Hanoi – evening of Oct 19:

We are not really fans of big cities, so that has to be taken into account for our reaction.  We only stayed in Hanoi for a little over a day, and were glad to leave it behind.

For starters, we arrived to find nobody waiting for us.  Our last piece of luggage was the very last one off the plane, which had us worrying a bit, then we went to the waiting area to find it empty.  Everyone had already been met and left by then.  Before giving up, I went over to International, and found our guide waiting there.  For some reason he thought we were coming in from Singapore rather than Saigon, even though he had the flight number right there on his board.

As we left the airport, our eyes stung, and we realized we could not see the sun even though it was the middle of the afternoon.  This is harvest time and the surrounding farms burn their rice fields after harvest, which fills the air with acrid smoke.  We got up for a sunrise photograph from the hotel roof the next morning, only to find there was no sunup.  The sky gradually got lighter, but we never saw the sun all day.  No clouds. Just lots and lots and lots of smoke…

Thursday, Oct 20:

After an excellent breakfast, we led out on Thursday for a tour of the city.  We commented on not seeing tuk-tuks in town, though they were swarming in Cambodia. Our guide (“Q”) told us that only disabled vets were allowed to run them, and that others had to have traditional car taxis.  His explanation for this was that tuk-tuks take too much traffic space, but he seemed unfazed with the fact that the cars that replaced them took a lot more road room (the first of many times we wondered about his deductive powers, or how much of his talk was based on knowledge vs guessing).

I noticed that every scooter rider (of which there are 1,000,000 in the Hanoi city of 3,000,000 people) wore a helmet.  Q told us that the fine for not wearing a helmet was 5 times the cost of buying the helmet.  I noticed though that the helmets are pretty useless.  They look like hats, with only a small amount of padding.  They would never be legal in America.  In fact, many people continue to wear their helmets as hats after they have parked their bikes.

Q is a True Socialist Patriot, and we got The Party Line all day long.  We were told of the heroic deeds of Ho Chi Min,  and shown the monument to where they shot down John McCain.  He considered it a major success to have shot McCain down and captured him right in Hanoi.  Q was proud of keeping McCain for so many years.  When I mentioned that Americans considered torture to be an act of barbary that gained nothing, but was reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge the Vietnamese had kicked out of Cambodia, Q clearly did not understand a word I was saying. We were also told of the glorious act of disbanding the “parties that caused disunity” and replaced them with The Peoples Party, which “only believes in harmony.”

That night we went to a Water Puppet show.  Q told us that the actors had to learn to be really good at holding their breath, and had to time each act so they could get behind the curtain in time to take a breath of air.  Right…  It was pretty obvious in watching the show, that the puppets were controlled by wire rods from behind the curtain.  In fact, in the final scene, all the puppet controllers waded out with puppets over their heads, and the water didn’t even come to their waist (with dry torsos) — pretty obviously not deep enough for a puppet master to have hidden, even if that were a possibility up to that point.

By then we had also heard that “Vietnam has no unemployment, no crime, and people are very polite and stop to let pedestrians cross the street.”  Since all of those were so obviously false, we already understood that we needed a very large grain of salt for any “fact” that Q gave us. We were never able to get him to really understand that we were not interested in standing in front of a mausoleum and lining up with the others to take another picture home to toss.  Basically Hanoi was a mostly throw-away day.

Oh yes. Then there was the train from Hanoi to Lo Cai.  We had first class tickets, and Q insisted that all our luggage would easily fit under our beds.  Not in a million years.  If we had known just how small and cramped the quarters were, we would have left most of the luggage behind in Hanoi, since we will be returning through there in a couple days anyway.  Instead, we were stuck 4-to-a-VERY-cramped room, with luggage that would not fit under the bed even when fully disassembled.  Fortunately we were with a young couple from Israel who said it was OK to leave 2 bags in the middle of the floor, even though the luggage then blocked half the aisle.

This was our first time on a sleeper train.  We thought it might be interesting.  Not like an American train at all though.  Rough, back-and-forth rocking, air conditioning turned to freezing and out of our control (just like the Cuban trains in that regards), and tiny bunks that I just barely fit in, with both head and feet touching walls, even though I am only 5’10”.  Obviously designed for shorter Vietnamese, even though the 1st Class cabins are exclusively used by foreigners.  Oh well, one night isn’t too bad, and I was surprised that I slept better than I feared (though Evelyn said she did not sleep well, and was watching the hours go by on her watch).

Friday, Oct 21:

We were met by Ziang in Lo Cai, and were taken to breakfast in Sapa, which was quite good.  The drive from Lo Cai to Sapa was 20 miles that climbed from 1000′ to 6000′ in the hills.  We started in heavy tulle fog, where we could not see across the street.  Finally around 5000′ we climbed above the fog and had a brief look at a beautiful landscape — which was soon swallowed in smoke.  Sure enough, harvest is just finishing here too, and the fields are all being burned.  The smell of smoke is in the air, and you can’t see more than a hundred yards before everything becomes obscured by the smoke.  Too bad, because it really looks like this could be glorious scenery if there was a sun that could pierce the smoke.

Ziang’s command of English is pretty basic, but he pretends to understand more than he does.  I quickly learned that if I asked the same question twice, I would get two completely different answers.  We were trying to figure out what to do today, and he said we had to bring all our luggage that we would use at the homestay tonight.  But then he said we only needed our cameras and hats.  The next sentence said
we needed it all again.  After 5 requests for clarification, I thought he said we needed it all, but Evelyn thought he said we didn’t.  We gave up… and hauled our computer and overnight clothes over a 5 mile cross-coounty hike that ended up right back at the hotel — meaning we could (should) have left it there until later and picked it up when we resumed with a car.  

Turns out we really did need to carry the full packs for the last segment of the road that afternoon.  The confusion appears to be that we did NOT need them in the morning, but DID need them in the afternoon.  Ziang could not make that clear, or did not understand my questions (I really tried to use very basic words, as I learned in the TESOL program I finished last month).  The result is that he sometimes told me I needed the pack, and other times told me I did not need the pack, and never once said one was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon… so we did a full pack all day…

We went through several villages in the Muong Hoa Valley with different minority tribes, including the Black H’mongs, the Tay,the D’zay and some 53 ethnic groups, and I am afraid the names kinda melded together for me.  I know we went through Sapa, trekked to Cat Cat and I think we are now in Tavan village after a 5-hour trek up and down rice fields and along rivers, but I am not really sure.  We are somewhere in the North Vietnamese hills as I write the end of this blog posting though.

Though the people were interesting in appearance, they were somewhat disappointing in another way.  There are signs all over the villages (in English) saying “Tourists welcome” with many variants and expansions.  Yet, the most common response to a camera was “One Dolla” or “No mony, no piktur!”  We were also followed by an entourage of girls (boys don’t work in these towns) hawking wares, and literally following us for miles, then complaining “you took my picture, you have to buy or pay me for picture.”  The last time we were that badly inundated and hounded was in Tibet in 1988.  Similar costumes too, making the similarity all the stronger.

In the end, this was an interesting leg of the trip, that resulted in some good photos.  The difficulty in conversing with our guide, coupled with the incessant hounding of the local beggars made it rather unpleasant though.  I will be glad to be back with a guide that I can talk to, and in an area where I am not constantly hounded by beggars posing as vendors (selling trinkets that have no value whatsoever other than to disguise the begging).

Heading off to bed now.  Can’t send this until we reach a hotel with Internet, but am wrapping this one up, or it will never go out.

We were generally very happy with all our hotels throughout Cambodia and Vietnam, with one very glaring exception.  This post is really only of interest to anyone considering going to Can Tho, Vietnam, and is a warning to avoid the Golf Hotel.

This is the letter of complaint I sent to our trip organizer.  Warren (the vagabond organizer we mention frequently in the blog of this trip) was very surprised we had this much trouble, and promised to have it translated and forwarded to the Golf Hotel management.

——————-

We have generally been very happy with this tour so far.  The guides have all been excellent, and the accommodations quite nice — with the single exception of the Golf Hotel.  I would never recommend that hotel to any future guest.  I expect that Mai has already told you of our unhappiness with them, but I thought it best to communicate the reasons directly.

We are pretty flexible in our travels, and don’t mind basic and noisy accommodations when that is what is being paid for, as was the case last night with the first homestay.  However, when I am staying in a 4-star hotel, and paying for a 4-star, I do not accept service more appropriate for a 2-star, which is what we got.

On first appearance, the Golf is a fabulous luxury hotel.  The rooms are spacious and look very good.  This is definitely a “beauty is only skin deep” situation though.  I can’t remember the last time we were in a high end hotel and had this many points of contention upon checking out.

1) Noise.  Unbelievable for a hotel of that type.  This disco is cranked up so loud that, even several floors away, it was going thump-thump-thump through the walls and floors.  You could not hear the music, only feel it reverberating.  Until 2AM Sunday night!  Neither of us was able to fall asleep until they finally turned the boombox off at 2AM.  The next day they explained that it was really not their fault and that there were 3 weddings that night, and the weddings were supposed to close at midnight, but kept going, and really this will not happen again, because there is no disco on Monday night.

2) Noise round two.  They lied. There was disco Monday night again.  It was quiet when we left for dinner around 8:30PM.  When we returned at 10PM, the thump-thump-thump was back.  We figured they told us the disco closed at midnight, and I really didn’t want to go to the trouble of changing rooms for 2 hours of noise, so we let it go.  Besides, we walked the halls and found the difference in noise was not that great from one end to the other.  Lie #2 — it did not end at midnight.  It lasted again until almost 1:30, when it was finally turned off.

3) Breakfast.  The poorest breakfast of any hotel we have stayed at yet.  No selection to speak of, and the guy making my omelet walked away to do something else while it was cooking, leaving me with a very dry omelet.  This 4-star had 1/10 the breakfast as the 3-star in Siem Riep or Phnom Phen.

4) Water.  Promised 2 bottles per day, but did not replace them.  We found no bottles Monday, so went into the fridge.  Then they wanted to charge us for the mini-bar water. I told them to stuff it and refused to pay.

5) Shampoo and soap.  Not refreshed.  Because there was about a quarter bottle of each left on Monday morning, they chose not to replace them. That meant that Evelyn barely had enough for her shower, and I had no soap at all.  Was forced to just rub water on my body to get as clean as I could.

6) Toiletries in general.  For supplies that were completely used up, they replaced them.  We had one Q-tip left (out of 4), so that was not refreshed either.  Seemed we needed to hide the remnants of the prior day if we were to get replacements.  I have never had that happen in a 2-star hotel, let alone a 4-star.

7) Massage.  Evelyn had a foot massage Sunday night.  The woman spent the time watching a horror flick on TV, giving Evelyn nothing more than muscle memory response.  The woman paid no attention to Evelyn’s response when something was uncomfortable, or when she wanted more attention somewhere.  The disco was also booming so loud it was definitely NOT a relaxing experience.  Then, when Evelyn gave the woman a $2 tip for a $10 massage, the woman actually asked for more.  Evelyn declined, but frankly I would not have given any tip at all for service like that.  I had planned on going down later for a back massage, but chose not to after hearing her experience.

I was not taking notes as this went on, and there were probably other things that also went bad, but this is what I remember Wednesday morning when writing this.  Again, when I pay for a 4-star hotel, I do not expect these problems.  It is fairly common to have one or even two things that do not go right at a hotel, but this is the first time I have had this many complaints from a single 2-night stay at a 4-star hotel.

I recommend you remove them from your accommodation list.  They simply do not come even close to living up to their 4-star billing. If we send friends to Vietnam for vacation, you can be assured we will tell then to avoid this hotel like a plague.

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Between nights with no electricity, nights with no internet, and simply nights with no personal energy, a week has gone by since the last mailing.  I wrote dribs and drabs here and there, but am many days behind.  Let’s see how far we can catch up tonight, though I can’t send it out till tomorrow at the earliest, since we are at a homestay up in the hills of North Vietnam, with one lone electrical plug that I have to scoot all the furniture to reach, and no internet.  This is easiest my longest post to date, since it covers the longest period so far.

I thought the progression of guides thus far was an interesting review (for me) of where we have been so far:

1) Dave was our first guide in Cambodia.  He is a Brit, so speaks flawless English.  He is also an expert photographer that knows just where to go for the best photographic images, and gives good ongoing advice on composition and how to look at things.

2) Sorn was our local guide in Siem Reap, while Dave was the photography guide.  Sorn was able to tell us how to get around floods to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, and helped interact with the locals.  Most of my interaction during this time was with Dave, though it was clear that Dave often relied on Sorn for these aspects.

3) Warren isn’t an official guide, but he has come into our trip a couple times for drinks and dinner, and he is the one that arranged our Vietnam itinerary. Another Brit, with flawless English and an excellent knowledge of the region, plus a lifetime of fascinating vagabond stories.

4) Ta was our next guide.  A native Cambodian, he spoke excellent English, and had innate photographic talent.  He first took us to a typical tourist site, but when we explained that was not what we wanted, he shifted gears quickly and understood just what we wanted.

5) Once we crossed over into South Vietnam, we met up with Mai.  A native Vietnamese, she has advanced degrees in both English and Russian. She was a joy to travel with over a period of 4 days.  Again speaking flawless English, and quickly gaining an understanding of the types of images we were interested in making.  The only “training” we had to do was to convince her to order less food.  (see below)

So far, our guides have been nothing short of outstanding, with every one an expert and joy to be with.

Now, back to the beginning…

[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – Off with his beard!
[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – Let it Pour, Let it Pour, Let it Pour
[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – We are Millionaires!
[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – The High cost of Vietnam
[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – Too Much Food!
[Travel] Vietnam Day 6 – The Mekong River is Disappearing!

So many titles.  I couldn’t choose which to use, so am giving them all! 🙂

Monday, Oct 17:

We are now in South Vietnam. (Yeah, I wrote that a week ago…) Our local guide, Mai, commented that I looked like Santa Claus with the white beard.  OK, that was enough — off it came!  Evelyn wanted me to keep the mustache.  I am not convinced it looks good, but Mai commented the next morning that she likes guys with a little hair on their upper lip.  With two women ganging up on me, what am I to do but follow orders? 🙂

There is no flooding going on in the Southern region of Vietnam, where we are.  Each afternoon, the skies start to darken though, and the wind starts to blow.  Within minutes, rain starts.  The locals rush under cover, or bring out their makeshift tarp covers while the sky opens and rain falls by the bucketload.  Time to find a nice bar, order a fruit smoothie and watch the torrents unfold.  Within half an hour, and sometimes less, the rain stops, the tarps are folded back, the windows unshuttered, we finish our tea or smoothie and continue our wandering.  The air is fresh, the sidewalks are washed, and you realize what a good idea these daily quick thundershowers are.

In Cambodia, everyone wanted US Dollars.  When we entered Vietnam, Mai (our local guide) told us that locals mostly wanted Vietnam Dongs and that we should convert some money.  We went to the hotel desk and gave them a $100 bill, asking for change.  Imagine our surprise when we were given a fat stack of bills totaling 2,000,000 Dongs.  Turns out the exchange rate is 20,000 Dongs for $1, so that 100,000 Dong bill is really only $5.  Oh well, at least we are millionaires in Dongs…

We were warned about the high cost of living in Vietnam, compared to Cambodia.  Whew, were they ever right!  Dinners that cost us $2 in Cambodia were now double the price.  We had to pay up to 80,000 Dongs for a dinner now.  Oh yeah, that is $4.  Even a doubling of the price still makes it a bargain by any home standards.

A bigger problem is the Bigger Food though.  Every meal results in almost as much food on the table for the 2 of us as Evelyn’s parents used to supply for a family of 14 — and I always said her parents supplied too much food back then. Invariably the host comes by and wonders why we didn’t like the food, when just one of the 6 or 7 dishes would have been more than enough for a complete meal for both of us.  I fear we finally had to just stand firm and insult our hosts and tell our guide that we were not going to eat that much, and PLEASE do not order so much food.  We have finally made progress on that front, since today’s meal (lunch in Saigon) was only twice as much as we could eat.

The population of Vietnam is exploding, and there simply is not enough land to support everyone.  We have taken several private boat tours along the Mekong River over the past few days.  A common element is to see homes along the banks building retaining walls out into the river.  They build these walls, then dredge the river to provide landfill as they turn the banks of the river into more arable land.  The new land is very fertile and is perfect for small farms and nurseries.  There were places we saw where this had been done 2 or 3 times already, with another barrier in the process of being built further out.  I fear that if this is not controlled, the Mekong will turn into a creek, probably with disastrous flooding consequences.

We went to an the Phung Hiep floating market in Can Tho. There were numerous semi-permanent large houseboats that made the core of the market.  They tended to be roped together 2 or 3 or 4 wide.  We were told those were the boats of an extended family, with a son’s family in one boat and daughter’s family in another.  

Many of the boats had a bamboo pole sticking up from the bow, with the item being sold tied to it.  So we saw one pole with a potato, and sure enough, they were selling sacks of potatoes. Another had a watermelon on the stick, or pineapple (we had a pineapple-on-a-stick as
a snack) or cabbage, or… pretty much any food you could want.  Smaller boats were zooming around as floating bars (selling drinks) or smaller amounts of odd foods. Other small boats were the customers, and they would buy supplies, then later go down the tributary channels and blow their horn to let the locals know their floating supermarket had arrived.

One surprising thing we saw back on land was that many woman wore full masks over their faces while riding their scooters.  Mai pointed out that many of them also had full length sleeves and long pants to avoid sun exposure — all in an effort to maintain a fair skin.  The Vietnamese standard of beauty is the fairest skin possible — very much like a Caucasian.  Mai told us that her skin is no longer fair, and that she feels she is not as pretty as the other girls that have gotten skin-whitening or were born with fairer skin.  I assured her that the natural olive complexion of SE Asians was considered highly desirable in America.

After the water market, we visited a market on land.  Food was the primary commodity, with the same skinned frogs (though not hopping this time) we saw in Cambodia — this time on the tray right next to live frogs with their legs banded.  The customer could decide to take home the live frogs, or have a “prepared dinner” with the frogs already skinned.

Other items were for sale there too though.  One thing we bought was a thick stack of $100 US bills — for about 20 cents.  They are a surprisingly good representation, though the paper was clearly wrong.  If you looked close though, the back had the “In God We Trust” along with a Vietnamese phrase that translated to “The Bank of Hell.”  Darn. Guess I won’t be passing those around home anytime soon… These are used by locals at funerals, where they burn (fake) money so the deceased will be able to buy stuff in the afterlife.

We had the afternoon to ourselves, and walked down to a recommended restaurant.  After lunch, we decided to walk around town.  Before we had gone a block, the wind whipped up and the sky opened, so we dashed under a near overhang.

After standing under that overhang for a few minutes, we decided to retreat to the lunch restaurant.  Dashing the block through the torrents, we returned to our seats and ordered a fresh round of fruit smoothies, and watched the show unfold.  About then the waiters started dropping tarps over the edge of all the open areas to shield the tables from the storm.  We stopped them from closing us in, so we could watch the storm rage.

As expected, about 30 minutes later the rain suddenly stopped — you could literally see it recede down the street as the rain moved on to clean other areas.  The waiters rolled the tarps back up, the world went on its now cleaner way, and we sauntered off to buy our last Vietnam purchases — some belts and a new wallet.  (We aren’t much into souvenir hunting these days)

We continued to be amazed by just how friendly everyone is.  Even the occasional person that signaled “no photo” was smiling and polite when turning away, and they were the exception.  Most people would laugh and allow us to photograph.  We would then show them their picture on the back of the LCD, and they would laugh some more and call over their nearest friends.  The others would then be even more cooperative in letting us shoot their photos.

Tuesday, Oct 18:

Tuesday found us traveling along the Mekong River again.  First stop was a brick factory.  I had rather expected to be bored there, since I had seen brick factories in other countries.  This one was fascinating though.  The scale was much larger than others we had seen around SE Asia, with 100,000 of a mold being made in a single batch, and the surplus 5,000 or so (these places always make extra in case of spoilage) being stored in a huge warehouse that was fun to wander through.  We also walked into a huge empty kiln, and the size was impressive.  Seeing another kiln in the cooling process, with the huge mountains of bricks with several hundred per layer, and at least 100 layers deep for a single batch really made you realize the size of the operation.

After a brief stay at the Tam Ho bonsai nursery (with bonsai trees reaching 10 feet tall?) for lunch, we headed to our first homestay.

Turns out that “homestay” in Vietnam is what we would call a Bed & Breakfast in America.  We had expected more the “stay in the village elder’s home” as we did in the hill tribes of Thailand 10+ years ago.  This was downright civilized in comparison.  Mai said it was “pretty basic”, but we were pleasantly surprised to discover we had a private room with electricity, a private shower/toilet, and even running hot water.  Wow — that is “luxury basic” compared to what we were expecting.

While there, we were invited to help prepare dinner.  We shredded the vegetables, I sliced the crinkled potatoes that would become french fries (though the chef overcooked them for our taste).  I then learned how to make spring rolls.  I must brag and say that the spring rolls I made that night were the best such rolls either of us has ever eaten!  (Seriously, they were quite good, and I’m sure it must have been my wrapping that made the difference…)

As we were eating dinner, boats continued powering down the river, with a major accompaniment of racket.  Mai said they were heading home after a day of working with tourists or doing their market sales.  She didn’t say they would end soon, but we both thought it was implied.

NOT!  All night long, at least once an hour, a HUGE boat would come powering right into our room.  Or at least that is what it sounded like.  The racket was amazing!  In the morning, Mai told us that boats that were running overloaded would often run at night when the police did not patrol the river, so they could carry more than was legally allowed.  Sure enough, while eating breakfast, one late runner came by with the water up to the gunnel, at ris
k of swamping if another boat came past the other way and created too large a wake.

Wednesday, Oct 19:

Wednesday we continued down the Mekong, and stopped at another interesting factory — this time making pop-rice.  I had never heard of it before.  We have popcorn at home, of course, but this was pop-rice.  Sure enough, they heated a huge wok (maybe 4 feet across) with some oil in the bottom.  When it was hot, they tossed in some rice, and started stirring.  Within seconds, you heard the familiar pop-pop-pop, and could reach in and pull out some pop-rice as they continued until the popping slowed down — again, just like with popcorn.  They then put it in other woks to combine with various flavorings, another wok to add something or other (I missed the name) that glued the rice together, then cut it into blocks.  From there it was wrapped and sold, looking much like the rice cake we see in America, though not quite tasting the same.

This factory also made snake wine (aka rice wine) — with a twist.  Their cheap bottles just had the wine, but the (slightly) more expensive bottles had a real cobra in them, with the head expanded in the strike position.  The  bottles have tiny top holes, like you would see in a water bottle, so how the heck did they get the cobra in there?

They first fill the bottle with some water.  Catch a live cobra and get it to crawl onto a stick that has one end in the bottle.  The cobra will crawl down the stick and right into the bottle(!).  It then gets worried about the water and rights itself with head up, so the head is out of the water.  Next they put a mouse in front of the bottle, which causes the cobra to expand its neck into the familiar striking pose, as it prepares to eat.  At that point, they put a cork in the bottle, and the cobra suffocates.  Once it is dead, they drain the water, and put in the rice wine.  They sometimes then insert a freshly killed scorpion and place it with tweezers into the the cobra’s mouth, to finish the tableau.

I bought a bottle to take to work when I get home… 🙂

That day we also visited another floating market (Can Bo), though this one was smaller and we didn’t spend much time, a bee farm that made honey, and a coconut candy factory.  Then it was onto a flight to Hanoi in the North.

I had always been taught that the Aztec king Montezuma never left Mexico.  Well, I now have plenty of proof that the history books are wrong.  He clearly made it to Cambodia… or at least his revenge has…  Evelyn says that I have always had an iron stomach, but it appears to be developing some rust spots.

Friday we visited Tonle Sap Lake, which has a floating village.  It seemed strange to see a floating village flooded, but the flood was pretty severe. They have electric wires going down their “main street” which is in the large lake.  We were not able to go down most streets because the water was so high that the power lines were within a few feet of the water surface, and our boat would have surely electrocuted us and killed the power to the town.  

Most of the homes are actually on poles rather than floating.  Their floors are normally several meters above the water surface, but the floods had risen into their homes.  They coped by simply raising the floor higher and higher to keep their belongings out of the water.  The flood was so high though, that their floors were now within 4 or 5 feet of the roof, so they could not even stand up inside.  We had initially planned on having lunch at a restaurant there, but it was flooded to the point where they could not serve food.

We had also originally planned to go out onto the main lake to watch the fisherman, but the winds were too high and we were told it was too dangerous, so we had to abort that portion of the tour.

The children in Cambodia all have free elementary school.  However, there are so many people that the schools cannot handle them all, so they each get only half a day education, going to either a morning or afternoon session.  On the lake, we saw boat after boat leaving the school with kids in their starched white uniforms rowing home, usually 3 to 5 kids per boat.

Driving towards Phnom Phen, we stopped for quick snack — of roasted tarantula.

They barely look like the spiders you think of when the word tarantula is spoken.  They are black, shriveled, and piled high. Hundreds in a single vendor’s pan. You have to choose which of three varieties you want, as each has a different texture and taste.  I let our guide choose mine.  When you order one, they roast it again so you can eat it warm.  Yum…  not…  Tasted like burned toast.  One of those things I am glad to say I tried once, so I can politely decline next time… 🙂   I was also offered roasted cricket and roasted cockroach, but I decided I really wasn’t all that hungry…

Traveling on, we took a small detour to a historic bridge, where we found half a dozen teenage boys jumping into the river.  Seeing our cameras, they turned into instant hams and jumped over and over from the bridge, each trying to outdo the other in their comic jumps.  As hot as it was, I was sorely tempted to ditch the camera and join them, but we had to get moving again.

Saturday morning we visited the central market in Phnom Phen.  It was just the kind of local food market we like to visit around the world. Mountains of chickens, beef, fish, fruits and vegetables all being sold to the locals for their daily meals.  Some of the food was unique to Asia, with fish squirming on the ground, being picked up, then beheaded when a customer chose one to assure fresh fish.  

And then there were the frogs.  Something we had never seen before.  One vendor had three large piles of skinned frogs, sorted by size.  He had to keep grabbing them and putting them back because they were still hopping around!  They reminded me of cutting off the head of a chicken on the farm as a kid and watching the body run around the yard until it finally fell over.  These were skinned, and their heads completely cut off, but the bodies were still hopping like they were running from my net (I used to go down to the creek as a kid and catch frogs — much to the dismay of my mother at the time).

We were there in the morning when piles of everything were high.  I asked our guide what the vendors did with any leftover food, and he assured us there is almost never any food at the end of the day.  As the market closing nears, the vendors start bargaining fiercely to sell the last of their product at whatever they can get.  People that want the best choice and are willing to pay “top dollar” (meaning $1 for more food that you could possibly eat in a meal) would come in the morning.  Those that wanted to save money and were willing to take the leftovers came later in the day.

80% of Cambodians live below the poverty line and are living hand-to-mouth, so saving 50 cents really is important to many of them.  While you can see the poverty everywhere you look, it is still sometimes hard to remember that fact, because the Cambodians we met were so universally friendly and seemed happy to all outward appearances.  Of course, we don’t speak Cambodian, and weren’t able to interact with very many more than polite exchanges when the camera was pointed, but we certainly never saw any indication of the hopelessness that seems prevalent among the poor in American cities.

We then visited S21, which was an interrogation center of the Khmer Rouge.  We have been to Dachau in Poland, but this was far more depressing. It is almost amazing just how depraved people can become and reminds us that we are but a short history from our violent animal past.  There were 7 million Cambodians when the Khmer Rouge came to power.  When Vietnam finally invaded and liberated the country (the term every Cambodian we talked to used), the population had dropped to 4 million less than 4 years later (197
5 to 1979).  The Khmer Rouge had killed 40% of the entire population in their short reign.  They made the Nazis look like amateurs both in the volume of killing and level of sadism.  I ended up asking the tour to be terminated halfway through, as it was simply too distressing.

Warren — our favorite vagabond guide — took us out to the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Phnom Phen for drinks and then out to dinner at a local restaurant, Empire, owned  by an English expat friend of his for spicy pasta and his favorite red curry noodles.  

Though the floods have caused several of our original planned tours to be cancelled, Peace of Angkor (the company we used to organize this trip) has been instantly responsive to setting up replacements.  Anyone wanting a personal tour of Cambodia and/or Vietnam will be happy with this group.

I thought when I started this trip, that I would be sending one of these updates daily… maybe every other day at most.  Not a chance!  Getting up at 5AM for sunrise photography, getting back just in time to shower before a show, coming back to unload the photos from our cameras and then trying to keyword and rate them (We had 3102 photos in the first 4 days).  We are falling behind on doing that before collapsing to sleep, let alone being able to write much.  I keep forgetting that I married a wife who believes no vacation is good enough unless I need a vacation to recuperate when I get back! 🙂

The floods continued until this morning (Thursday), but are now starting to subside.  We have lost two cars to the flood so far.  The first developed a really serious whining sound, and was taken to the shop before it stranded us.  The second car (Wed) actually did strand us as it stopped in the middle of the street twice.  The third time it totally died — at least it had the decency to do so at a restaurant, so we had lunch while they retrieved a third car.  Turned out both the first two got water where water ain’t supposed to be, and needed repairs to get them road worthy again.

Up until 2 or 3 years ago, there were literally no “rules of the road” here.  Most drivers are still not licensed, and the driving reflects that.  The only rules of the road currently appears to be

    1) thou shalt never stop — keep moving
    2) the bigger you are, the more you have right of way
    3) never give in to anyone — see #1

Food here is amazing, and amazingly cheap.  We had a very nice dinner for 3 people last night, and including drinks it came to less than $10!  The beef and chicken are both on the tough side in many places, but the fish is always excellent, and today we had beef skewers that were some of the best I have ever had — and they cost $2 for more than we could possibly eat.

We have seen more temples than I ever imagined possible.  Angkor Wat is the grand-daddy of them all, but was rather disappointing from a photography point of view. Ta Prohm was the most interesting photographically, with giant trees having taken over, their roots interwoven with the stones of the temple.

We have had a massage here the last three nights at the hotel.  A full hour costs $8, and the masseuse was quite good.  They want to give a full body massage though, and I had the hardest time getting them to understand I just wanted a back massage (my back was in agony after lugging too much camera equipment for too long a distance over too many hours yesterday).  Once I got it understood though, I walked away downright limp and with a back that was fit for another day.

Yesterday we did some walking around town and went to a restaurant not far from the hotel.  While there, it started to rain.  No, that doesn’t convey it.  The sky opened and god dumped a very large bucket on us.  The amount of water was astounding!  We had gone to a part of town that was not flooded, but within the 30 minute gully washer, the streets were under 18″ of water.  With the drains already overloaded from the flood just a few blocks away, there was nowhere for this water to go… so it stayed…

When we arranged this trip, we communicated both with the owner — Dave, a sometimes professional photographer — and with his chief marketing sidekick — Warren.  Dave has been taking us around on the tours, and is a bit of an odd duck,  An Englishman by birth, he moved to Cambodia in 2003 and decided to stay.  If you want to learn the techniques of photography and composition, he is a good instructor.  As it happens, we are advanced enough in those areas that his occasional reminders are useful, but not key. Rather, we are relying on his knowing where to go for the best photographs.  Unfortunately, the record floods that have occurred over the past 3 weeks have meant that many of the best places are not accessible.  He has been extremely accommodating though and responded to every request we have made almost before we made them.

We met Warren last night when he picked us up and took us out to dinner.  He is a character with a life story to make any vagabond jealous.  He started as a civil engineer in England, moved to America for a few years, returned to England, and decided he was bored and wanted to see the world.  He bought a one year round-the-world airline ticket, sold all his belongings and went traveling.  He has lots of stories from those travels.  He then wanted to “give something back” and volunteered with a well-digging project for delivering fresh water to outlying villages in Cambodia.  He fell in love with the country, fell into tour guiding as he became an expert, and decided to live in Cambodia for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is he now has a Cambodian girlfriend).

Yesterday we visited a “floating fish market” that moves around from time to time.  Since the region was completely flooded, the major boat tours that were usually at a boat dock were now anchored on the side of the street. An occasional tour bus would show up, and carts pulled by water buffalo took the tourists from the bus to the temporary dock in the middle of the street.  Meanwhile, the fish mongers just dumped their fish on planks and let them flop around while customers negotiated prices and took home dinner.  The fish were certainly fresh, and likely caught on the side of the road — aka the river…

Today we went to the Phnom Kulen waterfall with a temple at the top for photography, which is also considered the most holy place in Cambodia.  Unfortunately, the waterfall was at its highest level in decades but was not all that interesting photographically. We also encountered an 8-year old kid enroute to the falls at the banana fruit stand who presented countless poses that any portrait photographer would die for.

The road there was largely destroyed by the rains and floods, and a 2 hour drive took 4 hours to get there. To our surprise there were a couple of 2-wheel drive taxis that also managed to make it up the road to the falls.  They didn’t fare so well coming down…  We left after them an
d found one of them stuck in the mud about halfway down the mountain.  We got there after their insurance truck had arrived (who knew??), who helped them cut down small trees to make a wooden ramp they could get out over.  We then traveled further, only to find the second taxi had gotten stuck even deeper, with no insurance truck in sight.  Our car had a winch, so we helped winch them out of the hole they were deeply entrenched in.

About that time a scooter came up the road and got stuck too.  Now, let me tell you about scooters in Cambodia. They are everywhere and the primary means of transportation.  They are mostly small Honda or Suzuki bikes with maybe 125 or 175cc max.  And they carry the whole family. Three on a bike are “legal”, and we have seen several times where a complete family of 5 was crowded on a single scooter.  Dad in front, mother in back, two kids in between mom and dad, and a third tyke in the basket in front of dad.

Oh yeah, our scooter in the mud.  Well, a family of five did come down, but they got through OK.  The mom and kids got off.  Dad powered the bike through the mud, the family reloaded, and off they went.  But… coming up the hill was a bike with a load of pigletss.  Yep, pigs.  Across the seat behind the single male driver was a basket slung that was at least 8 feet across, stuffed with piglets.  Looked like maybe 20 or 30 piglets stuffed in there.  The guy became totally stuck in the mud, and almost did a turtle flop on his back.  He was saved by tourists watching the stuck taxi, who got together and pushed him forward, letting the piglets move to their new home to grow into proper pork and bacon…

Any photos you may see of me from this trip are to be properly burned in a funeral pyre.  Evelyn has been after me to grow a mustache for the past couple months, and I said I would see how it went on vacation, where nobody I know would see me… except in photos…  I think a mustache will look bad, so I decided to go for a full beard again (I shaved the last one off about 25 years ago), which means I look really, really,… yes really scruffy right now, after 5 days of not shaving.

We went to a classical Cambodian Dance show tonight. The Aspara dance consists of elaborately costumed dancers and music played by a pinpoint ensemble paying homage to royalty with deities and spirits.  It was a huge hall, but our guides arranged a front row table for us.  Dinner was a buffet, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the food was actually quite good — not something I normally expect at buffet dinners.  The speakers were terrible though, and you could not even tell when someone was talking much of the time.  Of course they were talking (and singing) in Cambodian, of which I don’t speak a single word, so I guess that didn’t really matter all that much…

Need to pack it in and send this off, as we still have to get everything together tonight to leave for Phnom Penh at the crack of dawn tomorrow.  En route we are scheduled for a boat cruise and to see a floating village on Tonle Sap Lake.  

I want to leave tonight with one last thought.  The Cambodian people are remarkably resourceful. They have been inundated with floods for the past several weeks.  Conditions that would cause most Americans to scream and call for the Feds to save them.  Here, the people just get on with life. When watching the people drive their scooters with 2, 3, 5 people on them through the floods, it is common to see them laughing and making the most of their situations. The people here are unfailingly polite and helpful.  If it weren’t for the humidity, we would seriously consider retiring here. Oh yeah, that and the language which is highly tonal and which a tone deaf guy like me would have little chance of mastering…

90 degrees F, 90 % humidity, 90% chance of rain daily, streets flooding as the river is highest level in 14 years.  What’s not to love? 🙂

Our flight from San Francisco to Siem Reap, Cambodia was long…  We left at 1PM on Friday and arrived at 11PM Saturday.  The first leg from SF to Seoul was almost luxurious, on a wide body Asiana flight, even though we were in “travel class” — AKA “economy”, AKA “back of the bus.” The seats were wide, the legroom ample, the food… well, let’s just say the term “airplane food” applied here quite well.  The entertainment system allowed you to watch any of dozens of theater-run movies on demand… until the entire system froze about 4 hours into the 12 hour flight, after which we were fascinated by endless runs of The Green Lantern… NOT.

The second leg was the same airline (Asiana), but the plane was old, small, crowded, no entertainment system at all, and one of the most continuously turbulent flights I have been on in years.  There were at least 3 tour groups of teenagers on the flight, and every time we hit an air pocket, they would scream in Korean “we’re all going to die!”  (at least I’m pretty sure that’s what it sounds like in Korean…)

Landed in Siem Reap, were met by our guide and were taken to our hotel.  We are staying at the City River Hotel, named because it is across the street from the river than runs through the city… literally.  The river is at the highest level in 14 years and is flooding the streets, with people wading up to their knees through the water.  The car drives right up to the steps of the hotel, so we can hop out of the car and onto the steps to avoid most of the flood. Fortunately the hotel is up a few steps, and on the high side of the street, so it is (barely) dry so far.

We have now been through two days of temples, including the grand daddy of them all — Angkor Wat.  They are all ruins dating from the 9th through 16th century in construction, and at its peak, there were close to a million people who inhabited this city. Though they are being guarded, with steep entry fees to pay for their maintenance, there is actually not much evidence of renovations being done.  As such, we are seeing them largely as nature has left them after the centuries of tropical weather.  The overcast weather, with occasional short rains, means we have very flat lighting on the temples.  For photography, this is a mixed blessing — no harsh shadows to counter, but also no shadows to give depth to the images.

Since we are traveling with just the two of us and a guide, we are flexible enough to go places that larger groups would not be allowed.  Yesterday we stopped in on a working monastery, and were allowed to photograph them having lunch.  The chanting almost made me wish I were back making videos, but we got some nice photos from that session.

Getting up at 5AM to start the day means we haven’t had much time to edit our photos yet.  Here are a few selected images from our first day.