Hoi An, Vietnam

To view Part 1 of photos from Nha Trang/Hoi An, click here.

To view Part 2 of photos from Hoi An, click here.


The first commandment for every good explorer is: an expedition has 2 points, the point of departure and the point of arrival. If your intention is to make the second point coincide with the actual (theoretical) point of arrival, don’t think about the means – because the journey is a virtual space that finishes when it finishes, and there are many means as there are different ways of ‘finishing’. That is to say, the means are endless.

- Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries


I arrived in Nha Trang with a heavy heart. I missed my peeps and the routine I left in Mui Ne and probably didn’t give Nha Trang the chance it deserved based on my mood, so I only stayed for 2 days and it rained PURTY much the entire time I was there. I couldn’t even go for a walk on the beach without getting thoroughly soaked. That’s when I decided to hightail it outta there and head off to absorb the culture and charm of Hoi An!

There was a Vietnamese holiday the day after I decided to leave Nha Trang, which meant that almost all of the buses were booked. I got the last seat in town....which meant sleeping at the back of the bus in between a French couple and 2 girls from South Africa. Of course at the time, this seemed to be an unfortunate circumstance. There is no room at all between the seats...meaning, we might as well have all been sleeping in a king size bed together during an earthquake! But being in such close proximity, we all made fast friends before trying to get a decent night’s sleep on a long overnight bus journey (11 hours) that had us arriving in Hoi An at 6 AM.


Gillian and Tony, the 2 girls from South Africa, and I decided to take a room together. Both of them had lived and worked in Banff, Alberta (Canada) for a year to save up for their SE Asian tour. We hit it off and ended up staying in Hoi An together for several days.

Our mornings consisted usually of getting breakfast (wicked potato omelettes at Tam Tam restaurant) and chilling out with a coffee at our favourite restaurant. We rented bicycles and rode to the beach, shopped and read. When we finally got sick of that, we decided to rent motos to check out Marble Mountain.

The man who rented the motos to us (I will call him ‘motoguy’) had a neck beard. This was no run of the mill average neck beard people. His whiskers extended clear out past his ears. My heart felt a lot of sympathy for his better half. Another trait we noticed about many of the Asian men is that they have at least one really long nail. I have heard a couple of theories on this. The first was that they use it as a sort of ‘tool’ or ‘pick’ if you will. Exactly what is picked, I don’t think we need to go into. The second theory is that it shows distinction (or a sort of ‘chick magnet’, if you will). If a man has nice, long nails, it means that he is a member of a more esteemed class (this tradition dates back to the Qing dynasty) as he has time to tend to his nails and isn’t doing manual labour or hard work that would require his nails to be short. I like this theory better, although the former explanation was demonstrated before me several times!

We followed the moto guy to the petrol station where he told the attendant to put 3 litres in. Tony had figured out just how far a litre will take you and asked the attendant to only put 1 litre in but by then it was too late and I was left to pay 35,000 dong for the gas. I told moto guy that if my tank wasn’t near empty when we returned that he would have to reimburse me for the money I put in. He looked at me with a blank stare, one I was becoming very familiar with since getting to Asia.

We cruised the 25 km to Marble Mountain. I had a couple of Vietnamese men ride beside me and blatantly stare while I kept my focus straight ahead pretending to be oblivious. All I kept thinking was thank goodness Gill and Tony are behind me. Generally, I had found traveling in Asia pretty safe but it was a definite comfort to have two sisters watching my back.

Unfortunately when we returned from Marble Mountain to Hoi An, I was still on ¾ of a tank, which I knew spelled conflict ahead. As soon as we pulled up to moto guy, the key was promptly taken out of my ignition. I asked very nicely for moto guy to pay me back 20,000 dong since he now had almost a full tank of gas, courtesy of yours truly. He of course was not keen on the idea so I said ‘Well, fair is fair. I guess I will just keep this helmet then.’ I grabbed the helmet to take with me and he raised his hand and struck my forearm to try and get me to release the helmet from my grasp.

Wo.

The next words that flew out of my mouth, I cannot take responsibility for...

‘Don’t you EVER f***ing TOUCH me AGAIN!’

I could feel my heart pound and blood gush into my cheeks. The gloves were officially off. I jumped on his back and rolled him onto the pavement. OK no I didn’t do that but I probably could have based on our statures. I wondered what this guy would have done if we weren’t in public and it made me even angrier to think of how he might treat the women in his life.

Gillian is supermodel tall, so I handed the helmet to her and she held it up in the air so that he couldn’t reach it. This did not make motoguy a happy camper. A random Vietnamese tourist came out of a hotel nearby to act as a mediator between us and help resolve the situation but moto guy wasn’t having any of it. I decided it was time to bring out the big guns and threw a big lens on my camera and started snapping photos of them and their sign. They were yelling but they couldn’t really do anything with the crowd that had gathered around us by that point. Tony, Gill and I finally decided it was time to walk away but not after putting up a good fight. In the end, I lost only a couple of Canadian dollars in the deal but that had nothing to do with it. It was the PRINCIPLE! I understand that corruption is deeply imbedded in Vietnamese society and they do business differently than we do BUT this kind of behaviour is doing NOTHING for the health of their tourism industry and if travelers keep turning a blind eye and accepting this behaviour, it will never change. This along with having to physically pry my money out of a ladies hand in the market after getting manhandled by her had me debating whether I should skip the rest of Vietnam and head straight to Laos from there.

I will say that I met many lovely Vietnamese people and I also need to mention that it is extremely important in Vietnamese culture to keep up with the Jones’ and they will do what they can to achieve this dream. I am not berating Vietnam as a whole country in any way, especially considering their volatile, war-torn history and the pain and suffering they have endured. I have come from a pampered life to a developing country and have no right to preach but am merely observing and sharing what I have experienced. Tony, Gill and I really did have an amazing time there - dining in the many quaint little restaurants riverside with lanterns glowing around us, observing the architecture, sampling the tasty fresh baking and having clothing tailor made at ridiculously cheap prices...who can complain about that?

One day, I was having lunch in one of our favourite restaurants and met Michelle, a fellow Canadian from Montreal. She was staying just outside of Hoi An in a villa that belonged to her best friend which was also her headquarters for planning said friend’s wedding. Her kids were there as well as her son’s pre-school teacher, Tara-Lee, who came along to help care for the kids while Michelle was working. She asked if Tara-Lee could join myself and Toni and Gill for dinner some night since there was not a whole lot to do for a single girl in Hoi An. Tara-Lee ended up meeting us for the first of many dinners that evening. It was great to meet someone from home and the 4 of us had a fab time together.

Tony and Gill decided to move ahead to Hue after spending a splendid week in Hoi An. I planned to meet them there as Michelle and Tara-Lee invited me to the villa to stay a couple days – this was an offer that I could not pass up after backpacking for several weeks. I ended up getting to stay in my very own villa complete with a private garden shower not to mention some really amazing extras like giant sized terry cloth towels, a TV (!), fully loaded iPod, stereo system, king size bed with more fluffy, white pillows than I could ever want or need and best of all we had a private swimming pool right on the beach with an up close and personal view of the ocean..dreamy!



My first night there, I took my camera for a walk away from the private beach and met several local kids who had oodles of energy to burn and luckily for me, happened to be uber photogenic! I had the most amazing time and this was probably THE highlight of my stay in Hoi An.

After 2 marvelous days and nights at the villa, I decided to move on (before I got too used to the lap of luxury). The local bus picked me up outside of the villa and I headed off to Hue to meet Tony and Gill for another fun-filled overnight bus journey north to the right bank of the Red River to Vietnam’s capital - Hanoi!



“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”

- Clifton Fadiman

Immensely Sized Flying Grey Monster Bugs - Mui Ne, Vietnam

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” - Tim Cahill



To view photos from Mui Ne, click here.

To view Kiteboarding photos from Mui Ne, click here.

Sam, James and I arrived in Mui Ne expecting to be eaten alive by tuk tuk drivers but instead were greeted by 3 rather mellow moto drivers who actually took ‘no’ for an answer – how very charming! It seemed fitting then that we would end up at a guesthouse called Mellow, which set the tone for the rest of our stay.

That evening, we went to a restaurant on the beach to have what would be the first of many entertaining dinners together. When we were about to pay our bill, one of the servers came out and opened up a valve on a pipe to empty an awful smelling liquid that made its way onto the beach and directly into the ocean. Of course, for someone from a country that hides its polluting ways, this was rather appalling. I asked the server what it was he was doing and suddenly he didn’t speak very good English. Then the other server came over to clear a plate and also completely dodged the question. It was obviously sewage but I just wanted them to admit it and perhaps start a conversation about it.

When traveling through a developing country one has to remember that they have had big problems to tend to and it takes money and education to keep a place in check when it comes to the environment, but I do believe in many cases, it is just plain ignorance and inconvenience (laziness) and I wish to put a stop to it. Why people think it is a good idea to unload their crap into the sea is beyond me.... It doesn’t exactly make one crave seafood when what we dump into the ocean is demonstrated right before you. Pardon my language but is this not like shitting where you eat? Mui Ne is an 11 km stretch of beach that is seemingly quite beautiful at first until one takes a closer look. In front of the touristy resort areas, the garbage is not as bad but a walk further north down the beach, where most of the local fishermen are, the Styrofoam, plastic and various other detritus becomes much more apparent. The amount of litter I saw on the bus ride between Ho Chi Minh City and Mui Ne could almost be likened to driving through a landfill. Give a local a piece of garbage to dispose of and they will just throw it on the ground for you. Arg! And the beaches....don’t EVEN get me started! So before I go on another environmental tangent, I will stop there...for now.

46,000 – estimated number of floating plastic pieces per square mile of ocean, according to a 2006 UN Study.

We met the fourth party, Annete, of our little group the next evening while dining at what was to become our favourite restaurant. Anette was on her way home back to Denmark after traveling through New Zealand and Australia. This was the first of many enchanting dinners together full of tasty delights, stories, laughter and SERIOUS debates ranging from politics to the existence of the supernatural...you name it, we covered it.
Our first excursion was to the sand dunes. On the way, we stopped at the Fairy Springs where we waded through a long stream and trekked up and down steep, sandy hillsides to observe sweeping views of lush scenery and waterfalls. Eventually we made our way to a bay filled with colourful little boats and children selling their wares. We made fast friends with the kids which again had me wondering how I could smuggle them home in my backpack!



Then came the grand finale! We got to the sand dunes shortly before sunset, which didn’t really matter because just as we got there, the clouds rolled in (as per usual)! It still made for a beautiful powder blue sky highlighted with rain clouds behind a sandy brown horizon. We had to walk quite a long time to get to the dunes and then of course uphill to the top where we could take our crazy carpets and zoom down the hillside. We were already covered with sunscreen, sweat and bug spray, so adding sand to the mix just made us good and dirty....which makes for the best showers EVER. And speaking of showers....

One thing that I won’t miss about Mui Ne are the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs that seemed to want to terrorize me wherever I went...despite having saved several of their lives! The owners of our guesthouse kept the light on in the bathroom at night for those of us blessed with small bladders. This would be not such a trying experience if the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs were not so attracted to this light! Each time I visited the bathroom, I would find at least one of these creatures lying on their backs frantically flailing their skinny appendages so they could turn over and fly away. What was God thinking when he made such a thing? They are like kamikaze pilots! As much as I was disgusted by these ‘things’, I still saved at least one or two of them on a nightly basis by taking the pool cue (cause what bathroom doesn’t have one) and nudging them on their bellies until they glommed onto the end and I could flip them over. I went to bed that first night feeling very satisfied and quite sure that my bug karma was upped a few quotients. To my dismay, the next morning I found that both victims had been eaten alive by insidious ants. I found myself speaking out loud to them: ‘Why didn’t you fly away when I turned you over? Don’t you get it??’ I was quite preoccupied with the failure of my rescue mission when I realized I was not alone. I turned around just in time to hear the snicker of the janitor looking quite entertained by my conversation with the dead bugs.

One night while in the shower, I heard a noise coming from the window shutters. I didn’t really take notice until I saw the shutters start to separate and a shadowy silhouette of what looked like a bird started to form. The next thing I knew, one of the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs was swirling around me unruly in a counter clockwise FRENZY! I was .... well, NAKED and in a public area, so I stood paralyzed and from deep in my belly up through my lips came the girly-est, most embarrassing, high-pitched noise my voice box has ever made. I came to my senses and grabbed the towel and ran full tort out of the danger zone! Sam met me just as I was exiting wondering what had happened. All I could do was point into the shower room where the immensely sized flying grey monster bug was (as it does) frantically flailing its skinny appendages upside down on the floor. Once I caught my breath, I grabbed my trusty pool cue and saved the murderous, suicidal creature, as I now felt it was my duty! After that, they fell on me from the ceilings in restaurants and continued to try to off themselves in our bathroom. Perhaps I had done something evil to these bugs in another life and they gave me numerous chances to redeem myself? Regardless, I don’t miss Mui Ne in that respect!


Most days consisted of the 4 of us meeting for breakfast and then it was over to Jibes for lattes and sunning in their comfy beach chairs. I usually edited photos inside watching kiteboarders and windsurfers whip by, drinking espresso and wondering if this was me really living this life? Then in the afternoon, we would all eventually congregate again at Wax where they served the FINEST Vietnamese coffee and offered up bean bags to lay on the beach with...sigh.


Then we would all go back to our guesthouses to freshen and meet yet again for dinner! The food was amazing in Mui Ne. You could get anything from traditional Vietnamese food to pizza, pasta and best of all espresso! I have never had dessert so much as I did in Mui Ne. In fact, I don’t remember a night that I DIDN’T have it! It usually consisted of some kind of coconut or banana combination with a pancake or ice cream – ooh la la!




Mui Ne is best known for its kiteboarding and windsurfing. We came just on the cusp of the end of the season, so I took the camera out for a couple of late afternoons and photographed 2 kiteboarders, Steve and Rich, both from England. I loved it! This was much easier than photographing surfers on the North Shore since the action happens much closer to shore and I needn’t bother with a ridiculously long lens.


James, Sam and I decided to rent motos to take the 30km trip to Ta Cu Pagoda where the largest reclining Buddha lives. Driving there during the day wasn’t too crazy with traffic but coming back was a bit of a different story. Vietnam as I mentioned before is not the SAFEST place in the world to rent a moto. When people pass each other, they basically put the pedal to the medal and lay on their horns at full speed to say, ‘get the hell out of the way or somebody’s gonna die!’ On the bus from HCMC to Mui Ne, our bus driver was constantly beeping his horn at either animals or people crossing the road or as he was passing other vehicles. If we went through a village or town, instead of slowing down or having stop signs or traffic lights, he just honked the horn all the way through town to clear the way so they don’t have to slow down. The three of us stayed close together and fastened our helmets for a wild ride back through the exhaust and cornucopia of motos, bicycles, trucks and chickens. Surprisingly, we all survived the drive home and despite the danger, were VERY grateful for the cool breeze on our faces – a nice respite from the hot, muggy weather.

Oh and by the way..the largest reclining Buddha in Vietnam was definitely large and a beautiful sight along with its surroundings (see photo album)!


We finally parted ways after 11 fun filled fabulous days together. Anette went back to Denmark and Sam and James went to Thailand to meet some of their friends from England. When I departed Mui Ne, I left with tears in my eyes...these days will always be a cherished part of my memories on this journey.



Coming up..Nha Trang and Hoi An!

Foo Kwok and Ho–Hee-Ho–Chee Minh Continues....

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

- Mark Twain

To view pics from Phu Quoc Island, click here.

To view pics from Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta, click here.

*You do not have to be a facebook member.*

Elisheva and I got a rustic bungalow for $10/night, situated just metres from the beach. She went straight to bed and I went directly to the beach to investigate our new surroundings and get some grub (the term ‘grub’ will become quite literal in Laos later on). There was no one else there! I had a little nap on a beach chair in front of a resort hotel and walked back to the guesthouse after a couple of hours. I was somewhat relieved to see a few other homo sapiens lounging in beach chairs, getting pedicures and massages or having a beverage in the beachside restaurant. It was then that I knew I was going to like this place – quiet but not completely isolated either!

The next 10 days were spent drinking coconut milk, having naps (this was new for me and I QUITE liked it!), reading The Motorcycle Diaries, writing in my journal, drinking Vietnamese coffee WITH condensed milk (the ONLY way!), getting oil massages under a palm tree ($4), lollygagging in the ocean, watching the sunset (the moon sets a couple hours after the sun and turns a burnt orange right before making its exit), renting a moto for a ride around the island (I WILL own a motorbike someday!) and long beach walks in the warm, docile waves. We also met some great couples from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. It was lovely to meet for dinner and swap travel stories.The most memorable and TRAUMATIZING came from a German named Ingo. Dog lovers beware: what I am about to describe does not end happily. He had heard from another traveler about a lady who spotted a little girl in a Vietnamese market somewhere. She had 4 or 5 small puppies in a tray and was walking around with them. The lady asked what she was selling them for and the girl pointed to her mouth in a gesture to say, ‘to eat’. As many people would have done, she immediately said she would buy them, hoping to save them from this ill fate. She looked down to look for her wallet and by the time she looked up again, the little girl had broken each of the puppy’s necks right in front of her thinking she had made a sale and the lady was about to eat them. See? Traumatizing. The interesting thing is that many Vietnamese actually keep them as pets but not all of them eat dog as it is an expensive delicacy.

One night, I went to watch the sunset atop some big rocks in the sea. When I arrived, there were some monks getting ready to go for a swim, so I tried to get some good shots, incognito of course, but one of them noticed and decided to turn his camera on ME. I didn’t realize these monks would be armed! The next 15 minutes were spent taking photos of each other and exchanging no words, just laughter and hand gestures. One of them handed me a pink bracelet (which is now white from wearing it every day) before I watched their little brown figures walk away from me to become specks in the light of dusk. Sunset with a group of giddy (and surprisingly high-tech) monks is not a bad way to spend a late afternoon, anywhere in the world!
The ocean itself was another highlight of Phu Quoc. It was so completely calm some days that it reminded me of the lakes I swam in growing up in Saskatchewan - slow, orderly ripples - I almost expected to hear the sound of loons in the distance. The boulders saluted the fishermen as they cast their nets and I blissfully floated around like a buoy, bobbing around with no purpose really but to bob! All I could hear was the bass of my heart pumping and the ocean as it sounds in a seashell. I wished I were a mermaid with my hair turning all thick and silky from the saltiness, whirling around me in leisurely splendour!OK...back to reality Tracey!

The trip back to HCMC was another wild ride! We were fetched from our bungalow at 6 AM to catch the 8 AM ferry back to Rach Gia. It was on that ferry that we became prisoners to Vietnamese music videos! I apologize to all Vietnamese people when I say, they are REALLY, REALLY bad - sappy soft pop, dramatic overacting and mouthing the lyrics about 3 seconds too late. Then came an American movie with Vietnamese voices dubbed in...at the highest decibel possible. Everything about Vietnam is loud; the constant horns beeping, the sound of phlegm removal onto the concrete and phrases steadily repeated like, ‘Madam! Moto? Where you go?’ and the ever popular and hard to resist, ‘You buy!’

From the ferry, we caught a mini-bus to the bus station and got on another bus where we discovered there was NO air conditioning! I am not sure what is worse – too much or none at all – but the road back was neither dry, nor pleasant. The driver kept telling us to close the windows, so our English friend had to show him his sopping wet T-shirt. I think he could have rung out enough sweat to put out a small fire!
Before we departed Rach Gia. Felix, our German friend went to grab a drink from the cooler. He came back with what was called, ‘Bird’s Nest’. Hmmmmmm....I looked at the ingredients which said, ‘Water, Sugar, Bird’s Nest’. Mmmmmm-K. How do you put a Bird’s Nest into a drink I ask you??? When I was back in HCMC, I did a little research and found out that there is a bird that makes its nest by using its own saliva. It is called a swiftlet! So if you ever come across a drink called, ‘Bird’s Nest’, you can tell all your friends that it is actually just bird spittle! Nummy! It also comes in the form of a soup and ranges in price from $30 to several thousand, depending on the quality of spittle I suppose?!

Somewhere along the way, we stopped for a bathroom break. Unfortunately for the tourists, we have to pay to use the ‘WC’, which very rarely has toilet paper or a sink or soap or anything that might suggest cleanliness! This one in particular was a cess pool of filth and neglect. I had sandals on and had to carefully navigate my way through a good 2 inches of water on the floor before reaching my destination – the squatter toilet! Most toilets, especially in rural areas, are of the squatting variety, but not so bad as it means that one doesn’t have to touch anything save for scooping a small bucket into a big vat of water to ‘flush’. The tricky part is not slipping off said squatter while you try to find your stash of toilet paper which is usually in your backpack, which is usually on your back because there isn’t a dry or germ-free place to put it. Needless to say, I have strengthened muscles that were of little use to me until now!

When I walked out to leave, ALMOST totally unscathed, my ankle rolled over causing my foot to dip into the ‘toilet pond’ on the floor. ACK! God knows what little cooties could have been in there glomming on to my foot but all I could do was rinse it off with my bottled water and hope for the best! By this time, I was rather acquainted with the antiseptic-ness of Asia and just had to forget about it. I will never take for granted the absolute luxury of a clean bathroom ever again.
When we arrived in HCMC (almost 7 hours later), there was a crowd of people gathered around a motorcycle which was in pieces near a lifeless body that had been covered by a mat (thankfully). We were all very saddened by this sight but not at all surprised. Occurrences like this happen every single day and even every hour in Vietnam. Statistics say that 12,000 people lose their lives in moto accidents every year. In fact, it is the LEADING cause of death in Vietnam and they JUST passed a mandatory helmet law at the beginning of this year – a step in the right direction at least but there is a lot more that needs to be done.

My visa was soon to expire so I had to spend a good 5 days in HCMC in order to get it extended. During that time, I took a trip to the Mekong with a few friends I had met at my guesthouse. One was from NZ, one from Australia and the other from Sweden. The beauty of it was that none of us knew each other but all became fast, albeit temporary, travel buddies. The Mekong was nice but a little too touristy for my taste – the tour I went on centred mainly around taking us to places to buy stuff. When we were on a boat down the Mekong, locals had little baskets yelling, ‘BIG MONEY!’ Translated, this means, ‘throw money at me for no apparent reason because you are all filthy rich!’


When I finally got my visa extension, I booked a bus to Mui Ne, about 3 hours up the coast from HCMC. As I was packing my bag, I met Sam and James from England, in my dorm room. They just got off from doing a whirlwind tour of South America and were finishing up SE Asia by heading to Mui Ne before Southern Thailand. The three of us set forth on what turned out to be 11 of some of the BEST days I have had so far!


Up next – Jibes, Wax and Lucy!

Ho–Hee-Ho–Chee Minh and Foo Kwok!

See photo album here.

After recovering from my malaise in Phnom Penh, I hopped on a bus to the city that never shuts up - Ho Chi Minh City! We crossed the Vietnamese border without any major issues other than being treated a little like cattle; the best one can hope for at a border crossing in Asia I suppose. I didn’t have to worry about overcharging this time as I purchased my visa in Bangkok and they had their way with me at the Embassy instead.

While I was waiting in the line up, a Vietnamese family walked past me and rolled over my bare foot with their suitcase and no apologies. This was my first taste of the negative side of Vietnam, but more on that coming up in later blogs.

I sat beside an English army vet who I thought was around 45 but learned was actually my age. When he finally awoke from his apparent drunken siesta, he told me all about how he had been shot and wounded more than once during various duties. When he got the call to go to Iraq, he stayed awake for 3 days so he could claim he had gone crazy and wouldn’t have to serve. He now lives in Cambodia on money he receives as a veteran and drinks most of it away. We made the obligatory pit stop at a roadside restaurant and he drank 2 beers in less than 20 minutes and then purchased 2 more for the rest of the bus ride to the border. Of course the nurturing mother in me wanted to plead with him to get help (yes she IS in there somewhere) but I felt it was not my place to preach and I can’t imagine what this poor bloke has been through and is trying so hard to forget.

I met 2 girls from England – Odette and Jen – and 2 girls from Quebec – Anna and Nicole, when we arrived in HCMC. We decided to all pile into a cab to head to the ‘backpacker’s district’. The driver drove us around for about 10 minutes and when we got to our ‘destination’, he pointed to the metre - 500,000 dong, equalling $31.25 US! This is Vietnam for god sake! So we fought with him for awhile but since the meter said what it said, we eventually all paid our $6 reluctantly. A couple of days later, Odette and Jen walked around the corner from our guesthouse and saw the spot where the bus had dropped us off and the cabbie had picked us up. Yep! We were a block away from our destination and had taken a $30 cab ride to get there!

I had planned to go with the girls to Mui Ne but wanted to see the War Museum first so had stayed another day. I met a girl from Israel in my dorm room, Elisheva, who had just spent the last 10 months traveling through China and Mongolia! She was planning to go to Phu Quoc Island for some beach time, which had been part of my original loose itinerary, so I decided to tag along.

I said a temporary goodbye to my 19 year old Vietnamese/Australian ‘little brother’ who speaks barely a word of English. I met him at a place called Cafe Sozo just down the street from my guesthouse. Cafe Sozo helps underprivileged families in Vietnam find employment (http://sozocentre.com). In Hong’s case, his dad (Australian) has nothing to do with him and same goes for his mom (Vietnamese). He works 12 hours a day, every day as a waiter there for 4000 dong/hour – that is about .25 cents US. He has to support himself and wants to go places but has to work so much harder than any of us just to make ends meet. We bonded and it was nice for me to have a regular place to go edit photos, where people knew my name and I could hang with some locals!

Elisheva and I took 7 (yes, SEVEN) modes of transportation to get to Phu Quoc Island. First was a cab ride through HCMC. At one point, amongst a flurry of motorbikes, it felt like we were in the middle of a wasp’s nest - motorbikes circling us from all angles, with no way out. I couldn’t imagine being on a motorbike or on foot in that havoc.

In HCMC, the whole fam-damily piles on (up to 5, and sometimes even their dog). Traffic there is Ridiculous (note capital ‘R’). There is no rhyme or reason to any of it and no one really obeys traffic signals but instead honks there horn to warn everyone else to look out and get the hell out of the way. When everyone is honking their horns like hooligans at the same time, how are you supposed to know WHO their honking at? As a pedestrian, I seriously prayed for my life every time I crossed a street. If I hesitated - poof! - a teensy Vietnamese lady would appear to take me by the arm and lead me safely across. This was a nice gesture but a little scary if you’re not ready to let someone else take your life into their hands! At one point, I tried to see how high I could count before hearing a horn; ’one, t..BEEP!, on..BEEP!, one..BEEP, on..BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!, one, t...BEEEEEEEP!!!’.

After a one hour stop at the bus ticket office and a mini-bus to the bus station, we departed at 11 PM on another local mini-bus to Rach Gia (so much for the sleeper bus!). The driver had the a/c and Vietnamese tunage blasting throughout the entire 5 hour journey. He kept braking at warp speed right before every bridge we traveled over (and there were many) where we would then strike the approach and catch enough air to cause all of our behinds to take flight off our seats. The guy beside me bumped his head on the roof on more than one occasion and also thought my shoulder made a nice pillow.

We arrived at Rach Gia sleepless at 4 AM in the dark with not a clue where the ferry was located and wasn’t due to leave to the island for another 4 hours. So we walked to the nearest street which was just a hummin’ with people preparing for the morning market. Elisheva was extremely sick and had such a sore throat that she wasn’t able to talk which made devising plans an interesting task. After observing the market for awhile, hobnobbing with the locals and some sign language, we set out to find the ferry first by foot, but gave up after realizing no one spoke a spit of English and all seemed to point in ambiguous directions to the ferry. So we hopped on a moto (transportation vehicle #4).


When we finally boarded the ferry, the two of us fell into comas for the entire 3 hour journey before getting to Phu Quoc Island and catching a bus into town. Then came the part I always dread when arriving in a new place - negotiating transportation to a guesthouse. This is always tricky business because they will first try to overcharge you and second, take you to an expensive guesthouse where they can make a commission from the owner (hoping also that you are so tired from the journey that you will just decide to drop your backpack and pay the extra dong).

The most concise way to describe the next 45 minutes is that it was a complete ‘shit show’! After much negotiating in the heat of the midday sun, we got our way and FINALLY ended up at our guesthouse of choice. The entire journey took us 15 hours from start to finish. The moral of this story is – take the one hour flight to Phu Quoc Island from HCMC - it’s WORTH it!!

Up next – cocunuts, coffee and....high tech monks!

Cambodi-odi-odi-o! Part 2 - Phnom Penh

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When Cait and I arrived in Phnom Phen, we were greeted by the usual suspects – taxi and tuk tuk drivers as well as guesthouse touts offering ‘cheap cheap’ and ‘same same, but different’ accommodations. We settled on ‘OK Guesthouse’ after consulting the Lonely. We sat in the tuk tuk facing the traffic and felt like rock stars (but not really in a good way). People stared at us like we were either monstrosities to society or high royalty – it was really QUITE uncomfortable.

After we arrived at the guesthouse, we walked to the riverside where tourists and locals blanketed the boardwalk awaiting sunset and some respite from the heat. It actually reminded me a little of English Bay in Vancouver, minus the naked children running amok, garbage strewn all over and excessive heat (have I mentioned how HOT it is here?!). We decided to take a breather and sit down near a group of children playing by the river. They were ridiculously cute so I tried to steal a photo. The first was taken of them hanging out on the riverside and I couldn’t have posed them more perfectly for the cover of a pop album for kids!

Soon they were taking photos of us with my camera. I had not had this much fun in a long time. They were so excited to see their faces on my LCD screen and even more so when they got to take the picture themselves. The warmth and happiness that we felt from these children made a special place in my heart for Cambodia.

The next day, we took a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields. Unlike most people, I had heard of the movie but not actually seen it, nor did I bother to ever find out much about it as I was never really into the whole war history thing. On this day, I found out more than my heart could take. Between 1975 - 1979, 30 percent of the Cambodia population (approximately 2 million people) were eradicated by the Khmer Rouge, lead by the Pol Pot regime. Phnom Penh was brimming with hope for the future when on April 19th the Khmer Rouge took over the city to fulfill their plan to create an agrarian society. They abolished the monetary system (all financial institutions closed), markets, schools and parts of Angkor Wat (Cambodian’s source of national pride) were destroyed. People considered intellectuals were immediately killed and those left over were forced into hard labour on collective farms, starved to death or executed. Children between the ages of 10 to 15 years old were turned into soldiers and unfeeling killing machines. The extermination camp called Choeung Ek, now dubbed The Killing Fields, is about 5 km from Phnom Penh. Several prisoners were also taken to S-21, the headquarters for the Khmer Rouge, where they were tortured into admitting crimes (such as treason) that they did not commit. They were barely fed; one prisoner who survived said that he only went to the bathroom twice in 2 months while being held there. The acts of tortures that were practiced are too graphic for me to even begin to describe.

Vietnamese troops finally captured Phnom Penh in 1979 forcing the Pol Pot regime and their followers into the jungle where they were originally established in the 1960’s. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1985 and never paid for his crimes against the Cambodian people. Cait and I bought both the Killing Fields and S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine to watch because we were so intrigued with the how’s and why’s of this atrocious era in Cambodian history. I am afraid that we still didn’t find any clear answers. How could the rest of the world let this happen? How could we not have helped them? How is it possible that the soldiers can show such little remorse even today for what they did to their people, in some cases their own family and friends?

What I have learned has made me so appreciative to have the opportunity to travel and gain so much knowledge that I wouldn’t have otherwise pursued myself. I have lived a mighty privileged life. Our last night in Phnom Penh was spent with Cas. We met him at our guesthouse and decided to go out for dinner the three of us. Cas is in Cambodia volunteering for a NGO called Bridges Across Borders. He is also working on building an orphanage. Cas is the kind of person that has and will make a difference in the world. He was inspiring to listen to and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening together.

Cait left at 6 AM the next morning and I was NOT well. I had felt nauseous before we went to bed and a couple of hours later I was throwing up. I was supposed to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City that morning but had to cancel it. I didn’t want to stay in my guesthouse that not only had a musty stank but even worse, a putrid aroma wafting in through the bathroom window. Luckily for me, Cas said he would stick around an extra day to make sure it was only something I ate that was making me ill and not something more serious.We walked to a place to exchange some money for dong (Vietnamese currency). I stood there watching the lady counting it when I started seeing little dots darting around in front of my eyeballs. The next thing I knew, I was ground level. I didn’t pass out – I just couldn’t stay standing up! From out of nowhere, a little Cambodian angel shoved a small, clear glass bottle of brown liquid into my hand and gestured to rub it on my temples. I did so and za-za-zing! My eyeballs felt like they had been dipped in icy cool water and the world seemed like a much better place. They got me sitting on a chair and Cas went and bought me some water. He suggested that maybe perhaps I was not well enough to be out and about and should think about going back to my guesthouse. I agreed reluctantly and slept away the afternoon and early evening. Cas returned to take me for tea by the river when I started to feel somewhat human....ready for the next leg of my journey.....the ever bustling, horn blowing Ho Chi Minh City!