Cambodia & Vietnam

On the well trodden backpacker route

Nick and I continued our journey together and left Vientiane on a sleeper bus, a first for me and a very good bonding experience for the 2 of us. I was told to make sure you book with someone you know as the beds leave little room to the imagination and it was sound advice. The 5ft long by 3ft wide box was supposed to fit the both of us and for about 30 minutes it did. Fortunately the bed below us ended up being free so Nick dove into that at the first available opportunity and we had a relatively comfortable 12 hour ride until we got a flat tyre at 5:30 in the morning and had to swap busses. The ride took us down to an area known as the 4000 islands, an inland archipelago on the Mekong river. It was really relaxing there and hardly touched yet by the tourism stick, a nice way to break the journey up before entering Cambodia which we crossed into soon after and made our way down to Siem Reap.

Angkor Wat

 

Monkeys playing around the ruins

Monks are fairly new to tourism..... YOU'RE FACING THE WRONG WAY

Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat was probably one of the most amazing sites I've been to, right up there with my favourites for the trip, the Pyramids and the Grand Canyon. It lives up to the hype, the ruins are vast and majestic with tourists flooding everywhere but thanks to the size it was always easy to find a little nook or cranny to sit in quietly or grab a photo. We hired a tuk tuk driver around sunrise for the day and he drove us around to the main sites that we wanted to see. Ta Prohm was a personal favourite, the thick trees and jungle have almost won the battle of time here and I imagine if it wasn't for the restoration efforts you would barely know it was there.

Bayon Wat

Baphuon temple

Ta Prohm temple

The jungle here has reclaimed the land

We decided to spend 4 nights in Siem Reap as it provided us with amenities like we had both not had for a long time. Lines of restaurants and bars, a pool at our hostel and just general quality of life improvements made us very comfortable. From here we caught the bus down to Phnom Penh and stayed another 4 nights. There is a lot to do here and we both spent the mornings exploring the city before the heat kicked in. The main attractions here though were not the majestic or entertaining ones like past cities had offered but they were definitely powerful. The S-21 Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields just outside town at Choeung Ek are a reminder of a dark part of Cambodia's history when the Khmer Rouge was in power.

Wat Ounalom

The Royal Palace

Pictures of victims from S-21 Genocide museum

Cells they were kept in

Graves of the last 14 victims found dead in the prison when liberated
 

Formerly a high school S-21 or Tuol Sleng was used as a prison for enemies of the state and the Khmer seemed to have a lot of enemies. It was just one of 150 execution centres at the time and as many as 20,000 prisoners that passed through here were later killed. The killing fields is where they were transported just outside of town. I will not go into gruesome details here but the audio tour you get here is very moving and explains in depth how the whole process worked with narration from people involved on both sides.

Choeung Ek, aka the killing fields

We crossed the border into Vietnam and made our way to Ho Chi Minh City, still known locally as Saigon. With only 11 days in Vietnam and from speaking to other backpackers I quickly discovered that I had nowhere near enough time to visit even half of Vietnam. I have consciously made the decision here that this is going to be my beach holiday, the tourist pants have been packed away and the only thing I want to worry about is when I should go to the beach and how to get a cocktail delivered to me on said beach. I do plan to visit here again to explore it properly but for now its time to relax. After 18 months on the road I plan to use the last month in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Bali as a fair dinkum beach bum.

We are currently in Nha Trang after spending 3 nights in the cosy seaside town of Mui Ne. Nha Trang is a Russian dominated version of Surfers Paradise and just what I'm looking for at the moment. Booked into a nice hotel across the road from the beach I have 6 nights here before I fly back to meet up with the truck and my other travel buddies in Bangkok. Life is really, really tough at the moment.

My hotel pool in Nha Trang with Russian babe included

The main beach

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