Sporadic updates, I'm sorry!
So right now I’m in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City, been here for the last few days, its been a culture shock from a culture shock.
The past week or so has looked somewhat like this:
Left Siem Reap and took the Cambodian equivalent of the National Express (except with more karaoke and pit stops on dusty roads to sample the delights of deep fried tarantula) to a town on the Mekong river called Kompong Cham where we hired bikes and rode around a little island called Ko Paen which was only accessible via a bridge made entirely of bamboo! It was totally awesome, loads of Cambodian kids came and shouted ‘HELLO!!!’ at us and then when we stopped to eat some fruit (I don’t know quite what it was, Pomolo maybe? It tasted like grape fruit and looked like a giant orange any way) they came and hung out! We then went and watched the sun set over a pretty picturesque bay. The only real downer to the whole thing was the fact that I came off my bike pretty spectacularly in some sand and smashed the screen on my camera…
The next day we took another bus out to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, we had some lunch in a little café called Veiyo at Tonle, by the river, it’s a cool place, the owner takes in street kids and then uses the profits from the restaurant to send them through school and give them hope. After that we took a cramped as mini van down to a home stay which intrepid organised in the province of Takeo, a really rural area, it was cool, we stayed up late listening to hip hop, chilling in hammocks and drinking Angkor beer!
Next morning we took off to Sihanoukville (the destination of my last post). It’s a coastal area with some nice beaches, other than at Angkor Wat however, we saw the most amount of other tourists there, not that that is an entirely bad thing, hell I’m just one more of them. That evening we went to an awesome restaurant called the Holy Cow which not only had lush food, but also way cute restaurant staff. Haha. On day 2 in Sihanoukville Rob and I got massages, mine wasn’t very good. Day 3 was spent on a) a boat that broke down in the middle of the ocean and kept flooding, b) a little island that looked like something out of lost called Bamboo Island and c) in a girly bar called poco loco getting hit on by Cambodian call girls. Loved it.
Phnom Penh was the next destination, I spent my first few hours there trying to get someone to fix my camera, but to no avail, so ended up just heading back to the swish hotel we were staying in and getting an early night after dinner at another restaurant that helped out street kids.
The next morning Rob, Si, Zoe, Ben and I all headed out to a place called the Russian Market, I bought an insanely bling watch and that was that. In the afternoon we went to Tuol Sleng / S-21 and The Killing Fields. It was fucking horrific. I don’t really know what to say about it all in all, it was scary, humbling and deeply saddening. I haven’t been to Auschwitz, but I imagine that this is probably worse. The soldiers were fucking barbaric there.
Next day was spent traveling to where I am now, Saigon. Arrived in the late afternoon and then went to a Sony repair shop. With my camera now being fixed I was a bit more happy and went out to ANOTHER market to be man handled by petite Vietnamese women trying to sell me Hugo Boss tee-shirts. Had our last group dinner together and then went to bed, tired as.
The next day we went to the War Remnants museum here, yet another reminder of how fucking horrible the human race can be. Spent the afternoon exploring Saigon on my own.
Yesterday we took a bus to the Cu Chi tunnels, which was fun and yet again eye opening and then watched the football in the evening with a bunch of people. Felt a bit pissed off with a few people I’m traveling with yesterday.
Today I don’t have any plans, we take a sleeper train to another beachy type place tonight, kind of looking forward to it I guess.
Hmm.
Tom.xx
So right now I’m in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City, been here for the last few days, its been a culture shock from a culture shock.
The past week or so has looked somewhat like this:
Left Siem Reap and took the Cambodian equivalent of the National Express (except with more karaoke and pit stops on dusty roads to sample the delights of deep fried tarantula) to a town on the Mekong river called Kompong Cham where we hired bikes and rode around a little island called Ko Paen which was only accessible via a bridge made entirely of bamboo! It was totally awesome, loads of Cambodian kids came and shouted ‘HELLO!!!’ at us and then when we stopped to eat some fruit (I don’t know quite what it was, Pomolo maybe? It tasted like grape fruit and looked like a giant orange any way) they came and hung out! We then went and watched the sun set over a pretty picturesque bay. The only real downer to the whole thing was the fact that I came off my bike pretty spectacularly in some sand and smashed the screen on my camera…
The next day we took another bus out to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, we had some lunch in a little café called Veiyo at Tonle, by the river, it’s a cool place, the owner takes in street kids and then uses the profits from the restaurant to send them through school and give them hope. After that we took a cramped as mini van down to a home stay which intrepid organised in the province of Takeo, a really rural area, it was cool, we stayed up late listening to hip hop, chilling in hammocks and drinking Angkor beer!
Next morning we took off to Sihanoukville (the destination of my last post). It’s a coastal area with some nice beaches, other than at Angkor Wat however, we saw the most amount of other tourists there, not that that is an entirely bad thing, hell I’m just one more of them. That evening we went to an awesome restaurant called the Holy Cow which not only had lush food, but also way cute restaurant staff. Haha. On day 2 in Sihanoukville Rob and I got massages, mine wasn’t very good. Day 3 was spent on a) a boat that broke down in the middle of the ocean and kept flooding, b) a little island that looked like something out of lost called Bamboo Island and c) in a girly bar called poco loco getting hit on by Cambodian call girls. Loved it.
Phnom Penh was the next destination, I spent my first few hours there trying to get someone to fix my camera, but to no avail, so ended up just heading back to the swish hotel we were staying in and getting an early night after dinner at another restaurant that helped out street kids.
The next morning Rob, Si, Zoe, Ben and I all headed out to a place called the Russian Market, I bought an insanely bling watch and that was that. In the afternoon we went to Tuol Sleng / S-21 and The Killing Fields. It was fucking horrific. I don’t really know what to say about it all in all, it was scary, humbling and deeply saddening. I haven’t been to Auschwitz, but I imagine that this is probably worse. The soldiers were fucking barbaric there.
Next day was spent traveling to where I am now, Saigon. Arrived in the late afternoon and then went to a Sony repair shop. With my camera now being fixed I was a bit more happy and went out to ANOTHER market to be man handled by petite Vietnamese women trying to sell me Hugo Boss tee-shirts. Had our last group dinner together and then went to bed, tired as.
The next day we went to the War Remnants museum here, yet another reminder of how fucking horrible the human race can be. Spent the afternoon exploring Saigon on my own.
Yesterday we took a bus to the Cu Chi tunnels, which was fun and yet again eye opening and then watched the football in the evening with a bunch of people. Felt a bit pissed off with a few people I’m traveling with yesterday.
Today I don’t have any plans, we take a sleeper train to another beachy type place tonight, kind of looking forward to it I guess.
Hmm.
Tom.xx
2 comments:
yo dude, i would of loved to see you bail on a bike. hahaha, hope your camera is okay. all sounds full on....take care mate. craig.
that all sounds amazing. the question everyone (me and pete and probably luke) wants to know though is DID YOU GET IT ON WITH ANY LADYBOYS?
Hope your ok. We all miss you dead bad. xxx
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