Halong Bay Day!

Today awoke ready to catch our shuttle to Halong Bay. This was a huge trip highlight for us, and something we had been looking forward to since Day 1. We got up, ate breakfast, and checked out of our hotel when the receptionist told us our ride had arrived. In the two minutes it took us to check out, our ride had disappeared. The receptionist looked a bit confused, but had just said that there was no parking on the street so they drove around the block. Well, we were hardly the only people at our hotel going to Halong Bay. It was basically organized chaos in the lobby of our hotel as about fifty people were catching random rides from different companies to the bay. Slowly the lobby cleared out, and there was nobody left waiting for a ride except for Brad and I. At this point, our ride was supposed to pick us up an hour ago. The receptionist reassured us that our ride was still it's way. At this point we knew that something was up. We waited another half hour, until the receptionist told us that two people got on the shuttle who were supposed to be with another company. A taxi was going to come pick us up and take us to meet our bus out by the highway. We were pleased that our receptionist had dealt with all the arrangements for us even though there was a mixup. When we reached the bus, everyone on it exclaimed "Brad!!!!" Apparently they had gone around asking everyone if they were Brad or knew who Brad was. The poor couple who had gotten on instead of us had been taxied to the correct bus.

We had a three hour bus ride to Halong City, the closet port to the bay. The trip was pretty uneventful and I slept most of the way (except for waking every few minutes when we hit and enormous bump). We got to Halong Bay, and took a little shuttle boat to our larger cruise boat, our home for two nights.

Many of the boats in Halong Bay look pretty rough. This is, after reading many blogs, because they are. We were warned not to take a cheap boat due to the fact the accommodations and food are not very good, and there was the possibility of rats on the boat. We were pleasantly surprised with the interior of our boat. Beautiful dark woodwork everywhere, spacious room and private bathroom. There were about 15 or so rooms on our boat, so it was not very crowded at all. We were greeted with a welcome drink and quite a delicious lunch. We then marvelled on the top deck of the boat as we cruised through emerald waters marked with glistening limestone cliffs. It was just like in all the photos you can google image search. It was pretty spectacular.

After cruising for awhile, we reached our first kayaking destination: a floating village. Until about 8 months ago, people lived in what were literally floating villages. They built houses on top of floatation devices and lived a couple hours off the shore of Vietnam. Unfortunately, these people were recently asked to move to mainland due to the water pollution problems they were causing. There was also an issue with educating the children. As you can imagine, getting a teacher to come out to the middle of the bay is not easy. Surprisingly, there was also an issue with the children not knowing how to swim(!), so drowning was another problem the government was not pleased with. When we kayaked through, there were a few houses left there to stage what a floating village used to look like. It was still very beautiful kayaking right next to the mountains, even though the floating village was a bit of a letdown. I had never kayaked before, and only canoed once, so Brad got the task of teaching me how to kayak. Luckily, Brad was pretty patient when it came to me spazzing at him when the kayak rocked back and forth.

After our kayak adventure, we were soaked with ours and the sweat of many before us that wore the life jackets we fashioned. We were then told it was time for swimming! We threw on our swimsuits and jumped off the boat into the ocean water. There is something very refreshing and wonderful about swimming around the mountains in the middle of the ocean like that. We had a pretty fantastic swim. I showered, and then we watched the marigold sky as we cruised into the sunset.

Dinner was very good on our boat. It never ceases to amaze us how many plates keep coming to our table during set meals. Between four of us, we had at least ten different dishes come to our table to enjoy. After dinner, we made some friends with an English couple and we sang karaoke and drank beer until 11pm, when we got shut down for the evening by the boat staff. We also hung out with a lovely Scottish and Australian couple, where we finished our night with beers under the stars in the upper deck. It was honestly paradise. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited, with one of the most wonderful souls I have ever met :-).

Hoi An to Hanoi

Because of our night bus experience, we decided that we would fly for the next leg of our trip. We booked some fairly cheap tickets with Vietjet and also booked a private car to take us to the airport.

We had to be up fairly early. The staff at our hotel were excellent; they knew we had a flight so our doorbell rang twice at 5:45am to wake us up. That was followed by a phone call and one more doorbell ring. We were up and ready, ate breakfast and headed out.

We were sleepy but nothing some iced teas and coffees didn't fix. We had an exceptionally smooth flight and landed, without having made any onward travel plans. We dealt with the typical airport confusion, booked a hotel and grabbed a taxi. I felt like the taxi driver was taking too many turns and ripping us off so we only paid in what we thought was fair. Easy.

The service at our 'Rising Dragon' hotel was very good. Our room was clean and comfortable. The front desk helped us book a trip to Ha Long Bay and recommended some good restaurants around Hanoi.

We had an uninspiring bowl of Pho while sitting on the street because it was close and we didn't take any of our receptionist's suggestions. Very shortly after this, I decided we should eat again. This was partly due to the fact that our soup was shit, and partly due to the fact that I was actually still hungry.

We went for bun cha which means pork BBQ. This was absolutely delicious. You get a bowl of BBQ pork belly and BBQ pork patties with something like bamboo, all soaking in a salty, fishy broth. You also get an enormous pile of rice noodles, minced chillies and garlic, and tons of fresh herbs and greens. We also got a huge pile of crab filled spring rolls. Basically, you take some of everything, mix it together in a bowl and chow down. This was an absolutely fantastic meal.

We checked out a local park known for having a mystical lake. According to legend, there was something about a turtle and a sword and a lake. Yaaaa, I dunno, I wasn't paying attention. 

We stumbled upon a traditional water puppet theatre and decided to take in the show. Even though it was all in Vietnamese, we enjoyed watching the puppets dance around in the water, and we wre also impressed with the live Vietnamese music. Overall, it was an unexpected, mesmerizing experience.

We decided to check out some shops and head to the market. The market was closed so we opted for an A/C break at our hotel. We had a map, we knew where we were, but we still got lost. Several times. In fact, as soon as we thought we knew where we were, we'd be lost again. It was so bad that we actually walked right by our hotel unknowingly.

The old quarter of Hanoi has a wild feel. The streets are narrow and congested with millions of motorbikes, taxis, locals and tourists, all of whom equally share the road. There are no rules, no right of way, and no space. Restaurants, street vendors, and trades people have their tables set up in the streets and often times traffic simply moves around them. The maze of streets all look equally chaotic and equally similar.

We freshened up at our hotel and headed out for dinner and beers. I am always on the look out for bia hoi and we selected a local joint that had plenty of bia hoi freely flowing. We had some delicious noodles and spring rolls and had a very entertaining waiter. The beers went down easily.

We called it a night and packed our small bags for our exciting trip to Ha Long Bay tomorrow!

Hoi An Day 2

We were early to bed so we were early to rise. I always look forward to the tar-like Vietnamese coffee in the morning and look forward to when the hunger demons release my wife from their grip. We had nothing planned for today aside from picking up Josie's coat.

After our breakfast noodle bowls, coffees, tea, and dragon fruit (and ants - these little guys are inadvertently served with every meal), we grabbed Josie's new coat and decided to wander the town.

Soon enough it was lunch so we tried going to another restaurant recommendation but they weren't open yet so we ate delicious noodle bowls of cao lau on the sidewalk on tiny plastic outdoor furniture. It is kind of like urban camping. Restaurants like these are found in every street corner here.

We arranged a boat ride around the rivers and ended up with a hilarious driver. He spoke almost no English but we still shared lots of laughs. He suddenly motioned for Josie to drive the boat so she reluctantly jumped behind the wheel. Both the driver and I found this hilarious. Then it was my turn. I started horsing around and weaving the boat about the river. Josie was rolling her eyes and the driver thought this was hilarious. His laughter caused all three of us to laugh. I got brave and suddenly did a doughnut on the middle of the river. More laughing at this, absolutely.

We met another boat in the river where I got to try throwing a traditional fishing net into the water. Then we headed through some smaller, picturesque channels back.

We made several stops at different restaurants and pubs for bia hoi, and the local specialties white rose (shrimp dumplings with croutons), and deep fried wontons with a sort of salsa.

After sneaking across the Japanese covered bridge without paying the toll, we decided to have hotel room cool off time before dinner.

Dinner was delicious again. Another recommended restaurant which turned out to have the same owners as the one from last night. We had hot pots (like soup only better). Food here is fantastic!

Our guidebook recommended Why Not? for a drink. When we got there, the answer was blatantly obvious. We didn't even finish our beers, instead we wandered town with them (which isn't a problem here). One more beer, then bedtime.

Hoi An

After an extremely long and uncomfortable bus ride (imagine laying in the cargo container for 12 hours), we finally arrived in Hoi An. We were very pleased to get off the bus and see that our luggage hadn't been stolen throughout our frequent stops during the night. We were also pleased that we had already arranged a place to stay and that it was within walking distance. 

Our hotel staff was great. They greeted us with breakfast and information about the town. We took our morning poops and then headed out to explore.

The entire old centre of Hoi An is a UNESCO world heritage site. Because of it's unique location between a river and the ocean, it was in important stop on early Asian trading routes. This meant that over the years it was occupied by the Chinese, Japanese, and French. The result is a fantastic collection of old buildings, narrow pedestrian-only streets, and the influence of many cultures. Most of the buildings are painted yellow except for the tea warehouses which are slightly taller and made of dark wood. Lanterns are the main source of light in the evening, painting the town in a rainbow of colour. 

Tourism is the main industry in Hoi An; shops and restaurants are endless but nothing compared to the amount of tailors you can find here. In fact, the tailors out number the other businesses in town two to one.

After finding our bearings, we couldn't help but be drawn into the tailor shops to check out the situation. You can have anything you want made in about a day. You name it: suits, dresses, winter costs (even though winter doesn't exist here), luggage, accessories, shoes - it doesn't matter. If you can dream it, it will be created for you overnight.

Surprisingly, I was the one who began to cave first. I shopped around but simply couldn't resist the offer to have custom leather shoes made. Red leather shoes, specially made for my feet? Yes please! Cost: $45. Time: 3 hours from measurements to shoes.

Josie also caved. A custom fall jacket was created for her. She chose the style, fabric, and trim, and then had her measurements taken. The next morning it was ready. $40.

Because of Facebook, we realized that we would be in Hoi An at the same time as a colleague of ours from university so we met up with her for lunch. We enjoyed seeing a familiar face (first one in a month), sharing stories, and having a delicious east Indian meal.

Central and northern Vietnam are known for bia hoi, or fresh beer. We enjoyed drinking these for about 30¢ per glass. This beer only lasts for the day, and often restaurants run out and then you have to drink beer from the more traditional bottles.

Lonely Planet, fellow travellers, and hotel staff all on separate occasions recommended we eat at a particular restaurant so we headed there for dinner. Josie had a noodle soup dish typical for this area of Vietnam and I had squid stuffed with pork. It was delicious.

We tried to take in some of the evening buzz but were exhausted from our travels from the previous night so we got the sack early (but not before cool-off-naked-in-front-of-AC time with beers).

Beer

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The hot bus

We slept in long this morning, as we had nothing planned. It felt wonderful! We had booked a night bus to Hoi An the day before, so we had nothing to do but roam the streets of Nha Trang.

We stopped for a little bite to eat at a cafe, and decided we better look for flights from Hanoi to Bangkok. Hanoi is our last destination before flying home to Canada from Bangkok. This ended up being a very long task, as every time we tried to book a flight, it erred. After three hours of frustration, we gave up.

We walked to a travel agency, since booking a flight on our own seemed impossible. She was able to book us the flight we wanted by using her phone and facebooking her counterpart in Saigon (sketchy!). Then, when Brad went to pay, they didn't have a machine to pay with. Brad and the lady went down the street to pay at another store whilst I waited in the office. He paid and came back, and we waited for our tickets to be emailed to us. Remarkably, they were. It was the weirdest experience booking a flight ever!

The lady suggested a place we go for lunch. It was definitely local place, and there was no English there. We pointed to a picture we wanted, and ended up getting a super delicious meal! Bonus.

We then went for Beer o' Clock since we had a short time to kill before catching our bus. While we were at Local 2, the power on the whole block went out. If you've ever seen the tangle of power lines in Asia, you would know this doesn't seem so surprising. We finished our beers and spring rolls, and then went snack shopping for our bus trip. The power was out there, too, so they handed Brad a lantern and we shopped with that!

Our shuttle was 50 minutes late picking us up, and we've now been on the bus for almost 8 hours. We've gone a pitiful 250km. We're supposed to be there at 6am, but we're only a little over halfway. The bus is hot. The AC is weak. The window next to me is shattered, and there's packing tape holding some Bristol board plastic up. We stop every half hour for what I can only imagine are cigarettes. sometimes it smells like cat food on the bus. The bus itself is really nice and quite new, but it's definitely lacking some comforts. You aren't allowed to wear shoes on the bus. I put my flip flops on to go down the bus stairs, and got yelled at by the Vietnamese driver and smacked on the arm. I ended up having to step barefoot in the mud since I wasn't allowed to put my shoes on until I was off the bus.

I do not feel bad about putting muddy footprints in the bus.

Here's hoping for some sleep at 3am.

Nha Trang

After a fairly gross train ride, we arrived at Nha Trang. We quickly settled into our hotel. This is where our hotel clerk told me my eyebrows are too light and I should pencil them in black. I pretty much gave him a look that said go f*** yourself and did not have any time for him the rest of our stay there. Then, went for dinner. Brad really wanted to go snorkelling, so we searched for a tour company to do so. We couldn't find the tour company lonely planet recommended, but we were pretty sure we found the same tour. We booked it in hopes we didn't book the overfull Chinese tour we had been warned about.

We then went to this pretty sweet bar called, "Why Not?" and drank far too many strong margaritas. Brad said he only snorkels hungover.

We passed out at a decent hour and woke up early to go on our snorkel tour. We hopped on a boat and we travelled for about 45min to our first destination. I had never been snorkelling before, and was feeling pretty apprehensive about wearing flippers and a mask and floating in the ocean with nothing but those two things. Well, everyone was jumping off the boat at our first location and I didn't really have an opportunity to hesitate, so in I went jumping a meter or two off the boat into the water.

I hit the water and pretty much panicked because you can't breathe out of your nose with the mask on. I got my nerves under control, and the swam out nearing the coast of one of the islands. Once I got over the fact that I could stick my face in the water and breathe (it goes against your natural instincts!) I was amazed by what I saw. Coral of all types, starfish, sea urchins and hundreds of colourful tropical fish. It is by far one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had.

We went back on the boat to go to our next destination. The next place had tons of tennis-ball sizes jellyfish. I honestly couldn't relax and enjoy this area simply because the jellyfish kept freaking me out. Even though the little guys don't really sting (more just like a mosquito bite), I couldn't help but be intimidated by seeing 10 right close to my face.

I was pretty happy when we were done at this spot to get the hell away from those damn jellyfish. I was swimming back to the boat, when something caught my eye. I initially thought the light was refracting strangely in the water. Suddenly, it came into focus. It was one giant jellyfish, about the size of a basketball. We were told to stay away from these ones because a sting is going to hurt much more. I pretty much Bee-lined it in the other direction as fast as I could to get away from it!

When Brad also returned to the boat, he asked if I saw the giant jellyfish he did! He said he pretty much had the same thought-process: get the hell away from that thing!

It was then lunchtime. All the bench seats got folded down to create a table all 25 people could sit around. Then, they brought out squid. The morning glory. Then fish. Then spare ribs. The food just kept coming! We had a massive amount of food on the table. It was pretty much awesome, and we were all awestruck. It tasted pretty good, too!

After lunch we reached our final snorkelling destination. This was the best place by far. Tons and tons of colourful fish playfully flickering about in an alien world under the sea. There were no jellyfish here, so it was very enjoyable.

The boat ride back was lovely, too. We enjoyed watermelon, pineapple and dragon fruit as we watched the cerulean waves roll across the hull of our boat. It was incredible.

We showered all the salt water off of us when we got back to our hotel, clearly waking up our sunburnt skin. It's a little painful even today. Damn whities trying to do what the locals do!

We went for a lovely dinner in clay pots, went for a beer tasting at the local brewery Louisiane on the beach, and then walked along the beach path. It was a fantastic evening!

Ho Chi Minh City

As I write this we are currently on the ghetto train from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang. We spent three nights in HCMC, and we had a great time.

Day 1: we travelled from Phnom Penh to HCHC by our new favourite bus company, Giant Ibis. The first thing the bus attendant asked was to see everyone's passports and Vietnam Visa's. You have to pre-apply for a visa before going to Vietnam so that you have it when you get there. We were fine because we had received ours in the mail before we left Canada. There was a little bit of a kerfuffle at the front of the bus, and two people ended up having to leave. They had flown into Vietnam and then went to Cambodia. Not realizing that the visa was only good for one entry, they had not gotten a new visa to reenter. Poor guys. The journey there was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that on these journeys they keep saying they need your passport and don't tell you why! As you can imagine, this is extremely irritating and nerve-wracking. The first time they took them, they filled out stuff on the exit slips for Cambodia. This was very helpful, but when you're just told, "Passport please, don't worry!" when you ask why they are taking it, it doesn't help. The second time they took it, they put our passports through passport control for us so we didn't have to wait at the border. This was also extremely helpful! Regardless, we were still stressed because they didn't tell us what the hell they were doing with our passports. Whatever.

The night we arrived in HCMC, we went to see the Central Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral. The architecture in Vietnam is very interesting because it was colonized by the French for 100 or so years, so these two buildings are in French Colonial style.

We then wandered and found the backpackers' district to have a few beer before going to bed.

Day 2:
We went to the War Remnants Museum first thing in the morning since it was dumping buckets outside (it's rainy season here, so about once a day it pours for an hour or two. We just call it beer-o-clock most of the time). This museum talks about the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese perspective. What we essentially derived from our readings is that essentially the war was started because the Americans wanted some of the resources in Vietnam. There was an Accord signed in Geneva (Geneva is where the United Nations' conferences are held if you're a little n00b) in the mid-1900s that basically said what the French are doing colonizing the nation of Vietnam when they want to be independent is unacceptable. An independence document was signed, and the French left. At this point, Northern Vietnam was communist and Southern Vietnam was capitalist. Since the French left (who were aided by the Americans), the Americans were worried about losing control of the tungsten and other metal resources that reside in Vietnam. They paid a leader to take over Southern Vietnam, and control the people there. He passed a law that said if anyone goes against the government, they die. Northern Vietnam did not take this lightly, and the war began. It was a pretty nasty war, and we learnt about the effects of Agent Orange and other now-banned substances. You couldn't help but feel as though the Americans started a war that could have been prevented entirely. There was even a list of American university professors that stated this war was a bad idea when it began.

Eventually, north Vietnam stormed through the now Reunification Palace (used to be SV's government house) and won the war. The US had too many casualties and they left. This unified the country, and now the whole place is Communist. Very interesting.

We then toured the Reunification Palace, which was way more impressive than Brad and I could have hoped for. It was clearly a building frozen in the 1970's. It was such a neat walk through. We got to explore all parts of the building, including the bunker where everyone would hide when there was a threat. We even got to go on the roof, where the two bombs' placements were marked that were dropped by NV.

At this point we wandered the streets, ate dinner, and walked to many pubs for beverages. Great day!

Day 3:

Phew. Hopefully by the time I'm done this blog we'll be in Nha Trang (haha.... Doubtful! I don't even know if we'll be able to tell when we're there because we can't understand anything in Vietnamese).

Yesterday was probably one of the coolest days we have had so far on our trip. The day before we booked a private tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta. Don't know what these are? Well, get ready.

Our private guide and driver came and picked us up at 7:30am, and we drove for about an hour and a half until we reached the city of Cu Chi. During the Vietnam war, the Vietnamese dug tunnels in the jungle underground. These tunnels were in 3 levels, and very small. Only a small Asian person could get through, purposely done so that American men could not go through. They used these tunnels to hide when in war. There were kitchens, sewing rooms, hospitals, and weaponry rooms. There are 250km worth of these tunnels in Cu Chi. The have enlarged a 60m section of the tunnels for tourists. By "enlarged" I mean you still have to crouch down and shuffle in a ball the entire way. It was very hot and stuffy down in the tunnels, and I couldn't imagine spending more than 3 minutes in them. That was enough for me!

We also got to see all the booby traps that the Vietnamese set for the soldiers. I'm not going to list them all, but they all involve a hidden hole covered by jungle plants with very long iron nails. Pretty nasty shit, but then again there were huge bomb craters everywhere from the Americans. War is ugly.

After we finished at Cu Chi, we drove another hour or so until we reached the Mekong Delta.

We stopped for a pre-arranged meal by our guide, which ended up being an 8-course meal. It was delicious, but enormous!!! It was the amount of food for 4-5 people!

Now, the Mekong River begins in China and reaches the ocean in Vietnam. It's a massive river, about 3km wide (makes the South Saskatchewan look like a creek). Right before it reaches the ocean, it splits into 9 main mini-rivers, and the land formed around these is the Mekong Delta. These areas are extremely lush and plentiful with foods like fish and fruit. We took a boat across the main river to the delta. We first got to visit a honey farm, where we stuck our fingers in the honeycombs of a beehive (with bees everywhere!!!) to taste the honey right off our fingers. We then sat down, had honey tea, and got to try royal jelly. Royal jelly is the nutrient-rich substance the queen bee eats. To be honest, it tasted almost gross. It was bitter and had a really weird texture. No thanks. **bonus: there was a 6-8ft python there, so Brad and I took turns holding it. Holy crap are they ever heavy and entirely made of muscle. We could both feel the impressive strength of the animal as it writhed around our shoulders.

We went to a little cafe where we got to try a bunch of weird tropical fruits we had never seen or tasted before. Some ladies sang some traditional songs for us. It was a pretty cool experience.

Last but not least, we hopped into a little wooden canoe paddled by an ancient couple through the Mekong Delta. About 10m across, it was a peaceful and serene moment completely engulfed by nature. We passed many locals paddling through as they carried on with their daily lives. Amazing.

We then drove two hours back to HCMC, and ended our night with dinner and drinks.

Nha Trang is our next destination, a beach city by the ocean. We are both quite excited, both to be there and to get off this train. It has been extremely noisy, with much of the ride consisting of blaring Asian pop music and screaming children!

****protip: our pharmacist gave us azithromycin for traveller's diarrhea. Since we were still ill, I suggested we take it. That day it was gone. We are feeling back to normal and it's great not

Phnom Pehn Day 2

Today was our last day in Phnom Pehn. I woke up fairly hungover as we played Bidwist with some Dutch friends we met the night before, and drank too much beer. We had a slow start to our morning because I needed to nap.

I was pretty grumpy most of the day, partially because I was hungover and partly because I was missing the comforts of home. Phnom Pehn is not like Canada in any way... It's dusty, dirty, and there's lots of people trying to sell you stuff on the street amongst piles of garbage. We are pretty blessed to have such good sanitation practices in Canada.

We went to Wat Phnom, and we have been wat-ed out and were too cheap to pay the entrance fee of $1. We then went to the central market. This was super cool. Imagine anything you wanted... Underneath tents and all negotiable prices. I bought two pairs of earrings for $5. Brad said I needed to work on my bartering skills. The lady started at $14 and I stayed firm at 5. They mark everything up about 80% here. It's crazy.

Then we went and chilled with some mojitoes at a pub.

We took a sunset cruise on the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. It was quit beautiful. Brad made more Dutch friends.

We then had dinner and went to a cool rooftop bar called FCC. It was a beautiful French colonial historic building. The prices were expensive (5-10 US!) so we left and went back to our hotel.

We had a rooftop pool, and we were warm. We went upstairs to cool off and check out the view. Some Australian guy was up there in the pool with what we suspected to be two hookers. Brad and I were enjoying the view, and unfortunately for me I saw the man whip out his Willis and swing it around for the ladies. Thanks a lot glass reflection.

Then one of the man's ladies put my housecoat on and tried to take my hotel key. Brad saw it before I did. He told her to take it off, and then she grabbed his jacket. Brad saw right through her scheme. The Australian got ticked off and completely overreacted, telling Brad he'd throw him off the balcony if that happened again.

Both of us were tired of his nonsense and went back to our hotel room.
We leave for Vietnam in the morning!!!

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Phenom Penh

We arrived in Phenom Penh yesterday and a friendly tuk tuk driver took us to hotel he recommended. We were pleased so I bartered with him to come back today and be our driver. We agreed on $15 for the day.

Sam picked us up from our hotel and drove us to the killing fields. This is a place where Cambodians killed Cambodians. Similar to the Nazis, a crazy dictator decided that Cambodia should only be a farming utopia. This meant that he blew up the central bank, shut down all institutions, and began systematically killing anyone who posed a threat to this plan. This includes anyone with education, who wore glasses (this means they're smart), and anyone who was not a rural farmer.

The prisoners were held and then taken to a field which used to be a Chinese cemetery. There, they were almost immediately killed by being bludgeoned since bullets were too expensive.

The most striking part of our visit was seeing bones and clothes from the mass graves coming to the surface...

From there, we visited the prison where people were held before being killed. It was an old high school. At this place we saw the cells, and all the mug shots of the victims. We found this to be a difficult experience. I was overcome with emotion after learning and touring these places; I was overwhelmed when we met a survivor.

Pol Pot was the name of the dictator, he killed over 3 million of his own people, and this only happened about 40 years ago...

After all that we needed a change of pace so we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us somewhere for lunch. We ate some delicious Khmer food (Khmer is the type of people who live in Cambodia) and had a few beers.

We toured the museum where we solidified our understanding of lingas and yonnis, aka God's (Shiva's) penis and vagina...

From there we toured the central market where I was propositioned several times to have a shave and a haircut. I found this hilarious.

We walked down a street that our Lonely Planet book recommended and found a nice place for dinner. As we were waiting for our food we spotted some Dutch friends we met the day before.

We are dinner together then drank beer and played cards until we were asked to leave. Oh ya, I also ordered a drink that was supposed to come in a bucket. Instead it came in the exact same bucket that is found next to every toilet in the country that is used to manually flush.... Shit! 

Our on our own...

The Siem Reaper really took a toll on us; even this morning our raisins were continuously puckered. We decided to make a break for it and booked bus tickets from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.

This is a very scary move. Everything we've done for the last 36 hours had revolved around toilets and bum guns. So we loaded up on Imodium and boarded the bus.

This is one of the nicest buses I've been on... There is a steward who serves you snacks and water, there are plug-ins at every seat, lots of leg room, and Wi-Fi! The onot thing it doesn't have, of course, is a toilet.........

Pray for us.

The Siem Reaper

I awoke at 6:00am to loud noises only associated with emptying one's bowels. Brad wasn't feeling well, I easily assumed. We slept in until 8:30 so we could catch breakfast. We didn't get to breakfast until 9 as we took turns running to the bathroom. We then spent all afternoon in our hotel room (more like in the bathroom). Then, we went out for a pizza lunch since clearly the Cambodian shrimp pasta we had last night was not agreeing with us. I then bought toilet paper from the store. If you ever visit Se Asia, you need to always carry this with you. Sometimes all you get is a squatting potty with a bucket of water. We then went to this awesome little cafe called New Leaf Book Cafe, in which proceeds to to helping local children in orphanages, with school, who are affected by land mines, etc. I bought a cool scarf for about 10X more than I could have got it at the market, but I figured it was for a good cause.

I was exhausted after this outing (which was also full of bathroom breaks), so we went back to the hotel for the evening.

We went out and got donairs as quick as possible, and then shimmied back to the hotel where the bathroom is near.

We want to take the bus to Phnom Pehn tomorrow, but we are going to wait until we see how we feel tomorrow. We don't want to shit the bus, and there's no bathrooms on them.

Food poisoning sucks. Brad has named it the Siem Reaper.

Temples of Angkor Day 2

Sometimes things are touristy for a reason. We decided to wake up at 4:30 this morning so we could leave by 5am to make it to Angkor Wat in time for sunrise. Before we were out the door, Koy, our remorque driver was waiting for us outside.

We took a dark and quiet trip the 5 or so kilometers to the temple and waited for the sun to come up.  The picture above shows what we saw!

Needless to say, we had a fantastic morning. We ate a North American breakfast in a shed full of hungover tourists then continued temple spotting.

The Bayon temple, famous for all the faces carved on to everything, was our favorite temple of the whole experience.

The temple that Tomb Raider was filmed in is special because they have left all the trees to grow instead of removing them. Very cool.

After 8 hours of temple-touring it was still only about 2 o'clock, however, we were extremely hot, sweaty, and tired and our hotel pool was calling us.

We made a quick stop for water, beer and snacks then got to the pool.

Josie's swimming lessons continued. Today she had great success in getting used to submerging her head, and was even starting to grasp the basics of diving. We were both very proud of her achievements!

We headed out for dinner and had some fairly decent grub in a French style building (left here from the colonial days). Beer is cheap at ¢50 a glass so I always make sure I fill my tank downtown before drinking our grocery store beers which are about ¢60 a can.

We headed directly back to our foot massage place from the night before and enjoyed hour-long rub downs (beer in hand, of course). Tomorrow the plan is for a fish spa... Just use your imagination...

We called it a night early because of our packed full day. We shared our last hotel beer and slept.

Angkor Wat Day 1

Today we woke up and ate breakfast on the top floor of our hotel. It has a pretty spectacular view. We were getting excited to go to Angkor Wat! We went downstairs and the tuktuk driver Koy was waiting for us there. Brad bargained with him and we ended up hiring him for two days.

We drove into Angkor park and the first thing we saw was the massive Angkor Wat temple. Seriously, it probably tops the most impressive thing I had ever seen. We planned to visit that later today, so a driveby is all that we got.

We went to our first temple, and were seriously blown away. It was corridor after corridor of amazing old bricks, sculptures and carvings in the stone. I can't even begin to describe how impressive it is. These temples are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there are tons in the park. They are one of the only things the Khmer Rouge left behind when they were in power. They range from 800-1000 years old, and it's incredible they are still standing with their carvings so ornate still visible in many of the temples. We climbed in them and explored, completely mindblown.

I think we must have went to six or so temples that day, ending with Angkor Wat. This was assisted, of course, by many shade and water breaks. We had some good friends go to SE Asia over Easter, and they said you avoid the sun at all costs. We totally understood this as we hopped from shades area to shaded area!

When we got to Angkor, my camera died. Luckily, Brad had his so we were still able to collect many images. This building has been in constant use since the time it was built. It is still a very sacred place, and you had to make sure you wore long pants and shirts with sleeves. All the Buddha heads are cut off the statues in Angkor. This is due to the Khmer Rouge.

We ended our day with dinner and a half hour foot massage each at the night market. Guess how much it cost us? $5 for both of us, including two beer. So crazy. The girl who did mine was named Gim, a 16 year old who works harder than any teenager I have ever know. She told me she goes to English School from 8:30-12, has Khmer school until 5:30, then works at the massage place until midnight. She is off Sundays, but still works. It is crazy. We have it so good in canada it's unbelievable. High school friends, need not complain. You've got it damn good.

Traveling here has made me appreciate so much what I have and how privileged I am to be able to travel the world. These people here are also so incredibly friendly and happy. They appreciate you doing business with them and are so polite. They don't have nearly as much as we do and yet they complain so much less than we do. It's sort of a reality check. I need to stop complaining about all the stupid crap... The are not issues.

I've become a better person these past few weeks.