Back in Vietnam

Hello everyone. We are now back in Vietnam, the land of delicious coffee. Not that the coffee in Cambodia was bad, it's just that the Vietnamese coffee is so incredibly good!

We took the 8:00 a.m. bus out of Siem Reap and hit the road for Phnom Penh. We had heard that you don't need much time there, and as our vacation time is ticking away, we wanted to get back to Vietnam and the Mekong Delta.

The 6 hour bus ride was a treat (not!!) It was air con, kind of, but it came with a tv and blaring Cambodian music videos. I was glad for my ear plugs!

We stopped after about 3 1/2 hours for a 30 minute break. I had just pointed out to Mark a description in the guidebook of a town in the vicinity of the bus route that specialized in the cooking of big spiders and other insects. Sure enough, all around the bus, were swarms of people with huge trays of deep fried spiders and grasshoppers and I'm not sure what else. Funny, they didn't really "bug" the tourists to buy!

There were many people selling all sorts of other things though, like pineapples, palm fruit, and sticky rice with beans. First we tried the palm fruit. It was pretty dull. The rice stick snacks were not bad, and the cute little pineapple seller worked so diligently at selling us the pineapples that Mark finally gave in after the 30 minutes and bought some from her.

We arrived at PP at around 1:30 to find hordes of tuk tuk drivers ready to take us "anywhere in the city for $1.00". I kept a close eye on my bag with my wallet in it, as I was sure that this had potential to be prime pick pocket territory. We escaped unscathed, and headed to the very pleasant, zen-like hotel. And then, lunch! We were starved (the pineapples are small here.) Our hotel (the Bodhi Tree) had a great restaurant, so Khmer red curry with pork was it for us. As usual, very, very yummy. Emily, a lone traveller from Washington DC joined us and we had a good time trading travelling stories. She was lucky enough to go to the circus (from Guinea!) the night before!! Sadly, it was only in town for one night.

Off to the travel agent to book our tickets for our Mekong River trip. After about an hour of discussing options, purchasing tickets, and waiting for said tickets to arrive, we were free to explore PP. I was feeling a little short of money, so it was time to cash that last traveller's cheque. A local referred us to "Lucky Motorcycle" - they cash them apparently. We couldn't find it, so ended up at Western Union beside "Lucky Supermarket" (sorry Mom, still no cochineal. We're trying!)

Fully loaded with more cash - we went for Happy Hour by the riverside. After 2 mediocre mojitos at the Riverside Bar, we went to the FCC - Foreign Correspondent's Club. It was hopping with all sorts of folks: tourists, ex-pats, and locals. There were a number of haunting photos in the stairwell on the way up. This is a country that has seen more than it's share of violence and suffering.

We ended up at a Khmer restaurant for dinner after happy hour, and ordered frog's legs. They do taste like chicken.

This morning we had our first ever 3-up scooter ride. I think it was actually better than taking two separate scooters. We went across town to the Imperial Palace to see the Silver Pagoda. The floor is covered in silver tiles (each weighing in at 1kg) but sadly, they have covered most of it up. There is also an emerald buddha sitting atop a high pedestal (kind of hard to see) and a 97kg person sized gold buddha studded with thousands of diamonds, the biggest reportedly weighing in at 25 carats.

Culture completed, it was time for the Russian Market. After some yummy food, we strolled around and saw lots of familiar brands of clothes. Calvin Klein, Gap, American Eagle anyone? Either copies or "fallen off the truck", it was there by the truckload. Of course, I'm size 2XL, and there were limited supplies of that. Sadly, there were some really cute Puma shoes, but not in size gargantuan.

Time to head off to the boat. The boat was nothing special - very utilitarian and good to move people quickly from point a to point b. We motored down the Mekong river out of PP and I was soon lulled to sleep by the repetitive sound of the engine. It was way better than the loud music on the bus, that's for sure! It was interesting to clear customs by boat. We got off the boat, passed through Cambodian customs, got back on the boat for 5 minutes, got off the boat, passed through Vietnamese customs, waited in a holding area, went back to the boat, picked up our bags, put them through an x-ray machine (did I mention we were in the middle of nowhere?) and put them back on the boat. We were headed for a little town called Chau Doc.

Now that we've checked into our hotel, arranged our 3 day Mekong Delta tour (including a homestay with a family) had a snack at the market (I had the BEST EVER sandwich! Nothing like fried wontons and fish balls on bread with some magic sauce!!) and updated the blog, it is definitely time for a hard earned beverage. I'm sure we'll find some cheap beer in this town somewhere!!

PS The weather has changed, and it appears that rainy season is upon us. At least, at the moment. It's been raining for the last few hours, and although it's not monsooning, it is wet. I'm not complaining in the least. I hear the weather in Vancouver hasn't been so nice lately!

Cheers!