alseep from 6.30 last night till 9.30 this morning. i feel better now but still not 100%.

the general plan is to visit 2 or 3 war sites of interest tomorrow and then i think i will leave the next day for cambodia. i dont like planning but i think i will stay there for about 2 weeks as there isnt masses to do and the time could be spent better elsewhere. i think lucy is leaving tomorrow for cambodia which is a shame really as we both said that it would have been nice to leave vietnam as we entered, together.

other stuff;

have met alot of people who have done or are doing some sort of teaching aboard, in order to travel and earn some money at the same time. it looks fairly easy to got into and might take as little as a month to convert my degree. its not something i have considered doing before but the possibilities appear endless - china, japan, thailand, jakarta, central and south america etc.

lucy and i have made up numerous stories along vietnam tos top us getting hassled, especially lucy. turned into a game of sorts which includes changing are names, nationality, time away and are relationship - so far i ahve been friend, boyfriend, brother and husband. the game stopped recently when lucy took it one step to far by saying that we both supported arsenal and hated liverpool with a passion. theres a line and she crossed it

i am in hoi an, well at least for another few hours, about half way down the coast of vietnam. have got a boring day, attempting to stay out of the sun and waiting for another 12-13 hour overnight bus journey, which will take me to nha trang.

hoi an is a little town, built apon the fact that every second shop is a tailors who will tailor make clothes for you at a very reasonable price very quickly. people i have met have spent over $2000 here - myself i have just spent about $20 - on two pairs of shorts.

the other main attraction is that there is a lovely - brillant beach which was what just what the doctor ordered. spent yesterday there and promptly got burnt again - i dont know why i keep getting burnt but i do. so this morning i am a little bit sore in the stomach region - something i hope will ease before tonights little trip. the beach is the a typical gorgeous beach which you expect to find in asia - something which has been sadly lacking so far. the water is warm and clear and the sand golden - it really was picture postcard stuff. it was good to swim again i went out to have a closer look at the fishing boats moored off the beach.

the bus ride down from hue wasnt to bad as we managed to get some seats away from the sun and a few locals got off on route and we acquired those seats as well - shame it was just 5 hours and not a 12 hour jobby.

when we got in we found the cheapest hotel we could and set about exploring. bumped into the irish lads from laos, who were just leaving to go south and they told us what to do and what isnt as good around town.

the following day was spent in between tailors and internet cafes. my memory on my camera was full and i attempted to upload the pictures to a website to free the space. this is still a work in progress but i have most of them now - apart from hue and hoi an.

yesterday i did something pretty stupid really, i think it might be down to sun stroke from the beach but i went for a hair cut. now you would think that this would be some big chain of barbers around vietnam. nope. think little half naked guy in a small shop with 1 mirror, who interestingly enough didnt speak any english - at all. my motorcycle driver who picked me up from the beach ensured me that he was good and he spoke ok english and translated what i wanted. it would appear that his english isnt very good either. so i now have pretty much no hair at all. add this to a brown / red ish face and i looked pretty strange last night when i went for a few beers.

thats about it really, as i said i am off to nha trang tonight which is supposed to be even better than hoi an, in terms of beaches. there is a good backpacker vibe with some all night parties going on, plenty of watersports to undertake and plenty of interesting islands to explore.

i will use the time wisely and set about researching the jet ski business idea which i have had for a while now. i think i may have got an accountant/manager already on board but there are plenty of opportunities for others to get involved. please send cv's to my email address