We get up nice and early and get a tuk tuk to the centre of Kampot, only a few miles. We eat breakfast at a place called Captain Chims where the food is excellent quality and cheap, my kind of combo. The town of Kampot is the exact opposite of Phenom Penh, everything moves at a slower pace and there is nothing western about this town. The buildings are very small and in some ways reminded me off pictures I had a seen of New Orleans. We looked at the main map and decided what sites we wanted to see that day. The main attractions were spread over a thirty mile area, getting a tuk tuk would cost a bomb. David and Roy suggested renting motorbikes and we found some for four dollars each excluding the price of fuel, which is dirt cheap anyways. I have never riden a motorcycle before and didn’t feel comfertable learning to drive one in Kampot. We decided to rent two and David and Roy, who have both riden bikes before, would take it in turns giving me a ride.
In the two weeks I have been on this trip I have had dozens of great experiences which I’ll cherish forever, todays memories are by far the best so far. Even Roy, who has been travelling all over the world for 15 months, agreed that the motorcycle journey around Kampot was amazing. David and Roy told me they have never riden a bike on roads like this before. Riding through the city center was nothing compared to the dirt roads we had to use to get to our first location, it was nuts. People were overtaking, undertaking, coming straight at you and that was just the Cambodians on motorcycles. It was the people in cars and trucks which were really scary. They would just come speeding up behind you and beep like crazy till you got out of the way, all without slowing down. I remember one time we turned a corner to find that a big white truck was in the middle of overtaking a car and was on our side of the road. I grabbed onto Roy tight as he slipped onto a dirt track on the side of the road and avoided the truck by about a foot. There were also potholes scattered all over the road and some of them were really deep. We veered left and right, trying to avoid hitting them dead on. Roy was in a motorcycle crash in South Africa and it was a potehole that took him down, I just hoped that he wasn’t that unlucky to hit one again.
Once we left left the main roads and hit the countryside the scenery became breathtaking. No words or pictures can describe how stunning the country side of Kampot is. The dirt tracks are dark red, with palm trees reaching up towards the blue sky which framed the baking sun. We would pass local schools and the kids would come running out and wave hello to us, they were so endearing.
After a few wrong turns we reached our first destination, a cave which is deep in a mountain. As soon as we get off our bikes a teenage boy came rushing upto us and offers to be our guide. We tell him repeatedly that his help is not needed but the little bugger wont go away and keeps rushing us towards the cave entrance. The caves were amazing, the insides were all corroded leaving some massive rocks hanging like stone bubbles. The ground was covered in jagged rocks and even the wall had lethal edges. Every time we stopped for a picture our little guide would try and rush us, we got to a point where we just ignored him and went at our own pace. At the end of the tour the cheeky little bastard stuck out his hand and demanded a dollar, for what I said to the rest of the group, we could have done the whole tour with out him. Okay, it was only 30 cents each but if we’re constantly putting our hands in our pockets it will add up to dollars and thats less beer money.
Whilst driving about looking for a lake on the map we spot a couple of teenage boys on a bike and they tell us that they will take us to the lake. I was immediately suspicious, what are the odds that these boys on this remote road were going the same plave as us. We just said the hell with it and followed them. On the otherside of the lake there is an outdoor resteraunt ran by a couple and an area where you can sit in the shade. The guy comes over and we ask him how much for food, his english is very basic and we are able to establish that it is one dollar per portion of food. Its also one dollar for using a giant rubber ring in the lake which is fair enough We swim in the lake for about fifteen minutes and then chow down the food when it arrives, decent food for the money we thought.
When we were ready to leave the guy came over and we confirmed the price with him, one dollar for each meal and an extra buck for the use of the rubber ring. Nobody else had money so I handed over ten dollars and waited for my change. I waited a few minutes for the guy to come back but he didn’t come over. Ten minutes later I approached the guy who I will now refer to as Dickface.
Me – Hi, is my change coming.
Dickface – What?
Me – My change, I gave you ten dollars.
Dickface – No change, meal was ten dollars.
Me – The meals were three dollars all together, plus one dollar for the ring.
You owe me six dollars.
Dickface – No, meals are three dollars each.
At this point I realised what was going on, this prick was ripping me off. This is what we refer to as a CS, Cambodian Shakedown. I beckoned over Roy and David and explained what Dickface was doing. They both confirmed that he had said each meal was one dollar, we used a bit of paper and added up the maths so he could understand more clearly. Then Dickface pulled out his trump card, “I no speak English”. You just spoke English a few seconds ago I reminded him, but he just repeated himself. I can’t describe how angry I was with this little bastard, he was ripping me off and he knew it. I wanted to grab him and smash his head in or tip his stall over but then I would be in even bigger trouble. I then told Dickface that I would phone the police, go ahead he told me, it will take three hours for them to get here. Wow, he can speak English again. At one point I had a hold of his mobile phone and I was going to heave it into the lake but Roy and David talked me out of it. We decided to just walk away, Dickface had obviously ripped of Western tourists before, it would be his word againt ours if the police came and he could speak Cambodian. Before walking away I gave Dickface a quick lesson in English. “You are a dickhead. You are a scumbag” I said, he just smiled back at me. When we were about to leave a couple of American tourists pulled up on bikes accompanied by the same two teenage boys that lured us here, the CS was about to happen again. Not on my watch. I marched over to the Americans and told them what had just happened, they about turned and drove off. I turned to Dickface, who was no longer smiling and offered him the finger. “Spin on that Dickface”.
We headed to another cave, this one had a temple with monks in it at the base. The sun was baking at this point I was sweating in places I never thought could sweat. I had a large bottle of water which was now essentially boiled and did nothing to quench my thirst. As we walked up the steps to the cave we could hear a metal banging noise that was so fequent it sounded like popcorn. When we reached the top we discovered a group of monks who were hammering down rocks for a new monument, we spoke with them and were offered a free tour by one of the younger monks. The caves were just as interesting as the ones in the morning and the monk was a fantastic guide. He showed us down a dark crevice which had a drop of about 100 meteres, he then revealed that a tourist had slipped and died at this area, we all stepped very cautiously around it. In return for giving his services we offered the monk a lift on the back of one of the bikes to his home village.
We returned to the Bhodi Villa and checked into our new room, a tree hut with an ace view. After having a dip in the lake that that the villa sits on we got changed and had some food in town. We picked up some beers and ice on the way home for a few cheeky drinks in our tree hut, beats paying the villas prices for beverages. We encountered a major problem when we got back, we had no recepticle to cool the beers in. David being the smart one came up with an ingenious solution, we tipped our motorbike helmets upside down and used them to hold the ice. Love being on holiday, it brings out your creative side.
We decide that we have been in Phnom Penn for too long and plan on moving south. I really love this city but need to keep moving so I can make the most of my money. I heard through a freind that Kampot was the place to go and a place called Bhodi Villa was the place to hang out. We book a bus for 2:00 pm and pack our belongings, I have a a load of washing at a local laundret and they asure me it will be ready before we leave. We quickly grab a few pictures with Paulie and say goodye to everyone who had made our stay at Phnom Penh a good one. The bus arrives at 1:45, “We have to go now” the driver announces. I try and explain about my washing but he is having none of it. I run across to the laundret, where the lady is in the middle of ironing one of my t-shirts, and try to explain about the bus and ask if I can just take my washing the way it is. She smiles and proceeds to iron my t-shirt twice as slowly, great. After about five minutes of running back and forwards between the laundret and the bus I get my laundry.
The bus ride to Kampot was spoiled by some drunk english twat who kept trying to jump of the bus for a cigarette. The bus driver kept shaking his head no but the sneaky english man was able to get off the bus and spark a ciggie up. The bus driver screamed at him and started to pull the bus away, fantastic I thought, the bus will be quiter now. The guy was able to jump back on and then proceeded to argue with the bus driver, who abruptly slammed on the brakes and sent the twat in to the windsheld, what a result. About halfway through the journey we came across a broken down bus with about forty people standing outside. Our bus pulled over and let them all on even though there was not enough room, five mintes later we are packed.
We get to Kampot at about 7:30 and it is pitch black, guess we’ll have to wait untill daytime before we can see the town. We get a tuk tuk to Bhodi Villa, I was able to talk the guy down from three dollars to only two, I’m starting to enjoy bartering with the Cambodians. The villa has a very chilled out atmosphere, if the staff were any more laid back they would be sleepng. We are informed that the only beds available are outside on the porch for three dollars each. We tell them that this is okay and book a bunglow in the villa for the following two nights. The beds are just as we expected, two mattresses with mosquito nets out on the porch. We get a few beers and some food, the food is decent but expensive so we make a point of eating elsewhere for our visit to Kampot. There is a pool table close to our room so we have a few games and then head to our outdoor bedroom for an early night.
We are after some Cambodia food for breakfast so David finds a resteraunt which is packed, the food must be great here we speculated and returned about half an hour later when it was less busy. We each had a different noodle soup, each one was delicious and flaversome, a geat way to start the day off. A few hours later I start getting really bad stomach cramps and need to go poo poo. This is probably the worst I have ever had the runs and the stomach cramps are a nice warning sign which lets me know I have roughly 5 minutes to get to a toilet or else. I take some of the pills that my little sister made me buy, they do little to help the situation.
I heard from a tuk tuk driver that there is live Muay Thai boxing at the weekend and it is free to get in. I ask if David and Roy would be up for this and they both nod, lets do it. We get a tuk tuk to the boxing and a match is in full swing by the time we get there. The arena is basically a large shed with wooden seats which go around the ring, a local tv station is there to record it. We haul ass up to the nose bleed seats, which are the only ones available, and we get seated just in time for the next fight. The atmosphere was electric and the fights were exciting. We were halfway through watching a lightweight bout when Roy turned to me and remarked that the lightweight fighters dont have much power. Two seconds later one on the fighters is knocked clean out with a knee to the head, brutal.q
We decide to head to the market for some street food. We get about twenty foot from the hotel when I turn to my comrades and tell them I have left my wallet in my room and need to fetch it, this is a lie. I start getting really bad stomach cramps, I quicken the pace back to the guest house and make it just in time to the toilet. That was close, too close.
Roy, David and myself have a walk down by the river and we all make a very sickening observation which we hadn’t noticed before. There were alot of older western men walking hand in hand with young Cambodian girls. When I say girls I mean just that, these girls look like they were still in secondery school. I know that alot of Cambodian woman go with older westermen because they will be winned and dinned, which is fair enough, but what we were seeing was pedo’s. We also witnessed an older man sitting with a group of children, he looked like he was stalking them. I felt like going over and tipping the guy into the river but couldn’t think of a way to explain my actions to the cops.
We head back to the guesthouse and start slamming back the beers, Paulie is there with his younger sister and he invites us to join them. I speak with Paulie for about an hour and he starts to tell me about his life. Paulie has driven a tuk tuk his whole life and on average he makes about 15 dollars a day. He tells me that he rarely takes a day off, “If I take a day off I dont eat” he tells me. Paulie then tells me that he has recently broke up with his wife and he is sleeping in his tuk tuk untill he can afford a place of his own. His eyes begin to fill with tears as he tells me that the only thing that keeps him going is his two sons. I feel really bad for Paulie, he is a really decent guy who never got a break in life. Later the song “My Girl” comes on and we start to sing the lyrics, replacing the main chorus words with Paulie’s name, this puts a huge smile on his face.
“Hey mister, we are closed, you have to leave”. I lift my head from the table I had been using as a pillow, the bar is empty apart from staff. When I walk outside it is daylight, I am very confused. The time is six in the morning and I am lost in Cambodia. I get flashbacks about the night before and begin to wonder if those street guys had ripped my off. All my money was present apart from the drinks I had bought myself, I feel slightly guilty about thinking that those guys would rip me off. They looked after me and showed me a good night, I love the Cambodian people more and more everyday. I was feeling very tired at this point, need to get my ass home. The main river in Pheom Penn is close to where I stay so I head towards where I think the river is. Bingo, there she is. I follow the river till I reach my street. Paulie is there eating breakfast and invites me to join him, I sit wth Paulie and have rice and chicken with some sweet tea. I then crawl back to my room and sleep till twelve.
After getting myself ready I head downstairs and see the irish dude Roy who is speaking to an American guy called David, who is also staying at the hostel. We end up speaking for an hour and discover that we are all going to head in the same direction and decide we will travel together. David and Roy are going on a tour that I have already been on so I decide to chill out by myself and meet up with them later for a sunset cruise on the Mekong River. I go to the Phenom Penn museum and have a wander to kill sometime. The difficult thing about being being yourself is you have to ask other people if they can take a picture of you. I was very lucky because there were lots of Cambodian woman going about who were more than happy to take my picture, they would often giggle when I approached them. I get that from woman in Aberdeen but its usually when my fly is down.
A meet Roy and Davd at 4:30 and we get a tuk tuk down to the river. The river boat cruise is excellent value, 6 dollars and they take you up and down the river for one hour and you get two beers. We sit on roof of the boat sipping beers and take in the sunset, beautifull. Its sights like this that I would day dream about when I was stuck in my flat in Aberdeen and now its happening, I’m loving life right now. Its a massive cliche but its true, life is what you make of it. If I hadn’t pushed myself to come here I would be stuck in Aberdeen leading a very boring life. But now I’m here and reaping the benifits.
After the cruise we head back to the guest house and continue to drink beer. Later we head out to the resteraunt 18′s again and have some excellent fish. Then out to a night club for more beers and cocktails. It was a tame night, my liver sighed with relief.
I get up early and and head downstairs at 8:30 so I can head to the Killing Fields with Paulie. After about five minutes of looking for Paulie I ask a few tuk tuk drivers if they know where he is, “We think Paulie was drunk last night” they tell me. Well that figures I thought, he was drinking with me last night. After about ten minutes a hungover Paulie appears, I love this guy, he is the Cambodian equivilant of me.
The ride over to the Killing Fields took about 40 minutes and went through some extremely impovershed neighbourhoods. Wooden huts lined the roads and half naked children wandered just inches from the speeding traffic. The roads went from flat surfaces to dirt tracks with massive pot holes, everytime Paulie swerved to avoid one I was thrown about like a rag doll, great fun. There were also massive fuel trucks which would ride right up Paulies ass and beep till he moved out of the way.
The Killing Fields tour goes around one of the most imfamous killing grounds during the Cambodian genocide, it is very grim but I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in this dark chapter of mankind. When you start the tour you are given a head set with an audio decice, as you walk round the fields you play the different chapters and you are given bits of imformation about the diffrent events that went on. There are dozens of sunken areas on the ground which were mass graves and when you look closely you can see bone fragments and teeth. The experts estimate that over 100.000 peole were killed at this site alone and there were dozens all over Cambodia. It is beyond belief that so many people were just slaughtered here whilst the world did nothing. The worst part was the killing tree where over 100 babies and young children had they’re heads smashed against the tree till they stopped screaming and were then thrown into a mass grave. I make no appoligise for being so graphic, I’m sure alot of people reading this know nothing about what went on and I feel its important to educate the ignorant because I was in the same boat till I came here. If you feel I’m being patronizing thats okay, piss off and read someone elses blog.
There are signs all over the Killing Fields asking people to be respectfull and not talk during the tour, this is fair enough considering you are essentually walking through a graveyard. About half way though the tour I could hear a really loud American woman talking, she was so loud I was having difficulty hearing the information coming from my head set. I turned to see who was doing the talking. About ten feel away there was a three hundred pound American woman with seven members of her family. For reasons that I can not understand she was the only one of her group that was wearing a head set and as the information was being fed to her she was then relying it to her family in a really annoying southern twag. “Oh my god, right here, this is where they killed the babies. Jesus, they would swing them by the feet and smash they’re poor little heads. My god”. Words cannot describe how pissed off this cow was making me, she was being ignorant and disrespectfull by speaking so loudly. I was bordeline walking over and asking her not to speak so loudly but I could tell she was the type who liked to argue and I felt that would be even more ignorant of me to argue with her. I walked about thirty feet infront till I could no longer hear her voice. At one point, as she walked past one of the mass graves, I thought about kicking her in but then I realised her ass was too big to fit in so I let it slide.
Avril and I decided to go our seperate ways, she went to Siem Riep and I stayed a bit longer in Phenom Penn. I really love this city and wasn’t ready to leave yet. I briefly meet an irish guy called Roy at the bar of my guest house and we had a few beers. I then went out for supper with an American guy who’s first name I forgot but I can remember his last, Greengras. We went to a resteraunt called, 18. The food was possibly the best I’d had so far in Cambodia and very cheap, our bill for two meals and one pitcher of beer was 8 dollars, amazing. It was Greengras’s last night in Cambodia and he was catching a plane home at 9:00 that evening. We sat at the bar where he proceeded to polish a bottle of red wine in an effort to sleep on the plane, I stuck with the beers and was nice and merry come his departure. We shook hands and I wished him a safe journey. I could tell he was gutted to be going home and I wondered how bad I would feel when I returned in a few months. Dont need to deal with that right now, Richie Boy, lets get pissed.
I head out for a few drinks with a Swedish guy I met at the guest house and we are home for one, he is also leaving tomorrow so has to get up early. A few of the guys who work at my guest house are heading to a bar and invite me along. Why not I though, I still felt like partying. I inquire where the bar is and how we are getting there. “Two miles, Mr Richard, you come with me” said one of them as he lead me two his motorbike. He strapped a helmet on himself and bekoned for me too jump on the back. Riding on the back of a motorcycle, at one in the morning, with a guy I barely knew, without a helmet and drunk was not the kind of thing I would do in Aberdeen. But the hell with it, I was in Cambodia, lets do it. The two mile journey to the night club on the back of the bike was one of he highlights of the trip so far. It was so exhilirating speeding through the traffic whilst I clung on for dear life, brilliant memory.
We chilled out at the night club for a few hours and when we headed back I was about to call it a night when I heard someone calling out for me. Down at the end of the road was the group of tuk tuk drivers I meet my first night here, “Hey mister, you want to come with us for a drink” they asked. Why not I thought, the night is young. We cut through some dodgy side streets and end up at an outdoor area with tables where we drink a few beers and eat some street food. They then ask if I want to go to a night club or go home, it was only 4 in the morning by this point, the night is young, lets do it. I end up in some random night club where my last memory is being chatted up by some Cambodian barmaid.
Up nice and early today, lots of things going on so we need all our time. We hire a tuk tuk to Wat Pheom to take a look at all the temples. There are lots of beggars at the base of this hill: woman, children and old men with limbs missing. I have learned a usefull phrase in Cambodian which means no thank you so you can use the words in many ways and it serves us well as we walk up the stairs towards the temples. The sights are very interesting and I get lots of cool picture which mostly consist of me doing dumb things. There are supposed to be monkeys here but we couldn’t see any, I guess they dont like Aberdonians.
After the temples I decide to go to the S-21 museum or the Tuol Sleng as it is known. During the Cambodia genocide this prison was used to not only to process villagers before they went to the Killing Fields but also to torture and murder 17.000 people. Avril does not have a strong stomach for these things so I do the tour myself. I speak with the front desk at my guest house and she calls a tuk tuk driver called Paulie who agrees to take me to S-21 and the Killing Fields tomorrow for fifteen dollars. Paulie is a wonderfull man who has driven a tuk tuk his whole life. I keep saying “hey yo, Paulie” in my Rocky Balboa accent which always puts a smile on his face.
We get to the museum and Paulie tells me he will wait for me round the corner, this is one of the benifits of getting a tuk tuk, the drivers waits for you to finish and then takes you home. When I enter the museum I am approached by a beggar with half of his face melted and an eye missing, great start to the horrors to come. One of the most haunting things about this place if how peacefull it looks, as you wander around you can only imagine the horrors that went on during the genocide. Some of the cells contain the torture instruments and gruesome paintings of what went on behind closed doors. For extra money you can pay for a guide who will tell you in great detail what went on but I decide somethings are best left unheard.
Paulie drops me off at the Royal Palace where I meet Avril and we do the tour. The houses inside the grounds are pretty awesome and well worth the 6 dollar entry fee. There is a sign outside the main temple which states that pictures are strictly prohibited inside. Whilst we are looking at the Budha statues I notice a japanese tourist pull out a huge camera and ready himself for a picture, cheeky bastard I thought. A security jumps out of no where, covers the lens of the camera with his hand and push it into the tourists face. “No pictures” he tells the guy who is very startled by what just happened Serves the twat right, no pictures means no pictures you moron.
At night I have a few beers with Paulie for a few hours and come ten he is falling asleep at the bar. This is very worrying because he is giving me a lift tomorrow at 8:30 to the Killing Fields. I get an early night for the early start tomrrow, I just hope Paulie has done the same.
We have a bus booked for 11 in the morning for our journey to Cambodia. I get a pancake for breakfast and lean against a wall in the street about to eat it. A lady sitting at a table outside bekons for me too sit down and join her. Man, I’m going to miss these people, so freindly and warm.
The bus journey to Cambodia was very interesting. Coming from Aberdeen its so nice to see a different country where its not all doom and gloom. We get to the Cambodian border in about two hours and go through the process off filling out forms and handing over money. After a few more stops I’m officially in Cambodia and its officially roasting, like red hot.
We have a few more hours of travel and we get to our new destination Pheom Pehn. There are loads of scooters here but not as bad as Vietnam. After we get off the bus in the city center I notice that mine and Avrils back packs are wet where they were lying in the luggage hold. I smell the damp patch, it stinks of rotten fish. We suspect that they were transporting something fishy and it leaked onto our packs, lets hope it hasn’t soaked onto out clothes. In Cambodia there are a shit load of Tuk Tuk taxi, they are everywhere, and every five seconds you will hear someone say “Want a tuk tuk”. We opted to take a tuk tuk to our new guest house, the Velkom Backpackers.
The Velkom Backpackers Guest house in located on a popular market street and has two propertys which face each other. We check in and inspect how far the fishy substance has leaked into our backpacks. I got lucky, the liquid had only penetrated my shaving bag. Avril had over 75 percent of the liquid on her clothes. We took all the fishy items across the road to a laundret and got them washed. Great start to Cambodia.
I wait outside the guesthouse whilst Avril changes and I’m immediately approached by some of the local people. I can not begin to descibe how freindly the Cambodians are. They are polite, shake your hand and smile when you speak with them. They have different degrees of understanding english and I’ve discovered that a big smile and a hand shake goes a long way. Avril had discovered a nice resteraunt where street children are trained up as waiters and improve they’re quality of life so we decide to go there. We walk though a night market and through a few neighbourhoods and arrive at our destination Freinds Resteraunt. It was a very unique experince dining here and the food was great. All the profits are put back into the company which in turn helps more kids improve they’re lifes, this is my good deed for the trip.
We wander the streets for about an hour, soaking up the new culture. Avril and I take a wrong turn down a street and it is pitch black, this is the kind of street where bad things happen. We get half way across the street when a guy appears from no where and starts walking towards us. Shit, is this going to be where my life turns into a cautionary tale about Cambodia. “Want a tuk tuk sir”, no thanks I say as I breath a sigh of relief. Avril has an early night and I sit down stairs and have a few beers at the guest house bar. I take a beer and wander to the end of the road where I speak with a group of tuk tuk drivers. They are very freindly and we speak for about ten minutes before I retire to bed. I think I’m going to like Cambodia.
We get up early to look at the Cu Che tunnels which were built by the Vietnamise during the Vietnam war. Looking forward to this tour, should be interesting plus you can shoot an AK47, ho yea. The bus journey was very scenic and only took about an hour. We had a stop halfway through where an old Vietnamise man insited that I take his picture with me, I guess my liked my performance in Attack of the Herbals. The tour guide on the bus is very funny and keeps telling us that he is going to drop us off at the Cambodia border and leave us.
The tour of the tunnels was alot more interesting than I expected it to be. We were first told the history of the tunnels and then taken round the site. We were shown one of the tunnels entrances and got to take a turn stepping inside. I lowered my body in and couldn’t believe how small it was, I’m a skinny guy and it was tight on my body. The tour guide tried to make me lower my shoulders in but for first time in my life I got claustrophobia and had to get out. We reach a large military tank and whilst the guide is telling a story I start to clamber all over it and pose for pictures, one day I’ll grow up.
I start to get excited when the sound of gunfire fills the air, not long now. We get to the shooting range where there is a stall where you pay for which gun you want to fire. It is a dollar per bullet and you have to buy a minimum of ten, very sly boys. I pay my money and walk towards the firing range, game time. The guns are bolted down, I’m guessing so you dont turn the weapon on the staff and demand your ten dollars back, and it pivots so you can aim. The assistant loads my gun and cocks it, he then turns to me and points towards the target. My hands are shaking with excitment as I hold the weapon and aim at the target about one hundred feet infront of me. My whole upper body shudders as I squeeze off the first round, I’m shocked to see I almost hit the target my first go. I pump out the remaining bullets and hit the target once, better than nothing.
After getting back from the tunnels we wander round Ho Chi Mon City for the last time. We walk past a man who is having his foot bitten by a dog on a lead, he spots my camera and asks me to take a picture of him. He waves and smiles whilst I take a picture and the dog continues to bite his foot. Man I love the Vietnamise people, always got a smile on they’re face.
We have aircon in our room, which is essential if you dont want to turn into a human puddle, and the buzz is the first thing I hear when I awaken. The room comes with breakfast included so I have some noodles which taste great. Avril and I decide to go on a walking tour of Ho Chi Mon City so we head to the river so we can begin our expedition. The locals are very friendly and smile and say hello as we walk past, a few even insist that we have they’re pictures taken with us. Suddenly we encounter a major problem between us and the river……………….a road. There are scooters whizzing by at 40 miles per hour, no traffic lights and no breaks in the traffic. Surely there is no human way to cross this death trap. I observe a little old lady crossing the road, she just steps out infront of the traffic and keeps walking whilst the bikes swerve around her. Holy shit, crossing the road is going to be fun in Nam. Do you live, do you die, who knows. We step infront of a group of bikes which are speeding towards us, as we do this they begin to swerve around us and whizz by without contact. I discover the key to surviving crossing the road in Nam is eye contact, as you take a step infront of a scooter make sure you look into the eyes of the person speeding towards you and they know to swerve around you. A few times I almost got nailed by a scooter when I failed to make eye contact and had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. I wonder how I will handle these crazy roads when I am drunk.
Avril and I walk around the river and see some wonderfull monuments and then head back up towards the city center. I am so glad she is here because she has a very good sense of direction, I’d probably still be trying to find my wayout of the guest house if Avril wasn’t here. We head over to the presidential palace and decide to go on a tour of the site. We head to the ticket office and begin to que, there are about three tourists infront of us and several behind. In britain this is how I was taught to que and it has worked out pretty well. Apparently in Vietnam people que a little differently. People start cutting infront of us, totally oblivious to the people behind them. Sack that shit. I lean forward, get they’re attention and point to the back of the que. The people appoligise and move to the back where they belong. This method works on several people until I encounter a Vietnamise twat. He is a tour guide with some company and has about 20 people in his group. I ask him to move several times and he just ignores me like I’m a ghost, perhaps he’s deaf I think. I gently tap his shoulder and he turns and looks at me. I show him the back of the que and then the twat tells me that he is a tour guide and holds up a big wade of money. “Why does that give you priority over everyone else in the que” I ask. The prick turns back around and just ignores me. I’m now in the position where I have put my balls on the line and if I let him go first I may as well chop them off and send them on a plane back to Scotland. The next space at the ticket office comes up and I step past the little twat and get my ticket, he mumbles something in Vietnamise, I think I just learned my first nam swear word.
After doing some tours we duck down some alleys which end up being a maze of back street food stalls which was very interesting. We end up lost for about fifteen minutes and I approach a little old lady for help. I dont even have to ask she just points down an alley and smiles, this must be a popular area for tourists to get lost.
After grabbing some food we head out for the street party in the main square. Poor Avril is still sick and looking very pale, I advise that she stays at home but she is a trooper and comes with me. The amount of scooters on the road during the day was nothing compared to the level of activity in Ho Chi Mon City on hogmany. The only word that springs to mind is carnage. That’s a lie, insane is a better word. The main road going to the square was closed for the party but they were still letting scooters in. What you had was human traffic mixed in with scooters buzzing about, they were everywhere. A few times we had to jump up on a park bench just to get a break. We eventually make it to the square where there is a large stage with some random person performing. By this point I’ve had several beers which were supplied by vendors selling them for dirt cheap. We see in the bells and head home for an early night, good idea because I am jet lagged and drunk which is a bad combination.
After we landed in Vietnam we headed towards the visa desk. Avril and I filled out a letter online which grants you a Vietnam Visa on arrival. All you do is print off the letter, bring it to the desk, fill out another form and then you pay 20 dollars. Sounds simple, right. Well it was simple, apart from the fact that a hundred other people were in the same boat as us when we arrived. There was a big pile of people all thrusting forms and money in the direction of three members of staff who spoke english badly. Avril and I eventually made our way to the front and got the forms that we needed to fill in. We then returned with our filled out forms and passports. We were right in the middle of the melee of people when some English cow asked me to move out of her way. Where would you like me to move to I asked her, perhaps I could jump up on the ceiling for you.
After two hours of waiting I got my passport and then about twenty minutes later Avril got hers. We made our way through customs, collected our luggage and walked outside to meet the driver who had been patiently waiting for the past three hours. It turns out the taxi drivers name is Min, as in “hey min” the scottish word. I tried to point this out in my thick scottish accent, “I no speak english” he replied, I heard this phrase alot on my travels. The first thing that hit me about Vietnam was the heat. When I got outside I thought we were in the terminal and the air conditioning was broken, but this was the temperature outside and it was night. Man, how bloody hot does it get during the day.
Avril told me she seen a heap of lights on the road when we were landing in the airport, we assumed it was cars, we were wrong. Its probably best if I tell you a statistic before continuing with my story. Did you know there are 8 million people in Ho Chi Mon City, and half of them own a scooter. I have never seen anything like it, imagine a moter bike convention for ants and times it by ten. There were people on scooter everywhere, every inch of space was occupied by a scooter and the speed they were going was insane. And from what I can gather the highway code doesn’t apply when you are on a scooter. People were running red lights, going on pavements and up the wrong way through traffic. I was scared for the safety of these people but they were acting like they were strolling through the park with out a care in the world. The amount of people on the scooters was also alarming, the most we seen was six, two parents and they’re four children, at least the kids had on crash helmets. Towards the end of the journey we noticed a guy on the back of a scooter holding a six foot high bit of plexi glass, happy to report we soon saw weirder things being transported via scooter the following day.
When the taxi arrived at our location we were led down an alley which was like something out of Big Trouble in Little China. The alley was on four foot wide and there were small stalls with people cooking food on either side. The culture difference was right in my face, the smell, the sights, the sounds and the people. I heard a beeping sound behind us and was shocked to see a scooter bearing down on me and Avril when I turned round. What the fuck is this maniac doing I thought as we jumped out of the way. It turns out alley ways are a popular short cut for scooters regardless if the alley is too small.
We made it into our guest house and meet the manger for the first time. The accommodation was family run and seemed ideal for two too days in Vietnam. Once we checked in Avril went for a snooze and I ventured out to have a look around the location. The area we were staying had lots of western tourists but there was plenty of native people walking about to keep things interesting. I ventured into a bar where I drank an ice cold beer whilst sitting outside. As I soaked up the view it suddenly occured to me that I had made it too my destination and I was now on holiday for three months, a huge smile appeared on my face.