this post is really long. and rated PG.

wow, it seems like years since i''ve blogged. i have to search waaaaay waaaaaaay back in my memory, back to vietnam...

oh yeah - mui ne. ok, so we hopped a bus (again, a local bus, not sure why, but it was a good one, so all was good) to ho chi minh city (formerly known as saigon). we arrived safe and sound, grabbed a taxi to this mystery address given to us by the guy who booked our bus, which was another really good travel agent. we booked our next busses into cambodia - bangkok and found this funky little hotel on the strip. then we went looking for adventure, and adventure we found, in the form of a cyclo (those bicycle rickshaw things) driver named noam.

noam and i struck a deal - a one hour tour for 70,000 dong for me and shea. no problem, not a bad price. noam looked out for us - he took us to a market (for "no money! no money!" for an awesome lunch (hopkins - i thought of you. it was just like the #52 (no peanuts for you) - best spring rolls yet). he got us some weird green tonic for our bazillion bug bites ("no money! souvenier!"). he held our hands like 3 year olds to cross the streets. when it was taking longer than an hour, i said "noam, this is long - no more money, right?" and he said "no problem!". we went to the war remenants musem - no here is where it gets PG rated. this museum holds no punches. it is a very graphic - and very sad - display of the consequences of the vietnam war. it's fairly anti-US, and to be fair, sorry my lovely us friends and relatives, one look at the smiling US soldier beside a pile of dead children, i can't blame them. pictures of napalm burns, of agent orange birth defects, of elderly people and babies being hauled out of hiding in villages and executed, sometimes in the most horrific and torturous ways - it was really upsetting. i shed a few tears and had to walk away a few times. it was heartbreaking. mostly because as i see these people on the streets, and i see kids playing and women gossiping and men playing cards, i think they're people, just like us - and i can't imagine being so cruel. necessary or not - this war was beyond cruel. what threat an 8 month old baby is, i have no idea, but it was all (graphically) laid out in the museum. i'm glad we went - i think that you can't visit a place like this and ignore their very recent pain, it's disrespectful.

so, to ease our minds, we continued our tour (still being told "no problem!" about no more money) and shea spotted a sushi restaurant. oooooooooh did she want sushi. as soon as we walked in the door, i knew our bargaining powers were going out the window. and i don't blame them - our sushi cost as much as their weekly wages, i'm sure. so we got back in our cyclos and noam started to cough. "that's a bad cough you have there" i said. he says "yes, i am very poor. i cannot afford medicine. too poor."

shit.

sure enough, we pull up in front of our last stop, a water puppet show (more later), and noam gave us a whopping bill of 5.5 million dong - each. WHAT? he said that we could pay him 70,000 dong per HOUR. i said no no, you said no more money after one hour, (and besides, that''s even more than 70,000 per hour, the weasly little bastard). this is like $60 DOLLARS. we had a bit of a scrap outside of the water puppet show, he started getting aggressive so we just threw half that at him and walked away. bastard.

the water puppet show was really cool though - it's a set with a little brown icky pond with a temple around it, and these puppeteers are behind and do this crazy little show while others play instruments and provide the voices for the puppets. it's very cool, i have a little video i'll upload when i'm home.

we hauled our sorry (and broke) asses home and went for a beer by our hotel, watched for prostitutes (fun game - spot the pervy westerner paying for lovin') and got up the next day to go into cambodia.

i will not lie to you - i won't miss vietnam. it was a steady stream of buildings and shacks (except for that small part between hoi an and mui ne) and people who just want your money. the people were truly lovely - especially those who wanted nothing from you - and those that did were truly lovely until you refused them, then it wasn't so pretty. everything was so expensive, bartering was no fun and it was just so - busy. but to be fair to vietnam, we rushed through and only hit the busy, touristy places. i wish we had gotten off the beaten track. but now: to cambodia.

this border crossing was incredible. so easy, i just couldn't believe it (this keyboard keeps putting ''s where 's should be and ""s where ''s should be, and i''m getting tired of correcting them, so sorry - just suck it up). our tour company took care of everything, and with the wave of a wand (and goodbye to $25), we were in cambodia. just. like. that.

instantly, i liked cambodia better. rows and rows of farms and wooden houses on stilts, and miles of ponds full of water cabbage and water lillies, it''s truly beautiful. it took my breath away, to tell you the truth. it''s tidy, simple and relaxed, and the people are hilarious. they are so funny, always taking the piss out of one another and out of the tourists, you have to love them. we arrived in phnom penh on cambodia time (that is, 4 hours after we were told we would get there) so we were too late to go to the killing fields. so, we got a hotel, changed our next day bus to noon and went for a walk around the city. truthfully - phnom penh is a crap city - big, dirty, full of beggers, it wasn''t my cup of tea. we ended up by the river trying to have dinner at this great little non-profit dinner place where profit goes to helping orphans (yay orphans). we were constantly deluged by children begging or selling things, i did buy some postcards from an agent orange defect lady who i called "midge" (she was basically a head with a 1 year old body, in a wheelchair) because she was nice and funny. we went for a massage, then i went for another. i know - decadent, right, but i did something to my neck where i can hardly move it side to side, and massage 1 did nothing, and it was only $6. we did find another massage place right by our hotel, so i went for #2, which was far more violent than massage 1, with the toe cracking, knees in back joy that you get from thai massage. it helped a little, though i was sincerely afraid she was going to vomit on me a couple of times. she had the burps something fierce, and a couple of times a little retch came out as she was over me, and i thought ""please god - don''t puke. don''t puke. don''t puke."" she didn''t. but they DID bring a GUY up there, and here i am, all in my ginchies and he comes up and lays on a bed 3 down from me. it was weird, and any relaxation i had going on went right out the window.

the next morning, we got up and hired a moto to take us to the killing fields. we got him to $5 each, no problem. then we said we''d have breakfast first, so we walked around and crossed a busy ass street (again, holding hands like 3 year olds) to this restaurant called ""chez lipps"". with a name like that, they have to have a western breakfast, right? i mean, just some fruit or something. here they all eat beef soup or pig heads or whatever for breakfast. i just wanted some fruit and yogurt with some muesli.

wrong.

wrong wrong wrong.

we got in, they ushered us to this little glassed in section, asked if we wanted coffee. sure. we noticed we were the only non-khmer in the place. hmmm. our coffee came. along with two deep fried spring rolls (huge) and what can only be called a sandwich, two slices of really processed white bread with about 5 small pieces of pork? inside, with some green things. it was the most bizarre thing - we didn''t order, we didn''t ask for anything but coffee. so, we ate it - the spring roll was pretty good (yummy grease at 8 am) but the sandwich sketched me out. shea ate hers. then they brought us this fried dough, kind of like a doughnut with no sugar, as what, dessert i guess? it was so strange. but the whole kit and kaboodle was a whopping $1. total. for both. cheapest breakfast yet.

so we went back and found our moto guy. he ushers us over to his bike, and we say ""but there''s two"". no problem, he says, get on.

ok, here in cambodia, there is no need for a mini van, because entire families ride on motorbikes. i''m not exaggerating in the least - we play this game called ""how many cambies can fit on one moto"" and so far it''s 2 adults and 3 kids. we''ve seen 4 adults too. they''re all cool as a cucumber too, the woman sitting sideways on the back, holding onto nothing, like it''s no big deal.

for us - very big deal.

i didn''t even have to finish the self-sacrificing big sister sentence, ""shea, do you want me to - "" ""YES"" she said. so i got on the back.

so, the shea sandwich headed out to the killing fields. it was actually kind of fun on the way out there, the guy does this all the time, i told myself. no problem. we arrived out there, and this is a little more of the PG-13 for you.

here''s a quick and dirty history of the killing fields - in the 70s, king 1 was overthrown by king 2, who was buddies with the US. he let the US bomb the crap out of the vietnam/cambodia border to flush out the viet cong. this made the farmers angry. very angry. they started a small army, the khmer rouge. it got bigger. it was led by overthrown king 1. king 1 then assigned another guy, a guy by the name of pol pot. PP made the army giant. PP overthrew the king 2. PP decided he wanted this brand new country, one with complacent people with no religion/arts/knowledge/life. so, he took the city dwellers first (the ""free thinkers"") and put them in work camps. anyone with education was immediately executed. only ""poor dumb"" farmers were considered real people. the killing fields are where they took several of the people to execute them. viewer discretion is advised.

there was this peaceful field, full of birds, butterflies, oxen, a school next door. kids playing. in the centre, a large temple, several meters high. stacked with skulls.

skulls of men, women, kids, babies. clothes that were unearthed from their mass graves, washed and piled below. these were the city people - people who 32 years ago were alive, when i was but a twinkle - educated people, children. there was a tree, a tree where - sorry, but it must be told - kids were thrown against to kill them. it was horrible. horrible and sad and sickening. google it and read more about it - it''s so heartbreaking. but here''s what i love about cambodia - the people here, they don''t dwell. they don''t lament on their shit luck, they don''t demand money or pity from anyone. they just want to live their lives, and live them well. they''re the most incredible people, they are funny and caring and nice, and so genuine. they''ve lived through horrors we cannot even imagine. we have a lot to learn from these people.

so, after spending some time hanging about (and being accosted by begger kids as soon as there were trees between the security people and us), we headed back into town. this part of the trip wasn''t as fun - we hit phnom penh rush hour.


this is insanity, motos everywhere, trucks everywhere, each bike with at least 2-3 people on it. weaving in and out, slamming on breaks - i actually started to get a bit scared. the novelty had worn off - this was stupid and i wanted to be back at the guest house pronto. so i distracted myself by watching for weird and wonderful things. a new born baby in the basket of a moto - a dog being carved up, a moto with about 300 pounds of bananas hanging from it - interesting. not going to die today. not. going. to die.
i can see why people get hurt travelling, and people all tut-tut about ""what were they thinking"". it''s like that couple that left their kid in their hotel room while they ate dinner in portugal, and she was kidnapped. everyone judged. but you know what? when you''re somewhere where this stuff is the norm, you just do it, as if you''re invincible. come on, i mean ""when in rome"" isn''t a saying for nothing, right? i would never dream of being 3 on a motorbike in canada. but here, shit, three is NOTHING. but, we''re alive, and that''s all that''s important.

anyway, after about 40 harrowing minutes of riding (and one almost certain crash barely avoided, to which our driver heard, loudly i''m sure, ""FUU************K"" from me and shea), we got back and waited for our bus. another bus. god i''m sick of busses.

this bus ride was quite nice, actually, to siam reap. at one stop, this kid saw shea and knew a softie when he saw one. he was trying to sell her pineapple, which she already had plenty of on the bus. ""pineapple! please, only one million dollars. pineapple! please! yes ok! yes ok!

she kept saying no, then we got back on the bus. about 2 minutes later, i hear her mutter ""shit."".

""what?"" i ask.

""he''s outside the window.""

tap tap tap.

she''s trying not to look, but she does anyway and he says ""PINEAPPLE! PLEASE! ONLY ONE DOLLAR! YES OK! YES OK!!""

shit.

finally, she opens the window, gives him a dollar, he smiles brightly and says ""THANK YOU!"" and runs away happily. now we have two pineapples to eat.

we got into siam reap that night, got a tuk tuk to a guesthouse (called ""wat''s up?"" haha. wat - what. (wat is a temple). it made me laugh). the place is run by these hilarious laid back young cambodian guys, who are always joking with us.

i liked siam reap better instantly - it seems like a small city thought it''s pretty big, and it''s super laid back and funky.

ok i''m going to end the blog there, partly because i''m tired of typing, partly because i''m starving, and party because i need more water (we found $1.50 gin and tonics last night - but that''s another post). plus we''re doing day 2 of temple tours today, and i need to go get ready.

over and out, cambodian love to you all,
tasha.