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June 29, 2006
Australia's out, moving on to Hanoi and stuck in Halong Bay
Well we were robbed in our last match. I saw it in a bar in Hue called Brown Eyes. The owner/dj is really friendly and I recommend this bar to anyone.
We've moved on to Hanoi 2 nights ago catching the Reunification Express from Hue and arrived in Hanoi yesterday morning. I saw Ho Chi Minh embalmed body in his mausoleum, the underrated but fantastic Temple of Literature and the "Hanoi Hilton".
This morning we're on our way to Halong Bay only to be informed that there's a tropical storm coming to Halong Bay and no boats are allowed out from the harbour. This sucks, the original plan was to arrive here in the afternoon, take the cruise to see the beauty of Halong Bay (another UNESCO World Heritage site) and spend the night in Cat Ba island. Instead we're now stuck in Halong Bay city. If the storm storm pass tomorrow we'll take the cruise but our guide doubt it will clear up tomorrow.
Posted by vhadiant at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 26, 2006
Moving on to Hue
From Hoi An to Hue we took a bus and we stopped at the Cham Museum and the inapropriately named China beach (by the Americans) in Da Nang. Apart from the Cham Museum there's nothing much to see in Da Nang, the third biggest city in Vietnam after Saigon and Hanoi. It's the main hub for central Vietnam and for tourists on route to Hoi An.
Hue is the Nguyen Dynasty's imperial capital. The main attractions are The Citadel - modelled after China's forbidden city, the tomb of the Nguyen Lords, and Thien Mu Pagoda. We took a private boat cruise along the Perfume River to vist the pagoda and Tu Duc tomb and caught a moto back to the hotel. Tonight we'll be having a "royal" dinner where everyone will dress up as old Vietnam's imperial courtiers. This will be interesting :)
On another note, tonight is Australia's second round match against Italy. I'm really exited about this match and really bummed to leave my Australia's paraphernalia back in Singapore, how fun it will be to dress up in full Aussie gears to watch the match in the middle of Vietnam!
Posted by vhadiant at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Upset stomach
I've been really careless with food for the past 3 weeks, ice, street vendors dodgy looking food but it was the squid from the beach side "restaurant" that got me. Two days ago I spent the entire day Hoi An's 30 km long beach (cuo dai? - spelling) and foolishly ate my lunch although I had a bad feeling about it.
By dinner time I knew something was not right but I was still feeling OK. At drinks after dinner my stomach started to feel funny and I had to leave early. By this time my stomach was telling me it disagreed with something that I ate and I had a fever. I couldn't sleep and fortunately I finally threw up at about 4 in the morning and soon after the fever dissapeared and I finally managed to get little sleep. What make it worst is that in a few hours we need to check out from the hotel and take a bus ride to Hue.
Thankfully, although feeling really crap for the whole day I didn't throw up in the bus and didn't cause any drama. I skipped dinner with the rest of the group and opted to rest. This turned out to be a good idea since this morning, although not feeling 100% still, I'm feeling much better.
Everyone says that it's inevitable to have a dodgy stomach at one stage on the travel especially if you're travelling for the long period of time. Hopefully for me this is it.
Posted by vhadiant at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 23, 2006
Hoi An
I admit that initially I'm a bit sceptical about Hoi An. After spending a few days here I couldn't help to love this little town. If you ever plan to visit Vietnam, make sure you allocate at least 3 days in Hoi An, more if you can afford it :)
Posted by vhadiant at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 22, 2006
Hoi An, Vietnam
Moving on from Na Thrang, we caught another sleeper train to Hoi An. This trip on this train should have taken 12 hours but in Vietnam trains are frequently delayed and we're pretty lucky we made it in 13 hours.
Hoi An is a pretty little town, this is where you get all your suits, shirts, dress, shoes, bag all custom made for a reasonable price. The town itself is listed in UNESCO world heritage list, it's a wonder that so much of the old town survives the Vietnam war.
We'll be here until Sunday morning where we're going to catch a 4 hours bus trip to Hue, the old Vietnam imperial capital.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 21, 2006
Na Thrang, Vietnam
We spent the past 2 days in Na Thrang. To be honest Na Thrang is no where near what I expected. I was expecting something like Sihanouk Ville but instead I got Gold Coast :) A bit dissapointed at the fact that Na Thrang is so well developed, however a fellow traveller pointed out that it was unfair to me to expect something like Sihanouk Ville, it may be good for the tourist but the locals may want something like Na Thrang. In fact there won't be any place in the world like Sihanouk Ville because Cambodia is still largerly not developed and just recently embraced tourism. If you want to visit Cambodia do it soon before it all changes, especially the laid back personally of the country.
Unlike Sihanouk Ville the tourist attractions here are much more developed (none in Sihanouk Ville really, just beach parties everynight there), we did the awesome mud bath and today we spent the whole day visiting the islands, snorkeling and just lazing around the beaches. Na Thrang, I have to say is very picturesque.
In a few hours we're going to catch another sleeper traing to Da Nang then a bus to Hoi An, apparently a shopping mecca. One quick word about sleeper train, on the way from Saigon to Na Thrang was my first sleeper train experience, it was good and I kinda like it.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2006
Food ... oh glorious food
In the beginning of my travel I made a mental note to be really careful with my food. Make sure it's clean, only eat from respectable restaurants/hotels and just be sensible. These all have been totally destroyed as soon as I got to Bangkok. My first eating journey was in a good and cleanish backpacker restaurant, but it's gone downhill pretty damn quick. On that day I was eating soo much food from street vendors ranging from the sensational banana pancake (still the best food so far), waffles, banana-rice, Vietnam's version of pork bun and all sort of stuff that I probably won't even eat in Indonesia because of the cleanliness level ;)
It's good that none of our group had any stomach problem in Cambodia, although there are some different level of what people are willing to risk, but by the end of the trip I think everyone has finally got rid of the western paranoia of eating street food :) It's so amazing to witness even the most carefull of the group just buy some weird looking food on a stick from an old lady in the side of really dusty street. I think we've done everything against what is recommended by the guidebooks. I'm quite happy that after 2 weeks not even once I ate in a western franchise like KFC or Maccas ... not that they exist in Cambodia hahaha :) But they do exist in Vietnam, but I will absolutely avoid those places.
Stuff the guidebooks' food recommendation, if you see something strange just eat it. Chances are you're going to like it ... and survive!
Posted by vhadiant at 06:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pnom Penh -> Ho Chi Minh City
From Sihanouk Ville we were back in Pnom Penh for 1 more night. Here we checked out the Royal Palace and the National Museum. The Royal Palace is incredibly similar to Thai Royal Palace but much less grander. However they did do a good job considering that this palace is new and the country was in war until recent time.
We were back at the Frog & Parrot to watch the England vs Trinidad game. After the game we decided to check out Heart of Darkness once again. The last time we were there there was a power black out and the night ended up the one of the weirdest night in my life! We went to Howie and we listened the music from one of the waitress' mobile phone and they wheeled a motorbike inside the pub for the light! That was one crazy night, the irony is one block away there was power :)
I enjoyed Heart of Darkness and had a good fun although that place is full of weird people. A friend pointed out that it was kinda depressing place, it's really a place for foreigners (read: westerners) to pick up local Cambodian girls. I'm never really bothered with that kind of stuff, those people are risking AIDS themselves trying to pick up random Cambodian girls - the HIV infection rate in Cambodia is one of the highest in the world. Anyway ... full report about HoD when I finally have time to write down all my stories about my travel, which is becoming less and less likely to happen :)
We left Cambodia yesterday to cross the border to Vietnam. Our bus broke down in the middle of Cambodia and that added 2 hours of already 9 hour long bus trip. All up it took us 11 hours from Pnom Penh to finally arrive in our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. In HCMC we had our one last dinners and drinks with Nak, our tour guide, and we gave him present for his amazing job taking us out through the "Real Cambodia", I couldn't have asked for a more fun tour guide.
Good bye Cambodia and Hello Vietnam.
It's amazing that as soon as we crossed the border to VIetnam the differences between the countries are so obvious. Vietnam is much more developed than Cambodia, still a lot less developed than Thailand/Malaysia/Indonesia's Java island but much much more than Cambodia. We had the chance to explore Vietnam today and we spent sometime in Chinatown and the Reunification Palance. Soon we're going to meet up with the new batch of group, hopefully they'll be as fun as the one that we had in Cambodia.
Posted by vhadiant at 06:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2006
Homestay @ Takeo -> Sihanouk Ville
Moving on from Pnom Penh we spent 1 night in a farmer's house in Takeo somewhere in the middle of Cambodia. Here we watched the intense Australia vs Japan match. I couldn't imagine a better place to watch the football .. with the host and the cows :)
From Takeo we spent next 2 nights partied really hard in Sihanoukville including 1 full moon party in Utopia bar. The bars in Sihanoukville is so close to the beach make them a perfect partying spots. We're now back in Pnom Penh for 1 more day to visit the Royal Palace and the National Museum. Tomorrow we're going to take a long public bus ride to Ho Chi Minh city (approx 9 hours).
Posted by vhadiant at 09:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 12, 2006
Kratie -> Pnom Penh -> The Killing Fields
Leaving Kompong Cham, our next destination was Kratie. The main attraction here is to see the critically endangered Mekong Irrawady Dolphins, currently only about 100 left in the world. This time our boat pulled over next to one of the many island in the Mekong River and all except 2 people brave the dirty water of the Mekong and spent a few hours swimming in the river.
We stayed in Kratie for 1 day before leaving for Pnom Penh. Pnom Penh reminds me a lot to Surabaya, but a lot less developed. There is not a single high rise building here, although the night live along the Mekong is vibrant and there are loads of tourists to be found.
This morning we visited Cheung Ak Genocide Memorial (the Killing Fields) where the exhumed over 8000 bodies so far. This experience was so powerful and just by being there I could not hold my tears. There's not much in Cheung Ak, just a bunch of holes where the mass graves are and in the middle they erected a stupa to hold all the bones of the victims, but by God that was such an experience. It is estimated that 3.5 - 4 million Cambodian died during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Our Intrepid tour guide father was killed by the Khmer Rouge (he was a teacher) and our guide in Cheung Ak was one of the first people who came to Cheung Ak to exhumed the bodies. He is only 49, considered very old by Cambodian standard. Most of the adult has been wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.
Next stop was the S21 Prison which has been convereted into a museum in Pnom Penh, again just like Cheung Ak this was a very moving experience. You'll see rows and rows of photographs of the prisoners in S21. Here they were tortured to extract confessions and then sent to the Killing Fields to be executed. From the estimated 20,000 people who were intered in S21 prison only 7 survied. We saw the photo of the 7 survivor, one which would be the very first curator of this museum.
I have to be quick here as our transport to Ta Keo is arriving, but once again I have to say if you come to Pnom Penh do not miss both the Killing Fields and S21 prison. They are an absolute must.
Posted by vhadiant at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 09, 2006
Currently in Kampong Cham, Cambodia
Blogging while travelling turned out to be much harder than I thought. I'm having problems trying to find time to do the blogging. It has been a hectic few days with little spare time and even less sleeping time :) I can only do a short update for now, I've jolted down plenty of notes in my notes hoping that sometime in the future I have the time to compose a proper backdated travelog.
For the few of you who follow my blog regularly, I've left Bangkok went to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) for 3 days now and currently in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Not much to see here, and I think we are the only tourist in the city. We came here to visit the local school to give gifts (pencils and notebooks) to the kids and play some football. It was really fun.
On the way back a few of us (including me!) tried the dirty and murky water of the Mekong River and spend a few minutes swimming and colling down. We were the only people swimming in the Mekong river as far as my eyes can see. Must be a truly amazing sight for the locals to see a bunch of white people (and 2 asians) swimming the Mekong River :)
Time is short here, but so I can only write a short spiel about Cambodia. This country is very poor, maybe the poorest in the region. For westerners who have never travelled before, Cambodia will give over the scale culture shock. But behind the poverty and the massive gap in the wealth distribution lies a charming and unbelievably nice people. Definitely a place to go and if you want to go, go now before it changes.
There's not enough words and pictures to describe Angkor Wat. When one says that it's one of the 7 wonders of the world, I can certainly amen that. Angkor Wat is not the only temple in the area, there are 4 major temples: Angkor Wat, Bayon, Bantrey Srey and Ta Phrom. We managed to visit all except Bantrey Srey (citadel of women), which ironically is my guesthouse room's namesake. Ta Phrom is probably the best after Angkor Wat, it is left in ruins just like how the early French explorers "discovered" it.
A quick word on the Interpid tour, it is really good. Although indeed a fair more expensive that if I do it myself, it certainly have given much more that I could hope for. They are true to their slogan "See the real Cambodia". Heh I still can't get over swimming in the Mekong River bit. Had I gone by myself I wouldn't have even thought about it. Playing football with the locals kids definitely not in the agenda.
We're going to Kratie tomorrow. I'm planning to have a good 8 hours or more of sleep tonight. Might as well because even though it's Friday night, there's no pub here. Well not for the tourists anyway. Kampong Cham is a busy working port and tourist mostly bypass this place.
Posted by vhadiant at 09:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 04, 2006
Using public Internet cafe
Lesson 1 in using public internet cafe: always log out and make sure that the system somehow clean your cache or something.
I was using the free internet at Changi airport earlier today and was midly surprised that when I quit the Internet application and opened it again it goes straight to my GMail inbox. Yep it doesn't actually close the browser and its session. This is why you should always log-out.
I had to close the internet application (the one that stops you opening anything but IE), doing this wiped the IE cache. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for normal internet cafe. Well currently in Bangkok at the famous Thanon Khao San (Khao San Rd.), Bangkok is everything that I expected and more! Details will be in the next entry when I have the time to write it.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Onward to Bangkok
Here I am in Changi International Aiport using the numerous free Internet service kiosk. I guess Singapore's status as a transit port makes these free internet services necessary, I'm pleased that they don't try to milk money out of the passengers by charging exorbitant amount of money like Perth's aiport.
The past 2 days in Singapore has been really nice. I finally recovered from my cold that I caught in Melbourne, the weather was surprisingly really mild, and I managed to cram what little time that I have to catch up with as many relatives and friends here. I missed out - they run out - the (apparently) amazing, and obviously popular, cendol ice cream from an ice cream shop which looks like it has been transported from Sydney, but Foodie promised to get some for me when I get back here in a month time.
Singapore is a very interesting country to say the least. I think it's the only country to provide western standard of living infused with Asian cultures. I believe Singapore is the only city in the SE Asia where you can drink the tap water. You can in KL, but I wouldn't do it. If you put the effort to get past the sterile Changi Airport or the sleek shopping centres in Orchard Rd. and brace yourself for Little India or the Chinatown (actually Singapore is one big Chinatown) you'll see the inner Singapore. If you have a local friend, forget the guidebook and get them to show you around instead. Skip the american franchises and try the hawker's stalls instead - warning: you may get stomach issues!
Posted by vhadiant at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 02, 2006
Destination Singapore ... via Perth
Depending how you look at it my travel either started today or last week when I went to Melbourne. It's today because this is will be day I'm leaving Australia or last week, because since Melbourne I no longer has a 'home' in Sydney. My brothers vacated the premise last weekend and I have been living with my auntie in Chatswood. Funny that until yesterday I didn't realise that she is the same auntie who brought me to Australia on the first place, I have come full circle :)
First stop (or second stop) is Singapore, which will be my base for the South East Asian leg of my trip. Here I will catch up with friends, family and more importantly my grandmother. But not before stopping for 4 hours in Perth (I'm flying using my frquent flyer points, so not much of a choice here) where I am currently writing this entry at an Internet computer kiosk at a typical aiport overpriced rate with a really shitty keyboard.
I have a feeling that I'm going to have a really .. err ... "exiting" time ahead. On our Melbourne trip, we almost didn't make it to the plane back to Sydney because we misread the plane departure time (15:30 instead of 15:10 ... I was the last person to be checked-in .. just made it in time). I've blogged earlier about carrying too much stuff than my measly 20kg economy class allowance. Maybe it's fate but at my last 3 places to stay (my own, my auntie, and my friend's at Brighton) none has a working scale, so I don't know how much my baggage weigh. Although I do know it's going to be over 20kg.
At the check-in desk this morning my guess was confirmed, all up almost 30kg ... crap still carrying too much stuff. On my defence I have a suitcase and a rucksack, those must weigh at least 8 - 9kg. The check-in chick scolded me telling that I should know the 20kg maximum baggage limit. She gave me the fame Qantas supermarket bag and asked me to remove 4kg, that's the best she can do, otherwise she has to charge me. After stuffing full the supermarket bag, we weigh in my luggages again, although still over 25kg this time it seems to be under the acceptable weight.
So here I am in the sleepy Perth International Terminal waiting for my connecting flight to Singapore ... with two heavy bags, I really need to change my packing strategy. There's hardly anyone here, most of the activities are in the domestic terminal. Anyway I almost run out of time and have to end this entry here.
PS: If you are receiving this entry by email it means that my email notification works and you've asked me to be included in my blog notification list. If you wish to stop receiving notification email me.
Update: Well apparently the email notification doesn't work - so much for that - and there are more people in Perth International closer to the flights departure time.
Posted by vhadiant at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
