Angkor Wat y otros wats

A pesar de la magnificiencia y el enorme valor historico y cultural que tiene Angkor Wat, a nosotros no fue el templo que mas nos gusto. Quiza por la ingente cantidad de turistas con la que compartimos la visita o quiza porque el entorno no es tan bucolico como lo imaginaba.

Aun asi, hicimos la tourne de rigor con un calor de espanto y un coco detras de otro para saciar la sed. A los ninos les gusto y jugaron a principes, caballeros y princesas como suele ser la costumbre cuando visitamos templos o palacios.

Los dias siguientes visitamos otros templos de todo los complejos de Angkor Wat y Angkor Thom, y nos aventuramos a ver otros mas lejanos y menos transitados. Al final nos acabo gustando, encontramos templos muy sobrecogedores y echamos en falta mas tiempo para conocer toda la zona.

En cualquier caso no es un destino recomendado para ir con ninos. Al hacer tanto calor lo ideal es madrugar y pasar las horas de calor en la pisicina del hotel y salir de nuevo al caer la tarde. Por desgracia esto no encaja muy bien con nuestras rutinas.

Uno de los dias, para amenizar la visita, alquilamos unas bicis con sillas semi-caseras para los ninos. El viaje estuvo bien hasta que Aisha se durmio en la bici, sin arnes, en una carretera donde no hay normas y conviven las motos, con las bicis, los tuc-tucs y demas vehiculos pesados de motor. Cuando empece a notar que algo me daba golpes en la espalda y que le gente me miraba y se reia decidi parar en mitad de la nada. Una familia me acogio en su pequena tienda y me dio una silla hasta que llego Josh 10 minutos despues. Iba delante mio y al no verme dio la vuelta pensando que me podia haber pasado algo. Despertamos a Aisha y la sentamos en la bici de Josh que si tenia arnes, y yo me fui con Lucas. Paso lo predecible, esta vez fue Lucas el que se durmio camino a casa en la silla si arnes. Otra vez los golpes en la espalda y las sonrisas de la gente. Llegamos sanos y salvos pero fue una pesadilla de viaje para mi.

Not much to report

But I'll report it anyway. Swimming pool, walks, homework, sunbathing... We have just been lazing about really. We have also spent some time booking hotels for the rest of our time in Vietnam. Now all we need is a hotel in Sydney and we can start looking for campervans in New Zealand (we have been thinking of the pros and cons and costs of campervan vs car and in the end we will go for the freedom of the campervan, at least for a few weeks).

Too windy by half

It's way to windy here. Went down to the beach this morning and Aisha was not impressed, though at least I had a nice stroll with Lucas. Sea is too rough, sand rips into your legs, and the beach is pretty narrow. Virtually everybody sunbathes from the safety of their hotel. Definitely not recommended for family fun. As we have no inclination to take up kitesurfing we have no plans to do a course.

Stupidly we paid for 5 nights at the hotel in advance as they asked us to. Just before we saw a notice in the room "please pay by 18:30 the day before checkout". We will cut our losses and move on a day earlier. At least we have the dunes tour to look forward to.

We now have our flight to New Zealand. We leave Hanoi on the 29th (of March), arriving at Sydney the next day. There we will stay for a few days and then catch a direct flight to Queenstown on the 5th of April. The current plan gives us 45 days in New Zealand, and 90 in USA and Canada, which means flying from New York around mid-August. Probably to London for a week or so before heading South back to Spain.

Kitesurf capital of Vietnam

Took a sleeper bus to Mui Ne, on the coast. A bit pointless during the day, but it seems to be the standard for coaches here. We were shoved in the back where you can't actually sit down. We had an argument with the conductors - we had been given seat numbers and I swear they weren't these, but our voucher wasn't around to prove it (they kept it at Ho Chi Minh City) so we had to back down when we were aggressively threatened with being chucked off. Crap service. The seats/beds are on two levels, like bunk-beds; also noticed the top was full of tourists, and the better seats on the bottom were full of Vietnamese, they obviously know the system. Next time we'll be better prepared to fight the issue better, and also make sure we get bottom seats. The icing on the cake was arguing with a taxi driver who refused to take us as the hotel was under a couple of kilometres away (a cold-hearted monster who ignored my pleas for help for moving a family with 2 small children). In the end we found one who would take us.

With 5 days here and not much to do but flop on the beach the next few posts might be a bit short. We have a tour of the sand dunes in our sights and not much else. I might devote my writing energy to typing up a best-selling novel. The only other activity here seems to be kitesurfing (only!? I can here the cry from New York all the way here - you know who you are). Apparently there has been no wind for 4 days (kitesurfer-speak for "no gale-force winds") but today it picked up and the sea is full of them.

Lesson learnt today: when we travel we usually wear our mountain shoes to use up less space in our backpacks (tying them to the outside is not an option for planes, and annoying for buses); on sleeper buses this is a pain as they make you take them off, so getting on and off the bus is a hassle - it's better to wear flip-flops.

Down the foxhole

The first 50km of tunnels at Cu Chi were first built in the late 40s by Vietnamese soldiers fighting the French. They were reused and expanded a further 200km by the Viet Cong in the 60s. They were strategically placed near Saigon, near the Cambodian border, next to the Saigon river, and in an area where the soil has a lot of clay. There are 3 levels, getting progressively smaller: soldiers spent most of their time in the first level, but went down to level two during bombings (about 50km of tunnel was destroyed during the Vietnam war). Level three was purely for escape routes, some ending up near the river.

The tour consists of visiting the site the Americans tried so hard to find. You see some of the bunker rooms (weapon factories, kitchens and infirmaries), replicas of the traps used to main patrols, and a real entrance to the tunnels (the entrances used by the tourists have been widened). Before going into the tunnels you can try your hand at shooting various weapons. We didn't try any but my hour's conversation in the bus with Lucas about war and how bad it is was completely undone by the adrenalin rush from hearing the clattering of an M30.

Esther, being still ill and not really into caves or tunnels, only had a peek in. The kids, being shorter than the tunnel ceiling, just walked around as if they owned the place. I tagged along behind crouching, sweating and dragging the camera along. When we came out we saw a film which didn't interest the kids much but in the same room was a model of the tunnels, which helped Lucas finally make sense of the whole layout.

Argh, forgot Aisha's sandals when we got off the bus!

The kids have been playing with the hotel owner's daughter a fair bit. Back at the hotel we were in time to take her to her weekend English school. The kids were thrilled to be visiting a proper school, and even joined the class for a few minutes.

Just read about the missing aeroplane from Malaysian Airlines. Not on it luckily (not planning on going to China) - it doesn't look good.

Lesson learnt today: make sure you are close to some nice toilets before drinking Vietnamese coffee.

Water park

Esther is still not feeling great so we went for an easy option: Dam Sen Water Park. It's not as hot here as Cambodia, but it isn't European weather either. Had researched buses but Esther understandably preferred a taxi for today. Oh well, we'll see a bit of "real Saigon" another day.

The water park is really good. And not being weekend or holiday it was pretty empty, so no waiting on any of the slides. Lucas likes adrenalin rushes and we managed to get him on a couple of the tamer rides until they discovered he wasn't actually 1m20. They are pretty strict about security, which is comforting even if Lucas thought it was pants. The adults managed to go on a few rides even though most of our time was at the kiddie lake, wave pool and rubber ring river.

The Lego Movie

Esther has a touch of Delhi belly so we didn't achieve much today. All we did was go to the cinema (nearly missed the film again, arrived just in time). Saw The Lego Movie which was actually quite good (though as with most films nowadays I find it mostly too fast and frenetic for kids - I prefer slower cartoons like the ones from Studio Ghibli).

Lesson learnt today: in Vietnam beware of taxis that don't display their prices (should be around 90 cents a kilometre) next to the meter; glad we discovered this on a short ride instead of a long one.

Good night, sleep tight, hope the bed bugs don't bite

Well it had to happen eventually. Not that we have been sleeping in rotten fleabags, but neither have we slept in the Ritz. Last night we discovered we had bed bugs. The kids were already asleep so moving hotel wasn't an option. We might have tried moving room but our hotel was fully booked. All we managed was get the sheets and pillows changed (they were very apologetic), move the mattresses a bit away from the headrests (where the bedbugs seemed to be coming from) and put the pillows at the other end of the bed. Even so we saw a few more during the night, though nobody seemed to get any bites (or maybe just a couple).

Spent the morning looking for a new hotel. I know hotels can't be fully responsible for what guests bring into the rooms by accident but we definitely didn't want to stay in the same room, and just in case not even the same hotel. In the end we were lucky (but somebody else was unlucky): even though the hotel in front was fully booked the manager had fallen in love with Aisha and she diverted one of her incoming guests into another hotel for the first night. Our ex-hotel in fact. This is one of the many benefits of travelling with children.

Our plans in tatters, after moving hotel we did a bit of tourism in town. All in a bit of a rush as we had semi-promised the kids a bit of cinema. We assumed there would be more cinemas or shopping malls with cinemas or people who knew where the nearest cinema was but instead we just ambled around aimlessly for a couple of hours. Saw the municipal theatre, Notre Dame Cathedral and People's Committee Building (all from the outside) until we hit our first cinema. Sadly only 4 screens, none showing children movies. But we got directions to another cinema a short taxi drive away (actually closer to our hotel). The Lego Movie was on, but it was an hour in and the next show wasn't until nighttime, so we promised it for tomorrow.

Lesson learnt today: learn to cross the road Cambodia/Vietnam style or you won't be seeing anything in Saigon.

Miss Saigon

Un bel dì,

vedremo levarsi un fil di fumo

Sull’estremo confin del mare.

E poi la nave appare.

Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly

After falling to the Viet Cong in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City the following year. With a population of 9 million it is the biggest city in Vietnam, and is the economic powerhouse of the country. The capital may be Hanoi, but here is where it's at.

Most of the sights and hotels are in district 1, which is where we are stating. We are in the main backpacker area (the alternative is the 4-5 star area which would blow the budget in no time). Our street couldn't be more typically backpacker: a narrow alley crammed with hostels and tour agencies. The hotel is nice, but we expected more given the TripAdvisor rating.

We are next to a nice green area, with a massive playground in the middle. Spent most of the afternoon there. We have 4 full days in HCMC, there is loads to do here.

Lesson learnt today: if random young women (mostly) start talking to you out of the blue it isn't an elaborate trick to steal your wallet, they just want to practise their English. Amazing what proactivity you find out here in Asia. Having said that, it's great to have a couple of kids to use as an excuse to escape their clutches.

Floating market

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man health, wealthy and wise.

5:30 rise and shine. Today we booked a boat tour down the river to see the floating market. As people here follow the sun's timetable that means getting up ridiculously early, grabbing a coffee with eyes still closed (not me as it might entail a bit of a problem if last night's toilet session is anything to go by) and following our guide to the river. The kids actually woke up fine, no grumpiness from them at all (the same can't be said for the adults).

The action starts about half an hour downriver. Here you find a congregation of boats, each with a series of vegetables or fruits on the top of a large pole to indicate what they sell. There are also smaller boats darting about selling drinks, breakfast and even lottery tickets. And quite a few other boats with tourists going crazy with their cameras. We were on a pretty small boat so we had it all to ourselves which was nice. The only thing was that it was becoming apparent our guide was pretty pants.

So what's the point of a floating market, apart from filling a few pages of travel magazines? Well, this way the farmers, who all live near the river, don't have to disembark their wares or pay for market space. Many restaurants buy their fruit and veg here, as it is generally the freshest around.

After darting around the market for a bit we closed the tour with a visit to a nearby noodle factory. The process is very similar to making rice paper which we saw in Cambodia. Good thing too as our guide went completely numb and didn't seem to be able to explain absolutely anything about the process.

The kids were full of energy so we went to a swimming pool at one of the posh hotels. Really wish we had gone to the public swimming pool - this might have been the lap of luxury but the ambiance was completely dead. Not a sound from any of the guests lolling round on the sunbeds in the shade either reading or sipping on their beers and munching on club sandwiches.

We had contracted another tour for the evening, a food tour round the street stalls which we reckoned would be a great introduction to Vietnamese food. Better a bit of local knowledge to serve as a base for future market meanderings. But we had a bit of a misunderstanding about the prices so we pulled the plug at the last minute. We hit the street stalls on our own, and even without explanations of what we were eating it was yummy.

Lesson learnt today: even durian ice cream gives you durian burps for the next 6 hours.

On to Can Tho

The voyage continues. Got the bus to Can Tho, a pretty big town on the Mekong delta. It has a nice quiet riverfront with a lovely promenade. It all feels quite luxurious and civilised after Cambodia. Spent most of the evening just playing next to the river. Tried to explain who Ho Chi Minh was to Lucas. Realised I don't really know much about him myself.

Good morning Vietnam

Or rather good afternoon.

The boat from Phnom Penh to Chau Doc (Vietnam) was pretty painless. Comfortable ride, easy border paperwork, the only thing is that it took 5 hours instead of the 4 it said in the guide (either the guide was wrong, or it didn't include the 2 half hour breaks at the border, as we were told 5 hours is the norm).

Lucas and Aisha were chuffed to go on a motorbike from the dock to the hotel. Kids stand in the front, the driver goes in the middle, and another adult behind. A bicycle pulling a cart took our luggage. There don't seem to be any tuk-tuks here. Maybe they have them in more touristy areas.

We are just having a night's stopover here before carrying on, but it looks like quite a nice town. You can see immediately the standard of living in Vietnam is much higher than Cambodia's. I had always assumed Cambodia was closer to Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, but it is more like Mianmar and Laos. In fact it is just one position above Laos on the HDI (Human Development Index, a sort of revised GDP that takes into account factors like inequality).

Dollars are much less used here. Instead we have the insane dong. If we thought the riel was unmanageable (4000 to the dollar) the dong is going to test our arithmetic to the even further - 21000 to the dollar. After coming out the ATM we were millionaires.

Dinner was at a seafood restaurant filled mostly with locals. Nearly the same price as a foreigner restaurant in Cambodia but I think seafood is more expensive. I'm sure if we'd had soups and noodles or rice it would have been a third of the price. We have been looking at our money a bit more closely in Cambodia after blowing the budget slightly in Thailand (a combination of more flights, last-minute planning and going overboard on the food). After a bit of fiscal responsibility it looks like we have balanced the books again.

Third time lucky

Friday is present day. This week we have changed the rules a bit - presents will be a "surprise" from mummy and daddy. This avoids lost opportunities on other days of the week, last-minute rushed decisions, and basically the accumulation of useless plastic tat. Presents are still handed over on the completion of the 5th page of weekly homework, but Lucas decided it would be cool to do Friday's homework yesterday and so get his present hidden under his pillow at nighttime.

Finally managed to see the Grand Palace and Silver Pagoda, on our third attempt. A bit of a disappointment really. You can't go into the main palace building, so you are reduced to walking around the grounds (very nice, with European style gardens) and peeking through the windows. The guide said it was a bit of a copy of the one in Bangkok but we didn't think so at all.

The Silver Pagoda has silver floors... covered in carpeting (except for one little corner to "prove" you are walking on silver). There are a few more things to visit, royal elephant palanquins and such like, but all in all this visit didn't seem to feel like good value for money. Having said that I think it's about a third of the price of the one in Bangkok. Basically the Grand Palace in Bangkok is much more impressive in general, but the one in Phnom Penh has much nicer grounds.

But the kids didn't care. As long as we went to the massive playground next door they decided they would tolerate our wanderings for a couple of hours. The night market was also a hit - new clothes and for dinner... Angry Birds on a stick (processed fish protein plus food colouring).

Lesson learnt today: Vattanac bank doesn't charge us anything to take money out of their ATMs - up till now we have been paying $3-6 for each withdrawal; great to know on the last day in Cambodia.

Sihanouk ville

Este famoso destino costero le debe su nombre al rey Norodom Sihanok, conocido en Camboya como "el padre de la nacion".

Es uno de los destinos obligatorios en Cambodia y alli que nos fuimos en busca de playa y sol. Aunque a mi pesar, decidimos alojarnos en pleno pueblo en lugar de quedarnos en las islas o en alguna playa mas remota. Despues de varios dias en unas cabanas sencillas a la orilla del rio queriamos disfrutar de las comodidades modernas que ofrece un hotel playero, como agua caliente, aire acondicionado, piscina y un sin fin de restaurantes.

El pueblo es mas bien una ciudad tomada por mochileros. Aun asi encontramos nuestro rincon paradisiaco en Outres beach, una playa maravillosa a 15 minutos en tuc-tuc a la que fuimos dos dias. El resto del tiempo lo pasamos haciendo el vago en la piscina y en Serendipity Beach, donde hay mas hamacas y tumbonas que espacio para poner la toalla.

Pero siempre recordare Sihanouk ville como el sitio donde me hice mi primer tatuaje!

Grand Palace closed

Just realised today we need a Vietnam visa for our boat border crossing. We had understood that those formalities would be sorted as part of the trip, but apparently not. Cue rushed phone call to the agency, arranged a meeting at 3 at the hotel for them to sort it out for us.

As ardent fans of this blog will no doubt remember, last month we had to leave the Grand Palace for later as I was ill. As we were doing OK for time we decided to give it a whirl in the morning (ish). After a stop at a book store and a quick street lunch (gosh, so much cheaper than any of the restaurants, why haven't we done this earlier!?), not 10m from the Grand Palace we had a quick look in the guide to be reminded it was closed from 11am to 2pm. Since we had to be back by 3 it made no sense to stick around so we went back and hit the pool.

Visas into Vietnam are expensive. Apparently they have just raised the prices. After confirming the price online we sadly handed over our hard-earned cash to a complete stranger in exchange for a pink slip.

Full circle

We have just finished spending 10 days going round Asia's largest freshwater lake, Tonle Sap, and we haven't even seen it. Even the day we flew over it it was impossible to see because of the clouds. We have now come full circle and are back in Phnom Penh. We have a swimming pool again and so made the most of it today. Starting to plan and book few things for Vietnam now. So far we have a boat down the Mekong river and the first 3 nights in the delta.