Hoi an - greetings from phnom penh!
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
38
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Sunday, November 23, 2008
right. hoi an. so we wake up in the beautiful room and go down for the buffet breakfast in the restaurant overlooking the paddie field. here we see the lady from the night before who looks pleased to see us back. we explain all that what happened the night before and she looks pleased for herself as if she always knew we'd be back within 24 hours! after breakfast and getting ready, sean goes out to get us a bike to go out exploring with and to see the ruins of the 'my son' temple. first stop, the petrol station, where, oddly, everyone's staring at us again, which feels strange because i think we thought the anti west stares would stop as we got further south. apparently not necessarily. my only thought is that maybe they were offended by my bare shoulders, as i'd read on the back of the drab hotel room door, the night before, that guests must respect not only the rules applying to attire in temples, but also around hoi an itself?! meaning cover up, not that i think many people stick to these rules half the time, and especially once they've got settled with the travelling malarkay and so walk around blase and as if they've lived in each and every country for years. anyway, after getting petrol, we rode out of town and off the map, meaning that from here on in we were relying on the hand drawn map provided by one of the staff of the hotel, which could end up with us anywhere. and nearly could have done had we not stopped to ask a lady at a road side local restaurant, who after finding the whole tourist lost business highly amusing, pointed as best she could, without knowing any english, onwards where we would see more signs. and sure enough onwards we found a proper sign and another couple on a bike, we guessed going out to the my son ruins. and sure enough, the girl on the back of the bike wasn't covering her shoulders either, making me feel better that i hadn't exactly stuck to the temple dress code either. anyway, on we rode, through the blistering heat. and jesus was it hot that day?! i remember sitting there feeling my knees and watching them turn pink by the minute. they have never fried so much in all my life. i have never been so hot in my life, apart from that day in may on the beach in mudeford, when we all just sat in bikinis and shorts alone and just sweat all day long. remember alex, that was our best day of the year so far?! anyway, we seemed to be riding out forever, but soon enough we see more official tourist attraction type signs, this time giving directions and the number of metres until we'd reach our destination. this was also the exact moment when the weather decided it would take a dramatic turn too. and we must have only been maybe five or ten minutes from reaching the ruins when we felt our first spots of rain! and after all that heat too! just in time, we reached the main gate to the ruins, and unofficial parking bays and cafes 'leeching' off the attraction, when the heavens decided to open and let one hell of a storm open out on us. thank god for leech cafe no. 2 being right there because we had just a few minutes to park up the bike with some unofficial parking attendant and get across to the cafe before the torrential rains started. there we were enjoying a cup of tea and some oreos - my new favourite biscuit - when the owner came over and picked up our cups and herded us further inside the perimeter of her establishment as the rain began to hit the thatched roof and run down onto the tables and chairs around the edge of the cafe. saying that, even right in the centre of the cafe, it being a rather open building meant that the rain was so heavy that it was that it even started dripping down through the thatching making up the roof and getting passed the tarpulin 'walls', which were by now blowing all over the place, to get through to us. and if you can imagine there was thunder and lightning too so the prospects of us actually escaping this cafe 'haven' and getting out to the ruins seemed slim, even if we had just riden out about 50 / 60km and for around an hour! however, in the end, after the rain started to die down and the storm seemed to be passing we decided to make a run for it, partly protected by the condom-like rain proofs that we'd bought from the cafe - being so hot before, i hadn't bothered packing my far superior poncho - across to the main ticket office and over to the ticket checking booth. just a moment to explain that unlike in england where you buy a ticket for an attraction and simply walk on through the barriers to get to that attraction, everywhere here seems to have to have to booths, just to make sure! at every place there is a place to hand over your money and get given a ticket before you wander onto another booth or table set up simply to check that ticket that you were handed less than a metre and less than 30 seconds away! ah well, if it works for them?! so we get our tickets checked and head over a bridge to a small jeep station, where the other couple are waiting for a jeep to take all four of us a few more kms on to another gate for the ruins. at this time, the rain has decided to pick up some intensity again and is blowing into the open jeep, so that, added with the fact that the road is just a disaster, means that the whole trip feels again like something out of jurassic park. the jeep drops us off at this gate and tells us to walk on for the ruins. oh yes, if the bike ride and jeep ride weren't enough, we are yet to walk on down a gravel track. a little way down the track, we make a small detour up a slope - though i would have preferred to stay on the main straight - to get a glimpse at a small fraction of ruin that seems totally seperate later to the main event. the rain now coming down in buckets makes the track slippery and i hope that these small tracks within the trees aren't going to be common. on the other side, we walk down another slope to reach a small cafe and hut showing a map of the ruins. here is where we begin. well it would have been had it not been for the rain now producing one hell of a flood and subsequent temporary river that has now drowned the path that leads the way to the first section of the ruins. we see a couple stood down at the edge of the 'river' speaking to a vietnamese guide who seems to be stopping them from going on, inperfect german. we ask the couple to ask the guide when we will be able to cross the river, now that the rain is starting to move on again, to which he replies about an hour or so. now being that it is already about 2pm and the ruins close at 4pm, we wonder if we've got enough time to sit for an hour and just wait for the water to subside, and see the ruins without having to rush around them. having paid our money though, we were not going to just turn around and go back to the bike, though both other couples did. i especially was not after ranting on how typical it was for a vietnamese attraction to take your money without any thought to whether those persons paid will either have enough time to see that attraction, if they even get across the river to do so. saying that, sean of course, on cue, rationalised that if the rain had been coming down that hard that it wouldn't have taken that long for the flood to happen and so the ticket guys would have had no way of knowing that we'd have trouble getting to see the ruin. anyway, after about half an hour and numerous wanders down to the river to check the level of the water against the obvious bench tops sticking out at the surface, we, and another couple who'd just arrived at the site, decided to brave the water, though still being high above the knee, and cross. so, with the assistance of one of the staff stood at the river's edge and telling the first guy where to tread according to where he believed the path to lay, we each individually made our way over to the ruins, to the great amusement of a whole bunch of guys, staff and friends, all watching and probably waiting for the first one of us to step in the wrong place and end up swimming over. we all managed to get over though and to the first of the ruins, which was totally massive, very old, very overgrown, not colourful in the slightest, like so many of the other temples we'd seen, and reminiscent of something out of indiana jones. after about an hour walking around several of the sites and me taking photos of penis shaped statues etc, and crossing through yet more flooded plains and over bridges, we reached our last section and were on our way back to the main gate again and the bike, still there! thankfully the rain has stopped now so we are able to ride back safely, to get back for a swim before the sun goes down and those bloody mosquitoes are back out again! that night we wander through the old quarter of the town, where there are hundreds of lantern stalls, street sellers, men asking if we want a late night boat trip, and ladies running out into the street to beckon us in to eat at their restaurant. we end up having dinner at a restaurant that we'd seen in the lonely planet, where there is no menu and rather what's on sale is what the chef has decided to serve up that day. the food was ok, given we went in not knowing what we were going to get to eat. although i certainly didn't appreciate being shown every five minutes how to eat a particular dish. i think i probably got this message across to one of the waiters quite well too as apparently he gave one of the waitresses a look as if to say 'what's her problem?' i just don't want to be shown how to eat. leave me be god damn it! anyway, after dinner we went for a couple of bia hoi and returned home to watch a film and wait for the clock to strike midnight to mark my 26th birthday! urgh, wrong side of 25!
sunday 2nd november - my birthday! i won't officially turn 26 until 11.40pm local time or even the morning of the 3rd going on the time at home! must savour every minute of being 25!
this morning we wake to go for breakfast before returning to the room where sean reveals all these presents, which i hadn't even imagined him buying. this is when he explains that all the times he went off shopping in hue, giving me time to play on the internet, was when he secretly went off to buy me presents. anyway, it was a perculiar and random selection as there were none of the usual presents that you would buy for someone if at home and with the time to look around the shops. however, they all meant something and were all things that i would probably think to buy as a souvenier, but that i would hold off getting due to money constraints out here. so there was a hue baseball cap, which has been put to good use as i forgot all the essentials like a hat, sunglasses, a bikini etc! a top with uncle ho plastered across the front! a small figurine of a vietnamese playing a recorder type instrument, a water buffalo teapot - the strangest of the gifts, but oddly cute! - and a painting of two vietnamese women by the water. after, he said he had two more for me but that we would have to go and get them now. the first he said i may not want but that i would later greatly appreciate. i guessed a massage, to which, and some of you might say i'm totally ungrateful, i had to decline. i'd already told him i didn't like the idea of someone giving me a massage. call me crazy but the fact that i've always associated people giving massages a way to relax them, maybe cop a feel (!), arouse and get them into bed, i wouldn't be able to have one without someone associating all of that with one. so there was to be no massage! however, i couldn't say no to the next one, although it was certainly hard work to accept too. sean took me next door to a tailors, where he said i could choose any material i wanted to have made into an outfit. well, not being able to make decisions, choosing the fabric was hard enough. day or night material. cotton or silk. red polka dots or flowers. this one or that. am i only choosing this one because it reminds me of a dress i've got at home that i love but would no longer be able to fit into? should i go for something completely off the wall? and what style of clothes? a dress i wouldn't be able to wear all that much or a top and skirt? if a top, a strappy one or a halterneck? if a skirt, a long or short one? with so many choices and so many decisions to make, we must have been in there for over an hour! in the end, i decided on a green fabric with white and pin flowers and bright pink piping to be made into a halterneck top and knee length skirt. all very boring for all those of you not at all interested! anyway, the little lady measured me up, which was a task too as i'm fidgetty and she had to keep adjusting how i stood, and we were off until it was ready for the next day. afterwards we went for a walk around the old quarter, and on our return to the hotel, the staff had bought me a massive bunch of roses, which was a massive surprise because i'd literally only mentioned it in passing and yet they'd still gone out of their way to get me flowers. anyway, after collecting up our swimming stuff, we took the bike down to the beach for a swim in the south china sea, where the waves were so enormous that i kept swallowing water. afterwards, i made my first phone call home to mum, dad and matt, who all seemed in a hurry to get out as much as they could as fast as they could, though i kept saying the call was costing peanuts. it was nice speaking to them, though the time delay was slightly frustrating. by the end of the call, i'd gotten so hot in the little booth that the windows and door were all steamed up and i came out slightly dripping! that evening we emailed our friends joe and len to see if we could catch them for a drink before they caught their next bus on, however running late and getting three similar sounding bars mixed up, we missed them. later we ate in a rustic restaurant called cafe 96 although sean wanted to treat us to an expensive meal, and drank bia hoi. cheap date! at the bia hoi bar, we spoke to some vietnamese girls who couldn't get over that the english will pay 90,000 dong - three pounds - for a beer when bia hoi costs just 5,000 dong! sounds ridiculous when you say it like that, doesn't it! later we went onto a bar called 'before and now', after the girls advised us not to go across the river to the sleazier bars, and had a few beers and cocktails. i'm sure being my birthday i should have got completely drunk and danced around like a fool, like i would have done at home, but being away took something away from it. it was a nice day all the same.
monday 3rd november
a lazy day. a last start. we pick up the clothes from the tailor, which fit perfectly. we stay in. in internet. we swim. we eat tea at the laugh cafe. stay in. watch tv. bed.
tuesday 4th november
this morning we have to check out of the beautiful hotel. afterwards, with most of the day to spare, we wander into town, with the intention of simply having something to eat and mooching around. instead the day turns into a biggy with us buying a ticket to see some of the sights of the old town. we wander around a chinese assembly hall, dotted with statues of snakes and dragons and goats, and elaborately designed paintings. we go to the tanky house, where our undisturbed mooch around town is swamped by herds of tourists seperated into team 'monkey' etc, etc, because there are just so many of them! we walk through the central market, where we are hassled by every stall owner asking if we want to buy bracelets, shorts, chopsticks, lanterns, everything a dollar, though it isn't. in the end, we strike up a deal and i get a bracelet and we buy a set of coconut made chopsticks. beauty. afterwards, we wander around a museum dedicated to the history of hue, before the tourists came in! and another temple. that afternoon, we make several calls to quantas, after getting cut off however many times, to change our flights to perth in december. we get charged more for these changes than trailfinders promised and so there might have to be several more calls made to straighten out that problem. finally, we just have time to get some food, write a thank you card to the hotel for the flowers and collect up our stuff for the bus to nha trang. i panic again that we won't have enough time to catch our bus after the taxi arrives at the hotel minutes before we're meant to get on the bus, but there's plenty of time to spare once there. typical. waving goodbye from the taxi, one of the hotel staff tells us to come back next time with children! she seems a little confused when sean says maybe! these people don't do hanging around on the marriage and baby business! we catch the bus to nha trang and try as best we can to get some sleep.
