Arrived in Siem Reap

This morning we didn't do too much, slept out a bit and packed for our bus ride. The bus departed at 11.30 to Siem Reap.

The bus ride itself was nothing special. But when we almost arrived at Siem Reap; after almost 7 hours in the bus; we did already see the amazing sunset.

Fortunately we already made a booking for a guesthouse; we did that at our neighbour hotel in Phnom Penh. So the 'tuk tuk' driver of Smiley Guesthouse was already waiting for us.

So we checked in at Smiley and had dinner in their restaurant. Khmer Omellete, Amoc Fish and Cambodian style spring rolls.

Probably will be going for an early sleep as I am really exhausted! And tomorrow will probably be a busy day, first seeing the city and in the late afternoon heading towards some of the Angkor temples.

Another day in Phnom Penh

Today we went for a walking tour trough Phnom Penh. We started the day with breakfast at our neighbour hotel, and then took the same 'tuk tuk' to the starting point of the walking tour: Wat Phnom; a temple complex on a hill.

On the way from the foot of the hill towards the temple we were 'greeted' by several beggar children. I did give one the cookies I had already been carrying around for several days but that only drew more attention on us...

So while going up the children kept following us up and kept asking for money...made it quite annoying to enjoy the temple at first. When going into the temple had to take off my shoes, and in my mind already saw the kids running away with them ;). So did decide to play it save and carry my shoes with me. Luckily after we were done the children had probably already found new victims so we could enjoy it a lot more from then on. From the hilltop we could also see several monkeys playing around in the trees downstairs.

Then we went on to the cental market. Around the actual central market are many stalls with only very narrow dark isles in between them. The stuff they sold wasn't very interesting, many watches and cloths/clothing. But the style of market was still very different from the ones in Hong Kong, so it was still worth to make a short visit. We did buy spring rolls there fried ones and the ones in rice paper.

Afterwards we went to the new market, actually more like a shopping mall.... There we went to a fast food place and ordered a Cambodia burger. (actually mainly to make use of their place to eat our spring rolls ;).

Then went to the booking office of the bus company and got the tickets to Siem Reap. We will be departing tomorrow morning at 11.30, will take about 6 hours to arrive in Siem Reap.

After getting the bus tickets went to the National museum were a lot of beautiful statues were on display. Among them a lot that came from Angkor Wat. Did hang around in the museum for a pretty long time, and at around 16.00 we decided we had to leave as we still wanted to visit the royal palace and silver pagoda (which would be closing at 17.00). But when we arrived at the entrance at 16.20 we found out that they already didn't allow any people going in anymore :(. Bad luck, but at least will still have something left for when we are here on our way back :).

Then decided to have a small snack in a korean restaurant, but the small snack turned out to be a full meal. We ordered Kimchi pancake, but later found out it included soup, rice, 8 bowls of vegetables and dessert... The food was really nice and cheap for the amount we got!

Then walked on to the independance monument which looked great as the sky behind it looked amazing. Then headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff, woud finally be getting my haircut! But the 2 salons nearby only do haircuts for female.... So have a feeling I will arrive back in Hong Kong as one of the Beatles ;).

Staying in Phnom Penh

This morning we changed to another hotel. We didn't really like the one we were staying at, very humid and dark inside!

Now we moved to a much better place. A quite new hotel, clean and bright (street view window). Only problem is that they don't provide internet service.... :(.

Now using the internet service from the hotel next door, but will have to pay for their service, so will keep it short, it is after all supposed to be a budget trip ;).

After moving to the new hotel we decided to take the 'tuk tuk' to the killing fields. About half an hour ride through the hot streets of Phnom Penh. (40*C). The killing fields were something quite tragic to see, and a pretty weird feeling to walk around on the remains of many people who were killed there. Everywhere we walked we could see the leftovers of pieces of clothing worn by them and at some places we could still see some bones left in the ground.
In the 'remembrance tower' (made this name up myself ;) there were many skulls shown, and you could clearly see how the person was killed (bullet hole, axe impact, hamer hole etc.).

After this we rode back to the city for visiting the genocide museum, this is inside a former school which during the khmer rouge period was used as a prison and from here many people were brought to the killing fields for executing (the place we went earlier).

So not a very enjoyable day, but think a must when visiting Cambodia as unfortunately this has become a very important part of their (recent) history.

Arrived in Phnom Penh

We arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia!
Unfortunately the internet/computer is really slow here, so not very convenient to update about the past few days :'(. Hopefully tomorrow at another hostel the internet service will be better!

But anyway, did want to leave this post so everyone knows we are still alive ;). Gotta get back to my room soon; to drink lots of water though as it is SOOO hot here behind the computer...

Quick update

Don't have enough time to update on the past few days. But just wanted to let everyone know that tomorrow morning we will be taking the 6.45AM bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

We should be arriving in Phnom Penh at around 13.00PM, and hopefully there it will be just as easy to keep writing my blog as it has been so far in Vietnam :).

Pictures

Having no luck to upload any pictures to my blog so uploading to Facebook instead. Actually a lot easier to upload to there anyways...

The pictures I have uploaded so far can be seen here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019691&id=1365461415&l=d01f80bdc8

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019692&id=1365461415&l=c30801a602

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City!!!

We took the train at 23.00 departing from the main trainstation of Hanoi. We would be sharing our hardsleeper cabin (6 beds) with an older Vietnamese couple. (and as we found out even before departing with some cockroaches as well....).

The train departed on schedule but after about the 30 minutes there was some noise and the train used the emergency brake system to come to a full stop. The train had hit someone! It actually took us a short while to figure out what had happened but when looking out of our window the body was right in front of it.... Luckily it was dark already so we couldn't see it too clearly! Quite quickly a pretty large crowd gathered outside of the train. We could see one of the train staff grabbing a bedsheet and covering the body. Within about 20 minutes; even before any police arrived; the train started moving again. We thought it might just pull up a little bit but we actually continued our journey. It was a very strange feeling/situation, on one hand it was quite sad to see someone pass away just in front of your window on the other hand was glad the train went on (in Holland that would have never happened, as I think they give the driver some time off and a psychological examination).

So the journey continued and from that moment on we did start to have contact with the older couple who during the whole ride took very good care of us (like we were there children I guess, making sure we had enough to eat, sharing their food and drinks with us, arranging for us that we would have better beds etc.) It was really too bad we couldn't communicate with them, but by their gestures and smiling we felt very welcome on the train.

A few cabins ahead there was a Vietnamese couple with 2 children, the youngest one was a very cute boy called Lam and older one was 6 years old and a lot less cute. When I saw the youngest one in the hallway I reached out my arms and he directly came running into my arms! Was really a lovely kid, when I pulled him up he directly put his head to rest on my chest. I spend quite a lot of time carrying Lam through the train, many times when I would put him down he would come running towards me again to be lifted up and carried.

At around noon a mother and her 18 year old girl came on the train and the girl did speak some English. She thought Casey and me were reporters as we kept taking so many pictures :D. Althou they only stayed on the train for 1.5 hours it was nice to have her do some translating toward the older couple in our cabin. Unfortunately at around 14.00 Lam and his family also got out of the train...

From then on think we mainly 'communicated' with the older couple and tried to rest a lot. Also enjoy the beautiful scenary that we were passing through. Lots and lots of rice fields and later on during the trip nice views of the sea at one side and a mountain area at the other. Also the view of the 'real' people of Vietnam living in their villages not spoiled by tourism. Glad we didn't miss out on these things by taking the plane instead!
Only thing is that they should do something about those cockroaches....like they never ever removed the rubbish...so the number of roaches did get a lot of worse...even I did kill quite a lot of them when hunting for them with Casey's head-lamp and slipper :D.

We arrived Ho Chi Minh City with a short delay; around 5.15. We helped the older couple to carry their stuff outside to where they were picked up by some relatives. Then we took a taxi towards the backpacker street of HCMC. Most of the hotels were still closed at this time so after quickly checking one of them we decided to get something to eat first. After we finished our breakfast we went back to the same narrow street were we went earlier to check another hostel. We went in to another one and after checking the price and checking the room we decided to take this one for one night (15US$). Think we both didn't really feel like walking around too much as we were both quite tired and Casey started to develop a cold and flu.

Now it is 16.00 and so far we have just been resting, taking a shower, eating our cup-pho (vietnamese rice noodles) on the hotel room. And Casey has been taking her 'tasty' chinese medicine so hopefully she will be fine soon!

Also just dropped off all our dirty clothing, the hotel provides laundry service so tomorrow morning we will have it back all cleaned up again :D.